Rita Brown - Whiskers in the Dark

“Yes, I suppose. And what have I been hearing about?” Rachel’s eyes rolled upward. “Bumbee and Mr. Percy. She’s in a huge snit, has left him again and moved back to the weaving room this morning. I went down to sort yarns and fabrics with her.” She paused. “Charles needs more shirts. Not his good ones, but he’s torn most everything else down there working on the church. Anyway, no one knows these things better than Bumbee so I got an earful about her husband, but I know she didn’t tell me everything.”

“Do you think it will ever end?”

“No, of course not.” Rachel watched a northern harrier fly over toward a marshy area. “They don’t say much.”

Catherine looked overhead. “They fly low. I like to watch them. Does this mean Bumbee will be up at the house asking Bettina”—the cook, a woman of power—“to intervene?”

“No. At least, I hope not,” Rachel replied.

Bumbee, in charge of all weaving and spinning, organizer of yarns and fabrics, even dyeing some of them, was a forty-odd-year-old slave married to a man who had a wandering eye and a body that wandered with it. He happened to be a good gardener, a man of some skill, but he couldn’t restrain himself when it came to the women, especially the younger women, at Cloverfields or elsewhere. They’d repair their relationship when the other woman tired of Percy. A period of calm would prevail, then Percy would see another woman, often at another estate. Given his skill with arranging plants, colors, knowing what could last the winter, he was often hired out when other plantation owners would ask Ewing for Percy’s help. Then it would start all over again. This last time Bumbee had cracked a pot over his head.

Rachel gave Catherine the lurid details, especially about the pot.

“Why doesn’t she just shoot him?” Catherine laughed.

“You have a point.”

They parted ways but were soon reunited at the splendid dinner for the Saltonstalls of Connecticut. John, tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, was not a talkative man. He was a hero at Yorktown fighting under the Marquis de Lafayette, so fortunately other men didn’t expect him to be a popinjay. Catherine would reach for his hand under the table, squeezing it. She was fascinated by the talk, John less so. Charles, on the other hand, fabulously well educated, Harrow then Oxford, delighted the men, and he could make the ladies laugh. Charles glowed each time he looked at his wife. Ewing, in his glory, was the consummate host.

Rachel excused herself for a moment to check on the food.

The summer kitchen was in full swing, like a clock, literally, although Bettina didn’t need a clock. She had the cooking times in her head. Large cast-iron pots hung over open fires in an open outdoor hearth. The meats were cooked on spits, with boys turning the meats every five minutes. The heat radiated outward from the two big outdoor fires. Bread warmed on an outdoor oven as well.

“Bettina,” Rachel called to her. “They are beside themselves with your selection of dishes. Mrs. Saltonstall exclaimed when she cut open her small rolled pork to find little raspberries inside.”

A big grin covered Bettina’s face. “Oh, just a thought.” She then turned. “Serena, not the oak. Have the boys put beech on the fire now.” She turned back to Rachel. “I can’t take my eyes off them. You never know but I am telling you, these younger people are dumb as a sack of hammers.”

“You and Father.” Before she returned to the dinner Rachel couldn’t help from adding, “Bumbee talked to me but I know she didn’t tell me everything. I bet you know.”

“Ha,” Bettina exploded. “You have no idea.”

Rachel, reluctantly, returned to the elegant dining room, where she promised all that Bettina had invented a dessert that was out of this world and urged them to finish up. This was said somewhat in jest. But Rachel was dying to know what really happened with Bumbee and Percy, whom Bumbee always called Mr. Percy. Life could be so unfair.

6

April 9, 2018

Monday

St. Luke’s, covered in snow, looked like peace itself. Light from Herb’s office caught the falling snow and cast a pale glow across the white.

Cazenovia, Elocution, and Lucy Fur, the three Lutheran cats, looked on as Herb studied accounts. Bookkeeping, done by a parishioner, was always accurate, but he felt it his duty to check and double-check.

Upstairs, Herb could hear Harry’s light step as she checked the ceiling. Before the frosts arrived, in fall, a patch of slate roof had been repaired and now she wanted to see if any leaks occurred. Flashlight in hand, she trained it in the ceiling corner. Tight as a tick. She liked being in charge of building and grounds.

Harry, practical and handy, contributed where she felt she could do the most good. Not social, not a born organizer like Susan, this was her participation in the church where she had been baptized. However, she also pitched in on whatever Susan cooked up, usually doing something aesthetic as opposed to pragmatic.

Turning off the beam, she looked out the old hand-blown paneled windows. The large rectangular courtyards, white, were fading to pale gold, soon to pink, then gray as the sun was setting.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sat on the window ledge watching the snowflakes. Tucker and Pirate reposed on the floor awaiting Harry’s next move. Usually the cats played with Herb’s three Lutheran cats, but today they had followed Harry up the stairs. The cats knew the church better than most of the parishioners as they trailed Harry on her rounds. The view from the second story was always good. One could really see the birds in the trees and this always provoked a promise from Pewter to send them to the great bird in the sky. No one paid the least bit of attention.

Leaving the clean room, closing the door behind her to conserve heat, Harry descended the stairs. A large closet under the stairs gave the cats a hopeful moment. Communion wafers were stacked in the closet along with red wine for communion. Years ago, when that door had been left slightly ajar, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, along with Cazenovia, Elocution, and Lucy Fur, wedged in and pulled down communion wafers. Cat communion. What a glorious event. When Herb and Harry came upon them, Herb stopped, then burst out laughing. “I’d better confirm them,” he said, and Harry laughed, too.

She knocked on the office door. “Hollywood calling.”

A deep, deep voice rang out. “You need a phone for that. Come on in.” Herb pushed his sums away, looked up as she entered, cats and two dogs in tow.

“Roof’s good.” She beamed.

“Praise the Lord.” He smiled. “Caught it in time. Repairing a roof, especially a slate roof, isn’t cheap, but at least I could plan for it with the budget. It’s those unexpected bill bombs that get you.” He looked outside the symmetrical paned-glass windows. “Ah, a spring snow. We’re all waiting for daffodils, but it is very beautiful. When Charles West designed St. Luke’s, including the grounds, I often wonder did he carry with him ideas from England? Ideas of small churches in glens? The cathedrals impress to this day, but it’s the small churches wherein most of us gather. I never tire of St. Luke’s.”

“Nor do I,” she agreed.

“Coffee? Tea? A libation?”

“Ah, well, maybe tea, a brisk afternoon tea as the light fades.”

The office and small kitchen decorated at the turn of the last century by the Dorcas Guild retained its gracious atmosphere with modern conveniences. Those long-departed ladies felt the pastor should have a Chesterfield sofa and two matching chairs in dark brown leather in the center of the large room. The desk reposed near the corner window and probably hadn’t been moved since the day it was placed there. It would take four men to move it. The Victorians did not believe in spindly furniture.