Old Gin hands Caroline the reins. “At least not too windy today, so hat stays on.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want Jo to lose that charming scrap of roofing.” Caroline smirks at my misfit hat. Her gaze drops to her mother’s outfit, which fits me like a glove under a velvet jacket with a nipped-in waist. Quickly, she turns away, but not before I catch her blotchy cheeks puffed out in a scowl.
I swing a leg over my own mount, excitement blooming inside me for the first time today. I haven’t been topside of a horse in months. Old Gin’s cowboy saddle, bought for a dollar, fits me like water cupped in a palm.
“Giddap!” Caroline calls with a flick of her reins, before my foot has even found the stirrup.
Remembering her mother’s caution, I tap my heels, and Sweet Potato sets off. I catch my breath at the lithe athlete she has become, with no hint of a falter remaining in her step. The world is a ball for her alone to kick and bounce along under the afternoon’s cool gaze, and we quickly catch up with Caroline traveling north up Peachtree.
My lady’s too-erect carriage and lifted chin speak volumes about her regard for who’s riding behind her, but I’d take her back to her front any day of the week. At least the back doesn’t have a mouth. Caroline doles out nods and greetings to those she deems worthy, including a woman large with child.
Caroline sneezes and then, with two fingers, tugs an embroidered handkerchief from her glove. I bring Sweet Potato alongside her. “Miss, would you like to rest?”
She waves a dismissive hand. “Mrs. Nettles looks like she swallowed a planet. If men truly are the stronger species, why aren’t they the ones having the babies?”
“Because it would require them to knit, I suppose.”
“Ha!” Moving ahead again, she leaves me to marvel at the miracle of our exchanging words without injury. We pass under the shade of the magnolias and red oaks that sprout everywhere in Atlanta. Trees easily outnumber residents. If you could bottle up the shade and sell it for a nickel, Atlanta would be richer than even New York.
Finally, we stop at a watering trough in an empty lot just before Our Lord’s Chapel.
“Oh, pshaw.” Caroline twists around on the saddle, casing the ground, while her horse dips his nose.
“Is everything okay, miss?”
“Seems I lost my handkerchief. It can’t be far. Find it.”
Sweet Potato is lapping thirstily, and so I set off on foot, trying to remember the last time she used her handkerchief. It was at least a block ago. She let out a honk that caused Sweet Potato’s ears to twitch. Leaves, cigar butts, miscellaneous wrappers, horse patties . . . aha! I spot it, looking like a crumpled bird in the street fifty feet away. I hurry to collect it before something stomps it, and then hoof back.
Sweet Potato stands alone, shaking her face in the water and making a mess. It takes me a moment to recover my wits. Caroline has tricked me. The only thing left of her is the oily scent of her deception. Her mother warned me about this, yet I settled into her lie as easily as into a porch swing. I was even fooled into imagining a moment between us. I remount, cursing this job once again.
Beyond the chapel, the mansions along Peachtree thin, and the trees grow denser. I turn down the closest cross street, keeping an eye out for her blond gelding. On my right, an expanse of tall grass leads to Six Paces Meadow. I doubt she would’ve gone there—too much pollen for her allergies.
After another fifteen minutes of jogging up and down Peachtree and seeing no sign of Caroline or her horse, we re-tread to the watering trough. Somehow, the snake has slithered into a bush. The chapel clock chimes, indicating half past one. Beyond the chapel lies Our Lord’s Cemetery, shaded and uninviting.
The cemetery.
“The dead don’t tell secrets.” I steer Sweet Potato in.
We never set foot in Our Lord’s Cemetery, but not because of the ghosts. Many years ago, a Chinese man with “rabid eyes” was rumored to have violated a white woman here. When the caretaker’s wife came upon the appalling scene with a shotgun, the Chinese man ran off, and Chinese men everywhere tried their best not to look rabid.
Beyond the paved driveway to the chapel, hoofprints mark the ground, freshly turned dirt the color of a mourner’s suit. I pat Sweet Potato’s neck. “Guess that wasn’t so hard.”
The few headstones are haphazardly planted among ferns, as if the dead were buried where they happened to drop. Dogwood blossoms spot the mossy carpet with an eerie kind of snow, and the air feels cool and wet. Statues of grimacing martyrs and saints with gnarled hands put a hurry in my step. Forget last rest; this is the kind of place that might keep you awake forever.
No wonder Caroline’s previous maids did not last.
The ground becomes drier, and the hoofprints become harder to pick out. But soon, a single vault of white stone carved with the name INNOCENTI appears on our right. Two angels guard either side of the structure, which is shaded all around by a dense grove of trees. In the grove, Frederick is tied to a stout trunk, and beside him stands a tall piebald with unusual coloring, white with a black mane.
I have seen that horse before. Its name is Thief, and it belongs to Mr. Quackenbach, Miss Saltworth’s beau. Poor Salt. Has he spurned her? Or is he just playing a little petticoat peekaboo?
A voice sounds from inside the vault, followed by Caroline’s distinct snort and high giggle.
My nose wrinkles. I bet the occupants of that particular tomb wish they could move house. The guardian angels stare lifelessly ahead, daydreaming on the job.
I tuck the information into a pocket of my mind. Then quietly, I back Sweet Potato away, leaving the sinners to their folly.
Nine
I catch Caroline coming out of the cemetery, a dreamy smile strung on her lips. Even the sight of me, primly waiting in a stone courtyard at the front of the chapel, doesn’t dampen her mood. Mr. Q is nowhere in evidence. “Hullo, maid.”
“I trust your afternoon was refreshing, miss.” If not debauching.
She slits her eyes at me. We ride in silence save the jingling of the harnesses. Only when we reach the water trough does she finally toss out, “I like to take my rides by myself. If you want to keep your job, you won’t tell my mother. Just think, you’ll have an hour all to yourself to do whatever you want—paid, too. Surely you know a good melon when you thunk it.”
I consider my options. The idea of taking daily larks on Sweet Potato is enticing, though I know it is wicked. Fly with the crows, get shot with the crows, as they say. Of course, Mrs. Payne will fire me if she ever finds out. But if I do tell her, Caroline will certainly find new ways to make my life a misery.
It’s time to catch the snake under my boot, before her bite proves fatal. “The way I see it, the cemetery is where one goes to abandon their mortality, not their . . . morality.”