Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (4 page)

“Yes,” she replied. “When we get back from
church you can see.”

Mammy instructed me to hurry along down for
breakfast. As soon as she walked out, Hattie jumped off the bed and
grabbed hold of my hand. “Let’s go peek!”

We quietly stole down the grand staircase and
hurried passed the servants, who wandered leisurely about, knowing
Daddy didn’t have his watchful eyes on them.

In the parlor, we found presents surrounding
the tall, green Christmas tree. Hattie ran over and shuffled
through them to see which were hers.

“You are making a terrible mess,” I snapped
and hurried to make her stop. That’s when I saw what was up against
the wall, hidden at first by the giant tree.

Hattie and I wandered over to it. With a
heavy pain in my heart, I sat down at the bench and stared at the
brand new piano.

“Your daddy left this note for you,” Hattie
said and lifted it off ivory piano keys.

My dearest daughter,

I hope you like the present I left
especially for you this Christmas morning. I listen to you sing in
church and the angels must cry when your voice reaches the
heavens.

Daddy

I never once mentioned to anyone how I longed
for a piano of my very own, and how when I sang in church I felt as
though God himself was smiling down upon me. Singing made me feel
alive, free, and beautiful, though I never realized anyone paid
much attention to me. When I was in church singing hymns, my mind
closed off to the real world; I saw nothing but visions of angels
and my very own mummy. I became lost in a special place, a place I
imagined my real mummy being.

“Come, Momma is calling for us,” Hattie said,
causing me to quickly snap out of my daydream.

~ ~ ~

With Hattie and me in tow, Mammy hurried down
the dry, dusty dirt road to the white clapboard church with a
steeple that appeared almost as high as the clouds. Dozens of tall,
stained-glass windows graced the walls, allowing brilliant colored
light to filter into the church. The stained-glass portraits were
all of Jesus in different scenes from the Bible. My favorite one
was high above the altar. It depicted the infant Jesus with his
mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, being adored by the shepherds. The
sunlight that beamed through the stained glass cast a prism of
colors over the altar and onto the Reverend Carter.

The good reverend was a young preacher, years
younger than Daddy, tall and lean, with dark brown hair and soft
green eyes. His voice was commanding, yet he spoke with deep,
captivating eloquence that left his small congregation mesmerized
with his passionate, though sometimes drawn out sermons.

Most often when we weren’t singing hymns, I
was daydreaming. The reverend’s voice slowly faded away and my mind
easily wandered. As my eyes swung onto the stained glass window
nearest to our pew, I envisioned Mummy as one of the angels
surrounded by sweet, gleeful cherubs. Each time we came to church,
I felt as close to my own mummy as I could ever be. I believed she
hovered near and showered me with her love and affection in an
invisible, divine way. And when I sang, I opened my mouth as wide
as I could and belted out the hymns I was certain she would hear.
Daddy always stood beside me, holding the hymn book open and low
for me, and smiled proudly.

However, today, this Christmas morning, I
didn’t feel much like singing, as I wasn’t pressed close up against
the warmth of Daddy, for he wasn’t there. Instead, Hattie held the
hymn book open and encouraged me with a quick whisper to sing.
“Everyone is looking over at you, waiting for your voice to fill
the church.”

I swallowed hard, and gazed around uneasily.
All eyes were upon me. I never realized my voice could have such a
profound effect on anyone. Though Daddy told me I had the most
beautiful voice he had ever heard, one to match my face, I wasn’t
aware that anyone else took notice, for when I sang, I only sang to
Mummy. Even Reverend Carter stood high on the altar with his eyes
locked onto me, earnestly waiting for me to join in.

I lowered my eyes onto the hymn book and
leaned into Hattie. She was inches taller, and I felt protected and
safe when I was near her.

“Go on, Amelia, sing. Sing for your momma,
sing to the heavens,” she whispered.

As soon as I began, as soon as my mouth
opened and sang out the words to “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” my
heart instantly lifted, and my woeful thoughts of Daddy being far
away, gone with Mrs. Norton to be married, vanished. I saw everyone
around me smile my way, and I shyly smiled back, and then belted
out the remainder of the hymn. I was certain Mummy heard me loud
and clear, even all the way up past the gates of heaven and into
God’s kingdom.

