Tender Betrayal

by Rosanne Bittner

  Audra supposed that in a sense those poor Negroes probably deserved to live in the mansion and get something back from the man who had mistreated them, but it saddened her to think of how grand and elegant Cypress Hollow used to be, in spite of the unhappiness she had known there. She still owned the plantation, but it did her little good. With no way to farm it, she was practically as poor as the Negroes. Most of the investment of both plantations had gone into the Negroes and planting cotton. Now there was no way to sell the slaves and get any money out of them; and there was no cotton. Her father and Richard both had converted most of their cash into Confederate money, which now was practically worthless. God only knew what would happen to the big landholders who were bound to go broke. If the North won this war, who really owned any of the land? Would wealthy Northerners come down here and claim it for themselves? Men like Lee?

  She was not sure how much more she could take. She was torn as to what she should do about Lena and Toosie if she ever had to leave her home. She could not imagine not having Toosie with her, but she also could not support both of them, or Henrietta, who had also faithfully stayed with her. She supposed that eventually they would all have to go, and she could never stay here alone. It was far too dangerous now. More than that, she could not bear to walk these rooms, remembering a time of elegance, luxury, happiness, a time when she innocently thought her father the most wonderful human being who walked the earth.

  Joseph gripped her hand weakly and muttered Joey’s name. “I…have to see him…once more,” the man groaned. “Have to tell him I love him…proud of him. I should have told him more when he…was here, shouldn’t I?” A tear slipped out of his eye, and Audra wiped it away.

  “He knows, Father,” she assured him. “Don’t blame yourself. He went off to war as much for himself as anyone. He needed to prove something to himself, to know he could do something on his own and do it well.”

  “You tell him…tell him I love him.”

  Audra looked over at Lena, who just shook her head and looked away, struggling against tears. “You’ll tell him yourself when he comes home,” Audra answered, leaning over to kiss her father’s forehead. “Because you’ll still be here, and Joey is coming home soon. I feel sure of it, Father.”

  She felt her own tears fighting to come, and she did not like crying in front of her father. She quietly left the room, going downstairs to the parlor and asking Henrietta, who had converted herself from a seamstress to a maid of all uses, if she would fix her some hot water. Tea had become a wonderful luxury, and she did not want to waste what little was left. Plain hot water was often all she needed to soothe her.

  Henrietta, herself near tears over the knowledge that Master Joseph was dying, gave Audra a hug and went to heat the water. There was no other kitchen help left, and Lena was too crippled to take care of the house any longer. It was up to Toosie, Henrietta, and herself to keep the home cleaned and presentable, and she was determined to do that for as long as possible.

  She looked at her hands, not quite so soft and perfect anymore. There would be no more balls and fancy gloves. Scrubbing floors, washing dishes, hoeing gardens, and the like were no longer work for the slaves. It was work she did herself, and to her surprise she actually enjoyed it at times. She supposed it was mainly because it kept her busy, and that seemed to be her primary goal now…just keep busy, don’t think, don’t remember how things used to be, how grand and luxurious life was, how robust and powerful Joseph Brennan had been. Most of all, she must not remember Lee Jeffreys.

  Five years it had been since that summer in Connecticut. She looked at the fireplace mantel, where the mounted sea gulls still sat. She should get rid of all memories of Lee, put him out of her mind forever now, for she had told him never to come for her, and she had meant it. That had been two years ago, and God only knew what had happened to him. Surely, if he was even still alive, he knew as well as she did that she was right. She could never look at him again and see anything but a Yankee, one of the men who was putting her through this hell, taking away her father, her brother, her way of life, her home, her dignity.

  She walked over to the mantel and took down the sea gulls, stared at them a moment, touched them. Why did it have to be this way? Why had God brought Lee into her life in the first place? It wasn’t fair. Nothing that was happening was fair, and she wondered how much longer she could bear this loneliness. If not for Lena and Toosie, and the hope that Joey would come back soon, she would end her life. She began to shake, and her stomach ached fiercely, but she knew what she had to do. She had to get rid of the memories, for there was nothing for her now but day-to-day existence, and the worry of what to do about tomorrow. Yesterday’s happiness would never visit her again.

  Her tears dripped onto the sea gulls, and after hugging them to her heart for a moment, she threw them, one by one, against the brick backing of the fireplace, feeling literal pain when each one shattered. She forced herself then to walk over to the piano bench, where she remembered putting the note Lee had given her with the gift. She wiped her teary eyes as she took the note from the bench, glancing at it once.

  Found a man in New Orleans who makes these by hand. They were made on the Gulf, but they reminded me of the good times we shared in Connecticut. Think of me whenever you look at them. God bless and protect you, Audra. Love forever, Lee.

  She wadded the note into her palm. Think of me…Love forever…No, she could no longer allow herself to think about him or to admit she had loved him more than her own blood. To love him was to betray her own people, many of whom were suffering beyond human endurance. For Joey’s sake, she must not remember, and she deserved to suffer this way, for sleeping with the enemy while Baton Rouge burned and people died.

  She walked back to the fireplace and struck a match, holding it to the note. As soon as it flared up, she threw it into the hearth and watched it burn…burn, then disappear, just like her love for Lee Jeffreys.

