The Kitchen House (26 page)

I took the chair alongside the bed, assuring Miss Sarah that I would call if I should need her. After she left, I shyly looked over at Marshall, who slept. Where during the night, I had been frightened of his state, now he lay pale and vulnerable. I was reminded of his worst days as a child, of his haunted face after the death of Sally, of his beaten appearance when I found him in the privy, and my heart opened to him. How like his mother he looked, I thought, and I plummeted into sad longing for everyone at Tall Oaks. I could not help my tears and was drying my eyes when I became aware that Marshall was awake and looking at me.

“Don’t cry,” he said, reaching his bandaged hand toward mine. I stared in horror at his swollen purple fingers. At my reaction, he took note of his hand and rose on his elbow to take better stock. With that movement, he began to retch again, so I held the basin and comforted him as Mama Mae might have done. His face was damp from the strain, and when he rested back, I placed a wet cloth across his forehead. His blue eyes met mine, and when he tried a smile, I felt a rush of tenderness toward him that I had known only with Sukey and Campbell. I wanted to comfort him
then, to hold him as a child in my arms, but I knew it was inappropriate and I held myself back. Confused by my feelings, I was happy to leave the room when Miss Sarah came to relieve me.

I did not see Marshall again until the next day. He was still too sick to eat and could retain only sips of water. Miss Sarah stayed at his bedside but eventually joined the family downstairs for breakfast.

“He says the only thing that appeals to him is Mae’s soup,” Miss Sarah told us.

“I don’t believe coddling will help the matter,” Mr. Madden said, helping himself to another waffle. “Perhaps a few days with an empty stomach will teach him.”

“He must eat!” I spoke so passionately that everyone at the table stared at me, and I felt my face grow hot. “I’m sorry.”

While Mr. Madden concentrated on his food, Miss Sarah spoke. “Of course Marshall will be given food, my dear.”

In silence, I choked down the rest of my breakfast, then asked to be excused. As I made my way up the stairs, I overheard Mr. Madden’s remark: “Loyal little thing. One can’t fault her for that.”

I waited until later in the day, when I found Miss Sarah alone, before I told her that I knew how to make Mama Mae’s soup. Could I make it for Marshall? I asked, and she gave her permission.

Nancy and Bess did not welcome me into their kitchen, but neither did they hinder my work. They watched as I caught, killed, and cleaned the chicken, then chopped the parsley, onions, and thyme. I simmered the soup exactly as Mama Mae had taught me, and it was finished by evening. Miss Sarah was leaving Marshall’s room as I brought a small cup of the steaming broth upstairs. Her concern for him was clear.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at the cup I carried. “I doubt he can tolerate even that.”

“Could I try?” I asked.

“Go ahead. Can you manage if I go for some supper?” she asked, and I assured her that I could.

By lantern light, I saw how little Marshall had improved; he looked at me listlessly as I perched on the edge of the bed. “I made you some soup,” I said.

He looked at me. “I can’t eat, Lavinia.”

“This is broth. I made it just like Mama Mae showed me,” I said as I placed a napkin across his chest. When I offered him a spoonful, he shook his head, but I persisted until he opened his mouth and swallowed the warm liquid. “Good,” I said. I waited before offering more. Marshall did not take his eyes from me. Concerned only that he keep the liquid down, I did not rush, and in between spoonfuls, disregarding his gaze, I watched the flickering shadows in the darkening room.

“This is good,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I had some in the kitchen.”

He gave a small laugh.

“Do you feel better?” I asked.

“I will if I can keep this down.” He took a deep breath. “I heard that you took a stand for me?”

“What do you mean?”

“At breakfast.”

“I only said that you needed to eat.”

“Is Uncle angry with me?”

“I think so.” I waited awhile.

He turned his head to the wall. “Well, it isn’t the first time.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has charge of me until I am twenty-two, and he is always trying to control me. ‘Laying boundaries and setting standards,’ he calls it.”

I had no answer to that and settled the spoon in the empty cup. I rose to leave.

“Will you stay?” he asked.

“Would you like me to read? I can turn up the light.”

“No. Just sit over there. Talk to me.”

I wondered how I would entertain him, but no sooner had I taken my seat than his eyes closed, and soon he slept.

In the night Miss Sarah gave him another cup of the broth, and in the morning he was asking for more.

During the next few days of Marshall’s recovery, I helped Miss Sarah care for him. Meg wanted nothing to do with the nursing, though she did take a critical look at his wound when we changed the dressing. She declared there was no infection, then instructed her mother and me to carry on. Miss Sarah lifted her eyes to the heavens and shook her head when Meg made her exit. When Meg later returned, it was with Sinsin perched on her shoulder and playing cards in her hand. That afternoon, and in the afternoons following, we played some lively games of loo.

In all, it was almost a week before Marshall left again. During that time, Mr. Madden arranged for Marshall to board at the home of one of the professors from the College of William and Mary. The professor and his wife ran a tight ship, and there were curfews that would be enforced. At Marshall’s discharge, Mr. Madden extracted a pledge from him to stay clear of alcohol and, in the future, to have wine only with dinner.

