Nobody's Angel (2 page)

"There is nothing more to discuss, though you're right, we are attracting attention. Pile your packages in the buckboard, my dears, and let us be on our way." Susannah looked around, acknowledged the justice of Sarah Jane's observation, and reached for her sister's parcels. Sarah Jane clutched them closer and took a step backward.

"Susannah, you cannot be serious! How can you even think to do such a thing, when you know our father must strongly disapprove?"

"Sitting up half the night at old Mrs. Cooper's bedside, then rising this morning to discover Ben gone with all his chores undone and none but us to do them, as well as the prospect of nursing Craddock through his latest binge and doing his chores, too, until he recovers, has doubtless addled my brain," was Susannah's tart reply, but she forbore to wrestle her sister for her packages. The "Ben" to whom she referred was another of the Reverend Redmon's charitable impulses. Left fatherless by a fever that had swept the community some years back, Ben was a gangly youth who found trouble as naturally as a compass needle finds north. He had been hired to save the girls such chores as chopping wood and building fires, and he had performed faithfully for nearly a year. Then, two months ago, he had fallen in love. As a result, he was now as unreliable as Craddock.

"Having a dependable hired man would certainly make life simpler, but the fact remains that a bound servant is not the same thing as a hired man, and . . ."

"Sarah Jane, you know Pa won't agree to pay a hired man properly, and that's why we can never keep one. I say that Susannah's had a splendid idea!" Mandy's sherry- brown eyes sparkled with excitement.

"I cannot like . . ."

"You cannot like anything, Sarah Jane, since you became betrothed to that goody-goody Peter Bridgewater!" Emily placed both fists on her hips, standing arms akimbo as she glared at her sister.

"Don't you dare malign Peter!" Sarah Jane said, flushing. "He is a most estimable man, and . . ."

"We know he is, Sarah Jane, and Emily was wrong to speak of him so. I've told you before that you must learn to guard your tongue, Em. Peter is Sarah Jane's choice, and in time I am sure we will all grow to love him like a brother." Susannah strove to keep the doubt she felt from being reflected in her voice. In her opinion, her sister's fiancé was a prim fool, but Sarah Jane was so in love that no words of caution could sway her. So she held her tongue and had warned her two youngest sisters to do the same if they wished to maintain warm contact with Sarah Jane once she was wed.

It was obvious that Emily had, for the moment, forgotten Susannah's warning. She snorted. Sarah Jane bridled and opened her mouth to reply.

"What has any of that to say to the purpose?" Mandy broke in, dismissing the incipient quarrel with a wave of her hand. She addressed Sarah Jane. "The point is, do you want to do Craddock's work? There are the provisions to be carried in, the horse to be rubbed down and fed, the hogs to be slopped, the cow milked, and all that as soon as we get home. And Ben's work, as well. And our own."

"Pa . . ." Sarah Jane's voice trailed off as the force of this objection sank in. Her younger sisters, sensing her wavering, swooped upon her. Lacking Susannah's reluctance to assault their sister physically in the middle of a public thoroughfare, Emily and Amanda wrested Sarah Jane's purchases from her feebly resistant fingers and dropped them atop Susannah's packages, then added their own shopping to the pile.

Most of the paper-wrapped parcels contained laces and ribbons and cloth that would be used in the fashioning of Sarah Jane's bridal clothes. But each girl had had pocket money of her own to spend as well and so had bought a few personal fripperies. These unaccustomed luxuries were placed in the buckboard with more care by their respective owners. Only the prospect of Sarah Jane's upcoming wedding had convinced their father to countenance such a large dispersal of funds in the name of female vanity, and the largess was not likely to be repeated anytime soon, as they all knew. The Reverend Redmon's custom was to donate ever}' coin not actually needed for his family's survival to better the lives of his congregation. But on this occasion Susannah had said, in her decided way, that Sarah Jane must have a trousseau, and when Susannah made up her mind about something their father invariably acquiesced. Amanda and Emily had begged to be included in the shopping expedition, and Susannah had agreed.

