Chapter 9 #2
“Ah. Only distantly? And yet you raise him as your own. How magnanimous.” Lady Keebles leaned forward and reached out to rest her thin, bony hand briefly on Hero’s knee.
“But you must get busy giving your lord a second son. It’s so important, especially for a woman in your situation.
” She sat back. “Fortunately, Sir Peyton’s estate was not entailed, so while Gil’s sisters and I are left bereft of Gil’s protection, we have not found ourselves cast out into the world, homeless and virtually penniless.
The author of Pride and Prejudice showed only too well what a calamity that can be, didn’t she?
” The widow paused, her head falling back as she gazed in silence at the giant canvas above the mantelpiece.
“The General engaged Reynolds to paint that immediately after his return from the colonies, you know.”
Hero shifted around so she could look up at the massive portrait.
Reynolds had painted his subject in the uniform of the British Legion, wearing a dark blue coat with black cuffs and collar, white breeches, and a plumed Tarleton helmet.
The composition was striking, with Keebles portrayed in the act of dismounting from his rearing horse against the swirling, smoky chaos of the battlefield behind him.
“All together he spent nearly six years in the colonies,” the widow was saying. “Mainly in New York and the Carolinas. It was in the Carolinas that he was wounded, twice: first at the Battle of Waxhaw Creek, and then again at Yorktown.”
Hero looked over at her hostess in surprise. “He was at Waxhaw Creek?”
“Yes, with Tarleton.”
Hero found herself looking again at the harsh-faced, powerfully built man in the painting.
What the British called the Battle of Waxhaw Creek was known in America as Buford’s Massacre.
In May of 1780, a cavalry force under Banastre Tarleton overcame a detachment of colonials, who raised the white flag of surrender.
But the British simply mowed them down, ignoring the white flag.
Not only was the incident a dark stain on Britain’s honor, but it had ugly repercussions, for shortly afterward, at the Battle of Kings Mountain, the Continental Army slaughtered the surrendering British forces in revenge.
Hero found herself searching for something to say and finally settled on “You must have been very glad to have him come home.”
“Yes,” said the widow. “He always hoped his son would follow in his footsteps, but Gilbert never had any interest in the Army. Sir Peyton was naturally disappointed, but frankly, I was relieved. I wanted to keep Gilbert safe in England, away from the wars.” Her voice wavered, and she brought up one hand to press her fingertips against her trembling lips. “Except he wasn’t safe, was he?”
Hero reached out to take the free hand of her mother’s old friend in hers. “I’m so sorry I had to ask you to talk about this. I know how hard it must be for you to think about.”
Her eyes swimming with unshed tears, Lady Keebles squeezed Hero’s hand in thanks. “Dear Hero. So sweet. But I think about it all the time, you know—every moment of every day. How can I not?”
It was shortly afterward, as Hero was leaving Lady Keebles’s house, that she ran into one of the widow’s five surviving daughters on the front steps.
A tall, vigorous, practical-minded woman with honey-colored hair and even features, Hannah—now Mrs. Allen Stevens—was about Hero’s age, and Hero had always liked her.
“Hero!” said Hannah, her face brightening. “Have you been to see Mother? How very kind of you. Amy tells me she’s in a tizzy over what happened to Marcus Toole.”
“Yes, and I’m afraid it’s churned up the worst of her grief over your brother’s death all over again. I’m so sorry.”
Hannah was silent for a moment, her lower lip caught thoughtfully between her front teeth, before saying, “She’s not nearly as upset as she likes to put on, you know.
I mean, I won’t deny that Gil’s death has shocked and saddened her, but the truth is, she never really liked him much.
She always resented the way my father favored Gil so blatantly over the rest of us, spoiling him absolutely rotten.
‘My only son,’ he was always saying. As far as the General was concerned, we girls might as well not even have existed.
And Gil, well, I think he always sort of knew how Mama felt.
He let her continue living with him after he came of age because it suited him to have her running the house for him as an unpaid housekeeper.
But he wasn’t very nice to her, and she was terrified he was going to marry soon and make her move out.
Her portion isn’t large, so she would either have had to take some dreadful small cottage in the middle of nowhere or else come live with one of us—which, frankly, no one wanted.
” She grimaced, then added, “But with Gil dead, the house will now be hers until she dies.”
Hero studied her friend’s open, frank face. “Has she told you she thinks Friedrich Accum killed Gil?”
“Oh, yes; she’s been saying that for weeks to anyone who’ll listen.”
“Do you think she could be right?”
“I doubt it, although I won’t deny that what they did to that poor man’s house was awful, and they didn’t care. They thought it was funny.”
“Who do you think killed Gil?”
Hannah shook her head. “I have no idea. I mean, you knew him. He simply wasn’t a nice person, was he? And neither was Marcus Toole. They’ve been doing horrible things to people and getting away with it for years.”
“Horrible things like—what?”
“I don’t know too many details,” she admitted.
“The truth is, I’m only reading between the lines of some things Allen has said—you know what husbands can be like.
A month or so ago he was going on and on about a piece published in one of the Radical journals attacking Gil and his friends.
By initials, of course, rather than by name, but it was perfectly obvious who they were talking about. ”
“Do you know which journal?”
Hannah shook her head again. “No. Allen didn’t tell me.
I gather some of what the writer was complaining about was the sort of thing many young bucks get up to when they’re first on the town, but not all of it.
And Gil was twenty-seven, not eighteen or nineteen.
For some time now—before he was killed—I’d had the sense he was getting worse instead of better, and it worried me—even before I heard about the article. ”
“Did your mother know? About the things he was doing, I mean.”
Hannah met her gaze. “I honestly don’t know. She might have. But you know Mother: Even if she did, she would never admit it.”