by Grace Walton
“And was it God’s will that Papa blew his brains out over my mother’s grave?” Jess’s voice was hard. She’d heard about the suicide from the gossiping maids too.
“No, girlie.” Her aunt sighed again. “God didn’t will your father to kill himself. David St. John was deceived into doing that foul deed all by himself. He was the most strong-willed, stubborn man I have ever met. He controlled every particle of his life. When he couldn’t control death, he became angry and confused. He sat by her body all night, after you were born, and he cried. David cried like a babe. But by morning he was furious. Infuriated and raging, bleak, cold, and insanely confused, he lost his reason. In that hellish quagmire of emotion, he decided life wasn’t worth living without Mariah. We didn’t know about the pistol he had under his coat at the funeral. When the vicar finished by the graveside and it was time to leave, David sent us all away. He said he wanted to stay with her. We were in the house when we heard the gun’s report. Dylan was closest. He was the first there. I’ve always regretted that. It was an awful thing for an adult to witness, but it must have been even worse for a stripling boy. Your oldest brother told the lie to the preacher so your Papa could be buried beside your mother. He waited till the next morning. Then he sent for Reverend Goode. He told the man your Papa had been killed in a duel. I think the pastor knew the poor lad was lying. But even then Dylan was fair intimidating. So David was laid beside Mariah. God and all His angels surely wept when your poor father pulled that trigger and ended his life, child.”
“Why have you never told me the whole story, Aunt Dorcas?”
Dorcas shrugged. “I thought Dylan might have told you, or one of the other boys. Somehow it didn’t seem to be my place.” She tilted her head to one side. “I’m sorry I never told you the truth. And I’m sorry you overheard what you did from those gossiping housemaids. Most of all, I’m sorry you were put here in this dismal place by that rascal Connor when you haven’t done even one entirely scandalous thing in your whole life,” Dorcas mocked.
“Living with Connor’s Indians wasn’t scandalous?” Jess was back to staring at the ceiling again.
“Girlie, Connor’s Indians are as tame as lap dogs. You might as well have spent the summer here with these psalm-singers. Now if you’d come home with a coppery-colored wee one, now that would have been scandalous.”
“Aunt Dorcas!” Jess scolded. “Kindly remember we’re in a convent.”
“Pish, posh.” Dorcas sniffed. “You’re getting too holy, Jess girl. They’re turning you into a dratted psalm-singer. You needs remember who your father was and who your rascally brothers are. Rakes all of them, and handsome as the very devil with it.”
Jess sat up. She’d finally decided what she saw on the ceiling. “Do you think they’re all handsome Aunt Dorcas? My brothers, I mean?”
“Aye, child, haven’t you got eyes in your head to see for yourself?”
“Yes, but Dylan says Griffin is the ugly one. None of them look ugly to me, especially not Griffin.”
Dorcas’s rusty guffaws rang in Jess’s ears. “Dylan would say that, girlie, the arrogant devil. Child, your brother Griffin is not ugly. He’s the mirror image of your Papa. Ugly indeed! The boy is too handsome for his own good. Women have been stumbling all over the lad since he put on long britches. Connor and Dylan only say that because they’re jealous and they want to irritate him. Now tell me child, what have you been studying so hard upon that dratted ceiling?”
A serene smile settled over the girl’s face. “Aunt Dorcas, I very much believe I see the Virgin Mary in the water stains up there.”
A squeak and an unladylike oath spewed out of the older woman’s mouth. “Saints preserve us, the child’s gone daft. I swear I will go after Connor St. John with a hickory switch the next time I see him.”
Jess tried very hard not to laugh. She’d not been able to resist teasing her long-suffering aunt. After all, the kind lady had left her own plantation to the mercy of an overseer to come and chaperon Jess in the convent. Even though no chaperone was needed, Dorcas had been convinced Jess would get up to her usual mischief.
For once, last summer, all the brothers had been out of pocket. Dylan was in Savannah, his wife’s plantation and orphan’s school were there. Connor wanted to live with his Indians somewhere in the rapidly expanding wilderness. Dorcas honestly didn’t know where Griffin was.
