The State of Virginia, 1813
The ninetieth birthday of Rebecca White Cobham was the largest party that Dublin, Virginia, had ever seen. Many of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren were present, along with numbers of friends and neighbors. The old Cobham house still stood proudly, whitewashed and indomitable after more than fifty years of wind and storm. The April day was fresh, and no clouds appeared in the hazy blue sky.
Rebecca herself sat beneath the shade of huge chestnut trees. She was fragile and thin. Her hearing was still excellent, but her eyesight was very poor. She depended upon one of Toby’s granddaughters to help her around when she walked. Usually, she went only about her needed activities in the house—going from bed to chamber pot to kitchen. Almost every day, she went down to sit near the graves of her husband and the many others now buried beneath the big tree. A chair had even been placed there for her to use.
There was plenty of fried chicken, roast pig from an outdoor pit, early greens cooked with bacon fat, mounds of corn bread, and peach or apple pies made from last harvest’s dried fruit. There was lemonade from precious fruit obtained by trading whiskey to merchants on the coast. The same whiskey was sucked from various jugs by most of the menfolk present. Rebecca herself accepted a small glass and drank it down with a slightly amused smile.
The old lady was in good spirits, occasionally clapping her hands to the vigorous fiddle music, and accepting kisses from the new crop of great-grandchildren. The first great-great-granddaughter was placed in her lap (carefully watched by an anxious mother) for a blessing of sorts. Rebecca herself was trying as hard as she could to be there for her family, but her mind refused to stay. She saw the bright and lively crowd as they ate and danced and talked and laughed. She knew these people—although sometimes it was a bit confusing. Was that old lady Malinda, her daughter … or was she Malinda, her granddaughter? Wasn’t that Ben over there? No, Ben went to Tennessee many years ago and wouldn’t be back. In fact, she wondered if Ben still lived. Almost all of her children died before her, and Rebecca had grieved for each one. Even some of her grandchildren were gone. Sometimes, it was difficult to keep track.
“Grandma … here is your cake! Young Rebecca baked it especially for you!” Her daughter Malinda, now nearly seventy, presented her mother with the cake, decorated with candied violets and some of the early herb blossoms from the garden. Rebecca reached out slowly and touched the blossoms with her gnarled finger. “From old Mother Cobham’s garden,” she whispered. “Sam’s ma, Elizabeth Sollers—such a pretty lady she was, and so kind. Not so mean and impatient as I am!”
“Happy Birthday, Grandma!” The crowd all shouted greetings for her, and the fiddle music began again. Some of the menfolk were showing their liquor, and Rebecca knew that arguments and fighting were probably not too far away, even on this day. Why, she wondered, did so many of her male kinfolk have a weakness for drink?
Young Rebecca, Tom’s girl, came up shyly with a package in her arms. It was wrapped in old muslin, and the girl laid it gently on Rebecca’s lap. “Open it, Grandma. It came from Tennessee—from Ben.”
Rebecca hesitated, suddenly feeling her eyes fill with moisture as she grieved again for this long-gone son. “Open it for me, child,” she asked. “My hands hurt today.” Young Rebecca opened the package eagerly and held up the fringed shawl from within. It was made of peach satin, with dark blue brocade strips and embroidered roses. “Why, it’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!” Rebecca whispered.
The girl put the shawl around Rebecca’s shoulders. “Aunt Pris made it up, Grandma … from that old dress of yours. She put some of the satin in a quilt and finished this for you just afore she died. Uncle Ben sent it on with a note from his daughter, Sarah. She writes real good.”
“Nobody told me about Priscilla,” said Rebecca slowly. “Bless her soul, she was a good woman.” She ran her hand over the edge of the shawl. “A fine piece of work. I won’t enjoy it too long. Maybe take it to my grave.”
“Don’t say that, Grandma. We all love you,” said young Rebecca quickly, although she had heard that wagers even now were made on how long Grandma could possibly live. The old lady was tough and independent, though, and she had buried almost all of the folks who had settled in this country.
Hours later, the women took the children off to their beds, and the men continued the party at a local tavern in Dublin. Rebecca and her young slave walked slowly down to Samuel’s grave, and she sat in her chair and put her chin on the hand that held her cane. The black girl, named Juba for her own great-grandma, stood quietly behind Rebecca’s chair. She herself was a silent girl, fearful of many things in the outside world since those white boys had chased her into the barn and tried to look under her dress. Her grandfather, Toby, had run them off, and old Mistress Rebecca had shown surprising spirit when she refused the request from the boys’ father that she whip Toby for his insolence.
“Your boys are no better than savages,” she had croaked. “If I ever find ’em around here again, I got grandsons to whip ’em.” The man had left, somewhat nervous. He knew the Cobham family and was fully aware that some of them were a brawling bunch inclined to look for trouble. He whipped his boys and lectured them on being stupid enough to go into old Lady Cobham’s lands.
Young Juba always felt safe with Mistress Rebecca, who was occasionally cranky and hard to please, but generally fair in her dealings. She would shake her head and say, “I never will understand some things, little girl. Darned stupid men! Your grandma used to want to be free. But what would have happened to you today without us to see to you?” Old Rebecca shook her head often. “I just don’t understand.”
