The Triumph of Grace (5 page)

N
ow, then, so ye doesn't know yer own mate, eh?"

Joseph Winslow, his clothes rumpled and his chin adorned with four days' growth of white bristle, positioned himself squarely in front of Jasper Hathaway. He paid not the slightest mind to the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who hurried past him on their way to Sunday services. Joseph scratched at his greasy hair, knocking his stained hat askew.

"I know you well enough," replied Jasper Hathaway with undisguised disgust. He grasped the two sides of his silk coat and did his best to tug them together. As in his days in Africa, his coat strained at the seams. During the past year he had regained every bit of his former girth. "I simply do not care to pass my time with such a one as you. Now, kindly step aside and allow a gentleman to attend to his Sunday obligation."

Joseph let burst a cackle of sarcastic mirth. "Oh, so it's a gentleman ye be, is it?" he asked. "And if ye be sech a gentlemen, why is ye forever grovelin' at the feet o' that dandy, Lord Reginald Witherham?"

"You would do well to refrain from showing yourself to be so great a fool, Joseph Winslow!" Mister Hathaway blustered in disgust. "Pray move yourself to one side and allow me to pass."

"Me Grace is set to be shipped away to the prison island at the bottom of the world," Joseph said.

"Move aside, you drunken dupe!"

Jasper Hathaway tried to push his way past, but Joseph Winslow was determined to hold his ground. This turn of events took Mister Hathaway by surprise. He assumed the most threatening stance he could manage, balled his hands into fists, and swung his right arm back with every intention of punching Joseph full in the face. But the side seam of Jasper's coat, stretched beyond endurance, chose that moment to burst open. It thoroughly disconcerted Mister Hathaway.

Joseph, taking advantage of the moment, grabbed the man's extended arm in a vise-like grip and twisted it backward.

Jasper Hathaway yelped like a wounded hound.

"Look me in me eyes, Jasper 'athaway," Joseph ordered.Mister Hathaway would not.

"Look me in me eyes and tell me ye is ready to send me girl to 'er death!"

Joseph gave Mister Hathaway's arm a cruel yank. As Jasper gasped and lurched, his artificial teeth popped out of his mouth. This unexpected turn of events so startled Joseph that he dropped his hold on the man's fleshy arm. Joseph gaped from the set of teeth grinning up from the street to the toothless man before him.

Jasper Hathaway snatched up his teeth and sucked them back into his mouth.

Joseph Winslow was not used to thinking quickly. So the clarity that suddenly crossed his mind astonished even him.

"It be ye!" he accused.

Mister Hathaway tried to push past Joseph, but Joseph blocked his way.

"Ye still be fast in Lord Reginald's employ, don't ye?" Joseph insisted. "But ye ain't at Zulina fortress anymore. Ye ain't in Africa at all. So what is it ye be doin' fer Lord Reginald, Jasper?"

Jasper Hathaway opened his mouth but said nothing.

"Ye be 'is 'ired rat!" Joseph exclaimed. "Ye spies on pretty young ladies fer 'im, doesn't ye? It be ye wot digs among their private things at 'is biddin'!"

"I have not the least idea about what you are going on about," Jasper Hathaway sputtered.

Once again he tried to push past Joseph. Once again, Joseph blocked his way.

"It were
ye
wot found me Grace's belongin's and gave them to Lord Reginald to wave about before the judge!"

"Grace was rightfully mine!" Jasper Hathaway shot back. "That is the truth of the matter. You know it to be so. Grace should have been my woman! She should have been my wife!"

Joseph stepped back. His face twisted to a disgusted scowl, as though he stood face to face with a pile of two-week-old garbage.

Right there was Jasper Hathaway's opportunity. He could easily have skirted Joseph Winslow and gotten away, but he did not. Instead, his shoulders slumped, his face sagged, and he stood still.

"I wanted to make her pay for leaving me," Mister Hathaway said. "I wanted her to pay, but I did not want her to die."

Joseph stared at the doughy man before him. So proud and haughty . . . so weak and pitiful.

"I needed the money!" Mister Hathaway said.

Now he was pleading.

"You know how it is without slaves to trade!"

Joseph's face hardened.

"Never once did I lay a hand on her, Joseph. That I swear to you."

Jasper Hathaway's tone approached desperation.

"I pressed coins into the hands of unsavory men, the kind who can follow in the shadows and sniff out trails and whisper questions that demand answers. When I found Grace at the Foundling Hospital, I passed along a shilling here to a doorman and two shillings there to the handyman, and it bought me access to everything I needed."

"Ye followed Grace the entire year?"

