The Eulogist

by Ms. Terry Gamble

  Surely he didn’t think? And at my age?

  “I am one of nine, Cousin Olivia. And while I have never wed, my siblings have not only married, but have many children of their own. Thirty-three descendants at last count, and my older sister Edith thrice a grandmother.”

  I nodded, but a woman wearing a coal-scuttle bonnet trimmed with lavender lace and a satin bow had caught my eye.

  Cousin Samuel went on. “This dearth of children must pose a true problem to your brother . . .”

  I could not see the woman’s face, but when she reached up to adjust her hat, I saw the color of her hand.

  “. . . that he might relish the prospect of adoption.”

  I had missed most of what Cousin Samuel was saying, but that statement jarred me away from the black woman wearing the coal scuttle, and I returned my attention to him.

  “Adoption?” Evidently, the refinements of Enniskillen were not enough to compensate for the lack of food or prospects.

  “So that he might have an heir.”

  “But he has done,” I said.

  “Ah, you mean the boy William?” Cousin Samuel gave me a sympathetic look. “But isn’t his own father still living? The reprobate? And James has said nothing about formally adopting this boy.”

  Trying to keep one eye on the coal scuttle that I was sure was the one I’d donated to Erasmus’s effort at the inception of his business, I said, “You must understand, everything he . . . we . . . have worked for, and still work for . . . it is all for William.”

  “I see.” Cousin Samuel chewed his lip like a man who has lost a wager. Then he brightened. “Well then,” he said as we resumed walking. “This William of yours. I daresay he will be looking for a wife.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, laying my hand on Cousin Samuel’s arm, “but I have an appointment with the oculist.”

  Leaving my cousin openmouthed, I hurried across the street. I had been quite proud of that hat. The woman headed south on Elm, crossing the creek at Meeker. By the time I caught up to her at the edge of Bucktown, I was gasping for breath. “Pardon me,” I said, “but your hat.”

  When she spun around, I half expected to see Tilly, but this one was taller and darker. Raising her chin—in indignation or sartorial pride—she said, “What of it?”

  “Who is the maker?”

  She touched the lavender lace and narrowed her eyes. “Hatter come down by way of Maysville. Who’s asking?”

  “And where,” said I, my heart pounding, “might I find this man?”

  * * *

  “Did you think, brother, that we would not notice your presence in Cincinnati?”

  I had flown like a banshee into the brothel. The red-haired girl next to Erasmus rose up bleary-eyed. “La, who is this old lady?”

  Which did not soften my mood. “Get out of bed,” I said. “Ingrate.”

  “You can accuse me of indiscretion, sister, but not lack of appreciation,” said Erasmus as he stood up with the sheet held in front of him that I might be spared his shame. The girl laughed and ran behind the screen to fetch her jumper.

  “I shall wait outside,” I said, turning toward the door.

  The morning air was bracing even in this part of town, where slop and night soil were flung with abandon from third-story windows. There was barely a plank to avoid the mud. One might think that five decades had brought no improvements to the Cincinnati streets. Certainly, James’s vision of a city lit by gas stopped well shy of Bucktown.

  “So, Livvie,” said Erasmus, joining me, his hair trimmed short, his beard quite elegant beneath his too-blue eyes. He beamed at me like a suitor. It had been seven years since we’d seen each other, but this time there were no embraces.

  “You look ridiculous,” I said to him as we walked toward a fresher neighborhood. “And why are you in Cincinnati? Did we not tell you to steer clear? What if James had seen you? Or William?”

  But Erasmus insisted that no one would recognize him, for he was playing the part so beautifully, and even if they did, what fault was there in James Givens’s brother having gone into business of his own?

  “Besides, there’s quite a lucrative market right here in Cincinnati. Especially if you suggest to the ladies that their purchase might help finance the goal of emancipation. They’ll stop shy of soiling their hands, but their vanity blooms with the thought of their own goodness.”

  I remembered Mrs. Danspierre’s smug, knowing look.