  Lee sat on his horse watching the orange flames and black smoke as Atlanta, Georgia, burned…burned…like most of the South. He had once hated watching things like this, but he had seen so much of it that he had managed to build a shell around his heart, no longer allowing emotion to enter into what he had to do. He started building that shell the day he left Audra behind at Baton Rouge.

  In the flames of Atlanta he could still see her face, still hear her shouted words for him never to come back. That southern pride was the one thing he was convinced the Federals had not been able to defeat, no matter how much destruction and bloodshed they brought to these people. Audra was full of it, and it was the primary reason he could not go back. It was that pride, that love of their homes and cities and their refusal to hand them over to the Federals that made them set most of these fires themselves. These people knew Sherman was coming, and they were determined to leave nothing behind of value for the Yankees.

  When he thought about how painful it would be for him to set a torch to Maple Shadows, he understood that pride, and how determined these people still were that they had been in the right. He did not doubt that by now Brennan Manor must be all but lost, and he could not bear the thought of what Audra must be suffering. The only way to live with it was to try not to think about her at all, but that was impossible, especially now. On his march to Savannah with General Sherman, in every building he ordered torched, every warehouse with dwindling supplies, in every farm their horses trampled over, every starving face of woman and child, he saw Audra.

  Just this morning they had seen a string of refugees climbing a distant hill, the last brave souls who had stayed behind to set more fires before fleeing with what they could carry on their backs. Men burned their own businesses, women their own homes, and the only way to live with the nightmarish memories was to keep telling himself they had brought this upon themselves. All they’d had to do was agree to end slavery, stay in the Union, work together in Congress to bring this all about peacefully; but that damn southern pride had brought them to this. It
had destroyed the love he and Audra had shared; but then, his own pride had been just as responsible. Was it so important to be right, after all? What good would it do to bring these states back into the Union now, when so much hatred was bound to continue for years to come? The South was not about to forget this, maybe not for generations. Neither would Audra, and that was why, no matter what their own deep, personal passions and needs, he had to stay away, even though it meant never knowing what had happened to her.

  He headed his horse down the hill toward the place east of town where his men were camped, resting for a day before going on. Some were calling this Sherman’s “march to the sea.” It was the Federal government’s way of cutting one mighty swath through the heart of the South, a final push to defeat and take over every southern state and end this hideous war. In these last three years since first joining the Union Army, Lee had seen so much blood and horror that he felt numb to it. He no longer got sick to his stomach when he heard a man scream while his leg was being sawed off without anesthesia. He ordered piles of arms and legs buried as though they were nothing more than so much garbage. He had become used to the smell of blood and gunpowder, was able to watch men die of infection or dehydration from diarrhea because of bad water or rotten food. These things were common, everyday occurrences, all part of the horrors of war that a man either learned to live with or go crazy.

  He was also learning to live with the loneliness. The war kept him busy, kept him from having to think about what the hell he was going to do when it was over, how he was ever going to find any happiness. Last year he’d gotten word that his brother David had also been killed. The loss was just one more blow in a series of losses. It sickened him to think how most of his family was gone now. He had no idea how his law firm was doing, but it didn’t matter anymore. When this was over, there would be no mother or father to go home to, and thank God his mother had not lived to see all of this.

  Below him, on the road out of Atlanta, several Federals herded along a group of Confederate prisoners, the remnants of a handful of rebels who had tried to defend Atlanta out of sheer stubbornness, even though they knew it was a lost cause. They staggered along, looking thin and hungry, some of them wounded, their uniforms worn.

  “Keep moving!” he heard one of the Union soldiers order as he nudged one of them with the barrel of his rifle.

  These captives would be held in temporary prison camps until Sherman took Savannah, at which time they would all be marched to waiting Union boats on the Savannah River and shipped out to the ocean and up the coast to Federal prisons, there to rot until the war was over. Lee supposed whatever they suffered, they probably deserved it, considering what he’d heard of the suffering in Confederate prison camps. A Confederate captive of their own had told them of the horrors of a prison camp in southwest Georgia in Andersonville, men living on salt and beans, dying at a rate of close to a hundred a day and being buried in mass graves. He wished Andersonville were one of the places they were set to invade, so that those poor souls could be freed, but Sherman’s troops were marching east, not southwest. He had learned that conditions in other southern prisons were as bad or worse, men turned into walking skeletons, drinking filthy water, dying horrible deaths from disease and stomach ailments.

  His thoughts were interrupted when the prisoners below turned and began an attack on the men who had been forcing them to march to the Federal camp.

  “We ain’t goin’ to your stinkin’ Yankee prison!” one of them shouted.

  To Lee’s surprise, weak as they were, and unarmed, the Confederates managed to pounce on the Federals and put up an amazing struggle. Two of the prisoners were shot instantly, but the rest managed to overcome the four guards, and some managed to wrestle away the Union soldier’s guns. Two of the Federals were shot down before more troops noticed the fracas and began moving in.

