James Nelson - The Blackbirder

And then a knock on the door, a rapping, soft, hesitant, and they both jumped. Billy cursed softly and Elizabeth wondered if he was angry with himself for being caught unawares or angry with the person knocking for having destroyed the jovial mood that just might have lured her into his bed.

Both, no doubt, though it was no sure thing that she would have treated him to her favors, nor was Billy caught entirely unawares. He snatched up the loaded pistol he had set on the small table by the window, eased the hammer back, and gestured for Elizabeth to move out of the possible line of fire.

He stepped over to the door just as the person on the other side knocked again, a bit harder. He put his hand on the iron latch and pulled it up and swung the door open, the pistol at his side, hidden but ready.

Standing in the hall, framed by the door, was a black woman, a familiar face, but it took Elizabeth a moment to place her.

“Sally?” It was the Reverend Wait Dunmore’s charwoman.

“That right…Mrs. Marlowe?”

“Yes, yes. Please, come in,” Elizabeth said. She could not imagine being more surprised to see anyone. She had not given Sally another thought since leaving the Middle Street Church.

Sally stepped timorously into the room. Billy closed the door behind her and then, with that flamboyant egalitarianism of his, lifted the bottle they had been consuming and held it up for Sally’s inspection and asked, “Wine, with you?”

Sally looked at the bottle, looked at Billy, and she seemed to be wondering if he was serious or if he was mocking her or if he was insane. After a moment’s scrutiny she apparently decided that he was at least serious, if not a bit insane, and she nodded her head. “That would be nice, Mr. Marlowe. Thank you.”

Mr. Marlowe? It took Elizabeth ’s wine-soaked brain a moment to recall that Billy had introduced himself to Dunmore as Thomas Marlowe, another of his irritating verbal pokes in the ribs.

Billy poured a glass, handed it to Sally, gestured for her to sit. He topped off Elizabeth ’s glass and his own. “Whatever brings you here?” he asked, once Sally was settled.

“I…,” she began, nervous and not a little frightened. “I couldn’t help but overhear… you was asking about Frederick…”

“That’s right. Frederick and I were boyhood friends, dear friends, but I have not heard from him in many a year and I was interested in finding what he was about.”

Sally sipped her wine, regarded Billy Bird over the rim of her glass. When she was done she spoke, and her voice carried more confidence this time. “My family been the property of the Dunmore family for three generations. I been with the Dunmores since I was born. My memory’s a lot better than the old Reverend, and I don’t remember no Thomas Marlowe, neither.”

A pause, and not a comfortable one, and then Billy said, “Is that why you’re here? Has old Dunmore sent you to poke around, try and find some secret reason for my asking about Frederick?”

“No. The Reverend don’t know I’m here. He thinks I’m abed and I reckon it’ll go hard on me if he find out I ain’t.”

Silence again, and Elizabeth considered whether she believed her. Yes, yes, she did. She did not think Sally was lying. And apparently Billy did not either, because he did not snatch the glass from her hands and kick her out. Rather, he said, “Very well. Why are you here, then?”

Sally took another sip of her wine. “You was asking about Frederick, and it didn’t take no scholar to figure you know he done something and you was trying to find out what that was. Why you wants to know?”

Billy met Elizabeth ’s eye and he raised his eyebrows and she took that to mean he considered the telling to be her decision.

“My husband and I are from Virginia,” Elizabeth began, then looking at Billy, added, “My real husband. This man is a friend.”

Sally registered no reaction to this utterly improper situation, so Elizabeth continued. “My husband freed the slaves on his plantation and has allowed them to remain and work for wages. Frederick Dun-more, who now lives in Williamsburg, has been persecuting our freed Negroes, has forced them to flee into the woods for their safety.

“I came to Boston in hopes of finding some secret from Dunmore ’s past that I could threaten him with revealing, to dissuade him from his heartless campaign against our people. It is a craven plan, and base. I am aware of that and I do not care. I am absolutely at my wit’s end.”

Sally was nodding and staring thoughtfully into the flame of the nearest candle. “ Virginia, so that’s where he end up. The rumor was he gone to London, but now he back…”

Billy Bird said, “There, we have been truthful with you. Will you tell us what you know of Frederick Dunmore?”

Sally looked up, as if startled from her thoughts. “I’ll tell you. I’se the only one will tell you. It’s so shameful you won’t find no white person will talk about it, and Frederick being the son of that pious old Reverend Dunmore. You keep on asking around, you’ll find yourselves run out of town on a rail.”

Sally paused, collected her thoughts, began again. “ Frederick left Boston five years back, left near everything, save his money. He was a merchant. One of the most successful in the city. Rich as a king, and after only fifteen years or so in business, starting with the little money the old Reverend give him.”

“He left all that behind? His business?” Elizabeth asked.

“Left right before the sheriff was going to arrest him.” She paused again. “They accused him of killing an old woman, an old slave woman, named Isabelle. In a rage. Killed her with his bare hands. Strangled her.” She swallowed hard, clenched her fists. “She was my great-grandmother, and he killed her.”

Elizabeth sat motionless, watched the emotion tearing Sally apart, even after half a decade. It was incredible, this crime she was describing, it seemed too much to believe, even for a bastard like Frederick Dunmore.

“But why would he do that?” Elizabeth asked softly. “Why would Frederick Dunmore murder your great-grandmother?”

Sally looked up, and now the tears were running down her cheeks. “It was on account of what folks were saying. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand the thought of it, and I reckoned he blamed her.”

Sally sobbed, wiped her eyes, swallowed hard. “He found out, he heard, that she was his great-grandma too.”

Elizabeth and Billy were silent, trying to digest this. Sally sobbed, and through the tears said, “He couldn’t stand it, the bastard, the bastard, damn his black heart…”

Finally Billy spoke. “Let me understand you. You are saying that Frederick Dunmore’s great-grandmother…was a Negress?”

Sally looked up, nodded, then cleared her throat and straightened her back and forced herself into some kind of composure. “I’m saying that was the rumor. Richard Dunmore, that was Frederick ’s great-grandfather, story was he had a child by his slave and that child, named Isaac, was almost white and so he raised it like his own. And that child was Frederick ’s grandfather.”

“And that’s true?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don’t know. Frederick, he always hated Negroes. I don’t know why, but he always did. Some people is like that. When he heard that story, he went crazy. Went to my great-grandma, she the only one of them still alive then, demanded the truth. Then my great-grandmother kept saying it wasn’t so, and he didn’t believe her and he killed her, he was so mad. My cousin Mary, she heard the whole thing. Once they come looking for Frederick, he run off. Rumor was he gone to London, like I said.”

The three were silent for some moments. Elizabeth realized she was shaking her head. It was incredible, too much to believe. What sick passions must drive a man like Frederick Dunmore? How much of his persecution of Marlowe’s people was driven by his own self-loathing?