Were there Guardsmen on the street? In the heat, she felt a shiver of fear. Were they looking for her? Would they stop the wagon, rip off the canvas, cry in triumph at finding her, and drag her away to the Work House?
She listened to the unhurried pace of Mose’s hooves, and it galled her as much as the stroll to Tradd Street. Her thoughts spoke to her in Sophy’s voice. “We fool them if we look like we go about our business. We ain’t usually in a hurry, and we ain’t in a hurry today, either.”
She closed her eyes, trying to will herself into patience. Every plodding step of the horse, every groaning turn of the wheel, took her closer to the Neck.
The wagon stopped. Why? They were still far from the Neck. She lay motionless, her heart racing. So close, she thought. So close.
Lewis yelled, “Move on! Move them horses of yours!”
Another voice—a black man’s, loud and jocular—yelled back. “They can’t fly! Have to wait for them carriages to clear out!”
She could have wept with relief. An ordinary stoppage, since wagons and carriages battled for space on the road. But she kept in her tears. She remained silent. She felt cramped and wished she could roll over. Stay still, Lewis had cautioned her. She closed her eyes and let herself feel all the pain in her head and the soreness in her limbs. She was so tired. But the equal discomfort of the wagon bed and fear kept her awake.
Where were they? It was a torment to hear but not see. The clop of the hooves. The groan of the wheels. Dear Lord, she thought. I hope you’ll hear a plea from a godless girl.
Lewis called out to his horse. “Mose, you lazy old thing, pick up them hooves of yours. We cross Calhoun Street, and we nearly home.”
Across the street that had once been Border Street, the demarcation between Charleston proper and Charleston Neck. The Neck, where the Guard was rarely seen. The Neck, where no one checked for a badge. The Neck, where slave and free lived side by side, on the same street, in the same family.
Lewis said to the horse, “Mighty close now! Almost home, and you rest in your stable and get your dinner.” She felt the fear and tension ease. Mighty close.
The wagon halted, jolting everything in the wagon bed, including Caro herself. She got a bruise or two from the bricks as they shifted. She didn’t care.
Lewis pulled on the canvas. Pulled it back. Let in the light.
He said, “Girl child, is you all right?”
She sat up and winced. He held out his hands. He lifted her as though she were a feather pillow and set her down lightly on the street. He led her to a small wooden house, the clapboards freshly painted white, the door a bright, welcoming blue. He tapped on the door, and Sunday answered it. Lewis said, “Parcel got delivered safe.”
Sunday took Caro by the hand and drew her into the house. Inside, he wrapped her in a rough, fatherly embrace. He said, “We shelter you.”
Chapter 15: You Must Be Mad
After she left Caro at Tradd Street, Emily lingered. She walked down to the Battery, where she leaned against the fence to gaze into the harbor. She untied her bonnet and let the breeze flow over her face. The air smelled of salt and rot. From this spot, where she and Joshua had confided in each other, she could see the flags of Fort Sumter flapping in the wind off the sea and beyond them, the steamships that arrived every day in Charleston harbor.
For her father and stepmother, Emily had made a show of writing to Joshua to end the connection, but she had also asked Sophy to retrieve his letters from the post office. Emily read them at the kitchen table at Tradd Street, and she wrote her replies there, too. Sophy couldn’t read, but she knew about Joshua, and she shook her head as she handed Emily the envelopes. Joshua, beloved, she thought, watching a steamship that had left the harbor for the sea. A steamship ticket north cost fifteen dollars, she knew, since in happier days, her father had occasionally traveled north. She was unlikely to travel anywhere. When she rode the train to Stateburg, a journey safe and familiar on both ends, her stepmother insisted that she have an escort, even if it was only her maid. No unmarried girl could walk into the steamship agency, put her money on the counter, and buy a ticket to travel alone to places north.
Emily sighed, retied the strings of her bonnet, and steadied herself to walk back to King Street.
By the next morning, Caro had not returned, and the house was in an uproar. Her father was so angry that he didn’t summon the servants to his study. He went to the kitchen to question them. She found Ambrose in the hallway, obviously upset, and when she asked him what had happened, he said, “Nothing to tell you, Miss Emily.”
