Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray (18 page)

“Sometimes I feel she hates me. I wish I had never left her here to accompany Robert to St. Louis. I don't know how to make it up to her. How to win her love.”

“A wife's place is always with her husband. One day your children will be grown and away, making their own lives, and there will be only you and Robert to love and comfort one another.”

“Oh, I hope our children won't forget about us.” I searched her face, but it was as placid as the river. “And I hope you haven't felt that I have abandoned you, Mother.”

“Abandoned? Certainly not. But lonely all the same.” She reached for another ball of yarn. “You are the only chick in my nest. It isn't our place to question the ways of Providence, but sometimes I do wonder why none of my other children lived past infancy.”

“When I see Annie and Agnes laughing and whispering together, I often wonder what it would have been like to have had a sister of my own.”

Mother's hands stilled, and she looked at me with a quizzical
expression before her normal serene smile slid back into place. But in that unguarded moment I glimpsed something secretive and troubling in her eyes.

Rose came in with a tray and said, “Miss Mary, your papa told me to bring you something to eat, in case you was feeling peaked. Since you hardly touched your dinner.”

“Thank you, Rose.”

When she had gone Mother said, “Is there any more word from Cassie? I have been so worried since you wrote that you had found her and Louis in New York.”

“Thanks to Lily and Eddison.” In the comfort of my mother's cozy parlor I felt my appetite returning. I poured tea, slathered a biscuit with butter and jam, and took a bite. “Lily took me to see Cassie just before Rooney's accident.”

Mother's needles clicked as she finished off another row. “Your aunt Maria was here during Christmas and mentioned she had heard Eddison is working as a steward on a steamer.”

“Yes. Papa was right to free them. They seem to be doing well. I wish the same for Cassie and Louis. But Lily told me after Louis got sick they had to sell everything except their clothes just to pay the rent.” I took a warming sip of tea. “I offered to pay their passage back here so they could stay with Nurse until they got on their feet, but Cassie wouldn't hear of it. It seems there is a great deal of pride in the matter.”

“Eleanor would be all too happy to welcome her daughter back. She misses Cassie. But perhaps their pride will serve them well in the end,” Mother said. “And perhaps we ought not to let your papa know they are struggling. If he knows they are having trouble, he might be more reluctant to let any more of our servants go.”

She finished off the last row of stitches, slipped the needles free, and held up her handiwork for my inspection. The blanket was knit of the softest wool in shades of yellow and cream. “For your new little one. I was so busy during the holiday I feared I wouldn't finish it in time.”

I felt such a rush of love for my mother that I found it hard not to cry. “It's beautiful. And very practical for a baby arriving in the dead of winter.”

“I'm glad you like it.” Mother brushed at my hair. “You look tired, child. Perhaps you ought to get some rest.”

I went to my room and wrote to Robert, advising him of our safe arrival. Downstairs, the door to Daughter's room remained firmly closed.

A bit later Selina came up. “Miss Mary? You busy?”

I set aside my pen and paper. “Not really. How are you? I know I have not written in some time, but after Rooney's accident things got so busy I scarcely had time to breathe.”

She nodded and leaned against the door frame. “Missus told us about his accident. He always was the curious one. Reckon it got the best of him this time.” She fidgeted with the hem of her apron and fixed her gaze on some point outside the window.

“What's the matter, Selina? Is something wrong?”

She sighed. “Not wrong, exactly. Reckon I'm curious. Like Rooney.”

“About?”

She sighed. “Menfolks, Miss Mary. I don't understand them at all.”

“Men in general, or one in particular?”

“Particular, I guess.”

“Thornton Gray?”

She shrugged. “He's all the time teasing me and carrying on, and I can't tell when he's serious and when he is fooling, and I never know what to say back to him.”

“Why, you just tease him right back. Make him wonder what you're thinking.”

“Yesterday he asked me did I think he was handsome.”

“Oh, I hope you didn't tell him yes.”

“See, that's the problem. I wasn't sure what to say, so I changed the subject.”

