Duel For You, Ben Davidson
Written By: Commander Cody CC-2224
CHAPTER 10
Sudden Reawakening
Fall, 1778 A.D.…
It was two days after Ben's departure with the Fifth Regiment. Thirteen-year-old Felicity and ten-year-old Nan were seated in the parlor near the glowing fireplace on a chilly night. Felicity was wearing a hand-made gown with vertical turquoise stripes, and Nan was wearing Felicity's old flowery pink gown; the one that Felicity used to wear during her tenth birthday and during the summer of 1775. Both girls were sewing.
Felicity was seated near the right-hand side of the fireplace, and Nan was seated near the left-hand side of the fireplace. As time flew by like the red cardinal bird of Virginia, Felicity was finding the sewing to be quite tedious. The only thing that can break the monotony of the sewing is in the constant quiet conversation between both sisters.
"Lissie, do you really miss Ben that much?" Nan asked her eldest sister.
"Aye, Nan. I do," answered Felicity. Her pretty face carried a wistful and lovesick reflection, as she gazed to the front wall dreamily, where the fireplace was situated. "So much…" she whispered longingly to herself.
"Why?" Nan asked her sister in a sympathetic manner.
"Because I fancy him," said Felicity. She mused for a brief moment.
"Nay, I don't just fancy him. I love him."
"But Lissie, how is it possible for you to love a young man who is six years your age?" Nan persisted. She tried to be thoughtful of her sister, but her curiosity with Felicity's relationship with a teenage boy that went beyond a mere crush was overwhelming and unsettling to her childlike mind.
Felicity heaved a wistful sigh. "Because we've known each other for quite a long time, Nan," she replied.
"Did you fall in love with him when you first met him?"
"Not quite. But it was pretty close to being in love."
"Did you ever have the urge to say, 'I love you'?"
"Not really. I was a little too young back then."
"But does Ben love you?" Nan wanted to know.
Felicity went into a pensive mood. "Now that I think about it, I'm very inclined to think that he does," she declared. And dreamily she continued, "I love him. And he loves me. In point of fact. Nothing can ever be simpler than this truth."
"Then if Ben loves you very much, he must be very foolish to leave you to run off to war and put himself in great danger," said Nan. Felicity just sighed in response, wishing that Ben did not have to do this for her sake, but must be done for freedom's sake. "On the practically side," Nan continued rather opinionatedly, "I would never have a man like that. There would always be the disturbing possibility that he could be killed." She paused for a second. "In my opinion, I think 'tis most foolish on setting one's heart on a man like that."
Felicity gave Nan a very hurt look. Her younger sister's opinion obviously implies greatly that she was foolish and impractical with choosing a lover. While making such an opinion wasn't necessarily wrong, the fact that Nan was saying this at a time when Felicity was deprived of Ben was rather tactless as a whole.
"Oh, Nan," said Felicity dolefully, as she faced her sister, struggling within her own self to fight back tears. "You say this, realizing very little of what love is really all about." She gave her reply some manner of thought. "Love…is not just about practicality. Nay; in its entirety, love itself is not about practicality at all. When you come to know a person to the fullest, 'tis about being faithful. Being steadfast. Steadfast to the one you hold most dear at the bottom of your heart, for better or for worse. True love is never real unless it becomes both a bliss…and an agony."
Felicity mused for a moment before looking at her younger sister again. "Love makes you care for a person…care for him to the point that you will pray for his soul…and his safe return…offer your life in exchange for his…," she continued. "Love reinforces your reason for living…because you know that someone on God's green earth loves you more than life itself."
It seemed that Nan was beginning to have sympathy for her eldest sister as she pondered over what Felicity had just said. But deep inside her, she felt as though she had to give her sister a piece of practicality when it came to romantic relationships.
"But surely one must consider the practical aspects of dealing with love," she advised.
"I suppose…" sighed Felicity, exhaling dreamily.
"One must exercise a certain degree of prudence, sense, and sensibility when dealing with a loved one, Lissie." Nan's face carried a look of concern for her sister. "Would I not be right in saying this to you, even if I were younger than you are?"
Felicity just heaved another wistful sigh in response. "I dare say no one can argue with that," she was forced to admit.
