Chapter Fifty-One
He had never looked into a slave’s eyes before, not unless he was looking for proof of innocence or guilt, health or sickness. Silas did not pay attention to symptoms of pain or sorrow, want or hope or hungers of the spirit in his slaves. It was not the purview of masters, or in their best interests, to concern themselves with the feelings of their servants, but Silas could not expunge the look in Ezekiel’s eyes after Jessica had admonished him to put himself into the man’s shoes. Think if it were your wife. What would you do if I were sold away from you? Wouldn’t you run away to find me, too?
“I raise you one, Silas. Silas? Didn’t you hear me? I raise you one.”
“What? Oh, yes, of course. Too rich for me. I fold.”
“Where have you gone in your thoughts tonight, mon ami? Your travels are costing you dearly,” Henri commented quietly beside him.
“I have much on my mind, Henri,” Silas replied as quietly.
“And the heart, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You are too wise, Henri.”
There were six seated at the poker table, four planters, of whom Silas was one, and Jeremy and Henri. The smoke was thick and the talk voluble. Lorimer Davis liked to entertain his friends lavishly, so the humidor of hand-rolled cigars was open, the whiskey decanters constantly replenished, and the buffet laden with the best from his larder. Silas had helped himself to a Cuban cigar but had taken little advantage of the food and drink. Earlier, the conversation had centered mainly on Lorimer’s elusive runaway and his whereabouts.
“We think he’s taken off to Houston to find that wife of his,” Lorimer said, “but he won’t be at large for long. All the patrols and marshals and bounty hunters from here to Houston have been alerted, including Damon Milligan, the planter who bought Ezekiel’s wife. Damon will be on the lookout for him.”
“Does the boy know where to find her?” Silas had asked.
Lorimer rolled his eyes. “Yes, thanks to the misguided intentions of my wife. Stephanie felt sorry for the boy and had Damon write down the name of his plantation and mailing route in front of Ezekiel. She wanted to prove to him she knew where to send his wife a letter on his behalf now and then.”
“That was nice of her,” Jeremy said.
Lorimer shrugged and made a face. “I shouldn’t have indulged her, but I’d just sold away the best maid she ever had. What else could I do? The minute Damon laid eyes on Della, he wanted her, and he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. But if I hadn’t been so blamed permissive, the boy wouldn’t have known where to head and probably wouldn’t have run away.”
“You can’t blame yourself for your good heart, Lorimer,” one of the planters said.
Talk had settled on other matters, little of which had penetrated Silas’s inner contemplation. His eye kept straying to the mantel clock and the slow progression of the large hand toward midnight, the hour the party would break up and the men would walk to their various homes along Houston Avenue. Surely by now Ezekiel had been whisked away. The night was in his favor. The rain had cleared, but the sky was still overcast, shrouding the moon and stars. Silas had heard no dogs barking. That was a good sign.
Silas’s private exchange with Henri was drowned out by the loud voice of Lorimer expounding on the traitorous nature of the black man.
“You can’t trust ’em. Not a single one. Now some of you at this table might disagree with how I treat my slaves, but I tell you, that if you handle ’em too leniently or give ’em too much they’ll turn on you. My houseman is a good example of that truth. I treated that boy with respect and gave him everything a slave could ask for. A good roof over his head, plenty of food, a position in my household, and how does he repay me—”
“But you sold his wife, Lorimer,” Silas quietly interrupted the man’s speech to remind him.
Lorimer gaped at him, his mouth frozen open in midsentence. An uncomfortable silence dropped over the table. The other players kept their eyes on their cards.
Lorimer found his voice. “Well, what difference does that make?”
“The difference is, he loved her,” Silas said.
“How the hell do you know?” Lorimer demanded.
“Don’t we all love our wives?”
Looking dumbfounded, Lorimer clamped his mouth shut, and a few seconds passed before he seemed to find the proper ammunition to load his verbal gun. He drew back his shoulders and took aim. “We are white men,” he pontificated. “White men love their wives. Black men merely copulate. They are not capable of the finer feelings associated with love. Therefore, the relationships between them and their women are of no consequence. Do you not agree, gentlemen?”
