Union Street Bakery (9781101619292)

by Taylor, Mary Ellen

  “Not any young man, but one Rupert Randolph while he attended the University of Virginia. He went to the university to study medicine. He received his degree in 1832 and returned to his family home in Alexandria.”

  I sensed that I’d glanced into those eyes before, and then I remembered the presence I’d felt a week earlier. Anger had radiated from the figure. Could it have been Dr. Randolph?

  Margaret moved to the next photo of a young girl. A center part divided blond hair, which had been swept back into a low chignon. A high lace collar teased the underside of a square jaw and drew attention to full lips and large, wide-set eyes. Her features weren’t beautiful but she was pleasant enough.

  “This is Elisabeth Stewart who, according to the society page of the Alexandria Gazette, in 1840 married Dr. Randolph in a lavish affair. She was nineteen and from a very wealthy and prominent merchant family. He was thirty at the time of their marriage. It was quite the affair, according to the paper, which reported that the new couple moved into the home Rupert inherited from his father. The marriage did quite a bit to improve the young doctor’s struggling practice.” She arched an eyebrow. “And here is the big kicker. Their house is Mabel’s house.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Rupert Sr. passed the house to Rupert Jr., who left it to his only child, a girl, Frances, who married Colin Woodrow. Frances and Colin had one son, Robert Woodrow.”

  “Mabel’s husband.”

  “Yes. She inherited the house from him when he died in 1946.”

  “I never would have connected the dots. Florence said that Mabel’s will allows her to stay in the house until she dies.”

  Margaret straightened. “When did you see Florence?”

  “A few days ago. I happened by while she was tossing out flowers.” I shifted my attention to the next set of photos. “By the way, Florence says we can dig through Mabel’s attic on Thursday.”

  Her eyes widened. “No shit!”

  “Yep.”

  She sat back, her gaze alight with excitement. “What time?”

  “Six.”

  “Shit. I have to work, but I’ll switch with someone. I am not going to miss this.”

  “I can go it alone,” I teased.

  Margaret held up her hands. “No f-ing way, Daisy. That attic is my idea of a wet dream.”

  I laughed. “And I thought my sex life lagged.” I glanced at the pictures. “These are the Randolph children?”

  She shifted her attention back to the pictures. “Yes.”

  I leaned in to study the delicate lace gowns the infants all wore. A closer look revealed that each child had been photographed in the same white christening gown. In some photos, the children laid in a small cradle and in the last two an older, sterner Mrs. Randolph held a baby in her arms. In the image, mother glanced down at the child but there was no hint of warmth in her eyes. “She doesn’t seem to be happy.”

  “That’s because these first six children were photographed after their deaths.”

  I backed away from the desk and the photos, which in an instant took on a grotesque aura. “What? How do you know that?”

  “A couple of reasons. According to church records, the Randolphs had seven children and six died in infancy before the age of one. The first six children fit that age range.”

  “Yes, but how do you know they are dead and who in God’s name would photograph a dead child?”

  “It was common to photograph the dead in the nineteenth century. It wasn’t like today. In those days, death was a very common threat and worry. And in a time when photos were taken only at very special times, it made sense to mark the end of a life, which would have been their final special event.”

  “But to photograph a dead baby in your arms? That doesn’t strike me as healthy.”

  “It was a different time, Daisy. No doubt Mrs. Randolph also kept snippets of hair from each child and wore them in a locket close to her heart.”

  This woman buried six children. Even in a time when death hovered constantly, that kind of loss had to have been devastating to a young woman. “How did the children die?”

  “That I don’t know. There were outbreaks of typhus and smallpox during those years. The house was also on city water until the late 1840s. Bad water could very well have killed the children. I also wonder if it might have been a genetic issue. But I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

  I lowered my gaze back to the faces of the children. “They look like they’re sleeping.”

  “I know.”

  “So Mrs. Randolph lost six of her seven children. What happened to the seventh?”

