CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Ghosts, Dreams, and Christmas
"Elizabeth, what do you know of Benjamin Martin?"
It was Sunday. Tavington had taken the time to pay a call. As a betrothed couple, Miss Everleigh allowed them an hour alone in the parlour per visit, as long the door was kept open.
"Benjamin Martin? Of Wakefield?" she asked, clearly baffled by the question. She curled up on the sofa next to him, looking at him fondly.
"It seems this Benjamin Martin is our Ghost."
She sat thinking a moment, a disbelieving smile on her face.
Tavington said, "I assure you it is true. I saw the man myself."
"Yes, my dearest, but Ben Martin!"
"He served in the last war, and I am told, quite effectively."
"Yes, but that was years ago!" She gave a soft laugh. "I know him, of course. South Carolina planter society is a small world. Father and he were quite good friends before the war. He often praised Mr. Martin as a fine woodsman, and they would go together into the swamps near the Martin place for Father to observe new subjects. He stayed with Mr. Martin several times, and Mr. Martin even visited us once. Mr. Martin is something of an eccentric, you know." Tavington regarded her blankly. "He doesn't keep slaves, but hires free Negroes."
Tavington was faintly uncomfortable, knowing that the day would come when he would really have to tell Elizabeth how very distasteful he found the idea of owning slaves. They were too happy right now for him to wish to raise such a potentially unpleasant topic, but he must find a proper time, and soon. He did not want to discuss it at the moment, just as he had received the unwelcome news that he had something in common with a despised enemy.
Elizabeth was smiling oddly as she concluded her story, "But with the war, their friendship came to an end."
"Martin was a rebel from the first, I take it."
"No, no, that is the sad thing. Mr. Martin was sympathetic to the rebel cause, but thought a war with Britain to be madness. He said something at the time that was remarkably prophetic: that if there were indeed a war, it would not be on some foreign field, but it would be fought here, and our children would see it." She glanced away, and then smiled at Tavington. "Very wise of him, as the war itself has proved."
"I suppose so," Tavington grudgingly allowed. She laughed and leaned closer to him.
"When his friend Major Burwell exhorted him to stand by his principles, Mr. Martin replied, 'I'm a parent. I can't afford principles.'"
Tavington snorted. "It sounds rather weak-minded to me."
Elizabeth was even more amused. "You sound like my father. He accosted Mr. Martin and told him very angrily that if anything, parents need principles more than other people: 'for how else can they teach them to their children?'" She shrugged. "And that was the end of a famous friendship."
She laughed again, "Ben Martin!"
Tavington looked at her narrowly. "What is it that you are not telling me?"
She bit her lip. "I might as well tell you, so someone else doesn't blurt it out at an inopportune moment. Not that many know this." She took a deep breath. "At one time, my father was rather keen for me to be the second Mrs. Martin."
Tavington gave her a horrified look. "Monstrous!"
Elizabeth burst out in helpless laughter. "Oh, not monstrous, surely, my love, but very, very unlikely!" She composed herself a little. "That was the reason Father wanted him to visit. The poor man was quite oblivious, though, I assure you. He was clearly still in love with his late wife. And furthermore," her smile grew mischievous, "it was apparent, according to my own scientific observations, that I was simply not blonde enough for him."
Tavington growled, and pulled her possessively against him. "The man's a fool."
"Chaqu'un a son goût."
"I am very glad you were not to his taste."
"It would not have mattered if I had been. He was not to mine. Whatever the drawbacks of my home situation, at least I was with my dear mother, and teaching my own sisters. I would hardly trade that to teach a houseful of stepchildren, one of whom was the age of my brother Richard—and also of Charles Crawford, for that matter. Besides," she said, nestling into the curve of his arm, "my mother was against it. Charles Crawford was always her candidate."
"Who was your candidate?"
"You are, my dearest," she murmured, kissing him lightly. "I have never had another." Another light kiss.
Tavington frowned, unwilling to be distracted from the issue. "What about Stephen DeLancey?" He mentally cursed himself for that slip.
Elizabeth looked at him curiously. "Do you know Stephen DeLancey?"
"Your aunt mentioned him." Idiot, don't talk about another man to a woman while she is kissing you!
"If I had truly wanted Stephen DeLancey, nothing would have stood in my way." She nuzzled his ear. "I thought you wanted to discuss Benjamin Martin. That poor man."
"He is not a 'poor man.' Call him rather a 'treacherous man,' 'a despicable man,' ' a soon-to-be-dead man----'"
"Thus proving me right. Why do you hate him so? Surely he is just another enemy."
