The Letter Writer Read online

  I felt my heart beating. Make it quick? What were we all doing listed on that paper? Was he going to gather us together and preach to us?

  "What are you doing here, missy?"

  His voice. I turned, my hands trembling, and I faced him. "I brought you the map," I said. "I couldn't find you. No one is about. So I thought I'd bring it here."

  His eyes went from the paper with the names on the desk to me. I pulled the map out of my apron pocket and handed it to him. He unfolded it carefully. It was very quiet, and I could hear Mother Whitehead's windmill clack, clack, clacking in the fields, a sound I usually took for granted. I heard a cow moo, a dog bark. Suddenly sounds I took for granted all stood out against the starkness of the day for me, each demanding to be heard, as if for the first, or last, time.

  He glanced, briefly, at the map. "You went to see Cloanna," he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  "Yes."

  "You talked to her about this."

  "No. I never mentioned it. You don't have to with Cloanna. She just knows things."

  He scowled, and it was as if God was scowling at me. "What do you mean, she knows things?"

  "She has the gift. She can sense what troubles you have. And she can—"

  "You had troubles? Giving me the map?"

  "I never told her that. I never even told myself that. But yes, I was confused about it."

  "Why? I told you I was going to visit these houses and preach to these people, didn't I? White people need to be preached to. They don't know God. They go to church all fancified in their tall hats and bonnets and eye each other up and gossip about who did what all week and simper at each other and think that God is going to listen to them. That's not what God wants! Do you know what God wants from them?"

  I was beginning to get frightened. "No."

  "He wants them to come to their senses. He wants them to let their negroes free. That's what He wants."

  I drew in my breath.

  "And that's what I aim to tell them."

  I nodded my head in agreement.

  "So what did she say about the map, then, to get you in such a state of mind?"

  "She didn't know it was a map. She only knew it was a paper—" I saw him staring at me and stopped.

  He nodded his head, folded the map, put it in the pocket of his shirt, and then stepped over to the desk and added Cloanna's name to the list on the paper.

  "She's one of the Goody Two-shoes around here, much as she tries to be different. You see what a nice cabin she has? What good food and how she is regularly supplied? You think that comes from being a troublemaker? A dissident? No, those who make trouble and shake things up are lucky to get bread and water. But to us it's a feast for angels! Do you understand?"

  "I think so," I answered.

  "Cloanna will be preached to," he said. "When I am finished with her, she will understand."

  Twelve

  Before Nat Turner could put his plan into motion, however, another incident happened that gave us all pause about our practice of slavery.

  Two slaves ran off from the Gerard plantation down the road, the one where Mr. Gerard had died and his wife, Charlotte, was now living with his doctor in a cottage on the grounds. The place from whence Emilie came.

  "It must be chaos there," Richard said at supper the evening I gave Nat the map. "I understand their overseer rules with an iron fist, which is why the slaves continually run away."

  We had supper in near silence. Pleasant said she thought Richard should take a ride over there and see what was going on. "Just your presence helps," she reminded him. "All you have to do is ride into a barnyard and it has a calming effect. The slaves all know who you are."

  Richard puffed up at the compliment, as he was meant to do. "We'll see," he said.

  Then a courier came with a note for Richard, brought to the table by Owen. Richard excused himself to sit there and read it, then raised his eyes and looked at his mother. "It's an invitation to all our slaves to witness a beating," he said.

  Mother Whitehead scowled. "A beating?" she asked.

  "Yes," Richard answered, as quietly as if it were an invitation to a barbecue. "A hundred lashes. Charlotte's overseer wants me to bring all our slaves to witness the whipping of Ebban, one of the slaves who ran away. It seems that he attacked one of the patrollers. They want to set an example."

  "Richard!" exclaimed Pleasant. "You can't. You can't bring all the slaves."

  "And why not?" he wanted to know.

  "Because," she said. And oh I did admire the way she stood up to him. "Not the women, anyway. I mean, think of what that means. It means Violet and Cloanna and..." She was counting on her fingers.

  Richard said, "I should think it a good thing for them to see."

  "What about Nat Turner?" she asked.

  "He doesn't belong to me," he said quickly. I think he was a little afraid of Nat Turner. "The overseer of Charlotte's says he wants to do this tomorrow. Get it over with. Charlotte," and he glanced again at the note, "adds a line here that says can we please fetch Emilie to stay over tonight as she doesn't want the girl to see this. I'll go fetch her. It isn't far." He stood up. "I'll go tell the courier yes to all of it."

  "Da, Da," said baby William, waving his fat little arms. He was daft over his father. Pleasant set him down on the floor, and he toddled out of the dining room after Richard.

  ***

  Richard brought Emilie home that night. "Mother won't put a stop to this," she said between tears when we had her safely ensconced upstairs. "She's so taken with Dr. Gordon, she cares about little else. She lets Harry, our overseer, handle everything, and he is such a cruel man. When my father was alive, he kept him reined in, but now Harry is determined to have his way and make a show of it. Oh, I hate him, and Dr. Gordon, and everyone." She burst into tears and hid her face in the bedcover. She slept overnight with Margaret.

