Trouble the Water_A Novel

by Jacqueline Friedland

  Court was reaching into his pocket for his stopwatch, clearly losing interest in this conversation that they’d had so many times already.

  “Yes, Pa, it’s time for supper,” she told him before he opened the watch, her voice dripping with frustration.

  “Then let’s not keep your mother waiting,” Court answered impatiently.

  As they began walking together toward the grand dining room, Cora Rae added, “You’ll see, both of you, biding my time these years may have been just the thing.” She looked from Wini, who was trailing a few steps behind, back to her father, and nearly growled in determination as she declared, “I will be the next Mrs. Elling.”

  23

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  1846

  Abby and Larissa had just finished their stroll through White Point Gardens. It had taken Abby two days of flawless, attentive behavior to convince Larissa that she was restored sufficiently, fit for the task of leaving the house. As they meandered along the pathways bisecting the garden, the view had been astounding. Standing next to the dormant azalea bushes, Abby was able to look out past the tip of the peninsula where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers greeted each other. The gardens, irreverently green for the tail end of winter, abutted a gleaming seawall. Below, she could see the seashore, white sand littered with piles of iridescent oyster shells, purple, ebony, pink, and green, glittering in even the feeble February sunlight. Con-fronted by the bountiful landscape of Charleston, she could remember her old life only in various shades of gray.

  Abby would have preferred to continue walking, but Larissa seemed convinced that even ten more minutes might mean sudden death for pale, fragile Abigail. If only the woman knew the trials Abby had endured in her life. Cruising at their slow pace through this manicured oasis was significant to Abby only for the ease of it. As it was, she fought the urge to break into a run, to light up her muscles, let herself fly. It had been so many weeks since she’d been able to exert herself physically, and she itched to feel that strain, the combustion in her blood, the sanitizing power of exhaustion. She sighed as she followed Larissa back toward the park’s exit, straightening her shoulders and remembering her lady’s posture.

  They made their way toward Demett, who was waiting for them in the carriage, settled in behind two similar coaches. The next point on their excursion would be a visit to Douglas at his shipping office, just as Larissa and she had discussed. It was a short ride from White Point to the wharf, but there was still sufficient time for Abby’s nerves to unravel. Despite perseverating on the issue for hours the day before, she hadn’t concocted any reasonable plan for acquiring information about Douglas’s Underground operation, stealing a glance at the secret staircase, or whatever. She would just have to improvise, scurry for opportunity.

  It seemed she’d barely had time to swallow before Demett was helping them back out of the carriage at the wharf. Abby held a basket with Douglas’s lunch, making sure to keep it level as she stepped down so as not to upset the rhubarb tart.

  “Please, Miss Abigail, let me,” Demett reached for the basket as Abby stepped onto the wooden boardwalk.

  “Thank you, Demett, but I’ve got it,” Abby answered, unwilling to burden him with something she could so easily handle herself.

  “Stay close,” Larissa advised, as her eyes tracked the hordes of people bustling around them. “It’s easy to get separated in these crowds.”

  Abby had not been to the pier since the day of her arrival in Charleston, and she was struck again by the staggering commotion of the place. As the primary point of entry into South Carolina, a functional gateway to the entire New World, the area was teeming with people, sales, dust, and sweat. Surveying the wharf now, memories rushed at Abby. How hungry she had been when she arrived, caked with muck nearly three months thick. She had nearly forgotten in the months since arriving how her stomach had roiled throughout the journey, a victim of the seas as much as doubt. It seemed now that she was a different person entirely from that infuriated castoff, as though that girl was merely someone she had read about once in a sad story.

  When they finally pushed open the door to Elling Import & Export, they found Douglas seated at his desk, an air of intense focus about him, so incongruous with the ruckus outside, as he scratched away at the pages of a daybook. He looked up as they entered, his eyes flashing from Larissa to Demett, then settling on Abby. He held her gaze a moment, his cerulean eyes seeming to search hers, and then falling to the covered basket in her hand.

