by Tonya Bolden
And drawing her only comfort. When Miss Hardwick saw a sketch flutter to the floor from a book, on a piece of notepaper—“Not bad,” she said with pursed lips. “You appear to possess some natural talent.”
“As a child I enjoyed drawing in the sand,” Victoria replied limply.
“You must hone this talent.”
Two days later, Miss Hardwick gave Victoria a sketchbook with a black cloth spine and marbled wraps. A basic brown with yellow and green rivering, swirling around it. She also handed her a box of drawing sticks.
That bit of kindness was a lifeline.
During the time allotted for contemplation, after dinner, before she salved her hands and feet, then donned those muslin bags, Victoria sketched.
Trees from her dreams.
The moon.
Landscapes imagined.
Some days she peeked out her bedroom window and sketched from the street scene below. People passing to and fro. The wide woman scouring her steps. Leaves skipping down the street. Canada geese on a southbound journey.
One day she found herself sketching Ma Clara. She ripped out that page, balled it up, tossed it into the trash.
Victoria once thought there could be no greater loneliness than what she had known as a child when not around Ma Clara. Now she knew better.
Dorcas Vashon and Agnes Hardwick lectured her, tested her. But they never spoke to her, really. Never said anything such as, “My, don’t you look lovely.” Never asked how she liked the Regency Soup, Pheasant Sauté, or Snipe en Bellevue.
Whenever Victoria complimented Miss Graves on a dish, the woman looked away from her and Miss Hardwick gave her a stern look. The day Victoria, in a fit of pique, went down into the kitchen and asked Miss Graves if she could use any help, the woman flatly rebuffed her. Later came a scolding from Hardwick.
“You are to be pleasant to the help but never friendly. You must understand that you live in one world and they in another.”
A wider world?
Nagging headaches at the close of days.
Stomach upside down more often than not.
In the middle of the night Victoria sometimes awoke in a sweat, lingerings of nightmares swirling in her head.
A green dragon trying to pluck her eyes out.
A green phoenix grabbing her up by her hair.
Being crushed by a giant copy of The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette as she walked out back at a moderate pace.
This had been the longest, the worst three months of her life. Some days she felt nothing but numb, dead inside. On one of those days, during contemplation time—
Home.
That was all Victoria could think about.
Home. She had been trying to work up the courage to tell Dorcas Vashon that she wanted to go home.
Victoria went over to her bureau and brought out the pouch in which she kept the money she had saved up.
She counted.
Two hundred and fifteen dollars and fifty-three cents.
Victoria practiced her speech: “Miss Dorcas, I am forever grateful to you for all that you have done for me, but I do not think I have what it takes to be a lady. There are simply too many rules and I doubt that I will ever master them all.”
But what if Betty had worked out fine? Miss Abby didn’t need three maids.
Well, then she’d ask Ma Clara to help her get cleaning work.
Every time Victoria screwed up her courage, she ended up backing down.
I think you have found favor with a good soul. You have been blessed, truly blessed.
Victoria had never known Ma Clara to be wrong about anything.
But could she have been wrong about Dorcas Vashon’s offer?
Then came a day when Victoria got everything right—or almost right. Thoughts of returning to Forest City became vapors in the wind. But then in a moment of fatigue or amid a daydream or distraction she slurped her soup, took too large a mouthful of food, or tapped her three-minute egg a tad too hard—
Then came a Hardwick frown or scowl.
Victoria wept bitterly one day. “I’ll never be a phoenix,” she cried, “only the bird that burns.”
A PEG-LEGGED MAN, DRUNKS, AND DUNG
There was a nip in the air, the chill of first frost. Feeling ten kinds of weary, too weary to even cry, Victoria stared blankly up at the white ceiling.
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand.
Thirty-eight more minutes of quiet contemplation.
“I simply cannot do this,” she whispered. In a flash she was up and on her feet.
