A Tangled Mercy

by Joy Jordan-Lake

As if she were thinking the same thing, Rose’s eyes flitted from the front door of the café, where no one but two businesswomen stood, waiting for a table, to Kate. Stiffly, she stood and squeezed the café owner’s hand. “Fortunately, Mordy, I was not particularly hungry, having been here only a few hours ago.” Turning back to Kate, she added, “I am glad, Katherine, that you will be able to join me at my home tomorrow. I believe you and I have a great deal to discuss.”

  Biting her lip, Kate had to restrain herself from bombarding Rose with questions right there.

  “Tomorrow,” Rose said, as if responding to what Kate was thinking.

  “Yes. Tomorrow. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. Telling me anything you remember about my parents and allowing me to see your family papers, Rose . . . you won’t be sorry. I promise.”

  Rose’s head cocked sideways, the chignon like a crown sliding to the back of her head. “Can any of us promise that, truly?”

  Rose swept from the café, leaving the scent of lavender in her wake.

  What was it she’d said about going after the truth?

  Sometimes people get hurt.

  Chapter 13

  1822

  It was a nightmare that woke Emily Pinckney, an image—lively and lurid—of Angelina and Dinah and herself leaning over the blacksmith’s forge, Nina reaching into the coals. Bare-handed, she held up a glowing ember for them to see. But it was Dinah who screamed and covered her face.

  Shaking her head as if she could loose the image from its hold in her head, Emily bolted up to a sitting position. The whole bed jostled; the rice sheaves carved into her bedpost seemed to shift and sway. Emily pressed a hand over her eyes.

  As the door of her bedroom opened and she heard light footsteps across the wood planks, Emily sat huddled in her bedclothes, knees to her chest, hand still over her eyes.

  When at last she dropped her hand, Dinah was standing in front of the fireplace and holding a washbasin—and looking quizzically at her.

  Emily shook off the bedclothes and rose. “I had a most unpleasant dream. Nina was . . .” She stopped there. “Never mind. Set the basin down. I’ll attend to it in a . . .” Her voice trailed off as Dinah did as she’d been commanded, the washbasin dropping just below her middle as she lowered it to the stand, the front of her skirts smoothing for a moment over a rounded bulge at her belly.

  Emily’s whole body went stiff. Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet Dinah’s, which were flinty and cold.

  “So. Dinah. Which blackguard of your fellow servants is to blame for this?”

  But Dinah merely looked back at her. And said nothing.

  “You realize, of course, that eventually you must tell me.” Emily’s hand shook as she reached for the bedcover and pulled it up over herself like a buffer between herself and whatever Dinah might say.

  Again, no answer, except for Dinah’s raising her chin a bit higher—and it was already too high above a long, slender beige neck. She turned to reposition the basin. Drew a pale-green watered-silk morning dress from the armoire and stood holding it ready, her face a mask. Her eyes, though . . .

  Emily Pinckney looked quickly away from the smoldering there. And asked nothing more.

  In the formal dining room, Jackson Pinckney was drinking his coffee in silence, his leather-bound ledger propped open to form a black wall, behind which he was muttering a string of observations, most of them blessedly incoherent, about the latest indigo exports. Emily settled herself across the table from him and, her hand shaking a little from her own most recent observation, stirred the sugar into her own cup.

  From behind his ledger, her father observed, “A millstone around the neck of the South. That’s what it is.”

  Emily knew this speech from her father but humored him by providing his next line. “The South has trapped itself in an economic system that cannot be sustained indefinitely.”

  Slamming his ledger shut, he looked up, glowering. “Exactly. Northern radicals accuse the South of oppressing our slaves for the sake of profit, but they have no idea what a burden we bear, supporting the people who work for us even into a slave’s old age. I don’t know but what the slaveholder is more oppressed than the slave. In fact, I recently wrote . . .”

  Glancing toward the front entrance, Emily was relieved to see that Nina had not yet arrived. Much as she should have known her place, raised as she’d been in the respectable Grimké household, Nina rarely let such a comment from anyone, even a man, pass without a rejoinder.

