THE PLANTATION
Annabelle yawned and pulled herself out of bed. She shivered a little as she pulled on a dressing robe and shoved her feet into a pair of homemade slippers.
“Philly, get me some coffee and see if Mister James is up?”
Her servant Philadelphia shook her head. “No’m- he ain’t. I’ll serve the coffee and rolls in the dinin’ room Do y’all want I should call Mist’ James?” “Yes.”
But James didn’t appear, and Annabelle ate her breakfast in solitary state. Not that it was much of a breakfast, with just coffee and a little bit of bread, but she had learned over the years simply to be glad that there was food on the table, even if it was not the lavish fattening spreads of the pre-war years.
Her life had been difficult and lonely for a long time, now. In fact, since the horrible tragedy of the War Between the States. But she knew that compared with many of her friends, it wasn’t so bad. The people in their county had all suffered throughout the war and even after the Surrender. Her family had lost money, and investments, but they had retained their landed property and she and her brother were still alive. He had survived the war, he was home now and running the plantation, and she was much busier than she had been before the war, running the house and managing with less help than they had had before. Her parents had both died from the hard work and poor nutrition that had been their lot in the bad years. Many of their slaves had run away when the Union army had come through and had wanted their freedom. The ones that remained were often the older ones who were not able to do much work
But it was a southern tradition, at least in theory, to look after their people when they were older and not working. Even if it wasn’t a very generous provision, they tried to do the right thing, and give the older slaves enough to live on, in their later years. So she had had to find a way of keeping them – but it was not easy. It was hard to try and feed so many people. Her mother had worked hard as the mistress of the plantation, providing meals, doing the accounts, training the house servants, supervising hog killing and curing and storing foods, and all the other household tasks, and looking after poor relatives and friends.
She tried to follow her mother’s example in all she did, knowing that Mrs Kenton had never been happy with owning slaves. She had not contradicted her husband on the subject... but she had done her best to make their lot bearable, and to treat them as servants rather than slaves, as fellow human beings. She had encouraged them to marry, although in law slave marriages had no validity. She had even taught some to read, so that they could read the bible, although that was against the law. Mrs Kenton had been very shocked when other people suggested that slaves parted from their spouses should just take another wife or husband. It was one of the things she had always hated, about the “Peculiar Institution” of the South, that slaves often were sold and parted from their families…
Annabelle had tried to go on doing the same, and she was glad, unlike some of her neighbors that the slaves were now freed. She could not be happy with the idea that they were owned, like property and she knew that they were all glad of freedom. Unlike some of her friends, they continued to believe that the Negroes were happier under slavery and that they didn’t want to be free. She was willing to negotiate with them for shorter hours of work but the trouble was that cotton picking was hard labor and it needed to be done, at certain times, in order to make the money they needed to buy other things. If it was not picked within about 2 months of planting, the quality of the cotton would be much poorer and they would make less money. If they planted late in the spring or early summer as some of the farmers did, because they didn’t have enough workers, the cotton would of course ripen later, and need to be picked when it was very hot, and often behind the time their neighbors picked, so they would be able to sell for a better price. Camden plantation had never been entirely self-sustaining and now it was harder than ever to spare the labor to produce such items as soap and to make furniture and so on. Various things that had once been made on the plantation, now had to be purchased and so they needed money, cash to do this. In the old days there have been plenty of house servants to keep the house clean and make clothes and wait on the family but now Annabelle had to do much of that herself or leave it undone.
The rich soil and the hot humid climate were very suitable for growing good cotton, but the trees that bordered the plantation were now encroaching on the cotton fields. There wasn’t time to cut them back and plant more rows. Weeds grew in the garden that had been her mother’s pride, but there was never time to pull them.
Having finished breakfast, and returned to her room to dress properly with Philly’s assistance, she went in search of her brother. He wasn’t in his room but she found him in the estate office, staring at a picture of horses. “James, don’t you know that I’m going to Boston next week. We have to talk about the house.”
“Damn it Annabelle, do you have to sneak up on me like that?” “You weren’t doing anything. I could see.”
Why was it that she ended up in these childish quarrels with her brother?
