The Seeker (19 page)

Now it appeared Jake was determined to break through the gap and be his own man as he planted his feet on the ground and stretched up to his full height. His eyes were level with Adam’s. “I won’t leave the regiment. I’m not sitting on the sidelines. If you try to make me, you might as well just shoot me between the eyes right now, because I couldn’t live being branded a coward.” Jake’s voice rose with each word until a couple of the men back at the camp lifted their heads to look out toward them.

Adam kept his voice quiet, almost pleasant. “Is that the iron you’re branding me with, Jake? A coward’s brand?”

Another flush reddened Jake’s cheeks before he dropped his eyes to the ground. After an uncomfortable few ticks of silence, he mumbled, “You know I don’t think that, Adam. Not really. You just look at things different than me. The artist in you, I guess. You’ve always been an observer. A watcher. But that’s not me. I can’t sit on the side and watch. I’ve got to be in the middle of making it happen.” He raised his eyes back up at Adam. “It’s time you and Phoebe realize that and let me be my own man.” He was the little brother again beseeching Adam for permission to do something that would horrify their mother or Phoebe.

Adam stared at him for a long moment before he let out a sigh and shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Phoebe. Or Mother.”

Jake smiled like a kid getting a puppy on Christmas morning as he bounced up on his toes and down again. “You can tell them you think I’m a man now. You do, don’t you?”

Adam frowned at him. “I think you’re headstrong and foolish.” He let his frown fade away as he put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “But way too big for me to knock any sense into. Just remember it’s war, Jake. Real bullets. Be brave but don’t be stupid.”

He went back over to the campfire with Jake and let him introduce him around to his buddies. All young. All burning with the war fever. He sat with them until dark fell, sketching their faces, hearing their blustering talk, wondering what he was going to tell Phoebe.

He took the easy way out and didn’t go back to Boston before he caught a train to Kentucky. He sent a telegram.
Jake won’t listen. Matter of honor. Pray war short.

Adam could only hope Phoebe’s response wouldn’t find him until after the shooting stopped and Jake was safely home. As he watched the colors of spring bursting forth in the fields outside the train window, it seemed impossible that American men were gathering to shoot at other American men and that the only difference in the enemy would be the color of their uniforms. There’d even been stories in the papers about brothers shaking hands and marching off in opposite directions. To his chagrin, some other artist had beaten him to that illustration, but who knew what the coming weeks would bring? Cannons might be exploding in these very same green fields rolling so peacefully away from the train tracks, or the trains themselves might be derailed. If so, commerce in the nation could grind to a halt. That’s what President Lincoln was hoping would happen in the South when he ordered the blockade of their ports.

Adam felt as ambivalent about it all as Kentucky was. It hadn’t bothered him that Jake thought he lacked courage. He wasn’t a coward. He had no need to prove himself on a battlefield except to draw the scenes that would tell the battle’s story. That was the greater need. To record the conflict for history.

It seemed a waste of time heading back to the Shaker village in Kentucky just to draw a staircase. Sam had to be losing all sense of what was important. But Sam was the boss, and like he said, no cannons had lined up yet. As best Adam could tell from what he had heard in Washington, as many battle plans as there were regiments were being bandied about. If Lincoln didn’t find a way to pull all the units together, who knew what might happen or when? So he supposed there was time for Sam’s staircase. Plus time to swing by Grayson first. A slaveholding landowner trying to straddle the fence while waving a Union flag had to be a picture Sam Johnson could use. And could be he might convince the senator’s daughter to pose for him in the garden. That would be one to add to his private collection.

But the senator wasn’t there. Nor was the senator’s daughter, according to the very proper black butler who answered the door and escorted him to the receiving parlor before going to inform the senator’s wife she had an unexpected guest. Gibson, the old butler who had quaked so visibly under Selena’s tirade in the parlor that day, had obviously been replaced. After cooling his heels in the small room for the better part of an hour, Adam decided to go see who he could find on his own to tell him when the senator’s daughter might be in.

