The Wedding Gift (14 page)

“Papa, lessons are so boring. Why can’t I play with Sarah instead?”

“Because, young missy, you will be the lady of your own home one day, and thus you will need to know how to read and write and do figures. All ladies and gentlemen must have an education. You will mind your mother and pay attention when she is teaching you, or I will join you as your schoolmaster. That, I am sure, you would not enjoy.”

“No, Papa. Please don’t come to my lessons. That would be twice as boring. Papa, why can’t Sarah come to lessons? Mama, you let her stay when you read to us.”

My husband and I looked at each other. He answered her. “Sarah does not need to know how to read and write to be your maid, dear.”

“But it’s just to keep me company, Papa.”

We thought that Clarissa had abandoned her notion of having Sarah join her in the nursery for lessons, but she raised the subject again when I was teaching her to write the alphabet. I was so exasperated with her that I threatened to tell her father that she was being disobedient.

“I don’t care if you tell him. I’m not doing lessons unless Sarah is with me.”

I spoke with my husband, and he granted permission for Sarah to be with Clarissa during her lessons. “But, Theodora, you are only to teach Clarissa. Is that clear? Under no circumstance are you to try to teach Sarah to read or write. It is unlawful, and I am sure that you understand why it is dangerous for any slave to become literate.”

“Do you believe it’s possible that she can learn?”

“I do not, but there are reports from the North that some Negroes can. I believe it is abolitionist nonsense, but one can never be too cautious.”

I told Emmeline and Bessie to excuse Sarah from her duties. Emmeline unexpectedly spoke her mind.

“Ma’am, please, may I say something?”

“Yes, sure, Emmeline.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Ma’am, I need Sarah to help me with the cleaning, and Bessie’s teaching her to be Miss Clarissa’s maid, so it’s best, I think, that she go on with her work, ma’am, if you please.”

“Lessons are only in the morning. My husband and I have already discussed the matter, and this is what we both wish.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

With Sarah in attendance, Clarissa made significance progress. She learned to read so well that she read all the books in the nursery to Sarah and me. In all the years of lessons, Sarah missed a class only when there was much work to do, usually because we were having a large number of guests or because Emmeline always took her daughters when she accompanied my husband on his travels.

When Clarissa was thirteen, my husband and I agreed that I had taught her as much as I could and he retained a tutor, Mrs. Ellsworth, for her. I informed Emmeline that Sarah would no longer attend lessons with Clarissa. Clarissa did not complain because she had learned that, to be a proper lady, she had to be educated. The tutor taught her, in addition to her academic studies, how to play the violin and piano. Clarissa’s skills in painting watercolors also improved.

The year Clarissa turned sixteen, she showed an interest in making social calls to the young ladies who lived in neighboring plantations and went with me when I visited with Mrs. Tutwiler, who had a girl and two sons near Clarissa’s age. I asked my husband to obtain a seamstress for Clarissa because she needed more dresses for the balls and parties that we held at home and those we attended in Talladega, Montgomery, Georgia, and, in the winter season, Mobile. We permitted Clarissa to make social calls with Sarah and Isaac, Clarissa’s coachman, as her chaperones. We held Clarissa’s presentation at her grandparents’ home in Montgomery. Clarissa had to add a second page to her dance card, as my husband had invited planters and their families from Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Louisiana. That night, after the ball, we and our families stayed up late asking Clarissa which young men she favored. She refused to tell us and laughed as we mentioned young men with whom she had danced more than once.

That year, my husband said that it was time for Clarissa to learn how to shoot.

“Papa, I don’t need to go hunting.”

“You don’t need to learn how to shoot for hunting. Now that you are a young lady and will travel farther without me to visit your suitors’ families, I would rest better if you knew how to handle a gun.”

“That’s a dreadful idea. Why don’t you send an overseer to accompany me?”

“I don’t trust overseers to protect you and your mother from the slaves. Besides, you don’t only need to know how to use a gun to travel. You need to know how to shoot so that when I travel you can protect yourself, and when you marry and your husband travels and you stay home, you will be able to protect yourself as well. Your mother knows how to shoot.”

“Yes, Papa taught me when I was sixteen. At least twice a year, your father takes me hunting for practice, and I am glad that I know how to use a gun. Clarissa, we keep a gun in the small trunk that we carry in each carriage. Do not divulge that information to anyone. By the way, your tutor knows how to use a gun.”

My husband took Clarissa to an area not far from the fields and, over the course of a week, taught her how to shoot. He said that she was so good that she hit targets while riding on horseback.

We held a ball or an evening party at least once a month so that Clarissa could spend more time with the young gentlemen of the largest neighboring planters. When she and I went to Montgomery to visit her grandparents, Clarissa became infatuated with a young gentleman there, Mr. Evans, who was educated in the North and in England. He was home learning how to manage his father’s plantation. I warned Clarissa that she was too young to become attached to one suitor, but she did not mind me. She spent a week at the young man’s home while I stayed with my parents-in-law. I had persuaded Mrs. Tutwiler to join me in Montgomery, and we attended ladies’ teas in the reading room of Miss Whitefield’s Young Ladies’ Academy, where a poetess from Charleston was in residence. We returned home, where Clarissa continued her parties and making social calls to other plantations with Sarah and Isaac. One day, my husband received a letter from Mr. Jebediah Cromwell of Talladega seeking the introduction of his son, Mr. Julius Cromwell, to Clarissa.

