Whiskers in the Dark

by Rita Mae Brown

  Maureen, herself, wouldn’t be seen during any beatings. Not that she was squeamish—she wasn’t.

  Better to let her people wonder where she was, was she viewing, and, even better, wonder what she was thinking.

  What she was thinking was she would beat the truth out of all of them. She had come back from Europe with stops at Guadeloupe, a tiny Spanish colony, and Santiago, on Santo Domingo, which held some of her father’s fortune.

  Satisfied that the funds were growing, she handsomely rewarded some of her father’s old employees, now hers, and sailed back to the United States, disembarking at Charleston, where she also lingered to attend to banking matters. Jeffrey languidly strolled the streets, soaking up the perfect architecture, listening to the women sing in Gullah outside the churches as they sold baskets, brightly woven scarves, all manner of delights. The sun would set, Maureen would be freed from her meetings, the black folks would sail back to the islands off the tip of Charleston.

  Finally home, she allowed herself a day or two of rest. Jeffrey made a beeline for his coachworks, far happier to be working than to be the adopted brother of a baron, the Baron West.

  Needing pin money, Maureen went to the drawer, pulled it out—no money, no inexpensive but pretty topaz earrings. Furious, she checked all her little hiding places. Gone. Not a penny. Granted, it wasn’t much, but the Mistress of Big Rawly couldn’t abide a thief. Then Elizabetta told her that Sulli had escaped.

  Naturally, Maureen had to blame someone, and her lady’s maid, ostensibly in charge of the house in her absence, fit the bill—hence the lashing.

  Fincastle picked up the full wooden bucket, sloshed the water on the poor woman’s flayed back. That brought her back to consciousness. He then reached up, cutting her down, where she slumped in a sodden pile.

  No one would touch her. Jeffrey, unaware of the punishment, hurried up to the site once one of the men in the huge workshop informed him. It was he who knelt down, picking up the swooning, in-shock woman.

  “For the love of God, someone help me.”

  DoRe stepped forward. He picked up Elizabetta’s feet while Jeffrey held his hands under her arms, careful not to touch her around to her back.

  “Can you carry her to the last cabin, Master?” DoRe asked.

  “Yes.”

  The two men carried the woman, not terribly heavy, to the herb cabin wherein a young woman had been grinding herbs in a bowl. She managed to avoid the beating spectacle. Looking up, she stopped.

  “Kintzie, help.” DoRe moved toward the pallet in the corner.

  “Lay her on her side.” Kintzie walked over, kneeling down. “He cut through to the ribs here.” She pointed. “DoRe, fetch me one of the clean rags by the lavender.” He hesitated, so she pointed up. “Under the hanging lavender.”

  “What can I do?” Jeffrey asked, but Kintzie feared giving the Master an order. “I think, sir, given your wife’s temper, you had best leave us.”

  His face reddened. “Of course.” Then he looked at DoRe. “I’ll do what I can.”

  DoRe simply tilted his head in response as he also carried a bucket of clean water. As Kintzie dabbed the deep wounds, Elizabetta refused to scream—she held one hand over her mouth.

  Tears saturated Elizabetta’s cheeks. Kintzie reached out with her left hand, picked up another rag, handed it to the suffering woman.

  “Hold my hand.” DoRe knelt before her, taking her hand. “The pain will be fierce. You’ll live.”

  Elizabetta, tears running, nodded.

  Kintzie wrung out a rag, dipping it again. “Near as I can tell, no bones broken. Sugar, I need to get you as clean as I can. This will hurt. I will rub some salve on you. It’s a lot of beeswax but it will help you heal. I’ll wrap a bit of gauze over your back. Can’t have anything sticking on these wounds. DoRe is right, you’ll live and you’ll heal. You’re strong. You’ll heal.” She asked DoRe, “What did she do?”

  “Nothing. It’s what she didn’t do.”

  “I never knew.” Elizabetta choked that out.

