Ella Wood

by Michelle Isenhoff

  Lune’s long, comical face peered up at her from the page. She’d captured him at the awkward stage when his legs seemed to long for his body and his liquid eyes still asked so many questions. The wind tossed strands of mane into the air, and one of his ears cocked backward as if to catch whatever answers the gust might contain. She read through the critique, pleased with the comments her instructor offered, then checked to see if he had returned the image of Lizzie. It wasn’t there, but a second letter had been tucked behind the first.

  Dear Mr. Wilson,

  Thank you for sharing Somebody’s Daughter. I found it an exquisitely detailed and deeply moving piece. It chanced to fall under the eye of a colleague who is acquainted with a wealthy collector with ties to the abolitionist movement. This collector has made an offer on your work. Please find the attached bank note. Should you be interested in completing the sale and find this sum agreeable, simply cash the note. If not, return it and I will include the sketch in my next correspondence...

  Bumblebees began swarming beneath Emily’s ribcage, spinning in ever-widening circles till she was sure she they would burst out through her teeth. She read the note again to make certain she had not misunderstood. She had not. Somebody—a wealthy collector—wanted to buy her artwork!

  Tentatively, she flipped the letter over and found the bank note clipped to the back. The page slid from her grasp as she clapped a hand to her mouth.

  Fifty dollars!

  Pocket change to her father, perhaps, but money earned by her own hand. It convinced her fully that her talents were solid, that she could one day earn a living from them, and that improving them was undeniably the course her life must take. Fifty dollars! That was more than Cage Northrup could earn in a month!

  She picked the letter up with shaking fingers and gawked at the bank note one more time before stashing it safely in the envelope. Rolling it into a tube with Uncle Timothy’s letter, she clutched it tightly to her chest all the way home.

  “Lizzie!” she shrieked as soon as she entered the house. It earned her a scolding from her mother, but she didn’t care. Racing up the stairs, she collided with her maid in the hallway and tumbled into her room, howling with laughter.

  “Miss Emily,” Lizzie exclaimed, “have you los’ yo’ mind?”

  “Lizzie, look at this!” she commanded, thrusting the bank note into her maid’s hands. As the colored woman laboriously spelled out the words, she snatched it back. “It says I’ve earned fifty dollars. Fifty dollars, Lizzie! I sold one of my sketches!”

  “Miss Emily! Dat be wonderful! Which one?”

  She’d never shown the image to Lizzie. And until that second, she had never considered how uncomfortable it might make her feel knowing strangers were viewing her most vulnerable moment. “Oh, just one of my portraits. You didn’t see it.” She was glad it would enter a private collection where Lizzie would never encounter it. “You mustn’t tell my father.”

  Lizzie bit her lips to signal her silence.

  The next morning Emily, Lizzie, Marie, and Phoebe departed for Charleston before the sun tiptoed over the treetops. Zeke came too, though he’d grown too frail to drive such a distance. It had taken two footmen most of breakfast to tie all the luggage to the carriage. It rocked crazily on the rutted roads, but the journey was uneventful. Several hours later, stiff, sore, and jostled, they arrived at the Charleston house.

  Marie breezed in the door with her usual grace, prepared to take over management in her husband’s absence. Betsy met them under the chandelier in the foyer. “Mrs. Preston!” she exclaimed in surprise. She welcomed them cheerfully enough. Marie didn’t seem to notice anything unusual, but Emily detected some misgiving in the cook’s eye.

  “Find Thomas and Frederick and have them unload our trunks,” Marie told her. “I’d like to speak to Jeremiah before I rest.”

  Betsy’s hesitation turned into full-blown reticence. She clutched her hands in front of her ample waist. “He ain’t here, Missus.”

  Marie removed her gloves and folded them into a neat bundle. “Well, where is he? When can I expect him back?”

  “He gone.”

  “Yes, you told me that,” she said in the patronizing tone she used when her patience was being taxed. “When will I be able to speak with him?”

  “You can’t, Missus. Jack came before he lef’ wid de army.”

