by Lori Benton
She held up the lead, point worn flat.
“Let me shave that for ye.” He tossed aside the buffing rag. She handed him the lead. He took up a knife and began shaving the point. “My uncle . . . he’s had spells like this before, aye?”
“A few times. Last was late up in the winter, afore he sent that letter to your daddy.”
Was that what had prompted his uncle to send for him again, after so many years?
“How long did it last?” He was staring, but he couldn’t help it. Though Seona’s resemblance to his sister came and went like sunlight through scattered clouds, the stamp of her Cameron blood was clear. Now he’d the eyes to see it.
“A week or so. He ain’t been himself since, though Mama thought lately he was doing better. Master Hugh sets high store by Mama’s dosing.”
He’d seen Lily tend the slaves, dressing a burn or minor gash, and to judge by Seona’s competence, she was a skilled midwife. “Who taught Lily the midwifery and the rest?”
The question seemed to surprise her. “The old mistress, Master Hugh’s first wife. Taught Mama spinning and weaving too. From a girl.”
He noted the sudden color blooming in her cheeks. “Should I not have asked that?”
She shook her head. “It’s fine, you asking. I forget you ain’t been here but a few weeks. Sometimes it feels like you was always here.”
Warmed by the unexpected admission, he handed her the sharpened lead and asked, “Who was Lily’s mother? A Cherokee woman?”
Seona took the lead but didn’t go back to drawing. “Reckon the answer to that is yes and no.”
“Yes and no?”
She smiled briefly, then stared through the open door at the green wall of trees beyond as she told him, “Militia soldiers had Mama’s mama in tow when they passed through on the road yonder, back when there was trouble with the Cherokees and men went overmountain to settle ’em down.”
“During the French War,” he said. “Was she a prisoner?”
“Yes, sir. Reckon so, by then.”
By then. “And my uncle’s wife took her in?”
“What I hear tell, the old mistress would’ve taken in most any needy soul if Master Hugh had let her. Like Mister Aidan with his critters. The soldiers—they’d stopped here for water or a rest, or some such—said they mistook my grandma Sadie for a white woman when they seen her in the Indian camp. It was a dawn raid, not much light. Thought they was saving a captive when they snatched her up. Come full light and space to study her proper, they seen she was near as much African as white and who knew what else, maybe Indian too. They took her for a runaway then. All but gave her to Master Hugh’s wife—to be shed of her afore her baby came, we reckon. A few days later she birthed Mama and died of it.”
Ian frowned, absorbing the astonishing tale. “Ye said her name was Sadie?”
“That’s what Naomi made of it.”
“Made of it? Didn’t she tell them who she was, where she came from?”
“She never spoke at all ’cept in the Indian tongue. What she called herself sounded a bit like Sadie, so that’s what we’ve always known her by.”
Seona fingered the end of her braid, absently coiling the strands round and round. The skin across her knuckles was chapped, but the hands themselves were well-shaped, slender and long.
“Did my uncle’s wife take Lily to raise?”
“Yes, but not right off. Naomi had Ally to suck, so she put Mama alongside him. She was weaned afore the old mistress took her into the house.”
“And named her?”
“No, sir. Her mama that died named her. It was the last my grandma Sadie spoke, when she knew she’d had a baby girl. They reckoned it was meant for a name.”
“But Lily is an English name.”
“Lily’s what it got made into. What my grandma said afore she died was Tsigalili.”
“Tsigalili? D’ye ken what it means?”
She shook her head. “Guess no one but my grandma knew. And the Cherokees. Ain’t none of them around these parts to ask.”
Ian leaned his forearms on the workbench, thinking of Mountain Laurel’s dead. A hapless runaway with no past and no sure name. A cousin and an aunt, both prone to shelter strays. Even Ruby and the boys he’d known as a lad—Sammy, Eli. Not dead perhaps, but memory of them haunted. “Seona . . . d’ye know how old Aidan Cameron was when his mam died?”
A pucker formed between her brows. “I don’t think Mister Aidan was grown. She was breeding again and the baby come early. Mama was still a girl. Didn’t know what all to do when things went so wrong, and there weren’t no doctor near enough then to call in time, though Master Hugh rode out to find one. Mama’s a heap more skilled now,” she hurried to add. “From practice.”