  Emily, on the other hand, responded to the last buffeting winds of the rant simply by rising to pour herself more coffee from the urn on the sideboard.

  By the time she was sitting back down, he had switched subjects and made no attempt to lower his voice. “Have you noticed nothing of Dinah’s behavior lately? Her impudence toward you? I assume you have addressed this with her.”

  Before Emily could answer, Dinah herself entered, carrying a steaming tureen directly in front of her middle.

  Emily hurried to fill the silence. “And what would you have for us there, Dinah? I smell mace. And caramelized onions. And cloves.”

  “Turtle soup.”

  “I thought so, yes. But for breakfast?”

  “Prue said to tell Miss Emily that it was fresh-made this morning, and it might as well be eaten fresh-made.”

  Jackson Pinckney’s gaze shot to his daughter. “You see?” he demanded. “Exactly as I was just saying.”

  “I will address it, Father. After breakfast, when you retire to your office.” Unsteadily, watching out of the corner of her eye to see if the bulge at Dinah’s middle could be detected—probably not just now with her hands linked like that in front of her—Emily leaned toward the steam and sniffed: cloves, yes. And Madeira. Cayenne pepper. Onions. Brown sugar. And thyme.

  She cleared her throat and scrambled for something to say. “Dinah, do you recall when Prue taught us to make turtle soup, you and I, when we were girls? We’d balance on that one rickety stool. And, you recall, you never wanted anyone to touch the knife to the turtle?”

  “Long time ago,” Dinah said. “Not scared of knives now.” And she swept from the room, slender ankles and small feet moving across the just-polished oak floors.

  Emily swallowed and glanced toward her father. But if he’d heard anything in that last response, he showed no sign. He’d raised the wall of his ledger again.

  “Father, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Angelina Grimké will be paying us a visit this morning.”

  “You,” he corrected. “Paying you a visit. That girl may be from a good family here, but she’s growing too much like her sister Sarah, an odd bird if there ever was one—reading her brother’s law books. Woman’s mind isn’t made for that kind of strain—look what happened. And homely, my God. The face of a horse, both of them. And not a horse bred with attention to looks.”

  “Father, please!”

  “But the worst of it is the ideas your young friend Nina might have picked up from her sister. You know she’s in Philadelphia now, the sister Sarah.”

  “With the Quakers. Yes. I know that.”

  “Imbibing God only knows what dangerous ideas. There’s a reason all the Quakers have left Charleston. If they don’t value the Southern way of life, if they must constantly rail against our economic obligations here, then they did well to remove themselves.”

  “I think they would argue those economic obligations are choices we’ve made.”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed at her. “You make my point for me: their baneful influence.”

  Emily was finding herself combative this morning. “Not all are gone, Father. The Quakers, I mean. From Charleston. I saw a couple just the other day, having their horse reshod at . . .” She stopped short of naming the blacksmith’s shop on East Bay. “And someone must be keeping up their meetinghouse on King.”

  “Almost all gone, then, and good riddance to the last of them. Their traitorous, abolitionist rantings are not welcome
here. Both those Grimké girls have the feminine gentleness and finesse of a locomotive. Amazons, that’s what they are.”

  “Miss Grimké,” announced the footman at the door of the dining room, “to see Miss Pinckney, sir.” The girl herself stood just behind the footman.

  “Speak of the devil in skirts,” Jackson Pinckney muttered.

  “Nina.” Emily hurried from the table to greet her. “Father was just remarking about some recent articles in the Courier. We’re so glad you’ve come.”

  Pinckney stood, extended his hand to the girl, and seemed to be on the point of speaking.

  But the footman appeared again at the door of the dining room. “Colonel William Drayton to see you, Mr. Pinckney.”

  Emily and her father both turned to greet his old friend.

  “Jackson, forgive me for paying you a call so early in the day. I decided to presume upon both our family relations and our friendship.”

  “Something urgent?”

