Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [458]
“Ah? Well, leave your things, then; Ulysses will take them up for you.”
Reluctantly abandoning her easel, Brianna picked up her private sketchbook and tucked it under one arm, giving her other to Jocasta. She wasn’t leaving that for Mr. Sees-all, Tells-all to flip through.
“We have company today,” Jocasta said, turning back toward the house. “Judge Alderdyce, from Cross Creek, and his mother. I thought perhaps ye’d wish time to change, before luncheon.” Brianna bit the inside of her cheek, to prevent any rejoinder to this less than subtle hint. More visitors.
Under the circumstances, she could scarcely refuse to meet her aunt’s guests—or even to change clothes for them—but she could have wished that Jocasta were a good deal less sociable. There was a constant stream of visitors; for luncheon, for tea, for supper, overnight, for breakfast, come to buy horses, sell cows, trade lumber, borrow books, bring gifts, play music. They came from neighboring plantations, from Cross Creek, and from as far away as Edenton and New Bern.
The array of Jocasta’s acquaintance was staggering. Still, Brianna had noticed an increasing tendency of late for the callers to be men. Single men.
Phaedre verified Brianna’s suspicions, voiced as the maid dug in the wardrobe for a fresh morning gown.
“There ain’t a lot of single women in the colony,” Phaedre observed, when Brianna mentioned the peculiar coincidence that most of the recent visitors appeared to be bachelors. Phaedre cast an eye at Brianna’s midsection, which was bulging noticeably under the loose muslin shift. “ ’Specially not young ones. To say nothing of women who’s got River Run a-coming to them.”
“Who’s got what?” Brianna said. She stopped, hair half pinned, and stared at the maid.
Phaedre laid one graceful hand across her mouth, eyes wide above it.
“Your auntie ain’t told you yet? Thought sure you knew, or I’d not’ve said.”
“Well, now you’ve said that much, go on saying. What do you mean?” Phaedre, a born gossip, took little coaxing.
“Your daddy and them hadn’t been gone but a week, before Miss Jo sent for Lawyer Forbes and had her will changed. When Miss Jo dies, they’s some little bits of money goes to your daddy, and some personal things to Mr. Farquard and some of her other friends—but everything else, that’s yours. The plantation, the timber, the sawmill …”
“But I don’t want it!”
Phaedre’s elegantly lifted eyebrow expressed profound doubt, then dropped, dismissing it.
“Well, it ain’t what you want, I reckon. Miss Jo is kind of inclined to get what she wants.”
Brianna laid the hairbrush down, slowly.
“And just what does she want?” she asked. “Do you happen to know that, too?”
“Ain’t any big secret. She wants River Run to last longer than she does—and to belong to somebody from her blood. Seems sense to me; she got no children, no grandchildren. Who else is there to carry on after her?”
“Well … there’s my father.”
Phaedre laid the fresh dress across the bed and frowned at it appraisingly, glancing back at Brianna’s middle.
“This one going to last no more than another couple weeks, the way that belly’s growing. Oh, yes, there’s your daddy. She done tried to make him her heir, but the way I hears it, he wasn’t havin’ none of it.” She pursed her lips in amusement.
“Now there’s a stubborn man for you. Go off into the mountains and live like a red man, just to keep from doing what Miss Jo want him to do. But Mr. Ulysses reckons your daddy had the right of it, at that. Be him and Miss Jo buttin’ heads day and night, if he’d a-stayed.”
Brianna slowly twisted up the other side of her hair, but the hairpin slipped out again, letting it fall.
“Here, you be lettin’ me do that, Miss Bree.” Phaedre slid behind her, pulled out the slipshod pinning, and began deftly to braid the sides of her hair.
“And all these visitors—these men—”
“Miss Jo out to pick you a good one,”