  “And?” Marie prompted.

  “Jeremiah gone. Jack sol’ him.”

  23

  “Emily, I insist. You must get out of this house for a while. Go have some fun.”

  “What would you have me do, Mother?” Emily draped herself over the second-story balcony railing, watching the ships glide in and out of the harbor. For a full week, she’d done little but read, paint, and wander the battery gardens at sunset. “I missed the spring season. Therefore no one knows me. It then stands to reason that they cannot know I’m here.”

  “That’s nonsense. You’ve grown up playing with the Cartwrights and the Ingersolls and the Blackwells. They all have daughters your age.”

  “Well, I haven’t received any invitations.”

  “It just so happens I am holding one in my hand,” Marie said smugly.

  Emily looked up with halfhearted interest. “From whom?”

  “Peggy Sue Barton.”

  She turned back to the harbor. “I swore I’d have nothing to do with her after she turned that fishbowl over my head.”

  “She was six years old!” Marie said in exasperation. “Really, Emily, you can be so vexing. Why don’t you extend an invitation of your own? That would give you a chance to let others know you’re in town and get better acquainted with girls your own age. If you make the first effort, further invitations will arrive. You’ll see.”

  Emily wasn’t interested in socializing. Most of the girls she knew were silly and spoiled. They talked endlessly of clothing, parties, and young men. Or they gossiped, simpering quietly behind white gloves as though posh manners gave them license to cut down anyone not in the same room.

  She might mingle more willingly if she knew Thad or Jovie or Lizzie would be in attendance. Theirs were all personalities she enjoyed. But Thad hadn’t returned yet from Savannah, Jovie was antagonizing the Yankees somewhere in Virginia, and the earth would open up and swallow Charleston before Lizzie would ever be invited into polite society. The real reason for her reluctance, however, was that, since Jeremiah’s disappearance, her heart just wasn’t in it.

  Emily never knew Jeremiah well. Born at Ella Wood, he was six years her senior, old enough that their childhoods had not overlapped. But he’d been a familiar fixture her whole life. Jeremiah was intelligent and mild-natured, and William had moved him to the town house where he’d taken over full management at the young age of twentyone. Knowing he’d been sold so callously filled Emily with the same fuzzy numbness that her legs succumbed to when she sat too long in one position.

  To whom had Jack sold him? In what condition did Jeremiah now find himself? And…why?

  But that last one she already knew. Jack had spent most of the past eight months heavily in debt, and Jeremiah was an extremely valuable slave. No doubt he had paid the price to settle Jack’s accounts. Powerless to help him, all she could do was hope he fared well and put it from her mind.

  “Why don’t you invite Abigail Malone here for an afternoon?” Marie asked. “She’s always been a lovely girl.”

  Abigail. Emily nodded. She could tolerate Abigail. “All right, Mother. I’ll do it.”

  Two days later, she found herself facing the girl over a tray of tiny sandwiches and frosted confections. Pouring the tea, Emily felt nearly as nervous as she had before her first ball. Perhaps more so, for tea necessitated extended conversation.

  Fortunately Abigail had no such social handicap. “I’ve been hoping you would come back to the city, Miss Preston.”

  Their families had attended services at Bethel Methodist together for years, and Dr. Malone had served as the Preston’s physic
ian in town for as long as Emily could remember. “Why?”

  “Because I’ve always thought of you as the kind of person who would make a good ally.”

  Not a good friend, Emily noticed. A good ally. “And you need an ally often?”

  “I needed one this spring.”

  Abigail took a bite of layer cake and licked a glob of jelly filling off her finger. Emily tucked in a smile. How many times had Marie scolded her for that very thing? “This spring?” she prompted.

  “At my birthday party. Oh, I do wish you could have been there. Mother outdid herself. It wasn’t so grand as yours, of course. Our house would only accommodate half as many guests, but it looked so beautiful, and the food was delicious.”

  Emily had missed it during her months of forced exile. “I’m sure it was lovely, but why did you need an ally?”

