Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (5 page)

Panic filled me as the much older John Mason
began to slip his hand under my skirt.

“Let me go! Stop it!”

John pulled up my skirt, exposing my chemise
for all to see. While they were all laughing, I was able to free
myself and I took off running for home. Hattie wasn’t far behind;
she ran fast to catch up to me. As soon as she could, she stopped
and brought me into her embrace, where we clung to one another.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go to school anymore,”
Hattie choked. “All I do is cause trouble for you.”

I pulled back and stared up at her. Her
expression was smothered in defeat as her eyes lowered to the
ground.

“If you don’t go, Hattie Arrington, then
neither will I.”

“But you love school,” she groaned.

“I love you more. Now, no more talking. From
this day on, we pretend to go off to school, but instead of
reaching the school, we will play by the river.”

“Hooky? You think we should play hooky?”
Hattie choked in disbelief.

“That’s exactly what I am saying. And no time
like the present.”

Hand in hand, Hattie and I hurried along,
laughing and skipping, not looking back.

For the remainder of the afternoon, Hattie
and I sat by river’s edge and soaked our feet in the cold water and
then leaned back against the trees and talked about things to come
and our deepest secrets.

“Tell me, Hattie, do you still want to marry
Ruben?” I asked. “Do you write about him in your journal, the way I
do about Mr. Montgomery?”

“You’re too young for Mr. Montgomery.”

“Well, Ruben is probably twenty years old,” I
retorted. Ruben was the blacksmith, Oswald’s, apprentice on the
plantation.

“Maybe, but he isn’t married.”

“I don’t imagine marrying Perry Montgomery,
just marrying someone as handsome,” I confessed through my hot
blush.

“He is awfully handsome,” Hattie added, and
lay back into the marsh with me.

The sun was hot, the air typically moist and
dewy. We closed our eyes and allowed the sun to bake our faces.

“I think this is going to work out just fine,
don’t you, Hattie?”

“I sure hope so, ’cause if we get caught, we
will sure be in for it.”

I turned over and leaned on my elbows. I said
optimistically, “Even if Daddy finds out, the worst he will do is
lecture us and tell us not to do it again. Surely he will
understand why we had to stay away. He will probably be so furious
at what John Mason did that he will demand John be expelled from
school.”

“You don’t think we should tell Momma?”

“Absolutely not. She is unhappy as it is. We
can’t burden her with our problems.”

Hattie nodded knowingly, keeping her eyes
closed. I smiled, content with our decision, and leaned back again.
Together Hattie and I stayed out in the marsh until the sun was
positioned in the sky where we believed it should be at the time
school let out. Unfortunately, I came back with a terrible
sunburn.

“What happened to your face!” Mammy gasped as
we entered the mansion. She tossed the soapy scrub brush into the
pail she had been using to wash the dining room floor. Hamilton was
high on a ladder in the grand foyer, replacing the broken glass
chimney to one of the lamps of the chandelier.

My mind scrambled for an explanation as she
hurried over to me to inspect my face.

“We had an extra long recess, Mammy. We were
playing and I forgot to put on my bonnet,” I lied. Hattie stood
beside me, her eyes wide and frightened.

Hamilton moseyed down from the ladder and
disappeared, while Mammy quickly grew distraught.

“Ain’t never seen such a bad burn,” she said
in distress. “Don’t even know how to treat it!”

“I’m fine, Mammy, really. It doesn’t even
hurt.” Again I lied. Already my face had begun to tighten up and
felt as if I were standing too close to a blazing fire.

Hamilton came back with some plant in hand
and snapped off the tip. Then gently as he could with his enormous
hands, he placed the gel that appeared from inside the plant
against the fair English skin of my face.

“What you doing?” Mammy barked and slapped
his hands away from my face.

Since Hamilton didn’t talk, he attempted to
communicate with his eyes and facial gestures.

Hamilton smiled and snapped another piece,
then rubbed the gel onto Mammy’s hand. Instinctively, she went to
pull away but he held his grip firm on her.

She quizzically stared down at the skin of
her small hand, which was coated with the gel.

“I think he is showing you what will help the
burn, Momma,” Hattie said.

