The Kitchen House

Belle can’t stand that Jamie is living in the big house at Martha’s side. She’s also angry at Lavinia for being so naïve. Lavinia “thinks like a child. She don’t always get what’s going on. She comes back here, wanting everything to be the same. It’s like she don’t know that when she marries Marshall, she’s gonna take on his world” (276).

After Lavinia learns that Marshall raped Belle and is now raping Beattie, she stays in “bed for two days, feverish and without appetite” (277). Marshall tries to comfort her, not knowing why she’s sick, but she turns away from him. She hates Marshall, but she also blames Beattie, thinking she must have welcomed his advances in some way. Mama defends Beattie, saying, “You know that girl don’t have the right to say no!” (278).

Lavinia gives birth to Eleanor, nicknamed Elly. Taking care of Elly keeps Lavinia busy and distracted. However, she still hates her situation with Marshall. She says, “I grew more resentful with each passing day. I did not want my husband to resume his marital rights, but I was horrified to think that his relationship with Beattie continued” (280). Unable to confront Marshall, she instead punished Beattie by being rude to her.

Beattie was pregnant with Marshall’s baby, but she loses it. Lavinia is “relieved that the baby died” (283). On Elly’s first birthday, Lavinia feels guilty for Beattie’s loss. She goes to the kitchen house to say sorry, but as she enters, she overhears Marshall giving Beattie a necklace. 

Will sends Lucy to work in big house alongside Belle, and the pair’s relationship deepens. Lucy has her baby, whom Belle names George. Caring for him pulls Belle out of her depression.

Lavinia’s letters from Meg are the only things that give her joy lately. Meg writes to say that she’s coming to visit soon and wonders if Lavinia might collect botany samples from the surrounding woods. This gives her a great idea: She will ask Marshall if she can learn to ride a horse, using Meg’s request as an excuse for going into the woods, then she’ll ride her horse out to visit Belle. Marshall agrees, so Lavinia and Sukey, her inseparable companion, take riding lessons from George. The activity invigorates her: “I loved nothing more than to ride out, but I never lost sight of my true goal” (290).

One day, she rides out alone, and meets Ben in the woods. He takes her to see Belle. The two catch up, but Lavinia finally admits that she’s resentful of Beattie, thinking that she must have encouraged his advances. Belle stands up for Beattie, saying that she has no choice because she’s a slave. When Lavinia tries to say that she’s his property too, Belle says, “Yes, but you picked that, […] Beattie don’t get to pick nothing except to figure out how she’s best gonna handle this” (292). Belle then confides that she and Ben are together, and so are Lucy and Ben, and they’re all okay with it.

Will comes and escorts Lavinia back into the woods. They stop and she cries, admitting that she’s unhappy. They kiss, but he stops it because she’s married. She leaves, angry and thinking that he’s a coward for not rescuing her from Marshall. 

Belle has grown to love Lucy and Ben’s baby, George, as her own. While he doesn’t replace Jamie, he keeps her from going insane with the grief of missing him. Belle knows that Lavinia and Will still have feelings for each other, but Ben says that Will’s a “church-goin’ man” (297) and would never interfere in a marriage. 

The only thing that brings Lavinia comfort lately is Sukey, with whom she often nestles at night (298). Mama Mae is adamant that Jamie shouldn’t be living in the big house as Martha’s son because Jamie is still a slave. Lavinia tries to go back to Belle’s, but Rankin intercepts her in the woods. Rankin tells Marshall that Lavinia was trying to sneak away to see Will, and that night at dinner Lavinia is afraid. When she sees that Beattie is again pregnant with Marshall’s baby, she becomes angry and yells at Marshall. He grabs her by the hair and drags her to his room. “The act of violence that followed was so abhorrent that I will not speak of it,” Lavinia says (301).

The Maddens and Meg come to visit. Lavinia desperately wants to tell them the truth about Marshall, but she doesn’t. The Maddens talk to Lavinia privately to say that it’s clear the plantation is falling apart because of Marshall’s mismanagement. Lavinia asks if she and Elly can go back with the Maddens, but they say that Marshall will never let Elly leave. After the Maddens’s departure, she feels so alone that she drinks some of Martha’s laudanum, finding “an escape” (306).

Belle gets mad when Lucy ends up pregnant again. She wonders when Ben is having sex with Lucy since they’re together all the time. 

