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Betty Vaughn
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The Mystery of Sarah Slater

MISERY IN HARTFORD
Chapter 1

Sarah was angry. It was January 12, 1860, and they were supposed to be celebrating her seventeenth birthday. It should have been a happy family gathering. She laughed at herself. How many of those had she known that had been happy, and why should this be any different?
She looked across the table at her mother. Miserable in the early months of pregnancy, Antionette was glowering at her husband, Joseph Gilbert. As usual, they were arguing. Sarah could not image how they had stopped long enough to make another baby. Her brothers Robert and Frederick studiously ignored their parents. Two years younger, Frederick had delighted in being a nuisance to Sarah. Six years older than Sarah, Robert was her favorite. Recently, he had opened a dentist office on Market Street and was helping to relieve some of the financial pressures on the family. Not that he received any gratitude from his parents. Nor did she receive recognition for her daily toil. Sarah could not suppress a sigh. The elder Gilberts were too preoccupied with quarreling to bother thanking their children for any help they provided. The only one missing was her older brother, Eugene, who, having had enough of the family drama, moved to Kinston, N.C., in 1858, where he was working as a jeweler.
The family was not prospering. They had moved from Middletown to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1858 after living in Middletown for eighteen years following her parents move from Martinique. While living in Middletown, the hapless Joseph scratched out a living teaching his native French language and manufacturing pills. Grandly, he labeled himself a doctor. The move to Hartford two years prior had brought no improvement in their circumstances. Their clapboard boarding house at 13 Sheldon Street provided a living, thanks to Sarah and her mother’s cooking and cleaning. Her mother resented it. Sarah despised it.
They had fed the boarders early, so the family could celebrate her birthday without strangers. The cake Sarah had made for herself was sitting on the sideboard waiting for the meal to finish. There would have been no cake had she not made it, and there would be no gifts. There never had been.
She was young, beautiful of face and figure, and smart. Sarah felt she deserved more. Somehow, she was determined to find a better life, one that did not require her to toil like a slave and age early into a wrinkled, bitter prune like her mother. She could tell from the portrait of her mother and father, painted in more prosperous days, they had been a handsome couple. One that appeared to be in love.
Sarah was so deep in her thoughts that she did not at first note the raised volume of her father’s voice. Looking up from her plate of mostly untouched food, she saw that he had risen from the table.
His face red with rage, Joseph exploded, “Dammit, Antionette. I can’t take any more of your constant carping. I’ve had it.”
“Really, so what are you going to do about it?” she demanded.
Joseph leaned across the table to glare at her mother. “Do? You think I have no other option but to take this day after day. Nothing I do is ever good enough for you. What don’t you try figuring it out on your own? I’m leaving.”
“That’s just like you. You fill my belly with a baby for the tenth time and now you want to run off. I’ve buried five of them and now there is another on the way. It nearly broke my heart when my babies died, and not a word of sympathy from you. You never stopped to consider my pain. You have never stopped to consider me, period. Now, you want to leave me like this, you bastard.” Antoinette glared back at her husband. “So, get out. Go! I’ve had enough of you. Leave me to raise a fatherless babe. He’ll be better off without the likes of you.”
Joseph was so angry he sputtered. “What the hell are you talking about? I loved those babies and grieved for them as much as you did. That never mattered to you. You are the only one you care about. The rest of us be damned.”
The three siblings looked at one another. Their parents had fought before, but never had it reached this point. Sarah could not help trembling. What would they do if their father left? It was hard enough to survive with all of them working. Sarah and her brothers quietly left the room and the uncut cake behind. None had any appetite.
Sarah shrugged her shoulders when Robert looked at her as though questioning what she thought would happen. Going to her room, she shed her clothes and pulled her nightgown over her head. She climbed into the bed and nestled under the feather covering until her shivering stopped. Normally she would have wrapped a hot brick to slide under the covers and warm her feet, but the need to escape the quarrel still raging downstairs had been too great. Staring at the fading floral wallpaper, Sarah mindlessly counted the roses until the candle guttered out plunging the room into darkness. With her mind in turmoil, sleep was elusive due to intermittent bouts of shouting from her father and crying and screaming from her mother. She suspected none in the house were sleeping, including the boarders. If things continued in this vein, the boarders would leave, and then where would they be?
At four in the morning her father knocked on her door. Sarah struggled to awaken before mumbling, “What is it?”
Joseph stuck his head in the door. “Sarah, I’m going to Kinston to join Eugene. If you want to go with me, get packed and be downstairs in an hour. Fred is coming, too. Don’t worry about packing everything. Robert will ship the rest to you when we are settled.”
“Robert is not going with you?”
“No. He is going to stay with your mother until after the baby is born in June. Then he’s coming, as well.”
