Ebb Tide (Ella Wood Book 3)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “I’m glad he was able to move his equipment without incident.”

  Marie regarded her daughter over the top of her juice glass. “I wish you’d been able to carry more away with you, Emily. Why, just this morning, Josephine complained that we only have two kettles left without holes in them.”

  There couldn’t be much of value left in the Charleston house. The ladies’ aid society had long been depleting homes of their contents, collecting clothing, linen, handkerchiefs, blankets, and curtains for the war effort. They’d even pried lead from the windowpanes to cast into bullets.

  “Would you like me to return and see what’s salvageable?”

  “It’s not worth encountering a Yankee shell. I’ll see if Tink can mend the old ones.”

  When they had finished eating, the maid poured tea in each of their cups. But Ida folded her napkin and set it on her empty plate. “I’ll see about Margaret for you, Marie,” she said, rising. “You two sit awhile longer.”

  Marie gripped her friend’s hand. “Thank you, Ida.”

  When they were alone, Marie’s eyes met Emily’s and held. “It’s been so long since we truly talked. I think it’s time I finally heard all about this school of yours.”

  Emily groaned and let her head fall forward onto her hands. Of all the topics her mother could have broached this morning…

  Marie raised her eyebrows. “Was it so bad as all that?”

  “Oh, Mother, it was the most wonderful, most challenging experience of my life.”

  “Tell me.”

  That was all the prompting Emily needed to launch into a recitation of the highs and lows of her school year. She spoke for twenty minutes, volunteering details she hadn’t included in her letters—her enthusiasm for the growing field of photography, Missouri’s steady friendship, the dark days following Jack’s death, her visit with Uncle Timothy, Lucy’s ongoing unpleasantness. She left out only Jeremiah and her most intimate thoughts of Jovie. The words galloped out, as if they’d been penned up too long. Talking didn’t leave her less conflicted, but it did help her sort out her thoughts.

  “You’re missing Baltimore,” Marie stated when the stampede of words thinned to a trickle.

  Emily smiled wistfully. “I guess I am.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  Did she? If it were possible, would she go?

  “Someday, yes. But nothing could entice me to leave you with Aunt Margaret and father both ill and the Yankees trying so hard to push their way past our defenses.” The admission brought everything into proper focus. “At the present moment, this is where I belong.”

  Marie touched her daughter’s arm in a gesture of affection. “I’m glad you’re here. And not just because I’m feeling more than a little overwhelmed with your father incapacitated.”

  It occurred to Emily just how much responsibility had fallen on her mother. Not only William’s care, but stewardship of the entire plantation. “Has Father ever shown you the books?”

  Marie shook her head. “I had no interest. I’ve always been content just managing the household. I never dreamed…”

  “What will you do if he doesn’t recover?”

  “Don’t even suggest such a thing.”

  “You can’t pretend it isn’t a possibility, Mother.”

  Marie raised fingertips to her temples. “I know the name of your father’s lawyer. Beyond that…” She shook her head helplessly.

  “I’ve seen where Father keeps his records. I’m sure if we get them out they won’t prove nearly as challenging as you fear.”

  During Emily’s last year at home, William had shared much of the day-to-day management with her. As she became more vocal in her criticisms of slavery, he had ended that part of her education. But she was certain that together she and Marie could gain a workable understanding of the books. Of course, William didn’t own just Ella Wood. He had half a dozen estates.

  Marie hesitated. “Perhaps I should wait until William can join me…”

  “When he can join you, you’ll hand everything back, along with the assurance that his holdings were well cared for during his convalescence.” She grasped her mother’s hand encouragingly. “Aunt Margaret has managed her own affairs for years. She can help. Mrs. Malone is no dimwit, either. And there’s Mr. Cutler. You’re not alone.”

  Marie gripped her fingers hard. “I just can’t. It feels like I’m giving up on your father. He will recover.”

  Emily smiled sadly. “I’m certain he will.”

  Marie’s confidence returned. Her shoulders straightened. Her face smoothed. That mask of bright efficiency dropped into place again.

