The Secrets of Mary Bowser

by Lois Leveen

  As I looked down at the walled-in yard, I could hear Papa’s voice calling out, My free young la-dy. I was a free lady, no Mama and Papa to protect me. I told myself I had to show this Dulcey I was no pickaninny. I marched myself back inside, trying not to wonder whether my hands were shaking with rage or with fear.

  Dulcey was civil, though barely so, to my face. All through supper and after, Mrs. Upshaw’s prating kept either of us from needing to make much effort to speak. Dulcey muttered something about how tired she was and slunk off to the bedroom good and early. I retired an hour later, only to find her propped up in bed, arms crossed against her chest, glaring as I turned my back to her to remove my clothing and put on my nightdress. Only after I slipped under the covers did she speak.

  “What that white lady want with you, bringing you up here? Trying to hide the family shame, no doubt.”

  “What family shame?”

  “Her father’s, maybe her brother’s. Though dark as you are, seems like it’d be hard for anyone to tell. Still, if she needs to scurry you away, must be some family likeness.”

  Anger flushed warm across my face. “There is a likeness, to my papa. A colored man, married to my mama.”

  “Sure, honey, you go on insisting. But remember, no shame in it. Slavewomen got no choice about such things, and sometimes makes it easier for themselves, they pretend they want it, too.”

  I saw enough in Richmond to know how some white men molested slavewomen. I knew such women—girls even, some of them no older than I was already—were not to be blamed when white men took up with them. But still, I didn’t want this Dulcey Upshaw, or anyone, thinking that of Mama. I didn’t even want to think it of Old Master Van Lew or Young Master John.

  “Miss Bet thinks slavery’s wrong. She freed all her slaves. She wants me to have an education, so she brought me here.”

  “Freed all her slaves? Then where’s your mama?”

  I bit my lip. It was tempting to blurt out the whole story, but Mama and Papa had drilled me over and over about the need to keep our family’s secret. “Mama agreed to stay with Miss Bet, in exchange for her taking me North and putting me through school. Later, I’ll work up here so I can pay Miss Bet back, and then Mama can come North, too.”

  Dulcey snorted. “So she’s holding your mama captive till then? What you need to pay her back for, anyway? And why you still calling her ‘Miss Bet’ like you down South?”

  I opened my mouth but closed it again when I found nothing to say.

  All my childhood, we in the house were allied in constant conspiracy against Miss Bet. I learned from watching Mama and the rest to smile and nod at her, but then roll eyes and mimic her words once her back was turned. Even after she announced our manumission, Miss Bet remained a force to be reckoned with, someone around whom Mama schemed and maneuvered. Now here I was in the North, and about the first thing I had to do was defend her, and to a colored woman.

  I lay awake much of the night, listening to Dulcey’s snores.

  Come morning, I was so anxious to escape the Upshaws’ apartment, I stood waiting at the curb long before Miss Bet appeared. No, not Miss Bet, just plain Bet, or so I willed myself to think of her, although I didn’t dare say it to her face.

  She arrived in her cousin’s carriage. When the liveried driver stepped down to open the door for me, I smiled at him, but he avoided meeting my eye. Stung at being snubbed by the first colored man I’d seen in the city, I reminded myself it was just his training, the same servants’ deference I’d learned as a child. But glad as I was to be done with waiting on the Van Lews, still I didn’t feel as though I’d crossed over and become the sort of person who got waited on instead.

  As the carriage began to roll, Bet said, “Miss Douglass keeps school at her home on Arch Street, some blocks from here. I remember when it was called Mulberry Street, and I cannot understand why ever it was changed, as that is surely the nicer name.”

  Arch was at least easier to distinguish from the other streets we crossed. Pine. Spruce. Walnut. Chestnut. Whoever named these thoroughfares must have had quite a sense of humor, as I didn’t see a tree on any of them. Just more rows of those indistinguishable brick facades, lining most every block. “How many people there must be in all these apartments.”

  Bet was quick to correct me. “They’re not all apartments. This street is full of stores, and the next contains large homes. Still, there are a great many people here, three times as many as Richmond.”

