Or Give Me Death (8 page)

Pegg had brought Edward into the room.

"Delia's going to nurse Edward, Mama," I said gently.

Instantly she ran to Pegg and snatched the baby away. "Nobody's going to care for my child but me! You hear, Patsy? You think I'm not sensible of what you are trying to do? Take him from me, is what. All of you are!"

She stood there clutching little Edward so tightly I thought he'd smother.

"We came to show you the new room we made for you downstairs, Aunt Sarah," MyJohn said. He moved toward her, put his hand on her shoulder, and kissed her forehead gently. Then he touched Edward's face. "Growing into the spitting image of his father," he said fondly.

"Yes," Mama said. "Too bad Patrick didn't live to see him born."

"Yes," MyJohn agreed. "Too bad." He told Mama she could take baby Edward with us when we looked at the new room. He spoke in lulling tones as he led her.

Please God, I prayed, don't let her drop Edward. Please let us get her downstairs safely.

MyJohn talked her all the way down. In the room, which was lighted by a profusion of candles because of the dank morning, Mama looked around.

"This is pretty," she said. "I shall come down here when I wish to have some moments of peace."

"Of course," MyJohn told her. "It's why we made it for you." Then he motioned me away, back up the stairs.

"Here, look at the hearth. You can even cook your wonderful desserts down here. Let me hold the baby."

She gave little Edward over to him.

Again MyJohn motioned me out of the room.

The last I saw, Mama was examining the skillets and pans on the hearth. And John was handing Edward over to Pegg, who came quickly to the stairs and motioned me up.

On the ground floor we closed the door behind us, and I handed Edward to Delia, who was waiting in the hall.

Within minutes I heard the screaming.

I heard things being thrown. Heard MyJohn's voice saying, "Don't, Aunt Sarah." And then, "Oh!"

I leaned with my head against the door to the cellar. It was Pegg who pulled me away as Mama's screams echoed belowstairs.

"Give me my baby! What do you mean I must stay down here! Patsy! Patsy! Come help me! Patsy, please!"

The door opened. I did not see, because Pegg would not allow me to look, but I could hear Mama on the stairs, struggling with MyJohn.

And when he came up and the door closed behind him with a thud, I saw that his shirt was torn. His hair was mussed. His stock was untied. There were scratches on his face and a bruise, red and already starting to swell, on his cheekbone.

Belowstairs Mama was still screaming, but the door and the floors were thick. You could scarce hear it unless you knew to listen for the sound. I went weak and knelt on the floor in the hall and put my hands over my ears. But the sound tore at my heart. "Patsy! Patsy!"

Why me? Why not John or MyJohn? I knew I would hear that scream for the rest of my life.

***

I
TOOK MYSELF
out of the house all that afternoon. The rain still fell, but I went to the barn and saddled Jolly, my horse. Then I rode along my favorite paths, to my favorite haunts, in spite of the pouring rain.

It felt good on my face. I became soaked through, but that felt good, too. I came back after an hour of riding only because I feared that Jolly would stumble in the soggy ground. In the barn I rubbed her down instead of letting Barley do it. After changing, I stayed in the detached kitchen, baking. Betsy, just out of bed, played quietly on the floor near me. Pegg, who had a way with a needle and thread, had made her a new rag doll.

Once, Betsy tugged at my skirt. I looked down. "Mama?" she asked.

"Mama is resting," I said. "She's sickly and needs her rest."

It worked for the moment. But I wondered how long die younger ones would be content with such an answer.

***

I
DON'T KNOW
how I would have survived the day if Clementina Rind hadn't stopped by to call.

The wheels of her chaise were mud covered, as was the horse pulling it.

"How did you get through?" I asked. "Isn't most everything flooded out?"

"I started out yesterday to see how the locals were faring in the heavy rain, so I could write a story. Stayed the night with my sister. Then I decided to come and see you." She stood on the front stoop, wet through, taking off her buckled shoes and striped stockings.

Barley, who'd seen her driving up the road, took her horse and chaise to the barn, and I invited her inside.

"You'd best stay the night. It'll be supper time soon. And I can't let you start back to Williamsburg. You'll never get through with the chaise. And I can't let you chance those roads."