  DoRe said, “Missus found money missing, what she calls her pin money, then she found some earrings missing. She came down to the stable, asking me had I seen anyone? Well, I hadn’t, but by her questions I knew jewelry again. She’s got the big stuff locked up but if she owns it, it matters. She’ll never get over Sheba stealing those pearls. I didn’t think too much of it, figured we were all safe at the stables.”

  “Yes.” Kintzie placed a soft, dry cloth over Elizabetta’s back.

  “It was Sulli,” the wounded woman gasped. “She ran off. I never knew.”

  “DoRe, did you see her?”

  “No, Kintzie, but I felt William was back. Saw someone moving toward the woods. Moved like him. I doubled the watch at the stable. Figured he’d steal a horse, but why would he be so damned stupid as to come back?”

  “Sulli.” Kintzie supplied the answer. “I caught sight of her carrying a basket in the dark, tiptoeing down to the firewood sheds. Never thought it would be William. Maybe they had taken up with each other before he ran but he or someone was here and she was feeding him.”

  “Ralston ran off from Cloverfields,” DoRe told her.

  “H-m-m.” Kintzie fanned the thin cloth with another cloth to cool down Elizabetta’s back.

  “Stupid little bitch. I never watched her. I trusted her,” Elizabetta said.

  “You’ve paid for it.” A long, long pause followed this. “We’ll all pay for Sulli, the slut.” Kintzie couldn’t help herself. “And wherever she is, she’ll have a swollen belly before Easter.”

  “How long before I heal?”

  “Months. You’ll be walking about in days but you won’t be able to sit and lean back. And you will be scarred for life,” the kind young woman told her.

  “At least she didn’t tear half your face off like she did to Ailee.” DoRe’s voice fell. “Blinded one eye. Smashed half her face.”

  “We didn’t know. We never saw Ailee again.” Elizabetta, working at the house at the time, did not see any of this.

  Ailee and Moses ran. But DoRe had seen them and both Kintzie and Elizabetta were prudent enough not to ask.

  “I’d better go back to the horses.” DoRe released Elizabetta’s hand.

  “Thank you.” She meant it. “And I will thank the Master someday.”

  “He knows.” DoRe smiled, then left.

  As DoRe reached the stables, the odor of cleaned leather, sweet hay, and oats filled his nostrils. Out of force of habit, he walked into the large, well-organized tack room. Counting bridles and saddles and running his fingers over the steel bits to search for little pits calmed him.

  Seeing the beating, Elizabetta’s wounds, infuriated him. The night Francisco was killed came back and he heard Maureen’s screams enhanced by Sheba’s wails. He had run to the house as he could just make out two figures in the distance running for all they were worth. One moved like Moses, his son. Later he found out Moses and Ailee had fled, Moses being accused of killing Francisco.

  Even in the midst of the blood, blood on both Maureen and Sheba as they tried to stanch Francisco’s wounds, even then he knew they were the murderers. Maureen’s revenge for years of infidelity must have been sweet. As for Sheba, she would do anything to intensify her power over Maureen.

  DoRe never knew if Sheba had killed Francisco and Maureen had then smashed in Ailee’s face or the reverse. No matter, they were both guilty as sin. Moses and Ailee’s disappearance was considered proof of their guilt. It was enough proof that if they hadn’t run, Maureen would see them hanged. What chance did two slaves have against one of the richest women in Virginia, if not the new nation?

  The burden of those memories weighed on DoRe. He sat heavily on a tack-room chair. Back then, when the opportunity had presented itself last October, he had snapped Sheba’s neck. She�
��d paraded around Big Rawly in Maureen’s celebrated pearls. The Mistress was off the estate. Darkness shrouded DoRe as he tossed Sheba in a cart, covered the body, and drove to St. Luke’s, where the Taylors had just been buried.

  Every spade of dirt he had thrown on her face once he’d opened the grave made him thank God he’d lived to kill the evil bitch. She was with the Devil by now.

  His heavy breathing subsided. DoRe folded his hands together. Someday he needed to tell Bettina, but not now, not now. He wanted no secrets between himself and the woman he loved.

  As for God’s punishment, DoRe felt none would occur. If anything, the Lord would rejoice as he rejoiced over Old Testament warriors’ victories over unbelievers. Sheba was an unbeliever. He had done his duty.

