Gold hoops glinted in the young woman’s ears. She was darker-skinned than Caro, without Caro’s melting beauty, but there was something of Caro in the way she held her head and looked so clearly about her. She didn’t smile. Emily examined her with a feeling of foreboding. Those earrings marked her.
Next to her sat an older woman with a bright-red scarf wrapped around her head. Beneath it, her face was dark, shadowed, haggard. Despite her crisp dress and neat apron, she looked weary and ill. She glanced at the young woman, her face full of worry. She reminded Emily of Catherine. Was she the girl’s mother?
Emily drew her sketchbook from her pocket and began to draw. A man asked, “What are you sketching?” as he leaned over her shoulder.
“I’m just taking a likeness.”
Another man joined him, watching her as though seeing a lady make a sketch was a spectacle.
“Miss Emily!” It was young Mr. Herriot, who had seen her standing in King Street to sketch the Herriot house. “You’d best put that away.”
“Why?” she asked pleasantly. “Who would mind that a lady is sketching?”
A short, slender man, in his shirtsleeves despite the chill in the air, pushed through the crowd. He said roughly, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Who are you, sir?”
“This is my auction house. We don’t want anyone drawing in here. We’ve thrown out artists before.”
Emily closed her sketchbook. “I’m not an artist,” she said, in the same pleasant tone. “We all learned to sketch at Madame Devereaux’s school. For our own pleasure.” She glanced at Mr. Herriot.
“Put that away,” the auctioneer demanded.
“And if I did not?”
The auctioneer grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Out you go,” he said.
At this violence, Mr. Herriot said, “Don’t bother her, sir.”
“She’s a troublemaker.”
“She’s just a foolish girl. Leave her alone.”
“She has to go,” the auctioneer said roughly. He pulled her to her feet, and the sketchbook fell to the floor.
“I’ll escort her out,” Mr. Herriot said.
“My sketchbook,” Emily said faintly. “May I have it?”
The auctioneer glared at her, but Mr. Herriot bent to retrieve it. He took her arm—his touch was gentle, but the flesh smarted—and led her outside, where he scolded her as he handed her the sketchbook. “What possessed you to do such a thing, Miss Jarvie?”
She was silent. She had done wrong, and she knew it.
“And to sketch it! I’m sure you don’t know but there have been incidents elsewhere—illustrations sent to the northern papers.”
She raised her eyes to Mr. Herriot’s, but she thought of Joshua.
“Go home, Miss Jarvie, and leave these matters to wiser heads,” said Mr. Herriot, who wore a fop’s tall hat.
On the sidewalk, she lifted her eyes to the inscription over the gate: The Mart. As though the commerce within was as ordinary and as harmless as selling a bucket of oysters. She thought of the young woman on the auction block, her price run up by the fancy of a man like Mr. Herriot, and she hugged her sketchbook against the pain in her chest.
John Brown was sentenced on the second of November and hanged a month later. Emily defied her father and read every account of the trial and execution that she could find. The Mercury called John Brown a “diabolical incendiary” whose intent had been to “incite the slaves to rise and cut the throats of their white masters.”
She wished that Joshua would send her the accounts from the northern papers. She had written to him but had heard nothing, and his silence worried her.
On a cold day in mid-December, Ambrose announced a visitor. Even though it couldn’t be Joshua, Emily’s heart pounded in anticipation. It was Camilla, chaperoned by an elderly aunt. Susan offered to entertain the aunt. She said, “You girls sit in the back parlor. I’m sure you have plenty to gossip about.”
Camilla plopped herself down on the settee in the back parlor, saying, “We came before the season this year, to see the modistes. Jane’s trousseau!” She snorted. “At least I’ll get a new dress or two out of it.”
Of course she would. Emily let her chatter about dresses, the season, and people they knew in Sumter County. Sumter County seemed very far away, as did John Ellison. Emily’s head ached with the burden of polite interest.
“Cousin Joshua came to Sumter County for the holiday,” Camilla said.
Her headache vanished. Her heart leaped at the news. “Did you see him?”
Camilla leaned close, even though her voice didn’t drop below a stage whisper. “No, but there was such a scandal!”
“Why? What happened?”
“Joshua Aiken’s family has disowned him!”
Emily felt a shock throughout her body, as if she’d been hit by lightning. “Why? What has he done?”
“Oh, he came to visit and told his father that he hated slavery so much that he was ashamed to be a South Carolina man. And his father told him that if he felt that way, he was no longer worthy to be one. They had a fight! They nearly came to blows! Old Mr. Aiken told Joshua that he no longer considered his son an Aiken, and if he came back to Sumter County, Mr. Aiken would shoot him.”
“My goodness,” Emily said, shaking. “It’s bad enough what the papers say. Now they’ve had an irrepressible conflict of their own.”
“Emily, don’t tell me you read the papers! All that horrid stuff! A lady isn’t supposed to.”
“Camilla, it must be exhausting to pretend you’re a ninny when you aren’t.”
Camilla laughed. “A lady who’s a ninny can do things that a clever girl can’t,” she said, her eyes gleaming.
