Somerset (26 page)

G
uy had said that within two days he would come for his “cargo” in the darkness of night with none in the house the wiser. He would take away all evidence of the slave's presence. It would be best if Jessica would forgo use of her carriage until he appeared at her door on some pretext to say that Ezekiel was away and clear—perhaps to lend her a book he thought might interest her.

It was late morning of the third day and Guy had not appeared. Jessica felt like a cat on a leash. She could not have said how many times she'd peered surreptitiously out the mansion's back windows giving a view of the gazebo, rose garden, and carriage house, careful not to arouse her husband's and son's curiosity. Guy could not have hidden the runaway at a more inopportune time. School had adjourned for the Thanksgiving holiday, and the cold and rainy weather had kept Thomas inside playing euchre, a card game, with Jeremy Jr., Armand, and Jake Davis. Even Silas left for the plantation later than usual each day. He'd hired a land manager to take over many of his duties at Somerset so that now he had more time to enjoy the life typical of the planter class. One of his pleasures of leisure was to stay late in bed with Jessica, but she was too wrought up to respond to his reason for doing so.

As the day lengthened, a series of anxious what-ifs stalked Jessica like shadows. What if something had happened to Guy? What if he'd been caught and was unable to take possession of his cargo? What if Ezekiel were still in the carriage house? What if the odor of the full chamber pots could be smelled below the stairs? What if the man had run out of food and water?

“Miss Jessica, I declare, the last few days you actin' like a bird with nowhere to land,” Maddie observed. “This weather gettin' into your insides?”

“That's it, Maddie,” Jessica said. “I'm perishing to work in my garden.”

“Your frettin' not goin' make that garden soil dry no faster. Why don' you go visit your friends? Jeremiah's rheumatism ain't botherin' him so much he can't hook up your buggy for you.”

Listening to her, Jessica was struck by an inspiration. The servants were accustomed to her considerations. They would think nothing of her hooking up her horse to spare Jeremiah from having to aggravate the pain of his arthritic joints.

“Let him be,” Jessica said. “If I wish to go out, I'll see to the carriage.”

Now was the perfect time. Luncheon was over. The house servants were having their noon meal in the kitchen. Silas had left for the plantation, and Thomas had taken the card game up the street to the Davises. Jake reported that his father was still searching for their butler. Jessica drew on her bonnet and shawl and took up her umbrella.

She did not announce her departure to Maddie and slipped out a side-terrace door to walk around to the carriage house. Perhaps none in the house would notice she had gone. If she found Ezekiel still in the apartment, she would drive immediately to the boarding house to speak with Guy Handley. For anyone curious as to why the wife of Silas Toliver was visiting the young and handsome schoolteacher—she was thinking of Guy's nosey landlady—her excuse would be that she wished to invite him to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner.

With an effort Jessica drew back the heavy door to the carriage house. She'd have to leave it open to make good her intention to hook up the brougham should she be discovered, but the rain would shield her once inside. No human smell permeated the damp enclosure. Jessica waited and listened but heard only the rain pounding on the roof. Through the rain-lashed windows of the kitchen, lit by kerosene lamps, she could see the servants at their meal around the table, Jeremiah at its head, his back to her. It was highly unlikely anyone would notice the door to the carriage house open.

Quickly, Jessica climbed the stairs to the narrow landing and knocked on the door. “Anybody there?” she whispered.

No answer. She tried the door handle, freezing when she felt it resist the turn from inside. “Who's there?” she said louder.

She heard footsteps move hurriedly away from the door and opened it to find Ezekiel, wrapped in a blanket, hugging the far wall, eyes bulging with fright. Jessica expelled a pent-up breath.

“What are you still doing here?” she demanded, drawing inside but leaving the door open to alert her to the sound of someone entering below.

“The man, he did not come for me,” Ezekiel said. “Did he not tell you?”

“I haven't heard a word from him.”

“He say he send you a note.”

“I didn't get it. That's why I'm here now—to learn what's happening.”

The Negro drew the blanket tighter. “The man say it not safe to travel. My master and his dogs and patrols are about. The man say he come for me late tonight. Master Davis is supposed to be busy.”

