Afternoons with Emily (56 page)

“Oh, Miranda.” Miss Adelaide’s eyes glowed as she spoke. “Our first months of married life, on the plantation, were wonderful.
We were so much in love, we were so very happy. I spent my days in a nirvana, happy to be a wife, content to fill my hours
with little pastimes, waiting for the evenings, when we could be alone.”

I thought now of my own recent nights with Roger, and I nodded. Go on, go on, I was thinking. And she did.

“Like other young ladies of quality, I was raised to write in a fine hand, to sing and play the piano, to read with intelligence
and discernment. But most naturally, to be a mother. When the babies didn’t come right away, I felt I must somehow make up
for this lack by being an especially diligent planter’s wife, especially since Louis was working long hours, so anxious, as
his father’s only son, to please that gentleman. Louis wanted to prove that he had the ability to manage the family’s holdings,
which would someday be entirely in his charge, and I was so proud of his efforts. You must understand that my only wish at
that time was to please Louis and his family.

“So I undertook to be instructed by Louis’s mother, to learn plantation life and my duties in that society. At first I took
to it; after all the costume balls and the silly diversions of my youth, I had grown restless and weary of that frivolous
existence. But when I started to pay real attention to the household, I quickly discovered that Louis’s mother was a rather
idle lady, given to collecting silver, fine furniture, and clothes, and that her supervision of the household was quite nominal.
There was not a great deal for me to learn, as she had trained her servants with an iron hand so they would be capable of
running everything for her. So I began to look farther afield.”

Now Miss Adelaide’s tone saddened. “I began to see things I hadn’t noticed before — and raised in town, as I had been, I had
never really witnessed the slavery of plantations firsthand until I came to Sycamore Hill. Town versus country — the institutions
were really markedly distinct. The plantation was like a small city, where the Peytons were committed to the large-scale production
of long-staple cotton, requiring human capital of more than one thousand oppressed men and women. Very different, indeed,
from the comfortable, well-treated housepeople I knew in Charleston, so close to their families that they
were
family. I heard after the war that many of those people chose to
stay
with their families, as free people. They were then paid, of course.”

But now Miss Adelaide’s face tightened, and I saw that her hands were moving in her lap. She drew in her breath.

“Well, Miranda, I was now a part of this plantation, so I took it upon myself, with Louis’s approval — and, I suspect, his
guilt — to direct my energy and sensibility to curating where I could our slaves’ physical and spiritual health: sitting up
with the critically ill, sponsoring ‘marriages’ between our men and women, making sure the meager provisions we provided them
were fairly distributed. And after a time, I could not help but grasp the full extravagance of our crimes against these good
people.

“I learned that my own maid and at least three other housemaids were daughters of Louis’s father, Reese Peyton, and this information
was related to me by my maid as a matter of pride. I was shocked, but it woke me to slowly noticing other things. Since we
ladies — Louis’s mother and sister and I — were not encouraged to venture near the farm areas — the barns, sheds, or fields
— it was some time before I even met Charles Haile, the overseer, and far longer before I perceived his true character. That
was on a day when he came to the ‘office,’ where I had gone by chance with a message for Louis from his father. I heard Haile
tell Louis that he’d just finished flogging three men for feigning illness, and one was unconscious. There was satisfaction
in his voice, but worse, I heard no protest from Louis. Later, when I confronted my husband, he told me in a tone I had not
heard before that I must not involve myself in ‘the affairs of the men,’ that his father would not like it. He did have the
grace to look away from me as he said this, embracing me and asking me not to worry.

“But I could not help worrying. Since Reese and his wife were frequently absent, looking after Reese’s other properties and
interests, Louis and the overseer were left in charge, and Mr. Haile was considerably more destitute of principle than the
slaves. I cannot say whether or not in Reese’s absence production suffered, but the slaves, in their mute misery, surely did.
A wily and cruel man, Mr. Haile maintained order and discipline among that group with his long lash while invoking the creed
that the lucky Peyton slaves were seldom sold away and that family situations were never broken up . . . for now.

