Celia Garth: A Novel (43 page)

A moment later Ida arrived. Evidently Marietta had told her that something seemed amiss, for they were both out of breath from running up the stairs. Ida’s slight figure was tense with alarm. “Godfrey, what is it?” she asked anxiously. She added, “Major Brace and Captain Woodley were hurrying out of the house so fast they didn’t even see me as we passed in the hall.”

“They want the details,” he said through his teeth, “hot and fresh. You needn’t go, Marietta—might as well hear it now.”

He sat down in the nearest chair. It was a little boudoir chair of French design, so slim and frivolous that it seemed to emphasize the heavy load of what he had to say.

He told them Major-General Benedict Arnold was one of the most brilliant leaders in the American army. Arnold’s battle record was heroic, and twice he had received serious wounds. But he felt that his country had not given him the recognition he deserved. Brooding over his wrongs (and his debts), he decided to sell his talents to the other side.

He wrote secretly to Sir Henry Clinton. Arnold had a scheme.

The British held the city of New York, but they had not been able to get control of the country above. Fifty miles north of New York, the fortress of West Point guarded the Hudson River valley. Clinton knew that if he could take this mighty stronghold he would have a good chance to surround Washington’s army, maybe even to end the war without waiting for Cornwallis to come up from the south. But without the troops of Cornwallis he was not strong enough to take it.

Arnold knew this too. So he asked: What would the British give him, if he gave them West Point?

In delighted amazement, Clinton replied that they would give him almost anything he wanted. A vast sum of money, a commission in the king’s army; and there were hints that the king might even make him a lord.

Arnold set to work. Shortly after the fall of Charleston he asked General Washington to make him commander of West Point. He said one of his wounds was troubling him, and until his health improved he could serve his country better in the fort than on the battlefield. Because of Arnold’s valiant record Washington consented.

When Arnold was quite ready, Clinton sent an officer, Major John Andre, to meet him. In the woods several miles from the fort, Arnold and Andre worked out details.

On a certain day at a certain hour, the British were to move toward West Point. Arnold promised that just then the defenses would not be adequately manned. When the attack came, he would give vague and contradictory orders, confusing his men, scattering them so they could be easily picked off. Hundreds of Americans would be killed, the rest made prisoners, and the British would take the fort.

Arnold gave Andre written plans for the attack. Andre started back to the British lines. But on the way he was captured and the papers were found. On the very day that the king’s men were to have taken West Point, Arnold fled to the shelter of a British man-of-war.

Major Andre was executed as a spy. But Arnold was safe. The British gave him six thousand pounds in cash and made him a brigadier-general in the king’s army. They would have given him more if his plan had succeeded, but he got that much for trying.

As Godfrey talked, once Celia thought she was going to burst into tears. Another time she thought she was going to throw up. She did not do either. She merely sat and stared at him.

The others talked about it in shaky voices. Celia said she had better go.

As she walked back to the shop the streets were buzzing with excitement. Groups of people stood about, talking, arguing, gesturing; even housemaids leaned out of the windows talking to their friends on the sidewalk. Celia had reached the shop and opened the side door before she realized that for the first time since the army had occupied Charleston, she had gone through the street alone and not a single strange man had spoken to her.

She would have liked to sit down quietly and calm her thoughts, but she could not. All she had time for was to throw some cold water on her face before she went back to work. She was about to take out her sewing when the door opened and Mrs. Kirby came in with Mrs. Sloan. Mrs. Kirby was chattering.

“… and do you know what Captain Cole said? He said that’s what comes of making a major-general out of a horse trader. Yes, my dear, that’s what Mr. Arnold was before the war, a
horse trader
—oh Miss Garth, I know I’m late for my appointment but so much has been happening I just couldn’t get here any sooner, do run up and tell Miss Perry I’ve simply got to have my fitting—” She sank into a chair. “With so much going on and with all the responsibility I have, I declare I’m quite worn out—”

Celia escaped. She arranged for Mrs. Kirby’s belated fitting. Rena Fairbanks, as usual escorted by a group of redcoats, came to order some gauze aprons. Rena went upstairs, the redcoats waited, and while they waited they talked about Benedict Arnold.

