Chapter Nine
Nancy welcomed Tom and Patsy’s arrival in early December. The busier the household, the less opportunity for Dick to catch her eye or brush against her in the passageway. But it also meant that Theo was less attentive, as the men passed their evenings away from the women. She occupied herself with amusing her new niece, Annie, named for Tom’s mother — a point Patsy made more than once as she wondered aloud about potential names for the child Judy carried.
“Would you choose Ann Frances, or Frances Ann, Judy? Or what if the baby is a boy? Dick’s father’s name was John, wasn’t it? Almost as ubiquitous as Thomas.”
“We’ve talked of John St. George for a boy,” Judy said. “St. George after Mr. Tucker, of course. Then I thought we might call him Saint.”
“I like it! Do you like it, Nance?”
“I think it’s charming. Although Annie would love a girl cousin to play with, don’t you think?”
The three women were gathered in the kitchen house, with Sarah banished from the building as the Randolph ladies set about candle-making. Nancy had spent hours the previous day washing and drying buckets of bayberries, plucked from the hedges by the field hands’ children. She’d pinched out stems and rinsed and patted the firm, black berries until her fingers were purple-stained and wrinkled. Now, Judy stood over a vast old metal pot, heaped full of berries and water, while Patsy opened a parcel of beeswax from Monticello.
“We’ll plant a bayberry hedge in the spring, I hope, so we may have a harvest of our own next year,” Patsy said. “But in the meantime, my father will be grateful for this gift. If you have sufficient, that is.”
“Dick insists,” said Judy. “He is delighted to be able to send your father a token of our esteem. The candles will bless both our houses.”
Nancy, tasked with cutting lengths of wick and soaking them in paraffin before tying each end with a small metal hoop for weight, sat at the kitchen table a little removed from the stove. From time to time, Patsy came her way — first to tie cheesecloth over the tall coffee cans they would set into pots of simmering water and strain the wax into, next to fit a layer of old newsprint under the wooden frame erected to hang the tapers while the wax set.
“And how is Dick? He must be excited for the child?” Patsy asked Judy.
Nancy looked up. The two women had their backs to her, Patsy setting up the coffee pots in water and melting beeswax in another basin while Judy waited, ladle poised, ready to skim the wax as it boiled out from the berries.
“He’s been quiet. But I’m sure he’s glad.”
“He’ll hope for a son. Has he said as much?”
“Not in so many words. We are both a little anxious. After our previous loss.” Judy paused and bent over the pot, skimming the pale green wax as it rose to the surface and spread fragrance through the room. “At the time, he did not seem much affected. But he’s so reserved this last month or so. We barely exchange words. I think it must be fear of another disappointment, keeping him so cool. Don’t you think? What of Tom? Did he hope for a son? He could not be disappointed in Annie, though, could he?”
Nancy saw a smile on Patsy’s lips. “If he was disappointed, he hid it well. Although he gave me fair warning that I should be ready to bring him more children, and soon.”
“My goodness!” Judy lowered her voice, but Nancy still caught the question. “And how long after — after Annie — how long did he wait?”
She pushed back her chair and went to the window. She didn’t understand her sister. The image of Dick and Judy beyond the buttonbush at Tuckahoe swam across her vision, contrasting with Dick’s whispered description of their wedding night. The tremor in Judy’s voice sounded like fear. No wonder he . . .
She squeezed her eyes closed. It was wrong, all wrong. And yet she took pleasure in his preference for her. Pleasure in her secret knowledge.
“Nancy, are you finished already?”
“Yes. Might I skim the wax a little? You look a little flushed, sister.”
Judy nodded and retreated to a chair, her hands on her stomach, while Nancy worked with Patsy, removing the last of the bayberry wax and straining it through layers of cheesecloth until they had two full jugs of the sweet-smelling green wax ready for dipping.
“Judy?” Patsy gestured for her to move away from the stove.
“Let Nancy do it,” Judy said. “I’m so tired. She has always had the steadier hand.”
With the last candle hung to set, Nancy took herself off to the porch. She wrapped herself in a blanket and stared at the treetops, idly picking slivers of wax from her fingers, drinking in the warm bayberry scent. She didn’t expect him to find her there. The house was still. It was the hour of the day when Tom spent time with his daughter while Patsy read or wrote letters. Judy rested in her room around this time, and Nancy usually did likewise, but today, she wanted the cold air on her cheeks. The gray sky suited her bruised emotions. Dick ought to have been with Theo or his overseer or out on the plantation or visiting Syphax. He’d no business appearing on the porch.
“Nancy.”
“Where’s Theo?”
“Am I not good enough to bear you company? Must you always prefer my brother?”
“I didn’t mean that, I—”
“You don’t prefer him?” Dick laid hands on the wooden rocker next to her and took a seat, pulling it round and leaning forward so they almost touched. His smile made her catch her breath. She grabbed a handful of the blanket and held firm.
