Afternoons with Emily

by Rose MacMurray

  “Until you are able to marry, you and Roger can’t have a house or a social life together,” she foresaw. “But you will have your love, and your important work, and your prospect of a shared lifetime. That’s more than most lovers ever achieve.”

  And then, as I had always hoped she would, she told me why she and Dr. Hugh came to Barbados more than thirty years ago.

  “Our father was a judge in Charleston,” she began. “A well-to-do and decent man.”

  I settled down comfortably and gave her my full attention.

  “Although we lived in town like most of the oldest families,” she continued, “we had a beach house on one of the sea islands, a wonderful rambling cottage on Edisto. I spent fifteen summers there, swimming and crabbing and fishing, and, with all the other children, soaked in seawater the whole day long.

  “During those years, my favorite companion was Louis Butler Peyton, who lived next door. I had other friends, of course, but Louis was three years older, and he was wonderful. He taught me about hooks and nets and boys’ things — he taught me to surf, Miranda! We island children were inseparable, all those summers. We had a contentment, a belonging together. But it was Louis I idolized, and when he went north to college and I grew up — or seemed to — we became closer in a different way.” She gave a rueful smile. “I recall even now how the young people courted, how our set dined and danced, and how in the summer we went back and forth between the various cottages across the islands — bearing in mind that those cottages were actually quite splendid. We’d be ferried home in the moonlight . . .” Now Miss Adelaide’s voice turned almost wistful, and her features were soft.

  “One night, at Louis’s little sister’s ball, I was wearing my ivory tulle and a camellia wreath. My complexion used to get very flushed from the waltzing . . . and I could feel Louis watching me; in fact, his eyes never left me. The very next morning he came to call. He told me that he loved me and that he had never loved anyone else. The little tanned tomboy I used to be, and the girl I had become, were his destiny, he said.”

  I was delighted with this accounting and drew up my knees in my chair, watching the moonlight play on Miss Adelaide’s silver hair.

  “So.” She was still smiling. “In the spring of 1830, when I turned eighteen, I became Louis’s wife. I left my family’s home in Charleston and went to live on his father’s great plantation out in the river country.”

  So there it was. There had been a Mr. Darcy, I thought, this simple fact confirming my childhood speculations. But Miss Adelaide . . . married? My eyes pleaded with hers to continue.

  “Oh, Miranda.” Miss Adelaide’s eyes glowed as she spoke. “Our first months of married life, on the plantation, were wonderful. We were so much in love, we were so very happy. I spent my days in a nirvana, happy to be a wife, content to fill my hours with little pastimes, waiting for the evenings, when we could be alone.”

  I thought now of my own recent nights with Roger, and I nodded. Go on, go on, I was thinking. And she did.

  “Like other young ladies of quality, I was raised to write in a fine hand, to sing and play the piano, to read with intelligence and discernment. But most naturally, to be a mother. When the babies didn’t come right away, I felt I must somehow make up for this lack by being an especially diligent planter’s wife, especially since Louis was working long hours, so anxious, as his father’s only son, to please that gentleman. Louis wanted to prove that he had the ability to manage the family’s holdings, which would someday be entirely in his charge, and I was so proud of his efforts. You must understand that my only wish at that time was to please Louis and his family.

  “So I undertook to be instructed by Louis’s mother, to learn plantation life and my duties in that society. At first I took to it; after all the costume balls and the silly diversions of my youth, I had grown restless and weary of that frivolous existence. But when I started to pay real attention to the household, I quickly discovered that Louis’s mother was a rather idle lady, given to collecting silver, fine furniture, and clothes, and that her supervision of the household was quite nominal. There was not a great deal for me to learn, as she had trained her servants with an iron hand so they would be capable of running everything for her. So I began to look farther afield.”

