Gilbert realizes he’s been holding his breath. He releases it, then asks, “So, what’d he say?”
“That he has a northbound carriage that’s almost ready for delivery, and that if I give him a couple of days, he can get her as far as Washington.”
Gilbert is floored. Not just that Della thought to go to Samuel, but that she managed to confirm that the rumors are true.
“I’m impressed,” he says.
“Well, don’t be. He charges a hundred dollars a passenger.”
Gilbert couldn’t have heard that right. “What’d you say?”
She nods emphatically. “Told me, and I quote, ‘I’m not risking life and limb to sit on the right hand of God.’?”
Gilbert always liked Samuel, so he has a hard time believing what Della’s telling him. “A hundred dollars?”
“That’s what he said.”
Gilbert thinks about the tobacco pouch he sewed inside his mattress, soon as he arrived at Kemp’s. He’s got seventy dollars in it, maybe seventy-five, but it’s earmarked for purchasing Sara’s freedom. Even if this business with Phyllis Johnston works out—and it seems hard to believe something so outlandish will—Gilbert would be better off putting themoney toward his own eventual purchase, so that Sara and he can one day have a chance at a real life.
Still, it’s hard to look at his sister standing there and not feel guilty about keeping the money to himself. “Think you can talk him down?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “Hardly matters. Cecil and me, we got nothing between us. The Prices haven’t let anyone hire themselves out in years.”
Della doesn’t know how much money Gilbert’s got saved, and he’s grateful for that. But he’s starting to wonder if, at the very least, he should offer to talk to Sara.
“Samuel got me thinking, though,” Della says, “that maybe we do just put her on a stagecoach. Let her ride right out of town like she’s one of those high yellows going back and forth to Philadelphia.”
A stagecoach ticket to Philadelphia should cost no more than ten dollars. A pittance in comparison to Samuel’s fee. “You think she could pull it off?” Gilbert asks.
“She good at pretending things is all right,” says Della. “Been doing it since she was a wink of a girl. If she’s got a pass, and no one’s looking for her, I don’t see why it won’t work.”
Gilbert doesn’t disagree.
“Of course, I don’t have the fare for the stagecoach, either.”
He gives her a tired shake of his head. “Where’s Cecily now?” he asks.
Della hesitates.
“You trust me enough to ask me for stagecoach money, but you worried about telling me where she’s at?”
Della rolls her eyes at him. “At the boathouse on the Fulcher property. Upriver from the mill.”
“You’re hiding her that close to the Prices’?” asks Gilbert. “She’s a sitting duck.”
Della gets defensive. “There was no time. But if you so full of ideas, you help me get her somewhere better.”
Gilbert looks at his sister. Even in the dark, he can see the fear and desperation on her face. Her voice cracks. “Gil, I’m begging you—”
“Shhh,” says Gilbert as he pulls his sister to him. “You don’t have to beg me for nothing. I’ll write the pass, and we’ll figure the rest out.”
SALLY
When Sally walks through Mrs.Cowley’s front door, around suppertime, Archie waves a newspaper at her in greeting. “Funeral’s been pushed back a day.”
Sally ignores him and moves to check on Margaret, who was transferred back to her sad little pallet in the parlor after Dr. Foushee set her leg. Archie was eager to get her home, but Mrs. Cowley and Sally advocated for a few more days of Mrs. Cowley’s expert care, and when even Dr. Foushee came down on their side, Archie relented.
Now Archie follows Sally into the parlor and perches on a stool he scrounged up from somewhere.
