Souls Aflame

by Patricia Hagan

  Julie sighed, thinking how that would be one more blow to suffer, leaving all the family heirlooms and her mother’s expensive jewelry for Virgil. He’d be left with everything, and she would leave her home penniless and destitute. “I suppose I have no choice. When I leave, it will be quickly and quietly. I won’t be packing trunks, Sara. He’d try to stop me if he caught me. He might even kill me.”

  Sara shuddered, then asked. “Why don’t we start hidin’ things?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A little at a time. We’ll sneak things out to Lionel, and he can dig a hole somewhere and bury them. That’s what I hear folks is doin’ all over Savannah—buryin’ their valuables so if the Yankees come, they can’t steal ’em. We’ll do the same with all your mama’s things. Then you can sneak back and dig ’em up. Won’t be nothin’ Mastah Oates can do, ’cause once he realizes they is gone, they’ll be buried, and he won’t know where.”

  Julie’s heart began to pound with excitement. For the first time in so long she could not remember when, she felt a surge of hope. “Yes, Sara, that’s what we’ll do. But we’ll have to be very careful and take only a few things at a time, so he won’t notice anything missing. First of all, we’ll start with Mother’s jewelry and the small silver pieces.” Julie hugged the older woman happily. “Oh, Sara, how blessed I am to have a friend like you.”

  Sara beamed. “Shucks, Miss Julie, I couldn’t love you more if’n you was my own young’un, but they is something you better know—”

  Julie raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

  “When you go, me and Lionel is goin’ too. We ain’t staying with that man one day after yo’ mama is buried.”

  “Sara, I’ll give you your freedom today if you want it. That’s the least I can do for all your devotion. I can persuade Mother to sign any papers necessary, and you can go on and leave.”

  “Oh, no,” Sara said quickly. “I don’t want to be free of you, and Lionel done said the same thing. We’d of run off a long time ago if it hadn’t been for leavin’ yo’ mama alone with that man. And we felt like you and Mastah Myles would come back one day.”

  “I love you for this,” Julie said fervently, and she felt a little better, despite her overwhelming fear of the horrors that surely awaited her.

  Time dragged on slowly, and many were the nights when Julie found herself shamelessly praying for her mother’s death as she lay beneath Virgil’s panting, heavy body. He came to her almost every night. How much more can I endure? she thought wildly.

  After the first few times, Virgil decided that just to ravish her was not enough. He forced her to perform all sorts of depraved actions upon his body, unspeakable things that she found utterly repugnant. Even Derek, for all his raw passion, had never made her feel so utterly defiled. She had enjoyed his touch, his caress, though she had hated to admit it.

  Her mother continued to cling to life, and Dr. Perkins confided he had expected her to die long before. “If you hadn’t returned, Julie,” he said one night, “she wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

  Julie prayed that her guilt over wishing her mother dead did not show on her face. If she could get well, it would be different, and Julie would endure anything to save her life. But it was all hopeless, and more and more, lately, she found herself wishing she could crawl into her own casket and die—for death seemed the only way to escape the hell she was forced to endure.

  Her only respite was the nights Virgil stayed in town to gamble. Lionel reported on his activities in Savannah from time to time, when he went in for supplies. The Negroes would gather down by the waterfront and exchange gossip, and it was common knowledge that Virgil Oates was becoming a heavy gambler.

  On one such night, he got up from the supper table, walked to where Julie was sitting, and planted a moist kiss on her cheek. She shuddered with revulsion, but he merely laughed and said, “I hate leaving you alone, my love, but don’t worry. I’ll make up for it tomorrow night. You can bed your mother down early, and we’ll have the whole evening together.”

  After he left, she sat in her chair, fighting back tears of frustration and hopelessness. Soon she would have to go in to her mother to coax her to eat, just as she did each night. Julie would be relieved if she could get only half a bowl of broth into her, but of late, her mother would often shake her head wearily and say she had no appetite and could eat nothing.

  Julie could not let her see that she was upset. On two occasions, her mother had noticed and become quite distraught. Once her mother had even broken into uncontrollable sobs, crying. “It’s all my fault. I cause you so much misery, Julie. Why can’t I just go ahead and die?”

