“Uh… no, sir.”
“Don’t smoke?”
“No, sir.”
“You ought to try it sometime. A good cigar will help your digestion.”
“Yes, sir… but no, thank you.”
Jarvis entered with a tray. Beaumont took one of the glasses and swallowed half its contents, liberally poured, for Jarvis knew his master, in nearly the same motion. Jarvis then offered the tray to Seth.
“Uh, no thank you, Jarvis,” he said.
“Come on, boy,” barked Beaumont. “Nothing like an after-dinner brandy to settle the stomach.”
“Yes, sir… but I would really rather not.”
“Suit yourself—Leave the tray, Jarvis,” said Beaumont. “I’ll have that one myself later…. I have the feeling I’m going to need it,” he added under his breath.
As soon as the butler was gone, Beaumont took a seat in his favorite chair and motioned Seth to sit down opposite him. Seth did so.
Another long silence followed. This time it was not so painful for Beaumont, for he had the comforts of his cigar and his brandy to occupy him. Seth sat waiting.
“I want to talk to you, son,” said Beaumont at length. “I have a question to ask.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are your intentions honorable toward my daughter?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Just what are your intentions, then?”
“What do you mean, Mr. Beaumont?”
“You know what I mean—are you and she… do you, uh…understand one another?”
“I think so, sir,” said Seth a little hesitantly.
“Are you satisfied with how things stand?”
“I suppose,” nodded Seth. “I mean, I do have a few things I feel we need to talk over, but in general… yes, I suppose.”
“All right then. As long as there has been an understanding reached between you and that you are both satisfied, I suppose I shall not stand in the way of it—Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cigar?”
“No, sir.”
The conversation then began to wander, touching lightly, with Beaumont doing most of the talking, on the weather, the outlook for this year’s crops, cotton prices, the laziness of slaves, and the political outlook in Washington, in that order.
When Seth and Veronica’s father emerged from the drawing room ten minutes later, Seth looking bewildered, Beaumont looking somewhat haggard but resigned to the inevitable, Veronica and Lady Daphne were waiting for them in the sitting room.
Seth never did have the opportunity to speak with Veronica alone. By the time the evening ended and he began the drive home in the descending dusk, the topics that had seemed so imperative that he raise with her only a few short hours ago had grown fuzzy and vague in his mind.
Immediately after Seth’s departure, Veronica pestered her father mercilessly for a report. Beginning to get a bad headache from the ordeal, he recited back to her the entire conversation more or less word for word.
Vague as it might have been at a few points, Veronica was well pleased with the outcome. It was almost as much as she had hoped for… and would suffice.
When Seth rode up the drive to Greenwood, it was almost completely dark.
He had been in no hurry to get home and had intentionally allowed Auburn Flame to dawdle. It wasn’t that he consciously thought to avoid his parents or did not want to tell them that he hadn’t spoken with Veronica as he had planned, or that, in fact, the only one whom he had spoken halfway seriously with was Veronica’s father.
He was embarrassed about the evening’s outcome, embarrassed, as he now thought back on it, that he had been so spineless not to speak his mind more forcefully. He was not reluctant to tell his parents from any desire to hide it. He would have shared anything with them gladly. Only in this case, he didn’t know what to say.
He wasn’t quite sure himself what had happened.
After he and his parents had talked so specifically beforehand about the need to clarify things with Veronica, that he hadn’t done so, and now seemed to have become entangled all the deeper—a private talk with drinks and cigars with Denton Beaumont, for goodness sakes!—after all that… he just needed to think a bit before he asked his father what to do.
The buggy wheels crunched over the gravel. The house was nearly dark. He saw the lone light from the lantern in his parents’ room upstairs, but he would not disturb them tonight.
He stopped in front of the barn, unhitched Auburn Flame, and took her inside. The night was clear and there would be no rain… he would see to the buggy in the morning.
Slowly he walked across the entryway, glancing up at the light in the window. Maybe he ought to knock on their door and talk this thing over….
No, he thought. He just needed a good night’s sleep to clear his brain.
Seth opened the door and went inside. With as soft a step as he could he made his way up to his own room.
Morning brought no relief to Seth’s perplexities. When he awoke his father was already gone from the house. He dressed and went downstairs. There was enough commotion with Thomas eating and Maribel at the cookstove to keep him from any awkward silences.
“Good morning, Seth,” said Carolyn.
“Hi, Mother,” said Seth. “What’s Maribel got on the stove? It smells good!”
“Johnnycakes an’ eggs, Massa Seff,” called Maribel from across the kitchen.
“Great! I’m starved. I slept too long.”
“You were late getting home,” said Carolyn. “Did you and Veronica get everything settled?”
“I don’t know, Mother,” replied Seth. “I hope so.”
Even as he said it, Seth realized it was a stupid thing to say. He hadn’t gotten anything settled. But he let his words stand, and moments later was diving into the plate of food that Maribel set in front of him.
The day proceeded but no opportunity arose where Seth and his mother found themselves in a setting alone where their conversation flowed naturally into the channels of open and relaxed dialogue. Nothing more was said about the previous night.
