The Indigo Girl

by Natasha Boyd

  “Likewise. It has been far too long since you have seen us in town. Mrs. Pinckney has been ill again.” He scowled and looked out toward the creek as he spoke. “And still no explanation from the doctor.”

  It felt like a gentle reprimand, and it was deserved. What a careless friend I had been. I’d write to her more often. “I’m so sorry to hear it. Please tell Mrs. Pinckney she is never far from my thoughts.”

  “She’ll appreciate that.” He smiled. “And when she is feeling better, we wish to invite you on a tour of some of the upper neck plantations and the countryside. Before you”—he cleared his throat—“excuse me. Before you leave. Goose Creek, St. John’s, Middletons’ plantation at Crowfield. I’ve heard the gardens are spectacular. I thought—Mrs. Pinckney thought—you would be particularly interested in Crowfield.”

  “I should very much like that,” I responded, genuinely cheered by the prospect of the gardens I’d heard so much about. “Thank you.”

  “When will you leave?”

  “My father has sent George to fetch us. But with tensions at sea like they are, it may be a while before he arrives. Then we shall have to pack up the house and resettle the slaves.”

  “You won’t leave them?”

  “We may. We’ll have to see what plans the new occupants have for the land. And I should hate to leave them to a harsh fate.”

  “May I say … You have greatly impressed me with your eagerness to learn the law.”

  I smiled thinly. “It’s an effective way to employ the mind from useless moping. But, I’m afraid the gentleman author is not nearly as good a teacher as you at explaining complicated issues.”

  We walked to the house. My mother made a rare and brief appearance downstairs and took her unread letter with her when she excused herself.

  A few moments after her departure, we heard a pained sound, followed by a muffled thud. When we rushed out of the parlor we found my mother sitting in a puff of skirts at the bottom of the stairwell clutching the letter to her chest. Her face was pale.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “What is it, Mama?” I asked after ascertaining there really was no injury. Charles and I assisted her to the settee.

  “It’s Tommy,” she wailed. She handed me the letter.

  It was from our guardian, Mrs. Bodicott.

  I was not at all sure my heart would ever truly mend regardless of the passage of time. Each new tragedy chipped away at the jagged fissures so there would be no way to fit the pieces back together. This time it was my poor, dear, sweet little brother Tommy, with his temperate disposition and his eagerness to please. His illness had turned grave and we were to prepare for the worst. My breath hitched.

  How arbitrary was the hand of death. Why not take the lives of evil men rather than innocent boys?

  In that moment, though I’d thought I had begun to mend, keeping myself busy and becoming passionate again about learning, this time with the intricacies of law to keep my mind occupied, all I could see was the hopelessness and fragility of life.

  I swallowed my grief to attend to my mother. After I saw Mama settled upstairs and Mary Ann bringing her some chamomile tea, I returned to find Charles ready to leave.

  “Must you return so soon?” I asked as I descended the staircase. My voice wobbled.

  He stood in the hall below, his hat in his hands, turning it in his fingers as he regarded a lithograph I’d hung of huntsmen on horseback, hounds scrapping at their heels.

  He’d startled as I spoke and now watched my descent, his eyes thoughtful, and unless I imagined it, wistful. “How have you been, Miss Lucas? I mean before this new bout of tragic news. For which, I must say, I am deeply sorry.”

  “Thank you. And fine.” I shrugged, lightly belying my inner anguish. “I have come to terms with the fact that our leaving here is a product of my own doing—”

  “Eliza.”

  I held up a hand and descended the last few steps. “It’s true, Mr. Pinckney. There are no two ways about it.”

  “Charles. And no matter what you believe,” he said heatedly, “I will say that I have never met a woman, or man for that matter, with as much courage, integrity, and sense of purpose. That you will even take the blame when it is so very clearly out of your control astounds me. I will always admire you. You are remarkable.” He shook his head. “The things you could accomplish—”

  In a fit of madness to stop his words I laid a finger lightly across his lips. Unthinking.

  I snatched it back.

  Charles sucked in a sharp breath.

  “I’m so sorry,” I gasped, horrified, and turned my back to gather my wits.

  Behind me Charles was utterly still.

  “You must not say such things to me,” I whispered, my voice squeaking as I fought to control my emotion. I stepped away to put distance between us. “I … I depend on them too much. You make me feel as if I can accomplish anything. And yet in the light of day I can’t. It …” I swiped a tear from my cheek. “It’s too much.”

  Charles was quiet so long I began to think he had left. But when I turned around he stood in the same spot. His expression struggled between a sort of pain and devoid of any discernible emotion.

  Minutes ticked by.

  “The indigo,” he started. “You can. You—”

  “Stop. Please. I can’t.”

  “Even if it meant you could stay? You won’t do it?”

  “It won’t make a difference!”

  Charles swallowed visibly, his lips mashed tight together. His eyes were dark, and his jaw clenched. “It would make a difference. It would to South Carolina … and”—his throat moved heavily as he swallowed again—“and it would to me.”

  We regarded each other.

  Charles had ambitions. Much like I’d had once upon a time.

  I wondered what he saw when he looked down upon me. I barely reached his chest in height.

