I squinted at her frantic eyes, trying to comprehend what she was saying. As it dawned on me, I tried to speak, yet nothing came but a spew of air. I had to strip the words like wallpaper. “. . . . . . You . . . wrote to . . . Mr. Garrison?”
A chair scraped on the floor, and I saw Mr. Bettleman stride toward us. “You want us to believe that you, the daughter of a slaveholding family, penned a letter to an agitator like William Lloyd Garrison, thinking he wouldn’t publish it? It’s exactly the sort of inflammatory material he spreads.”
She was not remorseful, she was defiant. “Yes, perhaps I did think he would publish it!” she said. Then to me, “People are risking their lives for the cause of the slave, and we do nothing but sit on the Negro pew! I did what I had to do.”
It did feel, all of a sudden, that what she’d done was inevitable. Our lives would never go back to the way they’d been, she’d seen to it, and I both wanted to pull her into my arms and thank her, and to shake her.
Their faces were all the same, grim and accusing, frowning through the glaze of light, all but Israel’s. He stared at the floor as if he wished to be anywhere but here.
As Catherine resumed reading, Nina fixed her eyes on the far wall, on some high, removed place above their heads. The letter was long and eloquent, and yes, highly flammable.
“If persecution is the means by which we will accomplish emancipation, then I say, let it come, for it is my deep, solemn, deliberate conviction that this is a cause worth dying for. Angelina Grimké.” Catherine folded the paper and laid it on the floor.
News of her letter would reach Charleston, of course. Mother, Thomas, the entire family would read it with outrage and disgrace. She would never go home again—I wondered if she’d thought of that, how those words slammed shut whatever door was left there.
Just then Israel spoke from the back of the room, and I closed my eyes at the gentleness in his voice, the sudden kindness. “You are both our sisters. We love you as Christ loves you. We’ve come here only to bring you back into good standing with your Quaker brethren. You may still return to us in full repentance, as the prodigal son returned to his father—”
“You must recant the letter or be expelled,” Mr. Bettleman said, terse and plain.
Expelled. The word hung like a small blade, almost visible in the brightness. This could not happen. I’d spent thirteen years with the Quakers, six pursuing the ministry, the only profession left to me. I’d given up everything for it, marriage, Israel, children.
I hastened to speak before Nina. I knew what she would say and then the blade would fall. “. . . Please, I know you’re a merciful people.”
“Try and understand, Sarah, we looked the other way while you sat on the Negro pew,” Catherine said. “But it’s gone too far now.” She laced her fingers beneath her chin and her knuckles shone white. “And you have to consider, too, where you’ll go if you don’t recant. I care for you both, but naturally you couldn’t stay here.”
Panic arched into my throat. “. . . Is it so wrong to write a letter? . . . Is it so wrong to put feet to our prayers?”
“Matters like this—they aren’t the work of a woman’s life,” Israel said, stepping from the shadowed place along the wall. “Surely you’re not blind to that.” His voice was mired in hurt and frustration, the same tone he’d had when I turned down his proposal, and I knew he was speaking about more than the letter. “We have no choice. What you’ve done by declaring yourself in this manner is outside the bounds of Quakerism.”
I reached for Nina’s hand. It felt clammy and hot. I looked at Israel, only Israel. “. . . We cannot recant the letter. I only wish I’d signed it, too.”