The Kitchen House (38 page)

Papa says, “Belle, Belle, Jamie doin’ real good up there. He eatin’ again, and he have all the nice toys to play with. Miss Martha treat him real good.”

“No! No!” I start breathing hard, then I can’t get no air. All I can think is Jamie’s up in the big house and Marshall’s gonna get at him.

When Lucy comes, she takes me outside, away from Papa. “Come on,” she says, making me walk. “You got to take in the air.”

“No! No!” I say. “I don’t want him in the big house! Miss Martha’s crazy, and she’ll make my boy crazy.”

“You got to breathe,” Lucy says. “Stop talkin’ and take in some air.”

“Lucy! They have him up in the big house,” I say.

“Keep walkin’,” Lucy says.

“I’ll go for the gun,” I say. “I’ll go get my boy.” I try to pull away, but Lucy won’t let go.

“Belle! You got to settle down. Papa in there waitin’ on you. He got to go back up. You know if Rankin find him, Papa in big trouble.”

“But they have Jamie in the big house!”

“Belle! Carryin’ on like this won’t help. Papa don’t leave ’less he know you doin’ all right. You got to think of Papa … the chance he take to come here and tell you how your boy doin’.”

I know Lucy’s right, so I try to slow myself down. I look up for the moon. I pull air in and push it out again. I do this until I settle some.

“You all right now?” Lucy ask.

I nod. When we go back in, Papa’s sitting there, not looking me in the face.

“I’m all right now, Papa,” I say. “I get so scared about my boy.”

“Your Jamie doin’ fine, Belle.”

“I don’t want him up at the big house, Papa. What if Miss Martha don’t ever let him go? What if Marshall—?” I see Papa’s face go tight. “What, Papa?” I say. “What else you come to say?”

“It Beattie,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“Marshall usin’ Beattie,” he says. Just like that, Papa drops his own head and starts to cry. I never, never before, see Papa cry. Ben, me, Lucy, we all look at the other, waiting for somebody to say something. Ben stands up and starts to walk back and forth. I go to Papa and put my arm ’round him. He takes out the rag that Mama makes him carry and blows his nose. “There nothin’ I can do for my own girl,” he says.

“’Course not, Papa,” I say.

“When this start to happen?” Ben ask. He don’t sound like his-self.

“A while now,” Papa says. “’Round the time Abinia tell him she havin’ a baby. First it go real hard on Beattie, but she say things eased up. You know that girl, she don’t complain ’bout nothin’. She even tellin’ Mama and me that she gonna make this work for everybody. Marshall gets with her almost every night, and he talkin’ to her. Beattie say, least this way she find out what happenin’ on the place.”

“Maybe he’ll leave her alone when Lavinia has her baby?” I say.

Nobody says nothing to that.

Next day I talk to Will Stephens, tell him Jamie’s up in the big house. Will says that he’ll go back to court and try again to get Jamie back here with me. “You just hold on, Belle,” he says.

“Will.”

“Yes?”

“There’s something else for you to know,” I say.

“What is it?”

“Ben was talking with Lavinia at Fanny’s wedding. He finds out that she’s thinking all along that you’re the daddy of Jamie.”

“What!”

“All along, Lavinia never knows that Marshall’s the one. I never did tell her about that night when Marshall got me. When she’s living in Williamsburg, Marshall tells her that you’re the daddy.”

“Good God!”

“Mama says in some ways, Lavinia thinks like a child. She don’t always get what’s going on. She comes back here, wanting everything to be the same. It’s like she don’t know that when she marries Marshall, she’s gonna take on his world. Mama’s trying to help her see it right, but like Mama say, sometimes we got to live it out before we learn.”

I’m talking away, but when I look at Will Stephens, he looks like he don’t hear a word I’m saying. When he goes, I stand at the door. I watch him walk real slow up to his new house and think how big it looks for one man living there all by hisself.

