As soon as Silas stepped into the dimly lit cabin, he felt a wave of shame crash over him. His own “modest house,” as Colonel Warren had described it, was not what he had been accustomed to in high-society Baltimore, but neither was it a hovel. Booker’s cabin was one sparse room with a dirt floor, mud chinking, and a fireplace made of river rock. In one corner lay a sleeping mat covered by a thin, moth-eaten gray blanket, and the only real furnishings were a rough-hewn table topped by an oil lamp, and two backless stools. On the far wall, under a single window, a sagging wooden counter held a rusted tin sink with a small pump.
Silas took in the details with a single glance, and his heart plummeted like a lead weight at the sight of such crushing poverty. His mind flashed to the opulence of Rivermont, the way Warren and his family lived, with their mahogany furniture and imported hand-loomed rugs. How could a man with any soul at all allow people to live this way? And then he remembered: Warren, like most other plantation owners, did not consider “his nigras” to be human. They were livestock, needing only the most basic accommodations. Warren cared for his slaves the way he cared for his horses and cattle. A bed of hay, a roof over their heads, some feed in the manger, and they would survive another day to work his cotton and bring in his profits.
Silas shuddered at the thought. Still, the cabin was clean, and even amid the destitution, he could sense a certain level of pride in the place. The floor had been swept smooth, the tabletop scrubbed, and flour-sack curtains at the window fluttered in the evening breeze.
At the table, a young woman sat snapping peas and tossing them into a black kettle. When she saw the men, she jumped to her feet, and the pea strings that filled her apron scattered to the floor.
“Oh! I’s—I’s sorry, Massah!” She tried to kneel and clean up the mess, but her swelling midsection made the task nearly impossible.
Booker took two steps and was at her side. “It’s all right, Celie,” he crooned in a low voice. “I’ll get it.” In one swift motion he scooped up the pea strings in his massive hands and dumped them into the sink. “This is Massah Robert’s new doctor,” he explained as he turned back to her. “Massah Doctor, this is my woman, Celie.”
Silas took a step forward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Celie.”
The girl shrank away from him and cowered at Booker’s side. Except for the unborn baby that jutted out like a watermelon under her ragged shift, she was small and thin, with skin the color of molasses and huge dark eyes.
“Don’t be afraid, honey,” Booker whispered. “Massah Doctor’s a good man. He’s come to help with the baby.”
She laid a protective hand over her abdomen and peered at Silas. “My baby?”
Her voice, when she spoke, was high and soft, a tinkling sound that reminded Silas of the wind harp his mother had hung outside his bedroom window when he was a child. The memory was a pleasant one, and he smiled. “That’s right, Celie. Booker’s told me about the babies you’ve lost. If you’ll allow me, I’ll see what I can do to make sure this one is born healthy.”
She lowered her eyes. “We can’t pay no doctor, Massah,” she muttered.
“I know. Booker and I have that all worked out, haven’t we, Booker?”
Booker nodded. “Yessuh, we done got that agreed on.” He pushed Celie gently in Silas’s direction. “Go on, girl. He won’t bite.”
Celie let out a shy laugh and moved closer to Silas. “What I needs to do?” she asked.
“Just let me examine you. It won’t hurt. And Booker will be right here the whole time.”
Celie nodded, and at his instruction lay down on the sleeping mat. Silas knelt beside her, and she flinched when his stethoscope touched her belly.
“Sorry.” Silas removed the stethoscope and warmed it between his hands, then listened for the baby’s heartbeat. “Sounds strong. That’s a good sign,” he said when he was finished. “But you’re too thin, Celie. You’re eating for two, remember?”
“Yessuh. I try to do better.”
Booker helped her up from the mat, ushered her over to the table, and stood behind her with his hands on her narrow shoulders.
Silas sat in the other chair. “What do you do, Celie?”
“Sir?”
“What’s your job? What kind of work do you do for Colonel Warren?”
“I works in the kitchen,” she answered proudly. “I’s a good cook—Massah Warren, he says so.” A smile lit her face for the first time—a bright flash of white against that smooth brown skin.
Silas grinned in return. “I’ll bet you are. But you really should be doing something less taxing, some job where you don’t have to be on your feet all day. Doesn’t all that lifting and standing hurt your back?”
Celie slanted a glance up toward Booker, and he nodded as if to say, Tell him the truth. She turned back to Silas. “Well, yessuh, I does get terrible pains in my back and legs. I can’t hardly sleep some nights.” She paused. “But I don’t serve at the Massah’s table. Least that way I get off my feet before dark.”
