Chapter Eight
Those first months of war were, as had been the months that had preceded them, as much a matter of tub-thumping and posturing as of fighting. There were a few skirmishes, none of them serious or telling except to those who fell in them. In one, at a place called Big Bethel, Federal forces lost seventy-six men to the Confederates’ eight; clear proof, if any soul in the South had needed it, of the simple truth that one Southern fighting man was worth any ten Yankees. Speeches were made, patriotic feeling stirred to combustion point. Roads and railways, north and south, were clogged with the movement of volunteers, their horses, their supplies, their arms. No-one, it seemed to Mattie, listening to the fiery talk in Milledgeville and Macon, or reading the equally inflammatory newspapers, asked any more what this fight was actually about; quite simply the battle lines had been drawn – you chose your side, the side of the angels, and you abhorred the other, the side of the devil. That the two forces, which were growing and strengthening every day, had in fact much in common with each other – that many of the professional backbone of both armies had been at military college together, had served together in the US Army in Mexico and in the West – meant nothing; a die had been cast, and a demon’s game was in progress. Nothing now it seemed could stop it.
As the weather warmed and spring moved towards summer, they heard often at Pleasant Hill from one or other of the three brothers who were kicking their heels at a training camp in Virginia. Occasionally one of them made it home for a few days, full of talk of constant drill and occasional manoeuvres, of the boredom of camp life and the hair-raising escapades they devised to relieve it, and of the certainty of swift victory. It would all be over by Christmas at the latest, everyone knew it. All that was needed was to bring the damned Yankees to a confrontation, whip them soundly, and they’d give up and not stop running till they reached Canada.
In May the capital of the Confederate States was moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia; and the ironic quirk of fate that had placed the places and times of birth of the two opposing Presidents in such oddly close proximity was replicated in their seats of power. The two cities stood a bare hundred miles from each other, and in those first weeks it was the Northern capital that was least advantageously situated; the tiny District of Columbia was surrounded on three sides by a by no means undividedly loyal Maryland, whilst across the great river of the Potomac upon which Washington stood was the openly hostile state of Virginia. For the whole of the month of April, the Northern capital had been ill-garrisoned, its supply routes virtually cut off. Only by the end of that month were the railways to the north secured and ten thousand men bivouacked in and about the capital for its defence. On the Northern side as well as in the South there was a strong conviction that one good battle could win this war; the Federal warcry was ‘On to Richmond!’, whilst in the young Confederacy the view held that in righteously defending home, hearth and land, the South could not fail. As the warm and tranquil days of an early Southern summer followed one upon another in a Georgia that considered herself to be the very heartland of the Confederacy, heads nodded sagely over juleps on the porch; there was no doubt about it, the boys would be home before the cotton harvest was under way. Didn’t the South have the pick of the generals, the best of the cavalry, the sharpest and steadiest of marksmen and, above all, right on her side? One engagement would send Lincoln’s Yankee hirelings home with their tails between their legs and the new nation would be saved.
In the middle of June, Cissy came down with a fever, caught, she insisted, because Mattie had, with cheerful determination and to her own surprise, persuaded her to take her turn at the plantation infirmary. Mattie, guiltily aware that in all probability she was right, nursed the sick girl herself, sponging the fair, flushed face, spooning the mixture that everyone in the house still called ‘Bella’s herb tea’ into her mouth, sitting with her through the long, restless nights. On the third afternoon, when Cissy’s temperature soared yet again and with the girl’s condition quite obviously deteriorating by the hour, she searched out Robert in the stables. ‘She’s getting worse. Someone’s going to have to go to Macon for the doctor.’
With no question Robert put aside the harness he was inspecting. In this unhealthy clime and at this time of the year, no-one underestimated the potential danger of these infections. ‘I thought she was improving?’
‘She was. Or seemed to be. But –’ Mattie shook her head worriedly, pushed a strand of hair from her eyes.
‘I’ll go. Doc Morrison is still in town.’
‘Please be quick.’
‘I will.’
Mattie went back into the sickroom. Liddie, Cissy’s personal servant, whom Mattie had left on watch when she had gone to look for Robert, sat huddled on a stool beside the bed, her hands over her face, keening as if for the dead. The room was like a hothouse and smelled abominable.