“What is there to talk about? The servants will do what’s necessary. The picking is almost finished. Though I don’t know what you want to go to Boston for anyway. “ “I haven’t been away from home for years, not since I visited Aunt Sophie in Atlanta last… You know that. James, please, you must give up the ideas about a stud farm. We’ll never have the money. We are just getting along well enough now, if we work and plan. I can’t do everything. I do as much housework as I can. I make our clothes. I paint things and sell them. That brings in a little. But we don’t have capital.” “I know that -Dammit. Of course I know that. I know the stud farm is only a dream.” James shook his dark head, and looked down at the drawings he had scrawled on a piece of paper. He loved horses and wanted to breed them. He was easily tired with his war injuries, and had a lame leg that still pained him. Annabelle knew that he was miserable, although he tried to be cheerful and to help as much as he could with the work. He had fought for the South; he believed that slavery wasn’t wrong and that the Confederate states needed slaves to pick their cotton and tobacco, that it was an important part of their economy. He had fought because he felt the government had no right to interfere with them and try and make them give up what they needed to make a living. He wanted to have a stud farm and knew that it was impossible, and that he wasn’t much good at running a plantation. So he was sometimes bad tempered. Annabelle loved him and tried to tolerate his moods and the fact that he had different views to her.
Still she knew he wasn’t very practical. She hoped that the Plantation would get along for some weeks without her while she visited her mother’s cousins in Boston. They were abolitionists, and did a lot of good works, in that puritanical northern city. Annabelle had never been there, but she was eager to go. Her childhood and girlhood had been scarred by the war. She had never had the sort of normal social life of a county belle...
“I know, my poor girl. Of course, I know that you’ve had a hard time of it, here on your own much of the time. It’s not a natural life for a girl. You want to get married and have your own home... I do understand- Belle.”
Annabelle smiled wryly.
“Thank you James. I suppose I should demur and say I have no desire to be married yet, like a proper southern belle. But I’ll be honest with you and say that yes of course I hope for it…”
He nodded and shook his head. They were fond of each other, but not close. So she didn’t tell him all of her hopes. She wanted to go to Boston because she believed that the visit might yield some practical help for the two of them.
On her deathbed, Mrs Kenton had told her young daughter of some expectations she had had, of inheriting some valuables from a cousin up north. With the war, and the fact that her own family were fighting for the North, she was not in touch with them, but her cousin had always promised that she should have some of her best jewellery.
Some months before, she had had a letter from her Cousin Mary, who had homes in New York and Boston. The letter said that Cousin Olivia had passed away just a month earlier. And she had asked Annabelle again to visit Boston.
Annabelle had wondered desperately if there was still a chance that the jewels had been left to Mrs Kenton or to the family and that they hadn’t heard about it due to difficulties in communication, during and after the War. She knew that her poor Papa would turn in his grave to think that his daughter would be so desperate as to look for money or help from a distant relative, whose family had fought against the south. But he had been, in her opinion, too proud. Pride wasn’t a good thing if it left you in danger of starving. She felt that if there was a chance that Cousin Olivia had intended the jewels to go to her Mamma, she wanted to investigate it. It was possible that her Mother’s cousin had changed her mind, about leaving her any legacy, due to the War and the fact that her mother had still stayed down South with her husband... It was also possible that they weren’t all that valuable, perhaps just some old fashioned ornaments with semi-precious stones, which would not bring in much cash, but even a little “real money” would be a boon to the Kenton family, now.
Her oldest servant, her mammy who had helped to raise her, had worried that she was being foolish in going north, but then Mammy Betsy had never been out of the state of Georgia…
“But if Miss Lydia’s cousin wanted her to have these jewels and such, Miz Annabelle, why ain’t you heard about it, since she died?”
“We don’t know, do we? She may have changed her mind... and left them to someone else. Or perhaps she didn’t. I think it is possible that she did leave them to Mama but there have been delays in writing to us. The mails have never been very good here since the war.
“I don’t think they’s as bad as all that, Miz Annabelle”, Mammy said firmly.
“Maybe not, but lawyers are always slow, Mammy. They never do anything very quickly and it may be that we haven’t heard anything yet because of something to do with the Will. Perhaps – perhaps there were conditions in it? And Cousin Mary has asked me to visit Boston many times since Mama and Papa died. She is a good kind woman and has offered me hospitality. I have hardly had any social life, since – well since the War. Is it very wrong of me to wish to go there and experience some?”
“Well it ain’t. It’s high time you was getting yourself married -Miss Annabelle, but there ain’t no young men around here, these days. “ “Mammy dear, I am not trying to get married.” Annabelle said, but she was blushing. It wasn’t easy, as Mammy said, to meet young men in the south now. So very many men had not returned from the war, or were wounded and finding life very difficult. Mostly they were so poor they could not afford to marry. She did think of marriage, though she was embarrassed to admit it to her family or even such a close and intimate friend and servant as Mammy.
