Stand the Storm

by Breena Clarke

  Annie thought to sling the pail of fish on Daniel, but was loath to waste them. They were still wriggling and fresh and she was peeved that this conversation was delaying their preparation. She stood and imagined that the front of her dress had grown cold, wet, and that Daniel had slung her with fish guts. His words had the smell of rotten. And it had just come to her what he had meant all along. Had she never considered the way she held to Gabriel—how it did look? It was just that the footloose, orphaned Daniel Joshua had never known a hearth like hers and Gabriel’s. It was in Daniel—dumb Daniel —that the shame lived.

  “You’re a pretty cork, Annie. I can do you some good,” Daniel put it explicitly. “For that I’m better than your son.”

  “Aye, I’m sure you can,” Annie declared. “But I will stay in this house—his house.”

  “Ah, you want me for a fancy and him for a husband! Shame on you, Annie Coats. I’ll keep my shoes elsewhere, girl,” he said without rancor.

  “I want a constant son and a sometimes man,” Annie said. “It’s what I want plain and simple. And I know I got it,” she added confidently.

  Daniel Joshua was wounded. He would maintain his secret abode. Annie could not make a house dog of him. But when his pride was salved he intended to come back to put his shoes beneath her bed.

  “Such as that is a nasty sight, whore!” a woman barked at Ellen. Her voice was low-pitched and gravelly, but thrown out loudly across the expanse of the street. Drawn up to a height that was a head above Ellen’s, she stood in a yard on Prospect Street across from the open lot.

  Ellen and Delia, their identical shoddy skirts stirring in the soft rustling morning wind, were pulling up wild dandelions with two slung bags over their shoulders. At the sound of the woman’s coarse voice, Ellen raised her head from contemplation of her gatherings. The woman’s eyes were upon her and Delia. Most pointedly it was Delia that the woman gazed upon with harsh expression. She pointed her finger menacingly. Startled, Ellen cocked her head to one side and curtsied with subservience. The sudden movement caused her to drop the greens. She pushed Delia’s head down and tugged the kerchief to hide all the girl’s red ringlets. The two remained bowed and frightened—altogether stilled. They shielded their faces as if deflecting blows until the woman turned from watching them. Both retrieved their spilled and trampled dandies under duress of the woman’s stare.

  Ellen’s body shook long after the woman had gone. She pulled her shawl up around her neck and impatiently shoved Delia through the streets to return to the back of the store. When they arrived in their yard Ellen’s heart was throbbing and she was at pains to catch a breath. Delia, too, panted like a small animal, for she had been marched ahead of her mother and her strength was taxed.

  “Say nothing, girl!” Ellen commanded, and twisted up the girl’s locks. Gabriel was so nervous of their coming and going through the streets that he often cautioned her irritably. Ellen knew that Delia’s looks and circumstance were the source of his ill ease. And Nanny was uneasy, too. If her mother found out about this trouble on the street, then Gabriel would soon know. She tied a kerchief so tight around Delia’s head as to cause the child neuralgia.

  Nineteen

  “AYE, GABRIEL, WILL you drink coffee?” Mary said aloud, and rose as her husband entered the workroom. All eyes were upon her as she rushed to remove his coat from him for a brushing. It had taken a long time for Mary to overcome her shyness and use her husband’s name aloud before the others. But when she said it now there was a smug and knowing flavor to it. This new possessiveness did delight Gabriel. Her industry and her womb gently tugged him away from his mother’s authority.

  When the baby girl came, there was a shift of affection in the entire household and the new babe became the center of all. Gabriel gave over to exuberance and fascination and playfulness in such a way that those who knew him were greatly amazed.

  “Mother, is this baby needing something?” he so frequently asked his wife that she rebuked him good-naturedly.

  “Gabriel, she has all the riches in the world. She has your heart in her pocket,” Mary said.

  “Aye, Brother Gabriel. This love has the flavor of ribbons and geegaws. It is not good to spoil a girl. We will not be able to have her hand in work if you indulge her so,” Annie chastised him, with some waggling of her fingers at the child. “Na, Na, Na, Namama,” she urged the girl to say. In the pleasant breeze of Mary and Gabriel’s joy, Annie indulged herself, hoisting the baby above her head and twirling around and singing a nonsense song.

