Sound of the Heart

by Genevieve Graham

  Do you still, Dougal? Is there love where you are?

  The women settled into the uneven rhythm of the carriage, lulled by the hoofbeats always ten feet away. Without needing to say another word, they fell asleep.

  Glenna awoke sometime later. The sun was past the midway point, so it was early afternoon. They’d probably slept the better part of three hours. As awkward and uncomfortable as these quarters were, they were a huge improvement upon the ship. And the air, clean and fresh, smelled more like grass than salt. It was a comfort Glenna had almost forgotten. She leaned over and nudged Aline from her nap.

  The man sitting across from them still hadn’t spoken, but was awake. He sat upright, glaring at his surroundings as if they had somehow offended him. His wig had been removed and set on the bench beside him, the black and gray hair beneath combed severely back from a well-defined widow’s peak. During the journey he had unbuttoned the silver buttons of his waistcoat, and when he finally seemed to notice the women, he did them up again. He studied Glenna and Aline with a look bordering on disapproval, but Glenna wasn’t offended. It seemed to be his regular expression. She offered a tentative smile, inviting conversation. Aline kept quiet. He narrowed his eyes at Glenna and at one point he looked as if he might speak, opening his mouth slightly and squinting with thought. Then he thought better of it, snapping his mouth shut and looking back outside. At a loss, she turned her head and looked out her own window.

  Eventually they slowed, and the voice of the driver rang across the pebbled drive of a vast courtyard. Both women leaned forward, curious, then sat abruptly back, eyes wide with amazement. The house they approached was more than a house. It appeared to be a plantation of some kind, and its red brick face was more vivid than any house Glenna had seen before. When the horses pulled them to the front of the magnificent home, the carriage was welcomed by the main building, but more outbuildings stood behind, waiting to be introduced. When they stopped, Glenna stared at the huge, ornate door, freshly painted white, then counted three floors, with twenty white-framed windows in all.

  The man cleared his throat and they turned expectantly toward him. “Stay here,” was all he said, then he climbed through the carriage door when it was opened by a small, smartly dressed black slave.

  Other than some of the deckhands, Glenna had never before seen a dark-skinned person. And to see one dressed in such finery was startling to say the least. With his wig firmly back in place, the new master stalked directly to the front door while Glenna and Aline watched. The little black slave, topped with a clean white, ribboned wig, closed the door carefully, nodded briefly at the driver, and the carriage moved on.

  No more than five minutes down a small lane, the carriage stopped by a modest building, this one constructed of wood. They were greeted by a squat, round woman, her ebony skin a sharp contrast to the white cap she wore, which strained to hold in her curly black hair. The woman tilted her head to the side and folded her arms over a massive chest. She nodded slowly, taking in the two dazed faces staring through the carriage windows.

  “Y’all be the new girls. Come now. We’ll clean you up.”

  Glenna stared at the woman, mouth slightly open. She was mesmerised by the low, easy sound of her voice, the way the Southern words rolled through her lips.

  The woman’s eyes bulged slightly and she raised her voice a few notes higher. “What is it, child? Y’all gonna sit there all bloomin’ day an’ stare, or is you comin’ inside so’s I can dig you up somethin’ to eat?”

  Glenna shook off her daze and followed Aline out of the carriage. The woman ushered them into the house, and they stopped just inside, looking around at the sparse but clean furniture. The wooden boards underfoot were smooth from wear, but Glenna didn’t see any dirt or dust. She wasn’t used to standing on a wooden floor, since any home she’d had in Scotland was over a dirt floor, and felt suddenly as if she trespassed.

  The woman noticed Glenna’s discomfort and nodded. “Dat’s right. We keep this house clean as a whistle. Y’all keep your nasty dirt outside the house.” A wide wooden rocking chair creaked as the woman lowered herself onto it. She started to rock, back and forth, while she looked up at them, linking pudgy fingers on her lap.

  “I’m Bess. This here is where we eat. You, me, an’ some more. They all out harvestin’. You might see ’em later afore dey falls dead asleep. Which one of you be the teacher?”

