1,572Posted 2024-08-24 | Beta'd by Eeyorefan12
When you sit and do nothing, people stare. Bella Swan had learned this uncomfortable truth early in life and had taken it to heart. Being able to communicate with her hands drew enough attention, and so she'd learned to sketch, an activity that shaded her from notice. No one commented on a quiet, pale, brown-haired girl drawing.
In adulthood, the childhood refuge had become a fascination. At twenty-four, she minded the stares less and enjoyed the sketching more.
This morning, her few minutes of drawing were a break from the hectic work of her graduate studies. So far, she'd drawn a few faces from the trickle of tourists near the Rowan estate. Easy work, given that most of them huddled in the meager shade, fanning themselves frantically with brochures. It was already hot, though barely past nine a.m., and she'd been lucky to snag a parking spot under a tree.
As she scanned the crowd for her next subject, an older woman met her gaze through the windshield, staring back. Bella looked down. Notice bothered her less, but it was still uncomfortable.
A minute later, she peeked up again. The woman was gone, but there was a much more eye-catching figure only a few trees away.
Not the man she was waiting for. Too young. He turned, revealing the outline of a suit.
Not a tourist then, either.
Flipping to a new page, Bella readied her pencil, studying the square jaw and straight nose. Above, dark brown wavy hair threatened to curl if given any length.
She squinted as she sketched. Too much late night reading, she mused.
Moments later, she frowned at her work, fighting the urge to scratch it out. The shade and the man's olive skin worked against grasping a clear picture. She snapped her book shut. Later. Drawing was for fun.
The temperature rose a few more degrees, along with the sun. Refusing to waste gas by turning the car back on, Bella fanned herself, finally giving up and twisting her styled hair into a bun before stabbing it into place with a pencil. After checking her watch, she looked across the street to the growing crowd.
The allure of the place was obvious. Tall oaks shaded a long walk to the white mansion and its imposing columns. She'd been awed by similar architecture as a girl, intrigued by the fancifully told history, then fascinated by the more accurate one she'd ferreted out herself.
Still, it was pretty, and she admired the clean lines and carefully trimmed hedge before motion at the front drew her gaze. A man and woman signed in sharp strokes, arguing about forgotten hats. Bella glanced at her small backseat collection, about to offer one up when the woman pulled two baseball caps out of her bag. The couple burst into laughter. Bella watched with a twinge of guilt. She could do better with her maternal language than eavesdrop—volunteer, teach. Something.
She looked to her destination. Standing opposite the popular Rowan estate, the large house was a much wearier version of its neighbor. In their heyday, the two were owned by brothers who, according to the local folklore, wouldn't be parted, not even by marriage. Death had done what wives couldn't, and now one property was a well-funded historical reenactment and the other a home for . . . well, Bella didn't want to think too much about what might be living in the dilapidated old building, beyond its current owner, Mr. Morris.
She fanned herself again. Mr. Morris had said he'd have the main gate unlocked by nine, and here it was twenty minutes past.
"A southern sense of time," she mumbled. Even after a year living in the South, her northern sensibilities bristled at the wait, but she was learning. Slowly. Spending time with Jason and his southern manners and charm was helping with that. She smiled, thinking of him.
A bent figure approached the gate from the morning shadows, the man's trembling hands struggling with the padlock securing it.
Slipping the strap of her bag over her shoulder, Bella stepped out of her car. "Mr. Morris?"
"Miss Swan?" He squinted at her. His half-crown of wispy white hair fluttered in a stray breeze, his linen suit jacket shifting as he straightened up.
"Yes." She smiled, walking towards the gate and extending her hand.
"Pleased to meet you." He smiled back, giving her fingers the most genteel of squeezes. "Is your colleague here?"
"My colleague?"
"Not a colleague, no, but an interested party." The low voice behind her made both Bella and Mr. Morris turn.
"Mr. Cullen. There you are," Mr. Morris said.
The tall man Bella had sketched stood stiffly. She eyed him with suspicion. Clad in a sport coat and crisp slacks, he didn't look like a graduate student, but it could be a ruse. She hadn't told anyone in her department—vultures that they were—that she would be here today, but still, one never knew.
She consoled herself with the thought that, if he was in disguise, at least he'd be boiling. Of course, that meant he might sweat all over the historical records. She frowned at the realization.
"Pleased to meet you," Mr. Morris said again. Bella noticed that he actually shook the young man's gloved hand, unlike the gentle press he'd given hers. Her internal sigh was brief. It wasn't the worst of the condescension she'd experienced since moving here to complete her studies.
"Perhaps you'd like to move your car onto the estate, Miss Swan?" Still struggling with the lock, Mr. Morris looked like he hoped she would say no.
"Thank you, no, I'm sure it's quite safe on the street."
"And you, Mr. Cullen?"
