“Ann! You’ve been a stranger this winter! What keeps you away so much?” he asked.
“Lots of work. Papa, Jesse, Nathaniel, Betsy and her beau.”
Ben laughed. “Yes, many’s the time I’ve seen Will McKitrick’s horse in Papa’s barn.”
The little girls tumbled over one another, bidding for their father’s attention. “They’ll soon be like us,” he grinned, “overrun with these.”
“Betsy’ll be glad for it.”
“And you, Ann. Your turn is likely coming home from Chambersburg right now.”
I blushed, my eyes downcast. “Maybe so. I’d best be going. Betsy will think I’ve abandoned her.”
I pulled on my boots and coat for the long walk through deep snow and purple shadows to the farm. It was so cold the snow squeaked under my boots. As I looked down toward the creek, I saw Sawyer Hartley trudging through the snow like me, only he was dragging a fresh cut pine tree behind him. I wondered what Christmas would be like in that hardscrabble cabin by the creek. The moon was already rising when I stepped up on our back porch and stomped the snow off.
When I opened the door, I found the whole family seated at the table. I took off my coat, hung it on a peg, tied on my apron, and helped Betsy serve the meal.
“What’s new with Ben?” Jesse wanted to know.
“Working on Christmas, same as us,” I replied. “Rebecca looks well but ready to pop. I guess they’d like a boy this time.”
Papa cleared his throat. “Must needs.”
“Any sign of Elias?” Jesse asked.
I shook my head.
“Ann would have told us in a second if there were,” Betsy laughed.
My brothers smiled mischievously, while Papa ate in silence. He never mentioned Elias to me, preferring, I suppose, to wait for the fact.
Christmas came. No Elias. Still, I struggled to contain my disappointment. There was Meeting and dinner and visits with family and friends. Mary and Noah Poole came from Osterburg on the sledge with their five children, and Ben and Rebecca came with their girls. The new parlor was full to bursting with talk and laughter, and I served our guests, struggling to keep my mind off Elias. It was the first time in years that almost the whole family was together. Only Rachel was missing. Living in Altoona, apparently, but no one had heard from her since she’d become Mrs. Jacob Schilling.
Christmas was hard for Josiah, for though I carried platefuls of food to him, he was confined to the space under the eaves with only a candle and his slate to occupy him. We gave him his new geography book in the morning, and he tried manfully to read and study it all day. But I knew he was lonely, thinking of Lettie.
He couldn’t write to her. Any letter would be intercepted by the mistress. Anyway, Lettie couldn’t read. On one of my trips up to check on him, Josiah asked me to write Lettie’s name on the slate, and he spent the afternoon under the eaves laboriously copying it over and over, along with his own name, Josiah.
New Year’s day came and went. The weather was cold, the snow up three feet on the side of the barn. Folks traveled by sleigh, harness bells jingling merrily in the cold air. Still no sign of Elias. I expected his parents had surely heard from him by now, but Rebecca didn’t speak of it, so I took that to mean they hadn’t. Faced with this, I was careful to keep my feelings to myself, but I was distraught with fear and worry. Was he sick? Had something happened to him? Who could I ask? Where could I turn?
Deep inside came a gnawing fear that he was somehow lost to me. That he wasn’t coming home at all. That he’d had a change of heart. ‘Change of heart?’ I asked myself. Who knew his heart? Surely, not I. There was really nothing between us but speculation. No understanding. No promise. Certainly no betrothal. It was all in my mind, fed by the idle talk of well-meaning outsiders. They’d nourished my hopes, and I’d assumed that something would come of walks in the woods, frequent visits, letters passed back and forth.
Now I divided my anguish between fear for his safety and fear that I really had no claim to him at all. The latter was worse.
Then, on the afternoon of the 8th of January, I heard harness bells, and, with a sinking feeling I could not explain, I knew Elias was home. Papa and Nathaniel had gone to Bedford on business; Betsy and Will McKitrick were off skating on the pond at Dunning’s Mill. Only Jesse and I were home.
A pair of fine looking black horses pulled the sleigh into the dooryard. There sat Elias, up front, wrapped warm against the cold. At his side sat a young woman. She smiled shyly from under a new wool bonnet, stepping daintily from the sleigh with Elias’ help. At first I thought she must be a cousin up from Chambersburg to visit. But when I saw the look that passed between them coming across the dooryard, I knew.
“Jesse, Ann, I want you to meet my wife, Melissa Finley,” Elias grinned.
Jesse recovered first, striving to sound natural. “Well, eh, Elias, you old fox,” he said, with a careful sidelong look at me. “You never let on a thing.” He smiled, taking both of Melissa’s small, daintily gloved hands in his. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Finley.”
Her eyes sparkled, even as she demurred. “And you, Mr. Redfield,” she smiled. She was young. Not more than twenty. And pretty. She turned to me. With great effort I recovered my composure enough to smile.
“Yes! Melissa, is it? What a joy to meet you.”
Melissa reached up and kissed my cheek. “Ann Redfield. I’m privileged to meet you. Elias has told me so much about you. He admires you so. I only hope I can come close to following your example.”