  Erasmus went on. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, sister, I must actually sell hats to be convincing. In fact, I have a few that would look lovely on you, Livvie. A bit of buckram with a picot ribbon?”

  “You take nothing seriously.”

  Erasmus took my arm, tipping his hat at a couple passing by. We had returned to brighter streets of gaslights and candles behind casements. Erasmus started talking. Did I know that most runaways fled with no plan at all? The lucky ones found people like him to help them, but it didn’t always go according to plan. One woman showed up with all of her mistress’s silver, forcing Erasmus to chuck it into the river lest the boat sink. Every day he walked a tightrope. “And yet you consider me unserious.”

  He did not have to elaborate. Hatsepha and I had followed the various “trials” of those accused of helping runaways—convictions resulting in long incarcerations and exorbitant fees, not to mention the backwoods hangings.

  We had arrived at the stable where Erasmus had parked his wagon. A young boy sat whittling on a crate, chewing tobacco and spitting at a cat.

  “They break up families, Livvie. They sell off the children without blinking an eye.” Erasmus ruffled the hair of the boy, who spit again, this time in my direction. “I suppose James will be expecting him to learn to ledger.”

  I realized he was talking about William. Perhaps the true reason Erasmus had drifted back to Cincinnati from time to time was his hope to get word of his son. I started to tell him that William, who was off at college, preferred paleontology to numbers. Instead, I said, “Our cousin Samuel is visiting from Ireland. Do you remember him?”

  “I remember a prig who threw a stone at me and tried to kiss you.”

  “It wasn’t Samuel I kissed.” It hadn’t even been a boy. I eyed the lad on the crate. At one time, William was just this scruffy. “Evidently he wants to adopt out some of the Irish Givenses or, barring that, marry off a niece to William.”

  Erasmus told the boy to fetch his horse. Scrambling up, the boy muttered about getting paid. Erasmus tossed him a coin, and the boy ran off, returning with the mare. Erasmus pulled himself onto the horse, tipped the tall hat that had replaced his preacher’s cap. He started to say something, and then ducked his head, his lips tightening. Finally, he drew a long sigh, and when he spoke, it was with a thicker voice. “’Tis a terrible thing,” he said, not meeting my eye, “to give up one’s child.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, a letter arrived from Maysville via the Birneys. I stood in the hallway, fussing with my glasses, trying to read the words. In the parlor, the Norwegian girl rubbed wax into the wood.

  Dearest Livvie, it began, I find myself incarcerated.

  Chapter 29

  1848

  It had been eleven years since I last touched foot in Kentucky. The steamer chugged to Maysville, the river shouldering a mist more common to autumn than spring. For ten days it had rained. Everywhere was talk of flooding and, once again, the drownings of souls desperate to cross.

  We cannot have our name dragged into this, James had said after Hatsepha and I told him what had transpired with Erasmus being accused for abetting slaves. James had turned quite red and thundered and paced, accusing us of conspiring against him before turning to me and saying, Well, I suppose you’ll require funds.

  Knowing I would need to conceal my identity, I had already answered an advertisement for a teaching position at a school for young ladies. I looked the part—spinsterish and in need of money, but not so needy that I couldn’t pay for a room and spend a
day or two gazing into store windows while applying for a job.

  It was a short carriage ride from the ferry landing to the town of Maysville, where Erasmus had been arrested. I checked into the hotel across from the post office and, knowing that the names “Orpheus” and “Givens” might draw attention, registered under Hatsepha’s maiden name of Peckham.

  Maysville was a lovely town, and I found myself thinking—as I had many years before—that I shouldn’t mind living among these fine houses and wide streets and shops full of every kind of merchandise. It did not take long to pick up the gossip. All one had to do was stop in at one of the many hatters to glean talk of the itinerant who was liberating slaves across the county. And selling styles three years out-of-date, said one dandy hatter who reeked of castor oil and minted brandy, and this at only ten in the morning. I took pains to fuss with the netting while asking just how this man Givens had been captured. How could they be sure? Had they caught him in the act?

