The Kitchen House (30 page)

I read Belle’s letter that night. Her sentences were short and puzzled me.

To Lavinia—

Everybody here is doing good. I don’t write to say I’m coming to stay with you and Mr. Cardigan because things change here. Will is going to tell you about it. I don’t say no more. I hope you remember that Will Stephens is a good man. That’s all I have to say. Everybody here is thinking of you every day.

Belle Pyke

At the bottom of her letter was my first note from Sukey, now a grown-up seven-year-old. It read:
Binny. I remember you. Do you remember me. Sukey

I puzzled over Belle’s letter yet realized she knew nothing of Cardigan’s death, nor of my engagement. I thought of the letter
I should have written to her. I had stalled, not wanting to put on paper the loss of my brother and that it meant I had to retract my offer to have her join me. Then, too, neither was my engagement to Mr. Boran a fact that I had been eager to share. Sukey’s note touched me deeply, and I might have suffered from it had I not the knowledge that Will Stephens was asleep in the house and I would see him again the following day.

M
ARSHALL WAS BACK IN THE
morning. The three men had a meal together in the library, and despite my growing impatience, their meeting continued on through the day. In the late afternoon, I put up my hair and changed into my best dress, a soft yellow muslin. I took a book and went outdoors to sit in the back garden under an arbor shaded by grapevines.

The garden was enclosed by a picket fence and prettily edged with green thyme and scented with pink roses. I hoped that Will might find me there when the meeting was over. Instead, it was Marshall who appeared. He thrust open the back door, slammed it behind him, then began to pace back and forth on the brick walk. I called out to him, and when he did not hear me, I called again. He strode over. “What is it?” he asked, his eyes dark with fury. When I sensed that I might become a casualty of his anger, I was uncertain how to answer.

“What is it?” he repeated.

“Marshall.” I kept my voice calm and soft. “Come, sit with me. What is the trouble?”

“That bastard!” he said, sitting down and looking back at the house.

I touched his arm lightly. “Marshall,” I said, “please. Tell me. What is the trouble?”

He stood. “We’ve just wasted the greater part of the day, all because of that whore!” When he saw me flinch at the word, he sat again. “I’m sorry, Lavinia, but you did ask.” He leaned down and rubbed hard at his eyes. “It’s that woman Belle! She has been nothing but trouble all of my life, and still it continues.”

I forced myself to silence.

“She was my father’s whore ever since I can remember. My mother tried all of her life to get rid of her, and Father would not even discuss it. My God! Will it never end!”

“But she is not—” I could no longer restrain myself.

“I will not hear a word in her defense!” he shouted furiously. “It was she who drove my mother to madness. And now! Now she’s Stephens’s whore. He wants her for himself. His sole purpose of this visit was to acquire her so he could set up house with her. The only way he will continue on in my absence is if I agree to sell her and their bastard child to him on my return.”

I could scarcely breathe from the shock. “And will you agree?”

“I have no choice. It’s the only way he’ll stay on, and besides, my uncle can agree to it without my approval, which he has told me he will do.”

“And that is all he asks?” I said.

“Hardly,” Marshall sneered. “He also wants Ben and his woman and their two brats.”

“But where will he take them?” I asked.

“My father gave him land that borders mine. He will set up his farm there.”

I knew that I was going to be sick and could take no more. Without apology, I abruptly fled to my room, leaving Marshall alone on the garden bench.

That evening, when I pleaded a headache, Meg brought me my supper. She asked no questions. Miss Sarah came the next morning to tell me to hurry, that Will was waiting to see me before he left. I refused. I had always suspected Will’s relationship with Belle, but to have it confirmed was almost more than I could endure. I shed no tears when Miss Sarah closed the door and went down to tell him my headache continued but that I wished him well on his journey home.

I
T WAS AFTER
W
ILL’S VISIT
that a melancholy wrapped itself around me, affecting me so deeply that Miss Sarah came to me and expressed her concern.

I did not tell her of my reawakened love for Will, nor of my sadness in learning of his intent to take Belle into his own home. I dared not tell Miss Sarah of how the very thought of marriage to Mr. Boran repulsed me, of how I saw no way out. Instead, I explained away my gloom by telling her only part of my truth, of my great longing for Tall Oaks and all the people there. Miss Sarah asked if I might care to accompany her to the hospital to see Miss Martha. She had recently had word that Miss Martha’s condition had improved somewhat.

“Would it help you to overcome these low feelings if you were to see Miss Martha again?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “yes, it would.”

“You are older now,” she rationalized her decision. “Why, by next year you will be a married woman.”

My visits to the hospital had ended in the spring. Now, eager to see her, I asked if we could visit the following day. Miss Sarah agreed, but only after she extracted a promise that I would resume my daily good cheer.

We left for the hospital in the late afternoon. We were both tense when we were admitted through the front door. Echoing clangs and shouts greeted us from the interior, and I was relieved that we did not have to wait but were taken immediately to Miss Martha’s cell. She lay sleeping amid the din. The golden afternoon sun shone through the high window, but the iron bars cast gray shadows on the whitewashed brick walls and across Miss Martha, curled on her straw pallet.

The attendant informed us that she had just been given a large dose of laudanum and would likely sleep through our visit. When he left, he locked the door behind himself. Miss Sarah, her face as white as the walls, perched in a corner on a low stool that was chained to the floor.

