Sound of the Heart

by Genevieve Graham

  “There now, lad. Ye’ve banged yer arm, have ye? Let’s be very careful now. I’ll tie ye, and Josh an’ Peter will tug ye up to the sunshine again, all right?”

  The child shook with terror and pain. Glenna tried to calm him, knowing every one of his sobs jarred his arm, making it worse. She carefully wrapped the rope around and under his body, then called up from deep in the well, and two strong black slaves began to gently hoist up the rope.

  She waited at the bottom, blinking up as Jürgen was eased toward the circle of blue light overhead. Wisps of clouds skittered past, white and uncaring, perhaps providing a moment’s break for the slaves in the fields. Glenna squatted where Jürgen had landed, knowing it would be a while before they returned for her. Their priority would be the little boy. He would be carried to bed, fawned over, made as comfortable as possible, and only then would they remember her, shivering in the hole. She lifted her chin so she could keep staring at the sky, letting the back of her head slide along the mysterious coating lining the well.

  After a life spent in the forests with nothing but wild beasts to fear, she now seemed literally to drop from one prison to the next. Would she never be free to roam on her own again? Was Dougal free, wherever he was?

  “Y’all still dere?” she heard.

  “I’m still here, Bess,” Glenna replied. “Where else would I be?”

  “Takin’ yo’ time outta the sun, dat it? I’m tellin’ ya, you white girls will do jus’ about anythin’ to get outta the sun.” She chuckled and Glenna smiled at the low, fat sound. “We’ll have you back to the livin’ in a moment. Hang tight. Good work with that boy. The mistress is happier ’an a lark, she is, flappin’ around the poor boy. He’ll be gettin’ treats for the rest of his life, seems like.”

  Eventually the rope was dropped again and Glenna, not much heavier than the little boy, was pulled up. She helped when she could, poking her fingers into little crevasses along the route, bearing some of her own weight. The circle of light over her head grew with every tug and she held her breath, waiting to feel the sunshine again. She had forgotten how the dark could creep into her, like the cold, and take hold of her spirit.

  Jürgen was in bed when she arrived in his room, the covers pulled up to his pale little chin, and a messenger had been sent to bring the doctor. The child alternated between being inconsolable and being eerily silent. Something had to be done, and there was no way to know when the doctor might arrive. Glenna went to her mistress and dipped a curtsy, slightly nervous about what she was going to suggest. Though she fared better than most through her teaching position, slaves were often treated as less than human. How would the woman feel about the offer of a slave’s medical help?

  “If ye’ll permit, ma’am, the servant Aline is well studied in healin’. She’d do well for the lad.”

  Ursula, chewing single-mindedly on short nails, glanced sharply at her. “Then get her! Get her now! Schnell!”

  Aline’s eyes were wide as she was led into the manor, taking in the grandeur, the ornamental decor, the aromas seeping through the air from the kitchen. Glenna led her upstairs to the boy’s bedroom, talking to her about what was going on. When they entered the room, she was still staring blankly around, seeing the mistress for the first time, though she’d lived there for weeks.

  “Aline,” Glenna hissed and jerked on her arm.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” her friend whispered back. “I’ve no’ been inside such a place in, well, ever. It’s only such a shock.”

  “Aye, well, ye must concentrate now. The lad needs ye.”

  As soon as Glenna reminded her of her purpose, Aline snapped back into place. The little black house slave Glenna had come to know as Margaret stood nearby, waiting to fetch whatever Aline asked for. When she had everything assembled, Aline paused, fiddling with her fingers and glancing around for inspiration.

  Her eyes lit on the table in the hallway outside Jürgen’s door. “Whisky, if ye please.”

  “For my little liebchen? He’s only a baby!” Ursula cried.

  “Aye, I’m afraid so, ma’am. He’ll no’ do well with this wi’out a wee bit of help. Have ye any laudanum in the house?”

  They managed to find some and a tiny portion was given, which the patient immediately threw up. Aline frowned, but nodded. “Maybe that’s enough then,” she mumbled.

