The Third Mrs. Galway

by Deirdre Sinnott

  “Oh my.” Helen blushed and was about to change the subject when she stopped to think. “Well,” she began, “I had them before the wedding. And … huh.”

  “We’ll be looking out then,” said Maggie, putting a plate of ham and a pot of tea on the table. “But while we wait, you’d best eat like they’s one more sitting at the table.”

  Could it be? Was it possible she was with child already? Perhaps that was why she had been thinking about the nursery this morning. If she was to have a baby, especially a boy, Augustin would surely stop comparing her to Mrs. Galway. Let that lady finally lie at peace. With an heir in her belly, maybe she could let her husband know that Dr. McCooke upset her nerves. That would certainly not be good for the babe … if there is a babe.

  Helen ate her fill. There were many things to do this morning, she thought with a brightening sense of possibility. Looking to the nursery, going to confession, and, of course, checking on Augustin. He had seemed so distressed last night. Perhaps she might even brave another trip to Bagg’s Square, this time not shopping for dinner, but to look for cloth to make new nursery curtains and to buy some sewing supplies. If she was to have a baby, there was much to prepare.

  She stood, ready to begin, when the shed again caught her eye. They would not risk still being here, would they? She shivered. After I was so kind? No. The quilt? The food? They could not impose on me any further, could they?

  “I gotta see to Mr. Augustin and get them breakfast dishes outta the library,” said Maggie. “You got enough to eat, missus?”

  Helen laughed nervously. “Yes. Thank you.”

  The instant Maggie went through the door to the front of the house, Helen ran out of the kitchen, down the back porch stairs, across the lawn, and burst into the shed.

  There was no sign of anyone. Helen bit her lip. “Hello?” she whispered.

  “That you, missus?” came Imari’s voice.

  Helen circled around the baskets and stood looking down on the woman. “You’re still here,” she said, not knowing if she was relieved or angry. “I imagined you’d be gone.”

  “Missus—”

  “And where is Joe?”

  “He be right back, missus. Don’t worry about Joe none. I gotta tell you something.”

  “This is going to be another excuse, isn’t it?” said Helen.

  “Please sit down and hear what I gotta say.”

  Helen looked around the shed, growing exasperated. Finally, she pulled a bucket over and sat.

  “This here baby. He, or she, they the one in charge now,” said Imari. “Not me and not you. Maybe God, if He ain’t too busy with somebody else. This here baby can’t go nowhere. I ain’t even stood up. Been trying for the longest, but it ain’t working.”

  Helen kneeled, thinking that she might try to lift her. “We should get you a doctor then.”

  “I don’t trust no doctor,” said Imari.

  Helen pictured McCooke smiling at himself in a mirror. “But you said that there was a man who was going to help you, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Imari. “But it ain’t like he knows where I be.”

  “I can go find him.” Helen made to rise.

  Imari grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. “This ain’t no easy business. You can’t just burst in on the man and say you got a couple a people for him.”

  After Helen settled back down, Imari told her everything she knew.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MAGGIE HAD JUST CLEARED the breakfast dishes from the library and was complaining to Augustin about his lack of appetite, when a knock came at the front door. Sheriff Osborn appeared, smoothing down a few locks of his gray hair that normally saw little daylight from under his hat. Some tufts were in such a scramble that it was unclear if they ever behaved well without a heavy dose of Sunday hair oil. But the Lord’s Day was now two days gone and no remnant of the treatment remained, nor would any new oil be applied before church attendance required it.

  “Mr. Galway, sir,” said Osborn, standing before him, fretting the edge of his tan hat, “I’d a never troubled you if I’d knowed that you was lame. But a young man I got in my lockup wrote you last night.” He handed the folded letter to Augustin.

  “Locked up?” Augustin grumbled. “Perhaps you are mistaking me for that rascal Alvan Stewart. Defending prisoners is more in his line.”

  The doctor, who had been sitting comfortably in a chair adjacent to the liquor supply, laughed merrily.

  Osborn smoothed his wayward hair with a palm. “He expects an answer.”

  Augustin grunted and unfolded the paper. His body began rocking back and forth. “Ha,” he laughed. “You’ve really plucked a fatted goose. What’s the total amount that Mr. King, Judge Hayden, and you demand for Mr. Anwell’s freedom?”

