What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Read online

  He had at least had wit enough to lay things out about him as he would on a righteous evening. Wash-hand stand, basin and pitcher were beside the headboard on one side, his own tinderbox with new flint and singed rag with which to light his pre-dawn candle on the other side. His clothes laid out at the foot of the mattress where he could reach them easily.

  And, That Thing.

  Satisfied that the end of the right stocking was well-padded with fresh wool batting and drawn snug against his stump, he pulled on his breeches, with the good leg and foot braced against the short bed-ladder, almost standing but not quite. Not yet.

  He had already managed a clean shirt, attained stuffing the tails into his breeches, and did up the buttons and buckles. Then, with a put-upon sigh, he at last reached for It.

  That Thing was, he had to grudgingly admit, a devilishly well-made appliance and a right handsomely decorated bit of carpentry. Though the militia surgeon had left him three inches of stump below the knee, he didn’t trust it, so the glove-leather-lined cup was deep enough to reach well above his right knee, like a dragoon’s knee-boot flap. The cup was of a handsome burl-wood, trimmed with silver inset wire and ivory. Below the cup it was oar-wood, solid and unyielding ash that tapered to a vaguely foot-shaped block which was long enough in the “toes” to give him better balance erect, some support in a custom-made off-side stirrup so he could still ride, and let him prop himself to the windward side of his little shallop even when going close-hauled down-river to Brunswick or New Inlet to fish.

  Still, That Thing was the most hateful device ever he’d laid his eyes upon.

  “Damned foolishness,” he muttered as he snugged the last buckle in place. “Then, and now. God, Harry,” he reiterated.

  It had been the dashing and rake-hell Harry Tresmayne of his one and only year away at Harvard College, who had stayed in touch as his father’s Philadelphia firm, Arnott Livesey & Son, was going under.

  But then it had been Corinthian, brothel-haunting Harry who’d almost ruined that one and only college year with the threats of expulsion; Matthew had gone home before the term ended, short of funds. Harry had been expelled!

  Yet it had been Harry who had lured him to the Lower Cape Fear country with his tales of Brunswick and Wilmington becoming the naval stores capital of the world, cheap land, cheap timber and a better life for him, his dear wife, Charlotte, and his two children. Harry Tresmayne who’d introduced them into Society and Trade hereabouts, and had steered him right the first few years to a modicum of comfort and financial security.

  Without Harry as a guide, they could never have made sense of all the factions, the clans, feuds and alliances; who was tied to the landgraves, “barons” and caciques who’d held power under the old Lords Proprietors; who of the original Goose Creek, South Carolina, families mattered now under the Royal Governor; and who supported him. And who could be trusted on credit, and who was “aristocratic” but penniless.

  But—there always had seemed to be a “but” whenever one discussed Harry Tresmayne—it had been Harry, too, who’d seduced Matthew into accompanying the local militia up north in the recent war, after that pleasant social organization had been called to arms. To serve, even as their commissary officer with the 2nd North Carolina Regiment, might gain him more social acceptance among the gentry and might gain Matthew Livesey, Chandlery, more custom once they were home again.

  Matthew Livesey was certain to the depths of his neglected Presbyterian soul that his crass, pecuniary motives had cost him his leg, that bright winter morning in the revetments facing Fort Dusquesne near his native Philadelphia. Greed, Pride—he’d been guilty of a whole slew of sins. And, he’d paid for his scheming, vaunting hubris.

  He’d gone forward with the salt-beef and biscuit rations, just for a glimpse of real fighting. As his sergeant and victualers doled out the day’s supplies, he had walked up to chat with the redoubtable Colonel Innes from his adopted colony, now in command of all of the Colonial Militia forces. Gay as spring robins, they’d been, especially after Harry—Major Harry Tresmayne—had come up, too, chortling over some new witticism he’d just heard, accompanied by Colonels Ashe and Waddell, and the young Virginian, Colonel Washington.

  A desultory bombardment had been thumping away from the guns of the British Royal Artillery all night, into the dawn. Perhaps the knot of staff officers had been a too-tempting target for revenge for those besieged French, for Fort Dusquesne had belched a few barks of ire in reply—their first of the morning.

