Sarah
When autumn came, Lucretia and I attended the women’s meeting at Arch
Street where we found ourselves standing in a crowded vestibule beside
Jane Bettleman, who glared pointedly at the fleur de lis button I’d sewed at
the throat of my gray dress. Granted, the button was ornate and expensive,
and it was large, the size of a brooch. I’d freshly polished the silver, so there
in the bright-lit atrium, it was shining like a small sun.
Reaching up, I touched the engraved lily, then turned to Lucretia and
whispered, “My button has offended Mrs. Bettleman.”
She whispered back, “Since you keep Mr. Bettleman upset a great
amount of the time, it seems only fair you should do the same for his wife.”
I suppressed a smile.
Arguably the most powerful figure at Arch Street, Samuel Bettleman
criticized Lucretia and me on a weekly basis. During the past few months,
the two of us had spoken out frequently in Meetings on the anti-slavery
cause, and afterward he would descend on us, calling our messages
divisive. None of our members favored slavery, of course, but many were
aloof to the cause, and they differed, too, on how quickly emancipation
should be accomplished. Even Israel was a gradualist, believing slavery
should be dismantled slowly over time. But what most rankled Mr.
Bettleman and others in the meeting was that women spoke about it. “As
long as we talk about being good helpmates to our husbands, it’s well and
good,” Lucretia had told me once, “but the moment we veer into social
matters, or God forbid, politics, they want to silence us like children!”
She gave me courage, Lucretia did.
“Miss Grimké, Mrs. Mott, how are thee?” a voice said. Mrs. Bettleman
was at my elbow, her eyes flickering over my extravagant button.
Before we could return the greeting, she said, “That’s an unusually
decorative item at your collar.”
“. . . I trust you like it?”
I think she expected me to be apologetic. She rolled up her pale white
lips, bringing to mind the fluted edges of a calla lily. “Well, it certainly
matches this new personality of yours. You’ve been very outspoken in
Meetings lately.”
“. . . I only try to speak as God would prompt me,” I said, which was far
more pious than true.
“It is curious, though, that God prompts you to speak against slavery so
much of the time. I hope you’ll receive what I’m about to say for your own
edification, but to many of us it appears you’ve become overly absorbed by
the cause.”
Undaunted even by Lucretia, who took a step closer to my side, Mrs.
Bettleman continued. “There are those of us who believe the time for action
has not yet come.”
Anger seared through me. “. . . You, who know nothing of slavery . . .
nothing at all, you presume to say the time has not come?”
My voice sailed across the vestibule, causing the women to cease their
conversations and turn in our direction. Mrs. Bettleman caught her breath—
but I wasn’t finished. “If you were a slave toiling in the fields in
Carolina . . . I suspect you would think the time had fully come.”
She turned on her heel and strode away, leaving Lucretia and me the
object of shocked, silent stares.
“I need to find some air,” I said calmly, and we walked from the
meetinghouse onto the street. We kept walking past the simple brick houses
and charcoal vendors and fruit peddlers, all the way to Camden Ferry Slip.
We strolled past the ferry house onto the quay, which brimmed with
passengers arriving from New Jersey. At the far end of the dock, a flock of
white gulls stood on the weathered planks, facing the wind. We stopped
short of them and stared at the Delaware River, holding on to our bonnets.
Looking down, I saw that my hands were shaking. Lucretia saw it, too.
She said, “You won’t look over your shoulder, will you?” She was referring
to the altercation, to the terrible inclination we women sometimes had to
scurry back to safety.
“No,” I told her. “I won’t look back.”
16 February 1828
Dear Beloved Sister,
You are the first and only to know: I’ve lost my heart to
Reverend William McDowell of Third Presbyterian Church.
He’s referred to in Charleston as the “young, handsome,
minister from New Jersey.” He’s barely past thirty, and his
face is like that of Apollo in the little painting that used to
hang in your room. He came here from Morristown when his
health forced him to seek a milder climate. Oh, Sister, he has
the strongest reservations about slavery!
Last summer, he enlisted me to teach the children in
Sabbath School, a job I happily do each week. I once
remarked on the evil of slavery during class and received a
cautionary visit from Dr. McIntire, the Superintendent, and
you should’ve seen the way William came to my defense.
Afterward, he advised me that when it comes to slavery, we
must pray and wait. I’m no good at either.
He calls on me weekly, during which we have discussions
about theology and church and the state of the world. He
never departs without taking my hand and praying. I open
my eyes and watch as he creases his brow and makes his
eloquent pleas. If God has the slightest notion of how it feels
to be enamored, he’ll forgive me.
I don’t yet know William’s intentions toward me, but I
believe he reciprocates my own. Be happy for me.
Yours,
Nina
When Nina’s letter arrived, I carried it to the bench beneath a red elm in
the Motts’ tiny backyard. It was a warm day for March. The crocuses were
breaking through the winter crust and the grasshoppers and birds were out
making a rapturous commotion.