  As they spoke, the serenade of cannon fire had gradually lessened until it faded away altogether. After weeks of commotion, the sudden stillness felt like a third presence, unfamiliar and ominous. Emily became aware of it first. “Mother, listen!”

  Puzzlement creased Marie’s forehead. She lifted her face uncertainly like an animal testing the wind. “What does it mean?”

  Emily shook her head. “I wish I knew.”

  ***

  Thick undergrowth had nearly obliterated the footpath that wound through the woods between Ella Wood and Fairview. Emily remembered when it had been a well-trodden highway, scuffed nearly to concrete by the daily tread of children’s feet. She was far less eager to traverse it this evening. Despite Lottie’s report, it had taken her three full days to work up the courage to visit Sarah.

  Emily avoided Fairview’s formal entrance, opting instead for the kitchen at the rear of the big house. Calling on a slave wasn’t exactly customary. She hoped one of the kitchen maids might slip inside and arrange an inconspicuous meeting. But as she rounded the back corner of the house, she came face-to-face with Walter Cutler, who fanned himself in the shade of an ornamental cherry tree. He appeared to be melting into his seat, with arms, legs, and shoulders all drooping earthward like soft candlewax. As she approached, he turned a perspiring face in her direction and his red cheeks pushed into apples. “Emily, how nice to see you. Have you come calling on Jennie?”

  She thought quickly. “Just extending an invitation for tea. Is she here?”

  “Unfortunately, no. She accompanied Mrs. Cutler on an errand of mercy.”

  “Mrs. Northrup?”

  “Good heavens, no. Luella’s been in the churchyard for some time now.”

  Emily wasn’t surprised. The woman had long been in ill health. “Poor Cage.”

  Walter’s face grew grave. “Emily, Cage Northrup died at Shiloh over a year ago. He and his father both joined the service after Luella passed. We haven’t heard from Ernest in eight months.”

  Emily had never cared much for the Northrups, but the news came as a shock. She sank into one of the vacant lawn chairs.

  “Their story isn’t uncommon. The Connors are gone. So are the Fisks. People all over the county are disappearing—dying or simply pulling up stakes.” He produced a calabash pipe and tamped in a pinch of tobacco. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  He leaned back in his chair, struck a match, and puffed contentedly. The wisps of vapor created the illusion that he was evaporating clean away.

  “How’s your father?”

  “The same.” She paused. “Have you heard anything new about Jovie?”

  “Nothing.”

  He inhaled another long drag and let the smoke leak out in a slow, mournful spiral.

  “Well, we’re a cheerful lot, aren’t we?” He tapped the pipe absently against the arm of his chair. “I sure wish I could turn back the clock to the days when laughter rolled across my lawn instead of this confounded racket.”

  The guns had rested exactly one day before belching out their fury across the countryside once again. Their low, monotonous grumblings had been ongoing ever since.

  “Do you know why they fell silent?”

  His face turned grim. “Wagner fell.”

  She bolted upright in her chair. “What?”<
br />
  The fort on Morris Island had held out for months. General Beauregard had clung to it tenaciously, refusing to relinquish the fortress at the harbor mouth.

  “Actually, Beauregard called for its evacuation. I read the story in the Mercury. They’re calling it the Gate of Hell.”

  Emily had heard the horror stories personally from the hospital wounded. Still, she couldn’t quite believe the fort had capitulated. “The Yankees truly hold Fort Wagner?”

  “Complete with its direct line of fire at Sumter. That’s what you’re hearing right now. They’re smashing Sumter to smithereens with all that rifled artillery.”

  Fort Sumter—the last barricade to the harbor. “How can it possibly hold out?”

  “I don’t know that it can.”

  The lull that fell between them hummed with foreboding. Emily knew the waves of heat rushing up her neck had nothing to do with the humid evening. If Sumter fell, how long could the city hold out? How long before Yankee troops flooded the countryside, looting and burning? It was happening elsewhere. It would come here.

  Emily’s stomach clenched. When the time came, should they flee? Where could they go? Were her father and Aunt Margaret strong enough to move? Could any of them find the strength to abandon Ella Wood? But what would it cost to remain?

