Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionately facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation. . . .
Thomas Jefferson
The monthly meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society had just started when Robert Purvis entered the dim, cramped hall and sat down beside Thance and me. He took my hand, raised it to his lips, then issued a low whistle and wriggled my hand to make the sapphire sparkle.
“The stone, Harriet, is exquisite!”
“Thanks, Purvis. Now if you’ll just let go of my fiancee’s hand before you unscrew it.” Thance laughed.
“Something fantastic has happened in Richmond,” he said, barely able to suppress his excitement. “The Virginia legislature has passed an official resolution requesting the governor to ask President Monroe to obtain a territory on the African coast, or some other place not within any of the states or territories, as a colony for such persons of color, now free or who may be emancipated within Virginia, to which they may be transported. It’s called the American Society of Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States. Or getting rid of them.”
“You mean deport all Negroes who are not slaves out of the United States?” I asked incredulously.
“The society’s attention is to be directed exclusively toward the colonization of free persons of color and contains no allusion to slavery. Denunciation of slavery is unconstitutional, but the society is permitted to represent colonization as an antidote to slavery and as tending to effect its abolition at some future date.”
“Anything the legislature of Virginia approves must be bad,” interjected Thance.
“One of the framers of the resolution was none other than Thomas Mann Randolph. Thomas Jefferson’s son-in-law!” exclaimed Purvis. “Sometimes I wonder if the solution is not another country,” he added.
“Robert, that’s ridiculous,” I almost shouted. “Negroes are Americans. They are born in America. It’s their country. Why should they be deported? The first slave ship arrived in Jamestown at the same time the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth!”
“Bravo, Miss Virginia—-”
“Black soldiers fought under General Jackson at New Orleans. Even that slaveholding general admitted they had partaken of the perils and glory of their fellow white citizens. Jackson even told the President how valiant these soldiers were, and promised that the government would reward their exploits as they deserved. And what do they get? Colonization!” interjected Thance.
“Not from Monroe, at any rate,” I said, remembering him riled at my father’s dinner table, pleading against both compensation and colonization.
Purvis turned and studied me quite carefully. His eyes had iridescent irises which turned over images like a magic lantern. The plaintive expression of his face gave him the allure of someone who was always about to say something, then had thought better of it. I realized I had made a great mistake in mentioning the man who had been my father’s private secretary and was now President. It was too specific. Too close to the truth.
“Well, that’s really funny, coming from you,” joked Purvis.
“Oh, that . . . that’s just Virginia,” I replied.
“This kind of thing doesn’t only happen in Virginia,” he answered.
“You know, Robert,” I blurted out, “you could be white. I never would have known.”
“I know. I thought you white southerners could spot us a mile away, Miss Virginia,” he laughed. An interesting aspect of the American caste system is the phenomenon called “passing” . . . passing, that is, for white. No one knows how many light-skinned slaves pass into the white population, and whose descendants stay there. The effect of passing, whatever its extent, is to neutralize the effect of miscegenation, race mixing, which is a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment in America.”
“Fancy that . . . ,” I replied.
“All slaves in Louisiana should have left with the British,” continued Purvis slowly, still peering at me. “At least, upon setting foot on British soil, they would have automatically been free.”
“You mean simply by arriving on British territory one is emancipated?”
“Why, yes,” he replied, astonished at my naivete. “One can’t be a slave—or a fugitive slave—in a country which no longer recognizes slavery.”
Purvis and Thance excused themselves to take their seats in the men’s section. Charlotte took the seat on my right, but I hardly noticed; my mind was on Purvis’s last words.
My blood quickened. Simply by arriving in London, I could change my status from fugitive slave to freedwoman. I could escape two moral dilemmas at once: the one imposed by my father and the one imposed by Thance’s proposal. I could be free of both “crimes” at the same time.
My attention turned toward the stage, where a speaker was describing his escape to the North. He had escaped dogs and armed slave patrols, had almost drowned, had suffered frostbite and eaten raw rattlesnake. He had pried a bullet out of his forearm with his teeth and had drunk his own blood to keep warm, and he had pulled out half his hair to keep his sanity. His wife had died under the lash, and his epileptic son had been fed arsenic by his master. I thought of my luxurious ride to Philadelphia and my first meal at Brown’s Hotel. I thought of my deception of every friend I had. Was there a creature more despicable than I? Halfway through the narrative, Charlotte grasped my hand with trepidation. I looked down at the two clasped hands. They could have belonged to the same person.
