A Hiss Before Dying

January 2, 1786 Monday

The storm seemed tethered over the mountain. Flurries would fade, then an hour later more heavy snow would fall accompanied by fierce gusts.

Catherine joined the boys in the barn, to check on the horses. Jeddie, eighteen, almost nineteen, wiry, a good rider getting better, delighted her no matter what.

Serenissima, a quality mare she bought from Maureen Selisse, dozed in her stall, a warm blanket over her. All the horses, whether the blooded horses or the draft horses, contently ate or dozed, happy to be inside. With fresh hay, constant water changes if the water froze in the buckets, and their stalls picked clean, life was good.

Chores done, Catherine sat down in the tack room, warmed by a small woodburning stove placed on thick slate that sat on packed earth. The rest of the floor, unplaned oak, had been worn smooth over the years. Tired, she removed her gloves, blew on her hands, then held them toward the stove.

“Miss Catherine, I can make tea on the stove,” Jeddie offered.

“No, thank you.” She looked up at his open, honest face. “Aren’t we getting close to your birthday?”

He smiled. “Not too close.”

“Nineteen?” Her eyebrows raised.

“Yes.” He grinned. “I’m old enough to get married.”

She tilted back her head, laughing. “Jeddie, I had no idea you wanted to get married.”

He laughed with her. “I don’t. Momma’s lecturing me about it.”

“And your father?” she asked.

The young man shook his head. “Saying nothing. He doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of Momma.”

“Wise man. No one wants to get on the wrong side of your momma.”

“She’s saying if I marry the right girl, I can be happy. A wife will take care of me.”

“She’s right.”

“And I’ll get my own cabin. Ours is crowded. I think Momma wants me out.”

She grinned. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” She paused. “Springtime. I’ll talk to Father about building more cabins. We have enough, he’ll say, and we do, but I’ll remind him that it’s best to be prepared and some of our younger people will be married soon, new babies. You know Father loves babies.” Her eyes twinkled. “Wants to pick them up. I remember the first time Marcia wrapped her tiny fingers around his finger. His eyes misted, he fell in love. Tell me, Jeddie, what would we have done if he hadn’t fallen in love with her?”

“She’s a pretty little thing,” Jeddie remarked.

“We can’t hide the fact that she’s an outside child, but we can hide whose outside child. It’s been fun watching ladies talk behind their hands about how our cousin fell from grace, the one in South Carolina. Then someone else whispers, ‘No, it was the cousin in Charlottesville.’ People love to talk and they don’t much care if it’s the truth or not. What they care about is looking as though they have the real story.”

He nodded. “I listen, especially when we’re at another barn or a horse race. Lot of puffed-up people.”

“Speaking of races, haven’t heard of anything planned, but I don’t think we will until April. It’s going to be a long, hard winter. Do you think Serenissima has caught?” She used the expression for a mare who has gotten pregnant.

“I sure hope so.”

“We should know right around the time of your birthday.”

This made him laugh.

Catherine knew bloodlines, especially the new blood coming in from England. She had a gift with horses and could find the right training for one just by watching the animal. As Jeddie loved horses, she passed on to him what he could memorize. Each year he learned more.

Jeddie heard through the pipeline that more northern states planned to abolish slavery. Vermont already had done so. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire said they would adopt policies to gradually abolish slavery, but nothing much had happened. Some young slaves talked about heading out if they could just make it. He listened but didn’t say anything. Jeddie thought it stupid to talk about freedom within earshot of anyone. And he had never heard of those states being good horse states. He was born to work with horses. So he listened, watched, and kept learning.

He loved Catherine. They’d worked together in the stables for as long as he could remember. She took so much time with him, rode with him, showed the damage a stifle injury could do, showed him how to read age from teeth. The odd thing was, if he had ever expressed curiosity about freedom, she would be the person he would discuss it with, even though his father told him over and over again to never trust a white person. He did trust her and she trusted him. They never spoke about it, they felt it.