  “Mother, has this girl got small, beautiful hands? She will be good for fine work like Sis Ellen,” Gabriel effused dreamily.

  Mary, consumed with caring for her babe, was brushed glowing with her husband’s excitement.

  Gabriel renewed his passion for Mary and his dreams and he had them both as a tonic each late evening. So if the two parents were not equal up to now, they had become so with the birth of Naomi. Now they had the pull of sharing this child—each possessing the other within the child—each able to love the other with caring for her.

  Before the first-year anniversary of Naomi another was coming. The parents, used to unmitigated happiness, were lighthearted in waiting for this one. She came and was named Ruth because Mary and Gabriel had become members of Mount Zion Church and had become enamored of Bible tales. This sealed a bond between the sisters.

  “Another clutch of pretty fingers!” the father exclaimed, and examined the new girl’s tiny hands. Gabriel betrayed no disappointment that the children were girls. Instead he did the unthinkable: he wished upon them. He made plans for their future.

  “Brother Gabriel, restrain yourself,” Annie said at the birth of the third girl, Pearl. “We have proof of you. You are a man and we know it now. We are at some pains to take care of all of these children.”

  “Nanny! I’m no child in your lap!” Gabriel cried out indignantly.

  “Aye. Like I said, we have proof of it!”

  “Nanny!” He chafed at her advice and her teasing.

  “There are other women abroad the town, Brother,” his mother said knowingly.

  Young Delia gave up her place to the newer children. The grown women shifted and adjusted duties to fuss over the small ones. Even Ellen was lost in the finger-waggling and cooing attentions on the babies. She accepted her rung in the household. She clung to a place in her brother’s orbit, for he was ever in the orbit of their mother. She clung to Delia as her only jot of happiness. And now she applied herself to helping care for Gabriel’s children.

  But a blister rose between the siblings. Gabriel was no longer warm toward Delia, nor even inclined to credit her presence. He no longer spoke to the girl except to upbraid her or give her a command.

  Delia became silent when her uncle came into the room. Mary and Annie and Ellen danced around, attentive to his requests. Turned full face toward the stove, she greeted him with a slight genuflection then turned back to her chores. Unless he spoke to her, she did not speak. Long ago Delia had stopped trying to match her mother’s needlework. Nothing she had ever produced even reached a level with Ellen’s mistakes. And nothing that she had fashioned with her seemingly unlikely hands had ever reached the standard of her uncle’s expectations. The Coatses’ expectations were high. They wanted the beautifully cultivated precision needlework that came from Annie. Mary accomplished it by dent of great industry. Ellen was simply endowed with it. But Delia struggled.

  “She does not have your blood, Nanny. She is no girl for fine work like your children are,” Gabriel said to his mother.

  The girl heard him because she was well used to standing in the dark pantry listening to them. They were secretive and complicit, Gabriel and Annie. She felt justified in ghosting on them. They were the planners who decided upon all between them. And it was they who dragged the others—Mary and Ellen and her and the babies—along. It was good to know their plans. Delia stretched herself across some sacks of rice and heard all.

  “She ha
s the blood of her mother. She has the tempers and infirmity of this woman. She has the blood of a slattern and this may, in some way, be catching. It is possible that a bad girl can infect others while they are yet still good. They might catch a fever of wantonness from her and be pulled away from what is proper.”

  Delia had always known there was a stain upon her even though she did not know its character.

  When she saw the affection that was lavished on the infants, Naomi, Ruth, and Pearl, she realized fully what she had lacked. This unrestrained love, this affection that was unashamed, was gleefully given to the babies—was so much more than the shadow of care that the Coatses had for her. Not Ellen! Only Ellen, her mother, had truly cared for her.

  Mary was quietly sympathetic to Delia’s aches. She knew the girl was not included in Gabriel’s grand plans.