“Well, the next time he asks something like that, just smile mysteriously and say something like ‘I haven't made up my mind yet.' Men are like foxhounds, Selina. They love the thrill of the chase. Don't make it too easy for him to catch you. And one day you will look into his eyes, and you will know whether he is the one. Just as I knew Captain Lee was the one for me.”

“Huh. How long you reckon that's gone take?”

“If I knew that, I could write a book and make a fortune.”

Kitty pounded up the stairs. “Selina, Missus asking for you.”

“Coming.” Selina bobbed her head in my direction and left with Kitty.

Four weeks later, on a frosty February morning, my nose filled once again with the scent of lime.

T
he seventh Lee child came into the world on a blustery day in February, perfect as the china doll baby her big sister Agnes carried around everywhere she went. Miss Mary had already used up every possible combination of names in her close family, so this time she cast a wider net and settled on Mildred Childe, after one of Mister Robert's sisters. He himself was still in New York when Mildred Childe got here, and it was some time before he came home to see her. When he did he decided to call her Precious Life instead of Mildred, and so far the name has stuck.

I was worried about Miss Mary because back in May, Lawrence had come home from the Georgetown market with news that the country was in a war with Mexico. I looked it up on the globe in Mister Custis's study while I was in there dusting his bookshelves. It was so far away I couldn't figure out what we had against those people that we would start a war with them. Lawrence said the disagreement was over the exact spot where Texas ended and Mexico started, and the Congress meeting across the river from Arlington decided to do something about it.

I was in the dining room drying the glassware and putting it back in the cupboard when I heard Mister Custis telling Missus that Mister Robert was sure to go to Mexico with the army and
it wasn't any use for Miss Mary to go traipsing back to Brooklyn, New York, with seven little children hanging on her skirts.

Sure enough, a little bit later Mister Robert came home and started going to meetings in Washington, getting ready to leave his family again. I could see the sadness building up in Miss Mary's eyes when she looked at him, and I tried to keep her mind off of it by talking about her flower garden and helping her sew clothes for the children.

Custis was away at school, but every morning after prayers she gathered Little Mary, Rooney, Annie, and Agnes in the little room at the back of the house for their lessons. She sewed clothes for Miss Agnes's doll baby, and when the younger children were asleep, she worked on her papers at the desk Mister Custis had set up for her in the ballroom. On Mondays and Thursdays she taught the slave children their lessons, writing out words for them on the same slate I used when I was a child. When the windows were open and I happened to be crossing the yard, I could hear her teaching the story for the day, and the children singing “Old Ralph in the Wood.” Sometimes it made me wish I was eight years old again.

One morning I went outside to empty the water I used for scrubbing the floors when Rose caught up with me. It was laundry day and the bed linens were on the boil, sparks flying up from the fire. Rose stood over the kettle stirring the sheets and pillowcases with her wooden paddle, sweat running down the side of her face and her feet floured with dust.

“Guess what?” She set down the paddle and stood there with her hands on her wide hips watching me struggle with the heavy wooden water bucket.

I tipped the bucket over and watched the water make itself
a trench in the dirt. “I'm too busy to guess, Rose. You got something to tell me, just say it.”

Rose and me were not friends. We got along and got the work done, but she didn't like me much because she thought Missus favored my whole family more than any of the others. She didn't like that I was the only one Miss Mary wrote letters to when she was away. I didn't like that Rose had got to travel all the way to New York and had come back with her nose in the air, talking about the city this and the city that and acting like she knew everything.

“Randall asked me to marry him, and Miss Mary and Missus is throwing us a wedding.”

I felt like somebody had stabbed me with the kitchen knife. “You're fibbing, Rose.”

She cocked one hip. “I ain't neither. You don't believe me, you can ask Miss Mary herself.”

I wasn't about to do such a thing. If it was true, and Rose was getting the thing I wanted for myself, it would hurt me, and regular life was already painful enough.