Poor Dorcas felt she’d had no choice but to accompany her young niece. When Connor said he was sending Jess to the convent for safe keeping, Dorcas went too. Her angelic looking niece was always up to some mad start, the old lady reasoned. Why should that stop in a convent positioned in the back of beyond? If the boys weren’t going to be close by to see to Jess, Dorcas better do it for them.
She longed for her niece to find a man who suited her and settle down. She was full grown for gracious sakes. Jess should have a child or two by now. But the stubborn girl turned every eligible bachelor in Virginia down, some of them twice. Her brothers had worked hard to make her the richest maiden in the state. As if her ethereal beauty alone wasn’t enough to snare a husband. Now all those willing suitors wanted to get their hands on her lovely person and her equally lovely money. They picked bouquets of flowers for her, they wrote bad verse about her eyes, and one had gone so far as to serenade the entire household one dark June night. The fact that the young man was a landed Creole from New Orleans had not stopped Connor from heaving the malodorous contents of a thunder jug down upon the Cajun from an upstairs window. The poor offended grandee had challenged her blonde brother to a duel. He meant to repair his tattered honor. Serenading a lady was a sign of devotion in New Orleans, he’d protested vehemently.
Connor thought it a sign of stupidity and he got the choice of weapons. He, of course, chose bows and arrows, a completely unorthodox weapon. The result was a dearth of gossip and a Spanish gentleman with an arrow wound in his posterior. After that incident, no suitor called for a whole month. A month, it must be said, that the girl enjoyed immensely. But unfortunately, Jess found that extreme wealth was a powerful aphrodisiac for the opposite sex.
“I was only joking, Aunt Dorcas,” the young woman confessed reassuring her aunt. An abrupt knock at the cottage’s entrance cut off anything else she might have said. Jess hopped down to the floor, straightening her wimple as she walked to answer the door.
“Good Evening my child.” Mother Marguerite Marie stood on the stoop. “May I come in?”
Jess stood aside. She opened the door more fully. “Of course Mother, please join us.”
“Hello Dorcas,” the old nun addressed the other woman in the room. “How are you today?”
“Fine Marguerite Marie, and you?” Dorcas came over. She politely offered her hand to the Mother Superior.
Jess flinched at her aunt’s informality toward the nun. Dorcas refused to treat the abbess any differently than she would her other friends. To Dorcas Moore, everyone was equal in God’s sight and certainly in her own.
“I’m doing quite well, thank you for asking.” The nun’s answer was accompanied by a pleasant smile. She appreciated Dorcas and her honesty. Marguerite Marie could see that same honesty shining in Jess’s eyes. “Let us sit and talk,” the abbess said as she settled into the only chair in the chamber.
Jess was puzzled as she perched on the edge of her bed, waiting for Mother Marguerite Marie to speak. The Reverend Mother had never singled her out for conversation before. With a sinking feeling, she wondered if she was in trouble. Jess was no stranger to trouble. In fact, she’d been in and out of one scrape after another her whole life. The difference was, she liked to be prepared when she was called to task. Preparation always helped in forming a defense. This time, she had no idea what she’d done. It must have been awful to bring the most religious woman in the convent to her chamber. Scanning back over the day, she remembered making bread and feeding the animals. Nothing unusual there. She remembered going to confession and irritating Father Thomas. Nothing unusual there eit
her. She perpetually irritated Father Thomas, though never intentionally. What had she confessed? It must not have been very awful, if she’d already forgotten it. Suddenly her eyes widened as she recalled the rain barrel. Father Thomas was wrong, she had blasphemed after all. Oh, Lord have mercy, she thought frantically. Mother Marguerite Marie was here to cast her out. Where would she go now? Connor had only laughed when she’d told him she had to go into a convent because of God’s plan for her life. What would her sibling do now? Worse still, what would Dylan do? Her oldest brother had always been more a stern father than a brother to her. He’d marry her off for sure. Probably to one of those fancy London lords, he ran with. She had to do something and fast.