Now, she sat talking softly to herself—or maybe to those who were buried under the dirt. Later in the spring, flowers would bloom on the graves. “Fetch me a handful of that dirt on Sam’s grave,” said Rebecca. She often made this request, and the young slave picked up a small handful of soil and placed it on Rebecca’s gnarled hand. Her fingers closed around it reverently.
“The dead don’t come back, child,” she said softly. “Old William used to see his wife, Mary, when he was dying. I never see Sam—never hear him. Always thought that he’d appear someday, riding up the trail without a hat, jumping down, and asking me to go away with him. He’d be a’singing ‘Come away, my darling.’ I wish that I could die that way, but I don’t think that it ends like that …”
“You awful gloomy tonight, Mistress Rebecca. You just tired from yo’ party,” said young Juba soothingly.
“I’m tired from life, child. Your grandma would understand, but she’s over there with the other blacks.” Rebecca nodded toward the slave cemetery, located down the hill. “She was a smart lady, Juba. I miss her.”
“Didn’t know her too well, but Pa was awful grieved when she died.”
“So was I.” Rebecca rose with great effort, and the girl moved quickly to support her. “Thank you, child. When I’m gone, you’re gonna live with my daughter, Malinda. She’s got my orders to care for you well and find you a good man. We’ll take care of you.”
They ambled slowly up toward the house, with the last beams of sunlight coming through the newly green trees. Rebecca tossed the soil in her hand back on the ground and wiped her hand on her skirt before clutching the new shawl about her.
“I wore this satin, girl. I wore it at a big party in Philadelphia. Do you know where that is? Up north … in Pennsylvania. They don’t have slaves up there, I hear. It must be real different now. Then again, I hear that we’ve been fighting the British again. It doesn’t ever stop, girl. It doesn’t get easier. I don’t understand …”
Juba made a murmur of assent. She knew that the old lady didn’t make much sense now, but expected a response from her listeners. “I want to sit out here a spell before I go back to bed, child. You go on in the house and heat up some of that leftover coffee for me.”
Rebecca settled into her rocking chair and gazed at the western sky. The sun was setting without much color tonight, just a slow mixing of gray into the blue. She was very tired. Ninety years—it had been such a life, she thought. She had loved a man, borne ten children, and lived in many different places, yet she had seen so little. The endless round of cooking, child-raising, sewing, and gardening—all of it made it up the vast majority of her days. She had heard of other lives, other countries, from the many folks who had stayed with her when she operated her tavern. They told her of armies with cannons, men who killed without remorse, high mountains covered with ice year-round, great cities where ships’ masts were like forests, and a person could never be alone. So much that she hadn’t seen …
It was getting cold, but she didn’t really feel it. She wondered if life was just ebbing away from her. Although she could hear well, her eyesight was dim, and sometimes she bumped herself sharply and yet felt little pain. “When I die,” she murmured, “Will I be aware of it? I saw Sam die—he was there one minute and the next gone. But I’m not sure how much of me is here …” She lifted her arms slowly, painfully, and gazed at her wrinkled, gnarled fingers, the white skin now hardened and covered with age spots. “I’m not sure which part of me is still alive.”
Was there a place where the young Rebecca still existed with golden hair streaming behind her and a passion for life dancing in every cell? The old lady couldn’t see this Rebecca anymore except in some dim dreams. Her strength, her senses, even her memories had faded and died, one by one. “Perhaps, I am mostly dead,” she said.
Juba reappeared bearing a steaming mug of coffee and milk. “I added a bit of sweet to this, bein’ as it’s your birthday and all.”
Rebecca nodded and wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “Feels comforting, child. I’ll just finish my coffee, and then we’ll be to bed. Wash day tomorrow.”
Juba nodded and sank down to sit at the old lady’s feet. She pulled her skirts about her ankle and hoped that Mistress Rebecca wouldn’t decide to begin spring cleaning just yet. Taking down the curtains and moving all of those old quilts were a big job. Mistress Rebecca couldn’t see very well and kept trying to take spots from where they weren’t. Juba would have to find some tactful way to tell her that she was trying to remove a flowered pattern on a skirt or some such other non-spot. She wondered briefly if she would like living with the old lady’s daughter. Her family was always afraid that they would be split up, and her grandma had insisted that Mistress Rebecca would never allow that. But Mistress Rebecca couldn’t live much longer, and who knew what was going to happen? Mistress Malinda was a nice lady, but she was getting up in years too. If Mistress Malinda died, her sons might sell Juba to someplace terrible down South. She prayed that she would never have to work in a field of cotton or indigo.
The girl sighed, wondering if God ever heard her prayers. Then again, Mistress Rebecca was the oldest person that anybody hereabouts had ever known—so God must have listened to some of her prayers for the old lady.
“I’m done with my coffee, child. Upsetting my stomach. Here, you finish it if you want,” said Rebecca, handing down the almost-full mug to her slave. Juba was pleased, for she was fond of sweetened coffee, and she smiled up at the old lady. “Thankee, ma’am. You are mos’ kind.”
Juba drank her coffee, and Rebecca rocked and hummed an old ballad that she remembered William Cobham singing many, many years before.
Summer to winter fadeth,
Gloomy night, happy light shadeth
Time hath a while which none can stay
So come away, while I thus sing,
Come away, come away, my darling!