Secret Tides Page 7

  Josh sat up straighten “Marshall?”

  “Yes.”

  “How in the world?”

  “It’s all a little fuzzy. But he took a fall somehow, hit his head. Killed him straight out. Happened yesterday, right before supper.”

  “He drinking?”

  “Nobody said.”

  “Most likely, though.”

  Anna rubbed her forehead, her fingers digging into her skin. “Camellia and Stella were there. They saw it happen.”

  “Where was he?”

  “In the cookhouse.”

  Josh’s brow wrinkled. What was Tessier doing in the cookhouse? That didn’t make sense. He started to ask Anna but stopped because he knew she’d have no answer. He stood and walked to the room’s only window, an open square a few feet from the bed. “Grim news. It’ll stir up lots of things, for sure.” He stared out in the direction of the manse, torn about what to do. Although Anna needed him, he also knew he should go find York. At such a time York would need his help. To his relief, Anna brought it up for him.

  “You ought to go see York,” she said. “He’ll want you close by.”

  Josh’s heart filled with love for his wife. Anna read him better than he did himself. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’ll take some more tonic. I’m fine now that I know you are home.”

  “I won’t stay gone long,” he promised. “Just need to find out what’s happening.”

  “Do what you need. I’ll get better soon. Always do.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Again he thought of the man at Mossy Bank Creek. The urge to say out loud what had happened pushed at his chest like a high river shoving at a dam. Somehow he knew that the longer he kept the secret, the harder it would be to tell it, the more difficult to let it out in the air. If he didn’t get it said soon, it would harden in his throat like mud in the sun’s heat. But when he started to speak, Anna interrupted him.

  “Go on,” she urged. “I’m fine.”

  Josh nodded. No reason to bother Anna right now, not while she hurt so much, and not while York needed to see him. Right now he had no time to go into the detail he’d need to explain if he told her all that had happened.

  “I’ll see you in a while,” he said. “Just let me talk to York. Make sure he’s doing all right.”

  She nodded, and Josh kissed her one final time. Then he left, his mind filled with troublesome thoughts.

  Chapter Five

  The fields were quiet as Hampton York turned the wagon up the gravel path that led the last two hundred yards to The Oak. He took a deep breath and glanced back at Ruby. “This here is the finest plantation in the whole state,” he said. “We got close to eighteen hundred acres in crops. Not just rice neither. Corn, oats, beans, sweet taters.” He waved his hand over the area. “Got at least seventy-five cows, about sixty horses, a hundred and fifty cattle, maybe seventy hogs.” He grinned. “I run the whole thing. Mr. Tessier and me.”

  “You’re a mighty big man, I reckon.”

  York narrowed his eyes at the uppity tone in her voice. But he felt too pleased to punish her for it. “We do close to fifty thousand bushels of rice a year. Over a million pounds. Got our own mill, bring in fifty to sixty thousand a year. You do that good at the Rushton place?”

  “None of that my business,” she replied.

  York took out a chew of tobacco, slipped it into his lips. He gazed across the land. The sun had just about disappeared. York saw nobody moving about and heard no sound except a dog barking in the distance. He sat up straighten Things were too quiet, even for this time of day. Concerned, he tapped the mules with the traces. By the time he reached the oaks bordering the road, he was sure something had happened.

  Jumping from the wagon at the main barn, he ran the last fifty yards, his feet heavy in black boots. A stocky middle-aged black man about half his size met him a few feet from the manse, his toothless mouth set somber. “Put my horse up, Leather Joe,” York ordered. “Take my saddlebags to my house.” The servant quickly ran off, his bare feet kicking up dust.

  Stella met York on the manse’s front porch, her hands clutching her apron.

  “He be dead,” she said as she rushed down the steps. “Master Tessier fell in the cookhouse yesterday. Smashed his skull like a peach under a hammer.”

  “What nonsense you sayin’?” York demanded, not able to grasp what she had said.

  Stella shook her head side to side. “It be the gospel truth,” she insisted. “Mrs. Tessier took to the bed, her heart is so broke.”

