Forever Young Birth Of A Nation (85 page)

Ian and Cosette each explained their roles
in the long war as the others listened raptly to the details and
everyone thought it was so exciting that the two of them had been
members of the Culpers spy ring. The most exciting story was the
two assassination attempts on George Washington, who by now was a
figure known throughout Europe and other parts of the world. Ian
and Cosette omitted the fact that both attempts were made by
vampires, being as four of Ian’s former crew members present still
didn’t even know that Ian and Cosette as well as four others
present were vampires.

Later that night long after the humans were
all asleep, Ian and the others sat down in the parlor to visit with
Aimee. Ian said “What Cosette and I want to know is how you were
able to keep it a secret that you were coming here, Aimee. I talked
to you, Celine and Celeste every other day during the weeks you
were sailing here.”

“We didn’t know for sure if it would work,
but they made it happen.”

Looking at Cosette and the other vampires
present, Ian said “Every time I think I am finally getting used to
us talking to each other no matter where we are in the world, I
learn something else about it.”

Priscilla said “So you were talking with
Aimee and the family in Europe all the while she was sailing here
to be with us?”

Ian and Cosette nodded, smiling at
everyone’s astonishment as Li and Sophia grasped what had been
done. Sophia said “Oh my! Now that you say it…I never thought of
it, but it is true. Li, Aimee was talking to us also at times.
Don’t you remember?”

“Yes! Yes! We had no idea she was on a ship
coming here.”

Ian said “This makes me realize just how
gifted Celeste and Celine really are and I wonder how great their
powers really are. Who among us expected this turn of events?”

Later after they had separated, Oliver spoke
to Priscilla saying “Thank God that you were in that coven and we
met, Prissy.. What a wonderful evening and what a wonderful clan to
belong to! I love you so much.”

Impishly she looked at him, a saucy smile on
her face as she said “Then come over here and show me, Ollie.”

The following day, Ian put Oliver in charge
of the bank and sent both him and Priscilla to work while he took
the day to show everyone the grounds and later on, the land he had
bought to add to the place.

That afternoon after dinner, he saddled a
horse and rode to the Millhouse home to invite Thelma and Merriam
to dinner the next day. Aimee rode in his lap and the two talked
non-stop all of the way to the Millhouse home.

After introducing Aimee simply as ‘Aimee’,
he extended the invitation and urged them to bring both Laura and
Lucas. After accepting the invitation, Thelma knelt and took both
of Aimee’s hands. Looking up at Ian and back into Aimee’s deep blue
eyes she said “What a beautiful little angel you are. Whose child
are you, Aimee?”

Smiling sweetly, Aimee curtseyed again
perfectly and said “Madame is too kind. I was an orphan in France
until Ian and his family found me and took me in. By God’s grace, I
belong to all of them.”

Thelma smiled then, saying “What poise! And
what a well-turned young lady you are, Aimee. We are most pleased
to make your acquaintance, aren’t we, Merriam?” Merriam nodded as
she smiled sweetly.

Aimee said “Thank you Mrs. Millhouse.”

Smiling and kneeling down beside Thelma,
Merriam said “We do hope you will visit us while you are here,
Aimee.”

Curtseying yet again, Aimee replied with a
sweet smile “It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Davis.”

On the ride home, Ian said “That was
wonderful. You are as sweet and charming as you ever were, Aimee.
Those two women have been very kind to us. Cosette and Stuart lived
there with them nearly the whole time she was here trying to find
me.”

Aimee turned her angelic face up to receive
a kiss and then snuggled back against Ian saying “They are both
very sweet. I can tell already that I will like them. I really like
Stuart and Rebecca. May I stay here and live with you and
Cosette?”

“Why yes. Yes you may. We both would love
that. There is so much to see here in the new world. Stuart and
Rebecca would love to have you help them with their baby too. I
told them how good you are at that.”

“Do they know about me?”

“Not yet, but we will tell them when the
others have gone. It is not near as important a secret here as it
is in Europe.”

