by Tonya Bolden
The ivory curtains were meanders of leaves, flowers, branches. Soft greens, rose, pale gold. Here and there a chipper squirrel perched on a branch.
A much-relieved Victoria was on the point of gushing. “What a lovely room,” she whispered.
“Tea at two,” said Dorcas Vashon as she left the room, closing the door behind her.
Victoria reached into her purse for her pocket watch. Hurriedly she washed her face, changed out of her traveling clothes, and donned her daffodil day dress. Before she left her bedroom she checked her hair in the mirror above the washstand. When she headed down for tea Victoria was measurably less uneasy than when she first laid eyes on that alley house with first-floor shutters askew.
That ease, however, was short-lived.
GAUCHE
Bleak.
Such were Victoria’s first days in Baltimore, days of bashful sun and a cloying dampness.
Nothing for her to do but read newspapers, books. Dorcas Vashon cautioned her against—more like forbade her from—going outside, other than out back: an eight-by-eight bit of concrete. Walled in. Victoria reckoned the wooden planks, fifteen, twenty feet high.
No real conversation during meals. Only commands.
“Sit up straight, my dear.”
“Do not slurp your soup, my dear.”
“Small bites, my dear.”
“Always leave a bit on your plate, my dear. A clean plate is gauche.”
Gauche? Victoria had never heard that word before but figured it kin to “wrong” or “country.”
Wide stride walking, holding a fork in a grip, running upstairs—Victoria learned that so much of what she did was—
“That is gauche, my dear.”
My dear. My dear. My dear.
But Dorcas Vashon never made Victoria feel one bit dear.
Only gauche.
Victoria was beginning to fear those eyes again.
There were smiles with each “my dear,” but Dorcas Vashon’s tone was cold. Come to think of it, after they left Savannah the woman had less and less to say to her. She recalled, too, that during the voyage she had told her that in Baltimore the first lesson would be on patience.
Victoria felt trapped. The silence was suffocating, maddening.
“Would you like me to read to you, Miss Dorcas?”
“Would you …?”
Responses were usually a one-word “No.” Or “No thank you, my dear.”
Miss Doone, the light-skinned gnomelike cleaner, never said a mumbling word to Victoria. The most she ever heard her say to Dorcas Vashon was, “Yes, ma’am,” or “Will do, ma’am,” or “Surely.”
Miss Graves, a pinch-faced, spindly, dark-skinned woman, lived where she worked. Down in the basement where the kitchen was placed. Dorcas Vashon had yet to show Victoria the kitchen. On the day they arrived in Baltimore, she had only pointed to the door that led down to it and said, “The kitchen is down there.”
Just then Victoria processed something she hadn’t realized she’d seen when she first laid eyes on that narrow house with first-floor shutters askew. Out front, there were two small windows near the ground. Later, when she met Miss Graves, Victoria imagined the kitchen faced the small windows and that behind it was Miss Graves’s room.
Victoria only saw Miss Graves when the woman brought meals up to the dining room. She never cleared the table until Dorcas Vashon and Victoria had left the room.
“This is where I’m to live … forever?” Victoria summoned up the courage to ask over breakfast one day.
Dorcas Vashon shook her head. “Just for a time, until you are ready.”
“How will I get ready?”
“Miss Hardwick. She will arrive soon. She will train you.”
“In what?”
“Everything.”
In the meantime Dorcas Vashon began teaching Victoria about important colored people. Her textbook was mostly the People’s Advocate. “It is published in Washington, DC,” Dorcas Vashon explained. “You must read this newspaper diligently as I have been doing in adding to my knowledge about colored society in the capital. There are some people I especially want you to be on the lookout for in the pages of the Advocate, people you may very well meet.” Then came the start of a list.
John Wesley Cromwell, the editor of the Advocate: “He rose up from slavery to attend Howard University’s law school. Along with managing the Advocate, he holds a prized job at a post office in the national capital.”
Daniel Alexander Payne Murray: “He is the assistant librarian of the congressional library. He has done very well for himself thanks to shrewd investments in real estate.”
