MY THEODOSIA (16 page)

'Are we nearly there?' she asked.

He shook his head. 'Not for some time, but we are nearing the Waccamaw Ford.'

She gazed curiously at the river of which she had heard so much. She knew vaguely that the fortunes of her new family were rooted in the thick mud that bordered its tidal banks, and that all their plantations depended on it. But she was unimpressed by the small rust-colored stream which they forded without difficulty. Joseph assured her that it grew much larger farther down, but she was disappointed, thinking of the magnificent river at home. She shut her eyes and tried to picture the dearly loved rooms at Richmond Hill, each one pervaded by her father's presence. What was he doing now? He must be back there soon. He was to leave Washington soon after they did.

'You might at least look at the country that is to be your home'. Joseph's annoyed voice startled her.

She jumped guiltily. 'Indeed I have been. But there is not much to see—just trees and swamp and that horrible hanging moss. It gives me the shivers. It looks like a scene from Dante's
Inferno;
I can almost hear the wailing of the lost souls'. 'I do not know to what you refer,' he said stiffly, 'but we consider the moss beautiful. There is much of it around the Oaks.'

'Where is the Oaks?' she asked quickly.

'A mile down the road, but we shall not stop there today'. She wondered why. The Oaks was Joseph's own plantation, left him by his grandfather, and was to be their home eventually. But today they were bound for Clifton, the home of Colonel William Alston, her new father-in-law.

'But isn't the Oaks on the way to Clifton?' she insisted. 'Couldn't we just look at it?'

'No,' said Joseph shortly. 'The family are waiting for us'. The family. Only in the last week had she begun to realize
the importance of that phrase. As Joseph neared home, it appeared with chilling frequency. Still, one would have thought that the family, having waited all day, might have spared an additional half-hour while a bride inspected her own new home. She was far from guessing that Joseph was ashamed of his plantation and its small tumble-down house. It had been untenanted since the death of his grandfather in 1784, and seventeen years of Carolina weather had not improved its appearance. Moreover, the slaves, laxly supervised for so long, had run wild over the whole estate.

Clifton, on the other hand, was a well-regulated plantation with a mansion hardly inferior to Richmond Hill. Had not General Washington stayed there in '91 and written that it was 'large, new, and elegantly furnished'?

Accordingly they passed the entrance to the Oaks without comment and continued south on the river road. The tiring horses plodded ever more slowly on its sandy surface. The sun beat down upon their carriage top, converting the interior into an oven. On either side the trees, now scrub pine, now live-oak, pressed in on them, shutting off any possible breeze.

The Waccamaw Neck, a narrow finger of land, pointed south to Winyaw Bay and Georgetown. On the west ran its river and the rice plantations, while on the east, five miles across the peninsula, was the sea.

I shall go there often, thought Theo. I love the ocean. For a moment she imagined that she caught the tang of salt.

'I smell the ocean,' she said eagerly. 'How soon can we go and see it? Tomorrow?'

'What for?' answered Joseph. 'We never go to the seashore until May.'

'But I want to go. It's only a few miles.'

Joseph mopped his dripping forehead and scowled. 'Theodosia, I trust that you will conform to the wishes and plans of
the family. I beg that you won't upset them with sudden impulsive whims.'

Theo suppressed the retort which rose to her lips. After all, they were both hot and tired. She would manage 'the family'; and anyway, surely she and Joseph would be in their own home in a day or so. She would be her own mistress.

She felt faint and her head throbbed when at last they dragged around a bend in the road and came to high wooden gates. A cluster of blacks slouched against the posts or sprawled limp on the scrubby grass. At the sound of carriage wheels they sprang to attention—a motley handful, big and little, some in the Alston livery, some in cotton shifts. They waved and cheered. 'Welcome, Maussa Joseph! Welcome, Mistiss!'

Joseph smiled and, leaning out of the carriage window, greeted some of the grinning negroes by name. Such ridiculous names, thought Theo—Romeo, Cupid, Orpheus, Amoretta. She tried to copy Joseph's air of affable condescension, wondering how in the world he ever told one black face from another. Each seemed to have the identical assortment of protruding lips around enormous white teeth, slate-black skin, and rolling eyes.

As the carriage turned into the plantation drive and headed for the river, the negroes shuffled along behind them, laughing and chanting snatches of a rhythmical song. Soon the cavalcade entered an avenue of enormous live-oaks so lavishly festooned with gray moss that the trees were almost obscured. Pompey flicked the horses into a trot and they drew up with a flourish at the steps of a large white-pillared house.

