Authors: Tara Conklin
The House Girl (31 page)
The Pastor looked down upon Samuel. He did not dismount. He said, “It is this fine boy who told me first of your betrayal,” and he looked to Father. “I sensed when I first entered this parish that a certain evil pervaded it. I knew of Mr. Shaw’s heresy & I suspected he was not alone. It is the hand of God that smote down your barn, have no doubt.” “Why have you come here?” Father asked. “We will be on our way, you can see that we are readying to leave.” “I am here for Samuel,” the Pastor said, & nodded towards our boy. “He knows there is nothing but wickedness in your way. I am here to take the boy.”
“No.” Mother, who had been silent all this time, Kate, who had scarce said a word since the fire, save to comfort Samuel, now spoke forth with such volume & strength, we all turned to her. “No, you will not take him.” She walked to Samuel & wrapped an arm around him, bending her body as though to shield him from the sun that shone brittle in the sky. Samuel remained still as stone. He did not return Mother’s embrace
.
The Pastor smiled. “Do you understand what I have just told you? It was Samuel who told me of the fugitives you shelter here, of a pregnant girl you sent away. He came to me.” The Pastor’s horse balked & fidgeted suddenly & he struggled to stay astride. “Samuel?” The Pastor reached his hand towards Samuel & beckoned him forwards. Mother bent now & kneeled before him. She looked Samuel in the face, kissed him again & again on the cheeks & whispered to him. I could not hear the words. She embraced him & his childish arms went round her neck, his face wet with tears. He shook his head at the Pastor & took our Mother’s hand
.
“Go,” Father said to the Pastor. “Samuel will remain with us.”
“Samuel,” the Pastor called as he steadied his horse, who pranced with agitation. Mother & Samuel seemed not to hear the Pastor’s voice & they entered the house, Mother’s head bent low in soft murmuring. Samuel leaned against her skirts. The door closed behind them. “Do not think I will be the last to come out this way,” the Pastor said then to Father, knowing he had lost the boy, knowing that maternal forgiveness is absolute. “Do not think you may remain here. Do not think you can be saved.” And finally he let his horse loose & they galloped away
.
“We must leave today,” Father said to me. “Others will come for us, the Pastor speaks the truth in that at least.”
The remainder of that morning we worked steadily without any talk. Father did not ask but he must have known it was I who told Samuel & thus my betrayal too that had led us to this sorry place. Various states of emotion swirled within me, Kate, all that long morning. Anger towards Samuel, guilt for my own transgression, sorrow at leaving, & fear at what would become of us. How were we to defend ourselves against the anger of those men? Against their rifles? If there had been no mercy for Pastor Shaw then neither would there be mercy for us. A great fear quickened my steps from the house to the wagon & back again, countless times. Mother & Samuel sat together on the settee, which we could not bring, it was too heavy for the wagon. Samuel lay asleep, his head in her lap. Mother’s eyes too were closed but her face was tense with worry
.
I write this with haste, I will post it at the first opportunity. We rest now for our last meal in our most beloved home. The sun sits low in the sky already but Father says we dare not spend another night here. We will not travel through town, we will first go south along the lesser-used roads. Father says we will ride all night & stop to sleep awhile in the early morning, off the road. Oh, I cannot bear to count the things that I will miss about this place. Apples fresh off our trees, sweets at Taylor’s, trout from the river, my dear friends, & Jack Harper, whose face I will trace in my mind every day that we ride. It is his face I will trace in my mind for all the years of my life
.
Your most loving sister,
Dot
September 12, 1848
Dearest Kate,
I am gone from our home, from our good Father & Mother. I have departed upon a great adventure, just as you did so many months ago, & it is with fear & happiness that I lay pen to paper this night. Jack & I are married, Father himself conducted the ceremony yesterday evening, in the waning hours of that most horrible day as we readied to leave our home (could it have been just yesterday? Already it seems like a faraway dream)
.
Just as we packed the final things upon the wagon, Jack appeared on his horse, the flanks flecked with foam from hard riding. Jack dismounted, his face graver than ever I had seen it before & he went at once to Father’s side. I stood with Mother near the horses, hitching them to the wagon, filling the feed bag & could not hear what passed between Father & Jack, though I strained to catch the words. In truth, my heart beat against my chest at the very sight of Jack & a sadness gripped me. I do love him, I first realized it then at that moment when I believed we would be parted
.
I did not dare imagine that Jack had come to ask for my hand. But Father smiled & shook his hand & Jack turned then to me, his look still grave but a relief & excitement in his eyes & he walked to me & bent, there on the trodden-down dirt & black ash, onto his knee and took my hand. I nearly swooned. The fear & rush of the last days, the fire, the swirl of emotions at leaving our good home, all that has transpired with Samuel, & now my greatest joy realized. But I did not swoon, I clasped his hand in mine & nodded yes. There was not a moment’s hesitation in my heart & Jack rose & circled his arms around me. Mother came to our side, tears on her face & I hugged her, myself crying now too & Father, stoic & stern as ever, kissing both my cheeks & grasping my shoulders
.
Because time was so short, Father quickly determined that he should conduct a ceremony of sorts that very evening, & the marriage blessed by our parents, by darling Percy in heaven, & by Samuel, Mother’s changeling boy. He has begun again to speak, at least there is that. Mother stays so close to him, a hand always on his shoulder, his hand in hers. She has lost one boy, she will not lose another
.
