A Dream of Daring (31 page)

“Mr. Tom, I wants to—” He
glanced at his teacher, whose eyebrows raised at his grammar. “I mean, I
want
to give these back.”

Jerome placed in Tom’s
hands a watch, an ivory comb, a scarf pin, and a few other small valuables from
the big house that had made their way into Jerome’s possession prior to his
reform.

Tom accepted the objects,
placing them in his pocket, with his eyes still fixed on Jerome for what was
coming next.

Jerome reached into the
sack for another item. “Here’s your mama’s book, sir.”

Tom took the housekeeping
journal that Jerome had used to prepare many recipes; he placed it on the grass
next to them. The slave seemed hesitant, as if the words to come were harder to
find.

“What’s going on,
Jerome?” Tom asked kindly, knowing the answer.

“Sir, it’s about our
deal
.
Remember that?”

“I do.”

“You always said it still
stands. Does it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m ready now, sir. I’m
ready! I been sellin’ pans o’ my chocolate squares to the captain o’ the
Cincinnati steamer. You remember him?”

“I do.”

“Well, the captain, he
says Jerome has a job anytime to bake them chocolate squares on his ship, with
your pass, sir.”

“And did you talk to him
about the . . . rest . . . of the
deal?”

“Yes sir, and he says it
still on with him.”

 “And the money, Jerome?”

“I have enough, sir, and
then some. I done good with my bizness here.”

“I see.” Tom smiled.

“The captain, he’s goin’
through with the deal. I’m supposed to be on the ship in the mornin’.”

Solo’s eyes slid back and
forth from one speaker to the next, and her quick mind grasped what was
occurring.

“I arranged this before
the fire, sir. I was gonna tell you tonight. But with the meetin’ you had with
the slaves, then after it, I couldn’t find you. . . . You
weren’t around the big house.”

“It’s all right, Jerome.”

“Then come the fire, and,
well, I don’t wanna leave now, but if I back out with the captain twice, he
maybe not give me ’nother shot.”

“I think you already did
your part here. You saved the house, Jerome.”

The slave reached into
his sack again. Amid his clothing he found a paper and pencil. “If you write
the pass for Jerome to work on the captain’s ship, he takes me.” He held out
the items to his master.

Tom hesitated. He
couldn’t seem to raise his hands to take the objects from Jerome.

“Sir, I trained Brook
real good for you. He kin keep the kitchen, and he knows the system for givin’
out the cocoa beans. And I showed him how to make the chocolate squares for
you.”

“Brook does a good job.
I’m not worried about that.”

“Then . . . sir?”

It was Tom’s turn to
falter at words. “Are you . . . sure, Jerome?”

“Like you say, the new
time’s a-comin’.
My
time’s a-comin’. That’s how I feel.”

“What about the snake
with two heads? You said you dreamed of that snake, and that the head facing
north was scarier.”

“Funny thing, sir. Now
when I dream ’bout goin’ north, I don’t see that snake no more.”

“I do,” said Tom.

“That snake, I don’t fret
about her no more.”

“But I fret about her.”
Tom realized that it had been easier to let Jerome go when he hadn’t cared
about him.

“Gee, Mr. Tom, you ain’t
worryin’ ’bout ole Jerome, now, are you?”

“If you stay here, you
can come and go as you please. You can have . . . 
leeway
.”

Jerome smiled and shook
his head. “’Taint the same, sir.”

“But I can protect you
here. You can have
security
.”

“’Tain’t the same, sir.”
His voice held affection for Tom’s concern and a resolve of his own. “I want
what I saw in that book Miss Solo showed us.”

He turned to his teacher,
who nodded in understanding.

“That shop there in
Paris, with the winder full o’ pastries—I want a shop like that. I want what
free folks call a
deed
.”

Tom also nodded in
understanding.

“I want a family too, an’
a little house for my family. I don’t see no snake no more, sir. I see a shop
with my name on it! Clear as I see
Jerome’s Squares,
I see
Jerome’s
Shop
.” The yearning in his voice seemed to say that he saw
Jerome’s life
.

“I understand, Jerome. I
really do. But I want to know that
you
understand too. You might escape
the marshals and bounty hunters because I won’t report you, but do you realize
there are still dangers?” Tom saw the snake vividly, the vicious, hissing
monster that could bite with deadly venom. “There are laws working against you,
and there are kidnappers who’ll try to capture you and bring you back to the
South to sell—”

“They ain’t gonna git me,
sir.” Jerome smiled confidently.

