And so it was on the next night that Dickie Hancock was seen leaving his home dressed as a man going out on the town. He returned several hours later with a woman on his arm.
Jane had not had a great deal of time to design a disguise, but she had acquired a large bonnet that hid most of her face. In dim light, the dark colour of her skin would let the typical observer assume she was a coloured woman.
Jane laughed rather loudly as they approached the back door of the Hancock home. “Shh. I don’t want the Missus to hear us,” he said. “Or the nosy neighbours.” He led her inside.
Miss Hancock was waiting for them in the kitchen. “My dear Miss Freemantle. Thank you so much for coming. Richard, do you think you were successful in deceiving the police.”
“I believe so. They did not seem overly interested in us.”
They sat in a small parlour, and Miss Hancock poured tea. Jane noted that Dickie — or Richard, as he seemed to be called inside the home — sat with them and was served a cup by his mistress. A very curious situation.
“Richard says that you can help us leave the country.”
“Yes,” Jane said, and explained about Astrid Skytte and her airship. “Mrs. Somerville was looking into arrangements to house you when I left. And there are publishers interested in your books. I believe you could establish yourself so that you could continue your research.”
“I do not suppose we could take the mice along, could we, Richard? We will have to start again. But we have made progress. The police invasion stopped our last experiment, but not before we had seen some small success.”
“Did you intend to bring Mr. Hancock with you? Forgive me, but you are aware, are you not, of the differing legal situation in the United Kingdom. Ownership of a person...”
“Richard is not a slave, Miss Freemantle.”
“Oh, I most humbly beg your pardon. I was told that he was, and saw no reason to doubt it, since such seems to be the custom in this country.”
“No, of course, you would not know. We let it appear so. But I feel I can be frank with you. Obviously, your own situation is not the usual one.”
“No,” Jane said, and explained about her relationship with Elizabeth.
“And are you accepted by these people, Miss Freemantle? I know your work; it is excellent. But do the others there consider you one of their own?”
Jane knew she was being asked an important question. “They accept me, within limitations, because I am the ward of Elizabeth Freemantle, and she is a well-off and charismatic woman. If I did not have her patronage, the others would not consider me as part of their society. My situation is most unusual.”
“Would they accept Richard? He is a scientist, you know, every bit as able as I. My books, my research, all of it is a collaboration. But he has never been able to receive any credit. I would like very much for him to be a recognized partner in all this work.”
He spoke for the first time. “Abby, that is not important.”
“Yes, it is.”
Jane hesitated. But she had spent too much time in upper class British drawing rooms. “No, I do not believe they would accept him.”
“So if we go to England, our situation is the same as it is here.”
“The world is not a fair place, Miss Hancock.”
“No.” Her tone was bitter. “No. Even biology betrays us. You are probably wondering why it matters so much if Richard comes. Indeed, you probably wonder how it is that he came to work with me.”
“I assumed you recognized his abilities.”
“That is a kind way of putting it. But it is more than that. Richard is my brother, Miss Freemantle.”
Jane looked at the two of them then, and saw the resemblance, for all that the man’s skin was dark where the woman’s was fair, his hair tightly curled where hers waved gently. The eyes, the curve of the jaw, the expression on their faces when both were speaking seriously, those were the same.
“My mother was partly of African heritage, though like me, she did not appear so. I did not know it. My father did not know it. But when Richard was born, the truth was obvious.
“Oh, not obvious to my father, who maintained until his dying day that she must have betrayed him with a servant. My father, who turned away from her as she lay dying after childbirth. But obvious to the servants, to the midwife who attended her, to me. She told me the truth then, before she died. And I knew Richard and I were the same, but due to the vagaries of our biology, we did not look it. It is why I never married.
“My father was not so cruel as to throw a newborn out of our home, but he gave Richard to a maid to raise and never acknowledged him. I, though, spent all the time I could with him. After our father died, I was able to educate him in earnest. But of course, he had to learn early to lie about who he was.”
“As Miss Freemantle said, Abby: the world is not fair.”
“But if we are to uproot our lives, to change our circumstances, I want to end the lie,” Miss Hancock said. “I want to live openly, to say, ‘this is my brother,’ to put his name with mine on the books, on the research.” There was a pleading tone in her voice.
Jane shook her head. “If you did that, I fear you would lose your patronage, and perhaps even a chance at publication. There is no slavery in Britain, but it is not a paradise where all persons are considered equal.”
Mr. Hancock said, “Abby, we cannot turn down this offer. You cannot go to prison. We have never expected a fair life; why ask for one now when we are in such dire circumstances?”
“If we are going to change our lives, Richard, why not change them in all ways? And I am certainly not rejecting this offer. But must we go to England? Would your people be offended if we went elsewhere?”
They probably would be, Jane thought. She said, “I am sure our pilot would be glad to fly you anywhere you might choose to go. And the funds we have raised are yours to do with as you please. They might provide a start in some new place, though I do not think you can expect any other assistance from our people if you do not go to England. We might, perhaps, still arrange a publisher, if your urge for honesty did not extend to telling them things they would not be able to see for themselves.”
