The Lost Quilter

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “No. Army camp no place for Ruthie and Hannah. That no life for two little colored girls, or for you either.”

  “At least we be free.”

  “It won’t be freedom for me if I have to fear every day I might lose you.” Titus pulled her into an embrace. “I got to go. Kiss me, Joanna, be sweet. Don’t know when I see you again.”

  Her anger was not yet spent. She wanted to argue, to persuade him to see sense, but all at once her will to fight evaporated. He had made up his mind, and he thought he had chosen what was right. Nothing she said would persuade him otherwise. She would only delay his departure, risk his capture, and make what could be their final parting ugly and bitter.

  So she swallowed hard and flung her arms around him. The butt of his rifle brushed against the back of her calf as he held her tightly. “Remember to keep breathin’,” he murmured in her ear, but then he released her and stepped from the open doorway into the night.

  Joanna stood rooted in place for a long moment, her eyes filling with tears. Then she blinked them away and eased the door shut, holding on to the latch and resting her forehead against the door.

  “That your man?” George asked quietly from the top of the stairs.

  Joanna didn’t turn around. “That Titus, my husband.”

  “An army of colored men.” Georges’s skepticism stung, though it was but an echo of her own. “Your man likely run off to get himself killed.”

  “He go to fight for his freedom,” Joanna snapped. “Mine and yours too. Slavery got to end and look like this the only way to do it.”

  “Someone tell your man a wild fib. No way no buckra general gonna make a colored army.”

  “If Titus say it’s true, I believe him.”

  George made no reply. Silence filled the stairwell.

  “You best come to bed,” said George eventually. “All your work still gonna be there in the morning. Your husband ain’t made us free yet.”

  Without a word, Joanna climbed the stairs, brushed past him, and climbed into bed. She put her arm around her girls and drew the thin blanket over them, her back to George and his pallet on the floor.

  Two days later, Miss Evangeline summoned Joanna to the parlor. Joanna had heard the messenger at the door, and when she saw the letter in the mistress’s hand, she knew it had been sent from West Grove.

  “Joanna,” said Miss Evangeline sternly. “Have you seen Titus?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Last time he brought letters from your pappy Marse Chester, before they move to the new place.”

  The mistress’s blue eyes narrowed icily. “And not since then?”

  Joanna furrowed her brow and shook her head, but not too much, just enough to suggest confusion. “No, ma’am. You know I ain’t never been to West Grove.”

  “I’ve heard from my father.” Miss Evangeline tapped the folded paper lightly on her palm. “Your Titus seems to be missing.”

  Joanna hesitated. “Sorry, ma’am. What you mean, missing?”

  “I mean he’s run away.”

  “Run away? No, ma’am, not Titus, he—”

  “He’s run away, and my father believes he is on his way here. Unless he’s been here already.” Miss Evangeline studied her. “But I don’t suppose he would have continued on without you. You’re a runaway. You know more about running away than he does. For that reason alone he would have taken you.”

  “Mrs. Harper, Titus ain’t the sort to run off.”

  “He was sent out hunting with my father’s old rifle. He never returned and a horse is missing.”

  “Maybe he don’t find no game close, so he take the horse to look far off.” Joanna pressed a hand to her throat. “He don’t know the land ’round the new place like he know Oak Grove. Maybe he got lost. Maybe he fall off the horse and layin’ hurt somewhere. Maybe them Yankee soldiers kill him for the horse and rifle.” Joanna fell to her knees and clutched the hem of Miss Evangeline’s dress. “Missus, please, you got to ask your father to send folks out to look for him. He could be close to death in those woods somewhere.”

  “Oh, not to worry. My father has certainly sent people to search for Titus, and I have no doubt that they will find him, wherever he might run.” But a slight shadow of doubt clouded her pretty features as she gave her skirts a twist to release them from Joanna’s grasp. “In the meantime, if your husband does turn up here, you must inform me immediately or you’ll find yourself without a husband or a daughter.”

  Anger churned, but Joanna ducked her head and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Miss Evangeline dismissed her, Joanna quickly left the room, only to find George standing in the hall. “You almost as fine at playactin’ as her.”

  “Better,” Joanna retorted. “I got to be.”