"Because what if Ben loves you, but is too shy to even admit it?"
Felicity pondered that question for a moment. "That cannot be," she thought to herself. "Ben has always seemed to express such affections since the day we first met. They just weren't always deep, though."
"Nan, let me tell you this," Felicity said almost defensively to her younger sister. "Whenever Ben has convictions about something, he will never waver in speaking out for his beliefs he holds most dear. I'm sure the same goes for love as well."
"I suppose…" answered Nan rather thoughtfully. After pondering for a moment, she said, "I love Ben, too, but not in the same way you do. I love him as…well, a brother."
Felicity brightened at her younger sister. Nan gave Felicity a thoughtful look as a well.
"I'm sorry that I said anything that hurt your feelings, Lissie," Nan said apologetically to Felicity in her attempt to console her for whatever she might have said to her that gave her more heartbreak.
"'Tis all right, Nan," Felicity understood kindly. "Just try to be a little more understanding with it comes to personal affairs between Ben and me.
Nan nodded her head without a word and both girls resume their sewing in the flickering firelight. Deep down in her mind, Felicity thanked God for a sister that could be just as understanding with her, even if she could be prissy and practical at times.
A gruff British infantryman thrust his bayonet directly at Ben's heart with his musket. He exerted much brute force into stabbing him, making sure the wound went deeper, as Ben lets out a weak but anguished cry of pain. Seconds later, blood started trickling down the left side of Ben's partially opened mouth, as the redcoat soldier yanked his bayonet out of Ben's body with full strength and stalks out of the stuffy wooden cabin room.
Ben's gravely injured body was now slumped across the left corner of the room near the doorway, bleeding critically to the point of near imminent death. With his glassy brown eyes gazing heavenward at the dark, wooden flat-board ceiling, he uttered three words that seem to be his own personal cry for help.
"Lissie…Lissie…Lissie…" he strained. He struggled weakly, as if he was desperately calling for help, although it was nigh impossible at this point. "Lissie…Lissie…Lissie…"
That part of the mentally shattered dream is enough to suddenly wake Felicity from her late afternoon slumbering siesta. She was still in her undergarments, with the lace suspenders untied from her very shoulders. Her slightly wavy gingery-red hair, left loose in flowing in a sensuous manner, was a bit mussed from an occasional tossing and turning while sleeping over it. Her glassy emerald-green eyes stared blankly at the opposite end of the bedchamber relative to the bed itself.
Apparently the second dream was a total shocker for her.
A knock at the door was enough to nearly startle Felicity out of her wits.
"Um…come!" called Felicity, startled.
The bedchamber door opened and in entered her younger sister Nan, toting a couple of folded gowns intended for wear at the Duffman ball. She looked at her older sister in a rather concerned manner, as if Felicity was having another nightmare about Ben, which of course she was.
"Are you all right, Lissie?" Nan asked worriedly.
"Huh?" It took a little bit of a while for Felicity to get back to her senses. She made a nervous chuckle to herself before pushing back her hair. "I'm fine, Nan," she answered. "Really."
Felicity's reply was hardly convincing to her younger sister, who still had that look of concern across her fourteen-year-old ladylike face. "You feel pretty jittery," she said. "You've acted as though you were dreaming of something…terrible."
Felicity let out a gulp. "I was," she admitted. "'Twas about Ben. Nothing more."
But Nan continued look at her older sister further. And Felicity was starting to get a mite annoyed at the way her sister was looking at her.
"For heaven's sake Nan, what is it?" asked Felicity in exasperation, after heaving an impatient and cross sigh. "What is making you stare at me so, as if I've just risen from the dead?"
"Lissie, just what in heaven's name are you doing without your cap?" Nan pointed out. "You know it isn't proper for a gentlewoman to be seen without her cap on."
Felicity just couldn't believe that her younger sister would point such a stare at her just because she was in bed with no cap on her head. She sighed in exasperation. "Nan, please don't vex me on such trivial matters," she said wearily.
"'Tis no trivial matter, Lissie," Nan chided her older sister. "'Tis considered most bold…and immodest for a gentlewoman to be going about with no cap over her head."
