Provenance_InteriorDraft_07.indd

by Sawyer, Donna Drew

  avoid the lurid remarks he made and the self-satisfied grin he

  wore the entire day after they had sex. After his comment about

  Hank Whitaker being a suitable suitor for Margaret, Charlotte

  needed to cement Walton’s loyalty and commitment to her and

  only her. Charlotte used sex to catch Walton Bennett and she

  used it to keep him in line. If he had been considering solidarity

  with Margaret on the subject of Mr. Hank Whitaker, she was

  certain the sexual performance she gave last night would dispel

  any insurrection.

  Charlotte smiled at her prowess when she recal ed how she

  had exhausted Walton. When he came, he let out a guttural

  moan, rolled off her and there he lay for the night. He had not

  even stirred when she got up to wash him off of her. She was

  easily in the bath an hour and when she returned to the bed,

  he hadn’t moved.

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  Frances brought in Charlotte’s breakfast, a two-egg omelet,

  and two slices of white toast with the crusts removed, freshly

  squeezed orange juice and a pot of her beloved rose hips tea.

  “Frances, when you are finished here, run up and wake

  Miss Margaret,” Charlotte said as she removed the white cloth

  napkin from the table and opened it in her lap. “It is high time

  she got herself down here for breakfast. I think we’ll have

  lunch today at the Richmond Hotel— see who is visiting our

  fair city this week.”

  “Yes Ma’am. I will do so directly,” Frances said as she

  scurried back into the house. She’s a good enough housekeeper,

  Charlotte thought, but not much of a cook. As usual, her omelet was cooked to the texture of shoe leather. Charlotte would have

  preferred a colored girl in the kitchen but she just couldn’t have

  colored help in her house.

  Charlotte heard someone run down the steps from the

  second floor,

  “How many times have I told that blessed girl, ladies do

  not run through the house,” she said throwing her napkin into

  her plate as she got up to reprimand her daughter. Instead of

  Margaret, she met Frances in the hall. The young woman

  looked like she had seen a ghost. She thrust a folded sheet of

  Margaret’s personal stationery into Charlotte’s hand and fled

  to the kitchen.

  “What in the world?” Charlotte said as she opened the

  sheet and read the one sentence note Maggie had left for her

  parents. Charlotte fell against the doorframe; the room spun,

  she slumped to the floor.

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  Donna Drew Sawyer

  “Walton!” Charlotte screamed at a volume that should have

  been able to wake her sleeping husband except that Walton

  Wainwright Bennett III—who the night before had kissed his

  beloved daughter goodnight and then made love to his wife—

  conveniently died before Charlotte learned their daughter had

  eloped with Hank Whitaker.

  36

  • 3 •

  Spring 1913

  (I)

  I ’ve avoided yet another day of detection, Hank thought

  as he looked out of his office window onto the majestic

  view of Capital Square and wondered what he had got-

  ten himself into. The only place Hank could give his constant

  worries just consideration was away from Maggie and out of

  Charlotte’s suspicious sight. He was in the center of the seat of

  the Confederacy and in just four years Hank had gone from a

  black boy, to a white man, to business owner, to husband and

  head of household. He had not yet grown into any of those

  roles and now, he was about to add father to the list. What if

  the baby’s black? Hank thought. One small baby, no matter how beloved, could dismantle his whole life by being born. What

  if the baby looks more like his father’s side of family than his mother’s? He was almost sure he and Maggie would make a baby

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  that would not reveal his heritage but he could not be certain.

  Countless times he wanted to tell Maggie who he was, but the

  fear of losing her had stopped him. Now he had even more to

  lose – his wife, his child, his thriving business; it was too late, he would be who he was now, a white man, forever.

  “You look troubled,” James Stephens, Hank’s bookkeeper

  said as he locked the safe for the day.

  “Not troubled,” Hank said, “just tired.”

  “You too young to be tired,” the older man said. “Man like

  you, married into a good family, got a good business, a few

  coins in your pocket, getting ready for fatherhood? Life has

  smoothed out like silk for you boy, just like silk.”

  Hank considered his words. “Just not the way I’d planned,”

  Hank said without turning from the window. “You’re right

  though,” he turned to face James, “just like silk. It’s just that

  bein’ a husband, soon a father, the business— it’s a lot to take on.”

  “Any less would not be enough for you, Hank. You’d be

  lookin’ for more to do. I’ve never seen a man grow a business

  so fast, like you’re racin’ against something unseen,” James said

  as he took off his green visor, pulled the sleeve garters from his

  arms and buttoned his vest.

  “Well, I’m headed home, the wife will be puttin’ dinner

  on about now and I don’t want to miss a spoonful.”