"Ever since she left Lord Reginald's estate that day. But I tell you the truth, Joseph, all the while I wished things were different. I surely did wish so."

"And now she be gone," Joseph said. "Onliest part o' either of us that be any good, Jasper. And now she be gone."

Joseph Winslow turned his rumpled back on Jasper Hathaway and walked away.

Mister Hathaway, the would-be gentleman, slumped in the doorway, alone and miserable, on a fancy street, in the fancy part of London.

There had been a time when Joseph Winslow's name had brought grudging respect from those around him. When he owned the slave fortress Zulina off Africa's Gold Coast, when he and his wife Lingongo controlled the slave traffic in the entire area, Joseph could walk the dusty streets outside his compound and white people would doff their hats and bow at the waist. In those days, even when he came to London, people allowed him to call himself a gentleman. He would go into a bookshop and lay down a gold piece to pay for a leatherbound volume, and the proprietor would call him "Sir." Out on the street, with a new book clutched under one arm and a recently purchased London frock for his daughter, Grace, bundled under the other arm, ladies curtsied and men bowed deeply as he passed by.

But that was then. That was before his disgrace at Zulina . . . before he lost everything and everyone . . . before he was forced out of Africa . . . before gambling and drink engulfed his life.

Further up Lombard Street, bells chimed from high atop the steeple of a most impressive church. Back when he was a young lad, Joseph Winslow had learned his catechism. All English children with any semblance of a decent upbringing did as much. But that was a lifetime ago. He had long since ceased to think of himself in religious terms. For all his talk of raising his daughter to be a proper English lass, he had been so spiritually remiss that she knew nothing of even the most basic catechism. Now, however, with the church doors flung open before him, with the church bells calling out and people streaming in, Joseph was overcome with a sudden longing to once again sit in a church pew.

Joseph moved hesitantly toward the church steps. The men and women of the downtown parish were well-dressed in silk and taffeta frocks, and lavishly turned-out silk topcoats.Joseph Winslow tugged at his own disheveled coat and did his best to mingle unobtrusively as he followed the aristocratic worshippers inside.

What astonished Joseph was the crowd of people that managed to pack into the small church. Nor were all the worshippers well-to-do. Oh, the ones who paraded on up to the front pews most certainly were. But many others—the ones who sat in the back of the sanctuary and those who stood in the aisles—looked to be more the working-class sort of folk.

Joseph eased himself into a corner with others who looked to be more like him.

"Ye likes the sea captain preacher, does ye?" whispered a man with a sun-leathered face.

Joseph stared at the stranger. Because some answer seemed expected of him, he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head evasively. But as it turned out, Joseph did like the sea captain preacher. He liked him very much, indeed. John Newton, that was the preacher's name. And what a story he had to tell: a story of wretchedness, of redemption, of amazing grace.

"I was the worst of the worst," the Reverend John Newton proclaimed from his pulpit. "The Lord God sent a storm from on high and He delivered me out of the deep waters. And though my sins be too numerous to count, the Lord God saved my soul. Today, even the most wretched and hopeless of souls can look at me and say, 'If God can save John Newton, He can save anyone!' That He can, too. For God's grace is greater than all our sins—mine and yours."

It was a shaken Joseph Winslow who walked out of St.Mary Woolnoth Church. It was a changed Joseph Winslow.

Stealth and cunning were not words commonly applied to Joseph Winslow. Even so, he did manage to approach Heath Patterson's barn unnoticed, even by the vigilant young man who stood guard with a musket over his shoulder. Joseph folded himself into the shadows until he was thoroughly concealed beside a window with the cover slid open a crack. The crack was just wide enough to allow him to take in the entire discussion of slavery in America, and its emerging position as a serious social issue.

"Theirs is not a call for immediate abolition," Sir Thomas McClennon explained inside. "Few in that land ask so much.But many—and this includes some slave owners—do express genuine concern about the issue of the slave trade. Not only over its morality, but indeed, about its very utility."

"The Americans show a willingness to talk about slavery? That alone is a great change!" snapped Jesse, a young Negro man.

Joseph recognized Jesse. The first time Joseph had seen Grace in London—the time she had sought him out and things had gone so badly—Jesse had been outside on the street waiting for her.

With the discussion taking so energetic a turn, the would-be guard abandoned his post and moved up to the barn door in order to better listen. He grabbed up the musket he had rested on the ground and strode on in to join the others.

"Talk, talk, talk! That's all the Americans will ever do!" the young man chided as he walked. "Slave trade is their bread and milk. They will never allow real change on their soil. Why should they? It would prove too great a threat to their purse strings!"