  ***

  The next morning at breakfast Emilie was composed at least, if not happy. Pleasant allowed her to play with baby William and even feed him breakfast, and it turned out she loved babies. It was William who got her to laughing again and who claimed her attention even while the big commotion of Richard's gathering the slaves was going on outside. And then, against a canopy of a great deal of dust and a symphony of low moaning, the slaves were herded out onto the road and driven like cattle, by Richard and other slaves whom he trusted, in the direction of the Gerards'.

  Then our place was eerily silent, for the women had gone, too. Even Violet, who was half slave and half white. I personally knew she would not be able to take this.

  I brought second rounds of breakfast coffee out to the veranda for Mother Whitehead and Pleasant, Emilie, Margaret, and myself. There was also breakfast cake and I told Mother Whitehead how I thought Violet would never make it through without fainting.

  "No man will live through one hundred lashes," Mother Whitehead said quietly, stirring sugar into her cup. "He'll die before they reach seventy-five. It's a calculated way to kill him."

  "Violet is only half colored," I said. "The half of her that's white will cry and faint."

  "The half of her that's white is likely stronger than the half that's colored," Mother Whitehead said. And it made me think that she knew who Violet's father was.

  "What will they do if he dies?" Pleasant asked.

  "Say it was accidental," Mother Whitehead answered calmly. "You are not allowed to murder your slave in this state, but if it is accidental, they can't blame you. Then likely they will burn him so no one can exhume the body and see how mauled he was with the whip."

  She spoke so calmly, I wondered how many times she had seen this happen. We drank our coffee and continued to just sit there as if we were afraid to go back into the house when the servants weren't about. As if they owned it and we were just guests.

  So we sat there. Pleasant rocked William and put him down for a morning nap in a cradle kept on the veranda for the purpose. Margaret fell asleep on the settee. Mother
dictated a letter and I wrote it down. Emilie just sat there staring into space. Soon a strange smell started to fill the air.

  Emilie sniffed and sat forward and looked around. "What is that?" she asked. "That vile smell?"

  Mother Whitehead sniffed, too, with her delicate nose but kept silent.

  I breathed in. It smelled like something rotten. "Like something dying," I said to Mother Whitehead.

  Her blue eyes sought mine. And in an instant we both knew. And Emilie didn't. At first it seemed that Mother Whitehead was not going to tell her, but then she had a change of heart.

  "They're burning him," she said.

  At precisely that moment Nat Turner came from the cool inner house, like one of its shadows, stepping out onto the veranda. He just stood there, tall and quiet and knowing, looking at us. "Mayhap y'all best get inside," he suggested, "so you all don't get sick from that smell."

  "A good idea, Nat," Mother Whitehead said. And for all their concern they could have been talking about the slaughter of pigs on the first cold day of winter.

  He helped her up. He took her coffee cup and set it on the tray and handed the tray to me, and then took her arm and brought her inside. He brought her into the front parlor and closed whatever windows were open and even drew the curtains. Then he went outside to wake Margaret and fetch her, Emilie, and Pleasant inside. He carried in the cradle with William in it.

  He took Margaret aside for a moment and spoke to her, low and soft, before he brought her in. I think he was explaining to her what the smell was. I think the calmness and reasoning in his voice prevented her hysterics. When he brought her in and sat her down, he offered to make a new pot of coffee, assuring Mother Whitehead that he knew how. She said yes, and oh how nice, and before we knew what had transpired, Nat brought the coffee in along with washed cups and more cake.

  I tried to catch his glance, to see the expression on his face, but I could not. He was like a stone idol, carved out of granite by someone who had more memories than they could bear and was carving them on his face to get rid of them.

  He left us there in the parlor with nothing to talk about now, with nothing to do but wait for something terrible to happen, only we didn't know yet what it was to be.

  Thirteen

  Dear Uncle Andrew: The half of Violet that is white was strong on the outside, pleasing Mother Whitehead, who thought she was strong through and through. Violet served us at supper that evening after she came home and her face was placid, as usual, and she had about her the wits that always carried her through, though she would scarce look at me, for fear her true feelings would show and she would make a disgrace of herself.

  That night, after she went to her attic room, I heard her crying from my bedroom down the stairs. I waited a bit to be sure the house was settled, and then I went up to her.

  "Oh, Harriet," she said, her face buried in the pillow, lest anyone should hear, "it was terrible. I would die before I would let your brother make me attend one of those happenings again. And do you know, speaking of Richard, what he did?"

  I was afraid to ask, so she told me, anyway.

  She told me that just before they burned the slave, Richard got up there and gave a sermon! He told of the command God had given the servants, concerning their masters. He said they should love and obey their masters. He quoted all those passages from the Bible about slaves and masters.

  Oh, Uncle Andrew, Violet was terrified. "I'm half negro," she said. "Do all those things apply to me? Are you my mistress? Would you have me burned? Would you try to stop it if Richard wanted it? And how can anyone who considers himself an upright human being order or attend the burning of another human being?"

  I didn't know what to say, Uncle Andrew. I never think of her as being colored, or my servant. She is just my friend, and more of a sister to me than Margaret. I don't understand this slavery business at all. But I do understand that Violet never should have been made to go to this killing. After all, she is only three years older than I.

