Tender Betrayal

by Rosanne Bittner

  Audra closed her eyes for a moment. “I need time away from all of this to think,” she answered. She studied each one of them then, her gaze finally resting on Lena. “I am going to Cypress Hollow with Richard,” she added. She could feel Richard’s astonishment at the remark, but she kept her eyes on Lena. “Knowing what I know, I cannot have Toosie for my personal servant any longer. I am not even sure I can get used to the idea that a Negro woman is related to me. Part of me loves both of you, but part of me also hates what you’ve done. I will take Sonda with me to Cypress Hollow.” She finally turned to face a surprised Richard. “And you will not touch her, nor any of the other Negro women. I want children, Richard, because the love between a mother and her children is the only kind of love that is innocent and pure, and apparently the only kind of love I will ever know in my own life. I do not want my children to discover what I have discovered today, that the little mulattoes running around their plantation are their brothers and sisters. I want you to sell all mulatto children who you know are yours, but you must sell the mothers along with them and not separate them. If you agree to do that, and agree never to take Eleanor to Cypress Hollow again, I will go home with you. Will you do that? And will you promise Father I will be treated with gentleness and respect?”

  Richard’s dark eyes moved over her, giving her the shivers. She told herself that it didn’t matter anymore that they did not love each other. She wanted children, and Richard was the only man who could legally give them to her, but it was going to be on her terms.

  “I agree,” Richard answered. He stepped closer and touched her cheek. She felt like cringing, but she stood firm. “But only if you tell me one thing. Tell me that that Yankee bastard Lee Jeffreys is out of your life and your heart for good.”

  Lee! They would never recapture what they had shared at Maple Shadows. That had been another Audra, another Lee, another time. “Yes,” she answered. “He is out of my life…and out of my heart.” Why did she feel like crying?

  Richard grinned. “Then I shall take you home, dear wife.” He led her out of the room, and Audra did not give a second glance to Toosie, who was weeping quietly.

  February 1862

  Lee limped into the tent of Brigadier General Burnside and stood at attention, while the man studied some maps spread out on a makeshift desk consisting of a board laid across two barrels. “Sir?”

  Burnside raised his balding head, and in the dim light of an oil lamp, Lee thought that their recent victory over the rebels at Roanoke had made the stern man look strangely aglow. “Lieutenant Jeffreys,” he answered. “How’s the leg?”

  “I’ll live.” Lee was not sure how he was going to sleep well for a long time to come, if ever. While he lay in a makeshift Federal hospital on the island with a flesh wound to his left thigh, he’d had to listen to the screams of men having their own legs or arms sawed off, the sickening groans of other men with hideous head or gut wounds that meant slow, excruciating death.

  Get him up here, he could remember one doctor ordering someone. Lee had felt himself being moved, remembered seeing a saw in the doctor’s hand. He had pulled his revolver, which he still wore on his uniform belt, and pointed it at the doctor. Cut it off and you’re a dead man, Lee remembered warning the man in his delirium. He waved the revolver and others stepped back while the doctor cut open his pants leg to announce it was only a flesh wound. No shattered bone, he announced. I’ll let you keep it. He had poured whiskey into the wound and wrapped it, and Lee could only pray that infection would not set in. If it did, he’d already decided he would rather die before he’d let anybody take off his leg.

  He could have stayed a few more days at the hospital, but the stench of old blood and the sight of arms and legs piled in one corner like the hind quarters of animals made him decide to leave sooner. He’d fashioned himself a cane out of a sturdy tree limb and gone back to his command of the Tenth Connecticut.

  In one of the first onslaughts, Lee had originally been put second in command of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts, still a lieutenant colonel. When the Twenty-fifth sustained massive casualties, it was ordered to pull back. That was when Lee took a piece of shrapnel in his leg. He’d yanked it out himself and tied it off with his own neckerchief. He had remained in the thick of battle, waiting while the Tenth Connecticut, under Colonel Charles Russell, moved in to take the place of his own regiment. The colonel had been killed, and Burnside ordered Lee to take over the Tenth.