Nor did it come up the next day… nor the day after that.
Gradually Seth’s dinner at Oakbriar slowly began to fade into the past. Life resumed its course and things settled into their former routine.
Most thought and activity around Greenwood for some time had been occupied with keeping Lucindy and her rambunctious family quiet and out of sight, especially when visitors came. How long she would be with them was still undetermined. The fatigue from travel clearly showed. Even though they realized the danger to themselves increased with every week that passed, neither Richmond nor Carolyn had any thought except for Lucindy’s health and to get some substance back on her bony frame.
They did what they could to make the basement comfortable, where they hurried their young charges whenever they heard Veronica’s buggy ride up, with stern admonitions to silence.
Thus the time passed, if not without certain anxieties and moments of tension, yet safely and without detection. Whether or not it had anything to do with their home being turned into a hiding place and house of refuge for runaways, Thomas receded more and more into himself. He had agreed to confidentiality, but the new situation only amplified his silent irritations toward his parents. He spoke but little. A cloud hung over his countenance, and little anyone said or did succeeded in drawing out of him the happy and carefree boy he had once been.
Veronica still came to visit the semi-invalid almost daily and behaved much the same as ever, except for an added friendliness, a discernible increase in her eagerness to engage the two older Davidsons in conversation. Once or twice Lady Daphne accompanied her and had tea and cake with Carolyn, never suspecting the secret hidden below her in the basement. Nor did Carolyn for a moment suspect the plans Veronica and her mother shared.
As yet neither Richmond nor Carolyn, whose visits to Dove’s Landing were infrequent, had so much as an inkling how far things had advanced between the two youn
g people.
Fifty-two
By mid-June Lucindy Eaton was strong enough to travel.
She had put on ten pounds and had recovered much of her strength after seven weeks at Greenwood. Carolyn sensed that she was restless and thinking of moving on.
“Where will you go when you leave us, Lucindy?” asked Carolyn one day.
“I’s gwine fin’ my man.”
“Where is he, Lucindy?”
“I don’ know, Missus Dav’son. In da Norf sumwheres.”
“But how do you expect to find him?”
“I don’t know—is da Norf dat big? He’s in sumplace called Pennsulvania er sumfin’ like dat.”
“Pennsylvania is enormous, Lucindy. It has more than a million people.”
“A million… laws almighty, Missus Dav’son!”
“Is that all you know about where he is?”
“Dere wuz anuder word dey tol’ me not ter fergit—dat’s Hanober, er sumfin’. Next ter dat on da message dat came wuz a picshure ob a horse’s head.”
“What was it like?”
“Don’ know, Missus Dav’son. I didn’t see it. It wuz drawed in da cake er soap—Hanober wif a horse’s head, dat’s what she said.”
Lucindy went on to recount her brief conversation with Mistress Crawford’s housekeeper.
“Dere wuz jes’a horse’s head scrached in da soap.”
“What it mean?” Lucindy had asked.
“Don’ know, chil’. Mus’be er clue er sum kin’. When you git ter Hanober, you bes’ look fo’ sumfin’ ter do wif horses.”
That evening, Richmond and Carolyn consulted a map as they discussed the matter. Hanover lay only some five or six miles across the Pennsylvania border between Gettysburg and York.
“I think I should be the one to take her, Richmond,” said Carolyn. “Traveling with three like that, the chances of discovery will be greater. It will take us three or four days just to reach the border. It would not go so badly with me if we are caught as it would you.”
“I do not like the sound of that!” said Richmond.
“You know what I mean. Juries are more sympathetic toward women.”
“Juries! Good heavens, Carolyn, you make it sound like robbing a bank!” he laughed.
“It is a crime, Richmond,” said his wife seriously. “We will be breaking the law. It’s only practical that I take her.”
He sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But I don’t like the thought of placing you in danger.”
“The danger has come to us, Richmond. By harboring and helping, we have added to it and increased our own danger. We did not seek it, but here she is under our roof, one of God’s precious ones. We have to do our best for her if she is to experience the love of her Father-God’s which will be an even better best for her.”
“Eloquently put, my dear wife! We did not seek it, but neither can we run from it.”
He smiled thoughtfully. “I wonder what are we getting ourselves into?”
“We don’t know. But God knows and we can rest in that, and then take each day as it comes to us. We cannot see the next page of our life’s book, but only the one open to us. As long as we let God turn the pages, the unfolding of that story is in good hands.”
“All true. Yet I still do not like the idea of you traveling alone. What about Seth?”
“Would it be right to involve him? If caught, it could go badly for him too.”
“One or the other of us, it seems to me, must accompany you. I simply cannot allow it otherwise. I shall talk to Seth and see if he is willing.”
Taking advantage of Thomas’s absence on a hunting trip of several days with Jeremy and his father, and still unaware of the maelstrom of gossip swirling about Veronica’s matrimonial plans, Richmond and Seth fabricated the vehicle of journey and what they hoped would be Lucindy’s escape to freedom.