  “Rupert Randolph Jr. grew into adulthood. He was the one who inherited Susie. And his survival also supports the theory that bad water killed the first six children. He was born after the family installed a private cistern. Anyway, like I said, he married and had one daughter.” She picked up a picture that had been taken in the 1880s. “Here he is.”

  Father and son were strikingly similar. “They must have cherished him.”

  “I suppose Elisabeth did. Remember Rupert Sr. died when Rupert Jr. was just seven months old.”

  “Crap. I mean I knew that but I forgot. So much death in one family. Did you ever find out how he died?”

  “Heart failure was listed as the cause of death in the Alexandria Gazette’s obituary.”

  “Honestly, it’s a wonder Elisabeth could get out of bed in the morning.” Another picture of Elisabeth taken in the 1860s showed a very different woman. Her features had grown stern, her mouth pinched and her eyes sunken. In this photo she did not stare down at a bouquet in her hands but directly into the camera. Intensity in her eyes made my skin prickle and I resisted the urge to step back. “I can see why she resented Susie so much. Living under her roof was her husband’s child by another woman and as she buried her children, that child thrived.”

  Margaret tapped Elisabeth’s picture. “She lived to be forty-three,” Margaret said. “She died just before the Civil War ended.”

  “How?”

  “From what I can gather, a sudden illness overtook her. According to the paper, her sister, Joanna, moved from Newport News to Alexandria to raise the boy.”

  “So what happened to Susie and Hennie? You said the doctor left them to his son. And we believe Susie was sold, likely by Bruin.”

  “I’m almost certain Mrs. Randolph sold the girl. Both mother and daughter were assets, and after her husband’s death there were a lot of debts to be settled. Seems Dr. Randolph was good at spending money but his medical practice never earned what he’d hoped.

  “Though the house had been an inheritance to the doctor, its maintenance always seemed to remain beyond the doctor’s means. And, by this time, I’m guessing whatever Elisabeth’s father had left her had been spent maintaining their lifestyle.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Filed with the doctor’s will is a petition for payment. He was in real debt at the time of his death. Susie and Hennie would have fetched a good price at market.”

  My voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Do you know if both were actually sold or who bought them?”

  “That is a question I have yet to answer. I have Elisabeth’s and Rupert Jr.’s wills but of course slavery was outlawed in 1863 so Hennie or Susie would not have been listed as assets in Rupert Jr.’s will. But I am going to see if I can get a hold of the property tax records from the late 1850s and early 1860s. The records are spotty, but who knows? I might get lucky. And then there are the records from Bruin’s.”

  “The slave trader. His house is on Duke Street.”

  Margaret’s gaze sparked with approval. “So you do know a little history.”

  “Hard not to, growing up with you. Didn’t you do a paper on him in high school?”

  “Two points, grasshopper. I never thought
you noticed.”

  “I’m the one who took the pictures of you standing in front of the house for the report, remember? We used Dad’s old Polaroid, and you bought me ice cream for my services.”

  “Right again. Bruin operated Bruin and Hill in the 1840s and 1850s. He was arrested at the beginning of the Civil War and put in a Washington, D.C., jail.” The dancing light in Margaret’s eyes signaled she was on the verge of a history lecture.

  “So what’s next?”

  She rubbed her palms together. “More detective work.” She picked up one last photo. “Have a look at this.”

  I hesitated. “Please no more dead children.”

  “No. No more dead children. This is a picture taken of Jenna McCrae and her tutor. Jenna McCrae was Shaun’s daughter from his first wife, who I believe died shortly before they arrived in Alexandria from Ireland.”

  “Jenna? J.”

  “It certainly backs up the story Mabel told. The young slave girl was sent to tend the baker’s daughter. Jenna, by the way, died in 1864 of heart failure caused by an early bout with measles.”

  “How did you come across her?”