Mr. Cullen gave a quiet shake of his head.
Yes, that was relief. The old man was frail. He abandoned the lock, shuffling a few steps to the smaller side gate and pulling it open.
"Well, if you'll follow me then, I'll show you my trove of treasures." He chuckled, turning and waving Bella ahead of him. This left Mr. Cullen to walk beside Mr. Morris, the elder man immediately attempting to engage him in conversation. Mr. Cullen, however, was either shy or uninterested, and this annoyed Bella even more. She had a lot of questions about the estate and its history. As the first person to worm her way into Mr. Morris' records, she wanted as much context as she could get.
Frowning at the disadvantage her femaleness apparently presented, Bella followed, wondering who this Mr. Cullen was. How come he had access too? Had he also made a connection with Mr. Morris? Or had he been granted access because Bella had already softened the old man up?
This line of thought reminded her that she still needed to tell Charlie to pack some fishing gear. The little lake Mr. Morris had mentioned wasn't far, and she'd promised to bring her father when he visited. Just two weeks away. He'd meet Jason, too—a first for Charlie. She hadn't introduced her father to anyone she'd dated before but then, there hadn't been many contenders.
Once they were inside, Mr. Morris settled her and Mr. Cullen in his dark paneled dining room, politely serving them glasses of iced sweet tea.
Mr. Morris and Bella exchanged a few general pleasantries and a few more specific ones about fishing. Mr. Cullen took occasional sips of his tea and continued to offer polite but terse responses to all of his host's questions—no, he was only visiting the area, his interest was academic. Nothing that answered any of Bella's questions. Though the elderly man was obviously skilled in sustaining a one-sided conversation, Bella could tell that Mr. Cullen was testing this ability.
The younger man's reticence perturbed Bella—that or his stillness. Maybe because it made her innate fidgeting stand out. He also seemed unaffected by the heat, his freshly shaven face without even a bead of sweat.
When the general conversation topics were exhausted, Mr. Morris led them to a large office at the north side of the house. There, she and Mr. Cullen—still Mister, even though she'd offered up her own first name for use—sat on either side of a large work table piled with cardboard boxes.
"Now," Mr. Morris said, "my great-aunt Jacintha organized these, but . . . well, what her system of organization was, I've yet to discover." He chuckled. "My nephew and I got these into the new boxes here." He patted the topmost one. "There are inventories, crop lists, bills of sale and receipts, old family letters, a factor's diary, and even a book of what I think are slave sketches. Hard to say. At my age, pencil marks are nigh unto invisible."
"May I see the sketches?" Mr. Cullen asked.
Bella felt a wave of relief. If he was interested in sketches, that was fine. Her interests lay with the more domestic records, focusing on perceptions and realities of women's work, especially as it intersected with slavery.
Mr. Morris muttered to himself as he shuffled the boxes—quickly assisted by Mr. Cullen—before giving a quiet exclamation as he opened one and pulled out a heavy, leatherbound black book. "Here."
Mr. Cullen took it with murmured thanks.
Bella tensed as he set it on the table. Opening it without a cradle could crack the binding. By his own admission he was no scholar. Did he know how to safely handle the book?
But Mr. Cullen left the volume, glancing around the room. Bella followed his gaze to a dim corner behind them.
"May I use your cradle?" he asked Mr Morris.
"My what?"
"Your book stand." He pointed to a high shelf where, if Bella squinted, she could just make out the wide V.
Bella made a mental note to book an optometrist's appointment. Her father was right. She did need glasses.
"Of course." Mr. Morris frowned at the tall shelf. "Can you reach it without a ladder?"
Already moving to the shelf, Mr. Cullen plucked the cradle—no, two cradles from the top and carried them over to the large work table, where he met Bella's gaze. "If you need one."
Embarrassed to be caught staring, envious of his ability to reach things without a ladder, and frankly a little unsure what to make of his helpfulness, Bella gave a quick thank you and set the surprisingly heavy cradle down near the chair she'd claimed. Did the guy work out or what? His jacket, she decided, must disguise some heavy muscle, and she wondered again at his reasons for being here. Maybe it was for work—the kind of work that required investigating someone's personal papers. FBI? IRS? But what would they want with sketches?
Not your beeswax, she reminded herself.
"Where should I look to find letters?" she asked Mr. Morris.
Settled with one of several potential boxes Mr. Morris identified, she pulled out her pencil, notebook, and phone, making sure the flash was turned off as she began documenting.
Mr. Cullen was already making notes in his own notebook, a near twin of the much older specimen. At least he seemed to know what he was doing, carefully lifting the pages from the sides, keeping each straight as he moved from one to the other. He'd finally removed his gloves, she noticed, again wondering what he was researching.
She could ask, but it would be awfully nosy, and experience had taught her to carefully guard her own historical discoveries. She'd be obliged to answer if he asked about hers.
