“By God, it’s the rice mill,” William breathed.
They joined the throng running to the end of the street. From their new vantage point overlooking the Ashley River, they could see the West Point Mill lit with flames. Teams of firefighters were arriving pushing hand-pumped engines, but already the fire was licking through the roof.
“At least it’s far out in the water,” a spectator observed. “There’s little chance it will spread to the city.”
The sight was awesome, with brilliant flames stretching hundreds of feet into the air. Men were powerless against such destruction. The force of the inferno had already driven the crews back to the mainland where they focused on wetting the surrounding wharf. Nothing else could be done but to stand and watch the mill burn.
Emily felt the muscles in her stomach clench. The fire must have started as a small spark, easily put out. The ocean breeze had fanned it when no one was looking, when no one suspected any danger, when the watchmen were preoccupied condemning a new man in Washington.
How quickly a spark could rage out of control.
10
After the excitement of Charleston, Emily basked in the peace and freedom of the plantation. She kept her head down and gave her father no reason to become cross with her. Not that he noticed, preoccupied as he was with correspondence and a continual flow of visitors.
December arrived cool and overcast, prompting fewer rides on Chantilly and more time spent indoors. She scrounged up her knitting needles and began work on a Christmas present for each member of her family, but the time indoors also made her all too available for her mother’s lessons in household management. After a year spent working in her uncle’s hotel, Emily preferred to participate in some of the tasks she was supposed to be assigning to others. She helped Josephine string long garlands of bean pods to hang in the kitchen rafters and learned to boil pumpkin into the delicious, spicy pies she loved so much. She also enjoyed helping old Abraham prepare the gardens for winter.
One afternoon, after putting away a large batch of apple persimmon butter, Emily settled onto her desk chair, tucked her stockinged feet beneath her, and unfolded the letters retrieved upon their return from the post office in Ladson. Each one was already emblazoned in her brain from dozens of readings.
The first was a long communique from her Aunt Shannon filled with the personalities and antics of those who lived in the Detroit hotel.
Dear Emily,
Winter descended softly this year, with a thin blanket of snow but very cold temperatures. Honestly, we feel the drafts in this old building more every year. But Isaac and Malachi have a full supply of timber cut and stacked out back, so we’ve been enjoying cozy evenings in the kitchen. Your presence would be a most welcome addition.
Emily Rose is growing like a wild vine—beautiful but prickly. She’ll certainly need some pruning back when she is old enough to discipline. Isaac tells me she is one hundred percent a Milford, except for her red hair, and that we named her appropriately. Her colic is beginning to subside. I can’t believe she’s already approaching her first birthday…
Emily smiled at the description of her cousin. She could picture the setting easily—Julia Watson knitting socks and scarves for the needy who passed through her care, Uncle Isaac playing his beloved piano, Malachi at the table with textbooks open before him, and Aunt Shannon with her talent for making the hotel feel like a home. Emily missed them all very much, and having no one close to her who could share the treasured memories magnified the void.
Malachi had also written several pages about school, his church, and all that he was learning in his study of medicine. It gave her pleasure to think of him devouring the medical texts she had ordered for him. Hidden between the pages of his letter, however, was the correspondence she had long awaited. It made her heart beat faster and erased some of the sting of her father’s recent refusal.
Dear Mr. Thomas Wilson, Esquire,
I am pleased to announce your acceptance into the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ correspondence program. Below you will find a syllabus for the Drawing and Painting class and mailing instructions for the submission of assignments. Course work may be completed on your own timetable. Each student will be matched with a highly skilled instructor who will offer structured assessments and feedback on all submissions…
Emily giggled to herself just as Lizzie entered with an armful of clean bedding and a vase of purple verbena. “Yo’ mama want both of us downstairs. What’s so funny?”
“Oh, it’s just a scheme I cooked up,” Emily answered, tucking the letter back into a drawer. “It worked out better than I thought.” Applying under a male name had guaranteed an unbiased response, and sending all correspondence through Malachi kept her father completely oblivious.
“You gunna land yo’self in hot water again?” Lizzie asked, stripping the coverlet off Emily’s bed.
“Not unless someone tells my father. I’m not even sure I’ll follow through with it, but it’s a safety net of sorts.” In case she couldn’t attend the Maryland Institute. She still held out hope that her father might relent. Knowing that the sample of work she had submitted had earned her acceptance to the correspondence course, however, would give her courage to defy him if he did not.
“You still not gettin’ married?” Lizzie asked.
“I have no interest whatsoever in Thaddeus Black, if that’s what you are implying.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And you may wipe off that smile before I remove it for you,” she added.
This brought a guttural laugh from the maid.
“Those flowers are beautiful,” Emily said, lifting the vase and sniffing deeply of their fragrance. She loved how so many spring varieties thrived in the mild coastal climate, even deep into winter. “Did Abraham just transplant them?”
“Dese be de leftovers.”
“Purple again,” Emily mused. “Isn’t that your favorite color?”
“Use to be.”
