Secret Way to the Heart

by Camille Regholec

  “Your way of thinking is why the Methodist Episcopal Church, South exists,” Clara said between clenched teeth, “The very church split over this subject of slavery in 1844.”

  “And what a sorry day that was when Christians’ hearts were so divided.” Jayne's mother sighed but continued. “But do the slaves not worship the same God as you in the same building down there in the South?”

  “Of course they worship the same God!” Clara admitted. “But they sit in the balcony or in a separate section from us.”

  “Do they not sing along with you?” Jayne asked. “Do they not receive communion with you?”

  “Yes, they do,” Clara conceded angrily. “But only because we let them. This way, they will be good Christians and thus be good slaves.”

  “I do not understand why you are not overjoyed at this turn of events.” Clara looked toward Jayne's father. “Did you not own slaves until the state of New York declared it illegal in 1827? Your nephew, Joel, told me so himself when he visited us at home. He complained that he wished slavery was allowed, so his business expenses would not be so high. I’m sure there are many more Northerners who feel that way! Even now, the paper speaks of New York City’s mayor saying he would like to join the secession.”

  “Sit down, Clara.” Jayne's father spoke softly but firmly to his daughter-in-law. Surprisingly, she did as requested, propping herself on the end of the settee.

  “First,” He stated, “I no longer had slaves when the law went into effect in this state. No one changed my heart and mind but God Himself.”

  “Oh please,” Clara sighed with disgust in her voice. “Are you saying this just to make Jayne think you found God?”

  “Clara!” Jayne was shocked at her sister-in-law’s tone. “Do not doubt my father’s faith!”

  “It is all right, kitten.” He smiled as he used his pet name for her. “Clara has the right to doubt my words, as she has known our Southern kin for years and they all have slaves.”

  “So?” Clara looked smugly at her husband’s stepfather. “Are you going to hold to that tale or tell the truth about your feelings on the matter?”

  “My feelings are the truth on this subject, Clara.” Jayne's father leaned back as he continued to speak. “I will not deny that I had slaves. I was raised with slaves. They were a normal part of daily living. My parents only had a few for our ‘need’ for them was not as great as it was for our family down South. When I was five years old, my mammy died while we were visiting our Southern cousins. My parents were hard pressed on what to do with me as my own mother was not well at the time. Providence had us lose our direction while out driving, and we came upon an outside auction of some slaves.”

  “Providence?” Jayne asked her father in disbelief and horror. “You consider it Providence that led you to buy someone?”

  “Yes, my dear. That was the day Hannah was put on the auction block. For some reason, only God knows, I wanted to make this angry-looking black woman smile. So I waved until I got her attention. And again, only our Creator could have made this woman look past the crowds leering at her to see a small child jumping around and smiling at her, for her to know this child was different than his adult counterparts. My father told me years later, it was her sudden smile that made him bid. He felt her expression of joy must not be dampened. And so Hannah came home with us.

  “Hannah took care of me from that day on. I would let no one else tend to my needs, not even the doctors years later when I was nearly killed by a mountain lion. No one, that was, until your mother.”

  “Amanda helped me to find God and see that having slaves was wrong. I was providing good shelter, food and clothing, and treating them much better than other owners, so I thought I wasn’t harming them. I found out how desperately they all wanted their freedom the day I gave them their papers. I really thought no one would leave! I saw how wrong I was very quickly. Even Hannah, who I’d believed loved me as her own, packed up and left with George that very day. They chose to live with Amanda, whom I had recently thrown out of my home.”

  “You threw your wife out?” Clara now sounded shocked.

  “Amanda was not my wife at that time,” Jayne's father replied. “She was—”

  “She lived in your house and was unmarried?” Clara gasped.

  “Amanda was the widow of the man who saved my life while losing his own. Amanda was ‘sent by God,’ as Hannah used to say, to take care of me. She came as a widow with her son to tend to my medical needs, and we became engaged. But I chose to believe my nephew, Joel, than to face up to all the things I had really done to her in the past.”

