An Unlikely Friendship (3 page)

"Go and get my friend Elizabeth Keckley. She is the only one who understands me."

I
HAVE LONG SINCE
learned not to believe idle stories. Heaven knows I grew up on them. For years as a child I was terrorized by family stories of great Uncle John being killed at Blue Licks by Indians. Or how Uncle John escaped from Indians after running a gauntlet and his brother Sam was captured and Uncle John ransomed him for a barrel of whiskey.

Not to mention Mammy Sally's stories about Jaybird reporting once a week to the Almighty about our misdoings for which, somehow, we'd be punished. Jaybird reported only to God, she said.

But for some reason I did believe the rumor told to me by my sisters Frances and Elizabeth of how, only weeks after our mother's burial, our father was courting another woman.

I believe it because my older sisters were friends with Dr. Warfield's daughter, Claire. And he'd been in attendance at my mother's death and was a friend of my father.

They tell me this woman is from Frankfort, the state capital where my father goes frequently because he is a state senator. They say she has a seventy-three-year-old mother who is the head of society there. That she herself wants to be called Betsy, and that she hopes to lift our family to new standards of elegance.

Grandmother Parker, who lives just up the hill from us here in Lexington and is my own mother's ma, says it is an indecently short time after Ma's death for Pa to go courting.

My sister Frances says Pa sent his new lady a miniature of himself painted by Lexington's own Matthew Jouett.

Elizabeth Humphreys she is called. I made it my business to find out everything I could about her. She is no stranger to Lexington. Two of her uncles taught here at our Transylvania college.

She is going to bring her own black servants with her when she comes. I wonder how that will sit with Mammy Sally.

Jaybird can tell God all he wants about me. I know already that I do not like her.

I
T WAS IN THE AIR
a long time, this silent courtship of Pa's. Auntie Ann, his sister, who ran the household since Ma died, warned us not to ask him about it. So we didn't. But we watched him closely at the dinner table to see if he was changing toward us.

For all we could see, he wasn't.

He still asked Levi if he'd been a good boy that day and ruffled his hair when he asked it. He still told my spoiled sister Ann how pretty she was. He still discussed social matters with Elizabeth and Frances. And he still promised me a pony if I was a good girl. He'd been promising me a pony for ages. As long as he kept promising, I figured my hope for a pony was still alive. Though I did wonder if a pony would fit in with Betsy's idea of a new standard of elegance.

No, he wasn't changing toward us. He was still Pa, who loved us and wouldn't let anything come between us.

S
OMETIME AROUND
C
HRISTMAS
in 1825 my father called us all into the front parlor after dinner and cleared up the rumors. I was seven years old.

"My situation has become irksome," he said. "People of ill will are saying bad things about me and my intended, Elizabeth Humphreys. So I have become engaged to this dear lady and hope soon to wed. I need to complete my domestic circle so I can enjoy the repose and happiness which the world can never give."

Pa talked high words sometimes. But we understood. Frances and Elizabeth kissed him. I hugged him because I wasn't going to be left out of any part of his domestic circle.

T
HAT'S HOW WE LEARNED
we were to get a stepmother. But I didn't see the need for one. As far as I was concerned, the domestic circle we had was complete enough. Mammy Sally ran the kitchen and the other servants. And I didn't see anything wrong with Auntie Ann running the house. She even did the male chores when Pa was away, oversaw the carriage, disciplined the servants, and bought the staples. Only bone I had to pick with her was that she favored my little sister Ann too much. Ann was the darling of her eye. I was almost eight the year Pa wed and Ann was going on two, and Ann took all the attention from me. Same as she'd taken my name when she was born. I was Mary Ann up until then, until they gave the second part of my name to her, and now I'm only Mary.

It's a lonely name, I can tell you. It needs a second part. Anybody can see that.

Elizabeth and Frances have their own set of fine-feathered girlfriends who can't talk about anything but dresses and boys. Levi, a year older than me, and George, only one at the time, had the full attention and love of Pa. All I had was Grandma Parker to stand up for me. And she was fifty-two.

