“Not with this cough. Milk would stop up my lungs.”
I looked around the kitchen. “Where’s Ruth now?”
Becky unpinned her apron and folded it, then tied on her bonnet, preparing to go home. “Madam got it in her head to play cards this eve. Has two companions in with her, the missus Drinkwater and her daughter, the one who’s to marry some sort of lord or duke or somesuch. Ruth is in with them. She was right cheered after the cake and milk.”
“Should I take anything in?”
“I just come from there. Madam was most definite: ‘Tell Sal to enjoy her cake and a night off. She has worked hard these weeks and could do with a good night’s sleep.’”
“She called me Sal instead of Girl?” I asked. “And you are full certain she didn’t hit her head today.”
Becky laughed, and the laugh caught in her throat and bubbled into a cough. “Look here. She’s likely to turn back into a sour old cow by breakfast, so I say have a good sit-down and enjoy a little peace.”
I poured a mug of the milk. “Huzzah for the reverend’s wife.”
I wanted to savor the gingerbread bite by bite and sip the milk slowly, but I couldn’t help myself. The mug was drained and the plate empty soon after Becky left. The milk was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted, the spices so thick I could near chew them. No wonder Ruth was cheered by it.
I washed up my dishes, tidied the kitchen, and found myself with idle hands. A rare event, indeed. I might could sneak into the library and borrow that Crusoe book. I could read by the fire with a mending basket nearby to slip the book into should Madam approach.
That seemed a fine plan. But first I wanted to shed my bodice; it pinched something awful under my arms. I felt my way down the cellar stairs with my toes and heard the sound of laughter from Madam’s company. I yawned. When would they leave? And what sort of ladies came to call this late?
I removed my bodice and hung it on a nail. The pallet looked soothing and cool, and the thought of climbing the stairs again made me weary. But I would like to read a few more pages … but I was overly fatigued … but Mr. Crusoe was facing all sorts of dangers … but …
Inbetwixt one thought and the next, I fell asleep.
For that, I shall never forgive myself.
Chapter XXI
Wednesday, July 10, 1776
TO BE SOLD AT THE OFFICE OF WILLIAM TONGUE, BROKER, AT THE HOUSE OF THE LATE MR. WALDRON NEAR THE EXCHANGE (LOWER END OF BROAD STREET) THE FOLLOWING GOODS AND MERCHANDISE, VIZ.: ONE NEGRO WENCH, 22 YEARS OLD, HAS HAD SMALLPOX, IS A USEFUL DOMESTIC, PRICE 80£, … ONE NEGRO BOY, 16 YEARS OLD, PRICE 9O£, …ONE NEGRO WENCH, 30 YEARS OLD, WITH OR WITHOUT HER SON 5 YEARS OLD PRICE 60 OR 80£. –ADVERTISEMENT IN THE NEW YORK GAZETTE AND WEEKLY MERCURY NEWSPAPER
In my dream I stood on a sandy beach, my back to the sea, the moon over my left shoulder. An enormous map was unrolled at my feet. The roads on it were marked with velvet black ink, rivers a pearly blue, mountains a speckled green. It was a map of a country I had never before seen.
Just as I opened my mouth to call for Ruth, who always tagged along in my dreams, a thick mist blew over the beach. The roads on the map twined and twisted round each other, hesitating, then they rose up off the paper, no longer roads, but thick eels with amber eyes. They crawled out of the map, and I feared they would bite me. They pondered me a moment, then slithered down the beach and into the water.
I awoke with a start and flung aside the blanket, looking for the eels. There were none there, nor in the potato bin. Ruth wasn’t there, neither, and her side of our pallet was cold. She was gone to the privy, no doubt. I needed to visit the same place.
The sun was already in the trees when I stepped outside. How had I slept so late?
“Ruth?” I called, walking toward the little building. My nose wrinkled. The Locktons would soon need to dig a new privy hole.
“Ruth?” I knocked on the door and it swung open.
The seat was empty, with a few flies buzzing in the stench. Two blue jays in the sycamore tree called loudly. There was the distant sound of officers shouting orders on Broadway and the clatter of cart wheels. But no Ruth.
