The Lost Quilter Page 9

  Suddenly Joanna felt a sharp pinch on her arm as a thin white man with sunken cheeks tested the thickness of her muscles. “Thin, but strong,” he remarked, opening her jaw with two calloused hands to inspect her teeth. “You have the manner of a house slave, but you seem strong enough for field work.”

  “I done both, sir,” she said faintly when he let go of her face. Was he a kindly man, like the one Elijah so boldly addressed? How could she possibly know for sure so quickly? “I pick tobacco in Virginia.”

  “Ever work a rice field?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I expect you could learn. What happened to your face?”

  “I…I fell on a flatiron, sir.”

  “Is that so?” He peered at her scar. “Are you a laundress, then? Our old laundress took sick and died last spring. My wife would be pleased if I brought home a new one.”

  “Yes, sir, and a seamstress. I can sew anything from fine dresses and suits to slave clothes. I do quilting, both fine and plain.”

  “My wife likes to do her own quilting. If she had someone to do the plain sewing, she would have more time for it.” The planter turned her around, studying her hips. “Do you have any children?”

  Involuntarily Joanna glanced at the ten-year-old boy, who was being looked over by a man and woman dressed in somber black while his brother stood nearby, shifting his weight from foot to foot. She forced herself to look away. “No, sir.”

  Just then one of the Georgia traders hurried over. “I’m afraid this one’s spoken for, sir,” he said, his drawl smoothly apologetic.

  “But the auction hasn’t even begun,” the thin man protested.

  “Sorry, sir, but she belongs to Mr. Stephen Chester of Edisto Island. If you want her, you’ll have to take it up with him.”

  A flash of annoyance crossed the other man’s face. “Well, why the hell did you bring her out to the block if she isn’t for sale?”

  “Terribly sorry, sir.” The trader seized Joanna’s arm and propelled her back through the iron gate to the cobblestone street. “It’s back to the barracoon for you, girl.”

  Trapped once more behind iron and stone, Joanna waited for news of the others, straining her ears for sounds from the auction block. Would any of them return or would they all be sold? She hoped that Elijah would persuade the portly planter to take his whole family, and she hoped the two young brothers would somehow stay together. Should she have tried harder to impress the thin white man? Would she have been better off with him than with Stephen Chester? She would never know.

  Suddenly she had a terrible thought: The thin white man needed a seamstress and laundress, and the kindly planter needed only field hands. With Joanna unavailable for purchase, Elijah’s family could have already been divided between the two white men.

  Exhaustion overcame her and she fell asleep, stretched out on the cold stone floor. It was twilight when the sound of voices awakened her—the two Georgia traders, congratulating each other on the handsome profits won at the auction. Quickly Joanna sat up, eager to see if any unsold slaves had brought back news, but the traders were alone. They opened the barred door long enough to slip a tin plate of cornmeal porridge and a small tin cornboiler full of water inside, then left for a celebratory drink, locking the door behind them.

  The traders’ cheerful banter faded behind them as they left. As the darkness of the barracoon enveloped her, Joanna groped in the darkness for her plate and cup. Alone, she ate every last morsel, dreading what the next day might bring.

  In the morning the traders brought her slapjacks, which she ate outside as they prepared the wagon for departure. Since they had brought her a second cup of water, she slipped the tin cornboiler they had left behind the previous day into her apron pocket, hoping the Georgia traders had forgotten it. She could not imagine caring so little for something so precious. It had an arched, fixed handle on the side to hold on to while drinking, and a second, thinner handle of curved wire so the cup could hang from a belt or a pack. The hinged, tight-fitting lid had a loop on the top so it could slide onto a spit held over a fire. The slave hunters that had brought her back to Greenfields Plantation had each carried larger versions made of copper, and Joanna had seen them use theirs for everything from drinking water to making coffee to boiling up cornmeal porridge. She had never owned anything so useful, not even the stolen embossed needle case and thimble, though they were made of more valuable metal.