Chapter II
It was several days before she was able to make her escape from Camden. Annabelle was finally able to relax, as she settled into a compartment on a train going north. It was a long uncomfortable journey and she was glad that she had a young girl accompanying her. Dinah Marsham, the daughter of a small cotton farmer… was a sort of dependent of the Kenton family. She and her mother had picked cotton, like slaves, because they had no Negroes to work their cotton farm…they were “poor whites”, too poor to own slaves – but still trying to remain independent and to keep their pride. However, they did accept some help from their richer neighbors. The Kentons had tried to help the Marshams out with occasional gifts and giving them chances to work in the Camden home. Dinah was a good seamstress and had learned a lot about housekeeping in her teens. Now her mother and father were poorer than ever, but they were determined to remain independent. Their son Rex had returned from the war, and somehow he and they were managing to pick enough cotton and grow enough food to keep themselves alive. So Dinah’s mother had insisted that her girl should have a chance of a better life. She had asked Annabelle to try and get her a job up North, perhaps as a sewing maid or housemaid in a big house, where she might have opportunities to rise in service…or meet a decent young man with a trade who would marry her.
Annabelle took her duties as a “southern lady” seriously and felt it was incumbent on her to try and find the girl a job, and put her in with a good family who would take care of her, and where she would have a better chance of marriage than in her own county where her status as a “poor white” and the poverty of the people would make it very hard for her to find a husband. So she agreed to take Dinah as a sort of maid-companion and chaperone, to keep her company on the journey north. She took a cab from the railway to Louisburg square in Boston where her cousins lived. Dinah sat in the carriage with her. Annabel had been pleases to have her as a companion but she was not sure what do with the girl.
Dinah was eager to see the city but she was also afraid of it. But Annabelle felt uncertain about bringing the girl to the house as her maid. She was good at housework, but she didn’t know much about being a lady’s maid. She would probably be laughed at by the other servants because of her country ways, her clothes, and her southern accent and her lack of abilities at one of the more prestigious servant’s jobs, personal maid. Dinah could not do hair, and while she could sew very well, she did not have much knowledge of fashion or how to maid a young lady. There had been so little normal social life in the County, over the past years. In any case, it was usually Negroes who acted as maids to the young ladies of the plantation class.
Also, Dinah had her pride. The girl was willing to be a servant, if that was the best job available, but she was still the daughter of an independent farmer, and Annabelle had not paid her for her work in companioning her during the journey up North. She knew that would have been considered a little offensive. She had bought the girl’s ticket and some new clothes. “It’s such a big place ain’t it Miss Annabelle? “ “Of course it is Dinah. But don’t be afraid – I was quite terrified when I first went to school –in a town... and then when I visited my aunt and uncle in Atlanta. But within a short time, I was used to it all.”
“I hope that I’ll be able to fit in Miss Annabelle. I never met northerners before.” “It will be all right -my dear”. Annabelle patted her hand.
Dinah had never been out of Georgia. Neither had Annabelle but she had visited the cities of her native state and was less afraid of the Boston traffic and the people. Her arrival at Louisburg square was heralded by warm smiles and hugs from her cousins and while she had heard that Yankees were cold and much less hospitable than southerners, she felt at home and welcome.
“My dearest girl, it is good to see you and you look so like your Mama. I think you’re a little taller than she was.” “I’m quite tall I think, Cousin Mary. But I don’t pretend to be as pretty as mama.”
“You must say hello to Cousin Scott later today…He’s out at the bank…and here is your Cousin Helen.”
Cousin Mary was a charming and distinguished looking lady of about 50, who had a son and daughter of her own. Her dark hair was touched with grey but she was still handsome and elegantly dressed.
The son, Scott, was in his mid-20s and worked in the family banking business. Helen was about 25 and dedicated to social work. Cousin Mary ran the family house, and participated in the sort of social events that well-bred Bostonians enjoyed, such as supporting the promotion of classical music, and the theater. She also did some charity work but was less devoted to it than her daughter.
Annabelle knew that they had all been dedicated to the abolitionist cause and as such, considering her history, she was glad that they were willing to make her welcome. She never told anyone at home how depressing she found things there at times, and how much she longed to get away and lead an easier life, at least for a time. She felt guilty about leaving the care of the house and the plantation to James and Mammy, but she told herself that she could help them by going to Boston.
