Stand the Storm

by Breena Clarke

  Gabriel was not a pacer, but had been visibly restless and ill at ease for some days. Because Annie had followed him to the toilet before, she knew his bowels were not locked against him, causing this discontent. He ruminated upon another concern.

  “This girl is a good matchup. She’s comfort and contentment, Brother. No doubt she’s the tonic you need,” Annie said with tittering. “Listen to your nanny, boy. It’s a constant woman you’re wanting.”

  “Go off, Nanny,” Gabriel said, fingering his penis. “Leave me be.”

  “ ’Tis not good to worry, Brother. ’Tis not good to worry yourself either, Brother,” she said, and laughed heartily. “Lay a claim before someone else,” she finished, and quit the backyard.

  Comfort and contentment—they were the words he would have used. Gabriel sat upon his seat behind the crescent moon and ruminated on Mary. He mused that she did give outward signs of feeling comfort and contentment around him and his family. Dare he hope that she would accept to stay with them and put in with them formally? Dash! Would she take him? Would she have him to husband?

  Gabriel knew it to be felt amongst colored people and the main folk that only a married woman was a decent woman. A married woman would not get cutting sidelong glances from the strivers and the big colored around town.

  ’Tis an abundance of loose gals and disease among the other man’s women in this town. Gabriel chuckled and hitched his pants and recalled the experiences of Mr. Pearl and himself. They had been circumspect, but they had occasionally availed themselves of the courtesies of the town’s public women.

  On the following evening, through a plan, Gabriel and Mary were left alone in the kitchen. Sewing Annie put down her work and went to her room soon after the evening meal. Ellen had also bid good night, scooped up her child, and been gone like a wisp. Had she gone to the outhouse? Had she gone to put Delia down to rest? The wonder crossed Mary’s mind and she came to the realization that the women had left the spinning wheel idle purposely. It was an odd occurrence for the busy room and it set her on guard.

  Gabriel alone remained and Mary had a sudden, timid fear that Gabriel had sent the other women away to press a hurtful purpose.

  “I won’t subjugate you, Mary. I won’t take anything away from you that the Lord gave you,” Gabriel said solemnly. “I would like for you to marry with me. It would be the most proper thing for us to do.” As if to emphasize the rightness of his proposal, Gabriel sat very straight in his chair and placed his hands flatly on the table before him. This inactivity was arresting, for rarely in a day were his hands so completely still.

  “Oh,” Mary answered, as if the words brought forth an explosion from her. It was a dignified request. It was a sensible, practical arrangement for a woman who was free but unanchored. It was the stuff of a dream, but frightening in its implication.

  “We might join at the church and take a ceremony there. We might have a fest, Mary.” Gabriel spoke to buoy her and persuade her and to cover the long silence. “Nanny and Ellen will make a party.”

  Mary cried tears in answer and Gabriel was flummoxed. He was not so very vain, but he had thought she would say yes quickly. There was unease and there was more puzzling silence. Mary said her piece bluntly.

  “I want you, sir, but I am afraid to disappoint you. You are wanting a good wife and I am no longer good. You are wanting a good girl to marry.”

  Gabriel went silent in his turn and became deeply engaged in thought.

  “Mary, we want no girl here. I need a wife. You are a fitting cog and we will have you stay. It is best for us to marry if you stay. We will settle a home. I feel there is goodness in you . . . and more. I would have that goodness and more with me.” Gabriel placed his hands to either side of Mary’s chin and cupped her face. She shied from his hands, then could not break from him. “Mary, will you be joined with me?”

  Mary mused on Gabriel’s strong grip. Again and again she would discover that his hands were capable of many gifts: gentle, firm, authoritative, demanding, playful.

  It was not lack of pure wanting but the fear of the measure that caused Mary to hesitate. She signaled her agreement by shaking her head, moving within his grip, and when Gabriel released her chin in joy, she said, “Yes, sir. I will.”

  Mary knew instantly that Annie, too, was in favor of this bond, for Gabriel would not have spoken if she opposed this. Annie was the chief here, but she was good and used all of them well.

