The Azaleas

By Paul Franklin

copyright  © 2010 Paul Franklin

May 1784, South Carolina.

     Anne Morrow stood at the railing on deck of the Portuguese three-mast schooner Canção do Vento (the captain had told her it meant Song of the Wind). All around her sailors were bringing in sails and stowing ropes in preparation for dropping anchor in the bay. The Atlantic, out of sight now, lay behind the ship, obscured by Sullivan’s Island to the north, and Morris to the south. Ahead, a pair of launches rowed out to meet them at anchor.

     Anne gazed out at the harbor side, buildings she remembered from her childhood were gone, others in the midst of rebuilding and even more completely new to her. The war with England had been particularly hard on Charleston.  Along with her mother and younger sister, Constance, Anne had spent the past eight years in Lisbon, away from their father and their home, which lay a day’s travel to the southwest of Charleston.

     After nearly a month at sea, they were almost home. The morning tide took them swiftly into the harbor and by mid afternoon they would be ashore. Would father be waiting for them?  At Christmas time, he has sent Anne and Constance both letters packaged in with one for their mother. Mama had read parts of her letter to the girls, how her husband had prepared the barouche to collect them from port in Charleston. Major Bowman would be awaiting their arrival. Did the girls remember, the major, their father’s adjutant? Of course he had only been a captain before the war. Anne did, as she was almost ten when they left America. Constance remembered only the pony rides he would take her on around the stable yard, since she had only been four.

     Now nearly twelve years old, all Constance had talked about on the voyage home was ponies. Would she be big enough for her own now? Would Captain Bowman still have to lead her horse? Anne’s letter had far more than news of ponies and carriages. Papa had remembered the last thing she had said to him when he saw them aboard ship in 1776, and done exactly what he had promised. She had kept the letter, a single sheet of parchment, folder neatly her rose and gold brocade Reticule, which had been a present from her father on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday. Each day of the voyage she had carefully removed it from the purse and read it though. With each word that she read, in her mind she heard her father speaking and could hear the joy in his voice that writing the words must have brought to him.  Anne wondered if her father’s beard, shot through with white strands when she last saw him, was still black at all.  

     “Anne, dear, come away from the side and let the men work. Captain Velasquez has sent for our baggage to be loaded. It is time for us to go ashore.” Her mother called to her.

     While Anne was lost in thought, the captain of the Canção do Vento had called for the anchor to be lowered and the ship slowly halted as it set against the anchor rope. Familiar accents called from below for permission to come aboard as the rowers stowed their oars. Anne reached a gloved hand into her purse, the letter was still safe.

     Mrs. Morrow and Constance were both dressed in similar fashions to Anne. Each wore polonaise gowns, which their dressmaker in Lisbon had assured them, were of the latest French fashion. Anne’s was hunter green embroidered with flowers in paler shades of green and red. Constance wore blue and grey brocade, as did their mother, although Mama’s was richly embroidered and each flower was embellished with pearls.

     Time rushed by, and Anne found herself perched on a bench in the middle of a launch, facing her sister and surrounded by trunks. Her mother was on the other small boat with Captain Velasquez. All around men were pulling oars and the shore was less than one hundred yards away now. All about the quay there were people and carts and horses going every direction. She could see from the look on her sister’s face that all of what they saw was new to her, that she didn’t really understand that she was coming home. Anne, however, remembered it all.

     In what seemed like only a few more minutes, the oarsmen had them pulled up to the wharf and were helping the two girls up the onto the rough planks of the dock. Ahead of them was the wooden ramp up to the stone quay at the edge of the city. Taking Constance by the hand she began to walk up the ramp, behind them a trail of bags and trunks followed carried by the long boats crewmen.

     When the two girls reached the top of the ramp, Anne heard a man calling their names.

     “Miss Anne, Miss Constance!” called a dark haired man wearing the uniform of a Major in the Continental Army (Anne corrected herself, now it was the United States Army). It was Thomas Bowman, her father’s adjutant. 

     “Welcome to the United States, ladies,” he said with a bow.

     “Thank you, Major Bowman, we are both glad to be home again,” Anne answered. Constance could only shyly nod. “Our mother will be here directly, she is still speaking with the Captain.”

     “My aide will bring your mother along when she has completed her business.  Your father has asked me to convey you to the Hotel Charleston for tonight. We will leave for the plantation tomorrow morning.”

     “Major, is it true that father sent the barouche to collect us? He said to mother that he would not use it until she came home.” Anne inquired.

     “Why, yes, that is the case exactly. The General requires that his family returns home in comfort.” Bowman replied as they began to walk away from the seaside.

     “And the other things he wrote to me about?” She took out the letter and carefully unfolded it, and then handed it to Bowman. He read it over.

     “Yes, your father kept his word on all accounts”

     “Captain?” Constance asked, tugging on the young officer’s sleeve.

     “It’s major now, Connie.” Her sister corrected. Bowman only smiled at the error. Constance spent the remainder of the short walk to their lodgings talking up a storm about ponies to the patient army officer.

     Morning came quickly, Anne found that she was far more tired than she expected and had retired early, leaving her mother, Major Bowman, Lieutenant Edwards (the major’s aide) and Captain Velasquez in the salon playing cards.

     At nine o’clock, Major Bowman led the three women out to the front of the hotel where the barouche pulled by two chestnut horses waited. Every last buckle sparkled in the morning sun, every wood surface shined. Even the top was new, a canvas of lily white. Behind it was a wagon loaded down by the three ladies luggage, with Lieutenant Edward on the driver’s seat. After helping Mrs. Morrow and the girls into the barouche, Bowman took up the reins and gave them a shake, the leather straps barely touching the horse’s backs. The two animals pulled smartly away. The final leg of the journey had begun.

     By lunchtime, they were rolling sedately through the country side beyond the bustle of the city. The caravan stopped briefly for a picnic lunch of roast chicken, fresh bread and apple pie all served by Anne from a large picnic basket. All around them the fields were a mass of bright yellow cotton flowers or bright greens of the fresh leaves on fruit trees. Anne wished they had been home early enough in the spring to see the cherry orchards in blossom.

     Then, when it was nearing four in the afternoon Major Bowman called to Anne to let her know they were drawing close to their plantation. She struggled to turn in her seat, as she was facing her mother and sister, who sat facing forwards. Ahead, she spied the tall oaks that lined the driveway to the manor house.

     With some nervousness, Anne took out the letter from her father and unfolded it for possibly the final time. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother smile knowingly. Clutching it in her gloved hands, she waited until she felt the carriage begin to turn before looking down at it.

     Anne read silently:

     It began “My dearest daughter, Anne,” she smiled as she read her father’s words.

     “It is autumn here now, and old man Wilcox, the gardener, who I am sure you remember, says that I may now safely plant the Azaleas that you and I set to soil some eight years ago now. The seedlings grew well and are now some five feet tall. Wilcox himself supervised their transplanting from the hillside to under the oaks in the driveway. They have done well resting over the winter and I am sure you will find the purple flowers to your liking when you return home in the spring time. I remember that particular color to be your favorite.”

     Looking out ahead of the horses, she saw between each Oak tree on both sides of the driveway a beautiful purple Azalea. Each one was a gift from Anne to her father and now a gift to her from him. In the weeks before General Morrow had sent his family to the safety of Portugal, his young daughter had planted a grove of azaleas on a rocky slope, in sight of the window under which he ate breakfast each morning. She had told him that they could remind him of her each day. And as she went to the ship to sail away from the war, he promised the purple flowers would be the first thing of home that she saw upon returning.

O Termo.