  “In the past? When in the past?” Jayne asked, her eyes growing wider as she stared at her father. “What did you do?”

  “What is past stays there,” Jayne's mother said, quietly but firmly, placing her hands on her husband’s shoulder. Her tone held the conviction that the subject was to go no further. “That is between your father, me, and God, and that is where it will stay.”

  “Let it be said that I came to my senses with God’s help,” Jayne's father continued, raising his hand to pat his wife’s shoulder as he took her suggestion. “I apologized to all my former slaves and won my love's hand again. George and Hannah were the witnesses to that happy occasion. Jim was there as well.”

  “If what you say is true,” Clara declared as she struggled to her feet, slapping away Jayne’s automatic hand of assistance. “Then you are a bigger fool than I thought. At least I do not bear your family’s name.”

  “No, you bear the name of a man . . .” Jayne began, only to be stopped by her mother’s look.

  “You bear the name of a man who loves you just as I bear the name of the man who loves me,” Her mother said, finishing Jayne’s sentence. “Let there be peace in this house.”

  Clara angrily waddled from the room, and Jayne once again asked the Lord to help her love Clara as He so graciously loved her. But Lord she makes it so difficult!

  When it was almost bedtime, Jayne sighed with relief, praying peace would come to the house after Clara went to bed. She seemed more agitated than usual, and nothing pleased her. A last look out the window by Clara changed life for every one of the van Hoyton household.

  “Belle?” Clara cried in shocked disbelief as she stared through the glass into the side yard. Jayne, once again braiding Clara’s hair, looked over Clara’s shoulder and saw how the full moon clearly revealed Mary escorting a shivering, black girl toward a wagon by the barn. Before Jayne could think, Clara pulled away, yanking her hair from Jayne’s fingers as she struggled to her feet and began to shout, “I recognize the face of my childhood play companion. That is my slave Belle!”

  “Where? Who?” Jayne stammered as she tried to get to the window and somehow block Clara’s view. That the endeavor to save the Southern slaves was still going on did not surprised Jayne, but that Jim would send one of his wife’s slaves through astonished her. Somehow she had to keep Clara away from the escaping girl.

  “I do not know what she is doing here,” Clara sputtered, pushing Jayne away. “But clearly, by the looks of it, she is not here to do my bidding! How is she here in the North and not where she belongs?”

  “I’m sure you . . . you are mistaken,” Jayne replied, attempting to gently push Clara back. “That might be one of the Freeman’s friends.”

  “She is running away, and Mary is helping her!” Raising her hands, Clara began pounding on the windowpane, shouting. “Belle! You come back here this instant! Belle!”

  Having heard Clara, the girl hesitated for a moment, but Mary whispered something, and Belle followed her, choosing to ignore Clara’s command. Clara’s face grew red as she continued pounding on the glass and watching in frustration.

  The two black women ran to the wagon, and Pete came around the side to assist Belle into the back of the vehicle. Q
uickly, he handed her a blanket for protection from the coolness of the night before closing up the false bottom and throwing some light sacks on top of it. Pete gave a quick kiss to his wife’s cheek, jumped up onto the wagon seat, and drove off.

  “Amanda! Marc!” Clara yelled as she turned and struggled to run across to the door. “There is a runaway slave outside! Quick, you must stop them!”

  “Clara! What is wrong, child?” Jayne's mother, rushing into the room, took the young woman by the shoulders, trying to halt her from leaving the house. “Is it time?”

  “No! No!” Clara shouted, pushing Jayne's mother away. “Are you deaf? There is a runaway slave outside!”

  “What is going on here?” Jayne's father, leaning on his cane, hobbled into the room, further blocking Clara’s exit. “Is it time?”

  “Get out of my way, you old fools!” Clara’s roar of anger and frustration startled them as she almost knocked Jayne's father off his feet in her desire to get outside. By the time Clara opened the front door and ran onto the porch, the carriage was just a dusty memory.

