Candle in the Darkness

by Lynn Austin

  “Hello, Sugar,” she said, smiling faintly from her chair near the window. “Come on over here and give your mama a kiss.”

  I crossed the floor and brushed my lips on Mother’s cheek. She looked painfully thin, her bones sharply defined beneath her pale skin. But my mother was still a very beautiful woman, one who stood out among her peers. I’d inherited my wavy brown hair from her, but not my dark eyes. They came from my father. Mother’s eyes were a soft, faded gray, like spring storm clouds. I wondered if the many tears she had shed had washed the color right out of them.

  Mother motioned for me to sit across from her at the little table by the window. She had a frenzied intensity about her, as if a relentless, pulsing current raced through her veins. While Ruby laid out all the food, Mother chatted excitedly, hopping from one topic to the next like a little bird flitting from branch to branch. I barely listened. Instead, I studied my mother’s perfect, moonshaped face, her graceful movements, watching the sweep of her small, round hands as she spread her napkin across her lap.

  Her breathless voice and rapid words made her sound as though she were running up flight after flight of stairs to the very top floor of a building, where a thrilling view awaited her. Once she reached that place, where all the world lay spread at her feet, I knew that her days would be filled with laughter and happy conversation. She would make glorious plans for all the things she would see and do: shopping in Richmond’s finest stores, ordering fancy silk dresses and bonnets imported from England and France, attending balls and parties and elegant dinners. I’d been to the top with her before, and I knew what would come next. Inevitably, she would begin to descend the stairs once again. The pleasant conversation and laughter would gradually die away as she trudged downward, until one day she would finally reach the cold, dark basement, where she lived with sorrow and tears.

  I remembered Tessie’s bitter tears earlier that morning and summoned all my courage. “Did you send Grady away?” I asked when Mother paused for breath.

  “Hmm? Did I do what, Sugar?” she asked absently.

  “Did you send Grady away . . . my mammy Tessie’s boy?”

  “Now, Caroline, you know I don’t have anything whatsoever to do with those servants—except for Ruby, of course. She has belonged to me ever since I was just a little girl like you. Did I ever tell you that? Ruby has been my own dearest mammy for just as long as I can recall. My daddy gave her to me for a wedding present when I got married because he knew I wouldn’t be able to get along for a single day without her. Just like you and your mammy. But Tessie and all the rest of them are your daddy’s property, not mine. It’s his job to see to them, and—”

  Suddenly she stopped. Mother frowned at me, and for a horrible moment I was afraid she was angry with me. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked her about Grady. What if she decided to send me away, too? But a moment later she said, “Who made that awful mess of your hair, Caroline? Why, your part is as crooked as a country lane—and it’s nowhere near the middle of your head. And the rest of your hair is sticking out of your net like . . . like an old bird’s nest.”

  Mother set down her teacup as if she couldn’t possibly take another sip with my hair in such a state. “Ruby!” she called. “Ruby, come see if you can do something with this child’s hair. What in the world has gotten into your mammy that she would make such a mess of it like that?”

  “Tessie didn’t do my hair. Luella did.”

  “Luella! But she’s only an old scrub maid. Whoever heard of such a thing—a common scrub maid brushing my daughter’s hair? Why, it’s disgraceful.”

  “Luella had to help me today because they took Grady away and Tessie was crying, and—”

  She put her hands over her ears. “I told you, Caroline, I don’t want to talk about those people. Proper young ladies don’t concern themselves with such unpleasant subjects as slaves. I’ve warned and warned your father that you were becoming much too familiar with them, and see here? I was right. This is exactly what I was talking about. It isn’t good for you at all. Ruby, don’t just stand there gawking; fix the child’s hair.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ruby guided me out of my chair and seated me at my mother’s mirrored dressing table. I watched as she took off the net that Luella had clumsily pinned on and began brushing my hair with my mother’s silver hairbrush. The soft bristles caressed my head the way Tessie’s gentle fingers did when she stroked my temples to soothe me to sleep.

