Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (16 page)

I was given a chair. But I stood.

Reverend Cooper stood up. "Are you a Christian, Phillis?"

"Yes, Reverend. You were in attendance at my baptism. You recollect, don't you? It was done hastily, after services. Because I am nigra."

The good reverend blushed. So did some others. Not Nathaniel, though. He scowled at me.

I supposed I was being what Mr. Mein would call a "saucy little piece."

"Of course, I was just as glad it was done then, Reverend," I amended, "being as you wouldn't have been able to come if it had been done sooner. Since your own services at Brattle Street Church wouldn't have been over yet."

He nodded and sat back down.

Reverend Mather Byles was next. "You claim to know the classics, do you not?"

Well, now, never did I hear such tomfoolery! And from Reverend Byles! Who had so often been a guest in our home and who had, on several occasions, tutored me in the classics. I was about to ask him if he had taken leave of his senses when I again caught Nathaniel's eye.

"Yes, Reverend Byles," I answered demurely. "I have studied the classics."

"Who wrote the
Iliad?
" he asked.

"Homer."

He sat down, satisfied.

"Who is Terence?" And none other than Andrew Oliver, the lieutenant governor, stood now.

I had felt to this moment as if I could not breathe. Now, of course, I could. Very easily. Surely he knew who Terence was. These esteemed gentlemen, these foremost lights of Boston, were playing some kind of game here.

Very well, then, I would play along with them.

"Terence was a Roman author of comedies," I replied. "An African by birth, he had long been a slave. But he was freed by the fruits of his pen."

"Do you wish to be free, Phillis?" Governor Hutchinson himself questioned me now.

I drew in my breath. Every face in the room was turned on me. My head buzzed. I looked at Hutchinson. I had been to his house. He had slaves. Likely so did all the others. Except Councilman Harrison Gray, who was what they called an abolitionist. He did not believe in slavery.

Again I glanced at Nathaniel. He seemed to be holding his breath. His face was about to turn blue.

"I would aspire to be free, yes," I said softly. "God has implanted the principle of freedom in every human breast. I have an abiding interest in freedom. But I should willingly submit to servitude to be free in Christ."

I could tell that Nathaniel was breathing again.

The men all looked at each other. There were murmurings and whisperings.

John Hancock stood. "Who is Phoebus, Phillis?"

"The Greek god of the sun. He is often called Phoebus Apollo."

"Why is it that you make such frequent references to him in your poetry?"

"Sir?"

"You make much of the sun, Phillis," Hancock said. "Why?"

Again I hesitated. Across the room, Nathaniel nodded.

"Because one memory I have of my mother is of her pouring water out of a stone jar, every morning, before the sun at its rising," I told them.

Silence. Several heads nodded.

Would they ask me now about my mother? My past? What would I do?

They did not. Reverend Moorhead stood up. "Who is your favorite poet, Phillis?" he asked in his Scotch accent.

"Alexander Pope," I said.

"Ah, yes, Pope." He shuffled some papers. "Dinna you not write a poem called 'To Maecenas'?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who is this Maecenas?"

Moorhead, you old Presbyterian, you well know,
I thought. But I answered properlike. "A Roman statesman and patron of the arts who helped Horace and Virgil."

"Even as you have been helped, Phillis?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who, then, is your Maecenas? Canna you tell us, Phillis? For whom did you write this poem, lass?"

My mouth went dry. "If you ask who helped me, sir, there are many. From my mistress and master, who have been naught but kindness itself to me since the day I was brought here, to the Reverends Byles and Cooper, who, when they came to visit, counseled and advised me. And Master Nathaniel, of course, who first taught me to read."

"Is he your Maecenas, then? Canna you tell us?"

No, I canna,
I minded. For I had written the poem to Nathaniel. But neither he nor they would ever know. I would take my secret to the grave with me. "Sir, my Maecenas is likely made up of bits and pieces of all these people."

Reverend Ebenezer Pemberton stood up. He was very fat and the effort of getting out of the chair caused considerable difficulty. His breath was spent. Thus he had earned the nickname Puffing Pem.

