Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I watch from a red cliff-top high, a village of sun-faded teepees with many dark-skinned children tumbling joyfully around hard-working mothers.

I stand alone. The golden sun smiles on them. I can’t feel its warmth.

A dark, rolling storm looms behind me, threatening the happy, blue sky above them. The dark cloud takes a demon shape and reaches its ethereal hands to me. A raven caws just before a crack of thunder, and the dark, feathered shadow comes at me.

“Edgar,” she says.

I turn to see the woman from my painting standing there, with the raven on her small shoulder.

“Ma?”

She smiles, as a crack of lightning rips me from the dream and back to my lonely bed.

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Fanny and I lived a life indoors in England, stuck in a yardless flat, but now I roam the countryside. After a few weeks, I’m strong enough to run the entire way to school. The bell rings and boys from all around the building rush in before me, dragging their books on straps behind them.

“Edgar!” Robert runs up to me, pulling a delicate young woman with him. “I want my Ma to meet you.”

“Pleased to meet you, Edgar. I’ve heard so much about you.” She looks down upon me with the sweetest smile, a smile that awakens something in my subconscious, a remembrance from a dream. Her orange curls swirl along her forehead the same way my mother’s did and her eyes hold the very spark I searched for.

I can only say, “Hello.” Though my heart wants to say much more.

“Can Edgar come to our house after school, Ma?”

She smiles with both her lips and her eyes. “Of course he is invited. Would you like to come, Edgar?”

I usually keep my distance from Robert since the other boys shun him and I’m trying so hard to be accepted, but the words leap out of my mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”

She bends down to give Robert a kiss on the forehead as I stare on, jealously. “I look forward to talking to you more later, Edgar.”

I can’t get enough of her saying my name! I watch her walk off into town and my lessons couldn’t have been longer.

We enter the massive plantation house on the river, not far from Uncle Bill’s. All the tall, narrow windows are open to the warm breezes, and Robert’s mom comes drifting in with them, bringing scents of gardenia and rose. I’ve forgotten how rosy a woman’s face could be, too used to Fanny’s sickly pallor. She opens the door to a regal foyer, painted with landscaped murals and paneled in dark cherry. The grand staircase winds all the way up from the foyer to the highest floor and makes me dizzy as my gaze follows the polished banister up. A gilded grandfather clock chimes from the first landing, a melodic and peaceful sound of time-keeping music.

She steps across the oriental rugs to give Robert a motherly kiss and brings a tray of pastries and tea with her. “Come into the parlor with me, boys.” We follow her singsong voice into a lovely parlor furnished with pink velvet settees. I’ve never been treated so adult before. She serves us both and I say, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“All Robert’s best friends will call me Jane.”

I will be Robert’s best friend forever.

She smiles on the lip of her teacup. “Robert tells me you have just returned from London.”

I nod, but realize I must start actually speaking to her or she will lose interest. “We spent some time in New York before returning.”

“New York!” she gasps. “I’ve always wanted to visit the city. Tell me all about it!”

We talk for hours, as the tea grows cold and the sun dips low, and even Robert loses interest, yet Jane’s eyes only shine brighter at every word and description I give. I would have talked into the night had her house slave not interrupted with news of impending dinner.

“I fear we have talked the day away, Edgar! I beg you to come back for supper another night so you can continue to entertain me.” She stands up, brushing the crumbs from her dress. I begrudgingly follow suit.

“I would be pleased to come for supper.” I check with Robert who seems to still welcome my presence.

“Please ask your Ma if she will part with your company for one night, so I can enjoy you for Sunday supper.”

Ma.

“I’m sure she will agree. Thank you for the offer…”

“Jane.” She beams.

I let out a short breath. “Jane.”

I come home to an empty table, with the expected report from Thankful that Fanny is under the weather and taking supper in bed and Mr. Allen is busy with business. I tune out the echoing clank of my spoon hitting the china in the quiet of the dining room and think of all the things I can tell Jane on Sunday.

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It most definitely is a Sunday. Not your typical, no-work-dress-in-Sunday-best-and-fan yourself-all-day-in-a-stuffy-church Sunday, as Sundays in the Allen house center on Mr. Allen’s business. The circle in front of the house is idle with black carriages and bored Cleveland bays. I walk into the tobacco-clouded hall and follow the spicy smell to the edge of the parlor where smoke mixes with the medicine-smell of the brandy, rum, whiskey and gin they pass around. This is how Mr. Allen worships, talking sales and shuffling cards with Uncle Bill, his partner Charles, and other merchants from the House of Ellis and Allen.

