Disclaimer: No, for the zillionth time, I don't own it.
Chapter 10: Exchanging Olive Branches
The first difficulty in writing her husband, Jane found, was deciding how in the world to address him.
"My dear husband—"
She flinched. The words implied an intimate footing that was laughably far from reality.
"My dear William—"
Oh dear. She could hardly manage to write the name without squirming with embarrassment. And after all, how would she address him in person? Selina called her father "Mr. Rutledge" in public…
Taking a deep breath, she wrote:
June 25, 1780
My dear Colonel Tavington,
Your letter was delayed somewhat, as we have all removed to the house in Charlestown. Any correspondence in future should be directed to the Queen Street house, which I believe I heard my father tell you about.
I am quite well, and am gratified to hear that you are unhurt.
Jane felt hopeless. Everything sounded so stilted and unnatural. She sighed. All she could do was her best. She decided to give him her news.
Selina is expecting a child in January, and my father is overjoyed. She is a little unwell, which does nothing for her temper.
Miss Gilpin was dismissed the day you left. She has returned to England, and I hope to hear from her eventually. Selina's Aunt Alice is her companion now, and is very inferior to Miss Gilpin in sense and accomplishments. She seems very stupid, but is not unkind to me.
As to your apology: I feel obliged to accept it, but I pray that our—
Oh God, how to say it? Encounters? Relations? Intercourse? She shuddered, and scratched out the words.
I must confess to you that you truly frightened me. It was very distressing and painful and I beg you never to use me with such violence ever again.
There. It was said. However clumsily, she had said what she meant, and what she needed to say. Let him make of it what he would. Now she would try to be more accommodating.
I liked hearing about your family. Your sisters sound very amiable. I have always longed for a sister. Forgive my ignorance, but is Mortimer Square in London? I thought it must be, but you did not say definitely. Where does your sister Mrs. Protheroe live? I hope she is not at a great distance from the rest of her family. That would be very disagreeable.
Where did you go to school? My father went to Harrow, but since you did not speak of it, I assume you went elsewhere, for I have discovered that when men have gone to the same school they always go on and on about the "dear old place," and sit over their wine talking about ball games. Many of my uncles and cousins have also gone to school in England. That is, my male cousins. It seems that women hardly ever get to go anywhere nice.
It was good of you to explain your reasons for leaving me with Papa and Selina. I admit I felt very ill used. Indeed, I am very ill used by them. However, I must submit to your greater knowledge of the world and the war, and hope for better times. I am sure you are doing your duty in fighting and defeating the rebels, but as a woman with relations on both sides of the conflict, I wish that sensible men could come together and resolve their differences without violence.
Perhaps you will smile in a condescending way at that, but indeed I am sorry to hear of anyone suffering because they disagree about politics. It seems so pointless. I cannot understand the Pinckneys especially, putting everyone to such inconvenience. They have always been very selfish.
Papa sold his rice at a great profit, which pleased him very much. It has, I think, improved his opinion of you. Nothing, it seems, will improve his opinion of me. However, I see little of him, other than at meals and when I submit the household accounts to him.
Should she tell him about the spinet? It was the nicest thing to come out of her rift with her family, and she played it and thought of it with constant pleasure, but it might seem a trifle to him. Worse, it would let him know that she had money of her own and was spending it, and that might give him other ideas.
No. She would not tell him about it, or about the money she had given Miss Gilpin. It was none of his business what she did with her own money. If he returned, she would never again have this kind of freedom, and she wanted to enjoy it undisturbed as long as possible.
I am happy that we removed to Charlestown. My other relations are not so unforgiving, and there is much to see and do here, with all the rebuilding and repair in town. Little Ash plays in the garden and is learning to talk. He calls me "Shane," which makes me thrill with happiness.
She blushed at admitting so much in such sentimental language. She crossed out the phrase.
which makes me laugh. He can say "Biddy," and calls his nurse Coral, "Cawa." He does not yet say "Mama" or "Papa," which also makes me laugh. They are not about enough for him to hear the words frequently enough.
He could not care about Little Ash. Why would he? She crossed out the sentences, and left.
which makes me laugh.
I hope and pray for your safety, out in the wilderness amongst many enemies. May you have the victory you desire.
She would say nothing about a "safe return." That might seem pitiful—as if she were begging him to come back to her. It was not perfectly truthful as well, for he must know that she had reservations about any return of his. Not wishing him dead was one thing: wanting a repeat of their wedding night was another.
