A Hiss Before Dying

by Rita Mae Brown

  Bumbee stared down at the fragile-looking woman. How was this tortured girl going to get out of the county? She’d leave tracks in the snow. Once people could move about, Maureen Selisse would quickly report a runaway slave. God forbid she lost any money. Whoever returned Mignon was sure of a reward and Mignon would be sure of tenfold more misery.

  Bumbee toted another heavy log for the fire, blew out her candle, and crawled into bed. The wind whistled outside. Worried as she was about Mignon, she was glad the intruder hadn’t been her worthless husband.

  “Sweet Jesus, give me strength,” she prayed, then she, too, fell asleep.

  January 1, 1786 Sunday

  Blue, the world shone soft blue. Snow continued to fall, tiny little flakes. Even though the walkways among all the buildings had been cleared, two inches already rested on those paths. Another hour and the men would be back at it.

  Catherine, like most well-born women of her generation, rarely used the word slave. One tried to circumvent what may be unpleasant. A cheating husband was rarely called that. Behind their fans, women might murmur that the husband suffered from the usual malady. Catherine avoided talking with the ladies if she could. Bored her to tears. Like her father, she adored business, growth, new ideas, and, of course, profit.

  It would never do to be direct; being direct in Virginia betrayed a common mind, hence vulgarity. This rule did not apply sometimes—with one’s own family.

  The back door opened. “Sister.”

  Catherine hurried to the door and took her sister’s hand to help her over the threshold. Footing was slippery.

  “Rachel, what are you doing out in this weather?”

  Throwing off her heavy coat and unwrapping her scarf, Rachel shook her feet. “Charles and the two girls are making more noise than a cannonade. I thought two girls would be easy. I must have been out of my mind. Add in my beloved and handsome husband and I have three children. He was so lonesome for them when we woke up this morning he pushed through the snow to fetch them home. I would have been happy without them for a bit longer.” She looked around as she followed Catherine into the kitchen, the huge walk-in fireplace warming the room wonderfully well. “Where is John?”

  “Out clearing paths.”

  Both sisters had children close in age. Rachel’s true daughter, Isabelle, was named for her mother. Marcia, an orphan under cover of belonging to a distant relative, was also raised as her own. Marcia would never know her true parentage, although the sisters and their husbands, plus Bettina, knew, but then Bettina knew everything, as did most of the slaves.

  “Sit down. I was just boiling a pot of tea so I could go over Father’s logging plan for his land along the James River. But I’m sleepy.”

  “Snow. Rain. Makes me fight to keep my eyes open unless I’m in the house with those hellions. Catherine, I don’t think we were that bad.”

  Catherine laughed as she picked up the boiling tea kettle. “No one ever does. I’m sure we gave Mother fits.”

  “Mmm.” Rachel remained unconvinced.

  “Cream?”

  “Sit down. I’ll get it.” Rachel rose to retrieve the pitcher sitting in a small sink, cold water keeping the cream at a good temperature.

  “I’ll go half blind from all this reading of maps, number, harvest years. We’ve three hundred acres about Scottsville. The demand for lumber is rising sharply. Father wants to cut it all, then replant. I want partial cutting. Let the rest stand and get even fatter. I don’t think the demand is going to falter.”

  “Why not?”

  “People are pouring in.” Catherine sipped her tea, grateful for the small jolt.

  “That they are. Charles has already had to enlarge his plans for St. Luke’s. The cornerstone, as you know, was laid in the fall, but the weather, so strange, halted most of the work. Now he’s doubled the size of the church itself. Spring can’t arrive soon enough.” She looked out the window. “No time soon.”

  Charles was designing a Lutheran church sited at Wayland’s Corner.

  “I think not. It will arrive. It always does. Remember how Mother and Bettina would have a robin party when they saw the first robin?”

  Rachel leaned back. “I find myself looking back more now, especially since the children came. I wish Mother were here to see them.”

  “I wish Mother were here to help!” Catherine laughed.

  “Which reminds me, where is JohnJohn?”

