by Edith Layton
But then November came.
It was not so cold as England had been in the autumn. But it was chilly and damp. Still, Thomas refused to wrap himself up like the invalid he used to be, no matter what Nurse said, even when he stole out with Jared and some other boys on the plantation for an All Hallow’s Eve frolic. They carried hollowed gourds filled with candles to light their way down the back paths to the back of the barn. Once there, they told delicious ghost stories and ate roasted nuts and crisp new apples, then dared each other to run through the new graveyard behind the church. And then, stifling laughter, they slipped back into their houses again.
Nor did Thomas let Nurse bundle him in blankets when they drove back from church the following Sunday, even though she had pointed out so many of the boys there who were coughing and sneezing. Now that Thomas was a real boy, he passionately hated the trappings of the invalid he’d been.
But what he hated didn’t matter, because he was back in bed before the week was out. And this time, all Nurse’s potions, as well as the local doctor’s, couldn’t bring the fever down.
At least it was a brief illness. There wasn’t time for Thomas to be as afraid as his father was. Sometime in the night, while his father and his new servant and friend kept watch, Thomas’s painfully sawing breaths stopped and he slipped into a deep sleep. As Jared looked up in sudden hope and Alfred began to smile with relief, Thomas let out what sounded like a natural sigh at last. And then, though the man and boy at his bedside waited at first in hope and then in despair, he never breathed in again.
When the funeral was over, Nurse took Della into her room, and Master Alfred took to his room alone. Jared roamed the house and fields like a wraith, as though he thought he might meet Thomas’s wandering spirit there. All he found was himself, twice bereaved. Once he’d lost a brother, and now he’d lost a boy who had been like a brother. It was even harder this time, because now he was old enough to feel more pain. The first time, he’d had fear and confusion to keep him company; now he had nothing but sorrow. He’d never been so alone, because he didn’t even have a tormentor now to take up his attention. All he had was loneliness, and though he’d learned to live with physical pain, he didn’t know how to bear this kind of pain, in part because he hadn’t loved anyone in so long.
Jared met Alfred by accident one windy evening a week after the funeral. Jared was at the graveyard by the church, where he liked to sit and remember how good life had been before Thomas had gone, when he glanced up and saw Alfred standing nearby. He was about to speak, to say something, because he hadn’t seen his master since the day of the funeral. But the look in Alfred Kensington’s eyes froze him. He rose slowly and slowly backed away, without a word. He hadn’t survived the last seven years by not recognizing hatred when he saw it.
Alfred begrudged him the air he breathed; that was clear enough in his eyes as he looked at the tall, fair-haired boy he’d bought—the boy who lived, though his own son did not. The words were clear as if they were spoken aloud—at least to Jared, who had learned to duck when he saw a blow coming. He knew what he had to do.
*
“Sir?” Jared said. “Sir, I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“What?” Alfred said, distracted. He’d been standing by the window in his study, mourning. That’s what he’d been doing every day since Thomas had died. He worked very hard at it, not doing much else, except eating when his stomach hurt and sleeping when he couldn’t stay up any longer. He didn’t know what else to do. The reason for his life, the reason why he’d come all these miles to start anew, was gone.
“I’ll be leaving, if I may, since there’s nothing for me to do here now,” Jared said.
Alfred nodded agreement. The boy spoke truth. There was nothing for anyone to do now.
“Thank you for everything,” Jared said carefully. “My freedom, the clothing. But…could you write something to show I’m a freed man, sir? I’m going back to town; I’ll need something to show so they can’t put me back in bondage.”
“You could stay on here,” Alfred said, though he didn’t know why.
“No, sir,” Jared said, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t like that. I’d only remind you of him.”
Alfred nodded.
“He was a good boy, sir,” Jared said suddenly, passionately, “one of the best I’ve ever known. He would have been a very good man.”
“Aye, he would have,” Alfred cried in a bitter, choked voice, “if I hadn’t taken him to this damned place.”