As Emily replaced them on the dresser, she looked suspiciously from the slave to the flowers. Herod had given her a bouquet of purple flowers intended for someone else. Someone to whom he had wanted his mother to deliver them. Could Herod be Lizzie’s secret beau? The purple mums. The purple asters. The purple butterfly bush. All the pieces clicked.
Emily smiled knowingly. “They’re pretty. Tell Abraham thank you for me.”
Lizzie missed the emphasis she placed on the gardener’s name. “Yes, miss.”
She chose not to tease her maid further. Instead, she pulled out a fourth letter—the one that most intrigued her. She fingered the unopened envelope, debating whether or not to break the seal.
“Miss Emily, ain’t you delivered dat yet? You brought it home weeks ago.”
The lettering on the envelope, clearly Uncle Isaac’s, scrawled out the name Zeke.
In Detroit, Emily had ordered Malachi to teach Zeke to read, wishing to prove that it could not be done. Much to her surprise, they succeeded. Since that time, her uncle had exchanged several communications, smuggled past William in Emily’s letters, with the slave he had freed so many years before.
But those notes had never been sealed.
“I just can’t figure it out, Lizzie. What does Uncle Isaac have to say to Zeke that he doesn’t want me to see?”
Respect for her uncle had stopped Emily from tearing into the envelope straightaway, but a treacherous curiosity had prevented her from delivering it. Now she eyeballed the letter again with a burning desire to know what it contained.
Lizzie shook out a sheet and let it settle neatly over the mattress. “Somethin’ dat be none o’ yo’ business. You go gib de man his letter.”
Emily knew what she suspected. She set the envelope on the desktop and pulled a bloodstained length of cloth from the back of her bottom desk drawer. “Lizzie, do you know what this is?”
“No, miss.”
“It’s a bandage from a slave who had been mauled by a dog. Do you know whe
re I got it?”
Lizzie paused, giving Emily her full attention.
“When my uncle still lived in the South, he and Zeke used to assist runaways. Now Isaac moves fugitives over the river to Canada, even while slave catchers stay in his hotel. I stumbled onto an operation during my visit.” She draped the bandage between her two hands. “I tied this rag around my own foot and helped Malachi lead the hounds away while Isaac guided the slaves to the boat.”
Lizzie stared at her mistress wide-eyed, dropping a pillowcase to the floor.
Emily let the bandage pool onto the desk like a length of ribbon. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but returning home to the tranquility and efficiency of Ella Wood had cast doubt on her decision. It was all so tangled and confusing. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she actually found evidence that Zeke was carrying on the work across her father’s land.
She picked up the envelope and tapped it against the desktop. “Maybe I don’t want to know what this contains.” The time had come to deliver it—unopened—to Zeke.
Downstairs, her mother and several of the parlor maids were assembling packages for the slaves. The dining room was littered with acres of broadcloth, shoes, thread, linens, needles, and a score of other items needed to maintain such a large workforce. They would be distributed at Christmas.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Emily, we could use your help. Lottie, let Celia show you how much fabric to cut before you pick up those scissors.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I find Zeke,” Emily replied. “Do you know where he is?”
“Cleaning ashes out of the upstairs fireplace.”
She turned to go, but her mother called her back. “Emily, are you barefooted?”
She mentally berated herself for the slip. “No, Mother.”
“Pull up your hem.”
She did so, wiggling her stocking-covered toes.
“Go put shoes on this minute.”
Emily sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” As she left the room, she heard her mother call out, “Celia, take those scissors from that child.”
She located the old black man in her parents’ sitting room. “Zeke, I have something for you.”
He straightened as she handed him the envelope.
“I—I’ve had it since we got off the train in Ladson. But I didn’t open it.”
She squirmed under his direct gaze. “I see dat. Thank you, miss.”
“You’re welcome.” She hesitated, itching to know what the letter contained, half wanting to know if her suspicions were true. “Zeke?”
“Yes, miss?”
“I was wondering—” Should she ask? Would he answer truthfully? “—if you’d heard how Ketch is working out.” She lost her nerve.
“I don’ truthfully know, miss. Ain’t a question I ever asked him.”
“But you room with him. And you know everything that happens on the plantation,” she protested, now desirous for an answer to her question.
He considered her for two or three seconds. “He ain’t been punished, so he must be doin’ his job.”
“Does he go often to visit his son?”
“Every chance he get.”
“Mr. Turnbull hasn’t forbidden it?”
“If he has, it ain’t stopped him.”
Emily smiled. “I’m glad. Thank you, Zeke.”
She wasn’t sure why she’d taken such a personal interest in a field hand, but she couldn’t seem to get his story out of her head. Perhaps, because she’d always been close to her father, she hated the thought of a little boy being separated from his. Maybe it was simply because his face and story were new. Or perhaps Malachi’s lessons had seeped in deeper than she thought. She decided it was time to meet the new slave for herself.
Slipping on a pair of shoes, she returned to help her mother in the dining room and arrived just in time to watch the riding crop descend three times on Lottie’s upturned forearms. She stopped abruptly, wincing at the line of red welts raising on the little girl’s skin.
