The Wedding Gift

by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

  “Theodora, I know how difficult it is for you, but you must try to forget everything that happened with Clarissa.”

  “I cannot. I need to know where my grandson is….”

  “I believe Cornelius intentionally did not tell me that because he knew you would ask me. Really, I do not know.”

  “Have you read the will?”

  “Not recently, but the lawyer is bringing his copy. Mine is at home and I haven’t seen it since it was executed. Why do you ask?”

  “I wondered whether there were any codicils referring to the child.”

  “I don’t know whether there is anything specifically referring to the child, but, yes, I understand that there are amendments to the will.”

  The lawyer and accountant arrived the next morning, and Davis directed them to Cornelius’s office. I spoke with the lawyer privately that evening.

  “Mr. Harris, did you bring the codicil to my husband’s will?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Allen, of course.”

  “What is its subject matter?”

  “At this stage, I’m not at liberty to discuss these issues.”

  “Would you at least tell me whether it relates to my daughter, Mrs. Clarissa Cromwell, and her son?”

  “No. The codicil does not concern either of them.”

  “How does the will affect Clarissa’s son?”

  “I believe I’ve said too much already, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Harris, I am not only a grieving widow but a grieving mother and grandmother.”

  “Mrs. Allen, I promise you I will work as quickly as I am able to settle the estate so that all your questions might be answered. I will reveal to you that there are certain bequests in the will that will anger some of the beneficiaries. My job will be to ensure that those beneficiaries do not challenge the will and seek its nullification.

  “Please understand that I cannot divulge information to anyone, not even to the executor of the will. This is for the protection of the estate, in order that no one tries to waste or abscond with any of the assets. But from what I have read thus far, I believe you will be pleased with the distribution of the estate.”

  “I do not care about the financial aspects of the estate as they concern me. I am only concerned about Clarissa’s son.”

  “Mrs. Allen, actually, I have a question for you about that matter. I have organized your husband’s documents that were on his desk and in the drawers. When I last met with him, he said he was drafting another codicil and that he had made arrangements about his grandson. But those papers were not here. Do you know where else he kept his documents?”

  “No, they would have been in this office. This is where he did his writing. But I will search for them.”

  I did not tell the lawyer about the document Cornelius had been drafting that I tore and burned. The lawyer’s query reminded me that, during my first week at Allen Hall, when Cornelius was teaching me about managing the household, he took me to a room in his apartment where he showed me a steel coffer hidden behind a painting. He had given me a key for the lock.

  I located the key and went there after speaking with Mr. Harris. Initially Cornelius had kept our jewels in the coffer, but he later had had another one installed in my apartment for that purpose. I had forgotten about the first one. When I opened it, I saw piles of paper currency, gold coins, and a set of documents. My heart beat fast as I learned where Cornelius had sent my grandson. When I had read everything, I had to decide what to reveal about the contents of the coffer to Mr. Harris. He did say that I would be satisfied with the terms of the will, but how might the documents indicating the whereabouts of my grandson modify his conclusion? I was troubled because the lawyer had intimated that some beneficiaries would likely oppose the will, and I had no idea what that might mean in terms of Cornelius’s specific choices. Ultimately I decided to tell Mr. Harris about the papers because I believed him when he said that he would enforce Cornelius’s wishes.

  I settled into a comfortable routine of playing with the children, tutoring them, sharing meals with everyone, and receiving guests. About two weeks after Cornelius’s death, however, there was more surprising news: Charles informed me that slave catchers had found Isaac and taken him to Allen Estates. He was being held in the jail on the plantation.

  “I read a letter from Cromwell telling Cornelius that Isaac had run. He said that Isaac stole a horse and was probably coming here to get Sarah so they could escape together. Since they brought him here, the overseers beat Isaac to try to learn Sarah’s location, but he maintains that he doesn’t know where she is,” Charles said.

  “What are you going to do? Are you sending him back to Julius?”

  “I’ll speak with the lawyer about it. Cromwell is more concerned about getting Sarah back.”

  “Charles, do you think we should abandon the search for Sarah?”

  “No, we can’t. Julius said in his letters that he’s going to file a petition in court and reveal everything if we don’t return her. I think that, if they don’t find her soon, we’ll have to tell Julius that she escaped, of course. And oh, yes, I forgot to tell you that tomorrow afternoon, after dinner, the house servants will be released to go to the fields for Isaac’s public whipping.”

  “Why do they have to go?”

  “All slaves have to watch the whipping of a runaway who is caught. It teaches them to obey our laws and that, if they try to escape, they too will be severely punished.”

  Charles discussed the future of Allen Estates with my sons and me. “As you know, I left my sons and wife to manage our plantation while I’m here, which means that I can stay until harvest begins. But I have to return home soon after that.

  “Your mother has never been involved in managing the plantation. Is anyone interested in assuming Cornelius’s place?”

  “Well, Uncle Charles, I’m not, because I enjoy being a banker. I really couldn’t see myself as a farmer,” Paul said.

  “I agree. I’m not one for working the soil, surrounded by savages,” Robert said.

  “Theodora? Are you interested in learning how to run the plantation?”

