A Place Called Freedom (1995)

31

IN THE OLD NURSERY WING, MACK FOUND A MAP.

He had redecorated two of the three rooms and he was clearing out the schoolroom. It was the end of the afternoon and he would start work properly tomorrow. There was a chest full of moldy books and empty ink bottles, and he sorted through the contents, wondering what was worth saving. The map was there, folded carefully in a leather case. He opened it up and studied it.

It was a map of Virginia.

At first he wanted to jump for joy, but his elation faded as he realized he could not make head or tail of it.

The names puzzled him until he understood they were in a foreign language—he guessed French. Virginia was spelled “Virginie,” the territory to the northeast was labeled “Partie de New Jersey,” and everything west of the mountains was called Louisiane, although that part of the map was otherwise blank.

Slowly he began to understand it better. Thin lines were rivers, thicker lines were the borders between one colony and the next, and the very thick lines were mountain ranges. He pored over it, fascinated and thrilled: this was his passport to freedom.

He discovered that the Rappahannock was one of several rivers running across Virginia from the mountains in the west to the Bay of Chesapeake in the east. He found Fredericksburg on the south bank of the Rappahannock. There was no way to tell distances, but Pepper Jones had said it was a hundred miles to the mountains. If the map was right, it was the same distance again to the other side of the range. But there was no indication of a route across.

He felt a mixture of exhilaration and frustration. He knew where he was, at last, but the map seemed to say there was no escape.

The mountain range narrowed to the south, and Mack studied that part, tracing rivers to their source, looking for a way through. Far to the south he came across what looked like a pass, where the Cumberland River rose.

He remembered Whitey talking about the Cumberland Gap.

That was it: that was the way out.

It was a long journey. Mack guessed it must be four hundred miles, as far as from Edinburgh to London. That journey took two weeks by stagecoach, longer for a man with one horse. And it would take even longer on the rough roads and hunting trails of Virginia.

But on the far side of those mountains a man could be free.

He folded the map carefully and restored it to its case, then went on with his work. He would look at it again.

If only he could find Peg, he thought as he swept the room. He had to know whether she was all right before he ran away. If she was happy he would leave her, but if she had a cruel owner he would have to take her with him.

It became too dark to work.

He left the nursery and went down the stairs. He took his old fur cloak off a hook by the back door and wrapped it around him; it was cold outside. As he went out a knot of excited slaves came toward him. In the middle of the group was Kobe, and he was carrying a woman: after a moment Mack recognized Bess, the young slave girl who had fainted in the field a few weeks ago. Her eyes were closed and there was blood on her smock. The girl was accident prone.

Mack held the door open then followed Kobe inside. The Jamissons would be in the dining room, finishing their afternoon dinner. “Put her in the drawing room and I’ll fetch Mrs. Jamisson,” he said.

“The drawing room?” Kobe said dubiously.

It was the only room where the fire was Ut, apart from the dining room. “Trust me—it’s what Mrs. Jamisson would prefer,” Mack said.

Kobe nodded.

Mack knocked on the dining room door and entered.

Lizzie and Jay were sitting at a small round table, their faces lit by a candelabra in the center. Lizzie looked plump and beautiful in a low-necked gown that revealed the swell of her breasts then spread like a tent over her bulging abdomen. She was eating raisins while Jay cracked nuts. Mildred, a tall maid with perfect tobacco-colored skin, was pouring wine for Jay. A fire blazed in the hearth. It was a tranquil domestic scene and for a moment Mack was taken aback to be reminded so forcefully that they were man and wife.

Then he looked again. Jay was sitting at an angle to the table, his body averted from Lizzie: he was looking out of the window, watching night fall over the river. Lizzie was turned the other way, looking at Mildred as she poured. Neither Jay nor Lizzie was smiling. They might have been strangers in a tavern, forced to share a table but having no interest in one another.

Jay saw Mack and said: “What the devil do you want?”

Mack addressed Lizzie. “Bess has had an accident—Kobe’s put her in the drawing room.”

“I’ll come at once,” Lizzie said, pushing back her chair.

Jay said: “Don’t let her bleed on that yellow silk upholstery!”

Mack held the door and followed Lizzie out.

Kobe was lighting candles. Lizzie bent over the injured girl. Bess’s dark skin had gone paler and her lips were bloodless. Her eyes were closed and her breathing seemed shallow. “What happened?” said Lizzie.

“She cut herself,” Kobe answered. He was still panting from the exertion of carrying her. “She was hacking at a rope with a machete. The blade slipped off the rope and sliced her belly.”

Mack winced. He watched as Lizzie enlarged the tear in Bess’s smock and gazed at the wound beneath. It looked bad. There was a lot of blood and the cut seemed deep.

“Go to the kitchen, one of you, and get me some clean rags and a bowl of warm water.”

Mack admired her decisiveness. “I’ll do it,” he said.