John Mercer Langston: “He is a graduate of Oberlin College and Ohio’s first colored lawyer. Back after the war, about a year after Howard University was founded, he launched its law school. He is now an ambassador, to Haiti.
“You have heard of Howard University?”
“Yessum.”
Dorcas Vashon made a face. “Remember, Victoria, as I told you on the ship and as I have told you several times since we reached Baltimore, ‘Yessum’ is—”
“Gauche. Yes, ma’am. I’m sorr—my apologies, ma’am.” Victoria felt like such an oaf.
And there was James Wormley: “He owns one of the finest hotels in the nation’s capital. It is a favorite of big, important white men in business and in government. Some even live there. Wormley’s is also very popular with European visitors. When President Garfield was shot, Wormley was called upon to make special broths.”
O. S. B. Wall: “Another graduate of Oberlin, another lawyer. First colored justice of the peace in Washington, he was a police magistrate too. John Mercer Langston married his sister, Caroline, who also attended Oberlin. What a fine pair they must make!” O. S. B. Wall’s full name, Victoria next heard, was Orindatus Simon Bolívar Wall.
“Are you paying attention, my dear?”
Victoria’s mind had wandered. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just that …”
“What?”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
“It is indeed. That is why if at some point you do not understand something you should ask a question. Never pretend that you know something, understand something when you do not. Now, do you have any questions?”
“What, where is Oberin?”
“O-ber-lin. It is a college in Oberlin, Ohio, one of the first colleges to admit our people. That was in the 1830s.”
Victoria couldn’t imagine colored folks going to college way back then!
“Anything else?”
“The man with all those names? Opin …”
“Orindatus. ‘Orin’ is a Celtic name, and ‘datus’ is Latin for ‘given.’ ” After a pause Dorcas Vashon added, “ ‘Celtic’ means pertaining to the Celts, an ancient people.”
“I was just about to ask,” said Victoria, then took a sip of tea.
“And of course in the capital we have the honorable Frederick Douglass,” said Dorcas Vashon one day. “He lives across the Anacostia River on his estate, Cedar Hill. His mansion has more than twenty rooms. You do know who Frederick Douglass is?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do,” Victoria said with pride. “Read his book at Miss Abby’s.”
“Which one?”
Victoria felt dumb again. She lowered her head. “I only know of one.”
Dumb and scatterbrained. Now she couldn’t remember the book’s title.
Finally it came to her. “My Bondage and My Freedom, that’s the one I read.” She swallowed. “It was awful powerful,” she added, trying to sound intelligent.
“That would be his second autobiography,” replied Dorcas Vashon. “I believe a third is on the way. As well, my dear, the honorable Frederick Douglass wrote a novella.”
Teatime again, with Victoria charged with pouring when the clock on the mantelpiece struck two.
What a strange clock it was. A brown wooden item in the shape of a church, its base a scary tangle of gnarled roots. Every half hour the church door
opened and out came a monk with a long white beard ringing a bell. Spooky-looking clock, like something you’d find in an ugly hut in a dark, dense forest, the kind of thing the witch who kidnapped Hansel and Gretel would have. Though Victoria couldn’t imagine a witch having much use for a monk.
“When reading, if you encounter a word that you do not know,” said Dorcas Vashon over supper one day, “never be content to remain ignorant. If you cannot figure it out, take up your dictionary.”
Dorcas Vashon told her on another day about the Greens … the Syphaxes … the Cooks … the Bruces … Dr. Charles Purvis … Milton Holland. Dorcas Vashon steadily fed Victoria more names.
Patience.
Victoria was getting the hang of being patient at meals. Getting used to being patient as she waited for her new life to begin, but that patience grew thin when Dorcas Vashon delivered a devastating blow.
DORCAS VASHON IS A MONSTER!
With all the energy spent adjusting to that house with first-floor shutters askew, Victoria had plum forgot about writing home until one day she was up in her room reading the Advocate, grateful for the sunshine and the chirp of birds. The squirrels on her curtain even seemed more chipper.
