Blessing

by Lyn Cote

  “Yes,” the first man said. “The mayor could have handled it more efficiently, but he got the job done.”

  Gerard recalled Theodosia’s terror and felt again the impact of each child landing in his arms. Would these men have let them be burned alive? He stared at the group, unexpectedly repulsed. And disgusted. No doubt they attended church each Sunday. Hypocrites. Blessing Brightman’s fierce expression flickered in his mind. Well, he’d met one real Christian here in Cincinnati. And she bedeviled him at will.

  “We hear you’re interested in Brightman’s widow,” another suggested with a sly grin.

  Gerard jerked inwardly. It was as if the man had read his mind.

  “Hope you have better luck with her than her late husband did,” the man with the paunch said and laughed, making his belly shake. “Poor Brightman came to a sudden end.”

  “There was gossip that she had something to do with that untimely and abrupt end,” the gent with the thinning hair added.

  A few men nodded. “That’s what comes of a man leaving his fortune to his young wife,” one said.

  Gerard could not believe what was being hinted about the Quakeress. These men thought her capable of her husband’s demise? Again their conversation repelled him. But he’d wondered about one aspect of this situation before, and now he had someone to ask. “Why did he leave her his fortune? Was she aware of that before he died?”

  The man with the paunch shrugged. “Don’t know—”

  The pocket door to the private dining room slid open. And Blessing Brightman herself stepped in, dressed in her most sober gray Quaker garb, as if on her way to the meetinghouse.

  The jovial men were struck dumb.

  Gerard nearly choked on his port. He couldn’t believe it himself. Blessing had pursued him once more. How did she know of this dinner party? And to come uninvited to an all-male gathering—did nothing intimidate her?

  “Good evening, gentlemen. I heard Gerard Ramsay was holding a meeting of prospective investors for his future racetrack.”

  The men had risen as one in the presence of a lady. Their expressions were ludicrous but told a clear tale. They, of course, all understood the potential social consequences if this lady let it be widely known that they were investing in a disreputable gambling venture. Even in circles not prone to reform, public proclamation of this fact would be viewed with disfavor as not “respectable.” Universal dismay registered on each face.

  “Racetrack?” the one who had approved of the black exodus blustered. “That wasn’t mentioned to me.” He moved away from the table, feigning outrage.

  The others joined in with a spatter of disgruntled Or me’s.

  Within minutes the men had thanked him for their fine dinner, remembered other engagements, and left.

  Gerard helplessly watched them go and then turned to the widow. Blessing gazed at him without any gloating in her expression. As usual, she was studying him. He should have been very angry with her.

  But in truth, he was glad in some ways to see the men go. He had no plans to admit that, however. “Well, Widow Brightman, how did you find out about my business dinner?” Though unable to keep the resentment from his voice, breeding dictated that he politely motion for her to take a seat before he resumed his own.

  Blessing settled across from him. “Stoddard told me. And I’m glad I came. Every man in this room is no doubt beholden to Smith. If thee obtained thy capital from them, he would in actuality hold the strings to thy scheme. He would own thy investors, own thy racetrack, own thee. Is that clear enough?”

  Gerard refused to cede victory to her. “I can handle Smith.”

  “Is thee so certain of that?”

  He changed directions. “I still do not understand how you know so much about Smith.”

  A veil dropped over her features. She looked away.

  He waited to hear her explanation.

  “Smith is my adversary and has been for many years.” Her voice was low and hinted at some unreadable emotion. She looked into his face. “Thee must have realized by now that if thee joins thyself to him, only he will profit from this venture. Hasn’t thee?”

  “I don’t see that at all,” he retorted, holding in his irritation at her interference. “You act as if Smith were in charge of Cincinnati. From what I’ve heard, he’s merely the most successful bookmaker.”

