The Third Mrs. Galway

by Deirdre Sinnott

  She rolled over and saw one of the little nightgowns lying flat on her table. Poor Imari and her unborn babe. She owed them something, Joe too. Killing herself instead of giving them help? It would be piling one unpardonable sin upon the last. Even if her immorality meant that she was forever tainted, at least she would be true to them. Finally resolved to check on them, she threw off her bedsheets and dressed in her old school frock.

  No sound could be heard in the house, so she pushed her door open just enough to look across the hallway. The doctor’s chamber stood empty. She peeked into the room. He was gone.

  How had Augustin allowed that cancer under his roof? Wasn’t part of the wedding contract that the husband had to provide a safe place for his family? He had time enough for drinking. Though it might sound cruel, perhaps she was better off without a baby. She had to think about what to do.

  A new idea began to take shape. If a slave could leave her master, might not a wife do the same? What if this was not the place where she would be spending the rest of her life? Couldn’t she just follow Pryce, and then run? The weight of this new awareness made her light-headed and she sat at the top of the elegant staircase, realizing that her life did not have to be this way.

  If she too ran, any disgrace might be left behind in Utica. Why, there was a whole frontier to occupy. Her uncle had simply left on a packet boat. She was married because she had agreed to it and sworn in front of Father Quarters. That, and a wedding certificate, combined with the belief that she had no other choice, seemed like the only thing binding her to this place. And Pryce appeared ready to hazard any risk. But if she ran away with him, there was her soul to be considered. Surely the sin of desertion of her husband for another man would be met with God’s vengeance.

  She thought once again of Augustin. If she stayed and remained a good wife—if she never saw Pryce again—might she not atone? She did not want to hurt her husband. If he were left alone, he might crumble. In the weeks before their engagement and wedding he had seemed so melancholy. And though he was often short with her, it made him happy to instruct her. During the honeymoon, he clearly wanted to make her into a fine lady of whom he could be proud. He was not an affectionate man, but from all he had said about the departed Mrs. Galway, it was clear that there had been true tenderness. What did she owe him?

  Miss Manahan had spoken about love growing over time, emphasizing the joys of children fusing the bonds between husband and wife. But the baby was gone and she knew now what real love felt like. Could it be that God had put a choice before her? It felt much like the serpent’s temptation.

  But oh, the thrill of the idea. The adventure of leaving and leaping into a life of love and purpose. It was what she had imagined when she pined away her days at school. There would not be dogs on her heels or slave catchers chasing her with chains. Imari had braved it all for her baby and her freedom. What would Helen do for hers?

  A sound disturbed her contemplation. Straightening, she tried to determine from which direction it came. The noise started again. Someone was creeping slowly up the servants’ staircase. Helen’s heart began to beat furiously. In the pale light of the passageway she saw a crouching form at the threshold.

  “Missus?” said Joe. “Miss Maggie sent me up. She say it time.”

  “I’ll come,” said Helen, giddy with relief. If a boy coming up the back stairs of her own house could produce such fright—could she be brave enough to embark on an entirely new life?

  She passed the kitchen stove and felt heat radiating from the iron box. A cauldron of water simmered on the top. The bedroom door was open.

  Imari rocked on the bed, a rolled white cloth pinched between her teeth. She bit down on it, pulling her eyes shut and crinkling her nose, as an intense labor pain shook her frame. Her muffled voice rose above the night’s stillness. Maggie held her hand. The time had come. Visions of her mother’s failed delivery filled Helen’s head. She felt as if the air had gotten thin and couldn’t spend another minute in that room. As she turned, about to run back to her chamber, Maggie called to her.

  “We need more linens. Go upstairs and get some fresh sheets and bathing cloths.”

  Grateful for the task, Helen ran back up to the hallway closet and pulled a pile of sheets from the shelf. She dragged several towels from an upper ledge, sending a few tumbling to the floor. She took a moment to steady herself. This delivery might not be the same as the one that took her mother’s life. Everything might happen normally. Oh, any price would be worth their safety. She kneeled, hands clasped. God, extend your protection and be there to catch both the mother and child. Please don’t punish them for my sins. If they live … I’ll be a good wife. I’ll forget Mr. Anwell.

