North by Night (4 page)

We escaped the barn and walked outside where two men tended a bonfire built from small branches and twigs left over from the woodcutting. Jeremiah led me to the far side of the fire, where snaps and hisses would guard our conversation from unfriendly ears.

I stood with my back to the fire to keep warm. “Nine people,” I began. “Another in dire straits. It sounds serious.”

“More than serious. The woman is with child. She nears her time and needs a rest.”

“Nine people is so many. I’m not sure we have room for—”

“No. We have a different plan.” He brushed his dark hair off his forehead. “Tonight, perhaps even now, thy
brothers and their friends arrive at Sister Mercer’s farm. She will be covered with spots, running a high fever. The boys will dump the load of wood and race back for help. I have warned Will and Thomas.”

“Widow Mercer is ill?”

“Sister Mercer plays a part. Like thy family, she hasn’t shouted her abolitionist opinions, so her farm is not suspect. She has room for many in her home and barns.”

“A good plan,” I agreed. “But it sounds like you need my brothers more than me.”

“They will set the stage for our drama. Thee and the widow will play leading roles.”

My heart thumped in anticipation. “What shall I do?”

“When thy brothers return, the boys will describe the spots—”

“Measles,” I interrupted. “We’ve had them, Will, Tom, and I.”

Jeremiah nodded. “My sister will offer to stay at Sister Mercer’s house and help, but we Friends cause suspicion, for our beliefs are widely known. I’ll remind Charity that she’s not had the disease. Thee will rush in—”

“I’ll say I’ve had the measles and offer to tend the widow.”

“Charity and I will drive thee to the farm. Thy parents will agree?”

“I’m sure they will. I’ll speak to Mama right away. The widow can’t handle all those people alone.”

“One thing more, Lucinda,” Jeremiah began, but then he frowned. “Forgive me.” Suddenly he bent and began to kiss me. His mouth felt soft on mine, his hands tightened at my shoulders.

My breath caught and my heart drummed. Jeremiah Strong was kissing me! I barely knew him!

My first instincts told me to pull away, but I held myself still for a moment, trying to understand. He wouldn’t act so strangely without a reason. He had warned me first, but why?

Someone must be approaching. I reached up and put my arms around Jeremiah’s neck, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.

His hands relaxed, and he held me warmly. He kissed me again, and I liked the feel of his lips on mine, soft, warm, gentle. Though I knew we were only pretending, my blood raced. I hugged him tight and kissed back. I liked his kissing. I didn’t want it to be over.

Footsteps approached. We stepped apart. Jeremiah caught my hand as we turned toward the sound.

“So, Lucinda.” Jonathan Clark glared at us, half his face lit by the fire, half in darkness. “Now I see why you refused to have supper with me.”

His voice accused, and my temper flared like the bonfire. “Jeremiah asked me first,” I said. “I was being courteous.”

“Courteous?” Jonathan snapped. “I saw you just now, kissing this Quaker and enjoying it. And you.” He turned to Jeremiah. “The Quaker girls don’t like you, so you have to bother a Presbyterian? We don’t mix with Quakers. Stick to your own kind, Strong.”

“Surely all God’s children are the same kind,” Jeremiah replied.

I squeezed his hand. This was my fight, not his.

“Jonathan, please. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t seem sorry,” he said. A look of hurt crossed his face and his shoulders slumped. “Good night, Lucinda.” He turned toward his house.

My heart was a lead weight. I cared for Jonathan, and my pretense had hurt him.

“I’m sorry, Lucinda,” Jeremiah said. “Not for the kisses. I admit, I liked them.” He smiled at me in the firelight. “But I dislike causing thee trouble.”

There
would
be trouble. Jonathan had looked wounded. “He’ll calm down.” I hoped it was true. “I’ll explain … I’ll think of something.”

I expected Jeremiah to drop my hand, but he didn’t. He held it lightly. I liked the sensation, for the confrontation had shaken me. But the needs of the wayfarers tugged at my mind.

“You were saying something about the fugitives. Before …”

“So I was.” His face sobered. “We have a serious problem. Catchers followed the runaways. One fugitive was captured—the only man. He cut off onto a side trail so that the catchers would chase him and we could carry the women and children to safety. We succeeded, but they caught him.”

“Did you see the catchers? Was one tall, with long dark hair, slicked back?”

