The Courier of Caswell Hall (3 page)

His words were slurred, but his accent sounded British. Of course, it was impossible to judge one’s loyalty by one’s accent. Plenty of rebels were from Britain.

Kneeling over him, she wiped the river water from his face with her muff. Then she removed her heavy cloak and covered him. If he was a Loyalist, Father would welcome him into their house, but if he was a Yankee, Father would probably put him right back out into the snow.

“What am I to do with you?” she whispered.

All she heard in reply was his heavy breath as he trembled under her cloak.

What if he was a rebel coming to hurt her family? Or a marauder intent on stealing their livestock?

She stared at him for another moment. It could be a ruse. He might be bait, to get inside their home. Or a band of Skinners—thieves—might be waiting in the willows to steal their food and livestock, hurt her family. Or he simply might be a poor soul who fell off one of the British ships. If he was a Skinner, he was much too weak at the moment to steal or injure anyone. She could turn him over to the magistrate in the morning.

Lifting her skirts, Lydia turned toward the house. Others might fear the king, but she feared God. She would have to answer to Him if she left this man to die, and he would die, probably in a matter of minutes, if she didn’t hurry. Peace would never come to their colonies
unless people on both sides were willing to help each other, no matter how risky.

She wished she could fetch Sarah—Seth’s sister and her best friend—to help her with this man, but there was no time. She must convince Prudence instead.

She found Prudence downstairs in the kitchen, the empty tray in her hands. “I need your help,” Lydia said.

“Of course.” Prudence set down the tray on a counter. “What is it that you need?”

“There is a man outside.” Lydia hesitated, not sure how to explain. “He’s unconscious.”

Prudence looked alarmed. “One of the Negroes?”

Lydia shook her head. “A British man—or an American. He seems to have fallen off a ship.”

Prudence pointed toward the staircase. “We must tell your father.”

“We cannot.” She twisted the muff in her hand. Her parents never explained themselves to their servants, but she wanted Prudence to understand. “What if this man is a rebel?”

“If he is—” Prudence hesitated. “Your father might avenge his father’s death.”

“That is what I fear.” Lydia glanced back at the door that led outside. “I cannot be responsible for letting another man die here.”

“He might not be a good man, Miss Lydia.”

“That is not for me to judge.”

Prudence still didn’t move. “The Scriptures say we know a righteous man by his deeds.”

“Then let us wait until he awakens before we pass judgment.” She swallowed. “But he will never awaken without our care.”

Reluctantly Prudence joined Lydia outside, her hastily donned cape askew. By the light of their lantern, the two women stared down at the man’s pale face.

Wet hair curled around the crown of his head, and icy drops clung to his eyebrows. He no longer shivered, and his stillness frightened Lydia.

“We must take him inside,” she insisted.

“There is no place to hide him.”

Her parents might not find him in one of the spare rooms or the attic, but Hannah most certainly would. Her sister would burst before she kept a secret this big.

Prudence rubbed her arms under her cape. “Perhaps we could hide him in the servants’ quarters.”

Lydia nodded. It was a risk to have him near the servants. One of them might turn him over, afraid of her father’s retribution, and if this stranger was a rebel, Prudence’s position would be in jeopardy.

An idea began to form in her mind. The head groom at the stables was an honest man, and he lived in a room above the coach house, with a view of the river instead of the house. He was also strong enough to carry this man.

She looked up at Prudence. “Do you think Elisha would help us?”

“He’s probably the only one who would.”

And they could trust him to keep a secret.

“Fetch him right away,” she said.

Prudence nodded and then set the lantern in the snow before she picked up her petticoat and ran toward the stables.

Watching her grandfather die had torn at the seams of Lydia’s heart. The idea of another man dying beside her, a man whose story she had yet to learn, was terrifying. She didn’t want him to die, didn’t want anyone to die. She knelt beside the stranger and reached for his hand, praying quietly that God would intervene. She didn’t know what else to do except pray and warm his hand in hers.

He might perish on someone else’s watch, but she prayed not on hers.

