Black Master, White Slave

by duBois-Guilbert, Rebecca

  “Don’t be.” Josiah relaxed beneath the soothing tide of her fingers. There was nothing shameful for him in his story. “I was just very unlucky, and that eventually made me lucky.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There was a woman…”

  “The woman you talked about in your sleep?”

  “Yes. She wanted to play with a Negro man for some reason. I was the one she chose. She was the master’s daughter.”

  Pegeen gasped. The master might visit the quarters for sexual games as often as his fancy dictated, but no Negro man ever dared even look at a white woman unless he wanted to die, usually horribly. “His daughter! And you’re still alive?”

  “For a while after we got caught I didn’t think I would be, but apparently this wasn’t the first time the master’s little girl had been… indiscreet. He knew I wouldn’t have a choice but do what one of the family ordered me to, including her, but too many people on the plantation knew what had been going on, and he couldn’t let the people think that anyone could get away with something like that. So he had me whipped.”

  Josiah stopped. It was the first time he had ever told the tale, and the unfairness and the brutality and the eventual stroke of luck struck him momentarily mute. How close he had come to being nothing but a lifeless lump of bleeding flesh! If Mr. Smollett had been a different kind of man…After a deep breath he went on, his voice still remarkably steady.

  “It marked me, but it really wasn’t very bad, considering. Then when I was still bleeding he told people I had died. In actuality he gave me to a friend of his, a wealthy banker named Cavanaugh who had come over from England. Don’t stop.”

  Fascinated by the story, Pegeen had forgotten and stopped rubbing, an oversight she immediately remedied. Beneath her hands his velvety skin was warm and his tense muscles relaxing.

  “She had red hair, didn’t she?”

  The question was small and soft, but it pierced Josiah. Marianne had had red hair, and that was the reason he had been such a fool as to buy Pegeen. White skin and red hair, nothing more. Other than coloration and sex, there was nothing about the two women alike. Marianne had been selfish and demanding and thoughtless; Pegeen gentle and eager to please. Of course, what could one expect from a spoilt planter’s daughter and a girl who had been a slave most of her life?

  At that moment Marianne’s ghost began to die in his heart.

  “So what happened then?”

  “Mr. Cavanaugh brought me to Charleston and in spite of the laws educated me himself. He gave me my freedom and his name and when he died he left me everything, as he had no one else.”

  “And then?”

  “I took what money he left me and made more money. I soon found out that the white planters didn’t like the idea of doing business with a Negro banker, so I concentrated on making the plantation, Highgate, a going concern.” It was getting harder for Josiah to talk. His body, finally awakened, was growing and making demands.

  “Wasn’t there a problem about you owning land? I didn’t think…”

  “There’s a law, yes, but when you have enough money and enough power laws can be circumvented. They only bothered me once. After that I was left pretty much alone as long as I left everyone else alone.”

  “Were you from Charleston originally?”

  “No. Alabama. I didn’t want to risk going back there. I liked Charleston.” He gave a guttural sound that could almost have been a purr and stretched, succumbing to the pure pleasure of her hands on his skin.

  Chapter Nine

  Pegeen noticed his reaction and was happy. He liked what she did to him, and she needed to keep him liking it. She would do whatever might be necessary to keep him from sending her away. Even in the short time she had been here she felt more at home in this house than anywhere else in her life. She must make him see that she should stay!

  Spreading her fingers as wide as possible, Pegeen moved her hands in wide circles over his back, pressing down a little as she did so. The bruises in her arms tingled, but she would have endured ten, a hundred or more times the amount of discomfort to please him. Many times she had worked a full day of regular chores with worse injuries. Sometimes Mr. Higgins and some of his friends had tended to get rough if their performance did not reach their expectations which, of course, had to have been her fault.

  Josiah Cavanaugh would never do that to her. He was a good man. She only had to convince him that she should stay.