“Is it about Caro?”
He didn’t reply. So he had lied to her father, and now he was protecting her, too.
She walked into the kitchen and found Dulcie covering her face with her hands, making no attempt to muffle her sobs. She put her hand on Dulcie’s shoulder. “Whatever is the matter, Dulcie?”
Dulcie looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face was puffy. She said, “Your daddy in a temper.”
She moved her hand to embrace Dulcie around the shoulders. “What was it?”
“He come into the kitchen, all mad, and he ask me where Caro is. I tell him I don’t know. He say she run off. I tell him I didn’t know that, either. He say that I lying, and when I say, ‘No, Massa, I really don’t know,’ he slap me and tell me that I tell him the truth or he take me down to the Slave Mart and sell me. And my littlest gal, the one who help me in the kitchen, she bust out crying, and he slap her, too.”
“He did not!”
“He do. And Bel, she watch with a mean look on her face, like she glad we all in trouble. And she say to him, ‘Miss Emily, Massa. You ask Miss Emily.’” Dulcie used her apron to wipe her eyes. “He get even madder. Stomp back to the house.” She began to cry again. “Miss Emily, do he mean it? Will he sell me?”
Emily hugged Dulcie with a reassurance she didn’t feel. “I hope not,” she said.
She returned to the house, trembling, to be greeted by her stepmother’s frosty tone. “Your father wants you.”
“Is it about Caro?”
“Don’t ask. Just go.”
Emily tapped on the door. Her father called, “Emily? Is that you?” His tone was even frostier than Susan’s. As she crossed the threshold, she braced herself.
Her father was very angry, but it was the coldest fury she had ever seen. “Where’s that slave girl?”
A soft voice turneth away wrath, Emily thought. A Christian thought, like charity or loving kindness. “I don’t know, Papa.”
“Oh, I believe you do.”
“No, Papa,” she said softly.
“She’s run away. Did you help her?”
She thought of the enforced stroll to Tradd Street and felt a sickening fear. Had anyone seen them? “Of course not, Papa.”
“My slaves lie to me and so do you.”
“No, Papa.”
“You can spare me a lot of trouble and a lot of embarrassment if you tell me where she is.”
Emily was silent.
“If you continue to lie to me, I’ll have to find someone who can make inquiries. Don’t lie to me, Emily. Tell me where to find her.”
“And what will you do when you find her?” Emily gazed at her father. “Will you beat her half to death? Or will you sell her? Or both?”
He rose from the chair behind the desk, as though he were facing an opponent in court. He said, “Are you aware of the punishment for helping a slave to escape?”
“No, Papa.”
“In South Carolina, abetting a fugitive slave is a crime. The punishment is hanging.”
She shivered under the cold look, the look of justice without mercy. As sweetly as she could, she said, “Papa, surely you don’t want to see me hanged.” She added, “My name would be in the papers!”
He laughed, a dry, bitter sound. “No,” he said. “There are better ways to punish a wayward girl.”
She stumbled fro
m the room. If anyone discovered the truth—that she had abetted Caro as far as Tradd Street—then she was as much in rebellion as any slave. She was in league with the forces of insurrection. She was guilty of a crime that shared a punishment with John Brown’s.
Susan ran down the staircase, her hooped skirt brushing against the walls. “Emily!” she said, her voice full of regret.
Now Emily raised her eyes in alarm. She said, “Does he mean it?”
Susan took her hands. “He’s very angry,” she said.
Emily whispered, “I’ve never seen him like that.”
“You can put an end to all of this, Emily. Tell Mr. Ellison that you’ve settled on a date for the wedding. Your father will forgive you.”
Emily’s mind raced. “Mother, please. Give me enough time for an engagement.” She pleaded, “Don’t you want me to have a full trousseau? A lovely wedding dress? A beautiful wedding ceremony at St. Michael’s, with all our kin and friends around us? A proper wedding journey, as everyone welcomes us as a married couple? Would you deny me the glory of it and yourself the pleasure of it?”
