“T-e-m-p-e-r-a-t-u-r-e,” I said.
Clarissa said nothing. Mrs. Allen closed the door and handed me a primer. She spoke to me in a gentle voice. “Read the first sentence,” she told me.
I read it out loud.
“Here is the chalk. Write the sentence.” I wrote it, but not so well. Mrs. Allen’s face became flushed. She whispered, “Girls, it is very, very important that you do not tell anyone that Sarah has learned how to read and write. If you do, you will never again be permitted to play together or to have lessons together. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” we answered in unison.
Mrs. Allen stared at me, but I was not frightened because she was not angry. I could not believe my fortune. I had learned how to read and write but she had not said that she would stop teaching me.
The next day, when I joined Clarissa for her lessons, Mrs. Allen locked the door.
“Girls, I will teach Sarah, but you will both have to promise me again that you will not tell anyone that she has learned how to read and write. Sarah, you cannot even tell Emmeline or your sister. If you tell anyone else, terrible things will happen to Sarah, her mother, and sister. They will have to leave Allen Estates. Clarissa, you will never again see Sarah. Do you both understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Yes, Mama. We understand. We won’t tell anyone. We promise,” Clarissa said.
Our lessons continued. Those were wonderful days for me because I was transported to a world that I never knew existed. Both Clarissa and I made significant progress in our first two years of lessons. We learned arithmetic as well as our letters, and Mrs. Allen surprised us with paints, brushes, and special paper and showed us how to create watercolors.
When I was not in the nursery during Clarissa’s lessons, I was apprenticed to Bessie, who was teaching me how to be a proper lady’s maid. When I was eleven years old, I began cleaning Mr. Allen’s office. While working there, I inspected the papers and writing tools on his desk. One day, I saw a paper on his desk granting traveling passage to slaves. The next time that I cleaned his rooms, I summoned the courage to copy a pass. It was not difficult to do. I used a blank sheet of paper from his stationery drawer and practiced his handwriting until I could see no difference between his and mine. I tore my copy into small pieces and later threw them down the hole in the outhouse.
I still remember the pass I copied: “This traveling pass is granted to the following slaves, all of whom are owned by Cornelius F. Allen, Esq., of Allen Estates Plantation, Benton County. The driver of the cart is Johnny, who is about 5 feet and 10 inches high, of a black complexion, and well made. Johnny bears a brand of Allen Estates on his chest. Missy, about 5 feet and 2 inches high, of a black complexion with a small, thin face, is a seamstress who will purchase cloth at Russell & Strong’s. Sammy is a mulatto with bright complexion, about 6 feet high, who is taking leather goods to be sold at Fielding’s. Should any of these slaves be found outside the Benton County seat, or anywhere within Benton County at night, a reward of $300 each will be paid for their return to their owner.”
In my twelfth year, my mother was still going to Mr. Allen at night, but I became used to her absences. Belle did not tell me as many stories as she did when I was younger, but she taught me how to knit and I was slowly working on shawls for her and my mother. Belle and I entertained ourselves by discussing the events of the day.
“Do you remember that time I was crying because those boys were calling me ‘yellow belly’ and Mama said they didn’t mean anything by it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the other day, these girls were calling me the same thing, and they didn’t want to jump rope with Miss Clarissa and me. Today Miss Clarissa wasn’t around, and they still didn’t want to jump rope with me. When I asked them why, they said that I should jump rope with my sister, Pinky. What did they mean by that?”
Belle was silent for a moment then said, “I think Mama should tell you.”
“She didn’t answer my questions about such things before, so why do you think she would now?”
“Well, you older now.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Mama said you was going to ask something like that sometime, and she said I should say I didn’t know. But I don’t want to lie to you. When she gone, it just you and me and I want to keep it like we always tell the other the truth.”
“Belle, I know the truth. I just want to hear somebody say that I’m right.”
“What do you know, Sarah?”
“I know that…well, you’re always talking about ‘my papa,’ and I look more like Miss Clarissa than I look like you and Mama, and Mama is always with Mr. Allen. Anybody, even those other children, can figure out that Mr. Allen is my father.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah…I’m sorry. I wish it not like that. I really wish you and me had the same father. But I couldn’t love you more than I do. You my real sister. And don’t listen when those children tell you anything about Miss Clarissa, she ain’t no sister to you.”
I did not sleep well that night and awoke before my mother returned.
“Baby, what you doing up?” she asked when she came in.
“I was waiting for you.”
“Shush. You going to wake Belle.”
“I’m awake, Mama,” Belle said.
“So why is everybody awake? Let’s get a couple of hours more of sleep before we got to go to the kitchen.”
“Mama, I told Belle that I know about Mr. Allen.”
Mama did not answer me.
“I told her that I know, Mama.”
“Sarah…I just want to protect you, baby. Didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want you to tell Miss Clarissa and then she was going to tell Mrs. Allen. But it ain’t no use. Everybody know. You look just like him. But in case Miss Clarissa ain’t figured it out, don’t tell her, Sarah.”
“What about Mr. Allen? Does he know?”
