The sight of the crab apple trees that stud the front lawn of the Payne Estate stirs a strange brew of emotions inside me. Looking back, my days working in the stables were mostly carefree, except when Caroline came around, and even then, not allthe memories were sour. We played together on occasion—she was the mama, and I, the naughty babe; she captained the ship, while I manned the oars and, too often, walked the plank. But as we grew older, her bossiness crystallized into something sharper, and her pranks would rattle me for days.
My life improved when I was twelve and Caroline was sent to the finishing school in Boston. Mrs. Payne decided I was getting too old to swab stables and put me to work as a housemaid. The winds of change blew a year later when Caroline’s brother, Merritt, returned home from Exeter Academy. Abruptly, I was dismissed.
A paved driveway marked with electric lampposts, fancier than the ones on Whitehall Street, leads to the front door. We take a second carriage track to a back courtyard, which houses a white gazebo with red shingles to match the rest of the house. Inside the gazebo, a safety bicycle leans against a post. It looks new, with its pneumatic tires, a polished metal frame, and a red leather seat. Sure, it’s a looker, but a pretty horse does not a fair ride make.
My heels drag as I follow Old Gin to the scullery door. He raps on the wood, and not two shakes later, the housekeeper and head of staff, Etta Rae, is grinning her triangle smile at me and clapping me on the back with her wiry arms. The only signs of her age are a few liver spots on her sable skin and the graying of her hair at the temples. “You’re growing like a rumor, aren’t you?”
“It’s good to see you, Etta Rae.”
She hauls me past the onion-scented scullery and into thekitchen, never one to waste movements. Old Gin doffs his hat and follows. He rarely enters the kitchen, and never the rest of the house.
“Watch the shells. Noemi broke her nutcracker and she’s had to use a hammer. Makes an awful mess.”
The kitchen hasn’t changed much. Copper pans and pots hang in neat rows on the wall between a sink on one side and an iron range, where Noemi is stirring oatmeal, on the other. “Good morning, Noemi.”
She knocks her spoon against the pot rim. The speckled blue enamel finish contrasts sharply with the cast-iron pots meant for the servants. “Morning, yourself,” she speaks in a drawl pleasing to the ear, droppingr’s andg’s along the way. Those letters don’t have much business here in the South for colored and white alike, as worthless as the pecan shells strewn on the floor. A smile animates her handsome features—pointy cheekbones, tawny skin, and bushy eyebrows that hail from her Portuguese ancestry. Smelling like soap, she kisses me on the cheek. “I’m glad to see you, but”—her voice drops—“you sure you want to wrestle a porcupine?” A mischievous coil of springy black hair peeks out from beneath the ruffle of her mobcap, and she pokes it back in place.
“Gin, you’ve been skipping too many meals!” Etta Rae knocks Old Gin with her elbow.
Old Gin puts up a hand. “Old men don’t need much—”
“Take these pecans.” With her knobby fingers, Etta Rae scoops a handful of nuts from the piles that cover the farm table where I’ve taken many meals. “They’re like little blobs of fat. You could use a whole tree of ’em.”
Old Gin is too polite not to take the pecans, even though pecans make his mouth itch.
The scent of peaches nudges up my pulse. Mrs. Payne appears at the center of a molded doorframe that leads to the dining room, twisting her gold wedding band. It’s a bottom fact that if Mrs. Payne had accepted all the proposals of marriage she received, she would have more rings than fingers. “Well, then.” Her eyes dribble over me. If she bears me ill will, there is no trace of it on her face. I wonder if she sees any on mine. I was the one dismissed for no reason, after all. “Old Gin, I’m much obliged to you for bringing Jo home to us.” Her manners have always been flawless, but if you put a hand to her forehead, I expect she runs cooler than most.
“You’re welcome.” He bows, then after throwing me a quick smile, leaves.
I curtsy. “Ma’am, I am pleased to see you.”
Mrs. Payne glides to me. She stands just a breeze under my height, but I feel like a dandelion in the presence of a rose. By itself, her face is not striking—watery blue eyes and a drawn-out nose that dips toward her too-dainty mouth—but an elegant neck and narrow carriage give her the presence of a queen.
I roll back my shoulders, two bumps that give the illusion of good posture even when I slump. Shoulders are like pavement, underappreciated for the job they do holding one up in the world. Mine have done a decent job.
“Still pretty as a June pay-itch,” she says, drawling the wordpeach. Like other ladies of her class, she has a habit of leaning into her words as if to squeeze out all their juice.
She whisks me farther into the house. “You remember where everything is?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The Payne house typifies those of the Southern gentry, with family needs subjugated by the need to entertain, something Southerners consider their God-given duty. In the dining room, black walnut chairs herald from Italy, but they are as difficult to separate from the table as heifers from a trough. The gold-flocked wallpaper attracts dust like a magnet pulls iron. My arms ache just looking at the chandelier, which needs to be taken apart weekly for its routine spit and polish.
From the dining room, we pass into a central hall, to a staircase leading to the private floors. Mrs. Payne lifts her pleated skirts and begins to ascend, hardly making a sound. The daughter of horse breeders, Mrs. Payne was groomed in the Southern tradition of manners and manors, and probably gave up slouching the year she stopped sucking her thumb. “Now, Jo, what is it that separates us from the animals?”
“We know how to open the pickle jar?”
She smiles. “Religion, child. Chapel is still nine a.m. on Sunday. You are always welcome.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The Paynes invite all the staff to attend Sunday services in their private chapel. When you’re as rich as the Paynes, God comes to you. But after the chaplain told me Satan had already hooked one claw into me for being born a heathen and I would have to pray extra hard if I wanted to escape his grasp, I never enjoyed going to the Paynes’ services.
Photographs of Caroline and Merritt through the years linethe walls. As a child, Merritt wore frocks, and the two looked like sisters with their soft curls and cherubic gazes. The higher one ascends, the more devilish their gazes become.
“Merritt’s in Virginia picking up a new horse,” Mrs. Payne continues the pleasantries. “He’s engaged, did you hear?”
“You and Mr. Payne must be very pleased.”
“It is an exceptional arrangement,” she states brightly, though to my thinking, the same could be said of furniture.