“Now, I expect no more of this foolishness, Lottie,” Marie chastised. “You will listen carefully and finish your task as instructed.”
The girl nodded, never lifting her eyes, and hurried back to her work station next to Lizzie.
Marie noticed her daughter then, a solemn statue in the doorway. “The child misbehaved,” she said shortly. “She’s old enough to learn obedience.”
Emily listened quietly as her mother issued orders and took up her task without protest. But she cut her eyes often to the subdued little girl working beside her.
***
Five days passed before Emily approached the slave village with a newly knitted muffler and mittens wrapped in brown paper. Dusk painted the shadows in velvety shades of plum as she stepped onto Zeke’s porch and knocked on the door.
The large black man from the wharf appeared in the darkness of the doorway. “Ketch?” she asked, suddenly uncertain. What was she doing here? What did she think she could accomplish?
The man nodded silently, crossing both arms over his chest. Sleeves of cotton flannel barely concealed the thick contour of muscle. One twist of those powerful arms could snuff out her life. Emily took a deep breath and smiled. “Can we talk? Out here on the porch? I’ll only take up a moment of your time.”
He eased his bulk out the door and looked down at her expectantly. Emily stepped backward to place a little more distance between them. “I, uh, just wanted to see how you’re settling in at Ella Wood. I brought you a gift,” she added, thrusting the package at him.
He eyed it skeptically, arms still crossed. “You do so fo’ all new slaves?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why you bringin’ one to me?”
“I—I don’t know,” she admitted.
Ketch continued to regard her evenly.
“Do you like it here?” she floundered. “Have you been treated kindly? If not, I could speak to my father. He doesn’t tolerate abuse.”
He stood as unmovable as the trunk of a cypress. “Why you here, miss?”
“I—I just wanted to meet you.”
“You gib any thought to de danger you bring?”
Danger? She blinked. He was afraid of her?
“Don’ you know what happen to a black man when a white woman come round his place?”
Her eyebrows leaped upward in surprise. “What? No!” She backed up step and repeated, “No, you misunderstand.”
“Don’ matter what I understand. It matter what de white man understand.” He peered at her through narrowed eyes. “What you really want, miss?”
She backed against the porch support and clutched the package against her chest. Lizzie had warned her of this very thing. She should have listened. “The truth is, I’ve never done this before. You—your story—caught my attention.”
“What dey sayin’ ’bout me?”
“That you’re sullen. You know a lot about rice. You lost your wife but still have a child at the Johnson place.”
When he didn’t confirm or refute her words, she stumbled on. “Knowing that a little boy lost his daddy hasn’t set well with me. I—I guess I just—wanted to make amends.” She held the gift out to him again.
He eyed it warily. “One paper package don’ do nothin’ to change a man’s situation.”
“It’s a small thing, I know. But I’m locked into my position as much as you’re locked into yours.”
He didn’t move.
“Take it, please. It’s all I have to give.” She placed it in his hand then paused awkwardly at the edge of the porch. “Thank you, Ketch. I—I won’t come again.”
He didn’t say another word, but she could feel his gaze burning into her back as she walked away.
11
“Miss Emily, Mrs. Clara Whipple in de parlor to see you.” Deena stepped just inside the stable, but her throaty voice searched out every corner. “I wouldn’ keep her waitin’ if I be you.”
Emily reluctantly set
aside Chantilly’s curry comb. On the same day Jack had returned for his semester break, the elderly widow had asked Emily to paint the backdrop for the Sunday school Christmas program. Hoping to usher in the holidays with peace and good cheer, she’d gladly seized the opportunity to escape the house for a few hours each day. Now she screwed up her face. A little one-on-one time with her brother would have proven more satisfactory.
She wiped her hands on a piece of burlap sacking and made her way to the parlor, passing the adjacent music room where her mother swayed at the grand piano, coaxing out melodies too sweet for the task before her. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Whipple,” Emily greeted politely. “Won’t you sit down? I can ring for tea if you’d like.”
“Tea? How do you expect me to sip tea when half my set is still unpainted?” The old woman’s black gown rustled crisply. Her husband had died when Emily was quite young, but she’d never removed her widow’s weeds. After so long a time, the grim color had seeped into her personality.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Whipple. I’ll—”
“You do realize I have a program to produce this Sunday. How will it look if only half the hills of Judea appear in living color while the rest end suddenly into nothingness?”
“I imagine it wouldn’t look very—”
“It certainly would not. I expect you will attend this matter promptly.” With a pivot that would have done a military officer proud, the woman stalked from the room.
Marie entered. Two fingers pressed down a smile, but she couldn’t suppress the twinkle in her eyes.
“You were eavesdropping?” Emily asked despondently, realizing the piano music had ceased several minutes earlier.
Her mother nodded, her merriment breaking free. “I’m sorry, Emily. It was shameful of me.”
Emily grumbled, “At her request, I’ve repainted the manger three times, changed the sky from midday to midnight, and added four angels that weren’t in the original design. How could I possibly have found time to finish?”
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