  “Gabriel, she has given you no cause to condemn her. You must not turn her out,” Mary said. “She is a pure girl and we must keep her so. We will keep her at work with us.” Through familiarity Mary had grown sure of herself with Gabriel and did not hesitate to appeal to him.

  “We need her help, Brother Gabriel. You have given us so many babes to keep. We’ll need the girl’s help,” Annie said finally and flatly. She did not love this gal either and was nervous, too. But Ellen must be considered and they needed her hands as well.

  Gabriel’s instinct was to argue with his mother and with Mary. But he governed himself. The women were softhearted and shortsighted and would be proved wrong, he was certain. They pushed him forth to be leader of their band, but sometimes they were in league against him!

  “Would you send Ellen’s babe away from her now that you have these of your own?” Annie spoke quietly.

  Ellen came to wonder in what position to place herself. She felt Gabriel’s wife was her ally, but she was wary of coming between a pair in love as Mary and Gabriel were. Gabriel! She had always owned his affection. Ellen and Gabriel had not fought over their mother’s breasts. He had delighted in her when she was a babe and continued his love for her as they grew up. But now he was becoming harsh and uncompromising! Ellen agreed with her daughter. It was good to know his plans—their plans, her brother’s and her mother’s. The umbrella of their lookout was in some measure uncomfortable for Ellen. She, too, floated to the periphery and realized the two were most attentive to their own interests.

  Twenty

  THE WOMAN WHO came into the tailoring shop was a surprise to Gabriel’s eyes and nose as soon as they fixed on her. The fragrance that wafted through the doorway ahead of her was indelicate. It was a foul amalgam of crude perfume and careless hygiene. Gabriel’s eyes darted up and down as he tried to take her in quickly. He had developed the habit of squinting—a mannerism that allowed him to make more complete observations of white people than a colored person was generally allowed to get because of the custom that a colored person, bond or free, must cast his eyes to the floor in the face of a white person. It was impertinent in the extreme and punishable to be caught gazing into the eyes of whites. Though Gabriel’s work put him in daily, intimate contact with white persons, he was extremely careful to glance at them indirectly. His squinting manner was a cover that afforded him a chance for a good look.

  Right away Gabriel realized this woman was not his typical customer. Her clothing was cheaply made. The velvet material was coarse and in need of a stiff and vigorous brushing. And the woman did not wear it well. The length and weight of the fabric of the skirt overwhelmed her and she hoisted it rudely with each step. The faded yellow dress flattered neither her red hair nor the eyes that were the gray of a dreary day. Further, Gabriel opined that the high red color on her cheeks was a result of more drink than was the general habit for a lady.

  Gabriel wrestled mentally with how he must act toward her. She was no lady—white or not. She looked like a cheap woman and he didn’t want her to be seen in the shop.

  The nine years since Katharine Logan had given birth to her babe had been harsh to her. She had endured cruelty from Mrs. Clover for one more year after the birth. Then she had left the Warren Plantation in the company of a cock of the walk called Joe Bungate. The two had begun a romantic liaison that took them to several states deeper south. By the time they reached New Orleans, Katharine’s illusions were as an overturned pot of gruel—all spilled out and going cold.

  In the course of her traveling love affair with Joe, Katharine had revealed the secret of her bastard child. Ever on the lookout for a moneymaking scheme, Joe Bungate had hatched a plan to lay claim to the child. He figured the two could make a profit by selling her to a house that had want of a young mulatto carrottop.

  “Let her grow up as a char in a bawdy house. We can hire her. ’Tis how my mam began. Let her take her place when the time comes. We can take the profit in setting her up so well,” Joe said convincingly. This was an old game and a sure one.

  Joe Bungate’s scheme seemed reasonable to Katharine. No fledgling maternal feelings had survived her vilification by Mrs. Clover and Mistress Warren. In a turn of luck for Bungate and Katharine, they had managed to locate the old midwife, Meander. Put off the Warren place for getting old, Meander had made her way to Washington, too. And for the price of a bag of flour, a sack of cornmeal, and a block of salt, Meander had agreed to speak up to Master Ridley about the birth of Katharine’s child.

  “A gal that calls herself Ellen has a babe that ain’t her own. I want to know where that gal is,” Katharine said to the colored man who’d asked her what help she needed.

