The Freedom Maze (19 page)

“Don’t cry. He won’t bother you again. I think he’s frightened Dr. Charles might believe us.”

Antigua raised her face, swollen and wet with tears. “And that make him dangerous as a lame bear. What for you use that whip on him?”

Sophie bit her lip. “I don’t know. It was there, and he wouldn’t stop, and . . .”

Antigua scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and got to her feet. “It done now. And you likely going to pay for it.” She did up the buttons on the front of her dress. Some of them were missing. “It ain’t your fault. Just please don’t say a word to a soul. Not a living soul, you hear me, Sophie? Not Momi, not Sally, not nobody.”

Sophie nodded unhappily.

Antigua hugged her very quick and hard. “I mighty happy to see you and that little whip, yes, ma’am. As long as you was hitting, I wish you’d of hit him harder.”

Sophie gave a weak giggle. “I wish I had, too. I don’t think he could have been any madder. What do you think he’ll do, Antigua?”

“I don’t know, Sophie, I surely don’t. I don’t ’spect we need wait long to find out, though.”

Mr. Beau waited three full days to act, which gave Sophie plenty of
time to imagine what he might do. None of her imaginings were pleasant. By Tuesday morning, she was dropping things and forgetting things and generally making Old Missy nervous as a cat.

“I declare, Sophie, I don’t know what’s gotten into you this morning. You’d think you were possessed of a devil. Why don’t you go down to the sewing house?”

“I’d rather stay here, ma’am, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. Aunt Winney wants to turn out my dressing room, and she doesn’t need to be worrying that you’re going to break something the moment she turns her back.”

“Poor Aunt Winney’s knees hurt so bad in the cold, I should be here to help her. I’m all better now, see?” Sophie picked up Old Missy’s nightcap and shook it smartly to smooth the ruffles. One of the ribbons caught a silver buttonhook on the nightstand and sent it tinkling to the floor.

Old Missy sighed. “Go, Sophie. I’ll send when I want you.”

Down in the sewing house, Asia gave Sophie a pile of field-hand’s britches and a handful of wooden buttons. Sophie did her best, but the needle kept coming unthreaded, and she pricked her fingers bloody. Finally, she threw the britches on the floor.

Asia eyed her knowingly. “Ain’t nothing more useless than a girl with her nature coming on. Go sweep the floor. You ain’t fit for nothing else.”

Sophie sniffed furiously, fetched the broom, and was raising dust with it when Sally burst in like mad dogs were after her.

“Old Missy want you,” she panted. “Right this very minute, she say. She mad as fire. What you done, girl?”

Sophie felt the blood drain out of her face.

“That bad, huh?” Sally shook her head. “I sure happy I ain’t you, Sophie. She got Mrs. Charles and Miss Liza with her, and they’s mighty put out.”

I’m a Fairchild,
Sophie thought.
Old Missy’s too proud to sell her own granddaughter.

Sally led her to the parlor. Aunt Winney opened the door, her face as grim as Judgment Day. Behind her, Sophie saw the Fairchild women all lined up in front of the fireplace. Mrs. Charles had her rawhide strap laid ready across her knees. Old Missy held a red bundle in her lap.

Miss Liza sat between them, looking like a cat with cream on its whiskers.

“Mrs. Fairchild has some questions she wants to put to you,” Mrs. Charles said. “Mind you answer truthfully, now, or it’ll be the worse for you.”

Sophie clasped her hands tight to hide their trembling.

Old Missy touched the red bundle. “Do you recognize this?”

Sophie pushed at her glasses nervously, saw the red was stitched with black. “Is that my Sunday tignon?”

Miss Liza made a small, triumphant sound. “Didn’t I tell you, Grandmama?”

“Hush, Elizabeth.” Old Missy’s voice was stern. “When did you last see this headrag, Sophie?”

The question was a trap. What else could it be, with those clear blue eyes fixed so intensely on her face? But without knowing what she was meant to have done, Sophie couldn’t think of a single thing she could safely say.

Mrs. Charles tapped her rawhide. “Come now, girl. The truth shouldn’t need thinking over.”

Sophie took a steadying breath. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just I can’t remember exactly the last time I wore it. Not since harvest started, I think, or maybe a bit before.”

