Death Brings a Shadow

by Rosemary Simpson

  When she recognized them, Minda helped the woman to a cushioned rocking chair. She placed a cup of water in her hand and whispered reassurances.

  “I’m glad it’s you,” she said, stepping down from the porch.

  “Who did you think might be coming?” Geoffrey asked, not approaching too quickly or too closely.

  “I wasn’t sure,” Minda replied.

  “But you were afraid?” Prudence said.

  Minda nodded.

  “Did you think someone intended to do to you and your mother what was done to Queen Lula?” Prudence tied her horse’s reins to the trunk of a live oak. “Is that what you thought would happen, Minda?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And you didn’t run?”

  “I couldn’t leave Mama,” she said, leading Prudence to the woman in the rocking chair. “Miss Prudence, this my mama. Her name Dorcas.”

  “I’m please to meet you, Dorcas.” Unsure whether to hold out her hand, Prudence smiled and bobbed her head. She felt Geoffrey’s presence beside her, heard him say the woman’s name, but nothing else.

  “How’d you find us?” Minda asked.

  “We were at Wildacre visiting Mister Teddy,” Prudence answered, deliberately not specifying who at Wildacre had given them directions.

  “He’s a good man,” Dorcas announced in a stronger voice than either of her visitors had expected. “Saw to Miss Jessa whenever he come home. Weren’t nothin’ he could do for her when he weren’t.”

  “Was Miss Jessa having problems?” Geoffrey asked.

  Dorcas looked to her daughter.

  “It’s all right, Mama,” Minda said. “They be friends of Mister Teddy.”

  Still Dorcas hesitated.

  “I met Aunt Jessa when she came to Seapoint to help with Miss Eleanor,” Prudence said. She held out her arm. “She made this for me. Said I needed it for protection.”

  “You best never take it off then, miss,” Minda said.

  When a fit of coughing interrupted whatever Dorcas was about to say, Prudence glanced at Geoffrey. Both of them knew what the rales of consumption sounded like. Minda’s mother was not long from a final crisis. A hastily concealed spot of blood on the handkerchief she pressed to her lips confirmed it.

  “Aunt Jessa went to Queen Lula for a spell,” Prudence began. She sat down on the porch step below Dorcas’s rocking chair, her body angled so that she looked off into the live oaks. If she turned her head, she would meet Dorcas’s gaze. But she did not. She folded her hands over her knees, the juju amulet prominently displayed.

  And waited.

  “Aunt Jessa raised me,” Dorcas said, her voice only a fraction above a whisper. “I was born in the quarters at Wildacre.”

  “But I don’t imagine you stayed there,” Prudence said, continuing to gaze off into the forest.

  “Master brung me into the Big House soon as I was old enough to follow orders. Give me to Young Miss for her birthday. Made Mistress so mad she swatted at me ever’ time I crossed her path. I learned real fast to stay out of sight. Did whatever Miss Aurora Lee tole me to do and kept my head down.”

  “Were you the only one?” Prudence didn’t quite know how to phrase the question.

  “No, ma’am,” Dorcas said bitterly, “but they mostly got sold off the place soon as they was big enough to fetch a good price. I reckon they was something special about my momma ’cause she never did get sold away. Yellow jack took her.”

  “Yellow fever,” Geoffrey murmured. “Some years are worse than others, but it always comes back.”

  “Got my first chile when I was sixteen, the year before the fighting started. The babies after that all died ’till Minda come along. Aunt Jessa helped me birth her, said Minda the last chile I was ever gonna have. Tole me I’d been lucky.”

  “Lucky how?” Prudence asked.

  “The more babies a woman had in slavery days, the more tears she gonna shed. Master sell them off one by one whenever he need the money. I only lost one chile that way. Minda born free.”

  “You didn’t want to leave when freedom came?”

  “No, ma’am. Weren’t any place to go.”

  “She had to stay put and wait for my brother,” Minda explained. “In case he ever found out where he was born and who his mama was. He’d come back here lookin’ for her. Lots of folk sold off as chirren was wandering the roads lookin’ for they kin after the war.”

  “Did he ever return?”

