Page 76 of The Summer Country

Charles looked over at her, his eyes very blue. “For you, yes. If that’s what it takes. I can’t bear—” His voice broke. He shook his head. “What am I doing, telling you what I can’t bear? It’s you who bears all. But not much longer. We’ll find a way to free you at Christmas.”

“Don’t,” said Jenny, crossing the space between them and covering his lips with her fingers, “don’t hope too much.”

Charles took her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm, a kiss she could feel all the way down to her toes. “If not Christmas, then New Year’s.”

And Jenny, who had intended to tell him she couldn’t stay, found herself lifting up onto her toes to kiss him, wrapping her arms around him, letting him carry her to the old bed that had served them so well.

“Christmas,” he promised her as she left, and although she told him not to hope, she couldn’t help hoping too.

Somehow, when she was with Charles, all things felt possible. She found herself daydreaming as she never had before, imagining elaborate and impossible scenarios. Her mistress gifting her with freedom as a Christmas gift; her master freeing her to impress Mrs. Boland; proclamations from England freeing everyone.

On Christmas morning, Jenny helped Mary Anne into a new dress, carefully altered to fit the new fullness of her breasts, and placed candied ginger sweetmeats in her reticule to ward off sickness.

“Take them away. The smell makes me sick,” Mary Anne declared.

“Nanny Bell said to chew one if you feel the sickness coming on.” Her mistress’s figure was fuller, but her face was haggard, the skin falling away under the cheeks and dark circles beneath her eyes. Nanny Bell assured her that a sick mother meant a healthy babe. Mary Anne had scowled and said, of course she would say that, but had seemed reassured all the same.

Mary Anne reluctantly took the reticule. “I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of the Bolands.”

“You won’t,” Jenny assured her. She doubted the Bolands would care; Mr. Boland had the air of one who had seen it all, and found life, what was left of it, a great joke, and Mrs. Boland was too preoccupied with Mr. Boland’s flagging health to care that Mary Anne wasn’t in looks.

Mary Anne dropped her reticule onto the dressing table. “It’s important that they sign the contract.”

“I know,” said Jenny, easing Mary Anne into her pelisse, arm by arm. She couldn’t let her mistress decide to cry sickness and stay at home. Jenny needed this time, these few minutes of quiet. “They will.”

“Not if I cast up my accounts on their shoes,” Mary Anne muttered, but she let Jenny clasp her necklace around her neck and thread earrings through her ears. “I hope there’s nothing amiss. Robert ought to have been here by now.”

There had been a messenger come for the master that morning, and Jenny hadn’t seen him since.

“He’s most likely waiting for you downstairs.” Jenny handed Mary Anne her prayer book. “There. You’ll do Beckles proud.”

“Hmph,” said Mary Anne. And then, to Jenny’s surprise, she reached into the drawer of her dressing table and drew out a packet wrapped in brown paper. “Happy Christmas.”

“Thank you,” said Jenny, trying not to show her surprise.

Mary Anne bit her lip. “Don’t think I’m insensible of what you’ve done for me,” she said gruffly. “Go on. Take it. It’s yours now.”

She didn’t wait for Jenny to answer, just thrust the parcel in her hand and left. Jenny didn’t follow; she wasn’t to accompany the family to church. Her father hadn’t believed that slaves ought to be baptized; they were children of Ham, denied salvation.

Jenny looked down at the brown paper parcel Mary Anne had handed her, surprised and touched by the gesture, after the long, difficult weeks that had just passed. She would have her gift later that day with the rest of the servants. It was a tradition at Beckles to give the women a new dress, the men a new smock at Christmas, and a coin to each, with a special gift of money to women who had borne three or more children. Children for Beckles. Jenny’s stomach fluttered uneasily and she busied herself untying the wrapping of the package.

Inside was a box, made of local mahogany. Jenny recognized the work of the head carpenter, the delicate carving around the sides. The box opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges, the interior lined with a scrap of satin she recognized as part of a discarded dress.

Inside lay a gold locket. Jenny’s gold locket, the one her father had strung about her neck and promised her if she’d be a good girl.

Mary Anne’s gold locket, the one the colonel had given her, that she had worn nestled in the hollow of her throat until the day of the poisoned chocolate, when she had pulled it off so hard that the ribbon snapped.

There was a knock at the door. The master was the only one who knocked at the mistress’s door. But he had left for the church, some time ago, if the clock was any indication. How long had she been standing here, thinking of times gone by?

Jenny hastily shoved the locket into her pocket.

“Yes?” she said, opening the door a crack.

A strange woman stood on the other side. She wore a well-starched white apron over a neatly pressed dress, but there was something about the curve of her cheeks, the bright fabric of her kerchief, that made her seem like she wouldn’t mind the odd rumple in her dress or stain on her apron.

“I’m maid to Mrs. Boland,” the other woman said with a warm smile. “I was told I could find thread and needle here. My mistress trod on her dress just before going into church, and I found I had come away with none.”

“What color do you need?” asked Jenny, going to get her sewing box.