The Abolitionist's Daughter

by Diane C. McPhail

  “I’ll do it, Belinda.”

  Above them pale wisps of cloud shredded the sky.

  The two ate little, spoke of the weather and planting time, touched with restraint on the difficulties of Belinda managing her farm on her own. They fell silent and stared away from one another.

  Finally, Adeline uttered the unspoken question that hung in the air between them. “Where were you, Belinda?”

  “Where was I?” Belinda’s voice was almost a shriek. “What do you mean, where was I? I was there. How dare you ask that?”

  Adeline steadied herself. “You were there, Belinda?”

  “Of course, I was there. You know I saw it. All of it. Blood everywhere. You had to know, Mama. Benjamin had to tell you so.” Belinda put her hand over her mouth and caught her breath. She looked at her mother as if afraid. “Charles had to tell you.”

  Now Adeline’s breath caught in her throat. Time stopped. Charles? Charles had been in his coffin. “I was asking why you weren’t at the cemetery, Belinda,” she said at last.

  “Oh—oh, the cemetery. Oh, yes, of course. The cemetery.” Belinda sat back, her voice steadying. Belinda did not answer. She twisted the corner of the napkin.

  “I was there,” Belinda said at last. “In the woods. By the cemetery. Watching. I couldn’t bear to see it and hear it after what I—” Belinda pulled at the grass. “I couldn’t. So, I just walked off in the woods.”

  Adeline kept still.

  “I walked around and around. Just walked. I couldn’t get it all out of my head and I didn’t know what to do. I kicked things—twigs and acorns and pinecones.”

  Adeline waited. She had seen Belinda kick things. Sometimes they were alive.

  “I kicked a tree. I kicked a lot of things.” Her voice was rising. “I bruised my foot and ruined my boot. I got myself lost and somewhere out there I wrapped my arms around a tree and the bark was all rough and it scratched my cheek. It hurt, but I didn’t care. It was too much, too much. The judge and then my brothers. God. I had to hold on to something, do you see?”

  Adeline nodded. But it was not you who lost all you had, she thought.

  “I must have cried. Well, yes, of course, I cried. How could I not have cried? I cried for a long time. It seemed like my fault. And then I went home.” Belinda plucked a clover blossom and began to pick at the petals, dropping them one by one into her lap.

  Adeline studied the horizon. “Was it, Belinda? Your fault?”

  Belinda ignored the question. “Later, sometime, I don’t know—just later—I went out to the graves. I stood there forever. It was so horrible. That dirt all raw and red like a bloody wound and mounded up, except for Will’s.”

  “Stop it, Belinda.” There were tears on Adeline’s cheek. Her voice cracked. “Just stop.”

  “Oh, Mama, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” Belinda began snatching at the picnic things. “I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know why I did. I needed to know if you would still see me. I just needed after—”

  “Belinda, I can’t hear these things.”

  “But I need you to hear me.” Belinda’s voice took on an air of desperation. She hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I stayed there a good long time. Not too long, though. And not good, either. Then, I came to see you, Mama. You were sitting in your rocker. You looked up at me when I came in, but you did not open your mouth. You did not get up and hold me. I stood so long in front of the fire, and after you never said a word to me, I left.” She waited. “And now I have come back.”

  Belinda covered her face and sobbed. Adeline let her.

  CHAPTER 25

  Emily twisted the key in the latch. The door swung open on its own. It had not been locked. Inside, everything was dark. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Her husband’s desk, his chair, his books, his examining table engulfed her in their undertow. The weight of the room pulled her down into his chair with its squeaking spring, the leather molded to his shape. She, too, had molded herself to him, Emily thought.

  The leather of the chair was cool against her back, and the emptiness of the office matched her own. She sat, feeling the shape of him. Outside, Ginny called to Rosa Claire, and Emily roused, uncertain how long she had been lost in apathy.