  “It just seemed kind of odd that we are descended from a baker, have Mabel’s accounts as well as a slave girl’s journal.” She unfolded a long piece of paper that looked like an ancestry chart. “Sally married Shaun in 1865.”

  “Sally Good was Jenna’s Alexandria friend who attended school with her in Ohio.”

  “Right. Sally and Shaun had four children. We are descended from Thomas, the second son. And guess who is descended from their fourth child, Ruth?”

  I shrugged.

  “Mabel. Sally and Shaun were Mabel’s grandparents.”

  “Damn.”

  I stared at the ancestry chart down through the generations. The line from my parents to Rachel and Margaret was solid. There was a dotted line to my name. “So why give this to the adopted kid?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Studying the browning, faded photo of Jenna and her tutor, I couldn’t help but marvel at the girl’s serene beauty. “How do you know this is Jenna?”

  “Because the tutor’s name was Silas Barnard and he lived and taught in the area in the 1840s and 1850s. Remember, Susie mentioned in one of her journal entries that she wished she could again sit in Mr. B.’s classroom.”

  I leaned back and stared at her, my amazement clear. “Genius.”

  Margaret puffed out her chest. “I wish I had that on tape.” She flipped over the picture and revealed a thick bold script. “Mr. B. was a careful historian. A man after my own heart. See where he’s written, ‘Mr. B. and Jenna McCrae, 1851.’

  “When did Jenna leave for Ohio?”

  “Likely before the war, because Shaun wanted her away from the fighting. Somehow she hooked up again with her dear friend Sally Good.”

  “Sally Good. Shaun’s second wife.”

  “Exactly. Sally accompanied Jenna’s body home. That’s how she and Shaun met.”

  I squinted and stared at the little blond girl with the bright eyes. So much death.

  Standing behind Jenna was another girl. Her face was turned, and she wore a simple dress that appeared a little large for her. Her brown shoes looked well worn. This child had brown hair and pale skin. “There’s another girl in the background.”

  “I think,” Margaret said carefully, “that this girl is your Susie.”

  I shook my head. “It can’t be. She’s too . . . white.”

  “Some slaves did have lighter skin. If her mother was biracial, and she was as well, then light skin could very well have been part of the genetic draw.”

  “But how do you know she is a slave?”

  “It’s conjecture based on her clothing. Worn, oversized. Also she is standing behind the other two and is holding a fan.”

  “Damn.”

  “Virginia law stated that a slave mother’s children were her master’s property. Sadly, the lighter skin would have increased the girl’s marketability. I’m still searching for the bill of sale.”

  “Marketability. Bill of sale. God, we are talking about a child.”

  Margaret shrugged. “I don’t defend. I document.”

  • • •

  I left the Archaeology Center just after nine. Streetlamps mingled with a nearly full moon, making it easy to move down Union Street. I’d walked these streets all of my childhood and a good portion of my adulthood, so I wasn’t worried about trouble. My mind was tangled up in the pictures of Elisabeth and Rupert’s dead children, who’d been so lovingly coiffed and posed for their final images. And of Susie, the little girl in the threadbare clothes with her face turned partly from the camera.

  The restaurants and pubs along the water were alight with patrons. The warming weather would soon pull the tourists into town, and in the coming weeks this whole area would be teeming with people.

  Now when pub doors opened, laughter and music flooded out onto the street in a rush. The scents of beer and pizza also drifted past before doors closed and silenced the revelers.

  A look into a picture window and I could see people crowded around the bar. The women looked dolled up in heels and designer wear and the men had the lean, hungry look of a man on the make. I’d never been good with the bar scene. I gave it a try in college and had some fun. The buzz of alcohol combined with the inane conversations of friends had been a welcome distraction from studies and my self-imposed need to succeed. In the bars I could also, for short bits of time, forget about Renee, Mom’s latest phone call, or my most current breakup. In the confusion, I found peace.

  But as I moved into my early and mid-twenties, the bars lost their appeal. Work became my newest and best distraction—my favorite numbing agent of choice.

