The Letter Writer (11 page)

"The devil is never gone," she said. "Elisha won't like it if I let you go home."

"I'll go with her," Fitch guaranteed. "Me an' Bess here." He patted his rifle. "Be back afore you know it, ma'am." You could see the trust between them. Mother Whitehead had trusted Nat Turner that way, too, I thought.

"Servants back at your place who escaped the rampage would care for you," she mused, "but then, how do I know there are any who escaped the rampage? Suppose they are all dead? No, child, you will stay with us until we hear some news, then my husband and I will both escort you home."

She kissed me.

At that moment, as if God were amongst us, Fitch caught sight of two of the Jacobses' horses walking slowly back to the barn. "Ma'am," he said, "I think it's Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox come home."

She sighed. "Everybody wants to go home," she said.

We went into the Jacobses' house, which was whole and welcoming and smelled of good things to eat. One of the servants ran a bath for me and helped me scrub the fear and the horror and the disbelief out of myself, and then I told Emaline that I had to write a letter to my uncle Andrew in London. She said yes, do.

She gave me pen and paper. But I couldn't write because I didn't know yet who was dead and who wasn't. So I had a bowl of soup and near fell asleep at the table. Mr. Jacobs came in some time later, and I heard his rumbling voice and felt the dogs next to him as he picked me up and carried me into an upstairs bedroom and put me to bed.

I don't know how long I slept. I don't know if I did right by calling it sleep. I lay with my eyes shut, but my mind never shut down. Is there such a state in the consciousness of people, where they are, for all intents and purposes, asleep, but inside their heads in some place where they don't want to be and can't get out of?

Dreams? I wouldn't dignify them with the name. I saw it all over again behind my closed eyelids, behind flashes of red and white lightning, behind screams and cries for help, what had happened. I saw the flashing broadax that cut the top off Richard's head, felt the feelings of mine that came with it, the impulse to run.

Would this never go away? Would it stay with me
forever? And what about what I had
imagined
about the others? Would that stay with me, too? And how much of it was true?

Once, I got up out of bed and went to sit in a nearby chair, just to test my own aliveness, to see if I were really not at home, and if this were truly the Jacobs place.

Then I got back into bed, shivering. I preferred to be awake. I could command away my thoughts, concentrate on the present. I could think on what time of year this was and what had to be done on the farm. I knew because I had copied it down in so many of Mother White-head's letters.

It would soon be September.
Sept. 1 thru 17—plough in the stubble of the first wheat field and sow buckwheat, 40 acres in 13 ploughing days.

The hands must start soon! I got up out of bed. Who would tell them to start? Was anyone left to tell them? Were there any hands left?

I dressed quickly and parted the curtains. It was daylight outside. I went downstairs.

***

It was near noon on the third day of my stay at the Jacobses'. We were at the midday meal in the dining room.
They fussed over me. I assured them I was all right but about starved, and Claradine fetched me a plate of food from the kitchen. I felt it a betrayal to be so hungry and to eat so unashamedly, but nobody said anything.

Mr. Jacobs put down his coffee cup and cleared his throat. "I've been over to your place twice already," he said to me.

I stopped eating.

He stirred his coffee. "Took help with me. I'm sorry to have to tell you, Harriet, but they're all dead. All except some of the hands who hid out, and the kitchen help."

My eyes went wide. "Mother Whitehead and Pleasant?"

"Sorry, child."

"Baby William? And Violet and Owen?"

"Baby William. But not Violet and Owen. They hid out, too. The first time I went back, I and the servants and hands buried everyone in the family burying ground. Oh yes, we buried that little girl, too. Emilie."

She'd been visiting. I started to cry, silent tears running down my face.

"The servants agreed to clean up the place. They said they'd do that yesterday."

"Harriet," Emaline put in, "do you think you should go back there? Mayhap you should stay with us a while."

For an answer I broke into tears. Emaline came to me and bent over and put her arms around my shoulders, and I allowed her to comfort me. "I must go back," I said. "I'm the one the place belongs to now. And Violet and Owen will be looking for me. They all will."