I made quick work of looking in the yard. The back entry to the stables was locked, she could not have gone out that way. The gate to the street was closed, too, and the latch too high for Ruth to reach. Had Madam already dressed her, taken her on a call?
A thought slid through me, quick and slimy as a cold eel.
I ran for the kitchen door. “Becky? Becky!”
She came out of the pantry as I flew through the door.
“Where’s Ruth?”
“Oh.” Becky looked down at the worn tips of her shoes, then turned away from me. Her eyes were puddled up and red rimmed.
“I can’t find her,” I said. “She was gone when I woke. Have you seen her?”
Becky took the jar of flour down from the shelf.
“You know where she is, don’t you?”
She removed the lid and stuck the scoop into the flour.
“Tell me!”
Becky shook her head from side to side. “I should have started this bread earlier,” she said, pouring the flour into the bowl. “The wet air will ruin the loaves, that’s my concern. I should have stayed and baked in the cool of the night.” She dabbed her eyes on her sleeve and measured out another scoop of flour. “But Madam sent me home. Said she wanted a quiet house last night. No baking.”
She looked at me over her shoulder. The eel squeezed out all my air.
“No,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known—”
“No, no, no.” I backed away, shaking my head. “She didn’t. She wouldn’t. No.”
“Isabel, don’t.” Becky followed me down the hall, trying to control her voice. “It won’t change anything. What’s done is done.”
“Ruth!” I screamed up the staircase.
“Stop, Isabel!” Becky grabbed my arm and pulled me backward, clamping a flour-covered hand over my mouth. “You can’t storm around here like a banshee. Madam will beat you bloody. Me too.”
I pushed her hand away and wiped off the flour. “Where is she? What did they do to her?”
“She’s gone,” Becky said.
“Gone?” I repeated. “Gone where?”
Becky studied her shoes again. “Sold.”
I stopped hearing right. No more birds or buzzing flies or grandfather clock marking time.
“Sold?” I repeated. “No, she’s not. They didn’t.”
Becky’s eyes filled again. “Yes,” she said quietly. “She did.”
I paced the hall. “No. I slept too heavy last night. Didn’t notice when she woke. She wandered outside. We need to find her. She could be lost, could have taken ill and fallen.”
Becky watched me go to and fro. “The sweet milk Madam made up? I figure it contained a sleep potion, knocked you out cold so they could spirit her away. I am dreadful, powerful sorry, but they sold her away from you.”
It made no sense. I would have known. I would have woken up, fought them off, killed whoever tried to take her from me. I took care of Ruth. I promised Momma I always would.
Becky’s face shrank down to the size of a coin. It sounded like she spoke through a long wooden pipe. “Madam was returning in the carriage when I arrived this morn,” she said. “Told me not to worry about the milk spoiling no more, that Ruth was headed to Nevis, sold to a physician’s family.”
I shook my head, trying to clear my brainpan. “Where’s Nevis? How do I get there?”
Becky’s face grew larger. “You need to sit down. I’ll get a cloth for your head. This has been a right shock to you.”
“Where’s Nevis?” My voice echoed off the walls.
“West Indies,” Becky muttered.
“The islands?” All of Momma’s terrible stories of slave life in the islands flooded back. “Ruth can’t cut cane! She’ll die! She’ll die in a day!” My feet started for the front door.
; “Wait!” Becky grabbed my arm to prevent me from running off. “I questioned Madam about that very fact, questioned her right close, I did. ‘Not to cut cane,’ said she, ‘but to be a house maid, in a fine house. A physician’s house, so they’ll care for her should she fall.’”
“She’s lying,” I said. “She’s a spiteful, hateful liar.”
A door opened on the second floor. “Becky?” Madam asked. “Has someone come to call?”
“No, ma’am,” Becky said in a false, high voice.
Madam came down the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other holding a sheet of paper, half-covered with writing. The paintings of her dead ancestors on the wall watched her. “I do not appreciate interruptions when I am communicating with my husband,” she said. “What is the matter here?”
