by John Jakes
And she snapped her legs together, jerked her nightdress down, seized the lamp, and left the bedroom.
Huntoon listened to her marching downstairs. “You mean bitch,” he shouted, momentarily not caring whether Homer or any of the other house people heard him. Serve her right if they did.
The anger wilted as quickly as the slight stiffness, all he had been able to manage while she yelled at him. Her cruelty did something more than hurt him. It confirmed a suspicion that had been with him for some days. There was another man.
Huntoon flung himself back in bed and put his forearm over his eyes. Everything in Richmond was awry. He was trapped in menial work for a government he had first distrusted and now despised. He felt the same about Davis, whose foes no longer formed a company or a regiment, but a small army. Important men: Vice President Stephens; Joe Johnston; Vance of North Carolina and Brown of Georgia, governors who said Davis was usurping their powers; Toombs, the former secretary of state, to whom Davis had been forced to hand over a brigadier’s commission to stop his scathing attacks.
The President dictated to the army and truckled to the Virginia clique, as if that were the only way to make his shabby pedigree acceptable. He was botching the war, mismanaging the nation, and—an easy extension in a distraught mind—thwarting Huntoon’s ambition, thereby causing the rift with Ashton.
For an hour, he lay imagining her naked with another man. Some officer perhaps? That wily little Jew with his cabinet post and his fine manners? Or could it be a man like that sleek, patently untrustworthy Georgian, Powell? Dry-mouthed, Huntoon pictured his wife coupling with various suspects. He wanted to know the man’s identity. He would confront her; demand that she give him the name of—
He stopped thinking that way. He couldn’t do it. Knowing would probably kill him.
When two hours had gone by, he heaved himself out of bed, donned his robe, and went downstairs. The house had grown cold. His breath plumed visibly against the glow of a lamp in the parlor. He stepped into the doorway.
“Ashton? I came to apologize for—”
The sentence trailed away. He grimaced. She breathed lightly and evenly, curled in a large leather chair, fast asleep. Her legs were drawn up near her bosom and her arms clasped around them. On her face a smile of dreams, sensually contented.
He turned and stumbled toward the staircase, his ears ringing, that smile acid-etched on his memory. Tears came. He hated her but knew he was powerless to do anything about it, which only worsened the feeling. He climbed the stairs like an old man as the hall clock tolled three.
43
AT BELVEDERE, BRETT CONTINUED to fight her own daily war with loneliness.
One consolation: Billy’s letters sounded more cheerful. His old unit, Engineer Company A, had returned to Washington and was quartered on the grounds of the federal arsenal along with two of the three new volunteer companies congressionally approved in August—B from Maine and C from Massachusetts.
Billy still maintained a starchy pride in belonging to “the old company.” But he wrote that most of the regulars accepted the new recruits and were attempting to make them overnight experts in every skill from pontoniering to road building.
The newly constituted Battalion of Engineers incorporated the old cadre of corps regulars, and was now attached to McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and commanded by Captain James Duane, ’48, an officer Billy respected. In order to stay with the battalion, Billy’s friend Lije Farmer had been required to resign as captain of volunteers and take a regular army commission as a first lieutenant. Oldest one in the Potomac Army, he claims, but he is content, and I am glad he’s with us.
Brett was happy her husband was back where he wanted to be. With winter bringing military hibernation, she hoped he would be relatively inactive and thus out of danger for several months. She wondered about chances for a leave. She missed him so; there was many a night when she slept only an hour or two.
She helped around the house as much as she could, but that still left great stretches of empty time. Constance had gone back to Washington to be with George. The strange, ill-tempered colored man, Brown, was there, too, gathering more strays. Virgilia had won a place among Miss Dix’s nurses and wouldn’t be returning. Brett was by herself, moody and lonesome.
One steel-colored December day, she bundled up, walked to the gate of Hazard’s, then up the hill to Brown’s building. She found two of the children, a boy and a girl, studying at a board with Mr. Czorna, the Hungarian. His wife was stirring soup at the stove. Brett greeted each of them.