"Of course," she said. "But just stay this day. Give the servants one more day to make the place fit for human habitation."

***

When we got home, it was the first time in my life that I realized the house where you grew up had a grip on you that it had no right to keep. That you didn't really have had to be happy there for it to claim this hold. And that this would be true and lasting even if I never went inside that house again.

Something sinister about the house would stand, tall and sprawling inside my soul, its beams supporting all my fears, its windows allowing me to peer out at the world with a dark view I could never lose, its veranda giving me a place to sit and argue with my childish ideals.

When that distressful thought seized me, as I sat astride Br'er Fox, while Mr. Jacobs dismounted and
looked around, I was completely defeated. I could always and forever stay away, but this white and now-ghostly place would always be with me, so familiar that every time I saw a plantation house with ceiling-to-floor windows and two chimneys on top it would bring back the whole texture of my childhood.

"Where is everyone?" I asked Mr. Jacobs.

Then, from inside, came a familiar voice and my heart leaped up in my throat.

"Here we are, Harriet. Safe as two pups at their mother's breast."

It was Violet. She came with Owen out the back door and across the porch and down the steps to greet us.

"You"—oh, I could not think of words to call them—"y'all are such old mean things to do this to me, to play tricks on me now that I'm home. I was so scared."

There were hugs and tears all around, and then came the servants from the kitchen, just as I'd last seen them, Connie and Ormond, Henry Jack, Charlotte, and Winefred.

Connie! In my fevered imagination I'd seen her killed by Turner's men. I was so glad now that all my imaginings weren't true.

Nine other servants, besides the field workers, were
saved. Owen counted on his fingers. "Walley and his wife, Mariah, Cyrus, Daniel, Gowrie, Bryan, Herbert, Gideon, and Ralph. All of them helped us clean up the bodies and wrap them in sheets. Mr. Jacobs, here, supervised. We buried them in the small family cemetery under the juniper tree. We put Richard there, too."

"We should get Mr. Jacobs some food and tea and let him start on his way home," I said.

"I'll take care of that," Connie offered, and she led Mr. Jacobs into the kitchen.

I put a hand on Owen's arm. "You knew him. Did you ever think?"

"No." There were tears in the corners of his eyes. "He was such a good man. No one can believe what he's done. I won't even let myself think about it now."

It came to me, as I followed them, as I finally entered the house, that I was entering as someone else, not as the Harriet I had been before. She was a stranger, a transient, gone. I allowed myself to be pleasantly surprised by things I scarce noticed before: the knitted afghans that Mother Whitehead had made, the boxed geraniums outside the windows, the summer organdy curtains that I knew must soon be taken down, the Persian carpets, and the piano over there in the corner.

Blind as she was, Mother Whitehead had played beautifully.

I drew myself up straight. I knew that I must take charge and run things, and that if I did that, I must take on the manner of Mother Whitehead. One who was in charge possessed certain qualities.

I went, first, into the kitchen and sat at the table with Mr. Jacobs, to see that he was properly taken care of, that he had the best slices of ham, that his bread was fresh, and likewise the fruit. That the tea was freshly brewed. Before it was time for him to go on his way, I directed Owen to see to it that his horse was given food and water and brushed down, and I accompanied him outside to see him off and to thank him, assuring him that soon I would have him and Emaline over for dinner.

Then I went inside my house.

Violet and Owen followed me everywhere, as if I needed guarding.

I went into the parlor, drew in my breath, and looked around. It was chilly, for the afternoon sun had not yet made its presence known here.

"Have Ormond light a fire," I directed. "I will have tea and refreshments here."

Owen scrambled to do my bidding.

Violet asked me what she could do. I took her hand. "Keep me company," I said. "Don't leave me alone unless I tell you. Talk to me."

So she told me how my sister, Margaret, was the only one in all the killings that Nat Turner had killed himself.

"He was in love with Margaret," I said. "And he couldn't have her. So he killed her."

I could run this place. Why not? I knew what was in all Mother Whitehead's letters, who her suppliers were, whom Richard did business with. He had it all in his account books.

