Honor (21 page)

Royale was fighting tears. “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

Royale didn’t reply, just hid her face in her hands. Honor’s mind proceeded to supply possible answers:

I’m afraid that I might be kidnapped again.

I’m afraid the judge will make me leave Ohio.

I’m afraid because, even though I’m free, I am unprotected by the law.

Honor knew the feeling of being stripped of protection. When she’d lost High Oaks, she’d lost a woman’s only power in this world of men: inherited wealth. Now she was married to someone her previous neighbors would scorn, a deaf-mute who worked with his hands, not a gentleman. But Samuel was an honest man who defended her and provided for her. She turned back to Royale.

Words were of little comfort, but Honor spoke anyway. “Samuel will protect thee. It was our ignorance of thy danger that put thee in jeopardy.”

Royale slid closer, and Honor slipped an arm around her shoulders. “We will face this together.”

The courtroom was stark, furnished with only the judge’s high bench, two polished oak counsel tables facing the bench, the jury box, and the gallery seating. A railing with a center gate separated the tables from the gallery. An American flag hung behind the judge, a white-haired man with a scrawny neck above his black robe. The severity of the courtroom oppressed Honor.

As the afternoon trial commenced, Samuel, Honor, Sinclair Hewitt, and Alan Lewis sat behind the low oak railing on the prosecution side.

Sheriff Obadiah Blaine and another officer stood nearby. Royale watched from a balcony with the other free blacks who had come to support and protect her. The courtroom was crowded with other spectators—some well
dressed, some in homespun. Honor recognized George Coxswain and several other Friends in attendance. The jury selected this morning now sat in the two rows of the jury box, at right angles to everyone else.

Honor tried not to look at the two kidnappers in shackles who sat beside their own lawyer. Whenever she glimpsed them, a sour sickness curdled in her stomach and a chilling perspiration bathed her.

As if sensing her distress, Samuel surreptitiously took her hand. Her husband was always kind, but that was all. Would he ever view her as more than a woman under his care—view her as his wife? She forced their uncertain relationship from her mind and tried to focus on the proceedings.

Lewis was taking copious notes with a pencil on a pad of paper. This seemed to distract the two prosecuting attorneys, who kept looking at him over their shoulders. Hewitt was also rapidly scratching notes along with another two newspaper reporters in court.

“The state calls George Coxswain to the stand,” the lead prosecutor, a well-dressed and smooth-talking man, said.

George walked to the stand and, when asked by the bailiff holding the large, black leather Bible, affirmed that he would tell the truth.

“You were on the wharf on the night in question?” the prosecutor asked.

“Yes. I was helping look for the little boy, Eli Cathwell, who’d been kidnapped.”

“And did you find the boy?”

Honor listened but primarily gazed at the faces of the
twelve men chosen to decide this case. Some of them kept glancing up into the balcony and glaring. Others listened with intense interest to everything that George said.

In her mind, the jury could do nothing but convict these evil men. But justice could be miscarried, especially because of Royale’s involvement—which was not even mentioned in court except as an aside that the kidnapped child had been in the care of a nurse who had also been taken.

Samuel squeezed her wrist, reassuring her. She sent him a private smile, acknowledging his support, and continued to sign the testimony of each witness.

Several more Friends testified, identifying the two defendants as the men who had been caught on the wharf red-handed, with Eli Cathwell and his nurse secreted in bags near their keelboat. The prosecutor ended his case.

Then the defense lawyer, a squat man who kept casting dark looks at the prosecution side and at the balcony, brought some character witnesses to the stand who, in Honor’s opinion, did the defense case more harm than good. The jurors looked aggravated at these testimonies, and she tried to take encouragement from this.

Samuel stroked the side of her gloved hand with his thumb. “I’m fine,” she signed in return. He moved his hand away, but she drew it back next to hers. His thumb brushed the tender spot under her own thumb. His touch both distracted and comforted her.

The two kidnappers did not take the stand in their own defense. One sat grinning and cocky; the other, who’d been wounded with his own pistol, remained subdued and listless. Their lawyer ended his defense with an emotional
appeal full of long Latinate phrases that made no sense to Honor. “All show to cover his lack of a defense,” Alan Lewis muttered.

Then the jury left to deliberate in private.

Honor rose to stretch her legs, breaking contact with her husband, who also had risen. She slipped her hands around the crook of his elbow, leaning ever so slightly against his strength.

“I do not think this will take long,” Lewis commented in a reassuring undertone. He rose and went to talk to the prosecuting attorneys.

Honor nodded toward him as she signed this to Samuel. She hoped for a quick judgment by the jury, hoped that Eli was not becoming fretful with Deborah. He didn’t like to be separated from Samuel or Royale for long. She resisted the urge to crane her neck toward the balcony and call unwanted attention to Royale. The courtroom walls felt as if they were closing in, forcing out all the air.

Less than half an hour later, the bailiff came out, then the judge. Finally the jury paraded back to their seats. The judge addressed the foreman, who rose and announced the verdict. “Guilty as charged, Your Honor.”

