I opened the paper and touched the edge of the daguerreotype inside. It was a picture of three girls who seemed more than solemn. All three wore frowns so deep, they seemed to be scowling. My breath caught—one of these girls was Eliza Two, my great-great-great-great-grandmother. They represented three different skin tones: on the left, the darkest and shortest girl, whose clothes were hidden by a long, white apron. Her face appeared chiseled from a rare metal, her hair a coiled mass puffed high. On the right, a tall, plump girl in a shabby dress, perhaps sewn from “linsey-woolsey,” the cheap cloth used to make slaves’ garments. She had a braid that fell over one shoulder and what appeared to be keloid scars on her cheeks. The fairest girl stood in the middle. She had hoops in her ears, and her hair was brushed into ringlets. She was dressed in an extravagant frock with many ribbons and buttons.
“Is the one in the fancy dress the master’s daughter?” Mrs. Ransom asked.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
I could see why Mrs. Ransom would think the girl in the middle was white. There was her skin color and then her undoubtedly expensive attire, which didn’t indicate enslaved status. But there was something else that pulled at me and made me answer in the negative: I was certain I’d seen this girl, and the one on the left, before.
*
I’d never skipped a class in my program, and I wasn’t going to start. But for two days, I couldn’t sleep, thinking about the daguerreotype that I’d seen in the collections.
On Thursday, my class was over at four thirty, and my car was already packed. I drove by the gas station to fill up. Then I headed south. When I passed the sign for Gaffney, South Carolina, I heard Lydia’s voice, squealing at the Peach Butt on the horizon.
At Uncle Root’s house, I let myself in with my key. It was late, almost midnight, but he was sitting on the couch, waiting for me. He smiled, bemused. Was something going on? My face was shining like a new penny, but I wouldn’t tell him what I’d found.
“I can’t tell you. Not yet. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“All right, Ailey, you’re allowed your privacy.”
“No, no! I’m going to tell you, but you have to wait! It’s so exciting!”
“Ah! A mystery.”
I wanted to be certain. That was the requirement of my profession, to lay my own eyes upon the proof, before I told anyone. Like my Aunt Pauline might say, I didn’t want to shout until I got happy.
In the morning, I drove to Routledge. I parked in the lot by the library. Mrs. Giles-Lipscomb still remembered me. Hug her neck, she ordered, and she wasn’t a bit surprised that I was going to be an historian. She’d been waiting for me to follow in Uncle Root’s footsteps, but when I asked to see the old documents from the college archives, she was reluctant. Those papers were very fragile, she told me, until I reminded her I was the former research assistant of Dr. Oludara.
“You can call her. I don’t mind.”
“No, Ailey, I’m going to trust you.”
But when Mrs. Giles-Lipscomb brought the box out, she reminded me, please be careful. This box contained an original portrait, not a reproduction. She laid down a cloth on the table, then several layers of acid-free paper, and finally—reverently—the daguerreotype on top. She kept whispering, careful, careful, but when I reached into my purse for white cotton gloves, she smiled.
“All right. I see you know what you’re doing. I’ll leave you to it.”
I looked inside the box, and there were two other items in the box: a cameo brooch framed in tiny pearls, and a linen handkerchief embroidered along the edges with blue thread. Before placing a finger on both sides of the daguerreotype, I fitted a glove over each hand. If Matthew Thatcher had wrapped this image in fabric or paper, that covering was long gone. There was damage to the edges, little chips and tears, but the center was clear. It was an image that I’d seen many times, in my four years in college, on the first floor of the library. This small daguerreotype that had been reproduced into a much larger image. It was the portrait of our college founders, Adeline Ruth Hutchinson Routledge and her sister, Judith Naomi Hutchinson.
The two young women were probably in their twenties. They clung together, surrendering no space, and wore matching dark dresses—maybe black or gray—with voluminous skirts. There was lace around their necks as well, collars that draped over their bosoms. The smaller woman was strikingly beautiful, very dark, with prominent cheekbones and full lips turned upward. There had been an attempt to restrain the coils that sprang around her face: she wore a crocheted or knitted snood, but her hair sneaked out. A brooch was fastened at her collar, but I couldn’t be certain it was the same one from the box. The much fairer-skinned woman beside her was pale with a thin grimace, and hoops in her ears.