Story: The Secret Slave. Part 16.

With me emotionally drained by the dramatic events of Parts 14 an 15,  SW has graciously agreed to return to this exciting tale once more. The plot's getting trickier and trickier, but the finale is now in sight!

by SW

It was fortunate that Elizabeth had enough money on her person to purchase a rudimentary room for the night at a city inn.  The Excelsior Hotel was beyond her immediate means but after they had ridden into town she did find a tolerable hostelry that would provide her and her slave with a meal and a bed for the night.   

There had been no time to release Sophie from her collar as they fled Cypress Hill and to try to do so as they rode towards Augusta would have been to invite the loss of the key.  Therefore, when they were accepted at the inn, Elizabeth felt that her arrival late in the evening (and in possession of a collared slave) deserved some explanation if suspicion was not to be aroused. The story she gave the Innkeeper was thus: her husband was absent on business and her maid had overstayed her pass time when visiting relatives in the quarters of a nearby plantation.  It had, therefore, fallen upon her, and at great inconvenience, to collect the errant maid.  Returning home their buggy had become unsound and they had proceeded on horseback.  But the hour had become too late for safety and they now required to put up for the night.  

Elizabeth evinced great displeasure with Sophie and opined that the girl couldn't be trusted - she asked the proprietor, a sweating and unshaven man of middle years, that if a pallet could be brought to her room, then the slave might sleep with her and remain under her watch.  But the suggestion was laughingly dismissed - as if the very idea that a visitor's slave should bed in his establishment was an unthinkable one - and so, Sophie, still visibly in shock from events at Cypress Hill, was given a bowl of fried vegetable peelings in the kitchen and then taken out to the livery yard where the Innkeeper long-chained her collar.  He pointed to a pile of straw in the corner - an area reserved for the slaves of overnight guest's - and as he led her towards it he said: “Here yo' be tonite gal.  Yo' bed down nice an' quiet an' don' be makin' no fuss yo' hear?  I figure you're in enough trouble with your missus already.”  

Sophie nodded meekly as he fixed the chain to a ring in the wall and replied almost in a whisper: “Yessuh, I bed down nice an' quiet like yo' say suh.”  The Innkeeper turned and said, “That's a good gal,” and he chuckled when she shrank from him as he ran one hand over her bosom and patted her bottom before leaving her alone in the miserable accommodation and to hope that she wouldn't see him again before morning came.  Alone, that is, save for the company of the horse and scurrying rats.

Elizabeth's night was spent in hardly more comfortable a manner: certainly, her bed was better, though quite the worst that she had ever slept upon, but the events of the insurrection at Cypress Hill preyed on her mind and she could not shake the image of Caroline hanging from a tree: but for the slave Rosa, she might easily have been keeping her cousin's company.   And she had some thinking to do to enable their escape in the morning.  She had insufficient in her purse to purchase train tickets and carriage hire but, resourceful as ever, she quickly came up with a plan and if they could get away in the morning before news of the revolt reached the inn then, she thought, all would be well.

And so it was that early the next day Elizabeth sold the horse for much less than it was worth to the cunning Innkeeper who had smiled and said he had no use for a horse when she protested his measly offer.  Then, with sufficient funds for travel and plenty more to spare in her purse, Elizabeth followed him to Sophie's corner of the stables where Sophie rose and curtseyed with a soft, “Good mawnin' Mistiss.”  Elizabeth said nothing in reply but waited impatiently while the Innkeeper released Sophie's collar from the chain.  Then, after sternly urging, “Come along girl, I want you home directly and put to work on double duties and half rations!”  the two made immediately for the railroad depot.  After an anxious wait they boarded the train for St George's as mistress and her disheveled slave-maid and when, soon after, Elizabeth removed her girl's collar, Sophie began to feel, at last, that she was safe again. 

The trauma of the past days had left an indelible mark upon not only Sophia's body but also her mind and when they alighted from the landau which had carried them from the railroad station at St George's that evening and walked into the empty house it seemed, for her, almost like the reliving of a memory from a past life.   With Elizabeth's slaves still on hire elsewhere and the pantry quite bare of fresh food, supper comprised only of tea without cream, but in any case, with the brutal scene of their hasty departure imprinted on their minds, neither had much appetite for food nor the inclination to speak and they soon retired to their chambers.  