"I've a story to write," she said.

"You can write it here. We'll have one of the servants take it to town for you."

"Thank you."

"What have you heard of the storm? How are our neighbors faring?"

"Around here, just ruined crops and orchards. But we hear in town that it's worse on the Rivanna and James Rivers. Catde have been lost, houses washed away. Thomas Jefferson lost his mill."

It was as if a thunderbolt hit me then. We were in the hall, and I stopped in my tracks. "Oh, no!"

"What is it, Patsy?"

"My mama said that would happen. She said the flood would happen, too. Can it be possible, Clementina? Pegg says she has the sight."

"It could be just coincidence."

"And you know what she said about your husband," I reminded her.

"Yes." She looked uncomfortable. Worried of a sudden. So I dropped the subject and we went inside. I brought her to my chamber and got some dry clothing for her. We were about the same size. I sat on my bed while she changed.

"I've been paying mind to all the notices in the paper about runaway wives," I told her.

"What's troubling you, Patsy?" She tied a fresh apron around her waist.

"I just wondered if maybe Mama should have run off. If maybe she'd be all right now if she had."

Clementina tucked her hair under a dry mobcap. "Your mama is not the kind to do such. You're melancholy, aren't you? Where are the children?"

"Attending dancing school at the Hoopers'."

She put a hand on my shoulder. "Come make me a cup of coffee. And you can tell me what you know of the dancing school at the Hoopers'."

***

T
HE RAIN GOT
even heavier. We took our coffee in the front parlor. I brought baby Edward in and held him on my lap. The darling behaved so that he made me proud.

Once, during our conversation, there came a faint thump from belowstairs.

We exchanged looks. "Clementina, how am I to abide this?" I whispered. "It's like there's an animal confined down there."

"You must think of this little fellow," she said. And she reached across the round table to take his hand. Edward grasped her finger.

"Yes. You are right." I hugged Edward close. His sturdy little body comforted me. His coos and gurgles guided my reason.

"Did I tell you? I'm going to run a poetry contest for women," Clementina said. "You'd be surprised how many hereabouts put pen to paper. You write poetry, Patsy. You must write a poem for the contest."

I looked at her serene face. Write a poem? About what? Then I heard a thump from the cellar. About my mother in the cellar, I thought.

I smiled back and said mayhap I would.

***

T
HE MORE
I
THOUGHT
about it, the more I knew what I must do.

Mama had the sight. No amount of shilly-shallying around the subject could deny that. Not with the storm and flood outside.

After supper, when the children were quiet and I'd put an exhausted Clementina in Mama's old room, I went into the kitchen. "Put up a plate of food and I'll bring it down to Mama," I told Pegg.

"You oughtn't to do that, Miss Patsy," she said.

"Well," I snapped, "do any of you want to do it?"

Nobody answered. "She been quiet," Pegg said. "Maybe we should leave her be."

"And maybe we should leave her to starve," I said. "Fix the plate, and bring it to me." I felt like the mistress of the household. It was a good feeling, and I hoped it would last.

S
HE SAT ON A BENCH
by the hearth, holding a cake mold in her hands. The fire was near out. The room was chilled.

On the floor at her feet there was flour and some broken eggs.

"Mama? Mama, I have supper for you."

For a moment there was no recognition in her eyes. The front of her chemise and petticoat were stained. Her mobcap was off, and there was flour in her hair, which was in the most pitiable arrangement I have ever seen.

"How can I make this cake when I have no frogs' legs?" she asked me.

"Mama, you don't need frogs' legs."

"What do you know about cooking? All the best cakes have frogs' legs."

I gave her the food I'd brought. She ate. Tears kept coming out of my eyes while I watched her. "Mama, it rained like you said it would. We have terrible floods. I think you have the sight. You can tell what's going to happen. And I need to know some things."

She smiled.

"Who is going to inherit what you have, Mama? Which of us girls? Will it be me? Or Anne? Or Betsy?"

She leaned closer to me. "The frogs' legs, if cut up properly, make just the right spice for a cake," she said.

I left her there with her food and went back upstairs.

