Blessing (38 page)

Later that day the maid Honoree let Gerard in at Stoddard and Tippy’s front door. He’d been eager to see his cousin and ascertain the state of Tippy’s health. But as he stepped inside the door, remembrance of the time he’d spent here with Blessing rushed through him. The hope that she’d be in the house tried to rise, but he cut it off. If she was here, he would leave as soon as possible.

“Hello, Mr. Ramsay.” Honoree relieved him of his hat and gloves, and he deposited his cane in the umbrella stand by the door.

“How is Mrs. Henry?”

Honoree looked serious. “She is some better, sir. Will you wait in the rear parlor? I’ll go get Mr. Henry.”

He entered the small parlor and stood, gazing out the window. Footsteps on the hardwood floor alerted him. He turned as his cousin entered.

“Gerard.” Stoddard greeted him with outstretched hand.

“Cousin.” Gerard clasped hands with the man, grateful for at least one friend and relative still true. “How’s your bride?”

Looking haggard and disheveled in his shirtsleeves, Stoddard waved him to a chair. He let out a labored sigh as he sat across from Gerard. “It’s difficult.”

“But she’s better, isn’t she?”

Stoddard tried to look hopeful and failed, his features tensing. “Some, but her convalescence is slow. If it had just been a miscarriage, she’d be up by now. The doctor said the cholera has made her . . . weaker.”

Gerard read the worry etched deeply into Stoddard’s face. “But she will recover?”

His cousin bent forward, clasping and unclasping his fingers. “I hope so, eventually, unless some other contagion lays her low again.” Stoddard scrubbed his face with his hands. “She’s in low spirits too.”

“I imagine she would be,” Gerard said with true sympathy. A young woman would take the loss of her first child hard, especially a caring person like Tippy.

“I feel helpless,” Stoddard admitted, looking into Gerard’s eyes. Then he roused himself. “I’m sorry. I’m focusing on my own troubles. You just lost your mother. And I regret I wasn’t able to attend my aunt’s funeral.”

The mention of this slid in like a blade. Gerard hoped his grief didn’t show. “She’s no longer in pain.”
In so many ways.

Stoddard nodded.

Aunt Fran appeared at the door. “Gerard.” She held out both hands.

He rose, claimed them, and drew her into the room.

“I was so sorry I couldn’t go to Regina’s funeral,” Aunt Fran said.

“You had more pressing obligations.” Gerard gently squeezed her hands to emphasize his point.

Then Blessing stepped through the doorway. She wore one of her simple gray dresses and a white widow’s cap. Her plain
attire only highlighted her warm brown hair and blue eyes. Her presence filled the room before she was even inside it.

The sight of her shot through Gerard, bringing him fully alive. Fully wary. He forced himself not to move toward her, though his whole body felt the pull. “Widow Brightman,” he murmured with a formal bow of his head.

She paused in the doorway, nodded to him, and then entered, looking away from him. “I require thy help, Stoddard. I think Tippy needs some fresh air and sunshine—
must have
some to begin to heal. She has argued with me but I’m ignoring her.”

Aunt Fran, also in sober gray, nodded in vigorous agreement, making the ribbons of her own white widow’s cap bounce.

Stoddard looked from one to the other.

“I’ve asked Honoree to dress her in a housecoat and slippers,” Blessing said. “And I want thee to carry her into the garden, Stoddard.”

Stoddard hesitated, looking uncertain.

“Son, do what Mrs. Brightman says,” Aunt Fran urged. “Tippy does need sunshine and fresh air—not only for her body but for her mind. If she lies in that bed much longer, she will never be the same.”

“Now,” Blessing instructed. “Please, Stoddard.”

Gerard felt the strength of Blessing’s will and insight. She could be trusted to do only good for Tippy.

Stoddard walked between the two women and up the stairs, and Gerard trailed after him in support.

Tippy’s wan appearance dismayed Gerard. She’d lost too much weight and her skin looked pasty white.

Tippy wept and begged, but Stoddard lifted her from bed and carried her down the stairs, ignoring her protests.

Blessing and Aunt Fran had already gone out into the garden and prepared a high-backed wicker chair with cushions and a light blanket. Stoddard set his wife carefully onto the chair in the sun and pushed the matching footstool under her slippered feet.

Gerard hung back while Aunt Fran and Blessing arranged the blanket over her and spoke soothingly to her.

Tippy closed her eyes, moist with tears. She rested her head against the chair and trembled.

“Tippy,” Blessing said, “the grief will remain, but spring is here and it’s time to begin again the task of living. Thee has a husband who needs thee. And family and friends who want thee well.”

Tippy nodded, pressing her teeth down on her quivering lower lip.

Aunt Fran sank into the chair beside her daughter-in-law. She patted Tippy’s hand, murmuring comforting words.

Finally Tippy opened her eyes and held out her other hand toward Stoddard.

He gripped it and drew it up for a kiss. “We’ll do,” he said simply.

“Yes.” Tippy gazed at him.

Aunt Fran rose. “I think it’s time I went home for a bit.” She led Blessing and Gerard back into the house.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Brightman,” Aunt Fran said inside. “I’ve tried to get her out of that bed for almost two weeks.”

Blessing pressed her cheek against Aunt Fran’s. “I must go to the orphanage.”

“I’ll walk you partway,” Gerard said, startling himself. He’d had no intention of being alone with her.

Blessing stared at him.

