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“You cannot leave me, Monty. You simply cannot. I won’t hear of it!” A furious Matilda was weeping and throwing things.
“I will visit as often as possible, Tilda, but there’s a practice in Philadelphia that I can assume. It is a marvelous opportunity. It is in a well-to-do area and it comes with a prosperous patient list. The doctor’s house, too, is available—”
“But what am I to do here alone?”
“You have friends, Tilda—”
“I have no friends here! Take me with you to Philadelphia! Please, Monty, take me with you!”
“You have a husband and a child, Tilda. You can’t just leave them.”
“I can and I will,” she insisted. But Montague knew that if she did that Gilbert Will would cut her off financially. She would be destitute and totally reliant on him for her upkeep, and that he could not have.
“Let me think about it,” he said, giving her hope while he packed his belongings and moved to Philadelphia, funded by a generous contribution from his brother-in-law who was glad to see the back of a man he considered a braying fool.
Matilda refused to leave her rooms for weeks after she learned that her brother was gone without a word of good-bye. She refused to eat or dress or bathe, behavior which distressed no one, especially her maids who disliked being referred to as ugly, ignorant Irish slags. And certainly no one missed her brother. More disruption and distress were caused by the joint resignations of Rebecca Tillson and Beate whose last name no one knew because no one could pronounce it. Both were well liked by the household staff, Black and white, and they would be missed. Before she left Rebecca whispered these words to Clara: “If you ever get away from here go to Philadelphia. Many of your people are free there, and educated, and some are wealthy. Get away from here if you can.” It was months before Matilda knew they were gone, and she didn’t care because she didn’t remember who they were.
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“How can you possibly love me after that?” asked Abby.
“I can because you are not that. You can’t even understand that.”
“No. I can’t. I can, however, be your avenging angel. I can . . . I can . . .”
Genie took Abby’s hands and looked into eyes too kind to be able to conjure an appropriate vengeance. “Don’t bring that upon yourself. Besides, that would put her out of her misery and I wouldn’t want that. She is a miserable woman, and her misery is of her own making though she is too evil to see it. I wouldn’t want you to release her from that,” Genie said with a gentle smile that belied the harshness of her words.
“I wish she could see you and see that despite her best efforts you emerged a strong and beautiful woman who has given her life to helping others. Would that knowledge add to her misery?”
Genie laughed and hugged Abby. “More than you can know.” Then she sobered, released Abby, and set about making the cake and bread she had promised Ezra. “Despite what she always said, it still amazes me that I was so well educated and that I learned such an important skill. She had to know those two things would improve my life.”
“And despite all the evil you know to live within her you still search for the good.”
“I don’t believe there’s any good within her to find,” Genie said. “But there is a reason . . .”
“You have thought a great deal about this. What, then, have you concluded?” When Genie didn’t respond immediately, Abby pressed. “Genie? You have reached a conclusion, haven’t you?”
Genie nodded. “She believed that I’d always be a slave and that having knowledge and skills that I could not use would make me as miserable as she. That’s what I concluded, but with a huge caveat: She’d have to know how much I learned, and I don’t think she ever did because I never was real to her.”
“What a truly awful woman,” Abby said, more to herself than to Genie, as she began to cut onions, carrots and potatoes that she would add to chunks of meat for the stew that she knew was a favorite when the weather was frigid. A hearty stew, which managed to fill even Eli when served with loaves of bread and cakes of butter.
“This soup is really good,” Eli proclaimed as he finished his second helping. Abby remembered that Maggie advised serving Eli plenty of rice and bread, and she had served his stew atop the rice, generous portions of both. The grown men had watched the boy eat in amazement, no doubt having forgotten that they, too, once possessed stomachs that were bottomless pits.
“Thank you, Eli, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Abby said.
“I’m glad Miss Maggie told you I like rice,” he said.
“So am I,” Abby said, and the boy smiled along with the adults, though not understanding why they were so amused. The rice apparently had done its work because Eli could eat only one piece of cake with his glass of milk.
“How is Jack?” Genie asked.
“All the better for seeing his Maggie,” Donald responded, “though I’m not certain he’ll survive his daughter. She is a most agile and enthusiastic child.”
“Enthusiastic I understand,” Abby said. “But agile?”
“He was standing on the porch when we arrived,” Ezra explained. “She saw him and was out of the carriage and running for him before Maggie could stop her. She flung herself at him, and to his credit he caught her. But it cost him dearly. Donald saw that he was about to collapse, and he ran and caught him just in time.”
“Maggie must have been—I don’t know what!” Genie exclaimed.
“It was only her joy at seeing Jack that saved that little girl from a certain thrashing,” Donald opined.
“But how is Jack?” Genie asked again. “Does he appear to be recovering?” She knew that her own fear of the sea was coloring her reaction but she could not help herself: She had to know if he would survive.
“He is remarkably well, and he is anxious to meet you,” Ezra answered. “Yes, he is still very weak, and Arthur thinks he may have a few broken bones—”
“A few!” Abby exclaimed.