“I’ll talk to Colonel Warren about it, see if I can’t get you some lighter duty until the baby is born.”
A look passed between Booker and Celie, something Silas didn’t understand. But a twist in his gut told him that he might be treading on dangerous ground.
“Naw, Massah Doctor, you don’t have to do that,” Booker protested. “We be fine.”
“Booker,” Silas countered, “we made an agreement, didn’t we? You do your job, and I’ll do mine. And my job, as a doctor, is to see to it that my prettiest patient is well taken care of.”
Celie grinned shyly and ducked her head at the compliment, and Silas felt a rush of pleasure in the awareness that he had won her over.
“Massah Doctor,” she said at last, “if you’s a mind to, we’d be pleased for you to share our supper. I got a mess of real nice pole beans, and cornbread, too.”
Silas looked into Booker’s eyes and saw an affirmation of his own instinct: it had taken a monumental effort and an enormous risk for this young Negro girl to invite a white doctor to supper. He wondered briefly if they had enough for three, then pushed from his mind the temptation to refuse. “Thank you,” he said at last. “I’d be pleased to join you.”
After supper, Booker drove Silas up to the big house. They rode in silence for a while as Silas digested his dinner of beans and potatoes and cornbread and thought about his new patient. It was, he had to admit, the best supper he had enjoyed in ages. Celie’s cornbread could lift a man right to heaven. And despite his initial misgivings, there had been plenty to go around.
But he couldn’t still his doubts about the baby. He hadn’t said anything, because he couldn’t be certain, but if she had already lost two babies, there was a good chance that this one might die, too. He wondered if the one strangled by its own umbilical cord had been a breech birth. And what if this one was breech, too? It was possible the infant would turn when Celie went into labor, but if it didn’t, she could be in for a difficult birth. Well, he would just have to ford that stream when he came to it. He couldn’t do anything about it—except pray.
Like a sudden splash of icy water, the thought startled Silas. The last time he remembered praying was as a child, when his little friend Gerald was sick and needed surgery. In general, Silas wasn’t a praying man, and rarely thought about God. But here at Rivermont Plantation, the concept of a Divine Being seemed to be cropping up on a regular basis. Maybe it was Booker’s influence—the man seemed to have a simple and genuine faith in the Almighty, and it was a good bet he would be praying for the safe delivery of his child.
“Booker,” he ventured, his voice sounding loud against the silence of the early evening, “how long have you and Celie been married?”
Booker gave him a curious look, then laughed out loud. “Massah Doctor, where you get such ideas? Celie and me, we jumped the broom ’bout six years ago, I reckon. In our minds that’s as good in the Lord’s eyes as gettin’ married all legal-like, like the white folks do. But no Massah’s gonna allow his slaves to marry.”
Silas gaped at him. “Why on earth not?”
Again Booker laughed. “That’d be like marrying the Massah’s prize stallion, Lightning, to his best mare. Or havin’ a legal ceremony for the bulls and the cows.” He paused, and Silas saw an expression of barely controlled fury pass over his face. “Nigras ain’t human, Massah Doctor, leastways not in the white folks’ eyes. We’s livestock, just like that stallion and that bull.”
Silas shook his head. This was not news to him, of course—he had thought about it just this evening, when he saw for himself the conditions in which the slaves lived. But he had never considered the ramifications where marriage and families were concerned.
“So at any time, Colonel Warren could sell either you or Celie—or your children—to someone else?”
“Yessuh, he could. I don’t think he will—Massah Robert is a pretty good owner in that way. He don’t often break up families. But plenty of other owners do it all the time—specially if they want to use a big strong buck to breed new workers.”
Silas felt bile rise in his throat, and he swallowed it down. Suddenly he wondered if he had made a huge mistake, coming here to Rivermont Plantation. He’d had no other offers, of course, but in time, and with his family’s connections, he probably could have found a position in Baltimore. Maybe even a position that would have brought him status and some level of financial security. But here he was, in Mississippi, and at the moment he couldn’t think of a single good reason why.
Booker reined the horses to a stop in front of the huge double doors of Rivermont. “You want me to wait, Massah Doctor?” He squinted at the sky. “I prob’ly got near an hour of light left. I could start steppin’ off that addition for you.”
“All right. Pick me up in an hour—or whenever you’re done. If I get finished sooner, I’ll start walking back. It’s a nice evening for a stroll.”
“Yessuh.” Booker waited until Silas got down, then turned the horses around and started back toward the oak grove.
