Allegheny Hideaway. Kimberly Tanner GordonЧитать онлайн книгу.
with all the women in wide hooped skirts, but at last she heard a familiar voice cry out.
“Iris!” her mother shouted.
Iris turned to that wonderful sound and saw her mother waving arms above her head. She smiled at the wonderful sight. It was like pure medicine to see her loving face again. Iris waved back and headed in her direction.
“It’s so good to see you!” her mother said with relief as they embraced.
“It’s good to be home, Mother. I’m so glad to be here,” she answered, nearly crying with happy emotions.
“What about me?” Tom teased. Both women snickered.
“Hello, Tom. It’s good to see you too,” Iris answered, giving him a hug as well.
“You look more like your mama every year it seems,” Tom said with a smile. “Pretty as ever!”
Both women exchanged a glance and grinned. Tom had been saying that for six years. “Let’s go home,” he then suggested.
“Wait. Hattie is here,” Iris explained. “We need to find her.”
Tom stood on his toes to look over the crowd. “I think I see her just getting off now.”
“Can you wave at her?” Iris asked.
Tom caught Hattie’s attention. The slave walked over to the family with her bag in hand.
“Hello again, Hattie,” Iris’ mother, Savannah, told the maid.
“Hello, Missus Payton. Mister Payton,” she answered with a curtsey.
Tom nodded a response, then turned to his stepdaughter. “Which one is your trunk, Iris?”
“The one with purple straps.”
After searching for the trunk, the group climbed into a waiting carriage to make the drive home. Hattie sat up front with the driver and was perfectly content with the scenery.
“It’s so good to have you back,” Savannah told her daughter. “I wish you could stay for more than two weeks though. That’s just hardly any time at all!”
Iris grimaced. She had not yet told her mother anything about Johnathan’s abuse and her real intentions for this visit. She would break it to her parents tonight after dinner and leave the day after tomorrow. It would be hard to say goodbye, but necessary.
Tom’s carriage pulled into the drive. He was a local merchant and made a comfortable living for himself and Savannah. Their brick home featured both an upper and lower porch facing east and a cool shade covered garden down the north side of the home. Iris could have lived here forever. It was such a pleasant way of life.
Dinner was served on the upper porch. It consisted of crab cakes, baked flounder stuffed with onions and breading, rice and spices and green beans topped with almonds. Dessert was a special tropical pudding with coconut and pineapple.
“Bought the fruit right off the ship from the islands,” Tom told her proudly.
“It’s absolutely delicious!” Iris complimented after the first bite. What a wonderful feast this had been. The perfect meal to remember for a long time.
Shortly after dinner was over and the dishes had been cleared by servants, Iris’ thoughts returned to her plan. With a deep, brave breath, she began.
“I sure wish I could stay and enjoy everything that you and Charleston have to offer. I could be so happy here …” She looked dreamily off the balcony at the pretty yard below.
Savannah frowned. “What do you mean, honey? Aren’t you happy in Lexington with Johnathan?”
Iris took another deep breath. “Well, actually Mama, no. I’m not.”
With both their attentions, Iris explained to her mother and Tom all that had transpired recently, including the loss of her baby. She then outlined her plan to leave the day after tomorrow and escape once and for all.
“Oh, no! Iris, you can’t just leave like that,” Savannah spoke with alarm.
“I’ll just go kill him!” Tom stated angrily.
“I’ve thought of that too Tom, but the law would hang us,” Iris cautioned him sensibly.
“It’s not right,” Savannah uttered as she began to cry. “He’s the one ought to be hanged.”
“I know Mama, I know,” Iris answered with a hug. “But they won’t. And if I asked him for a divorce, he wouldn’t let me have one, and I would be disgracing the family. If I moved here, he would simply come and get me. Then I’d really be beaten. So my only choice really is to just disappear.”
Tom was deep in thought as his wife spoke her fears.
“Surely there must be another way,” Savannah sighed. She was terrified at the thought of losing her only child.
“Mama, he even has spies here in Charleston. He said they would be watching me.”
“What if I threatened him?” Tom offered.
“Thank you Tom, but I don’t think it would matter to him. His heart is cruel. He’s an evil nature none of us saw before it was too late. I just have to leave him,” Iris spoke solemnly. “Or fake my own death, but that could get complicated …”
Grasping for hope, Savannah asked, “Why do you have to leave the day after tomorrow? Johnathan knows you’re going to be here for two weeks. Why can’t you just leave then?”
Iris smiled at her mother sympathetically. “Because I need a head start Mama, to make it harder for him to track me.”
“What will you use to get by? Where will you go? What will you do?” Tom wondered, trying to help her with a solution.
“I have all my jewelry sewn into my clothes. I plan to sell it when I need money,” she confessed.
Tom nodded. “But it won’t last forever, Iris. What will you do then?”
Iris raised her hands in gesture. “I will work.”
Savannah made a noise in her throat at the thought of her lovely daughter working. “Where?” she asked.
“I don’t yet know that, Mama. It just depends,” she answered honestly. “I don’t have my whole plan thought out yet, but I’m working on it.”
Tom didn’t like any of it, not one bit. He might even have to put his foot down. “Where will you go?”
Iris looked him in the eye. “I have an idea, but I want to keep it a secret. I don’t even want you both to know where I am, in case Johnathan tries to get it out of you.”
Savannah scoffed. “He’d have to kill me first!”
“He might try, Mother. That’s why I won’t tell you.”
“Then how will I know if you are safe? I won’t be able to sleep at night,” Savannah complained. What could she say to keep her daughter close?
“I have a letter on me that says who I really am and who you are. If anything bad happens to me, you will be notified. If you don’t hear from anyone, then you know I am safe,” Iris answered factually. She had put a lot of thought into these things as well.
Savannah brought her hand up to her head and cried. “Oh Iris!”
Tom came over for support. He looked at Iris. “I understand why you want to do this, Iris. But I want to give this some thought overnight and see if I can’t come up with another plan for you. Are you sure you don’t want me to go to the authorities, or talk to Johnathan myself?”
“Please Tom, don’t bother. I want to leave,” she admitted humbly. “I want to go far away and start over somewhere where nobody knows me. You two are the only people I have to leave behind, but I’ll be back. Someday … I hope.”
Savannah