“What about
the . . . safe house?”

“I know the address, sir.
That I do.” He recited it for Tom.

“You
must
get to
that address! That’s the key!”

“I will. Jerome will git
there sure as yer standin’ here, sir!”

Tom sighed in
resignation. He had to face what was inevitable . . . and
right. He forced a note of optimism into his tone. “Above all, make your hosts
some chocolate squares.”

Jerome laughed.

“Before, sir, when you
made yer deal with Jerome, when I was worth nuthin’, we didn’t discuss a
price.” When the law had allowed manumission in prior years, it was common for
a slave to save money from extra jobs and buy his freedom from his master. “Do
I need to pay you to buy myself, now that Jerome is worth somethin’?”

Tom grinned. “Forget it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because we’re
both
worth something.”

Tom took the paper and
pencil from Jerome, wrote the pass, and gave it to him.

Handling it carefully,
like the deed to his future, Jerome folded the pass and placed it in his
pocket. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Take a horse. You can
leave it at the livery.”

Jerome nodded.

“And take this.” Tom gave
him the housekeeping book with his mother’s recipes.

Jerome was speechless.

“I’m sure they’ll need some
good cooking in Cincinnati.” He looked at Jerome solemnly. “I want you to have
it. It was our family heirloom; now it can be yours.”

“Why . . . why,
thank you.” Jerome took the book that was now passed down to him and his future
family, and he placed it with the utmost care at the top of the sack. It rested
next to his chef’s hat, folded lengthwise at the pleats and jutting out of the
bag. Then he turned to Solo.

Always practical, the
teacher faced him. “Finish your schooling. You’ll need a class in bookkeeping
to run your shop.”

Jerome smiled. “Yes, Miss
Solo.”

“And write to us!”

“I will.”

Impulsively, she removed
Mrs. Edmunton’s journal from the sack. “And, please—” her voice broke, “
please
keep the book right here!” She slipped the volume inside Jerome’s shirt, like a
plate of armor over his chest.

The meaning of the
gesture was obvious—and chilling—to the three of them. The two slaves stared at
each other in a moment of naked, abject terror that Tom, as a free man, could
only observe on their faces but never fully grasp.

Solo sighed and bowed her
head as if she regretted the act, yet she was unable to shake off the fear that
had provoked it.

Jerome spoke
reassuringly. “I’ll keep that in mind, if I meet trouble. But right now, I
reckon I’ll git to the docks jus’ fine with Mr. Tom’s pass.” He cocked his head
in search of her troubled eyes—she was staring at the ground—and he smiled.
“That be okay with you?”

Slowly, Solo looked up
and returned his smile. “Okay.” The moment had passed.

He removed the book from
his shirt.

“I
want
you to go,
Jerome.” Her voice was steady now, and it held hope. “I want you to fly north
like the hummingbirds. Fly north and spend your summer there as they do.” Her
eyes glided out to the fields and to the mystery and promise beyond them.
“Think of it, Jerome!” Her glance returned to the chef she had crowned with a
toque. “You’ll get to make your own recipes for your own life!” The longing in
her voice was palpable.

In a display she had up
to then reserved only for the horses, she raised her arms and placed them
around Jerome’s neck. With the fondness of siblings, they embraced.

Then Jerome turned to
Tom.

The inventor wondered if
there were something he could do to help. Should he offer Jerome a weapon? But
if the steamship captain discovered the unthinkable—a slave with a gun—would he
renege on the deal? Tom pondered the matter. Could he offer Jerome something
more powerful than a weapon? Could he offer a kind of mental weapon to bolster
the man’s first steps to freedom?

“Jerome, you plunged into
the plantation cooking with real vigor. And you mastered it with real skill.
You know what that means?”

“What, sir?”

“It means you have a
talent and you made a choice to pursue it. It means you found a line of work
that interests you and makes you happy. A lot of free people never find that,
but
you
did.”

Jerome listened,
attentive to every word.

“And you invented a way to
prompt the slaves to work better for my benefit and theirs—and, I might add,
for your benefit too, as their agent.” Jerome smiled. “And you organized the
fire brigade that saved the house tonight. You know what that means?”

“What, sir?”

“It means you’re
resourceful, and you’re a good leader of people.”

Jerome nodded
thoughtfully, as if he were realizing for the first time things about himself
that neither he nor anyone else—except the speaker—had ever observed.

“And you created a new
recipe, a brand-new confection that everybody wants, and you found a way to
sell it and make money from it. Do you know what that means?”

