Genie and Eli, both runaway slaves, always lived with the same hollow fear inside: that one day they’d be found out or, worse, caught. Hearing Montague Wright’s voice so close was the same as hearing the voice of her owner, Matilda Wright Will. Montague was her brother and had visited her home often. Genie heard—endured—the loud, braying, self-centered voice several times a week for years. She had allowed herself to believe that freedom meant she’d never hear it again. If he saw her he would know her and he’d return her to Matilda. Or worse, keep her as a slave in his own house! The thought chilled and terrified Genie. She must make certain that in the future Eli was able to transport Ezra to Montague’s office so the man would never have to return to Abby’s house. The man, or his apprentice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After weeks of foreboding and threatening, heavy snow came to Philadelphia, and with it, the strong, bitter wind returned. Six or seven inches by dawn and it continued, heavy and thick. The wind blew it into drifts that made roads and walkways all but impassable. Cornelius Eubanks, the traveling salesman, was on a trip. Josiah Jones and Henry Carson watched the weather from the living-room windows before, during and after breakfast. Mr. Carson, saying he had work that demanded his attention, decided to take his chances and walk. He packed a bag with extra clothes and shoes and set out with a cheery “Good day, all!” Mr. Jones, older than Mr. Carson by quite a few years, decided to spend the day in his room reading. He asked if his coal grate could be kept stoked and Abby promised to have Eli check it at regular intervals. She also told him there would be food on the sideboard at midday for which he thanked her profusely, understanding that she was not obligated to provide but two meals daily.
Abby, Maggie and Eli ate their breakfast and then cleaned the kitchen afterwards. Eli, without being asked, said that he would clean Mr. Carson’s room since no one expected that the servant girls would come in this weather even though they lived nearby. Both the snow and the wind had increased in intensity over the last hour. It was almost impossible to see across the street so a two-block walk would have been difficult if not dangerous.
“I doubt that we should expect Arthur with the horse today,” Abby said, though she had been looking forward to his arrival with some excitement. He had appeared with Genie the day following the initial discussion of Abby’s carriage to inspect it and he declared that it was “good enough to be used.” He replaced the leather straps and harness and both benches—the driver’s outside and passengers’ inside. And he hired Absalom and Reverend Richard Allen to clean the carriage and the carriage house, as well as the living quarters above, for Ezra, true to his word, had hired a driver. The only thing missing was the horse. And the driver.
“And before you ask, Abby, I do expect that Donald Bruce will arrive today if he was able to get to Philadelphia, and he’d have sent a telegram if he couldn’t.” An almost healthy Ezra MacKaye was the only one of them who seemed to pay no attention to the ever-worsening weather.
“How?” Maggie asked. “Even if his train arrived on time it’s a long walk from the station to here.”
“He’s a Pinkerton’s,” Ezra replied, as if that answered the question for the others as it did for him.
“Well, Montague Wright certainly is no Pinkerton’s man and I’ll not be disappointed if he and his apprentice fail to arrive today,” Abby said.
“Maybe they’ll get buried in a snow drift and not be found until spring,” Ezra said.
Maggie attempted, not quite successfully, to disguise a laugh as a cough but Eli didn’t even attempt subterfuge: He laughed outright, imagining the loud, braying-like-a-jackass doctor and his apprentice, frozen inside a snowbank for months to come.
✴ ✴ ✴
Though they walked as briskly as the falling and drifting snow permitted, Genie and Arthur felt frozen solid by the time they reached the dress shop. Their heads touching, they had tried to talk over the howling wind. Arthur apologized for not being able to deliver Abby’s horse today. Genie assured him that Abby wouldn’t expect him given the weather. He thanked her for the chance to earn some money by making the necessary repairs to Abby’s carriage, and to be able to hire Absalom and Richard to help with the repairs and the cleaning of the long-neglected carriage house. “Ever since Eli got that job them boys been wantin’ a real job, too.”
“I will do whatever I can for them, Arthur,” Genie said, not adding that she almost had a commitment from Joe Joseph to hire one of them to work in his restaurant.
