The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (47 page)

"You be moanin’ purty bad, ma’am," said a voice.

And in my own voice, Lydia’s voice, I said, "Something is wrong with me." My voice came out high and light, as easy as water. I needed water. I said, "I’m thirsty," and I took the hat away from my eyes. A Negro woman was squatting beside me, perhaps thirty years of age, wearing a faded gown and a white kerchief around her head. She put her hand around the back of my neck; it was cool and firm, large and strong. She said, "You sit up, now, and I ken gi’ you somethin’ ta drink, ’cause I got milk right here from de springhouse."

I knelt forward and drank from a cup.

"What you be wearin’ man’s clothes for? Ain’ you got no dress?"

"I want to kill someone."

The Negro woman laughed.

But after that her face closed over, and she said, "Missy Helen done seen you from de house, and she sent me down heah. I see her lookin’ right now. You cain’ lay out on de grass—"

And a voice called from the house, "Lorna! Who is that young man? See him off! I won’t have any loiterers about with the master gone!"

Lorna stood up and went out of my sight. I closed my eyes. Sometime later, Lorna and her mistress were both kneeling above me. I opened my eyes and beheld their faces, framed in dark clouds, both looking seriously down at me, one black, one pale blond. The hand of the mistress, just a girl, smaller but no less cool than the hand of the slave, smoothed my hair away from my face. She said, "Lorna says you’re a female."

I said nothing. She felt my cheeks and said, "I do believe you are a female. Well, mercy me! And you surely got a fever. Well, we’ll take you in, I suppose, but it’s a good thing for you you’re a female, because Papa wouldn’t like me to be taking in a man!"

I said, "I only need some water. I’ve got to get to Blue Springs."

They looked at me, then Lorna said, "You be walkin’? I ain’ seen no horse nor buggy."

I nodded.

She said, "Ain’ walkin’ to no Blue Spring today. Big storm comin’ up, for one thing. It gone rain any moment!"

And it was true. As they helped me sit up, I could feel it in the breeze.

In the kitchen, sitting on a bench beside a stove, a bowl of corn pudding in one hand and a spoon in the other, I was seized with the worst pain of all, and I swooned away right then and there.

CHAPTER 22

I Am Taken In

If domestics are found to be incompetent, unstable, and unconformed to their station, it is Perfect Wisdom which appoints these trials, to teach us patience, fortitude, and self-control; and, if the discipline is met, in a proper spirit, it will prove a blessing, rather than an evil. —p. 205

I AWAKENED WITHOUT OPENING my eyes and lay in bed listening to the voices in the room. Through my eyelids I could tell that they had lit two candles. That, just that, was a divine luxury. And I lay between sheets, I could feel them, and I wore a nightgown, far too fine to be my own—where was my own?—and the voices were low and smooth.

"There, now," said the mistress, Helen. "That looks nice, I do think. Don’t you, Lorna?"

"Very nice, missy."

"You didn’t even look, Lorna! Take it in your hand and hold it up to the light. I mean that stem stitch. Look at those vines! Don’t they look real?"

"Lak weeds, you mean? Dat mornin’ glory vine is a weed, no mistake."

"Oh, Lorna. I think they look very pretty, and Minna will love them."

"Round de hem of her petticoat? Who gone see it?"

"She will simply know it’s there. That’s the best joy of being well dressed, if you ask me. Whether or not anyone notices—"

"Massa James ain’ gone notice, dat’s for sure."

"Lorna, you shouldn’t say that. Master James is going to be Minna’s husband—"

"Then she de one who gone hafta love him, not me. I jes’ got to keep my mouth shet."

"Yes, you do!"

"I know it!"

"I won’t say another word."

They sat quietly for a few moments, then Helen said, "He’s very handsome. He’s a regular cavalier. And he’s been to college in Virginia."

"So he say."

"Lorna!"

"Well, missy, ifn you don’ want me to speak my mine, don’ temp’ me."

"I think he’s a gentleman. He just has his own ways, is all."

"You nevah met no Virginny gentleman, Missy Helen."

"And you have?"

"Well, I have. Yes, I have."

"In Saint Louis?"

"Yes’m."

"And what do you know about them, pray tell?"

"I ain’ sayin’, ’cause den you’ll say I talk too free."

"I won’t."

There was a pause. Finally, Lorna said, "Well, missy, dem Virginny men, dey thinks awful highly of demself. Everythin’ dey do say, ’I am bettah den you, and I know it and you know it, too,’ but den dey treat everbody real nice, and dey always apologize when dey is forced to bring loaded guns and such into de house. And dey nevah nevah evah carry no knife in dey boottop. Dat’s a fact."

By this time, Helen was laughing, and finally she said, "Goodness, Lorna, you do talk so free. I’m not saying too free; just free."

Now there was a long silence, and Lorna said in a low voice, "Well, sure ’nuf, she be awake, I reckon."

