Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V (7 page)

No, no, don’t be cynical, she told herself. Lady Ashworth is the president of Lap-Rip, publicly committed to putting limits on slavery. She would hardly let this old woman guide company through the house if she thought anyone could possibly find a negative implication in it.

The old woman moved with excruciating slowness, but Peggy followed patiently. She was called Doe in this house, but to Peggy’s great relief, there seemed to be no dimming or hiding of her heartfire, and it was easy to find her true name, an African word that Peggy could hear in her mind but wouldn’t know how to form with her lips. But she knew what the name meant: It was a kind of flower. This woman had been kidnapped by raiders from another village only days before her planned wedding, and was sold three times in as many days before seeing her first White face, a Portuguese ship captain. Then the voyage, her first owner in America, her
struggle to learn enough English to understand what she was being commanded to do. The times she was slapped, starved, stripped, whipped. None of her White masters had ravished her, but she had been bred like a mare, and of the nine children she bore, only two had been left with her past their third birthday. Those were sold locally, a girl and a boy, and she saw them now and then, even today. She even knew of three of her grandchildren, for her daughter had been a virtual concubine to her master, and ...

And all three of the grandchildren were free.

Astonishing. It was illegal in the Crown Colonies, yet in this woman’s heartfire Peggy could see that Doe certainly believed that it was true.

And then an even bigger surprise. Doe herself was also free, and had been for five years. She received a wage, in addition to a tiny rent-free room in this house.

That was why her heartfire was so easily found. The memory of bitterness and anger was there, but Lord Ashworth had freed her on her seventieth birthday.

How wonderful, thought Peggy. After fewer than six decades of slavery, when she had already lived longer than the vast majority of slaves, when her body was shriveled, her strength gone,
then
she was set free.

Again, Peggy forced herself to reject cynicism. It might seem meaningless to Peggy, to free Doe so late in her life. But it had great meaning to Doe herself. It had unlocked her heart. All she cared about now was her three grandchildren. That and earning her wage through service in this house.

Doe led Peggy up a wide flight of stairs to the main floor of the house. Everyone lived above the level of the street. Indeed, Doe led her even higher, to the lavish second story, where instead of a drawing room Peggy found herself being led to the porch and, yes, the cane chairs, the pitcher of iced lemonade, the swaying shoo-flies, the slaveboy with a fan almost the size of his own
body, and, standing at a potted plant with a watering can in her hand, Lady Ashworth herself.

“It’s so kind of you to come, Miz Larner,” she said. “I could scarcely believe my good fortune, when I learned that you would have time in your busy day to call upon me.”

Lady Ashworth was much younger and prettier than Peggy had expected, and she was dressed quite comfortably, with her hair pinned in a simple bun. But it was the watering can that astonished Peggy. It looked suspiciously like a tool, and watering a plant could only be construed as manual labor. Ladies in slaveholding families did not do such things.

Lady Ashworth noticed Peggy’s hesitation, and understood why. She laughed. “I find that some of the more delicate plants thrive better when I care for them myself. It’s no more than Eve and Adam did in Paradise—they tended the garden, didn’t they?” She set down the can, sat gracefully on a cane chair beside the table with the pitcher, and gestured for Peggy to be seated. “Besides, Miz Larner, one ought to be prepared for life after the abolition of slavery.”

Again Peggy was startled. In slave lands, the word
abolition
was about as polite as some of the more colorful expletives of a river rat.

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Ashworth, “I’m afraid my language may have shocked you. But that
is
why you’re here, isn’t it, Miz Larner? Don’t we both share the goal of abolishing slavery wherever we can? So if we succeed, then I should certainly know how to do a few tasks for myself. Come now, you haven’t said a word since you got here.”

Peggy laughed, embarrassed. “I haven’t, have I? It’s kind of you to be willing to see me. And I can assure you that ladies of stature in the United States are not up to their elbows in wash water. Paid servants do the coarser sort of work.”