“I know you will, Miss Eugenie, and those boys they know it, too.”
Arthur declined the offer to come inside the dress shop to warm up before continuing on to the blacksmith shop. “No point to get warm and dry only to get cold and wet again,” he said.
Genie stood as close to the wood stove as possible to strip and re-dress. Adelaide, who had arrived only moments earlier, was still hanging her wet clothes in the storage closet. Genie joined her there and they left the door open so that the room would warm.
“We don’t have to wonder if it’s really December,” Adelaide exclaimed with a shiver.
“Indeed, we don’t!” Genie agreed, thinking and hoping that the rough weather would keep Montague Wright away from Abby—but she had no way of knowing.
“We should be able to get lots of work done today,” Adelaide said. “There won’t be many people out shopping.”
“I hope so,” Genie said, “because you know what it will be like when this storm blows itself out.”
Adelaide nodded. The worse the weather, the more in demand the clothes they made available. “But it may be a while. William said a man from the docks was in over the weekend and he said this was a bad storm that would last a few days. Some boats have been blown off course, and a few that were due to dock here in Philadelphia in the next few weeks will have to go farther south to dock.”
“Will it keep snowing like this, do you think? If it does, Adelaide, we won’t be able to get to work either!”
✴ ✴ ✴
The storm raged for another seventy-two hours and as Genie predicted neither woman was able to get to work.
As Ezra predicted, Donald Bruce arrived as expected, though barely because, as he told it, “a dumb Irishman found it amusin’ to give me wrong directions to this house. Fortunately for me a Black man saw me fall head first into a huge pile of snow, nothin’ but my feet visible to the world. He grabbed both feet and pulled me out, God bless him, otherwise—” And he closed his eyes as he contemplated the otherwise.
The two Scotsmen were delighted to see each other again, and Bruce pronounced himself more than delighted to meet Mistress Abigail, Mistress Maggie, and Master Eli. He was, he said several times, very happy to be away from Chicago and Pinkerton’s.
“You didn’t like Pinkerton’s?” Eli asked, baffled. He’d heard wonderful things about Pinkerton’s!
“I didn’t like some of the people we found ourselves working for,” he answered with a scowl. Then he brightened as he looked at the faces before him. “But I will like working for the people in this house. I’m sure of it.”
He hopped from foot to foot with excitement when Eli showed him the carriage house and his living quarters upstairs—a sight that made Eli laugh because while Ezra and Donald were roughly the same height, Donald was at least fifty pounds heavier, most of that weight carried in his belly. He did a complete inspection of the carriage and scrutinized the new leather seats and straps. He ran his large hands over the wheels, at first gently, and then tugging and pulling them until he declared himself satisfied. Taking one more turn about his new surroundings, he followed Eli through the snow back to the main house where the three additional days of weather-mandated confinement allowed him time to get to know his new employers. And to learn the real reason his friend had summoned him.
“I work for a man who owns a bank and a railroad—” Ezra began before Donald gave a hoot of laughter.
“Of course, you do, laddie! And lots of people hate his too-rich
guts!” Then he sobered. “Is that what happened to you?”
Ezra nodded and told him as much of the story as he could, including Eli’s rescue of him, but leaving out all references to Mrs. Tubman. “But they knew too much about him, Donnie, and he professes not to know how that’s possible and he’s concerned.”
“As well he should be, especially with a son like that! Is the boy to blame?”
Ezra shook his head. “He’s too stupid and self-centered for long-range planning.”
“So, I’m not to drive and protect the ladies of this house?” Donnie said, sounding so forlorn that Ezra laughed.
“Indeed, you are, but they won’t need your services every day—for shopping and Abby’s women’s anti-slavery group meetings, and Maggie’s trips to visit her daughter. And when you and I are away Eli will be here, which is why I want you to teach him to fight.”
“I’d be delighted! And to shoot as well, of course?”
“A man can’t have too many shooting teachers—”
“He’s already got one?”