  Anyway, she didn't want me to leave her that night, so I got under the quilt with her and held her, and she was shaking. I have never before seen this girl frightened of anything. We both soon fell asleep and, since she gets up at five thirty in the morning, I was able to slip downstairs to my own bed in the early hours so Mother Whitehead didn't catch me with her.

  Violet was up extra early that morning. And do you know what for? To burn the clothes she attended the burning in! She said they had that terrible smell on them and she could never wear them again. And sure enough they did smell. And so did the clothing of the other household help.

  And when they saw what she was about, soon, one by one, they all came out with the clothing they had attended the burning in. And soon there was a great pile of clothing burning out in the barnyard pit. When Richard came down for breakfast he asked what was going on. And he became very angry when Violet told him.

  "So you've all thrown out a good set of clothes, have you?" he asked the house slaves. None of them answered. "Well, then you can just do without a set of clothing for the rest of the summer and fall," he directed.

  They moaned and he went straight into the dining room for breakfast. And later, Mother Whitehead went into the kitchen to "address" the women who had burned their clothing. She would send to town for new fabric, she said, and each one of them could stitch up their own clothes. But she did not want them to think she was undermining her son, Richard. Richard was not himself this morning and, if not for pride, would take back the order. Did they understand?

  They said yes. Massa Richard was the boss, but they would still have new clothes. They understood. And you know what, Uncle Andrew? I believe they understood more than Mother Whitehead gave them credit for.

  The house was strangely quiet all that day. We scarce looked at each other, as if we were ashamed to acknowledge that we belonged to the white part of the human race.

  Emilie is staying with us for a while. Margaret went back to school, so now I have only Emilie and Violet to worry about. I spent the day trying to convince Violet that Emilie is not to blame for what happened to the slave, even though it happened on her mother's plantation.

  Since Emilie doesn't want to go home yet, I am in charge of her. She, too, seems not to want to let me out of her sight. She even sat herself down next to me when I wrote letters for Mother Whitehead. I know Mother Whitehead wouldn't have wanted her there since all her correspondence is private, so I sat Emilie in a chair a bit away from us. I gave Emilie a book of poetry and told her not to move or speak, because then Mother Whitehead would know she was in the room.

  All went well. Except that Richard insisted, after lunch, on reading from the Bible. He must have known how upset we all were by yesterday's events, because he assured us that the master is not to blame for whipping his servant, but that he is only doing his duty as a Christian!

  By the time he was finished, both Violet and Emilie were in tears. So I asked Connie in the kitchen if we could make some taffy and she said yes. And we spent the afternoon pulling taffy. Do you believe, Uncle Andrew, that such a simple task helped us? It was more comforting than hearing those Bible passages of Richard's. Just as taking little William for a walk in his wagon helped. He fell asleep and it turned out that we were a help to Pleasant.

  So we gave the afternoon some sanity after all and I wonder, Uncle Andrew, is life sane, as we tried to make it? Or is it insanity, as it was yesterday on the Gerard plantation? And why don't more people try to make it sane?

  Or if it is full of sanity for them, why do they try to rip that sanity to pieces and impose their form of insanity? Can you help me understand?

  You have lived a very long time, Uncle Andrew, and you must know some of these answers. Perhaps someday you can answer them for me. Because you have survived to be such a respected gentleman as you are, I wish you every good thing there is.

  I wish you wonderful books to read and poetry inside your head and words there, too, that you may yet write an
d good afternoons filled with sunshine and laughter and a glass of wine that glimmers in the sun and peace and hope.

  Your loving niece, Harriet

  Fourteen

  There is a grapevine of communication the negroes have that runs from plantation to plantation around here so that they know everything, sometimes before the white people know it.

  The word started going around two days after the Gerard slave was burned to death. You could see it in the faces of the negroes, both outside the house and inside.

  Usually there were good feelings between me and most of the negroes on the place. If not downright friendly, they always gave me a smile when we passed each other, or tipped a hat or nodded a head and acknowledged my presence.

  This day, there was none of that. This day, they lowered their eyes or looked the other way.

  I felt left out of the circle of their trust. I felt as if they were avoiding me. Violet, recovered now only so she could present a good face to do her chores and grateful to me for helping her recover, came over to me after breakfast when everyone was finding their place to hide themselves for the day.

  Mother Whitehead retired to her space in the corner on the veranda where the clematis and the passion-flower climbed and made a sweet-smelling curtain for her pleasure.

  Pleasant went to her reading room to prepare lessons for me. Little William went for a walk with Owen. Margaret, who had come home out of fear and with Richard's blessing, and Emilie left to gather some flowers to make a bouquet. And Richard rode over to the Williams place, about five miles north of us, because Mrs. Williams was ailing and had asked for his prayers and comfort.

  "Harriet, I must talk to you," Violet whispered.

  "About what?"

  "It's a secret. Don't speak so loud."

  I lowered my voice. "Is it the same secret all the servants know about?"

  "You know it, then?"

  "No, but I know they have one. I can tell because they are all agitated. And because they won't look at me, as if looking at me will give it away."