The Mistress of Tall Acre (47 page)

The depositions had begun. One by one the servants who had been at Tall Acre during Anne’s brief tenure as its mistress were called to make a statement, Henley and Stokes presiding. Seamus kept to his study, hearing only a low murmur of voices through the closed door as he tried to work on ledgers and tally accounts.

He’d awakened at dawn, surprised he’d slept. Without Sophie, his humid nights were a tempestuous stretch of war-torn dreams and pulse-pounding regrets, leaving him half sick, unfit for work. Without her, even the staff seemed on edge.

At day’s end an abrupt knock pulled him to the present. The attorneys came in, hands full of papers, expressions grave as they took seats opposite him.

“We’ve finished the depositions under oath,” Stokes told him, his youthful zeal in sharp contrast to Henley’s mature caution. “Your overseer, Riggs, provided the most comprehensive testimony, but ’tis your spinner Myrtilla’s that is most advantageous.”

Seamus gave a nod. “I’m glad to see it done but don’t care to hear the details.” ’Twas punishment enough that his people, his staff, were subjected to this. A humiliation for everyone involved.

Henley fixed solemn eyes on him. “Though the spinner’s testimony is certainly the most damning, I doubt it will be admissible in court given she is an enslaved woman—”

“Myrtilla is enslaved no longer. She was manumitted prior to my marriage to Sophie Menzies.” His tone was saber sharp, regrettably so, but his legal counsel’s continual presence put him on the defensive even if he had retained them. Henley had even had the nerve to remind him on more than one occasion that he’d not wed Sophie, at least legally.

Stokes gave a wan smile. “Her manumission may prove helpful. I intend to push for consideration of her entire testimony, even if it means calling her as a witness.”

Henley grunted his doubt. “That is highly improbable. We need more than a statement. We need something tangible. A letter, perhaps, or something written that supports the spinner’s words. You have no such evidence, I suppose.”

Seamus shook his head. “The Fitzhughs moved Anne to Williamsburg when she fell ill and took all her personal effects. There’s nothing remaining.” Though glad of it at the time, he now saw just how damaging the lack was.

“We’ll go to Williamsburg, then, in hopes of recovering something.” Henley removed his spectacles and returned them to a leather case. “The Fitzhughs are more cooperative than we’d hoped given the pending charge of falsifying a death and erecting a gravestone before them. We’ve also threatened to have the judge removed from the bench.”

Seamus drew in a breath. He could only guess how the haughty Fitzhugh reacted to that. All these accusations and bad feelings were stacked like ammunition between them, between him and Anne. But not between him and Sophie. He had to keep reminding himself that he’d done nothing wrong. She’d done nothing wrong.

“No one is forgetting your reputation as a decorated war hero. That alone should carry weight.” For once Henley looked almost smug. “The ensuing press, all the papers, might work in our favor. You helped win a war that seemed to have no end. That’s fresh in American minds at present, including the Virginia courts.”

Seamus listened, steeling himself against false hope. What if Anne won? What if the testimony of Tall Acre’s staff and Anne’s misdeeds weren’t enough to dissolve their tenuous tie? What if everything was excused because their lives had been torn apart by war and the court was willing to let it go at that?

“We have your first wife’s statement, of course.” Henley reached into a satchel and removed another document. “Therein she claims your Patriot sentiments conflicted with her British sympathies, and she fled to England after threats were made on her life, leaving your daughter in the care of Williamsburg relatives.”

Sane words. Sensible words. All believable, even understandable. But what about desertion? Betrayal? Cleaving together for better or worse? Seamus looked to the mantel where his guns and saber rested, the wounds inside him festering again. Only the years on the field under impossible conditions kept him from tearing the papers from Henley’s hand and feeding them to the fire.

Be not hasty
in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.

Henley tugged at his stock. “She also cites your neglect during that time—”

“Which has been explained sufficiently, I should think,” Seamus interjected. Would Anne have everything dragged into the public arena? Every intimate detail better left behind closed doors?

Another hour ticked by, crowded with legal terms and speculations that left his head pounding.

“General?”

In the aftermath of Stokes’s and Henley’s exit, Myrtilla stood before him. She raised dark, liquid eyes to his. “Sir, is a freedwoman’s word no better than that of a slave’s?”

He swallowed, feeling the injustice like a burr. “’Tis more your word against that of a white woman’s.” Another inequality he could not remedy. “Virginia law is slow to change. One day, mayhap, matters will be different.”

She nodded, lips pursed in contemplation. Curiously, a glint of satisfaction shone in her dark eyes, so at odds with what he had just told her.

35

S
ophie came awake, snatched from sleep by Mistress Murdo’s frantic words. “’Tis Lily Cate—the general has sent for you. She’s worsened.”

Worsened? She’d had but a summer’s cold, someone said. By now Lily Cate should be better. Guilt and anger rushed in as Sophie’s head came clear. Guilt she’d not been there from the first. Anger that matters with Anne had kept her away. She’d seen neither Seamus nor Lily Cate for nigh on a week. The lapse loomed large in her already troubled mind.

Her fingers shook and fumbled as she dressed with Mistress Murdo’s help. The Ogilvy coach was waiting out front beneath a gibbous moon, the horses restless. A young groom jumped down to open the door for her as light cracked open dawn’s dark horizon.

Mrs. Lamont met her in Tall Acre’s foyer, her usual calm decidedly stirred. “Dr. Craik’s above with the general. I’ll be here below should you need me.”

Sophie’s spirits tumbled. Calling in Dr. Craik meant that every other means had been exhausted.