“One of the slaves, Renty — who was the young daughter of Frank, the Peytons’ chief driver, and his ‘wife,’ Betty, a clean
and dignified woman who worked in the kitchen of the plantation house — had been given to me as a personal helper and maid.
Her skin was markedly light and her features too Caucasian to be an accident, particularly with parents as dark as Betty and
Frank. When I asked Louis about this one night, he simply shrugged and turned away. But all the Peyton slaves knew there was
more to it — as I told you earlier, Renty eventually explained that Reese was her true father — and so did Louis.

“Renty and I were practically the same age, and I decided to have her help me put in my gardens. During this landscape work,
we talked, and I came to respect and admire her, especially when she ever so quietly begged me to teach her to read. I found
that I could not say no, even though I knew it was illegal for slaves to read and write. She learned quickly, and as a consequence
of my secret interactions with Renty, Betty and I too became good friends. She would come to me freely, without fear of reprisal
and reprimand, and let me know what was really happening down in the quarters. In turn I would go to Louis to ask him for
the medicines and blankets and modest comforts that might ameliorate the conditions or harsh authority those people lived
under — to arrange for more rest or to intervene against Charles Haile’s capricious bursts of aggression. I did this over
and over and over again.

“Eventually, though, under his father’s influence, if not Charles Haile’s, Louis wearied of my supplications. He addressed
me quite vigorously and in a tone I’d heard him take only with the servants. He ordered me to bring him no more complaints
and to harden my heart to any human considerations I felt toward the family ‘property.’ My intercourse with them had been
noticed, he said, and was thought dangerously suggestive.

“That night I did not close my eyes. As I watched Louis sleep, I wondered why it was that I had more moments of joy and satisfaction
with Betty and Renty and Frank and their like than I did with my own husband’s family. Perhaps it was because Louis and I
had no children and seemed to have less and less to share, but I found more and more excuses to call Renty to my rooms. Our
deepening affection accelerated, as did the reading lessons, the illegality of my actions be damned. ‘Unrighteous laws were
made to be broken,’ I told her. That was when Renty made the ultimate gesture of trust. She drew me into her confidence, telling
me what even Frank and Betty did not know: she was pledged to a young man on the plantation who was called Thom, and they
intended to run off and make their way to freedom in the North.

“For days after, I shivered every time I thought of the risk — but when I met Thom, strong and magnificent and forceful about
his intention to die first rather than face manhood as a slave, I was impressed. The reading lessons were, I learned, part
of the couple’s design to prepare themselves to one day earn their wages, just as the eggs and vegetables Thom bartered for
extra clothing and heavy shoes were intended to help them survive the rigors of the flight ahead — one that neither had illusions
would be easy.

“Hearing this, and weighing their faith against my loyalty to a system I had come to regard as detestable and monstrous, I
offered to help. I went to my jewel box and removed sapphire ear clips and a matching diamond ring and bracelet set, wedding
gifts from the Peytons and heirlooms I was someday expected to pass along to the wife of the son I was beginning to feel I
would never bear Louis. It seemed entirely right to appropriate these objects, purchased by slavery’s filthy lucre, for freedom’s
purpose. I was merely returning them to their source. Full circle. ‘Sew the stones into the hems of your clothing,’ I instructed,
‘and use them to begin your new life. The system is corrupt, and so are the men who will hunt you down. If you need to, use
the settings to negotiate for your lives.’ ”

I was riveted. I barely dared to breathe, so engrossed was I in this tale.

“On nights when the moonlight was cold and ghostly,” Miss Adelaide said, “the only sounds perforating the long silence would
be the occasional calls of whip-poor-wills and screech owls. That’s how it was the night they returned with Renty. The Negro
hunters used bloodhounds to track the fugitive pair through the swamps and forests, catching up with them less than three
days after they’d set off. In the darkness and the unfamiliar brush, the two became separated. Or perhaps Renty gave herself
up so that Thom could continue on. I never knew, because when they brought her back, they ripped the clothing off her body
and lashed her until she passed out. And then they took hot irons to the girl’s feet, searing her toes together so that she
could never run . . . anywhere . . . ever again.”

