Part 5 (2/2)

Her words, meant to steady me, unnerved me further. As I tapped on the door, the airy feeling returned to the back of my knees. He sat at his desk with his hair oiled and combed back smooth and didn't look up, intent on a stack of doc.u.ments.

When he lifted his face, his eyes were hardened. ”You have disappointed me, Sarah.”

I was too stunned to cry or run away, the two things Binah had warned against. ”I would never knowingly disappoint you, Father. I only care to-”

He thrust out his palm. ”I have brought you here to listen. Do not speak.”

My heart beat so ferociously my hands went to either side of my ribs to keep them from unhinging.

”It has been brought to my attention that your slave girl has become literate. Do not think to deny it, as she wrote a number of words on the muddy ground in the yard and even took care to sign her name.”

Oh Handful, no! I looked away from his harsh, accusing eyes, trying to arrange things into perspective. Handful had been careless. We'd been found out. But my disbelieving mind could not accept that Father, of all people, believed her ability to read was an unpardonable offense. He would chastise me as he must, undoubtedly at Mother's urging. Then he would soften. In the depths of his conscience, he understood what I'd done.

”How do you suppose she acquired this ability?” he asked calmly. ”Did it descend upon her one day out of the blue? Was she born with it? Did she teach her own ingenious self to read? Of course, we know how the girl came to read-you taught her. You defied your mother, your father, the laws of your state, even your rector, who expressly admonished you about it.”

He rose from his leather chair and walked toward me, stopping at arm's reach, and when he spoke again, some of the hostility had left his voice. ”I've asked myself how you are able to disobey with such ease and disregard. I fear the answer is you are a coddled girl who does not understand her place in the world, and that is partly my own fault. I've done you no favors with my lenience. My indulgence has given you the idea you can transgress a serious boundary such as this one.”

Feeling the chill of some new and different terror, I dared to speak, and felt my throat clench in the familiar old way. I squeezed my eyes and forced out my thought. ”. . . . . . . . . I'm sorry, Father. . . . . . I meant no harm.”

”No harm?”

He hadn't noticed the return of my stammer. He paced about the stuffy room and lectured me, while Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton gazed serenely from the mantel. ”You think there's no detriment in a slave learning to read? There are sad truths in our world, and one is that slaves who read are a threat. They would be abreast of news that would incite them in ways we could not control. Yes, it's unfair to deprive them, but there's a greater good here that must be protected.”

”. . . . . . . . . But Father, it's wrong!” I cried.

”Are you so impudent as to challenge me even now? When you left the doc.u.ment on my desk freeing your slave girl, I should have brought you to your senses then and there, but I cosseted you. I thought by tearing the fool thing in two and returning it to you, you would understand we Grimkes do not subvert the inst.i.tutions and laws by which we live, even if we don't agree with them.”

I felt confused and very stupid. Father had torn up my manumission paper. Father.

”Do not mistake me, Sarah, I will protect our way of life. I will not tolerate sedition in this family!”

When I'd espoused my anti-slavery views during those dinner table debates, Father beaming and spurring me on, I'd thought he prized my position. I'd thought he shared my position, but it hit me suddenly that I'd been the collared monkey dancing to his master's accordion. Father had been amusing himself. Or perhaps he'd encouraged my dissenting opinion only because it gave the rest of them a way to sharpen their own opposing views. Perhaps he'd tolerated my notions because the debates had been a pitying oral exercise to help a defective daughter speak?

Father crossed his arms over his white s.h.i.+rt and stared at me from beneath the unclipped hedge of his brows. His eyes were clear and brown and empty of compa.s.sion, and that's when I first saw my father as he really was-a man who valued principle over love.

”You have quite literally committed a crime,” he said and resumed his pacing, making a wide, slow orbit around me. ”I will not punish you accordingly, but you must learn, Sarah.”

”From now on, you are denied entrance to this room. You shall not cross this threshold at any time, day or night. You are denied all access to the books here, and to any other books wherever they might be, except for those Madame Ruffin has allotted for your studies.”