When Moses and Ailee fled Maureen Selisse’s plantation, Big Rawly, they hid in the small cave down by the creek. Eventually Moses escaped to Pennsylvania hidden in a wagon driven by John and Charles, both of whom feared for Moses as well as for themselves. As if the young man was accused of murder, he would be killed without much of an argument. He didn’t kill Francisco Selisse. His wife did—but there was no proof, and almost everyone believed Moses did it in a rage over Ailee, whom Moses loved and Francisco violated. Maureen and Sheba beat Ailee, smashing in her one eye, but Moses and the once beautiful woman escaped. However, Ailee, in no condition to travel, was hidden in the loom room once she was strong enough to walk up there. The slaves knew. Catherine, Rachel, John, and Charles knew. Ewing did not. No one would ever speak of the fact that Marcia was Ailee’s baby by Francisco. She looked white; hence the fabricated story about a cousin, which Ewing knew perfectly well was a story, but he didn’t know how much of a story. Marcia would never know her true parentage. People liked to talk, but in this case no slave on Cloverfields would ever utter a word. Maureen and Sheba were hated and feared. Maureen would get even, as would Sheba, with any slave anywhere as well as any white person.

Marcia’s secret, the second secret of the illegal hiding and transporting of a slave, was buried with Ailee when she killed herself. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t have repercussions over the years.

Jeddie, young though he was, knew what was at risk. He sat next to Catherine.

“Does this mean you have a girl in mind?”

He looked at her. “No.”

She smiled.

“I don’t. Really.”

She poked him in the arm. “That’s what you say now, but someday you might change your tune. Things just sort of happen.”

“Like when you fell in love with Mr. John?”

That tinkling laugh again. “If anyone had told me I’d fall in love with a poor soldier from Massachusetts I would have told them they were out of their minds. And here I am. And I am lucky, for he’s a good man and a brave one.”

“He’s a war hero.”

“That he is, but Jeddie, he’s brave in other ways. He acts on what he believes is right. He’s not much of a talker. He’s a doer. I love him, but more, I respect him. And Rachel respects Charles, son of an English lord, no less. A second son, I add.”

“All those titles. Too confusing.”

“Is.” She looked out the window. “Well, Father will be fretting. I told him I’d go over the timber tract maps with him. Still dark. You’d never know it was midmorning.”

“I’ll walk back with you.”

“I’d enjoy your company. Always do.”

He walked next to her in case she slipped. The paths kept getting shoveled out, but the snow and now a bit of ice kept ahead of the shovels. They talked about Reynaldo and his brother, Crown Prince, two exceptional horses.

“Jeddie, Bettina’s in the back. Slip in and grab a biscuit. She made a pile this morning.”

“Yes, Miss Catherine.” He trotted around the back to the kitchen for one of the best biscuits in Virginia.

Ewing, in his office, was poring over last year’s figures for tobacco hogsheads when his daughter came in, took off her scarf, coat, and gloves to sit across from him. Wordlessly he shoved papers her way. Two peas in a pod, really.

—

Bumbee, down in the weaving cabin, kept at her loom. Two other women also worked the shuttles, the click and clack, warp and weft, filling the room with rhythm. The large fireplace kept it pleasant. Every now and then the wind would rattle the windows, real blown windows, no oiled skin for Cloverfields.

Bumbee turned to stare outside. “Is this ever going to end?”

Grace, sixteen, attractive, leaned toward her smaller loom. “Good you got that wool and carded, too.”

Liddy, maybe eighteen, sat on a low bench, twisting some strands of wool together, pulling, testing. “Bet no one is going to Sheba’s fabric shop now.”

“We will never need to do that,” Bumbee forcefully said, then paused, “but Miss Catherine and Miss Rachel will have to go, I expect, to keep up good relations.”

“And to buy silks.” Liddy shrugged.

“True.” Grace nodded. “But that’s not our job anyway. Goes to Regina.”

Regina was the seamstress, prized for her ability to see a drawing of a dress and reproduce it.

In the corner, near the fireplace but close to the stairway so she could hide if necessary, Mignon folded odd cloth bits, leftovers from larger projects.

Bumbee used these to make hooked rugs, odds and ends. Waste nothing was the motto.

Grace spoke to her. “You’re quiet as a mouse.”

