The Balcony

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  I thought I heard a rustling. Were the horses moving in their stalls? Someone stepped uncertainly through the open door.

  “Anne?”

  An instant later I was in Dan’s arms. In the blessed safety of Dan’s arms I wept hysterically and clung to him, and he clung to me. His kisses fell upon my forehead and my cheeks, found my lips.

  I was the first to return to sanity. I knew that Dan hadn’t run away, and I think I must have half expected him. But he had not expected me, and he kept asking bewildered questions and then not waiting for any answer. Presently, however, he drew me into the shelter of the barn. Once we reached the comparative safety of the groom’s room he flicked on a flashlight. He shone the beams upon my face.

  “I’ll turn it off in a minute, dear. But I need to look at you. See your lovely, steady eyes once more—your funny little nose.” He flicked off the flashlight, took me gently by the shoulders. “You must go now, Anne. Go quickly, dear. I dare not take you to the house. But you shouldn’t be here consorting with a . . .”

  “Don’t say it, Dan.”

  “Sorry, dear,” he said a little desperately, “but you must go now. Tonight may settle everything. God knows I hope it does. I’ve seen Amos . . .”

  “You saw Amos!”

  “This afternoon. I made tracks here at once. Amos hid me in the barn. I’m meeting him at ten o’clock.”

  “Here? In the barn?”

  “I’m going to your great-grandfather’s cave. Someone—Amos probably, though he didn’t say—has dug it out again. The entrance is centered by the pines.”

  I myself had been moving toward the rocky rise that lay concealed in darkness far beyond the safety of the barn. The old Negro’s veiled, elusive words had set my feet in that direction. And now Dan, too . . .

  “It—it seems so odd, Dan. The cave, and ten o’clock at night. Why didn’t Amos tell you what he knew this afternoon?”

  Dan’s tones which had held small assurance now held even less.

  “Amos was damned mysterious, I’ll admit. Said he had to make certain preparations—not specified—before he talked. In the circumstances I had no choice.” Dan turned his flashlight on his watch. “Eight-thirty now. I mean to start in three-quarters of an hour.”

  “We” said I, “are starting now.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, we. And this very minute, dear, we start.” I pushed him toward the door. “Any moment now I’ll be missed, and then our chance is gone. We’ll wait for Amos, if necessary, in the cave itself.”

  Somehow I convinced him. I can be stubborn, too, and I flatly declined to let him go without me. Together we moved out into the cold, bleak night that had become less terrifying to me because Dan was by my side, his hand gripped in mine. His flashlight cut a wavering circle in the gloom, and barely served to guide us.

  Our journey wasn’t comfortable or cheerful by any means. Neither of us had the least idea what we would find in the cave that long ago had housed others, as lost and wretched as ourselves, fugitives like us, seeking happiness and peace and freedom. I know I was prepared for anything—that I half expected to find bags and bags of gold.

  The soggy lawns fell away. Briars clutched at us, and tangled bushes sprang from nowhere, and tall, sodden weeds. Once I gasped as a branch of wet leaves brushed my face, and clung like fingers. Once Dan said:

  “I wish to God I dared go home and get my gun.”

  “I—I’m glad you didn’t.”

  I spoke without conviction. I, too, wished Dan had brought his gun. In the unquiet darkness, stirring with those twisting wisps of fog, I lost my distaste for firearms. We groped through the winter garden, fumbled our way along the fence and beyond.

  Suddenly we came upon the pines. Beneath our feet, jagged and dry as bone, were ascending rocks, damp only where thick moss carpeted them. The three pines had split solid rock to grow. We climbed, stopped at last—when we staggered to the highest point.

  “Where is the cave?”

  Dan moved his flashlight all around. The three pines almost exactly centered us. The rocks, piled one upon the other, were as formidable and secret as the night.

  “The—the entrance should be here.”

  Dan’s flashlight rested upon a stony promontory, misshapen and grotesque. Moss that once had thickly covered it had worn away, leaving brownish, corroded marks upon the surface. Dan approached the rock, and heaved.

  “Help me, Anne.”

