Celia’s Blue Spring

“It is not easy being a bastard.” Celia slowly turned from the snide ladies and strolled toward the sideboard in her most regal posture.
A gentleman she recognized pointed at the libation tray, “A refreshment would be in order.”
“Our servant shall see to same,” Celia defiantly replied. She wanted to slap his red pudgy face for his dismissive tone. She nodded to Julia, her father’s enslaved young housekeeper, who disappeared down the hall with the whiskey decanter in hand. Next to her grandmother, Jemima, sat an empty chair like a beacon of safety, so she continued there on her sojourn at the important political gathering.
Jemima patted Celia’s hand reassuringly, but quietly chided, “Celia.”
“I know,” whispered Celia.
Jemima nodded and then smiled graciously to the guests seated at her table. “May I present my granddaughter, Celia Johnson.”
“What a lovely young lady,” one woman replied in exaggerated sincerity. Then she immediately turned to the woman on her far side and began a spirited conversation. She whispered behind her fan, “Celia must be thankful to be white and reared by her grandmother.”
Celia glanced at the tables behind her in the drawing room. Double doors, pushed into the wall, opened the library for this special event. Seeing no available chairs near her aunts, Celia sighed. She scanned the large library of her father’s new home, carefully appointed by his mother with furniture, paintings, and practical but lovely window coverings, pulled aside for the streaming sunshine. Walls of dark wooden shelves held beautifully bound book in deep shades of browns, blues, and greens. A string quartet played in front of one of the library’s two side windows which spanned floor to ceiling. Open books and ledgers lay casually strewn on a large mahogany desk pushed against the front windows to make way for the large leather wingback chair and two leather side chairs in front of the desk. There sat her father amidst the roomful of joyful noisy guests, as if holding court. The gleaming floor rang with leather shoes and boots of the finest fashions.
Celia understood that others beyond her home community had heard rumors of her illegitimacy long before today, and she had loudly confirmed it. She thought herself, at age 18, old enough and wise enough to gracefully celebrate her father’s heroic safe return and political popularity as a Kentucky militia colonel and congressman. He was 33 years old and a bachelor.
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All eyes turned to the darkhaired lieutenant who entered the room from the hall where he and a private stood at attention. His eyes paused at the sight of Celia and then moved to her father, Col. Richard Mentor Johnson, who motioned for him to approach.
“Lt. Fancher, I find myself comfortably seated and resting. Gentlemen, my lieutenant ably sees to my recovery, having delivered me home safely from the distant Canadian border at Detroit.”
Lt. Fancher discreetly checked the condition of the colonel’s bandages, then motioned to the young private standing just inside the doorway to assist in moving the colonel to a more upright posture. “Will that be all, Col. Johnson?”
“Hold a moment, that I might tell our story of the mighty Chief Tecumseh.” The colonel motioned to the string quartet to pause, then spread his arms wide. His joyful eyes glistened with excitement. “I left Detroit in late summer in pursuit of the British and the Confederacy of tribes formed by the great Chief Tecumseh. In continued undecisive skirmishes, we crossed the river into Canada to reach full battle positions in early October.
My brother, James, ordered the 1st Battalion to charge the British. He captured them and pursued escapees five or six miles.
I ordered the 2nd Battalion of about 500 men and horse to charge the Shawnee. Between the swamps and the River Thames, I took five bullets and fell, my magnificent white horse shot from under me. Delirious with pain, laying in the mud, I nevertheless saw Tecumseh through the forks of a tree. He saw me. I leveled my pistol and took aim. So did Tecumseh. My lieutenant had dismounted by my side. When Tecumseh took aim, so did he. Lt. Fancher is known to hit the eye of a squirrel from 200 feet, dropping it with one shot. I do not know about the eye of Tecumseh, but the good doctor said it was the chest wound where I aimed that killed him.”
The crowd of men surrounding the Colonel responded with cheers and hand shaking, and the music resumed. The lieutenant extended his arm around the colonel’s shoulders to protect the vulnerable shattered bones and chest wounds from exuberant pats-on-the-back.
Celia gripped her own unsettled hands. “But Grandmother, how can they celebrate? Six of your sons are gone to the War since 1812, one already dead; two sons-in-law, and at least four grandsons…still in battle! And for how much longer?” Then she paused and looked at her badly injured father. “We must give thanks for Father’s safe return. Excuse me, Grandmother, I shall join the aunts in the drawing room.” Celia wanted to escape the prying eyes of the wives accompanying their husbands in honor of Col. Johnson’s great victory at the Battle of Thames.
Celia saw that Julia had returned, and would see to her grandmother’s every need, as well as filling the lout’s glass. Slowly she became aware that every male eye in the room clandestinely admired the beautiful and petite Julia, age 23. She is particularly lovely today in her spotless plain linen dress; kind and demure, as always. Celia walked, nearly ran, down the hall to the back door and entered her father’s garden. She hoped to take relaxing air.