Honor

by Lyn Cote

  But not what I want. I want Samuel to share my passion to set the captives free. I want him to see these people as I do.

  DECEMBER 26, 1819

  At luncheon the next day, Honor and her family all sat around the table. Upon returning last night, Honor had explained everything about the baby and his new family to Samuel. He’d merely nodded, not showing any reaction. Did he feel that she was being disloyal to him, her husband? She had kept her illegal work a secret, and she would understand if he resented her for it.

  Now she faced the wearying routine of sharing a meal with Caleb. She and Samuel had begun to insist that Caleb ask in sign for his food. Honor gestured toward an empty bowl and signed to Caleb, “Spell stew so I can give thee some.”

  Caleb stared at the table.

  She sighed. If it wasn’t Samuel puzzling her, it was Caleb. She knew their prickliness flowed from their deafness. But she never treated them as less than they were because they couldn’t hear her. She didn’t see why the boy still resisted her efforts to teach him sign language.

  She signed this question to Samuel, adding, “Did thee resist learning?”

  He shook his head no. But he didn’t give any other response.

  She ignored another token of his pulling back, withdrawing from her, and signed again to Caleb, instructing him to spell stew.

  The boy grudgingly signed, “S-t-e-w.”

  Honor dished him up a generous helping, then served herself. She’d just lifted her fork when she heard the jingling of a harness and a deep voice calling, “Hello the house!”

  She signed this to Samuel and rose to open the door. She stepped outside and immediately wished she hadn’t. The slave catchers had returned. All that had happened the night before flashed through her like ice and flame. “What does thee want?” she demanded, flushing with unwelcome anger.

  “To see if you got a runaway in your barn, Quaker,” the older one retorted. “We’re lookin’ for a pregnant slave.”

  “Thee is not welcome here,” she said, gratefully aware that her husband had come up behind her. The dead woman’s face came to mind, her thin body and tattered clothing proof of dishonor and mistreatment. Honor gripped herself tightly and kept the outrage at bay. God, help me not to hate them.

  “Don’t matter if we are welcome here or not. We got a right to search for runaways. Dan, head into that barn and see if they got that Negro we’re looking for in their loft.”

  Honor glared at the men. She didn’t know if the Fugitive Slave Law gave them the right to search or not. She would ask Alan Lewis when next she went to town. She signed the slave catcher’s words to Samuel, who raced off after the younger man.

  “My husband said he better not touch anything in his glassworks.”

  “I heared your man could work glass. That seems funny. Him being deaf and all.” The older man itched the side of his nose.

  “One doesn’t need to hear glass to work with it,” she shot back. She knew there was no trace of the runaway having been here—except for her unmarked grave. Could they somehow track the footprints there?

  “Oh, I riled you.” He chuckled. “You Quakers get so upset about us returning property to its rightful owners. These runaways cost plenty.”

  Honor did not deign to reply to this. Greed, not a zeal to enforce the law, drove these catchers. She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried for calm.

  Samuel stalked back beside Dan, the younger slave catcher.

  “No slaves, Pa,” Dan announced and swung up on the bench.

  “I’m gonna be watching you, Quaker,” the older one said.

  “And I will be watching thee,” Honor returned, her impotent fury boiling over. “Do not try to kidnap a free person of color.” This was the only retort she could think of.

  The dart hit the mark. The older man’s face boiled red in an instant. He slapped the reins and turned around. As he drove away, he roared, “Watch your step, Quaker!”

  Honor seethed, watching till they were swallowed up by the forest, hating that they could stir her to such anger. She tried to release the hot flush, the tight neck muscles. She shook her hands to loosen her arms.

  Eli appeared in the doorway of the cabin. “Caleb’s hiding. He won’t come down. He saw those men and hid.”

  With Samuel at her heels, Honor hurried inside and up the ladder. But with her skirt, she couldn’t easily crawl into the loft above their bedroom. She called Caleb’s name, scolded herself for forgetting he couldn’t hear her, and rapped the floor to gain his attention. “Caleb,” she signed, “those men are gone. We will not let them take thee. Come down.”

