Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House(75)

Addy gave a light laugh. “Daddy, you know that you would as soon see me naked as without my new dress.”

Patricia gasped, and the servant girl gaped openmouthed while her father shook his head at his daughter. “What would your poor dear mother say . . .” His voice broke, and Addy, who recognized that a line had been crossed, spoke up.

“I apologize to you, Father, as well as to everyone present.” She nodded toward me. “I do believe that the danger we face has me overexcited. I do not like the feeling that this land gives off, and the sooner we are through it, the happier I shall be.” She sat back, satisfied for the moment. She sighed and then removed her bonnet as her younger sister had done. A pale green ribbon held her black hair in place, but when she tossed her head, the ribbon slipped free. She shook her head again and did nothing to restrain her long hair when it fell loose around her shoulders, but her dark eyes glanced over to see her father’s reaction to this demonstration of impropriety. When he did not appear to notice, she left it as it was. Then she looked at me and gave a bold smile.

Catching her smile, the father, as though to apologize for his daughter’s forthright behavior, addressed me. “Do you have children?” he asked.

“I do,” I said spontaneously, surprising myself with this easy acknowledgment. “A girl. I have a daughter.”

“What is her name?” Addy asked.

“Caroline,” I responded, but upon using the name, I felt strange. There was only one Caroline, and she was dead. I must find another name for the baby.

“So you have an understanding of young women?” the father asked.

“Mine is but a babe,” I said, forcing myself to recover quickly, “but”—I smiled and nodded at Addy—“I see what is to come.”

“Sir.” Addy straightened herself. “I am not a child! I shall be sixteen before the end of this year, and I am generally quite mature for my age.”

The indulgent father smiled. “That might be an exaggeration, my dear.”

“Oh, Papa,” she said, sighing, “I dislike it so when you tease.”

“He wasn’t teasing, Addy.” Patty reached her brown square-toed shoe across and poked at her sister’s leg, causing Addy to yelp.

“Girls!” the father corrected, while I, having enough with their foolishness, turned away to catch a glimpse of the land we passed through. Addy was right to say that the place was dark and foreboding, for it was that. And I supposed she was right to say that many slaves had died here—from snakebites alone, since copperheads and cottonmouths were said to await their prey in the moss-covered trees. Her final assertion, that slaves were hidden out within the treacherous confines of this dangerous swamp, I guessed might also be true, but I wondered what level of desperation it would take for a man to live in a place as forbidding as this.

“Sir,” Addy said, pulling me back, “may I ask you a question?”

Her father inhaled sharply.

“Certainly,” I said.

“Was it a duel?” she asked.

“Pardon me?” I said. “Was what a duel?”

She raised her hand to touch her eye. “This,” she said, making reference to my eye patch.

“Adelaide Matilda Spencer!” her father said. “I see now how right your mother was in wanting to send you off to a school! Where are your manners?”

“That is a personal question!” the younger sister corrected.

“One I am happy to answer, Mr. Spencer,” I said, giving him a slight wink before turning toward Addy. “Yes, it was a duel. Although I was injured, I’m afraid that he was the one who did not survive.”

“And was the duel because of a woman?” she asked. The coach was silent but for the bumping and jolting of the road. I glanced at the father before I answered Addy. “It was,” I said, knowing it was time to end the charade, yet I was reluctant to let go of this distraction that kept me from my own gloomy thoughts.

“And she waits for you now?”

“No. I’m afraid that she died, too.”

Miss Addy stared at me, and when I felt the father’s frown, I addressed his daughter. “I must apologize, for I’m afraid that I’ve have been having fun with you. The truth is, since birth I have been unable to see from my left eye, thus my eye patch, and though a duel did not take place”—here I addressed the father—“I did recently lose my child’s mother.”

“Oh! You poor man,” Addy said with genuine feeling.

The conversation was skirting too close to the truth, and hoping to put an end to it, I turned to look out the window.

The father, sensing my discomfort, changed the subject. “You are traveling down for business?” he asked.

“I am here to paint birds,” I said, lying with the same ease that I had done for so much of my life.

“An artist!” Miss Addy exclaimed. “How exciting!”

I gave her a slight smile before turning back to her father. “I am here to study the birds and their habitats in this region.”

“Are you funded, then?” the father asked, rather to my surprise.

“I am,” I lied again. “By the Peale Museum in Philadelphia.” I crossed my arms and sat back, hoping this uncomfortable line of questioning would end soon.