Abby rushed over and grabbed her hand. “Come for a ride, Genie!”
Genie gave her a quick hug but demurred. “You and Maggie and Eli should take the first ride since this is, after all, the carriage for this residence. Perhaps Ezra should join you as well.”
Ezra was shaking his head. “The ladies and gentleman of the house should get the first ride. But first you’ll have to dress for it.” And suddenly they were all shivering—they’d run from the house in their excitement without coats, hats, scarves, or boots—and as a unit they all turned and ran back inside.
“Miss Eugenie, you wanting to stay here for a while?” Arthur asked.
She nodded. “I think so, Arthur, so you go ahead. I think I might be able to persuade Donald to bring me home,” she said with a smile and an inquiring glance at Ezra.
“Of course,” he said, “or more likely Abby will want you to stay overnight so you and she and Maggie can sit up all night talking and laughing.”
Genie’s heart skipped a beat and a breath caught in her chest. She couldn’t look at Ezra so she made small talk with Arthur instead. Then Donald drove the carriage out and what a sight that was! Gerald even seemed to prance a bit. Donald had polished the old coach to a shine. The new leathers shone, too. Ezra whistled his approval and Gerald danced a bit more. Then Abby, Maggie and Eli came running out of the house and stopped and stared, speechless. Donald jumped down and opened the door for Maggie and Abby. “You’ll ride up top with me, young Eli, if that’s to your liking,” Donald said and Eli’s smile was so wide it almost split his face as he climbed up next to Donald and imitated the Scotsman’s regal posture. Maggie and Abby waved from inside the carriage at Ezra and Genie, no longer able to ignore the cold. Thanks to the forward-thinking Donald, both he and Eli had heavy blankets to cover them from waist to toe while Abby and Maggie were covered from top to toe.
“How have we managed without the carriage, Maggie?”
“How have we managed without Ezra and Donald?” was Maggie’s reply as Donald drove the carriage sedately away.
Genie and Ezra hurried inside, hung their coats on the racks in the scullery, and rushed to stand near the fireplace. Ezra put in more logs and set the water on the hob to boil. Then he took the teapot from the cabinet.
“What wonders you’ve worked, Ezra,” Genie said to him as she noticed how familiar he was in the kitchen. “And do you really know how to brew good tea?”
“Not only can I brew good tea, but I know where the cakes and scones are!”
“Three days of confinement can work their own wonders,” Genie said with a laugh.
“I wouldn’t call it working wonders,” Ezra said as he placed cups and plates on the table, along with a pitcher of milk, forks and spoons. He expertly warmed the teapot, added leaves, and when the water boiled, poured it into the pot. When everything was on the table he sat down across from Genie and was startled by the way she was looking at him. “What?” he exclaimed.
“This is a changed house since your arrival. If not working wonders—what? Miracles?”
He was shaking his head back and forth and looking frustrated. “Just observing, Genie, and helping when and where I could.”
Genie nodded her acceptance of his words as she considered all the things he had done, had accomplished in Abby Read’s house, in such a short time. She poured tea and cut cake, her thoughts a jumble though one took hold and stood out: Was it because he was a man and therefore able to get things done that a woman could not? She asked him and he considered before answering:
“You sent Eli to me, Genie, and you asked Maggie to help him adjust to a new . . . way to live. You got a horse cart, which is what put the idea into Abby’s head, and it was Maggie who put into words that change—dangerous change—is coming to us. I merely assembled all those pieces into a whole.”
“Merely.” Genie gave him a hard look. “Donald is not merely a driver, is he?”
Ezra gave her a nod of acknowledgement and acceptance. “No. He is to provide protection to this house—”
“Why?” Genie demanded. “Why does this house need protecting? Who is safer than a wealthy white woman?”
“Because when Abby begins attending the women’s anti-slavery meetings there probably will be people who will not be pleased. And when she and Donald are away from this house Maggie and Eli will be here alone.” That reality hit Genie hard: not a wealthy white woman alone in a house but two Black people—one a woman, the other a runaway slave.
“I’m sorry, Ezra. I apologize—”
“No need for that, Genie, and no time, either.” He paused, watching her, gauging her. “I want to share some ideas with you.”
“Of course, Ezra, I’d like to hear them,” she said, and meant it.
So he told her: Donald was a martial arts expert and in addition to speeding Ezra’s own muscle recovery, he was to teach Eli to fight. Properly fight. And he and Genie would teach the boy how to use weapons. Donald also would help Ezra understand the threat to Arthur Cortlandt and his businesses and protect the man and his family. This shocked Genie.
“Cortlandt is in danger? Still?”
Ezra nodded and the frown on his face turned into a scowl. “The Cortlandt boy, when he recovered, told his father things he’d heard his captors discussing, things they could not and should not have known—” He stopped talking at the sound Genie made. “What is it?”
“William and I, and some of those we . . . work with . . . have been compromised. People knew things about us, too, things they should not have known, things that could have brought more harm to us—and to you, Ezra—not to mention to Mrs. Tubman.”
