The House Girl (34 page)

Or maybe the child was not Lu Anne’s?

Turning to the slave pages of the book, Lina looked again for any slave child with the same date of birth. No, each child born to one of the Bell slaves was listed by name under a separate heading titled “Increase” with the birth date written beside it. Each child’s name was also noted beside the name of its mother, with additional relevant notations. “Lottie, 1813.… Hap, born 1839, died (stung) 1851.” The last child born at Bell Creek was in 1842, to Calla, and died the same year. Beside the listing for Josephine, no child’s name appeared.

Lina checked the notes she had taken on the Dorothea Rounds letters. What was the date of the letter that referenced Josephine?
Last night a girl came to the house
.
Heavy with child
. When did the girl come?

Dorothea wrote to her sister Kate on August 28, 1848, the same day the Bell baby was born. Lina felt a warmth, a quickening of her pulse.

A heavily pregnant Josephine came to the Rounds barn and left in the night. The next day, a baby was born at Bell Creek. Lina refused to believe in coincidence, in luck; she knew with a swift certainty, here was evidence that Josephine’s child had been born at Bell Creek and that Robert Bell had recorded its birth.

Lina checked again the other pages: there was no record of the child’s death or sale. What had happened to the boy?

After Lu Anne died, Lina had read, Robert Bell did not stay long at Bell Creek. He promptly married the local schoolteacher, declared bankruptcy, left the state of Virginia, and settled in Louisiana. But what happened to the people who had lived with him at Bell Creek?

Lina looked for the last notation in the farm book.
House, goods, slaves, and all other chattel sold to Mr. Justice Stanmore of Stanmore Hill, on this day the 10th of November, 1852
.

And today it was the Stanmore family who retained control of the Bell Center, the Bell estate, the Bell art, the legacy of all that Robert Bell had sold away.

With care, Lina flipped through the book’s remaining pages, all of them blank. At the very end, folded against the back cover as if someone had placed it there for safekeeping, nestled a loose paper folded once. Cautiously Lina pried it loose, the paper coming away stiffly with a tearing sound, but the page itself, she saw with relief, remained intact. The book’s back cover showed a yellow-edged rectangle where the paper had rested.
How long has this been hidden here?
Lina thought. She unfolded the paper, her fingers seeming thick and unwieldy. She saw first the word
REWARD
in large thick black type, the ink so heavy it seemed almost fresh. Underneath in smaller type, the poster read:

The paper felt gritty and rough through the thin fabric of her gloves, and with an inexplicable urgency Lina refolded the page and replaced it within the farm book. She pulled off the gloves and wiped her fingers against the wool of her trousers as if this final page had somehow dirtied them.

Josephine, gone since Sept. 24, 1852
.

So Josephine
had
run again. Once in 1848 and then again in 1852. And the second time, she did not return to Bell Creek. Lina grinned in the cool, airless room as an image came to her, of Josephine on the road, heading north, away from the Bells and her intolerable life there. But in that image, Josephine was alone; she did not escape with her son. Lina’s grin faded. Josephine must have left her son behind, and this realization unexpectedly clouded Lina’s sight and she closed her eyes. Maybe she was wrong. Could she be wrong? No. If Josephine had run with a child, surely Robert Bell would have stated as much in the reward poster. A fugitive slave traveling with a child would have been easy to spot; she would have been easy to catch.

A knock at the door startled Lina. She raised her head and felt momentarily disoriented here, back in the Bell archives, the digital clock flashing red on the wall, Nora hovering in the doorway with eyebrows raised, her long gray braid and cotton skirt, her rubber-soled sandals and noisy bracelets. The physical qualities of the room, the faintly flickering light, the smell of dust and mildew, the cool metal table intruded on the past and brought Lina back to herself.

“So, did you find anything?” Nora asked.

Lina gave a tentative nod. “I think that I did. But I may need some more information. I’m interested in the sale of slaves from Robert Bell to Justice Stanmore on November 10, 1852. What exactly did Justice Stanmore buy? He must have noted more details about the purchase than Robert Bell did about the sale.”

