The Eulogist

by Ms. Terry Gamble

  “We’re so glad you’ve come,” said the straw-haired woman. She had a narrow, tattered face that reminded me of a Gainsborough portrait. If this was Eugene’s wife, she looked older than her husband. “We’ve had nothing to talk about for weeks.”

  “My arm?”

  “You’ve wrenched it badly. Mandy here has put on some salve.”

  I started to ask, What kind of salve? but the girl interrupted me. “I’m Elizabeth Mary Satfield Orpheus.”

  “Hush now,” said the woman, who was presumably Bethany. “Don’t bother her about that.”

  I touched my cheek. It had a tender, scraped feeling. I ran my tongue around my mouth, accounting for all my teeth. I said, “If you’d be so kind, I wouldn’t mind a mirror.”

  * * *

  The following day, we buried Silas in the family plot just up the hill that interred four generations of Orpheuses dating back to 1787. The graveyard, twenty or so headstones, was laid out under a large oak surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The family and a handful of friends stood within the perimeter while a dozen or more Negroes gathered outside. My eyes kept traveling to the group beyond the fence whose mood seemed more downcast than Eugene’s. One youth in particular kept wailing, and some of the older slaves said to him, “Hush now, Grady. The Lord is listening.”

  I wasn’t sure about the Lord, but Bethany surely was listening because she kept glowering at the young man, Grady, then at Elizabeth, who giggled every time Grady made a sound.

  Barely listening to a eulogy that had little to do with Silas, I experienced a spasm in the back of my throat as the first clod of dirt hit the coffin and the cherubic minister in thick glasses and downy whiskers intoned, Ashes to ashes. It struck me that Silas would have preferred his body had been used for science.

  A goddamn cold, he would have said.

  I could imagine him in his smock and mask, scalpel ready to slice the lung, probing for the obstruction or the necrotic tissue that had interrupted his breathing.

  You should have done it, Olivia. You had the guts.

  I fought back tears.

  Surely you are not sentimental, Miss Givens.

  I practically jumped at the sound of his voice, but it was only Eugene thanking the young minister and inviting him for victuals.

  “Dear, you look so terribly tired,” said Bethany, who had come up beside me. She looked at my face, following my gaze to the face of her husband. She slipped her arm through my good one, careful not to jostle the sling. “So much to talk about, and there goes Eugene inviting half the county.”

  * * *

  I slept all that evening and well into the following day. When I finally rose, it was with the intention to return to the landing to catch the next boat to Cincinnati, but a week passed, the sling came off, and I remained, having succumbed to the entreaties of the girl Elizabeth, who, in spite of being done up in dresses and bows, was shockingly untamed, jumping up from the table, running into the pasture with the horses. In the girl’s features, I could detect that trace of Orpheus.

  “Tuh,” I said. “Tuh,” running the girl’s forefinger along the shape of a T, then pointing to a picture. “Tree.”

  “Tree.”

  “What else?”

  “Tobacco!” Elizabeth beamed.

  “O,” said I, tracing a circle. “Open.”

  “Oooo,” said the girl, her mouth forming the exact shape. “Old,” she said, peering slyly at me.

  “Yes,” I said. “Old Olivia.”

  Elizabeth reached out and hugged me—something I hadn’t seen her do with Bethany—then rushed off to find Grady to play tag.

  It must be one of Eugene’s flusher times because everything seemed jolly, and both the girl and her mother had new dresses to show off. Although I agreed with those who naysayed slavery, I could detect no traces of the horrors I’d read about. Everything ran efficiently and with far more grace than what was offered by Hatsepha’s German girls. Everyone I came into contact with seemed content enough—hardworking, surely—but no more so than those crow-backed settlers who’d hacked a patch out of wilderness.

  I would study Eugene by candlelight, trying to glean debauchery, but he was mostly silent, and when he spoke, was alternately brusque and silky. Still, there was that appraising quality that made me uncomfortable to the point of blushing, and I would glance at his wife across the table, who didn’t seem to notice anything but the child whom she one minute fussed after like a dust devil, telling her to brush her hair and pull it back from her face, then alternately ignored.

