Chapter Three: Ruth’s Choice
That afternoon the rain stopped and the house filled with voices from the visiting buyers.
Ruth carried towels to Catherine’s chamber and found Mrs. Vale examining a row of linen dresses.
The stranger measured sleeves with a cord and wrote figures on a slate.
Catherine stood by the window as though another person’s inspection of her belongings were a personal insult.
“You needn’t measure those,” she told Mrs. Vale.
“They aren’t included.”
“Mr. Whitcomb said the entire upstairs inventory was available for review.”
Catherine took two steps toward the dresses.
“My husband confuses things that are mine with things he has paid for.
”
Ruth saw the trunk with the loose lining beneath the bed.
Its lid had been closed, and a velvet shawl lay across the top.
Mrs. Vale noticed Ruth looking and told her to bring the smaller trunk into the hallway.
Catherine spoke too quickly.
“Leave that one.”
The room fell silent for half a breath.
Mrs. Vale smiled with professional patience.
“I will return to it when you are ready.”
Ruth lifted an empty hatbox instead and carried it downstairs.
In the corridor she passed seventeen-year-old Ellen, her daughter, who was polishing a brass railing.
Ellen watched her mother’s rigid shoulders.
“Has something happened?”
“Finish that rail and go to Hester,” Ruth said.
“Don’t linger upstairs today.”
The girl obeyed, but the concern remained on her face.
Ruth went to the laundry room where Betsy, the youngest house servant, was rinsing napkins.
She asked whether anyone had seen the mistress’s jewelry since yesterday.
Betsy said the brooch had been on Catherine’s collar at supper two nights earlier.
She remembered it because one diamond had caught the candlelight and flashed into her eyes.
“Why do you ask?” Betsy whispered.
“Because I saw something I wish I hadn’t.”
Ruth described the open trunk and Catherine’s hand beneath the lining.
Betsy put down the napkin.
“Then you have to tell Master Whitcomb.”
“If he believes his wife, he may accuse me of stealing too.”
“If you don’t speak, Daniel could be sold.”
Ruth knew both statements were true.
That was what made choosing difficult.
Betsy looked toward the window where Gideon’s visitors were crossing the courtyard.
“They measured my shoulders this morning,” she said.
Ruth gripped the edge of the table.
“Who did?”
“That woman from town.”
The two women stood listening to footsteps pass outside.
Ruth finally told Betsy to say nothing until she had spoken with Hester.
She did not want an accusation to travel through the household without protection for the person who made it.
At the kitchen table Hester was cutting apples with a blunt knife.
She heard Ruth’s account without interruption.
“So Catherine invented the theft,” Hester said.
“I saw her put something under the lining.”
“And Dent is here to price the household.”
Hester put the apple pieces into a pan.
“Then we must understand how those two things meet.”
They sent Ellen into the front hall carrying fresh candles.
Ellen was small enough that the men often stopped noticing her before she had left the room.
When she returned, she said Dent had demanded a list of everyone who might be sent away.
He wanted to inspect Daniel first.
“Master Whitcomb told him Daniel might be dishonest,” Ellen reported.
“Dent said dishonest men should be separated from the rest before the sale.”
Hester stared at the cold fireplace.
“That is how they’ll break up families,” she said.
“They’ll call it separating the troublesome ones.”
Ruth remembered Catherine saying she could accuse Daniel of entering her room without permission.
That threat had seemed personal yesterday.
Today, with Dent measuring people and Gideon making lists, it was becoming useful to the entire estate.
The kitchen door opened and Gideon entered with his gloves in one hand.
Every woman in the room straightened.
“Ruth, my wife requests you upstairs.”
Ruth’s pulse climbed.
“Yes, sir.”
He examined the half-cut apples.
“And keep the younger servants out of the front rooms while Mr. Dent is working.”
Ruth followed him into the hall.
Before they reached the stairs, Gideon said quietly, “My wife claims you were in the upstairs corridor last evening.”
Ruth stopped for an instant.
“I delivered linens.”
“Then you may know whether Carter entered her room.”
Ruth looked toward the empty staircase.
She could lie and keep herself safer for another day.
She could tell the truth and risk making her daughter’s life the price of it.
“I saw him leaving the upstairs passage, sir,” she answered.
“And did you see him take anything?”
“No, sir.”
Gideon gave a small irritated sigh.
“That tells us very little.”
He went toward his study and left Ruth standing beside the rail.
She had answered honestly, but the words felt smaller than what she knew.
Upstairs Catherine waited with the bedroom door open.
“Ruth,” she said, “we must talk about loyalty.”
Chapter Four: The Mistress’s Bargain
Catherine gestured toward a chair without inviting Ruth to sit.
