The President's Daughter (21 page)

“He was dead at thirty-seven.”

“That gives me fourteen years.”

“You'll break Thance's heart.”

“He'll survive.”

“And you, Harriet?”

Calm, I thought. Calm. When was I going to have some calm?

“At least when I set my foot on the docks of London, I'll be an emancipated woman. Not just a fugitive white Negro impersonating my masters. The transient fact of slavery is fatally united with the permanent fact of color. If I'm no longer a slave, I'm no longer black either.”

“You are taking a colossal risk. Perhaps Thance won't wait for you.”

“I can't expect him to, especially since I'm not going to tell him the real truth,” I said. “Will you come with me, Uncle?”

“No. Someone has to stay to look after your future interests, because, by God's will, you may change your mind. When I cross the Atlantic again, it will be forever, and that won't be until I've accomplished my last service to your father—your happiness and safety.”

“I doubt I'm ever coming back, Petit.”

For the first time, Petit looked frightened. His little monkey face screwed up in pain as if I had really been his daughter. But I was escaping my dilemma by the same route my father had always taken—flight.

“How cruel you are, Harriet.”

“I came from a high school of cruelty,” I answered. “I'm the President's daughter, remember.”

St. Paul's Unitarian Congregation Church was situated on the southeast corner of Washington Square in the center of the city. I entered the vestry by the side door. My religious instructions were almost over, and I was to be received into the church at the same time as the marriage banns were to be posted. Neither of these things would now occur. I sat down in the choir, totally abandoned. My father had advised flight. My mother, silence. My white lie had become red, then purple, then black. I wouldn't tell either of them that I was leaving the United States. I worried Thance's ring off my finger and wrapped it in my handkerchief and shoved it into my skirt pocket next to the dagger. In the walk from here to the Wellingtons' I would leave behind all the happiness I would probably ever encounter in life. My hands held out before me were steady and my heart beat slowly, subdued and unaltered. Harriet Hemings of Monticello had learned sacrifice and destitution at her mother's knee.

Reverend Crocket entered to light the candles.

“Why, Miss Petit. What are you doing here? Thance wouldn't like to see you abroad so late in the evening.”

“I just stopped by to pray. I'm on my way to the Wellingtons' now.”

“Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you. I have almost half an hour before the service.”

I hesitated. Should I tell this kindly man I was about to break a sacred promise? No. He was just another white person, and I was sick to death of them.

“Thank you. That's very kind of you.”

“Is there something troubling you, Miss Petit?”

“I understand you baptized Thance . . .”

“Oh yes, my dear. Thance and Thor—both of them.”

“So you've known them all their lives.”

“Yes indeed. Fine boys.”

“I understand there was an accident when they were children, and Thance hurt Thor. He's never told me how.”

“Is this what's brought you here, Miss Harriet ... may I call you Harriet?”

“I just wondered . . .”

“In Thance's mind he blames himself, but really it was a simple accident,”
he began, “or God's will. I think that is all you need to know. Are you having doubts about marrying Thance?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, but that's the most normal thing in the world, my dear. The sacred sacraments of marriage and conjugal love are the most serious and honorable of all men's promises. They should never be taken lightly. You love Thance?”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid of the . . . conjugal duties of marriage?”

“No, Reverend.”

“You are orphaned, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“Ah, what a sad thing for a young girl, not to have her mother to talk to on the eve of her marriage, or her father to give her away.”

My father, I thought. Even if he is no longer my master, he is still my father. The father I had left on his knees, his foot caught in the rottenness of his own rotten kingdom. And my mother. I had left her as though she were half-drugged in a field of tobacco with the moths and the butterflies. Despite myself, tears started down my cheeks. Did I dare admit that I was homesick? My father's house was a two-day diligence ride from here. Why couldn't I bring myself to return to see them?

“I want my mother,” I sobbed softly.

“I know, my dear girl. I know. But God in His wisdom has made that impossible. I am sure she is looking down upon you this moment in love and compassion. You must rely only upon yourself.”

The Reverend Crocket walked me the short distance to the Wellington House. The
Montezuma
left for England on September 24, and I had already told Mrs. Willowpole I would be on it. Today was the twelfth. Too soon, perhaps. Or too late? I pulled the bellpull and waited. The vicar stayed until the maid opened the door; then he tipped his hat and bowed.

Thance was not home.

He had left word that he was staying late at the laboratory and having dinner with a friend at his club. My ex-future mother-in-law was also not at home. Baffled, I sat down in the entranceway without taking off my hat or gloves. But a maid came and conducted me to the front parlor. To pass the time, I began to play Mrs. Wellington's Loud piano, softly, with my gloves still on.

Just as I heard a key turn in the lock, the clock in the hall struck ten o'clock. I hoped it wasn't Mrs. Wellington, for how could I explain such a night visit? To my relief, Thance's voice echoed from the entranceway.

“Here? Did she say why?”

I stood as Thance entered, poised for flight or fight. I still had my hat and gloves on, and one hand reached into my skirt pocket, wanting to fold itself around the ring, but touching the dagger instead. It gave me courage.

“Harriet, you're not ill?”

“No, I'm ... well. I came from a visit to Reverend Crocket at church. He told me he had baptized you.”

“He told you about Thor, didn't he?”

“No.”

He stood there, pale and trembling.

“No. He's never mentioned Thor to me.”

“I would have told you, in time.”

“I came to tell you I can't marry you,” I blurted out.

“I
knew
this would happen. I
knew
something would spoil everything. Spoil the only happiness I've ever achieved. I knew I was cursed—cursed from birth.”

“You can't believe in curses, Thance. There's something in my past I can't reveal to you, and since I can't reveal it, I won't marry you with it hanging between us. My decision is irrevocable.” I held out the ring.