  The sight of Mary smiling as she stood by the barn, caused Clara to jump off the porch in her anger. “You! You will be arrested for helping a slave escape! You and your husband should be flogged! I hope they put you both in jail to rot, you black—”

  “Clara!” Jayne's mother’s sharp reprimand halted Clara from her verbal attack upon Mary but brought her daughter-in-law’s attention back upon her.

  “How can you stand there and let this horrible thing happen?” Clara demanded.

  “What horrible thing?” Jayne asked.

  “A runaway slave is being helped by one of your so-called family!” Clara glared at each person present as she snarled at them, “See what happens when you let slaves go free?”

  “What slave?” Jayne's father asked as he leaned on the doorjamb.

  “What do you mean, ‘What slave?’” Clara’s voice was becoming shrill. “I just told you . . .”

  Clara’s words stopped short, and for a moment, there was no other sound than her harsh intake of breath and the song of a mockingbird in a nearby tree. Her large, blue eyes looked from Jayne to the elderly couple and then to Mary, who was slowly coming toward her. Realization had Clara gasping in shock. “You knew all along! You all are in this together!”

  “What is going on out here?” Hannah exclaimed as she came out onto the porch, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Is it time? You all knew what all along?”

  Clara turned toward the road and stared at the settling dust. Suddenly her face twisted in an ugly grimace as she bent over and grabbed her abdomen, groaning. Jayne jumped off the porch and took hold of Clara.

  “Mother, I believe it is the beginning of birth pains.”

  “Everything makes sense now.” Clara gasped out as she tried to take a breath. “Jim—my husband, Jim—is a traitor. He has been involved in the Underground Railroad.”

  Hours later, Jayne stared at her sister–in-law as she writhed on the bed, her hands twisting the sheets into knots each time the pains returned and intensified. Never had Jane seen such hate as she saw in Clara’s eyes. Jayne cringed as the air filled with curses of damnation and revenge that spewed out of the laboring woman’s mouth. Clara was fighting more than the birthing pains; she was at war with the women in the room as well as the child that struggled to be free of her body.

  Jayne glanced at the two other women on either side of the bed. Why was her mother trying so hard to help Clara? The thought of Clara’s future behavior, now that she knew about the family’s participation in the freeing of Southern slaves, filled Jane with fear. She feared for Jim’s life more than those in the North because his actions would be grounds for hanging in South Carolina.

  “Jayne! Be attentive!” her mother snapped. “I need another wet cloth for Clara. There is an unborn child and its mother in need of our care.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Jayne answered as she fulfilled her mother’s request.

  Mary had left the room when it became apparent her presence caused Clara to be even more violent. Jayne, finding it hard not to shout back in defense of the accusations spewing out of Clara’s mouth, marveled at how her mother’s voice barely ever rose above a calm and soothing tone.

  “Clara.” Jayne's mother tried to catch the woman’s attention. “Clara, please stop fighting. You will only wear yourself out and bring harm upon both you and your child.”

  “This is no child of mine. It is the Devil’s spawn!” Clara spit out. “I hope it dies before it is born! A traitor’s child is all it is and always will be!”

  “Hush now, child.” Hannah’s voice shook with age and emotion. “You do not mean those hateful things! Let’s not anger God with such words.” Fragile Hannah, standing in for Mary, also tried to ignore the tirade, continually reaching over with the cool rag to wipe the twisted features of the young woman, dodging the occasional vicious swipes of long fingernails intent on inflicting damage.

  The hours passed, but neither the pains nor the foul language abated. Jayne, exhausted, glanced out the window, seeing the beginning of a new day. It was still the time of no color, when the world seemed just a muted gray. The remnants of the night still lingered while the sky prepared for the sun to rise. The air held a stillness as if a miracle was about to occur. It did. Just as the sun peeked over the rim of the mountain, Jayne's mother shouted, “The baby’s here!”