  Round shot from hotter barrels might have reached them, but the salvo from cold iron tubes fell jeeringly short. But one round cannon ball had skipped or rolled farther than the rest; a twelve-pounder shot, it had been, four inches across, trundling across dun winter grass in playful little hops and twirls, spinning as harmlessly as a child’s ball at the end of a weak kick. And Matthew Livesey had thought to get himself a memento for his mantel, or a doorstop. So, he put out a foot in its path to stop it, oblivious to a chorus of warning shouts.

  Twelve pounds of solid iron, still rolling at a slow walking pace, had taken his foot off in a twinkling, shattered both the bones in his shin, and spun him head-over-heels, stupefied—into this Hell!

  But me all your buts ’bout Harry, Livesey thought as he got to his feet, wincing at the dull ache which would be his companion to the grave; ’twas Harry held me, stifling my urge to howl and un-man myself before the others. Harry who saw me to the surgeons and gripped my hands so I never uttered a weakling’s screams as they sawed that ruin away, even when I was near senseless from rum, fear and pain.

  But! It had also been seductively glib Harry who’d assured him he deserved a night out, a bought supper ’stead of home cooking, and a pipe or two among the excitingly rancorous political talk. And much too much claret, for a man old enough to know better!

  Sliding free of the bed’s support, Matthew Livesey assayed a few stiff-legged paces about his tiny bedchamber. He went to the one small window and threw up the sash, but it was still dark out, barely gray enough to espy the glint of the river sliding by in the sliver of view he had of Water Street. Warm as it would be this day, the morning was a touch cool, still, tanged with low-tide aromas, that particular stale-salt effluvia of a lowland seaport, much like his native Philadelphia. And it was humid, making not only his leg, but diverse other joints ache slightly. Matthew Livesey did not consider himself as old—not yet, pray God—still, what were these croupy twinges he felt lately?

  He stumped back to the wash-hand stand and basin to wash his face and comb back his long, unruly and wiry hair into a queue and tie it off with a bit of black silk ribbon. He peered into the smoky indistinct reflection of the small mirror.

  “Not too bad, consid’rin’…” he mused half aloud as he decided that his stubble could go another day before shaving. His hair was still thick, reddish blonde. And if it had receded, it had revealed a well-formed, intelligent brow. Perhaps his visage had widened and thickened, and furrowed a might, but what could one expect for a man who’d gone through so much … and was only four years shy of a half century, hmm? “No, not too awful a phyz. Better’n most.”

  He donned and tied his neck-stock, then hitched up another much put-upon sigh of resigned determination. It was time to put on his “Publick Phyz,” to go out and meet the day a steady and reliable man of means, a credit to his town and a joy to his family.

  Even if he did feel like the Wrath of God.

  “Hear him come in?” Samuel Livesey asked, eyeing the skillets with a famished dog’s longing. “Half-seas-over, he was. ’Least, when I come back in from caterwauling, I take my shoes off.”

  “Oh, Sam’l!” his sister Bess chuckled as she turned bacon with a long-tined fork. “You, Rake’s Progress? You sneak out your window! And the only reason you come back shoeless is you can’t remember where you left ’em. I’d love to see the day you go out the front door,” she snickered, turning from her chore to mimic him, hitching up a shoulder in a caricature
of Samuel’s meek stooping when confronting their sire.

  “Well, Father dear, I’m off to drink and scratch up Hell! If ya don’t mind, that is? Ooh, Father forgive me, do forget I said it!” She cringed as if switched. Samuel cringed, too—at the accuracy of her portrayal, and the idea of ever saying such. “Oh, don’t cane me so, I’ll be good!” Bess went on. “Not my ears, Father, don’t box ’em!”

  “Oh, bloody … !” Samuel grumbled, fed up with her mocking him. “I’m a man grown, Bess! Don’t see why I can’t, if he can. It’s not as if we’re so ‘skint’ any longer, either. ’Prentices and ’dentured servants get their nights off. Hard as I’ve been working lately … Oww!”

  He’d tried to sneak a strip of bacon off the serving plate, but Bess had rapped his knuckles with the side of the turning fork, leaving him only a tasty but greasy smear to suck at.

  “You’ll get your share, no more, no less, Sam’l,” Bess warned.

