Chapter 9
First thing next morning, along with a basket containing broth and ashcakes and sassafras tea, Canny brought a skinny girl called Tibet and a lively, round-faced boy called Young Guam and Sophie’s education on plantation life began.
At first, Sophie was too shy to open her mouth. Tibet and Young Guam were closer to her age than Canny, maybe eleven or twelve. They were dark and dusty and ragged, and their talk was full of words she didn’t know, like billets and crushers and black moss, and how lazy white folks were, making other folks do things anybody with gumption would know how to do for themselves. Sophie couldn’t help wondering if Lily and Ofelia said the same things about Mama and Aunt Enid—about Sophie herself, come to that.
If the children of Oak River didn’t think much of the Fairchilds, they purely hated Mr. Akins. “He ugly as a ’gator,” Tibet said, “and twice as mean. He catch you sucking on a tee-niny piece of cane, he whup you bloody.”
“Worth it, though,” Young Guam said. “I sure do love me some sugar cane. You ever chewed cane, Sophie?”
Sophie, who had never seen sugar that didn’t come in a bowl, shook her head.
“’Course she ain’t,” Tibet scoffed. “City girls don’t got no call to chew cane. City girls eats white sugar, double refined.”
“I’d chew cane, if I could get it,” Sophie said shyly. “I wouldn’t want to get whipped, though.”
All three children hooted, even Canny, and started in boasting about how many whippings they’d had and how long it had been before they could sit down afterward, with each teller outdoing the last and laughing like a beating was the funniest joke in the world.
Sophie didn’t know whether she was supposed to laugh along or feel sorry for them.
Tibet gave her a measuring look. “Hush up you mouth, Young Guam. Sophie here ain’t well enough for this kind of talk.”
“What kind of talk she well enough for, then?”
Canny poked Young Guam in the shoulder. “I told you! You supposed to tell her ’bout Oak River!”
“Oak River a big place,” Young Guam said. “What you want to know?”
“Everything,” said Sophie. “I’ve never lived on a plantation, you see.”
“We ain’t never even been to New Orleans,” Tibet said wistfully. “I hear it a mighty fine place.”
Canny brightened. “Why don’t we tell Sophie ’bout Oak River and she tell us ’bout New Orleans, turn and turn, like hoeing cane?”
Everyone agreed that this seemed fair and then looked at Sophie, waiting for her first question.
“Um. What’s black moss?”
Tibet answered. “You know that old grandfather moss hanging from the trees? Well, you takes that and puts it in a barrel of water for a week or two and . . . Wait—I show you.”
She ran outside, returning a moment later with a handful of something black and drippy that smelled strongly of spoiled vegetables. She stripped off the rotten leaves and dumped what was left in Sophie’s lap.
“This here’s black moss. You lying on it. White folks sits on it. We picks it, and Dr. Charles, he sell it in New Orleans and give us the money.”
Sophie touched the springy, wiry black stuff. It felt like soft steel wool.
“Cutting wood for the sugarhouse boilers pay better,” Young Guam broke in. “When I gets big, I going to cut me about a million cords, buy my freedom, and go to New Orleans. Now you tell ’bout your master’s house. I bet it ain’t as big as Oak River.”
That day and the next, whenever any Oak River children could get away from their chores, they came to the slave hospital to explain things to Sophie. Some told her about sugar-making, from planting chopped-up sections of cane—billets—in the spring to burning the fields after the harvest was over. Others told her about the French Cajun peddlers who traded printed calico and pins for homemade jam and pickles and whittled wooden toys. In return, Sophie told them anything she could think of about New Orleans that didn’t sound too modern: the shops on Royal Street and the old Negro men playing trumpets in the French Quarter and the big houses in the Garden District where her godmother lived, and the balls her mother went to, dressed in silk and pearls. Sometimes she’d forget, though, and mention streetcars and movie theatres.
The children listened to these unlikely wonders open-mouthed. Finally Young Guam said, “Sophie, you lie faster than a horse can trot.”
The way he said it, Sophie realized he was paying her a compliment.
At dawn Monday morning, Sophie woke up to Africa folding back the mosquito bar, and two white petticoats and a yellow dress lying across her bed.
