Or Give Me Death (10 page)

"Why did you go to see Mama without permission?" I asked when she came to the door of John's room. "She can get agitated. She might even hurt you. And your presence might send her further inside herself."

She shrugged. "She asked me about the wedding."

"How did she know about the wedding?"

"She heard new voices and heard bustling about more than usual. I told her about it. She was glad for them. I told her you gave Sarah her sprigged muslin."

"She spoke plain to you?" She was lying, I was sure of it.

"We understand each other," she said.

"So she knows Pa's alive, then."

"No. She says he's dead."

"You mustn't go down again, Anne." I made my voice kind. "She could turn on you, as she did on MyJohn and Pa."

"All right," she agreed. "But she said something to me that I should pursue."

I was kneeling on the floor again, my back to her. "What is that?" I asked indifferently.

"She said next time I come down, she'll tell me which of us will inherit her bad blood."

***

T
HERE WAS SO
much work to be done to restore the fields and crops and broken fences from the storm that in the week or so that followed I scarce saw MyJohn.

Which was just as well. Because I knew he wouldn't countenance what I was thinking.

But I could think of nothing else. Was it possible Mama would communicate this to Anne? Was Anne just teasing me, so I'd allow her to go down and talk to Mama again?

For two days I was so taken with learning who would inherit the bad blood, I could think of little else.

And always, in the background, in the shadows, I felt my sister watching me. Was that a smirk on her face?

I had told her I would ponder the matter of her going down to visit Mama again. To my surprise, she did not disobey me and sneak down. She was waiting for my blessing.

Finally, on the third day, I said this to her: "All right, Anne, you may go down and visit Mama. But after MyJohn goes home at night, for he'd never countenance any of this. And John and I will wait at the top of the stairs for you."

"I'm not afraid," Anne said.

"We'll keep watch, anyway." I had confided in John, and he'd agreed. I think only to make me happy.

"Very well," Anne said, "but I want the door closed. If Mama thinks anyone is listening, she won't confide in me."

I wanted to slap her for her smugness, but I didn't.

"You'd best let it lie fallow," Pegg said, having overheard us.

"Why?" I asked.

"No sense in knowin' things you can't do nuthin' about."

"If Mama says it isn't me who will inherit, I'll wed," I told her.

"An' if she says it is you?"

I said nothing. I thought I heard her chuckle, low, when she left the room.

***

T
HE SERVANTS WERE
all in the detached kitchen out back. John and I stood in the hall at the back of the house. That door was open and from outside came the fragrance of lilacs and honeysuckle and what hay had been salvaged.

As promised, John and I closed the door to the cellar, then stood there looking at each other.

"You think I'm wrong, don't you, about letting her go down there?"

John's eyes sought the scene outside the back door. He was looking toward the stables, where his heart lay with his horses. "No. But I think Anne's leading you on a merry chase. And I can't help wondering, Patsy..." His voice wandered off.

"What?"

"Why must you push this?"

"I'm not afraid to know what she says. I must know."

"Suppose it's you, then?"

"I'll not wed."

"Does MyJohn know of this?"

"Of course not, silly." I pushed his arm. "Why do you think I swore you to secrecy? And you mustn't tell him. Either way. Ever! Promise?"

He promised. I knew I could trust him.

"And if it's Anne, then?" he asked.

"She's young enough so I can still mold her, watch her. At least I'll know to look for things. I'm doing this more for her than for myself, John," I said.

We waited. We could hear nothing from downstairs, except quiet. Quiet was good, I decided.

"Are you coming to the steeplechase next week?" he asked.

"Of course! We all are. We want to see you race. And Small Hope win."

John smiled. "Dorothea is coming."

"Oh, wonderful."

"You haven't let Pa know I'm seeing her, have you?"

"Of course not, John. You're not the only one who can keep a still tongue in their head around here, you know."

Moments passed. Eternity passed. I could feel its clock's hands passing over my face, deciding my fate. Outside I could see fireflies. Dusk deepened. "I have to get Will and Betsy in soon," I told John.

