The Abolitionist’s Secret (19 page)

“Damn that witch,” Colleen spouted. “I’m sorry, Miss Heather. I know she’s to be your mother-in-law, but Susan Whitman is one awful woman.”

Heather got a ghost of a smile on her face. “You think ‘witch’ is bad? I called her a bitch, to her face, last night!”

Colleen gasped as she looked at Heather. “It’s about bloody time. I’m proud of you, my sprite. The woman has done everything she can to make your life miserable, and you’ve done your best to tolerate it. I’m glad to see you finally fighting back.”

Fresh tears sprang to Heather’s eyes. “She has worn me down, though, Colleen. I can feel her oppressive hand on me every time I leave the sanctuary of the cottage. I don’t know how I can ever handle her as my mother-in-law, especially after this. How can I be gracious to a woman who has been responsible for hauling me off to jail? And to possibly have me hung for my actions? If I am lucky enough to escape death, what kind of life would I have here, with her watching my every move and waiting to pounce?” Heather sighed as she returned to her bench.

“Don’t give her the satisfaction of giving up, Miss Heather.” Colleen spoke in her quiet lilt to the young woman whom she loved like a daughter. “I’ll keep a watch out for the lieutenant, and will make sure he gets here as soon as possible to free you. Hopefully, you’ll be back at the cottage by this afternoon. Don’t you worry about Mrs. Whitman. You are a whole lot stronger than you think you are.”

“It’s nice that you still think so, Colleen, but I’m not so certain of it anymore.” Heather sunk down on the bench with a weary sigh.

• • •

A few hours after Colleen left the jailhouse, David hustled in.

“Calvin, nice to see you again, although I wish the circumstances were different. I want you to release my fiancée from this jail right now.”

The constable gazed up from his noon meal and rose to his feet, looking uncomfortable as he stood toe to toe with the head of one of the most powerful families in the county.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Lieutenant, just because it’s what you want. Your mother handed over some pretty damning evidence. And even without the letter, the cottage was strewn with teaching supplies, indicating that she is trying to show your blasted negroes how to read and write. I can hold her on a lot of counts, not merely what’s contained in the letter.”

David sighed at the pettiness of both his mother and this man. His gaze flickered over Calvin’s beefy frame and remembered that the constable and his wife had attended his father’s funeral mere weeks before. It seems like a lifetime, he thought, since he laid his father to rest.

“What exactly would it take to make you forget what you saw at the cottage, and to give me the letter, which is my property in the first place?”

David watched as Calvin moistened his bulbous lips and tapped his fingers on the battered desk. Calvin ran a hand over his barrel stomach and let out a belch. David thanked his military training for allowing him to endure this abhorrent behavior without even a flinch. He merely watched the man weighing his choices. David could almost hear the gears in Calvin’s head turning as he thought of the best way to take advantage of this unique situation. Calvin looked down at his worn boots as he considered his options.

“Come to think of it, my wife did take a shine to your grand dining room table, when we were at your house for your father’s funeral. She liked the way the wood formed that pattern out from the center of the table and talked all the way home about how nice it would look in our house.” Calvin looked up, and his gaze collided with David’s.

David thought of his mother’s reaction to having her beloved table used as a bribe, and a thin smile appeared on his lips. “Done. You can send someone over to pick it up this afternoon. Now, hand me the letter, and open the cell so my fiancée can leave this god-awful place.”

David tucked the damning letter in his breast pocket and walked behind Calvin as he strode with deliberate movements down the narrow hall to the cells. Calvin unlocked the door, which swung open with a groan of metal, and then walked back to the desk and his lunch.

Heather didn’t move or even look up when she heard the key in the lock. David stood at the threshold of the cell, and his heart ached for what his mother had put her through in the past twelve hours. He could barely see her in the shadows of the cold, wretched cell. She sat quietly on the bench. The only outward sign of her distress was when she tore at the cotton handkerchief in her hands.

