"Out where I live, on north Tenth Street."
"Negro Hill?" The soft intake of breath before the question gave her away. He didn't react angrily.
"There's nothing to fear just because it's a black community. We have only our fair share of undesirables, same as down here — I take it back, you have more." He grinned. "You also have the politicians. Truly, you'll be perfectly safe if you'd care to come. I don't work Tuesdays. We could go during the day."
"All right," Constance said, hoping George would agree to it.
Surprisingly, he did. "If anyone could protect a woman anywhere, I have a feeling it's that young chap. Go visit his community of waifs. I'll be fascinated to know what it's like."
George paid a livery to bring a carriage to Willard's front door on Tuesday. The lout delivering it glowered when he saw Brown and Constance sit side by side on the driver's seat. The Negro was a companion, not a servant. The lout muttered something nasty, but one glance from Brown cut it short.
"When did you come to Washington?" Constance asked as Brown drove them away from the hotel into the perennial congestion of omnibuses, military wagons, horses, and pedestrians.
"Last fall, after Old Abe won."
"Why then?"
"Didn't I explain at the reception? The resettlement plan is in abeyance because of the war, and I thought this might be the cockpit of change. I hoped some useful work might find me, and it has. You'll see — Hah!" He bounced the reins over the team.
Soon they were rattling through the autumn heat to the overgrown empty lots far out on Tenth. Negro Hill was a depressing enclave of tiny homes, most unpainted, and hovels built of poles, canvas, and pieces of old crates. She saw chicken pens, vegetable patches, flowerpots. The small touches could do little to relieve the air of festering poverty.
The Negroes they passed gave them curious, occasionally suspicious looks. Presently Brown turned left into a rutted lane. At the end stood a cottage of new yellow pine bright as sunflower petals.
"The whole community helped build this," he said. "It's already too small. We can feed and house only twelve. But it's a start, and all we could afford."
The shining little house smelled deliciously of raw wood and hearth smoke and, inside, of soap. The interior, brightened by large windows, consisted of two rooms. In the nearer one, a stout black woman sat on a stool, Bible in hand, with twelve poorly dressed waifs of all shades from ebony to tan encircling her feet; the youngest child was four or five, the oldest ten or eleven. Through the doorway arch, Constance saw pallets laid in precise rows.
One beautiful coppery girl of six or seven ran to the tall man. "Uncle Scipio, Uncle Scipio!"
"Rosalie." He swept her up and hugged her. After he put her down, he walked Constance a short distance away and said, "Rosalie escaped from North Carolina along with her mother, stepfather, and her aunt. Near Petersburg a white farmer with a rifle caught them in his haymow. He killed the mother and stepfather, but Rosalie and her aunt got away."
"Where's the aunt now?"
"In the city, hunting for work. I haven't seen her for three weeks."
More children came clamoring around his legs. He patted heads, faces, shoulders, offering just the right encouragement or question to each as he worked his way to the old iron stove where a soup pot simmered; mostly broth and bones, Constance observed.
She ate with Brown and the lost children and the black woman, Agatha, who tended them while Brown was away at his job. Most of the youngsters laughed and wiggled and poked each other in a childlike way, but there were two, sad and grave, who didn't speak at all, merely sat spooning up broth in the slow, exhausted manner of the elderly. She had to turn away to keep from crying.
In spite of that, the place and the youngsters fascinated her. She hated to see the visit end. On the way back to Willard's, she asked, "What's your plan for those children?"
"First, I must feed and shelter them so they don't starve. The politicians will do nothing for them; I know that."
"You do have strong feelings about politicians, Mr. Brown."
"Why not Scipio? I'd like us to be friends. And, yes, I do despise the breed. Politicians helped put the shackles on black people and, what's worse, they have kept them there."
The carriage bumped on for a minute. Then she said, "Beyond helping the children survive, do you have anything else in mind for them?"
"From the necessary we move to the ideal. If I could locate another suitable place for the twelve you saw — a place to house and teach them till I can find homes for them — I could take in twelve more. But I can't afford to do it on what they pay me to empty the spit from brass pots." Eyes on the yellow and red leaves over the street, he added, "It would be possible only with the help of a patron."
"Is that why you brought me to Negro Hill?"
"Because I had hopes?" He smiled at her. "Of course."
"And of course you knew I'd say yes — though I'm not sure how we'll work out the details."
"Don't do it just to ease your white guilt."
"Damn your impertinence, Brown — I'll do it for whatever reason I please. I lost my heart to those waifs."
"Good," he said.
They drove another block, past the first white residence. Two children were petting a pony on the side lawn. Constance cleared her throat. "Please excuse my language a moment ago. Occasionally my temper shows. I'm Irish."
He grinned. "I guessed."
Constance didn't know how George would react to her desire to help Brown. To her delight, he went far beyond mere consent. "If he needs a place for the children, why don't we provide it? And food, clothing, books — furnishing everything would hardly make a nick in our income, and the work sounds eminently worthwhile. God knows little black children shouldn't be made to suffer for past and present stupidities of their white elders."
Lighting his cigar, he squinted through the smoke in a way that lent him a familiar piratical air, made even stronger by his new mustache. That look effectively hid a sentimental streak Constance had discovered years ago and loved ever since. With his thumbnail George shot the match straight into the hearth. "Yes, I definitely believe you should invite Brown to set up his facility back home."
"Where exactly?"
"What about the shed above Hazard's? The site of the old fugitive depot?"
"The location's good, but the building is small."
"We'll expand it. Add a couple of dormitories, a classroom, a dining room — The company carpenters can do the work."
Reality intruded on enthusiasm when she said, "Will they?"
"They work for me — they damn well better." He reflected a moment, then frowned. "I don't understand why you even asked the question."
"The children are black, George."
His reply was ingenuous. "Do you think that would matter?"
"To many, maybe most, of the citizens of Lehigh Station, yes, I think it would. Very much so."
"Mmm. Never occurred to me." He paced to the mantel, turning his cigar in his fingers as he often did when working on a problem. "Still — that's no excuse for rejecting the idea. It's a good one. We'll do it."
She clapped her hands, delighted. "Perhaps Mr. Brown and I could travel home for a few days to get things started. We might even take a child or two."
"I can arrange a short leave and go with you."
She started to say that would be splendid but caught herself. Vivid as a railway warning lantern in the night, there was a name: Virgilia.
"That's generous, but you're busy. I'm sure Mr. Brown and I can survey the property."
"Fine." His words and his shrug relieved her. "I'll write Christopher a letter to authorize whatever work you want done. Speaking of letters, have you seen this?" From the mantel he took a soiled, badly crumpled missive sealed shut with wax.