  When she was set, she gazed down at the patient, a calm, motherly smile on her sunburned face. Jürgen stared up at her, big eyes unblinking.

  “Right then, sweet lad. I’m goin’ to fix ye up proper, but ye willna like it one bit.”

  From the minute Aline set her fingers on the break, Jürgen lost consciousness, making the process easier on both the patient and the women around his bed. She did what she could to heal his other complaints, and the boy, after much maternal worrying and spoiling, eventually made a full recovery. As a result, Aline was promoted to house servant, a position much kinder than her previous one.

  At the end of her first week in this role, Aline squeezed Glenna against her. “Maybe this is yer reason for bein’, my friend. An’ if it is, I thank God for ye.” Glenna frowned, confused, and Aline explained, “Ye’ve saved my life, sure as the sun will rise on the morrow. I’d have been dead in another week out there. I’ve no’ the strength for such work. But here, well, I can clean. I can tend folk. I’ve always cleaned an’ tended, have I no’? So I thank ye for this, my dear Glenna.”

  The idea was strange, that Glenna had helped someone survive. She had done the same for Brenda, backed into the dark corner of the fort with Sergeant Jennings. Before that, Glenna had considered herself to be somewhat of a harbinger of death. Joseph and Dougal, the two people she cared for more than anything in the world, had both been killed trying to protect her. For Glenna to be the protector felt completely foreign.

  But over the next two years, she settled more easily into that frame of mind. She came to care deeply for the children, tending to them as if they were her own. And she was content with that. As much as she would have loved to have held a tiny version of Dougal in her arms, she was grateful it had never come to be. A babe never would have survived her tumultuous life. If it had, it most likely would have been taken from her and sold. She’d heard about families separated and sold piecemeal to the highest bidders. She couldn’t have borne that, to lose Dougal twice.

  Aline’s life continued to improve. She was the one sent to New Windsor when supplies needed buying, and it was there that she met another transplanted Scotsman and fell in love. Alan Cunningham was a free man with a small farm closer to the river. It took him a year, but at the end of it, he made his way to the Schmidts’ plantation, dressed in his best suit, purchased Aline’s contract, and asked for her hand in marriage.

  As happy as she was for her friend, Glenna was surprised at how quickly Herr Schmidt had accepted the farmer’s coin. It had been done with no negotiations of any kind. The rapid conclusion of the deal seemed odd. But Herr Schmidt was difficult to figure out at the best of times.

  After Aline left, Glenna took over many of her duties, meaning she no longer had to work in the hated fields. Now she taught in the mornings, and on some afternoons she rode into New Windsor with Herr Schmidt, doing errands while he stopped in at his favourite tavern.

  Going to town was something Glenna never quite got comfortable with. Though it was cleaner by far than London, with that city’s foul streets and air, it was more crowded than she liked, the pace faster than that to which she had become accustomed. Still, it was a taste of freedom she’d almost forgotten, having lived so sedately in the Schmidt household. She didn’t speak to anyone more than was needed for transactions, but listened, filling her hungry mind with the happenings of the day. She heard stories of Indian conflicts, of missing slaves, of a prominent man whose home had recently burned to the ground with him inside. The popular story behind that was it had been set by an escaped slave. Though the relationship between masters and slaves wasn’t something usually discussed in public
, Glenna heard enough to know she had indeed been saved from a terrible fate.

  Recently, however, Herr Schmidt had become short with her. In fact, he was curt with everyone, including his wife. He had no time at all for the children. And when they set out for town, which they did more often lately, he seemed barely to remember Glenna was there. On the drive in he was quiet, his eyes bright, but most of their return trips were darkened by his scowl of obvious frustration. He began to drink heavily. On some mornings fumes from the night before seeped from his skin, filling the air around him with a stale tang. At first Glenna wondered if the reason for this change in personality could be a mistress, but tossed the thought aside. Herr Schmidt, thank God, was not a womanizer. He was a man of business and efficiency, most likely moved to marital relations for the sole purpose of procreation.

