“My land, Antigua, I thought you were Uncle Germany!”
Antigua stepped over the stacks of books and snatched Emma away.
“That’s not yours,” Sophie said indignantly.
“Ain’t yours, neither.” Antigua laid the book on a pile. “What you doing here, anyway?”
Sophie flourished her duster. “Dusting!”
“That ain’t what I mean.” Antigua grabbed Sophie and dragged her to the mantelpiece mirror. “Look at you,” she said. “You near as white as Miss Liza. Your hair ain’t nappy, your nose ain’t wide, and you ain’t got no more lips than a chicken. You could run away North easy as Elijah going to Heaven.”
Sophie studied their doubled reflection, Antigua’s pale brown beside her own fading tan. They didn’t look all that different to her, with their rabbit-eared tignons and their hand-me-down dresses and their faces flushed and troubled.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Antigua released her with a disgusted shake. “You don’t understand? Sophie, you duller than a broken knife. Your master give you a traveling pass and a purse of money. And what do you do? You loses them!”
“They were stolen.” Sophie remembered it clearly—the panic she’d felt when she searched for her bag on the steamboat and found it gone.
Antigua was shaking with fury. “Don’t make no never mind. You was free. Nobody watching you, nobody looking for you, nobody to know if you light out North or West or wherever you likes. And what do you do? You crawls here to Oak River and holds out you hands for the chains like they was bracelets.”
Up to now, Sophie had kept her temper with Antigua. She’d ignored the teasing and the insults, even gotten in a few herself, when she could think fast enough. But this was too much. She flew at Antigua, both hands raised. Antigua grabbed her wrists. They reeled, staggered, tripped over a pile of books, and fell on top of the embroidered fire screen, which collapsed under them with a sickening crack.
“Lord God Almighty,” whispered Antigua. “Get up.”
“Yes,” said a chilly voice. “By all means. Get up.”
Mrs. Charles stood in the doorway, her hands folded at the waist of her lavender afternoon dress, calm as a cat at a mouse hole. “Who is responsible for this mess?”
Sophie scrambled to her feet and hung her head, too frightened to speak.
“Fighting? I’m shocked.” Mrs. Charles took her rawhide strip from her sash and slapped it lightly across her hand. “Antigua, step forward.”
Antigua threw Sophie a sulfurous glance, stepped forward over the ruins of the fire screen, and knelt in front of Mrs. Charles. Sophie’s ears buzzed. Was this a time to speak or a time to keep silent? She didn’t want to be whipped, but she didn’t want to see Antigua whipped either.
Mrs. Charles raised the strap high.
“Wait!”
Mrs. Charles lowered her arm and lifted her eyebrows.
Sophie licked her lips. “It wasn’t Antigua. I got mad and pushed her. I’m sorry.”
Antigua couldn’t have looked more startled if Sophie had suddenly grown another head.
Mrs. Charles shrugged. “Get up, Antigua. Sophie, kneel.” Sophie took a reluctant step forward. “Hurry up, girl!” Sharp fingers seized Sophie’s shoulder and thrust her to her knees. Sophie tensed and the rawhide whistled down and cut across her back.
The first blow was a sharp sting, painful, but not unbearable. Sophie gasped, more from shock than pain. The second and third blows, laid over the first, hurt much worse. Sophie cried out and tried to crawl away, but Mrs. Charles held her tight. Again and again the rawhide slashed down across her shoulders and back. Sophie huddled in on herself, screaming and sobbing, sure the beating would never end. And then it did.
Mrs. Charles nudged Sophie with her foot. “Stop that screeching, girl! I never heard such a fuss over a little whipping. As for you, Antigua, don’t think you’ve got off scot-free.”
Through her fog of pain, Sophie heard the whistle and slap of rawhide and Antigua’s grunt. Mrs. Charles said, “Send someone in here to clear up this mess and take the fire screen to the carpenter. Then get yourself back down to Oak Cottage. Mr. Waters is coming to take Miss Liza riding.” And she swept out of the room.
Sophie tried to sit up. The movement rubbed the sore skin of her back against her dress, which hurt almost as much as the beating. She gave a yelp.
“Hush,” Antigua said urgently. “You doesn’t want Young Missy coming back, does you?”
