The Healing (3 page)

Silas’s tone was kinder. “Mistress has taken an interest in your child from the start,” he explained. “Her Becky passed the very hour your girl was born. I suppose their souls might have touched, one coming and the other leaving. No doubt that’s why the mistress thinks your child so special. Every time the mistress hears your baby cry, she asks after Yewande’s health.”

Ella pulled the child closer to her breast and set her mouth to protest.

“Ella, don’t make a fuss,” Sylvie said impatiently. “Just do what she says tonight. Anything in the world to calm her down. Nobody getting any rest until she do. Let her name your baby if she has a mind. She been taking so much medicine, she’ll forget her own name by morning.”

Ella saw the resoluteness in the faces of the couple. She finally gave a trembling nod.

As the three walked down the lane of cabins, they passed smoldering heaps of pine and cypress, attempts by the inhabitants to purify the air and keep the mosquitoes at bay. The acrid, suffocating smoke seemed to travel with the little group, enveloping them in a cloud that
seared the lungs. Up in the distance, the lights in the great house came into view. No words were spoken as Sylvie, ever crisp and efficient, walked beside Ella while Silas lit the path.

It was Old Silas whom the master had first sent down to the quarters days ago with the news of Miss Becky’s death. Ella remembered how odd Silas’s little speech had been.

“Miss Becky has passed of a summer fever,” he said, “not the cholera, understand? If any of those who come to pay respects should ask you, that is what you are to say. It was a summer fever that took Miss Becky. Don’t say a word more.”

Someone had asked Silas why they had to lie. It was known to everyone on the plantation that the girl had come down with the same sickness that had killed nearly two dozen of his field hands. Sylvie had already let it be known that she had watched Miss Becky suffering in her four-poster bed, halfway to heaven on her feather mattress. Sylvie had witnessed the sudden nausea and the involuntary discharges that didn’t let up through the entire night. She had seen the girl’s eyes, once the color of new violets, go dim and sink deep into their sockets, her face looking more like that of an ancient woman exhausted by life than a twelve-year-old girl. From what Sylvie had said, Miss Becky’s dying had been no different than their own children’s.

Before answering the question, Silas jawed the chaw of tobacco to his other cheek. “He’s doing it to protect Miss Becky’s good name. Master says the cholera is not a quality disease. The highborn don’t come down with such. Especially no innocent twelve-year-old white girl.” Silas put two fingers up to his mouth and let go a stream of brown juice.

A dark laughter rippled through the survivors who stood there, all of whom had lost family or friends. What Silas wouldn’t say, Sylvie made sure the others knew. She said the master was so afraid of what his neighbors thought he had refused to send to Delphi for the doctor lest the news get out that Miss Becky had caught a sickness so foul that it was reserved for Negroes and the Irish. He had stood
there and watched while the girl’s breathing became so faint it didn’t even disturb the fine linen sheet that covered her. He ranted about how Rubina, Becky’s constant companion and the daughter of a house slave, was healthy as a colt. “There is no way,” he swore, “the cholera would pass over a slave and strike down my own daughter!”

Sylvie remembered the mistress’s face when her husband had said that. The cook had never seen that much agony in a white person’s eyes.

When all hope was lost, the master finally turned his back on his wife and daughter and home, leaving Becky to lie motionless, shrouded by the embroidered canopy of pink-and-white roses; Mistress Amanda to witness alone the inevitable end; and little Rubina to sob outside her dying playmate’s room. He rounded up a work gang and several bottles of whiskey, saddled his horse, and hightailed it out to the swamps to burn more Delta acreage.

“I guess that’s the white man’s way,” Sylvie had told them all, disgusted. “Lose a child, sire more land.”

That’s when the mistress’s mind finally broke. At first she wanted to have little Rubina whipped and her wounds salted, sure the girl had given her daughter the disease. But soon enough she relented. It was clear that she couldn’t hurt Becky’s friend. Mistress Amanda’s crazed search for blame finally settled on her husband. She cursed him night and day and threw china dishes against the wall. When Master Ben sent for some medicine to calm her, she swallowed all she could get her hands on. Anyway, that’s what those who worked in the house said.

Sylvie reached her arm around the young mother’s shoulder. Ella felt sure it was as much to keep her from bolting as it was to comfort her. Not that Ella hadn’t thought about running off with her baby into the darkness and hiding in the swamps, waiting out the mistress’s memory. But nobody had ever survived for more than two days out in the swamps.