  The boy crouched in the farthest corner of the loft.

  When those two catchers had found him, what had they done to him to cause such fear? Anger tried to boil up higher inside her. She closed her eyes, praying for God’s peace. Human wrath was against the will of God and only gave Satan influence over a soul. Honor must leave these evil men to God’s justice. She took deep breaths as if forcing the anger out. The tightness in her chest eased enough for her to consider the pressing problem of comforting Caleb.

  She couldn’t reach Caleb without raising her skirts to an immodest height. So she waited till she breathed normally again. Perhaps Caleb would sense her anger and think it was directed toward him. If he wouldn’t come down, she must let Samuel deal with him. Once again Caleb needed her, but she couldn’t reach him. That was true, so achingly true.

  Caleb didn’t budge, just stared at her, cringing against the wall.

  Heartsick, she carefully stepped down the ladder, as ladylike as possible. The boy’s fright had quenched her frustration over the catchers’ visit. “Samuel, thee must go up and reassure him.”

  Samuel climbed up the ladder, and soon she heard Caleb yelling in inarticulate anger. Samuel came down the ladder with the screaming and kicking boy over one shoulder.

  Before Samuel put him down, Honor clasped Caleb’s face with both hands and shouted, “Caleb, stop fighting us! We’ll protect thee!” Then she felt foolish again and guilty, yelling at a child who couldn’t hear. But desperation prodded her. She didn’t know how to help him.

  “I don’t want to learn to talk with my fingers!” Caleb yelled back. He must have read her moving mouth or interpreted her face, twisted with irritation. “I don’t want to be deaf!”

  Her throat thick with emotion, she signed this to Samuel as he set the boy on his feet.

  Samuel dropped to his knees and gripped Caleb’s shoulder, signing, “I didn’t want to be deaf either. This is the way it will remain. For both of us. Fighting us won’t help you.”

  Caleb stared into Samuel’s eyes, which were nearly level with his. Then he leaned his head back and moaned loud and long like a wolf howling.

  The sound cut Honor in two. She felt like throwing her head back and joining in. She didn’t want this child to be deaf and to lose his parents. She didn’t want poor runaways to huddle in their barn, fleeing God knew what. She didn’t want slave catchers to search their property. She didn’t want Samuel to believe slavery would never be outlawed. She didn’t want the world to be the way it was.

  She knelt and wrapped her arms around Caleb and Samuel. She felt Eli come alongside her and join the circle they had created around the older boy. Tears fell from her eyes, covering her face like a mourning veil. Caleb had been with them over a month. And only now was he at last expressing all his despair. Was that why the boy affected her emotions so deeply? She wanted so much to feel Samuel’s touch, to feel close to him the way she did when words and circumstances didn’t get in the way. Now so much had come between them—between them all.

  JANUARY 3, 1820

  On an unusually cold January morning, Honor heard hoofbeats followed by a forceful, peremptory knocking on the door. Setting down her sewing, she hurried across the room. Samuel had just left for the barn. When she looked out the window, she saw that her husband was already halfway there, his back to her. She wished she could call out to him.
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  But first she must find out what the person at the door wanted. The man was so wrapped up against the cold, she could see only his eyes. He tugged down a scarf, revealing his face, and asked, “Is this the Cathwell house? Cathwell Glassworks?”

  “Yes?” Honor said hesitantly.

  The man turned and from his saddlebag lifted out a packet of letters tied with string. “I’m the postal rider hereabouts. Got three letters for you. The charge be five cents.”

  Honor gaped at him in surprise. Letters? From whom? They hadn’t yet received any post in the few months they’d lived here. Then, shivering from the cold, she asked him to step in and closed the door behind him. Inside, she eyed the packet of letters in the man’s hand.

  “Much obliged,” he said, heading straight for the roaring fire to warm himself.

