Somerset (6 page)

S
arah waited in the cold shade of a cypress tree for Jessica to appear from the woods on her roan filly, Jingle Bell. Jessica had sent word to her by way of Lettie to meet her “at our usual spot.”

“Good gracious,” Lettie had said, appearing a little hurt at being excluded. “You two sound like conspirators. What are you up to?”

Sarah had rolled her eyes mischievously. “Wouldn't you like to know?”

Understanding, Lettie's cheeks had turned pink. “Oh, now, you all don't go planning anything for me, you hear? There will be enough gifts and prenuptial parties as it is. Truly, you honor me enough by being in my wedding.”

“We'll try to keep that in mind,” Sarah said, giving her friend a patronizing pat on the shoulder.

Lettie assumed their “usual spot” was a tearoom tucked between a bookstore and ice cream parlor where the three women often met after school had dismissed. Sarah had few social distractions from her mission and enjoyed their gatherings. She looked forward to the lively conversation and hot tea and crusty scones before going home to a cold supper and the dangerous tasks that might await her, her homesickness as weighing as the gloom in the corners of her bleak little house. The Sedgewicks offered the diversion of a Wednesday night meal at their house followed by a game of cards, and Jessica was always after her to join her family for supper—“I'll send the carriage to pick you up”—but those invitations Sarah declined. Michael would be sure to offer his services for the drive, and she could not have abided the proximity of him to her in the close quarters of the carriage. She saw the Wyndhams only if the Sedgewicks were invited and she could go and return with them.

It was in the tearoom that Jessica had slipped her a note during one of the group's first get-togethers.
Meet me tomorrow afternoon at the water mill by Lawson Creek,
it read. That occasion had been in October, shortly after Sarah had come to Willow Grove. The spot referred to in the note was secluded but easily accessible by foot and on the route where Jessica took her afternoon rides aboard her filly. At that meeting, the girl had dismounted with a pleased, self-satisfied smile, relieving Sarah's fears that the purpose of their rendezvous was grave. Her hackles had risen. If the girl thought her involvement with the Underground something to play at, Sarah would disenchant her of the notion before she could wipe that grin off her face.

“I hope you'll forgive the mysteriousness of my note,” Jessica apologized immediately, apparently realizing the reason for Sarah's scowl, “but I thought it best to establish a secret place to meet in case a situation calls for it. I see you found the spot easily enough.”

There was wisdom in her reasoning, and twice they'd met at the water mill by Lawson Creek. Jessica was not a member of the Underground—she'd vowed she had no hand in Timothy's disappearance—but she passed on information vital to the safety of slaves trying to make it to freedom and the security of Sarah's part of the network. Carson Wyndham had put Tippy to work in the afternoons weaving horse blankets at the looming cabin in the Yard—“no more lollygagging with my daughter all day”—and the maid learned things she told Jessica, who shared them with Sarah. Also, pro-slave factions met in the great paneled library of the Wyndham manor house—politicians, other plantation owners, slave-traders, federal marshals, bounty hunters, and the ubiquitous Night Riders, of which Michael was the leader.

When they gathered, Jessica's ear was at the door. Who knew how many runaways had her to thank for avoiding a snare set by the Night Riders? The group had learned that lanterns or candles burning in windows of rural homesteads were a signal that the home was friendly to escaping slaves on their way to station houses, usually a distance of twenty miles apart. Attics, lofts, barns, even underground tunnels were used to hide the fugitives until it was safe for them to leave. Michael and his henchmen enlisted the aid of a farmer to place such signals in his windows to lure unsuspecting runaways into a trap. Jessica got word to Sarah, who rode out to the homestead on Jimsonweed and left large, mischievous markings on the fence post to alert the fugitives, believing the farmer would think them the prank of a child. Runaway slaves knew to look beyond the trusted signals for anything awry that could be a message warning of a trap.

Another time, Jessica had alerted Sarah of a bank teller planted to get evidence against another employee suspected of being an active opponent to slavery.

No information was ever passed in writing among those involved with the Railroad. For the safety of the network, it was absolutely essential to communicate by word of mouth, prearranged signals, codes, or symbols whose meaning could be deciphered only by the intended receivers. Jessica had been kept ignorant of them, the reason they must meet face-to-face in secret.

