North by Night (13 page)

7 February

Dear Lucinda
,

By the time this reaches thee, I will be safe in our inn with Father, Mother, and my sister and brothers. Thee, on the other hand, will still be hard at work. Know that the temptation grows in me to visit Sister Mercer’s farm. Only the seriousness of her condition keeps me away. Too many days have passed since we last spoke. And this journey, unlike the last, was passed in company, so I have had less time and privacy to write thee
.

I scribble this from Cleveland, where I wait out a storm with thy brother. He’s a good lad, that Will Spencer. Young but broad-shouldered, willing to take on great burdens. Thy family must be pleased with him
.

As I am sure he has told thee, our trading expedition here has met with success, and I look forward to concluding the deliveries as soon as we can arrange it. These winter journeys both chill and invigorate. I would love to share one with thee. How might we arrange such a thing? Am I too bold to ask?

Perhaps when Sister Mercer has regained her health, thee would permit me to come calling. Or I could help thee travel back to thy home. I admit it, Lucinda, thee has caught my heart in thy hands and thy face appears often before me. So please, allow me to visit thee soon
.

Until then, I am

Thy faithful Friend
Jeremiah Strong

W
EDNESDAY
, F
EBRUARY
12, 1851

Today Cass and I worked, hard as ever, but with light hearts—she because she knew her family was safe, I because of Jeremiah’s letter.

“You seem better today, Cass. Are your legs still swollen?”

“My soul fly like some bird, Lucy. But this old baby still wear out my body. My legs hurt. My heart, it hurry sometimes, then it slow down again. Here, you feel it.”

I felt for the pulse at her neck. The speed of her heartbeat scared me. I cut our lessons short and talked her into a longer nap, since we’d been up well into the night.

I told Miss Aurelia about Cass’s heart racing.

“We’d better get help,” she said. “Even though the baby’s not coming yet, it wouldn’t hurt for Bessie to check on Cass.”

“I’ll ride over and get her,” I offered. “I’m worried.” That was true. What I didn’t say was that a ride gave me a glorious chance to go outdoors, free of the house, if only for an hour or so.

I hurried upstairs and changed, pulling on long woolen underwear, thick stockings, a knitted vest, and the knickers and woolen jacket I use at night. With boots, mittens, and a cap, I’d look more like Tom or Will than myself, but I’d also ride warm and comfortable.

Miss Aurelia helped me saddle up one of her horses, and I cantered off easily across frozen fields. I avoided the drifted snow and let the mare make her own way toward the Smith’s farm. Wind cut through my clothing, but the sun warmed my back and I jogged along happily. For while I traveled on a serious mission, my thoughts returned again and again to Jeremiah Strong. He had written. He would come to call. I wanted to sing aloud. The ride ended much too soon.

Mrs. Smith welcomed me into her warm kitchen with a wide smile and a firm handshake. She is a small woman, with medium brown skin and black hair braided in the African manner in neat rows along her head. She served me bread and cheese and tea as I explained about Cass.

“She’s how big? How far along?”

I shrugged and held my arms in a wide circle around my own waist. “Big. I don’t know. Her legs pain her. They’ve swelled up. She says a few weeks still.”

“First baby?”

“No, third. But she had this trouble with the others, too.”

She nodded. “I’ll see to her.”

I needed to tell Mrs. Smith more about Cass. I needed to warn her. I took a deep breath. “Mrs. Smith, you should know … she’s a runaway. Come only if you can risk it.”

“I know already. And if I don’t risk it, who will? How you think I got here, gal? Some wood creatures brought me? I came from down Virginia as a young woman, following my man. Someone risked it for me years back. Many someones, colored and white. Lord be praised, they stopped looking for me a long time ago, so I can stay here. But I’ll never forget my journey.” Her black eyes drilled into me, and fire rose to her brown-gold cheeks.

I felt like a thoughtless child. “I’m sorry. I only meant to warn you, so you’d be cautious.”

