Alan and Elizabeth were not allowed to play in the snow, or even leave the porch. The Reverend Douglas Monteith blessed the food, even as the portions grew smaller and smaller. Emily swept ice out from the tavern.
She did not see Go-la-nv Pinetree that winter, but often thought of him, worried over him, actually, even though Cherokees had lived in this country long before any Europeans had arrived. Go-la-nv would be all right. Indians rarely traveled or traded during the winter. Nor did white men in the backcountry. People did not move in this country during the cold months.
“It is a fine thing you did not journey to Charlestown or even to Pine Tree,” Stewart told the preacher one morning. “To be caught in such weather as this could be fatal.”
“So is staying in a cabin for such a damnable eternity of boredom,” Donnan said. It was not yet noon, and already he had sweetened his porridge with rum.
Stewart and Monteith pretended not to hear.
Emily, however, stared at her smart-mouthed brother until he looked away, mumbling what might have been an apology.
She rarely saw James Robinson, either, for which she thanked God and the weather. Robinson’s place on Cane Creek lay only seven miles from the tavern, which might as well have been seventy miles when the temperature fell to seventeen degrees and gray clouds, threatening snow or sleet, darkened the skies. When Robinson did venture into Cormorant’s Rock, he usually found himself arguing with Stewart or Donnan about the Stamp Act protests, the King’s wisdom, or even Monteith’s sermon the previous Sunday. Eventually Machara stopped thinking of the fool as a worthy suitor for a daughter, even if she was doomed to spinsterhood.
Emily often thought of Finnian Kilduff and his fine clothes and hypnotic eyes. She even dreamed of him twice, and woke up feeling ashamed and thinking she might need to confess her sins to Douglas Monteith. Other times, she wondered if Finnian Kilduff actually existed. No one else seemed to recall him from his sole appearance in the tavern. No one had seen him. Mayhap he had been an apparition, but then she would recall the sterling he had left on the table or how he had pressed his lips to her hand, and she would still feel that gentlemanly kiss.
In early December, the man in buckskins, his wife, and their illegitimate son arrived at the tavern, requesting that the Reverend Monteith marry them. The man’s name was Jonathan Conley. His wife was Betsy. Their son was George. They were dirt poor, dressed like the slaves Emily had seen at the Gouedy place with their woolen rags and moth-eaten, frayed coats, all much too thin for this kind of winter.
Stewart had to stand in as the best man, and Emily as maid of honor. The only other witnesses were the rest of the Stewart family. As soon as the bride had been kissed, and the groom given a free mug of bumbo, and the couple toasted by the preacher, the newlyweds left for their home on Cane Creek, not daring to stay longer and risk being caught in a winter storm. So Cormorant’s Rock turned dull again—till Sunday.
Typically the coldest nights fell in January and February, but December turned bitter that year. Six inches of snow coated a thick layer of ice on December 15th as Ninety Six prepared for Christmas.
“I miss the fox hunts,” Monteith said on Christmas Eve.
“Fox hunts?” Emily asked.
“Yes, Emily.” He sighed thoughtfully. “Balls and all sorts of wonderful entertainments. That is what I remember most about Hertfordshire when I was your age. Not that I was allowed to go dancing, or fox hunting, or to drink porter or ale, but I would stare with envy as my mum and father left. When I was finally old enough to go … oh, the wonders. The thrill of the hounds chasing the fox, and we riding after them.”
“In Williamsburg,” said James Middleton, who had dropped in the tavern for hot cider and stew, “I would walk past the shops to see what the storekeepers were saying one should buy for a gift.”
“A gift?” Donnan swung around in his chair. “For Christmas?”
“Indeed.” Middleton laughed. “I know, I know, we were a strange family, exchanging gifts on the day of our Savior’s birth.”
As there was no church in Ninety Six—although Robert Gouedy had suggested a meeting house be built come spring or summer—Cormorant’s Rock had been decorated with winter berries and garlands of evergreens. The largest and best-looking pine cones, which had been decorated, adorned the bar.
