Reverend McDowell agrees with me in spirit, but when I pressed him to preach publicly what he says to me in private, he refused. “Pray and wait,” he told me. “Pray and act,” I snapped. “Pray and speak!”
How could I marry someone who displays such cowardice?
I have no choice now but to leave his church. I’ve decided to follow in your steps and become a Quaker. I shudder to think of the gruesome dresses and the barren meetinghouse, but my course is set.
Fine riddance to Israel! Be consoled in knowing the world depends upon the small beating in your heart.
Yours,
Nina
When I finished reading, I pulled a chair from the pine table and sat. Motes of flour-dust were drifting in the air. It seemed an odd convergence that Nina and I would both taste this pain only weeks apart. Fine riddance to Israel, she’d written, but it wasn’t fine. I feared I would love him the rest of my life, that I would always wonder what it would’ve been like to spend my life with him at Green Hill. I longed for it in that excruciating way one has of romanticizing the life she didn’t choose. But sitting here now, I knew if I’d accepted Israel’s proposal, I would’ve regretted that, too. I’d chosen the regret I could live with best, that’s all. I’d chosen the life I belonged to.
I’d struggled for nearly two years to be acknowledged as a minister, without success, and I bore down now on my efforts, performing charitable work at the children’s asylum in order to win over the Quaker women and spending so many evenings reading texts on Quaker thought and worship I smelled perpetually of paraffin. The crucial factor, though, was my utterances in Meeting, which were completely dismal. My nervousness about speaking always made my stammer worse, and Mr. Bettleman complained loudly about my “incoherent mumblings.” It was said that rhetorical polish wasn’t required for the ministry, but the fact was all the ministers on the Facing bench were appallingly eloquent.
I sought out the doctor who’d provided my spectacles, in hope, finally, of a cure, but he terrified me with talk of operations in which the root of one’s tongue was sliced and the excess tissue removed. I left, vowing I would never return. That night, unable to sleep, I sat in the kitchen with warm milk and nutmeg, repeating Wicked Willy Wiggle over and over, the little tongue exercise Nina had once insisted I do when she was a child.
8 October 1828
My Dear Sarah,
I am to be publicly expelled from Third Presbyterian Church. It seems they do not take well to my attending Quaker meetings these past few months. Mother is appalled. She insists my downfall began when I refused confirmation into St. Philip’s. According to her, I was a twelve-year-old marionette whose strings you pulled, and now I’m a grown marionette of twenty-four whose strings you’re manipulating all the way from Philadelphia. How skilled you are! Mother also felt compelled to add that I’m an unmarried marionette, thanks to my pride and my opinionated tongue.
Yesterday, Reverend McDowell visited, informing me I must return to “the fold of God’s elect” or be summoned before the church session to stand trial for broken vows and neglect of worship. Have you ever? I spoke as calmly as I could: “Deliver your document citing me to appear in your court, and I’ll come and defend myself.” Then I offered him tea. As Mother says, I’m proud, proud even of my pride. But when he departed, I fled to my room and gave way to tears. I am on trial!
Mother says I must give up my Quaker foolishness and return to the Presbyterians or bring public scandal upon the Grimkés. Well, we’ve endured them before, haven’t we? Father’s impeachment, that despicable Burke Williams, and your aweing “desertion” to the North. It’s my turn now.
I remain firm. Your Sister,
Nina