  And then, abruptly, and before I reached him, he solved the problem. It was less a matter of pressure than of position. The rock moved ponderously and slowly forward, was caught and pivoted by other stones. A narrow aperture was revealed. Dan turned his flashlight into it. Descending into the earth and like a well turned aslant, we saw the narrow tunnel that had been securely blocked. On the inner side of the rock that had served as a massive door, an iron ring had been welded. One squeezed inside, grasped the ring and pulled, and one closed out the world completely.

  We left the entrance open.

  For a while, as we descended, we felt the damp, raw air of the night outside, and then there was only the damper, staler air of the subterranean corridor. Drops of moisture oozed from a stony roof that we crouched to avoid, water glistened on the irregular sides, shone in shallow pools on the uneven flooring. I thought of others more frightened and as desperate as ourselves, who had come this way in search of freedom.

  I had hoped somehow to find an heroic place, or, more accurately perhaps, to feel as we advanced some lingering vestige of noble aspirations. I choked in the dank, stale air, recalled tales of people lost in twisting, winding, subterranean corridors and remaining underground forever. Ells and alcoves opened bewilderingly on either side of us, coming to abrupt dead ends. I would have chosen to stop, and to examine every shadowed break in the jagged walls; to me, every darkened cranny was inhabited by lurking danger, by hidden, shapeless figures crouched to spring.

  But Dan kept his flashlight trained steadily ahead.

  Our steps had disconcerting echoes. Once I dislodged a stone that crashed resoundingly. The distant echo was like a booming cannon. Dan stopped.

  “What was that?”

  “Only—only me,” I told him faintly.

  The corridor widened. There was no more oozing moisture. The air was dead, but dryer—touched with a desiccated chill that crept into the bones. Presently we could straighten up, walk side by side. The stony roof was successively above the level of our heads, above the reach of our fingertips, and then, suddenly, some twelve feet high. Again Dan stopped abruptly.

  Ahead was a barrier made by man. Shafts of rusted iron driven into the floor and fixed solidly overhead, were interrupted by a clumsy, iron-barred door. Beyond lay our objective—the rocky, vaulted chamber that had been Great-grandfather’s cave.

  “It’s—it’s like a jail,” whispered Dan uncertainly. His flashlight moved along the bars, paused at the heavy door, picked out the padlock that would have made the place impregnable. But the padlock was hanging loose. “Come on inside, Anne. I—I think the place is furnished.”

  “No,” said I. “Let’s wait out here till—till Amos comes.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Dan said crossly. “What’s become of your curiosity? I’d like to have a look around.”

  He pulled at the iron door. The portal uttered a clanking protest and then was open. To enter a place that had been so much in my mind and thoughts, I had only to step across a threshold.

  I didn’t stir.

  It would be impossible to explain how I knew that my great-grandfather’s cave was evil. Instinct can be wiser than conscious thinking, I suppose. Or perhaps Amos was right, and people, dead and gone, can leave in the places where they have been, some record of the hopes and fears and terrors they have suffered there. The cave was full of terror.

  “Do come on, Anne.”

  “Then—then put the padlock in your pocket,” I said foolishly, and as though my fierce reluctance could be ascribed to an
ything so simple as the fear that the lock would snap and imprison us.

  Dan removed the padlock. It had been so long unused that its usefulness was now entirely gone. No amount of strength could have forced the rusted jaws together.

  Hand in hand, we stepped across the threshold.

  A single sweeping circle of Dan’s flashlight described to us the rocky chamber. The place was circular, with a vaulted, cliff-like roof. The open arc of the circle was closed by the iron shafts and door. Otherwise, there was no opening, only solid rock. No heaped-up bags of gold were visible, and one couldn’t dig into such a floor. One would have had to blast. In a cold and bleak uninviting way, the cavern was furnished. There were perhaps a dozen cots, several chairs, an old pine table, and, curiously, an old-fashioned roll-top desk.

  Uncertainly, Dan and I looked at one another. Dan let his flashlight drop. His grip tightened on my hand.

  “What a spot,” said he, “to bring frightened Negroes! Old John S. must have lacked imagination. This place would drive me nuts. It’s like—like . . .”