“There is no dawn for the slave,” the narrator ended. “It is forever night.”
There was a hush in the hall. Charlotte disengaged her hand. I rose, wishing solitude, my eyes brimming with tears, but the woman next to me, sensing my anguish, took both my hands in hers.
“Oh, my dear girl. Don’t despair. This battle for emancipation of the black man shall be won, I promise you. Now, you may differ with me as to the mode of operation, as to the best means of obtaining a common objective. You might think that first the chains that bind the Negro slave ought to be lightened, whereas I think the chains should be thrust asunder. You might think, for plausible reasons that we ought to mitigate the rigors of slavery and alleviate the condition of the Negro, while I think that the first thing to be done is to resort to the eternal principle of justice. But, although we might differ as to the means of attaining the ultimate object, I’m sure we differ not at all as to the object of the common aim—the utter extinction of slavery.”
“Oh, I do believe in the utter extinction of slavery . . . even if it means the extinction of my own family.”
“You’re a southerner, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, God bless you, my dear. God bless you. Oh, pardon me, my name is Mrs. Lucretia Mott.”
“Harriet. Harriet Petit of Virginia.”
“While there is one slave, can any American woman say she’s free? Can any American woman say she has nothing to do with slavery?” I nodded my head in agreement.
“ Truth is the same for all humankind. There are not truths for the rich and truths for the poor, truths for white and truths for blacks, truths for men and truths for women; there are simply truths.”
I had never heard a woman speak as she did. I listened intently as she continued.
“Nowhere but by my investigations of the rights of slaves could I have acquired a better understanding of my own rights as a woman. The antislav-ery cause is the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood than any other. Is this country a republic, when but one drop of colored blood shall stamp a fellow creature for a slave? Is this a republic while one half of the whole population is left in civil bondage and sentenced to mental imbecility? Can you truthfully say, as an American woman today, in 1825, that you are free?”
“No.”
“Come, after the meeting, you must meet a friend of mine who is to be a delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention in London this summer, where in this very year, five thousand four hundred and eighty-four petitions have been presented in the name of abolition. Her name is Dorcas Willowpole.”
“Is this some kind of slave auction?” I murmured angrily to Adrian Petit over our weekly lunch at Brown’s Hotel. “Thance has already spoken to his mother. His mother has already spoken to you. You’ve already replied. Charlotte’s mother has already told Charlotte. Thance has written his brother. Charlotte’s told me about my own engagement. I suppose you’ve written Monticello? Don’t you think I might be consulted?”
“Harriet, you are wearing Thance’s ring.”
“That his mother picked out—”
“That belonged to his mother and his grandmother. That’s quite different. Why are you in such a panic?”
“I thought the North would be different! I thought I would find freedom! Equality! Instead, I’ve found how white people really feel about the Negro! They believe my brothers, my mother, my uncles, my family are beneath contempt—a race so steeped in immorality, sloth, insensibility, and lack of intelligence that nothing they say either in front of them or behind their backs can offend them! They hardly know that we have seen the backsides of white people too long to be shocked. How can I marry one of them? They who are supposed to be so strong, so superior, yet are so frail the least opposition sends them scurrying for cover.”
“Oh, Harriet. How can you say such a thing—”
“How?” I interrupted. “The United States government wants to deport the whole free black population of America back to Africa whence they came. But not the slaves—oh, no, they don’t belong to themselves, nor back in Africa. They are to stay because they are too valuable, but free people of color are expendable.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“At the Anti-Slavery Society meeting last night.”
“Harriet. Let’s put things in perspective. Our small dream has little to do with the politics of slavery!”
“And why not? I’m a fugitive slave. As much so as the poor man whose tale I heard last night. Am I not considered just as much a criminal as he? And as black?”
“Harriet, what can I say to you? This is all beyond my competence. I’m only your guardian, not your conscience. Why don’t you write to your father and mother? Unburden yourself to them and abide by their judgment. Surely your father must have known you’d be faced with this predicament if you passed for white. He must have some philosophy.”
“Yes,” I replied bitterly. “You told me his philosophy. ‘Since she is white enough to pass for white, let her be white’—that’s his philosophy! Be white and keep quiet. Endure the insults, the contempt!”
“And what about your mother? Surely she can help you.”
