The Third Mrs. Galway

by Deirdre Sinnott

  “I guess so,” said Pryce. “I’ve been trying to sell that abolition newspaper, the Standard and Democrat, but people won’t buy it.”

  “I’m glad you’ve tried. The very best thing you’ve done is read it.”

  “The paper really does rile one up,” said Pryce.

  They arrived back at Stewart’s law office and climbed upstairs. Pryce went to the stack of unsold newspapers. Stewart focused intently on the young man. “I think you’ve made yourself ready to be part of that brick wall,” he said. “You’ll speak at the meeting of the Colonization Society tonight.”

  “Me?” Pryce sat down with a thud, feeling a little sick. Working in the office and answering letters was one thing, but speaking? It would mean that he really believed that the slaves should be freed immediately. He supposed that if he had been held in jail for longer than a few hours, he would have been mad for freedom. Maybe this was the right thing. He felt a twinkle of delight that Stewart was rewarding all his work nailing up convention notices and, in the process, destroying the runaway-slave advertisements. “You should be the one to speak at any debate.”

  “They haven’t invited me,” said Stewart. “We’ll go to their meeting and when they open the floor for discussion, you stand up and speak in favor of our plans.”

  The delight wilted in Pryce’s breast. “Will they allow it?” He glanced up at the half-burned effigy above Stewart’s desk.

  “Allow?” The lawyer banged his fist on the desk. Pryce flinched. “They claim to believe in democracy, let them prove it. The meeting won’t just be the Colonization Society. The public will be there, men of work and business.” He rose and strode to the window. “We can’t cede their hearts to our opponents.” He turned, his face animated. “They’ve hardened against me. You’ll open a new front on the battlefield.”

  “What will I say?”

  Stewart clasped his enormous hands behind his back. “For some, Negroes are no better than beasts of burden, put on the planet to be used as slaves. Those men pucker their lips and slobber for slaveholders as ‘our poor Southern brethren.’ To them, Negroes are savages. Opinions like that won’t be changed.”

  “Surely a moral argument about the evils of slavery will show them their mistake.”

  Stewart grimaced and shook his head. “They already know the arguments. What we must do is shake the insides of the men who have come there with open minds. Speak to those who have bone and sinew and who know what it means to toil. We are told that benevolent slave owners instruct their charges in religion. They are painted as fatherly, bringing the childlike Negroes into a state of grace. Refer to the slaves as Christians. Use your Bible. If we are all Christians, then we have no right to enslave another believer.”

  “Aren’t most slaves rather ignorant?”

  “An educated slave is a dangerous slave. Have you never met an educated black man?” asked Stewart, amiably.

  Pryce shook his head.

  “You will at the convention, trust me.” He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Pryce felt the strength of the older man’s grip and found himself leaning into it. He straightened, afraid that Stewart had noticed his weakness.

  “Come, let’s work on a few points so that you’re prepared.” The lawyer took his seat, passing quill and paper across the desk.

  Pryce scratched notes, all the while hoping that his father would never find out about him speaking on behalf of the slaves. The old man should have received the letter he sent home by now. It had already been over a week since he sat himself down at the small writing desk, knowing that if he neglected to send the promised dispatches along the way to Buffalo, his mother and father would be worried. He had to appear to be moving along on the appointed trip and learning as he went. He thought he might wax on about the genius of the canal system, or try to explain the workings of the locks to his mother. Or throw in a detail or two about the scenery. Father probably never traveled far beyond Little Falls, he thought. He felt guilty about trying to fool them. Maybe he could simply admit that he had taken a position at a lawyer’s office and intended to organize an abolition convention—and he didn’t care who knew. He grabbed the quill and dipped it into the ink. The image of the old man, mourning the loss of his only son to maintain the family business, bloomed in his mind. Best to keep it short, he thought.

  Dear Mother and Father,

  I am well. I trust you are both in good health. I’m studying the canal very closely. I’m now well past Utica. I’ll write again soon.