“But when did you last see it?” Mrs. Charles insisted.

“Hush, Lucy,” said Old Missy. “Sophie, where do you keep the headrag when you’re not wearing it?”

“Under my pallet, in the dressing room.”

“And where do you think we found it?” Mrs. Charles asked.

“Under my pallet?”

Mrs. Charles’s hands gripped her rawhide. “Don’t be insolent.”

“Do you recognize this, Sophie?” Old Missy unfolded the tignon, revealing a silver-backed brush etched with a pattern of roses and lilies intertwined.

“No, ma’am.”

Mrs. Charles made an impatient noise. “Why do you persist in this charade, Mother Fairchild? You have only to look at her face to know she’s guilty.”

Old Missy ignored her. “Look again, Sophie.”

Leaning in to examine it, Sophie saw a little flat space in the middle of the design with a monogram engraved: EFC. F for Fairchild. E for Elizabeth. She didn’t know what the C was for.

Her heart gave a big, choking thump. “It’s Miss Liza’s brush,” she said. “But I didn’t take it, I swear. I haven’t been near Oak Cottage.”

“You were there on Saturday,” Mrs. Charles pointed out. “Mrs. Fairchild sent you. Furthermore, I wonder why you’re so quick to deny a crime of which no one has yet accused you.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Lucy. Yes, Sophie, it’s Miss Elizabeth’s brush. Aunt Winney found it in the bottom of my armoire. The question is, how did it get there?”

Sophie knew Miss Liza had put that brush in Old Missy’s armoire herself, just as sure as if she’d watched her do it. “I don’t know, ma’am,” she said miserably. “When did it go missing?”

“Why do you ask?” Mrs. Charles snapped.

Old Missy quieted her with a gnarled hand. “It’s a reasonable question. When did you notice the brush gone, Elizabeth?”

“Yesterday evening,” Miss Liza said. “I even had Antigua pick through all the washing piece by piece, in case it might have been gathered up with the dirty linens.”

Sophie didn’t doubt it. “I wasn’t at Oak Cottage yesterday,” she said. “I was with Old Missy.”

Old Missy shook her head. “Not every minute. There was an hour at least between noon and one when you were nowhere to be found.”

“I was eating my dinner,” Sophie said, trying to keep her voice steady. “You can ask Africa. Or Sally — she went down to the kitchen with me.”

“And both Africa and Sally will say they saw you, whether they did or not. You know perfectly well, Mother Fairchild, that servants can be counted on to lie to protect each other.” Mrs. Charles leaned forward. “And what if I said Mr. Beau saw you loitering in the back gallery yesterday afternoon?”

“I wasn’t at Oak Cottage, ma’am,” Sophie said. “Not yesterday.”

Miss Liza widened her eyes. “Are you saying Mr. Waters told a lie?”

Sophie’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. “Oh, no, Miss Liza. He must have been mistaken, is all.”

“Mistaken!” Miss Liza gave an angry titter. “And I suppose you don’t stick out among the other servants like a grub in an anthill.”

“That’s enough, Elizabeth,” said her grandmother. “Nobody doubts that Mr. Waters saw a light-skinned slave near Oak Cottage yesterday. It needn’t have been Sophie. I myself am more distressed by what I observed this morning. You can’t deny, Sophie, that you were very nervous and most reluctant to leave the house when you were ordered.”

“Yes, ma’am. But . . .” Sophie stopped. But what? She couldn’t say that she was nervous because she was afraid of Mr. Beaufort Waters.

“No buts, Sophie: that’s what happened. And you knew Aunt Winney would be turning out the armoire, because I told you.”

Sophie clasped her hands together tightly. “Please, ma’am, I don’t know anything about the brush. Please believe me.”

Old Missy’s wrinkles deepened with distress. “You do admit this is your tignon?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you keep it in my dressing room.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And who has business in my dressing room, other than you and Aunt Winney?”

“Nobody, ma’am. But anybody can go in. It’s not locked.”

“Why would anyone want to go into my dressing room? I hope,” Old Missy said coldly, “you don’t expect me to believe that Aunt Winney would steal Miss Liza’s silver hairbrush and try to make it look like you took it?”

Not Aunt Winney,
Sophie thought, but all she said aloud was, “No, ma’am.”

