Sins of the Fathers (12 page)

She reveled in the shock of the water as it splashed over her body, the tang of the salt on her skin, the taste of it on her lips, and the crash of breakers over her shoulders before she got far enough out to ride the waves. “This is better than therapy!” she exclaimed, laughing to herself. She felt moving water stroke away all her tensions not only from that day, but from the past weeks, as well. She glided up enormous waves with a sense she was about to take off and fly, then swooped down to touch bottom briefly before gliding up again. She took deep, restorative gulps of spray-filled air and called a soft, “Thank you,” to the listening silence above the descending gray of the sky. “Thank you for the ocean and this glorious day. And thank you we didn’t get shot.”

She could have stayed in for hours, but as the sun sank behind her she finally admitted it was time to get out. The sky was pearl gray overhead and she could no longer see even a tinge of pink in the west. “There’s always tomorrow,” she consoled herself as she splashed through the shallows.

When she had showered, she pulled on white shorts and an old T-shirt of Jon’s. She never dressed up at the beach unless she was going out. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and padded barefoot downstairs. “I’m going to light mosquito repellant lanterns on the deck and carry a light supper outside,” she told Dr. Flo, who was booting up her laptop at the dining room table. “I’ve got a bottle of Pinot Grigio chilling in the fridge, a wedge of Brie, crackers, ingredients to make oyster stew, and Rome apples. How does that sound?”

Dr. Flo peered above her reading glasses. “Marvelous. Do you need any help?”

“No, you look for your ancestors.”

Dr. Flo had returned to her computer after the first word.

Katharine made the soup and carried everything out to the table, which she set so both could face the ocean while they ate. She didn’t bother turning on a light. The lanterns and the glow from the house were enough. She smiled at how industriously Dr. Flo was punching computer keys. She hated to disturb her, but was about to call her to supper when she heard a crow. “I’ve found Marie Guilbert!”

Katharine grabbed up her wine and rushed inside, surprised at her own excitement.

“I can’t find her in the 1870 census, but she was in McIntosh County by 1880. Look!” One slim finger traced a line on the monitor. “She was fifty-five years old, listed as the head of her household, and had two people living with her: Claude Guilbert—with a
u
—and Essie Mae Wilkins. All of them were black.” She leaned back in her chair and said with satisfaction, “Put that in your pipes and smoke it, gentlemen.”

Katharine leaned closer. “I didn’t realize they called African Americans black back then. Does it say they lived on Bayard Island?”

Dr. Flo pointed to two blank squares at the beginning of Marie Guilbert’s line. “No, the census form had spaces for addresses, but none of them were filled in for this district. That’s not unusual. Folks who lived out in the country might not have an address. However, they are listed in the order in which they were visited, and the Bayards were not their neighbors. I checked.”

Katharine bent closer to the screen. “I wonder who Essie Mae Wilkins was. Marie is listed as a seamstress, while Essie Mae is listed as a housekeeper.”

Dr. Flo frowned. “That’s odd. Black people didn’t have servants in those days.” She shifted the screen to the left so they could read the lines to the end. Her finger pointed to another spot on her screen. “I can’t make out where Marie or Claude were born, can you?”

Katharine peered at the scrawl. “That particular census taker must have been hired for persistence, not penmanship. I can’t tell if the first letter is an
A
, an
H
, or even an
R
.” The rest of the short word was an illegible scrawl. She did quick math. “But Marie was forty-four before Claude was born. She could have been his grandmother.” She felt a thrill rise up in her at this confirmation of Marie Guilbert as a living, breathing woman with a home and an occupation in McIntosh County. “Maybe they lived in that house on Bayard Island. Maybe it was even built for them, and the handprints are Claude’s and Françoise’s!” She saw again the little tombstone, fallen and forlorn. “I hope that little girl had at least one day of giggles making her mark on the cornerstone of her new home. I wonder why they lived there.”

Dr. Flo gave a genteel snort. “Given the Bayard attitude toward blacks, it’s unlikely that the Bayards
let
them live there. Besides, I told you, the Bayards weren’t their neighbors. I don’t know where this particular census district was. Marie could have lived anywhere in the county.”

“Who were the Bayards’s neighbors?”

“So far I haven’t found any Bayards at all.”

“Would this be a good time to take a break and eat? The oyster stew is getting cold, and I don’t want bugs to eat the Brie.”

Later she refused Dr. Flo’s help in putting their few dishes in the dishwasher. “You go see what else you can find.”

“I wish I could find the Bayards.”

“Check Savannah. They might have been living there when the census was taken.”

“Chatham County,” she murmured to herself. Katharine heard her clicking the keys. “Here they are!” Katharine joined her at the computer, feeling like gold coins were falling into their hands, one by one.

