Stranger in Williamsburg Page 12

  Sarah glanced at Tabitha, but she continued to work on her quilt. Abigail, though, had stopped playing the harpsichord, and sat watching the doorway.

  “Well, your tutor is out of gaol,” Uncle Ethan said. He strode to the fireplace and leaned wearily against the mantel.

  Sarah heard Tabitha’s sigh of relief, though she never looked up from her quilt. Abigail picked up her tune where she had left it.

  “Where is she, Uncle Ethan?” Sarah asked hesitantly.

  “Only God knows!” he answered gruffly. “And I don’t care, so long as she’s far away from here! By now she should be well on her way to Norfolk, with a healthy contingent of militiamen to make sure she catches the next ship back to France.”

  Sarah felt her heart drop like a stone. Gabrielle was gone! She would never see her again!

  She looked at each of their faces. Tabitha was intent on her stitching. Abigail played her merry tune, keeping time with the swaying of her head. Uncle Ethan stared into the fire. None of them showed a hint of concern for the former tutor, turned spy.

  “You must forgive to be forgiven, Miss Sarah,” Marcus had said. She had been forgiven, though, by her uncle and his family, and, she supposed, by God. But Gabrielle was on her way out of the country, with the heavy burden of Sarah’s judgment upon her.

  Sarah’s heart ached. Their relationship had been so special. Gabrielle had taught Tabitha and Abigail what they wanted to know, what Aunt Charity wanted them to know. But for her, she had opened a window on the world that Sarah knew could never be shut again as long as she lived.

  With words, Gabrielle had taken her to London, to Paris and Rome, to Boston and Philadelphia. She had shown her the gardens of Versailles, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the art treasures of the Louvre. She had ridden the canals of Venice, and explored the rich vineyards and country estates of Bordeaux. Never again would she be the same ignorant, country girl who had stood on Duke of Gloucester Street last May and thought it the most exciting place in the world.

  Thanks to Gabrielle, she thought sadly.

  Suddenly, Sarah knew she had to see Gabrielle again, just once more before the opportunity was lost to her forever.

  Chapter 19

  Sarah stood in front of the brown house, hoping against hope that the blue door would swing open, and Gabrielle would appear. She pictured her standing on the stoop with her luggage around her, getting into a carriage, turning to look at her out of sorrowful eyes, and raising one hand in a graceful farewell as the carriage pulled away.

  Sarah recalled the easy companionship of the hours she had spent with the beautiful French-English lady—listening, learning, laughing, as Gabrielle became her dearest friend.

  “You and I are cut from the same cloth, Cherie,” she had said once, as she cut a fashionable new dress from a golden silk brocade. Sarah had looked up questioningly from her translations, and Gabrielle had laughed that warm, bubbling laugh that always sent ripples of excitement through her. “We share the cat’s intelligence, curiosity, and love of adventure, Cherie. But, alas, we also share the hardheadedness, the stubbornness, the determination to do things our own way.”

  She had laughed again, and reached out to brush the hair back from Sarah’s eyes. “Be careful, little kitten,” she had warned, “or you will use up your nine lives early, as I suspect I am sure to do.”

  Sarah could almost see her standing there on the stoop of the little house where they had spent so many happy hours together. But, of course, her beautiful tutor did not appear, and, sadly, Sarah walked on down Waller Street toward the Capitol.

  Had Gabrielle used up her nine lives? Or would she go back to England, or to France, and make a new life there? Would she tutor some other young girl, open for her that window on the world she had led Sarah to look through?

  Suddenly, Sarah knew that it did not matter what Gabrielle had done. Like Marcus and the slave trader, she supposed she would never forget. But nothing could cancel out the exciting things she had taught her, the joy of learning and adventure she had given her. They would continue for the rest of her life.

  “I have to see her!” she choked. “I have to tell her that!”

  Sarah crossed the Capitol grounds to Duke of Gloucester Street and wandered its length, unaware of the merchandise that beckoned from the shop windows or of the unconcerned crowd that jostled her.

  “I have to see her!” she repeated. But Uncle Ethan had said that Gabrielle was well on her way to Norfolk. If only she could overtake her, talk to her just for a moment! But how?

