Beneath a Golden Veil

by Melanie Dobson

  Last night’s argument between his father and Naomi, and the shame in his mother’s eyes as she cowered inside her room, haunted him. Now he understood Benjamin’s resolve, the righteousness in his anger. Naomi’s wounds of both body and heart, forced to have sex with a man she hated. And why his mother remained so placid in her own humiliation and fears.

  No matter how much he wanted to understand, he couldn’t comprehend what his father had done. Perhaps that was why his father was so angry at Benjamin. Reflected in the eyes of a slave was his own sin.

  Alden pressed his fingers against his temples. Did his father’s stomach ever churn over how he punished the men and women in his care?

  Perhaps his father felt compassion years ago, but his heart had turned into stone over the years, the power consuming him. How else could someone with life pulsing through his veins kill his own son and then strike the woman he’d abused, threatening to sell her after she gave everything to him?

  And all these years his mother had known.

  Anger swelled within him again. Then sympathy. Compassion and rage.

  Now he understood why his mother’s heart had grown as cold as his father’s, why she’d displayed no despair over what her husband had done last night. The hatred must have consumed her too.

  This was why Naomi told him to leave Scott’s Grove. No matter how much he protested, he wouldn’t be able to change his father’s mind. In the end, he would be an advocate of the evil.

  The carriage hit another rock, and he reached for the rail as the wheels jogged back and forth.

  Why hadn’t someone told him the truth? He’d always wanted a brother, and he’d had one—a half brother who could have thrived at Harvard if given a chance.

  He glanced at the boy sitting resolutely across from him, as if he knew the gravity of what they were doing, and he realized the oak-brown shade of Isaac’s skin was similar to Benjamin’s.

  Could this be Victor’s son? Victor and Eliza had no children, and unfortunately it was acceptable in their society for slave owners, like his father, to sire a slave child—another boy to work in the fields or sell at an auction.

  If Victor was Isaac’s father, what had happened to his mother?

  He shifted on the hard seat. He may never have answers to his questions—it was all so convoluted. And he would never return to the Duvall farm to ask. Benjamin’s future might have been stolen from him, but he prayed there might be some redemption for this boy. Isaac was smart too. Courageous. If a Negro family adopted him in Canada, he could go to school, and then he could work as a freedman up north.

  Isaac reached for the folded copy of the New York Times beside Alden’s valise. Then he seemed to scan the top headlines.

  Startled, Alden leaned forward. “You can read?”

  Isaac nodded proudly. “Master Duvall hired someone to teach me so I could read him the paper before he gets out of bed.”

  “I hope Victor also told you to keep your skill a secret.”

  Isaac shrugged, apparently unconcerned as he continued to scan the first page. Then he turned to the second page. “Looky here,” he said, flicking the paper. “There’s an article about Solomon Northup.”

  Alden had followed that case closely up at Harvard. “What does it say?”

  Isaac read the first few lines. Then he groaned before summarizing. “No one’s going to be punished for kidnapping the man.”

  Alden reached for the newspaper and perused the rest of the story. Isaac was right. While he—and most of his fellow law students—had hoped this case would prompt change in their legal system in regard to slavery, the justice system bowed again to the wealthy slaveholders.

  Thankfully, Northup had been rescued and sent back home, but because of his skin color, he wasn’t allowed to testify against those who had kidnapped him or against the man who’d whipped him and forced him to work as a slave for twelve years.

  Isaac pressed his nose against the cold glass. “Look at that.”

  Alden blinked, taking in his surroundings again. Outside the brougham were giant snowflakes, sticking to the window, salting the ground. The evergreen trees in the distance looked like cones of iced cream.

  It was a miserable day for Stella to get her snow.

  “Where are we going?” Isaac asked.

  He wanted to say they were headed toward freedom, like Solomon Northup after his years in bondage. But he feared what Isaac might say in his enthusiasm. Much better that he found out about his newfound freedom once he was safely in Canada.

