Occupied Charleston celebrated the victory with illuminations, fireworks, and enforced ringing of church bells. For the first time in Edward’s life St. Michael’s peal sounded discordant. One elderly lady of good reputation was hauled off to the Exchange because she stood in front of her dark windows and told a squad of armed redcoats, “Shoot me if you wish, I will not illuminate for an American defeat.”
Next evening Christopher Gadsden came to the house with word of a new outrage. “They intend to sequester the property of suspected rebels. I saw the list. Bell’s Bridge is on it, and Malvern.”
“If they think they can bluff me into signing their damned oath, they’re wrong. They’re welcome to Malvern’s ashes until we win the war. Bell’s Bridge is another matter. Let them try to seize that, and Esau and I will meet them with guns.”
“No you won’t, Tom. It’s exactly the excuse Balfour would need to lock you away.” Gadsden’s dark eyes gleamed in the candlelight. “There are more important battles.”
“But when will we fight them?”
Edward wondered the same thing.
A few nights later another group of patriotic gentlemen gathered at Mr. Pike’s Church Street tavern. When Edward arrived, his eyes and ears told him that all the men, including his father, had been drinking for some time. Tom Bell’s condition surprised his son; he always drank moderately, if at all. The prospect of having Bell’s Bridge wrested away was weighing on him.
The taproom rang with raucous hoots, whistles, applause. Colonel Balfour was capering on a table, alternately baring his tiny teeth and squealing, and refreshing himself with a mug of beer. His amused owner reposed in a chair, chain in hand.
The tavern keeper, Mr. Pike, tried to quiet his guests. “There are British officers in the long room. More will be arriving.”
“Introduce them to the colonel,” Tom Bell said. Another man said, “What are they doing upstairs, Pike, buggering each other?”
The publican winced. “They have engaged the room for the night, for a ball to celebrate Camden. Ladies of the town have been invited.” Sweatily fearful, he lowered his voice. “Women of color.”
The uproar died. For the first time Edward heard a harpsichord, hautbois, and flute playing a minuet. Someone said, “Whores, are they?”
“Some are, I suppose. Some may be free persons. I don’t ask questions. I’ll tell you this, the women are elegantly gowned.”
“By God, I must see that.” Singleton tugged the chain. “Let us present ourselves, Colonel.”
The street door opened suddenly and six boisterous celebrants trooped in. Two of the men wore red coats. The third, in green, was the bird-beaked dragoon, Venables. Edward had learned through quiet inquiries that Maj. Percy Venables was temporarily attached to Balfour’s staff.
“Upstairs, ladies,” one of the redcoats said. He smacked the bottom of a Negress whose breasts were nearly falling out of her stiffly boned bodice. The second girl was light brown, with a glittering necklace adorning her throat.
Venables was escorting the most beautiful black woman Edward had ever seen. Six feet tall and black as night, she’d painted her face as aristocratic white ladies did: a base of flour or cornstarch with vivid reddish-purple lip color and rouge made from berries. Lampblack accented her lashes. A red diamond beauty spot adorned her left cheek, a red heart her exposed cleavage. Her high cylindrical wig was pure white.
To the plainly dressed men watching silently, the first redcoat said, “Gentlemen, good evening.” He saluted them with his bearskin cap, too drunk to recognize the animosity on their faces.
Venables pointed at the monkey. “And who is this little beast?” Edward was startled when his father spoke up.
“Isn’t the uniform familiar, sir? The monkey is Colonel Balfour.”
One woman giggled; her companion twisted her wrist to silence her. Tom Bell held fast to the back of a chair; he was weaving on his feet. Venables threw off the hand of his beautiful companion.
“You’re mocking a king’s officer. Are you the owner of that nasty little creature?”
Silence. Tom Bell stared his defiance. Venables caught Tom Bell’s chin in one hand.
“I say, sir. Are you the owner?”
Silence again.
“You will answer me.” The dragoon’s hand flew, a stinging slap.
