The Kitchen House (44 page)

Will Stephens tell us that Marshall’s losing the whole place from playing cards and betting the horses. He’s getting rid of more and more land, and he’s even selling off people from the quarters. I get worried that he’ll sell my Jamie, but Will Stephens says that’s never gonna happen. Marshall knows Will Stephens is watching out to buy Jamie if that day ever comes.

They tell me my Jamie’s real smart. He reads all the time. Mama says he talks real good and sounds like he comes from the big house. They say he has no trouble passing for white. The times I miss him, I tell myself, Maybe this is the way he’ll get free. Maybe one day he’ll go off and live like a white boy.

They’re saying Lavinia uses drops the same as Miss Martha. Lavinia’s still up and moving around, but Mama says there’s nothing coming from her eyes no more. The only thing she still cares about is her Elly.

That little Elly, Mama says, sure is something. She looks like Lavinia, but she got more sass and spark in her than Lavinia ever
have. Most of the time, she’s out running and playing with Moses, Beattie’s oldest boy, but she gets along good with my Jamie, too.

A couple of times I hide up in the trees, thinking to see Jamie when he goes down to the barns, but this last time Papa says, “Don’t come here no more. Rankin’s got a nose for trouble.”

Ben says after Sukey got sent off, Papa’s scared of everything. Papa ’specially don’t like it when he hears that Ben’s helping people run. Ben fixed a place to hide them in his house, but we don’t talk about that to nobody. We think maybe Will Stephens knows, but he don’t say nothing. Lucy don’t like it one bit. She’s afraid for her little ones.

This place here is growing. Will Stephens finally got married. We all know he was waiting to see what’s happening with Lavinia. One time Will goes over there to see how she’s doing. He goes to the front door, like a gentleman, and asks to see Lavinia. Marshall comes to the door, puts a gun to Will, and tells him he’ll shoot the next time he sees him.

When Will sees for himself that he can’t do nothing, he don’t go back. Last year he marries a girl at church, and we all like her good enough. For sure, she nothing smart to look at. She’s real white with yellow hair, and she looks like she don’t have no eyelashes. She don’t laugh too much, and she sure does talk about the good Lawd even more than Mama Mae ever done. Don’t you know, her name’s Martha, so here I go, calling another woman Miss Martha.

Lucy works up at the big house. I stay down here doing the cooking and looking out for the babies. Lucy’s happy. She says never in her whole life did she think that she’d get to work in a big house. I say I never did think that I’d be working in a kitchen and looking out for babies that some woman have with my man. We laugh, ’cause it’s the sorry truth.

Ben means everything to Lucy and me, but some days Lucy comes and says, “Belle, you take that man, I don’t ever want to see him again!” Other times I say, “Lucy, he’s all yours! Keep him away from me.” So that’s the way it works out for us, both with the same
man. ’Course, there’s times I think Ben wants a place for himself to get away from two women who each got their own way.

My George is gonna be six years old this Christmas. He writes his name already, and my name, too. He call me Mama Belles, and the way he says it, those two words I can never hear enough. He lives with me from the time before he can walk, and Lucy don’t never say she don’t want me taking over this child.

Ben asks, “What you gonna do when it time for him to work the fields?”

I say, “I’m getting George ready for the big house. He’s not going down to those fields.”

Ben and Lucy think that George takes the place of my Jamie, but they don’t see it right. Each boy got half my heart.

1810

Lavinia

M
UCH OF THE LAND WAS
sold by the spring of 1810. I kept myself dosed with laudanum as everything fell away. Marshall was seldom present on the farm, and the few times when I did see him, our meetings were cold and brief. I made sure that Elly was taken to her father when he asked to see her, but those times were infrequent. Fanny, who accompanied Elly on these visits, told me that Marshall appeared ill at ease with his daughter.

“He don’t know what to say, ’cause the older that lil girl get, the more she look like you,” Fanny explained.

My daughter was the light of Fanny’s world. To Fanny’s sorrow, she and Eddy did not have children, so she treated Elly as her own. Every morning after Fanny fed and dressed Elly for the day, they had their own small ritual. “And who is Fanny to her little darlin’?” Fanny would ask. Elly’s arms would go around her neck for their morning hug, and her words always made Fanny laugh out loud. Elly would draw out the words and mimick her perfectly: “Fanny, you know you just my bes’ blessin’!”

Fanny was also Miss Martha’s nurse. On the whole, my mother-in-law’s mental health had stabilized. There were days, though, when the sharp cry of an animal from the outdoors might cause her extreme alarm. She would call for me then—“Isabelle! Isabelle!”—and if I did not come running, the only other who could settle her was Jamie. She was as obsessed with Jamie as ever, and though I knew its eccentricity, in that unusual household, it no longer seemed that peculiar.

Jamie was thirteen years old that summer. The previous spring he had grown very tall; he had a thin build and, but for his one eye, a beautiful face with finely carved features. Fanny best described him to Mama: “He too pretty for a boy,” she said.

Jamie was unusually fastidious. He insisted that his clothes fit perfectly, and he always kept his softly curled hair carefully tied back with a black satin ribbon. I tried to love him as I did Elly, but there was something about him that would not let me close. He was never disagreeable with Miss Martha, nor was he to me, but if anyone else crossed him, he would call up an air of superiority that caused Mama to remark more than once that he was “thinkin’ too high on hisself.”

