Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2)

by Meredith, Anne

  Bronson turned Marley toward him, his gaze searching her face, then he drew her away into an alcove near the front door. He spoke in hushed tones. “You seem troubled. Would you rather stay with me?”

  She lay her palm alongside his face, and he turned his head and kissed her hand, then her wrist.

  “Aren’t you happy to see your Nan?”

  She nodded, then ducked her head. “I’ll have to explain another time. Now, I must speak with her.”

  He was not satisfied with this. Clearly, he distrusted poor Nan. Had he sensed her fear just by feeling her heartbeat against his own? “All right. But I shall be right out here.”

  With that, the women retired to the kitchen, and as Marley sat at the kitchen table, Nan and Camisha went about making the coffee as if they’d done this very thing countless times.

  As Camisha ground the beans, she spoke. “Remember the first time we ever met—at the old overseer’s home, where your father-in-law lives?”

  Nan put water on to heat, quickly building a fire. Marley was impressed with how easily she had grown accustomed to some of the hardships of the eighteenth century. “Yes.”

  “How is old Hastings? We haven’t been out to see him yet—he must be ninety by now.”

  Nan smiled blithely, removing cups and saucers from the glass-fronted cupboard. She opened the door and called out, “Who wants coffee?”

  Over her shoulder, Marley saw Thomas Trelawney smile at her, hoisting a snifter of brandy as if in toast. “We’re quite well taken care of.” He puffed the cigar. “Ah, what pleasure, to have a son who trafficks in West Indies cigars.”

  The men laughed.

  “Oh—bad news from Philadelphia, son. Peyton Randolph has—”

  Disinterested in the talk of menfolk, Hannah closed the door and returned to her busy work, and Camisha and Marley exchanged a frown.

  “Hannah, I was a young newlywed and new mother when I met you, and you were scarcely grown, with a child of your own,” Camisha said, growing serious as she keenly eyed Nan.

  Nan laughed lightly, placing the saucers on the table, then setting cups upon them. She placed the sugar bowl and creamer there, and then looked around anxiously for something to do with her hands.

  “Hannah. Sit down.”

  “Here’s the water boiling now.” She folded a thick towel around the handle of the kettle and poured the boiling water over the coffee grounds, then replaced the lid and set the silver coffeepot on the table.

  “Camisha, have you any more grandchildren?”

  “Yes. Helen just had a baby girl. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Nan sat staring at her hands, folded on the table.

  Marley glanced around the room. A unique spirit pervaded this small place—peculiar yet familiar. The home was perhaps forty years old, but it had a distinct character, an aura like that of centuries-old homes in her own time. The collective spirit of love and laughter that lingered long after those who had loved and laughed there had moved on. Still, she felt comforted, as if with their coffee klatsch they, too, would contribute to the secrets shared here over the course of the home’s life.

  “Well, Camisha, I loved Thomas then, and I love him now. I did not ever expect to see him again, but God has brought us here, and I will not lose him again.”

  “But you were such a young girl when you met him, young enough to be his daughter, surely not yet—”

  “I was one-and-twenty, newly widowed, my husband lost to smallpox, my daughter and I both having recently survived the disease as he did not. And I had a little girl, but four years old, to raise, and no way to provide for her. Dear Will and I lived in that lovely old stone house—and how I loved him. When he passed on, I was devastated. The only thing that kept me hoping, that gave me a reason to get up in the morning, was little Cassie.

  “Dear Godfrey told me to come to Rosalie, and he took us in and cared for us. He was broken-hearted at his son’s death, but he was kind to me beyond my imagination. He was like a father to me. Marley, you may remember me mentioning him to you, just before we left for our holiday.”

  Marley nodded, staring at the table. She had noticed one remarkable detail in Nan’s speech, and it was not contrived. Her English accent was as strong as if she’d never left the land of her birth—as if all the years of Marley’s life were for her merely a gigantic mistake, a do-over.

