The Letter Writer Read online

  She gave him some money. He promised he would repay it, though both he and she knew he wouldn't. And he left, bowing and kissing her hand.

  That is the way Mother Whitehead is regarded. I'd like to be regarded that way, too, someday. I'd help people, but I'd give a scolding first.

  I'd scold Richard good, if I had the chance. Then I'd let him kiss my hand.

  If that isn't power, I don't know what is.

  Two

  I do not recollect much of when I first came here. There was a green baby chair, I recall, that was mine. One day I was put in the kitchen in it, away from the family in the dining room because I was not "behaving" and I was mad beyond anything I can remember. There was the stairway I wanted to climb but was forbidden to, and the marvel of the Christmas tree the day my father brought me home to this plantation in Virginia when I was just past two.

  He set me down on the Persian carpet in the parlor in front of everyone.

  "This is Harriet," he said.

  The tree they had was all prettified, with packages under it. Oh, I'd seen Christmas trees in London far more beautiful in my short life, but this tree stood out because it was decorated with popcorn and someone had cut out a chain of small white angels to go round it. Trees were new in the colonies in 1821, but Christmas was greatly celebrated in the South. The tree dripped with goodies, candy, and cookies; a child's delight. I ran to it.

  Someone caught me up just before I got there and pulled me close to his tweed jacket. It was a young man who I later learned was Richard, on his Christmas break home from Hampden-Sydney College, already studying to be a minister.

  My father had packages, too, gifts he'd brought, and he handed me over like I was one of them. I just stared at everyone. I stood there on my fat, two-year-old legs, my feet in my black laced-up shoes digging into the carpet. I had tolerable good sense in those days, just as I have now. So I didn't cry. I just stared.

  I must say they gave me a welcome that was not exactly as warm as it was curious. That is to say, they fussed over me because I was Papa's "foreign get," as Richard put it. Years later I found out that it meant I was Mr. Whitehead's child from a foreign wife and not the lovely Mother Whitehead, who sat like a queen in her chair in the parlor, overlooking the scene before her.

  I was passed around and greatly exclaimed over. The Whiteheads also had another little girl whose name was Margaret, but she was already six and making her demands known. I was soon toddling after Margaret. We played at dolls, at all kinds of games. Without knowing it, I even accommodated her by not being as beautiful as she was, and that seemed to endear me to everyone in the house. Margaret knew it, too, and never let me forget it.

  She knew she was superior to me. It showed in little things. For some reason, when the dressmaker came, she'd get the brightest fabric. She'd get silk while I got cotton. As we got older, she even managed to get Mother Whitehead to agree to low-cut gowns. I wouldn't dare ask for such.

  The only one privy to these little hurts was Violet. And she would buoy me up in such times by saying things like: "Don't you let it worry you one bit. Your face has more character than hers, anyway." Violet was "given" to me and Margaret to be our own private "girl." To fetch and carry, to help us dress, and to pick up after us.

  Margaret slapped her on occasion. I never did. Light-skinned Violet, with her blue eyes, became a favorite of mine.

  I liked her better than Margaret, who soon proved herself a ten-karat pain, insufferable in her demands about dress, quickly bored and always boring, short on imagination and long on dullness, quick to demand compliments and slow to give them. Her one talent was playing the piano. She took lessons at Miss Dangerfield's School for Young Ladies in Jerusalem.

  Margaret boarded there all week, which gave us a recess from her. But she came home on weekends with her nose in the air because she was a "private school" girl, and therefore ordained better than us by holy decree.

  I soon hated her. And she, me.

  Weekends, when she came home, I was always in trouble. Richard was out of the seminary by now and making a good stipend as pastor of the local Methodist church.

  My father had left after that Christmas visit when he brought me to stay, promising to come back, but breaking his promise by going off to sea in one of his ships and getting himself killed before I was three.

  Things were tenuous enough for me, at best. Mother Whitehead became my guardian, she who had endured the humiliation of having her husband's child by another woman in her home. She took it on herself to raise me. And she did it with a sense of fairness, justice, and compassion, as she conducted all her affairs.