Again Dr. Flo’s finger traced a line. “In 1880 Claude was thirty-two and head of his household. He had a five-year-old son, but no wife. Elizabeth Bayard was living with him, too.” As Katharine returned to loading the dishwasher Dr. Flo added thoughtfully, “Elizabeth was only fifty-seven by then, but she’d already been a widow for ten years. At least I had Maurice longer than that.”

Katharine was so startled, she dropped a plate and shattered it on the tiles. As she swept it up, she kept thinking,
What if I lost Tom in one more year? What would I do for all the years I had left?

A moment later, Dr. Flo exclaimed, “Oh, my. Guess who Claude Bayard’s housekeeper was.”

Katharine dumped the plate shards in the trash and hurried to look. She read aloud, “Mae Ella Wilkins, thirty-six. She must have been Essie Mae’s big sister.”

“Her mother, more likely. She’s sixteen years older. But why would the Bayards’s housekeeper’s daughter be keeping house for Marie Guilbert?”

“More mystery. How about apple slices to fortify you for the search?”

“Yes, please.” Dr. Flo spoke absently, puzzling over the screen.

Katharine brought the plate. “Did you say you checked for Marie in earlier censuses?”

“I did, and I couldn’t find her. It’s possible that the name was spelled differently—even phonetically—and I missed it, but she wasn’t in McIntosh County in 1870 under any spelling I could think of. I’m guessing they moved to Georgia between 1870 and 1880.”

“Which would make sense, if Françoise was born in 1871. Poor little thing, she never even made it into a census. She was born and died between census years.”

Dr. Flo reached for an apple slice and crunched it morosely. “That could be the epitaph for lots of kids.”

“I find it sad to think of people giving information in one census without knowing they will have had a child and lose her before the next one rolls around.”

“Or that they’ll be dead themselves.” Dr. Flo lifted her wine glass in a mock salute. “To ignorance. It’s good that none of us knows when death is hovering in the wings of our lives.”

They would have cause to remember that remark.

When the telephone rang, Katharine glanced at the clock on the microwave and was astonished. It was quarter past ten. The day had seemed longer than that.

The voice on the other end was another surprise. “Katharine? It’s Agnes. Agnes Morrison. I hope I’m not calling too late, but is Florence still up? I’ve found things she may want.”

Katharine went upstairs to brush her teeth, to give Dr. Flo privacy. When she came down a few minutes later, Dr. Flo said, “Wait. Here’s Katharine. Let me ask her to get on an extension so she can hear this.”

Katharine went into the master bedroom and brought the bedside phone into the kitchen. Posey always bought portable phones so she could carry them anywhere. Dr. Flo had carried the kitchen phone over to the dining table, as if she was more comfortable in an office setting.

“Would you repeat what you just told me?” Dr. Flo requested.

Agnes complied. “Miranda came over this evening for me to help her with geometry, and after we finished, we had a treasure hunt for those papers. She found them in an old chest in the study. There are several letters written between 1874 and 1879, some written to Marie and others to someone called Dearie. All of them are signed
Mallery
.”

“Mallery the Pirate?” Katharine raised her eyebrows at Dr. Flo and felt a thrill go up her spine.

Dr. Flo grinned. “That’s as far as we had gotten,” she told Katharine. “Go on, Agnes.”

“Well, I haven’t read them, but one of them was headed Port-au-Prince.”

“Haiti? Let me check something.” Dr. Flo tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and backed up a few screens on the computer. She shifted the page to the far right and peered at the scrawl that had puzzled them before. “Could be,” she said under her breath.

“We found Marie in the 1880 census,” Katharine explained to Agnes while they waited. “She was living in McIntosh County.”

“On Bayard Island?”

“The census didn’t say.”

Dr. Flo came back on the line. “I believe the 1880 census lists Marie’s and Claude’s birthplace as Haiti. Katharine and I were having trouble earlier making out what that word was.”

“So maybe they came to the States sometime between 1870 and 1880,” Katharine added. “To Bayard Island.”

“That would make sense,” Agnes agreed, “since the letters were left here. Besides, why bury the people on the island if they didn’t live here? Well, if you would like to have all these things, Florence, I’ll be glad to send them along.”

“That would be wonderful!”

“There’s also a small baby shoe and a silver locket. The locket is so tarnished and fragile that I was afraid to open it, but since they were both at the bottom of the drawer, they probably belong with the letters, so I’ll send them along. You can decide if they belong to your family or not. If not, send them back and I’ll put them in the drawer for another hundred years. If they do, keep them. I’ve been meaning to clean out this place anyway, to save somebody having to do it after I’m gone.”

“We could pick them up Thursday,” Katharine suggested. “We’ll leave here then.”

“Don’t come out of your way. I have to go to town tomorrow anyway, so I’ll stick them in the mail. I almost forgot to tell you my other important news: I found the original deed to this land, the one Hamilton and Granddaddy signed. It doesn’t read like I remembered—or as I’d been told. I don’t think I ever actually saw it before. You won’t guess what it says, Florence.”

