by Lynn Austin
I wanted to ask why Jonathan’s father never visited us, but I didn’t dare. “Daddy talks about Hilltop sometimes,” I said. “He told me it’s the plantation where he grew up. That’s all I know, though.”
“Want me to tell you about it?”
“Yes, please.”
He laughed, and when I asked him what was so funny, he shook his head. “You won’t need your fancy city manners at Hilltop. . . . Anyway, my father is William P. Fletcher II, the older brother. He and Grandfather manage the plantation together. I mean, they did until . . .”He leaned his head back against the seat, struggling for control.
“You’re very fond of your grandfather, aren’t you?”
“He’s your grandfather, too, you know,” Jonathan said hoarsely.
I nodded, waiting until he could continue.
“Your father is the younger brother,” he finally said. “He runs the business side of things in Richmond—operating the warehouses, selling the wheat or tobacco or whatever else we grow. Our fathers are supposed to be partners, but you’d never know it. They barely speak to each other. I don’t know what that’s all about exactly, but I have an idea.”
“Tell me.”
“Your father started buying and selling for other plantations besides Hilltop. He started importing coffee from South America and stuff from Europe and began making a lot of money. But I heard Grandfather say that his money is tainted. He won’t touch any of it.”
My stomach lurched at the thought of my daddy doing something wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t be discussing such things with Jonathan.
“Anyway,” he continued with a shrug, “none of that matters now. Grandfather is ill, so the family will all come together. Our fathers also have two sisters. Aunt Abigail is married and lives in Hanover County. Have you ever met her?”
I shook my head.
“You will. My brother was sent to fetch her. The youngest sister is Aunt Catherine, who married a planter from Savannah and lives down in Georgia. I sent her a telegram yesterday from Richmond, before I came to your house.”
It felt strange to learn about all of these relatives for the first time. I repeated their names to myself so I wouldn’t forget them— Uncle William, Aunt Abigail, Aunt Catherine.
“You have two more cousins at Hilltop besides me. My brother Will is the oldest; he’s seventeen.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen. We had a sister who died when she was just a baby, and another sister, Ruth, who died when she was eight. She would have been twelve by now if she’d lived. Then there’s Thomas, the baby. He’s six.”
Jonathan began explaining to me how they used to grow tobacco at Hilltop but had switched to wheat because tobacco “used up” the soil. I was only half listening. Instead, I gazed at Josiah’s broad back as we rode, remembering how I’d seen him kissing Tessie in the moonlight. Could Josiah be Grady’s father? Eli said Josiah was born in Richmond, in our house, but I had no memory of him at all.
“When did Josiah come to live at Hilltop?” I asked when Jonathan paused for a moment. I hoped that the squeak and rattle of the carriage, the plod of horse hooves, would prevent Josiah and Tessie from hearing my question.
“There’s a story behind his coming,” Jonathan said. “Want to hear it?”
“Yes, please.”
“When I was five I took a bad fall off my horse. Broke my collarbone, my arm, and my leg. The doctor fixed me up with splints and said I couldn’t walk on my leg for at least a month. I got pretty bored lying around my room all day. When my father came to Richmond on business, Uncle George offered to send Josiah back home to carry me around. He said he was about to sell him at the slave auction so we may as well have him at Hilltop. Father wouldn’t accept a gift from Uncle George, so he bought Josiah for me. Jo was plenty strong enough. Smart, too. He not only hauled me all around, he played dominoes and card games with me to keep me occupied until my leg healed.”
“How old was he?”
“I don’t know . . . late teens, I guess. Nobody keeps track of his Negroes’ ages—and slaves don’t know how to count. Anyway, I haven’t needed to be carried around for ten years now, but Josiah and I are best friends. Couple of years ago, he started working as an apprentice to Hilltop’s blacksmith, but I still send for Jo whenever I need someone to go hunting or fishing with, or just to ride around the countryside. I’ll be going away to college in a few years and I want Jo to come with me as my manservant—although my father keeps threatening to make a field hand out of him because he’s so big and strong. Says it’s a waste of good manpower to use Josiah as a manservant, much less have him gallivanting around the countryside with me all day.” He laughed, as if Josiah’s future was of very little importance.
