Thomas sighed. “It would make difficulties for me,” he said. “I have too much custom among his friends. If I hired you, he might hear of it.”
So he had heard, and he knew the whole story—the anger and the turning out. He probably knew the terms of the will.
He continued, “If you would speak to him and make some arrangement with him, I might consider it.”
Caro’s heart sank. And he must know perfectly well that Lawrence Jarvie would never agree to her employment with Thomas Bennett.
Seeing her disappointment, he softened again. “You’re welcome to join us at our Sunday service,” he said.
She held out her hand. “Thank you, Uncle Thomas,” she said. As the door closed behind her, the cheerful bell mocked her.
Her mother had been right, and now she had to trudge back to Tradd Street in the coarse shoes that still gave her blisters. Tears stung behind her eyes, and she blinked against them. A lady didn’t go barefoot in the street, and she didn’t weep, either.
The door opened and the bell jangled again. It was her cousin, Danny Pereira. If it was a disgrace to cry in public, it was worse to cry before her well-dressed cousin.
Danny said, “Miss Caroline.” His eyes glowed in the morning sun. He bent close, and she wondered why. In the softest of voices, he said, “I am very sorry about your father.”
When she returned to Tradd Street, she opened the kitchen door to find Sophy at the kitchen table. Sophy asked, “How do it go?”
Caro shook her head. She fought the tears that started in her eyes.
Her mother entered the kitchen and saw Caro’s stricken face. “What is it, Caro?” she asked, her tone softer than it had been in days. “What’s wrong?”
“I went to see my uncle,” Caro said, falling heavily into a chair.
“Is that what you call Lawrence Jarvie these days?”
“Your brother,” she said. “Uncle Thomas Bennett.”
Kitty seemed to swell with anger. “You went to Thomas?”
“Yes,” Caro said.
“You went begging to Thomas?”
“Not to beg,” Caro said. “To ask for work.”
Kitty turned on Sophy. “You put her up to it.”
Sophy, who had been peeling a potato, put down her knife. “No, it were her notion. But I didn’t discourage her.”
Kitty raged at Sophy. “What did you say to me? That I am her mother, and you would respect that? Is that how you show it?”
Sophy said, “Just want to help.”
Two spots of color blazed on Kitty’s cheeks. “When I want your help, you meddling old woman, I’ll ask for it.” She reached for Caro’s hand. “Come with me,” she ordered.
Caro felt wretched. She had made trouble and everything was worse than before. Tears welled in her eyes as she followed her mother, her head down. She thought, Why doesn’t anyone ask me what I want?
A few days later, Sophy’s man, Sunday, came to visit. Sunday kissed Caro on the cheek and asked, “Where is your pretty mama?”
Caro was silent. Sophy said, “She mad at me, so she sit in that little shack and sulk. Won’t eat with us.”
Sunday said to Sophy, “What happen?”
“I encourage Caro to take matters into her own hands, and she do.” Sophy explained Caro’s family connections and her fruitless effort.
“Thomas Bennett? He watch himself, all the time,” Sunday said. “If he anger one rich white man, he tell everyone he know. And it ruin his custom. He a free man, but he in debt to every one of them for a living.”
Caro had never realized that a free man of color might be so constrained.
“Well, we have a pleasant dinner tonight,” Sophy said. “You bring us hock!”
He lifted the bottle in his hand. “We savor this because it the last bottle for a while,” he said.
Sophy asked, “No new job of work, now that you finish the last one?”
“Not yet.” Worry had added creases to his face.
Sophy put a consoling hand on his arm. “You find something. You the best carpenter in Charleston!”
He laughed, a bitter sound. “Could be the best carpenter since Jesus, and I still have trouble!”
Caro asked, “Why? I thought your master didn’t mind that you hired out.”
“Oh, he don’t. He never do. It’s them white workmen who stir things up. They mad that black men hire out.”
Caro asked, “Why would they care?”
