“Now we’re in for it,” she muttered to Carolina as they went to the library.
“In for what?” asked Carolina listlessly. It seemed to her that nothing that happened at Broadleigh now could make any real difference.
“I don’t know.” Reba sounded uneasy. “But I do know Mamma was very angry with the way Rye Evistock left here last night—taking himself off without a word. And you disappearing too. People were wondering if you had eloped! I heard her muttering about it.”
“Oh,” Carolina said, sighing. “’Tis obvious—he must have overheard us talking on the stairs.”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know that,” said Reba impatiently. “Something’s in the wind.”
And indeed something was.
The girls were allowed to cool their heels in the richly appointed—indeed somewhat overdone—library for about ten minutes before Nan Tarbell came in and closed the door. She marched to the center of the room and what she had to say shocked Carolina out of her heartbroken lethargy.
She began by addressing her daughter.
“I can hardly blame you, Reba,” her mother began. “You are young and therefore easy to hoodwink. You could not possibly know what kind of a viper you were nourishing in your bosom.” Here her gaze rested with such distaste on Carolina that Carolina flushed, and her gray eyes flashed silver as her hostess continued. “Not only has your young guest spent her entire time here luring your intended away from you, but—she has done it for money.”
Carolina felt her breath leave her and Reba’s jaw dropped, but before either girl could collect herself sufficiently to speak, Mistress Tarbell continued in her overbearing way:
“I saw him from the window pay in gold for her favors before he departed so abruptly during the ball last night! And I have no doubt he left her stranded in the maze for a very good reason—he felt she might pursue him and shower him with abuse that he chose not to continue the relationship.”
Carolina, who had been listening to this tirade in mounting horror, found her voice. “It wasn’t like that at all!” she cried. “Rye had—”
But her hostess’s strident voice overrode her. “Be quiet!” she said so sharply that Carolina blinked at her and subsided. “I realize also that because of Mistress Chesterton’s scandalous behavior, I cannot send you back to the school.” She was addressing Carolina now. “Nor can I keep you here.”
“Rye but paid me back the money I had lost gaming!” cried Carolina. “It was while I was at the school—”
Again her hostess interrupted, this time with a lowering frown. “So we must add gaming to your other transgressions,” she ground out.
“No! I mean, it was just the one time when I borrowed a suit and went out in men’s clothing to find Lord Thomas!” This was getting her nowhere. She was getting mired in deeper and deeper. “Reba.” She appealed to her friend. “Explain to your mother how it all happened. She won’t believe me.”
“You are right in that,” said her hostess grimly. “I would not believe you under oath!”
Carolina’s gaze was fixed on Reba, who dropped her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled.
Reba was ducking it! Carolina felt outraged. “Just explain how I borrowed your Cousin George’s new suit and went out to look for Lord Thomas,” she said crisply. “And then your mother will understand how I came to be dicing at the inn and lost!”
Reba looked harassed. “I never lent you George’s suit,” she said. “What would I be doing with George’s clothes?”
Carolina opened her mouth to tell all she knew about Reba’s affair with the Marquess of Saltenham—and then thought better of it. Across from her Reba looked frightened and her russet eyes held a wild appeal. Carolina remembered bitterly how many times she had borrowed Reba’s clothes—indeed this very dress in which she now stood belonged to Reba. Well, she would go upstairs right now and take it off!
“I have nothing further to say to either of you,” she said shortly. “I will be taking my leave as soon as a coach can be brought to take me back to London.”
“A coach has already been brought,” said her hostess heavily. “It waits for you now and it will indeed take you to London.” She clapped her hands and the door opened to reveal Carolina’s boxes, stacked in the hall. Flanking the luggage was a very large scullery maid whom Carolina vaguely remembered having seen in the kitchen when Reba took her on a tour of the house, and by her side one of the big footmen, his muscular bulk dwarfing the pile of luggage.