  I tried to picture three of each of the Richmonders I knew—three Bets, three Mistress Van Lews, three Mamas, three Papas. As I wondered whether the tripling of people I liked would outweigh the tripling of those I didn’t, the carriage stopped.

  The Douglass house was a three-story brick building, not so grand as some, but decently kept up. When our driver rapped the heavy brass knocker, the broad door swung open to reveal a neatly dressed woman. Some twenty years older than Bet, she was tall and thin, her hair pulled back in a prim bun and spectacles on her nose. Her dark blue dress was unadorned by jewelry or fancy trim. She stood ramrod straight, her face so serious it seemed stern.

  “You must be Miss Van Lew, and Mary,” she said. “Right on time, I am glad to see. I am Sarah Mapps Douglass. Please come in.”

  She led us into a large room that took up most of the ground floor. Rows of small desks faced a low platform dominated by a larger desk. Along the walls were glass cabinets filled with books, globes, and mannikins of all manner of birds and animals.

  Miss Douglass took her place behind the large desk and directed us to sit at the center of the front row. “The accommodations are somewhat limited, I realize. I hope you are not too uncomfortable, Miss Van Lew.”

  “Not at all.” Bet squeezed herself into a student desk, her head tilted back to look up at Miss Douglass. No colored woman I’d ever known could put a white woman into such a pose.

  Miss Douglass peered at me through her glasses. “Our girls generally start at a much younger age, so you must expect to work very diligently to make up for lost time.” I nodded solemnly. “Miss Van Lew has spoken highly of your abilities. What have you studied?”

  “I can write and do figures, ma’am, and most anything I read or even hear I can remember word for word.”

  Instead of shining with encouragement, Miss Douglass’s bespectacled eyes bore down harder. “The ability to read is only so valuable as the quality of what you read. And while the predisposition of a good memory will help you when it is time to recite your lessons, memorizing is not the same as true comprehension. Indeed, it may do you more harm than good if you are not trained to use it properly.”

  Now it was Bet’s turn to nod. Miss Douglass promised to be a demanding teacher, and Bet was all for discipline, as long as she wasn’t the one being subject to it. I began to wonder at my fortune of trading one such mistress for another, when a loud knock at the door announced the arrival of the other pupils.

  Bet extricated herself from the desk. “Where shall I sit to observe the class?”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Some of the girls’ families would object to a white person monitoring their children, however well intentioned.”

  In Richmond, there was no space to which a colored person, free or slave, could deny a white person entry, and no negro could lawfully refuse a white person’s observation. Though she’d never admit to it, it was clear Bet hadn’t considered that it might be otherwise in Philadelphia. As Miss Douglass extended her hand to bid Bet farewell, I ran my fingers along the edge of the wooden desktop, wondering if Bet would let me stay, now that she herself had been dismissed.

  My former mistress took the colored woman’s hand in her own. “I suppose you know best about such things. At what time shall I call for Mary?”

  “It will not be necessary for you to call. Some of the other girls can walk Mary home. Good day.”

  Miss Douglass swung open the door. As Bet passed the cluster of girls waiting outside, they stared at her and
then me, curiosity all over their faces.

  Miss Douglass waited for the rest of the class to arrive and remove their bonnets, which they all did promptly—clearly, our schoolmistress brooked no dawdling—before introducing me. “As you see, we have a new student. She has just arrived in Philadelphia, and I expect you will all make her feel welcome. I present Miss Mary Van Lew.”

  All my life, I’d been Aunt Minnie’s Mary or Lewis’s Mary. I’d never had call for a last name, and I certainly wouldn’t have taken Van Lew if I did. But Bet hadn’t consulted me or Mama about such matters, hadn’t imagined my wanting a name that tied me to my own family rather than to hers. And so I was Mary Van Lew to Miss Douglass, and now to all the girls around me.

  I barely had time to swallow down my pinpricks of disappointment as Miss Douglass informed me that the students were seated according to their success with their lessons, with the first row reserved for the girls with the highest marks. “However, as I will need to monitor your work closely, you may remain in the front for this week.” She turned to the lightest of her pupils, a strikingly pretty girl whose azure silk dress was adorned with gold buttons that matched the color of her fine, straight hair. “If everyone in Phillipa’s column will move back one row, we can begin.”

