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

  Matthew Liveseyjoined them, plucking at the warm wool uniform he wore, and fanning himself with his cocked military hat. His eyes were still pink and moist with final tears.

  “Good day to you, Mr Livesey.”

  “Good day to you as well, Mr Burgwyn,” Livesey offered in kind. “Ma’am. I don’t recall you meeting my children before? Allow me to name to you my son, Samuel. My daughter, Elisabeth … Bess.”

  “A bold young lady, sir,” Mistress Burgwyn commented. “And an honest one. A credit to you, sir. And ajoy, I’m bound.”

  “I must have missed something?” Livesey shrugged hopefully. His generation didn’t approve of young ladies anywhere near “bold”! But a quick recital of events reassured him, and he beamed approval at Bess, of her sentiments and her bravery, as it ended.

  Good-byes were said, and a vague invitation offered as they bowed or curtsied, then the Burgwyns were off down Market Street on the short walk to their in-town residence, and the Liveseys were left to make their own way home.

  “How dare anyone scoff, or speak ill of the dead?” Bess asked in a huff. “Of anyone barely in the ground, not just Uncle Harry! I should think, at a funeral at least, people might set aside their grudges. Granted, Mr Tresmayne … Uncle Harry, rowed them beyond all temperance by championing the common folk, but surely …!”

  So like dear, departed Charlotte, Livesey was pleased to admit again; the same upright furrow between her brows, a tiny departure from placid perfection that only someone familiar with her, or her angers, would ever detect. Or know for what it was.

  “He was building a constituency, Bess,” Livesey told her. Bold young ladies might be disturbing to him, but ignorant women were a deal worse in his estimation, so he was open with her. “I think he’d begun before the War. Perhaps even as long ago as Harvard. Then, there were things we experienced up north. Hmm, let us say we Colonials, not just militia forces, were poorly regarded at best by people out from England, officers or rankers alike. Top to bottom, there was an arrogance from them. Open signs of our … inferiority.” He smiled briefly.

  “The same sort of arrogance our ‘barons’ display here, Father?” Bess inquired, lifting an expressive brow. Yes, her mouth had curled up at one corner, Livesey noted,just like Charlotte’s used to.

  “Exactly so,” he replied with a sardonic grin of his own.

  “So it was most opportune … for someone … that Uncle Harry died, before any up-start constituency could arise, is it not?” Bess asked. “Was faction the reason for his death, do you think, Father?”

  “Dear Lord,” Matthew Livesey groaned. He was still having devilish trouble accepting the fact that Harry Tresmayne had been killed, and had been thinking more along Ezekiel Moseley’s line: a random murder by a scoff-law or highwayman. Yet if faction, and politics, and expanding the franchise by lowering the land and property values necessary to qualify as a voter, or the minimum yearly income requirements—or legislating a two-shilling poll tax instead of the present five or six shillings—was the motive, then the murder of Harry Tresmayne was even fouler a deed than mere robbery or hot-blooded anger.

  Christ save us, Livesey gloomed, getting a chill as he imagined that one of the aristocratic planters who had just left the funeral, and had wept a dram of “crocodile tears” in public, was secretly a murderer! Or had paid some dock worker, shipyard or sawmill bully-buck to do it! The actual murderer might have come riding postillion, as coachee, or “catch-fart” valet to his master, to gloat over his crime!

  “That could be why, Father,” Samuel ventured to opine. “It was his enemies did him in, to keep their control, surely.”

  “It does bear thinking about,” Matthew Livesey grudgingly rejoined. “But … I adjure you … both of you,” he said, drawing them to a halt. “Some things might best be held in the mind, but never said in public. If powerful men would stoop to such a dastardly deed … and mind you, I only said ‘if … then those who speak such suspicions might draw the same sort of attention upon themselves. An excuse to a duel for you, Sam’l.”

  “I’m not afraid, Father, of any …”

  “Do you heed what I say, lad!” Livesey stormed up, taking his son by the shoulders. “Until it’s proven, and indictable in a court of law, it’s a rumor, an ugly rumor. Sheer, spiteful gossip, and calls for a defense of one’s honor, even from an innocent man. And if true, but unprovable, a reason for whoever had it done to send a pack ofhellhounds to silence the accuser.”

