Elizabeth had heard the same sentiments from newcomers all her life. Before her years in Charleston, she hadn’t understood the complaints. Did they not have every variety of fish in the sea? Many kept hens. Their eggs and the eggs of turtles were plentiful. A few of the more agrarian minded grew sweet potatoes, squash, and melon in the small amount of soil they could scrape together. Some had planted the coconut palm and banana tree with great success. Limes and sapodillas also came in from the other keys. Any given ship might bring the necessities like flour, lard, sugar, and molasses.
Then she went to Charleston. Fresh beans and peas, not dried. Peaches so sweet and juicy that she ate until her stomach ached. Fresh beef and pork, such a rarity in Key West, were common table fare. She had reveled in the variety. No wonder her mother had been shocked by the limited selection in Key West.
Though that disappointment was understandable, the next entry sent a shudder through Elizabeth.
How distressed Mama and Papa would be to learn what I must endure in this wilderness. The match they promoted bears little resemblance to the reality I face. I cannot return home, of course. As Mama would say, life is filled with trials and disappointments. We must do our best with what we have been given.
I have no confidante here, no special friend. The few women of self-proclaimed quality would gleefully shout my difficulties from the street corner if they knew of them. On these pages alone can I lament. If not for this diary, I would go mad.
Charles shows much less affection than during courtship. Having caught the prize, he is content to observe from afar or parade me before others, all the while maintaining the perverse habits of bachelorhood. Surely this is not the kind of union God intended.
Perverse habits? Father? He held honor and propriety in the highest regard. She did not recognize the man Mother described. True, he did not display affection in public, but he had always asked a special blessing for Mother when saying grace and had kissed Charlie and her good night. He had deferred to Mother in all household matters, and she had turned to him for every decision that extended beyond the house. Elizabeth had always viewed their marriage as perfectly matched.
She reread the words.
The match they promoted.
If Mother had been unhappy following her parents’ counsel, why would she set Elizabeth on the same course? It made no sense, unless things had changed between them later or Mother had been mistaken about the most shocking of accusations, that Father had maintained perverse habits. She must have meant smoking a pipe or drinking brandy. That might have shocked her when they were first married, since Grandpapa had not indulged in either.
Elizabeth read on, hoping to learn more. Instead, the next entries detailed the common travails of everyday life, from a problem servant to a lack of sugar or stormy weather. None of them addressed her mother’s feelings.
She leafed ahead to find more of the same. The words blurred, and her eyelids threatened to drift shut until the entry in October of that year when there was a frightening incident that cost a man his life. Mother’s fear was palpable.
Though Commodore Porter claims to have eradicated the pirates, I cannot but wonder if one of their kind has returned. Others think it’s a Negro gone mad. Charles scoffs at such fears, insisting the guilty party will be found and brought to justice. That is so like him! But he is at court most days, leaving me here with the servants and a rifle I cannot work. How I wish I had never come to this place! I fear for the child I am carrying.
Elizabeth calculated the years and months. She must have been that unborn child.
She turned the page, but the next entry was dated weeks later and made no mention of a fugitive. In fact, it mentioned only the birth of a slave baby and Mother’s long vigil with the baby’s unnamed mother. She leafed ahead and saw no further mention of either pirates or justice.
As the candle sputtered out, she closed the diary and crawled into bed.
Shadowy pirates tormented her dreams that night. Again aboard ship, she fought them off with nothing but a belaying pin. In the way of dreams, their flashing swords could not smash her wooden pin, though they drove her closer and closer to the rail and the black water below. When she could not hold them off any longer, she awoke. They retreated from her memory, no more substantial than the heavy clouds threatening rain.
She threw off the bed sheet, and something thudded to the planked floor. Mother’s diary! After tugging the bedclothes onto the feather mattress, she found the diary underneath the bed. By kneeling, she could reach it with her fingertips and drag it close enough to grab.
All the answers lay inside.
Elizabeth crawled back onto the bed, where she could shove the diary beneath the covers if anyone walked into the room. A servant would knock first, but Aunt Virginia would barge in unannounced.