TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

ADAGIO - STAVE XXVII

S T A V E

XXVII

Elliot, in his spanking first issue: shoes blackballed and white leather chalked, dodging muck on his way to Elfreth’s Alley.

Odd – to see a single Guardsman, all pristine, negotiating traffic; they always come in herds with bands playing, and if not bands, then fifes and drums for the whole bloody street to give way and feel honoured for it. High-toned bastards. And this one, like some Macaroni late for a ball, better yet, a masquerade with that stone face. A bloody terror. God help the wench with whom he dances; she might as well stroke a bear and be eaten for it.

Not that Elliot cared, striding boldly like a Guardsman. So it was with his kind – what old bowed Pensioners would not stand ramrod straight to God Save The King? Even more so on this Sabbath with the Scripture reading: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away.” What he cared for Christ, he could not tell, but he longed for the New Creature.   

He checked the black ostrich feather in his pocket – that it hadn’t broke. What maid would not be pleased by such a present? And there was the ring.

Elfreth’s Alley was a narrow passage heaped with snow. “Libby Coffyn.” He said the name aloud and grinned till he thought of Obedience and a dark heat rose, she and MacEachran – good riddance. In the snow, footprints, a woman’s to the Coffyn house – Providence, and him a new creature.

He rapped on the door without hesitation which was opened by a Negro girl.

“Who is it, Rachel?” a man called from within.

She looked up, a prettiness he could not place and eyes that made him falter. “Who is it?” she repeated.

“Private Elliot,” he said softly so not to harm her, “of his Majesty’s Coldstream Guards.”

“Rachel?” the man asked again.

“A British soldier, Mr. James.” Decorous but not subservient, and Pure, untainted by Whiteness.

“Coming . . . Sir?” A short, stocky man, forced to look up. What surprise.

Elliot stiffened; did the gentleman not see? He’s the New Man.

Introducing himself again, he recounted his assistance to Miss Libby.

Mr. Coffyn stiffened. “I am aware. Do come in . . . for a few minutes. Rachel, fetch Miss Libby, please.”

Elliot, a duck of his head though the lintel was high enough and Coffyn allowed him little ground in the small front room.    

“Good Sabbath, Mr. Elliot,” Libby said, coming down the stairs. “What business brings thee here?”

Elliot bowed. “No particular business, Miss, other than to say, ‘hallo’ and inquire that You’re well.”

“I am well,” she said, anchored to the stairs. “Thyself?” 

The scar across Elliot’s face, to Coffyn’s eyes, glistened like a graveyard worm.

And Elliot with a disarming smile. “I am also well.”

“I’m glad – ” and stared as if she expected him. “Come and sit.”  

Coffyn stepped aside and Elliot unlatched the hatt-cap strap under his hair now grown back and queued in the grenadier’s fashion. “My apology coming unannounced, you must be occupied.”

“The Lord’s Day, Mr. Elliot, a day of rest and contemplation,” Coffyn said.

“It is. I’ve come from Church Parade and my duties for the day are finished.”

“Come then, sit.” Coffyn offered the bench in the front room.

“He shall come up to the parlour for tea as any good company,” Libby admonished in the best progressive manner.

In a comb-back chair that creaked like a suffering animal, Elliot sat. Before him were the second story windows overlooking the alley and the houses across the way jutted up into view so that if it were night and the candles lit, he may spy on the neighbours. And they too could spy on him with a porcelain cup in his meaty fingers. Behind him, a fire in a tiled hearth kept low and in secret as if procured on the black market, and Coffyn, with atypical chatter so Elliot might go: “. . . In the Dog Days, Philadelphia’s most unpleasant – Yellow Fever from that pestilent slue – all those tanneries. I should think, Mr. Elliot, that in Summer, Congress was done in – it baked their brains to sign that warrant. I tell thee, the Army would do better to withdraw before summer bakes them too.”

Elliot pestered the cuticle of his thumb.

Libby held her cup with both hands. “Let the cold begone. I’m done with it,” she said and launched into the story of Elliot and the blustery day. How much colder the wind in the telling, a vivid scene down to the crunch of snow. Her voice warm as was its nature, all to Coffyn’s apprehension. “And as I recall,” she said with care, “it was a momentous day for Mr. Elliot. That day he had an experience.”

