Diann Ducharme (26 page)

I smiled. “That would be wonderful.”

But Ben blurted, “Sorry to put a damper on, but we should be going. Time’s a-ticking. Ain’t that right, Abby?”

I put my hands on my hips and shook my head at him. “No, we have time yet.”

Ben huffed impatiently and went to stand near the door with his arms crossed and his foot propped up on the thin wall behind him. I took a seat on an ammunition box and pulled up an old barrel. The little boys and girls giggled, ran for their own boxes, and pulled them up to sit near me. Elijah pulled out a handful of Bibles and passed them out to the class. He also handed out a few battered copies of an instructional reading textbook called
The Freedmen’s Reader
.

He began the lesson with a passage from the Bible, Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians, a prayer for knowledge and understanding. The children took a while to find the particular passage, so I helped the youngest ones locate it, as they squirmed and fidgeted.

Then Elijah began to read, his voice reverberating off the shabby walls of the room.

“Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places …”

He was credible. Years of trampled emotions were threaded through his drawn-out words. I had never heard a voice so complex.

“Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”

“Amen,” he said, gazing at the cobwebbed ceiling, rendered important in the aftermath of the words. He closed the Bible, so small in his large hands.

He then began to sing a hymn, and motioned for the children to sing along with him. And it was as if their lives had been set to music. I heard each agonizing minute of their days in the rise and fall of the notes, saw innocence in their sweet, toothy mouths, their pink tongues. I pretended to pick a stray thread from the sleeve of my dress so they wouldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes.

The children then recited the alphabet in a singsong chant. In response, Elijah asked them if they had been practicing their letters and numbers.

“I practiced at ’em ’til my stick done broke!” said a small but muscular little boy. From that, I gathered that they were to practice their letters with sticks in the sand.

“Do you have no slates or chalk? No paper or quills?” I interrupted.

Elijah raised his eyebrows at me. “We have no money for those kinds of items. We are lucky to have the books that we have here, this building, these boxes. These children barely have food to eat. We make do with what we have. You can understand that?”

I heard Ben snicker from the doorway.

I blushed, and stammered, “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive.”

As he wiped at his forehead with a handkerchief, his dark eyes studied me. “Miss Sinclair,
why
are you here?”

I didn’t know how I had found myself in this dank, stifling room on this strange little island, but it felt like I had come home to something. I spoke, the words slowly forming on my tongue. “I think I can help you. I can get you some supplies, things that can help with their learning. Slates, books, chalk, paper. If you want them.”

He paced back and forth across the rough floorboards, his large boots making the entire floor of the room vibrate. He finally said, “We need a teacher, too, for adults as well as children. Might you know of someone who could take on the task?”

My stomach dipped, as if I had jumped from a great height. I said firmly, “I could do it, but only at night.”

Ben stared at me. And he appeared to shake his head, just barely left to right.

Elijah looked unfazed. “That would be fine. The adults prefer night sessions, since they work during the day.” He crossed his arms. “Do you have any experience in the field of teaching?”

“I do. I tutor my younger sister and brother.”

Ben gave me a brief smile, but his voice came out pinched. “I can vouch for her. She’s been teaching me reading and writing this summer, and I’ve learned more than I ever thought I could by her. She has right much insight into the book of
Robinson Crusoe.”

Elijah actually smiled at that. “Oh, yes, that’s one of my favorite novels. Savages and the civilized man. When I learned to read, it was the first novel that I read in one day.”

“One day! Good Lord, it’s taken us the whole summer to get
through it, and that’s with Abby reading it to me! I wouldn’t be able to make it through ten pages on my own, without Abby here.”

“Practice, Mr. Whimble,” Elijah said good-naturedly. “Daily practice.”

“You read a lot, I take it?” asked Ben, tightly.

“Every time I get the chance,” said Elijah. “When would you like to start, Miss Sinclair?”

“Is next Monday too early?” I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of sneaking out of the cottage, or how I was to get to the island and back.

His face was determined. “We’ll see you then, around nine o’clock. Plan for three hours of learning time, for around fifty students.”

At that, the children shouted with glee and got up from their boxes to gather around me. They giggled among themselves and jumped up and down. But Luella just stood in front of me, staring. “I knew you was the lady, didn’t I?”

“You must be very bright indeed,” I replied. I tried to offer Luella a confident smile, but the notion of teaching a group of fifty students—people of all ages and abilities—was overwhelming. I hoped Elijah would be there to help out. And Ben.

Walking out of the school building into the blazing afternoon sun, I shaded my eyes. “Were you all right in there, Ben?” I asked. “I guess the actual schoolhouse set you on edge.”

He kicked at the sand and then laughed heartily to himself. “God does have a sense of humor, don’t He!”

