We Hope for Better Things Page 5

“Oh, sure. I made all the quilts upstairs.”

  The craftiest thing I had ever constructed was a single knitted washcloth in drab brown yarn. I had learned from my mother, at her insistence, and retained enough knowledge and skill to complete the one project. It took me an entire summer.

  Nora took my arm and led me back out to the front hall. “There are four bedrooms upstairs. Yours was my bedroom before I moved down to the first floor. Did you see the back steps?”

  “Yes. I wondered about those.”

  “A lot of old houses have them. So the help could move around unseen while you entertained guests in the parlor. I always used them because the first place I wanted to go in the morning was the kitchen to make coffee.”

  My inner nosy reporter perked up. Perfect. If I could get her talking about the house, it wouldn’t be long before she was talking about herself, telling me about her husband, giving me the in I needed to bring up the camera and the photos.

  “So what’s the story with this place? When was it built?”

  “I was told 1859. But there’s no one story in a place this old. Everything in this house has a story. You’ll have to look around upstairs on your own, but I can give you the grand tour down here.”

  For the next hour I moved through each room of the main floor, struggling to stick to my great-aunt’s glacial pace but entranced nonetheless. I gazed at antique furniture, oil paintings, and rugs as she relayed what she knew of their origin. With every room I felt weighed down by a new layer of guilt. This woman clearly loved her home and did not know that Barb had given me the thankless task of determining whether she was capable of continuing to live there on her own.

  Eventually we came to her bedroom. If I thought the quilt on my bed was nice, the one on Nora’s was exquisite. A kaleidoscope of color, it was formed from varied patches of jewel-toned velvet and silk, each piece edged with multicolored embroidery thread in a hundred different patterns. I wanted to run my fingers along it, but it looked like something you’d get your hand slapped for touching.

  “Wow.” I felt like I had said that a lot during the tour, but it was the one word that kept coming to mind. The house was packed full of wow. “Did you make this one?”

  “No. My great-grandmother Mary did. It was the only quilt she made that I know of. Takes a long time to make a quilt like that. All handwork. A lot of Victorian crazy quilts don’t hold up well. The dyes in the silks eat away at the fabric over the years, and it gets worse if you’re not careful with them. Collectors would faint if they knew I slept under it, but I sleep like the dead, so I don’t do much tossing and turning. And I never sit on it.”

  This last statement seemed to be added for my benefit—or admonishment. I leaned over to examine the varied stitches. Vines and flowers, geometric designs, ribbons and feathers, something that looked like bird tracks.

  “Did she teach you to quilt?”

  “Heavens, no! How old do you think I am? She died in 1875. She’s buried out back.”

  I straightened up. “She lived here?”

  She looked at me as if I should have known that. “You’ve never heard of Nathaniel and Mary Balsam before?”

  I shrugged. “Those names don’t ring any bells.”

  Nora shook her head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because history is written by the victors.”

  six

  Lapeer County, April 1861

  Mary Balsam felt the morning sun streaming in through the east windows. Though it had been spring for close to three weeks already, there was something about the light on this particular morning that told her the new season was finally real, that they’d seen the last of the snow and planting time had arrived. She stretched out her hand to touch her husband’s face. Her fingers found his pillow and nothing more.

  Mary rose to an elbow. A newspaper lay beside her on the bed where Nathaniel should have been. It took just a moment to read the headline, but in that moment her entire world trembled. The trouble had been fermenting for so long she had ceased to note it, turning instead to the society pages for lighter fare. But this was different. This was the headline that would take Nathaniel from her.

  She sat upright, her eyes darting back and forth down the slim columns of type. With every sentence, the floor dropped away a little more.

  Nathaniel marched into the bedchamber, his mouth a determined line, his eyes locked upon some object across the room. He retrieved a bottle of ink and was nearly gone again when Mary said, “Where are you going with that?”

  “Oh, Mary, I’m sorry I woke you. I’m just gathering up a few things.” He took the newspaper from the bed. “You’re finished with this?”

  “You’re not enlisting.”

  “We can talk about it over breakfast.”

  He walked out the door and Mary scrambled after him, gripping the banister as he disappeared around a corner one flight below.

  “Nathaniel? Nathaniel, please,” she called out, but he was either out of earshot or ignoring her.

  She hurried back to the bedchamber and threw on her dressing gown and slippers. It would be so like Nathaniel to jump headlong into a conflict that wasn’t his. All those abolitionist meetings and paraphernalia lying about the house had seemed harmless enough—just talk, and talk never hurt anyone. Anyway, it wouldn’t take long to persuade him to stay at home where he belonged. He could hardly leave her now.

  By the time she entered the dining room he was already seated, newspaper held up to catch the light from the large bay of windows behind him. Mary wanted to snatch the thing out of his hands and tear it to shreds, but at that very moment Bridget came in with the tray. The girl stopped short when she saw her disheveled mistress.

  At the sound of the clinking china, Nathaniel looked up. “Ah, here we are,” he said. Then he saw Mary and frowned. “You’re not dressed.”