He began to pace up and down, darting a furtive, tragic glance my way.

“Harriet, you must not make this decision lightly. If you would like more time, I should be happy to wait. I was wrong in rushing you. I'll give you more time; we'll postpone the wedding.”

“Thance, it's not that. I'm leaving for London on the
Montezuma
in twelve days. I'm accompanying Mrs. Willowpole to the Anti-Slavery Society Convention.”

“Without discussing it with me? When did she make you this offer?”

“At the last antislavery meeting.”

“And you've kept it to yourself all this time?”

“Thance, you don't understand. I must go to London. I'm sorry I've deceived you. I've come to give you back your ring. I have no right to the happiness you offer me.”

“It's my happiness I'm thinking of.”

Thance had turned deathly pale. He tried to speak several times, but could not. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy.

“Please don't write or try to follow me, because I won't have the strength to go through with it otherwise.”

“Harriet, I don't know ... for Christ's sake . . . leave me . . . leave me some hope. Don't close the door.”

“I must.”

“There's someone you're going to join in London? There's someone else?”

“Oh, Thance. Of course not. I'm going as Mrs. Willowpole's companion. There's no one else. How could there be? I accepted your proposal!”

Thance had turned and taken several steps toward me. He was close enough to seize me, or to strike me. Our eyes locked.

“Please,” I said. My heart was a lump of coal.

“I'll take you home, of course.”

Just as we were leaving, Mrs. Wellington entered in a cloud of scent and silk, shocked to find us alone in the house at such a late hour. It was obvious she suspected the worst, until she saw our faces.

“My God—children, what's happened?”

“We've broken our engagement, Mother.”

“But—”

“Harriet is leaving for London on the twenty-fourth.”

“But, my child . . .”

“Please, Mrs. Wellington, don't ask me to explain my behavior. Believe me that I accepted Thance's offer of marriage in good faith . . . and . . . gratefully.”

“Harriet, you're making a terrible mistake. You love my son; I know you do. Marriages like this one don't grow on trees for—”

“Poor orphans,” I interjected.

“Mother. Please!”

“Harriet, I warn you. If you walk out of this door now, you'll never enter it again while I'm alive.”

Thance's mother literally blocked the door. In her caped evening dress, turban, and ostrich-feathered fan, she resembled some outraged Turkish sultan whose harem had been defiled. How she reminded me of Thomas Jefferson as she converted our pain into her principles.

I curtsied so low my shawl brushed the floor, and at the same time, I grasped her hand in supplication.

“Don't make me regret that I'll never marry.”

“Harriet! You ... you're not entering a religious order, a papist? Not after your profession of Unitarianism!”

“Mother!”

“I still strive to unite religion with . . . perfect liberty,” I replied. I rose as I did. I towered over Thance's mother, and her bulk seemed to wither before my fury at being made into an equation once again. She stepped aside. She was afraid of me. Thance's hand at my elbow steadied me as we descended the brownstone steps. I slipped and would have fallen if it had not been for his grasp. I knew he could feel me shaking.

“We'll take Mother's carriage; it's late,” he said almost dully.

We were silent, side by side, all the way to Fourth Street. Suddenly, Thance began to cry silently, abandoned. I was annoyed that he had acquiesced so easily. Perhaps, like me, he believed he didn't deserve happiness.

I slipped the ring into his coat pocket without his knowing it.

PHILADELPHIA SEPTEMBER
24
TH
, 1825

Maman

By the time this reaches you, I will have set sail for London, England, on the
Montezuma,
as traveling companion to Mrs. Dorcas Willowpole, a delegate to the Tenth Anti-Slavery Society Convention.

Although it is a magnificent sloop, I feel as though I am to be cast adrift in a tiny rowboat onto the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. I read and reread your letter of the fifth, trying to take courage in the fact that you were much younger than I when you crossed the Atlantic with Maria. Moreover, you did not know you were heading toward possible freedom. But I know that this voyage is my passport to true rather than false emancipation. Setting my foot on English soil makes me forever free as a matter of law, and gives me the moral right to call myself so.

I returned Thance's ring and his offer of happiness because it was tendered and accepted under deception. It is sad that I must add to his suffering after the tragedy of his twin, which is indeed a story worthy of the cruelest tales of slavery. I take his heartache with mine on this voyage.

Remember me.

Your loving daughter

To my utter surprise, Charlotte spoke not one word of reproach to me. When I asked her why she didn't demand an explanation, she'said, “Did Thance demand an explanation?”

“No.”

“Then why should I? If you want to tell me, you will.”

“I'm terrified that Thance will jump out of the shadows at every turn. The doorbell, the sound of a carriage wheel, a footstep, makes me faint.”

“Thance is . . . devastated.”

“You've seen him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ask what you knew?”

“Yes.”

“And . . .”

“I said nothing, which is the Lord's truth, Harriet.” She caressed my hair. “Remember I told you once that young women were like cathedrals—great, anonymous mysteries. I've always felt that about you, Harriet.”

“You'll come to see me off tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

In spite of myself, I said, “Do you think Thance will come?”

“My God, Harriet!” Charlotte exploded. “You kill a man and then you expect him to tip his hat. The man's in bed,” she continued, “being taken care of by his sister and his twin.”

“Thor? Thor is back?”

“For the wedding, remember? Imagine his despair—”

“Oh, my God,” I gasped. “Oh, my God.”

“You're coming back?”

“Oh, Char! I don't know . . . whatever happens, it's chance. . . .”

“I believe you're destined for one of the twins, but I don't know which—”

“What a bizarre thing to say.”

“And I don't suppose there's any use in asking you one last time to reconsider, or at least to explain,
your
bizarre . . . your suicidal behavior?”

“I can't, Charlotte.”

“Well, I'll say it this once. Don't go, Harriet. I beg you.”