Curiosity wouldn't kill her.
Even so, she found herself glancing at the large book, only a fraction of it visible to her as Mr. Cullen worked. Sketches of slaves weren't related to her research, but they'd be fascinating to see.
As Bella worked through her first box, it occurred to her that she and the mysterious Mr. Cullen would have to agree on a method and system for examining and organizing the boxes, or they'd quickly be overwhelmed.
She cleared her throat, and he looked up at her. "Uh, maybe we can divvy these up and then trade as we finish? Your side, mine, old, and new?" Bella gestured as she spoke, dividing the table into quarters.
He nodded.
They worked quietly. Mr. Morris' great aunt Jacintha hadn't only organized records, she'd contributed to them as well. Born in 1845, she'd owned her own slaves, the first of which was gifted to her at sixteen, according to the bill of sale and her father Harmon's correspondence. He'd purchased the woman from a Mr. Filomen of Jacksonville. Bella felt a thrill of discovery. In the late 1850s, there'd been a tiny group of suffragettes whose activities her thesis supervisor, Dr. Bartholomew, had recently published about. If there was even a tangential connection to the records here . . .
Bella pulled the next bunch of letters from the box. Their senders were mixed; some were from Jacintha, some from her father, and a few others were so faded that she could only read snatches of the Spencerian script. Not uncommon. What was unexpected was Jacintha's neat English round hand writing style.
Odd. The Spencerian script would've been well established by Jacintha's lifetime. Perhaps she was old fashioned.
Disappointingly, there were no other references to anyone in Jacksonville.
Bella skimmed over the bundle of letters again, trying to grasp the organizing principles at work. Most talked in vague terms about family members, a few about recent purchases, including Jacintha's personal slave, two mentioned the shape of her slave's teeth, and then there were several about the wildly popular and 'ridiculous narrative' supposedly written by one Harriet Beecher Stowe.
She smiled, reading that. Most historical research didn't touch on subjects known by the general public. When her work did, she saved those snippets to mention to her dad. If she couldn't build some goodwill with her supervisor, she could at least offer something interesting to her father.
It was the next batch of papers that finally gave her a hint about how the documents had been put together. One was a three-generation genealogy for Jacintha's slave, Naera.
"They're all about Naera." It was barely a whisper, but Mr. Cullen looked up. "Sorry," she mumbled, cursing internally. Now he'd want to see.
"Naera? Jacintha's slave?"
It wasn't in her to lie . . . but dang if she wasn't tempted. Resigned, she nodded, watching him carefully turn back several pages in the book in front of him.
"She's here." He stood, waving his hand to invite her to look.
Bella moved to the other side of the curved table. A faded sketch of a woman's face stared back at her. High cheekbones, prominent lips, dark hair peeking out from a cloth wrap, her long neck partially obscured by a wide band of . . . lace? Not the top of a collar. A choker, perhaps? She squinted at the imprecise drawing.
"Have you found other records about her?" Mr. Cullen asked.
Bella nodded warily, not liking the animation in his face. What exactly was he here for?
"Perhaps we can trade when you're finished with them?"
They weren't her records. She could hardly say no, and she really didn't need to see the book of sketches, but . . . a few minutes spent satisfying her curiosity couldn't hurt. After all, Mr. Morris had promised her continued access. "Sure."
She passed over the box of papers, mentally assuring herself that his research—no matter what it was—couldn't negatively affect hers. There was no way they'd be interested in the same tiny, historical thread.
"I'm not sure about the metal in the cover." Mr. Cullen held out a pair of examiner's gloves.
Bella shook off his offer, pulling out her own and donning them. She hadn't considered the metals, but he was right.
Sitting back down, she examined the book's heavy cover. Thick, inlaid leather with metal. Unusual for the period. Before she opened it, she set a timer on her phone to make sure she didn't lose track of time. A wise choice. The first sketch was of a boy, wide-set intelligent eyes peering back at her. Whoever had drawn it had been a talented artist. Carefully, she leafed through the pages. Some subjects were drawn more than once, Naera included, her image appearing once near the beginning and twice at the end of the book. Each portrait was banded by a dark and intricate border, though as Bella paused on the last image, she saw the pattern break. Turning the book sideways, she saw that the artist had elegantly woven a date into it—1862. There was other text beside it too—maybe? She tilted her head sideways, trying unsuccessfully to read it. She flipped back a page, examining the border. Yes, there too. And on other pages. Years and indecipherable scribbles. A secret code? Another language?
The timer on her phone buzzed.
She fumbled to silence it, and doing so, found Mr. Cullen staring at her. As soon as their gazes locked, he looked away, focusing back on the letters in front of him. Was it her imagination, or did he look concerned?