Sarah rubbed at her arms in her woolen cloak for warmth. Here in the coastal area of the Atlantic winters were mild, with temperatures rarely dipping below sixty degrees during the day, but a lasting cold front had brought the first true feel of winter and, for Sarah, a longing for her parents' fireside, soon to be satisfied. School had adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and in three days' time, Jessica would come by to pick her up in the carriage to take her to Charleston to catch a boat to Cambridge, where she would reunite with her family until classes resumed in January. She had especially missed her seven-year-old nephew, Paul, son of her older brother. Her sister-in-law had written that Paul had asked over and over, “When is Auntie Sarah coming home?”

Lettie had been alarmed at the thought that Sarah would be so glad to be back in Cambridge she might not return. “You
must
come back to us, Sarah! What would the students do without you? How can I get married without you? Don't you let that little nephew of yours convince you to stay.”

There would be no chance of that, Sarah thought, much as she loved and missed the little mutt. Sometimes Sarah felt that her effort to put an end to slavery was like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, but she must do her part. She believed that with faith and perseverance, people seeking to right a wrong would eventually prevail, no matter the odds against them.

She heard the sound of a horse's hooves on the forest path, but not the usual gentle jingle of bells and casual clip-clopping that announced Jessica's appearance. Jingle Bell burst out of the woods at a gallop, flowing mane threaded with ribbons in seasonal colors, and Jessica was out of the saddle before she'd reined the filly to a full stop.

Sarah ran to her. “Good Lord, Jessica, what's the matter?”

Jessica almost fell into her friend's arms. Her fair skin was blazing red from the ride and cold air, and she could not catch her breath. “You've got to help us, Sarah,” she gasped. “Willie May's found a runaway at Willowshire.”

Casting a look over her shoulder, Sarah led her to a tree trunk to shield them from eyes and ears that might be prying from the woods. “Sssh,” she said softly. “You must lower your voice, Jessica. Calmly, now, tell me what happened.”

Jessica inhaled a deep breath of cold air and expelled it in the flow of her narrative. About ten days ago, at midnight, she told Sarah, their housekeeper had found a runaway in the barn—“not yet grown to a man,” she repeated Willie May's description. He wouldn't tell Willie May his name or where he was from or where he hid in the day. Two hams had been discovered missing from the smokehouse, and her father was now aware a thief was about. He'd dispatched their head overseer to investigate and find him. They didn't think the thief belonged to Willowshire but was somebody hiding along the lake or in the woods. Jessica agreed with Willie May that it would be only a matter of time before the overseer and his men flushed the boy out, and then—Jessica closed her eyes as if experiencing sudden pain—“my father will send him back to his master to be flogged. Willie May says it wouldn't take but a few lashes to whip the flesh right off his bones, the boy is so skinny…and young.”

“Why did Willie May go to you?” Sarah asked.

Jessica met her direct look with a defiant one of her own. “She knows my heart, Sarah. How can I keep it a secret?”

Sarah shook her head. “I fear for you, Jessica. What do you want me to do?”

“I'm going to get the boy out of there as soon as possible. Scooter, our blacksmith, is willing to help. He'll hide the boy in the wagon when he comes into town to pick up a new wheel. He'll let him out in the church cemetery, and the boy can stay with you until I come by to take you in the carriage to the dock in Charleston. By then, you'll have made arrangements for his escape with those seamen you know—”

Jessica stopped at the look on Sarah's face and pressed her hands to her wind-reddened cheeks. “Oh, my goodness, Sarah, have I presumed? Are you worried that Scooter will connect you to the reason he's to drop the boy off near your house? I assure you, he won't. Cemeteries are preferred hiding places for slaves.”

“No, of course you haven't presumed.…” Sarah said. She sank back against the tree, gripped by a premonition that this time luck would be against them. There was a second's flash of her nephew's impish face in her mental vision. Perhaps her sense of doom was due to her reluctance to take on a mission so close to her departure for home.

“All right,” she said. “I can hide the boy until then. The Sedgewicks have gone to be houseguests of the Tolivers for a few days, a boon for us. When can I expect the delivery? I'll need time to make contact with my source.”

“Sometime this afternoon. The boy is hiding in a shed in the gazebo, and we have to make sure it's safe to spirit the boy into the wagon. Will that give you enough time to do…whatever it is that you do?”