  She moved her hands down his body, cupping and massaging and rubbing the two tight globes of his behind. At first he tensed at her touch, then relaxed as she continued to rub. Then she began to work on the backs of his thighs, alternating between them, feeling the hardness of the muscles beneath the tight black skin. She worked her fingers between his legs until she could touch the fascinating wrinkled little sack that held his balls. It tightened at her touch, which made her smile. He might think he was done for the night, but she would prove otherwise.

  Instead of moving down to his calves, she moved back up to his buttocks. Slower, more languorously this time, she kneaded their firm roundness until he gasped.

  “Girl, what are you doing to me?”

  Pegeen gave a throaty little laugh. “Whatever you want, Massa. Whatever you want.”

  Josiah rolled over, his once-sleepy penis sticking straight up like an ebony flagpole. “You are a witch, you know. I didn’t think – aah!”

  Pegeen giggled and mounted him, her hands like white stars against the dark night of his chest as she held him down while she rode. She didn’t think there would be anything in this for her, but as she slid downward, his thickened penis pushing its way inside her triggered a surprising set of shocks that suffused her with pleasure. She jerked as she rode him and in a moment he shook and cried out, flooding her with warm liquid.

  When she could stop gasping, she lifted herself off his still-thick rod and lay down, strangely exhausted, by his side. She was gratified that he extended his arm and held her close to him. It wasn’t just that their physical coupling was so satisfying, though she had submitted to a number of men and never experienced the fulfillment she had with Josiah Cavanaugh. There was more to it, she reasoned, but she didn’t know quite what. When they had sex it was more than just him taking her body, it was a sharing, a coming together.

  She wondered if it were the same for him, or if she were just some novelty good for a few pokes. She didn’t really want to know, because if it were that she was nothing but a substitute for that planter’s red-haired and randy daughter, she didn’t know if she could bear it.

  And he wanted to send her away!

  If she were free he couldn’t make her go.

  If she were free, how could she live? Just to support herself she’d have to become by choice the whore she had been forced to be. What else could she do? Who would hire the cast-off mistress of a Negro?

  Josiah had slept for a few minutes, rousing only when she had moved to blow out the bed-candle and close the netting against the evening’s onslaught of mosquitoes. He waited until the chores were done, then pulled her close again.

  “You want me to stay the night?”

  “Don’t I always? Though I am getting weak from your particularly energetic way of waking me up.”

  Pegeen laughed. She had discovered a heretofore unknown delight in Josiah for morning sex and delighted in arousing him awake. “You can’t send me away. How would you get up in the morning?”

  “I always have, so I guess I always will,” Josiah replied with unintentional brutality. “Not so pleasantly, though.”

  Pegeen’s stomach contracted painfully. She had been so comfortable with him, had enjoyed him so much, she had forgotten that to him she was a possession, a thing to be kept or sold at a whim.

  “How can you do it?” she asked impulsively.

  “Do what?”

  “Keep slaves, when you were once one yourself.”

  “Economic necessity.” The answer came quickly, as if i
t were a question he had asked himself often. “The way things are structured, prices, overhead, that sort of thing, in order for a plantation to keep afloat slavery is the only viable option. Eventually the system will collapse of its own accord, probably in sixty or seventy years, when machines are invented to do the manual work that ignorant hands do now and profits aren’t so dependent on sweating backs.”

  “But that doesn’t help the ones who are slaves now.”

  “God help us, you’re going to be an abolitionist once you’ve gone North. What would you have me do? I can’t change an entire economic system. I can only make sure my part of it is run decently and humanely. I’ve never sold a slave. I’ve never whipped a slave. I always provide some way where those who want to can earn their own money and eventually buy their freedom at a reasonable price.”

  “But they’re still slaves. You could free them.”