  Sara walked in, took one look at Julie’s plate and cried, “You gonna waste away just like your mama if you don’t start eatin’, child. Look at that. You ain’t touched that chicken, and you always loved my fried chicken—”

  “I can’t eat with that horrible man leering at me, Sara. He makes me sick.” Julie shook her head in despair. “One of these days I know something inside of me is going to snap, and I’ll throw my plate right in his face, and then hell and be damned if Mother hears and learns the truth. God help me, but I don’t know how much more I can stand.”

  Sara put a plump arm around the girl’s trembling shoulders. “Now you listen to me. I knows it’s hard. I knows you feel like you can’t stand it one mo’ hour, but you got to remember that the good Lord don’t put no mo’ on his chillun than they can bear. You got to hold yo’ head up and have faith.”

  “I think God may have misjudged my capacity for carrying a load,” Julie sighed. “Even Myles used to tell me I was a weakling.”

  “Oh, he’d be right smart proud of the way you’ve kept from breakin’ down. I know he would.”

  Julie pursed her lips. “Maybe. I look back on when I was Derek’s prisoner, and even when he made me so mad that at times I could have screamed, I think I could have endured it for a lifetime. I never thought of breaking down.”

  “Why, Miss Julie,” Sara chuckled, starting to clear the plates from the table. “Now I believe you loved that man, for sure. You get a dreamy, misty look in your eyes whenever you talks about him.”

  Misty Eyes—that was what Derek had called her. And even when he was angry he would call her that, and his voice, though cold and biting, sounded strange, somehow, when he said those words.

  She shook herself and looked at Sara, who was chuckling to herself as though she knew some deep, dark secret. “I didn’t love him,” she snapped. “And no matter if I did. I’ll never see him again. He’s probably on another ship, running that infernal Yankee blockade and keeping a woman in every port.”

  “I’ll bet you wish he’d walk in that door right now.”

  Julie let out her breath in disgust. “Can’t we discuss something else?”

  “Yes’m,” Sara said with a smirk, then started rattling on about how she’d seen Adelia Carrigan in town that morning. Julie bit her tongue to keep from saying she didn’t want to discuss that trollop, either.

  “She says Mastah Thomas is fine and dandy. He’s one of the officers at that Yankee prison camp up in Richmond. She said she’d written him you’d come home.”

  Julie stood and smoothed her skirt. “If you’ll prepare Mother’s tray, I’ll take it in to her.”

  “She’s yo’ kinfolk, but she never comes to visit,” Sara prattled on. “She knows yo’ mama’s sick and she always asks about her, but she never comes to call. Why, I can’t remember the last time she set foot in th’ do’.”

  Julie tugged at the high neckline of her dress. It was scratchy and uncomfortable, but she never wore low necklines anymore, not around Virgil. She didn’t want to do anything to entice him. Surely by summer the situation would change. Otherwise she knew she would have long since been driven truly insane.

  She went into her mother and coaxed her to drink some tea and eat a few bits of rice mixed with hot milk and sugar. Then Julie freshened her bed, sponged the
invalid’s emaciated body, and tucked the covers up about her neck. Sitting down, she began to read to her, but after only a few lines, glanced up to see that her mother was already fast asleep.

  Sara came in and said it was a good time to sneak more things out of the house for Lionel to bury. “You can get some of yo’ mama’s jewelry, and I’ll get some of her silver pieces she kept put back fo’ special times. Mastah Virgil won’t miss them.”

  “He’s going to start to sooner or later,” Julie said worriedly.

  “I know. Let’s just hope it ain’t long…” and her voice trailed off apologetically, shamefully.

  Julie knew what she had been about to say: that perhaps it wouldn’t be long before her mother died, and then they could leave. “I understand, Sara,” she whispered. “Don’t feel guilty. I’ve had the same thoughts.”

