The Time Heiress (20 page)

“We asked her not to tell you,”  Miss Johnston broke in. “It is not that we did not trust you, we just try to involve as few people as possible, and well, we did not know you
very
well.”

Cassandra felt hurt that they seemed to have preferred Evie for their secretive task, but the next moment the feeling was replaced by anger at Evie’s deception.

“It was just that,” continued Miss Johnston, seeming to want to placate Cassandra, “she is part Negro. She also made it very clear how eager she was to help. You were more hesitant.”

“I am sorry,” said Cassandra. “I was worried about either of us being put in danger. With good reason as it turns out.”

“All we had intended was that Miss Bay keep her ear to your room and alert us if you stirred from it in the night while the runaways were coming and going.”

Into Cassandra’s mix of emotions, shame was now added.

“Anyway,” Miss Johnston went on, “Mr. Evans is the real threat to the slave catchers. They do not know for sure that we are part of the Underground Railroad, and, as we are a respectable church family, they know they had better leave us alone. But they think of Mr. Evans as a renegade—someone who makes their work much more difficult. They would have no trouble getting rid of him if they could do it without being caught. But since they also came after Caleb, Lillian, and Samuel last night, they must know that they are runaways. They have ways of finding out who has a bounty on their heads. I am convinced they came here originally to get Mr. Evans, and decided to do a little slave hunting while they were at it.”

“So now what happens?” asked Cassandra, forcing herself to remain calm.

“We have got to get them all upstate to Albany,” Miss Johnston replied. “From there, on to Canada, where they will be safe forever.”

Now understanding the painful decision the woman was making, Cassandra looked from her to Evie, who dropped her head in her hands. “What…what will you do without them? They are like your family.”

Miss Johnston looked pale and determined. “There is no other way. Mr. Evans, you should plan to come as well.”

Mr. Evans leaned back in his chair, studying his friend. “If I went,” he said, “I could be a help to them. It is wise to have a white person in the company of traveling Negroes, so they do not look suspicious. On the other hand, I could possibly endanger them, just being who I am.”

“I think they would feel better if you went along,” Miss Johnston said.

“Then I shall. But I will only go as far as Albany. I have a brother there. I will stay with him for a few months, until Vanderhoff loses my scent. Once they are that far, I will make sure they have safe passage to Canada.”

“When will you go?” Evie asked Mr. Evans, looking up at him.

He glanced toward Miss Johnston for confirmation. “As soon as we can arrange the transportation.”

“It is complicated,” she said to him. “First we have to get you out of the house, and the others out of All Angels undetected. They will probably have someone watching both locations indefinitely. Then, we have to get you up the island to where you can cross the river to Queens County. From that point, you will have to wait for a transport boat up the river. We have a safe house near the river bank that has a tunnel to the dock. If I start contacting our people today, we might be able to get you all on a boat to Albany within a week. In the meantime, you stay here, and the others stay put. We have people who can deliver messages—boys who look like trade apprentices, bakers, tailors, and the like. They can come and go quite innocuously with verbal messages to those that we need to communicate with. I think we should be able to get you across the river by Tuesday.”

Tuesday, Cassandra thought. That was the day they were supposed to report back to the portal exit!

“Mrs. Reilly,” said Miss Johnston as if partially reading her thoughts. “Is it possible for you and Miss Bay to postpone your departure by a day or two? It will be too difficult to try to get you packed up and off with all this going on.”

“We would not think of leaving before!” Evie broke in. “We came here to help and we want to help!”

Cassandra could feel the situation spinning out of her control. “I think Miss Bay and I need to speak in private.”

“Of course,” said Miss Johnston. She was like the general of an army now: organized and in charge. “But let me know your decision as soon as possible. I will begin making arrangements immediately to get our friends to safety.”

Cassandra and Evie rose.

“Excuse us,” said Evie, “we will not take long.”

They hurried up the stairs and into Evie’s room.

Once the door was closed, Cassandra began: “This is crazy! I cannot believe we have gotten involved in this!”

Evie went to close her drapes then stood with her back to the window, arms folded in front of her body. “This is why I came.”

Cassandra was angry, but tried to keep her voice low. She leaned a hand on the dresser for strength. “This was
not
why we came. I specifically said that we had to avoid getting mixed up in activities like these.”

“Then why did we come? I wanted to meet my ancestors. I do not know what I thought that meant, but now that I am here, I see that to know them is to be involved with their work. There is no other way.” She dropped her eyes and stared at the bedspread.

