Chapter 10
Scott’s Grove
December 1853
Isaac was true to his word. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder as Thomas drove the horses swiftly away from Scott’s Grove. Instead of returning to the Duvall home, Alden had asked Thomas to transport them directly to Alexandria.
His mother would be angry that he’d left without saying good-bye—and his father would think him foolish—but as long as they didn’t suspect that he took a slave with him, they wouldn’t send someone in pursuit. Hopefully, Isaac would be in Canada before anyone realized he was gone.
Taking Isaac north was much different than trying to steal Mammy—Naomi—away. If they were stopped on the boat or train, he’d claim Isaac was his manservant. If a slave hunter insisted on seeing papers, he would claim his own ineptness, his foolish youth, as the reason for forgetting them.
He doubted anyone would stop them, though. It was a common sight in New York and Boston to see a male Southerner traveling with a manservant or a woman accompanied by her personal maid.
The brougham swept down the lane carved between his father’s prized fields. And his stomach churned again with revulsion over what his father had done to the woman Alden had loved like a mother.
He’d been so naïve. Stupid. He was twenty-three years old, and he’d never really stopped to think who had sired Benjamin. He and Benjamin had never talked about their fathers, and he’d always assumed that his nursemaid had a husband in the fields. Or at another plantation.
Last night’s argument between his father and Naomi, and the shame in his mother’s eyes as she cowered inside her room, haunted him. Now he understood Benjamin’s resolve, the righteousness in his anger. Naomi’s wounds of both body and heart, forced to have sex with a man she hated. And why his mother remained so placid in her own humiliation and fears.
No matter how much he wanted to understand, he couldn’t comprehend what his father had done. Perhaps that was why his father was so angry at Benjamin. Reflected in the eyes of a slave was his own sin.
Alden pressed his fingers against his temples. Did his father’s stomach ever churn over how he punished the men and women in his care?
Perhaps his father felt compassion years ago, but his heart had turned into stone over the years, the power consuming him. How else could someone with life pulsing through his veins kill his own son and then strike the woman he’d abused, threatening to sell her after she gave everything to him?
And all these years his mother had known.
Anger swelled within him again. Then sympathy. Compassion and rage.
Now he understood why his mother’s heart had grown as cold as his father’s, why she’d displayed no despair over what her husband had done last night. The hatred must have consumed her too.
This was why Naomi told him to leave Scott’s Grove. No matter how much he protested, he wouldn’t be able to change his father’s mind. In the end, he would be an advocate of the evil.
The carriage hit another rock, and he reached for the rail as the wheels jogged back and forth.
Why hadn’t someone told him the truth? He’d always wanted a brother, and he’d had one—a half brother who could have thrived at Harvard if given a chance.
He glanced at the boy sitting resolutely across from him, as if he knew the gravity of what they were doing, and he realized the oak-brown shade of Isaac’s skin was similar to Benjamin’s.
Could this be Victor’s son? Victor and Eliza had no children, and unfortunately it was acceptable in their society for slave owners, like his father, to sire a slave child—another boy to work in the fields or sell at an auction.
If Victor was Isaac’s father, what had happened to his mother?
He shifted on the hard seat. He may never have answers to his questions—it was all so convoluted. And he would never return to the Duvall farm to ask. Benjamin’s future might have been stolen from him, but he prayed there might be some redemption for this boy. Isaac was smart too. Courageous. If a Negro family adopted him in Canada, he could go to school, and then he could work as a freedman up north.
Isaac reached for the folded copy of the New York Times beside Alden’s valise. Then he seemed to scan the top headlines.
Startled, Alden leaned forward. “You can read?”
Isaac nodded proudly. “Master Duvall hired someone to teach me so I could read him the paper before he gets out of bed.”
“I hope Victor also told you to keep your skill a secret.”
Isaac shrugged, apparently unconcerned as he continued to scan the first page. Then he turned to the second page. “Looky here,” he said, flicking the paper. “There’s an article about Solomon Northup.”
Alden had followed that case closely up at Harvard. “What does it say?”
Isaac read the first few lines. Then he groaned before summarizing. “No one’s going to be punished for kidnapping the man.”
Alden reached for the newspaper and perused the rest of the story. Isaac was right. While he—and most of his fellow law students—had hoped this case would prompt change in their legal system in regard to slavery, the justice system bowed again to the wealthy slaveholders.
