The Black Knight's Tune

by Naomi Finley

  “And?” Mother said with suspicious enthusiasm.

  I expelled a calming breath. “He offered me a proposal.”

  Mother exchanged a look with Papa, and I got the feeling they were aware of his intent to propose.

  “But I’m guessing you anticipated him asking?”

  “Yes,” Papa said. “At his request, I met with him for dinner last week. He told me of his intention to ask you to enter into a courtship with him, and I gave him my blessing.”

  I stared at them, dumbfounded. They’d certainly been tight-lipped about the matter.

  “Do not be upset, my dear. You must understand Papa’s and my concern,” Mother said.

  “And what is that?”

  “We are getting older,” Papa said. “And we do not wish to see you left without anyone to care for you.”

  “I’m quite capable of caring for myself.” I filled my glass with cordial and took a long sip.

  “We’re aware of your capabilities. But knowing you’ll not be alone and would have a family of your own would ease much worry for your mother and me.”

  “He’s a good man, and you should consider his proposal,” Mother said.

  “I know.” I picked at the chip on the corner of my plate with my fingernail. “It’s just…”

  Papa’s palm hit the table and Mother and I jumped. “It’s time you shook the idea of Kipling from your mind and your heart.”

  Tears swarmed in my eyes, and I dabbed them away with the corner of my napkin. Rarely had I witnessed him lose his temper, and when it was on my account, it upset me. His approval meant everything to me; his disapproval was unthinkable.

  He continued sternly, “That nonsense will give you a lifetime of heartache. Life’s hard enough for you without these silly thoughts you entertain.”

  “You’re right. I know you are. I promised Saul that I’d think about it and give him my answer upon my return from Charleston.”

  “Good.” His voice softened.

  “There’s another matter I must speak to you about,” I said.

  Mother adjusted herself in her chair. “What’s that?”

  I removed the letter and placed it on the table. “I received a letter from Willow.”

  Mother’s eyes lit up. “How’s she faring?”

  “Fine.” I unfolded the letter and slid it across the table to her.

  She eyed me curiously. Her lips moved silently as she read the letter.

  “Oh, my!” she sighed, placing a frail hand to her chest. She handed the letter to Papa.

  Mother and I sat unmoving. I held my breath as I watched him read it. The previous tautness on his face surfaced once more.

  “Do you think the child could be me?” I asked.

  He sat for a moment without speaking, his eyes scanning the letter again.

  “You mustn’t get your hopes up. It could simply be a coincidence,” Mother said.

  “But I can’t deny the possibilities.”

  Papa folded the letter and handed to back to me.

  “Please, Papa, what are you thinking?” I pleaded, reaching out to rest my hand on top of his where it lay palm down beside his plate.

  “Unless Mag’s merely a figment of your imagination, we believe it to be your real name. It was the one thing you were certain of when I found you. When you came to us, you were very traumatized; wetting the bed until you were well over ten. You wouldn’t sleep in the dark, and we had to burn a lamp in your room all night for years. Sometimes, when a child goes through a lot at a young age, they create images in their minds.”

  “We’ve been over that,” I said with determination. “Regardless of the dreams and visions, I’ve always been certain that Mag’s my name. It’s the one piece I hold that I haven’t forgotten…the key to my past. I recall Will calling me by that name during our time together on the streets and on the ship. Somewhere along our journey I must have told him that was my name.”

  My stomach curdled with the memory of the rocking of the ship and how I had vomited for days until I thought my tummy would lurch from my mouth. Then came the hunger that had scorched and ripped at my insides, followed by weakness and the torment of hallucinations. At night in the pitch black, I cried for something or someone I didn’t remember.

  The day we landed in New York, we scurried off the ship before the crew unloaded the cargo. The bright sun was blinding and fear soon snatched at me as I beheld the smoke-laden sky. Buildings rose as tall as the clouds and the streets and docks were thick with people, who towered over me as they pushed and shoved their way through the press. Will had clasped his big hand over mine and led me away.

