Penny lay in bed burning up. Her mother, Ruth, and Jack took turns bathing her with cool cloths.
After a long night with his child, Jack found Ruth sitting blank faced in the kitchen and burst out, “Prime young woman can’t just quit. Frances needs you, Ruth.”
Ruth’s eyes were murky and flat.
“God damn it!” Jack whispered his shout. “Penny needs you!”
Ruth smiled her too-familiar awful smile. “Oh, Colonel Jack. Is so many needs me.”
* * *
Her parents or Ruth were at Penny’s bedside day and night, and if their prayers didn’t cure the child, something did, because come December a pale-faced Miss Penny Ravanel enjoyed a quiet Christmas and a new rocking horse she named Gabby.
Jack returned to town for the races, where Langston Butler’s Valentine defeated the favorite and Butler brought Valentine’s trainer into the clubhouse, where James Petigru toasted him. “Coloreds understand horses better than we because coloreds have animal natures.” Hercules was not a social success. A black man, even the jokey horse trainer, made other Masters uneasy, and Master Butler sent his servant back to the stables.
Jack returned to his plantation for the planting and was underfoot in the house. He told Frances he felt like an “extra teat round here.”
“If you were ‘round here’ more frequently, perhaps you’d be a more necessary appendage.”
Frances joined Jack’s laughter.
He nuzzled his wife’s neck. “Our house has never been so gloomy. Why aren’t we happy. Is it Ruth?”
“It hasn’t been a year since Ruth came to us. She does more than I ask and never complains. Penny adores her. Our daughter reads to Ruth every night.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Our friends hanged her husband and sold her child.”
Jack shrugged. “Vesey would have murdered every white in Charleston. He would have murdered Penny and you.”
“Martine?”
“Madame, that was regrettable but has ever been so.” He offered Frances a glass of sherry which she refused, and she refused her husband as well.
* * *
Heavy spring rains drove the Ashley out of its banks. Levees were breached and trunk gates washed away. Jack worked to exhaustion until he heard of a Virginia stallion who was six seconds faster than Valentine in the mile. He kept on with the repairs for three more days. Plantation work undone when Jack left would remain undone.
Penny wouldn’t let Ruth be. “Ruth, do you see those ducks? Why do they fly in a V?” “Ruth, if Gabby was a real horse, how fast would he be? I know he’s not a real horse, silly!”
As her mother had read to her when she was small, before she said her prayers Penny read to the silent black woman at her bedside.
“Farmer Meanwell, the father of little Margery and of her brother, Tommy, was for many years a rich man. He had a large farm, and good wheat fields, and flocks of sheep, and plenty of money. But his good fortune forsook him, and he became poor. He had to get people to lend him money to pay the rent of his house, and the wages of the servants who worked on his farm.
“Things went on worse and worse with the poor farmer. When the time came at which he should pay back the money lent him, he was not able to do so. He was soon obliged to sell his farm; but this did not bring him money enough, so he found himself in a worse plight than ever.
“He went into another village, and took his wife and two little children with him. But though he was thus safe from Gripe and Grasp-All, the trouble and care he had to bear were too much for the ruined man. He fell ill, and worried himself so much about his wife and children that he grew worse and worse, and died in a few days. His wife could not bear the loss of her husband, whom she loved very much. She fell sick too, and in three days she was dead.
“So Margery and Tommy were left alone in the world, without either father or mother to love them or take care of them. The parents were laid in one grave; and now there seemed to be no one but the Father of orphans, who dwells beyond the sky, to pity and take care of the homeless children.”
Penny snuggled deeper into her bed. “Mammy, how does God let such things happen!”
For a time, Mammy couldn’t speak. “It just a book, honey. Folks put all manner things in books what never happened.”
“But they can happen, can’t they?”
Like someone reciting a half-forgotten poem, Ruth whispered, “You so pretty, child . . . They gots see how pretty you is . . . They gonna love you just like I do.”
After a deep silence, Penny decisively closed her book. “Kiss me, Mammy. Give me good dreams.”