“Theodora, he’s about fifteen years older than Clarissa. He unfortunately did not complete his education. He was at West Point but was sent home under some circumstance or the other.”

“Why is he not married?”

“He was, but his wife died in an accident. He was teaching her how to shoot, a task her father apparently neglected, and she died from a wound they say was self-inflicted.”

“Oh no. I don’t want to have him presented to Clarissa, not with his history.”

“But he was cleared after an inquest. Other people who were present, including her brothers, testified that her death was an accident and corroborated his version of the facts. Besides, there was no motive for any wrongdoing. She was, by all accounts, a beauty, and they had been married less than a year. She was expecting their child.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About eight years ago. Now his father wants him to remarry.”

“But Clarissa has so many suitable suitors, and she is quite taken with Mr. Evans.”

“None of her suitors are like this one. The father’s wealth is almost as great as mine, and the younger Cromwell’s mother is from an equally prosperous shipping family from South Carolina. I want Clarissa to meet him. Let’s invite the Cromwells to spend a few days with us. Plan a ball and other entertainment for them. I will write him. How much time do you need for Clarissa’s clothing? And she can wear the jewels that Mama gave her.”

“She has plenty of dresses from this season that we ordered from New York.”

“No, have Davis order new dresses from Mobile or New Orleans, wherever you can get them the quickest. Let’s say that we will invite them for the end of November.”

When I told Clarissa about Julius Cromwell, she asked his age and refused to meet him.

“Sweetness, your papa made the decision that Mr. Cromwell will be presented to you. If you do not find him agreeable, your father will weigh that in his deliberations as regards whether you will marry him.”

“I don’t care. Why can’t I continue to see gentlemen who are younger than he is? Good Lord, he is old enough to be my father.”

“Clarissa. Never use the Lord’s name in vain and avoid employing hyperbole.”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll say a special prayer and ask the Lord’s forgiveness. As for my exaggeration, you will have to punish me. But Mama, please ask Papa to reconsider his decision.”

“I will ask your father nothing; his decision is made. We have to order your dresses and shoes.”

“Why didn’t you say that I would get new dresses?”

“You silly girl. What am I going to do with you?”

The day that the Cromwells arrived, I told Mrs. Ellsworth to keep Clarissa occupied with her studies and to take dinner with her in the former nursery, which I had converted into a lesson room. That evening, when I went to Clarissa’s room, she said that she was not going to meet Mr. Cromwell. I ordered her to get ready for supper and told Sarah to rub lavender lotion on Clarissa’s face to remove the puffiness and redness caused by her crying. I threatened Clarissa with a visit from her father. When she was dressed, I went to her room and helped her put on the jewelry that her grandmother had given her. Bessie arranged a sapphire and diamond diadem in Clarissa’s hair. When we arrived at the parlor, where everyone was having champagne and cordials before supper, they stopped speaking to stare at her. Mr. Julius Cromwell looked much younger than his age and had maintained his fair hair.

“You are much more beautiful in person than I was told,” he said to her.

We allowed Clarissa and Julius to spend time together. I sat them next to each other at supper, and he entertained her with stories about his travels. The following week Clarissa visited the Cromwells. Sarah and Isaac served as her chaperones, as Mrs. Ellsworth had to visit her family in Montgomery. Clarissa wrote my husband and me from Talladega that they were staying for another week. My husband was pleased and said that we should discuss a wedding date with the Cromwells immediately after Clarissa’s eighteenth birthday. While she was away, she received a letter from Mr. Evans, the suitor from Montgomery. When she returned home, we spoke to her about her betrothal to Julius but did not give her Mr. Evans’s letter.

“Mama, Papa, I don’t want to pledge to be married. As much as I enjoyed spending time with Mr. Cromwell, I prefer Mr. Evans. In fact, I’d like to visit him.”

“You are trying our patience. You are not going to Montgomery, and you do not have my permission to continue to entertain Mr. Evans’s attentions,” my husband said.

Clarissa cried and balled her fists, just as she did when she was a little girl and we denied a request. Mr. Cromwell wrote her once a week, and she wrote him in return, but she did not tell us what they said to each other. She did not speak again about Mr. Evans, but when we went to see my parents-in-law for the holidays, Clarissa saw the young man at the constant round of balls and parties. She promised us that he was not a serious contender for her affections. Julius came to see us and my husband consented to his request for permission to marry our daughter.

“I suppose that I’ll be ready to be a married lady in two years,” Clarissa said.

I sensed that she thought of two years’ time as being far into the future. She continued to visit Julius in Talladega and her grandparents in Montgomery.

One evening we were alone in her room and I was brushing her hair before she went to bed.

“Mama, do you think it’s peculiar that Mr. Cromwell’s first wife shot herself?”

“How do you know about that?”

“David Tutwiler told his sister and me.”

“Yes, it did give me pause when I heard that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I did not want to prejudice you against him, and your father is satisfied with the explanation of the circumstances. He said that there was an inquest, an investigation by the court, and that witnesses testified it was an accident.”

“But when Papa taught me to shoot, the first thing he showed me was how to hold the gun and keep the safety on.”

“Perhaps Mr. Cromwell was not as good an instructor as your father.”

“But he went to West Point.”

“Darling, that was not the first shooting accident that ever occurred. And your papa says he was told that Mr. Cromwell loved his first wife. But you have spent a substantial amount of time with him. Does he give you reason to feel uncomfortable?”

“Well…no. I can’t explain it, but sometimes he seems a bit, how shall I say it, unsettled?”