  “You have a beautiful son, Clara,” Amanda said softly a few minutes later as she cut the cord that ended the last physical tie between the mother and infant.

  “We thank You, Lord, for this new life.” Hannah struggled to get on her feet as she murmured the quiet prayer. Jayne's mother gave a light slap upon the infant’s buttocks bringing the awaited cry that affirmed this was a child with healthy lungs. Instantly, bright smiles of joy lit the tired faces of the three women standing around the delivery bed.

  Quickly, after wiping the child down, Jayne's mother wrapped him in the family’s baby quilt and, to Jayne’s surprise, handed him over to her rather than his mother, Clara. As her mother turned back to take care of Clara’s post-delivery needs, Jayne stared down into the wrinkled, red face of this newborn life she now held in her hands.

  If anyone was to ask her what she was feeling, Jayne was not sure she had words to describe it. An emotion filled her being so strongly her breath caught in her throat. She drank in the sight of that little face with his perfect features. She barely could believe that the unknown “it” of nine months, had miraculously become a “he,” a person of his own, on his own. His tiny hand, which had escaped the confines of his covering, was now pressed against his cheek, and she touched the delicate but intricate workmanship of his long fingers.

  An overwhelming desire flooded over Jayne, a desire to run with this infant far from this room, this place, this shattering country. But she knew she couldn’t. She had no right to this child, none other than as the spinster aunt. Once Clara was strong enough, thousands of miles would separate Jayne from this boy. She beseeched God with a prayer from her heart. “Lord, protect this innocent babe, for he will definitely need protection in this world he has now joined.”

  After she breathed a soft kiss on her nephew, Jayne reluctantly turned toward Clara. Forcing herself to continue smiling, she carefully extended the bundled child.

  “Here is your son.” Jayne tried to be forgiving of the foul words that had churned out of her sister-in-law’s mouth just moments before. Jayne so wanted to be more like her mother and Hannah, who let the words wash over them rather than letting them stick like swamp mud. “Clara, say hello to your son.”

  A disheveled and sweaty Clara slowly opened her eyes at the sound of her name. Her formerly braided hair was damp and lay in a tangled mass upon her pillow. For a second, her expression was one of confusion, as if Clara had momentarily forgott
en what was going on.

  “Clara?” Jayne's mother leaned over the opposite side of the bed and gently touched the younger woman’s limp hand. “Clara, your son needs you now.”

  Jayne gently placed the child on his mother’s chest but kept her hand upon him. She felt unease at releasing him, doing so ever so slowly only when she noticed her mother’s motion for her to step away.

  Clara blinked several times as if she could not see clearly, and her arms instinctively formed a cradle when the child began to fuss. But almost immediately, realization came in her eyes, and she pushed the child violently off her chest, squirming her own body away as if the very weight of the tiny baby was abhorrent to her. The three women standing gasped in horror as the bundled child rolled off his mother and the side of the bed.

  “Oh sweet Jesus!”

  “My Lord!”

  “What are you doing?” Their words mingling in the air as all three lunged forward, arms outstretched, in an almost futile attempt to catch him. Seconds before he hit the floor, Jayne’s trembling hands were able to grab hold and lift the now screaming baby to her chest.

  “What is wrong with you?” Jayne growled at Clara, keeping her voice low as she rocked the now whimpering child within her arms. “You could have killed him!”

  “I wish I had!” Clara screamed again, struggling to rise up on the bed. “No traitor’s offspring will be fed at my breast! I will kill myself first!”

  “Hush now,” Hannah crooned as she reached for the young mother. “You rest. Things will seem better later. You will feel differently after you sleep, I am sure.”

  “I will not, and you keep your hands off of me!” Clara demanded, her face twisting as she let her emotions take over. Unexpectedly, Clara rammed her fists into the elderly woman’s chest. Caught off guard, Hannah staggered backward and, unable to get her balance, fell to the floor, hitting her head on the corner of the chest of drawers.