Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (106 page)

Henrike weighed about fourteen stone and could be heard coming for some considerable time before she appeared, the wooden heels of her shoes striking the bare floorboards of the hall with a measured tread like the thump of a bass drum.

“I have
got
to paint that floorcloth you asked for,” Bree said, not realizing that she’d spoken aloud until Angelina laughed.

“Oh, do,” she said. “I meant to tell you, Mr. Brumby says he prefers the design with the pineapples, and could you possibly have it ready by Wednesday-week? He wants to have a great dinner for General Prévost and his officers. In gratitude, you know, for his gallant defense of the city.” She hesitated, her little pink tongue darting out to touch her lips. “Do you think…er…I don’t wish to—to be—that is—”

Brianna made a long, slow brushstroke, a streak of pale pink mingled with cream catching the shine of light on the roundness of Angelina’s delicate forearm.

“It’s all right,” she said, barely attending. “Don’t move your fingers.”

“No, no!” Angelina said, twitching her fingers guiltily, then trying to remember how they’d been.

“That’s fine, don’t move!”

Angelina froze, and Bree managed a gray suggestion of shadow between the fingers while Henrike clumped in. To her surprise, though, there was no sound of rattling coffee things, nor any hint of the cake she’d smelled baking this morning as she dressed.

“What is it, Henrike?” Angelina was still sitting rigidly erect, and while she’d been given permission to talk, she kept her eyes fixed on the vase of flowers. “Where is our morning coffee?”

“Da ist ein Mann,”
Henrike informed her mistress portentously, dropping her voice as though to avoid being overheard.

“Someone at the door, you mean?” Angelina risked a curious glance at the studio door before jerking her eyes back into line. “What sort of man?”

Henrike pursed her lips and nodded at Brianna.

“Ein Soldat. Er will sie sehen.”

“A soldier?” Angelina dropped her pose and looked at Brianna in astonishment. “And he wants to see Mrs. MacKenzie? You’re sure of that, Henrike? You don’t think he might want Mr. Brumby?”

Henrike was fond of her young mistress and refrained from rolling her eyes, instead merely nodding again at Bree.

“Her,” she said in English.
“Er sagte, ‘die
Lay-dee Pain-ter
.’ ”
She folded her hands under her apron and waited with patience for further instructions.

“Oh.” Angelina was clearly at a loss—and just as clearly had lost all sense of her pose.

“Shall I go and talk to him?” Bree inquired. She swished her squirrel-fur brush in the turps and wrapped it in a bit of damp rag.

“Oh, no—bring him here, will you, Henrike?” Angelina plainly wanted to know what this visitation was about. And, Bree thought with an internal smile, seeing Angelina poke hastily at her hair, be seen in the thrilling position of having her portrait painted.

The soldier in question proved to be a very young man—in the uniform of the Continental army. Angelina gasped at sight of him and dropped the glove she was holding in her left hand.

“Who are you, sir?” she demanded, sitting up as straight as she possibly could. “And how come you are here, may I ask?”

“I came under flag of truce, to bring a message. Lieutenant Hanson, your servant, ma’am,” the young man replied, bowing. “And yours, ma’am,” turning to Brianna. He withdrew a sealed note from the bosom of his coat and bowed to her. “If I may take the liberty of inquiring—are you Mrs. Roger MacKenzie?”

She felt as though she’d been dropped abruptly down a glacial abyss, freezing cold and ice-blind. Confused memories of yellow telegrams seen in war movies, the memory of siege guns, and
where is Roger?

“I…am,” she croaked. Angelina and Henrike both looked at her, grasped the situation at once, and Angelina rushed to support her.

“What has happened?” Angelina demanded fiercely, hugging Bree round the middle and glaring at the soldier. “Tell us at once!”

Henrike’s hands tightened on Bree’s shoulders, and she could hear the whisper of a German prayer behind her.
“Mein Gott, erlöse uns vom Bösen…”

“Er…” The young man—he couldn’t be more than sixteen, Bree thought dimly—looked flabbergasted. “I—er—”

Bree got control of her throat muscles and swallowed.