“Oh, I know her philosophy: ‘Get that freedom for your children.’ That was my grandmother’s litany to the day she willed herself to die ... freedom at any price. At any price, even this one.”
“No one promised you it would be easy, Harriet.”
“No,” I said wearily. “Nobody promised me anything. . . . I’m not going to marry Thance, Petit.”
He looked up to see if I was joking.
“And pray why not, Harriet? You have everyone’s blessing.”
“It’s against the law,” I whispered.
“What! Not this again?”
“But imagine if he found out from a third party!”
“From whom, Harriet? Me? Who knows, and who would tell?”
“Everybody at Monticello knows. Everybody in Charlottesville knows. Everybody in Richmond knows. Three presidents know! Callender let the whole damn world know!”
“What they know is that a Harriet Hemings exists, perhaps. They don’t know that Harriet Petit exists. Or Harriet Wellington.”
“My children won’t know who they are.”
After a long silence, Petit said, “Harriet, Thance loves you.”
“I know. That’s why I’m leaving Philadelphia.”
“Leaving?”
“At the library company’s meeting of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, I met Lucretia Mott. She introduced me to Dorcas Willowpole, a delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention in London this September. She was looking for a travel companion. She offered me the job, and I accepted.”
“You did what?”
“I accepted.”
“Thance will never allow you to go.”
“Thance is not my master.”
“Why so far away, Harriet?”
“Automatic emancipation. Setting my foot on British soil makes me legally free. Just as it did my mother, forty years ago. A multitude of fugitive slaves have done the same, have tasted freedom there. Don’t you see, Petit, if I go I will no longer be an escaped slave, but a free woman in reality, not in deception. And I’ll set Thance free. He will no longer be committing a crime for which he could be imprisoned or fined, just as my father could have gone to jail over my mother.”
“Harriet, don’t be crazy!”
“I’m perfectly sane. Mrs. Willowpole and I have decided to go to France after the convention. Paris has always haunted me, Petit.”
“You’re running from happiness just like your mother when she left Paris. Your mother gave up freedom for love, and now you’re giving up love for freedom.”
I knew Petit was using his most potent argument to hurt me. He was desperate.
“For truth, Petit. I must free my heart. Perhaps there is a ... different kind of happiness . . . without Thance.”
“You might also invent another algebraic equation for yourself. One part slave, one part criminal, one part victim, one part lover, one part opportunist, one part coward, one part thief, one part tragic heroine. Why make Thance unhappy over something neither he nor you can change? Can’t you just postpone the wedding? Perhaps make Thance understand? Tell him the truth! “Harriet, give Wellington a chance; tell him.”
“I tried to tell him. He didn’t let me continue. And I’ll never marry a man I can’t tell! I’m going, Petit.”
Petit rose and came toward me. I backed away. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I’m thinking how much you resemble your uncle James.”
“No one forced him to return home.”
“Oh, yes. Your mother. He was not going to let her return to Virginia and slavery alone. He was not going to let her throw away her freedom. . . .”
“As I’m doing?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, Harriet. Or think you’re doing.”
“Don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry, Harriet. I love you. I only want you to be happy.”
“Then you can see I can’t lie to Thance about who I am.”
“I see you have a genius for making yourself unhappy. Just like James.”
“I’m proud to be like him.”
“He was dead at thirty-seven.”
“That gives me fourteen years.”
“You’ll break Thance’s heart.”
“He’ll survive.”
“And you, Harriet?”
Calm, I thought. Calm. When was I going to have some calm?
“At least when I set my foot on the docks of London, I’ll be an emancipated woman. Not just a fugitive white Negro impersonating my masters. The transient fact of slavery is fatally united with the permanent fact of color. If I’m no longer a slave, I’m no longer black either.”
“You are taking a colossal risk. Perhaps Thance won’t wait for you.”
“I can’t expect him to, especially since I’m not going to tell him the real truth,” I said. “Will you come with me, Uncle?”
“No. Someone has to stay to look after your future interests, because, by God’s will, you may change your mind. When I cross the Atlantic again, it will be forever, and that won’t be until I’ve accomplished my last service to your father—your happiness and safety.”
“I doubt I’m ever coming back, Petit.”
For the first time, Petit looked frightened. His little monkey face screwed up in pain as if I had really been his daughter. But I was escaping my dilemma by the same route my father had always taken—flight.
“I came from a high school of cruelty,” I answered. “I’m the President’s daughter, remember.”
