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

by Annette Laing

  Brandon couldn’t help smirking at the silly thought that he had just witnessed a battle between Godzilla and Bambi. It was pretty clear that “Godzilla” Gordon was the winner, and that Mr. Osborn had been squashed.

  Then a more sobering thought occurred to Brandon: What did any of this conflict mean for him? He was loyal to Mr. Osborn, but was that wise? Shouldn’t he look out for himself in this tough colony? The moment he thought this, Brandon felt treacherous and mean. And realizing he had this ruthless and selfseeking side of him, he thought, meant he had begun to understand Georgia for the very first time.

  Now, Hannah caught Brandon’s eye, and she stole meaningful glances toward Mrs. Gordon. Brandon followed her stare, and soon he was looking openmouthed at the gold ring gleaming on Mrs. Gordon’s hand. Hannah had been right. It was the same ring that the skeleton had worn, he had no doubt about it.

  He plucked up the courage to ask about the ring, and leaned forward to get Mrs. Gordon’s attention. “Excuse me, ma’am, but where did you get that ring? It’s, er, beautiful.”

  “This?” Mrs. Gordon smiled as she held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. “It was a present given me by my mother. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her when she came from England to South Carolina some thirty years ago.”

  Brandon didn’t know what made him ask the next question. “Where is your mom from, originally?”

  Mr. Osborn interrupted to apologize for Brandon’s nosiness, but Mrs. Gordon waved aside his concern. “No, sir, I am pleased to answer your servant’s question. My mother was from the county of Hertfordshire, from the town of Balesworth, if it is of any consequence.”

  Brandon glanced across at Hannah, who was looking as fascinated as he felt. Even Mr. Osborn smiled at the coincidence, although, of course, he had no idea that it was important.

  Balesworth, thought Brandon. Everything always comes back to Balesworth.

  Early the next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Gordon rode off to a session of the magistrates’ court, which was held in the church. He returned some hours later with unexpected company: A filthy young white girl in a torn skirt. She stood next to him with shoulders rounded and head down.

  “We decided to remove this girl from her master,” Mr. Gordon said to his wife as he took off his hat. “As you can see, he used her abominably. I will keep her here for the time being, until she is recovered, and then I will find a new master for her. Meantimes, the parish will pay her keep. Lass, help her to bathe.”

  Hannah hurried to the well. She fetched water in a wooden bucket, and then set a fire outside to heat it in the cauldron. When she returned, lugging hot water in the bucket, the girl was sitting against the wall, with her chin resting on her knees.

  Now that Hannah got a good look at her, she had a shock. The abused servant girl was Jane, her friend from London.

  Hannah dropped to her knees and took Jane’s dirty hands. Surprised, Jane looked up at her, and then a smile spread across her face.

  “’annah!” she said softly. Then, she started to cry in huge, convulsive sobs.

  “You know the girl?” Mr. Gordon asked Hannah.

  Hannah simply nodded, and handed Jane a none-too-clean rag from her pocket with which to wipe her nose.

  “She has been horribly ill-used,” said Mr. Gordon quietly, shaking his head. “Her master has fled the parish, and good riddance to him. His indifference to the suffering of this poor girl has shocked us all.”

  Hannah looked up at him admiringly. Mr. Gordon really was kinder than she had first thought. She had always assumed that slave owners were mean, and since Mr. Gordon was hardly what you would call friendly, she had been a little afraid of him. But, she thought, he really wasn’t all that bad.

  Over the next few days, even as Jane assisted Hannah with the lighter tasks like butter-making and stirring cornmeal mush, she hardly said anything at all. Despite Hannah’s prodding, she wouldn’t talk about her old master and mistress, except to say once that they were “terrible cruel.”

  Hannah guessed that Jane was suffering from depression and maybe PTSD, but she had no idea what to do about it. So she just tried to be as kind to her as she could be, sensing that this was exactly what Jane needed.

  “It is peculiar, Mrs. Jones,” Mrs. Gordon said to her visitor one afternoon, over tea, “I have two white servant girls in the house, and hardly enough work for one. Neither, of course, may be allowed to work alongside the negroes in the fields. And so I find I must invent tasks for them both. As you can see, my floors are cleanly swept.”

