The Freedom Maze (16 page)

“Don’t you know to knock?” she snapped.

Sophie curtsied. “I did knock, Miss.”

“You did not.” Miss Liza tugged at her neckline. “You’re a nasty, sneaking girl who doesn’t know her place. Mama says you’ve been spoiled rotten.”

Sophie didn’t laugh, but the effort must have showed. Miss Liza turned redder still, grabbed a pair of heavy metal shears off the nightstand, and heaved them at Sophie’s head.

Luckily, Miss Liza’s aim was terrible. The shears hit the washstand pitcher and smashed it into smithereens, along with the bowl it was standing in. Sophie gasped, Miss Liza gave a furious little scream, and then, like a bolt out of heaven, Dr. Fairchild appeared in the door, demanding to know what in tarnation was going on.

Sophie folded her shaking hands on her apron and did her best to look simple.

Miss Liza hastily snatched up a wrapper and threw it around her bare shoulders. “It’s not my fault, Daddy — it’s that girl. She sassed me something
terrible.
”

Dr. Charles picked the shears out of a heap of blue-flowered shards. “That’s not a sufficient reason to throw dangerous things, Elizabeth. Had you hit her, you might have cut her, gouged out her eye, even killed her.”

Miss Liza pouted. “She’s not hurt. And it would serve her right if she was. After I’m married, how will my slaves respect me if I let them sass me?”

“It is to be hoped,” Dr. Charles said, “that by the time you’re married, you will have learned to command your temper. Whatever she may have said to you, Sophie is not your servant to punish. And you’ve destroyed a very expensive bowl and pitcher, sent all the way from England. I’m ashamed of you, daughter. Deeply ashamed.”

Miss Liza collapsed on the daybed in a fit of whooping hysterics. Sophie noticed that she was not too hysterical to keep a tight grip on her wrapper.

Dr. Charles sent Sophie for smelling salts and applied them to his daughter’s nose. She sneezed and stopped whooping, although tears cascaded from under her dark lashes.

Dr. Charles took her hand. “Listen to me, puss. When you correct a servant, you must do it firmly but gently. Would you throw a knife at a horse that threw you or a dog that growled at you?”

Miss Liza shook her ringlets meekly, but the set of her mouth told Sophie that she very well might, if she had a mind.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Dr. Charles said indulgently. “Your mama is an excellent woman, but in the matter of managing the servants, I would prefer you to take your Grandmama as your model. Do you understand?”

Miss Liza sat up on the daybed and lifted large, wet eyes to her father’s face. “Of course, Papa.”

“That’s my good puss.” He gave her hand a pat, apparently satisfied with the effect of his lecture.

Which proved, Sophie thought as she went in search of a chambermaid to sweep up the mess, that Dr. Charles was a lot stupider about people than he was about broken bones and fever and vacuum-effect evaporators. Only a blind man wouldn’t see that Miss Liza was mean as the devil and twice as tricky. She just hoped Mr. Beau was good and blind.

A few days later, the Big House was ready for company. Everything that could be polished had been polished, the storeroom was full, the beds were made up, and there were fresh flowers in every room.

The day the Fairchild daughters were due to arrive, Old Missy set up camp bright and early in a wicker chair down by the floating dock so she’d be sure to be on hand to greet them. Standing behind her with a sunshade, Sophie watched the steam launches pull up the bayou one by one, whistles shrilling, with wide-hatted ladies leaning over the rails and waving their parasols. Samson and Peru helped the crew tie up to the floating dock. Then a Fairchild daughter would herd her children down the gangway to kiss their grandmother and pester her for a boiled sweet while her husband oversaw the unloading of all the trunks and valises and dressing cases necessary for a two-week visit.

By late afternoon, everyone had arrived and Oak River overflowed with Fairchild women and their ruddy planter husbands, talking and laughing and needing to be waited on.

Miss Lotty and Mr. Preston had brought their new baby and his nurse with them, but Miss Sukey and Mr. Kennedy had left their two younger children at home, bringing only Miss May Frances Kennedy, a prissy-faced ten-year-old with chestnut hair cut to her shoulders. Miss Kate’s twins, Augustus and Marcus Becker, were, as Aunt Winney said, as alike as blackstrap and molasses and mischievous as monkeys. Not an hour after they arrived, their father was tanning their backsides for sliding down the banister.

They made a great deal of noise over the whipping, then ran off immediately afterward to climb a tree. Sophie couldn’t believe it was just because they were used to it. Maybe people didn’t hit their children as hard as they hit their slaves.