Befuddled, I stepped back. I couldn’t look at Elias, who blithely took his wife’s arm and steered her toward the front door.
“We can’t stay long,” he announced as they entered the parlor. “We’re making the rounds of introductions. We’ve got at least three more stops before dark.”
“Yes, yes.” I replied. “It must be a whirlwind for you. But surely you have time for some pie. I baked this morning.”
Elias lit up at the prospect of pie. “You’ll see, my dear,” he said to Melissa, “what I mean by ‘best cook in the settlement’.” He looked at me. Our eyes met for the first time, mine questioning, his unreadable. He turned to his pretty new wife, attentive to her every need.
Well, I asked myself, what could his eyes reveal? ‘I’m sorry, Ann. I went away and fell in love? I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I couldn’t help myself?’ What could he say? What could anybody say? What is, is.
Leaving Jesse to entertain our guests, I excused myself to the kitchen to make tea. Seeking refuge, I stepped blindly through the low door to the old cabin, almost bumping into Josiah, who stood in the kitchen, looking lost.
“Josiah!” I whispered. “You’d better get on upstairs.”
“I was waitin’ for you to come, Ann. So if I made any noise, no one would pay any mind.”
“Well, you’d best go before someone takes it in their head to come out here.”
“Yes’m. That be Elias Finley you so worried about?” He moved toward the stairway door.
Sorry now that I hadn’t been more discreet, I whispered, “Yes.”
“Who that woman?”
“His wife.”
Josiah looked at me, dumbfounded, his hand on the door latch. “He wife?” he whispered. “Did you say he wife?”
I turned my back, pumped the kettle full, and set it over the fire. I got out four plates, placing them noisily to cover the sound of Josiah’s ascent. I cut the pie, made that morning from cherries I’d put by last summer. My hands shook. I stopped and held myself around the middle. I opened the cupboard and got out the tin of tea, took down Mama’s best teapot from the shelf, and filled it with boiling water. Cups. Saucers. Sugar. Cream. Tears. I wiped them away, fighting for control. I put the tea things on a pewter tray Nathaniel had given me for Christmas, carried it into the parlor, and placed it on a table.
We ate quietly, Melissa chattering lightly about how beautiful Bedford County was. “This is the farthest west I’ve ever be
en. I’ve been east to Gettysburg, York, Lancaster, Chester and even to Philadelphia, but never west before.”
Between sips of tea she looked around the parlor. When her eyes fell on Elias, I saw the exchange of loving glances. The visit was brief. Elias didn’t want the horses to get chilled. After a few more niceties, they were on their way.
I cleared and rinsed the dishes, then dried my hands on my apron, took my coat from its peg, and stepped out into the waning afternoon. With nowhere else to go, I stumbled along the snowy path to the barn. Inside the cold, dark building I climbed the ladder to the hay mow and fell on my knees in the hay.
From deep inside me came a moan that grew and surged and swelled to a scream—agonizing, full of pain, longing and disappointment.
Inside the house, Jesse heard it. So did Josiah.
Chapter 7
1855
After that, nothing was right. I struggled with anger, hatred, jealousy—unfamiliar feelings. I was wrestling with angels, and I was exhausted. Exhausted with pretending I didn’t care when all I wanted to do was scream, rend my clothes, or sleep.
Jesse watched me, concerned, for he knew better than anyone how I’d dreamed of marrying Elias. I found myself trying, even with him, to pretend it wasn’t such a big disappointment. When First Day came, I couldn’t bear to sit in Meeting in silence, knowing that the thoughts of many were on me. Couldn’t bear Elias Finley standing to introduce his new wife. Couldn’t bear to stand by after Meeting while congratulations were heaped upon the happy couple.
I rose early that morning, intending to overcome my distress, but when it was time to bank the fire and put on my bonnet, I hesitated, searching for an excuse to stay home.
“Papa, I’m not feeling well today. I think I’ll miss Meeting.”
Amos looked at me, expressionless, nodded and picked up his hat. Betsy squeezed my hand as she followed Papa and Nathaniel out the door. Jesse stopped and looked into my eyes.
“You’ll have to go back sometime, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but I can’t, yet.”
“It’ll be harder if you stay away too long.”
“I’ll be careful not to do that,” I promised. “Only don’t pity me, Jesse. I can’t bear that. I’ll be all right.”
“I know you will. I’m put out with Elias right now. There’s nothing to be done but accept it, but it was wrong, the way he treated you.” He touched my arm.
“Elias has a right to marry whomever he pleases. He wasn’t promised to me.”
“Not in words, maybe, but . . .”
“Hurry on, Jesse. They’re waiting for you.”
He turned, set his hat on his head, and followed the others out the door.
The snow was so bright on that cold January day that it hurt the eyes. I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and put meat on to roast. I left a bowl of oatmeal on the table for Josiah. He would come down once it was safe. I poured myself a cup of tea, climbed the stairs to my bedroom, and got back into bed with my journal. For the first time since Elias’ return, I tried to give vent to the surging, boiling emotion within me.
