Homeland
Page 2
On Saturday evenings we write letters, and Mrs. Elliott reads them to make sure they’re grammatical, and that that stuck-up Nora Vandyke isn’t penning love-notes to her beaux. I’m writing this secretly in my room, after evening prayers—I bribed my room-mate not to tell. I write her letters to her Mama and sisters; I can copy anybody’s handwriting in the school, practically.
Julia writes to me (it has never been scientifically proven that Pa can write) saying how desperately she misses me and that the plantation is a shambles without me there. I re-read your letter, how if I was a man they wouldn’t feel they had the right to demand I stay home, but I feel like a traitor. I suppose, legally, I am a traitor, but I don’t notice the Confederacy making women take their Loyalty Oath.
Your own Spy,
Susie
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
Dearest Cora,
I have done a wicked and terrible thing, and there is no one but yourself I dare tell; yet I feel I must tell someone. Here it is: Instead of going to tea yesterday evening with Mrs. Acklen, I dressed myself as a boy, and convinced Mr. Cameron to take me “down the line,” that is, down Spring Street to the landing, where all the soldiers’ taverns are. I promise you, this was not for purposes of dissipation (if it had been the stink would have cured me forever!). If I am to be an artist, I need to see as much of the world as I possibly can—even the parts “nice girls” aren’t supposed to know about.
We went early in the evening, and Mr. Cameron took very good care of his “nephew.” He understands why I need to see these things. Please, please, tell me you understand also! The men weren’t dashing or heroic, and the women weren’t beautiful, and this morning I found a louse in my hair! I paid one of the maids to fine-comb my hair four times and an extra twenty-five cents not to breathe a word to anyone. Please don’t think I’m bad.
Your penitent,
Susie
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts
To
Miss Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female
Academy
Nashville, Tennessee
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1861
Dearest Susanna,
Your letter leaves me troubled, and of two minds—or three, or four—as to what I ought to reply.
First, my heartiest congratulations on your acceptance to the Nashville Academy! They are saying here, too, that the fighting should be over by Christmas. President Lincoln has called for one million new troops, so I cannot imagine how this will not prove so. Whether Philadelphia is then in your native homeland once again or in a foreign country, you must be able to go there to study your Art. Though nothing could make me regret being Emory’s wife, there are times when I wish that I might also have been permitted by Fate to continue my own education. I do so hunger for new learning, and the life of the mind.
Second, thank you for your frank opinions on Uncle Tom. You are quite right, that it opens the eyes by winning the heart—unlike, I fear, the vast majority of novels. You are the sole person I have met who has both lived in the world Mrs. Stowe describes, and has read the book. Emory’s experience of growing up in Greene County was enlightening, but, as you know, his father held no slaves. The men and women of color whom I met in Hartford while at the Seminary, and when I visit Papa at Yale, were freedmen of several generations, not Southern-born or bred. Deeply as I revere the book and all that it has brought about, I suppose I am now enough a lawyer’s wife to ask, Is this testimony correct?
Please forgive me if I trespass on the bounds of friendship, when I say that after seeing your sketch of the house where he was born, Emory told me things about his father that disturbed me very much. I had heard some of them in Greeneville, as I know you must have as well; stories of Justin Poole’s madness, and wild rumors concerning the death of his wife. In the five years I have known Emory, he has spoken of his father exactly three times, and one of those was only to say, “Pa’s a strange man.” After his revelations, the estrangement between father and son no longer surprises me. And yet, you have known Justin Poole in the five years since Emory fled, and I know you to be a level-headed young woman.
Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” and washed his hands. But I say only that what my husband told me of his father leaves me deeply concerned, that you have anything to do with this man.
There! Forgive me writing of this, and if you wish, tear this letter up and burn it. I swear I will not bring the matter up again.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER I
Emory has just come home, with word that my brother Brock has quit the law firm, to join the Army.
Come what may, ever your friend,
Cora
Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female
Academy
Nashville, Tennessee
To
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts
MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1861
Cora,
Awful news. Julia writes me that our brother Payne was wounded in a skirmish in Virginia, his right arm so badly broken by a minié ball as to have been amputated. It doesn’t seem real. It’s even more horrible because every person at the Academy feels they have to tell me about people they know who were wounded and had limbs cut off, and died of it. I just want to cover my ears and run away. Please don’t tell me you’ll pray for him, or how sorry you are, or about anybody else you know, or how lucky he is to be still alive, or it’s a small price to pay for the honor of defending his homeland … Nothing. Please.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16
Another letter from Julia. Still no letter from you. Payne is to be furloughed home. I want to weep, thinking about Payne without his arm. I remember holding his hand, a thousand nights when we were little, when he’d come creeping into our bedroom to listen in the dark to my stories about the fairies in the woods and the barn. Now that hand doesn’t exist anymore. I try to do my Latin verbs, or read my history books, and all I can hear is the soldiers marching to and from the depot.
