The Indigo Girl

by Natasha Boyd

  “Ben, Mama,” I said patiently and walked to the fire roaring in the grate, giving the embers a poke. It was remarkably cold for October, and I worried constantly about an early frost. The sooner we harvested the better, but Ben and Cromwell kept saying it needed a few more days. How they could tell, or rather how Ben could tell, was still magical to me, an alchemy beyond my understanding even as I learned all the facts. I’d filled Mama in on the progress of the indigo, but it had been days since I’d been in the fields following Ben. “His name is Ben. And you’ve known him since he was a child. You know he is a good, kind person. You know he is my friend. My best friend.”

  At that my mother gave a shrill squeak and leaned back against the settee cushions.

  I looked to the dark heavens outside the window.

  When I didn’t indulge Mother’s theatrics, she sat back up. “And you’ve been teaching the Negro children to read.” She shook her head. “To read,” she echoed in disbelief as if she wasn’t quite sure she’d uttered it the first time.

  “Yes, Mother. That’s been going on for quite some time now. They’re just children, it’s basic lettering. They’re hardly about to organize a slave revolt.”

  “It’s against the law.”

  “Are you going to tell someone about it?” I asked. I drew the green brocade curtains closed against the windows to keep the chill out of the room.

  “Of course I’m not going to tell anyone about it. They’ll fine us, and then what will we do?”

  “Quite,” I said blandly. “Money is stretched tight as it is.”

  “You mustn’t mention a word of it, Eliza. Do you hear?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “It’s bad enough I had to tell your father about you spending time with that … that …”

  “Ben, Mama.”

  “Well, you’ll be hearing from your father.”

  “Spending time with my best friend is no secret, and there is nothing untoward.” But her admission that she’d complained to Papa yet again set me on edge.

  She huffed. “So says you. I know you, Eliza. I’m your mother. Your passions for life and people and all God’s creation run deep. I fear you wouldn’t recognize a line when you saw one. How many have you already crossed? And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  My insides flipped upon themselves, and I turned abruptly to my mother under the guise of her having come to the end of my patience. In truth it was shock at her observation.

  “Oh, please.” I modulated my voice through an unexpectedly strangled throat. “If he is my best friend, then I am his. It is nothing more. Besides,” I added, though my throat closed up farther at what I was about to give voice to. “I believe he’s been spending more time with Sarah. Perhaps …” I cleared my throat and walked to the fire. As much as I wished to ignore it, Sarah’s belly was growing round. “Perhaps that is where the so-called passions you speak of lie.”

  Mama pursed her lips. “It’s not right. Not to mention I can’t help but feel he causes unease amongst the rest of the Negroes. What must they think, for goodness’ sake? To see their mistress about with one of their own as if he were her equal.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “The sooner your father fetches us back to Antigua the better.”

  “You know as well as I, there are no plans to do that. He needs these plantations to turn a profit. His career depends on it.”

  “So says you. And if they fail, and they don’t seem to exactly be succeeding right now, we shall have to return regardless. What’s the point in dragging it out?”

  “We’re not dragging it out, we’re turning it around. Albeit very slowly.”

  We’re gambling on an idea, I mentally corrected myself. An idea that was all mine, where the success of it sat very firmly upon my lone shoulders.

  Walking to my desk, I shuffled amongst my papers. Pulling out what I was looking for, I went to take a seat next to my mother. “To put your mind at ease, I’ll go ahead and read you the exact letter of the law.”

  I settled myself upon the settee and cleared my throat, reading from the paper I’d painstakingly transcribed from Charles Pinckney’s copy. “Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all and every person, and persons whatsoever—”

  “It should be whosoever,” Mama interrupted. “If they are talking of people.”

  “They are.” I smiled and continued. “Whatsoever, who shall hereafter teach or cause any slave to be taught to write, or shall use to employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write, every offense forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money.”

  I finished and laid the paper on my lap.

  Mother was silent for a few moments.

  “You see, Mama? I’m not breaking this law. I am only teaching how to read, not write. Besides, how will they learn about God if they cannot read the Bible?” I took her hand as I delivered the final move.

  “You are a smart, smart girl, Eliza. You really should have been a boy.” Mother shook her head as if she’d failed some utterly simple task. Some of the time I knew how she felt. Other times I almost blamed her. It seemed a ridiculously careless accident that made me female rather than male. The rest of the time I wondered why it should make a difference at all. But it did.

  “Just for the record, Mama, while I’m not breaking this particular law there are several others we are breaking that you might want to keep quiet about, lest we become destitute from paying fines. Slaves are not allowed to grow their own food—”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  I smirked, amused, and continued. “Gather together for any reason—”

  “Not even church?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I never …”

  “Play musical instruments, wear nice clothes.” I thought of Ben when he’d first arrived. Nowadays, of course, he wore clothing more suited to fieldwork.

  “Do you mean to tell me this has all been unlawful?”

  I nodded. “Unlawful.”

  “But no one reported us?”