Thankfully, Northup had been rescued and sent back home, but because of his skin color, he wasn’t allowed to testify against those who had kidnapped him or against the man who’d whipped him and forced him to work as a slave for twelve years.
Isaac pressed his nose against the cold glass. “Look at that.”
Alden blinked, taking in his surroundings again. Outside the brougham were giant snowflakes, sticking to the window, salting the ground. The evergreen trees in the distance looked like cones of iced cream.
It was a miserable day for Stella to get her snow.
“Where are we going?” Isaac asked.
He wanted to say they were headed toward freedom, like Solomon Northup after his years in bondage. But he feared what Isaac might say in his enthusiasm. Much better that he found out about his newfound freedom once he was safely in Canada.
“Eventually we’ll arrive in Boston.”
Isaac pumped up his chest. “I know all about Boston.”
“From the newspaper?”
The boy shook his head. “From reading The Scarlet Letter to Master Duvall. Poor little Pearl.”
Alden glanced back over at him. “Who’s Pearl?”
“Hester’s baby.”
“From The Scarlet Letter?”
Isaac confirmed with a nod. “Of course, good things happen to Pearl in the end.”
“Of course,” Alden said, though he hadn’t read the novel. If only every story had a happy ending.
Five hours after they left Scott’s Grove, Thomas drove the carriage into Alexandria. The streets were mostly quiet on this Christmas Day. He could see people inside some of the homes, sitting as families around their tables.
As they neared the waterfront, they passed a fenced yard with about twenty black men and women pacing inside. None of them looked over at the carriage.
“What is that?” Isaac asked, pointing at the snow-covered yard.
“It’s a slave pen.”
Isaac eyed the brick building next to it. “They live there?”
“No. They’re waiting to be sold.”
Isaac contemplated that information. “Who’ll buy them?”
“Probably a tobacco or cotton planter. They need thousands of slaves to work in their fields.”
“Missus Eliza once said she was going to sell me.”
“I’m glad she didn’t.”
“Master Duvall wouldn’t let her.”
“It seems like you are a hard worker, Isaac.”
“A man fortunate enough to find work is a man fortunate enough to eat.”
Alden smiled. “I believe that’s true.”
Though if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t spent much time working for what he was given. Other people had done the hard work for him. Even when he and his father had joined the field slaves, picking and curing their tobacco harvest, their tasks were easy compared to the others. He was anxious to begin working alongside Judah Fallow in San Francisco to finally earn his keep.
The carriage stopped at the Potomac riverfront, and he saw two steamers waiting at the wharf, including the George Washington, the ship that would take them up to New York. No one was working along the boardwalk today. They’d have to wait until tomorrow for the next leg of their journey.
At a nearby hotel, the porter helped Thomas transfer Alden’s trunk into a vacant room on the second floor—a simple place with two narrow beds, a dresser, and a window that overlooked a row of shops.
“Thank you, Thomas,” Alden said as they walked back downstairs.
“I’m just doing my job.”
Alden stopped by the carriage. “Would you like to travel north with us?”
Thomas shook his head. “Master Duvall’s already going to be furious when he discovers Isaac is missing.”
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
Thomas climbed up onto the driver’s seat. “It’s not for me to say.”
“If you came with us, I’d find passage up to Canada for you too.”
He held up the reins. “I appreciate it, Master Payne, but I’m too old to start over and too tired to run.”
Alden nodded. Thomas may not be legally free, but in this case, he was free to choose his own future. “When Mr. Duvall and Mr. Payne ask about us, just tell them the truth.”
“Can’t see that I have a reason to lie,” Thomas said with a tip of his hat. “I don’t know anything.”
The snow continued to fall outside the hotel window, covering the cobblestones on the street. Alden’s stomach rumbled. Even though Isaac didn’t complain, Alden knew he must be hungry as well.
Alden reached for his cloak. “Stay in the room while I’m gone.”
Isaac sat on the bed closest to the window. “Can I read while you’re away?”
“You can read all you want in the room, but whenever we go out, you must act like my slave.”
Isaac looked confused. “I am your slave.”
“I mean—” Alden stopped himself.
“Missus Eliza gave me to you,” Isaac said, as if Alden might have forgotten. “And I ain’t goin’ anywhere unless you sell me to someone else.”
“I’m not going to sell you,” Alden assured him.
Isaac leaned back against the headboard, looking quite pleased.
As Alden stepped out onto the cold street, he prayed no one on the ship tomorrow would suspect what he had done.
He would protect Isaac with his life if he must, for Benjamin and Naomi’s sake.