  She let out a sound of dark mirth. “His influence runs wide throughout the criminal class, and he is universally feared. He is relentless and unscrupulous toward any target. The men here tonight could have told thee that. I’m quite sure that each was sent a message that he must accept thy invitation tonight. Each man here owes Smith. And fears him.”

  Gerard hated her way of speaking openly of matters no lady should ever even acknowledge. “Do you never stop meddling, ma’am?” he snapped.

  “I don’t meddle. I shine the light into the dark corners of this city. Does thee really want to belong to Smith?”

  “No, I don’t.” For once he told her the absolute truth. But I don’t have to. He’d step back and give this some thought. Certainly there were some men in Cincinnati who didn’t belong to Smith, were sufficiently discreet, and could be interested in his racetrack.

  “Then pay the bill and let us leave this place.”

  Again her audacity stymied him. What other woman would do what she’d done tonight? And then act as if she’d done nothing more than drop in for a visit?

  Marveling, he rose and obeyed her. There really was nothing else for him to do—not now, at least. As he finished paying, he recalled that he had only enough money left to support himself for two more weeks. Then he’d be broke and forced to ask his mother for more than she could spare of her private funds. The realization ignited his stomach. He might have to follow an unexpected course of action. After escorting the widow out and handing her over to her driver, he stepped back under the overhang at the entrance, eyeing the unwelcoming rain.

  From her carriage window, the widow waved at him. “Would thee like a ride home?”

  “Why not? It’s the least you can do for me.” Ducking his head and running through the rain, Gerard climbed in beside her, and the driver started off. Gerard shook the rain from his hat and swiped at the raindrops on his shoulders. He wished he could shake off Smith as easily.

  Then he recalled how Smith had revealed that he was keeping close watch on Gerard. And more unsettling somehow, the man’s marked animus toward Blessing. Her words tonight had affirmed this hostility. What grudge lay between these two unlikely people?

  Rain pattered on the carriage roof as if taunting him. He might have been playing the fool, and this irritating woman had intervened. But he was unsure whether she did it to settle a score with Smith or to save Gerard from his own folly.

  Blessing, mostly shielded from his view by the darkness, spoke without preamble. “I asked Stoddard why thee was pursuing the racetrack. He wouldn’t tell me, but I could see that he knew thy reasons. Will thee tell me? I want to understand.”

  “Why am I of interest to you?” he snapped, her disruptive forthrightness still jabbing him with each breath.

  “Ah, I am delving too deeply,” she observed in that calm and maddening way of hers.

  The rain continued to fall in a constant tapping on the roof. Gerard brooded in silence. “Let me say again: my life is of no concern to you.”

  “On the contrary, the lives of others are my main concern. Thee seems to be at odds within thyself. Thee has every opportunity to make a good life here in this city, but instead thee takes delight in flouting society—”

  “You’re the one who flouts society,” he interrupted hotly. “Going to the docks at night, associating with . . . harlots and their bastards. Why does society tolerate you?”

  In spite of the murky shadows, he felt her intense gaze upon him. “I am deemed an Original,” she said in a light tone with a self-mocking edge. “A Quakeress who married into high society. I’m also fair to look at and very, very wealthy. I
give much to municipal projects, such as the free library being built. I support political candidates. And if I weren’t there to enliven society, whom would the ladies whisper about behind their fans? I amuse them, intrigue them. That is why I continue to be received.”

  After viewing her movements in society, unfortunately he couldn’t refute her logic. He never had—yet.

  The rain suddenly intensified against the carriage roof.

  “Again I will invite thee to attend James Bradley’s lecture with me.”

  He batted the invitation away like a fly and raised his voice against the falling rain. “How will that help me establish myself here?”

  “More important, how will it help thee establish who thee is—here or elsewhere?”

  Many hot words bubbled up. Gerard swallowed them down. His plan for tonight had been thwarted. After taking the measure of the men Smith had suggested—men who, Gerard had to admit, might have been his last resort—he was coming to a sobering conclusion. He would have to find employment.

