Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (19 page)

“Amelia!” I heard her faint voice calling.
“Momma!”

I sat up again and listened more
intently.

“Mrs. Arrington, are you down there?”

It was Curtis P. Boyd’s voice! Now I knew it
wasn’t my imagination. They were coming for us.

I quickly woke Mammy and Eugenia by feeling
around and shaking them.

“Wake up! They have found us.”

“In here!” I yelled back. “Hattie, we are
down here!”

My calls for help woke everyone, though no
one could see a thing.

We scrambled around to find our way to the
stairs. We could hear banging and crashing as Warren and Patrick
made their way from the wine cellar to the main area, knocking over
everything in their path. Then Mammy cried out.

“Mammy, what’s wrong?”

“It’s my leg. I tripped over something.”

“I can’t see anything!” Warren yelped as he
banged into a box.

“Everyone slow down and just stop,” Patrick
ordered. “I will find the way to the stairs. Just stay put!”

Patrick made his way slowly. Jacob whimpered
a little, frightened of the dark, and Mammy softly hushed him,
trying to ignore her pain.

“Hey, there! We’re down here!” Patrick
hollered. He began to bang on the cellar access door.

“We hear you.” Hattie called back. “We’re
almost there.”

I believe we all breathed a collective sigh
of relief as we waited for all the debris that was blocking our
escape to be removed.

“Thank God,” Eugenia whispered.

“Amen,” I said to that.

It seemed as if it took for them forever to
make it to the access door, and when it was finally lifted open, a
stream of intense sunlight came pouring in, nearly blinding us all.
I raised a hand to my face to shield my eyes, and that’s when I saw
Hattie looking down at us.

“You all right?”

“Warren, take Abigail up,” Eugenia
instructed.

Hamilton and Curtis P. Boyd continued to move
pieces of wood out of the way to clear an exit.

I scooped Jacob up into my arms, and Patrick
guided me up the steep stairs.

I nearly cried when we were finally out and I
handed Jacob to Hattie. “Oh, Hattie, I was so worried about
you.”

“We’ve been looking for you all. Finally
figured you were in the cellar.”

When we were all out, each of us gazed around
at the terrible destruction, staring in disbelief. Eugenia gasped
at the sight of the plantation fields in ruins. The entire back
kitchen had fallen onto us, leaving a giant gaping hole in the
mansion. We could see that half the slave cabins and the spinning
house had been demolished. Luckily, the barn and the icehouse had
been spared. We learned sorrowfully that a dozen of our loyal
slaves had perished in the storm, including Abraham, Cordelia, and
Helen.

“They already buried in the cemetery.”

Mammy, already suffering from her injured
leg, now cried for the loss of her family.

All the main portions of Sutton Hall remained
intact. Hamilton attended to Mammy. Eugenia and Patrick walked the
property and took inventory of the disaster, while Hattie and I
took Jacob Thomas inside her cabin to clean him up.

“How did you manage to survive the storm?” I
asked.

“It was Hamilton who shielded me from the
falling debris.” Hattie’s eyes were full of tears. “Momma heard the
storm coming and grabbed Jacob Thomas and fled to the big house to
wake you all. She yelled for me to come too, and I tried to follow,
but a tree came crashing down and nearly fell right on me and
blocked the way. Then Hamilton came and found me trying to stand
against the blowing wind. He scooped me up and took me back inside
the cabin.”

Jacob was fully washed. I left him with
Hattie so she could get him fed while I washed and changed my
clothes, and then I went to see how Mammy was faring.

Hamilton had just finished taking her small
plate of food away when I came in.

“How are you feeling, Mammy?”

“Hurts,” she replied. She had the saddest
expression. My heart sank for her.

“Can I get you anything to make you more
comfortable?” I asked. I stroked her hair, just as she used to do
for me when I was sick in bed.

“No, Miss Amelia. I be fine in a week or two,
I’m sure.”

“I will be back to check on you later,” I
said, as she fell into a deep sleep.

I found Patrick alone downstairs in the
library. He seemed genuinely happy to see me.

“I want to thank you for taking such good
care of me,” I told him.