“We cannot change history. Do you get that?”

“I do not think I have done anything to change history.” Her voice faltered as she spoke.

“Our being mixed up in this could very well change things. Think about this: What if, for some reason, because we get in the way, Jerry gets killed. You are his direct descendent!” Cassandra moved in front of the bed to be in Evie’s line of sight.

The young woman met her eyes. “But doesn’t the fact that I am alive mean that he did not get killed—at least until he had a male heir?”

Cassandra sighed with exasperation and sat on the bed. “That is the time travel paradox. We do not know what would really happen if we changed history, but are you willing to take that chance?”

“I know that I am committed to getting Caleb to freedom.”

“Is it about Caleb?”

“I am in love with him.”

“We were supposed to leave in two days! What were you going to—” Cassandra had a horrible realization. “Were you planning to stay?”

Evie looked down and tears formed in her eyes.

Cassandra leapt up from the bed, feeling as if she were about to explode. She walked once around the room, trying to calm herself. She took a deep breath, went to Evie and took her hands, saying as calmly as possible, “You cannot stay.”

Evie looked at her, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Then maybe he could—”

Cassandra snatched her hands back, and struggled to keep her voice down. “Are you
insane
? He cannot possibly go with you! Oh my God, Evie, he could never begin to comprehend the future, or the concept of going into the future.
He
would go insane.”

“I think he could understand.”

“Wait a minute; you haven’t tried to explain it to him, have you?”

“No. No. I have been trying to figure out how I could.”

“You cannot. I mean you
cannot
.” Cassandra paced around the room. “Think about it. He has no concept of any futuristic world. People began to dream of spaceships and flying cars only after they had motorized vehicles and electricity. There has to be something on which a person can base their idea of a future. You and I can imagine a future vastly different from our own because we understand technology. You have to have a basic understanding of how one technology could possibly lead to another before you can imagine it. The most technological things that they have are trains, sewing machines, and flush toilets! You are going to bring him into a world with cars that do not even run on wheels anymore, communication that happens with flick of your wrist, music that is produced in the air from something no bigger than a button, light that comes out of nowhere, flight and virtual reality, and…and…time travel! He cannot comprehend it!”

Evie flopped down on the bed sobbing, the huge skirt of her dress fanning out around her like a flattened bell. “I cannot leave him!”     

Cassandra went and stood over her. “You have got to get a hold of yourself. You cannot stay and he cannot go with you. Let us just look at that other possibility for a second. You are someone who exists in the future. You cannot begin existing in the past. You could end up being your own ancestor for Christ sake! I do not even want to think about those implications.”

She took a breath and sat down beside her on the bed. “Besides, Evie, think about your parents, your friends, your career, your fans, your public. You do not want to leave your whole life behind.”

“There is nothing there for me.”

“How can you say that?” Cassandra almost laughed. “What would the world say if the famous Elinah Johnston disappeared into the past and never came back?”

She rolled over and looked at Cassandra. “I have had nothing but bad relationships. I have never found love that lasted. Men have disappointed me over and over.” She reverted her gaze to the underside of the canopy and was lost in thought for a moment. “But I would not want to hurt my family and friends. I love my mom and dad, my grandma Elinah, my grandpa Joe—” her eyes became wistful. “…my best friend Jade, my friends Elliot and Josh, my manager, my cousins Tristan, Chloë, Megan. My career and all that fame, well, it is not really that important to me.”

“Maybe not,” said Cassandra softly. “But you cannot just walk out of people’s lives. They would be heartbroken, like you had died.”

“But what if,” Evie said, perking up like a child who had just thought of a way to convince her parents to let her keep a puppy. “What if I authorized payment to keep the portal exit open, and I stayed longer. A month or two, or a year, like you did.” She sat up on the bed with new energy at this idea.

“Well,” said Cassandra, “Professor Carver and the board of directors might be persuaded to agree to something like that, but chances are you would only fall deeper in love with Caleb. And then where would you be? First of all, living in Canada, far from the portal, poor, having his babies (and we already talked about the implications of that), a far cry from the life of ease and luxury you see around you here. This is an illusion, Evie,” she said gesturing to the fine furnishings in the spacious room around them. “Do you think most people in this era live like this? Caleb, Samuel, and Miss Ketchum are going to be starting from scratch in Canada, living off the land—farming, or working some trade or doing menial labor in a city. It will be backbreaking from dawn to late at night. You know, you have read about those days. Look at the people you saw down in the Five Points. Very few are privileged to live like the Johnstons and the Williams’s. You will age twenty years in five. And for you, of all people, used to such a life of luxury and ease! It would be unbearable. What you have with Caleb now is a fairy tale. There is no way it can last!”

