“Oh that would be a shame!” Ezra said.
“Perhaps not,” Genie said sadly, explaining that even before Abby told Florence of Sheilagh’s treachery they had talked of how things were changing for the worse, how hope, even among the most committed anti-slavery stalwarts, was dimming. “She said there once was a really strong belief that slavery in the entire country could be ended but that many no longer believed it likely.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“St. Eugenia, wake up. Eli is beginning his rounds and Maggie will be here soon.”
“Shouldn’t saints be permitted to sleep later than mere mortals?”
“Saints are mere mortals until they are put to death, dear.”
Genie groaned and opened her eyes to the sight that brought her such great joy: Dark blue eyes, just inches away, staring back at her, filled with love and amusement. “I don’t wish to be put to death but I also don’t want to get up.”
“Well you could always explain to Eli how Eugenia came to be a saint and that way perhaps he’d understand finding us in the same bed.”
“Have I told you how very annoying you can be, Abigail Read?” Genie huffed and threw back the covers as she jumped from the bed and scurried across the room, nightshirt flapping in the breeze, and ran from Abby’s suite across the hall to her own, entering her room and running to the bedroom and managing to jump into bed and beneath the covers, just seconds before Eli’s knock at the door.
“Good morning, Miss Eugenie,” Eli called out as he entered her suite.
“Good morning, Eli. How cold is it this morning?”
“Very cold, Miss Eugenie. Ice sticks hanging from the north side of the house.”
“But no snow?”
“No ma’am, no snow.”
“Well that’s something,” Genie said as Eli shoveled coals into the bedroom grate, lit it, and took his leave. She waited a few minutes until warmth could be expected before getting out of bed and going to break the layer of ice on the wash water. She would need to be dressed when Maggie arrived so that she could leave with Jack and go to her own place of work. Business was good and she and Adelaide were kept busy.
Ezra and Donald, too, were busy, and had been able to hire Absalom to help with several assignments. Abby, still saddened and upset by the dissolution of the abolitionist group, kept herself occupied with attending social and cultural activities and events that provided some opportunity to learn what was happening in the political circles of the wealthy, and it was from one such event that she rushed home on the evening of March 6, hoping that the denizens of her residence would be present. They were, though Maggie and Jack were leaving, Jack having recently returned Genie home.
“Don’t leave yet, please,” she called out as she hurried down the front hallway. Maggie and Genie were rushing to her.
“Is something wrong, Abby?” Genie asked, and the answer was on Abby’s face: Something definitely was wrong, and whatever it was troubled Ezra as well. He and Donald had run in the scullery door as if chased by the devil.
“Genie!” he called out. “Maggie! Jack! Where are you?” And they all ran back to the kitchen.
“You heard, too,” Abby said to them, her voice heavy with unshed tears.
Genie grabbed her hand and looked steadily at Ezra. “What on earth is the matter?”
“That damnable Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case today,” Abby said, and Eli drew in breath at the sound of the profanity for which she did not apologize.
“What did they do?” Jack asked, and Ezra explained it while the four people in the kitchen affected by the Court’s ruling froze in place, barely breathing as they struggled to understand how their lives were about to be affected. The highest court in the land had decided that Blacks were not, could not, and never would be full citizens of the United States of America. Furthermore, the Court said that the Constitution never intended they should be.
No one spoke for long minutes. They stood and looked at each other. Then Jack Juniper took his wife’s hand.
“Come, Margaret,” he said softly, and Maggie Juniper, with tears in her eyes, looked at each of the people that she loved so dearly, and followed her husband out into the night.
“Will we have to live scared again, Miss Eugenie?” Eli asked.
“I don’t know, Eli,” Genie said quietly. “I honestly don’t know, but we will do whatever we must do together.”
“And we will be there with you and for you,” Abby said, speaking for herself and Ezra and Donald.
Ezra said good night and walked slowly to his suite. Donald put his arm around Eli’s shoulders and they left, locking the scullery door behind them, something they’d never done before.
Genie and Abby stood looking at each other, hands tightly clasped. “I don’t know what to feel, Abby. I don’t feel fear, not the kind I felt as a slave, though I suppose that technically I still am a slave.” She shook her head hard, as if to shake the thought out of her mind. “What I feel is . . . broken. Like a bird with a broken wing being pursued by a cat or some other predator. The poor bird cannot ever get to safety because it cannot fly with one wing, so its fate is sealed. It will be destroyed.”
“I will be your other wing, my dear,” Abby said, “and together we can and will fly to safety if that becomes necessary.”
“Do you think it will become necessary?” Genie asked.
“I think we must prepare for that eventuality,” Abby said.
“And you will fly with me?”
“Two wings are necessary to fly, and I am your other wing, my dear Genie.”
Genie’s heart soared, as if already winged. “As grateful as I am that you feel so much for me, Abby, you cannot leave your home.” She waved both her arms around to encompass all aspects of the elegant mansion that was Abigail Read’s home. “You cannot simply walk away from all this. I will not, I cannot—”
Abby smiled at her, tears glittering like stars in her eyes. She touched a finger to Genie’s lips to halt the words. “I’d be flying, not walking, my dear. And until recently it was a rooming house, not a home. It now is a home because of the people who live in it with me, and three of you cannot live in peace and freedom. And if you cannot, then I will not. I do not wish to.”
