The Courier of Caswell Hall (28 page)

Zadock left Sarah and the other men north of York for an entire day. When he returned, he had three other men with him. One was a soldier named Lemuel, who was searching for his comrade, and another was the courier named Nathan, who had secured her travel to Philadelphia. It took her a moment to recognize the third man.

“Elisha?”

“Miss Sarah,” Elisha said, reaching for her hand to shake.

Tears wet her cheeks as she engulfed him in a hug. It was so good to see the husband of her beloved maid. “You are free?” she asked.

Fear flashed across his face. “It’s of my own doing.”

She nodded. “Then we shall keep it that way.”

“Have you any word of Morah?” he begged.

“I am afraid there is none.” She paused. “But we cannot stop hoping.”

“Aye. I will not stop until I find them.”

She understood. She would not stop either, until she found the man she loved.

Nathan said he knew where the ship was, but he also said it would take a miracle to recover Grayson and his men. She would pray for a miracle.

They left their boat and the two hired sailors north of York and continued their journey south on foot. Nathan led them far around York, through a dense forest, before they crossed over a small footpath and an abandoned mill by a stream. Wind rushed through the leaves, tangling her skirt and the ribbons on her cap, but they pressed on until they reached the edge of the trees.

Elisha waved her forward. “Be careful, miss.”

Peering through the trees, she saw the two masts of Grayson’s schooner on the shoreline. The privateer had told them the truth—the ship was docked south of York. But he’d neglected to mention the hundreds of British soldiers crawling like red ants on the grassy hills nearby.

How were they supposed to steal away Grayson and Benjamin and the rest of the men?

Any survivors of the attack were probably being held on the ship—and Sarah refused to let herself believe in anything except Grayson’s survival. To the left of the tents were the camp followers—hundreds of women and children clustered together around campfires. The smoke rose, and she could smell boiling meat. Her stomach ached from hunger, but there was no complaint in her. Grayson and his men would be much hungrier.

She backed away from the edge, retreating into the safety of the trees. She doubted anyone would see her in her brown gown among the tree
trunks, but Nathan had warned them about guards roaming through these trees. If they were caught now, she might see Grayson, but only as a fellow prisoner. Then, she feared, all hope would truly be lost.

Sarah and the men walked a good half mile into the trees. There they set up their bedding and ate the hard biscuits they’d brought from the ship along with berries she’d collected on their hike through the forest.

After unrolling her sheet and blanket, she stared at the dark limbs above her. She’d always wanted to travel, but she’d had no idea that her desires would take her here, sleeping beside four men in the forest. If her father knew, he would pretend to be perturbed with her, but she suspected he might actually be proud of her courage.

The men were silent, their best defense in the darkness. Sarah closed her eyes, remembering Grayson’s small kindnesses to her when they were young—the plums and grapes and apples he used to pick for her. As she drifted to sleep, she prayed that God would give Grayson the sustenance he needed until they could find him.

She awoke to the smell of smoked applewood and meat and opened her eyes to an animal roasting on a spit over the fire. She started to sit, wanting to help the men prepare breakfast, but she stopped when she heard Zadock say it was impossible for them to stage any kind of rescue.

She refused to entertain the word
impossible
.

“I might be able to sneak into camp,” Nathan said, lifting up the barbering kit he kept in his satchel.

“But what then?” Zadock asked. “The guards will never let you on that ship.”

“I could think of a reason—”

Zadock stopped him. “Even if you found a way on, Porter and the others will be too weak to swim away.”

Lemuel stirred the fire. “And it would be impossible to sneak them back through the camp.”

Sarah’s mind raced. If the men were caught, both rescuers and prisoners would likely be shot on the spot. But there was little hope for Grayson’s life if they left him on the ship.

“There must be a way,” Elisha insisted.

“We could take them food and water,” Nathan said. “Enough to keep them alive until we can rescue them from the boat.”

“It is impossible.” Zadock shook his head, resigned. “We’ll never be able to get them off the boat.”

Sarah sat up. “It is not impossible.”

The men looked over at her.

“You might not be able to get into camp.” She took a deep breath. “But I can.”

Silence met her words as the men glanced at one another. She held her breath as she waited for their reaction.

Nathan spoke first. “We cannot let you go into the camp alone.”

She took a long sip of water from her canteen. “You said it would be impossible for any of you to go.”

“But that does not mean we allow you to do so,” Nathan said.

She glanced at the trees around them. Who knew how many British scouts were roaming the forest, looking for invaders? “I will be as safe as I am out here, probably safer. I shall simply pretend to be one of the women living outside the camp.”

“Perhaps it is possible,” Elisha said, and hope began to well in her again.

Zadock cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, miss, but you don’t look much like a camp woman.”

While she appreciated his sentiments, she didn’t believe him. Over the past week, her dress had become torn, her hair tangled in knots. After sleeping outside again, she probably looked more ragged than many of the women who camped for weeks in one place.

“I doubt they will question my appearance,” she said. “But I shall need a good reason to venture into the camp.”

“There are plenty of good reasons for women to go into the camp,” Lemuel said. “You could bring in food to sell or ask to wash clothes.”

Zadock crossed his arms. “Porter would never forgive me if something happened to you.”

Sarah’s mind flashed back to her hours in the dovecote, hiding as the enemy ravaged her house. Her own life had been spared, but she had been too cowardly to attempt to rescue Thomas and her other Negroes.

Her cowardice wouldn’t stop her again. She wouldn’t run from the chance to rescue the man she loved. “I would never forgive myself if something happened to Grayson.”