  Glenna never stepped inside the tavern, with its impressive white brick front and faded black roof. Except for the lack of outbuildings, the tavern was almost the same size as the Schmidts’ plantation house, and she was cautious, but curious. Few women ever went in, so she limited herself to peeking through one of the large, green-framed windows and observing the dozen or more men inside, seated at round tables.

  She studied her master through the window, then marveled at her naïveté. Gambling. Of course. She should have been quicker to recognise the greed and desperation glowing in Schmidt’s dark German eyes. That explained a lot, like the disappearance of various decorative items from the house. Among other things, she’d noticed his fine collection of snuffboxes had grown smaller, and now she understood. Ursula obviously had no idea of her husband’s habit. He barely looked at his wife now, a fact that had the woman tied in knots. She constantly begged Glenna to fix her hair in the latest fashion or sew something alluring to attract his gaze again.

  One warm but breezy day in September, Glenna finished her shopping and headed up the main walkway toward the tavern. When daylight hours waned, she usually waited outside the door for him to emerge. She gave a brief but dismissive smile to a couple of men standing outside the door, combining it with a steely glare designed to warn them off. It seemed to work, because they returned to their conversation, disregarding her altogether. Glenna tucked a bolt of soft pink material under one arm and shrugged her basket higher on her other shoulder, then pressed her face against the window.

  Her timing was perfect. Through the grimy pane of glass she saw Herr Schmidt had just completed what he’d been doing. He stood back from the table, his impressive height seeming a little less this afternoon. He glared down his narrow nose, listening intently to one of the men. He gave the fellow a quick nod, then another and spun on his heel. Glenna ducked out of the way as he shoved through the door, jamming his tricorne onto a mussed black wig. He strode toward their waiting carriage, his expression flushed with anger, never once giving Glenna a glance. She scurried behind and settled on the bench opposite, waiting.

  When he spoke, it was without any emotion. “You shall pack when we get home, and you shall return here.”

  Glenna blinked, confused, and fought the sensation of the floor of the carriage falling from under her. Herr Schmidt stared out the window, his eyes anywhere but on her.

  “What?”

  “You will not live at our house anymore.”

  Panic surged through her, popping up in little beads across her brow. What did this mean? “But what did I—”

  “You did nothing.” He sighed and closed his eyes, uttering a sound of defeat Glenna had heard before, but only in her own heart. When he finally looked at her, his eyes were softer, and she recognised regret. “It is a question of money, du Ärmste.”

  She didn’t know much German, though the children had taught her some during their lessons, but she recognised this phrase as one of sympathy. That did nothing to calm her panic.

  “Money?”

  “Yes. This man, this tavern owner. Herr Frank Hill. I owe him more than I should. He will wait no longer. He knows people I do not want to anger, Fräulein Glenna. I will not put my family in danger.”

  “But . . .” Her voice trailed off as she took in what he’d said. She swallowed hard. “So ye lost me in a dice game? What does that mean?”

  His face had been dark that morning, tight and gaunt as a result of too much whisky the night before. Now his mood was even darker. Angry, frustrated, sick with himself, he snapped, “It means you have nothing to say. You have a new home.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Frank Hill

  Once again, Glenna’s life changed. As Herr Schmidt had said, when they reached the plantation, she and her things were packed into the carriage and sent immediately back to New Windsor. She wasn’t given the opportunity to say good-bye to Ursula or the children and wondered vaguely how Herr Schmidt might explain this to his family.

  She wanted to sleep as the carriage jogged and bounced for two more hours, but she couldn’t. Her mind raced. What now? This new life, belonging to a tavern owner, would be entirely different from how she had lived, enjoying the staid, safe environment of the Schmidts’ plantation. It was safe to assume there would be no mathematics lessons or singing of hymns within the tavern’s white brick walls.

