Chapter Twelve
Eunice said, “Willie May, we need to do something with the gazebo. It looks naked as a plucked bird out there without even a bow to commemorate the season. I’ll gather the decorations, and I want you to round up some help and Tippy. We’ll need her imagination in this, and we’ll go out there and see what we can put together.”
Willie May was quite sure she turned as white as her apron. “Right now, Miss Eunice?”
“What could be a better time? I want every nook and cranny decorated as festively as possible before my sister arrives from Boston day after tomorrow. They’re so Puritan in their celebration of Christmas up there. I want her to enjoy a little color in her surroundings while she’s here, and she so loves to read in the gazebo.” Eunice paused. “What’s the matter? You’re looking at me with a stare as long as a country mile.”
“Oh, why, I—It’s nothing, Miss Eunice. I got a funny tickling down my backbone, is all.”
“Somebody just walked over your grave, Willie May. Where is your daughter?”
“Upstairs with Miss Jessica. Miss Jessica just returned from her ride, and Tippy is helping her change for luncheon.”
“Jessie can change without her. Would you please go tell your daughter I want to see her?”
“Yes, Miss Eunice.”
Willie May hurried out of the room and up the stairs. Oh, holy baby Jesus! The runaway was still in the gazebo. What in the world were they going to do? The cooking staff was preparing luncheon, and servants would shortly be passing to and from the kitchen to the Big House with items for the table in direct sight of the gazebo and storage shed. It would be impossible to spirit the boy to another hiding place without someone seeing him.
Her heart beating so fast Willie May thought it would fly out of her chest, she paused before the door of Jessica’s room to catch her breath and gain control of her frantic thoughts. For Tippy’s protection, she and Miss Jessica had deliberately kept her ignorant of the runaway and their plan to help him escape. Willie May didn’t like to think what would happen if their scheme was discovered and Tippy was found to be involved. Thank the good Lord the mistress had given her reason to send her from the room, and she could speak with Miss Jessica alone.
“Well, hello, Willie May,” Jessica said, turning from her mirror. “What brings you up here?” She was dressed in a knee-length linen chemise undergarment, and Tippy was lacing her into a corset to suit the small, tapered waist of the day dress waiting to be donned. A white pelerine—a lace covering to be draped over its puffy shoulders—lay on a chaise longue. The lace was threaded with red and green ribbons to satisfy her father’s desire to see the women of his household dressed in the colors of the season. No other manor house in Plantation Alley decorated for the holidays like Willowshire.
“Your mother has asked to see Tippy,” Willie May said.
Tippy ceased her task and said, “Mama, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, girl of mine. You better go see what Miss Eunice wants.”
Tippy dropped the ties and went to her. “Something is wrong, I just know it.”
Willie May looked into her daughter’s thin face, the bone structure, as with the rest of her body, looking no stronger than a sparrow’s, and as usual felt her heart twist like a wrung rag. She took Tippy’s delicate, pointed chin gently between her fingers. “Go along now,” she said softly. “Nothing is wrong. I need to speak with Miss Jessie.”
Her corset half laced, the ties trailing, Jessica said when her maid had gone, “Tippy is right. Something is wrong, isn’t it, Willie May?”
“I could never fool that child of mine,” Willie May said. “It’s your mama. She wants to decorate the gazebo for Christmas beginning right now, she said. That’s why she sent for Tippy. What we goin’ do?”
“Oh, Lord,” Jessica moaned. “Right now?”
“Right now. She wants me to round up some help while she gets the decorations together.”
Jessica rubbed her forehead and paced in thought for a minute, then yanked off the corset and grabbed the day dress. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” she said, struggling into its voluminous folds. “Follow my lead, Willie May, and agree with everything I say. All right?”
“All right,” Willie May said, having no idea what she was agreeing to as she helped Jessica to button the dress. “Uh, Miss Jessica, you do know you ain’t got on the proper underwear, don’t you?”
“Who’s going to see?” Jessica said and sailed from the room like a ship heading out to sea under full steam with Willie May following in her wake. Halfway in her rush down the stairs, the wind of her flight plastering the skirt to her legs, Jessica called loudly several times, “Mama!”
Eunice came running. She and Tippy had been buried in a cupboard under the kitchen stairs where seasonal decorations were stored.
“Good heavens, child,” Eunice said, meeting Jessica at the end of the balustrade, Tippy curious-eyed behind her. “Must you scream like a banshee?”
“Mama, you don’t know what a banshee is.”
“I do, too. It’s a female spirit in Irish folklore that sits under a window and howls that somebody in the house is about to die.” Eunice sniffed. “Though I didn’t sit in on lessons, I learned a few things from Lettie Sedgewick just by keeping my ears open, young miss. Now, what is it?”
“Mama, Willie May tells me you want to decorate the gazebo, but if you do, you’ll ruin my surprise.”
Eunice looked mystified. “What surprise?”
Jessica ignored Willie May’s befuddled look. “Well, now, if I tell you, it won’t be a surprise, will it?”
Eunice glanced at her housekeeper. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“Yes, she does, don’t you, Willie May?” Jessica answered for the housekeeper. “But we were going to keep it a secret. All right, all right, here it is,” Jessica said as if her arm were being twisted. “Willie May and I decided to decorate the gazebo ourselves, without Tippy’s help, to prove to you that I do have some decorative sense. I’ve decided to take more of an interest in…domestic things, and I thought decorating the gazebo for Christmas would be the perfect place to start.”
Eunice’s mouth hung open. It was a few seconds before she seemed able to speak. Her eye fell to Jessica’s limp skirts. “Where are your petticoats?”
Jessica glanced down. “Well, I was in such a hurry to head you off I didn’t have time to put them on. Now will you please agree to let me and Willie May decorate the gazebo, and you’ll stay completely out of the way? Truly, I’d like to have something to show off to Aunt Elfie this Christmas season.”
Her tone full of doubt, Eunice said, “Well…all right, Jessie. Your father will be pleased, I’m sure, but…” She shot a painful glance at her housekeeper. “Will you see that she doesn’t make too big a mess out there?”
“I promise, Miss Eunice,” Willie May said.
“And no peeking,” Jessica ordered. “We’re going to hang up a sheet to make sure you don’t. Right, Willie May?”
“Right,” Willie May said.
Scooter told his helpers that he needed to get off to town to pick up the wheel a little earlier than planned. It might rain that afternoon, and he didn’t want the wagon to get bogged down in the mud. They could have his share of the noonday meal. He wouldn’t take time to eat it. Would they explain to the master if he came by?
The day, however, showed no sign of rain and all afternoon, behind a sheet draped round the gazebo, Jessica and Willie May toiled on turning the structure into a seasonal wonder to match the holiday splendor of the Big House conceived in the creative mind of Tippy and carried out under her hand. In the late afternoon, Carson went with his wife to inspect the results of their daughter’s and housekeeper’s labor and raved to Jessica, “Spook, you and Willie May have exceeded every…expectation.”
That night as Carson snuggled next to his wife to sleep the repose of the just, he murmured in her ear, “Do you think you could have Tippy take a look at the gazebo tomorrow and…do a little rearranging?”
“You have read my mind, dear,” Eunice said.