  “Lucky man,” Hank said, thinking about Frances’ excuse

  for a meal awaiting him at home. The newlyweds were currently

  living with Charlotte— who despised the fact of Hank and

  Maggie’s marriage, but hated living alone more. She made sure

  the young couple felt responsible for Walton’s death and used

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  Provenance: A Novel

  Maggie’s guilt to force Hank to agree to stay with her for a

  few months that had turned into a year. The couple had finally

  bought their own home, just down the street from Charlotte,

  and were planning their move. However, that would not solve

  the problem of a good home cooked meal today.

  “Wife can’t cook?” James asked.

  “I live with three women,” Hank said. “Two don’t care

  where the kitchen is and third one has no idea what you’re

  supposed to do in there.”

  “Get yourself a woman to cook for you, Hank, someone

  who knows where the kitchen is and what to do in it,” James

  said laughing. “You know, I may know of someone.”

  “I would be eternally grateful if you could arrange for us

  to meet her. And the sooner, the better,” Hank said.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” James said.

  As he walked home, James Stephens wondered what a

  man like Hank Whitaker had to worry about. James knew

  the woman he would recommend to Hank, Del Holder, could

  solve his housekeeper problem. He had known Del for years,

  her sister Charlene cleaned for his wife and their mother had

  cleaned for his mother. Del’s husband had recently died and

  she needed the work. Was the fact that his maid can’t cook

  real y the worst of Hank’s worries, James wondered? Hank was

  a good businessman, a
go-getter but sometimes he would get

  dark moods that worried James. There’s some trouble under those still waters, James thought, I can sense it; don’t know what it is but I pray he can keep it under control.

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  Donna Drew Sawyer

  (II)

  Delora Holder took the streetcar from her home in the

  all-black neighborhood of Jackson Ward, arriving well before

  the scheduled noon interview at Hank and Maggie Whitaker’s

  house. One thing you can count on, she thought as she stepped off the streetcar, they’ll always be a direct route from my part of town to the West End where the white folks live so that the help can get to work on time. Del pul ed the little piece of paper from her purse on which James Stephens had written the Whitaker’s address.

  The homes in her part of town were small and sturdy brick row

  houses; here in the West End the homes were large, spacious,

  single family houses on big lots, newly built for white folks with

  tobacco and every other kind of money. While it was safe for

  whites to visit her neighborhood, a black woman strolling the

  streets this time of day was suspect, and a black man would

  get his behind run out, arrested or worse. You had better be

  on your way to work, at work or on your way home— at this

  point Del wasn’t any of these so she walked quickly to find the

  address then went around to the back entrance and knocked.

  As Del waited, she surveyed the dusty porch and neglected

  yard. Ain’t nobody lovin’ this house, she thought; if it looks like this outside, what’s the inside gonna look like?

  It had been a good ten minutes since she’d arrived and

  she had knocked several times to no answer. Del stepped off

  the porch and craned her neck to check the address again.

  She was at the right house but she started to sense that maybe

  she was in the wrong place. Del kept an orderly house and

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  Provenance: A Novel

  was punctual. She wasn’t sure working for a sloppy unreliable

  white man would suit her. At 55 years of age she knew that

  her standards were not about to change. Maybe this ain’t such a good idea, she thought, and started down the back porch steps just as the back door opened.

  “Mrs. Holder?” Hank said, descending the steps to meet

  her. “So sorry to be late. I had to pick up Maggie, my wife,

  from her mother’s house, that’s where we’re livin’ right now.

  Did you have any trouble finding us? We haven’t moved in

  yet, I guess I already told you that. If we find the right per-

  son to help us we’d like to go ahead and move in here. Mr.

  Stephens, whose opinion I value, tells me that he knows your

  family and that you’re an excellent cook and housekeeper

  and that you have experience raising children. We’re about

  to have our first in a few months…” Del raised her hand to

  stop Hank’s rambling.

  “’Scuse me Mr. Whitaker, but is this here my interview?”

  Del asked. “’Cause it seems like you ain’t askin’ me enough

  questions let alone givin’ me a chance to get a word in edge-

  wise.” The color began to rise in Hank’s cheeks.

  “I’ve never hired household help, or a woman, before. Not

  sure how this works.”

  “Pretty much the same way it works when you hire anyone

  else,” Del said. “You ask about my experiences, tell me ‘bout

  the job, what you’re wantin’ to pay, then you ask me if I think I

  can do the job. But before I can answer, I needs to look around,

  meet the missus and make a good assessment. So Mr. Whitaker,

  shall we get started?” Del said as she took her late husband’s

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  Donna Drew Sawyer

  pocket watch out of her purse, opened it and looked at the

  time. “’Cause as it stands now, we seem to be behind schedule.”