  Then, in our pitiful makeshift shelter at night, he’d held me when the ground chilled as the evening temperatures dropped. His firm young body had spooned around mine, and he’d whispered words of comfort as the night terrors came.

  “Ruby darling, you don’t look well.” Mother’s soft hand covered mine, where it lay trembling on the table.

  I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut to cut off the threatening tears. “I’m fine.”

  Later that night, I opened the double doors leading out onto the balcony overlooking the streets below. Brownstone buildings spread out over the neighborhood for as far as one could see. Black metal gas lamps cast dark shadows in their soft amber glow spilling out over the snow-covered streets.

  A carriage pulled up outside a townhouse, and a man stepped out and turned to offer a hand to someone inside. A bonnet poked out, and a woman clad in blue and white emerged. The gentleman clasped her hand in the crook of his arm, and their happy laughter wafted through the brisk evening air. He walked her up the steps to the front door, and with a quick glance around, he stole a sinfully romantic kiss from his lady.

  My heart swelled with the desire to be cherished and loved like the vision in blue below. I crossed my arms over my white cotton nightgown and pulled my red knitted shawl snuggly around my shoulders, gazing up at the sky. Clouds stretched across it like draped sheer fabric, veiling the stars and giving the moon an uncanny, misty glow.

  Often, I’d come out on the balcony and think on the man who haunted me before my thoughts would run to the imaginary family I’d made up in my head: a mama, a papa, and maybe a sibling or two. Did they think of me as I did them, or had I become a faded memory?

  TENSION KNOTTED MY NECK ALL morning, and I rubbed a hand over the nape of my neck to ease the ache. From behind the drapes in the parlor window that overlooked the front street, I watched Kipling exit the carriage. It was the morning of our departure for South Carolina.

  I moved away from the window and ran a hand over my recently shorn hair. Together we’d decided that for our journey to Charleston I’d travel as Kipling’s manservant and he’d become a planter from Virginia. Which wasn’t too far-fetched, as Kipling was born and raised in Virginia, living there until he gave up his work in politics to aid in the abolitionist movement.

  Early that morning, I’d bound my breasts before slipping into a loose-fitting boy’s shirt, dark trousers, and an oversized coat.

  Mother shuffled to her feet from the rosewood settee, knotting her lace handkerchief in her fingers. “Please be careful.”

  “This isn’t my first time in disguise.”

  “But you’ve never gone this far South before. We’ve managed to keep your identity hidden. I’m worried—”

  “Don’t fret, Mother Dearest. All will be fine.” I pulled the wooden buttons through the buttonholes of my coat and tugged at the hem. “How do I look?”

  “Like a son instead of a daughter,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “Perfect.” I smiled broadly, feigning courage I didn’t feel to relieve her anxiety.

  “We shall miss you terribly.” She lifted her handkerchief and blotted the corners of her eyes.

  I gathered her into my arms and kissed her soft cheek, soaking in the whiff of jasmine—a familiar, comforting scent I associated with my mother. “I’ll be back before you know it,” I whisper
ed.

  The brass door knocker clanged as Kipling made his arrival known.

  “Good morning, sir.” I heard our butler say. “Miss Stewart’s in the parlor. If you’ll come this way.”

  Mother hugged me with great earnestness. “A promise is a promise, Ruby Stewart,” she scolded affectionately.

  Pulling back from her arms, I gazed into her tear-filled eyes. “I’ll come back.” I placed her hand over my heart, sealing my promise.

  “You’re a good girl. A treasure to your father and I in our old age,” she said.

  “Mr. Reed has arrived,” the butler said from the doorway.

  Kipling moved past the silver-haired man and walked into the room with his top hat in his hands. His friendly smile lit up the room, and he strode toward my mother with widespread arms. “Mrs. Stewart, as divine as ever,” he almost sang.

  She dismissed his genuine attempt at charming her with a wave of her hand. “Taking my girl away doesn’t have you in my good books right now, Mr. Reed.” Mother’s thin lips pressed tight, but a glimmer of admiration for Kipling shone in her eyes. She’d always spoken highly of him.