Her hair had been brushed but was loose around her shoulders, and dark spots appeared on her dress, under her arms. She lifted the handkerchief to her face and wiped her tears away. Although she was trying her best to hide her feelings, he noticed her hands were shaking. He walked into the cell and sat beside her on the bench. He took her hands in his to quiet them.

David leaned over and kissed her brow, putting an arm around her shoulders. “I am so sorry, my love, for what my mother did. I never should have gone to the Douglas farm and left you alone with her, but I never thought she would go to this extreme. Obviously, I underestimated her.”

Heather finally responded to his voice, looking up as if only suddenly becoming aware of him in the cell with her. Although she had been crying, her eyes were now clear as she gazed at him with a wistful expression. She whispered, “I’m done, David.” She bowed her head again, and began picking at the handkerchief once more.

Fear struck at his heart. “What do you mean? You no longer want to teach the slaves? That’s okay, darling, if that’s what you want. I know you worry about their safety, and yours, when they’re with you. I told you before you began how dangerous it was. So, if you don’t want to teach anymore, I understand.”

She pulled away from his embrace. “No, it’s not the teaching. I actually enjoy it. But your mother has finally managed to take all the fight out of me. I can’t continue with our engagement. I want to go home.”

“No! You can’t mean that. You can’t turn your back on us. Not now that I am so close to selling Bellewood and leaving with you. I know my mother’s treatment of you has been a shock. It’s despicable behavior, and I don’t blame you for feeling like this right now but, in a couple of days, you’ll think differently. I will protect you, I swear I will.”

“Like you did yesterday? Where was your protection when I needed it then? You promised my father that I would be safe here, and not even one month later, I’m spending time in a jail cell! Do you realize how mortifying it is to be the first Fitzpatrick to sit in a jail cell? Can you promise to stay by my side every moment for the next year? I don’t think that’s possible, and we both know your mother will never let this rest now. Did you read the letter from Jasmine?”

“No, nor will I. I know her words were written in anger for taking you from her side. They mean nothing to me. Please, Heather, let’s leave this place. We can talk about everything once I get you back to Bellewood.”

He sensed Heather’s sharp intake of breath as she stood and began to pace. “The only reason I will go back to Bellewood is to pack my bags. I prefer to stay here in town until my father arrives to take me back to New York.”

“I’ll rent a room for you at the hotel, then. But I won’t leave you in this awful place for one more minute. I understand your hesitancy about going back to Bellewood, where you’ll be near my mother. If you want, I’ll move you into town and you and Colleen can stay at the hotel for the remainder of the year. You don’t need to return to the plantation if you don’t want to. We can go to the theater and ride through the park — all the things we talked about on the train coming down and haven’t yet done, since we’ve both been so busy. Please don’t go any further with your hasty decision to leave. You must reconsider.”

Heather sighed. “You know you can ill afford to house us in a hotel for the next eleven months. But that’s beside the point. It’s much more than where I’ll be living that has caused me to reassess my situation. For months now, Ginger has written home about how wonderful her mother-in-law has been to her, and how much she has learned about survival in the west merely by being at her side. And Ginger’s mother-in-law is a purebred Indian! I had hoped, when I got here, that despite our cultural differences, your mother and I could form the same type of solid, nurturing bond that Ginger and Mary Tall Feather have.” She turned away from him before she continued. “But your mother and I will never be friends with each other. We can’t even be civil to one another. She had me thrown in jail the minute your back was turned. And I’m no better. I called her a bitch!”

David grinned, then chuckled. “It’s about time someone did. I can only imagine the look on her face. Come on, I’ll take you to the hotel.” He was gratified Heather hadn’t lost all of her spunk, but he knew his mother had done grave damage. And it may be too much to overcome, even for two people who were madly in love.

• • •

Heather sank into the large copper bathtub at the hotel and released a grateful sigh. Colleen was on her way to the hotel from Bellewood, and even though she knew she should wait for her, Heather couldn’t stand her own stink one more minute, and had asked for a hot, steaming tub to be set up in the room. She needed to wash every trace of the stench of jail from her body and hair.

