Fairer than Morning (25 page)

He made his way slowly up the hill. He fell once trying to climb over a fallen trunk. But when the trees opened out to a clearing that formed a bald spot on the hill's pate, he paused.

This was no friendly farmhouse. It was a mansion. Bigger even than Dr. Loftin's home. All white, with six immense fluted columns in a neat row across its many-windowed front. The light he had seen through the trees glowed in a window downstairs.

Will let out his breath as he lurked in the cover of the trees. How likely was it that the occupants of this house would shelter him or feed him? It was certain that no one who lived here would belong to the brotherhood of the whip. More likely the brotherhood of the whippers.

I will lift my eyes up unto the hills, whence comes my help
.

He did not understand why he still heard the voice of his father. It was enough to make him break down and weep.

It makes no sense!
he railed back at it.
No help will come from here
.

But an irrational impulse drove him forward out of the trees.
This is the action of a lunatic. Why would I walk up to their door and doom myself to capture?

But he kept going.

He knocked on the door.

After a moment, it opened just a crack.

“What is it?” It was a woman's voice.

“Please, ma'am
 
.
 
.
 
.” His voice caught. He did not know how to continue. Should he throw himself on his knees and beg for mercy?

The door opened wider. It was a woman in an elegant blue dress, her brown hair streaked with gray, her face round and kind. “Is something the matter?”

“Please, ma'am, I need help.” And then to his horror, in his exhaustion and despair he was unable to keep back a sob. The rush of emotion unbalanced him, and he staggered against the wall.

Her kind face creased in dismay. She flung the door open and called behind her. “Henry!”

An elderly servant in red livery appeared in the hall. “Yes, Mrs. Crandall?” He looked in confusion at Will.

“Help this young man into the kitchen, if you please.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The older man had a strong arm still, despite his white hair, and he brought Will over the doorsill, following his mistress.

It was like walking into paradise. The air smelled like flowers. It was warm, as he had not been warm in years. Rug after rug lay on the dark oak floor, soft beneath his tattered shoes.

The kitchen was even warmer, a huge fire blazing on the hearth. On one of the two large kitchen tables, there were two golden-brown, crispy chickens on a spit, lying on a metal tray.

The woman—Mrs. Crandall—immediately picked up a large carving knife and fork and began to slice meat from the breast. “Sit him down, Henry,” she said, preoccupied.

When Henry assisted him to one of the kitchen benches, Will collapsed onto it. Before he could drop his head to the table, Mrs. Crandall slid a plate before him piled with the slices of chicken.

He looked up at her, still unable to believe it. She smiled and nodded.

He picked up one of the moist, tender slices in his dirty hand and began to eat. As he did so, she placed two thick chunks of bread onto the plate, and then a glass of milk beside his right hand. He drank.

When he had eaten enough to soothe the pain in his stomach, he looked up. She had seated herself at the other table, where she was ten feet away but still watching him.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You're half-starved,” she said softly. “And your shoes are in shreds.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you've been
 
.
 
.
 
. injured.”

She must have seen the blood on his shirt as well.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Her eyes told him she guessed everything. “I will leave you here with Henry, and when you have finished eating, he will assist you to bathe. He and our cook will heat the water for you.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

If entering the home had been like paradise, the simple bath was enough to start the angels singing. Henry and the Irish cook rolled in through the kitchen door a wooden laundry tub almost as broad as a wagon wheel. When the cook had set two kettles and a large stockpot on the hearth, she retired, leaving Henry alone with Will. Ordinarily Will would not have liked to undress before a stranger, but exhaustion had numbed him beyond a care for modesty. And the old man was very discreet as he held Will's arm and seated him gently in the enormous barrel.

He handed Will a chunk of soap and spoke in a voice scratchy as sandpaper. “Don't use it on your back, young man. The soap'll sting in those cuts.”

The warm water splashed in around Will's shins. He sighed and leaned his head on his arms, which in turn rested on his bent knees. His mind drifted. He had not bathed in warm water since he was a boy in his mother's home.

When he summoned the strength to lather his chest, arms, and legs, the water turned brown. Without comment, Henry scooped out some of the dirty water with a pitcher and poured in more water until it ran clear off Will's skin.

The water cooled, and Will searched for his clothes, but they had disappeared while he was occupied in washing.

“Here you are.” Henry held out a wide, soft piece of cloth, and Will wrapped it around himself as he attempted to stand. His balance failed, his knees rubbery, but Henry was at his elbow immediately to steady him. Will climbed over the scalloped edge of the tub, and Henry seated him back at the kitchen bench.

On the table beside Will lay a folded light-blue shirt and a brown pair of trousers. A pair of house slippers sat by his feet on the dark oaken floor.

Will donned the garments, his fingers clumsy with the small buttons. The fine weave of the trousers was unlike anything he had ever worn. And the slippers on his blistered feet—soft as goose down.

He toweled off his hair. When the inside of his arm brushed his chin, he found to his surprise that it was rough, as his father's face had once been when he shaved his beard and let it grow back. Had he not been so bleary with fatigue, he would have smiled ruefully. A promising time to become a man—when penniless, starving, and a fugitive.

He was clean, dressed, and dry. Henry led him out of the kitchen and up the wide curving stairs. Again Henry held his elbow while Will also leaned heavily on the mahogany banister to his right, lifting himself one step at a time. The stairs were almost beyond his power, but he was determined not to allow Henry to carry him like an infant—if the old man could even have done so. At last, Will attained the landing of the upstairs hall, and they crept down the lamp-lit hall to a side door.

