She shrugged a little. “I met Major Ferguson once. A small, pale Scottish creature with a crippled arm. Very intense, though, with those sort of pale gooseberry eyes.”
“I suppose he is. Intense, I mean. Sir Henry sent him out to collect Loyalists for a provincial militia, and I understand he’s done quite well. His Loyalists fought with Major Tarleton’s troops to take Monck’s Corner—and that cut off the main line of retreat for the Americans. So then—”
Before he had told them all he’d heard, the table was a wreck of empty plates, spilled saucers, and lines of sugar, pepper, and salt, illustrating the movements of Clinton’s army.
“And so Charles Town fell, day before yesterday,” William ended, slightly hoarse from talking. “Lincoln had offered to give up the city three weeks before, if his men were allowed to walk out unharmed. Clinton knew he had the stronger hand, though, and kept up the bombardment, until Lincoln finally surrendered unconditionally. Five thousand men, they said, all taken prisoner. A whole army. Is there more tea, please, Moira?”
“There is,” she said, getting ponderously to her feet. “But if it was my choice to make, son, I’d be gettin’ out the fine brandy. Seems as though such a victory’s deservin’ of it.”
This notion passed by general acclamation, and by the time Lord John arrived home, well past midnight, there were no more clean glasses and only an inch of brandy left in the last bottle.
Lord John eyed the shambles of his sitting room, shrugged, sat down, and, picking up the bottle, drained it.
“How are you, Papa?” William had stayed up, leaving the women to make their separate ways to bed, and had sat by the fire, thinking. Sharing the general glow of the victory, to be sure—but envious, too, of the men who had won it.
He missed the camaraderie of the army, but more than that, he missed the sense of shared purpose, the knowledge that he had a part to play, people who depended upon him. The army had its strictures, and not inconsiderable ones, either—but by contrast, his present life was shapeless and lacking … something. Everything.
“I’m fine, Willie,” his father said affectionately. Lord John was plainly exhausted, held up mostly by his uniform, but clearly in good spirits. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”
“Yes, of course.” William got up, and, seeing his father put his feet under him but then hesitate as though uncertain what came next, smiled and bent to hoick Lord John out of his chair. He held on to his father’s arm for a moment, to make sure he was steady, and felt the solid warmth of his body, got the smell of a man, a soldier, sweat and steel, red wool and leather.
“You asked whether I might consider buying a commission,” William said abruptly, surprising himself.
“I did.” Lord John was swaying a little on his feet—clearly the inch of brandy just consumed was only the icing on his evening’s cake—but his eyes were clear, if bloodshot, and met William’s with a quizzical approval. “You should be certain, though.”
“I know,” William said. “I’m only thinking.”
“It’s not a bad time to rejoin,” his father said judiciously. “You want to get in before the fun’s over, I mean. Cornwallis says the Americans won’t last another winter. Bear that in mind.”
“I will,” said William, smiling. His own level of intoxication wasn’t much below his father’s and he felt a warm benevolence for the army, England, and even my lord Cornwallis, though he normally considered that gentleman to be a tiresome nit. “Good night, Papa.”
“Good night, Willie.”
THE BEGINNING OF a battle is usually much better defined than its ending, and even though Charles Town concluded with a formal and unconditional surrender, the aftermath was, as usual, long, drawn out, complicated, and messy.
The flood of dispatches did not abate, though the ratio of excitement to tedium dropped considerably. More parts of the Savannah garrison were indeed carved off and sent north—but to guard prisoners and escort them to prison hulks or other insalubrious quarters, rather than to join in glorious battle.
“At least at the end of our siege, Lincoln took his army off with him,” William remarked to his father and uncle. “Less to tidy up, I mean.”
“Took them off north so Cornwallis could bag them all, you mean.” Uncle Hal was inclined to be snappish, but William had been around soldiers for the majority of his life and recognized the poisonous slow sapping nature of tension that could not be discharged in a good fight, resulting in prickliness and disgruntlement.
“At least Ben wasn’t there,” Uncle Hal added, in a tone that made Papa look sharply at him. “Save me having to shoot him myself to keep him from being hanged.” One corner of his mouth jerked up, in an apparent attempt to make this sound like a joke. Neither his brother nor his nephew was fooled.
A muffled gasp from the door made all three men glance round, to see Amaranthus in her calico jacket and straw hat, she having evidently been out. She had a hand pressed over her mouth, either to keep from saying whatever she was thinking—or perhaps to keep from vomiting, William thought. She was white as one of Lord John’s porcelain figurines, and William moved to take her arm, in case she was about to faint.
She took her hand away from her mouth and let him lead her to a chair, giving Uncle Hal a horrified look as she went. He went a dull red and cleared his throat with a strong harumph.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, unconvincingly.
Amaranthus breathed for a few moments, her bosom stirring the folds of her pale-blue fichu. She shook her head slightly, as though rejecting the advice of an angel on her shoulder, and clenched her gloved hands upon her knee.
“Do you truly mean you would prefer him to be dead?” she said, in a voice like cut glass. “Is his being a traitor more important than his being your son?”
Hal closed his eyes, his face going blank. Lord John and William exchanged uneasy glances, not knowing what to do.
Hal grimaced slightly and opened his eyes, pale blue and cold as winter.
“He made his choice,” he said, speaking directly to Amaranthus. “I can’t change that. And I would rather have him killed cleanly than captured and executed as a traitor. A good death might be the only thing I still could give him.”
He turned and left the room quietly, leaving no sound but the hissing of the candles burning behind him.
WILLIAM WAS DRESSING to go down for breakfast the next morning when a frenzied pounding on his door interrupted him. He opened it to see Miss Crabb in her wrapper and curling papers, holding Trevor, who was in a red-faced passion.
“She’s gone off!” the housekeeper said, and shoved the howling child into his arms. “He’s been bellowing for nearly an hour, and I couldn’t stand it, I really couldn’t, so I went down and found this!” He hadn’t a hand to spare, but she waved a folded note at him in accusation, then stuffed it between his chest and Trevor, unwilling to suffer its touch any longer.
“Er … you’ve read it?” he asked, as politely as possible, shifting Trev to one arm in order to pluck the note out of his shirtfront.
The housekeeper puffed up like an angry, if scrawny, hen.