“Has he been killed in battle?” she asked, with what calm she could muster.
Oh, God, I can’t tell the kids, I can’t do this…Oh, God…

“Well, yes, ma’am,” the soldier said, blinking. “But how did you know?” The note was still in his hand, half extended. She broke free of the women and snatched it from him, scrabbling frantically to break the seal.

For a moment, the words, written in an unfamiliar hand, swam before her eyes, and her gaze dropped to the signature.
A doctor, dear God…
And then her eyes rose to the salutation.

Friend MacKenzie

“What?” she said, looking up at the young soldier. “Who the hell wrote this?”

“Why, Dr. Wallace, ma’am,” he said, shocked by her language. Then, realizing, “Oh. He’s a Quaker, ma’am.” She wasn’t paying attention, though, having returned to the text of the letter.

Thy husband bids me give thee his best and tell thee that he will be with thee in Savannah in three days’ time, God willing.
She closed her eyes and took a breath so deep that it dizzied her.
He would have written to say so in his own hand but has suffered a minor dislocation of the thumb which prevents his writing comfortably.

He has departed on a brief but urgent errand for Lieutenant-Colonel Marion. In the meantime, he asks whether thee would come to the American camp at Savannah (the soldier who brings this under a flag of truce will escort thee), in order to perform an artistic service of generosity and compassion.

One of the most esteemed of the American cavalry commanders was killed in the battle, and General Lincoln is desirous of having some concrete memento of General Pulaski. Friend Roger offered consolation to the general’s friends, and upon hearing General Lincoln’s lamentation at having no lasting memorial, suggested that, as thee were close at hand, thee might be willing to come and make a drawing of the gentleman, prior to his burial.

At this point, astonishment began to overcome shock and she started to breathe more slowly. She was still light-headed and her heart was fluttering—she put a hand flat on her chest in reflex—but the words on the page had steadied.

Pulaski. The name was vaguely familiar to her; she must have heard it in school. One of the European volunteers who had come to join the American cause. There was something in New York named after him, wasn’t there? And now—
now,
today, not two hundred years in the past—he had died.

She became aware of Angelina, Henrike, and the young soldier, all staring at her with varying degrees of concern and anxiety.

“It’s all right,” she said. Her voice trembled, and she cleared her throat and shook her head to dispel the dizziness. “It’s all right,” she said again, more firmly. “My husband’s all right.”

“Oh…” Angelina’s face relaxed and she clasped her hands. “Oh, I’m
so
glad, Mrs. MacKenzie!”

Behind Angelina’s back, Henrike crossed herself solemnly, the fear ebbing from her eyes. The soldier coughed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said apologetically. “I should have said, straight out. Only I never thought…”

“It’s all right,” Bree said. Her hands were damp, and she picked up a relatively clean rag to dry them, then folded the note carefully and tucked it into her pocket. Her heart was slowing and her brain was starting to work again.

“Mrs. Brumby…Angelina…I need to go with this gentleman. Just for a few hours,” she added quickly, seeing anxiety bloom again in Angelina’s big brown eyes. “It’s a request from my husband; something urgent that I have to do for him. But I’ll come back as quickly as ever I can. Do you think perhaps…the children?” She looked apologetically at Henrike, but the housekeeper nodded vigorously.

“
Ja,
I vill mind them. I—” The clank of the brass door knocker interrupted her, and she turned sharply.
“Ach! Mein Gott!”
She moved off with determination, muttering something under her breath that Brianna couldn’t interpret but assumed to be along the lines of
“If it isn’t one damned thing it’s another…”

“I’ll have Cook pack you some food. And will Mrs. MacKenzie need a horse?” Angelina turned sharply to the young soldier, who blushed.

“I’ve brought a good riding mule for the lady, ma’am,” he said. “It’s—it’s not a great distance to the—to the camp.”

“The camp?” Angelina said blankly, interrupted in her mental preparations. “To the…
American
camp? Sure you don’t mean behind the siege lines?”