“How delicately you put things.”
“Where would you go?”
“We had thought about the northwestern area of this continent. Perhaps in a frontier environment, things that matter very much here will not be so important.”
“But will you be able to work there?”
“If we can take some of the equipment,” she said. “We do not need a great deal. But the police are watching my every move. How are we to leave the house?”
Jane had been giving this matter quite a lot of consideration. “We need someone to create a disturbance in the street. Perhaps Mr. Johns can help.”
“Mr. Johns is a very respectable gentleman,” Abby said. “I do not think he will be willing to cause a disturbance of any kind.”
“She means George the slave, not Mr. Henry Johns,” Richard said. He turned to Jane. “But you cannot ask him to do this. Do you have any idea what would happen to negroes who rioted in the streets?”
In her mind’s eye, Jane saw a row of gibbets. “I am so sorry, Mr. Hancock. I did not think.” She paused for a moment. “What we really need is a mob of people upset by Miss Hancock’s contraceptive advice. If someone could start a rumour with the man who first brought charges against you...perhaps some young man affiliated with the scientific community?”
“I doubt any of them would take the risk,” Richard said.
“Dr. Barrett might,” Abby said. “His researches are similar to ours. Should I be forced to talk, he is at great risk.”
“I will approach him,” Jane said. And she began to lay her plans.
Jane called on Dr. Barrett the next day, announcing herself as representing Mrs. Somerville. “I understand that you have made great strides in your study of the origins of life,” she told him.
He was obviously pleased
to hear the compliment, but turned pale when she told him her informant was Miss Hancock. “I...I am very concerned about what may come of Miss Hancock. Her situation....”
“It is about her situation that I have come.”
Once he realized that his assistance might help get Miss Hancock out of the country, Dr. Barrett became eager to help. As a physician who did some charity work, he travelled in some low circles. “I might know someone.”
Jane also hired the services of George Johns. Mrs. Johns had been loath to let him go, but a bit of genteel blackmail — it seemed that her husband was another who might be at risk should Miss Hancock talk — led her to accept the arrangement, though she charged a pretty penny for it.
George was eager to help; like far too many foolish young men, he craved adventures. “I bet I can take any of those fat old policemen,” he said.
“All I need you to do is to escort Miss and Mr. Hancock down to Fell’s Point once we have distracted the police.”
“Where you gonna be?”
“Making certain that the police follow the wrong person.”
“I can help with that,” he said again.
Jane pictured him lying dead in the street and shuddered. “I have no one else I can trust to make certain they get away safely,” she said, and that appeased him.
To the police, it likely appeared that Richard had a regular woman, because he brought Jane back to the house almost every evening. One evening as Richard and Jane walked in the back door, they heard one of the guards say, “That boy must have figured out his mistress don’t count for much anymore, the way he carries on.”
In this way, the two of them were able to smuggle the Hancocks’ most valuable possessions — a few clothes, jewellery and other valuables that could be converted into dollars, and as much of the laboratory equipment and lab records as they could manage — out of the house. George carried them down to Fell’s Point.
Late on a Saturday afternoon, a crowd of young men gathered in the street outside the Hancock home. They carried signs calling Abby Hancock a whore and worse, and their leaders screamed speeches demanding that she be tarred and feathered or thrown back in gaol. Jane, watching from inside the house, noted that, despite their outrage, no one ever said exactly what it was she had done.
The police guards soon had their hands full trying to contain the crowd, which, while it only included a dozen or so men, was quite unruly. Even the guards from the alley came to the front to help keep the peace and one policeman was sent off for reinforcements.
A sharp whistle announced the arrival of additional policemen, and Jane — dressed in Abby Hancock’s clothes, including a hat with a veil and white gloves — chose that moment to slip out the back door. There were no guards there, but as she rounded the corner toward the street, someone screamed out, “She’s getting away.”
An alert policeman looked away from the riot, saw her, and yelled to the others to follow him. But in the confusion caused by the rioters, Jane managed to gain nearly a block on her pursuers before the chase started in earnest.
She wore trousers under her skirt. Now she ripped it off and began to run full out. It had been more than fifteen years since she had been Tcax, the girl running through the woods, but she had not lost her stride nor her speed. The policemen — there were at least six behind her — were not closing the distance.
As Jane ran, Abby and Richard walked boldly out the back door, Abby dressed in the clothes Jane had worn in her role as Richard’s woman. But there were no policemen there to view them. Two blocks away, a coach driven by George Johns pulled up, and both got in quickly.
Twilight was now coming on, making it harder to see. George drove the coach south on Charles Street, and turned to the east on Lombard. At Market Street he stopped the coach; he and Jane had arranged a rendezvous at that point.
Straining his eyes in the growing darkness, George saw her running from the direction of Water Street, but he also saw, as she could not, a policeman running up Lombard from the west, moving quite as fast as Jane. Obviously he had anticipated where she might run and was hoping to cut her off. He spotted no other officers.
