Dark Shadows (34 page)

“I will get away with it. I’ve never met pure evil before, yet here you sit right in front of me. You’re no woman. You’re a murdering old whore! As God is my witness, I’ll snuff you out. Send a note to my wife. Lunch is cancelled. Don’t so much as try to see her again or go near my brother and sister-in-law....And remember one thing: I can protect myself and Mercy from you, but who is going to protect you from me?”

Jacob put on his hat and turned to the door. “This conversation never happened. Are we clear?”

“Yes, we’re clear on that, and it suits me just fine. But I’m not going anywhere. You don’t scare me, and you’ll not be stopping me from seeing who I bloody well please! If you say anything about me, I’ll make up so many stories about you that your bleedin’ head will spin. Now get out of my house – ya back-stabbing lout!”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Jacob finally arrived at Hendry’s town house. Elizabeth was in their bedroom, Handel told him. Mr Hendry and Miss Belle had retired.

He ordered a tray with cold meats, bread, and hot chocolate, telling Handel to get a hot bath ready for him.

He forced his aching body up the stairs to the guest bedroom and found Elizabeth brushing out her long straight hair. “You’re still up,” he said.

Elizabeth greeted him sarcastically. “As you can see, yes, I am. So you’re back – or are you going to leave again in the morning?”

“Yes, I’m back, my dear,” he said. “Are you well?”

“I’m well enough, as if you care. I’m spitting mad. You abandoned me and I’m still a new bride. I just don’t know what our friends must be thinking. Your behaviour is unforgivable, Jacob. It’s despicable.”

He answered a knock at the door. Two servants carried buckets of hot water and filled the tub in an adjoining room, which had a raging fire going in the hearth. Jacob closed the door between Elizabeth and himself, undressed, and got into the tub’s inviting warmth, which he figured should just be enough to thaw him out and calm the anger that still lingered.

After dinner, Jacob joined Elizabeth in bed. She was asleep, or so he thought. He was exhausted, yet he was hungry for the feel of a woman – any woman, for in his mind, she would be Mercy, and he had never needed Mercy more. He caressed Elizabeth’s body, dreaming of Mercy, eyes closed and a small smile planted on his mouth. He was jolted out of his dream when he suddenly felt Elizabeth tossing his hand aside.

He snapped his eyes open in shock. He looked up at her, sitting with her back now resting on fluffed-up pillows and arms crossed over her breasts, hidden under her large floor-length cotton nightdress. She wore a scowl that managed to wipe out any trace of sweetness on her face. She had a right to be angry, Jacob thought. He would allow her barrage of insults and would accept her punishment, whatever that might be. He waited patiently whilst she continued to rage at him with a stare alone. Finally, he said, “All right, Elizabeth. Say your piece.”

“I don’t want you to touch me. I’ve not long bathed, and I don’t want to be sullied. It’s too cold to have to get out of bed to clean myself.”

“Oh, I see,” was all he managed to say. He was surprised to be having
this
conversation.

Elizabeth pouted like a sullen child and began again. “It’s obvious to me and everyone else in this house that you’re in love with that Englishwoman. Belle isn’t even taking my side. Why, she barely speaks to me anymore, and Hendry is just like a puppy dog doing her bidding.”

“That’s called love, my dear.”

“Well, I don’t care what you call it. You will never see that Mercy Carver woman again, so it makes no difference one way or the other. She’ll be dead somewhere by now.”

“She might well be dead in this cold, lying under a tree, rotting as we speak. Does that please you?”

“Don’t you dare be sarcastic, Jacob Stone. You know fine well that you’ve humiliated me in front of everyone from here to Norfolk!”

“I think that may be an exaggeration. I’m sure folks are too busy hibernating from the cold at the moment to be bothered about us.”

“You’re not a gentleman. To think I could have had any man I wanted – but I chose you,” she told him. “Why, I don’t know what I was thinking. But since we are married in the eyes of the Lord, you had better treat me right or my family will hurt you and your brother. It’s just as well my poor mother doesn’t know what I’ve been going through. Her heart wouldn’t take the shame of it all.”

“Then let’s be thankful that it’s too cold for your mother to entertain and hear all about your shame. Now answer me this – why are you so damn mad about another woman when you’ve just thrown my arm away? Don’t you want me to caress you?”

“I don’t want you to make love to me. I don’t need
those
affections. I just need you to be a good husband, especially in front of our friends and anywhere in public,” she stated, surprising him again.