  They were all questions she hoped she never need consider. Very soon, she might have to.

  “May I borrow your newspaper? My father no longer—” She paused and cleared her throat. “I haven’t seen one in several weeks.”

  “I have a stack in my office. You’re welcome to the lot.”

  “Thank you.”

  He waved away her gratitude, that small effort looking as if it might topple him into the grass.

  It was a simple matter to ask for Sarah at the back door. They found the newspapers exactly where Mr. Cutler said they would be. As Emily thumbed through the pile, she spoke in a voice too low to escape the open door. “I saw Jeremiah while I was at school. He’s living in Baltimore.”

  Sarah stilled. Her eyes fixed on Emily.

  “He’s holding a decent job. His health is good. And he’s still in love with you, Sarah.”

  The woman’s breath inhaled softly. She clutched the edge of the desk with both hands.

  “I’m so sorry my father sent him away.”

  “We was to be married,” Sarah whispered.

  “I know. Jeremiah told me everything. I promised I’d come see you. To deliver his message and find out if you still feel the same way about him.”

  Sarah started to answer, but the words snagged in her throat. Her hands fluttered to her face. She looked on the verge of tears.

  “No, you mustn’t,” Emily warned, thrusting a newspaper into her hands. “Stand up straight. If I’m to help you, no one must suspect that anything is amiss.”

  The woman stiffened her back. Only a few ragged breaths gave away her inner turmoil. “What can you possibly do, miss?”

  “I’m not sure. Pass along your answer, for a start.” Emily paused to study her. “Do you still love him, Sarah?”

  “I never stopped.”

  Emily selected several newspapers and tucked them beneath her arm. Then she laid a gentle hand on the woman’s sleeve. “I’ll tell him, Sarah.”

  Relief followed Emily down the path toward home. The sun had settled beyond a bank of low clouds that cast the woods into deep shadow. Somehow the dimness amplified the distant explosions. They were like cymbals struck during a prayer, inconsistent with the gentle noises of evening. As she emerged near the slave cabins, the rhythmic chop-chop of splitting stove wood overrode the din. Turning toward the familiar sound, she recognized Apollo, who paused to stack the pieces outside his door. He had shed his usual uniform, and the sheen of sweat glistening on his shoulders and torso caught the sun’s last rays.

  Apollo met her eye and grinned. “Evenin’, Miss Emily.”

  “Hello, Apollo.” She returned his smile with pleasant surprise. Other than Zeke and Deena, she usually encountered cool reservation from the slaves. Like Abel and the smiling serving maid, Apollo showed unusual friendliness. “It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed.”

  Emily watched as he set another log upright, transfixed by the smooth way his bones and joints and muscles worked together. This was exactly what her anatomy book lacked. This fluidity of movement, the sharp outline of living flesh and blood. She noted the set of his shoulders as he raised the ax and tried to memorize the angle of his elbows, the bend in his spine, the way his weight shifted from one leg to the other. She would recreate it all the moment she returned to her room.

  “What would yo’ daddy say if he could see his daughter oglin’ a black man?”

  Emily spun in the direction of the words and came face-to-face with Herod. He’d outgrown his teenage slimness; a broader stature held the heavier musculature of a man. He’d also dropped his ingratiating demeanor. Disdain darkened his eyes, and his crossed arms and stiff posture communicated a vague threat. She hadn’t been wrong about his feelings toward her.

  “But den, yo’ daddy ain’t sayin’ much of anything right now, is he?”

  Emily chomped down on an angry retort. Herod had been abrasive as a child. Why had she expected anything else from him as an adult? “I’m sorry you feel such resentment toward me, Herod, but I am not your enemy.”

  “You sho’ ain’t my friend.”

  No, they’d never been friends. Not even as children. “Can’t we at least call a truce? A non-aggression pact?”

  He snorted. “After you los’ me what I wanted mos’ in de world?”

  She studied him more closely. Even as an adult, Herod still saw the world in terms of winning and losing. “Lizzie wasn’t a trophy. She was a human being who made her own decisions. And she didn’t love you. She loved Ketch.”

