Yellow Crocus: A Novel (4 page)

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,” Mattie responded, hiding her excitement from the housekeeper.

“You must return by supper, though you may be called in earlier,” Mrs. Gray commanded before she left the room.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mattie’s heart raced. She was anxious to touch and caress her dear son. She yearned to hold him, feed him, and be his mother for a time. Each day she spent hours staring out the nursery window tracking her people. Once or twice a day over the last months she had briefly seen Samuel coming and going. She watched as his cheeks grew fatter and bits of black fuzz formed on his head. She searched for hints of his personality, studying the way he moved his head or looked around. Of course he never saw her. He was nearly twice the age he’d been when she left him. Mattie feared that he did not remember her at all.

Though Mattie longed to rush out to the Quarters, she attended to Miss Elizabeth’s needs first. Settling into the rocker to nurse, Mattie unbuttoned her dress. Miss Elizabeth arched her back, flapped her arms, and squealed in excitement and anticipation when she saw Mattie’s movements. Nestling against Mattie’s breast, Miss Elizabeth drew out sustenance from her nurse. The baby’s deep blue eyes gazed intently into Mattie’s caramel irises as her pink fingers patted and stroked Mattie’s soft brown skin. Miss Elizabeth grinned up at Mattie, causing milk to dribble out the sides of her mouth.

“Silly girl,” Mattie admonished the baby, tickling and teasing her. “You gotta pick: eatin’ or smilin’?”

Turning her attention to Skinny Emily, Mattie gave directions for the infant’s care. “She don’ like to be in a wet diaper so get her a dry one right away. If she fussy, sometimes she satisfied with my finger. She like to be walked round the room, lookin’ out the window and lookin’ at herself in the mirror.”

Clearly irritated, Skinny Emily replied, “I cared for babies before. How much trouble can she be?’

“She no trouble,” declared Mattie. “She a good baby.”

“She a baby. A baby just a baby. They all alike,” said Emily.

After Miss Elizabeth had her fill, Mattie brought the child up to her shoulder and slowly rubbed the girl’s back. Years of experience had taught Mattie that there was no rushing a baby. It only took longer if you tried to make it go quick. Rocking the baby, looking like patience itself despite her yearning to be with Samuel, a soft song rose from Mattie.

Go to sleepy little baby
Go to sleepy little baby
Your momma’s gone away and your daddy’s gone to stay
Didn’t leave nobody but the baby

A soft belch escaped from Miss Elizabeth’s tiny mouth.

Go to sleepy little baby
Go to sleepy little baby
Everybody’s gone in the cotton and the corn
Didn’t leave nobody but the baby

Miss Elizabeth grew heavy, melting against Mattie’s body.

You’re a sweet little baby
You’re a sweet little baby
Honey in the rock and the sugar don’t stop
Gonna bring a bottle to the baby

Mattie moved Miss Elizabeth down into her arms and cradled her close, rocking back and forth.

Don’t you weep pretty baby
Don’t you weep pretty baby
She’s long gone with the red shoes on
Gonna meet another lovin baby

The little one’s eyes glazed over, her eyelids slowly blinked shut and then open, shut and then open, then shut.

Go to sleepy little baby
Go to sleepy little baby
You and me and the devil makes three
Don’t need no other lovin baby

Mattie continued the gentle song, rocking slowly, confident of lulling Miss Elizabeth to sleep.

Go to sleepy little baby
Go to sleepy little baby
Come and lay your bones on the alabaster stones
And be my ever lovin baby

Miss Elizabeth lay with her silky soft head against Mattie’s strong, warm arm. Her open pink mouth glistened with saliva and breast milk; heavy, limp arms flung back at her sides. Mattie gently wiped away the pooled milk in the corners of Miss Elizabeth’s mouth before deftly transferring her to the bed they shared in Mattie’s small anteroom. Miss Elizabeth tipped her head back to protest. Bending over the baby, Mattie rested her hand on the girl’s back to settle her back into a deep sleep and waited patiently until she heard the sound of rhythmic breathing. After a last pat, Mattie turned away to go to her family.

An unbroken string of Mattie’s ancestors going back to her great-great-grandparents had lived at Fair Oaks since its founding in 1690. The plantation, which sat on the northern bank of the James River, was part of the Virginia Company’s westward expansion. As was customary, land grants were given in proportion to the number of people a grantee imported to tame the land. Commander Theodore Pryne had the funds to bring thirty Europeans and Africans as indentured servants, so he was given fifteen hundred acres to plant. All indentured servants, both European and African, agreed to work off their debt for seven to fifteen years. After that they were to be released and given five acres of land, a bushel of seed, and the freedom to pursue their own fortunes in the New World.

Quickly the landed gentry realized that their plantations would not be profitable if they paid their workforce. Thus Mattie’s African ancestors were not turned free or given the means to farm for themselves but held in perpetual bondage after the Virginia Assembly passed a law in 1705 clarifying once and for all the status of Africans in the colony. It declared “all servants imported and brought into the Country…who were not Christians in their native Country…shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves within this dominion…shall be held to be real estate.” In addition, social status for slaves would be transferred from mother to children rather than from father to child. Those changes in social codes ensured eighteenth-century planters of Virginia a steady supply of workers.