  Mary pulled at the sides of her dressing gown, but she could no longer button it over her stomach. Bridget flushed and set the tray on the table. She quickly distributed its contents then disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to report Mrs. Balsam’s unprecedented state of undress to Mrs. Maggin.

  “You cannot enlist, Nathaniel,” Mary stated as she dragged a chair close to him and sat down.

  “Of course I’ll enlist. Those rebels cannot continue to go unchallenged while they trample our flag and defy our president. And you know how I feel about slavery. I thought you felt the same.”

  “You know I do. But there are plenty of young men who can fight. Men who are not mere months away from becoming a father.”

  “My brothers will be enlisting. My father was a military man. My grandfather fought in 1812. My great-grandfather fought in the Revolution. They did not balk at serving their country because the timing was inconvenient.”

  “But they lived in towns and had family nearby,” she countered. “What am I to do when you’re off to war? Run the farm by myself? Give birth to our child alone?”

  Nathaniel laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mary. You’re not alone. We’re just a short train ride from Detroit. You could stay with my mother there if you like, or I’m sure she would come up to keep you company. John will run the farm and hire any extra help he may need, and there’s time to get the corn planted before I leave. You needn’t worry about that.”

  “John should go to war rather than you.”

  “Enough, Mary. I must go. It will only be a few months.” Nathaniel patted her hand. “I may even be back before this baby is born.” He turned his attention back to the newspaper.

  The meal before them was consumed in silence as Nathaniel read and Mary argued with him in her head. But she could think of no angle that seemed to her to be more important than the impending birth of his firstborn child, which he had so easily dismissed.

  Each day of the following week, preparations were made. The trunk was packed, food was prepared, corn was planted. They spoke little. Mary tried on several occasions to write a
letter that might convince him to relent. But each one, so carefully reasoned in the first two paragraphs, devolved into begging by the third. And begging was something she did not do.

  Mary did not go with Nathaniel when John Grouse drove him to the train station. Indeed, she could scarcely remove herself from the bed that morning to relieve her bladder. After she had crawled back under the covers, Nathaniel came to say his goodbyes. He leaned in close and whispered words of love and promises of his safe return, but she could do little more than nod.

  All that day she drifted in and out of fitful sleep and stared at the new wallpaper, following the pattern from one end of the room to the other. When the failing light suggested evening, she heard the door creak open.

  “For you, ma’am,” came Bridget’s tentative voice.

  The girl walked in, a small piece of paper in her outstretched hand. Mary took the paper and glanced over the short message. Then she sat up.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “John Grouse has decided to enlist as well. He’s sending back the carriage but is not coming with it.”

  Bridget’s hand shot to her mouth. “Would you like me to send for Mrs. Balsam?”

  In her distress, Mary almost said yes. But she looked into Bridget’s wide blue eyes and put on a smile. “Mrs. Balsam has her own affairs to tend to, and I’ll not tear her away from them out of my own apprehension over the days to come. We shall face this problem ourselves.” She folded the note and handed it back to Bridget. “There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to manage everything with some assistance from you and Mrs. Maggin. The corn is planted. We shan’t need to do much with it until harvesttime, and by that time Nathaniel assures me he will have returned. He’ll certainly be back by the time the winter wheat must be sown in October.”

  Bridget twisted the paper in her hands. “But what about the baby?”

  “You may summon the midwife for me when it’s time.”

  Bridget looked doubtful.

  “My girl,” Mary continued, “I would rather have a stranger deliver this baby than have my mother-in-law anywhere near me when the time comes. She would undoubtedly let me know everything I was doing wrong. Now then, Bridget,” she said as she threw back her shoulders, “I’m famished. What does Mrs. Maggin have planned for supper?”

  Later that evening, after a lonely meal of roasted rabbit in onion sauce, Mary retired to the library to look over Nathaniel’s ledgers. He kept meticulous records, and Mary was determined that when he came home he would find that she had managed the farm well in his absence.

  The sun was below the horizon when she heard the bell at the back door, then footsteps hurrying down the back stairs. Voices floated upon the still air, including a masculine one the likes of which Mary had never heard. It was understated and slow and yet somehow urgent. She stood at the library door and listened. Then she remembered that Nathaniel and John were both gone. All who were left in the house were three unarmed women, one of them carrying a child.

  She cursed John Grouse under her breath, then scanned the library for some implement. She settled on one of the heavy silver candlesticks sitting on the mantel, a gift from her mother-in-law.

  Outside the kitchen door she could distinguish Mrs. Maggin’s gruff voice.

  “You must leave this house at once.”

  Then that low, round, masculine voice again. “Please. Just a drink of water and a bit a bread for the journey.”

  “Not a crumb, and you’re lucky I haven’t called the master of the house down on your head.” It was an empty threat, but the man needn’t know it.

  Mary pushed the oak door open a crack. Mrs. Maggin stood wielding a large knife with Bridget behind her, grasping at her skirts. A man stood just inside the back door, silhouetted against the twilight sky. His head was bare, his arms tight against his sides, his hands wringing some item in front of him. Then he brought a hand to his face in a gesture of tired despair. The movement apparently startled Mrs. Maggin, and she pointed the knife at him.

  Mary burst in. “Mrs. Maggin, what is the meaning of this?”