I am, sir, in all obedience, your wife,
Jane Tavington
She had never, since her wedding day, signed her married name. It gave an air of finality to her situation. She reached into her jewelry box and found the huge gold ring he had given her. Perhaps a symbol of their union might help reconcile her.
----
No, the goldsmith told her, he could not alter the ring to fit her. Or rather he could, but—
"You see the design here, ma'am. Very fine work. If I cut out part of the gold, the pattern would be spoiled. A shame to destroy such a pretty piece of craftsmanship."
"I suppose you are right." What was she to do with the monstrous thing? I suppose I could put it on a chain, and wear it about my neck, but that's hardly— She looked at the items on display in the little glass case. "Would one of those rings fit me, do you suppose?"
Obligingly, the goldsmith pulled out a few plain gold bands. Jane tried them on, one after another, and found a small, thin one that would serve her purpose.
"I'll take that one. No, I'll just wear it."
Ignoring the goldsmith's heavy brows lifted in surprise, Jane paid him and left the shop, the little ring clasping her finger with a strangely intimate sensation. I suppose it does make me feel more married. She walked through the streets, past the impudent, strident calls of the market women, wondering if the whole world could see that she was a married woman. She felt terribly conspicuous.
She slipped into the house, hoping that no one had even noticed her absence. Papa had gone out, thankfully, and Selina was not generally up at such an early hour.
Today, unfortunately, she was; and was just coming down the stairs as Jane started up them.
"Where have you been?"
"Out."
"Out—where? Entertaining more soldiers in taverns?"
Jane ignored her and tried to pass. Selina's hand caught her skirt, tugging sharply. "Answer me when I'm speaking to you. You're only here on sufferance, and you should be grateful. Nobody else would have you, after what you've done. And nobody else would want you—certainly not your husband!"
A dark spark of fury kindled swift. Perhaps it was the support of her little gold wedding band. It mattered not a bit that she had bought it herself. Feelings long simmering rose to the inevitable boil.
Jane took a deep, ragged breath, and forced herself to speak quietly.
"You know, Selina, you're a very stupid woman." Her stepmother recoiled in outrage, but Jane pressed on, her words slipping between her teeth like knives. "You really should try not to make me angry. If I were really angry, I might say some things that would do us all great harm. I've tried to keep them quiet, because innocent people would be harmed along with you—" Here she looked over her shoulder at Selina with a rage that her stepmother had never seen, and that quite silenced her.
It had never occurred to Selina, that after so long she was not perfectly safe. No one but her own loyal Phyllis knew she had had a lover. But now Jane was looking at her with a cold comprehension that pierced her conscience. No—she cannot know. No one does. No one who matters.
But it grew more and more horrifyingly apparent that she did, for Jane was still speaking to her in that dreadful soft voice. "If you were to make me really angry, I might lose all self-control and start shouting. I might shout out all I know in front of Papa. What would happen, do you think, if I were to lose my temper and tell him all about his wife and my husband, and how they betrayed him under his own roof?"
Selina's heart stopped. Oh, Lord, he told her! How could he? Heartless, wretched man! The shocking pain of his betrayal made her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. She could hardly manage to say, "He wouldn't believe you."
"Perhaps not." Jane nodded with a strange smile. "But he'd never look at you the same way again." Her smile stretched out. Selina thought her greenish rabbity eyes looked scarcely human. "And he'd certainly look hard at his child once it's born. I hope its hair isn't dark. That would just about be the end of you."
A bluff might work. "You don't know anything. You can't prove anything."
Jane's eyes narrowed. She whimpered, in a false, far-away moan, "'Ah, Colonel! I shall die!'"
Selina's eyes strained wide at the words: whites showing all around the flower-blue irises. Her dropped jaw worked like a landed fish. This tacit admission of guilt fueled Jane's anger. "I saw you myself, you slut. I can describe every last thing you said and did while—entertaining—the Colonel." Her teeth showed white in a feral smile, thinking of Tavington's letter admitting their guilt. "And I have proof. I have it in writing, in a place where you'll never find it. If you push me Selina, if you push me, and torment me, and sneer, I won't be able to stop myself. Everything will come out, and you will be ruined. If Papa doesn't kill you, you'll be lucky. What do you think he'd do?"
Selina began shaking. Ashbury was often angry, and did terrible things when he was angry, but his anger had never been directed at her. Hate and fear twisted her pretty face into a grimacing mask. "What do you want?"