“Mr. Stanmore had a farm book, similar to the Bells’. I’m sure that kind of information would be included.” Nora brushed a stray hair from her face. “But I’m afraid all the materials relating to the Stanmore family are held over at the Stanmore Foundation. It’s just across town, but they are very strict about their viewing policy. Academics only.” She gave a sly smile. “I could request that they send it over here, though. Can you come back tomorrow?”

B
ACK IN HER BUDGET HOTEL
room, its walls painted a withering shade of yellow, Lina opened her laptop and searched online for information relating to the Stanmore family. A daguerreotype of Justice Stanmore appeared: a potbellied, fair-haired dandy, his lips too fleshy, his eyes too pale. He looked as though he burned easily in the sun and did not look favorably on work. The Stanmore plantation was now on the historical register of protected sites in Virginia, Lina read. In the spring and autumn months, tour groups trooped through its gardens, down to the tobacco fields, the old dairy house, the blacksmith shed and meat house, into the curing barn where the bundles of bright leaf were still hung to dry and darken.

She followed a link to the Stanmore Foundation’s official website, a glossy affair with rousing background music, fade-in historical photographs alongside modern shots of smiling schoolchildren on field trip visits and straight-backed men, black and white, amid the green of the tobacco fields. Over $12 million in grant money had been awarded last year in the foundation’s focus areas of cultural enrichment, community development, social justice, and race relations. Every year, the Justice K. Stanmore Award provided an outstanding individual with $50,000 for his or her work in promoting racial harmony in the state of Virginia.

Nothing on the foundation website mentioned Lu Anne Bell, Josephine Bell, or the artwork controversy.

Lina’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, and her thoughts turned to Jasper Battle and his family heirlooms.
Coming out of the woodwork,
Porter had said.
Be careful, Lina
. But Porter’s suspicions seemed at odds with the Jasper Lina had met, his clear eyes and how he spoke about his father.
Jasper Battle,
Lina typed into a search engine. Up popped several dozen hits: links to a middle-aged tax attorney in Pensacola, Florida, to a gaming website where hordes of locusts fought for supremacy in the Battle of Jasper, to a high school student in Duluth who enjoyed lacrosse and partying with his homies. Finally, toward the end of the list, a website for the rock band The Wisdom appeared. Lina opened the link. A photo flashed onto the screen of four indie-rock-looking men, all in their twenties, all tattooed to some degree, with varying heights and skin tones, and there he was, staring out with a frank, direct gaze, identified as “Jasper Battle: Bass.” As Lina explored the site, a few simple pages popped up, of gig dates and performance photos. One showed Jasper as a dark silhouette on a backlit stage, his arms blurry with motion across a bass guitar, legs spread wide, head down.

Lina dialed the number Jasper had given her last week. He picked up on the first ring.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Jasper’s tone was so contrite, so genuine that Lina wanted immediately to reassure him, but of course the apology wasn’t intended for her. “Jasper … this is Lina Sparrow, from the law firm?”

“Lina.”
Now he sounded embarrassed, but half-laughing. “I thought you were someone else.”

“So I gathered.” She wanted to ask what he was sorry for, who the someone else was, but she stopped herself.

“Sorry—” he said and then paused. “I mean, I’m sorry I … said that.”

Now it was Lina’s turn to laugh. “Don’t worry. Don’t be sorry. How are you?” She held the phone to her face, enjoying the novelty of speaking to someone other than Dan (two calls, to check in) or Garrison (three messages, all contrite) or her dad (one bland message, one bland conversation, one hang-up).

“I’m good. Nice of you to ask. So what can I do for you, counselor?”

Lina liked his teasing tone but it threw her off-balance. She didn’t know how to match it and so she found herself veering into formality, her words coming out stiff. “I’ve found evidence that Josephine Bell had a son,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m hoping to get some information that will help me track her descendants further.”

Jasper seemed not to notice her awkwardness. “That’s great news. Even if it’s not me, you know. It’s still pretty amazing that you found something.” His tone was admiring as much as congratulatory, which succeeded only in deepening Lina’s unease. Maybe he thought she had been fishing for a compliment, or bragging? But she hadn’t been, and Jasper was right. It was amazing: Josephine Bell had a son.