  Gabriel rose and walked about the room, coming to stand behind Mary’s chair again. He exhaled near her ear. It was a rarity for Mary to feel the warm breath of someone upon the back of her neck—someone who did not mean to pummel her. Gabriel stared at her nape as he stood over her and spoke. His breath hitched and Mary felt the change in his warm exhalation. She was a tad startled by the man’s cultivated gentleness.

  His closeness unsettled her. Mary worried about her body. Her skin was not smooth and unmarked. There was upon her the perfect impression of Phillip Ruane’s brand. Would Gabriel laugh at the sight of it or would he be sickened?

  Mary sought out Ellen when the news of the nuptials was spread. She pulled her into the small store room at back of the workroom and bared her thigh and asked Ellen to gauge the ugliness.

  Annie broke in on them. “I’ve seen you,” she said to Mary. “I know you beneath your clothes, girl. There’s nothing upon you that my son cannot bear. He is good and quiet, but he is not weak. I know his wants, girl. And you need a tree to stand under. Better a one like him.” Annie paused. “You don’t know much of men, though you have had your bad experience. Ellen don’t either. Follow behind me. When they nature gets up, they don’t start to quibble about what a’not perfectly pretty. It don’t worry ’em.” This declaration set the young women laughing and put a lid on the talk of ugliness.

  Mary’s curiosity about Gabriel’s body was not chaste. What was beneath the scrupulously mended clothing that Gabriel wore? Had his life at Ridley Plantation been as soft and uncomplicated as it seemed? Did he hide Jonathan Ridley’s fury on his back? Or had he escaped this ignominy? And if his front and back were smooth, where lay his scars?

  Out of Annie’s earshot, Mary did ask Ellen what was upon Gabriel’s back that she had ever seen.

  “ ’Tis as smooth as a babe’s. Gabriel is Master’s favorite dumb dog so he has no marks for disobedience,” she said. At this, Ellen unlaced her own blouse and loosed it to fall at her waist. “I am marked, too, you see.” She showed Mary a welt that ranged from beneath her left breast down her side and stopped at her waist. “The once I pushed him off he made me pay with his belt. Master Ridley was not pleased with me. Do not tell Nanny . . . or Gabriel,” she implored.

  “No,” Mary replied. “I will never.”

  “I will make a nightgown for your bedding that will be so complex with tatting that Gabriel will be lost counting knots and will not notice much else until his nature is well up.” Ellen laughed at her own humor and pulled Mary into it, and the two laced each other up with much giggling. They concluded with a kiss to seal their pact.

  Gabriel Coats and New Mary stood up to declare themselves before the minister at Mount Zion Church on January 11, 1855. A good-sized group of congregants joined to witness the nuptials, for it meant something that this couple was stepping up to formalize themselves. The puffed-up Reverend Noah Zachary was fond of expounding this point of uprightness and chastity. “The ministers are pressing colored for to marry. It is a good thing to say our people are coming out of slavery and doing things in a formal way.”

  Education, temperance, economy and moral rectitude, these were the virtues expounded upon at Mount Zion and aspired to by the town’s free colored. The churches of the town promoted these simple ideals heavily. Aspiration above all was the air the freed people breathed in the sanctuaries and the songs they sang. These uplifting virtues were the drink for their great thirst. And beneath this banner, Gabriel did begin with his wife.

  Annie ceremoniously brought bed
clothes to the room on the upper floor that the newly wedded would share. Again Annie rotated the sleeping arrangements in the house according to the proprieties. The married couple was to have the topmost room.

  Annie placed the linens on a stool just inside the door to the small, irregularly shaped room. She freshened the bed with a mattress of good straw and grasses laced with some cinnamon shavings. A lovely cloud of aroma redolent of Christmas rose from the bedding as Annie fluffed and punched and arranged it. Several lit lamps embellished the warmth and disseminated the spicy smells. Mary, who shyly followed Annie up the stairs, took a place near the door. It embarrassed her, this fussing—-especially as Annie grinned despite her pretense at solemnity.

  The sheets to cover the mattress were as white as a whisper and the pillow shams were bordered with Annie’s finest needlework. Pillow shams! Embroidered pillow shams! The pattern was a needlewoman’s favorite—the Cornucopia. It was thought a charm for the most fortunate to have linen worked with the Cornucopia. Annie set store by the way she could execute the intricacies.