  In the meanwhile, Jeffrey had stormed up to the house, where his wife, low-cut bodice prominent, sat at her card table. He swept the cards off the table, yanked her to her feet, and slapped her hard across the face.

  “Don’t you ever do anything like that again.” He towered over her as she sank to her knees.

  “I didn’t do anything.” She was stunned.

  “You had Elizabetta cut to ribbons. What’s the matter with you?”

  Flaring, she spat out, “You can’t let those animals get away with anything. Beat them, beat them into submission. She was in charge of the house and money is missing, jewelry is missing, and Sulli has run off.”

  He slapped her hard again. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again! As for Sulli leaving, well, she was a petty thief. Elizabetta couldn’t have known. Do you think she’d be stupid enough to be here knowing or being a part of this? Never. Never. Never. Never. Do you hear me?” He gripped her wrists until they hurt.

  “Yes.”

  He kept holding her wrists. “I am your husband. I am the Master of Big Rawly. You will obey me. Do you hear? You will never beat anyone again.”

  She nodded. Whether she agreed or not was another issue.

  The bosoms were not lost on her husband. He pulled her up, ripped her bodice right off her bosoms. The material hung at her waist. Then he kissed her hard, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

  “Do you hear?” he whispered.

  “Yes, husband.”

  Having never seen Jeffrey like this, Maureen was equal parts frightened and thrilled. The fear subsided. The thrill remained.

  26

  October 19, 1787

  Friday

  “Your brother wished for you to have this.” Jeffrey handed Charles a lovely wooden box, the inlaid wood shining.

  The two men sat together in Charles’s parlor, having enjoyed a light midafternoon meal prepared by Rachel with Bettina’s help. Rachel left to help Catherine write out some of their father’s correspondence and to allow the two men time alone.

  Charles carefully unhooked the brass latch, opening the box to find a mate to the beautiful Nicolas-Noël Boutet pistol his father had given him.

  “Oh,” Charles exclaimed as he lifted the work of art from its housing.

  “The Baron knew you had forfeited your pistol to John Schuyler when he captured you. He thought this would please you.”

  Charles grinned. “Wait until John sees this.” Then he rubbed his forefinger on the rich wood of the flintlock. It was accurate. When one pays that much for a weapon, it had better be, and his late father had paid plenty.

  Jeffrey, happy to have made Charles happy, said, “I never understood how you and the major could become so close, but now after my duel with Yancy Grant, I somewhat understand.”

  “John originally thought we were lucky to be living. You can imagine. But he knew the Articles of War, and he treated my men and me with respect, even on the march from Saratoga to here, now the prisoner of war camp.” Charles shook his head. “I have never been so cold in my life.”

  “I saw it once. Delivered a chest for the wife of the commandant. All those cabins, wooden chimneys, and the rooftops, evergreens. I suppose the needles were to keep out the snow.”

  “Well, Piglet and I snuggled up each night.” Charles reached down to pet his devoted, aging corgi. “But I give my captors credit. When I approached the guard with the suggestion of thatching the roofs—that we could do it because no one here really knew how—he took me to the commandant, who seemed relieved, actually, that there might be a way for more protection from the elements. He had no money. The Continental Congress had none, nor did the colony of Virginia.”

  “I certainly saw many thatched roofs in England. I liked them, actually.”

  “Well, my men and I found reeds, mostly in lowlands near the camp, and we thatched our roof. Then the other fellows did it, those who could. Kept the rain out and the snow. The next thing was cutting firewood. I remember a Hessian from another cabin sneaking over to steal some of our firewood. We caught him and thrashed him worse than we would have thrashed a colonial.” Charles laughed.

  “Having seen where you were raised, I would imagine we do appear barbaric,” Jeffrey remarked.

  Charles quickly replied, “I do not feel that. Are there castles and kings, are there the great piazzas such as exist in Italy or estates of twenty and thirty thousand acres owned by dukes, no. But the homes in Philadelphia are graceful. I hear Charleston is beautiful, and even Richmond, a bit less refined perhaps, contains touches of elegance.”