  Aline and Glenna weren’t prepared for the question. They said nothing, and the woman sighed, exasperated. “Which one of you can read?”

  “I can,” Glenna said.

  “Good. So you’s the teacher. Massuh Schmidt gots eight little angels.” She gave Glenna a wink. “He wants them all readin’ an’ writin’ an’ talkin’ English good as can be.”

  She turned to Aline and eyed her top to bottom, hands braced on her broad hips. She nodded. “An’ you’d be for the fields. Massuh wanted two whiteys to keep each other quiet an’ share a room. Didn’t figure it’d do to mix with us darkies,” she said with a chuckle. “Good to see he found a strong one. I ain’t got no use for no babes out in them fields.”

  She stared at them a little longer, big eyes narrowed. “You’ll be hungry. Made some cornbread an’ kept it for you. Sausage, too.” Glenna swallowed reflexively and Bess’s wide mouth smiled. “You ain’t had nothin’ to eat in a long time, I don’t figure. Come along then. Y’all done found yourself a good place to live. Y’all are gonna work hard, that for sure. But here we always gots a bed and food.” Her face instantly hardened. “An’ we don’t mess with no fools. Any trouble out of y’all an’ you’ll feel it on your backside for a long, long time. You understand me, my little white lambs?”

  They nodded quickly.

  “Good. Now come sit your pretty selves an’ we’ll find you somethin’ to fatten you up. Don’t look like you ate much on dat ship. Den you’ll need to wash up an’ get some of that stink offa you.”

  Bess appeared to be telling the truth. So far, it didn’t seem like such a bad life. The cornbread was delicious, the milk warm and thick. Bess showed them their house, four walls containing nothing but two narrow beds, and left them while she tended to someone or something. The women sat on the edge of the beds and stared at each other.

  “Soft bed,” Aline said. She sighed and pressed one palm into the mattress. “I reckon I’ve no’ seen a bed in, oh, maybe six months. An’ it were none so clean as this.”

  Glenna lay down, closing her eyes as her head sank into the cotton-covered straw. “God, I’m weary.” She draped one forearm over her eyes and quietly wept, giving in to the exhaustion, the relief, the confusion, the grief. Neither woman spoke, and both soon melted into sleep.

  Too soon, Bess appeared in their room, bellowing for them to get up. A tall, lean black woman had come with Bess, expressionless and plodding, and after shaking her head and sniffing with disapproval, had taken Aline away with her. Bess led Glenna to the main house, then in through the servants’ entrance in the back. They took a quick right into a large, sun-drenched room where beams of dust sparkled over two rows of chairs with desks. A larger chair and table were positioned at the front of the room. My desk, she thought with amazement. Closer to the door stood a plush, red velvet armchair, looking out of place, and Glenna wondered at its presence.

  Bess introduced her to the room. “This be the schoolin’ room. Now step inside, that’s right, and wait here, quiet-like. I’ll get the mistress.”

  Glenna stared around the room, transfixed not only by the clean, bright space, but also by the very idea of what she was about to do. Teach? When she’d first met Dougal, the closest she’d come to reading was staring with a kind of lust at a book someone else held. He had taught her, one word at a time, and she’d surprised even herself with how quickly she’d picked it up, though he’d laughed at her every time she mentioned that. Ye’ve always been smart as a whip, he’d said. Ye just dinna believe it yerself. After reading worked its way into her brain, feeding her hungry mind
, there was no stopping her. She’d been a thorn in Dougal’s side, begging him for more books every time they’d gone to town. The books he’d first read to her were later read through her own lips while he lay content beside her. Sometimes when they lay in bed at night, her pillow propped as close to the candle as she could manage, he’d rest his hand on her belly and she’d pick up the cue, absently massaging the tired, muscular forearm as she read. She remembered that solid arm, those beloved calloused fingers, so clearly. As if he were there with her. As if she could turn right this moment and smile up at him. Look at me, Dougal! I’m a teacher!