✴ ✴ ✴
Jack did not bring Maggie to work the following morning, so Ezra and Donald drove Genie to the dress shop where Maggie, William and Arthur were waiting in the back room. Maggie rushed to embrace her, weeping so hard she could barely speak. “Jack says we must go, that it soon will be too dangerous to remain.”
“Go where, Maggie?” Genie asked.
“Canada,” Maggie whispered, causing Genie to back away from her so she could see her face, and what she saw erased all the good feeling she had shared with Abby the previous night.
“When?”
“Now. Soon.”
Genie looked at William. “Can we be citizens in Canada?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but they don’t have a law that says we can’t.”
“Then should we leave, William?”
“I don’t know, Genie. I can’t say. This is something we must give serious thought to.”
She had never seen William so unsure of himself, or so wounded. He had been born free to a mother who had been born a slave, and he had dedicated his life to ending the despicable practice, inspired by the mother who had never shied away from sharing her experiences with him, the mother who had taken in the runaway Genie without a moment’s hesitation. He had believed with his entire being that an end to slavery was at hand. Until yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling—one that the president of the United States and the justice from Pennsylvania supported. “When will we see a copy of the decision and have it explained?”
“Someone is en route to us with a copy of the decision now, so perhaps late tonight or early tomorrow. Then the lawyers will tell us exactly and precisely what it means.”
“Then I will make no decision about leaving until after we ha
ve that information,” Genie said, hoping she sounded more convinced of the rightness of her words than she felt.
“Then neither shall I,” Maggie said.
“But Jack?” Genie said. “If he wants to leave—”
“Then I’ll not stand in his way. I fully understand. After what he has just endured—he has endured more than enough and he has stood his ground long enough, but I will fight until it is absolutely clear that there is no hope for success,” Maggie said.
“Then I will stand and fight with you,” Jack said from the door. He had entered unnoticed. He strode over to his wife and embraced her, whispering words to her that were only for her. Then he looked at the rest of them. “I’m not the only one who has suffered and I’ll not be the first to abandon the fight. I wished only to spare my wife and daughter from whatever is to come—”
“But we don’t yet know what that might be,” Maggie said in a near whisper.
“Well, we know the pro-slavers will see it as giving them license to return us to our rightful place,” William said, sounding as deflated as he looked.
“And they won’t care how they do it, they won’t feel a bit of shame being sneaky and violent,” Arthur said, none of the usual growl to his voice. He looked and sounded as deflated as William, a circumstance that infuriated Ezra and Donald. Both men so far had been quiet, listening with great interest. But their respect for William and Arthur was huge and seeing these men bereft of hope was too much.
“It will be dangerous for you to meet violence with the same, but I’ll be most happy to go into battle on your behalf,” Donald said, taking a fighting stance.
“And we have . . . resources . . . at our disposal,” Ezra said, “which we won’t hesitate to employ.”
“Where is Abby?” Maggie said suddenly.
“She is at home,” Ezra said. “Eli is with her and they know not to open the door for anyone, for any reason.”
“Eli would lay down his life for her, and take a few in the process,” Donald said. “That boy is a man now.”
“Is it safe for Maggie and me to travel back and forth?” Genie asked.
“As long as I’m doing the transporting it is,” Jack said.
“Then please take me to work, Jack,” Maggie said.
“And I will go,” Genie said. Then she looked at William. “You’ll let us know when we have a copy of the Supreme Court decision, and someone to interpret its meaning?”
“I will,” William said gravely.
“I should like to be present,” Ezra said, “as I’m sure Abby and Donald would as well.”
“We would welcome you, Ezra—all of you—as we always do,” William replied. And after several minutes of quiet, intense discussion, they decided to meet at Joe Joseph’s restaurant.
“That’s good,” Arthur said, the growl back in his voice. “We’re not the only ones who want to know what that evil law says and what it means.”
“Then we will wait to hear from you, William, and take ourselves to our work,” Ezra said, and he and Donald left, followed by Maggie and Jack.
“I’ll walk you, Genie,” William said, and she knew he wanted to talk as much as he wanted to check on Adelaide. They left via the back door as Arthur fired up the forge. “Do you ever think of my mother?” William asked when they were outside.
Genie smiled warmly. “All the time, William,” she said, and told him how she had recently shared the story of her escape for the first time since telling his mother eight years ago. “I will always be grateful to her and I will never forget her.”
“She liked you immediately! She couldn’t believe you were so young and so fearless.”
“I was terrified!”
“But you didn’t show the fear,” William said. “You still don’t, and I know you feel it. Ezra said the same thing, you know, about the first time he met you and how fearless you seemed.”
“Ezra also thought I was a man,” Genie said dryly, “so don’t put too much weight on what he thinks.”
“And that sense of humor that’s never too far away,” William mused. “Mother always wished Adelaide was more like you.”
“Adelaide is fine just as she is,” Genie said.