“Morning, madam,” the gray-haired woman replied, deferential but not especially friendly. Each had an accent: Mrs. Czorna’s heavily European, Brett’s heavily Southern. Brett knew the couple didn’t trust her—not exactly a novelty in Lehigh Station.
She started to say something else but noticed a child in the adjoining room. Sitting on a cot beside the partition dividing the area, the little coppery girl stared at her hands with her head bowed.
“Is the child ill, Mrs. Czorna?”
“Not sick, not that kind of ill. Before he go, Mr. Brown bought her a turtle in a store. Two nights ago, when we had the snow, the turtle crawled out the window and froze. She won’t let me take it and bury it. She won’t eat, she won’t speak or laugh—I miss her laugh. It warms this place. I don’t know what to do.”
Touched by the sight of the forlorn figure in the other room, Brett followed her impulse and spoke. “May I try something?”
“Go ahead.” The statement, the shrug, said a Carolina plantation girl didn’t seem the right person to deal with a runaway black child. It was a familiar canard.
“Her name’s Rosalie, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
Brett walked to the dormitory and sat down beside the little girl, who didn’t move. In the open palm at which the child was staring lay the dead turtle, on its back—not smelling good at all.
“Rosalie? May I take your turtle and give him a warm place to rest?”
The child stared at Brett, nothing in her eyes. She shook her head.
“Please let me, Rosalie. He deserves to be warm and snug while he sleeps. It’s cold in here. Can’t you feel it? Come help me outside. Then we’ll go to my house for some cookies and cocoa. You can see the big mama cat who had kittens last week.”
She folded her hands, waiting. The child stared at her. Slowly, Brett reached out to grasp the turtle. Rosalie glanced down but didn’t say or do anything. After Brett found the child’s coat, she asked Mrs. Czorna for a large spoon, and they went out behind the whitewashed building. Brett knelt and used the spoon to chisel a hole in the wintry ground. She wrapped the turtle in a clean rag, laid him away, and replaced the soil carefully. She looked up to see Rosalie crying, emotion shaking loose at last in silent heaving sobs, then audible ones.
“Oh, you poor child. Come here.”
She stretched out her arms. The little girl ran to her. While the sharp wind blew, Brett held the trembling body. She stroked Rosalie’s hair and, with a small start, made a discovery. In her years of helping on the plantation, she had picked up bundled black babies or held the hands of older children many a time, yet always stopped shy of the ultimate giving—an embrace.
Had she been guided by some unexpressed belief that Negroes were somehow unfit for a white woman to touch? She didn’t know, but this moment in the gray morning jarred her to awareness. Rosalie felt no different from any other child hurting.
Brett hugged her tight and felt the little girl’s hands slip around her neck and then the cold wetness of her cheek pressing hers for warmth.
44
AUNT BELLE NIN DIED on the tenth of October. She had been sinking for days, the victim of what the Mains’ doctor termed a poison in the blood. She was alert to the end, smoking a cob pipe that Jane packed for her and commenting on dreams that had shown her scenes of the afterlife. “I don’t feel bad about going, except for one reason,” she said through the smoke. “I’l
l probably meet my two husbands on the other side, and I could do without that. I’m leaving a better world than I was born into—the light of the day of jubilo will be breaking next year or soon after. I know it in my heart.”
“So do I,” said Jane. They had agreed for a long time that if war came, the South would fail and fall. Now freedom was a scent on the wind, like that of rain before a heat spell broke. Aunt Belle took several more puffs, smiled at her niece, handed her the pipe, and closed her eyes.
Madeline readily consented that Aunt Belle be buried at Mont Royal the next day—the same day a fire swept Charleston. There was scorched earth for blocks, six hundred buildings lost, billions of dollars’ worth of property. Black arsonists were blamed. The news reached Mont Royal the evening after the funeral; a courier galloping to the Ashley plantation warned of possible uprising.
