One more thing, too awful to tell, yet it belongs to this account. With our anxieties exhausted, we had given no thought to reassuring our own people. It seems that many rumors, all false and spread, I now contend, by a malicious mind—you will know who I mean—have been circulated. One held that Beulah Land would be put for auction-sale and with it the people. A man called Bird, from his nature of hopping about excitedly like a bird in a cage, was teased and told that he would be sold for certain. He was put in such terror that he took a hatchet and chopped off his left hand to make certain none would want to buy him.

24

Within an hour of reading the letter Penelope sat in the private office of the president of her bank, Mr. Ellison Watts, and told him that she wanted him to be ready to convert all assets of her estate into the promise of cash payment.

A man who had trained himself to show nothing but a stoical face no matter what surprising demand or whimsical request was made of him by a client, Mr. Watts nevertheless dropped, if only briefly, in his chair. When he found breath, he asked, “Why?”

Penelope told him, or tried to, and failing to make it clear, simply handed him the letter she had received from her niece. Mr. Watts grasped the situation quickly and entirely then: it was only spoken words that confused his mind; anything written he could fathom. “I see,” he said. “I see. I see.” And when she put a question or two to him, she saw that he did see.

He wrote a letter on the spot and sent it by stage within the next hour to Leon’s bank in Highboro, explaining his own relation to his client, and hers to theirs, and committing his client to stand behind as many promissory understandings as her resources warranted. Having done that, he then scolded her, but in much the same way Judge Truebody had done when he was alive and managed her affairs. Mr. Watts knew Sarah Kendrick, had known her since she was born. He had also dealt with Leon Kendrick and his father before him, and he understood something of what Beulah Land meant to all of them.

The next day found Penelope still active. She signed papers to make all her property negotiable, including the house on Broughton Street. She talked to Clarice and Ricey, and to Ichabod separately, saying that she might soon be leaving Savannah forever, and that if she did, would they choose to stay or go with her? Ichabod elected to stay, and so without a qualm she added him to her list of salable assets held by Mr. Watts. Ricey hemmed and hawed about country living and giving up the city until Clarice slapped her and told Penelope they would remain with her whatever her future abode, or fortune.

PART FIVE

1845

1