Freedom Bound (3 page)

She paused for a moment. If only he knew!

Before the end of February my assignment will be finished
and I shall join you in Charleston—if you are in Charleston.
Pardon me if I sound a little confused. The fact is, the letter
I sent to stop you from setting out may have reached you in
time. In that case, you aren't in Charleston anyway, and it is
I who will be disappointed not to find you waiting for me.

You see by my words the state of my uncertainty. But one
thing of which I am sure is my love for you. This separation
is painful, but I console myself with the thought that our
reunion will double and augment our joys.

A thousand kisses from your ever-loving

Nick

Before the end of February. Only a few more weeks. That
wasn't so long!

Charlotte kissed the letter, refolded it, and then, reaching
through the slit in the side of her gown, thrust it into her
pocket. When she reached her new lodgings, she thought
happily, there would be time to reread Nick's words, to ponder and to dream.

THE STREETS WERE EVEN
more crowded than they had
been the previous afternoon. Posy led the way, pushing the
two-wheel cart ahead of her through the mire. Since the
trunk was longer than the cart bed, it stuck out in front like
a prow.

Another ship must have recently docked, for a surge of
sailors, shouting and singing, was making its way from the
direction of the wharf, no doubt to the nearest tavern. Charlotte had formed a low opinion of sailors. Their daily grog
rations—four ounces of rum in the morning and four in the
afternoon—seemed to keep most of them in a perpetually
befuddled state.

Posy ploughed right through the crowd, as if determination could compel the sailors to fall away on either side. But
they crowded even closer. Several ogled Charlotte in a most
alarming manner. They were so near she could smell their
sweat mingled with the rum on their breath. While she was
avoiding a tattooed arm that reached out to grab her, a
ragged boy bumped into her, and she staggered a little. The
boy ran away without saying anything.

Once clear of the sailors, Posy and Charlotte soon reached
a side street lined by small houses. Posy stopped at a plain
front door. There was a window on either side of the door.
The window frames, like the door, were painted grey.

“This street's called Stoll's Alley. The Quaker lady lives
here.”

These were the first words that Charlotte had heard Posy
utter.

Charlotte rapped on the door.

After a few seconds, it opened. In the doorway stood a
woman dressed in a plain black gown, without a frill or ruffle or any touch of lace. Her apron, too, was black. On her
head was a black bonnet shaped like a coal scuttle, its brim
so deep at both sides that it blinkered her eyes. Within the
shadow of the brim, Charlotte saw determined blue eyes,
clean-cut features and ivory skin. The woman's hair was so
well hidden that Charlotte could not tell what the colour
was. Her face, though worn, was not old. She looked about
thirty years of age.

“Thee must be Mrs. Schyler. I have been expecting thee.”
She turned to Posy. “I'll help thee to carry the box inside.”

“No! Please,” said Charlotte. “Let me.”

Mrs. Doughty stood aside to make way as Charlotte and
Posy carried the trunk inside. After they had set it down,
Charlotte reached for her pocket. Even though she needed
to be careful with her money, she wanted to give Posy a
penny.

The pocket was not there. Frantically she felt about in the
space between her skirt and petticoat. In an instant her fingers felt the ends of the cloth tapes that had held her pocket
to her belt. The tapes had been slashed.

“Oh! No!” She felt tears spring to her eyes and struggled
not to cry, but this was too much.

“What's wrong?” asked Mrs. Doughty.

“My pocket is gone! My purse was in it, with all my
money.”

Mrs. Doughty took her hand. “Come sit down. Thee is
white as a sheet.”

Charlotte, her hand in Mrs. Doughty's, turned to Posy.
“I'm so sorry! I wanted to give you a penny for your help.”

“Them pickpockets,” said Posy, “they so quick. They cut
the strings and a body don't feel a thing. But never mind
about giving me money. Thank you for the thought.”

Posy stepped outside, picked up the handles of her cart
and trundled it off down the street.

