Honor (13 page)

She turned to Samuel and signed something of her
surprise. He responded with a curt nod and turned away, another phantom slap in her face. She recoiled. Fresh aggravation washed away her reaction to Cincinnati.

She closed her eyes, praying for how to handle Samuel. She understood that he was still suffering from the loss of Miriam and from being forced to marry her. But neither excused his rudeness. She had also lost everything and been forced into this marriage. Tonight, when she and Samuel were alone at last, she would not let the sun go down on her wrath . . . or his.

The steamboat bumped the pier, jarring her. Shouts and whistles spurred the crew as they docked the boat. A few boatmen set two gangplanks—one for passengers and one for baggage—and others began unloading the luggage onto shore from the cargo hold like a bucket brigade.

She drew in a ragged breath and concentrated on disembarking and all it entailed. She wouldn’t be able to relax and leave everything to her husband.
She
would be the one making their arrangements. After all, that was the main reason Samuel Cathwell had married her. The thought still stung.

Soon Samuel ushered her, Royale, and Eli down the gangplank. He stood by, brooding, while Honor gathered with the other men to claim their trunks and boxes. Wagons had appeared and lined up to receive the passengers and their bags. Amid the bustle, horses neighed and tugged at their reins. Honor spied a boatman pushing a cart loaded with her and Samuel’s baggage. She beckoned him to come over.

Within minutes a drayman was helping the boatman
load their baggage onto his wagon. Many fellow travelers from the boat crowded around them.

“Mrs. Cathwell, I won’t bid you and your husband adieu.” Sinclair Hewitt doffed his curled beaver hat and bowed. “I’m sure we’ll meet again in Cincinnati.”

She smiled and thanked him, ignoring the ill humor wafting from her husband.

Several others also wished them well, the men bowing over Honor’s hand. They all nodded to Samuel, and a few patted Eli’s round cheeks. Their show of friendship in this strange place eased Honor’s tension.

Samuel abruptly assisted Honor onto the wagon seat, looking grim. He helped Royale and Eli get settled on the bench behind them. Without a glance toward Honor, he climbed up beside her. She could have shaken him for his lack of tact.

“Where to?” the drayman asked, the reins slack in his large hands.

Honor signed the question to Samuel, who replied, “We need an inn for the night.”

After receiving this instruction, the driver, a middle-aged man with a hat that had seen better days, slapped the reins. His horse moved slowly away from the wharf. Honor perched stiffly between the two men, both staring straight ahead. She tried to think of a gentle, diplomatic way to confront her husband later. But they were practically still strangers, and so far neither gentle nor diplomatic had answered her purpose.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of two rough-looking men who were walking up the road
behind them. One was staring toward her in a fixed way. When he noticed she was watching him, he turned to his companion and said something. Honor faced forward, unwilling to give credence to the shiver of wariness she felt.

The drayman drove past several inns but finally chose one on the high bluff overlooking the river. “This one’s decent for a family. I’ll wait to see if you get a room,” he said gruffly.

As Samuel helped her down, Honor looked back and thought she saw the same men pull out of sight. Shaken, she paused on the wooden walk in front of the prosperous-looking inn. No one moved, and she shook her head at herself.
I am tired and upset; that’s all.

Honor marched inside and located the proprietor. She inspected the room he led her to and found that the sheets had been properly aired and everything looked neat and tidy. She secured the room.

In their lodgings at last, Honor looked out on deep-purple clouds draped over the last of the brilliant-bronze sunset outside the small window. Only a bed, one chair, and a ewer and pitcher on a stand by the door fit in their room. Suddenly exhausted, she sat down on the bed and looked at Samuel, who had sunk down onto one of their two trunks. The boxes occupied most of the space in the small room. She now felt unequal to the task of confronting him. “How long before we move into a place of our own?”

“We will shop in town tomorrow. First we need a team and wagon too. You can drive, can’t you? Or do we need to hire a driver?”

Honor was taken aback. Men did not ask women to drive
wagons. But the reason came to her. City bred, Samuel had not needed to learn to drive a team. She almost suggested she could teach him, but then she thought of the voice commands used in driving a team. She would be unable to communicate the various commands to Samuel, and he likely could not speak them in any case. And would he want her, a woman, to teach him? Another touchy subject.

“Well,” he prompted, “can you drive?”

“Yes, I can drive.”
Until I have time to consider this.

Royale knocked at the door and entered. She had been given a bed in a servant’s room downstairs in the rear.

Samuel lifted Eli from Royale’s arms and carried him out, not saying where he was going.

Honor wondered if he sensed her displeasure and was glad to escape even for a few minutes. Yet he would have to face her in the one bed in this small room. She motioned Royale to come nearer. Royale shut the door behind her and helped Honor undress. “So you sure we’re not gon’ live in Cincinnati?”

“Not right in the city, but somewhere close by, I’m sure.” She added the last bit to bolster herself as much as Royale.

With slow, firm strokes, Royale brushed Honor’s hair, no doubt trying to help her relax for sleep. “The innkeeper has a black maid working here.” Royale’s soft voice followed the brush soothingly. “I think the maid be able to help me meet some of my own people before we leave. Find an African church.”