Hamilton nodded and smiled widely, then
handed Mammy the rest of the plant and headed back to the
ladder.

“Man should learn to mind his business,” she
mumbled under her breath as she ushered Hattie and me upstairs.
When we reached my room, Mammy insisted I get into bed.

“Hattie, you get washed up and get downstairs
and help Cordelia with supper.”

Hattie smiled nervously at me and did as her
Momma said without question, while I adamantly protested. “But my
piano lesson is this afternoon!”

Mammy drew the covers and guided me into
bed.

“I be sending Mr. Layne home the minute he
gets here,” she said. “You rest and I be back shortly with your
supper.”

“But, Mammy!”

She swung around and gave me the look - the
look that warned me not to argue, that she had heard enough.

I folded my arms over my chest and sulked,
and when she came to console me, I refused to look her way or let
her touch me.

“Child, if your daddy saw you like this he’d
be beside himself,” she said softly.

“Well, Daddy isn’t here!” I barked.

Mammy winced at my anger, and her eyes grew
solemn. I instantly regretted my attack, but it was too late. Mammy
quietly stole out and sent Helen up with my supper that rainy
night; she tended to the blisters that covered my face while Mammy
stayed away.

She had never stayed away before.

~ ~ ~

During my recovery that week, Hattie slipped
into my room through the back stairway of the mansion after
pretending to go off to school. Though it was legitimate for me to
miss school, it still felt sneaky to have Hattie join me undetected
for the day. At lunch time, she slid under the bed and muffled her
giggles until Cordelia left again. Then we burst out in laughter
and carried on with our fun. The only trouble that haunted me was
knowing that Mammy cried herself to sleep every night.

“That’s why she hasn’t been coming to see us
and tuck us into bed,” Hattie explained, just before she departed
for the day. “She cries so hard for your Daddy.”

That night as the cold rain pounded against
the windows of the giant mansion, I crept out of my room with a
candle in hand and down the hall to Mammy’s room. It was only doors
down from mine, across from Hattie’s room, where she stayed only
when she was ill.

I stopped outside her door and pressed my ear
up against it. Soft sobs filtered through and went straight to my
heart. Hattie was right. Mammy was crying - crying with so much woe
that it seemed as if someone had actually died.

I eased the unlocked door open and stepped
in. The fire in the hearth cast a warm glow over Mammy, who was
curled up on the bed, her back facing the door. She seemed
completely unaware that I was standing in the room.

The room had taken me by surprise, for it was
sparse, with most of the furniture missing. All that remained was
the bed with a nightstand beside it. The armoire, dresser, mirror,
and few paintings that had hung on the walls were all gone.

Looking around the room, I was puzzled. I
walked over to Mammy and boldly asked her what was happening.
“Where are all your things, Mammy?”

She was startled to see me and abruptly sat
up, wiping her tear-soaked face with the apron of her skirt. She
hadn’t even dressed for bed.

“Child, you need to be in bed,” she
sniffled.

“I came to see you; I miss you so,” I said,
after placing the candle on the windowsill and climbing up on the
bed. “Where are all your things?”

Mammy studied my face for a moment. She
reached out and stroked my cheek.

“I’m moving into the cabins.”

“Why would you do such a thing? This is your
room, and we have so many of them!” I cried in confusion. “And if
you are all the way out in the cabins, then who will care for me
and Hattie?”

“Hattie is coming with me,” she added
forlornly.

Mammy instantly hushed and crooned to me,
fighting back her own tears. “You will be just fine, Miss Amelia. I
still be here, just not in the big house with you as much. Your
daddy is bringing a governess all the way from England to care for
you. This is gonna be her room.”

“Why would Daddy do such a thing?”

“He got his reasons, child.” She lifted my
chin and made me look straight up into the dark, sad pools in her
cried-out eyes. “Some things are changing, Miss Amelia, but my love
for you ain’t never gonna.”

Mammy said things were changing. I was going
to have a governess and a new momma. But I didn’t want any of those
things. I liked things exactly as they were. If Mammy couldn’t be
my mummy, then no one should. And as soon as Daddy arrived back
from England, I was going to tell him so.

