Or Give Me Death, page 9
"Come on, Mama," I urged, holding her arm and guiding her up the stairs. "Wouldn't you like to take your tea in the parlor?"
"I was in the parlor," she said. Many times she did not know where she was, belowstairs.
"If your pa was here, I wouldn't have to do this," she complained. "He had to go and die and leave legal matters to me. It's never good, a woman having to sign legal papers. Our minds are not fit for such. What property is this man buying?"
"Along the Holston River," I told her.
She humphed. "Got that land from my father, he did. Sheer wilderness out there. Not even under cultivation. Well, I suppose we could use the money. Where is this man? Does he wish to keep me waiting?"
I sat her down in a chair by the window and put a blanket over her knees. "I'll fetch him, Mama."
Pegg stayed with her and I went down the hall to fetch Pa. and Mr. Thacker and, of course, Patsy.
***
I WAS GOOD ENOUGH for this, I pondered, as Patsy set down the quill pen and ink and paper on a small table.
"Mrs. Henry, how good of you to give me your time." Mr. Thacker was short and squat and balding. He wore no wig. His suit of clothing was of the plainest linsey-woolsey, which he likely wore to put him in a good light with Pa. He knew better than to show up in any clothing of English cloth or making.
Mama smiled. "Mr. Thacker, that's some wilderness land you wish to buy."
"Well, yes, ma'am. For my sons. I buy it for my sons."
"It was my father's land. My father was a prosperous planter, you know."
"Ah yes, indeed." It was obvious that all Mr. Thacker wanted to know was that Mama would soon sign the deed. Behind him stood Pa, but as usual, Mama never acknowledged Pa's presence. He was dead.
I prayed she wouldn't make mention of that now.
"But he had a penchant for running into debt. My husband bought this property from him, lest the sheriff take possession of it."
"I understand," said Mr. Thacker.
"And now you shall own it. I wish you well with it, Mr. Thacker."
I guided Mama's hand, for it shook. Painstakingly, she wrote out her name. Sarah Shelton Henry.
"If my husband were here he would cry out like a crow that could not fly in a field of corn," she said.
"My wife's recent illness has left her somewhat weakened," I heard Pa whispering to Mr. Thacker.
The paper was signed. Mama sat back in her chair like Queen Charlotte, as if she had just delivered a proclamation. "I shall have another cup of tea now," she directed.
The look in her eyes was one of triumph. And I knew why. Because Pa was "dead" and she had stepped in and taken his place in matters legal.
Mr. Thacker and Patsy left the room. Outside, the snow continued to fall thickly. I shivered, but not from the cold. I shivered because, in my bones, I knew that somehow, in the act of guiding Mama's pen, of propping her up and making her appear normal, I had betrayed her. And become, if only for a few minutes, part of the madness in our house.
***
PA'S FATHER DIED in January. In March, Pa made another one of his successful speeches, and Spencer Roane, who was a friend of John's, came to tell us about it. His father was a burgess from Essex County.
"What a speech your pa made at the last session!" Roane told us. "My father is in a rapture because of it."
We were in our barn. Young Roane loved horses as much as John did. I thought him handsome, and I think he took kind notice of me, too. But I was only ten and still considered a child.
"People are saying that your pa is a man set apart," Roane said. "Edmund Randolph says his imagination paints the soul."
I was at the age when just being near a handsome man made me mindful of all my shortcomings, when I dreamed, for hours after, of how he'd looked and what he'd said.
Roane came to supper. My sister Patsy made him repeat everything being said about Pa. Then she took advantage of the enthusiasm of the moment and asked Pa if she and MyJohn could wed. Pa said yes.
Patsy was nothing if not conniving. She had a fancy wedding that September.
"Do you think it's in keeping with the tone of the times?" MyJohn asked her. "With all the colonies indignant over three pence per pound on the tea?"
Patsy thought so, yes. "It might be the last time we are all together in celebration," she said.