“What, sir?”

“It means you’re an
innovator and a businessman.”

Jerome seemed to marvel
at the notion. “I reckon it does.”

“Do you know what
all
of
that means?”

“What, sir?”

“It means that you belong
to the new age, Jerome. And
it
belongs to
you
.”

Jerome swallowed hard, as
if ingesting the words like a tonic to fortify him for the journey ahead.

He reached into his
pocket and gave his set of keys to Tom, who put them in his pocket.

The men looked at each
other in a silent salute. The blue eyes and brown ones, so different in color,
seemed to share a common vision. Tom held out his hand. Jerome didn’t look
surprised at the gesture that was rare between masters and slaves. Jerome’s
hand met Tom’s in a viselike grip, with all the feeling the two men held for
each other contained in it. Then Tom pulled him closer. With the lingering
affection of two brothers parting, they embraced.

Then Jerome picked up his
belongings, beamed a final, confident smile at Tom and Solo, and walked away, a
man in pursuit of a deed—to a shop and to a life.

Chapter
26

The night’s emergency had
distorted Tom’s sense of time. Standing in front of his family home, with
lanterns spread like embers among the charred debris, he glanced at his pocket
watch. On what had already been the longest night of his life, he was surprised
to realize that it was only three in the morning, and daybreak was still a few
hours away. It also seemed as if days had passed since Sheriff Duran’s meeting
at the Crossroads, yet it had occurred only twelve hours earlier.

On the other hand, the
past three months had seemed like one prolonged night of anguish. It was that
long ago that his invention had been stolen, yet he felt its loss as acutely as
if it were yesterday.

His mind paused on the
invention to which all of his thoughts eventually led. It could be only a day
or two more before he would learn something about its whereabouts from Ladybug,
the slave from the Crossroads, if Duran could find her in Baton Rouge, and if
she weren’t . . . silenced . . . before
she had a chance to talk.

Tom was impatient to
report the fire so that the sheriff could send deputies out to find Markham
without delay. Since Duran would surely wait until morning to begin what was a
long trip, Tom thought, he could get a note to the lawman before he left for
Baton Rouge. That way the search for the man who almost killed Solo could begin
in the sheriff’s absence.

Tom walked behind the big
house and into the kitchen to look for writing materials that Jerome kept there
to do his class exercises. He found them and composed a note to the sheriff
reporting Markham’s arson. Then he sent a trusted servant to town to deliver
it.

As he walked back to the
front of the house, he noticed that the human voices dominating that frantic
night had now vanished, returning the outdoors to the sounds of the nocturnal
critters. Most of the slaves had gone back to bed.

He saw the most precious
item saved from the fire still at the scene. Solo was gathering the rescued
books into a hand-pulled wagon to take into a cabin for safekeeping.

He also saw the
indomitable Nick clearing debris from the gallery himself after sending the
field hands back to their cabins to rest before the day’s work. As he was about
to tell Nick to go to bed, Tom spotted a carriage coming up the road.

“Mr. Tom!” The driver
stopped the carriage in front of him.

“Hello, Lance.” Tom
recognized Charlotte Barnwell’s driver from Ruby Manor.

“Miz Charlotte and Miz
Rachel sen’ me.” The man stared agape at the burned house. “Oh, Lord in
paradise!” he said, shaken by the sight.

“Go on, Lance.”

“The ladies, they sees
smoke a-comin’ from yer direction. They smells smoke. They afeared there’s fire
here, sir. They wonderin’ if you okay. They say fer you to come back wid me,
sir, if you got fire here, and bring ’long anybody hurt an’ needin’ Nurse
Bina.”

Ruby Manor, a larger
plantation, had a cottage that served as a sick house, where a doctor-trained
slave treated common ailments of the Barnwells and their slaves.

“The missus, she given me
this fer you.” Lance reached into his vest pocket and produced a note.

The inventor unfolded the
paper and moved toward a lantern to read it.

Dear
Tom,

Rachel
and I fear this note will find you in peril. We saw smoke filling the sky from
the direction of Indigo Springs, and we suspect you’ve suffered a fire. If you
or any of your slaves have been injured, please come here so that our nurse can
minister to all of you.

I
was taken aback by the threatening words uttered to me and you this past
afternoon, and I greatly fear that the man who pronounced them is the culprit
behind the fire. I worry that this madman is loose and might set his sights
next on Ruby Manor to exact his wild revenge.