On the day after Christmas, Ambrose found her in the back parlor to tell her that she had a visitor at the side door.
“Ambrose, who is it?”
Ambrose said softly, “Wanted to surprise you.”
“Don’t tease me.”
Ambrose smiled as softly as he spoke. “Wouldn’t dream of it, miss.”
For a wild moment she wondered if Joshua had come to see her surreptitiously in Charleston and waited by the back door like a servant. But it was Caro, wrapped in a shawl, the blue paisley had been Emily’s first gift of Christian charity.
She reached for Caro’s hands, but Caro shook her head.
“I know you’re still angry with me,” Emily said.
Caro sighed. “Sophy has been schooling me. She reminds me all the time that it’s dangerous to be angry.”
“Yes, it is,” Emily said. “Caro, it’s Christmas. Might we have a moment of peace?”
Caro struggled with herself, friend and cousin warring with the slave. She met Emily’s eyes. “Yes, we shall.”
As she asked anyone, Emily inquired, “Did you have a happy Christmas?”
“We did our best. Sophy tried very hard to cheer us. A canvasback duck, and a whole bucket of oysters, and hoppin’ john for luck next year.”
“Better luck next year.” Emily held out her hand again, and this time Caro took it. Her fingers were cold. Emily asked, “Are you warm enough at Tradd Street?”
“We’re staying in the kitchen. We’re all right.”
“Caro, why did you come here? You know you shouldn’t.”
She reached into her pocket. “A note from Mr. Aiken. He wrote directly to me, too, and asked that I give this to you right away.”
Emily took the envelope from Caro’s cold fingers and pressed them in her own. “Thank you, Caro.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’ll come to see you after the New Year. Better luck, I hope.”
Caro let go of her hand and nodded. Then she slipped away. When had she learned to move with a slave’s stealth?
Joshua had named a spot on the Battery, quiet in the cold air of December. The day was unusually bright for winter in Charleston, with a lemony sunlight that belied the cold of the air. He leane
d against the fence that looked onto the water, so absorbed in the current that she had to tap him on the shoulder to greet him.
He turned, and the wary look on his face disturbed her. There were shadows under his bright brown eyes. He smiled with his lips, not the rest of his face, saying only, “Emily.”
“Joshua.” She reached for his hands, and they stood like that, hands clasped, eyes meeting. “I heard about your quarrel with your father.”
“There’s no mending it, Emily. I’ve been disowned, and I can never return to South Carolina.”
“I know.” She pressed his hands in her own. “Was it about Harpers Ferry? And its aftermath?”
“That started it. I told him—I told the whole family—that I hate slavery with every fiber of my being and was ashamed to be associated with a place that allows it and profits from it.”
“You’re an abolitionist,” she said.
With great resolution, he said, “Yes, I am.”
When she didn’t reply, he said, “If you want to break with me, too…if you want to throw me over…”
She continued to clasp his hands. She wished that she dared embrace him. “Of course not,” she whispered.
“It will make no end of trouble for you.”
“Come with me,” she said. “There’s someone you should meet.”
She led him to the house on Tradd Street, to the address he had written on so many envelopes but which he had never seen. She stood at the gate and rang the bell to take him past a puzzled Sophy, down the driveway, and into the yard.
Caro bent over the washtub, her arms in hot soapy water, her apron splashed with suds over her oldest dress. At the sight of Emily, she straightened and wiped her hands.
Emily said, “Caro, there’s someone I want you to meet.” She took a deep breath. “This is my friend, my dearest friend, my beloved friend, Mr. Joshua Aiken.” She turned to Joshua. “Joshua, this is my cousin, Miss Caroline Jarvie.”
Chapter 12: The Badge of Servitude
After the season of parties and races was over, the Herriots left the house on King Street and the Jarvies moved in. Susan walked through the rooms, pulling Emily with her, planning where to put their furniture and anticipating the need for new furnishings even though the most recent ones hadn’t been paid for yet.
In the back parlor, Susan put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room. “It’s a much bigger house,” she said. “I don’t know how we’ll manage.”
Only a few days later, as they sat together at breakfast, her stepmother told her father that that they needed more servants.
He rattled the newspaper and said irritably, “We have three hundred Negro slaves on three plantations. Certainly some of them would suit you.”
“I don’t want a field hand. We’re people of fashion now. I want servants to suit.”
Emily had already heard her stepmother say the same thing about a new dining room table and a settee.
Her father said, “I know what you want. You want a pretty, light-skinned parlor maid and a tall, handsome coachman.”
Susan said happily, “You see!”
“What I see very plainly is how much they’ll cost me. A thousand dollars each! On top of what we’ve already spent on the house. And the season.”
Susan pouted. “What does it matter? Another expense?”
Lawrence rattled the newspaper again. “Another debt,” he retorted. “I won’t do it.”
“How do you expect me to manage?”
He laid the newspaper down. “There is a servant who might do,” he said. “That girl from James’s place.”
They know her name, Emily thought, and they won’t even speak it.
Susan drew in her breath. “Lawrence, don’t even suggest such a thing.”