“I believe so,” Sarah said. She would leave a light in her back window to alert her contact across the creek of a cargo to be delivered. He or she in turn would signal back that her message had been received. She would then be notified, again by code, that arrangements had been made at the dock in Charleston for pickup by personnel of steam ships willing to grant assistance. She never had to wait long for her message to be received and answered. Her instructions would be simple. She was to drop her passenger off at a prearranged spot at the dock and leave. The day she'd deposited Timothy, she had barely turned Jimsonweed toward home and cast a look behind her to see that he'd disappeared. It worried her that “the person across the creek,” as Sarah came to call the agent, knew her identity. She could only hope whoever it was would never be discovered, and they could both remain safe to meet the needs other tomorrows would bring.

“I'll make arrangements and be on the lookout for him,” Sarah said.

Jessica threw her arms around her. “Oh, thank you, Sarah. Christmas will have more meaning to me this year, knowing we saved the boy.”

“We haven't saved him yet, Jessica. In this business, there's always a chance of the train being derailed, and you can't rest easy until conductor and passenger have made it safely to their destination.”

I
n the library at Queenscrown, Silas Toliver threw down his pencil on the pages of columned items and figures spread on his late father's massive desk, now belonging to his brother, Morris, and held his head in his hands. The numbers refused to lie, as did his own inner voice. He had been a fool to speculate in the Conestogas, as Carson Wyndham had unequivocally pointed out when he'd refused him a loan.

“I'm sorry, Silas, but I'm not about to throw good money after bad. What were you thinking to invest your money in an enterprise with so many potential pitfalls? Your mistake was basing your business venture on the trustworthiness of other people to get those vehicles to Texas, take care of them, and abide by the agreement they signed, which, as you've sadly learned, is about as binding as a lady's hair ribbon. You
never
place your expectations for financial success in the hands of other people. They'll disappoint you every damn time. You need to stick to farming, which you're very good at. Leave investing to businessmen like me who know what we're doing.”

Silas could have torn out his hair. What in God's name
had
he been thinking? No one had replied to the for-sale ads he'd placed far and wide, and now eight proud, seven-hundred-dollar Conestoga wagons went begging in a field by one of Queenscrown's barns, a humiliating reminder of his failure to turn a profit outside the realm of cotton farming. An armada of them, their high, white canvas tops like unfurled sails, was weathering next to his own wagon and the two awaiting the families who'd agreed to rent them, but what was the guarantee they'd still want them come their delivery date the first of February?

Silas had been counting on that loan from Carson Wyndham to pay for provisions, supplies, and expenses incurred along the way. He was already leaving South Carolina in debt to the man, not an easy creditor to owe. Even if the Conestogas sold at less than what he paid, he and Lettie and Joshua would have to live on practically nothing for the five to six years he would be in hock to the richest man in South Carolina, and Silas hated that for his family. While other settlers, the prosperous among them, would be building their manor houses, increasing their holdings, adding slaves to their workforce, he, in comparison, would still be living in a log cabin minding the few acres of his original land grant with the help of his meager number of blacks. Lettie would have to make her own clothes of the most economical materials while the wife of Jeremy, should he marry, and the wives of his debtless neighbors could afford seamstresses and silk.

But now, without the money he'd hoped from Carson, even that scant existence was beyond his financial reach.

He had no choice but to go to Morris.

In the other room, he could hear Joshua's excited voice as he pointed to the pictures in a storybook Lettie had borrowed from Sarah's classroom. Silas had left his son sitting in Lettie's lap, his favorite place to be, under the fond eyes of Reverend Sedgewick, who sat smoking his pipe next to Elizabeth knitting before the fire. Their peaceful, happy scene jarred with the black mood overtaking him as he pushed away from the desk. He stared up at an oil painting Benjamin Toliver had commissioned of himself when he was young and felt consumed by a bitterness so intense his finger trembled when he shook it at him. “You could have spared me this, Father, if you'd only loved me enough to remember me fairly. I was your son, too—”

“You wronged our father, Silas.”

Silas swung around. Morris had quietly entered the room. He was a large man of the bearish build and cloddish movements that made hostesses fear for their fragile whatnots, but on occasion, his brother's eyes were the gentlest Silas had ever seen. They were such now, and Silas thought he saw tear shine in them. He bit back the retort on his tongue and gathered up the sheets of paper. Morris had deeply loved their father. It was another offense Silas laid at the feet of the man who had sired them. He had made it impossible to comfort his brother in his grief.