  “With his father. My husband is like your husband. He rose, dressed, ate breakfast, then hurried to pick up JohnJohn, his little shadow. That boy wants to do everything that John does. Poor little fellow gets in the way, but eventually he falls asleep and John carries him back down to Ruth. If it breathes, Ruth loves it. I think she’d mother frogs if she could. If it’s warm, she puts him under a tree or in a wagon.”

  The two smiled for Ruth, in her early thirties, who loved young things and showed a real gift for children. They took to her and she knew when and what they were ready to learn, whether it was how to build a box or their ABCs. If a woman, slave or free, couldn’t handle or understand a child, usually that woman found her way to Ruth, including powerful mistresses from other estates.

  “He’s going to be the spitting image of John.” Rachel again looked out the window, and it was snowing harder. “I’ve discovered I like working with Charles, like the drawings, like the walking over building sites. I could never understand how you could sit and go over business plans with Father. Now I do. When something fills your mind, best to learn and do.”

  “We’d both die fiddling with needlepoint. Which reminds me. Father told me that Maureen Selisse is having great success with the foundry, but here’s the odd part, she is allowing Sheba to advertise and sell fabrics and needlepoint.”

  “What? Since when did that holy horror ever evidence any flair for texture, color, much less needlepoint design? All Sheba can do is make other people’s lives miserable,” Rachel remarked with feeling.

  Catherine shrugged. “The real story is Maureen is keeping her lady-in-waiting happy.”

  “Curious.” Rachel tapped her fingers on the smooth wooden tabletop.

  “Indeed. Sheba knows what really happened when Francisco was stabbed to death. I don’t believe their story about Moses killing him. Never did.”

  Francisco was Maureen’s husband, who bedeviled and violated regularly a gorgeous slave woman, Ailee. The story told by mistress and lady-in-waiting was that Moses, Ailee’s true love, killed Francisco. The two slaves fled, never to be found by the authorities.

  Rachel, usually quiet in groups, easily chatted with her sister and all the people on Cloverfields. “But why fabrics?”

  “Maureen imports all those expensive silks and brocades. Maybe there’s money in it?” Catherine wondered.

  “I think Sheba and Maureen will use this to gather information. Who is losing money? Who is making money? Who is having an illicit affair with whom? Women will come and a bit of sherry here and there, tongues will loosen.”

  “Rachel, I would never have thought of that,” Catherine honestly replied.

  “No good will come of this.”

  “Not to us, but probably to them.” Catherine sighed.

  October 23, 2016 Sunday

  Soft October light bathed St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in spun gold. The gray fieldstone seemed warmer, the slate roof glistened deep gray. The midday sun glowed on the hand-blown windowpanes. St. Luke’s boasted many windows, quite an expense back in the late eighteenth century when it was built. The parishioners exhibited pride and success—but not too much. This was and remains Virginia, after all.

  The Very Reverend Herbert Jones, service over, having bid the congregants goodbye, stood with Harry and Fair, a slight breeze touching his robes and hand-embroidered vestments. As they walked to the back quad, the three Lutheran cats, Cazenovia, Lucy Fur, and Elocution, followed them.

  Reds, golds, orange, yellow, deep scarlet leaves still clung to the trees, but their days were numbered. />
  The human and feline group stopped at the first quad and turned to inspect the back of the beautiful church with its two matching arcades, the arches graceful and sturdy, having held up for centuries.

  The sun shone to their left, just slightly west, as it was about one o’clock. The service had run a bit over, with the choir director indulging a fit of too many choruses of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” written by Luther himself.

  Harry, elected to the vestry board, in charge of buildings and grounds, pointed to the back roofline. “See.”

  The Reverend shaded his eyes. “No.”

  “It is a little difficult, but the weather stripping is cracking at the back second-story window, where you put the old desk and file cabinets. Who uses that room?”

  “I do. I move files up there every two years. When I was young there wasn’t so much paperwork. Now it’s an avalanche, and not just from local and state and federal authorities. The diocese feels compelled to inundate us. My job is to serve my parishioners, not fill out forms.”

