The Letter Writer (6 page)

"Come, come, children, don't fight," Mother Whitehead cajoled. But she said it in a pleasant way so that, if you knew her, you knew that she was enjoying the whole thing. "Emilie, that isn't what you came here for, is it? To quarrel with the reverend?"

"No, ma'am," Emilie said quietly. "I came to visit y'all. And to ask him a favor."

"Well then, after we're finished, why don't you all go into the library and talk, you and Richard? You'll find him a true man of the cloth, I promise you. Right, Richard?"

He had to agree. He was more fearful of his mother than he was of God. So when breakfast was over he kissed Mother Whitehead on the forehead and he and Emilie went into the library, and he closed the door. Only later did I find out, through Margaret, what she wanted from him.

She wanted him to come to their plantation and speak to her mother. To turn her around so that she
would end her affair with Dr. Gordon. Richard told her he had done that already, in church. Emilie said, "Do it again, in the parlor of our plantation. Please."

Richard said no. "Once is enough," he said. "I'll not kneel at your mother's feet. She'll have no respect for me. She knows right from wrong." And he said no, too, when Emilie asked him for a second chance for her mother; to let her return to church. When he said no to that, Emilie said that she wouldn't return then, either.

Richard told her that everyone has their own God to answer to. And He was a very vengeful God when treated like such. And her mother, and perhaps she, too, would burn in hell for taking such a stand.

Emilie cut short her visit. Margaret and I were both in the room when she packed her things that very afternoon. "I don't know how you stand it in a house with him," she told us. "I don't know," she said, looking at me, "how you stand having a brother be a minister in the first place."

I told her it wasn't easy, that it was awkward at best. That people expected you to walk around with your eyes downcast, praying all the time.

"And they're always asking, 'What would your brother say?'" I told her.

Margaret said I was daft. "You get respect," she told Emilie. "I find that people respect me more because my brother is a man of the cloth."

"I earn my own respect," I told Emilie. "I don't ride the coattails of someone else."

Margaret looked as if she wanted to slap me. "It helps in school," she said through clenched teeth. "The teachers are always trying to please me because of Richard. Most of them are in his congregation."

"So
that's
how you get your good marks," I said in astonishment. "And Mother Whitehead and Richard think it's because you've earned them."

"Do you two always fight like this?" Emilie asked.

"Yes," I said. "You could say there's no love lost between us."

"I wish I had a sister," she said wistfully, "just to commiserate with. Just to confide in. I'd never fight with her."

And then Margaret said the one thing I knew was always on her mind. "She's my half sister," she said.

That brought silence into the room. Emilie finished her packing.

"What will you do when you go home?" I asked her. "Live in the house alone with all the servants?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I haven't come to that
bridge yet. Mayhap I'll move in with my aunt Marie Claire in Jerusalem. I'll let you all know."

Mother had Nat Turner drive Emilie home. Margaret went with them. Before they left I sneaked some words with Nat Turner. "Talk to her," I begged. "Tell her that God is not vengeful. Tell her that He is a forgiving God, please."

He promised he would.

I didn't give the map of Southampton County to Nat Turner for another two weeks. Though he was an acknowledged minister, I knew it was wrong to do so.

The reasons why I'd learned with my ABCs. One did not give maps or plans or letters or any reading material to nigras. It was all part of the Southern belief system that they did not know how to read, of course, though quite a few of them did. Those who did were considered dangerous and to be watched. It was that simple.

They were to be suspected of any motive. Did Turner want the map so he could rob houses? I could not forgive myself, at first, for thinking that.

But I had another problem.

Suppose the family saw me walking around with the map in my hands? What reason would I give as to why I had it? I was not known to be studious. Pleasant had all she could do to be patient with me.

And then my reason for borrowing the map came to me. I would go to Pleasant first and tell her that it was time for me to understand Southampton County. Wasn't it? She would be surprised but happy. And say yes to my "borrowing" the map to study over the remaining weeks of summer.

