The Kitchen House (42 page)

The Maddens’ visit passed more slowly than I would have thought possible. Although I spent a great deal of time with Miss Sarah and with Meg, I cannot recall a conversation of merit. I simply did not know what to do or what to say to explain our sorry circumstances. Each night I fought for sleep, but it eluded me as I worried about the days to come. I ate little as I presided over awkward meals, with Marshall either absent or drinking heavily. It was almost too painful to bear.

The day before our guests were to leave, I was alarmed to hear loud shouts from the library. I rushed down the stairs, but Mama stopped me from going into the room.

“It Mr. Madden, he talkin’ to Masta Marshall,” she said. “You best stay outta there.” Mama stood next to me as we listened outside the door.

“But you know better! You knew how hard tobacco was on the soil!” Mr. Madden said.

“Rankin says that—” Marshall began.

“Rankin is nothing but a drunkard! What does he know about diversification?” There was silence until Mr. Madden continued. “Marshall. Your people look half starved. How do you expect them to work if they are hungry and sick?” Again there was silence. Then Mr. Madden spoke more quietly. “What has happened here, son? You must know that you will lose this place if you continue on in this way.”

Marshall erupted. “This place is no longer your business! Leave me be!”

Mama and I jumped back when Marshall threw open the door, but I don’t believe he saw us when he rushed past and out of the house. Mr. Madden saw me and motioned me in, cutting off Mama when he closed the door behind us. “May I speak frankly, my dear?”

I nodded, frozen in place.

“I’m afraid that Miss Sarah and I are deeply concerned,” he said. When I did not reply, he continued, “Since our arrival, we have observed the sad state of this household.”

I sank onto the settee.

“This does not reflect on you, Lavinia,” he said, reading me. “No, I’m afraid the responsibility rests with your husband.”

Hearing his kindness, I had a sudden hopeful thought. “Mr. Madden—”

“Please call me Uncle,” he interrupted.

“Yes. Yes. Uncle. Thank you. May I ask something of you?”

“Anything, my dear.”

“Would it … Might it be possible for Elly and me to accompany you back to Williamsburg?” I held my breath for his response.

“In what capacity were you hoping to come back with us? For a visit, perhaps?”

“No.” My voice sounded thin even to me. “I thought we might come to live—”

Mr. Madden sat beside me and spoke quietly. “I do not think that Marshall would allow you to leave for an undetermined amount of time. And if he were to release you, I am certain he would not give permission for his daughter to travel with you. Do you have doubt that I am correct in this assumption?”

“No. No. Of course you are right.”

“Would you come without your daughter?” he asked.

Leaving Elly was not a consideration, and I told him so. He understood my position, he said, and he wanted to impress upon me that should I ever need his assistance, I had but to write. He would do all in his power to help. I thanked him for his generosity, careful to keep my tone free of despair.

It was only after their carriage had pulled away and I stood alone and waving the next morning, that I allowed myself to feel the utter desolation of being left behind. Long after they had gone, when I could no longer see dust from the carriage wheels, Uncle Jacob came with a wrap. Placing it around my shoulders,
he urged me to come inside. I searched his kind old face for an answer.

“Uncle?” I asked.

“Come, chil’,” he said, and offered his arm to walk me up the stairs.

I sat motionless for most of that day; I had lost all hope. When Sukey came, I sent her away. As darkness approached and I began again to see the futility of my dilemma, I became anxious, sure I could not endure the torture of my reflections for another night. I was pacing when the thought came.

I crossed to Miss Martha’s room, where Mama was settling her for the night. I went directly for the laudanum bottle and added a dose to a glass of water. Mama watched as I swirled the mixture, and before she could protest, I drank it down. Minutes later, as the drug’s heady effect transported me, I knew I had found an escape.

Belle

L
AVINIA TRIES TO GET HERE
one more time, but Rankin catches her. After that, Papa don’t come for two weeks. Ben goes over to see what’s happening, but Papa sends him back, says to stay away, that Rankin’s watching everybody real close.

Fanny and Eddy come here in the middle of the night to tell Ben, Lucy, and me about everything that’s going on.

Fanny and Eddy look funny, walking together. He’s real short, and Fanny, she’s real tall but skinny as Eddy.

Eddy is Ida’s boy, and he’s a good man, even though Rankin is his daddy. Ida don’t have nothing to say about Rankin getting her with babies over and over. Out of all Ida’s babies, only one was not Rankin’s. That was Dory’s man, Jimmy, but Rankin did him in, beat him till he was gone. Eddy was just a child, but he watched when Jimmy died. It’s no secret in the quarters that Eddy, small as he is, is wanting to kill his own daddy.

Eddy’s real quiet, and Fanny does all the talking, but after she says something, he says, “Yup, that’s right. Fanny right. Yup, she right.” Like he’s got to put a blessing on everything she says.

Fanny tells us what Marshall does to Lavinia when Rankin catches her coming over here. “She still not acting like herself,” she says.

“Yup,” Eddy says.

“Somebody got to hurt that man!” Ben says.

“Don’t talk stupid!” Fanny says. “All you do is get yourself killed.”

“She right,” Eddy says.

Ben don’t say nothing. Fanny sees she hurts Ben’s feelings. “Ben, remember how you always call Abinia a lil bird. That what she look
like now. Like a scared bird sittin’ on the ground. Take more than wind to get her up flyin’ again. Course, she actin’ just like a white woman, just give up, sittin’ in her room. Beattie got the same trouble, but she figure out a way to make it work for her. Don’t know why Abinia don’t do the same. It make me mad!”