  He started, and I followed the direction of his eyes. The flashlight was resting on a tangled heap of rusted handcuffs.

  “It is like a jail, Anne. I—I wonder . . .”

  “What do you wonder?” I asked sharply.

  Dan moved swiftly toward the table, and I went quickly after him. The flashlight enclosed us in a little pool of light. Darkness pressed in all around us, but the table-top, even to the scars and splinters and ancient stains, was vividly illuminated. On the table was a worn old Bible, a toothbrush and a comb, the stub of a candle fixed in a saucer, and beside the saucer a handful of kitchen matches.

  “Light the candle, Anne.”

  I picked up a match. My fingers were absurdly clumsy. Slowly taking form in my mind was a suspicion I was loath to entertain. Suddenly I felt an emotion more immediate. As the match flared, my palm brushed the spilled wax in the saucer. The match dropped from my nerveless grasp.

  The wax had felt faintly warm.

  “Here, let me . . .” Dan reached out. He hesitated. “What is it, dear? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “Someone’s been here! Quite recently. At this table.”

  “Nonsense, Anne. Your nerves are playing tricks on you. There’s no one here. Look.”

  He flashed his light around.

  “There was. The candle’s warm.”

  Dan touched the wax. He insisted that he felt no warmth. He pointed out that no one could have been in the cavern recently. The only exit was through the rocky corridor, and we had passed no one on our journey down. It was all very logical. Nevertheless, I wanted, and most passionately, to leave at once, to climb quickly to the surface and to avoid my great-grandfather’s cave forever after.

  Dan, male and, as usual, very stubborn, wouldn’t hear of it. He lit the candle. The wick was very low. Flickering yellow light expanded in a wavering circle.

  Dan gave a low, incredulous whistle, pointed.

  Of the dozen cots, one had tumbled bedding and worn quilts spilling to the floor. Beside the cot, folded neatly on a chair, was a meagre array of shirts and underwear and Amos’ other suit of clothes. His second pair of shoes were tucked beneath the chair.

  “In God’s name,” said Dan, “why is Amos sleeping here? Did he select this spot from choice?”

  “I—we thought he had the groom’s room. No one bothered . . .”

  In point of sober fact, no one had bothered to inquire into the Negro’s arrangements, or had troubled about his comfort. With the groom’s room placed conveniently in the barn, however, it seemed incredible that Amos should install himself underground and in a place that he himself had described as corrupted by the dark and bloody memories of slavery. Not when his recollection of his own mother’s serfdom was so acute and painful. Or had that mournful, half-mystical streak of his made him feel closer to her when he slept where long ago she had slept? I plucked Dan’s sleeve.

  “Amos’ mother hid here, Dan, on her way to Canada. Amos said she remembered the cave all her life, and—and spoke Great-grandfather’s name with her dying breath.”

  The strangest look came on Dan’s face. He turned and stared in silence at the iron-barred door, at the heap of rusted handcuffs. Suddenly, and still without a word, he left my side and went to the roll-top desk. Almost savagely, he started pulling out the drawers. I watched, and didn’t move. The drawers were jammed with paper handbills, yellowed and crumpling with age. Dan’s hands were full of them—queer old handbills that I had sometimes seen framed in glass in libraries and museums.

  I went over to the desk. Those handbills that had circulated by the hundreds in the fifties, and circulated by the thousands in the turbulent years of the early sixties, were indeed souvenirs of the dark and shameful history of slavery. The yellowed circulars that choked the drawers were very much alike, except in the details of names and descriptions.

  A tiny figure of a running black man or a running woman was pictured at the top of each. Beneath, in screaming type, was announced “Runaway Slave,” and then below in smaller type was printed the slave’s name and description, followed by the owner’s name, his address, and the reward that he would pay for his human property’s return.

  Dan opened his palms. The handbills spilled to the floor. I stared at them. My throat felt queer and thick.

  “Why—why would Great-grandfather collect so many? There—there must be hundreds in the desk. What does it mean?”

