A week, and then two, went by. News from the outside came to us, from the post carrier, the newspapers, the slave grapevine, and Emaline, who, true to her word, came to supper one night with her husband. Was it proper to entertain so soon after such a tragedy? There were no rules in the books for it. There were no books for it in the first place.
What would they say? It is advisable, socially, to wait at least a month to serve beef and roasted potatoes and peas from the garden after your brother has had the top of his head slashed off as the result of a slave revolt.
“That Nat Turner hasn’t been captured yet,” Emaline told us. “They had him for a couple of hours at the Black Head Sign Post, but he got away. Someone saw him at the Travis place, and the Isle of Wight County Militia went after him, but he was nowhere to be found.”
I shivered. We were having dessert.
“It’s fearful that he’s still out there somewhere, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I have my dogs,” I told her. “And now all the male negroes on this place know how to use a gun.”
“You know what they are saying about Turner’s uprising?” she asked me. “They are saying that the faithful blacks on the plantations whipped him more than the whites did. Why, the blacks were on the verandas and behind trees and on rooftops, firing away at Turner and his men. Nat Turner didn’t expect that. He expected all the bound servants to join him. But if not for them, he might have taken Jerusalem. He was within a mile of it, they say.”
When she left, she kissed me and told me not to be a stranger. “After all,” she said, “you were the one who alerted everyone. If not for you . . .” and she shook her head and sighed. “You were our female Paul Revere that day. We owe our lives to you, Harriet Whitehead.”
I blushed and said, “Thank you. I was out of my head.”
And she said, “Oh blather, you knew what you were doing. And let me know when your uncle Andrew arrives. We’ll have you both over to dinner.”
The Virginia Militia came to our place the third week Nat Turner was not yet captured and Ormond ushered their commander, a Lieutenant Berry, into the parlor to see me.
“Are you the mistress of this place?” he asked me.
“Yes. Everybody else is dead.”
“I’d heard that the Reverend Whitehead was killed in the rebellion.”
“Yes. His head was slashed. I am the only member of the family to survive. What can I help you with, Lieutenant?”
“We have orders, miss, to search the quarters of all the slaves and free blacks. We’re looking for scattered powder and shot, to make sure they weren’t involved in the insurrection.”
I sighed. You should be searching my quarters, I told myself. I called out for Violet and she came. I introduced her.
“Are you free or bound?” the lieutenant asked her.
“She’s bound. For now,” I said. “I have not yet had time to think about the future.”
He nodded. “Pardon me, miss, but you seem awfully young to be making such decisions.”
“My uncle Andrew is, at this very moment, on a ship coming from London,” I recited. And that pacified him. I also said that Violet would accompany him and his men on rounds, that he was not to upset old Cloanna in her quarters, and that he was to check in with me before he left.
I had heard, you see, of this man and his militia, and how they went on some plantations and planted false evidence to implicate some slaves, and then arrested them and took them away. Just to make it seem as if they were doing something. Because, with Nat Turner still at large, it seemed as if nobody was doing anything at all.
Lieutenant Berry was polite, a true Southerner, if nothing else. He bowed. He saluted. He even kissed my hand. I thought how jealous my sister, Margaret, would be. And then I felt a pang of guilt.
I must, this very afternoon, find out the particulars of her death.