  “Or cause whoever did it,” Bess wondered aloud, “to become so careful and guarded, they could never be discovered?”

  “Bright lass!” Livesey nodded in continuing agreement. “So you will not bruit this about. Cleave your tongues to the rooves of your mouths, hear me? Don’t mention this to anyone. And if somebody else does say it, you do not have to pipe up and agree with ’em! Have you understood that, Sam’l?”

  “Yes, Father,” he replied in a small, chastened voice.

  “And you, Bess? You’ll guard your … bold … thoughts for me? Just this once?” He frowned, though with less fear for her discretion.

  “I will, Father,” she swore.

  “Good,” he relented, with as much peace of mind as a father could rightly expect. “Another reason, beyond safety, is that we’re not so long in the Cape Fear that we’ve call to accuse people we don’t know well. And … venal as this may sound to you … we live or die on the good will, and custom, of our neighbors. Perhaps of the very people, or person, who might… Lord!” He realized at once. He might have had dealings in past—might deal this very afternoon—with his friend’s murderer! The idea gave him a queasy chill under his heart. “Forgive me, it does sound venal and low of me! Oh, how I wish we were landed again, so we could close up and retire to the country until Harry’s murderer is found. If it is one of our own customers, I don’t know how I will be able to live with the idea of trading with the … with him.”

  “They could ruin our business, by withdrawing their custom?” Bess summed up with a cool logic, though posing it as a question so she didn’t sound too interfering. “But to close upjust when all the ships are returning after winter, for fear we might be tainted, would that not be ruinjust as certain, Father?”

  He looked at her sharply, one eyebrow raised.

  “Forgive me, I know ’tis none of my concern … you and Sam’l are the men of the house, after all, but…” She blushed. Damme, she thought, now I’m beyond “bold”—I sound like a mercenary harridan! And a heartless one! God, take my tongue out by the roots before I do something horrid with it!

  “It would be foolhardy, yes,” Mr Livesey gloomed. “Do nought for Harry’s memory … look like cowardice on my part… and ruin our hopes for the future. No, much as it pains me … life … and business, must go on. We’ll all have to keep mum … wear a fool’s face like a ‘Merry Andrew.’ Else we lose all we’ve built back up, and have to start over somewhere new again. And I don’t know as how I could.”

  “You could do anything, Father,” Bess assured him, wishing to cheer him. And atone for her previous comment.

  “Well,” Mr Livesey sighed. “Back home. A cold collation, a change of clothes. Then back to work. Heartsick or not, there is business doable before sundown. We’ll take a day o’ rest of a Sunday.”

  Chapter 7

  BETWEEN HARRY TRESMAYNE’S Wednesday burial and the Sabbath, little Wilmington stirred like an anthill with rumor or speculation. What Matthew Livesey had warned his children never to speak of was thrown up to him across his sales counter daily! In ordinaries or taverns, or the lone coffeehouse, men of every social stripe kicked their heels over claret, or cheap persimmon beer, and winked grimly to each other as they imparted their particular slant on the murder.

  Some thought Arthur Dobbs, the Royal Governor, who presided over the colony at his manse—Russellborough—down-river near Brunswick, had ordered Harry killed to squash the so-far small group of independent-minded thinkers who chafed at far-off London’s di
sdaining, lordly grip on them.

  There were others less canny who thought Dobbs responsible for it. But they were the ones who were rock-ribbed certain that Dobbs’s recent engagement to a fourteen-year-old girl, young enough to be one of the seventy-two-year-old dodderer’s granddaughters, a sign of such licentiousness that God would hurl a bolt at Wilmington again. They were also the same who thought that the New Inlet hurricane, comingjust days after the announcement of George the Third’s coronation, was His mark of Holy Wrath against the whole sinful Hanover royal line!

  Common folk and humbler men whispered that Harry, their paladin, had been done in by the rich and powerful, and the Ashe, Ramseur, Lillington, Howe and Moore names were cited often—and none too charitably, either. There was darker talk, too: of midnight vigilance meetings, of gathering weapons so armed men might find a way to exact justice, or of issuing some vague new Magna Carta for the Cape Fear against the barons and the landlords.

