“You lying little whore!” she shrieked in triumph, grabbing Lori by the arms and giving her a shake. “I knew it! I knew my Adam wouldn’t let hisself get caught by the likes a you! I’ll tell him! I’ll tell him right now, and he’ll throw you out so fast, right back on the dung heap you come from—”
“He already knows!” Lori sobbed. She felt as if her soul were being torn in two, and still Sudie continued to torment her.
“Liar! Why he marry you if he knows that ain’t his baby?”
But Lori was sobbing too hard to answer her.
Sudie gave her another shake. “Who is it? Who’s the father if it ain’t my Adam?”
Through her tears, Lori could see her fury and her scorn. Sudie wouldn’t believe her, she knew. If Bessie hadn’t believed that Eric had forced her, then surely the woman who had nursed him wouldn’t. “I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know him. He forced me. I couldn’t stop him, and he... he held me down, and he...”
Lori couldn’t say the words, but she didn’t have to. Before her eyes, Sudie’s anger evaporated into the kind of horror Lori thought no one else but she had ever known.
“Oh, Lord,” Sudie wailed with the same anguish that twisted Lori’s soul, and she pulled Lori into her arms.
Lori was so stunned that at first she didn’t understand what was happening, but gradually, she began to comprehend that Sudie was comforting her. The other woman held her fiercely, protectively, and rocked her against her bosom as she crooned inarticulate words of comfort and patted her back and her shoulders and her hair with hands that had comforted a thousand hurts. What Lori still did not understand was why, but she was weeping too hard to even think about that at the moment. All she could do was savor the only solace anyone had offered her since that awful day when her world had come crashing down around her.
Sudie smelled of yeast and sunshine, a soothing combination that made Lori want to pour out the deepest, ugliest secrets of her heart and cleanse herself once and for all. But of course she couldn’t do that, so she simply gave herself up to the release she could enjoy and blessed whatever gods had given it.
When Lori had cried herself out, she pulled away from Sudie self-consciously, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand, and she studied the woman who had been her mortal enemy until only a few moments ago. Sudie’s eyes were wet, too, and she made no attempt to wipe them. Lori still had no idea why she had suddenly earned Sudie’s sympathy.
When Sudie had determined that Lori was calm enough, she glanced around, as if suddenly noticing that they were standing here in full view of whoever might happen by. Aghast, Lori realized she had made a spectacle of herself.
“Come inside now,” Sudie said in a voice Lori had never heard before. The voice Adam must have heard whenever he’d needed comfort.
Too drained to even think of protesting, Lori let Sudie lead her back to the house. They passed one of the maids who couldn’t help but notice Lori had been crying, but Sudie said, “Miz Lori feelin’ some poorly. Reckon I kept her out in the sun too long,” by way of explanation and continued on until they reached Lori’s bedroom.
“Here, you lay yourself down right here,” Sudie said, seating Lori on a long piece of upholstered furniture whose purpose Lori hadn’t been able to guess until now. Once Sudie had lifted her feet, she realized it was some sort of couch for ladies to lie on when they weren’t actually going to bed. Lori had rarely had occasion to lie down during the day and didn’t know any women who did, but apparently this was another thing that was different at Elmhurst.
Lori was pleased simply for the opportunity to recline and close her eyes for a few minutes, but after a moment or two, Sudie placed a cool, wet cloth across her forehead.
“There now, you feel better soon. You want some tea or something?”
Although she would never have thought to ask for it, the prospect of tea was heavenly. “Yes, I... that would be nice.”
Sudie left her alone while she went for the tea, and Lori thought she might have actually dozed for a second or two when she heard the bedroom door open again. She looked up to see Sudie returning with a tray which she set on the dressing table.
Sudie allowed her to sit up on the settee, then served her tea sweetened with wild honey in a fine china cup. Lori thought nothing had ever tasted so delicious.
