The Secrets of Mary Bowser (3 page)

Mama’s smile broadened. “That’s a sign your papa knows smithing well, which is something to be proud of.”

“Is pride like money?”

“Just the opposite, nearly. What put that idea into your head?”

“When customers go to Marse Mahon’s smithy, they give him money for the work he does. And when Mrs. Wallace hires Ben Little”—Mama nodded at my mention of the free colored boy, a few years older than myself, who lived near Papa and his landlords—“to run an errand, she pays him money. So I thought pride is what slaves get instead of money, when they do something for somebody.”

“You can be proud of something you get money for, like Old Marse V was proud when his business grew so big he could buy this house. Sometimes, when your papa does a job that’s extra hard or gets it done extra quick, Marse Mahon even gives him a bit of money more than his usual board and keep. And Papa, he usually turns around and spends that money on a just-because for you or me, ’cause he’s proud he can. But slaves got a right to be proud of all the work we do, even when nobody pays us for it.”

“Like Zinnie’s proud of being the best cook in Richmond?”

“Well, that brings us round to vanity. Zinnie declares she’s the best cook in Richmond to put herself over Ida Tucker, whose marse said she was such a good cook he set her free. One time, when Ida’s marse was to dinner here, he said Zinnie’s harrico mutton was the most delicious thing he ever ate. I told Zinnie, and she’s bragged on it ever since.” Mama gave her teeth the slightest little suck, just enough for me to make out her gum squeal of disapproval. “Zinnie feels bad that Ida got free for being a good cook and she didn’t, so she likes to say she’s a better cook than Ida. Which maybe she is and maybe she ain’t, as I never tasted a thing Ida cooked and neither to my mind has Zinnie. We know Zinnie is a fine cook from eating her food every day, and she got a right to be proud. But if she thinks it and says it just to feel better than someone else, that’s vanity. Same as if someone wants to wear a new just-because to prayer meeting to show it off and make other girls jealous, that’s vanity, too.”

Catching Mama’s hint, I tried to direct her attention away from me and my ribbon, which it seemed we weren’t going to get around to sewing any time soon anyway. “When Miss Bet brags on her fine Philadelphia education, or Mistress Van Lew brags on how many books they got in Old Marse’s library, is all that pride or vanity?”

Mama got real quiet. She wasn’t one to talk up her masters’ saintliness, but she didn’t like to say too much flat out critical about them, either. Once Young Master John bought himself a riding horse that was real wild, and Josiah said the only way to break that stallion was to refuse to let it know how ornery it was. Just bridle and saddle it and hang on as best you could, trying not to let on how scared you were it might rear up and throw you. That’s how Mama was with the Van Lews, struggling to keep control over a beast bigger and more powerful than herself.

“White people live by different rules than us, Mary El. The rules I’m telling you about, pride versus vanity, those are Jesus’s rules. We got to try to live by His rules and by the ones whites make for us, both at once. That’s hard enough without worrying ourselves up all night about whether or not white people are holding themselves to Jesus’s rules, too.” She coaxed the threaded needle from my hand. “Why don’t we lay this by for now and get some sleep. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make a nice stitch, and you’ll have that ribbon on your Sunday dress in no time.”

By the next night, Mama was done teaching on pride versus vanity and settled right in to teaching me chain-stitch, which she made me practice over and over on scrap until I could sew nice and straight. Once she was satisfied I could make strong, even stitches, she gave her nod. Sewing the ribbon to the fabric while taking care not to sew the sleeve closed took more concentration, and my head ached by the time both elbows of my Sunday dress were festooned. But when I held my handiwork before me, I shone bright as my ribbon with delight.

“Now you can be proud of having trimmed that up yourself,” Mama said, “because you worked hard to do it.”

Though I smiled up at her, I was still all vanity on the inside, impatient as ever to show off the ribbon.

The next afternoon, when the Van Lews were out and Mama was scrubbing the hall floor and I was supposed to be making up the bedchambers, I snuck up to our quarters, threw off my everyday frock, and put on the Sunday dress. With my sleeve ribbons tied into the biggest bows I could manage, I stole back down to Mistress Van Lew’s dressing room and twirled before the looking glass, losing myself in scenes I played out in my head, in which Elly Banks begged to know where I got such a fine gown.

