The Bracelet (2 page)
Authors: Dorothy Love
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance, #Suspense, #Christian, #ebook
“There are no secrets that time does not reveal.”
J
EAN
-B
APTISTE
R
ACINE
September 27, 1843
I
NSIDE THE CARRIAGE HOUSE THE AIR WAS DAMP AND STILL
, thick with the smell of leather and horses. She shook the rain from her hair and eased the door closed. In the dim light coming through the high windows she could discern the shapes of two carriages, one an open surrey with three rows of seats, the other closed and more commodious—and beaded with rain. Beneath the window: two metal buckets, a buggy whip, a squat wooden table with peeling paint and coated with dust.
She had not seen him since the accident, but she had waited for him in the garden behind the house, just as he’d asked, until the storm broke. Maybe he loved her as he claimed. But in his world, love was easily won and just as easily tossed aside.
For months she had known this day was coming, and she’d waited for her heart to be free. But longing was a sickness that wouldn’t leave her. She couldn’t explain even to herself why such feelings bound her to him despite the torment of parting, the fear of discovery, and the price they now would have to pay.
She sank to the floor, the brick pavers rough against her bare
feet, and her foot hit a coil of rope lying in the corner. She looked up to the cobwebbed rafters, and something broke inside her. Who would miss her if she were gone? Certainly not the child, too young to know its mother. Maybe Phoebe from the kitchen would shed a tear. Maybe Primus and Fanny, who had covered for her when he sent word and she slipped away. Otherwise she would be forgotten. Erased. A stone beneath rushing water.
She uncoiled the rope, and the weight of it gave her courage. It would be easy enough to form a knot. Climb onto the table, toss the rope over the rafters. Slip the noose over her head and kick the table away. A simple end to a complicated life.
She dragged the table to the center of the room and with trembling fingers fashioned the noose. She swung it over the rafters. On the third try, it caught. She slipped the noose over her head, the scratchy rope pressing heavily against her throat.
She closed her eyes, the sound of her pulse rushing in her ears, tears scalding her cheeks. Phoebe said it was a sin to die by one’s own hand and such an end would lock the gates of heaven against the sinner. But maybe she deserved whatever fate waited for her on the other side. She could see no other way for this story to end. Desperation had overtaken her and now exerted its own logic.
The storm intensified, jagged lightning cracking open the sky, the roll of thunder swallowing the sound of her sobs. She longed for a swift end to her suffering. But still she hesitated. What of the child? Who would care for her little one with the same affection its own mother would? A mental image of the helpless babe sent another wave of guilt washing over her, weakening her resolve. If she stayed in this world, a life of longing and regret would be her penance. But if she died here, and in this way, the child would have an even heavier cross to bear. Grief upon grief.
The table beneath her feet cracked and abruptly tilted, one leg splaying out at a precarious angle. The rope tightened, and black
spots danced before her eyes. She teetered, both arms outstretched, and regained her balance, then stood motionless—afraid to move, afraid not to move, every muscle aching with the strain.
The carriage house door slid open. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated a dark figure silhouetted against the rain-swollen sky. In the garden beyond, the gazebo stood out in sharp relief, the roses and jessamine bent and sodden.
“Please.” Her throat felt raw. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. “Please help me.”
Savannah, Georgia, September 15, 1858
A
T THE SOUND OF MALE VOICES IN THE ENTRY HALL BELOW
, Celia Browning left her window overlooking the garden and the redbrick carriage house. She set aside her book and opened her bedroom door just wide enough to afford a view of the door to her father’s study down below. The house was quiet, the entry hall now empty. Dust motes swirled like snowflakes in the late afternoon sunshine, pouring through the fanlight above the front door and reflecting in the ornate gilt mirror on the wall. She cocked an ear to listen, but the conversation taking place behind the massive mahogany doors was lost in the vast space.
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Frowning, she leaned against the polished mahogany banister and wondered what she was missing.
Papa often included her in discussions of the shipping company that had made him the fourth richest man in Savannah, behind Mr. Low, Mr. Green, and their neighbor on the square, Mr. Sorrel. She relished the lively discussions regarding Browning Shipping Company’s fleet of snows and schooners that transported cargo to ports around the world. She liked keeping up
with the prices of timber, cotton, and turpentine and the news of markets that might soon admit ships from Savannah. Most of all she loved that her father treated her as an equal, allowing her the occasional visit to his counting house on Commerce Row, overlooking the river.
