“I was sold to Master Kemp in August for a little over four hundred dollars.”
To her credit, Mrs. Johnston doesn’t blanch. “There will be eight or nine of us contributing. Provided Mr. Kemp is a reasonable man, we should be able to pool our resources and settle on a fair price.”
Provided Mr. Kemp is a reasonable man.If only she knew.
Kemp isn’t going to part with Gilbert, not when he just paid top dollar for him. And certainly not after the fuss this morning. Mrs. Johnston could offer Kemp twice what Gilbert’s worth, and Kemp would say no on principle.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” Gilbert says. “I really do. But might I propose an alternate arrangement?”
She seems surprised, but says, “I’m listening.”
“Would you consider buying my wife, Sara?”
“Instead of you?”
“It’s delicate with Kemp. But Sara is in a good position. She’s owned by the Prestons, and they just lost their only daughter, who was Sara’s chief responsibility.”
“You would have us purchase her freedom, with no promise of your own to come?”
“If Sara’s got her freedom, she can work and start saving for mine. I’m hopeful there will come a day when Master Kemp… softens.” What he wants to say isdies.
Mrs. Johnston gives him a pitying smile. “All right, then, that’s what we’ll do.”
She makes like she is about to go, but Gilbert can tell there is somethingelse she wants to say. “I realize I am probably speaking out of turn here, but I assume you are aware that General Preston is in a great deal of debt?”
It’s something he and Sara muse about—some of Mrs. Elizabeth’s silver serving pieces have started to disappear—but he’s not about to admit all that to Mrs. Johnston.
“I’m not trying to gossip,” she says quickly. “I’m just saying that I believe it is extremely likely the general will agree to our proposition.”
Gilbert thinks how nice it would be if something good could come out of this mess. “I’m glad you think so.”
She promises to let him know as soon as she’s got an answer from General Preston, then she gives him a small wave, turns, and hurries back up Locust Alley before he can remember to thank her.
Gilbert can’t keep all the events of the day in his head—witnessing Cecil’s arrest, learning of Cecily’s death, and now getting this offer. Could the key to securing Sara’s freedom really have been as simple as showing up at the theater and doing the right thing? It seems hard to believe, but right about now, Gilbert could stand to believe in something.
JACK
Jack has never been insidethe capitol, and he is slack-jawed crossing the rotunda.
“Is that Washington?” he asks Anderson as they pass a six-foot-tall sculpture of a man so lifelike that Jack practically expects him to reach out and shake his hand.
“Who else would it be?” Anderson says, and Jack shrugs.
The Hall of Delegates is easily the fanciest room Jack’s ever been in. Several dozen sleek desks, which look like they’ve been fashioned out of mahogany or maybe walnut, sit in neat rows that face a dais, and above their heads, a two-tiered chandelier looms.
The hall is packed with people, many of them mourners, and there’s little room to move, let alone sit. Eventually, Anderson and Jack secure standing room in the back of the hall, and while they wait for the room to quiet, Anderson whispers in Jack’s ear, “Watch how easy this is.”
Before Jack has the chance to ask what he means, Anderson turns to their neighbor, a portly man in his sixties, and says, clear as day, “Did you hear they think it was a band of Negroes who started the fire?”
The man’s eyes bulge, and he stutters a disbelieving no before turning to a skinny man next to him. “Did you hear what he said? Says it was Negroes who are to blame for all this.”
The skinny man peers at Anderson. “Slaves?”
Anderson throws up his hands. “That’s what I heard.”
Jack’s flabbergasted watching Anderson work. He’s so confident. Like he’s played this role—of concerned citizen—a hundred times and knows the part backward and forward.
“How many men?” asks a third man in a yellow scarf standing a few feet away.
