For Home and Country Page 4

  I waved at Tillie to signal I heard her before taking a quick look around the grounds. “Do you suppose the repairs will be done soon?” I directed my question to Jones.

  “We are doing what we can, but there aren’t enough hands for the tasks,” he said.

  I heaved a sigh. “I’d best go and see what Tillie wants. Now, you take it easy.” I placed a hand on Jimmy’s arm.

  “Yessum,” he said. “I ain’t gwine back to dat sick hospital, not today or any day. You go on up to de house and don’t worry none ’bout me. Wid dem Home Guards patrolling de roads lak a bunch of Northern spies, you can’t chance dem seeing you catering to a nigger. You de missus, and you need to git on up to dat house and act lak et.”

  “James is right,” Jones said. “The last thing we need is Carlton getting any suspicions and giving us more to worry about than Union soldiers showing up.”

  I knew they were right. “Very well.” I narrowed my eyes at Jimmy. “You take it easy, and that is an order.”

  He saluted me. “Yes, Missus Willie.”

  I smiled before turning to walk toward the house. “Cantankerous as they come,” I said under my breath.

  As I approached the back veranda, Moses’s woman, Helene, pulled in closer to her man while eyeing me uncertainly. Moses had been at Livingston since he was a young boy, and Helene had come from Bowden’s plantation. The couple had a child, who straddled his mother’s hip and peered at me from the shelter of her neck.

  Moses shuffled his feet and looked from his woman to me, but before he could speak, Tillie approached the edge of the landing. “Miss Willow.”

  “Yes.” I looked up at her.

  She edged closer while wiping her palms on her dress and casting a glance at the family. “Helene and Moses come luking to speak to ya.”

  “Have they now?” I swung back to look at the family. “What can I help you with?”

  “We…” Moses kept his eyes on the ground, where he used the toe of his boot to draw small circles in the dirt. “I knowed you and the masa bin good to us, and I reckon you could use all de help you could get right now, wid de masa away and all. But me and Helene bin thinking et bes’ ef we strike out on our own.”

  I swallowed my growing concern. “B-but it’s more unsafe than ever out there. Not only do we have the Home Guards roaming the roads—”

  “And we knowed dat,” Helene said. I arched a brow at the determination in her tone. I had come to know the woman as meek. “But we willing to risk et.” She adjusted the child on her hip.

  “And where do you plan on going?” I asked.

  Moses took a step forward. “We fixing to head north. Masa Bowden’s grandpa sold off Helene’s sister to a masa from New Orleans.”

  “You intend to go searching in the middle of a war?” I gawked at the couple in disbelief. Had they lost all their senses?

  “Wid all respect, Missus, ef we don’t go now, den when?” he said.

  I pressed my fingers to my temple and paced. I didn’t want to stand in their way, but the country had been turned upside down. Now, more than ever, hostility could meet them at every corner. I paused and looked at their son as Helene bent and placed him on the ground. “But what of Jasper? He is so young for such a journey.”

  “When he too tired to walk, we will carry him.” Moses squared his shoulders. “We made up our minds. We gwine.”

  I braced at the resolution in his tone. “I will not stand in your way, but you will not go without food and water.”

  “We have some.” Helene patted the makeshift sack tied to her waist. “When we need more, we find et. God be watching over us.”

  I nodded, tears dampening my eyes. “Stick to the river, and travel at night.”

  “Yessum.” Moses tried to smile, but worry oozed from his every pore.

  Josephine had visited last week and reported that several of their slaves had run off. With Mr. Carlton too busy with policing Charleston and the surrounding countryside, he couldn’t track them down, and they were long gone. I supposed like those and many others who would follow suit, Moses and Helene figured it was safer to take their chances off the plantation than to wait for the war to come to our front step.

  Our numbers had dwindled to a scarce few. Those closest to me had yet to make the decision to venture out. With Mary Grace and the children at the Barlow plantation, we had hardly seen them enough to appease Mammy or I. On Mary Grace and Magnus’s most recent visit, he had informed us he sought to take her and the children north until they could return to England.

