The Kitchen House

While the novel’s prologue takes place in 1810, when Lavinia is an adult, this first chapter flashes back to when Lavinia is seven years old. Her parents have died on James’s ship, and he takes her back to his plantation to work as an indentured servant. He hands her off to Belle, the young woman who runs the kitchen. When Lavinia first arrives, she has no memory of her former life, and she refuses to speak: “The dark haunted me, and with each passing night I sank further into loss. My head throbbed with the struggle of trying to remember something of myself” (6). Along with not sleeping, she is continually sick and unable to hold down food. Belle doesn’t know what to do with her, and eventually Mama Mae takes over. She makes her a chicken broth soup and nurses her back to health.

Lavinia arrives at the big house, and James informs her that she’ll be working in the kitchen. Martha, James’s wife, makes a rude comment about Belle, and it’s clear that there is tension between them. Martha believes that James is having an affair with Belle, but it’s later revealed that he’s kind to her because she’s his daughter.

The next night, Lavinia goes to Mama Mae’s house. There, Lavinia meets Papa, Mama Mae’s husband, and Mama Mae’s twin daughters, Fanny and Beattie, who are the same age as Lavinia. Dory, Mama Mae’s oldest daughter, is there with her baby, Henry, and it’s clear that he’s a sickly, fussy baby.

James leaves for business as he often does, and Martha falls apart, as she always does when he leaves. She’s addicted to laudanum, or opium, and Dory takes care of her while James is away.

Belle, clearly upset, comes into Mama Mae’s house. She says that before James left, he brought her gifts. Martha and Marshall came to the kitchen house, and when Martha “sees the new comb and the book he [James] gives me, she takes them and throws them at me. That starts Marshall pushing and hitting me” (14). Martha and Marshall both think that James is having an affair with Belle, but James never tells them that Belle is his daughter. James offers to give Belle free papers so she can move away, but she considers the plantation her home.

This chapter is from Belle’s point of view. Mama Mae gets angry every time the captain leaves because everything falls apart when he’s gone. Belle says, “Course, the cap’n is known for this, coming and going, telling nobody nothing. That’s the way he always is” (16). When she was little, she used to live in the big house with her “white grandma,” James’s mom. That was before he was married, and he used to treat her like a real daughter. However, once Martha moved in, “They move me out of the big house because the cap’n don’t want Miss Martha to know about me” (17).

When James comes home, Martha tends to get pregnant, but “those babies don’t live too long. She’s buried two already. Each time another one comes and goes, she takes more of those drops [laudanum]” (17). Despite her difficult position at the plantation, Belle doesn’t want “free papers. They’re just a way for the cap’n to get me out of here” (18).

Lavinia steals a handmade doll that Mama Mae made. Mama Mae knows that she didn’t take it maliciously; she just wants something of her own to love. To show that she understands, Mama makes Lavinia her own doll with “red braids and a body made of white cloth; it wore a brown dress and an apron made from the same green calico as Belle’s head rag” (19).

As time passes, Lavinia regains her health and grows attached to Mama Mae as if she’s her own mother. Lavinia says, “I lived for her notice of me. I kept a distance from Belle, sharing her rooms but watching her closely; she saw to my care, but she was no more at ease with me that I was with her” (20). She also grows close with Beattie and Fanny, and she develops a crush on their charismatic older brother, Ben.

One day, Lavinia and the twins see a man from the quarters named Jimmy stealing a board from the smokehouse. When the girls tell this to Papa, he and Mama argue: She wants him to put a stop to it, but he defends Jimmy because the people in the quarters need the salt that’s on the board. The quarters “were set up far down the hill” with “lean-tos” and cabins built of “rough-hewn logs and chinked with mud” (22). The quarters house the slaves that work in the fields, and it’s clear that their living conditions are dismal compared to that of the slaves who work in the big house. When Lavinia and the twins go to visit the quarters, Lavinia watches as children eat mush out of a “wooden trough not unlike the one Papa George used for his pigs” (23). When Lavinia is back in the kitchen house later that day with a delicious meal, she remembers the children in the quarters and feels guilty.

Mr. Waters comes to live at the big house to tutor Marshall, but Fanny doesn’t like him. Belle and Lavinia grow closer, and Lavinia takes on the new role of chicken caretaker. That winter, Dory’s baby, Henry, falls gravely ill. Mama Mae tries to comfort him with laudanum drops taken from the big house, but he dies. Watching the sorrow of Henry’s funeral makes Lavinia recall some suppressed memories: Henry’s body going into the ground “had become my mother’s. I watched again as they lowered it, deep and away, into the wild water. Days before, my father had led the way; he went in the water, too” (29). Mama Mae is the only one who can comfort Lavinia after this moment.

Henry’s death affects Belle, too, but she takes some comfort in the fact that the baby’s suffering is over—even if she knows Dory can’t. She says, “Now Dory’s eyes look like Miss Martha’s after she loses her babies” (31).

