Trouble the Water_A Novel

by Jacqueline Friedland

  “You know what I want you to do,” Cora Rae drawled sweetly. “Procure for me one specific man, and I will keep away from yours. I don’t much care how you do it, but Douglas Elling has been mourning his dead wife for long enough now, don’t you agree?” Cora Rae rose from the bed. “It’s been over two years, and I’m ready to have my turn with that man. I’m not getting any younger, Gracie. Get in there and do it.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I can do to help your cause, noble though it may be,” Gracie added with a snort.

  “Well then, it’s a mighty good thing I’ve got Harrison Blount waiting to become infatuated with me, isn’t it just?”

  “All right, all right, Rae. Cora.” Gracie acquiesced with a huff. “I cannot believe you would do something so low. What do you need me to do?” Gracie felt her stomach tighten as she waited for Cora Rae’s response.

  “Now that’s the spirit,” Cora Rae approached her sister and began fiddling with the girl’s dark hair. Gracie shook her off, but Cora Rae seemed unfazed. “First, you mustn’t breathe a word of this to your friend Abigail. I need you to get into that house, get yourself back into Douglas’s world. Let him see you regularly. He should warm up to you sooner or later, since he was always keen on our family. Well, before the fire.” Cora Rae sneered as she added sarcastically, “What a tragedy that was.”

  “Cora Rae, shame on you!” Gracie reproached her. “I will help you if I must, but you best respect the dead. If you don’t pray for the dead, the dead won’t pray for you,” Gracie warned. “And Lord knows, you need it!”

  “If you say so,” Cora Rae responded dismissively. “I think it shan’t take much more than your continued presence to remind Douglas of how highly he regarded us. After a few weeks, you will invite him to tea with our family. In the interim, you will listen to any and all conversations that occur at the Elling estate while you are there, and you will inform me of what all you hear. Now that isn’t so arduous, is it?”

  Without allowing Gracie opportunity to respond, Cora Rae added, “If you do this favor for me, I will do you the favor of avoiding your precious Harrison like he’s carrying the pox. I do believe that’s the only way I can prevent him from falling for me. And frankly, I’m not even sure that will work, but I’ll do what I can.” Cora Rae walked toward the door and then added, “I’m so glad we had this talk. It’s something, being sisters.”

  12

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  1846

  Alone in his bedchamber, Douglas lay awake for the third straight hour, taut and heated. The three drams of scotch he’d drunk before settling into his bed had worn off, and he was as alert as ever. Sleepless nights were hardly unfamiliar to him, but something about tonight was different. Instead of enduring the endless, lightless hours focused on his own losses, he was thinking about Abby. Larissa informed him earlier in the day that the girl had wakened, lucid, but the governess was adamant that he must wait at least one more day before visiting her again, lest he rattle her as he had done during her delirium. He thought about her now, Abby, resting in her bandages and tangled bedsheets at the opposite end of the house. He longed to see with his own eyes that she was recuperating, that she felt calm again, intact and secure. He couldn’t say what had come over him to suddenly feel so fixated, but ever since her accident the day before, he had been unable to expel her from his disordered mind.

  He simply couldn’t figure what to make of her, her history, her contradictory actions, her evolving presence in his home. There were other curiosities, as well—her fear, which was so pervasive, yet erratic. He thought of her overfamiliarity with Reggie, where she was slick with recklessness. There was no inkling of fear then, not until Douglas arrived. There was also the girl’s changing appearance, her lack of wants, her grace and independence. He remembered his impression when he first beheld her upon her arrival so many months ago, a dusty obligation with withered clothing and barren eyes.

  Had she any idea what she stumbled upon in the cellar to his office that day, as he and Demett shepherded refugees to the Underground tunnel? He wondered how she would react, if she would think to expose him. Perhaps she had kept quiet only from fear of losing her lodging. Or maybe she had heard the rumors about him and despised him for his lawlessness, his failure to support the Southern way of life. He didn’t think so. He remembered how comfortable she’d seemed with Reggie that day with the handholding. Even based on their limited encounters, he had the sense that Abby was too committed to self-reliance, to independence, to think highly of American slavery.