  I shoved hands into my pockets, wondering if I’d be in a better place now if I’d taken the time to make more friends. I’d kept relationships light and easy but perhaps I’d have been better off risking more with a little greater depth.

  “Daisy.” The sound of Gordon’s voice caught me off guard. I turned to see him moving toward me with long, even strides. Moonlight glowed above him, highlighting his light hair, biking-T-shirt, jacket, and jeans. Loafers without socks completed the image.

  My stomach tightened, and I braced. In all the years I’d been dating, when I’d left boyfriends in the past, I never looked back. I broke all ties. But with Gordon, the tangle of emotion and past regrets wouldn’t untangle or sever. “Hey.”

  He quickened his pace and caught up to me. “What puts you out on the streets this late? Don’t you bakers get up early?”

  “We do.” I could have used that excuse as my exit strategy but opted to linger. My gaze dropped to his flat belly and flashed to the last time I’d kissed his stomach. Then it had been soft and not so muscled. This newer, sexier Gordon was a bit of a stranger and a little unnerving. Old Gordon wouldn’t have minded the extra pounds I’d gained since my return, but I wondered if New Gordon did.

  “I’m getting used to the odd hours and the lack of sleep.” And that was true. “What has you out?”

  He ran long fingers through his hair. “Chamber of Commerce mixer. Trying to drum up support for the new business.”

  “Grand opening in a couple of weeks.”

  “Four.” He dug in his coat pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me.

  “Singletary Bikes. Union Street, Alexandria, Virginia. I like the little wheel logo. Did you design it?”

  “Nah. It’s stock, just like my website. Working on a shoestring budget these days.”

  “You and me both.” I walked slowly, hoping and not hoping he’d follow.

  He fell in step beside me. “I saw you come out of the Torpedo Factory.”

  “My sister Margaret works in the Archaeology Center. She’s kind of helping me with a project. Long story.
”

  “A project?”

  “A historical thing.”

  “I thought you weren’t a fan of history.”

  “I’m not normally but this thing just kind of caught my attention. Like I said, it’s a long story.”

  “Right now, I got the time. No place to be until tomorrow.”

  “That’s a switch. You with time. And me with time. Seemed neither one of us had it before.”

  A weighty silence settled and lingered. “Yeah. And both of us were too busy to notice.”

  On the few occasions I had shared a bit of myself with him, it had usually been at night in bed. We’d be shrouded in darkness and I’d whisper rare thoughts to him. He’d always listen as if collecting precious nuggets. I had no reason to open up to Gordon now. We were broken up and finished as a couple.

  I sighed. “Margaret is helping me put together the pieces of a girl’s life. She lived in the 1850s.”

  He cocked an eyebrow and I wasn’t sure if he were more surprised by the topic or my openness. “That’s out of left field.”

  “It is.” I laughed. “If you’d bet me a year ago I’d be doing what I was doing and talking about history, I’d have taken the bet and raised you.”

  “Life’s really changed for you.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You’ve apologized before. Shit happens, Gordon.”

  Generally when we got into emotions, I’d shut down and do my best to squirm out of the conversation. But I was tired of that. “This old lady in town left me a journal that belonged to a kid who lived in the 1850s. It’s a long-winded, boring tale that has little interest to most, but Margaret and I are having fun with it.”

  He touched my forearm lightly. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I was just . . . well, like you said, I can be a bit of a martyr. So who was this girl?”

  I searched his gaze looking for any emotion that would tell me to shut up or perhaps just sock him. But the only light that flickered was one of interest. His body was turned toward me and his head was slightly cocked, something I remember he did when he really wanted to hear and understand.

  So, I explained about the journal, Mabel, even Terry’s letter, hesitating every so often to check his expression for any sign of boredom or wandering thoughts. To Gordon’s credit, his gaze never wavered. I finished and let out a long sigh, as if I’d just released a lung full of toxins. “Do I sound like I’ve lost my mind?”