  I blew out a breath and shrugged. “I can only assume those like us in the country find the laws as tedious as we do. I can’t speak for town in general, but I know Charles agrees with me.”

  “And he is a very accomplished lawyer. He would never steer us wrong. He has such a soft spot for you, Eliza.”

  “And I for him.”

  “I can’t imagine who came up with these ridiculous things,” Mama said. “The scaremongers, I’m sure. Well, the rules will be overturned when people see how silly they are.”

  A knock sounded on the study door followed by the tenor of Nicholas Cromwell. “Ladies? May I enter?”

  I raised my eyes. “Come in,” I called. The man was still as supercilious and tedious as ever. But we had all grown used to his presence on our plantation and at our dinner table over the past year. It was a distraction, a buffer really, from the monotony and itchy discord of three females living in the house.

  “How cozy it is in here. I’m quite chilled to the bone this evening.” Cromwell came immediately to the hearth, holding out his hands for warmth.

  “Would you like some rum? We received it from Antigua. Eliza, pour the man a drink, would you, dear?”

  “Of course.” I headed to the sideboard and unstopped the decanter. “So … how are we doing?” I asked.

  Cromwell turned from the fire. “I’ve just inspected today’s progress. I believe the indigo vats may be ready in a few short days. As soon as they are done, we will need to fill the main vat with water so we can begin to monitor the temperature. The time to harvest could come any day, and we’ll need to be ready.”

  Knowing Ben, I understood there was some art form to the harvesting of indigo and the production of dye, but Cromwell made it sound so difficult and said it with such
a superior air, it was hard not to roll my eyes.

  “Wonderful,” I stated. “We are so grateful and of course anxious for our first batch so we can prove we can produce it.”

  Cromwell shifted and took my proffered tumbler.

  My mother cleared her throat and got to her feet.

  “What is it, Mother?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’ll leave you two to talk business. I am very weary.”

  Frowning, I went to her side. “Come along,” I said, not wanting to remain alone with our consultant. “I’ll accompany you. Mr. Cromwell and I can discuss business in the morning.”

  The moment Quash had finished construction on the school shelter for the children, I’d asked him to meet me in my study an hour before dawn every other morning. He’d nodded without asking why.

  The first morning he arrived, his field cap in his hand, his brows had furrowed as he glanced this way and that before following me down the hall and into the study where I’d lit a small lamp. I’d set up two chairs side by side next to a demilune table by one unshelved wall.

  Quash stood awkwardly, looking at the two chairs and then around at the books on the shelves that lined the other walls. “Knowledge, Quash,” I whispered. His eyes found mine, and I smiled encouragingly. “We’ll take it slow. We’ll see where you are, then go from there, all right?” I indicated one of the chairs. “Have a seat.”

  Quash continued to hesitate, a myriad of emotions crossing his face. I hoped none of them were distrust of me. Eventually, he seemed to reach some internal conclusion and moved forward quietly, lowering himself into a chair.

  I had one of the simple letter books that had been Polly’s and had somehow made the trip from Antigua. I hadn’t shared it with the children in our schoolyard, lest it be pulled to pieces.

  Taking a deep breath, I sat down and opened the book to the first page, which listed the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. I pointed to the letter B. “Do you know the sound this makes?”

  Quash looked at it, then at me. “Ben?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded encouragingly. “Ben’s name starts with B. Ben has three letters in his name.” I pointed them out, sounding out each one. “So you see the sound this B makes is ‘buh’ and words are really just sounds strung together. Once you know all the sounds, you’ll be able to read.”

  Mostly.

  I’d save the tricky exceptions for later, if we got that far.

  Time flew by those first few mornings. And I didn’t miss my quiet time about the land at all.

  Quash, his keen intelligence not missing a thing, astounded me time and time again with his quick grasp and also his aptitude for arithmetic, which I’d incorporated toward the end of the first week.

  However, even with his progress, there were still some frustrations. The thing that annoyed Quash the most, in the first few days, was learning his own name. Q had to be used with another letter, and the SH sound had to be yet another two-letter combination. His irritation made me giggle.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever asked, but how did you come by your name?”

  We were sitting in our side-by-side chairs.

  Quash seemed more at ease now. Less furtive.

  “I know there is a Quash family farther south of here,” I went on. We still spoke in very low tones to avoid discovery. “Planters …” I left the thought hanging, not wanting to assume.

  Quash nodded, rubbing the back of his neck with a toffee-skinned hand. “My mother. She were a slave on the Quash plantation afore she was sold here to Wappoo.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Then I’m imagining she was with child, you, when she came here?”

  Quash nodded.

  Sarah’s situation so closely resembled that of Quash’s mother, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel. But for her to name him Quash was almost diabolical. That was like if Sarah had named her daughter Ebba after Starrat. I tamped down the urge to shudder.

  My brows must have still betrayed my confusion.

  “My mother, she did not want to leave,” Quash answered my unspoken question.