Playing poker with Silas, Jessica remembered. It was the third Wednesday of the month and Lorimer's turn to host in his town house. The game usually lasted past midnight. She looked about her. The slave had kept his “place” even here. He had not slept on the made-up bed but on a pallet of his belongings he'd made for himself on the floor. He had not eaten at the table but from the hamper, nor chanced firing up the Franklin stove, even though the temperature had dipped below freezing two of the nights he'd been confined. There was no smell of body odor or chamber pots. Under cover of darkness, he'd risked the back stairs to empty the pots and wash himself in the downpours of rain.

“When did you last see…the man?” Jessica had noticed the slave did not call Guy by name, nor would she. It was likely Ezekiel did not know that his conductor was the local schoolmaster. If caught, the slave could recognize Guy but not name him to his capturers.

“Around midnight last night. He brought food and a jacket,” Ezekiel answered her. He opened the blanket to show her proof of his statement. “That was when he told me we'd leave tonight.”

“The note you mentioned…you said he
sent
it to me.”

“To tell you I was still here.”

Jessica felt her skin crawl. The note would have been sent by a messenger, but who? And to whom had he given it? If one of the servants, Jessica would have been sure to receive it. Thomas, perhaps? Her son could easily have forgotten to give it to her. Had it been written in code to protect their clandestine activity? Where was that note now? Had it been intercepted or delivered to the wrong house?

“Do you have everything you need until you leave?” she asked.

Before he could answer, there were footsteps on the wooden stairs. Immediately, Ezekiel disappeared behind a curtain hung to conceal the chamber pots, but it was inadequate to cover the toes of his shoes. Jessica had only managed to turn toward the open door when Silas appeared on the threshold, rain dripping from his hat and overcoat.

“What in bloody hell?” he demanded.

Jessica stood motionless, her mouth locked open in dismay and shock. “How—how did you know I was here?” she managed to gasp.

“You mean other than you were nowhere in our home, the door to the carriage house was open, and your skirts left a water trail up the stairs? Where is he?”

“Where is who?”

“Guy Handley.”

“
Guy Handley
?”

Silas swung his gaze toward the curtain enclosure and coldly inspected the gap from where the slave had withdrawn his exposed feet. In two long strides, he crossed to the curtain and yanked it aside.

“What in the name of God!
Ezekiel?
” Silas exclaimed, rearing back on his boot heels.

“Mister Toliver,” Ezekiel greeted him weakly with a formal nod of his head as if he were receiving him at the Davis plantation.

“Silas, please,” Jessica pleaded. She went to him and took hold of his chin to tear his shocked gaze from the slave attempting to maintain his dignity plastered to the wall among the chamber pots. “You must listen to me. If you turn Ezekiel over to Lorimer, you know what they'll do to him. Please, please, Silas, think if it were your wife. What would you do if I were sold away from you? Wouldn't you run away to find me, too?”

Silas lowered his bewildered gaze to her face. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Lorimer sold Ezekiel's wife to a planter in Houston, and he ran away to rescue her,” Jessica explained.

“Where is Guy Handley?”

“I don't know.”

“He's not here?”

Jessica swept the tip of her tongue over her dry lips. She must pretend ignorance of Guy's involvement until she was sure of what Silas knew.

“Why would he be?” she asked.

A deep flush mounted Silas's high cheekbones. “You're not—you're not…meeting him for a—a liaison?”

Understanding at last, Jessica stepped back indignantly. “Silas Toliver! Whatever would make you think such a thing?”

He withdrew a folded note from his pocket. “This,” he said, handing it to her. “Not to mention you've been
behaving
…
​distant
lately. I intercepted the boy delivering it. He said it was to be given only to you, but when I threatened him with my walking stick, he gave it to me.”

Jessica read the note:
I'm afraid we will not be able to meet as planned. I will see you soon. Devotedly, Guy H.

“Oh, dear.” So the note had fallen into Silas's hands, and he'd mistaken its content. She had no choice now. Silas knew Guy Handley was implicated, either as her lover or a participant in the slave's escape. There was no protecting Guy's involvement. Jessica gazed up at her husband, feeling a deep plunge of sympathy for the anguish he must have endured, despite her certainty that if he turned Ezekiel over to Lorimer, their marriage would be over.

“It's not what you think,” she said, running her fingertips over the flaming ridge of his cheekbone. “I could never be guilty of infidelity to you. Guy Handley is a conductor for the Underground Railroad. He came to me for help in keeping Ezekiel from Lorimer's henchmen until he could be taken to safety. Guy was to come to the house to let me know his mission had been accomplished, but apparently, he's run into a problem. If I'm going to be hanged, I want it to be for the correct crime.”

