Or Give Me Death by Ann Rinaldi Page B

little jealous because Patsy, as first daughter, got to wear them.
    The weather was perfect. Pa's uncle, Reverend Henry, married them. The food was chicken, roast beef, pork, duck, pheasant, oysters, mince pies, custards and blancmange, and wedding cake.
    Pa was dressed in a manner worthy of his position—a peach-blossom-colored coat and a dark wig tied behind. His mama and two sisters came over from Mount Brilliant for the wedding.
    My grandmama is from an old Virginia family. And people sometimes still called her "the Widow Syme," from the name of her first husband. At seventy-five she was feisty as ever. She and her daughters had become Methodist evangelists. Pa's sister Aunt Elizabeth was all the time quarreling with him about my mama, and how he gave her too many children. About neglecting Mama. About slavery. She freed all her slaves.
    It made for a lively gathering. Especially with all the talk about the East India Company storing seventeen million pounds of tea in warehouses in England. And having no market for it but America. And wanting us to pay three pence tax per pound for it.
    In the coolness of the September afternoon, I'd have paid a three-pence-per-pound tax for a cup of it, without question. I missed my tea.
    But then, I had no backbone. Even I knew that.
    I think it was the last good time we had in our family. Mama behaved well. Pegg and I dressed her in a good dimity and a lace-trimmed cap. I don't know if she understood what was going on. But she did tell one guest this: "When I married my husband, my dowry was Pine Slash, three hundred acres cut off from the rest of the world."
    When Pegg and I put her to bed that night, she smiled at us. "The tea," she said.
    "You want tea, Mama?" I asked.
    "The water will run brown with it," she said. "And after that, it will run red, with blood of Patriots."
    I shivered. "Yes, Mama," I said.
    "Don't you ever wed, Anne." She gripped my hand. "Marriage is not a good state. A woman gives up all her property and rights and privileges."
    I thought of Spencer Roane. He and his father had been invited to the wedding. He'd sat next to me and talked to me about horses. "It's refreshing to meet a girl who can talk about more than bread pudding," he'd said. And I'd shivered then, and I shivered now.
    But again I said, "Yes, Mama." I blew out the candle and left her there in the dark, with her visions of water turning brown from tea, and then red from blood.
    ***
    P ATSY CAME BACK from her wedding trip different, worse than before.
    She was mistress of Scotchtown now. And everyone must be made mindful of it, from the smallest Negro child on the place to me and Will and, of course, Betsy.
    The only one who escaped her mouth was little Edward, who was loved and pampered by everybody.
    The first morning back, Patsy made us all stay at the breakfast table after MyJohn kissed her and went to ride his horse out to the fields.
    "I am responsible for everyone on this place now. Every time you go farther than the stables or the quarters, I am to know of it. William and Anne, that goes mostly for you two. John, I must be informed of your whereabouts, also."
    John sighed, set down his linen napkin, and stood up. "Please, Patsy," he said. "You take yourself too seriously."
    She glared up at him. "And what mean you by that?"
    "Give the children their rein. They'll be grown up soon enough. Isn't life hard enough for them?" His eyes went to the floor beneath us.
    "That is precisely why I must
not
give them rein, John," Patsy said. "And I would appreciate at least being informed when you go to stay the night at the Dandridges."
    He shrugged. "You never needed to know before."
    "Pa still is not mindful of your courting Dorothea."
    "I'm not courting. We're just friends. And Pa knows that."
    "Still, he should know how often you go there."
    "To what end?" John challenged.
    Patsy had no answer.
    "You'll not hold sway over me," John said. "And you'd be well advised to loose your grip on