‘Liddie! What is it? She isn’t –?’ Her heart in her mouth, Mattie flew to the bedside, scrambling up the wooden step to bend over her patient. Cissy thrashed feverishly, muttering.
Liddie shrieked on.
‘Liddie!’ Exasperated, Mattie jumped down to the floor again, catching her toe in her voluminous skirt, hearing the material rip as she wrenched it free. Whilst in the sickroom she had abandoned her hoops. ‘Stop that! Will you stop it? Liddie!’
‘She dyin’, Miss Mattie, oh my little Missis is dyin’! I knows it! I seed it before!’
‘Liddie, just hold your tongue! Make yourself useful – go fetch some cold water and –’
‘T’ain’t no use, Miss Mattie! T’ain’t no use! She dyin’, I tells you! Oh my poor little Miss –’
Fury lent Mattie a strength she did not usually possess. Bending, she took the girl by the shoulders and hauled her to her, shaking her. ‘Will you be still! Or I swear I’ll tell Mr Sherwood to send you to the barn!’
The girl sobbed mournfully on, but at least the threat had reduced the volume of her cries. ‘No good you tryin’, Miss Mattie. She dyin’. You cain’ do nothin’ ‘bout that.’
‘Mr Robert’s gone to Macon for the doctor. Now go and get some more cold water and some flannels. And send Lucy up. And, Liddie, stop that screeching or I swear I’ll slap you myself – hard!’
The next few hours were terrifying. More than once Mattie wondered if the hysterical Liddie were not, after all, right about Cissy’s chances of survival. As day waned into evening and they awaited the arrival of Doctor Morrison, there was little they could do but helplessly watch the fever mount. Delirious, Cissy struggled against their every ministration, clamping her teeth against the bitter herbs, crying out against the sting of the cold flannels on her dry and burning skin. In the past days she had lost flesh, the bones of her pretty face stood sharp and fragile, her eyes and cheeks hollow as death. Informed of the crisis, Logan Sherwood came in from the fields, sustained the heat and stench of the room for as long as any hale man who was as ill-acquainted and ill at ease with sickness as he was might be expected to – about four minutes, Mattie guessed wryly – and then repaired gruffly to the library and the plantation accounts, requiring to be called if circumstances changed. Quiet black feet shuffled about the shadowed room. Black hands administered to the frail, restless figure in the huge four-poster bed. And Mattie sat on, watching grimly and with failing confidence her young sister-in-law’s fight against death. It was closing dusk when the sudden sound of horses’ hooves and the spinning wheels of a light carriage heralded at last the arrival of Robert with the doctor. As the man, a brisk and rotund figure a full head shorter than Mattie, bustled into the room, she was ashamed to discover that her first feeling was of huge relief; not for Cissy, but for herself. Here was someone far better qualified to shoulder the responsibility of the sick girl’s fight for life. She suddenly felt very tired indeed.
‘Mrs Sherwood?’ Shrewd eyes held hers. ‘Might I suggest you take yourself off for a half-hour’s rest and a cup of tea? It will do no-one any good to have a second
invalid to deal with. And I have a feeling that it is going to be a very long night.’
It was. At first it seemed that the doctor’s medicines were to have no more effect upon the fever than the herbs and roots with which Cissy had already been dosed. Later, Mattie found herself wondering which in the end had truly been more effective. Certain it was that when the crisis came, in the early hours of the morning, Doctor Morrison could do no more than Mattie had already done. ‘She’s young,’ he said quietly, his voice tired, ‘and strong. All that can be done has been done. Now it’s up to her.’
With the dawn the fever broke. The restless, painful tossing ceased. Sweat drenched the tangled fair hair, soaked into the thick cotton of Cissy’s nightgown. She looked like a child, Mattie thought, still and pale and sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. Or like the young princess whose finger had been pricked by a needle, evilly enchanted.