Evie looked directly Cassandra. They were both silent for several minutes.

Cassandra went and sat in the chair near the window and stared at the closed curtain.

“I understand what you are going through, you know. I loved Benedict Johnston deeply and I wrestled with the idea of staying in 1820 England myself. Fortunately, I realized, before it was too late, that he was not worth leaving my son, my parents, my whole life for. And I will confess to you that I have feelings for Mr. Evans.”

“I wondered about that.”

“This is a kind of phenomenon of time travel, I have come to believe. As you become immersed in the time and place, you lose yourself in it. You lose your objectivity and your connection with your future reality. It happened to me, to James, to Jake…so far all of us who traveled to the past for any length of time, possibly with the exception of Nick, but he is…different. So, I am being the voice of reason here, Evie, and telling you that what you feel is not entirely real. I have to remind myself of that too.”

“So what are we going to do about Tuesday? She asked us to postpone our departure. I would at least like to do what we can to get them over to Queens. After that, we can come back, get our things, and leave. We will probably only be a day or so late.”

“The team will worry if we are not back on the seventh, but they will not panic probably for about a week. If we are not back by then, they may send somebody, and that causes a whole other host of problems.”

“Then we will tell Miss Johnston that we can only postpone a day.”

“Very well,” said Cassandra reluctantly. “I will agree to one day.”

“Will you go tell her?” pleaded Evie. “I cannot go down right now. I need to be alone for a while.” Evie flopped back down and buried her head in her pillow.

“Very well,” said Cassandra. “You rest.”

She stood up, looked at Evie for a moment and then went out and shut the door.

The good people there in the town of Chesapeake took our wet clothes and gave us blankets and warmed us by the fire, giving us hot stew and bread. I had not known such kindness existed, or that it dwelled in the hearts of white people at all, but this journey showed me I was wrong. These people and these houses were the beginnings of what we now know as the Underground Railroad. We rested there all day and a night. We were told that come morning, we would be taken in a cart about twenty miles to the next stop, but that we could not all five go together; it would look strange. So Nate and Sharla went that morning and we waited till noon, when a friend of Mr. Wright, the man of the house, came to fetch us in another cart, letting the others get about a six-hour start on us. Mrs. Wright had given us new clothes—not completely new, but new to us, clean and much richer looking than we had ever worn, so that we looked like free men. She even took the time to sew extra lengths on Sam’s pant legs and sleeves ’cause everything she had was too short for him. As it was, they were tight, but they had to do. Lill looked like a real lady in her pretty dress and bonnet. They made me look like an old man—put ash on my hair and in the beard I had started to grow, put gentlemanly clothes on me and an old pair of spectacles. We all laughed outright when they were done, but it looked pretty real.

So off we went, Sam driving, and the cart owner, Mr. Clarkson, sitting up front with him, and me and Lill sittin’ in the back. We had driven for most of the day; it was near sunset when some men came by on horseback with guns. They were the same men we had seen back on the river. They stopped Mr. Clarkson, threatening him with their weapons. They said they were looking for three runaways and looked us over real hard. They said one was a tall man, another a tall woman, and the other a regular-sized young man. They had a drawing in a newspaper advertisement, that had us wearing our old clothes, but otherwise looked like it coulda been anyone.

Mr. Clarkson took a look at it and said, “Naw, ain’t seen ’em. This here is my driver. Been with me his whole life. Back there is his ol’ pop and sister.”

He said he was bringing me to a doctor ’cause I was not well. I tried to look all droopy like an old sack, and I leaned against Lill who held me up and patted my hand. I even coughed real hard to try to sound good and sick.

Those men thought about it a few minutes, but must have believed Clarkson’s lie. It was a good one, I have to say, and he told it like he had been doing it his whole life. I could feel Lill’s palm sweating in mine and beads forming on my brow. I hoped it would not drip down, for they would surely see it was just ash in my hair if it did. Finally, after what seemed like forever, they let us go. Lill was shaking and sobbing afterwards for fear, and Clarkson had to take the reins from Sam he was so shook up. Mr. Clarkson took us on to another house, where we met up with Nate and Sharla.