  “She have your hair, ma’am,” Ruby said. “So thick and nice. She look like you when she grow up . . . see?” Ruby deftly twisted my hair into a little bun and held it up on the back of my head like a grown-up lady’s. Somehow she had made it puff out on the sides, too, so that my face looked fashionably moon-shaped, like my mother’s.

  “Can Ruby pin it up like that, Mother?” I begged. “So it looks like yours?”

  “Heavens, no. You’re much too young.”

  “Please, just for fun?” I don’t know what made me so brave. I was usually too timid to say a word to anyone, especially to my mother, who was a virtual stranger to me. But I missed Tessie, and I took courage from the fact that Mother seemed to be climbing her way up from her sad spell again. As I watched her face, reflected in the mirror, she finally smiled.

  “Oh, all right. Pin it up for her, Ruby. Then Caroline and I can sip our tea like two Richmond belles.”

  Ruby expertly parted and pulled and twisted my hair, sticking hairpins in the back and tucking a pair of Mother’s beautiful ivory combs on the sides. My head felt strange and wobbly. I stared at myself in the mirror and barely recognized the grown-up girl who stared back.

  “Missy Caroline gonna be beautiful, just like you, ma’am,” Ruby said as she worked. “And she have your skin, too. Just as white as milk.”

  “If only we can keep her from running all around in the backyard from now on, it just might stay white, too,” Mother said. “I told her father she’s twelve years old now, and it simply won’t do to have her pretty white skin all freckled from the sun. Or worse still, to have her looking as brown as a Negro. Honestly, it’s disgraceful enough that she plays with one of them all day without her looking like one of them, too.”

  Grady.

  I suddenly recalled the feeling of warm sunshine on my hair and my face, of cool grass beneath my bare feet, and the sound of Grady’s rippling laughter as we chased each other around the backyard. High above us, I remembered my mother standing behind her curtained window like a shadow, watching.

  Tears filled my eyes. Grady was gone—my playmate, my friend. They’d thrown him into the back of a wagon full of Negro slaves wearing chains.

  Mother didn’t seem to notice my tears as she rattled on and on. “Goodness, you do look all grown up, Caroline. Why, before long you’ll be too old to wear short-sleeved dresses. We’ll be sewing hoops to your petticoat instead of those girlish cords you’re wearing. But I really must remember to tell that worthless cook of ours to give you more to eat. Honestly, you’re thin as a willow.”

  I was fine-boned and very small for a twelve-year-old, but it wasn’t Esther’s fault. She did her best to try to fatten me up, complaining that I didn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive. She swore that a good, strong wind would pick me up and blow me clear to Washington, D.C.

  “Now, come back over here and sit down, Caroline. We have some very important changes to discuss.”

  Mother’s words sent a shiver through me. I slipped into my place at the tea table, but I was suddenly too nervous to eat. I hated change of any kind. Other girls my age went on afternoon social calls with their mothers, visiting the homes of their friends, learning the art of polite conversation. But my mother, once the belle of Richmond, hardly ever left our house. I’d pieced together the reason why by listening to the servants whispering and by watching the family doctor come and go from my mother’s room. Her spells of deep sadness, which made her weep for days on end, were caused by the fact that she hadn’t been able to give m
y daddy a son.

  I once heard Ruby say that Mother had “lost” her baby, and I worried for the longest time that Mother would lose me, too. For months, whenever I ventured outside with my mother on those rare occasions when she went visiting or attended church with Daddy and me, I clung to her skirts for fear of becoming lost. I later learned that the “lost” babies had died before they were born.

  When I was eight, Mother did give birth to a son. She and my daddy were overjoyed. But their happiness quickly turned to grief when the baby died just a few hours later. My brother had been a “blue” baby, according to Ruby, and was simply too weak to live. Mother’s grief lasted a very long time. I didn’t see her for months, but it didn’t really matter. I had Tessie to take care of me. Tessie’s slender brown arms hugged me close; her long, graceful fingers wiped my tears. And I had Grady to play with.

  My mother’s spells followed a cycle after that. She was joyously happy when she was expecting, and in deepest despair when the baby was lost. Over the years, she gradually withdrew from the glittering Richmond society she had once presided over, unable to leave her bed when she was in a family way, unwilling to leave it after her hopes were cruelly dashed once again.