  She rubbed her hands nervously, staring out the window as the line of storefronts and houses materialised again. The building looked different than it had hours earlier. Yes, it was nighttime now, but it was more than the beams of yellow light spilling through the windows, lighting the walkway by the road. Something about the windows. As if their bland, apathetic gaze from the afternoon had sharpened, spotting her, and now leered with a hungry malice.

  The population of the town, faces barely lit by the occasional lantern, watched as Glenna’s carriage pulled to a stop outside the tavern, but no one helped her get out or escorted her into the building. Frank Hill, the wealthiest man in New Windsor, sent no servants to assist her. So once the driver had dropped her small bag from the back of the carriage and driven back in the direction of the Schmidt home, she stood alone, staring up at the establishment.

  Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Glenna stepped up to the front door. It swung open just as she was reaching for the latch, and two obviously inebriated men tumbled out, laughing as they staggered toward the road. Glenna watched them go, stomach churning. A tavern was no place for a lady, and after living in the Schmidts’ fine home for so long, that’s what she considered herself to be these days. Taking a breath for courage, she stepped inside.

  The massive room was bright as day, and loud. Lanterns illuminated the red and gray bricks that dotted the walls like a stone-hard patchwork quilt. The floor was painted dark brown, but was well scuffed, with lighter paths leading to preferred tables over the years. Dominating the room was a long oak bar, shining with polish. Behind it stretched a marked-up old mirror, its reflection further brightening the place.

  She turned quickly at a burst of laughter from her right, then spun again at the sound of raised voices by the bar. The place was more crowded at night than it had been earlier, and she noticed again that this was not a place frequented by female patrons.

  But there were women. Half a dozen painted women whose husky laughter danced like smoke up to the grime-darkened rafters. Did this mean—

  Glenna didn’t wait to find out. Being caught escaping the idea of whoring seemed better than possibly living that life. She’d gladly hang, given the alternative. She whirled, reaching for the door, but it was blocked by a man who stood a few inches taller than Glenna. His arms were folded across a fine linen shirt, and silver curls, unencumbered by a hat, were greased flat against his head. His gray eyes almost matched his hair, meaning the only splash of colour on his face was the thick black moustache, curled at both ends.

  “Well, now,” he said. “Here she is.”

  “Excuse me,” she replied, reaching past him for the door. “I’m just leavin’.”

  He shook his head and twisted one end of his moustache between thumb and forefinger. A tight little smile curled under
his moustache. “I think not. I tell you what. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but ain’t too many ladies coming in here unless they’s looking for work.”

  “I’m no’ looking for work, sir. Please excuse me.”

  He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. He stuck one finger in his ear and wiggled it, then flicked something invisible to the floor. “And all them ladies work for me. So that must mean you’ve come here to work for me.”

  She frowned, uneasy. The man smirked at her in the strangest manner, as if his mind ticked with calculations. She wasn’t sure if she should be concerned, but her instincts were on alert.

  “I’ll ask ye again, sir—”

  “You are, I believe, Miss Glenna. Schmidt sent you over.”

  That stopped her. She lifted her chin, riding a swell of anxiety. “I am.”

  “Well, then. The name’s Frank Hill. I imagine you know that name well enough. Let’s go on in and get better acquainted.” He held out one arm, indicating a door cut in one of the tavern walls.

  Glenna took a discreet breath and headed toward the room that he’d indicated. She stepped inside and he latched the door behind her, then leaned against it, arms crossed again. Gone was the cheerful atmosphere of the tavern. Now she stood in a dark office dominated by a huge, ornate desk and chair. Back a little farther she could see the man’s bedroom. The dim profile of his bed was a warning as clear as any battle cry she’d heard in Scotland.

  “I seen you around,” he said, barely nodding. She saw the glimmer of his teeth in the dark and couldn’t help thinking of the nasty black and white badgers she’d trapped back home. “And when Friedrich got a little down on his luck, I knew precisely how I’d get to see you more often.” He took a step toward her and she took one back, edging around the desk. His smile was slow, carnal. “You know you belong to me now, right?”