The Wedding Gift

by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

  “You all right, Mrs. Allen?”

  “Yes, Bessie. Thank you. I just have a few things on my mind.”

  When I was dressed, my husband came to my room to take me to supper. He dismissed Bessie.

  “Where is the newspaper that that lady gave you?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “That is not your concern. Where is it?”

  “I burned it in the fireplace.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “In part. It was rubbish.”

  “Good. That woman will not be permitted in the hotel again. She is an incendiary. What did she say to you?”

  “She told me to read the newspaper.”

  “Should you see her anywhere again, you are not to speak to her. Some of these Northerners are confused and refuse to acknowledge that our cotton is the foundation of the economy. They will try to win some of us to their side, but we will not let that happen, will we? And…what is that? Why are you reading the Evening Post?”

  “Why should I not?”

  “Because its editor is that liberal abolitionist William Cullen Bryant.”

  “He is a poet, and a well-respected one.”

  “It is not his poetry that concerns me. Do you not know that he calls for the destruction of the Southern states?”

  “Perhaps that is an exaggeration.”

  “What did you just say to me?” Cornelius grabbed my arm and twisted it until I cried out. “Don’t ever speak to me that way again. Do you hear me?”

  “You are hurting me. Stop.”

  “I will do worse if you ever show me disrespect again. And listen to me when I try to teach you something. You will not read that nonsense again. I had better not even hear that you have bought a copy of this paper.” He threw it in the fireplace.

  That Friday evening, we went to the country home of Mr. and Mrs. Heath, which was located in the northeastern part of the island, by boat. On Saturday afternoon, I was reading in the parlor after walking in the woods with Mrs. Heath when my husband, Mr. Heath, Mr. DeWolf, and two other gentlemen arrived from riding. Before they went into the library across the hallway, they presented to me a man who was a merchant captain from Maine. They did not close the door.

  “We will have to fund the remaining twenty-five percent ourselves, as the bank is not willing to risk more than their present twenty-five percent.”

  “But I was told in Charleston that we could count on the bank here for fifty percent,” my husband said.

  “Mr. Allen, perhaps a solution would be to get an investor. I can make an introduction to a gentleman who may be interested in joining this venture,” the captain said.

  “No, it would be too dangerous to involve more people in this transaction. While prosecutions under the piracy laws are rare, international trafficking in slaves is a capital crime, after all,” Mr. Heath said.

  “Then we have no other recourse but to fund the remaining twenty-five percent ourselves. I can contribute an additional ten percent,” my husband said.

  “I will put in another ten,” Mr. DeWolf said.

  “And I will add the remaining five. Well then, the lawyers will create a second set of documents on Monday with different names for the captain and crew in the event naval officers board the ship on its return voyage. Captain, how much longer until the ship is completed and you can assemble your staff?”

  “I believe in two more weeks.”

  “I cannot stay in New York that long because we have to begin planting the cotton seedlings shortly after I arrive home,” my husband said.

  “You don’t have to be here for these transactions. Once the contract is fully agreed to by all the parties, you may leave. We have your order for one hundred children and fifty adults to be delivered to Mobile.”

  We remained in New York for five more days, during which time my husband instructed me to purchase Negro cloth and other items in bulk that were not available to us in the South. We then sailed back and retraced our steps through Charleston and Mobile. I looked forward to being home because my husband had promised me that, as soon as we arrived, we would conceive another child.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SARAH CAMPBELL

  BELLE’S ABSENCE AFFECTED ALL THE HOUSE servants. Everyone loved her because she was kind and had a serene demeanor, but there was another reason they were sad. Her sale enacted their worst fear, being separated from their families. The day after they took Belle, my mother told me to go to the fields and ask Miss Mary, the midwife to the slaves, to bring her herbs for curing fever. She had delivered Belle and me, and we thought of her as our aunt. She was so successful at her work that she never lost a baby or a mother. She began caring for a slave woman immediately after she was known to be expecting and attended to her for at least two weeks after giving birth. Because she knew so many of the women among us and sometimes helped with pregnancies on other plantations, Miss Mary was privy to information from all corners of the plantation and beyond. When Miss Mary arrived in the kitchen that afternoon, she and my mother and I went to our cabin to speak.

  “Mr. Allen sold her and two others. I don’t know where,” Miss Mary said.

  “But somebody must know something. Didn’t nobody say they had to drive the girls to some other plantation? What about the other girls’ families? Did they say anything?”

  “No, Miss Emmeline. I’m sorry. I talked to everybody I trust and who know about these things. I ain’t heard nothing.”

  “Miss Mary, please, when Mr. Allen hire you out to other plantations, please ask if anybody know if Belle got sold there.”

  “You don’t even have to ask. I already started telling people at the fields and the coachmen when they get hired out or go deliver goods to other plantations to try to find out where they sent her and the other girls. But like I told them, we all got to be very careful about what we say and who we ask. Even you two. You all know we can’t ask questions about Mr. Allen’s decisions.”

  “Yes, you’re right, and we understand that you doing the best you can. Thank you so much, Miss Mary.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. Your girls are like my own.”

