Stranger in Williamsburg Page 8

  And if the accusations were not false? The suspicion burned its way into her mind. What would she do then?

  Sarah arrived at the little brown house and knocked softly on the front door. When Gabrielle slid back the latch and let her in, Sarah saw at once that she was upset.

  “My cousin is here again, Sarah, and it still is not safe for him to go about the streets of Williamsburg, with hot-blooded Patriots on every corner and in every place of business.” She wiped the palms of her hands down her pale green skirt, and a wet spot appeared where each hand touched the silky material.

  “What can I do, Gabrielle?” Sarah asked, her thoughts going back to Uncle Ethan and his accusations. She couldn’t go to him for help. He was convinced Gabrielle was a spy.

  “Cherie, all I need is a map to help Alistair find a way to slip past the militiamen and out of town. If he can get to the James River, there will be a boat to take him where he will be safe.”

  “A map?” Sarah repeated. “But I don’t have a map, Gabrielle. I have never even seen one in the house.”

  “Your Uncle Ethan came home today, did he not? He will have one, cherie, in that little leather bag he carries.”

  Again, Sarah’s thoughts went to her uncle’s words about Gabrielle. “How do you know he came home? And how do you know he carries a map in his knapsack?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, all the soldiers do, cherie,” Gabrielle said with a nervous laugh, ignoring Sarah’s first question. “I am sure Colonel Armstrong is no exception.”

  “I can’t ask Uncle Ethan for help, Gabrielle. You see, he....”

  “Cherie, all I need is the map and the other papers your uncle carries in that bag. I cannot ask the Patriot Ethan Armstrong for help for my English cousin, whom they all believe is a spy, can I now? Will you get the papers for me, Sarah? You are my only hope!”

  “Gabrielle! You want me to steal papers from my uncle?”

  “Ah, non, cherie! Merely to borrow them for a very little while. Alistair is very bright, like you, Sarah. He can memorize the route out of here, and you can return the papers before your uncle ever knows they were gone.”

  Sarah’s thoughts tumbled. She couldn’t take her uncle’s papers, even if it were only to borrow them, and even if he never knew! And, besides, she didn’t really want to help the Englishman.

  “Cherie,” Gabrielle said, taking her by both arms and looking earnestly into her eyes. “My cousin’s life depends upon it. Surely you would not condemn an innocent man to death!”

  “Of course, not, Gabrielle! But I....”

  “Please do this one thing for me, cherie, and I will never ask you such a favor again! Only this once. And I will be eternally in your debt!”

  Sarah chewed her lip, her thoughts churning. She could not take her uncle’s papers! She could not aid an Englishman behind his back!

  “Please, cherie,” Gabrielle begged, sinking to her knees and holding up both hands in a pleading gesture. As Sarah watched in dismay, tears filled the beautiful dark eyes and spilled over onto the pink cheeks. “It is a matter of life and death, Sarah,” she added. “It will not hurt your uncle. He need never know. Just slip the papers out, let us see them, and slip them back while he sleeps.”

  She reached out and clasped Sarah’s hands in hers. “My own life will be in danger, cherie, if Alistair is found here in my house! Please, if you care for me at all, if our hours together have meant anything to you, save me now! You are the only one who can.”

  Sarah swallowed the fear rising in her throat. What harm could it do for them to see some old map? If she could get it without her uncle knowing. “I...I’ll think about it, Gabrielle,” she promised finally, unable to meet the gaze of the person she had grown to admire, to love above most others here in Williamsburg, and who now was asking such a hard thing of her.

  Confused and troubled, Sarah turned and left the house, hearing the latch slide quickly into place behind her.

  The night was as black as the inside of the maze, and Sarah’s thoughts were just as dark. Could she do this thing that seemed so important to her friend, this “matter of life and death”? Should she? Was Gabrielle her friend, or was she, as Uncle Ethan believed, a British spy bent on destroying Sarah’s own loved ones? What should she do?

  If only she could talk it over with Ma or Pa! If only there were someone she could talk to, someone she could trust to advise her! But there was no one. Except Uncle Ethan. She felt she could trust him, but he was convinced that Gabrielle was a spy.

