At Zeke’s doubtful look, she blurted out, “I know there’s danger. But Lizzie could never walk all that way. Not with a newborn. They’d get caught for sure. And they can’t go south.” The Seminole Wars had cleared the Everglades of runaway settlements long ago.
“What about de babies? A black man and woman wid two chillen be too easy to trace. And how you know de captain gunna take ’em aboard?”
“Because he’ll think she’s white,” she said with a spark of mischief in her smile.
That prompted a lift of the old man’s eyebrows. “An’ what about Robin?”
“He’ll be hiding in the trunk. I can get a sedative to help keep him quiet. We’ll have to drill air holes so he doesn’t suffocate before they deliver him to the cabin.”
He whistled. “How you gunna get ’em all to Charleston?”
“Lizzie and the children will be easy. They’ll accompany me on the train.”
“You gunna give yo’self away.”
“I don’t care. They’ll need me to get them onboard the ship. No one will suspect a runaway scheme until it’s too late.”
He nodded. “What about Ketch?”
She frowned. “I haven’t worked that out yet. It would look far too suspicious to take him on the train. But there must be a way.”
“You thought all dis up last night?”
She nodded.
“It has promise.” He considered. “Bes’ make it look like you had nothin’ to do wid Ketch. You’ll be in trouble enough. I’ll think on it some.”
“Not a word to Ketch till Lizzie agrees,” she cautioned.
He placed a fingertip to his lips.
Emily headed directly for Lewis and Josephine’s cabin where Lizzie had spent the night. With a new sense of urgency, she wanted to write to Abigail as soon as possible. That meant springing her idea on Lizzie without any warning.
Her maid was the only one who hadn’t left for work. Emily found her on her feet, moving carefully but freely about the cabin. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better.”
“Did you get any sleep?”
She shook her head. “Neither did anyone else in de room. Larkin awake all night. Lewis and Herod never come in, but Lottie and Josephine look plenty tired dis mornin’.”
She laid a sleeping Larkin on the table to change his diapers. Lizzie tending a baby was a sight Emily was not accustomed to seeing. She realized sadly that she might never have the chance to acclimate to it. “Looks like he isn’t suffering too badly from his late night.”
Lizzie laughed. “He an’ I both learnin’ quick dat babies get whatever babies want.”
Emily didn’t join in her mirth. She was too focused on her task. “Lizzie,” she began, dropping her voice, “what would you say if I told you I have a plan to send you north?”
Lizzie froze, all the levity gone from her expression. “What you talkin’ about, Miss Emily?”
Emily met her eyes. “I’m talking about freedom, Lizzie. For you, Larkin, Ketch, and Robin. It’s risky, but Zeke and I think we can work something out. First we need to know if you’re willing.”
Lizzie’s knees seemed to give out. She sank into a chair beside the table, the baby half undressed. “Miss Emily, I’d give mos’ anything.”
“You could be whipped or—or killed if you’re caught,” Emily warned her. “And you’d most likely be running the blockade. Anything could happen.”
“I understand.” Lizzie paused. Her thoughts grew distant, her vision extending far beyond the slave cabin. She refocused a minute or two later. “What about you, Miss Emily? What happens if you get caught?”
Emily mustered a smile. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I have my father’s name to hide behind.” But her bravado didn’t fool Lizzie. They both knew what was at stake. For both of them.
“Talk it over with Ketch. Let me know as soon as you can. It’s important that we act quickly.”
Lizzie nodded.
Emily had her answer before the day was out.
Lizzie’s agreement ushered in a whirlwind of clandestine meetings and whispered schemes. She sent money and her request to Abigail immediately. The suddenness of her idea and the speed with which it was being carried out stole Emily’s breath, but her resolve never wavered. Despite the danger, it simply felt right.
Zeke’s guidance proved a rock for all of them. He provided experience, lent them confidence, and thought up angles no one else considered. One more load of rice still awaited shipment to Charleston onboard the schooner. If it could be delayed… If Ketch could sneak aboard… If Emily and Lizzie could slip away without being noticed… Every hour would count. Every detail must be timed perfectly. Emily gladly let him lead.
They waited on edge for Abigail’s reply. But before it arrived, a loud, furious complication inserted itself into their plans, altering everything.
On the last Friday in November, William returned, his face brick red. Slapping a handful of letters against his palm, he shouted, “EMILY MARIE PRESTON!” before his feet even landed in the stable yard.
Emily was brushing Lune in the stable when her heart catapulted into her throat. Even in her most rebellious moments of childhood, she’d never heard him profane her name in such a way. She peered out the stable door. “Yes, Papa?” she asked meekly.
He hunted her down, his steps jilted, his face mottled with wrath, and began reading from a letter torn free of its envelope. “Dear Mr. Wilson, On behalf of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, I have written to congratulate you upon the completion of your drawing and painting coursework...”
He lowered the letter and obliterated her with the cannon shot of his words. “I will not tolerate your defiance any longer. I want you out of my house.” He threw the mail at her feet and stormed inside.
Emily’s knees gave out. She sank onto them, struggling to breathe through the panic rising in her chest. Strong threads still tied her to her father, but they’d been painfully wrenched. She struggled to keep them anchored in the spirit he had crushed too many times.