Mrs. Doughty led Charlotte to a chair, one of two plain
wooden chairs that stood in front of an empty fireplace,
along with a simple wooden settle.

The room was square, with no pictures on the walls. There
were no draperies at the windows—just plain shutters. The
tall floor clock in its wooden case was unadorned.

Three small children were sitting on a braided rug in the
centre of the room, playing with alphabet blocks. There were
two little girls, about six and five years of age, and a boy of
about two. Like their mother, the children wore black. Lifting their heads, they regarded Charlotte with solemn eyes.

“These are my little ones,” Mrs. Doughty said. “Patience is
the eldest, then Charity, and then Joseph.”

“How do you do?” Charlotte hardly knew what she was
saying. Her thoughts were on her stolen pocket. It wasn't
just money that she had lost. Nick's letter was gone.

“Very well, I thank thee,” each girl answered. Joseph merely stared.

Mrs. Doughty left the room, returning quickly with a
tumbler of water.

“Thee must take such a loss with forbearance.” When she
handed her the water, Charlotte noticed that her hands were
red and raw. “There are more important things in life than
money.”

Charlotte sipped the water. “Important or not, money is
necessary if I am to pay for my lodging.”

“Let's not worry about that.”

“I don't like to be beholden.”

“Since thee has no money, I welcome thee not as a lodger
but as a guest.”

“But I can't accept your hospitality without giving anything in return. There must be something I can do to help
you.”

“Do not fret. I do it for thy husband's sake. Nick is a
friend, though not a friend.”

This curious statement caught Charlotte's attention. “A
friend but not a friend?”

“Others call us Quakers, but the Society of Friends is
what we call ourselves. Thy husband shares our beliefs about
war and slavery.”

“Nick is a man of peace. That's why he served as a courier
but never as a soldier.”

“It's hard to preach peace in a time of war. For the most
part, we Friends are tolerated. But our situation has worsened of late, as much because of our abhorrence of slavery
as because of our hatred of bloodshed. My husband Caleb
was fined because I taught a black girl to read and write.”

“Is that against the law?”

“It is. And the law assumes that whatever a wife does, she
does it under her husband's direction.”

“I did know that. My father says that the men who made
that law must all have been bachelors.”

“In this case, my husband approved of what I did, and he
said so when he appeared before the magistrate. The magistrate rebuked him severely. But being fined didn't change
our ways. In fact, it made our opposition to slavery stronger
still. We resolved to buy a slave in order to set him free. It
took a year of frugal living to save enough money. Thirty
pounds was the price. The slave's name was Duncan. He
went north to New York, where it would be easier for him to
live as a free man.

“Caleb knew he would pay a price for giving Duncan his
freedom. When he lost a third of his customers, he was not
surprised. We were both prepared for that.”

As she spoke, Mrs. Doughty's fingers were twisting a corner of her apron. “One week after Duncan left, ruffians attacked Caleb on his way home from a meeting of the
Friends.” She raised the corner of the apron to her eyes. “A
neighbour found him and brought him home.” A sob
caught in her throat. “Caleb did not survive.”

For a moment Charlotte could not speak. When she did
speak, “I'm so sorry,” was all she could say. Her sympathy
was mixed with horror. This man had been murdered for
his decent, courageous human act.

Mrs. Doughty gave a quick look at her children. She sat
up straight in her chair, and Charlotte saw that she was
determined to compose herself. She doesn't want to upset
her children, Charlotte thought.

“Caleb was a shoemaker, a good provider,” Mrs. Doughty
continued in a quiet voice. “His death brought us close to
ruin. But the Friends help us. And I carry on my husband's
work.”

She raised her head. “Now I must make thee welcome in
our home. The two bedrooms upstairs are where my children and I sleep. The best I can offer thee is a cot in the
kitchen.”

“Mrs. Doughty, for three weeks I slept in a greasy hammock, slung from hooks in the ship's timbers. Before that,
my bed was two flour sacks sewn together and stuffed with
beech leaves. So you see, a cot in your kitchen will suit me
fine.”