“No,” Jared said in astonishment. “He loved it here, sir. He always said he did. He said he never had any fun in England. He said he was always sick and never was allowed to go out by himself there—not like here. We did so many things together, sir, things that mightn’t seem much to other people but meant a great deal to us—fishing, pretending to hunt for treasure, gathering berries. Nothing much to some, perhaps, but it meant everything to us. I could never do anything but work before, and Thomas said he always was too sick to play. He loved it here. Here, he was free.”
“Here,” Alfred said savagely, wheeling around to glare at Jared, “he died.”
“Yes, sir,” Jared said quietly, “but here, he lived, too. Good-bye, sir.” And he left without his papers and his recommendation.
Jared had one more place to stop before he took the long road back to town. When he saw Della and Nurse there, he was both glad and shamed, realizing he hadn’t seen them since the day they’d buried Thomas. However painful it was, he knew he’d be a coward if he didn’t say good-bye to the little girl who had accepted him so warmly.
Nurse nodded at Jared, and then, overcome with emotion, went to sit on a small stone bench. Della stayed still and sad by Jared’s side, looking down at Thomas’s grave.
“Hello, Jared,” she said soberly in her husky little voice. She was wrapped in a cloak, and though a brisk breeze blew her ebony curls, it didn’t bring life to her small, pale face. She was quiet and troubled. “Jared,” she said after a moment, “do you think it’s right that we leave him here? It’s very cold, and Nurse said it may snow.”
“He’s not here,” Jared said, swallowing hard. “I mean, what he lived in when he was with us is here. But Thomas isn’t. He’s somewhere better and warmer and happier. So it doesn’t matter if it snows.”
“Oh,” Della said thoughtfully, “that’s what Nurse says. That’s what the minister said. But I can’t understand it. This is where we put him, Jared. He’s still here.”
“Oh Della,” Jared said in a shaky voice. He owed her more than a good-bye. He ran a hand over his face, and then paused, struck by a sudden inspiration. He quickly knelt and dug his hands into the fresh-turned earth near Thomas’s stone. When he found what he wanted, he turned and opened his hands to show it to Della. “What’s this?” he asked her.
She frowned. His hands were blue with cold and covered with dirt. That was what she noticed first. Then she saw he held a knotted wizened root.
Her nose wrinkled. “An onion, but it went bad,” she said.
“No,” he said and smiled. “Clever little Della, usually so right. But this time you’re wrong. It’s a flower. No, I haven’t gone mad. It’s a daffodil. It’s alive, though it looks dead. And though it’s ugly now, it will be beautiful in April; I swear it. Now I’ll put it back and cover it with dirt, and next spring, right where it is, there’ll be a bright yellow flower. It sounds unbelievable, but it’s so. You’ll see,” he said, dropping it back and patting the earth over it.
“What looks dead is not,” he said carefully, kneeling by Della again. “I know, because I’m older and I’ve seen it happen again and again. It’s not a miracle; it’s only a thing that is, one that we have to learn about because we can only see here and now. If we could live long enough, I think we’d see what people become when they leave us here and go on to someplace better. Wise men say they do, and since you see that we can’t trust our own eyes, we have to trust those wise men. I believe it.”
She
stared at him. “Then so do I,” she said solemnly.
“Don’t worry about Thomas,” he said. “Promise me.” She nodded.
“But oh, Jared,” she said, her chin trembling, “I miss him so much!”
He caught her up and held her close. He’d made himself forget how to cry years before, but it had been an eternity since another human being had actually touched him, without hurting him or trying to. The feel of her small, warm body trembling in his arms almost undid him. “Oh, Della,” he whispered, “so do I.”
She stopped crying and pushed away from him so she could see his face. “But you have me,” she said.
“And you have…” He paused, and then, gently, with infinite sadness, he only said, “Thank you, Della.”