  Annie made her way around the bed, pulling and tucking and clucking her tongue with satisfaction at the work. Mary came forward to take a lofted end of the sheet—to assist—but Annie waved her away and smoothed the sheet herself and tacked it with precision. It was a delight for Annie to look at the sleeping pallet with the starched and stiffened covering that was smooth and unwrinkled like butter. Ah! She enjoyed the feel of this cloth and was proud that Gabriel and his good wife could begin with each other on a bed of fluff and comfort.

  When she was done with her bed-making, Annie smiled at her new daughter, who stood with her back at the wall. The girl was nervous, she knew. Annie might tell her that Gabriel was good and gentle, but he was a man. Mary would learn him for herself as every wife learns her husband. After earnest consideration Annie did say to Mary, “It is sensible to keep the man satisfied. It ties him to you. Do as he says to do. Learn him.”

  Early on that morning Annie had taken nervous Mary—leading her by the shoulders—to the front room of the shop. She had put the girl in front of the mirror and presented her own picture to herself. A reflex caused Mary to shy from the glass. Annie held her firm in front of it. She was made to see that she was lovely in the dress Annie and Ellen had made for the day. Ellen had festooned the white cloth her mother had sewed with lace trim of great intricacy. The dress suited Mary’s form perfectly. She was all-over lovely. Ellen brought forth a secret undertaking—a shawl of knitted whorls that she’d worked unobserved by the others. The shawl was worn on the head and it draped across Mary’s shoulders and the bodice of her dress.

  Young Aaron Ridley good-naturedly insisted that Gabriel make a wedding suit for himself from the stock of the shop. He offered up a fine black wool cloth. Gabriel graciously allowed Ridley to take some measurements. It pleased the young white man to be, in some manner, a benefactor of the couple. Gabriel had already put aside the brushed beaver pelt that he would apply to the collar of his wedding suit. If it were not the most fancily decorated garment, it would be the best made of all the great many he had sewn.

  “You will make a splash, Gabriel!” Aaron exclaimed. “There is no nigger to match you!”

  Gabriel was excited by the upcoming wedding ceremony at Mount Zion. The colored tailor’s rising popularity appealed to church members and they wanted him amongst them. Likewise, Gabriel wanted to claim a place in the town—among the free colored. There was a splash to be made for a tailor. For his big moment at the church, Gabriel skimmed his hair close and oiled his head with lard. He wanted no woolly stuff. His shirt collar was a perfection of white. It was high and starched stiff by the expert laundresses in his household. It framed his handsome, unmarked face—no mustache, no chin hairs, and no scar.

  Winnie Wareham, who had become an especial friend to Annie and the Coatses, promised plentiful yeast rolls for the wedding party fare and brought them. Daniel Joshua, surprised at himself to be in such genteel surround, brought sacks of sugar and tubs of cream for the wedding coffee.

  After the repast, the assembled sat and sang the familiar songs. There was a harmonica and an able woman called Sally Matto to play upon it. There was a singing, warbling saw blade played by Nathaniel Booker that was the very blade his papa brought out of slavery. A tale told over and over was that Nathaniel’s papa risked all to take the saw blade away from the cruel place they had been. He said it sounded like his own mama in the mournful way it sang. Hake and Jake Leonard played horns fashioned out of a dead bull. They had taken the end off the animal’s horns so as to be able to blow on them. And they had made some very fine horns.

  The saw blade rose in full-throated celebration and Nathaniel was tireless upon it. Hake and Jake followed him. The others came on their heels and singers joined in. Nathaniel played “I’ll Fly Away” and they sat and sang many a verse of the song. And though it was a joyful celebration, there came a time the souls of the dear departed seemed present in the room. The people sat around and sang round after round of the popular pieces.

  Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name

  You may call for your mother

  Mother can’t do you no good.

  Crying, Oh, my Lord, what shall I do?