  Abigail’s face turned sour. “Because Peggy Sue Barton started some of the others saying I don’t belong at the same functions as they do.”

  “It was your own party.”

  “Oh, I mean after,” Abigail said, popping the rest of the cake into her mouth. “I stopped getting invitations to the grander balls, you know, the ones put on by Peggy Sue’s circle. Because my father is a professional, not landed aristocracy.”

  Emily could think of some of the families that were likely involved. Dr. Malone had delivered many of their children. “That’s silly.”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with bloodlines, really. Peggy Sue just got her corset out of alignment when Asa Gideon invited me to sit with him at the Jockey Club dinner instead of her,” Abigail confided with a smirk.

  Emily laughed and took a sip of her tea. Abigail had always been her favorite companion in Sunday school. She was an only child. For all Dr. Malone’s medical knowledge, his wife was never able to carry another child to term. But Abigail had inherited her father’s common sense and her mother’s good humor. The summer would pass more pleasantly if they could indeed be allies.

  “Is your father in Columbia?” Abigail asked.

  Emily nodded. “Working in some committee or another. He thrives on the intrigue.”

  “Is that why you stayed away this spring?”

  “He thought the city might be dangerous. But Mother can’t stand summers on the plantation.”

  “It isn’t so insane now. Most of the chaos cleared out with the army, though plenty of soldiers are still roaming around. It makes the balls more interesting, anyway. Your father wasn’t mad?”

  “I don’t think so. Mother relaxed after his letter arrived.”

  “How long will he be gone?”

  Emily shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Abigail recognized the blackness in her answer and adjusted her line of questioning. “Are you going to the church barbeque next week?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Oh, you must come. Asa will be there, and Peggy will not!”

  “Asa?” Emily asked with a teasing smile. “Has he replaced my brother?”

  “Your brother?” Abigail asked. “Jackson?”

  “Don’t act so innocent. I saw the way you watched him at my party.”

  “Only because he was the most handsome man in the room. Except for his friend.”

  Emily felt one or two bumblebees take another lap in her stomach. “You must mean Thad,” she said. That had been the night they met.

  “Thad?” Abigail needled in turn.

  Emily smirked. “He’s a family friend.”

  “I see.” Abigail wriggled her eyebrows. “Maybe Thad should be told about the picnic.”

  “It wouldn’t matter. He went back to Savannah for the summer.”

  Abigail went silent. “I just saw him last week. By the fish market. I’m certain it was him.”

  Emily’s pulse quickened. “Maybe he’s back.”

  Abigail took a dainty sip of tea. “If your mother doesn’t attend the barbeque, will you come with me? I’m sure my father won’t mind.”

  Emily set down her own cup and shrugged. “Why not?”

  ***

  Dear Emily,

  It is raining here, a slow, gray patter of tears that reflects the way I feel when I consider how many miles separate us. It pleases me to think of you reading my words, maybe wading through the green safety of Ella Wood’s pasture, perhaps seated in the garden with feet tucked beneath your skirt. My thoughts, like my affection, cannot be bounded by geography. You are ever with me, like the shadow that reemerges without fail each time the sun breaks through.

  You ask what is the best and worst of camp life. Unquestioningly, the worst is the separation. From you, from home, from friends, from all that is familiar. It is an ache more fearsome than the bite of vermin or the discomfort of disease, even worse than the looming specter of battle. And I will confide to you that my untried courage sometimes terrifies me. Will it crumble like chaff in the threshing yard, carried away by the first wind of danger? Or will it hold fast, thick and immovable as a castle wall? I know not, and the wondering further blackens the darkest hours of night. But not as much as missing you.

  All is not affliction, however. Even at school I never knew the camaraderie I’ve found among the young men who share my tent. You cannot shave together, march together, eat, sleep, sing, and bathe together without forging a strong bond. Here in the ranks, wealth and name mean little. We are all equals. A man stands or falls on his own merits, which I much prefer. This unbiased companionship is easily the brightest light in the murky, uncertain limbo in which I find myself...

