The Night Angel

by T. Davis Bunn

  She glanced at her son with an affectionate smile, the first Falconer had seen on this outing. “Perhaps the gentleman has had enough of your antics.”

  Falconer replied quietly, “If ever I was blessed with a family of my own, ma’am, I would hope and pray to have a lad as fine as yours.”

  She stopped so suddenly the people behind them almost collided with her. But Ada seemed unaware of how others on the street stared openly at them. “Why do you not have a family, sir?”

  He felt defeated by the goodness that shone from these two faces. “Like I told you, ma’am, I have been many things.”

  “But now,” she pressed. An uncommon urgency entered her speech. “Why have you not settled down since your conversion?”

  He struggled with several answers, most of which began and ended with Serafina. For reasons he could not explain, though, her name did not seem to fit at the moment. “Since coming to know our Savior’s blessing, Mrs. Hart . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I have pressed forward with the task of fighting slavery.”

  The boy had tugged the pup back so he could stand next to his mother. “Papa was doing that too, wasn’t he, Mama?”

  “Shah, child. Let the man speak. You were saying, Mr. Falconer?”

  So he recounted a bit of his story. Of the pastor Felix and their crusade to end slavery and the vile trade in the Caribbean. Of his travels to England. Of the pamphlet. Of Parliament.

  The young lad’s eyes grew round. “You’ve seen the whole wide world, sir!”

  “No, my young friend. There are a great many places I’ve never been.”

  Ada took a long breath. “I have underestimated you, sir. I thought . . . well, that is . . .”

  Falconer understood all too well. “I shouldn’t worry about it, ma’am. If I were to see me walking down a street, I’d be thinking the very same things.”

  She smiled again, just the slightest movement at the corners of her mouth. Yet a light gleamed in her eyes, and Falconer felt as though he had gained some ground in her estimation.

  “What is it, Mama?”

  She looked down at her son, the same light still in her features. “You wanted to show the gentleman our town, yes? So let’s finish the tour, shall we?”

  “Come, Mr. Falconer, sir!” The lad attempted to take hold of Falconer’s hand, but his smaller grasp could only encircle two of Falconer’s fingers. “Look down this lane here, sir. That was the first well of Salem, and beside it is the common kitchen. Most folks do their cooking here. But Papa built us our own because of the take-ins.”

  “Your paying guests,” Falconer interpreted with a nod.

  “That’s it, sir. Our home, it’s called the Fremdehaus. That’s German for strangers’ home. We’re the only place in all of Wachau where strangers are made welcome. Excepting the women here to see the doctor.”

  The pup, disliking the lad’s pause, pulled even harder on the leash. Falconer slipped it off the boy’s hand. The puppy looked up at Falconer and must have decided here was a man too strong for him to drag forward. He settled into a big-pawed lope at Falconer’s left leg.

  The lad went on, his free hand waving expressively, “Papa built up our kitchen so Mama wouldn’t have to stoop. Lots of home kitchens are lean-tos with a door out to the dug well. Papa said Mama was such a beautiful lady she never ought to stoop for anything and anybody save God.”

  “Matt, that’s enough.”

  “It’s true, Mama. I remember him saying that.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Falconer would prefer not to hear such a complete account of our home life.”

  “I find it fascinating, ma’am,” Falconer said truthfully.

  “Please do not encourage him,” she warned, but there was a twinkle in her eye.

  “I so appreciate hearing the lad talk.”

  They proceeded on past the schoolhouse, sweetshop, wheelwright, blacksmith, lantern and glass maker, and finally the village smokehouse. Gradually the town gave way to country. An orchard in early spring bloom formed a fragrant border to the landscape. Here Matt took back the puppy’s leash and let the dog free. The dog barked for the first time that day and raced after a pair of ringneck doves. The boy’s laughter lifted behind him as he took off after his dog.

  Falconer watched the two of them disappear into the blossoms. “He is perhaps the most engaging young man I have ever met.”

  “He is a good lad.”

