Stand the Storm

by Breena Clarke

  Mary halted, balanced her laundry load, and pried the babe’s stringy fingers from her skirt. His little fingers were wound tight, though his strength and endurance seemed dangerously used up. His facial features were sunken and he bore the look of an old person, with a frosting of light hair at his temples and ashy skin. A young girl with an expectant look on her tobacco-leaf face came to retrieve him.

  Mary pressed a penny in this girl’s hand and bade her, “Buy milk for the boy.” The girl smiled at her good fortune and kept onward with the advancing column of contrabands. She hoisted the child on her hip with bundles tied on her back and some more bundles tied as a sausage at her waist. The group moved eastward under press of the provost marshals and headed for the encampment on 12th Street. Mary wondered at the girl’s lighthearted step and hoped the coin would go for milk and not whiskey. Heretofore in her childbearing, Mary had tripped lightly and energetically. Perhaps this burdensome one was the boy they were all praying for.

  Ellen had been reluctant to break from Mary to pursue her own customers, for her sister-in-law seemed unsettled with her babe. She had confided to Ellen that she wanted a boy for Gabriel’s sake. Ellen mused that all and too much was put before Gabriel these days. Gabriel had decided against Delia long before the master claimed her. And no plea had ever convinced him that Ellen was Delia’s mam and would always want her.

  Ellen was jogged from her reverie by a stern tugging on her sleeve. The force upset her basket, and some of the precious whites she carried were tipped up and dumped in the mud at her feet. She screamed out in shock, turned toward the force grasping her arm, and set eyes on the mud-covered woman who held her. Ellen wrestled and lurched to pull herself free and to retrieve the laundry. The woman’s grip was formidable. Ellen tottered, lost balance, landed on the ground, and struck her shoulder. She thought to grasp her skirts and guard them from the gutters, and as she did so the woman snatched the laundry basket. The piled-high whites spilled out completely and the woman grunted and sucked her snaggled teeth. The woman had a hard-set face that was broad, flat, and unyielding. For the long moment that Ellen looked into her visage to gain an explanation for the woman’s actions, she saw only an implacable will. The expression caused Ellen to redouble her efforts to keep the laundry. Both women wallowed on the ground and tugged the basket between them. A small crowd of amused onlookers gathered to observe.

  Ellen regained her feet. The woman next sucked in her ribs, set her strength, and pulled. Knocked completely off her feet again and her sleeve hitched on the basket, Ellen was dragged. The women’s clothes became saturated with the muddy effluvium of the roads. Ellen’s dress was as well ripped from under her left arm to her waist. She was warm with shame to imagine the look of this brawl and had at that second resolved to tear away from the basket and attempt to reclaim her honor.

  What finally caused Ellen to break her hold on the basket was a solid, painful kick to her stomach. She let out a yowl. The blow came not from her antagonist but from a mountainous man standing over Ellen. He then kicked viciously at the other woman sprawled on the ground and turned to aim his foot again at Ellen.

  Shrieks sounded from ladies passing in a carriage, and a gentleman called out, “You! You there, what is this, sir?” The soldier did not answer.

  A woman painted thickly with cosmetic and walking abroad in the fashion of a harlot called out to the vicious kicker, “What! Hold! What’s the beef, Irish?”

  The marshal loosed his grasp of Ellen then and looked at the woman. Happily, she claimed his attention momentarily and Ellen and her assailant gained their feet in the interval. As they staggered up, the partner of the distracted marshal clamped shackles on their wrists.

  “Aye, is some contraband wenches causing a riot on the street, beautiful. Get along with ye!” he replied.

  “Careful you don’t cause no monkey business right here on the public street,” the blond harlot teased him, and caused him to guffaw.

  The violent events had happened so quickly that Ellen was unable to make a coherent protest of her arrest. She was grabbed up and forced to follow the marshals along with her attacker. The two were roughly pushed into a jail wagon with some other contraband women. The woman who accompanied Ellen began to sing and Ellen cursed herself for a heathen, for she wished solemnly to throttle this woman.