Mr. Allen looks up from his hand of cards. “Run along, this isn’t any place for boys.”

“Where’s Fanny?”

Uncle Bill scrunches up his nose. “The lad doesn’t call Frances Ma?”

Mr. Allen laughs. “He’s only in our care. Haven’t drawn up the papers for adoption just yet.” He jeers his elbow toward Charles. “Want to make sure he’s not a cadger’s curse.”

The table erupts in liquored laughter, and I try to outrun more laughs at my expense. Mr. Allen yells loud enough for me to hear, “She’s in her sickroom, complaining as usual.”

The sun fills the room, and I’m happy to see Fanny sitting up and sewing—a rare sight but one I celebrate. As soon as she sees me she drops her project and puts her arms out to catch me.

“Easy, Edgar. You’re a giant now and can crush your poor Fanny.” I did feel her tiny bones jab into me more than I remembered. “I can’t believe you’re almost fourteen.”

“I still have six more months.”

“Oh, that’s nothing when you’re my age. Do you know I was only ten when my parents died?”

I knew her parents died but not so young. “You were an orphan?”

I settle into her even closer.

“Yes, they both got sick, my pa then my ma. I was alone within weeks. Just like you.” She taps my nose as she said you.

“Where did you go?”

Did she go to strangers just like me?

“I had a kind aunt who took me and raised me as her own.”

“Did you call her Ma?”

She studies my question, looking for an extra moment into my eyes, and I fight to conceal the true intent of my asking. “I did, but not until I was ready.”

Ready?

“Did she adopt you?”

Again, she takes a moment to look out the hallway, toward where Mr. Allen is.

“Yes, she did, but I would have still called her Ma regardless.” She whispers in my ear, “A ma is simply someone who makes you feel at home.” She gives me a pinched hug and giggles. “Thankful, dear, I think Edgar and I deserve two big scoops of strawberry ice cream.” Thankful smiles and heads out to the cold house.

Our happiness doesn’t last long. After the ice cream melts and the sun settles down, she goes up to her room early to rest. Alone, to my own devices, I decide to join Mr. Allen’s party. I gather up the sheets from my bed and find a cane, neglected by the door. In the glowing, shadow-casting light of candles around the one-windowed room, I reappear under the sheet with the cane held high above my head to give the spectral form unexpected height. At first I walk outside, back and forth by their window, but they go along with their game, not noticing. A few slaves must have caught sight of me since I hear shrieks and cabin doors slam. Once I perfect the shaking of the cane so the ghost appears amorphous and quick, I get the grit to drift down the hallway. I groan slow and low and follow their voices.

A chair hits the floor and Uncle Bill screams, “Guid God!”

I dash back into the hall in fear Mr. Allen will charge after me. However, Mr. Allen laughs the loudest I’ve ever heard him and Charles chuckles. “Whit the hell was that?”

I pull the sheet down and peer into the room and Mr. Allen laughs until tears come down his cheeks. The other men follow suit. Uncle Bill says, “Scariest thing A’ve seen since Macbeth. Nearly stopped my heart!”

I steel myself up for Mr. Allen’s painful reaction, but to my surprise he says, “Well, the boy’s mother was an acclaimed Shakespearian actor.” He gives me a chuckle and heavy wink, and I run off to Robert’s with a grin on my face.

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I have the whole table in stitches, Robert, Robert’s father and sparkling Jane all pull back from the table in laughter at my retelling of the gambling party ghost story. After we have our fill of fried catfish, crab, oysters, pheasant, peas and hot bread, Robert, Jane and I sit in the parlor and Jane’s eyes open wide when I tell her of my love for poetry and language.

“You must follow me at once.” She takes my hand within her thin, eager grasp and pulls me into a small den, lined with shelves upon shelves of books. I go to them immediately and read a scattering of glorious titles.

“You have Lord Byron, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Milton, Homer, the whole collection of Shakespeare!” I open one and the spine cracks it’s so new.

“Edgar, you must come and read to me. I find I understand them so much better when read out loud to me, and Mr. Stanard is far too busy for such chores.”

“I would like nothing better.”

And so it begins, my daily readings not only allow me to enjoy the books that are banned from Mr. Allan’s dusty shelves, but sweet Jane allows me to come close and find happiness within her motherly affections. Our readings always begin with tea and scrumptious pastries, focused on reading and discussion, and end with a comforting kiss upon my brow—no different than the ones she gives Robert. She makes me fall ever more in love with words and teaches me what it is to belong. Truly belong.