The Courier of Caswell Hall (15 page)

“I am sorry,” Lydia told her. “Truly.”

Sarah sighed. “Many have lost so much more.”

“It is the terrible cost of this war . . .” Lydia’s voice trailed off. She’d wanted to see Sarah yet wasn’t sure what to say to her friend whose brother and father were serving on opposing sides.

Morah set a platter with a pot of sassafras tea, milk, and sugar cubes on the table between the women. Sarah’s maidservant was as elegant as any British gentlewoman and quite lovely with her light-brown skin and slender features.

Morah was only about five years older than Lydia, and everyone at their plantation knew Elisha loved her. When Sarah and Lydia were younger, Morah told them she and Elisha jumped over the broom together, and the girls thought Elisha and Morah needed a real ceremony. They conspired to throw them a secret wedding until Hannah found out about it. Hannah told Father, and he immediately put an end to their plans.

Soon after, Morah became pregnant and Father decided to sell her. It was Lady Caswell who convinced him to sell Morah to a nearby
family so she and Elisha could visit on occasion. And with Morah nearby, Father probably figured Elisha would never run. Sarah had begged her father to buy Elisha as well, but Lord Caswell refused to part from his trusted driver.

Sarah nodded toward the door. “I believe you and Alden are needed outside.”

Morah’s brown eyes glowed. “I thank ye.”

After she left, Sarah glanced out the window. “I was just thinking I wanted to go to Williamsburg.”

Lydia nearly invited her, but when she glanced at her mother, Lady Caswell gave her the slightest shake of her head.

Sarah quickly recovered the awkward silence. “Will you be paying anyone a visit while you are in town?”

Lydia nodded. “We will be stopping to see Mrs. Pendell.”

Sarah poured them each a cup of the light-pink drink, and Mother sipped hers without complaint. Lydia added a sugar cube, and the tea tasted a bit like the nutmeg that Viney put in her cider.

Sarah picked up her cup. “I am sure Mrs. Pendell will be most glad for your company.”

“Do you have news from your father?” Mother asked.

Sarah shook her head. “It is difficult to get correspondence from the West Indies.”

Lydia added another cube of sugar to the tea. “He must miss the plantation.”

“We miss him as well.” Sarah smiled, but Lydia saw the strain in it. She couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be to manage an entire plantation.

“I can imagine.” Lydia sipped her tea slowly, hoping Sarah would say that she’d heard from Seth as well, but she didn’t mention her brother.

Lydia heard footsteps on the wood outside the parlor, and she turned to see Thomas, the Negro man who worked with Sarah to oversee the property and slaves. Thomas shifted his hat into his other hand. “Good morning, Lady Caswell. Miss Caswell.”

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“We found one of the Caswell canoes this morning, down by the stream.”

Lydia’s teacup clinked against the saucer. Had Nathan taken one of their boats here?

Mother cocked her head ever so slightly. “Why would our canoe be on your property?”

“I am not certain, but I can have one of our men return it to you.”

“Lord Caswell would thank you.”

Thomas nodded and backed toward the door.

“We must leave as well,” Mother said.

Sarah stood. “Before you go, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“What is it?” Mother asked.

Sarah motioned for them to wait and left the room. When she returned, there was a leather pouch in her hand. “Would you take this letter to Williamsburg for me?”

“Who is it for?” Lydia asked.

Sarah shrugged. “It is a note for Mrs. Pendell. I would like to visit her in person, of course, but with our horses gone . . .”

Lydia eyed the letter. She had not realized that Sarah and Mrs. Pendell maintained a friendship, but it was good for Sarah to have other women in her life, especially respectable gentlewomen.

Mother nodded. “We would be glad to take it.”

Lydia took the pouch and hugged her friend. “I have missed you.”

Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes. “I have missed you too.”

Mother thanked Sarah and moved toward the door. “I will meet you in the coach, Lydia.”

Lydia nodded.

Sarah lowered her voice. “Have you heard from Grayson?”

Lydia shook her head slowly. She wished she could tell her that there was news. “What about Seth?”

Sarah walked her toward the door. “It has been a long time.”

“When you write him again—” Lydia started. She should tell him something, but what? That she still loved him, wanted to marry him? None of that was true. “Please tell him I asked about him,” she finally said.

“I will do that.” Sarah leaned against the doorframe. “Sometimes I think, I pretend, that Grayson is still alive. I know it is wishful thinking—”

Lydia nodded. “We cannot give up hope.”

Sarah’s voice grew soft. “I still hope you will marry Seth.”

The strangest mixture of sorrow and appreciation washed over Lydia as she linked her arm through Sarah’s. “No matter what happens, I will think of you as my sister.”

“Aye,” Sarah said. “And I you, as well.”

Lydia squeezed the pouch. “If only—”

Sarah stopped her. “The people who killed your grandfather deserve to be punished, but Seth is not like them.”

Lydia thought again of Nathan and his kindness to her. “I know.”

“He only believes we should be free.”

“The freedom comes at such a great cost,” Lydia said as they walked through the entry hall.

“I suppose that is what we must wrestle with. Is this freedom worth it?”

Lydia looked out the front door, at the carriage waiting outside. “I know not the answer to that question.”

Sarah held open the door as Lydia stepped out. “Thank you for delivering the letter to Mrs. Pendell.”

Lydia nodded, squeezing the pouch in her hands. “I wish you could come with us.”

