Chains

Preparing to attend a ball in honor of the Queen’s birthday, Madam requests two new gowns. Isabel discusses the event with the other maids as they cook. Lady Seymour has another stroke and loses the use of her limbs. Madam Lockton appears frustrated at how long it is taking her to die and demands she be moved downstairs. Isabel must clean and air out the room afterward. During her chores, her thoughts turn to Ruth. She wishes she were here to see the wintry scene outside. Isabel weeps and chides herself for becoming emotional. She wishes she could gain her freedom like Phillis Wheatley or save enough money to buy herself liberation. Lady Seymour’s condition stabilizes, but the doctor says she will not recover. Madam Lockton continues her over-the-top wardrobe preparations for the ball. The guns will fire at noon as a salute to the Queen, and the ball will begin at six o’clock.

Isabel finishes reading Common Sense. She understands what Paine means about equality and freedom. She begins to think about how she might escape but deems it all but impossible due to the water surrounding the city. While passing through town, she sees Captain Morse, who wants her to deliver a penny to Captain William Farrar as payment for a lost bet. She finds the request puzzling, and when she delivers it, she sees that it is meant for her to carry another message. She is frustrated and returns home.

When Isabel returns, Madam is infuriated with her and strikes her across the face with a riding crop; Madam has heard from Jane Drinkwater, the town gossip, who spotted Isabel speaking with Farrar and receiving the note. Madam demands Isabel hand over the note, but Isabel tosses it into the fire. Madam strikes her again, drawing blood, and orders her locked in the potato bin. Before leaving, Madam threatens to sell Isabel and Ruth—she reveals that Ruth is still her property and hasn’t been sold. No one would buy her, so she was sent to the plantation in Charleston. Madam threatens to kill Ruth and sell Isabel, and she imprisons Isabel in the bin. Hannah brings Isabel water and a chamber pot, but she ignores Isabel’s cries for help. With the knowledge that Ruth is alive and nearby, Isabel frees herself from the bin and steals a map and a pass from the drawing room (enslaved people cannot travel outside their estates without a written pass). She renames herself Isabel Gardner and plans her route to find Ruth.

Isabel takes her map, forged pass, all her belongings, and some food and prepares to leave. She stops to stoke Lady Seymour’s fire and notices her money pouch. Lady watches her take the money but gestures she approves and tells her to “[r]un” (291). Isabel plans to steal a rowboat but remembers Curzon and how much he has helped her; she must rescue him from the prison. She bribes the guard Fisher with food and lies that she is there to clean cells for Colonel Hawkins. The prison reeks of waste and illness, and men are dying rapidly. She mucks out the cells, steals a blanket, and finds Curzon. He is very ill, and Didbin has recently passed. She pretends Curzon has died, wraps him in a blanket, and puts him in a wheelbarrow moving out of the prison past a sleepy Fisher. She and Curzon stealthily move toward the shore past guards and a barking dog. Curzon is weak and can barely walk. They get into a boat, and Isabel rows into the night until her hands bleed. She rows deep into fog and thinks she sees human forms in the mist. She feels a kind presence. At some point, she falls asleep and awakens the next morning on the shores of New Jersey.

The novel ends with a broadside announcing the search for the two runaways. Their story will continue in the next installment in the series, Forge.