* * *
Although Frances made inquiries, Martine had not been sold into genteel circumstances. Apparently Martine’s purchaser was an Up-country farmer unconnected to Low Country kinship circles.
Frances’s inquiries bore fruit one August noon when songbirds panted and no shade was deep enough. Sweat dripped onto the letter from a third or perhaps fourth cousin on her mother’s side who sent most affectionate regards and hoped to visit should they ever stir from their dullish Up-country homestead to the grand and wicked city she’d heard so much about. Sweat blurred the ink, and Frances set the letter on the rattan table beside her glass of tea. Before Frances could decide—anything—Ruth came onto the porch. “Penny nap for little while.”
Frances met her servant’s eyes unflinchingly. She touched the note.
Ruth’s gaze attached to the folded paper as if it were Christ’s dying promise. “Martine . . . ?”
She had her answer in Frances Ravanel’s face. “Oh, I knowed it, missus. I knowed my Martine dead. No baby livin’ long without she Momma. Babies in terrible rush get back to Heaven. Only they Mommas can keep ’em here.”
When Frances stood to embrace her, Ruth raised a hand. “No, missus,” she said. “Ain’t nothin’ I be needin’. I don’t want for nothin’.”
“Ruth, I’m . . .”
“Yes, missus. I thanks you so much. I reckon we both is.”
The rest of that summer, the broad hospitable porches of the old farmhouse offered airless heat and sorrow.
* * *
One morning so early Frances was still in her robe, a great hallooing proved to be patrollers returning Jack’s runaway jockey, Ham, and expecting a libation with their fifty-dollar reward. An annoyed Frances fetched both. After their second brandy, guffawing and friendly, they offered to chain the runaway. Perhaps they should take him for a little sugar?
“I don’t believe that will be necessary.”
The patrollers rode off into the sun’s hot hard eye. “Why, Ham?” Frances asked. “Haven’t we treated you fairly?”
“I reckon.”
“Then why? Damn it! You will answer me!”
“Master Butler, he sellin’ my Martha south. No tellin’ where she goin’.”
Two months before, Ham had jumped the broomstick with a Broughton Plantation house servant. “Master say Martha ‘sassy’ so she goin’. Do me how you will, missus. Whip me or sell me or arything. My heart broke and I wants to die.”
Frances lost patience. “How dare you think you’re the only one with a broken heart!”
* * *
Jack bought four Tennessee horses and sold them for profit. He didn’t know why he bothered with rice. He wasn’t no damn planter. Yes, he’d cross to the plantation first thing tomorrow. Yes, he’d hire a good overseer. Yes, he knew some of his trunk gates still needed repair. Yes, he’d talk to Langston about Ham’s woman. “I’ll talk to him. It won’t change his mind, but I’ll talk to him.”
“Perhaps you can buy Martha.”
Snort. “Langston will want more than she’s worth. More than she’ll fetch from the slave speculator. We don’t need any more servant problems.”
“True, Jack, but wh
en you do find your great horse, you’ll want a jockey to ride it.”
Jack bought Martha, and Ham promised he’d win his next race, sure. Jack could bet on it.
Ruth was all the time smiling. Her bones jutted her skin, and her breasts shrank and disappeared. She walked as if walking hurt her, but she was all the time smiling. She said the most cheerful things in a voice as dead as dead can be. Mistress and servant inhabited the same house like strangers. They devised patterns so they didn’t encounter each other. One day, Frances lost patience. “Ruth, you must eat. You need your strength. Penny needs your strength.”
With her cheerful, ghastly smile, Ruth said, “Or what, Missus? You sends me for a little sugar? Missus, I gots too many on the other side. I lonesome.”
* * *
Jack was somewhere in North Georgia when Penny’s fever came back. The doctor said, “She has the great advantage of youth” and “Most unusual.” Ham drove Frances to Broughton Plantation, where she found Dolly nursing in the infirmary. Frances was blunt. “Mammy Ruth wants to die.”
