Ella Wood

by Michelle Isenhoff

  A footman cleared away their dirty dishes and offered them each a piece of chocolate cake. Emily accepted, but Marie turned hers away. “I insist you go along. You are old enough to extend a bit of Christian charity to someone less fortunate than you.”

  “But Mrs. Northrup and I have nothing in common. I won’t have anything at all to add to the conversation.”

  “Emily Preston, you are going, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. You’ll be called on often enough when you’re mistress of your own home. It’s time you learn about sickness and death.”

  Emily froze. “She’s dying?”

  “Not necessarily. But she hasn’t been well for a long time.” Marie looked thoughtful. “Why don’t you choose a volume from your bookshelf and read to her? I’m sure she would enjoy that very much. You have a fine reading voice.”

  Emily mashed her cake into chocolate paste. “What time are we leaving?”

  “Perhaps an hour from now. I’ll send someone to get you when the basket is packed and the carriage is brought around.”

  Emily slouched against the back of her seat as soon as her mother excused herself. She ate the confection in four giant forkfuls and used her finger to wipe up every last trace, almost hoping her mother would return to witness her wretched manners. She did not, however, so Emily clattered the plate onto the table and lifted her face wearily to the warmth of the sun. It was a splendid spring day, perfect for sharing with Chantilly and her foal in the pasture. To spend it in Mrs. Northrup’s hovel seemed a preposterous waste.

  Lizzie approached, eyeing her questioningly. “Mrs. Preston said to dress you in yo’ rose tea gown and make sure you look presentable.”

  Emily groaned one last time before following her maid obediently up the stairs.

  Though maid and mistress had fallen back into their familiar routine, Emily was now supremely aware of the wedge slavery had driven between them, but she didn’t know what to do with the revelation. Indeed, she wasn’t entirely sure she could trust her own judgment. Everyone she knew held fast to the certainty that slavery was ordained by and blessed of God. How could she have the only eyes suddenly opened to that falsehood? How could she be the lone voice that cried against it?

  Not the lone voice, she amended. She hadn’t forgotten Mrs. Harris or the pamphlets that led to her banishment. Perhaps it was time to write to her uncle. In the meantime, she decided to earnestly look for the little changes she had promised Malachi. Already she had allowed her maid her own room with a cot. She called on her less often and made an effort to treat her with courtesy. She hoped to amend the damage to their childhood friendship, at least in part. She was even optimistic that she could create new common ground by sharing some of her own interests.

  “Lizzie,” she said as they entered her room, “I want to tell you a secret.”

  The maid went directly toward the wardrobe and flung open the doors. “Nothin’ terrible, I hope.”

  “Well, my father might think so.”

  Lizzie turned, planting a hand on one hip. “What kinda trouble you in now, Miss Emily?”

  “I’m not in trouble,” she retorted. She bit her lip and amended her tone. “Not yet, anyway. I’ve simply enrolled in an art class.”

  “You goin’ away to school?” Lizzie asked in surprise. “I thought Marse Preston forbade dat.”

  “He did. That’s why I’m participating through the mail.”

  Lizzie picked out the rose dress and laid it on Emily’s bed. “Why you tellin’ me?”

  “Because I want to share it with you, Lizzie. This is…well, it’s really important to me.” How could she explain that she hoped it would become a mutual source of enjoyment? That it might draw them closer, the way they once were? “Just come here. I want to ask your opinion on something.”

  Lizzie stood behind her and Emily indicated an array of drawings spread out on her desk. “Which of these do you like better? I must submit a still life for my next assignment, but I can’t decide which one to choose.”

  “Dey all look nice, Miss Emily.”

  “No, no. You have to help me choose one.”

  “I ain’t the one you should be askin’.”

  When Lizzie tried to walk away, Emily grabbed her elbow and pivoted her back around. “Please? This is important.”

  Lizzie studied the images dutifully then gave a useless lift of her hands. “I got no skill wid pictures, Miss Emily.”

  “Nonsense. Anyone can master the basics of color and form. Here, try this.” She drew a simple cube on a scrap of paper and handed the pencil to Lizzie. “Now you try it. Just copy the lines.”