“You can sell or bequeath the land?”

“No, but neither does it revert to the Bayards. It stipulates that when our family does not want or need the house any more, it and eight acres of land revert to descendants of the family for whom the house was built. Only if none of them can be found will the land revert to the Bayards.” Her rich laugh rumbled over the line. “If you can prove the house was built for Marie Guilbert and you are her last living descendant, you may be my heir.”

Dr. Flo was startled into a moment’s silence, then she forced a little laugh. “That won’t do me much good, Agnes. I’m racing you to the finish line.”

They exchanged a few pleasantries and prepared to hang up. Before they did, Agnes said in a rush, “If you all have to come back down here for anything, I have two spare rooms. They aren’t fancy, but they are yours if you need them.” Her tone was diffident. Katharine suspected Agnes wasn’t accustomed to issuing overnight invitations.

“Thank you,” Dr. Flo replied. “We might take you up on it.”

Katharine doubted that. She had a hard time picturing the fastidious professor staying in a house with no air conditioning and a multitude of bugs.

When she rejoined Dr. Flo in the living room, she found her standing at the large sliding glass doors, looking out to sea. She trembled from head to toe. “Did you hear that?” She pressed her hands against the glass to steady herself. “I may be about to add big branches to my family tree!” She swung away from the doors and began to pace, rubbing her hands. As she passed a big lounge chair, she collapsed into it as if her legs had given way. “They may have come from Haiti. Haiti!” She rolled the word on her tongue like fine wine, then swung her legs up onto a large ottoman, clasped her hands in her lap, and sat silent for a moment as if sinking deep into the roots of her own vine.

“Which means they may have been wealthy enough to afford servants.” Katharine fetched them each another glass of wine and lifted hers in a salute. “To your ancestors, whoever they were.”

Dr. Flo set her glass untouched on a table beside her. “Maybe that’s how they could afford to send Claude to Morehouse. But I wonder where Mallery the pirate comes in.”

Katharine offered a tentative—and awkward—suggestion. “Do you suppose Marie—or maybe her daughter—could have been
his
mistress, had his children, and brought them home?”

Dr. Flo’s pursed her lips as she considered. “That would make sense, wouldn’t it? If Mallery was related to Elizabeth—”

“—a brother, maybe—”

“—and he died, Marie might have brought his body back to his sister to be buried, and Elizabeth let her and the children stay.”

“Maybe that’s even why Elizabeth and Claude built her a house on their island.”

Dr. Flo’s dark eyes twinkled. “Hiding the evidence? Could be. Elizabeth probably paid for the house, since the Bayard men have always tended to marry money. Maybe she even paid Essie May to take care of the house, and sent Claude to Morehouse.” She sipped wine and chuckled. “Isn’t this fun? We’ve made up a whole story out of a few lines on a computer screen and a signature at the bottom of letters we haven’t even seen. We have no idea how much of the story is true, and may not be able to prove a bit of it.”

Katharine settled onto the couch with her feet tucked under her. “That’s the only part I don’t like about genealogy. I don’t want stories that aren’t true. I want to
know
about people.”

“Get over it. Like I said before, the dead can’t take possessions with them, but they can—and do—take most of their stories.” Dr. Flo reached for her glass and sipped wine with a thoughtful expression. “Sometimes I hope heaven has a huge bank of television screens where we can watch the life stories of every single person who ever lived. We can finally understand why they did what they did, how they suffered, places where they came this close to being great and missed it.” She held two fingers half an inch apart. “And if we come to an incident involving another person we want to know about, we can click to a link to that person’s story.”

Katharine bent low over her wine. “I hope we get to edit out the parts we don’t want other people watching.”

Dr. Flo eyed her keenly. “You got something to hide? You’re as red as this apple.”

“It must be the wine. I’ve had three glasses, which is two over my usual limit. But I’m feeling real happy about now. We’ve accomplished something, and I’m glad you invited me along.”

“I’m glad you invited
me
.” Dr. Flo stretched lazily in the big lounge chair. “You ought to be real glad Agnes is sending me those letters. Otherwise, I might camp out on Jekyll for the rest of the summer. Now I want to go home and get to work on the Guilbert story.”

“You know,” Katharine mused lazily, “story is one of humanity’s basic needs, isn’t it? I can picture folks coming back from a mammoth hunt and telling the story: who was brave, who was funny, who got killed, who ran away. I’ll bet even back that far, it wasn’t enough to drag the carcass back into the cave and announce—”

The doorbell chimed. She sat up quickly, and wished she hadn’t. Her head was beginning to buzz. “Who could that be?”

Dr. Flo looked worried. “I hope it’s not that dreadful Mr. Curtis. We didn’t give him this address, did we?”

Katharine furrowed her forehead, trying to remember. “I don’t think so. Besides, why would he be coming so late?”

Her legs felt like Play-Doh as she walked toward the door.