“Walk me home first, Gerard,” Aunt Fran said. “I’m going to sit in my garden and enjoy the sunshine too.”

In the foyer the three of them donned their hats and gloves, and Gerard accompanied his aunt to her gate.

“Don’t let this woman slip through your fingers,” Aunt Fran whispered to him there. “Your mother would have loved her.”

He tried to ignore the irritation this comment provoked, which was directed more at himself than at his aunt.

He caught up with Blessing, who had already begun walking. “I’m glad Tippy has you for a friend.” Even as he spoke the words, he wanted to kick himself. So much for avoiding the woman.

“I’m glad Stoddard has thee as a friend as well as a cousin. I’m very sorry for thy loss.”

So the two of them, who had faced down Smith together, were reduced to this, polite parlor conversation. “Thank you.”

They walked in silence past the now-familiar houses on Stoddard’s street.

She cleared her throat. “What is bothering thee? Thee looks as if thee is carrying the world on thy back.”

Picturing his father’s second house in Manhattan, he shut his eyes and then opened them. “Something I must deal with myself.” He found he couldn’t confide it to her after all.

Blessing repeated the words silently.
“Something I must deal with myself.”
Attraction to this man was definitely the something
she
must deal with herself.

The two of them walked together as far as the street that led to Gerard’s boardinghouse.

“I’ll leave you now,” he said.

“Yes, good-bye.” She offered him her hand.

He shook it and turned away.

She watched him start back down the street.
Good-bye, Gerard Ramsay. I’ll try to make certain we don’t run into each other again.

APRIL 30, 1849

On a balmy evening Gerard found himself in the familiar auditorium at Lane Seminary to hear Frederick Douglass. The crowded hall buzzed with voices. Gerard had argued with himself for days but had not been able to keep himself from attending tonight’s lecture.

He did indeed want to hear the notable abolitionist, this courageous man who had run away from slavery and later earned enough to buy his freedom.

Yet Gerard knew that in reality he’d come here to glimpse Blessing. Almost a month had passed since they’d seen each other at Stoddard’s. Gerard had kept himself busy and only called on his cousin when he knew the house would be without other visitors.

Tonight he could at least see her, but in the protection of a crowd. He would make sure not to chance a private word.

Except that the widow Brightman did not come.

Settling back to listen anyway, Gerard found Douglass, a
tall, imposing man, to be a spirited and interesting speaker. When the man said that a discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency than would be a discussion of the rights of women, Gerard gasped. And he wasn’t the only one in the audience.

Douglass went on to connect women’s rights to abolition and stated the position of the
North Star
, his periodical: “We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man.”

Gerard listened with his whole mind to a man he formerly wouldn’t have paid a moment’s attention to. However, the evening fell flat because Blessing Brightman had not come. With whom could he discuss this man’s ideas?

In the general commotion at the end of the lecture, Deborah Coxswain, the white-haired woman who’d attended
Hamlet
with him in Blessing’s stead, approached him. “Where is Blessing? She told me that nothing would make her miss tonight’s lecture.”

“I expected to see her too.” He’d come to spend an evening near Blessing, and evidently this woman knew that.
Whom am I trying to fool?

“I hope she isn’t ill,” Deborah said, sounding worried.

Alarm rippled through Gerard. Why hadn’t she come?

“I’ll go and check on her,” he assured her without hesitation. Nothing could keep him from investigating what had prevented Blessing from coming to hear Frederick Douglass. How many times had she brought up his name to Gerard?

He first walked to her house.

“No, she isn’t here,” Salina told him. “She must have stayed late at the orphanage. If you find her there, tell her I
sent her supper home with our maids. So she best not expect to find it here.”

Gerard shook his head, certain only Blessing would employ such a tart housekeeper.

He headed for the orphanage, a deep foreboding growing within. But perhaps Blessing had simply gotten caught up with one of her causes tonight. Another escaped slave? Another fallen woman? Soon the orphanage lay just ahead. At nearly ten at night, there were no lights on upstairs. The children and their nurses must be abed. He edged around to the rear.

Yes, low lamplight glowed from the kitchen windows and one of them was cracked open, but all the curtains had been pulled shut. He hesitated. Did this have something to do with the Underground Railroad? Did he really want to become involved in illegal activity a second time?

He stared at the curtained windows, listened to the quiet street noises. Finally he decided. He could not go home without seeing Blessing and making certain she didn’t need help—even if it was help in breaking the law.

In the dark he pushed the gate open silently and stepped into the back garden, his senses alert. Movement rustled near him—a shadowed form. He shifted his cane, ready for any attack.

Then he realized the figure was a woman. He doffed his hat automatically.

“Oh, you’re a gentleman; oh, help,” the woman whispered, sounding panicked. “I don’t know what to do. He’s in there with her.”

“Who?”

“Smith.”

S
MITH.
The name sucked away all sound, and Gerard couldn’t breathe. Fear for Blessing’s safety dragged him back, and he fought for air. His hearing and breathing, his will returned. “Are you certain?” he whispered.

“Yes. I was just leavin’ after visitin’ my nephew and then talkin’ with Mrs. Brightman. My Danny’s an orphan here. I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Smith go in, so I snuck back. I mean, the man never does anybody good. I peeked in the window. He’s in there with that kind lady. I don’t know what to do.” The woman’s voice was tinged with infectious panic.

“I’ll do what I can,” Gerard said, resisting the fear emanating from the woman’s voice. “Go for the night watch.”