  According to one hatter, one of the Dobbses’ slaves had expected a ride across the river, but when passed up for a boy from another farm, had exposed the abetting rogue in hope of a reward. In spite of the fact that no slave had been found in the culprit’s company, there was a pattern of chattel vanishing coinciding with new but slightly dated hats appearing on the matronly heads of Maysville.

  I had just come out of a shop and was patting my hair back into place when a carriage pulled up, and the passenger leaned out and said, “Why, I thought it was you, but you’re so changed.”

  My heart sank, for I had not considered that I would be spotted since no one knew me other than Eugene Orpheus and Bethany. I looked over my shoulder and approached the carriage to come face-to-face with my former sister-in-law. I had not seen her in years. Nor would I have easily recognized her, for she, too, had changed, her hair graying, her lips lined. But it was her general effect of having shrunk that startled me. Had I walked away quickly, I might have fooled her into thinking she had seen a bespectacled ghost. Instead, I climbed into her cab.

  “A teacher?” Bethany said after I told her the reason for my presence. “And you weren’t going to let me know that you were passing through?”

  “Well, given the circumstances of my last encounter with your husband, I hope you will not tell him of our meeting.”

  Bethany sniffed. “I never see my husband. He has taken to living in Lexington with his mistress, and everyone knows. ‘Poor Bethany,’ they say. ‘She might as well be dead.’ Well, I just might be, and who would watch his farm, then?”

  Surely Eugene had told her how he’d sold our Tilly down the river.

  Bethany looked me right in the eye. For a moment, I doubted her sanity, but she seemed to read my mind. “That girl Tilly was nothing but trouble. I told your husband to take her. The last thing I needed was a hysterical housemaid, and me with the baby and all. ‘Silas,’ I said, ‘get her away from me before I strangle her myself.’”

  Seeing the proprietor of my hotel coming down the walk, I slid down in the carriage that I might not be seen in Bethany’s company.

  “Her mother was no better. Eugene got rid of her, too. Good riddance to both of them. But that’s neither here nor there,” Bethany said, adding that I must come to tea.

  “Promise me! Promise me!” she called out the carriage window as she pulled away, her gloved hand waving. I hadn’t asked why she looked ill.

  * * *

  After that, I fairly cowered whenever I went out, but it remained my mission to discover what was happening to Erasmus without appearing unduly concerned.

  As chance had it, I was perambulating around the jail—a high-windowed brick pile with a sign reading mason county jailhouse—glancing at the posts for the upcoming slave sales, when a woman appeared at my side. Though my eyes were poor, there was no mistaking it—the very headdress that Hatsepha had worn to debates back in the thirties. I myself would have done without a hat before donning such a monstrosity, but women often wear things that recall a certain fashion, however unbecoming. I cleared my throat and addressed the girl—for a girl she was, by all appearances, and of a simple face smattered with freckles that spoke of too much sun.

  “That is quite a lovely hat.”

  She beamed like a sunflower and adjusted the side bow with coquettish flair. “Ain’t nothing like it from here to Ver-sales,” she said, presumably naming the town in Kentucky, not France. “Bought if off a man who knows his way around a woman’s head,” she added. “And that’s not all.” She leaned in, and I thought to myself, She’s not so young after all. “Sad part is, they arrested him.” She looked vaguely familiar.

  “For selling hats?”

  “For stealing slaves. I went to see him in the jailhouse, and that jailer says, ‘You stay away from that one. He’s like the Pied Piper. Everywhere he goes, darkies disappear.’” She made a sucking sound. “I don’t believe it, though. Man like that ain’t got time for darkies. It’s the ladies he likes, and if nothing else, he might steal off someone’s daughter.”

  “But surely someone has come to help him?”

  “And that’s another thing. Every time they go arresting someone for abetting, whole bunches of ministers and abolitionists rush to their aid.” She leaned in and whispered. “But this fella’s got no one.”