All day, everybody talked about Benedict Arnold. Some people laughed, some of them sneered. Some repeated Mrs. Kirby’s statement that Arnold had been a horse trader, others said he had been a peddler of drugs. But they agreed that he was common as pig-tracks, like most of the men who were leading the rebel army. They further agreed that Mr. Washington was a monster for having let Major Andre be executed. They said that although Arnold had not succeeded in giving up West Point, he knew all Washington’s plans and now would tell Clinton what he knew, and the American insurrection would be crushed in a month.

Celia tried to remind herself that not everybody in town felt like this. There were many people who were as stricken as she was. But as Luke had reminded her, most of the patriot women had little money to spend; they could not order clothes in a fashionable shop. She told herself this, but it did no good. The patriots were silent. All she could hear was the laughter of those who had yielded to the king.

She wanted to sob, to scream, to order them out of here. Instead she sewed, she ran up and down the stairs, she smiled and curtsied, she said, “How do you do. Certainly, sir. Yes ma’am. No indeed, it’s no trouble at all.” Silently she prayed, “Please God, help me live through this day!”

That afternoon there was a shower. During the rain no more customers came in, and by the time the sun appeared those who were already here had finished their business, so they went home. For a blessed few minutes the parlor was empty.

Celia let her sewing fall into her lap. She was stitching the waistband for a gauze apron; she wondered if the thing would be fit to wear. The room was close. Laying her work on the table she went to the nearest window and pushed up the sash. After the rain the air was clean and cold, and gave her a feeling of refreshment. It must be nearly closing time—maybe nobody else would come in today. But even as she thought this, she heard the front door open.

She wet her lips, put on her professional smile, and looked around. As she did so she heard a little gasp of surprise. The customer was Sophie, and Sophie had seen her minding the parlor, and Sophie did not like it.

“Why Celia,” cried Sophie, “I didn’t know you were working here again!” Her childish voice was shrill with astonishment.

“Yes,” Celia said, still with her professional smile, “I’ve been back some time now.”

They met at the balustrade. How pretty Sophie looked, and how pampered. Since the birth of her baby her figure had regained its soft young lines, and she was becomingly dressed in a fall costume of tan and dark green. Her neatly gloved little hands fluttered on the ledge of the balustrade. “But I thought,” she said—“I thought you were with Mrs. Lacy.”

Keeping her voice as level as she could, Celia answered, “I couldn’t stay with Mrs. Lacy forever.”

“But—” Sophie protested helplessly—“but she would have been so
glad
to have you!”

Celia’s hands, out of sight under the ledge, gripped each other. “Really,” she answered, “I’d rather be independent.”

“But working here—right out in public—meeting all sorts of people—oh Celia, it’s hardly right! Nobody in our family would think of working in a public place—” Sophie paused plaintively.

Celia wondered which really caused more trouble in the world, villains like Benedict Arnold or fools like Sophie Garth. Still doing her best to speak evenly, she said, “I’m sorry you and I have the same name. But I won’t tell anybody your husband is related to me. I promise.”

“But people always—” Sophie began, and caught herself. She did not want to be so tactless as to say what she had almost said: People always find out embarrassing things like that. Her hands fluttered again, her eyelids quivered over her soft gray-blue eyes. She smiled hopefully. “Now don’t you worry. I’m sure we can do something for you. Roy is so fond of you. He and I were talking about you last year, we wanted to do something for you then, but about that time we heard you were planning to be married—oh that was such a pity about Mr. Rand—but don’t you worry, I’m sure we can—” Her voice fell off into an uncertain silence—probably, Celia thought, because she herself was looking as stony-mad as she felt.

Celia said, “I’m perfectly all right, thank you. I don’t need anybody to ‘do something’ for me. I’m earning my—”

The door opened again. Sophie turned around, plainly glad to have Celia’s speech interrupted, as she would not have known how to answer it. The newcomer was Sophie’s hostess and sister-in-law, Mrs. Torrance, who had paused on the front steps to speak to her husband. Celia heard a carriage drive off, and Mrs. Torrance said to Sophie that Leon would be back for them in a little while. Sophie exclaimed, “Oh Emily, you didn’t tell me Celia Garth was working here!”