Silas watched the big Negro drive away, and as the buckboard receded into the distance, he felt an unaccountable stab of loss. He turned toward the big house and stepped up onto the wide front porch, and suddenly the difference struck him like a blow. In Booker’s cabin, sharing a simple meal, Silas had felt comfortable, at home, almost as if he were . . . with friends. Here, on Robert Warren’s massive veranda, he felt like an interloper. An employee whose presence might or might not be welcomed.
But welcome or not, he had a job to do. He lifted the enormous brass door knocker and let it fall.
At the other end of the massive expanse of dining room table, Robert Warren and his wife, Olivia, looked like miniatures, little dressed-up Southern dolls at a tea party. Silas craned his neck to see around the floral arrangement. At this distance, he’d have to shout to be heard.
Much to his surprise, he had been invited to stay for dinner, but after Celie’s succulent beans and melt-in-your-mouth cornbread, the lavish fare offered at Colonel Warren’s table, served by a slave in a white jacket and gloves, seemed bland and unappetizing. Out of politeness, he had managed a few bites of the boeuf bourguignon and tried a little of the potatoes au gratin, but he simply could not manage a single spoonful of the rich, cognac-laced flaming dessert. Did they eat this way every night? If so, that could explain Olivia Warren’s ample figure, which even now seemed to be straining against her well-corseted bodice.
“Colonel Warren,” he called at last, “I need to talk to you about something. May I come down to that end of the table?”
Warren peered around the centerpiece. “What’s that, Noble? Something wrong at the stable?”
This is ridiculous, Silas thought. He got up and stalked to the other end of the dining room and positioned himself in the chair at Robert Warren’s left. Olivia Warren fanned herself as if she might faint at this breach of etiquette, but Warren patted her hand. “It’s all right, dear.” He turned back to Silas. “You needed to speak to me, Doctor?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind discussing business at dinner. Otherwise I can come back tomorrow.”
Warren waved a manicured hand. “Go on.”
“It’s about one of the slaves,” Silas began.
“Booker giving you trouble? If he’s getting uppity, just tell me. I’ll have him lashed, and he’ll be back in the fields by morning. He’s been with me a long time, but he’s not above a little discipline if—”
“No sir, Colonel. Booker’s just fine. I need to talk to you about his—” The word wife was on the tip of Silas’s tongue, and he bit it back. “His woman. Celie.”
“Ah, you’ve met Celie. Fine girl. Great cook.” Warren patted his nonexistent belly, and an ancient memory flashed through Silas’s mind—a picture book he had owned as a boy, showing Jack Sprat, who could eat no fat, and his wife, who could eat no lean.
He suppressed a smile and avoided looking in Olivia Warren’s direction. “Yes, Celie is a delightful young woman. I assume you know she’s pregnant?”
Olivia Warren gasped, fanned frantically, and reached for her water glass.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Warren. I mean, she is with child.”
“Of course,” Warren answered. “It’s rather obvious.” He shook his head. “She’s such a pretty young thing—I considered moving her into the house to serve at my table. But given her condition, I didn’t think it would be appropriate.” He glanced at his wife and then winked in Silas’s direction. “Can’t risk offending the ladies, you know.”
Silas took a deep breath and pressed on. “I examined her this afternoon, and although her child seems healthy, she has already lost two babies. I wonder—” He paused, trying to choose his words carefully. “I wonder if it might be possible to give her some lighter work until after the baby is born—something, perhaps, where she doesn’t have to be on her feet all day.”
When Silas glanced up, he found Warren staring at him as if he had just grown two heads. “Excuse me?”
Silas frowned. Had he not been clear in his request? “It’s hard on her, having to work in the kitchen,” he repeated. “I’ll be there for the delivery, but I’d hate for her to lose another child.”
Mrs. Warren fanned harder, and all the blood drained from her face. She looked as if she might be about to faint.
“Let me get this straight. You examined her?”
“Well, yes—”
“And you intend to deliver her baby?”
“I, uh—”
“And you want me to let her sit around with her feet on a pillow, eating chocolates and sipping mint juleps until she finally gets around to dropping the little pickaninny?”
Silas fought to control his temper. “I just thought—”
“No, you didn’t.” Warren cut him off with a snarl. “You didn’t think at all. You come down here from your high-society Baltimore culture and want to start telling me how to deal with my own property? Who hired you in the first place?”
“You did, sir.”
“And what was our agreement?”