While the courier was speaking to Madeline and Meek, Jane was walking alone in the cool moonlight by the river. A creak of boards at the head of the dock alarmed her. Cuffey was always watching her these days, and the moment she turned and saw the dark, threatening silhouette of a man, she thought he had followed her. She stood motionless, filled with fear.
“Just me, Miss Jane.”
“Oh, Andy. Hello.” She relaxed, pulling at her shawl. The early winter moon lit his face as he turned his head slightly, approaching in a cautious, shy way.
“Wanted to say how much your aunt’s passing grieved me. Didn’t think it was my place to speak to you at the burial.”
“Thank you, Andy.” To her surprise, Jane found herself gazing at him slightly longer than politeness dictated. She had recently grown much more aware of him.
“Like to sit down a minute? Visit?” he asked. “Don’t get much of a chance to see you, working all day—”
“Aren’t you chilly? You have nothing but that shirt.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” He smiled. “Perfect. Here, let me help you—”
He grasped her hand so she wouldn’t fall as she sat on the edge of the dock. A fish leaped, scattering liquid moonlight. When it struck him that he had been forward when he touched her, a look of mortification appeared on his face. That made her think all the more of him.
Truthfully, Jane was as nervous as he was. She had never had much contact with boys in Rock Hill. Too independent, for one thing. Too scared, for another. She was a virgin and had been sternly advised by Widow Milsom to keep herself in that state until she found a man she loved, trusted, and wanted to marry. She knew she was attractive, or anyway not ugly. But none of the gentlemen around Rock Hill had marriage in mind when they attempted to court her.
“Terrible about that fire in Charleston.”
“Terrible,” she agreed, though she felt no sympathy for the white property owners. She had no desire to see lives lost, but if every plantation in the state burned down, she wouldn’t mind.
“Reckon you’ll be starting north soon.”
“Yes, I suppose. Now that Aunt Belle’s buried, I’m—” She checked, not wanting to say free, in case it would hurt him. It was a potent word, free. “—I’m able to do that.”
He examined his fingers, searched the bright river, finally exploded. “Hope you don’t mind me saying something else.”
“I won’t know till you say it, will I?”
He laughed, more at ease. “Wish you’d stay, Miss Jane.”
“You don’t have to call me miss all the time.”
“Seems proper. You’re a fine, pretty woman—smarter than I’ll ever be.”
“You’re smart, Andy. I can tell. You’ll do even better when you learn to read and write.”
“That’s part of what I mean, Mi—Jane. Once you leave, won’t be anyone here who could teach me. Nobody to teach any of us.” He leaned closer. “Jubilo’s coming. The soldiers of Lincoln are coming. But I can’t get along in a white man’s world the way I am now. White people write letters, do sums, carry on business. I’m no better fixed for that, I’m no better fixed for freedom than some old hound who lies in the sun all day.”
It was not a plea so much as a summation of the plight of a majority in the South: the black people. With Andy, she believed the day of freedom was rapidly approaching. How could slaves meet and deal with the change? They weren’t prepared.
She felt a prick of anger then. “You’re trying to make me feel ashamed because I won’t stay and teach. It isn’t my task. It isn’t my duty.”
“Please don’t be angry. That isn’t all.”
“What do you mean, it isn’t all? I don’t understand you.”
He gulped. “Well—Miss Madeline, she’ll be leaving soon to join Mr. Orry. Meek isn’t a mean overseer, but he’s a hard one. The people need another steadying hand, another friend like Miss Madeline.”
“And you think I could replace her?”
“You ain’t—aren’t a white woman, but you’re free. It’s the next best thing.”
Why the rush of disappointment, then? She didn’t know. “I’m sorry I misunderstood, and I thank you for your faith in me, but—” She uttered a little cry as he snatched her hand.
“I don’t want you to go, because I like you.”
He spoke so fast, it sounded like one long word. The instant he finished, he shut his mouth and looked ready to die of shame. She could barely hear him when he added, “I apologize.”
“No, don’t. What you said is—” how tongue-tied she felt—“sweet.” Inclining her head, she brushed his cheek with her lips. She had never been so bold. She was as embarrassed as Andy; churning. She pushed against the dock. “It’s chilly. We ought to go.”