O
NCE
I
HAD LEARNED OF
Miss Martha’s sorry circumstances, after I knew that she had asked for me, for Isabelle, I felt compelled to see her and to have her see me. I grew convinced that if she saw me, she would become well again. A few weeks following Marshall’s illness, I suggested to Meg that our botany excursions take us in the direction of the public hospital. The place was well known. Commonly called the madhouse, it was situated alone on a four-acre plot in a relatively undeveloped part of Williamsburg. It was within walking distance, and I shamelessly used the untamed woods behind it as a temptation for Meg to discover some new plant specimens. Although the two of us were given an unusual amount of freedom, I knew this was forbidden territory, as it was understood that our botany excursions were limited to the town park and to neighboring gardens. Meg, as I had hoped, was not bound by restriction and saw the excursion as an adventure.

I believe that initial visit was toward the end of October, my first year in Williamsburg, for I recall how Meg and I remarked on the red and yellow of the autumn leaves. We kept to the periphery of the woods that sheltered the hospital, and while Meg foraged, I found a space to peer between the tall boards of the wall surrounding the mad yard. An occasional shriek or shout came from this outdoor space where the patients took their exercise, and though fearful, I was eager to see what I might.

The day was cool, but the sun bore down into the enclosed area. My nervous eyes settled on a slight figure seated on a bench across from my makeshift window. As I watched, she pushed a heavy blanket back from her thin shoulders. At first I didn’t recognize her, but there was something in the way she angled her head when she shrugged back the gray blanket that helped me identify her. I saw no attendants and called out to her. “Miss Martha.” My voice broke, but I called again. “Miss Martha.”

She heard me and looked up, much like a startled bird. I pulled my handkerchief from my pocket and waved it through the broken slats, then called again. She saw the white flash of my cloth, and her blanket dropped when she stood. Then she walked toward me as one who slept, sliding her feet one after the other.

I saw she was cared for, although her clothes were plain and cut loosely from a heavy brown homespun. Her beautiful long silky red curls had been cut short and, not anchored by pins or combs, stood away from her head in clumps. Dark blue half-moons emphasized her sunken eyes, and on either side of her forehead, angry red circles marked her pale skin. I later learned that this was where hot dry cups were placed during treatments by the physician in his attempt to draw the madness from her brain.

Frightened at what I had begun, I watched her slow approach but refused myself the temptation to run. As she peered out, her hot eyes met mine. I could scarcely breathe. “Miss Martha,” I said, “it’s me, Isabelle.”

She gripped the fence with one hand to steady herself, then
closed her eyes slowly and opened them again. When she reached through, her fingers brushed the side of my face. “Isabelle?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She pulled her frail hand back, then reached out again and softly placed the palm of her hand to the side of my neck. I was at a loss until I heard myself spontaneously recite a favorite passage from Sukey’s bedtime story. As I finished the recitation with “and declares that she shall ride in her own coach,” Miss Martha’s hand began to tremble. “Baby?” she asked.

“Baby is at home,” I said. “She is waiting for you.”

Miss Martha stared at me, then her shrill screams pierced the air, setting off others as they joined her cries. I ran then, first to collect Meg, then to head for home.

As upset as I was after seeing Miss Martha that day, I still, in my naïveté, believed in her recovery.

A
LONE,
I
RETURNED TO THE
mad yard whenever I could summon the courage, but I did not see Miss Martha out until the following spring. Again I called to her, but this time she did not respond.

Distressed, I went to Miss Sarah and, without telling her the reason, asked that I be allowed a visit to the hospital. However, my request disturbed her to such a degree that I did not pursue it. I did, though, through the next years, continue to observe Miss Martha at the yard whenever I was able.

Belle

T
HE FIRST TIME
I
GET
a letter from Lavinia, I know being there is hard on her. Not by what she says but by what she don’t say. She don’t ask about Sukey, about Mama, about the twins. Lavinia’s letter says she’s got a tutor and she’s living in the big house. I can see that her lessons are going good, because Lavinia’s already writing good as the cap’n. First I’m thinking that I won’t write back. I’m afraid that my writing don’t look good as hers, but Mama says, “You write her, she don’t care ’bout nothin’ but that we all missin’ her.” So, I get out my dictionary and I write to Lavinia. I say that Jamie is just the best baby and that he’s growing like something in my garden. I don’t tell her that he looks just like the white boy and that I’m worried about his one eye clouding over.

I tell Lavinia that the twins and Mama say hi, but I don’t say that Mama’s getting over a hard time, losing another baby herself. She says at her age she’s too old to carry one, and I’m thinking she’s right. By my figuring, she’s got to be getting close to fifty.

I tell Lavinia that this place is running real good—that Will Stephens is doing a fine job. Ida says everybody’s happy down at the quarters. But we all know it don’t stay like this when Marshall comes back.

’Course I don’t tell Lavinia that Ben and me get together every chance we got. And for sure I don’t tell her about the time that Mama Mae gives me the eye when she says, “I guess you know that Lucy’s gettin’ big with another baby?”

“No. You sure about that?” I ask.

“You look at her, you sure, too,” Mama says.

Next time I see Ben, I push him away. “All this time you’re with me, you’re still getting on Lucy?” I ask.

“Belle,” he says, “you know you the one for me. But Lucy with me, too. You know this.”

“You send her back to the quarters where she belongs!” I say.

But then Ben gets mad. “That girl know ’bout you, but she don’t say nothin’. She already got it hard, workin’ the fields. And she a good mama to my boy. I don’t send her back down like she some dirt. She stayin’ and that be that.” He turns to go.

I’m still mad about Lucy’s baby, but I know I got to take Benny like he is. “Come here,” I say. Then I kiss him good and make him want me like he’s a starving man.