“I was merely going to say that it wasn’t a matter of preference. I only wondered where he was. Nothing more.”
“No? Nothing more?” He tilted his head, and his gaze moved to her lips. Her skin prickled.
Then he leaned back.
“Theo has been ‘resting’ these past hours.” Dick squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I fear for him, Nancy. He’s thinner these last months. His cough returns.”
“You let him drink too much.”
“It helps him sleep. He won’t let me call in a physician. He insists he’ll be well in the spring. He says it is only the colder air pulling him down.”
“Perhaps he’s right. Think how much better he was after Bermuda. He needs to keep his strength up.”
“He does. And we will help him, together, won’t we?” Dick took her hands in his. He was so changeable. Talk of Theo’s health had taken the heat from him. He was her kind and thoughtful brother-in-law again. “Thank you, Nancy. Your kindness to him is immeasurable. To us all. I’m so grateful you’re here.”
After he left, she put her hands to her face, inhaling the bayberry scent once more. His love for his brother was her safeguard. Talk of Theo’s health threw cold water on his passion. She had managed it now and would do so again. Even as tears dampened her fingertips, she swore that she would.
She had to.
* * *
Judy enjoyed celebrating New Year at Bizarre. Heavy rains and wild winds delayed Tom and Patsy’s departure, but the bad weather didn’t deter Aunt Page and her husband Carter, or Randy and Cousin Mary who drove down from Glentivar on the one dry day in the month. Judy brightened in the company of her closest friend.
She felt stronger and, encouraged by Mary and Patsy’s confident talk of the child to come, allowed some of her misgivings to lessen. Dick was at his most charming, teasing awkward Jack and demanding participation in parlor games and charades that allowed Theo to join the festivities without taxing his obviously weakened body. She prayed the new year would be a turning point for Theo as well as for herself. He would gain strength, and she would have a child. In the company of family and friends, everything good seemed possible. Judy found herself in charity with everyone. Even Nancy.
As the clock ticked toward midnight on the last day of 1791, Dick called the party to attention. “Mrs. Randolph?” He extended a hand to Judy. It was time to light the bayberry candles. Her hands went to the arms of her chair, but then she changed her mind. The room was warm, she was comfortable where she was. She shook her head.
“Let Nancy do the honors. I’m content here watching.” Dick rewarded her with a broad smile. He spun on his heels.
“Sister?”
Nancy sprang to his side, and each of the couples in the room stood together around the table by the window where Judy had set out four candles. Jack stood by Theo’s chair to watch. With arms entwined, each couple picked up a candle and traded it for another.
Dick led the familiar chant:
These bayberry candles come from a friend,
So this New Year’s Eve burn it down to the end.
For a bayberry candle, burned to the socket,
Will bring joy to the heart
And gold to the pocket!
As the flames flickered in the window and a woody scent filled the air, Judy thought she had rarely known such happiness.
* * *
The house grew quiet in January, but before Aunt Page went home to Richmond, she grabbed Nancy’s arm and led her outside, speaking quickly as their breath smoked in the cold air.
“What are your plans now, niece?”
“Plans?”
“How much longer do you mean to stay at Bizarre?”
“How long?”
“Must you parrot my every word, child? No, never mind ‘child’. You’re a young woman. What future is there here for you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then it’s time you did. Let me lay out the future for you if you lack the wit to do so yourself.”
“Aunt!”
“Listen to me. In a few months, your sister will have a child. God willing, it will be healthy, and Judy too. But after the child comes, you need to leave. Do you see nothing in your future but tending to Judy’s children and running her errands, managing her household, instructing her slaves? It would be another story if you were older. But you’re not yet eighteen, Nancy. I’m determined to write to Lizzie and Molly the moment I arrive home. Your father too. You need society. Young men to meet.”
“But Aunt—”
“But me no buts.” She rounded on Nancy and looked her squarely in the eye. “What can be your hopes of matrimony, here at Bizarre?”
Nancy’s cheeks burned. “Theo Randolph—”
“Theo!” Her aunt threw her hands in the air. “Theo?” She paused for a moment. “There.” She indicated the stone bench at the edge of the kitchen garden, and they both sat. The cold slid through the folds of Nancy’s skirts.
“Theo,” Aunt Page said, “is not well.”
“I know that, but he is always worse in the winter. You will see. And when he recovers—”
“Nancy.” Aunt Page compressed her lips so that two lines carved down, cutting between her plump cheeks and apple chin. “Nancy, Theo will not see another winter.”
“I don’t understand—”
“He is sick. He may rally in the spring, but consumption is an ugly illness. It doesn’t let go. You mustn’t carry false hope. Nancy, perhaps you are too close to see it, but Theo is far, far worse than he was this time last year.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. But a small voice inside her head disagreed.