  Constable Swann was in a bad way. No one could understand his freeing the Negro, yet doing nothing to solve the murder, as if those in power held him in check. Yet those in power harangued him to solve it quickly before those rumors of riots became real!

  And there were some—the callous or the calculated—who didn’t think that politics had been the reason at all. They winked and snickered lasciviously in speculation over exactly which outraged husband, father or jealous lover had killed Harry Tresmayne for topping his wife, daughter or amour. Which usually led to the much more interesting topic of which woman, or women, were prim as Prudence in their parlors, but secretly wanton and abandoned in Harry’s embrace.

  Damme, Matthew Livesey was forced to swear to himself in rare abandon of his own, as he watched the turmoil simmer, now there are some as wish to blame Harrys … inability to master himself… Livesey termed it charitably … as the reason for his murder! As if he’s to blame! Merciful God in Heaven, was he not the victim?

  Matthew Livesey had always lived a fairly mundane, circumspect life. His parents and grandparents had seen to that, with a rectitude worthy of Quakers, Puritans or Dissenters. Had they been on Earth in Cromwell’s time, they’d have cheered his Round Heads! The Liveseys had been Lowland or Border Scots in the hallowed past, Presbyterian or Calvinist, ‘til their branch had been seduced to resettle in Ireland as the Scotch-Irish, had even dabbled with the Church of England, before emigrating to the Colonies.

  Despite the usual schoolboy capers, Livesey’s life had been one of unremarked civility and probity … ‘til he’d done that part-year at Harvard, of course, and had fallen in with the irrepressible Harry Tresmayne and some other like-minded Southern scholars. Right, Harry had been a wastrel in their mutual youth, who’d come back to their lodgings or the lecture halls still reeking of the past night’s pleasures.

  And it still made Livesey cringe to remember that he had gone out cavorting with Harry a time or two, seduced to Folly, expecting to gawp in proper Christian terror of what he might discover, then found that late evenings, music and song, wine, beer and strong spirits at-table with clever, witty fellows didn’t seem like damning Mortal Sins! And if Livesey could never bring himself to partake in the fleeting pleasures of chambermaids or brothel inmates, no matter how alluring or coy they’d beguiled him in the taverns, Harry had never pressed him to it, would only go off with a wink and a smile, and a girl on his arm, and never made Livesey feel less a boon companion for staying behind, and called him “Saint Augustine,” as if marvelling at his restraint! In like wise, Matthew Livesey could never bring himself to feel revulsion for Harry’s youthful indiscretions, his breezy explanation of “gather ye rosebuds while you may,” nor had he ever chaffered him about them as a dutiful Christian ought to chide the misled. For he and Harry were, in all other respects, as alike in intellect, in scholarly pursuits, in politics, in the deeper sentiments as “two peas in a pod” and were, inexplicably, seemingly destined to be friends as dear as soul mates, evermore. They simply had different ways of going about things!

  Livesey could see where Harry had gotten it, once they had come to the Cape Fear, for the region was licentious, its young girls what they called “obliging” or “round-heeled”—and notjust the lower sorts, either. The frontier, perhaps the warmer climate, so different from New England, enflamed the hotter humors of their blood, so that even the best families had their scandals, their secretjades and open rake-hells, their sword-point weddings and suits for support of unexpected offspring! At least in North Carolina, some wags chortled, it was white men and white women who cavorted. Up to patrician Virginia, or grandee South Carolina, Lord … any combination was possible, usually involving “refined” white misses and stable hands, or scions of wealthy “nobles” caught atop a house slave … or a fetching female cousin!

  Right, Livesey thought; Harry had returned from Harvard, after his expulsion, to such a heady stew of hedonism. And, granted, Harry had more than likely been “free” among the local girls … before his first marriage, of course. Harry Tresmayne had ever been a comely fellow, tall enough, slim enough, and had always cut an air of roguish good cheer and romantic-but-dangerous allure that was all but patented to make any woman swoon. He rode well and hard, hunted and fished, gambled close and deep, and had the luck of the devil. He also could dance, converse, spin tales so enchanting …

  But, Matthew Livesey thought, he’d married in his late twenties, as a fellow should—one of the Sampson girls, of a good family. Harry had made his own, and her dowried, plantings the envy of the region.