“Miss Emily!” Abel cried from the stable doorway. “Miss Emily, you be all right?”
He propped her upright and she forced herself to think things through. The episode really wasn’t that different from the time her parents shipped her off to Uncle Isaac. Marie would calm her father down and help him see reason. It always happened that way before. Eventually they would reconcile.
But so much had changed. Their differences had become so great. What if he wasn’t interested in mending their relationship? What if her dreams proved its undoing? Would she still follow them?
“I’m okay now, Abel. Thank you.” He helped her to stand. “Please, fetch that mail for me. I think I’d like to sit down.” Mostly she wanted to get out of sight of the house, to hide from her father’s wrath.
She entered the comfort of the stable and sank onto a barrel outside Lune’s stall. The incriminating letter, she saw, had been transferred to a new envelope, but in her carelessness Sophia had combined the name Thomas Wilson with her address. At some point between the post office and Ella Wood, William had grown curious and discovered her secret. But not before she received full marks for her work, she realized. Not even her father could steal that satisfaction from her.
She used the achievement to bolster her confidence. The confrontation was bound to come. Hadn’t she told Thad she was leaving? It was just happening sooner than she would have chosen. Eventually she would have to leave her father’s house anyway, and she would do it with ambitions intact. She still had a little money left from the sale of Somebody’s Daughter. She would ask to visit Aunt Margaret, and for the time being, she would make do.
As she flipped through the rest of the mail, the whole incident was suddenly put into perspective. Perhaps her expulsion had actually worked to her advantage. An unexpected blessing in the most horrible of packages.
For in her hand she held a note from Abigail with two tickets to Philadelphia.
2
8
William did not speak to his daughter once before returning to Columbia the following day. Nor would he listen to his wife’s attempts at reason. A letter of dismissal was issued to Emily’s tutor posthaste, and Marie was ordered to send the girl elsewhere—a boarding school, his sister’s, her brother’s, England, he didn’t have a preference. But she’d best not be in the house when he came home for Christmas.
Marie entered Emily’s room soberly the evening of his departure and came to stand behind the desk where Emily sketched. William’s face glowered up from the paper, full of accusation and anger. “That’s him,” Marie admitted. “That’s exactly how he looked as he left. Stubborn to the core. Just like you.” She lifted her daughter’s hair and let it fall in a dun-colored wave. “You’re very good at what you do.”
Emily set down her pencil, relieved to be free of the painful irritation that her father’s presence had become. Yet the friction had left a bitter residue. “Why can’t he see that?”
“He’s well aware of your talent and your intelligence, both of which he is very proud. But he doesn’t know how to handle your independence. He’s never met a woman with your spirit.” She picked up the page and looked at the likeness more closely. “Do you know what he said to me just last night? ‘Why couldn’t she have been born a boy?’”
“That’s not fair!” Emily protested. “Why would he stifle me for simply being female?”
“Because Southern men feel threatened by a strong woman. Think about it, Emily. The South is a world completely dominated by men. Their plantations, their politics, their careers—all male arenas.”
“But you’re strong. You’re intelligent. I’ve even heard Father brag about you.”
Marie smiled. “But I lack your ambition. I’ve never upset the wagon.”
Emily jammed her chin down on her fist. Marie set the picture of her husband back on the desktop and sifted through the other images. “You’re certain you want to buck tradition for this? If you pursue your own livelihood, you will cause a scandal. You will be branded. You may never secure a marriage. And you may never be able to support yourself in the South because Southern men may have too much pride to do business with you, no matter how talented you are. You may be giving up everything for your art when you could have Thaddeus and a home and a family.”
Emily shook her head. “That would never be enough.”
Marie sighed, resigned. “What will you do?”
“I’d like to go to Aunt Margaret’s. She’s already issued me an invitation, and I need some time to think.”
Marie smiled. “I’ll write to her tonight.”
***
Emily awaited her aunt’s reply with one eye on the steamer tickets. She had only days before Lizzie must be on the ship. Even so, she knew if she did decide to leave home suddenly she would not be questioned or followed. It eased the tension that had been steadily building as escape plans came to fruition.
Coffey had been taken into their confidence, and Emily became aware of a clandestine world she hadn’t known existed on the plantation, that most of the slaves weren’t even aware of. Built into the hull of the schooner was a false deck that offered a narrow space in which to hide a person or two desperate enough to lie cramped for the many hours required of a trip downriver. Had she not proposed this escape herself, she never would have learned of it. She wondered if someone had lain beneath her feet during her one voyage.
On a Sunday morning early in December, Ketch announced that the rice shipment, pushed back through clever sabotage, was ready to depart the next day. Suddenly, the plan was no longer a vague notion but a reality. To avoid casting suspicion on the schooner crew, Ketch must make his escape beforehand—tonight. There could be no scent trail that led to the ship should Turnbull call in Cage and his dogs. It could lead only to the field where a rice boat would be stolen, and then ultimately to the river where it would be lost in many miles of water. Ketch would hide on the river overnight, find the passing schooner before the sun rose, and hole up in Charleston. Meanwhile, Robin would be smuggled to Emily’s room and placed in the trunk before she and Lizzie boarded the train two days later—the day the steamer would depart.