Richmond contrived this carriage of subterfuge out of one of their old wagons that was still serviceable and reasonably comfortable, but which had fallen into disuse when they acquired more modern wagons and buggies over the years. Richmond chose this one because the bed behind the two-man bench seat was unusually deep, yet not more than about six feet in overall length. The carriage had apparently been designed as a small and lightweight single-horse delivery wagon of sorts, comfortable as a buckboard but with heavy springs for the hauling of moderate loads, serving both the purposes of transport or freight. Richmond concluded the depth of the bed must have had something to do with its original owner’s desire to design something capable of stacking behind him two heights of hay or straw bales rather than one. He could not remember when it had come to Greenwood, or under what circumstances, and thought perhaps his father had either purchased it or had it built when Richmond was in England years before. But he did not remember its use, only its storage in one of the equipment barns after his return.
It was the extra depth of the freight box that provided Richmond Davidson the framework required for the transport of a very different form of cargo.
To their desired end, he and Seth had fabricated a second floor some fifteen or sixteen inches above the actual bed of the carriage, below which—in a cramped but utilitarian hidden chamber—the four runaway black slaves could lay virtually undetected. Above it, on the newly created false floor of the carriage, they intended to set enough boxes and crates and other items disguised to appear of greater depth than they were, so the contents of their load would give every appearance of resting on the original carriage bed. Of course close inspection would divulge the false floor and hidden chamber easily enough. But they hoped to avoid such close inspection by the appearance of innocence.
In order to facilitate their journey and make it possible to travel as many hours as they could without lengthy stops—hopefully cutting the entire journey to the border and back to three or three-and-a-half days—they had included a small mattress and blankets among the items lying on top of the false floor so that Seth and Carolyn could take turns sleeping. Also, they would hitch the carriage to two of their most dependable long-range hauling horses. The horses could not go twenty-four hours a day without rest, but they could certainly go a good portion of it.
Fifty-three
Completely oblivious to the machinations of secrecy presently in progress at Greenwood, Denton Beaumont received a letter that would change his as well as the future fortunes of everyone in his family. Which was greater, the elation of the master of the house, or the relief of its mistress to be exonerated for the stinging election loss, who could say? Though the master felt himself vindicated when he learned of the new developments, forgiveness toward those who had caused his humiliation would not be so quickly forthcoming. And though his wife did not feel completely acquitted for her hidden role in the defeat, the news certainly in large measure moderated the guilt that had accompanied it.
When Jarvis brought the day’s mail up to his study, Beaumont flipped though the stack absently, hardly noticing from whom each had come. He was in a surly mood. He had only moments before chanced to overhear Veronica and her mother talking some nonsense about wedding dresses and fabric and bridesmaids. The thought of it revolted him. That he had resigned himself to Seth Davidson as a son-in-law did not make the fact any more pleasant. He only consoled himself by thinking that the marriage should, in time, afford him opportunity, if not actually to take title to the Brown land, then at least to be accorded the freedom to roam about it without compunction, and thus hopefully at last lay his hands on the fortune he knew it contained. He had waited twenty-five years. Perhaps his daughter’s marriage to the son of his neighbor and nemesis was the only way to achieve his secret goal.
He picked up the stack of three or four envelopes and perused it again. His eyes fell on one name among the rest: Frederick Trowbridge.
What could he possibly want? thought Beaumont with annoyance, unless it was at last to apologize for shunning him in favor of Davidson and Everett three years ago!
Skeptically he slit the en
velope, took out the single sheet, and began to read.
Dear Denton,
I realize we have had our differences over the past few years. I have heard of your displeasure about my handling of the affair involving your neighbor Davidson, as well as the ill-advised decision of some of our colleagues that he ought to be put forward as our senatorial candidate. Perhaps my words at this point will mean little to you, but I hope, for the sake of our past friendship, that you will give me a fair hearing.
Let me first simply apologize for those past events to which I refer. That many of us were wrong about Davidson is clear enough now to all. We should have known all along that you were our man. I regret my hand in the matter and am humbled by the recognition of my mistake.
We are also aware of certain underhanded methods employed by Senator Hoyt in his recent election victory, not to mention outright lies circulated about you and your wife, and that by all rights you should easily have defeated him.
Abraham Seehorn and I would like to meet with you, privately and in strictest confidence, to discuss these and other matters pertaining to your future. Please reply if you are agreeable and we will arrange a time and place suitable for such a meeting.
I am,
Sincerely yours,
Frederick Trowbridge
With a humph or two at the man’s presumption coming to him like this, cap in hand, after the treatment he had received, Beaumont nevertheless read over the communiqué another four or five times, trying to divine every possible ounce of meaning from its words. His heart beat a little more rapidly each time as his own fancies supplied hoped-for meaning to what had been left unsaid between the lines.
It could do no harm to meet with them, he said to himself at length. He might as well hear what they had to say.
When Denton Beaumont walked into the out-of-the-way hotel tavern on the outskirts of Richmond, his two hosts rose to meet him.
“Ah, Denton,” said Trowbridge expansively, as if there had never been a dispute between them, “how good it was of you to come! You know Abraham Seehorn?”
American Dreams Trilogy Page 42