“These past two days sure have been a
whirlwind, no joke intended,” he laughed. “I expected to have a
rather uneventful stay. But Father is not here, the plantation
needs a tremendous amount of work, and . . .” he cleared his throat
and gazed awkwardly away, “and I never expected to have such a
lovely young woman as a sister.”

“I never expected to have a brother. I only
learned about you recently.”

“Oh?” he was surprised. “Father never
mentioned me?”

“No. I learned about you from Eugenia,
amongst other things.”

“What other things?” he asked, his brows
lifting in question.

“Nothing,” I quickly replied and changed the
subject. “What are we going to do about all the damage?”

Patrick lit the cigar he was holding, puffed
on it, and blew the smoke out ever so slowly. I watched him while
he stared out the windows toward the destroyed gardens.

“This is quite a place, you know. Father had
a large estate in England, but not as grand as Sutton Hall.”

I wondered why he didn’t answer my
question.

“Amelia, have you any idea why Father came to
America?”

I sat down in the nearest chair.

He then turned to me, shaking his head as if
to clear out a temporary daze, and then smiled. “Never mind. You’re
not old enough to understand.”

“I’m certainly old enough. I understand a
great deal,” I replied, defiantly.

He briefly looked me over, and then stared at
me for some time with a somewhat confused look on his face, before
finally replying, “I know how old you are. I was there the day you
were born.”

I realized then that Patrick could reveal
many secrets that I had not managed to discover on my own. But I
would have to be patient, for I believed that in time the whole
story would come out. God must have sent Patrick to me, I told
myself, so I could finally understand how I came into existence. I
needed to know if my mummy was truly a sinful vixen, as Eugenia had
led me to believe all this time.

In the week that followed the storm, while
Mammy was laid up in bed nursing her ankle, it was left up to me to
care for everyone’s needs and wants. Hattie minded Jacob while I
took care of the cleaning, cooking, and washing, and the men worked
on the rebuilding. Whether it was unfortunate or not, I wasn’t
quite certain, but Curtis P. Boyd had a heart attack and died while
lifting a heavy beam.

Eugenia was beyond distraught for our losses
and was also fretting about Daddy’s partaking in the battle at
Allegheny Mountain. Newspapers reported at least ninety-seven
soldiers had been wounded, and many more were dead or missing.

Eugenia now had to sell some of our valuables
to pay for new wood and windows. To make matters worse, the weather
was cold and damp and sent a lasting chill throughout the mansion,
which sank right into our bones.

It was the week before Christmas, and it
certainly would be unlike any Christmas we’d had before. There was
no giant tree decorated in the parlor and no plans for a gala
holiday event. No doubt there wouldn’t be any form of celebration
or presents for anyone. If it weren’t for the date on the calendar
and plans to attend Christmas morning church services, we wouldn’t
have known it was Christmas at all.

It seemed as if most all of us, all but
Warren, were moping, which was to be expected in such a terrible
time. Even Patrick was sullen and spent most of his time working on
the mansion. I did all I could to please him. I took him coffee and
made him meals that I hoped would be tasty enough. I washed his
clothes with great care and always gave him a pretty smile.

He was always grateful and thanked me with a
genuine smile in return. But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted
his undivided attention, and the only time I received it was each
evening when I played the piano. Though my bones ached and my hands
were raw from cooking and cleaning, I never felt pain in my fingers
when I played the piano. It was then that Patrick’s eyes fixed on
me. My recitals lasted until late into the evening and gave
everyone the only pleasure of the day.

Warren was clearly enamored, and he began to
court me. In my mind, he barely existed, though he made his
feelings known at every opportunity. And if Eugenia hadn’t been so
preoccupied with financial worries, she would have put Warren in
his place and made certain he ceased his advances toward me.

Eugenia read the reports of horrible battles
with considerable losses of Confederate troops and worried sick
about Daddy. As the letters became fewer and fewer, she fell into a
strange depression and stayed aloof, locked away most of the time
in her room. The only times she ventured out were for my recitals
and church services.