*****

The next two days, Cassandra watched as Miss Johnston and Mr. Evans planned their strategy. There was more than the usual number of deliveries at the back door, although the packages that came were mere decoys. Thaddeus told her it was information passing back and forth, going from #214 to All Angels, to other parties, though he would not divulge their identities even to her.

The morning that Evie returned to the house, she’d been horrified to see Caleb’s painting dashed out of its frame, but after close inspection, determined the canvas had not been damaged. While Cassandra packed, Evie remained bent on making a new frame. She used the wood from a broken table, Samuel’s file for sanding, a hammer and some fine nails, fashioning a primitive frame, elegant in its simplicity. Cassandra noticed that she did her work sadly, tears sometimes rolling down her cheeks. When it was finished, Miss Johnston proudly hung the picture back on the wall in its place of honor.

Cassandra found it difficult not to be able to leave the house at all during the two days that they were confined within, not even going into the garden. She had been seen now more than once with Mr. Evans, although, he told her, the enemy couldn’t know who she was or what she was doing there.

But on those evenings when he and Miss Johnston needed to take a break from their work, Thaddeus would seek out Cassandra in the parlor, and they would talk. She found herself wishing she could express to him the things that were true in her real life.

“Tomorrow we begin our adventure, Mrs. Reilly,” he remarked on Monday evening, coming upon her as she read on the parlor sofa. “Are you feeling up to it? I feel you have gotten embroiled in all of this against your will.” He pulled an armchair in close.

Cassandra put down her book and regarded him. “Well, yes, I have. But now there is nothing else to do but move forward.”

“Do you mind if I ask who is waiting for you in Boston?”

“Just, just family. My mother and father are both still alive, and I live with them now since my husband’s death. They rely on me, to a certain extent, and of course we have help. They will be anxious when I do not return on time, and I hate to think of them being so. If circumstances were different, I would send a telegram, but since my movements are limited at the moment, I cannot.”

“Perhaps we could arrange for a messenger.”

“No, it is too much trouble with everything else going on. Anyway, we will only be delayed for a day. We will get you on across the river and then we will start out Wednesday morning. It should be fine.”

Her true plan was to get the escapees to the river, say goodbye, come back, collect her and Evie’s things, and go to the portal exit the same night. They wouldn’t be delayed after all.

“Do you have brothers or sisters in Boston?”

“I have a sister and a brother. One older, one younger. Both are married with their own families.”

“And you mentioned you have a son.”

“Yes! James, who is at Harvard. Well, he will not be worrying about me; he is caught up in his world and his studies. He lives with some friends near campus, and we do not see him every day.”

“When does school let out for the summer? He is not finished already for the year?”

“Um, no, actually, not for a fortnight.”

“Ah, he is probably embroiled in end-of-the-semester exams. You are probably not the first thing on his mind.”

“I doubt I ever am!” She laughed.

“On the contrary. I am sure you have raised a remarkable son. If he is anything like you.”

“He is also very much like his father,” she commented, trying to steer the conversation onto safer ground.

But Mr. Evans didn’t seem to want to talk about her deceased husband, and neither did she, in fact, it being one of the few actual realities of the story she’d created about her past.

“How did you fall into the life of an activist?” Cassandra asked.

“After I left school, I had the hankering to travel. I went south and, there, I stumbled upon a slave sale. The sight of those people screaming as their families were torn from them made me decide to dedicate my life to manumission for slaves. When I returned home, I found myself ashamed of my Northern brethren for clinging to their own slaves and their reliance on industries that sprang out of the slave trade.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“As I traveled, I worked odd jobs, trying to decide how I could make a difference in the fight. Then I met my wife in Albany, and I almost forgot about my mission.”

“Your wife?”

“Marjory. She died after we’d been married just a year. Both her and our baby, in childbirth.”

“Oh, I am so sorry!” she whispered.

“My fate as an itinerant lecturer was sealed. I began speaking in churches, or wherever I was wanted, about the evils of slavery and the morality of abolition.”

That night, as Cassandra lay in bed, she once again found her thoughts drifting to the man just upstairs. The air was warm and it was stuffy with the curtains closed, making it hard to sleep. In the middle of the night, she heard him get up and begin pacing. She found herself hoping that his footsteps would lead him to the stairs and down, through the kitchen and dining room and up the main stairs to the hallway, down the corridor to her room—that the door would open. She stopped herself. She didn’t want to indulge in any more fantasies of that kind. It was bad enough that she had kissed Thaddeus. Then she started to think about the kiss and again had to force herself to stop. Finally, it was quiet up above and she drifted into sleep.

