Authors: JAMES ALEXANDER Thom
De Cartabona, pensive, put aside that letter and fingered the one addressed to Teresa. In all of his life he had never opened a letter addressed to someone else. But never before in his life had he suffered a strong enough temptation to do so. Everything he was trying to do toward carrying Teresa out of this place could be undone by one mere hint that Clark might come to St. Louis. And surely this letter to her would contain such a hint.
He slipped her letter under his own, and picked up both. “Rest,” he said to the messenger, who had dispatched his gill of brandy and was huffing and blowing and rocking on the balls of his feet. “Have another potion, and I shall be with you presently.”
“Thankee, suh,” the ruffian exclaimed, reaching for the decanter.
Stepping into the adjacent anteroom, de Cartabona crossed himself and made a small prayer pertaining to the matter of using foul means to a fair end, and broke the seal of the second letter.
Louisville, 23 August 1780
My Dear Teresa
I was embarked on a Major Expedition at the time of receipt of the unhappy news of Fernando’s death. I could not even attempt to express to you then my Consternation & Sadness, nay, I can not even now But I am return’d safe from that adventure, in whose duration I had some Moments to reflect upon what course might be most Agreeable to Human Nature regarding our present Circumstance & have decided that the Time is upon us when I must take you under my personal Protection as my Wife
This place is probably somewhat more Secure than St. Louis tho its Accomodations are rough and wanting Niceties After a brief Respite here from the River Journey I would then take you to my Family in Virginia where you would enjoy the most Compleat comforts & Safety & their incomparable
Devotion until my Responsibilities in this department of the War shall have been done.
I expect to Journey to Virginia in the coming Winter to petition for all the Necessaries for one more Attempt on Detroit and that trip would enable me to take you to Virginia in my own company and with an Armed escort for your Safety
I implore you therefore my Beloved to wait for me in St. Louis for the few weeks it will take me to come for you. This War can not go on much longer & it will be my Pleasure then to lay down my Arms haveing served my Countrey as Energetically & Faithfully as I was able & abide in Peace for ever & ever with you at my side according to those dreams we have shared
With the tenderest concern for Your Happiness & Well being I am Y
r
devoted
GEO
.
De Cartabona, sweating, inflamed by jealousy and guilt, folded the paper into his own letter and stood for a moment in the little room, pulling his nose and squinting. Then he returned to the waiting messenger. “A brief reply,” he said, and sat down to write.
San Luis, September 20, 1780
Sir:
Thank you for yours of 23 August and Compliments on still another Conquest, the particulars of which were most impressive. As for passing your sympathies to the Señorita …
He paused here and prayed silently for the audacity to do this. If anyone were to find this out! he thought. But I shall be in New Orleans. And this is after all a private matter, not public business. His hand trembled as he wrote:
being left without Family or Guardians in this harsh & remote corner of the Domain and wrapped in the most inconsolable dolour, she begged to be returned to the comfort of her Mother Country and is by now well on her way, probably being at or near New Orleans by this time. I fear that she left no message for you, only expressing her horror at the
bloodiness of this wilderness and its denizens both white & native.
Your most humble Svt.
de C
.
He scrawled the last with such a flourish as to make it illegible, then folded and sealed the paper and addressed it to Colonel Clark at Louisville, Falls of the Ohio.
The lieutenant stood at the window and watched the messenger fling himself into the saddle with all the agility of a sober man, and watched him gallop down the road and out through the gate, past the artillery platforms which had been left standing since the battle in May.
Then, in a state of awful, guilty excitement, trembling like a criminal, he tore both of Colonel Clark’s letters into quarters, knelt, and dropped them on the small fire that burned in the hearth. He stood up, feeling a little dizzy, leaned on the mantel until he felt steady, went to the decanter and sloshed a strong measure of brandy into a glass, threw it to the back of his throat, swallowed, poured another, and gulped it. Eyes watering, he drew a kerchief out of his sleeve and daubed at his eyes and nose. He picked up the vial of laudanum and slipped it into a pocket. He squared his shoulders, repeated to himself his conviction that he was doing all this for the welfare of Teresa, flung open the double doors, and strode through the great foyer, now scuffed and scarred from the occupancy of the refugees, and mounted the steps leading to her room. He paused outside the door, took a deep breath, and rapped softly. There was no answer. He turned the latch and pushed inward, and found her kneeling before her little altar with the black lace veil over her head and face.
