I pulled myself from bed and stumbled to the washstand where I threw some cold water from the pitcher on my aching head. I had suffered since returning from my travels. There was so much that distressed me about York and the life I endured in my parents’ household. But, as Papa reminded me, who was I to complain after two years away from home visiting my dear brother in Niagara and Mama’s brother in New York City? “Be grateful, ungrateful wretch,” were his words to me when I made my unhappiness known to him one evening at supper.
And truly, I was grateful for those months away from the deadly social strictures imposed on me in York. From the peaceful atmosphere of Niagara I had moved to the teeming city of New York where I had soon grown accustomed to the clatter of carriages, the shouting of porters at the wharves, and the bustle of crowds. Never before had I seen so many Negroes roaming the streets, nor had the opportunity to enjoy so many plays and concerts. My Uncle George and Aunt Elizabeth were kind people who made no demands on me and never gave unwanted advice. My return to York had indeed been a cruel change.
I looked back at the bed. Though the sun shone through the window, I felt no desire to greet the day. My sisters Eliza and Mary with whom I shared the room had already dressed and departed. Thank God I did not have to talk to them.
I climbed up again into bed, pulled the blankets up to my chin, and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. I kept staring at the wall opposite the bed. On it was the portrait that had lately obsessed my every waking moment. Done by some itinerant artist, it showed Mama—a much younger Mama—holding a babe in her arms. The child’s eyes were wide open. They appeared to stare at the painter. In one of her small hands was a red rose. Mama was dressed in a severe black gown with a white lace collar. Her face was grim.
I had always assumed that the babe was my brother Grant, born in 1779, and now a doctor in the town. But there was something so unhappy about Mama’s features and something so strange about the child’s vacant stare that the picture now made me uneasy. Though it had been on my bedchamber wall for years, I had only recently asked Mama to take it down and put in its place a pleasant oil painting of a bowl of flowers that I had purchased during my stay with my uncle in New York.
“Nonsense,” she said to me. “The picture stays.”
“But could it not go into your room, Mama?”
“It’s here for a reason.”
“Why not offer it to Grant? Perhaps he would like a portrait of himself on his walls.”
Mama looked at me. Her eyes filled with tears. “That baby is not Grant.”
“Not Grant? Who, then?”
“Anne. The first Anne.” After that piece of news, she came towards me and pulled me close to her in an awkward embrace. “I have never told you or your sisters about her. She was born in 1782 and died of fever eight months later.” Now Mama was sobbing loudly. I freed myself from her embrace and settled her into a nearby chair. Though I felt a deep sorrow for her, I felt also anger and disgust.
“Why, oh why, Mama, have you named me after a dead sister? And why, oh why, did you have this portrait made of the babe? It’s sick.” Now I was crying myself. I had been aware, of course, that some people had portraits made of dead relatives, but I had not thought of sharing a room with this ghastly, ghostly spectre whose name I had inherited.
And now, on this morning, as I threshed about in bed, I could suddenly no longer tolerate that dreadful lost child and its grief-stricken mother. I stepped down from the bed and ran across the room to the chiffonier. I whacked open the top drawer, tossing the contents about until I found the pair of scissors I kept there. Two or three more steps then, across to that sick sick sick portrait. Then slash, another slash, and another and another—and soon the dead babe was torn apart. Then I attacked Mama. Slash, slash, slash.
I must have screamed. The bedroom door opened. Mama came in, took one look at me as I tore the strips from the frame. “You are crazy,” she said, and closed the door with a bang.
* * *
Later, much later, as I lay on the quilt I had pulled onto the floor, I heard the bedroom door open again. It was Mary. She stood over me as I lay on the floor. “Please, please get up,” she said. “Mama has gone to get Grant. They will be back here in a short while, and you must be up and about, or I fear what will happen.”
“What on earth do you mean?” I asked.
“Mama kept muttering ‘she’s crazy, she’s crazy,’ and then she went out the front door in a rush, telling me she was going to find Grant.”
I found this news alarming. Grant is a doctor, or so he calls himself, but I see him merely as a quack. “You believe that Mama and Grant are plotting something?”
“I know nothing definitely. But I know this: You must get up and get yourself dressed. You must look your best, Anne. If your hair is combed, your face washed, and if you are settled in the withdrawing room with some embroidery, it will allay Mama’s worries—”
“And any of Grant’s ‘cures.’”
I added, by now thoroughly alarmed, “Get me something decent to wear from the wardrobe, please, dear Mary.” I pulled myself up, arranged the quilt neatly on the bed, and ran to the washbasin where I began some hasty ablutions. Looking into the mirror above the basin, I saw my flushed face and untidy hair, but at the same time, I saw my sister behind me and had a moment to study her countenance as well. Her usually pink cheeks were stained with tears. Though I said nothing then, I saw that she too was suffering.
She was now twenty years old. When I came back home from my visit to my uncle in New York, I had almost expected her to be engaged to John Macdonell whom she had talked about constantly when she was younger, but I found that now she never spoke of him.
She helped me into a clean and well-pressed muslin frock and handed me a tucker to fill in the décolletage. Then she pushed me into a chair and pulled my straggling hair upwards into a bunch of curls on the top of my head. “Quick now,” she said. “Go downstairs and sit with Eliza and our nieces. For God’s sake, pick up some stitching—petticoats, embroidery, whatever is about—and try to look composed.”
I put my arms around her. “Oh, my dear Mary, you are so kind to me. I shall do as you say now, but please, please let us find some time alone when we can talk together. You are unhappy, too. I need to know what grieves you. I have been too wrapped up in my own problems, and I have neglected you.”
Mary gave me a gentle push. “That will come later, Anne. Now you must think only of yourself.” She looked out the window. “I see Mama and Grant in the distance. They are coming up the street now. Quick, quick. Go, go.”
I ran down the stairs. In the withdrawing room, Eliza was banging away on the pianoforte. A tumbler of sherry sat on its polished surface. My nieces sat hunched over their embroidery. I plumped myself down in an empty chair beside them and grabbed up a dress that Mama had insisted I stitch a new collar for. But I had not yet begun the task. There was no needle nearby, and for a moment, I felt helpless. Where was that damned sewing basket?
“Here is a needle already threaded, Aunt,” little Maria said to me, pulling one from her own work and handing it to me. I was grateful. Even the child knew that something was afoot. I plunged the needle into the fabric of the sleeve, hoping that Mama and Grant would not notice that its position was totally askew. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eliza drain the contents of her tumbler.
I took a deep breath and waited for the door to open.