  She had seemed like a stray orphan that day of her arrival, reeking of sea travel, of sweat, resentment, and uncertainty. But the few times he had laid eyes on her more recently, he was surprised to notice that she had developed a refined loveliness. Perhaps it had been there underneath the dirt and the misshapen haircut all along. And once she had a few weeks of proper meals behind her, he could see that she was curved and hewed, not so young after all.

  Then there was this business about her uncle. What had Abby been remembering when she conjured Matthew in her delirium earlier? It was not challenging to conjecture, but he found himself desperate to think of an alternative explanation for her agitated shouts. Douglas had known Matthew Milton since they were children, and had always found the fellow distasteful, at best. When Samuel had taken Douglas under his protective counsel so many years ago, Matthew had already been a parasite. Samuel shielded Douglas from the boys whose families disapproved of his father, fending off beatings, teaching him to fight, to practice and hone his physical skills. Matthew, who had been closer in age to Douglas, had been too busy worrying over his own social status to ever consider Douglas anything but a nuisance. Matthew had been a nasty, lying, slippery sort. But he wouldn’t have imagined that Matthew could stoop so low as to abuse a young girl. His own niece. Douglas squeezed his eyes shut, as if to clear himself of the vile images coursing through his mind.

  Douglas sat up and lit the lantern beside his bed. He ached for his friend, Samuel, who had lost so much, his shop, his livelihood, his ability to protect his own child from ruin. Douglas imagined what Matthew must look like as a grown man now, surely with the same hanging belly and pockmarked skin he had in his adolescence, and it was almost too much for his mind to clutch. Douglas wondered if he should write and tell Samuel what he had discovered about Matthew. No, it would suffocate Samuel if he knew what had occurred just beyond his reach. Douglas realized now that it was the unwanted attentions of her uncle, the man supporting her family, that must have engendered Abigail’s discontent in Wigan, the melancholy Samuel had referenced in his letter.

  Glancing toward the windows at the far side of his chamber, Douglas saw faint light beginning to stalk the dark sky. As the light outside grew more robust, he rose and approached his wardrobe, relieved to begin his day and finally escape the crush of his musings. At the sound of sudden tapping on the door, Douglas pulled on his dressing gown.

  “Yes, come in,” he called, surprised to have a visitor to his bedchamber at this hour. At any hour.

  The door opened slowly, and Demett peeped his head around the corner.

  “Sir, sorry to be coming up here like this. It’s just I wanted to catch you before you left, and you’re always saying we shouldn’t be so formal when it’s just you.”

  “It’s fine, Demett. What is it?” Douglas was weary from lack of sleep, from the sobering thoughts Demett had interrupted.

  “Well, sir,” Demett stepped awkwardly into the room and closed the door, taking care to do it quietly. “This all right?” he asked, gesturing to the closed door.

  “Yes, yes, it’s fine. Let’s have at it.”

  “I wouldn’t have come asking nothing of you, not when you’re always so troubled. But with the way you’ve been acting lately, I can’t say, but it seems something about you is different. For whatever reason, I don’t know, sir, but it’s like you’re stirring a little, I don’t know why. But there’s some things been h
appening, and well, I thought you should know about them is all.” Demett looked down at his feet and placed his palms almost in a prayer position, except that his fingertips pointed toward the floor.

  “Why don’t you sit, Demett,” Douglas said, motioning to a barrel chair beside his florid sofa.

  “I’d rather stand, sir.” He seemed to wince as he said it.

  “What do you mean about how I’ve been acting?” Douglas asked.

  “I can’t really say, sir. It’s just something I see. Like you’re noticing things, like you’re curious or something. Like I said, I can’t really say.”

  “Never mind about that,” Douglas waved his hand and walked back toward his bed. He pulled his bed covering up toward the pillow and sat down.

  “What is it you want to discuss? What’s happening?”