  “Not to this day,” Dorcas said. “Look like if he wait too much longer I be gone, too.” She coughed again, the rough, choking sound of bloody phlegm echoing through the clearing.

  “I’m so sorry,” Prudence whispered.

  “I know you got questions,” Dorcas said when she could get her breath again. “Minda tole me all about Miss Eleanor. How she got lost in the swamp and drowned. Aunt Jessa say that chile had a hex laid on her from the day she was born. Day she come back to Bradford Island was the day it claimed her again. Weren’t no escaping it after that.”

  “What did Aunt Jessa get from Queen Lula?” Prudence asked. “Was it a blinding spell?” She turned her head as she spoke. And met Dorcas’s eyes fastened on her with a mixture of hope and despair.

  “She come by here to fetch me that day,” Dorcas said. “Had the ring Mister Elijah always wore for Mister Ethan in her apron pocket. Showed it to me. I asked her how she got hold of it. She said she stole it right off his finger when he sittin’ in his library drinkin’ hisself senseless like he do near ever’ night. Didn’t even feel her slide it off his finger. Made a ruckus when he couldn’t find it, but Aunt Jessa had it out of the house by then.”

  “Did you go with her to Queen Lula’s?” Prudence asked, trying to keep the threads of Dorcas’s story separate and comprehensible.

  “Aunt Jessa want the blinding spell. Queen Lula need some of Mama’s blood to make sure it work,” Minda explained.

  Prudence looked at Geoffrey. He seemed to be so focused on Dorcas that she wasn’t sure he’d heard what Minda had just said.

  “Aunt Jessa say Mister Ethan’s ring do double duty. She was real pleased at havin’ it to give Queen Lula.”

  “Lula needed Bennett blood to bind fast the blinding spell,” Geoffrey said softly, eyes still fixed on Dorcas.

  She didn’t answer, but after a moment her gaze drifted back from the live oaks, met his questioning stare, then sank to the worn fingers clasped in her lap.

  Prudence knew better than to push any further. No one on Bradford Island would ever give voice to the truth of what Wildacre’s masters had demanded from their women slaves over the years. Demanded as their absolute right. She’d seen pages of the ledgers meticulously kept by most slaveowners and reproduced by abolitionists. Light-complected children were routinely claimed to have been fathered by another slave, even one who might have been described as exceedingly dark-skinned.

  It was clear that Dorcas must be the child of a Bennett and that Minda was also likely to have been sired by a Bennett male. The most plausible possibility, especially if Aunt Jessa needed her blood to ensure the success of the blinding spell, was that Dorcas had been fathered by the same man who had sired Ethan and Elijah.

  If there were witnesses to a birth, there was no denying the identity of the mother. Would there ever be a way to tell with equal certainty who was the father?

  Aunt Jessa desperately wanted Queen Lula to cast a blinding spell. For which she provided a ring worn every day by Elijah Bennett. And blood from a woman born into slavery but white enough to pass. An unacknowledged Bennett.

  What was the connection?

  And what was the link to Eleanor?

  CHAPTER 23

  Two days after his apparent heart attack, Elijah Bennett was out of bed, ignoring the pleadings of his hovering daughters to lie back down and let himself be dosed with more tincture of foxglove.

  He felt fine, he informed them, and he’d prove it by going ahead with the plan to lead a posse of mainlanders to sweep th
e trash out of his live oaks. Sheriff Budridge had been notified; a group of twenty armed and mounted volunteers was eager to cross the sound and roust out the fugitives and lowlifes hiding on the island.

  And yes, since they wouldn’t stop yammering about it, Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane had his permission to help Eleanor’s mother with the disposal of her daughter’s trousseau. The sooner that was done, the sooner the Dicksons would go back to New York. As the girls had pointed out more than once, the yacht was being prepared for the homeward voyage. He agreed that they needed to hurry up and get those trunks packed.

  Women’s business bored him. Elijah had more important things to do than listen to their whining.