I
HAVE HAD A LOT
of afflictions in my life, don't think that getting a stepmother was the first of them. Now that I am nineteen and about to leave Lexington, Kentucky, to live with my sister Elizabeth and her husband in Springfield, Illinois, I can write of them without hurting too much.

Before I was three years old I lost my place as the youngest in the family to brother Robert when he was born. When I was four I lost my baby brother. Robert died at fourteen months. I was uncommonly fond of Robert and his death affected me terribly. Then when I was five I lost part of my name. At seven I lost my mother when my next brother, George Rogers Clark Todd, was born.

At almost eight I got a new stepmother.

***

W
E WERE TO CALL
her "Ma" Pa told us in one of the most stern moments I ever recollect seeing him in. "Not
Betsy,
but
Ma.
"

We all said yes.

"And if you have any concerns about the household, bring them to her. She wants to be in charge."

Concerns about the household? I'd had nothing but concerns since Auntie Ann had left us, as soon as Pa and Betsy came home from their wedding trip.

Concerns about the household? That phrase went through my mind as I stood in the kitchen and watched, transfixed, as Judy, one of Betsy's slaves, stood grim-faced, her two hands holding a large bowl of soup. I could smell the soup from where I stood. I loved that soup, all made with preserves from our garden.

Across the kitchen stood Mammy Sally, who had made the soup. She'd caught Judy sampling it from the serving bowl and scolded her.

"Here, take your ol' soup," Judy said and threw the bowl on the floor.

The smash of the china bowl sounded throughout the house. The soup splashed all over the place. I even got some on the hem of my dress. Mammy Sally backed away, held her hands to her face, and cried.

"Who wants your ol' soup." Judy stamped out of the kitchen.

Just then Pa appeared at the kitchen doorway. "What is this? What's going on here?"

"Judy threw the soup on the floor," I told him.

He looked shocked. I felt sorry for him.
So much for
repose and happiness,
I thought. And, as if he could read my thoughts, he looked at me. "Mary, go and get your mother," he said quietly. Then he turned and went back into his study.

For a moment I thought that he really meant my mother. The look on his face was so confused that for all I knew he could have been wanting her then, just like I was. But I ran upstairs to get Betsy.

She was seated at her dressing table, making up her hair. "What's all the noise?" she asked.

I just stood there like a jackass in the rain. "Ma," my voice cracked when I said it. "The servants are fighting. There won't be any soup for supper."

"And why is that?"

"Judy threw it on the floor."

"Well, she must have had provocation."

So that was the way it was to be. Her servants could do no wrong. "Pa needs you," I said.

She stood up. "Is there no order in this house?"

I shrugged. "Your Judy threw the soup when Mammy Sally found her eating out of the serving bowl."

"There must be more to it than that."

New standards of elegance,
I thought.

"And you don't have to look so pained when you call me Ma, either. Now say it again. And say it strong."

I swallowed. "Ma," I said.

"Again."

Tears came to my eyes. "Ma."

She swept past me. "I hope I don't have to speak to your father about you. Now go and tell the others to come to the dinner table."

I
WALKED PAST
the kitchen to see Mammy Sally on her hands and knees cleaning up the soup.

"You didn't throw it." I stood there in the doorway on my way into supper. "Tell her to make Judy clean it up."

"Judy serving supper," Mammy said. "Anyways," and she raised herself up on her knees, "you knows what I tol' you, little one. No slave in this town is safe from bein' sold down the river. The trader be around alla' time. An' the slave pens be close at hand."

Even though no negro servant in our house was ever spoken to roughly, they all feared being sold down the river. To the rice swamps or the sugar or cotton plantations. They knew that any minute things could change for them. A death in the family, or a marriage, or a decline in the hemp prices could do it. Mammy Sally had explained it all to me. Even admitted she was afeared of Betsy.

I knew about slavery. You didn't grow up in Lexington without knowing about it. It was the chief discussion at every dinner party my father had when politicians gathered at the table. And we lived on Short Street, not far from the town square where, in the southwest corner, there was the black locust whipping post, ten feet high, from where you could hear the screams of the slave being whipped, if you couldn't see it. And every Monday morning when court was in session our slave auctions took place.