  I wanted to ask him what he meant but fear held me back. We were already in a strange hinterland of intimacy. “Thank you for your visit,” I said instead.

  Charles nodded stiffly. “Please think about our invitation. Seeing you would cheer Mrs. Pinckney immensely.”

  “I shall.”

  Word came from Mr. Manigault in Charles Town that there’d been some kind of accident up on our Waccamaw plantation. Starrat was dead. A gunshot to the head as he slept.

  I gasped as I read it. Not from grief but from the shocking nature of the death. His sins must have finally caught up with him.

  In the note, Mr. Manigault asked me if I had anyone else in mind to appoint to the position. Surprised we even had a say in the matter given that we had defaulted on the property, I simply replied that he could appoint whomever he wished. Perhaps there were no buyers for it yet. No mention was made of an inquiry. I laid down my quill and tossed a sprinkle of sand across the ink to blot it.

  A gunshot.

  I stood suddenly and marched across the study to the gun cabinet, flinging the door open.

  There the gun sat, idle and untouched. I closed the door again and returned to my desk. And I couldn’t help but breathe easier knowing that Starrat was no longer inflicting himself upon this earth.

  By the end of September, the indigo crop was waist-high.

  In the early mornings, on days when I was not teaching Quash, I’d stand at the edge of the fields and dare myself to try again. Some of the indigo plants, ironically the ones closest to Ben’s cabin, looked as if they would be the first to bloom. I stubbornly watched them day after day. The indigo elements trapped inside the leaves, now at their most potent, were calling to me like the most deafening siren’s song. So loud, I felt I should physically cover my ears.

  Whenever Quash caught me contemplating the indigo, he would stop whatever he was doing and watch me. Waiting
for something.

  I’d glare when I saw him, and he’d simply nod once.

  Even if I could be successful with making indigo this time, my lot was cast. We were to return to Antigua. My brother George was on his way finally, not to take over the estates I’d been keeping for him and my father, but to rescue the womenfolk from my disastrous failures. So why would I even bother? It would break my heart further to finally succeed only to have to leave it all behind.

  In October, I received news that Mrs. Pinckney had taken a turn for the worse. My heart ached for Charles. How distraught he must be. I made arrangements to visit Belmont as soon as possible.

  Mrs. Pinckney lay before me, her head nestled on lovingly propped pillows, her skin so pale as to be almost blue. But that was not the most worrisome. All along her skin, on her hands, her arms, now her forehead and cheeks, dark dots and pools marred the pale perfection of her skin.

  The doctor had said she was perhaps bleeding beneath her skin, as if she’d been stabbed by tiny swords hundreds and thousands of times, yet without the surface wounds to show for it. It was terrifying. Charles lay exhausted upon a settee next to the dying fire. I’d sent him there immediately upon my arrival to get some rest. Gaunt and haggard, his eyes were so full of heartbreak I almost couldn’t stomach looking at him. It was a blow to my own heart to see him broken in such grief and helplessness to aid his wife.

  Mrs. Pinckney stirred, her parched and cracked lips opening slightly.

  I leaned forward. “Mrs. Pinckney?” I whispered so as not to wake her husband.

  Her eyes flickered open to slits and took several moments to focus on me, and she tried to smile. “Eliza,” she managed. Her voice was thready and rough.

  My eyes filled in spite of myself, and I swiped at them hastily and attempted to return the smile through my worry. “Yes. It’s me. I made Charles rest.” I squeezed her hand gently. Even the slightest pressure Charles said would cause the bleeding to worsen.

  She winced though I’d barely applied strength.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “I—I’m glad you’re here. I …” Her throat made a parched snapping sound as she tried to swallow.

  There was a bowl of broth on the side table. I brought a small spoon of it to her lips, hoping it would help. She took it gratefully.

  “Charles said you … your indigo came back,” she managed weakly.

  I nodded. “Indeed. For what it’s worth. But my brother George is set to fetch us back to Antigua. We’ll be leaving as soon as winter ebbs and we can find safe passage.” My heart felt like stone as I recounted our plans. Mother, of course, was beside herself with joy. To see George, for one thing, but another that she’d finally be getting her wish to return to Antigua. And then she’d have her sights on England. A plan I was not averse to. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was unlikely as tensions had risen yet further and now there was talk that the English and French would soon declare against each other.

  “No. You must try.”

  “Try?”

  “The indigo,” she croaked. “You must … try.”

  “Hush, do not fret on my behalf.”

  She closed her eyes, her brow creasing as if she attempted to muster more energy.

  “I should leave you to rest.”

  “The letters,” Mrs. Pinckney whispered.

  “Pardon?” I asked, not sure I’d heard correctly.

  “Can you read the letters to me?”

  I frowned. “What letters?”

  “Yours,” she said. “The ones you wrote these last few years. I saved them.”

  “To you?”

  She attempted to smile again. “To Miss Bartlett.”

  My stomach lurched, and a lump burned its way up to my throat. My letters to Miss Bartlett that had been intended for her husband? “Why?” I managed.

  “Please.” She sighed, her eyes closing with another grimace. “Please read them.”