“Say we take the work away. That we take the bread from their mouths.” He sighed. “They even go to the city council—that were earlier this year—and ask them to consider a law to forbid slaves hiring out. The city council say no. Everyone on the council a master, and many of them profit by hiring their people out.”
“Like your master.”
Sunday nodded. “Now they mad again, the white workmen, and they say they go the Assembly to ask for the same thing.”
Caro said, “But everyone in the Assembly is a master. They’d never agree to it.”
Sunday said, “You a sharp one.”
Sophy said, “Her daddy crazy to make her read all them books, but he didn’t raise her to be a fool.”
“Well, they cause a lot of trouble, even if they never get the Assembly to do a thing.”
Sophy said, “The last time it happen, you say, ‘It blow over. It be all right.’ And it were. Be all right this time, too.”
Sunday said, “So it hard all of a sudden to hire out. Men who hire me, they wait to see how it go. Wait to see how much trouble the white workmen cause.”
Caro thought of her uncle, whose smooth face hid his worry. “Are they angry about tailors and seamstresses, too?” she asked.
“I expect so. Upset about anyone who hire out.”
Caro nodded. It gave her an odd kind of reassurance. As a free man of color, as a success in his business, as a man who might hire out slaves, Uncle Thomas had more difficulty than his feelings for a niece who looked like the half sister he had put aside.
Several days later, as Caro ate a midmorning biscuit in the kitchen, the door opened and her mother came in. She looked tired, as though anger wore her out. She sniffed the air. “Is there coffee?”
“You know there is.”
Kitty poured herself a cup and sat to drink it.
Caro said, “Sophy will be back before you’re finished.”
“I won’t let Sophy order me,” Kitty said, as though her petulance over the last week had been a careful decision and not a pout.
Caro sighed.
Kitty had just drained the heavy china cup when Sophy returned, ushering in a visitor.
Danny Pereira carried a bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and Caro hoped for a moment that Thomas had changed his mind, despite all the difficulty of hiring out, and sent her sewing. Today he was composed, his smooth expression a replica of his uncle’s.
“Who is this, Caro?” Kitty asked.
Caro introduced Danny to her mother, who sat up very straight, her lips pressed together in anger, as Danny said politely, “How do you do, Miss Catherine.”
“What brings you here?” Kitty asked.
Danny set the bundle on the table, taking care to put it in a dry spot. He said, “Miss Catherine, your daughter called on my uncle a few days ago, and he regrets that he was rude to her.” Caro thought, He’s learned Thomas’s tone of cajolery. Perhaps Thomas educates him in tactfulness as he teaches him tailoring.
Kitty said, “What did she expect, going to him like a beggar?”
“Oh, Miss Catherine, it was nothing like that. She asked him most politely for work. And he had to say no, since he has his hands full with all of us—three tailors and two apprentices.” Caro was grateful for this fib.
“What does he want now?” Kitty asked.
Danny said, “He would like to invite your daughter to attend church with us a week from Sunday. And to join us for dinner afterwar
d.” He added, “He would be glad to extend the invitation to you, as well.”
“Tell him no,” Kitty said.
Caro cried, “Mama!”
He rested his hand on the bundle. “Perhaps this would help,” he said.
“What is it?” Caro asked.
As Danny undid the string, Caro noticed that the skin of his hand was several shades lighter than the wrapping paper. He peeled away the paper and shook the contents out.
It was a dress, very fine cotton, printed in a yellow windowpane plaid with an edging of gray, each square in the pattern filled with a yellow rosebud. The skirt was full, designed for a crinoline underneath, and the sleeves flared at the elbow in the style that Godey’s called “the pagoda.”
“This is for you,” Danny said to Caro, smiling. Caro put out her hand to touch it. Fabric made from Sea Island cotton, as sleek and light as silk.
Kitty was angrier than ever. “We don’t take charity,” she said.
Danny flushed. “We wouldn’t think of such a thing,” he said. “Thomas’s daughter Charlotte is a seamstress. A customer ordered this dress and never paid for it. She’s taken it as a loss. Uncle Thomas thought of a use for it.”