Lavinia

I
STAYED IN MY BED FOR
two days, feverish and without appetite. Marshall came with questions of concern, and when he reached for my hand, I pulled it away, sick with disgust. Mama nursed me silently, but on the third morning, after I refused yet another breakfast, she secured my bedroom door before she pulled a chair to my bedside.

“Ida say you know some things,” Mama said, positioning herself to face me.

I turned my head away.

“Ida say …” She spoke quietly. “Ida say you see Marshall go with Beattie.”

I heard the struggle in her voice, and still I faced the wall.

“Ida say you know ’bout Jamie?” she whispered.

I swung my head to look at her. “Ida’s saying a lot,” I snapped.

Mama’s head dropped.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Times, this life not easy, Abinia,” Mama said.

“But how … When was he … with Belle?”

Mama shushed me and looked toward the door. “We don’t talk about this no more. It happen, now you got to forget about it. He find out you know ’bout this, he don’t stop until he find out who talkin’ to you, and then there no tellin’ what he do.”

“But Beattie, Mama! How could Beattie go with—?”

“You think this what Beattie want?” Mama whispered. “You think she want get with him?”

“I saw them at the kitchen house!” I said. “She didn’t even make an attempt to refuse him.”

“Abinia! You lookin’ through your eyes, you not even tryin’ to look through Beattie’s. You know that girl don’t have the right to say no! After Masta Marshall leave for the day, I bring Beattie to you. You see for yourself what happen when that girl say no.” Mama’s chin trembled as she fought tears. She rose and went to look out the tall window.

I was quiet for a long while before I dared to speak. “I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, “you don’t have to bring her. I know you’re right.”

“This a hard thing,” Mama said, wiping tears from her face. “This a hard thing.”

I looked out the window past Mama and saw that it had begun to snow. I looked at the fire blazing in the fireplace and thought of Papa George chopping wood behind the kitchen house. Now I understood what had driven him that day.

“Mama,” I whispered. “Is there something I can do?”

Mama came back to sit in the chair beside me. She blew her nose before she took my hand. “There times all we can do is pray to the Lawd,” she said. “We say, ‘Lawd, we don’t know, but we sure do need some help.’” She rested her hand on my large stomach. “And we don’t forget to say thanks for the blessin’s, Lawd.” Mama spoke to me tenderly again. “Come, chil’, it time for you to eat, then get up and move. All this fussin’ not good for the baby.”

A
MONTH LATER, AT THE
end of January, Mama was there with Fanny to deliver my daughter, Eleanor.

We called her Elly from the start, and everyone loved her. Marshall expressed great delight that he was the father of our infant girl, and in the heady joy of motherhood, I tried desperately to set aside my grievances with him.

Sukey would not leave Elly’s side; during the night, she kept the cradle next to her bed. When I nursed Elly, Sukey sat alongside to watch that I positioned the baby’s head correctly. Mama came often to hold Elly and to sing to her until she slept. And then there was Fanny! One might have thought that Elly was her very own.
In every spare moment, Fanny peeked in, requesting to hold her. Uncle Jacob, too, stopped by often on the pretext of tending the fire. Even Papa George came up to see the baby late one afternoon after Marshall had left the farm. Papa held her, and my heart soared when he said, “She look just like our lil Abinia.” Finally, when Beattie had not yet come, I asked to see her.

I was nursing the baby when Mama brought her up. “Come in, Bea,” I said, seeing her hesitate in the doorway, “come see her.” Beattie refused to meet my eyes when I offered my baby for inspection. “Isn’t she perfect?” I asked, full of new motherhood.

“She look just like you,” Beattie said with a shy smile.

She was right. My daughter had the same elfin ears, the same oval face, and the same vibrant hair color. Everyone noted the likeness. And it seemed everyone considered it a triumph.

I
N THE EARLY AUTUMN OF
Elly’s first year, we spent some time in the shade of the great oak tree. The scene was idyllic. Often in the late afternoon, Uncle Jacob set up our quilting frame and we brought out our chairs. Fanny and I stitched while Sukey sat on a blanket with Elly. If Mama had time, she joined us, though Beattie always begged off, saying that she had work to do in the kitchen.