“Am I? My mind wanders,” Mignon replied.

“Your feet hurt. It’s not as bad as I feared, but keeping them wrapped helps,” Bumbee said.

“Mignon, I know you want to go, but your feet do have to heal and the snow needs to melt some. Anyway, you don’t want to leave tracks,” Liddy sensibly said.

Mignon looked up from her task. “I’m praying for a thaw.”

Bumbee smiled. “While we’re sitting here, tell us about those French and English fabrics.”

Mignon rolled her eyes. “Lord, girls, you could buy a good horse for what those fabrics cost, and they are beautiful, colors, so many colors. And Sheba wants feathers, dyed feathers and furs. She even got some sable. But those colors, oh, my.”

“Like what?” Grace loved clothing.

“Mint green, sky blue, deepest red, and a pale yellow nearly white but so thin. Some of the silks are heavy, others are like air. You put the fabric over your hands and can barely feel it. And there is one bolt that is deeper than a robin’s egg, a blue beyond compare, a blue like a big expensive jewel next to a bolt of pale melon, which shimmers. As much as I hate Sheba and that harridan Maureen, they know fabrics.”

“Let’s hope it keeps them busy,” Grace said. “We want them all to stay at Big Rawly. I can’t look at either one, can you?”

“No,” Liddy offered.

“Me, neither.” Bumbee pulled the shuttle down with a practiced hand. “I see Ailee’s smashed face, the cheekbones, her eye.”

“Vicious.” Liddy again looked to the window.

“Well,” Bumbee changed the subject, spoke to Grace, “your mother is telling me she hopes you will marry Jeddie Rice.”

Caught off guard, Grace mumbled, “Oh, well, Mother, you know how she is.”

“I do. I do.” Bumbee and the others laughed. “What I want to know is how you feel. You are of age, should you so choose to marry.”

“Bumbee, he hardly speaks to me. Mother has this in her head. She says, ‘That Jeddie Rice is going places, plus the Missus loves him.’ She goes on about how I will live well with a respected young man who will become an even more respected man.”

“He does have a gift. No one can ride like Jeddie,” Liddy pitched in.

“Maybe so, but he still doesn’t say three words to me. Mother’s dreaming.”

“Better to marry someone at Cloverfields, because if your husband’s master won’t sell him to Mr. Garth, you’ll hardly see him. Too much traveling,” Bumbee wisely counseled.

Liddy popped up. “There’s always Rollie.”

Grace shot her a hard look. “That is the dumbest man ever born.”

“I didn’t say he was smart, but he’s here and he’s young. He’s a good carpenter,” Liddy defended him.

“You marry him, then,” Grace shot back.

True, Rollie was not overly bright, nor was he handsome. The girls wanted handsome husbands. Most girls do.

“What I can’t understand is why some woman hasn’t married DoRe,” Mignon said.

DoRe, head of the stables at Big Rawly, lost his wife a year back. He was Moses’s father. So many sorrows for such a good man.

“Don’t you even mention it. Don’t breathe it.” Bumbee sat up straighter. “Bettina has her eye on him.”

Liddy giggled a little. “They’re both old.”

They were in their early forties.

“He has a good position. Old means nothing. Position counts. I know, I know, when I was your age my head could be turned by a handsome man. Look who I married and look what I got,” Bumbee snapped.

A silence followed this.

A knock on the door shut them up, although Bumbee did whisper, “If that’s Mr. Percy, I will knock him upside the head.”

She called him by his surname.

“Come in,” Liddy sweetly called as Mignon hurried up the stairs.

“Ladies.” Zebediah, thirties, stuck his head in the door. “We’re finishing up shoveling for now. Need anything? More wood? More water?”

Bumbee smiled. “You brought in so much this morning I think we’ll be fine until this time tomorrow. Zeb, how does the weather look to you? Slowing down?”

He shook his head, then closed the door.

“All the good men are taken,” Liddy lamented.

“Oh, someone will come along. Just don’t make the mistake I did,” Bumbee counseled, voice softer.

“But there must have been good times?” Liddy inquired.

“Well—yes.” Bumbee laughed and the others laughed with her.