A Tangled Mercy

by Joy Jordan-Lake

  Nothing.

  Red-eyed and defeated, she was about to close the file, the archivist looking sympathetically at her.

  That final yellowed page, handwritten and nearly illegible, listed a handful of names, including Daniel Payne. And at the top, it said:

  Our co-laborers who left their homes in the North to serve the cause of the former slave.

  Holding her breath, Kate scanned the names.

  But again, no Tom.

  At the far bottom, though, in an ink that was more brown than black and a script that was more flowing than the first, someone had added just seven words:

  And also Dinah, a native of Charleston.

  Chapter 23

  1822

  Dinah heard the city marshal approach from behind, could even feel his breath near the back of her neck. But she walked on.

  Until he snarled, “I’ll tell you that much, you wandering round here in this kind of rain. It don’t look good. Ain’t nobody out here don’t have to be. And you listening to what ain’t a world of your business.” Grabbing Dinah’s arm, he spun her around, then leered at her protruding belly. “Well, now. Looks like you right up on foaling time, ain’t you?”

  Dinah jerked away just as another unearthly howl came from the windows of the workhouse. She rotated back toward the sound.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with rivulets of sweat and the falling rain. It was hot today for only the end of May, even with the passing storm, and the heat, combined with her condition, had already made her dizzy and faint.

  But now this. She’d been walking home the long way from the milliner’s and the stationer’s on King Street she’d visited for Emily Pinckney. Maybe she’d meant to walk down this street, just to be sure, or maybe she’d been so absorbed by her own thoughts she’d not looked up to see where she was until the shrieks and moans had made that perfectly clear.

  The city marshal ran the fingers of his right hand over the pistol at his side. “You listen to me now. You stand here listening to that like you’s sympathetic, like you’d be on the side of a bloody traitor to this city, and that kind of sympathy, I tell you what, will get you a ticket yourself inside them walls to feel the end of a cowhide strip. You understand me good?”

  Dinah kept her eyes on the workhouse walls. But she held her breath to slow the flow of tears. “Who is it?” she asked when she could speak.

  “His name’s none of your damn business. But I’ll tell you this: twelve hours ago, he wasn’t talking none. But now, now that he’s been encouraged to talk”—he leered meaningfully at her—“I’m guessing we’re real close to a full confession.”

  Dinah’s hand dropped to her belly. “A confession?”

  Pitching back his head, the patroller sent a gob of tobacco sailing over her shoulder. “Now, ’less you cotton to getting tossed in the hole inside there or keeping company on the bloody end of the whip, I suggest you move along. And look a little less sorry the devil in there’s getting all the hell he deserves.”

  Dinah did move along, trembling, her steps aimed now for East Bay. If the shop were empty, the forge cold, she would know. She would know who it was inside the workhouse.

  From a block away, no smoke billowed from the chimney.

  Her knees went soft. Her head spun.

  Dinah leaned heavily against brick, then made her feet move forward. One more block.

  She had to see. She had to know.

  The windows reflected the perfect blue above in their undulating panes. The sky was such a liar, reflecting all the beauty of this place and none of its pain.

  Dinah made herself lean into the glass and cup her hand against the sun to see to the back of the shop.

  She collapsed onto the sidewalk.

  Someone came running.

  Ned Bennett. Hauling her up by the elbow. “You lose your balance? Can’t be having that baby right here on the street. Easy now. You hold on now. You hold on.”

  Tears coursed down both cheeks again. “I heard the screams. At the workhouse.”

  Ned nodded grimly. “It’s bad. It’s real bad. But don’t you think for a minute it’s over.”

  “No. I mean, I thought . . . I thought it was Tom.”

  Both their eyes went to the window. In the back of the shop, Tom Russell was bent over his forge, its coals dark and cold, but the dark of his back muscles like thunderclouds churning.

  Looking up just then, he spotted Dinah. Ran to the glass. Laid his palm against the window.