Mama must have been calling me a good long time, because her voice was hot with anger when I finally noticed it. “Run get the floor cloth quick, Mary El. Miss Bet’s waiting outside to come in.” I fetched the cloth to the front hall and stretched it open along the floor, so Miss Bet could walk across without slipping or dampening her shoes. I forgot all about my Sunday dress, until I looked up and saw Mama’s face.

Before she could reprimand me, Miss Bet came inside. “How charming you look, Mary. Is that a new frock?”

Mama answered for me. “It’s her Sunday dress, Miss Bet. She must’ve just slipped into it while my back was turned. Child knows better than to wear a Sunday dress when we’re working hard, don’t you, Mary El?”

I nodded, but Miss Bet shook her head like she was trying to loose herself from her own yellow curls. “It’s an offense the child should have to work at all. Mary, don’t you wish you could wear such outfits every day, like white girls do?”

I didn’t need to see how fiercely Mama was squinting and frowning to know the danger in answering that question. “I only wanted to see how my new ribbons look. Papa bought them for me just-because. And I sewed them on myself.”

The last part was drowned out by the sound of the Van Lew carriage arriving outside. “Mary El, you get upstairs this minute and change, ’fore Mistress V comes through that door.” Mama clipped her words so quick, I didn’t dare dawdle. “Miss Bet, please don’t say anything about this. The child’s young, but she works hard, even when Mistress is out of the house.”

“Nonsense, Aunt Minnie. Mary, come right back here. I want Mother to see how nice you look.”

Much as I wanted to hide myself away from Mistress Van Lew, there was no ignoring Miss Bet’s command. Already partway up the staircase, I turned back just as the front door opened to Mistress Van Lew and Young Master John. Mama, Miss Bet, and I must have made quite a tableau, because they looked at us like we were three foxes in a henhouse.

“Mother, you know I have asked your leave to pay our servants some small remuneration for their labors,” Miss Bet said.

“And you know Mother has denied that request,” Young Master John answered. “There is no need to antagonize her, or to disgruntle the servants.” In the two years since his father’s passing, Young Master John had grown important in his role as man of the house. He reprimanded his older sister the way Zinnie slaughtered a recalcitrant sow, sighing aloud over the duty, though we all knew he took pleasure in performing it.

But Miss Bet wouldn’t be scotched so easily. “The servants are hardly disgruntled. Look how happy Mary is, wearing a ribbon her father bought her.” By then I felt about as happy as a housefly caught in a barn spider’s web. But Miss Bet wasn’t paying me much mind. “Surely, if a man of Timothy Mahon’s standing can give his slaves wages, so can we.”

Mistress Van Lew’s face flushed fever red, and she turned to Mama. “Aunt Minnie, am I a good mistress?”

There’s only one way for a slave to answer when her owner asks that question. “Yes, ma’am,” Mama said.

“Have you or your child ever gone hungry in my house?”

“No, ma’am, never.”

“Do you go about without proper attire, summer or winter?”

“No, ma’am.”

Mistress Van Lew turned back to Miss Bet. “I provide for my servants far more than law or custom require. I will not have anyone make a mockery of my generosity.” She looked up at me. “Mary, come here.”

Dread thudded low with each slow step I took. As soon as I got near, Mistress Van Lew reached out and snatched the bows from one elbow, then the other. My stitches broke easily under her firm tugs. Holding the bits of ribbon out to me, she nodded toward the drawing room. “Put these on the fire.”

Miss Bet hurried up beside me, protesting, “Mother, I cannot agree—”

Young Master John cut her off. “This is a matter between Mother and her servants. It is none of your concern.”

I walked across the drawing room and stood before the fireplace, squeezing my clenched hand so the smooth silk of the ribbon rubbed across my palm. I thought of how Elly would never see my just-because. How nobody could ever treat her and her brothers and sisters the way Mistress Van Lew treated me. How it wasn’t fair that after I worked so hard to sew on the ribbon, now I wouldn’t have it at all.

Only when the heat began to singe my wrist did I open my hand and let the pieces fall. As I watched, the flames licked up, consuming the orange ribbon till the colors of the fire and the colors of my lost just-because blurred inseparably. I still couldn’t tell pride from vanity, but I sure could tell slave from free.

