Ebb Tide (Ella Wood Book 3)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  Emily grinned to herself and pulled away the chair at her aunt’s table setting. As soon as she was wheeled into place, Marie said grace. Then Zeke pulled the covers off the serving platters and began dishing out toasted bread and oatmeal.

  Aunt Margaret surveyed the spread. “No eggs?”

  Marie shook her head. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I’m afraid Josephine used them all in the custard I ordered last night for William.”

  The old woman harrumphed. “Never mind. Where’s Ida?”

  “She offered to sit with William.”

  “Did you tell her I started reading Dickens to him? It’s sitting on the chair. He hangs on every word.”

  “I’m sure she found it.”

  Aunt Margaret spooned in a mouthful of oatmeal and made a face. Emily silently agreed. It tasted far better with cream and sugar.

  “You know Emily could take a turn,” Aunt Margaret suggested. “She’s perfectly capable of tending her father.”

  Emily’s stomach tightened. She had absolutely no desire to enter that room again.

  “I forbid it,” Marie decreed. “Another argument could cause even more damage. You know what Dr. Wainwright said.”

  “You told me. And I don’t agree in the least. It’s not fair to your daughter. She has a right to see her father.”

  “I’m not thinking of Emily.”

  “That’s right, you’re not.”

  Marie set down her spoon. “Margaret, I believe we’ve had this conversation before. Repeating it is not going to change my mind.”

  “Then at least let William attempt a few things on his own. You treat him like an infant.”

  Marie’s nostrils flared. “I’m helping him, Margaret. As any good wife would do.”

  “You’re hampering his recovery. Let him feed himself.”

  “He can’t. You’ve seen the mess he makes.”

  “Then clean him up afterward. It’s part of the learning process. And let him out of that bed, for God’s sake. Ben and Apollo can walk him around the room.”

  Marie snapped open her napkin. “Don’t you think William has suffered enough humiliation?” She pronounced every syllable with precision. “He will let us know when he’s ready.”

  Aunt Margaret wasn’t the least bit intimidated. “He won’t ever be ready if you keep coddling him. You must allow him some freedom to try and fail or he’ll never relearn to do anything for himself.”

  “Margaret, I’m through with this conversation.”

  Emily quietly munched her toast. Stray comments were dangerous. But the last thing she wanted to do was visit her father. It was easier just to pretend he was in Columbia or off on a business trip.

  An uneasy truce settled around the table as both combatants focused deliberately on their meals. Aunt Margaret scraped her spoon across the bottom of her bowl with excessive force. The noise grated against Emily’s ears. Across the room, Zeke gave no sign that he noticed the diners whatsoever, though he was quick to refill plates and glasses the moment they emptied.

  At last, Marie turned to her daughter. “Emily, Mr. Turnbull has requested a meeting with me this afternoon. There are some matters I would like to discuss with him, as well. I will need you to supervise things here in the house during my absence.”

  Emily agreed with a short nod. She’d been called upon often during her father’s convalescence. Instead of simply overseeing household chores, she usually pitched in and helped accomplish them. Busy hands and close company kept those stray thoughts more tightly bound.

  Aunt Margaret shoved aside her half-finished oatmeal. “You can put her to work later. Right now my niece is going to push me outside.”

  Emily dabbed at her mouth, foregoing a second piece of toast. She’d pick a handful of cherry tomatoes later.

  Apollo helped her wheel the chair out the back door where she soon found that pushing Aunt Margaret over the grass wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Her aunt had lost more weight since their arrival, but she was still a sizable woman. Emily gritted her teeth and threw herself into the task.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Stop!” Aunt Margaret insisted. “You’re going to rattle my bones loose!”

  Emily halted abruptly. “I thought you’d enjoy a visit to the gardens. They’re so beautiful this time of year.”

  “I can see them from here. I’m far more concerned about you than any flower, no matter how rare or exotic. Ella Wood is not the garden you should be planted in.”

  Emily sighed. “Auntie, need I remind you—”

  “My memory doesn’t require any prodding! I know your reasons for coming home. And I don’t agree with any of them. You belong at that school.”

