Chapter 13
“Tell me the name of the best doctor,” Anne said the second they were alone in the Fulworths’ manor the next morning.
The corners of Ellen’s lips turned up as she did her needlework in the parlor. “I knew you’d come.” Ellen’s voice had a demure lull that made Anne want to throw her cup of tea at her.
“It’s urgent,” Anne said, heart hammering as she sat primly on the sofa.
Light filtered through the lace curtains and over the cherrywood furnishings and spotless room, which embodied the opposite tone as the previous night: Anne had awoken to the sound of Mam’s violent coughs, followed by cries of frustration.
When Anne had flung open her parents’ door, she had seen Mam shove Da away when he tried to stroke her cheek.
Her mother continued to scream—which only worsened the cough.
Then Mam had fallen with convulsive sobs into Da’s chest.
In that moment, Anne’s eyes landed on the bloodied kerchief beside the bed.
Anne tapped her fingernails against the porcelain cup.
“I propose we call on Dr. Ashby,” Ellen said, pulling at a pink thread. “We can stop there before our tour.”
Anne’s tea sat untouched. She hadn’t slept a wink.
“You look pale. Are you feeling well enough to go?”
Anne rose by way of an answer.
Arms linked, Anne and Ellen strode through Charles Town.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Ellen said as she pointed to a green door. “This is where Dr. Ashby lives.”
Anne bit her lip. Da was protective. Fiercely so. “My father will want to make the request.”
Ellen tilted her head, scrutinizing Anne’s face before yanking her up the stairs. “Then we’ll say I sent him.” Anne did not object.
When the butler answered, he reported that Dr. Ashby was on a visit. “But I’ll urge him to see Mrs. Cormac at the soonest opportunity.”
Anne, unable to speak her gratitude, merely curtseyed as they left.
“My family will see no one else,” Ellen said as they took to the streets again. “Dr. Ashby once pulled my brother Peter back from the cliff of death.”
“Your brute of a brother?” Anne asked with caution, recalling yesterday’s mention.
“Not that one,” Ellen said, her grip tightening. She paused, looked in both directions, then rolled up her sleeve. The skin on her wrist had purpled, with yellow and green patches.
Anne’s eyes widened with horror. “He … did this to you?”
Ellen stiffened and yanked down her sleeve. “That and far worse. Nathaniel is a monster.” Ellen shuddered. “I know secrets about your family. It’s only fair you know some about mine.”
Anne reached for Ellen’s wrist with tenderness, but Ellen brushed her away and linked arms again. The resumed poise in her step seemed to say the conversation was over.
“You can trust me,” Anne said, her mind unable to move on from the bruise. Was Ellen safe? Were her parents aware? What else did this older brother do to Ellen?
“I know I can,” Ellen sang. She spun around, her rosy cheeks and pinned black hair a portrait of happiness. “I don’t know how I know it; I just do.”
Anne blinked. She didn’t understand how Ellen could speak of such things and maintain proper appearances.
“Wipe away your scowl. I promised you a tour, and a proper tour you shall have. The butcher’s wife is watching. She’s a terrible gossip. My pa’s reputation protects me for the most part, but few are immune to her verbal lashings.”
Anne plastered on a tight smile. “For someone who hates pretenders, you seem to have perfected the art.”
“To spot the fakes, you have to master being one.” Ellen batted her eyelashes.
“I learned from the best.” She gave a slight nod to a two-story brick building.
“See that place there? It’s a black-market warehouse for smuggled goods.
Almost everyone is in on the enterprise, brushing shoulders with pirates.
My pa, from what I’ve gathered, leads it all. ”
“Pirates?” Anne swallowed. Men who rampaged and ravaged and murdered and stole to their heart’s content? “In Charles Town?”
“Oh, yes. And that house on the corner just there? Mr. Bull runs a gambling ring. He entertains a dozen mistresses there. But Mrs. Bull in turn keeps herself occupied with the captain of a fishing vessel,” Ellen tsked. “I saw the two enjoying a naughty little tryst a few months back.”
Anne raised a brow. Mam had told her candidly how it was between men and women. But she’d never heard it spoken about like this.