  * * *

  Philip Dickson charged Prudence with seeing to it that Eleanor’s things were transported from Seapoint to Wildacre as quickly and efficiently as possible. He had acquiesced to Abigail’s plea that their daughter’s bedroom remain as it was, but drew the line at retaining any of her clothing. Nor would he consider transporting Eleanor’s trousseau back to New York for donation to charities there when it could be given to needy and deserving women in nearby Savannah. Pleading and weeping did no good. He had made up his mind.

  In a rare moment of emotional frankness, he confided to Prudence his fear that if Abigail were allowed to ship Eleanor’s effects to their home, she would be unable to part with them. And that, he believed, would ultimately destroy her fragile hold on life and sanity. “Death is like an amputation,” he’d said. “The pain is intense, but it’s best not to dwell upon it.”

  Prudence promised that Abigail would not be disturbed by Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane’s presence in the house. Mrs. Dickson would be welcome in Eleanor’s room during the sorting and packing, of course, but she could also choose not to be a part of it. Prudence had already spoken to the maids who would be doing the actual work. They understood what was expected of them.

  “In and out on the same day,” Philip commanded. “Not a minute longer.” He planned to shut himself into the quiet of his library while Teddy’s sisters were in the house. He didn’t want to have to thank them for what they were doing and he didn’t want to see trunks being carted down the stairs and loaded onto the carts that would carry them to Wildacre. It would be too much like repeating the journey out of the swamp behind Eleanor’s body.

  Strong as he was, he didn’t think he could bear it.

  * * *

  Aurora Lee’s plan was simple. “We pack our immediate choices into one trunk,” she instructed Maggie Jane as they arrived at Seapoint. “And when everything is unloaded at Wildacre, we have that one taken upstairs. The rest of them can be stored down below in the tabby rooms.”

  “What will Father say when we appear in new gowns?” Maggie Jane asked, her face flushed with excitement and apprehension. “He’s bound to notice.”

  “He may remark when we transition out of mourning, which we can do as soon as the Dickson yacht clears the dock,” Aurora Lee said. “But aside from realizing we’re not wearing black anymore, I doubt he’ll say a thing unless you’re stupid enough to provoke him.”

  “And Lawrence can calm him down, if necessary.” Maggie Jane was so used to being belittled that it hardly hurt anymore.

  “Our dear brother probably can’t wait to ship us off to relatives in Atlanta or Savannah,” Aurora Lee guessed shrewdly. “And now that we have a wardrobe that won’t disgrace the family name, I won’t mind it at all.”

  “Won’t you miss the island? And Wildacre?”

  “Not if it means finding a husband and having a home of my own.” Aurora Lee had resolutely kept her bitterness in check when it seemed there was no alternative to barren spinsterhood, but now she didn’t trouble to hide it. “I’m sick to death of taking orders.”

  “You’ll have to obey a husband,” Maggie Jane said, climbing down from their pony cart.

  “A husband can be manipulated,” Aurora Lee replied smugly. “Hush now, here comes Miss Yankee Prudence.”

  She pasted a wide smile on her face that wasn’t entirely insincere.

  * * *

  Abigail Dickson elected to stay in her room. “I don’t think I can face seeing anyone else handling my daughter’s clothes,” she told Prudence. “I know I should be the one supervising the packing, but I simply can’t.”

  “I understand,” Prudence said, holding Abigail’s cold hands. Despite the warmth of the day, Eleanor’s mother had wrapped herself in a cashmere shawl. “I’ll see that everything is done properly.”

  “And with respect,” Abigail directed.

  “Of course. With your permission, I’ll tell Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane that the family would like each of them to choose something of Eleanor’s that they can keep to cherish her memory.”

  Abigail’s lips tightened. “I removed her jewelry case from her room yesterday, and I’m taking it back to New York with me. Bracelets, earrings, necklaces. Philip doesn’t have to know.”

  “What will you do with them?” Prudence asked.

  “I’ll wear them, even if it’s only when I’m alone.” She touched one finger to the earrings half hidden beneath loops of her hair. “These are Eleanor’s. We gave them to her for her sixteenth birthday.”

  “I remember,” Prudence said. “I asked my father for a pair of cameos just like hers.”

  “Did he get them for you?”

  “He always gave me anything I wanted.” Prudence smiled.

  “Losing someone you love is worse than dying yourself,” Abigail said.