As soon as we sat down again, Reverend Carter
stepped forward and nodded approvingly to me and then slowly lifted
his long arms up into the air, tilted his head back, and roared,
“For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given!”

It was one of the few times I actually
listened to the sermon. I was surprisingly interested and proud of
myself. I looked past Hattie to see if Mammy had noticed I wasn‘t
daydreaming, as she often caught me doing. She sat looking forlorn,
fanning herself. The morning grew hot and the church became
sweltering. Small beads of sweat dripped down from her brow, and
she periodically dabbed it away with a simple piece of cotton
cloth.

We were all ready to exit the stuffy church
and hurry home late that morning to open our Christmas presents.
Mammy had some difficulty keeping up with Hattie and me as we ran
ahead. “You girls slow down now, you hear! I can’t keep up!” she
called.

Hattie and I slowed down so Mammy could catch
up.

“You knows I am with child,” she snapped. She
took hold of our arms and made us walk alongside her, all the way
back to the plantation.

When we reached home, Mammy let go, and
Hattie and I rushed giggling past the small group of new slaves
that had just arrived and into the parlor to get to our
presents.

“I know just which ones are mine!” Hattie
said as she ran to the gifts.

I followed suit and reached around to find
packages with my name on the little tags.

Mammy came in, along with Helen and Cordelia,
to clean up after us and to open what presents Daddy had left for
her. In years past, she’d received a pretty store-bought hat and
gloves, a lovely wrap, and even sweet perfume, which she wore on
long nights when Daddy took her for a stroll along the river. After
she opened her presents, Mammy would throw Daddy a shy, loving
smile, causing his eyes to sparkle more brilliantly than ever.

After opening my dozens of gifts, I searched
through the mess of paper for Mammy’s special present. So far I had
found none. She was standing nearby, her brown eyes anxiously
scanning under the tree, and all too soon her happy grin faded.

“Mammy, I’m certain there is a gift for you,”
I cried when her expression turned disheartened.

“Never you mind, Miss Amelia. I got to see to
some things. You girls get washed for lunch,” she choked and
hurried out before we saw her cry. Cordelia and Helen looked
visibly distraught and went to console her.

Hattie and I lost all interest in our gifts.
Even the store-bought blonde- haired porcelain doll Daddy had
bought me couldn’t keep me from feeling such sadness for Mammy. We
silently cleaned up by ourselves.

Before making our way up to our rooms to wash
for lunch, we heard a sudden commotion outside and stepped out onto
the gallery to see what it was all about.

“Lookie here at the dumb big man who can’t
speak a word,” one man said, while the others laughed and pointed
at the giant Negro slave, who’d been pushed off the wagon.

“Get up, get up!” Grover, Daddy’s slave
driver, ordered.

The giant man, who towered over any Negro or
white man I had ever seen, grabbed hold of the side of the wagon
and painstakingly lifted himself out of the pool of mud he had
fallen into. Mammy and the other women had been watching the whole
time.

The men continued to snicker as the man, who
I later learned was named Hamilton, pulled his one piece of luggage
from the thick mud and stood looking humiliated.

Mammy had seen enough. She knew if Daddy were
here, none of this would be tolerated. “You all get to your
quarters! Grover, what you doing letting those men push him off
like that!”

The new slaves instantly hushed up and tried
to appear respectful to her, though they were trying desperately to
conceal their smiles and laughter.

“Come on now, get along,” Grover ordered and
along they went around the mansion toward the row of cabins in the
back. Hamilton trailed behind. His enormous feet kept his pace slow
and steady like an ox. When he passed Mammy, he thanked her with a
timid nod and then bashfully swung his eyes away.

By lunch time, Mammy had regained her
composure, but wasn’t able to hide a tear or two that couldn’t help
but escape her sad eyes.

“Sure is a good lunch, Mammy. Thank you,” I
said and smiled. She always told me my smile could brighten the
stormiest day.