As the sides of the tub warmed from the water, she positioned her backside against it and closed her eyes. She let her mind wander back over the past several days. While grateful to have the charges against her dropped at David’s request, she also was aware happiness would forever elude her at Bellewood, even with the man she loved by her side every minute. No, his mother was right. Blanche was a better fit for him and for his plantation.

“God, how I hate to admit the evil bitch is right about something,” Heather whispered to herself as she shampooed her hair, hoping she hadn’t contracted lice during her stay in the awful cell.

She stayed in the bathtub until the water grew cold. Even then, the odor of the jail still clung to her. She picked up her soiled dress with the tips of her fingers, loathe to touch it, much less put it back on. She had no other clothes in the room however. Resolutely, she removed the blanket from the bed, and wrapped it around her body. She caught up her damp hair in the wet towel, and wrapped the towel around her head in a turban. Then, she sat on the edge of the bed, and turned her mind to the issue she had been avoiding.

What to do now with her life?

Where to go from here?

Heather allowed herself one or two more tears before she forced herself to stop. She had cried enough over the past several days to float a battleship and she was done. She needed a clear mind so she could focus on what to do next, and she had to come to a decision before her father arrived. She knew her father would brook no lame arguments and would take her back home unless she had a well-thought-out plan of attack, like Ginger had put together so she could stay with Joseph in St. Louis.

But, unlike Ginger, she no longer wished to stay in the same state as her beloved. She couldn’t wait to leave this wretched, backward part of the country. She sighed as she thought of the past several weeks and her heightened anticipation on the train ride down here. She couldn’t believe she was seeing a part of the country she had never before experienced, and she had been so eager for her life’s adventure to begin. Little did she know at the time just how adventurous life would become.

She loved teaching the slaves who came to her each night. She was always in awe of the slaves’ courage, which was shown nightly by their arrival on her doorstep. As each one began to make strides in their learning, the wonder on their faces as they figured out how letters went together to form words warmed her heart.

Little Jericho was her sentimental favorite. She would never forget how much risk he took, being the first to step up and become one of her students, and then riding out to find David, thereby shortening the length of time she had to spend in jail. His dark, smiling face would be forever embedded in her heart.

So, she thought it best to return to New York with her father and become a spinster teacher. Or maybe, she’d travel out west, go to St. Louis and be near her brother and sister. She could teach there if she wanted and become part of the western expansion of the United States. And she definitely would continue with the abolitionists in New York, or wherever she ended up. She still loved David, and always would. But, she couldn’t abide his mother, and would never forgive her for what she had done.

Since David and his mother were the only remaining members of a family with a long history and tradition in Georgia and Bellewood, she would never ask David to choose between his mother and her. If the situation was reversed and she was asked to choose between her family and him, she was certain her heart would be torn in two, so she would never put him in the same predicament. No, it was best that she leave with her father and head home to New York, where she would make Jasmine suffer for months for her childish behavior, which played a large part in Heather’s incarceration. Just thinking about the torture she would mete out to her sister made her smile a bit.

Heather pulled herself out from her heavy thoughts as she responded to the knock on the hotel door. She was grateful for the interruption, since her thoughts kept circling around to only one answer.

“’Tis just me, sweet lassie,” Colleen’s Irish brogue was a welcome sound to the young woman. Heather rose from the bed and with quick movements, crossed the room and opened the door to Colleen.

“Ah, my poor sprite, you’ve been through so much.” Colleen hugged her close and kissed Heather’s remaining tears away before she began to bustle around the room. “Now, I’ve brought you some clean clothes to wear, and I’ll do your hair before you go downstairs and talk to the lieutenant.”

Heather turned away from her loyal maid. “I have no wish to see David.”

Colleen turned Heather back around to her and her eyes narrowed as she placed a hand on each of Heather’s shoulders, locking her in place. “Ah, but you must. He’s devastated by this turn of events, and he only wants to discuss things with you. And, if I must state the obvious, you need to talk to him.”