After tucking a small quilt over my knees, I arranged my new spectacles
onto the end of my nose. Lately, words had begun to transform themselves
into blurred squiggles. I thought I’d ruined my eyes from excessive reading
—I’d been unrelenting in my studies for the ministry over the past year—
but the physician I’d consulted ascribed the problem to middle age. I slit the
letter, thinking, Nina, if you could see me now with my old-lady lap throw
and my spectacles, you would think me seventy instead of half that.
I read about her Reverend McDowell with what I imagined to be a
mother’s satisfaction and worries. I wondered if he was worthy of her. I
wondered what Mother thought of him, and if I would return to Charleston
for the wedding. I wondered what kind of clergy wife Nina would make and
if the Reverend had any idea what sort of Pandora’s box he was about to
open.
It will always be a quirk of fate that Israel arrived at this particular
moment. I was folding the letter into my pocket when I looked up and saw
him coming toward me without his coat or hat. It was the middle of the
afternoon.
He’d never mentioned the episode with Jane Bettleman. He
undoubtedly knew of it. Everyone at Arch Street knew of it. It had divided
the members into those who thought I was haughty and brazen and those
who thought I merely impassioned and precipitate. I assumed he was
among the latter.
As he took a seat beside me, his knee pressed against my leg and a tiny
heat moved across my chest. He still had his beard. It was well-clipped, but
longer with more silver. I hadn’t seen him in weeks except at Meeting.
There’d been no explanation for his absence. I’d told myself it was the
inevitable way of things.
I removed my glasses. “. . . Israel . . . this is unexpected.”
There was an exigency about him. I felt it like a disturbance in the air.
“I’ve wanted to speak to you for some time, but I’ve resisted. I worried
how you might receive what I have to say.”
Surely this wasn’t about the hubbub with Mrs. Bettleman. That had
been months ago.
“. . . Is there some difficult news?” I asked.
“I imagine this will seem abrupt, Sarah, but I’ve come determined to
speak and let things fall or stand as they will. For five years now, I’ve
struggled with my feelings concerning you.”
I felt my breath suddenly leave me. He looked off toward the bare-bone
trees at the perimeter of the yard. “I’ve grieved Rebecca, perhaps too long.
It became a habit, grieving her. I’ve been enthralled to her memory to the
exclusion of too many things.”
He bowed his head. I wanted to reassure him it was all right, but it had
never been all right, and I remained quiet.
“I’ve come to say I’m sorry,” he said. “It seemed unfair to ask you to be
my wife when I felt so tied to her.”
It was an apology then, not a proposal. “. . . You don’t need to
apologize.”
He went on as if I’d said nothing. “Some weeks ago, I dreamed of her.
She came to me, holding the locket, the one Becky insisted you wear that
time. She placed it in my hand. When I woke, it felt as if she’d released
me.”
I’d been staring miserably at my hands, but I gazed up at him, aware of
how palpable the word released had been in his voice, how the moment was
rearranging itself.
“You must know I care deeply for you,” he said. “A man is not meant to
be alone. The children are growing, but the younger ones still need a
mother, and Green Hill is in need of a mistress. Catherine has expressed a
wish to move back to her house in town. I’m saying it poorly. I’m asking—
I’m hoping you’ll be my wife.”
I’d imagined this moment: I would feel an outpouring of joy. I would
close my eyes and know that my life had truly begun. I would say, Dearest
Israel, yes. Everything in the world would be yes.
It was not like that. What I felt was quiet and strange. It was happiness
defiled by fear. For an imperishable minute I couldn’t speak.
My silence distressed him. “Sarah?” he said.
“. . . I want to say yes . . . and yet, as you know, I’ve set my course for a
vocation. The ministry . . . What I mean to say is . . . could I be your wife
and a minister?”
His eyes widened. “I hadn’t imagined you would want to continue with
your ambition after we married. Would you really want that?”
“I would. With all my heart.”
His face furrowed. “Forgive me, I only thought you chose it because
you’d given up on me.”
He thought my ambition was a consolation? Reflexively, I stood and
took a few steps.
I thought of the knowing that had come to me about my mission on the
night I wrote to Handful. It was pure as the voice that had brought me north.
When I’d sewed the button on my dress, I knew it couldn’t be undone.
I turned back to him and saw he was on his feet, waiting. “I can’t be
Rebecca, Israel. Her whole life was for you and the children, and I would
love you no less than she did, but I’m not like her. There are things I must
do. Please, Israel, don’t make me choose.”
He took my hands and kissed them, first one, then the other, and it came
to me that I’d spoken of love, but he had not. He’d spoken of caring, of
need—his, the children’s, Green Hill’s.
“Wouldn’t I, wouldn’t we be enough for you?” he said. “You would be a
wonderful wife and the best of mothers. We would see to it that you never
missed your ambition.”
It was his way of telling me. I could not have him and myself both.