“But don’t you want children?”

“Why, yes, but not yet. In a year, maybe.”

Jacob tried to stop a gurgle of laughter threatening to spill out of his mouth, barely controlling himself and his thoughts. “You know we have to have sex if you want to conceive,” he reminded her.

“I know that. I’m not stupid! I just don’t want to take any chances that I may get pregnant before I’m ready. I want to have some fun. And you are going to allow me to have what I want, because if you don’t, I’ll tell everyone in Portsmouth that you’re being a beast to me and that you’re in love with common white trash!”

Jacob laid his head on the pillow, tired out and too drained by tonight’s events to think straight. He didn’t want to touch cold, uninviting flesh any more than she wanted him to touch her. He wouldn’t caress her again. He turned his back on her. “We’re going home tomorrow, so if you have made plans, cancel them. Stone Plantation needs my attention. As my wife, you will be by my side – like a good Southern woman.”

He lay in the darkness. Du Pont wouldn’t get onto his land, never mind up to his front door. She would have to be dealt with, but for the life of him, he didn’t know how the hell he was going to get rid of her.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

After four days in rugged terrain and without bearings, Mercy and Nelson found themselves in deep trouble. They had no idea where they were, they had no food, the snow was falling day and night, and the horses laboured with weakening legs as they waded through it.

They travelled in what seemed a never-ending world of snowy ground, trees, and hidden rocks that had caused Mercy to fall off her horse twice. Sleep was impossible due to the relentless bitter cold, and they had not come across any type of shelter in days. The landscape was difficult to gauge because of the huge canvas of fir trees and nothing else. Mercy had at times despaired, for she had absolutely no idea which direction to take. Everything around them looked the same as it had the day before and the day before that. For all she knew, they had been going in circles. There were no markers or clearings to give them a clear path or a horizon. There was nothing but a ceiling of trees and a ground of crusted ice and snow.

Mercy sat huddled as close to the small fire as possible, urging it to extend her some heat.

Nelson was shivering so much that his body visibly shook from head to toe, and she could see his numbed hands having difficulty holding his icy water-filled tin cup.

Mercy was crying softly, without the strength to scream her frustrations. “We’re going to die, Nelson. We can’t go on like this. I’m afraid to sleep because I’m sure I won’t wake up again.” She sobbed and shivered at the same time.

“We need proper shelter. It’s January now – January and then February. Them are dead months,” Nelson told her through chattering teeth. “We need to hunker down somewhere till spring; that’s what we need to do, Miss Mercy.”

Mercy agreed with him. Getting to their destination was important – surviving until then was paramount. Speed of foot or horse no longer mattered.

“Nelson, I’m sorry I got us lost. You’ve had a rotten life and now you’re going to freeze to death because of me. Please forgive me.”

“Don’t you be worrying none ’bout me, Miss Mercy. If we find a town, you gotta leave me and find yourself a warm bed.”

“No, and don’t you dare even suggest that again!” Mercy told him sharply.

She unfolded the map, shaking in her numbed hands, and peered at the writing on it in the shadow of the flickering flames.

Nelson watched her and said, “Why you looking, Miss Mercy, when we don’t know where we at?”

Mercy’s chapped lips cracked when she spoke. “I just need to do
something
. But you’re right. I haven’t got a clue which way we went after Smithfield.” She folded the map and threw it in the fire. “If I die first, please bury me deep in the ground. I don’t want to be eaten by wild animals. Will you promise me?”

“Ain’t no one dying, not you and not me, and that’s a fact,” Nelson said unconvincingly.

“I want to believe you, but we must be miles from a town. We haven’t seen lights in the distance – nor have we seen smoke or shelter. I’ve been a fool. I thought I could do this, but I’ve never seen land like this.”

“Guess dyin’ here is better than a hanging.”

Mercy sobbed louder. “We have to move. We can’t stay here tonight. The branches are so heavy they’re dropping piles of snow on us. We’ll be buried in the stuff soon! And the bloody fire is useless! The horses will freeze to death, and they’re already starving. We can’t let those horses die. If they die, we die, and – and I don’t want to. I want to see Jacob!” Mercy covered her face with her hands, forgetting Nelson for the moment.

              Nelson watched her anguish. He nodded but said nothing. He went to the horses and rummaged through the bags on the ground. They would have to get rid of most of their load if the horses were to have any chance of surviving. He dumped the pans, extra clothes, plates, and heavy shackles.