  “From what I have seen, he works hard and cheerfully. He takes his responsibilities with a good and willing heart. I also note how much he loves you.” Falconer noticed she was biting her lip. “Forgive me, Mrs. Hart. I have said too much.”

  She lowered her head and the bonnet hid her face. “If it had not been for Matt, I do not think I could have survived these past years.”

  Falconer heard the sorrow and counted it an honor that she would speak to him of this. They walked down the road in the vague direction of a barking dog and a laughing boy, the silence between them very comfortable now. The wind was strong enough to pull strands of his hair free from its ribbon. He untied the dark ribbon, pulled his hair tight, and retied it. When he dropped his hands, he found Ada Hart watching him again, that newly open look to her gaze. He spoke the first thing that came to his mind. “The wind mocks me here.”

  “I hear your words, sir, but I do not understand them.”

  Another couple appeared beyond the smokehouse, headed their way. The woman still wore her dark churchgoing cloak, and her companion was bearded and very upright. Falconer had the sudden notion that they were here to keep watch over Ada Hart and her strange companion.

  Falconer placed another half step between him and Ada and pointed at the distant hilltop. “See the top limbs there? They reach so high they appear ready to grip the sky. They are unable to, of course, so they make do by snagging the wind. They take hold with green talons and try to wrest it from its course.”

  “You have a poet’s heart, John Falconer. You see God’s glory where others see just another early spring day.” Ada nodded a greeting to the pair as they passed, their expressions meaningful in their grimness.

  “I feel caged as the wind here,” Falconer began. “And threatened. Yours is a prison of beauty and charm, Mrs. Hart. Salem has grace and green forest for bars. I could fall asleep here and forget what the blue world has ever meant to a seagoing man like myself.”

  To his astonishment, she rewarded him with the most open smile she had yet revealed. “Fall asleep, John Falconer, or wake up to a new vision of God’s creation? Become imprisoned, or adapt to a new realm?”

  He studied her in silence, as baffled by her words as by his own admission.

  She waved a hand lightly. “You do not offend me, John Falconer. On the contrary, it is good to hear the reflections of a man from beyond our small green world.”

  Ada Hart worked in the kitchen her husband had built and equipped for her. Her husband, also named Matt, had been silent in the way of most Moravian men, sparse with his words and speaking loud with his deeds. He had clearly expressed his love in the design and furnishings of this kitchen. Where most cooking areas were dark and airless, Matt had given special time and attention to making this a happy and light-filled space. The cooking range stretched the entire width of the rear wall, a full sixteen feet. The fire chamber was split into three segments by movable panels of solid metal plate. There was a long open range with an adjustable spit. Beside this was a covered iron stove with six round holes of various sizes. Then a full-sized baker’s oven. The kitchen was nearly twenty feet long with windows on both side walls. Beneath these were worktables fitted with iron basins. Their well fed directly into the house, a rarity.

  Ada and her husband had spent many happy hours poring through store catalogs, trying to decide what they should order next. It was an extravagance criticized by many of the more conservative folk in their community, but Matt had claimed it was simply necessary for hosting as many strangers as they did. In truth, he most
ly did it for her. One-third of everything they earned went to the church, another third to the married-choir community. Even so, between their farm animals and the paying guests, there was always money left over. The Moravians did not permit the wearing of jewelry or fine clothing. So they indulged in kitchen implements and in fine porcelain for the Fremdehaus parlor.

  The shelves above and beneath the workbenches held three ball-shaped coffee roasters, four waffle irons, a variety of stewpots, candle molds, cake pans, two-handed sieves, hand-carved butter boxes, ice-cream churns, skillets, special irons hollowed out to hold hot coals, even a pair of cone makers that came all the way from France. Almost half of her implements were loaned out to neighbors. Sometimes Ada would reach for a utensil and feel her heart clenched by memories and loss.