The bedroom inside was unmistakably masculine. It was spare, with hunting prints on the walls. The coverlet was dark green, the headboard of the bed simple but elegant.

“Mrs. Crandall bids you rest,” Henry said. “If you need anything, do not hesitate to ring.” He pointed to the bell cord beside the door. Then Henry withdrew, shutting the door quietly behind him.

In the cloudy softness of that bed, Will drifted off to welcome oblivion.

When he awoke, the dust motes floated in the sunlight that streamed through the window. He lay there watching them until he realized where he was.

He tried to sit up, but the aches of his body ripped a groan from his chest; he slumped back on his side, his head in the pillow.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in.” How strange that he should be giving anyone permission to enter a wealthy man's bedroom.

Henry entered with measured tread and stood a few feet away to deliver a message. “Mrs. Crandall would be pleased if you would join her for breakfast.” He left with the same stately step and closed the door behind him.

Will dressed, still unaccustomed to the fine clothing, and limped out of the bedroom to find Henry waiting for him at the top of the stairs. He followed the old man downstairs, past a vast oil painting of Christ on a mountaintop surrounded by crowds, across the marbled foyer, and into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Mrs. Crandall said. She sat in the light from the window, which colored her white morning bonnet with the pastel yellow of a spring flower.

“Good morning, ma'am.” Will hobbled over to the other table, which had been laid with a plate of biscuits and even some preserved apples flecked with brown sugar.

“Please, eat.” She stood up and walked over to seat herself across from him.

“What's your name?” she asked.

He swallowed a forkful of apple, which was so overwhelming in its sweet softness that he took a moment to answer. “Will.” He did not want to give her his last name. It might cause her trouble later.

“Will, I would like to know where you are going. Do you have any family to help you?”

“No family, ma'am. But I'm hoping to find some friends.”

“You've found one, at least.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling in a face slightly faded from the bloom of youth, but all the kinder for it. “But I have not introduced myself. I'm Lavinia Crandall. My husband, Matthew, is a congressman, and he is away right now at the capitol. But had he been at home, he would have been first to insist that you stay with us.”

“I can't thank you as you deserve, ma'am.” Will looked at his plate. “To help a stranger as you have.”

“No one could turn away someone in such straits as you were last night.”

“I believe plenty would, ma'am.” He broke apart the biscuit, which was still warm.

“Well, no one with a conscience would. Especially now that you are not quite so . . . fragrant.” She laughed, her merriness making her look briefly like a girl of twenty.

Will smiled, but with some chagrin.

“I'm sorry.” She grew more sober. “I know you cannot help the condition in which you arrived. Of course I had to help you.”

She went to the counter where she wrapped some leftover biscuit in a cloth. “And if others would not aid a stranger in such a state, the more shame on them.” She set the top on the biscuit tin with a firm twist. “Where are you trying to go, Will?”

“Rushville. In Ohio, ma'am.”

“That's quite some distance.” She paused, then turned to face him. “And, in your condition, it seems you will need some help getting there.”

Twenty-Four

T
HE GIRLS WERE SHOUTING FOR HER FROM OUTSIDE
the house. Ann hurried to the kitchen window to see Mabel and Susan standing together, heads turned in the same direction. Susan pointed down the road and said a few words Ann couldn't make out. Someone must be coming. Taking off her apron, she walked out the kitchen door into the yard. She had to lift her skirts to step over the ruts of mud their own wagon had churned up.

“Ann, who is that?” Mabel asked, flyway hair in her face, hands on her hips as if questioning the right of any traveler to pass by.

Ann peered down the road at a coach drawn by two gray horses; it rocked and swayed over the bumps. She had never seen a private coach come down this way; she hoped it would not get stuck. Its narrow wheels did not look fit for the stresses of a country road.

The driver wisely pulled up in the road rather than brave the deeper mud of the yard. When he jumped down and removed his hat, she saw that it was Enoch Washington.

She patted her little sister on the back to get her attention. “Susan, go tell Father to come outside.” Ann walked over to the coach.

“Welcome, Mr. Washington! We've been expecting you.”

“Miss Miller,” he said, smiling. His dignity did not desert him even here, far from his elegant Pittsburgh home. He was dressed in brown traveling clothes: coat, waistcoat, and hat, all less formal than his city attire. His coffee-colored skin had a grayish undertone—probably from fatigue—but his motions were brisk as he opened the door of the coach.

“We have arrived,” he said. “You can come out.”

John Simon stepped down into view from behind the coach door and helped his wife out. She leaned on his arm; she did not look well.

Ann's father walked out the front door then, bareheaded but wearing his frock coat.

“Welcome,” he called to them. “Come inside; you've had a long journey.”

“We certainly have,” Mr. Washington said. The little party skirted the worst of the mud and followed Ann's father inside.

Her father showed their guests to the sitting room, pointing them to the comfortable green armchairs, then crouched at the hearth to stoke the fire. Ann put some water on for tea. With a few hushed words she banished Susan and Mabel to their bedroom.

“So the bounty hunter does not know where you are?” her father asked Mr. Washington, taking a seat on the straight-backed wooden chair closest to him.

“We hope we left town unnoticed. The coach was protection from prying eyes.” Mr. Washington relaxed back in his seat. “We had to stop a few times in towns to refresh the horses, but very few townspeople saw John and Clara.”