  Your devoted son

  Well past Utica? It was idiotic. Scratching it out, he knew that the sentence gave away the entire game. He turned the period after write again soon into a comma and added from Lockport. Satisfied, he believed that would hold them off.

  That night, the room at Miller’s Hall looked packed with colonization men. Pryce stood on Whitesboro Street peering through the entryway doors. Most chairs were either occupied or reserved by the presence of a topcoat and hat. Tobacco smoke hovered in billowing clouds. He stepped inside just as a burst of laughter came from a knot of men at the back of the hall. A tall fellow at the center held forth on some issue that appeared to be of the deepest interest. From under his furrowed brow, the man’s sharp gaze focused on one person, then the next. He seemed to be making certain they would all be ready to act together if the necessity arose.

  Stewart stood behind Pryce and murmured in his ear, “That’s Congressman Samuel Beardsley. Never at a loss for words. He’ll be speaking. He always speaks.”

  Pryce was about to turn. Stewart stopped him.

  “Pretend you don’t know me. Move in a little and I will point out a few of the others.”

  The young man found a place at the back wall.

  “See the smart-looking man there,” said Stewart, “just inside Beardsley’s circle?”

  Pryce noticed the judge who had sentenced him to spend the night in jail. “I know him—too well.”

  Judge Chester Hayden leaned against a back-row chair, his hands folded across his stomach, silent and alert.

  “He’s lapping up every morsel of information for later use,” said the lawyer. “He can be dangerous.”

  Pryce swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. What would he say to these men to change their hearts? A shiver went through him. “I can’t do this.”

  “Nonsense,” said Stewart. “There are others here. You’re not alone.” He patted Pryce on the shoulder and pressed him to move forward and take a seat.

  Pryce plodded ahead, wishing that the floor would open and swallow him down whole. He found a place and felt his own insides quivering. He touched his pockets and felt the notes. All he had to do was read them. The thought did nothing to calm him. Stewart sat behind him.

  The meeting was finally called to order.

  “Representative Beardsley,” called the chairman, “we would like you to open up.”

  “Thank you, sir. Most kind,” started Beardsley, coming forward to the dais. The audience settled as he looked around the room, appearing to take each man’s measure. Finally, at a moment of perfect silence, he began: “Lest we forget, it has been just four years since the devil Nat Turner and his confederates slaughtered sixty-five souls—from innocent babes to mothers and grandmothers, to men defending their families—all savagely murdered in their homes, on their lands, and in our country. Yes. I said our country,” said Beardsley, his deep voice vibrating in Pryce’s chest. “It is precisely because of those deaths that we know how dangerous the situation in the South is. That is why we must stop this abolition convention. Don’t let these agitators sully Utica’s reputation with the stench of bloody treason.”

  Shouts of “Hear! Hear!” and “Huzzah!” temporarily silenced Beardsley. Pryce looked around. Most of the men were cheering, but among them were some who looked thoughtful, not yet convinced. Beardsley put up his hands and the crowd grew silent.

  “No one can sleep easy in their beds as long as abolitionists and their
allies try to pollute the minds of the slaves and tear this country asunder. We won’t let this convention and the return of the comet combine in the minds of rebel slaves as a pretext to begin another bloody insurrection. Rather than allowing Utica to be turned into the headquarters of abolitionism in New York State, I would almost prefer to see the city swept from the face of the earth, like Sodom and Gomorrah.

  “And let’s talk about slavery. It is allowed in our Constitution. We in New York have gradually done away with it. How can we ask anything different of our Southern brothers? Abolitionism is nothing but a fetid form of federalism. So, what is our plan? How do we intend to deal with the growing tide of free Negroes? The colony of Liberia has been established on Africa’s coast to welcome them back to their fatherland. If they are able, let them build there as we have built here.”

  Roars of approval filled the meetinghouse and echoed off the plaster ceiling.

  Pryce looked around, confused. In all the papers there were regular reports from Liberia stating that the death rate of black colonists was staggeringly high. These men must be told the truth, he thought. If they were to make decisions, someone should tell them the facts. He found himself on his feet.

