“Maybe you did. I don’t remember.” Adria leaned against the gate. “So what do you want to do?”
“After we marry, we’ll move out to my grandfather’s farm. He’s getting too old to take care of things there. I aim to make it profitable. Have cattle. Pigs. With the slaughterhouses and pork processing places here in town, that will be something good to get into.”
“Sounds harder than making hats.”
“Grandfather’s slaves do the work. I’ll just have to see that things are done and take care of the business end of buying and selling the stock.”
“And buying and selling slaves?” Adria kept her voice soft.
“That is part of running a successful farm. I know that bothers you, but Grandfather’s slaves are well cared for. Grandmother doesn’t have to lift a finger in the house. All she has to do is keep the servants in order and doing what they should.”
Adria stood up a little straighter and braced herself for whatever might follow her words. “You do know, don’t you, that I believe all slavery should be abolished. I could never own a slave.”
He waved his hand as though her words were of no consequence. “You’ll change your mind after we’re married and you see how things are out on the farm. We have to have slaves to get the work done. Those people in the north think we can just set them all free. That’s insane. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Our people would have no idea how to survive if we didn’t feed and take care of them. And they are happy that way.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“That’s because you’ve filled your head with stories from books.” He tapped her hat with his finger and gave her an indulgent smile. “And now this with Louis has got you all confused on how life really is. You could be right about the town owing Louis his freedom. Father agrees with you completely and gave a big chunk toward your campaign. But all slaves aren’t like Louis. Nobody wants to set them free.”
“I do.”
“And that’s a charming thing about you, but you’ll have to forget those crazy ideas after we get married.”
“And be a proper wife who does what her husband wants, I suppose.” Adria’s smile hurt her face.
“That’s what a wife is supposed to do. And raise our children. Tell me you’ll stop putting off our marriage. We could say vows in front of the preacher next Sunday.”
He reached for her hand, but she hid it in her skirts. She wanted to be angry with him, but instead she simply felt sad. Deeply sad. “I’m not going to marry you.”
“All right, if Sunday is too soon, we can wait until next month. July is hot, but so is August. That doesn’t really matter anyway. Once we’re married, we’ll spend every day the rest of our lives together, no matter the weather.”
“I’m not going to marry you, Carlton.” She made sure she said the words distinctly and firmly.
Confusion flashed across his face, but then he was smiling again. “You’ve simply got the vapors. You’ll change your mind in a few days. As soon as all this with the Sanderson sale is done and things settle back down.” His smile disappeared. “And that Logan Farrell moves along. You can’t depend on a man like that. No roots. Nothing but a smile that doesn’t mean a thing when he’s promising you the moon.”
“He hasn’t promised me anything. And this isn’t about him. It’s about you. The two of us.” She kept her eyes locked on his face. “I have never had the vapors and I mean what I say. I like you, Carlton. Very much. We’ve been friends forever, but I can’t marry you.” She shook her head a little. “No, ‘can’t’ isn’t the right word. I won’t marry you.”
Carlton stared at her for a moment, as though he wasn’t sure he heard her right. “You don’t know what you’re saying. We’ve known we were going to get married for years. Everybody knows that. Of course you are going to marry me.”
Adria just looked at him without saying anything. What more was there to say?
His confusion turned to anger then. He grabbed her and pushed her back against the gate. “Whatever game you’re playing, Adria, I’m tired of it. You need to come to your senses and realize I am your only hope of a decent marriage after you’ve ruined your reputation with that drifter. Going into a tavern with him like a common woman of the night. Not to mention dealing with the lowest of men in that store every day. But because I love you, I am willing to overlook all that.” He stared down at her, his eyes fierce as his hands tightened on her arms. “But once we’re married, things will change. People will respect you because you’re my wife.”
Adria wanted to jerk away from him, but instead she stood very still. While she had argued with Carlton many times, she’d never seen him this angry. She took a slow breath to keep her own anger in check. “You’re hurting me, Carlton.”
For a couple of seconds he kept his grip tight, as though he wanted her to know he was stronger and could impose his will on her. Then his face changed and he was again the Carlton she knew and sometimes thought she loved.
He loosened his hands but didn’t turn her loose. “I’m sorry, but sometimes you push me too far, Adria.”
“I am simply being honest with you.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “So next are you going to tell me you love that scoundrel Logan Farrell?”
“Not at all. I hardly know the man.”
“Well, at least you are using your good sense there.” His voice softened and he rubbed his hands up and down her arms in a caress now to perhaps make up for his roughness. “You’re just not thinking straight, Adria. Eventually you’ll see things more clearly. We can have a good life together. I’ll give you everything you ever dreamed of having.”
Except the freedom to be the woman I want to be. The words threaded through her mind, but she didn’t speak them aloud. Carlton wouldn’t understand. He had never understood. She would have to convince him that she couldn’t marry him, but right now she just wanted him to go away.
“It’s been a long day, Carlton, and I’m tired.”
“Poor dear.” He touched her face with his fingertips. “You’ll never have to work again after we marry.”