Tom,
please come, so you can tell us what happened. And if my suspicions prove true,
we need you to protect us from that vile man. Please stay with us, at least
through this frightful night. Rachel implores you, as do I.

God
willing, you have escaped harm.

The letter was signed by
Charlotte Barnwell. Tom thought he should alert her and Rachel to Markham’s
culpability, just in case the madman, in the throes of alcohol, decided to pay
a visit to Ruby Manor and include Charlotte in his vengeance, as she feared. If
he had any sense, Tom figured, the man would be racing out of town after his
crime, but it was precisely sound judgment that he lacked, so his potential to
cause more harm couldn’t be ruled out. Tom relished the thought of being there
to exact justice if Markham did ride in to Ruby Manor that night. His fists
clenched as a cauldron of anger boiled inside him for the man who nearly
killed . . .

He looked at Solo. The
burns and bruises on her arms, as well as his own skin injuries, needed careful
cleaning and bandaging. Maybe Bina had a salve or emollient to soothe their
burns as well.

He glanced at the house.
It reeked of smoke and was uninhabitable. He needed to prevail on Charlotte
that night, just as she needed to prevail on him.

While the carriage driver
waited for a reply, Tom told Nick about the letter.

“You can do nothing
inside till she cools,” Nick said of the big house. “If something come up, I
send for you.” Ruby Manor was only a mile away. “Go. I watch everything.”

The hardworking German
with the direct gaze and decisive manner inspired confidence. Tom told him of
Jerome’s signed pass to work on the steamship. That way his overseer, the only
other free person on the plantation, wouldn’t unwittingly report Jerome as a
runaway. Then he gave Jerome’s keys to Nick to hold while he went to Ruby
Manor.

* * * * *

“There are neighbors
close by who have a nurse that can treat your burns, and I need to warn them of
a mutual enemy we have who set the fire,” Tom explained to Solo. “Besides, you
wouldn’t mind getting cleaned up and resting a little, now, would you?” She
looked uneasy. “We’ll come back first thing in the morning.”

Solo went along in the
carriage reluctantly. Unlike the other slaves, she showed no inclination to go
to town, visit other plantations, or otherwise venture outside of Indigo
Springs. Through her books, she traveled the world, but she seemed to want
nothing to do with the local town or its people. She was an outcast, he
thought, an educated woman, a voracious reader, and a talented teacher who was
trapped in the dying age. If she harbored a hostility toward the society that
held her captive, could he blame her? He couldn’t predict her reactions. He
knew only that he didn’t want to provoke
her . . . feral . . . side, which he
had sampled in their first encounters. He told her nothing about the Barnwells
and didn’t intend to stay beyond the morning.

* * * * *

White columns and
scattered lanterns shone in the darkness as the carriage trotted toward the
Olympian home that Wiley Barnwell had built twenty years earlier for his wife.
Also visible in the night were countless small reddish puffs, swaying in the
breeze; come morning, they would appear in their full red bloom as the
trademark roses that encircled Ruby Manor, completing the extravagant gift of a
loving husband to his young bride.

Charlotte Barnwell
appeared at the entrance to greet the carriage. With her red hair loose and
tumbling, she still possessed the youthful beauty of Wiley’s bride. Rachel
followed her, with the same long red hair and trim form. In the night, the two
women in pastel dressing gowns looked like sisters.

As the carriage pulled up
to the house and the two passengers came into the light, the women gasped.

“Is that you, Tom?”
Rachel called. “My God! You look burnt to a cinder.” She turned to a servant
who had accompanied her outside. “Roderick, fetch Bina.”

Tom jumped down from the
carriage and helped Solo out. The two young women stared at each other. Rachel
looked as pristine as a fairy-tale princess in her pink silk gown with a V neck
exposing the delicate lace frill of a nightgown beneath. Solo, in her
smoke-covered slave’s frock, with torn sleeves and unkempt hair that had been
exposed to fire, dirt, and mud, resembled a vagabond. Rachel looked at her
aghast. Solo responded with a look of suspicion, as if she too were making a
less-than-favorable appraisal.

Tom bowed his head to the
Barnwells in greeting. “Ladies, as you surmised, there indeed was a fire
tonight at my house. The two of us were caught in it, and we would be much
obliged to rest here and have a chance to clean up and change clothes.”

Bina, a corpulent slave
in her forties with a motherly manner, arrived from the sick house. Her steps
quickened at the sight of the bedraggled arrivals, suggesting she took her job
as a healer seriously. While Tom spoke to his two hostesses, Bina smiled kindly
at Solo and drew her aside to examined her burns by a lantern’s light.