Sudie had pulled up a small footstool and perched on it at Lori’s feet. Lori looked down and was shocked by the kindness she saw in the older woman’s face. Once again she could only wonder how she had managed to change the woman’s attitude toward her so quickly and completely.
“I... thank you for the tea,” Lori said uncertainly.
“I didn’t know,” Sudie said simply. “I didn’t have no idea what happened to you. If I did... well, I shoulda knowed, shouldn’t I? Massa Adam, he just the man to help a girl in trouble, ain’t he? Never thinks ah hisself. I always did say he too good for this world.”
Lori felt the traitorous tears stinging her eyes again, but she blinked them away as she nodded her agreement. Adam Ross was too good for any world.
“How is it for you now?” Sudie asked. “With Massa Adam, I mean? Last night when he come to you?”
This time Lori shook her head, and she could feel the color coming to her cheeks. “He didn’t. He... he stayed in his own room last night.”
Sudie’s face lit with understanding. “I shoulda guessed that, too.” She shook her own head as if in wonder at the saintliness of her master. “An’ I reckon you mighty glad ah that.”
“I didn’t want to turn him away,” Lori protested. The cup in her hands began to rattle dangerously.
“But you glad, just the same,” Sudie guessed, taking the cup from her and setting it safely on the floor. “Can’t stand the idea of another man touching you.”
Lori winced and dropped her gaze, ashamed to have Sudie know how ashamed she was.
“Ain’t your fault,” Sudie said, surprising Lori with her vehemence. “You can’t help you was forced, and you can’t help how you feel now.”
Lori looked at her in amazement. How could she possibly understand? “It was all my fault! If I hadn’t been there that day, if I’d been more careful, then...”
“Then what? Then he would’ve got you another day? Or he would’ve got some other woman. Just ’cause you was there don’t mean he had the right to take you, so you can stop thinkin’ that right now. Wasn’t your fault at all, and wasn’t nothin’ you coulda done to stop him. Maybe you tried, but it didn’t do no good, did it? Just made him hurt you worse.” The tears were sliding down Lori’s cheeks now, but she made no move to wipe them away.
“How can you know?”
Sudie’s expression tightened and her dark eyes grew bleak. “I know ’cause I been there, too.”
“You?” Lori asked incredulously. She simply could not imagine this formidable woman at anyone’s mercy.
“You think ’cause I’s colored, I don’t care if a man use me or not?” she challenged defensively.
“Oh, no, it’s not that!” Lori insisted, although she had heard all her life that colored women were different, that they didn’t hold to the same moral standards that white women did. “I just... you seem so... so strong. As if nobody could ever hurt you!”
Sudie shook her head. “A lot you don’t know, Missy, but you’s learnin’, just like I learned. I’s strong now, but not then. Then I was like you, all crushed and broken inside and feeling like I wanted to die.”
Lori gaped at her, unable to believe she could have known this, too.
“Thing you gotta remember is you can heal. Maybe you never forget what happened, but one day it gets so it ain’t so important anymore. That’s when you know you’ll survive and that’s when you can start workin’ on bein’ happy again.”
Lori had an irrational urge to laugh in scorn. Happy? How could she ever be happy? “It’ll always be important to me Sudie,” she said bitterly. “Did you forget? I’m carryin around a remin
der that’ll last for the rest of my life.”
Sudie nodded sagely. “You figure you’ll hate that baby, don’t you?”
“I already do! And what about Adam? How will he feel about it? He’ll always know it isn’t his.”
“No!” Sudie cried, startling Lori again. “My Adam, he never mistreat no young’un, not after what his papa did to his brother!”
“What do you mean?” Lori asked in confusion.
“I mean, Massa Chet, he blame my sweet boy Eric for killin’ his mama. Never forgive him, not as long as he live. He hated that chile, and the boy knew it ’fore he even old enough to talk, poor thing. He never hear a kind word his whole life, and Massa Chet, he beat that boy so many times—mostly for no reason at all! If it weren’t for Massa Adam, I reckon he mighta killed the boy sooner or later. My Adam, he seen what that do to Eric, how it made him so angry inside. He never be cruel to a chile. You’ll see.”