  “We want to see your lovely eyes,” Bethany said before turning away to study the lace on her sleeve.

  They were lovely eyes. And as with her father’s face, she reminded me of someone else.

  It’s awfully hot here, I wrote to James and Hatsepha. But no more than Cincinnati, and at least there’s a breeze, adding, It’s not as ghastly as I thought. What I didn’t write was that I dreaded coming back to those empty rooms—empty except for Tilly, who was so busy with her clients she didn’t need me anyway. Besides, I had a sense of Silas here—a younger Silas, whose life was simpler and less encumbered by the pathology of others.

  At night we sat on the porch, counting fireflies and stars. If Eugene was with us, he leaned against a post, puffing on a cigar. If he talked, it was about horses and with such a passion that I thought I might actually come to care. Bethany, who knew horses herself, commented occasionally, but there was little true conversation between husband and wife, little show of affection. Bethany talked of her former life in Lexington as if she’d emigrated from a beloved country.

  “Eugene only goes to Lexington on business,” Bethany said. “He says business and wives don’t mix.”

  Bethany was sitting in a rocker, her head thrown back, her eyes closed.

  Eugene said, “Crop’s just about done. We’ll have to bring in some hands.”

  “And that boy? Grady?” I asked, wondering about the boy whom Elizabeth was teasing at the funeral.

  “Grady?” said Bethany. “Touched little nigger. Must be near fifteen.” Silas had set a leg bone for him when he was a small boy, she told me. “Or was it that arm? Either way, his bones knit badly.”

  “Grady’s okay,” said Eugene. “Weak in the head, though.”

  “I tell you he’s been harassing Elizabeth,” said Bethany calmly. “You’ve got to set him straight.”

  “The girl shouldn’t be playing down there,” Eugene said. “What’s she doing down there, anyway? It’s only going to cause trouble.”

  “Well, if you won’t set him straight . . .”

  Anxious to change the topic, I said, “Tell me about your dress, Bethany. The one you’re going to wear to the cotillion.”

  Bethany wrenched her gaze away from her husband and laughed lightly. “Why, that old dress? You should know it’s from last season.”

  * * *

  That night I awoke, having the feeling that something was amiss. I swore I heard a rooster crowing, yet a short time later, the clock in the hall sounded three.

  Perhaps I am too hot, I thought, pushing away the bedclothes. Dropping to the floor, I scrabbled around beneath the bed and pulled out the porcelain bowl, pulled up my chemise, and squatted.

  The room was full of creaks and shadows. It was one of the better rooms with a fireplace connected to the central chimney. Turkish rugs blanketed thick planks of pine. Across from the bed, a vanity table held a mirror and an assortment of silver brushes. On the other side of the wall was Bethany’s bedroom, but unlike the walls at Mrs. Humphries’s, these were thick plaster, and sound didn’t penetrate.

  I shoved the chamber pot back under the bed with my foot, barely thinking about the dark hands that would remove it later. Something gnawed at me.

  And then it came again—that reedy caw that wasn’t a rooster.

  One of the slaves must be sick, I thought, shuddering at the sound. Just a slave . . .

  Then it occurred to me that, with my medical trai
ning, I could be of help. I lit a lamp and set about pulling on petticoats and a skirt, a shimmy and a morning coat, pushing my hair up into a cap. I laced my boots over thick cotton stockings, took the lamp from its base, and slowly made my way downstairs.

  Even at this hour, the air was thick as cream. The gravel on the drive made a hushed crunch as I crossed toward the path that would lead to the slave quarters. An owl hooted. I could make out Sirius to the southwest. The mewling sound seemed to have stopped, then started up again. There was a rhythm to it that gave me tingles.

  There. Clear. A swish followed by that ghastly yelp.

  The cabins were in a row, maybe five altogether. I made my way between the buildings through the deep grass, the lamplight grotesque against rough-hewn logs. At the edge of the last building, I stopped. Another lamp was perched on a stump in a clearing, and in the middle of the clearing, a post, and tied to the post, a figure.

  “And you shall not so much as look at her,” Bethany was saying. And as she said it, she brought down the switch. The figure made a sound like, “Lah.”

