Emma and the Outlaw

by Linda Lael Miller

  The woman hurried away, and Lucy turned to Emma and confided, “You must be firm with people of color. After being told what to do for so long, they can’t always be trusted to reason for themselves.”

  Emma held back a sharp retort. This was not the moment to antagonize the unpredictable Lucy.

  A moment later the maid returned to admit them. Her large eyes darted fearfully from Lucy’s face to Emma’s, and she seemed almost to cringe away from them.

  They were led through a dark but well-maintained foyer, and into a parlor to the right. Here heavy velvet draperies were drawn against the light, and the room had a musty smell. Emma had to squint to make out the shapes of chairs and tables and of the woman seated in a rocking chair beside the ivory fireplace.

  “Hello, Astoria,” Lucy said warmly, as though theirs were an ordinary, everyday sort of call, in a normal kind of house.

  Miss McCall was portly, and she was dressed in black, like Lucy, except for the white lace bonnet that covered most of her hair. Her hands were large and weighted with jewels, and even in the dim light, Emma could see the blue veins standing out on them, beneath pale transparent flesh. “Lucille,” Astoria greeted her caller, somewhat grudgingly. Her eyes shifted to Emma. “Who’s this?”

  “Why, it’s Emma,” Lucy replied, displacing a large gray and white cat to sink into a Queen Anne chair upholstered in shabby velvet. “Steven’s wife.”

  Following Lucy’s lead, Emma sat down in the chair next to hers.

  Astoria leaed forward, assessing Emma in a disturbingly thorough way. “Steven’s wife?” she echoed. “They should have hanged that murdering scoundrel after he strangled our Mary. Told his lawyer that just the other day.”

  A sudden attack of dizziness made Emma grip the arms of her chair. Before she could jump to Steven’s defense, however, Lucy reached out and silenced her with a light touch to her hand.

  “There hasn’t been a trial, yet, Astoria,” Lucy assured the woman who had probably been her friend once, in a congenial tone of voice. “Steven is innocent until proven guilty, remember.”

  “Innocent!” Astoria cried. “If you’d seen the way Mary wept that night, after he’d tossed her aside—”

  “Did you see him?” Emma broke in quietly. “Did he come inside the house?”

  Astoria inspected Emma thoroughly, clearly reassessing her. “I didn’t actually see him, but I know he was here. He and Mary were having a lovers’ spat. He must have followed her in—”

  Emma was forced to interrupt again, but she did so quietly, and in a moderate tone of voice. “Did you see anyone else, Miss McCall?”

  Astoria settled back in her chair, and the gray and white cat leaped up into her lap, startling both Lucy and Emma. “No.”

  “You’re absolutely sure? After all, this is a sizable house,” Emma pressed. “It seems to me that one or more persons could venture inside without being seen.”

  Astoria nodded. “That’s true. And it was Steven Fairfax who came in and went right to Mary’s room.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “I heard her screaming his name,” she said, her voice faraway now and harsh with emotion. “At first I thought I was just having a nightmare. By the time I realized it was really happening, he’d gotten away and poor Mary was lying in the middle of her bedroom floor—dead.”

  “But you might have dreamed that she was screaming his name,” Emma reasoned. She knew she sounded a little desperate, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “He was the one,” Astoria insisted. “Oh, those Fairfax boys were always trouble. I told Mary to have no truck with them, but she wouldn’t listen. Liked their quick smiles, she did, and the fancy presents they gave.”

  Realizing she was going to get nowhere with Astoria, Emma was already shifting her attention to the maid. “That woman who answered the door—what’s her name?”

  “You certainly are full of questions, dear,” Lucy scolded, reaching out and patting Emma’s hand again, this time so firmly that it stung a little. “That was Maisie Lee, and she’s been here for years, hasn’t she, Astoria?”

  Astoria’s gaze was fixed on Emma and was openly hostile now, when she replied, “She came to us before the Late Unpleasantness.”

