Currents (16 page)

“I
f I prepare toast with strawberry jam, will you eat that?” Gertrude asked. “At least a mouthful? You need to have something for your breakfast.” Bess knew she was troubling Gertrude and that she needed some nourishment. For the last week, she hadn't had an appetite, and more often than not, the cook caught her staring off into space, fighting back tears. Bess wondered again if anyone would believe her over the duchess if she told about Elsie selling things off. Papa would, she knew. With each passing day, she was even more certain her best hope was to wait for his return to expose Elsie.

“You know, my lady, if I may be so bold, I lost my own mother when I was about your age,” Gertrude confided. “Got farmed out to be a servant when my own father couldn't take care of my brothers and me.”

Bess patted Gertrude's hand. “That's kind of you to share, Gertrude.”

“Just made these this morning,” the cook said, nudging a plate of still-warm scones in front of Bess.

“I'm really not hungry,” Bess said softly, rolling her carved heart between her thumb and index finger. “But thank you.”

“Well, if you change your mind.” Gertrude placed a tea cloth over the plate and left it on the table.

“What is that you're fiddling with?” she asked as Bess rolled the trinket absentmindedly between her fingers.

“My worry stone,” Bess answered.

“Looks like an old fruit pit to me,” Gertrude said.

“Hmm. I guess many things look like one thing to some people and quite another to someone else,” Bess mused, staring off.

Gertrude shook her head and chuckled. “Well, now you've lost me. But if it makes you happy, it's not causing any harm.”

Bess pushed around the plate of scones until something in the corner of the kitchen caught her eye.

“What's this?” she asked, eyeing a box next to the back door near the pantry. Crumpled pieces of old newspaper stuck out of the top.

“Her Grace placed it there,” Gertrude answered. “Same as she did with a box last week. Since His Grace left, she's put one out every two weeks or so for some fellow who arrives on a Tuesday.”

Bess tucked the carved heart in her watch pocket, bent down next to the box, and unwrapped the newspaper. She recognized pieces of Kent family crystal that had been stored in the attic.

A small oil painting was tucked underneath the crystal. On the bottom were two tiny velvet cases. The first one contained a pair of her late mother's ruby earrings. She froze when she opened the second one. It contained the pearl-encrusted gold cross that Elsie had taken from her doll's neck. She turned it over and looked at her mother's initials, DSS J. K., engraved on the back. It was one of the last things that bound her to her mother. Shaking with rage, she carefully rewrapped everything except the small case that held the cross, which she tucked into her pocket. She took the box and disappeared to hide it in one of the unused rooms in the back of the house.

As she left, she looked at Gertrude and put her finger to her lips.

The cook stared down into the stewpot she was stirring and nodded, murmuring, “I didn't see a thing.”

“When she finds out you took the box she'll be so angry.” Sarah ran alongside her sister later that morning as they pushed down the path toward Singing Beach. Rain had fallen all through the night, muddying the fields.

“And what is she going to say to Papa when he returns? ‘I was selling off your family's heirlooms and Bess caught me?' She won't say anything, Sarah. But I won't let her sell anything else, and she cannot sell Mummy's cross. She can't have it! Wait till Papa returns and I tell him what she has been up to.”

“Oh, Bess, what if she tries again to get Harry in trouble?” Sarah cried. “I couldn't stand that.”

“I know, Sarah.” Bess's voice was full of resolve. “We've both grown very fond of our Harry Fletcher.”

“She'll go through your things and find it,” Sarah said. “She always does. She snoops through everything.”

“Let her snoop,” Bess said defiantly.

“What are you going to do?”

“You'll see soon enough,” Bess said, rushing along the paths so quickly that Sarah was having difficulty keeping up.

“Where did you put the box?” Sarah asked. “She'll demand you tell her where you hid it.”

“In one of the guest-bedroom closets. Maybe I'll tell her about the box, but never Mother's cross,” Bess said. “Keep the matches and the candle dry, Sarah. That's your duty.” Bess had tucked an old white candle and several matches inside a bag and stuffed them inside Sarah's dress before sneaking out the back of Attwood.

They ran through the orchards where the apple trees, shrouded in November fog, loomed like gray ghosts. They reached Singing Beach just as dark clouds began to appear over the ocean and whitecaps raced across the surface. They would have to complete their task quickly. If it started to storm in earnest they would be expected to return to the house immediately, or someone would be sent to fetch them. Bess removed the rocks from the little cave and pulled out the bottle with Agnes May Brewster's name on the torn paper still rolled up inside. After pulling out the stopper, she closed her eyes, kissed the engraved gold cross on its chain, and dropped it inside the bottle, tightly re-corking it.