Aunt Margaret’s reply did not come before Ketch left.
But Jovie did.
He showed up just after noon and covered Emily’s eyes as she leaned against the pasture fence contemplating the immensity of her undertaking. “Guess who.”
He disguised his voice and she could not place it. Thad? She was not expecting him. Darius? She didn’t think so. Certainly not Jack. “Jovie?” she asked tentatively.
He chuckled. She whirled and threw her arms around his neck. “Jovie! What are you doing here?”
“I traveled five hundred miles just to see you,” he joked, tucking her comfortably beneath his chin.
“Are you well? Let me look at you!”
She pushed him out to arms’ length and inspected him closely, from impish smile, down the rumpled uniform, to the toes of his worn boots. He appeared thinner, trim but healthy, and his face radiated the warmth she well remembered. So familiar, yet so brand new. For since they had last spoken, she had studied page after page of his thoughts. She’d viewed the world through his eyes. She’d read his heart. As he stood before her now, she saw him far more clearly than ever before.
She beamed. “You look wonderful.” Then she noticed his knapsack. “Haven’t you been home?”
“I wanted to see you first. Your letters,” he caught her hands, “you have no idea how much they’ve meant to me. The connection with a real person removed from the insanity surrounding me...” He shook his head. “You’ve been my lifeline.”
She hadn’t thought her words all that impressive compared to the beautiful prose he sent her. “It’s bad?” she asked. “In camp?”
He dropped her hands. “Camp is tolerable. The fellas are a good sort for the most part.”
“But engagement?” she prompted.
His face and shoulders sagged. “You don’t even want to know.”
She didn’t. The specifics would haunt her sleeping and her waking. “Jovie, I pray every night that you never have to go through that again.”
“Thank you.” He touched her hair. “Richmond is still hoping for peace. We’re camped outside Washington doing nothing, because no one wants to provoke the lion. They’re hoping diplomacy will yet prevail. Neither side wants a prolonged war. I think there’s a good chance it will all end this winter.”
Hope leaped in her chest. Maybe this whole nightmare would soon be over. Maybe Jack and Jovie would even be sent home before their enlistment expired. Jack. She swiveled her neck. “Where’s my brother?”
“He wasn’t granted leave this time around. Probably after Christmas.”
“Is he…better?”
“He’s relaxed. He’s sober. Getting him out of Charleston and away from the company he was keeping is the best thing we could have done for him. He’s like a whole different person.”
She smiled. “You’re full of good news. Maybe you should come around more often.”
Jovie shifted his pack and she noticed for the first time that he had neither horse nor carriage. “Did you walk all the way from the train station?”
He shrugged. “It was nothing after all the marching I’ve been doing. Actually, it felt good to get off the train and move.” He held out an arm. “Walk me home?”
She fell in beside him.
“Have you painted anything new since your last letter?” he asked. “Sold any more portraits to departing soldiers?”
“No...” She drew out the word and stretched her face into a grimace. “That didn’t go over so well with my father. And things worsened quickly when he learned about my correspondence course.”
“Oh no. What happened?”
“Your sister, bless her careless heart, forwarded a letter addressed to my male pseudonym. My father ripped it open on his way home from the post office last week, pitched a pretty impress
ive fit, and threw me out of the house.”
Jovie stopped. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, he did. I’m to be out by Christmas.”
“What will you do?” He turned to face her.
“I’m leaving for Charleston in two days. Aunt Margaret invited me to stay with her.”
“Will you still pursue school?”
Her eyes blazed. “I’m more determined than ever.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry, Emily. I don’t mean to make light of your situation, but your response was so…you. I’m glad you haven’t given up. You need to chase this as far as it will lead you, and I’ll gladly do anything I can to help.”
“That means the world to me, Jovie. It’s hard to watch my father turn into someone I don’t recognize when I can’t make the choices he’d have me make.”
“He’ll come around. Just wait and see.”
They resumed walking. “How long are you home?”
“I have ten days’ leave, and I want to spend every minute I can with you. Mind if I ride along with you to Charleston? I wanted to visit some friends there anyway.”
She wanted to shout out Yes! but had to carefully consider her answer. Much more rode on this journey than her own pleasure. Jovie’s presence on the train, however, might work to her advantage. To act as escort and deflect suspicion.
He interpreted her hesitation as rejection. “It’s okay,” he said glumly. “It was too presumptuous.”
“Jovie, I would love your company. But what will your parents say? They’ll want to spend time with you, too.”
“Let me worry about my parents.” He reached down to grab her hand, his smile renewed. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t want to pull away. After losing the security of her father’s house, walking hand-in-hand with Jovie Cutler felt safe.
Emily left him at the edge of the woods before Fairview came into sight. After a few hours spent with his parents, Jovie rejoined her and Marie for dinner, effectively diverting Emily’s mind from apprehensions it otherwise would have dwelled on. He stayed until stars spangled the sky and cast their silver light on the purple velvet world below.
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