Even if she did make it past two days, it was no guarantee the
mistress would come to her senses. Since the day of the funeral, the mistress’s silhouette could be seen through her bedroom window at all times of night, her arms animated, her fists shaking accusingly at nobody.

Ella didn’t know what happened first, Sylvie’s grip tightening to a bruising clench or the gunshot that seemed to crack right over her head. The small procession halted and they all gazed up at the house.

“Lord, what she done now?” Sylvie said.

While they watched, Master Ben came storming down the back steps from the upstairs gallery in his nightshirt and bare feet, dragging his bed linen behind him.

“It’s about time y’all got here. She’s about to hunt you down and she’s got her daddy’s derringer.”

The group stepped aside to let him pass. “My advice,” he grumbled without looking back, “is to hurry up before she reloads.”

“God be great,” Sylvie said under her breath. “I wish she would go ahead and shoot the man so we could all get some peace.”

• • •

At the water stand on the back gallery, Aunt Sylvie emptied the cedar bucket into the basin. “Now wash your baby,” she commanded. “Mistress say make sure she’s clean before bringing her inside the house.”

With trembling hands, Ella bathed Yewande under the light of Silas’s lantern. When Ella finished, Sylvie held out one of the mistress’s fine towels. Next the cook produced a tiny white gown and bonnet made of lace. Ella had never touched anything as delicate.

Perhaps it was true, she thought, that the mistress had been taken with her girl. The house servants weren’t dressed this fine. Not even little Rubina, who was almost white herself and had slept at the foot of Miss Becky’s bed! Maybe when Yewande got older, she could get a job in the house like Rubina, instead of draining swamps. Maybe Yewande wasn’t too dark for housework after all!

“These really for my girl?” Ella asked.

Sylvie nodded carefully, but said nothing.

Old Silas seemed surprised as well. “When did the mistress give you these, Sylvie?”

“Before I come to get you,” Sylvie said, almost under her breath. Silas kept his gaze on her until she finally dropped her eyes. “They Miss Becky’s christening gown when she was a baby.”

“She handed you her dead daughter’s dress?” Silas blurted. “Does the master know?”

“I ain’t asking no questions, Silas!” Sylvie answered defensively. “You seen him. Hightailing it out of his own house dragging his bedsheets behind him. If her own husband done give up on her, nothing I can say to talk any sense into the woman. Right now he’s going to do anything she asks, just to keep her from writing her daddy. We got to do the same or we all might be sold off again.”

“Aunt Sylvie,” Ella stammered, “I don’t understand …”

Sylvie turned to Ella. “Understand?” the cook scoffed. “You got to listen to me, girl. You ain’t never worked in a white man’s house. When you walk through them doors, say ‘goodbye’ to understanding and ‘how do you do’ to madness. Remember, half the things you going to see tonight ain’t real. The way to survive it is to play dumb, stay out of the way, and pray for the half that does make sense to show up quick. Hear me? Just keep quiet and tuck your head down low.”

• • •

Silas led the way into the back of the darkened great house. The smells were sweet and delicious, and the carpeted floors as soft and cool as moss under Ella’s bare feet. This was the first time Ella had passed through the threshold, and the foreignness of the finery only ratcheted up her fear. Through the dark she heard the soft weeping of a young girl and at first thought Miss Becky’s spirit had yet to leave the house. It was then that Silas’s lantern threw its light across an immense dining-room table, illuminating the crying girl, her head of fine curly hair slumped facedown on her arms. It was Rubina, still mourning the death of her friend.

Sylvie reached down and stroked Rubina’s hair once gently but said nothing, and continued to lead Ella through the cavernous downstairs and up the winding staircase.

Silas held back at the top of the stairs while Ella and Sylvie proceeded down the hallway to the mistress’s room. Outside the door stood Lizzie, the mistress’s maid and Rubina’s mother.