Miss Martha was content to rest in her room with Jamie playing quietly at her side. Her doses of laudanum were at a minimum, and her condition had changed dramatically. Though she had limitations, she often appeared quite lucid, and we accepted it when she referred to Jamie as “my son.” Jamie never mentioned Belle, and his attachment to Miss Martha was so strong that one wondered if he remembered his life before. I was content with this, though Mama Mae was not. She did not speak of her disapproval outright, but often I saw her watch the two of them interact, and her frown told me more than words might have.

Miss Martha’s response to my baby was curious. A few days after I gave birth, I brought Elly to visit her grandmother. For the first time, I saw my mother-in-law accept a child into her arms and
then release it, aware that the child was not her own. When I told her the baby’s name, she repeated it a few times and did not forget it, though she continued to refer to me as Isabelle.

O
N THE WHOLE, MY TIME
was consumed with caring for my newborn, but when I saw Marshall, he was drinking less and appeared more content than he had been since our arrival. He remained solicitous of me and continually asked if I had want or need of anything. I assumed it was the birth of Elly that had brought Marshall some peace, and for the sake of our child, I attempted to set aside the horrible truth of which I was now aware. But my success was short-lived.

In the months after Elly’s birth, though Marshall had not visited me at night, I had hoped that his relationship with Beattie had ended. However, in late fall, I was horror-struck when it became clear that Beattie was with child. She continued to serve our meals in the dining room with Uncle’s assistance; daily, the situation grew more awkward. Marshall did not know that I was aware of their relationship; nor was he aware that I watched as his eyes followed her.

I grew more resentful with each passing day. I did not want my husband to resume his marital rights, but I was horrified to think that his relationship with Beattie continued. There were moments in the dining room of intense strain, moments when I caught an approving look or a smile given to Beattie that felt like an insult to me. I felt unable to direct my anger toward Marshall, and in an effort to rid myself of it, I looked instead toward Beattie, a safer target.

I spoke to no one of this, and my unhappiness festered. My reasoning became diseased, and as my anger grew, so, too, did my resentments. I began to wonder why Marshall made the choice to stay with Beattie. I did not want him near me—in fact, the idea of our intimacy repulsed me—yet why would he chose her over me? What did I lack as a woman? Where had I failed? In spite of myself, in spite of knowing how their relationship had come about,
I began to blame Beattie. I couldn’t rid myself of the belief that Beattie had encouraged Marshall in this wrongdoing.

I dared not confront Marshall, so I struck out at Beattie. I often spoke sharply to her and did not seek for her the privileges I sought for the others of my family. I made unkind comments about her appearance while I watched Marshall attempt to show indifference. But it was his failure to do so that had me question a deeper possibility: Did he care for her? Did he love her?

Finally, I could stand it no longer and went to Mama. I used Beattie’s growing size and her cumbersome efforts to serve us as my complaint. To my great relief, Mama agreed and sent Fanny to replace Beattie in the dining room. This, however, had its own repercussions.

Fanny, while serving, of course overheard the dinner conversation. As was her nature, she found it impossible to maintain a uninterested stance, and when she heard something that did not sit well with her, she was quick to purse her lips or roll her eyes. Marshall frequently called her on this. “Do you have something to say?” he often asked, and I was always surprised at how forthcoming were Fanny’s comments. There were times when her opinions angered my husband and he would dismiss her from the room, but more likely, he would laugh heartily. I greeted those times with a mixture of relief and envy. Why, I wondered, couldn’t I be more like Fanny—more unafraid?

During this period, I began a correspondence with Meg in Williamsburg. I sought to renew my interest in botany, and I wrote of it to Meg, with apologies for my lack of earlier communication. She held no blame and said that she knew how busy I must be, caring for my daughter. She had not yet married, and her letters were quick to point out that she was not in a great hurry to do so. Along with her correspondence, Meg sent books, and I, in turn, gifted her with those I thought she might enjoy. I clung to my connection to Meg, though I told her nothing of the problems within my marriage.