Somerset (7 page)

E
unice said, “Willie May, we need to do something with the gazebo. It looks naked as a plucked bird out there without even a bow to commemorate the season. I'll gather the decorations, and I want you to round up some help and Tippy. We'll need her imagination in this, and we'll go out there and see what we can put together.”

Willie May was quite sure she turned as white as her apron. “Right now, Miss Eunice?”

“What could be a better time? I want every nook and cranny decorated as festively as possible before my sister arrives from Boston day after tomorrow. They're so
Puritan
in their celebration of Christmas up there. I want her to enjoy a little color in her surroundings while she's here, and she so loves to read in the gazebo.” Eunice paused. “What's the matter? You're looking at me with a stare as long as a country mile.”

“Oh, why, I—It's nothing, Miss Eunice. I got a funny tickling down my backbone, is all.”

“Somebody just walked over your grave, Willie May. Where is your daughter?”

“Upstairs with Miss Jessica. Miss Jessica just returned from her ride, and Tippy is helping her change for luncheon.”

“Jessie can change without her. Would you please go tell your daughter I want to see her?”

“Yes, Miss Eunice.”

Willie May hurried out of the room and up the stairs.
Oh, holy baby Jesus!
The runaway was still in the gazebo. What in the world were they going to do? The cooking staff was preparing luncheon, and servants would shortly be passing to and from the kitchen to the Big House with items for the table in direct sight of the gazebo and storage shed. It would be impossible to spirit the boy to another hiding place without someone seeing him.

Her heart beating so fast Willie May thought it would fly out of her chest, she paused before the door of Jessica's room to catch her breath and gain control of her frantic thoughts. For Tippy's protection, she and Miss Jessica had deliberately kept her ignorant of the runaway and their plan to help him escape. Willie May didn't like to think what would happen if their scheme was discovered and Tippy was found to be involved. Thank the good Lord the mistress had given her reason to send her from the room, and she could speak with Miss Jessica alone.

“Well, hello, Willie May,” Jessica said, turning from her mirror. “What brings you up here?” She was dressed in a knee-length linen chemise undergarment, and Tippy was lacing her into a corset to suit the small, tapered waist of the day dress waiting to be donned. A white pelerine—a lace covering to be draped over its puffy shoulders—lay on a chaise longue. The lace was threaded with red and green ribbons to satisfy her father's desire to see the women of his household dressed in the colors of the season. No other manor house in Plantation Alley decorated for the holidays like Willowshire.

“Your mother has asked to see Tippy,” Willie May said.

Tippy ceased her task and said, “Mama, what's wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, girl of mine. You better go see what Miss Eunice wants.”

Tippy dropped the ties and went to her. “Something is wrong, I just know it.”

Willie May looked into her daughter's thin face, the bone structure, as with the rest of her body, looking no stronger than a sparrow's, and as usual felt her heart twist like a wrung rag. She took Tippy's delicate, pointed chin gently between her fingers. “Go along now,” she said softly. “Nothing is wrong. I need to speak with Miss Jessie.”

Her corset half laced, the ties trailing, Jessica said when her maid had gone, “Tippy is right. Something
is
wrong, isn't it, Willie May?”

“I could never fool that child of mine,” Willie May said. “It's your mama. She wants to decorate the gazebo for Christmas beginning
right now
, she said. That's why she sent for Tippy. What we goin' do?”

“Oh, Lord,” Jessica moaned. “Right now?”

“
Right now
. She wants me to round up some help while she gets the decorations together.”

Jessica rubbed her forehead and paced in thought for a minute, then yanked off the corset and grabbed the day dress. “I'll tell you what we're going to do,” she said, struggling into its voluminous folds. “Follow my lead, Willie May, and agree with everything I say. All right?”

“All right,” Willie May said, having no idea what she was agreeing to as she helped Jessica to button the dress. “Uh, Miss Jessica, you do know you ain't got on the proper underwear, don't you?”

“Who's going to see?” Jessica said and sailed from the room like a ship heading out to sea under full steam with Willie May following in her wake. Halfway in her rush down the stairs, the wind of her flight plastering the skirt to her legs, Jessica called loudly several times,
“Mama!”

Eunice came running. She and Tippy had been buried in a cupboard under the kitchen stairs where seasonal decorations were stored.

“Good heavens, child,” Eunice said, meeting Jessica at the end of the balustrade, Tippy curious-eyed behind her. “Must you scream like a banshee?”

“Mama, you don't know what a banshee is.”