“But you will not be staying there,” Mistress Tarbell told Carolina. “I have no mind to let you loose in London to seek out your other school friends and tell them lying tales about my daughter and the hospitality you received here! One of my husband’s ships, the Flying Falcon, leaves London on tomorrow’s tide. She is bound for Yorktown in the Virginia Colony and my inquiries have indicated that is near your home. Bertha and Thorpe here”—she indicated the grim pair who hovered near the luggage—“will see to your safe arrival on the Flying Falcon and will convey to the captain a letter detailing your behavior. That letter will be delivered to your mother when you arrive in Yorktown.” Carolina, who had been stunned by the pace of events and by her energetic hostess’s swift actions, spoke up for herself.
“You cannot abduct me like this!” she cried. “I will not go with these people, nor will I set foot on the Flying Falcon or any other ship belonging to you!”
“Ha!” cried her hostess. “Will you not? Thorpe, Bertha, take her from my sight!”
Carolina tried to run but it was useless. Reba watched, shivering, as the pair of them caught her in the hall and dragged her out to the waiting coach.
BOOK II
The Belle of Yorktown
She dreams about him through the night—at plays, beside a mill. . . .
She sees his face in every cloud, his form strides every hill.
She swears she will return to him—by heaven, yes, she will!
And when she does, she has no doubt that he will love her still!
FARVIEW PLANTATION
OLD PLANTATION CREEK
VIRGINIA’S EASTERN SHORE
Spring 1688
* * *
Chapter 20
Carolina was home at last—and she was in disgrace.
She had been dragged protesting aboard the Flying Falcon and shut into the captain’s cabin for safekeeping until the ship sailed. Later she was to learn just how handsome were these quarters, for she was removed to those occupied by the women voyagers. Already crowded in, they were not glad to see her. Many of them were married and would not be reunited with their husbands, who slept in a separate men’s dormitory, until they reached port in the New World.
She had had no chance to send a message to Lord Thomas in London, much less to see him. But with every fiber of her being she had willed him to think of her and when at last they were underway and she was let out of the captain’s cabin, she had rushed to the railing almost expecting Thomas to appear, waving from the shore, shouting that he would have her removed from the vessel, that he would pursue her by a faster craft, that he had miraculously found out about her plight, that he would rescue her!
Nothing of the sort had happened, of course. With dismay Carolina had seen the skyline of London drifting by as the tide took them and the white sails billowed out overhead. She had almost hurled herself overboard in chagrin as they made their stately passage down the Thames, past Execution Dock (and Carolina felt herself no less a prisoner than those unfortunates who met their end there), past Wapping Old Stairs, past the Isle of Dogs, past the mighty pile of Greenwich Palace, toward the open sea.
But although her worried eyes combed the shore (and indeed she might have hurled herself over had she seen Thomas running along that shoreline waving at her) no small boat appeared, being manfully rowed toward the departing vessel, no lover hailed the ship commanding it to stop.
The flood tide was carrying her fast away from London, from Rye, from Thomas, from all h
er bright young dreams.
She wept. She called the captain an abductor—and worse. This brought instant punishment and she was confined below-decks to the damp creaking communal cabin where the women slept, to sit with her head in her hands and languish, pushing away her aching memories of Rye to focus instead on Thomas. She wondered what he must think of her defection. Would anyone even tell him what had happened? What would he surmise? That she had casually deserted him without so much as a goodbye?
And all the while Carolina agonized about him, handsome Lord Thomas was lazing away the time in London, changing mistresses almost by the week. He gave her not a thought.
In time the captain allowed Carolina out again upon the deck. She was thinner now and there were bluish circles beneath her lovely eyes. Her gaze at her captor was resentful, but she now knew enough to hold her tongue. She had had a long time to think in the stuffiness of that damp cabin below and it had come to her that between them, Reba Tarbell and Rye Evistock were the cause of all her troubles: save for Reba’s pleading she would have told Rye the truth early on. Then she would never have got so involved with him, and she would not now miss him so much! And had Rye, when he learned the truth at last, only given her a chance, had he let her explain instead of trapping her in the maze and filling her hands with unasked for gold— then Reba’s mother would not have come to her startling (but on the face of it, Carolina admitted, perhaps warranted) conclusions about their relationship—and forced her onto this ship bound for Virginia.