"No," Tavington told her grimly. "It is he who hates me. And for good reason." She lay back against his shoulder and waited. "I killed his son."
"The eldest? Gabriel?"
"No. A younger one. It was just after Waxhaws. I came upon their house. They were tending the rebel wounded---some of ours, too, I admit, but I wanted to make an example. The eldest—Gabriel is his name?—was caught carrying dispatches. I arrested him as a spy. There was some argument. They tried to conceal that the young man was a son of the house, but the boy slipped up. At any rate, as my men were putting the spy under guard, the other boy attacked them and I shot him." She was looking at him without expression. "You think I went too far."
"I cannot presume to criticise you, but it seems a drastic form of discipline."
"Perhaps, but it is done. I had to make a quick decision, and I could not take a chance that he had a weapon on him. I then ordered my men to fire the house and barns, kill the livestock, take the horses, and free the slaves. It is disturbing to imagine that you might have been there."
"I could not have been there. I told you how it was." She gave a short laugh. "But had I been, you not have known Gabriel Martin was a rebel; and you would have never seen those dispatches."
"Will you be that resourceful when we are married?"
"I shall surpass myself in resourcefulness. And you shall inspire me."
Uncle Ganymede had entered the room, holding a tray.
"What is it?" asked Elizabeth, a little offended.
Uncle Ganymede's thin dark face had fallen into its habitual lines of disapproval. "A letter for you, Miss 'Lizbeth."
Crumpled on the silver tray was a dirty, folded paper very like the one Tavington had seen before. Elizabeth saw it, and glared furiously at the slave. He, for his part, looked blankly off into empty space.
She reached out to take it, but Tavington, his jaw tight with anger, picked it up instead.
"Thank you." He gave Uncle Ganymede a brusque nod. "That will be all."
The elderly slave briefly looked Tavington in the eye with a hint of satisfaction at a job well done.
After he left the room, Elizabeth said coldly, "It seems that he can read, after all."
Tavington restrained himself with difficulty. "You did not tell me these threats had continued. How many of these letters have you received?" He opened the note. Venomous, misspelled, soiled with what he dared not guess, it spoke of all the ugly, painful things the writer thought the Misses Wilde deserved.
"Enough of them. One a week at least, starting in October. I have discovered that they are indeed coming through the post, and that they do not seem to originate here in Camden. They are coming from somewhere outside our safe haven, from someone who feels great animosity, obviously."
"Obviously," Tavington agreed acidly. "I shall extend my most material thanks to Uncle Ganymede for his provident intervention. At least he realises that the situation merits my attention."
"You have more important concerns than the ill-tempered scrawls of an anonymous coward," Elizabeth said. "These letters could come from a woman, for all we know. Though a poorly educated one, judging from the wretched handwriting."
"I have no concerns more important that tracking down and eliminating a threat to anything of mine!" He began pacing the floor, seething with rage.
"I am a thing of yours?" she asked, affronted.
"Yes!" he said furiously, "you are mine! No backwoods savage, unfit to be called a human being, can threaten you and live!" He grasped her by the shoulders and kissed her passionately. She was warm and alive in his arms, and he recalled, in all its sweetness, the first time he had held her to himself: after he had killed the rebel who had put violent hands on her. When he reluctantly broke the kiss to let her breathe, he could see he was forgiven his temper by the look of delight on her face.
He kissed her again, gently. "I have no desire to frighten you, but it has been so long since I have had anyone of my own, that the thought of harm coming to you is insupportable. I am so happy at thought of marrying you, of having a life with you, and a ready-made family in your dear sisters; and these rebels are so vile---I detest them more than I can describe. I remember what they did to Patrick and his Sal, and poor Mrs. Montgomery's hapless husband. I have seen loyal men mutilated, and seen men who have been tarred and feathered, and died of it. I know that they would do worse to me if they could, and to you if they dared."
"But they do not dare," said Elizabeth, holding him close, her head on his shoulder.
He was not satisfied. "I will be going north, with the main body of the Army, and you will remain here. There will be the garrison here, of course, but there is always the possibility of a few of the rebels secretly entering the town to commit mayhem."
"Then take us with you."
"No!" he flung himself restlessly onto a sofa. "That is even more dangerous for you." He thought of Martin and his militia band, and his lip curled with disgust. "The best way is to eliminate the threat once and for all." He got up again, and walked over to the fireplace, leaning against the mantel
"Which is what you told me the Lord General wants anyway."
"I am on the watch for the Ghost." Tense and fierce, he stared into the fire on the hearth. "On the watch, and I mean to have him. He told me that before this war was over he was going to kill me. He may find himself sorely surprised. I was not able to stop him by capturing his children and holding them to compel his submission--"
Elizabeth looked at him in surprise.
