The Kitchen House (15 page)

“He’s gone,” I said.

“Waters? Gone where?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Mr. Rankin was here today, and he told your mother that Mr. Waters left.”

“I don’t believe it,” Marshall said angrily, looking out into the hallway again.

“It’s true,” I said. “Mama said he’s gone to see the debil.”

“Where?”

“To see the debil,” I repeated.

“The devil?” he corrected.

“I guess so,” I said.

“Don’t start talking like that,” he said. “You’re not one of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re not like us,” he said. “They’re stupid.”

“Who is stupid?”

“The nigras!”

“Not Belle,” I said, ready to inform him of her reading skills.

“Belle!” He spat out her name. “She’s nothing but a yella whore.”

I was silent, not knowing the meaning of this.

“Don’t trust any of them,” he said. “They’ll turn on you the minute you turn your back.”

“Do you mean Ben and Papa, too?” I asked.

“They’re the worst kind,” he said, “the ones closest to you. They’ll kill you when you sleep.”

“Who said that?” I asked.

“Waters and Rankin,” he said. “It happens all the time. They told me about plenty of slaves killing their masters. You’ve got to learn to control them before they kill all of us.”

I stared at him. Marshall spoke with such conviction that in spite of myself, I wondered if there was cause for fear.

“Don’t worry, though,” he said, “I’ll look out for you.”

Campbell began to fuss, so I loosened his blanket. When I looked back up, Marshall had left. I was troubled by what he had said, and later that night I asked Belle what he could have meant. She told me it was foolishness and that it sounded as though Marshall had spent too much time with Rankin.

M
ISS
M
ARTHA’S MENTAL AND PHYSICAL
health strengthened as her laudanum doses diminished. Now, in the late mornings, she kept me with her. She had writing slates brought to her and began to teach me to read and to write. I was an eager student and relished her attention, though I wondered that she did not care more for her own children. She never asked after Marshall, and when she began to visit the downstairs rooms again, she was content to view Campbell in Dory’s care but never requested to hold him. I noted, too, as we made our way through the upstairs hallway, past Sally’s room, that she kept her eyes averted.

Downstairs, there were four very large rooms for us to visit. The hallway, painted a vibrant blue, ran the center of the house and was large enough to accommodate furniture of its own, but the wide
stairway was its focal point. On the east side, to the back, the dining room had walls covered in murals that displayed panoramic views of blue water with ships and green hills with horses. This splendid room was fronted by a formal drawing room.

Across the hall on the west side of the house was a large parlor, and behind that, the library, also known as the study. The parlor was the least formal of the rooms, and it was here that Miss Martha seemed to find something of herself.

As in all the downstairs rooms, the parlor had twelve-foot ceilings. Its three large windows had wooden shutters that folded neatly back into wall pockets when daylight was desired. The walls were painted bright green, and the pine floors were covered in different-size rugs, each of intricate pattern and of varying color. Gold-framed portraits graced the walls, and although I intended to ask their origin, the opportunity never presented itself in those years.

In a corner opposite the marble fireplace, where Uncle Jacob never failed to have a blazing fire, was a harpsichord; in the companion corner stood a tall clock, its casing made of rich black walnut. Between the two, a handsome library table held two large books; resting beside them were spectacles that I assumed belonged to the captain. In the center of the room was a tea table and, circling it, a settee and three comfortable chairs. While I sat with her there, Miss Martha told me stories about herself and her childhood, and over the course of those days, she spoke freely of her early history, obviously glad to recall a time when she felt safe and loved.

She had two sisters. The older sister, Sarah, had been the visitor from Williamsburg. The younger one, Isabelle, “died when she was twelve. It was a great loss,” Miss Martha said, then quickly began to speak of her mother. She was from England, stern and exacting and intent on raising proper English daughters. Her father was the opposite. As a young man, he had come from Ireland. With opportunity and dedication to hard work, he had become a wealthy merchant. A loud and boisterous man, he was forever embarrassing
his wife, but she tolerated it, as he was a force to be dealt with in Philadelphia society. Most important to Miss Martha, her father loved his daughters with a pride that knew no limits. “He spoiled us so,” she said. “If we asked for a gown, we were given two; if we asked for a bonnet, we were given three.”

“Did they ever come here to see you?” I asked.

“Only once,” Miss Martha said. “The trip was so long, and my mother’s health was already failing by then. I sometimes wonder if the trip here hastened her… passing.”

During one of these story times, Miss Martha took me into the study. She went to a large desk and paused to run her hand along the polished edge. “This was my father’s desk,” she said. She opened the drawer and removed a packet of letters bound with a grosgrain ribbon. “These are from my mother.”

“That’s a pretty ribbon,” I said.

She invited me to sit on a chair next to her. “Yes,” she said, untying the bow, “blue was always my favorite color. What is yours?”

“Green,” I said, thinking of Belle’s head rag and my doll’s clothing.

“Ah,” she said, smiling at me, “the green of Ireland.”

She read aloud passages from at least a dozen letters. I could almost see Miss Martha’s mother—an imposing woman, I imagined—writing from her own desk back in Philadelphia. She wrote of social events and of how Miss Martha’s girlhood friends had married and were now taking part in glamorous affairs. Her mother voiced a parent’s concern for her daughter and advised her to care for her health. She sympathized with Miss Martha in her loneliness yet reminded her that she had made the choice to leave. Miss Martha stopped reading and gazed out the window.

“Why did you want to come here?” I asked.