As if shaking off the shadow their talk had cast, Seona stood with the pattern book clasped close and ran a fingertip over the desk’s carving. The trailing vines, buffed to a silken sheen, terminated at either end in a trumpeting spray of blossoms.
“Reckon your sister will be pleased with this we done?”
“I think so,” he said, smiling briefly at we. “No notion when I’ll see it into her keeping though.”
“Thomas said you promised to make this afore you left Boston to come here.”
She’d reminded him: Thomas’s tenure at Chesterfield was to end that evening. Ian was meant to take the wagon out to fetch him. And the mahogany his labor had bought. He thought he’d time for one more story. “Aye. A deathbed promise, no less.”
Seona tilted her head at him. “Mister Ian, how could you have been on your deathbed making promises yet be standing here talking to me now? I know you ain’t a ghost.”
It was the boldest thing she’d said to him, just this side of sauce. He liked it.
“I’d a wound that festered. It’s a long story but suffice it to say Callum Lindsey—another uncle of mine—brought me back to Boston on account of it, fearing I’d die in the wilds and Mam would hold him to account.” He suppressed the darker memories of those days. His battle with fever. His mam’s battle with the Boston physicians who’d have taken his leg to save him. The measures she’d taken to save life and limb. “I mind Cat clinging to my bedpost, blue eyes snapping in the candlelight, telling me she had her heart set on a table desk and no one could craft it proper save her coof of a brother, so I’d best heal up and get on with it. All the while Mam’s trying to pull her away to let me rest.”
Seona bit her bottom lip but couldn’t quell her grin. “Oh my.”
“That wasn’t what I said at the time,” he told her. “I promised her the desk—to be rid of her. She meant to hold me to it, she said, as Mam dragged her from the room, so I dared not die and break my word.”
“What did you say then?” Seona asked, clutching the pattern book.
“That I wouldn’t dream of dying with such a burden on my conscience.”
Seona was smiling unabashedly now. “I like your sister, Mister Ian.”
“That’s mighty charitable of you, Seona,” said a voice intruding into the conversation. “Seeing as you’ve never set eyes on the girl.”
Startled, they turned as Thomas strode into the shop, passing them to open the rear doors to a blaze of sunlight. Ian stared after him. “I meant to drive the wagon over to fetch ye and the lumber. Did Pryce write ye a pass?”
“Didn’t need one,” Thomas said. “By your leave, I’ll go tote in that fine mahogany we traded a week of my sweat for.”
“Did ye carry it here on your head?” Ian called, then swiveled round as his uncle entered the shop, two visitors close on his heels. The first was a stranger, a man of middle years clad in a coat of fashionable broadcloth. The second was Gideon Pryce.
Haggard and gray-faced after two days in his room, Uncle Hugh halted at sight of Seona, causing the stranger to jostle him from behind. Pryce sidestepped the pair, catching sight of Seona in the shuffle. Ian shifted to stand between. Their gazes clashed across an outwardly civil greeting, before Uncle
Hugh introduced the third man as Pryce’s cousin, the merchant, Edward Stoddard.
Ian wiped his hands, apologizing for the turpentine, but Stoddard’s handshake was unhesitating. “Nothing amiss with the stain of honest work,” he said in the same Tidewater accent as Pryce’s.
“I’ve heard of ye, sir. Your name was mentioned at Chesterfield.”
“I showed the Camerons the plans for the cotton gin,” Pryce explained.
Stoddard’s enthusiasm was immediate. “Amazing contrivance! And you’ve only viewed the plans. When you’ve seen the machine itself, then you’ll have seen a thing, gentlemen. Mark my words, Whitney’s gin will bring change for the betterment to Southern planters. To the country as a whole.”
Pryce had moved several paces to the side. Ian shifted again, countering his attempt to gain an unobstructed view of Seona.
“We fought a war to govern ourselves,” Stoddard was saying, “but it’s native-grown cloth will prove our country’s economic independence. It would not astonish me were half the Piedmont producing short-staple cotton five years hence.”