"Yes," he told her impatiently. "I wanted to keep the children at Fort Carolina. I could have ended the war for him then and there. Do you think that cruel of me? A man like that ought not to have children anyway: not disciplining them, letting them join the rebels, allowing them to grow up so ignorant and stupid that they throw themselves unarmed at armed men. He puts his own interests before his children's welfare---and before they know it, they have lost their home. And who is caring for the children, while he makes his depredations on the countryside? Not he, though I saw that he had the eldest of his sons with him the day he came to Fort Carolina. He is probably teaching him to hang Loyalists, the way that brute Cleveland is said to have trained his own sons. God!" he pressed his fingers to his brow, feeling a headache coming upon him. "God! They should all be wiped off the face of the earth!"
Julia peeked into the room, "Aunt said to say your hour is up. Are you quarrelling?"
"No, of course not," said Tavington, not wanting to frighten her. "Come in and sit with us." He forced himself to be calm and to smile at her. Reassured, she came and sat by her sister. Elizabeth put her arm around her.
Julia asked, "Are you going to be able to come for Christmas?"
"My dear child, I have no idea, and I will have no idea until it is nearly the day itself. I hope I shall."
***
Tavington had dreamed of King's Mountain again. He awoke, sick and sweating on his cot in his tent at camp. The dreams varied: most often he saw again the gnawed limbs sticking out of the rock piles, and the hogs refusing to be chased away. Once he had dreamed that it was he who had been hanged afterwards, and Elizabeth who had fallen down screaming as they forced her to look at his rotting corpse. This time, he had lain wounded and helpless on the battlefield, while the predators prowled closer; a wolf had bitten into his shoulder, while a hog buried its teeth in his side. The unbelievable pain he dreamed of shocked him awake. He forced himself to sit up: he could not bear to lie in a position similar to that in his nightmare. The cold was uncomfortable, damp with sweat as he was, and he reached for the bottle of brandy.
He has seen death in so many forms in his life. He had killed people himself in many painful ways. Somehow King's Mountain seemed to crown all the other horrors. There was not just violence there. That he was accustomed to. He was a man who lived by the sword, and it might very well be his destiny to die by it.
What disturbed him was the malice, the hatred, the rebels' self-righteous attitude that their cause was so just that nothing else mattered: that the normal laws of war and even human behaviour need not apply when dealing with their enemies. Combined with the foreign landscape, the strange accents, the feeling of being in a different world in which he had no place, he had begun to feel a profound sense of alienation. War had a certain language of its own, and to be in conflict with people who had no grasp of this common language made Tavington feel that he was not entirely master of the situation or of himself.
He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock in the morning, both too late and too early to awaken anyone for a game of cards and a chat to exorcise the demons of the night. He smiled. Bordon would hardly have thanked him anyway had he awakened him earlier, as his subordinate and friend no longer slept alone.
Poor Polly Featherstone, Patrick Ferguson's surviving mistress, had rejoined the British Army a few weeks ago. After enduring vicious abuse as a prisoner, she had been put on a horse by a rebel colonel and had eventually managed to make her way back. She had lingered near Tavington's tent for days, looking at him with a pitiful hunger. He had given her enough money to go to the quartermaster and buy some clothes and outfit herself decently. He could not bring himself to take her to his bed. He knew the longing in her eyes was not for him, but for any memory of Patrick she could salvage. Bordon had taken her on, and was kind enough that she might find consolation as well as protection with him.
His mother looked up at him from the watchcase. He wondered what she would have made of South Carolina and the camp of the Green Dragoons; and he knew that even had she lived, he could never have talked to her about the things he had seen and done. Elizabeth was different: she was a part of this world, and had come close enough to its violence to understand him. He thought about Elizabeth for awhile, and at length was relaxed enough that he could curl up on his side and sleep another few hours. Christmas was coming…
***
Tavington had not spent Christmas with a family in nearly twenty years. He had half expected a crisis to arise, preventing him from joining Elizabeth and her sisters at Miss Everleigh's house. Fate, however, was for once on his side. He had had the novel pleasure of choosing presents with some care, and had sent them on the day before. Now he would have the additional pleasure of seeing his gifts received.
The quartermaster had been his great resource. Stocks of looted clothing, jewelry, silver: all sorts of household possessions were to be had. While the Army's punishment for robbery was dire, there was considerable tolerance for scavenging deserted houses, or houses that had been burned or otherwise confiscated. Then too, many of the refugees were selling valuables for ready cash. He had not found the ring he wanted for Elizabeth, but he had found something else he thought would please her.