Sunday night supper was a more than usually formal affair. The Fairchilds and Kennedys and Prestons and Beckers alone made twelve at table, plus Mr. and Mrs. Robinson from Doucette and Mr. Beaufort Waters.

Sophie stood in her usual place behind Old Missy’s chair and watched Uncle Germany and Peru ladle out soup and pour wine for the gentlemen and Korea supply the ladies with lemonade and barley water. Samson pulled steadily at a big, square silk-covered fan suspended over the table, cooling the company and keeping the flies off.

The soup was followed by a side of smoked pork, a treat Mr. Becker had imported from Virginia. As everyone tucked in hungrily, Sophie distracted herself from her own growling stomach by studying the Fairchild daughters.

Miss Sukey, plump and fair and kind-faced, favored Old Missy. Miss Lotty and Miss Kate’s narrow lips, dark eyes, and eagle noses were slightly softer reflections of the portrait of old Mr. Fairchild that hung over the sideboard. All three grandchildren favored their fathers. While the adults made polite conversation, Marcus and Augustus Becker, all dressed up in blue velvet suits, made faces at Miss May, who fiddled with the string of coral beads around her neck and pretended to ignore them.

From the place of honor at her father’s left, Miss Liza gazed possessively at her fiancé, who was enduring Miss Kate’s very thorough, very polite investigation of his family, his prospects, and his politics. Sophie found herself feeling almost sorry for him.

When the smoked pork was down to scraps and bones, Mrs. Fairchild rang her silver bell. Sophie leaned around Mr. Beau to take up his plate and felt a sly hand squeeze her leg through her petticoats.

Startled, she jerked back, tipping dirty silverware and a greasy bone onto the rug.

There followed a small flurry. Mr. Beau laughed, Miss Liza glared blue murder, Old Missy tutted in distress. Ears burning, Sophie bent down to clear up the mess.

“Who’s that girl?” Miss May Kennedy’s voice cut through the buzz of conversation. “The one who looks like Cousin Liza?”

Time stuttered, then started up again as Miss Sukey and Old Missy struck up a lively conversation about the finer points of Georgia and Louisiana society. Uncle Germany snatched the plate out of Sophie’s hand and shooed her into the pantry, where Korea was standing with her apron thrown over her face, shaking with suppressed laughter.

“Lordy, Lordy,” she gasped. “Bless me if I ever heard the like! ‘The one who look like Cousin Liza!’ That’s some plain speaking, yes, indeed.”

“You shut your mouth, Korea, and get your self on out there and clear.”

Sophie was almost in tears. “I’m sorry, Uncle Germany. I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident.”

“I ain’t blaming you,” Uncle Germany said wearily. “Now, you run on down to Africa and tell her we’s ready for them pies. And don’t go showing that Fairchild nose where anybody but Old Missy can see it.”

Next morning, Mrs. Fairchild told Sophie she wouldn’t be waiting on her at meals any more.

“Not when there’s company,” she said. “At least until you’re older and more experienced.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sophie, much relieved.

Old Missy gazed into the vanity mirror and adjusted the white ruffle at her neck. “I’ll be devoting all my time to my family while they’re here. You won’t have much to do, bar making my coffee — and reading to me at night, of course. I’ve decided to send you — temporarily — to the yard.” She glanced up at Sophie’s reflection. “Mammy will tell you where you’ll be most useful. Don’t look so stricken, child. I’m not angry with you.”

Fuming, Sophie presented herself in the office, where Mammy greeted her with grim satisfaction. “It’s more than time you did some real work. Go tell Africa she’s got a new girl to scrub the pots and sweep the floors. And see you’re back in good time for the reading.”

Sophie set off for the yard in a fine, sullen temper. Old Missy wasn’t angry with her? Well, Sophie was plenty angry with Old Missy. She was mistress of Oak River, after all. If she wanted to keep her granddaughter beside her, what business was it of anybody’s? Did the Fairchild daughters think Sophie would stop existing because they didn’t have to look at her?

At the entrance to the maze, Sophie stopped. She’d gone in before without getting caught. No reason she couldn’t do it again. It was a Fairchild maze, after all, and she was a Fairchild. With a hasty glance around to see if anybody was looking, she ran to the central garden, where she sat on the stone bench under the rose arbor and spread her skirts as if she had as much right to be there as any other member of the family.