I was well enough to attend church that
Sunday, along with Mammy and Hattie. Hamilton drove us by buggy, at
Mammy’s insistence.

“Don’t want you walking out in the sun,” she
said.

The blisters on my face popped and oozed and,
according to Dr. Anderson, would heal just fine. “You wear your
bonnet from now on, young lady,” Dr. Anderson ordered. His wide,
wrinkled finger shook in disapproval while he lectured me. The
doctor packed up his bag while explaining what could have happened
to me. “You’re lucky infection didn’t set in.”

Hattie gasped.

“You are a beautiful girl, Amelia. Don’t do
anything to change that. Stay out of the sun,” he said with a kind
smile.

I was grateful for the overcast day that
looked as if it was going to rain at any moment. No sun to put my
healing face in any danger, I thought to myself.

The buggy stopped before the church, and most
of the congregation entering through the narrow double doors
stopped to look at us.

John Mason was there with his parents, as
were most of the children from school. Though we were in church,
they didn’t refrain from smirking and snickering at me. As if they
didn’t put me through enough humiliation at school, now they found
more cause to laugh. I was a sight to gasp and point at, and all I
wanted to do was hide my face.

“Come now,” she said firmly and marched us in
behind the steady flow of people.

Hamilton stayed with the horse and buggy,
along with many of the other Negroes. He gave me a subtle nod as I
turned back to look at him, indicating I would be fine. Mammy
caught sight of it and briefly glared at him. He stood up straight
and shifted his eyes uncomfortably to the ground.

Inside the church, we took our seats in the
middle of the pew and knelt to pray before services began. I didn’t
close my eyes all the way, but peeked at Mammy who was beside me.
Her eyes were tightly closed and her thin hands clasped together,
pressed against her bowed head. She was praying so intensely I
could only imagine her prayers were asking to have Daddy come home
without Mrs. Norton and a strange governess.

So, I decided to do the same. I shut my eyes
and prayed very hard.

Dear God, when Daddy returns from his
journey to England, please have him come without Mrs. Norton and a
strange governess. Make Daddy see that Mammy loves him, truly loves
him, and would make a better mummy than anyone. Please, please,
please
. I prayed with so much fortitude that I didn’t hear the
procession start.

Hattie poked me and motioned for me to rise.
I jumped up and looked down to the hymn book she was holding
open.

I sang loud and proud, certain my prayers
would be answered. It was only going to be a short time before
Mammy would smile again and her belongings would be moved back into
the room that had always been hers. I felt God by my side that
Sunday morning, shining his love upon me and all of us.

After services, I was feeling a sense of
relief from the recent burden of Daddy’s decision and Mammy’s
uninvited sadness as we made our way to the buggy through the
steady rain. I was ready to look at life ahead and no longer dwell
on the current situation. All things would be right, for God
himself was looking over us. I hoped Mammy would sense that too.
And though she didn’t smile, and the veil of dejection that covered
her face had not immediately disappeared, I had faith, great faith
that she was going to be in Daddy’s arms once again.

As the many weeks passed by, Hattie and I
continued to steal away and stay far from school. Most days we
would play by the river, far downstream from the plantation. On
occasion, some of Hattie’s cousins would follow along and fish with
us. Hattie always reminded me to keep my bonnet on, covering my
fair complexion, as we feared if I returned with a sunburn again we
would be caught playing hooky for sure.

I wrote in my journal daily about our
leisurely days in the marsh and early afternoons wandering through
the woods and spying on Mr. Montgomery’s plantation, which was not
far from Sutton Hall.

His two-story brick house was diminutive
compared to the one Daddy had built, and the fields of cotton were
only half the size, although the plantation was always bustling
with activity.

Hattie and I perched ourselves high under the
canopy of an old oak tree and kept ourselves entertained with the
comings and goings, watching the slaves bent over picking cotton,
working tireless hours in the hot, sun-baked fields until Perry
Montgomery appeared from the house. He reminded me of my daddy in
many ways, yet I knew what I felt for him was not the same as what
I felt for Daddy. The sight of Mr. Montgomery made my heart beat
faster. Everything about the way he walked and talked made me dream
of having a husband just like him one day.