There had been a moment of ironic amusement when Carolina had learnt that the boxes she had brought with her, packed helter skelter by the servants at Broadleigh while she waited downstairs in the library, were stuffed with all the clothes she had borrowed from Reba, kept in the big press in her bedchamber, and worn at Broadleigh. Naturally the servants had assumed them to be her own! She had laughed harshly as she rummaged about, unpacking each item and staring at it in wonder before replacing it. There was Reba’s fox-trimmed velvet cloak, her fox-trimmed hood and tippet and muff, there were all the dazzling gowns made in London for Reba but worn by Carolina, even—she had gasped when she saw it—that wonderful gray and silver creation.
Carolina had closed the boxes, intending to return them upon arrival in Virginia, but as the monotonous weeks of the voyage passed and her bitterness deepened, she decided that Reba—who would not really miss them anyway—deserved their loss, for she had not stood up for her and told the truth to her mother at Broadleigh.
Although at first she had blamed her troubles on others, later on, in the fresh salty air of the deck, with the white sails crackling above and the sea wind blowing her bright hair back, she stood by the rail thinking long thoughts. And realized that she herself was the author of her troubles. Reba had schemed and connived and lured her—true. But she had had no need to follow blindly! She could have stopped short of her own disreputable part in this shabby game! It was no wonder Rye had felt as he did, acted as he did. But that was no excuse for leaving her in the freezing maze to die. Resentment coursed through her at the memory. She could never have done that to him! Nor did the punishment fit the crime! She told herself that Rye could never have loved her or he would have come back to save her. His masculine vanity had been pricked when he learnt there was someone else, and any affection he had ever felt for her had vanished on the instant. A shallow lover!
She had been attracted to Rye, she admitted. But she had been wrong. It was Thomas who truly cared for her, Thomas who deserved her love. And she had treated him shabbily. What must he be thinking of her now? That she was false to him—as indeed she had so nearly been. . . . She winced at the thought.
More and more she began to feel that she had suffered at Rye’s hands, and she began to hate him. One cold foggy day on the Atlantic, when her teeth were chattering as she stood at the rail looking out into chill white nothingness, she told herself he was to blame for everything that had happened—it was he who had caused her to be set aboard this ghost ship en route to nowhere! In her fury she grasped the gold locket which she had foolishly worn ever since he gave it to her and tore it from her neck, breaking its delicate chain. She glared down at it for a moment and then with all her strength she hurled it from her into the wintry sea. It disappeared silently into the fog—she did not even hear a splash. One glittering flash and then— like Rye himself—it was gone forever.
Carolina stared after it, peering into the white murk. And then, quite inexplicably, she burst into tears.
But throwing away the locket had seemed to break some bond that had bound her to Rye. It was easier to hate him when she no longer felt that locket lying around her neck! And as her rancor at Rye Evistock grew, so did her warmth toward Lord Thomas increase until he glowed almost godlike in her memory, larger than life—the perfect lover. She could not wait to be reunited with him. Somehow she would get back to London where she belonged, and to Lord Thomas, to whom she belonged. By choice. Her own choice.
So she reasoned as she stood upon the deck watching the gray-green waters of winter turn into the aqua blue of spring. So she reasoned as her heart filled with despair, for she envisioned a haggard Lord Thomas pacing about, asking himself why there was no word from her, no word at all.
Meantime she was going back to Bedlam, she told herself bitterly, and there would be an ocean between them.
And it was to Bedlam that the captain of the Flying Falcon conveyed her, casting anchor in Chesapeake Bay at Old Plantation Creek above Cape Charles and personally escorting her home by longboat to her astonished family.