“Indeed.” Coffyn eyed Elliot’s military dress.

The chair creaked. “I did.” His spine prickled and Libby smiled as if she could see it. “I did,” he said again, the cup midway between his chest and lip. Would the demon come out and throw him to the floor?

Coffyn nodded. “‘I believe there is a Spirit who delights to do no evil, a Spirit that yearns for us to be Happy.’”

Libby’s chaste beauty. Pretty, pretty girl – Elliot’s thoughts, wandering into darker places. And there she was stripped. All pretty girls know a man’s thinking. In his pocket the Ring and the girl on the floor with her finger missing – where he’d put it . . .    

“Mr. Elliot?” Coffyn asked.

“Sir?”

“Mr. Elliot?” Libby – like she’s received a Word – he’s in pain.

Elliot took his tea and they sat in thick silence, fire sputtering, drafts on his skin, the crash of his heart beating. In his ear, a high-pitched ringing – a sound made by light. Get thee behind me Satan.

“Christ breaks the power of sin so that man may never sin again,” Libby suddenly pronounced as if to make Elliot right . . . But not too right . . .

A minx, Elliot thought, but only in marriage. Dad senses it too. If she knew my mind, would she bolt from the room? Would the Blood cover me then? So say the Scriptures.  

“In Christ we’re made new,” he blurted, the words like smoke, clouding their vision. So strange to hear them from his ugly mouth. He took a sip from the empty cup and then another. “That’s what was said at Church Parade this morning.” He’d bite the tops of his knuckles if he could. Bloody-stupid-son-of-a-bitch-prick-bastard.

“Amen, Mr. Elliot,” said Coffyn.

The scar on Elliot’s cheek puckered as he could not repress a grin.

“Truth is transformational, Mr. Elliot, by Experience, by Service. There is something of God in every man; no one comes to him. What does he speak to thy heart?”

“Sir?”

“His Word. Now that thee has opened thy heart to God’s Spirit, will thee continue soldiering?”

Elliot frowned. “Why would I ever put it off?”

“‘Bellum omnium contra omnes.’”

“Sir?”

“Hobbs.”

Libby’s face burdened.

“‘A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it’.”  Now William Penn. “Do thee not now pursue Obedience?”

Elliot blinked.

“Obedience,” Coffyn repeated.

“Obedience?”

The comb-back chair screeched and Elliot stood precipitately. The empty cup jumped off the saucer to ring on the floor and break. “Oh – Oh –”

“Not to worry,” Libby said hastily. “It’s only a cup.” Cup indeed, her mother’s Worcester porcelain.

“We’ve another,” Coffyn said with veiled reluctance.

“No thank-ee.”

“Well, Friend Elliot, thank thee again for assisting our Elizabeth.” The visit terminated.

“Friend Elliot.” Libby with a smile of Agape. A virgin. “And where did thee go after?”

Such a question – like a woman. “The barracks.” 

“‘The barracks’,” she repeated. “Such dreadful weather, we should have bid thee come in. A lack of Charity,” she said to her father. “Thy pardon.”

The feather weighted his pocket. Can’t the old man leave? But he knows and sees Elliot’s crimes caked ‘round his fingernails like dried blood. Must Libby see it too? 

“Once again –” Coffyn stock still. “That this war end and return thee to the King.” 

“I will see Mr. Elliot to the door,” Libby asserted.   

Coffyn shook Elliot’s hand, and for a moment, felt the lives it had taken. He glanced at his daughter.

“I shall see him down,” she insisted.

They stood alone in the front room, the one place Libby should be safe, away from the dram shops, the stews and barracks. He took her hand and with the other in his pocket. A bold act, though she did not pull away. “I thought you might like this.” The ostrich feather. She stared. A tactile object. And then the ring. A delicate thing. Personal.

“Where’d you get it?” her weary response.

“I picked it up.”

A contrast, their hands, as the skin touched. She stammered, the Blood grown thin. “I cannot,” she whispered.   

But I’m a New Creation . . .  a goddamn New Creation.

He followed her like a dog to the door that creaked like a fortress gate.