“What about him? Of course he know, but that don’t mean one bit of difference in your life. So don’t think that anything is going to change. For us, it don’t matter who our father is, only our mother.”
The next year, when Clarissa and I were about thirteen years of age, my mother said that Mrs. Allen told her that I could no longer sit with Clarissa during her lessons. She said that I had too much work to keep me busy and that Clarissa would soon be getting a tutor. My chest tightened and my limbs felt weak. I had been able to bear my life only because of those lessons. My only solace was that, after tending to the library, I had been hiding books wrapped in clean rags in my cleaning bucket. At night, when my mother left us and Belle had fallen asleep, I read at the table by candlelight.
Clarissa’s tutor, Mrs. Ellsworth, arrived about a month after I stopped attending lessons. She was Clarissa’s chaperone as well, and Clarissa was allowed to increase her visits to other plantations without her parents. As Clarissa’s maid, I accompanied them on all travels. Around the time Clarissa began her studies with a tutor, my life changed in another way. I asked my mother to stop going to Mr. Allen and, to my surprise, she agreed.
“Listen, girls. I want you to know that all this time I’ve been asking Mr. Allen to free us, or at least you two, but he won’t. He said it’s for our own good. While we belong to him, he said, he can take care of us and we won’t need nothing. That’s why I stopped going to him.”
Belle and I embraced her. It made us happy that she was with us at night, and during the day, while we worked in the kitchen, my mother now laughed at the stories that the other slaves told. One afternoon, about a month after my mother stopped going to Mr. Allen, I was in Clarissa’s rooms settling her in after we returned from an overnight visit to a neighboring plantation and she asked me for tea. As I was near the kitchen, I recognized my mother’s wailing. I ran in and saw her crouched on the floor and surrounded by maids. I went to her and we held each other.
“They took Belle. They took Belle.”
“Wh
at? What do you mean? Mama, who took Belle?”
She did not answer. I spoke to the person closest to me.
“What happened to Belle?”
“Two men came into the kitchen and took her. Miss Emmeline was getting linen from the washroom.”
“How long ago?”
“This morning. Miss Emmeline been crying all day.”
“Is Mr. Allen in the house?”
“No, not since yesterday.”
I ran out the door. Although I knew that Belle was gone, I was still thinking that somehow I would see her with the men who took her away from us. I proceeded to the main gate, which was guarded by four overseers. One, a pink-faced man holding a rifle, told me to go back to the Hall. He poked me with the rifle on my arm and pushed me to the ground. I rubbed the area where he hurt me. Another man came over.
“Get up. I said, get up.”
I did not move.
“I said, get up, and if you don’t, I’ll make you, you sorry, yellow bitch.”
I did not obey him, and he pulled my head covering off, wrapped my hair around his hand, and dragged me several feet. I kept my body stiff. I did not cry. They put me on the wagon and took me back to the kitchen. I sat next to my mother on the floor. We stayed that way until the two Hall overseers arrived. One of them lifted my mother by the arms and pushed her against the wall. He pointed at her.
“Ain’t you got no cooking and cleaning to do? You get back to work or you may be missing your other slut too.”
My mother went to the water pail, washed her hands, and gave instructions to the others to help prepare supper. One of the overseers spoke to me.
“What you looking at? Go see after Miss Clarissa. And I came to tell all y’all something Mr. Allen ordered: do not tell Mrs. Allen or Miss Clarissa what happened today or the same thing going to happen to each of you.”
I rose and began making tea for Clarissa.
“Ain’t you heard me? Go see after Miss Clarissa.”
“I’m making her her tea.”
He looked at my mother. “You better not make no more trouble. Mr. Allen going to hear about you not working all day.”
He left, and I arranged the tea on a tray when it was ready and took it to Clarissa.
“What happened to you? Your face is red and sweaty, and where is your head covering? And your hair…it’s disheveled. Huh…I’ve never seen your hair. Why, it’s long, and it’s not like the other Negroes’ hair. Were you running or something? Are you crying? Sit down, there, on the chair. What happened?”
“I can’t say.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’m just sad, is all, because I can’t have lessons with you.”
“Sarah, you’re crying about that now? That happened a long time ago. Anyway, I’ve been lending you my lesson books as soon as I’m finished with them. Lessons are so boring. You should be glad that you stopped going. Why don’t you go to your cabin and tidy yourself? Heavens, one would have thought that someone had died.”
That night, as soon as my mother and I were in our cabin, she told me why Belle had been taken from us. She cried, her shoulders shaking and her face in her hands. “He warned me something was going to happen if I stopped going to him, but I ain’t think he do this, not after he promised me he’d never separate me from my child. But I can see I was foolish.”
She was quiet for several minutes. When she spoke again, it was the most I had heard her say in a while. “Mama told me it’s so hard when they take your boy. She said you think you going to die from the pain. When they sold my brothers, Mama and me think we never go on. But like Mama said, it’s much harder when they take your girl. Belle’s father said to me, ‘If they sell me, I’m going to take care of myself. But not our girl. Do what you got to to keep them from selling her.’
“When they take your man or your son you know he’s going to get beat. But they ain’t going to do to your man or your boy what they going to do to your girl.” She rocked back and forth for a few minutes.