“That I would, ah, provide medical services to your family and the other plantation families in the county, and—”
“Exactly! Plantation families. White families. Until the nigras are paying your bills, Doctor Noble, you’re working for me, not for them. This is business, not charity. You understand? Business!”
Something in the way Warren emphasized the word business triggered an idea in Silas’s imagination, and he latched onto it. “Yes sir, I do understand business. In fact, that’s exactly what this is—a business arrangement.”
The colonel sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to explain that, son?”
Silas nodded and tempered his voice. “Well, sir, you see, I have a fiancée back in Baltimore—a lovely young woman named Regina. She comes from a very fine family, and—”
Suddenly Olivia came to life, her hands fluttering and her eyes shining. “Oh, Robert, won’t that be wonderful! To have another lady on the place. A real lady! Right here at Rivermont! Why, we can plan teas and parties and—”
Warren smiled indulgently and pushed a wayward curl away from his wife’s temple. “Yes, dear. Now let’s just let the young man finish, shall we?”
“So,” Silas continued, “when I saw the house I had purchased, I knew—” He stopped mid-sentence. He needed to phrase this just right, so as not to offend the Warrens while still getting his point across. “I thought I might like to add on to the house. The oak grove is such a magnificent location, and I could just envision a beautiful two-story on the top of that hill—a place Regina and I could call home. A house that would, well, be in keeping with her station in society.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Warren commented.
“It’s perfect!” said Olivia. “Absolutely perfect! And having a lady here would be just—”
“Yes, dear.” Warren raised an eyebrow and motioned for Silas to continue.
“Anyway, Booker indicated to me that he and some of the other slaves would be glad to help me out . . . in exchange for occasional medical services.”
“Ah. A business arrangement.”
“Exactly. And I want you to understand, Colonel Warren, that this would be entirely separate from the slaves’ other duties. They’ll work after hours. And I—I’ll cover all the costs of materials myself.” The truth was, Silas didn’t know how he would manage to pay for the materials on his salary. But somehow he was determined to make it work.
Warren looked over at his wife, who was nudging him in the ribs and rolling her eyes at him. “Nonsense,” he said amicably. “Olivia is so excited about the prospect of having another lady around the place. Just get Booker to tell you what he’ll need, and order everything from Avery’s Lumber Mill.” He held out his hand and shook Silas’s vigorously. “Didn’t think a doctor would have that kind of business sense. I’m proud of you, son.” He clapped Silas on the back. “Just remember that the plantation owners and their needs come first.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t forget who hired me.”
“That’s good to hear. And one other thing, Noble.”
“Yes sir?”
“I know you’re not from these parts, so I can give you a little leeway on account of not being familiar with our ways. But be wary of getting too involved with the nigras. They’re like children or hunting dogs. They don’t know what’s best for them. They’ll want a lot of attention, but what they need is a strong hand of discipline to keep ’em in their place. Let down that discipline, and you’ve got chaos. You gotta let ’em know who’s boss, all right?”
Silas almost choked on his response. “All right, Colonel Warren.”
“That’s a good lad. Now, be off with you. I know you want to get settled in.”
Booker drove back toward Silas’s cabin without a word.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Silas asked after a while. He didn’t really want to tell Booker, but he figured he owed him that much.
“Guess I pretty much know, since you ain’t said a word. Massah don’t have no intention of giving Celie lighter work, does he?”
Silas shook his head sadly. “I don’t think so. But I did try.”
“And I appreciate it, Massah Doctor. I also appreciate you looking after Celie.”
“I’m glad to do it, Booker. I think everything will be all right. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”
“And pray,” Booker added quietly.
“Yes, that, too.”
Booker pulled to a stop in front of Silas’s cabin. “You need anything else, Massah Doctor?”
“Not tonight. Midmorning I thought we might go into town and see about getting some lumber and supplies for the house.”
“See you in the mornin’ then. Night, Massah Doctor.”
“Good night, Booker.”
For an hour after Booker left, Silas labored over a letter to Regina. He tried to tell her about the house Booker was going to build, but all he could think about was Celie, due this summer and undoubtedly worried. One thing he knew for certain—no matter what Robert Warren believed, Celie was not just another mare about to foal, nor was Booker just a breeding sire. They were human beings, with human emotions and concerns, human passions and desires.
Silas laid aside the letter to Regina and put his head down on his arms. Something inside nagged at him, telling him that he was here for a reason. It felt true, but he wasn’t sure he could make his mind believe it.
After all, he was only one man. What difference could one man possibly make?