He hurried to the outhouse kitchen. Sarah and Mildred were washing up the dinner dishes. Sarah, sweating as always, said: “Is she all right?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Jamisson asked for clean rags and warm water.”

Sarah passed him a bowl. “Here, take some water off the fire. I’ll get you the rags.”

A few moments later he was back in the drawing room. Lizzie had cut away Bess’s dress around the wound. Now she dipped a rag in the water and washed the skin. As the wound became more clearly visible it looked worse. Mack feared she might have damaged her internal organs.

Lizzie felt the same. “I can’t deal with this,” she said. “She needs a doctor.”

Jay came into the room, took one look, and paled.

Lizzie said to him: “I’ll have to send for Dr. Finch.”

“As you wish,” he said. “I’m going to the Ferry House—there’s a cockfight.” He went out.

Good riddance, Mack thought contemptuously.

Lizzie looked at Kobe and Mack. “One of you has to ride into Fredericksburg in the dark.”

Kobe said: “Mack ain’t much of a horseman. I’ll go.”

“He’s right,” Mack admitted. “I could drive the buggy, but it’s slower.”

“That settles it,” Lizzie said. “Don’t be rash, Kobe, but go as fast as you can—this girl could die.”

Fredericksburg was ten miles away, but Kobe knew the road, and he was back two hours later.

When he walked into the drawing room his face was like thunder. Mack had never seen him so angry.

“Where’s the doctor?” Lizzie said.

“Dr. Finch won’t come out at this time of night for no nigger girl,” said Kobe in a shaky voice.

“Curse the damn fool,” Lizzie said furiously.

They all looked at Bess. Her skin was beaded with perspiration and her breathing had become ragged. Now and again she moaned, but she did not open her eyes. The yellow silk sofa was red with her blood. She was obviously dying.

“We can’t stand here and do nothing,” Lizzie said. “She could be saved!”

Kobe said: “I don’t think she has long to live.”

“If the doctor won’t come, we’ll just have to take her to him,” Lizzie said. “We’ll put her in the buggy.”

Mack said: “It’s not good to move her.”

“If we don’t she’ll die anyway!” Lizzie shouted.

“All right, all right. I’ll get the buggy out.”

“Kobe, take the mattress from my bed and put it in the back for her to lie on. And some blankets.”

Mack hurried to the stables. The stable boys had all gone to the quarters but it did not take him long to put Stripe, the pony, in the traces. He got a taper from the kitchen fire and lit the carriage lamps on the buggy. When he pulled around to the front Kobe was waiting.

While Kobe arranged the bedding Mack went into the house. Lizzie was putting on her coat. “Are you coming?” Mack said.

“Yes.”

“Do you think you should, in your condition?”

“I’m afraid that damned doctor will refuse to treat her if I don’t.”

Mack knew better than to argue with her in this mood. He picked Bess up gently and carried her outside. He laid her carefully on the mattress and Kobe covered her with the blankets. Lizzie climbed up and settled herself beside Bess, cradling the girl’s head in her arms.

Mack got up in front and picked up the reins. Three people was a lot for the pony to haul so Kobe gave the buggy a shove to get it started. Mack drove down to the road and turned toward Fredericksburg.

There was no moon, but starlight enabled him to see where he was going. The trail was rocky and rutted, and the buggy bounced along. Mack was worried about jolting Bess, but Lizzie kept saying: “Go faster! Go faster!” The road wound along the riverbank, through rough woodland and the fringes of plantations just like the Jamisson place. They saw nobody: people did not travel after dark if they could help it.

With Lizzie’s urging Mack made good speed and they reached Fredericksburg around suppertime. There were people on the streets and lights in the houses. He drew up the buggy outside Dr. Finch’s home. Lizzie went to the door while Mack wrapped Bess in the blankets and carefully lifted her up. She was unconscious but alive.

The door was opened by Mrs. Finch, a mousy woman in her forties. She showed Lizzie into the parlor and Mack followed with Bess. The doctor, a thickset man with a bullying manner, looked distinctly guilty when he realized he had forced a pregnant woman to drive through the night to bring him a patient. He covered his embarrassment by bustling about and giving his wife abrupt orders.

When he had looked at the wound he asked Lizzie to make herself comfortable in the other room. Mack went with her and Mrs. Finch stayed to help her husband.

The remains of a supper were on the table. Lizzie eased herself gingerly into a chair. “What’s the matter?” Mack said.

“That ride has given me the most awful backache. Do you think Bess will be all right?”

“I don’t know. She’s not very robust.”

A maid came in and offered Lizzie tea and cake, and Lizzie accepted. The maid looked Mack up and down, identified him as a servant, and said: “If you want some tea you can come in the kitchen.”

“I need to see to the horse first,” he said.

