A Whisper in Time

I didn’t have the opportunity to relax and read more journal entries until late in the afternoon. I opened Charlie’s computer and popped in the DVD. With all of the excitement of researching Dorcas, celebrating my birthday, and then moving to the lake house, I’d put off reading the last journal. Finally, I had the chance to learn what had happened in the months and years after the saving of Phoebe’s thumb.

The images in this journal showed grave disrepair. Pages were splotched and torn. Edges had crumbled. I dearly hoped that not too many of the pages in the journal had been destroyed.

April 23rd, 1801

Mrs. Eton gave me this little book. It is a beautiful gift and thoughtfully chosen.

The hour is quite late, almost midnight, and I am too excited to sleep. I burn this precious candle in the need to capture my thoughts.

Tomorrow is the day I leave the Eton household. There will be no chores for me. Letty has retired this evening as junior chambermaid and will shuffle down the stairs in the morning as the senior. A new girl will have my bed before nightfall.

So the final journal was a new one—a gift from Mrs. Eton. Phoebe had received it for her birthday and last day of service. It was a kind remembrance and yet a bit excessive for a departing maid. I should’ve greatly preferred Mrs. Eton as a mistress to the one I’d had, but that didn’t alter how very peculiar it would’ve been for servants to understand their place in the Eton household.

I shall not be here to observe how the household proceeds without me. I never particularly liked the duties of housemaid, except the needlework. Always the embroidery sustained me.

I look forward with excitement at the adventure I am about to begin. Yet I feel oddly sad to put this place behind me. It is where my sister brought me nearly five years ago to assure my safety. It is where I improved my skills with the needle that secured a job at Mrs. Simpson’s. It is where I grew to know and admire Mrs. Eton, Senator Eton, and their children.

I shall be seventeen tomorrow. The years have passed quickly.

* * *

May 6th, 1801

Mrs. Simpson is a sour-faced sort, with beady eyes, skin like a dried apple, and long white hairs curling from her chin. Her hands are too gnarled to stitch, but her customers are loyal and her sketches divine.

I do not like this tiny closet where she makes her four girls work. It is hot and dirty, and the light is poor.

I opened the door this morning to let in the sun and the breeze and had my knuckles rapped with a cane for the effort. Why would she do such a thing? I reminded her that I could not do my best work with bruised knuckles.

She made some foolish excuse about keeping doors closed to prevent dust blowing in, claiming that the gowns might become dirty.

I, in turn, suggested it was easier to clean a gown than to sell the shoddy work of workers who could not see what they stitched.

She smacked my shoulder with the head of her cane. The pain stunned me into silence.

After the door leading into the shop slammed behind her, the other girls smirked. I bowed my head over my work and waited for the pain to ease before I added a green vine to a fine linen kerchief.

I, too, understood how it felt to be punished harshly and unjustly for merely speaking the truth. This shopkeeper was the kind of employer I had feared for Phoebe. Perhaps Mrs. Simpson wasn’t as bad as the Pratts, but she was deeply unpleasant in her own right.

May 15th, 1801

I do not care for the way Mrs. Simpson speaks to me, as if I were a stupid dog. I am to fetch and obey without question.

Today we had a nasty exchange. She entered the workroom to watch her girls work. She stopped beside me. “I am disappointed in your speed, Phoebe, and yet you come highly recommended. How did you have Mrs. Eton fooled?”

The criticism stung. Perhaps I should have remained silent. But instead, I pointed out the poor quality of the thread she purchased. It was no wonder it broke and frayed. Boldly, I stated that I could not produce superior designs with inferior thread.

Mrs. Simpson mumbled something about backtalk and then slapped me hard across the mouth.

After two weeks here, I have witnessed the other girls punished as harshly as I. Yet they do not complain. Is this treatment common for a seamstress shop? How can we create beauty when ugliness hovers over us like a hawk?

* * *

May 29th, 1801

Mrs. Simpson gave me two weeks’ pay after four weeks’ work. She claimed that my stitching is poor quality and does not sell well.

I do not believe her claims. I have seen my handiwork on kerchiefs and gowns at the State House on Sundays.

This is intolerable. She is mean and unjust. I cannot bear it much longer.

There are other shops in Raleigh. I may ask about open positions.

As I turned away from the computer, I felt a swell of pride at Phoebe’s most recent entries. She’d grown into a fine young woman with a strong mind. I had no worries for her future now.

I was eager to resume my reading of Phoebe’s last journal later that evening. Indeed, I had curled on the couch in the great room of the lake house, in companionable silence with Norah and Charlie, when there was a knock at the door.

Bruce stepped in, his arms cradling a large box, and nodded gravely at me. “You have a job, Susanna.”

He looked so solemn that I feared at first I had misunderstood. Rising slowly, I set the laptop on the coffee table and crossed the room to peek in the box. On top lay a sheet with instructions from Sherri, the date that the work must be completed, and the fee they intended to pay me—which made me blink in happy surprise. The box also held invitations with envelopes of a heavy cream paper, as well as a set of special pens. I lifted one of the pens, noting the shape and weight in my hand. It felt good.

“My pleasure.” He placed the box on the kitchen table, leaned over to press a quick kiss to my forehead, and then crossed to where Norah and Charlie watched from their chairs.

I treasured that touch. It was the first such caress from him and, coming so soon after the transgressions of Sunday, it did much to ease my distress.