  Now Burnside finally broke into what could be called a smile. “I asked you to report to me, Lieutenant Jeffreys, for several reasons. First, you did a magnificent job of taking Colonel Russell’s place yesterday. Because of that, I have requested you be promoted to a full colonel.”

  Lee’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “I…don’t know what to say, sir, except thank you.”

  Sighing, Burnside took a moment to light a cigar. “I’ll see about getting you the winged-eagle insignia for your uniform.” He paused. “We had a lot of men desert as soon as their initial three months was up, after that fiasco at Bull Run; but you weren’t one of them. You’re in this for the long haul, am I correct?”

  “Yes, sir, unless something stops me.”

  Burnside smiled bitterly. “Yes. I know the feeling.” The man took a bottle of whiskey from a crate sitting near him and offered Lee a drink. “By the way, I know that Hawkins’s Ninth New York is taking credit for taking the island. Those Zouaves love glory, like to play the heroes. I’m grateful for their bravery and skill, but I know the real risk takers, and the ones who are truly responsible for this victory are men like your own Twenty-fifth Massachusetts and the Tenth Connecticut who came in first and took the worst of the attack. Don’t get too upset with the Zouaves. We don’t need disgruntled men among us. It’s time to stand together. I’ll make sure Washington knows who the real heroes were in this campaign.”

  “It makes no difference to me, sir, as long as the battle got won.”

  Burnside nodded, a troubled look in his eyes. Lee could not help wondering if there was another reason he had been called before the man. The general scratched his beard before continuing. “One of your men mentioned to one of mine that you had been to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Is that right?”

  There it was, Lee thought, the real reason he was here. A feeling of dread flooded through him. He had always hoped somehow that the war would never move as far south as Audra’s home territory. “Yes, sir, I was there once, for about three weeks, close to two years ago.” He swallowed the whiskey, suddenly wanting more. He had struggled not to think about Audra for a long time, and it irritated him that just the mention of a town near Brennan Manor could suddenly shake him. “I visited a friend of the family, a student of my mother’s.”

  Burnside puffed on his cigar. “After three weeks, you must have gotten rather familiar with the city. Did you also visit New Orleans?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would the fact that this friend lives in the area affect your judgment in the case of an invasion of New Orleans and Baton Rouge?”

  Lee met the man’s eyes, seeing there the warning that this was not the time for personal matters to cloud the real issue. “No, sir.” He meant it, didn’t he? After all, he hadn’t seen Audra for nearly two years. For all he knew, she had made a life with Richard, perhaps had a baby by now. He had told himself that a long time ago, realizing he must believe she was happy or else lose his mind.

  “Good. I trust you mean that, Colonel Jeffreys, because I am advising Washington that you be put in charge of your own brigade as a colonel and be part of the troops sent to New Orleans under Flag Officer David Farragut. He will do his best to get his fleet up the Mississippi past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, which in itself will not be an easy feat. Once that’s done, you and the other land troops will be under Major General Benjamin Butler. When the two forts are taken, all army and naval troops will move in to take New Orleans, then Baton Rouge and eventually Port Hudson, a major stronghold on the Mississippi
. Once that is done, we will have broken the Confederate defensive along the Mississippi, especially with Grant and other Union forces taking the Mississippi from the Tennessee-Arkansas end. We will have surrounded the South, and choked off the Mississippi. There will be no place for them to run, Colonel Jeffreys, except north, and I don’t believe they’ll want to run in that direction,” he finished with a sly grin. “Hand me that shot glass, Colonel Jeffreys.”

  Lee gladly obeyed, his mind whirling with the fact that he would be in charge of a brigade, but wishing he was being assigned anyplace but Louisiana.