“Eavesdropping, Cousin?”
Celia jumped at the sound of Ivy’s voice. Ivy grinned, one brow raised.
“I’m not eavesdropping. Even if I wanted to, I can’t hear a thing.”
Ivy eyed Celia’s bare toes peeking from beneath the pink bell of her skirt. “You’d better not let Mrs. Maguire catch you running about without your shoes.”
Celia waved one hand. “She won’t care. She secretly likes looking after us.”
“She likes looking after you and Uncle David. I’m only the poor relation who causes more trouble than she’s worth.”
Celia studied her tall, sharp-faced cousin. Ivy had come to live with the Brownings when Celia was eight and Ivy ten. After fifteen years it was hard to remember a time when Ivy had not occupied the bedroom across the hall from Celia’s in the terra-cotta-colored mansion on Madison Square. Papa had done everything possible to make Ivy feel welcome, but lately Ivy’s usual determined cheerfulness had been replaced by periods of dark abstraction that lacked an apparent cause. It seemed she looked for opportunities to remind the Brownings that she didn’t really belong to them. Or to Savannah, a city Celia and her father loved almost as much as they loved each other.
“What’s the matter?” Celia placed a hand on her cousin’s arm. “It isn’t like you to feel sorry for yourself.”
“Oh, don’t mind me.” Ivy lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I’m out of sorts today. I don’t feel sorry for myself, and I don’t want
anyone else to, either.” She tucked the book she’d been reading beneath her arm. “I’ve been an orphan for so long that I actually find it quite liberating.”
“You’re certainly in an odd mood today.”
A burst of laughter escaped from below. Celia peeked down and saw that the door to Papa’s study had opened. Now he stood in the foyer with his clerk. Elliott Shaw was a slight, thin-shouldered man of uncertain years whose generous mouth and thick eyelashes gave an almost feminine cast to his pale features. Celia had met him a few times at Papa’s office. Mr. Shaw was always courtly, if a bit shy, but his movements, so awkward and constrained, made her feel ill at ease. Still, nobody knew accountancy and maritime law better than he.
Mr. Shaw retrieved his hat and took his leave. Papa returned to his study. Celia padded silently along the upper hallway, passing portraits of generations of Brownings and Butlers, and ran lightly down the carpeted stairs, one hand trailing along the polished banister that gave off the pleasant scent of lemons and beeswax.
“Papa? Do you have a moment?”
He looked up from the stack of papers on his desk, a smile creasing his handsome face. “Always have time for you, darling. Give me a moment to finish signing these.”
Celia plopped into her chair and tucked her bare feet under her. A sultry breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows and carried with it the sounds of horses’ hooves plodding along the unpaved street, the voices of children playing in the tree-shaded square. The rustle of Papa’s papers mingled with the faint ticking of the clock on the mantel above the fireplace. Celia watched a woman and a small boy hurrying along the street, the child clinging like a barnacle to her voluminous skirts. A flock of sparrows rose and fell along the rooftops.
Celia released a contented sigh. She loved every room of this
house—the drawing room where she entertained her friends, the spacious dining room with its massive mahogany table and a marble-topped sideboard that held the family silver. The library, bursting with books and filled with warm Georgia sunlight that poured through the tall windows facing the street. But Papa’s study was her favorite. Dark-green walls were adorned with paintings depicting ships at sea. Books on maritime law sat side by side with novels by Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Dickens. A glass-fronted secretary held her father’s cherished mementoes: medals for his service to the army, a framed drawing of Celia’s that had won a prize at school, a pair of silver-handled antique dueling pistols purchased on a trip to France, and a miniature portrait of her mother, painted shortly before she was lost in the
Pulaski
steamship disaster.
Papa set down his pen and pushed his papers aside. “Now then, Celia. What’s on your mind? I hope you aren’t cross at having missed my talk with Mr. Shaw just now.”
“Well, I am disappointed. But I can never stay cross with you, Papa.”