He shut the door and moved to her side. Her lips were moving. At last she crossed herself and looked up at him.
“Teresa …” He reached for her hands and held them as she arose. Behind the veil her eyes were large and unblinking, as if she were in a fervid trance. “Sit,” he said. “I have something to say.” She obeyed, sitting on the edge of her bed. He stood before her, still holding her wrists, which she seemed not to notice. “Now hear me,” he said, “and may God help you. An American messenger was here. He brought forlorn news. Your Colonel Clark fought in a battle with the Indians of Ohio …”
Her eyes were beginning to return from their otherworldly stare now, were seeing him, and were beginning to dart over his face, the eyelids trembling as if she anticipated a slap. “And he was shot to death,” de Cartabona blurted out. God forgive me, he prayed, as he watched the serene mask of her faith crumble, watched her hands go into claws, felt the stiffening in her arms and body and waited, ready to stifle her screams, ready to fight her into submission if necessary, ready to dose her with the sedative.
But no scream erupted from her slack lips; no whimpering sounded; she did not struggle. It was worse. In total silence, as he stared at her face, something seemed to snap behind her eyes, that elemental strand of spirit which connects the inner and outer worlds of a sentient being. With his words he had severed that as surely as if he had cut it with a knife.
It would have been better if she had shrieked and protested and fought it with disbelief. But this, this abject, helpless, silent break … it had been like smothering a baby under its pillow.
The lieutenant shivered and began to sob. Then he stumbled to his feet, groping toward her washstand. She sat on the side of her bed with an idiot’s incomprehension in her face and her hands lying palms up on the lap of her black skirt while the lieutenant retched dryly over her porcelain washbowl.
The next morning before daylight Teresa was taken on a litter down to the river galley and put in the small covered cabin in the stern, with a nurse to watch over her. Maria and Rita were brought down after sunrise with their baggage, looking pale and forlorn and red-eyed. But they brightened when they saw that Teresa’s trunk was on board also.
“Yes,” said the nurse. “Señorita Teresa is going, too. But she is sick now. Perhaps later you may talk with her.”
The lieutenant got aboard last, ashen-faced, spoke to the citizens and soldiers on the wharf, and then saluted.
The line was cast off and the boat that had carried the de Leyba family from New Orleans to the outpost of St. Louis two years earlier swung into the wide brown current of the Mississippi to bear its survivors back down to civilization.
R
ICHMOND
, F
EBRUARY
21, 1812
Major W
m
Croghan
Locust Grove K
y
Dear Sir:
The enclosed certified copy of a law which passed both branches of the Virginia legislature yesterday, I hasten to forward, thro you, to General Clark. I can truly declare that no event in my life has given me more pleasure than I derived from being the instrument of Justice and Honor, in preparing, presenting, and urging the passage of the inclosed act. Whether I may be permitted to congratulate you and General Clark upon the success which attended my efforts, I know not; but, of this, I am persuaded, that had you been present, you would have approved of the course which I pursued, which sustained the honor and dignity of General Clark, while it interested the tenderness, the generosity, and the magnanimity of the General Assembly of Virginia. Our house was dissolved in tears: my voice was almost drowned in my own emotion. I told them the Story of the Sword, and urged as a reason why they should present to the gallant veteran another, that he had, with a haughty sense of wounded pride and feeling, broken and cast away that which this state formerly gave him.
I hope the whole transaction of yesterday will afford to your illustrious friend the pleasure which it gave, not to me alone, but to more than two thirds of the Virginia legislature.
I write in great haste, that my letter may not be delaid and
with it the enclosed bill. Be pleased to present my most respectful compliments to General Clark and to Mrs. Croghan, and your gallant son if he is with you, and permit me to subscribe myself with my best wishes for your happiness.
