Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3)

by Annette Laing

  “Thank you,” Mr. Osborn said simply. “Oh, and, by the by, know you a gentleman called Mr. Robert Gordon? I need to speak with him.”

  Mr. Jones looked surprised. “Mr. Gordon? Why, sir, indeed I do.”

  “And what know you of him?” Mr. Osborn asked cautiously.

  “Why, sir,” said Mr. Jones, “he is a vestryman, and a leading man in our parish. A Scotsman, I say, but he has lived in the colonies for many a year. He holds a plantation in South Carolina. It is a flourishing place by all accounts. But now that slavery is legal in Georgia, he moved south a year or so ago with his slaves in search of even greater opportunity. He has acquired a large number of acres, with high hopes of speculating on the value of the land, and meanwhile he raises tobacco and cattle, as well as cutting timber. I believe he also trades for deerskins with the Indians. I suspect he had hopes of raising a great fortune in growing rice, as he has in South Carolina, but if so, he has made a regrettable error. If I may say so, the land he has purchased here is greatly unsuited to the cultivation of rice. But Mr. Gordon’s industriousness is nonetheless admirable, if rather dizzying.”

  Mr. Osborn listened to this account of Mr. Gordon’s success with a peculiar look on his face. Only later did Brandon wonder whether it had been envy.

  Within moments of the door closing behind Mr. Jones, Mrs. Osborn cried out, “But Mr. Osborn, how are we to manage?”

  “My salary is insufficient,” Mr. Osborn confessed, holding up his hands in a hopeless gesture. “I am astounded that Mr. Jones seriously expects me to ride through the country begging for a living. Perhaps I may make up the difference by charging higher perquisites for performing baptisms, marriages, and burials.”

  Oh, like a tip, I guess, Brandon thought to himself, as he pretended to read a book he had borrowed from Mr. Osborn. A perk! That must be where that word comes from.

  Mr. Osborn said, “It is fortunate that my father settled a modest sum of capital upon me before our departure, especially since it seems that I am expected to purchase slaves.”

  Brandon was shocked. “But I thought you were promising to buy slaves because you wanted to please Mr. Jones? I thought you were poor? And I thought you were against slavery, Mr. Osborn?”

  Mr. Osborn looked surprised and slightly amused. “I am not wealthy, but I am hardly poor. And oppose slavery? Good Lord, no, Brandon. One feels compassion for the poor negroes, and objects to their mistreatment, of course. They must be brought to God by our best means. But their lowly station is as He intended.”

  Brandon did his best to hide his disappointment in Mr. Osborn. But the respect that he had been building for his boss was seriously damaged.

  “This brings me to what I intended to say,” said the minister, oblivious to Brandon’s dismay. He nodded to the book in Brandon’s hands, which he had been trying (and failing) to read. “I see that you are reading the book of sermons. Your interest in religion encourages me to think of your future. What Mr. Jones said is true: You are fitted for a less lowly occupation in America than that of a servant. And Mr. Jones is also right that now slavery is legal in Georgia, a young white man should look to a less modest ambition than servitude, because most servants here are negro slaves. If you are willing to work hard, I can speak with the vestry about appointing you as schoolmaster to the children of the parish when you are of age. Perhaps, later, you may take holy orders in the Church and join me as a member of the clergy. For now, however, I wish to appoint you as catechist to the negroes.”

  Brandon was perplexed and a bit alarmed to hear all these plans on his behalf. “Sir?” he squawked.

  Mr. Osborn laughed. “You appear befuddled. I shall explain. A catechist is one who catechizes his pupils. In other words, he teaches them the rudiments, the basic knowledge, of the Christian faith.”

  This was something Brandon could do. He suddenly saw a very practical use for all the long hours he had spent in Sunday School and at Wednesday night Bible studies at First African Baptist Church in Snipesville. He quite liked the idea of talking about his faith. And it would be very interesting to meet slaves.

  The next day was Sunday, and Mr. Osborn led his first service in the tiny wooden church. The pews were full, because people were curious to meet the new minister. Everyone who sat in the church was white, but a crowd of slaves had gathered outside to listen through the open windows. At least, Brandon was told they were slaves, but he was surprised to see Indian as well as African faces among them.