  “Would thee like a cup of coffee?” The pot sat on a trivet on the hearth, keeping warm. Hospitality hadn’t prompted her but the need to delay him, to collect herself before the mail was in her possession. What if Darah had written her? The thought was excruciating, like a fine needle piercing her heart. She wanted desperately to hear from home, yet she wanted to forget High Oaks and everyone there.

  “Yes, ma’am. Coffee would warm me, and I thank you.”

  Dumbly she poured it and added sugar at his request, handing it to him where he stood, still thawing himself. “I must go get my husband to pay thee.” Anything to distance herself from the letters in that packet.

  Wrapped in her wool shawl, Honor walked across the yard, not hurrying over the crunchy frozen grass to the barn. There in the light from the windows and the already-fired-up forge, Samuel was obviously teaching Judah some technique before they tried it with actual molten glass. Usually she enjoyed watching her husband working at what he did best, but today’s unwanted visitor had unnerved her. And an uneasy truce still lay between her and Samuel. Neither of them had mentioned runaway slaves or abolition in the days since she’d returned from Bucktown.

  She waited anxiously till Samuel looked up. “A letter carrier needs payment for postage. We have mail.”

  Samuel signed a few more instructions to Judah and hurried beside her to the house. His large form so near always made her feel protected—even now, when they’d been at odds for days. Inside the cabin he lifted down his leather purse from the mantel and handed the man the exact postage.

  Gawking at them as Honor signed to Samuel, the postal rider had frozen where he stood. Then, with a start, he gave her the letters. “One’s all the way from Maryland,” he said, still staring at Samuel.

  “All the way from Maryland.” What she’d dreaded.

  “That’s the one that cost you the most. Do you have anything you want to mail?”

  Honor recognized the handwriting on one of the letters. Darah had indeed written her. She blanched, and her hand trembled. It had been months since she’d written Darah of her marriage and her move to Ohio. She’d accepted the fact that Darah would not reply, and had been somewhat grateful for it. So why was her cousin communicating with her now?

  “Ma’am?”

  With effort, she brought her mind back to the present. “I have nothing today, but if thee comes near here in the future, please stop so I can send a reply.” If I can send a reply. I don’t even know if I can bear to read this.

  “Will do. Be back this way within a week.” The postal carrier set his empty mug on the table and adjusted his scarves to confront the cold again. “I’m hoping for a break in this weather. I pray spring starts early this year. Well, I wish that every year.” He waved farewell, something close to a salute, and headed out, pulling the door shut behind himself.

  Honor handed Samuel the letter addressed to him. With her mother’s silver letter opener taken from the mantel, she sank into the rocking chair by the hearth. She moved Darah’s letter behind the second letter, from a stranger named Mrs. Thomas Iding. She carefully opened the wax seal on this letter.

  December 12, 1819

  Dear Mrs. Cathwell,

  I am Caleb’s mother. I’m writing to you to let you know where we are now. We have settled in the small town of Beardstown, Illinois, on the Illinois River. We have land that my husband bought from a veteran who wanted to move farther south.

  I try not to, but I weep every night over having to leave my Caleb with you. I try to keep from blaming God for taking both my husband and son from me. Is Caleb well? Is he learning to speak with his hands? Again, I thank you and your man from the bottom of my heart for taking Caleb in. Please write to me. I long for news of my son.

  Your obedient servant,

  Mrs. Thomas Iding

  Again bitterness gnawed at Honor, not against this woman but against a husband who would force her to abandon her son. At Samuel’s touch on her shoulder, she glanced up. “Caleb’s mother has written us from Illinois.”

  He acknowledged this with a nod; then a grin spread over his face like the dawn. “I’ve received an order for bottles.”

  Excitement for him lifted her to her feet. “Thy first order?”

  Samuel handed her the businesslike letter, trying to hide his own jubilation. Someone had placed an order at last, likely prompted by the advertisement in the Centinel. Fortunately Samuel’s substantial bank account had carried them through this start-up time for his business. God had provided for all their needs.

  As Samuel had predicted, it wasn’t a big order, such as one that would have been given to the larger glassworks in Cincinnati. This order came from a farmer who kept bees and wanted to start filling bottles with his name on them and distributing his honey to stores. Samuel’s first order specified four dozen bottles.

