Beyond All Price

by Carolyn Poling Schriber

  Tony and Nellie spelled one another in offering as much care as possible. Tony bore the heaviest part of the burden, since Nellie had other duties as well. Doctor Ludington still expected her to do rounds with him at the hospital next door, and Colonel Leasure had decided to leave the day-to-day running of the household in her hands. There were medical supplies to be unpacked, inventoried, and re-ordered. The slave women needed instruction on how to adjust their duties to include cooking and laundry for the hospital patients.

  Routinely, visitors from Hilton Head arrived at the door, curious to see the inside of the house and expecting a meal and perhaps a bed for the night. Nellie had never been one to pay much attention to military ranks, but she soon found she could survive only by distinguishing in some way who mattered and who did not. A visiting general demanded their best hospitality. A young lieutenant accompanied by one of the nursing staff found himself shuffled off to the hospital mess.

  At one point, when Nellie was nearly prostrate with exhaustion, she complained loudly to Uncle Bob about his household staff. “I don’t have time to tell these women what to do every day! I explain our needs, and they nod and do what they are asked. But the next day, they wait again until I give them the same set of instructions. Why can’t they show a bit of initiative? Surely they can see when it is time for breakfast? Or when the laundry needs to be carried out to the washhouse?”

  Uncle Bob shook his head and smiled his knowing smile at her minor tantrum. “Initiative, Miss Nellie? You want slaves to show initiative? You doesn’t know much ‘bout slavery, does you?”

  “I know when people are not doing the job I expect them to do!”

  “But initiative? You teach a slave to initiate his own actions, and he be gonna initiate hisself right out dat door. Dat be what he be gonna do!”

  “But I thought you all were happy here. This is your home.”

  “We loves our families and our friends. We maybe even loves our jobs. Dis house is all de home most of us has ever know’d. But you don’t want to test our loyalty too far, Missy. We all be playin’ our roles, and you best be playin’ yours by de rules, too.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant by his references to role-playing, but she was learning more as time passed. She was mistress of a plantation house run by slaves, and she needed to behave that way, even if it was out of character for her.

  She was also learning more about Reverend Browne. On his good days, he felt compelled to write his customary letters to his family. The malaria in his system, however, had left him with a distinct tremor that affected his handwriting. Because he did not want to worry anyone, he asked Nellie to write the letters while he dictated them, explaining to his wife that the doctors would not let him out of bed to write at the desk. Every three or four days, she spend an hour transcribing his thoughts—a most curious experience.

  He composed his words as if he were speaking directly to his wife, and there were many times when he seemed to forget Nellie was in the room at all. Certainly he didn’t seem to realize how revealing his outpourings were. There were intimate messages—often soul-searchings—and he never mentioned them in any other context. Nellie was moved by his obvious affection for all the members of his family, not just his wife, but his father and his children, too.

  She was more confused by his musings on the meaning of his illness. If someone had asked her a month earlier, she would have said the chaplain used his religion as a weapon against the bad behavior of others. Now she saw he turned that weapon even more harshly against himself. He believed all illness was the result of God’s wrath, and he spent much time ruminating over his own misdeeds. He believed God was punishing him for his sins, and he knew those sins to be grievous and numerous because of the severity of his disease. He searched his conscience, trying to decide what he had done that had angered his God.

  He described his prayers and his better impulses, but he spent more time enumerating those thoughts and deeds that might be construed as sins. He frequently called himself a misanthrope, hating men and women alike who infringed on his privacy. Nellie cringed at that one a bit. Certainly her medical interventions had been part of that infringement. He catalogued his impatience with the weaknesses of others, his outbursts of temper, and his lack of compassion. He had not had many opportunities to commit overt sins, but he found no limit to his sins of omission. He mourned and regretted each one of them in his musings.

  He was a tormented man, consumed not so much by his hatred of others as by his hatred of himself. Nellie found herself feeling sorry for him, even though she could not always forgive him for how he turned that self-hatred against others. These letter-writing sessions left her drained and exhausted. She nursed him as diligently as she could, but she always left his sickroom with a sense of relief. And no one prayed harder for his swift recovery than Nellie Chase.

  ggg

  14

  Settling In

  Just when Nellie began to feel at ease with her new role as a plantation mistress and to believe Reverend Browne was truly on the way to a full recovery, a new crisis erupted. She entered the dining room one morning to find it shuttered and empty. She stepped back into the hall to look for Uncle Bob, but no one was around.

  As she approached the back porch, she saw the yard was similarly quiet and deserted. What’s going on? she wondered. She had never ventured through the dining room door used by the slaves, nor had she ever seen the warming kitchen below the dining room. Uncle Bob had made it clear her presence would be unwelcome there, and she had respected his instructions. But now, knowing the men would soon be coming downstairs for breakfast, she pushed the pocket door aside gingerly and bent down to listen to what was going on below stairs.