Old Missy’s expression hardened. “I’ll give you one more chance, Sophie. Did you take Miss Liza’s hairbrush and hide it in the armoire?”

“No, ma’am. I didn’t take the hairbrush. I swear.”

“I told you, Mother Fairchild,” said Mrs. Charles with satisfaction. “A thief
and
a liar.”

“So you did, Lucy,” said Old Missy, but she didn’t sound at all happy about it.

“Naturally,” Mrs. Charles went on, “you can’t let this go unpunished.”

“I was thinking about sending her to the sewing house.”

Mrs. Charles brushed the notion aside. “That’s a rest cure, not a punishment. Dr. Charles always says there’s nothing like a stint in the fields to give a difficult house servant a new perspective.”

Sophie stared at her clasped hands while the debate over her future went on, wondering what she’d do in the fields. She didn’t think she could bear to cut cane.

“A good whipping is what she needs,” Mrs. Charles said.

A real whipping with knotted thongs, she meant, tied over a barrel. Sophie swallowed nervously, and the room got darker and narrower.

“I promised Robert I’d take care of her,” Old Missy said.

“It seems to me, Mother Fairchild, that Robert would thank you for breaking the girl of a pernicious habit.”

Old Missy shook her lacy cap. “Whipping does nothing but make servants hard and sly. My mind’s made up. Sophie must work in the fields until she’s learned the consequences of her actions, but I won’t have her whipped. Winney, ring the bell.”

Sally answered so fast and looked so goggle-eyed that Sophie knew she’d been listening at the door.

“Bring Mr. Akins,” said Old Missy, and Sally scurried away.

Sophie tried to think of something, anything she could say that wouldn’t make things worse.

“Look at her,” said Mrs. Charles. “Smug as you please, trusting in her face to get her off lightly. I declare, Mother Fairchild, I don’t know how you can bear to have the creature near you.”

“Her face isn’t her fault, Lucy,” said Old Missy sadly. “It’s Robert’s fault, if it’s anyone’s. And if it saves her a whipping, that’s the most it will ever do for her.”

Old Missy spent the time waiting for Mr. Akins lecturing Miss Liza on kitchen gardens. She sounded perfectly calm, but Sophie hadn’t spent all those weeks waiting on her without learning to read her moods. Old Missy believed Sophie had stolen the brush and lied about it, and she was deeply disappointed with Sophie for being like her no-account father, with herself for having trusted her. She wasn’t going to get over it anytime soon.

After a long, uncomfortable time, Sally showed Mr. Akins into the parlor. He looked and smelled as though he hadn’t washed since harvest started, but at least his broad-brimmed hat was in his hand rather than on his head.

He grinned, his teeth yellow in the briar patch of his unshaven jaw. “Afternoon, Miz Fairchild. I hear you got a new field hand for me.”

Old Missy did not return the smile. “Sophie has been very foolish, Mr. Akins. I’m hoping that honest hard labor will teach her more wisdom.”

“Sure to, ma’am.” He turned to Sophie. “Come along, wench. You hear Miz Fairchild. Time you do some honest work.”

Sophie stared from one white face to another. Mrs. Charles looked satisfied, Miss Liza maliciously gleeful. Old Missy just looked old.

Sophie turned and bolted for the door.

A strong hand closed around her arm and jerked her to a halt. Sophie clawed at it, sobbing that she hadn’t done anything, that it wasn’t fair. Mr. Akins spun her around and pinned her neatly, with her elbows nearly touching behind her back.

“Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I better take care of this directly and get back to the sugarhouse.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Charles. “Thank you.”

Mr. Akins hauled her down the back stairs and out through the cool, green garden, muttering under his breath about the time he was wasting on women’s foolishness.

“Scrawny thing, ain’t you?” he remarked. “Smart thing would be to sell you off in New Orleans.” He spat in the dirt. “Women!”

As they reached the cane brake, a panting field hand emerged from the wall of green. “Mist’ Akins, sir! Old Guam say come quick to Devon Cut! Henry done sliced his leg near clean off!”

“If that don’t just beat the devil! Here —” Mr. Akins shoved Sophie into the man’s arms. “Take this wench and shut her up somewheres.”