  I ought to know. I write her letters.

  Dear Mr. Copley: Yesterday your three cows broke through the fence in my upper five acres and ate a good portion of my corn. I was raising that corn special for the Southampton County Fair and it was superior in texture and substance and consistency. However, us being neighbors for so many years, and your cows being superior in texture and substance and consistency, I am willing to let the matter go. One does not demand payment from a neighbor. Anyway, the fence needed mending, and I neglected it, so the fault is mine as much as yours.

  Your neighbor, Mrs. Catharine Whitehead

  ***

  In spite of his duties as a minister, Richard took over as head of the family. He dealt with the overseer, set the rhythm of work on the plantation, disciplined the slaves and us children. Sometimes, with the exception of Margaret, I think we children, Violet and I, fell into the same category as the slaves.

  There were times it seemed like Mother Whitehead was oblivious of what Richard was doing. But she knew. She always knew. And she let him go only so far before she stopped him.

  He married Pleasant and they moved in with us. Pleasant had been a schoolteacher before marriage and was now appointed my personal tutor. She lived up to her name.

  Seven years went by. In that time, when Richard was not aware of it, Pleasant privately tutored Violet, too. Knowing Richard would not approve, Pleasant and I kept it a secret. Having a secret with someone creates a bond between you, and soon Pleasant and I were closer than real sisters.

  We shared all kinds of thoughts. I often wondered how my brother, Richard, so stern and tied up inside his head, could win the love of someone like Pleasant. But somehow she kept his edges smooth. God knows what he would have been if not for her.

  In those seven years, Pleasant got with child twice. One was stillborn and the other a miscarriage.

  When I was nine, Pleasant was brought to bed with a baby boy. They named him William, and he is the darlingest baby boy that God ever made, and we all love him.

  ***

  I think that School for Young Ladies that Margaret goes to in Jerusalem is a witches' den. She is supposed to be "finished" there.

  Well, she has done a few samplers, she can make Richard a shirt with the most exquisite stitching, she can work a quilt, she can make candied violets and pour tea and make small talk to fill the silences at a gathering, when all I can do is sit there like a jackass in the rain.

  And she can handle the negroes on the place. She has this way of talking at them, not to them. And, at age fifteen, she gets them to "yes, Miss Margaret" her and curtsy to her as they leave the room.

  I will never know how to order them around. They call me just Harriet. And some of the older ones tell me to sit up straight at the table. And Ormond, our man-about-the-house, who sometimes waits on the table, often has to take my linen napkin out of my hands and stand over me and spread it on my lap. Not one word passes his lips. Not one. He just does this and then moves away.

  While across the table, Margaret smirks at me.

  Richard not only orders the darkies around, he has them whipped. How he, a man of the cloth who mouths pious phrases in church on Sunday, can oversee the whippings of innocent human beings, both men and women, infuriates and puzzles me.

  He will order other darkies to watch.

  You can hear the scre
ams all over the plantation.

  One particular Sunday I had locked myself in the library with Papa's books, where it was dark and safe, where the blinds were drawn against the summer sunshine and I felt close to my father, who would never countenance such doings as having the negroes whipped.

  Mother Whitehead was on the side veranda, which was covered with clematis that cast shadows like angels' wings, sipping one of her cool drinks.

  The brass knob of the library door twisted, then the door opened. "Here you are."

  It was Margaret, all done up in white with a blue sash, for it was Sunday. Richard never put off whippings because it was Sunday, and he'd preached an especially fiery sermon that morning, which gave him the courage to match his own convictions.

  "Aren't you going to come out and see the demonstration?" Margaret asked.

  I was poring over a copy of Romeo and Juliet. I looked up, horrified. "You were watching?"

  "From a distance, yes. Richard wouldn't let me get close. Oh, he deserved that whipping, that evil Henry."

  "But he's just a boy!"