  “I baked a cake and a pie for you to take back to your family, Miss Mary,” I said.

  “Come here and give me a hug, my sugar darling.”

  For about a month after Belle was sold, I felt no desire to do anything but sleep and read. My mother had to shake me to wake every morning, and she had to force me to eat. I performed my work, but I might not notice that the pot had boiled over or that I had made no progress in rubbing the English wax into the grain of the wood. My thoughts always were of Belle. Why Belle? Why not me? I was the one who always wanted to flee. I was the one who barely hid an escalating rage against Mr. Allen. I wish I knew where they had taken my sister. Even if I did know where they had taken her, what could I do? I could not do anything to rescue her.

  Belle and my mother had warned me not to run. If you run, they will hunt you. They will find you and bring you back. Everyone who runs is caught. When they bring you back, they beat you. If you run again, they cut you before they sell you. What of my mother? She now had just one child. If I ran away to find Belle, it was unlikely that I could find her, but my dear mother would be alone. I had to have faith in Mama that she would get back Belle. After all, these many years she had managed to keep the three of us together. These were my thoughts all my waking hours and in my sleep.

  My mother went back to Mr. Allen after Belle was sold, which meant that I could read in our cabin. One night I was reading Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry and came across a sonnet unlike his other works. It was about a man named Toussaint L’Ouverture. This poem sang to me about my life.

  TO TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE

  TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy of men! Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon’s earless den; O miserable Chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in th
y bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies; There’s not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.

  Who was this Toussaint L’Ouverture? How could I learn more about him? Why was he “in some deep dungeon’s earless den”? I would have to search for answers the next day when I was laboring in the library. I returned to the first pages of the book where I read that certain sonnets in this collection, including the one about Toussaint L’Ouverture, were published in London’s Morning Post in 1803.

  The next morning, I looked in the library but could find no reference to Toussaint L’Ouverture or the Morning Post. I realized that there were never newspapers in the library, although I sometimes saw Mr. and Mrs. Allen reading them in the parlor. I did not know where they put them after reading them. That night, before she left, I asked my mother what happened to the newspapers after the Allens read them.

  “What did I tell you? Don’t ask me or no one about books or newspapers or nothing like that. And the overseer complained that you spend too much time cleaning that library. I have my suspicions why that is, and I don’t even want to know what happened when you sat with Miss Clarissa in those lessons. Sarah, please. You’re scaring me. I already got enough worries with Belle and don’t need to worry about you.”

  The next day, after my mother made tea, I asked her if she wanted me to take it to the Allens on the verandah. When I finished serving, Mrs. Allen complimented me.

  “Sarah, you set such a lovely tea service. Tell your mother that the pastries were delicious.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, I’ll be back to clear everything. Is there anything else that I can bring, ma’am?”

  “Not for me. Mr. Allen? Clarissa?”

  “Tell her to bring me a glass of brandy, this tea business is for ladies,” Mr. Allen said from behind his newspaper.

  I curtsied. “Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am.”

  When I got to the kitchen, my mother sent me to get the overseer to unlock the liquor cabinet. When he did, she poured some in a glass and I took it on a tray to Mr. Allen. I cleared the table and hovered until they were done with tea. When they went to the parlor, I cleaned the verandah and put the newspapers under rags in my bucket, which I left in the washroom near our cabin where we kept mops, brooms, and other housekeeping items. I decided that going forward I would keep my books there too, and that night, I waited until my mother had been gone for fifteen minutes before I went to read the newspapers, one of which was published in Anniston and the other in Mobile. Both reported on local events and contained numerous advertisements about slaves, their sale, purchase, and the recovery of those who had escaped. The Anniston Journal contained an editorial about “fire-eating Abolitionists.” The writer urged representatives in Congress to resist calls by Northern “speech makers” who sought to abolish slavery. The Mobile Gazette warned readers that Northern abolitionists were luring their slaves and helping them escape to the North.

  The following day, when we were working in the kitchen, an overseer asked my mother what she had done with the newspapers that Mr. and Mrs. Allen left in the verandah.

  “Sir…I…” my mother said.

  “Sir, I cleaned the verandah yesterday,” I said. “I put the newspapers in the bucket and forgot them there. They’re in the washroom. I’ll go get them.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her that I collect the newspapers and dispose of them?”

  “I’m so sorry, sir. I forgot. It won’t happen again,” my mother said.

  “It better not. What you standing there for? Go get the papers.”

  For the next few weeks, our lives resumed their normal patterns. I helped with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of Clarissa. She and I had begun menstruating that year, which we had known was going to happen eventually because Belle told me and Clarissa’s older cousins told her about that delicate subject. Clarissa and I talked about it, laughing nervously as all other girls do, I suppose, but the change in our bodies only reinforced my low station in life. Bessie showed me how to cut new bleeding cloths for Clarissa every month; and although Clarissa and I both suffered from severe pain during menstruation, when she was having hers, I slept on a cot in an area by her bedroom, rising to get her a hot-water bottle and tea to calm her pain.