  “Not urgent, exactly. Not yet, at least. Only a conversation overheard by a house slave—a servant, however, in this case, who is known for enjoying dramatic effect. I merely thought what he claimed to have overheard was worth mentioning to you, Jack, for your insights.” Sweeping the top hat from his head, he dusted its sides with a flick of a forefinger, then handed the hat to Dinah.

  She lowered her eyes to the hat she balanced in the palms of both hands and backed up a step. But did not leave the room.

  Colonel Drayton bowed to Emily and Angelina. “Ladies, I do hope you’ll excuse us. We don’t wish to bore the fairer sex with the details of keeping our lovely city secure.”

  “Just what was this nightmare that distressed you so much?” Nina asked. She seated herself on the edge of the bed.

  Emily held up a hand to her maid. “Dinah, the curls nearest my face don’t look as they should. And the top could be smoother. I was too . . . distracted before breakfast by other matters to notice.” She and Dinah exchanged glances in the looking glass.

  Slowly, as if registering the fact that they both knew Emily’s hair had been perfectly coiffed in the latest fashion, not a hair out of place, Dinah reached for the brush.

  Nina flopped to her side on the bed, an elbow bracing her head.

  The brush, a slender sterling affair, reflected the morning light from the east-facing door to the piazza as Dinah smoothed the hair.

  Emily’s gaze shifted from Nina back to the mirror—to Dinah’s face, contorted somehow at the top of the glass, and beneath it Emily’s thick, flowing hair and pale skin. And a knife held to her neck.

  Emily gasped. Unable to move.

  Then let out her breath. “Oh. Lands. It was only the brush.”

  Dinah stood where she’d paused in midstroke, one hand strangling silver.

  Nina joined them by the looking glass, the three of them staring at their reflections.

  “What did you think it was?” asked Nina.

  Dinah’s eyes smoldered again. Only for an instant, but Emily was certain she’d seen it.

  The three of them stared into the glass as if they were each daring the others to look away first.

  “What else would it be?” Nina persisted.

  Emily opened her mouth. Closed it again.

  She swept to the door that led to the piazza. “Dinah, I don’t know why you can’t ever remember not to close this while it’s still cool enough in the day.”

  Throwing it open, she stepped out and breathed. “Wisteria,” she said. “It’s in bloom.”

  Nina joined her on the piazza and lowered her voice. “Does your skittishness have anything at all to do with what you and I misheard the other day on East Bay? At the blacksmith’s shop?”

  A thought suddenly occurred to Emily, and it rocked her back a step. But it was a welcome replacement for what she’d been thinking before, and she latched on to it hard. “He must be the father. Of course.” Her eyes darting to where Dinah stood at the window, her back to them, Emily dropped her whisper still lower. “Of the baby Dinah is carrying.”

  Looking unfazed, Nina nodded. “I saw the bump last time I was here. Are you just now discovering she’s pregnant?”

  “Hush, Nina! It’s not proper to speak directly of such things.”

  “You sound like my mother, who will not allow that kind of talk—and who’s given birth to more babies than the whole Left Bank of Paris.”

  Emily shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure a mention of the French is at all relevant in any discussion of proper behavior.”

  “The thing is, Em, women in Dinah’s condition can be irritable. But you’re skittish as a colt—and seeing things that aren’t there. There is nothing to fear.”

  “Hush! Do you want her to hear you? If there’s really nothing to fear, why do you assure me each time we meet that there’s nothing to fear? ‘The lady doth protest too much,’ wrote Shakespeare.”

  Ignoring this, Nina hooked her arm through Emily’s and led her back through the door. “Now, then. Why don’t you let Dinah finish brushing your hair so we can go for our walk?”

  Shakily, Emily Pinckney sat down.

  Returning to the dressing table to stand behind Emily’s chair, Dinah raised her arm.

  Catching the rays of the sunrise from the open door, the polished sterling back of the brush flashed red as Dinah brushed. All three of them stared straight ahead at the mirror, watching the lift and slash of Dinah’s arm as she worked the brush, its sterling gone crimson.

  Like fire, Emily thought. Or blood.