  Prudence bent to kiss her friend’s mother on the cheek.

  * * *

  “It’s so difficult to choose,” Maggie Jane simpered, gesturing at the dresses arranged in neat piles on Eleanor’s bed.

  “Perhaps a hat?” Prudence suggested. “Or a pair of gloves?”

  Maggie Jane looked disappointed.

  “You can always choose later,” Aurora Lee said. “When we do a second sorting. We can’t send everything off willy-nilly to the Society for the Succor of Confederate Widows and Orphans,” she explained to Prudence.

  Prudence interpreted that to mean Aurora Lee and her sister would be picking and choosing the best items for themselves. Or keeping all of them, if they thought they could get away with it.

  She’d mulled over what she suspected the Bennett girls of planning and decided not to interfere. Eleanor had been one of the most generous people Prudence had known, always eager to share whatever she had, sincerely interested in the welfare of the women and children served by the charities for which she volunteered. Prudence knew exactly how Eleanor would deal with the situation. She’d throw back her head and laugh at the absurdity of it, then consider the need that drove the Bennett sisters. “If it makes even one day of their lonely lives easier to bear, let them have it all,” she’d say. She wouldn’t begrudge a single handkerchief. And she’d forget about what she’d given as soon as it left her hands. Eleanor hadn’t believed in charity with strings.

  “Did I tell you that I met someone from Wildacre at the chapel the other day?” Prudence asked casually, not taking her eyes from the scarf she was folding. “Actually it was the same young woman I saw talking to your gardener. She told me her name was Minda.”

  Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane froze in place.

  As she deposited the neatly folded scarf in one of the half-packed trunks, Prudence caught a glimpse of the guarded look that flashed between the sisters. She sensed that the two maids who were bringing garments out from Eleanor’s dressing room also stopped what they were doing. It was as though a collective breath was being held.

  “She reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who it is,” Prudence continued. She frowned as though considering the puzzle, then shook her head. “She certainly does a good job with Teddy’s roses.”

  “Teddy’s roses?” echoed Maggie Jane.

  “Surely you know that he sends fresh white roses every day to be placed around Eleanor’s coffin?” Prudence sighed as though it were the most romanti
c thing she had ever experienced. “Wait. I just remembered.” She looked Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane full in the face, her eyes pinned to theirs. The maids had backed into the dressing room, out of sight. “When I first saw Minda in the chapel I thought I was seeing a younger Eleanor’s ghost. Isn’t that the strangest thing you ever heard?”

  “Minda doesn’t look a bit like Eleanor,” Aurora Lee said stiffly. “I don’t see how you could have mistaken her for the woman Teddy was going to marry.” Her color was high and her voice shrill.

  “She’s not white, Prudence,” Maggie Jane explained in a whisper, glancing at the empty dressing room doorway.

  “She looks white.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Aurora Lee snapped. “You need to stay out of things you don’t understand.”

  “What things don’t I understand?” Prudence prompted.

  Aurora Lee glared at her sister before the helpful Maggie Jane could volunteer more information. “I think we need to pay attention to what we’re doing.” She flounced toward the dressing room, emerging with her hands full of lavender-scented shirtwaists.

  The two maids skittered out behind her and began to carry the clothing on the bed to the waiting trunks. They worked in silence, exchanging nervous glances, but not once meeting Prudence’s eyes.

  “Geoffrey told me you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

  “You’d do well to listen to him,” Aurora Lee said.

  “Not talking about something makes the situation worse,” Prudence insisted.

  “There is no situation.” Aurora Lee’s patience was at the breaking point.

  “Did Eleanor ask you about her? About Minda? Or any of the others?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Prudence. And neither do you.” Aurora Lee snapped shut the lid of one of the trunks. “The subject is closed. I don’t want to hear another word about what you think you know. Because you don’t.”

  Maggie Jane stood with nail-bitten fingers pressed against trembling lips, tears about to spill down her cheeks. “Please don’t fight,” she murmured.

  Despite herself, Prudence couldn’t help but feel sorry for the miserable Maggie Jane. She handed her one of Eleanor’s monogrammed handkerchiefs.