The Letter Writer Read online

  I made my mind up that I would travel to England someday. I would go to the Lake District, where all the great artists and writers seemed to go.

  I had, without realizing it, another tutor in Uncle Andrew.

  He knew Joseph Cottle, too, the British bookseller, who was a patron of Coleridge and Wordsworth. He sent me a copy of Lyrical Ballads. And Margaret became so jealous she just had to take it to school and show it around. I prayed she wouldn't lose or destroy it somehow, for it had Coleridge's signature inside it.

  Margaret told everyone it was hers.

  I learned a lot about Uncle Andrew. Mostly I learned that we felt the same about slavery, God, and family. My family knew I wrote to him and did not object, so long as I did not speak of him. He was, for some reason no one would name, the black sheep of the family.

  That day I wrote and told him about Owen.

  Likely he is hiding out in the thick, swampy woods that adjoin our property. Slaves all flee there when they run away. Some run away regularly when they want to be treated better, then in good time they come home. The slaves at home will bring them food.

  I know that slavery in England ended in 1807. I suspect you people in England think we are barbarians at best for still following the practice. Well, Owen has been gone near three weeks now. I wonder if Violet is feeding him. I might let her take me to see him. Or then again, Uncle Andrew, I just might bring him some food, myself.

  Four

  Dear Mr. Peyton: I have been informed by some of our neighbors that you are fortunate enough to have produced turnips for sale and turnips to spare. If this is true, I would like to purchase 10 or 15 bushels. Let me know the price. This year we have sowed only our freshest land in turnips since we presumed that wearied lands would not bring them. They were used as food for Whites and Negroes and also for cattle and sheep. Mr. Young told me he planted turnips to be fed on only by sheep and as the basis of the improvement of poor lands. We will try that experiment here this year, only with buckwheat...

  For two hours I had written letters concerning the improvement of land, the rotating of crops, and what fertilizer was best. By the time we were finished I knew that turnips as well as hemp and pumpkins were best planted on new clearings of land. And that eight acres of pumpkins, well grown, will feed all the stock we have for two to three months. Those letters taught me more than I learned from Pleasant about my geography and numbers together.

  ***

  It was to be a warm June evening, turning into the kind of night when you didn't want to go to sleep but stay up all night talking.

  I asked Mother Whitehead if I could sleep upstairs with Violet. "I see nothing amiss with it," she said.

  I made her an eggnog with rum in it, her favorite bedtime drink, and left her there in the parlor. She would have her "talk" with Richard before she retired. They talked every evening, and mostly it was about the running of the plantation.

  We sat on Violet's bed, inside the mosquito netting, and I felt like a girl in a fairy tale. "Tell me about Nat Turner," I said.

  "Did Mother Whitehead get his master to lend him out yet?" she asked.

  "She wrote him another letter," I told her. "But I don't know whether we'll be getting him. Violet, do you know where Owen is?"

  She giggled. "Well, he isn't here, so stop looking around. But I do know where he is, yes. He's with Nat Turner."

  I'd known, as a matter of course, that she was a follower of Nat Turner. All negroes who considered themselves of any eminence around the Southampton area of Virginia were. But I'd never asked her about it. I'd never intruded on her privacy.

  The sound of a night bird drifted in the open window. A single tallow candle gave a flickering light. "Why is he with Nat Turner?" I asked. "And where are they?"

  "Nat heard he'd run off and went to Nelson's Pond, where he'd been told he was hiding. It fits right in with Turner's plans. He's going to do a baptism there tomorrow."

  The pond was at the abandoned Nelson plantation. The property must have been beautiful when once lived in, with that spacious pond in front. Now it seemed haunted. The owners had fled when people were fleeing these parts and going south because the soil could no longer support their tobacco growing.

  "Have you ever seen him do a baptism before?"

  "A few times."

  "What's it like?"

  "Have you ever seen your brother do one?"

  "Yes, but it can't be like that, because Turner has no church."

  "Tomorrow, he's baptizing old Ezra Bentley. Well," she elaborated, "he takes the person right into the water, then dunks them under and holds them there for a minute while he says the words."

