Yellow Crocus: A Novel (10 page)

Lisbeth hid her eyes in the folds of Mattie’s long skirt as they approached Poppy and Samuel’s cabin. Murmurs from the people gathered on the benches outside floated over to them. Mattie smiled when she made out the sound of her son’s voice. He broke out into a wide grin as soon as he saw Mattie come round the corner from behind the cabin.

“You lost both your top teeth!” Mattie exclaimed and cupped his chin in her hand to took a close look at Samuel’s gap-toothed smile. “You throw ’em on the roof and make a wish?”

“Uh huh. And it come true. Look!”

Mattie followed the trail of Samuel’s pointing finger to see her man smiling over at her.

“Emmanuel!” cried Mattie as they rushed to embrace, with Lisbeth trailing close behind her. “What you doin’ here? It ain’t your visiting time till next week.”

“They needed some horses brung over so I told ’em I take ’em.”

“It so good to see you,” Mattie beamed up at her husband.

They held one another close, taking in the other’s warmth and smell. A wave of comfort ran down Mattie’s spine as her husband held her. She was home in his arms. As Mattie stepped back from Emmanuel’s embrace she stumbled over Lisbeth clutching to her skirts.

“For goodness sakes,” cried Mattie. “Lisbeth! Come out here and say hello. You ’member Samuel and Rebecca and Poppy and Sarah and everyone else. This here my husband Emmanuel. You seen him out the window. But you ain’t never seen him in person.”

Lisbeth stared at the man before her. She was so surprised to meet Emmanuel in person that she was at a loss for words.

“Cat got your tongue?” Emmanuel teased.

“No, it is right here,” Lisbeth responded, and without thinking, she stuck it out. The instant her tongue poked out of her mouth, she realized her mistake. Horrified, her eyes popped open wide as her hand rushed to cover her mouth. Everyone else laughed.

Gathered on the benches attached to the outside of the cabin with Lisbeth and Samuel pressed close on either side of her, Mattie reported to her son, “Four, five, two, seven, nine, two, and eight.”

“No, Mattie, it was six on Friday,” Lisbeth inserted.

“She right!” exclaimed Samuel. He turned sharply and scowled at Lisbeth with hard, narrowed eyes. “You watchin’ through the window too? With my momma?”

“Yes. We both count the number of fingers you put up each morning. You cannot see me standing there as well?”

“No,” Samuel muttered.

“They can’ see in, Lisbeth,” Mattie explained.

Lisbeth turned around to look at her window to see the truth of it for herself. The glass reflected the sunlight.

Samuel glared at Lisbeth, then at his mother and back at the white girl. He jumped off the bench and ran away.

Mattie flew after him. Left at the bench, Lisbeth watched Mattie cajole Samuel. She kissed the top of his head, tickled him under the arms, and hugged him from behind. Samuel ran from Mattie; Mattie chased after him. He allowed himself to be caught then squirmed away from his mother’s attention.

Lisbeth had grown up on Sunday evening stories of Samuel and Emmanuel and everyone else. She had watched their comings and goings out the window twice a day since she was a baby. First thing in the morning and just before supper she stood beside Mattie to count Samuel’s fingers and check on his world. She knew these people. But today, Lisbeth saw something else. Seeing Mattie here with them, she understood that this was Mattie’s family. Mattie belonged here; this was Mattie’s home. A pit opened in Lisbeth’s stomach. Suddenly she did not want to be here anymore. She longed to be an observer of this place, looking down upon it from her room with Mattie by her side.

Sarah, Rebecca’s long-limbed daughter, bounded up to Lisbeth on the bench. “Miss Lisbeth, Auntie Mattie says to teach you somethin’.”

“Oh, that is all right,” Lisbeth stammered, blinking away tears. “Thank you, though.”

“She says I got to!”

Mattie yelled across the way, “Learn somethin’ new, Lisbeth—Sarah gonna teach you.”

“All right,” Lisbeth acquiesced, though she was uncertain.

“It go like this—put your hand up, fingers open by your shoulders, like this.”

Lisbeth followed Sarah’s directions and mirrored the posture of the girl across from her. Sarah pounded out a rhythm in a complicated pattern alternately clapping her hands together and slapping them against her own knees or Lisbeth’s hands.

Sarah chanted while her hands flew,

Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer,
Rise, Sally rise, wipe your weeping eyes,
Put your hands on your hips and let your back bone slip
Shake it to the east, shake it to the west,
Shake it to the one that you love the best.”

“You are so fast!” Lisbeth exclaimed when Sarah finished.

“Everyone always sayin’ how fast I go,” Sarah boasted. “I the fastest tobacco picker for my age.”

“I could never clap like that.”

“’Course you can! I show you slow now.”

Sarah’s callused palms clapped against Lisbeth’s smooth skin. Over and over Sarah moved her hands slowly, chanting out the song until Lisbeth sang along. After a while Lisbeth dared to move her hands along with the rhyme, often making mistakes. The girls burst out laughing whenever Lisbeth missed a step and clapped up into Sarah’s face instead of her own knees or hands.