“May I ask him a question?” I asked.
“Sure, go ahead. Hey, Jo,” he said, leaning forward, “Miss Caroline has a question for you.” Josiah glanced briefly over his shoulder, then nodded curtly.
I hesitated, unsure how to begin. When I finally found my voice, my sentences all came out like questions. “Um . . . when you left Richmond? And moved to Hilltop? Did you, um . . . did you miss Esther and Eli a lot?”
Josiah continued to stare silently ahead. I couldn’t tell if he’d even heard me. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Don’t recall. Long time ago.”
We crossed the sluggish Chickahominy River, and after a hot, dusty, three-hour ride over some of the bumpiest roads I’d ever traveled, Jonathan pointed to a weathered line of split-rail fences. “Those mark the edge of our plantation,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
I saw slaves working in several of the fields we passed, their black bodies glistening with sweat in the heat as they bent to toil among the green plants. Pine trees lined the narrow road on both sides as we approached the house, forming a fragrant tunnel around us.
I fell in love with Hilltop at first sight. The white, two-story house sat atop a small rise, shaded by oak and chestnut trees and surrounded by fenced fields. The front facade had a peaceful ele- gance to it, with neat black shutters and four simple pillars supporting the portico. Josiah drove the carriage around to the rear of the house—to a smaller, plainer entry—and a yard that was alive with activity. A flock of chickens, geese, and other fowl scattered at our approach, along with a flock of small Negro children whose job it was to tend them. Nearby, their mothers scrubbed laundry in wooden tubs, draping the clean tablecloths and bed linens over bushes and fence rails to dry. Older children bustled back and forth hauling water and firewood.
As we drew to a halt, Jonathan’s mother emerged from the house to scold him for driving the carriage into the yard and kicking up a cloud of dust. But she stopped mid-sentence when she saw me.
“Mama, this is Uncle George’s daughter, Caroline,” Jonathan said as he helped me from the carriage. “She’s decided to pay us a visit along with her daddy—he’s coming a little later.”
“Welcome, Caroline. It’s so nice to finally meet you.” My aunt Anne’s greeting was as warm as the summer day, but beneath the smile she looked very tired and careworn. She wore an apron and a plain, blue-checked work dress without hoops. Her graying, flyaway hair was gathered into an untidy bun on the back of her head. “You’ve caught me at a very busy time,” she began, but Jonathan interrupted her apology.
“Don’t you worry, Mama. You just go on back to whatever you were doing. I’ll be glad to show Caroline around and keep her occupied till dinnertime. Her mammy can see to all of Caroline’s things.”
Inside, the plantation house was smaller and plainer than our enormous brick house in town. Jonathan explained that the original house, built by our great-grandfather, had only two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. Our grandfather had enlarged the house with a two-story addition on the west side. My Richmond house had five spacious bedrooms—my mother’s two-room suite, my father’s adjoining bedroom, my room, and the empty nursery. Hilltop had only three modest-sized bedrooms upstairs, one for my aunt and
uncle, one for the boys, and one that had belonged to the girls before they died. This latter room was where I was to sleep. After I’d freshened up a bit from the trip, I left Tessie to unpack my things while I went exploring with my cousin.
Downstairs, the double front and rear doors were left open all day to allow the breezes to blow through. The house had no library or drawing room like ours did, only the parlor to the left of the stair hall and the dining room to the right, where three slaves were busy setting the table for dinner. The parlor furniture was sheathed in cotton summer covers, like our furniture back home, but beneath the slipcovers I could see that their furniture was older and shabbier than ours. The door to my grandparents’ room was closed, so Jonathan said I would have to wait until later to meet them.
Instead, he took me on a tour of the outbuildings, such as the kitchen, the dairy, and the smokehouse, all bustling with activity. More dark faces appraised me when we ducked inside a small work shed that housed a spinning wheel, a loom, and Hilltop’s two seamstresses. The kitchen, a short distance from the house, was similar to ours, with a loft upstairs where the house servants lived. It looked much too small to accommodate the dozen or so servants I’d already seen working in the house and yard.