  Jeffrey brightened. “Technically you and I are brothers now.”

  Charles tapped his forefinger on Jeffrey’s hand. “A good addition to the family. I am grateful that you and your wife have rescued my brother. That’s the only word I can use. ‘Rescued.’ Our father, a man of immense charm and sociability, left us in tatters, as you know. Well, insolvent, as he did inherit the title.”

  Jeffrey leaned back in the comfortable chair. “My wife sets such a store by such things. Lord Holloway. If anyone would call me that, I would be embarrassed.”

  “I doubt any Virginian will, but when you leave our country, you will be so addressed.”

  “Maureen insists I have your family’s coat of arms painted on our carriage, on everything, engraved on the silver. My God.” Jeffrey couldn’t help himself.

  “Ah well, she was raised where such things still matter.”

  “I saw where she was raised. More splendor, which she has reproduced at Big Rawly. She was educated in France.”

  “Yes.” Charles smiled, for Maureen spoke impeccable French, as did he. “You didn’t cross the Channel?”

  “We didn’t visit France. Maureen, who keeps up with foreign developments, judged it not a good time to see her old friends there. She says the dismissal of the Assembly of Notables in May was unwise. Your brother, when this was discussed, called them the Assembly of Not Ables.”

  Charles laughed. “He would, but they didn’t do anything anyway. I can’t see a dismissal as much to worry about, but, then, I am here and very grateful to be here.”

  “You don’t miss it?”

  “Oh, I miss the shires sometimes. I miss Oxford. I don’t really miss London at all. Every time I would visit, which my father insisted upon for our social education, if you will, I found the city had grown even more. People everywhere. I’m not meant to sit in soirees.”

  “Yes, well, I now understand.” Jeffrey smiled. “Italy proved a revelation. I tried to remember my school Latin, but the light, the color of the homes, the furniture”—he paused, blushing slightly—“I will ever be a cabinetmaker. I was enchanted.”

  “Business is good?”

  “My wife has had that large shop built for me, encouraged me to hire specialized labor. The orders pour in.” He paused. “And you?”

  “The work at St. Luke’s has brought me attention. I’ve received a commission to design a home along the James outside of Scottsville. I will take you to St. Luke’s. I would like for you to see it.”

  “I
would like to see it. I can’t speak for Maureen. She is a dedicated Catholic, which means she likes the ritual. What she believes, I couldn’t say.”

  “Ah well, perhaps none of us can really understand any church. I read my catechism—oh yes, Church of England has catechism. I still don’t know what it’s about, although I can recite the Nicene Creed by heart.”

  They both laughed.

  The clock struck five o’clock. The late-afternoon light streaked across the land like butter.

  “I have taken up too much of your time. I’d better find DoRe and we can drive home before twilight. I assume he is visiting your cook.” Jeffrey smiled.

  “Or she him. When DoRe and Barker O are together, they can talk.” Charles again opened the box to admire the pistol. “Thank you for this.”

  “I am merely the messenger. Your brother wished to restore the mate to the one John has as the spoils of war. He knew how you valued it.”

  “My father gave me an excellent education, a Continental tour, clothing, but he wasn’t much for gifts to his sons. He didn’t want us to become, in his words, effeminate. I don’t think either Hugh or I was in danger, but he gave me the pistol when I left for the Army. I wasn’t close to my father, but I liked him. Does that sound strange to you, having worked with your father?”

  “One sees the distance with many sons. Then again, fathers are often absent. I call upon my father often for help in my work. He is astonishingly good, you know, and I don’t say that because he is my father, but he can put his hands on a piece of wood and feel it.”

  Charles smiled. “A gift. You possess it, too.” He rose and Jeffrey rose with him.

  As they walked to the door, Jeffrey confided in him. “There was an unfortunate incident at Big Rawly yesterday.”

  “Elizabetta.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Word travels fast.”

  Jeffrey nodded. “I believe the slaves have ways to reach one another of which we know nothing. Bad as it was, it is settled and that will never happen again.” Then he paused again, cleared his throat. “You have been married a few years now.”