“Mother, I really didn’t mean to sin this morning. It just sort of happened,” she apologized in a torrent. “Father Thomas promised me it was not even a grievous transgression. The penance was only memorizing a psalm.”
“Sin?” The old nun frowned severely. This was serious. Why had Father Thomas not mentioned this to her earlier when he’d regaled her with the light-hearted tale of Jess’s confession? “What is this grievous sin of which you speak?”
Jess gripped her hands tightly together in her lap and prepared to confess her ugly sin again. “The rain barrel.” She choked on the words.
Mother Marguerite Marie’s laughter started out as a tiny chuckle, but soon became full and rollicking. She seemed to laugh forever. Tears streamed down her face. She gasped for air between peals of laughter. “Forgive me, my child.” Was all she could manage as she caught her breath. “Oh, thank you, my dear, thank you so much.”
“You’re thanking me?” Jess’s look said she thought the nun had lost her wits. “Thanking me for what?”
“I have laughed more in the year you have spent with us, than I did in the entire preceding twenty.” She blotted her eyes with a delicate handkerchief she pulled from one voluminous black sleeve.
“I knew it. You’re sending me home aren’t you?” Jess asked fatalistically. “I blasphemed about that da… dratted rain barrel. And now you’re sending me home.” Jess had stopped the curse just in time, she hoped. “Mother give me one more chance, please? Just one more chance?” she begged in the pitiful voice that always worked on all her brothers, even Dylan.
Marguerite Marie got up and walked over to the bed. She sat down beside the woebegone girl. She put a motherly arm around Jess’s shoulders. “My child, you did not blaspheme this morning. You told the truth. Sister Berta most probably didn’t want to hear it. But it was the truth, nonetheless. And I am not sending you home to Richmond. But I am sending you, instead, to do a small task for me.”
Jess was so relieved, she answered instantly, “Anything Mother, I’ll do anything.”
A mission, she thought excitedly. This was it. This is part of the plan, she told herself, the plan God has for me. A feeling of holiness swept over the girl. She felt like Joan of Arc. Just like Joan, she would be noble, self-sacrificing, and ready to be burned at the stake if need be. Jessamine St. John was intent. Maybe Mother was going to send her to China to convert the heathens. She’d heard a lot of talk about that lately, about missions in Asia. Or maybe Jessamine was being sent to Rome to talk to the Pope. To tell him about America, or to tell him some divine directive that God would give her. A satisfied smile settled on her lips. It felt so good. For a year now she’d been battling with herself over this stay at St Cecelia’s, wondering if she should leave, but not being able to bring herself to go. Now she was at peace. She had done the right thing coming here. Now God, in His infinite wisdom, was finally going to use her.
“I’ll do anything, Mother.”
The nun nodded peacefully, as if the outcome had never been in any doubt. “Thank you, dear. I knew you would help me. You and your aunt will need to prepare to leave for London immediately.”
Both Dorcas and Jess shouted at the same time, “London!”
“Yes, my dear, I need you to take a message to an old friend of mine there.”
Jess swallowed the lump in her throat. Delivering a message? That didn’t sound like a holy task. Servants delivered messages, not women chosen of God. “Couldn’t you just send her a letter?”
“My friend is a man, Jessamine, and the message cannot be sent in the common mail. That would be much too dangerous. You must give it to him for me.”
“What is the message?” The girl was intrigued. This sounded more like it. A dangerous message. She would risk her life for the church after all.
“Dorcas, I hope you are not offended, but only Jessamine must hear this,” the Reverend Mother apologized.
The other woman jumped up quickly. She moved toward the door. “Of course Marguerite, I understand perfectly. I’ll just step out to the garden.”
