The Invention of Wings(88)

            He had a dramatic cleft in his chin and piercing brown eyes over which his brows slanted upward like the slopes of a tiny hill. He wore simple breeches with silver knee buckles, a dark coat, and a three-cornered hat. A lock of hair, dark as coal, tossed on his forehead. I guessed him to be some years older than I, perhaps ten or more. I’d seen him on deck before, and on the first night, in the ship’s dining quarters with his wife and eight children, six boys, two girls. I’d thought then how tired she looked.

            “My name is Israel Morris,” he said.

            Later, I would wonder if the Fates had placed me there, if they’d been the ones who’d kept me lingering in Philadelphia for three months until this particular ship sailed, though of course, we Presbyterians believed it was God who arranged propitious encounters like these, not mythological women with spindles, threads, and shears.

            The mainsails were snapping and wheezing, making a great racket. I told him my name, and then we stood for a moment, gazing at the rising brightness, at the seabirds suddenly making soaring arcs in the sky. He told me his wife, Rebecca, was quarantined in their cabin tending their youngest two, who’d become sick with dysentery. He was a broker, a commission merchant, and though he was modest, I could tell he’d been prosperous at it.

            In turn, I told him about the sojourn I’d made with my father and his unexpected death. The words slid fluidly off my tongue, with only an occasional stammer. I could only attribute it to the sweep and flow of water around us.

            “Please, accept my sympathies,” he said. “It must have been difficult, caring for your father alone. Could your husband not travel with you?”

            “My husband? Oh, Mr. Morris, I’m not married.”

            His face flushed.

            Wanting to ease the moment, I said, “I assure you, it’s not a matter that concerns me much.”

            He laughed and asked about my family, about our life in Charleston. When I told him about the house on East Bay and the plantation in the upcountry, his lively expression died away. “You own slaves then?”

            “. . . My family does, yes. But I, myself, don’t condone it.”

            “Yet you cast your lot with those who do?”

            I bristled. “. . . They are my family, sir. What would you have me do?”

            He gazed at me with kindness and pity. “To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.”

            I turned from him toward the glassy water. What kind of man would speak like this? A Southern gentleman would as soon swallow his tongue.

            “Forgive my bluntness,” he said. “I’m a Quaker. We believe slavery to be an abomination. It’s an important part of our faith.”

            “. . . I happen to be Presbyterian, and while we don’t have an anti-slavery doctrine like you, it’s an important part of my faith, as well.”

            “Of course. My apologies. I’m afraid there’s a zealot in me I’m at a loss to control.” He pulled at the rim of his hat and smiled. “I must see about breakfast for my family. I hope we might speak again, Miss Grimké. Good day.”

            I thought of nothing but him for the next two days. He disturbed nearly every waking minute, and even my sleep. I was drawn to him in a deeper way than I’d been to Burke, and that’s what frightened me. I was drawn to his brutal conscience, to his repulsive Quakerism, to the force of his ideas, the force of him. He was married, and for that I was grateful. For that, I was safe.

            He approached me in the dining room on the sixth day of the voyage. The ship was scudding before a gale and we’d been banned from above deck. “May I join you?” he asked.