With this, Miss Adelaide’s gray eyes closed. I reached for her hand, and as I did I noticed that the silver knot at the nape
of her neck had unfastened. She was shaking, much as she must have done almost forty years and a lifetime ago.

“Renty never regained consciousness, and within days, Frank and Betty were sold away — separately — to remind the others that
God’s grace began and ended at Sycamore Hill. I think Frank was sent somewhere along the Mississippi Delta and Betty to a
rice plantation farther down south. I tried to find out later exactly where, but my inquiries yielded no information.

“The little stones Renty carried were easily traced back to me. At first Louis’s father believed they’d been stolen, but as
I watched him calmly put those blistering irons to the feet of the girl he knew was his own daughter — branding her as one
would an animal — my fury gave me away, and he realized what I had done. You see, more than breaking the law by helping Renty
and Thom escape, I had committed the ultimate crime against my husband’s family. I had given their heirlooms to a
slave
— and had therefore made an inexcusable statement: that I valued her, mere chattel, over the family’s proud name. This was
the unforgivable sin, and so they asked me to leave.

“My parents had died by this time; Hugh was the head of the James family now. He was one of the pillars that held up Charleston
society, but there was little he could say after Reese sent for him and Hugh listened to Reese’s attack and his threats.

“ ‘Don’t even think of returning your sister to Charleston,’ Reese said, ‘or anyplace else where the Peyton name is known.
I can have her arrested and jailed in a heartbeat, and don’t think I won’t do it.’

“So you see, we had to leave, there was no choice . . . I didn’t care where we went, really, though I knew that following
my married sister, Amelia Moore, to Richmond could ruin her as well, so that was not a possibility. Renty’s death, Frank and
Betty’s shattered lives — I bore a large measure of blame. I was worn out and consumed with guilt, and I could only hope that
Thom had made it and that my service in this regard had been of some use.

“Hugh gave up his medical practice, and everything else, and brought me to Barbados. His consumption, while real, was never
our only reason for resettling. And, of course, we’ve never been back.”

“And Louis Peyton?” I asked in a whisper, needing to know the final outcome for the entire cast of characters.

“I believe, I
know,
he spoke strongly to his father. But I had made an impossible situation for him and for our marriage. I could no longer live
there. And he could not — I would not have wanted him to — leave. What would we have done? Where would we have gone? We would
have been outcasts, pariahs in a society that could never accept us again. And I had hurt Louis beyond repair, giving away
his gifts to a slave. No, I destroyed our marriage — and I deserved what I got.”

I reached to take her delicate patrician’s hand. “You made a better life in the end,” I said, thinking of all the island people
she had helped through the years at Dr. Hugh’s clinic and by her simple humane acts of concern.

There was a long silence, peaceful, contemplative. After a time she spoke again.

“My Moore relatives learned that during the war, Sycamore Hill was heavily damaged and pillaged, the mills and gins and all
the cotton burned and its human capital scattered to the wind. Perhaps this was Renty’s revenge.”

I stood, then sat beside her, putting my arms around her frail shoulders. We stayed like that for a long while, never speaking,
the soft night breeze occasionally lifting a tendril of hair, bringing the sound of a barking dog, a scent of jasmine. I was
spellbound — a story from the past, so vivid in the present. And yet, I sensed it was as if a load had finally lifted from
Miss Adelaide’s shoulders. Again, I took her hand in mine.

“It
wasn’t
your fault, you know,” I said, gazing directly into her eyes. “All you did was try to help in terrible times.”

She said nothing, but I could see that at last she was relaxing. The terrible ordeal, the long-held-in story, now had gone,
borne away on the softly scented night wind.

She nodded. “I never saw Louis again,” she said finally. “I know he never remarried. I heard he rode with Beauregard for two
years. Imagine, in his fifties! He was killed at Petersburg. So you see” — she turned to me with a smile — “I couldn’t bear
to see true love wasted — again. It is a rare thing. Precious. I only hope my efforts work better this time, for you and for
Roger.”