"Why I'll know all the roads and small towns' names and who lives where, and creeks and streams and signposts," I told her. "And then do you know what, Pleasant? We'll go on a ride, just you and I, when the fall comes. A picnic, and I'll see all the places I studied about."

She laughed, and tossed her chestnut curls. "We'll have to be escorted. You know Richard won't let us wander around alone."

I shrugged. "Owen can be our escort. He's big and strong now."

It was agreed. And as if the Lord had blessed my plans, the post came early the next morning. And there
was a letter from Uncle Andrew that I quickly snatched out of the mass of mail that was put on the table in the hallway.

I had written to him about how I was going to lend Nat Turner the map of Southampton County. Quickly I scanned the letter.

My dear, I can't give you a viable opinion of slavery or of dealing with the slaves in general or in particular. But from my vague memories I can tell you that a slave who knows how to read and write is never innocent of planning or conniving, no matter how likable he seems. I would watch myself with Nat Turner. In many ways it sounds as if he is trying to get information from you. For what, I don't know. But I'd venture that he is planning something. That is only my opinion, of course, and I am only a sixty-eight-year-old man for whom the very idea of slavery seems dim and quaint. And oh yes. Don't ever let him have the key to the gun room.

It was the first time Uncle Andrew disagreed with me on anything. And it was not very forceful, so that
morning, after reading the letter, I went immediately to the gun room. It was locked, of course. But I knew where the key was. Everybody did, apparently even Nat Turner, who had entered the gun room to look at the twin table, so I wondered at the necessity of locking it. I pulled over a chair in the hallway, stepped up on it, and retrieved said key from the top of the doorjamb and opened the door.

I had always wondered why Father kept such an array of guns. There were at least twenty muskets and rifles, twelve flintlock pistols, six fowling pieces, six swords, two cutlasses, and plenty of powder and lead. My father must have been a prime marksman, too, because there were at least eight trophies for shooting. It all impressed me much but not in a pleasant way.

Then I focused my attention on the map on the round oaken table in the corner. There it was, spread out. I studied it for a minute. In all the years I'd lived here I had never really looked at the map of Southampton County.

For a moment I had my doubts again. But then I folded the map carefully and put it in my apron pocket. I would ask Nat Turner, once more, why he needed it.

And then, on my way out of the room, another
phrase rang in my head like a church bell on Sunday.
Don't ever let him have the key to the gun room.

How did Uncle Andrew know the gun room was locked? Oh, the question begged an answer. But there was none. He'd never been to this house! He'd never even been to America!

Silly,
I told myself,
all gun rooms are locked. Who leaves one open?

Who? Just who?

***

I waited until after breakfast, until after everyone had settled down and gone to their appointed tasks. I wrote some letters for Mother Whitehead, then settled her on the veranda where she would stay until it became too hot. I fetched her knitting. She could still knit, though near blind. She just needed help picking out the colors. And she now excused me for an hour or so. All the while I had the map of Southampton County, folded neatly, in my apron pocket.

I found Nat Turner working on a chair in the library.

"Good morning, missy."

"Good morning." Margaret was looking at books at the other end of the room. She wore her blue silk robe
over her pajamas. What must Nat Turner think? I should talk to her later, I told myself. I should ask Mother Whitehead to talk to her. No, I should have Richard say something. Would they tell me to mind my own business? It
was
my business, wasn't it? Why did I know it was wrong and not Margaret?

The answer was that Margaret knew.

What was it Uncle Andrew had said?
I can tell you that a slave who knows how to read and write is never innocent of planning or conniving.

She stood up now, Margaret did. "I found it," she said of the book in her hand. "
Tristan.
I knew it was here." Triumphantly she marched from the room. Nat did not look at her. He kept his eyes lowered, and I knew this was bad, this was worse than if he had looked at her. This showed that he did not trust himself to look at her.

"I have your map," I told him. And I drew it from my pocket.

He took it and spread it on the floor. He was most pleased and thanked me. He studied it for a moment and a brown finger traced over the roads while his lips moved silently.