Well, it was in keeping with the tone set by our new governor, Lord Dunmore, anyway. He rode around in a coach given to him by George the Third, just like Mama said he would. They say he is a very good-natured, jolly fellow, who likes his bottle and is known for his midnight sorties.
When my brother John was in Williamsburg for the steeplechase in the summer, he himself saw the governor and his drunken companions clipping the tails of the chief justice's carriage horses. I think the man is more mad than Mama. But, of course, he is a man and in a position of power. Thus he is called a jolly good fellow.
So Patsy had her wedding in the front parlor. Guests feasted out under the trees.
She wore Mama's wedding dress. Blue striped satin, and pale blue calamanco shoes. I didn't even know Mama had kept these things. And I felt a little jealous because Patsy, as first daughter, got to wear them.
The weather was perfect. Pa's uncle, Reverend Henry, married them. The food was chicken, roast beef, pork, duck, pheasant, oysters, mince pies, custards and blancmange, and wedding cake.
Pa was dressed in a manner worthy of his position—a peach-blossom-colored coat and a dark wig tied behind. His mama and two sisters came over from Mount Brilliant for the wedding.
My grandmama is from an old Virginia family. And people sometimes still called her "the Widow Syme," from the name of her first husband. At seventy-five she was feisty as ever. She and her daughters had become Methodist evangelists. Pa's sister Aunt Elizabeth was all the time quarreling with him about my mama, and how he gave her too many children. About neglecting Mama. About slavery. She freed all her slaves.
It made for a lively gathering. Especially with all the talk about the East India Company storing seventeen million pounds of tea in warehouses in England. And having no market for it but America. And wanting us to pay three pence tax per pound for it.
In the coolness of the September afternoon, I'd have paid a three-pence-per-pound tax for a cup of it, without question. I missed my tea.
But then, I had no backbone. Even I knew that.
I think it was the last good time we had in our family. Mama behaved well. Pegg and I dressed her in a good dimity and a lace-trimmed cap. I don't know if she understood what was going on. But she did tell one guest this: "When I married my husband, my dowry was Pine Slash, three hundred acres cut off from the rest of the world."
When Pegg and I put her to bed that night, she smiled at us. "The tea," she said.
"You want tea, Mama?" I asked.
"The water will run brown with it," she said. "And after that, it will run red, with blood of Patriots."
I shivered. "Yes, Mama," I said.
"Don't you ever wed, Anne." She gripped my hand. "Marriage is not a good state. A woman gives up all her property and rights and privileges."
I thought of Spencer Roane. He and his father had been invited to the wedding. He'd sat next to me and talked to me about horses. "It's refreshing to meet a girl who can talk about more than bread pudding," he'd said. And I'd shivered then, and I shivered now.
But again I said, "Yes, Mama." I blew out the candle and left her there in the dark, with her visions of water turning brown from tea, and then red from blood.
***
PATSY CAME BACK from her wedding trip different, worse than before.
She was mistress of Scotchtown now. And everyone must be made mindful of it, from the smallest Negro child on the place to me and Will and, of course, Betsy.
The only one who escaped her mouth was little Edward, who was loved and pampered by everybody.
The first morning back, Patsy made us all stay at the breakfast table after MyJohn kissed her and went to ride his horse out to the fields.
"I am responsible for everyone on this place now. Every time you go farther than the stables or the quarters, I am to know of it. William and Anne, that goes mostly for you two. John, I must be informed of your whereabouts, also."
John sighed, set down his linen napkin, and stood up. "Please, Patsy," he said. "You take yourself too seriously."
She glared up at him. "And what mean you by that?"
"Give the children their rein. They'll be grown up soon enough. Isn't life hard enough for them?" His eyes went to the floor beneath us.
"That is precisely why I must not give them rein, John," Patsy said. "And I would appreciate at least being informed when you go to stay the night at the Dandridges."
He shrugged. "You never needed to know before."
"Pa still is not mindful of your courting Dorothea."
"I'm not courting. We're just friends. And Pa knows that."
"Still, he should know how often you go there."
"To what end?" John challenged.
Patsy had no answer.