Felicity heaves a heavy and rather unenthusiastic sigh of exasperation again over Nan's commentary in response. How annoying can my younger sister get? Felicity asked herself. I just hate it when she constantly fusses about my appearance. 'Tis most annoying.
"Fine, fine," she said impatiently in a final manner. She retrieves her mobcap from the dresser on the left side of the bed.
"What time is it?" she asked, her inflection down.
"'Tis five in the afternoon," Nan answered her sister as she set the gowns down at the end of the bed. "And time to get dressed, so Mother says."
"I knew it," Felicity snapped dully to herself. She still had difficulty shrugging off the nightmares about her beloved Ben.
"I know the Ball at Duffman Manor will be most wonderful," Nan said briskly in her attempt to cheer Felicity up. "I just can't wait."
"Huh," said Felicity in a rather enthusiastic manner. Her response alerted Nan, who took her eldest sister's response as somewhat unnatural, given that Felicity usually took a liking to balls.
"You sound so unenthusiastic about the ball, Lissie," said Nan with sisterly concern. "Has something dampened your usually lively spirits?"
"No…um…" began Felicity hesitantly. "I'm just tired…just…recently awakened." She waved her right hand to herself in fanning motion to cool herself, hoping to present some display of ailment to hide her unenthusiastic behavior. "'Tis most hot in here."
"Aye, 'tis," she agreed with a giggle. "But let not that dampen your spirits, Lissie."
Felicity slowly scrambled out of bed.
"Anyway, Mother has just unpacked your ball gown, and she told me to bring it upstairs to you," Nan informed her sister.
"Where?" asked Felicity, after yawning and stretching her arms and legs.
Nan was holding the ball gown in front of Felicity. "Right here," she reminded her eldest sister.
Felicity's ball gown was a sack gown, in the color of elegant satin creamy white. It was decked with a satin silk taffeta, and was sort of in the very same style that her blue silk gown was. Alongside the gown was a single pair of creamy ivory brocade dancing shoes.
"Oh, Nan…" Felicity expressed most rapturously, as if she had fallen in love with someone again. "'Tis most beautiful!" Taking the gown, she swished it around in a half-dreamy manner. Then she turned to her sister. "Are you sure Mother is going to let me wear this?" she asked.
"Of course, Lissie," said Nan reassuringly. "Let me see you try it on."
Eagerly Felicity slipped into her new ball gown. The lower part she managed to slip into, but the part that went on the middle of her body had yet to be strapped on.
"So what will you be wearing today?" Felicity asked her sister.
"Oh. 'Tis the newest one Mother made for me," replied Nan. "Satin white and silver." She lifted her new ball gown from the bed and displayed it to Felicity, letting it drape in front of her body. Just as she said, it was indeed a shiny mixture of satin white and gray silver.
"Nan, you'll really look most beautiful in it," Felicity commented in awed admiration.
Nan giggled. "Really?" she asked. Even at fourteen years of age, she still took a fancy to new ball gowns.
"Mm-hmm," replied Felicity. Suddenly she remembered little Polly. "And what will Polly be wearing today?" she queried to her younger sister.
"Your old blue silk gown," Nan answered.
Felicity let out a laugh. "My old gown?" she asked in a surprised tone of voice. "You mean the one that I wore at the Governor's Palace when I was nine?"
"Why not?" asked Nan with a facial expression that seemed wistful. "You no longer fit in it anymore, and Polly's age can accommodate it."
The gown was made for Felicity by her mother when Felicity was nine. Even though Polly was still eight years old, the likelihood of Polly fitting into Felicity's blue ball gown would be very high.
"Surely you'll object not about it," Nan put forth.
"Nay, on the contrary," said Felicity. She turned to Nan in a rather excited manner. "I think Polly will look most beautiful in it."
It could be said that Polly was some sort of a mini-Felicity, and it would remind the family of Felicity going to the dance at the Governor's Palace, nearly nine years ago.
Nan made a grin when she swishes her new gown around her fourteen-year-old body. Felicity could tell that Nan was genuinely appreciative of the gown that Mrs. Merriman made for her. During the war, fancy material such as silks and other fine linens were scarce, and most of the time the Merriman family had little money to spare for such fineries. This was because much of the fine materials for fancy clothes were imported from Britain, and the Colonies in general had just boycotted all imported English material. It was only a few months after the end of the war that both Britain and the now independent Colonies had resumed diplomatic relations, thus allowing trade between the two countries to flourish for the most part.
