Sunday said, “That start it. But it about more than that now.”
“No black man or woman safe,” Lewis said. “Not just anyone who live out or hire out. Free men, like me.” He pressed his hands against the edge of the table. “A Guardsman come up to me and demand to see my badge. When I tell him I free, he threaten to arrest me. He tell me I better get a badge.” He looked disgusted. “Free man, born of a free mama, and to walk down the street in Charleston, I need to find a white man to say he my master and buy a badge for me, and then I wear it around my neck!”
Sunday tried to soothe. “We see it before. It pass, like it always do.”
Lewis glared at him. “I hear that free colored people rush to City Hall to buy badges for themselves. Hope that having a badge mean that the Guard let them alone.”
Caro thought of the proud, educated, well-to-do families like the Bennetts and the Pereiras. Had they joined the panicked throng at City Hall? Or were they sure enough, and angry enough, to refuse to act like slaves?
Caro stared at her hands. She said, “I can’t stay here, Sunday.”
Sunday tried to compose himself. “You all right up here in the Neck. You know the Guard don’t come up here. We cluster around you, keep you safe.”
Caro asked, “What about you? Are you safe?”
Before Caro disappeared, it had been easy for Emily to find Danny Pereira. Now it was not. Not at the shop, where his uncle was so bitter toward the Jarvies, and not at Tradd Street, where Sophy had so much reason to be silent. Where did he live? She doubted that she would be allowed into his mother’s house, but she might walk down the street in the hope of meeting him by chance.
Benjamin Pereira would know. But she hesitated, fearful that Pereira, for all his cordiality toward her, would retract his promise of confidentiality. Her father could not know that she sought Danny’s whereabouts, the key to Caro’s.
The city directory. The anonymous pages of the city directory. The Pereiras, free people of color, were likely to pay for a listing. If her father had a city directory, she didn’t want to be found consulting it in his library. She would go to the post office, where they might have a copy, and they could assist her if they did not.
That morning, later than usual—the post office opened later in the day than the City Market—she told Ambrose that she was out for her daily exercise, and she walked to the handsome building on Broad Street that had once been the customs house. In the post office she was overwhelmed with longing for Joshua, since their love affair had always been epistolary. What an odd thing, to feel a rush of love at the thought of a stamp and the sight of the postmaster’s window where the letters where handed over.
As she turned to ask the clerk about the city directory, she saw Danny Pereira. He stood a few feet away, a sheaf of envelopes in his hand, a look of weariness smirching his handsome face.
She approached him and said quietly, “May I talk to you?”
“I have nothing to say to you, Miss Jarvie.”
“For a moment. Not more.”
“After what your family has done to mine, I don’t wish to speak to you at all.”
She said, “I’m very sorry that my father threatened your uncle.”
“That was bad enough,” he said. “But it was much worse of him to take away his custom and to tell his friends to do the same.”
“I had no idea,” she said.
“Our business has dwindled to nothing.” He brandished the letters in his hand. “We’ll never collect on these debts. And at such a moment! When feeling against free men of color is running so high.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“When we close up shop and move to Canada, you can regret it all you like.”
He sounds just like Joshua, she thought. “It’s shameful,” she said.
He began to turn away.
“Danny,” she said, her voice very low. “Have you seen her?”
His face crumpled, and for all his elegance, for all his polish, he looked like a little boy trying not to cry. “I can’t tell you,” he said.
“Do you know where she is?”
He didn’t reply. He turned his back to her, a rudeness even if he were white, but she forgave him. She knew that he was ashamed for her to see the tears trickling down his face.
Sunday didn’t come home at his usual time. Caro tried to reassure herself the way he would reassure her. He was late working on a job. Perhaps he had gone to see Sophy and decided to stay with her. But the evening lengthened, and the sun went down, and the hour of curfew approached. The Neck had no curfew, as it had no interference from the Guard. But anyone who walked home across Calhoun Street had to worry about the curfew.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She didn’t dare to light a candle to reveal her own presence in the house. She sat in the front room, far from the window, in the dark, straining for the sound of Sunday’s footsteps on the porch, for the sound of a key in the lock, for the sound of his hand on the doorknob.
At the sound of a knock on the door, she thought, He’s been caught, and now they’ve come for me.
But it was Mrs. Harris. Caro opened the door, and Mrs. Harris hurried inside. She said, “Mr. Desmond don’t come home yet.”
Caro said, “I thought he might be with Sophy.”
She looked grim. “No, he tell you if he intend that because he don’t want you to worry.”
They stood together in the darkened house, both of them thinking the worst, neither of them willing to say it.
“I sit with you,” Mrs. Harris said, in a tone that brooked no contradiction, and they sat in the front room on the edge of their chairs, listening for the sounds of Sunday’s return. Neither spoke. Caro clenched her hands in her lap. She had never been so afraid, not even when she thought Lawrence Jarvie would sell her.
If Lawrence Jarvie’s man caught her, he would do worse than sell her.