“Are you all right, Tom?”
Charlotte inquired.

“Yes.”

“You read my note?”

“I did.”

“And?” Charlotte’s manner
was cordial but cool as if Tom’s stinging words to her and the others the
preceding afternoon were lingering unpleasantly in her mind.

“I’m sorry to say your suspicions
were correct.”

“It was him!”

“I saw him; he was drunk
and galloping away from my house just after the fire started.”

“My God! I knew I
shouldn’t have listened to you! I didn’t want to fire him—
you
did!”
Charlotte said accusingly. “I hope you shot him!”

“I’m afraid he got away,
but I reported him to the sheriff.”

“What if he comes here,
Tom Edmunton?” Rachel’s question sounded like a scolding. “What are we to do
then?”

“He’s probably in hiding
and passed out from drink by now.”

“Maybe not. If he’s
drunk, who knows what he’ll do?” Charlotte’s face paled with worry.

“Well, I’m glad that you
at least had the consideration to come here to protect us tonight.” Rachel
seemed to have forgotten about Tom’s and his companion’s injuries. “We’ll post
servants outside to warn us if anyone rides up.” She turned to Charlotte. “Will
that make you feel better, Mama?”

“Nothing will make me
feel better until that madman is caught . . . and until we
have some peace from our recent horrors.” She looked pointedly at Tom.

“In the meantime, this
woman needs care.” Tom pointed to Solo.

Rachel suddenly
remembered the vagabond. “Oh. Bina, come here.”

The nurse joined the
group, along with Solo. “Be sure to take care of her burns. And Mr. Edmunton’s
too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bina.

“Tom, you can stay in
Papa’s room,” Rachel continued. She looked at her mother, who nodded her
approval; then she turned to the nurse. “Bina, put the girl up in the sick
house.”

“Wait,” said Tom. “You
can’t do that.”

“What do you mean?” asked
Rachel.

“There could be
sick
people inside.”

“Of course there are sick
people. That’s why it’s called a sick house.”

“You could have people in
there with a fever, a contagion of some kind.”

“There’s only one case of
fever, and it’s only suspected. We’re watching it—”

“Absolutely not!” said
Tom, alarmed.

“How very rude of you to
order me around at my own house!” Rachel remarked.

“Either she stays
here”—he pointed to the big house—“or we both leave now.”

Rachel’s eyes darted
suspiciously from Tom to Solo. “What is she to you, anyway?”

He stared irritably at
her. With his nerves worn thin from the wickedness of Markham’s deed and his
fierce battle with the blaze, he had lost all urge to be pleasant.

“Tom Edmunton, what’s
that slave to you?” Rachel demanded.

“Frankly, it’s none of
your business.” He took Solo’s arm and guided her back to the carriage. “Lance,
take us back.”

“Tom, really now!” Rachel
rushed up to him. The voluminous folds of her dressing gown rubbed against his
dirty clothing. Her hands covered a shirt that had been white but was now as
dark gray as his tattered vest. Her eyes looked up at him alluringly, as from a
time past. “You can’t leave us, Tom! Why, whatever would we do if that horrible
man came here?”

“Call Nash.” He pushed
loose of her.

Like a storm-scuffed cat
whose body was disheveled, Solo observed the two of them with piercing eyes and
drew her own conclusions.

“I declare!” said
Charlotte. “Your daddy, the colonel, must be twistin’ in his grave with the
outrageous things you say, and with the disrespectful way you talk and try to
bully us around!”

Tom looked at the two of
them with contempt. Then he turned to Solo. “Let’s go.” He was ready to assist
her into the carriage when Rachel again entreated him.

“All right! All right,
have it your way. I won’t argue with your crazy notions
about . . . things.” She sneered at Solo, then fixed a
smile to her face and a lighter tone to her voice. “Bina, take the girl to my
wardrobe room.” She turned to the male servant. “Roderick, take Mr. Edmunton to
my father’s room. You and Bina are to see to it that they get lots of soap and
water for washing . . . scrubbing, I should say.” She
looked disdainfully at the two people who had barely escaped a scorching death.
“And get them fresh clothing.”

She turned to Bina.
“She’s not to touch
anything
in my wardrobe room. Give her a blanket to
sleep on the floor.” To Solo she added, her face pleasant but her eyes
resentful: “Is that understood?”

Solo didn’t reply. Tom
recognized the feral look gripping her features, the same look she had
displayed on their first encounter, right before she had socked him.