Chapter 16
Sixteen
I stay in the room until I can no longer bear it.
I need fresh air. Though all my fears have coalesced—Dr. Broadbent’s questions, along with the very real possibility of encountering the murderer, alone and defenseless on the streets—I need to get out of this house.
The sound of Kate’s singing filters up to me as I sneak into the hall and slink down the servant stairs, gather my cloak, and slip out of doors, undetected.
I hurry to White Point Gardens, where I’ll hide and watch for Kate.
She’ll have to pass by the gardens on her way to the wharves, where our rowboat is surely moored.
Though I shudder to think of her anger when she discovers I’ve followed her, I don’t feel safe walking to the wharves alone, where it’s unlikely I’ll find a boatman willing to ferry me over the Cooper at this time of night.
I nestle against the trunk of one of the sheltering oaks near the entry gate, hidden in the shadows beneath its low branches. I pray Kate’s performance ends soon. I long to be back at Angel’s Rest, where the fear overtaking the city can’t reach us.
I’m there for only a few minutes before I hear a soft whimpering from somewhere deeper in the park.
It sounds like a hurt animal. My ears perk up.
The sound grows louder, more desperate, until it becomes a high-pitched mewling like a kitten or a rabbit in pain.
I can’t bear it. I’ve always had a soft spot for animals.
We rescued our wolfhound, Walter, from drowning as a puppy—someone had tied him into a bag and tossed it into the Ashley River.
The mewling rises in intensity, then diminishes again.
To my shock, I make out a word: “Please.” It’s not an animal.
It’s a woman. All my instincts tell me she’s in danger.
My conscience spurs me to action. I rush from my hiding place and up the path.
What I see next makes my blood turn to ice.
A man—for it is a man, there’s no denying it—crouches over a woman lying on the ground, her legs akimbo.
A person happening upon them might think they were mid-tryst, but her cries are of pain.
Not pleasure. Everything in me screams to run. To turn away. But I can’t.
“Stop!” I screech. “Get away from her!”
The man stills. Lifts himself from between the woman’s legs and, without looking at me, lopes into the low-hanging oaks. I catch a glimpse of a pale face. Dark, feral eyes.
I rush to the woman and kneel at her side.
Shock and disbelief wash over me. It’s Arabella Meade, her prim curls unbound, skirts rucked above her waist, her drawers ripped.
The ground beneath her is soaked with blood.
A wound on her inner thigh pulses. I pull her skirts down and try to use the fabric to stanch the flow, but it does little good.
The silk taffeta soaks through in seconds.
She lifts her head weakly, her eyes wide and frightened. She attempts to speak and cannot.
Time slows. If I don’t get help, and soon, she’ll die. Dr. Broadbent. I pray he’s still at the party. “I’m going to get help, Bella,” I say, using the diminutive Rebecca had used. They were always Bella and Becca. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
Arabella’s eyes plead with me. Don’t leave me.
But I must. I fly through the park, back to the Kincaid mansion. I push through the double doors and up the stairs, into the ballroom. Most of the guests have left, but Dr. Broadbent is there, conversing with Georgina McClintock. “Help!” I scream. “It’s Miss Meade!”
Dr. Broadbent turns, surprise and confusion knitting his features . . . Kate ceases playing the piano, her voice falling away as her head swivels toward me, eyes wide.
“Arabella. She’s . . . it’s the killer. In the park. Come quickly!”
Realization dawns over Dr. Broadbent’s face. “My god,” he says, setting aside his drink. “Send a footman for a carriage, Mrs. McClintock. Hurry.”
As Dr. Broadbent rushes from the house and the remaining guests stream out onto the promenade, Kate appears at my side. Her fingers grip my arm like a vise. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here? We have to leave, Lil. Now.”
“But Arabella . . .”
“You little fool! They think it’s you, remember? The killer. You broke character. I don’t know whether anyone noticed but me, but you were decidedly not Mary Jones from Lanarkshire when you burst in here.”
I should worry. I should be afraid. But as Kate steers me out of the drawing room, hastily thanking Barbara Kincaid as we leave, all I can think about is poor, frightened Arabella, dying alone in the dark.
Confirmation of Arabella’s death comes to us two days later.
The headlines blaze with gruesome proclamations.