Caro stroked the fabric as she stroked the cat. “Mama,” she said, as though they were at the dressmaker’s again. “Look at how fine this is.”
“His castoffs!” Kitty said.
Caro took her hand away. Her mother’s bitterness seemed to burn her skin. As much as she felt delight at this dress, she knew the real reason for it. It wasn’t charity.
Thomas had sent Caro this dress to spare himself shame. She couldn’t come to church as part of his family dressed like a field hand.
Caro looked up to see that Danny watched as she touched the dress. He must have seen many people, men and women, white and black, free and slave, yearn so for a piece of cloth.
With the tact of a tailor, he addressed Kitty. “I’m sorry that I’ve troubled you, Miss Catherine. I can take the dress away and make your apologies to my uncle.”
Kitty looked at Caro, whose hand still rested on the dress, her touch light but full of longing. “Mama,” Caro said softly. “It’s so pretty. It would make me so happy…”
The unspoken words hung in the air: for the first time since Papa died.
Kitty looked from the dress to Danny, whose expression was as polite as an undertaker’s. She looked at Caro, who made no effort to hide her happiness. With some difficulty, Kitty said, “It would be mean of spirit to say no.” She looked at Caro. “To the dress or to the invitation. Not for myself but for my daughter.” She glanced at Danny. “Please give your uncle my thanks.”
Delighted, Caro rose to hug her mother, and Kitty allowed it but without any pleasure.
The dress took very little alteration, a nip in the waist and the hem to let down, and Caro showed the result to Sophy, twirling around to make the skirt bell out. Sophy said, “It look better with a crinoline, but you still pretty in it.”
Caro looked down at her shoes, which looked worse than ever.
“Them shoes is dreadful,” Sophy said.
“I know.”
Sophy grinned. “Maybe these suit you better,” and she ran upstairs, returning with a pair of brown leather boots suitable for walking, with little heels, pointed toes, and a row of buttons up the side. A lady’s shoes to go with the lady’s dress.
“Where did you get these?” Caro asked in amazement.
“Bought them. Some grand lady give them up, and someone else sell them.”
Sophy was obviously lying; the boots were new. “Sophy, you fooler. You had them made for me.”
Sophy said gruffly, “Put them on, and we see if they fit.”
They did. In her new dress, in her new boots, Caro filled with joy. This was different from her uncle’s charity. It was a pure gift. She hugged Sophy and exclaimed with a girl’s delight, “Thank you, Sophy. Oh, thank you!”
Trinity Methodist sat on Meeting Street like the other toney churches of Charleston and shared its tall white columns with buildings like the courthouse and the Work House. At Trinity Methodist, Sophy had told her, a free man of color like Thomas Bennett could rent a pew, even if it was the farthest from God’s altar, instead of sitting in the balcony with the dark-skinned and the enslaved.
Caro approached the church with a light step. She scanned the crowd on the sidewalk for the Bennetts. She quickened her pace when she saw a familiar face, one lighter than a piece of brown butcher paper.
He knew the dress, but when he saw her, his cheeks flushed. He stammered, “You look so different!”
“It’s a good thing, I hope,” she said, smiling. She arched her neck and widened her eyes. She preened.
Danny, who had oiled her way into owning this dress by calming her mother’s fury about it, choked on his words. “I didn’t recognize you,” he said.
A woman in a beautifully made black dress—she must be a Bennett to be so well tailored—swept up to them. “Danny, who is this?” she demanded.
Caro had once seen a portrait of her mother’s father, Samuel Bennett. This woman, whoever she was, had the elegant long nose and high cheekbones of the planter Bennetts. She was a handsome woman, but her Bennett looks didn’t add to beauty. She wasn’t stout, but even though she was properly corseted, she had the form of a woman who had borne a number of children.
Still flushed, still tongue-tied, Danny faltered. He said to Caro, “May I introduce my mother, Mrs. Maria Pereira?”
Caro held herself tall. She said, “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Maria Pereira said curtly to her son, “Who is this, Danny?”