“It's gone be in September.” Rose took up her paddle and stirred the linens. “Everybody at Arlington, black and white, is coming. Gone be a fine time. Missus and Miss Mary bought me a new dress and new bonnet, special.”

I wrung out the mop and set it in the empty bucket. “I got to finish dusting Mister's bookshelves.”

Rose said, “You gone marry Thornton Gray?”

“That's for me to know and you to find out.”

Rose glanced around to be sure Missus wasn't watching and then stuck out her tongue.

Sometimes I hated her.

Missus's cousins from Ravensworth were coming to Arlington for a visit. I worked past dark that night, making sure the house was ready for company. When I finally let myself out the back door, the moon had come up and was painting the trees with silver. Lightning bugs flew around my head as I took the long way home. I was still bothered by the notion that Miss Mary was giving Rose a big wedding, and I wasn't ready to go home to the noise and busyness of Mauma's cabin.

I knew Thornton Gray was close by. I could feel his eyes watching me, even before he said my name.

“Walk with me down to the river.” His hand found mine in the dark. His thumb pressed against the calluses I'd got from so much mopping and sweeping. “You working too hard, Selina Norris.”

“No choice.”

“We all got choices. Just not very good ones. Come on.”

“I'm too tired. Been up since before dawn.”

“I got news.” I could feel his smile. He knew good and well news was the one thing I couldn't say no to.

We walked down the hill toward the river. Lights from a few passing boats lit up the water. We sat down on the grass. My shoulder bumped his. “I'm listening.”

“We had us a secret visitor last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“Man name of Humphries. He works with those people writing papers like the
Liberator.
”

“He came here? To Arlington?”

“Yessum. In the middle of the night. He talked to Austin Bingham and Nathaniel, and to some of the Parkses too.”

“What did he want?”

“To tell us they's people in Maryland ready to help any slaves wanting to escape.”

“That's crazy. Nobody in his right mind would risk getting caught and whipped.” Nat Turner crossed my mind right then. “Or worse.”

“Mister Custis don't whip nobody. Remember when George Parks got caught taking apples from the cellar? All Mister Custis did was take away George's tobacco for a week and give him some extra work to do. Never raised a hand to him.”

“He might, though, if people was to run off. Besides, Mister Custis already let Cassie go. Before that he let Lily go. And he freed Maria Syphax when I was a baby. Miss Mary says one day he will let the rest of us go. Anybody who thinks they can get free by running is crazy.”

“Huh.” Thornton was quiet a minute. Then he said, “Reckon that makes your brother, Wesley, crazy then. Nathaniel told him what Humphries said, and Wesley said he might up and try it one of these days.”

My stomach went tight. “Wesley acts wild sometimes, but he's barely fourteen. He is not old enough to—”

“He's old enough to know his own mind, Selina. Old enough to know there is no future for him here.”

“Not now, but one day—”

“One day! One day! I am tired of hearing that. You think the world is gone stop turning and wait for us to get free so life can begin? You think we are not gone get old and gray just setting here waiting for old man Custis to take a notion to let us go? You been working in that house since you was nine years old and what has it got you, besides misery and calluses?”

“I got to go.” I stood up and shook out my skirt.

“Selina. Wait. Don't be mad at me.”

“I'm not mad.” I started walking up the hill.

He caught my hand. “Then give me a kiss.”

His lips were warm and soft as a velvet ribbon. Maybe he was right and it was a mistake to wait any longer before I said yes to him. I would soon turn twenty-two years old. Just about the age Miss Mary was when she married Mister Robert. Now she was close to forty with seven children, and it had all happened quick as lightning.

Freedom might come next week or next year or in ten years. Or never. But even if dreams born in bondage might never come true, I couldn't help thinking about what might happen if I ever was free. I was a good reader. Maybe I could teach little children, or find myself a boardinghouse to run. Maybe I could be a lady's maid. On the other hand, maybe Thornton was right not to count on something that might not ever come to pass. Maybe I ought to marry him and take whatever little scrap of happiness might come my way.