“Dr. Charles, he say you fit to go to work, so I brought your clothes.”
By now, Sophie knew that the only servants on Oak River more important than Africa were Aunt Winney, who looked after Old Missy, Uncle Germany, the Oak River butler, and Mammy. Cooks were special. And Africa was not only a cook, but a two-headed woman. “Thank you,” she said. “For being so nice to me.”
Africa smiled. “You welcome. My Canny’s taken a shine to you. Lie back now and let me take a look at you.”
When she’d dug her strong fingers into Sophie’s belly and peered into her eyes, she said, “You’re mighty spry for a girl nearly dead with fever less than four days ago. The Orishas must be looking out for you. Still, no harm in helping them along some.”
She pulled a little leather bag from her apron pocket, tied up with red yarn and smelling pleasantly of mint and lavender, and hung it around Sophie’s neck. “That’s a gris-gris,” she said. “For protection. Don’t you never take it off, now. And don’t let nobody see it.”
Sophie touched the bag, the soft leather smooth and warm under her fingers. Another mystery, another thing she ought to know and didn’t. “I won’t.” She looked up into the rosewood face. “Thank you for taking care of me. I thought I was going to die.”
Africa laughed. “Not for a long time yet, the Good Lord willing. You put on that frock, now, and get your tail on up to the Big House.”
It was a good thing, Sophie thought later, that she’d seen in the hospital how slaves acted around white folks, or she’d never have gotten through her first day with Mrs. Fairchild. It was like living with Mama, only more so: never speak until she was spoken to, never raise her eyes, never sit down, always do what she was told, promptly and without argument.
The children had told Sophie everything they knew, but being yard-children, they had no more idea than she about what a lady’s maid was supposed to do. Aunt Winney was despairing. “Can’t iron, can’t mend, don’t know a buttonhook from a corset-stay! My land, Missy Caro, what we going do with her?”
Old Mrs. Fairchild was sitting at her vanity in a vast ruffled wrapper, looking like a big white hen. “Now, now Winney—it’s not the child’s fault. If she’s spoiled, it’s her upbringing that’s to blame.” She patted Sophie’s cheek. “She’s a bright girl. I just know she’ll make us proud.”
Sophie, not used to praise, felt a rush of affection for the old lady, who was, after all, her grandmother. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said. “I’ll surely try.”
Mrs. Fairchild smiled. “Now, stand over by the armoire and stay out from underfoot while Winney gets me ready to face the world.”
It was quite a production, involving a chemise tucked into long white drawers, a stiff corset, a hoop skirt like a steel bird cage, and an undershirt with long, balloon-like black sleeves that filled out the short, open sleeves of her black silk dress. Finally, Aunt Winney brushed, oiled, braided, and coiled her mistress’ long gray hair and covered it with a frilly white cap that looked very much like one of Aunt Enid’s toilet roll covers. The final touches were a pair of pearl and gold dangly earrings, a cameo brooch, a gentlemanly gold-handled cane, and a lace handkerchief, which Mrs. Fairchild tucked into her belt.
“Thank you, Winney. I’ll be spending the morning with Mammy and the accounts, so you and Sophie can make a start on her training. Be good, now, Sophie, an
d mind what Aunt Winney tells you.”
She was hardly out the door before Aunt Winney had hustled Sophie into the dressing room, sat her down on a three-legged stool, and got down to brass tacks.
“Missy Caro, she don’t care a lick if you can read or write or fly to the moon if you can’t do nothing useful. You ever thread a needle?”
Sophie said she had, and when Aunt Winney challenged her was proud to knot the thread one-handed, as Lily had taught her. Aunt Winney rewarded her with a ripped petticoat to sew up, then settled down to mending a lace collar and lecturing Sophie on her duties, stopping from time to time to criticize the size and evenness of her stitches.
Sophie hoped the Creature didn’t mean her whole adventure to be devoted to learning how to be a lady’s maid, because the number of things she’d need to know was as vast as Mrs. Fairchild’s wrapper. Besides arranging hair and lacing corsets, there was cleaning hairbrushes and airing dresses, mending, fancy ironing, getting spots out of silk and stains out of linen, and, last but not least, making her mistress’s morning coffee on a spirit stove in the dressing room.
