Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray

by Dorothy Love

  I stole a look at Lawrence, the market man. He was the one we all looked up to when it came to matters of liberation, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the look on his face.

  It was true that Mister Custis let us do as we pleased. As long as the work got done he never raised his voice or his lash. But still, we were his property the same as the sheep and oxen and President Washington’s silver. The president had bought and sold slaves too, and Mister Custis didn’t see anything wrong with keeping us in bondage. It was the way he had been raised from his boyhood at Mount Vernon. Keeping slaves was the only thing he knew.

  Lawrence looked like he was finally about to speak up, but then he changed his mind, and we waited to see what Colonel Lee was going to say next.

  “As much as I disliked breaking up families, I had no choice but to hire out all those who were able to work,” the colonel told us. “This has caused unhappiness among you. I will do all I can to make those of you who remain here as comfortable as possible. In return I ask you to be patient and to remember that Mrs. Lee from her earliest days has done all she could on your behalf.”

  I didn’t doubt that he believed every word he said. But he had thrown Ruben, Parks, and Edward in jail last fall for sassing him. He wouldn’t think twice about doing it again if people didn’t mind their tongues.

  Miss Mary sat by the window with her hands folded in her lap. She still thought Africa was the answer to the problem of what to do with us, but that idea didn’t sit too well with my brother, Wesley, who had been one of the first to be hired out. At twenty-six he was taller than our daddy and strong from working the orchards and the wheat fields. From time to time we got word of him from the place he was working down in lower Virginia.

  Colonel Lee dismissed us, and we headed to our chores. I took care of my usual cleaning, dusting, polishing, and mopping chores, changed the linens on the bed, and brought Miss Mary’s ten o’clock tea into the room off the parlor where she went to do her reading and work on her book. She had been writing that one thing off and on for many years. It must have been some whale of a story.

  “Thank you, Selina.” She poured herself some tea and took a sip. “How is Annice today? And the rest of the children?”

  “Annice seems some better this morning. The rest of them are about the same.”

  “The doctor will be here this afternoon to see about that burn on Austin’s leg. I’ll have him look in at your place.”

  “Thank you, Missus.”

  She smiled. “I think that’s the first time you have ever called me Missus. I have always thought of my mother as Missus. I suppose I still do.”

  “This is your house now. Reckon you’re the mistress over everything.”

  “Yes, and it is nothing but a pure trial these days.” She waved her hand over a stack of newspapers on the desk. “I refuse to continue reading these stories about how terribly we are treating you all. Most servants would be grateful to be in such gentle hands.”

  I picked up her shawl that had fallen to the floor and folded it. There were times when my children were small and I would come to her with some concern about them, or when I needed an extra loaf of sugar or vinegar for a poultice, that I thought she understood my life. But she had never known how it felt to want more than you could have. How the longing for it made the days seem longer and the endless round of chores harder to bear.

  She reached for her shawl. “Tell me, Selina, are we truly being unreasonable in our expectations of our own servants?”

  A feeling of dark humiliation rose up in me then. Until the colonel’s speech that morning, I had never allowed myself to think that I was a piece of property. Something that could be bought or sold whenever the owner took a notion. I told myself that I was different from Rose and Kitty and Judah because of my friendship with Miss Mary. Now I saw that despite her kindliness toward me, in her eyes I was just like the others. At the mercy of rules that were made up just for profit. The thought of it burned like fire in my veins.

  “Now, Miss Mary, how do you expect me to answer a question like that?”

  She acted like she hadn’t heard me. “Do we starve you? Beat you? Sell you South? We do not. And think of all those we have already freed. Eleanor, Cassie, Lily, Eliza. And soon, the rest of you. Yet these reporters persist in their villainous attacks upon my husband and upon my father’s memory in language I would not pollute my lips by repeating.”

  It was the longest speech she had made in some time, and surely the angriest. I had known her all my life, and sometimes I still couldn’t figure out her moods. One day her words would be soft and sweet, curling right around your heart like a flowering vine. The next day, sharp as a fishhook. Lately there had been mostly fishhooks. When she got that way it was best not to cross her. “You want me to throw the papers out for you then?”

  She sighed. “No, I suppose I ought to keep them until my husband has finished with them.”

  I made my escape and spent the rest of the day staying out of her sight. I felt like my heart had been split in two. Despite it all, one half still belonged to Miss Mary. The other half belonged to myself.

  Late that night, when the children were asleep, Thornton pulled me close. He had worked in the stable later than usual, and the smell of fresh hay still stuck to his skin.

  “Got some news today,” he said quietly. “Wesley has run off and took your sister, Mary, and George Parks and some others with him.”

  A cold chill crept over me then, like I had walked on somebody’s grave. “Does Colonel Lee know?”

  “Lawrence said the colonel found out last night. From the overseer.”

  “Huh. How did McQuinn find out?”

  Up in the loft one of the boys cried out, and I heard my older girls quieting him. In the corner, an injured rabbit Annice had rescued and was nursing back to health scrabbled in his cage.

  “Somebody come up from Romancoke with the news,” Thornton said. “I hope Wesley and all of them get away clean. Colonel Lee don’t look kindly on anybody who don’t do what they supposed to do.”