  All were brought to the jail known as the Blue Jug. Thus called because of the peculiar color of its crumbling, dank marl walls, the jail was located north of the city hall. This was a fearfully unfamiliar part of town for Ellen. Her heart sank. The colored—contraband and those protesting their free status —were confined in a large one-room cell. Some few men, more women, and some children were crouched around the periphery of this one room. They sat or lay upon a layer of straw that was dirtier than that used to line a horse stall.

  No part of the contents of the laundry basket came to the jail with Ellen. She worried about the laundry more than about herself! The spotless cleans were ruined and now lost. Ellen looked down at her dirty dress and petticoat that had so lately been immaculate. In this cell full of ragged, nearly naked women she became scared for her clothes. Would they be torn from her? She alone had the luxury of a petticoat in this precinct.

  The trough running along the south wall of the cell was clogged fully with the nervous waste of the occupants of the cell. There was no curtain of privacy, yet the listless inmates took little interest in one another. They were quiet—mostly ill and disconsolate. Off in the corners facing the walls were women hacking and coughing and expectorating. These were doubtless suffering from the variola and were feared contagious. Forced to the periphery, they had only themselves as helpmeets. Ellen gathered her skirts beneath her seat on the floor. She moved her hands over her body and felt for her sore places. She resolved to keep her head in this place.

  In the morning Ellen remembered her papers—the permit she carried to signify she was free and gainfully employed as a laundress. This document lived in the deep pocket of her skirts and could prove her status and gain her freedom! Buoyed at the thought Ellen dug her fingers down to find the permit and came back with nothing. The permit was gone!

  Even in daytime the Blue Jug’s cells were mostly dark. There was a sliver of light from a stingy opening near the top of one wall. The woman who’d begun the horrible events of the day before had reached the jail with bruises, too. Her left eye, surrounded by dark purple, was closed. Crustiness and blood remained on her face and her hair was dotted with chaff. But her spirits seemed not too much deflated. She approached Ellen with a hint of smile and said, “You’ll forgive. Won’t you?” Ellen did not reply. She looked at the other warily, not sure whether the woman meant to start up again with fisticuffs.

  “ ’Twas me that got you here. You hurtin’ bad?” she said not unkindly. Still Ellen only stared.

  When a few moments passed silently and Ellen’s courage had built, she asked the woman, “You take my permit? You take my papers, did you, in all the tussling?”

  “ ’Twas after the basket. I’d have sold the laundry though. I’d not known you had papers,” she said sincerely, and Ellen believed her. Some other had taken advantage of the opportunity the fight had presented.

  The cell’s occupants were called to attention when two soldiers entered and carried a large vat into the center of the room. In the bowl, filled to the rim with water and swimming onions, floated several small potatoes. For these meager vittles the hungry prisoners elbowed one another. Ellen and Eva, the woman who was arrested with her, stood at the back of the crowd and satisfied their hunger on what cooled and congealed liquid was left at the bottom of the pot when the others had finished.

  When Ellen hadn’t returned home at her accustomed time, Mary had called out the syndicate, who had circulated to trace her route. Going abroad herself to look for Ellen, Mary had inquired at the last house upon that day’s circuit. Ginnie Claxtor, the cook at the Beech house—Mrs. Millicent Standard Beech’s house—said the laundrywoman a
nd the load of clean had never reached them. She said Missus was chagrined that her sheets had not returned and was already noising about calling a constable to report them stolen, though she knew Ellen and trusted her. She said the mistress imagined the precious covers of Irish linen had been sold to a sutler and taken to Richmond. It was well known that such commodities were short among the Confederates and brought a good price. Mary’s shoulders slumped at the news. She protested that she had but to find Ellen to know the fate of the sheets. She implored Ginnie to quiet her missus’s fears. The sheets would be found!

  When Mary left the Beech house, a wave of nausea revisited her. She fingered a knitting needle in her sleeve. It was mate to the one that held her work and had been left in the kitchen. This sister to that one was ready in case of trouble. She quailed to think what might have happened to Ellen. Perhaps she had stopped to watch a parade—thrice-daily occurrences now in the town—and had forgotten cares and followed along? Though it was not like Ellen to dawdle, Mary took heart at this possibility. She paused at a junction of streets and looked at the panorama of passersby. She perused faces. Her hopes rose at the approaching form of a woman similar to Ellen, but were dashed as the woman came close. Mary marshaled her remaining strength and returned to the kitchen upon the hopeful wind that Ellen had come home while she was away.