  After the ceremony, when the wedding couple had left the clutch of well-wishers at the church, the Coats family returned to their workroom hearth to boil coffee and eat fancy-made sweet biscuits. Annie, Ellen, and the babe, Delia, ate heartily and happily. They licked sweetness off their fingers and doubled the cream in their coffee before settling back to their needlework. The stunned married couple sat beside each other without speaking and little eating. Gabriel waved off cream and drank a dark cup of coffee and doused his biscuit in the cup. Mary took no repast.

  “My mother is pleased for you,” Aaron Ridley said ceremoniously, coming to stand in the doorway between the shop and the back room. Gabriel and the three women were startled and rose. Each one upset a task on the table and the general confusion caused Aaron to retreat a few steps.

  “My mother and I give this to you . . . in celebration.” He held out a large paper-wrapped, tied bundle, but was unsure of whom to hand it to. Annie came forth and took the bundle with a curtsy. She inclined her head and said for all, “We thank you, Master Aaron. We thank your mother heartily.”

  Aaron Ridley stood still longer, basking in their thanks with his arms dangling uneasily. “Well, ah,” he said. “Gabriel . . .”

  “Sir,” Gabriel answered, proffering some new prestige to Aaron Ridley. He stood straight and expectantly.

  “Well . . . be of good cheer,” Aaron said with some surprise, and turned to exit.

  “Sir, my wife and I and my mother and my sister do thank you and your saintly mother for your favor. It does mean much to us,” Gabriel Coats, a man with a sprig of wedding flowers in his lapel, declared.

  Aaron Ridley had obtained this gift, a quilt his mother had amongst her stores that was the lovely Double Wedding Ring, on one of his periodic trips to Ridley Plantation. It was a treasure. It did make Annie Coats become Sewing Annie at the sight of it—as it tumbled out of its paper and was unfolded. Her mentor, Knitting Annie, had worked upon this beautiful quilt from Ridley. This is one quilt her fingers had not been allowed to touch in her childhood. And now it had come to her son and his wife!

  Gabriel, too, recognized this quilt. It was Nanny’s teaching quilt. She drew it from the linen closet at Ridley again and again to show him the stitches and the placement of pieces. Whispering during Mistress’s naptime, she would put his small fingers on it—having scrubbed them herself—to educate him, to teach his fingers the stitches of Knitting Annie, to show his eye the placement—the strict, unerring sense of the pieces of the pattern. There was a beautiful, meaningful account in the stitches, in the quilt. He remembered the lessons, though he’d never seen the old one Nanny talked of. The old one was dead before he had come, but she was his teacher. Nanny pressed him to this quilt and began his
education in counting and piecing. She had risen in her own estimation when she had, upon the death of her mentor, become the caretaker of the quilt.

  Young Knitting Annie had made it to be part of a dowry for a weakly related girl in the Ridley family. The mistress swapped it at the last moment and wrapped up a lesser quilt for the relative. Mistress and Knitting Annie savored this cover and used it as a teaching tool. Sewing Annie was trained up with it and Mistress’s sister’s girl learned lessons from it.

  Annie opened the wedding package to show Gabriel. She unfolded the quilt by layers, gasping as it lay out revealed. Large tears fell from her eyes.

  “Nanny, all has come home at last,” Gabriel said to his emotional mother, well pleased that his wedding had brought this treasure back to her.

  In the wake of Annie’s ceremony in the bedchamber, Mary was sorely agitated. She had never contemplated a bed of linens and sweet-smelling grasses and a man. She felt her cheeks become hot with anxiety. She sat and continued to sit. Finally she recognized a silent exchange of pointed looks, and the other women left for their beds.

  Mary then rose and went up the stairs to the husband and wife’s loft. Gabriel dillydallied over his buttons and scissors and snuffing candles to give Mary time to take care of the womanly things. He did not want to scare her by following too quickly. Above it all: his dread of frightening her.

  Gabriel did mount the stairs in lighthearted anticipation. His member was excited, but lost its nerve on the climb in the cold air. Ellen had been mistaken. Gabriel did not eye the gown Mary wore at all. His eyes did not come to a single spot when he entered the room. He lifted the gown over Mary’s head where she sat shivering upon the bed and tucked her beneath the covers to keep her from chill. Loathe to crease or muss the counterpane, Mary remained still in the bed. Gabriel put out the candles, removed his clothes, and slipped under the cover.