Elisha came back with Prudence, his dark skin blending in with the night. He swore when he saw the stranger. Then he looked up at Lydia, his eyes wide. “Pardon me, Miss Lydia.”

“There is no reason for apologies,” she said. “I was shocked as well.”

“What do you require of me?”

“You must carry him to the coach house.”

In the starlight, she could see the fear in his eyes. He stepped back, shaking his head. “If Master Caswell finds out—”

“You’ll tell him the truth—that I insisted upon it.”

Elisha examined the man’s face as Prudence had done, as if he were debating whether it was more beneficial for him to listen to Lydia and incur the wrath of his master, or ignore her command and escape Lord Caswell’s anger. His sigh was long, resigned, as he knelt down in the snow and lifted the stranger to his chest as if the man were a newborn foal.

Prudence rushed off to heat water while Lydia used the lantern to guide Elisha to the other side of the well.

Elisha climbed the steps of the coach house and set the stranger on his narrow bed. Lydia knelt beside him, examining the stranger’s face again. He looked to be about Elisha’s age, perhaps nearing forty years old. His skin was shaded like a gray winter sky, his jawline flecked with stubble. When his chest stilled again, she reached for his wrist, checking to see whether life still coursed through his veins.

His damp skin felt colder than the snow, and when she felt no pulse, she placed her fingers on his neck. The slightest knock of his heart tapped against her skin.

Elisha stacked three pieces of wood in the fireplace. “I’m afraid there isn’t much hope for him.”

Prudence was correct—they would know a righteous man by his deeds—but Lydia didn’t know how long they must wait to discover the righteousness of this man.

Another scripture flooded her mind. “
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren
,
ye have done it unto me
.”

Life was fragile for even the strongest of men, but they couldn’t abandon this one, no matter how weak he was. God asked of them to care for His children.

“As long as there is some hope, we must fight for his life.”

“If he lives—” Elisha looked up at her, hesitant to speak.

“What is it, Elisha?”

“I’m afraid you might not like what happens if he lives.”

“Somewhere this man has a family.” She pulled her cloak off the stranger. “If nothing else, we must attempt to keep him alive for their sakes.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood to help her peel off the man’s drenched waistcoat. Then he reached for two blankets on a shelf. “You best turn your head.”

She nodded, turning to face the narrow window, as Elisha removed the rest of the stranger’s clothing. What did one do to save a man half-frozen and perhaps half-drowned as well? Father usually sent for Dr. Cooper in Williamsburg, but Dr. Cooper was an outspoken Loyalist and one of her father’s closest friends. He would certainly tell Father about this man.

Elisha gasped, and Lydia swiveled around. Her stomach rolled when she saw the jagged gash on the man’s foot.

She’d been well-schooled in the arts of dance and conversation. She’d learned to serve tea and cake and stitch pincushions and samplers for gifts. Mother was teaching her how to manage the household staff. But no one had taught her much about the practicalities.

Or how to save a life.

Perhaps she should fetch Mother’s laudanum. Mother thought the laudanum cured everything.

The fire began to warm the room, and Prudence returned within the half hour with a pot of hot water and rags. Steam curled toward the wooden ceiling as she poured the water into Elisha’s white basin, dipped a rag into the hot water, and wrung it out. Leaning over Lydia, she covered the man’s face and then his arms with more hot cloths.

Elisha produced a bottle of whiskey and Prudence helped lift the man’s head. The stranger sipped the whiskey without urging. Then he began to mumble again about Arnold as Prudence and Elisha cleaned his wound and wrapped it with clean cloths.

Lydia felt so helpless, watching Prudence and Elisha work with ease. Where had they learned to care for someone on the brink of death?

She stared up at Prudence, desperate to do something to help bring back his life. “Shall I get medicine?”

Prudence shook her head. “Whiskey and warmth are the only cures for him now.”

Lydia looked back at the bed. “And prayer.”

“Aye,” Prudence replied. “Particularly prayer.”

Elisha added several pine knots to the small fire. The room would be plenty warm soon.

Prudence pointed toward the door. “You should return to your chamber, miss.”