Yesterday all I could do was sit in a corner of my room, reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame again. Being with those people, those old friends, Quasimodo and Gringoire and the Beggar King that I also used to tell Payne and Julia stories about. Being anyplace but here. I cried for Quasimodo’s hopeless love, and Esmeralda’s undeserved death, cried until I was almost sick. Then I slept, and when I woke up I felt better.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22
I think the Rebels must have seized and burned your letter. I pray, pray it isn’t because you’ve changed your mind about what happened at the depot in April.
Shopped all over town for good linen, to make a shirt for dear Payne when he comes home. I hate sewing (buttonholes were invented by the Devil), but all the officers we see on our Sunday calls say that new, whole clothing is prized among the men. Mrs. Elliott went with me, and Mr. Cameron. Because of all the soldiers in town and the teamsters and sutlers and females of a certain sort who follow armies it isn’t thought safe even for groups of women to be about on the streets without male protection. I couldn’t find anything I could afford, on account of the blockade (I’ve been trading Nora Vandyke for drawing-paper for weeks), and finally settled for calico, at a price Julia used to make Pa pay for silk!
And of course, it’s all the perfidious Yankees’ fault.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27
Julia writes that our Payne is coming home next week.
Yours,
Susie
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts
To
Miss Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female
Academy
Nashville, Tennessee
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1861
NIGHT
Dearest,
This is so hard to write. Emory promises he will see to it that this goes into hands that will carry it safe to you. My darling husband leaves tomorrow, to join the Army. By Thursday, I, too, will be gone.
I
have seen this coming, from the moment we stepped off the train in Greeneville last March, and Emory re-encountered the friends of his boyhood: Tennessee men who were ready to fight to preserve the Union. This evening when Emory came home he said to me, “I cannot stand this another day. I must go, Cora.”
Yesterday I would have put my hand on the Bible and said, “The Union must be preserved at any cost.” I still believe this with the whole of my heart, Susanna, even if the price be my husband’s life.
I cannot believe I just wrote those words. Please forgive me for them—you whose brothers fight for the Confederate cause. Please do not think me your enemy, because Emory has taken up arms. I write to you because you are from his world, and know better than anyone of my acquaintance what his choices are.
Tonight I try to imagine Emory and myself, white-haired and smiling, sitting together years and years from now at the dawn of another century, saying things like, “Remember how scared you were, you goose, when I went off to fight in the War?” But there’s only darkness. I try to see God’s hand guiding Emory to wherever he needs to go, guiding me … and there’s only darkness. Emory sleeps now, his back to me. Tomorrow night the pillow will be empty, the sheets cold.
On Thursday I will return the key of my precious little home to its landlord, and take the train north to New Haven to meet my father. My Uncle Mordacai will meet us in Belfast, Maine, in his sloop the Gull, to carry us across to Deer Isle. I will stay with Mother, Ollie, and his bride Peggie until the fighting ends, or until Emory comes home. I have chosen not to tell him what I have only begun to suspect: that I might be with child. His mind is in torment enough. We have had one “false alarm” already, and I would not put him through the pain of decision a second time, for what might only be another. If there is a child, she will be here when my darling returns.
Please, my dear friend, write to me on Deer Isle, care of the Post Office in Southeast Harbor. Snow will be flying, by the time I arrive.
Yours,
Cora
Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female
Academy
Nashville, Tennessee
To
Mrs. Cora Poole,
[Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts—address crossed out]
Southeast Harbor
Deer Isle, Maine
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1861
NIGHT
Dear Cora,
This morning as we girls were coming out of prayers Mrs. Elliott touched my shoulder, said, “Would you come into my office for a moment, Susanna?” and I knew by her voice that Payne was dead.
He’d been home at Bayberry for three days. I was going to take the train Sunday to see him. He got there Monday; Julia wrote me that he seemed well, only quite weak. She said he was growing whiskers, and couldn’t wait to start practicing shooting with his left hand.
I keep thinking he can’t really be dead, because I didn’t get to see him. This has to be a mistake.
The last time I saw him was Christmas, my first grown-up ball. Payne was in his VMA uniform and danced with me, the first time we’d danced together except in classes as children. He said, “Good Lord, Susie, you’re getting all grown up.” I wanted to say the same about him. When he left for the Academy he and I were the same height—I was fourteen, he sixteen. At Christmas he was taller than me.
Regal (my middle brother) met me at the depot this afternoon. He said Payne died oh so quickly. “Damn it, he was on the mend. God damn f—n’ doctors.” Regal always has to blame somebody for things that just happen. It’s the closest I’ve ever seen, to seeing him cry.