  She waited for the Georgia traders to notice their cornboiler was missing and to tear her clothes apart searching for it, but they took her from the barracoon, ran a chain through her manacles, and thrust her back into the wagon cage, all without mentioning it. It was not theirs, she realized. The cornboiler belonged to whoever ran the barracoon, and maybe, maybe, by the time they realized it had disappeared with their most recent prisoner, she would be far away. Riding alone in the wagon cage, wondering what had become of her former companions, she found a strange reassurance in the cornboiler’s weight and smoothness, the tight, secure seal of the hinged lid, as if ownership of something so useful and perfectly crafted provided its own protective magic, as if concealing a secret from the Georgia traders meant she had triumphed over them.

  After a half day’s journey through the marshy South Carolina low country, past rivers and plantations where slaves labored in fields over unfamiliar crops, the wagon boarded a ferry and crossed a river. Though the trip across the water was not long, the lurching motion unsettled Joanna, and she could not shake off the thought of the horses suddenly taking fright, toppling the wagon, and sending her to the bottom of the river still trapped within the iron cage. She breathed a prayer of thanksgiving when the ferry reached the opposite shore and the Georgia traders drove the wagon onto land, even though she knew she was on the wrong side of the water from everyone and everything she held most dear. The river imprisoned her more than chains and manacles, for she could not swim.

  Eventually the wagon turned off the main road and passed through an iron gate with six red brick pillars, above which hung a sign bearing the name Oak Grove. The name suited, for tall oak trees lined the drive up to the big house. Joanna had always heard that Stephen Chester was the more successful of the two brothers, and the grandness of the residence seemed to prove the stories true. The white weatherboard-clad house stood two and a half stories tall on a raised red brick foundation, with four gabled dormers and a wraparound porch. Tall red brick chimneys flanked the structure, surely indicating massive fireplaces within that slaves wore themselves out tending in winter, all to keep their white owners warm. She saw no sign of the slave quarter, but she surmised that rows of cabins lay at some distance from the big house beyond the towering oaks, out of sight and out of mind, too far away to offend.

  The traders brought the wagon to a halt in a stableyard, where two young slave boys clad in shirts and frayed trousers raced out to greet them. A man followed at an easier pace, removing his hat—not, it seemed to Joanna, in deference, but merely to mop his brow. The traders ordered him to tend to their horses, and although he nodded and said, “Yessuh,” something in his expression said that he would do so for the horses’ sake, not their owners’.

  As the traders headed to the big house, the man unhitched the horses and passed the reins to the two smaller boys, who led the horses to a watering trough. The man walked around the wagon as if inspecting it for necessary repairs, but Joanna felt his eyes upon her and she raised her head to glare defiantly back at him. His eyebrows rose and he let out a chuckle. “Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?” he said. “I thought I’d water you while I water these horses, but now I don’t know.”

  Joanna’s mouth was parched, and the very thought of water made her dizzy. “I’d like some water,” she said flatly, remembering to add, “please.”

  The man looked around, patting the pockets of his clothes. “Wouldn’t you know, them Georgia traders didn’t leave me the key. I can’t get you to the trough.”

  Joanna withdrew the tin cornboile
r from her apron pocket and wordlessly passed it through the bars. The man hesitated for only a moment before flashing a grin, taking the cup, and filling it with water from the horses’ trough. Joanna drained the cornboiler in three gulps and handed it back to the man. He refilled it a second time, then quickly looked over his shoulder at the sound of the front door to the big house swinging open and shut. “Put that away before they take it from you,” he advised, joining the boys at the trough and taking the horses’ reins to lead them into the stable.

  Joanna drank quickly, shook the few remaining drops into the matted straw at the bottom of the cage, and returned the cornboiler to the safety of her apron pocket before the Georgia traders returned. The man who had given her water looked on from the stable doorway as the traders pulled her from the cage and led her up the veranda stairs.

