Red clay running waters, p.15
Red Clay, Running Waters, page 15
Susan skipped to Sarah, thrusting a slim object, bound in cloth, into her hands.
Inside the folds lay a bookmark, decorated with yellow birds. “I made it,” she said. “John drew the birds for me. What did you call them, John? Chees . . . chees . . .”
“Tsisqua dalonige,” John replied. “Yellow bird in Cherokee. For my people, birds are messengers between Heaven and earth.”
Her father pulled out the pipe wedged between his teeth. “What a lovely thought,” he said, smiling lovingly at her. “Our Sarah, free to roam the pages, marked by messengers from Heaven.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. The heaven John had spoken of was unreachable by birds. What was he saying? His face was unreadable in the shadows.
“How thoughtful,” Sarah said, kissing Susan. “And what fine needlework. I will treasure it.” She ran her fingers across the surface. “Thank you, John.” She would not give him much, after weeks of his unexplained distance. For that, they must be face-to-face.
“Well,” her father emptied his pipe, “though it be late, our time to rise is the same. Shall we be off to bed, Mother?”
“May I stay and read for a bit, Momma?” Sarah asked.
“It is your day. Do as you wish,” Lydia replied. “William will help you back upstairs, John, once he is finished shutting down for the night.”
No sooner had everyone left the room and the door closed, then John spoke. “Are you angry with me?”
Sarah’s head shot up from her reading, the whoosh of her heartbeat filling her ears.
“Yes! . . . No! . . . Yes!” She fidgeted, eyes up, eyes down. “For weeks, you have hardly spoken to me! And all night you have hidden in the shadows there while I . . .” she huffed.
“You know we Cherokee are honest people,” he finally replied, “and that our feelings easily show in our faces. I thought it wisest that I kept my feelings to myself.”
There it was, the thundering elephant in the room.
“In my position,” he said, “in your position, I would not want to risk . . .” He rose on his crutches, stepping into the flood of the fire’s light, his dark eyes burning, rooting her in place. “I am to return home in less than a year, and it is not a simple matter that exists between you and me.”
Her mouth worked, then shut.
“Do not speak,” he cautioned. “Listen.” She wanted to protest, yet knew he was right. Is this a beginning or an end?
He took a deep breath. “Jesus once said, ‘Out of the heart’s abundance, the mouth will speak.’” He was shaking. “My heart has never felt more abundant, Sarah, and so I must speak. I have been distant with cause. There has been much weighing on my mind, none of them light things. Dare I express my feelings to you, knowing what obstacles exist to us showing our affection to the world? You cannot be insensible of them yourself.”
Only hearing his admission, a rush of elation ran through her, forgiving him in an instant. “After your father’s visit, I believed you had already removed your heart from this place, from us,” she confessed.
“It is my own demons, these doubts, which make me disbelieve,” he said. “Do you think I would risk being received with contempt, or as a mere curiosity by you?” He looked wounded. She could see him struggle over his next words. “A cripple is not generally considered a qualified prospect for any lady, let alone one who happens to be a despised Indian.”
She sucked in air, choking to protest his words. “John, you know—”
He put up one hand. “Sarah, I would have you see clearly before we say more. You and I see the world from a shared space, but our vision is not commonly held. Even if we cared enough to pledge ourselves, could our families accept it? Would people here accept it?” he asked. “Some may, but many will condemn us. The fate of more than you and I rest in our choice. I would do anything to avoid hurt or offense to anyone in this house, but most especially you.”
“John.” Sarah came close, pressing her fingers on his lips. “You know I care not for these false boundaries people say separate us.”
He turned his head side to side in sad recognition. “You cannot understand,” he said. “Do not say you do. But you would come to know it, to feel it, to see it in people’s eyes, the level of hatred for my race, the condescension. For myself, I have learned to bear it, though the prejudice galls me. But every time it would happen to you, or be directed at your family, it would wound me like a knife. I want to believe the world is a better place than that, that you and I can make it so, but I fear it is not.”
“Then we must face our fears and make our own world,” she said.
He clasped her hand, his lips against her fingertips.
Except that she recognized they could not, at least not now. Convention, propriety, judgment, position all stood against them. Her euphoria vanished under the burden of obstacles and implications. Was she sure and strong enough to leave her family, leave everything she knew and exchange her world for his?
“What of your mother and father?” sprung from her lips.
“And yours?”
Lydia darned socks in John’s room after Dr. Gold’s visit, her fingers rocking back and forth over the surface of the darning egg. She often sat in companionable silence in his room while he read or wrote.
She looked across at him. “The doctor says you are healing well, John, but he expressed concern that something besides your hip may be troubling you.”
John gripped the book in his hands tighter. There was much to lose by responding. Lydia put the darning down into her lap.
“John, you have always confided in me. If there is something troubling you, you know you ought to tell me. You know you can trust me to advise you well.”
“There is nothing wrong,” he said flatly, his heart in his throat, hoping his evasion could hold.
“I know something troubles you, John. Would you lie to me?”
His turmoil was unbearable, his thumbs white from pressing the page. She would learn what it was now, God help them. He closed his book, lifted his shoulders, and faced her.
