City of Light (38 page)

• • •

On the way back, Millicent sat between her aunt and me, holding our hands. Her breathing seemed normal, but her palm was moist and clammy against mine. Her hair was properly pinned up, her clothes only a bit disarrayed. We made our way peacefully down the river as if we’d all been on an outing: a midnight picnic in the woods. The Talberts had decided not to let the police question her, at least not now. They wanted to take her home. So a contingent of police stayed behind to gather evidence at the elevator while we returned to the scows.

As we journeyed, Millicent was silent, her expression blank, her eyes terribly wide and somehow vacant. Yet she must have registered what she saw, for she turned her head when we passed a child with a dirty face (whether male or female, I couldn’t tell) who stood alone at the water’s edge. Millicent watched the child until we were too far away to see it anymore.

“Perhaps you’d best help at the Talbert house, Louisa,” Mr. Rumsey said to me when we landed opposite the Chinaman’s lighthouse.

At this instruction—Mr. Rumsey’s “perhaps” was always an order—the Talberts nodded in silent acquiescence. When I entered the Talbert carriage I felt anxious. It was unheard of for a lady of my race to visit a home in the Talberts’ community. The Talberts themselves glanced at me guardedly, while Millicent stared straight ahead, oblivious.

Standing at the window of the carriage and watching her, Mr. Rumsey sighed. “Well, William, you may want an officer to accompany you home. In case there’s any …” He didn’t say “trouble,” but we knew what he meant. “And Millicent may wish to offer a statement. Later.” He studied her vacant face. “After she’s rested. There’s no telling—” He paused, seeming at a loss. “Well, the perpetrators may have …”

The Talberts glanced at one another with understanding, and Mr. Talbert said, “Thank you, Mr. Rumsey, but no.” Because of race, Mr. Talbert would always address Mr. Rumsey formally, whereas Mr. Rumsey would say “William,” not simply “Talbert” as he would for Milburn or Albright. “I think it best that the formal investigation end here. Millicent is obviously shaken but otherwise unharmed—more than we hoped for or expected. We will speak with her later, when the moment seems propitious. I will let you know what she says. There’s no point bringing the police to our home. I assure you, our friends are … around us,” he said meaningfully. “And undoubtedly the journalists would follow the police, creating a
cause célèbre
which would bring little justice and most likely produce similar incidents as people come to recognize the … possibilities of such endeavors.”

Mr. Rumsey considered. At last he said, “As you wish.” He bid us good-bye.

As we drove away, I imagined him returning to the Milburns’ ball to find his wife. Would he say anything about the events that had transpired this night? Most likely not. “What took you away from the party?” Susan Fiske Rumsey might ask. “Only a bit of business,” he would reply offhandedly as he offered her the final dance.

CHAPTER XXIII

T
he Talbert house, at 521 Michigan Street, was large and rambling, covered with ivy and surrounded by gardens, as lovely as any house on Lincoln Parkway. Although the time was now nearing four A.M., a small crowd was gathered outside.

I glanced at Mrs. Talbert. “Who—”

“Our neighbors,” she said quietly. So the community was united, keeping vigil. But the crowd silently dispersed when we stepped from the carriage. Mrs. Talbert looked at no one, simply led Millicent to the door, and as I followed I realized that it was because of me that everyone left. Friends would say nothing until the Talberts gave some word or signal that I was to be trusted.

As if we were dressing a doll, we prepared Millicent for bed. We turned down the covers for her, lifted her legs, eased her down. Millicent said nothing through all of this, which worried me; but of course she was traumatized, and it was the middle of the night, so most likely Mrs. Talbert was right simply to encourage her to rest for now. Humming a lullaby, Mrs. Talbert caressed her forehead and hair for several minutes until she relaxed into sleep, looking all at once peaceful and calm.

Then, Mr. Talbert and the servants also went to bed and Mrs. Talbert and I were alone. We went downstairs and stood in the front hall that flickered with gaslight. We regarded one another warily. What were we to do now? Knowing that Millicent was safe, I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t ask to be taken at this hour. Mrs. Talbert did not invite me to rest in a guest room upstairs, did not offer a dressing gown, did not make any of the overtures of hospitality that she might have made had she viewed me as an ally.

Instead she made tea. We sat at the formal dining table in the mahogany-paneled dining room, amid the shifting shadows thrown by the hall light, and we drank tea. The tea was brewed in a heavy silver pot, the surface shaped into vines and berries that I outlined with one fingertip. The thick Persian carpet was soft and inviting; I slipped off my shoes—my ballroom slippers—and rubbed my stockinged toes into it. The windows opposite me were thrown open, but no breeze touched the curtains. Why had Mr. Rumsey sent me here? To forge a friendship, or to be a spy? Or were the two the same for him?

