Stand the Storm

by Breena Clarke

  “As I have said, sir, I act for my uncle in this precinct. Will you tell me your business?” The young man’s manner deflated Joe Bungate a hair.

  “I do not come about a suit of clothes, sir. So run your monkey off as ’tis a business for white men,” he said, eyeing Gabriel.

  “State your business, sir, or take your leave,” Aaron Ridley answered, and gestured a nonchalant flourish with his hand. Gabriel held his tongue and the ground upon which he stood.

  “ ’Tis a slave child you’re holding that is rightfully a babe belonging to a white woman name of Katharine Logan,” Bungate began uncertainly. “This girl is no slave of Mr. Jonathan Ridley. She is the product of unfortunate circumstance. We would relieve you and your people of the responsibility of her.” He bowed obsequiously, having sputtered out his tale.

  “How is it that you know of these facts, sir?” Aaron Ridley inquired.

  Bungate turned and spoke to the front windowpane as if actually he intended that passersby would read his lips. He did not look directly at either Ridley or Gabriel as he spoke.

  “Aye, this Katharine yonder was but a helpless girl ravished by a beast of a slave on the Warren place. ’Twas used ill by the missus there and the head cook. These two gave the child to your Ellen,” Bungate continued. “The child is being held illegal and away from its best interests.” The rough-edged man turned from the window, though his eyes were trained on the floor at Aaron Ridley’s feet and his thumbs again pulled at his lapels. He fidgeted and insisted that Katharine’s claim was bolstered by evidence from the attending midwife, Meander. He finished his speech with a nervous demand: “Hand over the girl to her rightful circumstance.”

  Not the least moved by Katharine’s travail as presented by Joe Bungate and having been accosted by Bungate on the way to his morning meal, Aaron Ridley was no longer polite.

  “Sir, this is a questionable claim. However, I will inform my uncle of it.” He felt early-morning irritability and was impatient for his coffee and biscuits. He told Bungate to return in a week’s time to inquire.

  “Return at the rear door, my good fellow. It is only gentlemen who enter at the front,” Aaron pronounced with a recently cultivated hauteur.

  Aaron did write to his uncle. He described the situation as presented and the parties involved. He included his own opinion that Joe Bungate and Katharine should be horsewhipped for their audacity.

  The unpleasant facts came as some relief to Jonathan Ridley because they confirmed his own suspicions. He’d doubted the story that Ellen had borne the child. Her body had had no swelling left from carrying the babe and no striations on her flesh. Her breasts had still been meager and adolescent and she had brought with her from Warren a goat for baby milk. And no woman he’d ever known who’d borne a child was still so tight and narrow between her legs. It was this blissful tightness that was Ellen’s only appeal, for she had been more sullen and unwilling when she had returned from Warren with the babe.

  Ridley’s azure eyes gamboled when he confronted Katharine and Joe in his rooms at the Whilton Hotel. He was merry, for he knew he could win his cause. Both of the miscreants were too nervous of soiling the opulent furnishings in the Whilton to accept a seat even if Jonathan Ridley had offered one. And Ridley certainly did not. He would not show them a fig of courtesy.

  “I care not at all to whom the child is connected by birth. It returned with Ellen and has been fed and clothed by me. I am given the story that the child is hers and that is firm and firmly known. When it comes to proof, a slave midwife’s word means nothing.” In answer to their sputterings and protestations, Ridley raised his hand and commanded their silence.

  “Quiet! You will go to jail for your part in this fraud, good fellow.” He waved away Joe Bungate’s protest.

  Then Jonathan Ridley upbraided Katharine Logan for daring to suggest congress between a white woman and a black slave.

  “If this ignominy had befallen you as you claim then, if you were decent, you should surely have killed yourself before the child was born. You are making a false claim!” Jonathan Ridley said. He raised his hand to the side of Katharine’s head and struck her. The hard thwack landed on her temple as Ridley pronounced that she was lucky to be thought merely a liar. The blow was tepid in comparison with what she’d become accustomed to from Joe Bungate, but the vehemence of Ridley’s power frightened her.