He rose and waited for the right words to come to him. She deserved more than a mere farewell. She’d already lost one brother. Before he could speak, he heard someone call his name.
“Jared,” Alfred said gruffly, “a word, in private, if you please. I’ll speak with you in a moment, puss,” he promised Della. He walked a little way away from the grave with Jared. Jared noted he’d shaved at last and had put on new, neat clothes.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Alfred said. “I’m glad you haven’t left yet. I think it would be a mistake for you to go. There’s work here for you—we still need you here.”
“Ah,” Jared said carefully, because life had taught him to be careful of what looked like miracles. “But Thomas—Thomas is gone, sir, and he was the one I worked for.”
Jared saw the pain flash in his eyes before Alfred shook his head. “No, lad, you always worked for me, companioning my boy.” He paused, cleared his throat, and went on more forcefully, “But there’s still a lot of work to be done on a plantation, you know, and now that you’re almost a man, it’s time to do a man’s work. I need help, lad…with accounts and in dealing with the workers and suchlike. I think you’d be the fellow for the job—you speak well and learn quickly, you see.”
Jared’s spirits rose. But he’d learned hard lessons in his short life and couldn’t allow himself to believe he really still had a place here, in the best place he’d lived since he’d been cast from home. He knew there was still a very good reason why he couldn’t stay. That reason lay not ten feet from where they stood.
“Yes, sir,” Jared said slowly, “but…”
Alfred stopped walking and turned to face him. “Yes, I know,” he said briskly. “You are not Thomas, are you?”
“No, sir,” Jared said warily.
“But you remind me of him.”
Jared sighed, his heart leaden again. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“But I want you to remind me of him,” Alfred said. “I need you to help me remember him, you see.”
“Oh,” Jared said, and thought a moment. He was a boy who knew the pain of bitter remembrance as well as he knew the infinite pleasure of warm memories in a cold world, and he understood Alfred very well. “Yes,” he said, “I want to remember him, too.”
“Then it’s time to go home,” Alfred said briskly, rubbing his hands together. “Frightfully cold out here today, don’t you know.”
Jared was so numb with relief, he didn’t feel the cold. But he said, “Yes, sir,” and they went to collect Della and Nurse. Together, they headed back down the hill to home.
Chapter 3
1760
The house was high and wide and white and it gleamed in the bright Virginia sunlight. The trees beside it were still young, and the house seemed like a castle rising from the fields, heavy with crops that surrounded it. The man who rode up the long, curved shell path must have thought so, for he galloped up to the front of the house and slid from his horse the moment he brought it to a stop.
“Ho, Alf!” he cried as he tossed the reins to the stable-boy who came running toward him. “I didn’t forget the barley sugar,” he said as he threw a small bag to the boy. “But mind Captain here doesn’t nab it from you; he likes it as much as you do. Well, well,” he commented, glancing at the stables as he took his carpetbag from the saddle. “We have visitors, do we?”
“Perkins,” the boy said as he took the bag and the reins.
“Perkins?” the man said, raising one tawny eyebrow. “Well, well, well.”
He was a tall man and wide-shouldered. When he swept off his three-cornered hat, his thick, long honey-colored hair, drawn back and tied at the base of his strong neck, caught the sunlight and tamed it to dark gold. His sun-burnished skin showed he was a man used to the outdoors, and the breadth of his chest and narrowness of his hips showed he was no stranger to hard work. But though he wore clothes for travel, he was well dressed in a long coat worn over fawn breeches, and his soft, high boots were of fine leather. Nothing he wore, however, was as handsome as his lean face. Obviously as confident as he was affluent, he looked every inch the master of his realm, glad to be returning from some errand that had called him away. It was odd that his face grew a quirked smile when he saw the older man who came to the door, odd that he greeted the man by sketching a bow and saying, “Hello, master.”