  “Law, law,” said Bethany. “Your only ‘law’ is your master.” Her hair was loose past her shoulders. I could not see her face. Not wanting to be seen, I pulled back against the building and blew out the lamp, but no sooner had I done so than I realized I was standing close to a group of people, all of them watching silently.

  Smack, went the switch.

  “And when I’m done,”—smack!—“you shall be sorry you ever spoke to her, you hear me? You hear me?” Bethany threw down the switch. “Stupid boy.” She picked up the lamp and wheeled around. Her face was devoid of passion. She might as well have been meting out instructions to the cook.

  I shrank away and moved to disappear among the shadows. Bethany pushed past without seeing me. For a long time, none of the slaves spoke. They waited until she was well gone. Then the older man, the one called Handsome, said, “Cut the boy down.”

  I couldn’t move, but the others did as Handsome said, and when he was down, Grady lay on the ground and whimpered. Someone lit another lamp. The boy’s face was covered in sweat, and his eyes were wild. He cried, “I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “There now, Grady boy, you go inside,” said Handsome, giving him a hand.

  “Here,” I said, stepping out, “I can help dress those cuts.”

  The slaves stared with a combination of wariness and embarrassment. Some moved apart and made room for me to examine Grady.

  A young man with a shaved head said, “Grady know better than to play with that girl. Every time he does, Missus goes wild.”

  “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” said Grady.

  “Go inside,” said Handsome. Staring at the ground, he said, “Ma’am, you shouldn’t be here.”

  I felt the heat in my cheeks. “I heard a noise.”

  “You didn’t hear nothin’. You should get back to the house.”

  I felt as though I were a schoolgirl being shooed from the yard. All those years ago when I’d sat at lectures, listening to Fanny Wright or the students at Lane Seminary talk about the abolition of slavery, it had been an abstraction, repugnant as leprosy, but little to do with me. It was like the tract on which you wipe off your hands. It was like that body in the river; something you caught out of the corner of your eye.

  * * *

  “Th,” I said. “Like ‘thumb.’ See?” I held up my hand.

  Elizabeth squinted at me. “Why?”

  “Because that’s what T and H do. Like ‘thought’ or ‘thistle.’”

  “Or stupid.”

  I tried and failed to match her look. “Or ‘thick.’”

  Elizabeth started smacking her feet against the table legs. We were sitting on the porch, the heat relentless in spite of the shade.

  A little too harshly, I said, “Stop it.”

  Her kicking increased.

  “You awful child . . .” I said with some impatience, and then stopped myself when I saw the hurt on her face.

  “She called me an awful child,” Elizabeth said when Bethany joined us, dressed to go out and with a radiance I had not seen.

  “You are an awful child,” said Bethany. “Look at your hands!”

  Elizabeth made fists and dug them beneath her skirts. “Reading is silly,” she said.

  “Not so silly as sums, I daresay,” said Bethany. She pulled on a glove and smiled at me. “You look tired, Olivia. I fear the humidity has made you wan.”

  “I am used to worse.”

  “Then come with me to town. They have the most beautiful hats in Maysville, and if you don’t mind my saying, you could use with some sprucing up.”

  Elizabeth stared down at her fists. She had such long lashes, even for a child. “And what do you say, Elizabeth?” I said. “Since you have no more patience for literature.”

  Would she run off to find Grady? And in what condition would she find him? Perhaps she was used to seeing her friend brought low. She wouldn’t look at her mother. Instead, she turned to me.

  “Thimble,” she said. “Thorn. Thread. Thoroughbred.”

  I closed the book on my lap. “Thank you,” I said.

  * * *

  On Sunday, the best carriage was brought up from the stables to carry us to church, where a visiting minister would be preaching. There seemed to be much excitement to hear a new voice. I noticed the lacquer on the brougham was flaking, the silk of the festoons faded. Still, the leather seat was deep, and I sank into it after the slave Handsome gave me a hand up. His eyes were averted, but I noticed the almost imperceptible shake of his head. All the way down the road to Maysville, I was aware of him standing on the coachman’s strut.

