Honor

by Lyn Cote

  Honor glanced at her husband’s face, contorted in rage. Heartened by his similar reaction to the slave catchers’ unfeeling behavior, she touched his hand and signed, “Take him inside so I can examine him. He might have other bruises or cuts.”

  Honor followed as Samuel carried Caleb into the house and sat him on the bench. She ran her hands over him, watching to see if he showed pain at her touch. The little boy sat silent and morose, tears washing his dirty face. “He doesn’t seem to be hurt other than the bruise.”

  The boy’s stomach grumbled, and he peered at Honor with hesitation.

  “Yes,” Honor said and signed. “I’ll get something for thee to eat right now.”

  Stepping outside, she called Perlie, who was already bringing corn bread and fried salt pork. Judah and Royale stood just outside the door, watching Caleb.

  Honor and Royale exchanged glances filled with horror over what had just come to their door. Turning away so Samuel couldn’t read her lips, she said, “I couldn’t do anything for the two men.”

  Royale nodded and didn’t object when Judah put an arm around her shoulders. The sight lifted Honor’s mood, but only a mite. What a sad world sin had caused.

  The boy inhaled the food and drank several cups of sweet coffee. When he finished, he fell asleep on the bench where he sat.

  Samuel caught him before he slid under the table and carried him up to the loft.

  The six of them stood together outside in the crisp autumn day, facing each other. “We must make Caleb welcome in every way we can,” she signed and said.

  “I’ll play with him,” Eli volunteered.

  “That’s good, Eli,” Honor said. “I don’t think he’ll run away again.” After being caught by those hard men, who would? Her whole body clenched with outrage at the callous pair. The desolate eyes of the escaped slaves in the back of the wagon flickered in her thoughts, bringing a tide of sympathy and overcoming her caution. “I wish I could have gotten the slaves away from them.”

  “That is not our business,” Samuel signed. “Those men are merely carrying out the law.”

  Samuel’s hand sought hers. But even as she accepted his touch, Samuel’s unsympathetic reply about the slave catchers caused her heart to pull back. Royale, Judah, and Perlie excused themselves and headed off. As they walked away, Royale repeated Samuel’s words aloud to Perlie, who was having trouble learning to sign. Perlie shook her head. Honor felt their dark response to Samuel’s words.

  Still, he was only giving the same opinion about runaway slaves that most everyone else would give. Only a few—and most of them Quakers—thought slavery should be abolished. Another belief that distinguished the Society of Friends and caused others to mock and distrust them.

  Honor recalled how her neighbors in Maryland, people whose great-grandparents had known her great-grandparents, had shunned her for her belief in abolition. How Darah and her own grandfather, two she had loved, had forsaken her. She tried to wash her mind of these thoughts.

  She had married Samuel Cathwell. Now she must continue drawing closer to him—even though he didn’t share her belief in abolition. Still, she couldn’t forget what she’d seen this day. Would never forget her own powerlessness. There must be something she could do.

  NOVEMBER 25, 1819

  Roused, Honor blinked herself awake. Careful not to interrupt her husband’s sleep before she knew what had disturbed her, she sat up in bed. Moonlight shone through the windows.

  Royale, wrapped tightly in a shawl, waited beside Honor’s bed. What had brought her out in the middle of the night?

  Trying to wake fully, Honor began turning to Samuel.

  Swiftly Royale claimed her arm. “No,” she whispered and motioned for Honor to come out into the larger room.

  Confused but trusting, Honor slid her feet into her slippers. Royale already held her dressing gown and helped Honor into it. When they reached the outer door, Royale offered her a wool shawl, hanging on a peg there.

  Royale led her out into the chill night under faint moonlight. A few feet from the house, Honor halted. “What’s wrong?” Then she noticed that Royale had brought the medicine chest along. “Is Perlie or Judah sick?”

  “Somebody sick.”

  Honor wanted to question her, but the brittle chill hurried them toward the kitchen. Within seconds Royale was waving Honor inside, where the fire glowed bright. Inside the door, Judah stood, watchful.

  Perlie sat on the bench at the small table. Beside her slumped a stranger, a woman of very dark complexion. In the low light, Honor saw the woman was barefoot, clad in only a thin, tattered dress, and without even a shawl against the cold.