  “No, Uncle Charles, Mama couldn’t do that. And we wouldn’t allow her to stay here by herself.”

  “Theodora, Cornelius did an excellent job of teaching the overseers how to manage the plantation, and he showed you how to take care of this house. If you were interested, I could teach you to take his place.”

  “Charles, thank you for having such confidence in me, but the truth is, as Cornelius often said, I am more interested in the arts than in commerce. And I could not live here alone.”

  “Well, then, we all know what this means. You will have to sell the plantation and the house. There will be a public auction for selling the slaves and livestock.”

  The slave catchers arrived at Allen Estates the next day to speak with Charles and me.

  “We have unfortunate news to report: we have been unable to recapture your slave.”

  “Do you have any idea where she might be?”

  “No. We believed that she would go to Macon County, where you said she has friends. We watched them, but Sarah never appeared. We put up notices at places where stagecoaches depart and at boat landings.”

  “How far south did you look for her?”

  “Our agents went as far as Montgomery. Runaways often go through Wetumpka and Montgomery because of the frequency of steamboat and coach departures, and it’s easier for them to blend in because there are more people there than in most other towns in that region.”

  “Why do you think the dogs were not able to track her movements within this plantation?”

  “That I don’t understand, Mr. Allen. Our agents let the dogs smell her maid’s dress, but the dogs couldn’t match her scent on the paths. We’re usually able to find out how the slave got out of the plantation, but this time, it was as if she never left her mother’s cabin.”

  We consulted with Mr. Harris.

  “I assume Mr. Cromwell knows that
Mr. Allen and Mrs. Cromwell have passed on?”

  “Both deaths were widely reported in the newspapers throughout the Southern states. Why?”

  “In his recent letters, Mr. Cromwell hinted that the petition he will file, if you do not return Sarah, is for Mrs. Cromwell’s share of the estate.”

  “What? How could that be? He ended the marriage by sending her back.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Allen, but legally he did not end the marriage. He could argue in court that his actions were those of a wounded husband.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I suggest you continue your retainer with the slave catchers and I write Mr. Cromwell a letter telling him about Sarah. I will ask him to allow us to try to find her before he takes any action.”

  “And Isaac?”

  “I think you should continue to hold him, at least until I receive a reply from Mr. Cromwell. Are you prepared to send Isaac to him?”

  “Only if Cromwell does not file a petition.”

  “Then there is no reason to send Isaac to him now.”

  Charles told the slave catchers to continue their search, and Mr. Harris wrote to Julius. He received a reply several days later.

  “He berated Mr. Allen for supposedly allowing Sarah to escape. He’s convinced that Sarah has met Isaac somewhere, and he has launched a search for them, even though I told him that you had already retained a company to search for her.”

  “Should we tell him we have Isaac?”

  “That is your decision, but please hear what else he said. He said that, if Sarah is not recaptured in two weeks, he will file a petition in the Talladega Circuit Court for Sarah, Isaac, the twenty promised field hands, and Mrs. Cromwell’s share of Mr. Allen’s estate.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SARAH CAMBELL

  THE SUN WAS HOT ON MY FACE. HAD I FORGOTTEN to close the shutters? Why did my mother not wake me to go to the kitchen? I went back to sleep, but I was awakened with a start when I sensed that someone was staring at me. I opened my eyes to find a family of deer, a mother and her two young ones, looking at me with mournful eyes.

  “You’re so pretty. Oh, don’t run….”

  The deer disappeared into the bushes. I said my morning, no, noon prayers, because the sun was almost in the middle of the sky. I had never slept so late, and I could not believe that I did not have to rise from my bed to do anything for anyone. I took out my food and ate it with relish even though it was stale. I folded my blanket and put it in my bag. The rest of the food and Clarissa’s dress that I had worn I buried away from my sleeping site.

  I surveyed my home for the next three days: blackjack oaks, shortleaf and loblolly pines, shagbark hickories, and winged elms. Not losing sight of my bed, I took my knapsack and walked until I reached a stream and used my tin cup to drink. After I washed myself, my stomach called for food and I wandered looking for edible fruit. I ate lingonberries off the bush and picked some to take with me when I realized that I had lost the direction of the road. Dear God, how was I to find my way south? There were no familiar signs. My boots had left few marks, and following what I could make of my trail did not take me far. I explored until I found a clearing in the trees, and from there saw the peak of a mountain. I recalled that, from the area where I had slept, I could see the mountaintop as I faced in the direction of the road.

  Holding my knapsack, I sat down and memorized as much as I could about my new surroundings to avoid getting lost again. Then I fell asleep under a tree by the new clearing, even though my body hurt from lying on the ground. The nocturnal creatures were active when I awoke, and I was lonely and afraid in the dark. I ate fruit and listened to life in the wildwoods, then prayed and recited my favorite verses. When it was about eleven o’clock, I went to the road and walked until just before dawn, and then I returned to the thicket alongside the road.

  The next two days I spent in the forest. Nothing occurred on the first day, but the second almost made me want to surrender.