“Arthur is watching him closely and reporting to William regularly. There is a Colored doctor ready to attend to him if that becomes necessary,” Ezra said. He explained that Jack’s injuries were a result of being tossed against waves and rocks. He said Jack had managed to cling to the dinghy for a while, but in the end he had to try to swim to shore. Arthur said Jack’s back and chest were badly battered and bruised, and now that Maggie was there she would tightly wrap him the way Dr. Wright had wrapped Ezra. “She can give him a few drops of laudanum and the milk with brandy and honey for a couple of days.”
“But what about the broken bones?” Abby asked.
Ezra said the only one Arthur was really worried about was a leg bone. “If it’s more than just badly bruised, William will have the doctor come to set it.”
Genie and Abby sat quietly, allowing what they’d learned about Jack Juniper’s condition to ease their worry for Maggie. They must have visibly relaxed because the two men and the boy at the table also relaxed. Ezra told them Maggie promised to come tomorrow or the following day because she could not ignore her duties any longer. Abby, knowing there was no point complaining to Ezra about Maggie’s stubbornness, said nothing. Genie wondered whether Maggie and Jack had found everything they needed and if they were comfortable. Ezra and Donald had not been inside so they couldn’t say. Ordering Elizabeth to remain on the porch, Maggie had taken Jack inside and put him to bed. She had returned with a bundle she said was for Genie.
“Oh! I forgot!” Eli exclaimed with a sheepish look. “Miss Maggie said to put it in her suite ’cause you and her was in each other’s homes.” Then he frowned. “Did I do right?”
“Yes, you did,” Abby and Genie said in unison.
Looking relieved, Eli stood. “Then I’ll go make the grates in the suites ready for the night.”
“You can sleep in my sitting room, Eli, so prepare the grate in there,” Ezra said. Even though Eli really preferred to sleep in his own room the absence of a
ny kind of heat source on the servants’ quarters floor made sleeping up there very uncomfortable.
“I’ll keep him with me if you don’t mind,” Donald said, “so we can have a lesson before he starts his work for the day.”
“I didn’t know you were instructing him as well, Donald,” Abby exclaimed.
“Not that kind of instruction, dear,” Genie said, stifling a giggle that was bubbling up.
Confused, Abby was about to ask what other kind of instruction was there when she remembered. “Oh! You’re teaching him to fight,” she said dryly. “How—”
“Necessary, Abby,” Ezra said gently. “You did agree.”
“Yes. I did. I just hope you’ll be careful, Donald, and remember that he’s just a boy.”
“I’m almost a man!” the boy insisted, puffing out his bony chest.
“Donald certainly is a gentle man,” Abby said when he and Eli left, “but a paternal one?”
Ezra grinned. “More like big brotherly. Donnie is the eldest of nine and he helped raise them. He also misses them.”
Abby looked relieved. “Then he knows to treat Eli like the boy he still is and not the man he thinks he is.”
But the man-boy still had much to learn about fighting, as the left side of his face proved the following morning. Abby was with Genie in Maggie’s suite, which faced the back garden. Genie awoke to unusual noises outside. She got up to look, and though it was a dark, snowy dawn, she could see Eli in the garden bending down, seeming to search for something in the snow banks. Shivering violently in the frosty air, she pulled on her heavy robe.
“What is it?” A sleepy Abby asked.
“Eli is out in the garden looking for something. And it’s snowing.” She hurried out of the room and turned the wrong way, almost getting lost in the vast, dark hallways; she had failed to bring a lamp. She met Abby as she retraced her steps—Abby who carried a lamp—and pretended not to hear the comment about her sad sense of direction. The downstairs was frigid because Eli had not yet lit the fires. Now they both were worried—and one look at him as he entered the scullery door said they were correct to be.
“What on earth happened to you?” Genie reached out to touch his closed-shut left eye and swollen left cheek, but he flinched and backed away. He had rocks in one hand and packed snow in the other and was alternately placing them on his damaged face.
“Mr. Donald told me to keep cold things on my face. These rocks is real cold,” he said, letting Genie touch the frozen stones.
“Did he also tell you to duck?” Gene asked, and was pleased to see the boy’s wide smile.
“That’s not funny!” Abby scolded them, but she was relieved to see that Eli was well enough to laugh at himself, and to busy himself with his morning chores. The house soon would be brightly lit and warm. She went into the scullery to look out at the snow. It had not been snowing for very long and it was not, at least for the moment, a heavy fall.
“I must hurry and dress. I must go to work today—”
“But what if it snows heavily and you can’t get back? This is your home now, you know.” And she could see that Genie had forgotten that the Juniper family now lived in her house.
“I will keep watch on the weather, and if it begins to look bad I’ll leave work and come home.” She hugged Abby and ran for the stairs. She asked Eli to ready her cart and horse when he’d finished his inside tasks, and she was dressed and ready to leave in short order. Abby insisted that she have tea and bread and butter before leaving, which gave Eli and Donald time to ready the cart. She told Donald that she hoped Eli’s face meant that he was an apt pupil and Donald scowled.
“He’s not nearly mean enough! He won’t hit me back when I hurt him!”