  Emma was made to feel responsible for the entire civil conflict in those few moments,and she withdrew a little while Astoria and Lucy chatted on about remembered balls and cotillions. When she could bear it no longer, Emma interrupted. “Does Maisie Lee live here at the house with you?”

  Astoria leaned forward in her chair, studying Emma again in that daunting way of hers, but she finally answered. “She lives down by the docks with her man. He loads and unloads ships.” She sniffed once. “He’s right uppity, too, and contentious. If I were you, Mrs. Steven Fairfax, I wouldn’t go meddling in his household.”

  “If I could just speak to Maisie Lee here, then,” Emma reflected, and before anyone could say yea or nay, she was out of her chair and walking purposefully toward the foyer.

  “Emma!” Lucy cried in surprise and anger.

  “Maisie Lee!” Emma called, proceeding in the general direction of the kitchen. Like the one at Fairhaven, it turned out to be separate from the main house, and Emma was walking along the path toward it, her skirts in her hands, when Lucy caught up with her.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Macon’s wife demanded. It occurred to Emma that Lucy might feel the need to protect her husband, even if he was cruel to her.

  “I’ve got to talk to that housemaid,” Emma answered, not even slowing her pace.

  Lucy reached out and caught hold of her arm, and it struck Emma that she was surprisingly strong, considering her diminutive size. “She’s going to be afraid to talk to you,” Lucy said, so furious that Emma stopped to look her square in the eyes.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re rich and you’re white. Don’t you see, Emma, that if you go blundering about in Maisie Lee’s affairs, you might just find out something you don’t want to know?”

  The color drained from Emma’s face, and her heart missed a beat. “You think Steven is guilty,” she breathed.

  Lucy drew a deep breath, let it out again. “He was with Mary that night. There was a dreadful scene at the ball—”

  “He didn’t kill anyone,” Emma said tightly. Then she broke away from Lucy and marched on toward the kitchen.

  Although there was smoke twisting lazily from the chimney and two pans of bread dough had been set out on a table to rise, Maisie Lee was nowhere to be seen.

  Determined, Emma called her name.

  “She won’t come,” Lucy said softly from the doorway. “She’s too afraid.”

  “I’ll give you money, Maisie Lee,” Emma went on, ignoring her sister-in-law. She opened her purse and took out the generous allowance Steven had given her just the night before. Holding it up, she added, on a hunch, “You could buy things for your children—fruit and clothes and new shoes.”

  The door of what was probably the pantry creaked open and Maisie Lee stepped out, her beautiful eyes huge in her brown, glistening face. She didn’t once look away from the hundred-dollar bill Emma was holding out.

  “Tell me if you saw Steven Fairfax here the night Mary McCall was murdered,” Emma said, her hand remaining steady.

  Maisie Lee swallowed hard. Her desire for the money was plainly visible; she was almost trembling as she stood there, willing herself not to reach for it. Her eyes darted once to Lucy’s face, widened momentarily, then came back to Emma. “I done tole that lawyer man, Mr. Fairfax brought Miss Mary home from the ball. She was screamin’ and cryin’ somethin’ fierce.”

  “And Mr. Fairfax? What was he doing?”

  “He was tryin’ to help her, much as I could see. He kept sayin’, ‘Don’t cry, Miss Mary. Please don’t cry.’“

  Emma closed her eyes tightly for a moment, seeing the image as clearly as if she’d been standing by the McCalls’ high iron fence on that very night, watching the
two of them go up the walk.

  “Did he follow Mary inside?” Lucy demanded, startling both Emma and Maisie Lee.

  Maisie Lee swallowed again. “No, ma’am, I didn’t see him do that.”

  “Did you see anyone else?”

  Maisie Lee shook her head. Sweat moistened the front of her tight cotton dress, and she ran floury hands down the sides of the skirt, leaving dry white trails. “Nobody else, ma’am.”

  Emma handed Maisie Lee the money, even though she sensed there was more the woman wasn’t telling her. Something she was terrified to say.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Maisie Lee blurted out, ducking her head.

  Emma stood still, even though the kitchen was hot and close and she desperately needed air. “Do you love your husband?” she asked.