  Lizzie took the slender utensil hesitantly. Then, wrapping a fist around it, she applied pressure to the tip and gouged a hole in the paper.

  “You’re holding it wrong. Do it like this.” Emily rearranged her fingers. “Try it again.”

  This time Lizzie managed a few squiggly marks that in no way resembled a solid shape, but the told-you-so look she delivered contained a good deal of weight.

  “That’s better,” Emily encouraged. “Try it again.” But after several more attempts, she had to admit defeat. Lizzie simply had no experience with pencil and paper.

  “We finished, Miss Emily? Missus will wonder why you ain’t dressed yet.”

  Emily tapped the end of her pencil on her desk in frustration. “Yes, I suppose.”

  She didn’t have long to ponder her failure. Another forty minutes found her jolting down a dirt track with a wicker basket at her feet.

  The Northrup homestead had an air of neglect. A clapboard house listed slightly to one side, unpainted and weary, with only a few flowering weeds to lift its spirits. It was kept company by a stolid barn made from squared-off logs. Like husband and wife, they stood surrounded by a brood of outbuildings in various stages of disrepair and serenaded by a kennel of doleful hounds.

  “It isn’t much to look at, is it?” Emily asked. She’d ridden past the place dozens of times but never had occasion to venture onto the property.

  “You will extend Mrs. Northrup every courtesy, do you understand?” Marie demanded.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She’s had a hard time of it, married to Ernest Northrup all these years and not one servant to help her.”

  Nothing but the barking of the dogs met their knock. Marie pushed the door open and carried in the basket of refreshments. “Luella, are you awake?”

  A faint reply met their ears. They found Mrs. Northrup easily enough—the house had only a common kitchen and living area and one bedroom—but getting to the old woman proved tricky. The floor was buried beneath the accumulated debris of decades—broken tools, damaged furnishings, discarded food, soiled rags, torn paper. An odor of sickness and rot pervaded the tiny space and turned Emily’s stomach.

  Mrs. Northrup lay on a filthy mattress beneath a stained, threadbare blanket. Marie beamed when she saw her. “I believe you are looking stronger, Luella,” she encouraged.

  “Don’t flatter me,” the old woman said in a dry, cracking voice. “Help me sit up.”

  She couldn’t be much older than Marie, but her fleshless face and hard, pinched features added twenty years to her appearance. Emily stood in the background clutching her satchel and trying to hide her revulsion as her mother raised the woman to a reclining position, propping her head up with a handful of rags.

  “This yer girl?” Mrs. Northrup rasped.

  “Surely you’ve met Emily before,” Marie answered.

  “Aye. Seen her as a wee mite. Cage said she’d grown up. Fine looking girl.”

  “She’s come to read a bit to you while we enjoy our tea.” Marie commandeered a small table, freeing it from the clutter of refuse, and laid out her china tea service. Emily marveled at the cool way she navigated the stinking hovel, protecting the shreds of the woman’s dignity. It was a side of her mother she had never seen before.

  The visit had already brought a touch of color to Mrs. Northrup’s cheeks. “Pull
up a chair and make yerself to home,” she told Emily. “What book did you bring?”

  Emily shifted uncomfortably. “I, uh, didn’t.” At her mother’s disapproving look, she rushed on, “Reading in front of an audience sets me on edge. But drawing comes as natural as breathing.”

  “And you brung along yer breath in that bag, did you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The ill woman chuckled. It was a flat, dull sound, like pebbles plopping onto parched earth. “Then by all means, breathe.”

  Marie cast her daughter another dark glance. “I apologize, Luella,” she began, but the woman cut her off with a blue-veined hand. “I’ve never had a likeness done before. It’ll be a fine thing for Cage to remember me by.”

  “Enough of that talk,” Marie admonished.

  “Talk don’t change nothin’ one way or t’other. Mind you take off a few years and add a few pounds, child.”

  Marie nodded at Emily and continued unpacking her hamper. “Josephine made a fine batch of tea cakes. She also sent along a loaf of bread, some apples, and a bit of soup if you’d prefer.”

  The woman inhaled. “I wouldn’t argue with a bite o’ bread.”