  She stormed from the house and across the cobblestone path to the laundry, where the steaming kettles and stinging lye boiled and burned as if with her own simmering resolution.

  In mid-June, the Harpers rejoiced at the news that the heavily outnumbered Confederate forces had successfully fought off a Union attack on Secessionville on James Island. If the Yankees had won, and if they had overrun the Confederates’ yet unfinished earthwork fort, they would have flanked the defenses of Charleston Harbor and would have been perfectly placed to invade the city. Instead, after suffering heavy losses, the Union forces had withdrawn from the island. Colonel Harper’s family eagerly sought out news about the battle, debating and pondering every new detail, imagining the scenes of battle that had taken place on the lands they knew so well. Old Marse Harper even declared that he was glad to sacrifice his plantation to such a glorious purpose even if it meant he would be raking grapeshot out of his rice fields for years to come. Mrs. Givens gave voice to what was probably the unspoken hope of the rest of the buckra in the household: Surely this stunning victory meant that the Confederates would soon bring about a decisive end to the war.

  But the family’s jubilation was short-lived.

  The letter that brought word of Colonel Harper’s terrible injury was written in an unfamiliar, feminine hand—a nurse, perhaps, a young belle who tended the sick and injured instead of dancing at balls, a widowed plantation mistress numbing her grief through useful work. The colonel had been shot, his right leg amputated below the knee. Considering what had befallen him, he was in fair spirits, though not sufficiently recovered to write to his dear wife on his own, and if the wound did not fester, he had a good chance of surviving. His body servant had been killed on the battlefield at his side, faithful to the last.

  The colonel’s mother collapsed in a faint after Miss Evangeline read the letter aloud. George was sent running for the doctor, Joanna for smelling salts. Mrs. Harper was conscious but dazed by the time the doctor arrived; he ordered her to bed and dosed her with laudanum. He offered Miss Evangeline a bottle too, but she waved him off and assured him it was not necessary. He did not press her, perhaps seeing as Joanna did that although the mistress was pale and trembling, there was nothing anxious or hysterical about her mind.

  After the doctor left, Miss Evangeline and her father-in-law fell into urgent debate. They agreed that no nurse would tend the colonel better than his own devoted wife, and she resolved to go to him at once. But she would not allow her husband to languish in an army hospital tent, “those cesspools of filth and putridity,” as she called them. As soon as he could travel, he must be removed to a more healthful location.

  Mrs. Givens entered into the discussion; Joanna, Millie, and George listened from the fringes. Over supper Miss Evangeline, old Marse Harper, and Mrs. Givens concluded that they must impose upon Marse Chester’s generosity and evacuate the entire household to West Grove. The Harpers would be responsible for transporting household goods and slaves and would go directly to the new plantation; Miss Evangeline would take only the necessities in the carriage, with Abner to drive her, so that she could proceed as quickly as possible to her husband. As soon as he regained enough strength to make the journey safely, they would join the oth
ers at West Grove.

  Once the decision was made, preparations proceeded swiftly. Miss Evangeline ordered Sally to pack a hamper with food, medicine, and bandages. The colonel’s father decided what possessions must be brought along and what could be safely left behind—what they could, if they must, do without. Joanna and Hannah raced to pack trunks with clothing and valuables; whenever buckra eyes were not upon them, the slaves stole away to say their good-byes to friends and to bundle their own few belongings into kerchiefs or worn blankets.

  Once Joanna found George alone in the slaves’ dormitory, folding his extra footman’s coat and tucking his clothes into a faded feed sack. “Faithful to the last,” he muttered. “That’s what they think about Asa now he dead and gone. He got a wife and child, you know that? Before you come here, Marse Colonel sold them both to buy that fine black horse he rode off to war on.” He shoved a pair of trousers into the sack. “Faithful. Only reason Asa not leave Marse Colonel to face those bullets on his own ’cause he know he get shot in the back if he run.”

  Joanna did not know what to say. “Asa gone to a better world.”

  “Better world. You sound like that buckra preacher they make us listen to Sunday after Sunday. Asa don’t want no better world, not yet. He want his wife and son.” George slung the feed sack over his shoulder and stormed past her to the staircase. “Now his bones lie in some trench with all the other faithful servants who go with their marses into war, covered over with dirt and not even a stone to mark the place.”

