The Voyage of Promise (25 page)

Y
ou will scrub the floors, then?” the stiff nurse demanded of Grace.

“Floors, yes. Sheets and dishes and clothing too,” Grace said. “Anything that needs scrubbing I will scrub.”

The nurse noted the rough, cracked skin of Grace’s hands and smiled her approval. The sure mark of an experienced workwoman. She did, however, look most disapprovingly at the fussy slippers on Grace’s feet, stained and slopped with mud though they were.

“Get yourself a pair of sturdy shoes and the work is yours,” she said. “You will be provided with your room and two meals each day, same as the children, and one shilling each week pay.”

“I don’t know where to get sturdy shoes,” Grace said doubtfully. “Or how much they cost.”

“Six shillings and I will get them for you,” the nurse said.

Grace gasped. “Six shillings!”

“Five shillings and your first week’s pay, then.”

Had she had anywhere else to go, Grace would have walked out of the Foundling Hospital on her fussy muck-splattered
slippers and been gone. But she had no other place, and a safe bed and warm meal were worth more than all the shillings she had left in her silk purse.

“This institution is a hospital for the maintenance and education of deserted children—commonly called the Foundling Hospital,” the nurse said. “I am Nurse Hunter.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Grace said.

Without bothering to respond, Nurse Hunter strode down the hallway, and Grace hurried to follow. “We give babies a name—Lamb is the most common surname, though we do try for variety—then we dispatch the babies to the country to be breastfed. They are returned to us at the age of three. Once back, we see that they are inoculated against smallpox. You will not see children with scarred faces here.”

Five small girls in a line, all dressed alike in brown serge dresses with crisp, starched tops, walked past Grace.

“Our girls are well-trained,” said Nurse Hunter. “From the age of six they take part in the housework. It prepares them for positions as useful servants to any what might show a willingness to employ them.”

Nurse Hunter pointed out a large room with two rows of boys sitting in chairs, all reading out loud. They looked to be about nine or ten years old. Outside the window Grace saw tiny lads—dressed just like the older ones, in brown breeches and jackets, each with a cheerful touch of red on his shirt— chasing each other or tossing balls or squatting on the ground spinning tops.

Even without the sturdy shoes, Grace managed to scrub the kitchen floor, as well as the floor of the room where the children ate. She also parted with five shillings for the shoes, which meant she had only four left in her silk purse.

When her work was finally done for the night and Grace had finished her supper of homemade brown bread and a bowl
of pease porridge, she stretched out on the cot in her pantry-sized room. Cold and loneliness overtook her, and she wept for Cabeto. That was when she heard the muffled cry. Not a wail like the child under the lash at the workhouse, this was a cry that sounded the way her heart felt: Broken. Discouraged. Abandoned of all hope.

As Grace lay still and listened, an unfamiliar emotion swept over her. If she felt so lost and alone, how must these little ones feel? Her baby Kwate was no more and Mama Muco was lost to her, but she still had Cabeto. It was true that an ocean separated them, and many obstacles loomed between them. But he was in America waiting for her, and she could still cling to her hope of finding him. These little ones, though, they had no one anywhere. What hope did they have?

Grace got up off her cot and tiptoed to the hallway. She stepped out and paused to listen. Ah, yes, farther down the hallway the cry came through a door that stood ajar.

Grace went down the hall, then eased the door open just enough to press herself through. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. It was a large room filled with rows of small cots, each with a child under a blanket. Many of the little ones were restless, several sniffling, but one little girl, no older than five, lay on her back, wailing. Grace moved to the weeping child and gently laid her hand on the little face.

“You’re burning with fever!” Grace exclaimed.

“That’s Jane Lamb,” said the girl in the next bed. “She’s bad sick. Doctor came already, but he said he can’t do nothing for her.”

“There, there, little one,” Grace said gently as she caressed Jane’s head. “You are not alone.”

Jane shook violently under the unexpected touch, and the rest of the room fell silent.

“Did you know, Jane Lamb, that there is a tender shepherd who knows the name of every one of his little lambs? He surely does. And He carries each one on his shoulders to a place of safety.”

“Even me?” Jane asked in a gasping whisper.

“Yes,” said Grace. “Especially you.”

“Who is in here?” The door flew open wide, and Nurse Hunter stood in the doorway holding a flaming candle high. When she saw Grace bending over Jane’s bed, she demanded, “What are you doing in the children’s room?”

“This little one was crying,” Grace explained.

“All children cry until they are taught to do otherwise. It is none of your affair. You are a cleaning maid, not a nursery maid. Return to your quarters at once.”

“But Jane is sick, and I—”

“At once!” Nurse Hunter ordered.