  As she talked, I finally placed her. I had met her years before with Silas. Bella Mason, the daughter of the Orpheuses’ overseer. I remembered Silas saying that if Bella were anything like her mother, she would be brimming with information.

  “Such a sad story,” I said. “What do you think will happen?”

  She shrugged. “I’d say his business is pretty much finished either way. You want a hat like this, you gotta go to France.”

  * * *

  “Letter came for you,” said the hotel proprietor when I returned that afternoon. He seemed more indifferent than suspicious, but he gave the envelope a second look and said, “Seems she confused your name.”

  “Do you mind?” I said, holding out my hand, wondering if I would need to offer an explanation to preempt the speculation of why the letter was addressed to Olivia Orpheus.

  “Come from Mrs. Orpheus up at the farm,” said the proprietor. “Must’ve been in a hurry when she addressed the envelope.”

  “Ah,” said I. “Of course.” I gave a laugh to imply that this was a silly mistake that women made when jotting off ideas, and who knew why Mrs. Orpheus, the wife of Eugene, was reaching out to me, Olivia Peckham. Perhaps her daughter required tutoring.

  I sashayed to my room and tore open the letter.

  My dear sister—

  How auspicious that we met. Would that we had more time to talk, for there is so much that I want to tell you. I forgive the sorry business with that man, Handsome. If you had any agency in his disappearance, all is forgotten. He was not of much use to us anyway.

  It is of Elizabeth that I am writing. You were always solicitous about the child. Indeed, I confess that I was perplexed by your interest, for what was she to you?

  But it is upon your continued interest that I must rely, though I can say she is of modest accomplishments, being only fair at the piano and passable at French. You taught her to read, and from then on, she read with so much zeal that I was taken aback but secretly pleased, for Eugene wouldn’t have countenanced it if he’d had the choice. You know he is of a mean spirit and seldom supportive of our sex. I had hoped he would be moved by paternal feelings, but clearly he was not.

  And so I write that you might consider Elizabeth as you move about in a world that is out of my reach. Please be aware of her well-being, for I fear that she may be in need of advocates should anything happen to me which, sadly, I suspect it will.

  Yes, yes, I thought. The offspring of my nemesis who might be in need of a friend should she want to be more than a debutante married to the highest bidder. In the meantime, I had an appointment to interview for a position.

  * * *

  The Limestone Academy for Young Ladies
was a Palladian manse commissioned as a home by one of the early families of Kentucky. One wing housed the dormitory for the girls who boarded, the other held classrooms and the additional spaces for living. The cab wound its way up the bluff on a graceful drive lined by beech trees and dropped me by the stairs. I knocked the heavy brass handle, and a shy girl who wouldn’t meet my eyes led me to the headmistress’s office.

  Theodora Winslow rose from her desk. She was backlit by the morning light coming through the French doors, but I could see she was a woman of impressive height, her graying hair still abundant and quite probably her own.

  “You are Irish?” she said, holding my hand after we’d made our introduction.

  “Scots-Irish,” I said. “Long ago immigrated.”

  “We are all immigrants,” she said kindly, but I had the feeling that her ancestors predated mine and, indeed, the Republic.

  She asked what brought me to her school, and why I might want to teach young women, and all the while I answered with rehearsed lines, glancing from her to the view of the river and across to the opposite shore. So transfixed was I that it took a moment to sink in that she was repeating a question.

  “Your family?” she said.

  “Ah!” said I, coming to. “None, really. I am free as a bluebird.”

  “Free,” she said, her smile widening. “Lovely.”

  * * *

  Theodora Winslow and I spent the afternoon discussing what literature to teach, and if music should be more emphasized than language in a classic education. Soon I’d forgotten that my application had been a mere ruse. She had such merry eyes and a soothing way of speaking that I found myself wanting to have her as a friend. It had been so long since I’d had someone who truly knew my mind (Silas and maybe Julia, both gone) that when she told me the terms of my employment, I could not refuse.

  But first, I told her, noticing how beautifully her pearl bobs offset her complexion, I had to return to Ohio to get my affairs in order.