Just then we heard footsteps on the stairs on the other side of the door. We looked at each other. As agreed upon, we waited for Anne's soft knock.

There it was! John opened the door. "Is everything all right?"

But she would not look at him. Or me. She pushed the door open, nearly knocking us down. I saw John take a quick peek down the stairs to see if Mama was pursuing her.

Nobody. He slammed the door shut and locked it. But not before we heard Mama's hysterical laughter.

Anne was gone, out the back door, and toward the quarters. Running as if the devil himself pursued her.

***

"A
NNE.
"

She had run inside the clapboard house where Pa's law clerks slept. She stood by the window, looking out. I saw her chest heaving. Her fists were clenched. I went to her softly.

"Are you all right, Anne?"

She nodded yes.

"Do you want to tell me what Mama said?"

Tears were in her eyes. Her face, thin and angular rather than pretty, looked years older. She nodded again.

I took her by the hand and led her over to a settle, where we sat down. I waited.

"It won't be you who inherits the bad blood," she said.

"Then, who?"

"Me."

"Oh, Anne!" I tried to hug her, but she wouldn't let me. She pushed me away. "It doesn't matter. I shall never wed. I've already decided that."

"Anne, I shall help you. Together, we'll prepare you so you can push aside this fate. We can make our own fate, you know."

"Like Mama?"

"It doesn't have to be that way, Anne. What about Pa, off all the time helping to make the fate of the country? He isn't just sitting back letting the king have his way, is he? Besides, mayhap she is wrong."

"Like she was wrong about the flood?"

"Anne!"

"Leave me be. Go to MyJohn, why don't you? Now you can wed, don't you see? You and MyJohn can wed."

"How did you know I had such concerns?"

For an instant I saw a smirk of satisfaction. "I was under your bed in your room the day you gave Sarah the clothes. I heard everything."

And with a dignity of manner I did not think she possessed, she walked out the door.

"A
NNE, YOU OUGHT
to be finished with that broom today. You can't shilly-shally over it much longer."

I was in the detached kitchen, making a broom out of broomcorn. Patsy would have it made out of nothing else. She said brooms were made of it in Italy near two centuries ago. And Benjamin Franklin planted seeds and raised some of the corn. And so did Thomas Jefferson.

"After, you can start the gingerbread."

I'd finish the broom, all right. But afterwards I'd right well get on my horse, Patches, and ride out into the countryside. We could well afford to buy brooms in town, even those made of guinea wheat, made up in Connecticut. But Patsy would hold sway over me.

She'd been doing so, or thought she'd been doing so, for two years now. And I'd been fighting her, bucking her, just like a new calf bucks its mother to get some milk.

Still, she had me doing everything in her effort to keep me from becoming like Mama. Her goal was to make me a woman of unsullied reputation, a woman who was affable, cheerful, cleanly industrious, and perfectly qualified to direct and manage the female concerns of a plantation.

Maybe, I thought for the thousandth time, I should have made a better lie of it. Maybe I shouldn't have told her I was the one to inherit the bad blood.

Maybe I should have said it was Betsy.

At four, Betsy can almost stitch a hem. And she'd become a solemn little thing, on her way to being a cleanly industrious female already. She follows Patsy around like a hound dog. Don't think it didn't come to me to put the curse on Betsy.

But that would have been taking the easy path. I'm not as all-fired educated as Patsy, but it reasoned to me that Patsy would have worn Betsy right into the ground.

So I said it was me.

I said it because Patsy never would have believed the truth. She would have thought I lied. And it was really her. And then she never would have wed MyJohn. And he's a man of good parts, and smitten with her. And we need him around here to defuse Patsy's harshness.

So I said it was me.

At least I have the mettle to fight back. Although there are times when it does try my spirit. And Pa—don't even think of Pa. Pa, who is so brisk for justice, has never once stepped in to keep Patsy from plaguing me. And that's what hurts most of all.

***

I
T HAD SNOWED
yesterday, but this morning the snow was gone and the sun as warm as May. MyJohn called it an "aberration of nature." I had to ask him to explain to me what the word meant.

