The House Girl

by Tara Conklin

  Lina got the distinct impression that Nora Lewis was trying to put her off.

  “Yes, I’ve already been there,” Lina replied. “I’m afraid I didn’t find anything helpful. They actually directed me here. To you.” Lina’s hand, still holding the business card, hovered over the counter. With a deep sigh, Nora Lewis reached out and took it. At first she read the card with narrowed eyes and a scrunched-up look of physical pain but then her features relaxed, her eyebrows lifted.

  “Sparrow,” she said in a different voice altogether, something almost approaching congeniality. “Now that’s an unusual name. You’re not related to Oscar Sparrow, the artist, are you?”

  “Well, he’s my father, actually,” Lina said weakly. Oscar’s fame still surprised her and invariably made her uncomfortable, as though to admit his paternity was an act of arrogance on her part. But she saw now an openness on the face of Nora Lewis that had been lacking just a moment before. Lina smiled. “He’ll be thrilled to hear he has a fan in Lynnhurst.”

  “Oh, how wonderful! I do enjoy his work.” A pause, and Nora Lewis looked again at Lina’s card, studying it with a concentration that seemed directed at something more than Lina’s credentials. She was deciding, Lina realized, how best to exercise her small but determinative power. “Well, we do have a procedure for use of the archives—an advance written request is usually required. We’ve been very strict recently, what with all this authorship brouhaha.” Nora Lewis rolled her eyes. “But most everything relating to Lu Anne was taken away last week by the Foundation, so I can’t imagine what the harm would be … May I ask what specifically you’re looking for?” Nora Lewis held Lina’s eyes, and she was sweet and steely at the same time.

  Lina hesitated before answering. Should she tell her about the slavery reparations case? This was the South after all, a region as unfamiliar and exotic to Lina as a foreign country. Literature, history, and politics had prepared her for a certain kind of lush landscape peopled with hard-bitten men and carefully demure women, but Nora Lewis, with her braid and bracelets, had already fallen well outside these expectations. For the briefest moment Lina considered concocting a story, but it seemed certain that Nora’s unflinching gaze would see through any attempt at fabrication. And so Lina told her the truth. She explained about the reparations case, the premise that a descendant of Josephine’s might serve as lead plaintiff, Dorothea’s letters, Lina’s hope and belief that Josephine had given birth to a child at Bell Creek, that her bloodline had continued. But the crucial next step was discovering what had happened to Josephine’s child.

  Lina stopped. Her hands had been in motion as she spoke and she let them drop now to her sides. Nora was seated behind the counter, looking up at Lina.

  “My. How interesting,” Nora said. “That is certainly a new one. The Stanmore folks, they’re interested in losing Josephine Bell, not in finding her, if you catch my drift.” She smiled grimly. “I may be able to help you,” she said. “There are some documents related to the farm and the slave holdings that might be of interest. If you come back in an hour or two, I’ll pull some materials together for you.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Lewis. I appreciate it immensely,” Lina said. She felt the sweet rush of success.

  “Call me Nora. Everybody does.” She gave a little shake of her head and the earrings sparkled.

  AT ELEVEN THIRTY LINA RETURNED to the Bell Center, which now bustled with visitors, the parking lot nearly full with tourist buses and vans, the paths dotted with women walking slowly, pausing to read a plaque, smell a flower. Only the archives building remained empty, the light dim, the air conditioner steadily humming. Nora was seated before a large black electric typewriter, typing as a hen pecks its feed, slow but efficient.

  “Oh hello, dear,” Nora said. Bracelets jangling, she emerged from behind the counter. Nora wore open-toed strappy sandals, her toenails painted a brilliant blue. “Follow me,” she said.

  Lina trooped behind Nora, down a narrow passageway cut between tall shelving units, each stocked with rectangular boxes, typewritten labels affixed to the ends. At the far end of the building, Nora pulled open a heavy door. Fluorescent strips flickered overhead and they stood in a gray room that reminded Lina of the large internal conference rooms at Clifton & Harp, bleakly vast and devoid of any decoration. The room was empty save for a rectangular table surrounded by metal chairs and, on top of the table, an open cardboard box. Beside the box sat a thick leather-bound book that looked fragile and ancient.

