The Wedding Gift (15 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

SARAH CAMPBELL

ONE AFTERNOON IN JANUARY OF 1853, THE YEAR I was seventeen, I was alone in the kitchen drying cooking herbs to be stored in the pantry when I heard a horse come to a stop. I went outside to investigate and saw a tall stranger wearing a coachman’s navy blue uniform trimmed with gold braiding. I stared at the beautiful man before me, forgetting my manners. He removed his hat.

“Morning, ma’am, My name is Isaac, and I’m a new coachman here. Just started last Monday. Might you be Miss Sarah? Can I trouble you for a glass of water? I’m sorry, Miss Sarah. I didn’t intend to startle you,” he said when I did not answer.

I shook myself out of my reverie. “How do you know me?”

“Miss Emmeline. I saw her in front of the Hall, and she said to ask you for something cool to drink.”

“Please come in and I will get you that water, or would you like sweet tea and peach cobbler?”

“Sweet tea and peach cobbler sounds good, Miss Sarah.”

Using Mrs. Allen’s crystal, silver, and china, I prepared two glasses of tea and two dessert plates. I joined him at the table, and we laughed when we spoke at the same time. I had started to ask him how he liked his new position and he began to tell me even as I asked.

“Your eyes shine like light when you laugh,” he said.

Emboldened by his flattery and curious about why he spoke so well, I asked him when he had arrived and where he lived before Allen Estates.

“I was born and lived not too far from Mobile, on a plantation owned by Mr. Allen’s brother, Master Charles Allen. Master Charles was good to me, and he hired an Englishman when I was a bitty boy of eleven to teach me about horses. By the time I was eighteen, I was the foreman of all his stables. Master Charles used to hire me out to other plantations to teach the coachmen how to ride and take care of their horses. I used to go to Florida, Mississippi, and Georgia, working at different plantations, and he let me keep some of the money I earned.”

“Did he let you go by yourself?”

“Yes, he always gave me a pass, and I only rode by day. I came here because Mr. Allen told Master Charles that he needed a foreman to look after his stables.”

I kept my hands in my lap because I did not want him to see them trembling. I could think of nothing to say, but I kept thinking that he knew the land and the roads beyond Allen Estates. We were silent for a time.

“I need to get back to the stables. May I call on you again, Miss Sarah?”

“Yes,” I said perhaps with too much enthusiasm.

That evening, as we were preparing supper, my mother teased me about Isaac.

“Why don’t you take your young man a basket and have supper with him at the other kitchen?”

“Ma’am, please. He is not my young man.”

My mother laughed. “Go on, Belle and me will finish up.”

When supper was ready, I prepared plates with enough food for Isaac and me. My mother gave me a large covered jar of tea and two glasses, and I arranged everything in a basket. I tidied myself in our cabin and asked my mother if I could remove the cloth from my head.

“No, not yet, baby. In time. Just put on the head cover with the pretty flowers on it. You look real nice with it.”

Isaac was not there when I arrived at the kitchen and meal room for the slaves who worked in trades and in the stables. One of the cooks sent a young boy for Isaac. When he walked in, he looked even more exquisite than I recalled.

“My ma’am sent you supper.”

“Thank you, Miss Sarah.”

I arranged the food. Soon other slaves began arriving and sat around us at the long table. The men looked at us and smiled. I did not mind. I asked Isaac what he had done that day, whether he had traveled. He said that he had only driven to the neighboring Greystone Plantation to help with two horses that were sick. One had a broken foreleg and had to be put down. Everyone ate quickly because we had to return to our labor after supper. Isaac said that he would be awake all night, tending to one of the animals in the stables. He said that he would call on me the next day. I returned to Allen Hall after eating with him because I had to ready Clarissa’s bath.

That night, I could not concentrate on my reading of Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry about the English countryside. My only thoughts were about Isaac, who did not look like the other slaves. The skin on his hands was smooth and his fingernails were clean. Isaac’s coachman’s uniforms were made of the finest fabrics and his boots from calf’s leather. My mind was troubled, perhaps because part of my interest in Isaac was the possibility of fleeing with him from Allen Estates. Exhausted by my thoughts, I closed my book, hid it in the washroom, and went to our cabin to sleep.

The next afternoon, as I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner, Isaac came to see me. “Is there any tea and peach cobbler for a tired coachman?”

I set the drinks and cobbler on the table. We spent some moments together, not speaking, just enjoying the sweets.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked me.

“Oh, nothing. Well, just all those times that you traveled by yourself. Did you ever think of not going back?”

His reaction was frightening. He looked around the kitchen as if there were someone in hiding. “No, never. Look, maybe it’s because you’re so young, but I figured Miss Emmeline had taught you better. You can’t talk about these things. And no, I have a good life. I saved money from when I was at Master Charles’. When he sold me to Mr. Allen it was with the understanding that Mr. Allen would hire me out and let me keep some of the earnings. I plan to buy my freedom someday. If I have a wife and children when that day comes, of course I’ll buy them too. If I tried to do it any other way, I could get hurt and sent to work in the fields. Sarah, don’t be so trusting. Don’t ever say such things to someone you just met. They could tell Mr. Allen what you asked about.”