My pa didn't like slavery. He didn't believe in selling them, though he'd purchased Harvey for $700, Pendleton for $550, and Chaney and her small daughter and son came at a real bargain for $905. Pa was one of the men in town who wanted to send freed slaves to Liberia.

I knew by then that slavery was an explosive topic that affected everybody in my world. I knew that I loved Mammy Sally, that she had been my safe harbor since before Ma died, and that now I depended on her more than anything.

"Go in for supper," she said. "An' doan make trouble."

I obeyed. As I slid into my chair at the table, Betsy gave me a disapproving look. Judy set a bowl of mashed potatoes down in front of me, and Nelson, Pa's personal body servant and our carriage driver, winked at me as if we had some secret. He was standing over Pa, serving him wine.

"You're late," Pa observed.

"I was talking to Mammy."

"And I was telling about my niece, Elizabeth Humphreys. Do you think you could listen, Mary?" Betsy queried.

"She'd best, as she's to be Elizabeth's companion while she's here," my sister Frances said.

As it turned out, she was right. Elizabeth Humphreys was coming to live with us. She was to be called Liz, she was my age, and she was coming because of the good schools in Lexington. She was from Frankfort, and I was to share my room with her.

"You'll go to school together," Pa said.

"I don't go to school," I reminded him.

"You will. Next semester. You'll go to Ward's with Liz. She'll be a good friend."

I don't want a friend, I wanted to say. I want my ma back. I want you to love me, Pa. I want a pony to show you love me. I want a hoopskirt. I want to live in the White House someday. And I want your promise that you'll never sell Mammy or Nelson down the river.

We ate supper. The conversation took another turn. And Judy served.

I
ALWAYS WANTED
to live in the White House when I grew up. It was something I dreamed about the way other girls my age dreamed of marrying Prince Charming. Our neighbor and most prominent citizen, Senator Henry Clay, who wanted to be president, told me that when he lived there he'd invite me to visit. There wasn't a soul in Lexington who wanted him to be president more than I did.

T
HE REASON
I'
D NEVER BEEN
to school was because in Lexington boys started at six or seven and girls at eight or nine. As it was I'd be almost nine when I started at Ward's in the fall. Only young people from important families went to Ward's, so my family must be important, in spite of what Pa's new wife had said to me last time she got angry.

"It takes seven generations to make a lady, Mary. You have a long way to go."

I didn't mind the insult to me. But I minded it to my family.

"My ancestors founded this town," I told her. "They named it Lexington after the town in New England where the war was started."

"That still doesn't make you a lady," she'd retorted.

That was yesterday, and today there was the business with the soup and Elizabeth Humphreys coming. She was trying to undo me all right, this lady. My spirit was brought low, exactly as she wanted.

It was time to go and visit Grandma Parker.

G
RANDMA
P
ARKER WAS OLD
. She was all of fifty-two. She had five children, fifteen grandchildren, and seven slaves. But she was never too busy to see me and welcome me in her two-story brick house up the hill from us.

When my mother and father had wed, she'd given them the lower part of her lot so that our two houses looked like one compound. When my ma first married, she was taken over by running a home and often sought help from her mother. And then my pa was away a lot, visiting New Orleans to buy his French brandies, Holland gin, and green coffee that he and his partner in the dry goods business sold from their store to Lexington's carriage trade. In such times Grandma Parker sent her own slaves "down the hill" to help.

She kept a close eye on us, too, after Ma's death, eventually letting us keep Mammy Sally, who belongs to us now. I know she didn't approve of Betsy. And, while she didn't encourage us in our dislike for her, she didn't discourage us, either.

"Mary, come in, come in." She held open her arms and I quickly went into them, hugging her slender form tightly. "Child, child, what is it? Is she plaguing you again?"

"She said I'll never be a lady." I drew back and wiped my eyes. "She's always after me, like a fox after a bluebird."