“Le Bon Dieu want Mammy Ruth?”
“I suppose . . . I suppose we’d have to ask Him.”
Impatiently, “No, missus. We asks spirits so they asks Le Bon Dieu. They interferes for us.”
Frances thought Dolly meant intercedes, but perhaps not. “Can you . . . ?”
Stoutly, “I good Christian, Missus. I don’t heed no conjurin’.”
“My Penny . . . I . . .” As if someone else, some spirit, spoke in her voice, Frances said, “If Ruth dies, my daughter will die. I know that as fact.”
In the end, Dolly sighed and said she’d do what she could.
Ham drove the woman into town for certain purchases and borrowings and they didn’t return until dark. With a pungent, nose-wrinkling flour sack of mysterious bulges tucked under her arm, Dolly asked Frances, “You wants to help?”
This gap-toothed smiling woman chilled Frances Ravanel’s Protestant soul.
“I needs someone help.”
“Ah . . . why not Ham? One of your . . . your own.”
“Ham.” She dismissed the man. “Ham want love potion. That only thing he want. Make he wife act the fool.”
After Ham’s unfoolish wife, Martha, closed the door behind the two women, Frances, who sometimes drank a glass of sherry at Christmas, filled a tumbler to the brim with the dark sweet whiskey Colonel Jack brought from Kentucky.
The second tumbler shut her ears to the very odd sounds behind that door, which as a Christian she didn’t want to think about, neither the singing nor the chants nor the multiple voices.
She betook herself to Penny’s bedroom and fell asleep in the chair beside her daughter.
The morning sun tinted the river mist pink, and a beam found the window of the old farmhouse. Frances jerked awake to touch her daughter’s cool forehead. Penny’s blue eyes opened wide. “Momma? Water?” Frances poured from the pitcher at her bedside and helped Penny drink.
“I had the strangest dreams . . .” Penny said. “But I can’t ’member . . .”
A tear tracked Frances’s cheek.
She helped her daughter into a clean nightshirt. “Whew.” Penny giggled. “I smell bad!”
Frances opened the shutters to the river breeze. “I’m so grateful,” she said.
Penny made a face. “Why are you grateful for that?”
“We’ll get you washed after a little while.”
Frances took a pot of tea upstairs and knocked on Ruth’s door. She heard a rustle inside. A grunt. Feet hit the floor.
Dolly’s shirtwaist was pulled out and her braids were undone. Her face was soft, as if she’d spent the night making love. Behind her, the room was dark with drawn curtains and shutters. Odd things hung from wall sconces, and Dolly smelled powerfully of pungent, musky spices. Frances couldn’t tell whether one woman or two lay in Ruth’s bed. “It be ’nother morning, don’t it,” Dolly announced. “Missus, you ask Ham drive me home? I too tuckered walk.”
“Ruth?”
“Oh, Ruth she just need say good-bye. We can’t let ’em go, withouts we say good-bye. That tea for me?”
Dolly took the tea and closed the door. Her mother helped Penny onto the porch, where Cook brought Penny’s oatmeal, which she ate as if nothing had ever tasted so good.
They watched the morning for an hour or two, and it didn’t escape them, not a single minute.
Ham hitched up to drive Dolly home.
Ruth came out, rubbing her eyes like she’d had the deepest, happiest sleep. “’Lo, Miss Penny. How you?”
“I feel awfully weak.”
“I weak too. But I cares for you now.”
“Ruth, will you take breakfast?”
Ruth nodded. “Miss Penny?”
“I couldn’t eat another bite!” Penny proudly announced.
But the child sat with them while Ruth ate and barges loaded with unshocked rice were poled up the river to the winnowing mill. Birdsongs punctuated the boatmen’s solemn chants.
“It is all so ordinary,” Frances said.
“There’s ordinary ’n’ ordinary,” Ruth replied, helping herself to another hoecake.
“What . . . ?”
“All my days spirits been askin’ after me, but I runs from ’em. I ain’t no African, I christened at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.”
“I hadn’t known . . .”