  “She will stay with us, but ’tis in Master’s pocket that she lives. ’Tis only we poor ones who feed her.” Gabriel angrily interpreted the proceedings, which had been reported to him by Aaron Ridley. He had held on to a tick of hope that Ridley would concede the girl to Katharine, her natural mother. Ellen would be pained to separate from the girl—but pained for a while only, Gabriel thought. They would have been free of the bright nuisance of her!

  Ellen stood facing Gabriel. Never frightened of him, she was always a head shorter and looking up into his eyes in adoration. “Brother, I love this child. She is my child. I . . .”

  “Yes, Sister, but you have taken a clod of dirt that is disputed between dung beetles.” Gabriel’s words sliced at Ellen with an unaccustomed sharpness. “Sister, you should take a husband and bring your own children. This girl is an impediment to you.”

  “I will pay for her freedom. As agreed, I will save the money for her papers. Master Ridley has it that I will bring him the money. My heart obliges me, Gabriel,” Ellen insisted. “We can offer him a good price and buy her freedom.”

  “Her looks are a premium upon her value. He will command a high price,” Gabriel said.

  “Nanny, will you take Delia’s bond?” Ellen confronted her mother.

  Annie sat quietly. For the first time she did not impede her children’s voices and she did not intervene. Ellen pulled her into it. “Nanny, does this child mean nothing to you?”

  “We are feeding her, Ellen. And she remains in Master Ridley’s pocket. He is yet making plans upon her. You may depend on it. He will not sell her to you so cheaply as before.”

  “She does not eat so much. I will halve my own portion and give it to her if it will matter. I will take what remains for me and halve that and give it to you, Brother, to make your belly bigger!”

  “Be quiet!” Gabriel commanded her. “They have given you something rude and ill fitting for yourself and you have tried mightily to make a whole of it. But what starts out badly ends badly!”

  “Let her loose now, Ellen.” Annie’s words startled, though she patted her daughter’s shoulders to make them seem kinder.

  “Nanny, you wrong me. You bought a wife for Gabriel and you will not buy this daughter for me?” Pitiful tears poured down Ellen’s face, unrestrained.

  “Take hold of yourself, girl!” Annie grabbed Ellen’s shoulders and shook her. “We bought Mary low. She was sick and broken and they sold her low. This child will sell high and Ridley smells it now. Mark me, it will not be long.”

  “I will cut her face. None will want her and he will sell her to me cheaply.”

  “Aye, that would bring her low. But it would not cancel her value to the ones who could use her. And perhaps you would ruin a chance for her,” Gabriel put in. “If she is to the taste of the rich gentlemen, then let her to it. It would be a soft life.” The women were silent in response. Neither guessed that Gabriel was so cruelly knowing.

  Harsh as it was, though, Annie did feel the same as Gabriel. The girl didn’t belong to them and carried a mark on her nature. She could likely come to trouble. And the trouble would be for them. Why not let Ridley’s trading factors take her? And Gabriel had the point that Ellen might form up with a man and have babes of her own if this troublesome child were out of the way.

  Annie had wishes for Ellen just as she had for Gabriel. They were more vague from the outset and had now become uncertain and filled with disappointment. But still she pictured a hardworking man and some natural children for her girl, as any mother would.

  “Listen to Gabriel, girl,” Annie said. “He knows a man�
�s appetite better than you.”

  Gabriel felt the bristle in his mother’s words, but he spoke coolly to finish the debate. “A man that wants a fancy with buttermilk skin and red hair might give Delia a life of some ease and rich belongings. This would be preferred to being taken up rudely and sold away. Consider the unpleasant possibilities, Sister. Even if you bought her you could not easily keep her free in this town. Do not be rash. With her clumsiness at fine work, we cannot use her. She’ll be hoisting buckets to make a living.” Gabriel pressed on to show Ellen the picture. “With a lovely face, perhaps she will appeal to a gentleman of taste who will treat her well. Let her stay pretty awhile,” Gabriel said. He grasped Ellen’s two hands between his, lacing her fingers with his own. “And let Master Ridley take her when he comes for her. He is the one who will decide, Sister.” He kissed Ellen’s fingers and sought to work her to his opinion with the appeals of his affection for her.