  Returning to her mother’s room, she went to the jewelry box and took out a diamond and ruby necklace with matching earrings, then brought them to Sara. Along with the jewels, they carried a set of heavy silver candelabra and several trays out to where Lionel was waiting behind the house. He put all the items in a large burlap sack, slung it over his shoulder, and, pick in hand, set out for the woods in the far distance.

  He had told Julie exactly where he was burying everything: in a spot at the edge of the Marshal family cemetery, not far from her father’s grave. Lionel kept leaves and pine straw raked over the diggings, so no one who ventured there would notice and ask questions.

  Julie said goodnight to Sara, then retired for the night, relieved that she would not have to put up with Virgil’s filth. And that’s all she could call it—filth. It was certainly nothing like what she had shared with Derek. There was no warmth or tenderness…only Virgil’s lust, and his humiliation and degradation of her soul and body.

  The fire in the grate had burned down to grayish-red ashes. Julie lay on her side and stared dreamily at it, almost seeing faces and images among the glowing embers. Her eyes grew heavy and she snuggled deeper beneath the quilts, trying to shut out all unpleasant thoughts. She would think of happier days, a brighter tomorrow—when all this sadness and misery would be behind her.

  A strange sound brought her out of her somnolence. Her eyes flew open. The fire still glowed with lazy flashes of reds, oranges, blues, and yellows. Please God, she prayed, not tonight. Don’t let Virgil have returned from town early. Give me this one night of respite, please…

  She heard it again, and realized it sounded like a pebble being thrown against the doors to the portico. She stiffened and clutched the covers tightly to her chin. Virgil wouldn’t stand outside and throw rocks at her window. He would just charge right in and demand that she succumb to his lust. But who?

  The sound was louder, and this time she feared the glass would shatter. Forcing her trembling body to move, she eased herself up and reached for her flannel wrapper which lay at the foot of the bed. As she searched for her slippers, another stone hit the window. Padding quickly across the floor, she opened the door and stepped onto the balcony just as another pebble came zinging through the air, barely missing her.

  A brisk wind was blowing, and it whipped her wrapper and gown up about her knees. Trying to hold her garments down, Julie crept toward the railing. Then, taking a deep breath and mustering all her courage, she leaned over a little ways and called softly: “Who’s there? Who’s there, I say!”

  “Julie…oh, God…Julie!”

  It was a dream. It could not be real. She had fallen asleep and was only dreaming that Myles’s voice was actually floating to her on the night breeze. It could not be.

  “Julie…it’s me—Myles…can you hear me?”

  “Myles, yes, yes…” Tears filled her eyes and she was momentarily overcome by shock. Her hands gripped the railing to support her watery knees. “It’s you. It really is you—”

  “Yes, it’s me,” he laughed nervously. “And I’m cold and hungry. Is anyone about? Can you let me in?”

  “Wait there.” She was giggling with near hysteria. “I’ll be down. Oh, Myles, don’t move, please—”

  Laughing and crying all at once, she hurried back inside and through her room, making her way as quickly and quietly as possible down the stairs to the first floor. The house was dark except for the light left burning in the foyer.

  Her heart racing, she was about to fling the front doors wide open when the sound of footsteps made her freeze in sudden terror. Whipping about, she gasped with relief to see Sara emerging from the shadows of the back hallway, a softly burning candle in her hand.

  “Thank God it’s only you!” she cried, her bosom heaving with the reminder of her panic.

  “Miss Julie, what you doin’ up this time o’ night? I come to check on yo’ mama, and I heard you runnin’ down the stairs.”

  Julie ran to clutch Sara’s shoulders, unable to contain her joy any longer. “It’s Myles, Sara! Myles!”

  Sara swayed slightly, her eyes widening. “What you talkin’ about?”

  Julie did not take time to explain. Instead she ran to the doors, flung them open, and stepped out onto the terrace. “Myles, hurry. It’s all right,” she called into the night as loudly as she dared.

  And he stepped out of the blackness to fold her in his arms, his sobs mingling with hers as they clung together.

  Finally they were able to break apart, and Sara stepped up to give him a weepy hug, then said gruffly, “Well, you two young’uns step in out of that night air ’fore you catch a cold. Get on back to my kitchen and let me fix this boy a bite to eat. My, you ain’t got ’nuff meat on yo’ bones fo’ the buzzards to pick.”