"It means it goes against what is right. It goes against the true nature of things," he said.

Well, I wanted to say, a lot of things around here do. Then I wanted to ask him if keeping Mama in the cellar was an aberration, but I didn't. Because he is such a good person, I couldn't give him sass. He's to wed Patsy, isn't he?

I was determined to ride this day. In the house, Pa was secured in the front parlor, going over papers for a meeting Mr. Randolph wanted on March 20.

Patsy was likely with him. She was always with him.

"Can I help with the gingerbread?" Betsy came into the kitchen. Her little round face was anxious, asking for my approval, anybody's approval.

"You can make it," I said. "Nancy will be here in a minute and she'll help you."

Pegg's Nancy was almost ready to take over for her mother in the kitchen. She was nine, same as me. We'd long since ceased running about barefoot together, poking into bees' nests. Nancy has been aware of the different roles we have to play out, if I'm not. I'd just as lief be friends with her, but she's done the distancing, not I.

"Did you see Mama this morning?" Betsy asked.

"Yes."

"How is she keeping?"

What if I told her? Mama's in a strait dress, the arms of which are wrapped around and tied behind her, so she can't try to set fire to the house again like she did last week.

But I could not. "She's middling well," I said.

"How long can somebody live with brain fever?"

That was the latest story Pegg had told Betsy and Will. Brain fever. And they had to stay away from her, else they'd catch it.

Two years of brain fever.

"I don't know," I said.

"Why don't you catch it when you go to see her?"

I was ready with the lie. "Because Pegg gives me a special potion so I don't catch it."

She hadn't yet come to the next question, but I expected she would soon: Why can't Pegg give me some of that potion?

I was ready with that lie, too: Because you are too small. It will make you twitch and groan.

God help me for my lies. I'll burn in hell for them one day.

"I must go now," I said. "Here comes Nancy." She was coming down the covered walkway. She was near as tall as her mama already, and her walk just as graceful. "I'll stop by for a piece of that gingerbread when I come back."

"Where you off to?"

You couldn't walk out of a room on Betsy without she didn't ask, "Where you off to?" She was afraid you'd never come back Pa says it's on account of Mama.

"Riding," I said.

"Patsy won't like it."

"I'm sure she won't. Which is why I shall enjoy it twice as much."

No, Patsy wouldn't like it, I thought as I walked to the stables. She'd say I was filled with "virile boldness" and "daring manliness" and "a breach of modesty." Those are Patsy's words, not mine.

She'd wail that I had no "modest pliancy," that at nine I was already a "hoyden," a "plague," and did not "own a humble distrust of myself."

I am not without "knowledge of my infidelities." But I am very much in possession of my senses. Except for one matter that I cannot get a purchase on, no matter how I try.

When do you keep a secret and when do you tell?

Do you tell the truth, knowing it will hurt someone? Or tell a lie to keep from hurting them? How much does keeping it inside cost? Eventually it will come out, won't it? And hurt the person you are trying to protect, anyway.

Is my lying the worst thing that goes on in this house? No. Madness lives inside our house. Not just in the cellar, where Mama languishes. But the whole house.

Why can't Pa and Patsy see it? I know John sees it, which is why he stays in the stables most of the time. Sometimes he even sleeps in the stables. Tells Pa that Small Hope or one of the others needs him. Pa abides it because he knows John is like Pa's half brother John Syme, Jr., who built a racetrack at Studley Farm, where Pa grew up, and imported blooded stallions to improve the horses in the colony. Sometimes John goes to visit Uncle John. To learn more about horses, he says. I think it's to get away from here.

Sometimes he tells Pa he's going there and goes to visit Dorothea instead.

There's
a thunderation. Pa still doesn't know John is seeing Dorothea. Says John is too young for serious courting. At seventeen. Well, I won't scruple or hesitate a moment to lie for John if I have to.

John and I have spoken of the mood that's become a fixture in the house. He thinks he is free of it. And I am not the one to disabuse him of the notion. For believing something is half the battle. And I will deal with God's punishments when they come.