  Wiping her eyes, she rose and returned to the kitchen, handing off the linens to Joe. A clanging sound came from the front. “That’s Mr. Augustin,” called Maggie.

  “I’ll see to him,” said Helen. The cook nodded and went back to her patient.

  At the door of the library, she could still hear the bell, though it was softer and less urgent. Would Augustin notice the sin written across her face? She took three shaky breaths, trying to compose herself.

  Her husband lay on the daybed in the dark. She lit a lamp and brought it close. He appeared gray and sweat covered his brow. He did not seem to be conscious of her presence, though his eyes were open. The bell still moved in his hand, but the clapper merely slid across the brass. Helen lifted it from his fingers and noticed that his skin was clammy. A shiver went through him that did not abate.

  “You’re freezing,” she said, and brought over a blanket. He pulled it up to his neck. She gently moved his chin toward the lamp and looked at his eyes. The pupils were constricted and his teeth chattered. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need the medicine,” he said, his voice small.

  “How I hate that medicine.” Helen noticed that his leg had been wrapped anew. “Are you in pain?”

  “Yes, it’s terrible. I hurt all over. Do you see any medicine?”

  “It is not good for you.”

  “How dare you withhold it?” he said angrily. Then pleading, “I’m in terrible pain.”

  She bit her lip. If Imari’s baby was coming, it might be best if he were in a deep sleep. She looked around the bed and the liquor table until she found a bottle marked Opium. “One moment,” she said, pouring forty drops into a snifter and adding a few inches of sherry. Augustin’s hands trembled as he took the glass and drank it down. The effect was almost instantaneous. He relaxed, his breathing slowed, as if he had been rescued from danger. Eyes closed, he leaned his head back.

  Helen took the snifter and pulled the ottoman close. She covered his hand with hers and studied the sharp changes in his face. His cheeks were drawn and the skin under his eyes hung off his bones. The lips parted as his breath flowed. Something about him seemed shrunken, as if a portion of his life had been siphoned off since the accident.

  It was odd to be given the chance to study him. Up until that moment, he had loomed larger than life. Since their wedding every choice, every outfit, and every penny in her purse had been under his control. His decisions and wants could not be questioned, no matter how wrong they might be.

  The horrible doctor was gone. But what would be Augustin’s next dangerous decision?

  His eyes opened. He focused on the hand that still held his. “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Helping me.”

  Helen withdrew her arm. “I feel that giving you that medicine was not right.”

  “I need it,” he said.

  “The doctor is an evil man. I will not have him in the house again.”

  He bristled, raising his chest and throwing back his shoulders. “That’s for me to decide.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly. You allowed me to be unsafe in my own home.”

  A shutter went through him. “I … I … What you and Maggie manipulated—I acted because I had no choice.” His eyes sharpened.
“Was there ever a child? Or was that a phantom cooked up by you?”

  “I manipulated nothing.” Helen stood.

  Augustin withdrew into himself, chin pulled into his chest. He looked up at her, eyes shining. “My mind is a muddle,” he said in a quiet voice. “What I have done? I don’t know. I’m coming apart. I’ve been feeling lost … for so long. When I married Mrs. Galway, she put me back together. I’m afraid I’m coming apart again.” He brought his hands to his face and muffled a broken sob. “Can I ever be forgiven?”

  “By me?” asked Helen.

  “No. No.” He looked at her as if surprised by her nearness. “My dear, you’ve married a very old sin. One for which I have never redeemed myself.”

  “We are all sinners.”

  “That cannot comfort me.”

  “You can tell me what it is,” she said, bending close. “Confess it to me as you would a priest.” His eyes fluttered closed and his hands froze in the air, like a man in a trance. She studied him until he relaxed and folded his arms across his breast and took deep regular breaths.