“We didn’t see them. Why, do you know the man?”

“Maybe.” I explained about the stranger who had taken Mama’s seat in the church pew. “He lost ten slaves. He offered big rewards. Have they brought the captured man back south?”

“Not yet. They’ve taken him to Canton, to the magistrate
there. Friends will try to free him from the jail and hurry him north. When we’ve hidden him safely, we’ll bring the others and put them all on a steamship to Canada. But it could take time.”

“Time?”

“Several days, perhaps a week. Could you manage that?”

“I’ll stay as long as I’m needed—we could say Widow Mercer developed complications. Lung congestion, or dizziness.”

“Thee won’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

He took my other hand in his and faced me. Firelight warmed his eyes. “I find much to admire in thee, Lucinda Spencer. I am glad to have thee on my side.” He tipped my chin up with his thumb and kissed me again, this time lightly on the cheek. I felt a fluttering in my heart like the wings of birds.

I feel it now.

S
UNDAY
, J
ANUARY
12, 1851
E
VENING

Even as I work long hours to help the runaways, I do so with only half my mind, for the other half lingers at that bonfire. I can still feel the soft warmth of Jeremiah’s lips on mine. I touch my mouth again and again, to remember.

What’s wrong with me? I consider myself in love with Jonathan Clark. Yet last week I let my eyes wander toward a handsome stranger who turns out to be a slaver. Now I
can’t forget the way Jeremiah Strong kissed me. No, that’s not right. I haven’t tried to forget. I remember every chance I get. What sort of girl behaves like that? A foolish one, I’m sure. And we have business to attend to, serious business. Perhaps once I write it all down, my mind will let it go and I can return to normal. I hope so.

Jeremiah’s plan succeeded beyond all hopes. My brothers played their parts like actors in a traveling troupe. Even Mama helped without knowing exactly why. Bless her, for though she embarrassed me, it was the right thing to do.

She called me inside and scolded loudly. “Lucinda, your cheeks are flushed. Where have you been?” Heads turned.

“Please, Mama. People will overhear.”

She marched me to an empty corner of the barn, the very picture of a mother angry with her misbehaving daughter.

She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Lucinda, but I assumed you must have news, since you had supper with the Quaker. People will leave us alone long enough for me to give you a good scolding.”

I understood and held back a grin. Mama is a schemer, too. “Yes. Will and Tom should return any moment. They’ll bring a story of Widow Mercer’s illness. You must let me—”

I heard, in the distance, the creak of wagon wheels, the pounding of hoofbeats. We had no time.

Tom burst into the barn with a string of boys behind. “Mama, Papa! We found trouble at Widow Mercer’s house.”

“She’s real sick,” another boy said. “And the house is a mess.”

“No apple pie,” said the youngest Brownell boy. “No food at all, just dishes everywhere.”

“She lay on the floor,” Tom added. “All blazing hot and covered in spots, like when Will and Lucy and me got the measles.”

I smiled to myself. Tom was wonderful. As he told his tale his freckles stood out on his pale, earnest face.

The barn had grown quiet when the boys arrived. Now a murmur arose.
Measles … dangerous for an older woman … measles … contagious …

Will rushed inside and the room quieted again. “Mama, Papa, the widow’s in bad shape. Her fire had nearly gone out. I built it back up. And once I saw those spots, I kept all the other boys out except Tom and me. But she needs help, bad.”

Charity stepped toward Will, offering to help. She, Jeremiah, and I played our parts perfectly. Soon the noise rose again and people hurried to and fro. Mrs. Cummings and Mrs. Clark loaded a basket with food. Charity and I ran to the house for our coats. In no time Jeremiah hitched up his horses, people loaded food and blankets, and Papa was boosting Charity and me up into the wagon.

“I’ll send your brothers tomorrow with your clothes,” Papa said. “Take care of yourself, Lucinda. Tell Will if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Papa.” I hugged him and whispered in his ear, “Wild geese. Will and Tom will explain. I love you.”

Jeremiah whipped up his team and we were off at a fast trot.

I turned to wave. Everyone, my family and all our friends and neighbors, waved and wished us well. I felt a tingle of conscience for lying to them. But it couldn’t be helped. In that gathering, only the Spencers and the Strongs could know the truth.