  A grief-stricken wail echoed up the stairwell. Niceties cast aside, Nellie dashed down the stairs to find Maybelle collapsed on the floor, fists raised above her head, face raised to an unseen ceiling, cries shaking her entire body. Maudy stood by, wringing her hands but unable to help. Nellie fell to her knees, gripping the trembling shoulders. “Maybelle? Maybelle! What has happened?”

  The slave woman looked at her without recognition, so caught up in her own grief she was unable to make the transition to ordinary speech, She shook her head, although she did not draw away. Nellie turned to Maudy with the same question.

  “It’s her little girl, Glory. She have de smallpox, an’ Unca’ Bob, he say he be gonna take her out in de swamp and leave her, so’s de rest of us don’t git it.”

  “What? We haven’t had any smallpox here. Has one of our doctors seen her?”

  “No, M’am. Jist Unca’ Bob. He take one look and chase ever’ body outta de room.”

  Anger washed over Nellie in a flood. She was willing to let Uncle Bob run the household, but this was going too far. “Uncle Bob does not make medical decisions, and certainly not life-ending ones,” she said. “Maybelle, get up. I want to see Glory right now.”

  “But. . . .”

  “No arguments. Take me to her.”

  Maybelle stood, reaching out to the rough stone walls of the passageway to steady herself. Then she led the way through the warming kitchen and out the door into the yard. Nellie followed and Maudy brought up the rear, still wringing her hands. The morning was cold and damp, and now a thick fog was settling in. It blurred the lines of the outbuildings and muffled their footsteps across the herringbone pattern of the brick forecourt. The little procession made its way onto the porch of the cookhouse, past the laundry room, and into a dark hallway. Maybelle hesitated for a moment at the foot of a rickety staircase set against the wall.

  “Go!” Nellie ordered.

  “You be careful, M’am,” Maudy warned. “Des steps is solidest near de wall, but you gots to watch for holes.”

  As she picked her way up the steps, leaning as best she could on the solid wall for extra support, Nellie wondered at the lives of these slaves, who must pass up and down this way several times a day. We need to make some changes around here, she told herself
. But a sick child comes first.

  The stairs emerged into a hallway that was slightly brighter, thanks to the row of unprotected windows looking out over the yard below. On the other side of the hall, darker rooms, built without windows or ventilation, cadged what light they could by leaving their doors open. Maybelle pushed open the only closed door with a soft call. “Glory? Honeychile? How you feeling?”

  “I’se itchy, Mama,” came a small voice from the dark.

  “Get me a lamp. Candles. Something.” Nellie pointed to Maudy. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made her way to the small pallet laid out near the fireplace. “I’m a nurse, Glory. May I look at your itches?”

  The child stared back at her, her eyes bright more in fear than with fever. Gently, Nellie pulled up the tiny shirt to check her chest. Then she turned to the mother.

  “Maybelle, I need you to think carefully. How long has she been sick? Where did the first rash appear? Was it on her face or on her chest?”

  “It be on her tummy, I ‘members. She not be sick, an’I didn’t see no sores, but she be scratchin’ at her tummy day ‘fore yestiday. An’ dis mornin, I sees all des bumps on her. Dat’s when Unca Bob come in and say she have de smallpox.” Maybelle was close to breaking down again.

  Nellie reached out to steady her. “She doesn’t have smallpox, I promise you. She has a case of chickenpox, that’s all. If it were smallpox, she would have been sick days before the rash broke out. The smallpox would have started on her face and hands, and you would have seen it right away. Chickenpox starts on the chest and moves up to the face later. Also, smallpox sores are hard to the touch, while these are squishy. She’s going to be uncomfortable for a few days, but she’ll soon be up and playing again.”

  Maybelle began to wail again, but it was a happy wail, “Praise be! Thank’e, Lord.”

  “Now then, Glory. You must try not to scratch your itches. That only makes them hurt worse, and it will spoil your pretty little face. Right after breakfast I’m going to bring your mama some lotion to put on the itchy places to make them better. Will you try not to scratch for me?”

  “Yes’m. I promises. But M’am?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is I gonna be better by Slave Ule? Dat be de bestes’ part of de year and I doesn’t want to miss it.”

  Nellie looked toward the women in confusion. “We’ll see, Glory. We’ll try to get you better by then. You can help by trying to get some sleep now, all right?”

  “Yes’m.”