  “Anwell?” said McCooke.

  “Son of Llewelyn Anwell, Little Falls. A rich man, if there ever was one. Collaborated with him on a few contracts and now his son is begging for my help.” Augustin smiled. He imagined the elder Anwell’s innocent, indulgent face. Their mutual contract with the state to supply lumber to build the canal between Utica and Herkimer would have been disadvantageous if Anwell had negotiated the deal. A great engineer, but naive in the ways of the world.

  Sheriff Osborn stated an amount, including an extra dollar above the cost of the food. Augustin withdrew a key ring from the breast pocket of his vest and gave it to McCooke. “Get the strongbox out of the bottom drawer of the desk.”

  A second key opened the box as it sat on Augustin’s lap. He withdrew a few bills and gave them to the sheriff. “Doctor, write a note, will you? Tell young Mr. Anwell that he may come by once he is released.”

  McCooke complied, using one piece of paper for the letter to Mr. Anwell and a second to note the name Llewelyn Anwell. Little Falls. Wealthy.

  “Speaking of Alvan Stewart,” said Osborn, “you seen these handbills for this anti-slavery convention?” He offered a printed flyer to Augustin. “October 21. That ain’t too far off. Plain folk are getting pretty riled up. Could get violent if the abolitionists go ahead and meet.”

  “Abolition?” said McCooke. “I thought you were shipping them all back to Africa.”

  Augustin flicked his hand toward the doctor and then was quiet for a moment. “The Democrats are using the convention to beat up the Whigs—as if they had any control of Stewart and his ilk. Breaking the convention up, as Beardsley and Hayden have called for, could spark a riot. And if the abolitionists are successful, it will encourage the Negroes of Post Street to believe all sorts of rubbish.”

  “How do we stop ’em?” asked Osborn.

  Dr. McCooke rose and handed an envelope to Osborn. “I know. That morning we lock the doors of every church, schoolroom, and meetinghouse in town,” he said, smiling conspiratorially. “Then the lovers of the Negroes will have to meet outside in Chancellor Square.”

  “Are you an imbecile or just trying to fatten your purse setting broken bones and removing shot from backsides?” said Augustin gruffly. “No. We must obey the rule of law or we are no better than the abolitionists.” He thought a moment. “Will Alvan Stewart listen to reason?”

  “So, we should prevent the convention?” said McCooke, amiably, looking from one man to the other.

  “How? With force of arms?” replied Augustin, sneering. “Does freedom of speech and assembly mean nothing to you? My father fought for those rights in the revolution.” He banged his fist on the strongbox, setting off waves of pain. He clamped his teeth and grunted, “Damn you. Look what you did with your foolishness.”

  Osborn, money tucked into his pants pocket and with the reply to Pryce Anwell in hand, edged out the door.

  McCooke retreated to his medical bag and began rooting through it. He pulled out several small vials and lined them up on the tea table. Each had a little brown liquid at its base. “I’m afraid we have exhausted the opium,” started the doctor. “I could send your cook down to Williams & Hollister to get a fresh supply.”<
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  “Do it,” said Augustin.

  “But maybe it would be best, considering … well, the importance of the medicine, that the task not be left to a member of the darker race. Maybe I could go myself.” The doctor paused, watching for Augustin’s reaction. He noted the almost imperceptible widening of the man’s eyes and the way the word opium triggered his patient’s thumb to jump back and forth across the tips of his fingers as if he were counting.

  “You’re the medical man,” said Augustin.

  “Yes,” smiled McCooke. “It’s just that I don’t have the coin to refill my stock. Perhaps you could …” The doctor nodded toward the strongbox.

  The muscles on the side of Augustin’s jaw bulged as he produced a sufficient amount of money for the doctor to accomplish his errand. “Be quick about it,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  OWEN SYLVANUS SLID THE THICK wooden door out of its niche in the domed brick oven and set it on the floor. Hot air and the smell of fresh bread filled the back room of his shop. The wet boy he’d found on the creek bank sat up, looking panicked. He jumped off the hard cot that usually served as Sylvanus’s resting spot during the quiet time between the cycles of rising dough that regulated his life. The baker’s expertise in the ways of yeast had developed over thousands of loaves of bread. As he saw it, each springy ball of dough was a small version of life. You mix and you wait. You do your part and the catalyzer gets to its business. Everything else was up to the Creator.