The sturdy Scotsman stood at the bedside, obscuring Sophie’s view. ’Twas Seamus who turned her way, expression inscrutable, their emotional parting of days before hanging between them. One glance at Lily Cate and Sophie was ready to fall to pieces, but Seamus was looking at her, expecting more than panic. He was never more the general than in a crisis, but she sensed his silent anguish was as great as her own.

Half a dozen candles flickered around the room, illuminating bloodletting equipment and vials of medicine. The reek of onions boiled in molasses and a steaming kettle of vinegar and water told of hours spent to no avail. Myrtilla had been here. These were her remedies.

Craik moved aside as Sophie leaned over Lily Cate, his voice ragged with fatigue. “I could bleed her again.”

“Nay, please. Let us try something else.” Neither she nor her mother had ever believed in bleeding the life from a person struggling to live. Instead she felt the need to move Lily Cate, hold her, despite her frightening pallor and rattle of breath. When she suggested it, Craik frowned.

Undaunted, she eased onto the feather mattress. Lily Cate stirred, her eyes coming open then fluttering shut as if the simple effort stole all her strength. Sophie kissed her forehead, finding it cool, her lips a queer bluish-gray. Pneumonia . . . or quinsy?

Panic rising, she racked her memory for some remedy. Perhaps if Lily Cate sat up, head on Sophie’s shoulder, she wouldn’t struggle so to breathe. The nightgown she wore was stained with medicine and more. Was she coughing up blood? “Help me undress her. There’s a clean shift in the cupboard.”

She reached deep into her pocket and brought out a tin of salve, her mother’s mainstay, as Craik went below and Seamus rummaged for a shift. Together they undressed her, smearing the salve thick on her throat and chest before easing the clean shift in place, the herbal scent driving back the smell of sickness.

Sophie eyed the rocking chair, the place of many a heartfelt evening. “I want to rock her.”

Gently Seamus picked Lily Cate up and resettled her on Sophie’s lap, then pulled a blanket from the bed and tucked it around them both. Sophie settled in while he went below, the creak of the chair masking Lily Cate’s labored breathing.

Tears swelled Sophie’s throat, nearly stealing the hymn she sang over the girl. Lily Cate grew more lax, her breathing shallower. “You must get well, lamb
.
I cannot manage without you.” She whispered the words that till now had only warmed her heart. “There’s a new baby coming. Your very own brother or sister. I’ll need your help. We must choose a name and sew clothes and prepare the nursery. There’ll be a christening with cake and punch . . .”

A footfall on the stair hushed her. Seamus returned and took a wing chair across from them, his profile in sharp relief in the candlelight. She’d never seen him so undone. All the signs pointed to Lily Cate leaving them, yet Sophie kept rocking as if the steady motion kept death at bay.

She wouldn’t let Lily Cate go. She had no say over Anne or the court or much else, but she loved Lily Cate like her own, and for this night, this moment, she would be her mother, even though there was no guarantee of tomorrow.

She looked to the shuttered window. If this was as dire as her spirit told her, Anne needed to be informed. “Seamus, though it hurts me to say it—”

“Anne has been sent for. She has not come.”

Sophie began another hymn as if he’d never spoken, her foot pushing against the floor to keep the gentle rhythm of the rocker steady. And if Anne came? How strange it would be, the three of them in this room, in this marriage.

Lily Cate began to cough, a great racking cough that seemed a storm let loose inside her. Tensing, Sophie held her as Seamus brought a basin. Her frantic struggle brought Sophie’s own stomach racing to her throat.

Spent, Lily Cate slumped against her, and Seamus set aside the basin to lay hands on his daughter. Was he praying? Or simply touching her before the last of life flowed out of her? The helplessness she felt, the hopelessness, was strangling. She couldn’t help Lily Cate. She couldn’t help Seamus. She had no power to undo this complicated knot with Anne. But God had promised to bring good out of all of it, even if it broke her heart and sent her to Edinburgh. Even if Lily Cate died. Even if Anne became mistress of Tall Acre.

All she had left was faith. Belief. God Himself.

Seamus splashed water into a basin as dawn lit the windows outside his and Sophie’s bedchamber. He felt battle-weary, so torn in spirit he couldn’t speak. Dr. Craik had left on another urgent call, declaring with his Scots candor that there was nothing more to be done. Sophie remained upstairs with Lily Cate, but he fully expected to see her at his door telling him it was all over.

Only it wasn’t.

He’d bury his child and quietly prepare to face a court that seemed set against him. Virginia law, as it stood, would not allow a former slave’s oral testimony against that of her former mistress. His legal counsel’s attempts to wrest the truth from their British contacts regarding Anne’s whereabouts and circumstances there were slow in coming, having to cross an ocean and back before bearing fruit. He’d forgiven Anne for whatever it was she’d done, but he could not resume a life with her.

“You could, General, bring the second Mrs. Ogilvy into the courtroom, to gain sympathy with the judges, even if she, being a lady, is unwilling,” Stokes had urged in the hushed confines of his Richmond office. “Though the marriage rite is in question, she did promise to obey and serve you as your wife.”

“And I vowed to love her, comfort her, and honor her,” he replied. “Not force her to appear in a demeaning scandal that would make her public fodder and besmirch her own reputation.”

That had shut Stokes up, but it hadn’t helped the situation. With Virginia law being more firmly English and Anglican than any of the other new states, the case was hindered from the start. Not even citing more liberal laws in New England would likely sway these tradition-bound judges. Nor could a word from General Washington aid him. He was at the mercy of the court and Almighty God.