Beneath a Golden Veil

by Melanie Dobson

  “Oh, Victor.” She sunk down into her pillows again, smirking. “Of course you don’t.”

  Chapter 8

  Scott’s Grove

  December 1853

  The sun rose over the frost on the tobacco fields, but the warmth didn’t penetrate Alden’s room. His family might be able to ignore what happened to Benjamin, but he could not.

  With his door cracked open, he could hear Rhody outside, calling for Mammy.

  Mammy should be grieving, but instead she’d have to suppress her grief as she buttoned, ironed, and powdered his sister into a proper young lady. For two decades now, Mammy had worked tirelessly for his family, raising the three Payne children and then serving the women, yet they didn’t give her a day off to mourn her loss.

  His mother entered his room, dressed in a Sunday gown that shimmered red and gold. In her hands was a wheat-colored carpetbag. She quickly scrutinized his nightclothes. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

  He leaned back against the bedpost, raking his fingers through his messy hair. “I’m not going to church.”

  “But it’s Christmas.”

  He bowed toward her, forearms resting on his knees. “Do you remember the Christmas before I turned ten?”

  She shook her head.

  “It was so warm that Benjamin and I rose early to swim in the pond. Benjamin was only seven, and yet he’d figured out how to make a diving stage from the racks in the curing barn.”

  His mother’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you stole the racks.”

  “I couldn’t tell Father that Benjamin did it. By then, I’d figured out that Benjamin would be whipped with the switch if he did something wrong while my punishment was usually to skip a meal.”

  She shifted her feet. “That was a long time ago . . .”

  His gaze traveled back toward the window to the oak and hickory trees in the forest beyond his father’s field. “I knew we were different, but I didn’t really know why until I was much older. In my early years, I just saw him as a boy like me.”

  “He’s not anything like you, Alden,” she said stiffly.

  “But he was. Not his skin color, but he was smart—much smarter than me—and so clever. Then he lost everything when he was sent out to the fields.”

  She closed the door and sat on the bed beside him, the carpetbag in her lap. “Your compassion is admirable, but you can’t change the way of the South on your own. Nor should you. Your father may be firm, but he also provides food and clothing and shelter for our men and women. He cares for them much better than some of our neighbors do their slaves.”

  His stomach churned. “You should have seen Benjamin’s body—”

  She waved her gloved hand above the bag. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “His treatment was much more than firm, Mother. It was cruel.”

  “You didn’t know Benjamin in his later years. His rebellion was stirring up all the slaves. Your father had to make an example of him to stop the others from running away.”

  He leaned toward her. “Perhaps it will stop others from running now, but it will also make them angry. You should be worried about what they might do.”

  She glanced over at the closed door. “After last night, your father doesn’t want you to return to Harvard.”

  “I suspected he might not.”

  “He says you’re learning all the wrong things.”

  “I’m learning to think for myself.”

  Fear flashed across her face, replaced swiftly by the resolve in her gaze as she opened the carpetbag, displaying the banknotes inside. “This is enough to pay for your final semester.”

  He looked down at the money. “Does he know you’re giving me this?”

  She clasped it shut again. “You will leave with Eliza’s driver tomorrow before breakfast. I will explain after you’re gone.”

  For a moment, he felt like Isaac, being shipped off in the carriage in the early morning hours, except he believed his mother was doing this for his well-being. And perhaps to protect him from her husband’s wrath.

  “No matter what your father says, he is proud that you’re going to be a Harvard graduate.” She stepped back toward the door. “Use your education for good, Alden.”

  “I will.” He stood and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

  A half hour later, he watched the horses pull his family’s carriage away from the house. Then he cleared out the dresser in his room swiftly, unceremoniously dumping his possessions into his steamer trunk. The money for school went into his leather valise.

  He wouldn’t wait until his family returned to celebrate the holiday with dinner and gifts. He’d leave now, and perhaps he could take Mammy with him instead of Benjamin.