With the Griffin in the classroom and Dorcas Vashon taking a nap, Victoria saw her chance and took it.
She packed her Clapp’s traveling bag, threw on a cloak, stuffed her pouch of money into a purse, then tiptoed downstairs. She turned the front doorknob slowly, knowing that it squeaked.
And the door creaked.
She froze, listened for footsteps. Hearing none, Victoria hurried out and onto the street.
On she walked in mincing steps as quickly as she could past tiny row houses, saloons, dreary shops, cottages, carters, hawkers, gaudy women wearing too much rouge, a peg-legged man, drunks, and dung.
When she stopped to catch her breath Victoria found herself before a lonesome-looking building. She looked up at its signs.
Port Mission.
Seamen’s Reading Room.
She kept on in the direction that her nose told her would lead to the waterfront.
Victoria soon stopped again, realizing she had fled without a plan.
What if there is no ship sailing for Savannah today?
Then I will buy a ticket for the next one and get a room at a boardinghouse.
I do not even know how much a ticket costs.
How long might the wait be?
If days … Too, she reminded herself that she might not find work straightaway when she returned to Forest City. She would have to be very careful with her money. With that in mind, Victoria decided that if she did have to take a room while waiting for a ship to carry her home she would forgo meals at the boardinghouse. Instead she’d get herself some bread and cheese.
She stopped. Get ahold of yourself! You will figure something out!
Less panicked, Victoria walked on.
A few feet later she stopped again.
You look like you about to some way, somehow do us proud, Essie.
You make the most—the very most—of this here chance Dorcas Vashon is giving you.
“I am letting them all down,” Victoria whispered. She chided herself, too, for being so spineless, for not having the courage to tell Dorcas Vashon that she quit. “I was just a waste of her time and money.” Victoria looked at her cloak and thought about the clothing she had packed. Did that make her a thief?
No, she quickly reasoned. I more than earned these things. Anyway, once she reached Savannah she would write to Dorcas Vashon, explain everything to her, apologize.
Write to where? In fleeing, looking for an address or a street sign was the last thing on her mind.
Perhaps Miss Abby knew the address.
Head hung, Victoria began to weep. Not just about disappointing the folks back home and Dorcas Vashon. She was disappointed in herself. “Maybe a competent house girl is all I am meant to be,” she mumbled.
“Hey, good-looking.” A sly-looking sailor sidled over.
Victoria hurried on. She looked back every few seconds until she saw that sailor turn a corner. Then she slowed her pace.
And mourned.
She would never get another opportunity to rise in life. She would never fulfill her dream of helping people who had it hard.
As Victoria walked on beneath a cloud-bedimmed sky something tugged at her mind. It was akin to a tap on the shoulder. As she wiped her eyes, it came to her.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” she whispered. “That is what Frederick Douglass has said.”
If there is no struggle …
He was speaking
in terms of the race rising.
There is no progress.
But did it not apply to her situation?
Victoria repeated Douglass’s words again.
Again.
Again.
Each time she lifted her head a little higher.
She had taught herself with secondhand books and things from Miss Tansy’s Odds-and-Ends Shop.
She had leapt at the opportunity to get out of that house on Minis Street.
She had read every book in Miss Abby’s parlor.
She did now know the difference between a butter knife and a butter spreader.
She knew all about James Wormley’s rise, about Orindatus Simon Bolívar Wall, and so many others.
She had gotten through Bleak House.
Victoria turned around, saw a frumpy colored woman approaching.
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
The woman eyed her suspiciously. “Do I know you?”
“No, you do not, ma’am, but I am hoping that you can help me.”
“How so?”
“Would you be so good as to tell me the way to Port Mission?”
Victoria was confident that if she could get to the mission she would be able to retrace her steps back to the house with first-floor shutters askew.
PHOENIX RISING
Victoria rose to—even relished—every challenge. When she made a blunder, she was no longer wounded by a Hardwick frown or scowl.