  “Should’ve cleaned her up first,” the younger trader muttered to his companion as they passed through the tall front doors and crossed the foyer.

  “Don’t matter,” the older man replied. “She’s already bought and paid for, or at least half paid for.”

  The men took Joanna into a small, walnut-paneled study where a brown-haired woman in spectacles sat writing at a secretary. A neatly attired colored man looked on from a respectful distance, hands clasped in front of him. “Missus Chester,” he murmured when the white woman did not look up from her work. “They back. They brung her.”

  “Yes, I know, Augustus,” the woman replied, but she finished another few lines before setting her pen aside and blotting the ink on the page. Resting her chin in her hand, she looked Joanna up and down speculatively, her gaze lingering on the ugly scar on Joanna’s cheek. Joanna was surprised to see that her new mistress’s face was unlined, her hair without a trace of gray, as if she were only a handful of years older than Joanna herself. She had expected this Mrs. Chester to be as old as the one she had left behind in Virginia.

  “Well, she’s here, although from the look of her she’s had a rough journey.” The woman’s tone was brisk and her accent crisp, more like that of the Quakers who had sheltered Joanna in Pennsylvania than any plantation mistress she had ever known. “You did feed her once or twice along the way, I trust?”

  Joanna felt a surge of angry pleasure. So the Georgia traders’ efforts in Charleston had not fooled this woman, at least.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the senior trader replied, clutching his hat. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but the other Mr. Chester paid us only half. He said to collect the other half from your husband upon delivery.”

  “My husband is away on business, so you’ll have to be content to collect your fee from me.” She gestured to Augustus, who promptly brought her a leather purse from a cabinet near the window, where heavy damask curtains barely stirred in the breeze. She paid the men, thanked them for their services, and told Augustus to show them to the kitchen for a bite to eat before they departed.

  Only then did she address Joanna. “My sister-in-law writes that you have a fine hand with the needle but you’re impertinent and untrustworthy.” She sighed and spared a longing glance for her pen as if Joanna were a distasteful but necessary problem to solve before she could return to more appealing work. “Once again we rescue my brother-in-law from an ill-advised investment. The question remains, what are we to do with you?”

  She regarded Joanna expectantly for so long that Joanna realized she was meant to provide an answer. “I don’t know, ma’am.”

  This unexpectedly young Mrs. Chester raised her eyebrows. “That’s a very silly answer. My husband’s brother didn’t send you to us because you’re useless but to keep you from running off again. You’ll sew for us—although you’ll make fewer fancy ball gowns than I suppose you’re accustomed to—and you’ll tend to the laundry. I suppose you should learn to pick and card cotton as well, since that is what brought my husband his fortune.” She glanced up and smiled as Augustus returned with a steaming cup of tea. “I brook no insolence from my servants, so keep a cheerful disposition about you. You’ll find that Oak Grove is much different from your former home, and you needn’t entertain any foolish notions of running away. No one in our black family has ever deserted us. All of our servants are quite happy, aren’t they, Augustus?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes, we are,” said Augustus promptly. Even after the mistress had turned back to Joanna, he did not flicker as much as an eyelid to suggest dissent. You good, Joanna thought. She had never learned to hide her feelings so well.

  “The housekeeper will give you a new dress and apron. See that you take care of them. We issue our servants new clothes each Christmas, but I see no reason to make you wait”—the mistress’s nose wrinkled in distaste—“given the circumstances. Of course you should not expect anything new until next year. You shall share living quarters with Leah and her daughters. The kitchen girl can show you the way. There’s a stream not far from the cabins. Bathe yourself and burn those rags you’re wearing before you settle in, lest you introduce vermin into the quarter. Come to me here first thing tomorrow morning and I will have work for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Joanna, as her new mistress took her pen in hand and dismissed Joanna with a nod.