  “Very well. I will pray that you reach safety and you can find your sister.”

  “When Big John found Miss Rita, I knowed et warn’t impossible,” Helene said with hope shining in her eyes.

  I tamped down the nerves congregating in my stomach and smiled. “I wish for you a similar union.”

  “Thank you, Missus,” she said.

  “We won’t forgit your kindness.” Moses inclined his head. “We wait till dark and den we go.”

  When the family turned and walked off, I spun to look up at Tillie.

  “I don’t lak et one bit,” she said. “My stomach a mess of nerves.”

  “Mine too.” I climbed the steps to stand beside her. She continued to observe Moses and his family as they stopped to embrace each other. I gave her a sideways glance, grappling with the question I wanted to ask because I feared the answer. I stood quietly beside her for a moment before wandering inside to ponder how long it would be before Tillie and Pete also sought to leave.

  I halted when Pippa exited the library. “The house is much too quiet today, don’t you think?”

  She frowned and regarded me as though I had lost my mind. “I was trying to read, but the noise from the repairs makes it impossible to concentrate, so I thought I’d go for a stroll. Care to join me?”

  “I’m afraid I would be terrible company,” I said with a small smile. “Perhaps another time?”

  “Of course.” Her face softened.

  She sauntered down the corridor, fetched a shawl hanging on a peg, and went through the front door. I stood staring into the empty space of her retreat, lost in the chasm expanding inside me.

  “I suppose one would get used to aloneness,” I said to the empty corridor, and my words echoed. I wrapped my arms around myself and sighed.

  “You all right, Missus Willow?” Mammy said.

  I swerved to find her standing behind me, scrutinizing me with the same look Pippa had given me moments prior. Where had she come from? I hadn’t heard her approach. “I’m fine. A bit lonely, I guess.” I heaved another sigh and looked about the place.

  “De place ain’t so lively as et once was. I use to hearing footsteps everywhere. Slave folkses listening in corners and de yard filled wid folkses and chillum running ’bout in play. De spirit of song drifting from de yard and fields. Et lak de place done lost all life.”

  “Moses and Helene are leaving tonight.”

  She shook her head. “Ain’t gwine to be nobody left soon. Just you and de masa, ol’ James, and my John and me.”

  “And what ’bout us?” a voice asked, hardly audible.

  We turned to find Tillie watching us. She looked from Mammy to me. “We here too,” she said meekly.

  “You don’t intend to leave?” My heart leaped at the news.

  “Pete ain’t leaving his pappy, and my mama is buried here. I want to be free as much as de next person, but dis is my home.”

  Before I could catch myself, I launched myself at her. She gasped as I snatched her into a hug and kissed her repeatedly. “Oh, I’m delighted to hear that.” I lingered, lost in my happiness before I became aware of what I was doing, and released her. “Please forgive me.”

  “Dat’s quite all right, Missus.” She flashed an awkward grin. “You took me by surprise, is all.”

  “When you said you didn’t intend to leave, I was overcome with gratitude. It’s wrong of me, I know, but the thoughts of…” I lowered my gaze as shame s
tole my words.

  “We care ’bout you too, Missus Willow. You lak family, whether you white or not,” she said with more assertiveness than I’d ever recalled seeing in her.

  My head whipped up at her statement, and my heart soared. “Oh, Tillie, I’m so happy, I could squeeze you.”

  “You already done dat,” she said with a cheeky grin.

  I laughed and clasped my hands under my chin, hope humming in my heart.

  For the rest of the day, I daydreamed that, if matters shifted in favor of abolishing slavery—and I prayed it would be so—perhaps Tillie and Pete could have their own piece of land where they could raise a family right here at Livingston.

  Drifter

  WARM BLOOD SPLATTERED MY FACE, and I howled in exhilaration as excitement coursed through my veins. The scrape of my blade as I withdrew it left me feeling reborn. The ever-present residents inside my head championed and praised me for a job well done. I straightened to stare down at the lifeless body of Samson, splayed in a pool of crimson on the cabin floor. The man had given me refuge and nursed my wounds, but the pressing urge, the need to end his life had nagged at me for weeks.