  “It was always gunna be me an’ Lizzie.” He said it as if he hadn’t heard her, as if Lizzie had ever held anything but derision for him.

  “Listen to yourself, Herod. You can’t force—”

  “Then you butted in.” His gaze sharpened. His eyes bored into her. “You took her away. You approved when Ketch carried me off. When he left me fo’ de dogs. When dey beat me. An’ now you want to make peace?”

  “Herod, that was your own fault. You were going to ruin everything. What choice did we have?” She shook her head in disbelief. “That night, you got exactly what you deserved.”

  His head jerked sharply. “What I deserved?” he hissed. “I got what I deserved?” He tore his shirt off and turned his back so she could see the latticework of scars. “No one deserve what I got.”

  Emily pressed her lips together so tightly they lost color. His skin had been flayed by the whip. Shredded. Scar upon scar—white, raised, and angry. She detested Herod, but he was right. No one deserved this. “Herod, I’m sorry this happened to you. If I’d known what they were going to do—”

  “What?” he challenged. “What would you have done? Stopped Mr. Turnbull? Stopped yo’ father?” His eyes blazed, and his breath came in angry blasts. “You woulda set in yo’ fine room, safe in yo’ own white skin, and pretended nothin’ was amiss. Jus’ like you done every time black skin bled.”

  Emily shook her head. “That is not—”

  The look of hatred and loathing he turned on her froze her words to her tongue. “I got nothin’ but contempt fo’ you an’ yo’ whole family.”

  Emily knocked a fist on each hip. “Wait just a minute, Herod. You weren’t adverse to Ketch receiving that beating. If you’d been successful in alerting Mr. Turnbull that night, he would have gotten it. In fact, I strongly suspect you were the one who informed on him when he visited his son without leave. His back looks just like yours.”

  Herod stepped in closer, his finger raised threateningly. “You can’t—”

  “Somethin’ de matter here?” Apollo approached looking from one to the other, drawn by their raised voices.

  Emily cleared her
throat, smoothing the front of her dress and wiping the emotion from her face. “No. Thank you, Apollo. We were just discussing—” But she broke off as Herod shoved past her and disappeared around the corner of a cabin.

  “Want me to tell Lewis?” Apollo asked. “He take de boy to task right quick.”

  An image of the black driver sprang to her mind. Lewis could be counted on to discipline his son, but she’d rather deal with him on her own. “No, don’t bother him with such a trivial matter.”

  Apollo looked at her uncertainly. “It be yo’ call, Miss Emily. But be careful. Ain’t no secret dat boy a wild fire.”

  “That’s just Herod.” She smiled reassuringly. “He’s always been…intense.” She actually preferred his open hostility to the false cheerfulness he used to display. It ruled out surprises.

  “Someday he gunna find hisself wid a noose aroun’ his neck.”

  The assessment draped a chain of liability across Emily’s shoulders as she walked back to the house. She wasn’t sure Apollo was far off the mark. Sullenness and rebellion were traits that usually turned out badly for a black man, free or slave. Herod was holding her personally accountable for his enslavement. He didn’t seem to understand that in the South she was also bound to social constraints. Hers was simply a prison of silk petticoats.

  “It shouldn’t be me, Jack,” she whispered into the air. “You were the one with the vision, the confidence, the ideas. You’d know how to handle this.”

  Emily walked through the door to the front parlor and dropped the newspapers on the sofa. What would Jack do? If only she could ask him. For the thousandth time, she regretted the years they had lost, the friendship they’d let slip away.

  Picking through the editions, she sank onto the horsehair cushion. One by one, she fanned them open, skimming through the latest developments in the harbor. Several articles gave specific information on troop movements, recited casualties, and detailed the new Charleston-built gunboats in position near Fort Sumter. Wryly, Emily wondered if the Yankees even bothered with intelligence operations with such a source of information so readily available. But few of the news stories added to what Mr. Cutler had already told her—Wagner had fallen, and Sumter was vulnerable.