Read The Seeker for Free Online Page B

of Mammy’s dried apple tarts.”
    “You see entirely too much,” Charlotte said.
    “What else I got to do but look, and you know you like hearin’ about what I see. Like that Janie Preston. You’d think that girl would figure out yellow makes her look like yesterday’s leftover gravy, but it didn’t seem to bother Mr. Matthew. I think he’s about to get caught.” Mellie was always a fountain of information after any party on who was making eyes at who or which men were plotting political alliances. “’Course tonight most all the young ladies were findin’ ways to sashay up to that new man. The ‘no gentleman’ from the garden.”
    “He’s famous,” Charlotte stared down at her hands. “Has illustrations in Harper’s Weekly all the time.”
    “You don’t say? On top of bein’ so fine lookin’.” Mellie tied off Charlotte’s braid and sat back down on the bench. She folded her white apron in pleats for a minute before she said, “Fact of the matter is, you might not be the only one the likes of him is gonna cause trouble for.”
    “What do you mean, trouble?” Charlotte turned on the dressing table stool to study Mellie.
    “I kept my eyes down, Miss Lottie. I swear I did. I didn’t even take a peek up at him, but he talked to me.” Mellie glanced up at her and then down at the pleats she was folding and unfolding with nervous fingers. “I mean like I was a person. Not a slave. Like you talk to me. Like I matter.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He asked me if I liked it here. Like I was one of the party ladies instead of a servant there holdin’ a tray of tarts.” Mellie reached up and yanked off the cap she’d been wearing for the party and ran her hand through her black curls. “I didn’t know what to say—he just stood there till I had to say somethin’.”
    “And did you tell him you liked it here?” Charlotte kept her eyes on Mellie’s face, but she was seeing the boy on the block again. She held her breath as she waited for Mellie’s answer.
    Mellie didn’t look at Charlotte. Instead she stared at the flickering light of the gas lamp beside the door for a moment before she said, “You know I wouldn’t want to be nowhere ’cept with you and Mammy. But . . .” She let her voice trail off as she looked back down at her apron and began folding it in pleats again.
    “But what?” Charlotte reached over and touched Mellie’s arm. “You know you don’t have to worry about what you say to me. I want you to talk to me.”
    Mellie finally looked straight at Charlotte. Her dark brown eyes looked sad. “I do know that, Miss Lottie. Mammy says that’s part of my problem. How you’ve been more sister than mistress. Mammy says it’s give me ideas I might be better off forgettin’ about. That slave girls ain’t supposed to know how to read like you taught me. And I taught Mammy. She says I’d best never be lettin’ on about none of that. Or lettin’ myself fall in love with no long-legged field hand. She understands how I might want to, bein’ all of twenty now, but she says that would set my feet on a sure path to sorrow.”
    Charlotte searched for something to say to make Mellie feel better, but nothing came to mind. There was truth in what Mellie said. They sat there in silence a minute before Mellie went on.
    “But not ever knowin’ about lovin’, that’s reason for sorrow too, ain’t it, Miss Lottie?”
    Finally Charlotte said, “I don’t know, Mellie.”
    Mellie shook her head as her mouth hardened into a thin line. “You speakin’ the truth there, Miss Lottie. That’s sorrow you gonna know too if you settle on Mr. Edwin. There ain’t never gonna be no lovin’ between the two of you. It ain’t in the man.” She stood up and carefully gathered up the dress. “You sure did look pretty tonight,” she said as she hung the dress on a padded hanger in the wardrobe. She laid out Charlotte’s nightgown before she started toward the door. “If you don’t need