  Of course. She was settled there. Had family, presumably. Again this awful practice of selling humans and wrenching them away from their families made my heart hurt. “She didn’t want to leave family?”

  “She did not want to leave my father.” Quash’s voice was stiff.

  I swallowed. “She—she liked the man who did that to her?” Visions flashed through my head. A large white body like Starrat’s, with his grim eyes, covering Quash’s mother’s dark-skinned, small-boned body. This time I couldn’t hold in the shudder.

  “It was not the master. It was the master’s son.” Quash’s eyes gleamed in the low light of our reading lamp. “She loved him.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  The implications of his disclosure seemed to shimmer in the air before me. As if I could see each intricate part of a picture, yet couldn’t quite see the image as a whole.

  “Is our lesson finish?” Quash broke the protracted silence.

  I started. “Yes. Yes, that’s fine.” I stood, absently brushing nonexistent dust off my dress. “I—how is the building of the indigo vat coming along?”

  “Fine, Miz Lucas. Jus’ fine.”

  “You have enough bricks then?” We’d had to have three boats deliver the bricks from Charles Town at huge expense. An investment we could ill afford yet equally couldn’t afford not to undertake.

  “Yes, Miz Lucas. But …” Quash hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  He scratched at his head. “Sarah say brick will give too much red in the dye.”

  I felt my eyebrows elevate. “And what does Ben say?”

  “Ben say do what Cromwell say.” He shrugged.

  “Indeed?” I turned to the window. I wasn’t sure, but I felt indigo was graded on the variations of color. An indigo that was not true and held a purple cast was perhaps not as valuable. Or perhaps it was more so? I let out a frustrated breath at coming up against yet another gap in my knowledge and no source from where to glean it. Except from the man who had experience trading it, and who could lead us any way he chose. Cromwell.

  Dear Miss Bartlett,

  Won’t you laugh at me if I tell you I am so busy in providing for posterity I hardly allow myself to eat or sleep and can snatch just a minute to write to you.

  As well as the indigo, I am making a large plantation of oaks which I look upon as my own, whether my father gives me the land or not; and therefore I design many years hence when oaks are more valuable than they are now, which you know they will be when we come to build fleets.

  I suppose according to custom you will show this to your uncle and aunt. “She is a good girl,” says Mrs. Pinckney. “She is never idle and always means well.” “Tell the little visionary,” says your uncle, “come to town and partake of some amusements suitable to her time of life.”

  Pray tell him I think these so, and what he may now think whims and projects may turn out well by and by. Out of many, surely one will hit.

  Your most obedient servant,

  E. Lucas

  Cromwell sought me out one morning in Papa’s study a week or so before we left for the King’s Birthday Ball in Charles Town. “May I have a word?”

  I was penning a short missive to my father, updating him on plantation affairs and letting him know we soon planned to harvest our next crop of indigo.

  The seed pods from the plants that had survived the pest last year had been gathered and dried. We had planted them with new seed sent from my father. So we had high hopes for this crop.

  I laid down my instrument and gave Cromwell my full attention. “Of course. How can I help you?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. His skin was sallow and brushed with powder that did nothing to hide the old pox scars on his cheek. His mustache was worked i
nto two sharp points on each side. “We don’t have enough hands to harvest when the time comes,” he said. “We’ll do our best but unless all the leaves are harvested and put into the vats within a day, the dye will be inferior.”

  Irritation surged.

  “I’m sure you understand,” he went on, “how woefully underprepared you are here to succeed in this indigo scheme.”

  “I’m sure you understand that we have already covered this issue, and I will give it no more credence. You have a job to do.”

  “Which is impossible in these conditions,” Cromwell blustered.

  I frowned, confused by this resistance again from him and not understanding his lack of will to succeed. “Everything is prepared as you asked. In time. For you to suddenly tell me now that you believe we haven’t enough help borders on irresponsible neglect for the job you are being paid to do.”

  “I do apologize. Ben and I had spoken about it, and I was led to believe he, and perhaps Quash, had spoken with you. You are with him alone in the fields fairly regularly. It was only made clear to me today that the subject of additional help had not been broached.” He took a seat in a club chair without being invited. “We’ll do the best we can, of course, but I fear that’s all I can promise.”

  My head throbbed, and I realized I had been gritting my back teeth together as he spoke.

  “Certainly. It must have slipped Ben’s and Quash’s minds.” My voice was stiff. “But I can’t get cross, can I? As it is your job, not theirs, to tell me what is required for this to be a success. I’m sure it was a simple misunderstanding.”

  “So you are prepared for the expected outcome to be somewhat disappointing? Next year, I’ll—”

  “Of course I’m not all right with it. I will have to move some help here from one of the other plantations.” I sighed heavily. “Please excuse me while I compose my request.”

  I pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and dipped my quill. I couldn’t write to Murry. His operation was performing so perfectly, I didn’t want to upset his balance. My hand trembled with barely controlled emotion. A year of waiting and then this. Starrat, then. “You may be excused,” I said, not looking up.