  But there was no one there, no one with whom she could share the indescribable thrill racing through her. And when the diminutive mistress of the manor, the regal Frau Ursula Schmidt, swept into the room, salmon-coloured skirts swishing along the shiny, wood-planked floor, Glenna wasn’t about to admit this was her first occasion to fill the role.

  Frau Schmidt wasted no time getting to know Glenna before she rattled off a list of everything she required from her children’s new teacher. “Everysing vill be English,” she ordered. “No German. You understand?” Glenna nodded. She didn’t know any German, so that was a good thing. “Ze children vill learn reading, writing, arithmetic, sewing, music—you know music, ja?”

  “I sing, ma’am.”

  “Do you? Sing now. Show me.” She waved one hand impatiently, gesturing for Glenna to go ahead, then sank into the armchair. Ah, thought Glenna. The mistress’s chair for when she wanted to look in on lessons. The thought made her heart flip a little. What if she couldn’t do this? What if the woman discovered what a fraud she was?

  Then again, they’d only asked if she could read, not if she could teach. Glenna took a deep breath and listened hard for Dougal’s encouragement. She was here and she had been placed in a very comfortable position, while some of the other women faced hellish lives Glenna tried not to imagine. She could do this. She would succeed and make Dougal proud, wherever he was.

  The frau raised one thin brown eyebrow, waiting. Her lips were pursed, chin lifted so she could focus completely on Glenna. The tight expression was critical, Glenna could see, but curious.

  Fortunately, Glenna’s gift for singing was one thing she’d never questioned. Glenna had sung on demand before, though that had been either in taverns, on slave ships, in prisons, or in Dougal’s bed. She took a moment, trying to recall something decent she could present to this woman. An old hymn came to mind, one she’d heard on the journey across, and she filled the velvet-curtained room with her nightingale voice.

  For the beauty of the earth

  For the glory of the skies,

  For the love which from our birth

  Over and around us lies.

  Lord of all, to Thee we raise,

  This our hymn of grateful praise.

  Mistress Schmidt stared. Her hands, folded in her lap, were almost hidden within her voluminous skirts. “Is there more? Sing more!” she demanded.

  For the beauty of each hour,

  Of the day and of the night,

  Hill and vale, and tree and flower,

  Sun and moon, and stars of light.

  Lord of all, to Thee we raise,

  This our hymn of grateful praise.

  The woman’s expression softened while Glenna sang, her eyes closed. “Ah,” she said, her voice like a sigh. “My husband has brought me a bird. But zis is lovely. My children vill sing like zis, ja?” Glenna bit her lip, but the woman chuckled. “Nein. I know zis is not what you can do. But it vould be nice.” She frowned, thinking. “Maybe Clara can do zis. Ve shall see.” She got to her feet and stepped toward Glenna. The women were almost on eye level, though Frau Schmidt was perhaps a finger shorter. “And now you shall meet ze children.”

  A black servant girl who had stood waiting in the doorway now disappeared, reappearing moments later with a gaggle of well-dressed ducklings in tow, uniformed either in sharp waistcoats and breeks or in pinafores, the little girls’ blond curls tied back from shining faces with white bows. They were quiet and respectful while being introduced to their new teacher, but Glenna watched carefully, looking for telltale signs of devilry among them. Out of eight, she thought three might be the “angels” Bess had mentioned.

  Once again, Glenna changed identities. To these children, she wasn’t Glenna the Scot or Glenna the prisoner. And she certainly wasn’t Aidan, the waif in the woods. She was Miss Glenna, the teacher. To their parents, she was Glenna the Servant. All strange new costumes for her to wear, but Glenna had always been a chameleon. Stepping into roles had shaped her life. She slipped into her designated black gown, along with a white apron and matching cap, sat the children down for three hours every morning, and did what was expected of her.

  For lessons, she drew on memories from their little home in Aberfeldy, remembering the precious hours spent with Dougal, hunched over a flickering candle and learning numbers, or nestled in front of the hearth fire while she plagued him with questions about the world. He had even taught her a little French, but that was mostly when he’d curled up around her in their bed, speaking lovely sounds into her ear. They weren’t suitable words for a schoolroom.

