Chapter 11

Sarah walked down Waller Street every evening the next week but one, when it was pouring down rain, but there was no further sign of life at the little brown house.

On Thursday evening, Uncle Ethan went out after supper. Sarah was sure he had gone on another mission related to the slave smugglers. She wondered if her Aunt Charity had any idea what her husband was doing out there on this cold, dark November night, but Sarah said nothing to her or to her cousins.

They all sat in the parlor, Abigail looking at a book of fashions, Tabitha sketching a new embroidery design, and Sarah reading a story to Megan. Aunt Charity made a pretense of putting finishing touches on the ball gowns, but Sarah saw her eyes stray to the clock every few minutes.

She was worried about Uncle Ethan, too, remembering how he had come home last time, bleeding and nearly unconscious. There wasn’t anything either she or Aunt Charity could do, though, but pray that he and the others with him would come home safely when their work was done.

When they finally went to bed, Sarah lay awake in the soft featherbed beside Megan, listening to her aunt pacing the floor of her bedroom. Out back, the cedar tree whispered and moaned in the wind. She shivered. Was it trying to tell them something—something cold and frightening?

She must have dozed then, for she was awakened by the clock in the downstairs hallway striking midnight. Soon after that, she heard the door open and footsteps wearily mounting the stairs. She heard her uncle talking softly with her aunt, then the house grew quiet, except for the continued murmuring of the cedar tree. Now, though, the sound was comforting, and Sarah drifted into a dreamless sleep.

The next afternoon, they traveled to Pleasantwood Plantation for their session with Señor Alfredo. Some older militiaman that Sarah had never seen before had taken Seth’s place on the driver’s seat beside Sam.

“Pa must have found out about you and Seth making eyes at each other and asked for someone else to guard us,” Abigail said.

“It’s your fault, Abigail!” Tabitha snapped, her disappointment apparent in her bad temper. “You told Ma!”

“Tabitha Armstrong,” Abigail said indignantly, “I can’t believe you would think such a thing! I didn’t say a word about his riding inside with us last week.”

“Well, I’m sure Sarah didn’t tell him, and Megan didn’t know, so if Pa found out, it had to come from you.”

“It most certainly did not!” Abigail insisted. “So I suppose your beloved just had more important business elsewhere today.”

Suddenly Sarah remembered Uncle Ethan’s mysterious errand the night before. Had Seth gone with him and been the one injured this time? She truly hoped not. He already had been wounded in the war, and had just gotten his arm out of the sling a few weeks ago.

Señor Alfredo greeted them in the music room. “Ah, señoritas, we must work very hard today, for the ball is not far off, no?”

He began the lesson with Tabitha, but it was obvious that her mind wasn’t on her dancing. Finally, he stopped.

“Come, come, Señorita Tabitha,” he scolded gently, “you dance with all the grace of a wooden doll today! Are you ill?”

Tabitha shook her head, looking as if she was about to burst into tears.

“It is all right, little one,” he assured her, patting her on the arm. “We all have our bad days. You will do much better next time.”

Tabitha nodded miserably, her face and neck red with embarrassment. She walked over to look out the tall windows down toward the river. As Sarah swept by her on Señor Alfredo’s arm, she saw that her face and neck still were flushed.

When it was Tabitha’s turn to play for him to dance with Abigail, though, a pleasure he always saved for last, Sarah was relieved that she played better than she had danced.

Sarah edged over toward the door, then glanced back at Señor Alfredo, swooping around the room with Abigail, oblivious to what anyone else was doing. She went into the hallway, and wandered down the way she had gone last week, stopping in the doorway to Señor Alfredo’s quarters. She listened, but there were no ghostly footsteps overhead today.

Were slaves hidden at Pleasantwood? Uncle Ethan had not answered that question when she had asked it the other day. If they were, how long did they stay before they were shipped home? Where did Uncle Ethan and his men take them to be put on a boat to Africa or the West Indies? And where were the Woodards? The girls had not seen the family once since beginning their lessons. Were they on a boat somewhere helping the slaves return to their homes?

Again using the back stairs, Sarah entered the second floor hallway and wandered along it, glancing into rooms that took her breath away with their rich fabrics and colors.

Then she went on down to the kitchens and asked the same black woman she had met there last week for a drink of water. When she had finished, she went outside and sat down on the back stoop to wait for Sam and the carriage.

Suddenly, Sam came careening up the driveway, so fast that Sarah thought the carriage might turn over. He pulled up before the back of the house and sat pretending he didn’t know she was there.

She walked over to the carriage. “Sam, where have you been?” she asked. “I thought you waited down at the stables until time to go home.”

“Well, Miss Sarah, I…uh…had a little errand to do for the governor. I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting long.”

“Oh, no, the others are still dancing. I just got bored and came out here to wait in the sunshine.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely, but she could tell his interest was somewhere else. Where had he been for the last hour and a half?

Sarah climbed up on the wheel and into the seat beside him. “Are you involved in it, Sam?” she asked softly.

He looked quickly at her, then away across the fields. “Miss Sarah, I just do what I’m told, by the governor, by Colonel Armstrong, by my pa. I’m not involved in anything, ma’am except trying to learn a trade and earn a….”

“Sam,” she interrupted, “I know all about it. The secrets are safe with me.”

“Miss Sarah, I….”

“All ready to go?” the militiaman who had ridden over with them today asked from the driveway below.

“Yes, Sergeant,” Sam answered, touching his hat brim politely.