After Lavinia’s memories have returned, she’s grown closer to everyone in the kitchen house—probably because she knows they are all she has. Belle laughs to think that she and Lavinia both have a crush on Ben.

Lavinia’s resurfaced memories have caused her to be “[o]vercome by loss” and unable to do anything “but grieve” (32). She remembers that she has a brother, but James sold him. Lavinia and Belle grow closer, and she’s even allowed to sleep in Belle’s bed most nights. This relationship, along with the joy of Christmas, help Lavinia through the pain. Sarah, Martha’s sister, comes to visit with her daughter, Meg, and her husband. Lavinia immediately likes Meg, and Sarah tells Martha that Lavinia shouldn’t be living with the slaves; she’s white and should have a chance at a proper life. Martha brushes her off.

That night, the slaves have a Christmas party in the quarters. During Christmastime, James gives them an abundance of food and alcohol, and everyone dances and eats. When James brings more alcohol to the party, with Marshall and Mr. Waters at his side, Lavinia recognizes that Marshall seems scared of Mr. Waters. This moment is the first hint that Mr. Waters is abusing Marshall.

During the party, Mama Mae asks James if Dory can marry Jimmy, Henry’s father. James agrees, despite that Mr. Rankin, the cruel quarters overseer, had previously objected. The Christmas party turns into a wedding party, as the two are married immediately.

Belle admits that “Christmas is always the worst time for me. It’s what I remember best, living up there in the big house. And now Marshall is sleeping in my old bedroom” (47). She explains that her real mom was a slave that James bought from a slave yard, and he grew close to her because of how well she cared for his ailing mother. She misses living in the big house, and she misses her grandmother who treated her like family.

Lavinia hears Belle and another slave, Uncle Jacob, talking about how “[t]hat Rankin no good down at the quarters, and for sure that tutor no good” (50). They’re worried about James leaving because Martha is in no condition to run things, which leaves Rankin and Mr. Waters in charge—Rankin is beating and stealing from the slaves in the quarters, while Mr. Waters is sexually and physically abusing Marshall in secret.

Fanny is in charge of watching over Martha’s daughter, Sally, and it’s revealed that Martha is pregnant again. Everyone loves Sally because she’s a “gorgeous and fun-loving child, innocent of all pretense. She insisted on bringing her dolls and china dishes from the big house and always delighted in sharing them” (53).

One day, while Lavinia, Beattie, and Fanny are in the woods, they see Mr. Waters threatening Marshall. Mr. Waters says, “You want me to take your little sister next time instead of you?” (54). Marshall says that he’ll be good so that Mr. Waters will leave Sally alone. When Ben and Papa George hear about this, they go to talk to Mr. Waters.

Dory has a baby girl named Sukey. Lavinia thinks of Sukey “as a doll to me, and I delighted in her” (56).

One day, Marshall is reluctantly pushing Sally on the swing when Mr. Waters comes over. Marshall, in an agitated state, pushes Sally too high, despite her pleas for him to stop. Then, Sally is on the ground, dead. It is unclear whether she fell or jumped: “When she landed, there was an audible snap; she lay still, her head pitched back from her body and her little arms stretched open as though to welcome the heavens” (58).

Belle admits, “The first time I see that little girl Sally, I don’t like her just for being who she is. She’s my sister, but I can’t tell her that. And just because she’s all white, she’s never gonna be moved to the kitchen house like me” (59). However, once Sally dies, Belle feels a great loss for the child leaving the earth so soon.

Sally’s unexpected death is the last straw that finally breaks Martha. She immediately goes into labor after hearing the news. Mama Mae and Lavinia help Martha deliver a healthy baby boy whom Lavinia ends up naming Campbell after her own infant brother who died. Martha rejects the new baby because she’s too deep in the throes of grief for Sally, so Dory is to breastfeed him. Dory doesn’t want to because she has her own infant to feed, but she does as she’s asked.

Lavinia overhears Mr. Waters blaming Ben for Sally’s death, saying he was the one pushing her on the swing. Martha, in a drugged and sorrowful state, starts calling Lavinia “Isabelle,” after her little sister who died, and Lavinia goes along with it, holding Martha’s hand until she falls asleep. Martha keeps taking heavy doses of laudanum and spends her days alternately sleeping and hallucinating. She still refuses to hold Campbell. Lavinia and Dory look after the baby: Dory feeds him while Lavinia comforts and cares for him.

After Sally’s accident, Ben leaves to retrieve James. When James and Ben return, Rankin and his men take Ben. They torture him, blaming him for Sally’s death. James frees Ben, but he is permanently disfigured.

Belle mourns for both Sally and Ben, and Ben remains distant:

“My Ben don’t want me to see him, but I go over anyway. He won’t look at me and keeps his eyes closed. I helped Mama to get the bleeding stopped, but back in my kitchen house, all I can do is cry for what he looks like. He’s still my Benny, but not his pretty self” (74).

James and Belle talk, and she ends up promising him that she won’t see any men on the plantation—not even Ben.