But Lori didn’t want to see. She didn’t want this child at ill. She covered her face with both hands as despair washed over her.
“What you thinkin’?” Sudie demanded.
Lori shook her head in silent denial, but Sudie didn’t need her words.
“You thinkin’ no matter how Massa Adam feel, you’ll hate this baby. Well, let me tell you somethin’, Missy. That chile can’t help who his pappy is. He been done wrong, same as you, and maybe more, ’cause he didn’t even get no chance to fight. But you remember something: he’s half your’n, too! An’ by the time you carry him inside you for nine months, you gonna love him no matter how you got him!”
Just what Bessie had claimed, but Lori knew better. She lowered her hands and glared at Sudie in outrage. “How do you know what I’ll feel?”
Sudie’s dark eyes grew soft with remembered pain. “ ’Cause I been where you’re at, too.”
“You had a baby?” Lori couldn’t believe it. Surely, she was making this up! “From the man who forced you?”
But Sudie nodded, and the agony in her eyes convinced Lori as no words could have done. Lori uttered a cry of protest, but Sudie only smiled the most poignant smile Lori had ever seen.
“I loved that chile, more’n I ever loved anyone in this world,” Sudie assured her. “’Cause he was mine, the only thing I ever owned my whole life.”
Lori knew this wasn’t true. She remembered what Adam had said about masters who sold their slaves’ children away from them, but she wasn’t going to argue with Sudie, not now. If she wanted to believe the child had been hers, Lori would let her. “But do you still...? I mean, when you look at him, don’t you remember? Don’t you...?”
But Sudie was shaking her head. “He gone now, Missy, don’t got him no more. But you gonna keep your chile, and you gonna raise him up to be a fine person, not like that devil who got him on you. Massa Adam, he see to it, an you see to it, too.”
Lori had no idea how she could see to anything. “I can’t,” she protested.
“You can do whatever you set your mind to,” Sudie insisted fiercely, taking Lori’s trembling hands in hers. “You can’t change what already happened to you, but you can make the rest of your life whatever you want it to be.”
If only that were true! “How?” Lori asked in despair. “I can’t even be a wife to Adam!”
Sudie nodded again, and Lori was beginning to believe she really did understand. “You’re afraid.”
“Of course I am! Every time I think about it, I...” She choked on a sob and had to cover her mouth to hold it inside.
“That’ll pass, too,” Sudie said. “It takes time, but it’ll happen. You’ll see. If you want it to, that is.”
“Oh, I do! I want to be a good wife to Adam.”
“So you can pay him back for what he done for you,” Sudie guessed.
“No, because—” But Lori caught herself before she could make any more humiliating confessions. She might never have had a servant before, but she was certain she’d already been much too free with Sudie. “Yes,” she corrected herself straightening her shoulders determinedly. “He deserves a little happiness.”
“You want him to be happy?”
“Of course!”
“So he won’t be sorry he married you.”
Lori was pretty sure he already was, but she said, “Yes.”
“Well, then, it’ll come in time. Massa Adam, he a good man. He be patient, at least for a while.”
Lori winced again. How long was “a while” and what would happen if she wasn’t ready when it was over? But she would be ready. She would have to be. And then she would be a real wife to Adam.
If God gave her the courage.
CHAPTER SIX
Be careful what you wish for. Eric Ross could just hear old Sudie’s voice issuing that warning as his horse faltered once again in the thick mud of the road. Rain poured down, sluicing over his hat brim to splash down his back. It had been like this for almost ten days now. Eric couldn’t even remember what being dry felt like. What he wouldn’t give for one of those awful days from last month, choking on dust and rationing water.