Carolina had tried vainly to persuade him to tear up the letter from Reba’s mother, arguing that it would only cause her harm, but the captain was too well aware of the power of Reba’s father. If he failed to carry out Jonathan Tarbell’s trust, he could well find his command taken from him. It was with a rolling dignified gait that he followed Carolina as she leaped out of the longboat and ran toward the now well-repaired house overlooking the inlet known as Plantation Creek.
They were met at the front door by Carolina’s mother, who gave Carolina a startled look and then turned majestically to meet the captain and deal with whatever situation had brought her daughter home unannounced.
Rather stiff greetings were exchanged and the letter handed over while Carolina hovered anxiously in the background. Letitia tore the letter open, hastily perused it, and without comment offered the captain a glass of port which was not accepted as he “must get on” while wind and tide favored him, to make port in Yorktown.
As the captain turned, about to leave, Letitia Lightfoot stood back and considered her daughter, whom she had not seen for many months.
“You are thinner,” she said critically. “It makes you look older.” But perhaps not wiser, she was thinking.
She might have said more but at that point Virginia came running out of the house and embraced Carolina with shining eyes. “Oh, how wonderful that you’re back!” Virgie exclaimed, and Carolina, hugging her sister, thought privately how well Virgie’s widow’s weeds became her. Mother should not give up hope of marrying Virginia off, she thought. With the handsome background of Papa’s new house, once it was completed, and a fat dowry, Virgie would be desirable merchandise on the marriage market and sought after by half the young bucks around!
Arm in arm, Virgie swept her into the house, and Carolina was surprised to find it almost devoid of furniture. “Oh, we’ve already moved all but the essentials,” Virgie informed her. “But Mother was determined not to move in until the smell of fresh paint was gone from the new house—you know how she hates it!”
“Where are Flo and Della?” wondered Carolina, for the house seemed strangely silent without the sound of childish laughter.
“Oh, they’re with Aunt Pet. Mother said it was too much trouble to have them underfoot while we’re moving. They’re to join us day after tomorrow at the new house—at Level Green. You won’t believe how they’ve grown. They’re practically young ladies now! Did I
tell you we’re moving tomorrow?”
“No, you didn’t!”
Virginia rattled on throughout the day, bringing Carolina up to date on all the local gossip. Carolina was relieved for she was not eager to face her mother now that she had read that letter. But Letitia busied herself elsewhere. Meantime Virgie kept up a continuous flow of words: Did she know, Athena Weeds was married now but entertaining Ross Dwyer every time her husband went away to view his upriver plantation? And the Darburys had just had their seventeenth child— imagine! And the baby was a girl. That made twelve daughters to be married off—Amanda Darbury was almost in mourning over it. She swore she’d never let her husband into her bedroom again!
“What about Mother’s cousin, Sandy Randolph?” Carolina inquired at dinner, for Virgie had not mentioned him. At the head of the table she saw her mother stiffen slightly—Letitia always sat at the head of her table when, as now, her husband was not expected home for dinner, and Carolina had already been told that he would be staying overnight at the new house and would meet them all there tomorrow.
“Oh, he’s fine,” said Virgie vaguely. “We haven’t seen much of him lately. You can’t imagine how busy we’ve been, Carol. Not only the drapers and the furniture makers, but all last week we were struggling with the Great Wash for Mother has decreed that everything we bring into the new house must be clean—laundered or scrubbed or polished!”
So her mother had exchanged those calls and drives with Sandy Randolph for the joys of moving into an elegant new house, thought Carolina, casting another glance at the head of the table. Her mother, even by flickering candlelight, seemed to be sitting very straight. Annoyed that Carolina had asked about Sandy, no doubt!
Not until after dinner when Carolina was called into the library did she face her mother alone. Letitia’s thin rustling gown of watered wine taffeta had an elegant glaze and Letitia herself, standing straight and tall and imperious in it, was a formidable sight. She stood among boxes of already packed books—and the letter from Reba’s mother was in her hand. Carolina felt a little involuntary thrill of fear go through her. Her spirited mother had had the ordering of her young life for so many years. . . .
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