“You gettin’ it,” Sarah encouraged.

“Not as good as you.”

“Just practice, you gonna get better.”

“I have no one to practice with.”

“Auntie Mattie real good at this one. Practice with her.”

Lisbeth jerked her head in Mattie’s direction. “Mattie knows this game?” Lisbeth’s eyebrows furrowed as she stared at her nurse.

“Oh, yeah. Auntie Mattie know lots of hand clapping games. She taught me some good ones.”

Lisbeth studied her nurse playing with Samuel and Emmanuel in the distance. There was so much about Mattie that she had not seen before. Mattie’s head was thrown back, her mouth open wide in hard laughter as her son and husband ganged up to tickle her. Lisbeth felt her understanding of the world come apart and slowly reform. A sickening realization dawned: Mattie loved her life here, away from Lisbeth.

Sarah studied Lisbeth studying Mattie. Waiting patiently, Sarah stood in front of Lisbeth ready to resume the game whenever the young mistress of the plantation wished.

The Ford family, the oldest white family in the valley, was in attendance for supper. Though they were not prosperous by Tidewater standards, as founders of the valley they enjoyed high social status. The six members of the family—mother, father, three boys, and a girl—shared similar looks: pale skin with ruddy cheeks, soft blue eyes, and sandy blonde hair. The sons, ages ten, eight, and seven, were a blur of motion. Mary, the youngest at six, was a calm contrast to her brothers.

Lisbeth kept glancing across the table to watch her friend seated next to Jack. Adorned in a stiff pink dress with white lace at the collar, Mary quietly ate her food, hardly looking up from her plate. Lisbeth found no entertainment in her. Situated between the two “Berts,” Albert and Robert, Lisbeth played tap the table. Having made her own water dance, she tried out her skills on her neighbors’ glasses. She stretched out her right foot ever so slowly and gently touched the table, making a slight shiver in Albert’s water. He did not notice her sly movements. Switching to her left foot, she needed to be more cautious. Robert would tattle simply to make the dinner more interesting. Carefully she raised her left knee at an angle and raised her leg until her toes were nearly at the table when Robert accidentally struck her leg hard with his knee, causing Lisbeth to smash against the table. Robert’s water glass, along with Jack’s, fell over. Instantly water rushed off of the table all over Grandmother Wainwright who screeched loudly, drawing all the attention from the people seated at the table.

Grandmother Wainwright leapt up, fury written all over her face. Lisbeth braced herself for a scolding, but Grandmother did not look at her. Instead she towered over Jack with a large spoon gripped tight in her hand. He cowered from her.

Grandmother Wainwright struck Jack once on the head with the spoon as she screamed at him, “You careless, careless boy! You are not fit to eat at the table. If you do not learn your manners you will never grow up to be a true gentleman. Now apologize to me at once.”

Shaking all over, Jack barely squeaked out an apology to his grandmother.

Father broke in, “Now apologize to our guests for intruding upon our fine meal too.”

“I am sorry,” he spoke out, though his face showed anything but remorse. Staring at the table, his eyes flashed with anger and his lip curled in frustration at the injustice.

“No need to apologize,” Mr. Ford replied. “With these three boys, we have spills ten times a week at our table. If I had a nickel for every upset glass I would be as wealthy as Cunningham.”

“We do not put up with such behavior in this household,” declared Grandmother Wainwright. “If you will excuse me, I shall take my leave to put on a dry gown.”

After supper, the two families gathered in the parlor. Lisbeth, finally next to Mary on one end of the couch, confessed into her friend’s ear, “I knocked the water over, not Jack. Robert struck me with his knee and then I struck the table.”

“Poor Jack,” Mary declared. “He was punished though he did nothing.”

“I wished to say so, but I did not want to be punished as well.”

“The spoon must have hurt! I would have cried.”

“Me too. But Jack does not cry when he gets struck as it only makes Grandmother Wainwright more cross and she hits him all the more. It is best simply to stay clear of her,” Lisbeth said. “Now I have something to show you. Put your hands up, like this.”

Mary did as she was told. Lisbeth showed Mary the game Sarah had taught her that morning. She whispered the words of the chant as her hands moved in rhythm. The two friends, in their own private bubble, startled when Father broke in.

“Whatever are you doing?” he inquired.

Lisbeth replied quietly, “I am only teaching Mary a game that Sarah taught me today.”

“Who is Sarah?”

“Mattie’s niece. She calls Mattie ‘Auntie.’ It sounds strange, ‘Auntie Mattie’.”

Father looked at Mother. “Do you think it wise to let her play in the Quarters?”

“I used to play with the pickaninnies as a child. It did me no harm. In fact, I believe it is good for her to be exposed to them. She needs to understand their ways.”

Mr. Ford spoke up. “I absolutely agree. Our children must be familiarized with them in order to be successful masters and mistresses.”

Lisbeth watched Father’s face, waiting for his approval. When it came, as a nod, she turned back to her friend.