Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (19 page)

Around her neck she wore pearls. Her arms were white and slender and shapely.

Her bosom almost spilled out of the front of her gown, sculptured to perfection.

I thought I would die from shame. At my own dark skin, my spindle arms, my short hair, which no lace mobcap could hide, my scrawny neck and flat bosom.

My face flamed in shame. I shrank back from Lord Dartmouth's side. Thank goodness, he did not notice. Nobody noticed.

Once Mary Enderby came into the room, how could anyone pay mind to anyone else? She was the sun arrived on a wintry day. Everyone knew her. Everyone spoke to her. And Nathaniel never once released her from his arm. He had eyes for no one but her.

I no longer existed. I did not want to exist. I wanted to run away and die.

This was no mean feat, in a garden fall of people. But I managed part of it. I just slipped backward, step by step, into the darkness. It was not difficult.

After all, I had come from darkness, hadn't I? I would return to it now. And welcome it.

I slipped back, past servants carrying trays of food. Then I turned and ran around the house to the front gate, where Nathaniel's carriage waited.

"Take me home," I told Nathaniel's startled footman.

"What's that you say?"

"I said take me home. I'm ill. Master Nathaniel requests it. Now."

All the way home, I gazed out of the carriage window at London's dark streets. And the voice I heard was from another July day so long ago.

It was the voice of John Avery in the auction yard.
Meanest cargo I ever saw.

He was right, I decided. What ever made me think he wasn't right? I was part of the meanest cargo he ever saw and nothing could make me any different, not learning to read and write, not my poetry, not anything.

What they require of you in this world, if you are a woman, is that you he beautiful. That you have a bosom and wear silks and have hair touched with gold. This is all the men want. Poetry means naught to them. It is nothing.

As am I.

"I tried to tell you," Maria said, holding a vinegar-soaked cloth on my throbbing head, "didn't I? Didn't I tell you how we imprison ourselves with longings?"

"Go away," I sobbed.

"You get a fever and Master Nathaniel will throw me out into the street. I don't care much about
you,
but me mum needs the shillings I bring home." She said it with mock severity.

"Open the windows. I need some air."

She went to do my bidding. Then the hour struck in sonorous tones from some cathedral clock. Midnight. I heard the rumble of carriages on the cobblestone street.

"Do those carriages never stop?"

"Londoners come home at all hours," she said, coming back to dip the cloth in vinegar again. "What they don't do is leave when the festivities are in their honor."

"Take that filthy cloth away! I hate the smell of vinegar."

She obeyed.

I sat up. "What am I going to
do?
"

"About what?"

"Nathaniel. You should have
seen
him with that woman. How can I face him?"

"Have you had any supper?"

"Is that all you can think about? Food?"

"Me mum says food helps even in the most dolorous situation. I'll send to the kitchen for a tray."

She had given me a powder for my head and I lay back against the pillows and dozed. Images paraded before my eyes. Aaron Lopez's sister and her death's-head smile. Lord Dartmouth's snide remark to Nathaniel. The compliments I'd received from so many on my poetry.

Faces leered. I heard cackling laughs.

I saw Nathaniel. My Nathaniel, as he'd moved across the room with that woman on his arm. I knew what the expression on his face meant.
Look at me, everyone, I've done this. I've caught the fancy of this lovely lady.

It was the same expression he'd worn the day he'd told his parents I could read. And countless other times.

I knew his walk, the look in his eyes. I could read those eyes. I knew by the set of his shoulders what he was thinking.

I ought to. How many times had he walked across my heart? His voice was part of me, directing, coaxing, scolding, cajoling, teasing, encouraging, pushing me when I stopped.

Now all that was finished. I wanted to die.
I belong in the Tower of London,
I minded.
Buried behind those damp, slimy rocks. I might as well be. There is nothing left for me now.

The clock chimed one. It was a knell, drawing me awake. Moonlight flooded the room. Maria sat dozing. Her eyes flew open. "I brought a cold supper, but I didn't want to wake you."