“I’ll invite Mr. Ellison to visit us in Charleston, and we’ll get this settled.” Susan squeezed her hands. She said, “Please, Emily. Before it tears this family asunder.”
A few days later, they sat at the breakfast table, and her father spoke to her stepmother as though she herself wasn’t there to hear. “I don’t want her to leave the house unless she’s chaperoned.”
“Goodness, Lawrence, do you think she’s going to run away, too?”
“It’s not a laughing matter.”
“Is there any news about the slave?”
Her father flushed. “Don’t press me,” he said. “I’ll handle it quietly.”
“Quietly! Too quietly. You haven’t done a thing.”
“Susan, it’s a family matter. I don’t want it talked about. It’s an embarrassment, especially now.”
Emily thought, A proslavery man, sworn to secession, who can’t even command his own servant.
Susan said, “Find someone to make an inquiry. Someone who will keep it quiet.”
“I’ll handle it. Don’t press me.”
And a few days later, as Emily walked past her father’s study, she caught a glimpse of the stranger who sat companionably with him in the wing chairs before the hearth. He wasn’t a planter or a lawyer. He had sleek, dark hair, and when he turned his head, she saw the whiskers that curled around his cheeks. He wore a frock coat in a checked pattern, which even her stepmother would have thought flashy. He gripped a pair of yellow kid gloves in his hand. Was he a new overseer? He held himself with too much confidence for a hired man.
She didn’t linger. Her father would notice, and he would chastise her, too. He was still angry with her. She stepped quietly into the back parlor, where her stepmother looked up from the letter she was reading.
She asked, “Mother? Who is that man in Papa’s study?”
“What man?”
“The one in the checked frock coat.”
“I don’t know. Probably another overseer. Your uncle’s place is still a bother. The last overseer didn’t last long.”
Her father hadn’t put an advertisement in the Mercury about a runaway slave. Inquiries, he had said. The man in the frock coat could do more than make inquiries. He was likely a slave catcher, and Emily was sick with the thought.
Her stepmother, who knew her moods well, tried to distract her. She took Emily to visit the dry goods shops to look for satin lengths for a dress and lace for a veil. The dry goods merchant, a middle-aged man in a well-cut waistcoat, smiled and said to her, “I wish you happiness, Miss Jarvie.”
There were many visits to Susan’s friends. She propelled Emily firmly by the elbow into the carriage and into one overdecorated parlor after another, hoping that the pressure of gossip in Charleston would accomplish the same task as in Sumter County: to shame Emily into her promise to marry John Ellison.
Emily was never alone, to the point where her head ached, and she found it difficult to breathe. After breakfast, she and Susan sat in the parlor as Susan opened her letters and consulted her daybook, reminding herself who might be at home today.
Emily said, “Mother, may I take a little exercise by myself this morning? Just down to the City Market to get a little air.”
Her stepmother sighed. “Your father is wrong to try to keep you cooped up,” she said. “All right. Take Peggy with you.”
“Doesn’t Dulcie need her?”
“Dulcie can spare her. If your father asks, I can tell him you weren’t alone.”
She set out with Peggy, who carried a basket over her arm. When they turned the corner, Emily said, “Peggy, will you help me?”
Emily knew that Peggy shared her mother’s regard for “young miss.” “Yes, miss.”
“Will you go to the market and wait for me there?”
She said, “I surely will, Miss Emily.”
Emily put her head down, as though she were on a trek, and walked swiftly to the house on Tradd Street, where Sophy met her at the gate without unlocking it. Sophy whispered, “You can’t come here. If your daddy find out, it dangerous.”
Emily also dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think he’s hired someone to find her.”
Sophy was silent.
“Where is she, Sophy? Do you know?”
Sophy looked at her with a slave’s blank expression. “Can’t say, miss.”
Slaves said that to mean “Don’t ask me to tell you.” Emily reached through the ironwork for Sophy’s hand, hating the sudden distance between them. Sophy stepped away. She said, “Don’t make it worse, Miss Emily.”