“They don’t all live here,” Jonathan said. “Most of them live down on Slave Row.”
“Where’s that?”
“You can’t see it from the house. I’ll show you when we go down by the barn.”
“Which of these servants are Tessie’s parents?” I asked.
Jonathan gave me an odd look, as if I’d asked a very strange question. “I don’t know. Who cares which Negroes are related to each other?”
I wanted to say that I did—that Tessie and Eli and Esther were like family to me—but I didn’t. I could tell that Jonathan already thought I was very strange. And I wanted very much for him to like me.
Beyond the shady yard, pear and apple trees hung heavy with ripening fruit. Three young Negro girls about the same age as me were listlessly hoeing weeds in the fenced vegetable garden we passed.
“Hey there!” Jonathan called gruffly from the gate. “Those weeds are growing faster than y’all are chopping them.” The girls worked a little faster as we watched for a moment. “If we don’t keep an eye on these people constantly,” Jonathan said, “they don’t do a lick of work.”
He led the way up the road to the weathered wooden barn and blacksmith’s forge. The tall, windowless building alongside it was the tobacco shed; the crudely chinked log building, the corncrib. Cattle, sheep, and draft horses grazed in pastures behind more rail fences. Jonathan pointed to the cultivated fields in the distance, then to the dense green woods beyond. “We farm about six hundred acres in all,” he said proudly. “And all of that forest land is ours, too.”
I loved it—all of it. In spite of the busyness of farm life, there was a deep stillness here on the plantation that I’d never experienced in the city. The brush of wind in the treetops replaced the hectic rush of city traffic. Instead of smoking factories and warehouses crowded one upon the other, there were open spaces, green vistas, cloudless skies. I wished I could stay here forever.
Then Jonathan showed me Slave Row. Two rows of tumbledown shacks no sturdier than the corncrib faced each other across a littered dirt path. Jonathan said they were home to more than fifty of Hilltop’s field slaves. I never would have believed that such ramshackle cabins were inhabited if I hadn’t seen a handful of small children toddling in the dirt out in front and some ragged patches of vegetables growing in gardens in the rear.
“Oh, what a terrible place,” I whispered.
Jonathan draped his arm around my shoulder and steered me away. “Come on. It must be nearly dinnertime. And I’ll bet this carriage coming up the road is your father’s.”
They ate the big meal of the day at noon on the plantation and usually followed it with a short afternoon rest. But before Tessie and I went to our room to lie down that first day, my father took me into the downstairs bedroom to meet my grandparents.
“Grandmother is deaf as a fence post,” Jonathan whispered in my ear as he followed us inside. “She has been for years, but she won’t admit it.”
Grandfather lay in bed with his eyes closed, gray-faced, unmoving. I’d never seen a corpse before, but he looked just like I’d imagined one would look. I wanted to run out of the room in fright. Jonathan took my hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Grandmother sat in a rocking chair near the bed, sewing. She was gray-haired and crabby-looking. She laid aside the needle and cloth when she saw us and stood. My daddy went to her.
“Hello, Mother.” He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders and bent to kiss her cheek.
“George. You came.” Her voice rasped harshly, her unsmiling expression never changed. At first my grandmother’s greeting seemed cold, but then she reached up to touch Daddy’s face, brushing a stray lock of his hair, and I recognized the love and tenderness in her gesture. Tessie fussed over me the same way.
“Mother, I brought my daughter with me from Richmond. I’d like you to meet her.” He urged me forward. Up close, I saw that my grandmother had a mustache. She looked for all the world like Jonathan or my father dressed up in women’s clothing and a gray wig.
“Who is this?” she asked, frowning.
“My daughter,” he repeated, louder. “Her name is Caroline.”
“What? She’s from Carolina, you say?”
“No, Mother. That’s her name . . . Caroline Ruth. She’s named after you.”