  “Be not afraid,” said Sylvanus, holding his hands out. “I am a friend. It looked like thou needst one.”

  The boy moved toward the barred door at the back of the room. Suddenly, a furious pounding shook the wooden board that kept the door closed. He jumped back.

  “Are they after thee?” whispered Sylvanus. Fear filled the child’s eyes. The baker brought his finger to his lips and grabbed the boy’s hand and pulled him to an area near the oven.

  He called toward the door, “Just a moment. I shall be with thee.” Quickly, he lifted a kneading table covered by a white cloth. Under the table there was an iron ring in the floor that opened a trapdoor leading to a tight crawl space. “Get inside.”

  The frightened boy obeyed. Sylvanus replaced the table and went to the back door. He moved the board aside. Hickox and Swift marched in scanning the room.

  “Baker,” said Hickox, “we are seeking a black boy with red hair who may have come this way. Have you seen him?”

  “Thou hast come to the right place,” said Sylvanus, “but too early. I see black boys all afternoon long. If thou needst hire one, just wait by the canal and thou shalt have thy pick. For the price of a few coins they will run hither and thither for thee just as they do for the canallers.”

  Hickox stepped back and studied the baker’s flour-dusted black pants and simple white shirt. His eyes swung to a peg near the cot where a plain black coat and a wide-brimmed black hat hung.

  “You’re a Quaker,” said Hickox. He nodded to Swift. “Look around.”

  “Thou art free to look. But I bake bread, not black boys.” Sylvanus went to the opening of the oven and, with a long wooden peel, pulled fresh loaves out and stacked them on the kneading table. “Bread cannot be rushed,” he said. “Nor ignored. Burning the Creator’s gift is an act of alienation from the Light Within. Besides, hungry mouths on the packets await my labors.”

  “I don’t doubt your word, for your people don’t lie, do they?”

  “Aye, a life led honestly is a simple life.”

  “But life’s as complicated as a berry patch,” said Hickox. “Particularly blackberries.”

  “He ain’t here,” said Swift.

  “You checked behind those sacks of flour?”

  “A course I did.”

  “If you are finished, I must meet my boats,” said Sylvanus. He walked to the front of the shop, leaving Hickox and Swift staring hungrily at the bread. The baker returned to the room with a deep basket and began stacking the loaves into it. He looked over his shoulder and saw the two slave catchers lingering. He pulled a knife from his belt. Hickox stiffened. Sylvanus cut a large hunk off of a loaf and divided it in two. “You look hungry,” he said, handing each a piece. He marched to the back door and replaced the board that held it tightly shut.

  Swift took a healthy bite out of the bread. “Good,” he said.

  “I must make my boats.” Sylvanus led them to the front door and out to the street. The small brass bell that hung from a bracket over the door tinkled. The Quaker turned the key in the lock.

  From his hiding place, Joe heard the bell and the lock’s snap. The crawl space under the floorboards was tight, but he lifted the trapdoor until a crack of light could be seen. The building’s stillness convinced him that it was safe to work his legs through the hole and slide out. He surveyed the room. Almost at once he noticed half a loaf of bread on the kneading table. He tore off a hunk and stuffed it into his mouth. Before he unbarred the back door and slipped out to the area facing Ballou, he grabbed the rest of the loaf.

  The sun had already risen above the horizon, casting long shadows of the leafless trees. Joe leaned against the back of the bakery and hoped that the brightness might warm him, but a cool morning breeze raised the gooseflesh instead. He could sneak his way back to his mother by sticking near the creek or by taking the street. A shiver went through him. He could not face the cold water again.

  A single horse and carriage rattled by, heading east. Taking small steps and listening for any sound of a search, Joe moved to the corner of the building to get a peek at the cross street. The slave catchers were most likely hunting for him nearby, but he didn’t see them. Few people were out, so he fixed his mind on the “walk” his father had trained him to do.