  “I can hardly go to Charleston without my top journalist. She’s the life behind the newspaper, my secret weapon, per se. With her by my side, we’re outselling our competition. And I owe it all to her—she can sniff out a story before it happens and brings an unbiased opinion and a fresh perspective.”

  I blushed with pride at his praise. “If we expect to make our train, we need to leave soon.” I slid on the men’s leather gloves to conceal my small, feminine hands, then picked up the brown felt hat from the settee and pulled it down over my ears.

  “Mrs. Stewart, always a pleasure,” Kipling said with a half bow.

  “Take care of her.” Mother’s voice cracked as she gripped Kipling’s hands and squeezed. “Bring her back safely. She’s all we have.”

  “I assure you when she isn’t with me, she’ll be in good hands. Miss Hendricks isn’t one to let those she cares for be put in harm’s way.” He spoke with grave seriousness, understanding my mother was entrusting him with me.

  Tears clotted in the base of my throat.

  “Someday I hope to meet this woman you both speak so highly about,” Mother said.

  “Perhaps, one day soon, she’ll revisit New York. Like her father before her, she has many ties with abolitionists, among others, in the North and in Canada.” He spoke with deep, unbridled passion. Not from the love he held for Willow as a man, but with admiration for her mission to help slaves.

  “Tell Papa I love him and I’m sorry I missed him this morning.” I leaned in and kissed my mother’s cheek one last time.

  Kipling offered me his arm. “Shall we?”

  “Must I always blend into the walls with you?” I said, agitation growing in me.

  He frowned and gawked wide-eyed from Mother to me.

  I huffed and crossed my arms.

  “W-what did I do wrong?”

  “Since when do you offer a man your arm?” I said.

  “Oh!” Enlightenment crossed his face. “Of course; forgive me for my slipup.”

  “A slipup we can hardly afford.” I stalked past him and out into the foyer.

  “She’s been a basket of nerves all morning. Please forgive her for her rudeness.” Mother’s voiced filtered out of the parlor.

  “She’s taking a great risk, going into the belly of the snake,” Kipling replied.

  “If someone suspects you two aren’t who you say you are, Ruby could be taken. Please, I beg of you…” Mother’s voice broke, and my throat thickened. “Protect her with your life.”

  “On my honor, I promise her well-being is my utmost priority. No business matter or story is worth losing her. I love your daughter…”

  Love? Could it be? My pulse raced.

  “She’s like a sister to me,” he said.

  He may as well have held my beating heart in his clenched fist as the pain of his words seared into my brain.

  I picked up my satchel sitting by the door. The butler had seen to it that my trunk was loaded on the carriage. Opening the door, I exited the house, walked down the steps, and entered the carriage.

  Kipling soon boarded and sat down across from me. He eyed me, leery. “Are we good?”

  “Certainly,” I said with a tilt of my nose.

  He didn’t deserve my contempt, but at the moment I didn’t care. The freshness of his words and the stress of what lay ahead took precedence over all other thoughts of guilt and self-blame in my mind. I turned and looked out the window and not a word passed between us for the rest of the way to the station.

  AS THE STEAMBOAT PULLED INTO Charleston Harbor, my nerves surged. The journey had been difficult and dangerous. So far, with Kipling’s and my work with fugitives and the abolitionist movement, I’d never been required to travel into the Deep South. The deeper we’d gone, the higher my anxiety rose.

  You’re asking to get captured, I’d told myself countless times through the trip. The segregation of the blacks in the free states became a whole different matter, the farther South we went. In New York, like all blacks, I had an invisible label—Freedom Limited—slapped on my forehead. Since we’d boarded the steamboat for the rest of the journey to Charleston, I’d noticed how the blacks’ heads hung lower and eye contact between a white and a colored was forbidden. They scurried to do their master’s bidding, and for the most part evaporated into the background as though they were cargo.

  I’d made the mistake of looking a woman—resembling a penguin with her robust stomach and beak-like nose—in the eye. Now as I stood beside Kipling at the railing, I lifted a hand to my cheek at the memory of the sting from her slap.