Gulls scattered as they neared the edge of town, their wings disappearing over the Ashley River.
“That’s not the half of it,” Ellen said, stepping in front of Anne and blocking her view.
Anne folded her arms.
“We can’t appear like we’re quarreling. If we are to be friends and help each other, at least look like you are pretending.”
“Sweet Jesus, I’m trying!” But Anne uncrossed her arms and resumed her smile. This was a lot of work, being Ellen’s friend.
Ellen pointed east. “That dock brings in human beings to sell.”
Anne’s mouth dried. In London, she’d heard of such things happening in the Caribbean and on plantations throughout the colonies. But here in town? “I don’t understand.”
Ellen stared at Anne with flinty hardness. “My Lord, you really don’t know a thing.”
Anne felt heat rise in her throat. But this time, she held her tongue.
“Come. There’s something I have to show you.”
In silence, Ellen and Anne walked to the far end of Tradd Street, which was flanked by the river. When they reached a bridge in front of a brick redan, Ellen stopped.
The square was empty. But only recently so. A pungent, unidentifiable smell seared Anne’s nostrils. Two gentlemen exchanged ledgers across the way.
Bare footprints covered the ground. One set was the size of a child barely old enough to walk.
“Our wholesome town calls this ‘the usual spot,’” Ellen said.
She strode forward, surveying the sails of small sloops and fishing boats that moved up and down the river.
“It’s as if they can’t bear to give it a name, an unspoken acknowledgment of their shame.
You recall the one governess I liked? The one my pa dismissed? ”
Anne nodded. Her throat tightened.
“She was a Quaker. She and another Quaker fellow—a good man she later married—sneaked me here on a number of occasions. They taught me the truth—that the rich thrive because of the free labor of the enslaved.”
Anne’s veins iced over. She could not take her eyes away from the child’s prints in the dirt. Then she spotted something gray in the dust. She stooped, picking up a coin-sized circle that read “Lot 4.”
A number instead of a name. A metal merchant tag.
On a human being.
“Most sales take place on the decks of the galleys, death ships that transport kidnapped Africans and treat them worse than cargo. Cruel cannot begin to describe what these people endure. Some sales happen on plantations or through private contracts. But the most successful method? Bring them to Charles Town before the hordes of wealthy white planters. The crime happens right here—by way of a vendue, a public auction. The French makes it oh-so refined.” She scoffed.
“A seller sets a minimum price.” Ellen motioned her head in the direction of the men across the road.
“That shorter brute is the vendue master. He facilitates each sale and takes a significant commission from each life sold. Watch him count his profits.”
Anne dragged her gaze to the men. Their smiles and congratulations as they shook hands.
Ellen’s glare shot daggers. “I’ve seen infants torn from mothers.
Husbands from wives. Neck shackles. People so ill they couldn’t stand while the masses shouted bids.
Lash wounds that would make even Satan faint.
They snatch Natives too—the people of this very land—then trade them like gambling chips. ”
Anne dropped the metal tag as if it scalded her. Her eyes burned and overflowed. The exhaustion of a sleepless night, the severity of Mam’s condition—the condition Anne had caused—and now this.
Her new home. The supposed safe place she and her family had believed in. Needed to believe in.
“I’ve cried my share of tears, too,” Ellen said, pacing.
“But tears don’t help. They don’t change minds.
My tears and yours are wasted on people like my pa and these so-called Christians who enslave people to run their households and plantations.
The townsfolk wash their hands of guilt like Pontius Pilate and declare it God’s natural order. ”
Bile coated Anne’s throat. The faces from town, their various shades flashed before her. The two weavers. Their unease at Anne’s approach. The flashing eyes of the young woman who’d crafted Anne’s sweetgrass basket.
In some small way—as a bastard Irish Catholic—she’d known what it meant to be different. To be despised and treated worse for it. But this?
The reason families like hers could talk of freedom? Could start fresh in hopes of eventually prospering? Anne understood, all at once, how na?ve she’d been.
A team of horses forced Ellen and Anne to leap out of the road.
“I’m not afraid of being damned,” Ellen said as dust rose in their faces and stuck to Anne’s cheeks. “As far as I can tell, everyone here already is.”