“I love Sarah,” he said.
Lydia froze then bolted upright. She looked away from him out the window, then back at him with what he thought might be acknowledgment of something already known. His pounding heart was somewhere between hope and despair, somewhere between flying free or breaking.
“Have you told her so?”
He hesitated. “No.”
They looked at each other as though they both needed reassurance. At last, she filled her lungs.
“I will speak with her.”
The sewing basket lay on the floor after she departed.
Sarah barely hesitated. “Yes,” she replied. What relief she felt with the admission, until she saw her mother’s expression.
“My God, we will be tested,” her mother said to the ceiling. Sequestered away from the household in her parents’ bedchamber, her mother sat beside her on the bed, hands folded tight, prayer-like, in her lap.
The enormity of her confession fell on Sarah gradually, smothering her initial joy, forced as she was to see the risks of her growing affections through her mother’s eyes.
“I blame myself for closing my eyes,” Lydia said. “For letting what happens between these four walls delude me into thinking we can ignore the rest of the world.”
It hurt to look at her mother’s face, twisted by what Sarah knew were warring emotions.
“You well know the whole family loves John, but you cannot fathom what you ask,” Lydia said. “It is not a matter of two young people declaring themselves as usual and courting. Why in the next state, such a marriage is illegal.” The words sucked Sarah towards a dark place. Tears began to flow.
“But mother,” she pleaded, “is this not part of our purpose here, to change perceptions of our differences, to abolish prejudice by living righteously?”
“That is the least of my concerns right now.” Her mother grabbed her hand. “Sarah, dearest, I know what you both ask is to love who you wish, but it would be so much more than that.”
Lydia began patting Sarah’s clasped hands. “You have been closed off from society in this town of little but religion. Both of you are so young, he but nineteen, ill and away from home. His affections towards you may be nothing more than that. Is it any wonder with all your reading that your fancy has become fixed on a romantic infatuation?”
“No! You know me better than that.”
“It is decided,” Lydia said. “I will write your grandmother you will be coming for an extended stay.”
“No!” Sarah cried. “Do not separate us now! It was you who heard his admission of love, not I. Would you deny us the chance to open our hearts to each other? No one will suspect, I promise.”
“Do you know what you ask? Truly, Sarah, do you know?” Her mother placed her hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “What can you possibly understand of the world, my darling? If this affinity were to become known, we would see how much advancement is truly wished for the Indians.” She curled her lips upon themselves. “If nothing else, a stay at your grandmother’s will give you both time to reflect on the consequences.” Lydia’s gaze fixed on the distance. “Such a union would force everyone to show before God what morals and principles they live by,” she said, “and whether they live by His Word, or will turn hypocrite.”
1822-Commencement
CHAPTER 17
What torture his body inflicted was nothing compared to what John suffered each day, living between elation and the pain of profound regrets since his confession.
He would not dishonor Mrs. Northrop by lying to her, nor Sarah by not declaring himself, and no opportunity presented itself to make further declarations before she was sent away. Their declaration forced things into perspective. For everyone. Hence, his torture.
After Sarah left, the daily demands of the students meant conversations with Sarah’s parents would be avoided. Life in the house took on an aura of uncertainty. Was he still an accepted member of the family or an intruder in this family’s peace? It was clear they were torn, especially William who knew more than he confessed. The Northrops tried their best to act normally, but for harmony’s sake, discussion was postponed.
None of them truly wished for strained relations. The younger ones behaved as usual, but Mr. Northrop had become more reserved. John trusted Sarah’s parents as much as his own, but now wondered if a lie perhaps would have been preferable. To add to his misery, he was angry that he had lulled himself into feeling free of his Indian status.
Late one night, alone in his room, the snake of righteous indignation uncoiled in John’s belly. Was it not victory enough he embraced their ways? The enormity of the bias against his race suffocated him, casting his dreams into darkness.
Throwing back his covers he struck flint, lighting a few tapers in his room. The moon was high, fullness casting its silver beams on the floor, beckoning.
Rising from his bed, he turned his back on his crutches and gripped the frame for support. Hand-over-hand, he made his way forward till he finally stood, one hand on his bedpost.
Cool light from the moon lay two footsteps away, casting pure white on the floor. Muscle’s tensed, one step, the second, he made a dizzying lurch to stand in the rays. The moon’s face looked at him expressionless, a neutral judge. His father would see the same moon, as would Sarah.
Standing free he pulled off his nightshirt. His body, cast pallid by the moonlight, was strong, save for the withered tissue on his side and his too thin, smooth chest. He possessed an otherwise perfectly formed body of a man. Was he different from them? What kind of man was he now? How would the life he had fought to hold on to be lived? Whatever awaited him, he must make himself worthy of being called equal. In all his fragile humanity, the equilibrium of self-regard he would never forfeit.
Making his way to his writing desk, his eyes falling upon the letter laying honey-colored in candlelight. It required a response.
