Finding Mercy

by Cindy Kelley

  Charlotte left before breakfast the next morning. After spending the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening in her room, she’d successfully managed to avoid her family and their opinions of her actions. After arriving in Darien, she made her way toward the church, but more specifically to the small house Victoria had pointed out to her on one of their trips to town. Charlotte tied Lucky to a post in front of the parsonage and knocked. Pastor Brady answered the door.

  “Charlotte.”

  “I know it’s early,” she said. “And I’m sorry to come unannounced …”

  He studied her, then stepped back. “Come in.”

  The pastor’s home, owned by his church flock, was tidy, but very sparsely furnished. He led Charlotte to a plain table in the small kitchen.

  “I was having coffee,” he said. “Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Please, have a seat,” he said.

  He took a chair and wrapped his hand around a coffee cup. “You read the passage?”

  “I did.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “That the people of Darien won’t like me for what I did.”

  A small nod from him. “What you did—bringing that colored boy to an all-white church, was … stunning. I can’t imagine you doing such a thing before you went away.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” she said.

  “The old Charlotte Chapman was a staunch supporter of slavery,” he said. “Has losing your memory changed your views so much—you would take a risk like that for yourself—and for that boy?”

  “I can’t speak to what I believed before,” she said. “So I can’t answer your question.”

  “I’ve heard the stories about you, Charlotte. How you joined the Confederacy. You fought to maintain the Southern way of life. You fought to keep colored folks enslaved. That is a person who is passionate about her beliefs.”

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “My point exactly,” he said. “You don’t remember life before; you don’t remember how people here suffered during the war. How they lost a third of their sons, husbands, fathers, brothers. How an entire town was burned to the ground by a regiment of colored Union soldiers so filled with hate they set fire to things just for the pleasure of watching them burn.”

  “I didn’t mean to stir up hurtful memories,” she said. “That wasn’t my intention at all.”

  “You brought Isaac to a church filled with people who remember every detail of what I just described. People who have lost the only way of life they’ve ever known. Many lost their homes, their ability to earn a living. You brought him into a congregation who’ve been so steeped in a way of life, they still can’t see it was wrong.”

  He let his last statement settle between them. Charlotte frowned. “You’re saying you believe slavery was wrong?”

  He studied her. “From the time I was a very young man, I knew God was calling me to be a pastor. To use God’s Word to influence others, soften their attitudes, and speak to their hearts. But if I were to make bold proclamations like the one you did, I would find myself without a pulpit and no longer able to fulfill my calling.”

  He stared into her eyes as if searching her very soul. “What has God called you to do, Charlotte? Fall in love? Marry? Have children?”

  “Be a genteel Southern lady, isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Maybe I could do that, if men like you would be bolder.”

  “You think I’m using my calling as a shroud—a place to hide a spine too weak to take a public stand?”

  “I’m sorry. I should never have said what I did.”

  He took a moment, fought back his emotions. “I’ve wondered that myself and won’t know the answer until I stand before my Maker on judgment day.”

  “I can tell you I already know how it feels to have others hate me so much they’d want to end my life,” she said.

  “And that’s the reason for our visit … to make sure you fully comprehend the world you’ve returned to.” He leaned toward her. “There’s a group of men. They operate in secret and are very violent.” The pastor rubbed worry lines from his forehead. “They won’t like what you did. And they won’t hesitate to kill you if you continue to undermine their way of life.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  After arriving home from town, Charlotte went into the parlor and studied the portrait of her father—the face that had brought her home. By all accounts he was a man who’d loved his family and Southern heritage. Greatly admired by people in town, called heroic, brave—apparently he had loved her with his whole heart. But would you love the person I am right now, Father? Would you still be proud of me after what I did yesterday at church? He was a man who’d owned slaves. As many as three hundred souls at one point, according to Beau. It was the way things were done. Is that the lesson for me? Get along—do things the way they’re done here. This is my home—the place I dreamed of before I could even picture it.

  “What do you think he would have thought of your grand entrance into church with that colored boy?” a cold voice said.

  Charlotte turned to see her mother walking across the parlor toward her. She couldn’t run and hide in her room from the conversation she knew they were about to have. She braced herself for the tirade she thought was coming.

  “I don’t imagine he would have been pleased,” Charlotte said.

  “So, will you be bringing a different Negro to church every week? Or is it just the one boy who interests you?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “I won’t be bringing any more Negroes to church.”

  Her mother studied her. “Your father would be disappointed in you—”

  “I’m aware …”

  “If you don’t follow your heart.”

  “What do mean?”

  Her mother sank gracefully onto the settee. “What he loved most about you was your spirit. He loved that you had the courage to stand up for the things you believed in. The two of you didn’t always agree on everything, but he admired how passionate you were about your argument, whatever the cause.”

  Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears at her words. “I appreciate you saying that.”

  “I’m only speaking the truth.” Mother patted the seat next to her. “Come, sit.”