I went directly to Miss Martha, crouched at her side, and softly called her name. She woke much like a child, rubbing her eyes and murmuring to herself.

“It’s me, Miss Martha,” I whispered. “It’s Isabelle.”

Behind me, Miss Sarah gasped. “Isabelle?”

Miss Martha pulled her hands back from her face, and through heavy-lidded eyes, she peered at me. “Baby?” she asked.

“Sukey?” I said. “You want Sukey?”

She nodded.

“Who is Sukey?” Miss Sarah asked, but I did not answer. Miss Martha had reached for my hand and began to recite a line from Sukey’s storybook: “‘Make her a present of a fine gold watch. Make her a present of a fine gold watch.’”

“Yes, yes,” I soothed, and joined in to recite the line with her over and over until her eyes, drug-heavy, closed again. When I turned to Miss Sarah, her eyes were wet.

“I knew nothing of … if only I had known what comfort you give her,” she said.

Once settled in our carriage, I told Miss Sarah of the fondness I felt for her sister and I explained about Sukey and her book and the part they played in soothing Miss Martha.

“If only I had known, if only I had known,” Miss Sarah repeated. Finally, in an effort to ease her, I confessed to my earlier visits. I had expected her ire, but instead, Miss Sarah blessed me for my actions.

I asked for permission to visit regularly, and following that day, a carriage was readily provided for my use. Miss Martha almost always recognized me, and it quickly became known to the attendants that my visits were a comfort to their patient. The first tool they allowed me was Belle’s hairbrush, and I used it as Mama had taught. As I gently groomed her tender head, Miss Martha relaxed under my familiar touch. In the weeks following, a grateful matron gave me permission to bring books and to read to Miss Martha. Though everyone praised me for the comfort I brought, no one knew that I received as much from these visits as did Miss Martha.

Belle

M
AMA WAS WORKING HERE WITH
me, pickling beans, when Will Stephens gets back from Williamsburg. I know something’s not right when I see him coming up to the kitchen house with his shoulders leaning down.

I say, “Come in, Will, sit down,” then Mama asks him if he wants something to drink.

“That sounds good, Mae,” he says. “I’d appreciate some water.”

“How’d it go?” I ask, soon as he drinks the water. Mama gives me a look to stop rushing him, but I can’t take it no more.

He smiles at Mama, gives the cup back to her, and says, “Thank you, Mae.” Then he breathes in deep before he starts talking. “Everything is in order, Belle. You, Jamie, Ben, Lucy, and their boys will come with me when I finish my contract out here.”

I sit down and Mama sits down. When nobody’s saying nothing, I say, “How is Lavinia?”

Will looks at his feet. “She was already engaged to be married.”

“What!” I say.

“Who she marryin’?” Mama asks.

Will fingers his hat, trying to look like he don’t care. “I understand he is a colleague of Mr. Madden’s. I didn’t meet him.”

“What happen to her brother?” Mama asks.

“He died a number of years ago.”

“Did she send us a letter?” I ask.

“No,” he says, and I know there’s a whole lot of talking he’s not doing.

“How’s our girl lookin’?” Mama says. “She all growed up?”

“She is that.” Will Stephens can’t help but smile. “She’s awfully
pretty. Her hair is darker now, not as red, but her eyes… well, she looks right at you, same as before.”

“Is she more like Beattie, or tall like Fanny?” I say.

“She’s tall as Fanny, but she isn’t skinny.” He gets red when he hears hisself.

“She happy to be marryin’ this man?” Mama asks.

He shrugged and shook his head. “Ah, Mae, I don’t know much about women.”

Mama makes us laugh: “Will Stephens, you men all the same. The whole bunch of you don’t know much about women.” Will looks like he getting ready to leave when Mama asks, “You see Marshall?”

“I did,” he says. “He has grown up as well.”

We look at him, and he knows we’re asking for more, so he says, “I’m afraid I have nothing good to say about him.”

The way Will says that, I get cold all over.

“And Miss Martha?” Mama ask.

“She is still in the hospital. Mr. Madden doubts that she will ever return home.”

After Will goes, Mama and me talk. We both know something’s not right. We wonder about Lavinia, why we don’t get no letter. Why don’t she write about the man she’s marrying?

Mama’s worried. What happens when Marshall comes home to run this place? She’d like to get her girls out of here, but Will Stephens already tells her he don’t have the money. And I know what Mama worries most about. Does the same thing happen to them that happens to me?

Mama says it good that Ben and me are going to Will’s farm. She’s afraid that Benny will get hisself killed if Marshall ever goes after me again. But I think, If Marshall ever comes at me again, I don’t need Benny to finish him off.

Lavinia

A
LTHOUGH
M
R.
B
ORAN WANTED TO
marry immediately, Mr. Madden stood firm on our wedding date, set for the following June, a month after my seventeenth birthday. As time passed, I had a growing concern with Mr. Boran. With others, he continued as a meek, mild-mannered individual, but away from their eyes, he was another man. When the two of us were isolated, he quickly became amorous and exhibited what to me was frightening behavior. His actions were no longer the innocent, albeit passionate kissing of my hands; he had begun to touch me inappropriately, in ways that I would have thought were meant for husband and wife. Yet I wondered if, as his intended, I was meant to tolerate this.