  Hank smiled listening to Del. If he real y was a white man

  he might have been offended but Del reminded him so much

  of his late mother, Augusta Whitaker. She too had little or no

  tolerance for being late, lazy, sloppy or dirty. She died a year

  before the incident that brought him to Richmond. He missed

  her. Through this brief interaction with Del, he felt the kinship

  of the people he had known for the first eighteen years of his

  life; this was as close as he’d been to his life before Richmond.

  “Well then Mrs. Holder, I guess we had better get started,”

  Hank said as he bounded up the back porch steps. He turned

  to see the tall, wiry, mahogany-colored woman with the

  wide-brimmed straw perched precariously on her head, sur-

  veying the back garden as if it were her own.

  “Flowerbeds could use some tendin’. You’re gonna need

  to hire a man to take care of all of that. Between you and the

  missus and the baby, cookin’, cleanin’ and what not, there is not

  enough of Del to take care of the yard too. And the laundry,

  we’ll need a girl to help with the laundry at your house.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Holder,” Hank said with a broad smile

  on his face. Del walked up the porch steps. Hank held the door

  for her and, as she stepped into the house, she said, “You all

  don’t need to be cal in’ me Ma’am. Mrs. Holder t’ain’t necessary

  neither. I’m Del, folks just call me Del.”

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  Provenance: A Novel

  (III)

  Maggie and Hank were never sure whether they had hired

  Del or Del had hired herself—but now, in her, they had a

  housekeeper, cook and experienced nursemaid. Del had taken

  care of finding them someone to do the laundry and take care

  of the yard. There was no reason for them to remain Charlotte’s

  unwanted guests. It had been over a year since Walton’s death

  and Charlotte, along with her personal maid Frances and her

  house staff, could manage without them.

  “You should never have let Hank bring that woman into

  your house,” Charlotte admonished Maggie after she met Del.

  “I would never let a colored woman run my house. They have

  different ways of doing things and they are a temptation to your

  husband.” The last part of Charlotte’s statement made Maggie

  laugh so hard she cried.

  “Del?” she asked Charlotte. “Del is old enough to be Hank’s

  mother! You’re being ridiculous Momma.”

  Charlotte was undeterred. “Then you make sure you man-

  age her, Margaret. You make sure that she does only what she

  was hired to do and that she doesn’t put your private business

  in the street.”

  “Momma, please. Hank and I can trust Del, she came very

  highly recommended. She’s worked for white families before,

  there is nothing to worry about.” Del had already proven herself.

  In less than a month she had Hank and Maggie’s household

  running smoothly and Maggie did not have to lift a finger.

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  Donna Drew Sawyer

  “You won’t be seeing much of me over there till the baby

  arrives,” Charlotte declared, washing her hands of the whole

  situation. “But you mark my words Margaret, one day you’ll

  regret hiring that woman.”

  (IV)

  Charlotte and Frances left
on an extended trip to Europe

  as soon as Maggie and Hank moved into their own home. It

  was her way of letting them know she did not appreciate their

  impertinent independence. She was a widow, her only daughter

  should have at least asked her to move in with them. She knew

  it was Hank who refused to consider the idea. Now she was

  further convinced that he was hiding something.

  “I’ll be back before the baby is born,” Charlotte promised,

  hoping that her absence would teach Maggie a lesson. “I’ll

  bring back some layette items from Paris. We will have the

  most fashionable little one in Richmond.”

  •

  “Will you miss the home you grew up in?” Hank asked

  Maggie their first night in their new house. He was thinking

  about the last time he left the house he grew up in. He and his

  brothers left to go to a Negro league baseball game across the

  bay on the campus of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural.

  When the game went into extra innings, they should have left

  in time to catch the ferry that would get them home before

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  Provenance: A Novel

  dark. Llewel yn was one of Virginia’s many sundown towns; on

  the outskirts of town signs warned, “Niggers Leave Llewellyn

  by Sundown, or Else…” The only way the Whitaker brothers

  could get home that night was to chance a run from the docks,

  through Llewellyn, to the safety of the black community of

  Park Place on the other side of town. The sheriff knew there

  would be stragglers from the game and he was waiting when

  they arrived. Now Hank would never see home again.

  “We’ll be right around the corner, Hank. I can go to

  Momma’s anytime I want,” Maggie said, bringing Hank back

  to Richmond from Park Place. “This is home now. Our child

  will be born in this house and I don’t think we will ever leave

  here.” Hank took his wife in his arms. Between them was

  Maggie’s expanding belly; their child might be the one person

  that would force Hank to leave home again.

  45

  • 4 •

  Richmond, Virginia—June 1913

  (I)

  Maggie went into labor a month earlier than her

  due date. “It is not an exact science. Babies come

  when they come. We’re ready, Mr. Hank, don’t

  you worry,” Del assured him. With Dr. Bridges in attendance

  and Del assisting, Maggie cried like a baby through the deliv-