  Phillipa swept forward to clear her things from the desk I was to occupy, and Miss Douglass rapped three times on her massive desktop and began calling on students to recite their Latin lessons.

  I listened in amazement as one girl after another rose to speak. The youngest recited from their primers. Older pupils recalled whole passages from memory. And the most advanced students presented their own translations from British literature into Latin. Once Miss Douglass corrected everyone to her satisfaction, she announced a new set of assignments.

  As the rest of the girls began their work, she summoned me to her desk and handed me a primer, nodding toward the youngest girls in the room. “For now, you will recite with the beginner group. Only after you master the grammar will you advance with the girls your own age.” She reviewed the first conjugation and sent me back to my desk to copy out my lesson.

  I took my seat, my head swimming with the thought that I was truly in school. My excitement turned to consternation when I realized I’d left the supply of nibs Papa gave me at the Upshaws’. I looked up uncertainly and caught Miss Douglass’s eye.

  “Is something the matter, Mary?”

  “I forgot my pens at home, Miss Douglass.”

  She pursed her lips and squinted in disapprobation. “Who can lend Mary a pen this morning?” I heard a rustle behind me. “Very well, Phillipa, thank you.”

  I swung round in my seat to take the pen, which Phillipa offered with a broad smile. “Just be careful with it. The nib may be a bit dull, so press down very firmly as you write.”

  I thanked her and turned back to my primer. I read over the words, hearing them as Miss Douglass had pronounced them. Closing my eyes to concentrate, I arranged letters in my mind, then opened my eyes and took up the pen. I dipped it into the inkwell affixed to the corner of the desk, and brought it down hard on the page. With the first stroke, the nib snapped off, ricocheting up from the page and landing in my lap. An inkstain a half-inch wide spread across my new skirt.

  “A pen is a tool, not a toy,” Miss Douglass said. She didn’t offer a whiff of sympathy as she directed me to the washroom under the stairs. When I returned, she announced that henceforth I would have to use chalk and slate, as it appeared I hadn’t mastered writing well enough to handle a nib.

  I felt all the other girls’ eyes on me as I took my seat. Remembering it was Phillipa’s pen that I’d broken, I whispered, “I’m sorry, Phillipa. I’ll give you another pen tomorrow.”

  “Oh, don’t be sorry about that old thing.” She smiled. “It was my pleasure to lend it.”

  I barely finished filling the slate with my assignment before Miss Douglass announced that it was time for the next subject. And so the class moved from language to literature to history. I was awestruck at all the other girls knew, all that I would have to make up. By the time my various classmates were reciting the various names of the various kings and queens of the various European nations, I’d given up trying to follow along. At last Miss Douglass announced it was time to recess for dinner. As the students stepped into the cloak-room to fetch their bonnets, she added, “I expect some of you girls to please walk Mary to her lodgings.”

  Outside, a small knot of girls surrounded me. “Where do you live?” one asked.

  “On Gaskill Street.”

  “On Gaskill Street?” Phillipa repeated. “Don’t you mean off Gaskill Street?” The girls about us giggled.

  I wasn’t sure what the difference was. “On, I guess. When we arrived yesterday, the hack driver announced 168 Gaskill Street.”

  Phillipa smoothed the ribbon of her bonnet against her golden hair. “The hack driver? Good thing your family hasn’t a carriage, or you shouldn’t know where you live at all.” My classmates laughed even more loudly.

  “Do colored families in Philadelphia keep carriages?” I asked.

  “The better sort do, and the lesser sort is kept on them.” Phillipa pointed to a rather elegant clarence passing by, with a negro driver seated at the front and a young negro boy, in brown and gray livery that matched the colors of the coach, standing upon a box at the back. “Now I wonder, which sort are you?”

  A girl who had been standing outside the little group broke in. “That’s enough, Phillipa. You go running home to your mama now. I’ll show Mary her way.”

  This other girl was a year or two older than us, and the way she stood with her hands on her hips made her seem older still. One of her eyebrows arched higher than the other, making her appear serious, perhaps even a bit angry with whatever she regarded.

