The Triumph of Grace (2 page)

T
he charge?" asked Magistrate Francis Warren.

Attired in a long black robe and with a white powdered wig on his head, the magistrate looked frightfully official even though he sat at his own desk in the parlor of his own home and rubbed his hands warm before the fire in his own hearth.

"What charge do you bring against this woman, Lord Reginald?"

Magistrate Warren peered over the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose and squinted with filmy eyes at Lord Reginald Witherham, who sat stiffly on the opposite side of the fireplace. With great show, Lord Reginald set aside the teacup he so expertly balanced on his knee. He rose to his full unimposing height and bowed low to the magistrate. Lord Reginald artfully posed himself to one side of the opulent marble mantel—head high, left hand behind his back for a touch of elegance, right hand free for gesturing. For an entire year, he had bidden his time. After so great a display of discipline, this moment was far too sweet to pass by without indulgence.

Slowly, deliberately, Lord Reginald turned his attention to Grace Winslow. Miserable and shivering in her wet dress, she stood some distance from the fire, flanked by the same two men who had brought her from the Foundling Hospital.

"Your Lordship," Lord Reginald began with a most dramatic flair, "this African woman who stands before you—" here he paused to look at her with disgusted pity "—is naught but a wanton thief!"

"I see."

The magistrate heaved a wearied sigh.

Grace caught her breath.

An air of victory settled over Lord Reginald's pale face. He lifted his narrow jaw and fixed Grace with as searing a glare as his weak features could manage.

"Sir," Grace said, but not to Lord Reginald. She searched the magistrate's craggy face for understanding. "Are you the wisest man of this town? Are you the one who hears disagreements and leads your people to a way of healing?"

"Your Lordship!" Lord Reginald interrupted with a great show of indignation. "I really must protest this display of insolence!"

Ignoring Lord Reginald's incensed huffs and allowing the trace of a smile to push at the corners of his mouth, Magistrate Warren answered Grace.

"I should be most pleased to think of myself in such lofty terms," he said. "But, to my great misfortune, I fear that such a calling is not mine. You stand before me today for one purpose alone: to make it possible for me to determine the quality of the case brought against you. With that single intention in mind, I am required by my office to insist that you remain silent as I hear Lord Reginald Witherham state his charges against you. Afterwards, I shall determine whether you shall be bound over for trial."

With a sigh of impatience, Lord Reginald abandoned his carefully orchestrated pose and strode to the magistrate.

"I took pity on the wretch," he informed Magistrate Warren."That was my downfall, Your Lordship. Out of naught but kindness, I allowed her to enter my house, and she repaid my benevolence with blatant thievery. She took my goodwill as an opportunity to remove from my estate as many items as she could secret under her skirts. Of that I have not the least doubt."

Grace gasped in disbelief. She had been inside Lord Reginald's estate house, that much was true. But only one time, and she was never left alone. No, not for one minute.

"Sir, that is not true!" Grace protested. "I never—"

"Madam, you have no right to speak," the magistrate cautioned. His voice was kind, yet firm. "This is an official hearing."

"If you just ask Lady Charlotte, she could tell you—"

"Hold your peace, madam! If you do not, I shall have no choice but to have you removed forthwith straight to Newgate Prison!"

Lord Reginald allowed himself the indulgence of a satis- fied smile. All was proceeding precisely as he had meticulously planned. Justice wrought would surely be worth the year's wait.

"Your Lordship," Lord Reginald continued. "I ask permission to submit for your excellent consideration one particular piece of evidence."

Here Lord Reginald reached into his pocket and pulled out a fine linen handkerchief, sewn with the daintiest of hands and most delicately trimmed in an elegant lace border.

Grace cried out in spite of herself.

"Please note the quality of this piece of finery," Lord Reginald continued unabated. "Embroidered flowers throughout, all done in the most perfect of stitches. This piece is easily worth six shillings. Perhaps as much as eight."

"Missus Peete gave me that handkerchief when I left her employ!" Grace cried. "Where did you get it?"

"Silence!" Magistrate Warren ordered.

"It was in my room, sir! I kept it under the pillow on my cot!"

"I shall not repeat my injunction," insisted Magistrate Warren. The kindly creases in his face hardened into angry resolve.