“Afternoon? I know it’s afternoon! I just finished my dinner.” I heard a sputtering sound and glanced over my shoulder. Jonathan was struggling to hold back his laughter—and barely succeeding. If he kept it up, I knew I would catch the giggles, too.
Daddy tried shouting. “No, Ruth . . . she’s named Caroline Ruth—your name.”
“Well, I should think I know my own name!” Grandmother said indignantly.
Daddy pushed me forward into her stiff embrace. I was taller than she was. Her arms and legs were so bony, it was like hugging a pile of kindling wood.
“Did you come by train from Carolina?” she asked me.
“N-no, ma’am,” I stammered. “I came by carriage . . . from Richmond.”
She frowned. “Rich men! They’ll find it very difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven, I can tell you that. Don’t put your faith in riches, young lady.”
“Yes, ma’am . . . I mean, no, ma’am. I won’t.”
As soon as Daddy excused us, Jonathan and I fled the room. We fell into each other’s arms in the hallway, laughing until tears came.
The afternoon was hot and still, as if nature were holding her breath. I was tired from the long trip, so Tessie and I went upstairs to my room for a nap. Aunt Anne sent a little Negro girl named Nellie upstairs to fan me while I rested, but I felt so sorry for the poor child, forced to wave her tired arms in the stifling heat, that I urged her to lie down on the floor beside Tessie. Nellie was sound asleep before we were.
“Have you seen your family yet?” I asked Tessie before drifting off.
“No, Missy,” she whispered. “They all field hands. I have to wait till sunset, when they come in from the fields.”
“May I go with you?”
“Down Slave Row? That’s no place for Little Missy. Why you want to go down there?”
I couldn’t explain why to myself, much less to Tessie. I suppose I remembered all the happy times I’d spent in our kitchen with Tessie and Grady, or out in the carriage house, talking to Eli, and I wanted to replace the image of Slave Row that I’d seen earlier with a happier one. I was certain that Eli would be down there, too, laughing and talking with Josiah.
“Jonathan already showed me Slave Row,” I told Tessie. She didn’t answer. I wondered if she had fallen asleep.
But later that night, while Daddy and the others were visiting in the parlor after supper, Tessie came to me and pulled me aside. “I take you down
there now . . . if you still want to go,” she said.
Tessie’s family was truly happy to see her, but Slave Row wasn’t a place of warmth and laughter like our kitchen back home. An atmosphere of weariness and wariness hung over all the cabins, so that even the small children seemed subdued. I caught a glimpse inside her family’s unlit cabin, enough to see that it had a dirt floor and was nearly bare of furniture.
“You back here to stay, girl?” Tessie’s mama asked as her family stood around their front stoop, visiting.
“No, my massa just come for few days.” She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close, as if sensing my uneasiness. “And my little Missy come long, too.”
“Must mean Old Massa’s dying if young Massa George come back here,” Tessie’s father said.
She nodded. “All the folk up the house think so. He in a real bad way, so I hear.”
“Wonder what become of us when he die? You hearing anything, Tessie?”
“Don’t know about that,” she said. “But my massa, he got plenty money, so his family must have plenty, too. Probably no one have to be sold.”
Tessie’s father puffed on an old corncob pipe. “If you dream of Massa counting money, means someone gonna be sold.”
Slowly, one by one, the other slaves ambled over to the cabin to greet Tessie and join the conversation. I didn’t see Eli, but Josiah stood at a cautious distance, watching and listening. The young man beside him was shirtless, and when he turned around I saw ridges of ugly welts on his back, like a furrowed field. I couldn’t stop staring.
“What happened to him, Tessie?” I whispered.
“Overseer’s whip what happened.” She turned my head away and held me close to her side so I couldn’t see him.
As more and more people gathered near the cabin, I began to sense how uncomfortable they all were around me—and I began to grow uneasy around them. I couldn’t understand why that was, why these servants were so different from our servants at home. For the first time in my life I felt out of place. I felt white. And I didn’t like the feeling at all. I wiggled out of Tessie’s grasp.