  Overhead the sky rumbled with heavy-bellied clouds and cast a gloominess over the Charleston Harbor stretching out before us. Vessels crowded the harbor. Workers and supplies ready to be loaded onto ships congested the bridge. Citizens stood waiting for incoming passengers, filling the empty spaces on the pier with specks of vivid color.

  My stomach rolled with the worry of what may or may not lie ahead. What information would Willow have on the slave child she mentioned in her letter? I peeked inside my pocketbook to make sure the letter hadn’t disappeared.

  “I assure you, whatever that pocketbook contains, it hasn’t vanished since the last hundred times you’ve checked,” Kipling said out of the corner of his mouth.

  I heard confusion in his voice, and I feared Kipling thought I’d lost my mind. I’d decided against mentioning Willow’s letter to him. Since the arrival of the letter, the puzzle in my mind and endless questions over my vague past had built a pile of hopeless dreams. Confiding in him over something that could be nothing but my wishful thinking was an embarrassment I preferred to avoid.

  Later we stood before the Charleston harbormaster, and he held out his meaty hand. “Papers for the slave.”

  Kipling removed the forged documents claiming me as his slave from his pocketbook.

  I hung back with my head bowed, holding our satchels. I prayed the harbormaster wouldn’t notice my trembling.

  Rightfully, I was a slave, and I’d hidden all my life in plain sight in New York. As the story went, I was the orphan daughter of my parents’ cook, who died in the cholera outbreak of ’32—the year I’d arrived in New York. And they couldn’t bear to think of me being homeless and gave me room and board in exchange for helping them around the house.

  Then they went as far as enrolling me in school, and they’d needed a last name—the cook hadn’t taken one after her escape from slavery. That day I became Ruby Stewart.

  One Sunday when I was seven, as my parents and I exited the house to attend morning service in the black community, a prune-faced neighbor had cornered us. “What are you doing letting that darkie live in your house? And dressing her up like she’s a doll or something…why, I’ve never seen the likes of it.” She’d clucked her tongue.

  Papa tightened his grip on my hand, and his voice boomed
. “We are doing the Lord’s work. Who are you to question His work?” He acted as if he were more appalled at her than she was of him.

  “The Lord’s got no love for the devil’s spawn.” Her green eyes flashed like the devil’s himself. “Look at her dark skin—it’s the evil of the devil manifested. God’s warning us of the evil that lies within them.”

  “If God allowed us a peek into your so-called Christian soul, we’d find a darkness darker than any Negro’s skin,” Papa said.

  Taken aback by his rebuke, she snorted and stomped off with a quick “I’ll pray for your soul” thrown over her shoulder.

  “As I will yours,” he whispered. His shoulders rose and fell.

  “I’m sorry.” I peered up at him.

  His gentle, sad eyes looked down at me. “For what?”

  “For making that lady not like you.”

  “It isn’t me, nor is it you, she doesn’t like. Somewhere in life, she’s developed a prejudice that even she doesn’t understand.”

  I snapped from my memory as the harbormaster asked, “What brings you to Charleston?”

  “Here to help my sister’s husband. He’s taken a fall from his horse and needs help managing his plantation,” Kipling said.

  “Got no overseer?” The man’s voice hitched.

  I fought the urge to squirm in my ill-fitting boots.

  Kipling adjusted his weight to his heels and arched back his shoulders. “He does. You see, they aren’t rich folk and can only offer the man employment a few days a week. Surely you can understand the hardship of putting meat on the table.”

  “What makes you think I’d know?”

  “A harbormaster can’t make that good of coin, can he?”

  Hiding in the shadow of the brim of my hat, I dared to sneak a peek at the man. His unfriendly gaze registered on Kipling.

  “Times are hard.” The man folded the papers and handed them back to Kipling. “Next,” he said and waved a hand for us to move along.

  Kipling’s pace was swift and, with my desire to be out of sight, I chased close on his heels down the dock after him.