Sophie clenched her jaw and tried to stop crying. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? For telling the truth? I ain’t surprised. I ain’t never heard of such foolishness since Compair Lapin met Tar Baby. Come on, now.” She helped Sophie up and held her steady when she swayed dizzily. “Aunt Winney’ll fix you up. You just lean on me.”
Up in Old Missy’s dressing room, Aunt Winney clucked and shook her head. “Sounds like quite a licking. Not that she ain’t got it coming.”
Sophie, who’d just about pulled herself together, fell apart again.
Aunt Winney reached for her stick and hauled herself painfully to her feet. “T’aint no good carrying on that-a-way. What’s done is done. I reckon you best come up yonder so’s I can take a look at you. Don’t want Missy Caro coming in and getting all exercised. Antigua, you can help me up them stairs. I swan, they gets steeper ever day.”
The three of them crept up the attic stairs, Antigua dragging ruthlessly on the old woman’s arm.
“You jumpy as a bird on a cat’s head,” Aunt Winney said.
“Miss Liza waiting for me, and I still gots to find Peru. One licking’s enough for one day. There.” She heaved Aunt Winney up the last step. “Sophie, you take care, hear?” And she was gone.
Aunt Winney sat Sophie down and helped her ease the yellow dress from her shoulders.
“Could be worse,” she said, poking painfully at Sophie’s back. “You ain’t cut more’n a lick. In Old Massa’s day, I sees mens cain’t hardly stand, they’s cut so bad, hoeing cane while the overseer watch to make sure they keeps working.” She shook her head. “Them was bad days, but they over now, and so’s your whupping. I gots some ointment Africa give me will take the fire out of it.”
The ointment smelled of herbs and stung like fire ants. Sophie hissed at the pain, but she managed not to cry out. Aunt Winney wrapped her ribs with a torn-up apron, helped her dress, and sent her down to finish her task.
When she got to the library, the fire screen was gone, the books stacked neatly. Sophie painfully replaced them on the shelves in alphabetical order. She wasn’t tempted to open a single one.
That night, she dreamed about Mrs. Charles, fanged like a great, pale snake, biting at her back as she fled up endless steps. Whoever she ran to—Aunt Enid, Papa, Old Missy, Mama—slapped a rawhide strip against a giant hand and grinned at her. She woke to the airless dressing room, the throbbing of her back, and an overpowering sense of helplessness. When she finally went back to sleep, she dreamed she was with the Creature in the summerhouse, dressed up in her blue gingham shirtwaist and eating candy from one of Grandmama’s gold-rimmed plates.
The Creature said, “You ain’t got good sense. But it ain’t nowhere writ down that good sense always the best guide to follow. You make a good choice, young Sophie.”
“Is that the end of the story?” Sophie asked eagerly. “Can I go home now?”
“Bless you, child, that just an incident. The real story just starting.”
Chapter 12
Thanks to Africa’s ointment, the welts on Sophie’s back faded quickly. The welts on her mind faded, too, though not entirely. Sophie had had lessons before in keeping her head down and her expression pleasant. This one was just harder than most.
Still, there were times when acting like she didn’t have a thought in her head was just not possible.
About a week after the whipping, with the family expected in a few days and everybody’s nerves in rags, Old Missy sent Sophie down to
Oak Cottage with a message for Miss Liza. She wasn’t in the garden and she wasn’t in the parlor, so Sophie went to look her bedroom. The door was shut. Sophie knocked and went in.
And there was Miss Liza, parading her white gauze ball-gown in front of the long lookingglass. She’d cut out the neck of her gown so low she was in danger of falling right out of it. Her eyes met Sophie’s in the mirror, and her face blazed furious scarlet.
“Don’t you know to knock?” she snapped.
Sophie curtsied. “I did knock, Miss.”
“You did not.” Miss Liza tugged at her neckline. “You’re a nasty, sneaking girl who doesn’t know her place. Mama says you’ve been spoiled rotten.”
Sophie didn’t laugh, but the effort must have showed. Miss Liza turned redder still, grabbed a pair of heavy metal shears off the nightstand, and heaved them at Sophie’s head.