  Chapter 14

  2015

  Kate paused outside the windows of Cypress & Fire, Daniel bending to open the door to the fire and, with giant pads on his hands and arms, extracting a vase. He plunged it into the bucket of water, steam rising from the back of the shop.

  Leaning against the old brick, Kate dialed Botts’s number. Took a deep breath. And, just as she’d suspected, was sent straight to voice mail.

  “So,” she said, “it seems we just missed bumping into each other at Penina Moise over lunch. What a shame. I know you said we’d meet soon, so I do look forward to your calling back so we can set a time in the next couple of days for that.” She left her cell number again—as if he couldn’t simply tap “Call Back” if he weren’t trying so hard to avoid her.

  Frowning at her phone, she googled the College of Charleston’s History Department, scanned through the faces of the professors, pausing at the few who had white hair or were balding. Then she hit “Call.”

  An administrative assistant purred into the phone, “History Department. May I help you?”

  Kate made herself straighten and tried to sound more professional than pleading. “Yes, my name is Katherine Drayton”—Is it helpful or harmful to emphasize that last name here?—“and I’m a graduate student from Harvard”—Surely that name couldn’t hurt—“here in town conducting some research for my doctoral dissertation. And I wonder . . .” Here was the part that would make no sense to anyone else. “I wonder if I might make an appointment with a member of your department who might have been teaching there in, say, the late ’80s. Possibly Dr. Sutpen?”

  The name on that page of the website had sounded familiar. And maybe Kate was only convincing herself out of desperation, but she had a vague recollection of her mother sauntering around their tiny living room while pretending to smoke a pipe and describing what she was preparing for dinner with an exaggerated Southern drawl: Why, mah deah, we must begin with the thawing of the bird, you know. The propah thawing of the bird will separate the truly fine minds from the merely mediocre, don’t you see?

  Kate would collapse in giggles, and Sarah Grace would pull her up from the floor. “Katie, you should have met my college thesis adviser. What a hoot. Ole Sutpen.”

  Had it been Sutpen?

  Kate held her breath. This had to sound strange, not asking for a scholar famed for a particular area of research. Just someone who had been there when her mother would have been a student.


  “Ms. Drayton, I am sorry to say most of our professors take the summers off . . . that is, for research. And I’d recommend e-mailing anyone you’d like to reach, too. But let me just suggest that you’re patient for a response. It could be a good while. And he may not check his voice mail for a while, hon, but would you like me to send you to it?”

  Discouraged, Kate was about to agree. “Forgive me if I’m being pushy, but I don’t know how long I’ll be in town, and it’s urgent.”

  “Oh my,” said the administrative assistant, sounding politely unconvinced.

  “I wonder if you could tell me if there’s any particular place in town that Dr. Sutpen might typically go for research in the summers.”

  A pause. “Hon, I don’t think that’s the kind of information I can share. You understand.”

  An answer that told Kate at least that Sutpen was doing research in town, rather than some far-flung sabbatical location: one small step forward to finding someone else who might have known her mother. But Sutpen could be at any number of libraries or archives or museums or preservation sites in Charleston—the city was teeming with them.

  What would Sarah Grace have done in this situation to get her way?

  Kate drew a breath and tried to think not like the young woman from Boston she was but like her Southern momma. “I absolutely understand, yes. And the College of Charleston is wise to trust you with faculty members’ privacy. Thank you for that. Could I just inquire, though, and forgive me for asking a personal question, but you sound like you might be a mother of young children?”

  It was a risk. The woman might be offended by the assumption and hang up—or she might be flattered.

  “Why, yes. As a matter of fact, I have a three-year-old.” Kate could hear in her voice that the woman was beaming.

  “Oh, how wonderful. Almost exactly the age I was when my momma and I had to leave Charleston. I have so many questions about what happened to her before that, bless her heart. For years, I’ve wanted to understand more about her life. And now that she’s recently passed”—Kate slowed to let that sink in—“I’m more eager than ever to talk with anyone I can find who might have known her. I think Dr. Sutpen might have been her thesis adviser. So you can imagine how much I’m wanting to talk with him face-to-face. So recently after my momma’s death.”