  Now Miss Adelaide’s tone saddened. “I began to see things I hadn’t noticed before — and raised in town, as I had been, I had never really witnessed the slavery of plantations firsthand until I came to Sycamore Hill. Town versus country — the institutions were really markedly distinct. The plantation was like a small city, where the Peytons were committed to the large-scale production of long-staple cotton, requiring human capital of more than one thousand oppressed men and women. Very different, indeed, from the comfortable, well-treated housepeople I knew in Charleston, so close to their families that they were family. I heard after the war that many of those people chose to stay with their families, as free people. They were then paid, of course.”

  But now Miss Adelaide’s face tightened, and I saw that her hands were moving in her lap. She drew in her breath.

  “Well, Miranda, I was now a part of this plantation, so I took it upon myself, with Louis’s approval — and, I suspect, his guilt — to direct my energy and sensibility to curating where I could our slaves’ physical and spiritual health: sitting up with the critically ill, sponsoring ‘marriages’ between our men and women, making sure the meager provisions we provided them were fairly distributed. And after a time, I could not help but grasp the full extravagance of our crimes against these good people.

  “I learned that my own maid and at least three other housemaids were daughters of Louis’s father, Reese Peyton, and this information was related to me by my maid as a matter of pride. I was shocked, but it woke me to slowly noticing other things. Since we ladies — Louis’s mother and sister and I — were not encouraged to venture near the farm areas — the barns, sheds, or fields — it was some time before I even met Charles Haile, the overseer, and far longer before I perceived his true character. That was on a day when he came to the ‘office,’ where I had gone by chance with a message for Louis from his father. I heard Haile tell Louis that he’d just finished flogging three men for feigning illness, and one was unconscious. There was satisfaction in his voice, but worse, I heard no protest from Louis. Later, when I confronted my husband, he told me in a tone I had not heard before that I must not involve myself in ‘the affairs of the men,’ that his father would not like it. He did have the grace to look away from me as he said this, embracing me and asking me not to worry.

  “But I could not help worrying. Since Reese and his wife were frequently absent, looking after Reese’s other properties and interests, Louis and the overseer were left in charge, and Mr. Haile was considerably more destitute of principle than the slaves. I cannot say whether or not in Reese’s absence production suffered, but the slaves, in their mute misery, surely did. A wily and cruel man, Mr. Haile maintained order and discipline among that group with his long lash while invoking the creed that the lucky Peyton slaves were seldom sold away and that family situations were never broken up . . . for now.

  “One of the slaves, Renty — who was the young daughter of Frank, the Peytons’ chief driver, and his ‘wife,’ Betty, a clean and dignified woman who worked in the kitchen of the plantation house — had been given to me as a personal helper and maid. Her skin was markedly light and her features too Caucasian to be an accident, particularly with parents as dark as Betty and Frank. When I asked Louis about this one night, he simply shrugged and turned away. But all the Peyton slaves knew there was more to it — as I told you earlier, Renty eventually explained that Reese was her true father — and so did Louis.

  “Renty and I were practically the same age, and I decided to have her help me put in my gardens. During this landscape work, we talked, and I came to respect and admire her, especially when she ever so quietly begged me to teach her to read. I found that I could not say no, even though I knew it
was illegal for slaves to read and write. She learned quickly, and as a consequence of my secret interactions with Renty, Betty and I too became good friends. She would come to me freely, without fear of reprisal and reprimand, and let me know what was really happening down in the quarters. In turn I would go to Louis to ask him for the medicines and blankets and modest comforts that might ameliorate the conditions or harsh authority those people lived under — to arrange for more rest or to intervene against Charles Haile’s capricious bursts of aggression. I did this over and over and over again.

  “Eventually, though, under his father’s influence, if not Charles Haile’s, Louis wearied of my supplications. He addressed me quite vigorously and in a tone I’d heard him take only with the servants. He ordered me to bring him no more complaints and to harden my heart to any human considerations I felt toward the family ‘property.’ My intercourse with them had been noticed, he said, and was thought dangerously suggestive.