Family lore held that Mattie’s paternal great-great-grandfather would have been free had the assembly waited but two months to pass this law: his indenture was to be completed later in 1705. As it was, none of her ancestors had secured their freedom from the peculiar institution known as slavery. Naturally they all imagined living as one of the free Africans in Charles City County, Virginia, with varying degrees of envy and rage.

Mattie hurried down the muddy footpath to her family’s cabin. Though it had been her home for her entire life until three months ago, she was nervous. She had never been away from the Quarters before. Would she be accepted back after being “brought in”? She did not know anyone who had moved to the Big House.

Anxious and excited, Mattie arrived at the unfinished plank door and took a deep breath before pushing it open and crying out “Hello.” There was no response. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and she saw that no one was there. She sighed. She went back out to look for her son and Poppy, starting with Rebecca’s cabin.

Rebecca was a strong, substantial woman who was always on the move. She and her husband, Lawrence, took pride in their cabin and their three children, all kept as clean and tidy as possible. Always ready to offer an opinion—asked for or not— Rebecca had volunteered to feed Samuel as soon as word came that Mattie was being brought in. Deeply grateful Rebecca had milk to spare for her son, Mattie had accepted readily.

Rebecca was born in a barn two counties away, on the land of a newly freed white indentured servant. He had purchased Rebecca’s mother, Millie, as his first step in becoming part of the owning class. But Millie and Rebecca did not live in the barn for long. The mistress of the farm soon realized that her husband had fathered Rebecca and insisted that the “whore and her bastard” be sold.

The large plantation they were sold to was Rebecca’s home until she was eight. Born with her left leg wrapped around her neck, Rebecca was late to walk and did so with an obvious limp. This decreased her owner’s ability to sell her individually, so she became part of a lot of ten slaves sold to fund a grand tour of Europe. Unfortunately Millie was not part of the sale. Fortunately Rebecca was assigned to Mattie’s cabin, where she found a warm welcome in Mattie’s family and became the big sister that four-year-old Mattie longed for.

Mattie knocked at the rough plank door. Rebecca swung it open and screamed at the sight of Mattie. Surprise and delight shone in her eyes. Pulling Mattie into her large arms, Rebecca held on tight. Sudden tears streamed from Mattie’s eyes as she sank into Rebecca’s warm embrace.

“There, there, girl. Let it all out. You home now. You okay,” Rebecca murmured as Mattie sobbed into her chest.

Slowly her tears subsided until Mattie caught her breath and pulled away. She managed to squeak out, “Samuel here?” through her tight throat.

Rebecca pointed across the room. Samuel sat on Poppy’s lap. Shaking, Mattie rushed across the room to scoop him up. She held her son tight against her heart, taking in his smell as she swayed and murmured endearments into his ear. Her salty tears dropped onto his half-bald head. Samuel arched his head back to look up at the woman holding him.

“I been tellin’ him all about you so he gonna know you,” Rebecca told Mattie. “We ain’t gonna let him forget you or think you forgot him.”

Mattie started to cry again. Poppy walked to her, kissed her cheek, and said, “Glad to see you, Mattie. Welcome home.”

Word flew that Mattie was visiting, and folks stopped by to pay their regards, hear about life in the Big House, and to see what transformation may have been wrought over one of their own. Everyone gathered in the sticky July air on the four wooden benches that formed a square outside Rebecca’s cabin.

Sarah, Rebecca’s daughter, showed off a newfound skill. A round-faced, cheerful baby with an easy smile, she took great delight in crawling back and forth to the people who waited for her with open arms and proud smiles. Samuel, on the other hand, was young enough to be satisfied sitting with an adult. After a bit of resistance he accepted Mattie’s lap, staring intently at the faces surrounding him.

Mattie was disappointed that her husband, Emmanuel, was not there to welcome her. This was his usual visiting time of month, but he had not come from Berkeley Plantation. Mattie and Emmanuel were not legally married, since property had no legal rights. But their respective overseers had been happy to have them declare their intention to form a family by jumping the broom since coupled slaves were less likely to run away and usually produced new workers.

Mattie described the Big House to the field hands, few of whom had ever been inside it. Though they were all familiar with, and somewhat afraid of, the exterior of the large white building visible through the hedges. The most dreaded ritual of the year occurred annually on the grounds in front of the imposing, columned façade of that building. On the first day of the new year all the workers, from the house and the quarters, gathered while Massa and the overseer called out the names of the people that had been sold or rented out for the year.

“It all bright white inside like the outside, with big stairs in the front of the house for the white folks and small stairs in the back for us to use. I don’ see many people, just Emily, that skinny, high-yellow girl, Mrs. Ann, she Miss Elizabeth’s mama, Mrs. Gray, she always tell me what I supposed to do, and, of course, Miss Elizabeth. She a pretty good baby. Don’ get me wrong, she not so dear as my Samuel here,” she said as she bounced him up and down on her knees, “but she a good eater and she don’ cry much.”