“But so much more expensively,” said Lady Ashworth.
“They expect their wages in cash. We don’t use much money here. It’s all seasonal. The French and English buyers come to town, we sell our cotton or tobacco, and then we pay all the tradesmen for the year. We don’t carry money with us or keep it around the house. I don’t think we’d keep
many free
servants with such a policy.”

Peggy sighed inwardly. For Lady Ashworth’s heartfire told such a different story. She watered her own plants because the slaves deliberately overwatered the most expensive imports, killing them by degrees. Some imaginary shortage of cash had nothing to do with keeping free servants, for the well-to-do families always had money in the bank. And as for abolition, Lady Ashworth loathed the word as much as any other slaveholder. For that matter, she loathed Peggy herself. But she recognized that some limitation on slavery would have to be achieved in order to placate public opinion in Europe and the United States, and all that Lady Ashworth ever intended to allow Lap-Rip to accomplish was the banning of slavery in certain regions of the Crown Colonies where the land and the economy made slavery unprofitable anyway. Lady Ashworth had always had success in convincing Northerners that she was quite radical on slavery, and expected to do as well with Peggy.

But Peggy was determined not to be treated with such contempt. It was a simple matter to find in Lady Ashworth’s heartfire some of her more recent mistreatment of her slaves. “Perhaps instead of wielding the watering can,” said Peggy, “you might show your commitment to abolition by bringing back the two slaves you have standing stripped in chains without water to drink in the hot sun of the dockyard.”

Lady Ashworth’s face showed nothing, but Peggy saw the rage and fear leap up within her. “Why, Miz Larner, I do believe you have been doing some research.”

“The names and owners of the slaves are posted for all to see,” said Peggy.

“Few of our Northern visitors pry into our domestic affairs by visiting our disciplinary park.”

Too late did Peggy realize that the guards at the disciplinary yard—hardly a “park”—would never have let her inside. Not without a letter of introduction. And Lady Ashworth
would
inquire who it was who provided a Northern radical like Peggy with such an entree. When she found that there was no such letter and Peggy had made no such visit, she would think—what? That Peggy was secretly a torch? Perhaps. But more likely she would think that one of the household Blacks had talked to Peggy. There would be punishments for the only two Blacks that Peggy had had contact with: Doe and Lion. Peggy looked into the futures she had just created and saw Lady Ashworth hearing Doe’s confession, knowing perfectly well that the old woman was lying in order to protect Lion.

And what would Lady Ashworth do? Lion, refusing to confess, would be whipped and, in the futures in which he survived the whipping, sold west. Doe would be turned out of the house, for even though she had not given Peggy a bit of information, she had proven she was more loyal to a fellow Black than to her mistress. As a free black of advanced age, Doe would be reduced to living from scraps provided by the charity of other slaves, all of whom would be opening themselves to charges of stealing from their masters for every bit of food they gave to Doe.

Time to lie. “Do you think that you’re the only... abolitionist... living in Camelot?” said Peggy. “The difference is that some of the others are sincere.”

At once Lady Ashworth’s heartfire showed different futures. She would now be suspicious of the other ladies in Lap-Rip. Which of them had exposed Lady Ashworth’s hypocrisy by speaking to Peggy, or writing to her, about the Ashworth slaves now being disciplined?

“Did you come to my house to insult me?”

“No more than I came to be insulted,” said Peggy.

“What did I do to insult you?” said Lady Ashworth. What she did not say, but what Peggy heard just as clearly as her words, was that it was impossible for Lady Ashworth to insult Peggy, for Peggy was nobody.

“You dared to claim that you share the goal of abolishing slavery wherever you can, when you know perfectly well that you have no intention of living for even a single day of your life without slavery, and that your entire effort is merely to pacify Northerners like me. You are part of your husband’s foreign-relations strategy, and you are as committed to preserving slavery in the New Counties as anyone else in the Crown Colonies.”

