Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray (22 page)

I was nearly at a loss for words, thinking that I would be married in the same place where Miss Mary had married Mister Robert.

Miss Mary said, “Will that suit you, Selina?”

My heart flopped around in my chest like a fish on a line. “Oh, yes, ma'am. That suits me just fine.”

They left for the city. I was dying to find Thornton and tell him the news, but I had to scrub the floors and clean the lamps and find Rose for help with the rugs.

I let myself out the back door and went down to Rose's cabin. It was some ways from the main house, down the path and close to the farm at the bottom of the hill. She didn't answer when I knocked, so I went on in.

Rose was lying on the pallet beside the fire, and I could tell even before I touched her that she was burning up with fever. I got down on my knees and said, “Rose? You ought to have sent Randall to ask Missus for the doctor.”

“No doctor.” She pushed me away.

“What's wrong with you?”

“Judah made me a potion and I drank too much of it, I reckon.”

“What kind of a potion?”

Rose stared at me like I had mud on my face. “If you been paying attention you would know.”

Then it hit me. Rose had a baby on the way and she was trying to stop it from coming. “Judah made you up some squaw mint tea.”

“She calls it pennyroyal, but it's the same by any name.” A tear rolled down her cheek and onto her pillow. “It didn't work. Steam bath didn't work either.”

I had seen the pennyroyal growing in Judah's garden. It was a pretty plant with a spiny stem and blue flowers shaped like a fan. But it was dangerous. “Mauma says pennyroyal is liable to kill you if you take too much.”

“I just as soon be dead as have a slave baby for old Mister Custis to claim.”

Her eyes went hard with defiance, and as much as I loved Miss Mary, I couldn't help feeling a kind of admiration for Rose. There was something daring in her determination to defy the Custises, even if they had given her the wedding of the century.

“Missus will help you when the time comes.”

“You always take their side.” Rose wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Sometimes I think you like bein' a slave.”

“One day we will go free.”

Rose laughed, but it was not the joyous kind of laugh. “Wishful thinking is what that is, Selina Norris.”

“Miss Mary says it will happen.”

“And you believe her?”

“She keeps her promises. She told me just this morning, her own preacher is coming to marry Thornton and me. In the parlor up at the house.”

“In the house? What a surprise. You always been her favorite. You and the rest of the Norrises.” Rose sat up. “You got to help me, Selina.”

A long time ago I heard Missus Bingham telling Mauma about a girl who tried to burn her baby out with a candle and burned herself up instead. I wasn't about to light Rose on fire. “I don't see there is anything I can do. That baby is going to come and that's that.”

She took a crumpled paper from her pocket and handed it to me. “You read a lot better than I do.”

“You tore this out of Miss Mary's New York newspapers?”

“Don't worry. It's a old one I found in the bin behind the stables. Miss Mary won't be looking for it no more.”

I took the paper to the window and held it up to the gray winter light.

Mrs. Bird—female physician where can be obtained Dr. Vandenburg's Female Renovating Pills from Germany. An effectual remedy of suppression and all cases where nature has stopped from any cause whatsoever. Sold only at Mrs. Birds, 83 Duane St near Broadway.

Rose said, “I don't know that long word starts with a
R
. Or the one starts with a
S
. But it supposed to help if your nature has stopped. I know that much.”

I didn't know what they meant either. I hadn't ever seen them in the Bible or my poetry book. “Does not matter what they mean,” I said, “since the only place to get the pills is all the way up in New York.”

“You got to get me some before Missus sees my belly getting bigger.”

“You are the one who has been up to New York. All the time bragging about it.”

“I was mostly in the country. Miss Mary took Kitty with her when she went to town. I don't know nothing about New York.”

“Well, I surely don't either. And how do you think I can get there, Rose? Just jump on a train and ride it clear to Broadway Street?”

“You Miss Mary's pet. I bet she would let you go.”

“And what reason would I give?”