  Sarah still found that almost impossible to believe. They had been so close, shared such a delightful companionship. It had to be real! Gabrielle just could not be what her uncle believed! And Gabrielle wanted Sarah’s help now. But could she do this awful thing?

  Chapter 12

  It was raining harder now, and Sarah wished she could go back inside the house after her cloak. But she didn’t dare. Not knowing anywhere else to go, she made her way to the Governor’s Palace gates, but they were locked.

  The wind was rising, blowing the cold, wet rain into her face as she turned to leave.

  “Miss Sarah?”

  At first, she thought she had heard her name on the wind, as she had when she was lost in the blizzard outside their cabin in Kentucky.

  “Miss Sarah, is that you?”

  Then she saw a lantern behind the iron gates, and recognized Marcus in its glow. “Yes, Marcus, it’s me!” she answered, knowing now that she had hoped to find him here.

  “What are you doing out so late on such a night, missy?” he scolded, unlocking the gates and drawing her inside. “You almost missed me. If it hadn’t been for a sick horse, I’d already be home eating supper! Come over here into the carriage house out of this weather and tell ole Marcus what’s wrong.”

  He seated her on an upturned wooden tub between two carriages, and draped his own cloak over her shoulders. She pulled the heavy cloak around her, shivering. “Oh, Marcus, I don’t know what to do!” she blurted out. “I need someone to talk to. I....”

  “Well, honey, you go right ahead and talk, and if there’s something he can do to help, ole Marcus will surely give it a try!” He sat on a small wooden keg across from her.

  Suddenly Sarah didn’t know what to say. She reached down to wring the water out of her soggy skirt and apron.

  “You see, Marcus,” she began finally, “I have this friend who means a lot to me. And she needs me to do something for her.” She stopped again, not knowing how to tell him her problem without betraying Gabrielle.

  He sat listening, waiting for her to continue, but she just sat there on the tub, wishing she had never come to Williamsburg, wishing... But, no, she did not regret coming here and meeting Gabrielle. She had learned so much from her. She had found such delight in her company. She just wished Alistair had never come to Williamsburg!

  Marcus took out a knife and began trimming his fingernails. The moving blade reminded Sarah of Luke and his carving, and Luke reminded her of Ma and Pa, and the tears began to fall. Marcus handed her a clean blue handkerchief. She looked up at him. She had grown very fond of the old man, but she yearned for her own family now, as he must have longed for his all these years. Her loneliness ached inside her.

  Sarah dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “My friend needs....” she began. But how could she explain it all to him without telling him about Alistair, about her uncle’s papers, about all the things that Gabrielle had asked her to keep secret?

  “Friends are mighty important in this mixed-up ole world,” Marcus said finally. “Even Almighty God gets lonesome for real, true friends. That’s why He made Adam and Eve, I reckon. After He got through making the world and all the wonderful things He put in it, He just wanted somebody to appreciate it. Like when I work hard to make these gardens look pretty, I’m glad you’re here to see them. If there’s nobody to share what you do, Miss Sarah, it just doesn’t seem so special.”

  Sarah wondered if he were thinking about his family a
nd the lonely years he had spent without anybody to share his life.

  “Most preachers don’t talk about it that way,” he said, “being so bound up in their ‘Do unto others,’ and their ‘Give unto me’s.’” He chuckled. “Even our rector here at Bruton Parish Church talks more about the war and our ‘duty’ to it, then he does our relationship with our Creator. He talks more about ‘secrets on the wind,’ than he does the Master of the wind.”

  Marcus sat there a moment, lost in thought, then he said, “If there are any secrets on the wind, Miss Sarah, I reckon they’re secrets God’s trying to whisper in our ears.”

  “What do you mean, Marcus?” she asked.

  “Well, I heard this preacher once,” he said. “It was during what they call ‘The Great Awakening of 1740.’ I was about thirty years old at the time, and ornery as they come! But, somehow, my ma got me to this meeting. And I’d never heard anything like it! I’ve never been the same since that night.”