He picked up the paper again. “Then you’ll have to do without,” he said, his voice muffled by the barrier of newsprint.
At the end of April, Caro told Sophy that she was going out. Sophy said, “It worry me that you don’t have a badge.”
“The Guard has never bothered me.”
“Don’t you know? The town full of them Democrats come here for their convention.” Sunday, keen on politics, had mentioned it on his last visit. “Sunday tell me the Guard out in force, looking for black people to arrest. Show them visitors how South Carolina feel about slavery.”
Caro shrugged. “Don’t worry about me.”
Sophy and Sunday had been right: there were more Guardsmen on the street today than usual. She was careful to keep her eyes down and do nothing that would bring notice, much less offense, and she arrived at the post office without difficulty. She collected Emily’s letter from Joshua Aiken, and when she turned, she met Danny. “Walk with me,” he said.
“Why? What can you say to me?”
“Please, Caro,” he pleaded, and as she snapped out the door and onto the sidewalk, he followed her so abjectly that she let him. He asked stiffly, “How are you?”
“I do fine,” she said, her voice sharp. If he says one thing about loving me and taking care of me, she thought, I’ll slap him, right here on the street.
“We miss you at the service and at the dinners, too.”
She had absorbed her mother’s bitterness and had not attended the church or sat at the Bennett family table since her uncle’s failure to buy her. She said, “That’s too bad.”
He reached for her arm, not very gently. “Caro, you talk like you hate me.”
She shook her head. She hated her life, and she hated that she wanted to tell Danny so. He fell silent and walked alongside her without speaking.
When they reached the corner of Tradd Street, they both stopped. She knew he was struggling to find something to say to comfort her. She shook her head again, and he left her without a word.
She was so absorbed in her emotion that the Guardsman startled her. He demanded, “Where’s your badge?”
She had enough wit to say in her best Low Country accent, “Oh, suh, my missus sent me out in such a hurry that I leave it behind. Don’t have it with me.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, tapping his club in his hand. “You hire out, and you don’t have one.”
She had seen the arrests over and over, but she had let herself feel safe. She said, “Oh, no, suh. Hire out? My missus send me to do the wash for a friend of hers. Don’t know about hiring out.”
“I’m taking you to the Work House,” he said. He grabbed her by the arm, clamping his hand so tightly that she felt the skin bruise.
She said, “Suh, please, don’t take me to the Work House.” She raised her voice, hoping that her distress would summon help. “Not the Work House.”
The Guardsman said, “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll beat you senseless and drag you there.” Without waiting for a reply, he tightened his grip and began to tow her to the Work House, an impromptu coffle held together by pain and threat.
Caro had rarely walked past the Work House, tucked away on Magazine Street. Flanked by stone turrets, every window barred, it presented a forbidding face to the street. She had never entered it and had never expected that she would be dragged inside to be treated like a criminal.
Inside, the Guardsman shoved her onto a hard wooden bench, where she was eyed by a man who stood behind a tall wood counter, as though this were a shop and not a jail. The bench was full. She jostled the others who already sat there, black and brown, some clearly free people of color, some listless, and others seething with quiet fury.
A little barefoot boy, his pants and shirt ragged, sidled up to her. “Does you have money?”
She was supposed to be a slave who never had a coin in her pocket. She dropped her voice very low. “What business is it of yours?”
His reply came easily. “For money, I take a message to someone.”
He must make good pocket money with errands like these, Caro thought.
She reached into her pocket and put the coin in the little palm
that was creased like an old man’s. “Go to King Street and ask for Miss Emily Jarvie. Tell her that Caroline is at the Work House. Tell her to go to Mr. Benjamin Pereira.”
The boy held out his hand again, and she slipped him another coin.
When Emily heard the message, she threw on her bonnet. Her father had put himself forward as a delegate to the Democratic convention—he said that it would help him in his campaign this summer for the Assembly—and her stepmother was on one of her pleasurable and interminable visits to the merchants who sold furnishings for the home. She was free to fly to Mr. Pereira’s office.
Panting for breath, she fell into the chair he kept for visitors and said, “Caro’s at the Work House. She’s been arrested for not having a badge.”
Pereira flushed. “Why hasn’t your father bought her one?”
“I don’t know.” She knotted her hands in her lap. “What can we do?”
“We’ll get her a badge, one way or another,” he said, his voice urgent. “I think we can persuade them to allow us that. Otherwise, the fine is twenty dollars.”
“Twenty dollars! That’s hardly a trifle.” She thought of her father opening a bill from the city of Charleston for twenty dollars. “What does the badge cost?”
“For a house servant, two dollars a year. And a little extra for the Guard to look the other way.”
Trembling, Emily said, “Let me stop at the bank.”
“No, my dear. We won’t waste our time going to the bank.” He opened his desk drawer, pulled out his wallet, and put some bills into an envelope, which he handed to her. “We need to tell them a tale.”
The Southern Voice knew how to spin a tale. She raised her head and said, “I believe I have one.”
At the door of the Work House, Emily stared at the forbidding arch and the barred windows. “Oh, Caro,” she whispered. Pereira held out his arm to escort her inside.
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