  With a grating scrape, Lina pulled out a chair and sat. Her hands were shaking. She felt heat in her belly, and then cold, the feeling she always got just as a plane took off: the rush of acceleration, the anticipation of liftoff and then the sinking sensation as the nose tipped up and, in that exact instant, you were airborne.

  Nora gestured toward the book. “That there is Robert Bell’s farm book. It’s got most everything to do with any of the slaves, including Josephine. I’ve picked out some other things for you too, papers to do with the farm mostly.” Nora patted the top of the box. “I sincerely hope you find something for your case. I don’t suppose that would be a popular position around here, but I wish you the best of luck with it.”

  “Thank you, Nora.”

  “And there’s one last thing. Remember to wear these when you’re handling the materials.” She handed Lina a pair of thin white cotton gloves. “Your fingers are like little death rays when it comes to these old papers. Oily and dirty, even if they don’t look it.”

  “I understand,” Lina said solemnly as she slipped on the cotton gloves.

  With a wink, Nora left the room.

  Lina pulled the first pages from the box and began to read.

  Lists: lists of kitchen utensils; furniture; types of fabric and what each covered (blue chintz—curtains, brown damask—settee); flowers; foodstuffs; first names (Clara, Charlotte); colors (indigo, red); birds and their calls; insects; vegetables; book titles and their authors. Tables of figures, sums added. Household expenses, the price of tobacco, number of bushels picked and by whom.

  Receipts: for sale of thirteen head of cattle; chickens; a plow; ten cords of wood; sugar, tea, and salt; Otis, a mulatto slave of good physique.

  The pages, it seemed, had belonged to a number of different people; Lina noticed several varied handwritings. One was heavy, hard to read, the ink often blurring across the page as though the author had not waited for it to dry before placing the page into a desk drawer or folding it in half. Another was distinctly feminine, the letters angled far to the left so they appeared to lie down across the page, the ink fine and pale. And a third hand, or perhaps more, it was difficult to tell. A hand that was at times childish, uncertain, but other times confident and bold: the list of books and authors looked as though written hastily, but the vegetable list seemed labored, each letter formed slowly, blotches running darkly across the paper where the ink had pooled.

  Lina turned next to the leather-covered book, the top swollen, the edges of the thick pages uneven and frayed. The inside front cover read, The Farm Book of Bell Creek, Virginia, 1830—Mr. Robert Bell, Proprietor. The first pages catalogued the number of acres, acres planted and with what (tobacco, corn, wheat), planting dates, harvest dates, livestock owned. Following was a section titled “Slaves.” A list of first names, with a date listed beside them. Was this the date of birth? Date of purchase? Lina could not be sure. The names: Therese, Winton, Lottie, Rebecca, Josephine, Hap, Otis, Josiah, Jonas, Nora, Louis, Annie, Constance, David, Henry, Jackson, Nellie, Calla, May, James, Solomon, Harriet, Sue, Nathan. Each had an additional notation by the name, a date alone or a date plus a dollar amount: death or sale, Lina realized.

  Lina flipped the page and there was another list, this one without names or title. Only: Boy, Girl, x, Boy, Boy, x, x, Girl, x, Girl, x, x, x, Boy, Boy, Girl, x. And beside each listing, the same date written twice, separated by a dash. Birth and death. The same day. A span of thirteen years was represented here, and Lina counte
d the children born without a name to Lu Anne Bell: seventeen. Seventeen miscarriages and stillbirths. Seventeen pregnancies. And then, the last listing, “Boy, August 28, 1848–” with no date listed for death.

  Lina looked again at the notation. It must have been Robert Bell’s writing; all entries in this book were in the same hand, the heavy pen strokes. It was well documented that the Bells had had no children who’d lived more than a few moments past birth. Had Robert Bell simply forgotten to write the date of death? Had he been too distraught? That child had come when Lu Anne was thirty-nine years old, two years after the previous notation, probably an unexpected, surprise pregnancy. Perhaps they had thought, hoped that this last one, with so many behind them, would survive. That a Bell child would be born.

  Or maybe the child was not Lu Anne’s?