  “But we’re having such fun trying to make out Mary’s queer little accent, aren’t we? Besides, it will be so lovely to stroll down Gaskill Street, I haven’t had reason to go there in ages.”

  Another round of titters broke out. But the older girl wasn’t laughing. “I was just worried for your pale little nose,” she said. “Your bonnet don’t quite cover it, and the sun is rather strong today. I should think you wouldn’t want to walk even a block farther than you need to, lest you darken up.”

  As Phillipa glanced up at the edge of her bonnet, the other girl leaned forward. “I know you played that pen trick on purpose, and if you don’t let Mary be right now, I’ll march back inside and tell Miss Douglass so.”

  “Hattie Jones, you are a prig, and always will be. Take her, then, and won’t she be sorry never to have any fun, just like you.”

  Hattie watched to make sure Phillipa and the rest of the girls cleared the block before she turned to me. Then she smiled and stuck out her hand. “Mary Van Lew of Gaskill Street, I presume?”

  “Hattie Jones, prig, I presume?” I took her hand in mine and grinned back at her.

  “Don’t pay Phillipa any mind. She gets positively feline, mousing after any new girl in class.” She told me how she’d been the new girl, too, when her family moved from Baltimore years earlier.

  I admitted that I didn’t understand half of what Phillipa said, or at least not why the other girls thought it was funny. Hattie explained that though Gaskill Street was not so impressive as some of Philadelphia’s grander thoroughfares, it was the alleys and the courts off streets like Gaskill where the poorest of the poor lived, a dozen people huddled into a one-room shack tacked up out of boards filched from warehouses along the waterfront. “Phillipa lives on Lombard Street, which her mama tells anyone who will listen is the very best row in all the city. Which does make a person wonder why most of the white families who lived there are moving all the way west to Rittenhouse Square, where they won’t risk meeting up with Mrs. Thayer or her darling daughter any time soon.”

  Hattie squinted at a clocktower on the next block. “It’s getting awfully late—are you expected at Gaskill Street for dinner?”

/>   “I don’t know,” I said, thinking of Mrs. Upshaw hovering over me in her cramped apartment, “but I don’t mind if I don’t go.”

  “Good. My daddy’s gone to Chambersburg on business, so I won’t be missed at home. Miss Douglass told us to make you welcome in Philadelphia, which means I must introduce you to pepper pot.”

  She grabbed my hand and dragged me to a bustling market she called Head House Square. From over half a block away, we heard an old colored woman shouting, “Pepper pot! Smoking hot!” Hattie led me into an arcade filled with stalls, elbowing her way through the crowd surrounding the woman.

  “How many?” was all the greeting the woman offered.

  “Two, please.” Hattie fished a few pennies from a purse tucked inside her skirt.

  The woman dipped a jar into a large wooden tub of stew, from which a wonderfully scented steam was rising. She poured the contents of the jar into a bowl, plunked in a spoon, and passed it to me. After she did the same for Hattie, we retreated to a bench set against a nearby storefront.

  I rushed to take my first mouthful of the Philadelphia delicacy—and nearly choked on it. “What’s in here?” I sputtered.

  “It varies day by day, but usually it’s pepper, and tripe, and pepper, and ox feet, and pepper, and—”

  “I’ve never had so much spice in all my life. Did Phillipa put you up to this?”

  Hattie laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the spice. My daddy always says pepper pot alone is reason enough to come to Philadelphia, though I suppose Phillipa would about croak if the thought of pepper pot so much as entered her head.”

  “How come she’s so stuck up?”

  “That’s the way of the colored people here, at least those with the means to send their daughters to Miss Douglass’s school.”

  I took a cautious spoonful of stew. “You aren’t like that.”

  “You forget, I’m from Baltimore. Thanks to Maryland’s preservation of the peculiar institution, colored folks there know how to look out for each other.” Hattie had more piquancy than the pepper pot as she railed about how standoffish the dozen families who proclaimed themselves Philadelphia’s better sort of colored people could be. “Even the ones who talk anti-slavery and equal rights for all negroes, why, they want you to know just the same they’re not like all negroes themselves.”