  Emily was content to fade into the background as the women chatted. She pulled an overturned stool out of the rubble and perched with the stack of paper propped on her lap. Surveying her subject doubtfully, she wondered how she’d ever transform the pathetic old crone into an image Cage might treasure.

  She focused on the woman’s face, letting the privation of her surroundings recede into smudgy obscurity. After only a few dozen strokes, she was taken aback by the emotion forming beneath her hand. On paper, Luella Northrup looked fragile and childlike. Not like a smelly, poverty-stricken old woman but someone human. Somebody’s sister. Somebody’s mother.

  She peered closer at the flesh and blood face of the model. Yes, now that she’d caught the woman’s essence on the page, she could see it clear enough beneath the dirt and the rags. It was a revelation, as startling as when she’d rediscovered her childhood friend lying broken on Lottie’s bunk. Could the grief and desperation she’d seen on both faces, she wondered, have been put there by the same man?

  She cast out the disturbing thought as quickly as it flittered into her head, but as the carriage jounced out of the drive—after Mrs. Northrup had tearfully thanked her for the sketch—Emily let her thoughts linger on the mystery she so often puzzled over. Ketch and Lewis had found no sign of the perpetrator, and Lizzie still refused to name him. Mr. Northrup seemed a very likely candidate. He had always made her uncomfortable, even as a little girl. And she recalled the hungry way his eyes had followed Lizzie that day. It wouldn’t have been impossible for him to slip away and catch the maid alone after dinner.

  But there were others at Ella Wood that night. Could Mr. Turnbull be the culprit? It seemed unlikely. Her father often praised his restraint and dependability. She had to admit, however, that Mr. Turnbull managed Ella Wood with very little supervision. Was he capable of something so heinous? And Thad. What did she know about him, really? Nothing apart from the fact that he was persistent in his pursuit of her. And that he was vibrant. And handsome. And that her body seemed to forget how to regulate itself in his presence.

  Her father and Jack were both there, as well. It was absolutely absurd to think of her father acting in such a way, but she couldn’t ignore her brother’s erratic behavior. She’d never known him to attack a slave, but none of his choices of late could be called honorable. And he’d been sullen and resentful at dinner. Maybe he’d taken his anger out on Lizzie. The thought filled Emily with disgust.

  Maybe one of the slaves assaulted her. They were not all above reproach. Herod had been suspiciously absent from home when they brought Lizzie inside. And Emily couldn’t forget the hostility in his eyes after Lizzie dumped the tulips over his head. Or maybe a neighboring servant had come to visit. Maybe a stranger had been passing through. If Lizzie wouldn’t talk, there was simply no way to know.

  Though the sun still shone brilliantly over a pasture of green, Emily gave in to the melancholy that accompanied her musings and climbed the stairs to her room when they returned, each footfall weighted and deliberate. Compared to the portrait she had just finished, the still lifes that remained on her desk seemed quite lifeless, void of any emotion and spirit. Why, she wondered, were they called still lifes at all? The depiction of Luella Northrup’s suffering face had made her heart constrict, made her want to reach out and touch the woman’s dirty cheek and offer comfort. Despite her unlovely exterior, the picture had made the woman human.

  Emily frowned thoughtfully. It was so like the moment Lizzie lay on the bunk.

  Could she do it again? Could she capture the pain, the soul, the humanity she’d seen revealed beneath Lizzie’s dark exterior? Could she use her skill to show others? Could this, she wondered, be the communication Mrs. Harris had charged her with?

  She swiped the still lifes off her desktop and dumped out the contents of her satchel. Snatching a fresh page off the top of her sheaf, she threw herself into recreating the night in Josephine’s hut. The narrow bunk, the blanket, the skirt, the blood. Fear and heartbreak had poured off Lizzie’s face. Emily captured it all, fleshing in her memory with charcoal, dramatizing final details with just the barest hints of color. And when she stepped back, she knew she had accomplished it.

  The page showed not a Negro girl, not a slave girl, but a girl, universal in her suffering. She’d rendered a real person. She’d sketched somebody’s daughter.