  She now bent over a low-rimmed skimming bowl, one of the last items Matt had purchased for her. The bowl was as broad as her largest skillet and had come all the way from Holland, from a ceramics company called Delft. The skimming bowl held milk her son had brought in that morning. The cream now had risen to the top, and Ada skimmed it off and ladled it into a butter box. The nicest boxes were carved on the inside as well as the outer surfaces. When the whey was pressed out, the butter indented with the box’s carvings. This one held images of biblical prosperity—wheat sheaves and laden donkeys and ripe grapes.

  Through the open door leading to the inn’s front room, she could hear John Falconer speaking with Paul Grobbe, the banker. Though her eyes never left the bowl, she listened to the conversation, surprised at the refined timbre of Falconer’s voice and vocabulary when compared with the recounting of his rather rough life on the high seas.

  Goody Sample, who lived three doors down from the Fremdehaus, worked in Ada’s kitchen when there were several paying guests. A woman from beyond the Moravian world, Goody had been born to a merchant family in Wilmington and had met her husband when he had brought a wagonload of produce to the shipping docks. The Carolina Moravians permitted their men to marry outside the community so long as these new wives understood the role they were to assume. Though Goody had lived in Salem for thirty-three of her forty-eight years, some folks still treated her as an outsider. But Goody was Ada’s closest friend.

  Goody spoke from where she was turning a lamb shank on the spit. “Now, there’s a mountain of a man.”

  “Yes, Goody?”

  The woman glanced over her shoulder at Ada, then turned back to ladle sauce and herbs over the meat. “Straight up and down is what they’d say back east where I come from. A hurricane in human form.” The spit squeaked as she rotated the meat, and the drippings caused flames to rise and lick the roast. “Is he of good faith like they say?”

  “I know little of him, Goody.”

  “Most likely he’s got a strong bone of godliness, since the pastor had him do the reading. I thought he read like he meant it.”

  “Yes, it seemed rich and full of emotion,” Ada noted. “He felt the words.”

  “And he likes your boy. I heard folks talking of how the two of them were together this afternoon.”

  “Like they’ve known one another for years,” Ada quietly agreed.

  “And he’s opposed to slavery.”

  “Yes. I heard him describe his calling from God, and it was clear this lies at the very core of his being.”

  Goody wiped the perspiration from her brow, the spit moving slow and steady beneath her other hand. “I wonder if he would like to stay around these parts and help . . .”

  Ada didn’t ask Goody to explain further.

  Goody knew her well enough to read meaning from Ada’s silence. “There are folks here who’d treat him the same as they treated me. If he’s happy in his calling, though, it wouldn’t hardly matter to such a man as that one.”

  Ada turned and looked at the open door. “But he’s leaving, Goody,” she replied, saying the words mainly to remind her own heart. “And soon.”

  Falconer’s talk with Paul Grobbe was of crucial importance, both to his mission for the Gavi family and his own personal quest. He worked at paying attention as voices drifted from the kitchen along with the savory aroma of roasting lamb. He heard the young lad singing as he set the dining room table and felt surrounded by appealing impressions.

  Paul Grobbe finished his perusal of Alessandro Gavi’s documents and set them on the table between them. He said gravely, “I am grateful for this gift of trust, John Falconer.”

  “You are providing me both money and contacts on nothing save my word,” Falconer replied. “I am the one who must thank you for trusting me, sir.”

  “How many people know of your reasons for traveling south?”

  “None save the folks in this community. I did tell a pair of slavers I was headed to the mines, but they do not know which one, nor my purpose.”

  Grobbe frowned. “These were the men from whom you bought the people you just freed?”

  “Yes.” Falconer saw the concern. “I had to give them some reason for taking on so many new hands.”

  “Indeed, indeed.”

  “You seem concerned.”

  “The one thing slavers hate most in this world are those who wish to set their charges free. The region from Richmond north is full of the worst kinds. They hunt white and black alike, sir, and they’re paid well for those they capture.” Grobbe leaned forward so as to hide his words from the kitchen. “Dead or alive.”

  Falconer lowered his voice as well. “I appreciate both your warning and your unease, but I repeat what I said before. I feel that God has set me a task. I intend to give freedom to four hundred and nineteen indentured slaves, and when that is completed He may call me to do the same again.”