  Burnside refilled his glass and handed it over. “This is, of course, between us for now. You’ll stay here and heal while more troops are sent down from Washington, along with the naval ships that will take you to the Gulf. That will take a couple of months. I don’t know yet just what regiments you will be leading, most likely a combination of several different states, like most of our brigades. You aren’t prejudiced toward any particular state, are you?”

  “I couldn’t care less, as long as they’re good fighting men that I can depend on,” Lee said, then downed the drink.

  “Good.” The general paused. “Your promotion and the planned invasion of New Orleans was the good news, Colonel. Now for the bad news.”

  Lee frowned. “Bad news?”

  The general sighed deeply, a look of sorrow in his eyes. “I got word three or four days ago, but with the impending siege of Roanoke, I couldn’t tell you. There was nothing you could have done about it, anyway. Now you’ll have some time to rest…and grieve.”

  A tightness filled Lee’s chest. “Grieve, sir?”

  “Your father is dead, Colonel Jeffreys. It happened over three weeks ago. It took your brother Carl a while to find out where you were. He may still be searching for your brother David. I have no idea where he has been assigned. I’m sorry, Colonel.”

  Lee struggled against showing too much emotion in front of the general. The news was so sudden. The fact that he had spent only that one night in true closeness with his father stabbed at his gut like a bayonet.

  “It was some kind of cancer,” Burnside added. “I’m to tell you he was buried at a place called Maple Shadows, beside your mother.”

  Maple Shadows. It was the only place where he had known any kind of real happiness. Was that the only way his family would ever gather together there again, in death? Oh, what he’d give for one more day of togetherness, with both his mother and father alive…to be young again, climbing those big trees with his brothers…and if only he could share one more summer there with Audra. He blinked back tears, handing the shot glass back to the general and rising. “May I go now, sir?”

  “Of course. Get rid of your grief, Colonel while you let that leg heal. You’ll need to be at full readiness when you head for New Orleans.”

  Lee nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Burnside shook his head. “Again, I’m sorry. I promise you, this hell will all be over one day, Colonel, and we can get back to a normal life.”

  What would a normal life be for him now, Lee wondered. By the time the war ended, he would have to start all over again. His father and mother were dead, Audra was lost to him. What dreams were left to him? What was he fighting for?

  He limped off into the darkness to be alone.

  21

  April 1862

  Audra rearranged a turquoise comb in her hair, wondering if Sonda would ever be as talented at doing her hair as Toosie had been. Secretly she missed her half sister, but she still felt a bitter hurt. Although she and Richard had traveled from Cypress Hollow to Baton Rouge several times in the past five months to help with the volunteer work for the war, she had not been back to Brennan Manor.

  Richard had behaved surprisingly well, and she had been a “dutiful” wife, allowing him to her bed just often enough to try to have a child; but so far her efforts had been a failure. She wondered if the deep hatred of him she had tried to bury was affecting her ability to conceive. Each coupling brought back ugly memories, but she was determined now to have a baby, to have someone to love with all her heart.

  She had learned to shut off all feeling when she was with Richard, as though the body he slept with were not her own. She felt hard and wicked, and now when she looked at herself in the mirror, she was no longer sure who she saw there. She had decided she had no choice but to accept her life, to accept a loveless marriage, as she’d come to believe many other women did. If they could survive it and even bear children, she could, too. She would love a baby with all that was in her, love that for now was buried somewhere in her soul. There were no feelings left for anything else, except Joey…and lingering dreams of Lee; but Joey might never make it home, and to allow herself thoughts of Lee was too painful.

  She opened a dresser drawer and took out Joey’s last letter to her, written just last February. When he first joined up nearly ten months ago, he had been sent to Florida, and it had warmed her heart to read his letters. Although the Confederate troops with whom he fought had failed in an attempt to take the Yankees at Santa Rosa Island in Florida, Joey was still proud of the fact that he was indeed among the honored few who called themselves sharpshooters. Because his stuttering would have been an obstacle to his giving orders, he was still just a private, but he had told her he was well treated by the other men, and that the officers had a great deal of respect for his prowess with a rifle.