  “Amen,” Fair uttered with solemnity.

  The Reverend turned to him, smiling. “You probably have as much, if not more, than I do.”

  “Veterinary medicine is on an arc to catch up with human medicine. Just give it a little time. We will soon be operating with a lawyer at our elbow.”

  “What’s the most expensive horse upon which you’ve operated?” Herb had never thought of the money involved.

  “One and a half million dollars,” Fair promptly replied.

  “I am grateful our Lord has not put a price on me.” The genial pastor laughed.

  “Incalculable.” Harry reached for his hand.

  She and everyone dearly loved this man, who had been a captain in Vietnam, survived, and dedicated his life to God, to being the best pastor he could be. He thought sometimes that the seminary took as much thought and preparation as battle, although it was far more pleasant.

  Fair looked up. “See what you mean.”

  “Well, let me jump on it this week.” Harry addressed the Reverend. “It’s that time of year. You never know when the weather is going to turn and I don’t want water to leak into the window frame or, worse, the roof, then freeze and thaw.”

  “Fine with me, but you aren’t getting on that roof.” The Very Reverend, average size but still bigger than Harry, looked down at her.

  “Oh, don’t start that again.” She fussed because years back she had part of the slate replaced and Herb pitched a fit when he found her on the roof. “I don’t need to get on the roof. I just need a tall ladder to reach the window.”

  Elocution rubbed against Herb’s leg. “Poppy, you’ll set her off.”

  “I’ll hire a glazier or a roofer and he can climb up there.”

  “Actually, I’m the one who hires anyone for buildings and grounds with your permission, and you can’t keep treating me like a hothouse flower. I can fix that in a skinny minute. I have the tools, just need to dig out the old flashing and lay in new. It’s easy unless I find more damage, but I sure hope I won’t. Anything involving a roof, plumbing, or electricity is expensive.”

  “Now, listen here. I have known you since you were tiny. I’m not having you on a two-story ladder. We went through this before.” He looked to Harry’s husband. “You talk to her.”

  “Why did you let me get elected to buildings and grounds if you won’t let me do my job?”

  “Harry, you do a great job, you do the mowing, the trimming, repairing stone walls if need be. You do just about everything, but I don’t want you up there.” He held up his hand. “I am an old man, so chalk this up to a generational difference, but I don’t think women should do some things. That’s what men are for.”

  She had heard this argument before and really didn’t feel like fighting it. He was truthful. This was more of a generational thing. These days many a young man didn’t even bother to stand up when a woman entered the room. That just shocked her, and she attributed it to them being raised by Yankees who had moved south. Not always true, of course, but it gave her some comfort. It did not occur to Harry that a woman might not be able to have it both ways. And being a Virginian, she felt men should certainly perform all the proper courtesies.

  Fair put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Honey, he is the Very Reverend, you know,” he said in his light baritone. “Time may come when you need Herb to put in a good word for you upstairs.”

  They laughed, walking back to the church building. He was her pastor, her friend. He buried her mother and father when they were killed in a car accident while she studied at Smith. He comforted her and guided her. He married her to Fair and he never shrank from helping when Harry or another parishioner, indeed anyone, was in need. She decided to shut up.

  “Let’s have a cup of tea or something more exciting. My throat went dry during the sermon.” Herb opened the doors to the small gathering room just off his office.

  “Sounds wonderful.” Fair smiled.

  The three cats shot ahead of their human, skidded to a stop in front of the cabinet at the small kitchen.

  “Treats,” they sang in chorus.

  “Whatever got into Edgar today?” Fair smiled as he asked about the choir director.

  “We can’t clap for encores in church, but he was going for encores.” Harry laughed. “Every now and then Edgar and Dot,” she named the new organist, as the older lady had finally retired, “collude, I swear they do. She must have hit every note on that organ.”

  Herb chuckled. “They don’t lack for enthusiasm.” He took a long, much-needed sip. “Feels better. I must have preached an overlong sermon. I’m too dry.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Harry informed him. “I keep count.”

