Or Give Me Death (7 page)

"I might as well not even go, if I can't talk."

But she heard. I scared her to death, poor child.

"Can I go and see Mama?" Her voice got plaintive. And her face lost its sharp angles and resumed the round innocence of childish need.

"No, she's resting. We can pay her a visit later. Go clean up. Then to the books. I must see to Edward."

"T
HE ROOM FOR
your mother is finished, love," MyJohn said. "Why don't you come down and see it?"

It was two days later. I was reading the
Gazette.

Whereas Martha Beasley, my wife, has absented herself from me and goes about scandalizing my character and threatening that she or some of her associates will swear away my life; and as I am of the opinion that she has lost her senses: These are therefore to forward all persons from harboring or trusting her on my account, for I will not pay any debt she shall contract, from the date hereof. Signed, William Beasley.

"Patsy?"

I read the words over and over. Then I dropped the paper and picked up the dress I was making for Anne.

"I'm studying on whether to put some lace at the sleeves of Anne's gown. What do you think? She'll likely be the only little girl there without it."

"You must abide by your pa's resolutions," MyJohn said.

"Anne hates it that Pa won't let her wear silk."

"At her age hate comes easily. And doesn't last. What were you reading in the paper?"

"I was just realizing how many notices there are about women running off from their husbands. Mayhap if Mama had run off, you wouldn't have to be building a room for her now."

"Patsy, don't," he pleaded.

"I'm just saying that with these women, running off might be to save their sanity."

"The room is ready for your mama," he said again.

Why is it that when men don't wish to face something they wash it over and pretend it does not exist? I looked down at my stitching.

"You and I are responsible for the younger children," he reminded me. "This is the only way, Patsy."

"I'll be along in a minute," I said.

***

I
'D ALWAYS KNOWN
the ceiling was low, but why did it seem so much lower now?

"Pegg put up the curtains," MyJohn offered. He was trying so hard to please me.

They were homespun. And all the hammering I'd heard had been for the new heart-pine floor, which was now covered with animal skins. The wide hearth had always been there, of course. But now a brass kettle hung on a polished crane. There was a heavy oak table. The walls gleamed with whiteness. There was one of Mama's favorite rocking chairs, a clothespress, and a bed with one of her favorite quilts on it.

John and MyJohn stood looking at me, waiting.

"It's beautiful."

"She can come down this very day," MyJohn said.

"Not yet, MyJohn," I said. "She's been quiet and good. Not yet. She needs more time."

"You mean you do."

"All right, yes. I do. I have to become accustomed to this."

He sighed. "I suppose it is accorded to man born of woman to wait," he said.

"Don't blaspheme," I told him. When everything about the whole business was a blasphemy, anyway.

***

O
VER THE NEXT
two days
I
readied clothes for Anne and William to go to the Hoopers'.

And still Mama did not go to the cellar.

MyJohn was patient with me. He waited.

I told him it was better to do it when the children were away. John would see them to the Hoopers' safely. Into a basket I put preserved jellies, pickles, and some pastries. One did not arrive to be a guest at a plantation without bringing along gifts.

Into Anne and William I put the fear of God.

For two days I lectured them on manners. Still, when the chaise drove off, with Silvy sitting between them, Barley driving, and John riding alongside, I had more fears than a cat with a long tail in a room full of rocking chairs.

I should have gone with them, I thought. I shouldn't have allowed Anne to take her lacquered box in which she kept her treasures. That alone could cause trouble with the other girls. Then MyJohn came up behind me. "Good, you got them off," he said. "It's starting to rain."

As I turned to go back inside the house, I saw a white pigeon on the roof.

***

B
Y THE TIME
MyJohn was ready to leave that evening, the rain was steady and vicious. He didn't want to go until John returned. John had been away all afternoon, likely at Dorothea's.

We stood under the covered walkway out back. We were alone, and MyJohn looked as if he wanted to kiss me. But I gave him no encouragement.

"Patsy, you've got to stop this," he said.

"What?"