  She raised hers to the glass to meet his on the other side. And they stood like that, Ned Bennett holding her steady, as she wept tears of relief.

  Dinah tried to enter quietly, slipping through the back door next to the kitchen house without the hinges creaking. Emily might scold her for taking so long with the errands. But that was the least of her worries right now.

  As she crept silently past, the door of Jackson Pinckney’s study flew open. “So,” he said.

  Dinah did not meet his eye. Tried to walk on.

  “In here,” he commanded.

  Eyes still looking down and away, she stepped to the threshold.

  “In. Here.”

  She took one more step. But she crossed her arms over her chest, her whole body tense with loathing.

  Jackson Pinckney swept up a black leather case from his desk. “I wanted, Dinah, for you to be the first to see my new purchase.” He held the box beneath her face.

  She kept looking down and away.

  “Finest dueling pistols money can buy. Imported from Prussia.” Picking up one of the guns from its silk enclosure, he stroked its barrel. “I like to keep them both loaded. Because, you know, one never can tell what the future may hold. To quote the Bard of Avon, whom you would not have read, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’ I’m not pleased, Dinah, as you well know, with your recent behavior. Don’t think I’m such a fool as not to have known if someone who didn’t belong to me went sneaking back to the quarters behind my own house.”

  Dinah averted her face as he circled.

  “And I am not pleased with what appears, if the Prioleaus’ servant Peter was not merely hallucinating when he reported it all, to be some sort of nefarious plot in this city. William Paul is being thoroughly questioned even now in the workhouse—has been all night.”

  Dinah swallowed but kept her face rigid. She’d not known William Paul was involved. But that wasn’t surprising. Each person who was informed of the plot was supposed to know only the name of the one person who’d approached with that whispered news—to protect everyone involved. Thousands, Dinah had overheard in the market.

  How much did William Paul know? And if they were torturing him, how much could he keep to himself?

  Jackson Pinckney ran a hand down her front from her neck to her thigh, his hands small and fumbling and sickeningly soft from a life of no work. Revulsion shot through her.

  He lowered his mouth to her ear. “A man need not merely stand still for the knife to be thrust in his back, don’t you agree? That a man should not put up with betrayal?”

  Dinah kept herself rigid and focused on a spot on the doorframe. She pictured Tom’s face, the curl of his lashes above the soft of his eyes. Such soft eyes for a man who was so strong. She made herself see his eyes.

  “The city council can, and will, discover the root of whatever it was this William Paul whispered in Peter Prioleau’s ear—whatever bloody plan that scared the faithful Peter so badly. When faced with betrayal, a man can take action. Don’t you agree?” He circled again. “And I am not pleased, Dinah, with your being with child.”

  Dinah’s whole body shook, but she kept her gaze steely. “And you standing there like you’d got no hand in it!”

  The words were out before she could clamp her jaw closed, her voice the slash of a blade.

  And now it was done.

  His whole arm landed the slap to her cheek, her head snapping back with the force. “I believe a trip to the workhous
e might curb your tongue.”

  Dinah righted her head slowly to level a gaze back at him. But she said nothing.

  “You may know that my daughter has fixed on the baby’s father. A certain blacksmith we all know, owned by my old friend Mrs. Nathaniel Russell. My daughter is certain of this. So again I would ask you: Ought a man merely stand still while the knife of betrayal is thrust in his back?”

  A trip to the workhouse was already assured. She had little to lose—and could not hold back the words anymore if she’d wanted. “You know good as I do who the father . . .”

  She stopped there, unwilling even to form the words might be.

  Jackson Pinckney lifted one of her hands, blistered and calloused from lye and from long days of work. Then he rested his right arm on her chest so that the pistol’s muzzle pointed at the bottom of her jaw. “Since Emily is your mistress, the rest of us would assume that she knows the truth.” His arm tightened across her front. “The fault, dear Dinah, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

  In one sudden wrench from his grasp, Dinah pulled herself free, sending Jackson Pinckney off balance—and the heavy pistol crashing to the floor and firing straight up.