Outside might be gloomy, but a brightness filled the tavern, even if the conversation that afternoon sounded, at least to Emily, like a dirge.
“My mother would hand me wonderfully illustrated Christmas paper with joyous borders,” Monteith said, “and I would write to my grandparents, bidding them good tidings and wishing them a lovely Christmas.”
“Twelfth Night,” Middleton said. “From Christmas Eve to the sixth of January. That was my favorite time in Virginia. Everyone forgot their woes …”
Emily looked at the parson, whose eyes seemed aglow from his fond memories of Hertfordshire, of civilization. He seemed more like one of them tonight. So did Middleton. Even Donnan seemed friendlier.
She blamed it on the winter.
Fox hunts and Christmas gifts. Twelfth Night and balls. These things sounded so foreign to Emily. Her father explained that these were customs in the Northern colonies such as Pennsylvania and Virginia, but not down south. In Ninety Six, Christmas Day came with prayer and food. She had never heard of a Twelfth Night celebration, and gifts were given—if at all—on New Year’s, not Christmas.
She thought about suggesting that they try to put together a fox hunt—she recalled her grandfather participating in one or two in Georgetown—but quickly realized there were few foxes around Ninety Six, having been trapped out by the Cherokees and white hunters. But …
“Perhaps,” she blurted, “we could have a ball …”
* * * * *
Christmas fell on a Thursday, and, bowing to Monteith’s wishes, they fasted that day, eating only one meal—boiled turkey for breakfast—and prepared the tavern for church.
During Advent, the reverend read daily from his Book of Common Prayer. On Christmas, he read before more people than Emily had ever seen in the tavern. He read the heralds from Isaiah and John the Baptist, and then began his sermon.
“There is darkness,” he said, “and there is light. There is heaven, and there is hell. There is good, and there is evil. We have seen that far too often in this wilderness. Ruffians and the havoc they have caused … the tears, the suffering, the hardships. But today we forget all of our travails. Today we think not of darkness, but of light, not of hell, but of heaven, not of evil, but of good. For today is the day that Mary gave birth to Jesus. She gave birth in a stable. I preach this morning in a tavern. There are similarities, I imagine. Outside, it is freezing. Inside, I feel the warmth. Of fellowship. Of joy. Of God. Let us bow our heads, and pray.”
Then, it was over. The shortest, most direct, sermon Monteith had preached since his arrival in Ninety Six.
Immediately the men moved the tables and chairs over to the walls, and people moved back, ladies on one side, men on the other, and the children were sent upstairs.
Behind the bar, James Middleton rosined the bow of his fiddle, Breck Stewart hefted his bagpipes, and even dour-faced Alroy O’Fionnagáin stepped forward with a smile, withdrawing his pochette—a tiny violin—from his coat pocket.
“Nothing bawdy, gentlemen,” the preacher warned, grinning.
Emily stood at the wall, smiling, her foot tapping as the band played “Highland Laddie” to the accompaniment of laughter. Her mother danced with Monteith. Rachel Rowe—now Rachel Zachary—danced with her husband Luke. The Gouedys danced. Emily found herself clapping her hands as Middleton, Stewart, and O’Fionnagáin finished the tune and then went straight into “The Fly.”
Thirty minutes later, Emily was sweating. She had danced with Rachel Zachary’s husband to “Fair Margaret and Sweet William,” and with a man in buckskins with bla
ck teeth who said his name was Meacham to “Blow, Ye Winds, Blow,” and even with Joseph Robinson to “A Fox May Steal Your Hens, Sir.”
Even the Baptists danced.
“Grab your lady fair,” Stewart announced, after the band had wet their lips and tongues and throats with grog, “for it is time for us to attempt ‘Greensleeves.’”
Emily took in a deep breath. Joseph Robinson was making his way across the floor, coming straight for her, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something red. She lifted her head, and gasped, almost swooning against the wall.
“May I have the pleasure, Miss Stewart?” Finnian Kilduff asked, stepping up to her.