I can’t bring myself to read the details.
I’ll never excise Arabella’s pleading look from my memory.
Her fear. The horrific sight of that monster crouching over her.
Though Kate is still angry at me for following her to the Kincaids’ party, she does her best to comfort me, but guilt chases me all the same.
I should have tried harder to save Arabella.
And why was she in the gardens alone without an escort?
Who was that man . . . or was he a man at all?
Later that afternoon, Ruby arrives, though I hardly have the wherewithal to teach her.
I haven’t slept more than an hour since the Kincaid party, the shock of witnessing Arabella’s murder still fresh in my mind.
Kate, dressed in her typical trousers, ushers Ruby into the parlor, falling seamlessly into her Alexander Mayhew persona.
It still astounds me, how easily she does it.
She accepts the brace of shining drum Ruby offers and bids her to sit.
“I’m afraid Miss Mary is indisposed today, Ruby.
Perhaps after a few days, your lessons might resume. ”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Ruby perches on the edge of a damask-covered chair, shyly folding her hands in her lap.
I pour her tea, my hands shaking with tiredness, and she accepts it with a smile.
“But I can’t keep up my lessons anyway. I came to tell you all it might be a while before I see you again,” she says.
“The whole city’s in an uproar, and it’s spreading here.
There are search parties out, looking for that killer, so Daddy says we’ll need to lay low, until this is over.
The Gullah warned us to move deeper into the swamp with the other maroons. Look out for ourselves.”
“That’s certainly understandable,” I say.
“Daddy has a friend in town, a free man, who brings us provisions sometimes. He says he’s never seen anything like it. People hiding in their big houses, businesses closing early. We’re afraid, too. Not so much of the killer, but of what it’ll mean for us colored folk.”
With the murderer still on the loose and Arabella’s death, paranoia and suspicion have surely risen to a fervor.
No one took much notice of Sally’s murder.
But now that the killer is targeting wealthy, white debutantes, panic is spreading.
Charleston’s elite care only when something affects their own.
“What have you heard, Ruby? About the killer?” Kate asks, leaning forward in her chair.
“Well, Daddy’s friend said they were saying it was a colored man. But they always blame our kind first. Now they’re saying it’s a woman, that she’s some kind of . . . creature.” Ruby’s eyes flash to mine. “I don’t know much more than that, or what to believe.”
Out here in the marshes, Ruby must not have seen the papers.
Must not have seen my image, plastered on wanted notices throughout town.
And though her reading skills are improving with my tutelage, she wouldn’t have been able to read a full newspaper article even if she encountered one.
“None of that is true,” I say, bristling.
“It was a man. A white man. I saw him attacking Arabella.”
Ruby’s eyes widen.
“I couldn’t identify him—it was much too dark—but I’d swear it on my life.”
Kate clears her throat. “I’ll go across the river tonight. See what I can find out.”
“I’ll come with you,” I say.
“No, Mary,” Kate says, her voice firm. “I’ll go alone. It’s too dangerous for a woman to be out after dark.” I rankle at this, but do my best not to let it show. I dislike how patriarchal Kate becomes as Alex. “I’ve a friend with connections to the City Guard. I’ll find out what he has to say.”
Ruby looks from me to Kate. “I’d better go. Daddy’s waiting for me outside. We’ll bring you more fish later this week, though, before we leave.”
“Understood,” Kate says. “If there’s anything we can do to help, Ruby . . .”
Ruby nods and rises, smoothing her calico skirts. “Thank you, Mr. Mayhew. Miss Mary.”
I walk her to the door, and before she goes, I press her hand in mine. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Ruby. You saved my life, you know. Make sure you practice what I taught you. Someday soon, I hope we’ll read more of Sleepy Hollow.”
“I’d sure like that.” She smiles and ducks her head, squeezes my hand, and then she’s gone, disappearing into the marsh’s wild, unkept beauty.
That night, Kate leaves me alone again at Angel’s Rest. She’s dressed as Alex this time, handsome in a cutaway coat and high-waisted breeches, a crimson silk cravat knotted at her neck.
As she prepares to leave, my anxieties gather.
I’m frightened to be left alone, but I’m also worried about what might happen to Kate, in the city with a murderer still at large.
I think of that horrid figure, bending over Arabella. Her helpless cries.