Edward hurled himself forward, fists up. His friends scrambled to give him room. Venables drew his dress sword. The sharp point touched Edward’s throat, stopping him. Venables addressed Tom Bell. “You know this young puppy?”
Edward answered. “I’m his son.”
“His son. Well. Pity I didn’t finish you at our first encounter.” His wrist turned; the point of the sword drew blood. Then he pulled the blade away. “Someone remove that filthy monkey before I gut it on the spot.”
Singleton leapt to seize Colonel Balfour and rush him from the room. Venables sheathed his sword. “Ladies, let’s away to the supper and dancing. No reason to let this scum spoil it.”
He pushed the tall woman to one side and ascended the stairs ahead of her. He turned back long enough to fix Tom Bell and Edward with ugly looks. His companions, somewhat subdued, followed him. The musicians struck up a Scottish reel.
Tom Bell said, “Do you know that man?”
“I do. He’s the same whoreson who sabered my leg.”
Overhead, booted feet moved in time with the lively music. In the back of the house Colonel Balfour shrieked and gibbered.
“Fortunately, he doesn’t know my name,” Edward added.
“He will,” Tom Bell said. “He will.”
13
Arrested
At low tide the pale gray mudflats breathed out their pungent mix of fish and decay that to Edward would always be the smell of a Charleston summer. The sickly season brought its usual tropical rains and pestilence. This year the city’s Tory elite, which now included Adrian and Lydia, could not conveniently board a packet for Newport, “the Carolina hospital,” there to remain until the weather improved. Tom Bell sadly referred to his older son as one of the “Protection Gentry,” a term coined by Edward Rutledge for those who would switch sides as often as necessary for personal convenience and profit.
On three successive evenings Edward noticed his father slipping out of the house for several hours, with no explanation. The fourth morning he discovered two saddles in a storage shed behind the house. Next day they were gone. When he asked who had brought them, then removed them, Tom Bell said, “Friends. It’s safer if you don’t know any more.”
Captain Marburg took pains to remind his hosts that not everything about the occupation was onerous. By regulating prices of what farmers brought into the city, the British gradually increased the food supply. Meat and common victuals reappeared in the stalls of the public market off Meeting Street. Pharaoh and Essie went there between sunrise and noon, with the required written pass from their master, to buy pork, peas, and rice for the larder.
The captive Board of Police supervised everything from distribution of food to the poor to fire control. Householders failing to have sooty chimneys swept once every fortnight were fined. Slaves who had run away from loyalist masters to join the British army were quietly returned, with a charge that harsh punishment be avoided. Whether the charge was widely observed, Edward couldn’t say. One day, when he saw Joanna at Bell’s Bridge, she said the workhouse was busier than ever. He withheld any mention of his visit.
Traffic in and out of the city remained restricted. Soldiers at the gate searched wagons and carts for concealed saddles, boots, ammunition, or boxes of precious salt that might go to patriot partisans in the countryside. Loyalists had their own partisan brigades. Those of “Captain” Paddy Carr and “Captain” William Lark were burning and pillaging patriot property.
Bell’s Bridge and the other wharves saw a modest resumption of trade. Foreign ships arrived with nonessential goods—Belgian lace, French shoe buckles, Spanish wines. The military inspectors passed these t
o the retail shops without interference. Tom Bell left all dealings with the British to Esau Willing. The matter of sequestration of his property seemed to be in abeyance.
A slave brought Edward a single folded sheet sealed with red wax, bearing the seal of Octavius Catullus Glass. The message was inscribed in Lydia’s fine slanting hand.
I am desperate to see you. I beg you to grant my request and not humiliate me with a refusal.
After he read the note he limped out the back door to the cookhouse. He threw the paper into Essie’s stove and watched it burn.
On a hot Sunday afternoon in mid-August Edward returned from a stroll along Bay Street to find Captain Marburg in the dining room, gazing at a framed engraving that hung above the elegant sideboard with rice leaves carved into its legs. The sideboard was the work of Mr. Elfe of Broad Street, a craftsman widely respected until he signed the loyalty oath, claiming intimidation. “Oh, yes,” Tom Bell had been heard to say publicly, “the intimidation of his empty purse.”