“I will do better next time,” she said resolutely.
Whatever it takes! she constantly told herself. Whatever it takes!
More time walking around her bedroom with a book atop her head.
More time practicing the two-step, the waltz.
More time reading Webster’s— A-bāte′ … A-bўs′mal … Ad′ju-tant … Al′ba-trŏss … As-sĭd′ū-oŭs-ly …9
More time with Mrs. Beeton’s book open to serviettes, mastering fancy napkin folding, from the Bishop and the Fan to the Mitre and the Lily.
More time ticking off all that she knew about the Bruces, the Wormleys, the Syphaxes, the Murrays, Orindatus Simon Bolívar Wall …
Victoria plowed through stacks of old issues of the Advocate and of Godey’s too:
“Visiting dress of purple plush and satin and plush damassé.… House dress of two shades of blue. The underskirt is of silk of the darkest shade, kilted.… Evening dress made of plain pink silk and striped satin. The underskirt is of the plain silk with a pleating around it, and fans of lace and pleated silk heading it.… Dinner dress of gendarme green silk.… Walking dress of two shades of elephant silk and camel’s hair.…”10
And Victoria indeed made The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette her Bible.
“Do not pour coffee or tea from your cup into your saucer, and do not blow either these or soup. Wait until they cool.…”
“Use the butter-knife, salt-spoon, and sugar-tongs as scrupulously when alone, as if a room full of people were watching you.…”
“Wear a little of one bright color, if you will, but not more than one.…”
“A lady who desires to pay strict regard to etiquette, will not stop to gaze in at the shop windows. It looks countrified.”
And there was the dictate that became Victoria’s motto: “Never look back! It is excessively ill-bred.”11
Right! she said to herself. I am a phoenix rising!
I AM THE NIECE OF …
Dorcas Vashon, Miss Hardwick too. Both seemed strange that December morning during a breakfast of coddled eggs, toast, and tea. When Victoria spread a little too much butter on her toast neither woman made a remark. There wasn’t even a cross look.
Victoria glanced at Miss Hardwick a time or two.
No cold stare, frown, or scowl. She did not look at all like a creature to be feared. She looked … soft.
Napkin off her lap and onto the table, Victoria rose. As always she was the first to leave the dining room so that Miss Hardwick could observe her posture, her gait.
Victoria was almost at the archway when Dorcas Vashon stopped her.
“Victoria, my dear.”
Victoria turned around gracefully. “Yes, Miss Dorcas. Is there something that I can do for you?”
“Have a seat in the parlor, won’t you? I will join you shortly.”
Victoria passed the time in the parlor by taking an inventory of the room. She now had the language. The cloth fabric running across the draperies was a “valance.” And this one was scalloped. The settee’s fabric wasn’t simply silk but “silk damask.” The style of the parlor and dining room furniture was “Rococo Revival.”
She had words for other things too.
Forcemeats.
Overmantel painting.
Roundabout conversation chair.
Marquetry.
The furniture legs she had likened to those of a ballerina on her toes were “cabriole legs.” She had smiled when Miss Hardwick told her that the word was the French word for “caper” and also the name of a particular ballet leap. Victoria also now knew that “faille” was a type of ribbed silk fabric.
Dorcas Vashon had something behind her back when she entered the parlor.
“Eyes closed, my dear, hands out.” There was a downright playfulness in her voice.
What Dorcas Vashon placed into Victoria’s hands was small but had some weight.
Victoria opened her eyes to the most charming white onyx box. Engraved on the silver clasp—
A startled Victoria looked up at Dorcas Vashon. “I do not understand. You—you are giving me—” Victoria broke off, fighting back tears.
“Yes, my dear,” replied Dorcas Vashon, honey in her voice.
Carefully Victoria opened the box, set it down on the table, took out one card. Against an off-white background in rich black ink—
Miss Victoria Vashon
She ran a finger over the raised lettering. “I don’t know what to say. I am so very, very honored that you would …”
“And there is this, my dear.” Dorcas Vashon handed her ward a black velvet pouch.
