"Morning, madam," the gray-haired woman replied, deferential but not especially friendly. Each had an accent: Mrs. Czorna's heavily European, Brett's heavily Southern. Brett knew the couple didn't trust her — not exactly a novelty in Lehigh Station.
She started to say something else but noticed a child in the adjoining room. Sitting on a cot beside the partition dividing the area, the little coppery girl stared at her hands with her head bowed.
"Is the child ill, Mrs. Czorna?"
"Not sick, not that kind of ill. Before he go, Mr. Brown bought her a turtle in a store. Two nights ago, when we had the snow, the turtle crawled out the window and froze. She won't let me take it and bury it. She won't eat, she won't speak or laugh — I miss her laugh. It warms this place. I don't know what to do."
Touched by the sight of the forlorn figure in the other room, Brett followed her impulse and spoke. "May I try something?"
"Go ahead." The statement, the shrug, said a Carolina plantation girl didn't seem the right person to deal with a runaway black child. It was a familiar canard.
"Her name's Rosalie, isn't it?"
"That's right."
Brett walked to the dormitory and sat down beside the little girl, who didn't move. In the open palm at which the child was staring lay the dead turtle, on its back — not smelling good at all.
"Rosalie? May I take your turtle and give him a warm place to rest?"
The child stared at Brett, nothing in her eyes. She shook her head.
"Please let me, Rosalie. He deserves to be warm and snug while he sleeps. It's cold in here. Can't you feel it? Come help me outside. Then we'll go to my house for some cookies and cocoa. You can see the big mama cat who had kittens last week."
She folded her hands, waiting. The child stared at her. Slowly, Brett reached out to grasp the turtle. Rosalie glanced down but didn't say or do anything. After Brett found the child's coat, she asked Mrs. Czorna for a large spoon, and they went out behind the whitewashed building. Brett knelt and used the spoon to chisel a hole in the wintry ground. She wrapped the turtle in a clean rag, laid him away, and replaced the soil carefully. She looked up to see Rosalie crying, emotion shaking loose at last in silent heaving sobs, then audible ones.
"Oh, you poor child. Come here."
She stretched out her arms. The little girl ran to her. While the sharp wind blew, Brett held the trembling body. She stroked Rosalie's hair and, with a small start, made a discovery. In her years of helping on the plantation, she had picked up bundled black babies or held the hands of older children many a time, yet always stopped shy of the ultimate giving — an embrace.
Had she been guided by some unexpressed belief that Negroes were somehow unfit for a white woman to touch? She didn't know, but this moment in the gray morning jarred her to awareness. Rosalie felt no different from any other child hurting.
Brett hugged her tight and felt the little girl's hands slip around her neck and then the cold wetness of her cheek pressing hers for warmth.
44
Aunt Belle Nin died on the tenth of October. She had been sinking for days, the victim of what the Mains' doctor termed a poison in the blood. She was alert to the end, smoking a cob pipe that Jane packed for her and commenting on dreams that had shown her scenes of the afterlife. "I don't feel bad about going, except for one reason," she said through the smoke. "I'll probably meet my two husbands on the other side, and I could do without that. I'm leaving a better world than I was born into — the light of the day of jubilo will be breaking next year or soon after. I know it in my heart."
"So do I," said Jane. They had agreed for a long time that if war came, the South would fail and fall. Now freedom was a scent on the wind, like that of rain before a heat spell broke. Aunt Belle took several more puffs, smiled at her niece, handed her the pipe, and closed her eyes.
Madeline readily consented that Aunt Belle be buried at Mont Royal the next day — the same day a fire swept Charleston. There was scorched earth for blocks, six hundred buildings lost, billions of dollars' worth of property. Black arsonists were blamed. The news reached Mont Royal the evening after the funeral; a courier galloping to the Ashley plantation warned of possible uprising.
While the courier was speaking to Madeline and Meek, Jane was walking alone in the cool moonlight by the river. A creak of boards at the head of the dock alarmed her. Cuffey was always watching her these days, and the moment she turned and saw the dark, threatening silhouette of a man, she thought he had followed her. She stood motionless, filled with fear.
"Just me, Miss Jane."
"Oh, Andy. Hello." She relaxed, pulling at her shawl. The early winter moon lit his face as he turned his head slightly, approaching in a cautious, shy way.
"Wanted to say how much your aunt's passing grieved me. Didn't think it was my place to speak to you at the burial."
"Thank you, Andy." To her surprise, Jane found herself gazing at him slightly longer than politeness dictated. She had recently grown much more aware of him.
"Like to sit down a minute? Visit?" he asked. "Don't get much of a chance to see you, working all day —"
"Aren't you chilly? You have nothing but that shirt."
"Oh, I'm fine." He smiled. "Perfect. Here, let me help you —"
He grasped her hand so she wouldn't fall as she sat on the edge of the dock. A fish leaped, scattering liquid moonlight When it struck him that he had been forward when he touched her, a look of mortification appeared on his face. That made her think all the more of him.
Truthfully, Jane was as nervous as he was. She had never had much contact with boys in Rock Hill. Too independent, for one thing. Too scared, for another. She was a virgin and had been sternly advised by Widow Milsom to keep herself in that state until she found a man she loved, trusted, and wanted to marry. She knew she was attractive, or anyway not ugly. But none of the gentlemen around Rock Hill had marriage in mind when they attempted to court her.
"Terrible about that fire in Charleston."
'Terrible," she agreed, though she felt no sympathy for the white property owners. She had no desire to see lives lost, but if every plantation in the state burned down, she wouldn't mind.
"Reckon you'll be starting north soon."
"Yes, I suppose. Now that Aunt Belle's buried, I'm —" She checked, not wanting to say free, in case it would hurt him. It was a potent word, free. "— I'm able to do that."
He examined his fingers, searched the bright river, finally exploded. "Hope you don't mind me saying something else."
"I won't know till you say it, will I?"
He laughed, more at ease. "Wish you'd stay, Miss Jane."
"You don't have to call me miss all the time."
"Seems proper. You're a fine, pretty woman — smarter than I'll ever be."
"You're smart, Andy. I can tell. You'll do even better when you learn to read and write."
"That's part of what I mean, Mi — Jane. Once you leave, won't be anyone here who could teach me. Nobody to teach any of us." He leaned closer. "Jubilo's coming. The soldiers of Lincoln are coming. But I can't get along in a white man's world the way I am now. White people write letters, do sums, carry on business. I'm no better fixed for that, I'm no better fixed for freedom than some old hound who lies in the sun all day."
It was not a plea so much as a summation of the plight of a majority in the South: the black people. With Andy, she believed the day of freedom was rapidly approaching. How could slaves meet and deal with the change? They weren't prepared.
She felt a prick of anger then. "You're trying to make me feel ashamed because I won't stay and teach. It isn't my task. It isn't my duty."