“I never like Gullah Jack, but Dolly fetch Jack talk to me. Jack don’t want me up there bossin’ t’other spirits round. I gots stay here for a spell.”
“Then thank God for Jack.”
“Gullah Jack no better spirit than he were a man.” Ruth took a breath. “Reckon I live long as childrens need me. Mammy do what needs done.”
* * *
Higher rice prices swelled the purses of good planters and poorer alike. Jack bought three horses, one on the heels of another, and paid top dollar, but, despite Ham’s best efforts, each horse came in second when it was important to be first.
Jack tried to buy Hercules, who’d trained some of the horses who’d beaten his, and to this end he spent hours listening to old Middleton Butler’s reminiscences of traveling with the South Carolina delegation to the constitutional convention. “I have the honor of being the patriot who kept slavery in the United States Constitution,” Middleton averred. “The Yankees needed South Carolina’s votes. Tom Jefferson, aloof and so very proud of his learning; John Adams and his harridan wife; oh yes, they all deferred to Broughton Plantation’s humble rice planter.” Middleton cackled and coughed until he was red in the face.
Langston invariably saw Jack off. “Uncle’ll never sell Hercules, and neither will I,” he declared.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Jack replied cheerfully.
While Jack flattered Middleton, Ruth and Penny visited the stable yard, where Hercules flirted with Ruth.
Hercules told her, “Ruth, I think we be good with each other.”
She said, “I had me a man. I don’t ever want ’nother.”
It wasn’t so much what she said as how she said it. Hercules drew himself up, whistled, and, though he kept flirting, he didn’t mean it the same.
Frances Ravanel gave birth to a son, an active, colicky child who wailed for his mother’s breast even after he was fed.
“Baby Andrew, you gonna be a terrible man,” Ruth said. “But the womens gonna love you.”
Middleton died without succumbing to Jack’s blandishments. Though his heir sold two hundred slaves to satisfy his uncle’s creditors, Hercules was not among them. Two months afterward, Langston married fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Kershaw, who, as William R. Kershaw’s sole heir, was as rich as she was plain. Elizabeth produced an heir ten months after her nuptials. The Negroes made much of the fact that the first
born son was born with his caul in his fist: a powerful if ambiguous portent.
Things went on as they do for planter families, their excitements and travails dictated by crops, storms, and the vagaries of distant markets.
When Penny was seven, she had another bout with fever, but it came and went after thoroughly frightening her parents.
It was the middle of August, and nobody could remember such a rainy summer. Langston Butler came by, and he and Jack sat on the porch talking for an hour.
“What was all that about?” Frances wondered.
“Our fields down by the river—those fields where Great-grandfather grew indigo—Langston claims ‘Dear Elizabeth wants them.’ Apparently Elizabeth has a mad notion she and Langston would picnic on the riverbank.” Jack snorted. “Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove, that valleys, groves, hills, and fields, woods or steepy mountain yields . . .”
“Thank you, Jack. What does Langston really want?”
“Langston’s ambitions are actually quite limited. He only covets ‘what’s adjacent.’ I’ve already sold more land than I should. I wish you managed our business affairs. You’re more sensible than I.”
“Jack,” Frances said, “you have made me very happy.”
“I never could figure what you saw in a horse-crazed, worn-out soldier like me.”
“Whatever else you may be, Jack, worn-out is not the word I’d choose.”
* * *
In the Low Country to say a man was a poor rider was to say he was a poor sort of a man. Thieves were jailed, horse thieves were hanged. Horses raced at road junctions, livestock markets, political and patriotic celebrations: wherever horses and betting men came together. The largest and grandest races were at Charleston’s Washington Racecourse during Race Week, which attracted fine horses, jockeys, owners, and spectators from the South, the West, and even Yankeedom. New York papers advertised “excursions for ladies and gentlemen” with swift passage on an up-to-date vessel, deluxe accommodations in Charleston, and precious tickets to the Jockey Club grandstand for the important matchups.
Ruth’s Journey Page 18