More than fine, she said to herself. But she must find
some way to contribute. Only then could she feel perfectly
comfortable living here.

Looking around the Quaker family's simple home, she
thought it was a good place to wait for Nick's return. But
what did Mrs. Doughty mean by saying that she carried on
her husband's work? Her husband had been a shoemaker.
There was no sign of cobbler's tools about. So she couldn't
mean that.

THE FIRST THINGS
Charlotte noticed in Mrs. Doughty's
kitchen were half-a-dozen clotheslines stretching from wall
to wall overhead. Apart from that, the kitchen was much like
any other. It held a wooden table, a counter with a dry sink,
a slop bucket under the sink, and shelves above the counter.
There was a fireplace for cooking, with a swing-out crane
from which pots could be hung. Near the back door stood a
big copper washtub on an iron stand. In the washtub, red,
green, blue, and brown clothes were soaking in sudsy water.
There seemed to be clothes of every colour except Quaker
black.

“Would thee like a biscuit?” Mrs. Doughty asked. “I made
them fresh this morning.”

“No, thank you. I breakfasted well.”

“Then I'll get back to my work.” She rolled up her sleeves,
pulled a green shirt from the water, and began to rub it vigorously on her scrubbing board.

“May I help?” asked Charlotte.

“Only one person can use a scrub board at a time. But
thee can keep me company.” She wrung out the shirt and
laid it on a wooden trough that stood next to the tub. “I
should like to know more about thee, if I may.”

“Of course.” Charlotte sat down at the kitchen table. “I
was born and raised on a farm near a little place called Fort
Hunter in the Mohawk Valley.”

She fell silent as memories flooded her mind. The warm
kitchen with its long harvest table. The smell of earth in the
spring, just after the ploughing was done. The honking of
wild geese passing overhead on wide-spread wings.

Mrs. Doughty lifted her head. “Go on.”

“I had three brothers.” Charlotte fought the lump in her
throat that always rose when she thought of the loved ones
she had lost. “There was James, then came Charlie, and then
Isaac. I'm the youngest, born five years after Isaac. We were
a happy family until the year I turned thirteen. That's when
everything changed. There was talk of revolution. People
took sides. They were either Tories, like my family, loyal to
England, or they were Whigs, ready to fight for independence. Neighbours who'd been our friends now became enemies.”

“It was the same in the Carolinas.”

“I think it was like that everywhere.” Charlotte paused.
“All three of my brothers were killed.”

Mrs. Doughty stopped scrubbing. “All three were killed?”

“James and Charlie died at the Battle of Saratoga. A week
later, a Liberty man shot Isaac. There was so much violence
in the Mohawk Valley that Papa said we had to leave. We
made our way north to Canada. There we took refuge at
Fort Haldimand on Carleton Island, at the eastern end of
Lake Ontario. We lived in the Loyalist refugee camp. Our
only shelter was a tent.”

“Even in winter? It must have been terrible.”

“It was terrible. The second winter, Mama died.” Charlotte swallowed hard. “I don't think I can talk about this any
more.”

“I will not press thee further.” Mrs. Doughty lifted another
garment from the tub, wrung it, and placed it on the trough.
“Only this: where did thee meet Nick? Was it on Carleton
Island?”

“I knew him long before that. We were both pupils at Sir
William Johnson's school at Fort Hunter. There were thirty
of us, little ones in the front rows, big ones in the back. I
started school when I was seven. Nick was one of the big
boys. Ten years old. He stood out because he was always asking questions—not to show off, but because he wanted to
know the ‘why' about everything.”

“Then he hasn't changed.” Mrs. Doughty laid another
garment on the trough.

“I don't think he ever will. After he turned fourteen and
was finished school, I'd see him drop by to borrow books
from the schoolmaster. There was one called
Gulliver's
Travels
and another called
Candide
that he talked about. But
it was much later that he told me about the books, when I
was fifteen and we were courting.”