  He also noticed a pecking order in the pews. Mr. Jones sat in the most honored pew at the front left, facing the pulpit. Brandon and Mrs. Osborn sat behind him. The farther back the congregants sat, the more worn-out their clothes were. There were only about half a dozen families altogether, as far as Brandon could see.

  One family arrived just as Mr. Osborn was climbing the steps to his pulpit. The latecomers, led by a grim-faced man in his fifties, marched to the front right pew, and as they did so, Brandon caught sight of Hannah in the group. Although she didn’t notice him, he was relieved to see that she was alive and well. He sat up straight with a big grin.

  Mr. Osborn shuffled his notes and then launched into his sermon, reading it in a dry monotone. Brandon quickly lost track of what he was saying, and was soon bored out of his mind. This was even more dull than attending St. Swithin’s Church in Balesworth in 1940. Why, he wondered, was white people’s church always so boring? Then he admitted to himself that he didn’t really know if all white churches were as subdued as the ones in the Church of England, or if all black churches were lively. After all, he thought, Dr. Braithwaite was black and he seemed pretty happy with the Episcopal Church, which was what the Church of England called itself in modern America.

  It was strange, he thought, that the slaves who stood at the open windows listened to Mr. Osborn with rapt attention. How could they understand what he was talking about? And yet, they hung on his every word. Meanwhile, the slumped bodies he saw in the pews suggested that the rest of the congregation felt the same way as Brandon. Brandon suddenly found himself having an interesting thought: Did everyone get out of religion what they wanted to?

  He would soon learn what some of the congregation wanted from their church experience. Halfway through the sermon, a man seated in a middle pew got up and ambled back down the aisle, throwing glances, nods, and winks to other men in the congregation, who rose to follow him. Hannah’s master was among those who turned to see what was going on. He then motioned to his wife to allow him out of the pew. Soon, every adult man had filed out of the body of the church.

  Curious, Brandon mustered the courage to get to his feet and follow them, a decision he regretted as soon as he glanced at the pulpit. Mr. Osborn, who had soldiered on with his sermon through the noisy interruption, was now shooting a look like thunder in Brandon’s direction. But Brandon was too far gone to turn back. He reasoned that he could always tell Mr. Osborn later that he was checking out the disturbance. What he really wanted was to get some idea of what this Robert Gordon guy was like.

  He didn’t have to go far to solve the puzzle. Outside, next to the water trough where the congregation’s horses were tethered to trees, the men had congregated around a watering trough of their own. A large bowl was set on the back of a wagon, and the men were laughing and ladling out a brown liquid into cups. Brandon’s jaw dropped when he realized that they were drinking alcohol. They were having a tailgate party during church.

  “Join us, lad,” said Mr. Gordon with a cheerful smile that greatly softened his rough features. He clapped Brandon on the back, and handed him a cup of the mystery brew. Brandon tried to give it back, but Mr. Gordon looked offended and brushed it away with the back of his hand. One sniff of the drink confirmed Brandon in his intention to not drink the stuff: It smelled extremely strong, and he began looking about for someplace to dump it. But all the men were now looking at him expectantly.

  “Drink up, laddie,” the Scotsman said in a threatening voice. A smile still played arou
nd his lips, but his pale blue eyes had grown hard. The others urged him on, too. Brandon took a sip, grimaced, and gasped. The liquid tasted revolting, and it burned his throat. The men were still watching him intently, and he realized to his horror that they were waiting for him to drain the cup. Taking a deep breath, he held his nose, and drank it down.

  “What is the meaning of this?” were the first words Brandon heard when he awoke. Mr. Osborn was angrily shaking his shoulder. Brandon slowly turned his head this way and that, to find himself flat on his back on the grass behind the church. Confused, he sat up. The men and horses had vanished. And he didn’t feel good. Not at all.

  He suddenly leaned to one side and threw up on the grass. Mr. Osborn gave an outraged shout, and grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, pulled him upright, and half-dragged him toward the house. Brandon staggered along as best he could.

  Back at the Gordon plantation, the fields were empty of people. “Where is everyone?” Alex asked Sukey. She was feeling much better, and was eating a bowl of corn meal porridge.