  But there had been no issue from his twelve-year union with his late wife, Priscilla, Livesey realized. But again, he thought, in the two years that he had seen them together, as close to his own family as cater-cousins, had he ever seen Harry treat Priscilla with anything but doting and intimate affection? He thought not! And in her long illness, Harry had been by her side, sleeping and awake.

  But… a year after her death, when glib Harry had lured Matthew north with him in the 2nd Regiment, their line of march had been strewn with camp followers, laundry girls, outright whores or those lovely-but-neglected “grass widows” who had borne the second heir for their husbands and were now relegated strictly to housekeeping roles, while the husbands—their duty to continue their lines over—dallied with younger mistresses for pleasure, not obligation.

  As he had at Harvard, Harry had come to the officers’ mess at dawn as fagged as his horse, almost every morning. And if he slept in their tent lines, or alone, it was a rare evening.

  Yet, he had come back to Wilmington a little before Matthew had been able to travel, after the militia forces were disbanded, and had married almost at once. And married deuced well, too, Mr Livesey thought! Georgina was one of the most beautiful women of the Cape Fear settlements, fifteen years hisjunior, and had brought him even richer, more fertile acreage. After selling off some, and combining hers and his, he had founded Tuscarora, over three thousand acres of rice, cotton, tobacco, corn, hemp, indigo and timber-stands northwest of Wilmington on the far bank of the river.

  Even in his pain, and his grief, Matthew Livesey had rejoiced for his friend Harry. He was once more settled, after finding himself again, with a lovely and accomplished younger wife. Harry had been outwardly fond, almost doting, towards Georgina, to the amusement of some, and the envy of others.

  Matthew Livesey did not wish to think ill of the dead, but… had Harry not been able to master his penchant for fleshy diversions? Sordid as it was, would that be Harry’s legacy—to be remembered as an adulterer? Would people still titter ten years hence whenever they recalled him? God forbid! Livesey thought.

  That Sunday, Constable Swann was no closer to discovery, and it had come to prey on Livesey’s mind something sinful. Keeping his own thoughts to himself all week had vexed his patience, too. And, he had had another bad night. There had been little pain in his stump, but a disturbing dream had plagued him. Just a tiny snippet of a dream, but one which had brought him up short, waking with a horrif
ied gasp, soiled and dishonorable. And made Livesey’s Sabbath a shameful sham.

  He had dreamt he was dining in a grand house, a rich house, one filled with art and books, and furnished fine as a duke’s palace. He had sat at a polished cherrywood table long enough for twelve, with a lace runner down the center, set with compotes and servers of gleaming coin-silver. Sterling candelabras burned expensive bees’ wax candles, not his usual tallow or rush dips, and everything glowed honey-gold.

  He had dreamt Samuel sat to his left, dressed in silks and satin, under a powdered wig, conversing most wittily about John Locke and Voltaire with equal ease.

  Bess had been on his right in a gleaming white sack gown awash in fripperies, adrip with strands of pearls, and a heavy gold necklace, bracelet and earrings set with stones which matched her eyes.

  At the end of the table, where a hostess would sit, where a wife would preside, was a woman who’d made the dream-Livesey flush warm in his chest with affection and pride.

  He had dreamt of Georgina Tresmayne!

  Her intriguing, green cat’s eyes fluoresced in the candle flames, entrancing him, drawing him in. Her lips parted, and her perfect white teeth were bared as she laughed at some witticism he had made but could not recall, as she gazed at him so fondly. Livesey was drawn closer, flying inches above the table runner, snaking around compotes, wine bottles and steaming made dishes, as if people could aviate at will, as easily as a mesmerized gnat!

  Then, without knowing quite how he had gotten there, he had been seated on the side of a high bedstead, one of luxurious goose-feather mattresses and fine-loomed cotton sheets, not his normal scratchy linen, or cotton-waste stuffed pads. He could still recall the feel of heavy silk against his thighs from the bedgown he had dreamt he wore.

  And there was Georgina, kneeling before him! In a retiring gown of her own so translucent only a husband should ever see. And she was massaging his stump. And he sighed with pleasure at her gentle touch as she took away his constant dull aching. Kissed it and took away all his shame for once. And made him swoon with arousal.