  It had all happened in a matter of seconds. The Confederates clearly had no chance, but Lee imagined they had decided they would rather die fighting than starve in a prison camp. Two of them began running up the hill, right toward him, one still carrying a rifle. Lee raised his own weapon, praying the man would not try to use the gun. The prisoner was weak and frightened, but this was war, and when the rebel stopped and took aim, Lee fired.

  The man staggered backward and landed flat on his back without making a sound. Blood oozed from a hole in his head. By then the second man reached Lee, and Lee leveled his rifle again. “Stop!” he ordered. The young man kept coming, his long, unkempt hair partially hiding dark eyes bright with determination when he grabbed at Lee’s rifle, never even looking into his face. Lee didn’t want to shoot the unarmed man, and it struck him that the rebel seemed terribly young, but the crazy kid kept twisting and yanking at his rifle. Lee’s right hand was still on the trigger, and the weapon went off.

  The young man staggered backward, finally looking up into his face, his eyes growing wide with surprise. “Lee!” he muttered. “I d-didn’t know…” He fell to his back with a grunt.

  Lee sat frozen, still on the horse, staring at the bleeding young man. A bright stain of blood began to spread at the left side of his chest, but he appeared still to be alive, his fingers digging into the ground. Of all the nightmares Lee had seen and experienced in this war, none could match the horror that filled him at that moment when the rebel called his name and spoke in a stutter. This couldn’t be! He shoved his rifle into its boot and climbed down from his horse, his legs feeling like heavy iron. He literally forced himself to walk over to the body. He could see the boy’s chest was still moving as he straggled for breath. Lee knelt over him, removed the boy’s cap, and under all the hair and a scraggly beard, he saw clearly who it was.

  “Joey!” he groaned. “My God!” He took hold of the boy’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “I’ll get you some help!”

  “No,” the boy pleaded, panting. “D-don’t leave me.”

  Lee’s eyes teared, and he moved to sit down beside the boy, picking his head up and cradling him in his arm. A Federal soldier ran up the hill.

  “Sir! You all right?”

  “Go away!” Lee ordered. “I’m all right, but get a doctor up here for this boy!”

  The soldier frowned in curiosity at the way the words were spoken, as though Colonel Jeffreys were ready to cry over shooting a rebel! “Yes, sir,” he answered, turning and running off.

  Joey grasped the front of Lee’s uniform and smiled. “Lee. What a…hell of a way…t-to meet again, huh?”

  “Joey.” Lee felt sick and empty. “I didn’t know it was you!”

  Joey kept smiling. “D-doesn’t matter. I was so…bent on k-killing you, too, I d-didn’t know…it was you, either.” He winced and breathed deeply, began to tremble. “Here I was…so sure I’d make it through this without…a scratch,” he said, his voice growing weaker.

  “Dammit, Joey, don’t you die on me! I’m getting you some help, and I’ll make sure they don’t send you to that prison camp, you hear? I’ll give special orders that you get sent home once you’re well. You’ve got to live, Joey, for Audra. She’ll need you when this is over.”

  Tears began to form in Joey’s eyes. “…won’t…make it,” he muttered. “You…have to t-take care…of Audra for me. P-promise me, Lee.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “She’ll still love you…even after all this. You’ll see. Even…if she d-doesn’t…promise me you’ll f-find her…make sure she’s all right. Please, Lee.”

  Lee studied the eyes that had always been so trusting. This stinking war had even cut down innocent, loving boys like Joey, who had no business being mixed up in killing and being killed. When Audra got word of this, she would never recover.

  “I promise, Joey, but I won’t have to. You’re going to be all right.” He hugged him closer, breaking into tears.

  “It’s all right, Lee. You…didn’t know. I f-forgive you.”

  “Don’t do this to me, Joey. Don’t make me have to live with this, and don’
t make Audra have to go on without you. You’re her only hope for happiness. I saw her, Joey. I saw her in Baton Rouge, and she was pretty as ever. All she talked about was you coming home, that somehow you’d find a way to save Brennan Manor. You have to live for that, Joey. I’ll make sure you get the best care. I’m a colonel. I can pull strings. You’ll be all right.”

  He knew that even before he finished talking, the boy was dead in his arms. He broke into bitter sobbing, not caring that several of his men had gathered around him to stare in dismay.

  “We’d better tell the general,” one of them said.

  “No, just leave him be. He must have known this one. Just leave him here. He’ll come down when he’s ready.”

  They turned and left, muttering among themselves at the strange sight of a colonel in the Federal Army weeping over a dead rebel, holding him as if he had just lost a brother. It was several hours later and already dark when Lee came down to camp, his eyes red, deep circles under them. His uniform was covered with bloodstains. He went inside his own tent and came out with a whiskey bottle, then picked up a shovel and a lantern. Speaking to no one, he walked back up the hill. Some of his men watched curiously as he returned to where the dead body lay, and by the light of the distant lantern they could see Colonel Lee Jeffreys digging a grave, a duty usually assigned to the lowest ranks.

  They all watched until they were too sleepy to care any longer. When morning came, their colonel still had not returned. “Better tell his commander,” one of the privates spoke up.

  Another nodded and left, and minutes later Major General West rode up the hill to find Lee passed out over the grave, an empty whiskey bottle in his hand.