“Indeed, he has,” Ezra said, and paused. Then, “Wait until you meet her.”
✴ ✴ ✴
Before Genie opened her eyes, she knew the snow had stopped but even if it hadn’t, she was going outside today. A fourth day of confinement was too much to contemplate, especially in her small house. Perhaps in Abby’s mansion . . . No! She would not allow thoughts of Abby. She couldn’t . . . and yet she couldn’t stop them: Abby holding her tightly, weeping as if she carried all the blame for slavery and the people who practiced it, apologizing to Genie for what she had suffered. No, she could not think of Abby, for what could those thoughts be? How wonderful it would be to hold and be held by Abigail Read forever? No, not a thought she could have.
“Silly!” she chided herself as she leapt out of bed. “Ridiculous!” she chastised as she threw herself into what she hoped would be enough clothes to keep her warm. “Useless,” she said glumly as she cautiously opened her front door, expecting a mound of snow to drift in. Instead her front porch and walkway were clear and she heard cheery voices coming from Thatcher Lane. She hurried to the narrow space that she could squeeze through to access the lane and saw a dozen people working to make the street passable. She obviously wasn’t the only one who welcomed the chance to escape from indoor confinement. She exchanged greetings with several people and offered to help, an offer that not only was refused but was met with looks and expressions of gratitude to her, as if she’d done them a favor rather than the other way around. And she knew, even without the words being spoken, what the gratitude was for. Which meant that her work with the Underground Railroad had come to an end, which she regretted. However, what she regretted most was that somebody had made her participation widely known. She would need to speak with William about this, though he probably already knew. She hoped he was home.
“Is something wrong?” Adelaide exclaimed when she saw the snow-covered Genie at her kitchen door.
“I couldn’t bear to remain inside another day!” Genie exclaimed, knocking snow from her feet as she stepped inside and closed the door. “I won’t come in any further so you won’t have to clean up behind me.” She lifted her head and sniffed the air like a hunting dog. “You’ve kept boredom at bay by baking.”
“Guilty as charged!” Adelaide acknowledged. “Would you like cake, pie or bread pudding?”
“Ooooh! Bread pudding, please,” Genie said, “and I’ll eat it standing right here while you tell me where William is.”
“He and Arthur and the boys are earning a small fortune clearing streets and hauling people and things out of snowbanks,” she replied while serving Genie a bowl of bread pudding—which she practically inhaled, it was so good.
“He’s not cleaning your lane?” Genie asked
Adelaide shook her head. “The residents began clearing our lane at first light—me included!” she said proudly, before adding that her body now ached every time she moved. Then she added that William was not allowed to help because he’d “done so much for everybody already.” She frowned when she said it, and Genie knew that she understood the meaning.
“Is William very angry?”
“Furious! But quietly so. You know how he is.”
Genie did know. “Then perhaps I should go help William and Arthur because all I feel right now is lazy.”
“Have you forgotten how you felt after your most recent . . . escapade?”
Actually, she had forgotten. After she had seen Ezra’s condition her scrapes and soreness seemed of no consequence. “I’d rather have something to do than nothing to do, Adelaide,” Genie said lightly, “even if there’s a price to pay. However, if you’d teach me how to make that bread pudding . . .”
Adelaide laughed and hugged her. “If you stop by on your way home I’ll give you some to take with you.”
“William won’t mind?”
Adelaide gave a most unladylike snort. “He’s still working his way through a butter cake and a sweet potato pie.”
Genie felt the cold almost immediately when she left the warmth of Adelaide’s kitchen. Even though the wind had abated the temperature seemed not to have risen noticeably. When she got out to the main street she saw that it, too, was clear, and she heard the clang of a horse bus nearby. She also saw that she wasn’t the only bundled figure moving about. Apparently three days of confinement was more than enough for lots of people. She walked briskly toward the blacksmith shop and was surprised to see, coming toward her, her horse cart! Before she could speak the horse came directly to her and practically knocked her over with a strong head butt, the one that was a request—a demand—for a carrot or an apple. Genie laughed and stroked the animal’s face. Then she dug around in her pockets hoping to locate a treat.
