Different Sin (4 page)

His mind was still on the stupidity of studying Latin as he walked home, mumbling good afternoon to old Mr. Cunningham, out for his daily walk.

“Afternoon yourself, David.” The old man planted himself in David’s path. “So that uppity nigger of your father’s been taken down a peg or two.”

David stared at him. “How do you mean, sir?”

The old man chuckled, thumping his cane. “Got what he deserved, that’s how. Magistrate had him whipped good and proper. I reckon he’ll know his place a little better from now on.”

He rushed past Mr. Cunningham and burst through his front door. His father was home, slumped in his wing chair, his head buried in his hands. David hesitated, staring at him a second, then hurried down the hall to the kitchen. The door to Mike’s lean-to of a room was shut.

“Mike?”

“Leave him be now, Mista David.” Aunt Sary, their colored housekeeper, spoke in a near whisper. “He be hurt bad. Your daddy done doctored him up, but sleep be the best medicine for him now.”

David nodded, staring at Aunt Sary’s sorrowful face, then slowly crossed the kitchen and pushed the door open as quietly as he could.

Mike lay face down on his pallet, moaning in his sleep, his bare back covered with broad gashes that still oozed blood even through the ointment slathered on them.

“Jesus Christ!” David stood staring in disbelief, sickness rising within him. Seconds went by before he could turn and bolt from the room. He reached the backyard privy just as the sickness spewed from him, knelt and retched in horror.

David shook his head, clearing the remembered vision from his eyes, and looked back at Tom. “I thought you’d remember,” he repeated.

Tom spat in disgust, missing the corner spittoon. “I remember. It happened in 1831. Nearly twenty-five years ago!

“And you know as well as I do the magistrate would’ve been a lot more lenient on them if it hadn’t been for the whole town—the whole state, for that matter—being in an uproar over Nat Turner murdering half the whites in Southampton County. Hell, I saw Ned pull out pencil and paper just the other day, to figure the lumber he’d need for Pete’s addition, without anyone raising an eyebrow.”

David shrugged. “The law’s still on the books, Tom.”

“You don’t give a damn about the law, so long as you get your precious pictures published! Now nobody objected in the least to you showing Burns being returned to his rightful owner, even if the
Tribune
did try to make their damn abolitionist hay out of it.

“But now you’ve dug up this ancient history and spread it all over the country. Handing out ammunition to the abolitionists, right when the South needs every man to stand by her if we’re to keep our rights!

You don’t give a damn about your own people, do you? Well, don’t go expecting the people in this town to give a damn for you anymore!” Tom grabbed the newspaper and crumpled it in his fist. He tossed it in front of David again and slammed the door as he strode from the room.

David sat motionless, staring at the closed door, as the minutes ticked by. Finally he rose. He smoothed out the paper, tucked it under his arm, then walked out of his office. There’d be no clients coming by that afternoon.

His father was in his wing chair as he entered the house. He looked up at his son, a copy of the
Tribune
in his hand. “What possessed you to do this, David?”

David dropped into the chair opposite his father. “I don’t know.” He fell silent, pondering. “I guess I thought drawing it would help me understand, somehow, how they could do that to him. Come to terms with it, maybe. You know, that was my damn geography book. I told Mike he could borrow it.”

David looked down at the picture again, at the tensed muscles and clenched fists. The memory resurfaced of how bitterly Mike had blamed his father for refusing to plead for clemency for the three boys, how unwillingly he’d submitted even to the doctor’s attempts to minister to his wounds. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I should’ve realized it would hurt you.”

The older man gazed at him sadly. “Never mind that now, David.” He dismissed his son’s words with an impatient wave of his hand.

“Why did you send it to the
Tribune,
after all these years? Especially now, with the whole South alarmed that they’ll be denied the right to carry their property in slaves with them if the Free Soilers win out in Kansas. I should think a lawyer would be more aware of people’s attitudes. Didn’t you take any thought for what it would do to you? Don’t you realize how you’ve destroyed your position in this town?”