  Perhaps pursuing a career here could broaden his pool of acquaintances. He didn’t have to give up on the racetrack completely, just take his time and do it without Smith and his ilk.

  Still, he didn’t want to let go of the possibility of striking back at his father for his overbearing ways. The sound of the downpour mirrored the way his heart beat whenever he thought of letting his father go unscathed after cutting off his allowance, all with the goal of controlling him.

  But the Quakeress was right. He could make a good life here for himself away from his father’s influence. Still, he must make his father pay for all the hurt he’d inflicted, not only on Gerard but also on his mother and anybody he deemed inferior to himself. His father did not deserve to prosper. He deserved judgment, and who could shame him more than his only son? His father had quoted King Lear to him more than once:

  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

  To have a thankless child!

  Then another quote came to mind:

  Living well is the best revenge.

  OCTOBER 20, 1848

  Several days later, Gerard, with the Quakeress at his side, entered the small auditorium at Lane Seminary. The days were becoming shorter and shorter, so candle sconces flickered on the walnut-wainscoted walls, and a large chandelier glimmered overhead. He felt as if he were outside himself, watching a stranger. Am I really doing this?

  As if she heard his thoughts, Blessing glanced at him. “Thee can always back out now.”

  The veiled taunt in her voice grabbed him around the throat. He shook off the sensation. “I am unintimidated, madam.”

  She had the nerve to grin at him.

  The last week had been eventful for Gerard. He’d telegraphed his mother, and she had arranged for the transfer of some money into his bank account here. But he knew it was wrong to depend on her, especially in light of the strict limits Father placed on her funds. So in spite of this infusion of cash and with the racetrack still in the back of his mind, he’d faced the facts and gone to one of the businessmen he’d met at Stoddard and Tippy’s party. The man had offered to interview him for a job in his steamboat firm. The position hadn’t been a good fit, but the man had said he was sure there was a position for a Ramsay in Cincinnati. He would let it be known that Gerard was looking for employment.

  I am looking for a job. That was just as unbelievable as his walking into this promiscuous meeting where both men and women would listen to a speaker—and a speaker with dark skin, to boot. His own discomfort offered him some satisfaction. If he couldn’t yet embarrass his father by owning a notorious racetrack, he might do even better by dabbling in abolitionism, a radical cause that, according to Father, no respectable person would support. But after his dinner with “respectable” gentlemen here, perhaps this evening would be enlightening.

  He followed Blessing into a line of chairs. Not for the first time, he noted that among the women who supported abolition, Blessing stood out as the most imposing in manner and pleasing in looks. In fact, he felt an odd stirring of pride that she would ask him to be her escort. She was indeed an Original.

  Gerard sat beside her and tried to look as though attending a radical meeting to listen to an African speaker were an everyday occurrence in his life. Remembering Conklin, the reporter who had pegged him attending the women’s rights convention, he looked around for any newspaper reporters in attendance. If he found one, he’d love to be quoted. He had to make sure his father found out what he was doing now. If he knew his father, the man was receiving Cincinnati papers in an attempt to track Gerard’s doings here.

  Gerard glanced around and glimpsed a few reporters and, unexpectedly, some familiar faces, and he nodded in acknowledgement. Many gazed at him a bit longer than was polite. No doubt because he and the widow had come together. Another factor that would irk his father, who thought Quakers were outlandish and appalling. Better and better. Why hadn’t he thought of this ploy before? And it wasn’t as though he minded her company. Not at all.

  The meeting began.

  Gerard waited through the introductions and settled in, hoping he wouldn’t be unbearably bored.

  James Bradley, a tall man near middle age wearing a sober suit, moved to the podium on the low platform. The white of his shirt gleamed against his dark skin. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming this evening. But before I begin my lecture, I would like to open myself to questions.”