By the time Mrs. Fairchild came upstairs to change for dinner, Sophie was rigid with boredom and heat and so hungry that the thought of cornmeal mush was making her mouth water.
Mrs. Fairchild gave her a shrewd look. “Why, you’re white as a sheet, child. Run along now and get something to eat.”
After what had happened the last time she was in the kitchen, Sophie was nervous of the reception she might get. There was some giggling, but mostly everybody was too busy to bother her. She got her mush without incident and carried it outside. A group of yard slaves was gathered under the oak, eating and talking.
Asia waved her wooden spoon. “If it ain’t young Sophie, back from death’s door. Come over here and sit down by me. That Miss Lotty’s yellow you wearing, ain’t it? The trouble them sleeves give me, I like to give up sewing and beg Mammy to send me to the fields. But I ain’t done such a bad job of it in the end.”
Sophie perched gingerly on a root. “Who’s Miss Lotty?”
Before long, she knew everything there was to know about Miss Charlotte Fairchild, Old Missy’s youngest and most recently married daughter, who lived in all the way up in Georgia with her husband, Mr. Franklin Preston, and their new baby, Franklin Humbolt Preston III. She also wished that, if she had to learn to mend, she could learn it from Asia. Aunt Winney wasn’t very good company.
She wished it even more that afternoon, when she helped Aunt Winney with the ironing. Despite the heat, Sophie had to build up the dressing-room fire, then haul glowing-hot irons to an iron stand to sit until they were cool enough not to scorch the fine linen. Sweating and sore, Sophie wished for an electric iron and an outlet to plug it into. Also a hotdog, or some macaroni and cheese, or an ice-cream cone.
She would have done almost anything for a cold Coca-Cola.
Supper was mush again, with greens and chicken and pot liquor. Exhausted, Sophie nodded over the petticoat until Mrs. Fairchild came up to be unpinned, unbuttoned, peeled out of her layers of silk and cotton, rinsed off with water heated on the dressing-room fire, and bundled into her nightgown. She climbed into bed, Aunt Winney unrolled the mosquito bar so it draped the whole bed from tester to footboard, and then it was time for Sophie to read aloud.
The book was Little Dorrit. Mrs. Fairchild was already halfway through it, but Sophie was too tired to care that she didn’t know what was going on.
She started out well enough, eager to please, but it wasn’t long before she started stumbling over words. Mrs. Fairchild said, “That’s enough, Sophie. You’ve done well today. Winnie has given me a good report of your industry, and I’ve seen for myself how quick you are. Keep on as you’ve begun, and I’ll have good reason to be proud.”
Surprised at the warmth in Mrs. Fairchild’s voice, Sophie looked straight at Mrs. Fairchild, who smiled at her. She smiled back, shyly, then turned down the oil lamp as Aunt Winney had taught her, stumbled off to the dressing room, unrolled her pallet, lay down, and fell asleep. Next thing she knew, someone was shaking her and telling her the dawn bell done rung and she best shake a leg if she didn’t want a licking.
She didn’t want to get up, but she had to anyway. She was a slave, and slaves didn’t have choices.
What she did have was mosquito bites all over her face and arms because she’d forgotten to pull up her mosquito bar.
All week, the routine was the same. Up at dawn, into the yellow dress and white tignon, roll up the pallet, make coffee on the spirit stove, open the curtains, roll up the mosquito bar, set the cup where Mrs. Fairchild could reach it. Help Aunt Winney down from her attic bedroom, light the dressing-room fire, put a pan of water to warm for Mrs. Fairchild’s morning wash.
Empty the chamber pot.
The first time Aunt Winney pointed to the stinking pot and told her it was her job to clean it, Sophie had looked at her in disbelief. “No! Ew! I’ll be sick. Can’t Sally do it?”
Aunt Winney gave her a whack with her walking stick. “Sally ain’t Missy Caro’s body servant. You is. You get used to it by and by. Scoot, before I tells Mammy you being uppity.”