“We’ve had so much else to talk about,” Mrs. Torrance said with a quick smile. Brushing the matter aside as if they could gain nothing by discussing it, she spoke to Celia with formal politeness. “We have no appointment, Miss Garth, but will you ask Miss Loring if we can see some nice soft muslins, to make clothes for a small child?”

Celia replied, “Certainly, Mrs. Torrance. Will you and Mrs. Garth sit down for a few minutes, please?”

She curtsied, and went toward the door to the staircase. Mrs. Torrance was several years older than Sophie and had two children of her own, so now she enjoyed giving Sophie some big-sisterly supervision. Celia heard her saying that they outgrew their baby-clothes so fast, you simply had to have a few more things made for them right away.

Celia went upstairs, told Miss Loring what the ladies wanted, and came back to tell them they could go up now. She opened the gate in the balustrade and then the door to the staircase. They went through and she closed the door after them.

For a moment she stood with her hand on the doorknob, thinking. Sophie was such a buttercup of a child, though she was a grown woman, a wife and mother. It was puzzling. Celia had been told that the experiences of love and motherhood were tremendous. And yet Sophie, and so many other women who came through this parlor every day, had had all this, but still seemed to have experienced nothing at all.

Right now she was too tired to try to understand it. She pressed her hands to her head. She did not often have headaches, but now she had one, a dull weary feeling more like a heaviness in her head than like actual pain. She thought of Sophie’s words. “I’m sure we can do something for you …”

Anybody hearing her, Celia reflected, would think I was a puppy sitting up on my hind legs begging. I don’t want anything of Sophie or Roy or the Torrances. All I want is for them to let me alone.

Her head felt as if she were carrying a rock in it. She could not help feeling that they were not going to let her alone.

D
URING THE NEXT FEW
weeks Sophie came into the shop several times. But she was always accompanied by Emily Torrance or some other friend, and she followed Emily’s example of addressing Celia as “Miss Garth.” After that first visit she made no more personal remarks.

Sometimes Leon Torrance came in with them, but Celia did not see Roy at all. From their conversations she gathered that Roy was busy elsewhere, running British errands. He seemed to be doing a lot of traveling these days.

Celia went on with the work Luke had told her to do. He had warned her that it would not be fun. He was right. It wasn’t.

Now that the first excitement was over, she found that spying was a hard and thankless job. She had to be alert for a thousand trifles before she found one that might be of any use. When she found it she had to use all her wits to report it without being observed. And while she was doing this she also had to do her day’s work; she had to be quick and obliging and sweet, though her legs ached and the customers often made unreasonable demands, especially the new-rich Tories who were not used to the heady sensation of ordering people around.

She passed her notes in many ways. She passed them to Ida, Godfrey, Darren, the Westcotts. How any note went out of town, or if it went out at all, or if it did any good, she never knew. Now and then she would hear of a skirmish, but she had no idea if she had had anything to do with it, or even if the report was true. In general, people in Charleston did not know much about what happened out of town. The
Gazette
published only what Balfour wanted them to read.

But in November, they got a piece of news that Balfour had done his best to keep from them. The rebels of the Upcountry had won a resounding victory. At Kings Mountain on the line between the two Carolinas, they had defeated a crack Tory troop led by a British colonel. And Luke’s prediction turned out to be right: Cornwallis had hastily reversed his northward march and had brought his army back to South Carolina.

The news of Kings Mountain, five weeks late, was brought to town by a Negro servant of John Rutledge, the exiled rebel governor of South Carolina. Godfrey was too shrewd to rejoice openly, but Burton invited his rebel friends to a dinner-party. In the shop, behind her sweet professional smile, Celia was thinking how mad Colonel Balfour must be. From what she had heard of him, she guessed that he was drowning his wrath in a bottle. She hoped that tomorrow morning his head would hurt terribly.