Grace brushed her hand across the small fevered brow. “Remember the shepherd,” she whispered.

The next morning, while keeping an anxious eye on the activity around her, Grace took her cleaning cloth and worked her way toward the children’s room. Every time someone approached, she made a great show of wiping the handrails or dusting a picture frame or scrubbing at an invisible stain. No one paid her any mind until Nurse Hunter happened to pass by in the company of her superior, Nurse Cunningham.

“Cleaning maid!” Nurse Hunter ordered. “I instructed you to stay away from the children’s room, yet here you are again.”

“Please,” Grace pleaded, dropping all pretense of work. “Is little Jane any better this morning?”

“I cannot see how the state of a child’s health has the slightest bearing on your ability to scrub the entry hall floor!” Nurse Hunter exclaimed.

“Little Jane died last night,” Nurse Cunningham said quietly. “Thank you for caring.”

Grace wept through the rest of her chores. After she finished in the entry hall and moved on down the general hallway to start work on that floor, she looked up to see two solemn little girls standing in the doorway looking at her.

Grace wiped her face, sat back on her heels, and smiled at the girls.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” said the taller girl, who looked to be about seven. “I’m not a Lamb, miss. Will the shepherd carry me too?” “What?” Grace asked.

“The shepherd what took Jane away on his shoulders. Robert and Peter say no. They say because they also have the name Lamb that the shepherd will care for them. But not for us, because I am Hannah Rose and she is Phoebe Rose. If we’re Rose and not Lamb, will the shepherd watch over us too?”

“Of course He will!” Grace said.

“Will you tell us a stowy about a wose?” Phoebe lisped.

“I would like to very much,” Grace said, laughing. “Perhaps sometime I will be able to do that.”

Nurse Hunter called out, “Girls! Get back to your chores, and do not distract the help!”

But Nurse Cunningham was also watching and listening. And what she saw was someone who at times might prove more useful with the children than in scrubbing and polishing floors. Any chambermaid could perform such a task, and chambermaids were cheap and plentiful. Why, half the Foundling Hospital was filled with a ready supply! But someone who could give hope to cast-off children—now, that was a rare find indeed.

Before the week was out, Grace told the children at the Foundling Hospital stories she had read in God’s book, the
Holy Bible. She told them about Noah and all the amazing animals he squeezed into the great boat; of Joseph, who was betrayed by his own brothers and sold as a slave but who ended up forgiving them and saving their lives; of Moses, who made the ocean divide in half so his people could walk to the other side without getting their feet wet; of Daniel, who slept with the lions and never even got nipped. She told them about Esther, the orphan slave girl who became a queen “for such a time as this.”

And then one day she told the children about Cabeto.

“But how will you find him?” Hannah Rose asked.

“I’ll ask the shepherd,” Grace said. “The one who saved the animals, and brought Joseph out of the well, and divided the ocean into two parts with a dry path down the middle, and closed the lions’ mouths, and put an orphan slave girl on a queen’s throne.”

“And is taking cawe of Janie,” lisped Phoebe.

“The shepherd can carry Cabeto on his shoulders until you get to him,” Robert Lamb said.

Grace swallowed hard. “Yes. The shepherd will do that,” she said. “Until I get there.”

Discussion Questions

1. The horrendous inhumanity of the African slave trade engulfs
The Voyage of Promise
, yet we also see shadows of other types of enslavement. In what way was Charlotte “in prison”? How about Ena? What types of enslavement did Grace endure?

2. In an unimaginably desperate situation, hope survived. What do you think keeps hope alive in even the most hopeless of situations? What allowed Grace to persevere despite all she suffered? What kept Cabeto going? What was different for Tawnia?

3. It is impossible to imagine the terrified confusion that comes from being ripped away from everything familiar and being thrust into a strange and hostile world. What seemed to be the most difficult element of this cultural upheaval for Grace? For Cabeto? What do you think have been the long-term effects of this aspect of the African slave trade for our world today?

4. Some people insist that it is never appropriate to interrupt a work of fiction with nonfiction. In your opinion, did it strengthen the story to know that the italicized sections in Chapter 15 (defending and extolling the slave trade) were actual quotes from people in positions of power? Why or why not?

5. Everyone has a reason for doing what they do. What motivated Lingongo? How about Joseph Winslow? Jasper Hathaway? Jesse Mallow, the ex-slave member of the abolition group? Lord Reginald Witherham? Captain Ross? What was Grace’s motivation?

6. Captain Ross told Grace: “It is not only terrible people who are capable of doing terrible things.” Do you agree with this statement? Can you cite examples of when it has been proven true? The captain also said: “Not everyone acts out of malice and greed.” How did
Grace demonstrate the truth of this statement? How did others: Cabeto? Captain Ross? Mrs. Peete? Mama Muco?