True, Mammy was capable of managing the housework and so on, but she didn’t know much about cotton picking and selling. She had always been a house Negro and had been above the harder work of picking and farm work. Annabelle worried more about James being in charge of the plantation side of life. He was not a lazy fellow but he was not that interested in it - never had been. Besides, when he was very depressed or feeling the effects of his war wounds, he did not pay as much attention to the work as he should.
Annabelle had never spoken of this, even to Mammy, but she had hopes, perhaps wild ones, that she might find a husband up North. Of course it would not be what she wanted, but if she met a rich man who was broad minded, he might help out the Kenton family, by paying for a decent manager for the plantation, and helping them financially in other ways.
After all there were not many ways that a woman could make a fortune... except by marrying into it.
If she found such a man, she would do her best to be a good wife. It would be worth living up North, to feel that she had saved her plantation. Unless she found a husband who was willing to buy a place in Georgia, and if that were the case, he might be stigmatised as a carpet bagger. She knew that it was immodest and unusual to allow herself to think that way, but the truth was that she could not afford to be as delicate minded as a young lady from the South was supposed to be. She had to try and save Camden from failure, and she wanted a home of her own and enough money to live decently.
She was glad that the Denison family seemed pleased to meet her and willing to accept her as one of their own. Some of the Yankee officers who were in garrison duty in Georgia, had shown great dislike and disapproval of the southern way of life and clearly hated those who were former slave owners. She had experienced a little of this, when she visited Atlanta and her relatives there. They shunned the Yankee soldiers, in return. There were frequent disputes between the conquered and the conquerors. The locals hated the Yankees and the garrison soldiers and their families were cool to them.
Annabelle was lonely at home. She loved her native state and her home but there was little social life, nowadays, and great deal of hard work. She had little time to dress well, or to make herself look pretty. She was at the age, when most Southern girls were married, but there were so few men for her to meet or marry. What was the use of having magnolia white skin, and beautiful black hair and wonderful dark eyes, when she had no one to show them off too? No fine dresses to display her slim arms and shoulders and her white bosom. Cousin Mary had asked her to stay in Boston for as long as she liked, and that should give her a chance to do the social round and meet men. Mary was a shrewd woman and Annabelle felt sure that she was trying to help her young relative, in the best way that she could.
On settling into her new room, she asked her cousin what to do about Dinah. She had asked that the girl be given a room for a few nights, and since Dinah was tired out, she had gone immediately to her bed.
“She’s not a servant, Cousin Mary. You must understand that in the South, we don’t commonly have white people as servants. So I don’t want her to feel that here, her only option is to take on a servile role.” “I do understand, my dear. I know the southern ways. I was a correspondent of your dear Mama for many years. I think that we could house this girl for a few nights, but it might be best to put her up in a boarding house, then Helen and I will try and find her a post. Not as a maid. Dear Helen does such a lot of social work, I am afraid that I will never get her married off!”
Annabelle smiled dutifully. Even after one day in the house, she could see that there was tension between Helen and her mamma. The younger woman was not unattractive but she did not make the best of her looks. She had fine brown hair and violet eyes, and could afford to dress well. However, she was very thin, and did not have the rounded figure which was admired and she tended to dress rather conservatively. She had welcomed Annabelle and had a cup of tea with her and Cousin Mary and then hurried off to a committee meeting.
Both of the southern visitors were exhausted by their journey and both were ready for a long sleep that night. The Denisons were having a dinner party but Annabelle pleaded fatigue and a headache – and she also did not have all that many suitable gowns.
“Tomorrow my love, I’ll take you to my dressmaker, and we’ll talk about things.”
Cousin Mary patted her hand again as she showed her to her bedroom.
Annabelle felt a little uncomfortable. She guessed that her cousin wanted to talk about the issue of the bequest from Miss Olivia Fletcher. For herself, she was used to the southern way of taking one’s time in getting around to delicate conversations. She wanted to have time to get used to Boston and the new society there, before she heard the news about Cousin Olivia’s will. If it was bad news, she would have to curtail her visit to the city. She didn’t have enough money to live for all that long without imposing on the Denisons. In the old days, of course they would have had her to stay for months and she and her family would equally be willing to invite them to stay at Camden for as long as they liked.