  “If ever you need a friend, all you have to do is yell.” The words echoed through her memory. Marcus! She would find Marcus and ask him to take her to Norfolk.

  She hurried to the palace grounds, but the gates were locked, and Marcus was nowhere to be seen. Had he gone home for supper? Where was his home? She recalled watching him walk away from her the night he had encouraged her to help her friend. He had gone north at Botetourt Street, but where he had gone from there, she had no idea.

  Abigail had told her that many of the freed slaves of Williamsburg had cottages on the outskirts of town in a place known as “Raccoon’s Chase.”

  Sarah took the back alley to Botetourt, then headed north across the fields in the Chase’s general direction. Soon she came to a row of small wooden houses along a muddy path. Was one of them Marcus’s? If so, which one? Sarah carefully made her way down the path, stepping on stones and an occasional tuft of weeds to keep out of the mud. She smelled wood smoke mingled with the rancid odor of old bacon grease and wrinkled her nose.

  Then she knew which house was his. It had to be the one with the marigolds and asters abloom along a walk made of broken bricks. The walk led to a very small house with a deep red front door. The flowers were the same kinds as those in the park below the palace gardens that Marcus tended with such care, and the bricks were the same color as some in a pile she had seen in the gardens.

  At her knock, Marcus came to the door with a big wooden spoon in one hand. He had a white dish towel tied around his waist. “Why, Miss Sarah!” he gasped. “What’s wrong?”

  All at once, the words just tumbled out. “Oh, Marcus, she’s gone, and I’ve just got to see her once more! I didn’t get a chance to forgive her, like you said I must do! And I know now that I really need to do that, Marcus. I need to tell her….”

  “Hey, slow down, missy!” he begged. “Who’s gone? Your tutor? And where has she gone? Do you know?”

  She nodded miserably, swallowing the tears that threatened again. How could there be any more tears, she wondered, after all she had shed? “They’re taking her to Norfolk to catch the next ship to France.”

  “They’ve released her from gaol? Then, honey, she’s blessed to be going home! I was sure they’d hang her!”

  “But, Marcus, if I could just follow her to Norfolk! Surely the ship won’t sail as soon as she gets there. And I could talk with her, tell her I have forgiven her. It was important to her, Marcus! She begged me to remember the good times we shared. And we did share so many! But I told her I’d never forgive her if I lived to be 200 years old!”

  Why was he staring at her that way? She paused for breath, but the words would not be stopped. “And now she’s gone, and I don’t know how to reach her in France, and she’ll spend the rest of her life thinking I hate her. But I don’t. She wronged me, but before that, she gave me so much, Marcus! I’ve just got to tell her! And you promised….”

  “All right, Miss Sarah!” he laughed, raising his hands in surrender, the wooden spoon sticking up out of one fist like a frozen banner. “Now, calm down,” he went on. “I know ole Marcus promised to come running whenever you called for help. And I’ll do my best, but, first, let me think a little.”

  He held the door open for her. “Come on in while I finish cleaning up after my supper,” he added.

  She followed him into a room that seemed to serve as parlor, bedroom, and kitchen, all in one. A wooden bedstead covered
with a faded patchwork quilt filled one corner, with a washstand holding a cracked pitcher and bowl beside it. A rocking chair and another wooden chair sat before a brick fireplace, where a small iron kettle hung from a crane, much like the one in their cabin back in Kentucky. Sarah caught a whiff of mustard greens and corn bread. Her stomach growled emptily.

  “You hungry, missy?” Marcus asked quickly, and she felt her face flush with embarrassment that he had heard. But she was starved! It had been a long time since the noon meal, which she had barely tasted.

  He motioned her to one of two mismatched chairs pushed under a small table by the fireplace. She pulled out one of them and sat down, watching him ladle greens onto a tin plate and place a small piece of fat pork on top. He sat the plate on the table in front of her, and bent over a griddle on the hearth to cut her a piece of corn bread. He laid it beside her plate.

  “Sorry, I won’t have any butter until my cow freshens, but there’s cider vinegar there on the table,” he said, placing a fork beside the plate and handing her a second dish towel to use for a napkin. “You eat a bite, while I try to think what to do.”