All but one of his fellow planters nodded their heads. Silas tapped the table with a finger. “I’ll take one card.”
Walking out together into the dark night at the conclusion of the card game, Jeremy said to Silas, “What was that all about in there?”
“Damned if I know myself, Jeremy.”
“You have made an enemy of Lorimer Davis.”
“No loss,” Silas said.
The cold air cleared Silas’s head as he walked along the red-brick avenue. He was the only one of his five neighbors who lived in his direction, and he was glad to be alone. What had possessed him to challenge Lorimer as he had done? He wouldn’t change the man’s treatment of blacks if he opened his head and threw in white wash. Silas had easily read the question everyone’s expression had posed, including Jeremy’s and Henri’s. Were Jessica’s abolitionist sympathies rubbing off on him? No, his wife’s personal persuasions had no effect on him. He had simply grown tired of Lorimer’s dogmatic oratory and wanted to prick the man’s insufferable pomposity.
He awoke before daybreak the next morning and found Jessica missing when he reached for her in their bed. Silas knew where she’d gone and awaited the report. Ten minutes later, she burst into their bedroom, still in her robe and announced, “He’s gone. There’s no sign that he was ever there. Thank God. Do you suppose Guy will contact us today?”
The schoolmaster tugged the bellpull as they were at breakfast, and the Tolivers rose from their hot cereal flavored with ginger and honey to welcome their visitor in the library, ordering their son not to leave the table. In the paneled room, the former tutor put out his hand to Silas.
“Mr. Toliver, Ezekiel told me what you did—or, rather, didn’t do, and I am most grateful to you, sir. I suppose you now know…what else I do besides teach.”
“You’ll have to leave the county, Mr. Handley.”
“I am aware of that. Thank you for not betraying me.”
“I cannot say that I won’t if you stay.”
“I understand.”
“Guy,” Jessica said, “is Ezekiel on his way to safety?”
“He has been conducted to a station house awaiting transport into Louisiana and from there he’ll be taken to a ship setting sail for the north, but he says he’s not going without his wife. I have no way to rescue her, and I’m afraid Ezekiel will try the impossible again.”
“What?” Silas exclaimed. “Is the man mad?”
Guy raised a brow. “You have to ask, Mr. Toliver, a husband as devoted as you?”
Silas traded looks with Jessica, the woman he could not live without, and saw all hope for Ezekiel fade in her eyes. Silas had suffered a bad night getting reacquainted with his conscience. He knew what he must do. He turned to Guy. “Can you keep Ezekiel wherever he is for a few days more?”
“Why, I—yes, yes, I suppose I can,” Guy stammered.
“And is there space in your getaway plans for his wife?”
“Yes, of course. Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go to Houston to fetch Ezekiel’s wife.”
Jessica was seated. She looked at him with the puzzled gaze of the hard-of-hearing struggling to make sense of sound. Silas pulled her to her feet and took her into his arms.
“Jessica, I’ve tried for years to save money to pay back your father the sum he gave me to start up Somerset and for all of this”—with his head he indicated the house—“but I’ve given in to the temptation to spend the savings on the needs of the plantation. Now I have an amount set aside that will satisfy most of the amount I owe him, but if I buy Ezekiel’s wife to return her to him I will deplete those funds, and there may not be time to recoup them before your father’s death. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Comprehension slowly widened the dark brown eyes. “You’ve…been saving money to pay back my father—for—for me?”
“I wanted to prove to you that after New Orleans, I would have stayed married to you without his money.”
“And you are going to use…your savings to buy back Ezekiel’s wife?”
“I’m sure Damon Milligan will state a price that requires every cent of it.”
“Why?” Jessica asked, her voice strained with disbelief. “Why would you buy back Ezekiel’s wife?”
“Because if you had been sold, I would stop at nothing to get you back. That’s why I know Ezekiel is going to get himself killed.”
“Oh, Silas…” Jessica’s arms stole around his waist and, with a deep sigh, she closed her eyes and laid her head on his chest beneath the shelter of his chin. The moment gave Silas the feeling of a ship coming home to harbor at last. “Silas…” she murmured again, and he could feel her tears through the linen of his shirt.