This was my cue. I stretched and yawned and opened my eyes. I was in a high-ceilinged white room with two tall black windows. Lorna sat near me, on the right side of the bed, sewing a shirt by the light of one candle, and Helen sat at the foot of the bed, beside the other candle. She had set aside her work and was leaning forward to look at me. I pushed myself with my hands and raised up out of the pillows.

"Oh!" exclaimed Helen. "How are you?"

I shook my head back and forth, then said, "I don’t think I know."

"Do you have any pains?"

I reconnoitered. "A little. An ache, nothing much."

"Does your head hurt? You were holding your head and moaning in your sleep."

"I was?"

"Lorna gave you some drops, and you slept right through the storm."

"She did?"

"Deadly poison, I’m sure. Lorna is a deep one."

"My head feels like it did hurt, but doesn’t hurt anymore. You know? It remembers hurting." I sounded silly.

"I’m dying to know who you are and why you were wearing men’s clothes. I’ve so wanted to do that!" I saw Lorna look at her. "But Lorna says we have to let you rest absolutely for twenty-four hours, so you needn’t tell me a single thing right now, but just think pleasant thoughts."

"Call me ... Louisa," I said.

"Louisa?"

I nodded and closed my eyes. It was more pleasant to listen to them talk than to talk myself, which reminded my head to hurt again. There were steps out of the room, then back in again, and after a moment, I felt Lorna’s cool hand under the back of my neck. When I sat up and opened my eyes, I saw that she had a basin beside her, and she was leaning over me. She said, "I got some broth here. Oxtail broth." She laid a napkin across my chest and then fed me in silence. From the end of the bed, Helen looked on eagerly. After a bit, she said, "I had a terrible fever one time. Papa thought sure I was going to die, and the doctor gave me up for lost, but Lorna just kept fixing that oxtail broth every day. It was a reason to live, I always said. Papa told me I was going to get up and see that all the COWS had lost their tails!" She laughed merrily, and Lorna smiled a tiny smile.

"Now, missy," said Lorna, "you don’ have to go tellin’ everbody your life story."

I estimated that Helen was a year or two younger than I, but she seemed even younger, still a girl, which I most assuredly was no longer.

After the broth, Lorna gave me a glass of cool well water to drink. It was clear all the way to the bottom, sweet and delicious. I drank it greedily, and she poured me another one. Then she said, "No wonder you thirsty."

I felt my forehead with my hand, and she said, "You ain’ sick." She seemed to know what I was, if not sick. But I took her prohibition on Helen’s asking me questions as permission to ask none of my own but simply to lie back in a state of comfortable ignorance, at least until the morning. I even felt Thomas’s largeness slip away to a more comfortable distance, and as I turned over onto my side, I felt myself, maybe for the first time, turn away from my sense of his presence. In the morning, I thought, I would resume my journey to Blue Springs and my pursuit of the criminals Samson and Chaney. I sighed and nestled down into the pillows. The women continued with their sewing for a bit; just as I was sleepily wondering where the men, or man, might be, Helen said, "I suppose they’ll be home sometime tomorrow. Maybe in the forenoon, if they get an early start."

"Your papa cain’ ride as hard as he useta."

"Maybe by supper, then."

There was a pause, then they fell to whispering. I made out that I was the subject, and guessed that who I was and my reception by the men was the topic of discussion. They must have come to some conclusion, because soon enough the whispering died away, and I fell into a happy doze, in which everything pressing—where my bag was, where I was, where Samson and Chaney were, what was to become of me—seemed as remote as the czar of all the Russias. I was not asleep but instead floating in a dream of total comfort. It pleased me to wonder if I had ever been so comfortable in my life before. Certainly not in Kansas, or on the steamer, or in my recent peregrinations, but perhaps I had never been so comfortable even in Quincy, even in my own bed, where I had lain awake so many nights, dissatisfied, nursing complaints or, alternatively, cultivating fancies about my future.

The night went on. I drifted up and down in my dreams. One of the candles was quenched, but the other one burned steadily downward. Sometimes footsteps went in or out of the room, sometimes there were long periods of silence, sometimes there were even reassuring snores. I awoke for good shortly after dawn—the sun was bright and low in the window at the foot of my bed. It had only just risen above the horizon. I sat up.

The room looked different than it had the night before. No longer high-ceilinged and cavernous, it was now just a room, whitewashed and pleasant, but a bit on the small side. I lay in a four-poster, with bed curtains tied back on either side of the headboard. A green-and-white-checked oilcloth covered the floor, and a small wardrobe, two chairs, and two small tables formed the rest of the furniture. On one of the tables sat a basin and a pitcher. In one of the chairs sat Lorna, sleeping with her chin resting on her chest. Through the windows I could see the front lawn, whose vastness had defeated me the morning before. The view out the window made me remember my case, which was surely still under a haystack across the road, but when I threw my feet over the side of the bed and sat upright, I am sorry to say that all sense of well-being drained right out of me, and I thought I would swoon again. I must have made some sound, because Lorna woke up. She said, "Ah, me! Mornin’ already." She adjusted the kerchief around her head, then eyed me. Finally, she shook her head. I pulled my feet back under the covers. She said, "Missy, you cain’ get up. Least for a day or two yet. You done had you a baby!"

