Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray (14 page)

“Oh, of course you do, Mee,” Mother said. “We have been talking about this for two weeks. About how your mama and papa and your brothers were coming home.”

Just then Robert and the boys came in. Robert kissed Mother's cheek and shook Papa's hand. Custis leapt into his grandfather's arms.

“Papa!” Mee ran to embrace her father. Robert scooped her up and covered her face with kisses until she giggled and squirmed to be set down again. She embraced Custis but ignored Rooney. And me. I could only stand there, exhausted, confused, and numb with disappointment.

Mother whispered to Robert, and he bent down to our daughter. “Have you kissed your dear mother yet?”

She shook her head.

“Then hop to it, child. She has missed you. Maybe more than any of the rest of us.”

My daughter marched over to where I stood and planted a dutiful kiss on my cheek. I reached for her, but she turned away and kissed Rooney, who only blinked in confusion. He had been too young when we left for St. Louis a year ago to remember he had a sister at home.

“I have had a cold supper prepared,” Mother said, her voice so full of love and sympathy that I nearly lost my composure. “You must be famished.”

We trooped into the dining room. Food was brought to the table, and while we ate, Robert regaled my parents with stories of our year out West. Custis told his grandparents about his friend Israel Beaumont and how they had spotted Indians paddling canoes on the river.

Rooney began to fuss, and Kitty took him up to bed. When Mee's eyes began to droop, Mother said, “Kitty should be back soon to take her up as well.”

“I want to take her.” I got up and stood behind Mee's chair. “Come along, Miss Lee. Time for bed.”

“I don't want to.”

My patience deserted me. “It seems there is very little that you want to do this evening, Mary Custis.”

Mee turned her dark eyes on Robert. “I want my papa to take me up to bed.”

I was tired, heavy with child, plagued with rheumatic pains. I was ready to hand her over, but Robert fixed our daughter with his stern gaze. “You are being inexcusably rude, Mary Custis. Now go with your mother without any complaint.”

She slid from her chair and ran ahead of me up the stairs. I helped her wash her face and hands and change into her nightgown. “Goodness, you have grown so much this barely fits you anymore.”

“Grandmama says I am almost a little lady.”

“That's true. And ladies are always kind and polite to others. Especially to those who love them more than anything.”

She climbed into bed. “Grandmama tells me stories at night.”

“All right. What story would you like to hear?”

“The one about the goats and the troll and the bridge.”

“That's one of my favorites too.” I tucked the coverlet about her shoulders and sat on the edge of the bed. “Once there were three goats that lived in a green grassy meadow not far from—”

“That is not the way Grandmama says it.”

“Well, this is my own version.”

“The goats lived in a village with a shoemaker and a fisherman.”

“Fine. In a village, then. And one day the goats decided to visit the farm that lay on the other side of a shining stream.”

“It was not a stream. It was a river, and there was a bridge and it was made of stones and there was moss over the stones.”

The long trip finally caught up with me. My head pounded
and my stomach roiled. “Perhaps you ought to tell me the story, then. To refresh my memory.”

Mee launched into the tale but soon drifted into sleep. I stood over her bed, studying her sweet face. In the glow of the candlelight, she looked so innocent in repose that I felt a piece of my heart crumble. I had the feeling that she would never forgive me for my absence regardless of the reason. That something precious had been irretrievably lost.

I went across the hall to my bedroom to find Selina unpacking my trunks. Her face lit up when I dragged myself through the door.

“Selina. I thought you'd have gone home by now.”

“I saw you had come home and thought you would want your nightdress unpacked right away.”

“I am done in. And Mee didn't make life any easier this evening.”

Selina fished my nightgown from the trunk. “She just needs to get used to you again is all.”

“She is spoiled, I'm afraid.”

“I can't lie about that, Miss Mary. Your papa hardly let her out of his sight the whole time you were gone. She's used to being the center of attention.” Selina set my traveling case on the dresser. “You need anything else?”

“I don't think so. I'm so tired I could sleep for a week. But tell me, how is your family? How is Thornton Gray?”