That worried Genie—but just a bit and just for a moment. “Tell him to imagine that you are attacking me or Maggie or Abby or Ezra and that we are being harmed. That might spark anger in him.”
Donald nodded and smiled widely. “An excellent idea, Miss Eugenia,” he said, before suddenly sobering. “But I fear the lad might kill me in a scenario like that.”
Genie feared that he was right but did not say so. Instead she wished him a pleasant day and accepted his hand up to the seat of her cart. He urged her to take extra care due to the weather, and she told him she’d return quickly if the weather worsened. He looked relieved and she didn’t understand why until he said Ezra would be pleased to know that. She wrapped herself from head to toe as Donald opened the carriage house doors, and she drove out with a feeling of warmth and gratitude that she had so many people in her life who cared for her welfare and for whom she cared. That feeling was reinforced when she drove up to the stable door in the alleyway shared by the ironworker and the blacksmith Arthur and William, both of whom ran out to greet her, both wanting to talk to her as they had much to tell. But duty first.
“I must go to Adelaide. Perhaps we can eat together later? I’ll buy food from Joseph’s for us if one of you will fetch it.”
Adelaide, too, was very pleased to see Genie. She wrapped her in a warm embrace. “I was afraid the weather would keep you away,” she said.
“If it worsens I will leave for home,” Genie said, “but until then I will be here. And William and Arthur will join us for lunch so that will help us speed the morning’s work along.”
Adelaide looked stricken. “You call that place home now, Genie?”
“Yes, Adelaide, I do, and I will, as long as the Juniper family calls where they now live their home.”
“I still can’t believe you just turned your home over to strangers!”
“Not strangers, Adelaide, people in need. Like Carrie Tillman took me into her home within an hour of meeting me, and where I lived for three years. It is from Carrie Tillman that I learned kindness.”
Genie’s words shocked and wounded Adelaide. Genie had intended to give her friend something to think about, but she had not intended to hurt her. In hindsight she should have known better, for Carrie Tillman was Adelaide’s now-deceased mother-in-law. Her first impulse was to try to make amends, but she decided against that. Best to leave well enough alone.
“What must we do first, Adelaide? Alterations that customers already have paid for?” Genie knew that Adelaide still felt wounded, but if that was what it took to elicit politeness from her then Genie would suffer the other woman’s stiff silences for the next several hours. They would last no longer. Fortunately, one of Adelaide’s best qualities was that she did not hold grudges.
“I put them on your sewing machine,” a hurt-sounding Adelaide said.
“Then I’ll get to work,” Genie said.
“I thought Maggie would have come to say hello.”
“I’m sure she will when her husband no longer is at death’s door.”
That remark had the desired effect, allowing them both to work in silence throughout the morning. The time sped by so quickly that the knock on the back door startled them both. Genie rose to open it, and her stomach growled at the sight of William and Arthur with bags of food. “Who’s minding the shop?” she asked.
“Reverend Richard Allen, and he knows to come for one of us if necessary,” William said before going to look for his wife.
Genie prepared the table in the back room as she and Arthur chatted about Jack Juniper and his gradual but certain recovery. He proudly accepted the compliment that his horse liniment, which Maggie applied regularly, was a major factor. They were laughing heartily, imagining Ezra telling Montague Wright that horse liniment was responsible for what the doctor called his ‘remarkable recovery’ when William and Adelaide came in and they sat to eat. The good food and good company made it difficult for all of them to return to work but return they must. The bell over the front door announced a customer whom Adelaide went to greet while Genie and Arthur cleaned up and William whispered that he had a job for Eugene Oliver.
“Do you remember the slave family being held by Dr. Wright?”
“Of course I do!” Genie exclaimed.
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br /> “We have a place for them to live and there’s work for the women. Arthur and I may hire the man, depending on the kind of man he is, now that Reverend Richard is almost full-time with Joseph.”
“Genie!” Adelaide was calling so William and Arthur quickly left and Genie hurried to the front of the shop where she was kept busy for the next few hours, but she also kept watch on the weather. The snow was intermittent and not heavy, but the ground was gradually being covered. Genie decided to leave.
“I’m going now, Adelaide, and I’ll return tomorrow, weather permitting.”
“Will you go to visit Maggie?”
“Perhaps,” Genie replied. She opened the front door. “Why don’t you lock the door behind me and prepare to leave as well?”
Adelaide nodded and wished Genie a pleasant evening. Genie stepped out into the lightly falling show, wishing that William would share more with Adelaide so she’d stop seeking information from Genie. Perhaps she’d make that suggestion to him . . .
“I’m glad you’re here,” William said when she entered the blacksmith shop. The forge was calm and quiet, and William led her toward the back where her cart was ready. How did they know she was coming? He told her that Peter Blanding’s back room was empty because Arthur’s nephews had moved out so the newly freed slave family could live there. He told her that Blanding had married the former Mrs. Carpenter and the couple wanted household help—a maid and a cook. “If the snow gets deep enough, you and Reverend Richard will go free those slaves.” And he explained the plan. It was a good one. However, Genie had to ask: “How likely is it that I could come face to face with Wright?” That was Genie’s primary—in truth, her only—concern.
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