  A similar vision of a woman splayed in a puddle of blood on a cabin floor flashed before me, but emotions that were quite different erupted in my gut. I felt grief—an emotion that seemed foreign—and also a sense of love for her. I realized that the woman was, in fact, my mother. Had I been responsible for her death? No, surely the madness inside my head hadn’t led me to kill my own mother.

  No, but you should have, the voices chimed.

  “Enough!” My voice reverberated off the cabin walls, and agony ripped through my chest. The voices muttered and faded, and I gulped back the tears swelling in my throat.

  I stretched my hands out to behold the blood staining them and the blade. I held it up for inspection, then peered back at the body, and my jaw relaxed. I had gutted the man and taken great pleasure in the act. I lowered the blade and wiped it on my trousers before setting it on the table.

  Striding to the crate under the cabin’s window, I poured lukewarm water from a pitcher into the metal basin. I removed the dirtied trousers and shirt and washed the blood from my face, hands, and forearms, discovering satisfaction in how red muddied the water. I moved to Samson’s bed, gathered his spare buckskin trousers and shirt, and slipped them on. The fit was off, but they would do until I could obtain more suitable clothing.

  I packed a satchel with food and filled a waterskin before retrieving the money Samson kept in the wooden box on a shelf by the fireplace. At the table, I looked at the dirtied dishes from the morning meal. The smell of bacon still hung in the cabin. My attention turned to the small pile of kindling positioned to the right of the fireplace. Slinging the satchel over my shoulder, I reached for a piece of kindling and held it to the glowing flames. As the stick ignited, I eyed it with wonder, then another vision crackled to life: a scream-filled night; a mansion and surrounding buildings aflame. I frowned, unsure what I had seen, but the same sense of urgency I’d felt since I’d awakened kindled, like a niggling in the back of my mind of a mission left unfinished.

  The flame came ferociously to life, and I pushed away all pondering and straightened. At the far end of the room, I torched the bedding, curtains, and all else that would ignite. As the flames went on a rampage through the cabin, I paused a moment to revel in the beauty. The voices in my head crowed with glee when I threw the kindling onto the bed. I strode to the cabin’s open door, scooping up Samson’s bedroll lying against the wall on the way by. Pausing on the threshold, I took a final glance around and rested my gaze on Samson’s body as the flames raced toward him. Joy danced on my soul and parted my lips.

  I closed the door and strode down the stairs, and made my way to the pasture where the chestnut bay grazed.

  After saddling the mare and securing the bedroll and satchel, I led the horse from the pasture. At the same time, the cabin windows shattered. Angry flames leaped through the windows and rose like hungry spirits in search of a victim.

  I swung up onto the mare and took one last look at the cabin before I rode out. The same plaguing thought niggled at the back of my mind: who was I? Throughout my confusion since awakening in Samson’s care, I had pondered the question, never coming up with an answer. The voices inside my head had given me a sense of power, but they never enlightened me with the answers I sought.

  The horse picked up speed, and another image surfaced, one of a beautiful brunette woman. Who was she? A lover who had defied me? My fingers clutched the reins tighter as an understanding that the woman was anything but a lover resonated. But if not a lover, then why did she stir a profound hunger inside me to see her dead?

  Madame Amelie Laclaire

  I RAN A JEWELED HAND over the green taffeta with admiration, relishing the exquisite feel of the fabric under my fingers. The chatter of gentlemen and the girls droned on in the background. Usually the purchasing of new material would fill me with delight, but not today. I gritted my teeth as the obnoxious braying of one girl’s laughter carried. She was the ordinary sort, but with a voluptuous body that men couldn’t resist. And, because of that asset, she was one of my best-paying girls.

  “Luther!” I swung to look at the pianist lazing on a settee with a brunette on his lap.

  His gray eyes widened, and he tossed the girl to the side and leaped to his feet. “Yes, Madame?” He ran a hand much too small for a man over his balding head.