Sophie fell drowsy the very instant that her head touched the bolster of the comfortable large bed in Elizabeth's guest room but, before sleep claimed her, she wondered of the fate of Caroline and Philip and what form of retribution had been meted out to them: had Caroline been brutally whipped as she hung from that tree?  Had the unthinkable occurred and she had been cut down and subjected to who knows what at the hands of those angry black men?  Indeed, had she been murdered even!  She shuddered at these thoughts, though, not from any sympathy for the sufferer.  Sophie then contemplated the day that would come with the sunrise and see her return to River View - she reckoned that it would be not without its dangers. 

The following morning, she endeavored to minimize the risk of her parent's discovery of her travails and, accordingly, selected a voluminous frock to conceal the exceeding slenderness of her figure - which had always been petite but was now unduly thin.  In addition, she chose a wide, silken choker to cover the contusions still visible upon her neck from the rough slave collar she had worn and she prepared to resume the manners and bearing of a young lady.  Soon after an almost wordless and meager breakfast of unripened garden fruit, Elizabeth stepped to the street and hailed a carriage and when Sophie's portmanteau containing several dresses - gowns that had rested boxed and unworn - was loaded aboard, the two set off for River View with no small degree of trepidation.  

Hardly a word passed between them on their journey and each felt excruciatingly awkward with regard to the other - Sophie especially so: she experienced a multitude of emotions and thoughts and wondered how she might talk and act with Elizabeth.  Now that they were home were they restored to the ways of their former relations; that is to say, two young ladies of similar high standing in society who were extremely close friends?  Or was their bond now of a very different stripe; one in which she should be deferential and meek?  It seemed, sorrowfully for her, now that Elizabeth knew her deepest secrets and with so much having happened of such gravity and extremity, that she could never behave and feel quite as free and at ease with her friend again; not in similar fashion to their hitherto comfortable ways with one another.  Meanwhile, Elizabeth's reticence was resultant from her own troubling thoughts regarding Sophie.  

Their friendship had turned into something of quite exceptional singularity: Sophie had become a very different person in her eyes and now, not even adornments of the finest silk and jewelery, could ever again mask Sophie's true character from her.  Furthermore, Elizabeth found herself thinking of the slave papers that she now held; that the document was a worthless scrap of paper hardly diminished the pleasure - physical pleasure - that she took from the possession of them.  After all, didn't Sophie now owe something to her?   And Elizabeth had a very clear idea of how Sophie's debt should be repaid. 

When, at last, they drew up to River View's fine portico Sophie gazed for a moment at her home.  The manicured garden looked beautiful and its summer scents pervaded the air, there was the immaculately white veranda which blazed in the light with its carved balustrade, beautifully wrought filigree canopy and the manifold hanging baskets filled with blooms - abundant and splendid - along its length.  The tall, mullioned windows and their white-painted lintels looked sternly out towards the slow and lazy summer river just as they always had.  The whole place spoke of wealth and standing but though the facade stood as stoutly magnificent and imposing as always, it seemed to her that her world had irrevocably changed and gone now were all the old and easy familiarities of her privileged life.  At length, Elizabeth broke the palpably uncomfortable silence and brought Sophie sharply from her reverie when she said with a commanding tone, albeit with some slight hesitation:

“Put on your gloves, open the door and help me down.  The slaves don't expect our return for several days and no-one will meet us,” to which Sophie quickly answered: “Yes, of course Elizabeth,” and she hurriedly sheathed her roughened hands in her fine matinee gloves and reached for the door with lowered eyes and a detectable flush upon her lovely dark cheeks.  The first difficulty for Sophie on their arrival, after the effusively warm welcome where she had to force herself not to disclose her pain as her parent's arms embraced her disfigured shoulder, was one she had expected: a stiff reprimand from her mother that she had allowed her complexion to become so sable and that she had evidently neglected to eat properly during the sojourn with Elizabeth. 

“But Ma'ma, it was so exceptionally sunny in Georgia and we walked and picnicked most days, didn’t we Elizabeth?  And Ma'ma, you know how I barely pick at the lightest of morsels when it is so very hot.”

“Yes,” rejoined the elder girl, “The weather was ferociously hot and we simply had to free ourselves from the stifling house to walk and enjoy the beautiful countryside.  I must confess that I did notice Sophia's diminished appetite but she would not eat for me.  I declare, even Caroline's house girls could see it and were running unbid to her with milk, cake and sweetmeats at all hours but she always declined them.”