  While the other house slaves prepared for the festivities, Mammy sat by the kitchen hearth in the basement, staring down at a plate of grits and boiled chitterlings. He had always thought Mammy was beautiful, like the African princesses in the adventure stories she used to tell him and Benjamin, but her loss, and the years of her service to the Payne family, had pared away most of her outer beauty. She probably hadn’t lived more than thirty-five years, but she looked to be at least fifty.

  He filled two cups with black coffee and handed one to her as he sat beside her on the hearth. Even though her body was frail, he knew she remained strong inside—and beautiful.

  “Benjamin was a good boy,” she said, stirring the grits with her fork. “Could have gone off to the university with you.”

  “Yes, he could have.”

  “Made something big of himself.”

  He twisted the cup in his hands. “What my father did was wrong.”

  “John Payne never thinks about anyone except himself.”

  A loyal son would have corrected her, might even have sent her out to the pillory for her impertinence, but unlike his father, he wanted to protect instead of harm her.

  He set his cup on the wooden counter. “I want you to come north with me.”

  She shook her head. “Your father won’t emancipate any of his slaves.”

  “It won’t matter up in Canada.”

  “Even a half-wit slave hunter would suspect something if I crossed over that Mason-Dixon Line with you. Then he’d bring me back, and Master Payne would kill me, like he did Benjamin.” She pressed her spoon into the grits and grease from the chitterlings puddled over it. “I want him to sell me, Alden. I don’t care where I go as long as I don’t have to be here.”

  He threw his remaining coffee into the fire. “It’s not fair, Mammy.”

  “Please call me Naomi,” she said. “It’s the name my mother gave me.”

  All these years, he’d never even known her name. “Thank you for being a mother to me.”

  “I wish I could tell you that I did it from the kindness of my heart, but I cared for you the best I could alongside my own son. You’ve grown into a good man, Alden Payne. A strong one. If you come back here after school, I fear it will all be taken away.” She met his gaze with a new boldness. “You need to leave this plantation and never look back. Go someplace where you can use that brilliant mind God gave you and your passion to help other people.”

  Isaac peeked around the stairwell, staring at both of them before he focused on Alden. Then he pointed toward his mouth. “My tongue won’t stay lassoed.”

  Alden sighed. “Say what you want.”

  “I’ll never look back.”

  He stared at the boy. “What?”

  “If you take me with you, my eyes will stay on the road. I won’t even steal a glance behind us.”

  Alden was considering his words when Naomi spoke again, her voice laden with grief. “Take him instead of me. So he won’t suffer the same fate as Benjamin.”

  Looking back at her, he reached out, taking her calloused hand into his. “Benjamin was like a brother to me.”

  “Oh, Alden.” Tears filled her eyes before she spoke again. “Benjamin wasn’t just like a brother to you. He was your brother.”

&n
bsp; Her words stung more than the whip his father had lashed across his face. The scales blinding his eyes dropped, everything falling into place. Benjamin’s skin may have been dark, but he was smart and confident and bold—just like the man who’d fathered him.

  “Does my mother know?” Alden asked.

  When she nodded her head, his stomach roiled.

  “And Benjamin?”

  “I told him when he was twelve.”

  “Isaac,” he said, turning toward the boy. “Please find Thomas.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him to prepare the carriage.”

  He and Isaac would leave Scott’s Grove straightaway. And he would never return.

  Chapter 9

  Sacramento City

  December 1853

  Gray fog clung like plaster to the sky as Isabelle plodded up the knoll to her aunt’s cottage—a prefabricated house, painted white and then trimmed with green in Baltimore before being shipped in pieces around Cape Horn.

  She’d splurged and bought two hen eggs along with fresh cream to make eggnog for her aunt. In one hand, she held the pitcher of Aunt Emeline’s favorite drink. In her other was a satchel with her Christmas gift. The Methodist church had celebrated with a service this morning, but Aunt Emeline had been too ill to attend. She’d stayed home with Sing Ye, a young Chinese woman who tended to her care.