I began to cry, but he smiled at me and told me that we should forget about it and never mention the conversation again. He finished his pie and returned to the stables. I did not see him for almost a month after that day because he did not come around, and we were occupied with preparing for Mrs. Allen’s family from Georgia. I learned from my mother that Mr. Allen had hired out Isaac to the Greystone Plantation. She told me when he returned and said that I should go to see him after we had our midday meal. At the stables, I saw Isaac grooming a horse, a tremendous animal, but Isaac was gentle with it, and the great beast seemed to enjoy being brushed.

“I was going to come to see you, but I’ve been training some boys Mr. Allen just bought before he hires me out again, this time to Georgia.”

Isaac must have noticed my disappointment.

“That’s all right, baby girl. I’m putting aside money for us.”

I smiled. “Come by for supper before you get sent out again.”

“I will.”

I almost skipped back to Allen Hall. There was a commotion when I stepped in the kitchen. My mother ordered me to put on an apron and help with the cooking before I went upstairs to help Clarissa dress for supper. She told me that the Allens had a visitor, a gentleman who was going to court Clarissa. When my mother dismissed me, I went to the Hall and found Clarissa sitting on her bed, crying. Her mother stood in front of her.

“Puppet, your father has consented to Mr. Cromwell’s request for permission to court you. The decision is final.”

“I don’t care, and I told you already, I don’t like Mr. Cromwell, he’s an old man. I won’t go to supper. I won’t.”

“Clarissa, stop behaving like a child. You must do what is expected of you as a lady. It is time to plan your marriage. You cannot spend the rest of your life going to dances and visiting different gentlemen.”

“I don’t care. I won’t meet him.”

“Darling, when you are married, you will not be far and you will visit with us, as we will visit with you. And, I am sure, puppet, your papa will allow you to have Sarah as your maid.”

That was how I learned what my future was to be, and my only thought was that my dreams of escaping were those of a fool. My absurd notions of running away or being bought into freedom by Isaac were exposed for what they were, empty plans made by a girl in bondage.

“Sarah, are you crying?”

I did not answer.

“Answer me when I speak to you,” Mrs. Allen said.

“No, no, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Sarah, you are not being a good little maid to Clarissa. I will have to tell Emmeline to speak with you. Prepare Clarissa’s bath and get her ready for supper.”

She left the room and I remained standing, unable to move.

“Sarah, why can’t you be like Bessie? Mama has an obedient maid who came with her all the way from Georgia, but you cry when you hear that you’ll be living with me when I marry. If you don’t want to come with me, I’ll ask Papa to give me another maid and to send you to work in the fields.”

I helped Clarissa bathe and dress and consoled myself with the thought that perhaps, after all, this turn in my life would provide a way to escape. When Clarissa returned to her rooms after supper and I was preparing her for bed, she seemed happy. She said that everyone had told her that she was beautiful and that she had changed her mind about Mr. Cromwell, a planter in Talladega from a family that had been prosperous for many generations. The Cromwells, said Clarissa, were almost as wealthy as the Allens.

“His father owns a shipbuilding yard in Mobile and trades in goods with other nations.”

“What about Mr. Evans?”

“I will continue to visit him when I go to Montgomery to see Grandmamma and Grandpapa. But Papa will never let me marry Mr. Evans because his father only owns about fifty slaves.”

I could not stop thinking about this change in my life. I did not want to live away from my mother and Belle, and I wondered what would happen to Isaac and me. If I was expected to couple with Isaac as my mother had indicated, would he also be sold or given to Julius Cromwell? I hoped that my mother would have answers to my questions, and in the morning I asked her what was going to happen to Isaac and me.

“Baby, I don’t know. You think Mr. Allen tells me what he’s going to do? But he did say that I should get you married to Isaac.”

“When were you going to tell me, Mama?”

“I wanted to see what you thought about him.”

“But Mama, is Mr. Allen going to let Isaac go with me when Clarissa gets married?”

“Miss Clarissa, Sarah.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I think so, baby. That’s why he said to get you married to him. And he want you and Belle to be settled down. But I need you to help me with Belle. She don’t want to listen to me, and Mr. Allen said to get her with a abroad man. She said that she never wants to have nothing to do with no man again, not like I blame my baby, after what she’s been through. Mr. Allen said he talked to Mr. Atkins, and Mr. Atkins is going to hire out one of his blacksmiths to come here so Belle and him can get to know each other. That was the best I could do.”

“What if Belle doesn’t like him?”

“Mr. Allen said he’d try one more time and get Mr. Atkins to send somebody else, but Mr. Allen said that’d be it. He said the only other thing she can do is go down to where the field hands be and find a man there. He said that’s because it’s been two years since she had the girls and it’s time to have some sons.”