“When Nick first came to Charleston,” said Mrs. Doughty,
“he attended our meetings a few times. That's how my husband and I met him. He was respectful of our beliefs, but he
could not accept all of them. Reason, he said, was his only
guide.”

“He has told me the same,” said Charlotte.

“Reason should not be our only guide, but it guided Nick
to two great truths: slavery is wrong and war is wrong.” She
stood up. “Now, if thee will help me empty the tub and fill
it with fresh water, I can rinse the clothes. Then we'll hang
them to dry.” She glanced out the window. “It's a fair day.
They'll dry quickly in the breeze.”

Later, as they were pegging the laundry onto the clotheslines in the backyard, Mrs. Doughty said, “I have an idea
how thee can help me. I take in washing from five households. To pick it up and deliver it is the hardest part of my
work. I have to carry the bundle of laundry through the
streets while keeping an eye on three little children. Then
the children need to be cleaned up when we return home.”

“I understand that. The streets are foul.”

“People dump their garbage and empty their chamber
pots right onto the roadway. Though they're fined if caught
in the act, many do it anyway.”

“I'll be happy to pick up and deliver laundry, for I want
very much to make some contribution.”

“That's settled, then. I have a spare pocket I can give thee.
Thee will need it to collect payment.”

“Thank you. I'll guard it more carefully than the one
stolen from me.” She paused. “I don't want to be impolite,
but may I ask you a question?”

“Thee answered my questions. Why should I not answer
thine?”

“It's about the way you talk.”

“We call it plain speech.”

“It's not like the Bible. You don't say ‘thou.' Just ‘thee.'”

“Plain speech has its own rules. ‘Thee' is correct for speaking to one person. We use ‘you' when speaking to two or
more. We believe that to say ‘you' when speaking to one person is to acknowledge that person as your superior in rank.
We Friends observe no distinctions of rank. To us, all are
equal.”

“I see,” said Charlotte, who really did not see but wanted
to be respectful.

“We use plain speech to remind ourselves of who and
what we are.”

“Then you don't mind if I talk the way I'm used to?”

“Not in the least.”

That evening when the light was fading, Mrs. Doughty lit a
candle, closed the kitchen window shutters, and then went
into the front room to close the shutters there.

“We retire early to save on candles,” Mrs. Doughty said,
“and we rise at daybreak. The kitchen fire will give enough
light for thee to see thy way to bed.”

“I wish you good night,” Charlotte said.

Mrs. Doughty stopped at the bottom of the narrow stairs
that ascended from the kitchen. “In the morning, if thee
wants to write a letter to thy father, I'll give thee pen and
paper.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Doughty. But there's no way a letter can
reach him in winter. It will be April before the ice breaks up
so that a bateau can travel up the St. Lawrence River to
Carleton Island.”

“He must worry about thee.”

“I know he does. Since Mama died, I'm all he has.”

“I shall remember him in my prayers.”

After Mrs. Doughty had shepherded her children upstairs,
Charlotte changed into her nightgown, the one she had
bought to please Nick.

Where was Nick now? she wondered as she lay on the cot
under a patchwork quilt. If only she had his letter to read
over again! Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut and tried to
visualize the words on the page. Nick had called her “my
dearest Dear.” He had said that his assignment would be
completed by the end of February. He had promised her a
thousand kisses. Now
that
was something to look forward
to! She just had to concentrate on those kisses and not let
herself think of the dangers he faced before she could collect
them. Thinking about Nick, she drifted happily into sleep.

A cry startled her awake. She stiffened, but did not move. It
sounded like the squawky wail of a very young baby. She
could not place where it came from, and listened to hear it
again. But all was silence. I must have been dreaming, she
decided, and went back to sleep.

In the morning she told Mrs. Doughty what she thought
she had heard.

An alarmed expression crossed the woman's face, but her
voice was composed. “It could have been a dream. Or a
noise in the street.”

“It must have been,” Charlotte said. But it hadn't felt like
a dream, and the cry had sounded too close to have come
from the street.