  Charlotte did as she asked.

  Her mother smiled gently. “Now, tell me what’s on your heart.”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I asked,” Suzanne said.

  Charlotte tried hard to articulate her thoughts. “I believe the houses in the colored camp are deplorable. I’m surprised a strong gust of wind hasn’t toppled every one of them. And then there’s the issue of reading and writing. I think that’s a huge problem. Maybe not so much when they were slaves, but now that they’re trying to make a living and be responsible for their own families …”

  She stopped, afraid to say the rest of what was on her mind. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

  Mother frowned. “What? What were you going to say?”

  “I think I’ve already said more than enough,” Charlotte said.

  “I’m not completely closed-minded, Charlotte,” her mother said. “Now that they’re trying to make a living …?”

  “I believe Negroes who have accounts in town are being cheated,” Charlotte said. “I saw it myself at the feed store. I think it’s easy to take advantage of a man who can’t read his own ledger and add up what he’s being charged.”

  Her mother nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard rumors about shenanigans with bookkeeping. It’s disappointing, of course, but if Jackson is doing it, you can probably assume it’s happening with other merchants as well as the plantation owners.”

  �
��If that is the case, the colored men who are trying to turn a profit from the small plots of land they have will never get out of debt.”

  Mother sighed. “You are probably right.”

  “Do we subscribe to this practice, Mother?”

  “I’d like to think not. I don’t handle the tedious task of numbers—Beau and Jonas take care of things …” She frowned. “Would you think me weak if I said I don’t want to know?”

  “Not at all,” Charlotte said. “It’s a difficult subject.”

  “And I imagine a difficult decision to make if you want to take any kind of action,” her mother said.

  Charlotte nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Mother sounded grim. “I think you do. You are John Chapman’s daughter. You must act accordingly.”

  Charlotte couldn’t believe her mother was basically giving her blessing to uncover the wrongs in town and on the plantation.

  “The thought of trying to prove it seems daunting,” Charlotte said. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Georgia is part of the Third Military District. I suppose you would take your concerns to the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. They’re the ones who handle this kind of thing.”

  “In Darien?”

  “No. The Freedmen’s Bureau is in Savannah. I believe the agent who handles the complaints for McIntosh County is Lucius Akerman. Once you make a claim of an outrage that’s been committed on colored people, he has no choice but to investigate.”

  “I’d have to go to Savannah?”

  “That’s to your advantage, dear. You certainly wouldn’t want anyone in town getting wind of what you’re doing—and to be brutally frank, neither would I.”

  “But if I go there, make a complaint, won’t that expose me to … everyone?”

  “The Freedmen’s Bureau will keep your identity confidential,” her mother said. “They understand the implications of accusations better than most.”

  “I’ll have to think about how to obtain proof,” Charlotte said, more to herself now than to her mother. “I can’t exactly steal their books …”

  “You can’t steal them, but you could borrow them for a bit.”

  Charlotte nodded thoughtfully, then said, “Thank you for letting me tell you all this. For helping me talk it through.”

  “It’s what families do for one another,” her mother said. “We are your safe place from the world. Always.”

  Charlotte entered Dooley’s wearing a white blouse and a navy skirt adorned with a decorative white apron. The apron had deep pockets meant to be nothing more than design, but Charlotte had big plans for those pockets. Dooley was helping another customer, a young woman Charlotte hadn’t met, who lingered at the counter hemming and hawing over the purchase of three skeins of wool yarn. Dooley slanted a helpless look at Charlotte. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Miss Charlotte.”

  “All right,” she said.

  Finally, the young woman pushed two of the three skeins toward Dooley. “I’ll take these two.”

  Dooley, smile frozen in place, nodded. “Very good, Mrs. Turner.” He reached under his counter and brought out his ledger. He flipped it open and carefully recorded the cost of the yarn, then slipped the book back under the counter. “So, if that’s all, then …”

  Mrs. Turner turned and pointed to something in the recesses of the store. “I can’t buy one today, but I was wondering if you might show me some of your frying pans?”

  Dooley sighed. “Of course.” He turned to Charlotte. “What can I …”

  Charlotte feigned a look of chagrin. “I can’t believe it, but I left my list at home.”

  “It’s just about closing time, Miss Charlotte.” He looked pointedly at Mrs. Turner, who paid him no mind.

  “I know. I’ll come back in the morning,” Charlotte said.

  Mrs. Turner was already heading toward the back of the store. “Coming, Mr. Dooley?”

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes at Charlotte. “Coming, Mrs. Turner. See you tomorrow then, Miss Charlotte.”

  Charlotte nodded, waited for him to follow Mrs. Turner, then hurried around the counter. In seconds, she had the ledger tucked into one of her pockets and strolled out the door.

