The Quaker and the Rebel (17 page)

“Annabelle?” Emily lifted the lid and peered into the compartment when they reached the barn refuge just before dark. “It’s safe to come out.”

The thin, tall woman clutching her precious baby slowly unfolded her stiff spine. But she made no complaint about riding in a confining box. She climbed down on shaky legs and looked around like a scared rabbit. “Where we at?”

“We are outside of Berryville. We brought plenty of food. We’ll eat and then sleep in the loft. But we’ll build no fire—it could attract attention. We’ll start for Martinsburg at first light.”

Annabelle nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Please call me Emily.”

“No, ma’am. I won’t.” Her discomfort ratcheted up a notch.

Lila stepped forward. “My mother sent a bag of nappies for your boy. Tomorrow we’ll arrive at the Bennington house in Martinsburg. We have supplies to pack up there, but when it gets dark we’ll take you to a spot on the Potomac River. Quakers will take you across into Maryland, but you won’t be alone. Other Quakers will take you up the Conococheague River into Pennsylvania—a free state.”

Emily pulled a map from her valise. “Once you are in Pennsylvania, follow this to a safe house in Chambersburg. A Presbyterian couple will shelter you and give directions for the next leg of the journey.” She pressed the paper into Annabelle’s hand. “Travel at night and follow the North Star if the night is clear. Remember, the handle of the drinking gourd points to it. Sleep during the day, because the rivers are patrolled by slave-catchers. If you need help, approach the Methodist or Presbyterian parson or a Quaker. Don’t trust anyone else, Annabelle. These are hard times. Folks receive a fat bounty for turning in runaways.”

As they stood in the fading light, Annabelle studied the map and traced the route with her finger. “I know what’s at stake, but why you doin’ this—helping slaves you don’t even know?”

“Because I was raised Quaker.” Emily knew this wasn’t the time to wax poetic about her religious upbringing.

“This is the only chance you and your son will get.” Lila added practical advice as she and Emily unpacked the buggy. Jack unhitched the team and tied them to the water trough. Carrying the water canteens, Emily led the group into the barn where clean straw bales lay everywhere.

“You free?” asked Annabelle of Lila. She stared at Lila’s fashionable clothing suspiciously.

“I am. My father purchased my freedom and my mother’s when I
was little.” Once inside, Lila pulled sandwiches from the hamper and passed them around.

“I never saw black folks wearin’ clothes like that.” She pointed a disdainful finger at Lila’s outfit.

“I am a maid for two young women. Because they never wear outfits longer than one season, they give their old clothes to me.” Lila passed around fruit and sweet breads from the hamper.

Annabelle’s eyes nearly bugged from her head. “They wear clothes less than a year and don’t want them no more?” Following Lila’s nod, she asked, “They the ones who taught you to talk so fancy?”

“They are.” Lila bit daintily into an apple.

“Doesn’t that just beat all—your pap havin’ enough money to buy folks and you dressin’ like you got someplace to go.” Annabelle laughed and then settled on a hay bale to nurse her son, turning her back discretely on the others.

Later, while the baby slept soundly in Annabelle’s arms, the four exchanged stories, their tales bridging the gap between people from very diverse backgrounds. Although Emily had little in common with them, she shared a few of her own joys and sorrows. Then they packed up the leftovers and went to sleep, filled with hope for the future.

As the travelers slept soundly on the soft straw matting, outside someone spent a fitful night watching the barn. William had followed them to learn why Miss Harrison dismissed him in favor of Jack. Alexander had given him emphatic orders to keep an eye on Miss Harrison and protect her in his absence. Scalawags and deserters from both armies roved the area, foraging and pilfering. Now William wondered if there had been another reason for the request. Did Alexander suspect the governess of something? Tonight William wished he hadn’t followed the buggy. He had no reason to be untrustworthy to the Hunts. Despite their bantering, Alexander paid him a very good salary, allowing him to purchase the freedom of his siblings.

Besides, Alexander had been his friend since they were small boys climbing trees and getting into mischief. Alexander trusted him and treated him with respect, plain and simple. William had grown uneasy when the buggy turned off the pike to Martinsburg toward the east. It didn’t take long to figure out where they were headed. Alexander had told him the story about stumbling upon Miss Harrison at an abandoned barn and leaping down from the hayloft door. Then she had ridden off in a dither with her frilly bloomers showing. The two men had laughed over the woman’s bizarre antics.

Because he knew the Yankee was up to something, William wasn’t surprised when a woman and child climbed from the compartment behind the front seat. It also didn’t surprise him who the woman was. Annabelle had been dismally unhappy at Hunt Farms since her husband died. Although he wanted to see Annabelle and her son free, he didn’t like Miss Harrison deceiving the Hunts to obtain that freedom. He knew Alexander grew fonder of the governess each day. William contemplated his own deception if he returned and said nothing.

If ever he wished he had stayed home and minded his own business, this was the time.

E
IGHT

A
lexander wasn’t in the best of moods. First, he’d been forced to discharge nine men from service because they had acted irresponsibly and without orders. Then he’d observed Emily leaving an abandoned barn in the middle of the night. What in the world could that mean? Did she have a lover? Had his aunt forbidden her to see some unsavory suitor and so she stole away to meet him while the Benningtons slept? If so, then why had she accepted his kisses at their picnic and flirted during breakfast if her heart belonged to another?