In his most eloquent manner, he had graciously thanked Reverend Truitt for seeing to his father’s safe passage to Savannah. He was in the gentleman’s debt. He most sincerely thanked the religious man for the pains taken concerning the fate of his immortal soul. But fueled by residual fires smoldering from his experience to Dudleytown and Sarah’s exile, his hand had hesitated. How it choked him to dampen his rage, to not say things out loud. He could not hate Whites, as some people did Red or Black, for in doing so, would he not be guilty of their crime? But if unjust treatment would shackle him, he refused to let it cripple him. He put the quill to the paper.
Prejudice is the ruling passion of the age, and an Indian is almost considered accursed. He is frowned upon by the meanest peasant, and the scum of the earth are considered sacred in comparison to the son of nature. If an Indian is educated, has a good knowledge of the classics, moral and natural philosophy, and his conduct is equally modest and polite, he is yet an Indian, and the most stupid and illiterate White man will disdain and triumph over this worthy individual. Let a received opinion be counteracted by solid fact, the ignorant will still hold to it, and carry it with him to his grave.
He returned to his bed when he finished, sleep evading.
Two days later, the tap, drag and shuffle of his progress toward the barn marked another confrontation. If he were to call himself a man, he must be man enough to ask for Sarah’s hand, the first step in claiming her for his wife. He had waited till classes finished, the scholars and teachers away for the summer, to speak to John Northrop.
Silenced by seeing John standing in the downstairs hall, Lydia pointed him to where he could find her husband. John felt great tenderness towards her when, informed of his mission, she gently touched his arm and smiled. It gave him faith the Northrops were truly different from others.
Crossing the dim threshold of the barn, the tang of wood shavings and moldering hay replaced the smell of spring air. Mr. Northrop was plaining a piece of chestnut, the white whorls bouncing softly on the littered floor below.
After John pleaded his case to wed Sarah, Northrop replied, “We have never walked away from our convictions, or from the ones we love,” he said, “but this must be handled with the utmost delicacy, or much will be lost.”
John forced down the lump from his throat. “Who I am will be no secret to anyone in this family,” he said. “I will do anything you ask of me to make Sarah my wife.”
They sat side-by-side on a bench outside, their backs against the barn wall. The brittle behavior was gone, her father’s hand lay on John’s knee.
“Here are my conditions,” Northrop said at last. “You must first receive your family’s permission. I cannot but think they may expect you to marry one of your own people. Until you have permission, we will say nothing more of it and act as such.”
John had expected as much.
“Second, the strength of your commitment must endure time and distance. You will return home at the end of your studies.”
This he had not expected. Time together was already slipping away with her lingering at her grandmother’s in New Haven.
“We know you both are serious beyond your years,” her father continued, “but marriage under these circumstances requires many sacrifices.”
The wisdom of the words was true enough, but was Sarah’s father hoping their feelings would fade, sparing the trouble of his daughter marrying an Indian?
“And lastly, you must be able to walk without crutches if you wish to claim my daughter as your bride.”
This last objective was nothing in the face of the future he saw, not with his will and the patience he possessed to have his heart’s desire.
Proving his case to Mr. Northrop lifted a weight from John’s soul. That night he picked up his quill and wrote to his mother.
The familiar aromas of violets and beeswax and her carpeted foot-treads rattling the china did nothing to soothe Sarah.
Grandmother’s New Haven house was a familiar landscape for her to seek solace in, a place remembered for comfort that had now become Sarah’s cage.
For a week her grandmother let her mope about, tracing distracted patterns on paper or reading. But pining was a waste of time in Mable Bird Northrop’s estimation. Since then, her grandmother had dedicated herself to finding compelling replacements for Sarah’s Indian infatuation in a frenzy of lectures, plays, concerts, and women’s charity meetings.
Mabel’s white side-curls bobbed against her alabaster skin. “No one could possibly accuse me of not providing enough entertainment to distract any young lady,” she said, “yet you persist. Three months should be long enough for any sensible girl like you to see reason. You risk too much. It is an impossible situation . . . an ill-conceived future.”
“There are just as many reasons why many of the objections should not matter, Nana,” Sarah said.
“Humph. Is there indeed, young lady?” Mabel drew back from her, though her hands remained on Sarah’s. “Heaven knows, he is a most exceptional young man, not lacking in admirable qualities. You know we grew quite fond of each other when he was here. Why, by the time he left, I was half in love with him myself!”
Sarah burst out laughing, her tension easing.
The tug of debate had gone out of Mabel’s voice. “My child.” her withered hands stroked Sarah’s cheek. “You are serious?”
“I have never been more in earnest,” she replied. “You know I am not one of those tittering girls, fans aflutter at any potential beau. Would any contribution I make to the world’s betterment as a spinster teacher be greater than what I might give in a life with John and his people?”
Mabel dismissed this with a tsk.
“Nana, our love has grown from our friendship. Granted it may have started with my curiosity and sympathy, but it progressed beyond mutual admiration. His mind draws me, his aspirations excite me. I do not see his frailness, only the force of his determination. If this world is to ever improve, should it not be through people like us who are willing to commit and forge the way, in spite of the costs? Would you not encourage such a thing?”