  Grobbe studied him intently. Falconer met his gaze and waited. The grandfather clock in the Fremdehaus’s front hall counted out the long seconds. Finally Grobbe nodded and said, “John Falconer, a banker is charged with the duty to keep safe the finances of other people. He is paid to be cautious. However, I must tell you, sir, I feel God’s hand upon this moment and upon your quest. I would count it an honor to serve as your supporter as well as your financier.”

  “I cannot explain how much it means to hear a man such as yourself grant me such sanction, sir.”

  Grobbe rose from his chair. “Would you take a turn with me?”

  “As long as I can be back in time for dinner. Those heady scents have stirred my appetite.”

  “Aye, the Hart house has been long known for the quality of its table.” Grobbe walked to the kitchen doorway and said, “Mrs. Hart, may I borrow one of your guests for a half hour?”

  Ada appeared, rubbing her hands on her apron. “No longer than that, Mr. Grobbe. I will not have you threatening my roast with overcooking.”

  “I will make certain we are back on time, ma’am. Your roast smells fine as heaven’s manna,” Grobbe said as he settled his hat into place and touched the rim. “Mrs. Hart. Miss Goody. Come, John Falconer.”

  They turned off the main street into a side lane shaded by elms. The early spring leaves formed a green veil through which shone the sunset. Grobbe said, “When Ada Hart was younger, folks said her eyes could laugh as engagingly as her voice. But she has not had much to laugh about in recent years,” he finished somberly.

  “I wish Mrs. Hart and her son only the very best, sir.”

  “Precisely the answer I’d have expected you to give.”

  The banker headed first to the village stables, where he instructed the livery owner to supply Falconer from his best and send the bills to the bank. After Falconer had chosen horses and pack animals, Grobbe continued down the lane to a long single-story building with a tall cross bricked in above the double front doors. “This is the single man’s choir. You may already know that choirs are our way of segmenting our community. This is also the residence for any visitor to Salem from our outlying villages, and for unmarried men who work here in the town.”

  “You wish for me to move out of the inn?”

  Grobbe cho
se his words carefully. “We are a close-knit community, sir. So long as you were just another Fremde, the house run by Ada Hart was the place for you to stay. However, the whole community is aware of your walk with her to the edge of town.” The banker’s small smile took any accusation from his statement.

  Falconer studied his internal response, an unusual course for him. How could he stand in the gathering dusk and speak about a woman he had known for such a short time? Serafina’s long distance away, as much in emotion as miles, continued to leave a hollowness within. And yet . . .

  “I mean no offense, John Falconer,” Grobbe interjected into Falconer’s thoughts, obviously taking his silence for irritation.

  “A friend’s task is to offer wisdom,” Falconer replied. “Would you advise that I take my evening meal elsewhere?”

  “I would not think of depriving you of that excellent lamb I smelled.” Grobbe clapped Falconer on the shoulder, clearly pleased with his response. “But before we go, I want you to meet someone who is living here with the other unmarried men.”

  Grobbe pushed open the door and called, “Theo!”

  “Ich komme.”

  A rawboned young man appeared in darned socks, a frontiersman’s canvas pants, and a well-washed collarless shirt. The simple movement of adjusting his suspenders revealed whipcord muscles.

  Grobbe said, “Theo Henning, John Falconer. Theo is my guard for any shipment of valuables, be it money or documents. He is not much for talking, is Theo. But I’ve trusted him with my life on a number of occasions.”

  Everything about Theo Henning proclaimed his German stock. Ice-blue eyes regarded Falconer blankly. His close-trimmed hair and beard were both ruddy blond in color. Neither handsome nor welcoming, Henning inspected Falconer’s outstretched hand cautiously before taking hold. His grip was as solid as old oak.

  Falconer asked, “May I ask what is your standard salary?”

  “Three dollars a day,” Grobbe replied for the man. “He likes his pay in gold, does Theo.”