***

T
HE FIRST THING
I saw when Anne, William, and Silvy returned after a week away was that Anne had cut her hair. Short. It came just below her ears.

"What did you do?"

She stood next to the Hooper chaise, sassy as ever. "The other girls wanted to see how I'd look if my hair was short." She shook her head. The hair bounced. "I like it." She grinned.

"You look like a boy!"

"Now I can be a pirate. Like Anne Bonny and sail with Captain Calico Rackman."

"How could you do that to your hair!"

"Or maybe I'll be like Mad Ann Baily. She dressed in buckskins, carried a tomahawk, and collected Indian scalps. And she came to Virginia in 1750 as an indentured servant!"

"Know what I learned?" from William.

I sent the driver of the chaise to the kitchen for some repast and walked the children to the house. "What?"

"I learned what part of the swine's foot the devil resides in."

"God's shoe buckles!" I stopped on the path to the house. "Pa says this is the age of oratory, the age of enlightened men! And you two are going back to witchery and piracy! Was there no civility at the Hoopers'? No dancing?"

They looked shamefaced. "We danced," William said. "Know what they're saying at the Hoopers'?"

"Dare I ask?"

"That there's a crazy woman in the cellar at Scotchtown."

Dear God!

But I mustn't let them see my concern. "Oh, Mrs. Hooper's just in a pet because their name was published in the
Gazette
for going against the nonimportation laws," I told them.

Anne giggled. "Guess who we met in the woods on the way home? Sarah Hallam and Jonathan Snead."

"What do you mean 'in the woods'?"

"Just that," Anne said excitedly. "They had horses. When she ran off, Sarah took a horse and Jonathan had his. And they're living in the woods. Like Indians!"

"And they're happy," William said.

"And they're not married. But they're going to be, soon's they find a preacher," said Anne.

"Aren't they terribly wet from the storm?" I asked.

"Oh yes," Anne said. "They said they'd been soaked and were looking for shelter. I invited them here."

"You what?"

"Well"—she looked up at me—"doesn't Pa always say we should open our doors to those less fortunate than us?"

I said nothing. She was right.

"Where's Mama?" she asked.

"We want to see her," William said.

I looked down at their upturned faces. "She's resting."

"She's the crazy woman in the cellar, isn't she?" Anne asked.

"No. She isn't crazy."

"Then we want to see her," William said firmly.

"Even if she is crazy, we want to see her," Anne put in.

Their eyes were swords, piercing me. I don't know what I would have done if Pegg hadn't come into the room just then.

"Miss Patsy, Betsy wet the bed last night."

"Betsy doesn't wet at night anymore," I said.

Pegg grunted. "She do now." And her eyes met mine, almost defiantly.

Anne whispered to me. "You ought to let Pegg help Mama, with her remedies. She's the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and they have powers."

Oh God, I thought, how am I to tell them about Mama? What am I to tell them? They shouldn't see her as she is now. But how to keep them from seeing her?

I glanced helplessly at Pegg. She shooed the children from the room. "Miss Patsy, what you gonna do 'bout the children?"

"What's to be done?" I asked dismally.

"I fancy the reason Betsy be startin' to wet is 'cause she wanna go back to bein' a baby. To the way it was then, when her mama weren't crazy."

"You fancy that, do you?"

"Yes." She stood before me, taller because of the turban she wore. Rings dangling from her ears. She was very tall and her carriage was excellent. She was not beautiful, as white people describe beauty, but she was in another way. In the way that her eyes spoke, and her mouth held firm. And in the pride that I could never have.

If that was not beauty, what was?

"An' Anne can't go back to wettin' the bed. So she gonna give you trouble in other ways. Only way she can think of now is to cut her hair. And William. The other day I see him in the barn wif one of Mr. MyJohn's pipes. Smokin'."

I sighed.

"All the children in a state on account of your mama. You gotta tell them the truth about her."

"I have no truth to tell," I snapped. "What truth is there?"

"There be only one truth, Miss Patsy. An' if you can't do it, I will. I can, but you gots to give me back the authority I always had round heah, Miss Patsy."

"I never told the children you didn't have authority."