William smiled at that. “I think so, too.” Then he got to the real reason for wanting to talk. “I am very concerned for Josephine. Robert and Mary are doing well but Josephine . . . I fear too much damage was done.”
“Is she not working well at Peter and Catherine’s?”
“Too well!” William exclaimed in confusion. “She wants to live there and not as a free woman with her husband and daughter. And you can just imagine the problems that’s causing in the Blanding home! Peter and Catherine don’t want a live-in housekeeper and they most certainly don’t want a slave! But they sometimes can’t get Josephine to leave.”
“Robert and Mary can’t reason with her?”
“It has done no good. I fear we may have made a huge mistake,” William said sadly.
“No!” Genie almost shouted. “The mistake would have been to leave them, William. You see what destruction Montague Wright is capable of on a weak spirit.” Genie struggled to control her emotions, especially since she thought the same thing of Josephine.
“What, then, can we do?” William asked.
“Find someone who wants a live-in housekeeper,” Genie answered.
✴ ✴ ✴
Abby looked at her strangely. “You are actually proposing to return that poor woman to servitude?” They sat together in the sitting room of Abby’s suite. The fire burned brightly in the grate and the tea in the pot was still hot.
“Being a servant is all she knows, Abby, and she apparently is good at it. But I’m not proposing a return to slavery, and certainly not a return to a monster like Montague Wright.” Surely, Genie said, Abby must know someone who wanted a live-in servant.
Abby was quiet and thoughtful for several moments. “I will speak with Auntie Florence. She would be a perfect mistress for someone like Josephine.”
“Does she have room in her household?”
“Does Josephine have experience as a lady’s maid?” Abby asked.
“Good God no!” Genie exclaimed. “She has experience cleaning, cooking, keeping her eyes and voice lowered, and doing exactly as she’s told and nothing more.”
“Auntie Florence could help her,” Abby said, “and I think she’d like to. I’ll go see her tomorrow.” Abby then gave her a shrewd look. “And what else is on your beautiful, brilliant mind?”
“You know me too well, Abigail.”
“I hardly know you at all, Eugenia, but I certainly am enjoying the learning.”
“Will you also ask her if she knows whether we are citizens in Canada?”
The question caught Abby by surprise. “Maggie said everyone had decided to wait—”
Genie nodded quickly. “We did, but we need to know. We can’t fly away to Canada only to find ourselves in the same situation.”
Abby agreed with her and promised to learn the answer, but her face was wrinkled in a frown. “We would take Eli, wouldn’t we? And would Ezra and Donald want to go?”
“We certainly would take Eli. As for Ezra and Donnie, I don’t know, Abby,” said Genie and told her about all of the conversations she’d had that day.
“Am I invited to Joe Joseph’s Restaurant as well?”
“Of course you are! We could never have such an important meeting without you,” Genie said. “And wait until you taste the food!”
“I’m looking forward to it. And to meeting Rev. Richard Allen—” She suddenly stopped talking and looked worried. “What will Adelaide say?”
✴ ✴ ✴
“Welcome to my home, Mistress Read,” Adelaide said. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Tillman,” Abby said, taking Adelaide’s hands in hers. “I have heard so many wonderful things about you. Genie holds you in very high esteem.”
Adelaide was almost won over—but not
quite—but good manners required her to greet her other guests. Ezra, handsome and polite as always, was easy. Donald and Eli, however, were like letting two overgrown puppies into the house. Just as Adelaide was feeling overwhelmed by them William came to her rescue, leading the two puppies to the one thing he knew would make them happy: cake. Adelaide returned her attention to Abby just in time to watch the startling blue eyes seek out and find Genie. She did not know what to make of what she saw, and the knock on the door and the arrival of the Junipers deprived her of time to think about it.
“Thank you all for coming,” William said, starting the meeting. “We’re here because Joe Joseph says there is considerable . . . unrest in his clientele—”
“People is scared and mad and gettin’ mean,” Arthur growled, interrupting William.
William nodded. “And because of that, he didn’t think it wise for us to have a group that included white people. Ezra, Donald, Mistress Read—I am sorry for that.”
“We are the ones who are sorry,” Ezra said, “and we will leave your home immediately if our presence endangers you.”
William raised his hands. “You do not, Ezra—”
Arthur interrupted him again. “You all ain’t the people who bring harm and danger to us, Ezra. You and Donald and Mistress Read, you all have showed yourselfs to be good friends.”
“And we always will be, Arthur, and that’s a promise,” Abby said quietly.
“And I know that to be a promise that will be kept,” Jack Juniper said, and the words were barely out of his mouth when a knock on the door galvanized them. Jack, a revolver suddenly in his hand, was at the front door in an instant. Genie and Arthur, similarly armed, took up a position at the back door. William stood behind Jack at the front door and inquired who was knocking.
“Peter and Catherine,” he said to his guests. Jack backed up a step to allow William to open the door to the watchmaker and his wife, but when the door was closed, he remained there instead of resuming his place beside Maggie, just as Genie and Arthur remained near the back door. Ezra then joined Jack near the front door while Donnie joined Genie and Arthur. Eli stood behind Abby who pretended not to see the revolver in the waistband of his trousers.
Two Wings to Fly Away Page 25