  Nan stopped long enough to pour tea into their cups. She offered cream and sugar, but Marley shook her head, silently annoyed at her incessant pretense at normalcy. Tea, indeed.

  “And he truly doted on my Cassie. His heartstrings were wrapped around those tiny fingers. It seemed to soothe the ache within him from losing his son.”

  Marley looked up at her blankly. Yet another lie—but Marley had been the victim of this falsehood. She had claimed before that Marley’s father was her son; now, that story was entirely different, placing her in this era. But how could Camisha know her otherwise?

  “Thomas lived in the home at the same time, with little Bronson. He was an austere, forbidding, and yet alluring man. Terribly handsome, as he still is. He, too, was grieving a loss—that of Bronson’s mother. In time, we came to comfort each other, and we fell in love. However, he found that Rosalie bothered him as much as Williamsburg proper did, and he decided he wanted to learn to sail. So he bought a sloop, learned to sail, and asked me to marry him and live out our lives in Bermuda.”

  Here, she stopped, dabbing at her eyes.

  “I could not leave Godfrey. He so loved Cassie, and I was sure it would break his heart. I had to tell him goodbye. He sailed away, and that was the last time I ever saw him.”

  “But he came back,” Camisha said, confused. “Once Ashanti and I began visiting Rosalie—not long after we met—the boys became good friends and we began visiting usually at least once a year. Often, Thomas would sail to Boston for us, to make sure there wasn’t ever any problem with our traveling.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Camisha laughed. “Oh, that whole black thing. Some folks south of the Mason-Dixon line tend to capture free black men and sell them as slaves.”

  “The what?”

  Hannah was beginning to embarrass Marley, she was so purposefully obtuse. The woman wasn’t stupid—she couldn’t quite believe she’d never heard of the Mason-Dixon line—so her inability to sympathize with Camisha irritated her.

  After a long moment, Camisha shook her head. “Never mind. So you must have left Rosalie about the same time Thomas first went to Bermuda?”

  “Yes. It was simply too painful.” This came out an insincere excuse, and Marley and Camisha exchanged a glance.

  Nan quickly shook her head. “No, that’s not true. It was painful indeed, but I stayed at Rosalie. When visitors came, I went into seclusion with Cassie until they left. I had no interest in meeting anyone else. That was indeed too painful.”

  Camisha’s gaze narrowed. “But you haven’t been hiding there for ten years, have you?”

  “No, eventually I did leave. By then, Cassie had married, and her husband lectured at William and Mary.”

  The kitchen door opened, and Ray stood there. “We’d better get going. A rider came from Rosalie. Any time now.”

  Camisha nodded. “Oh. All right, then. We’ll be right out.” When he left, she went on. “This isn’t over, Hannah. I’ve missed you too much, and I want to hear how Cassie and her husband are doing.”

  Darkness entered Nan’s gaze. “Another time, then.”

  “Do you suppose we could use your water closet, before we leave?”

  “There’s one near the back door, and one upstairs, off Thomas’s room.”

  Camisha glanced at Marley. “You’re young, you can use the one upstairs.”

  Marley smiled and climbed the stairs, heavy with the weight of her grandmother’s lies. She found the small room off one of the bedrooms and quickly used it. As she left the room, she absently glanced into the bedroom. Two portraits hung on one large wall. One was
of the lovely child who, in the folklore of the twenty-first century, was said to haunt the Trelawney home—Emily was her name.

  Then her gaze settled on the other portrait. She had no way of knowing, but in her heart she was certain that the young blonde woman, staring soulfully off into the distance, was the woman who’d died giving birth to her only son, Bronson. He had her dreamy eyes.

  When they left the home, Marley was torn by any number of conflicting emotions. The most easily identified was betrayal. She had learned growing up that truth was a malleable thing for her grandmother, but now she needed to know the truth.