  Behind the desk, bookshelves overflowed, but with a sense of purpose and order. Volumes of medical texts and professional materials lay on the floor in neat piles, separated by category. Above the shelves hung his diploma, its elegant script declaring: Charles Harvey Slate, Doctor of Medicine. The desk was wide and cumbersome. Across its surface, the wood grain rippled like the markings of an untamed animal. In the window, a delicate circular pull dangled from the partially closed shade. She had tatted it herself, under the tutelage of Adeline. Emily stood up, walked to the window, and yanked at it. The shade clattered to the top of the window, the pull swinging wildly. Sunlight glared into the room.

  From the bookshelves behind her, Emily removed one volume after another, glancing at titles and an occasional inscription. Once or twice she recognized Adeline’s hand and lay the book aside. Benjamin had assembled three wooden crates for her. They would not suffice. Charles’s library was more extensive than she had thought. She would ship the books to his college in some feeble impulse toward redemption.

  Somewhere near mid-morning, she stood and stretched, hands pressed hard into the small of her throbbing back. The remainder could wait. Why had she refused Benjamin’s offer to spare her this chore?

  As she walked the path back toward the house, she caught sight of Ginny hanging wash and Rosa Claire frolicking under the dripping laundry. The child halted beneath a clean petticoat, head back, mouth open, trying to catch the drops from its ruffled hem. When a dribble landed on her forehead and ran down the side of her nose, Rosa Claire squealed, threw her arms around Ginny’s leg, ducked her head into Ginny’s skirts. As two little hands lifted the skirts in the rear, Ginny shimmied and twisted. She spread her long legs, as a halo of soft blond curls peeked from under the front of her apron. When Rosa Claire emerged, she spied her mother and came racing, arms outspread. He will never see her like this, Emily thought, as she swooped the child aloft. Nor will my father. Rosa Claire pouted at the suddenness with which her mother set her back on the ground.

  “Would you like some buttermilk?” Emily asked, taking the child’s hand. Rosa Claire nodded, scurrying to keep up with her mother. Jessie had finished churning and a blue pitcher of buttermilk sat on the porch table. Emily poured two small glasses and carried them outside, where Rosa Claire was conversing with a make-believe prince. As Rosa Claire finished her drink, Emily was struck by her innocence, by their mutual vulnerability. Emily rose and shooed her back to the yard, where Ginny stood stretching. The milky glasses were slippery in Emily’s fingers. She left them on the edge of the porch and walked back to her task.

  Reentering the office, Emily had an impression the air had thinned in the intensified light. She was exhausted. The buttermilk and the moments with Rosa Claire had not refreshed, but oppressed her. Benjamin had been here in her absence. Additional crates were stacked, empty and waiting. Emily worked on into the long afternoon, now and then pulling at her ear or biting a fingernail. Collecting the last of the heavy medical books, she picked up a text on botanical remedies. How like him, she thought. The volume opened to a thin white envelope, its seal broken, the end folded twice. The marked page bore an etching of foxglove.

  Emily unfolded the envelope, releasing a cascade of tiny seeds into her palm. Holding the dark seeds in her open hand, she sank into the chair. Digitalis. Such memories of Charles, her first naïve impressions of him. Her memories of Will. Emily focused her eyes and began to read. She skimmed the folklore of wicked fairies. Her breathing shallowed. Feeling faint, she pushed the book away, then pulled it back. Her fist closed around the seeds. Pressing the pages back, she continued reading:

  Although all parts of the plant are toxic, it has a use in modern medicine for heart conditions. . . .

&nb
sp; Emily half rose, rubbed her closed hand across her brow, spilling dark seeds across the page. She brushed at them. What seeds did not scatter invisibly across the dark surface of the desk cascaded into a thin black line in the galley of the book. Emily read on.

  Digitalis must be administered by someone qualified in its use. Overdose or accumulation of digitalis leads to nausea, vertigo, depression, anxiety, visual hallucinations, coma, convulsions, followed by death . . .

  Emily’s mind emptied into a dark void between her ribs.