              Mercy heard the rummaging and joined him. She began digging into the snow with the hatchet that she’d brought, struck now by the realisation that they had packed at du Pont’s house as though they were going on a picnic or adventure, when in fact they were like the blind leading the blind on a journey through treacherous and unknown territory.

As Mercy dug with numbed hands, she wondered for a second time how she could have been so arrogant and stupid. “You’re pathetic, Mercy Carver,” she chattered to herself. She had been given love with Jacob and friends like Belle, Hendry, and Isaac; and she’d thrown everything away only to find death in some forest somewhere in Virginia. If she died, it would be her own fault. But if she lived through this, she was going to command Jacob to leave his wife. She had to picture that scene: his saying yes and both of them loving each other until they died of old age. She wasn’t going to die at the age of eighteen, like her father. She wasn’t!

She dug through the snow and icy ground beneath, cursing herself yet again for making bad decisions and for wasting time digging a hole to bury clothes that no one would ever find in this godforsaken land anyway!

Nelson took over the digging. When the hole was deep enough, Mercy grabbed all her clothes. The bloodied gown went first, followed by the hooped underskirt, which had long since been battered and hacked to fit inside the bag, and finally the bloomers. She suddenly laughed and then sobbed, until between laughing at the irony, sobbing with sorrow, and shivering with fear, she looked and felt like a madwoman.

Nelson crossed himself. “C’mon now, Miss Mercy. C’mon, get up. This ain’t no time for sobbin’. Sobbin’ ain’t gonna help you keep your strength up.”

Mercy tried to stand, but her legs were trembling with cold shivers. “You’ve become … very bossy,” she told him.

Nelson lifted her to her feet and tightened the blanket knot around her chin. He helped her onto the horse, and she felt his own legs shake with her weight.

Mercy dozed on and off, finding her body sliding off the horse’s back and then righting it again. As she looked down, trying to protect her face from the wind, she saw the snow jump up at her. It was like a crisp white cotton sheet. It looked soft and inviting: she could sleep on it and be quite comfortable. She was tired, and her muscles were relaxed. She felt that nothing could bother her, nothing at all. Yes, she could sleep quite easily on the ground and wrap that cotton sheet around her – she didn’t even feel cold anymore.

Mercy felt no pain when she eventually slid off her horse some time later. She landed on the soft powdery snow and sighed with contentment. Sleep … She should sleep for a while …

Nelson, slightly in front of Mercy, heard her fall and her horse whinny. He stopped and dismounted, feeling as though he were doing everything in slow motion. His body was shivering in spasms, which made walking in the knee-high snow almost impossible.

He got to Mercy and shook her. There was no response. She seemed to be in a deep sleep. He tried again, calling her name, demanding that she get on her feet. He thought about lying down beside her. She looked so peaceful. But his instincts told him that if he did that, neither of them would awaken to see a new day.

He took Mercy’s gun from her holster. He cocked it and fired it into the air. Mercy roused, and he shouted, “Move, Miss Mercy! You gonna die if you lie there. Get up now!”

Mercy looked up at the black face and sighed. “Leave me alone. I don’t care!”

Nelson lifted her and, with all the strength he had left, managed to drape her body across her horse’s saddle. He pulled the horse behind him and reached his own horse, but he didn’t mount it. Instead, he continued to trudge through the snow, one hand holding on to Mercy’s unconscious body and the other their horses’ reins.

Time passed in a blur. The steps Nelson took became shorter and shorter. The scenery didn’t change, and even if it had, he couldn’t distinguish anything under layers of snow and the blackest of nights.

He stopped abruptly and smelled smoke in the air. He left the horses and Mercy and trudged onward again, this time with a more vigorous effort. The smell of smoke was becoming stronger. He could see it clearly now. It was high, not a campfire but a funnel. He choked back a sob and walked another few feet. There, in a clearing, he saw a small cabin, candlelight coming from within and a chimney stack with smoke billowing out of it.

He turned around and got back to Mercy and the horses as fast as he could, and then he led them to the cabin.

Nelson saw no other choice. He had to ask for help for Miss Mercy. He might be shot at, but he would die trying to save her. He reached the door, his whole body shaking with cold, fear, and exhaustion. He thought that they might be trappers – bear trappers. Trappers were hard men. They would shoot him on sight, if they had a mind to. He banished the thought and lifted his fist.