  “Africa?” he yelled. All eyes swung in his direction. His hand shook at his sides as he turned to the congressman. “Liberia’s in trouble. The colony is failing. Just last week there were reports of attacks from hostile tribes. Fever kills even more. At least half of the colonists who go there die.”

  “Silence!” roared the chairman, a stick-thin man with a protruding Adam’s apple.

  Congressman Beardsley focused his razor-like eyes on Pryce. “Who are you, sir? You’re not from Utica.”

  “I am Pryce Anwell, a visitor to your fair city.”

  “By way of Sheriff Osborn’s jail—if I recall,” said Judge Hayden, rising, his snide tone drawing attention. “We don’t need your liberation fancies here, Mr. Anwell. You and Stewart are clearly resolved to press forward with this convention and thus endanger our brothers in the South.” The judge now turned to Beardsley and the chair. “Is there a man here who believes that if the people of the North tried to abolish the system of slavery, that the South would not forthwith disband themselves from the Union? The abolitionists say it is their right to meet here in Utica. Therefore a man may also contend that he has a right to smoke a cigar in my gunpowder house. Abolition is disunion.”

  “You can’t fix Liberia by attacking me,” cried Pryce. “The people you wish to remove were born here. They have as much right to call themselves citizens as you do.”

  Outrage buzzed around him, as if he had hit a wasp’s nest with a stone. He turned to Stewart. Black spots swarmed his vision. The lawyer steadied him. Pryce sank into his chair.

  “I ask you, Representative Beardsley,” boomed Stewart, standing, “if you found yourself in chains, denied your freedom, whipped, prevented from entering into the sacrament of marriage, unable to stop your own children from being ripped from their mother’s arms and sold to the highest bidder, would you not find that cruel AND unusual punishment? And if it be cruel and unusual for you, why is it different for the Negro? Where in the Constitution does it say that protections against such punishments are only for white men?”

  “The Constitution of the United States,” intoned Judge Hayden, “protects the rights of free men, including slave owners. You know that, Mr. Stewart, better than anyone. We cannot allow the Negroes’ impressionable minds to be warped. If the country goes Stewart’s way, it’s a guarantee that the throats of slaveholders will be slashed. Cost what it may—no regard for what’s right.” He opened his arms wide as if embracing the audience. “We admit that originally it was wrong to reduce men to slavery, but when we have them in our midst, incompetent to the rights of citizens, should we discharge them from our care and let them perish through their inability to provide for themselves? If we must provide for them, is it not better for them, and us, that they should be provided for in the relations in which they now stand? If you immediately set free two and a half million uneducated slaves, our economy will be in ruins. The Union will be broken into pieces. Let the slaveholding states decide their own fate. As long as the law says that slavery exists, we must uphold it to preserve the Union.”

  Words drifted over Pryce’s head. The burning shame of failure consumed him. This night was testing him and he had crumbled. If only there was a way to crawl out the door and leave Utica. But where to go? Buffalo? Back to Little Falls? He imagined the pain on the old man’s face. Not smart enough. To return a failure? He couldn’t do it.

  “What Union?” yelled Stewart. “These lovers of the Union refuse to hear the bitter grief which rises from the mouth of every slave straight to God’s ear.”

  Two rows in front of Pryce, a well-dressed man with a brocade waistcoat wobbled to his feet. “You, Stewart,” he said, pointing with vague aim at the lawyer, “offend God’s ear right now.” Those around him laughed. He brought a heavy mug of beer to his lips. “I’ll do our Lord a service,” he said, and threw the glass, which showered Pryce with ale and bounced off Stewart’s cheek, cutting him.

  “If we here in Utica,” responded Stewart, ignoring the injury and raising himself to his full height, “encounter so much noisy violence as we try to plead the cause of abolition, imagine the poor slave. Can he object to his own cruel and adulterous master?” Stewart fixed his gaze on the man in the waistcoat. “Does the drunkard listen to the voice of the slave?”