  Jackson Pinckney glared from Dinah to the hole in the doorframe.

  “Father!” Emily called from the floor above, running footsteps already on the front stairs. “Is everything all right?”

  Pinckney’s whole body had gone stiff with fury, his morning coat looking as if it hung upon a wax figure. “Get the hell out of my sight,” he hissed, backhanding her cheek. Pulling a coin from his pocket, he yanked up her hand and pressed it into her palm. “You’ll need this to pay the workhouse for their trouble. I’ll send a message right now that a servant of mine is on her way there.”

  Chapter 24

  2015

  Kate leaned with Rose over the photocopied image of “My Tom” at Battery Row and the photocopy she’d made herself of the notation at the bottom of the postwar AME workers list: And also Dinah, a native of Charleston. Stifling a yawn, she flopped back against the settee cushions. “Sorry, Rose. It’s not the subject matter or the company. I just had trouble sleeping last night for wondering about what might have happened. To Tom. And to Dinah. If these are the Tom and the Dinah you and I know. I mean, not know exactly but . . .”

  Rose glanced up from the pages. “You can’t be faulted for lack of trying—I will give you that.” Smoothing her skirts, she added, “I hope you were not annoyed with me for giving that sweet and consistently honest contractor of mine Mr. Lambeth your number, sugar.”

  “You know, Rose, you add sugar to your speech more often when you want something.”

  Rose gave a flip of her delicate hand. “Why, I don’t want a blessed thing.”

  “That makes two of us then. Remember, I don’t want any attachments in Charleston.”

  Rose raised her chin. “Don’t you think that’s just a wee bit overconfident—to assume Mr. Lambeth’s interest in you? It might very well be he is simply a thoughtful young man. I understand there are one or two of them still left.” Sniffing, she lifted her left wrist with its filigreed watch. “I’ve only a few more moments before my next commitment. Shall we resume reading from the journal?”

  “Please.”

  Smoothing her linen skirt, Rose began where she’d left off.

  My lady’s maid has continued lately in her peculiar distraction. Perhaps it is only her condition and the spring heat well upon us. But then today, things became so much the worse.

  Today I’d only just returned from the bookseller’s shop on King when a most horrid clatter sent me racing downstairs, where I found Father standing alone in his study with a pistol, of all things, under one arm.

  Dinah stood but a few yards away and seemed . . . I know not what she seemed. Upset by the noise to be sure. I could not help but think that she’d only just come from out of his study.

  “To the workhouse. Now!” Father shouted at Dinah. Then, slamming the door so hard it knocked the miniature in the brass frame straight off the wall, he marched out the front door.

  I flew after him. How could I not? Dinah’s silence has annoyed me, to be sure, its swings toward anger and even defiance. But the workhouse is a sentence I would never wish on a servant of ours. I tried to stop Father. Let me say only that I was given to understand my efforts were not valued. And that I was to desist. For a moment, in fact, I was certain my father would strike his own daughter.

  Do I have any choice now but silence?

  I am crushed. I fear what this will mean not only for my lady’s maid, but for the child Dinah carries.

  For several moments, neither Rose nor Kate spoke, only looked at each other.

  “Heavens,” Rose said at last.

  “I know.”

  “This might be a good time to voice what I’ve been thinking, Katherine: that I am thankful to get to read this journal with someone—and in particular, with you.”

  Kate surprised even herself by reaching to squeeze the older woman’s hand. “It’s an honor to read it with you, Rose.”

  Rose’s mouth lifted on one end in a sad smile. “Not a pleasure, however. Not reading these sorts of scenes.”