When the key turned in the lock, she stared at the door in terror. The door opened, and Sunday quickly came into the house. He was hatless and his shirt was torn. His cheek was bruised and puffy from a blow.
“Sunday!” Caro sobbed, throwing her arms around him.
He said, “Caro, sugar, be gentle, they bruise me about the ribs.” Caro let go.
Mrs. Harris cried, “What happen to you?”
“The Guard arrest me.”
“Why? What for?” Caro cried.
“Say my badge ain’t right. Don’t listen to reason about it. Beat me with they damned clubs and drag me off to the Work House.”
Caro stared at Sunday in horror.
“Lewis, he was right. The place full to bursting. My massa come to bail me out, and he mighty mad. Not at me. At the Guard. Tell them they crazy to bother decent black folks going about they business.”
“You’ve always said it will blow over.”
“Never seen it like this. Heard talk of secesh all my life, and never paid it much mind. Now I do. All of South Carolina itching for a fight. Smell it in the air, like a thunderstorm coming.”
“Sunday, I can’t stay here. I have to go.”
Sunday was angry about his mistreatment, but he raised his voice to her. “Where you go? How you get there? You think they sell a runaway a ticket on a steamer?”
She thought of Douglass’s flight. “Somehow, Sunday.”
He glared at her. “You stay put. You lay low. I promise you I shelter you, and I do it.”
Several days later, as Caro sat in the parlor, her copy of Douglass’s book facedown in her lap, her eyes closing in the heat of late afternoon, she was startled wide awake by the knock on the door. She retreated to her vantage point in the parlor to see who it was.
Danny Pereira stood on the front steps.
She ran to the door. Opening it, she whispered, “Come in, and quickly.” He hastened inside.
“How did you find me?” she asked, still breathless with fear.
He looked haggard, as Sunday did these d
ays. No longer blithe, he looked older. He looked like a grown man. He said, “Sophy told me.”
“Does anyone else know where I am?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t told anyone else.”
“Why did you come here?”
The grown man’s mask cracked and fell away. He looked as hurt as a boy. “Because I couldn’t bear it any longer. Not seeing you.”
She stared at him, remembering what it felt like to love him, trying to push it away. She said, “Come into the parlor. We’ll sit where no one can see us from the street.”
She sat in her usual chair and gestured to him to take the chair opposite. For a moment, it was as though he had come to call.
Awkwardly, he asked, “Are you all right?”
She laughed, a bitter sound. “No one beats me or starves me,” she said. “But I worry every moment about seeing the runaway notice and hearing the slave catcher’s knock on the door.” She wondered if he knew about the slave catcher, but he said nothing. “And you? How are you?”
“Haven’t you heard?” he asked.
“About the trouble? The harassment and the arrests? Of course I have.” She added bitterly, “Sunday Desmond was arrested.”
“About the badges?”
She thought, He’s free, and all he can worry about is the shame of wearing a badge stamped with the word slave. “Sunday tells me that free people of color rush to buy badges for protection.” She glanced at his shirt front. The fine Sea Island cotton was badly wrinkled in the heat. “I don’t see you wearing one.”
“No.” He rubbed the sweat from his face with his sleeve. “As though it would help us.”
Alarmed, she asked, “Why? What’s happened? Who’s been arrested?”
“Uncle Thomas’s business is ruined. No one will patronize a free man of color. Or pay him, either.”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t make a living in Charleston. I can’t even walk down the street. I dread that I’ll be arrested next. My mother dreads it, too.”
She stared at him in shock. “Surely Mr. Pereira would help you, if you asked.”
“No one will help us. Our white friends have deserted us. They don’t care if we wear badges, or go to the Work House, or end up at the Slave Mart.” His tone was cold and bitter. “We’re black. That’s all that matters. They think that every black man should be a slave.”
She laughed, sounding bitter, too. “You could go into hiding, like me.”
He looked up. Today his eyes were so dark that they were nearly black, the iris shading into the pupil. “We’re thinking of leaving. Leaving Charleston and leaving South Carolina.”
“Where would you go?”
“North.”
Douglass’s path. She leaned forward. “Take me with you.”
He held her gaze but didn’t reply.
“If we went north together, I’d be free,” she said, her voice eager. “We could get married. Nothing could stand in the way.”
“Caro,” he said, a low groan.
“Honorably married, as we hoped for.”
He looked away.
She said, “Do you remember? Telling me that nothing would keep us apart? That there must be a way for us to be together?”
“As though I could forget,” he said, a sound like a sob.
“This is the way.” She reached for his hand. “Danny, look at me.” Those odd eyes, black with worry and hurt. “In my heart, I’ve always been your wife,” she whispered.
He closed his hand over hers, and at the familiar feeling of the needle-pricked fingers, warmth seeped through her body.
He whispered back, “I know.”
“Let me be your wife. Take me with you.”
He rose and pulled her toward him. He kissed her, his lips still soft, his breath still sweet, and in his embrace, she set aside her worry and her fear. She pressed herself against him, feeling his desire against her belly, letting him feel her desire in return. She whispered, “Let me be your wife now.”