  “What happened?” Sarah asked, everything else forgotten.

  “Well, I’d always thought our Creator was only concerned with ‘mankind’ in general, that we should just pray together in church about things like peace on earth and mercy for lost souls. But that preacher said God wants each one of us to be His personal friend, to hold a conversation with Him all day long, every day of our lives, just like I’m talking with you, here.”

  Sarah said nothing, her gaze fixed on the handkerchief she was twisting around her fingers. She had forgotten the damp chill of the unheated room, the beating of the rain on the carriage house roof, even why she had come here. Marcus talked about God just like her pa did, like he had just had breakfast with Him this morning!

  Suddenly, Sarah realized the old man had stopped talking, and she had missed whatever he had said last. She looked up at him questioningly.

  “The Son of Almighty God, Miss Sarah!” he breathed, his eyes glowing with the thought. “I just can’t get over Him loving a no-account rascal like me that much! That preacher said if I was the only human being alive on this earth, Jesus would have died for me! That makes Him and me pretty special friends, I reckon.”

  He eyed her closely. “But I don’t suppose your friend is asking you to do anything like that, is she?” he asked seriously, coming back to the topic at hand.

  Sarah shook her head. “No, Marcus, but to help her, I would have to do something my family would not like.” It sounded childish and unimportant after what Marcus had just told her.

  “Families are mighty important, too, Miss Sarah,” he said, as though he had read her thoughts. “Blood, they say, is thicker than water.”

  “But, Marcus, this wouldn’t be likely to hurt my family in any way. At least I don’t think so. It’s just that they wouldn’t understand what I need to do and why I need to do it.”

  Marcus pondered that a moment. “Will this deed you must do endanger you or anyone else in any way?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, no. In fact, it could save a life, maybe two.”

  “One of them being your friend?” She caught a gleam of amusement in his dark eyes before he lowered them to study his newly trimmed fingernails. Did he think she was playing some childish game? She hadn’t said her friend was an adult, but maybe it was better that way.

  “Well, if it wouldn’t hurt my family, and it would help someone else, then I guess I’d choose to help my friend,” he said, getting up from the keg and dropping the knife into his pocket. He reached out a hand to help her up from the tub. “The rain seems to have slacked off. Now, we’d better get you home before your aunt calls out the militia!” he said.

  Sarah laughed shakily. “Oh, Marcus, that’s all I need right now!”

  Her gaze fell on the tub where she’d been sitting. Carved into its thick wooden bottom was a cedar tree with an eagle perched on its top branch. The design was exactly the same as the carving on her cup and the drawing in Uncle Ethan’s study.

  “What is it, Miss Sarah?” Marcus asked anxiously, noticing her fixed stare.

  “That’s what I want to know!” she answered. “It seems I run into that carving everywhere I go!” She pointed to the tub, then told him about the verses on Uncle Ethan’s wall.

  “Why, that’s the mark of one of the Patriot groups working for the independence of the American colonies. Colonel Armstrong is one of its leaders. People who really believe in this Revolution carve or draw this and other symbols on their merchandise to show their support for the cause,” he explained.

  “But what does it mean, Marcus?”

  “Well, it comes from the Bible. Ezekiel, I think. Or maybe Isaiah. And I reckon it originally referred to Israel. But the Patriots claim the eagle represents the spirit of freedom. They believe the Lord, Himself, will dry up and bring down the tall cedar—the old rotten government of England—and cause the branch ‘planted by great waters’—the American colonies—to flourish,” he added, as they left the palace grounds and walked down Nicholson Street.

  At the Armstrong gate, Sarah handed Marcus his cloak and slipped quickly up the walk to the front door. When she looked back, all she could see was his lantern swinging in the darkness, turning north down Botetourt Street.

  She tried the door, but it was locked! She hadn’t even thought about not being able to get back in after Hester locked up for the night. Was there a chance the back door might be unlocked? Sarah ran around the house and pushed against the unyielding wood. Frantically, she looked around, and her gaze fell on the open parlor window. In their distress over Gabrielle, Uncle Ethan and Aunt Charity must have forgotten it.

