Chapter Twenty-two

Money Musk

For years people around the mountain heard rumors that Master Jefferson was running out of money, but no one ever knew whether or not they were true. Now suddenly the rumors intensified.

Times were hard all over, after the war. The price of Virginia farmland had dropped to almost nothing, though Beverly said that didn’t matter because Master Jefferson would never sell any of his land. Miss Martha’s grown son, Jeff, who ran the farms, looked tight and worried all the time, and Joe Fossett heard one of the white overseers complain that he hadn’t been paid. But the very next week a wagon drove up the mountain loaded with wooden casks full of French wine. The grapes had been grown in France, made into wine, put into oak casks, and shipped first in a ship across the ocean and then in a wagon to Monticello, and all that cost a bundle, you’d better believe. Burwell shook his head and said the wine wouldn’t last three months, the way the visitors drank like they were parched and dying.

Master Jefferson wrote letters in the mornings with his mockingbird on his shoulder. He whistled while he rode his horse around the farm. At night, in the crowded dining room, he laughed and talked and poured wine with a generous hand. Miss Martha seemed anxious, but Master Jefferson never did. Nobody knew what to think.

“Will it matter, Mama?” Maddy asked. “If the money runs out?”

Mama shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “You’re safe, Maddy, I have his promise on that.”

Maddy knew what she meant: the big promise, the freedom promise.

Mama continued, “I think, while he’s alive, it won’t matter. He was a president, and a great patriot, and nobody’s going to fuss at him if he can’t pay all he owes. When he dies it might be a problem, if there are still debts to pay. Miss Martha would have to pay them, or Mister Jeff.”

Maddy hadn’t known you could inherit debts. “Oh, yes,” Mama assured him. “Master Jefferson took on a whole bunch of debt after his wife’s father—my father too—Master Wayles—died. He inherited everything, land and people and debt.”

“How long will Master Jefferson live, Mama?” Eston asked.

“A long time,” Mama said. “He’s a very healthy man.”

“A very old healthy man,” Harriet said. “He could die tomorrow.”

“He could,” Mama said. “I don’t think he will.”

 

In May Harriet turned thirteen. She wasn’t quite a woman yet, but she was getting close. She was tall and light-stepping, and even prettier than Mama, and when she was dressed up, which wasn’t often, people thought she was one of Miss Martha’s girls.

Harriet never put on airs; she was smarter than that. Miss Cornelia and Miss Virginia were just a year on each side of her in age. They’d never liked Harriet. Mama told her to keep her head down around them, and Harriet did, and when she worked in the great house Mama made her wear a scarf over her head to hide her hair, her straight, flowing, white-person’s hair.

Next year Maddy would be apprenticed to Uncle John, like Beverly, but for now he was still an errand boy, fetching wood and water and whatever else Mama, Burwell, or Miss Martha needed. He was passing through the front hallway one morning when he heard Miss Cornelia ask Miss Martha if Harriet could be her personal maid.

Maddy stopped short. Miss Cornelia and Miss Martha were in the schoolroom, and the schoolroom door was open wide. Maddy could hear them plain as anything.

Miss Martha said, “Cornelia, what would you do with a maid? You’re not old enough.”

“Please, Mama,” Miss Cornelia said. “My cousins have maids, and they’re younger than me.”

“Their circumstances are different from ours. You know that. You’re not out in society, you don’t need a chaperone.”

“You mean they have more money.”

“I mean they live differently,” Miss Martha said.

“I’ll be out soon. And you already let me eat dinner with you and Grandpa. I need someone to help me dress and do my hair. Priscilla’s always busy.”

Maddy thought how unpleasant Cornelia’s voice was, like the drone of a mosquito.

“Priscilla doesn’t have time for me, not with the new baby,” Miss Cornelia went on. “My clothes are always a mess—”

Maddy clenched his fists. Couldn’t Miss Cornelia get dressed on her own?

“And that girl that helps her, she’s no use at all. It’s not like it would cost anything for me to get Harriet. I’m not asking Grandpa to buy me a maid. We already own her.”