Pryce’s flat green eyes invited challenge. “I forecast a profit in far less time—for any willing to invest in the necessary labor force.”
Ian wasn’t about to be drawn into debate over purchasing slaves, not with his mind bent on reducing the number of his uncle’s by one. And keeping that one forever beyond Chesterfield’s reach. An objective presently demanding a disproportionate amount of his attention. Stoddard snatched at what little was to spare, indicating the desk.
“While we’re on the subject of productivity, might I take a look?”
“By all means.” Ian stepped back to allow Stoddard access. His heel came down on something soft. A bare foot. It was snatched back with a muffled gasp. Slipping a hand behind his back, he brushed Seona’s fingers, taking them in a swift apologetic squeeze—and jerked at the sensation that shot up his arm when she squeezed back.
Uncle Hugh frowned his way, questioning, as Stoddard lifted the slanted desktop to examine the inner drawers.
“This is meant for an artist, is it not?” the man asked.
“Aye, sir. My sister, in fact.”
“Hugh tells me you were apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Boston.”
“Cambridge, actually. Though ’til now I hadn’t practiced the trade since my apprenticeship ended.”
“If I may observe, you haven’t lost the knack.”
Pryce started to circle the workbench, as if to join the examination. Ian took a step to head him off, but two things happened to avert the need.
Rosalyn entered through the nearer doorway, exclaiming, “Gideon Pryce! You aren’t fixing to take your leave without a word to me and Mama?”
Then through the doors opposite, Thomas reappeared, a stack of lumber balanced across one shoulder. “Where you want these, Mastah Ian?”
Pryce’s hesitation was minuscule, before he transferred his attention to Rosalyn. “I wouldn’t dream of such neglect. We’ve but a small matter of business to conclude here.”
Thomas awaited instruction. “Mastah Ian?”
“Put them on the benches ’til I’ve made space.” Ian turned back to Pryce, loath to take his eyes off the man, to find Rosalyn seemingly likewise afflicted.
“Oh, tosh! Here’s my cousin’s wood delivered and his boy returned. What is to conclude? Come sit with Mama and me and explain why Phyllida hasn’t come to call.”
With an indulgent smile, Pryce tucked her hand through the crook of his arm. “Will you join us, Ed? No doubt an eyewitness account of your meeting with Whitney would delight one and all.”
Stoddard was still nose-deep in the desk, pulling out drawers and examining dovetailed joints. “I’ll be along presently—if the lady doesn’t object.”
Far from objecting, Rosalyn shot Ian a probing glance, then towed Pryce out the door. As their heels crunched the gravel path, Stoddard stepped back from the desk, a hand to his chin.
“D’ye find aught to puzzle ye, Edward?” Uncle Hugh spoke mildly enough, but the look he cast Ian was still sharp with question. And, oddly, warning.
“Puzzle, no. Intrigue, yes.” Stoddard noticed the pattern book, lying where Seona had left it. “Might I?” he inquired of Ian.
There was no polite way to refuse. At Ian’s nod, Stoddard turned the pages, examining each intently, until he came to the morning glory sketches. Uncle Hugh came forward to view the page. His eyes narrowed.
“Are these designs of your making, Mr. Cameron?” Stoddard inquired.
“Most are in general use in New England.” Ian moved sideways so Seona could escape the shop, now Pryce no longer barred the door.
She remained rooted, frozen as a mouse among cats.
Stoddard tapped a finger next to a morning glory sketch. “I’ve had occasion to view such pattern books from Savannah to Philadelphia, yet I’ve never encountered designs like these.”
“I daresay ye haven’t. My sister was particular about the design. They’re of her making.” Ian faced his uncle straight on as he lied and saw that look of warning change to relief.
Stoddard was headed south on the morrow but announced his intention of passing through Salisbury, a town west of the Yadkin River, on his return north.
“I understand this desk is bespoke, but if you can oblige me by having them in Salisbury by early October, I’d be pleased to acquire as many similar pieces as you can craft in that time—be it two or ten. Fix your price. I’ll call before I take my leave to settle the arrangement, should it prove agreeable.”