She grinned. “Same as always. Full of himself.”

“Have you seen William Burke? I wrote to Mother about him, but she forgot to answer my questions.”

“He hasn't been around here in a long while. Mr. Custis sent William to help Mr. Nelson down at Romancoke.” Selina folded
back the covers on the bed and fluffed the pillows. “Lawrence says William Burke likes a girl down there. Her name is Rosabella. He says she sings like an angel.”

“I see.”

“William Burke is in love, I reckon.”

I couldn't resist teasing her. “And what about you, Selina Norris? Are you in love?”

She laughed and started for the door. “Good night, Miss Mary.”

I lay in the darkness listening to the house settling for the night and thinking about William. Papa chose only his most able servants to assist the overseers. The shy, gangly twelve-year-old with a burning desire to read had become a man of some aptitude. A man burning to serve God. Such promise ought not to be wasted. But William was not mine, and as much as I wanted to see him go free, there was nothing I could do.

M
ister Robert hadn't been gone from Arlington no time before Miss Mary's birthing room was cleaned and limed again and here come another baby into the world. It was the middle of June, the air warm and still. I was putting things away in the upstairs linen press when I heard the baby's first cry. A few minutes later Nurse came out into the hall wiping her hands on a towel and said, “Miss Mary got her another girl. The child is strong, but they's a bad curse on her.”

“What kind of a curse?”

“That poor little baby got a red mark on her cheek. Miss Mary's crying about it. But crying won't do a bit of good.” Nurse shook her head. “I got to go get some buttermilk for a poultice.”

I stood there in the hall wondering what I should do. I wanted to see Miss Mary, but not if she was going to be bawling and carrying on. And I was curious. I had never seen a baby with a curse on its head. Then Missus came out with a armful of dirty linens and I had my work cut out for me.

Next day Missus set me to polishing the furniture in the children's rooms. I got it all spit shiny and started downstairs to see what was next, and that was when Miss Mary called to me from her room.

I went in, a part of me curious and another part scared to
see the afflicted child. The red mark was still there, so I guessed the buttermilk hadn't done its job. Miss Mary looked at me with big, sorrowful eyes. When she looked at me like that it was hard to remember that I couldn't trust her quite as much as I once had.

Still, in the
Liberator
Mister Garrison said the colonization people honestly thought they were doing God's work. I decided as long as I was at Arlington, I had to believe that Miss Mary was sincere and doing her best for me.

“Selina, do you know whether Judah has anything that might help my child?”

“Like a spell, you mean?”

“I don't believe in spells and neither should you. Nurse brought up a buttermilk plaster to fade the mark, but it didn't work. Perhaps Judah knows of a different remedy.”

“I can ask.”

“Oh, this poor child.” Miss Mary leaned back on her pillows and shut her eyes tight, but tears came running out anyway.

I didn't know what to do. For some reason she had been weepy ever since she got back from St. Louis. It looked to me like another attack of the mullygrubs was coming on. I didn't want to see her cry, so I headed her off. “Miss Mary, you haven't said what you named this one.”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown. “We're going to call her Anne Carter Lee. After Captain Lee's mother.”

Good news: there wasn't going to be a fifth Mary at Arlington. “That's a good name. Sounds like a name in a book.”

She propped herself up on her elbows. “How would you like to come with me on a trip?”

I was so surprised I couldn't say a word. I couldn't picture Missus letting me go anywhere. Not when President Washington's silver needed polishing every single week.

“Captain Lee thinks I ought to take the children to visit my Turner cousins for the summer. Mother will come with me, of course, and Kitty. But we will need more hands to look after four children.”

“But who is going to take care of Arlington if we are all gone?”

“Margaret will be here, and Charles and Peter. And my father will be here to keep an eye on things.”

Just like that it was settled. Along about the middle of July we packed up and started out for Kinloch, which was the name of Mister Turner's place. We started out early. Daniel drove Missus and Miss Mary and the children in the carriage, and Thornton Gray got to drive the wagon that Kitty, Cassie, Nurse, and me rode on. Mister Custis had got a dog for Custis and Little Mary, and the dog rode all the way sitting on top of the trunks. Thornton kept after me to sit beside him, but I didn't want to start any talk about me and him. I sat by Kitty and she told me about her adventures in St. Louis.