  “I’m needed here.” After her talk with Zeke, she’d even found a measure of peace over it.

  “Bunkum and balderdash. Your mother has plenty of help. Don’t be a martyr, child.”

  Emily raised her chin defiantly. “Is it wrong of me to want to help my family?”

  “Of course not. But it is wrong to chain yourself to us.”

  Emily sealed her mouth and crossed her arms, scowling at the river across the expanse of yard. Her aunt had badgered her about this since May. Emily suspected she nurtured a guilty conscience, since her failing health had been Emily’s primary reason for coming home.

  “If this war ended right now and life instantly returned to normal, what would you do?” Aunt Margaret persisted.

  Emily fixed her eyes on a swan paddling through the reeds at the water’s edge. The past year had seen her plans altered over and over again. She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. Charleston had been a place to regroup and take inventory. But with no word from Jovie, how could she possibly answer that question?

  Aunt Margaret correctly read her emotions. Her voice was gentle. “Child, you must consider that he may never come back.”

  Emily spun to face her. “How—how did you know?”

  “That Jovie’s missing? Or that his absence is killing you?” Compassion softened the harshness of her words. “I may be old, but I’m not blind, my dear.”

  Emily ran a hand up the back of her neck. What if Jovie didn’t return? What if she had to face life alone? She would never marry for convenience. She’d have to find a way to support herself. At least until she inherited Ella Wood—if there was anything left. The answer was clear enough. “I’d return to Baltimore and finish my education.”

  “You see? You are a cat in a cage,” the woman pronounced. But all enthusiasm had leached from her triumph.

  “Ella Wood doesn’t feel like a cage. I want to be here with you and Mother.”

  “Child, watching you these last two years has taught this old woman something. Just because my granddaddy’s generation proceeded in a certain manner doesn’t mean we have to carry on in the same way. Why must a woman wait until she’s widowed to gain independence? Why tarry until life is ebbing away before she can claim it for herself?” She reached for Emily’s hand. “You’ve been brave enough to challenge the establishment, but make no mistake. You are a prisoner—bound to an archaic way of life that will crush your spirit if you stay here. I won’t be a passive witness to that.”

  Emily blinked rapidly, fanning away her tears. “I can’t leave. Not now. Not yet.”

  “But you will?” Aunt Margaret reached up and pulled Emily’s chin around. “Look into my eyes and promise me that you will never let your dream die. That when you have the means, you will follow through and achieve it.”

  Emily nodded. That she could agree to. “I promise.”

  “Good girl.” Aunt Margaret patted Emily’s cheek and relaxed against the chair’s wicker back. “You’re an angel, you know. I’m sorry you have to keep company with such a crotchety old lady.”

  “Oh, Auntie. You’re not crotchety.”

  She gave her such a withering glare that Emily couldn’t help but laugh. “All right. You’re ornery as a hornet. But I love you anyway.”

  Aunt Margaret’s face softened into wistful introspection
. “I’m very grateful you brought me here, niece. And I don’t mean to complain…”

  “You’ve been going strong all morning.”

  But Aunt Margaret didn’t smile. “The truth is, I miss my own home. My books, my trinkets, my memories.” She paused, her vision resting somewhere far away. “I want to see the photograph of my husband again—to hold it in my hand and remember the sound of little footsteps pattering over our floorboards. I want to pick camellias from my own garden. And my hats! We left so quickly, I didn’t bring a single one with me.” She sighed, long and wistfully. “I have half a mind to hop the next train and take myself back where I belong.”

  Emily rarely witnessed such raw emotion in her aunt. She usually kept it buried beneath a thick layer of bluff and bluster. “You’d be risking your life.”

  “Seems like I’ve earned the right to die in my own bed.” She thrust out her chin.

  “Aunt Margaret, you’re not—”

  “You’re young. You don’t think of such things. But when your clockwork begins running down, you find your thoughts meander in that direction.”

  “Dr. Malone has given no hint of any such event.”