  “Well, you ever know Clover? The house slave over at Massa Cunningham’s? She’s expecting in a few months.” Demett hesitated, and Douglas nodded encouragingly. “Well, she been telling some folk, some colored folk, about how she don’t want to be bringing a child up in bondage. She been talking about escape. That’s what those of us who talk have been hearing, and I just thought that since you used to be able to help with this sort of thing. . . .”

  “No.” Douglas stood up abruptly, suddenly back to the sour version of himself. “You know where I stand. I made myself clear long ago, Demett. I’m finished with it all. I won’t turn people away if they show up at the dock, looking to use my tunnel, but that’s it. That is it.” He walked over to the wardrobe and began removing clothing for the day. “I’m sorry to seem harsh, but you know as well as anyone that my efforts have done nothing for this country. They have only brought pain down upon me. I won’t go back down that road.” Douglas looked hard at Demett and then nodded dismissively. “I will see you downstairs, Demett. That is all, yes?”

  “It’s just that, Clover, sir,” Demett swallowed but didn’t move toward the door. “Well see, sir, I don’t think she stands much chance, trying to run off with a baby almost half out her belly. She look to be almost six months along already. If you could just . . .” He tapered off again and waited.

  Douglas pictured the pregnant Clover, and his resolve became like water, trickling away from him. Ever since losing Sarah and Cherish, he had been rejecting pleas for help from abolitionists, over and again. But those had been requests for leadership, not appeals on behalf of someone specific. He looked up at the coffered ceiling and huffed out an exasperated breath. He did not want to get involved in this. But he knew too well what could happen to a runaway who didn’t have the support of the Underground.

  “I’m sorry for Clover, Demett. Truly. Can’t you find somebody else to help? Or at least convince her to wait until the babe is out?” But Douglas already knew the answers to those questions. It had been a long time since Douglas had been to the Cunninghams’ or seen any of their slaves. In truth, he barely remembered Clover. But a pregnant woman should have every right to seek a better life for her unborn child, a life of freedom. He couldn’t condemn her for wanting that. Without the help of the Underground, she might never make it out of the Carolinas alive. Or if she did, she would undoubtedly be recaptured by slave hunters, who kidnapped slaves and free blacks alike in hopes of hefty rewards. He thought of the punishment Clover would sustain after being caught. Perhaps significant flogging, strong enough to kill the unborn child. Maybe she would be tarred and feathered before even being returned to her master.

  “Damnit!” Douglas slammed his fist into the table where he’d been laying his clothes, disrupting his neat pile. “This isn’t even my own damn country. It’s not my concern if it’s all botched up. I feel like my bloody head is going to explode!”

  Demett showed no response to Douglas’s outburst, and simply continued to wait, his eyes focused on the air behind his empolyer. Douglas did not want to get drawn back in. But he couldn’t sit idly by while an innocent woman exposed herself so foolishly. As much as Douglas wanted to turn a blind eye, it was simply against his nature. Why did Demett have to come in here shaking out this news, just as he was starting to feel slightly human again? Douglas’s head was aching with all the conflicting emotions and ideas that were battling their way through his mind.

  “Let me think about it,” Douglas finally answered. “Get word to Clover that she should wait. I need a few days to figure this out.”

  As soon as Demett had gone, Douglas slumped back onto the bed and hung his head in his hands, closing his eyes, searching for stillness. He thought, again, about leaving this godforsaken South Carolina, better yet, the whole blasted country. But Douglas had promised his father-in-law, Nat, so many years ago, that he’d stay in Charleston to oversee Henderson Shipping, make it his own, after the man’s death. He imagined too that the spirits of Sarah and Cherish still hovered somewhere over Charleston. If he left, he would feel as though he had left them behind. No, like it or not, Douglas was bonded to South Carolina.

  He wondered if there was some way he could help Clover from a distance, without truly involving himself. He had sworn not to get tethered to abolition again. That path had brought him too much suffering. He wouldn’t decide yet. A few hours, a day, he needed to consider what was being asked of him. He felt a frantic urge to get out of doors before the splitting headache radiating between his eyes grew worse.