“I'm glad you're here, Morris. I have something to discuss with you.”

Silas moved to another chair, vacating the one behind the desk for its owner, but Morris ponderously lowered himself into the wingback across from him. “I'm glad you're here, too,” his brother said, “for where you are, Joshua and Lettie are also.”

Morris read his Bible faithfully, and he often expressed himself in the syntax of the King James Version. Lettie thought his tendency poignantly appealing and that it allowed a surprised glimpse into the Morris few rarely saw. Silas understood that his brother was already feeling the absence to come. Without Joshua and Lettie, his house would be barren. It did not occur to Silas that his son and future wife would be the reason Morris would turn him down.

“No, brother. I will not help you,” Morris said when Silas had presented his request. “Your place is here at Queenscrown with Mother and me. I would give you the money if it meant that you alone would go to Texas, but I will not pave the way for you to take Joshua and Lettie.”

“I will not leave them here, Morris.”

“Then you can't go, not on my dollar.”

“And you would dispute that our father wronged me?”

“I would dispute that he knew what was best for you. In my opinion, he didn't.”

“If that is so, give me the half of Queenscrown that should rightfully have gone to me, and I will—if not gladly—at least, willingly, stay.”

“And go against our father's final wishes for what he thought best for you? I'm afraid I can't do that, Silas.”

“You speak in riddles, Morris.”

“I speak plainly what you are too blind to see, my brother.”

Morris could not be persuaded. Silas promised him that if he would give him the money, the Conestogas were his. He could sell them to the federal army, who would probably pay top dollar.

“Why don't
you
sell them to the army?” Morris suggested.

Because negotiations with the army would probably take months, Silas explained, and he hadn't months, not if he left this spring. He needed money now for outfitting his rig to be ready the first of March.

But it was no use. Morris remained adamant in his refusal. Texas was no place for a woman and child right now. Silas could stay another year, save his money, sell his Conestogas, and hook up with another wagon train next spring. Jeremy and his group would have paved the way. Meanwhile, their mother would be spared the agony of another loss, at least temporarily, and Joshua would have more time to be with his grandmother and uncle. Perhaps the memories would stick, and the boy would someday wish to return for a visit. The discussion ended with Silas marching from the study and slamming the door. Startled, the happy group gathered around the fire looked up to see son, father, fiancé, and future son-in-law stomp up the stairs to his room, his handsome face dark with rage.

“Don't run after him, Lettie,” Morris advised from the door of the library. “He's inconsolable.”

“What happened?” she asked, having been on the verge of setting Joshua from her lap to do exactly what he cautioned against.

“His dream for the moment has been shattered,” Morris said.

“What do you mean?”

“Silas will not be singing the Lord's song in a strange land,” he parodied from the Psalms in the Old Testament. “In other words, he won't be going to Texas, at least not this spring. It looks as if Mother and I will have the delight of your company a year longer.”

Morris strode forward and, to his nephew's exhilarated laughter, lifted him high above his head. “Let's go see the new puppies, shall we, my fine boy?”

In his room, Silas braced his arm against the cold fireplace and bowed his head. What was he to do now? Where could he turn for money? Other lenders might be willing to bankroll him, but once word got out that Carson Wyndham thought him a poor loan risk, he stood no chance of convincing them otherwise. He must tell Lettie of the pickle he'd gotten them into. She would understand, forgive him, try to get him to make the best of it for another year. Easy for her. She loved his mother and liked his brother—“a loving man, Silas, if only you could appreciate that side of him”—and certainly Queenscrown, with its gardens and acres of lawn, servants and horses and dogs, far different from the cramped manse she'd known all her life. But what she didn't
understand
—wouldn't love—was the man she married if they had to live another year at Queenscrown. That man would not be able to endure his brother's orders—so often wrong for the plantation. Didn't Morris know that land must lie fallow for several growing seasons to replenish itself? He could not bear to be paid a paltry salary while the profits of his labor poured into Morris's coffers. How could he stand to be regarded as no better than an overseer while his brother sat astride his black stallion as the master of the house where he, too, had been born and bred?

He must find a way out, no matter what it cost, what he had to agree to. He would sell his soul to pull out with Jeremy Warwick March first, 1836, as a leader of the wagon train headed for the black waxy region of Texas. He simply had to find someone willing to buy it.