  “I don’t need a doctor to tell me some things,” she snapped. But her fire died as quickly as it flared, leaving a tired, homesick old woman. “Truth is, I’m winding down like a mill at ebb tide. The current’s nearly spent; there’s no strength left in the turning.”

  Emily leaned down to give her a peck on the cheek. “Then borrow my strength.”

  6

  “No, Miss Emily. Twist de corn, not de nubber. De kernels fall right into yo’ lap.”

  Emily switched hands. Fitting the metal band over the ear, she grasped the corn in her right hand and the sheller in her left, twisting the ear with her strong arm.

  Josephine looked on in satisfaction as the dried kernels pattered into a pile. “When you fill de bucket, I show you how to make hominy.” She disappeared inside the overwarm kitchen, leaving Emily in the shade outside the door.

  Emily had forgotten how much she enjoyed autumn on the plantation. This year, with the loss of so many runaways and the very real threat of hunger, even Marie had dirtied her hem in the vegetable garden. Some of the long garlands of onions and garlic hanging overhead had been braided by her hand.

  Emily tossed the empty cob into the pile at her feet and reached for another ear. All across the estate, hands skilled at processing rice were shelling corn, drying beans, digging potatoes, and harvesting pumpkins. Barrels were made, not for shipping cargo but to store corn and wheat. Barns were filled. And pits were dug in secret, reinforced, and filled with produce. There was a desperation to their actions. Every slave on the estate understood that survival depended on this harvest.

  “Do you think the army will come again this year?” Emily knew it was a foolish question. She also knew the soldiers earned every bite they consumed, but a measure of fear accompanied her lack of control, especially now that she’d been studying her father’s financial ledger.

  Josephine wasn’t one to distribute false comfort. “Do dey wanna eat? You should be askin’ who comin’, de Yankees or de Confederates.”

  In the weeks since Wagner’s fall, the entire nation had watched Charleston with bated breath. Local outrage over the prisoner trial dimmed in comparison to the drama in the harbor. Sumter had quickly been reduced to rubble, opening a door straight to the city. Fears mounted. Rumors blew about like fallen leaves. Defenders braced for the inevitable attack…that never came.

  September passed. October lengthened toward November, and still the Union navy dallied in the harbor mouth.

  Slowly, the South began to let out its breath and wink over Northern incompetence, but not Emily. Not those who lived in Charleston’s shadow. The guns might be silent, but they were still far too close, the harbor far too vulnerable. Summer waned, ushering in the pleasant days of autumn, and every one of them was laced with the strain of waiting.

  Emily finished the bucket of corn and flexed her fingers. Chantilly stood in the near corner of the pasture, calmly watching over the fence. A peek inside the kitchen showed Josephine tossing vegetables into a large kettle with her back turned. Scooping up a pocketful of kernels, Emily tiptoed over to the horse.

  “Hello, beautiful,” she greeted as Chantilly nuzzled the grain from her palm. The horse had been her confidante, the guardian of whispered fears she could voice to no one else. Speaking them aloud only compounded the challenges her household already faced, so they remained shrouded—buried like a foul secret. Mealtimes were often stiff with nonchalance.

  Lune pricked up his ears, surveying her from a careful distance. Emily flicked out her handkerchief. Sure enough, the stallion trotted over with crested neck and streaming tail to regally accept a mouthful of corn. He tolerated her affections for half a minute. Then, in a rare display of playfulness, he kicked up his heels and raced along the pasture fence. Emily watched with unabashed admiration.

  “Miss Emily,” Josephine called from the kitchen doorway. “I got supper to tend an’ bread to make. If you wanna learn to make hominy, you gotta come watch now.”

  Emily gave Chantilly a final pat. “We’ll ride this evening,” she promised and returned to the shade of the kitchen wall.

  “Firs’ thing we do,” Josephine began, “is soak de kernels in lye water fo’ a day or two till de skins come off. Anna already run de water through de hopper. Jus’ dump in de corn, cover it, and check it every few hours tomorrow.”