Jack & I bade them good-bye, the three sitting close upon the bench, Samuel between Mother & Father, his small dark head still so much like Percy’s, but now I realize all that is different about him. Their wagon rolled into the harsh rays of a low-hanging sun. The sky was clear enough for stars to guide their way. I struggled to smile as they left, to remain cheerful & hopeful for all that would come, but tears marked my cheeks & wet my lips & it is that salt I taste still as I write this. I fear they may be apprehended on the road. I fear that something in Samuel is not right, that again he will do them harm in some unknowable way. I fear common thieves, wolves, the Indians who they say prey upon the settlers to avenge the loss of their western frontier. Every moment it seems another danger flashes through my head & it is upon them, in my imagination, & I am helpless to assist
.
Still, there is true hope within me. I grasped Jack’s hand this morning, the two of us together at his table. He will sell his family farm & we will find another with more land, better land. A few cows, chickens, we will grow wheat, some vegetables for our meals. It is not much that I need for happiness, this I realize now. It is not in the grand sermons of our churches, or the political affairs of state. I will strive in my own way for the abolitionist cause. I will assist others as I can on the Railroad. And this is really all that I ask, to be a good wife to Jack, to work alongside him, to find comfort where I may, to give comfort to others as I am able. Is it too much to wish for such a life? Is it too little?
I wish you & Gareth all the happiness the world can bring. Someday I will see you in your great City, some day we will embrace again, my sister Kate
.
Always,
Dorothea
Lina closed the biography. For a moment, Dorothea was present with her in the office, layered in skirts and petticoats, with her convictions and resolve, talking to Lina.
Is it too much to wish for such a life? Is it too little?
Lina laughed with tears in her eyes because the words written 150 years ago by a young woman she would never meet seemed truer than anything she’d read in her textbooks, anything she’d been told by her law professors or by Dan.
Law is the bastion of reason. There is no place for feeling. We reason, we observe, we analyze. This isn’t about emotion or any kind of absolute justice
.
Justice.
Lina’s eyes roamed again to the photo of Josephine and Lu Anne. Josephine’s eyes were restless, searching for the road ahead.
A girl heavy with child … A drawing quite expertly made … She said her name was Josephine
…
That night, Josephine had been pregnant and distressed, and Horace Rounds had refused to help her. By 1852, the year when Lu Anne Bell died and Josephine disappeared, the Rounds family was gone from Lynnhurst, Virginia, run out by their slaveholding neighbors. Josephine could not have used the Underground Railroad to escape in 1852. There were no other stations within a reasonable distance of Bell Creek; Lina had checked. Perhaps Josephine ran again without help from the Railroad? Or was she sold after Lu Anne’s death? Or did she die, and the death go unrecorded, forgotten?
But of course it was no longer Josephine Bell who Lina needed to trace; it was the child. This new understanding hit Lina with the force of a slap.
What had the woman at AfriFind told her? Lina quickly reviewed her research notes. Slave owners themselves often kept records of their holdings, the woman said. The Bell Center contained the largest holdings of papers relating to Lu Anne Bell, Bell Creek, and Charlotte County. Lina looked at her watch. Her flight to Richmond left in ninety minutes, but would the records at the Virginia Historical Society tell her anything? It seemed unlikely. Maybe there was information that Lina had not yet uncovered—an Underground Railroad station in Charlotte County that was still operational in 1852, property or estate records that might show Josephine’s transfer to a buyer or Bell family member. Yes, she would go to Richmond as planned, Lina decided, slipping the biography of Kate Rounds Sterrett into her suitcase. She would begin at the Historical Society, but then she would take an unscheduled detour. She needed to go to the small town of Lynnhurst, Virgina. She needed to go to Bell Creek.
T
he paper roll, secured with twine. Josephine’s lesson book, the margins marked with shaky letters, alongside the firm examples in Missus’ hand. A small wooden horse carved by Winton that she had played with as a child. A tallow candle wrapped in paper. The food. Josephine gathered these things inside a green wool shawl Missus had given her last winter and pulled two corners over tightly, then the opposite two, gathering the four ends into a single square knot. She lifted the bundle off the bed, testing the weight of it. The dirt map that Nathan had drawn glowed red when she closed her eyes, the route burned there to guide her.
Josephine bent to slip her feet into Missus’ boots and at that moment heard the sound of horse’s hooves. She stopped, cocked her head to listen for more. The back door opened and closed. Uneven knocks of booted feet, the clatter of dishes.
Mister had returned.
Josephine froze. She heard him walking unevenly through the downstairs, pausing and then resuming, seemingly without direction or purpose. Surely he must be drunk. Josephine remained unmoving, silent, not wanting to risk a creak of wood or a footfall’s thud to remind Mister of her presence upstairs. There was silence for a long spell, and Josephine thought perhaps he had fallen asleep in a chair, on the floor, his wanderings finished for the night. Slowly she bent again to the boots and the floorboards creaked with her shifting weight, the sound high and thin, nothing to notice on a busy day, but now it shook through her and she stopped, the fear stilling her muscles and breath, only her heart thumping loud in her chest, in her ears. Nothing. Silence from below.
And then Mister’s voice rough and deep, dragging her name through gravel:
“Josephine.”
She remained rooted to her place, not knowing where to go, how to hide. She must go to him, there was no way to escape if he climbed the narrow attic steps. Her window was too small and high up for her to reach, and she lifted her head and looked at it now, unblinking, until her eyes burned and the window seemed to swallow the whole wall and the attic opened up to the night sky.
Her bundle lay on the bed, ready; the boots waited beside her bare feet.
Mister called again, “Josephine!” his voice louder now. He was at the bottom of the stairs calling up, Josephine knew that’s where he stood. She opened the door and started down the steps.
“Mister, I’m here.”
“Why, I been calling and calling for you, girl. I thought you was asleep, I’d have to come up there and wake you up.”
His words ran one into the next, and his head swayed as he spoke as though his neck lacked the strength to hold it up. Josephine descended the steps halfway and stopped, one hand on the banister.