  With this one glance, Honor knew all. A runaway slave. An invisible hand clutched her stomach, fear of lawbreaking, fear for the woman. “What is amiss?”

  The stranger began weeping. “She gon’ turn me in, give me to the catchers.”

  “No,” Royale said, “I told you she would help.”

  Royale’s confidence tore something inside Honor. For a moment Honor hated her white skin, hated that this woman would fear her on that basis alone.

  Turning to the practical, she had to see what was needed. “Judah, please draw the curtains,” Honor directed. “Perlie, please light more candles on the table.” As the cook lit candles, Honor asked the stranger, “What ails thee?”

  The stranger rocked back and forth in her distress.

  “Trust me,” Honor murmured, touching the woman’s bony shoulder. “Thee can trust me.” No one on earth could make her turn this woman in.

  “You a Quaker. Thank the Lord. Please, can you help me, ma’am?” the woman whispered. “I cut the side of my foot on a piece of glass. It infected.”

  The desperation in the voice rattled through Honor. “Of course I’ll help.” She fell back into a role she’d been raised for—the lady caring for her people. Throwing off her shawl and wrapping it around the woman’s bent shoulders, Honor knelt down and opened the chest that Royale had placed at her side. “Royale, I’ll need warm water.”

  “We already got it warmin’,” Perlie replied.

  “And rags.”

  “Everything too new for that,” Royale said.

  “Then tear up a clean dishcloth into squares. And another into wide strips as a bandage.”

  Quickly Royale obeyed, and soon Honor was bathing the woman’s foot in warm salt water and dealing with the infection that had caused the foot to swell. The woman made no sound, but Honor felt her despair lap like cold waves of water against her heart.

  Finally she bandaged the foot with the clean linen. “That should begin to help the healing. Can thee walk?”

  “I got to, ma’am.” The woman’s voice shook with fear. “I hide during the days. Run all night.”

  Honor looked to Perlie. “What can thee feed her?”

  Perlie rose. “Got some leftover corn bread, milk, and syrup.”

  “I overhear some passerby sayin’ there be a Quaker along here. So I prayed God would lead me to that house,” the runaway said, her voice still quavering.

  Honor grasped the woman’s work-worn hand. “Thee isn’t running till tomorrow night. Thee must rest.”

  “Oh, ma’am …” The woman began weeping, no doubt from exhaustion, from terror. “I hate to put you in danger of the law. I come across from Kentucky. Been runnin’ four nights.” Her words gushed out like a pent-up dam, all her anxiety and loneliness spilling over. “I been afraid to ask for help, even when I saw other blacks in Cincinnati. Then I see this little cabin and thought servants might be in here.” She wiped away tears with her fingertips. “I look in the window and tap on it. I couldn’t go on without help.”

  Honor squeezed the woman’s hand, her mind racing. “Judah, I think it best she hide up in the barn loft. Nobody else uses the barn but thee and Samuel, and he can’t hear her. And before she leaves tomorrow after dark, I want to check on her foot. An infection untreated can result in amputation.”

  “Your people to
le me you was a good white,” the woman said, accepting a bowl of milk and corn bread drizzled with sorghum. “Bless you, ma’am.”

  “I am doing very little for thee,” Honor said, the truth of this cutting deeply into her soul. “I only wish I could do more.” A worry intruded. “I don’t know my husband’s views about runaways. Royale, thee was right not to waken him.”

  “He not a Quaker?” the woman asked.

  “He was, but …” Honor didn’t know how to go on. “Life isn’t always easy to explain.”

  The woman replied with a harsh, mirthless laugh. “Life ain’t easy at all; never easy.”

  Honor agreed silently. “Royale, Judah, Perlie, I’ll leave her in thy care.” She noted that Judah had rested his arm around Royale’s shoulders again. And Royale looked less anxious than before.

  No doubt this woman’s plight had brought back Royale’s own recent trials. In passing, Honor pressed her cheek against Royale’s. Royale pressed hers in return. This gesture was common between women who were relatives or close friends but not between mistress and maid. But at this moment Honor needed to show comfort and reaffirm her undeclared relationship with Royale.