He considered what she’d said: Someone with knowledge of Cortlandt’s business dealings and family problems could not be the same person with knowledge of the operation of the Underground Railroad. Could it? “Do you know who betrayed you?”
Genie hesitated. Should she reveal what was only a suspicion, though one she believed William had confirmed? Certainly, she could trust this man—he’d more than proven that—but before she could respond he said the name: Job Mayes. Genie nodded. “He is the only new member of our group who had sufficient knowledge to damage us. How did you know?”
“All the stories I’ve heard of the man and his exploits—they all sounded too—”
“Unlikely?” Genie finished for him.
Ezra nodded. “For a Colored man to have done the things he’s credited with, and done them to white people without retaliation? Yes, unlikely and, quite frankly, unbelievable.” Ezra paused, then said, “Has he been confronted?”
“William said he’d been dealt with.”
“Meaning?”
Genie shrugged. “I’ve no idea, Ezra, and I didn’t ask. I already know more than I should.”
“What would happen to someone who did what you think Mayes did?”
“As far as I’m aware we’ve never had a traitor among us, Ezra, so I don’t know what would happen,” Genie said. But she could well imagine. Their work was considered not just important but sacred among them. Slavery was an ever-present reality, and even living lives of relative freedom in Philadelphia did not diminish the ever-present fear that lived within every Black person. What would she do to Job Mayes if he appeared before her in that moment? She caressed the derringer that always was with her, always in a pocket, within reach. She would do to him what she’d been prepared to do to Montague Wright had she come face to face with him.
“Genie!” Ezra called her name loudly. He’d said something and she hadn’t heard him.
“I’m sorry, Ezra. My mind was elsewhere.”
“I asked if you are armed.” She smiled and withdrew the derringer, and he recalled the night he met her: She had kept her hand in her pocket while they talked. Knowing her as he did now he had no doubt that she’d have shot him had she felt threatened. Her smile widened as she saw that he remembered. Then the smile faded and vanished when he said, “I think it would be advisable if you also had you
r revolver, especially when you are out alone.”
“What do you know, Ezra? Why are you worried?”
Then he shared Donald’s description of his train ride from Quebec to Detroit to Philadelphia—how the Blacks on board had been taunted and harassed and forced to move to the rear of the train once it crossed into the United States. Donald had pretended to be asleep so that he could listen without having to join in and therefore be forced to express an opinion. The topic was slavery. So heated did the conversation become that blows were exchanged more than once and the train conductor had to be summoned. Donald recalled a lengthy discussion about a court case that would decide whether Blacks could be citizens, but he said the men arguing about it didn’t seem to understand the case and, he said, they certainly didn’t understand the law. He said while it seemed that there was a general opposition to slavery itself, there also was a general belief that Blacks should not be citizens. He witnessed taunting and harassment of Blacks inside the Philadelphia train station, and he saw several Blacks flee when they were accused of being runaway slaves. One, an elderly man, was caught by two bounty hunters—that’s what Donald called them—but several Blacks kicked and beat them until they released the old man and several other Blacks helped him hurry away. Chased by a group that Donald called mob-like, he blocked their path and then had to fight his own way out of the station, finding the weather both a curse and a blessing: The drifting snow meant that no one could chase him and he was able to jump onto a horse carriage. Unfortunately, it was going the wrong way though a fellow passenger convinced him otherwise.
“So, the danger is real,” Genie said quietly.
“Yes, it is,” Ezra replied in the same tone.
“How are we to protect ourselves, Ezra? Should I remain at home? Should Eli and Maggie remain inside these walls? Should Abby, even though it is unlikely that anyone will attempt to sell her South?” she said bitterly.
“No, no, and no. You must all go about your daily business, just with much more caution. And Abby above all, for she can hear and learn what is being said and done out in the world, as can Donald and I—”
“And when we know what and where the danger lies, Maggie and Eli and I must rely on you and Abby and Donald to save us for the truth is, Ezra, that if I use one of my weapons to protect myself, I will hang.” The combination of fear and bitterness that he heard in her voice so startled him that he could no longer sit across from her. He stood up and went to add wood to stove, which was necessary because it was getting cold in the kitchen. He added more hot water to the teapot and more cake to both their plates, all the while trying to think of something to say, something meaningful. He could not, and she saved him.
“You look to be healing well, Ezra.”
“Thanks to Donald and the beastly weather, there wasn’t much else to do, so he and Eli gave me their full attention. You should have been here two days ago when they decided to lift my arm!”
Genie winced. “I’m most relieved that I wasn’t! That must have been excruciating.”
“Only the first two or three times. Arthur’s horse liniment could put doctors out of business,” he said and described the process: Eli and Donald would lift his arm, he’d practically faint from the pain, they’d apply the liniment, Maggie would bring warm milk and brandy, and he’d sleep. “Now I can lift the arm myself, which means my next visit to Montague Wright will be the last time I will be required to see him.”
“But I hoped you would be here when he comes to introduce his apprentice—”
Ezra shook his head. “Abby will not accept him. She has decided: No one who has harmed you is welcome in this house.”