  “Ha. Demett, she wouldn’t let you carry the food?” He glanced at Demett with a blithe chuckle before settling his focus on Abby. “You’re going to give poor Demett an ulcer if you don’t let him help you with something soon.”

  Demett smiled and held up his hands in defeat. “She been refusing help since she stepped foot in this town. Don’t seem there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Abby felt her cheeks warm as they joked at her expense.

  “Here,” she thrust the basket at Demett. “There, you see? Now you are carrying it. He’s carrying it,” she repeated to Douglas, who was rising from his desk with amusement pulling at his mouth.

  Before he could say anything to exacerbate her discomfort, they were interrupted as a group of laborers entered the office. They were white men, dressed in work clothes, rough trousers and heavy gloves for hauling goods. Abby guessed them to be stevedores.

  “Apologies for interrupting,” the man in front spoke, looking briefly at Abby and Larissa. “We just wanted to let you know we finished the inventory. Ready to start loading.” He held out a stack of papers for Douglas, tally marks showing on the top page.

  “Not at all, Walt. I was just having a quick call from home. May I present Abigail Milton, who has been visiting with me since the fall, and her governess, Larissa Prue.”

  “Ladies,” the man removed his hat and nodded his blonde head at them. The four workers behind him then did the same.

  Douglas took the papers, and Abby watched his eyes quickly rove over the figures.

  “Good.” He handed the stack back to the man. “Walt, go ahead.”

  “Ladies,” Walt nodded at them again, and then the little posse was gone.

  Abby suddenly wished they hadn’t come. How foolish she’d been to think that they should visit him at his place of business, to think she wasn’t imposing on him, his time. They were nothing but an interruption here. It seemed especially outrageous now to scour his office for signs of abolition activity, what, while he was munching on chicken legs, not ten feet away.

  “Well, we just wanted to give you a quick greeting, drop your meal.” She felt herself backing up, sidestepping toward the door.

  “Larissa,” Douglas turned toward the governess, “I have a suggestion to discuss with your pupil. If you wouldn’t mind allowing us a minute to negotiate, I would be much obliged.”

  “Oh,” Larissa’s eyes widened slightly, “of course. As long as you are not up to anything that will corrupt my star student,” she smiled, and Abby mentally pronounced the woman a toady, an apple-polishing traitor. Abby didn’t know what Douglas wanted to discuss, but hadn’t she just made it clear that she no longer wanted to be there?

  “Ha. I’m sure she is beyond corruption,” Douglas answered as his eyes darted back to Abby with a flicker of something mischievous and playful. “Though I must confess that my scheme will require another trip into town tomorrow.”

  Douglas cryptic comments were doing little to encourage Abby. She’d already determined their visit a blunder, clear misjudgment. Now she just wanted to leave.

  “We can likely find the time,” Larissa answered cautiously and then motioned for Demett to follow her outside.

  In the seconds it took Demett and Larissa to walk out the door, Abby’s mind raced through possibilities. Perhaps Douglas had discovered that she’d eavesdropped on his conversation with Demett and would expel her from his house. Or maybe he planned to discuss her return to England, simply as a matter of cour
se. Though she hadn’t even been in the States five months yet. Well in either figuration, she wouldn’t be sent back. He could say what he liked, but she would never go back to Wigan, not for rubies or miracles.

  As he walked toward the front of his desk and leaned against its edge, Abby fought the urge to shift from foot to foot. Fidgeting was a sign of weakness, she knew. Douglas rubbed his hand over his smooth chin, and Abby sensed he was having trouble with how to begin.

  “I have accepted an invitation to the Montrose ball in ten days’ time,” Douglas told her. “I thought it would be worthwhile for you to accompany me.”

  She blinked, at a loss.

  “Pardon?”

  “A ball. I’d like to escort you.”

  “A ball?” She repeated, dumbfounded. “This isn’t about returning me to my parents, then?”