  Sarah took the fork and pushed the fat pork aside. Then she reached for the vinegar and sprinkled it over the greens. She began to eat. Marcs dipped a wooden dipper into a bucket and filled a stoneware mug with water, and she drank from it thirstily, washing down the tart greens and dry bread.

  “We’ll need horses and a carriage,” he mused, swinging the crane away from the fire, and wrapping the leftover corn bread in a cloth to keep it fresh.

  “Just horses will do, Marcus,” she answered around a mouthful of greens. “I rode to Virginia from Kentucky on horseback. And a carriage will only slow us down.”

  He nodded. “We’ll have to get permission from your folks. Your uncle knows me well, but I don’t know if he will….”

  “Oh, no, Marcus!” she cried in alarm. “They would never let me go! You mustn’t ask!”

  “But, Miss Sarah, I can’t take you off to Norfolk without the consent of your family!”

  “Marcus, please!” she begged. “They will never agree!”

  “But, missy….”

  “I know!” she interrupted his protest. “I’ll leave them a note to find after we’re well on our way. By the time they read it, we’ll be halfway home!”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “Aw, no, Miss Sarah. I could get in a heap of trouble….”

  “All right!” she said, getting up from the table. “I thought you would help me. You’re the only friend I have in Williamsburg, now that Gabrielle….” She abandoned that sentence, and said, “I’ll just have to find some other way, then.” She headed for the door.

  “Now, hold on, missy!” Marcus called after her, slipping the hole in the handle of the wooden spoon over a nail in the fireplace mantel. “Ole Marcus will do his best to help.” He sighed. “I’m pretty sure the governor would trust me with a couple of horses. But I just can’t take you traipsing around over the countryside without Colonel Armstrong’s blessing!”

  She gave him a thin smile that would have done Aunt Charity credit. “It’s all right, Marcus. I’m sorry to have bothered you, and I’m much obliged for the supper.” With that, she left the cottage, closing the red door firmly behind her.

  She half expected him to come running after her. When he didn’t, she walked dejectedly down the path and across the fields, trying to think of some way to carry out her plan to overtake Gabrielle.

  She supposed she would have to borrow one of Uncle Ethan’s horses, perhaps the one he had sent with Nate to carry her from Kentucky. The horse was gentle and had obeyed her well.

  Sarah didn’t want to go back to the Armstrong house, but she knew it would be better if she did. She could go to bed with the rest of the family, then slip out later when everyone was asleep. This would give her a head start on anyone who might come after her.

  Sarah crept back inside the house just as the family was sitting down to supper. Her stomach rejected the sight of fried chicken and biscuits with rich milk gravy. She had to pretend to eat, though. She couldn’t risk arousing suspicion. Still, she was full of greens and corn bread!

  “What’s wrong, Sarah, are you ill?” Aunt Charity asked finally. “You’ve hardly touched your chicken.”

  “And it’s your favorite!” Megan said, chewing on a crispy drumstick. “Mine, too!” she added.

  “That’s obvious!” Tabitha said, pointing to the pile of bones on her little sister’s plate.

  Sarah laughed with them, trying again to finish the wing she had allowed Aunt Charity to put on her plate. “I…I don’t feel very well,” she excused herself.

  “It’s all right, Sarah,” Uncle Ethan said kindly. “You’ve had a very trying day, and I think your mind is occupied with something besides food.”

  Sarah looked up in alarm. Had he read her mind? Had he, somehow, discovered her plans? She didn’t want to deceive him again. If only she could take the horse, ride after Gabrielle, and be back before they awoke in the morning! Surely the militiamen guarding Gabrielle would make camp for the night close by. It must have been late in the afternoon when they left Williamsburg. Surely they wouldn’t travel far by night!

  Finally, the meal and a long evening in the parlor, spent listening to Abigail’s harpsichord tinkle out her father’s favorite tunes, were over, and they all went upstairs to bed.

  Sarah lay in the big bed beside Abigail, waiting for sleep to overtake the household.