  “Hard as you’ve been working … spare us!” she went on, vexed at last. “How much work do you do at the sawmill or the tar-pots or the docks? When there’s hired men and overseers who know what they’re about? All you do is gawp and pretend. Dear Lord, I do allow a ’prentice clerk, fresh off-ship from England, could do better. And spare us victuals!”

  “We could marry you off to some piney-woods hog drover, and not miss you the slightest, either, Bess! And ne’er hear your venom, again!” Samuel shot back, wounded too easily, as he always was, by her tongue. “As far away as possible. It’s Livesey & Son Chandlery, now, ye know. I do my share, like he expects o’ me.”

  “Your share!” Bess groaned. “Sneaking off whole days to hunt or fish with that shiftless pack of hounds you call friends, when work is wanting,” she snapped, in full scold. “Lookee here, Sam’l, we’re not so well off yet, and what little ahead we are took hellish effort. Now it is Livesey & Son, he expects you, he needs you, to pitch in as hard as he does. To shoulder things, so he can have the rare night free. Pray God not, but should anything happen to Father, where’d we be if it becomes Samuel Livesey’s Chandlery? A little freedom from a camel’s load o’ cares isn’t a jot on what he deserves, after all he’s done …for us, Sam’l!”

  “I do all he asks,” Samuel sulked, spraddle-legged on a chair turned back-to-front. “I just wish … !” He choked on his own unformed wishes; on that very fear, of inheriting all the burdens; of living a life he knew he wasn’t cut out for. Samuel had known, since coming to Wilmington, and the edge of North Carolina Colony’s tantalising wilderness wonders, that what he wanted from life, and what was expected of him, would have a hard time coinciding.

  For a time, they’d had land, which they’d planned to farm, land where a beguiled Samuel Livesey had dreamt of hounds, blooded horses, spirited hunts and bushel baskets filled with fish, of crops ripening in orderly rows nigh to the horizon in fields he’d cleared himself.

  Samuel knew, early on, that he wasn’t quite his father’s son; he’d never been a prodigy at ledgers and accounts, felt imprisoned by sun-blocking shelves of goods and naval stores, and what ins and outs of business acumen his father had tried to instill in him made as much sense as conversing in nothing but Greek, from his hopelessly abandoned school textbooks. Nor did Samuel feel as glib and facile with clients or customers as his father, even as comfortable as Bess seemed to be, when she helped out at their chandlery. The second-hand allure of the sea meant little to him, either, when supplying the needs of far-roving merchant ships—but not taking part in visiting seafarers’ adventures—felt pointless and empty.

  Pray God! Samuel moodily thought; Acres, again! Jesus, just one middlin’ little farm! Then, the courage t’tell Father what I’d rather!

  How to say, someday, that he preferred the smell of manure, and cow barns, of haylofts and corn bins to hemp, tar, oakum and pitch!

  “I try, Bess, I truly do,” he sighed, feeling hangdog under her pointed stare—whether she was staring at him or not.

  “I’m sorry, Sam’l,” Bess relented, fearing she’d gone too far. “I wash for you, so I know how hard you work. You pitch in as manful as any hired hand. And the way you tend the garden, our flower beds, is a marvel, better than anyone could, so we’ve our own food on the table. Sorry for natterin’ you, so early in the morning.”

  She left the hearth to stand at the edge of the dining table by his chair and tousle his hair. “Father appreciates all you do, and so do I, Sam’l, but Lord … ’tis hard t’keep your mind on it, sometimes,” she concluded with a wry expression. “Here, mighty hunter … a bacon strip … Nimrod!”

  Samuel brightened and laughed softly as he took her peace offering, opening the mustard pot to smear it down to his taste.

  “One more good year, and we will have plantings again, Sam’l,” Bess assured him, turning back to the hearth to lift out the last bacon strip, and begin to crack eggs into the skillet. “A country house, and land …”

  “Pray God, let it be tomorrow morning!” Samuel said with heartfelt longing, as he got to his feet to transfer the plate to the table.