  Dan didn’t speak. He sat down heavily at the desk. The cloth-bound ledger lay in the second drawer. Very slowly, Dan drew the ledger forth, laid it across his knee and riffled through. Figures entered in faded ink marched down each lined page, were totaled at the bottom. Figures only, nothing else. Rows and rows of neat, small figures. As the pages advanced, the totals swelled.

  Dan let the ledger drop back into the drawer.

  “What does it mean, Dan?”

  My voice rose shrilly, echoed like a far-off, distant scream. I shook Dan’s shoulder. Then he looked up at me.

  “You know now, Anne.”

  I think I did know. But I had to hear him say it, had to hear him put into words what I had sensed from the instant I saw the iron bars, the heavy padlock and the handcuffs.

  “Some of the fugitives who accepted old John’s hospitality,” Dan said to me, “might have got to Canada. Those with good big prices on their heads never got there. They stayed here under lock and key until old John could communicate with their anxious masters. The great abolitionist sold them back into slavery, must have sold them back by the scores. Isn’t it obvious, Anne, how he made that fortune in the first place?”

  It was obvious indeed. One had only to look around, to glance at the ledger and the handbills. The great man of the family had been a slave trader and worse. Slave traders at least had publicly admitted to their calling and to their beliefs, and defended both as best they could. My great-grandfather had worked in secret, betrayed the slaves who trusted him, and from their misery made his fortune.

  “His reputation,” said I. “His statue in the square . . . ”

  Again Dan didn’t need to reply. In the confused and turbulent period in which John Hieronomo had lived was the answer. The border raiders and the bushwhackers had managed simultaneously to be Union sympathizers and sons of the South, changing their principles with their uniforms, now on one side, now on the other. My great-grandfather had been like these. He had actually helped along the wretched blacks not worth enough to fill his pockets, and thus had posed as the protector of the oppressed and helpless. Many of the Negroes who had stayed on the place had never seen the cave, and I didn’t doubt that they had sung the praises of John Hieronomo or that those praises had rung sweetly in his ears.

  Great-grandfather had liked the heroic role, and he had worked at it. He had paid for and erected in the Mount Hope square that statue of himself. He had written, published and circulated those books about his abolitionist activities. He had suc
cessfully deceived his contemporaries. He was actually mentioned in minor histories of the times as one of the lesser figures in the underground railway—John S. Hieronomo, who had been a broken link in the perilous route that had led some to freedom and sent others back to servitude and misery.

  I stared stupidly at Dan. “But Amos’ mother stayed here, Dan. In the cave. She—she must have been helped on her way . . .”

  “Was she?” Dan kicked at the scattered handbills. “Myself, I’d bet she’s represented somewhere in this pretty collection. What was her name?”

  “Becky. I don’t know the surname. Anyway,” I said feverishly, “Becky must have been treated well. She had to be. Amos loved my great-grandfather.”

  “Did he?”

  In the silence, we read each other’s thoughts. Both of us remembered how John S. Hieronomo had met his fatal accident twenty-five years before, how Amos had lost control of the plunging horses on the long hill that descended to the railroad station. Amos had managed to jump and clear the carriage. John S. Hieronomo had fallen beneath the turning wheels of the train that was carrying Daisy Witherspoon to him and to her wedding day.

  “Amos—Amos tried to save Great-grandfather.”

  “Did he?”

  My great-grandfather’s accident was changing in my mind, taking on a new complexion. It was all so possible. A team of horses could be forcibly persuaded to run down a long, steep hill toward an incoming train. An old man could be pushed from a rushing carriage to violent death by someone willing to risk his own life in order to accomplish an unsuspected murder. I saw Greatgrandfather’s death in a changed and different way. Perhaps I even wondered if in his death lay the seeds of his daughter’s murder.

  But I was beyond the point of clear, cool reason. I had borne too much.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I cried, almost frantic. “I can’t stand it any more. Really, Dan, I’ve got to leave. Now. At once. We can talk and plan somewhere else. Amos— do you actually believe Amos will come here to meet us?”

  Dan made no move. He was gazing fixedly at the corrugated roll top of the desk. Dust that thickly powdered the flexible, curving surface was disturbed where hands had touched it. Our hands and thoughts had been busy with the contents of the drawers. Dan rolled up the top of the desk.