"The handkerchief was indeed retrieved from the cell where the accused has lived for the past year," said Lord Reginald, "but not from under the cot pillow where she lays her head at night. No, no. Some days past an associate of mine found it hidden away behind a loose stone in the wall." Lord Reginald paused dramatically. "I ask Your Lordship, does that not provide ample proof that Grace Winslow is nothing but a common thief? That she is only using the Foundling Hospital as a convenient place to hide herself, cloaked in the guise of a nurse caring for homeless children?"

Magistrate Warren ran his hand over his face and heaved a weary sigh. "A six-shilling handkerchief, then. Have you evidence of further thievery, Lord Reginald?"

"Even such a one as she is not fool enough to keep stolen goods lying about," Lord Reginald answered. "Undoubtedly she visits the rag fair regularly and offers for sale whatever she has pilfered. This particular piece, however, she evidently determined to keep for herself." Here he held the handkerchief high, as though it were a great trophy. "Perhaps such a dainty allows her to believe that she truly is a lady . . . and not merely an escaped slave from Africa."

"None of that is true!" Grace cried in exasperation.

"Silence!" ordered the magistrate.

"And I am not a slave!"

"Have you any witnesses to call, Lord Reginald?"

"No, Your Lordship," replied Lord Reginald with a deep bow. "Taking into consideration the obvious circumstances of this case, I did not deem it necessary to inconvenience such witnesses."

Since Magistrate Warren would not permit Grace to speak in her defense, he most certainly did not extend her an invitation to call witnesses.

"I am certain you will find that I have set before you a case most worthy of trial," Lord Reginald continued.

Magistrate Warren knew perfectly well what he had before him: an African woman—a mere cleaning maid—one of a multitude of her kind to be found in London. She faced a charge brought by an exceedingly wealthy lord, an aristocratic gentleman of great power and influence. A servant of foreign extraction could disappear into the depths of Newgate Prison—or worse—and never be missed. On the other hand, Lord Reginald Witherham had it in his power to do much to propel a cooperative magistrate forward politically, or he could wield equal influence to destroy an uncooperative one.Magistrate Francis Warren could ill afford to subject himself to such a risk. And, really, why should he? There was, after all, that expensive handkerchief to consider. What further evidence did he require?

"Grace Winslow," Magistrate Warren pronounced, "I commit you to Newgate Prison to await trial on the charge of thievery."

Forgetting himself, Lord Reginald Witherham allowed a whoop to escape his thin lips. He looked triumphantly at Grace, who had dared bring such ridicule and humiliation down on him, and crowed, "If you thought you could hide from me, you were indeed the greatest of fools!"

Magistrate Warren's shoulders slumped. He swiped at the sweat that glistened in the crevices of his tired face.

Grace looked neither at the uneasy magistrate nor at the gloating Lord Reginald. She shut her eyes tight and desperately tried to trace Cabeto's face in her mind. His mouth . . .his eyes . . . his brow. . . . But this time, she could not.

After all Grace had endured, after all she had survived, it had finally happened—Cabeto had slipped away from her.

Y
ou don't thinks you can keep on livin', but somehow you do," said Kit as he attacked the endless expanse of weeds with his hoe. "My woman, she be gone. My children, dey be gone, too. Everyone already be ripped away from me. You don't thinks you can keep on, but here we be sloggin' in de swamp."

"Here we be," said Caleb. "Together . . . all alone."

Caleb.

Yes.

In another life he was Cabeto, but now he was Caleb. Caleb, who wore a mud-splattered white man's shirt and breeches soaked to the knees. Caleb the slave, that's who he was now.

"Do you remember Africa?" Caleb asked Kit.

"No, and if'n you knows what's good for you, you won't, neither."

No African names were allowed on the plantation. No words in any of the tongues of Africa. No drums, no dances, no talk of the ancestors. And no Grace. No Grace. Aching homesickness tore into Caleb's heart, which was precisely why he did his best to block Grace from his mind. He could not endure the memories.

"Dis here be like de islands of home," said Kit.

Caleb never knew the rice fields in the coastal swamps of Kit's Africa. Caleb hailed from the parched savanna, the flat grasslands. The rich bottomland marsh at White Jasmine Plantation, which lay just up the Ashley River from Charleston, South Carolina, brought no recollections of home to him. Certainly the dank swamp, overgrown with cypress trees and sweetgrass, didn't, either. To Caleb, it was nothing but the land of masters and slaves.