David rose and poured himself a glass of rum from the decanter on the table. He sat down again, cradling the glass in his hands, forgetting to drink it. “It never even occurred to me.” He brooded awhile in silence. “I guess I’ve never had much of a position to lose,” he said at last.

SlX MONTHS AFTER HIS SKETCH OF MICHAEL HAD BEEN PUBLISHED in the
Tribune,
David was still a pariah in his home town, forced to close his law office for lack of clients. Even Martha Ann sailed past him at church on Sundays without a word. He needed little persuasion to accompany his father to Boston that spring, glad enough of Mike and Rachel’s welcome.

Yet, sitting in the Mabaya’s front room after supper, listening to his father and Michael argue the latest developments in medicine-Michael defending Oliver Wendell Holmes’ theory of a dozen years back that childbed fever was carried by midwives and doctors, Dr. Carter decrying it—David saw the heated words passing between them as evidence of their underlying bond: a connection in which he had no part.

The loss of his occupation made matters worse. Tedious as he’d found the practice of law, the dearth of clients left him high and dry: a forty-year-old man living off his father’s bounty. He took refuge in his sketchpad, turning out drawing after drawing of Michael and his wife, Rachel; of his father holding four-year-old Becky on his lap with a smile of fond contentment; of Abigail, shyly earnest at eleven; of thirteen-year-old Peter who gazed at him unsmilingly, his intent young face so similar to Michael’s, though with his mother’s darker, mahogany coloration.

Still, it would have been laughable to proclaim himself an artist.

“Why not teach art?” Rachel proposed, one evening after Dr. Carter, as well as the children, had retired.

“I don’t know anything about teaching.” He fell silent, mulling over Rachel’s suggestion. But even if he had some facility at drawing, he doubted he had the ability to explain it to others. And he’d no more find art students at home than he had clients for his law practice. He’d no interest in seeking admission to the bar in some other state. He studied his hands, trying to imagine himself moving out of his familiar home, searching for students in a strange city. He couldn’t.

He turned to his half brother. “How did you just leave home like that?”

“What do you mean?” Michael asked.

“How did you get the nerve to just run up North? You weren’t more than a few years older than Peter is. Weren’t you afraid?”

“Lord, yes, I was scared to death. The whole way to Pennsylvania I couldn’t stop thinking what would happen to me if I got caught. I’d have been whipped for sure, probably sold South. I could’ve knelt down and kissed the ground once I’d crossed over the state line.”

“I meant once you’d reached a free state though. Weren’t you scared of how you’d get along, how you’d earn a living?”

“Oh.” Michael gave the question a scant second’s thought. “I didn’t see anything to be afraid of once I was free. Of course, I didn’t know if I could really become a doctor, but I knew I’d find some kind of work. What was there to be scared of?”

“I don’t know.” David looked down again. “I wish I knew. I just wish I knew.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The onset of summer found David no closer to starting anew. He returned home, despite Michael and Rachel’s invitation to stay on with them while he tried to establish himself in Boston. “We can find room,” Rachel had assured him. He’d thanked them, but declined the offer, not sure if he was simply reluctant to crowd them in their modest townhouse or afraid he’d prove himself even more of a failure in their eyes.

Still, summer brought its compensations. Free from the constraints of his law office, he wandered through the town and nearby countryside, sketching whatever took his fancy. Most often he headed for the docks to capture the muscular strength and grace of the dockworkers. His eyes would stay fixed on the rippling, powerful muscles of back and shoulders; he’d glance down at his sketch a second or two at a time, then return his admiring gaze to his subjects, his fingers moving rhythmically as he retraced lines and penciled in details.

As autumn approached though, with the prospect of being cooped up indoors with no company but that of his father, his situation weighed more heavily on him. Even Walker seemed to have lost interest in pursuing their correspondence. He’d received just one letter from the newsman since spring—a hastily scrawled missive preoccupied with the efforts of the
Tribune
to aid Free Soil settlers in Kansas in their struggle against “border ruffians,” who’d thronged across the state line from Missouri to cast fraudulent votes for a pro-slavery legislature. Doubtless Walker was too caught up in the conflict to write—though, as far as David could see, it seemed likely to produce nothing but turmoil and bloodshed.