‘The next few hours will be crucial.’ Doctor Morrison was collecting his things, packing them methodically into his bag. ‘She needs constant attention. But not from you, young woman.’ He lifted his balding head sharply, darting a quick look at her. ‘Leave her to the darkies now. They know what to do. And you go to bed. For a day. Two if you can manage it. Or I’ll be gettin’ another call, and Pleasant Hill is a danged inconvenient way from Macon.’ His tired eyes were twinkling.
Mattie smiled in return. ‘I will. And thank you. Can I get you something? A cup of tea, perhaps?’
‘You most certainly may. But tea? Beelzebub’s curse on the awful stuff. You can tell Joshua to break open one of Logan’s best bottles of Madeira, and if the old man isn’t around to help me I’ll drink it alone.’
She smiled again. ‘He’s in the library, I think. Sol said he had refused to go to bed.’ She walked with him to the door. All at once she was so weary she could barely put one foot in front of the other. The skirts that dragged about her ankles felt like lead weights. ‘I’ll take you to him.’
The pearly dawn had brought at least a little coolness to the air; it revived her as she stepped with him out onto the outside veranda. ‘Your sons – they’re safe? You’ve heard from them lately?’
Doctor Morrison stood back for her to precede him down the stairs. ‘Sure have. Howard’s with the troop in Virginia with Will, Russell and Johnny of course. But Jerry’s out in Missouri. The lad’s already seen some action and patched up some heads from all accounts. At Camp Jackson, back at the beginning of May –’ He stopped short.
The door below them had opened, and Robert had stepped out onto the back porch, head lifted to their voices. ‘Mattie? Is that you?’
‘Yes.’ Mattie descended the last few steps to him.
‘How is she?’
‘The fever’s broken. She’s still bad, but she is better.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘God and Doctor Morrison,’ Mattie said, lightly, and only then sensed the fierce and unmistakable hostility that emanated from the still, sturdy figure on the stairs behind her. The portly little doctor had stopped abruptly, stood rigid a little above them, scowling down at Robert. Gracefully and with a small, self-effacing gesture Robert stepped back, leaving the way clear to the door. Doctor Morrison, with what undoubtedly would in most circumstances be considered a gross lack of manners, stumped down the last stairs, past Mattie and, without so much as a glance at Robert, on into the house. Mattie stared after him. Looked at Robert, who shrugged a little, though not easily. His face was shadowed.
‘For goodness’ sake!’ Mattie said, quietly. ‘What in the world –?’ The old doctor was, she knew, a family friend. His boys had grown up with the Sherwood brothers. There had even been, according to Lucy, talk of some attachment between one of the lively, pretty Morrison daughters and Robert. At last her tired brain caught up with itself. ‘Ah,’ she said.
Robert smiled his small quirk of a smile, but without a trace of humour.
‘Joshua? Joshua!’ the doctor’s voice roared out from within the house. They heard the door that led into the semi-basement, Joshua’s domain, screech open. ‘Where are you, you son of Satan? Better still, where are the cellar keys?’
Mattie put out a hand. ‘Robert –’
He shook his head sharply. ‘It’s all right. I understand. I know how he feels. I understand how they all feel.’
She stood quiet in the strengthening light of dawn, looking at him. His face was calm, his head high, but he could not in that vulnerable moment hide the weary strain in his eyes.
The week before, she had been in Macon with him on a shopping trip. He had left her to Dandy’s protection whilst in the town, and a few minutes’ observation as he had walked away from her down the main street had told her why. She had seen the quiet snubs, the smiles not returned, the drawing aside of skirts, the old friends who had openly crossed to the other side of the street rather than speak to him. Logan Sherwood may have been right in one way; no-one would dare to come out and accuse a Sherwood boy to his or to his father’s face of treachery or of cowardice – but there were more ways than one to make a point, and patriotic feelings ran high in Georgia. Robert was right; he understood them. The problem was that they did not understand him. She wondered, sometimes, if he understood himself.
They walked together in silence into the spacious hall. Doctor Morrison was still at Joshua’s door, calling down the steps. ‘Joshua! You hear me, boy?’
‘I hear you, Doctor.’ Unruffled, Joshua appeared, ascending the steep steps, improbably immaculate as always, a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. ‘They probably hear you in Macon.’ It was said gently, and with no obvious trace of humour.