Jane swallowed her contempt. "I want you to leave me alone. That's all I ask. Stop your insults, and don't dream of threatening me or mine. If I find you've done anything to hurt Biddy or Letty, you'll regret it. If you try to keep me away from Little Ash, you'll regret it. Just stop your taunts and leave me alone. If you can manage that, I'll say nothing of your disgusting adulteries and vices. Just leave me alone and you'll be safe." Another breath hissed through her teeth, and she headed upstairs to her room.
Black spots swam before Selina's eyes. She sat down abruptly on the stairs, beyond tears or screams. Inside her was a deep shaking that could not stop. She was too frightened to move, too frightened to do anything. In a few minutes, Aunt Alice came downstairs and found her there. She tenderly helped her upstairs where Selina collapsed again, vomiting into the chamberpot, while Aunt Alice held her hair back, and then pressed a cool damp cloth to her aching head.
-----
Jane herself was shaking when she reached her room. She was so concentrated on her quarrel with Selina that she hardly noticed the sweet, hesitant twanging of someone picking out a tune on her little spinet. Then she looked again.
"Letty! What are you doing?"
Letty jumped up from the chair, looking guilty. "I just wanted to see your instrument, Miss Jane. I didn't hurt it!"
"No, of course you didn't." Jane looked at her, puzzled, still in a tumult of suppressed rage. Letty did not deserve to be scolded. "There's no harm in your looking."
"It's just—it's so pretty, and I wanted to see if I could play a song myself." Letty gaze dropped to the floor, and her hands twisted in the folds of her homespun petticoat.
Glad to think of something new, Jane tried to take in the idea of her maid wanting to play the spinet. It was so unexpected. There were plenty of slave musicians. Their own had provided the music at the Cedar Hill ball, but to play the spinet like a young lady---
Letty was looking worried, and Jane tried to think the matter through. Of course, a slave could not play the instrument in the parlor. That would be very improper, and indeed it could not be, but really, was there any harm in Letty playing the little spinet in Jane's room, where it was just the two of them?
Actually, it was much the same as Letty having learned to read and write. She had had no lessons herself, as such, for it was illegal to teach slaves their letters, but she had been nearby when Miss Gilpin had taught Jane, and had overheard the lessons; and Jane had often amused herself when the two of them were little, by playing teacher and having Letty play the part of pupil. Perhaps she could look at this the same way. And besides, she was so lonely since Miss Gilpin had gone…
"Would you like to learn to play? Really play?"
"I—" Gathering her courage, Letty confessed, "Oh, Miss Jane, I love music! I always wished I could play like you. I could play on the spinet when you weren't here, and I wouldn't bother you—"
"No—I mean—I could teach you. It could be very diverting. Would you really like to learn to play it properly?" She was already moving eagerly toward the spinet, pulling the chair in front of her dressing table over to join the one already set before it. Letty was smiling; and without much more ceremony, was hustled back into her place before the keyboard, and her first formal music lesson commenced.
Jane was having a wonderful time. She found her yellowed book of exercises, and had Letty start with the simplest of them. While she practiced, Jane moved about the room restlessly, feeling a mean triumph when she heard the distant noises of Selina being sick, and the soft murmuring as Aunt Alice comforted her. Perhaps someday she would be able to be more charitable, but for now, she pushed Selina's well-deserved comeuppance from her mind and poked through her jewelry box again, looking for a long, thin chain of fine gold that she knew was there.
It had to be untangled first, and then Jane slipped the heavy gold ring Tavington had given her onto it. It was quickly fastened, and over her head in a trice. The chain was quite long, and the ring was hidden under her bodice. Jane decided that was exactly the way she wanted it, and returned to Letty's instruction, feeling happier than she had in months. Her next task, she decided, would be to unpick all the monograms on her handkerchiefs, and change every "R" to a "T."
-----
Her cousin admired both her rings. Jane visited Mary Laurens every few days, glad of a place to sit that did involve conflict. Her cousin was a crystal-haired widow of fifty-five years, and had become a good friend since Jane had grown up.
"Never cared for children," she often and blithely declared. "Possibly had I any of my own I might have felt differently, but as it was--"
The exquisite parlor would not have welcomed rampaging youngsters. Jane considered it the prettiest room in Charlestown.
"Of course, my dear," her cousin said, in her soft, soft drawl, "you are greatly to blame, running off with a stranger, and not consulting with your true friends." She lifted a brow in a way that may Jane fidget. Then she smiled. "But if it discomfits Ashbury I'm entirely satisfied. Never liked him. That's another reason I paid you so little attention when you were growing up. It was quite bad enough enduring Selina's visits. My Dresden figurines were never quite the same."