I wrote feverishly—used real words like hate and mean and liar and deceiver. I wished ill upon Elias, gave vent to all the angry, bitter, hateful feelings that swirled in my brain. But when I read it, I didn’t feel better. I felt ashamed for the meanness and bitterness.
I heard Josiah go down the back stairs to the kitchen. After a while, he came back up and stopped by the low door that joined the old cabin to the new. He stood there for a full minute, listening. I listened, too. Then I heard him go into Jesse’s room. I hoped he wouldn’t crawl back under the eaves. It was such a beautiful morning. A man should be free on a day like this. Through my grief and anger, I thought of him and was ashamed for raging about Elias when a man like Josiah had so little. I pushed the journal aside, got up from the bed, and went to the low door.
“Josiah,” I called softly.
“Yes’m.”
“Don’t hide yourself away on so beautiful a day.”
“No’m. I’m lookin’ out. It sure enough beautiful,” he agreed. “Who that woman out there?”
“Woman? What woman?” I opened the door and stepped down into Nathaniel’s room. It was warmer here, because of the heat from the kitchen. I moved past Nathaniel’s bed into Jesse’s room.
“She gone now. Out behind the barn. Look like she lookin’ for firewood or somethin’. Had a bundle on her back.”
Pru Hartley. Couldn’t be anybody else. “More likely food than firewood,” I replied. “I’ll have to count my chickens when I go for the eggs.” I stood looking out the window for a long time, but Pru didn’t reappear. She’d probably gone straight down over the hill. I turned to Josiah, who sat on the floor with his back to the wall of his hiding place. He smiled.
I sat down in Jesse’s rocker, facing him, hands in my lap.
“You all right, Miss Ann?”
I straightened, smiled brightly. “Of course, Josiah. Why do you ask?”
“You stay home from Meetin’.”
“Oh, yes. I’m a little headachy today. It will pass.”
“’Bout Mr. Finley?” he asked.
I frowned. “Mr. Finley? What about Mr. Finley?”
“He brought him home a wife.”
“Yes. Yes, he did, but why should that matter to me?” I wanted to assure myself that Josiah didn’t think . . . didn’t think what?
“Josiah, what can you be thinking?” I asked, rubbing at the ink stains on my fingers.
“I think you loved him and expected to marry him.”
“No, Josiah. It was nothing like that. We were just friends. That’s all.”
Josiah smiled and shook his head. His hands hung limp from forearms resting on his knees. “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me.”
“Talk to you? Why wouldn’t I want to talk to you?”
“’Cause I’m a slave. Or was. Ain’t no more.”
“Do you think I see you as below me? Is that it?”
He nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“No, Josiah. Don’t ever think that. You know we’re all equal in the eyes of God.”
“Equal in God’s eyes don’t mean equal in man’s eyes.”
I studied his face, anxious to reassure him. “You’re a curiosity to me. I’ve never known a Negro before. Never talked to one at all, let alone about my feelings.” I toyed with a thread on my apron pocket. “I wonder how you see the world. What you think about things.”
“Don’t try and figure me out like I’m so different from you.” He sounded offended. “I’m a man with black skin. You can’t clump us all together and put us in a box on a shelf and expect us to stay where we’re put. We’re people, just like you.” He looked at me, his eyes dark. “And I know hurt when I see it. You’re hurt, Miss Ann. You can talk to me or not talk to me, but I know hurt.”
He watched me struggle for control. I’d come over here to distract myself, not to give in to the pain. A tear slowly made its way down my face. I brushed it away but another followed.
“I wanted to be his wife,” I whispered. “I thought he wanted that, too.” Now the tears flowed freely. I fumbled in my apron pocket for a handkerchief.
Josiah reached up and took my hand. I let him hold it as I talked—babbled really—about my feelings for Elias Finley. “He never said . . . I just thought . . . I know he cared for me. What happened? What happened?”
Reaching up, he pulled me toward him on the floor. I let myself move until I knelt facing him, between his knees, his hands on my shoulders. He gazed steadily into my eyes.
“He fell in love,” he said. “He didn’t mean to hurt you. It just happen. Sometime people fall in love of a sudden. They don’t plan to, but they do.”
“He completely forgot about me,” I said, thinking of Melissa Finley’s pert little body and sunny face.
“He didn’t forget you. He just want her more. Can’t help himself.”
Now I leaned into him
and let myself cry. The smell of his body, like leaves in the fall, comforted me.
“I hate him. Hate his deceit. How could he do this when he knew I was waiting for him? How could he forget about me so easily?”
“I know you hate him now. Her, too, prob’ly. But someday it be all right. You’ll understand. Most times folks do things that hurt other folks not ‘cause they want to hurt but ’cause they’s a hunger inside that’s not bein’ fed.” His words brushed my ear as I leaned against him.
“I know you’re right, but it hurts.”
“Hurts ’cause of your own heart, or ‘cause of what other folks think?”
“Both, I think. I feel so foolish and that makes the hurt more.”
“That’ll pass. Most folks too busy with their own cares to bother much about yours.
I sat back on my knees and looked at him. “You’re very perceptive.”
“Perceptive? What that mean?”
“It means you understand things without being told. You read what’s inside of people.”
“Oh. You surprised?”
Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad Page 6