  "Ohhh," I breathed, "how dramatic."

  "Yes." She nodded with self-importance. Then she leaned close and whispered in my ear. "Ezra was chased out of your brother's church for being a drunk and a gambler. He wanted baptism, but your brother said no."

  I nodded solemnly.

  "I always thought people who were sinners were supposed to go to church," she reasoned. "And not be thrown out. But it seems that Richard wants only the ones who aren't sinners."

  I nodded, agreeing.

  "There's more." She smiled triumphantly. "Owen's going to be at the baptism. Yes"—she nodded her head vigorously—"he is. He wants to come home, you see. But he's afeared of what Richard will do to him. So he's gone to Nat Turner and hopes Nat will speak with Richard as one minister to another and talk Richard into not whipping him for running away."

  "Ohhh," I breathed.

  "So if you want to come, we go tomorrow."

  "Are we going to bring Owen some food?" I asked.

  "Yes. I've got it all arranged with Connie in the kitchen. She's going to make some egg salad sandwiches and wrap them in cabbage leaves. For Owen and Nat."

  I felt envious that she could call Nat Turner by his first name. But she seemed perfectly at ease with it.

  "We'd better get to sleep now," she told me, "or we'll both get in trouble before we even do anything."

  I was just about bursting to tell someone I was going to one of Nat Turner's baptisms. Of course, to me, Nat Turner was part real and part fancy. Isn't that the way he was to everyone in Southampton County? I'd heard rumors and I'd heard fact. He was a nigra minister who'd had visions. He was a slave who'd invented a privy flusher, flushed by water. He was a preacher who held Bible class for his own kind, and he could repair an oak table better than a trained furniture maker.

  You could die to meet him and at the same time you were frightened beyond belief at meeting him. He was a slave, sold and resold, hired out at premium prices. Mother Whitehead wanted him but couldn't get him. Oh, I wanted to tell someone I was going to see him do a baptism. So I wrote inside my head:

  Dear Uncle Andrew: Tomorrow is Sunday and I am going with Violet to watch Nat Turner do a baptism. I am so excited. You know who Violet is. And I've written to you before about Nat Turner. He is a real renegade in these parts, like your Robin Hood. Don't worry for me. Violet and I are going to bring Owen home! I hope all is well with you.

  Your loving niece, Harriet Whitehead

  Five

  Before breakfast the next morning, which was Sunday, Mother Whitehead was up and about and insisted on dictating a schedule to me to be posted on the wall inside the large barn.

  It was a plan for the year of the planting and harvesting, and it even told how many horses and oxen and laborers were to be used.

  Calendar of work for 5 laborers, 2 horses, 4 oxen, 3 great and 3 small ploughs on a farm of 6fields of 40 acres each, hiring aid in harvest and hay time.

  Sept. 1 thru 17—plough in the stubble of the first wheat field and sow buckwheat, 40 acres in 13 ploughing days. Sept. 18 thru Oct. 1—plough and sow wheat after clover, 40 acres in 13 days with 3 double ploughs...

  And on it went: when to haul corn, firewood, coal, wood, rails, when to deliver wheat. It was Mother White-head's yearly calendar of work. I found it fascinating. She said I was to make two copie
s and put one on Richard's desk.

  Richard was put out with her for working on the Sabbath, but she told him that this was God's work as well as was his sermon writing. What, she asked him, could be more God's work than planning on sowing the wheat in the fields?

  Richard had no answer for that so he couldn't argue.

  At breakfast Violet served and was careful not to look at me. I moved my eggs and bacon around on my plate but none of it reached my mouth.

  "She isn't eating, Mother," Richard complained. "She's planning some mischief. Look at the appetite Margaret has."

  Margaret did some simpering thing at him, which pleased him enormously. I gave a look of disgust. Margaret had his approval, and I knew that I'd rather have Richard's rage than his approval. To have his approval would mean that I'd failed in life.