Opposite me Mrs. Talbert was absorbed in her own thoughts. After some time passed, I grasped at a way to reach her; to make conversation, any kind of conversation at all. “This is a lovely teapot,” I offered.

“Thank you. A wedding gift.” She sounded indifferent.

Another step toward her: “I was proud of Millicent tonight.”

She did not respond.

“Her resilience. Of course she was in a state of shock and there will be repercussions ahead, but she didn’t break down in front of the police.”

Still Mrs. Talbert was silent. I continued. “Her reaction revealed an inborn sense of dignity.”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, so I knew I’d finally said something that pleased her. “Millicent has always been modest and self-possessed.” She turned toward the still-dark windows. “Like her mother. My eldest sister.”

Abruptly her composure broke, and she hunched over, crying, her hands fisted against her mouth. I yearned to rush around the table to her; to hold her and comfort her. But I sensed that she wouldn’t want that kind of comfort—at least not from me. Minutes passed while she wept. Finally she regained control and sat up. The horizon was beginning to lighten, the trees outlined like dark skeletons. The pendulum clock in the hall made its muffled gong for five A.M. Without looking at me, Mrs. Talbert began. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ve failed Millicent and my sister by taking on my burden of work. Maybe it is better to keep in the background, out of everyone’s way, and protect your own. This never would have happened if I hadn’t put myself forward and made myself so visible to everyone on the outside. I’ve had to make myself so harsh, for the work. Sometimes I sound sanctimonious even to myself. I feel like I’ve had to make my body into a shield to protect myself. Otherwise it’s too hard to get up on crates and shout at people. And what’s the purpose of it, anyway? Nothing ever changes. I should have been loyal to my sister and her daughter and kept quiet.”

I waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t I said, “You know you couldn’t hide away. Hiding isn’t your nature.” I believed in her work, I admired her courage. Her choice had been the opposite of mine, and it was the right choice. “Things do change, bit by bit, not so as you can watch them changing every day, but so that you can turn around suddenly and see them changed, and you’re astonished—the way you’re astonished to realize suddenly how big a child’s grown, and you hadn’t noticed because you saw her every day. The risks you’ve taken, you’ve had to take. What you must do now is find a way to protect Millicent without surrendering your fight.”

A freshening breeze picked up, the breeze of dawn that I welcomed each summer morning, pulling my blanket around me. Birds began singing in the garden—so many, so loud. I caught the sound of the mockingbird, sharp and close.

“Yes … protect Millicent,” she said doubtfully. She seemed to sink into meditation.

“Why did you and your husband decide against a formal investigation?”

Here, at least, she was secure; she seemed to wake from reverie: “If anything had actually happened to Millie—if she’d been killed, is what I mean.” I flinched when she said it, a real word abruptly taking the place of implication. “Of course William and I would have cooperated with the police. And the newspapers. We would have made it the greatest of causes: the lynching of a child.” Again: a real word, forcing us to face reality.

“The lynching of a girl child.” Closing her eyes, she expelled a long breath. “But as it is … well, we won’t talk to the police now. We’ll tell Mr. Rumsey anything we discover, of course: We can count on him to keep such matters private and do his own investigations. But we don’t want any of this to become public. Why should Millicent go through life known as the girl who was kidnapped? Why should she become a symbol? Why should someone in my own family be made into ammunition for the fight? I don’t have that courage.” She studied me frankly. “Now there will always be something that holds me back—slightly back—from the barricades,” she said with a trace of irony. “A secret. Now I understand you a bit better, Miss Barrett. You and the secret that holds you back. You’ll always know my secret, so in fairness I ask you: What is yours? What is it that holds you back?”

I stared at her but said nothing. With dawn fully upon us, the room turned bright and clear, and the time for unfettered confession was gone.

“Shall I guess?”

“Guess all you like,” I said more dismissively than I intended.

“I’ve pondered it more than once. And I believe I’ve discerned it. Not that I have any evidence,” she noted quickly. “But in evaluating the alternatives I’ve allowed myself a speculation.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes. Indeed,” she said pointedly. “Here is what I have decided: A long time ago, you fell in love with a man. You were reckless. He couldn’t marry you for whatever reason. You paid the price. You bore a child. Even I, for all my sanctimony”—she cocked her head in good-hearted self-deprecation—“understand what love can make a woman do.”

I burst out laughing, and my laughter was bitter. “I never ‘fell in love’ with a man.” Immediately I realized that by protesting one supposition I’d virtually admitted the other.

She looked confused.

“Love would have been easy,” I added, as if that were an explanation. And from her changing expression, I saw that it was, the truth slowly coming upon her.

“Oh. I see. I’m sorry.”

Some words, like the words needed here, were too horrible to say, and we would never say them; words like rape, for example—that was a word neither of us would ever say.

“Who was he? Was he a stranger?”

