And that had led sideways, as things did, to us trading theories on Lydia Wilde and her captured French officer.
Lara said, “Parole of honour doesn’t seem like something that should even work. To have captured officers walking around and not locked up in jail is just asking for trouble.”
I told her it was just the way they did things in those days. “Not only officers. A lot of common soldiers, too, were billeted in private homes here on Long Island. They didn’t have big prisons then, like we do now.”
Lara still thought it sounded ridiculous.
Lifting the fan from its box she went on, “If an officer just signs a paper that says, ‘No, I promise I’m not going to fight you until I’m exchanged,’ what’s to stop him from breaking his word?”
“Well . . . his honour.”
“So one day I’m killing your friends in the woods, and the next day, because I’ve just signed this thing promising not to fight, I get to live in your house, and you just let me walk around? Really?”
“Pretty much. It worked both ways,” I said. “The British officers who ended up as prisoners in Quebec were given freedom of the city there, and got to walk around and go to dinners and to dances. It was just how they did things. It meant something then, when a man gave his word.”
By my desk, her attention now fixed on Frank’s uncle’s collection of papers, Malaika chimed in with, “Some men. There were liars back then, same as now. Just ask my five-times-great-grandfather. He nearly died fighting Redcoats because he’d been promised that if he would fight in the place of the son of the family that held him, they’d give him his freedom. It didn’t work out that way. Speaking of which,” she said, still looking down at the papers, “didn’t Frank tell us Benjamin Wilde’s family didn’t hold slaves?”
“That’s right.”
Lara held up the fan. “Where do you want this?”
“Back here in the corner, I think. You might have to unplug the lamp.”
Taking a look she said, “No problem. It’s unplugged already.”
Turning in my chair, I looked myself to where the lamp’s plug lay beside the baseboard, on the floor. I remembered it being there yesterday morning, too . . . but then I’d plugged it in.
“Strange,” said Malaika. Lifting a paper from the file, she passed it to me. “Seems like someone didn’t get the memo.”
What she’d handed me was strange, in light of what we knew—or thought we knew—about the family.
Photocopied from a letter dated Newtown, 16th April 1754, it read in a slanting and spidery hand:
Brother,
I have learned of the loss of my property and will expect to receive payment from you of forty-two pounds New York money to clear this account as she was a skilled cook and not old. Violet now being twelve by my reckoning I will reclaim her but if you desire her to stay with you know that the price must be double what it was, to be paid as before 1st July each year, for she is no more a child and I would have her back or hire her to the best advantage.
It was signed Reuben Wilde, who would have to be Zebulon Wilde’s brother. Lydia’s uncle.
“You know what that is?” asked Malaika.
I nodded. “It looks like a slave lease.”
The fan clicked on, and Lara set it to oscillate. “I know I’m going to sound stupid for asking this,” she said, “but what is a slave lease?”
Malaika explained. “Slaves were looked on as property, valued like livestock, so just like a person could rent someone’s horse if they didn’t own one of their own, they could rent someone’s slave, too. It wasn’t uncommon.”
“It’s sad, though,” said Lara. She crossed to read over my shoulder. “Do you think Frank knows about this?”
“I would think so,” was my guess. “Frank doesn’t miss much.”
Malaika shrugged, elegant. “You’d be surprised what we choose not to see.”
Lara told her, “That’s true. You know, back when I went to school we never learned about us having slaves in the north. It was all just the Underground Railroad and Lincoln, and how we were good and the south was so bad, and then I read this article on slavery in Brooklyn and it said at one time New York had more slaves than any city except Charleston. And it blew my mind. I mean,” she said, “it shouldn’t have. I should have known of course we had slaves, too. The history was all right there, if I’d just looked for it.”
“You liked the ‘nice’ story better.” Malaika was matter-of-fact. “Most folks do. It makes them feel good.” Looking at me she said, “That’s why this might be a problem for you.”
“Why?”
“If you’re trying to broaden our mandate to take in the whole life of Benjamin Wilde, with his sister and all that, how much of his ‘whole life’ are you going to show?”
I could see what she meant. If there had been slaves here in the Wilde House, there were people who wouldn’t want that to smudge their already bright image of Benjamin Wilde. But I looked at the lease in my hand and said, “All of it.”
“Frank might not like that.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Gird your loins first,” was Malaika’s advice.
Lara smiled. “Frank likes Charley.”
Malaika said, “Honey, we all have our blind spots.”
I looked up and laughed. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean that.” She was laughing, too. “I just meant all of us have things we can’t or won’t see. Even Frank. He’s so proud of his family, he might not . . . well, don’t expect miracles.” Setting the open file back on my desk she rolled her shoulders, stretching them, and glanced at her cell phone. “I’ve got a showing in less than an hour. Are we moving this bookcase? No, you sit, we’ll do it,” she told me.
I knew not to argue. I sat where I was while the two of them emptied the small metal bookcase, manoeuvred it into the hallway, and carried it down to the room we had chosen to use as our archives.
Returning the slave lease to where it belonged, I was closing the file when the fan stopped.
The air settled over me, heavy and thick and uncomfortably warm. Great, I thought. Brand-new fan, and it lasts for ten minutes before it breaks down.
But that wasn’t the problem. The plug had dropped out of the outlet.
The holes of that outlet, I reasoned, were probably too large, or too loose. But no, when I bent down to push the plug in again, the prongs fit firmly and tight. The fan started again, and I felt the quick rush of air on my face. But I felt something else, too—the cold sweep of something that lifted the hair at the back of my neck, like the brush of a hand.
As I watched, the plug slowly, deliberately, worked its way out of the outlet again, and dropped to the floor, by the baseboard.
? ? ?
I took the stairs two at a time, going down.
Why I went for the stairs in the first place and didn’t just go to the room where Malaika and Lara were moving the bookcase, I didn’t know. Nor did I take time to analyze. Maybe it was because they were way down at the end of the hall and the stairway was closer. Or maybe it was because I knew I probably looked like I’d seen . . . well, a ghost. And until the more logical part of my brain kicked in with the reminder there were no such things as ghosts, I didn’t want to have anyone see me and ask what was wrong, because—
“Hey.” Sam caught hold of my arms as I came barrelling around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and nearly ran him over. As he steadied me he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
Sam’s eyes were nice. Warm brown. Sincere. The kind you told your problems to. But not the kind you told that you’d been seeing things. I didn’t want him thinking I was crazy.
So I forced a smile that might have fooled my mother. “Nothing’s wrong. I just came down for coffee.” Which, now that I was down here, sounded suddenly appealing.
Sam let go of me and stepped aside as I moved to the counter, and I saw him slightly flex his shoulder.
“Sorry for running you over,” I said.
“That’s okay. Next time I’ll know not to come between you and coffee.”
My smile, this time, was real. “It can be dangerous. You want some, too?”