  “Leaving?” Now Douglas seemed surprised. “I was thinking quite the opposite,” he explained. “If you truly might extend your stay here, it’s time you begin interacting with your fellow Charlestonians more regularly. You haven’t been to a party since Gracie’s coming out, ages ago already. I think it’s time. Don’t you? It might do us both good, to pass a festive evening in company with the other.”

  Abby tried to determine what exactly he was suggesting. He might mean to escort her almost as a surrogate for her father, but something in his gaze told her he wasn’t feeling fatherly. It was exhilarating to imagine spending an evening in his company, what-ever his reasons. But, she realized, she wouldn’t have the first idea how to behave with him at such an event. Better to say no than to let him see her a fool. Even with all the etiquette training over the past months, Abby was certain she would make a proper imbecile of herself minutes after stepping through the Montroses’ doors. And she did not have a dress for this event, as she surely couldn’t wear the same dress from the Cunningham party. For her to be Douglas Elling’s companion at a ball! It was laughable.

  “Which means,” Douglas continued, “that you will need to enlist Larissa to help you find a new gown. I’d recommend Louis Marseille’s shop. I’m told he stitches faster than the other dressmakers of choice. Given the late start, we’re going to need expeditiousness, or perhaps even to commandeer a gown on which he has already begun work.” Douglas’s tone was light and pragmatic, as if he was rattling instructions off to a secretary. “I would suggest you make the purchase tomorrow, first thing.”

  Abby felt her breath catch for reasons she couldn’t determine. She was feeling too many emotions to put a name to them, and her heart racing underneath it all. She looked toward the back of the room behind Douglas, studying a bronze wall sconce as she struggled to organize her thoughts.

  “Abby, you will do me the honor of accompanying me, won’t you?” Suddenly he seemed concerned, as if it hadn’t previously occurred to him that she might decline his invitation. “It will be almost bearable, this tedious social function, if I have you for company. I made the mistake of accepting the invitation before I had your assurance, but now I am fleeced, as even a misfit such as I knows better than to default on an acceptance.”

  Abby wanted to say yes, that she would go with him. Not knowing how he meant to take her, as his ward or something more, she wanted him to reiterate his invitation and coax out her acceptance.

  “You do realize that I am hardly a debutante,” Abby warned. She crossed her arms over her charcoal dress.

  “Of course,” Douglas smiled back from his perch against the cluttered desk, “which is why I think we might have a passable time together.” He crossed his own arms, mimicking her pose. “And don’t you agree that it’d be wise to acquaint yourself with local society, if you expect our neighbors to entrust their daughters to you as a schoolmarm one day, if that’s something you’re interested in truly?”

  Abby cocked her head slightly and nodded, “You do have a fair point. But if it will be so awful there, why must we go at all?”

  Douglas stepped forward, closing the gap between them so that there was barely a shaving of space remaining as he looked down at her. He was standing so close that she could feel the heat coming off his body. He flooded her senses, the fierce scent of him charging into her lungs, his size an additional affront as she tilted her head back to keep track of his eyes.

  “Abby.” His voice had gone quieter.

  She could feel a shadow of his breath across her cheek, a whisper of an idea. She had to check herself from leaning forward.

  “The evening will be a great success, as far as I am concerned, if you simply come to be with me.”

  Abby felt herself nod, and it was perhaps all the answer he needed. He stepped back from her quickly, as though he had forgotten himself, looking quickly toward the door, then back at his desk.

  “Right. Good then. If you’ll excuse me now,” he continued lightly, clearing his throat, “I’d like to say a proper farewell to Demett and Larissa, thank them for participating in the delivery of this most appreciated meal.” He patted the picnic basket as though it were a greyhound and began walking out the office door, leaving Abby to herself. “I need just a quick word with Demett on another matter. We won’t be but a moment.”