"Tea," I said. My mouth was parched.

Thankfully, she had it, a pot still hot. "I never tasted anything so good in my life," I said.

"You Americans do love your tea."

"I'm a slave, Maria."

"You're still American. I'd give the world to be."

"Maria," I said. "I've decided I must go home. There is nothing else for me now. Will you come with me?"

At that moment the door of my room opened and Nathaniel stood there. "Why in God's name is it so dark in here? I heard you two talking. Light candles."

Maria jumped up to do so.

"Now get out," he ordered.

She fled.

"You have disgraced me!"

I stared up at him. He looked like a madman. He had flung aside his tricorn hat and was now taking off his frock coat and loosening his stock. "Who do you think you are?"

"No one, apparently."

"Don't give me that drivel. You may get away with those scenes in Boston, but they don't tolerate them here in London. London received you, you little fool! These people, my friends, opened their arms to you! Made a place for you! This supper tonight was given by people who support the colonies! They saw you as a product of what those colonies, given the liberty they so desire, can do!"

I got up. I slipped off the bed and stood facing him, toe to toe. "What do you care about the colonies? You cozy up to both sides!"

"That is good business."

"Oh, and I suppose it's good business to act as foreign agent for a slave trader, too!"

His eyes darkened with a fearful blackness. "What mean you by that?"

"Aaron Lopez. You seem to forget his sister was there tonight. 'We have a mutual acquaintance,' she said to me. How
can
you! How can you act as foreign agent for that flesh dealer? And then stand here and upbraid me!"

I burst into tears. He could not abide my crying. It was a dreadful sound, he had said on more than one occasion when Mary had tormented me.

Now he made no move to console me. He just stood there, taking my measure, preparing his next onslaught.

"Phillis, there is nothing for it. You have disgraced me tonight." He said it plain. His voice had a deadness to it.

I stopped crying.

"But, more, you have disgraced my mother, who did so much for you. Who worked so hard to mold you into what you have become."

"What have I become?"

"You know better than I. Don't fish for compliments. You'll get none from me this night."

"I'm nothing," I flung at him. "I'm a Negro slave. My skin is dark. I'm skinny and ugly. My hair is like wire. People pay me mind right now because I'm an amusement for them. And they are all bored, these Londoners, looking for more amusements every night."

"You dishonor them. They think much of you and your poetry."

"They think so much that they ceased to know I existed the minute your Mary Enderby came into the room!"

I saw the understanding light his eyes then. "So that's what brought all this about, is it? Mary Enderby?"

I kept a still tongue in my head.

He eyed me, perplexed. "Phillis, what is it that you want me to do for you?" he asked plaintively. "I have done all for you that I can. But it is beyond my power to make you look like Mary Enderby."

"Who wants to look like
her?
" I asked. "She looks like a doxy on the street, her and her lavender gown!" I walked to the open windows. I needed some air.

In two steps he strode across the space that separated us, grabbed my arm, and whirled me around. There was pure hatred in his eyes.

"Phillis, I swear to you, all that keeps me from striking you at the moment is that I promised my mother when I was a child that I would never strike a servant."

Then he released me and walked to the door.

But he had struck me. Couldn't he see? I reeled under his words.

"A servant?" I yelled it at him. "I'm still a servant to you?"

He turned. "You always will be, until you learn not to act like one," he said.

I stood open mouthed, reaching for a reply, something to hurt him. No, to mend things. I could think of nothing.

"Mind this, Phillis," he said sadly. "Mary wanted to personally compliment you tonight on your poetry. She couldn't wait to meet you. She wanted to tell you how she'd give anything to be able to do what you do."

A great heaving sadness surged inside me.
Oh, Nathaniel,
I wanted to say.
Oh, please.
But I could not get the words out.

"For the remainder of our stay here, I shall find someone to escort you around," he said quietly. "There are many dependable scholarly souls who would be glad to do so. I shall be busy with my business dealings anyway. Except for the visit to her ladyship the countess. I'm afraid we can't beg off that engagement. We'll muddle through it somehow."