When they approached, Lizzie grabbed Sylvie by the arm. The maid’s fretful stare pierced the dark. “You got to help Rubina!” Lizzie pleaded urgently, talking rapidly, as if trying to get everything said before Sylvie turned away. “With Miss Becky dead, the master been after my little Rubina. And her not older than his own girl was! I seen the way he looks at her, Sylvie. And so has the mistress. She say she don’t want to lay eyes on Rubina no more! Don’t want her in the house! Says it breaks her heart every time she looks at my girl. What’s going to happen to her, Sylvie? They going to send her to the fields? What if they sell her off? Sylvie,” she said slowing down and dropping her whisper so that Ella could barely make out the words, “you know what the white men do with the pretty, light-skinned ones. You got to do something, Sylvie! She ain’t—”

Sylvie halted Lizzie’s desperate plea by pulling Ella forward with a jerk, almost thrusting her into Lizzie’s face. For the first time Lizzie seemed to notice Ella and then she looked down at the dark child in Ella’s arms, dressed in fine lace.

“Can’t you see I got my hands full right now, Lizzie?” Sylvie whispered harshly. “I’ll do what I can for Rubina. But I can only save one child at a time! Now move aside, Lizzie, and go tend to your girl.”

By the time Sylvie pushed back the mistress’s door, Ella had seen enough. Sylvie had been right. They had set foot in the house only moments ago and already the world had become a hellish puzzlement. How could the death of one little white girl set loose so much trouble?

But the most fearsome thing had yet to come. When Sylvie led Ella, breathless, into the bedroom, she got her first up-close look at Mistress Amanda.

The woman sat unmoving in the big stuffed chair, her long raven
hair knotted tight behind her head. Fine white fingers gripping the brocaded arms like she was expecting at any minute to be bucked off. She had the features of a child herself and stared back at Ella vacantly, saying nothing.

At last Mistress Amanda turned her empty gaze to Sylvie and spoke so faintly, Ella could barely make out the words: “Aunt Sylvie,” she said, “bring the baby to me like I asked you to.”

Ella glanced fearfully at Sylvie. The cook’s expression had gone to one of befuddlement. “What’s that you say, Mistress?” Sylvie asked. “I fetched the baby to your room just like you said to.”

“No, I meant bring the child
to me
.”

Ella stood frozen, her baby clasped tightly in her arms.

“Sylvie, why are you doing this?” The mistress paused, as if to collect herself. Then she caught Ella’s eye. “You, girl. You bring me that baby.” The mistress offered a pitiful smile. “Let me show you how to hold it.”

Ella hesitated, and then looked back to Sylvie. Now Sylvie would not even return her gaze. The cook was silent, shaking her head, like she couldn’t figure out what it was the mistress wanted.

The suffocating silence took Ella’s breath away. The baby began to fidget in her arms.

“Didn’t you hear me, girl!” the mistress cried. “You must do what I tell you!”

Ella turned her shoulder to Mistress Amanda, as if shielding the baby from an advancing gale. She dared to shake her head in protest.

Mistress Amanda gave a pleading look at the cook. “Bring the baby here, Sylvie.”

Sylvie gave a short nod, but instead of reaching for the child, she gripped Ella by the arm and drew the girl to where the mistress sat. The baby began to cry and her feet kicked at the skirt of the gown.

“Now, see? Y’all upset her.” The mistress held her arms out before her. “Give her here.”

Ella took a step back with the bawling child. “No, Mistress! Don’t!”
Ella tugged against Sylvie’s grip, trying to make it to the door, but the cook’s hold was tight.

The mistress got herself unsteadily to her feet. Then she reached out for the child as Ella struggled vainly to loose herself. When the mistress got a two-handed grip and began tugging roughly on the infant, Ella finally released Yewande with a heaving sob.

Cradling the child in her emaciated arms, Mistress Amanda gazed into the baby’s face.

“Isn’t she precious? And look at that expression!” She giggled, now childlike. “Like an angry black fist. I’m sure she’s hungry. You see, I know all about babies.”

“No, ma’am,” Ella cried. “She ain’t hungry. She scared.”

“What did the master name her?” Mistress Amanda asked airily.

“Master ain’t said yet. I been calling her Yewande. After my granny.”

“No, no,” the mistress said, speaking to the baby. “That’s not right at all, is it, my little ebony doll? That’s a name for a baboon or an orangutan.” She laughed and then lifted the girl up in the air. “I’ll think of a name. One that favors you.”

The baby calmed with the mistress’s attention, which seemed to delight her to no end. She smiled almost appreciatively at the child.

“Why, your face is like an inky daub in that field of Spanish lace,” Mistress Amanda mused, walking the baby toward the open window. “What was it Daddy always said? Ah, I remember! ‘Black as a Moor.’ ”