Maddy held his breath. Miss Martha said, “We’ll see about a maid. But not Harriet.”

Maddy relaxed. Miss Cornelia went on. “But Mama! I want Harriet. She’s my age, she’d be the best.”

Harriet would hate being Miss Cornelia’s maid. Miss Cornelia would treat her like dirt, and Harriet would have to take it.

“It won’t do. Perhaps Mary Brown, she’d do.”

“But I want Harriet. Please, Mama. Please!”

If Maddy whined to Mama like that, Mama would set him straight with a slap. But Miss Martha only said, “It’s out of the question. Surely you see why.”

Miss Cornelia’s voice took on an edge Maddy couldn’t quite identify. “No, Mama. I don’t see. Why wouldn’t Harriet be a good maid for me?”

Because she’s your aunt, Maddy thought. Not that Miss Martha would say it. Suddenly a cold feeling came over Maddy. He understood, though he wished he didn’t. Miss Cornelia knew exactly who Harriet was—that was why she wanted her.

“I’ve said no,” Miss Martha said. “That’s enough.”

Miss Cornelia sniffed loudly. Maddy could imagine the toss of her head. “I’m going to ask Grandpa!” she said. She stormed out of the classroom. Maddy had just enough time to put his head down and pull a stupid look over his face before she rushed past him, but Miss Cornelia didn’t even glance his way. She turned down the hall and ran up the stairs.

Maddy took a deep breath, and went to find Mama.

“Well,” Mama said, “that would start some talk, for sure. And Harriet doesn’t need to be involved with Miss Martha’s girls. I’ll speak to your father.”

Three days later Harriet started work in the mountaintop textile factory.

 

Master Jefferson was proud of his little factory. He had two spinning jennies that spun thread faster than eight women working with regular wheels, and two big looms with fly shuttles that made cloth faster than regular looms. With only four female workers, the factory produced over two thousand yards of cloth a year from raw wool and flax—almost the entire allotment for nearly two hundred slaves. Harriet didn’t mind working there; she said it wasn’t hard, and she liked it better than keeping her head down in the great house. At least in the shop she wasn’t afraid to talk or laugh, and she didn’t have to worry about working for Miss Cornelia.

Mama was also pleased. “Spinning is a useful occupation,” she said. “Even proper white ladies often know how to spin. You’ll be able to provide for yourself, Harriet, if something happens to Beverly and you’re out in the world alone.”

Mama had a plan for Beverly and Harriet. Beverly would leave when he was twenty-one, because that was the earliest Master Jefferson would set him free. He would travel, and find a job and a place to live, and make a nice life for himself, and then when Harriet was twenty-one she would join him. White women weren’t supposed to live alone; they were supposed to have protection.

Whenever Mama talked about her plan Beverly scowled, but Harriet nodded as though the thought of leaving the rest of them didn’t bother her at all. Maddy couldn’t understand it.

No one spoke of Maddy going to join them when he was older. He only had to look down at himself to know why. He was darker than the rest of them—nearly as dark as Mama. Beverly’s and Harriet’s skin was white, and as for Eston, he was the spit image of Master Jefferson. Maddy was the odd one out. It was like he had none of their father in him at all.

He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. Jesse Scott was a free black man, and he had a house, a wife, and children. He made good money with his violin. He was happy.

But once Harriet and Beverly went to live as white people, Maddy would never see them again. They didn’t say so, not in words, but Maddy knew it. They would be gone as far from him as if they were already dead.

Some nights after work, Beverly would ask Maddy to take a walk with him. Beverly’s legs grew tired, standing in the shop all day, and he needed to move around. He had long legs and he walked fast, but never so fast that Maddy couldn’t stay with him. They’d head down to the orchard, where the ripening fruits swung on the trees.

“Maddy, look here.” Beverly stopped and pointed at a patch of smooth dirt near the fence. Right in the middle was a hoof print from a deer. “Think the deer came to eat peaches?”