Jane looked away, repressing a smile. As a little girl Selina had, very disobediently, taken down Cousin Mary's prized figurines to play with, and one had been chipped. Mary Laurens had never forgiven her, and in fact had given Selina the chipped figurine as a wedding present. It was a hobbyhorse the older woman had, and she raised it during every single conversation in which Selina was mentioned. Jane, luckily, had been too intimidated by the lovely little statuettes to do anything but stare longingly. She still liked to look at them, forever young, pink, and dainty.
"Colonel Tavington has written me quite a nice letter," Jane said. "He had such interesting things to tell me of his family and home in England."
"Is that so? So Selina and Ashbury huffing and puffing about you being deserted is just so much hogwash?"
"I think so. I can't see him going to so much trouble if meant to abandon me. And as he said--" She blushed at the truth of it, "---we know each other so little that we need to correspond simply to become properly acquainted."
"Very sensible of him. Have you replied?"
"Yes--yes, I have. Our marriage was all so rushed... We did not part on good terms. He agrees that we should make a fresh start when next we meet."
"Hmm." Mary Laurens said nothing more. She had been briefly married to a cousin, long ago, and had not found the experience to her taste. Widowhood, on the other hand, was a delightful condition: above all, prosperous, independent widowhood. If this horrid Englishman who had trapped Jane were to perish in the war, Jane would be a widow herself, and free. In that case, perhaps she would consider coming to live here on Bay Street. The house was large, and dear Jane was so respectful of other peoples' treasures...
-----
They were in Winnsboro when Tavington received his wife's letter. He had had a difficult day. His relationship with his new commander, Lord Cornwallis, was not as amiable as the one he had enjoyed with Sir Henry Clinton. Cornwallis lost no chance to snipe at him, and to express his dissatisfaction with Tavington's methods. Tavington thought the man overly soft with the rebels, and had little confidence in his judgement.
And why, if he so despises my efforts, does he not have me replaced? Tavington considered the matter, and decided that Cornwallis was attempting to play a subtle game with the Colonials, forcing Tavington to seem the menacing threat, while Cornwallis himself could keep his own hands clean and play the role of the humane representative of the Crown, ignorant of Tavington's "cruelties" ---posing as the one whom the Colonials could rely on to protect them and uphold their rights. A double-dyed hypocrisy, for Cornwallis knew perfectly well what Tavington was doing, and yet did not actually order him to alter his tactics.
Their families had been rivals for a long time. Cornwallis' own father had had some shady business dealings with the old, deceased Earl of Colchester, Tavington's grandfather. And Mad Jack had done his worst here: a blazing scandal that had destroyed the reputation of one of Cornwallis' aunts. Parliament had been awhirl with the divorce case, and both families had been dirtied with the mud flung by all parties concerned. It seemed ridiculous to Tavington, though, to carry on with the feud here in America. Impolitic, too. But alas, he was not an Earl himself, but his enemy's subordinate, and now—so it seemed—his whipping boy.
Rebels did not confront Tavington and his men on the field of battle, but buzzed about them like the monstrous mosquitoes that tortured him daily. Tavington hated both rebels and mosquitoes with a fierce, burning hatred; but so far, he had had better luck with the rebels.
Looking out the tent flap, he inspected the encampment, tidily organized. From a small white tent down the line, he heard the expected moans. Blethers was being tended to by the surgeon. Since his outrageous conduct at Tavington's wedding he had found his life changed—very much for the worse. No longer was he allowed the excuse of drunkeness. Whenever Tavington rode out, Mr. Blethers was required to ride out as well: long, arduous patrols, too long for any secret store of liquor to sustain him. He had been lanky, but was now skeletal: his hands shook, and occasionally he had to be tied to his mount. Tavington had ignored his chaplain's failings too long, but no more. Blethers would do his duty to the regiment if it killed him.
A bellow distracted him. It was Moll Royston, the chief laundress, taking her women to task for laziness. If only I could make that woman a sergeant: we'd massacre the rebels within the month. She was a big, beefy woman—bigger than many of the men, and a widow. She really ought to find a new man and remarry, but the quartermaster—and Tavington—thought her too useful to badger her about it.
"Put your back into it, Missy! And you, Bess! I told you to unpick the seams before washing that shirt. You'll never get the blood out that way, you lazy trull! No—let me do it! Not you, Mrs. McArdle, you need to feed that boy of yours."