'Clifton,' said Joseph majestically, but Theo noted that his voice trembled. With sudden sympathy she squeezed his moist hand as he helped her down.

At once they were surrounded by an exclaiming, gesticu
lating throng, adults and excited children. So many, that Theodosia, dismayed, stood uncertainly beside Joseph waiting for guidance.

In the babel of welcome she heard her own name many times repeated and prefixed by different tags of relationship—'Cousin Theodosia,' 'Sister Theodosia,' even 'Aunt Theodosia' and 'Daughter.'

'I'm so very glad to meet you all,' she laughed, turning from one to another, 'but won't you please tell me which is which?'

'Of course, my dear'. A spare middle-aged man with grizzled hair detached himself from the group. He took her hand.

'I am William Alston of Clifton, Joseph's father. Mrs. Alston is awaiting you upstairs in her chamber. She is unfortunately ailing today. Now for the others—Maria, my child——'

A tall, decided-looking young woman in her twenties stepped forward.

'This is my daughter, Lady Nisbett,' said Colonel Alston, stressing the title with evident satisfaction. Maria kissed Theo coolly on the cheek, made a civil murmur.

'These are your brothers-in-law, William Algernon and John Ashe'. He presented two beardless young men who resembled Joseph, though their complexions were far lighter. They bowed one after the other, eyeing her admiringly.

'And this is Charlotte, youngest of my children by my poor lamented first wife,' continued the Colonel.

A plump and giggling miss of fifteen bounced up to Theo, delivered a shy smack, and retired to a corner, where she stared openmouthed at her new sister-in-law.

These, then, thought Theo, arc Joseph's full brothers and sisters. But there were still a dozen adults unidentified. Nor did she manage to remember their exact status after she had met them. They were, it seemed, Middletons, McPhersons,
Flaggs, and Hugers, all related in some way to the Alston family.

Her face ached from smiling, and her back could scarcely support her by the time her father-in-law indicated the assorted children with a careless wave of the hand. 'Little John Nisbett, Maria's son, and my children by my present wife—Rebecca, Thomas, Pinckney, Charles, and Jacob Motte.'

Six small faces looked up dutifully. 'How do you do, Sister Theodosia,' they chorused, before rushing thankfully back to a far corner of the piazza where sat an enormous turbaned negress, swaying and crooning to herself. One of the small boys flung himself onto the vast aproned lap. 'She's real pretty, Mauma, ain't she?' he shrilled, 'but she got mighty queer clothes. She got naked bosom.'

The old negress gave him a reproving shake. 'Hush yo' mouf, yo' naughty chile! Plat-eye goin' ter git you, effen yo' talk like dat.'

Theodosia laughed. Her clothes probably did look queer to the child, in that, though rumpled and travel-stained, they were of the latest Parisian cut and very different from those of the Alston ladies. They still wore modest fichus, sashes around the waists of their muslin frocks, and their hair fell in loose curls, product of both art and as much of nature as possible—a fashion of three years ago.

Theo, with her hair piled high, and elaborately embroidered violet velvet traveling gown, cut low in the neck to outline her breasts, drew surreptitious and scandalized glances from the assembled ladies. And her scanty skirt exposed two inches more of ankle than did theirs.

'Ah!' cried Colonel Alston. 'Here comes the lime punch, at last.'

Theo turned with the others to see a procession of servants
filing onto the piazza, a solemn parade headed by a butler bearing an enormous cut-glass bowl, while three pickaninnies followed behind with trays of glasses.

Theo, appalled at the prospect of a lengthy drinking ceremony, rose to her feet, murmuring tentatively, 'Perhaps I'd better go upstairs and repair my costume——' She looked around for Joseph, but he was of no help. He lounged against the railing, discussing the rice crop with his uncle by marriage, Benjamin Huger, who came from the adjoining plantation of Prospect Hill. He would not look at her and her imploring glance was wasted. Her father-in-law ladled out the punch.

She gulped down the sour-sweet liquid and put her glass definitely back on the tray. But the family were not to be hurried. They drank toasts to the bride and groom, to the absent Mrs. Alston, to a great many other people of whom Theo had never heard, as well as to President Jefferson, Governor Drayton, and belatedly, with bows to her, to 'Our illustrious Vice-President, Colonel Burr.'