Luckily, Miss Liza’s aim was terrible. The shears hit the washstand pitcher and smashed it into smithereens, along with the bowl it was standing in. Sophie gasped, Miss Liza gave a furious little scream, and then, like a bolt out of heaven, Dr. Fairchild appeared in the door, demanding to know what in tarnation was going on.
Sophie folded her shaking hands on her apron and did her best to look simple.
Miss Liza hastily snatched up a wrapper and threw it around her bare shoulders. “It’s not my fault, Daddy—it’s that girl. She sassed me something terrible.”
Dr. Charles picked the shears out of a heap of blue-flowered shards. “That’s not a sufficient reason to throw dangerous things, Elizabeth. Had you hit her, you might have cut her, gouged out her eye, even killed her.”
Miss Liza pouted. “She’s not hurt. And it would serve her right if she was. After I’m married, how will my slaves respect me if I let them sass me?”
“It is to be hoped,” Dr. Charles said, “that by the time you’re married, you will have learned to command your temper. Whatever she may have said to you, Sophie is not your servant to punish. And you’ve destroyed a very expensive bowl and pitcher, sent all the way from England. I’m ashamed of you, daughter. Deeply ashamed.”
Miss Liza collapsed on the daybed in a fit of whooping hysterics. Sophie noticed that she was not too hysterical to keep a tight grip on her wrapper.
Dr. Charles sent Sophie for smelling salts and applied them to his daughter’s nose. She sneezed and stopped whooping, although tears cascaded from under her dark lashes.
Dr. Charles took her hand. “Listen to me, puss. When you correct a servant, you must do it firmly but gently. Would you throw a knife at a horse that threw you or a dog that growled at you?”
Miss Liza shook her ringlets meekly, but the set of her mouth told Sophie that she very well might, if she had a mind.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Dr. Charles said indulgently. “Your mama is an excellent woman, but in the matter of managing the servants, I would prefer you to take your Grandmama as your model. Do you understand?”
Miss Liza sat up on the daybed and lifted large, wet eyes to her father’s face. “Of course, Papa.”
“That’s my good puss.” He gave her hand a pat, apparently satisfied with the effect of his lecture.
Which proved, Sophie thought as she went in search of a chambermaid to sweep up the mess, that Dr. Charles was a lot stupider about people than he was about broken bones and fever and vacuum-effect evaporators. Only a blind man wouldn’t see that Miss Liza was mean as the devil and twice as tricky. She just hoped Mr. Beau was good and blind.
A few days later, the Big House was ready for company. Everything that could be polished had been polished, the storeroom was full, the beds were made up, and there were fresh flowers in every room.
The day the Fairchild daughters were due to arrive, Old Missy set up camp bright and early in a wicker chair down by the floating dock so she’d be sure to be on hand to greet them. Standing behind her with a sunshade, Sophie watched the steam launches pull up the bayou one by one, whistles shrilling, with wide-hatted ladies leaning over the rails and waving their parasols. Samson and Peru helped the crew tie up to the floating dock. Then a Fairchild daughter would herd her children down the gangway to kiss their grandmother and pester her for a boiled sweet while her husband oversaw the unloading of all the trunks and valises and dressing cases necessary for a two-week visit.
By late afternoon, everyone had arrived and Oak River overflowed with Fairchild women and their ruddy planter husbands, talking and laughing and needing to be waited on.
Miss Lotty and Mr. Preston had brought their new baby and his nurse with them, but Miss Sukey and Mr. Kennedy had left their two younger children at home, bringing only Miss May Frances Kennedy, a prissy-faced ten-year-old with chestnut hair cut to her shoulders. Miss Kate’s twins, Augustus and Marcus Becker, were, as Aunt Winney said, as alike as blackstrap and molasses and mischievous as monkeys. Not an hour after they arrived, their father was tanning their backsides for sliding down the banister.
They made a great deal of noise over the whipping, then ran off immediately afterward to climb a tree. Sophie couldn’t believe it was just because they were used to it. Maybe people didn’t hit their children as hard as they hit their slaves.
Sunday night supper was a more than usually formal affair. The Fairchilds and Kennedys and Prestons and Beckers alone made twelve at table, plus Mr. and Mrs. Robinson from Doucette and Mr. Beaufort Waters.