“Ain't Cassie living up there now? You could say you want to go visit her.”

“It's not that easy. Miss Mary says New York is a dangerous
place. People going every which way. Besides, I don't want to lie to her.”

Despite her fever, Rose jumped up and snatched the paper from my hands. “Never mind. I'll think of something else.”

If looks could kill, the one she gave me just then would have struck me dead.

“One day you gone wake up, Selina Norris, and figure out what a fool you been all your life.”

I left her there and went back to the house. The children were asleep or working on their lessons. I told Kitty that Rose was sick and I needed help beating the rugs. We hauled them outside and took the carpet beaters to them, dust flying up around us in a thick gray cloud.

The next day Rose came back to work in the house like nothing had happened. I studied her to see if I could tell she still had a baby coming, but she looked like always to me. She tried to stay out of the sight of Miss Mary and Missus, and she wouldn't speak to me except when she had to.

Rose never had been my best friend, but I felt sorry for her. I knew what it felt like to feel strong about something and not be able to do much about it. But then it was December. There was the usual Christmas preparations at the house, and I couldn't think of anything except that I was about to marry Thornton Gray.

Mister Custis came home from his trip just before my big day. He was in a terrible mood when I took Missus her tea tray that afternoon. I overheard him complaining that the price of wheat and corn was less than it had been, and he might have to think of some way to make up the money he borrowed to cover his debts. He was in such a dark mood I was afraid Miss Mary
might just send the word to the reverend not to come, but the preacher showed up on the day he was supposed to.

Missus had given me a bolt of light blue material for a new dress, and Mauma helped me sew it up. I still had the piece of lace Thornton had given me that long time ago. We put it on the cuffs, and Mauma sewed a ruffle on the bottom of the skirt.

Thornton wore a blue shirt and gray trousers, and he looked better than I had ever seen him. He smiled at me and held out his hand, and a joy that broke like morning came over me then.

The house was decorated for Christmas with greens and candles and a big ball of mistletoe in the archway. The parlor was too small to hold everyone from the quarters, so there was only me and Thornton and the Custis family, Mauma and Daddy, and my brother and sister.

The preacher stood with his back to the fireplace and talked about how Jesus had showed up at a wedding in Cana to bless the couple and pour the wine. He said God looked favorably on couples who married in His sight. Then he said to Thornton, “Do you wish to wed this woman in the sight of God and these witnesses?”

Thornton grinned at me. “I sure do, sir.”

“And, Selina Norris, is it your wish to marry this man and to live with him under God's holy covenants as long as you both shall live?”

I wasn't sure what a holy covenant was, but it sounded like a good thing so I said, “Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Then you are wed and may God bless you.”

That was it. Thornton kissed me in front of everybody for the first time.

In the dining room we had cake, and punch served in the
bowl with the painting of the ship in the bottom. Missus invited the preacher to have some refreshments, but he took off like he couldn't get away from us fast enough. I wondered what she had told him in her letter that made him change his mind. When I told Thornton the preacher was coming to marry us after all, he said Missus must have sent some money for the church along with her note. I never did ask about that.

After the cake was gone, we thanked Missus and Miss Mary for the fine wedding. Missus just nodded her head, but Miss Mary squeezed my hands and said, “You are welcome, Mrs. Gray.”

It was the first time I ever heard my new name and it sounded strange and wonderful in my ears. Thornton helped me on with my coat and held my hand as we walked down to our cabin. People had brought presents the same as for Rose and Randall. There were candles and jams and a new quilt. But no baby cradle. Old Judah made jack bags for us, filled with basil to bring us money, cinnamon for love, and rosemary for protection.

Two days after Christmas, I wrapped up a slice of mince pie to take to Rose. It was her favorite, and I felt bad that I wasn't able to help her get the pills from New York. Every time we crossed paths I could see the fear and desperation boiling up inside her.