“I know.” She smiled a little as she pushed him back and stepped through the gate before he could lean down to kiss her. Perhaps if Ruth talked to him, she could make him understand that Adria meant what she said about not marrying him. Or she could get Pastor Robertson to talk to him.
“I love you, Adria.” He leaned across the gate toward her. “Nobody could ever love you like I do.”
“Goodbye, Carlton.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, won’t I?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Adria said. Then she thought of Abigail’s letter telling her to come to Boston. While that seemed like somewhere in another world, suddenly her world here felt too small.
She turned to go up the steps onto the front porch. Relief swept through her when she looked back to see Carlton walking away.
The house felt empty when she went in the front door and took off her hat to hang on the hall tree. The scent of fresh-baked bread and cakes lingered in the air. A sweet, homey odor. Adria stood still and listened. Even now, all these years later, she sometimes imagined she could hear the echo of her mother’s laugh and her father’s voice. They had loved each other so much. Both had been content with their lot in life. Her mother to care for Adria and her little brother. Her father to provide for them.
How different Adria’s life surely would have been if not for the cholera. Perhaps then she would have been happy to marry Carlton. She would have never known Aunt Tilda’s burning need to be free that had colored her every word. Louis might have been only another slave to barely notice as she walked along the Springfield streets.
But the cholera had raged through the town, stealing that past from Adria and giving her a different future with Ruth, a woman who showed Adria the world through books. A woman who had been strong through every difficulty and had cared for Adria in spite of her hesitation to claim her as a daughter. It coul
d be that, if not for Adria, Ruth would have long ago remarried and had a different life too.
There was no need to think about what might have been. Better to consider what was and decide on her tomorrow with a clear eye.
She went in the kitchen to find something to eat. The room was still warm from the morning’s baking.
A soft, almost timid knock on the back door made her look around.
“Missy Adria, are you in there?”
A woman’s voice. Not Louis, who still called her “missy” as he had from the time he first carried her away from this house after her family died. But a familiar voice all the same.
Adria pulled the door open. “Bet. What are you doing here?”
“I’s needin’ your help.” The black woman looked behind her and around.
Adria reached out and pulled her into the kitchen. Fear stepped inside with her.
Twenty-nine
Shut the door, Miss Adria, ’fore I get seen.” Bet stepped over in the corner out of view of the window.
Adria glanced out the door. No one was there, but she did as Bet said. Her palm slid on the doorknob. She rubbed her damp hands off on her skirt and, like Bet, moved out of sight of the window. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Bet’s eyes were open wide and she was breathing too fast.
“Has something happened to Louis?” Adria’s fears raced ahead when Bet couldn’t seem to come up with any words.
“No, miss. Louis be fine far as I knows. It’s Twila.”
“Twila?” The name didn’t mean anything to Adria.
“You likely don’t know her. She didn’t never work in the kitchen. Helped the maids in the hotel from the time she was a bitsy thing. But she’s my girl. Turned fifteen last month, best I can reckon.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter, Bet.”
“White folks, they don’t think nothing about black people’s families.” She looked sorry for her words then and held out a hand toward Adria. “I ain’t meanin’ you, Miss Adria. I knows you ain’t like that. That’s how come I’m here. Hopin’ and prayin’ you can help me. Help Twila.”
“What can I do? Mrs. Gregory is going to take you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do know that. Right now Mistress Gregory thinks I’m still at the hotel and them at the hotel think I’ve gone on down to Mistress Gregory. Don’t nobody know I’m here. And I ain’t botherin’ you on account of myself. I be fine with that. But it’s Twila.”
Bet’s face screwed up and she looked ready to cry. But then she pressed her lips together and pulled in a deep breath before she went on. “They’re done plannin’ to sell her to a man from somewhere off. I seen him. I knows what he wants with my Twila. She’s a pretty child. Light skinned. Could pass for white if folks didn’t know she was a slave. I been where they’s wantin’ to send her and I’s willin’ to do anythin’ to stop that from happenin’.” She looked directly at Adria then. “Even put you in trouble’s way.”
“Did Louis tell you to come here?” Adria’s mind was racing, but she had no idea what to do.
“Oh no, miss. Louis wouldn’t never do nothin’ that might hurt you. I wouldn’t neither ’cept for Twila. You is my only hope. You understand, don’t you?” She looked as though she meant it, but then she was standing there in the kitchen asking Adria to do something. But what?
“I’m trying, but I don’t know how to help you. Or Twila.” All her letter writing to newspapers meant nothing in the face of Bet’s desperation.
“She just needs to get to this house over in the next county. It ain’t all that far. The people there, they has ways of getting her on north where she’ll be safe.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. “Louis would have done it, found a way to get her there, if I’d asked him, but I didn’t want to risk him losin’ his chance for freedom with it just needin’ a few more sunrises. But this map shows where the house is. As long as no chair is turned upside down on the porch, they take in folks runnin’ to the north.”
Adria looked at the map. The paper was old and the lines on it traced over again and again. “Where did you get this?”