Marburg’s moon face gleamed with perspiration as he admired Mr. Leitch’s famous “View of Charles Town.” The handsome engraving depicted the city from the harbor, with church steeples and the Exchange prominent on the skyline. A ship with billowing sails filled part of the foreground; a Carolina sky spread over all.
“You are fortunate to live in such a beautiful place, Mr. Edward.” Marburg moved to examine the engraving from a different angle. His white linen shirt stuck to his back. Edward was no less uncomfortable.
“I wouldn’t say it’s beautiful just now.”
“I look beyond the war. I imagine what it was and what it will be again. I am thinking I would like to make it my home.”
“Well, it is, until your regiment’s ordered back to Germany.”
“I would like to make it my home even then.”
Edward understood Marburg’s meaning. Presently the captain said, “You will not tell others of my intent, will you, Mr. Edward?”
“No, I won’t.”
“You are a gentleman. My friend forever.”
The heat persisted. Rowboats brought shrouded bodies from the harbor. Graves were dug in the Strangers’ and Transients’ Cemetery as dysentery and smallpox decimated the crews of the British ships.
On Sunday night, August 27, the household was wakened shortly before midnight by a commotion at the street gate. Intruders stormed through the garden and hammered on the piazza door. Edward ran downstairs in his nightshirt, a candle in hand. Tom Bell followed; sleep had twisted his thin white hair into spikes. Marburg stumbled out of the front room muttering, “What idiot calls at this hour?”
Shafts of light crisscrossed the ceiling, thrown through the fanlight by bull’s-eye lanterns. “Friends of yours, I think,” Tom Bell said. “Christopher warned me something like this was coming.”
He opened the door. A hot, hissing rain fell on the garden. The lieutenant leading a detail of four soldiers said sharply, “Thomas Bell?”
“I am Bell, sir.”
The lieutenant showed a paper. “You are hereby commanded into the king’s custody.”
“On what charge?”
“Seditious conduct. Organization of conspiratorial gatherings.”
“Oh? When and where were those gatherings held, sir? Give me the evidence.”
“It is not in my possession, sir. I only have this writ charging you with manifesting the utmost opposition to His Majesty’s just and lawful authority. One of my men will accompany you upstairs while you dress.”
“And then?”
“You will join some of your friends aboard His Majesty’s frigate Sandwich anchored in the harbor.”
Marburg said, “She is a prison ship.”
“Who the devil are you, sir?” said the officer.
“Captain Marburg, sir”—he emphasized the rank—“of Major General von Huyn’s garrison detachment.”
The lieutenant moderated his tone. “You’re quartered here? I respectfully ask you not to interfere. I am carrying out the orders of Colonel Balfour.”
“Who else is arrested?” Tom Bell said. “I demand to know.”
“Lieutenant Governor Gadsden. Several judges and former privy counselors. I do not have the entire list.”
“They’re not going to take you out of this house,” Edward said.
“Go back to bed,” Tom Bell said in a calm voice. “I will survive this. I’m not afraid.”
As though it would be possible for Edward to sleep with his gut knotted and sweat running down his chest under his sticky nightshirt. Ten minutes later he and Marburg watched the redcoats march Tom Bell away into the rainy night.
Two dozen were arrested and confined aboard Sandwich. The prisoners were allowed visitors. Essie packed a basket of stewed chicken parts and bread. From Bell’s Bridge, Poorly rowed Edward out to the frigate. It was a dank, airless morning. Green swells in the harbor had an oily glint; they broke occasionally into white horses as a storm rumbled offshore and the wind picked up. Edward gripped the gunwales and tried not to fear the churning water.
Poorly stayed with the rowboat while Edward climbed the rope ladder with his basket. He found his father on deck, taking the air with Gadsden, Levy the upholsterer, and Danes the carpenter. Perhaps there had been secret, conspiratorial meetings of some Liberty Boys after all.
Edward embraced his father. “How are they treating you?”