“I got seasick a couple times, but all in all I held up pretty well. I made a big decision. I changed my name to Victoria. So from now on I am Victoria Mirth. How do you like my new name? Please write soon.” So ended her letter to Ma Clara.
Victoria was about to start one to Binah when it hit her. No envelopes. Why would a desk have an ample supply of notepaper, pen and ink, but no envelopes? She searched every cubby, every drawer of the rolltop desk.
A sinking feeling set in as she realized something else. Victoria closed her eyes, racked her brains. She sent herself back to the day they pulled up to the house.
Was there a number on the front door?
A street sign?
Victoria grew increasingly anxious.
She didn’t know where she was. No reference. No compass point.
She went to Dorcas Vashon’s closed bedroom door. She knocked.
No answer.
She headed downstairs and found her in the parlor reading the Evening Star.
“Miss Dorcas?” Victoria asked timidly.
“Yes, my dear?”
“What is the address here?”
Dorcas Vashon grimaced. “What is the address here? Why would you need that information?”
“I’m writing to Ma Clara, Binah, and Miss Abby. Also I need envelopes.”
Dorcas looked even more cross. “My dear Victoria. I thought you understood. You must cut all ties.”
Victoria frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You are here to prepare for your future. There’s to be no looking back.”
“But I just want to write to them.”
“Eyes forward, Victoria. Eyes forward.”
Stunned and spitting mad, Victoria hung her head, tried to control herself. Dorcas Vashon is a monster!
“Remember, my dear, in Savannah I told you to sleep on my offer, to decide if you could leave the life you had behind and cut all ties.”
“I didn’t understand you meant—”
“I have already sent word to Abby and Clara that you are safe and sound. Before we left, I told Clara not to expect to hear from you directly.”
Girlene, you will be so busy you won’t have time to be writing me.
No wonder Ma Clara’s odd look. She knew.
Victoria stomped her foot. “Miss Dorcas, this ain’t fair. Why didn’t you tell me I wouldn’t be able to even write to them?”
Dorcas Vashon is a monster!
The eyes were knives. “What do you think cutting all ties means? You are brighter than that. And you were bold enough to discard the name your mother gave you.” Dorcas Vashon rose, began to pace. “And tell me this, Victoria. Had I told you specifically that you would not be able to write to people back home would you have declined my offer?”
The question wounded more than the look.
Victoria trudged back up to her room, wrestling with a new shame.
Had I told you specifically that you would not be able to write to people back home would you have declined my offer?
There had been no quick, decisive NO!
Am I a monster too?
NIBBLING
Patience.
With the silence.
With the loneliness.
With doubts.
With tea sandwiches at teatime, repressing the urge to gulp one down with a single bite. Nibbling instead as instructed.
Rectangular ones of creamed butter and egg salad.
Round ones of cucumber and dill with a pale-yellow spread on the soft bread.
Triangle-shaped ones of potted salmon and a plant similar to what she’d grown up calling creasy greens.
As she nibbled, read books, read newspapers, learned the word “watercress,” Victoria no longer wondered where her wider world would be.
Washington, DC, the national capital!
Not Baltimore. Everyone Dorcas Vashon talked about, told her to learn about, was in Washington, DC. Not Baltimore.
Your journey would begin in Baltimore. That’s what Dorcas Vashon had said back in Forest City.
Begin.
Not end!
Hope bestirred again, Victoria read the newspapers more intently.
Everything. Miss Hardwick would teach her everything.
Victoria couldn’t wait for her arrival. She vowed to be the very best pupil, to work hard. The harder she worked, the sooner she’d be delivered from the queer house with first-floor shutters askew.
A CREATURE TO BE FEARED
The woman arrived on a dreary, sun-starved day.
Hawk nose. Amber antelope eyes. Caramel skin. Big-boned, giant Agnes Hardwick made Victoria think of a griffin she had seen—she couldn’t remember where. In Oliver Optic’s? A book at Miss Abby’s? But Victoria did remember this: a griffin, half eagle, half lion, was a creature to be feared.