  Gabriel’s ears received such a shock at her words that his startled reaction was visible. He fought to regain control of his facial expressions.

  “Missus, I do not understand,” he said most unctuously, surprising even himself.

  Katharine caught his fleeting look and was indignant at the disrespect she read in Gabriel’s face. She continued sharply, “I know this gal is your sister. I have word that she is living here. Call her out. I want to talk to her about the babe.”

  “I would ask you what business you have with Ellen. She’s hard at her work and cannot come forth, Missus,” Gabriel said.

  “She is keeping a girl that belongs to me. She took her and I’m here to get her back. I will take it up with Mr. Jonathan Ridley himself. I have the midwife that knows the story. You tell Ellen that Katharine Logan says to give up the child!” She built up to her forceful conclusion, gaining courage and conviction as she spoke.

  Gabriel’s reply was interrupted by Aaron Ridley’s entrance into the shop. Walking through the door briskly, he stopped short at the sight of Katharine. There was a brief moment when he was unsure what lady had graced their shop and thought to spruce up to meet the challenge. But Aaron Ridley, too, made a quick assessment of the badly dressed woman and drew his conclusions.

  He said to Katharine, “We have no need of a char. We have our own people. Good day, madam.” Aaron Ridley then held open the door for Katharine to leave and the bell atop it jangled. Katharine was too flummoxed to do other than look at Gabriel briefly, curtsy with a jot of humility, and go back out into the street.

  Gabriel bowed his head with a quick dip toward young Ridley and moved to the back workroom. He continued out the back door to the center of the yard after having signaled with an inclination of the head for Ellen to join him.

  “The woman who bore your Delia and the midwife who witnessed intend bruiting about the child’s birth in order for the mother to lay a claim to her. They are going to testify to their story to Jonathan Ridley—to get him to turn her over.” Gabriel spoke plainly. Ellen stood still with her face locked in fearful grimace. The thing she had finally stopped being afraid to consider had happened. Nothing in her sphere of knowledge suggested that Katharine Logan would come to claim the child. Nine years! Nearly ten!

  “Now she comes?” Ellen gasped. “After all of this time she would come to say this child is hers? Does she dare it?”

  “I believe there is another behind the scenes in this.
What will you do, Sister?” Gabriel’s manner was stern, but not unkind.

  “I saw her born and they gave her to me—to cover up the shame. I was not allowed to refuse her. I ’tend to keep her with me,” Ellen declared.

  Katharine, Meander, Mrs. Clover, and Mrs. Warren—all of them, with Ellen included—had come up and told a lie. All of them had been in it and they weren’t going to go back on it now. A feeling got trembling inside of Ellen that said to stand against all and hold on to Delia.

  “Brother, I am on this rock and will not budge off it,” Ellen told Gabriel, and prepared herself to face his displeasure.

  Gabriel only shook his head to say that he’d heard and understood. He turned back to the shop. Would that they could take advantage of this opportunity to be rid of her, he thought.

  Neither Gabriel nor Aaron Ridley was impressed with the cut of Joe Bungate when he came to the tailoring shop with Katharine the next day. He had, at least, used a brush on his coat and trousers and had worked up some spit for his boots. He’d been attentive to the whiskers on his chin, too. Just after sunrise at the transient encampment west of town where the two were temporarily settled, Bungate had set up his mirror and lathered himself with no assistance from the slattern. She had been told with the back of his hand to keep her mouth closed and do as he instructed. She had cut him a wide berth and only looked at him slantwise.

  Bungate waited with his foot hitched on a tree trunk, then entered the tailor shop when the window shades were raised.

  “I call to see Mr. Jonathan Ridley!” he exclaimed with thumbs screwed in his lapels. Bungate’s dull brown hair was slicked to his head and shined like the surface of his boots.

  “I act for my uncle, sir. May I help you with a suit of clothes?” Aaron answered, with a polite expression that nevertheless could turn off quickly.

  “I come to speak to Mr. Jonathan Ridley. Is he about, young sir?” Bungate chose to say.