"You'll not hold sway over me," John said. "And you'd be well advised to loose your grip on Anne."
With that, he turned and strode from the room.
Oh, I thought, as my eyes and my heart followed the tall figure with the broad shoulders and firm feet in those polished boots. Oh, if only I were a boy!
Short of that, if I wished to salvage my own dignity, I must discover, and honor, my true self.
***
RIGHT AFTER PATSY and MyJohn came home, Clementina Rind's husband died. They said it was apoplexy. And, just as Mama had predicted, he left Clementina in debt.
We went to the funeral in town, at Bruton Parish Church. John Pinkney held Clementina's arm. Her children followed the casket up the aisle.
Pegg accompanied me and Patsy. We had to represent the family because Pa was still away and MyJohn too busy.
Afterwards, in the churchyard, I wanted to stand with the Negroes. I liked the way they behaved at funerals better than white people behaved.
Negroes know how to grieve. They fling themselves on the grave of their own. White people just stand there all stiff-faced. And Negroes let their sorrow out in song.
And when they sang, they knew what I was feeling.
But Patsy whispered savagely to me. "Stay where you are. Don't you have any sense of place?"
When everyone went back to the Gazette after for a repast, Pegg pitched right in and helped Dick lay out the refreshments.
"Who is putting out the paper today?" Patsy asked.
"Isaac Collins."
Someone took my hand. "You want to see Mr. Collins set the type?" It was Maria, who was about the age of Betsy.
Clementina nodded her permission, and we went into the room where the press was to watch a young man in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a red vest, and his hair tied back. He was sorting type, taking letters from little boxes. Then he would set each letter on an iron rule.
"He's going to put Mama's name on the masthead," Maria told me. "For the first time. My mama is the first woman in the colony to publish a newspaper."
I looked down at her beaming face and thought how open, how free, she seems in comparison to Betsy. And I felt a surge of guilt for my little sister.
And then I thought, how proud this child was of her mother. And I thought of my own.
Mr. Collins smiled at me. "Backwards," he told me. "The type must be set backwards."
When he had a few lines done, he set them in wooden cases that were tied with a string, then locked into an iron frame, and showed it to us before he secured it to the bed of the press.
There it was: PRINTED BY CLEMENTINA RIND.
Then Dick stepped forward to help, using two long-handled, leather-covered ink balls to spread the lampblack over the type.
"Isn't it like magic?" Maria asked me. "Mama says I'm going to help, too, someday."
Behind us I heard Patsy and Clementina. "Who is writing those letters that are signed 'Junius'?" Pitsy was asking Clementina.
"I'm not allowed to say. It's part of the secret behind his pen name."
Mr. Collins put moistened sheets of paper in a large frame. "We use about two hundred pounds of pressure to get an impression."
Something was coming alive inside me. Some thought was forming. I nodded politely and smiled.
I'm not allowed to say. It's part of his pen name.
"Would you never tell?" Patsy was asking lightly.
Clementina Rind was solemn. "No. My loyalty is the duty of this paper. Else how could people express themselves about important matters?"
The platen was lowered by Mr. Collins. He held it down about fifteen seconds, then he held up the sheet with the masthead printed on it. Everyone clapped. Maria hugged her mother, who had tears in her eyes. Dick hung up the sheet to dry.
As we left for home Patsy invited, "Come see us whenever you feel the need."
I waved as we drove off, and watched Clementina standing in front of the newspaper office with her children surrounding her. I thought of her words. Loyalty. And duty. You seldom heard such words from a woman.
Oh, how I wished I had my mama!
My loyalty is thé duty of this paper. How else could people express themselves about important matters?
The words stayed in my head.
Chapter Fifteen
I MUST CHOOSE a name. I was fired with the idea of it. I would write a letter to the Gazette! Under a pen name, of course.
I had found a way to take me beyond the pale of Patsy's dominance, to salvage my own dignity. Even a way to discover and honor my true self.
Here was something she could not know about. She may be the mistress of the place, but with a few strokes of my pen, I could move outside her sway.