  “Eventually we’ll arrive in Boston.”

  Isaac pumped up his chest. “I know all about Boston.”

  “From the newspaper?”

  The boy shook his head. “From reading The Scarlet Letter to Master Duvall. Poor little Pearl.”

  Alden glanced back over at him. “Who’s Pearl?”

  “Hester’s baby.”

  “From The Scarlet Letter?”

  Isaac confirmed with a nod. “Of course, good things happen to Pearl in the end.”

  “Of course,” Alden said, though he hadn’t read the novel. If only every story had a happy ending.

  Five hours after they left Scott’s Grove, Thomas drove the carriage into Alexandria. The streets were mostly quiet on this Christmas Day. He could see people inside some of the homes, sitting as families around their tables.

  As they neared the waterfront, they passed a fenced yard with about twenty black men and women pacing inside. None of them looked over at the carriage.

  “What is that?” Isaac asked, pointing at the snow-covered yard.

  “It’s a slave pen.”

  Isaac eyed the brick building next to it. “They live there?”

  “No. They’re waiting to be sold.”

  Isaac contemplated that information. “Who’ll buy them?”

  “Probably a tobacco or cotton planter. They need thousands of slaves to work in their fields.”

  “Missus Eliza once said she was going to sell me.”

  “I’m glad she didn’t.”

  “Master Duvall wouldn’t let her.”

  “It seems like you are a hard worker, Isaac.”

  “A man fortunate enough to find work is a man fortunate enough to eat.”

  Alden smiled. “I believe that’s true.”

  Though if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t spent much time working for what he was given. Other people had done the hard work for him. Even when he and his father had joined the field slaves, picking and curing their tobacco harvest, their tasks were easy compared to the others. He was anxious to begin working alongside Judah Fallow in San Francisco to finally earn his keep.

  The carriage stopped at the Potomac riverfront, and he saw two steamers waiting at the wharf, including the George Washington, the ship that would take them up to New York. No one was working along the boardwalk today. They’d have to wait until tomorrow for the next leg of their journey.

  At a nearby hotel, the porter helped Thomas transfer Alden’s trunk into a vacant room on the second floor—a simple place with two narrow beds, a dresser, and a window that overlooked a row of shops.

  “Thank you, Thomas,” Alden said as they walked back downstairs.

  “I’m just doing my job.”

  Alden stopped by the carriage. “Would you like to travel north with us?”

  Thomas shook his head. “Master Duvall’s already going to be furious when he discovers Isaac is missing.”

  “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

  Thomas climbed up onto the driver’s seat. “It’s not for me to say.”

  “If you came with us, I’d find passage up to Canada for you too.”

  He held up the reins. “I appreciate it, Master Payne, but I’m too old to start over and too tired to run.”

  Alden nodded. Thomas may not be legally free, but in this case, he was free to choose his own future. “When Mr. Duvall and Mr. Payne ask about us, just tell them the truth.”

  “Can’t see
that I have a reason to lie,” Thomas said with a tip of his hat. “I don’t know anything.”

  The snow continued to fall outside the hotel window, covering the cobblestones on the street. Alden’s stomach rumbled. Even though Isaac didn’t complain, Alden knew he must be hungry as well.

  Alden reached for his cloak. “Stay in the room while I’m gone.”

  Isaac sat on the bed closest to the window. “Can I read while you’re away?”

  “You can read all you want in the room, but whenever we go out, you must act like my slave.”

  Isaac looked confused. “I am your slave.”

  “I mean—” Alden stopped himself.

  “Missus Eliza gave me to you,” Isaac said, as if Alden might have forgotten. “And I ain’t goin’ anywhere unless you sell me to someone else.”

  “I’m not going to sell you,” Alden assured him.

  Isaac leaned back against the headboard, looking quite pleased.

  As Alden stepped out onto the cold street, he prayed no one on the ship tomorrow would suspect what he had done.