  “Some of them, they gone to church,” she said, slurping her food. She made a face. “I don’t like to go. They make us slaves stand outside, and I’m too short, so I can’t hear what the reverend say, or see him neither. But Tony tells me about it, and that does me.”

  Alex didn’t know what to say. He didn’t go to church much, and didn’t care either way what Sukey did on a Sunday morning.

  “Anyhow,” Sukey said, wiping her mouth, “I don’t like to be around the master on a Sunday. I see enough of him as it is.”

  “Yeah, he’s scary,” Alex said with a shiver.

  “So, who are you?” Sukey finally asked him. “How come you to be here?”

  Alex considered how to reply to that. Could he trust Sukey with a made-up story about running away? Would she believe the truth?

  But she had taken his silence to mean that he didn’t want to talk about it. “That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me, and you’re here now. I reckon your last master is pretty bad if you rather be with Mr. Gordon.”

  Alex nodded. It was easier this way.

  “Have you, um, worked for him long?” he asked.

  “A long time,” said Sukey. “He buy me when I was a girl, and bring me to Sidlaw.”

  “You mean here?” asked Alex.

  “Naw,” said Sukey, “Sidlaw. It’s what he calls his big plantation in Carolina. It belong to his uncle, and when his uncle die, he leave it in his will to Mr. Gordon, along with his slaves. So Mr. Gordon come from Scotland. He have a good rice crop the first year, and that’s when he buys me. The next year, he do well too, and the next. He keep on buying slaves, and land. He’s soon a rich man.”

  “Why doesn’t he seem rich, then?” Alex wondered aloud, but Sukey seemed confused by the question. He supposed that anyone who owned other people must seem rich to a slave, but why didn’t Mr. Gordon own a big house, or other signs that he was a wealthy man? And what was he doing in Georgia?

  Sukey seemed to read his mind then. “He come here for more land,” she said. “Sidlaw is surrounded by other big plantations, so he can’t expand too easy. Mr. Gordon tell me he needs more land, more slaves. I don’t know why. Seems to me, he has plenty already.”

  “So you have known him a long time,” said Alex thoughtfully. “Has he always been a psycho?”

  Somehow Sukey understood what he meant, and she frowned. “I think sometimes that evil spirits possess him. When I come to the plantation, he is already a bad man. But the other slaves at Sidlaw, they tell me that he was not like that when first he come from Scotland. He is a sweet young man, no more than a boy. He does not know at first how to make his slaves work for him. Then the Carolina white men got ahold of him . . . .” Her voice trailed off, and tears sprang to her eyes. “And the slaves say then he change.”

  So, Alex thought, somehow Mr. Gordon had changed from a nice Scottish boy who had innocently come to America to claim his inheritance, to an angry, grasping, and violent old man. Maybe he was possessed by demons, just as Sukey had said.

  Now he had a chilling thought. Just how safe could Hannah be in his company? Suddenly, he found himself asking the same question aloud.

  “Hannah?” laughed Sukey, who had no idea that Hannah was “Cato”’s sister, of course. “Don’t you worry about her none. She is a white girl, and she will soon find out that she is safe. He never troubles white folk if he can help it.” She patted Alex’s hand.

  Alex looked at her doubtfully. Then he said, “When you go to the house to fetch the laundry, please will you tell her that Alex is safe?”

  Sukey’s eyes widened. “She knows you? How can that be? And your name, it is Alex?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Then I call you Alex,” said Sukey decisively, “except when other people are around. Then you are Cato. Don’t let Mr. Gordon hear your true name.” Alex smiled gratefully. “And you will speak with Hannah?”

  “When I can,” said Sukey, and gave him a tense smile back. “When it is safe.”

  That night, Brandon lay miserably on his makeshift bed, on his stomach. He could not lie on his back, because an outraged Mr. Osborn had whipped him with a bundle of switches. It was excruciatingly painful, and now Brandon knew that Hannah hadn’t exaggerated. His whipping, too, had drawn blood. He couldn’t help thinking that if this was what eighteenth-century people did to white servant kids, kids they lived with and cared about, what did they do to slaves?