  The old Negress led the way through the dark house, holding her candle high, and Julie and Myles followed, arms about each other. Julie felt she had to keep touching him to make sure he was really there and not just a dream. She caressed his tousled hair, then his face, so lean and pale. “It is you,” she whispered tremulously. “Oh, Myles, it’s really you!”

  He gave her a fierce hug, then sat down at the long wooden table in the kitchen and attempted to tell her what had happened to him since he had left almost eighteen months ago. “I didn’t join the Union Army. I just couldn’t. True, I don’t hold to enslaving a man, but I’m still a southerner, and I found I just couldn’t take up arms against my people. Not yet.”

  “I understand,” Julie murmured, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “But some of them were certainly anxious to take up arms against you and still would, for that matter. Sheriff Franklin still stops by from time to time to ask questions. You’ll have to stay hidden.”

  Myles sighed, shoulders drooping with resignation. “I know. I don’t plan to stay long anyway, Julie. I want to go west, make a new life for myself out there. I can never live here again.”

  Sara set a plate of leftover fried chicken in front him, and he picked up a drumstick and began to eat ravenously. Exchanging a glance with Julie, Sara said, “I reckon yo’ sister ought to tell you a few things, Mastah Myles. They’s a whole lot done gone on since you left. And, Miss Julie, you needn’t be a-makin’ faces at me to hush up, ’cause we both knows we gots to get him fed and outta here before Mistah Oates comes home.”

  “Virgil Oates?” Myles raised an eyebrow. “Is he still hanging around here? What’s she talking about, Julie? I noticed the place looks kind of run down. I’ve been hiding in the woods since before sundown, waiting for night, so things would quiet down before I slipped in.” He looked at her grimly. “Suppose you tell me everything.”

  She took a deep breath, then told him all of it as quickly as possible. “Virgil only wanted to marry me to get Rose Hill and now he’s got it, because—” She lowered her voice, choking on a sob, hating to continue but knowing she must. “Mother is dying, Myles. The doctor says she can’t last much longer. He is surprised she’s lived this long.”

  Myles was silent for a long time. His face became redder by the minute. Angrily he bent the fork he held in his hand. It finally snapped as he roare
d, “I won’t have it! By God, I’ll run him off. Where is he?”

  He leaped to his feet, and the contents of his plate spilled to the floor. Julie rose also. Catching his arm, she cried, “Myles, no! You can’t do or say anything. He’d turn you in to the sheriff. Don’t you see? There’s nothing you or anyone else can do.”

  She told him quickly how she and Sara and Lionel were planning to leave when their mother died, how they had been slipping out valuables and burying them. “Other than that, there’s nothing we can do. And you must stay hidden.”

  He yanked his arm from her grasp and strode briskly to the back door. Jerking it open, he stared out at the night, breathing in deeply of the chilly night air. Fists clenched at his sides, he swore, “Dammit, this is our land, our home. I won’t see a vulture just walk in and take over. There’s got to be a way to stop him!”

  “There isn’t.” Julie rushed to his side, pressing her head against his back as her arms encircled his waist. “Myles, I’ve prayed nightly for your return, and now that you’re here, I can’t let anything happen to you. Stay hidden, please, and when Mother dies, we’ll leave. We’ll go west—”

  He turned and gazed into her eyes. “I want to see Mother, Julie, before she dies. Later I’ll worry about how to deal with Virgil Oates. But I have to see her.”

  She nodded. “Give me time to arrange it. She couldn’t stand the shock of seeing you without being prepared for it. And I’ll have to make her see that she can’t let Virgil know about it, either. Till then, will you stay out of sight?”

  Myles nodded, but she could feel the tension rippling through him.

  Julie clung to him, wishing she could pour out her heart and tell him how the days were filled with anguish because she knew night would follow and she would be forced to submit to Virgil. And she longed to tell him about Derek, also, and the confused dreams she had almost nightly, when his face would swim before her, in the murky blue-green waters off the pink-tinged sands of Bermuda.