  “That night I did not close my eyes. As I watched Louis sleep, I wondered why it was that I had more moments of joy and satisfaction with Betty and Renty and Frank and their like than I did with my own husband’s family. Perhaps it was because Louis and I had no children and seemed to have less and less to share, but I found more and more excuses to call Renty to my rooms. Our deepening affection accelerated, as did the reading lessons, the illegality of my actions be damned. ‘Unrighteous laws were made to be broken,’ I told her. That was when Renty made the ultimate gesture of trust. She drew me into her confidence, telling me what even Frank and Betty did not know: she was pledged to a young man on the plantation who was called Thom, and they intended to run off and make their way to freedom in the North.

  “For days after, I shivered every time I thought of the risk — but when I met Thom, strong and magnificent and forceful about his intention to die first rather than face manhood as a slave, I was impressed. The reading lessons were, I learned, part of the couple’s design to prepare themselves to one day earn their wages, just as the eggs and vegetables Thom bartered for extra clothing and heavy shoes were intended to help them survive the rigors of the flight ahead — one that neither had illusions would be easy.

  “Hearing this, and weighing their faith against my loyalty to a system I had come to regard as detestable and monstrous, I offered to help. I went to my jewel box and removed sapphire ear clips and a matching diamond ring and bracelet set, wedding gifts from the Peytons and heirlooms I was someday expected to pass along to the wife of the son I was beginning to feel I would never bear Louis. It seemed entirely right to appropriate these objects, purchased by slavery’s filthy lucre, for freedom’s purpose. I was merely returning them to their source. Full circle. ‘Sew the stones into the hems of your clothing,’ I instructed, ‘and use them to begin your new life. The system is corrupt, and so are the men who will hunt you down. If you need to, use the settings to negotiate for your lives.’ ”

  I was riveted. I barely dared to breathe, so engrossed was I in this tale.

  “On nights when the moonlight was cold and ghostly,” Miss Adelaide said, “the only sounds perforating the long silence would be the occasional calls of whip-poor-wills and screech owls. That’s how it was the night they returned with Renty. The Negro hunters used bloodhounds to track the fugitive pair through the swamps and forests, catching up with them less than three days after they’d set off. In the darkness and the unfamiliar brush, the two became separated. Or perhaps Renty gave herself up so that Thom could continue on. I never knew, because when they brought her back, they ripped the clothing off her body and lashed her until she passed out. And then they took hot irons to the girl’s feet, searing her toes together so that she could never run . . . anywhere . . . ever again.”

  With this, Miss Adelaide’s gray eyes closed. I reached for her hand, and as I did I noticed that the silver knot at the nape of her neck had unfastened. She was shaking, much as she must have done almost forty years and a lifetime ago.

  “Renty never regained consciousness, and within days, Frank and Betty were sold away — separately — to remind the others that God’s grace began and ended at Sycamore Hill. I think Frank was sent somewhere along the Mississippi Delta and Betty to a rice plantation farther down south. I tried to find out later exactly where, but my inquiries yielded no information.

  “The little stones Renty carried were easily traced back to me. At first Louis’s father believed they’d been stolen, but as I watched him calmly put those blistering irons to the feet of the girl he knew was his own daughter — branding her as one would an animal — my fury gave me away, and he realized what I had done. You see, more than breaking the law by helping Renty and Thom escape, I had committed the ultimate crime against my husband’s family. I had given their heirlooms to a slave — and had therefore made an inexcusable statement: that I valued her, mere chattel, over the family’s proud name. This was the unforgivable sin, and so they asked me to leave.

  “My parents had died by this time; Hugh was the head of the James family now. He was one of the pillars that held up Charleston society, but there was little he could say after Reese sent for him and Hugh listened to Reese’s attack and his threats.

  “ ‘Don’t even think of returning your sister to Charleston,’ Reese said, ‘or anyplace else where the Peyton name is known. I can have her arrested and jailed in a heartbeat, and don’t think I won’t do it.’