Sophie stood in her usual place behind Old Missy’s chair and watched Uncle Germany and Peru ladle out soup and pour wine for the gentlemen and Korea supply the ladies with lemonade and barley water. Samson pulled steadily at a big, square silk-covered fan suspended over the table, cooling the company and keeping the flies off.
The soup was followed by a side of smoked pork, a treat Mr. Becker had imported from Virginia. As everyone tucked in hungrily, Sophie distracted herself from her own growling stomach by studying the Fairchild daughters.
Miss Sukey, plump and fair and kind-faced, favored Old Missy. Miss Lotty and Miss Kate’s narrow lips, dark eyes, and eagle noses were slightly softer reflections of the portrait of old Mr. Fairchild that hung over the sideboard. All three grandchildren favored their fathers. While the adults made polite conversation, Marcus and Augustus Becker, all dressed up in blue velvet suits, made faces at Miss May, who fiddled with the string of coral beads around her neck and pretended to ignore them.
From the place of honor at her father’s left, Miss Liza gazed possessively at her fiancé, who was enduring Miss Kate’s very thorough, very polite investigation of his family, his prospects, and his politics. Sophie found herself feeling almost sorry for him.
When the smoked pork was down to scraps and bones, Mrs. Fairchild rang her silver bell. Sophie leaned around Mr. Beau to take up his plate and felt a sly hand squeeze her leg through her petticoats.
Startled, she jerked back, tipping dirty silverware and a greasy bone onto the rug.
There followed a small flurry. Mr. Beau laughed, Miss Liza glared blue murder, Old Missy tutted in distress. Ears burning, Sophie bent down to clear up the mess.
“Who’s that girl?” Miss May Kennedy’s voice cut through the buzz of conversation. “The one who looks like Cousin Liza?”
Time stuttered, then started up again as Miss Sukey and Old Missy struck up a lively conversation about the finer points of Georgia and Louisiana society. Uncle Germany snatched the plate out of Sophie’s hand and shooed her into the pantry, where Korea was standing with her apron thrown over her face, shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Lordy, Lordy,” she gasped. “Bless me if I ever heard the like! ‘The one who look like Cousin Liza!’ That’s some plain speaking, yes, indeed.”
“You shut your mouth, Korea, and get your self on out there and clear.”
Sophie was almost in tears. “I’m sorry, Uncle Germany. I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident.”
“I ain’t blaming you,” Uncle Germany said wearily. “Now, you run on down to Africa and tell her w
e’s ready for them pies. And don’t go showing that Fairchild nose where anybody but Old Missy can see it.”
Next morning, Mrs. Fairchild told Sophie she wouldn’t be waiting on her at meals any more.
“Not when there’s company,” she said. “At least until you’re older and more experienced.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sophie, much relieved.
Old Missy gazed into the vanity mirror and adjusted the white ruffle at her neck. “I’ll be devoting all my time to my family while they’re here. You won’t have much to do, bar making my coffee—and reading to me at night, of course. I’ve decided send you—temporarily—to the yard.” She glanced up at Sophie’s reflection. “Mammy will tell you where you’ll be most useful. Don’t look so stricken, child. I’m not angry with you.”
Fuming, Sophie presented herself in the office, where Mammy greeted her with grim satisfaction. “It’s more than time you did some real work. Go tell Africa she’s got a new girl to scrub the pots and sweep the floors. And see you’re back in good time for the reading.”
Sophie set off for the yard in a fine, sullen temper. Old Missy wasn’t angry with her? Well, Sophie was plenty angry with Old Missy. She was mistress of Oak River, after all. If she wanted to keep her granddaughter beside her, what business was it of anybody’s? Did the Fairchild daughters think Sophie would stop existing because they didn’t have to look at her?
At the entrance to the maze, Sophie stopped. She’d gone in before without getting caught. No reason she couldn’t do it again. It was a Fairchild maze, after all, and she was a Fairchild. With a hasty glance around to see if anybody was looking, she ran to the central garden, where she sat on the stone bench under the rose arbor and spread her skirts as if she had as much right to be there as any other member of the family.
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