Jonathan Clark stood apart and scowled as the wagon began to roll. I’d solve that problem later. For now, an adventure was under way. We’d pulled it off! And there I sat, so close to Jeremiah that his arm jostled me every time he lifted the reins.

He kept the pace until we were well beyond the Clark farm. Then he slowed the horses to a walk. “They’ll have a long night,” he said. “No reason to tire them out now.”

I turned to face him. “Your plan worked. It was wonderful.”

“Thank my sister,” he said. “Charity invented the scheme. She’ll tell thee the rest.”

“Thee will help Sister Mercer prepare for the travelers,” she told me. “Jeremiah and I will ride to Uncle’s stables. I’ll dress as a boy and drive the woman who is with child and her youngest in the closed trap. I’ll come slowly with them. The rest we’ll hide beneath the floorboards of this wagon, which Jeremiah will drive.”

“You’ll dress as a boy?” I’d done that, but a Quaker girl? “You always seemed so quiet and proper, Charity.”

“Does thee think we Friends are all prunes? Dried up and boring? I always compose plots.”

“And tangle me in most of them,” Jeremiah complained,
but he smiled. He took my hand and squeezed it lightly.

Charity glanced at our fingers, then smiled, too. “Jeremiah, Lucy, what have I started?”

My hand tingled and my heart thudded so hard, I thought surely they would hear. We weren’t playacting. Jeremiah liked me enough to hold my hand in front of his sister and risk a teasing. I still pinch myself to make sure I haven’t dreamed it all.

M
ONDAY
, J
ANUARY
13, 1851

Widow Mercer—or Miss Aurelia, as I have agreed to call her—is a marvel. I always imagined her to be something of a recluse, sad and lonely. Well, she’s not. She’s full of spunk. She lives alone here in this great and elegant house and takes in nine secret guests as if that were the most natural thing in the world. Well, perhaps it is. Perhaps she’s done this even more than we Spencers have.

I try to figure her out, but there aren’t many clues. No, that’s not right. She’s really very frank and talks openly. I just don’t know what to make of what I see and hear.

The first surprise came when she asked me to call her Aurelia.

“I couldn’t. Mama would skin me alive. Would Mrs. Mercer be all right?”

She grinned at me, filled my arms with a pile of clean sheets, and pointed toward the stairs. “I haven’t been a missus for years. Try Aurelia. You’re full-grown.”

“How about Miss Aurelia?”

She nodded. “All right. We’re going up to the attic. I’ve got straw pallets there, and we’ll spread them with sheets and blankets.”

Miss Aurelia has a wonderful house—large, fancy too. Pictures hang everywhere and wood furniture shines with beeswax polish. The outside is grand, built with stone walls and lots of windows. It looks different from the other houses in our village, as though it was constructed all at once. Our house and most others started as log cabins and grew in a sprawl, a room or two at a time.

Miss Aurelia led me up to a back room with two beds. She pulled on a section of wood paneling next to the chimney and it swung out, revealing narrow, twisting steps. A secret door! She picked up a lantern and a stack of blankets and we climbed the steps.

The attic was warm and clean, and twice the size of the loft my brothers slept in at home. “You have space for twenty people up here,” I said.

“I’ve had thirty, when pressed,” She chuckled. “Imagine if the church ladies knew that. What would the good women say about poor old Widow Mercer then?” She shook out a sheet and tucked one end under the bottom of a straw pallet.

I followed her example. “I often wonder the same thing. We pretend that Mama’s still feeling poorly about losing the baby when we need an excuse. It feels dishonest, but mostly it’s exciting. I’m the one who gets up at night when needed.”

I didn’t know Aurelia Mercer all that well, but something about her manner loosened my tongue. I told her all about the scene with Will and Tom in the Clarks’ barn. I
kept the parts about Jeremiah and Jonathan to myself, though, for my feelings were still jumbled.

“I’d love to have seen it,” she said. “Though I had fun lying on the floor while a troop of wild boys galloped through my house and shouted about measles. I nearly burst out laughing when that little Brownell boy went looking for apple pie. Have to bake those boys a few later, to thank them for my rescue.” She laughed, a deep, hearty laugh that invited me to join right in.

“They said you were feverish, spotted. How did you do that?”

“Beets and whiskey.”

“What?”

She stood and counted the made-up beds. “We’ve finished here. Come down to the kitchen. I do have pie hidden away, and I’ve put water on for tea. I’ll disclose my secrets down there.”