  I became as much of a recluse as my mother, more at home in the kitchen with the Negro servants than visiting with the few relatives and acquaintances who still called on my mother from time to time. I had no idea how to talk to grown-ups—and no desire to talk to any of them, either. Shy and awkward, I became as jumpy and high-strung as a hummingbird. When I was nine, Daddy hired a governess to teach me reading, writing, needlework, and how to play the piano. She lived with us for three years, then quit a few months ago to marry a clerk from one of Daddy’s warehouses.

  Now I fidgeted on the scratchy horsehair chair in my mother’s room, waiting to hear what these new, important changes in my life were all about.

  “Listen, Caroline,” she began, “I’ve decided that it’s high time you attended a real school every day, with other girls your age.”

  Cold fear froze me to the chair. I wanted to shout, “No!” but I couldn’t get a single word out of my mouth.

  “Your father and I are sending you to the Richmond Female Institute. It’s where I went to school when I was a girl. All the arrangements have been made.”

  Her words sent a shudder of fear through me. I always became ill at the slightest deviation from my usual routine and would even get sick to my stomach when church services varied at Christmas and Easter. The idea of entering an unknown school, facing a stern headmistress and a horde of strange girls, filled me with terror. My hands flew to my mouth as my stomach began to seethe.

  “Now, don’t you give me that look, Caroline, like you want to run and hide under the bed. I won’t stand for any more of that nonsense. I don’t know what your Negro mammy has done to you to make you so skittish, but it’s high time you grew into the proper young lady you’re meant to be. And that means learning how to get on in society, learning what’s expected of you. I’m sorry that my poor health has prevented me from teaching you properly, but it can’t be helped.”

  “But you’re well now, Mother,” I said hoarsely. “Can’t you teach me here at home?”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s much better for you to be out among other girls your age. By the way, classes begin at the school in two weeks.”

  I covered my face and sobbed.

  “Caroline Ruth Fletcher, you stop crying this instant! You are no longer a baby, and you are going to that school, so you had better get used to the idea, you hear? Look at me.”

  I lifted my head and nodded, but the tears kept falling.

  “I’ll have to see about hiring a seamstress to stitch you a new dress,” she continued. “I believe girls at the school still wear outfits of forest green broadcloth with white collars. That’s been the tradition since I attended as a girl. It’s such a lovely color of green, and it will look very pretty on you. I’ll order some matching ribbons for your hair, too. And under no circumstances is Luella ever to touch your hair again, you hear? Your mammy will either have to pull herself together immediately or face a whipping. Why aren’t you eating, Caroline? Finish your tea and sandwiches.”

  I felt so sick I didn’t know if I could eat. I dutifully picked up one of the finger sandwiches Esther had made and nibbled halfheartedly around the edges as my mother rambled on and on about her memories of the Richmond Female Institute. It would take much longer than two weeks to get used to the idea.

  By the time lunch was finally over, Mother was ready for her laudanum pill and an afternoon nap. She dismissed me at last, and I was secretly pleased when she forgot to tell Ruby to take my hair down again. I floated carefully out of the room with my head held high so my hair wouldn’t escape from the combs.

  Talking with my mother had made me feel all mixed up inside, as though I was being pulled in two directions at the same time. I liked the grown-up way I looked with my hair done up fancy, but I didn’t want to be grown-up enough to attend school. I liked eating sandwiches and drinking tea with my mother, but I missed having Tessie fussing over me and babying me. Tears filled my eyes every time I thought about Grady or recalled the hateful way my mammy had looked at me. I still hadn’t seen Tessie since morning.

  I decided to go searching for her and eventually ended up running outside through the rain to the kitchen. Esther bustled around the steamy room, barking orders at poor Luella. “Move faster, girl, or this here sauce gonna burn to a crisp!”

  “Where’s Tessie?” I asked above the din of rattling pots and dishes.

  “She sick in bed,” Esther replied. “Luella, I said bring me the jar of salt, not that puny little old saltshaker. You hearing me?”