The fences haven’t been fixed at Bayberry, nor the woodpile re-stocked. There are hardly any cows or pigs left, and the hen-runs are mostly empty. Payne’s coffin is in our parlor, the windows all curtained. Before I could step through the door from the hall Pa came out of his office, seized me in his arms: “This place is not the same, Babygirl, since you’ve been gone!” Henriette came running down the stairs saying how I must go up and take care of poor Julia, who had wept herself sick.
That’s where I am now. I’ve been here all evening, altering mourning clothes for us both and trying to make sense of Henriette’s bookkeeping. All Julia can say, over and over, is, “What will I do if Tom should be killed, too? How could God let this happen?” It was hard not to cry, being here in this room again, where Payne would lie at the foot of the bed listening to me tell stories.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
EVENING
Oh, Cora. I don’t even know how to write this. I am so sorry.
When it came time to wash and dress and ride with Payne’s casket into town, all Julia could do was cling to me and cry, “I can’t, I can’t! And I won’t let you leave me.” Henriette said, “She’ll make herself ill, poor darling!” (Julia is expecting in the spring.) “Besides, someone must stay here to make sure the food is laid out ready for company afterwards.” And Pa said, “That’s my good girl! I knew we could depend on you, Susie!” It’s what he always says.
So I stayed. I tell myself it doesn’t really matter. Payne and I said our farewells last Christmas, when he got on the train to go back to Virginia. Anyway, that isn’t really Payne in that coffin, any more than Payne was the arm they cut off. The least I can do for him is make sure everyone has a clean house to come to after his funeral.
I asked Colfax our butler and Mammy Iris, could I maybe ride into town and at least see the procession to the grave? But they said no, there’s bush-whackers in the woods, even this close to town. Two of Regal’s men—he’s a captain in the Secesh militia—rode behind the buggy back from town yesterday. Then Mammy Iris said, “If it’s Mr. Emory you’re hopin’ to see, Miss Susie, he’ll be here after the funeral’s done.” And for just one second I felt so happy, that your Emory would bring me a letter from you. Then it came to me what it means that he’s here, in Tennessee, instead of in Kentucky where all the Unionists are escaping to. I felt exactly like someone had slammed me up against the wall, and I guess I just stared at them both like an idiot.
Your husband’s been staying in town with Mrs. Johnson. He stopped here Monday, to ask Julia if he could take any messages from her to Tom, whose regiment he’ll be joining, and stayed in town because of our poor Payne. Emory was one of the first to arrive, riding Charley Johnson’s horse. He wore one of Charley’s coats, too, since he didn’t bring a black one of his own. For a minute we just looked at each other on the front step. Then I said, “I can’t say it’s good to see you here—but it’s good to see you.” Emory put on a little grin and put up his hand, as if he would have pinched my cheek except he remembered now I’m sixteen and a young lady. “That’s my Susie,” he said. I had to go greet other guests then, though it was nearly an hour before Pa and Henriette returned and almost another hour after that, before Henriette came down from her room. Julia didn’t come down at all. I found Emory out in Henriette’s garden. It’s bare and cold now, and all the leaves gone, so we were alone.
“It made my blood boil, to hear Yankee recruiters talk about ‘killing Rebels’ as if it was foxes and rats they spoke of, not men with wives and farms and homes,” he told me. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. “I believe in the Union, Susie. I truly believe, with all my heart, that it is the only way our country is to survive. Yet when it came down to it, it didn’t make one bit of difference. I can’t fight against my homeland. Can’t step back and watch other men invade it. Not even if I know the cause is good.”
It’s only now, with fall of dark, and everyone leaving, that I’ve been able to read your letter he gave me.
Cora, what can I do? How can I make what’s happened easier for you to bear?
You’ll be on Deer Isle by now, with your family. Emory has to have told you that he didn’t go down to the nearest Union camp and sign up. I pray this isn’t the first news that you get about where he is! I pray so hard that your vision is true, about you and Emory with white hair, holding hands as the Twentieth Centu
ry dawns, surrounded by your grand-children, saying, “It was a horrible time but we got through it.”
I pray for your little child, who’ll be there when Emory returns. What are you going to name her? Or him, but it’s really got to be a Her.
I’m glad you described your parents’ house on Deer Isle for me—do they really pile pine-boughs all around the walls to trap the snow like you described, so the house will stay warmer? Enclosed is a sketch of you in your snug little bedroom behind the stairs, listening to your family’s voices from the kitchen, like you said you did as a little girl.
I’m going to try to have our stableman escort me up to the Holler tomorrow, to see if I can find Justin Poole, to give him this letter. Please, please write of how you are. My oldest brother Gaius is coming home on furlough a few weeks before Christmas, and I’m afraid they’re going to find some reason to keep me here until then. Then they’ll find a reason to keep me until Christmas, and then …
I’ll find a way. And wherever I am, I’ll be with you in my heart.