"'Tis been a long while since I ever had a new ball gown," said Nan. "And I'm most grateful that Mother was able to make one for me."
"I must envy you, Nan," said Felicity.
"But why, Lissie?" Nan whined a little. "I think yours is the most beautiful in the world."
"'Tis the experience, mostly," replied Felicity, after chuckling to herself.
"What do you mean?" Nan inquired.
"Usually I take it for granted when it comes to receiving the new gowns," said Felicity. Being the eldest, Felicity was always the first to receive the new gowns. When she outgrew them, they were mostly passed on to the younger children. "But now that you have one, and new at that, you seem to be more appreciative than I am. My taking it for granted does not seem to be a good habit for me."
"Maybe 'tis not," Nan said, as she slid into her new gown. "But with me, wishing the circumstances to change isn't really going to change them, nor would it be possible." Nan is pretty sensible to say this, perhaps unlike Felicity, who occasionally daydreams over changing circumstances, especially when it came to bringing her beloved Ben safe and sound from the war, at the soonest moment.
Felicity just shook her head with a laugh. "There goes my sensible sister," she teased.
Nan was trying to get the satin white ribbon of her gown around her waist. "Speaking of being sensible," she opinionated, "I think my satin ribbon will definitely need some tying, as well as my corset."
"Oh, Nan," Felicity said in exasperation. "Do I really have to do everything for you?"
"'Tis all I'm asking Lissie," said Nan in an innocent manner. "Are my demands far beyond your ability to meet them?"
"I suppose not," sighed Felicity. "But look at you. You're thirteen." She finally reconsidered. "But all right."
Felicity immediately got to work on lacing Nan's ribbon and corset. "I'll tie your corset, too, after that," Nan offered kindly. It would be remiss of her not to return the favor to her eldest sister.
"Well, not too tight," said Felicity. Being a fairly hyperactive tomboy, the last thing that Felicity wanted that would slow down her movements was a corset.
Felicity finished the lacing, making fairly sure that no procedural part of the lacing itself had gone amiss under her watch. "Comfortable?" she asked her sister.
"Fairly," Nan answered her sister. "Now 'tis my turn to do yours."
Nan made sure that the middle of Felicity's gown is straightened across her body. Felicity seems to have a bit of difficulty trying to fit her firm breasts into her chemise.
"Oh, 'tis most wearisome when one finds herself in a difficulty of trying to fit her breasts into the undergarments of her gown!" Felicity complained in exasperation, as she struggled to breathe, her right hand placed flat directly on the middle of her bosom as it rose sexily for every breath she took.
"Now, calm down, Lissie," said Nan sweetly and calmly, as she tightened up Felicity's corset and tied the laces together. "'Tis not as though your bosom is so huge like a plump old lady. 'Tis well-sized, 'tis firm, just like the way God graciously made it when he formed you in his image and likeness."
"'Tis almost so tight, I fear as though the bodice of my dress will rip apart, leaving my bosom exposed for all to see," Felicity opinionated.
Hard to believe that Felicity was rather conscious about her dignity, but that was typical for a lady of her time. But with the way Felicity was fussing about the whole thing, Nan could only make a wry face in response. With a sigh she felt the bodice as to whether it's firm enough for something like that to not happen. And he pats the area two times.
"Your bodice is firm, so 'tis safe to presume that it's not likely to happen during the ball," Nan reassured her eldest sister.
Nan checked and double checked Felicity's bodices laces were tied properly, making sure that no part of the upper bodice area of her gown was loose, lest Felicity undergo an embarrassing situation of having her gown slide off during her dancing activities.
"And now for the corset," announced Nan. She pulled on the corset string, making Felicity feel as though she has a stomach pain.
"OUCH! Nan!" exclaimed Felicity in pain.
"That's the way it has to be," said Nan.
"I just told you Nan, not…too…TIGHT!" Felicity complained.
"'Tis the way most proper young ladies have it for the fashion," Nan informed her sister calmly, despite feeling pretty miffed about Felicity's complaints that were too loud for a proper young lady. "It helps you sit still."