Nathan looked up. “I thought the man’s name was Porter.”

Sarah licked her lips. “It is—now.”

“Did you not meet him in Philadelphia?” Nathan asked.

“I saw him in Philadelphia, but I have known him since childhood.”

“Grayson,” Nathan said twice, as if he were trying to recall where he had heard the name before. His eyes narrowed. “You have not told me all the truth.”

Her glance shifted from Nathan to Elisha, whose eyes had grown wide.

“I told you both what you needed to know,” she said.

“Is Porter . . . ?” Elisha started, but his voice trailed off.

Nathan untied the ribbon from his hair, and his long hair fell across his shoulders. “Grayson is her brother.”

Lemuel leaned closer to them. “Whose brother?”

Sarah pulled her knees toward her chest, her gaze still on Nathan. “His family mustn’t find out. He is protecting them.”

Nathan looked down at the yellow ribbon in his hands, and Sarah glanced at the other men, gauging their reactions. Then she looked at Elisha. “You must understand that I have no choice but to try this. You risked your life every week to visit Morah and Alden. You would risk it again to save them if you knew where they were.”

Elisha’s gaze rested on the fire. She knew he understood her pain, her need to rescue Grayson, but she also understood his hesitancy. Lord Caswell was the reason Elisha’s wife and son had been sent away in the first place. Now Sarah was asking him to rescue his master’s son, a man who’d lashed his back long ago.

Her voice softened. “Grayson is not his father.”

Elisha closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded. “I know.”

“I must do this,” she insisted. “I would rather die than know that I might have rescued him but did not dare try.”

Zadock shook his head, as if he wasn’t certain he believed her. “Porter is one lucky man.”

“I have loved him since I was but a girl.”

Zadock stirred the fire. “And he loved you as well.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring his words. Her eyes were wet with tears when she opened them again. “Then you must understand.”

“But he might not even be there,” Nathan said. “Or he might not be—”

“He is alive.” She shook her head vigorously. “Now, what must I do when I find him?”

Elisha spoke first. “I can help you with that.”

Hope stirred in her. “What will you do?”

Elisha pulled the blackened meat off the fire. “We can cause some sort of diversion,” he said. “As Gideon did against the Midianites.”

She well remembered the story from the book of Judges. Gideon and his small band of men broke pottery jars and sounded trumpets, and their enemy ran in fear. She looked around their simple camp. They had neither jars nor trumpets. “How will you divert them?”

“I have an idea,” Nathan said.

Lydia’s knees ached as she scrubbed the floor of the great hall. How had the officers managed to leave behind such a disaster? Each time they visited, it seemed, they had less regard for her family’s home. And each time, her mother had less regard for them.

The officers finally went to join Cornwallis, but they left behind a trail of dented furniture, torn upholstery, and broken doors. And mud—it was as if they’d released a passel of hogs to roll around on the floor.

“They took no care,” Mother said, shaking her head as she scrubbed beside Lydia.

“Indeed they did not.”

Mother leaned back against the wall, sweat dripping down her slender face as she surveyed the chaos left behind in the room. “How is it possible for them to do all of this damage?’

“They did not mean for us to do this work,” Hannah said. “They were expecting our servants to clean it.”

Lydia shook her head. “They knew our Negroes had fled.”

“Some have remained.”

“A dozen is not enough to work the fields and the house.”

Hannah looked up, her eyes blazing in defense. “They do not know how many slaves it takes to run a plantation.”

“They have servants in England,” Lydia retorted.

“When this is finished, Dalton will rescue us.”

“You will call him Major Reed,” Mother said.

“But he told me to call him—”

“I do not care what he said, Hannah. He is an officer in the British army, and you will address him as such.”

“Major Reed,” Hannah said, emphasizing his name, “will procure us more slaves.”

Lydia wasn’t so certain. Most of the house servants were already working in the fields. If they didn’t harvest everything in the next week, Father had said that Lydia and Hannah might have to join them.

On Monday she’d worked with Deborah in the washhouse. After enduring the stifling heat, Lydia didn’t think she would mind so much, laboring in the fields. At least there might be a breeze from the river.

She doubted Mother would allow them to work the fields, though. Not because the work was beneath them—there was no work beneath any of them these days—but because she needed their help in the house. Mother had been well-bred in household management but had never been taught how to clean a house on her own. Even if she didn’t revere Caswell Hall as Father did, Mother endured to care for their family’s home, and Lydia loved her for it. It would have been easier for them to leave the work behind and board a ship back to England.

Mother longed for England, and her family would welcome them there, but as long as there was a hope for a British win, Father wouldn’t leave Caswell Hall. And Mother probably wouldn’t leave anyway, not until they found out what had happened to Grayson.

It was useless to try to fix all the damage in the house until after the war, but Mother wanted the house clean, even if the officers returned soon. Or perhaps because of it. Even though the officers had no regard for the Caswell home or possessions, Mother still contended with her
silent pride. They were British gentlemen, and even if they had caused the damage, she would not entertain a gentleman or gentlewoman in such a state.

Lydia brushed her sleeve across the sweat on her forehead.

How did their maids do this work every day without complaint? Or perhaps they had complained every day and she had never heard.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that they were hosting balls here at Caswell Hall, wearing their finest gowns imported from France and England. She’d hardly noticed the men and women who worked tirelessly to organize the balls. Her family’s role was to host, and Lydia had proudly considered her work to be just as difficult as that of their servants. Only their attire was different.

How haughty she had been to think her work just as difficult.