  “Besides ruining what I’ve built, it would be unfair to free them. On the whole, they don’t want the responsibility of taking care of themselves. Only a few of them could take care of themselves in the outside world. Most of them don’t want to be freed; they work, they are taken care of, no worries. Even though I make it fairly easy to do so, very few have even shown an interest in getting their freedom and even fewer have actually followed through on it. The rest are content to stay at Highgate. All but a few of them are ignorant and unmotivated, content to let someone else take care of them; to turn them out without support or the means to keep themselves would be heartless and cruel.”

  “But that’s what you want to do with me!” Pegeen cried through a choking of tears. “You won’t do it to a field hand, but you’ll cast me out.”

  Still cradling her, Josiah turned to face her. The moonlight was not as bright in his room as in hers, and he could barely see the luminous oval of her face.

  “Is that what you think? No, dear girl, no! I want you to leave for your own safety.”

  “You can protect me.”

  “Like I did today? No, you have a different life to lead and it is my duty to see you get it. I’ll send you to school…”

  “No.”

  “You will go,” Josiah said in a voice like thunder, “and that is that!”

  Weeping, Pegeen flung herself from the bed and ran out the door, never noticing that she had torn the mosquito netting in escaping.

  * * * * *

  Whatever the cost to himself, Josiah was true to his word. Within a week – a very long week in which he consciously avoided meeting or speaking with Pegeen – manumission papers were drawn up and all legal forms followed to make her a free woman.

  To Pegeen’s grief she had not gotten knocked; she wept when there was unmistakable proof there was to be no baby. Once that proof was obvious, Josiah stayed away from her bed in spite of suffering the pangs of desire, unwilling to risk ruining the girl’s future. If asked he could not have said why he was so set on this course; he believed all he was doing was protecting his empire by removing a risk. He had been mad to buy the girl; keeping her could only have dangerous repercussions.

  He had no excuse for working with her every evening, teaching her the rudiments of numbers and letters. When her tearful pleadings for him to allow her to stay and not send her away became too much, he ended the lessons and did not see her at all for over a week. Only in his restless sleep did he relax and enjoy her in the depths of his dreaming mind. Old Ellen’s suggestion that he send for a bed slave from Highgate brought forth a spurt of temper that made the entire household walk on eggshells for days.

  Then more quickly than she could have thought possible enrollment and tuition were arranged for Miss Margaret Ryan, a name Josiah thought more appropriate for her than plain ‘Pegeen,’ at the convent school of the Poor Sisters of St. Clare in Massachusetts. A thin though comprehensive biography had been invented for her as the daughter of recently deceased eccentric planter who had kept her at home and ignorant. It would not stand strong scrutiny, but Josiah felt sure that for what he was paying the nuns would be careful not to probe too much.

  Pegeen, still uncomfortable with the name Margaret, was escorted to the docks by Howard Rogers, Josiah’s attorney. He was not always comfortable with having a wealthy Negro as a client, but in this case he felt his client had acted in a most honorable way. In his heart of hearts he knew that this girl was no maid, that she had been enjoyed by Josiah Cavanaugh, but she was a slave and that made things different.

  Although it was the right thing to do – a white woman slave to a darkie was a repugnant idea – it must have taken some true discipline for Cavanaugh to give her up, Rogers decided. He wasn’t sure if he could be so altruistic if he owned such a toothsome morsel body and soul.

  With many exhortations Margaret and her slight but adequate wardrobe, newly ordered, were handed into the care of the captain, who had been well paid to see to her safety. Two of the nuns would meet her in Boston and escort her to the convent school and then Josiah Cavanaugh’s responsibility would at last be over.

  Quiet and shy, Margaret took to learning, absorbing all the nuns could give as fast as they could teach. When she learned to write she wrote letters to Josiah, telling of her days, and how much she missed him, and asking at the bottom of each one when she could come home.

  There was never an answer, and after a while Margaret ceased to write.

  Chapter Ten

  From the road Highgate Plantation looked prosperous and well-tended. That eased Miss Cavanaugh’s mind. The house was not overly large, a sprawling two story freshly whitewashed and skirted with a broad shady verandah. Beyond a line of trees were the quarters, a row of small but neatly tended cabins. They, too, had been freshly whitewashed. There was an orchard of fruit trees, a large stable, and a generous-sized garden burgeoning with vegetables.

