She looks relieved. “So, why you in here?”
“Kemp caught me with a fake pass. And Price is throwing a fit, thinking I got something to do with Cecily’s disappearance.”
She shakes her head in disbelief.
“It’ll sort itself out,” he says. “Kemp’s still head of the patrol, and every day I don’t work, he’s losing money.”
“What about the rest of them?” she says, tilting her head in Cecil’s direction. He gives Sara a wave.
“It’s all this business with the theater fire.”
“Hey, Cecil,” she calls, then asks Gilbert what their brother-in-law knows.
“I told him as much as I could get away with.”
Sara nods, speaks to Cecil directly. “I’ll try to pay a visit to Della later. Check in on her.”
Cecil gives her a nod of thanks.
She looks past him, at the dozens upon dozens of men perched in the birdcage like canaries. “I’m hearing folks say it was the actors who set the fire.”
He turns and gives Cecil a knowing glance. “Doesn’t that sound about right?”
Cecil just shakes his head.
When Gilbert returns his attention to Sara, she’s got tears streaming down her face. “What’s wrong?” he asks as he wraps his hands around hers.
“The Prestons won’t sell.”
He closes his eyes. Tries to take in what she’s saying. “Won’t sell right now? Or ever?”
“General Preston called me into the parlor this morning and told me about Phyllis Johnston’s proposal. Said it was a very generous offer, but that I have to understand Elizabeth needs me now more than ever.”
“Because of Louisa?”
“No, Gillie,” says Sara.
“Why, then?”
Her face crumbles, and she can barely get out the words. “She’s having a baby.”
What Sara’s saying to him doesn’t make sense. “Missus Elizabeth is having a baby?”
Sara nods.
“Ain’t she too old?”
“She’s forty-four.”
Gilbert wants to sit down, but there’s nowhere to sit without leaving Sara’s side. “A baby,” he whispers.
“They’ve known for a few weeks, but haven’t told anybody yet.”
Gilbert tries to think fast. “Did the general already tell Mrs. Johnstonno? Because it don’t have to be you that raises that baby. They can take the money from all those white ladies and buy a wet nurse. Someone who’s raised her own children and knows how it’s done.”
He’s said the wrong thing, knows it as soon as the words are out of his mouth.
“I spent seventeen years raising Louisa,” she says slowly. “Just because I never had a baby of my own don’t mean I don’t know how it’s done.”