At last the façade of cheerfulness cracked. “How dare you, you priggish little nobody? Do you think I don’t know your husband is a common tradesman with the name of Smith? No one ever heard of your family, and you come from a mongrel country that thinks nothing of mixing the races and treats people of quality as if they were the common scum of the street.”

“At last,” said Peggy, “you have consented to deal with me honestly.”

“I don’t consent to deal with you at all! Get out of my house.”

Peggy did not budge from her seat. Indeed, she picked up the pitcher of lemonade and poured herself a tall glass. “Lady Ashworth, the need for you to create the illusion of gradual emancipation has not changed. In fact, I think you and I have a lot more to talk about now that we’re not lying to each other.”

It was amusing to watch Lady Ashworth think through the consequences of throwing Peggy out—an event which would undoubtedly get reported all over the north, at least in abolitionist circles.

“What do you want, Miz Larner?” said Lady Ashworth coldly.

“I want,” said Peggy, “an audience with the King.”

Jean-Jacques Audubon soon forgot the strangeness of painting from a live bird and concentrated on colors and shapes. Arthur and Alvin both sat in the grass behind him, watching the goose come to life on the paper. To Arthur it was a kind of miracle. A dab here, a dab there, a streak, colors blending sometimes, sharp-edged in other places. And from this chaos, a bird.

From time to time the model grew weary. Arthur jumped up from the grass and spoke to the geese, and soon another took the place of the first, as close a match as he could find. Jean-Jacques cursed under his breath. “They are not the same bird, you know.”

“But they’re alive,” said Arthur. “Look at the eyes.”

Jean-Jacques only grunted. For the bird did look alive on the paper. Arthur whispered about it to Alvin, but Alvin’s reply gave him no satisfaction. “How do you know he didn’t make the dead birds look just as alive in his paintings?”

At last the painting was done. Jean-Jacques busied himself with putting away his colors and brushes, until Arthur called out to him, rather angrily. “Look here, Mr. Audubon!”

Jean-Jacques looked up. The goose was still there, not posed anymore, but still on the ground, gazing intently at Arthur Stuart. “I’m finish with the goose, you can let it go.” He turned back to his work.

“No!” Arthur Stuart shouted.

“Arthur,” said Alvin softly.

“He’s got to watch,” said Arthur.

Sighing, Jean-Jacques looked up. “What am I watching?”

The moment Audubon’s eyes were on him, Arthur clapped his hands and the goose ran and clumsily staggered into the air. But as soon as its wings were pulling against the air, it changed into a beautiful creature, turning the powerful beats of its wings into soaring flight. The other geese also rose. And Jean-Jacques, his weariness slipping from him, watched them fly over the trees.

“What grace,” said Jean-Jacques. “No lady ever dances with so much beauty.”

At that Arthur charged at him, furious. “That’s right! Them living birds are prettier than any of your damned old paintings!”

Alvin caught Arthur by the shoulders, held him, smiled wanly at Jean-Jacques. “I’m sorry. I never seen him act so mad.”

“Every painting you ever made killed a bird,” said Arthur. “And I don’t care how pretty you paint, it ain’t worth stopping the life of any of them!”

Jean-Jacques was embarrassed. “No one say this to me before. Men shoot their guns all the time, birds die every day.”

“For meat,” said Arthur. “To eat them.”

“Does he believe this?” Jean-Jacques asked Alvin. “Do you think they are hungry and shoot the birds for
food? Maybe they are stuffing it for trophy. Maybe they are shooting for
fun
, you angry boy.”

Arthur was unmollified. “So maybe they’re no better than you. But I’d rather cut off my hand than kill a bird just to make a picture of it.”

“All these hours you watch me paint, you admire my painting, no? And now you choose this moment and tout á coup you are angry?”

“Cause I wanted you to see that bird fly. You painted it but it could still fly!”

“But that was because of your talking to the bird,” said Jean-Jacques. “How can I know such a boy as you exist? I am oughting to wait for some boy to come along and make the bird pose? Until then I draw trees?”