Through the years Papa tried to interest Jamie in outdoor activities. He taught Jamie to ride, and when Marshall was away, he even taught him to hunt with the shotgun that was kept locked in the barn. But Jamie’s time with Papa was limited, and for the most part, Jamie remained indoors. His passion was books, and he spent hours at a desk in the blue room, where he read, wrote, and studied poetry. His other fascination was with birds; in this he often reminded me of Meg. Jamie’s most prized possession was a book about North American birds that I had given to him. After days spent poring over the book, he announced that one day he would go to Philadelphia to meet the ornithologist who had published it. His determination left no doubt that he would make it happen.

The blue room held stacks of other books, and it became routine in the evenings to gather in Miss Martha’s room and listen as Jamie read aloud. Miss Martha had coached him, and his elocution was superb. In many ways, those evenings saved me. Uncle Jacob always came to my room to fetch me. If I argued lethargy, if I told him that I was not feeling well, one look from his old brown eyes was enough to remind me of my duty to the household. I was often in a stupor when I took his arm and he led me to Miss Martha’s rooms. After he would seat me, he’d pull a wooden chair from the blue room and sit quietly behind me. The evening almost always ended with Elly dozing on Uncle Jacob’s lap.

B
EATTIE AND
M
ARSHALL’S OLDEST CHILD,
Moses, was six years old that summer, a year younger than Elly. They were constant playmates.

In the first years, Beattie tried to keep Moses from the big house, but after a time Mama Mae must have told her that I did not care if he came to play with Elly. In truth, Moses, with his easygoing manner and his deeply dimpled face, so reminded me of Beattie as a child that I welcomed his happy presence.

I no longer concerned myself on Beattie’s behalf. I knew that she had found her own way of coping. I was happy to learn that she invited Elly into the kitchen house and treated her there with kindness. Beattie and I saw little of each other, as I no longer went down to the kitchen house; I never knew when Marshall was about.

In the last months of the summer of 1810, Marshall was seldom home. His drinking and gambling had worsened, and I could only guess how close we were to complete disaster. That summer many of our workers had already been sold, and the few people left in the quarters were so worn out that I do not know how they survived.

I saw no way out. Tormented by my inability to act, I paced in an opium haze during the night when everyone slept. Where was the solution? Marshall was aware of all my expenditures, so how could I finance an escape? And overcoming that, whom would I take with me?

There were Elly and, of course, her beloved Fanny. But what of Miss Martha? I felt extremely protective toward her. And Mama Mae! How could I leave her? She was my foundation, and I could not envision life without her. In these later years I had only two disagreements with Mama. One was about Jamie. The other had to do with my laudanum use.

All along I knew of Mama’s objection to Jamie’s presence in the house and the resulting dependency between Miss Martha and Jamie. Whenever Mama suggested that we separate the two, I always pleaded for more time. I could not forget Miss Sarah’s visit and the disastrous results when Jamie was removed for those few
days. Besides, Jamie was as attached to Miss Martha as she was to him. They spent long hours in each other’s company, though Miss Martha often slept while Jamie wrote or studied. Jamie was always respectful toward me, but there were times—after his thirteenth birthday in particular—when he was particularly insolent with Fanny. I corrected him, but he continued until Fanny finally complained to Mama Mae.

On an early morning that May, at Mama’s request, I went downstairs to help her open the house to the spring air. We pushed open the dining room windows; the room was seldom used these days, and as I looked it over, I noted its grandeur was beginning to fade. Mama stood quiet as I looked around; as I made to leave, she asked if we could speak. I pulled a chair out for Mama and then seated myself. “What is it, Mae?” I asked.

“We got to get Jamie outta this house,” she said urgently.

I shifted in discomfort. I had managed to evade this discussion many times, but hearing Mama’s tone, I doubted I could do so now. I brushed my finger to and fro along the edge of the polished dining table until Mama interrupted me.

“Miss Abinia?”

“But why now?” I heard the whine in my voice.

“’Cause trouble just waitin’ on this. I can feel it.”

“Well, what can we do? Where would he go? We can’t send him back to the kitchen house. Marshall goes there all the time.”

“Jacob say he take him in his house, and George say he take him to work out in the barn. He say Jamie good with the horses.”

“But you know Jamie won’t want to work in the barns.”

“That why he need to go. He growin’ up fast. He need to know his place.”

“But what is his place? I doubt he even remembers Belle.”

“Last time Jamie down at the barns, Papa talk to him about Belle bein’ his real mama. Jamie get mad, say Papa don’t know what he talkin’ bout. Jamie say he a white boy. Papa say, ‘No, you a nigra, just like me.’ Jamie go runnin’ off, and now he don’t go down to the barns no more. He gettin’ too old for this, Abinia. And his mouth
gettin’ too smart. It time he know he a nigra; he got to learn to work like one.”

“I know you are right, Mae. I’ve heard him with Fanny. But you know that Miss Martha thinks of him as her son. It’s no wonder that he feels he belongs up here in the big house.”

“It got to end. These days he thinkin’ too much on hisself. There gonna be a big comedown for that boy,” Mama said.

“Maybe we could send him off. He looks white. You would never guess—”

“His mama, Belle. That make him a nigra! ’Sides, he got no freedom papers.”

“Do you think he knows who his father is?”

“All that boy got to do is see his own face. If he don’t look like Masta Marshall, then I don’t know who do. All along that why Miss Martha thinkin’ he one of hers.”