George jumped down from the seat and stood behind the coach. The policeman came running up just as Jane reached the intersection, but as he ran past the coach, George tackled him from behind, pinning his arms to his chest.
“Let go of me in the name of the law,” the officer yelled. Jane came running up. She took one look at the situation and immediately punched the policeman in the chest, causing him drop his head forward. She then clipped him on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.
George let the man drop, and jumped back up to the driver’s seat. Jane climbed in the coach with the Hancocks, and they made it the rest of the way to Fell’s Point without incident.
Astrid Skytte awaited them at the dock with a small boat. “Your baggage is already loaded,” she said, welcoming the Hancocks aboard. She professed herself delighted at the change in plans. “I have never seen the northwest of this country,” she told them.
Jane changed her clothes inside the coach as George returned it to the hire place. He then followed her — playing the servant all the way — back to her lodging with Mrs. Whitehead.
“I thank you for your assistance, Mr. Johns,” she told him as they reached her door.
“My pleasure. I might never get me another chance to attack a policeman without something bad coming of it.”
Jane nodded. She handed him a purse.
“You don’t owe me nothing.”
“I owe you a great deal and so do the Hancocks. And you should have some resources of your own. I have heard it is possible for a slave to buy his freedom.”
George’s hands trembled after he opened the bag and realized the amount within. “God bless you,” he said. There was none of the joking demeanour he had shown up to then. “God bless you,” he repeated. “This may be enough to free my mother as well.”
He clasped her hands once, then ran off down the street. Jane felt her eyes fill with tears. “I wish you luck,” she called after him.
Jane, who embarked shortly thereafter on a ship bound for England, found herself wondering if the Hancocks had made the right choice. Would they truly be able to live as brother and sister in the wilderness? Their medical training might make them of use, but would they be able to continue their studies, their research?
At the same time, Jane rather envied them. Perhaps they would find a place where they could be their true selves. She though, would always be other. There was no right place for her.
Claire De Lune
Pati Nagle
Marie LaVeau stood on the deck of the Coeur Chérie, careful to stay out of the crew’s way as the ship glided into Galveston Bay. Pearly water lapped at the hull — gently, gently — a soft rhythm that made her want to sway in a slow, hypnotic dance. The air smelled of salt and fish.
The journey from New Orleans had been uneventful, an easy cruise along the coast through shallow waters. Marie preferred land to sea, and was glad to have arrived in Galveston. The sooner she could discharge her errand, the sooner she and her lover, Christophe, might return home.
As they disembarked and walked along the pier, heads turned. Their clothing identified them as prosperous, but their skin, light though it might be, drew the stares of strangers. There must not be many free people of colour in Galveston.
The Tremont House, on the Strand not far from the dock, was furnished with deep carpets, urns of fresh flowers, and gleaming brass fixtures: the hush of money. When Marie and Christophe approached the desk, the clerk hesitated a fraction of a second before greeting them. He demanded to see their papers before confirming their reservation. Marie’s eyes narrowed but she said nothing. A murmured exchange, a belated courteous welcome from the clerk, then the key was in Christophe’s hand.
“Where can we get a cup of coffee?” Christophe asked. “Is your restaurant serving?”
The clerk’s mouth curved
downward. “It is rather exclusive. You would not be...comfortable, there.”
“And where might we be comfortable?” Christophe’s voice was soft, his brow raised only slightly.
“There’s a bakery on the wharf, sir, though it’s rather expensive. The ships’ owners frequent it. They do allow coloureds.”
Christophe’s green eyes hardened, but he smiled. “Bien. Which way?”
The clerk gave them directions. Marie held her head high as they strolled out of the lobby, aware of the gazes they were attracting.
As they walked along the Strand she wondered if anyone here would recognise her name. At home she was famous, but here? Perhaps not. If she were planning to be in Galveston very long she would try to find out if anyone here practiced voudon, but she hoped to stay only a few days — a hope that was increasing by the hour.
Christophe turned right along a street that ran back toward the bay. In the harbour a large ship was coming into dock. A cloud of steam roiled skyward as the ship’s whistle — deep and loud — sounded, making Marie wince. She had heard them at home, from the riverboats, but rarely so close.
She and Christophe came to a gate in the low iron fence around a courtyard, where they were greeted by a young woman. No — not a woman. The flat eyes, the metallic voice, betrayed the automaton. It wore a black skirt, white blouse, and an apron, and also a fixed smile. Seeing the emptiness of its eyes, Marie could not help but think of her friend Mignon, of the soulfire that glowed in her eyes though she was no more alive than this machine.
The automaton showed them to a table in the middle of the terrace, those beside the fence all being occupied. Men sat alone drinking coffee and reading newspapers or in groups around the tiny tables, talking vigorously. Some looked up at Marie with unfriendly eyes. She ignored them. Behind her, through large windows, she saw cases filled with pastries and steam rising from a huge, gleaming urn. Her mouth began to water.
The automaton addressed her. “Good morning. What may I bring you?”
“May we see a menu?”
The Shadow Conspiracy II Page 27