Silas closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. “God, Jessica, you are the death and life of me. When I read that note, I thought the worst.…” He glanced at the slave, pinned to the wall by fear, eyes stark as an animal's caught in a trap. Silas turned to his wife. “Am I never, ever to be spared the rod of your will? What do you want me to do?”

“You'll help?” she asked, not daring to hope.

“I will not interfere with Ezekiel's escape.”

“You mean it, Silas? You're not going to turn him over to Lorimer?”

“Lorimer can get mired in his own mud trying to find him,” Silas said. “He'll get no help from me.”

“Bless you, Mr. Toliver,” Ezekiel said and crumpled, sobbing, to the floor.

H
e had never looked into a slave's eyes before, not unless he was looking for proof of innocence or guilt, health or sickness. Silas did not pay attention to symptoms of pain or sorrow, want or hope or hungers of the spirit in his slaves. It was not the purview of masters, or in their best interests, to concern themselves with the feelings of their servants, but Silas could not expunge the look in Ezekiel's eyes after Jessica had admonished him to put himself into the man's shoes.
Think if it were your wife. What would you do if I were sold away from you? Wouldn't you run away to find me, too?

“I raise you one, Silas. Silas? Didn't you hear me? I raise you one.”

“What? Oh, yes, of course. Too rich for me. I fold.”

“Where have you gone in your thoughts tonight,
mon ami
? Your travels are costing you dearly,” Henri commented quietly beside him.

“I have much on my mind, Henri,” Silas replied as quietly.

“And the heart, if I'm not mistaken.”

“You are too wise, Henri.”

There were six seated at the poker table, four planters, of whom Silas was one, and Jeremy and Henri. The smoke was thick and the talk voluble. Lorimer Davis liked to entertain his friends lavishly, so the humidor of hand-rolled cigars was open, the whiskey decanters constantly replenished, and the buffet laden with the best from his larder. Silas had helped himself to a Cuban cigar but had taken little advantage of the food and drink. Earlier, the conversation had centered mainly on Lorimer's elusive runaway and his whereabouts.

“We think he's taken off to Houston to find that wife of his,” Lorimer said, “but he won't be at large for long. All the patrols and marshals and bounty hunters from here to Houston have been alerted, including Damon Milligan, the planter who bought Ezekiel's wife. Damon will be on the lookout for him.”

“Does the boy know where to find her?” Silas had asked.

Lorimer rolled his eyes. “Yes, thanks to the misguided intentions of my wife. Stephanie felt sorry for the boy and had Damon write down the name of his plantation and mailing route in front of Ezekiel. She wanted to prove to him she knew where to send his wife a letter on his behalf now and then.”

“That was nice of her,” Jeremy said.

Lorimer shrugged and made a face. “I shouldn't have indulged her, but I'd just sold away the best maid she ever had. What else could I do? The minute Damon laid eyes on Della, he wanted her, and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. But if I hadn't been so blamed permissive, the boy wouldn't have known where to head and probably wouldn't have run away.”

“You can't blame yourself for your good heart, Lorimer,” one of the planters said.

Talk had settled on other matters, little of which had penetrated Silas's inner contemplation. His eye kept straying to the mantel clock and the slow progression of the large hand toward midnight, the hour the party would break up and the men would walk to their various homes along Houston Avenue. Surely by now Ezekiel had been whisked away. The night was in his favor. The rain had cleared, but the sky was still overcast, shrouding the moon and stars. Silas had heard no dogs barking. That was a good sign.

Silas's private exchange with Henri was drowned out by the loud voice of Lorimer expounding on the traitorous nature of the black man.

“You can't trust 'em. Not a single one. Now some of you at this table might disagree with how I treat my slaves, but I tell you, that if you handle 'em too leniently or give 'em too much they'll turn on you. My houseman is a good example of that truth. I treated that boy with respect and gave him everything a slave could ask for. A good roof over his head, plenty of food, a position in my household, and how does he repay me—”

“But you sold his wife, Lorimer,” Silas quietly interrupted the man's speech to remind him.

Lorimer gaped at him, his mouth frozen open in midsentence. An uncomfortable silence dropped over the table. The other players kept their eyes on their cards.

Lorimer found his voice. “Well, what difference does that make?”

“The difference is, he loved her,” Silas said.

“How the hell do you know?” Lorimer demanded.

“Don't we all love our wives?”