That morning, after completing all their own chores and Ben's, too, they had set out for town. Craddock had accompanied them, along with a prime sow and her piglets, culled from the herd that Susannah painstakingly raised. The money from their sale she meant to use to purchase passage aboard a ship for Sarah Jane and her husband-to-be, so that when September came, bringing with it Sarah Jane's wedding, the newlyweds might travel in some comfort and style to Richmond, Virginia, where Peter Bridgewater had already gone to take up the ministry of a church. But September was some four months off, and the need for a hired man was immediate. The securing of a ship's berths could wait.

Ever since she had first seen notices advertising the auction, Susannah had silently debated the advisability of acquiring a bound man. The physical labor required to work the farm was beyond her and her sisters' strength, and Craddock was prone to periods of alcohol-induced "illness" that made his help a chancy thing at best. There had been some thought lurking around the edges of her mind that she might acquire the indentured servant when she had set this particular day as the one for their shopping expedition. During the course of the morning, her baser instincts had warred with what she knew to be her father's lofty code of morals. The Reverend Redmon's scruples had nearly won, despite the fact that trying to run the house and farm, fill the part of minister's lady to the congregation, raise three lively younger sisters, and at the same time keep her father from giving away every scrap of food in the larder were leeching away Susannah's reserves of patience, to say nothing of her strength. Crad- dock's latest fall from grace had been the last straw. Sometimes practicality had to outweigh principles, and the simple truth was that the Redmons sorely needed a man to do the heavy work that farming required.

Her father might be appalled, but he would in the end accept her decision, Susannah knew, just as he always did. Over the last twelve years, he had occupied himself more and more with spiritual concerns, leaving more problematic earthly matters to her discretion.

"You cannot—you haven't enough money!" There was triumph in Sarah Jane's voice as she thought of the most telling objection of all.

Susannah patted the reticule that swung from her wrist. The silver clinked comfortingly. "Oh, yes, I do."

"But that's the money for my wedding trip!" Sarah Jane said, then immediately looked guilty. "I—I didn't mean to sound so selfish, of course you must use the money as you see fit, but . . ."

"You will get your trip, dear, don't worry. I'll sell one of the hogs I was saving to slaughter in the autumn. Pa would doubtless just give the meat to someone anyway, so it will be no real loss."

"How greedy I must be, to wish you to do that! I cannot . . ." Sarah Jane looked and sounded stricken with guilt.

"Oh, hush up, Sarah Jane, do! You're making me sick!" Mandy, who had as little patience as Emily for Sarah Jane's recently acquired piety, cast her sister a disgusted look.

"Now that's enough, all of you. If you wish to come with me, you may. If you do not, then you may stay here. But I am going to the auction." Having had quite enough of the discussion, Susannah picked up her skirt, turned, and moved briskly toward the sidewalk.

"But, Pa . . ."

"I am bound and determined in this, Sarah Jane. So you may as well stop fussing, because it will not do the least bit of good." Susannah spoke over her shoulder as she stepped up onto the plank walkway fronting the shops.

Sarah Jane looked as if she meant to say something more. Concluding that further remonstrances would prove useless, she refrained. As they all knew, when Susannah was bound and determined to do something, the earth might move beneath her feet, the sky might rain bolts of lightning down on her head, and the voice of God might call her to account, but still Susannah would go ahead with what she intended to do. Mule obstinate, their father called her on the infrequent occasions he had dis- agreed with his oldest daughter's judgment, usually without much success. And, Sarah Jane reflected unhappily as she followed the bustling form of her diminutive sister, mule obstinate was just what Susannah was.

2

"Beaten biscuits! Who'll have my fresh beaten biscuits?" The cry came from a plump farm woman with a cloth-covered basket over her arm as she made her way among the newly arrived spectators.

"Crabs! Live crabs!" A grizzled fisherman had made a booth out of a wooden crate, which presumably held the crabs in question. He had set it up at the edge of the green on which the auction was being held.

"Rice! Get yer rice!" Next to the fisherman was an old woman bent over a steaming pot that she stirred intermittently as she exhorted passersby.

These voices and others rose over the buzz of the gathered crowd, lending a carnival atmosphere to the proceedings. Susannah slowed her pace as she drew nearer to allow her sisters to catch up with her. Emily's eyes were wide, and Mandy's cheeks were flushed with excitement. Sarah Jane merely looked worried, but even had she wished to she would not have been able to renew her protests because of the sheer volume of the activity around them. Enterprising hawkers peddled everything from pecans to hair ribbons at the top of their lungs. People everywhere moved, some leaving, more coming.