  “He thinks everybody ought to be like him. Do your duty no matter what.”

  “Mama?” Emma called down from the loft. “You and Daddy gone be talkin’ all night?”

  “Nope,” Thornton said. “We are all done talking for now, baby girl. You go on back to sleep.” He wrapped his arm around my waist. “You too, wife.”

  But I stayed awake until the stars faded, thinking about my brother and sister. Not knowing exactly what to wish for. If they got away, I might never hear of them or see them ever again. If they got caught, they would pay a hard price for running, and I understood now that even my friendship with Miss Mary would not be enough to spare them.

  32 | MARY

  Two years had passed, and I was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that I had at least one mulatto half sister living on the property, when Robert strode into the parlor one morning, his face taut. I was not certain I could absorb any more distressing news, or go on pretending everything was well. I hadn’t told anyone what I had discovered about Maria and my father.

  I set down my pen. “Has something happened?”

  “I have received word that the Norrises and George Parks have been apprehended in Maryland. Apparently they have been jailed there for several days.”

  “Given their ingratitude and bad conduct, perhaps you ought to let them remain there.”

  “I would leave them there if I could, but we can’t afford to pay the jailer to keep them.”

  I set aside the stack of Papa’s letters to General Washington that I had been reading. “Give them their freedom, then. Let them find out for themselves how difficult it will be for them to make their own way in the world.”

  “And what would that do, except to encourage others to run away?” Robert stood looking out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. I could feel the tension building in him. “No. There must be consequences. They must be brought back and held accountable.
”

  He was a military officer and unaccustomed to insurrection. I feared for those unfortunates, even if by choosing to run they had sealed their own fate. “You intend to make an example of them.”

  He sighed. “It grieves me to think of it. Why is it that they cannot see that hard work and cooperation will bring about their freedom much sooner than fomenting this constant trouble?”

  “We have the legal right to keep them, but thanks to the abolitionists we have lost our moral authority over them.” A sharp pain ripped through my hands, and I dropped my pen onto the desk. “In their minds they are already free. We may control their bodies, but not their spirits.”

  “Moral authority or no, they still must be taught a lesson. I cannot see any other way to restore order.”

  “Give them some extra work, then. Hire them out to someone farther away. But spare them from the lash. For my sake.”

  “I seem to remember that you have complained often of their conduct of late.”

  “Yes, but I see no point in whipping them other than to make the others resentful and less likely to follow your orders. Mercy ought to temper justice, even in this case. Especially in this case.”

  “I am not unaware that we are speaking of Selina’s family, and that you two have formed an uncommon bond. But—”

  “I must depend upon her, Robert. Especially when you are away. And think of Leonard and Sally Norris. How it will hurt them to see their children punished.”

  He went to the door. “I find the necessity of disciplining the Norrises highly distasteful. I would spare you this unhappiness if I could. But I must do what is necessary to maintain order. This is the only way to preserve Arlington for you and the children.”

  His mind was made up.

  I kept busy with my writing. I had chosen Benson Lossing, a family friend, to serve as coeditor of my father’s Recollections. As Robert awaited the return of the runaways from Maryland, I buried myself in letters to Mr. Lossing regarding publication of the book. But even the tasks of choosing a publisher, comparing royalty rates, and assembling the photographs Mr. Lossing requested did little to keep the shame and dread at bay.

  The day the Norrises came home, I heard the commotion in the quarters and the sound of horses’ hooves in the yard. Selina had arrived early as usual to help me get dressed and to tidy my room. She went about her tasks with her usual efficiency, but in complete silence. I had no words, either, for the sorrow that weighed heavily on our hearts. Though we never discussed it, we both knew that some part of our friendship would be irretrievably lost, left out on the whipping post that had gone unused in my father’s lifetime, but which I saw now had stood for years as a silent warning, a call to obedience that I mistook for loyalty.

  I couldn’t bear the look of anguish and accusation on Selina’s face. The smell of the food George sent from the kitchen made my stomach churn. I had Selina prepare my headache bag, and then I sent her home for the day. I closed the windows to mute the anguished cries coming from the yard and drew the curtains against the light.

  I must have slept, for it was nearly dark when Robert came into the room and dropped into the chair beside my bed.

  “Is it over?” I sat up, propping a pillow behind my shoulders.

  “It is. The overseer refused to follow my orders. I had to send for the constable to carry them out.”

  “Oh, Robert. Are Wesley and his sister—” Imagining their terrible punishment, I could not finish my thought.

  “They have been punished, but not beyond the bounds of human endurance. They will recover with no lasting effects. And Parks as well.”

  “You know what the newspapers will say if they get wind of this. They will accuse you of mistreating Papa’s slaves.”

  “Undoubtedly.” He sighed. “The law provides for the disciplining of servants. I did not enjoy it, but it had to be done.”

  “What happens now?”

  “I have arranged to have them transported to the Hanover County courthouse until they can be hired out to work again. The railroads are looking for good men. I expect Parks and Wesley will find work there. An agent in Richmond will see that Mary Norris is suitably employed.”