Joseph Winslow chose that moment to slip back around through the shadows of the barn. Then he, too, walked in through the open door. So engaged in their heated discussion were the members of the group, that not one noticed his presence until he was directly behind them.

"I do beg your pardon!" Lady Susanna exclaimed when she spied the intruder. "Who might you be? And how did you—?"

"I be father to me darlin' daughter, Grace Winslow, wot loved the lot of you," Joseph said.

At Grace's name, the entire group caught a collective gasp.

"Ye 'as no call to trust me," Joseph continued. "I set fire to yer coffee 'ouse. I admits as much to ye, and I be sorry fer me actions. But I does repent of it with me 'eart and soul. And I must say that I warned the lot of ye afore'and. Not one 'air on yer 'ead was touched by the fire, was it? That's because I warned ye, ever'one. Though I could 'ave died fer squealin', I warned ye."

Ethan Preston stepped forward and bowed deeply before Joseph Winslow. "That you did, sir, and I thank you for it."

"Me Grace wot was to die on the gallows is bein' sent away to the bottom of the world," Joseph Winslow said.

Ena covered her face and wept.

"To me shame, I admits that in Africa I tried to kill 'er," Joseph said. "I tried to kill me own girl, God fergive me. Yet she stepped up and stood twixt me and death."

Joseph wiped his watery eyes with his sleeve.

"Grace saved me life," he said. "Now it be me turn to save 'er life. I 'as no money to give ye, but I will gladly forfeit wot remains of me own life and be a slave to any man or woman amongst ye wot will rescue me Grace."

W
e profess to be a land of laws!" Lord Reginald Witherham insisted to Sir Geoffrey Phillips, who sat before him most impatiently."It is that precise hypocrisy that stirs up such a fury within me. For were we truly a land of laws, we would actually
abide
by the laws we have established. Is that not so?"

Lord Reginald paced the floor. Each time he turned on his heel, his steps grew more furious. Sir Geoffrey extracted a handkerchief from the pocket of his waistcoat and mopped at his forehead.

"Were we truly the law-abiding people we claim to be, a penalty of death would mean that a criminal so sentenced would actually die for his crime . . . or her crime, as the case may be. Surely it does not require a person of great intellect to grasp so simple a concept. Do you not agree?"

"The Crown has spoken," replied an exasperated Sir Geoffrey. "And, in all truth, Lord Reginald, the punishment of transportation is far greater than almost any person could bear. I say . . ."

"You say! The Crown says! What do I care about such endless rhetoric?"

Lord Reginald paused in his pacing. He grabbed the knob on the parlor door and flung the door open. A young maid happened to be passing along the hallway at that precise moment, and he grabbed hold of her by the arm.

"Let us see if the concept of law and punishment is indeed as simple to grasp as I imagine it to be," Lord Reginald said,

Bronze skin, auburn hair, dark eyes . . . the young maid Lord Reginald held in his grasp bore a fair resemblance to Grace Winslow. This girl, like Grace, looked to be of mixed parentage.

"Here now, Ena," Lord Reginald exclaimed, "do join us and give us the benefit of your wisdom."

The girl's dark eyes widened in terror. She frantically searched before and behind for a way of escape.

"Really, Reginald, you do force a point much too far," said Sir Geoffrey.

"No, no, not in the least," Lord Reginald argued. "My point is that it does not take a person of great intellect to grasp the concept I purport." To the girl he said, "Ena, what does a legal sentence of death mean?"

"I . . . uh . . . please, sir, it is not my place to say, I'm sure," Ena stammered.

"Come, come, I asked you a straightforward question.Surely even such a one as you is able to provide me with a straightforward answer. A legal sentence of death . . . what does it mean?"

"I suppose that . . . well, that a person . . . that a person must die, sir."

"There, now!" Lord Reginald announced. "Even a foolish servant girl understands the meaning of a legal sentence of death. Grace Winslow was sentenced to hang from the gallows for her crime, and hang she should."

"Oh no, sir," Ena said. "Not Grace."

Lord Reginald stepped back. His eyebrows arched on his tight face. In mock amazement he exclaimed, "No? So now you fancy yourself wiser and filled with greater insight than His Lordship the judge who pronounced Grace Winslow guilty and worthy of the gallows?"

"No, sir," Ena pleaded with increasing desperation. "I would never fancy myself in such a way as you say. But, sir, people do change their minds, don't they? The Lord Judge—his Lordship . . . most surely he changed his mind. Why, even Grace's own father changed his mind, didn't he?"

"Grace's father?" Lord Reginald responded.