She didn’t understand at all. But she was in favor of anything that got her niece out of the convent and back into society. Husbands were very thin on the ground out here in the backwoods. When she was scheming to get Jess away, the best Dorcas had hoped for was Richmond or Charleston. London was a pearl without price. Jess might snag a lord like her mother, Mariah, had. Democracy was wonderful, but aristocratic connections did a lot to ease one’s way in the world. Jess’s maternal grandfather had been a nobleman’s younger son himself when he’d come to the new world all those years ago. Land and money were nice, but a title never hurt. London was the perfect place to begin the hunt. Dorcas could find a lord for Jess. And if the old lady was lucky, Dylan would be persuaded to leave his foolishness in Savannah and travel, with his family, to London to ease their way into society.
“Jessamine, what I’m about to tell you must be shared only with my friend, Arthur Bassett. He’s the Commissioner of Peace appointed by President Monroe to England.” Her tone was businesslike and sharp.
“Ma’am?” Jess was completely confused. What in the world could a nun in a small rural convent need to tell someone as important as a Commissioner appointed by the President?
“Arthur Bassett is a good man, Jessamine. He saved my life in France a long, long time ago and I vowed to help him, if I ever could. It has been more than twenty years. But finally I have the opportunity, and I need your help.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Arthur is not only trying to keep the peace between England and France, he’s trying to save American lives here as well.” Mother Marguerite Marie stood up and began pacing the floor. “Jessamine, do you remember the trapper who came to the convent last month?”
“Yes, Mother, he sat next to me at supper that night. He was French. I could understand very little of what he said.”
“Yes child, he doesn’t speak English at all, poor man. That’s why he stops by St Cecelia’s every few years. He is not a religious man. But he makes his confession to me, and we speak of the beautiful France of our youth. He journeyed all the way from New Orleans this time. And he told me some very disturbing news,” she explained.
“He did?” Jess encouraged her to continue.
“Yes, he did.” Here the nun stopped. She stared straight at the girl sitting on the bed. “Very disturbing news, indeed. My trapper friend lived for a time with a tribe of Creek Indians. Right before he left to come back here, he overheard a Frenchman try to persuade the Creeks to initiate another war against the settlers. I imagine the poor trapper looked so rough, he was mistaken by the French aristocrat for an Indian himself. Because of all the native dialects there, the man proposing another Indian massacre spoke exclusively in French. The trapper understood every word.”
“My brother, Connor, says the French have been trying to gain the support of the Indians for years. Apparently, they want all the land they sold us in Louisiana and the wilderness back under their control. Surely if Connor knows that, your friend Arthur Bassett does also.” Jess tried to console her.
“I’m sure he does. But the trapper said the French are claiming the Royal Dauphin lives. The rumor is he was spirited out of prison as a child an
d lives now under an assumed name, Herbert Le Roi, in New Orleans. Certain French royalists want to set up a provincial kingdom for this imposter in the lands ceded to the American government. Southern Indian tribes are being wooed by the promise of regaining their lands. He said modern guns were being smuggled through a southern trade route to the Creek Indians. Enough to arm hundreds of warriors. They have even planned massacres, like the one on Fort Mims, at undefended white settlements. Arthur has to be told. You must get my letter to him Jessamine. Perhaps he can stop the murder of all those innocent settlers.”
“I will, of course, Mother.” The girl went to stand beside her. “Just let me get to the coast, one of my family’s ships will surely be there. I will sail to London as soon as possible.”
Jess sounded confident. But she was not at all positive that a ship would be there waiting on her. Her older brother ran the family shipping business. St. John ships traveled the world and were seldom in their home port on the Virginia coast.
“My child, we cannot take the chance that a St. John ship will be available. I have made other arrangements for you and your aunt. There is a ship. One, I absolutely know is in port. It will be leaving in a week. That will give you time to get to Port Wentworth and get settled aboard before it sails.”
“Mother, how do you know for sure that a certain ship is in port? We’re more than a day’s ride inland. And how do you know this mystery ship will sail next week?” Jess argued.
“I know because I read it in the newspaper that is delivered with the post once a week, Jessamine. This particular ship cannot leave until her captain is released from the gaol. His name is Captain Finn McLeod. He will be released as soon as you arrive in Port Wentworth. Then you can be on your way to London.”