  Gerard was already impressed by the man’s presence and eloquence. What had he expected? Not a man who could speak in an educated way. Bradley had been introduced as a graduate of Ohio’s Oberlin College, but Gerard had thought that was mere honorary pretense. Evidently not. How had a former slave had the chance to go to college?

  After an initial hesitation, one man rose. “I am a member of the American Colonization Society. I hear that you oppose our efforts. Why?”

  Bradley gazed down. “I’m glad you brought that up. I think the basis of colonization is the flawed theory that people of white skin and people of black skin cannot live together in a free society. That simply is not true.”

  “But slaves are different from whites,” the men said.

  “Yes. They are enslaved, and whites are not.”

  “That’s not what I meant. They are not able to take care of themselves in our modern civilization—”

  “Slaves not only take care of themselves; they also take care of their white owners. I did not run away from my master. I bought my freedom through hard labor. How many slaves have you ever spoken to?”

  The man raised both his hands in defeat and sat down.

  Another rose swiftly. “I don’t want to witness the amalgamation of the races. If blacks are freed and sent back to Africa, this will be avoided.”

  “Sir, my father was white,” Bradley replied. “The amalgamation of the races takes place daily on the plantations of the South.”

  The audience gasped.

  The back of Gerard’s neck prickled with shock. James Bradley was more audacious than the widow beside him.

  “Bradley, there are ladies present,” the man blustered.

  “And they understand, perhaps better than you can, the heavy burden their black sisters suffer. I was separated from my mother after birth and, while I was still a very small child, only saw her a few times before her death. I can only imagine her suffering.”

  Silence ballooned through the hall. Gerard thought of his own mother and how he’d felt when his father had sent him away to school at only seven. He remembered his mother’s tears. And that was all inconsequential compared to what Bradley and his mother must have experienced. The old hurt roiled inside him. Of all things tonight, Gerard had not expected this man’s address to touch him personally.

  Bradley glanced around as if seeking any more questions. But his responses had prepared his audience to listen. The man did not charm; he challenged.

  Gerard grappled with Bradley’s words. If he’d ever given
the plight of slaves and former slaves more than a passing thought before now, he couldn’t recall it.

  “I will recount my life as a slave in hopes that it will inspire you to do all you can to work toward abolition.” Bradley paused, gathering the attention of the crowd. Then he began his story. “A slaveholder bought me when I was only a child and took me up into Pendleton County, Kentucky. I suppose I stayed with him about six months. He sold me to a Mr. Bradley, by whose name I have ever since been called.

  “This man was considered a wonderfully kind master, and it is true I was treated better than most of the slaves I knew. I never suffered for food and never was flogged with the whip, but oh, my soul! I was tormented with kicks and knocks more than I can tell.”

  Listening in rapt silence, Gerard wondered how he could have worried this speaker would bore him.

  Gerard sat beside Blessing in her open gig on the way home. His mind whirled with all he’d heard.

  “Well, I hope the evening proved interesting for you,” Blessing said in her driest tone as they neared Mrs. Mather’s boardinghouse.

  By moonlight, he was caught by the clash of opposites she presented. Though she wore a plain bonnet and a drab gray dress with a white collar and cuffs, moonlight gleamed on her pale complexion, glinted on the shine of her dark hair, and reflected in her large eyes. She was like a pearl displayed on common linsey-woolsey rather than on the dark velvet she deserved. It physically goaded him. “Why do you so often insist on wearing black or gray?”

  “I’m a widow and a Quaker. Those are the colors we wear most.”

  “If God created a rainbow, I don’t think he dislikes color. And I have seen you wear colors at parties, and very stylish gowns. Why do you consistently try to hide the fact that you are a beautiful woman?”

  “Ramsay, this is not a conversation we should be having. Yes, you are right. I do like to be fashionable on occasion. I cannot deny it. Yet I am truly little concerned with whether people see me as beautiful or not.”

  “Except when it suits your needs. You said that yourself. Smith leaves you alone because society delights in the wealthy and beautiful Quaker bluestocking.”