“Yes, sir.”
“How are you, Clarence?” Randolph asked.
“Well, sir, thank you. Welcome home, sir.”
Randolph chuckled when the major domo left the room. “If he gets any more pale, I swear he could pass for a white man.”
“Well,” Franklin said sternly. “Explain. What happened?”
A girl who couldn’t have been more than fifteen came hesitantly into the room with a hand broom and dust bin and began sweeping up the broken china. As soon as she was finished, she fled as if she were on fire. Randolph watched her go and smiled lasciviously.
“I asked you a question.”
Randolph snorted. “It’s a long story.”
“Shorten it.”
“I was in a prison near Baltimore and was offered parole on a condition of a fee. I wrote to Sarah and told her to pay it. Several weeks went by, and I hadn’t received an answer. I had no idea if she’d gotten my request or if she’d chosen to ignore it. Anyway, one day in the yard two men were fighting over a scrap of moldy fatback, when one stabbed the other to death. The captain of the guard arrived some minutes later. The culprit had fled into the crowd by then. The captain, a sorry excuse for an officer even by Yankee standards, directed the body be taken to the mass grave they’d prepared for the ones who’d died during the night. When he asked who the victim was, I told him his name was Randolph Drexel.”
Franklin stroked his chin pensively. “That explains the report that you were dead. How did you escape?”
“They turned us all loose a couple of months ago. Without a penny or a horse. Have you ever eaten turnip root and hog jowl, Poppa? Quite good if it’s cooked long enough.”
“No, and I don’t intend to. How’d you get home?”
“I walked every damn step of the way here from Maryland. Where the hell’s Sarah? I went by our house. It was all locked up.”
Clarence reentered the room with the same scared black girl carrying a heavy silver tray. He supervised her setting the place where Randolph sat and putting the steaming food in front of him. Randolph didn’t thank her, but he did ask her name.
“Topaz, sir.”
“You’re very pretty, Topaz. I’m looking forward to seeing more of you.”
She mumbled something and darted from the room.
“Prison certainly hasn’t changed you,” Franklin remarked.
Randolph smirked, picked up the Sterling-silver fork and began shoveling poached egg into his mouth. The yoke dribbled down his chin, but he ignored it. Franklin observed him with quiet disgust.
“I repeat—” his mouth was still half-full “—where the hell is my wife?”
“You divorced her, remember?”
“There is no divorce in South Carolina.”
“Makes no difference. You’re legally dead.”
“What are you trying to tell me, dear father?”
“Your widow has sold everything here and gone to Columbia with another man.”
His son glared at him in astonishment and slammed down the silverware, toppling another china cup to the floor.
“That slattern.”
“There’s more,” Franklin said, enjoying his son’s ire. “I tried on your behalf to lay claim to the estate and the brokerage but was thwarted in my most sincere efforts.”
“On my behalf, father, when you thought I was dead?” He laughed viciously. “Perhaps you better fill me in on all the details.”
#
“So you refuse to help me regain my property.”
Simon Weinberg sat straight in his chair and faced the man he’d once thought a good match for Sarah Greenwald. How could he have been so wrong?
“You’re legally dead, and as far as I’m concerned you can stay that way.”
“A self-righteous lawyer.” Randolph laughed. “But don’t worry, counselor. I know she’s gone to Columbia with Buck Thomson. It shouldn’t be too difficult finding her in what Sherman left of that charming city. Father has already provided me with traveling funds—if only to get me out of Charleston.”
“Let her be, Randolph. Nothing good will come of your causing her more grief.”
“Oh, I’ll let her be after I’ve settled a few scores. Her father ruined my reputation and destroyed my livelihood, but he’s dead. Excuse me if I don’t mourn him. Her mother had me sent to the battlefield and ultimately to a prison camp. As for Sarah, she started it all by betraying me. Vengeance is sweet. Or will be on her and her goyishe paramour.”
Simon shook his head. “You seem to have forgotten the Book of Proverbs. He who digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone, it will come back upon him.” He stood up. “Now, get out of my office.”
For a moment he thought his unwelcome visitor was going to strike him, but he didn’t. The coward turned on his heel and stormed out.
“Chester,” Simon called once the door to the street had closed, “take this message to the stagecoach office immediately and give them instructions that it’s to be delivered upon arrival.”
#
Everyone was sitting around the dining room table in the Grayson household. The mood was somber one minute, filled with humor the next as they recounted stories about Emma.
“I remember the day your parents got married,” Miriam said. “Your momma was as nervous as a chicken before dinner. After all, she was marrying Raleigh Thomson, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in Richland County. Handsome devil. She was leaving a sheltered life in Camden to live among strangers, and it scared her half to death. But then your grandmother gave her Emma as a wedding present, and that helped. Emma was more of a momma to Mildred than her own mother. Stayed calm as a clam and hummed a spiritual the whole time she was getting Mildred into her wedding dress.”
“Her biggest job was minding you and Clay,” Gus commented.
Buck chuckled. “We could hide from our parents, but we could never fool Emma. She knew all our secret places.”
“Did she have any children of her own?” Sarah asked.
“Certainly not after she came to our house,” Buck replied, “but she never talked about herself. I believe she had family of sorts over near Gadsden. She even mentioned her sister’s girl nursing Job when he was an infant. And of course she delivered him as she had so many others.” He paused. “I’m ashamed when I think about how little I knew about her. I could always count on her, yet I was never interested enough to ask the most basic personal questions.”
“Everybody loved her,” Miriam said. “She was one of those rare people who devoted herself to others and took her consolation in making them happy.”
“Unfortunately I got to meet her all too briefly when she was old and ill,” Sarah said, “but listening to y’all talk about her, I feel like I’ve known her all my life. I wish I could’ve spent more time with her.”
“The salt of the earth,” Gus contributed.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” Quintus said from the doorway. “They’s a letter for Miz Sarah.”
“For me?” she exclaimed. “Who’d be sending me a letter here?”
“The delivery boy’s outside and won’t give it to nobody but her personal.”
Sarah shrugged. “Very well.” She rose from her chair which Buck eased out from behind her, and proceeded to the foyer.
A moment later everyone heard her gasp. “It’s impossible,” she exclaimed. “He can’t be.”
Buck rushed out to her. The others, equally disturbed, followed. They found her sitting on the small chair by the front door, the yellow paper clutched in her right hand. Her face was pale white.
Without asking permission, Buck took the paper, unwrinkled it, scanned the words and muttered. “My God!”