“I do, too. It's a female spirit in Irish folklore that sits under a window and howls that somebody in the house is about to die.” Eunice sniffed. “Though I didn't sit in on lessons, I learned a few things from Lettie Sedgewick just by keeping my ears open, young miss. Now, what is it?”

“Mama, Willie May tells me you want to decorate the gazebo, but if you do, you'll ruin my surprise.”

Eunice looked mystified. “What surprise?”

Jessica ignored Willie May's befuddled look. “Well, now, if I tell you, it won't be a surprise, will it?”

Eunice glanced at her housekeeper. “Do you know what she's talking about?”

“Yes, she does, don't you, Willie May?” Jessica answered for the housekeeper. “But we were going to keep it a secret. All right, all right, here it is,” Jessica said as if her arm were being twisted. “Willie May and I decided to decorate the gazebo ourselves, without Tippy's help, to prove to you that I
do
have some decorative sense. I've decided to take more of an interest in…​d
omestic
things, and I thought decorating the gazebo for Christmas would be the perfect place to start.”

Eunice's mouth hung open. It was a few seconds before she seemed able to speak. Her eye fell to Jessica's limp skirts. “Where are your petticoats?”

Jessica glanced down. “Well, I was in such a hurry to head you off I didn't have time to put them on. Now will you please agree to let me and Willie May decorate the gazebo, and you'll stay completely out of the way? Truly, I'd like to have
something
to show off to Aunt Elfie this Christmas season.”

Her tone full of doubt, Eunice said, “Well…all right, Jessie. Your father will be pleased, I'm sure, but…” She shot a painful glance at her housekeeper. “Will you see that she doesn't make too big a mess out there?”

“I promise, Miss Eunice,” Willie May said.

“And
no
peeking,” Jessica ordered. “We're going to hang up a sheet to make sure you don't. Right, Willie May?”

“Right,” Willie May said.

Scooter told his helpers that he needed to get off to town to pick up the wheel a little earlier than planned. It might rain that afternoon, and he didn't want the wagon to get bogged down in the mud. They could have his share of the noonday meal. He wouldn't take time to eat it. Would they explain to the master if he came by?

The day, however, showed no sign of rain and all afternoon, behind a sheet draped round the gazebo, Jessica and Willie May toiled on turning the structure into a seasonal wonder to match the holiday splendor of the Big House conceived in the creative mind of Tippy and carried out under her hand. In the late afternoon, Carson went with his wife to inspect the results of their daughter's and housekeeper's labor and raved to Jessica, “Spook, you and Willie May have exceeded every…expectation.”

That night as Carson snuggled next to his wife to sleep the repose of the just, he murmured in her ear, “Do you think you could have Tippy take a look at the gazebo tomorrow and…do a little rearranging?”

“You have read my mind, dear,” Eunice said.

O
ther than an occasional bump on the wall, there was so little sound coming from the storage room assigned her guest that Sarah was forced to knock on his door from time to time and whisper, “Are you there?”

The answer would come back, so soft and cautious that Sarah could feel her neck hairs tickle, “I'se here.”

She had put up a cot in the small supply closet attached to the kitchen. One window in the fugitive's quarters let in air and light, but it was kept shuttered and latched day and night. Sarah was thankful the cold front had brought day temperatures of a steady sixty degrees. At least her guest would not roast or be plagued by mosquitoes, and at night, when the temperature dropped, he had the use of plenty of blankets. Sarah slipped him food through a quick opening of his prison door, but at no time was he to show himself in the house. Someone by chance might glimpse him through the slits of the shuttered window over the kitchen sink or through the tiny parlor's windows, covered during the day by a drawn curtain. The most distasteful chore of looking after her boarder was emptying his chamber pot, a task she met with no less embarrassment than he.

“I'se sorry, miss,” the boy would mutter, handing her the receptacle.

“It's all right,” Sarah would respond, holding her breath.

She wondered how the boy could endure the cramped, sunless space, with little human contact and activity when she thought she would go mad if she had to spend one more day later than planned cooped up in her house. She felt like a prisoner herself, unable even to take a walk for fear the fugitive, seeing her gone, might venture out into the house or do something to rouse suspicion.

For the same reason, they had not dared talk to each other. Their voices, his with his Negroid dialect, might be heard and they'd be discovered. Carson Wyndham had put out the word that a possible runaway was in the area. There were many who would turn him in—and Sarah Conklin—to have the gratitude of Carson Wyndham. In the brief seconds the boy took the tray of food from her and shut the door, Sarah had only glimpsed his face and skeletal body in the ill-fitting clothes she'd found in the church's rummage bin. She'd have had him come out to stretch his legs, but, again, neither wished to take the risk of his being seen. Well-meaning people—a neighbor, church member, or parent of one of her students, knowing she was alone until her d
eparture
—might stop by with food or offer of company. She was grateful the Sedgewicks would be at the Tolivers' until late tomorrow afternoon. Jessica was to pick up her and her cargo after luncheon, and they would be long gone by the time Jimsonweed turned into the gate.