  I forced myself to eat, lest he make Mother drudge up some ungodly chore for me to do this morning. Richard went back to reading the Richmond Constitutional Whig newspaper. He'd been up since six, going over his sermon, and until he gave that sermon he was not to be borne.

  "Leave her be, Richard," Pleasant said. He sat at the head of the table and she on his right. The baby, two-year-old William, sat between them. He was playing with his egg, shoving it into his mouth with his fingers. "Da, Da." He waved a spoon at Richard.

  I loved William. And Pleasant. With the exception of Mother Whitehead, whose presence always brought peace, they were the only light touch we had in the house, because they melted your heart. Pleasant with her beautiful light brown hair around her shoulders and William toddling around getting into everything. They were the only ones who could soften Richard up. William, with his fat little legs and dimpled face, could toddle over to his father and mellow all the meanness. I know now why God gave us babies. They required constant attention, of course. They made messes and disturbed the peace, but their cuteness and smiles were sometimes the only reminder of God we had in the house.

  And Pleasant had the privilege that a loved wife had. She was the only one who could scold Richard, make him mind, point out the error of his ways. I loved her, because without her we might all consider ourselves in hell.

  She came from a family of eminence in Petersburg. She was well schooled and had tutored wealthy girls before marriage. I respected her, for many reasons, but mostly because she could handle my brother.

  Soon it was time to go. Mother Whitehead knew where we were off to, and Richard had reluctantly given permission after breakfast, which meant I would miss his church services. He gave permission only because he, himself, wanted to know what a baptism of Nat Turner's would be like and he, of course, could not, because of his position, attend.

  I excused myself and left the room. But he followed me out into the hall. "Be respectful," he admonished. "I don't know where this outrider of a minister was ordained, but it's still a baptism. You hear me?"

  "Yes," I said.

  He looked at Violet. "You hear?"

  "Yes sir, Massa Richard."

  "You riding?" he asked me.

  I said yes.

  "Give Violet a horse. Blackie. William could ride him, he's so docile."

  I said yes to everything and he went back to the dining room. We went to the kitchen, where we collected our food, then out to the barn where Chancy the groom readied our horses.

  When we got to the pond where the baptism was to take place, we were surprised to see it surrounded by at least seventy-five poor whites and negro people, come to see Nat Turner the minister, just as we had come. Word had traveled, as it does in these parts, on some grapevine that never stopped growing and could never be cut.

  "There he is," Violet pointed out. "There's Nat Turner, with Ezra Bentley."

  I looked to where she pointed. And sure enough there was a tall, young negro man with short hair, broad of shoulder, and dressed in trousers that were torn at the knee and a shirt that needed buttons in front. Immediately I saw that there was something about him that drew the eye and the mind. But I could not say what.

  Without stopping, he grasped Ezra Bentley's arm and together they walked right into the pond in water up to their shoulders. Then, of a sudden, Nat Turner grasped Ezra by the shoulders and pushed him under the water. While he held him there with one hand, he recited something from the Bible, something long enough that I thought Ezra might drown. Then he shouted, "I baptize you, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen."

  Ezra came up like a hooked fish, sputtering and choking and yelling at the same time. "I am saved! Thank the Lord God, I am saved!"

  No sooner had he shouted that than some white boys from the shore splashed into the water, all of one mind, and waded over to Ezra and grabbed him and pushed him again under water.

  "Stop it." Nat Turner reached under to rescue Ezra. "Hear me! How dare you interfere with a sacred ceremony!"

  But they were not afraid of him. They did not consider him a true minister. I thought of my brother and how those boys would cower if he spoke to them in such a tone. These boys hooted at Nat Turner. They splashed water at him. And when they finally let poor Ezra up out of the water, they shoved him at Nat and the two of them fell and went under again. The boys left, calling Nat names as they went.

  It was then that I noticed a lone figure on the shore, pacing up and down.

  "There's Owen," Violet said to me. And she waved him over.

  He came, head down, eyes casting around, like one who was hunted and did not want to be found.

  "How are you today, Owen?" Violet asked.

