Watchfires (11 page)

"You don't show much confidence in Annie."

"How can I have confidence in a young woman who is bored with her home life and has nothing else to distract her? I'd be a fool, Rosalie!"

But she was determined not to let him escape her, as he so often had, with emotional formulas. "What I think I mean is this," she said firmly. "I have a theory that men, like women, have been basically the same through history. The majority, that is. The average Roman, the average Greek, wasn't he pretty much like the average American today? What makes one era different from another is its dogma, not its people. And isn't its dogma always made up by the small, busy group we call priests?"

He stared. "And I'm a priest? Is that what you're getting at?"

It occurred to her that he did not altogether object to the idea. "Yes. A priest doesn't have to be a clergyman. He's simply a person in charge of the mysteries. Whether they're religious or political or what have you. His job is to keep the others in line. He has to use prayers and miracles and magic." She paused now, watching him carefully. "He may even have to fake them. He may even have to use..." Again she stopped. She had never gone so far with Dexter. Could one go too far with Dexter? What would happen?

"May have to use what?" he demanded. "Force? Torture? Autos-da-fe? Go ahead, Rosalie. Say it. You think I'm treating Bleeker the way the Inquisition treated heretics!"

"Yes, I do! That's just it. That's just exactly it."

He laughed. So that was what happened. "Well, you'll be relieved to learn I'm not planning to burn him. Though I'm not at all sure I wouldn't if I could!"

Rosalie picked up her newspaper to hide what was almost embarrassment. She remembered with a faint shudder her image of the Mayan on the pyramid with the obsidian knife.

R
OSALIE AND
D
EXTER
were lunching at her father's, as they did every Sunday after church. As they came in, she watched her husband's eyes scan the little group assembled in the front parlor, all standing, as if to avoid the uninviting, tall-backed Italianate chairs of black walnut. She knew he was looking to see if Annie was there. Joanna had told her at church that Annie was professing a cold, but she had not told Dexter. He made no effort to conceal his disappointment, because he did not know that she was watching him.

"I suppose Annie's cold is diplomatic," she said to Joanna. "Too much family here today."

"She's had rather a nasty row with Father. About Jules coming here while I was in Boston."

"I thought Dexter had that all under control."

"But you know Annie. Just because a matter seems to be settled is no reason not to make a scene. I wish she wouldn't, because Father takes it out on me." Joanna burst into one of her high nervous giggles. "He practically accused me of running a disorderly house!"

Rosalie regarded her sister with faint surprise. It was not like Joanna to use such a term. She seemed to be trying to demonstrate a sudden, rather febrile independence.

"Well, Mr. Bleeker has certainly given us all something to talk about."

"Father treats me like a child," Joanna continued petulantly. "One of these days he may find out that I'm older than he reckons."

"Who is that minister he's talking to?"

Dexter, coming up to them, heard the question. "Don't you know him? That's Francis Halsted. The author of
American Slavery Justified by Natural Law.
"

"That horrible man!" Rosalie exclaimed in disgust. "How
can
Father! Is there no limit to his cosmopolitanism?"

"It's an interesting book, darling. You should read it before you condemn it. Halsted maintains that slavery is a natural step in the evolution of a race. He puts it in historical perspective with Rome and Greece, and he has a fascinating chapter on the Justinian Code..."

"Oh, Dexter, you're hopeless the moment anyone mentions anything about law!" Rosalie interrupted him sharply. "You think any statute, passed by no matter what barbarians, is a justification for damming up the smallest trickle of Christian charity!"

Both Joanna and Dexter looked shocked at this unwonted acerbity. There was a moment of silence.

"Well, you'll have a chance to convert Mr. Halsted from his views," Joanna informed her. "I've seated you next to him."

"Jo, how could you? I thought you were a good abolitionist!"

"Don't mention that word before Father!" Joanna exclaimed with mock terror. "Anyway, I want you to listen to Mr. Halsted."

"Whatever for?"

"It helps to know how the enemy thinks."

Joanna seemed to be trying to look mysterious. She crossed the room to speak to the minister. Rosalie could see by their glances that they were talking about her.

