Carolina Gold (23 page)

The tide was in. A freshening breeze stirred the sea oats as
the light faded into the golden edge of evening. Marie-Claire, her dark hair blowing about her small face, dusted off her hands. “The skimmer is properly buried, and I am about to perish. When can we eat, Ma’m’selle?”

Anne-Louise leaned against Charlotte. “I don’t feel like eating.”

Charlotte placed a hand on the girl’s forehead. “Perhaps you got too much sun today. You’ll feel better when you cool off. Let’s go inside and—”

“Here comes Mr. Peabody.” Marie-Claire pointed to a rider pounding along in the surf. She frowned. “He sure is in an awful hurry.”

The minister reined in and dismounted. “Miss Fraser.” He paused to catch his breath. “Have you seen Susan? She’s gone missing.”

“I haven’t seen her, but surely she would not have come this far on her own.” Charlotte spoke calmly, but her heart stuttered in her chest. A five-year-old girl unaccustomed to the capricious power of the ocean could be swept away in the blink of an eye. She shaded her eyes and looked out at the rolling surf.

“Merciful God,” the minister said. “You don’t think she’s out there?”

“I pray not. The beach is well traveled this time of year, with many people coming and going. I’m sure someone would have seen her had she ventured so far.” She brushed her hair from her eyes. “What happened?”

“She fell asleep in the wagon on the way home. I stopped just for a moment to call on Mrs. Newton, who has been ailing lately. Afterward I drove on back to the parsonage. When we got there, I realized Susan was missing.”

“The other children didn’t see where she went?”

He shook his head. “John and Lucas didn’t want to wait while I called on my parishioner, so they asked whether they could go
on ahead on foot. It wasn’t far and I didn’t see why not. Bess was riding up front with me, and I suppose it never occurred to her to turn around and check on her sister.” His voice broke. “After everything those children have been through lately, I simply cannot . . .” His Adam’s apple jerked up and down. “We must find her. She doesn’t know anyone on the island except you. I’m guessing if she got lost, she’d try to come here.”

“Of course. The girls and I will walk the beach and call on our neighbors. Maybe someone saw her. Perhaps you could check behind the house, along the marshes and the dock. You’ll see the old salt works at the far end of the marsh. She might have gone into the shed there.”

They separated, calling out for Susan as they went. The Westons’ cottage was dark, but a light glowed in Augusta’s window. Charlotte’s knock was answered by a surprisingly hearty-looking Augusta, who beamed to see them and invited them in, insisting that Charlotte’s soup had worked wonders. But her smile disappeared when she learned the reason for the visit.

“I haven’t seen her—been indoors all day,” Augusta said. “But I’ll look around. Sometimes children play beneath the piazzas. If I find the girl, I’ll bring her to Pelican Cottage straightaway.”

Half an hour later Charlotte and the girls returned to the cottage. No one had seen a small brown-eyed girl in the pink calico dress. Though darkness was approaching, the minister was still out searching.

Charlotte sent the girls to wash up and fed them a cold supper of cheese, bread, and figs. She settled them with their books. “I’m going to see whether Mr. Peabody has found Susan. I won’t be long.”

She left by the back door and crossed the porch that faced the salt marsh, praying that Susan had not become lost somewhere along the tidal creek. In addition to snakes, snapping turtles, and
mosquitoes, the creek was home to alligators. June was nesting season, and the females were protective of their eggs. Anyone who happened to stumble upon a nesting female wouldn’t stand a chance.

A faint sound came to her on the evening breeze. A whimper? A whisper? “Susan?”

“I’m up here, miss.”

Charlotte spun around. “Up where?”

“On the roof.”

Charlotte looked up to see Susan crouched on the slick tin roof, both hands splayed.

“Stay there. I’m coming up.” Why hadn’t she thought to look there sooner? At one end of the back porch, a narrow rudimentary stairway led to the attic, which in turn led to a wooden trapdoor that opened onto the roof. Those stairs had been irresistible in her childhood, beckoning her to a clear vista of the endless sea and the star-strewn sky.

She clambered up and found Susan, tired and tear-stained but otherwise unharmed. She sat down beside the child to catch her breath. Relief and anger warred inside her. “Do you know everyone is looking for you?”