I felt uncomfortable with Warren’s affections
for me at first, and I gave Mammy the flowers he picked from what
remained of the gardens and left by my door. I repeatedly refused
his requests to go walking with him or to ride into Savannah for
supplies, until I noticed it bothering Patrick. Every time Warren
addressed me, Patrick would make a subtle scowl, though he seemed
to hope no one would notice.

My heart beat fast when I thanked Warren for
the latest bunch of flowers, and Patrick excused himself from
supper without finishing. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand
why it bothered him. But I liked making him feel uncomfortable, for
whatever reason, and did it just because he didn’t pay me enough
attention. I was disgruntled when he ignored my requests to talk
more about Mummy and sent me away, saying he was too busy to talk
at the moment. “Another day, we will walk and talk.”

Warren drank in my flirty smiles and beamed
when I agreed to go with him into Savannah the day before
Christmas. Patrick had just come inside to warm up from the cold
morning he’d spent replacing one of the kitchen windows.

“We’re going into Savannah, Patrick. Do you
need anything?” I asked politely, while Warren assisted me with my
wrap.

Patrick was rubbing his hands together and
blew warm air from his lungs onto them, then abruptly stopped.

“I do need a few things. Why don’t you wait a
few minute and I’ll take you. Warren can finish the trim on the far
east window.”

“Wait now,” Warren interjected. “I need to go
into town, and I asked Amelia to go with me.”

Patrick straightened his back, just the way
Daddy always did when he was confronted, and in a matter-of-fact
tone said, “You will finish the trim.”

Warren knew he had no choice, for he was a
guest here at Sutton Hall, living free, without financial burden,
just because we felt sorry for him. But I could override Patrick’s
decision, and that’s precisely what I did.

“Warren kindly asked, and we are going
together.”

I placed my arm through Warren’s, and
together we walked out to the wagon where Hamilton had the team
hitched and ready to go.

I didn’t wait for Patrick’s response, and I
gave all my attention to Warren. He carefully lifted me up onto the
seat and then climbed up beside me, took the reins, and we were on
our way.

Warren was always rather quiet. He was a
different quiet than Patrick. Patrick was a thinker, his mind
always on the go. Warren was simple and matter of fact. He lived
one moment at a time, whereas Patrick was always plotting and
planning what would come next. It was refreshing to be with Warren,
and I knew how thrilled he was to be with me.

“It’s a fine Christmas Eve morning,” he
commented.

The wind was damp and cold, but the sun was
warm, whenever the wind settled down for a moment. The landscape
was rather unpleasant to the eye. The tornado had damaged many of
the mansions along the route to Savannah and had toppled the Mason
mansion altogether. The Montgomery mansion had been spared and had
only lost a few windows, though it didn’t matter much, as it had
been abandoned for some time.

I thought of Perry Montgomery when we passed
by. It had been so long since I’d seen him, and for a moment my
heart fluttered when I thought about the day he kissed me. He was
so very handsome, and now thinking of how he chased after me was
thrilling. Without Eugenia cramming all her talk of sin and
wickedness down my throat, I began to feel more alive, free, and
willing to take chances once again.

And now my chance was with Warren. I leaned
up against him to get warm, and he smiled.

“I know it’s chilly. We’re almost there.”

“I don’t mind,” I said and looked up at him,
batting my lashes. “You’re keeping me warm enough.”

His face, already red from the cold wind,
turned scarlet.

We came into a bustling Savannah and left the
wagon outside the mercantile.

“I have a few things to shop for, Warren. You
go ahead and place our order. I’ll be back.” I headed off to do
some Christmas shopping. I had brought two of my best dolls to sell
at the pawn shop so I would have money to buy everyone a gift. Of
course I would never think of selling my favorite doll,
Lillian.

The shop was crowded, and I looked around for
the perfect gifts.

First I found a brown leather wallet for
Warren, and for Mammy, a lovely straw spoon bonnet. Thinking of
Eugenia, I decided on a mother-of-pearl hair pin I’d noticed in the
display case, thinking she would be very pleased with it. Hattie
and Jacob’s gifts were easy; they each would get a tiny
pennywhistle. For Hamilton, I thought a harmonica would be just
perfect.