  The anger she had felt toward her had dampened into a silent sadness, but with that came alienation. She didn’t know Nan. The laughing, suffering, genteel, and now duplicitous, woman who had raised her was a stranger to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dinner at Rosalie surprised Marley in its efficient simplicity. Later that night, she would understand that it was not the festive, social affair she had come to expect around the Adams, but simply a meal.

  The Adamses ate with the Freeman-Trelawneys, and even Boots, as Camisha had called him, showed up.

  After dinner, Ashanti looked at Boots. “What have we heard from Linnondale?”

  “The woman’s pains began at noon.” This from Ruth.

  “Very well, then. Who do you think should go?”

  Camisha spoke up. “I think—”

  “I wasn’t asking you,” her husband said. “You lead us all about by the nose as it is in this matter. We support you in this Christian effort, but Brother Dan and Sister Ruth must live in this land. They will direct us.”

  Camisha’s mouth snapped shut, her eyebrows lifted at Ashanti’s affront.

  The large, silent older man who sat beside Ruth spoke. “We take as few as is necessary. I must go to baptize the child who has passed. Camisha must go to be with the woman who labors now. Do we know her name?”

  “Keturah.”

  “Aye, then. We must have watchmen. Bronson, Ray, will you come?”

  Each man nodded.

  “Ruth must stay behind,” Dan said. “She is too important here.”

  Ruth looked away from him, absently scratching her throat. She clearly wanted to go.

  “You matter to the students,” he insisted. “You know that.”

  “I know that. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Who else?”

  “I would like to go,” Marley said.

  “No.” This from Bronson. “’Tis too dangerous, you don’t even know what we’re doing, nor do you understand the risk.”

  “I want to help. I can see you need help.”

  “She can come with me, Bronson. Being white, she will be in little danger. She has a tidewater accent, she can always claim to be a neighbor trying to do something charitable. She’ll be helpful.” Camisha nodded at Marley.

  They quickly cleared and scrubbed the supper dishes and walked through the woods to the water’s edge, then walked up the James River for perhaps three miles. The night was clear but also moonless, and their trek was lit by only the stars. Bronson led the expedition, Marley beside him, Ray on her other side, Camisha near her carrying a basket full of clean towels and several small blankets. Behind them, Dan followed, carrying a small pine box.

  Marley still had no idea what they were doing.

  Just as they were about to pass over a small stile beside a large boulder, indicating a property line, Bronson held out his hand and hushed them. Ray waited beside him, his eyes focused in the same direction as Bronson’s. Marley noticed both of their hands were at their waists, resting on their scabbards.

  On the other side of the line of trees along the river stood the figure of a man wearing leather and a long braid—a native, Marley thought. The man watched them, his hands on a line dangling in the water. He raised a hand to them in greeting, then went back to fishing. She shivered as she gazed at him when they passed—witnessing a way of life among people who no longer existed in her time.

  They continued over the stile and reached the line of cabins. The owner’s house stood off perhaps a quarter mile, and Bronson and Ray took up lookout positions in trees just barely within sight of each other, between the plantation house and the slave cabins.

  Dan and the women went on. The sound of a cry helped direct their path, and soon they’d arrived in the meager cabin, lit with a single tallow candle.

  A woman sat on a pallet in the corner, braced against both walls, with a blanket spread over her lower body. Another woman knelt at her feet.

  Dan placed the small box aside and approached her. “I am Brother Daniel. I shepherd the flock at Rosalie. I am here to baptize the child.”

  She nodded. He knelt to pray over the woman, blessed her, and left to wait outside the cabin.

  “How far along is she?”

  “Soon, ma’am.”

  Camisha knelt at the woman’s side, taking her hand. Sweat stood out on her brow, and her lips trembled. “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. What will you name a girl child?”

  Marley steeled herself against crying at the expression on her face. This young mother had likely never been asked her opinion on much of anything. She seemed at a loss. Finally, she spoke.

  “I always liked Esther.”