A grey-bearded man, hair tied back and balding at his hairline, opened the door before Nelson’s fist touched the wood. The man faced him with a rifle pointing at Nelson’s chest and suspicion etched on his face. He looked at Nelson, the horses, and the body draped over one of the horse’s backs. “What’s your business here?” he asked suspiciously. “Who is that?”

A woman joined him at the door and looked Nelson over from head to toe. The rifle was still pointed just inches from Nelson’s body. No one spoke.

Nelson’s shivering body was near to dropping where it stood. He tried to stand upright in front of the couple. Finally, he mumbled, “Help us – please?”

Again the couple stared at him in silence.

“Please,” Nelson murmured with quivering lips. “I knows I can’t come in – but the woman … She’s a white woman. She saved my life. Please, sir, ma’am, please warm her up. She dyin’.”

The woman’s eyes darted to the body draped over the horse’s back. She pulled her thick woollen shawl up and over her head and then ran out of the house and over to where Mercy lay. She lifted Mercy’s head up for a better look and gasped. “Good Lord, Charlie. He’s tellin’ the truth. We got ourselves a woman here.”

Nelson stood aside. He watched Charlie run to the horse and grab Mercy in his arms. Charlie trudged the few feet and took her straight inside. The woman looked again at Nelson and said, “Well, what are you waitin’ for? Get inside before you freeze to death.”

The woman turned to Charlie then. “Get those horses to the barn. Put some dry blankets on them and get them fed.”

Charlie nodded and pulled on his jacket, which had been hanging behind the door on a hook. “Be back in a minute,” he told the woman, but not without leaving her the rifle first.

The woman ushered Nelson inside.

Mercy felt hands on her. They were undressing her. She tried to rouse herself from sleep to see who was touching her. Lifting an arm, she tried to defend herself, but it rose and then fell limp by her side. Again, she tried again to open her eyes, and this time she managed to see a blurred face. It was a woman. She closed her eyes again and felt heat on her skin. Her arms were being pulled out of jacket sleeves, and she was being covered by something warm. She opened her eyes, this time keeping them open, and saw the woman’s face clearly for the first time.

The woman removed Mercy’s gloves and began rubbing her hands and fingers. She removed Mercy’s boots and socks and put another blanket over her feet.

Mercy felt a tingling sensation, as though blood was rushing to her extremities, giving them life after days of numbness. “Where are we?” she found the strength to whisper.

The woman smiled. “You never mind about that now, child. I’m Corslina. Call me Lina. What’s your name?”

Mercy gave her a weak smile. “Mercy – Mercy Carver. Nelson … Where’s Nelson?”

The woman looked at Nelson and asked, “That’ll be you?”

Nelson’s body was wracked with shivering spasms, and his top and bottom teeth were clicking together loudly. “Yes, ma’am. Nelson Stuart.”

“There’s a blanket on that chair over there. Git out of that jacket and those wet breeches, Nelson Stuart, and sit by the fire. Then tell me what the hell you’re doing all the way out here on a night like this.”

Lina removed Mercy’s hat whilst waiting for the explanation. The hat had knotted tightly under Mercy’s chin. The string was caked in ice and hard as a twig.

When the hat came off, Mercy’s hair tumbled out in a mass of curls to her waist and the woman sucked in her breath. “Oh my,” Lina said, astounded. “Why, you’re a comely child. Is he a slave?” she asked Mercy. “We don’t take kindly to slavery. We do what we need to do with our own God-given hands. Ain’t no call for slavery in our book. Are you a slaver? Are you a bounty hunter?”

“No, I am not!” Mercy told her abruptly in a hoarse voice. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to shout. I hate slavery. I found Nelson. Some men were going to kill him. Since then, we’ve been making our way north, trying to get to a slave-free state – only I’m not too sure which one is closest.”

“He’s a runaway, then?’” Lina turned to Nelson, ignoring Mercy’s answer completely.

Nelson hung his head.

Mercy thought she saw the first sign of trouble.

Lina, who had risen, stirred a pot that hung above the flames in the enormous fireplace that filled almost one wall of the cabin.

Mercy was now fully conscious, albeit drowsy. She watched Lina and then looked around the room. It was cosy. There were curtains on the window, plenty of ornaments, multicoloured blankets, two chairs in front of the fire, and a dresser which held plates, cups, and crockery.