  York grunted but didn’t say a word. Stella knew as well as he that Mr. and Mrs. Tessier were anything but a happy couple. Although a man of great means, Tessier came from rougher stock than his lady, and there was almost twenty years’ difference in their ages. She stayed in Charleston most of the time; had only come to The Oak in the last couple of weeks after the fever season had pretty much ended. But good marriage or not, this news would surely have knocked Mrs. Tessier off her feet.

  “What happened?” he asked, still not moving.

  Stella clucked her teeth and told him the tale. York raised his eyebrows as she spoke but didn’t interrupt. When she finished, he tried to clear his head but found it hard. Such a thing shook up a man, no two ways about it. He spat tobacco juice, wishing Josh hadn’t gone home yet. At a time like this a man needed somebody to talk things out with. Somebody he could trust.

  “How’s Camellia?” he asked.

  “Okay, I reckon. Not perky, you know. Upset by seein’ Tessier dead and all. But she be a strong young woman. Give her some time; she’ll move ahead just fine.”

  York, recalling what Camellia had told him about Tessier’s advances, started to ask Stella a question. But then he decided against it. No reason to raise a matter like that at a time like this. “Camellia at home?” he asked instead.

  “Yep. Chester and Johnny are stayin’ close to her. Me too, when I get the chance.”

  York considered going to Camellia. But since the boys were with her, he figured he could take care of a few things first. “Mrs. Tessier in her room?”

  “Yep. I expect she be heavy-eyed, if you know what I mean.”

  York nodded. Mrs. Tessier took generous doses of laudanum—a mixture of whiskey and opium—almost every afternoon, even in good times. No telling how much she’d take to deal with this.

  “You got servants with her?”

  “A couple. Trenton be there too.”

  “Trenton? How’d he get here?”

  “He was in Beaufort for somethin’ or other, I don’t know what. But Mrs. Tessier sent for him soon as it happened. He rode in last night. Been with her ever since, sittin’ close by.”

  York took off his hat and scratched his head. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind. Although mean as a swamp snake, Mr. Tessier knew how to run a plantation, no doubt about that. He loved it too, wouldn’t leave the place during the hot months of May through October, like so many plantation owners did. No sir, Mr. Tessier stayed on his plantation most all the time, worked as hard as anybody. It wasn’t easy making one prosperous. Fact was, a lot of plantations, even some of the largest, lived right on the edge of hard times. With most of their value tied up in land, buildings, and darkies, a couple of years of bad harvests or low prices pushed most of them right to the edge of going broke. York knew because he and Mr. Tessier had come up against the matter more than once. Only a calm head, hard labor, and sharp dealings kept the place in business.

  “It be all right,” Stella said softly. “We get past this.”

  York looked sharply at her. “I don’t know. Without Tessier around, all manner of things could break loose. You know Mrs. Tessier. She hardly lifts a hand around here and knows next to nothin’ about runnin’ a plantation.”

  Stella nodded. “She don’t care much about The Oak, that’s the truth. Just likes how it keeps her livin’ the fine life, like those folks in Charleston and up in New Yawk or somewheres. No way to count on h
er if times get tough.”

  A second thought came to York, one that both pleased and frightened him. Without Tessier around, Mrs. Tessier would have to depend on him more than her husband ever did. No one else could handle the place! Yet, if anything happened, he’d get all the blame. With power came responsibility. Vexed by his situation, he started up the steps to go to Mrs. Tessier.

  “What you want done with her?” Stella asked, pointing at Ruby, who had quietly left the wagon and joined them by the steps.

  York stared at Ruby. He’d completely forgotten about the new darky. “She’s to help you in the kitchen—house too if you need it.”

  “I train her?”

  “Yep.”

  “Step over,” Stella told Ruby. Ruby obeyed, her eyes down.

  “She be a fine lookin’ child,” said Stella, eyeing her head to toe. “Reckon Mr. Tessier be lookin’ down feelin’ right sad he didn’t live to break her into the place just right.”

  “You mean lookin’ up?” asked York, with a twist of his lips.

  Stella chuckled.