She didn’t move. “I cannot leave him.”

“You mustn’t worry,” Elisha said. “I’ll do my best to care for him tonight.”

“But what about the morning?” she asked as she slowly stood.

“It is not likely he will survive.”

She knew it would be a miracle if he lived until morning. Thankfully, she still believed in miracles.

Sarah Hammond wrapped her shawl across her shoulders and stepped out into the cold as darkness fell. None of the servants inquired after her. Ever since her father had sailed away last summer, they’d become accustomed to her nightly strolls. They just didn’t know why she must venture out each night.

She knew her servants often whispered in the basement about her oddities, as did the people in Williamsburg. How could they not? No other woman aged barely twenty-five was attempting to run a plantation in Virginia. Her servants had no choice but to work for her, and she had no choice but to run this plantation until her father returned. Every night, she dreamed about sailing away with her father instead of trying to manage his property.

She tried to be grateful for the blessings of a home and plantation, but she held on to them loosely. What she clung to was the gift of freedom and her library full of books. The library whisked her away to places she might never visit, the pages of her book sweeping her off to islands and cities and long voyages filled with grand adventures.

The flame inside her lantern lit the wrought-iron railing her great-grandfather had constructed more than eighty years ago. The Hammond family plantation house was one of the first built along the James River. It was small compared to the other nearby plantation houses—like those belonging to the Caswells and the Webbs—but her family’s plantation had ushered in the growth of the colonies. In time, when her brother returned, it would grow as well.

Seth wanted to become a planter like their father, but Sarah had no desire to stay. One day she would visit some of the cities she read about in
her books—Philadelphia, New York, and Charles Towne. Once this war was over, she would be free to go wherever she wanted, but until then, she and Thomas—her father’s overseer—were left here to manage four thousand acres.

She’d never planned to run a plantation, and to her knowledge, her father—the renowned Commodore John Hammond—never intended for her to run it either. At his king’s command, he had no choice but to go to the West Indies last year. With Seth already gone, he didn’t trust anyone else but her with his affairs, so she had been left with a man’s job.

Sarah held up the lantern, and the light flickered on the iron, casting spindly shadows across the wooden steps, as she searched for the white ribbon. Nothing was tied to the railing tonight.

Sighing, she lowered the lantern again. Morah’s four-year-old son, Alden, had spotted British ships out on the James tonight. She’d thought a messenger might arrive as well, so she could deliver a message after services tomorrow.

A coyote howled in the woods at the end of their long drive as she scanned the drive. Not that the messenger would parade up her snowy lane, but perhaps she would see the shadow of a man.

She wrapped her shawl closer to her chest as the skeletal arms of their elm trees swayed along the drive.

Maybe there had been a mistake. The messenger might have forgotten to tie the white ribbon around the railing. Or perhaps a servant had found the ribbon and snipped it. A message could have been delivered earlier this evening and she might not know it arrived.

The courier always hung a ribbon to alert her if he’d left a letter. She wasn’t supposed to check the hiding place, at least not regularly, but tonight she would.

Snow carpeted each step, and she clung to the banister as she edged her way down to the lawn. Lifting her skirt, she hurried past the summer kitchen and the icehouse until she reached the circular stone building to the right of their house. The dovecote.

When she opened the door, hundreds of doves and pigeons squawked, but they didn’t fly out the glover on the top. The birds were
used to the cook opening the door, stealing away squabs for breakfast or dinner. Sarah reached her hand into the stone crevice to her right, but all she felt were feathers and straw.

Admittedly, it was a strange system of delivery to hide messages in the dovecote, but it worked well. She knew she could be hanged for treason if she was caught, but she had no intention of being discovered.

Holding up her lantern, she checked the nearby nests for the familiar leather pouch, but there was nothing here tonight. After closing the door, she turned back toward the house, laughing at herself as she walked back through the snow.

Who would have thought that she would be a link in the network spreading throughout Virginia? No one in Williamsburg would ever guess what she was doing. They thought her too shy, too quiet, too loyal to the king to do anything this risky.