Bella went back to the book and its not-so-decorative page edges. Behind the dark pencil marks were faint regular lines and the occasional tiny splotch.
Blood?
With a humorless huff, Bella shook her head, carefully closing the book. Talk about getting off track.
Bella went back to the box's other documents. Her initial hunch was right. All the documents were somehow related to Naera, Jacintha's slave—or ex-slave, as the case was. She'd been freed in early 1862, right at the start of the civil war. Unusual, certainly. Perhaps Jacintha had been a closet abolitionist. She made a note to check on the dates next time she was back and see if they correlated with other released slaves.
Bella continued indexing, taking notes and photos, discreetly numbering the upper corner of the boxes she worked on and documenting contents in a spreadsheet. Focused as she was, she found herself occasionally glancing at Mr. Cullen. He didn't seem to have a phone, or wasn't using it if he did. Instead, he made rapid, hand-written notes.
Bella scanned another receipt into her phone, huffing a bit when the auto-transcribe corrected "receipt" to "reseed". Mr. Cullen didn't even glance her way when she gave a whispered curse. No, he remained diligently focused.
Maybe it wasn't just the stillness.
Perhaps it's his aura, she thought, imagining her former and flaky roommate's melodramatic tone. Ah, Bess and her chatter about auras, crystals, and essential oils. Bella had drawn the line at discussion of alien abductions.
She shook off the strange feeling. She was probably just overheated and tired.
Refocusing, she continued her sorting, the quiet broken only by the whisper of shuffled papers.
When it came time to trade boxes, Bella overshot her mark, her fingers brushing his. She would barely have noticed it if not for the jolting twitch of his hand. He nearly yanked the box away, blinking at her rapidly and then looking away with a murmured, "Thank you."
Definitely weird. She eyed his suit in a new light. Maybe he was super religious.
When Mr. Morris came back to check on them an hour later, Mr. Cullen's voice startled Bella away from the faintly written letter she was reading.
"I was wondering if I could look at the slave quarters site, Mr. Morris, if it isn't too much trouble?" It was the most she'd heard him say, and it revealed an accent she struggled to place—almost southern but not quite. Maybe he'd lived in the north for a while?
The mystery irked Bella.
"Of course, of course. I'm sure you'd like to see it too, Miss Swan?"
"Please." Phone in hand, she followed him out of the room, Mr. Cullen bringing up the rear.
Like the few others she'd seen, the once-sturdy wooden building showed its age. The neglect was obvious. Even so, it was in better shape than she'd expected.
"The slaves built their own homes, and they built them well. Sometimes better than their master's houses," Mr. Morris said, smiling. "The roof shingles have been replaced, but other than that it's barely needed any attention. Not like the main house."
The smell of wood rot told Bella otherwise. Of course, one's sense of smell diminished with age. Or, perhaps it was a smell that didn't mean much. Rotting wood was a familiar scent in the South. Jokingly, Jason had told her that Southerners mistook it for nostalgia.
Though the building was interesting, there was little to distinguish it from any other outbuilding. It was disappointing to find no markings or features that spoke to human activity. Still, Bella dutifully documented each aspect of it, muttering notes into her phone's microphone as she went. Mr. Cullen, however, seemed to be absorbing every inch of the planked walls with his eyes. She watched his hand and pencil fly over the pages in his book making long strokes. An artist then. His attraction to the book of portraits made sense. She released the tension in her shoulders. He was no competition to her.
Bella returned to the boxes of records long before Mr. Cullen, relieved and better able to focus on her research. By early afternoon, though, she was melting, three glasses of Mr. Morris's delicious iced tea aside. She'd indexed two and a half boxes and scanned everything that was pertinent to her area of research.
Mr. Morris was also looking a little weary, and she didn't want to overstay her welcome. After he said she'd be welcome back on any morning, Bella took the hint and began to pack up her belongings—as did Mr. Cullen.
"You are both welcome to return," Mr. Morris told them. "I don't mind the company."
"Thank you for the offer," Mr. Cullen said, "but I'm returning home tomorrow. I won't be this way again for . . . some time."
"Ah well, going home is always a blessing—mixed as it is." Mr. Morris chuckled.
Bella watched Mr. Cullen and his polite smile even as she wondered at his last comment. Had he sounded regretful? Perhaps he hadn't seen everything he'd wanted to.
After thanking the old man again and promising to bring Charlie to visit, Bella made her departure, planning to head directly home to log her notes.
She rolled down her car's windows, enjoying the light breeze and blessedly deep shade. A shift in the shadows made her look up to see Mr. Cullen walk by, his large black sketchbook in hand. No doubt he was heading for one of the shiny cars parked down the street. But no, he strode quickly past the long line of glinting vehicles, rounding the corner and disappearing from sight.
Folks,
I'd love to hear how you heard about or discovered this story.
With thanks,
Erin
Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.