"Folks like me, we's de ones what knows when to plant de rice seeds," Kit said. "We knows how to strap up de water so's it drowns de land with de tide. After de harvest, it be our womenfolks what know to use fanna baskets to throw de chaff to de winds. And dey's de ones what knows how to pound de last bit of hull off de rice grain, too."

Africans using African ways to grow African rice to make the white master richer still. Caleb plunged his hoe into the thick mud with such vengeance that the head flew off.Growling with frustration, he dropped to his knees and groped in the weed-strewn mud. When he located the metal head, he laid it aside, then thrust his hands back down into the muck to feel around for the piece of stone he had carefully chiseled to fit under the cracked head and make the broken tool usable again.

Be a good slave. Fix de massa's useless tools. Den take dem to de field and work, work, work. Work hard like a good slave.

Caleb's first master, Silas Leland, had bought both Caleb and his brother, Samson, from the auction block, fresh off the ship from Africa. Silas Leland's only thought was to get a couple months' hard, unending labor from the two maimed Africans before they sank to their deaths in the snake-infested swampland. But then Macon Waymon came around, his head full of big ideas for his own rice plantation. When he saw the strapping Caleb knee-deep in the soggy swamp doing the work of two men, it caught his attention.

"Silas," Macon said as he lounged with his host in the gathering twilight and sipped apple cider. "What did you pay for that slave with the lame leg?"

"Ha!" Silas laughed. "Him and his brother cost me 300 shillings and 20 gallons of rum for the both of them. His brother already lies dead in the field."

"I'll give you five gold eagle coins for that lame one," Macon said. "Take it or leave it."

Silas took it. When Macon Waymon set out for home, Caleb limped along behind his new master's horse.

Fool!
Silas Leland laughed to himself.
That man just bought himself a cripple!

Fool!
Macon Waymon smiled.
That man doesn't know a prize worker when he sees one!

"Over yonder!" Kit called out to Caleb. "It be Juba, and he be comin' our way. Best look busy."

Because he already was busy, Caleb paid Kit no mind.

"You almost be done with your section, Caleb!" Juba shouted over. "You plannin' to quit early so's you can work dat garden of your'n?"

Caleb nodded.

Juba strode across Caleb's field and on to Kit's field. He looked at Kit, but he kept right on going to the field on the other side.

"Him bein' boss over us! It ain't right!" Kit scowled. "He gets a cabin all to hisself and shoes to wear on dem big black feet of his. We gets boiled pig's feet to eat and he gets smoked bacon."

"And he ain't welcome among his own people, neither," Caleb said.

"Amongst folks he done whupped? Whose ears he's sliced off? No, he shore enough ain't welcome amongst dem!"

"Juba ain't sliced off no ears, and you knows it," Caleb said."Bein' driver of us does keep his wife comfortable in de cabin and de whip off her back, though. And his children—dey still be alive. Massa ain't sold dem away, neither."

Caleb thrust his hoe into the ground. Sweet Grace, grabbed up by the slavers, and him bound in chains and helpless to fight back. Then little Kwate pulled out of her arms and dashed against the rocks. Caleb would be a driver like Juba if he could protect his family. Oh, yes, he surely would. A kind driver, though. And fair. Always he would be fair.

Caleb thumped the hoe against a tree stump—just hard enough to shake the worst of the mud clods loose, but not hard enough to knock off the broken head.

To keep water moving in and out of the low-country rice paddies, many slaves had to labor constantly at clearing the swamps. On Master Macon's plantation, tides brought fresh water in to irrigate the swamps. Dikes held the salt water back— except when muskrats or alligators undercut them, which happened all too often. Inside the large, walled-up areas, drainage and irrigation canals set off smaller fields and divided them up."Rice trunks"—heavy gates—regulated the canals.

As driver, it was Juba's responsibility to assign individual slaves to work specific fields. Caleb had the field farthest from the slave quarters, and Kit's field jutted up beside Caleb's.Slaves who worked hard and efficiently, as Caleb did, could finish early—which is why Caleb had been able to plant and successfully tend a vegetable garden. Those who spent too much time talking and complaining, the way Kit did, didn't finish their fields until dark.

When Master Macon first bought Caleb from Silas Leland and led him home to his plantation, the slaves had just begun to prepare the fields for planting. Kit showed Caleb how to yoke the oxen and use them to plow and harrow the soft ground.After the fields were flooded and drained, Kit demonstrated the proper way to plant the rice. As the plants sprouted, Kit had shown Caleb how to work his hoe through the mud.