“After you was born, I kept going to him, not just because he told me to but because I thought, ‘It going to keep my girls with me.’ But then, he said he wasn’t going to free us and you was so sad when Mrs. Allen said you had to stop going to lessons with Miss Clarissa.
“Sarah, from now on, you know you can’t be sad when I leave you at night. You understand me? But it’s going to be worse for me this time because I hate him more than I hated him before.”
She put her arm around me and told me to close my eyes. We knelt.
“Lord, I don’t know the right way to pray, and I know that a sinner like me got no right asking you for nothing. But, Lord, please keep my girl safe.
“Lord, wherever she is, please don’t let them hurt her. Lord, bring her back and don’t punish her for my sins. And, Lord, please keep Sarah safe with me. Lord, thank you. Amen.”
We held each other then, held each other until we fell asleep a few hours before we had to rise to work the next day.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEODORA ALLEN
THEIR CLOTHES, THE BLANKET, AND A PILLOW WERE scattered on the floor. An empty bottle of wine and two glasses were on a table. I could not stop staring at them; his open hand was on the small of her back and his face rested on her shoulder. My husband and Emmeline awoke when I could not hold in a cry. When they realized that I was there, they pulled the linens over their bodies. Emmeline sat up, gripped the sheet close, and bowed her head.
“Theodora, return to your room. I will see you there shortly,” my husband said.
I stayed.
“I said…leave…now.”
My mind told me to flee, but my feet were stuck to the floor.
“Theodora, if you do not leave this moment, I will get out of this bed and escort you out.”
I managed to make my feet move and went to my bedroom, where I dismissed Dottie and sent her for Aunt Lucretia and Eliza. When they arrived I told them what had transpired. Auntie embraced me and made the same comforting noises that Mum had when I was a child and something had caused me pain. Eliza wiped the tears from my face.
“My sweet, Mr. Allen is only with her to protect you and your child,” my aunt said.
I said that I wanted to be alone.
“Are you certain, dear?”
I got in bed and closed my eyes. An hour later, I heard footsteps and my husband entered.
“Theodora, darling, look at me.”
I ignored him.
“Darling, I regret not having said this to you earlier. My mother lost two children before they were born. I do not want the same to happen to you. I promise you that, when we have our baby and you are healthy, I will return to you.”
I did not reply.
“Theodora, you are acting like a child, not like the mistress of a plantation. Please, I beg of you, answer me. Tell me that you know that I’m only doing this for you.”
I cried and he held me. He smelled of soap and cologne.
“I was going to your rooms to tell you that I felt pain in my abdomen and that I was bleeding,” I said.
“What? Did anyone send for Dr. Atlas?”
“I have sent the overseers instructions to bring the doctor.”
There was a knock on the door. It was Bessie, who said that Davis had left for town to get Dr. Atlas. My husband dismissed her and told her to sleep on a cot in the adjacent room in the event that I needed her during the night. He closed the door.
“I will sleep with you until Dr. Atlas arrives,” he said.
He got in the bed with me.
“When you are able to travel after the baby is born, we can ask your family to stay with him, and I will take you to Charleston and New York.”
I pushed him away from me. “Do you really think that because you promise me a journey that I am going to condone what you are doing, that I actually believe that you are with her for my benefit?”
“Theodora, I am the master here, not you or anyone else. I decide what is best for you
and everyone on this estate. You will keep these insubordinate thoughts to yourself. If you cannot abide by my rules, when my son is born, you will leave him here and you will return to your family.”
I was silent. He put his hand on my shoulder and applied pressure.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I do.”
The physician arrived at about seven in the morning, and my husband went to his apartment. Dr. Atlas, with Bessie present, performed an examination.
“Ma’am, I will speak with you and Mr. Allen when you are ready.”
“No, you will not. You will speak to me first. What is your finding?”
“Mr. Allen instructed me to speak to him first…”
“I do not care what he has said to you. If you do not tell me your conclusion now, I will have you dismissed and we will retain a physician from Montgomery or Talladega.”
“Mrs. Allen, it appears that all is normal. However, I prescribe bed rest. If Mr. Allen concurs, I will establish residence until I am assured that you are well.”
The doctor’s daily examinations made me uncomfortable, but I believed that he knew what he was doing. One day, during my afternoon nap, I felt a pain stronger than the prior time and called Bessie to run for the doctor. By the time he arrived, I had expelled two thick clots of blood. He ordered Bessie to get hot water and cloths and to tell the overseer to send for my husband, who was in the fields. Dr. Atlas said that there was nothing he could do because he had to wait for the bleeding to end before he could examine me. Cornelius came to see me that evening.
“I am worried about you. What may I do for you, darling?”
At my request, he read Keats to me until I went to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, I realized that he had stayed with me. The bleeding did not end until the next day, and when it did, I closed my eyes and said a brief prayer. Then I summoned Dr. Atlas.
“It is obvious that I have lost my child. Do you confirm that?”
“Yes, I do, Mrs. Allen.”
“Why did you not tell me before?”
The Wedding Gift Page 4