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I only wanted to see where the steps went to. And then when I got up here, everything looked so pretty.”

Despite her irritation, Charlotte smiled. “I know. The view from here captivated me too when I was your age. But it isn’t safe to go climbing on rooftops. My papa punished me more than once for coming up here after he told me not to.”

“What’s captivated?”

“Never mind. Why didn’t you come down when you heard us calling for you?”

The child’s thin shoulders moved up and down. “When
Mama died, Uncle James told us she went to heaven and got her crown of stars. I thought if I got closer to heaven I might could see her. But I didn’t.”

“No. When the people we love leave us, we can’t see them anymore. But we can feel the love they left behind.”

“I tried to get down when I saw Uncle James. But the roof was slippery, and I was afraid.”

Charlotte placed an arm around the child’s waist. “Hold on to me. Let’s get you onto terra firma and find your uncle.”

Pelican Cottage

Pawley’s Island

June 29, 1868

Yesterday the Reverend Mr. Peabody apprised us of his new charitable endeavor. The sale of ice cream, which was undertaken at the start of the summer, has yielded respectable results, but the small church on Litchfield Plantation lacks enough volunteers to see the venture through to summer’s end. I am fairly certain that more than a little ice cream wound up in the bellies of the island’s children as free samples, though no one begrudges them this small luxury on the heels of so many years of hardship.

The new project involves the sewing of garments for distribution to the missionaries in China. To this end Mr. Peabody has secured a goodly amount of sturdy cotton fabric, which the ladies will sew into shirtwaists and skirts, shirts, and trousers. Having no live models, we must guess at the appropriate lengths of sleeves and hems. I received ten yards of blue calico and five yards of white cambric, which I shall endeavor to turn into passable garments.

As the fabric was being distributed, I was reminded of my early years at Fairhaven, when all of our bondsmen and their families came to the house to receive material for their new clothes.

On New Year’s Day, rolls of white homespun, red flannel, calico, and a heavier material my mother called “plains” were laid out on the piazza along with a variety of buttons, needles, and thread. Each woman, when my mother read out her name, came forward to receive one roll of red flannel and two rolls each of white homespun, colored homespun, and calico. Each man received one red flannel, two white homespun, two rolls of a dark-colored cloth called jeans, and one white plains. I helped distribute the blankets. One year the men got new blankets; the next year, the women; the next, the children. In this way, each household had some new blankets every year.

On the day after New Year’s, each child appeared before our seamstress, a tall, light-skinned woman named Welcome. The girls received homespun for the sewing of everyday clothes and calico for their Sunday frocks. With my mother, I watched as Welcome held the end of a roll of homespun on top of the child’s head, brought the material down to the floor and up again. My mother told me this measure would make one full garment without any waste.

Once a year, my father gathered strips of wood, upon which every servant’s foot had been measured, and sent them to a shoe factor in Charleston. The factor obtained the correct number of pair of each size and shipped them to Fairhaven for distribution on the third day after New Year’s. I still remember the excitement in the slave street when word came that the new shoes had arrived.

My father at one time had under his care more than six hundred men, women, and children. Our present endeavors for the Reverend Mr. Peabody’s missionaries are on a much smaller scale. This is fortunate for me, for despite my Aunt Livinia’s tutoring during the war, I lack any real skill with needle and—

“Hello? Miss Fraser?”

Charlotte set down her pen and went to the door, which was open to the ocean breeze. “Daniel?”

He grinned. “Surprised to see me?”

“Yes, but always happy to have you visit.”

He glanced at her papers. “I’m interruptin’ your work.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m writing another article in hopes the newspaper in New York might resume publication one of these days.” She motioned him inside “What brings you here?”

He proffered a crate of tomatoes, corn, and beans. “Garden’s coming in better’n we thought it would after that storm. We got lots of tomatoes. Trim was supposed to deliver ’em, but his wife is sick. Mr. Hadley sent me instead.”

“Mr. Hadley is well, then?”

“Sometimes he is and sometimes he ain’t. When he’s feelin’ poorly, me and Trim keep things going. Trim says Mr. Hadley won’t ever be the same.”