Yes, I decided. I would run the place. "And after tea I will have paper and pen. I must write a letter," I told her.

"Yes, Miss Harriet." Her manner had changed toward me. She was picking up on my lead. She saw what I was trying to do.

So after tea and scones, she brought me the necessary things and I wrote my letter.

Dear Uncle Andrew: I wish you would come and visit me. Everyone here is dead.

Your loving niece, Harriet Whitehead

"I was in the attic. With Owen. Under the bed," Violet told me. "I didn't see it. Please, Harriet, ask someone else. I can't talk about what I did see." Tears were coming down her face and she wiped them away with her hand.

"I don't want someone else. You're my closest friend. I want to hear it from you."

She sat on the floor, at my feet. She hesitated only a moment and then the words came, or rather tumbled, off her tongue.

"Like I said, Owen grabbed me the minute we saw them coming into the house. Somehow he knew that Nat had turned into a crazy man and wasn't the Nat who had helped him in the past. 'There's a place in him I hoped
he'd never go,' he told me. 'I sensed it all the time. Like he was teetering on a ledge and deciding whether to jump. And now he's jumped, Violet. So let's get out of here.'

"I suggested my room upstairs. Few people even know there's an attic in the house. But for safekeeping we went under the bed. All we could hear were voices and screams from below stairs. We both knew your brother, Richard, was already dead. And we knew he was killing Mother Whitehead and Emilie. Out the window we could see the cotton field burning and some slaves trying to put the fire out.

"Then Owen said we should take the servants' stairs down and see what we could do. It was chancy, but a good idea. Besides, Pleasant was on the second floor with baby William. Maybe we could help her."

"But they killed Pleasant," I objected. "At least in my head they did."

She nodded her head very vigorously. "We crept down the servants' stairway and peeked through the door, just a crack. Turner was there in the hall with one of his henchmen, who had his sword drawn, and Pleasant was facing them. 'Kill me if you wish,' she was saying, 'you've already killed my husband. And he was good to you. You might as well kill me, too.'

"So," and here Violet gulped some air and continued, "the henchman did. Right there in the hall. Then Turner looked around asking for Margaret. He wanted Margaret real bad, like. He was ready to gather his men and leave, and then the baby cried from the bedroom."

There was a moment's silence. I heard the tolling of more than one church bell now, and we waited, listening. So different from my imaginings, but no less cruel. Then Violet continued.

"Somebody said, 'What about the baby?' At first Nat said, 'Never mind,' then he changed his mind and said, 'No, we must get the baby, too. Babies grow up and take revenge.' And then he and one man went into where the baby was, and from where Owen and I were hiding, we dared not move or talk or even breathe, but we heard baby William's screams, and then silence.

"Then they left. I'm so sorry, Harriet. We should have done something about baby William."

"There was nothing you could do," I told her.

I sat, studying on the whole thing. But I could not wrap my mind around it. It was too terrible, too out of my circle of possibilities. "I don't think anything like this has ever happened before in Virginia," I told her.

She nodded her assent. "Owen said he heard that fifty-seven people were killed."

"What was he trying to do? What did he want?"

"I don't know. I think he wanted to capture Jerusalem. That's what all the servants are saying. And collect an army and kill some more."

"And now?"

"Now they're hunting him. We should pray they catch him."

I had a thought then. "Did he attack the Gerard place?"

"Yes," she said. "Everybody over there is dead."

I did not ask how she knew. The negro grapevine traveled faster than the wind. My tears wouldn't come and my mouth was dry. "Could I have another cup of tea?" I asked.

Apparently a few servants had been standing in the hall, outside the parlor, listening to Violet's recitation.

"I'll get the tea, mistress," Connie said.

"She called me mistress," I whispered to Violet.

"Yes, you are mistress now of this plantation," she said.

"I'm not even mistress of myself," I thought aloud.
"But I know I can do it." I smiled at Violet. "Do you think I can do it?" I asked.

"We'll all help you. Everybody has their job and knows how to do it. And for anything else you want, you must assign the tasks. Tell us what it is that you wish us to do."