  She watched him go, wishing that her attempt to comfort him had not gone so badly awry. George was right. Asa had faced every danger his master had faced, but the buckra would soon forget him. When he was well enough, Colonel Harper would buy a replacement, and perhaps even change the new slave’s name to Asa so he did not have to trouble himself to remember a different name.

  Joanna spread the Birds in the Air quilt over her narrow bed and rolled her extra clothing, her tin cornboiler, and her few other treasures into the center. The knotted kerchief that held her carefully hoarded coins she tied around her waist under her skirt. Her quilt, her kerchief, and her girls—she was packed and ready to go to West Grove. If only her beloved awaited her there.

  Moving day came, chaotic and sudden. Miss Evangeline and her father-in-law tried to keep order, shouting instructions, distributing people and cargo and slaves between two carriages and two wagons, one apiece for Miss Evangeline’s household and her in-laws’. The Harpers’ slaves and the possessions they had brought from James Island filled their wagon, along with other treasures from Harper Hall they could not bear to leave behind. Although Miss Evangeline had declared that they should take only the most precious, cherished heirlooms, she had been unable to pare down her selections to fit in one wagon, so at the eleventh hour she sent George out to buy another. He soon returned with the only conveyance he had been able to find on such short notice, a small, rickety cart, with a loose axle and charred boards as if it had barely escaped becoming kindling in the December firestorm. When Miss Evangeline learned how much he had paid for it, she cuffed him on the ear and upbraided him for wasting their money. Joanna looked away so the buckra would not see her scowl. If the wretched woman thought she could have found something better at a lower price, she should have gone on the errand herself. It would serve the temperamental mistress right if George had lied, if the price had been half of what he had reported and he had kept the rest of the money for himself.

  Miss Evangeline was the first to depart, wearing a dark brown traveling dress over the quilted petticoat padded with cotton and silver coins, setting off in her carriage with Abner at the reins, making haste to her husband’s bedside. “Watch that one,” the mistress called through the window as she pulled away, gesturing to Joanna. “She can’t be trusted. She runs.”

  And even though Joanna had never given the Harpers reason to doubt that she was any less a faithful servant than Asa, the buckra eyes narrowed as they shifted to her, measuring her, suspicious. They would watch her constantly all the way to West Grove.

  Miss Evangeline had been gone almost half a day by the time the caravan was loaded and ready to move out. The curtains drawn, the shutters latched, the doors locked, Harper Hall was shut up tight until better times might allow the family to return. Old Mrs. Harper dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief as her husband helped her into the Harpers’ coach. Mrs. Givens climbed in after her parents and sons, carefully cradling her nephew and murmuring that he must not miss his mother too much, because his auntie would care for him tenderly in her absence. From her place on the driver’s seat next to old Marse Harper’s coachman, Mattie looked down upon the exchange pensively, seeming bereft and distracted without baby Thomas in her arms.

  Joanna sat in the back of Miss Evangeline’s wagon with the rest of the grown slaves, her back pressed uncomfortably against a steamer trunk, a knot of dread tightening in her stomach. There had not been enough room in the wagon for Ruthie and Hannah, even though Joanna argued that they could both ride on her lap, even though Minnie and Sally had insisted they didn’t mind a tight fit. Ignoring their pleas, Mrs. Givens had ordered them to ride in the cart, so Hannah perched precariously on top of the luggage, with Ruthie on her lap.

  “It ain’t safe,” Joanna had protested.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Givens called through the window of the carriage, entirely missing the point. “Together those girls don’t weigh fifty pounds soaking wet. The cart will hold together long enough to get us to West Grove.”

  Joanna had made a soft nest for them out of her newest quilts and begged Hannah to watch over Ruthie, but that was all she could do for their safety and comfort. It would be a long, hard, hazardous ride, and she knew she would feel every jolt and jarring bump in her heart.

  When old Marse Harper gave the order to move out, the stable boy holding the reins to the carthorse quickly scrambled onto the seat and, out of longtime habit, made himself as small as possible to make more room for the driver. Though her gaze was locked on her girls as she silently willed them to hold on tight, out of the corner of her eye Joanna saw a smile flicker on George’s lips as he gathered up the reins and obeyed old Marse Harper’s command to start the wagon.