  Twenty-one

  SEWING ANNIE COATS was no child to go to bed when told. She let Gabriel have the crowing, for a rooster needs the exercise. She only gave him this leave because he was an infrequent storm—not usually one to fuss and argue at the top of his lungs.

  “Nanny, please go on to bed,” Gabriel said. “Please take your leave and let me be. I have a sour stomach and I can’t bear company this evening. I must wrestle with this, Nanny.” He said “Nanny” in his way of customary childlike respect and affection and this adornment blunted the rudeness of his command. The others had left without word or questioning gesture. They accepted that he could command them.

  Gabriel had ordered Mary to put the children up and go to bed. The tense atmosphere had chased Ellen from the room and Delia had followed her.

  Sewing Annie remained behind the others and looked at her son to take his temperature. Tonight in the workroom his eyes betrayed a deep shock and fear. They lighted nowhere, only flickered from one hand to another, one wall to another. She could not engage his eyes—pin them and probe them for an explanation. He rubbed at a spot an inch from his heart. Annie feared he was stricken with an infirmity, but the rubbing caused a sound of crackling and she realized a paper was in his breast pocket. He rubbed it over and over.

  Reluctant to engage displeasure, Annie went to her bed. Gabriel insisted he wanted to agitate the problem alone. Let him be alone then!

  Annie sat on the edge of her bed. She listened to Gabriel scratching on paper and blowing breath with exasperation. She, too, agitated. She pitied her son for what she saw from the upstairs window. Back and forth he went to the outhouse. The evening’s stew would not stay with him. It was Gabriel’s point of greatest vulnerability—his gut. It was where his fear and anger lodged, but would not settle. A cup of tea might help him. But his puzzling annoyance was potent. She’d like to brew tea for him, but would not test his nerves or her own.

  Annie sat upon the side of the bed wearing her night shift and shivering some despite the stiff, hot summer air. She rubbed absently at her breasts. She strained to hear Gabriel and she pictured his moves about the room below. Aye, tonight he was as impatient and disagreeable as the mother had ever known him.

  Annie rose, dressed again, and wrapped herself in a shawl. She descended the stairs, went to the front of the shop without a lamp, and left by the door that opened onto the street. She did not come and go by this front door in daylight, but would claim some action this evening. She chafed at being barred from the kitchen workroom by Gabriel’s fulminations.

  There was a short, wide tree stump of little consequence a few steps from the front door of the tailor shop and Annie sat on it musing. A dim light on a pole beside the stump illumined the night.

  In summer, in Washington there is always the fear that the thick, humid air carries illness to swirl around the heads of residents. Little relief comes with the dimming of the sun, for the haze thus caused produces a miasma. Inside the constricting house at Bridge and High Streets, it was as though one was facedown in straw and suffocating.

  Annie looked out from her seat on the prospect overlooking the riverbank, pulled on her bottom lip, and deposited a dollop of snuff there. She brushed the powder from her hands. She circulated the snuff in her saliva and considered the scene. She spat and watched. Around the clock, the thoroughfare was choked with outbound men and provisions. Inbound the wounded and the detritus flowed.

  In step with soldiers and frightened bondpersons lumbering into town was a legion of rats. These were heartier than most of the folk walking, plodding, and trudging alongside them. They were fatter by far. They were as well mud-covered and dragged their long tails through copious puddles and piles of garbage. Stubborn vigilance had once driven them out of Georgetown. But they were returning now with a bit of impudence in their demeanor.

  The rats sought transport on any moving thing crossing the river away from south. Likely they were escaping a frying pan in Virginia. Since the conflict had begun, much news of starvation in the Virginia countryside had reached Georgetown. Even rats were clever enough to know that there was now more edible garbage on this side of the Potomac River. Carts, wagons, and small skiffs hauled wounded soldiers back from the battles and rats rode on the litters to dine on gangrenous limbs. In barrels and haversacks they rode and leaped ashore as soon as they reached the shallows. They’d been seen riding atop bodies floating downstream. The nearly dead and deadly exhausted humans the rats accompanied into town had little spirit to fight with them. Some of the wounded were so grievously hurt and dosed with laudanum that a rat’s bite went unnoticed. Escaping from Confederates emboldened the rodents or as likely had culled the weak from their numbers. And these rats, devouring rotted flesh, could be said to perform a good service as the number of soldiers’ bodies brought from battle lines to the capital far exceeded the capabilities of the town’s embalmers. This was true even though the number of morticians had swollen with the war.