  “So you see, we had to leave, there was no choice . . . I didn’t care where we went, really, though I knew that following my married sister, Amelia Moore, to Richmond could ruin her as well, so that was not a possibility. Renty’s death, Frank and Betty’s shattered lives — I bore a large measure of blame. I was worn out and consumed with guilt, and I could only hope that Thom had made it and that my service in this regard had been of some use.

  “Hugh gave up his medical practice, and everything else, and brought me to Barbados. His consumption, while real, was never our only reason for resettling. And, of course, we’ve never been back.”

  “And Louis Peyton?” I asked in a whisper, needing to know the final outcome for the entire cast of characters.

  “I believe, I know, he spoke strongly to his father. But I had made an impossible situation for him and for our marriage. I could no longer live there. And he could not — I would not have wanted him to — leave. What would we have done? Where would we have gone? We would have been outcasts, pariahs in a society that could never accept us again. And I had hurt Louis beyond repair, giving away his gifts to a slave. No, I destroyed our marriage — and I deserved what I got.”

  I reached to take her delicate patrician’s hand. “You made a better life in the end,” I said, thinking of all the island people she had helped through the years at Dr. Hugh’s clinic and by her simple humane acts of concern.

  There was a long silence, peaceful, contemplative. After a time she spoke again.

  “My Moore relatives learned that during the war, Sycamore Hill was heavily damaged and pillaged, the mills and gins and all the cotton burned and its human capital scattered to the wind. Perhaps this was Renty’s revenge.”

  I stood, then sat beside her, putting my arms around her frail shoulders. We stayed like that for a long while, never speaking, the soft night breeze occasionally lifting a tendril of hair, bringing the sound of a barking dog, a scent of jasmine. I was spellbound — a story from the past, so vivid in the present. And yet, I sensed it was as if a load had finally lifted from Miss Adelaide’s shoulders. Again, I took her hand in mine.

  “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” I said, gazing directly into her eyes. “All you did was try to help in terrible times.”

  She said nothing, but I could see that at last she was relaxing. The terrible ordeal, the long-held-in story, now had gone, borne away on the softly scented night wind.

  She nodded. “I never saw Louis again,” she said finally. “I know he never remarried. I heard he rode with Beauregard for two years. Imagine, in his fifties! He was kil
led at Petersburg. So you see” — she turned to me with a smile — “I couldn’t bear to see true love wasted — again. It is a rare thing. Precious. I only hope my efforts work better this time, for you and for Roger.”

  “They have, and they will,” I promised her.

  We rose and, arms around each other’s waists, walked down the stairs toward our separate, contented dreams. I knew my time in Barbados was vanishing, as the frilled ripples of Learner’s Cove sank into the creamy sand. But I was strong and energetic and hopeful; I could not even remember the lethargy that I had felt when I came here. I looked forward to Amherst, where Elena and I would have another spring — and to my work and my love, waiting. When it came time for us to leave this astonishing island, my heart would be full — full of the love and contentment and beauty I had found here and would continue to have as I returned to Amherst.

  On the dock at Bridgetown, Elena worried till her shells and my panels were carried aboard, and Lettie kissed us both. Miss Adelaide and I embraced; we needed no words for our parting. I had already told her that I would write every week. Then Elena and I walked onto the ship and stood at the rail till Barbados was a faint violet shadow on the horizon. Two dolphins frolicked in our bow wave for a while; then they slipped back to rejoin their friends.

  Book XII

  AMHERST AND NEW YORK

  1867

  I had left Amherst in deep winter, the biting winds stinging my cheeks, my accumulated cares layering frost around my heart. I returned to late spring; Amherst and I had thawed together. Once again Barbados had healed me and ushered me into the next phase of my life.

  All those years ago, when, as a child, I had grown strong upon that island, I had discovered a physical and active world, a world in which I was not dying. Once more, Barbados had awakened my body, this time enabling me to embrace my new life as Roger’s lover.