  Turning to the slave pages of the book, Lina looked again for any slave child with the same date of birth. No, each child born to one of the Bell slaves was listed by name under a separate heading titled “Increase” with the birth date written beside it. Each child’s name was also noted beside the name of its mother, with additional relevant notations. “Lottie, 1813.… Hap, born 1839, died (stung) 1851.” The last child born at Bell Creek was in 1842, to Calla, and died the same year. Beside the listing for Josephine, no child’s name appeared.

  Lina checked the notes she had taken on the Dorothea Rounds letters. What was the date of the letter that referenced Josephine? Last night a girl came to the house. Heavy with child. When did the girl come?

  Dorothea wrote to her sister Kate on August 28, 1848, the same day the Bell baby was born. Lina felt a warmth, a quickening of her pulse.

  A heavily pregnant Josephine came to the Rounds barn and left in the night. The next day, a baby was born at Bell Creek. Lina refused to believe in coincidence, in luck; she knew with a swift certainty, here was evidence that Josephine’s child had been born at Bell Creek and that Robert Bell had recorded its birth.

  Lina checked again the other pages: there was no record of the child’s death or sale. What had happened to the boy?

  After Lu Anne died, Lina had read, Robert Bell did not stay long at Bell Creek. He promptly married the local schoolteacher, declared bankruptcy, left the state of Virginia, and settled in Louisiana. But what happened to the people who had lived with him at Bell Creek?

  Lina looked for the last notation in the farm book. House, goods, slaves, and all other chattel sold to Mr. Justice Stanmore of Stanmore Hill, on this day the 10th of November, 1852.

  And today it was the Stanmore family who retained control of the Bell Center, the Bell estate, the Bell art, the legacy of all that Robert Bell had sold away.

  With care, Lina flipped through the book’s remaining pages, all of them blank. At the very end, folded against the back cover as if someone had placed it there for safekeeping, nestled a loose paper folded once. Cautiously Lina pried it loose, the paper coming away stiffly with a tearing sound, but the page itself, she saw with relief, remained intact. The book’s back cover showed a yellow-edged rectangle where the paper had rested. How long has this been hidden here? Lina thought. She unfolded the paper, her fingers seeming thick and unwieldy. She saw first the word REWARD in large thick black type, the ink so heavy it seemed almost fresh. Underneath in smaller type, the poster read:

  Runaway, my Black Woman JOSEPHINE, gone since Sept. 24, 1852. Seventeen years of age, well grown, tawny skin, eyes of unusual color, a valued house girl and nurse. She took with her one pair of leather boots, one blue and white dress, one green shawl. REWARD of $100 upon return to me ROB’T BELL, near LYNNHURST, Charlotte County, Virg. or secured in jail wherever taken.

  The paper felt gritty and rough through the thin fabric of her gloves, and with an inexplicable urgency Lina refolded the page and replaced it within the farm book. She pulled off the gloves and wiped her fingers against the wool of her trousers as if this final page had somehow dirtied them.

  Josephine, gone since Sept. 24, 1852.

  So Josephine had run again. Once in 1848 and then again in 1852. And the second time, she did not return to Bell Creek. Lina grinned in the cool, airless room as an image came to her, of Josephine on the road, heading north, away from the Bells and her intolerable life there. But in that image, Josephine was alone; she did not escape with her son. Lina’s grin faded. Josephine must have left her son behind, and this realization unexpectedly clouded Lina’s sight and she closed her eyes. Maybe she was wrong. Could she be wrong? No. If Josephine had run with a child, surely Robert Bell would have stated as much in the reward poster. A fugitive slave traveling with a child would have been easy to spot; she would have been easy to catch.

  A knock at the door startled Lina. She raised her head and felt momentarily disoriented here, back in the Bell archives, the digital clock flashing red on the wall, Nora hovering in the doorway with eyebrows raised, her long gray braid and cotton skirt, her rubber-soled sandals and noisy bracelets. The physical qualities of the room, the faintly flickering light, the smell of dust and mildew, the cool metal table intruded on the past and brought Lina back to herself.

  “So, did you find anything?” Nora asked.

  Lina gave a tentative nod. “I think that I did. But I may need some more information. I’m interested in the sale of slaves from Robert Bell to Justice Stanmore on November 10, 1852. What exactly did Justice Stanmore buy? He must have noted more details about the purchase than Robert Bell did about the sale.”