7. Mama Muco told Grace: “We cannot control what happens around us any more than we can change what happened in the past. All we can do is decide how we will live our own lives.” Do you agree with this? How did this principle affect Grace? Were you to apply it to your life, what might it mean to you personally?

8. At the end of Book 1,
The Call of Zulina
, Ikem insisted that people can change. Twice in
The Voyage of Promise
, Grace harkens back to this statement. In what way did each of these characters change by the end of the book: Grace? Charlotte? Joseph Winslow? Cabeto? Benjamin Stevens? Did you see changes in any other characters?

9. It is always tricky to look into the past and make judgments from the comfortable wisdom of the present. But certain things never seem to change. For instance, we human beings seem to have an insatiable ability to temper the hard truth with our own self-interest. In the days of the African slave trade, this tempering extended to insisting that God was on the side of the slavers. How might this ability toward self-interest have prevented good people from seeing the slave trade for what it was? In what ways does self-interest fog our sight today and prevent us from doing the right thing?

10. Captain Ross tells Grace that “good comes from bad. From the worst comes the best.” Mama Muco reminds her of the verses from Isaiah 61: “The Lord hath anointed me… to give unto them beauty for ashes.” Have you ever experienced this in your own life? Would you be willing to share that experience? We’d love to hear from you at www.GraceInAfrica.com!

W
ho is it? Who is out there?” Nurse Hunter demanded. She rushed down the hall of the Foundling Hospital. “Must you knock the door completely off its hinges?”

Even in the best of times, Nurse Hunter was not a patient woman. And now, with her nerves already inundated by two weeks of unrelenting rain, the persistent pounding on the front door pushed her to the point of exasperation. Her characteristic staccato steps clicked through the halls with even more haste than usual.

Grace Winslow paid Nurse Hunter no mind. She extracted another bedsheet from the bundle young Hannah held in her outstretched arms. With an expert hand, Grace stuffed the sheet alongside the soggy heap already jammed into the corner where the dining hall floor connected to the entry hallway. Then she dropped to her knees and forced the padding firmly into place.

As Nurse Hunter tugged the water-swollen door open, Grace straightened her back. She sighed and brushed a stray auburn-tinged lock of black curls from her dark face, now glossy with sweat. “Whoever you are, do not trail mud over my freshly scrubbed floor,” she murmured… but not loud enough for either Nurse Hunter or the newcomer to hear.

A worthy concern it was too. With the road outside an absolute torrent of muck, first one person and then the next tracked the mess inside and down the hallway faster than Grace and the girls could clean it up. Even courteous people carried the foul outside into the building. And whoever it was raising such a row at the door was obviously no courteous person.

Through the open front door, a rough voice demanded, “We’s come fer Grace Winslow!”

“And just where do you fancy yourself taking our help in the middle of the day?” Nurse Hunter demanded. “The children sweat in their beds with the fever, and every corner of this building has sprung a new leak. I’d be a fool to hand our best worker over to you, wouldn’t I now?”

“Takin’ her to Newgate Prison, is wot,” came the sharp reply. “On orders of Lord Reginald Witherham hisself.”

Grace stiffened. Lord Reginald Witherham? Charlotte’s husband? An entire year had passed since she had escaped that dreadful man’s house! Oh, Lord Reginald had been frightfully angry with her back then. But a year ago. Surely by this time—

“And what right does this Lord Witherham have to remove our help from this charitable establishment?” Nurse Hunter insisted, her long, thin arms akimbo on her spare body.

“Grace Winslow be a thief, is wot,” the irritated voice replied. “Now, kindly step aside. Elsewise, we be taking you along with her.”

A thief!
Grace could not believe what she had heard. She was no such thing! Charlotte would tell them as much. Yes, Lady Charlotte, Lord Reginald’s wife. She knew everything that had happened in that house. The entire time Grace was there, Charlotte had never been away from her side.

A tall, burly man in a shabby greatcoat pushed past Nurse Hunter and forced his way into the entry hall. Right behind him was a short man with bushy eyebrows and an overgrown mustache.

“Hannah!” Nurse Hunter ordered. “Run and find Nurse Cunningham and bid her come immediately. Hurry, now!”

The child dropped the bedsheets. She looked uncertainly from Nurse Hunter to Grace to little Phoebe, whose arms were still piled high with folded cloth.

“Go!” Nurse Hunter commanded.

As Hannah bolted down the center hall, the burly man spied Grace. “That be her!” he called. Both men lunged for her.

“Wun, Gwace!” Phoebe screamed. “Wun away fast!”