The way Miss Hardwick looked her over brought to mind taunts of Sarah Pace.
Essie is messy!
Gutter girl!
Your ma is a—!
The woman sniffed as if downwind of a pigsty.
Stiff as a board, Victoria stood in the archway between entrance hall and parlor staring down at the herringbone pine floor.
Miss Hardwick hmmed, huffed, sighed.
Victoria felt like a horse or a cow for sale as she looked out of the corner of her eye at a big black leather bag and a bigger brown suitcase.
Finally Miss Hardwick spoke: “Follow me, please.” She took her luggage in hand, headed for the stairs.
Victoria followed, up to the second floor, up to the third, where she had never been before. A time or two, on her way to bed, she had been tempted to tiptoe up to the third floor, but she always lost her nerve.
Some days while in the parlor reading the Advocate or the Evening Star she had watched Miss Doone head up the stairs with bucket and brushes and rags. The footsteps told her when the woman was going to clean her room or Dorcas Vashon’s and when Miss Doone was going to the third floor. Not every time she came. Occasionally Victoria heard Dorcas Vashon go up to the third floor, enter the room above Victoria’s bedroom, then begin to pace.
Someone living up there?
A madwoman like in Jane Eyre?
An invalid, maybe?
Someone horribly scarred? In such a bad way he—or she—needed to be kept out of sight?
Surely Victoria would have heard noises other than her benefactor’s pacing. A cough, a moan. Something.
Maybe the poor invalid can’t speak, can’t hear.
But she never saw Miss Graves go upstairs with a tray of food.
When they reached the third-floor landing—
“Wait here.”
Miss Hardwick set her black bag down, then headed for the front room with her suitcase. Victoria craned her neck hoping for a peek into the room. Before Miss
Hardwick shut the door, all Victoria glimpsed was a bed with a burl bedstead and off-white coverlet.
Miss Hardwick wasn’t gone long. When she returned, Victoria faced front. Miss Hardwick picked up her black bag and headed down the hall to the back room.
With her hand on the doorknob Miss Hardwick said nothing, only beckoned.
Victoria obeyed not knowing what in the world to expect.
E-TI-KET
A schoolroom.
Wide chalkboard along one wall. Before it an oak desk and ladder-back chair. The desk was bigger than Miss Purdy’s. Next to the desk a lectern. In the middle of the room a lone pupil’s desk.
Another wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase with not a space to spare. Victoria found all those books overwhelming. Like Miss Hardwick, they made her feel so small.
Victoria shifted from foot to foot, watching Miss Hardwick bring out things from her black bag and place them on her desk: clock, small pointer, chalk, little brass bell, brown ink bottle, brown inkwell, dip pen.
“Have a seat, please.”
Victoria obeyed.
Miss Hardwick began to pace before her. “You went how far in school?”
“Only for about a year.”
“What grade?”
“First.”
“My goodness. I had no idea it would be this bad.”
“But after I—”
“Why did you leave school?”
Victoria hesitated. “Other kids, they teased me.”
“About what?”
Victoria shaved the truth. “About being poor.”
“So you did not value education?”
“No, Miss Hardwick, I did, I—”
“Victoria, if you had valued education, you would not have left school. You would have persevered.”
Victoria lowered her head. “But I did—”
“Look up, young lady. Always look up when in conversation. Always look up when walking. Always look up even while eating. Never hang your head. Now, you were saying?”
So nervous, Victoria couldn’t remember. She wrung her hands, bit her lip. Then it came to her.
“With all due respect, Miss Hardwick, I did value education, so much so that after I left school I bought books and magazines from a secondhand store. I—I read whenever I could, and Ma Clara—well, this woman who was kind to me—used to give me newspapers after she finished with them. I read every one she passed down to me, colored paper it was.” Victoria swallowed. “After that paper went away I bought with my own money Savannah’s white paper.”