She smiled when I emerged from the changing room. She had no cap, and I’d unpinned my hair, which was flaming out in the wind. She said I looked like a mermaid.
I took hold of one of the ropes and followed it into the waves, hand over fist, until I came to where the rest of the ladies stood. The water slapped our thighs, tossing us to and fro, a tiny game of Snap the Whip, and then without knowing what I was about to do, I turned loose and strode away from them. I pushed into the seething water, and when I was some distance, I dropped onto my back and floated. It was a shock to feel the water hold me. To lie in the sea while upstairs my father lay dying.
9 August 1819
Dear Mother,
The Bible assures us that God shall wipe away every tear from our eyes . . .
I lowered my pen. I didn’t know how to tell her. It seemed strange I should be the one informing her of such news. I’d imagined her gathering us, her children, into the drawing room and saying, Your father has gone to God. How was it possible this had fallen to me?
Instead of the distinguished funeral he would’ve had in Charleston—the pomp of St. Philip’s, a stately procession along Meeting Street, his coffin mounted on a flowered carriage and half the city walking behind it—instead of all that, he would be buried anonymously in the overgrown cemetery behind the tiny Methodist church we’d passed on the way here. A farm wagon would pull his casket. I would walk behind it, alone.
But I would tell Mother none of this. Nor would I tell her that at the hour of his death, I was floating free in the ocean, in a solitude I would remember all of my life, the gulls cawing over my head and the white flag flying at the top of the pole.
Handful
Missus’ eyes were swollen shut from crying. It was the middle of the morning and she was in bed with her sleeping clothes on. The mosquito net was drawn round her and the curtains were pulled on the windows, but I could see her lids puffed out. Minta, the new girl, was over in the corner trying to disappear.
When missus tried to speak to me, she broke down crying. I felt for her. I knew what it was to lose a person. What I didn’t know was why she’d called me to her room. All I could do was stand there and wait for her to get hold of herself.
After a few minutes, she yelled at Minta, “Are you or are you not going to bring me a hankie?”
Minta went scrambling through a drawer in the linen press, and missus turned to me. “You should start on my dress immediately. I want black velvet. With beading of some kind. Mrs. Russell had jet beads on hers. I will need a spoon bonnet with a long crepe veil down the back. And black gloves, but make them fingerless mitts because of the heat. Are you remembering this?”
“Yessum.”
“It must be ready in two days. And it must be flawless, Hetty, do you understand? Flawless. Work through the night if you have to.”
Seemed like she’d gotten hold of herself real tight.
She wrote me a pass for the market and sent me in the carriage with Tomfry, who was going out to purchase the mourning cards. Said it would take too much time for me to hobble all that way and back. That’s how I got the first carriage ride of my life. Along the way, Tomfry said, “Wipe the grin off your face, we supposed to be grieving.”
In the market, I was at the high-class stalls looking for the beads missus had to have when I came upon Mr. Vesey’s wife, Susan. I hadn’t seen her since the first of the summer when I’d gone to 20 Bull.
“Look what the field cat dragged up,” she said. I guess she still had her dander up.
I wondered what all she knew. Maybe she’d listened in that day I’d talked to Mr. Vesey. She could know about mauma, the baby, everything.