“What about maman?”
“She says she will sell the house and move to New York. Her cousin there will help her get settled.” Joseph cleared his throat, “If you’re coming with us, get a move on so we don’t miss the train.”
Sarah lay back on the bed. What was she to do? To stay meant on-going toil, even more poverty, and her mother’s slaps and verbal abuse. While she knew nothing of Kinston, a small town in eastern North Carolina, it at least promised something new…maybe something better. For a moment she felt pity for her mother with a husband abandoning her and a baby due in months. But, she reasoned, Antoinette had brought much of the trouble on herself with the constant carping and degrading of not only her husband, but her children as well. Sarah and her father had borne the brunt of it. With the others gone, were she to stay, it would be Robert and her that were the focus of her mother’s eternal wrath. But, she would be the primary target. Sarah sat up. There was no time to waste, if she was going…and she was. Anything was better than this. She would miss Robert, but he would come later.
Dressing hastily and throwing her clothes helter-skelter into her battered valise, she was out the door of her room and downstairs at five minutes to the appointed hour. Frederick and her father were waiting. Robert was there, too. Judging by the shine in his eyes, he was struggling to hold back tears. She suspected he already regretted his decision to stay. Sarah looked around the dimly lit foyer, but her mother was nowhere in sight.
Walking over to Robert, she dropped her valise to the floor and stepped into his arms. “I’ll miss you. If it gets too bad, you come to Kinston, too.”
“It’s okay.” Robert added in a voice meant for just her ear, “I’m not happy about it, but someone needs to stay with mother until after the baby. It’s just not right for us all to leave her like this. Papa deserves some of the blame for this mess, Nettie.” Robert always called her by the family nickname.
Annoyed by the whispering that he suspected reflected poorly on him, Joseph reminded, “Enough chatter, we need to get going now,”
Sarah stepped back from Robert, squeezed his hand and whispered she loved him. Her only answer was a nod and a sad smile. Of all in her family, she loved this brother of hers best. She studied him as though to memorize his features. Robert was handsome in a quiet way. His slim but manly stature, azure blue eyes, and a head-full of curly hair had drawn many admiring glances from the female sex. For Sarah, his best attribute was a kind and loving heart.
“I’ll write you,” she called back as the three of them walked into the cold dark of early morning.
Her father and Fred sat across from her in the train. Sarah was relieved that they had found a seat near the coal-fed stove. While it nearly blistered her face, they were better off than those passengers relegated to the cold rear of the car. Her valise was beside her on the seat. Laying the book that she had packed at the last minute on top of the bag, and pulling her best paisley shawl over her face, she leaned back and closed her eyes. She had slept little during the night and felt ill and out of sorts due to the lack of rest. The rhythmic clacking of the train lulled her into sleep as the miles slipped past. She awakened with a jolt as they pulled into the station in New York where they would change trains for the next stage of the journey south.
Sarah and Frederick both gawked at the swarms of people whirling about in the station. Their previous experiences had never exposed them to such a bustling city as New York. As she stared around, she saw a handsome man, that looked to be in his early twenties, admiring her. Sarah could not resist a flirtatious smile in return.
Catching her, Joseph jerked her around by the elbow. “Enough of that, Sarah Antoinette Gilbert. I’ll not have you acting like some strumpet. You hear me now.”
In sham meekness, Sarah bowed her head and murmured, “Yes, Papa.”
To say anything more would only increase his smoldering anger from the night before. She did not want to spend the rest of the journey listening to him harangue her for her comportment. For a moment, she wondered if leaving with her father was the best decision after all. Sarah sighed under her breath. There was no turning back now. Frederick, for once, gave her a sympathetic glance. He was as wary as she of their father’s anger in his present mood. It was a relief to them both to follow their father to the train that would carry them to Washington, and then on to Richmond where they would again change trains.
As she walked behind Joseph, she could not help wondering what had become of the handsome, proudly erect man that stood beside her mother in the portrait that hung over the fireplace in the parlor. In the intervening years, her father had become gray-headed, with a face lined by a myriad of creases. He stooped as if the burden of living was too heavy a weight on his sagging shoulders. The smile that lit the face in the portrait had been replaced by a perpetual glower as though the eyes that looked out at the world saw no hope. Her once beautiful mother’s eyes had that same look of despair, frustration, and dead dreams. Was it life that had wrought such changes, or was it blaming their despair on each other and losing hope for anything better? In their anger, they had pulled against one another rather than joining forces to fight for a more promising future. Sarah had decided, before sleep claimed her that last night in her home, never to allow their failures and frustrations to consume her own life. With the sun just beginning to peak from behind a cloud, it seemed as though it was sending her a ray of hope.