  The hopper held ashes taken from the cookstove and fireplaces. Combined with water, they produced the strong-smelling chemical. “Will you be making soap this year?” Emily asked, recalling another task that called for lye. Her mother always purchased scented bars for the family’s use, but this year, they’d been making do with the soft soap the slaves produced, and Emily wanted to learn the process.

  “Only if yo’ mama decide to butcher de las’ of de hogs. Can’t make soap widout fat.”

  “No sense letting the army take them.” She’d see about getting a new litter of piglets next spring.

  Emily slid the kernels into the wooden bucket and placed a board over the top. Making hominy seemed easy enough. “Is that it?”

  “Fo’ now. When de skins be loose, we wash out all de lye and rub ’em off. Den we boil de kernels till dey soft.”

  Maybe hominy was a lot of work. But worth it. “Then we eat it.” She licked her lips in anticipation.

  “Ain’t no salt ’less we boil it in seawater,” Josephine reminded her. “Ain’t no butter, either.”

  Emily wouldn’t let her enthusiasm be dampened. “I’ll be back tomorrow to check the corn and help you dry apples.”

  Josephine raised a hand in acknowledgment as she disappeared into the kitchen. Emily headed for the house. Lottie would be waiting for her lesson, but she hesitated before entering her bedroom, turning into Jack’s instead. She had spent hours here recently, scouring it for his lost journal—searching under the mattress, in his desk drawers, among his collection of books, in his wardrobe. Her inspection had turned up nothing.

  She sank into the desk chair and scanned the entire room for less obvious hiding places. She wasn’t necessarily counting on the journal. Since her talk with Zeke, she had pored over her father’s records, familiarizing herself with the operations not just of Ella Wood but of each of her father’s holdings. She had asked Marie to join her, but her mother always refused. Walter Cutler had helped her interpret some of the terms and documents, and Emily’s confidence was growing, but the journal sure would be nice to have.

  Emily sighed. Jack’s hiding place was not advertising itself. She rose, kicked at the walls for any loose baseboards, and finally left.

  Lottie waited in her room. They met several times a week, varying their time and location to avoid suspicion. This morning, Emily had chosen a new destination. “Walk with me, Lottie,” she said, slipping a small volume into her pocket. “The weather is so mild and the breeze so fre
sh that it would be sinful to stay inside.”

  “But what would Missus say if she see me?” The child was progressing well in her lessons, but she lacked Lizzie’s brave composure.

  “I’ll tell her I needed you to help me gather wildflowers. There’s a willow tree at the far end of the horse pasture. No one will ever discover us there.”

  Lottie tagged along, her shoulders stiff with tension. Emily followed the fence line, picking flowers as she went. Occasionally she would point out a particular variety, encouraging Lottie to collect a sample. By the time they reached the opposite end of the field, their arms were laden, and laughter itched in their bellies. Ducking beneath the willow’s branches, they collapsed to the ground in a fit of muffled giggles.

  “Now wasn’t that fun?” Emily asked, tucking her bare feet beneath her skirt. She’d given up both hoops and petticoats weeks ago, much to her mother’s chagrin. It made work far easier.

  “I feel wicked,” Lottie admitted with another round of laughter.

  “There’s nothing wicked about learning to read. Nothing at all.” Emily sobered, aware of the punishments doled out by those who disagreed.

  She pulled out the small volume. In six weeks, Lottie had mastered her letters and devoured three different readers. She was quicker even than Lizzie and motivated by the sheer rapture of deciphering the stories. There was an innocence to the girl, despite her blossoming womanhood, that Emily found refreshing, and she’d been eager to share books of greater substance.

  “We’re going to do something different today. Instead of you reading to me, I’m going to read to you.” She held up the book. “This was my brother’s. It’s a wonderful adventure about three children who shipwreck on an uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean. Jack tried to tell me it was only for boys, but I stole it from his room while he was off somewhere and read the whole story in one sitting. I think you’ll like it.”

  Lottie’s eyes grew wide. Clearly she hadn’t expected such a turn.