Most of the men, he saw, were walking, leading their horses, but Eric wasn’t about to go slogging through that mud on foot. His boots were already soaked through. If he put them in that mud, they’d be ruined for good.
When his horse lurched again, he put the spurs to him, jamming them into the animal’s sides so he wouldn’t get the idea he could quit just because the going was tough. Stupid son of a bitch! He should’ve taken the bay. The hell with Adam’s advice. The bay wouldn’t’ve broken down after only a month on the road.
Adam thought he knew everything. Smart ass son of a bitch, with all that talk about upholding Southern honor and wishing he could fight with Eric. Like hell he did. This was man’s work, and Adam wouldn’t last a day, even with two good legs.
Eric grinned at the thought of his prissy brother charging through the brush with a gun, chasing down Yankees. Not much honor in that, but Eric had found it a lot more fun than he’d expected. Leading his boys, screaming like banshees as they exploded out of the bush and scared the Yankees shitless.
So far they’d taken two towns like that, two little pissholes he couldn’t even remember the names of, something Mexican, but who even cared? The important thing was the Yankees had run off like their tails were on fire. It was true, what he’d always heard, that one good Southerner was worth ten Yankees, and Rip Ford and his men had proven it already.
Soon they’d be at Rio Grande City, and they’d prove it once again.
Up ahead the bedraggled column of soldiers ground to a halt, but not the weary halt of men who had reached the last of their reserves in a losing battle with a relentless nature. Instead, a buzz of excitement went through the unit as a message was passed as quickly as men’s voices could carry it. Far up ahead, a cheer rose from the ranks, and Eric stood up in his stirrups to hear what the men in front of him were shouting over the roar of the rain.
“The Yankees are gone!” one of them called.
“Too afraid to fight!”
“Cleared out soon’s they heard we was coming!”
Damn! The Yankees had deserted Rio Grande City without a fight! No chance for glory today. No running and screaming and shooting. No dead men in the streets to plunder. Eric swore again.
“How ’bout that, Lieutenant!” one of his boys demanded happily as he rode his pathetic mule over to where Eric sat his blood gelding. It was Billy, the stupid one. “They was so scared, they turned tail and run ’fore we even got close!”
“Yeah,” Eric agreed, “reminds me of Second Bull Run when we sent the Yankees scrambling back to Washington.”
“I ain’t even killed me a Yankee yet,” one of the other boys complained. “I never will, neither, if they won’t stand still and wait for us!”
The rest of the boys laughed heartily, but Eric could only manage a small grin. He wanted to fight. He wanted to scream and yell and shoot somebody. And he wanted this goddamned rain to stop.
Later that night, after Eric and some of his boys had found shelter in a livery stable and managed to dry out some, Eric felt the restlessness return. He’d been trying to drown it with a bottle of whiskey he’d “liberated” for the Confederate cause, but the liquor only seemed to make it worse.
The boys had been taking turns with the bottle, too, and now they were laughing and silly. All except that bastard Alex. He was just sitting in a corner looking sour, like he always did. Hell, the next battle, maybe Eric’d just put a bullet in him himself. If there was a next battle. Some of the men were saying the Yankees were gone for good, on their way to Brownsville and their ships. Eric wasn’t ready for the fighting to be over, not by a long shot.
Instinctively, he rubbed his crotch, thinking that what he needed right now was a woman. That’s what always calmed him down when he got like this. A quick trip to the quarters and a roll in the hay with one of the girls down there. And if he could catch one unawares, when she didn’t know he was there, and she was scared and...
The blood was pounding in his head and in his groin at the memory. Someone passed him the bottle, and he took a long swig, but the fire of the liquor only fed the flame that burned inside of him.
“You boys interested in a little fun?” he asked.
They perked up immediately, giggling and squirming like pups around a teat. All except Alex, damn him. Well, he could go to hell. The rest would go with Eric.
“What you got in mind?” one of the others asked.
“Come with me and find out.”
From This Day Forward Page 13