“May I walk along?”
“I’d like it if you did.”
The three-quarters of a mile to the cabins was traversed in silence, a silence so strained it hurt. They reached the slave street, the far end washed by lemon lamplight from the overseer’s house Meek had repainted inside and out. Andy said, “G’night, Miss Jane,” in a strangled voice. He veered away toward his own cabin without breaking stride. A last sentence floated behind. “Hope I didn’t make you too mad.”
No, but he had unsettled her. Mightily. She had developed a strong romantic interest in Andy; it had crept over her with stealth. Tonight, while drops of light fell from the jumping fish, she had come square up against it. It was a powerful pull against the magnet of the North.
Lord. After crying at the burial, she had been certain of her next step. Now she was all topsy-turvy and unsure—
“Boss nigger’s the only one good enough for you, huh?”
“What’s that?”
Alarmed by the voice from the dark, she searched and saw a form break from an unlit porch to the left. Cuffey ambled to her, took that admire-me stance of his, and said, “Guess you know who.” With his tongue pressed against the back of his upper teeth, he made a scary little hissing sound. “I was head driver once. That make me good enough to walk you in the moonlight? I know all the ways to pleasure a gal. Been learnin’ since I was nine or ten.”
She started around him. He grabbed her forearm with a hand that hurt. “I asked you somethin’, nigger. Am I good enough for you to go walkin’ with or not?”
Jane struggled to hide her fright. “Nothing on earth would make you good enough. You let go of me or I’ll go after your eyes with my fingernails, and while I’m at it, I’ll yell for Mr. Meek.”
“Meek’s gonna die.” Cuffey pushed his face near hers, his mouth spewing a fetid odor. “Him an’ all the white folks who kicked and beat and bossed us all our lives. Their nigger pets gonna die, too. So, bitch, you better figure out which side—”
“Let go, you ignorant, foul-mouthed savage. A man like you doesn’t deserve freedom. You’re worthless for anything but spitting on.”
She had listeners on various dark porches. A woman hee-heed, a man laughed outright. Cuffey spun left, then right, the whites of his eyes catching moonlight through the trees. His search for his unseen mockers left Jane free to tear loose and run. She dashed into he
r cabin and stood with her back against the door, panting.
She pulled her pallet against the door and on top of it laid the one Aunt Belle had used. She decided to leave the lamp burning as a further defense. The cabin was uncomfortable; oiled paper in the window frames didn’t bar the cold. She pulled two thin blankets over herself and pressed her back against the door. She would feel it move if an intruder tried to open it.
She watched the lamp wick burning, saw the faces of two men in the flame. She would go as soon as she could.
Tomorrow.
During the night she dreamed of country roads choked with thousands of black people, wandering aimlessly. She dreamed of great malformed doors opening to reveal a room she had seen before. The room radiated blinding light; from its white heart, calling voices summoned her—
She woke to the crow of roosters and memories of Cuffey flooding her mind. She pushed these aside and seized on the swiftly fading dream images. Aunt Belle had always put stock in the importance of dreams, though she always said a person had to work hard to figure out the meanings. Jane did this and in an hour reached a decision.
It would be harder to stay than to leave. Despite Cuffey, there would be compensations. One was the help she could give her own people to prepare them a little for the jubilo she believed to be certain.
Another compensation might be Andy. But even without him, there was the call of conscience. She wasn’t a Harriet Tubman or a Sojourner Truth; not a great woman; but if she did what she could, she could live with herself. She dressed, fixed her hair, and hurried to the great house to find Madeline.
Orry’s wife was at breakfast. “Sit down, Jane. Will you have a biscuit and jam? Some tea?”
She was stunned by the invitation to share the table with the white mistress. She thanked Madeline, sitting opposite her but taking no food. She caught the scandalized look of a house girl returning to the kitchen.
“I came to discuss my leaving, Miss Madeline.”
“Yes, I assumed that. Will it be soon? Whenever you go, I’ll miss you. So will many others.”