  After a frightened supper Gabriel went out to scour the city for his sister. Going abroad on a search through the streets at dusk was a risky business on account of the various patrols. Daniel Joshua, daily driving his wagon transporting night soil, was known well enough to pass unhindered, especially in Georgetown. The frequent constables acknowledged his and Gabriel’s passing with a nod. Daniel and Gabriel drove slowly, deliberately, as to seem to be merely plodding homeward after hard labor. In this way they checked the streets, lanes, and many alleys from College Street to Dumbarton Avenue. Gabriel’s anxiety increased with each block.

  Trading upon acquaintances and favors, Daniel made inquiries at the contraband camp. No information was forthcoming. Then, hemming and hawing, one old fellow with a knotted bandanna at his throat suggested that Ellen had been swooped up and taken to jail as a contraband whore.

  “ ’Tis a common fate for a colored woman in the streets without papers,” he said. The codger narrowly missed Gabriel’s fists upside of his head for the information.

  “My sister is a free woman!” Gabriel cried out in a great wounded voice. “She has her papers upon her!”

  The codger ducked good-naturedly and added there was word circulating that a handful of colored women had been taken in. Daniel pulled against Gabriel’s arm and said he thought it a likely explanation. He thanked the man.

  The two men plodded up and down the streets throughout the night mostly to occupy themselves. Daniel was sure the old codger was right about Ellen being nabbed by soldiers. If so, there was nothing to be done until the morning. But Gabriel refused to stop looking and Daniel felt it his duty to stay with Gabriel to prevent a further tragedy. It was not likely they would come upon her seated at the side of the road with a broken heel on her shoe. This is what Gabriel seemed to be looking for—a gentle tragedy, a little bit of trouble. But Daniel knew she had been caught and they were going to be up against it to help her.

  Around the time that roosters were reporting to their duty, Winnie Wareham came to knock at the back door of the tailor shop. She came breathless to say that Reverend William Higgins had wrung news from a provost marshal. Winnie no longer cared to converse head-on with a person because one of her front teeth had been lost. She preferred to speak over her shoulder while at her work. But this morning she came with urgency and she held her left hand in front of her lips as she spoke.

  “They took up some gals yestidy. Is likely Ellen’s in with ’em.”

  “Is likely,” Annie conceded.

  “Reverend beg a chance to see for hisself—to talk to her. Him short of the mark this time. They don’t ’low him in!” Winnie cried, obscuring the hole amongst her teeth with a cupped hand.

  William Higgins’s reach wasn’t sufficient in the new circumstances. The chain of power in the town was upset and reordered by the war. Authorities, keen to control the numbers of colored on the streets, seized all opportunity to round them up. Though Higgins tried to testify on Ellen’s behalf, the marshals refused to hear him. Influence had shifted.

  The sheriffs said Ellen was a contraband prostitute and cited and sentenced her for a street brawl. Ellen was ordered to serve thirty days in the filthy confinement of the Blue Jug. Only one concession was given: women would be permitted to visit the jail to bring medicine and vittles for Ellen.

  “No visits from men for any o’ the fancy girls—period!”

  For his part, Gabriel struggled to wait in the wagon beside Daniel Joshua. Though secretly relieved that Annie thought his idea to disguise himself and sneak into the jail was a bad one, he was frustrated with his own impotence. It was a torment to know Ellen to be in this place and not lay eyes on her. Daniel had said it rightly that Gabriel was trussed up with them all—the women. But it was a loving truss, for Nanny and Mary and Ellen and the babes were all that there was. Ah! Friend Daniel was stuck as well, for he sat in the wagon, too.

  They needed Ellen to return. The hearth was cold without her. They needed Ellen as ballast. There was a hum—a sweetness in the air when all were there and hard at their tasks—-after the dinner with a cup of tea or coffee and a dip of snuff. Without Ellen the biscuits tasted flat.