  He tried to take his mind off the pain, focusing on the good things that had happened that day. He had seen Hannah and she seemed healthy. After the beating, he had at least persuaded Mr. Osborn not to fire him from his new job as a catechist. He had also managed to explain why he had left the church during the service, and what had happened outside.

  Now, as he lay on the bed, Brandon strained to listen to Mr. Osborn’s muttered conversation with his wife.

  “I cannot understand this place,” Mr. Osborn said. “I will write to His Grace the Bishop of London, and ask his advice about today’s disgraceful episode at church. Truly, we ought to have a bishop here in America to resolve disputes between missionaries and parishioners. Here, I cannot even consult easily with my brother clergy for advice in matters of this sort, for they are too far distant from me.”

  There was a pause, and Brandon heard Mrs. Osborn weeping softly. Then Mr. Osborn said tenderly to his wife, “I am so very sorry I brought you here, Caroline. But I promise that our circumstances will improve. I will speak with Mr. Jones and the vestry, and demand that they make provision for us. Perhaps I will even buy a negro house servant.”

  “No!” Mrs. Osborn whispered fiercely. “I will not have one of those strange savage creatures under my roof.”

  If only she knew about me, Brandon thought with a bitter smile.

  Mr. Osborn replied gently, “The negroes are God’s children, Caroline, perhaps of a lesser sort, but they are immortal souls nonetheless. And I feel sure that the Lord has sent us here in part to minister to them. Once I have purchased slaves, we may do them good by bringing them into the Church. Indeed, I hope that Brandon will soon help me bring all the slaves of our parish to Christ. Judging from the crowd outside the church today, they do not lack interest in Christianity.”

  Brandon had read a lot of history, and in American history, he had already moved on to adult books, thanks to the Professor. He knew that the “kindly slaveowner” was a Southern fairytale, meant to make people feel better that their ancestors had owned slaves. He knew that even people with good intentions allowed the power of owning slaves to go to their heads. And he worried how slave ownership would work out for Mr. Osborn. For all his faults, the minister was a good and decent man. Would he stay that way once he had the power of life and death over another human being?

  The next day, the Osborns set out early to visit neighbors, and so Brandon was home alone when the rain started. Within minutes, water had trickled through the roof in a dozen places
, one of them directly above Mr. Osborn’s desk. Fortunately, Brandon’s first thought was to look for leaks over the bed, and so he was upstairs in the loft, gazing anxiously at the roof when the leak began. He hurriedly packed the minister’s books in a trunk to keep them dry. But one book was already soaked before he could rescue it. Carefully, Brandon carried it downstairs, fanned open its pages, and stood it up to dry on the kitchen table, facing the fireplace.

  As he did so, he heard a hesitant knock at the door. He opened it a crack, and broke into a delighted smile when he saw a dripping wet Hannah on the doorstep. Flinging open the door, he hugged her awkwardly.

  The very first thing Hannah said was, “Have you seen Alex?”

  Brandon shook his head sadly. “No, I’m sorry. I ask about him every chance I get.”

  Hannah’s face fell, and she sat down on one of the upright wooden chairs by the fire, warming her hands by holding them up toward the burning logs. Anxious to cheer her up, Brandon said, “Hey, it’s great to see you. I hear your boss is called Mr. Gordon. Mr. Osborn says he’s going to talk with him about freeing you.”

  Hannah puffed out her cheeks in a sigh. “Oh, yeah, my boss . . . my master, like they say here. It makes me feel like a dog.”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then she said, “Mr. Osborn shouldn’t try to get me free. I think I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’m pretty sure that this Mr. Gordon is related to the Gordon family I lived with in Dundee, and your Mr. Gordon in 1915, but there’s no way to know for sure. Anyway, I don’t want to leave you here and have to go off to find work to support myself. I have no idea where I would find work, anyway.”

  “So what have you found out about him?” Brandon said. “Mr. Gordon, I mean?” Hannah sat up. “Okay, the plantation I’m living on? It’s called Kintyre. That was the name of the plantation that Alex went to in 1851. Mr. Gordon told me he named it after where his mother was born in Scotland. He’s from Dundee. . . .”