“Mama, it’s Caroline, Kitty’s daughter.”
Maria gave her a terrible gaze. Not like Sophy’s, considering a chicken at the market. Like a slave dealer’s, deciding if she were worth a bid or not. With no kindness, she said, “How is your mother?”
Caro smiled. All her lady’s training came back to her—how to put poison into the sugar. She replied, “She grieves for my father. As you can well imagine.”
Maria said, “Danny, come with me.”
“Mama, she’s here to worship with us.”
“She can sit with Thomas and his girls.” She held out her arm. “Danny, now.”
Danny’s expression lost its luster. “Yes, Mama.” To Caro, he said, “Excuse me,” and he let his mother bear him away.
After the service, the Bennetts and the Pereiras gathered at Thomas’s house on Queen Street, not far from his shop. The Bennett house was a single house, like grander houses in Charleston, two stories tall and graced with a piazza on the second floor, but it was made of wood rather than brick or stone. It was an ambitious house for a man of color. It had recently been painted a bright white, and the gate was in better condition than the gate of the house on Tradd Street.
They crowded inside: Thomas and his wife; their four daughters, two of them married with families; and their two sons, also with their wives and children. The Pereiras followed, Maria and Danny and his two younger brothers, Ben and Thomas. They arranged themselves in the parlor, the girls crushed onto the sofas, the men standing, the little ones on the floor before the hearth. The women hurried to the back to help Thomas’s wife in the kitchen to set out the dinner.
Thomas’s dining room, just to the right of the parlor, was big enough for a long mahogany table in the Sheraton style and was ringed with mahogany chairs to match. Caro wondered if Thomas had inherited them or whether he had bought them “with his own hand,” as Sophy put it. The table was laid with a brilliantly white cloth, and each place was set with porcelain dishes, white with blue borders, and silverware. The glasses were crystal, which sparkled when the sun hit them. The water pitcher was silver, too.
The walls, where a richer man would have displayed his ancestral portraits, were graced with some very pretty depictions of castles in England. They were prints that had been hand-colored. Caro, wh
o had grown up with the oils that her father called “pictures,” knew the difference.
As paterfamilias, Thomas took the head of the table, with his wife and eldest son to his right. Maria held another place of honor, to his left, with Danny at her elbow. Thomas’s younger daughters, Charlotte and Anna, who had crowded Caro in the pew and on the sofa, now pulled her to sit next to them at the foot of the table. Danny was so far away that she would have to send him a note to converse with him.
As it came, the meal delighted her. Oysters in butter. Turtle soup with sherry and cream. Shrimp in sauce, finer than Sophy’s. A roasted duck, its skin crackled and fat. A roast of beef. Biscuits made by a practiced hand. Corn cooked into a relish. Summer greens and tomatoes. She had eaten like this every day of her life before her father died, and she had taken it for granted. Now she savored it.
Around her, Charlotte and Anna chattered like starlings, not caring if she listened or not and not caring if she joined in or not.
Charlotte said, “Anna, did you hear? Miss DeReef is entertaining suitors.”
Anna snorted. “You mean that every free colored man in Charleston is calling on her, hoping for her father’s blessing,” she said.
Miss DeReef’s father was the richest free man of color in Charleston. He had made a fortune in real estate; he owned so much land in the Neck that DeReef’s Court was named after him. He had a dozen slaves. The DeReefs, who were very light of complexion, claimed that they were an amalgam of Spanish and Indian blood. Every person of color knew it was a fib. The DeReefs were African, however far removed.
Charlotte asked, “Who has the advantage?”
“We should lay wagers, like at the races,” Anna said, laughing.
“Well, Eslanda Weston is getting married. No one will have to wager on it. It’s to be at Zion Presbyterian, but the party will be small.”
“For shame?”
“Anna!” Charlotte said. “Of course not. For privacy. Not everyone likes that the Reverend Girardeau marries people of color.”
“But she’s free! And so is her fiancé. What is his name? McKinley?” Anna laughed. “Christopher Columbus McKinley. He’s from the upcountry.”
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