"The Three Graces," she smiled, pinning the green and white cameo onto a length of velvet ribbon, and tying it around her throat. Amelia and Julia crowded close to admire.
"It's lovely," murmured Amelia, with quiet enthusiasm.
"It's the three of us!" cried Julia. Seeing Elizabeth's amusement, she insisted with a huff, "Well, there you are in the middle. And then there is Melly, with her face turned away, because she's shy. And I am the smaller one on the side."
Tavington laughed. "Indeed, I did think some such thing. I bought this for Elizabeth in remembrance of the day I met my three favourite sisters."
He fastened a necklace of tiny seed pearls around Julia's neck, "Because," he said, "you are still a little lady." She made a face at him and ran to a mirror to admire herself.
" Now for Amelia, in deference to her role as defender of her family----"
Amelia smiled and blushed, shaking her head.
"---as defender of her family, I say, I have a special gift."
It was an elegant pocket pistol inlaid with ivory grips. Amelia's eyes were perfectly round, and she blushed even more.
"Thank you, Colonel, it is a wonderful gift."
"And it is less likely to tear a hole in your pocket than one of Father's," solemnly observed Julia.
Shyly, Amelia approached Tavington, and gave his cheek the lightest of kisses. She smiled at him again, with a brief glance, and whispered, "Thank you, my dear brother-to-be."
For Miss Everleigh and Mrs. Montgomery, there was French lace.
"Valenciennes," Miss Everleigh approved. "At least he has taste, Lizzie."
Charlotte Montgomery was overwhelmed that there was a present for her, and became so tearful and incoherent that Miss Everleigh finally made her sit down and hush.
The Montgomery children had a handsome present as well. Tavington might find them irritating and ill bred, but he could never forget that he had been three days too late to save their father. For them, Tavington had found a joiner and woodworker who created a most elaborate and complete Noah's Ark. Not only had the man carved the expected lions, horses, and cattle, but he had let his imagination run wild, and included many native animals: deer, panthers, opossums, and even a whimsical pair of skunks. George and the two oldest girls, Jane and Mary, were the first to see it, and were quite wild with admiration. Tavington was surprised when they managed to thank him with some degree of good manners. Apparently Elizabeth's tuition was bearing fruit. The little girls were as enchanted by the toy as they were by the fact that they would be allowed to dine with the adults for the occasion
While the Montgomerys enthused over their new plaything, Elizabeth and her sisters took Tavington aside to give him his presents.
"I made you a lot of handkerchiefs," Julia informed him. "I expect you go through them pretty quickly, with the blood and all."
Tavington kept his face perfectly straight. "I do go through them, Julia, and I am most obliged to you for your thoughtful gift." He took another look at them . "And these are very well made."
"If I made mistakes, Lilabet made me take out the stitches and do them over. She is mighty particular. But I don't mind, since they were for you."
Amelia had made him a lace-edged silk cravat. "I hope you will wear it someday when you're especially happy," she said shyly.
"Thank you, my dear girl."
Elizabeth handed him a soft, paper-wrapped bundle. When he opened it, he found it contained three beautiful white silk shirts.
Tavington was silent, and then said, "Elizabeth---"
"Lilabet wouldn't let anyone else touch them," said Julia. "She sewed every stitch herself."
Tavington said, "I don't believe I have ever owned a silk shirt."
Elizabeth stroked his hand. "Cousin James told me something interesting that the surgeons say about silk shirts."
Tavington knew what she meant. Army surgeons all insisted that silk could be removed from wounds far more easily and completely than linen. Smith, one of the Dragoons' surgeons, had explained to him that silk held together in the surgeon's tweezers, but that linen fibres fell apart and stayed in the wound, leading to infection. Officers who could afford silk shirts wore them into battle. Tavington's funds had not run to such luxuries.
"I shall always think of you when I wear one of these."
"I hope you will wear them often," Elizabeth said pointedly.
There was someone at the front door, and Uncle Ganymede showed the newcomer into the parlour. Tavington was surprised at his identity. He had known that Wilkins would be coming a little later on, but also joining them for Christmas dinner was David McKay, of all people.
At first, misled by the boy's blushes and stammers, Tavington assumed there was some infatuation with his Elizabeth. She, however, rectified this misapprehension.
"My dearest, you forget," she said. "He saw Amelia that terrible day. He has called several times since October."
No one could accuse either Amelia Wilde or David McKay of being overly chatty, but though they sat silent, they looked with such rapt intensity at one another, that no one could mistake their mutual attraction.