  She sang with the children, teaching them hymns Frau Schmidt requested. Once in a while she taught bittersweet songs she remembered from the Highlands, their melodies as sad and lonely as she often felt. In the beginning Ursula had been unsure about the introduction of strange Gaelic sounds into their household, but the music was so intoxicating that eventually she encouraged more.

  CHAPTER 35

  A Reason

  In the afternoons Glenna joined the other slaves in the fields, eternally grateful to Dougal for everything he’d taught her. Fieldwork was backbreaking and endless, leaving the workers beyond exhausted by the time they finally staggered back to their beds. Tobacco leaves were gathered, then parceled together and placed on five-foot poles. Those hung in an open barn that reeked like overpoweringly sweet tea, drying so they could be pressed into hogsheads, huge barrels that transported the harvest to England. The smell of the leaves seeped into the slaves’ clothes, their hair, their skin, so deeply woven into them they stopped noticing after a while.

  Aline suffered every day in the fields along with dozens of others, working side by side with the black slaves. They all laboured hard, but Aline faltered. The unfamiliar heat and the relentless, steamy air sucked her strength. Lifting and carrying strained her back and legs so she could barely walk on some days. In the beginning she smiled bravely, assuring Glenna she was all right, but after a few weeks the smile faded, as did the light in her eyes. Eventually she was too tired to speak at all at night, though no one spoke during the day and she had initially craved Glenna’s words.

  Then there was an accident, and everything changed. Glenna was working in the fields one afternoon when a panting house slave ran to her. The girl explained, hiccuping as she tried to catch her breath, that two of the children had been playing near a dry well, and one had fallen in. Glenna raced back with her and peered down into the black tunnel of the well. The air wasn’t fresh, coming as it did from the long unused pit, but it was cool, a relief after the fiery fields. She could see nothing, and her fingers felt only slick rock, bringing her back to days on the ships, nights in the cells. Her heart raced at the memories, but when she saw Frau Schmidt pacing, helplessly watching, her hands twisting with the anguish of not knowing, she knew it was up to her.

  The well yawned up at her, offering nothing, and she feared she didn’t have the strength in her heart to voluntarily climb over the edge. Then she heard a tiny whimper from the bottom, a sound that so pitifully echoed her own fear of being trapped in the dark. It wasn’t as if Glenna even made up her mind. She just tied her skirt behind her back and used the rope dangling down the well to lower herself to the child.

  “Hallo, lad,” she called, trying to sound cheerful as she descended into the chilled shaft. “Did ye have a wee tumble then? I bet that was frightening. Well
, dinna fash yerself, love. Miss Glenna’s coming.”

  The cries rose now that the child knew there was hope, and she heard weak splashes as the child looked up, trying to see her. “I fell, Miss Glenna!”

  “Aye, sweetheart. Rest there. I’m almost to ye. We’ll have ye right as rain shortly. I think Cook has fresh biscuits for ye, too.”

  “My arm hurts. And I’m c-c-cold!”

  She could tell from his voice and the hollow echo bouncing off the water below that she was almost there. Her feet touched wetness, and she shuddered as she sank mid-thigh into chilled, stagnant water. When she could finally stand, the floor was slick underfoot and she unwrapped the rope carefully, reaching for the sides and trying to find her balance in the darkness.

  “A wee bit dark down here, is it no’?”

  “I don’t like the dark,” the little boy sobbed.

  It was one of the youngest boys, four-year-old Jürgen, who had fallen. She reached for him, squatting beside the trembling body and gathering him to her. The water lapped up against her chest, soaking her through, but she didn’t move as he wailed against her. She did what she could to soothe him while she gently felt for injuries. Glenna could tell straightaway that he was not only scratched and bruised as an apple, but had a badly broken arm. Through some miracle, the boy must have fallen feetfirst, ricocheting off the walls. The water, as disgusting as it was, had saved his life.