“I’ll help them, and I want to see
everything with you and Cosette.”

***

At dinner the next day, Stuart stood and
announced that Rebecca was with child, and that they were expecting
by early springtime. The weeks passed all too quickly and it was a
time of great joy for all. But the day finally came when everyone
had to say their goodbyes. Ian and Cosette promised to visit
Scotland when they came to Europe, which they had planned to do in
a year or two even before everyone arrived at New York.

Angus had long since unloaded all of his
cargo and had sent the ship to Yorktown to buy tobacco and cotton.
Since their return, they were now taking on a large load of iced
codfish and when it was loaded it was time to go, being as the
frozen fish had a finite lifetime.

So it was that Ian, Cosette, and Aimee
accompanied the others to Elsie’s Cloud on that last day. They
spent part of a morning with all before finally going down the
gangplank to the pier and waving goodbye as the ship cast off her
mooring lines and was towed out into the harbor by four longboats
with oarsmen rhythmically stroking the oars. After she was
maneuvered to where her bow pointed southeast, Angus commanded for
the tow ropes to be cast off and for all sails to be dropped,
followed by a series of ‘whump’ sounds. Quickly her sails filled
with the light westerly breeze and she gracefully made her way away
from the pier, moving out into the busy harbor and turning
southeast toward the harbor entrance, at the narrows. Ian watched
as the hands aloft nimbly made their way down to deck, all sails
now being deployed. A part of him envied them as he was taken back
to when he was younger and only desired to be on Elsie and out at
sea.

That evaporated though as would a faint
morning mist in the first breeze of a new day when he turned and
saw Cosette and Aimee both smiling at him. As he escorted them to
their carriage he thought
how blessed I am
as he picked up
Aimee and swung her to her usual perch on his shoulders. She
laughed with delight while putting on his tri corner hat.

***

The middle-aged Tory couple sat in the
Mercantile Bank of Savannah, both with sour looks on their faces as
they signed over their cotton plantation to an agent known only to
them as Mr. Arnold Moore. They were selling their place for
one-sixth of what it was worth with a cotton crop in the field and
trained slaves for harvesting it. It was not nearly the largest
plantation near Savannah, but it was still one with eight hundred
acres of good land and a really fine home of ten rooms with slave
quarters out back. Mr. Moore assured them that the property would
be well cared for by the new owner, a widow by the name of Juliet
Stearman. They knew that if they did not sell out, they risked
losing the place by fire, being that more than one of their Tory
friends had suffered that fate already. So like many other Tory
loyalists the Stillmans were faced with selling low and returning
to England and buying where prices were high.

They concluded their business and departed,
having already packed their belongings and being prepared to take
passage on the next ship bound for London or Liverpool. That their
future in their later years now looked bleak was evident in the
defeated way they departed. Their body language said it all really,
and yet they were only two of hundreds who knew that they could not
hope to live in America any longer for being known as loyalists. So
they went the way of many others who had dreamt of wealth and
comfort in America and now faced an uncertain future back in
England.

***

At the former Stillman plantation old
Lucretia saw a carriage approaching up the gravel drive between the
live oaks. It came to a stop at the front entrance and she opened
the door and came down the steps from the colonnaded porch to stand
waiting. The driver, a muscular looking man with dark hair and dark
eyes, with a pale complexion helped a fair-complexioned lady with
light brown hair and hazel eyes to climb down. The man turned to
her and said “You must be Lucretia. I am Mr. Moore and this is the
widow Stearman.”

Nodding with a bright smile Lucretia said
“Mawnin, Masta Moore. Mawnin, Miz Steahman. Your rooms be ready.”
The woman merely stared at Lucretia, raising her eyebrows a bit
saying “Hello, Lucretia.” in a low voice as she seemed to look
right through her.

Raising her voice as she turned around
Lucretia said “Rufus! Get your lazy self ovah heah and take these
bags upstairs right now. Hurry now! These folks got no time fo your
shufflin’ along.”