  Just then, she heard Imari’s cry coming from the back. She took one more look at Augustin. What “old sin”? she wondered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  STEWART PACED IN HIS OFFICE, the sooty effigy floating on the wall. Would tomorrow’s conference be a repeat of the night when this scarecrow had earned its burn marks? It had happened months before, in January 1834. The First Presbyterian Church on Liberty and Washington Streets had been filled with spectators on the first of four nights of debates between the American Colonization Society and the Anti-Slavery Society. The Colonization Society’s main traveling agent, Reverend Joshua Danforth, a sweet-tongued man with a handsome appearance and an attitude of angelic benevolence, took the audience through dozens of reasons for sending the free blacks away from their homes in the United States to the shores of Africa. Many nodded their approval when Danforth hit his main point, that building up Liberia would ease the way for the Southern masters to release their slaves. In Africa, he said, the Negroes would thrive and stop the “idleness, insubordination, and insurrection” that bedeviled the poor free wretches.

  A larger audience gathered on the second night to hear Danforth’s main opponent, Reverend Beriah Green, president of the Oneida Institute, a wiry rail-thin man filled with the zeal of God’s abhorrence of slavery. After hearing both speakers quote scripture, there was much confusion over God’s intentions when it came to the slaves. But despite initial resistance, many murmured their approval, as if Green had won them to his main point—that if a man saw a great wrong, it was his duty to oppose it. Stewart himself had spoken on the third night, when hundreds of people crushed onto the long benches straining to hear a series of locals speak, most on the side of colonization. Much affected by the reverend’s ardent speech the night before, he thought he comported himself well, though not as eloquently as Green. On the fourth and final night, the crowd filled the aisles and a vote was taken, whether to support the Colonization Society’s resolution, or reject it as the abolitionists had urged. As soon as the measure passed supporting the Liberian scheme, a throng had rushed to the streets where a gallows had already been constructed. From it hung two scarecrows—effigies of Green and Stewart. They were lit ablaze and rolled up and down Genesee Street, passing Stewart’s own home. In the morning, on his porch, he found the burned likeness, the sign Alvan Stewart, Traitor still affixed to its neck. Those same passions might very well be ignited again tomorrow, Stewart thought.

  The day had slipped away and grown dark as he tried to figure out how to bring into existence the statewide New York Anti-Slavery Society in the face of such opposition. Once again, tension in the city had reached a fevered pitch. But he knew that he must find a way to get the hard business of forging the organization completed before his enemies disrupted the entire enterprise. There could be no more delays in the long fight for freedom.

  He believed that Pryce might still be at the courthouse attending a meeting crowded with “respectable mechanics”—the men who earned their bread by working in the industries of Utica and were duly proud of their calluses. There, it was anticipated, they would call on the town leaders to allow the next day’s gathering at the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church to go on unmolested. But it was far from clear if Utica’s gentlemen of property and standing, after having spent weeks vilifying the convention as treasonous, would quietly retire and allow it to occur.

  Downstairs, the street door opened and the scent of lilacs irritated Stewart’s nose. Footsteps thundered up the stairs.

  Pryce bustled in, his face agleam with energy.

  Almost immediately Stewart’s eyes began to sting. “What the devil is that smell?” he demanded.

  “Is it that strong?” asked Pryce, removing his broad coat and pressing it to his nose. A wistful look clouded his eyes.

  “For pity’s sake, open the window.”

  Pryce complied and a chilly breeze cleared the room of the false scent of spring.

  “I dropped by the mechanics’ meeting. It’s still going on,” said Pryce, as he threw the offensive coat on a chair.

  “Dropped by?” asked Stewart. “You didn’t attend?”

  “I … hum … had to—” Pryce stopped. His mind flew back to Helen, the feel of her in his arms, the look of passion in her eyes. And, of course, there was her anguish. His love for her had blotted out all sense of decorum. They had almost been incapable of controlling themselves. But her weeping—it crushed something within him. His actions had consequences and he wouldn’t shrink from whatever they might be.

  He saw Stewart studying him, so he composed himself before going on. “The mechanics have bogged down with procedures and haven’t yet come up with any written proposals about our convention.”