“Nothing, m-ma’am,” Becky stuttered. “I was giving the girl her directions for the morning.”
Madam looked down without seeing me; she looked at my face, my kerchief, my shift neatly tucked into my skirt, looked at my shoes pinching my feet, looked at my hands that were stronger than hers. She did not look into my eyes, did not see the lion inside. She did not see the me of me, the Isabel.
I saw her. I saw all the way down to her withered soul.
I walked up two steps. “Did you sell Ruth?”
“You will not address me in that insolent manner.” Her voice shook a little.
Becky wrung her hands. “Come, Isabel. You need to peel the potatoes. Would Madam like some tea or coffee?”
I took another step up. “Answer me, you miserable cow. Did you sell my sister?”
Madam backed up a step. Her letter fluttered to the bottom of the stairs. Her ancestors hung silent. “Stay away from me,” she said. “Get back to the kitchen.”
“She is five years old.” I rose another step. “She is a baby, and you sold her away from me.”
She swallowed hard. Her hands quivered.
I wanted to grab her by the hair and throw her down the stairs, throw her out a window, beat her face with my fists. I wanted her blood to splash the paintings, soak the wall and the wooden stairs.
“Isabel,” Becky warned.
The sunlight coming through the window was rosy red. I took the next step. I was almost close enough to reach her.
“Isabel,” Becky tried again.
“One more step and I can have you hung,” Madam whispered.
I held my breath. There was a click of metal on metal.
Becky had opened the front door wide. A hot wind from the street rose up the stairs, fluttering our skirts and causing me to turn. Madam grabbed a painting from the wall and threw it down on my head. I raised my arm too late and the frame crashed into me. The blow made me addlepated and weakened my knees. Madam ran upstairs, screaming like a house afire.
Becky dragged me down the steps and shoved me toward the open door. “Run!” she screamed.
I ran out the front door for the first time.
People walking under the shade of the sycamores across the street paused at the sight of a slave running away from a mansion where a woman was screaming. A man called after me, “You there! Girl!”
I ran straight down Wall. Didn’t worry about escaping notice of soldiers or strangers, just flew over the cobblestones as fast as I could. The red fog slowly rolled out of my mind. There were more shouts behind me, and people turning to stare at the cause of the commotion. I didn’t dare take the time to turn around. Past City Hall, cross Broadway. I leapt over the remains of a sentry fire, bumped into a gray-bearded soldier wearing a homespun shirt, and startled a man carrying two live hens by the feet. One of the hens broke free in an explosion of feathers. The man shook his fist and called out for someone to stop me. I ducked down one street after another, trying to find a way to the river, but the army had erected barricades at the ends of most of the roads to keep out the British.
I was penned in.
The shouts behind me grew louder and closer.
I darted down an alley, turned blindly toward the right, and ran smack into the barrel chest of a giant.
“Whoa there, young filly,” a deep voice boomed. “Don’t want to go swimming in the river, do you?”
I had run straight into a blacksmith.
“Please, sir,” I said.
His enormous hands released me and I looked over my shoulder.
“Looking to get away from someone, I suspect,” the blacksmith said. Behind him billowed the coal smoke from the forge. The air was filled with the hot tang of metal and sweat.
“You’re hurt, child,” the blacksmith said. “In need of some help?”
I wanted to spill out my story and to trust he could advise me, but he was a stranger, they were all strangers and Ruth was gone and there was blood on my forehead from the painting Madam threw at me and she was going to see me hung and I’d never be able to rescue Ruth and she would be all alone and …
“Tell them I went north,” I gasped as I picked up my skirts and darted around the forge to the south.
The blacksmith called after me, but his words were lost in the din of the soldiers and the sailors who cluttered my path. The wind off the river cooled my face and helped with my decision. I would turn myself over to the rebels. I had helped them fair and square. Now it was their turn.
We were all fighting for liberty.
“Ad astra!” I shouted. The words were not as magic as I had hoped, but the door eventually opened.