The dining room doors were now opened, and the guests went in to lunch. Rosalie observed that her clerical neighbor closed his eyes devoutly while her father said grace. But with the "amen" he came awake with a spring, and delivered an elegant little speech about his admiration of Mr. Handy. It was impossible for her not to respond to this politely, and she found herself engaged in a benign discussion of the blessings of the relationship between fathers and daughters.

He was certainly amiable to look at. He had gentle eyes, sky blue; they peered at her with diffidence, almost with timidity, as if they hoped, or even suspected, that she might be amused, sympathetic, or even downright funny, but as if, too, they were ready to take flight and bound away like a bunny should she prove in the least bit unfriendly. His skin was light and his hair blond; it was only in the two long concentric lines on either side of his very red lips and in the darkness under his eyes that she could tell that he was in his middle, perhaps even late thirties. It was extraordinary that a doctrine so repellent should be lodged in so fair a form.

Suddenly he changed the subject and looked at her with an anxious expectancy that she was at a loss to interpret.

"Your sister tells me that you disapprove of me."

"Oh, we'll never get on if we discuss your book, Mr. Halsted," she assured him hastily. "I suggest we talk about the aims of the French emperor in Italy."

"But I don't mind people disagreeing with me. I don't mind at all."

"It would be more than disagreement, I'm afraid. I might even forget I'm a lady. So please. Do you think we can trust the Emperor Napoleon?"

"You mean you might become abusive?"

She had certainly not anticipated such insistency. "Feelings run high about slavery. As you, of all people, should have discovered, Mr. Halsted."

"But can't we still love each other?"

"Love each other?" She allowed her tone to be startled. There was something in the softness of his voice that seemed to suggest a more than Christian warmth.

"Doesn't Christ tell us to love each other?" he asked.

"I might find it difficult to love a priest who preaches that Christ preaches slavery."

"Preaches it? I never suggested that. I said that slavery was not abhorrent to nature. That it is the way in which a weak and undeveloped race may be usefully employed by a stronger one. In an ideal society slavery would disappear. And it
will
disappear, dear Mrs. Fairchild, believe me. It
will.
" As she stared at him, half-hypnotized by his gentle, persevering tone, she made out two yellow gleams in the center of his eyes. "In the meanwhile, so long as the slave is loved by his master, I believe that Christ condones his condition."

"And how many slaves are loved by their masters?"

"More than we know of, I hope. More than we know of, I pray."

"Well, you had better pray long and hard, Mr. Halsted!" Rosalie exclaimed, giving vent at last to her swelling anger. "And may I remind you that I am doing my best to behave like a lady in my father's house? Don't try me too hard!"

"I have no wish to try you. I feel as strongly as you about the humane aspects of the question. I deem it a mortal sin to beat slaves or to break up their families. I believe that a slave-owner has a duty to treat his slaves exactly as he would his paid employees."

Rosalie turned now in her chair so that they regarded each other face to face.

"That's all very well, sir, but it misses the point altogether. Let me put it this way. If
all
the slaves in the South were totally content with their lot; if they all had the mild and loving masters that you so fantastically suppose, and if all the laborers and mechanics in the North were as downtrodden and wretched as I happen to believe the slaves now are, I should still be dedicated with all my heart and soul to the abolition of your peculiar institution!"

Once again she thought she could make out the yellow gleam in his eyes.

"I like the way you talk, Mrs. Fairchild. Do you think you could convert me?"

"I am afraid you're not convertible. Anyone who has written a book!"

"Ah, you give me up!" he exclaimed, with a little wail and a smile, as she turned abruptly to her other neighbor.

***

That afternoon Joanna called for her in their father's carriage to drive her to the new park at Fifty-ninth Street. Dexter and the boys had gone for a hike along the East River. But Rosalie was surprised when the carriage pulled up before the parish house of the marble Gothic church of Saint Jude's on Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street.

"You didn't know we were going to call on the Reverend Francis Halsted, did you?" Joanna asked, with an arch smile.

"Joanna Handy, will you please tell Tom to drive on! Do you think I'd set foot in that man's house?"

"It's not his house. It's God's house."