  “But, my dear,” Mrs. Jones said, “why don’t Mr. Gordon auction off the other girl’s time?”

  Jane and Hannah heard this, because they were sitting outside the open window, eavesdropping. They looked at each other in alarm.

  “Mr. Gordon intends to find a buyer for her at the earliest opportunity, I assure you,” Mrs. Gordon continued. “He proposed to me that we take Jane to South Carolina to work in our new house, but I don’t care much for the girl. She lacks good manners and she is dirty. Hannah is much more suited to serve in a genteel household.”

  Hannah looked at Jane to see that her eyes were brimming with tears. Silently, she took her friend’s hand, and led her toward the woods, where they sat together on a fallen tree, far from the prying ears of their mistress.

  “I can’t go to another place . . . . I won’t,” Jane sobbed. “I want to go ’ome to London.”

  Hannah exhaled loudly through her nose. It was so frustrating. What could Jane do? Even if she ran away, how would she ever get to England?

  For one unnerving moment, Hannah wondered if she was supposed to run away with Jane, but truthfully, she wanted to stay where she was. Life with the Gordons wasn’t too bad, Brandon was nearby, and even if a way could be found across the Atlantic, she shuddered at the thought of repeating the horrific voyage.

  She desperately racked her brains for a solution. “Why don’t we write to your parents,” she asked her friend, “and see if we can get them to bring you home?”

  Jane rubbed her eyes and said in a flat voice, “I don’t know where they are. I ain’t seen them since I was a little kid. They worked in an inn just south of the river in London, but when I got old enough to go a-looking for them, they was gone.”

  “They abandoned you?” Hannah was furious on Jane’s behalf. What kind of people abandoned their children?

  But Jane was shaking her head. “Nah, they didn’t abandon me. There was this woman, see? She sees me playing in the street one day, and she says to me she would buy me sweet cakes if I came with her. But it turns out that she was stealing me away. I wasn’t the first kid she had spirited away, neither. She lived with this fellow—fine gentleman he seemed to be—and they made us kids steal for them.

  “I wasn’t a pickpocket or nothing, though. They dressed me up fine, like, and they would ’ave me cry and wail in the marketplace, so people would take pity on me, and ’elp me look for my parents. I would lead them down an alley, and my master and the older lads would rob them there. Or the people would take me ’ome to their ’ouse, and I would nick off them what I could, and then fly off back to my master. Oh, yes, I had a fine training as a thief, make no mistake.”

  Hannah idly scratched her own name in the dirt as she listened in horror to Jane’s story. How, she wondered, could she help make Jane’s life better?

  “You can write, eh?” Jane said wistfully. “I wish I could. I started to learn writing when I was little, but I don’t remember it now.”

  “Here, I’ll show you,” Hannah said. This was something she could do for her friend. Taking a stick of wood, she cleared away pine straw and leaves on the ground, and scratched “JANE” into a patch of sandy soil.

  Jane smiled. “Oh, I can read my name, but I ain’t wrote it in such a long time,” she said. She took the stick from Hannah and painstakingly copied out her name.

  “So you can read?” Hannah asked.

  “Not much,” Jane admitted. “Words ’
ere and there.”

  “I’ll teach you,” Hannah said, and surprised herself with the decision in her own voice. “Let’s start with the alphabet, yeah?”

  Jane had saved Hannah’s life. Teaching her to read and write, Hannah thought proudly, was the least she could do to repay her friend. But how was she going to save her from being sold? That was another matter altogether.

  Later that afternoon, Mrs. Gordon ordered Hannah to walk to the slave quarters and fetch a slave named Cato. As Hannah trudged through the drizzling rain, she was nervous but also curious. She had never been to the slaves’ huts, and the only slaves she had met were the old lady called Sukey, who came for the laundry, and Tony, Sukey’s grown son, who tended the pigs. He had been born in America, and he was very chatty, unlike his mother, who seldom spoke in the presence of whites.

  Sukey had looked like she wanted to speak to Hannah on her last visit to the house, but Mrs. Gordon was there, and so it never happened, to Hannah’s guilty relief. She found Sukey a bit scary, honestly. She always looked so fierce, kind of like Brandon’s Aunt Morticia.