He went outside and led the pony around to Dr. Finch’s stable, where he gave it water and some grain; then he waited in the kitchen. The house was small, and he could hear the doctor and his wife talking as they worked. The maid, a middle-aged black woman, cleared the dining room and brought out Lizzie’s teacup. Mack decided it was stupid for him to sit in the kitchen and Lizzie in the dining room, so he went and sat with her, despite the frowns of the maid. Lizzie looked pale, and he resolved to get her home as soon as possible.

At last Dr. Finch came in, drying his hands. “It’s a nasty wound but I believe I have done everything possible,” he said. “I’ve stopped the bleeding, sewn up the gash and given her a drink. She’s young and she will heal.”

“Thank goodness,” Lizzie said.

The doctor nodded. “I’m sure she’s a valuable slave. She shouldn’t travel far tonight. She can stay here and sleep in my maid’s quarters, and you can send for her tomorrow or the day after. When the wound closes I’ll take out the stitches—she should do no heavy work until then.”

“Of course.”

“Have you had supper, Mrs. Jamisson? May I offer you something?”

“No, thank you, I’d just like to get home and go to bed.”

Mack said: “I’ll bring the buggy around to the front.”

A few minutes later they were on their way. Lizzie rode up front while they were in the town, but as soon as they passed the last house she lay down on the mattress.

Mack drove slowly, and this time there were no impatient sounds from behind him. When they had been traveling for about half an hour he said: “Are you asleep?”

There was no reply, and he assumed she was.

He glanced behind him from time to time. She was restless, shifting her position and muttering in her sleep.

They were driving along a deserted stretch two or three miles from the plantation when the stillness of the night was shattered by a scream.

It was Lizzie.

“What? What?” Mack called frantically as he hauled on the reins. Before the pony had stopped he was clambering into the back.

“Oh, Mack, it hurts!” she cried.

He put his arm around her shoulders and raised her a little. “What is it? Where does it hurt?”

“Oh, God, I think the baby is coming.”

“But it’s not due.…”

“Another two months.”

Mack knew little about such things but he guessed that the birth had been brought on by the stress of the medical emergency or the bumpy ride to Fredericksburg—or both.

“How long have we got?”

She groaned long and loud, then answered him. “Not long.”

“I thought it took hours.”

“I don’t know. I think the backache I had was labor pain. Maybe the baby has been on its way all this time.”

“Shall I drive on? We’ll be there in a quarter of an hour.”

“Too long. Stay where you are and hold me.”

Mack realized the mattress was wet and sticky. “What’s soaked the mattress?”

“My waters broke, I think. I wish my mother was here.”

Mack thought it was blood on the mattress but he did not say so.

She groaned again. When the pain passed she shivered. Mack covered her with his fur. “You can have your cloak back,” he said, and she smiled briefly before the next spasm took her.

When she could speak again she said: “You must take the baby when it comes out.”

“All right,” he said, but he was not sure what she meant.

“Get down between my legs,” she said.

He knelt at her feet and pushed up her skirts. Her underdrawers were soaked. Mack had undressed only two women, Annie and Cora, and neither of them had owned a pair of underdrawers, so he was not sure how they fastened, but he fumbled them off somehow. Lizzie lifted her legs and put her feet up against his shoulders to brace herself.

He stared at the patch of thick dark hair between her legs, and he was seized by a feeling of panic. How could a baby come through there? He had no idea how it happened. Then he told himself to be calm: this took place a thousand times a day all over the world. He did not need to understand it. The baby would come without his help.

“I’m frightened,” Lizzie said during a brief respite.

“I’ll look after you,” he said, and he stroked her legs, the only part of her he could reach.

The baby came very quickly.

Mack could not see much in the starlight, but as Lizzie gave a mighty groan something began to emerge from inside her. Mack put two trembling hands down there and felt a warm, slippery object pushing its way out. A moment later the baby’s head was in his hands. Lizzie seemed to rest for a few moments, then start again. He held the head with one hand and put the other under the tiny shoulders as they came into the world. A moment later the rest of the baby slid out.

He held it and stared at it: the closed eyes, the dark hair of its head, the miniature limbs. “It’s a girl,” he said.

“She must cry!” Lizzie said urgently.

Mack had heard of smacking a newborn baby to make it breathe. It was hard to do, but he knew he must. He turned her over in his hand and gave her bottom a sharp slap.

Nothing happened.

As he held the tiny chest in the palm of his big hand he realized something was dreadfully wrong. He could not feel a heartbeat.

Lizzie struggled to sit upright. “Give her to me!” she said.

Mack handed the baby over.

She took the baby and stared into her face. She put her lips to the baby’s as if kissing her, and then she blew into her mouth.

Mack willed the child to gasp air into her lungs and cry, but nothing happened.

“She’s dead,” Lizzie said. She held the baby to her bosom and drew the fur cloak around the naked body. “My baby’s dead.” She began to weep.

Mack put his arms around them both and held them while Lizzie cried her heart out.