“Yup. She sure do make her—”

“Hold on, Fanny!” I say, cuttin’ right through Eddy. “Sounds to me like she tries to fight back, but Marshall’s too much for her. Don’t you forget, Fanny, I know what Marshall’s like. I don’t talk about it because you was too little back then, but when he turns ugly, there’s no fighting back.”

“I don’t mean to say nothin’’bout you, Belle,” Fanny says.

“Just remember that Lavinia’s like my own, Fanny.”

“Belle, you know times I say too much. Right now, up there, we all worked up. Mama and Papa don’t know what to do. And now Mama sayin’ that Abinia startin’ to take the drops like Miss Martha.”

Eddy don’t say nothing, but you can see he don’t like it when words are flying between Fanny and me.

“No getting around it that she’s a white woman, Fanny, but the way I see it, she’s part of this family. And she got no way out, same as us,” I say.

“But why don’t she go away?” Lucy asks. “She free, not like us.”

“Mama say Abinia ask Mr. Madden ’bout goin’ back to Williamsburg,” Fanny says, “but he say she got to leave Elly with Marshall. We all know she never do that.”

We all get quiet, thinking about it.

“How’s my Jamie doing?” I ask, even though I’m scared to know.

Fanny looks away. “He doin’ real good,” she say, “but we gonna take him outta the big house soon as we can.”

“Why?”

“Uncle Jacob wantin’ him in his house, and Papa say he needin’ to learn the barns.” I can see that Fanny’s holding back.

Before I have the chance to ask her more, they get up, saying that they got to leave. There’s times I feel sick, worrying about
Jamie, wondering how to get him back with me. If I didn’t have my baby George here, I don’t know what I’d do.

T
HESE DAYS
L
UCY AND ME
get along real good, but when I see she’s getting big again, I get mad at Ben.

“When’re you doing all this with Lucy?” I say.

“What you mean?” he says.

“You think my eyes don’t see?” I ask.

That night when he comes knocking on my door, I tell him no, go see Lucy. After a while, though, I start thinking that without him being with Lucy, I don’t have my George. I got to say that Lucy counts on me to take care of that baby. All she does is feed him, then hands him over to me, saying, “Go to your mama Belle.” Those words are sweet as honey to me.

It don’t take long, and Ben’s back with me again.

Lavinia

I
DISCOVERED THE SIX FULL BOTTLES
of laudanum the same day I found Belle’s missing papers. After Meg’s visit, I could not find a sense of purpose, and frequently, I found myself wandering through the house. Winter was encroaching, but that was not the reason I no longer went out to ride. Too afraid of the consequences, I dared not visit Belle, and without that, I had no destination. Irrationally, I could not understand that Will had not attempted to see me. Reading had lost its appeal, and in an effort to quiet my nerves, I sought other ways to keep myself occupied. Mama and I had done an inventory of the house the previous year, but for various reasons at the time, we had stopped short of Miss Martha’s suite.

After Miss Sarah’s visit, Miss Martha once again required constant vigilance. We each took our turn, Mama, Fanny, and I, and it was during my scheduled time, while the children and Miss Martha slept, that I took note of the tall linen press set in the blue room. I remembered that we had not inventoried its contents. It was a task I did not relish, but I could no longer bear to sit idle for endless empty hours, and I decided to do the job.

I used a wooden chair to reach the top shelves. Removing the stacks of linens and hatboxes from them was tiresome, so I was relieved to bring down the last remaining box. Curious at the sound of clinking glass, I opened it to find six full bottles of laudanum. Had Miss Martha hidden them years before? She must have; there was no other explanation. Was this then a hiding place for her? Were other secrets hidden up there? While standing on the chair, I could not see to the back of the shelf, so I reached in as far as I
was able. My fingers almost missed the package, but once I felt it, I managed to maneuver it into my grasp. It was an envelope addressed to Belle. I recognized it immediately as the package Miss Martha had intercepted that Christmas so many years before. I knew it contained Belle’s freedom papers. The envelope frightened me. What would the papers mean to her now? Could Marshall somehow use them against her?

Before Fanny came to relieve me, I took the sealed envelope and the bottles of laudanum to my room. I did not speak to anyone of my findings, and I had full intention to smuggle the papers to Belle at the earliest possible opportunity.

That night I used the laudanum to quiet myself before sleep. It worked so well that the next day I decided to mix a few drops with sherry a half hour before the afternoon meal. The combination was magical. It eased me in Marshall’s presence and diminished my anxiety so that I was able to eat without feeling sick. Over the course of that dinner hour, I noted with great relief that even Beattie, in her pregnancy, did not disturb me as before. Marshall seemed pleased with my new relaxed attitude, and crediting our dinner wine, he encouraged me to drink more with our meal. I did not argue.

I continued to use the drug, and when the results were consistent over the following weeks, it was not long before I began to rely on it daily to lift my spirits.

I wrote to Meg telling her of the help I had found for myself, but when she wrote back warning me of the dangers of opium, I became so angry that she would wish to deprive me of this small comfort that I ceased correspondence with her.

C
HRISTMAS NIGHT OF THAT YEAR,
Fanny woke me from a deep sleep. “Mama needin’ you,” she said. “Beattie havin’ the baby.”