  Chapter 20

  Sarah felt the icy fingers of fear brush the back of her neck as she rode down the deserted road beneath a black, empty sky. She threw a glance over her shoulder. Were those horses’ hooves she heard? But the night wrapped itself around everything, as thick as a quilt stuffed with goose feathers. On either side of her, the dark forest rose up, with an occasional pair of yellow eyes watching in silence as she passed.

  She dug her heels into the little mare’s sides, urging her on through the mud. Sarah had been so wrapped up in her plan to see Gabrielle again that she hadn’t thought about how scary it would be out alone in the middle of the night, with wild animals and redcoats and maybe even robbers lurking in the trees.

  Again, she thought she heard horses’ hooves behind her. She strained to hear above the plopping of the mare’s feet along the muddy road. She couldn’t be very far from Williamsburg. Was Uncle Ethan already on her trail? Had he gone out to the stables and found Gracie missing? Had he caught on to her questions at supper about the route to Norfolk?

  She had wasted too much time saddling and bridling the horse, she thought. Gracie, the little brown mare she had ridden from Kentucky, had recognized her and stood quietly while Sarah slipped the bridle over her head and the bit into her mouth. But it had been more difficult to fasten the saddle girth under Gracie’s stomach than she had realized, and her head start before Uncle Ethan found her note was cut short.

  Suddenly, a horse whinnied behind her. Gracie gave an answering whinny. “Shhh!” Sarah ordered. It could be Uncle Ethan behind her. Or, worse, it could be a redcoat soldier, or even a robber! Of course, she had nothing worth stealing, except, perhaps, the little tin cup she had tucked into her pocket for Gabrielle. A robber, though, wouldn’t know that she had nothing of value.

  She pulled Gracie to the side of the road, slipped off her back, and led her into the trees. Sarah prayed that her follower would not hear the faint creak of the leather saddle or the jingle of metal on the bridle.

  She could see the barest outline of a horse and rider now, coming toward her at a fast pace. She held her breath as they went past and were lost in the darkness ahead.

  The sound of hooves had barely died away, and she had just started back toward the road, when she heard more hooves, coming again from the direction of Williamsburg. Sarah shrank back into the trees, listening to her heart pounding against her ribs. Surely it could be heard down on the road!

  Then the approaching horse whinnied. She wrapped both hands ar
ound the mare’s mouth and nose to keep her from answering. Even so, Gracie gave a little ripple of sound from deep in her throat.

  Horse and rider stopped dead still in the center of the road. “Easy, Jake!” the man said softly. “Ole Marcus hears something over there in the woods.”

  Marcus! Was it truly Marcus, or had she imagined the softly spoken name? And if it were Marcus, had he changed his mind and decided to help her after all? Or had he been sent by Uncle Ethan to bring her home? There was no way to find answers to her questions without revealing her presence.

  “Miss Sarah?” he called softly. “Is that you there in the woods?”

  All at once, Sarah no longed cared why he had come. She was just glad he was there. She led Gracie toward the road, calling, “Marcus! It’s me! Sarah! I’m here!”

  He dismounted and came toward her. He bent and held his hands for her to place her foot on like a mounting block, and swung her up onto the mare’s back. He then walked over to the horse he was riding.

  “Colonel Armstrong let me borrow Jake to come after you,” he explained.

  “First, Gabrielle, and then you, Marcus,” she said angrily. “Why did you betray me to Uncle Ethan?” He probably wouldn’t have found my note until morning!” She felt bolder now that she was no longer alone.

  “Well, missy,” he answered, swinging back up into Jake’s saddle in one easy motion, “I got to thinking how dangerous it is out here on the road at night, especially for a young lady traveling alone, and I just couldn’t let you do it. And, as I told you, I couldn’t come with you without your family’s permission. Besides, I have no horse of my own.” He chuckled, then said seriously, “But, as I was talking with your uncle, a messenger came from the governor, telling the colonel that Devon has escaped from gaol.”

  Sarah gasped, remembering the lone rider who had galloped past her just minutes ago. Could it have been Alistair? She shivered at the thought of encountering the cold-eyed, cold-hearted spy out there alone in the darkness. Then she related to Marcus what she had seen and heard.