  But the carriage and wagon moved forward only a few paces before old Marse Harper called the caravan to a halt. “What’s wrong with you, boy?” he shouted. “Get that cart moving!”

  Adam, who, Joanna knew, was no more than nine years old, gulped and ducked his head. “Don’t know how, Marse Harper, suh.”

  “What nonsense is this?” shrilled Mrs. Givens, unseen within the carriage.

  “Adam tend the horses and clean stalls, missus, but he don’t drive,” George answered. “Marse Colonel don’t let boys drive his horses till they twelve year old.”

  The carriage rocked slightly as old Marse Chester rose from his seat. “I’ll drive the blasted thing then.”

  “No, Father,” said Mrs. Givens. “It’s a deathtrap. It’s not safe.”

  Safe enough for my girls, thought Joanna, studiously looking away so that the buckra would not see her glare.

  “You can stay put, Marse Harper, suh,” said George. “This girl Joanna, she can drive, and she light enough for the cart.” He shot her a look that set her in motion, a warning that she should not delay long enough for the buckra to think of a contradictory argument.

  “The laundress can drive a horse?” asked Mrs. Givens, her narrow, suspicious face appearing in the carriage window.

  “Yes, ma’am. Her husband Marse Chester’s groom. He taught her all he know.”

  They must not have heard of Titus’s disappearance, for Mrs. Givens and her father exchanged a glance, and then old Marse Chester said, “Very well, get to it, girl. We’ve delayed long enough.”

  Quickly Joanna scrambled to her feet and swung the Birds in the Air quilt over her shoulder.

  “What’s that you’re holding?” Mrs. Givens called out.

  “Just my things, ma’am.”
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br />   Mrs. Givens’s mouth thinned into a suspicious frown. “That bundle holds all your earthly goods? Everything most precious to you in the world?”

  Her children, Titus, and her dream of freedom were infinitely more precious, but of course Joanna could not tell the colonel’s sister that. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then leave it be. You can have it back when we reach West Grove.” Mrs. Givens settled back into her seat, and Joanna heard her add to her father, “You heard what Evangeline said. The wench isn’t likely to run without her belongings, is she?”

  Joanna could part with any of it in a heartbeat, except the Birds in the Air quilt, with its hidden symbols that would one day lead her back to Elm Creek Farm and Frederick. But she dropped the bundle, thanked Sally when she promised to look after it for her, and climbed down from the back of the wagon. She took her place on the cart seat next to Adam and gathered up the reins.

  “Missus Givens, Marse Harper,” said George. “Don’t she need a pass?” He held up his own, a requirement for any slave traveling without his master present, but all the more essential since the declaration of martial law.

  “Confound these endless inconveniences,” old Marse Chester grumbled as he climbed down from the carriage and set Minnie and Sally searching through trunks and valises for paper and pen. He scrawled a note, thrust it at Joanna, and ordered Minnie to repack everything as they rode. Joanna surreptitiously read the pass as she slipped it into her pocket: “This slave wench, Joanna, is the property of Colonel Robert Harper and is en route to his father-in-law’s plantation at West Grove transporting his goods and property including 3 young slaves. Please allow her to proceed unmolested. Signed, Wilberforce Edward Harper.”

  At a word from old Marse Harper, Joanna guided the cart into place behind the carriage and the wagon and followed them through the wrought iron gates onto Meeting Street. No one had thought to tell her how to get to West Grove, so she followed the wagon closely, worried that she would lose sight of the others in the crowd of soldiers and businessmen and slaves, or that the fragile, creaking cart would fall apart beneath her and the children. Once George glanced over his shoulder, shook his head slowly and deliberately, and raised a palm, so Joanna pulled back on the reins to slow her horse and give the wagon more space. But the street was so busy that she couldn’t allow the gap to widen too much, or another wagon might cut in front of her, obscuring her view. She feared the cart wouldn’t hold together if she were forced to yank on the reins and bring the horse, a gentle mare that the colonel had kept past her prime for sentimental reasons, to an abrupt stop.