It took all day and part of the night to get there. Miss Mary's cousins came out to greet us. We went in and they had supper ready and we ate. White folks in the dining room and slaves on the porch and in the yard. Mister Turner sent one of his slaves to show Thornton and Daniel where to stable the horses, and gave them some quilts for bedding down in the barn.

After I helped Miss Mary get the children ready for bed, I took my quilt and went to the sleeping porch where Kitty and the rest, except for Nurse, were already settling down. Pretty soon
Kitty and Cassie started to snore, but I couldn't sleep. After a while I took my quilt out to the front porch and sat on the steps listening to the crickets singing in the grass. Watching the lightning bugs flashing in the dark.

Next thing I knew, Thornton Gray was standing over me dripping water onto my head. “You better get back where you suppose to be 'fore Miss Mary comes looking for you.”

I sat up and scratched at a mosquito bite on my arm. “What time is it?”

“Nearly seven. Me and Daniel is fixing to head back to Arlington.” He grinned. “You sure you don't want to come with me?”

“Wouldn't matter if I did, now, would it?”

“Reckon not. You still got that paper I give you?”

“Maybe.”

“You can trust me, Selina.” His voice went real low, in a way that made my stomach jump. “Because I—”

I jumped up and folded my quilt. “I better go in.”

“All right then. Reckon I'll be seeing you whenever Miss Mary takes a notion to come on back home.”

Daniel drove the carriage into the yard. I waved to him and watched Thornton head to the barn to get the wagon. I went back to the sleeping porch. Kitty and Cassie were awake and waiting on breakfast. We could smell bacon and biscuits and coffee coming from the summer kitchen.

After breakfast came morning prayers, with everybody standing in the yard while Mister Turner read to us from the Bible. Then Miss Mary called me to come up to her room. She had just finished nursing Miss Anne Carter Lee, who was sleeping with her fists curled up like she was ready to fight. I figured
with that red mark on her face, she was in for a lifetime of fighting off people making fun of her.

“Selina, I am having a time with my hair.” Miss Mary handed me her hairbrush. “Can you do anything with it?”

“I'm a housekeeper. I don't know much about hair, but I might can make you a braid.”

“Splendid! I do not want to fuss with it at all.”

I braided her hair the way Mauma had taught me and helped her with her dress, an old blue one with wide sleeves that she wore for gardening back home. I could hear Custis and Rooney playing in the room next door and Little Miss Mary shouting and pounding down the stairs. But Miss Mary was staring out the window with the sweetest smile on her face, like she didn't hear nothing but the birds singing.

Finally she turned in her chair and pointed to a stand of trees. “See that oak grove down there? That is where my husband and I first realized we were meant to be married. Oh, he was handsome, even though he was just a boy of twenty. Never shall I forget how dashing he looked in his uniform.”

I could see she was missing Mister Robert real bad, and I was afraid she might start crying again. “Sure is a pretty day. What you planning to do with it, Miss Mary? It's too nice to sit inside feeling bad and missing folks.”

“You are absolutely right. I think I will take the children for a walk this morning. I want to take my paint box along. Nurse will look after the baby, but I need you and Cassie to help keep an eye on the others.”

Sounded good to me. Better than sweeping and polishing things. I looked through her trunk for her paint box and drawing paper. “You going to need a sunbonnet, Miss Mary.”

She sighed. “What a bother. But of course you are right. Mother will never let me out of doors without one.”

It took some doing to get the boys and Little Miss Mary ready for the outing. Custis wanted to bring his dog, which he had named Rusty. Rooney had lost one of his shoes and I had to find it. Little Miss Mary pitched a walleyed fit and said she wanted to stay with Missus. But Missus was expecting a visit from her Fitzhugh cousins. She peeled that child off her lap and sent us off with a basket of sandwiches and a quilt for sitting on.