Elizabeth sniffed, "Look at them! It's appalling! They're children—babies, really."
Tavington pressed her hand with his. "Hardly babies! And I thought you would consider young love a beautiful thing."
"Young love indeed! Look at them! They're not adults! They are a pair of Dresden figurines!"
"Mr. McKay," said Tavington firmly, "has killed men in battle. And so, as I recall, has your sister Amelia. Let us grant them their dignity as man and woman, however prematurely it has been forced upon them."
Coming to sit by them, they heard Amelia and McKay discussing her studies.
"I can understand the sewing and the music," the boy said, "but why geometry? Surely that can never be of any use to a lady."
Tavington winced inwardly. Not the way to recommend yourself under this roof, my lad.
Miss Everleigh overheard, and directed a sneer at McKay; but before she could speak, Elizabeth remarked coolly, "A man who wonders why a woman needs geometry, is a man who has neither laid out a garden, nor dealt with a dress pattern."
McKay blushed, rather discomfited. Amelia bridled slightly, and seemed inclined to protect her young beau.
Miss Everleigh smirked. "So comforting to know that someone will be upholding the family tradition of sharp-tongued women when I am gone." She gave Tavington a thin smile. "Prepare to defend yourself, Colonel."
"I am always prepared, Madam," he said serenely, "and besides, I quite agree with Elizabeth. Surely a discipline that encourages clear thinking is of benefit to everyone. We certainly want the ladies to continue working with dress patterns, when the results are so pleasantly ornamental; and we will not always be at war. Some of us even hope to have the opportunity of assisting a lady in planning a garden one day." He caught McKay's eye, and the boy smiled back, in a moment of masculine collusion.
"I like it--" began George Montgomery, and then stopped when he saw some of the expressions turned his way. He straightened up in his chair, and started again. "I like it when Melly reads to us out of that book about the Greeks and Trojans."
"No one asked you to interrupt, George Montgomery," observed his aunt, with caustic scorn. "Though I suppose we should all be grateful that something has made an impression on you. Other than a dogwood switch."
"I like it," muttered the boy defensively, looking at the floor.
"I am very glad to hear it," said Elizabeth, surprised and pleased. She explained to McKay, "My sister Amelia is studying Mr. Pope's translation of the Iliad."
McKay smiled at George. "I like it too." Then he said to Amelia, "Though I would think you have enough of war in these times, Miss Amelia."
Amelia paused a moment, apparently bracing herself to speak. Then softly, she said, "It seems to me that the Iliad is a book that could have been written for these times, Mr. McKay." Seeing that the others wanted her to continue, she took a breath and went on.
"The two sides are so like each other: both brave, both heroic, respecting the same values, worshipping the same gods, even evidently speaking the same language. The tragedy is that they are destined to fight, and that every attempt at diplomacy is thwarted by some happenstance. The war should never even have taken place." She blushed and looked away. "That is what I think," she whispered.
Tavington smiled, appeciating her effort. "An interesting comparison, my dear Amelia. But tell me: who are the Greeks, and who are the Trojans?"
"I hope we're not the Trojans," Julia declared, "or we had better have some ships ready."
Amidst the general laughter that followed this, Uncle Ganymede announced dinner. A further noise at the front door revealed that Wilkins had arrived, just in time, and his young cousins greeted him with enthusiasm.
Seated at the dinner table, the room golden with candlelight, Miss Everleigh addressed them all.
"I expect some of you are wondering at the strange ways that Fate has led you to this table at Christmas time. A year ago, probably none of you could have guessed you would be here. Some we celebrated the holiday with last year are gone forever: there is not one of us present who is not missing someone who is no longer here to join us."
Charlotte Montgomery became tearful again. Miss Everleigh ignored her.
"God only knows where we shall all be in another year. One thing, though, I hope for: and that is for the war to be over by this time next Christmas."
"Amen to that," agreed Wilkins.
"Yes. Amen, indeed," said Tavington, kissing Elizabeth's hand.
---
Author's note: I am well aware that in the film, the Battle of Cowpens takes place in October, and so should already have taken place in my story. However, the film and the real story are once again divergent: Cowpens actually was fought in January 1781. I am keeping the real date for story line purposes.
Ladies' gowns were not generally fashioned with pockets. More often, a separate pocket was tied underneath the gown, and accessed through a slit in the skirt.
Seed pearls and cameos were high fashion in the mid -18th century. Martha Washington wore just such a necklace as Julia's at her wedding to George. The cameo Tavington gave Elizabeth I saw in a museum. It has a background of medium green agate, is ringed with a double row of seed pearls, and is oval, almost 2 inches (5 cm) in length.