  "I'm all right, Violet. Why did you bring Harriet?"

  "Is that any way to greet someone who cares about you?" Violet asked.

  "Hello, Owen," I said.

  He nodded at me. At home he'd often spoken to me. His job had been to keep the many hearth fires burning in the house, to clean the chimneys when they needed it. And Mother Whitehead had been training him up to answer the door when someone knocked.

  He was even learning to send the person around to the back door if they were negro or looked disreputable.

  "Are you coming home today?" I asked him.

  "No. I'm not comin' 'til Nat Turner brings me."

  There was a surprise. I hadn't known Nat Turner was coming to our house. Violet grabbed me by the arm then, and pulled me over to where Turner was standing, wiping himself down with a dry piece of flannel. "Nat," she said, "this is Harriet Whitehead. I want you should meet her. She's one of the Whitehead daughters."

  He stopped rubbing his head with the towel and gave a little bow. "Pleased, Miss Harriet," he said. His English was perfect. His yellow brown eyes took my measure.

  "I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Turner," I said.

  He laughed then, a not unpleasant sound. "Mr. Turner? You do me an honor. I can't remember ever being called Mr. before."

  "Should I call you Reverend?"

  "You should call me Nat, like everybody else does. Unless they're calling me 'boy.' Or 'you there.' Or something worse. You saw the crowd. Nobody thinks I'm a reverend."

  "I've never seen such a wonderful baptism," I breathed. "My brother does baptisms, and they're so proper you could sleep through them. He doesn't immerse people in water, of course."

  "Ah, yes, your brother, the minister. Perhaps you could help me some. I'm planning on bringing Owen here home. And cajoling your brother not to whip him for running off. Tell me, can he be cajoled?"

  I thought of Richard, thin and tall and prim, with his tight mouth and his stern demeanor. Richard was the last person on earth who could be cajoled. He would have to forgive Owen, and he had never forgiven anybody in his life for anything. The only one who could make him smile was William.

  "It depends, Nat, on how persuasive you can be," I said.

  He smiled, showing gleaming white teeth. His eyes smiled, too, and I thought I could never fear him like I fear some of the negroes on our place. No, this man has goodness in him. "When are you coming?" I asked.

  "Perhaps later
on today," he suggested. "At dusk. I have found men to be most mellow at dusk."

  Suppertime, I thought. Richard is most mellow at suppertime. A glass of port, a good cut of meat, yes. He'll be mellow at dinnertime. "I won't say anything," I told Nat. "I'll keep it secret. I do know that Mother White-head thinks much of you. She always wants to hire you on. You have a friend in our house."

  We parted. Violet chatted all the way home, but I scarce heard her. I could not yet wrap my mind around the fact that I had met the one and only Nat Turner. And he was coming, this very day, to our house. And then I thought, Richard would not be rude. He would not dare. By tomorrow it would be all over the county that Nat Turner had come to our house and brought a runaway slave home and asked for mercy. One reverend to another. And no matter what people thought of Turner's power as a minister, well, they knew of Richard's. They respected Richard. And as their minister, he could do no less than be cordial to Turner, could he? Because Turner had come to him, beseeching him. And as a true man of the cloth, Richard could not turn him away.

  It came to me then that it was just this that Nat Turner was counting on. That he had already figured it out in his head. And he was counting on the fact that Richard, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, would already know this.

  Six

  We heard the knock on the back door halfway through the repast that served as Sunday supper. The house, which was rambling and three story, with rooms that went off in directions that looked as if no architect ever drew up the plans, was large and comfortable. A newcomer could get lost in it. But it had that necessity every Southern mansion had—a center hall, which kept the air coming through on even the hottest of days.

  At first, when I heard the knocking I thought, Oh good, Nat Turner knows enough to come to the back door. That will give him points with Richard. And then I thought, No, it's Owen's idea. He was in charge of answering the door and sending negroes to the back when he was here.

  Violet came into the dining room, careful not to look at me. She'd been "doing the doors" since Owen ran away. "Master Richard, there's someone to see y'all."