  Quickly, she climbed inside. She removed her wet shoes and stockings and carried them over to where the embers from the evening’s fire still cast a faint warmth. She set her shoes on the hearth and hung her stockings over the fire screen. She held out her chilled hands, and then one foot at a time to the fire’s fading glow.

  Marcus’s advice had been just what she needed, even if he had thought it was some childish game she played. He had said he would help a friend.

  His words about Jesus came back to her. Marcus had said He was a special friend. Would He approve of what she was about to do? She didn’t know. But if He understood about friendship, He would know how she felt about Gabrielle and why she wanted to help her.

  Well, if I’m going to help my friend, she thought, forcing herself away from the welcome fire, I’d better get it done, before I wake Uncle Ethan—or anybody else.

  She padded barefoot down the hall to her uncle’s study, pushed the door open, and fumbled in the dark for the candle that always sat on the desk. She picked it up, and unable to find the tinderbox, carried it back to the parlor to light it from the fire. Then, shielding the feeble flame with her hand, she took the candle back to the study and set it on the desk.

  Before her lay the stained leather bag Uncle Ethan had brought into the house earlier today. She threw a glance over her shoulder. The flickering candlelight sent shadows dancing around the room, and, for a moment, she thought she saw someone standing in the doorway. As she moved to close the door, she saw it was only another shadow.

  Sarah’s glance fell on the framed Scripture from Ezekiel. The candle that threw a warm pool of light over the desk, cast a deep shadow over the wall where the Scripture hung. She could not make out the words, but at least now she knew what they were supposed to mean and why Uncle Ethan had them hanging there. Her little cup was more than just something to hold a drink, she thought proudly. It carried a symbol of the Revolution.

  “Sarah, you are only procrastinating,” she scolded herself silently. “You don’t want to do what you know you have to do.”

  Quickly, her heart racing, she opened the pouch and removed the papers inside. She spread them over the desk. There was the map with all kinds of strange markings on it that were completely incomprehensible to her. The other papers seemed to be some kind of charts and lists, probably explaining the map, she decided. She couldn’t imagine why Gabrielle and her cousin
wanted them, but Gabrielle had made it very clear that she should bring all of the papers.

  Sarah folded them back into their original creases and shoved them into her apron pocket. Then she replaced the pouch exactly where she had found it.

  Sarah returned to the parlor and put on her wet stockings and shoes. She crept back down the hall and wrapped her cloak around her damp dress.

  For a moment, she stood listening to the silence of the sleeping house, longing for the comfort of Abigail’s deep, warm featherbed upstairs. Then, making sure the door was unlatched, she stepped out into the wet, dark night.

  Chapter 13

  “Ah, cherie. I knew you would not let me down!” Gabrielle exclaimed, as she let Sarah into the shop. “I knew you would help your Gabrielle. But it has been so long. We were worried about you.”

  Sarah said nothing, watching the man in the parlor doorway. He held out his hand. “The papers,” he demanded.

  Gabrielle threw him a look that made him drop the hand to his side and step back into the room behind him. She drew Sarah into the parlor and over to the fireplace.

  “Give me your wet cloak and your shoes and stockings, Sarah. I will hang them here by the fire to dry while Alistair examines the papers.” She stopped with the cloak in her hand. “You did bring them, did you not, cherie?”

  Sarah reached into her pocket and took out the papers. She held them out to Gabrielle, but it was Alistair who grabbed them from her and spread them out on the round table under the lamp.

  “Come, cherie. Sit by the fire, and I will fix some hot chocolate to warm your bones. What a miserable night it is, with the rain and the wind. I suppose the pretty leaves will be soggy piles beneath the trees by morning, and the flowers will be nothing more than a pleasant memory.”

  Still, Sarah said nothing. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she would be sick. Nothing about this seemed right. She sat by the fire, sipping the hot chocolate Gabrielle brought her, wishing she had never taken the papers, wishing she were home in bed and could wake up and realize it all had been just a bad dream.