But before Grace could get her wits about her, the men were upon her. The tall, burly man held her firmly in his grasp, and the bushy-faced one bound her wrists with a rope.

“It is all a mistake!” Grace protested. “I never stole anything!”

Without bothering to respond, the men shoved her toward the door. Phoebe shrieked and Nurse Hunter scolded, but the men paid no mind. They hustled Grace out into the rain, then over toward a waiting carriage with doors that bore the gold leaf letters
WL
— the unmistakable monogram of Witherham Larkspur, Lord Reginald’s estate.

“Here, now!” Nurse Cunningham panted as she ran up after Hannah. “What is the meaning of this?” When she saw
Grace in the grip of the two ruffians, she ordered, “Loosen our servant this instant! I insist!”

Nurse Cunningham might as well have been speaking to the trees.

“We are a charitable house for orphans, sirs!” she exclaimed. “Have you no concern for the welfare of poor children?”

The burly man shoved Grace through the open carriage door and hefted himself in beside her. The bushy-faced man scurried up after them and settled himself across from Grace and the large man, then he yanked the door shut. Not one word was spoken. Not one word was needed. The driver whipped the horse. The carriage jerked forward and rattled onto the cobblestone street.

Grace tugged herself around in time to see the two women and a clutch of children staring after her. Wide-eyed, they huddled together in the driving rain.

“I am no thief,” Grace said.

“Save it fer the magistrate,” the burly man told her. “It’s him wot will hear yer plea.”

Grace started to object, but the bushy-faced man glared hard at her and growled through his mustache in such a terrifying way that she closed her mouth and sank back in miserable silence.

A year of schemes and plans. A year of saving every shilling of her pay from the Foundling Hospital. Months of gathering bits and pieces of men’s clothes.

“When may I go back to the Foundling Hospital?” Grace ventured.

The burly man barked a sharp guffaw. “The Foundling Hospital, is it, then? Be there a graveyard out back? One with a poor hole, perchance? ’Tis the only way you will be seein’ the likes of that place again.”

“Should’ve said yer good-bye’s afore the door closed on this carriage,” said the small man with the bushy face. His deep, growly voice unnerved Grace. “You won’t be seeing them children again. Not in this life.”

Grace shivered in her drenched dress and sank further into the seat. Each clomp, clomp, clomp of the horse’s hooves was like a hammer driving a spike of despair deeper into her heart. Why now, after all this time? Surely, with his powerful connections, Lord Reginald Witherham could have found her at any time during the year she had worked at the Foundling Hospital. Why now, just when everything was almost ready?

For the past year, at the end of every long day, Grace took off her only dress, laid it over the single chair in her room, and slipped into the loose cotton garment Nurse Hunter gave her for sleep. Then she lay on her cot and did the same thing every night: regardless of how weary she might be, she would not allow her eyes to close until she had first traced Cabeto’s face in her mind. She recalled its every curve— the laughing tilt of his mouth, the broad shape of his nose, the spark of assurance in his eyes. With Cabeto firmly fixed in her mind, Grace whispered again the promise she had called out to him on that awful day in Africa: “
I will see you again. I promise!
”

Cabeto, in chains. Cabeto, forced onto the slave ship. Cabeto, the slave. Oh, but Cabeto, in America waiting for her!

Unless… unless she couldn’t get to him in time. One year, Captain Ross had told her. Maybe two. That’s how long it would be before Cabeto’s master would likely work him to death.

One year, maybe two.

“Don’t you worry yerself about Newgate Prison,” the burly man taunted. “Lord Witherham, he be in such a state, I guar’ntee that you won’t be there fer long.”

Mistakes happen. Grace understood that. Misunderstandings occur. If she were in her village in Africa, she and her accuser would simply sit down under the baobab tree—the spirit tree—with the wise old man in the village and they would all talk together. The wisdom of the ancestors would rise from the spirit tree and fill the mind of the old man, and he would guide the disagreeing sides to a place of understanding. In Africa, the two would walk away in harmony. But this was not Africa. It was London, where no baobab trees grew. Even if a spirit tree did exist in London, it would be lost among the crush of tall buildings and chimneys that clogged the city and church spires that reached to the sky. Nor could the wisdom of the ancestors hope to pierce the unyielding shroud of thick, smoky fog that held London in its relentless grasp.

“Lady Charlotte—I must speak to her!” Grace said.

The burly man burst out laughing. “You? And what would the likes o’ you say to so fine a lady?”

“I know her, you see, and—”

“If you knows anything at all, you knows to shut yer mouth while you still can.”

“Exceptin’ to beg fer mercy,” interrupted the man with the bushy face. “Surely you knows that. Elsewise you be about to gift all London with the pleasure of watchin’ you dance at the end of a hangman’s rope.”