She must have answered, though she was unaware of saying anything. Then suddenly she was in Kilduff’s arms, swaying to the music, catching sight of Joseph Robinson at the bar with a stein in his hand and a look of contempt on his face.
All as James Middleton’s rich tenor voice sang:
Greensleeves was all my joy;
Greensleeves was my delight;
Greensleeves was my heart of gold;
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.
The song ended. Kilduff released her, smiling, then stood in front of her, clapping, nodding at the other couples, tilting his head in appreciation to the musicians.
The music resumed, this time with Rachel Zachary singing.
Kilduff said nothing, merely took Emily’s hands into his own, and waltzed her around the floor.
Was in the merry month of May
When flowers were a-bloomin’,
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen.
“’Tis a pleasing odor in the tavern today,” Kilduff said.
Emily nodded, swallowing and stuttering, “Y-y-yes. Rose p-p-petals.”
He cocked his head.
Slowly, slowly she got up,
And slowly she went nigh him,
And all she said when she got there,
“Young man, I think you’re dying.”
“Rose petals?” he asked.
She tried to nod. “My mother … and … M-missus Cochrane … they sprinkled dried rose p-petals around the tavern.” She looked at him, then away. “Oh, Rachel Zach-ary … helped.”
They danced a while in silence.
He turned his pale face to the wall,
And death was on him dwellin’.
“Adieu, Adieu, my kind friends all,
Be kind to Barbara Allen.”
“’Tis not rose petals that I smell,” he said finally.
“They put some bay leaves out, also,” she said, pleased that she had completed one sentence without stuttering or pausing, although she had spoken so rapidly, she didn’t know if Kilduff had understood.
“O Mother, Mother make my bed,
O make it long and narrow,
Sweet William died for me today,
I’ll die for him tomorrow.”
She felt she had to explain. “For Christmas,” she said, breathing easier now. “Rose petals and bay leaves. So the tavern would not smell like spilled rum and smoke from pipes.”
His head shook, and he grinned. “No, I am certain it is not bay or rose that I smell. But lavender. On you.”
She had washed her hair in lavender shampoo that morning, and had Joseph Robinson made such a comment, she might have laid him low.
They grew and grew in the old churchyard,
Till they couldn’t grow no higher,
They lapped and tied in a true love’s knot.
The rose ran around the briar.
The song ended. They parted, still looking at one another, clapping, waiting, she knew, for the next song.
Someone called out for “Ally Croaker,” but the three members of the band paused to have a drink. So Kilduff led her off the floor. She tried to think of something to say, or ask, or do, but Kilduff, staring past her, spoke first, “I have hogged you all to myself, dear lass, and think this gentleman desires a dance with you.” Then he bowed and kissed her hand, and as Emily watched him walk away, she felt a hand on her shoulder and then she was being led back to the dance floor.
“And who, pray tell, is that gallows and wheel customer?” Donnan asked. Instead of looking at Emily, he stared at the stranger as the band struck up again.
She glared at him as they began to dance. “He is not a criminal, but a gentleman … unlike you, Brother.”
“He belongs in bolts.”
“If anyone should be shackled and chained, Donnan, ’tis you.”
“Who is he?” There was no joviality in her brother’s voice, and his eyes glowed with hostility. She knew she had better answer, less Donnan start a row, or, even worse, bring up Kilduff to their father.
Emily answered her brother.
“Finnian Kilduff,” Donnan said. “And?”
Emily suddenly realized that was practically all she knew of him. “He hails from the Cowpens.” But maybe not. When she had met him in the tavern that fall, Kilduff had said he was heading to the Cowpens, roughly seventy or eighty miles from Ninety Six, just below the North Carolina border. Now that she thought of it, though, it struck her that he could not live in the Cowpens. The men she had met from that part of the country were rougher than cobs, an ornery lot of Scots and Irish who dressed in rags like Jonathan and Betsy Conley and looked more like the black-toothed man who had danced with her to “Blow, Ye Winds, Blow.”