Genie was surprised—not by what Ezra said but by how the words made her feel. Someone was standing up for her, taking her side, defending her! This was a new feeling, a different feeling, and she liked it, but since there was no appropriate response, she said, “And I have decided this: Eugene Oliver and his . . . associates . . . will be available to you whenever you need him.”
Ezra smiled at her reference to herself as ‘him,’ and expressed his gratitude, for he knew that he and Donald would need the aid of Eugene and his assistants. “I wondered if Eli could—”
She swiftly halted his words, both with her raised hand and her own words: “Eli will not return to the streets. His place is here with Maggie, and with you.” Genie had initially wondered whether it was wise to bring Eli in to care for Ezra, whether the boy would adapt and adjust after so many years of almost feral life on the streets. She knew that he would accept the job because she asked him to do it but she didn’t know if he’d like it. What she also didn’t know was that the street life terrified him. He was a farm boy. Yes, he was a slave and he hated that existence, but Philadelphia street life for an ignorant farm boy was a different kind of cruelty. “I hope that Maggie and I can teach him to read and write a bit, and with Donald’s instructions—and yours—he can grow into a wise man.”
“You’re right, of course. I forget that he is but a boy—”
And at that moment they heard the joyful return of the boy and the others. Even Gerald produced an excited whinny as if he recognized home. Ezra rose to open the scullery door for Abby and Maggie, and Genie’s heart rose when Abby cheered at the sight of the two coats hanging on the hooks there.
“I feared that you had gone!” she exclaimed as she rushed into the kitchen, arms wide open.
“And miss Ezra’s tea making?” Genie laughed as she stepped into the embrace that was beginning to feel like home. Then she turned with a hug for Maggie. “You’ve taught him well. The tea making, that is, the cake, I’m sure, is yours alone!”
With a laugh Maggie insisted that if the snow had lasted another two or three days both Ezra and Eli would have learned to make cake as well as scones. Abby said watching that would be worth another few days of snow and Maggie said something in a language that none of them understood but which made them all laugh.
“What did you say?” Genie asked, still laughing.
Maggie was laughing, too, as she explained that it was something her husband said. “My Jack, his mama and papa were from the Homeland and still spoke their language. Jack remembers some few phrases, but he said he never knew what they meant.”
“He should be home soon, shouldn’t he?” Abby asked.
“He said by Christmas.” Maggie’s words were a prayer.
“Then not much longer,” Abby said, adding her own prayer. She had met Jack Juniper many times over the years and knew how deeply he loved his wife and daughter, and they him. She did not understand fully why he chose a life at sea and the many months away from home it required though she suspected it was a matter of economics: A seafarer certainly would earn more than most ordinary men, Black or white.
“Perhaps now that we have a carriage,” Maggie said, obviously attempting to contain and control her excitement, “we can fetch Elizabeth for the weekend.”
“Yes!” Ezra exclaimed. “I’d love to see her again!”
“And I’d love to meet her,” Genie said.
“You know who’ll be enchanted by her?” Ezra asked.
“Eli!” Maggie and Abby said in unison, and they easily pictured the excitable boy playing big brother to the equally excitable little girl, and her being charmed by him.
“So many things will be possible with the carriage,” Abby said. “Why didn’t we think to do it before, Maggie?”
“Because we didn’t have Genie and Eli and Ezra before,” Maggie replied.
“Imagine Jack’s surprise when you pick him up at the docks in the carriage!” Abby exclaimed, and Genie and Ezra watched the emotions and expressions roam across Maggie’s face: surprise, shock, dismay, horror. Finally, she laughed and couldn’t stop. She tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out.
“He . . . he . . . he . . .”
Genie clapped her hard on the back while thinking that she very much wanted to meet Jack Juniper.
“Donald said that I’m now
Gerald’s friend since I fed him!” Eli exclaimed as he burst through the scullery door, a blast of very cold air following him. Then he saw Genie and his excitement tripled. “Miss Eugenie!” He hopped from foot to foot, still shy about touching her without a clear invitation. When she opened her arms he rushed into them, squeezing her breathless and freezing her at the same time.
“And did he give you the reins?” Ezra asked, and Eli beamed the answer. No, certainly this boy did not need to return to a life lived on the streets. “Where did you leave Donald?”
“He is at his home making hisself presentable to—” and here Eli stopped and struggled to recall exactly what Donald had said so that he could repeat it exactly, “—to some company,” he said with a frown.
“To polite company?” Ezra finished for him, and Eli beamed even more brightly.
“Then perhaps you could go upstairs to your home and do the same thing,” Maggie said with a gentle smile and a brief hug, and he loped off as she called out that he could then light all the fires and the lamps and make the house ready for the evening, as it was dark as well as cold. She followed his departing back with what could only be described as a motherly gaze. Then she looked at Genie. “He’s a good boy.”
“Yes, he is,” Genie said, “and if Abby will grant you the time, perhaps you and I might teach him to read and write?”
“A splendid idea!” Abby agreed.
Maggie smiled. “He and Elizabeth can learn together.”
“Miss Maggie and Miss Genie’s school for girls and boys,” Abby said.
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