"You know. We're betrothed. Why won't you kiss me?"

I had no answer. I wanted to. The nearness of him, the manly smells of him, the dear familiar arms and hands, the broad shoulders made me half daft with wanting. Did he think it was easy for me?

I let him kiss me. I huddled in his arms, letting him protect me, until we saw John and Barley ride up.

Both were already soaked through. Barley took the horse and chaise into the barn. MyJohn squeezed my hand and went to speak to my brother. Then he rode off.

John and Barley came in about ten. I gave them supper in the traveler's room. Rain slashed against the windows and pinged into rain barrels. When they'd come in, I'd seen through the open door pools of standing water in the back quadrant. And heard water rushing in rivulets in the lane between the slave houses.

"I'm afraid we're in for the worst of it," John said. "Some people at the Hoopers' said the James and Rappahannock are already threatening to flood."

I thought of Mama. And her predictions. But I said nothing.

John and Barley ate in companionable silence. There was something between these two. They'd grown up together, played together. But, while John still retained some of his boyhood friendship with Barley, it had long since taken on a different tone. Barley was a good hand with the horses John was raising for racing. But John was definitely the master now in the friendship.

Men do this better than women, I decided. Just then there was a tremendous clap of thunder. And I jumped. John got up and set his plate down. "You'd best get to your bed," he advised Barley. "Unless you want to bed down in here for the night."

The fire looked inviting. Barley grinned sheepishly. "You got a quilt, I'd just as soon stay in here if'n it's arright," he said.

So a quilt was fetched. Candles were extinguished. John bolted the outside door and the door from the traveler's room to the house, and saw me to my room. It was a comfort to know John was there.

Outside the rain poured down as if the world were coming to an end. I could not sleep for the sound of it.

***

I
MUST HAVE
slept, after all, though always my mind was conscious of the terrible rain. The wheat crop will be ruined, I thought. The peach orchard brought down. Then I heard a sound, a thump from outside my window. I got up to peer outside, but I could see nothing in the drenching rain.

Then, in a flash of lightning, I saw it.

Under the linden tree by the white fence! A figure, bedraggled and plodding against the rain.

Mama! I was sure of it! My heart leapt inside me. And in her arms she held something. A child?

I ran to Edward's cradle on the other side of my bed. He lay sleeping peacefully. Who, then?

Betsy!

I ran out into the hall and down to her room. Betsy's bed was empty.

"John? John!" I pounded on his door. "John, wake up!"

"What is it, Patsy? What's amiss?" He stood there, half asleep.

"John, I just saw Mama outside! Carrying Betsy!"

***

J
OHN TUGGED BREECHES
over his nightshirt, put on a hunting shirt, and took up a lantern. Then he went to the traveler's room to wake Barley. I somehow got dressed, though my hands were trembling.

"Everyone, get lanterns," John directed. We stood in the dogtrot between the kitchen and the house. "Patsy, put a shawl around yourself. Barley, get the horses. And a rope. Pegg, wake the other servants and Mr. Melton."

In minutes John had consulted with Mr. Melton and mounted his own bay gelding. "Barley, you come with me," John ordered. "Mr. Melton will take another search group. Patsy, stay in the house, else you'll take cold. You and Pegg keep a lookout, in case she comes back." And they went off into the howling darkness.

"It's my fault, Pegg," I said. We stood under the outside walkway, watching the dark figures disappear between the dependencies and the barn. "I refused to put her in the cellar room. I couldn't do it. Now, if something happens to Betsy, it will be my fault."

She made a low, sympathetic sound in her throat but did not disavow what I said. "I'm gonna go inside an' put up some coffee for those mens," she told me. "They be in need of somethin' hot when they get back. Wish Silvy was here. Alice, you come and help. We get out some ham and biscuits. Patsy, that chile gonna need dry things when she gets back."

"I'll get them. And some for Mama. And John." I moved along the covered walkway, never taking my eyes from the dark.