He seemed lost in thought for a while, and then he smiled at me, nodding his head to himself. He went on, but more peacefully. “I was just taken aback is all. I wasn’t expecting all that. Lord almighty, a teacher for the freedmen. If only your pap could see you. My, he’d be so proud.”

“I thought it was time for me to stretch my wings a bit. A lady can only teach one person for so long. I needed a new challenge,” I said airily, unfolding my parasol.

“Ho ho! Mighty sorry if I bored you with my simple mind. You’ve got your work cut out for you now, though. Fifty freedmen, women, and children all looking to you to teach them. You sure you want to come over here every night? It’s a risk you might not be willing to take, come light of tomorrow.”

I stopped to look at him. “You’ll come with me, right?”

“Well, I’m not free, you know. What’ll you plan to give me in return?” He looked away from me, but I could still see the smile on his face.

“Ah, the old barter system, still alive and well on the Outer Banks. The pleasure of my company is all
you’ll
receive.”

“Whatever you say,” said Ben, suddenly serious. “We just need to be real careful. There’s something about that schoolhouse that I don’t like, not one bit.”

I laughed. “I knew it.”

We returned the horse and cart to the old man Rufus, who fortunately was snoring away in the afternoon heat. Then we walked down the small pier to where Ben’s skiff was rising and falling with the water, begging to be untied. Ben pulled hard on the rope to bring the boat close to the pier, then held out his hand to me.

But I couldn’t get in. I stood there, looking down into the boat. The heat swam almost visibly in front of my face.

Ben looked amused. “Abby? Helloooo? We better get going if you want to make it back by supper.”

I fought down a sob that had bubbled up, and I shook my head stubbornly.

“Lord God, what’s the matter with you?” He moved close to stand in front of me. The way that he braced himself, I think he thought I was about to faint.

“Ben.” That was all I could get out.

He whispered, “Yeah?”

I forced my mouth to work. “Are you going to marry Eliza Dickens?”

He exhaled deeply. Then he reached out and put his hands gently on my forearms. “Not if you don’t want me to. See, I broke it off with her a while ago.”

Tears of confusion spilled out of my eyes. “You did? Why? I thought she was your childhood sweetheart, the only one for you. You told me you were going to marry her.”

He nodded his head a bit. “I know. I was planning on it. Until I met you.”

The Earth seemed to stand still for a moment. “Me?”

He laughed, squeezing my arms gently with his coarse hands. “Yeah, you. Can’t you see how much I care about you? You’re supposed to be the smart one here! I don’t do this kind of touring-around thing just for any gal, you know.”

I laughed and stammered at the same time. “I-I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know. I mean …” My throat closed so that I could hardly speak. “It’s a good thing we’re going to be seeing each other at night now.”

I couldn’t go on. I could hardly bear to see his disappointment.

“Why’s that?” His eyes clouded a bit.

“Because I’m not allowed to tutor you anymore, Ben. That Sunday visit of yours put Mama and Daddy over the edge. It’s done.”

Ben looked as if I had punched him in the gut. “Oh.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He ran his fingers through his hair and shifted his stance in agitation. “Your daddy cut me off, too?”

“Yes. He was adamant about it.”

He shook his head slowly. “It don’t take much to get on his bad side, does it? You think he’d be more grateful to folks that help him.”

I shook my head. “He never has been. He forgets.”

He smiled rigidly. “Well, I’ll just have to get my learning at night, then.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to lose … everything we’ve worked for this summer.”

“No. Neither do I,” I said.

I looked back at the island, the little inlets of clear blue water and marsh grass and the tree-lined sand. Then I looked across the Roanoke Sound, to the blur of sand dunes a bit north of Nags Head Woods. I thought of that tree on Run Hill, and whether she was finally dying, right this very minute.

Quickly I matched my lips to his, and he grabbed me very tightly around my back, pressing the corset bindings into my spine almost painfully. His lips were a bit chapped, and he tasted of salt water and sunlight, sweet grass and soil. Just as I expected.

I stepped back to look at him and he rubbed the tears from my cheeks with the meat of his ragged thumb. Then he held my face with both of his hands and just looked at me, his eyes searching and darting from feature to feature.

And I looked at his face, too. I knew it so well now, its flickers of confusion and bursts of pride. Instead of eyes and a nose and cheeks, I saw water and a boat. A boat that was sailing somewhere.

He picked me up by my waist and twirled me around on the pier.
Then he gave a great shout that echoed over the Albemarle Sound. A flock of Canada geese took off anxiously, without even honking, water pouring from their wings as they climbed into the air.

He said, “I’m glad we got all that cleared up.”

My measured steps clunked loud and purposeful as I walked quickly along the planked railway back to the cottage that evening. The Earth had started spinning again, but in a new and different direction. The heat had dissipated a bit, and violet and pale pink clouds splashed across the sky above the ocean. My spine stretched as straight as a pine tree.