St. Paul’s Unitarian Congregation Church was situated on the southeast corner of Washington Square in the center of the city. I entered the vestry by the side door. My religious instructions were almost over, and I was to be received into the church at the same time as the marriage banns were to be posted. Neither of these things would now occur. I sat down in the choir, totally abandoned. My father had advised flight. My mother, silence. My white lie had become red, then purple, then black. I wouldn’t tell either of them that I was leaving the United States. I worried Thance’s ring off my finger and wrapped it in my handkerchief and shoved it into my skirt pocket next to the dagger. In the walk from here to the Wellingtons’ I would leave behind all the happiness I would probably ever encounter in life. My hands held out before me were steady and my heart beat slowly, subdued and unaltered. Harriet Hemings of Monticello had learned sacrifice and destitution at her mother’s knee.
Reverend Crocket entered to light the candles.
“Why, Miss Petit. What are you doing here? Thance wouldn’t like to see you abroad so late in the evening.”
“I just stopped by to pray. I’m on my way to the Wellingtons’ now.”
“Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you. I have almost half an hour before the service.”
I hesitated. Should I tell this kindly man I was about to break a sacred promise? No. He was just another white person, and I was sick to death of them.
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”
“Is there something troubling you, Miss Petit?”
“I understand you baptized Thance . . .”
“Oh yes, my dear. Thance and Thor—both of them.”
“So you’ve known them all their lives.”
“Yes indeed. Fine boys.”
“I understand there was an accident when they were children, and Thance hurt Thor. He’s never told me how.”
“Is this what’s brought you here, Miss Harriet ... may I call you Harriet?”
“I just wondered . . .”
“In Thance’s mind he blames himself, but really it was a simple accident,” he began, “or God’s will. I think that is all you need to know. Are you having doubts about marrying Thance?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, but that’s the most normal thing in the world, my dear. The sacred sacraments of marriage and conjugal love are the most serious and honorable of all men’s promises. They should never be taken lightly. You love Thance?”
“Yes.”
“Are you afraid of the . . . conjugal duties of marriage?”
“No, Reverend.”
“You are orphaned, I believe.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, what a sad thing for a young girl, not to have her mother to talk to on the eve of her marriage, or her father to give her away.”
My father, I thought. Even if he is no longer my master, he is still my father. The father I had left on his knees, his foot caught in the rottenness of his own rotten kingdom. And my mother. I had left her as though she were half-drugged in a field of tobacco with the moths and the butterflies. Despite myself, tears started down my cheeks. Did I dare admit that I was homesick? My father’s house was a two-day diligence ride from here. Why couldn’t I bring myself to return to see them?
“I want my mother,” I sobbed softly.
“I know, my dear girl. I know. But God in His wisdom has made that impossible. I am sure she is looking down upon you this moment in love and compassion. You must rely only upon yourself.”
The Reverend Crocket walked me the short distance to the Wellington House. The Montezuma left for England on September 24, and I had already told Mrs. Willowpole I would be on it. Today was the twelfth. Too soon, perhaps. Or too late? I pulled the bellpull and waited. The vicar stayed until the maid opened the door; then he tipped his hat and bowed.
Thance was not home.
He had left word that he was staying late at the laboratory and having dinner with a friend at his club. My ex-future mother-in-law was also not at home. Baffled, I sat down in the entranceway without taking off my hat or gloves. But a maid came and conducted me to the front parlor. To pass the time, I began to play Mrs. Wellington’s Loud piano, softly, with my gloves still on.
Just as I heard a key turn in the lock, the clock in the hall struck ten o’clock. I hoped it wasn’t Mrs. Wellington, for how could I explain such a night visit? To my relief, Thance’s voice echoed from the entranceway.
“Here? Did she say why?”
I stood as Thance entered, poised for flight or fight. I still had my hat and gloves on, and one hand reached into my skirt pocket, wanting to fold itself around the ring, but touching the dagger instead. It gave me courage.
“Harriet, you’re not ill?”
“No, I’m ... well. I came from a visit to Reverend Crocket at church. He told me he had baptized you.”
“He told you about Thor, didn’t he?”
“No.”
He stood there, pale and trembling.
“No. He’s never mentioned Thor to me.”
“I would have told you, in time.”
“I came to tell you I can’t marry you,” I blurted out.
“I knew this would happen. I knew something would spoil everything. Spoil the only happiness I’ve ever achieved. I knew I was cursed—cursed from birth.”