Sarah glanced toward the house and saw her cousins coming down the steps. She let the sergeant help her down from her high seat and into the carriage. Abigail and Tabitha followed.

“Sarah, where have you been?” Abigail asked. “Señor Alfredo was asking for you.”

“He was? He hardly knows I’m alive when he’s dancing with you, Abigail, and so long as the music goes on, I suspect he is hardly aware of Tabitha either. Why would he ask for me?”

“Oh, I suppose he just wondered where you had gone. But it’s a big place, Sarah. It would be easy to get lost there and never be seen again!”

“You really should stay close to us, Sarah,” Tabitha put in, “for, though I don’t think any of the servants are much interested in our whereabouts, I’m sure the Woodards wouldn’t want us wandering around their house too freely while they’re away.”

“Where are they?” Sarah asked.

“Señor Alfredo told us today that they are in Philadelphia visiting Mrs. Woodard’s sister, and they won’t be back for at least two more weeks, just in time for the Governor’s Ball,” Abigail informed her. She nudged her sister. “Didn’t he, Tabitha?”

“Ummmmmm,” Tabitha commented.

Abigail rolled her eyes in disgust. “If I ever get that stupid expression on my face because of some boy, just shoot me and put me out of my misery!” she said.

“That’s the way you look, ‘Gail, when Señor Alfredo dances with you,” Tabitha retorted.

“I do not!” Abigail said indignantly.

“I think you are in love with Señor Alfredo,” Tabitha went on, “and he’s at least twice your age! What would Ma and Pa say to that?”

“You’d better not suggest it to them!” Abigail warned.

“If I thought you had mentioned Seth’s riding with me to Pa, I would, dear sister!”

Abigail stuck her nose in the air and turned to stare out the window.

How silly her cousins were, Sarah thought. Why, if they only knew the things that were going on around here, they’d….

Suddenly, the carriage stopped with a jolt that threw all three girls off their seats and into a heap on the floor.

Sarah untangled herself quickly, raised up, and looked out the window. “Sam, what….?” she began, but she stopped as she saw three men on horseback talking to him.

“Sir, I drove these ladies to their music and dancing lessons at Pleasantwood Plantation,” she heard Sam say, “and now I’m driving them home.”

The large man with the red face turned to the others. “Was this the carriage you saw at Wickland?”

“It’s mighty like it,” the tall, skinny one answered.

“Naw, it was this one!” the third man, a short, burly fellow insisted, “and he was driving it. The other fellow wasn’t with him, though.”

“Whose carriage is this?” the first man asked Sam.

“This is the carriage of Colonel Ethan Armstrong, carrying his daughters and his niece,” the sergeant said, “and I would suggest that you let it pass!”

“Did you hear that, men?” the red-faced man asked. “He ‘suggests’ we let this carriage pass. What do you think?”

The other two men laughed unpleasantly.

“Oh, we’ll let it pass, all right, but if it should end up in a ditch farther along the road, don’t blame us!” the tall man said.

“We’ll be as sorry as the next man to see such a fancy carriage turned over and its elegant passengers rolling in the mud!” the burly fellow sneered.

Fear crawled down Sarah’s spine. She had no doubt that the threat was real.

“What are we going to do?” Abigail whispered, crawling back onto the seat.

“We have no money,” Tabitha said, as she joined her. “Maybe if we offered them our jewelry….”

“Our jewelry?” Abigail scoffed. “My glass beads and your enameled pin? And Sarah isn’t even wearing any!”

“Well, it was the only thing I could think of right now, ‘Gail!” Tabitha moaned.

The red-faced man rode back and stuck his head in the window. “Oh, my, my gentlemen, what have we here?” he said.

A shot rang out, and Sarah heard a bullet whiz behind the man’s head. He jerked it out of the window.

“Stand away from that carriage!” the sergeant ordered.

The men looked at the militiaman, then at each other. Finally, the red-faced man motioned for the other two to follow, and they all rode off down the road ahead of the carriage.

Tabitha and Abigail threw their arms around each other and began to cry.

“Hold on, ladies!” Sam called. “I’m going to do my best to get you home before dark!”

The carriage jolted along behind the racing horses, the girls holding onto the seats for dear life. At every bend, Sarah expected to find the three men waiting in ambush, especially as they neared Wickland Plantation with its three crowns carved into the gateposts. But, before long, they were turning down Palace Street and then down Nicholson, and they had seen nothing more of their tormentors.

“Sam, are you going to tell Uncle Ethan about this?” Sarah asked as the sergeant helped them to the street.

“Why, yes, ma’am,” Sam answered, obviously surprised she asked.

“Of course, we are,” the sergeant agreed. “I’d say, when the colonel is through with those men they’ll think twice before they accost this carriage again on the Jamestown Road!”

“We won’t ever be on the Jamestown Road again,”

Abigail wailed, “when Ma hears what happened out there today!”

“Well, ‘Gail, I can’t say I ever want to be!” Tabitha said.

“Thank you,” Sarah said to Sam and the sergeant. “You needn’t wait. We will tell my uncle as soon as he comes home about how bravely you both protected us,” she promised, hoping to avoid her aunt’s overhearing the men’s story. She would be sure to forbid any more trips to Pleasantwood if she did, and Sarah was determined to find out more about what was happening at the big house. “I’m sure my uncle will be very grateful,” she added.

She was relieved to see the men touch their hat brims respectfully and drive off toward the stable.