  Heading to the wharf, Douglas gazed out from the coach into the waking day, watching the morning’s first merchants push carts toward the market. He worked aggressively to think of anything but Clover, and it wasn’t long before his musings landed back on Abigail. She was a perfectly real victim of circumstance whom he could help without having to touch anything relating to abolition. He could begin with charity within his home. It would be what Sarah would want, wouldn’t it? He would have to tread lightly, but he could get to know her, show her that there were still kind, trustworthy people she could rely on in the world. He could shore up her confidence, her comfort in her own skin.

  He wouldn’t be fighting to change history, like he had been when he was so caught up in abolition. But at least he would be helping to make Abigail’s world a little better, and maybe his own, too. As for Clover, if only the decision were so easy.

  13

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  1846

  At the sound of knocking against the open door, Abby lowered her arm from where she had been holding it out to Larissa and turned to find Gracie standing in the doorway with a nosegay bouquet.

  “How’s the patient?” Gracie asked, a wide smile illuminating her ivory complexion.

  “Gracie! Come in,” Abby beamed. “Larissa was just fastening my sling. Come in and sit with us.”

  “There you are. Snug as a bug in a rug,” Larissa announced as she finished adjusting the dressing. “I’ll leave you girls to yourselves, but you stay in bed, Abby. I won’t have you tiring yourself out. Not even for someone as agreeable as Gracie.”

  “Don’t worry, Larissa,” Gracie laughed. “I will be a very strict guardian.” She pulled a wingback chair closer to Abby’s bedside, smoothing her rose-colored skirts into submission before sitting.

  “You best not get out of line with me, young lady,” Gracie played.

  “Yes ma’am,” Abby responded with amusement.

  Larissa smiled at the girls’ easy banter. “Hand me those buds, Gracie, and I’ll set them in water for the bedside.” She reached out to Gracie for the bouquet.

  As soon as the door closed behind Larissa, Gracie turned eagerly back to Abby. “So, is it true? Did Douglas really pull you out from under a savage horse just seconds before it trampled you?”

  “What? No.” Abby started, without thinking to hide her irritation. “Is that what people think? That’s not what happened at all,” she snapped. “I was visiting with a new stallion, and Douglas came in shouting about something, spooking me and the horse both. All I could see was this broad figure moving towards me.”

  “Goodness!” Gracie excla
imed. “How frightening. For all you knew, it could have been one of the coloreds coming to attack you.” Gracie sounded horrified.

  Abby ignored the ignorant comment and continued, “I was just walking into the horse’s stall when it happened. That’s the last thing I remember. Larissa thinks Mr. Elling acted the hero, finding me after the horse throttled me.” Abby shook her head. “If you want my opinion, it’s clear the whole thing was entirely his fault.”

  “Oh.” Gracie looked blank-faced at Abby.

  “Look, it’s no major concern,” Abby hedged. “Mr. Elling has been incredibly solicitous since the accident. It’s obvious that he feels badly about what happened. So, no need to worry. Now tell me what’s been happening outside. I’ve been cooped up almost a full week in here. Distract me.” Abby forced out a laugh as she tried to lighten the mood.

  “All right,” Gracie agreed easily. “Truth be told, I’m near bursting to talk to someone about the affair Mama hosted for the Blounts last week. You’re the only one I can trust, the only one Cora Rae hasn’t got to. If I lay it all out, you’ll keep everything just to yourself, won’t you?”

  “Oh, the dinner! With all the commotion, I’d nearly forgotten,” Abby answered. “Yes, no, I won’t say a thing. Whom would I tell?” She sat up straighter in the downy bed and readjusted the position of her bandaged arm.

  “Well, Mama placed me at the table right next to Harrison.” Gracie was speaking quietly, as though there might be someone with an ear to the door. “I don’t think Mama and Daddy know how I feel about him. I would just die from embarrassment.” She flushed, and Abby found herself wondering what Gracie’s life had been like up until this point. Was there more to her new friend than crystallized evening gowns and a flattering glow? She hoped so, as that had been her impression when they had tea the week before.