  The blizzard of March 4, 1862, came on fast, covering the wet ground and the vulnerable growth of premature spring in a sludge of snow. Above the blanket of white, tips of early daffodils peeked out in iced casings like blown glass. Nothing moved about the place for days, except the hands, their homespun wool coats pulled high, struggling to keep the animals fed. In the house, Emily sat alone in her room, the door shut. She heard Rosa Claire laughing with Ginny, but she did not respond. She accepted the plates of food that Ginny placed in her hands. She ate, but did not taste. She watched Ginny stoke and feed the fire, but did not reply to her random comments. On the warm day the snow melted, Emily rose, took her shawl, and left the house.

  Mud from the thaw sucked at her boots. She trudged on, eyes raw from the wind. She pulled her woolen scarf across her face. Broom sedge tugged at her skirts. Her ankle turned and Emily bit her lip. But she did not slow her pace. By the time the Slate house came into sight, her thighs burned and she had a stitch in her side. She stooped and waited to get her breath.

  There was no sign of life about the place. That meant nothing. Thomas Slate would be drunk somewhere, Belinda gone, Adeline somewhere at work. Wherever she was, Adeline would not be at rest. Emily straightened, wiped her palms down her skirt, and mounted the steps. She knocked. Waited. The door opened against the darkness of the house, and Adeline stepped into the light.

  “Come in, Emily.” No greeting, no surprise. “I’ll make some tea.”

  Adeline did not wait for a response. Nor ask Emily why she had come. Perhaps she had expected this visit. Neither woman spoke as Adeline put the kettle on, added a stick of wood to the stove, and arranged a pair of cups and saucers on the worktable between them.

  Emily’s finger circled the chipped rim of the cup. She watched Adeline open the tin and scoop out the tea. She noted how little there was. She hesitated, felt the impulse to leave straightaway, but stopped, a brutal hardness bearing down in her.

  “Did you know, Adeline?” Emily asked.

  Adeline put the spoon on the table, hands on each side as if the table might hold her up. “Did I know what, Emily?” she said.

  “Did you know what he did? Even before—”

  Adeline looked up. The corner of Emily’s mouth twitched.

  “What he did at what point, Emily?”

  “Did you?” Emily said again.

  “I ask myself daily if I know anything at all. If I will ever know—”Adeline pushed the heels of her hands onto the edge of the worktable and shook her head. “I know that he tried.”

  “Tried what?”

  Adeline picked up the kettle, set it down again. “He tried to take care of his sister,” she said at last, her voice barely audible.

  “And what about my brother?” Emily turned strident. “You were there. You knew. You could have stopped them.”

  “Hush, Emily. Stop now. These are my children. Charles was so full of remorse.”

  “For what? For killing Will?”

  Adeline stared at Emily as if startled awake from a nightmare. “No, Emily. For failing to save him. For inexperience, incompetence even. For letting Belinda decide.”

  “For causing his death? Say it, Adeline.”

  “I can’t say what I don’t know, Emily.”

  “And you won’t say what you do.”

  “Neither of us can ever know.” Adeline reached out, her fingers wrapping Emily’s wrist, but Emily wrenched from her grasp.

  “Don’t touch me,” Emily said. “You are as well as dead to me. I will not mourn. I have had enough of mourning.”

  “And so have I,” said Adeline, withdrawing her hand, “and all of it because of you.”

  Emily ran from the house and stumbled onto the road. Benjamin sat in the cart, waiting. He spoke to the mule and stepped down, his hand extended.

  “I seen you leaving the house, Miss Emily. Ain’t much reason for a stroll in this weather. I got hitched up and followed back behind.”

  Emily took his hand. Her strength withered and Benjamin pulled her up. From under the seat, he handed her an old wool blanket, gave the reins a flick, and turned, the wind behind them now.

  * * *

  Though the kitchen was warm, the world had gone cold. Adeline held on to the doorframe and slid to the floor. The boards were ungiving. She did not cry. No more than she had cried as a child, when her father whipped her for tears, when he shot her dog and turned on her, hand on his belt, saying, “Don’t you cry.” She remembered her terror that he might shoot her, too. She wished that he had.