Perhaps, David told himself as he headed for home one fall afternoon, the newsman simply had no further use for him since he’d forwarded no additional sketches illustrating the horrors of slavery.

His father called to him from the parlor as David entered the house, beaming as he handed David a letter from Michael. David skimmed it. The opening of school had gone well, Michael wrote. The Massachusetts legislature that spring had passed a law prohibiting school boards from restricting colored children to separate schools. The new legislation ended a boycott of the public schools by Negro parents in Boston; Michael and Rachel’s youngsters were now enrolled in public school, rather than alternative schools set up by colored parents.

“Peter’s entered the Boston Latin School,” Dr. Carter reported proudly, before David could finish reading.

David nodded, handed the letter back to him.

“Oh,” George Carter added, as David turned to head upstairs. “You’ve got another letter from that friend of yours in New York.”

He ripped open Walker’s letter.

“Please accept my apologies for not having written sooner. Have been much pressed for time of late.

“I have news which may prove of interest to you. A new weekly, modeled after the
Illustrated London News,
is to be launched this fall. The publisher, Frank Leslie, is a man with much experience in illustration and engraving, and the sound judgment to make a success of the undertaking. Expect he will be hiring staff artists shortly. Advise me without delay if you are interested, and I will arrange for you to meet at the earliest opportunity.”

An inkstand and pen stood on the writing table in the parlor. David sat at the table and dipped the quill into the inkwell, calculating the length of time it would take for his answer to reach the newsman.

He set the pen down. By the time additional letters traveled to and from New York, Leslie might well have engaged all the illustrators he needed. If he caught the morning train, he could reach New York City tomorrow evening.

He took the stairs two at a time. Packing a few extra clothes wouldn’t take long, but he wanted to take his time selecting sketches for his portfolio.

ALEXANDRIA WAS A MERE HAMLET COMPARED WITH THE t
umultuous, traffic-filled streets of New York City. David looked across Printing House Square to the five-story building that was the home of the
Tribune,
briefly wishing he’d heeded his father’s advice to have the sense to reply in writing rather than take the first train north. He waited for a break in the speeding stream of coaches, then crossed the square, skirting steaming piles of horse dung.

The news offices were on the third floor. Walker was sitting with his back to the door, jacket slung carelessly over his chair, his shoulders rounded as his pen moved swiftly across his paper. David crossed the newsroom to his desk.

“Mr. Carter!” Walker’s look of surprise gave way to a beam. “I’d expected to hear from you by post, but I see you’ve come in person instead.”

David smiled, embarrassed. “I guess I thought I’d lose my courage if I waited.”

Walker laughed. “Have a seat. I’ll be finished up here in a minute.” He rained a fine spray of ink drops over his manuscript as he waved his quill at an adjacent chair.

David perched on the edge of the seat. Some half dozen newsmen at nearby desks glanced at him with curiosity, then dismissed him from their thoughts as they returned to their copy. He began to relax, watching Walker frown in concentration as he scribbled.

“Well, there’s an end to that!” Walker stood and stretched, tossing his pages into the basket for outgoing copy. “Here, follow me and I’ll introduce you to Greeley.” He strode off, still dressed in his shirtsleeves.

Horace Greeley’s office was a cubicle at one end of the newsroom. A tacked-up sign read, “Editorial Rooms: Ring the Bell.” Walker pushed open the door, ignoring it.

David followed him, looking around in wonder. The famed editor sat hunched over a desk by the window. Dangling from the ceiling over the desk was a large pair of shears—apparently to prevent their loss in the sloping mound of clippings, pamphlets and correspondence in which the desktop was buried. Newspapers and books overflowed the bookcase, covering a sofa and several rickety chairs.

Greeley continued writing as Walker spoke. David wondered uneasily if he’d heard them come in at all.

Suddenly Greeley turned and extended his hand, his high voice a contrast to his bewhiskered countenance. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Carter. I was darn pleased with that last drawing you sent. It’s the kind of evidence we need to give slaveholders the lie. Wish I could use you myself as a sketch artist for the
Tribune.”