"In one of your poems, Phillis, you speak of certain people as being 'the offspring of six thousand years.' What mean you by that?"

I sighed.
This is all too easy, surely,
I minded. "James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, born in 1581, figured from what he studied in the Bible, sir, that God created the world in 4004
B.C.
That would be six thousand years before this year of 1772."

Puffing Pem smiled and sat down.

Now there were more murmurings, more whispers. Then they seemed to arrive at a decision.

It was John Hancock who stood to say that the meeting was over, and would I be pleased to wait outside in the hall?

I sat alone on the bench in the great hall, staring down at the marble floor, shivering. I admired the rich wallpaper above the wainscoting. I wondered who the expensively clad gentlemen and ladies were staring down at me from gold-framed paintings.
Whoever they are, they must be dead,
I decided.

They all looked like I felt. Lifeless.

I would have given anything for a hot cup of tea. A clock chimed somewhere in the great house. Then in a while it chimed again.

The door of the chamber opened. John Hancock came out.

"Phillis," he said, "you have done well. They are of a mind that the poetry is, indeed, yours."

He was grinning. He had such white, strong teeth. His handsome face, swooned over by so many women in Boston, was close to mine.

He took my hand in his own. "You have
won,
Phillis," he said. "You have won. For your race. There is no doubt now that the African species of man can create formal literature. And master the arts and sciences."

I felt tears in my throat. "I did well, then?"

"Well? They are fair to fainting from your responses. We are ready to draw up a paper saying the poetry is yours. We will all sign it. My signature shall be the largest. And written with the most flourish. I'll send Nathaniel out to sit with you."

And with that, John Hancock winked at me and went back to sign the paper saying my poetry was mine.

We whose names are under-written, do assure the World, that the Poems specified in the following Page, were (as we verily believe) written by PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few years since, brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is, under the disadvantage of serving as a slave in a Family in this Town ...

Signed, this seventh day of May, in the town of Boston, province of Massachusetts, in the year of our Lord, 1772.

Thomas Hutchinson, governor
Andrew Oliver, lieutenant governor
Councilmen Thomas Hubbard, John Erving,
James Pitts, Harrison Gray, James Bowdoin,
JOHN HANCOCK
Merchants Joseph Green, Richard Carey
Reverends Charles Chauncy, Mather Byles,
Ebenezer Pemberton, Andrew Eliot, Samuel Cooper,
Samuel Mather, John Moorhead,
Nathaniel Wheatley, signing for her master,
John Wheatley

"Those dear men. I am so gratified." Mrs. Wheatley dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"I'd be considerably more gratified if they hadn't taken on so about Phillis being a
slave,
" Mary said angrily. "In heaven's name, what's wrong with Hancock? He knows we don't refer to our servants as slaves!"

It was late afternoon. Nathaniel and I had just returned from the governor's mansion with the signed paper in hand.

Nathaniel was triumphant. I was dazed. It had started to rain outside. Aunt Cumsee had just served tea. The paper was passed around and digested with the tarts Aunt Cumsee had taken from the beehive oven.

When it came into my hands, I could scarce believe it. There it was, the richest of vellum, with the blackest of ink. All those signatures saying my poetry was mine!

"Couldn't you have had some say about the
wording,
Nathaniel?" Mary asked. "'
Under the disadvantage of slavery
'? This paper must go to London! What will people think?"

I knew what I thought. That I would like to get up and throttle Mary, despite the fact that she was balancing four-month-old John Lathrop, Junior, on her knee and was already two months in circumstances with her next one.

Did she have no idea of what I had been made to endure this day? Could she have stood up to such questioning?

"We're wearying Phillis." Mrs. Wheatley got up, reached for a shawl, and put it around my shoulders. "We must think of her welfare. She isn't that strong."

"I'm fine, ma'am," I said.

"I still think that Nathaniel should have insisted on having the wording changed," Mary said. She was determined today, to give the devil his due.

"No matter, Mary," her mother said.