  When Isabelle arrived, her aunt was sitting up against a heap of pillows on her bed, her yellow quilt folded back over her nightdress. Outside the window was a fenced garden blooming with pansies and calendulas, thriving in the warmth of California’s winter.

  Even on gray days, her aunt’s home always felt cheery. A respite in a constantly changing city. A safe haven for the women Aunt Emeline loved.

  Isabelle scooted a chair to the bedside. “How are you feeling today?”

  Aunt Emeline smiled. Her lips were cracked, but her eyes glowed with kindness. “I’m happy that both my girls are here.”

  Sing Ye picked up the porcelain basin on the side table. “You are just as lovely as your aunt.”

  “Thank you,” Isabelle replied. “I think you are quite lovely as well.”

  She shook her head shyly. “Not in China.”

  “Here in California, you are beautiful.”

  Sing Ye turned softly on feet that were too large to be considered pretty in her homeland, but Isabelle still thought they were small. Everything about Sing Ye seemed delicate, yet she had shown more strength than any woman Isabelle had ever known.

  A year ago, Sing Ye had arrived on a steamer in San Francisco while Aunt Emeline was in the city commissioning a seamstress to make new curtains for the hotel. Most of the Chinese girls shipped to San Francisco were swept away by their so-called benefactors into the underworld of slave brothels and secret organizations called tongs. These women became known in Chinese as baak haak chai. One hundred men’s wife.

  But Aunt Emeline had rescued Sing Ye, paying for her passage before someone with sordid intentions bought her. Then she brought her back to live in Sacramento as a daughter instead of a slave.

  “Nicolas Barr has proposed marriage to Sing Ye.”

  Isabelle smiled. “That’s wonderful news.”

  “He will take good care of her.”

  Nicolas worked down at the wharf, and he seemed to be an honorable young man, a hard worker from Germany who had been spellbound by Sing Ye since they met months ago at church. Then he began visiting her at Aunt Emeline’s house every Sunday afternoon.

  Isabelle hoped for Sing Ye’s sake that Nicolas was exactly who he purported to be.

  Aunt Emeline clasped her hands together. “Now both my girls will be getting married.”

  Isabelle’s smile fell. “Actually—”

  “It’s exactly what I wanted before I leave this world.”

  Isabelle leaned forward, kissing her wrinkled forehead. “You’re not leaving us anytime soon.”

  “Oh, child.” Aunt Emeline reached forward with one of her hands to grasp Isabelle’s arm. “When God calls, I must go home.”

  Isabelle wanted to keep her aunt here for many more years—she was the only family Isabelle had left—but Emeline’s heart longed to sweep through the gates of heaven that awaited her, to greet her Savior with William at her side.

  “My only regret,” Aunt Emeline began, leaning back against the pillows, “is that I didn’t rescue hundreds of more girls like her.”

  “You and Uncle William helped so many.” Isabelle wrapped her fingers over her aunt’s hand, blinking back the tears in her eyes. “I wish I could help women trapped in slavery too.”

  Aunt Emeline’s gaze wandered toward the gray light in the window. “I suppose both of us must be faithful in caring for whomever God sends our way, like Queen Esther when God asked her to save her people.”

  “You have been a faithful servant, Auntie. In many ways.”

  Aunt Emeline began to cough, the hollow rasping of a woman whose body refused to heal, the coal smoke and stench of sewer in this city inflaming her lungs.

  Isabelle helped her sit up, gently patting her back, but the cough persisted. “I’m going for the doctor,” Isabelle finally said.

  “No.” Aunt Emeline shook her head. “I’m not ill, Isabelle. Just old.”

  “He can still give you something for that cough.”

  Her aunt pointed at the parade of blue and brown glass bottles lined up on the windowsill. “Nothing works anymore.”

  Isabelle held up her pitcher. “I brought you eggnog.”

  She poured the drink, and her aunt took several sips before smiling. “It reminds me of home.”

