The labor lasted six hours, exhausting her, but finally she delivered a healthy girl.
When Bettina held her up to Ailee, the new mother turned her face away. The baby was white. She was not Moses’s child.
Wisely, Bettina did not try to force Ailee to hold her baby. “Bumbee, fetch Ruth.”
Within minutes, Ruth climbed the stairs, removed her coat, studied the mother.
“Ruth, will you take the baby?” Bettina handed the tiny perfect little thing to the young woman, who was nursing her own baby.
Ruth couldn’t hold any baby, kitten, puppy, bird, without wanting to mother it. The little hands waved in the air. Ruth held the child against her bosom and rocked her. “Look at the face. What a pretty baby.”
Bettina, Serena, Bumbee looked at one another and smiled.
“Ruth, I will see that you are rewarded for this. Best go now.”
Ruth threw her coat back on, held the baby under the scratchy wool, and left while the other women cleaned up the place, as well as Ailee.
Bumbee sat by Ailee. “You sleep now. I’ll be here. I’ll stay up here.”
Bettina trod downstairs, brought up a pillow and blankets for Serena from her cot. “If you have to lie down, and I would, this will help. It’s going to be cold tonight. I’ll throw more wood on the fire on my way out.”
Bettina and Serena looked at Ailee, then at each other. Bettina put her hand on Bumbee’s shoulder and squeezed.
So much sadness and nothing to do for it.
Monday, April 18, 1785
Bumbee awoke with a start. She looked to Ailee’s cot, but the woman wasn’t there. Half asleep, she carried her blanket and walked down the stairs, ready to stir the embers of the fire, throw on some logs to warm up the place. The cold steps on her bare feet roused her. At the bottom she saw Ailee hanging from the top railing of the stairway to the loft. She’d twisted her sheet to make a noose.
Dropping her blanket, barefooted, Bumbee rushed out into the cold. Father Gabe’s cabin was the closest. She pounded on his door. Already awake, the old fellow opened it.
“Father, Ailee’s dead.”
After Bumbee told him what she’d found, Father Gabe gathered a few men. They cut the poor woman down, wrapping her in the sheet with which she’d hung herself just as Bettina and Serena hurried in.
Bettina touched the sheet. “Oh, child, what have you done?”
“Let’s bury her now,” Father Gabe ordered. “No laying out.”
So the straggly group shortly found themselves standing over a deep open grave, into which the wrapped body of Ailee was placed.
The light frost still made digging the grave difficult.
Bettina recited the benediction instead of the service for the dead. “May the Lord bless thee and keep thee, may the Lord make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee.”
Bettina stopped at Ruth’s cabin, which rested on the north side of the row, closer to the main house. She knocked on the door, opened it to find Ruth nursing the two babies, hers and Ailee’s, with a two-year-old at Ruth’s feet, the fire warming them all.
“Ruth, the babe’s an orphan.”
Ruth looked into Bettina’s eyes. “Ailee wasn’t strong, poor thing.”
“She’d seen enough.” Bettina dropped into a handmade wooden chair next to Ruth. “I will talk to the Missus.”
Ruth nodded. “And I will pray.”
Bettina reached over to stroke the newborn’s cheek. “So much pain, so much pain.” Then she smiled. “But like a little cricket you’ll be happy and hop around. All your sadness came early.”
“Amen.” Ruth patted the baby’s cheek, as well.
Shawl wrapped around her, Bettina, always erect, slowly walked to the main house. Serena fell in beside her.
Serena felt dreadful. “If only we’d known how she felt. We could have talked to her.”
“Honey chile, if someone has a mind to leave this earth, you can’t stop them. They’ll find a way. Ailee’s with Jesus now, her sins are washed away. She was far more sinned against than sinning.”
“But to take your own life.” Serena gasped.
“A sin, yes, but she will be forgiven. Christ died for our sins. The Old Missus and I would talk of such things.”
“I barely remember her.”
“Her girls shine like she did. We will find out just how much today.”
“Oh, Bettina, they won’t cast out the little one.” Serena clasped her hands together as though in prayer.
“No, they won’t, but I have an idea.” That was all the formidable woman would say.
After making Ewing’s breakfast, hearing him prattle on about buckwheat versus old-time red clover, she and Serena washed up the dishes, stoked the kitchen fireplace. Then Bettina walked to the stable, where she knew she’d find Catherine.
“Jeddie, where’s the Missus?”
“Back paddock.” Jeddie pointed in that direction. “Serenissima’s paddock.”
Bettina found Catherine leaning over the fence, watching the pregnant mare walk.
“Morning, Bettina.”
“Miss Catherine, Ailee had her baby. Will you come with me and see?”
Such an unusual request alerted Catherine. She walked next to Bettina to Ruth’s cabin. Bettina said nothing. She knocked on Ruth’s door.
“ ’Min,” Ruth shortened. “Come in.”
Seeing Catherine, Ruth stood up, the two cradles in front of her and the two-year-old asleep on his small pallet.
Bettina slightly lifted the patched cradle blanket. “Born last night.”
Catherine leaned over. “She’s beautiful.” Then it struck her, the child was white. Ailee was light-skinned, but the child was white.
“Ailee hung herself this morning,” Bettina quietly informed Catherine.
The beautiful woman’s hands flew to her heart. “Dear God. Oh, Bettina, how could she? How could she leave this tiny little thing?”
“I don’t know.” Bettina shook her head. “I reckon when she saw the baby, she knew it was Francisco’s and she didn’t want it. She hoped it would be Moses’s baby.”
“Did she ever speak?”
“Never.”
Catherine sank into the handmade chair as Bettina sat on a sturdy bench and Ruth sat also. “Ruth, you are kind to nurse the child.”
“She can’t help how she came into this world. She will never know her mother’s love.”
“No, but she can know love. Ruth, I will pay you twenty dollars a month to feed the baby.” As this was a large sum, Ruth drew in her breath. “You will have anything you need for her, your baby and son. Don’t show her to too many people yet. I need to talk to my sister and to our husbands.”
Bettina’s eyes focused intently on Catherine. “Missus?”
“Bettina, how do you fight a scandal? If you deny it, nobody believes you. Not that anyone would think who this baby’s father is, nor that we harbored the mother. We will never speak of that.”
Feeling Catherine’s eyes upon them, the two women agreed. It wasn’t difficult to agree. That knowledge would be too dangerous.
“You all tell our people never, ever speak of Ailee or Moses,” said Catherine. “And we will never tell the baby.”
Ruth rocked both cradles with her feet, as her husband built them with rockers on the bottom. “Miss Catherine, what are you going to do?”
“Pull the wool over my father’s eyes. I hate to lie to my father, but there’s no other way. If I’m successful, I’ll tell you how to handle this and him. If I’m not, I don’t know exactly what will happen. You see, if I am right, she won’t be raised as a slave. She’ll be free. She’ll pass.”