  It was Thomas who, after a while, found her, helped her to bed, where she lay unmoving. Sometime up in the afternoon, Belinda arrived. He must have sent for her. Why else would she be there? Adeline said she felt ill was all, same as she had told Thomas—but Belinda knew better. Belinda knew how he had found her after Emily left. Belinda went straight out the door, swearing. Adeline had never heard her so like Thomas. She heard the clank of the chains as the buckboard pulled away. Belinda was gone. Adeline turned on her side and curled the pillow under her arm.

  * * *

  The fine cotton filament from last fall’s meager harvest spun out from Emily’s unsteady hand. Tiny moats of fiber floated in the sunlight. She followed them with her eyes. The whirring of the wheel soothed her, stilled her thoughts. The repeating sound and motion lulled her mind. On the floor beside her lay two baskets lofted with finely carded cotton. Emily pulled one closer and pressed the pedal on the wheel.

  The slamming door reverberated through the house. Emily rose and peered into the dim hall.

  “Hello?” she called. “Who is it?”

  Belinda was upon her, gripping her, shaking her.

  “What in God’s hell do you think you are doing?” Belinda screamed. “What have you been saying to my mama?”

  Shock paralyzed Emily. She stared at the woman clutching her. Her cheek stung like hornets from Belinda’s sudden blow.

  “How dare you, you hateful slut!” Belinda shouted. “You witch! You wicked whore. What lies did you say to her?”

  Emily crumbled in confusion, her eyes riveted on Belinda’s contorted face. Emily slumped to the floor, propped up on one hand. With the other, she covered her burning face. Belinda crouched, her face so close that Emily could not focus her eyes.

  “What did you say to my mother?” Belinda spoke each word as if it were a separate thing. She seized Emily by the shoulder and shoved her farther down. “You stay away from my mother, do you hear? You and your evil, twisted lies.”

  Belinda stood over her. “She is my mother. Mine!” Each word drove like a nail, driven into the room, into the house, into Emily. “You leave her alone. Do you hear me? I’m all she has left. You keep away from us, you evil, lying bitch.”

  She was gone.

  Emily lay immobilized. She did not even weep. She pushed herself upright and stared around the room. Where is my basket? she thought. I must finish my spinning. Two basketsful left to do. We will want to be weaving soon.

  Ginny found her at the spinning wheel, humming, when she entered later with an apron full of brown eggs. Emily did not look at her or speak, but continued to hum with the whir of the wheel, her eyes on the fine cotton filament as it flowed from her hand.

  CHAPTER 26

  The late spring, if it could be called that, brought with it news of Confederate defeats as the Union collected strategic control of vital strongholds: Pea Ridge and partial control of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; Shi
loh and the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston, one of the Confederacy’s finest; and most crucial, control of the mouth of the Mississippi and the surrender of New Orleans. Only one victory enhanced the strength of the Confederacy: the routing of Union forces from Winchester, Virginia, and a victorious culmination to “Stonewall” Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The weather was miserable, unseasonably cold and very wet, as if the land itself exuded the vast residue of death covering its surface.

  In time the weather broke. Peals of laughter spilled in through the open window. Emily, tired of struggling with her stitches, tucked the needle into her sewing and stood. She pulled the curtain back to see Rosa Claire and Aimee lying on the ground, heads almost touching, the color of their skin barely distinguishable. Two toddlers squealing with delight. Their glee was contagious and Emily laughed, not knowing at what. By the time she went down the hall and out the front steps, Rosa Claire was sitting up, one arm outstretched, the other hand jiggling against it. Emily watched from a little distance as Aimee rose and fingered the back of Rosa Claire’s hand.

  “What do you have there, children?” Emily said after a few moments.

  The children answered with wild giggles and pointing fingers. Kneeling beside Rosa Claire, Emily spotted the object of their hilarity. The caterpillar was black with fine pinstripes along its back and a bright yellow underbelly. Both tips were black and marked with white dots that looked like huge eyes.

  “Look, Mama, it has two heads,” Rosa Claire said, pointing. She could hardly get the words out between giggles.