“What about the carved heart, Bess?” Sarah's eyes were wide.

“Elsie wouldn't care about that, but I do. It must have meant something to Agnes May. I won't keep her name hostage much longer, but I'm saving her heart so I always remember her. She must be very courageous. I'll carry her heart close to mine to remind myself that I, too, must be just as courageous.”

“You think she really is a colored slave, then?” Sarah asked.

“I think it's a reasonable possibility. Now hand me the bag, Sarah, and hold the bottle sideways. Hold it steady.”

Sarah did as she was told and watched as Bess struck the first match, held it to the candle's wick, and let the melted wax drip over the bottle's cork.

“Don't drop hot wax on my hand, Bess.”

“Then stop shaking, and you'll have nothing to worry about.”

“What will you do with it now?” Sarah asked.

“I don't know—I need time to think. I'll put it back in the nook for the time being. But I've been worrying about the damp and the rain. Chap says one reason it made it intact from wherever it came from is because it was sealed well with cork and wax. I won't let anything happen to it.”

Bess tucked the sealed bottle far back in the little cave, then pulled Sarah along by the hand as they raced back to Attwood.

E
lsie appeared in the kitchen that afternoon as Gertrude was putting a lid on the evening's stew. Bess was sitting at the table sipping a cup of tea and working on her knitting. Her heart wasn't in it, but Mrs. Dow insisted the girls keep to their regular schedule while their father was away.

“Bess, what are you doing down here again? You seem to enjoy the kitchen more than any other room,” Elsie asked, annoyed.

“I came to get myself a cup of tea and keep Gertrude company,” she answered, counting stitches on her needle.

“We have servants to bring you your tea, Bess. And don't ruin your appetite. Perhaps you should take your knitting upstairs.”

Bess raised her index finger to indicate she was counting stitches.

“Gertrude,” Elsie said, turning to the cook, “I have a gentleman coming to discuss some small farming matters with me. When he arrives, I'd like to be alone with him in the kitchen so—” She stopped short.

“Where is the box I placed here?” she asked, her words coming out slowly.

“I, I don't know, Your Grace,” Gertrude lied.

Elsie bent down, her long pointy nose almost touching the cook's, her unblinking eyes inches away from Gertrude's. “Where is it? Tell me. Now.”

Wringing a dishcloth between her hands, Gertrude blurted out, “Bess took it this morning, ma'am. I had nothing to do with it at all!”

The color drained from the duchess's face as she turned slowly to face Bess.

“And what did you do with it?” Elsie asked, her lips pursed and twitching.

Bess put down her knitting and stood up to face her stepmother. “The question seems to be, Mother, what exactly were you planning on doing with it?”

Ignoring the question, Elsie asked, “Does this mean you aren't going to tell me where it is?”

“Well,” Bess said, “I shall tell you this much. Harry Fletcher hasn't taken it.”

They stood glaring at each other. Though unspoken, they both knew that the girl would tell her father everything when he returned.

A short time later, Elsie appeared in the kitchen again. “Have Eldridge bring the carriage around to the front,” she ordered Gertrude, wrapping a lavender shawl over her bony shoulders.

“Where are you going?” Bess asked, trying to keep the alarm from her voice.

“None. Of. Your. Business,” Elsie hissed.

“What about the fellow coming for the meeting, Your Grace?” the cook asked.

“When he comes, tell him I'm sorry, but something unexpected came up,” Elsie said. “I'll be in touch with him later.”

When the carriage pulled around to the front of the house, Bess watched with growing distress as Elsie briskly walked out and settled herself in the back.

“Take me to town. To the Constable's Office,” Bess heard her order Eldridge.

When Constable Alfie Fletcher showed up at his brother's house an hour after Elsie's visit, Bess was already there. Alfie's whole body seemed to have sagged into itself, and he cried along with Harry's mother when he put handcuffs on Harry.

“I told her,” Alfie said. “I says to Her Grace—‘my nephew has never been in trouble in his life. My brother and his family, they are good folks, ma'am.'

“‘Not so good that he minds stealing from the very house where my stepdaughters have made him feel welcome,' she says back to me,” Alfie said.