  Snatching a random still life from the pile littering her floor, she stuffed it between two sheets of paperboard. Then she added the picture of Lizzie and wrapped them decisively in brown paper. This was the image she wanted to share, the truth she wanted to show to the world.

  She had found her voice.

  19

  William remained firm on his insistence that his family avoid Charleston. Despite Marie’s objections, they missed the entire spring social season. Emily hadn’t joined her mother’s petitions, but she did wrack her brain for some way to attend Jovie’s lecture. It was Sophia’s wonderfully devious mind that concocted the solution. Early in April, her letter arrived just as they had planned, pleading for Emily to attend her during the early sickness of her nonexistent pregnancy. Her parents offered no objections.

  The day before she was to leave, Emily could hardly suppress her excitement. “Lizzie, take a walk with me,” she insisted. “The sun is shining. The weather is perfect. Let’s go down to the river.”

  “Who gunna pack yo’ trunk?” the maid responded with hardly a lift of her eye.

  “I don’t care about all those silly clothes. I’d rather enjoy the afternoon.”

  “You’ll care plenty when Mrs. Buchanan drag you off to another tea party.”

  “I hate tea parties. Please?” she begged, tugging Lizzie’s hand.

  “Miss Emily, I got work to do.”

  “I could order you to come with me.” She pouted. “But I won’t. I’d rather you chose to accompany me on your own.”

  Lizzie threw up her hands in defeat. “I suppose Mrs. Buchanan ain’t feelin’ up to many parties nohow.”

  Emily dragged her maid down the stairs and out into the sunshine, heading for the rice fields that blushed in vibrant shades of green. The baby plants would soon be flooded, killing off their wild competitors. The tide was nearly full. Perhaps they’d arrive at a fortuitous moment and witness the opening of one of the trunks. She still dearly loved to watch water gush under the dikes and fill the ditches one by one.

  “I don’ understand why you so excited. I recall you bein’ mos’ happy to leave Maple Ridge a few weeks ago,” Lizzie remarked.

  “That’s because I was anticipating Chantilly’s foal.”

  “And now you so happy to leave him?”

  “Only for a little while. He’ll remember me when I get home.” Emily and Sophia had agreed the maid couldn’t know of their deception, but the tempt
ation to let her secret slip was powerful indeed.

  Some of the fields had already been submerged. Others had not. The sun warmed their backs, the breeze diffused the dank smell of wet earth, and their feet carried them all the way around the farthest dike where teams of Negroes finished the last of the season’s planting. Emily waved to Lewis and paused near a large black man who stood ankle deep in muck, expertly dropping seed into the row he hoed. “Hello, Ketch.”

  Without pausing from his work, the man nodded to Emily. Thick, lean muscle glistened with sweat that ran down his back in dirty rivulets. He looked hard. Seasoned. “How do, miss.”

  His eyes, Emily noticed, focused on her companion. “You remember my maid, Lizzie.”

  The faintest smile touched his lips—the first Emily had ever seen. Pity, perhaps. It made him look much less forbidding.

  Lizzie dipped her head, uncharacteristically shy, and her face reddened beneath her chocolate complexion. Her embarrassment was understandable. It was Ketch who had found her, after all.

  Emily spotted Herod working a few rows beyond, pulled from the mill to become a common laborer when no machinery required his expertise. He leaned on his hoe, watching the exchange with expressionless eyes. She acknowledged him with a nod, but when Lizzie noticed his attention, she stiffened and turned away.

  Those eyes flicked between Lizzie and Ketch, cold and unreadable. Then Lewis hollered from across the field, “Herod, get to work!”

  “Can we go home now, miss?” Lizzie asked as they walked on past.

  “I thought you’d enjoy the fresh air and a few moments of leisure.”

  “It’s kind of you, truly, but it don’ lessen my work. It all waitin’ when I get home. And I’m tired. I’m tired to my bones.”

  Emily peered at her. She did look rundown. “I’ll help you.”

  Lizzie glanced at her skeptically. “You gunna polish de woodwork an’ wash de floors?”

  “I can work,” she said defensively. She often pitched in around the plantation, though it was true she handpicked her tasks. “Look, Lizzie, I just want us to be friends again. Like we used to be.”