“No, not a stranger. Although I suppose he was a stranger, when all was said and done. Some might consider him a gentleman.”

“I understand.”

Did she? “I was … young then, for my years.”

“Yes. Couldn’t you try, I mean, I don’t wish to pry, but—wouldn’t it be possible to pretend that the child is an orphan left to you by a deceased sister or a cousin, or something like that? Not that I’ve done that with Millicent, mind you. She’s my sister’s child fair and square, but I have heard of such solutions.”

“When it happened, I made arrangements for—” Suddenly I didn’t want the full truth known, even by her. Firmly I said, “I made arrangements.”

“To your satisfaction?”

“I trust so.” I felt my composure on the verge of breaking, but I couldn’t allow it to break. Not now, not ever. “I hope so.”

“Aunt Mary!” Millicent called from upstairs in a voice of terror. “Aunt Mary!”

Automatically we both stood, our moment of confidence over.

At first she screamed and cried so uncontrollably that I despaired of finding a way to calm her. Yet gradually she did calm, the Talberts and I sitting beside her, talking to her, reassuring her, holding her. At eight A.M. Mr. Talbert felt he had no choice but to leave for his office in order to keep up an appearance of normality. By then Millicent sat propped up in her canopy bed, her embroidered nightgown buttoned to her neck. As the day slowly wore on, Millicent, in shifting, jostling sentences, began to tell her aunt and me what had happened.

“I was walking home from the Crèche,” she explained, “and I was walking on exactly the streets I’m supposed to.” Defensively, apologetically, she glanced at her aunt, who nodded in reassurance. “Then all of a sudden there was something over me. Maybe it was a blanket? I think it was a blanket. It could have been a shawl. It didn’t smell good, no matter what it was. I thought there were two men next to me, and they pushed me into a carriage and they tied my hands behind my back; the string hurt me.” She massaged her wrists, although there was no sign of rope burns on her skin.

“And then?” I asked gently.

“When we got to that—place, that grain elevator, they took me up on that—belt, and it was scary because I couldn’t see anything and I felt like I was swaying and I was going to fall off, even though the men kept pushing me against the belt so I couldn’t fall. Finally when we got to the top, they pushed me out on the walkway and told me not turn or move or else I would fall in. And I really did think I would fall in—it was so small a place to stand, and—” Reaching for her aunt, she again burst into tears, and while Mrs. Talbert hugged her close, my own eyes filled. After a few moments Millicent collected herself and continued: “Then they untied my hands and took away the blanket.” She twisted and twisted the sheet in her hands.

“It’s all right, dear,” Mrs. Talbert said, stroking her head. “You don’t have to tell us anything more now.”

“No, I want to tell you.” She pushed herself away from her aunt ever so slightly and looked at me. “That’s when I opened my eyes. But I couldn’t see anything. I felt like the blanket was still over me, because everything was so dark. Like I was blind! And by then the men were going back down the belt—they didn’t even need any light, they could just do it by touch.” Mrs. Talbert and I exchanged a quick glance: Was this a clue? Only men well-accustomed to the grain elevators would be able to use the belt in the dark. “When they got to the bottom, they lit some matches to find their way out. Then I was alone. All alone in the dark!” Her eyes became huge as she remembered her fear. Mrs. Talbert squeezed her shoulders, steadying her.

I asked, “Did they say anything else?”

She shifted her head. For a moment she considered. “Well … when we were going up the belt they told me not to be scared. But they laughed when they said it. That made me more scared.”

“What language did they speak?”

“Sometimes they spoke English and sometimes they spoke a different language. I don’t know which one. It wasn’t French. And it wasn’t German.” Those were the two modern languages Millicent was studying in school. “And it wasn’t Latin,” she suddenly added with an impish grin that startled both Mrs. Talbert and me; it was a welcome glimmer of her former self, and Mrs. Talbert exhaled in relief. Of course she studied Latin at school too. But as suddenly as she had smiled, Millicent looked crestfallen. “Should I have asked them what language it was?”

“No, little darling,” Mrs. Talbert said, hugging her close once more. “You did fine, just fine. You were wonderful.”

“Why did they choose
me
to take?” She hit her fist against the quilt. “What did I ever do to them?”

“They weren’t taking
you
, my darling. They were taking what you represent.”

She looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re a smart and lovely Negro girl from a good family. That makes them mad. And—well, I’m sorry to have to tell you that they were also taking me. And your uncle. Taking all of us who try to fight for what’s right.” An idea seemed to come to Mrs. Talbert, a way to help her niece. “So you see, you were part of our battle too. What you faced and overcame—well, you made your contribution. With dignity and bravery.”

This Millicent understood. Of course she had met her aunt’s friends and attended her aunt’s church; she knew the language of the fight for justice. She brightened even as she became more serious. “Did I do exactly what I should have done?”