  “Mr. Stanmore had a farm book, similar to the Bells’. I’m sure that kind of information would be included.” Nora brushed a stray hair from her face. “But I’m afraid all the materials relating to the Stanmore family are held over at the Stanmore Foundation. It’s just across town, but they are very strict about their viewing policy. Academics only.” She gave a sly smile. “I could request that they send it over here, though. Can you come back tomorrow?”

  BACK IN HER BUDGET HOTEL room, its walls painted a withering shade of yellow, Lina opened her laptop and searched online for information relating to the Stanmore family. A daguerreotype of Justice Stanmore appeared: a potbellied, fair-haired dandy, his lips too fleshy, his eyes too pale. He looked as though he burned easily in the sun and did not look favorably on work. The Stanmore plantation was now on the historical register of protected sites in Virginia, Lina read. In the spring and autumn months, tour groups trooped through its gardens, down to the tobacco fields, the old dairy house, the blacksmith shed and meat house, into the curing barn where the bundles of bright leaf were still hung to dry and darken.

  She followed a link to the Stanmore Foundation’s official website, a glossy affair with rousing background music, fade-in historical photographs alongside modern shots of smiling schoolchildren on field trip visits and straight-backed men, black and white, amid the green of the tobacco fields. Over $12 million in grant money had been awarded last year in the foundation’s focus areas of cultural enrichment, community development, social justice, and race relations. Every year, the Justice K. Stanmore Award provided an outstanding individual with $50,000 for his or her work in promoting racial harmony in the state of Virginia.

  Nothing on the foundation website mentioned Lu Anne Bell, Josephine Bell, or the artwork controversy.

  Lina’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, and her thoughts turned to Jasper Battle and his family heirlooms. Coming out of the woodwork, Porter had said. Be careful, Lina. But Porter’s suspicions seemed at odds with the Jasper Lina had met, his clear eyes and how he spoke about his father. Jasper Battle, Lina typed into a search engine. Up popped several dozen hits: links to a middle-aged tax attorney in Pensacola, Florida, to a gaming website where hordes of locusts fought for supremacy in the Battle of Jasper, to a high school student in Duluth who enjoyed lacrosse and partying with his homies. Finally, toward the end of the list, a website for the rock band The Wisdom appeared. Lina opened the link. A photo flashed onto the screen of four indie-rock-looking men, all in their twenties, all tattooed to
some degree, with varying heights and skin tones, and there he was, staring out with a frank, direct gaze, identified as “Jasper Battle: Bass.” As Lina explored the site, a few simple pages popped up, of gig dates and performance photos. One showed Jasper as a dark silhouette on a backlit stage, his arms blurry with motion across a bass guitar, legs spread wide, head down.

  Lina dialed the number Jasper had given her last week. He picked up on the first ring.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Jasper’s tone was so contrite, so genuine that Lina wanted immediately to reassure him, but of course the apology wasn’t intended for her. “Jasper … this is Lina Sparrow, from the law firm?”

  “Lina.” Now he sounded embarrassed, but half-laughing. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “So I gathered.” She wanted to ask what he was sorry for, who the someone else was, but she stopped herself.

  “Sorry—” he said and then paused. “I mean, I’m sorry I … said that.”

  Now it was Lina’s turn to laugh. “Don’t worry. Don’t be sorry. How are you?” She held the phone to her face, enjoying the novelty of speaking to someone other than Dan (two calls, to check in) or Garrison (three messages, all contrite) or her dad (one bland message, one bland conversation, one hang-up).

  “I’m good. Nice of you to ask. So what can I do for you, counselor?”

  Lina liked his teasing tone but it threw her off-balance. She didn’t know how to match it and so she found herself veering into formality, her words coming out stiff. “I’ve found evidence that Josephine Bell had a son,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m hoping to get some information that will help me track her descendants further.”

  Jasper seemed not to notice her awkwardness. “That’s great news. Even if it’s not me, you know. It’s still pretty amazing that you found something.” His tone was admiring as much as congratulatory, which succeeded only in deepening Lina’s unease. Maybe he thought she had been fishing for a compliment, or bragging? But she hadn’t been, and Jasper was right. It was amazing: Josephine Bell had a son.