  That night, by the time she’d made copies of Dooley’s ledger and had poured over all the numbers, the candle had burned down to a small plug of wax. She added up the figures over and over again. For the colored farmers, numbers were padded, inflated—flat-out wrong. For the white landowners and farmers, it was a fraction of the cost for the same goods and services. It was even worse than she’d feared. The scratch of the nib of her pen over the paper seemed to reverberate in the deep quiet of the house while everyone else slept. What she’d confirmed about Dooley made her sad. “Dance with an old friend of your father’s?”

  Charlotte was waiting in front of Dooley’s the next morning when he arrived. He smiled broadly at her.

  “Come back with your list, did you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “So silly of me to forget it yesterday.”

  “Well, come on in,” Dooley said. “There’s never a wait when you’re the first one.” He went behind the counter and held out his hand. “Let’s see that list.”

  She handed it over, and he turned to the shelves behind him and began to pluck items from the shelves. Charlotte took the opportunity to pull the book from her pocket and slip it behind the big jar of penny candy sitting on the counter. Dooley lined the items up on the counter. “Let me just write ’em in the book.”

  He ducked under the counter, then stood and frowned.

  “That’s strange. My ledger. It’s usually right there on the shelf …”

  Charlotte made a show of sweeping her gaze around. She pointed toward the penny candy jar. “Is that it?”

  Dooley grinned. “Yep. Think I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached. Now, let’s fill out your tab.”

  She almost wished it hadn’t been so easy, because now she had no excuse not to continue.

  The feed and livestock shop was next. Jackson smiled broadly when she entered, and told her she would be happy to learn the chickens would be in ahead of schedule. Charlotte thanked him and assured him her mother would be pleased. She asked if it would be too much trouble for Jackson to double check the amount of feed they ordered.

  The incriminating book was out and on the counter when a bell in the back rang. Jackson apologized, said it was the delivery wagon. He needed to go compare his order to the goods delivered. She smiled and said she could check with him the next day about the feed. In fact, she might have another order to place. Jackson stuffed the ledger back in a drawer under his counter and said he’d see her in the morning. He hurried through the store and out the back door, almost as quickly as Charlotte hurried around the counter and pulled out the ledger. She slipped it into her apron pocket just as Sam came through with his broom.

  A breeze came through her window that night and put out the flame on her candle at about the same time she put down her pen. The room darkened, and she closed the cover of Jackson’s ledger and thought about the families who would never be out of debt if the practice continued. They’d traded one form of slavery for another.

  Earl Jenkins at the sawmill was more than happy to show Charlotte how much lumber it would take to build onto the existing chicken coop at the plantation. He kept his ledger in a desk drawer that didn’t have a lock.

  Though he traded mostly in mules, harnesses, and plows, Zeke Prentiss complimented Charlotte on her keen eye for horses. He had a new saddle she might like to try. The intricate, tooled design on the leather would be perfect for a lady of her stature. She asked him to write down the cost, maybe include the bridle and a blanket as well. She’d need to talk it over with her mother, but she promised to let him know her decision within the day. Zeke’s ledger had a string pull
ed through the cover and it dangled from a nail in the wall. While Zeke turned to write down the prices for Charlotte, she slipped that string right off that nail, and the ledger went into the pocket of that very handy apron.

  Ironically, the easiest books to get were the hardest for Charlotte to look at, and she’d purposefully left them until last. While everyone slept, she’d slipped the ledgers out of Beau’s desk drawer and carried them to her room. Mother had made it clear she didn’t want to know, but Charlotte did. She had to know if Beau was conducting the family business in an honorable way. It didn’t take long for her to see he was not. The charges for use of the mill were ten times higher for the black families than they were for the white neighbors. Rent costs for the plots of land were exorbitant, not even close to the contracts the Freedmen’s Bureau had approved. She felt certain most of the colored farmers probably suspected they were being cheated but didn’t know what to do about it.

  Well after midnight, tired and heartsick over Beau’s involvement, Charlotte opened the drawer where the nubs of nine candles, wicks burned to the core, were tucked inside. She blew out the tenth candle and added it to the others. Alone in the dark, she thought of what she had to do next.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Charlotte and Lucky arrived in Savannah late in the morning, having left the plantation before dawn. The town was shrouded in gauzy clouds that did little to filter the sun’s heat. Though she was apprehensive about what she was doing, she knew it was the right thing. With her precious evidence inside her saddlebags, she made her way down the main road of town bordered by towering oak trees whose highest branches shaded all those below. She spotted the landmark her mother told her to watch for right away—an American flag waved from a flagpole at least thirty feet high. “The office of the bureau will be inside Oglethorpe Barracks, dear. The Yankees took it over during the war, and now they use the buildings to run state government.”

  The flag was positioned in front of a ten-foot-high brick wall that surrounded a courtyard filled with buildings. She had no idea how to get inside. Riding Lucky around the wall, she turned east onto Drayton Street and continued until she came to a small guardhouse. The two-story frame building was only about thirty feet long and thirty feet wide. She dismounted at the same time a soldier exited.