“Welcome home, lad,” Alfred Kensington said as he clapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s good to be home again,” Jared admitted, looking around the hall as he strode into the house with Alfred. “It took forever this time because of the weather. Not here—but halfway ’cross the Atlantic, or so they said when I got to Williamsburg. Several ships were delayed. I wanted to get the best prices, and since nothing spurs competition like many bidders, I couldn’t start the bidding until they all arrived. But it was worth it—I got top money. I think you’ll be pleased. I’ve been gone only a month, but it feels like a year,” he said as he stopped and stretched the weariness of the trip from his long body. “Must have been two,” he murmured, stopping in midmotion and cocking his head as he heard noises coming from the parlor. “Is that Stephen Perkins our lady is entertaining?”
“None other,” Alfred admitted.
“Lord! Did she fall on her head while I was gone?”
“He seems to be courting her.”
“And she didn’t fall down laughing? Correct me if I’m wrong, Alfred, but isn’t he the one she used to call ‘snake-eyed’ because he didn’t have any eyelashes? Or was that his brother?”
“The same; his brother was ‘fish-faced,’ but he’s already married.”
“But she’s laughing, as though she’s really amused,” Jared said, his head tilted toward the lilting sound. “She did fall on her head,” he said with mock horror.
“She’s of an age to court,” Alfred said with a little smile, “and it may be she’s considering him. There’s money there, you know.”
“As if our little terror cares for that,” Jared said, striding into the parlor and ending all the laughter.
The petite young woman who had been laughing caught her breath when she saw him. Her face lit with joy. “Jared!” she cried with surprised pleasure. She snatched up handfuls of her wide skirt to raise its hem so she could hurry across the room to him, leaving the young man she’d been talking to standing open-mouthed, stranded in midsentence.
Jared put his hands around her narrow waist and swung her high in the air, the way he had done every time he returned from a trip since she’d been a girl. But this time she didn’t squeal with pleasure.
“Down! Please, Jared,” she cried, wriggling in his hands. “Thank you,” she said as her feet touched the floor again. She looked ruffled—both delighted and flushed with confusion as she tried to regain her composure. She also looked adorable to him, her ebony curls all in disarray, though her elaborate gown seemed untouched by his exuberant greeting.
He forgot his surprise at her embarrassment when he saw her new gown. It was tapestried silk, the color of old roses, with a flounced overskirt and a frivolous little pretense of a lace apron tied at her narrow waist. Tight sleeves had cascades of old lace falling from her elbows to her wrists. He frowned when he saw how much the low, square ne
ckline showed of her high, white breasts. But it was the latest fashion, and a merchant to his bones now, he knew how much it cost. French, and made by a master at that. His eyebrows went up. She usually wore simple cotton, wool, or muslin.
“A party?” he asked with a quizzical smile, looking around. “But there’s no one but Perkins here—hello, Stephen—am I invited, too? What’s the occasion? Not—” He stared hard at young Perkins, who looked unhappy. “Not a matter of an announcement, is it?” She might have consulted me before she consented to a fellow’s proposal, he thought, offended. Then he remembered what he could never forget, that he was, after all, nothing to her, really, though he considered himself a brother.
Della’s white cheeks grew pink, but her blue eyes blazed. “No party, no occasion, certainly no announcement of anything, Jared. Can’t a lady dress up once in a while?”
He smiled, remembering the last time he’d heard her say that. That time she’d come down from the attic in dress-up, Nurse’s best gown trailing all around her, shedding various plumes and odd bits of jewelry as she’d tripped down the stairs—literally. She’d landed in a heap at the bottom and cried until he’d picked her up, dried her tears, and told her she looked wonderful. She’d been six then.
“Certainly,” he said, with a tender smile. “And I’ll wager it’s much better now that you’re dressed in your own clothes, isn’t it?”
Her smile was strained; it almost seemed as though she were gritting her small, even teeth. “Thank you for the compliment, Jared,” she said tersely. “Yes, I do think I look lovely in it, thank you.”