Story: The Secret Slave. Part 19.

by SW

It was on the journey in a hired carriage from the town-center slave auction to the leafy coastal district (and the Morgan residence there) that Sophie learned that her new owner was not, in fact, the man who had made the highest bid for her at the sale.  Her master said:

“Well Sophie, it seems that your mistress regretted selling you to Mister Johnstone. She couldn't attend the auction and so asked me to act on her behalf - your papers are made out to her.  She will collect you in a week or so and you will then, once again, be Madam Deveraux's slave.  How do you feel about that girl?”

“Oh Massa! Thankee Massa! I is glad to be goin' home to my missus.  I nevah wanted to be sol' off suh!” and she began to sob once more.  She felt as though she had been rescued from some dark and bleak abyss and the tears of relief flowed freely from her eyes.  It seemed that her journey into slavery, entered into just a few months previously - though not quite altogether - innocently, had come full circle and for all that she was ruined as an aristocratic young lady of quality she felt immensely grateful to be journeying back to the safer situation at the Morgan's place where it had all begun.  That Elizabeth had, somehow, obtained the information, and found the means, to save her so quickly was not lost on her and her bosom filled with pride and love for her friend.  Whatever lay before her it would be under Elizabeth's care and protection and she felt the luckiest girl alive.  For Sophie, the journey from the miserable auction yard to the splendid Morgan household was one of redemption and salvation.  She hoped and believed that the recent traumas of her experience in bondage were finally behind her, and thus, she resolved to be a good house maid at the Morgan house and attract no attention or trouble.

Story: The Secret Slave. Part 18.

by SW

It had been but a small matter for Calvin Johnstone, that esteemed lawyer of Charleston, to have slave papers made up - papers so copper-bottomed that they would hold up against any inquiry.  He knew of, and had dealt with, several crooked sheriffs and officials in Charleston in his career and it had cost him but ten minutes of his time and a glass of whiskey to have Sophie's papers signed off by a city magistrate - and the ink on them was still wet when he collected his prize at the tearful scene at the harbor.

Now that the girl's parents were somewhere on the vast Atlantic Ocean the girl was effectively, in law, his.  The only person who could contest Sophie's sale at auction was Elizabeth and she was under his thrall - Elizabeth couldn't dare to try and expose him as it would bring about her own ruin.  Sophie, too, knew and understood all this and she saw that any attempt to plead her real status or remonstrate in any with the slave trader would do nothing for her except earn her a beating. When Johnstone delivered her to the slave yard she knew that there was nothing she could do to free herself at that time and if she was to make a successful attempt to get to Elizabeth's safety then it must be made after she had been sold.  She had been so traumatized by her defeat and rape at Johnstone's hands that being cast into a slave mart's holding pens to await sale now seemed neither surprising nor unendurable to her, it was just another outrage that had been done to her and yet again, one that she was completely defenseless against.

Once the trader, a vile smelling and filthy rogue, had fettered Sophie's wrists and placed the collar around her neck, he slid his dirty hat back from his sweaty brow and said to Johnstone:

“My, my, a real fancy here, yes indeed.  We might expec' a thousan' or more for her!”

Story: A Good Deed Rarely Goes Unpunished

by Jackie J

1.

Raining again does it never stop raining here how a girl is supposed to look her best with this incessant wet cold weather is beyond me. My shoes will be wet and muddied again for sure another job for my assistant Janet when I get to the office. Smart is key I have always thought when it comes down to work the choice of wardrobe reflecting ones roll and position. Crisp white silk blouse and tailored navy Dior suits always my preference.  My apartments are within walking distance of the office but it will have to be a cab again I am not having my hair blown and messed by the weather that’s for sure but just that short walk up the gravel pathway to the office entrance will be enough to stain my heels, I just know it will, puddles always puddles.

Stepping out of my apartments, much too big for one person but who cares, that bloody beggar girl is still there, wet through, wrapped in a filthy blanket with her hand out. Three days why someone hasn’t moved her on I just don’t understand.

Cab drivers always hanging out for at tip, ridiculous a short journey and still expecting to be overpaid well not from me the fare is the fare and he will be satisfied with that.

I was right, walking into the office my heels are muddied from one of the many puddles, whoever laid this path should be fired and if I knew who I would do it without hesitation.

Heels tossed to Janet for cleaning sipping on my coffee I enter my office. Someone has messed with the thermostat again twenty degrees not eighteen it will be those bloody cleaners again I must have a word with their supervisor I swear they do it just to annoy me.