"What!"

"Well, it waren’t no baby, but it mighta been, ifn you’d held on to it."

I gaped.

"You mean to tell me you didn’t know you was in dat condition? I sweah ta mercy, you is a strange one. Did you think you is a man, really? I ain’ nevah seen nobody lak you. You seem ta drop outta de sky, no horse nor mule nor bag nor nothin’, dressed up lak a man on de lawn out theah, and den we got so much blood, and you was senseless to boot. Well, it war the bigges’ thing to happen heahabouts in a considerable time!"

I said, "I knew, but I forgot about it."

"I ain’ nevah heard of that befoah."

"Some men shot my husband." I thought that should be explanation enough. I lay down again. The small room was hardly so pleasant, the bed hardly so comfortable. I wasn’t disconsolate just yet, only still wondering, only still taking it in, but I saw despair just ahead, and myself starting to drop toward it. I dosed my eyes against the sunlight and heard Lorna leave the room.

Well, I had suspected my condition. I had just begun to wonder about it before Thomas was murdered, but hadn’t yet mentioned it to him, and then it had seemed beyond my strength to utter a word about it even to Louisa. And then, after I got to Kansas City and became Lyman Arquette, my condition got to be that much more of a secret, even to myself Lyman couldn’t be said to be aware of it, and even Lydia was focused completely on Thomas’s killers. Who was harboring the child-to-be? And it was also true in K.T. that women didn’t’ put too much stock in a child, even a born baby, until it showed its powers of survival. That might not be until the child was one or even two years old. Louisa, with her knitting and naming and announcing, was uniquely sanguine compared to others I’d seen, almost all of whom had buried some. Most women, and I was among the majority, hardly dared let themselves hope for a joyful outcome, much less count on it as Louisa seemed to do.

Even so, I put a pillow over my face to block out the sun, which was filling both windows and blinding me. I was a blank.

Sometime later, Helen came in. By now I was lying quietly on my back, my arms at my sides. I was looking up at the ceiling. I felt closer to being dead than I ever had in my life. Helen looked far away, prettily dressed in a pink wrapper with roses stitched around the collar. She carried a tray with a plate of toast and a cup of tea on it. She looked at me expectantly but said only, "Good morning, Louisa! How did you sleep? It wasn’t such a hot night, was it?"

Louisa! Oh, yes.

She set the tray beside me on the bed.

Sitting down in the chair closest to me, she looked at me kindly for a moment and then said, "Oh, my dear! Lorna told you what happened, didn’t she? I knew she would. She always blurts everything out. You can’t imagine the sort of trouble she gets into with Papa because of it. Last year he got so angry he sent her to my sister. Well! That went wrong, let me tell you...." She paused, then her voice dropped. "Oh, mercy! I do think that if what happened to you were to happen to me, well, I would just die! When I get married, I want the little ones to come, just one after another. I love little ones. But Lorna says what happened to you happens all the time, and she thinks it’s a blessing, really, but it’s hard to see it for that, when..."

It was then that I realized I had lost everything. Something else might have happened: Samson and Chaney might have taken another road, and Thomas and I might have continued to our claim, put Jeremiah away for the night, gone to our little bed. I might have told him of my suspicions. It was August. Our crop would be ripening. Frank would certainly have turned up sometime, and by now I would have been sewing and knitting little clothes. Louisa would have taken a great interest in my condition, given me quantities of advice and assistance. We would have tormented ourselves with fears and worries—we had no money, war seemed perennially imminent, K.T. was hardly so hospitable as we had anticipated to either crops or men. I would have thought of Mrs. James, though perhaps never mentioned my thoughts. A midwinter birth in a rickety claim shack was something to be feared, was it not? What a treasure of fears these would have been! Now I feared nothing.

"Oh! I’ve made you cry!" said Helen. She took my hand. "I’ve said all the wrong things! I haven’t talked about heaven at all, and heaven is our comfort! My mama could talk about heaven in the nicest way, as if it were a big lighted house and our whole life here was just a night journey, and at the end of it, after all the muddy roads and the rain and the cold wind and the hunger unto starvation, well, to see those lighted windows up ahead, and all the other travelers arriving at the door, and to hear the Host call out! She could make you welcome death—at least your own. I tried to welcome hers, I really did, but I was only a girl then, that was eight years ago now, it was hard. But she said, ’Ellie, love, I feel that I am entering the mansion, and I am expected there, don’t grieve,’ and so I didn’t, so much, for her, but I surely did for myself. But there must be a special room in the mansion for those littlest souls—"