“Matilda give it to Louis. He showed me where he hid it.”
Adria frowned at Bet. “But Matilda died years ago. How do you know the house or the people are even still there?”
“I knows.” Her face tightened as she nodded. “White folks think us slaves don’t have ears, but we hear things. People come through. Some racin’ for the free states. Others headin’ back to try to lead family out. The people is still there.”
Adria pulled in a breath. “Where’s Twila now?”
“She’s out back in your shed. Scared silly, but this is her only chance. You is her only chance.”
Adria’s hands trembled as she folded the map back up and started to put it in her pocket.
“You can’t keep that.” Bet reached for it. “You has to memorize the markings. If you got caught with the map, it wouldn’t just be you in trouble, but all them others marked there too. Then nobody wouldn’t never find the way.”
Adria unfolded the paper again and stared at it, but what good would it do if she did memorize it? She had no way of getting Twila there. Or anybody to help her. Ruth might try, but it would frighten her too much. Carlton would drag Twila back to whoever was buying her. The preacher might be moved by compassion, but if he was found out, he’d be run out of town. Perhaps Logan Farrell would be foolhardy enough to help, but she didn’t even know how to find him.
She handed Bet the map and then reached for her hands. “Pray with me, Bet. That the Lord will show me a way to help you.”
Bet took her hands. “I been prayin’ hard, like as how Louis tells me to. Pray believin’.”
The words echoed in Adria’s head. Louis had told her the same.
Bet went on. “The Lord’s the one what led me to you.”
“Then he’ll show us a way.” Even as she was shutting her eyes, an idea came to her. She’d go to the store, get some men’s clothes. She could pretend to be a stranger in town, rent a buggy at the livery stable, and be on her way with Twila hidden away. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was something.
Bet squeezed her hands as they prayed, neither one speaking aloud.
Lord, if you know a better way . . . She didn’t finish. The Lord knew what was needed. She would believe that. She had to believe that.
She told Bet her plan. They both wanted to believe it would work. Twila was to make her way from shadow to shadow to wait just outside of town where Adria would stop for her. Bet said Twila had studied the map too, so that if something happened she could try to make it on foot to the house with five chairs on the porch. But it was a long way on foot, with many chances of getting caught.
Adria was taking chances too. It didn’t do to think what would happen if she got caught helping a runaway slave. After Bet and Twila disappeared into the gloaming, Adria continued to stare at the gathering darkness for a long moment. She thought about leaving Ruth a note, but what would she say? I’m about to break the law. No, it was better if Ruth knew nothing about this.
As she headed up Elm toward Main, Adria’s mouth was dry and her heart already beating too hard when the fire bell began clanging. Smoke was rising from the middle of town. Near the store. Please, not the store. But no, it was farther to the east. Perhaps one of the pork-packing houses or the lumberyard. Whatever was burning, fire could spread quickly through the frame buildings and race through the town.
On Main Street, people were running from every direction toward the fire. She ran along with them until she reached the store, where she slipped around to the back and reached in her pocket for her key. She didn’t need it. When she touched the door, it swung open. Mr. Billiter must have come back to protect the store from sparks carried by the wind. If so, she still might be able to grab the pants and a hat without him seeing her. She’d put the money for them in the till tomorrow. If she wasn’t in jail.
She pushed that thought aw
ay. She could do this. She had to do this. Not just for Twila but for herself. If she truly believed slavery was wrong in the sight of God and man, then she couldn’t refuse the girl help whatever the risks.
Adria moved toward the front of the store, careful to step over the creaky boards. The front door was closed and the shade pulled down the way it always was when the store was closed. Strange. She expected the door to be open if Mr. Billiter was there. The glow of the fire down the street edged in around the shade to light up the store. She’d have no trouble finding the pants even without a lamp.
A noise stopped her in her tracks. A man was crouched just inside the storage room in front of the safe. The smell of sulphur was strong as he struck a match to light a candle. It wasn’t Mr. Billiter. Adria’s heart gave a funny stutter beat.
Dear Lord. The prayer started in her head and then froze there as the man must have heard her gasp and looked around. Logan Farrell jumped to his feet, obviously as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
“What are you doing?” Adria demanded.
He didn’t answer her. Instead, in two steps he was in front of her, still holding the candle. “Do you know the combination? I thought I did, but I must have missed one of the numbers.”
“How would you know the combination?”
“I watched your boss open it yesterday. No trouble to read the numbers over his shoulder.”
Adria was still confused. “Why are you trying to get in the safe?”
He actually smiled, the same easy smile as always. “There’s money in there.”
“The money for Louis.”
“Right. A goodly sum. Enough to get me to California.”
“You’d steal Louis’s freedom?” Adria’s head was spinning.
“You can collect more. Folks seem right fond of old Louis here in town, but either way, what with always being a slave, he wouldn’t know what to do with freedom anyhow. Not how I do.” Logan nodded back toward the safe. “The money in there means my freedom. You can help me get it.”
“I don’t know the combination.”
River to Redemption Page 24