Women in bright cotton dresses and with deep-brimmed sunbonnets on their heads clutched unruly children by the hand as they all strained to get a good view. Gentlemen in long-tailed coats and top hats rubbed shoulders with trappers in buckskins and roughly dressed farmers. Horses were tied to any conceivable hitching post. Wagons and carts with everything from farm implements to crated chickens in the back headed in both directions, clogging the street that ended at the green. A special stockade had been constructed to hold the convicts prior to the sale, and the auction block had been built just to the south of it. Only the week before, a ferry had crossed the Coosawhatchie River to discharge the human merchandise. The convicts had landed originally at Charles Town, the rumor went. From there they had been brought to Beaufort, considered the most prosperous small town in South Carolina, a distinction of which its residents were justly proud. It was hoped that the relative wealth of Beaufort's citizens would make the effort worthwhile.

As the sisters approached the green, they were passed by two men, one after the other, each with what was obviously a newly purchased servant in tow. The first convict they saw had his wrists bound and was hobbled about the ankles with a short length of rope. He was forced to adopt an ungainly gait somewhere between a trot and a hop to keep up with his new master, to whom he was tethered by a rope that passed around his neck. The second convict had been left unbound, except for the tether-rope around his neck, and followed his new master with his head down and his feet dragging. Both men were unkempt and filthy, and for a moment, a flicker of doubt arose in Susannah's mind.

"Susannah, they look misused!" Sarah Jane exclaimed almost in her ear.

"What am I bid for this fine specimen here, a good worker, like all Scots, and strong as an ox?" The auctioneer boomed from the block, extolling the virtues of a stocky man with a shock of red hair who stood regarding the crowd with a cocky grin despite his predicament.

"Now there's a likely-looking fellow," Susannah said, distracted from Sarah Jane's protest by the activity on the block. A little distance away, a trio of matrons spied the sisters. They waved and called greetings, the sense if not the actual words of which were apparent.

"Good afternoon, Eliza, Jane, Virgie!" Susannah called back. Mistresses Eliza Forrester, Jane Parker, and Virgie Tandy were members of the Reverend Redmon's flock, and the sisters knew them well. Smiling, returning waves and greetings, Susannah missed her chance to bid on the man.

"Going once, going twice, gone to Tom Hardy for two hundred pounds! You can pick your man up over here at the side, Mr. Hardy—and pay your money, too, of course."

The auctioneer was Hank Shay. Susannah had known him, or rather known of him, in a vague sort of way from birth. He was an itinerant who traveled the Carolina coast, fetching slaves and bound servants impartially from the large port towns and peddling them across the countryside. His sales were notorious, and the Reverend Redmon had been known to denounce him as a hawker of human pain and suffering. He was a large-bellied, bald, and florid-faced man in his fifties, with a voice that boomed like thunder. It was booming now, as he called for bids on yet another unfortunate.

"Are you going to bid or aren't you?" Mandy prodded Susannah's arm, while Emily, clasping her hands in front of her plump bosom, regarded the goings-on around her with transparent delight. Sarah Jane, on Susannah's other side, looked distressed.

"Please reconsider, Susannah. These men—they're criminals, remember, or they wouldn't be here. You might buy a thief, or even a murderer!"

"A murderer!" Mandy's eyes brightened with obvious fascination at this prospect. Susannah felt another quiver of misgiving—until she thought of all the work that waited at home. She would not allow herself to be swayed from her chosen course by Sarah Jane's negativity.

"Stuff!" she said stoutly. "If the men were dangerous, they wouldn't be offered at public auction, now would they? Over here!"

She raised her hand and called out as the auctioneer took the bidding up to eighty pounds. Shay saw and acknowledged her bid, while Sarah Jane muttered what sounded like a plea to the Almighty to restore her sister's good sense.

It occurred to Susannah, as the auctioneer called for more bids, that in her haste not to be dissuaded by Sarah Jane she hadn't spared more than a glance for the fellow she'd bid on. Accordingly, she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck and thus was able to get her first good look at the man on the block.