***

I
T TOOK TWO
hours for them to find Mama and Betsy. When John did hear the child cry out in answer to his hoarse voice, it was from the confines of an old shed near the mill by the New Found River. He came home with Betsy on the saddle in front of him. She was wrapped in his hunting shirt and a blanket he'd taken along, with his tricorn on her head. Water plastered John's hair down and ran from his face and body.

Mama was on Barley's horse, her wrists tied to the saddle with the rope, Barley leading it.

"Oh, thank God!" I made John go and change, ordered Alice to feed all the servants who had taken part in the search, and took the soaked, sobbing, and frightened Betsy to her chamber to strip off her sodden nightdress, dry her hair, and give her a bit of rum to warm her.

"Mama say we run away an' find Anne and Will."

I looked up at Pegg. She had just returned from seeing that Mama was warm and dry in her room. For some reason, of late, Mama had changed her mind about Pegg trying to poison her.

"She say you send Will and Anne away," Pegg reported quietly. "An' you not gonna get Betsy."

"Dear God! Preserve us." I was weeping and hugging Betsy so close she could scarce breathe.

In the traveler's room, I saw to John and Barley.

"I've tied Mama to her bed," John told me.

In the fire's flickering light he looked like Pa standing there, tall and somber. Pa had always had that look about him, of being a little bit besieged. And haunted.

We're all haunted, I thought.

"In the morning, Patsy," John said. "In the morning."

He should never have had to tie Mama to her bed. I know how much he loved her. And what it must have cost him to do so.

"I know, John," I answered. "In the morning she goes into the cellar."

Whereas: Anne Murphey, wife of James Murphey, hath in a clandestine manner left his Plantation in Prince William County, about 7 o'clock this morning, and hath taken up her residence elsewhere. She has fettered the tender cords that tied her family's souls together: This is to forewarn all Persons from entertaining or dealing with her for I will not pay any Debts which she shall contract from the date hereof—James Murphey

I
READ THAT
the next morning at breakfast. And I hoped that Anne Murphey had found some people to entertain and deal with her.

***

I
T WAS STILL
raining heavily. When he came into the dining room and poured himself some coffee, MyJohn reported ruined fields, roads of mud knee-deep, and carriages mired in them. He'd seen broken fences, livestock wandering, and water pouring forth in places it had no right to be.

"How is your family's place?" I asked.

"Well, you know we're on a hill, though we've got ruined crops, too."

"You should have stayed."

"Patsy, I was frantic over you. I heard that someone tried to kidnap Betsy."

My heart thudded inside me. "Where did you hear that?"

"Everyone I met on the road here. Of course, the servants reassured me once I arrived. How is she?"

"Still sleeping. I was up with her most of the night."

"Where did you find them?" he asked John.

"An old shed near the mill at the river."

"God's shoe buckles!" He was struck silent by the whole thing. "Well, you've done your pa proud," he told John. And then to me. "We know what we must do now."

I decided that I could write my own notice for the
Gazette. Whereas: Sarah Henry hath tried to drown one of her children, and ran off in the middle of the night in a storm with another, her family has decided, with all convenient speed, to confine her to the cellar in her home. She has fettered the tender cords that tied their souls together, and has, from some time past, tried to ruin them. This is to forewarn all persons from dealing with her, for we, her family, are parted in affection.

"Since we can't expect your tutor this morning, John, why don't you see if David needs help?" MyJohn suggested.

"I can stay and help you," John said. "In case there's trouble with Mama."

"I know you can," MyJohn told him. "But there won't be trouble, and David will need you more."

John went. On the way out of the room he passed my chair, and I grabbed his hand and held it. Just for an instant.

***

As
WE WENT
to Mama's chamber to fetch her, Delia presented herself at the house. "I'se come for his midmorning feeding, Miss."

I looked at her in vexation, then softened. She was small and gentle, less than a week out of childbed, and openly fearful of being in the big house. You would think she was reporting at the gates of heaven itself.

"Come along," I said.

But when Mama saw her, she became anxious. "She's going to steal my baby," she said.