"Fie upon you, Nan, for trying to make my entire existence as a proper young lady so miserable for me," Felicity carped crossly to her younger sister. "Just loosen the corset a bit, enough to allow me to breathe. Surely you don't want to have a fainting sister, would you?"
"Of course not," said Nan. "But that's why most ladies have fans."
Felicity was inclined to say to hell with the conventions of fashions. "Well, I think that the fan is just too much extra baggage for me to carry around," she opinionated. "I want to dance with Ben to my heart's content, unrestrained, not sit around like a dainty old cucumber, fanning my pretty face just to prevent myself from relapsing into a fainting spell!"
"The corset is a bit loosened now, just like you wanted," Nan informed. And she was right. Felicity took a deep breath as she closed her eyes, and placed her right hand on her stomach. The sensation was freedom for her.
"Ahhh. That's much, much better," she crooned exhilaratingly.
"I hope," said Nan, forming a petite but wry smile across her face.
The conversation started shifting to another topic at hand.
"Lissie, do you think that there might be some other beautiful young ladies who might want Ben's hand?" Nan asked her sister.
Felicity sighed, as she hoped that would not happen that much, since she really was in love with him. "I would not doubt it," said she. "But…you have just given me an idea, Nan, on account of this possibility." She flounced at her sister. "I…will stay close to Ben as I possibly can…and hold him close to my aching heart," she declared in a most determined manner.
"Does it always ache that much?" Nan wanted to know out of consideration for her eldest sister.
"Maybe," said Felicity. "I'm just lovesick." For a girl who had just given her heart to a boy she knew when she was younger, Ben meant so much to her. And always would. "Ben has been absent for five long years and I want to spend as much time with him as I possibly can."
"Gracious, Lissie!" Nan exclaimed, as if Felicity took a much deeper obsession with Ben. "Literally? Like a sea urchin?"
"Nan, really!" Felicity retorted indignantly, as she struggled a bit to fit her right foot into the brocade dancing shoe. "How can you say such disparaging things about Ben and me?"
"I don't know," said Nan a little innocently. "It sounds as though you're totally obsessed with him. Which you are."
"Oh, enough of this, Nan Merriman," Felicity carped at her sister forcefully, as if she had had enough of seemingly disparaging opinions about her relationship with Ben. "If you ever find a beau of your own, like you did a gown from Mother, I'd be more than justified to say the same thing about you." After putting on her dancing shoes, she stood up.
"I'm longing for that to happen," said Nan rather wistfully. She turned to Felicity. "Because you have Ben. And what do I have?" Nothing, she was inclined to blurt out, but that word was too extreme, and Nan knew better than to display all manner of ungratefulness about her comfortable surroundings.
Felicity knelt down to Nan, and both their faces are at eye level. "Aren't you a mite too young to worry about such things?" she asked her sister.
"Well…maybe," replied Nan. Maybe she was a bit too young, like Felicity said, and Nan should accept that. But even then,…it was no use to her. "Nay. You're right. I'm much too young."
"There will be plenty of handsome, dashing young boys your age, Nan," Felicity tried to assure her sister in her effort to cheer her up.
Poor Nan was now confused. She wondered whether she should simply throw away common sense when it came to encountering a young man to court that would suit her fancies, or keep herself refrained when it came to the business of courtship. "I…I don't know," she said sadly. "I don't know. I don't usually…"
She looks up to Felicity. "Lissie, please tell me I'm pretty," she pleaded with wistful green-brown eyes.
Felicity looked back at her sister with love. "Of course you are pretty," Felicity said to her sister both in an honest and motherly way. With that she gave Nan a sisterly squeeze in a motherly embrace.
"Oh, Nan," she said in a close-to-motherly way. "My little red-haired sister. My darling little blooming sister, almost grown up."
Felicity put both hands on her sister's cheeks. Nan beamed back at her eldest sister in a genuine acknowledgement of gratitude.
A/N: The vertical turquoise-striped gown was another version of a gown featured on the front-cover illustration of Changes for Felicity. The flowery pink gown was featured on the front-cover illustration of Happy Birthday, Felicity. Both gowns have their descriptions according to the Dan Andreasen illustrations.