“You has an inner light, my child. Your smile
lights up the room.”

But on this day, my smile didn’t light up
Mammy’s day, and it pained me to see her hurt. The only one now who
could take her heartache away and give light to back her life was
my daddy. And he wasn’t there to do so.

Later that Christmas evening, after Hattie
and I tried on the brand new store-bought dresses for one another,
we made our way to the cabins to have a celebration with the
slaves.

Mammy was already there with her sisters, and
their husbands and children. Helen and Abraham had one daughter my
age, Winifred, and two older sons, Jackson and Simon, while
Cordelia and Louis had two older boys named Luke and Solomon.

By twilight, everyone in the small colony was
outside, singing gospels and dancing merrily around a large
bonfire. Children were playing with their rolling hoops, which was
what Daddy bought for every one of the dozen or so slave
children.

I noticed the new slave men had quickly made
themselves at home and joined in the festivities. All but the giant
man named Hamilton. Apparently fearing more ridicule, he peered out
from one of the small cabin windows, trying to remain unseen.

Hattie had already run off with her cousins
after I told her I would catch up with them shortly.

“Where you going?” Mammy asked when she
noticed me heading toward the dark cabin where Hamilton stayed
hidden.

“We’re playing hide and seek,” I lied.

Mammy looked past me and to the cabin. “You
can’t be playing in there. Come sit with me.”

She placed me on her lap without noticing my
quick, inconspicuous wave to the man in the shadows. He waved back,
and through the darkness I could see his bright white teeth
smiling. I leaned back against my mammy, though it was somewhat
awkward, since the baby she carried inside was so large. Mammy was
always soft and warm, comforting and full of love for me. She would
always be the closest thing to a real mother I could ever have. And
while she rocked me as they all sang in harmony, I looked up at the
star-filled night and wished that when Daddy did come home, he
wouldn’t bring Mrs. Norton back with him. I wished that while he
was over in England he would miss my mammy so terribly and realize
that he should marry her instead, and that Mammy was the only woman
who should be my mother. It was the one wish I wrote in my journal,
and I made that wish upon a star, night after night, until the day
Daddy was due to return to Sutton Hall.

* * *

The holiday sped by, and much to Hattie’s
dismay, we were soon heading back to school. I was excited because
every day after school a piano instructor was coming to Sutton Hall
to teach me how to play the piano Daddy had given me as my
Christmas gift. In school, as always, Hattie and I sat side by
side, and during recess we sat up on a grassy knoll and ate from
our lunch pails.

Because none of the other children liked
Hattie, we tried to stay far from their ridicule and teasing, but
John Mason continually harassed us. And if it wasn’t John taunting
Hattie for the color of her skin, her coarse hair, or any of her
other features that were different from the rest of the class, he
sent his nasty girlfriend, Susannah Hansen, to do his dirty
work.

On this warm winter afternoon, the school
girls sauntered up to where Hattie and I sat under a magnolia tree
eating our lunch. Pretending not to notice us, they began a game of
Ring Around the Rosie. Hattie and I watched them go a few times
around, and then we rose up and wiped the dust off our dresses.

“Where y’all goin’? Don’t like our singin’,
Amelia?” Susannah sneered. She was as tall as Hattie, with pale
yellow hair and narrow eyes that were set too close to her nose.
“We hear you at church, singin’ like a dog howlin’!”

All the girls behind her giggled.

John was hovering near a crabapple tree,
gathering up the small apples and jamming them into his pants
pockets.

“Come on, Hattie, let’s go,” I said, ignoring
Susannah’s remark, and we hastily walked past the small posse.

John then whipped an apple at Hattie, which
hit her straight in the chest.

Again the girls laughed. I picked up the
apple and barreled it back at John, who caught it and came charging
over to me.

“Run, Amelia!” Hattie shouted.

I lifted my dress and headed for the safety
of the school, but John was too fast. In an instant, he grabbed me
by my one of my ringlets and yanked me back against him.

Susannah rushed over to watch me struggle
while the others held Hattie back.