It was freezing cold and slap-up dark by the time I finished my work at the house. I hurried along the path to Rose's cabin, the bare trees above me creaking in the wind. Yellow light from her window spilled into the darkness.

I was about to knock on the door when I heard a strange hum coming from the inside. I cupped my hands and peered through the crack in the door. Rose and Randall had tied blue ribbons around their heads and were walking in a circle around a water
bucket and a candle set in the middle of the floor. Casting some kind of a spell, it looked like.

“Be it day or be it night / Keep us safely from their sight. / Fire and water, moon and sun / Shield us till the journey's done.”

I turned around and ran home to Thornton.

“What's got into you, Selina?” He got up from his chair as I ran inside, my heart jumping out of my chest.

I set the mince pie on the table and told him what I'd seen.

He pulled me close. “Sweetheart, whatever Rose does is on her head, not yours.”

“I suppose so. But it was scary all the same.”

Maybe it was the endless talk about abolition and Liberia and running away that in the deepest part of the night made me feel like something dark and deadly was about to swoop down and swallow us. But wrapped in Thornton's arms I felt safe, a wren in its nest.

Thornton said, “Missus Gray, you know what I'm thinking?”

“I never know what's going on in that head of yours, Mister Gray.”

He laughed. “I'm thinking we ought to eat that piece of pie.”

He got a fork and we shared the pie, sitting side by side listening to the night wind and an owl hooting from somewhere far away.

The next morning Rose and Randall were gone.

S
hortly after Rose and Randall disappeared, a new year began. Robert was still in Mexico, having assisted General Scott in the taking of the capital. Robert's letters were entertaining and terrifying, one missive describing the delights of Mexican chocolate and the strangeness of black-eyed senoritas who wore no stockings, the next recounting a close call with a band of enemy soldiers that had obliged him to hide for hours beneath a rotted log while mosquitoes feasted on his flesh. He described reconnaissance missions accomplished in the dead of night and the horror of bodies littering the battlefield after the Battle of Vera Cruz.

No longer only an engineer, he had become a skilled warrior who had tasted the smoke and blood, the noise and fear of the battlefield. Now he knew the thrill of danger, the challenge of outthinking and outmaneuvering the enemy. I worried that in his pursuit of excellence on the battlefield he had pushed himself far beyond the bounds of prudence, and that his return to the more mundane duties of diverting rivers and constructing fortifications would only increase his discontent with military life.

On a warm afternoon near the end of May, at the conclusion of lessons with the servants' children, I taught them a new hymn called “Little Drops of Water.” After we had sung it twice, I released
them to their chores in the vegetable garden and joined Mother in the parlor with my sewing. Annie and Agnes needed new dresses, and the baby was outgrowing her things too. Daughter came in and was plunking away on the piano she'd persuaded me to buy for her when Papa returned from Washington City.

“The Mexican senate has finally ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe.” Papa waved his newspaper in the air. “It's the talk of the city today.”

“I suppose President Polk is crowing about his victory in this matter.” I took another spool of thread from my sewing basket.

“He is indeed, and well he should. Between this treaty and our acquisition of the Oregon Territory, the United States of America is now doubled in size.”

“I'm happy the war is ended, but I fail to understand why we could not have simply purchased the land in the first place and avoided war altogether. My children have suffered terribly without their papa.”

Mother adjusted her spectacles. “And we have all been deprived of the comfort of Robert's company.”

“Indeed. But I expect this treaty means your vigil is at an end, Mary Anna, and Robert will be on his way home soon.” He chuckled. “No more black-eyed senoritas for him. The way he carries on with the ladies, you are lucky one of them didn't steal him away.”

“Carries on? You mean those harmless letters he sends to Markie and our friends? It is nothing he doesn't freely share with me. He gives me no cause to doubt his affections or his fidelity.”

“A truthful husband is a blessing beyond measure, is it not, Mr. Custis?” Mother looked up at Papa, her brows arched, and it seemed to me that the air suddenly thickened.