"How long can I keep it for?" he asked.

I hadn't thought about that. I thought he only wanted to look at it, perhaps for ten minutes, and when I told him this he shook his head.

"I need it for at least three weeks," he told me.

I became irritated, then. Three weeks! And what was I supposed to do if someone asked why it was gone? Pleasant knew I had it now. And Nat wouldn't even do me the honor of telling me why he needed it so badly.

"I can't let you have it that long," I told him. "It's been right there, out in the open on the table forever. If my brother, Richard, goes in there for anything, he'll notice that it isn't there anymore and ask why. Not that he
needs
it. But it's really the only one within ten miles and people sometimes come and ask him to use it. People who are planning fishing or hunting trips. And besides, it's special because it belonged to my father."

He nodded slowly but never took his eyes from the map.

"Are you planning a fishing trip?" I asked. I didn't say
hunting
because negroes weren't allowed to have guns.

"You could say that, after a fashion."

I met his eyes with mine. And mine were full of hurt because he was holding back with me.

He gave a small smile. "I am a fisher of men, like the Lord told Saint Peter he would be doing from here on in. I am going to stop at plantations and preach of the God that loves us."

I let out a sigh. Of course.

"Well, if that's what you're going to do, then I have an idea," I told him. "My sister-in-law, Pleasant, Richard's wife, thinks I have this map to study for schoolwork. But since it is so valuable I think that it should be copied, and the original should be put back on the table in the library."

He nodded, not quite understanding.

"I know that Pleasant has some very thin tracing paper. I can get it from her and then all I have to do is put it over the top of the map and trace it onto the thin paper."

His eyes went wide, understanding. "You would do that? For me?"

"Yes. But you'd still have to give the traced copy back to me, because I'm supposed to be studying it for school."

"Yes." He looked at me, a piercing look, one that took in more than I was willing to give him.

And so we came to our agreement, which was at the cornerstone of the events that followed.
No, Uncle, I never gave him the key to the gun room. I gave him something worse.

"I think it's a wonderful idea," Pleasant said to me as she rustled around amongst her embroidery things to find the tracing paper. She was a much-talented woman, my sister-in-law. She once told me that she had a rich inner life, which had nothing to do with religion. "It keeps me sane," she confessed.

Ah, there was the tracing paper. She gave me two pieces. "Richard will like that you don't want to dirty or otherwise wrinkle the original map," she said as I left her room.

It took me two days to trace Southampton County because Mother Whitehead came up with a parcel of
letters that had to be written, of a sudden. My hands were ink-stained before I finished, and I was tired of holding a pen.

She owed people letters, she told me. And they were very important. One was to Jenkins, Middleton, and Pierce, her cotton factors who sold her cotton and took 4 percent for doing so:

Dear Sirs: This is to ascertain that I will be signing on with you for another year, as pleased as I have been with your reputation for caution and reserve. I was pleased with the price of forty-five cents a pound brought by my fine crop of cotton and even the coarse grade that brought thirty-one cents a pound. Let's hope prices rise again this year and that English brokerage houses don't collapse, that there are no reports of bad weather, and no king of importance abdicates. I will write again soon to order my list of wheat, flour, salt, coffee, tools, and all other manner of items the plantation does not produce....

And so it was more than two days before I gave my rendition of the map to Nat Turner. I told no one, except, of course, Violet. Her eyes went wide at the telling. "What," she asked, "did he say he was going to do with it?"

"He said he was going to stop at plantations and preach to the people how the Lord loves us. And is a forgiving God," I told her. It had sounded so good, so right, when Nat said it. Now it sounded empty and flat.

Violet said nothing for a moment. Then, "I think we should pay a visit to my grandmother."

I drew in my breath. Her grandmother was Cloanna, the oldest woman on the place. She was grandmother to all the slave children. Nobody knew exactly how old Cloanna was, but she used to be the cook and everybody who remembered still talked about how wonderful the dishes were that she turned out. They said nobody could ever cook like Cloanna again.