  Livesey & Son had not been a grand establishment before the war, not as big as some longer settled in the Cape Fear. They had moved to Wilmington in 1755, seven years before, when Samuel was twelve and Bess was ten. What could be salvaged of the Philadelphia chandlery had been little, after it had finally gone under. But it had bought a town lot and this small house, a shop and a warehouse on Water Street. There had even been enough for the sawmill and renderings on Eagle’s Island, in a borough where a little coin went a long way. And two hundred forty acres of bottom land on the Northeast Branch near Point Pleasant on the Duplin Road.

  But they’d done little more than clear it of timber, pine long gone for roofing shakes, lumber and barrel staves, before the French and Indian War broke out. Bess’s father had left his business in care of her mother Charlotte, assisted by a talented apprentice overseer, whose indenture contract they’d bought.

  And by the time he’d come home so cruelly wounded in ’60, that apprentice had run off to the Georgia Colony with a fair amount of the ready cash, and the damning ledgers he’d kept, which would have proved his duplicity, his low cunning at withholding monies owed and inflating sums paid out. Her darling mother had gone down with ague, taken abed with chills and fever that Dr DeRosset suspected was malaria. After lingering for days, she had died, and Bess’s father had been forced from his own sickbed, clumsy and swooning upon his first crude prosthesis, to sell or auction off almost everything, to sell plantings and hopes for landed respectability to save a failing business, just as he once had with his own father’s firm in Philadelphia, where she’d been born.

  For two frugal years, there’d been no hope of extras. Not one horse of their own in the yawning-empty stables, nor carriage, nor a single hired servant to help out. Two penurious years, Bess ground her teeth in embarrassing reverie, as she stirred the eggs a trifle harder than really necessary. Two years when food on the table, enough food to keep body and soul together, was almost a luxury, and ’twas signal times when it went beyond sweet potatoes, hominy, garden beans or peas, and actually included meat.

  That, and charity. Bess swiped at her unruly hair once more as she gave the eggs a furious spanking about the pan. Well meant though she was sure it had been, to be clucked over … ! To be talked about as if she wasn’t there, when the neighbor ladies had come from church or their own kitchens with gifts of food, simpering and purring, with all outward, seeming concern for a fellow Christian. Told that they’d cooked too much, and could you use it … knowing it was left-overs from the night before. Such usually would go to the chickens they cooped at the back of their yards, or slopped to their hogs!

  She’d come to dread those gentle raps on their door, those soft voices so full of pity. With her mother gone, and Samuel off with her father to learn the business, it had been her lot to keep the house in order, to receive their “callers”—and take their cast-offs: food, sometimes; articles of clothing
ready for the rag bin, that children or husbands had “outgrown,” at other times. She’d curtsied to her benefactors, cooed and simpered and purred right back, measure for measure, in feigned delight, and adopted their own liquid, flowing Low Country accent, her voice pitched just a tad higher and softer.

  When what she’d wanted all those two miserly years was to yell at them like a Philadelphia fishmonger’s wife, put up her nose high in the air and pridefully tell them all to go to the Devil!

  “Such a lovely young miss,” they’d cooed, “and isn’t it just such a pity … poor li’l thing?” Once they thought they were out of earshot. Behind her back in church at Saint James’s, or when she was out to market with her few scrimped coins. “Why, bless her heart!”

  Oh, things were better, now, Bess had to admit. They could not yet aspire to a matched pair of horses, or a carriage, but Father had restored a measure of their fortunes—and their respectability. Folk admired him for his persistence, and his modest success. Business now came to the chandlery more for his fair dealings than from pity. With a mere modicum of restored prosperity, Bess no longer got those pitying looks about town, no longer was cooed at and simpered at. Not to her face, certainly, and rarely behind her back anymore, she also suspected. It had taken time, but they had been re-accepted in Society’s bosom. All it took was time. Time, and money enough to make the proper show.

  Certainly, there’d never again be a hired apprentice, nor would there be indentured workers. Her father had taken on a few new workers—men he could trust who’d been small hold farmers, who’d also fallen on hard times—but their wages weren’t charity. Indentured folk were rare in North Carolina—leave that for Virginia, South Carolina or Georgia. Or slaves—not only were they horrendously expensive, far beyond the means of the Liveseys even now, even the price of a single house maid and cook to help her out—but as far as her father would go toward owning people was to contract other slave owners for labor gangs at their sawmill or at the tar, pitch, resin and turpentine renderings on Eagle’s Island across the river.