Elisha helped Lydia into the carriage and then climbed up to his seat. As he drove them toward Williamsburg, Lydia watched both Sarah and Morah waving from separate windows of the grand plantation home.

Sarah lingered by the front window as Elisha drove Lydia and Lady Caswell away. Seeing the women together made her miss her mother, the lovely Mary Hammond from Philadelphia. Her father rarely talked about the woman who’d died birthing Sarah’s youngest brother, the brother who’d never received a name. He’d joined their mother an hour after she was gone.

A thread of guilt wove through Sarah as she watched the Caswell coach disappear into the trees. Just two days ago, she’d waited for hours in the forest, until the British guards left, before she returned home. If she had continued to Williamsburg on foot, she would have been stopped and searched, the letter discovered.

Now the letter was in Lydia’s hands.

She hated putting her dear friends at risk, but she didn’t have a choice. Even if the coach was stopped by the British—and Lady Caswell told them that Sarah had given them the letter—she must risk it.

Sarah squeezed the back of a tall chair. She wasn’t supposed to give the correspondence to anyone else, but if it wasn’t delivered, hundreds and maybe even thousands of lives might be lost. She could think of no other way to get the letter safely to Williamsburg.

The British might have suspected Sarah with a letter hidden in her pocket, but she prayed they would not suspect her friend. Lydia reminded her of Grayson, a calm presence whenever Sarah was all in a flurry. Surely Lydia would be fine if someone stopped them. And she would truthfully say that the letter was for Mrs. Pendell, a woman respected by the British. If the British went to Mrs. Pendell, she could feign ignorance.

Sarah slipped a book off the shelf and thumbed through it as she tried to distract herself.

Minutes later, footsteps pounded across the hall and she heard someone yell her name. She put away her book, and when she stepped out into the entryway, she saw Morah. Her maid’s cap was missing, her long hair askew.

Sarah rushed forward. “What is it?”

Morah turned to her, gasping for air as if she’d run a mile. “A British ship has docked at our wharf.”

“Are they coming on land?”

She nodded. “I fear they’re headed this way.”

Her heart raced. “We must find Thomas.”

Perhaps they would respect him more than a woman.

Sarah raced outside the door and down the front steps, calling for Thomas. He had just been in the house, but he could be in the fields now or in any one of their buildings.

Negro men and women watched her from the doorways of the washhouse, kitchen, and dairy. She started down the avenue, toward the thousands of acres on this side of her house. Thomas could be on any one of them.

“Miss!” Morah called behind her. “You must hide.”

She turned. “I cannot.”

“Master Hammond would want you to be safe, and so would Thomas.”

She shook her head, though her heart began to falter. “Thomas and I will speak with the British together.”

Morah pointed her toward the flank buildings. “You must let him do this alone.”

“They will not respect—”

Her words were silenced by the sound of a musket blast near the riverbank. She swiveled and saw a swarm of scarlet—enshrouded in black smoke—marching toward her.

Her stomach rolling, she stumbled backward.

“Hide.” Morah shoved her toward the dovecote. “I will find Thomas.”

Instead of fighting, Sarah fled.

“Poor Sarah,” Mother said as she watched the trees outside the coach windows.

Lydia tapped the pouch in her hands. “She is caught in a terrible place.”

Mother nodded. “Even though she remains loyal, she may be persecuted because of her brother’s choices.”

Lydia turned the pouch over. “At least she has us to help her, if it becomes necessary.”

Mother was silent for a long time. “It would be dangerous for us to visit her again.”

“She is like family.”

“Aye.” Mother sighed. “’Tis a difficult situation.”

“Her father is a commodore in the Royal Navy, and Sarah remains loyal.”

“But now Major Reed and the others know about Seth.”

“Whoa,” she heard Elisha say as the horses stopped. Lydia looked out the window and saw four men, three in red coats and one dressed in blue. She sighed. It seemed the soldiers were everywhere.

One of the soldiers leaned against the coach, looking up at Elisha. “Where are you traveling to?”

She heard Elisha’s muffled voice. “I’m taking my master’s wife and daughter to Williamsburg.”

“We are in the midst of a war.”

“The ladies are quite aware of that.”

The men’s eyes narrowed, and Lydia braced herself.

“Don’t be smart with me,” the soldier said.

“I’m only telling you the truth.”

Lydia looked at her mother’s finger circling the door handle.

One of the men laughed. “We shall need a look at your ladies.”

Lydia cringed. They had nothing to hide, but the thought of these men searching her and Mother was appalling. Mother opened the door and stood on the top step, overlooking the men. “What are you gentlemen doing on our road?”

“We are wreaking havoc on some rebels.”

“Since my daughter and I are not rebels, you can wait until our coach has passed to wreak it.”

A man with dark hair and the blue uniform laughed. He must be one of the hired German soldiers she’d heard about.

The Englishman stepped forward. “We have been ordered to search everyone on the road to Williamsburg.”

Mother’s chin inched up. “I am afraid we can spare no time for a search.”

“You are too busy to serve the wishes of the Crown?”

“We are busy serving the wishes of the Crown,” Mother replied. “Elisha, please give this gentleman our letter from Major Reed.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know Major Reed?”

“He is a family friend.”

The man laughed. “That is quite presumptuous of you.”

“Major Reed is also a guest at our home.” Mother climbed back into the coach and closed the door. She leaned forward to speak again through the window while the soldier skimmed the letter. “The major has sent us on an errand to Williamsburg.”