  He would protect Isaac with his life if he must, for Benjamin and Naomi’s sake.

  Chapter 11

  West End

  December 1853

  Thomas returned to the Duvall farm more than a week earlier than expected, saying he’d already taken Alden to the wharf in town. Victor didn’t care a lick about Alden, but he’d been stewing since yesterday over what Eliza had done. He already hated his wife, but she’d propelled his hatred to an entirely new level.

  Victor had insisted the coachman turn right back around, transporting him to Scott’s Grove in the dark. Thomas said the two carriage horses needed rest before they started another journey, and none of the other horses on the farm were strong enough for the journey.

  Victor began to reprimand him for his impertinence—and his laziness—until he saw the animals collapsed on the straw in their stalls. And he saw snow piling up on the ground outside.

  There was no sense finding themselves stranded on the road, no matter how much he wanted to leave. Isaac would be safe enough with the Paynes, though John would put him right to work. Perhaps, after Victor rescued him, the boy would have a greater appreciation for his life here. A few days of hoeing or cleaning out the barns would be a good reminder of his comforts back in West End.

  He spent the first hours of the night packing. Then he settled into his bed, but sleep evaded him. Every time he tried to close his eyes, all he could see were Mallie’s eyes looking back, haunting him.

  Leaning over on his pillows, Victor lit a candle and tugged on the brass knob of the writing desk drawer. He shoved aside David Copperfield—a ridiculous story that he and Isaac hadn’t yet finished—and a copy of a brilliant new novel, Moby-Dick. They’d read the book about the whale twice.

  Under the books and smattering of letters was a portrait he’d painted of Mallie after his father died, the image wrapped in a cream-colored silk. Eliza didn’t know he had kept it. At one time, he’d had to keep it hidden, but Eliza never came to his room anymore.

  He lifted Mallie’s portrait from the silk and examined her face in the candlelight, the amber-colored eyes and slender nose and smooth skin free of any blemish. So very beautiful in those months before Isaac was born.

  Mallie had been everything to him. A perfect rose among inferior weeds. A diamond buried in Virginia’s red clay, waiting for someone like him to cut and polish and refine her beauty. He’d never known a fairer woman. Nor one so challenging.

  His mother and then the Honorable Arthur Duvall protected her while they were alive, as if Victor meant to harm her. He had wanted nothing more than to love Mallie, to keep her as his own.

  Arthur the Honorable couldn’t stop him from beyond the grave.

  Still, Mallie had resisted him, but in the end, she’d had no choice but to succumb. He hadn’t wanted to be so harsh. He knew what was best for her—for both of them. He’d only wanted them to be together.

  He held her portrait up to his chest.

  Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.

  He and Mallie were supposed to be true to one another—like Melville wrote—heart to heart. No matter what trials they faced in this life. They were never supposed to separate.

  Anger ripped through him, like it always did when he thought about Mallie. The portrait shook in his hands.

  Where had she gone? And after he had loved her so deeply, why had she abandoned him? Since he was fifteen, he’d known that she was supposed to be his—and then she left him. The loss tore him up on the inside.

  He’d searched everywhere for her that spring and then summer, traveling to the slave markets and even up to Boston and Philadelphia after Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. It was illegal now for the Yankees to harbor runaways, and he’d hoped that he might find her hiding among the freed slaves. With this law, she would have had no choice but to return to Virginia with him. He didn’t care a whit what Eliza thought.

  His search had availed him nothing, though. It seemed the woman he’d loved more than anything had disappeared.

  One day, Mallie would return to him. He’d find her—and she would pay for leaving him—but she’d change her mind. One day, she would love him as he loved her.

  Closing his eyes, he savored the thought of reclaiming her as his slave. Once he found her, she would never leave him again.

  He wrapped the portrait back up in the silk and secured it in his leather portfolio, along with his art supplies and the important documents he carried with him wherever he went.