  The black woman looked at her in surprise. “Love Jethro?” She laid a hand to her bodice, where she’d tucked the hundred-dollar bill away, as though to hide it from his eyes. “Sure I do. He my man. We got babies together.”

  “I love my Steven, too,” Emma said clearly, “and we haven’t had any babies yet. He might hang for something he didn’t do, before we get a chance to start our family.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ else!” Maisie Lee wailed, obviously at the end of her endurance.

  Emma studied her for a long moment, then turned away and followed Lucy down the path and around the side of the crumbling McCall house. Climbing roses, wild and unkempt and buzzing with bees, snagged at their dresses as they passed.

  “You shouldn’t have given her all that money,” Lucy fussed, walking very fast ahead of Emma. “Jethro will just beat her senseless for trying to hide it from him, then drink every penny ‘til it’s gone.”

  “She knows something,” Emma mused, ignoring Lucy’s diatribe. “Something important, that she’s afraid to tell.”

  The carriage was waiting in the street, and Lucy surprised Emma by gripping her by the arm and propelling her toward it. Her other hight=“0em”s raised to her forehead, her thumb and forefinger each pressing against a temple. “I do have the most dreadful headache,” she complained. “I wish we’d never come here. We should be home, like proper ladies, having a mint julep in the gazebo and working at our needlepoint!”

  Emma rolled her eyes. But she liked Lucy and had sympathy for her. When they arrived at Fairhaven, she escorted her sister-in-law to the master suite and then fetched a headache powder for her, mixing it into a glass of cold water.

  When she returned to Macon and Lucy’s room, Lucy was curled up on the bed like a child, wearing nothing but a chemise. She accepted the water gratefully, drank it all down, and rolled over with a moan. “Oh, my, but my head hurts.”

  “Rest,” Emma answered gently, slipping out of the room and closing the door behind her.

  Needing some time alone to think about Maisie Lee and the strange sensation she’d had that the woman was telling a lot less than she knew, Emma retired to her own room, rather than go downstairs.

  She always hoped that Steven would be there when she opened the door, and sometimes he was, but that day she was unlucky. His clothes were in the armoire, the book he’d been reading lay open on the table near the window, the air was redolent with his distinctive scent. But the room was empty.

  With a sigh Emma closed the door and walked over to the table where she often sat looking out at the magnolia trees and wondering. Most often, of course, she wondered whether she and Steven would be allowed to have a life together, but she thought of Lily, too, and of Caroline. Not a day went by that she didn’t ask God where and how to find them.

  When she saw the letter lying on the table, she lifted one hand to her breast. The envelope was of fine white vellum, with the faintest gray stripes, and the return address was Chicago. Kathleen. The letter was from Kathleen.

  Fingers trembling, her lips moving in a prayer that had no words, Emma ripped open the envelope and pulled out the letter. She dropped it, in her anxiety, and bit down hard on her lip in an effort to restrain her curiosity.

  The date and salutation were written in a neat but unfamiliar hand. As Mrs. Harrington’s attorney and closest advisor, the duty of reporting her death falls to me…

  The duty of reporting her death.

  Emma sagged backwards in her chair, unable to trust her muscles to support her. The room seemed to spin crazily for a moment, and she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

  She was still sitting in the same chair, holding the letter and staring out at the lengthening shadows slowly stealing the color from the trees, when the door opened behind her and she heard Steven’s voice.

  “Emma?” His hands came to rest on her shoulders, and she pressed her cheek to the back of one. “What is it?”

  “She’s dead,” Emma whispered, as Steven pulled up a chair close to hers and sat down.

  Gently he took the letter from her hand and read it. “I’m sorry,” he said, and the gentleness of his tone made her want to cry.

  “The attorney didn’t mention Lily and Caroline. That means Mama probably didn’t know where they were.”

  “It means he didn’t mention them,” Steven corrected her quietly, touching her chin, turning her head so that she looked at him.

  “I expressly asked for news of my sisters,” Emma said, her lower lip wobbling.