  Augustus beckoned her to follow him from the study, out the back door, and to the kitchen building, separated from the big house by several yards. Inside, the heat and smells of roasting pork and stewing vegetables made her head swim. The heavyset cook, her ebony skin gleaming with perspiration from the stove fires, took one glance at her and passed her the end of a loaf of bread. Joanna finished the last crumb before the housekeeper arrived with her new clothes, but when she threw the cook a hopeful, pleading glance, Augustus gestured to the door and told her she would have to wait for the evening meal like everyone else.

  Carrying her new dress and apron, she followed the kitchen girl down the hill and through the woods where four rows of cabins stood in a clearing between tall, moss-covered oaks. They were out of sight from the big house but not, Joanna discovered, from another, considerably smaller residence, which surely belonged to an overseer.

  Leah was in the cotton fields, so the kitchen girl took Joanna to the cabin and pointed out the general direction of the stream. Joanna found it not ten yards through the thicket, and once assured she was alone, she sloughed off her old, dusty dress and waded into the water, scrubbing herself clean as best she could, missing the smooth cakes of soap Ruth boiled up at Greenfields, mixing the lye and tallow and ash twice a year, in spring and autumn.

  Ruth.

  Joanna inhaled sharply and ducked her head beneath the water, cooling her scar, which always seemed too warm to the touch. Eyes closed, she saw Ruth quartering a chicken, wiping her hands on her apron, squinting suspiciously as she examined sweet potatoes for mold. She heard Ruth snoring in the darkness of the little room off the kitchen, felt Ruth’s strong arm around her waist. Ruth had tried to protect her, but now she was gone, and Joanna was in South Carolina, incomprehensibly far from freedom.

  Joanna held her breath until she thought her lungs would burst. Finally she rose, gasping, and reached for her old clothing, lying in a heap on the creek bank. She scrubbed the dress and wrung the water from it; it seemed stained but not worn through, but she would know its condition better after it dried. She had never owned two dresses and could not bear to burn this one, despite the mistress’s orders. Mrs. Chester might never see Joanna in it if she wore it only on Sundays, when the colored folk were left to themselves in the slave cabins—unless here slaves worked the Sabbath, too. Until she knew the way of things, she must be careful.

  She shook water from her limbs and hair and pulled the new dress over her head, feeling the familiar scratch of the rough cloth against the tree of life scars on her back. After tying on her apron, she rolled the damp, old dress around her tin cornboiler and tucked the bundle under her arm. She followed the sound of children’s voices back to the slave quarter, where she found Leah’s cabin still empty, the door closed. She pushed it open and ste
pped inside the single room with floor of swept earth. Two pallets lay beside the wall opposite the fireplace, spread neatly with string-pieced quilts—linens, linsey-woolseys, but mostly cottons. The small, worn, mismatched fragments of one quilt had been stitched together into long vertical columns that reminded Joanna of the barracoon. She preferred the quilt on the other makeshift bed, where the scraps had been shaped into squares of varying sizes and sewn together in a riot of faded color, as if those same bars had exploded outward. She thought of the fancy quilts she had pieced at Greenfields and of the intricate Feathered Star she had sewn at Elm Creek Farm while awaiting Frederick’s birth, quilts that required ample amounts of the same fabric. She wondered if she would ever have the means to create such a quilt for herself again, or if she would from that day forward sleep beneath quilts fashioned from the narrowest strips salvaged from clothes worn to rags.

  She had no quilt to call her own anymore, neither fancy nor plain, and nothing to sew one with. Until she could gather needle and thread and build a store of scraps, she would have to hope that this Leah and her children would share. She glanced around for a place to hide her dress and cup and found herself suddenly immobile, unable to decide. This cabin was her home now, but not one inch of it was hers. She was rooted to the spot by the impossibility of finding a safe hiding place within it.

  “Whatch doin’ in here?” piped up a voice behind her.

  With a start, Joanna spun around to find a young, bare-legged girl standing in the doorway. “I’m Joanna,” she said. “Mistress told me I should stay with Leah.”