She laughed a little, as though at a private joke. She reached into the desk to withdraw a small book. From inside the book she pulled out a yellowed newspaper clipping. She read it as much to herself as to me. It told of a beautiful young woman, Miss Martha Blake, marrying Captain James Pyke, forty years of age, a successful
merchant and owner of a ship. They were to reside at Tall Oaks, a tobacco-growing plantation in southern Virginia. The article stated that Miss Martha, being herself of vibrant nature, was certain to be the perfect mate for this illustrious and adventuresome man.

“Was that about you?” I asked. It was difficult for me to believe that the glowing article, referencing a vibrant woman, was about her.

“Yes. I was young and foolish,” she said. “I was not yet twenty. I thought that this would be an adventure. I had no idea what awaited me here. I had images of myself as a country gentlewoman, one who would have large numbers of servants to assist me when I gave my country balls. I imagined I would be busy planning these events while waiting for my husband to return from his trips. I thought that if I became lonely, I had only to travel back to Philadelphia or make an exciting trip to Williamsburg to visit my sister. But that was not to be.” She was silent again.

“What happened?” I could not contain the question.

“When I arrived and saw this house, how isolated we were, I wanted only to return to Philadelphia. I thought that I had made the wrong choice, even perhaps that I had married the wrong man. But James was so charming, so reassuring, and he promised that soon he would sell his ship and settle his business affairs to be here with me. But the years have passed…” She stopped herself.

“Don’t you have any friends here?” I asked, wanting to interject some hope.

“The nearest neighbor is a bachelor of many years, and he lives in a most unsuitable manner with… one of his servants.” She shook her head as though to clear it of the thought. “I cannot travel without a male escort, and I cannot travel with a man”—she hesitated, then looked at me—“who is not of our color. It is simply not permitted for a woman to do so. That leaves me to travel with our Mr. Rankin, and I am sure you are old enough to know why that speaks for itself.”

“You have Mama Mae and Belle and Dory,” I said. “They are your friends.”

She checked the door, then looked back at me. She spoke quietly. “They are not my friends,” she said. “They are my servants. They look out for themselves. Mae knows that her eldest daughter consorts with my husband, although she denies it. You are young, but surely you understand. Almost from the beginning, I suspected their secrets.”

Though I was unclear of her meaning, I began to offer reassurance of Belle’s loyalty to her, but she quickly interrupted. “Don’t speak to me of her!” Immediately, she saw the effect of her sharp words and patted my hand. “You will understand one day, my dear. I know I am foolish to speak to a child of these matters, but I am so lonely that some days I feel I shall die of it.”

“Can’t you go to see your sister?” I asked.

She shook her head and sighed. “I haven’t been strong enough. Marshall was born a year after we married. In the following years I had other babies who… didn’t survive. I couldn’t seem to recover my health, although I was getting so much stronger just before Sally…” She paled as the memory hit, then closed her eyes as though to ward off the grief.

“Should I get Mama?” I asked.

She shook her head, then opened her eyes.

“What did you do when you were a little girl?” I asked quickly, incorporating another of Mama’s techniques to lead the conversation away from a dangerous subject.

Miss Martha remained quiet as she carefully folded the newspaper article and returned it to the book before replacing it in the desk drawer. She folded the letters and began to retie them, and I wondered if she had heard my question. “Can you hold your finger here?” she asked, indicating the fold in the ribbon.

I carefully placed my thumb in position as she tied a beautiful bow. She held the packet in her lap and lightly fingered the ribbon as she spoke. “When I was a young girl in Philadelphia, one of my greatest pleasures was to accompany my sisters to the city market. Sarah, Isabelle, and I often went out. Of course, we had our maids following us, but what adventures we had. City life was wonderful,
Isabelle. There were restaurants!” She looked at me with shining eyes. “Every Sunday afternoon after church service, our father would take our family to a restaurant. What a fuss they made over us, although we sisters already knew that we were quite pretty.” She stopped to remember. “How I miss those Sundays.”

“Why?” I asked, afraid her storytelling would end.

“There was a church, Isabelle, its steeple so high I do believe that it was the most prominent feature in Philadelphia at that time. On Sunday mornings we would dress in our finest and walk to that Anglican Christ church. We always walked together as a family. How I long to attend a church service again.”

“Don’t they have churches here?” I asked, sure I had heard Mama speak of one.

“It’s Presbyterian,” she said, as though that were an answer she needn’t explain.

I could see she was tired so I didn’t ask her to relieve my confusion.

O
NE GRAY AFTERNOON AFTER IT
had been raining for two days, Miss Martha sat at the harpsichord, which she then began to play. When she finished, she turned to smile apologetically. “I’m afraid I don’t play very well.”

I’d been captivated and assured her that the music was beautiful.

She grew sober with her next words. “I don’t play often because it makes me feel too lonely.”

I understood, for when she began another melody, I felt the loneliness as each note pulsed and echoed throughout the beautifully furnished but empty room.

Belle

W
E’RE ALL WORKING ON A
story for the cap’n. We go over and over the way it happened, then we go over and over the way we’re gonna say it happened. Papa’s wanting to tell the cap’n the truth, but Mama says he’s forgetting that Waters was a white man, and if we tell the truth, for sure they’ll hang Ben. First time ever, I see Mama Mae and Papa George not standing together.

Everybody’s scared of Rankin. Ever since he went up to the big house and Miss Martha talk smart to him, Ida says he’s hitting on them like never before. He knows something’s up about Waters, but nobody’s talking, and that’s making him mad. Then, too, he got it in for me since that night when I give him the whiskey and he don’t get to me. Now every morning he comes here to the kitchen house.

When I tell him that I don’t think the cap’n means for him to bother me, fire like to shoot outta his eyes. He says he’s running the place for the cap’n and that he’s watching out for Ben and me, just like the cap’n tell him to. Then he stands there smiling, just watching me. All the time I’m wondering how much room there’s left in that privy.