  “No. Not a pleasure.” Kate rubbed her temple with two fingers, then pointed to the bottom of the page, dog-eared at the corner. “We’re getting close to where the journal’s final pages and back cover have been torn away. And, Rose, look at this quote she ends this entry with—in the margin, what little there is. And it’s in an ink that has more brown in it and more thickness than the original entry—like she wrote it later with another nib and a different ink. Emily’s handwriting, though. What do you make of this?”

  Kate read it aloud:

  “Nought so of love this looser dame did skill,

  But as a cole to kindle fleshly flame,

  Giving the bridle to her wanton will,

  And treading under foote her honest name.”

  —Edmund Spenser

  And there was another quote squeezed in the margin at the end of another entry:

  “Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine

  Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought

  Mosaic; underfoot the violet,

  Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay

  Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone

  Of costliest emblem.”

  —John Milton, Paradise Lost

  Rose ran a frail finger above the script, then sighed. “Frankly, my dear, I haven’t a clue.”

  The two studied the journal.

  “Rose, you can tell me the truth: When I first told you that I was searching for some sort of connection between my mother’s interest in this person Tom Russell—the whole Vesey revolt—and my own family, did you think I was nuts? You didn’t say much, you know.”

  Rose shook her head delicately. “Nuts would be a relative term in the South, first of all. But also, no, I did not.”

  “So there’s nothing else you can tell me—nothing else you recall about either of my parents?”

  “Only . . .” Rose’s lips moved slightly, as if she were trying on words. “Only that your momma was a dear girl. Despite . . .”

  Kate waited. But Rose was staring out toward the water. Kate scooted forward in her seat. “Despite . . . what?”

  Rose’s gaze swung back. “What’s that?”

  Kate was feeling desperate: so close to another piece of the puzzle—and yet if she pushed too hard, Rose might withdraw. Kate tried to pitch her voice with a patience she did not feel. “You were saying my mother was a dear girl despite something.”

  Rose’s nearly translucent blue eyes widened. “Did I? Heavens. As if it weren’t bad enough losing one’s balance with age. Now I appear to be losing my filters.”

  “Rose, you can tell me. All I’m looking for is the truth about my mother—not a plaster saint. I knew better than anyone that she lived with some sort of sadness or regret I couldn’t understand. The past haun
ted her, made it so hard for her to let go and live in the present, and I never knew why. But nothing you could tell me would change that I loved her.”

  Rose’s gaze swung out toward the sea, as if the grand span of ocean and sky might grant her permission to share whatever it was she knew. She sighed, her eyes still on the water. “Your mother as a young woman was quite lovely—and you look a great deal like her, as I have said. But it was more than her looks. Sarah Grace had something you didn’t.”

  Kate held her breath, afraid to say anything that might make Rose stop speaking.

  “A certain endearing . . . helplessness. Especially with men. She was smart as a whip but learned to cover her brains with those big brown doe eyes of hers. She was always laughing, always making everyone around her feel strong and clever and brave. Men adored her, you know.”

  Incredulous, Kate was afraid to break Rose’s reverie, but the words tumbled out. “Always laughing?” It hardly seemed possible that could be the same person who’d raised her.

  Rose nodded. “Oh yes. Always. In fact, when I met her, during the time she was engaged to your father and invited, of course, into . . .” She paused to phrase it delicately. “A different world than that to which she’d been accustomed, to all the balls and soirées and fund-raising dinners”—she waved a dismissive hand—“she was almost . . .” She faltered there. “But then who am I to judge another’s journey?”

  Kate dropped her voice so that it was nothing but a soft nudge—nothing that would startle the older woman into stopping. “Almost what, Rose?”

  “How shall I say it nicely? Almost . . . doggedly happy. As if she’d determined she would appear fancy-free at all costs.”

  “No matter how she actually felt?” Kate suggested quietly.

  Rose nodded.

  “She had . . .” Kate searched for the word Rose might use. “Admirers? Before my father?”

  “Oh yes. And after.” Rose jerked straighter in her seat at that, as if she’d said more than she intended. Her eyes swung to Kate’s.