  Still, his latest letter worried her. He was in Tennessee now, and she could tell that the glory of war was becoming something ugly for him. It had already changed him, she could tell. We have been fighting against the Union General Grant and his Yankees in Tennessee, his last letter read. I tell myself it’s okay to kill Yankees, because they are the enemy, and they want to kill me and take our home. But it gets harder, Audra. The other day I ran past a man I had shot, and he was holding a picture in his hand of a woman and a baby. I’m pretty sure it was his wife and child, and I got sick. He was a Yankee, but up close he just looked like any other man.

  I thought at first that the war would end quickly, but now I can see we all were wrong about that. I will stay with it as long as God keeps me from being wounded or killed, because as Southerners we have no choice, and because I would not shame Father by quitting too soon. In fact, my commander has told me he might promote me to corporal.

  Don’t be sad for me, Audra. In spite of the ugly things I have seen, and how hard it is for me to kill other men, I have learned a lot about life and about myself. I have found I have courage, and I can make decisions all on my own. I have earned the respect of others who care nothing about the fact that I am Joseph Brennan’s son. Most of them don’t even know my father is a rich plantation owner. They just know me as Joey, and I like to leave it that way.

  I worry about how Richard is treating you, and about the Yankees coming into Louisiana. My commander says there are rumors the Yankees will invade New Orleans. I am afraid for you, and I will pray for you and Father and everybody. I love you, Audra. I’m okay—not even any wounds yet—so don’t worry. Just take care of yourself and Brennan Manor, and before you know it, I’ll be home again. Joey.

  Audra refolded the letter and put it back in the drawer. Poor, sweet Joey. What would she do if he never made it home? She could not imagine life without her brother. She shivered at the possibility, and pushed the thought away, telling herself she must not dwell on such things. God would not take Joey from her. She had lost too much already.

  Joey’s letter had been closer to the truth than he realized. According to newspaper reports in Baton Rouge, the Yankees were indeed on their way to invade New Orleans. Everyone was praying that the Confederate strongholds at Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip could stop the Union naval ships from ever getting past the mouth of the Mississippi. She and Richard were planning a trip to New Orleans to witness whatever was to come.

  At times she was almost glad for the diversion of war. It had helped her set aside her unhappiness, had kept her and Richard both occupi
ed with fund-raising events and travel to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Weariness from her hard work and from so much traveling had given her excuses to keep Richard out of her bed on the nights she could not bear him there, and the war itself had given them something to talk about besides the emptiness of their marriage.

  They were back at Cypress Hollow now. It was planting time, and Richard told her he needed to keep an eye on the fieldwork. The Negroes had grown more restless, some of them becoming outright lazy and belligerent. A few had run off, and Richard had hired men to hunt down the runaways. There was an unsettled feeling lately throughout the Negro camps of both Cypress Hollow and Brennan Manor. Richard said it was because the Negroes knew that the Yankees were getting closer, that the Union soldiers were coming to “free” them. Audra wondered if many of them had given thought to what they would do if they were freed—how they would live, eat, survive.

  More and more she was beginning to understand why Richard said that fighting the Yankees was as much for the Negroes as for themselves. If you think most southern whites hate the Negroes now, he had told her just a few nights ago, just see what happens if they are freed. They will be more of a burden than ever, and if the South loses this war and we lose all we have, it is the Negroes who will get blamed for it, Audra. For most of them, life on a plantation will seem like a wonderful thing compared to how they will suffer if they are freed.

  At first she had thought he might feel sorry for them, and she had been heartened to think he cared, but then he had shocked her by saying that if they were freed, they could all go to hell. He vowed he would never pay Negroes for work or help them in any way. If the niggers want their freedom, let them find out the hard way that it is not as sweet as they think it will be, he had promised her. I will enjoy their suffering.