Shouts of victory went up in the balcony. The judge called for order. Thanked and dismissed by the judge, the jury left almost immediately. The other two newspaper reporters raced out the door to their offices, but Sinclair Hewitt hung back near Honor and Samuel. Relief drenched Honor, her tension releasing, leaving her weak.

Samuel pulled her into a one-armed embrace, and she wept a few tears against him. Friends from the meeting crowded around, congratulating them. Two officers marched the angry kidnappers out of the courtroom.

When the crowd had thinned, Honor and Samuel moved into the aisle. Sheriff Blaine walked up to them. “Well, that’s done. Now I see your girl is here. Her bond has not been paid, so I’ll take her into custody.”

Samuel glared at the man. “Honor, tell him I am ready to pay her bond. No one is taking Royale anywhere I don’t want her to go.”

Honor translated this to Blaine with great satisfaction.

The sheriff appeared disgruntled but wary, more than once glancing up at Samuel, who towered over him. Honor took much comfort from this.

Alan Lewis rose and hurried forward to catch the judge, who was about to leave. “Your Honor, we’d like you to witness Samuel Cathwell paying the bond for his free servant Royale. Also, Your Honor, we need you to sign a new manumission paper for her. The kidnappers burned her original one.”

Blaine looked as if someone had clubbed him. He turned and marched forward, blustering, “Yes, Your Honor, the girl entered Ohio and did not pay the bond as required by law.”

Samuel ushered Honor forward, where he handed over a bank draft for the sum and accepted a scribbled receipt from Blaine, under the judge’s order. They had gone to the bank the day before and had opened an account for
this purpose. After the transaction was finalized, the sheriff stalked off, grumbling to himself.

Honor and the rest—including Hewitt, who’d stayed to get the whole story—moved to the judge’s small, neat office, where Honor affirmed that she had been Royale’s mistress and had freed her. The judge’s clerk drafted a new manumission paper, which both Honor and the judge signed. The clerk notarized it also. The judge congratulated them on the guilty verdict.

They walked out of the courtroom and into the late-afternoon breeze. Honor clung to Samuel’s arm at the head of the steps, still a bit shaky with relief.

“Is that all that must be done to protect our maid from the law?” Honor asked Alan Lewis, pausing there, ready to translate his reply.

“I believe we are done. I will accompany you with your land agent whenever you’re ready to see the parcel he says you have purchased. I took the liberty of contacting a surveyor who will also come with us.”

“Good.” She thanked Lewis. Hewitt also bowed and left them. Honor and Samuel walked down the courthouse steps to where Royale, Brother Ezekiel, and his giant of a son, Judah, waited for them.

After greeting them, Honor touched Royale’s shoulder. “We have paid thy bond, Royale, and the men will be sent to prison. The terrible episode is done. And here is a new manumission paper for thee.”

Appearing only a bit relieved, Royale folded the paper into her concealed pocket. “I thank you. When we leaving Cincinnati, Miss Honor?”

So Royale would feel safer outside the city after all. “Soon. We merely need to make sure that we take possession of the land Samuel truly bought.” Honor claimed Royale’s hand. “Come. Let us go get Eli and tell him the bad men are going away for many years.”

As the three of them walked toward the Coxswain house to fetch Eli, Honor’s relief evaporated. Royale was still at risk—even in a free state. This must change, but she couldn’t conceive how.

Soon she and Deborah, plump and pleasant in sober gray, sat in her neat, spare parlor alone. George had been called back to his shop unexpectedly. Escaping Deborah’s company, Samuel had taken Eli out to play in the garden, and Royale was watching them, drinking her tea outside. Honor could hear Royale encouraging Eli to catch the ball.

“Thee is not cheered by the guilty verdict?” Deborah asked.

Honor glanced toward the nearby window and saw a faint reflection of herself there. She did indeed look downcast.

“The joy of the Lord is my strength.”
The words came unbidden to Honor’s mind. But she felt weak and defeated. They’d won a battle, but what of the war? “Everything is against us, against Royale. She will always be in danger as long as slavery is legal in the South.”

“We face a strong, entrenched evil,” Deborah agreed. “But I was a girl when thirteen colonies took on Britain and won independence. At the beginning, all new causes must seem doomed to failure. Think of the twelve apostles and Paul taking on the Roman Empire. We cannot let the opposition intimidate us.”

“But how can we end slavery?” Honor stared at her reflection, so transparent, so sad, so strained.

“By doing anything that comes to hand. By speaking out whenever the chance comes our way. We must be always ready to meet any opportunity that God sends our way.”

Deborah’s words stirred Honor from apathy. She gazed at her reflection a moment longer, then turned to Deborah, trying to hold on to the spark of hope. But surely she would not find many opportunities to work for abolition in the middle of the forested wilderness.

Samuel entered their bedroom and locked the door behind him. Honor sat by the window. Soon they would spend their last night at the inn. Over the past few days, the lawyer, surveyor, and land agent had finally thrashed everything out about which parcel of land was theirs.