The house was being transformed. The sound of hammering drifted down from the upstairs floor while in the main parlor two black men were scraping paint off the woodwork. They paid scant attention to him as he stepped into the room and looked around. The furniture was covered in sheets and all the paintings removed from the walls, so at least Adam’s eyes didn’t have to be assaulted by his too-pretty portrait of the new Mrs. Vance. Outside the window the garden was no longer a peaceful retreat as a swarm of workers was cutting and trimming and tearing out the old plants and bushes. No chance of a quiet encounter with the beautiful Charlotte there now, even if she had been home.

He turned toward the kitchen. The cook had been friendly to him when he was here before. What was her name? Something odd. Aunt Tish. Latisha, according to Redmon when he saw the sketch Adam had drawn of her. Adam still had that sketch, along with the one he’d redrawn from memory of Redmon holding his horse. Someday Adam hoped to find a backer to help him publish a book of the many faces of America.

“Who are you?” a young voice asked as Adam stepped into the dining room that as yet was untouched by the bevy of workers.

Adam looked around the empty room. “Am I talking to a Grayson ghost?” he asked. “If so, I demand you introduce yourself.”

A boy of five or maybe six poked his head out from under the table and giggled. “I’m not a ghost.”

“What a relief.” Adam put his hand over his heart and let out an exaggerated breath. “But if not a Grayson ghost, who are you?”

“I asked you first.”

“So you did. Adam Wade at your service.” Adam bowed a little from the waist and then crouched down to be eye level with the child. He surmised the boy must be Selena Vance’s son, even though his small round face little resembled his mother as it shone with an innocence quite foreign to hers. “Is some sort of attack imminent? Should I ask you to make room for me under there with you?”

The boy giggled again, his dark eyes dancing under a mop of curly hair. “You’re too big to hide under here, but I doubt you need to. Miss Pennebaker won’t be chasing you to make you form your letters on the slate until your fingers won’t uncurl from the chalk.” He flexed his fingers as his smile disappeared. “Miss Pennebaker has no fondness for fun. If she catches me, I’ll have to stand with my nose in a circle on the schoolroom wall for hours.”

“How irksome for you, young sir. Can your mother not 173 intercede for you, Master . . . ? I don’t believe you gave me your name.”

“Landon. Landon Black, and Mother gets even angrier than Miss Pennebaker when I run off and hide.” The boy’s eyes got bigger as he shrank back under the table a bit. “The last time she said she was going to tell my new father to give me a whipping. But he hasn’t come back from wherever he works. Do you know him?”

“I do know him.”

“Is he very mean?”

“He didn’t seem so, but perhaps you should do what Miss Pennebaker tells you so you won’t have to find out about that.”

“I suppose I will just have to take my punishment then.” The little boy sighed heavily. “A whipping is better than staying in the schoolroom all the day long. Mother says I have to learn to be a gentleman, but I don’t want to.”

“What do you want to learn to be?”

“A sea captain. I want to smell the sea air and harpoon whales.” The little boy crawled the rest of the way out from under the table. He stayed on his knees but stretched his head up in the air. He was so thin that Adam thought a stiff sea breeze would surely bowl him over. The child peered at Adam and asked, “Have you ever seen a whale?”

“Only in drawings.”

“Drawings.” Landon frowned. “That sounds like schoolwork.” “Not to me. To me it’s an adventure every day as I chase the unexpected the way a sea captain chases whales.”

“But you can’t harpoon whales unless you’re a sea captain. Harpoons are heaps more fun than drawing pencils.” The boy 174 raised his arm and pretended to throw a harpoon before he shook his head sadly. “But Mother says I have to be a gentleman because all this will be mine someday.”

“What about Charlotte? Where is she?”

“Charlotte. That’s my new father’s daughter. Mother says I’m my new father’s son, so that would make Charlotte my sister, wouldn’t it?” The child didn’t seem to expect Adam to answer him as he went on. “But she’s not here. She’s somewhere in Virginia. Mother says she had to go there to learn to be a lady before I came here.”

“Virginia?”