  With sudden energy, the gentleman lunged toward the big lawyer, his arms flailing and hands grasping. He fell onto Pryce, who shoved him backward. A group of spectators cushioned the man’s descent. Several surged toward Pryce and Stewart, but the lawyer shouldered them away.

  “If it’s right to liberate slaves in fifty years, then it’s right now!” Stewart shouted.

  The rhythmic banging of the chairman’s gavel filled Pryce’s ears. The room felt hot, as if the breath of a thousand bellows poured out of the angry men. The smell of cigars grew thick and the oil lamps seemed to be flashing in unison.

  “Come on, my boy,” said Stewart, grabbing his sleeve and moving them toward the door. “A good man knows when to retreat.” At the entranceway, Stewart turned back to the assembly and called out, “We leave you to your castles in the air!”

  They stepped away and a chilly October breeze filled Pryce’s lungs. His vision cleared and he saw Oriskany Street and the distant lights of Genesee.

  Stewart started laughing. “You wanted thrills, well now we’ve got them.” He punched the young man’s shoulder. “You were bold, my boy. Got up on your legs. And at your first meeting. That’s more than most men do in their entire lives.”

  Pryce stopped and found Stewart smiling at him, nodding, merry despite the cut.

  “You’re a true abolitionist now,” said the lawyer. “You’ve survived your first mobbing.” He slapped Pryce’s back. “Good job.”

  At once, Pryce’s throat tightened and he felt the sting of tears.

  Stewart nodded and threw his arm around the younger man’s shoulders.

  Pryce gulped down the emotion. He thrust his head back and hollered, “Woo-hoo!” Maybe he would never tell his father where he was. He grinned as the two hurried up the street.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A NEW BREEZE STIRRED the night air. The sky—cloudless, moonless, and no longer featuring the comet—sparkled. Jupiter flickered behind a few remaining oak leaves on its rise through the eastern sky.

  Off the kitchen, inside Maggie’s small room, Imari sat bolstered by pillows as she sipped beef tea and listened to the cook tell the story of the day. Joe lay motionless on the far side of the bed, his back to the women.

  “Miss Helen gonna be all right?” Imari asked.

  “I pray the Lord keeps her safe after the day she got,” said Maggie.

  “Well, I know He ain’t wasting no time on me,” said Imari, smiling. “So best He be looking after her, poor child.” She p
aused. “Did she lose it?”

  “If she had one, yes. But I don’t know. And that dirty doctor ain’t no better at guessing.”

  “Turns out she a brave girl,” said Imari. “I can’t believe all you said she done to help me.”

  “Believe it,” said Maggie.

  Imari rubbed the heel of her hand along the right side of her belly. “I got me some gas.” She pressed her side a little harder. “Oh my.”

  After days of conversation, while Imari recovered from the bird shot, the cook’s attachment to her and the boy had grown in a way that she had not allowed with anyone else.

  “You got pain?”

  “Naw,” said Imari. “It gonna pass right on.”

  “I wanna ask you something. You know I ain’t gonna tell nobody nothing.”

  Imari nodded. “You better to us than anybody. Go ahead. Ask.”

  Maggie hesitated, suddenly filled with a nervous pulse. She frowned at her apron and began picking at specks of dried food. She brushed the crumbs into her hand and felt the graininess between her fingers. “I know you coulda stayed in New York City,” she said, looking up at Imari. “So why’d you come all this way up to Utica?”

  “True, Utica a long way, but we can’t wait in New York. We stay with one fine black man, Mr. David Ruggles, he picks us up the first day, right when we get to the harbor. He be educated. Got his own books even. He tells us that Hickox sniffing around in town. That paddyroller, he like a lynx—good nose, patient, smart. And I still be broke up ’cause we lost Elymas.”

  Maggie uncovered the chamber pot, tossing the crumbs into it before replacing the lid. “How old’s Elymas?” she asked as she slid the pot under the bed with her foot.

  “I don’t rightly know,” said Imari, slowly. “I seen something about him once. But it don’t say nothing except how much Master James paid for him and such.”