Madame Solano turned to Elizabeth with a slight air of reproach and said:

“Well dear, perhaps you couldn't force her to eat but you know how irresponsible Sophie is and how she takes on the sun so.  You should have insisted that she went out at all times with her brimmed hat and parasol.” Elizabeth replied with a mocking glance at Sophie: “Why, Madame, since when did your daughter ever do a single thing that I have told her?  Besides, I couldn't always keep my eye on her.  I found some of my time required to be spent in other company.” Elizabeth's typically well-calculated remark, though largely a lie, at once defused the danger and awkwardness of the discussion and deflected the inquisitor's attention in a new direction.  Madame Solano clapped her hands together and exclaimed happily:

“Oh, my dear Elizabeth, do tell me you have found a Beau!  How delightful!  Now, when will one be found for my girl, does he have any suitable friends? Brothers perhaps? What is his name? Who are his family Planters? Might we know him from anywhere?” and the party made their way laughing and chattering into the drawing room.

After luncheon, during which endless small-talk was discussed, Elizabeth prepared to take her leave and with the promise that Sophie would call on her a few days hence, and then, as Sophie stood with her parents and watched Elizabeth's elegant step towards the carriage that would take her home, she perceived an involuntary tightening of her belly and an almost overwhelming feeling of loss bore down upon her.  At that moment she wanted nothing so much as to run after Elizabeth, go to her home and be with her - whether that be at her side or at her feet.  Her thoughts, however, were called from her when her father turned away as he waved to the departing coach and dismissed the two hovering slave-girls to the kitchen.  He said solemnly:

“Sophia, come to the drawing room. Your Ma'ma and I have something very important to discuss with you.” 

Her heart stopped beating for an instant.  Had they some knowledge of the scandalous situation that she had become embroiled in?  Had she brought her family to disgrace and was now known by her parents, and perhaps others, as a young lady of society now marked as a runaway slave-girl?  But she quickly determined that this could not be so, for if it were, then Elizabeth would have been subjected to an angry and searching interrogation upon the matter.  She breathed a little easier and followed her parents inside where she seated herself in nervous anticipation; her hands clasped over her gown.

“Daughter, I am afraid that I must tell you that your grandfather in Seville has died.  We received a communication to that effect three days after you left.”

Sophia affected her sorrow for the passing of the elderly Solano - whom she had never met - and her father continued:

“Of course, this affects us greatly – we must sell up here and take up the estate in Spain.  Your grandmother will need our help, and besides, it is very profitable land.”

“Pa'pa!” Sophie exclaimed as she rose quickly to her feet in a flurry of rippling silk chiffon. “I can't leave here!  I speak, at most, three words of Spanish and have lived on this plantation my entire life.  All of my friends belong to this county and I simply can't and will not go!  Oh. This is intolerable.  It will be-”

Madame Solano broke in and said in a soothing tone:

“Hush my child.  We know how you must feel and your Pa'pa and I have decided that we will go on ahead.  When this place is sold you can stay with Elizabeth for a time and you will come around to the idea.  You shall have time to say your farewells and Elizabeth will delight in having you as her companion until we send for you.  I will write to her this very afternoon and you know perfectly well that she will be delighted to agree.  We would have asked her today but, naturally, we wanted to tell you first.  It will be a matter of two months, perhaps more, before we have settled properly and can then arrange a chaperone for you to come.  You see the villa, which is a sizable mansion, requires complete refurbishment my dear.” Here she paused, but for a moment, and her eyes sparkled as she pressed on, “Of course, you could meet a suitor before then and your return to us might be, shall we say, indefinitely postponed?”

There could be no doubt that this news came as a very considerable shock to Sophie and immediate upon its delivery she hurried upstairs weeping and when her maid Sally set down her polishing cloth and followed urgently from the hall she was waved away.  In her chamber, Sophie flung herself onto her bed and winced as her shoulder struck its soft coverings.  She buried her head in downy pillows and sobbed more loudly.  However, after the immediate distress and some little passage of time, she began to reason that the situation could have been much worse and that her parents, in allowing her a postponement - or in her mother's cunning way, encouragement to stay by marriage - ameliorated the change in circumstances to some degree.  

Nevertheless, after all that she had so recently been subjected to she had been hoping for a period of quiet languor at the plantation in which she might gather her thoughts.  Moreover, she had plans - an idea that had taken root at the Morgan place had developed into a burning determination: she had resolved to author a text, a vivid and faithful narrative, and one that that might be used to aid a movement that she now supported with every fiber of her being.  The young plantation mistress had, over the period of just three summer months, become a quiet but ardent abolitionist.