  "Man enough to peer down my dress when he helped me from the carriage after church this morning. I told Richard." She twirled and inspected herself in a mirror. "Oh, yes, I did. And he's being punished with fifty lashes even now."

  "Well, then I'm going to tell Richard that you enticed Henry on purpose. That you always entice the negroes." I got up. The book clattered to the floor.

  She laughed. "Do you think he'll believe you? I'm his favorite. You know that. He'll do just about anything for me. Anyway, he's not going to sell himself short in front of the other darkies by calling it off now. They have to learn, and guilty or not, they have to learn here and now." She grabbed the brass knob of the door and turned before leaving. "Aren't you supposed to be attending my mother?"

  "Connie is doing that."

  "Connie is out witnessing the demonstration. At Richard's orders. You know Mama sees only forms and shapes. You'd best get to her or I'll tell Richard. Then you'll get fifty lashes' worth of words." She laughed again, started out the door, and again paused.

  "Is it true that Mother offered Mr. Travis a premium amount of money to hire Nat Turner to work for us?"

  I was almost afraid to answer. "I don't know."

  "Liar. You write the letters. What did she offer? Do you know that Turner considers himself a minister? Can you imagine? How would you like him baptizing you?"

  "He is said to be a genius with furniture making," I told her. "He learned when he was about sixteen. He was apprenticed out. And you know how Mother wants new tables for the parlor and the hallway."

  She just stood there. "So Mother did ask for him."

  "I'm not supposed to talk about any of her private correspondence," I said.

  "Well, she'd best be careful. He can read and write. One of his previous masters taught him in an experiment. And now nobody knows quite what to do with him! So Mr. Travis hires him out and uses the money he brings in."

  "Well, that's one thing to do with him, I suppose," I said.

  "Well, what would you do, Miss Holier-than-thou? You think you're so all-count better than the rest of us because you sympathize with the darkies. Well, you think Richard doesn't?"

  "I can hear, right now, how he does," I said.

  "Well somebody has to keep them in line or they'd kill us all in our beds at night. You think Richard enjoys doing it? But he knows he has to. He's a minister, for heaven's sake. A man of God. He knows his earthly responsibilities, taking care of us. You think he hasn't considered what's to become of the slaves in Virginia, even before you put foot on the place? You think Mother, sitting out there on the veranda, isn't thinking of it right now?"

  I sighed. "If I'm wrong, I'm sorry," I said. "But I just don't think this is the way."

  "If you come up with a better one, let us know. And go on now to Mother." She went out the door, leaving me alone in the room.

  Nat Turner. I had heard of him even before Mother wrote asking to hire him. I had heard Turner was a fanatical minister, a man who went about telling people he'd seen visions in his dreams, who baptized people in ponds. How could he take orders from Richard, who believed ponds were only for fishing in? And if he had a vision in his dreams, would he wake up and tell his wife it was because he'd had too many fresh oysters for supper?

  I sighed again, sensing trouble, and went to see to Mother Whitehead.

  Three

  "Would you like any more lemonade, Mother White-head?" I came upon her on the veranda, just where I'd left her, only now her head was back against the flowered cushion and she was dozing. The piercing blue eyes opened. "I want dinner. When is dinner?"

  "Connie said in half an hour."

  "What are we having? I'm about starved. Where is Violet? Why isn't she fanning me? Where is Owen? I need these wicker shades pulled down."

  "Owen ran off, Mother. Two weeks ago now. Don't you remember?"

  The negro boy in question was fifteen. She'd raised him up since he was two. He was the son of Jack and Charlotte, who'd been with her forever, as had most of her people. Of a sudden Owen had felt the call of being free, and one day a couple of weeks ago he simply could not be found anywhere.

  Richard was furious. Because Mother wanted Owen back so badly, he'd spent forty dollars already on travel expenses, meals, newspaper ads, and rewards trying to find the boy.