"That was not Nathaniel's duty," her father said. "He was acting in my stead. If not for this gouty foot I'd have been there myself. By heaven, I missed it! No! Nathaniel acted as I would have done. He acquitted himself well. Now I will hear no more of it."

The matter was finished.

"Nathaniel, fetch my Madeira. By heaven, I will have a toast!" My master set down his cup.

It was done. Nathaniel poured some for himself and his father, who held up his glass. Toasts were made.

They toasted the committee. Then John Hancock. Then Mrs. Wheatley. Finally, Mr. Wheatley held up his glass to me. "To Phillis," he said, "for you do us proud."

"Hear, hear," Nathaniel said.

"And now, I have an announcement." Mr. Wheatley still held forth his glass. "I am retiring. An advertisement saying such will appear in all the papers tomorrow. Nathaniel has done so well running things that I feel assured in leaving everything in his hands."

Everyone cheered.

"And another announcement. Within the year, Phillis will have to set sail for London. Mrs. Wheatley has been in correspondence with the Countess of Huntington, who will sponsor her there. She will travel under the protection of Nathaniel, on our own ship."

"Nathaniel is going to
London
?" Mary was full taken aback.

I almost felt sorry for her. Mary knew she would never go abroad.

"He must," her father said. "Our mercantile business has grown so that we must set up an office in England."

There was much kissing and hugging all around. Nathaniel was congratulated by his father. His mother embraced him. Mary offered her cheek for a kiss.

"London!" Mary whispered snidely to me later in the hall as I held little John so she could put on her cloak. "Well, just remember who you are. Remember your place."

"How can I not," I returned, "when others are constantly speaking of it?"

She turned away. I could not dismiss her remark out of hand. It cut like a knife. But I was numb. Numb with joy. I was, after all, going to England. My work would come out in a book there. I was being sponsored by a countess.

But more than all else, I was going with Nathaniel.

In the next year it seemed that everyone of my own race felt it incumbent upon themselves to give me advice about my trip to London.

"Remember yourself," from Aunt Cumsee. "Don't hold him in higher esteem than he holds you. Or it will come to grief."

"Do not let Nathaniel dally with you," Obour wrote. "Remember to lay aside money from the earnings of your book. Do not garner expensive habits in London. And remember, they may be sending you to London, but they are still playing with you. Find some way to make a living for when they leave you to your own devices."

Sulie became outright hostile. I swear that woman lay awake nights thinking of ways to plague me.

She would serve me cold tea. Or make the water extra hot and spill some on my hand while pouring it.

She would scorch a dress of mine when ironing it. Mrs. Wheatley had Aunt Cumsee take my measurements, so her own mantuamaker could fashion me a new wardrobe.

Sulie was to deliver them. She changed the measurements. Three new gowns, fancier than I'd ever possessed, made of silk with lace trim, had to be ripped apart and made over to remedy the matter.

Once she sent bad meat to my room on a tray. Mrs. Wheatley, realizing she could no longer trust Sulie, had Prince bring my food up to my room when I was working.

I was glad for it. I hadn't seen much of Prince of late.

"You happy, Phillis?" he asked me one day after he delivered my noon meal.

I assured him I was.

"Then how come you look like they gonna take you out an' shoot you at sunrise?"

I could never lie to Prince. "I was just pondering."

"'Bout what?"

"Mrs. Wheatley wants some poems left out of the book."

He scowled and set the tray down. "Which poems?"

"The one I wrote on the death of Chris Seider. And the one I wrote about the arrival of the British ships of war."

Prince had read all my poems. In secret. The family still didn't know he could read and write. But when I'd come back from Newport, after finding this out, I had managed to slip all my poems to him. "What about the one on the massacre?" he asked.

"That, too. She says they're too anti-British."

To my surprise, he didn't object. He commenced to pour my tea. "You want words from me on this?"

"Yes, Prince."

"Sure 'nuf, then, here's the way I see it. Seems to me they wouldn't be likin' those poems over there in England, those people with the red coats. And the mistress knows this. Plenty of time to get those poems published here in America. After."