The Invention of Wings(150)

            The last week of August we returned to Mrs. Whittier’s cottage as if from battle. I felt tired and beleaguered, uncertain if I could continue with the fall lectures. The last teaspoon of fight had been scraped out of me. Our final meeting of the summer had ended with dozens of angered men standing on wagons outside the hall, shouting “Devilina!” and hurling rocks as we left. One had hit my mouth, transforming my lower lip into a fat, red sausage. I looked a sight. I wasn’t sure what Mrs. Whittier would say to all this, if she would even give us shelter—we were pariahs now—but when we arrived, she pulled us into her arms and kissed our foreheads.

            On the third day of refuge, I returned from a stroll along the banks of the Merrimack to find Nina canting sharply against the window as if she’d fallen asleep, her head pressed to the glass, her eyes closed, her arms dropped by her sides. She looked like a spinning top that had come to rest.

            Hearing my footsteps, she turned and pointed to the tea table where the Boston Morning Post lay open. Mrs. Whittier took care to hide the editorials, but Nina had found the paper in the bread box.


August 25

            The Misses Grimké have made speeches, written pamphlets, and exhibited themselves in public in unwomanly ways for a while now, but they have not found husbands. Why are all the old hens abolitionists? Because not being able to obtain husbands, they think they may stand some chance for a Negro, if they can only make amalgamation fashionable . . .

            I couldn’t finish it.

            “If that’s not enough, Theodore will be arriving this afternoon along with Elizur Wright and Mrs. Whittier’s son, John. Their letter came while you were out. Mrs. Whittier is in there making mince pies.”

            She hadn’t spoken of Theodore all summer, but she was sick with longing for him, it was plain on her face.



            The men arrived at three o’clock. My lip was almost back to its normal size, and I could speak now without sounding as if my mouth was stuffed with food, but it was still sore and I remained quiet, waiting for them to come to their purpose, remembering the way Theodore defended us before—It is supremely ridiculous they should be bullied from this great moment.

            Today he was wearing two shades of green that made one wince. He walked to the mantel and picked up a piece of scrimshaw and inspected it. His eyes went to Nina. He said, “There has not been a contribution to the anti-slavery movement more impressive or tireless than that of the Grimké sisters.”

            “Hear, hear,” said dear Mrs. Whittier, but I saw her son lower his eyes, and I knew then why they had come.

            “We commend you for it,” Theodore went on. “And yet by encouraging men to join your audiences, you’ve mired us in a controversy that has taken the attention away from abolition. We’ve come, hoping to convince you—”

            Nina interrupted him. “Hoping to convince us to behave like good lapdogs and wait content beneath the table for whatever crumbs you toss to us? Is that what you hope?” Her rebuke was so swift and scathing I wondered if it was in reaction to his marriage pledge as much as anything.

            “Angelina, please, just hear us out,” he said. “We’re on your side, at heart we are. I of all people support your right to speak. It’s downright senseless to keep men away from your meetings.”

            “. . . Then why do you quibble?” I asked.

            “Because we sent you out there on behalf of abolition, not women.”

            He glanced at John, whose heavy brows and lean face made me feel the two could’ve been actual brothers, not just figurative ones.

            “He only means to say the slave is of greater urgency,” John added. “I support the cause of women, too, but surely you can’t lose sight of the slave because of a selfish crusade against some paltry grievance of your own?”