  “Write to him again. Better yet, send him a wire.”

  Emma was gazing at the gathering twilight again, remembering the Kathleen she’d known. Although her mother had had a drinking problem, she’d been merry when she was sober, full of laughter and music. “I wonder if she died alone.”

  Steven drew her out of the chair and onto his lap, where he held her, pressing her head down against his shoulder. His arms felt so good around her that Emma began to cry at last; she’d found this man only to lose him.

  Thinking Emma was crying for Kathleen—and maybe, somewhere deep inside herself, she was—Steven held her tightly and waited for the emotional storm to pass. When it did he carried her to the bedroom, undressed her to her chemise, and laid her down like a child, pulling the slippers from her feet, laying the covers over her.

  She reached out for his hand. “You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

  He shook his head. “I’ll be right downstairs, Emma. With Garrick.”

  She struggled past the shock of Kathleen’s death long enough to ask, “Did you find out anything new?”

  He bent and kissed her forehead. “We will,” he assured her.

  Emma wanted to tell him that she’d talked with the McCalls’ servant, Maisie Lee, and that she suspected the woman knew something vital, but she couldn’t rally the strength. She tightened her hand around Steven’s, just momentarily, then drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  The next day, when Emma awakened, Steven was gone again.

  Feeling inexpressibly lonely, Emma got out of bed and went through her ablutions by rote. When she was dressed, she went down to the dining room for breakfast, only to find that she couldn’t eat. She sent one of the maids to have the carriage brought around.

  Emma’s first stop was the nearest telegraph office, where she sent a wire to the attorney who had notified her of Kathleen’s death, asking if he had any knowledge of her sisters, Lily and Caroline. An answer could take hours or even days, the clerk informed her. Any response would be delivered to Fairhaven immediately upon receipt.

  Unable to face going home to wait, Emma instructed the driver to take her to Garrick Wright’s office. She wanted, needed to know what progress the lawyer was making on Steven’s case.

  But Garrick wasn’t in, and his clerk didn’t know when he would return.

  In despair, Emma went home, only to be told by one of the maids that “Mr. Steven” was waiting in the study to see her.

  She hurried there and found Steven pacing, looking m anagitated than she’d ever seen him. She knew there had been a new development in his case, and that it wasn’t a good one.

  “What’s happene
d?” Emma whispered, grasping the back of a chair.

  “Miss Astoria McCall has come forward to testify that I was in her house the night of the murder. She claims she heard Mary screaming my name.”

  Emma was certain she would faint. She gripped the back of a chair in both hands and waited, knowing instinctively there was more.

  Steven poured himself a drink and took a sip, his eyes blazing as he looked at his wife. “According to her, this memory only came back to her after you and Lucy called on her yesterday.”

  Emma stumbled around the chair and fell into it. “You’re blaming me?”

  “Of course not,” he said brusquely. “But the whole thing brought me to my senses. We’ve made a mistake, Emma. I want you to go back to Chloe’s and forget you ever knew me.”

  One of Emma’s hands rose to her mouth to hold back a cry that never came. “You don’t mean that,” she said after a moment of struggle. “You’re only trying to protect me.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, and she saw a stranger looking out of his eyes. “I’m not protecting you,” he said. “I’m trying to get rid of you. Damn it, do I have to come right out and say I shouldn’t have married you?”

  Emma rose from her chair with dignity. “You’re a liar, Steven Fairfax. And I won’t leave you. Nothing but death itself could make me do that!”

  Steven turned his back to her and went to stand at the window, gazing out. “I don’t love you,” he told her.

  “You’re a liar!” Emma said again, and this time her voice held a note of hysteria. “You’ve given up, and you think you can spare me by sending me away! Well, I won’t go, do you hear me? I won’t go!”

  He whirled and glared at her, and she wished for death at the look she saw in his eyes. “If you won’t go, then I will,” he spat. And he stormed past her.

  She followed him into the hallway, watched in numb disbelief as the only man she would ever love, no matter how long she lived, took the stairs two at a time.