And what did it matter anyway? He had a bevy of women eager to please him. At least half a dozen would accept his hand in marriage if he asked. But he had no wish to ask, not since this scrappy Yankee had gotten under his skin. He could close his eyes and see the golden glints in her hair, smell its clean piney scent, and almost feel the silky strands between his fingers. He adored her throaty laugh, straight from the belly, and loved how she looked at Aunt Augusta with compassion and tenderness.
The way she might gaze upon me someday.

Feeling the stirrings of desire, he shook his head to squash the daydream. He had no business hoping for a relationship with her. She was his aunt’s governess—a woman who rode horses with her petticoats showing. Whatever reason took her to that barn last night, she hadn’t been honest with him. He had trusted a sweet face and gentle touch before and had been tricked. Now he would live with the knowledge that men died because of him for the rest of his life. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again.

And who had time for courting? The Confederate victory at Winchester hadn’t been the end of hostilities they had hoped for. The trounced Union forces hadn’t gone home, leaving them in peace. They pulled back to lick their wounds and wait for new recruits to fill their ranks. And new recruits would surely come, while the bottomless well
of Yankee provisions never ran dry. Richmond, on the other hand, couldn’t adequately supply Stonewall Jackson’s Army of the Shenandoah Valley or Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Soldiers needed nourishing food, warm clothes, and good boots as well as ammunition and horses to replace those killed in battle. The Southern well hit bottom long ago.

The colonel and his second-in-command led a handpicked company of fifty men on a three-day raid of Union storehouses. Ellsworth tapped into telegraph offices to falsely report rangers attacking outposts first in Alexandria and then heading up into Pennsylvania. Next he reported the Gray Wraith wreaking havoc west of the Shenandoah Mountains. He placed them everywhere except where they planned to be. The rangers liberated hundreds of horses, a vast quantity of provisions, and thousands of Union greenbacks for the Confederate Treasury. They netted so much that Jeb Stuart’s cavalry had to assist with distributing the spoils. But the colonel saw no end to the war in sight—no imminent day when hostilities would cease. He could only do his duty to the Confederate Cause, relieved to have done so thus far without killing anyone. He hadn’t broken the Sixth Commandment, but he’d broken plenty of others instead.

Bone tired but proud of his men’s accomplishments, Alexander headed toward the beloved fields of Hunt Farms. He was eager to taste Beatrice’s cooking again, to soak in his copper tub until his skin was wrinkled like a prune, and sleep beneath the soft quilt in his own bed. Most of all, he anticipated a reunion with his aunt’s governess. Try as he might, he couldn’t get her out of his head. Emily’s face was the last thing he saw when he fell asleep at night and her scent of lemon verbena seemed to hang in the air when he awoke each morning. She was dishonest at the very least, and Alexander knew what came from trusting a deceitful woman. Maybe she would have an explanation for her behavior in Berryville and maybe she wouldn’t. But he couldn’t stay away from her if his life depended on it.

Grinning with happiness, Emily stretched like a cat in her luxurious room at the Bennington mansion.
I hope you’re proud of me, Mama.
For the first time in a long while she had accomplished something. After they arrived in Martinsburg, they sent the maids to town on errands and hid Annabelle and Gabriel in the attic to rest for a few hours. Then during the night while Jack and the maids slept, Emily and Lila moved Annabelle to a secret landing on the Potomac River, known only to those on the Underground Railroad route. Long before dawn, Annabelle clumsily embraced Emily and Lila, and then she boarded a flatboat headed upriver to freedom. She carried cloth bags of food, spare clothes, and diapers; a canteen of water; and their heartfelt prayers. Emily and Lila stood on the riverbank until the boat disappeared into swirls of fog and mist. A slave and her son would soon be safely in Pennsylvania, sheltered by a Chambersburg couple, fellow Quakers like her parents. The young mother’s tears were all the thanks Emily and Lila needed.

But Emily wasted no time patting herself on the back. She jumped out of bed and dressed quickly, allowing Lila another hour of sleep. Downstairs in Dr. Bennington’s tidy office, she gathered and packed up the medical supplies from his list. As she worked, thoughts of betrayal crept to mind to ruin her good mood. Her employers and hosts would consider her actions stealing—the theft of property. But what right did they have to own slaves? She hadn’t stolen their money or a horse. Annabelle and Gabriel were human beings. She’d been taught that no Christian would keep another in bondage. Yet the Hunts and Benningtons also considered themselves devout Christians, the same as her. And the Benningtons trusted her, treating her more like a family member than an employee. This odd incongruity niggled in the back of her mind as they loaded the buggy and left Martinsburg, heading toward Front Royal.

As Jack snapped the horses into a brisk gait, Lila stretched out on the backseat. Emily studied the map, directing their route on back roads. She was eager to deliver the medical supplies to the hospital and then return to Hunt Farms. At least Dr. Bennington’s humanitarian efforts
saved lives on both sides. She wondered if Alexander had noticed that the young woman and her baby were missing. How much contact did he have with
his people
? Or would he only concern himself with the financial loss they represented?