Lovey could not say when she first began to notice Ezra, but when she did, it was as though she had always known and trusted him. By that time she had been picked as special helper by the new bride and mistress. Since most of her waking hours were spent with, or within call of, Deborah Kendrick, and since Arnold Kendrick often found himself consulting with Ezra when the work day was done and he and Deborah drew closer for night company, so Lovey and Ezra became accustomed to each other and found themselves easy together.

On more than one dark night Ezra escorted Lovey from the big house to the cabin she shared with Widow Jane and her ugly unmarried daughters, Posie and Buttercup. When he saw that she accepted him as a familiar, that is, that she could be still in his presence, evidently feeling no need to strain and buck and break away as she did in the presence of others, he began to give her such things as were in his power to give: a perfect peach, a nicely trimmed quill to pick her teeth, and once a remedy for earache made of crushed camphor leaves and oil of cloves.

As she grew aware of him, Lovey knew what had happened and what would happen, and to her credit she did not tease the man with vagaries and protestations. Her awareness showing in her eyes emboldened Ezra to speak; and when she listened quietly, to take her hand; and when she did not withdraw, the thing was quickly settled between them.

Deborah and Arnold saw them married in the living room of the big house one Sunday in September 1801. Ezra’s cabin became Lovey’s, and together Lovey and Ezra were those closest to the Kendricks of all who dwelled at Beulah Land. Before her marriage, which to her raucous delight astonished the other plantation hands, Lovey had been in a position of growing, if undefined, power. After it, Ezra’s own maturity extenuating her youth, she was recognized as the mistress of the house—after the Mistress.