Your friend and very Hum
ble
Serv
t
,
CH
s
FENTON MERCER
“Do you suppose he might do something hotheaded again this time?” Diana Gwathmey asked. She gazed out the window of the kitchen house at the old man in his wheelchair in the sun on the veranda. There was a yellow-fringed black shawl around his shoulders and his black hat lay on a table beside him. He had put aside his book and newspapers and letterbox and was gazing northward toward the Ohio valley as he seemed to do most of the time these days.
“I think not,” said Lucy Croghan, now pouring strong tea into two cups on a tray.
“I’m not sure it’s tea he’s a wanting,” said Diana, giggling, nodding toward her uncle. Lucy looked out the window in time to see the old man lift a small jug and tilt it to his lips. Then he put the jug back on the table and replaced the hat over it. The maneuver was awkward because he had little control of his right hand.
“Ah, the old fox,” Lucy breathed. “Now, what varmint smuggled that’n to ‘im, I’d like t’ know!”
“Not I,” said Diana. “But sometimes I fancy the orchard’s full of his old scouts—Mister Kenton, perhaps—and they creep out like Indians when we aren’t a-watchin’ and bring it to ’im.” She stirred honey into both cups of tea. “Maybe he had been sipping on the sly like this when he broke the first sword. D’you think maybe so, Auntie?”
Lucy frowned at the memory. “No, dear, I’m sure he was just as sober as you or me. He was insulted, I know that. And rightly so. Oh, he did embarrass those well-meaning dignitaries something awful! Embarrassed me, too, but I could understand how he felt. A fancy secondhand sword the state of Virginia bought for him, from some dandy gent who’d ‘hardly ever used it,’ as his reward for all he’d done! Well, I was embarrassed but, by Heaven, I was proud of him! That Colonel Hancock put that silly little token in his hands, and stood back, beamin’ like they’d just done him a great favor. But George he just looked down at it as if it was a toad, and he turned that hard eye ‘o his
on that man and said, I remember it exactly, he said, ‘Young man, when Virginia needed a sword, I gave her one. Now she sends me a toy, when I need bread!’ And he took the sword, an’ he stuck it between two bricks in that veranda there, shoved it way into the ground, put his foot on it, and snapped it clean off, right at the hilt. Don’t know where he found the strength. Well, it was an awful minute, but like I said, I was proud. And he
was
sober, I’ll swear to that! Now you take ‘im this tea, an’ have a nice visit. He just dotes on you, an’ you do ‘im a world o’ good, dear.”
Diana sighed, looking out at him as she balanced the tray. “He’s such an adorable old bear. But you’re sure all my chitchat don’t bother him?”
“Honey, go on with you. He tells us y’re his sweetheart. And it keeps his mind alert, recollectin’ all those tales.”
“Hello, Uncle George,” Diana chirped as she set the tea tray on the table. “You look very handsome today, sir!” She curtseyed and extended her hand, and held it there while he gathered his attention from wherever it had been. He turned his head slowly and brought his dark eyes to bear on her face. His eyebrows had turned to white bristle since his stroke three years ago. The crown of his head was bald, mottled with great freckles and age spots, and his long white hair, with just a few strands of faded red in it, hung down to his shawl. His mouth, so finely shaped only a few years ago, was turned down bitterly at the corners and crumpled inward, and the cheeks were sunken under the cheekbones, all his teeth being gone now, and the flesh on the right side of his face—eyelid and mouth corners—drooped. Sometimes Diana imagined that all the flaccid, weathered, thin skin of his face might slide off were it not held up so tightly stretched over the narrow bridge of his patrician nose.
“Annhh, hn,” he gurgled phlegmatically and reached to her with his huge, gnarled, brown-flecked left hand. His cheek dimpled as he smiled and the sadness went out of his eyes. “Ah, it’s about time, Missy. You left me fer a long spell …”
“Nonsense, now, Uncle, you know I …”
“Eh?”
“I say you know very well I come every fortnight to see my sweetheart! I was here two weeks ago and here I am again …”
“Aye, aye, you do, eh? Heh!” His hand, trembling, held hers and drew it insistently toward his breast, and she stepped closer and with her other hand stroked his bald dome, as he liked.