“Aha!” she exclaimed, unearthing half a carrot which the horse inhaled the way Genie just moments ago had inhaled Adelaide’s bread pudding.
“You spoiling that horse!” Arthur yelled from the driver’s seat.
“Of course, I am,” Genie said reasonably as she walked toward him. “Good day, Arthur.”
“Good day, Miss Eugenie,” he replied touching his head, which wore a scarf and a hat. “Why you out in the cold?”
“I couldn’t stand being inside any longer. I understand that you and William and the boys have been busy.”
He nodded. “But I was on my way to find you, to see if you thought it would be all right to take Miss Abigail her horse.”
Genie’s heart and stomach lurched simultaneously. “I think that’s an excellent idea,” she said, and climbed into the cart.
Arthur drove to the back of the stables and told Genie that he was going to get Abby’s horse, which he would ride, leaving her to drive the cart. She jumped down and hurried inside to speak with William in the few moments she had before they needed to leave. He was surprised to see her, though pleased, and he knew immediately that she had been too restless to remain inside. “You’d no doubt be out if the snow was still falling like rain.”
“You know me too well, William. And apparently someone knows us both too well.”
He scowled. “Mr. Still is none too pleased.”
“We are of no further value to him,” Genie said sadly.
“Not in terms of helping people to freedom,” he replied, “but there is other work to be done. We are not totally useless.”
“Do you know who is responsible for the . . . transgression?”
William’s lips tightened in anger but he did not respond; he would not, she knew, but he didn’t need to. She had her own thoughts on the matter. “Will you and Arthur take Miss Read her horse?” he asked.
“If you think the roads are passable.”
“For the horse, certainly. For your cart? Probably. If not, you can ride the horse and leave the cart.”
“Then we’ll go,” she said, turning away. She stopped walking but did not turn to face him. “Job Mayes.”
There was absolute silence in the s
pace between them. Then William said, “He has been dealt with.”
Genie left him, more than a little shaken by what she heard in his voice. If Mayes had been dealt with as harshly as he deserved to be . . . well . . . she was just as happy not knowing. He had risked the lives of several people, Mrs. Tubman included. But why? She found that she didn’t want to know that, either.
Arthur was atop a very sturdy-looking dark brown gelding that Genie had not seen before, and he held out to Genie a bag that he clearly wanted her to take before she climbed into the cart. She looked inside and grinned widely: apples and carrots that humans would not salivate over but which horses would. She thanked him, reached into the bag and chose a carrot for the gelding which he grabbed almost before Genie could get her hand safely away, and then picked an apple for her own sweet horse who was much more genteel in her retrieval of the fruit. Genie clambered up into the cart, took the reins, and followed Arthur toward Abby’s. It was slow going but not impossible as the road had been cleared, especially in the middle near the horse bus tracks. But everywhere the snow had been moved from the middle of the road to the side, making drifts six and seven feet tall in some places. With there being no sign of moderating temperatures, these snow mounds would soon become ice mounds, and dangerous.
Eli heard and saw their arrival in the lane behind the house, and he immediately sounded an alarm that brought everybody at a run, the adults as excited as he was. Donald greeted the horse as if he were a long-lost friend. Abby pronounced him beautiful and promptly named him Gerald after her father. Maggie allowed as he resembled her father a bit, which sent Abby into a fit of boisterous laughter. Ezra took Arthur aside for a discussion that would have angered Abby had she heard it, but Arthur promised that she never would know what they discussed, or that Ezra paid him and William in addition to what Abby already had paid. “We most likely will be needing your services often in the future, sometimes on short notice.” Arthur gave a curt nod and a firm handshake that meant Ezra could have whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. Genie watched the scene unfold with a happier heart than she’d had in a very long time. Donald led Gerald into the carriage house to hitch him up and told everyone to prepare to go for a ride.
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