Well,
this
could get sticky…

“It’s a matter of friendship, Angelina,” Bree said firmly. “My husband is a minister; he knows a lot of people on both sides of this war, and it’s a friend of his, a surgeon named Dr. Wallace, who asked for me to come.”

“Dr. Wallace…oh! You don’t mean
the
Dr. Wallace, who operated on the governor?” Angelina was round-eyed by this time, alarmed but excited by the sense of emergency.

“I…possibly,” Brianna said, taken aback. “I haven’t met him yet. I’m sure that—”

“I wish to speak with Mrs. MacKenzie,” a deep male voice said from somewhere down the corridor. “My friend wishes to engage her for a portrait. Lord John Grey recommended that we call upon her—a mutual acquaintance. Please inform her that I have brought a letter of introduction, and—”

“Mein Gott,”
Brianna said under her breath. John Grey? What on earth—

The gentleman—his voice was English, educated—was encountering resistance from Henrike. Brianna was already picking up pencils, charcoal sticks, shuffling together a box of things she might need to make the image of a dead man. There wasn’t time…

“Angelina,” she said, over her shoulder. “Could you maybe tell this man that I’ve been called away on an urgent errand? He can come back tomorrow—or…or maybe the next day,” she added doubtfully. No telling how long it might take.

“Of course!” Angelina headed purposefully for the hall, and Brianna closed her eyes and tried to think. The kids, first. At least she could tell them that Daddy was coming to see them soon. Then…what on earth to wear for a commission of this sort? It would have to be her rough painting gown, for riding a mule and whatever the conditions might be in a siege camp…Would they have trenches? she wondered.

The voices in the hallway had risen and there were more of them. Angelina and Henrike were arguing with what sounded like
two
men now, both of whom seemed set upon seeing Mrs. MacKenzie, come hell or high water.

There wasn’t time for this. Impatient, she stepped out into the hall, intending to send the visitors on their way. The morning sun flooded in through the open front door, silhouetting what seemed like a mob of shadow-people, black bodies, faceless heads, limbs outlined in sparking light as they moved. It was one of those sudden, beautiful sights that happen without warning, and she paused for a single heartbeat to fix it in her mind. Then one of the taller figures moved, turning, and she saw in outline the same long, straight nose, the same high brow that her fingers had drawn so recently.

“Wait!” she said. She had no memory of striding down the hall but was suddenly face-to-face with him and there was no more obscuring shadow, but morning sun lighting a shockingly familiar pair of blue and slanted eyes fixed on hers.

“Bloody hell,” he said, completely startled. “It’s you!”

“YOUR
BROTHER
?
” ANGELINA
was excited beyond all bearing. “And you didn’t know he was here, nor he you? How amazing!”

“Yes,” Bree said. “Yes…amazing.” In a daze, she extended a tentative hand toward him. William blinked once, grasped the hand, and bowed over it, kissing it lightly. The feel of his breath on her turpentine-chilled hand raised the hairs on her forearm, and she tightened her fingers on his. He straightened up but didn’t pull away; his fingers turned and covered hers.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said, and she could see—and feel—his eyes searching her face, just the way she was searching his.

“Oh, not at all,” she said, meaning quite the opposite. He caught that, smiled a little, and let go of her hand. “I—did you say that Lord John sent you?”

“Yes, he did, the conniving old sod. Er…begging your pardon, ma’am.” He took his gaze off her for a moment, turning toward the other gentleman. This was a tall, very broad young man of mixed blood, with a remarkable cap of close-cropped tight curls of a soft reddish brown.

“Allow me to present my friend, Mr. John Cinnamon,” William said. Angelina and Henrike curtsied immediately in a bloom of skirts. Mr. Cinnamon looked quite horrified, but after a quick glance at William, he bowed deeply and murmured, “Your most obedient servant…ma’am. And…er…ma’am.”

“Er…ma’am? Mrs. MacKenzie?” Lieutenant Hanson, quite eclipsed by William and Mr. Cinnamon, who were each a good foot taller than he was, struggled manfully to regain Brianna’s attention. “We must be going, ma’am, or we shan’t arrive in time for you to…er…do it.” He cleared his throat.