Currents (29 page)

I
t had become Bess's custom to go down and meet the afternoon mail boat whenever she was in the village. It never stayed docked for very long, just long enough to drop off the boxes and letters marked for the Isle of Wight.

It had been almost a year since her father was supposed to have returned. Some days in a person's life are so eventful that they remain vivid forever. March 29, 1856, was such a day for Bess—that was when representatives from the Royal Geographical Society had come to Attwood to personally deliver the news to the duke's next-of-kin. Bess remembered that the day they came was a Saturday—overcast with a light drizzle.

“We are so sorry to inform you,” they had begun, “that the last time the duke was seen, he was in a carved-out boat with three guides, and they were paddling for their lives downstream while being pursued by a local tribe. The natives were firing what we believe were poisoned arrows from their bows at our men.”

“Do you know that he is dead?” Elsie had cried out.

“We do not, Your Grace,” the leader of the group had replied. “But no one stayed to try to recover bodies. It would have been a death sentence to go back there and look. Those who did live barely escaped with their lives.”

“My papa is a fine swimmer,” Bess had blurted out. “He could still be alive.”

“It's true, my lady,” one of the men answered kindly. “But it is unlikely.”

Bess did not give up hope. She would not, although Elsie had started referring to herself as the Dowager Duchess of Kent and wearing black mourning clothes. Bess still waited every day for news that her papa had escaped, and that he had either found his way out or been somehow rescued. She felt certain that he was still alive. There were stories about men being taken by native tribes and held hostage for years. Next month would mark one year since the duke had disappeared. She figured she would be old enough to begin her life as an explorer in a few more years. Certainly Elsie would be delighted to have her out of the house and gone. If her father hadn't returned by then, she was determined to go and bring him home herself.

The postmistress was always there at the Isle of Wight dock to fill her handcart with deliveries before the boat shoved off.

“Anything for us, Mrs. Timpy?” Bess asked as the woman thumbed through the stacks.

The postmistress passed Bess a small stack of letters and a tiny package addressed to Attwood Manor.

Bess quickly skimmed the few letters—nothing important—before turning the package over and examining the markings. The front was addressed to her.

To: Lady Bess Kent
Attwood Manor
Isle of Wight, Great Britain

The neatly printed return address meant nothing to her. It read:

Mr. Hamilton's Pawn and Jewelry Repair Shop
21 Charles Street
Boston, Massachusetts
United States of America

She hurried to escape the windy dock and settled herself inside the Cheeky Cat's Pub, ordering a cup of hot chocolate before carefully unwrapping the package.

She unfolded the note inside that was wrapped around the box and read:

She flipped the cover off the box and gasped at the sight of her gold cross. How could it be? She barely breathed. She held the back of the necklace closer to the lantern on the table, rubbing her index finger over her mother's engraved initials on the back. Thirteen tiny pearls ran down and across the front—the one in the center missing.

She blinked hard to make out the writing at the bottom of Harry's letter.

S
he had to be careful. Very careful. Bones moved quickly to make up the guest bedroom. The Yankee visitor had only stayed one night, so there was not much to clean up. She told Queenie that she would have plenty of time to polish up the silver when she was through in the big house. It was already outside on the wooden picnic table, which was covered with newspapers and magazines so the polish wouldn't get all over the table.

For the last month, there was a different kind of tension around the plantation than ever before. Murmurs among the slaves were hopeful that the North was finally going to set them free. Tense conversations between the Brewsters and their friends about a coming war stopped whenever one of the slaves was nearby. Even Mabel was no longer sent off the plantation to do errands.

Every day men on horses would come tearing up the long drive with news for Master Brewster. Old Mistress would always rush out behind her husband to hear what the men had to say. Then the men would gallop off, in a hurry to spread whatever news they had throughout the county.

Bones folded the sheets she'd stripped from the guest bed and looked around. She was alone. She quickly picked up the newspaper the Yankee had left behind and slipped it between the dirty sheets before heading out the door and down the back steps.

“Don't forget to spread papers over the table, girl,” Queenie ordered when Bones came in the kitchen house. “Old Mistress got a heap of silver for you to polish up today.”

“I already did,” Bones said, nodding pleasantly. She was barefoot, slender, and her face was framed by tendrils of dark curls that had sprung loose at her temples.

She slipped the Yankee's newspaper onto the pile to the left of the big black stove. Bones's eyes lit up when she spotted Liza's latest copy of
Merry's Museum Magazine
on the top of the pile. Liza barely bothered to read them anymore.

Bones tucked the polishing paste in one of her apron pockets and piled clean rags on top of the extra newspapers she'd gathered to add another layer to the picnic table.

“Make sure you make that silver sparkle,” Queenie ordered.

“I will,” Bones said. Queenie was moving slower these days. She repeated herself and forgot things. One day she used salt instead of sugar in a peach cobbler. After Old Mistress took one bite, she came storming out to the kitchen house, yelling that Queenie was trying to poison them all. She made poor old Queenie eat a whole bowl of the salty dessert until she gagged.

Bones made sure that the Yankee's newspaper was spread out on the picnic table with its front page faceup. It had been months since she'd been able to sneak a look at the Richmond papers that were delivered with the mail once a week. Lately, as soon as the Brewsters finished reading them, they tossed the papers into the fireplace instead of leaving them for Queenie to use.

Bones carefully read the top lines of the Yankee's paper:

New York Herald
, April 13, 1861
THE WAR BEGUN

When she was an old lady, she would tell her grandchildren about this day and how those words jumped right out at her. Hopped straight off that page like a Fourth of July parade.

She was seventeen years old now. The space between her two front teeth had come together nicely, but her feet still jiggled and twitched when she was excited. They were fidgeting so much as she read the paper, her knees kept knocking the bottom of the table.

She could hardly wait till dark, when Mama would be back from the fields, so she could share the information with her. She only wished her granny were still alive to see this glorious day. She had always worried that Granny would die, exhausted, working in the fields. But instead, one night, sitting on their cabin stoop smoking her little pipe, she looked joyfully up at the starry sky she loved and nodded once before her head drooped down onto her chest. Just like that. Mama had said not to grieve too much, because at least now Granny was free.

She finished polishing the coffeepot, and peeled off the top layer of the newspaper to put it in the pile with the dirty papers. Now
Merry's Museum Magazine
lay in front of her. She flipped carefully through the pages.

Bones began to rub slow neat circles over a large sterling-silver tray with vines engraved over the handles when she stopped short at the heading of a story in the magazine.

AGNES MAY AND ME

Bones looked up at the windows to be sure that no one was watching her. When she felt safe, she began reading.

Bones blinked hard and read the last sentence again.
What gold cross?
she wondered. Where else could her bottle have traveled and how did it pick up such a thing? She moved the tray off to the side and spread her arms wide over the paper as she finished reading.

“Praise the Lord!” Bones cried, forgetting to conceal her joy or the magazine. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and read the final notation at the foot of the page.