“That’s a state. Miss Pennebaker says they seceded from the Union, and we’ll be shooting people from Virginia now, so I might never get to meet her. My sister, I mean. I had a father.” The boy’s lip trembled as he went on. “He had to go to heaven to see God. So I don’t need a new father even though Mother says I do, but I’ve never had a sister. A sister might be fun. If she knows about seas and such, but Mother says to forget about having a sister.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

Landon started to answer, but the sound of female heels clicking on the wooden floor and coming closer stopped his words. “Mother’s coming. I’ll harpoon you if you tell her I’m under here.” He scooted back out of sight under the tablecloth.

16

Adam stood up and stepped away from the table a bare second before Selena Vance came into the room. He pushed his lips up in a smile as he greeted her.

Her return smile looked every bit as fake as his felt. “Adam, how delightful to see you again. But James said you were waiting in the receiving parlor.”

“So I was,” Adam said. “But it was a long ride here and the day was warm. I hoped to impose on your housekeeper for a drink of water.”

“You poor man.” She pulled her mouth down in a sympathetic look. “I should have had refreshment sent to you at once. What a regretful lapse of proper hospitality! I fear I’ve been in quite a spin trying to correct years of neglect here and simply got distracted. Let me ring the bell for tea.”

She hardly seemed dressed for work, with her waist pinched small as a wasp’s above the shimmering rose-colored skirt, fashionably plumped out by multiple petticoats. As she brushed past Adam toward the sideboard, the skirt’s silky material rustled softly against his legs.

“That’s kind of you, but you don’t have to bother with tea on my account,” he said. “A glass of water, then I’ll be on my way. I only stopped by to have a few words with the senator, but your servant says he’s not here.”

“No, I fear he’s still in Frankfort. The war news is causing so much division that he doesn’t know when he might be able to return. Plus of course, the election looms next summer.” She studied Adam as if trying to figure out why he would need to speak with the senator. “Was there some difficulty with your payment for the portrait? I have come to realize that sometimes mundane business matters very often escape Charles’ notice when he is up to his ears in political maneuvering.”

“No, no difficulty. Actually it was politics that brought me here.” Adam told the partial truth. “I hoped to speak with him about the local political mood. And to see if he might be willing to allow me to do a sketch of him for the newspaper. A Kentucky senator trying to hold on to the peace here in the state.” Adam held his hands up as if framing the caption.

Her face changed, became more welcoming. “I’m sure he’d look on that with favor. You really must stay for tea so that we can chat about your work.” She picked up a small bell off the sideboard and rang it.

“Will Charlotte be joining us?” Adam asked as if the butler and the child hiding under the table hadn’t already told him she wasn’t there. “I do hope she is well.”

“I’m sure she is quite well.” Selena carefully set the bell down to keep it from tinkling again and ran her fingers along the tatted lace edge of the cloth on the sideboard before she turned to look at Adam. “But Charlotte’s not at Grayson right now. She’s gone to Virginia.”

“Virginia? With war imminent, do you think that is wise?”

“Charlotte is a very determined young woman. What she decides to do, she does.” Selena held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Charles warned me she was thus before we married.”

“I’m surprised she would decide to leave Grayson. She spoke so fondly of her home here.” Adam watched Selena. Something seemed amiss in what she was telling him.

“Young women can be quite unpredictable.” Selena shook her head slightly with a look of amused wonder. Then her eyes sharpened on Adam. “She is very attractive in spite of those unfortunate freckles. Were you smitten by her?”

A young female servant answered the summons of the bell and saved him from having to come up with a suitable response.

“We’ll take tea in the receiving parlor,” Selena told the girl.

“Your offer of tea is very kind, but I really must be on my way,” Adam said quickly. He had no desire to be trapped into an extended visit with this woman. But he had pretended thirst, so he added, “However, a glass of water and perhaps one of Tish’s apple tarts would be more than welcome.”

Selena shooed the servant girl back to the kitchen with no change in her orders before she turned to smile at Adam. “We have a new cook now. One I brought down from Boston. Unfortunately a skill for finer cooking seems to escape our Southern Negroes.”

“Oh. And where is Tish? I had the feeling that she had long been part of the household.”

“So she had, but you needn’t dredge up any of your Northern sympathies for her. I haven’t sent Tish away, merely moved her to the slave quarters to cook there. Perkins says she’s quite happy. How altruistic of you to be concerned for her.” Selena’s bland smile grew even wider.