  Hannah knew that most of the slaves were men from Africa, and that many spoke little English. She only saw them in passing, as they tended the cattle, corn, and tobacco, or cut down trees, and none had tried to talk to her. Hannah didn’t blame them for keeping their distance from white people. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t want to chat with the Gordons either.

  The men ignored her as usual as she passed them by in the pasture, pretending not to see her as they herded the cattle and wiped away the rain that dripped down their faces. Ahead of her, a stream of fragrant wood smoke issued from the roof of one of the huts, and she hoped she could find Sukey or Tony to tell her where Cato was.

  Sukey was stooped over the cooking pot that hung by a chain from the ceiling in the smoky hut, her back to the door. Not for the first time, Hannah wondered to herself why Sukey had long straight hair. Nobody had invented hair relaxers yet, had they? She stood at the open doorway, hoping that Sukey would acknowledge her, but her arrival went unnoticed until she loudly cleared her throat.

  Sukey twirled around, and she stiffened when she saw the white girl standing on her threshold. “What do you want?” she asked tersely.

  Hannah gave her an anxious smile. “Hi, I’m Hannah. Remember me? I, like, work at the house? I’m looking for Cato?”

  Sukey sighed heavily. “I know who you are, Hannah. What do you want with him?”

  Hannah frowned. “I don’t. Mrs. Gordon needs him to do some work, I guess.”

  Sukey sniffed. “I take you to him, but first I finish boiling the corn.” She carried on stirring the pot. Hannah coughed, and peered through the smoky air for somewhere to sit. Apart from a couple of ragged and stained straw mattresses (if they could be called mattresses) she saw only a tree stump. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat on it, and was relieved to find that the air was clearer now that she was closer to the ground.

  There was a silence while Sukey stirred. Finally, Hannah decided to make conversation.

  “So, where are you from?” she asked.

  Sukey looked askance at her. “Here.”

  Hannah tutted. “No, I mean originally? Where are your parents from?”

  “My mother was Yamasee,” Sukey said reluctantly, “and my father from Angola.”

  Hannah had no idea what Yamasee meant, or where Angola was. So she asked, “Was it nice where they came from?”

  “I don’t know,” Sukey said grumpily, and Hannah decided not to push things further. The room fell silent again.

  Finally, Sukey threw some dirt on the fire to extinguish it, and wiped her hands on her tattered skirt.

  “We go find Cato now,” she said firmly, and she walked outside without waiting for Hannah. Hannah rose and followed her, feeling awkward and forlorn. The Gordons didn’t treat her as an equal, but they had made it clear that she was supposed to be better than the slaves. She had already figured out that the slaves wouldn’t want anything to do with her, because she was white and a house servant, and because she might report what they said to the Gordons. If it weren’t for Jane and Brandon, she thought, she would live a very lonely life.

  “There he is,” Sukey said, pointing toward a black boy who was hoeing in the field. Hannah followed as Sukey, her long skirt flapping as she walked, called “Cato!”

  The boy turned and straightened up, breaking into a broad grin when he saw them. Dropping his hoe, he threw off his hat, and ran. Then, to Hannah’s stunned surprise, he threw himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  “Hannah!” he cried.

  Immediately, Hannah’s eyes grew wide as saucers, and she held the kid out at arm’s length to look at him. There was only one possible explanation. “Alex? Is that you?”

  He nodded, his chin trembled, and he teared up. Hannah hugged the strange boy tightly, kissing his head. But she couldn’t help blurting out the obvious. “Oh, my God,” she mumbled into his wiry hair, “you’re black.”

  Alex wiped his eyes. “Yes, I know that. It’s freaking me out.”

  Hannah rushed to reassure him. “Brandon’s white, and he’s pretty freaked out, too. But . . . But I don’t see him as white. He looks normal to me. You don’t.”

  Sukey had been listening to this conversation in disbelief. “What is this?” she demanded suspiciously.

  Alex said quickly, “Hannah’s a friend of mine, remember? I knew her at my old place, and this is our joke.”

  Sukey looked at them both in confusion. To Alex, she said, “I must go do my work. You go with her,” she jerked her head at Hannah. “They want to see you.”