Tavington grinned, listening to the women. Moll had a fierce bite, and brooked no nonsense, but was kind enough to mothers and the crowd of little ones following the regiment. He had heard she had only had the one child, who died at birth, and never another. At least it hasn't made her bitter. The laundresses' noise died down, and he considered the changes in his regiment over the past few weeks.
Tavington had a new captain now, James Wilkins, a huge Carolinian. The man knew the Rutledges, and even claimed distant kinship with them in some convoluted way that only a fellow Carolinian could comprehend. Tavington had watched him narrowly, alert for any aspersions about his wife, but Wilkins had been perfectly polite. That did not make Tavington like him any better. His time in South Carolina had filled him with a growing dislike for these Colonials and all their ways. Curiously, the dislike did not extend to Jane personally. She had, after all, chosen not be one of them any longer. She was not a Colonial now, so much as she was his wife.
And now she had responded to him. He had felt some alarm at the delay, but the move to Charlestown explained that sufficiently.
The letter, itself, was rather uncomfortable to read. Jane was attempting to make the best of her situation, after a fashion, while making her unhappiness clear. He twitched impatiently at her complaints, but they were honest grievances. It must be most embarrassing to share a house with a stepmother whom she suspected of carrying Tavington's child. And poor Miss Gilpin had been dismissed. No doubt that was a sad thing for Jane, though Tavington had not particularly liked the woman, who was no friend to him.
The one sentence that stood out painfully, like the moving finger writing on the wall, was: "I must confess to you that you truly frightened me. It was very distressing and painful and I beg you never to use me with such violence ever again."
The writing there was nearly a scrawl, not his wife's usual fine hand. It had obviously been written in the grip of some strong emotion. Tavington sighed, knowing he would have his work before him, when reunited with Jane. Her initiation into married life had not been propitious. He wanted a decent domestic life, and he certainly wanted children. Jane must be somehow placated before that would be possible. It would take time, though, and that was something he had little enough of at the moment.
But the girl was trying to be civil, he saw, in the awkward remarks about his family. Caro and Pen would get on well with her, he believed. Lucy, if ever they had a chance to become acquainted, would be her delightful, affectionate self. Since those were the people in whom Jane had expressed interest (which indicated her good taste, in his opinion), he would tell her more about them, and about their childhood together in the sprawling gardens of Wargrave Hall….
For a moment, he thought he could smell the fresh scent of the hedge behind the west Pudding House, the place that had been the Tavington children's green hideaway from the world. He shut his eyes, and imagined the cool leaves sheltering them all as they whispered their childish secrets and hopes. How few had been realized.
A mosquito in his ear ruined the moment. He slapped at it resentfully, hating this place. He had always wanted to be a soldier, and he still wanted to be a soldier. He just did not want to be a soldier here…
Then he laughed at Jane's remarks about school and nostalgia over ball games. Only too true. The girl had some shreds of wit. Something might be made of them someday, in a more civilized place. Then there was the complaint about girls never going anywhere "nice." Another fling at her situation, no doubt. If they both lived, she would be going to England. He did not know if she would call it "nice," but it was the only place in world that truly mattered to him. He was not sure what sort of place she would think "nice." He could write and ask her—writing soon would be best. She had tentatively extended an olive branch, and it would be foolish not to reciprocate.
There was only a little more, about her unhappiness and the unpleasant behavior of her father and stepmother—and her father's success with his rice. Tavington's lip curled, thinking of Ashbury Rutledge. The man was hardly a gentleman in Tavington's opinion. He had the soul of a grubbing tradesman, and had not kept his word to Tavington, if he was mistreating Jane. She was certainly the best of a bad lot in that family. Her political remarks, while naïve, were honest and not far from his own views. The Colonials were fools to fight over such trifles, and deserved everything they got. It certainly made things easier, knowing that he and his wife had no deep philosophical gulf dividing them. That would count for much, in time.
He had reflected on his too-speedy marriage, but did not repent of it. The matter of the money was still as powerful a reason for their wedding as ever, and the thought being married to a woman who would not have a family trailing after her like unwanted baggage was rather pleasant. Once in England, they need never hear of Ashbury Rutledge, the Rice King, again. The man might be somebody in this backwater, but he would be less than nothing at home. Jane and he could have a life together that would be theirs alone.
Except, he admitted, with a little niggling twinge of conscience, for my own family, which may be a matter of some concern…
-----Note: A pudding house, in architecture of the Tudor-Stuart period, is a garden house, where dessert would be served. Not a gazebo—it's much more substantial—more like a very elegant, one room house of stone.
Next—Chapter 11: Courtship by Correspondence