Looking dumbfounded, Lorimer clamped his mouth shut, and a few seconds passed before he seemed to find the proper ammunition to load his verbal gun. He drew back his shoulders and took aim. “We are white men,” he pontificated. “White men love their wives. Black men merely copulate. They are not capable of the finer feelings associated with love. Therefore, the relationships between them and their women are of no consequence. Do you not agree, gentlemen?”

All but one of his fellow planters nodded their heads. Silas tapped the table with a finger. “I'll take one card.”

Walking out together into the dark night at the conclusion of the card game, Jeremy said to Silas, “What was that all about in there?”

“Damned if I know myself, Jeremy.”

“You have made an enemy of Lorimer Davis.”

“No loss,” Silas said.

The cold air cleared Silas's head as he walked along the red-brick avenue. He was the only one of his five neighbors who lived in his direction, and he was glad to be alone. What had possessed him to challenge Lorimer as he had done? He wouldn't change the man's treatment of blacks if he opened his head and threw in white wash. Silas had easily read the question everyone's expression had posed, including Jeremy's and Henri's. Were Jessica's abolitionist sympathies rubbing off on him? No, his wife's personal persuasions had no effect on him. He had simply grown tired of Lorimer's dogmatic oratory and wanted to prick the man's insufferable pomposity.

He awoke before daybreak the next morning and found Jessica missing when he reached for her in their bed. Silas knew where she'd gone and awaited the report. Ten minutes later, she burst into their bedroom, still in her robe and announced, “He's gone. There's no sign that he was ever there. Thank God. Do you suppose Guy will contact us today?”

The schoolmaster tugged the bellpull as they were at breakfast, and the Tolivers rose from their hot cereal flavored with ginger and honey to welcome their visitor in the library, ordering their son not to leave the table. In the paneled room, the former tutor put out his hand to Silas.

“Mr. Toliver, Ezekiel told me what you did—or, rather, didn't do, and I am most grateful to you, sir. I suppose you now know…what else I do besides teach.”

“You'll have to leave the county, Mr. Handley.”

“I am aware of that. Thank you for not betraying me.”

“I cannot say that I won't if you stay.”

“I understand.”

“Guy,” Jessica said, “is Ezekiel on his way to safety?”

“He has been conducted to a station house awaiting transport into Louisiana and from there he'll be taken to a ship setting sail for the north, but he says he's not going without his wife. I have no way to rescue her, and I'm afraid Ezekiel will try the impossible again.”

“What?” Silas exclaimed. “Is the man mad?”

Guy raised a brow. “You have to ask, Mr. Toliver, a husband as devoted as you?”

Silas traded looks with Jessica, the woman he could not live without, and saw all hope for Ezekiel fade in her eyes. Silas had suffered a bad night getting reacquainted with his conscience. He knew what he must do. He turned to Guy. “Can you keep Ezekiel wherever he is for a few days more?”

“Why, I—yes, yes, I suppose I can,” Guy stammered.

“And is there space in your getaway plans for his wife?”

“Yes, of course. Why? What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to go to Houston to fetch Ezekiel's wife.”

Jessica was seated. She looked at him with the puzzled gaze of the hard-of-hearing struggling to make sense of sound. Silas pulled her to her feet and took her into his arms.

“Jessica, I've tried for years to save money to pay back your father the sum he gave me to start up Somerset and for all of this”—with his head he indicated the house—“but I've given in to the temptation to spend the savings on the needs of the plantation. Now I have an amount set aside that will satisfy most of the amount I owe him, but if I buy Ezekiel's wife to return her to him I will deplete those funds, and there may not be time to recoup them before your father's death. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?”

Comprehension slowly widened the dark brown eyes. “You've…been saving money to pay back my father—for—for me?”

“I wanted to prove to you that after New Orleans, I would have stayed married to you without his money.”

“And you are going to use…your savings to buy back Ezekiel's wife?”

“I'm sure Damon Milligan will state a price that requires every cent of it.”

“Why?” Jessica asked, her voice strained with disbelief. “Why would you buy back Ezekiel's wife?”

“Because if you had been sold, I would stop at nothing to get you back. That's why I know Ezekiel is going to get himself killed.”

“Oh, Silas…” Jessica's arms stole around his waist and, with a deep sigh, she closed her eyes and laid her head on his chest beneath the shelter of his chin. The moment gave Silas the feeling of a ship coming home to harbor at last. “Silas…” she murmured again, and he could feel her tears through the linen of his shirt.