  Alex was frightened, and he looked it. “It’s okay,” Hannah muttered, grabbing his arm and giving it a comforting shake, “Mrs. Gordon always looks hungry, but I promise she won’t eat you.”

  But her brother was not amused.

  When they arrived back at the house, Mrs. Gordon studied Alex carefully.

  “Cato, I have spoken with Sukey,” she said, “and she has praised your cleanliness and your manners. Would you like to work indoors?”

  Hannah was mystified. There wasn’t enough work for her and Jane, but Mrs. Gordon wanted Alex as a servant, too?

  However, Mrs. Gordon explained. “We don’t need you in this house, Cato, but Mr. Osborn, the missionary, has expressed an interest in purchasing you. I shall teach you, and perhaps, if you learn well, you will be suited as a house servant. Let us begin with how you set a table. Go and fetch the knives, forks, and spoons to start with. Hannah, show Cato where to find the cutlery.”

  Hannah thought Alex should be pleased, and yet still he looked very scared. Why?

  Not surprisingly, Alex’s first lesson was a remarkable success. He had no problem, of course, setting a table and serving food. “You must have worked as a footman before,” Mrs. Gordon said admiringly, when Alex served her at the noon meal. “It is impossible for me to believe otherwise.”

  He smiled and nodded. Hannah, watching him from the corner of her eye, saw his smile vanish as soon as Mrs. Gordon looked away from him. But as soon as she looked at him again, he switched the smile back on.

  As she finished her meal, Mrs. Gordon delicately dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I will discuss your work with Mr. Gordon,” she said to Alex, “You may return to the quarters.”

  Alex gave his sister a small wave as he left. Hannah decided to catch up with him as soon as she could. Something was wrong.

  Later that night, Hannah waited until Mr. and Mrs. Gordon and Jane were all asleep. As usual, everyone went to bed as soon as it was dark. Some evenings, when he wanted to read, Mr. Gordon would direct Hannah or Jane to light a rush light, a reed dipped in animal fat.

  More rarely, he would light a candle, which Hannah had learned was a very expensive thing to do. Mostly, however, everyone turned in as soon as the light fell.

  Tonight, Hannah thanked her good fortune: There was a full moon, and its light would hel
p her find her way through the woods and fields.

  As Jane snored, Hannah quietly crept from the house, opening and closing the door quickly so that it wouldn’t creak too long. She waited outside for a few moments, holding her breath and listening for sounds of movement from the house. If the Gordons awoke and asked where she was going, she planned to tell them that she had stepped out for fresh air, as if she didn’t get enough of that already. Living with them was like camping, and she spent most of her day outside. Without sunscreen, she had quite a tan, unlike Mrs. Gordon, who was pale from spending most of her time indoors.

  Satisfied that the Gordons hadn’t heard her, Hannah decided to walk through the woods to be sure that no one saw her as she made her way to the slave quarters. Fortunately, the path though the woodland was well-worn, but she trod carefully for fear of startling a snake or twisting her ankle in a pothole.

  Hannah stepped in from the darkness to find Alex, Sukey, and the other slaves sitting around the bright fire.

  Everyone except Sukey and Alex jumped to their feet, their smiles vanishing, and their merrymaking descending into silence.

  “Hi,” she said nervously. “There was, like, no way for me to knock. Wow, is the party over already?” She knew why they were quiet: They didn’t trust her. She wondered if they had ever met a white person they could trust.

  Alex, meanwhile, was glad to see his sister, and he now clambered to his feet and hugged her. Clearing his throat, he announced to the group, “This is the girl I told you about.” Hannah noticed that Sukey was smiling cautiously at her as though recognizing at last that she was a real person.

  Now Sukey addressed the men. “This is Hannah, and she is fine. Hannah, come sit at the fire.” The men finally relaxed, and sat down again. Sukey’s word clearly commanded a lot of respect from them.

  Sukey turned to Hannah, “Do they,” and here she jerked her head in the direction of the house, “They know you here?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No. So I can’t stay long.”

  Sukey seemed satisfied with her answer, and she soon handed Hannah a hot drink, some sort of herbal tea. Her son Tony, the pigkeeper, began singing a song that he said was taught to him by an old African man he once knew.