  Mama and I went to the slave quarters about once a week to see Miss Mary. Along the way, I almost could not bear to look at the toiling men, women, and children. Even during harvest, the sun was so hot that I felt weak, but the field hands never looked up. They just pulled and pulled at the cotton shrubs. On every visit to Miss Mary after Belle was sold, my mother asked her if she had heard anything about her and the other girls. The answer did not vary.

  “No, Miss Emmeline. I’m sorry. I ask everybody that I can. Whenever somebody come back here who been hired out to another plantation, I ask them if they got any new girls over there. But nobody know nothing or they ain’t talking. But I’m going to keep asking. And, Miss Emmeline, know the Lord is keeping Belle safe by the power of his hand, and you remember what the Bible say: Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, for the Lord thy God is with you wherever you go.”

  At night, I continued to read and study Clarissa’s lesson books. One day, my mother told me that Mrs. Allen had received a letter telling her that her father was sick and that Mrs. Allen and Clarissa were going to Georgia for a month. She also surprised me by telling me that she and I were accompanying Mr. Allen to Mobile.

  We boarded the Coosa Belle in Talladega. Mr. Allen stayed in his private compartment in the boiler-deck level and my mother, Eddie, Mr. Allen’s body servant, and I stayed on the main deck. We found space to sleep between cotton bales, but the first night, fumes made my stomach ill. I did not rest well, which I did not mind because, when I did, I dreamed of Belle, that she was in danger. I was glad that, while we were on the boat, my mother was with me and Mr. Allen did not summon her to his berth.

  The next morning, Eddie left the deck early to get Mr. Allen’s breakfast. When he returned, it was time for the main deck passengers to eat, and we got plates of food from the cook in the pantry. Eddie told us that Mr. Allen had changed his mind and that we were stopping at Montgomery, the new capital, on the way to Mobile rather than upon our return. My mother did not like Montgomery at all.

  “Sarah, maybe you don’t remember it too good because you was real little the last time we was there, but the worst thing is the slave market. They have people sitting on benches out in the open just waiting for somebody to buy them. And everybody walk around acting like nothing is strange about it. And Montgomery got too much going on anyway, too many people and too many buildings, and painted ladies dipping snuff.”

  When we stopped, my mother was relieved that we were only there for about four hours, long enough for cotton to be loaded onto the boat. A carriage took us to a hotel, where we waited for Mr. Allen in the servants’ quarters while he spoke to a merchant. Montgomery was as my mother described it, populous and frenzied, but I admired the new statehouse. When we went back to the boat, all the cotton and other cargo had been loaded, but Eddie told us that Mr. Allen had made arrangements with the captain to wait for his return before departing.

  On board the boat, one could observe the main purpose of river travel, the transport of cotton bales, which even took place at night, when everything was illuminated by torches. Most planters built their own warehouses on the landings, some several stories high and over a hundred yards long, to keep their cotton until it was ready to be loaded onto steamers. They constructed slides made of planks on landings where the bluffs were steep. Using iron hooks, slaves loaded bales from the warehouses onto the slides and pushed them. Everyone had to be careful, even those of us on board, because the bales gathered speed as they descended and ended their journey on the main deck. The landing in the town of Clai
borne had the longest loading slide on the Alabama River because the bluffs were high above the river’s edge. Passengers and crew members who disembarked had to climb a four-hundred-foot wooden staircase to reach the top.

  We anchored at Mobile Point in the lower bay, where slaves transferred the cotton bales from the steamboats to oceangoing ships that my mother said were bound for New York and England. When we were on the wharf, my mother put her arm around me and held me close. Sheriffs were putting chains on about forty Negroes whose papers were not satisfactory. My mother said that they were taking them to a jail nearby until a judge could confirm that their traveling passes or manumission papers were authentic.

  “How does the judge do that?”

  “He writes a letter to the person’s master or to the court in the county where the Negro say they’re from, but that can take over a month and they have to stay in jail the whole time.”

  “What if the judge doesn’t get an answer?”

  “They belong to the county here and the sheriff can sell them at a auction.”

  A wagon was waiting for us; Mr. Allen had departed in a carriage. We had lodgings at a hotel in a busy part of the town, and when we arrived, I helped my mother and Eddie unpack Mr. Allen’s luggage before we went to the servants’ quarters. The hotel had an area in the kitchen where slaves travelling with their masters could eat. That evening after supper, my mother told me that she was going to Mr. Allen.

  “Lock the door and use the chain. Don’t let nobody in, I don’t care who they say they is.”

  She returned just before dawn and slept for a few hours. That morning, Eddie told us that Mr. Allen wanted him to escort us around town and that the hotel had made a wagon available. I was at first excited about seeing Mobile because the largest town that I remembered going to was Talladega, but then I felt guilty that I had temporarily not thought about Belle. Eddie and my mother had been to Mobile many times and wanted to show me different places, and my excitement returned. When we reached Royal Street between St. Louis and St. Anthony streets, where the slave market was located, a patroller stopped us.