Honor gazed at Royale’s reflection in the small wall mirror. Again their blood connection tugged at her. The
reality that they were blood relations continued to seem unreal—yet God, who loved them both equally, had clearly marked Royale as her kin. Still, the world would ignore it and devalue Royale, who was so similar to Honor in intelligence and in what the world prized as beauty. Because Royale was born of a slave mother, she must sleep belowstairs. Grandfather’s sins and lies—so scarring to both of them—stabbed Honor, cutting deeper.

Honor picked up the thread of their conversation. “I also wish to go to meeting here before we leave the city, meet some other Friends. I doubt the small village we’re going to will have a place of worship for either of us.”

Soon Royale set down the silver hairbrush and bid Honor good night. Honor forced herself to sit in the chair by the window in her nightdress and not hide under the covers. A married woman now, she must accustom herself to being in a state of some undress with Samuel. Besides, she didn’t feel she could challenge him while lying down. And no matter her fatigue, she must.

Samuel entered with Eli. After one furtive glance toward Honor, he began helping Eli change his clothes. The glance told her he expected some grievance from her. She joined in assisting him with the child.

“I saw a horse,” Eli volunteered. “I like horses and wagons.”

Honor smiled. “Yes, the man with the wagon had a good horse.”

Soon she slipped Eli into the bed where she and her husband would sleep together for the first time. After
Miriam’s death, Samuel had escaped downstairs to his mother’s bedroom.

With Eli between them, she doubted Samuel would claim his marriage rights. Honor now understood the word
limbo
. Somehow she must connect with this man she’d married, deal with his barbed moods. Bracing herself, she began, “Why did thee behave so rudely to me on the boat?”

He stared at her. No reply.

Her exhaustion pushed her to their raw bone of contention. “Did thee think I was encouraging the men? They were only showing me common courtesy. Nothing more.”

Samuel wanted to snap back at her, but he couldn’t. For one thing, he had behaved less than politely to her. He was unsure about the common courtesy comment. “I apologize,” he signed.
But you don’t know how it feels to be ignored, belittled by their looks, deemed deficient.
“I’m tired.” He motioned toward the bed.

“I am also, but I will not be mistrusted, and so I warn thee.” With that, she slipped under the coverlet and shut her eyes.

He turned away to undress. For a fleeting moment, he wished he could sleep in a different room. Being in close quarters with Honor only intensified the separation that his deafness forced on him. No hearing person could comprehend that isolation; certainly no beautiful woman could. And now he must lie beside his lovely bride all night and not show how she affected him. A cruel penance for his offense.

OCTOBER 17, 1819

Honor blinked herself awake to church bells ringing, chiming, calling the faithful to worship. Suddenly she was filled with anticipation. No Quaker meetinghouse rang bells, but the ringing was a signal to her nonetheless. She hadn’t even thought about the day of the week last night, but now she realized why Royale had mentioned finding an African church. She had known the day.

Honor sat up and, reaching over the lump that was the sleeping Eli, shook Samuel’s shoulder.

He opened his eyes and signed, “What?”

“It’s First Day.” She beamed. “We must get up and dress for meeting. The innkeeper noticed yesterday from my plain speech that I was Quaker and told me there was a meetinghouse just a few blocks away. I don’t know how I lost track of the days.”

“I’m not going to meeting.” He rolled over, turning his back to her.

His refusal sent a cold wave through her. A verse of Scripture came to mind—
“Be ye not unequally yoked”
—and an inner alarm sounded. She rose, donned her robe, and crept barefoot to the other side of the bed. She shook her husband’s shoulder again.

When his eyes opened in surprise, she signed with swift motions, “Samuel Cathwell, thee not going to meeting is unacceptable. Thee is a married man now and with a child to rear. How can our marriage prosper if we do not attend meeting as a family?”

Samuel stared at her. “Not this week.” He tried to roll over.

She gripped his shoulder, stopping him. “But next week we may not be in Cincinnati.”

Halted, he stared at her.

“Samuel,” she began, needing him to understand why, “in Maryland, when Friends freed their slaves, they had to sell their land and leave. The other slaveholders despised them. When our meetinghouse closed because there were so few members left, I was still just a little girl.” This explanation cost her.

Then the excruciating memory of leaving High Oaks burst in her heart. Her people—the slaves she would have freed—had lined the drive to bid her farewell. Some had wept; some had wailed; others had stared mournfully and lifted a hand in salute. She couldn’t just forget them. She still yearned to set them free.

She must find others who thought the same, who would work toward the same goal. “I cannot be separated from the body of Christ in this new place. I must go to meeting, and my family must come with me. I cannot bear . . .” Tears overwhelmed her, and she couldn’t go on. He couldn’t mean that they would live cut off from other Friends.

Looking disgruntled, Samuel sat up. “Very well. We will go this time.”

Honor nodded, but the words
this time
troubled her. She began praying that this meeting would welcome her husband.

A knock at the door broke the silence. Honor opened it a crack and found Royale there.

“I come to get your clothes to press for First Day. I ask the maid here, and she told me there an African church down by the river. She say I can go with her and her intended. Can I?”

“As soon as everything is pressed, thee is free for the day.”

“Free for the whole day?” Royale echoed.

“Yes. On First Day, after helping me dress, thee can have the whole day off till sunset.” After searching Samuel’s coat pockets, Honor pressed a silver dollar into Royale’s hand, her first wages.