  As Samuel went to the door and donned his jacket and hat, Honor could not mistake the lift in his step. She closed the distance between them. Stopping him, she took his hand, so large within hers, and looked him in the eye. “I’m so glad.”

  He stepped closer to her, beaming now. “I first must carve a mold with the farmer’s name and town to appear on the front of the bottle. And perhaps something more—a picture of a honeybee?”

  She stood on tiptoe and leaned in to kiss his cheek, then cupped his chin in her palm.

  Haltingly he bent as if to kiss her cheek in return.

  At the last moment she moved forward, her lips meeting his. Samuel, I don’t want this distance between us.

  He stood very still, not breaking their connection. His lips caressed hers.

  Honor savored their closeness, his touch. She stepped back and signed, “I’m sorry I’ve angered thee.”

  “I’m not angry with you.”

  She signed the same words back to him.

  He smiled once more, looking bashful, before he left her, shutting the door behind him and the biting cold.

  Honor stared at the closed door, glad she’d bridged the gap that had kept her from Samuel. Still, the unopened letter from Maryland nagged her. She began pacing before the fire, tapping the letter against the palm of one hand.

  Letting in another blast of icy air, Royale hurried inside, huddled in a shawl. “Judah say you got mail. Did Darah write back?”

  So Honor could no longer delay reading the other letter. Taking up the letter opener, she slit the seal open. The outside of the missive appeared only a little worn. Inside, the words were written in Darah’s elegant copperplate hand.

  December 1, 1819

  Dear Honor,

  I apologize for not replying sooner to your letter announcing your marriage and your intention to depart for Ohio. I have been slowly becoming accustomed to not having you and Grandfather with me. Even though my full year of mourning had not been observed, I was married October 14 in a private ceremony at High Oaks. Alec was eager for us to marry, and his aunt said no one will think it precipitate, as I needed a husband to oversee my affairs. I hope you and your new husband are well and happy. Greet Royale for me.

  Your obedient servant,

  Mrs. Alec Martin

  Sinking into the rocker once more, H
onor read the letter to herself again before handing it to Royale. Married? Already? She had expected much more time to prepare. Images of Alec, his lazy smile as he leaned against the old oak in the garden, gazing at her. Alec, galloping his black stallion up to her door and swinging down with his customary flourish, his lips coaxing hers—

  A log broke on the hearth, sending up a plume of sparks, jolting Honor from her daze. She tried to remind herself of the man she knew him to be—Alec, gripping her arms in the garden and berating her for doing what she knew was right and just.

  “They got married in October?” Royale said with disapproval, holding the letter away from her like a snake. “That don’t sound right to me. Was Mr. Alec afraid she marry someone else and he would lose the land?”

  Honor could not come up with an answer. She realized she was chewing the inside of her cheek and stopped. Why had news of the marriage so taken her aback? She’d known that Alec and Darah would marry at some point. Darah had gotten everything—Grandfather’s favor, High Oaks, and now Alec. All was complete. They were married.

  Honor accepted the letter from Royale and resisted the urge to toss it into the fire. “At least Darah mentioned thee.”

  Royale snorted. “She probably wish I still belong to her. Darah wasn’t like you. She don’t see slaves as people.”

  Honor rose and tucked the letters behind the Bible on the mantel, closing the discussion. Then she told Royale of the letter from Caleb’s mother. She rubbed her arms, chilled in spite of her long sleeves, and voiced a familiar question, the uppermost question, the one she’d asked Royale every day since they’d buried the runaway. “What are we going to do if another escaped slave comes?”

  Royale shrugged. “Your man let us take the baby to Bucktown.”

  Honor rubbed her arms again, then tucked her hands into the bends of her elbows. “I wish,” she murmured, “that I could make him understand how important abolition is to me.”

  Reaching out, Royale smoothed back wisps of Honor’s hair from around her face. “Judah and I planning a spring wedding.”

  Honor concocted a smile. “I’m glad.”