  I was sitting in the shade, resting, when I heard two voices arguing, and they sounded like the overseers at Allen Estates. I took my belongings and crouched behind a bush, from where I could see two men, one of them obese, carrying rifles. Their backs were to me.

  “We ain’t never going to find nobody in here.”

  “Let’s walk around some more. They said they saw three niggers coming in this direction. If we catch all of them, we can get a good two hundred dollars in rewards.”

  “I’m tired and hungry and it’s hot. I say we wait for them in town.”

  “Come on. Let’s walk around a little more and then we’ll leave.”

  “All right, but I got to make water first.”

  The obese one turned to relieve himself and I thought he saw me. I stayed still because I did not want him to notice any sudden motion. He narrowed his eyes.

  “Hey, you see something over there?”

  “Where?”

  “Straight ahead.”

  “Nah. I don’t see nothing.”

  “Well, let’s go over and look.”

  They walked toward me and I knew that I had to risk moving or they would catch me. I crawled backward until I found a different bush to hide behind. I heard them speak as they inspected the area where I had been. They must have assumed a deer had lain under the tree where I had slept, and having found no one, they left.

  The third night, about seven o’clock, I went toward the road. When I was near it, I hid until about eleven o’clock, and then I resumed traveling. Using moonlight to see and the North Star as my guide, I walked south until the sun was about to rise before I returned to the woodlands. I rested by a brook where I could not be seen from the road.

  When the sun was out, I took off my dress and washed. Then I used one of the cloths that I had brought to wrap around my chest. I tied a tight knot in front and tucked it underneath.

  I put on the men’s undergarments and one of my men’s suits of clothing and the hat, which I smoothed and tried to shape, as it was crushed from being in the bag. I transferred some of my currency and my traveling pass from the pockets of the dress to the inside pockets of the jacket. My headscarf and dress, with the rest of the money and my freedom paper, I folded and put at the bottom of the sack. I went back to the road and walked, and after about thirty minutes, I reached La Fayette. There were people about, but not many, on horseback and in wagons and small carriages. They looked at me but not in a hostile manner. The town had a general store, a blacksmith, a lawyer’s office, a cobbler, and three or four other merchants’ buildings. I went to the grocery store and spoke to the man behind the counter.

  “Good morning, sir. I needs some food. I got money to pay for it.”

  “Sure, but you need cooked food, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Corrine. Corrine, get out here.”

  A servant came out.

  “Fix this boy a plate of food.”

  He told me to pay him in advance, and I did. Corrine took me to the kitchen, which was in the rear of the store. She thrust a piece of pork and a biscuit in my hand.

  “Run. Go. He’s getting the sheriff. He know you a runaway.”

  “But I have a pass.”

  “He don’t care. They’ll put you in jail until they find out if it’s real. Stop talking, boy, and run.”

  “But how did he know?”

  “You ain’t got no place to stay or cook food. See that path yonder? Go on it. It going to take you to the road to Tallapoosa.”

  My feet seemed stuck to the ground, but she pushed me and I ran and did not stop until there was sufficient bush to conceal me. The Negro dogs barked in the distance, but they appeared to be going in a different direction. I rested and then continued on the path for about two hours. I saw an abandoned shack near a stream and took shelter there until eleven that night, and then I resumed walking. Tallapoosa was not where I wanted to go, but to Macon County, where Clarissa’s aunt and her freed servants, who had been hospitable to us whe
never Isaac and I went there with Clarissa, lived.

  My scheme had been to take a stagecoach from La Fayette to Macon County and seek assistance from the servants. I wanted to stay in Macon County for a few weeks, until the slave catchers hopefully stopped looking for me. From there, I planned to avoid the city of Montgomery by going around the southern border of Montgomery County, and then head west to the Alabama River. Now I would have to go through Tallapoosa County, which was just below Talladega County and north of Montgomery County. Slave catchers from throughout the state were always in Montgomery, waiting for runaways seeking to board the steamboats.

  With no other recourse, I walked on the path at night, hiding in the woods during the day, until the path merged with the main road. Whenever I came upon a body of water in the forest, I soaked my feet in it, as I had developed blisters that bled. I was so hungry that, more than once, I thought of eating worms. If I had had a gun and known how to hunt and build a fire, I would have had plenty to eat, because the forest was full of wild ducks, turkeys, and cottontail rabbits.

  One night, as I was dreaming about my mother’s cooking, I smelled roasting venison. I woke when the aroma wafted around me and I walked a few yards following the smell. I saw smoke in the distance. I continued forward, moving from bush to bush to ensure I would not be seen, until I heard men speaking. They did not sound like slave catchers, but I wanted to be sure. Cautiously, I made my way closer until I saw two Negroes sitting on rocks by a fire. I considered approaching them, but thinking of what had happened to Belle, I was afraid of being alone in the presence of unknown men. My hunger pangs returned, and then I remembered that, thus far, those who had seen me assumed me to be a man. I tightened the binding around my chest, folded my blanket, and put it in my sack. I went near them and cleared my throat. They saw me but did not appear surprised.

  “Who you?”

  “Sir, I is William, William Campbell.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there, come over here, yella fella.”