  She was still reeling from his nearness but quickly realized that this was her moment, her opportunity to explore the office. She had to rouse herself from her shameless stupor and see if she could find that stairwell again. She spun in a circle trying to remember which bookshelf she had walked behind all those months ago. Everything in her memory was blurred. She had to act swiftly if she wanted to see anything before Douglas returned. Just as she settled on a bookcase and started walking toward it, she heard shouts coming from outside. Something was clearly unraveling outside, and her sleuthing would have to wait.

  The shouts and whooping grew louder as she pushed open the door, the cacophony greeting her like an assault. Larissa and Demett were just beyond the building, watching Douglas, who stood a few feet closer to the water, his back to all of them.

  It sounded to Abby like a cavalcade was approaching. She tried to see past the expanding crowd, but then Douglas was standing next to her, barking commands at them.

  “Go back inside, all of you. Larissa,” he was shouting to be heard above the din, “take her.” And without a backward glance, he was walking deeper into the crowd, away from them.

  Larissa reached her arm out, but Abby shook out of her grasp and took off after Douglas, damning the consequences as she went. She was not some crystal butterfly to be displayed on a vanity. She wanted to know what was going on.

  “Abby wait, don’t!” Larissa shouted, but Abby kept moving.

  She had to shove at other bodies as she tried to keep sight of Douglas, who was marching at a breakneck pace toward the other end of the wharf, where it connected with the street. As they reached Broad Street, Abby saw crowds of bystanders congregating on both sides of the street. The boisterous whooping was directed toward a carriage that was meandering slowly through the street, like part of a processional. As the carriage drew closer, Abby glimpsed the source of the mob’s entertainment and nearly retched. The rig was being pulled by a Negro with a yoke around his neck. The man, who wore only a loin cloth, was bleeding from his head and back. His bare feet were caked with a combination of blood and dirt. A white man stood preening aboard the carriage, his waistcoat pristine, his chest puffed out, his whip raised. The man sliced the switch through the air, eliciting new cheers, roars. As the whip connected with the man’s back, he faltered, nearly toppling forward. Walking behind the carriage, there were two other Negroes, who were tethered by their necks to the rig, as if being towed. They followed the vehicle with their heads down while onlookers pelted them with rocks and bits of refuse, broad smiles on the faces of the spectators. Abby saw children in the crowd sucking lollies, bored, women with their faces painted.

  She looked to Douglas beside her, whose sculpted face had gone ashen.

  “What is this? Why are they using them so brutally?” she asked.

  “
Abby!” he demanded, startled by her presence. “You shouldn’t be here.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her view. “It’s only a matter of time before a riot erupts from one of these displays,” Douglas warned. “These people relish the punishment of runaways. Like leaving a half-eaten carcass for a lion, it turns every man to a savage. You need to get back inside.” Douglas motioned toward the wharf and waited for Abby to heed his advice.

  “Then hadn’t you better accompany me for your own sake? This is a crowd that might not look fondly on you. Isn’t that so?”

  “Trust me, Abby, these ruffians pose no threat to me.” Abby was uncertain whether Douglas was communicating a foolish overconfidence or if he was implying a lack of anything left to lose. “That said,” he added, “there is no reason for me to stand here watching this nastiness.” He sneered in disgust as he looked once more at the howling crowd. “I’ll escort you back.”

  When they reached Douglas’s office, Larissa and Demett were gone. The crowds at this end of the wharf had noticeably thinned, everyone apparently gone to watch the display on Broad Street. “They must be waiting for you at the carriage,” Douglas told her. “Come, I’ll walk you.”

  She studied him, not moving to follow.

  “Come,” he repeated, motioning with his hand.

  “I know, Douglas,” she suddenly burst out. “I know about you. I heard you the other day with Demett, talking about Clover.” She clamped her hand over her mouth, immediately regretful, wishing she could retract what she’d said.

  “Confound it, Abby!” Douglas hissed. “Keep your voice down. Do you want to get the both of us killed?”

  He took hold of her wrist and led her quickly back into the office, shutting and locking the door behind them with haste.