“You aren’t serious,” he said flatly, leaving me to imagine the extent of his outrage. A free man married to a slave! His children would be mine, to do with as I pleased.
“I’m afraid that’s all I can offer you,” I said. “In the event of Sarah’s capture, of course, which I firmly believe can only be a matter of days.”
“Then we have nothing more to discuss,” he said, leaning forward upon his cane.
“There are laws against harboring a fugitive, Mr. Roget,” I said, “as I’m sure you know. Assisting Sarah in any way is strictly unlawful. The fines are heavy. Once she has been returned to me, it is my intention to prosecute anyone who can be proved to have aided her in her flight. I don’t think of her as having run away, you see, I think of her as having been stolen. She would never take such a risk had she not been encouraged by someone who has no respect for the law, who is so morally derelict that he fails to comprehend the difference between purchase and blackmail.”
Mr. Roget stood up, frowning mightily. As I spoke, he drew his head back, as if to dodge the thrust of my argument. “It is a mystery to me,” I continued, “how you could find the nerve to come here and offer to pay me for what you have stolen. You seem to think I care for nothing but money. I am going to considerable expense to recover what is mine, by right and by law, and recover her I will.”
“Good day, Mrs. Gaudet,” he said, making for the door. I got up from the chair to watch him go. There was the usual bite of pain in my shoulder as my arm stretched down at my side. I didn’t expect him to stop, but he did, turning in the doorway to deliver an interesting bit of information. “You will never find her,” he said. “She is no longer your property nor anyone else’s, and you will never see her again.”
“IT ALMOST SOUND as if he means she’s dead,” my uncle said. “Or else in Canada.” He was stuffing papers into a leather portmanteau.
My aunt picked at a knot in her embroidery. “Or England,” she suggested.
“Where is Mr. Leggett?” I asked.
“He should be in New York by now. His last report was surprisingly confident. He had what he called ‘a solid lead.’ I won’t tell you how long it took me to figure out the spelling of that one.”
“So he thinks she has not left the country,” I said.
“I think not,” my uncle said. “And I trust Leggett on matters of this kind. Roget’s remark may well have been braggadocio. He meant that she would leave the country if you refused his offer. But it could take him weeks to arrange a passage for her.”
“He wouldn’t send her out of the country and then make his offer,” my aunt agreed. “What would be the point?”
“Two thousand dollars,” my uncle observed, not for the first time. “Walter included.”
“I was sorely tempted,” I said.
“How could you accept?” my aunt said. “He was holding you up for ransom.”
“Not exactly,” my uncle said. “But it would set a dangerous precedent.” He closed the case and addressed a demibow to my aunt and me. “Ladies,” he said. “I must leave you.”
My aunt followed him to the door, then rang for the maid. “Will you have something?” she said. “Some cake and coffee?”
“Just coffee,” I said, touching my waist. “Delphine’s cooking is making me fat. She says she can’t cook for one person.”
“It’s best to give little dinners twice a week and live off what is left for the other days.”
“I don’t seem to know anyone anymore,” I said.
“Well, you are in mourning. It’s to be expected that you don’t circulate. But when you come out, I’m sure you will receive invitations to various parties, and then you will have obligations to your hosts.”
“You are always optimistic,” I said. “You’re more like Father than Mother.”
“Your mother had trials to bear,” she said. “As you have.”
The coffee arrived. I thought over this remark as my aunt poured out a cup and passed it to me. Was I like Mother? And then it struck me that I had actually turned into my mother. My husband was dead, I lived in her house, I was getting fat, and my hope for the future was that soon I would be giving little dinners for people who pitied me. “At least she had the memory of a happy marriage,” I said. “I don’t even have that.”
“No marriage is perfect,” my aunt said. “Your parents’ was no more so than any other.”