  In the half moon’s light, Honor hurried toward her bed, hoping Samuel hadn’t wakened to find her gone. Slipping inside, she waited by the door, listening. Had she roused anyone else? But only Eli could have heard her movements. No sound from the loft. She tiptoed to the bedroom and saw that her husband still slept, unaware.

  Should she wake him and tell him what she was doing?

  Surely Samuel would want to help this poor woman.

  But I don’t know that.

  The image of the two slave catchers who had returned Caleb flashed in her mind, and she recoiled from taking a chance on Samuel. He’d said the slave catchers were just carrying out the law. Indeed, Honor had heard the Fugitive Slave Act would make Samuel liable if he did not turn the woman in.

  But what would he do when faced with an actual woman in dire straits? Honor knew he was a kind man—wouldn’t he show mercy on her? But she knew it wasn’t that straightforward. Whether from ignorance or plain prejudice, most people thought of slaves as less than whites, less than completely human. If she hadn’t been raised by her father, wouldn’t she have also been tainted by this?

  Wrestling with these questions without answers, she quietly took off her robe and slid between the now-cold sheets.

  I can’t take a chance with this woman’s life, she decided. When the slave catchers had been at her door, she’d sensed their ruthlessness. What would they do to this poor, unprotected woman? Rape loomed as a real possibility and terrified Honor as much as the woman’s being returned to an angry, probably cruel master. This runaway must have been in a desperate situation in Kentucky to chance escape.

  Samuel’s warmth beckoned Honor, but she resisted. If he woke and asked why she felt like ice, why she had been out of bed for so long, what answer could she give? Oddly, now that the separation between them had finally been breached, going against his wishes made her long to feel his strong arms around her and his lips coaxing hers apart.

  Another thought slammed her. She’d just broken the law, a federal law. She was a criminal now. Was that how Samuel and the neighbors would view her if they found out? And it wasn’t only their opinion of her at stake. What did God think of her lawbreaking?

  The next day Samuel watched his wife as he and Judah gathered stones to continue work on the forge. For some reason she was teaching Eli and Caleb how to groom a horse. To him, the creatures were too big, too unpredictable for the children to be around. But she’d tethered a horse to a tree, and now she stood between the two boys on one side of the animal. All three were brushing it down.

  It seemed, as usual, that Honor knew more about people than he. She’d found something Caleb wanted to do. The boy was stroking the horse with a large brush he had to use two hands to grip. Sometimes he would lean his cheek against its side as if showing affection.

  One of their neighbors, red-haired Thad Hastings, sauntered up the road, carrying something small in each arm.

  Surprised, Samuel stopped his work. Judah also paused and moved a few steps backward, behind Samuel.

  Grinning, Thad waved and greeted them. Samuel drew closer, trying to see what he carried.

  “What has thee got, Thad Hastings?” Honor asked and signed, wondering if this signaled a change in their neighbors’ opinion of them. Or had the man come with suspicions about the runaway hidden in the loft? She gripped the brush more tightly. He couldn’t possibly know, could he?

  Thad held up a pup in one hand and a kitten in the other.

  “Hey!” Eli said, dropping his brush and rushing to the man. “Kitty … puppy!”

  “Well, the pups and kittens are weaned now and need a home,” Thad said to Honor with a nod to Samuel. “I was thinking that one of your boys might want a pup for a watchdog and one a kitten, to do the mousing. That is, if you think it’s a good idea, ma’am.”

  “How kind,” Honor replied, and it was. And Thad hadn’t so much as glanced at the barn, though Judah did just once before she saw him force himself to look forward.

  Honor controlled her expression, caught between Thad’s unexpected kindness and her anxiety over the runaway’s safety as she watched Caleb stare at the animals. Though holding himself aloof, Caleb couldn’t hide his interest.

  Thad knelt down and set the pup and kitten on the ground. “Let’s see if they like you boys.”

  Honor signed all to Samuel, still compelling herself not to glance toward the barn.

  Eli motioned for Caleb to draw near. The older boy handed Honor his brush and walked slowly to join Eli, who was on his knees now.