  “So I see.” His eyes brightened. “I’ll remember that when I’m up there, looking down at you. To change the subject, what really happened yesterday at Sugarday? I’ve heard a few reports.”

  “Susan, Ned, BoomBoom, and Alicia were there from St. Luke’s. Miranda was up at the house. Lots of people. The meet was well attended. Everyone wants to be out in this fabulous weather. I expect they told you the hounds found a body in that line of woods to the west of the house?” Harry remarked.

  “Yes, and they also told me that Officer Cooper had you sent down to view the body,” he replied.

  She nodded. “Sheriff Shaw and Coop wanted me to look at a brass rectangle on a chain around his neck. He’d been shot, fairly recently. He hadn’t been lying there for days. I was grateful for that.”

  “What about the brass rectangle?” Herb was curious.

  “Engraved on its center was Number Five and under that, Garth. About two inches long by an inch and a half wide. I took it to be a slave pass.”

  “How odd.” The Reverend rattled the ice in his glass. “Did it look original? Not a copy or reproduction?”

  “Looked original to me. I don’t think anyone makes reproductions.” Harry considered this. “Could make some people angry.”

  “Would,” Fair agreed. “Assuming that pass was authentic, what might it possibly mean? Why wear it?”

  “Why get killed in the first place?” Harry added.

  “Well, it is peculiar,” Herb said. “St. Luke’s was built with slave labor as well as parishioner labor. I wonder if they needed those chits?” He thought for a moment. “Probably not since they came from the Garth estate and Mr. Garth’s son-in-law was the architect. We forget how highly skilled both slaves and freemen were. Well, we forget until we look at the evidence. St. Luke’s has stood for over two hundred years, and you, being head of buildings and grounds, know how sturdy those structures are.”

  “I do. Downstairs in the vault where you keep the old papers, well, those on parchment, right?” Herb nodded, so she continued. “Did you ever find objects? Not passes but china pieces, stuff like that?”

  “Whatever has been found over the two hundred years is in the vault. Mostly bits of glass, pipe bowls, and the reason for that is, I would gues
s, that most objects are underneath us. As they built, dropped, or discarded things, they built over them.”

  “Probably,” Harry agreed.

  “Still, they had to have had a garbage pit.” Fair finished his drink. “If that’s ever found and, say, architecture students or archeology ones create a dig, who knows what they’d find?”

  “As long as it isn’t bodies.” Harry half smiled.

  October 24, 2016 Monday

  “I’m not talking to you.” Pewter sashayed in front of Tucker.

  “Good. I need the break,” the corgi fired back.

  “You think you’re so smart.” The gray cat fluffed her tail slightly so as to enlarge her person.

  Truthfully, her person did not need enlargement.

  Mrs. Murphy, trailing behind, veered clear of the two arguing animals.

  Never took much to set off Pewter, but Tucker had sworn she saw a red-tailed hawk—of which there were many—and one should seek cover.

  The cat naturally disagreed, said it was an osprey, a water bird, and the two barely resembled each other. Both started the day peevish over their breakfast bowls. How any creature, four-legged or two, could be peevish on such a spectacular October day was a mystery.

  The sky sparkled a deep robin’s-egg blue with a few wispy, pure clouds high above. Last night was the first light frost. A slight wind caused the remaining leaves to rustle. There was enough color to lift one’s spirits, to celebrate fall in central Virginia.

  The animals, domestic and wild, showed their lush winter fur, a dense undercoat adding more fluff and more protection.

  “Think we’ll see more eagles?” Mrs. Murphy finally spoke.

  “Making a big comeback,” Tucker replied. “That’s what Liz Potter said at Mom’s wildlife meeting, remember?”

  “Nasty birds. Hate ’em,” Pewter declared.

  “I still wonder why the one we did see was flying from the mountains. Eagles nest by water, big, high nests. Mom says there are lots down on the James River and even some on the Rockfish,” Mrs. Murphy mused.