I wiped my face with my hand. "Nathaniel, don't you recollect what you told me once a long time ago?
Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori.
Love conquers all things. Let us yield to love."

"No, Phillis, I'm sorry. It won't work anymore. There are some things love cannot conquer. This night you have made me grievous sore. And undone yourself."

"I'll make my apologies to your friends for leaving. Can't you tell them I was ill?"

"No, Phillis," he said again. "It's what you said about Mary that can't be remedied. You see, this night I became betrothed. Mary and I are to wed. In November."

For the next two days I did not see Nathaniel at all. I moped in my chamber; I went over some last-minute changes in poems sent to me by the printer for that purpose. I turned down two invitations. And I cried.

Two or three times I heard his footsteps in the hall as he passed my door on his way out. Once those footsteps paused and I held my breath. But there was no knock. He went on. I ran to the window to see him getting into his carriage and then being driven away. To some assignation with Mary Enderby, I supposed.

Likely, I would have perished if Benjamin Franklin hadn't come to call the day after that. It was dismal and raining. All of London seemed to be weeping for me.

Midmorning, Maria brought a note from Nathaniel summoning me to his apartment. My heart pounded.
He has forgiven me.
I rushed down the hall and knocked on his door.

His footman ushered me down another hall to Nathaniel's bedroom and study.

He was in a dressing gown, writing at a desk in front of the hearth, where a low fire burned. He did not look up.

"Mr. Franklin has come to call on you. He is in my parlor. I wish you to extend my regrets."

Something was amiss. Benjamin Franklin was colonial agent for Pennsylvania and a very important personage. He was in demand in all the high-placed salons, at political gatherings, and at country estates on weekends.

"You mean you haven't received him?"

"No. Surely you can negotiate that now, can't you?"

He had not forgiven me, then.

"But—"

"Yes?"

"What will he think?"

"Mr. Franklin will think what he wishes to think. Thus far, not George the Third, Parliament, nor Lord North have been able to influence him. I certainly can't expect to with my meager talents."

"For you not to come with me is a slight to me. But more so to him, Nathaniel."

"I hardly think it will affect the constitutional relationship of the colonies to the mother country," he said. Then he bent his head to his work.

I left the room hearing Prince's voice.
If Benjamin Franklin calls on you over there, you see him, Phillis. Even if Mr. Nathaniel doesn't like it. Promise.

Mr. Franklin stood as I entered Nathaniel's parlor. He smiled as I curtsied, and he took my hand and kissed it.

"The little black poetess," he said.

"You honor me with your visit, sir."

"And where is your protector?"

"He begs your forgiveness, sir. But he is tied up with matters of business."

He sat down heavily. "Americans always are. In England I am deemed too much an American. And in America too much an Englishman. I sometimes think I belong nowhere."

"I can appreciate the feeling, sir."

He took my measure. "I can only ponder on your dilemma. Toasted here in London, and at home in bondage."

"My people are good to me, sir."

"So am I good to my slaves."

I was pouring his tea and near dropped his cup. "
You
have slaves?"

"Yes. Though my wife cares for them as if they were her own children. And she has helped me become uneasy about holding them in bondage. She visited a school for Negroes in Philadelphia and sent one of our servants to the school. He is doing admirably."

I nodded.

"Slavery is senseless," he went on. "It drains the economy more than it replenishes it. However, I came late to condemning it as a moral evil."

"You attacked it as an outrage against humanity in the
Chronicle,
" I said.

"Ah, someone has seen to the finer points of your education. Always mention something flattering about a visitor."

"I need not flatter you, Mr. Franklin."

He nodded and sipped his tea.

Now I heard Scipio's voice.
When you get to England, you breathe some of that pure air. And you get yourself free. Sooner or later someone will tell you how. You'll see.

That person was sitting here now in front of me.

Prince had all but told me when he said Nathaniel did not like Franklin. Scipio had all but told me in his tale of the slave Somerset.