  “That’s a lovely name. And a boy?”

  “Joshua Moses. Moses led his people out of slavery, and Joshua led them into freedom. I expect that be a long journey.”

  With a kindness that Marley hadn’t yet seen so strongly in this woman, Camisha bent to kiss her forehead.

  Within another fifteen minutes, the child was born—a healthy, squalling boy. Camisha beamed over him, quickly washing him.

  “Don’t you dare let her nurse him,” the other woman said. “That’ll break her poor heart, and that child be lost forever.”

  “Indeed she must nurse him. It will help her, and help the babe. And she will always remember the look of him in her arms—her son, born in slavery, given up to freedom.”

  As Camisha wrapped the child in blankets, she glanced at the exhausted mother. “Now you understand what happens next.”

  The girl’s eyes shut tightly, and she wept. “I understand. I want my boy to be free.”

  “You can never speak of this. Your child was a girl, she was too small, and she died. And you baptized her with the Christian name of Sunny Abigail Esther. Do you understand?”

  And at last, in a heartbreaking moment, Marley understood.

  She took a deep breath. “Yes. And I can do it. Let me nurse the child, so he won’t ever forget me.”

  Camisha put the wriggling infant into her arms, and he quickly latched onto a nipple, his tiny fingers resting on her breast. Marley did not realize tears were streaming down her own face until she noticed a tear drop from the nursing mother to her son’s forehead. She gently wiped it away.

  Camisha gave Marley a quick glance, nodding at the door. She stepped outside and nodded to Dan, who silently entered the cabin again.

  He took the pine box and sat it on a small table. “Let us praise the Father of mercies, the God of all consolation. Blessed be God forever. For those who trust in God, in the pain of sorrow there is consolation, in the face of despair there is hope, in the midst of death there is life.

  “Keturah, as we mourn the death of your child, we place ourselves in the hands of God and ask for strength, for healing, and for love.

  “My soul is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; I tell myself my future is lost, all that I hope for from the Lord.

  “But I will call this to mind, as my reason to have hope. The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent; They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness. My portion is the Lord, says my soul; therefore I will hope in him. The word of the Lord.

  “Compassionate God, soothe Keturah’s heart, and grant that through the prayers of Mary, who grieved by the Cross of her Son, you may enlighten Keturah’s
faith, give hope to her heart, and peace to her life.

  “Lord, grant mercy to all the members of this family and comfort them with the hope that one day we will all live with you, with your Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever.”

  He removed the pine box once more. When he returned, the baby boy was sleeping and his mother handed him to Camisha. When she rose and turned to Dan, he began speaking.

  “There is one Body and one Spirit; there is one hope in God’s call to us; one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; one God and Father of all. The candidate for Holy Baptism will now be presented.”

  “I present Joshua Nathaniel Moses Trelawney to receive the Sacrament of Baptism.” Camisha’s words were soft and clear.

  He held a small bowl of water in one hand. “Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?”

  Camisha bowed her head. “I will, with the help of God.”

  Marley didn’t know the words to the service by heart, as Camisha did, but she moved to stand beside her in solidarity. She placed one hand on her back and the other over Camisha’s, where she held the child.

  “I will, with the help of God,” she echoed.

  “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”

  “I will, with the help of God,” the women responded in unison.

  Dan then prayed for the infant and for the family who would be raising him. He gave a prayer of thanksgiving for the woman who had given the child life and sacrificed that he might know the freedom that she had not. And then he dipped his fingers into the water and touched his head lightly. “Joshua Nathaniel Moses Trelawney, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  They bundled the baby warmly and placed him in the basket Dan had brought, covering all but his face with more blankets to keep him warm during the long walk back to Rosalie. They instructed the midwife attending Keturah to quickly announce the death of Keturah’s baby—that she had simply been too small to survive. Although the baby’s parents had been white, the child was ruddy-skinned and had thin, black hair, so there would be no disputes about her parentage.