  York turned serious again real fast. “No time for foolishness.” He headed up the steps. “Just take her to the back and leave her there. Tell Leather Joe when he puts up my horse to leave my saddlebags in the stall. Then get me a clean shirt and meet me inside. I got things to attend to.”

  Stella slipped away. York took off his hat and entered the house. A black man wearing a long gray coat, white shirt, and black pants met him in the entry, his wide shoulders almost filling up the doorway.

  “Afternoon, Obadiah,” York said.

  “It’s a awful bad day,” Obadiah replied.

  “You buildin’ a box for him?”

  “Yes, sir. I finish it up pretty quick. Will lay Mr. Tessier out in the parlor in the finest box anybody around here ever did see.”

  “Mrs. Tessier approve what you’re plannin’?”

  “Yes sir, I tell her, and she say go on and do it. She liked it that I’m gone cut prayin’ hands right into the sides.”

  York nodded. Obadiah, a free man of color who lived about halfway between The Oak and Beaufort, handled wood better than anybody he’d ever seen. When not building boxes for the dead—white folks and black—he shaped other furniture—tables and cabinets and such. Folks said he could make wood of just about any kind come alive in his hands.

  “I best get back to work,” said Obadiah. “Got to finish up the box, then get a hole dug for it.”

  York nodded. Not only did Obadiah build the coffins, he took care of burying the dead too. “You know when the parson is comin’?”

  “Nope, nobody said nothin’ to me. But I be ready when the time comes, you know that.”

  York watched Obadiah leave. He’d known the black man ever since he came to The Oak. Close to forty now, Obadiah had gotten his freedom papers the year his pa—a white shipbuilder and land baron from Savannah—died. That happened every now and again: A white man who had taken up with a slave woman would let the offspring of the union go free once he had passed on. Obadiah’s pa had left it in his will that all his servant children—four in number—would receive twenty acres of land, fifty dollars in cash, and papers of freedom ten days after he died. Nineteen at the time, Obadiah had immediately moved from Savannah, taken up residence on his new land, and started building boxes for the dead. He’d done well for himself.

  York faced the entryway to the manse again. Although he’d worked over fifteen years with Mr. Tessier, he’d never entered through the front door. A large table with a tall oblong mirror sat to his left. A staircase with a shiny wood rail hugged the wall to his right, disappearing into the heights of the second floor. A number of smooth rugs—most of them a shade of burgundy or gold—lay on the hardwood floor. The ceiling, cut with a circular pattern in the center, loomed at least sixteen feet overhead. About halfway up the wall to the ceiling hung a mammoth full-length portrait of Mr. Marshall Tessier. He wore a red jacket with a black collar and gold buttons and a lacy white shirt, buttoned at the neck. Black pants and boots clean enough to eat off of glistened from the painting. A hound dog lay at his feet on a gold rug.

  York took off his hat as if in reverence. What he wouldn’t do to have his portrait hanging in the front room of a fine house like this one! It was about as high an honor as a man could get! A frightening idea hit him. Mrs. Tessier wouldn’t stay a widow for long. With this kind of property, a line of men as long as a row of cotton would head to her house as soon as Mr. Tessier turned cold in the grave. Surely somebody would win her hand pretty quick. What would that mean for him? A new owner might bring his own overseer. Hampton York clenched his fists. How dare somebody come along who might boot him off the place!

  As Stella stepped from the back of the house, he pushed away his ill thoughts. She tossed him an old but clean brown shirt. Without explaining, he slipped it over the one he wore.

  Stella pointed to his arm. “You hurtin’, I see.”

  “Nothin’ to it,” he said quickly. “Snagged it on some brambles.” Stella grunted but didn’t argue. “I take you to Mrs. Tessier. But remember, she might not be too clearheaded.”

  “I’ll pay my respects, then leave her alone.”

  Stella led him up the staircase. “Where that girl Ruby come from?” she asked.

  “Virginia. A man died, and his wife had to sell some of their Negroes to raise cash.”

  “That not gone happen here, is it?”

  “Reckon not,” he said as confidently as he could muster. “We’ll do just fine.” Just then they reached the top of the stairs. “Never been up here.”