“How absolutely gorgeous!” Victoria gasped as she brought out a filigreed sterling silver calling card case.
That night, as Victoria sat at her dressing table preparing herself for bed, she stared at herself in the mirror. Again and again she whispered her new name. She felt stronger, felt victorious, felt …
“Victoria Vashon … Victoria Vashon … Victoria Vashon.”
“Victoria Vashon is the niece of Dorcas Vashon of Charleston, South Carolina,” began Miss Hardwick the next day. “Victoria Vashon is the daughter of Dorcas Vashon’s late brother, Jeremiah.”
Dorcas Vashon nodded as she stood in the schoolroom doorway. “I did have a younger brother and his name was Jeremiah.” This was the one and only time Dorcas Vashon ever observed a lesson.
Miss Hardwick proceeded with more background: “It began with a woman named Dido Badaraka, a Moor, kidnapped in Morocco and soon bound for an auction block in Charleston. Dido was freed at about age twenty.” Miss Hardwick lowered her head, shifted her feet. “After freedom Dido had three children with Baron Judah, a member of a prominent German-Jewish family. Their daughter Harriet made a life with a white man from England, Percy Vashon. He made a fortune as a cotton merchant, though, thankfully, he was not a slaveholder. Had the laws of South Carolina permitted, they would have married. Percy outlived Harriet, and when he died, his fortune went to their son Jeremiah and their daughter Dorcas.”
“All true,” said Dorcas Vashon. “As a young man my brother moved to New Orleans.”
“And Jeremiah’s wife?” asked Victoria. “Did he have other children?”
“Scarlet fever took his wife when it took him,” said Dorcas Vashon. “And the story shall be this: You were their only child. You were spared their fate because as it so happened you had been sent to spend time with me in Charleston. Jeremiah’s inheritance fell to me.”
Victoria soaked it all in, feeling a fascination for Dido the Moor. Othello cam
e to mind. She imagined Dorcas Vashon’s grandmother a regal woman, the color of Ma Clara. Pictured her in a soft gold turban, a flowing robe of many colors.
“Let’s repeat,” said Miss Hardwick. “I will go slowly so that you can write it all down.”
With breathless delight Victoria dipped her pen into the inkwell.
Miss Hardwick repeated the genealogy and all else she had said, then added this: “Due to several mysterious childhood illnesses in which you lingered in lethargy for long periods of time your education is a bit lacking. This is to explain why you speak no foreign language and play no musical instrument.”
From a bag Victoria had never seen before Miss Hardwick brought out a stack of books. All about Charleston.
I am the niece of Dorcas Vashon … Dido Badaraka … Judah … from England … cotton merchant … lingering illness … no foreign language … no musical instrument … I am the niece of …
That was the day’s only lesson.
“We leave in three weeks,” Dorcas Vashon announced later that day, her face beaming. “And, by the way, Miss Hardwick will not be joining us.”
“She will remain here?”
Dorcas Vashon shook her head. “She has another pupil to attend to. A young woman one of my lieutenants has taken from Macon to Philadelphia.”
“Do you not have to be wherever Miss Hardwick is tutoring someone?”
“No, my dear, not always. She is perfectly capable of training young ladies without me. I am usually only in the picture when I come upon someone truly exceptional.”
Victoria was speechless.
This was over a dinner of succotash and roasted potatoes, and for Victoria and Miss Hardwick, rack of lamb.
Lavish praise was served up too. Dorcas Vashon and Agnes Hardwick gushed over Victoria.
How far she had come.
How hard she had worked.
How quickly she learned—and learned from her mistakes.
“I am extremely proud of you,” said Dorcas Vashon, with a glistening in her eyes.
For the first time ever Miss Hardwick’s face bore a broad smile.
“We know that we have been quite severe,” said Dorcas Vashon.