Sophie remained in her bed chamber for the rest of that day and declined even to go down for dinner - her meal being sent up to her room and one that she ate ravenously.  Her parent's left her to her own devices and refrained from pressing her in any way for they believed that a day or two, at most, would see their daughter come to accept the unavoidable change in circumstances and make her peace with them.  Meanwhile, Sophie, although genuinely upset at the sale of her home, realized that she might use the excuse of her ill-temper to avoid her parents for a few days and thereby evade any close scrutiny of her appearance and any uncomfortable questions relating to the trip to Georgia.  It was clear to all in the house that the young mistress wanted no company when her maid and another slave-girl brought a bath tub and buckets of hot water to Sophie's room and, having filled it, were at once dismissed.  Sally lingered for a moment as the other left the chamber and she said:

“But mistiss, yo' ain' undressed yet ma'am!” and she moved towards her mistress who replied softly and smiling:

“No, that'll be all thank you Sally.  I will take care of my own disrobing, dressing and bathing from now on.  You may go downstairs and spend the rest of the evening at leisure in the kitchen.  Or, if you wish, I will allow you to visit the quarters, though I would be appreciative if you might bring me warm milk and cake in perhaps an hour's time,” and when the astonished maid thanked her mistress and left the room she was firmly of the opinion that 'Miz Sophia' was ailing with a brain fever.

For the most part, Sophie confined herself to her chamber for the following three days except to take a few walks, alone, by the riverside.  She began to recover her vigor and when Sally brought meals up she did them full justice and the cook was gratified to find the plates returned to the kitchen without ever any scrap of a leftover.  And, when at home she did not idle in her room; she sat at her dresser and wrote.  The pages spilled forth as she drew upon the notes from her time at the Morgan house and then added chapter after chapter with her experiences and the events that had occurred during just one week in Georgia as a slave.  The text was a searing indictment upon the 'Peculiar Institution': a lurid, though accurate, portrayal of slavery and its impact not only upon its oppressed sufferers but also the degenerate and immoral effects it brought upon the character of its practitioners.  

As she wrote, she recalled her feelings for those she had met: there had been Martha and Milly, the two Morgan slaves - smarter, kinder and better people than their two indolent and self-indulgent owners.  She thought too of Milly's beauty, which she believed quite the equal, if not superior, of any white girl she had ever set eyes upon and how the delightful girl had welcomed and helped her and then, later, had touched and massaged Sophie's aching body in a way that had affected her very deeply.  She detailed Rosa's apparently slatternly behavior when intimately inspected by the man at the hotel yard on their day out and recorded it for what it truly had been; for it had not been like that of an immoral and sinful girl of the lower class looking to benefit from a few coins.  No, it had been a pretty slave-girl's use of the only available strategy to try to free herself from under the heel of a hell-cat mistress's fine and brightly polished French boot.  She changed names and refrained from exactly specifying the locations in her writings - it would be unthinkable not to do so - but in every other respect the descriptions were faithful to the events.  She did however, omit the occurrence of the slave revolt from her account.  

The words flowed from her quill and were written with a passionate resolve: she may not have been at liberty to march out to the River View fields and proclaim the slaves as immediately free but she fervently hoped that her text would, in time, help the greater body of those in bondage towards emancipation.  No-one escaped the wrath of her pen; the Morgan's, the blackguard Johnstone, Jones the overseer, the slave catchers and sheriff - all were painted with lucid, bold words and she reserved copious space upon her canvass for Philip and Caroline who had come to be the very embodiment of slavery's evil for her.  Nor did she overlook Elizabeth - though she did own that until very recently her own views on Negroes and slavery accorded almost exactly with her friend's.  Thus, confining herself in solitude, the account was concluded in but three days of almost continual writing.  On completion she reviewed it and saw that the text, if it could ever be attributed to her, would bring about much trouble and perhaps even mortal danger.  

Sophie was aware of the existence of abolitionist groups and newspapers (her father complained of them frequently, and there were occasional disparaging references to them in the South Carolina papers) and she carefully locked her text safely away until such time as an address for the secretary of a prominent abolitionist group might be obtained and, that done, she would dispatch it for use as an anonymous publication to draw outraged support to their cause.