  Stella laughed quietly. “It’s a purty place. Fancy as a Charleston hotel. Not that I ever seed one, mind you.” She stopped by a double wood door. “I’ll see if she’s open-eyed.”

  York waited while Stella stepped into the room and closed the door. He peered over the balcony at the splendid house. What a man wouldn’t give for a place like this! He let his mind wander. How much money did Tessier actually have? What had it cost to build this place? How did a man ever come to such a fortune?

  The bedroom door opened, and he turned to see Trenton Tessier stepping out and closing the door. The boy looked tired; his brown eyes sagged.

  “I’m sorry to hear of your father’s death,” York quickly said, his tone as proper as he could make it. “A shock to all of us. Have you sent for Calvin?”

  Trenton nodded as York mentioned the youngest of Tessier’s four children, the fourteen-year-old boy who attended the same boarding school that Trenton was about to finish. “I sent Uncle Bob for him and my two sisters,” he said, mentioning the house servant who drove the family carriage. “They should arrive soon.”

  York thought of Martha and Miranda, Tessier’s two daughters. They had married brothers from a banking family in Charleston and lived there now. They were two of the vainest, meanest women he’d ever known.

  “How is Miss Camellia?” asked Trenton. “A shame she had to see this happen.”

  York eyed him hopefully. “I came straight here, so I haven’t seen her yet. But I’m sure she’s brokenhearted and will want to pay her respects to Mrs. Tessier as soon as possible.”

  “Tell her … tell her …” Trenton stopped and shook his head.

  York shifted his feet. Trenton and Camellia had grown up together, played with each other like brother and sister. York knew Camellia had some hopes about their future. Even though he feared she’d set her sights too high, he wanted to help make the match any way he could. York dropped his eyes. Camellia deserved a better pa than him, a better …

  “I’ll inform Camellia that you’ve come home,” he replied in the most proper English he could muster.

  “I’ll see her as soon as I can,” Trenton said.

  York changed the subject. “Your father was a fine man.”

  “He was a scoundrel, and we both know it,” Trenton replied in a stony voice. “No use pretending anything else.”

  York started to protest, th
en hesitated. If young Mr. Tessier wanted to face the facts so clearly, then so be it. Yet he still felt cautious. What if this was some kind of test, a ruse to see where his loyalties rested?

  “Every man has his faults,” he said, deciding on a middle course. “Even your pa. But he knew a thing or two about a plantation. And he always treated me fair; his darkies too.”

  Trenton eyed him, and York returned the stare. Just past nineteen, Trenton was dressed stylishly in a ruffled green shirt, tapered mustard-colored slacks, and a wide-buckled black belt. A man of medium height, thin shoulders, and short-cropped brown hair, he needed only a few more months to finish his schooling. Then he’d take his place as a grown man in the finest of the South’s society circles.

  “I’ve come to see Lady Tessier,” York said, deciding to get on with the matters at hand. “Express my sympathies; see what she needs.”

  “Mother is resting,” Tessier said firmly. “Perhaps you should visit her after she’s had time to settle some.”

  York noted the fine diction of the young master. Obviously, his schooling had given him a lot more polish than his dead sire. But did that mean he was kinder too? Less bent on his own way?

  York recalled an instance from several years earlier.

  At the request of Mrs. Tessier, Obadiah had shaped a bust of young Trenton, but Trenton had immediately disliked it. Hauling the offending carving before his father in his library, Trenton demanded that Obadiah receive a whipping.

  “He made my shoulders as thin as a lamb’s!” he railed.

  Sitting by Tessier’s desk, York thought the bust captured the young boy’s body almost exactly. “You’ve not filled out yet,” York said, hoping to calm the boy. “Wait a couple of years and let him do it again.”

  Trenton glared at him, then addressed his father. “1 want him whipped,” he repeated.

  “You can’t whip no free man of color,” York put in. “Unless he broke a law.”

  Trenton quickly turned on him. “You’ve got no say in this,” he snarled. “You just work here, remember?”

  York glanced at Tessier, then looked away.