Amelia Kemp stood at her attic window. The waters of Chesapeake Bay tossed green and white and set the thick mass of trees on distant Poplar Island in motion. A boat rounded Keat Point. For a few moments Amelia could see the tips of the masts and a bit of white sail against the sky. Then it all disappeared. But the sight of a boat sailing away over the waters, of a ship going out to sea, was not at this moment depressing. She too was going away.
Lucy was dead. That morning they had laid her worn body in a grave at the edge of the pines. Covey, his Sunday suit sagging, stared stupidly while they shoveled in the hard lumps of clay. The preacher had wrung the widower’s hand, reminding him that “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”; and they had returned to the unpainted, sagging house. Now there was nothing further to do. She could go.
Amelia had tried to persuade her sister to leave with her before it was too late. She had dared to read her portions of Jack’s letters—“Come along, there are jobs in Washington—even for women.” But Lucy would have none of it. Her duty was clear. There were moments when she urged Amelia to go, others when she clung to her weakly. So the months had stretched into six years, and Amelia had stayed on.
Covey dropped into a chair on the front porch when they returned from the grave. All the lines of his body ran downward. Covey had not prospered. He knew nothing about a nationwide depression, Van Buren’s bickering with the banks, wars in Texas, or gag rules in Congress; he had no idea there was any connection between the 1840 presidential election and the price of cotton. He did know he was losing ground. No matter how hard he beat the slaves, crops failed or rotted in the fields, stock died, debts piled up, markets slumped and tempers were short all around the bay.
Now, his wife was dead—hadn’t been really sick, either. Just, petered out. Here it was April, and the sun was scorching.
He had heard no sound, but Covey was suddenly aware of being watched. He sat very still and stared hard into the bushes near the corner of the porch. Two hard, bright eyes stared back. Covey spoke sharply.
“Who’s that? Who’s that sneakin’ in them bushes?”
The eyes vanished, but the bushes did not stir. With a snarl, Covey leaned forward.
“Dammit! I’ll git my shotgun!”
The leaves parted and he saw the streaked, pallid, pinched face in which the green eyes blazed—a face topped with dirty, tangled tow-colored hair. It was an old face; but the slight body with pipe-stem legs and arms was that of a child, a girl-child not more than ten years old. She wore a coarse one-piece slip. One bare foot was wrapped as if to protect some injury, the other was scratched and bruised. The child did not come forward, but crouched beside the porch giving back stare for hard stare. Then with a little cry she disappeared around the house.