The little doctor rubbed the heels of his hands into tired eyes and grinned like a boy. ‘You were mine I’d have you sent to the whippin’ shed,’ he said, amiably.
‘Yes, Sir, Doctor, ah knows you would.’ Joshua bestowed a tranquil look upon the other man, the slyly accented words apparently innocent. ‘Mr Sherwood’s in the library, Sir, awaitin’ you. I hear Miss Cissy’s going to be all right?’
As always Mattie found herself registering astonishment at the efficiency of the jungle telegraph that kept the servants informed of everything in the house almost before it had actually happened.
‘Hopefully, Joshua, hopefully. Though these things can never be taken for granted, as we all know.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ Joshua had glanced past the doctor and seen Mattie and Robert. He nodded. ‘Morning, Miss Mattie. May I get you something?’
Mattie shook her head, smiling tiredly. ‘No, thank you, Joshua. Sleep is what I need.’
‘I’ll send for Lucy.’
‘No. No, don’t bother her at this hour. I’m perfectly capable of seeing to things myself. Just ask her to see that I’m not disturbed, would you? Oh, and Jake could do with some exercise. I’ve neglected him horribly these past few days.’
‘I’ll see to it, Miss Mattie.’ Joshua’s dark eyes moved to Robert, standing still and silent beside Mattie. ‘And you, Mister Robert? Shall I bring another glass?’
The little doctor’s head turned sharply, wiry brows drawn to a pugnacious point above suddenly ferocious eyes. He looked, Mattie thought tiredly, a little like a terrier challenging a wolfhound.
Robert shook his head. ‘No, Joshua, thank you. I think I’d best go write to Will. I hope the doctor will be kind enough to take a letter to the post in Macon?’ It was not lost on anyone that he did not speak to the other man directly. For the first time Mattie wondered what had taken place between the two men on the long ride from Macon.
‘A letter to young Will? Why, most certainly I will. I’d ride to Virginia with it my own self if I had to.’ The words were as openly belligerent as the look that accompanied them. ‘Believe me, there’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for one of our lads who’s fightin’ for his country like a man.’
The heavy emphasis tried even Robert’s seemingly limitless patience. His mouth tightened, and he levelled a long, quelling look at the smaller man. Never, Mat
tie thought, had his likeness to his more hot-tempered brothers been so clear.
Doctor Morrison, to his credit, was not to be intimidated. He set a bellicose, if small, jaw, and stared right back. He looked exhausted.
Robert turned without a word and left them, shutting the door very quietly behind him.
Mattie shook her head. ‘Doctor Morrison, you’re being unfair to Robert –’
He spun on her. ‘Unfair? Unfair? Young woman, with respect, I’d advise you to hold your tongue and go to bed. You’ve done a grand job and you can be proud of yourself. That fly-by-night sister-in-law of yours probably owes her life to you. Don’t spoil it now by meddlin’ in affairs about which you know nothin’. I’ve no doubt but that, like most of your sex, when it comes to the world’s affairs you can do nothin’ but talk out of your pretty hat. What do you know of honour, an’ pride, an’ the perils of war that our young men are facin’? Unfair? Why, if I had my way, the likes of young Robert would be horsewhipped through the streets of every town in the South. He knows it and so does his Pa. If truth be told, I’m dang certain Logan would agree with me. Unfair indeed!’ His face had coloured quite alarmingly. In his anger and tiredness he could barely keep control of his tongue, and the words came in a spray of spittle. He jabbed a finger. ‘My boys are out there, ready to die if needs be for our great country. Your own husband – the husband of the girl that lies sick upstairs – that young scoundrel’s own brothers! – have taken up arms to defend you, to defend this house!’ He threw his short arms up in an all-embracing gesture. ‘To defend this land! Your Yankee-lovin’ brother-in-law is ready enough to accept their protection, to allow them to fight – to die! – for him, and you say that I’m bein’ unfair?’
‘But it isn’t as simple as that –’
‘What do you know of it? Get back to your embroidery, girl, and leave the world to those that know what’s goin’ on, and know what needs to be done about it.’
Freedom's Banner Page 16