  In dark contemplation of the horrible events that had befallen Sis Ellen, Gabriel sat in a shallow light at his worktable. Curiously he felt he had not earned his rest because he had not come to a solution for this trouble. The one chance might be to call upon the influence of Miss Standard—nay, Mrs. Millicent Standard Beech. The haughty girl, married well, was now a haughty woman. She maintained her especial preference for Ellen’s work, and the Beech table linens and monogrammed bed linens executed by Gabriel’s sister had earned a place in the Beeches’ heirloom blanket chest. Certainly he could beg her to intervene at the jail—to vouch for Ellen. The begging left him cold, but he was resolved to do all and everything to bring Ellen home.

  Gabriel scratched up a short note pleading with Mrs. Beech to help Ellen. He tucked the note into a stack of sheets he carried to Mrs. Beech’s back door. These sheets were embroidered with a deep border that was similar to the ones Ellen had made for her customer. The border was so intricate and plainly beautiful that if decorated linens were as persuasive of a man as women chose to believe then no man could turn away from these sheets or the girl who came with them.

  Mrs. Beech came to the door of the kitchen. Gabriel and Ginnie Claxtor rose quickly. Gabriel held his eyes to the floor, resting his chin full upon his chest. Ginnie took a position that was between Gabriel and the young matron.

  Millicent Beech affected an urgent occupation elsewhere and carried Gabriel’s letter with the tips of her left hand as if she feared it held a pox. She found it difficult to reconcile the note with her image of the rascal who employed Ellen and called himself her brother. She handed the letter to Ginnie and spoke. “Tailor, your sister, you say—your Ellen—has fallen into the hands of the authorities. We will not press a complaint regarding our linens as you have brought comparable goods to replace them. We are distressed to learn of Ellen’s troubles. But we cannot go into these precincts to influence the circumstances. Tailor, I will give her my commissions when she is free. But my position will not allow me to intercede. Tell her that I weep for her and await her return.” Millicent Beech turned and left the room in a swift movement. It was her signature departure. It was the same way she had exited the tailor shop on her first visit.

  Gabriel wanted to run and grasp the young woman and throttle her for her dismissive manner. If only she would appear and vouch for Ellen his sister might be released to come home! This woman was so covetous of her own comfort! She’d come into the room and demanded attention and deference and tha
t a swath be cut for her—so that her person not be forced up against some unworthy other. Yet poor Ellen was mashed up in the Blue Jug in uncertain, unhappy circumstance! Did she not care one whit for Ellen? As if to give a crumb of comfort to another would take a feather from her own.

  Ginnie Claxtor followed Gabriel from the back door of the Beech house. She waited a few moments while he turned on his own heels in the yard. He sought to blow off his anger before heading home and when he collected himself, he looked at Ginnie sheepishly.

  “Boy,” she commanded, “tell your mama that I say there is a gal named Callie Dodge that is favored by the jailer at the Blue Jug. Money at the right place can shorten your sister’s time. Tell her that Dodge’s Ginnie says so,” she concluded, and stamped her words true. Annie would know her veracity because Annie knew the story of the Dodge place.

  Disgusted by Millicent Beech’s selfish behavior, Gabriel related Ginnie Claxtor’s words to his mother in an offhand manner. It was the least of his news, he thought. He was brought low at his failure. And he was tied up inside with the worry that Mary waited upon a plan from him. She did not say so, but her expectations were palpable. Her trust that he would rise to the challenge of getting Ellen out of the Blue Jug sawed at his gut. Gabriel reflected that Mary was nervous of disappointing him, too. She had no need to be, but she was worried that his love hung upon her bringing a son this time.

  “You are bathing her in salt water, Mary. You must stop your crying now,” Annie said to her daughter-in-law when the baby girl came forth.

  Mary cried out, “Oh! A stone is on her head! Oh, no!” She set to crying buckets of tears and kept it up. She imagined she saw a caul upon the girl’s head and was frightened after the long labor. Annie wrapped mother and daughter in clean cloths.

  “Another girl! Oh, Gabriel will want a different wife!” Mary whimpered as she took the fat, active baby into her arms.

  “Be quiet, girl,” Annie answered impatiently. “Gabriel is no bull in the pasture and you are no beast. You bring the child you make and you build your life upon its head. This one is fat and strong. We can use her. We don’t need no boy around here pissing on a wall and getting underfoot!” she countered vehemently, as if rehearsing her script for Gabriel.