"Yes, sir. He once tried to kill Grace, he did, but now he wants to save her from the transportation. He's even willing to make himself a slave to do it, too. He said as much to Mister Ethan and the others."

Cold fury wiped all traces of jovial mockery from Lord Reginald's face. He grasped Ena's arm in a vise-tight grip and through clenched teeth demanded, "Did you say Mister Ethan Preston?"

It was at that moment that Ena realized she had said far too much. She covered her face and sobbed.

"Ethan Preston and his pieced-together band of criminals who call themselves an abolition group?" Lord Reginald demanded. "Are they the ones Joseph Winslow approached?"

Ena fell to her knees and wailed.

"For God's sake, Reginald, let the girl go!" Sir Geoffrey said.

With a low growl, Lord Reginald kicked Ena away from him.

"Leave my house!" he ordered.

Ena scrambled to her feet and stumbled for the door.

"Joseph Winslow is a simpering ingrate!" Sir Reginald raged. "He is happy enough to take my money, but when the days grow dark, he slithers away behind my back and crawls into the enemy camp to betray me. Well, I will not be made into a laughingstock again, not by a half-breed slave girl and not by her drunken fool of a father. I pledged my vengeance on that little wretch, and I was as good as my word. Now I pledge my vengeance on Joseph Winslow, as well. Let his daughter languish on the far side of the world. What does it matter to me? Joseph Winslow will hang from the gallows in her place."

Sir Geoffrey Phillips stared in astonishment at Lord Reginald. He saw fury ignite the man's eyes and set his face aflame. Sir Geoffrey had not the least doubt that Lord Reginald Witherham would do exactly as he had said.

Slowly Sir Geoffrey shook his head. "What has happened to us, Reginald?" he asked. "What have we become?"

When next the abolition group met in Heath and Rebekah Patterson's barn, Oliver Meredith stood guard at the door with far more vigilance than he had done at the previous meeting.He did admit Joseph Winslow, although not without a fair bit of trepidation. And as Joseph walked forward and took a chair next to Heath Patterson, more than a few in the assembly cast uncomfortable glances his way. The meeting got off to a slow start since no one seemed of a mind to say much of substance in Joseph's presence.

"William Wilberforce continues to press forward in Parliament with his select committee," Thomas McClennon reported. "And I must say, it is most fortunate indeed that he is able to proceed with the good graces of Prime Minister William Pitt. In no small part due to this happy alignment, the cause of abolition of the African slave trade continues to win political support. It is imperative, therefore, that we be outspoken in our own support of those efforts."

Murmurs of agreement arose from the group. Still, no one suggested a specific action. The murmurings drifted off and an uneasy silence settled in the barn.

Finally, with a decidedly irritated sigh and a flounce of her full skirts, Lady Susanna abruptly stood up and stepped forward. The power of her elegance immediately demanded attention.

"If not one of you brave men will speak to the question that hangs heavy in every mind here today, I shall do so myself," Lady Susanna said. "Our dear Ena was set upon by Lord Reginald Witherham. Now he once again threatens to use his influence and wealth to ready the gallows."

"So long as Lord Reginald's wounded pride continues to fester, not one of us is safe," Heath Patterson said. "He is a vengeful man, and he—"

"And he has wealth and class on his side!" Oliver Meredith's words rang hard as the young man swung the musket down from his shoulder and once again strode into the barn to add his impassioned opinion to the discussion. "Wealth and class he has, which means he also wields the power."

Sir Thomas McClennon raised himself to his full aristocratic height and addressed Oliver. "Wealth and power are indeed formidable attributes, my dear sir," he agreed with a polite bow. "But they are far from everything. It is my considered opinion that—"

But Sir Thomas's considered opinion was not to be heard, for at that moment the unguarded barn doors flew open and Sir Geoffrey Phillips stepped inside.

Rebekah Patterson screamed in alarm. Oliver Meredith rushed for his musket, and Jesse did the same.

Sir Geoffrey made a deep courtesy to the group, stretching his leg forward and tipping his hat with the most gracious of manners. He reached for the barn door and held it open for Lady Charlotte, who followed behind him.

"There is no need for apprehension, dear sirs and madams," said Sir Geoffrey. "Most certainly there is no reason to take up arms. Lady Charlotte Witherham and I pose not the least danger to any of you."

Sir Geoffrey's eyes went from Oliver and Jesse to Lady Susanna, then to Joseph Winslow and on to Ethan Preston.But when he saw Sir Thomas, who sat beside Ethan, a smile of friendly recognition crossed Sir Geoffrey's face.

"We have come on behalf of Grace Winslow," Sir Geoffrey said. "I pray we are not too late."