Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [136]
He took Robert’s arm to help him up, but Esther gripped Eli’s other arm to stop him. “I don’t want you getting in no trouble, Eli.”
“Lord can take care of me if He choose to. Now, you hurry up and go on back to bed.”
I crept back into the house with Tessie and climbed into bed. I couldn’t stop shivering though, nor could I go back to sleep. Downtown, the alarm bell rang and rang, probably waking all of Richmond by now. Loud shouts and the thunder of hooves drifted uphill on the wind. I thought I heard Ruby or Luella tiptoeing up the stairs and padding down the hallway, but I stayed in bed. The clock downstairs struck three.
I hadn’t been this scared since the war started. I prayed and prayed until I ran out of words to say. Then, not long after threethirty, I heard horses trotting up Grace Street, and the murmur of men’s voices outside. They stopped beside my house.
“You head around back. Search the stable and all the outbuildings. We’ll go around to the front.” It was Major Turner from Libby Prison. I recognized his boyish voice.
Moments later, he pounded on the front door downstairs. I nearly leaped out of bed, my heart hammering along with his fist. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be asleep. It was Gilbert’s job to answer the door. I waited. The pounding continued.
Finally I heard Gilbert’s footsteps in the foyer. “Who’s there?” he called.
“Major Thomas Turner from Libby Prison. Open up.”
Tessie got up and wrapped a shawl around herself. “Keep praying, honey,” she whispered as she hurried out into the stair hall. The front door squeaked slightly as Gilbert opened it.
“I need to speak to Miss Fletcher immediately,” Turner said.
“She sleeping,” Tessie replied. Her voice grew more distant as she hurried downstairs. “That’s what everybody here trying to do. Don’t you know it’s the middle of the night?”
“Wake her up,” Major Turner commanded. “Government orders.”
“Okay . . . guess I got to do what the government says,” Tessie grumbled. “But Missy need to get dressed. Gonna take few minutes.”
“There’s no time for that. Get her down here now.”
Tessie returned to my bedroom and lit a candle. “Take you time, honey. You supposed to be asleep, remember?” She helped me into my heavy winter dressing gown. Even so I felt naked, especially in front of Turner.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him as I descended the stairs. “Did something happen to Robert?”
“There’s been a prison break. Your lieutenant friend is among the missing.”
“Was it really necessary to scare me and my servants out of our wits just to tell us that? Couldn’t it have waited until morning?”
“We need to search your house.” Major Turner pushed the door to Daddy’s library open and motioned for one of the two men with him to start searching it.
“Wait a minute. What do you think you’re doing? May I please see your search warrant?”
“We don’t need one. Our country’s at war. We’re under martial law.”
It was useless to argue. When Eli walked into the foyer and stood behind me as if guarding me, I knew I no longer had to stall. “Gilbert, fetch us some lamps, please,” I said. “Major, I will ask you and your men to kindly wipe your shoes.”
They did so, grudgingly. Gilbert returned with the lamps and was sent with one of the men to search the basement. Turner and the other man searched the ground floor as Eli, Tessie, and I watched. The men were very thorough, peering into every corner, crevice, and niche. I saw Eli’s wisdom in not telling us where he had hidden Robert. Like in a game of Hot and Cold, we might easily have given away his hiding place by acting nervous whenever they neared the spot.
Through the drawing room windows, I could see lights in the carriage house and in the kitchen as more soldiers searched outside. Torches bobbed in the garden like clumsy fireflies. Surely if they had found Robert outside, they would have sounded the alarm by now.
“Was my cousin the only one who escaped?” I asked as Turner peered beneath the parlor sofa.
He gave me a long, appraising look, as if trying to read my guilt