“Yes, it
is
great, isn’t it?” Now Lina allowed herself to be excited too and to let Jasper hear it. “And I don’t think anybody else knows about it. I mean, just the two of us.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” Jasper was mock-serious, again teasing her, but this time she laughed, then asked, “Listen, could you tell me your dad’s full name? And date of birth? It would be helpful, if I get that far down the road.”

“March 16, 1947. Christopher Caleb Battle.” He enunciated each word carefully as Lina wrote the name in her notebook. She thought she heard his voice shake just the tiniest bit. Then he added gently, “But you know, I’m still not interested in being your plaintiff.”

“I know, but if I’m searching for Josephine Bell’s descendants, I might as well search for your father. You’re my biggest lead right now, Jasper. Do you have any cousins?”

“One, actually. Though I don’t think you’d like him very much.”

Lina smiled against the phone. “Jasper, I’d really like to see your Bell pictures. I think we can help each other on this. But first I need to see what you’ve got. I’ll be back in New York tomorrow.”

The band had a show tomorrow night, Jasper told her, at a place on the Lower East Side. “You should come,” he offered. “I could show you one of the pictures afterward—I don’t live far from the club.”

“I’ll be there,” Lina said without hesitation, and she registered a prickle along her spine, a fizz of excitement that seemed almost foreign, a sensation she had nearly forgotten herself capable of. But she didn’t allow herself time to consider it fully. Jasper Battle was her potential plaintiff, that was all. They said their good-byes and Lina took out her BlackBerry to e-mail Dan with her news about Josephine Bell. The image of Jasper remained open on the screen of her laptop: his head down, his face hidden.

At nine
A.M.
, Lina drove back to the Bell Archives. Already the day was bathwater warm, the sky a washed-out blue studded with small puffball clouds. The air smelled of damp and flowers. Nora greeted her at the door, today wearing a loose yellow cotton dress, another row of bracelets, another braid. But her cheer had vanished.

“Those Stanmore people,” Nora began. “They are so full of themselves. I swear, they don’t even care about the art. They act like this is all about them. The Stanmore
reputation
. What a bunch of phonies. Josephine Bell lived here too! It’s not like Lynnhurst’ll just fall into the ground if she made those pictures. There’s still so much to be proud of.” Nora exhaled loudly and fanned her face with an outstretched hand.

“My sincerest apologies, Lina,” she continued. “I don’t normally get so upset, but it’s been a trying time, these last few weeks. And I was just over there at the Foundation, trying to get the Stanmore farm book for you, which is just
sitting
there. But they would only let me copy out some pages.” From her bag Nora pulled a messy stack of papers. “Old Mr. Stanmore did not keep very good records so I just had to guess at what to copy. I hope there’s
something
in here that’ll be of use.”

“Oh, I’m sure there will be.” Lina felt a downward tug of disappointment as the papers spilled from Nora’s hands into an untidy heap on her desk. She summoned a smile. “Thank you for taking the time. I’m sorry it’s caused so much trouble.”

“Oh, no trouble at all. To be honest, it’s good for me to go over there, speak my mind a bit. They all think I’m batty.” Nora lifted her eyebrows and widened her eyes. “Oooh!” she said, and gave a little flap of her outstretched hands.
“Please.”
And she lowered her hands, pursed her lips. “If they want batty, I will
show
them batty one of these days.”

N
ORA LEFT
L
INA IN THE
archives reading room with the copied pages, sixty-eight in total, full of cramped handwriting and columns of figures.

Like Robert Bell, Justice Stanmore had kept a farm book to record information relating to crops, acreage, livestock, yields, as well as the purchase of new slaves, their births and deaths. Unlike the Bell book, Stanmore’s did not list the slaves by name—just gender, age, and a basic description (“mulatto,” “dark,” “R thumb missing”). The name of the seller was usually written, or the auction house, but many purchases were dated only with the year or left undated entirely.

Lina began to read. Her progress was slow. Pages were out of order, dates difficult to decipher, and Justice Stanmore’s writing was barely legible, cramped and slanted so severely that Lina thought he must have turned the paper on its long side to write.