“You can’t believe in curses, Thance. There’s something in my past I can’t reveal to you, and since I can’t reveal it, I won’t marry you with it hanging between us. My decision is irrevocable.” I held out the ring.
He began to pace up and down, darting a furtive, tragic glance my way.
“Harriet, you must not make this decision lightly. If you would like more time, I should be happy to wait. I was wrong in rushing you. I’ll give you more time; we’ll postpone the wedding.”
“Thance, it’s not that. I’m leaving for London on the Montezuma in twelve days. I’m accompanying Mrs. Willowpole to the Anti-Slavery Society Convention.”
“Without discussing it with me? When did she make you this offer?”
“At the last antislavery meeting.”
“And you’ve kept it to yourself all this time?”
“Thance, you don’t understand. I must go to London. I’m sorry I’ve deceived you. I’ve come to give you back your ring. I have no right to the happiness you offer me.”
“It’s my happiness I’m thinking of.”
Thance had turned deathly pale. He tried to speak several times, but could not. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy.
“Please don’t write or try to follow me, because I won’t have the strength to go through with it otherwise.”
“Harriet, I don’t know ... for Christ’s sake . . . leave me . . . leave me some hope. Don’t close the door.”
“I must.”
“There’s someone you’re going to join in London? There’s someone else?”
“Oh, Thance. Of course not. I’m going as Mrs. Willowpole’s companion. There’s no one else. How could there be? I accepted your proposal!”
Thance had turned and taken several steps toward me. He was close enough to seize me, or to strike me. Our eyes locked.
“Please,” I said. My heart was a lump of coal.
“I’ll take you home, of course.”
Just as we were leaving, Mrs. Wellington entered in a cloud of scent and silk, shocked to find us alone in the house at such a late hour. It was obvious she suspected the worst, until she saw our faces.
“My God—children, what’s happened?”
“We’ve broken our engagement, Mother.”
“But—”
“Harriet is leaving for London on the twenty-fourth.”
“But, my child . . .”
“Please, Mrs. Wellington, don’t ask me to explain my behavior. Believe me that I accepted Thance’s offer of marriage in good faith . . . and . . . gratefully.”
“Harriet, you’re making a terrible mistake. You love my son; I know you do. Marriages like this one don’t grow on trees for—”
“Poor orphans,” I interjected.
“Mother. Please!”
“Harriet, I warn you. If you walk out of this door now, you’ll never enter it again while I’m alive.”
Thance’s mother literally blocked the door. In her caped evening dress, turban, and ostrich-feathered fan, she resembled some outraged Turkish sultan whose harem had been defiled. How she reminded me of Thomas Jefferson as she converted our pain into her principles.
I curtsied so low my shawl brushed the floor, and at the same time, I grasped her hand in supplication.
“Don’t make me regret that I’ll never marry.”
“Harriet! You ... you’re not entering a religious order, a papist? Not after your profession of Unitarianism!”
“I still strive to unite religion with . . . perfect liberty,” I replied. I rose as I did. I towered over Thance’s mother, and her bulk seemed to wither before my fury at being made into an equation once again. She stepped aside. She was afraid of me. Thance’s hand at my elbow steadied me as we descended the brownstone steps. I slipped and would have fallen if it had not been for his grasp. I knew he could feel me shaking.
“We’ll take Mother’s carriage; it’s late,” he said almost dully.
We were silent, side by side, all the way to Fourth Street. Suddenly, Thance began to cry silently, abandoned. I was annoyed that he had acquiesced so easily. Perhaps, like me, he believed he didn’t deserve happiness.
I slipped the ring into his coat pocket without his knowing it.
PHILADELPHIA SEPTEMBER 24TH, 1825
Maman
By the time this reaches you, I will have set sail for London, England, on the Montezuma, as traveling companion to Mrs. Dorcas Willowpole, a delegate to the Tenth Anti-Slavery Society Convention.
Although it is a magnificent sloop, I feel as though I am to be cast adrift in a tiny rowboat onto the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. I read and reread your letter of the fifth, trying to take courage in the fact that you were much younger than I when you crossed the Atlantic with Maria. Moreover, you did not know you were heading toward possible freedom. But I know that this voyage is my passport to true rather than false emancipation. Setting my foot on English soil makes me forever free as a matter of law, and gives me the moral right to call myself so.