  Caleb stood, looking down at the animals. The brown-and-white, long-eared puppy woofed and scampered over to the boy, wagging his tail and wiggling with excitement. The pup jumped high against his knees—irresistible.

  Caleb dropped to the ground and lifted the dog into his arms. Then he froze and looked up. Samuel nodded, so Caleb cuddled the pup, who began licking every part of his face within reach.

  The kitten wandered over to Eli and rubbed her head along his leg.

  Honor thought their nephew might prefer the puppy, but Eli lifted the kitten and began to pet the little gray-and-white fur ball. “Kitty. Pretty kitty.”

  Samuel gently draped an arm over her shoulders, and together they observed Caleb responding to his pup. Judah remained a few steps behind, vigilant. Honor could sense his tension and hoped she was the only one who could.

  Caleb scooted closer to Eli and let the puppy onto the grass. Eli followed suit, and the pup and kitten, evidently old playmates, began to roll together on the dry, wild grass.

  Honor watched Caleb’s face relax into a smile. She offered her hand to Thad. “Thank thee. They are perfect for the boys.”

  Samuel also signed his thanks.

  Then Thad surprised her by asking her how to sign, “You’re welcome.” Samuel watched, amazed by Thad’s gesture.

  Honor inquired after Thad’s family, relaxing somewhat as he spoke of his new baby. But she couldn’t pull her thoughts far from the woman in the barn. She hadn’t come up with any way to help the woman further with the long, dangerous journey ahead. During the recent war, runaway slaves had been welcomed into Canada by the British. Was that still true?

  If only she knew more Quakers north of here, on the route to Canada. She didn’t even know if any Friends lived north, let alone if any supported abolition. She must find out from the other women in the Female AntiSlavery Society. Would they countenance abetting runaway slaves? Or recoil from lawbreaking? She needed to discern whether she could share this secret with any of them. I must be as gentle as a dove and as wise as a serpent.

  DECEMBER 4, 1819

  Saturday morning, with his usual courtesy, Samuel helped Honor onto the wagon bench for their weekly trip to Cincinnati. Judah already sat with the reins in his hands. After a cold night, she’d crisscrossed an
d tied herself into one wool shawl and wrapped herself in another against the early-morning chill. The sun peered over the horizon, glistening on every frosted leaf. Samuel fastened the top button on his plaid wool coat as he took his seat beside her. He swung a lap robe over them.

  Royale, with Eli on her lap, and Perlie, holding Caleb’s hand, sat in the wagon bed, all dressed warmly and covered with blankets. Judah drove slowly down the rutted trail. The runaway had left days ago, but the experience still weighed on Honor’s mind.

  Later today she would visit Deborah’s house for the planned Female AntiSlavery meeting. While needing information about any other Quakers in Ohio who might help runaways, she had decided not to give away the fact that she had hidden one. She couldn’t take the chance that one of the women might let it slip and draw slave catchers to her door. Taking a deep breath, Honor tried to let anticipation over a day in the city lift her tension as she considered this meeting, fraught with both possibilities and traps.

  On a crowded Cincinnati street, Samuel climbed down from the wagon at their first stop, the general store that Perlie preferred. He steeled himself for other customers’ probable reactions to his sign language—gaping and rude comments. He had an important errand in town today, one that would further his business, and being deaf would not stop him. But first they must do the necessary shopping.

  He helped Honor down, Judah helped Perlie, Royale, and the boys, and they all entered the general store. Judah and Royale took the children directly to the Franklin stove in the middle of the large room to warm themselves while Perlie bustled up to the counter. The bald storekeeper in a white apron greeted them with a jovial grin. At their first meeting some weeks ago, the man had looked at Samuel as if he were on display at a fair. But his original curiosity had dimmed, and now he treated Samuel as a regular.

  The fragrance of cinnamon and cloves spiced the air. Perlie spoke to the man behind the counter, handing him the list Honor had helped her write. Eli gravitated toward the sweets, nearly drooling on the glass case of lemon drops and horehound candy. Wary, Caleb didn’t leave Judah’s side. When Perlie had all the items she needed and Honor had bought some cloth and buttons to make new clothing for Caleb, who had been left with no winter garments, and Eli, who was growing so fast, Honor signed the total cost.