Twilight was falling fast, and a hum of insect noise rose from the grass. Bats flitted across the sky. Even in the dim light, Maddy could see Beverly’s smile. “Let’s take some peaches to Mama,” Beverly said.

Whenever Maddy thought about life without Beverly, he wanted to lie down in the grass and howl.

 

Then one day a different awful thought struck him. “Mama,” he said, “what if Beverly gets caught like James Hubbard, when he’s out free? What if Harriet gets caught? Would they whip Harriet? Or Beverly—or me?”

“No, no,” Mama said soothingly. “Nobody will ever whip you. Nobody will ever catch you. When you’re free, you’ll be just that—free. Not escaped. Free.”

“Why won’t anybody catch us? The white man that caught James Hubbard, he wasn’t from around here. He got paid too, for catching him.”

“Nobody will be looking for you,” Mama said. “You have to be reported as missing for slave catchers to know to look for you. And you won’t be. Your father will let you go. He’ll stay quiet. No one will capture you.”

“We’re supposed to trust Master Jefferson?” Maddy said. Mama nodded. Maddy thought of James Hubbard. He said, “What if Master Jefferson changes his mind?”

“He won’t,” Mama said. She looked at Maddy for a while and then she said, “You don’t have to trust him. All you have to do is trust me.”

Maddy nodded. That, he could do.

 

Maddy and James took over a patch of dirt behind the blacksmith shop. They hoed it, mixed in some rotted horse manure from the stables, and planted it with melon seeds. All summer long they tended the patch. They watered it with buckets from the well. They pulled weeds, and trained the vines to grow up sticks pushed into the ground. They picked off slugs. The little green melons they grew were so sweet and good that eating them was like eating sugar candy.

By the time frost came they had grown thirty-five melons. They sold twenty-nine to Miss Edith for the great house table, and ate three apiece on their own.

Mama kept her money in an old cracked jar that had come from France and had French words written on it. Mama said it once held fancy lotion for softening her hands. She laughed and said, “I’m back to goose grease now.”

Maddy had put his fifty cents from the mockingbird into the French jar, and it was there still. Now that he had melon money he wanted to keep his money separate from Mama’s, so he got an old bottle from Burwell that was chipped on top, and put all his money into that. He also had a penny Mama had given him for his birthday; altogether it added up to one dollar and thirty-eight cents.

“What are you going to do with all that money?” Beverly asked him.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Save it until I need it, I guess.” He thought of James, who still claimed hard times were coming.

“I’m going to buy a violin,” said Eston. Maddy rolled his eyes. Eston didn’t have any money, he was just making things up.

Eston took real violin lessons now. He played awfully well. They all three went down to Charlottesville for lessons once a week. But now they had trouble finding time for all of them to practice, with only one violin. Eston could practice anytime—and he did—but Beverly worked from sunup to sundown, same as a grown person, and nowadays Maddy stayed plenty busy too.

“You can’t buy a violin,” Maddy said. “You’ll never have enough money for that.”

“Will too,” said Eston.

“Will not.”

“People are going to pay to hear me play the violin,” Eston insisted.

“Nobody’s going to pay you,” Maddy said.

“Sure they will,” said Beverly. “Why not? I’d pay a penny to hear you play right now.” He pulled a penny from the French lotion jar. It was Beverly’s penny; he still kept all his money there.

Eston’s eyes grew wide. He dove beneath the bed for the violin. “What do you want to hear?” he asked.

“‘Money Musk,’” said Beverly.

“I am sick of ‘Money Musk,’” said Maddy. Nobody paid attention. Eston set to playing, lickety-split, a big grin stretched across his face. He made mistakes, but he kept going. Maddy watched him and kicked his feet in anger and frustration. There was Eston with his happy face, his happy white face. There was Beverly, with his. And both of them nuts for the violin, and both of them looking more like their father than Maddy did. There was not one thing Maddy could do about it.

Beverly would leave, and Harriet would leave, and then even Eston would leave. Maddy would be left alone.