  The girl jumped to her feet, gave him a scowl, and stormed off.

  “Play something to boost the spirits of the place.”

  He scurried to the piano and sat down, and I turned back to regard the black seamstress eyeing me tentatively. The sound of the piano drowned out the chatter and eased my nerves.

  “Where were we?” I said.

  She gestured at the fabric.

  “Oh, yes, I will take it. Do you think you can have the garment finished within the month?”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem, Madame.”

  “Good,” I said. “Thank you for coming by.”

  She nodded and glanced around the place before gathering the three bolts of fabric she had brought for my inspection and hurrying out the back.

  I turned and leaned my hips against the bar and observed the captain trailing his fingers along the cleavage of a busty blond. The odd man had come in and out of my establishment for the last four days, never taking a girl upstairs but instead sitting in the parlor to fondle each one in the strangest way. I figured he liked to arouse himself with the mortal flesh of a woman while exerting his willpower. As bizarre as he was, I’d seen too much in my life to waste time pondering on his behavior.

  I wrenched my attention from the gentleman as a nauseating scent that chilled my blood wafted my way. Before she spoke, I knew the past had presented itself.

  “I never believed it could be true,” a woman said from behind me.

  It was her. My heart sprang into my throat, and I turned to face a gray-haired woman clad in a tattered, rust-colored gingham dress.

  I gripped the bar to brace myself. “Mother…” My voice drifted. How could she still be alive? Had she come to make me pay for the murder of the congressman?

  At my address, she stumbled back, and I moved to catch her, but she gripped the back of a chair to remain upright. I stopped and regarded her with horror and fear. She stood trembling, appearing ready to collapse. “I never believed it,” she said again before looking back at me. “It’s you.”

  I looked around to observe if anyone was paying attention to us before marching forward and gripping her arm with a fierceness foreign to me. Ignoring her frailness under my fingers, I hauled her toward the back, away from my patrons and staff. I didn’t release her until I’d pulled her into a storage room, out of sight. I let go of her arm so violently that she sailed backward and hit her hip on a wooden crate. She let out a howl of pain, but I cared not. She could rot in hell, for all I cared. If there was a God, why ha
d he let her exist this long? She didn’t deserve to draw breath.

  “What are you doing here?” The inner storm that had rumbled at the very thought of this abhorrent person who’d birthed me erupted.

  Gathering herself, she rubbed her hip before opening her mouth to speak, revealing rotten and missing teeth. She appeared dreadfully thin. “I suppose I didn’t expect a warm welcome.”

  I scoffed and planted my hands on my hips. “And why would I ever welcome a monster back into my life?” I took pleasure in the flicker of pain on her weathered face.

  “I deserve that.”

  “Damn straight, you do!” My whole body vibrated.

  Her shoulders slumped. “Esther, p-please—”

  I sprang forward and pinned her by the throat to the wall. “Don’t ever call me by that name. You have no right!” My fingers tightened. I wanted to end her life, to snuff out the pain and memories of the past.

  Tears welled in her eyes. “Do it. I wouldn’t blame you. No one would.”

  I squeezed tighter until she gasped, and her eyes filled with fear as she fought to breathe, as I had under the weight of the men she forced on top of me. Die! Just die! But, for some unconscious reason, my grip eased, and I stepped back. Her body slid down the wall, and she crumpled to the floor.

  “I’m sorry. So very sorry,” she said and began to weep.

  I hated her, even the mere sight of her. Hadn’t I envisioned her as she was in that moment—on the ground before me, begging for forgiveness? Every muscle in my body vibrated. I swiped a hand over my face and moved a safe distance away from her.

  Numbed, I rested my weight on a crate and waited for her to gather herself, and soon her pathetic sobs of self-pity ceased. Eyes red-rimmed and puffy, she pulled to her feet before searching my face. “Why didn’t you end both of our misery?”

  The hatred I held for her twisted in my gut like a soured meal. “I will not have your death on my hands. You’ve tainted my life enough with your poison.”