Emily dreaded John Ellison’s visit to Charleston. It had become more and more difficult to remind him not to press her when she wrote to him. To see him face to face was a different sort of difficulty. She hoped that he wouldn’t try to clasp her around the waist or kiss her. She carried Joshua’s image in her mind all the time, recalling his haggard and resolute look as he told her that his family had disowned him. The prospect of looking into John Ellison’s self-satisfied face, and worse yet, of receiving a kiss from the lips that boasted of getting his slave Polly with “increase,” dismayed and disgusted her.
She missed Caro badly—not the starved and beaten slave who served under Bel’s whim, but the clever girl who had earned a living by her own hand and who met Emily’s opinions about literature with her own. Miss Sass, Emily thought. Sophy’s nickname brought tears to her eyes. Where are you, Caro? she thought. Have you truly run away? Will he find you?
On the day that Ellison had been invited to share midday dinner, Susan laid out Emily’s showiest summer dress for daytime, the one with the gauzy sleeves that let the flesh of her arms peek through, and admonished Lydia, “You make her look pretty for that man she’s going to marry.”
“Yes, Missus,” Lydia said.
Lydia fell silent as she helped Emily into her corset and her hoops. Emily didn’t speak, either. She raised her arms in silence to let Lydia ease the dress over her head and do up the little buttons in the back. Lydia was the one to break the silence. “Miss, you look sadder all the time,” she said, in her soft voice.
“I’m not ready to get married,” she said.
Lydia knelt to smooth the fabric of the skirt over the hoops. She rose. Emily reached for her hand. “What do you think, Lydia?”
Lydia shook her head. She said, “I think you look pretty, Miss Emily.”
Ellison waited in the parlor, where her mother and father had joined him. He had taken his ease to stretch out on the sofa. He shifted to give her a place to sit beside him. She was glad of her hoops. If he moved closer to her, he would feel the spring of the hoop, not her flesh.
He clasped her hands. “Emily, it’s good to see you. It ain’t enough to write a note.”
Susan smiled as she said, “Mr. Ellison, you know you’re always welcome to visit us in Charlesto
n.”
“That’s kindly of you, Miss Susan.” He smiled at Emily. “But a man wants to know he’ll get a warm welcome from a girl before he uproots himself.”
Emily did her best to smile warmly in return.
Ellison reached into his pocket, and at the sight of the little blue velvet box, Emily’s heart sank. “I brought you something,” he said, opening the box. Nestled within was a rose gold ring, its sapphire heart captured by golden prongs that looked like claws. He said proudly, “So we’re properly engaged.” He held it toward her. “Try it on. I guessed at the size. You can always have it done over if it don’t fit.”
Emily hesitated. Ellison removed the ring from the box and took her hand. He was a little clumsy, and he forced the ring onto her finger. “It do fit,” he said, pleased, but he was wrong. It was too tight.
He said, “Don’t a man get a kiss? Now that the world knows we’re engaged?”
She said, “It’s a lovely ring.” She kissed his cheek.
“You don’t get off so easy,” he said, smiling, and he kissed her on the lips, with a little too much vigor for the parlor, as her stepmother looked on.
Emily tried to sound lighthearted. “Mr. Ellison, you take advantage.”
He reached for her beringed hand. “Call me John,” he said. “Seeing as I’m nearly your husband.”
“Not yet,” she said, smiling to take the sting of her words away.
Still holding her hand, he said, “Emily, I came to get that settled. It’s wearing me to wait.”
Trembling, Emily glanced at her stepmother. “It can’t be done overnight,” she said. “Mother, tell him about the arrangements.” She tried to look arch. “Even the upcountry girls take a year to get married!”
“Something plain would suit me just fine,” Ellison said. “A year! That’s hardship.”
Her father walked into the parlor. “Hardship?” he said. “What’s a hardship?”
Ellison appealed to her father. “I’ve just given your daughter a ring, and she tells me that she needs a year to get her flimflams together for the wedding.”
Charleston's Daughter Page 28