“I understand cautious,” she said, and gave me a forgiving smile. “Now, I can’t come right today. My littlest has a croupy cough. But I’ll send you back with remedies, some herbs to make into a tea. Should ease the pain and swelling without harming the babe.”

She handed me a packet and showed me how much to use, and then another, larger bundle.

“Mix this up with hot water in a poultice and put it
on her chest. Wrap a flannel around it. Do that morning and evening.”

I didn’t understand. “Why her chest, if her legs are swollen?”

“Heart’s pumping too fast, sounds like. We need to slow that down. You’re keeping her in bed now, aren’t you?

“Yes, ma’am. Ever since she arrived.”

“Good. You get started. I’ll stop over in a day or two, at most.”

“Could you come sooner? Miss Aurelia and I … we’ve never done this before and we don’t know exactly when the baby will come.…”

Mrs. Smith laughed. “Nobody knows
exactly
when a baby’ll come. I’ve birthed three myself and welcomed many others, so between us we’ll bring that child into the world just fine. Don’t you worry now. I’ll see your visitor soon enough.”

“All right. Thank you, Mrs. Smith.” She reached up and patted my cheek to send me on my way. I felt foolish again.

Mrs. Smith is so tiny, but her calm confidence makes her seem bigger. I’ll sure welcome that confidence when Cass starts her labor. When it comes to birthing babies, I am a complete and total child, and unfortunately, so is Miss Aurelia.

T
HURSDAY
, F
EBRUARY
13, 1851

The herbs Mrs. Smith sent make a minty-smelling tea. Cass seems to like it well enough. The poultice stinks, but
Cass doesn’t complain. Fact is, she doesn’t complain about much, while I always grouch about the stitching. I finished those swaddling blankets and now sew on a baby quilt made from scraps while she practices names of her family on an old slate of Miss Aurelia’s.

“Ouch! Dratted needle! And now I’ve tangled the thread.” I threw down the cloth.

Cass picked it up and tugged gently at the knots. In no time she had the cloth and thread smooth and ready to sew again. “How’d you do that? I usually have to cut out the knots and start over.”

She laughed at me. “All you got to do is follow the thread, one knot at a time. You in too big a hurry, Lucy.”

“Well, I want the quilt done by the time the baby comes. Besides, I’m not good at going slow, with sewing or anything else. I doubt I could wait a whole nine months for a child myself. Is it hard work, having a baby?” I asked.

She laughed again and shook her head at me. “Hard work, yes. But better than old tobacco farming. End of that job, we get a mess of stinky leaves. End of this job, I get a little child to love.” She patted her big belly. “Ain’t that better?”

“Lots. I remember when every one of my brothers and sister came. Mama worked real hard, but the babies were sweet.”

“Every baby in the world be sweet,” she said. “Even if …” She stopped and sighed.

“What, Cass?”

“Even if I don’t like they daddy,” she said, her voice so quiet I could barely hear.

“Emma told me. I’m sorry, Cass. But you’ll get free. That man can’t hurt you anymore. I’ll take you to Canada myself. In Canada you can pick your own husband, for love.”

She sighed. “I be hearing you, Lucy. But the master, he pester me so long … Some days I feel a hundred years old.”

“But you’re nineteen. That’s just three years older than I am.”

“Three years free time, hundred years slave time,” she said.

Now what in the name of Sunday is a person supposed to reply to that?

F
RIDAY
, F
EBRUARY
14, 1851

Mrs. Smith came and went. She won’t say when the child will be born, except “a while.” Cass didn’t mind much, but I did. Bah! This is worse than waiting for Christmas. And I’m sick of snow!

S
ATURDAY
, F
EBRUARY
15, 1851

Cass thrives at her studies. It keeps me from going mad with boredom. I’m writing out lessons for her to carry north and share with the rest of the family, so I’m not completely useless.

And Cass started giving me lessons. She studied the quilt I stitched on and tore out nearly half. “You work too fast, Lucy. Here, I show you.” I hope she’ll improve more with her pens and papers than I will with my needle
and thread. For she’s right, of course. I’m more interested in how fast I’ll finish than in making each little stitch smooth and perfect.