They settled themselves on the ubiquitously hard slat seats of the next train and tried to find a comfortable posture. They were all eager to reach Washington and stop for some rest.
When they arrived in Washington, they exited the train to grab a bite to eat from the kiosk inside the station. The overly salted ham and stale bread was unappealing, but they ate without complaining as they were all hungry and exhausted from the long day of travel. Sarah suspected that any accommodation they could find for the night would be, at best, a nearby rooming house…one that her father could afford.
Her father made inquiries inside the wooden depot building, and soon the three of them were trudging down the street to an inauspicious looking dwelling. Knocking on the door, they waited until a slovenly woman answered Joseph’s knock and motioned for them to come in. The best the woman could offer was a single room. Her father and brother would share the bed while she was consigned to a pallet on the floor. She was too tired to care. The woman fed them a spare breakfast of oatmeal in the morning that they all ate in haste, washing it down with weak coffee. Brushing the clothing she had worn since leaving Hartford, the characteristically well-groomed Sarah realized that achieving any semblance of freshness to her attire was a lost cause.
When they returned to the ramshackle station, Joseph telegraphed Eugene to tell him they were coming to Kinston and to book a hotel room for them. Then he purchased sandwiches for the next leg of the journey. He bought beer for himself and water for his children. Neither Sarah nor Fred commented on the beer. Sarah hoped it was enough to put him to sleep so she could escape his constant eyes on her as he watched for any further infraction of his strict code of what constituted proper behavior for his daughter. He was worse than the nuns that had overseen her education with an ever-ready ruler.
She was thrilled when he finally nodded off, leaving her to enjoy the scenery slipping past the window in quiet contemplation. Never having been anywhere except Hartford and Middletown, she found herself fascinated by the changing vista. In a low voice to keep from waking her father, she pointed out various views that captured her interest. Frederick, caught between the exuberance of childhood and the restraint of early adulthood, was as excited as she by the varied landscape although he tried to temper his enthusiasm in order to appear more mature.
When they arrived at the Richmond depot, they again changed trains as the gaslights came on inside the station. This leg of the journey would take them to Weldon, North Carolina, just over the Virginia border. In Weldon, they would transfer to the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad that would carry them to Goldsborough where they would catch the final train to their destination. With money tight, the senior Gilbert opted for the night train rather than spending the night in a hotel.
As night descended, the three of them nodded in weariness as their railcar carried them through the darkness. They roused enough when they reached Weldon to once again gather their things and transfer to the next train that stood puffing out black smoke against the moonlit sky of early dawn. In annoyance, Sarah brushed at the cinders that sifted down on her clothes. It was bad enough to look wrinkled and weary without adding dirt to the mix.
Resettled on the train, Sarah shifted on the hard seat trying to get comfortable. Falling back to sleep appeared to be a lost cause, so she sat up and resumed staring out at the gray of dawning day. From time to time she stomped her feet to try to get warm as they had not been lucky enough to get seats near the stove. After whistle stops in Halifax and Enfield, they pulled into the station in Rocky Mount. She watched three people detrain and walk into the depot, but no one got on. The small town beyond the shack-like depot was dark with only the roofs and trees standing in relief against the rosy sky of early morning. In minutes they left the station. She knew from the train schedule they had been given that the next stop was Wilson and then Goldsborough. There they would change to the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad. They were all stiff and ready to get off when the conductor announced Goldsborough.
Walking to the train that would take them to their final destination, they stood waiting to board under the shelter of a small covered area on the platform. The day was gray with a fine drizzle that added to the general gloom of the scene. Goldsborough, despite being a juncture of two railroad lines, was a small town. Sarah hoped Kinston would be larger and offer a more appealing place to live. Nearby stood several men who, according to their conversation, were traveling to their home in New Bern. Her brother overheard them calling the train The Old Mullet Line. Curious, he approached them and stood waiting for them to notice him. The oldest of the men, clad in working man’s clothing, turned.
Taking the opening, Fred asked, “Excuse me, sir. I just heard you call this The Old Mullet Line. We thought it was the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad. That’s the one we need.”
The man chuckled, “Right enough, sonny. That’s the official name, but local folks call it The Old Mullet Line because it hauls fish from the coast when it’s coming from the other direction. If you ride near the freight car they haul’em in, you’ll soon know what I mean. They can’t get the stink of fish out of that thing.” Again, he chuckled before spitting a stream of brown liquid off to the side.
Fred stared at the man as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What was that you just spat, sir?”
He laughed, showing brown stained teeth before responding, “Well, if your northern brogue ain’t enough to give it away, that question sure does. It was snuff. You ever hear of that?”
“No, sir. What is it?”
“It’s ground up tobacco. You put a pinch in your mouth and let’er rest. ‘Bout everyone ‘round here dips.”
“Thank you, sir.”