Oh, Father, she thought, I never would have believed that I should be laggard in drinking a toast to you, but in truth I shall disgrace myself before my new family if I touch any more of that concoction. The punch mingled with her exhaustion to produce giddiness and nausea. She longed for the cool and quiet of a secluded bed somewhere, anywhere.

But when Lady Nisbett arose at last, Theo found that her ordeal was not yet ended. Mrs. Alston awaited her; she must of course pay her respects to her new mother-in-law at once.

'Are you fatigued?' asked Maria Nisbett, noting Theo's lagging walk. Her cool voice was clipped and affected in imitation of the English accents in her husband's family.
And where the rest of the Alstons showed a typical Southern languor, laziness bred half by climate and half by the superabundance of service which they commanded, Maria stood out sharp, decisive, and self-important. She always knew what she wanted and managed to get it.

'A little fatigued,' replied Theo, clinging to the stair, rail. 'It has been rather a long journey, you know.'

'To be sure,' replied Maria. 'I think you very brave to have withstood it so well'. She smiled a quick, tight-lipped grimace which was meant to be ingratiating and patted Theo's shoulder, which she topped by a good five inches. 'And how did you leave the dear Vice-President? Sir John—my husband, you know—has every intention of waiting on him in Washington. Though Sir John has not been home to England in some time, he is conversant with British affairs. Perhaps he may be of use to your father.'

Or
vice versa,
you mean, thought Theo cynically. She was not drawn to her sister-in-law, who struck her as both spinsterish and pretentious.

'I hope Mrs. Alston is not seriously ill,' she offered.

Maria flushed. 'Oh, no—just a slight indisposition. Here is her chamber'. She knocked and they entered in response^to a murmur.

The cause of the 'slight indisposition' was immediately apparent even to Theo's inexperienced eyes. She gave a little shocked cry, as she saw the clumsy figure on the bed. Her husband's stepmother was a faded blonde, with weak, watery blue eyes and an obvious desire to be both welcoming and kindly, but her forehead was beaded with sweat, the hand she held out to Theodosia shook, and even as Theo clasped it, the woman's face contorted and she gave an involuntary moan of pain.

Theo turned sharply to her sister-in-law. 'But Mrs. Alston
is——' she stammered. 'Isn't she—I mean, isn't anyone helping her? She's suffering.'

Maria drew herself up. 'Maum Chloe is taking care of her'. She indicated an old negress who sat back in the shadows muttering to herself.

The crone raised her head and shuffled forward, thrusting her wizened face up into Theo's. 'Maum Chloe brung heap o' babies, buckra, nigger, all come dis same way. Mistiss she doin' fine. Knife under she bed cut pains.'

Bewildered, Theo followed the gnarled pointing finger. The high four-posted bed on which lay Mrs. Alston cleared the floor by two feet, and in the exact center beneath it lay a long sharp butcher's knife.

Theo turned indignantly on Maria, who stood silent and apparently bored beside the window. 'But that's barbarous,' she cried. 'Surely you will get a doctor—someone to help Mrs. Alston besides this superstitious old hag.'

Maria frowned. 'Maum Chloe is very skilled,' she said coldly. 'And I cannot think what you mean by a doctor. No modest woman would endure the presence of a man at such a time. You must have very strange notions of propriety up North.'

Theo swallowed an indignant answer remembering Joseph's warning, but she thought, When—and if—I have a baby, I shall have all the doctors that can be got and the Alstons may whistle for their propriety.

'Don't look so worried, child,' said a weak voice from the bed. 'I'm sorry that my—my situation is as it is right now. It is quite unexpectedly early. I would not have chosen to greet you like this'. She smiled apologetically.

Theo started to reply, but the old negress interrupted. 'You'm early, Mistiss,'case you'm got two of dem in dere and dey's rarin' to git out. De loggerhead he call twice from
de swamp las' night. Dat mean twins. Bimeby buckra see Maum Chloe say true. She know better den highfalutin po' white trash doctor.'

She darted a resentful look at Theo from her rheumy old eyes and hobbled over to her mistress. Mrs. Alston was tossing monotonously from side to side, no longer conscious of her visitors.

Theo, embarrassed and tom by pity, tried to signal to Maria. If they could do nothing, surely they should leave. But her sister-in-law had moved to the far corner of the shadowy room and was engaged in snuffing a guttering candle, meticulously collecting any small wax drippings which might make an untidy appearance.