  Jovie’s letters were poetry that never failed to fill her with deep emotion, from sympathy, to wonder, to warm contentment, to the dull ache of being so far apart. She read them over and over, saving them in a box tied with pink ribbon and taking them out if she descended into the dark well of worry. She struggled to fill her replies with meaningful responses, but she feared her writing skills were far inferior to his. At least she could send frequent reminders of home.

  Several additional letters sat in various stages of composition upon Emily’s desktop. The first, a belated response to her art instructor, stated that she would gladly accept the terms of sale for Somebody’s Daughter, but she was uncertain when she would be able to cash the bank note. Charleston contained several financial institutions, but she could come up with no viable reason to visit one that would not require more explanation than she cared to give.

  A long missive to Sophia lay on top of the pile, completed and sealed. She had not yet finished a brief note to Jack to include with her mother’s next correspondence, having no idea what to say to him, but a letter to Thad had taken no time at all. Short and lighthearted, as she expected to see him again soon, it made no mention of his fish market lookalike.

  “Miss Emily,” Lizzie said, entering her room, “Missus say it be time to leave for yo’ aunt’s house.”

  “Tell her I’ll be right down.”

  They hadn’t seen Aunt Margaret since their arrival. They called once, but the old woman had been bedridden with rheumatism. She sent a formal luncheon invitation as soon as she was back on her feet. Emily scrawled a quick finish on her letter to Jovie and sealed it in an envelope. It would have to do.

  Aunt Margaret lived on Tradd Street, in a magnanimous Bermuda stone house that was already standing when Blackbeard held the town for ransom and Stede Bonnet was hanged in White Point Gardens nearly a century and a half before. Aunt Margaret’s husband, a merchant with an unnatural talent for acquiring wealth, had lovingly restored the building, and the couple raised four children there. Three had died before adolescence. The last, a daughter, lived in England. Aunt Margaret visited her often.

  The old woman must have been watching for their approach. She met them at the doorway alongside her footmen. “Emily, dear, and Marie, come in. It’s so good to see you.”

  “Oh! Good heavens, Margaret!” Marie exclaimed, clutching a gloved hand to her chest. “What is that on your head?”

  Even Emi
ly startled at her aunt’s odd choice of headwear. A bird, a real bird with a plume of blue-black feathers sprouting from its back, splayed itself across her head, drifting on a sea of gauzy blue tulle.

  Emily giggled. “Is it dead?”

  “This happens to be a very fine example of a Brewer’s blackbird,” Aunt Margaret informed them with a lift of her shoulders. “They winter in Florida and are not often seen in these parts.”

  “I’ve never seen one.” Marie hid her smile behind her fingertips.

  Emily giggled again.

  Aunt Margaret shrugged off her hauteur with a wink. “You don’t like it?”

  “Oh, Margaret, why would you wear something so outlandish?” Marie asked.

  The old woman lifted one index finger and peered at them slyly. “I’ve lived in this town for over sixty years. I’ve learned that if I give people one sensational item to gossip about, they fail to notice my less forgivable flaws.”

  Emily thought her reasoning made sense in a convoluted sort of way, though she wouldn’t be asking for the name of her milliner.

  “Can you take it off, please?” Marie asked, eyeing the bird warily. “I shall feel as though it’s looking at me all through luncheon.”

  Aunt Margaret chuckled and removed the bird, setting it where its beady glass eyes looked out the window and over the street. Then she ushered them through the house and out to a tiny, shaded courtyard where a table had been set with a selection of fruits and a pitcher of lemonade. “Take a seat. Stella will be out with soup and sandwiches in a little while.”

  Emily noticed how laboriously her aunt moved. “Is your rheumatism still giving you trouble?”

  Aunt Margaret dropped heavily into a chair. “It’s this wretched humidity. I declare, it swells my joints to twice their size. I’m left aching in every limb. Sometimes I repair to Boston or New York this time of year, but I just haven’t felt up to traveling. Perhaps if I had a companion.” She peered at Emily thoughtfully. “Would you consider it, Emily? Would you care to accompany an old woman to northern climes?”