With the work finished and safely secreted in her chamber, Sophie allowed herself to be coaxed into more cordial relations with her parent's and she began to again dine at table; neither of them appeared sufficiently concerned by her change in appearance to question it, notwithstanding one trying moment at dinner when her mother remarked that Sophie's hands were in deplorable condition.  Sophie, however, had already concocted an excuse in anticipation of the same and explained, apparently to her mother's satisfaction, that she had rescued a stricken kitten from a thicket of thorns when out on one of her strolls.  There followed, the next day, the delivery of two letters to River View and both from Elizabeth: one addressed to Madame Solano and the other for Sophie.  To the elder, Elizabeth had written that she had news that not long after their departure there had been a slave revolt at Cypress Hill but had no information with regard to the safety and current whereabouts of her cousins Caroline and Philip.  She also expressed regret that they, the Solanos, were selling up and leaving but wrote of the delight it would be to have Sophia as companion until they were ready for her in Spain.  Unfortunately, however, she would not be able to receive Sophie for the planned short visit the following day as she would be absent for a period:  she must, with urgency, determine how things stood at Cypress Hill and, in addition, had an invitation to attend the theater in Augusta.  

Madame Solano was, of course, appalled at the news of the slave revolt but not so shaken that she didn't infer that Elizabeth would there be meeting her suitor.  In the letter to Sophie, Elizabeth simply stated that she could not receive her next day, that by the time she received the letter she, Elizabeth, would already be back in Augusta, and that she was very much looking forward to have her stay as companion and noted, in the briefest terms, that when they next met they had 'much to discuss'.  It was with some disappointment that Sophie received the news but, in truth, she had been vexing somewhat with regard to their next meeting and in this respect, she was happy to postpone what would surely be a trying and awkward situation.

The following days were spent in something of a social whirl for the Solano family as the three made frequent visits to friends, neighboring planters and prominent business acquaintances to begin their farewells.  These occasions were generally tedious for Sophie and, at each, she had to endure her mother's tiresome shaming of her by asking her hosts' forgiveness for her daughter's complexion with the explanation; 'the silly creature fell asleep in the sun'.  At these gatherings Sophie performed her obligations with a perfunctory show of grace and bearing and, it was clear to all, that the young Miss Solano had no desire to leave for a foreign land and adapt to a language she did not understand.  During one particularly uninteresting discussion at a planter's dinner, Sophie found herself observing the slaves in attendance, the most of whom were female.  The mistress of the house was well-known to oversee those in her charge with a firm hand and Sophie watched with surreptitious yet minute interest as the maids, who stood to attention in immaculate black and white and their backs to the walls, stared impassively ahead until stepping instantly to the merest wave of a white hand or nod of their mistress's bejeweled head.  

She felt her anger rise on their behalf, and yet, she became intensely aroused watching them and she shifted a little in her seat: she wished that she might be one of those slave-girls and have to spring with servile manners to the command of her 'betters' – and how she especially wished it might be Elizabeth that she could so serve.  The conflict between intellectual belief and physical need raged evermore strongly within her and it was a battle, she knew, that could never be won.   Each of these passionate and opposing sides of her character were indivisible and were, she now accepted, central to who she had become.  There could be no doubt about the deep changes in her: the fiercely angry and powerful anti-slavery text in her chamber and the brand mark upon her shoulder proclaimed them!

 And so passed the final days until the departure from River View.  It was a very emotional time for all and Sophie felt during that period, before taking her place in Elizabeth's home, that her life could hardly have been overturned in a more dramatic fashion.  But, it was when her parent's hosted a dinner during the final week of residence that she received another devastatingly cruel blow.  Her father had invited a small party of prominent persons involved in the handling of the sale of the plantation and attending were; two bankers, the wealthy dealer who had handled the sale of their exquisite furniture and, along with their respective wives, the lawyer who had executed the sale of the house and slaves.  Sophie had been called to descend from her chamber and join the guests as they began to move from the withdrawing room to take their places at the dining table.  Dressed in her finest evening gown (and wearing a deep silver choker), her hair fixed in a becoming style and beautifully made up, she offered a dignified and courteous dip and smile from the staircase landing and surveyed the faces of the assembly below.  

Then her heart froze.  She felt momentarily unsteady upon her feet and was compelled to reach for the banister with a little gasp.  There, looking up at her with an expression of supremely controlled surprise which turned almost at once to an attitude of the vilest triumph, stood the arrogant scoundrel who had ill-used her at the Morgan's place.  And, the look upon the countenance of Mr. Calvin Johnstone, the lawyer acting for the sale of Mr. Sebastian Solano's River View estate, showed that he meant to do so again.

Subscribe to Lady2Maid Blog Newsletter