I shouldn’t complain really, I have it better than most, would I really be vice president of Carrington banking if my late father had not founded it?  Probably not but I have Janet to do all the brain work, here she comes now.

“Yes, Janet what is it speak up stop mumbling for goodness sake?”

“Your heels Miss Wiltshire.”

Story: The Secret Slave. Part 17.

by SW

Sophia, all eyes upon her, affected a collapse and she fell upon the carpeted landing with a thump heavy enough to be heard by those below.  Immediately, her maid Sally ran down from the gallery above and her mother hastened from the hall below.  They reached Sophia together and urged her to return to her chamber; but she shook her head, began to rise to her feet and declined their assistance.  She said in a weak voice: “Oh Ma'ma, don't fuss, I shall be perfectly fine and do allow me to attend dinner, it was just a little turn.” But when she regained her feet she faltered and Madame Solano turned to Sally with a grim expression of concern, the slave-girl nodded briskly and supported her young mistress back to the bed chamber from whence they had come.  Once abed, Sophia refused to have her maid undress her and she told her mother, who had followed them, that she would be quite recovered if left alone for the evening to rest and would she please apologize on her behalf to the guests whom she had been so very much looking forward to meeting.

With Sally and her mother gone, Sophia remained upon her bed in a state of tortured anxiety.  She had certainly ensured that she didn't have to sit with the awful man at table but now she wondered what would he say and what would he do?  She wished she could have escaped the house, but even if she might have absented herself, there was no place to go: Elizabeth had written again to say that she had arranged to stay in Augusta until meeting the Solanos at Charleston for the boarding of their ship to Europe and it would be there, at the harbor, that they would next meet.  Every moment of Johnstone's presence in her home was filled with immediate threat and danger and when, after about fifteen minutes, Sally came up after serving the second course to check on her Miss's condition, the girl was interrogated urgently:

“What is happening at table?  What are they talking about down there?”

“Nothin' much Mistiss.  Jes' talkin' about hopin' yo' is goin' ter be alrigh' and maybe it be dis hot weathah that's got yo' out o' sorts Ma'am.” 

Story: You've Got Mail.

by Jackie J

An email arrived in my inbox, normally, with an unsolicited email and definitely an email from an unknown source, this would go straight into my trash and then deleted without opening.

For some reason this was not the case with one particular email.  The mail from “Destiny”, subject line: “puzzle tree”, drew my attention and I double clicked. I chuckled seeing a picture of a dirty untidy room and thought how odd. Still curious I tapped the enter button and watched in amazement as the picture morphed and the resulting image was one of a spotlessly clean room, all extraneous items tidied away.

I hit the back tab a number of times to marvel at the morphing image fascinated and wondering how it was all done.

I showed it to my junior assistant Caroline who just smiled, probably a little surprised that a 36-year-old senior lawyer at the prestigious law firm Clegg, Burrell and James would have time for internet games.

So, taken by the image I saved the mail into a folder.

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.

Story: The Secret Slave. Part 15.

by Camille Langtry

The Sheriff put the branding iron away and untied the wailing Sophie, a silent "why" frozen on her tear-stained face. He had done this procedure dozens of times - mostly to rough and muscular field hands - but never to a girl so young and so delicate. He was not a sentimental man, far from it, but the fact that Caroline Cranstone, a manipulative Jezebel if there ever was one, forced his hand, filled him with mild regret. Yes, he has just ruined her property to show her who was running things here, but what he did he really gain from it? Apart from that familiar sticky feeling of having complete power over a fellow human being - the one that always gave way to uneasy heart-searching that only a good bottle of Bourbon could stop?

"Blame yer mistress, not me, girl," he uttered with a touch of pity, his words barely audible through Sophie’s heart-rending howl. “Now, now. It will heal in no time,” he added and stepped aside, allowing Elizabeth to console her shrieking friend. Caroline remained frozen on the porch, a slight hint of a smile on her well-proportioned face, as she awaited the Sheriff’s return to finish their aborted conversation.

The initial sharp pain has given way to a persistent burning sensation on Sophie’s back that was made a lot worse by the rough touch of the coarse material of her torn dress that she had to immediately pull back up to protect her modesty. Through tearful eyes she could barely see Elizabeth, on her knees in front of her, wiping away never-stopping tears from her friend’s reddened face with a batiste handkerchief. The Sheriff motioned to his young assistant still standing by the fire to watch Sophie and entered his office, closely followed by Caroline.

It took Sophie several minutes to calm down enough to be able to talk semi-intelligibly.