He kissed her cheek and released her. With a sigh, he said, “Not like this. With honor, once you’re free.”
They stood with hands clasped. Very softly, he said, “I’ll come back.”
“Soon.”
He let go of her hands. “Soon.”
At the door, she found a voice that had gone into hiding with her. It was the voice of Miss Sass. “Don’t get arrested,” Miss Sass teased.
Despite all his worry, he knew it was a tease and laughed as she closed the door behind him.
Emily sat in the back parlor with her stepmother, the picture of quiet, but she seethed with worry. In a city where any person of color could be arrested and sold into slavery, Caro was lost, and Emily had no way to find her.
Should she go back to Sophy, despite the danger for Sophy? Should she retrace her steps to Thomas Bennett? If she found Danny Pereira, would he tell her? Perhaps she should throw caution to the wind and visit Benjamin Pereira.
Perhaps she should hire her own slave catcher to find Caro so that she could find her to help her flee.
She laughed, an unladylike snort. Susan asked her, “What was that about?”
“Something I read this morning.”
“What was it?”
“In the Mercury. If I find it, I’ll show you.”
Susan said, “There’s nothing entertaining in the Mercury. Is something bothering you?”
She said, “I’m really getting married. A touch of nerves.” She smiled at her stepmother, the demure girl’s smile. “Nothing to bring the doctor for.”
Susan rose and enfolded her in an embrace. “It’s all right, Emily. All brides have nerves. He loves you, and he’ll make it easy for you.”
The thought of her wedding night with John Ellison made her nerves shiver. She stayed in Susan’s embrace long enough to reassure her stepmother. She said, “I believe I need some air. I’m going out for a bit of exercise.”
“In this heat?” Susan asked.
“It won’t be cool again until October, Mother.”
“Emily, don’t worry about getting married.” Susan reached out to touch Emily’s cheek. She searched Emily’s face. “You do love him, don’t you?”
Emily covered her stepmother’s hand with her own. “When you married my father, did you love him?” she said softly.
Susan let her hand slip away. She looked thoughtful and said nothing.
Outside, it was worse than hot. It was chokingly hot. After a few paces, her face was beaded with sweat, and by the end of the block, she felt sweat trickle down her sides and soak into her corset.
She had no destination in mind, but she wandered toward Queen Street. She wondered if Thomas Bennett’s shop was shuttered and if he or his nephew still came there. Queen Street, home to many shops that catered to planters and their families, was not busy at this time of day. The shops that were open were drowsy in the late afternoon heat.
She stopped before the familiar glass window, still emblazoned with T. Bennett, Tailor and peered inside. No customer graced the elegant front room; no one sat at the dainty table or leaned on the mahogany counter. But behind the counter sat Danny Pereira, sealing a letter.
She pushed open the door, and at the sound of the bell, he looked up. “Miss Jarvie,” he said, in an icy tone that echoed his uncle’s.
“Are you open for business?”
“Not for long. What is it, Miss Jarvie?”
“Danny, please.”
He laid the letter on the counter. “I don’t know if I can help you.”
“Where is she, Danny?”
He was silent.
“Tell me. I want to find her before the slave catcher does.”
He said, “Why should I trust you? To find her yourself and not to tell your father’s slave catcher?”
She leaned against the counter, dizzy in the heat. She said fiercely, “Because she is my cousin. And beca
use I love her. If you have any love for her, let me find her and help her.”
He looked up. Met her eyes. She had never looked so intently into a black man’s eyes. He said, “I can’t.”
Caro had been wild with impatience since Danny’s visit.
Sunday said, “Settle down. You make me dizzy.” She couldn’t.
When Sunday was gone, she put on her good dress and her lady’s boots and hefted the silver bound in the handkerchief. She could pay her own way, whether they took the train or the steamer.
Soon, he had said.
The knock on the door came in the afternoon’s hush, when Line Street was at its quietest, working people away at their work, women and children at home resting in the heat. Line Street enlivened after six o’clock, when men and women came home from their work laden with eggs and greens and, if they were lucky, shrimp for dinner. Not even the trouble in Charleston had broken the rhythm of the day on Line Street.
It was Danny, and she flew to the door let him in. He looked worse than before, his eyes dark-circled with lack of sleep. He wore no frock coat in this heat, only his sweaty shirt, and his hair was disheveled as though he had been running his hands through it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He said, “The Guard came—”
“For you?”
“For our neighbors down the street. Free, like us. Last night. Dragged them down to the Work House.”
“Why?”
His voice rose and his cheeks flushed. “Do you need to ask?”
“How are they?”
“In jail. And if no one bails them out, they go to auction.”
Caro felt dizzy. She had never thought that the crisis would come to this. She had always believed that people like the Pereiras and the Bennetts, with their wealth and their reputation, would stay safe. Would stay free.
Danny said, “We’re leaving.”
“When?”
“As soon as we can buy a steamer ticket.”
She reached for his hands. “I can be ready in a moment. I have so little to pack.”
His hands remained at his sides. He said dully, “Caro, we can’t take you with us.”
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