No books. G.o.d, please. My legs gave way then, and I went onto my knees.

He kept circling. ”You will study nothing but Madame's approved subjects. No more Latin sessions with Thomas. You will not write it, speak it, or compose it in your head. Do you understand?”

I lifted my hands, palms up, as high as my head, molding myself into the shape of a supplicant. ”. . . . . . . . . Father, I beg you . . . P-please, don't take books from me . . . I can't bear it.”

”You have no need of books, Sarah.”

”. . . . . . F-f-father!”

He strode back to his desk. ”It causes me distress to see your misery, Sarah, but it's fait accompli. Try not to take it so hard.”

From the window came the rumble of drays and carriages, the cries of slave vendors on the street-the old woman with the basket atop her head who squawked, ”Red ROSE to-may-TOES.” The din of commerce went on without regard. Opening the library door, I saw Binah had waited. She took my hand and led me up the stairs to the doorway of my room. ”I get you some breakfast and bring it up here on a tray,” she said.

After she left, I peered beneath the bed where I'd kept the slate board, spellers, and primer. They were gone. The books on my desk were gone, too. My room had been scoured.

It was not until Binah returned with the tray that I thought to ask, ”. . . . . . Where's Handful?”

”Oh, Miss Sarah, that just it. She 'bout to get her own punis.h.i.+ng out back.”

I have no memory of my feet grazing the stairs.

”It just one lash,” Binah cried, racing behind me. ”One lash, missus say. That be all.”

I flung open the back door. My eyes swept the yard. Handful's skinny arms were tied to the porch rail of the kitchen house. Ten paces behind her, Tomfry held a strap and stared at the ground. Charlotte stood in the wheel ruts that cut from the carriage house to the back gate, while the rest of the slaves cl.u.s.tered beneath the oak.

Tomfry raised his arm. ”No!” I screamed. ”Nooooo!” He turned toward me, hesitating, and relief filled his face.

Then I heard Mother's cane tap the gla.s.s on the upstairs window, and Tomfry lifted his tired eyes toward the sound. He nodded and brought the lash down across Handful's back.

Handful.

Tomfry said he tried not to put much force in it, but the strike flayed open my skin. Miss Sarah made a poultice with Balm of Gilead buds soaked in master Grimke's rum, and mauma handed the whole flask to me and said, ”Here, go on, drink it, too.” I don't hardly remember the pain.

The gash healed fast, but Miss Sarah's hurt got worse and worse. Her voice had gone back to stalling and she pined for her books. That was one wretched girl.

It'd been Lucy who ran tattling to Miss Mary about my lettering under the tree, and Miss Mary had run tattling to missus. I'd judged Lucy to be stupid, but she was only weak-willed and wanting to get in good with Miss Mary. I never did forgive her, and I don't know if Miss Sarah forgave her sister, cause what came from all that snitching turned the tide on Miss Sarah's life. Her studying was over and done.

My reading lessons were over, too. I had my hundred words, and I figured out a good many more just using my wits. Now and then, I said my ABCs for mauma and read words to her off the picture pages she'd tacked on her wall.

One day I went to the cellar and mauma was making a baby gown from muslin with lilac bands. She saw my face and said, ”That's right, another Grimke coming. Sometime this winter. Missus ain't happy 'bout it. I heard her tell ma.s.sa, that's it, this the last one.”

When mauma finished hemming the little gown, she dug in the gunny sack and pulled out a short stack of clean paper, a half full inkwell, and a quill pen, and I knew she'd stole every one of these things. I said, ”Why you keep doing this?”

”I need you to write something. Write, 'Charlotte Grimke has permission for traveling.' Under that, put the month, leave off the day, and sign Mary Grimke with some curlicue.”

”First off, I don't know how to write Charlotte. I don't know the word permission either.”

”Then, write, 'This slave is allowed for travel.'”

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