Somewhere in the maze, a man spoke, low and teasing. A girl — Miss Liza — giggled in response.

Sophie sprang up and looked around frantically for a hiding place. Not the summerhouse — they might go inside. Maybe behind it.

She wiggled carefully between a big camellia bush and the summerhouse wall. There wasn’t space for a snake between it and the hedge, but there was a hole in the latticework foundation plenty big enough to crawl through.

Thinking of snakes, Sophie hesitated, thought of Miss Liza’s probable reaction to finding her, decided she’d take her chances with the snakes. She bundled her skirts up as best she could, scrambled through the hole, and tumbled straight down a steep incline to land, unhurt but winded, on something that smelled powerfully of mold. Afraid to move, she listened to the crunching of two sets of feet walking toward the summerhouse and struggled not to cough.

The steps halted and Mr. Beau Waters said, “What a pretty garden, darling. Not nearly as pretty as you, though.”

Sophie heard a brief scuffle. Then Miss Liza said, “Not here, Beau. Anybody could come.”

“Where then, darling? Because I vow and declare, if I don’t have a kiss right this minute, I’m going to wither into dust. And then what would you do for a husband, eh?”

Another giggle. “Why, Beaufort Waters, how you do talk! Come into the summerhouse, then, and we’ll see what we see.”

Footsteps shook the boards above Sophie, sending a fine rain of dirt down on her head. “Oh, Beau,” said Miss Liza, and silence followed, punctuated by murmurs and rustling.

Sophie’s eyes adjusted to the dimness. Someone, a long time ago by the look of it, had hidden in this hole before. The thing she’d landed on was a moldy mattress on a board. Beside it, she saw a shuttered tin lantern and a wooden bucket with a lid. A rough wooden ladder led up to the lattice.

Above her, Miss Liza giggled and the floorboards creaked. Sophie wondered whether kissing someone with a mustache tickled.

“I need to see you alone, away from your parents and all those aunts and cousins, not to mention your grandmother,” Mr. Beau said. “Will you meet me here tomorrow, after dinner?”

“Oh, yes.” Miss Liza’s voice was soft. “Yes. This is
our
place, yours and mine, and I’ll
always
meet you here if you send word. Oh, Beau. I
do
love you so!”

Another embarrassing silence, then Mr. Beau’s boots and Miss Liza’s shoes left the summerhouse and crunched out of earshot.

To give them time to get out of the maze, Sophie counted slowly to two hundred, then scrambled up the ladder and out the hole, slapped the dirt from her skirts, and started out of the maze.

She was almost to the entrance when she came face-to-face with Miss May Kennedy.

The two girls stared at each other with startled curiosity.

“You got me into a peck of trouble last night,” Miss May whined. “Mama sent me to bed directly we got up from supper.”

Sophie was used to being ordered around, threatened, and generally treated like a domestic animal by adults. But she didn’t see why she had to put up with being scolded by a girl half her age. “You brought that trouble down on yourself,” she said.

Miss May gasped. “You can’t talk to me like that!” she said, and actually stamped her foot. “You’re nothing but a dirty yard child. I’ll tell my mama you sassed me. I’ll have you sent away. I’ll have you whipped.”

If a yard child was what Little Missy wanted, then that’s what she’d get. Sophie cocked her hands on her hips. “I
been
sent away already, on account of
you
can’t hush.”

Miss May started to cry.

“Quit that bawling!” Sophie said recklessly. “I ain’t hurt you none. Prissy little crybaby.”

“I’m not. Take it back. I’m a Kennedy of Ash Grove, and you’re a nigger slave wench.”

Now it was Sophie’s turn to gasp.

Seeing the impression she’d made, Miss May stopped crying. “Nigger!” she crowed triumphantly. “Nigger, nigger, nigger!”

“Now, now.”

Sophie whirled around. Mr. Beau was standing in one of the unmarked gaps, holding a newly lit cheroot and grinning under his mustache. “I can’t believe your mama would approve of you using that word, Miss May.”

Sophie watched with satisfaction as the little girl went from furious red to pasty white and clamped her hands over her mouth. She couldn’t resist adding, “You shouldn’t ought to call names, miss.”

“From what I just heard, she had good reason,” Mr. Beau said.

Sophie hastily dropped her gaze to her feet.

“Do you know what happens to uppity slaves?” he went on pleasantly. “They get sent to work in the cane fields, where nobody will see whether they’re whupped or not. So I’d mind my manners, if I was you. And stay out of places you don’t have no business being.”