  “Do you miss Uncle William?”

  “Every day.”

  Isabelle opened her satchel. “I have a gift for you.”

  She took out the package, wrapped in white tissue paper and decorated with a red ribbon and piece of lace.

  “It’s beautiful,” Aunt Emeline said.

  “But you haven’t even opened it.”

  “I think it’s too pretty to open.”

  Isabelle peeled back the paper for her and lifted out the watercolor painting she’d found of her aunt’s beloved home of Marseille. The sails flapping in the breeze along the port. The cliffs along the coast. The basilica called Notre-Dame de la Garde with its bell tower on the hill.

  Aunt Emeline clutched the picture to her chest, tears in her eyes. It was where she’d spent her childhood, where she’d met and married her William more than forty years ago.

  Slowly she lowered the picture, looking over at the cypress writing desk by the door. It was the only extravagant piece in the cottage, one purchased from a Brazilian man who’d brought it on a ship when he traveled north. When he arrived in Sacramento, he realized he needed money more than furniture. Aunt Emeline, she guessed, had given him even more than the piece was worth so he’d have the funds to start over.

  Her aunt pointed toward the desk. “I have a gift for you too.”

  But even as she spoke, her eyes began to close.

  Isabelle leaned forward. “I’ll open it next time.”

  Aunt Emeline nodded. “Have you received any news from Ross?”

  “Not yet.” She’d do just about anything to help her aunt recover, including shield her from the realities of what Ross had done.

  “He’ll be home soon,” Aunt Emeline said, her voice growing weaker. “Then we’ll have a wedding for you too.”

  She kissed Emeline’s soft cheek as her aunt drifted to sleep.

  In her heart, she wanted a love like the one shared by her uncle and aunt: two people who’d longed to be together, who trusted one another even when they were apart.

  There would be no marriage for her, but perhaps it was for the best. Her uncle and aunt had partnered together to rescue exploited women and children. Helping them find freedom. Ross had been a good business partner, but she suspected he wouldn’t feel the same about helping those in Sacramento City who needed a friend, especially if it threate
ned his business.

  She glanced back out the window again, the glass a dull canvas splattered with vagrant droplets of rain. There was no clarity on it. No beauty. The water clung to it as if it feared falling, as if the clinging was much better than the unknown.

  She didn’t know what would happen to her either in the months ahead, but she knew well that she couldn’t cling to the past. She would hold on to her aunt’s hand, content in the comfort of her prayers as she stepped into the unknown.

  Smiling, she rose to her feet. She needn’t concern herself with Ross’s perspective any longer. Like Aunt Emeline, she could be faithful to help whomever God sent her way.

  Chapter 10

  Scott’s Grove

  December 1853

  Isaac was true to his word. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder as Thomas drove the horses swiftly away from Scott’s Grove. Instead of returning to the Duvall home, Alden had asked Thomas to transport them directly to Alexandria.

  His mother would be angry that he’d left without saying good-bye—and his father would think him foolish—but as long as they didn’t suspect that he took a slave with him, they wouldn’t send someone in pursuit. Hopefully, Isaac would be in Canada before anyone realized he was gone.

  Taking Isaac north was much different than trying to steal Mammy—Naomi—away. If they were stopped on the boat or train, he’d claim Isaac was his manservant. If a slave hunter insisted on seeing papers, he would claim his own ineptness, his foolish youth, as the reason for forgetting them.

  He doubted anyone would stop them, though. It was a common sight in New York and Boston to see a male Southerner traveling with a manservant or a woman accompanied by her personal maid.

  The brougham swept down the lane carved between his father’s prized fields. And his stomach churned again with revulsion over what his father had done to the woman Alden had loved like a mother.

  He’d been so naïve. Stupid. He was twenty-three years old, and he’d never really stopped to think who had sired Benjamin. He and Benjamin had never talked about their fathers, and he’d always assumed that his nursemaid had a husband in the fields. Or at another plantation.