  Isaac hadn’t left him as Mallie had done. Nor would he ever leave this house again without Victor at his side.

  After Isaac’s birth, Victor had swept in and personally found a colored nursemaid to care for him without Eliza’s interference—at first for collateral and then because he grew fond of the boy. As long as the boy treated him with respect, he would have a comfortable home here. John Payne would have to find another slave to help in the fields.

  When the clock struck the six o’clock hour, he rose from his bed and dressed quickly. He’d planned to go alone to Scott’s Grove, but Eliza was waiting for him downstairs. She climbed into the carriage behind him without a word and didn’t budge.

  Instead of protesting, he decided that it was exactly as it should be—she could explain to her father why she gave him Isaac: because she was obsessively, insufferably jealous of a nine-year-old slave boy.

  John would understand why Victor wanted him back. He was equally protective of the slaves in his care.

  They arrived at Scott’s Grove before noon and found Nora Payne in the drawing room by herself, beside the unlit pine tree. When she turned and saw Eliza, her stoic lips turned upward into a sad smile.

  “My dear,” Nora said, hurrying toward her daughter. “Why are you here?”

  Eliza didn’t return her smile. “Victor insisted that we visit.”

  Then Nora squeezed his neck much too hard. “You are a good son,” she said, soaking the shoulder of his waistcoat with an enormous amount of tears.

  When she released him, he searched the room for Isaac, as if the boy might be hiding behind a high-backed sofa or the long drapery around the windows.

  “John’s in Charlottesville,” Nora said. “He should return soon.”

  “Do you know where Isaac is?” Victor asked, stepping away from her before her tears ruined his clothing.

  Nora looked over at him, confused. “Who is Isaac?”

  Eliza snorted. “His personal page.”

  “Why would your servant be here?”

  Victor motioned toward his wife, but didn’t look her way. “Eliza sent him with Alden.”

  Nora pressed her eyes closed for a moment, then reopened them. “There was a boy who arrived with Alden, but I don’t know where he went. Alden left us yesterday while we were in ch
urch.”

  Tears began to pour again.

  “Yes, yes,” Victor replied with a wave of his hand. “Thomas said he took Alden to Alexandria.”

  “He was supposed to celebrate Christmas with his family.”

  Victor stared at the woman, perplexed. Is that why she was crying? Because her son left early? Women were absurd. Alden was a grown man, yet Nora treated him like he were a child. His brother-in-law was a radical. An idealist. Victor wished he would stay up in Cambridge permanently instead of returning to Scott’s Grove.

  He moved back to the door. “Perhaps Isaac is with the other house slaves.”

  Nora returned to the sofa. “I suppose.”

  “I’ll go search for him.”

  The two women began babbling nonsense. About the snow, the journey, Eliza’s plans to stay here until the New Year.

  Eliza hadn’t discussed her plans with him, but Scott’s Grove would be as good of a place as any to spend a week or two this winter. A welcome relief, really, from the doldrums of the farm. He and Isaac could begin reading the whale book again, and he could amuse himself with the other books in John’s library.

  Downstairs, he asked a woman stirring the kitchen fire about Isaac, but she gave him a blank look which made him deem her either deaf or daft. The upstairs servants said they’d seen a new boy, but they didn’t know where he went.

  Victor searched the bedchambers. John’s office.

  “Isaac,” he called out into the small library, but still the boy didn’t answer. Had his father-in-law already sent Isaac out to the fields?

  When he couldn’t find Isaac in the house, he found his coachman in the stables, grooming a horse. “Thomas, have you seen Isaac?”

  The man kept brushing. “Yes, sir.”

  Confound it. He should have asked Thomas hours ago. “Where is he?”

  Thomas looked up, confusion in his eyes. “I took him and Master Alden to Alexandria yesterday.”

  Victor kicked a stool. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I did tell you.”

  Victor clenched his fists. “You just told me about Alden.”