Ian’s pride of craftsmanship was quick to rouse at the prodding. “Very agreeable. I’ll draw up a contract and have it ready, sir.”
Uncle Hugh, silent during the negotiation, now addressed Seona. “Do ye show our guest to the parlor, lass. Then be off to mind whatever ye’re meant to be about.” To Stoddard he added, “We’ll be along presently. I’ve a word or two to say to my nephew first.”
“Yes, sir,” Seona said.
Ian didn’t take his eyes off his uncle, who, as Seona’s and their guest’s footsteps receded on the path, opened the pattern book. Ian could almost hear the gears of his mind grinding above the rustle of turning pages.
“Which of them are hers?”
“The morning glories,” Ian replied. “How long have ye known?”
His uncle shut the book. “I’ve kent for years.”
Ian felt the heat gathering under his breastbone. “And ye let her go on with it in secret when ye might have acknowledged her?”
“As ye’ve done?” Uncle Hugh spread a hand over the pattern book, fingers splayed as if to contain what lay between its bindings. “What did ye think to gain by teaching her . . . this?”
“I didn’t teach her. I haven’t her skill. Catriona does. And Da. A family trait, ye could say.”
Uncle Hugh’s face, already pasty from whatever had ailed him the past days, went gray as plaster. “What d’ye mean by that?”
“Tell me, Uncle,” Ian said. “How have ye lived with another man’s offspring under your roof, taking advantage of your connections and property, while ye let your daughter wear their rags and eat their scraps?”
A brittle silence followed, torn through by a throat’s clearing at the shop’s other end.
“Thought I’d work while the light lasts. You decide where you want this wood, Mastah Ian?”
Ian cut a glare across the partition wall as Thomas dropped another length of mahogany onto the first. Thomas straightened, waiting. Streaming sunlight cast him in unmoving silhouette.
“Not now, Thomas!”
Thomas drew his next words out with slow deliberation. “Yes, suh. I’ll just close up shop and leave you be.”
The light dimmed as the far doors shut.
The change in Ian’s uncle was more subtle. A stoop of shoulders. A sag of face. But it conspired to make Hugh Cameron appear all of his sixty-odd years and more.
“When I wrote your da earlier in the year,”
he said, “I kent I’d waited overlong. I ought to have pressed Robert harder when ye were a lad, when ye came here and ’twas clear ye had some liking for the place. Or was I wrong about that?”
“Ye weren’t wrong,” Ian said. “What has that to do with Seona?”
“Aye, good, then,” his uncle continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “I wanted ye here then, and I want ye now. But understand the one thing: I’d rather ye take yourself back north, or wherever ye will, if all ye mean to do is tear down around me what remains of the life I’ve built.”
Lips clamped upon the final word, his uncle turned to leave. In the doorway he paused, clutching the frame. “Mind ye give that thought, Nephew. Maybe ye’ll see what ’tis to do with Seona.”
12
As Pryce’s wagon disappeared down the carriage drive, Ian sought out Seona. She wasn’t in the washhouse. Or the kitchen. Or the shop. Ducking out again, he spied her coming through the orchard, a basket heaped with apples on her hip, Thomas at her side.
Ian headed for them. The sky had clouded in the hour past. A thickening scud of gray hid the sun. A breeze pressed Seona’s petticoat against her thighs as he halted under the laden boughs. Thomas took the basket from her, eyeing Ian with the same censure he’d had from his uncle. At a nod from Seona he trudged off toward the kitchen.
“They’ve gone,” Ian said. “Are ye all right?”
A raindrop spattered cold on the back of his hand. Seona blinked as a drop hit the curve of her cheekbone. It ran down like a tear. “Mister Ian, I got wash to get in afore it’s soaked.”
He wanted to say more, offer reassurance, but couldn’t find a single word that would do.
“Go on,” he said and watched her race off through the trees. Pelted by raindrops, he headed back to the shop, knowing the conversation with his uncle wasn’t finished, composing how he’d come at the subject of Seona yet again. When he stepped within, Rosalyn stood at the workbench, head bowed, pale gown ethereal in the dim light.