Carter arrived at the front of the house with the coach precisely at noon. Cassandra, Evie, and Miss Johnston were waiting in the entryway. With sweating palms, Cassandra picked up two of the suitcases Miss Johnston had packed up for Miss Ketchum and Samuel, and carried them out to the vehicle as she was asked to do. Evie followed with another two, and Carter threw them with the others up onto the roof and tied them down as the women stepped up into the carriage.

“I thought Miss Johnston said she only packed
three suitcases,” Cassandra commented.

“Oh, she decided to throw a few more things together at the last moment.” Evie stared out the window of the coach.

Cassandra watched Carter go inside the house with a burly friend he had brought along, and come out again with a heavy trunk carried between them that they heaved down the front steps and onto one of the carriage seats. Finally, Miss Johnston emerged from the house, carrying a satchel. She gave it to Carter to put with the rest, and squeezed into the seat with Evie and Cassandra. Carter shut the doors, and the women pulled the curtains closed.

The horses moved forward in a slow and steady pace, heading east. Miss Johnston explained that if Vanderhoff’s gang was watching, they would think Evie and Cassandra were on their way to the South Ferry to begin their trip to Boston.

After few minutes, Miss Johnston reached over to open the trunk lid and Mr. Evans popped up, sweating and gasping. She rapped three times on the roof of the carriage. After a moment, Carter rapped back twice, a signal that he did not think they were being followed. Cassandra felt the carriage turn left and knew they were heading north, up Manhattan Island.

Miss Johnston then explained the rest of the plan: At All Angels, Caleb, Samuel, and Miss Ketchum were each to be carried into an enclosed wagon in the same way Mr. Evans had been, in large trunks. This wagon was then to be filled with other furniture, bags, sacks, and packages to look like things were being moved out of the rectory. Someone might think they were donating goods to the poor. That wagon, driven by one of their trusted friends, would make its way up the island to a hidden boat launch to meet them, hopefully arriving close to the same time.

They would then unload the trunks onto the boat, an old steam-engine ferry no longer in use by the New York ferry companies, and the driver, also someone working in the service of the Underground Railroad, would take the fugitives across the river to Queens to a safe house, where they would wait another two days for the transport boat that would take them up to Albany. This was a special craft employed to transport the “packages.” Once on the boat, they could travel in relative security to their next safe-house destination, the home of Mr. Evans' brother. From Albany, they would go to Frederick Douglass’s home in Rochester, and he would see them into Canada.

“Frederick Douglass?” gasped Evie. “You
know
Frederick Douglass? They are going to meet him?”

Miss Johnston looked at Mr. Evans, eyebrows raised, then turned to Evie. “I am rather surprised you know of him.”

“Well,” explained Cassandra, “we do, as we have said, follow and support the abolitionist cause in Boston.”

“Ah, yes,” said Miss Johnston. “Well, anyway, he has been to New York City more than once to speak and visit with us. He is one of our great heroes, as is Miss Tubman, of course, and so many others.”

“Harriet Tubman!” Evie squeaked.

Cassandra patted her arm. “Yes, we have read of Miss Tubman’s work too.”

“You are extremely well informed,” observed Mr. Evans from his seat in the trunk.

After some time had passed, Cassandra felt the horses surge ahead and quicken their pace. The road was bumpier; they had passed from the cobbled streets onto dirt, and the carriage bounced.

“Why is he going so fast?” wondered Miss Johnston aloud. As if in response, Carter wrapped on the roof of the coach five times quickly.

“Damn!” exclaimed Mr. Evans.

“What?” said Evie.

“We’re being followed!” he said.

“Whoever was watching the house must have gotten suspicious and informed Vanderhoff.” Miss Johnston said. “Let us only pray that they are not aware of the wagon containing our friends.”

As the carriage lurched forward, the women braced Mr. Evans’ trunk with their feet to prevent its crashing to the floor.

“How much longer until we get to the ferry?” asked Cassandra. “Will it be waiting for us when we get there?”

Miss Johnston peered out of one of the curtained windows. “Yes, and we are almost there. Mr. Evans, a change in plans. There is no point putting you on the ferry in the trunk. They know you are in here. As soon as we get there, you must run from the carriage onto the ferry. We can only hope that our friends will be there, boarded and ready to go.”