But it was almost over. This was the last night of her and the boy's captivity. She'd packed her steamer trunk and prepared a basket of food for the fugitive to take with him on his escape. It was ten o'clock, pitch black outside with low-cast clouds obscuring the moon. Time to hook her kerosene lantern to the back porch post and await the signal across the creek indicating that all was in readiness at the Charleston Harbor. The agent's code sign would be three long shoots of flame and one short. She would answer with three brief turns of her lantern's knob. Anyone observing her that time of night would think fear of fire had driven her outside to test the wick. If anything was amiss with either side, there would be no signal. Sarah prayed to see three tall spires and one quick burst of lantern light across the creek.

Wrapped in her cloak, she hung her lamp on the post, the wick burning low. She had not long to wait until the signal came, and she turned the knob to adjust the flame once, twice, three times. A huge relief filled her as she cupped her hand around the glass chimney to blow out the wick. She'd let her storage-room guest know that so far everything was going according to plan. Perhaps he'd sleep better, as she certainly would. Then, as she took down her lantern and turned to go inside, she saw another flash of light wink from the darkness and abruptly die. Her heart held. What had happened? Was that last spurt of flame intentional or accidental? Had her contact dropped his lantern and quickly snuffed the wick? She listened, her eyes straining into the dark woods, but heard nothing but the soft lapping of water around rocks. She'd gone exploring across the creek once, led by curiosity, and found the covert from where the agent flashed his coded messages. Crushed foliage had given away the burrow of his hiding place, accessed by a path through the woods.

A little disturbed, Sarah went inside and decided not to tap on the storage-room door to impart the good news. She might jinx their getaway. Her traveling suit hung outside her wardrobe in her bedroom. She'd placed it there last night as a lift to her spirits and a reminder that in eighteen hours, she would be on her way to Charleston to catch a boat bound for home. She undressed and climbed into bed in her night shift but could not sleep. Her thoughts were on Jessica.

Sarah was afraid for her. Strong will and impetuosity did not mix, and her friend had an abundance of both. Pair those traits with an utter belief in her invincible position in her family, and Jessica was like a blind person with a cocked and loaded gun. The girl did not believe her father's warnings. She mistakenly assumed his love for her would protect her from his threats and that he would not risk her affection turning to hate if he used Tippy as a tool to punish her. Jessica did not understand that if she were caught aiding and abetting the destruction of a
system
—b
etraying
it—on which her family's wealth, social position, and way of life had depended for generations, her sin would not be forgiven. But Tippy understood, and it was for her mistress's safety, not her own, that Jessica's maid was most concerned.

“She may know Carson Wyndham as a father,” Tippy once said to Sarah, “but she does not know him as a white man and master of Willowshire.”

Sarah agreed, relieved that she had Tippy's understanding of the danger Jessica disregarded. Working together, there was hope they could temper the impulses of their friend's passionate convictions.

Tippy continued to amaze her—and sadden her, too. Jessica should take sharp heed. Her maid's life could be snuffed out by one stomp of Carson Wyndham's handmade boots or by the heel of that son of his, and all that marvelous creative genius in that quirky little head be lost forever—“a
colored
girl's head!”—so Sarah had overheard Carson Wyndham snort his objection to Tippy on one of the few occasions she'd been a guest at Willowshire. In his tone, Sarah had heard the unmistakable notes of jealousy and resentment of the affection his daughter lavished on her Negro maid that she did not heap on him or her brother. From that dangerous quarter, too, Tippy must be on guard.

The moon was waning when Sarah finally fell asleep. She thought she was dreaming when she heard the clip-clop of horses' hooves coming up the lane past the manse, the cemetery, and drawing to a stop before her cottage. Startled awake, she leaped out of bed and grabbed her robe, hearing a frightened exclamation from the occupant inside the storage room as she ran from her bedroom through the kitchen to meet the nightmare she'd long dreaded and was sure awaited the other side of her door.

Tying her robe securely, she threw the latch to find a gaggle of men staring down at her from horseback, mouths clamped hard and eyes steely. The leader of them dismounted and tipped his hat. “Good evening, Miss Conklin, or perhaps I should say good morning, as I believe it is now,” Michael Wyndham said.