“I suppose not.” Charlotte inhaled the aroma of the freshly picked tomatoes. “Thank you for bringing these over.”

“No trouble. Being out on the river is more fun than picking corn any day of the week.” He dropped his worn haversack onto the floor and looked around, eyes bright with curiosity. “I always wondered what this place looked like.”

“It isn’t the same as in the years before the war, but I don’t mind. Being so close to the sea more than compensates for the lack of niceties. Would you like some refreshment? I imagine you’re tired after the long row.”

“Yes’m, if it ain’t too much trouble, I could use somethin’ to wet my whistle.”

She took the vegetables to the back porch, found a glass, and poured cool water for Daniel. “Let’s sit on the piazza. The girls just finished their lessons and are trying their hand at kite building with some help from our neighbor.”

“Is she the gray-haired lady wearing men’s boots?”

“She is indeed. I don’t know what I’d do without Augusta. She looks after the girls when I have to be away.” Charlotte led the way outside, and they sat in the ancient rocking chairs. “Now, what news have you?”

“Well, Mr. Clifton and his missus have packed up and moved back to Charleston. Mr. Clifton wants to head out west, but I don’t think his wife wants to go.” Daniel took a long gulp of water. “His daughter sure don’t. I overheard her arguin’ with her daddy that he was ruining her chances to marry Mr. Betancourt. I didn’t even know they was courtin’.”

Charlotte laughed. “I had no idea you were interested in such things.”

He shrugged his now-familiar Daniel shrug. “Anyway, me and Mr. Hadley stopped at Fairhaven on Saturday, on the way back from Georgetown. We cleared away some broken tree limbs and fixed the trunk in the field downriver.”

“I hope he’s paying you for all your hard work.”

“Yes’m. I’m savin’ as much as I can. Anyway, Mr. Hadley says you’ll likely harvest a few barrels of rice from that one. And he says you might be able to plant a late crop if you’re willing to take a chance on it coming in before the frost.”

She sighed. “Oh, Daniel, I think I’m through taking chances.”

“Mr. Hadley says a small harvest is better than nothing. He’s going to plant again.” Daniel drained his glass and set it down beside his chair. “Haven’t seen your old peacock in a while.
Cinnamon had a touch of colic again, but I dosed her with the aconite, and now she’s right as rain. And I fixed the latch on the barn door the other day.”

“I appreciate everything you and Mr. Hadley have done. But I don’t expect you to keep up the place in my absence.”

“Well, I built that barn mostly by myself, so I sort of feel responsible for it.”

She sent him an approving glance. What a fool his father was for abandoning a boy with such promise.

“I got a letter from my pa,” he said.

“You did?” She stared at him, surprised. “When?”

Just then Anne-Louise gave a shout, and Charlotte looked out to see a red-and-white kite struggling to take flight. Marie-Claire laughed. Augusta stood between them, ankle-deep in sand, one hand clamped onto her hat.

“Couple of days after the storm,” Daniel said. “Me and Mr. Clifton were in the potato field, and Lucy Wainwright’s daddy come down on his mule and handed it to me.”

Charlotte smiled at the memory of the girl she’d found hiding with Daniel in the slave street. “How is Lucy? Has she embarked upon any more spy missions lately?”

“Not that I know of. Anyway, Mr. Wainwright said a Yankee fellow named Mr. Kelley who works for the government gave him my letter. Turns out Pa got a job working at a boatyard up north, and he wants me to come and work there too.”

“Daniel, that’s wonderful. When do you leave?”

“That’s just it, ma’am. I like working with Mr. Hadley and looking after Fairhaven. I’ve been helping out at the Kirks’ place too, up in the pinelands. It’s real pretty up there, and Mr. Hadley says a person could live there year-round because mosquitoes don’t like it up there. Anyway, I’m figgerin’ on staying around for a while. I like being on my own.”

“But you’re still so young. And perhaps working in the boatyard will help you achieve your dream of owning a passenger vessel someday.”

“Maybe. You never can tell with Pa. My mama always said he was born with a restless streak that makes it hard to set much store by what he says. What if I travel all that way and then he up and takes off again? I wouldn’t know a soul for a hundred miles.”