Lavinia begins taking laudanum every day and falls deeper into feelings of depression and hopelessness. She reaches up in Martha’s closet to get more laudanum and finds Belle’s free papers. Beattie has another baby, and Lavinia helps her deliver it. In this moment, she sees the scars all over Beattie, and “I needed no further convincing that she was the hapless victim of my husband, and I felt a deep sorrow that I had added to her troubles” (312).

Marshall leaves for business one day, and Lavinia tries to sneak over to Belle’s, but Rankin again intercepts her. That night, Marshall hears about it and goes to her room. He smacks her in the face, and Sukey bites him to defend Lavinia. Marshall has Sukey taken away and sold to punish Lavinia. Afterward, Lavinia stays in her room and refuses to see Marshall. Lavinia relies on laudanum to cope, and Marshall begins gambling. Will Stephens gets married.

Five years have passed since Marshall sold Sukey. Beattie has had two children with Marshall, and he is now spending “more time in the kitchen house than he does in the big house” (318). He seems happy with Beattie and even plays with the boys, although he’s continually drunk. His gambling is getting worse, and he’s selling off parts of the plantation and some of the slaves to pay his debts. Meanwhile, Will’s plantation is flourishing, and he’s now married to a woman from church.

The plantation is falling apart. “I kept myself dosed with laudanum as everything fell away” (321). Lavinia hardly ever sees Marshall. Fanny becomes the caretaker of Elly and Martha, and Martha seems to be improving slightly. One day, Lavinia falls and blacks out. Jamie comes in and finds Belle’s free papers.

After the fall, Fanny and Mama nurse Lavinia back to health. When Elly asks her if this means that she won’t take the drops anymore, she feels crushed, realizing the effect her addiction is having on her daughter. She vows not to take the laudanum anymore.

Jamie visits Belle for the first time since Marshall took him. He’s 13 now, but Belle immediately knows who he is: “I look good at him then. He’s white as Marshall, but Jamie got the same face of the captain’s mama. Seeing his face, in some way, is like seeing my white grandma again” (332). Jamie knows Bell is his mother, although he doesn’t remember her, and he has brought her emancipation document.

Will is gone from the plantation with his pregnant wife, and Belle goes to visit Marshall. She confronts him, saying Jamie is his son, but he just angrily yells for his gun.

Rankin and Marshall tie up Eddy, Fanny’s husband, to sell him. Beattie says, “They take most everybody from the quarters. They all tied up. They leavin’ tomorrow” (338). Marshall takes Jamie too. Lavinia decides she will try to free everyone that’s tied up, and they will escape. Lavinia takes Martha’s jewelry and gives it to Mama, and Ben leads the slaves through the woods at night.

Lavinia and Elly hide out in Ben and Lucy’s cabin. Marshall comes by looking for her and the escaped slaves, but Lucy covers for them.

Belle goes to the big house to look for Jamie. She finds Uncle Jacob in Martha’s bedroom, and Martha is dead. He says, “I give her drops, but she still screamin’ for her Jamie, so I give her more” (349). Martha overdosed. Beattie and Ben find Belle, and they concoct a plan to burn down the big house. This will create a diversion, allowing the recaptured slaves to get away. With Rankin tending the fire, the slaves are free again, but Mama decides she doesn’t want to go. She complains that her head is cold, so Belle gives her her scarf. Belle thinks, “At the back of my neck, I can feel that something bad’s gonna happen” (354).

Marshall and Rankin appear and tie up Belle. Mama stands up to Marshall and finally reveals that Belle is his sister. Marshall puts a rope around Mama’s neck, and Rankin knocks Belle on the back of her head. 

Lavinia and Elly run back to their home to find Mama Mae hanging in the oak tree on their property. Marshall is standing beside her dead, hanging body, when Jamie appears and calls out, “Father!” (358). When Marshall looks over, Jamie shoots him. Lavinia takes the fall for Jamie, but Mr. Madden helps her get freed, blaming it all on Uncle, who most likely died in the house fire.

When the prison releases Lavinia, she goes back to Will’s house. She reunites with her family, Belle, Lucy and Ben, and Mr. Madden asks Lavinia what she wants to do. He says that she can come back home with them, but she wants to stay on the plantation. She will get 100 acres—what’s left of the plantation—and Mr. Madden will give her a loan; she will never have to repay it, but will instead have to write letters once a month to update the Maddens. She will also receive enough to build a new house. Papa, Eddy, Fanny, and Beattie get emancipation papers. Lavinia says, “Belle did come to live at Tall Oaks, and together we faced our future. When she died many years later, she was laid to rest in the big-house cemetery alongside her father. Her headstone was engraved: Belle Pyke/Daughter of James Pyke” (365).