  “Lots a people think black folks ain’t worth a second look,” Elymas had said as they neared a town early in the journey. “So that gonna work for us. You gotta walk like you going to the place you gone every day a your life. Don’t look scared. Act like you so tired a walking this way that you don’t hardly care about nothing.” Elymas had assumed a slow, steady walk, arms relaxing at his sides, like the only thing important to him was to let the light shine down on him and mind his business.

  Joe’s chest grew tight as he thought about his daddy. Why had they kept on moving after Poppa was caught? They should have stayed close by if he was going to find them. His eyes suddenly went wet. But Poppa wasn’t coming, and Momma knew it. That’s why she kept on. Anger welled up in him. She lied all this way, he thought. Her and her secrets. It was unfair.

  A sharp whistle from the canal brought him back. He didn’t have time for feelings, so he bit the inside of his cheek and focused on getting himself back to the shed. He worked his way to the next corner, one that afforded him a view of the street he had originally come down under the cover of darkness.

  Below him, an overloaded cart made a turn and headed in his direction. After a deep calming breath, he started ambling up the road with as carefree an attitude as he could manage, but with his whole consciousness focused on the progress of the cart as it neared. The driver was a slack sort of white fellow and the barrels that the cart carried were stacked two high. As the vehicle came parallel with Joe, he veered as if to cross the street, and within a few steps he grasped the wagon’s tailboard, leaped on, and stowed away.

  After a block, with the slave catchers probably somewhere behind him, he risked a peek out. He saw the house of the sleepless old man and knew he was close. Maybe, he thought, Momma will still be asleep and she won’t even know I run off. He felt for the loaf of bread in his pocket. She still thinks I’m a baby, but when I bring her this food she’ll know I’m old enough. Almost too late, he recognized the house he’d left that morning and vaulted out of the cart. He ran to the side of the building and toward the relative safety of the shed.

  Just as he came around the house, he smacked into the solid bosom of a black woman wearing an apron.

  “There you are,” she said,
grabbing his shoulder, her fingers digging into his flesh. “You’re Horace’s kin, right?”

  Joe, so startled about being in her grasp, simply opened his mouth and emitted no sound.

  The lady shook him. “Don’t you tell me that your uncle sent me a fool. Are you a fool?”

  “No, Mammy,” he stammered.

  “Mammy? Maybe you are a fool. I ain’t nobody’s mammy. You call me Miss Maggie. You call him Mr. Galway, or sir. You look smart and I’ll give you meals. You understand? No talking back. No stealing. You be ready when he calls. And if that doctor tries to make you his slave, you say nice as you can, ‘No, Doc, I gotta be ready for Mr. Galway.’ You understand?”

  “Yes, Ma … Miss Maggie,” said Joe. He dared a look behind him at the shed. It was just across the grass.

  “Now what do you tell that doctor when he starts bossing you around?”

  “I ain’t no slave.”

  “A course you ain’t no slave. You’re getting wages. Well, food, but that is wages enough for some fool boy. You say, ‘I gotta be ready for Mr. Galway.’ You got that?”

  “Yes, Miss Maggie.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joe—b. Job.”

  “Well then, Job, come inside and I’ll give you a hunk a bacon and some griddle cakes while I hunt up some a Mr. Galway’s old clothes for you. It looks like you’ve been chewed on by a swarm of beetles.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ANTICIPATION WHIRLED IN Dr. McCooke’s breast as he sauntered toward Bagg’s Square, looking to all the world like a consummate medical man, complete with his case of instruments and tonics. In his pocket was enough cash for a few drinks, at least one round with a willing woman, and the opium that worked miracles—keeping his patient quiet and out of pain. Perhaps his “lean luck” had finally ended. Now he could finally build himself back up after his mother ran the plantation into the dirt. Really it was her “overseer” Billy who should be blamed. That African seduced her weak mind and pretended that he could run a complex operation as well as a white man. The blow had been staggering. It threw his whole life’s plan into the refuse pile. No wonder I drink, he thought. Anyone in the same circumstances would. He just had to confine his fun to afternoons and evenings. It was the morning drinking that got me in trouble. Here in Utica I am beginning anew on a good footing. No need for a mistake or two to ruin my whole life. Even he had been heartbroken by the loss of pretty Miss Duphorne of Albany. When he thought about it, the fault had been entirely the servants’ for not following his instructions to the letter.