"Then there must be two gods. Mine doesn't believe in slavery."

"Rosey, you made a great impression on that man. He wants to go on with your lunchtime discussion. I think you've converted him."

"You can't be serious!"

"I swear!" And Joanna at this piously crossed her heart. "Come in for a minute. As a favor to me. Please!"

Rosalie, utterly bewildered, at last shrugged her shoulders and descended from the carriage. They were ushered into a high-ceilinged office on the ground floor with tall Gothic windows that looked out on a green yard. Halsted was standing behind his desk wearing a beaming smile as they entered.

"Welcome, Rosalie Fairchild!" he exclaimed. "Welcome to the Trinity Station of the Underground Railway!"

Rosalie sat down suddenly on a chair by the desk. She was conscious only of Joanna's vivid pleasure at her shock.

"So it was all a front?" she gasped. "Even the book? You wrote it as a cover?"

"No! It was genuine enough when I wrote it. I was very deep in error. I cannot describe to you adequately what it is like to be so deeply in the clutches of the devil. For I have no doubt now that such was my unhappy state. I was possessed. It was like a dream, not a dream of frustration where everything is constantly escaping or eluding you, but a dream where everything seems to fit exactly into place, like magic. And magic it was. Black magic.

"My experience in writing the book was the strangest part of it. Always before, writing had come to me with difficulty, even with agony. But then the pen seemed to race over the paper as if guided by another hand. Even my style seemed more formed and mellifluous. One of my reviewers who had read an earlier work of mine about the desert fathers remarked that I seemed to have developed a totally different style, and a better one at that. I greeted my new fame humbly, reminding myself that I was simply the instrument of a greater force, that I might be enjoying the blessing of having been chosen as the tool needed by the almighty to prevent a terrible war, just as Mrs. Stowe had been chosen by Satan as the tool to bring that war on.

"And then came the experience which I no longer think it is irreligious to compare to Saint Paul's on the road to Damascus. I was preaching one Sunday morning, right here in Saint Jude's, and I saw our great west window suddenly irradiated by sunlight through a break in the clouds, and I heard a voice crying out the same question: why was I persecuting him? That very night I went to a friend, a holy man, and he told me how to become a member of this great movement."

"And he advised you not to publish your change of view?" Rosalie asked.

"Yes, that, after a fashion, was to be my penance. To give up the balm of recantation. To provide a station in the Underground that no Federal or Southern agent would ever suspect. The top floor of this parish house has been used for more than a year now as a place where escaped slaves can rest and recuperate and receive medical attention. Joanna has been with us for three months. She tells me that you can nurse and cook and give us money. She assures me that you are totally discreet. As to your views on slavery, I can testify myself as to their soundness! Will you join us?"

"But my coming here to work—which is what I take it you want—won't it give you away?"

"Because of the supposed divergence of our philosophies? I think not. You are identified with your husband's political conservatism, as Joanna is identified with your father's dislike of abolition. Neither of you has made any public denunciation of me. It would not seem strange for a lady of your station to come to a parish house for volunteer work."

Rosalie felt an odd tingling that seemed to emanate from deep within her. She did not know if it were thrill at the honor of being called to such a task, or simply relief that she should have so unexpectedly found a seeming answer to her inner problems.

"Of course, I'll do it!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "I'll do anything you need!"

Joanna got up, too, and kissed her, and Halsted, smiling benignly, led them off to a tour of the house.

At the top of the second stairway he opened a door to a long attic room, dimly lit by low dormer windows and two large candelabra set on what appeared to be trunks. Rosalie first thought that the chamber was empty, until, following her sister in, she saw five negroes, two men and three women, seated on a rug, in a circle, with cards in their hands. They looked up silently at their visitors, without surprise and without greeting.

"Please go on with your game, my friends," Halsted enjoined them, which they thereupon did. "Harris here and his wife will leave for Portland tonight on the S.S.
Atalanta,
" he told Rosalie. "With a cargo of textiles. They should be safe in Canada in three days' time. The others are going via Buffalo and Lake Erie. We can only be sure of absolute security for two on the
Atalanta.
"