Nose wrinkled, Sophie carried the pot downstairs, emptied it in the outhouse pit, rinsed it at the pump, and left it to air while she went down to the kitchen for breakfast. She felt too sick to eat, but she’d learned enough to put a corn cake in her apron pocket for later.
And then the real work of the day began.
Mrs. Fairchild had decided that the best way for Sophie to learn her way around Oak River was to use her as a messenger service. When Mrs. Fairchild wanted Mammy, Sophie ran and got her. When Mrs. Fairchild wanted to talk to Mrs. Charles, Sophie ran down to Oak Cottage to let her know. When Mrs. Fairchild had a question about the roses or the new colt, Sophie ran and got a gardener or a stable boy to answer it. And when dinnertime came at two o’clock, Sophie stood behind Mrs. Fairchild’s chair to fill her glass and pick up her napkin when it slid off her lap.
Sophie didn’t mind the running around, but she hated waiting at table. Waiting was a good word for it, since it involved standing with her hands folded over her apron and her stomach growling, watching the Fairchilds tuck into their soups and gumbos and roasts and vegetables, and counting the minutes until everyone was done eating. Even then, Sophie had to wait to eat her own dinner until Mrs. Fairchild was settled on her daybed to rest.
When she wasn’t running errands, Sophie was keeping the bugs off Mrs. Fairchild with a big palmetto fan, bringing her lemonade, keeping track of her books and her workbasket and the contents of her lap desk. She had no time to herself, no moment of the day when she wasn’t working or waiting for orders. Some days, the only time she wasn’t on her feet was when she was sewing or reading Little Dorrit. The only thing that kept her going was knowing it couldn’t last forever. The Creature might be tricksy, but she didn’t think it was mean. Soon, when she least expected it, it would appear, floating in the air and grinning, to take her home to the cozy clutter of Oak Cottage. Come Sunday, her adventure would have lasted two weeks. Maybe the Creature would take her home on Sunday.
And if he didn’t, at least she’d have a day off.
It was only part of a day off, really—Old Missy couldn’t dress herself any better on the Lord’s day than any other day of the week. And then Aunt Winney said it was time for church and made Sophie help her down to the yard, where they stood in the heat and the sun while a red-faced minister read out a text from Matthew:
“For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
It wasn’t a comforting text, or particularly easy to understand, which must have been why it took the minister over an hour to explain it. Sophie shifted from one aching foot to the other, her rose-sprigged calico Sunday best glued to her skin
with sweat, wondering if it was actually possible to die of boredom.
When the minister finally closed his book and went away, Aunt Winney groaned and rubbed her back. “Well, we done with that foolishness for another week. Now we go praise the Lord our own way.”
Sophie very nearly rebelled at the thought of enduring another sermon. But everybody else was heading toward the bayou, and Aunt Winney had already hooked her firmly by the arm and started walking. And there was the niggling fear that the Creature might punish rebellion by leaving her in the past another week. So she went along.
As the path wandered into a swampy grove, Aunt Winney puffed like a steam engine and weighed on Sophie’s arm like lead. Grimly, Sophie helped her along, falling farther and farther behind the others, wondering if they were walking clear back to New Orleans. Just when she thought she’d have to sit down and rest, they were in a clearing, where what looked like every Negro on the plantation was swarming around a big rough-built barn down by the water like bees around a hive.
Aunt Winney waded into the swarm and found a seat on a hay bale next to Mrs. Fairchild’s butler, Uncle Germany. There wasn’t anywhere for Sophie to sit, so she stood by the wall, wishing she was back home with Mama among the polished pews and bright stained glass of St. Martin’s Episcopal, and looking forward to eating shrimp remoulade and strawberry shortcake at the Hotel Ponchartrain.
When everybody had quieted down, a tall man in rusty black climbed up onto a plank table against the back wall.
Sophie leaned forward to whisper in Aunt Winney’s ear. “Who’s that?”
“That Old Guam, and he fixing to preach. Hush up now, and listen.”
While Sophie was wondering if Old Guam was any kin to Young Guam, he raised up his hands to heaven—big hands, with one finger missing—opened his mouth, and began to preach.
Delia Sherman Page 9