  Ever since the world had learned about the abortive Denmark Vesey slave revolt in 1822 and the severe restrictions on Charleston Negroes that followed she had been uneasy in her mind. That unease had only been worsened by finding the house in Charleston closed and shuttered, with just a slow-witted caretaker to look after it. He would not even let her inside, saying only, “Massa’s at Highgate.”

  So she had journeyed to Highgate. It was not as far as she had feared, being only two days, but it was slow going over some of the worst roads she had ever seen.

  Now, for the first time since leaving Baltimore, Miss Cavanaugh began to feel unsure of herself. Was this the right thing to do?

  Of course it was. It was the only thing to do.

  William was not at the door; it was answered with due gravity by a tall, dark complected young man. He informed her that Massa was out in the fields and not expected back until supper, then turned her over to a comfortable middle-aged woman who showed her where she could freshen up. When asked about Old Ellen, the woman said that she had never heard of her, but that she had only been at Highgate since the previous spring.

  When Miss Cavanaugh had refreshed herself, the woman showed her to a shady verandah where she could rest, then made sure she was provided with cool lemonade and some fresh cookies.

  No one had asked her name, or why she had come. No one had even shown any overt curiosity about why a well-to-do looking white woman should be calling on a Negro. Even the hired coachman and his horse had been taken care of automatically.

  This, Miss Cavanaugh decided wryly, must be the Southern hospitality about which everyone spoke. How different it was for the gentry than for a servant!

  The sun was low, its beams slicing across the land and making the dust motes into small stars, before Josiah rode up to the house, tossed the reins to a waiting child as he dismounted, then strode up to the verandah to meet her.

  Miss Cavanaugh caught her breath at the sight of him. Aside from a sprinkling of grey in the tight curls on his temples, he appeared not to have altered at all; still tall, still muscular, still the color of night, still a figure of command. Her heart jumped.

  “I apologize for keeping you wait
ing…” he was saying, and the sonorous rumble of his voice set her pulses pounding. If he were discommoded at finding a lone white woman on his verandah, it didn’t show, though he did look around for a companion. “…and for coming to you in all my dirt. I was in the far fields and it took a while for the boy to find me. Was I expecting you and…?”

  He didn’t recognize her. Well, why should he? He was coming out of the sun into the shade, and she was wearing a cunningly designed bonnet with a deep brim. Besides, it had been six years since she had been a scrawny slave put, weeping, onto the North-bound boat, unwillingly destined for a convent school and though he was unchanged, she had changed greatly.

  Externally, at least. The first glimpse of him had reassured her that her heart remained steadfast.

  “No, you weren’t expecting me. In fact, the last time we met you told me to go and never come back.”

  For a moment there was a rush of confusion on his face, then blank shock as realization struck and he tried to reconcile the half-grown slave girl with the sophisticated creature before him.

  As she had intended. She had been planning for this day almost from the moment she had been put aboard the ship. Carefully and lovingly she had used all her skill to make her costume for this day, a combination of worldly beauty and child-like simplicity, all done in a dark cream muslin trimmed in blue. An impractical dress for traveling, perhaps, but she did not intend to go much farther.

  “Pegeen?”

  “You’re the first person to call me that since you christened me Margaret,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t shake, “I prefer it. Please sit down and let me offer you some of your own delicious lemonade.” Gesturing to the seat on the other side of the small table, she filled the glass waiting for him. He sat and took it with a series of jerky motions similar to a man in shock.

  “What are you doing here? Why did you come back?”

  She smiled. “Don’t you mean, why did I come back after you ordered me to stay away? I came because I wanted to. I’m not a slave anymore, Mr. Cavanaugh. You gave me my freedom, so now I can do what I want.”