Now, Venie was in the kitchen, and it was she who told Aggie that it hadn’t been Samuel’s idea to move her granddaughters to work in the big house. It had been the mistress’s notion. And Aggie was confused: Had Lady meant this as an overture to repair their friendship? Yet when she traveled to the moon house and knocked, Lady answered with a cold mien, informing her she did not wish for company.
Aggie wasn’t afraid, however, for she knew how much Samuel loved Nick, and these girls were his own blood. More than that, Samuel had only recently purchased a new Young Friend and had stopped using the children of the Quarter-folks ever since the left cabin had been built. She was certain that her granddaughters would be safe. Eliza Two became the maid for Gloria, and Rabbit was assigned to Venie.
For these little girls, the days were pleasant enough. In the kitchen, Rabbit was given as much to eat as she desired; she was a tiny girl, but her appetite was unending. And Gloria treated Eliza Two like a live doll, dressing her in cast-off dresses, and Eliza Two learned to be patient with Gloria’s repetitious stories and her childishness, even though technically, her mistress’s daughter was a young woman. Gloria’s former maid had grown too old to listen to the Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Susan’s body had strained at the bodice and her hips flaunted in the outlines of her dress. Yet her age was not the reason she had been replaced. Susan had convinced Gloria to teach her the ABCs, by encouraging her repeated recitation of the letters—which Gloria was more than happy to do, given her fondness for repetition—and then asking her to write them on dozens of sheets of paper. Susan had progressed from small words, sounded out from Peter Piper, which Gloria had kept from her early years, as she had all her dolls and anything else given to her, to longer words and finally to reading. Although Susan had no paper when she returned to her pallet in the attic, because of Gloria’s need to travel the same rutted road in her mind, Susan had memorized long passages from the plays of Shakespeare and from the Bible. At night, when it was dark, Susan would close her eyes and see the words moving. Her mistake was that she took a book that she wanted for her own. When she was discovered she was cast back into the fields.
Aggie had made sure her granddaughters knew that neither should take the same liberties as Susan. They were never to look any of their masters or mistresses in the eye. They were never to forget a “sir” or “ma’am.” They were never to take something that had not been offered first. They were never to touch anything in the rooms of the big house, unless they were ordered to do so first. Especially, they should never touch a book.
The twins worked in the House during the day. Eliza Two slept alone in the attic, in case Gloria needed her in the night, but Rabbit would return to her family’s cabin in the evenings. Their coverlets were child-size quilts that Aggie had made. Rabbit’s quilt was pieced together of red squares, with a few dark-blue scattered among the red. In the middle was a big five-pointed star made from yellow flowered gingham. Her sister’s quilt was pieced together of blue squares and a scattering of a few red. Her star was yellow as well.
The Death of the Young Friend
The year that the daughters of Tess and Nick turned ten marked a sad milestone: that was the year that the tenth victim to be imprisoned in the left cabin died. She had caught a fever, after walking in her sleep. It had not been the first time she’d been found by Pompey, standing next to the tall iron spokes of the left cabin’s gate, her eyes staring and vacant. Yet this time, the Young Friend’s fever would not chill, no matter how many bowls of hot soup or glasses of dark elderberry wine Venie fed her. It was a blow to Samuel, losing a Young Friend after only a few months of ownership. He’d planned on keeping her for three—maybe even four—more years before selling her back to Lancaster Polcott at a discounted rate. Other than Venie, the trader had always accepted Samuel’s merchandise cheerfully, as Samuel took great care of the little girls. And besides, there was a thriving market for child prostitutes down in New Orleans. But this time, Lancaster would not answer Samuel’s queries for four months, and finally Samuel would receive correspondence telling him Lancaster had been inconvenienced with a long illness and only had just recovered.
In the meantime, Samuel resorted to past behavior. He visited the yeoman farmers in the area, paying a dollar for two or three hours of time with a slave child. Yet he felt the same past dissatisfaction creep in. These little girls were not beautiful or cultivated. They had not been trained. They were rough-hewn, with lint in their hair and clothes in rags. They did not even know to curtsy in Samuel’s presence. And despite himself, Samuel found that a beautiful child in his own household had caught his eye: it was Eliza Two, the daughter of Nick.