When early spring warmed the Virginia morning, Mistress Van Lew and Miss Bet took their breakfast on the back veranda. The garden just past the house, the fruit arbor that sloped to the edge of the property, and the view of Richmond and the James River beyond were all so pretty that looking out at them seemed like a hazy slumber dream, until a dull ache in my overworked arms roused me from my reverie. As I fanned the first flies of the season from the Van Lews, they buzzed around my head instead. I didn’t dare swat them away. I’d been told enough times not to wriggle or shift during these meals, to stand perfectly still except for the movement of my arms. No motion allowed except what served the Van Lews.

To distract myself, I listened as Miss Bet read to her mother from the Richmond
Whig
. Most days she chose dull stories about the Virginia legislature or President Polk. But this morning she read the report of a dashing swindler who posed as a gentleman to rob travelers on the train between Richmond and Washington. Such a story set my eight-year-old self wide-eyed with wonder, and I hung on every word. More than that, I remembered every word.

This was my solitary amusement, listening as grown-ups spoke and repeating their conversations to myself while I was working. Rehearsing the tale of the train robber in my head made the rest of the Van Lews’ breakfast hour pass quickly, and before I knew it, Mistress Van Lew announced she was ready to take her morning stroll about the arbor. As Miss Bet led her mother down the steps to the garden, Mama gathered the breakfast things onto the silver serving tray. I hung the fan in its place behind one of the white columns that rose two stories to the veranda roof. Clearing the news-sheet from the table, I began to recite the wonderful story out loud.

The crash of china startled me. Mama was not a clumsy woman. Never one to drop a cup and saucer. Perhaps it was a trick of the heat, but as I turned to look her way, it seemed the whole world stood still, except for me and the buzzing flies.

And then all at once, Mistress Van Lew stormed back up the steps. “Aunt Minnie, we are not in New York. You know the laws of Virginia, and we have made our wishes very clear on this matter. You were not to teach the child to read.”

Mama fell to her knees. “Ma’am, I never taught her to read. I swear to Jesus, I didn’t.”

Mistress Van Lew knew Mama wasn’t one to swear to Jesus falsely. Our irate mistress turned to her daughter.

“Bet, this abolitionist nonsense of yours has gone too far. How you have managed it, I do not know, but now at least you see your faith in the servants is poorly placed. The girl may know how to read, but she does not know enough to keep your secrets.” Her eyes went narrow. “Perhaps sending Mary to Lumpkin’s Alley will teach you both a lesson.”

Fear cramped my stomach, catching its echo in Mama’s low moan. White Richmond called the public whipping post Lumpkin’s Alley, after the slave-auction house next door. But to colored folks it was Devil’s Half-Acre, the most dreaded spot in the whole city.

Miss Bet jutted out her chin. “I am not sorry to see a slave learn, it is true, but this is as strange to me as it is to you. If you have the child flogged to punish me for something I haven’t done, you will only prove that slavery is every bit as evil as I believe it to be.”

Mistress Van Lew whirled at me, cracking a hard slap against my cheek. I felt the sudden sting and knew it was a pale promise of the beating I’d get at the whipping post. “Who taught you to read, child? I will stand no lies.”

“No one, ma’am. I don’t know how to read.” Mama was so near, yet I sensed she didn’t dare reach out to comfort me, that I needed to say more to make Mistress Van Lew leave us be. “Miss Bet read the story to you. I only remembered what she said.”

Mistress Van Lew snatched the news-sheet from my hand and passed it to her daughter. “Tell us now, without the paper, what Miss Bet read.”

And so I repeated the story, as Miss Bet followed along in the news-sheet. After only a few sentences, she burst out, “Mother, it is remarkable. The child recites the article word for word.” Miss Bet beamed at my accomplishment. “She wasn’t reading at all. Stranger than that, she can recall exactly what she hears.”

Mistress Van Lew spent a long moment considering what this meant. Finally, she looked from me, to Mama, to Miss Bet. “No one is to know of this, do I make myself clear to all of you? This is a dangerous thing. Do not speak of it again.” Her daily promenade in the garden forgotten, she went into the mansion, leaving each of us to make our own sense of what I’d done.

Mama took the revelation of my talent as a sign from on high. For as long as I could remember, I’d heard her recount every tale in the Bible about a barren woman, remembering how she spent the first twenty years of her marriage childless. “I prayed every day, thinking of Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel. Wasn’t a one of them bore a child right off. That poor wife of Manoah, not even a name for her, who had Samson. Elizabeth, who carried John the Baptist. Those women were blessed with a child to raise up to serve the Lord, and year after year I begged Jesus to do the same for me. Then at last you come along.”