  At the door, Nellie put out a hand to stop the two slave women. “Maybelle, you stay here with Glory. Don’t let anyone take her anywhere, do you hear? If anybody tries, even Uncle Bob, send him to me—if I haven’t found him first. And while you’re here, cut Glory’s fingernails real short, so she can’t scratch. You might even try putting some socks on her hands. Tell her they’re puppets. And Maudy, you get yourself down to the kitchen and get breakfast set up. You’ve helped enough that you know what to do. The colonel will be down soon, if he’s not already, and he and his men will want to be fed. Scurry now.”

  Nellie crossed the yard, peering around to see if she could spot Uncle Bob, but in the thick fog, no one seemed to be moving. She headed up the stairs to the back porch and entered the main hall of the house, where she met an irritated Colonel Leasure. “Nellie! Where in blazes have you been? And where is everyone else? It’s past breakfast time, and the table is empty!”

  Nellie held up both hands in front of her. “We need to talk. Come into the dining room.” The colonel, sensing the anger fueling his head nurse, followed meekly, sitting down at the table and watching in bemusement as Nellie stomped to the serving door and shouted, “Maudy! Get a move on!”

  “I’se a’ comin’, M’am.” The younger woman came in bearing a coffeepot. Nellie took it from her at the doorway and sent her hustling back for food. Then she poured a cup of coffee for herself and for the colonel before sitting down across from him.

  “Now, then!” Quickly she described the drama of the morning.

  “You’re sure it’s chickenpox?”

  “Yes, Sir. No doubt.” Quickly she reviewed the case for him, and he nodded his agreement. “But Uncle Bob needs to be told not to go around making medical diagnoses. And then I have some other questions for him, too. Can you get him in here?”

  The colonel nodded again. He strode to the door and bellowed, “Bob!”

  Tony appeared at the foot of the steps, his eyes wide at the tone of the colonel’s voice. “He be upstairs, Sir. I be gonna fetch him.” But the colonel was already bounding up to shout again. “Bob! I want you in the dining room. Now!”

  The second shout did the trick. Bob appeared in the doorway, looking affronted at having been summoned so rudely. “No need to shout, Sir.”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” the colonel responded. “You’ve been scaring the servants half to death with your amateur medical pronouncements. That little girl has chickenpox, not smallpox, and you had no business frightening her mother with threats of abandoning her in a swamp. You have a house full of doctors here. Come to us with medical problems, understand?”

  “Well, it looked like smallpox to me, Sir. I’se jist tryin’ to keep everybody safe.”

  “You do that by not overstepping your bounds. Understand? Now, Miss Nellie has something else to talk to you about.”

  With an exaggerated sigh that stopped short of becoming an insult, Uncle Bob turned to her. “M’am?”

  “Little Glory was worried about something called ‘Slave Ule’. What in the world is that?”

  “Dat be a Christmas celebration Massa Leverett used to let us black folks have.”

  “Ule? Oh, Yule! Christmas! I’d nearly forgotten.” Nellie caught her breath as she realized it was indeed December. “And what happens in this Slave Yule celebration?”

  “Well, we all gonna be busy on Christmas Day servin’ de white folk, so we gets several days afore Christmas for ourselfs. Slave Yule usually start on a Sattiday, after we does half-day chores. De men go out an’ gather up some greenery fo’ de decorations, and de women and chilluns go oysterin’. Mos’ ever’ night we roasts sweet ‘taters an’ oysters in de coals of de fire and has ourselfs a feast. When it be dark, Old Letitia call all de chilluns roun’ and tell ‘em de story o’ how de baby Jesus come. Den we sings Christmas songs an’ spirituals til de chilluns go to sleep, and den we has a ‘Stomp’ in de back of de yard.” He finished his description and looked from Nellie to the colonel with raised eyebrows, waiting to gauge their reactions.

  “No wonder Glory doesn’t want to miss it. It sounds like a good time.” Nellie was smiling despite her former anger.

  Leasure nodded his agreement. “By all means. We wouldn’t want to interfere with such a delightful tradition. Let’s see. Tomorrow is Saturday, the 14th. Will the next Saturday, the 21st, be suitable for starting your Yuletide celebration?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Now Uncle Bob was smiling, too. “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Now,” the colonel demanded, “Where in blazes is my breakfast?”

  Later that day, Nellie finished her hospital rounds and made her way back to the slave quarters. Apparently the word about her intervention with little Glory had spread. The slaves met her with broad grins and greetings instead of wary looks and downcast eyes. “Hello, Miss Nellie!” “Thank you.” “Can I gits you sumpin?” Even Cook stuck her head out the door of the kitchen to ask if Nellie had any special requests for dinner. “I has some nice fried chicken for y’all tonight. Hope dat’s all right?”