“Decently. Whatever else you may say about our enemies, most of them are well mannered.”
“I’ll bring food every day.”
“It’s welcome. The gruel this morning was full of maggots.”
Christopher Gadsden stepped over to them. “Extra food won’t be necessary for long. I’ve been informed that we’re to be removed to the British fort at St. Augustine. There are more arrests to come.”
Sandwich raised sail and left the harbor before Edward could pay a second visit. Two days after the departure a military courier delivered an unexpected note.
Edw. Bell, Esq.
Sir,
I am informed that your father is among the dangerous traitors to be detained by His Majesty’s garrison at St. Augustine. In view of the gentleman’s insolence, and yours, when last we met, I have despatched an earnest request to the commandant in Florida that he show special attention to Mr. Bell. I wished to convey this information before leaving Charles Town to return to duty with my unit.
I have the honour to remain,
Yr. obdt., etc.
P. Venables
Major, British Legion
14
Joanna’s Vow
“I need your help.”
Edward spoke the words in the brick-walled garden of Esau Willing’s modest house on Elliott Street near East Bay. Intermittent rain had deluged the coast for days. The earth was soggy under his boots; leaves of three small umbrella trees still glistened. Beds of foxglove and snapdragon and their periwinkle borders had lost their blooms.
Joanna wore a threadbare muslin dress. He’d discovered her with dirt on her knuckles and the tip of her nose, happily digging up West Indian lantana and potting them for winter houseplants. He found her disarrayed state curiously appealing.
She laid her trowel aside, rose, and brushed off her skirt. “It’s yours for the asking, Edward.”
“I must get out of the city without a search. I’m leaving to join the partisans if I can find them. Poorly’s going with me. He asked to go, even though Sally’s expecting a child in the spring.” He described Venables’s threat against Tom Bell. “I can’t help him, but I can take a few pounds of flesh for him, and my mother. I’ve hesitated and vacillated too long.”
“What can I do?”
“I have to smuggle two pistols and a powder horn past the sentries. A woman would never be searched.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Ah. You want me to hide them under my skirts.”
“Yes, yes,” he stammered.
She clapped her hands and laughed. “Edward Bell, I have never seen you so r
ed faced.”
“Well, it’s a damned, um, rather delicate subject, speaking of a lady’s, um, clothing.”
“Haven’t you learned by now that I am not a conventional young woman?” He was conscious of their isolation in the walled garden. “I think it’s brave of you to go. Your visit to the workhouse can wait.”
“I went there, Joanna.” Her mouth rounded in a silent O. Quickly he added, “We’ll talk about it some other time.”
Raindrops began to patter the ground. “As you wish. I’ll take you through the gate and pray for you while you’re gone.” She laid her palm against his cheek. “I want you to come back to Charleston. You see”—she leaned close; her breath was warm as the rainy air—“I’ve thought and thought about you of late. Reached a decision too. I intend to marry you, Edward Bell.”
She threw her left arm around his neck and kissed him, pressing close to let him feel her slim body. Astonished and overwhelmed by the emotions she aroused, he held her tightly.
She drew away, gazed at him, appraising his reaction. He felt warm waves of pleasure and desire. He took her shoulders in his hands and kissed her again. The kiss was like a revelation of possibilities never imagined before.
The sky opened. They embraced in the downpour, not caring.
He assembled necessary supplies: blankets, his tin canteen, a wooden one for Poorly. Sally sewed two burlap sacks into a rough approximation of saddlebags. It wouldn’t do to arouse the suspicion of sentries by carrying real ones. The bags held smaller sacks of parched corn and dried peas.
The late-summer rains continued. Edward chose a stormy morning for departure, hoping thunder and lightning would be added distraction. Poorly kissed and hugged his tearful Sally. Edward drove the family’s two-wheeled cart to Elliott Street and there removed his pistols, holsters, and powder horn from the burlap bags. While he and Poorly looked the other way, Joanna hid them, then settled her skirts and picked up the reins. Edward sat beside her on the driver’s bench. Poorly dangled his long legs off the rear of the cart.