  “Our convention?” said Stewart, amused. “So this is no longer just a job?”

  Pryce blushed. “I think I’ve earned the right to call it that.”

  “Of course,” said Stewart. “Did you meet the packet boats and coaches? Are people arriving?”

  “Our delegates have been met and have been dispatched to the hotels and boardinghouses,” said Pryce. “But, there was a group of about ten very rough-looking men who arrived on a boat from the east. They were unsightly, missing teeth and such—too poor for berths on a packet boat.”

  “Well, what of them?”

  “They were met by an expensively dressed man and each was given a purse that I believe held money. One of them, a fellow with tangled black hair, said,” Pryce cleared his throat, “‘Utica ain’t no bedder dan da Sixt Woid,’ whatever that meant.”

  Stewart took the information with a knowing nod.

  “They looked like trouble,” said Pryce. He stopped and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?” He flew to the window and stuck his head out.

  “I can smell nothing but that ridiculous perfume,” coughed Stewart.

  Pryce turned back, his eyes wide. “Fire. There’s smoke coming from Bagg’s Hotel!”

  Horace raised a bit of tattered carpet and slapped it on the flames that licked his shack’s outside wall. Smoke had driven him from his home. By the time he discovered the cause, the backside of the rickety structure was completely ablaze. The cinders, disturbed by his efforts, showered him in fiery sparks. His shirt smoldered. He felt a bite of pain and saw a glowing red ring spreading on his shoulder. He smothered it. Some of the servants from Bagg’s Hotel burst from the stately building, shouting in alarm and, he assumed, checking to see if the fire was burning down their workplace. He ran around the shack and hurried through the door. Inside, flames leaped to the ceiling. He lunged to the broken-down dresser and grabbed a metal box. The heat blistered his hands. Springing back toward the entrance, he stumbled over his chair. The box flew from his fingers. He scrambled along the ground trying to find it. His lungs filled with smoke and he lost his bearings. The air burned his throat. He gasped and fought to clear his chest. Suddenly, a set of hands
dragged him outside and, without warning, dunked him into the river. He screamed in shock, but Alvan Stewart held him steady, head above the surface.

  “Cold water stops the burning,” said Stewart.

  “My box,” groaned Horace, coughing violently. “What about my box? I had it … I had it in my hands.”

  “What’s in it?” asked Stewart.

  “My papers … Daddy’s free papers … A lock a Momma’s hair … Everything.”

  “Mr. Anwell,” shouted Stewart, “look for a box! He was carrying one!”

  Pryce ran toward the shack. The roof was fully aflame. The wind shifted and the fire roared toward him. He staggered back.

  Men who appeared to be coming from the mechanics’ meeting yelled for water and organized themselves into a bucket brigade. They worked hard, trying to douse the fire, but Horace saw that his home was completely destroyed.

  Stewart dragged him out of the river. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s all gone,” said Horace, sinking to his knees. “Everything.”

  Stewart put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Look, if you need a place for the night,” he pulled out his purse, “I can pay for it. At least you can be warm.”

  “Keep your money. I’m sleeping right here.”

  Just then Sylvanus appeared. He kneeled beside Horace. “Canst thou walk?”

  “Leave me be.” He pushed the baker away. Tears ran down his face. “Leave me be.”

  Sylvanus and Stewart reluctantly withdrew.

  “Can you stay?” asked Stewart. He placed a few coins in the baker’s hand. “For him. Tell me if you need more.”

  “That’s kind of thee,” said Sylvanus. “I shall stay.”

  The big lawyer disappeared into the knot of onlookers.

  Pryce wandered through the crowd. He recognized the New York abolitionist Lewis Tappan, whom he had settled at Clarke’s Temperance House that afternoon. Mr. Tappan, a rich and generously proportioned man who, Stewart had told Pryce, was the subject of death threats in “honorable Southern newspapers,” and whose own town house had been sacked by an anti-abolition riot the year before, watched the blaze and the bystanders with sharp eyes.