"Soon now, Massa Macon be leavin' here," Kit called over to Caleb.

If Kit hoped to get Caleb's attention, he succeeded."Leavin'?" Caleb asked. "Where Massa be goin' to?"

"Takin' his family to his fine house in de city. Massa Macon don't want to be out here when de weather turns hot."

"Why not?"

"Mosquitoes. Dey swarms everywhere in de hot season," Kit said. "People gets jungle fever."

Kit laughed at the troubled look that crossed Caleb's face.

"When dem white folks be gone away, it be good for dem and it shore enough be good for us!" Kit said. "We be left to work de fields alone. Den we can be Africans again. We can talk our talk and sing our songs and cook our food anytime we wants to. If ever de ancestors can find us, it be in de summer time."

Alone! Without the master! Long-forgotten shards of shattered hope began to piece themselves together in Caleb's heart.

"When do Massa come back again?" Caleb asked.

Kit shrugged. "About de time de rice birds come swoopin' in to gobble up de rice. We all so busy, no one pays him no mind. We gets us out in de fields, swingin' de rice hooks and we does our best to cut down de sheaves before dem birds can gobble all de rice away. Can't be bothered with Massa, so wild is we in de fields. Women and children and old folks, dey all shoutin' and poundin' drums—doin' anythin' to scare off dem birds. And we men . . . we works like crazy folks to get de rice sheaves cut and bundled and stacked for dryin'."

Caleb tossed the hoe over his shoulder and climbed up to the road.

"Ain't you goin' to help me finish my field?" Kit entreated.

Caleb shook his head. "No, sir. Gots me a garden to tend."

It wasn't just the garden patch filled with collard greens and okra, squash, and bean sprouts that brought such a special joy to Caleb—although when the women threw fresh vegetables into the cook pot, the porridge did smell mighty rich and inviting. What Caleb really liked was being a part of the bustling slave quarters. Small children chased after each other, laughing and playing—it reminded him of his own little Kwate toddling about in their village in Africa. Older children, already at work, wrapped straw into brooms and swept the cabins clean. The old women, whose job it was to watch over the little ones, gathered up the sweetgrass the men had carried back from the swamp and coiled it into baskets.Sweetgrass, bull rushes, and pine needles—the women bound them with cabbage palm and stitched them all together, their sewing bones flying. Even though Caleb was not from the coast, the fresh-cut-hay fragrance of sweetgrass brought a rush of Africa to his mind—the smells, the sounds, the porridge bubbling over the cook fire.

"Set down and rest yourself," old Tempy called out to Caleb as he walked into the slave compound. "You deserves it. You already dones a full day's work in dem rice fields."

Caleb smiled. Just like Mama Muco, she was. He walked around behind Tempy to the other side of the slave shack where his garden grew.

"Tempy," Caleb called back, "can the ancestors see us here in dis old swampland?"

Tempy barked a deep-throated laugh. "What you think? Dat Nyame can't watch over his people? Just because things ain't de way dey used to be, just because dey ain't de way dey's supposed to be, dat don't mean Nyame forgot about us."

"No spirit trees grow here," Caleb said to the
chop chop
rhythm of his hoe.

"How does you know dat?" Tempy shot back. "Just because you can't see a spirit tree don't mean no spirit tree grows here."

Caleb looked around him—up at the lacy mimosas, over at the gnarled arms of giant oaks with their long finger trails of Spanish moss, past them to the mysterious humped-over cypress trees that grew alongside the swamplands.

Yes,
Caleb thought.
Who's to say no spirits live in any of dem trees?

Slowly, deliberately, Caleb straightened his back and stood tall. He dropped his hoe to the ground, unbuttoned his white man's shirt and pulled it off his back. He moved to the cook fire and slowly began to dance around it.

Tempy watched as Caleb dipped sideways on his bad leg with a haunting gracefulness. She laid her basket down and began to clap out a rhythm for his steps, raising her voice in a tune unfamiliar to Caleb's ear. Although he did not recognize the melody, or even the language of the words, the meaning was perfectly clear to him. Just as Tempy knew the meaning of Caleb's dance. Honor to Nyame, the Creator, the God Supreme. Tribute to the author of life, maker of everything.Praise to the one from whom comes strength and inspiration and wisdom.

Honor to the one who gives hope in a world of hopelessness.

Whatever his name.

Wherever he might be.