Colonel Regan was sitting in a chair, a white cloth around his neck, his face covered with foamy soap and his eyes closed. Behind him stood a barber, a slave, I assumed because of his African skin, with grizzled hair and an apron. On the table beside him stood a bowl of steaming water, a leather strop for blades, and a cup of lather with a brush in it. He turned the colonel’s chin with one finger, then delicately shaved away a stripe of soap with a razor.
“By your leave, sir,” said the sentry.
“I am busy,” the colonel said, without opening his eyes.
“This girl knew the password, insisted on seeing you,” the sentry continued.
The barber scraped off another stripe of soap and whiskers. “Take her to Jamison,” the colonel said.
“No,” I said.
The barber froze in midshave, and the colonel opened his eyes.
“Please, sir, you must help me,” I said quickly. “As I once helped you. She sold my sister. Please, sir, I’ll do anything, just find Ruth, she’s so small and—”
The door behind us opened. Two more sentries filed in, followed by Madam Lockton, breathing hard, and a tall gentleman I’d not seen before. My sentry waved me farther into the room so that the newcomers might all fit. I worked my way toward an open window.
“What is the meaning of this?” the colonel asked wearily.
Madam’s voice cracked across the room. “Are you the man in charge?”
The colonel sighed deeply, waved off the barber, and stood up, his face still half-covered with soap. “Colonel Thomas Regan at your service, ma’am.” He bowed stiffly from the waist. “How can I be of service?”
“You have stolen my property,” Madam announced.
“We have several clerks assigned to record civilian concerns. My sergeant will show you—”
“I will not speak with subordinates or grubby clerks. That chit of a girl belongs to me, Colonel. She has committed terrible crimes and must be punished. I demand you return her to me.”
The barber rinsed the razor in the water bowl.
Regan looked from Madam to me and back again. “What did she do?”
“She abused me most violently, sir.”
The colonel put out his hand and the barber placed a clean towel in it. “Yet it is the girl with blood on her face,” the colonel said, wiping away the soap from his chin and cheeks.
Madam’s eyes narrowed. “Give her to me.”
The sentries shifted their boots on the floor; one cleared his throat. The gentleman who accompanied Madam stepped forward. “T
he law is quite clear on this matter, sir. None of us want to live in a world where servants rule their masters. Both the Parliament and the Congress give Madam Lockton rule over her slave.”
A flock of crows swooped past the window. A three-masted ship, sails unfurled, pushed down the river. Ruth could be on it. Or she was already at sea, in a dark hold with no candles. Who would feed her? Who would hold her when she shook?
“The girl says you’ve sold her sister,” Colonel Regan said.
“Do you mean to purchase Sal for the army?” Madam asked. “I’m sure she’d make a passing fine washwoman. I shall expect full payment, in cash.”
He handed the towel back to the barber. “A washwoman is the one thing I don’t need right now. If you had any manservants capable of ditch digging, I’d take you up on the offer, but …” He paused and shook his head.
I looked out the window again. One crow had come back. It landed on a carcass near the water’s edge—a dead dog or a rat. The crow pecked at the meat of the thing, snatched a pink strip in his beak, and tugged until the piece broke away. He beat his wings once, twice, and flew up in the air high enough to catch a breeze that rode him out over the water.
Another man had entered the room. The night of my first visit to the fort he had worn his uniform coat over his nightshirt. Now his coat was properly buttoned and his breeches tucked into his boots.
“Thomas, we cannot interfere,” he said. “This girl is not our concern. And you are late. We dare not keep him waiting.”
I looked out the window at the carcass. “Please, sir,” I said in a quiet voice. “Let me stay.”
Colonel Regan fastened his collar without looking at me. “The law binds my hands and my actions. You must return with your mistress,” he said, concentrating on his task. “Even during time of war, we must follow the rules of propriety and civilization.”
With that, the matter was concluded. Madam turned to thank the man who aided her. The sentries slipped into the hall. Colonel Regan picked up his hat from the table and set it on his head.
As I stepped toward the window, the barber studied me close. He shook his head once from side to side, just as Jenny had back in Rhode Island, one hundred years ago. Bad advice on both occasions.
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