  I looked around me. The room, done in the palest of greens, held a small writing desk in one corner. Though I could see nothing upon it. Charles twitched and shifted in his sleep. My eyes scanned the room, over the mantel, around the walls, and back to the bed.

  There.

  There was a stack of letters tied together with a strip of thin leather on the table on the opposite side of the bed. I rose, my belly heavy with an odd sense of guilt, and went to retrieve them. Sure enough I recognized my own hand.

  Resuming my place, I untied the bundle.

  Unsure what to do since Mrs. Pinckney seemed to be sleeping again, I hesitated.

  “Go on,” she said thinly.

  I swallowed and retrieved the first one.

  “My dear Miss Bartlett,” I began.

  At the end of each when I thought she was asleep once more, Mrs. Pinckney would bade me continue.

  I read about the comet, about my business, my plans, and my schemes. I read about teaching the Negro children and two mockingbirds that had nested beside my window. I even, my nerves lodged high in my throat making reading almost impossible, read about how I’d been lacing my stays and listening to the mockingbirds and been moved to poetry, having penned a few amateur lines. How I could have written to Miss Bartlett about my state of undress, knowing Mr. Pinckney would be reading my words, caused shame to beat its way through me. My cheeks burned, my heart hurt, and a feeling not unlike seasickness hurtled around within me.

  Mrs. Pinckney lay still, her face again in peaceful repose.

  I stopped reading aloud, swallowing hard. But my eyes were drawn down to the pages and I kept on, this time absorbing the words silently and incredulously. I could see my grief at the loss of the first batch of indigo, and my loss of Ben, burning through beneath my words. And I saw also how I’d used the letters to work through my grief and find my way back to the living. But I hadn’t stopped then. I’d begun to shamelessly flirt, and impress, and invite coquettish banter about philosophy, and people, and books, and poetry.

  And law.

  I’d begun learning about the one thing Charles knew best. The law.

  I found myself gasping aloud in horror, my hand across my mouth.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Pinckney spoke from the bed, causing me to startle. Her eyes were open, wider now, and watching me.

  I shook my head. I opened my mouth, but I had no words.

  “It is.” She nodded. “That’s why I wanted you to read them. I wanted you to understand. I knew you didn’t. Your heart is so pure.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “I’m dying, Eliza.”

  I shook my head more frantically. My throat ached and tears burned. Unable to hold them back, I squeezed my eyes closed and felt them slide down my cheeks. “No. No, you’re not.”

  “I am,” she said gently. “It may be weeks. It may be days. But I know that I am. Charles refuses to accept it.”

  My gaze couldn’t help darting in the direction of his sleeping form. He was utterly still, and I wondered if he was awake and listening.

  Mrs. Pinckney let out a long sighing breath.

  I reached for her hand as carefully as I could. It was cool to the touch. I laid my forehead upon it, in supplication to one of my dearest friends. In apology. In pity. In helplessness to do anything to ease her suffering.

  “Forgive me,” I said.

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” Her hand fluttered in mine, holding on to me. “He won’t ask you,” she said. “He won’t want to dishonor me. When the time comes, you’ll have to ask him.”

  I lifted my head, wiping my eyes with my free hand. I was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes. Yes, you do,” she said and smiled. “Don’t make him wait to find happiness again.”

  Again I found myself at the edge of the fields.

  I replayed
Charles’ plea over in my head. It would matter to South Carolina.

  Charles often spoke about the tyrannical government in Georgia led by Oglethorpe. How we needed less input from the British Crown, not more. If I could prove indigo was a successful crop, who was to say other planters couldn’t grow it?

  Deveaux, Charles, perhaps some others.

  Perhaps if my attempt could have far-reaching effects beyond just helping me, that made it less of a selfish endeavor. God knew, the failures and the sacrifices should be given a chance to mean something.

  Looking at the profusion of wild indigo in front of me, I wondered if I could remember all that I’d learned. Maybe I could just try some. A small amount. Then if it didn’t work again, no harm done. But if it did, it could be my gift to Charles, and to Mr. Deveaux for helping me in the beginning. It would be a gift to Togo and Sawney and Sarah and all the slaves who possessed this knowledge. And it would be a gift to this colony of South Carolina.

  I would give Deveaux some indigo seed in return for his woad seeds and his advice.

  My success would also be an apology for Ben’s sacrifice. How he could have loved these plants, and watched them, nurtured them, and then deliberately ruined the gift they offered him went against everything I’d thought I’d known about him. But the need for the human spirit to be free could apparently outweigh anything, even the passions of one’s own heart.

  I took the small dirk that hung at my waist and before I could talk myself out of it, began cutting stalks. I searched for the perfect branches. The leaves were deep and resonant in their color, the tiny pink flowers just beginning to bud. I filled up a handful. Then an armful. And then I kept going.

  I looked up as Quash found me. His eyes, liquid brown, were somber. “Yes?” I asked.

  Quash flicked his gaze behind me, and I turned only to realize Togo was already working with me, cutting branches off the bushes. He too had one eye on me as he worked.

  Nonplussed I looked back at Quash. His hand was outstretched toward me. Upon his palm lay Ben’s small leather pouch.