A husky boy of twelve years age separated
himself from a gaggle of black children peering around the corner
of the porch wide-eyed at the new arrivals. He ran to the carriage
and began to load himself with as many bags as he could carry while
Lucretia followed the two newcomers up the brick steps to the
porch. She nimbly stepped ahead of the two and held the door open
with a bright smile as the pair seemed to glide through the door,
both of them looking around. Rufus made his way past them,
struggling up the stairs with the suitcases and luggage as best he
could.

Lucretia noticed how the pair seemed to look
right through her and thought how curious their eyes looked. “Would
you like to see your rooms first, Miz Steahman, Masta Moore?”

“Yes.” said the woman in a low voice, so
Lucretia moved her considerable bulk up the broad staircase and
took the pair to a large bedroom overlooking the porch and
driveway. “This be your room, Miz Steahman.” she said as the woman
seemed to glide past her, looking about. Turning to Moreau Lucretia
said “Your room is just across the hall, Masta Moore, right ovah
heah.” She gestured toward the hall and an open door across from
the widow’s room. He passed through the door and looked around at a
spacious room overlooking the side yard of the house, looking past
a large flowering magnolia tree toward a large well-made barn some
two hundred feet distant.

Rufus came huffing and puffing into the room
with an armload of bags, putting them alongside the door and
turning to go down and get more of them. Moreau stood looking out
the window, saying nothing. Soon enough all of the luggage had been
carried to the two rooms and Lucretia said “I can start suppah any
time you likes.”

The woman glided from her room to the
hallway saying “That won’t be necessary, Lucretia. We will be
downstairs later to see the rest of the place. Please leave us
now.”

“Yes’m.” she said as she backed down the
hallway for a bit and headed back down the stairs.

The man walked to the woman and said “Well
June. We’ve done it. Here we are and not a soul knows who we really
are. Are you pleased?”

Smiling at him, she said “Why yes, Arnold.
This went well and you have done as you said you would.” She
thought
I will let you bed me now; perhaps even tonight. I know
that you want it, and truth to tell, so do I. It has been far too
long for me to be without lovemaking.

Looking at him then she said “When the
darkies have gone to sleep, we’ll hunt. Who knows what we may find
out there?”

“Well we know one thing for sure, and that
is that Ian McCloud will not find us here. But when we are ready
someday, we’ll find him, will we not?”

“We will. But not before we have enough help
to kill him this time.”

Ian found and bought several businesses,
being a brickmaking facility in New Jersey and a lumber mill
halfway to Tappan, as well as an import-export house in New York
with connections to many suppliers. All three businesses were
humming along at peak capacity as building and trade began in
earnest in New York City. He also bought a glazing plant near
Trenton, being as glass was an expensive and highly desirable
product, much in demand. All of the businesses excepting for the
lumber mill were formerly Tory-owned and therefore they were priced
ridiculously low. In spite of assurances of the British high
command that former Tory’s property rights were to be honored, the
smart ones were selling as quickly as they could while they could
sell at all. As things turned out in most cases they were right to
be fearful because later, some former Tory holdings were seized by
the various states to be sold for defraying wartime expenses, in
spite of assurances guaranteed in the Treaty of Paris.

The three of them had traveled to the land
of the Seneca and there, Aimee was a sensation, even more so than
anywhere else they had ever taken her before. There were few in the
village, even among the men who did not desire to touch her golden
hair. For her part, she was very interested in the ways of the life
of the Seneca people and found many playmates among their children.
Her two favorite places were the great waterfalls at the Niagara
and the small waterfall where Ian had built a rope swing a few
miles from the village. There she amazed the children of the
village with her fearless diving skills, having permission to show
off to her heart’s content. No doubt she was having the time of her
life roaming around the frontier with Ian and Cosette.

When they wanted some romantic time by
themselves, the two simply slipped away when Aimee was occupied
with the children of the village, which was a daily thing being as
the Seneca children were seemingly infatuated with her.