I returned Thance’s ring and his offer of happiness because it was tendered and accepted under deception. It is sad that I must add to his suffering after the tragedy of his twin, which is indeed a story worthy of the cruelest tales of slavery. I take his heartache with mine on this voyage.
Remember me.
Your loving daughter
To my utter surprise, Charlotte spoke not one word of reproach to me. When I asked her why she didn’t demand an explanation, she’said, “Did Thance demand an explanation?”
“No.”
“Then why should I? If you want to tell me, you will.”
“I’m terrified that Thance will jump out of the shadows at every turn. The doorbell, the sound of a carriage wheel, a footstep, makes me faint.”
“Thance is . . . devastated.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ask what you knew?”
“Yes.”
“And . . .”
“I said nothing, which is the Lord’s truth, Harriet.” She caressed my hair. “Remember I told you once that young women were like cathedrals—great, anonymous mysteries. I’ve always felt that about you, Harriet.”
“You’ll come to see me off tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
In spite of myself, I said, “Do you think Thance will come?”
“My God, Harriet!” Charlotte exploded. “You kill a man and then you expect him to tip his hat. The man’s in bed,” she continued, “being taken care of by his sister and his twin.”
“Thor? Thor is back?”
“For the wedding, remember? Imagine his despair—”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. “Oh, my God.”
“You’re coming back?”
“Oh, Char! I don’t know . . . whatever happens, it’s chance. . . .”
“I believe you’re destined for one of the twins, but I don’t know which—”
“What a bizarre thing to say.”
“And I don’t suppose there’s any use in asking you one last time to reconsider, or at least to explain, your bizarre . . . your suicidal behavior?”
“I can’t, Charlotte.”
“Well, I’ll say it this once. Don’t go, Harriet. I beg you.”
“I must.”
“Why break everyone’s heart who’s come to love you?”
“Perhaps because of that love, Charlotte.”
We looked deeply one into the eyes of the other. Our friendship was intact, as was the mystery.
“I’ve got you some books for the voyage. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley; John Burke’s On Hero Worship; John Fitzgerald’s The Slave Trade; and Laclos’s Liaisons Dangereuses in French. Remember, you read my copy this summer. I’ve made a list of the books to send me from London.”
“You’ll come to see me off tomorrow?”
“I wouldn’t miss the adventures of Aunt Harriet as she ruins her life and throws away her chance of avoiding old maidhood, while welcoming the chance to drown at sea, with open arms.”
“Oh, Charlotte, I do love you.”
“With you as a friend, who needs heartbreak?”
“Take care of Independence for me.”
“I thought Mrs. Latouche was taking her.”
“I prefer you.”
“You’re afraid that she’ll spay her, and you know I won’t! When you come back, we can make her a proud mother.”
On the day of my departure, Petit was still trotting after me with instructions.
“You’re sure Charlotte will take good care of Independence?”
“Of course—she likes dogs.”
“Did I give you the address of the American embassy in London? It’s in Grosvenor Square, exactly where it was when your mother arrived.”
“Petit, I know. I’ve heard the story a thousand times. I know the address—”
“I don’t imagine you will run into her in London,” he said, “except by reputation, but Maria Cosway has many paintings hanging in London galleries even now, and her miniatures are famous. I believe your father and she still correspond—imagine the Abbess of Lodi and the President!”
Petit, the old gossip, was incorrigible. Cosway had never come to America, and my father had never returned to Europe. They could not have seen each other in forty years. Even the warmest memories paled, I imagined, after so long a time. Or perhaps not. It was quite possible I would never see Thance again. Would his memory fade with time, evaporate with the years?
A dull pain struck my midsection.
“You didn’t tell my father?”
“Harriet, I was obliged to. But if he has received the letter, he has not, as yet, responded. So I assume he doesn’t know. He has no power to prevent you from leaving, Harriet; you are twenty-three years old.”
“It’s not that I need their permission . . . it’s just that ... a white slave arriving in London, just like my mother . . .”
“I’m sure your fiancé, even now, would prefer that you did not—”
“You understood James, Uncle. Why not me? I refuse to live my life as a cipher, an outlaw. But then, don’t most bastards feel this?”
“The master loves you, Harriet. I know he does. Do not underestimate him.”
“I’m still dreaming that he’ll call me daughter, one of these days.”
Petit shook his head, as he often did when confronted with the snarled family history of the Hemingses and the Jeffersons, but to me, it was quite clear my father had not freed me. He had merely acquiesced in my stealing myself.