Bah on February. The month is halfway gone. How much waiting can a person endure? I must have asked that question out loud, for Cass answered.

“Depend on the person,” she said. Then she laughed at me.

“All right. I admit, I deserve it. But must you laugh so hard?”

Her laughing was more catching than measles, and soon we both held our bellies. It feels good to have a friend to talk to again.

S
UNDAY
, F
EBRUARY
16, 1851

That man! How could I have ever thought him handsome? He is wretched. And conniving!

That dreadful Clayton Roberts came here, right up to Miss Aurelia’s door. To see me! And him a married man with all those children. He has no morals at all!

“Good day to you, Miss Lucy,” he said as I opened the door.

“Mr. Roberts?” What was he doing here? Heaven help us if he wanted to search the house today. I had no time to warn anybody.

“Yep. Back here again. I’ve been riding all over northern Ohio, looking for my property. But something … something keeps calling me back to this sweet little town.”

Something. Did he somehow guess Cass was hiding up
in the attic? Or was I the something? Either choice was terrible.

“You weren’t in church this mornin’,” he drawled. He stomped the snow from his boots, as though he expected to be invited inside. “I asked about you, and they told me you were still helping the widow. Those measles seem to be bothering her a right long time.”

I scowled. “She’s had complications. Coughing. Fevers come and go. If you’ll excuse me …”

He stuck his foot in the door so I couldn’t slam it in his face. “I just hate to see such a sweet young gal shut up here for weeks at a time. I’d hoped your invalid might be well enough for you to come for a ride with me. You’re looking so pale, Miss Lucy.”

“I’m always pale, sir. It goes with red hair. And no, Miss Aurelia’s condition will not permit me to leave her to go off riding with a stranger. I cannot even consider your invitation. Good day.”

I banged the door shut, hoping to catch his dratted foot and bruise it. I’d had to bite my tongue nearly in two to keep from shouting that I knew he was married and that he had a mistress and a passel of children.

Long after he’d gone, I stared at the door and wondered how many men were slimy snakes like Clayton Roberts.

M
ONDAY
, F
EBRUARY
17, 1851
L
ATE AFTERNOON

Visitors, two days in a row. Did someone send out invitations without telling us? Today’s batch caught me in
the barn. The stalls needed mucking out, and I craved the exercise. I still fumed from yesterday.

When I heard horses I hurried inside to warn Miss Aurelia. I tried hard to keep my voice steady, but fear crept up my spine like a deadly spider. Had Clayton Roberts come back? And who was he after, Cass or me?

Miss Aurelia nodded. “Thanks, Lucy. I’ll bang the ceiling so Cass will know, then I’ll arrange myself as a convalescent in the parlor. You go on about the chores—take on the hard work while I recuperate.” She coughed, as if disease had settled into her lungs, then winked at me. I hoped her courage would rub off, for mine had disappeared.

I stood on the front porch and watched the road. The horse noises came closer, and soon I made out the shape of a closed trap. Clayton Roberts had driven such a trap yesterday, worse luck.

I trudged toward the barn and hoped the trap would keep rolling, hoped it had a different destination, but the horses turned up Miss Aurelia’s lane. We had visitors coming, wanted or not. I squinted into the sun, trying to discover who.

A woman’s voice called out. “Hello, Lucinda! We’ve come to call on Widow Mercer.”

Relief. Only Mrs. Cummings. But she’d said
we
—I wished furiously that she hadn’t brought her daughter, Eleanora. I scowled. If the person with Mrs. Cummings was old, a church lady, I could probably stay outside.

The horses drew up to the barn and I saw Mrs. Cummings and Mrs. Clark, Jonathan’s mother. Hallelujah! No catchers. No Eleanora.

I walked toward the trap and found my voice. “Hello, ladies.”

Mrs. Clark tossed me the reins as if I were a stable boy. “We’ve come to see the widow. She’s over the measles by now, isn’t she? It’s been weeks. We expected you in church yesterday.”