What would I write about? I hadn't decided. But the possibilities were endless. I would read the newspaper and become acquainted with the issues of the day. Mr. Chitwell was always admonishing us to read the newspaper.
My words would be in print for all to read and consider and pay mind to. My opinion would matter. Imagine the freedom of it! The daring!
Mayhap, I thought, as I took a new bay myrtle candle with me to my room that night, mayhap "Junius" is a woman!
***
"ANNE, WHAT ARE you doing up so late?"
Patsy stood in the doorway of my room. She never knocked. In her mind I was not in need of privacy.
"I'm doing some lessons."
She did not believe me. "Why so studious of a sudden?"
"I'm behind in my work," I said. "I don't want Will to get ahead of me."
"He is ahead of you. He has to be to get into Hampden-Sydney next fall."
How I wished I could go! Away from here, to live in a school! Hampden-Sydney was eighty miles away. But though Will was only eleven, a professor friend of Pa's was going to prepare him for college. Will was right smart.
"I'll miss him," I said.
"Yes. So will we all. Well, it's near nine. I want that candle out by ten, Anne."
I had an hour. I had decided upon a pen name. "Intrepid." It had a good solid ring to it. And it sounded like a man.
Now all I needed was a subject. The Gazette was full of news of the day. Should I write about love and courtship? Many did. About the colonists throwing the tea into the harbor in Boston a week ago?
As I was pondering the matter, a shadow fell across the floor. I looked up. It was Pegg.
"You workin' late. Who you writin' to?"
"I'm doing lessons."
She came in and sat down in a chair and sighed.
"What's wrong, Pegg?" I asked.
"My niece. My sister's girl. Neely. Awhile back she was sold to that Andrew Estave. You know that man your pa talks about? He be in charge of wine? An' the burgesses give him slaves and land and everythin'?"
I remembered. "Virginia's vintner," I said.
"Yeah. That him. She only fifteen. My husband tell me this Estave is a bad man. My niece, Neely, she like my sister. It doan take much to bring her to anger. She already run from this Estave once, and he whip her. Forty lashes."
My eyes went wide. "How do you know all this?"
"When I went with you all to the funeral t'other day. I hear the Negroes talk in town. I'se worried."
"Well, you should be."
"But what kin I do? If your pa was here, I know I could go to him. But he ain't."
Did I dare? Why not? It was better than writing another one about the tea in Boston Harbor. We had evil here right in our own town.
"Mayhap I can help you," I said. "But you mustn't breathe a word of what I am to tell you."
***
I WROTE THE letter that night. And I thought I did rather well.
It has come to this subscriber's attention that the colony's vintner, one Andrew Estave, having been granted land and a number of slaves to work the vineyards thereon, is none too appreciative of the value of what has been bestowed upon him. Would he tear up the vines of the grapes in the vineyard, because they grow not fast enough to please him? Or yearn to take a day just to bask in the sun? No! They are too tender and dear. Yet when a Negro servant of his, who is only fifteen years of age, ran from his brutal treatment, he had administered to her forty lashes.
Are grapevines more dear than a human being? Mr. Estave's villainy is truly alarming and this subscriber sorely laments his cruelty. Let his relations and friends be told he is not acting as a true son of Virginia. Signed: Intrepid.
***
I SLIPPED THE letter into the leather fire bucket that sat outside the front door, where we left the mail.
My letter was printed in the very next issue.
Since I never paid mind to the newspaper, I could not snatch it up from where it sat with the mail on a table in the corner of the dining room. I must wait for MyJohn to go through the mail when we had our noon meal.
MyJohn, who never sat in Pa's place at the table, would go through the mail quickly, hand all invitations, family letters, and the paper to Patsy, sit down, spread open his napkin, and say, "Well, young Henrys, and tell me what you all have been up to this morning?"
MyJohn was working harder than ever in helping Mr. Melton run the place now. And we children all still adored him. He was the one we went to when Patsy was unduly harsh. On occasion, I knew, he spoke to her of her harshness, especially with Betsy. But never in front of us.