  The girl and I were squished between Eugene and Bethany. Staring ahead, I said to Eugene, “Business must be doing awfully well, sir, given your generosity toward my attire.”

  I touched the edge of my bonnet, one of the two purchased by Bethany. Just as Hatsepha had claimed years before, Maysville did have the most wonderful hats. The air reeked of mercury and tannin, the chemicals used for forming and setting hats. Half the hatters lose their teeth, Bethany had told me as we paraded past scores of shop windows. The other half lose their minds.

  We had returned, each with a box carrying a straw hat that tied beneath the chin and stuck out so much you could scarcely see our faces.

  “How curious you are, Olivia. I don’t believe my wife has ever inquired about my business.”

  “And if I did inquire, he’d have my hide,” said Bethany from behind her broad straw brim.

  We rocked in silence the rest of the way to church.

  The Orpheuses’ pew was third from the front. With Bethany leading, we filed into our seats. Eugene hung back to exchange words with several gentlemen; only when Bethany said “Eugene!” did he saunter forward.

  I clutched my cameo in the stifling heat, longing for the cool of the basement beneath the medical school, when the minister entered. What a grumpy-looking man, I thought. And then I recognized his face. It had been nearly ten years, but I knew that beaked nose and those unforgiving eyes. He had never reached out to his daughter, Julia, not once. After the revival and her marriage to Erasmus, he had forsaken her.

  Now Ephraim Morrissey was going to preach to the good people of Maysville. I could barely sit still in the pew. The topic of the sermon, he told us, was the nature of actions and consequences.

  “If little children are naughty . . .”—Ephraim Morrissey peered into the pews should they contain any said children—“they shall be cast out. I speak today of Noah’s son Ham.”

  He stared straight at Elizabeth. I heard her catch her breath. I feared his eyes might fall upon me as well.

  “When a child disrespects its parent,” he continued, holding his gaze, “that child and the children of that child shall risk the curse of God.” He opened his Bible, yet did not look down. “Lest ye think that by cursing His children, God might not be loving, I assure you that He makes this choice only because He is gi
ven no other. Our Divine Father loves us so much that He weeps for His curséd children just as Noah wept for Ham.”

  On he droned in the most dismal way, recounting the story of Noah’s son, the dark-complexioned one who had mocked his father’s nakedness and was punished for his mockery.

  And why should he not? thought I. Noah was a drunkard and frankly mockable; the streets of Cincinnati were strewn with the likes of Noah. According to the Reverend Morrissey, however, Ham’s hilarity at his father’s expense was ill-advised, for it resulted in not only him, but in all of his dark-skinned descendants being condemned to slavery.

  “Japheth, Shem, and Ham,” said the reverend. “Three brothers. Three whose blood shall never mix.” He paused. “We . . .” He leaned forward, his face contorting. “We who are descendants of Japheth know that Ham was doomed to be a slave.”

  The white congregation nodded.

  “Thus we shall reap what we sow,” he concluded, slamming his Bible shut. The piano started. Bethany leapt to her feet and bellowed a full-throated, Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. She jerked her head at Elizabeth and Eugene, who stood with less enthusiasm. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side.

  When I finally rose, I felt so spent I could barely mouth the words.

  After the service, the congregation lined up behind the minister, who manned the doors to greet us. Bethany asked the reverend if he liked her bonnet while Eugene lit a cigar.

  “And this is my sister,” said Bethany. “Well, almost my sister. She was married to Eugene’s brother.”

  “Mama,” said Elizabeth, tugging on Bethany’s arm. “Can we go?”

  The minister’s eyes bored into me with no hint of recognition. I held out my hand. “Olivia Givens Orpheus, Reverend. And I didn’t agree with anything you said.”

  Did he even know his daughter had died?

  “Olivia!” Bethany said, but Eugene let out with a loud, “Ho! Ho!” just as Silas would.

  “Givens?” said the minister as we walked away, but just to spite him, I did not turn back. If he cared not to inquire after his truant daughter, he cared not for her fate.

  Back in the carriage, Bethany asked if questioning the minister on the stoop of churches was acceptable in Cincinnati.