  NOTICE FOR A NEGRO BOY NAMED OWEN. Source: The Richmond Constitutional Whig. Runaway from the subscriber living near Jerusalem in Southampton County. June 2, 1831, a negro boy age 15, five feet two inches high, slim, well built, active, and likely, wears his hair in two plaits, smokes segars when he thinks nobody is watching, and walks with considerable confidence when he thinks people are. He can cook eggs, make coffee, wait the table, answer the door, fetch and carry, and do all other houseboy duties with admirable grace. Wearing a cotton shirt and pantaloons and good homemade shoes when he ran. May be headed for the Canadian border. Fifteen dollars in gold coin will be rewarded the finder for giving over the above-described negro.

  Mrs. Catharine Whitehead

  Owner of Whitehead Farms

  Southampton County, Virginia

  ***

  It must appear in the Richmond Whig. No other paper would do. Richard was furious because his mother made him take the buggy on the fifteen-mile trip across the Sussex County line to the Sussex County Courthouse, where Evans and Blanding, the slave auctioneers, did their business. She made him watch at the pen where negroes were likely auctioned off, to make sure Owen hadn't been already captured and wasn't being resold again into bondage for four hundred and sixty dollars, or some other outrageous sum.

  Violet told me she knew where Owen was. I believed that she did. Food was missing from the pantry. Exactly the kind of food that could be spirited out in a napkin or cabbage leaves without making a mess. Sometimes when I was about the place, I had the feeling that Owen was about, too. Watching us. Here all the time and laughing at us.

  "I want another drink," Mother said. "And I want liquor in it. No sissy-boots lemonade. And I don't want Richard to know it." She handed me the glass and I took it into the house, to the sideboard in the dining room where the liquor was kept, and mixed her a mint julep, exactly as she liked it. She drank. I couldn't blame her. If I were husbandless with a plantation and sixty slaves to worry about and a son like Richard and a dizzy daughter like Margaret who went to an expensive girls' school and learned nothing, I'd drink, too.

  I brought the glass out to her and she accepted it. "We have time for one letter before dinner," she said.

  I set myself up at the small ladies' desk next to her. It could be moved from room to room by a servant, and it held her fancy stationery and all her accoutrements for writing.

  She dictated a letter to her dressmaker in Jerusalem.

  Dear Mrs. Ord: I hope this finds you and yours in the best of health. In answer to your last question, I have decided that for my new gown I shall need at least
twenty-five yards of fabric. I would like it to be of violet taffeta, trimmed with bias bands of black velvet edged with white at the bottom of the skirt. I will likely be able to make a fitting by the end of June and will require this gown for the Fall Festival in honor of the success of the crops to be held in Jerusalem in September. Keep in mind that while made of taffeta, it must be elegant and genteel. As for my daughters, we will discuss their dresses when I come for my fitting.

  Thank you, Mrs. Catharine Whitehead P.S. Oh, by now you must have heard that my houseboy, Owen, has run off. We think it is just a prank, but he is missed terribly by all, and I ask you to please send around a courier if you have seen him.

  I felt guilty not telling her what I heard. But Violet had begged me not to. And I kept my promise.

  Then she said that since there was still time we would do one more letter. This one was to Mr. Travis, four miles down the road, and the theme was familiar.

  I wish you would have a change of heart about hiring out to me your darky, Nat Turner. I have heard he is a first-rate worker, that he can read and write, and does not need someone standing over him all the time telling him what to do, that he has invented a privy flusher, the kind that would be fed by water from my windmill. I need a barn designed for my prize cattle, some good oak furniture fixed, and many an honest day's work done around here for which I would pay premium prices.

  She had been trying to "acquire" Nat Turner now for six weeks. But Mr. Travis had refused to hire him out. "What do I have to do?" she asked me. "Offer to buy him?"

  Not until that afternoon did I have time to write the letter I wanted to write. It was to Uncle Andrew.

  Uncle Andrew brought me into a world I'd never known. He told me about his friend John Constable, the landscape painter, who had studied at the Royal Academy Schools and was recognized as the foremost landscape painter in Britain. I learned all about Constable, the way he painted, what he painted, and how his wife died.