A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“The sheriff is looking for a fugitive.”

Lizzie opened the door wide. “Well, I haven’t got one in here.”

Mack looked into the room, wondering where Peg was hiding.

Barton said: “May we step inside for a moment?”

There was an almost imperceptible flash of fear in Lizzie’s eyes, and Mack wondered whether Barton had seen it. Lizzie shrugged with a semblance of apathy and said: “Feel free.”

The two men stepped inside, looking awkward. Lizzie let her dressing gown sag open a little, as if by accident. Mack could not help looking at the way the nightdress draped her rounded breasts. The other two men reacted with the same reflex. Lizzie looked the sheriff in the eye and he turned away guiltily. She was deliberately making them feel uncomfortable so that they would search hastily.

The sheriff lay on the floor and looked under the bed while his assistant opened the wardrobe. Lizzie sat on the bed. With a hasty gesture she picked up a corner of the bedspread and tugged it. Mack glimpsed a small, dirty foot for a split second before it was covered up.

Peg was in the bed.

She was so thin that she hardly made a bulge in the piled-up covers.

The sheriff opened a blanket chest and the other man looked behind a screen. There were not many places to check. Would they pull the covers off the bed?

The same thought must have gone through Lizzie’s mind, for she said, “Now, if you’re done, I’m going back to sleep,” and she got into bed.

Barton looked hard at Lizzie and the bed. Did he have the nerve to demand that Lizzie get out again? But he did not really think the master and mistress of the house were concealing the murderess—he was searching the place only to be comfortable about eliminating the possibility. After a moment’s hesitation he said: “Thank you, Mrs. Jamisson. We’re sorry to have disturbed your rest. We’ll carry on and search the slave quarters.”

Mack felt weak with relief. He held the door for them, hiding his jubilation.

“Good luck,” Lizzie said. “And, Sheriff—when you’ve finished your work, bring your men back here to the house and have some breakfast!”

34

LIZZIE STAYED IN HER ROOM WHILE THE MEN AND dogs searched the plantation. She and Peg talked in low voices, and Peg told her the story of her life. Lizzie was horrified and shaken. Peg was just a girl, thin and pretty and cheeky. Lizzie’s dead baby had been a girl.

They exchanged dreams. Lizzie revealed that she wanted to live out of doors and wear men’s clothing and spend all day on horseback with a gun. Peg took a folded and worn sheet of paper from inside her chemise. It was a hand-colored picture showing a father, a mother and a child standing outside a pretty cottage in the country. “I always wanted to be the little girl in the picture,” she said. “But now sometimes I want to be the mother.”

At the usual time Sarah, the cook, came to the room with Lizzie’s breakfast on a tray. Peg hid under the bedclothes at her knock, but the woman walked in and said to Lizzie: “I know all about Peggy, so don’t you worry.”

Peg came out again and Lizzie said bemusedly: “Who doesn’t know?”

“Mr. Jamisson and Mr. Lennox.”

Lizzie shared her breakfast with Peg. The child shoveled down grilled ham and scrambled eggs as if she had not eaten for a month.

The search party left as she was finishing. Lizzie and Peg went to the window and watched the men cross the lawn and make their way down to the river. They were disappointed and subdued, walking with slumped shoulders, and the dogs, picking up the mood, trailed obediently behind.

They watched the men out of sight, then Lizzie sighed with relief and said: “You’re safe.”

They hugged happily. Peg was painfully bony, and Lizzie felt a surge of maternal feeling for the poor child.

Peg said: “I’m always safe with Mack.”

“You’ll have to stay in this room until we’re sure Jay and Lennox are out of the way.”

“Aren’t you worried that Mr. Jamisson will come in?” Peg asked.

“No, he never comes in here.”

Peg looked puzzled but she did not ask any more questions. Instead she said: “When I’m older I’m going to marry Mack.”

Lizzie had the strangest feeling that she was being warned off.

Mack sat in the old nursery—where he could be sure he would not be disturbed—going through his survival kit. He had a stolen ball of twine and six hooks, made for him by the blacksmith Cass, so that he could catch fish. He had a tin cup and plate of the kind given to slaves. There was a tinder box so he could light fires and an iron pan to cook his food. He had an ax and a heavy knife he had purloined while the slaves were felling trees and making barrels.

At the bottom of the bag, wrapped in a scrap of linen, was a key to the gun room. His last act before leaving would be to steal a rifle and ammunition.