  “But I just looked in my bedroom,” I said, “and Tessie wasn’t in her bed.”

  “She up where us folks sleep.” Esther motioned with a tilt of her head to the ladder that led to the slaves’ quarters above the kitchen. I started toward it, but Esther stopped me again. “Oh, no you don’t. You get on out of here, Missy. You leave Tessie be.”

  “But why can’t I see her? Is she mad at me?”

  “Land sakes, child. Why she be mad at you? She you mammy. You her precious girl-child. She grieving over her boy, that’s all. And you has to give her time to do that.”

  I slumped down on a kitchen chair, hoping Esther or Luella would talk to me, but they were busy cooking a huge, fancy dinner and had no time for conversation. I finally wandered back to the house and upstairs to my room again, disappointed that neither of them had noticed my hair.

  Rain raced steadily down my windowpanes all afternoon. I couldn’t remember a day without Tessie by my side, and I felt terribly alone. She didn’t even come upstairs to tell me to take a nap, so I decided I would rebel and not take one. I sat in a chair and read a book instead, careful not to mess up my hair.

  When it was nearly time for my daddy to come home, I tiptoed to the upstairs hall window and knelt on the bench to watch for him. Maybe if I begged Daddy to bring Grady back, Tessie wouldn’t be sad anymore. And maybe if I told Daddy how scared I was to go to school, he would tell me I didn’t have to go after all.

  At last his carriage pulled up to the front of the house. I ran down the stairs to the entrance hall and pulled the heavy front door open for him all by myself—something Tessie would have had a fit over if she had seen me. Gilbert, Daddy’s manservant, held an umbrella over Daddy’s head as he hurried up the walk to the door. My father looked tired; the deep lines in his handsome, square face made him look old. I knew by the silvery threads in his hair and in his mustache that he was several years older than my beautiful mother, but just how old I didn’t know. I also had no idea what kind of work my daddy did all day—only that he owned warehouses near the James River, that he sometimes traveled far away for months at a time, and that he constantly worried about his ships, which sailed back and forth to South America. But in spite of the rain and his fatigue, Daddy looked pleased to see me. H
e smiled the familiar, cockeyed smile that I loved so much, making one arched eyebrow and one side of his mustache lift in amusement.

  “Well, now! Nobody told me that we had company! Who is this lovely young lady who has come calling at my house?” He bowed like a gentleman and kissed my fingers.

  I covered my mouth with my other hand and giggled. “It’s me, Daddy!”

  “No! This can’t be my little Caroline. Why, you look just like a Richmond belle.”

  I danced from foot to foot, waiting for Gilbert to take Daddy’s coat, my stomach writhing in an agony of nerves. When I finally found my voice, it sounded very small. “Can I ask you something, Daddy?”

  “Why, certainly. Right this way, young lady, if you please.” He offered me his arm and led me into his library. Daddy sank into his usual armchair behind his desk, but I was too fidgety to sit. I stood in front of him, squirming with anxiety.

  Suddenly I didn’t want to be a fine lady anymore. I longed for Daddy to open his arms wide and invite me to crawl up onto his lap and hug his neck the way I hugged Big Eli. I loved my daddy because he was so handsome with his neatly trimmed mustache and wavy brown hair, his finely tailored clothes and crisp, white shirts. Daddy was kind to me and brought me all sorts of treats whenever he returned from one of his long trips. But I could never recall sitting on his lap. If I needed a man’s strong arms to hold me close and comfort me when I was upset, I ran to Eli.

  “Now, tell me why you are all dolled up today,” Daddy said as Gilbert handed him his evening drink. “Did you have a gentleman caller, Sugar?”

  “Daddy!” I blushed at the thought, then drew a deep breath as I remembered my mission. “Mother says I have to go to the Richmond Female Institute.”

  “You’ll be the prettiest girl there,” he said after taking a swallow. “But do I have to go? Can’t you hire another governess to come and teach me at home?”

  “Now, Caroline. It isn’t good for you to stay shut up inside the house all the time.”