Turning back to the box, I drew out the items, one by one, and arranged them on the table, my hands trembling with anticipation. Phoebe’s journals would have to wait. I had a job!

I worked late into the night, finishing much of the work before retiring. Each stroke and flourish of the pen was made with the utmost care. No one would be able to fault the quality of my efforts. I remained confident that I could complete the rest on the next day—pleased yet baffled that I would be rewarded with so much money for so little effort.

Perhaps there would be other such jobs. I allowed myself to indulge in the hope of more.

When I came down Tuesday for breakfast, Norah was not there before me, a worrisome change of behavior. I prepared a simple meal of oatmeal and fruit. Charlie alone appeared for it, confusion etched on his brow.

“My wife is feeling poorly,” he said, adding cream and honey to his bowl. “She wants to sleep.”

I nodded in acknowledgment and joined him at the table, wondering how much assistance to offer.

I reached the room to find Norah weeping on soiled sheets. Charlie stood at her bedside, despair in the droop of his head and the wringing of his hands.

“Charlie, we must clean this up now. I shall run a bath. Will you be able to help her with it?”

“You’ll be fine, Norah. We shall take care of you,” I said and then departed for their bathroom.

It took no more than a few minutes to have the tub ready, the bed stripped, and the soiled clothes and sheets in the washing machine. When I returned to the master suite, I heard light splashing and Charlie’s voice, talking in the most soothing tones he could muster. I continued about the business of airing out the room and changing the bed to fresh linens.

Once Norah was comfortably sleeping again, I fixed Charlie a cup of tea, settled him in his favorite chair, and made a call from the lake house’s landline.

“Your mother is ill.” Charlie waved at me to stop, but I turned my back to him.

“Keep her hydrated,” Sherri said as she slumped onto a stool across the kitchen bar from me. “And keep my father occupied as much as possible.”

“Thank you. It was a good thing you were here. Dad is a bit helpless in this kind of situation.”

“I am happy to do it.” Truly, I was. Tending to the ill was something I knew how to do. My mistress, during her many confinements, had been more feeble than the babies she birthed. If I considered all that Norah had done for me, my actions repaid only a tiny portion of the debt I owed.

Her words pelted me like ice, freezing me into shock. I glared at her through cold, disbelieving eyes. “You insult me with such a statement.” With deliberate movements, I folded the rag, set it by the sink, and walked around the bar to the stairs leading up to the loft. Yet I paused with a foot on the bottom step, needing to say my piece. “Your mother has welcomed me with open arms. I am deeply grateful to her. It is repugnant to suggest that I would use her illness to curry favor with you.”

“Perhaps you might have checked on Sunday as well.” The pain and frustration that had been brewing for days spilled forth. “You interpreted with your eyes and not with your heart. Is that the way justice is meted out in your home? To condemn without full access to the facts?”

“I do not care what you think of me. I have been planning to leave your home as soon as your world permits it, but I cannot abide what you suspect of Mark. He was only trying to help me. Surely you know your son better than that.”

“You believe in your right to punish his transgression. I believe that his reason for breaking the rule deserves a hearing.”

“Sometimes he acts like a little boy.” She stared at me, steely-eyed. “Susanna, you’re treading on dangerous ground here. I don’t answer to you.”

I clung to the banister, willing her to absorb what I was about to say in the right spirit. “Mark will turn eighteen soon. You must accept that he’s a young man. There are things he’s witnessed and things he’s done that have forced him to leave childhood behind.”

“Things I cannot repeat.” My voice had grown husky. I looked away from her, swamped by memories. There had been Mark’s first, failed attempt to rescue me and the panic on his face as he pondered his own near capture and flogging. Undaunted, he’d waited and planned a second attempt, where he’d had to cut through shackles, carry me to safety, fist-fight my master, and elude a pack of dogs. And my wounds? Merciful heavens. He’d cleaned and dressed my raw, bloody wounds even as I fought screams of agony. No, these had not been the actions of a little boy. “I owe my life to Mark.”

“Do you think he exaggerates?” I’d failed to reach her. What more must I give to get through? “You saw the infection in my ankles.”

“It was pretty grim by the time you got to us, but what exactly am I supposed to think? You’ve told me that the villagers were good people. If it was so bad, why didn’t they put a stop to it?”

“Let me tell you of the townsfolk. They watched my master put shackles on me. They watched me bleed, stumble, and sicken. They looked away from the horror of my discipline, because they were hampered by fear and ignorance.” I hardly knew what I was doing, for I was suddenly beside her chair, resisting the urge to shake her into understanding. “Mark did not stand by. He risked all for me. I am prepared to do the same for him.”

“Then believe me when I say we did nothing wrong.” I dropped my head into my hands. “He was just trying to save me again.”

I could sense her standing now, but her voice, when it came, sounded muffled. “What did your master do to you, Susanna?”

“In your world, yes.” In my world, it had simply been viewed as my master’s right. I fumbled for the couch and sank down.

The cushion beside me shifted under her weight. “I’ve seen evidence of the physical abuse. What else? Verbal?”

Tears threatened my defenses, but I fought them back. “I cannot speak of this any longer.”

She gave my hand a light squeeze. “Susanna, maybe you should talk to someone. A professional. Someone who is trained to listen to your stories and help.”

I nodded—but only in acknowledgment. Not in agreement. There was no possibility that I could ever tell of my past. I would have to deal with these things alone. Or with Mark.