“The Cowpens? I think not,” Donnan said, shaking his head and muttering an oath. “I have not seen him here before, Sister.”
“I only met him once. He was here the evening the parson arrived. Remember?”
Donnan’s eyes remained fixed on Kilduff. “I think that I would rather see you dance with a damned Cherokee than with that dandy prat.”
“Well, Go-la-nv Pinetree is not here,” she spit back. “Is he?”
“You meet a man once,” Donnan’s voice was icy, “and you dance with him twice? I wonder if Da knows he has sired such a bunter?”
The music ended just as Emily slapped her brother’s cheek hard enough to sting her hand and turn Donnan’s face. It left a fine red mark on his rough cheek. All laugher inside Cormorant’s Rock stopped, but Emily was far from finished.
“I do not know what has soured you, Brother,” she said. “But you will not speak to me like that. Never. You stink of kill-devil, and have let that rum pollute your thoughts.” She waved a finger in his face, satisfied as he rubbed the spot where she had struck him. “No more. Do you understand me, Donnan? No more. Never again!”
Turning toward the wall lined with men, who stood with their mouths agape, she cursed, then lifted the hems of her dress, and headed for the door, where the cold air would stop her tears, cool her temper. Outside, she saw the torches fluttering in the wind, the snow on the ground, and the horses and mules tethered to the fence rail.
However, she did not see Finnian Kilduff.
1767
Chapter Eleven
Advent and Christmas passed, and winter continued, the chill staying inside the Stewarts’ home and tavern, with neither Emily’s nor Donnan’s tempers thawing—even when the Stewarts exchanged gifts on New Year’s.
December had been cold, but, true to form, January and early February proved more frigid. Rarely did neighbors visit the tavern, and even fewer travelers dared risk their limbs or lives in the cold and ice. The Stewarts passed their days doing chores. The reverend blessed the meals, worked on his Sunday sermon, and studied his Bible and prayer book the rest of the week, day and night. On the Sabbath, depending on the weather, neighbors came to the tavern in their finest clothes, even if their finest proved to be nothing more than colored linen stockings and freshly washed homespun shirts. They came from as far away as the district’s upper reaches.
No one showed up from the Cowpens.
Reverend Monteith would pray that God spare them from endemic and epidemic disorders, which he had seen far too much in the dismal country to the southeast. He would talk of the evils of spirituous liquors—even though most of his congregation would imbibe after the women had retired to one of the homes for tea and bread. He warned the residents of Ninety Six not to turn into “a society of pedantic and impudent illiterates” or “a sect of covetous hypocrites.” He would pray that a schoolmaster be sent in the summer, and that the freebooters would see the light and abandon their wretched ways. He would speak until his throat became hoarse. Then they would sing, pray, and the service would end, and the tavern would return to its original foundation.
“Sometimes you preach like a Baptist,” James Middleton once said to Monteith, and, to show there were no hard feelings, he offered to buy the parson a mug of hot rum.
By the middle of February the temperatures rose to something more moderate, the skies turned blue, the sun melted the ice, and the roads and trails to Ninety Six, though often resembling a quagmire, began to see mules, carts, wagons, and men and women afoot.
“And a good thing that is,” said Jonathan Conley on one of his Saturday visits to the tavern, “for the wife, child, and me was practically down to Indian meal and water.”
“We are pretty much eating hog corn ourselves,” the black-toothed Meacham said.
By the end of February, winter—the worst anyone could remember in the backcountry—had been declared over. No one had died in the district during the long cold spell. Nobody had even suffered frostbite. Injuries had been few, and none serious.
“A hard winter means a green spring,” announced a farmer named Loudon.
“And the peltry I shall see from the Cherokees shall bring better prices in Charlestown,” Gouedy declared.
Several people proclaimed that they had the Reverend Douglas Monteith to thank for that. His sermons and prayers had been heard by the Lord, who now smiled down upon the settlers.
The Cane Creek Regulators Page 9