  He dropped his head into his hands. “That we might soon be rid of this entire situation is my most fervent prayer.”

  As worried as I was for Selina’s family, and for her own grief, I could see what this day had cost my husband. Robert was unabashedly sentimental when it came to his own family and unable to look with indifference upon the suffering of others. The ideals that had guided him all his life—fairness, discipline, and a responsibility to his family and to his servants—were crumbling before our eyes as our servants, aided and abetted by the roving abolitionists, reached toward freedom.

  “Have you had any supper?”

  Robert shook his head. “I am sick to my soul. How about you? Have you been abed all day?”

  “Just about. I sent Selina home this morning. I can’t eat either.”

  “God help us, Mary. Perhaps we ought to pray.”

  Days later, just as I had feared, the New York Tribune published a sensationalized account of Robert’s punishment of the runaways, accusing him of the worst sort of mistreatment of “the Custis slaves.” I thought Robert surely would refute such vile reportage, as he had refuted the erroneous Daily Times story regarding my father’s will, but this time, weary and heartsick, he said nothing.

  The events of that tumultuous spring faded as summer waxed and waned. October arrived with its glorious days of golden sunlight and bright autumnal color, and I spent more time out of doors. On mild days when my rheumatism permitted a short walk, Selina and I strolled in the garden talking of our children, my forthcoming book, the new kittens that had been born in the stables. I had long since given her free access to my library, and occasionally we discussed the poems of Mr. Bryant, who had become a favorite of hers.

  By unspoken agreement we never mentioned Wesley and Mary.

  Thornton’s birthday was coming up, and one morning in mid-October Selina asked if she might have the ingredients for the special eggnog we served at Christmastime.

  “I got the eggs and the cream,” she said, offering her arm to steady me as we walked among the mock orange trees. “But I need some of the brandy and rum Mr. Custis favored.”

  “Remind me when you need it, and I will see to it. We haven’t much use for spirits these days.” I stopped to remove a few dead blossoms from Mother’s Bon Silene roses. In the six years since her death it seemed they had grown ever more luxuriant. “I am surprised that Thornton Gray allows brandy and rum into his good Baptist household.”

  “He says we are half Methodist with some Episcopalian sprinkled in, and there is no harm in a glass of eggnog for special occasions. Even for the children.” She plucked a bright purple aster and handed it to me. “Reckon you must miss your own children, especially the older ones grown and gone. By my account, even Miss Mildred is thirteen now.”

  “Yes. The baby of my family isn’t a baby any longer. As she is very quick to remind me.”

  Selina chuckled. “Annice and Emma are just the same. They don’t have any idea of the tribulations waiting for them on the other side of childhood.”

  “If they did they would not be in such a hurry.”

  “That’s the truth. Reckon all we mothers can do is pray for them.”

  “Oh, I do. All the time. It brings me a measure of happiness to remember them to God. Although I sometimes think—”

  “Somebody’s coming.” Selina shaded her eyes as a horse and rider appeared. We started back to the house.

  A uniformed rider thundered past, headed for the fields where Robert was overseeing the harvesting of the late-season rye.

  Selina frowned. “Who was that?”

  “I think it’s Lieutenant Stuart. I wonder where he’s going in such a hurry.”

  My question was answered almost immediately. Robert returned from the field and, without stopping to change into hi
s uniform, summoned Daniel and the carriage. Selina and I reached the door just as Daniel drew up in the yard. Lieutenant Stuart saluted me as he rode past in a cloud of dust.

  “Summons from the War Department,” Robert said, brushing the bits of rye from his trousers. “President Buchanan has sent for me.”

  “The situation must be dire if you are not taking time to change your clothes.”

  “Yes. A report of an insurrection.”

  “Where?”

  Robert opened the carriage door and climbed inside. “Harper’s Ferry.”

  33 | SELINA

  One of the cats found his way into the office where Colonel Lee kept his papers and ledgers and such, and tipped over a whole bottle of ink onto the floor. It took a great deal of scrubbing with acid and hot water to remove it, and by the time that was done, Miss Mary was calling for me. I found her sitting by the window in her rolling chair, staring at the winter-brown garden.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Mary?”

  She shrugged.

  “Must be some reason you rang that bell.” I bent down to look into her tired brown eyes. “Unless it was the cat that rang it.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed her face then.

  “Seems like the mullygrubs got ahold of you today.” I took her hands. They were stiff and cold and thin as bird’s bones.

  “I shouldn’t be so gloomy. But I feel very much alone with my children away. Even Markie has made herself scarce of late. But I suppose there is nothing to do but keep busy.”

  I dragged a chair over beside hers and sat down. “Seems to me like there is plenty for you to do. They may not know it yet, but your girls need those letters you write most every day.”

  “Mary Custis is almost thirty years old and a law unto herself. I have no influence with her now. Not that I ever did.”

  “She always was a headstrong girl, that’s true. But you did your best for her.”

  “I suppose. My other girls don’t behave as I would wish them to either.” She smiled. “Now I know how my mother felt, despairing of my ever finding a husband. I want to see my own daughters settled and happy with families of their own, but it will take very special men to tame their ways.”