  The old cook kept her weapon trained on the man in the door. “This fugitive has come begging from your household, and I am simply sending him on his way.”

  “Fugitive?”

  She took a closer look at the man. Tattered clothes, crumpled hat in his hand, no shoes despite the cold, damp night. But the man’s most striking feature was his skin. It was dark brown, deep as midnight, and glistening with sweat.

  “Get him inside this instant!” Mary commanded.

  When no one moved, Mary hurried past the bedraggled man and shut the door against the coming night. She gave Mrs. Maggin a severe look. The woman lowered the knife but would not relinquish it.

  “Please sit down,” Mary said to the man. “Bridget!”

  Bridget sprang into action, pulling out a chair before retreating once more behind her protector. The stranger turned fearful eyes upon each of them, and finally sat when Mary nodded at him.

  “Mrs. Maggin, please get this man a glass of water at once. And get the leftover rabbit from supper.”

  Mrs. Maggin let the knife clatter onto the countertop and crossed her arms. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  Mary met her cook’s hard eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ll serve Satan himself before I serve one of those—”

  Mary raised a finger in the air. “Don’t say it! Whatever vulgar slur is on your tongue, don’t say it. Not in this house, not within these walls. If you are so high and mighty you won’t serve one of God’s children, I shan’t have you serve me either. You may stay the night, but I suggest you use the short time you have left in this house to pack up your belongings.” She pointed to the door.

  Mrs. Maggin’s arms dropped to her sides. “You don’t mean that!”

  “I surely do,” Mary said, hands on hips. “Mr. Balsam would be livid with me if I kept you on after such a heartless display. You’ll have your wages. Good night.”

  The old cook stood speechless, Bridget still frozen in place behind her. When she saw that her mistress was in earnest, she stalked out of the room, leaving Bridget cowering behind nothing at all.

  “Bridget, water and food,” Mary said.

  As the girl hurried to do her bidding, Mary looked at the man who would not raise his eyes to meet hers. A jagged scar ran down his cheek and neck and disappeared under a filthy shirt that had perhaps once been white.

  Bridget set down a glass of water from the basin and a plate of leftover rabbit and a slice of bread.

  “The butter, Bridget,” Mary said. Then to the man, “I’m sorry it is no longer hot.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said into the plate.

  “Please eat your fill and excuse me a moment.” Mary pulled Bridget into the hallway. “Go upstairs and retrieve a set of clothes for this man. I’m sure there must be something old that Nathaniel left behind. Britches, shirt, stockings. If you don’t see his old boots, they may be in the barn. Fetch them.”

  Bridget scuttled away and Mary stared at the kitchen door. It was one thing to read articles in the Liberator and listen to speeches, quite another to be imposed upon by a fugitive slave in the flesh. While she may not agree with the vile practices of her Southern countrymen, Mary did not care to be implicated in such a messy business as harboring an escaped slave. She needed to send him on his way as soon as possible.

  When she entered the kitchen again, Mary found that the man was already cleaning the last bits of cold onion sauce from the plate with a crust of bread. The terrified expression she’d seen earlier had been supplanted by utter exhaustion.

  “Bridget is gathering up some clothes for you.”

  The man stood up, bowed his head, and commenced wringing his defeated hat. “I couldn’t take—”

  She held up a hand. “Nonsense. You knocked at our door for a reason. The least you can do is take the charity we offer.”

  He
nodded and looked at the floor.

  Mary searched for something more to say. “Where are you from?”

  “Don’t know as I should say.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  He was taller than Nathaniel, broader in the shoulders and chest, and in all ways an imposing individual. Mary had heard that Southern whites were so afraid of slave uprisings that they prohibited groups of slaves from meeting together—even for church—without a white man present. Looking at the man before her, she understood why. What she didn’t understand was why her Nathaniel was asked to sacrifice his life for people who seemed to lack only weapons. Slaves had numbers. They had motivation. Surely they had opportunities. Couldn’t they be armed and allowed to fight for their own freedom as the Haitians had?

  Then she heard Nathaniel’s voice in her head. What of the Union? What of honor? What of Christian duty? Mary tried to believe in these things. But one of the people her husband sought to liberate now stood in her kitchen while Nathaniel was in Detroit, quite possibly preparing to fight in the very state from which this fugitive hailed. By the time Nathaniel got there, this man would be in Canada—free, no one shooting at him. And he hadn’t even fought for it. Simply took an opportunity and ran away from home.

  Mary fought back a tremble of resentment. “Is it quite terrible there?”

  He looked her in the eye at last, and she was stunned by the depth of sorrow she read across his face.

  The door swung open, and Bridget entered behind a pile of patched-up clothes and well-worn boots.

  “Ah, here we are,” Mary said with forced cheer. “Please take these things for your journey. Take them out to the barn to change. You may sleep out there for a few hours, if you must. I only ask that you leave before dawn and be careful that no one who may happen by on the road sees you. It’s only fifty miles east to Port Huron. Go around the city to the south to cross the river. If you go north you’ll run into Lake Huron and be trapped. On the other side of the river is Canada. You will be safe there.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”