“I am told that you were in this passage after Daniel left.”
“I was carrying linen,
ma’am.”
“Then perhaps you noticed him lingering where he had no reason to be.”
Ruth kept her eyes on a knot in the carpet.
“He walked toward the servants’ stairs.”
Catherine moved a silver candlestick from the mantel to a small table.
“You have a daughter, do you not?”
Ruth’s stomach contracted.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ellen is a pleasant girl.”
“She works hard.”
“Girls her age are very much in demand.”
Ruth understood the price Catherine was setting on the truth before the mistress spoke another word.
Catherine opened the trunk and showed Ruth an empty velvet jewelry box.
“My husband’s visitors cannot see us divided by accusations,
” she said.
“It would be better if we agreed that Daniel behaved improperly.”
“I did not see him behave improperly.”
Catherine’s voice became brittle.
“You have worked here long enough to know the difference between what you saw and what a household needs.”
Ruth looked directly at her for the first time.
“I know the difference, ma’am.”
Catherine snapped the jewelry box shut.
“Then remember your daughter.”
Ruth left the room with shaking hands and walked until she reached the cool pantry.
Hester found her leaning against the shelves.
“She threatened Ellen,” Ruth said.
Hester closed the door.
“Tell me the exact words.
”
Ruth repeated them, trying not to soften anything.
Hester listened with the care of a person arranging glass on a narrow shelf.
“She’s frightened of something beyond Daniel,” Hester said.
“She was frightened before she invented the theft.”
“The trunk,” Ruth whispered.
“She doesn’t want that woman to open it.”
Hester took a folded dishcloth from the rack.
“Then whatever is under the lining belongs to the story.”
Ruth shook her head.
“I won’t break into her bedroom.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Then how can we make anyone look?”
“By giving them a reason they want for themselves.”
Hester spoke without comfort or sentiment.
She had survived long enough to know that powerful people rarely changed course because a vulnerable person made a truthful statement.
They changed course when the truth interfered with something they wanted.
That afternoon she found Mrs. Vale sitting beneath the veranda awning, drinking lemonade and sorting clothing measurements.
“The upstairs trunks have brass hinges from France,” Hester said.
Mrs. Vale looked up.
“Do they?”
“One has an unusual lining sewn by a dressmaker from Norfolk.”
“That might increase its price, if the condition is sound.”
Hester folded her hands.
“Mrs. Whitcomb has asked that it remain closed.”
Mrs. Vale raised a brow.
“That would make an accurate appraisal difficult.”
“I thought you would want to know.”
Hester turned away before the woman could ask why she had chosen that moment to speak.
In the stable, Daniel heard two carriage wheels bump over the stones and then heard Dent calling for the overseer.
He counted every footstep because he had nothing else to do.
Late in the afternoon Rusk opened the door and brought him outside.
Dent inspected him with the air of a man checking a horse’s teeth.
“He knows harness work?” Dent asked.
“Better than anyone here,” Rusk answered.
“Can he read?”
“No,” Daniel said before Rusk could answer.
He could read simple sentences, but literacy would not help him in front of those men.
Dent tapped his notebook.
“The accusation is inconvenient.”
Gideon came from the house and joined them.
“My wife is certain of what happened.”
“Your certainty and hers may cost money,” Dent replied.
“No prudent buyer will pay full price for a servant suspected of entering a lady’s chamber.”
Daniel stared at the damp earth.
He was not merely being accused.
He was being reduced to a number on a page, and the accusation would decide who bought him.
“I would prefer not to sell a troublesome man among a stable lot,” Dent continued.
“I can move him separately tomorrow evening and spare you the embarrassment.”
Gideon hesitated.
“Tomorrow is before the advertised sale.”
“Private arrangements are common.”
Daniel understood that tomorrow evening could be the last time he saw Amos, Ruth, or Hester.
He asked for permission to speak.
Gideon waved a distracted hand.
“What is it?”
“If a buyer wants a horseman, he should see my work before calling me troublesome.”
Dent studied him with sudden interest.
“You would demonstrate?”
“The carriage team has an uneven pull,” Daniel said.
“I can correct it before any guest rides behind those animals.”
Rusk scoffed.
“That is not what we are discussing.”
Dent looked toward the carriage house.
“A public demonstration may be useful on Saturday.”
Gideon nodded slowly.
“Very well.”
For a moment Daniel felt relief, but then Dent added that his private appointment would remain on the following evening unless the matter of the jewelry was settled.
Daniel had gained a day, not safety.
He returned to the tack room and found a scrap of apple peel near the door.
Someone had left him food where the guards would not notice.
He picked it up carefully and ate it while the yard darkened.