  Uphill the rats climbed from riverfront to the pavement at Bridge Street. Annie pondered the many in their limitless army she had fought and displaced in the root cellar of the tailor shop. She’d chased them with burning tapers and had clubbed, knifed, and hung pelts to drive them out—to gain the place for the family’s own hiding and provisions. The rats had left the cellar to her superior vigilance, as there were places to go where people cared less. Now, when the women and Gabriel might need to go down for shelter and safety, the rats were returning to reclaim their precinct.

  Cold winters on Ridley Plantation had been instructive. Annie thought to set a trap for these Georgetown rats. A time might come when they would be a delicacy.

  Frogs, too, had become numerous. Frogs at the riverbank, an ordinarily sonorous group, now croaked at their loudest and most constant until the air was full of them. The sound was raucous and was rattling to the nerves and sounded as though a fear had taken hold of them. The practicing artillery fire, the stomping and marching that rumbled the ground, and the frantic, nervous people had frogs harrying the quiet. The hopping fools should have been more careful. Folks were reminded of “frogs in a pot, frogs in a pan” and the croakers’ numbers would, in a few hungry weeks, be vastly reduced.

  Sewing Annie had reckoned hundreds of the beasts before she realized for herself what she was doing. It was habitual to count—to tote up, to reckon things. It was the habit of her labor and her son’s. In fact, she mused with some humor, between them all it was the thing they mostly did. The stitches and the buttons and the lengths and the bites and measures—the whole box and dice of it was their occupation.

  There was this, too: the perfume of baking bread in the air wafting regularly as the wind blew it from the direction of the downtown. A seat high and dry was good to catch this aromatic bread breeze.

  Ah! There was much competition for stinking up. The increasing number of horses in town perfumed the air considerably and the diseases that plagued them and numerous mules and the odor of gunpowder and machine oils and rotting flesh were bundled together. The smell of cook fires, too,
pervaded and the smoke from these stung the eyes. Most any animal that had lived within the city’s limits could be found on a spit above a fire now. In back of every thoroughfare, a crude encampment with crude cook fires was burning fetid fuel. The fainthearted could not stand it.

  Annie surprised herself with longing for Ridley Plantation. She missed it. It was air she missed. Even on the most stifling days in the loom room at Ridley, the air was not so stagnant as here; rather, it was sweetly redolent of clover. It contained clarity of fragrance that the tumbled-up city of so many people could never have. Though Annie had been shut up at Ridley and not inclined to sit upon a stump and muse, she had been able to spread her lungs without coughing and peer through a window and see far afield. This exercise—encouraged by her mentor—had relaxed the sockets of her eyes, so strained in close work.

  Annie’s eyes got moist when they succumbed to tiredness. She mashed and rubbed them. Recollections of her years beside the old woman Knitting Annie came and buoyed her. This city living would have flummoxed the old one. She would have had no idea about this place. She had been a sweet old blossom and her resting back at Ridley is what kept the place dear to Annie.

  Annie drew knitting needles from the slit pocket in her skirt. She pulled them from deep in the needlewoman’s hiding sleeve—a place every daughter of Dorcas would cut into her clothing. She settled and ran her fingers along the needles before employing them. These were especial ones made of bone that had been given to her by Gabriel. He had saved aside to give her a fancy present of carved bone knitting needles. Ah, they were beautifully cut! And they were rubbed but still untempered, and she drew them out for rubbing throughout the day. Her fingers glided into the work and oriented her. Her fingers were about their accustomed business and the exercise regulated her breathing and clarified her thoughts.

  What was plaguing Gabriel?

  Turning a sock on the needles in her hand, Annie pondered the noisy paper in Gabriel’s pocket. She trembled a bit to consider a paper that could cause such a change in her constant son. Why hadn’t he confided in her as he’d always done? But of course it had come, Annie thought wryly. A day comes—a moment of realization. The son has gone over to his nature and is no longer yours to guide and influence.