Ambrosia

by Rosanne Kohake

  But there was still the child. His child. A seed of love that grew within her in spite of her hatred. For the sake of that child, he would return to the home he’d left years before, to the aunt who had cared for him as a boy, to the memories....

  The streets were all but empty just before dawn. A few peddlers could be heard in the distance, shuffling about as they loaded their carts for the day’s vending. The birds were just beginning to rouse one another with their noisy chatter. Drayton slowed the stallion’s pace as he neared the house, wondering what she would say when he informed her of his plans. She would not want to leave the South, he knew. But she was his wife and legally she had no choice. He intended to give her no choice.

  He took his time stabling the stallion before he entered the house. He was tired and anxious to have the thing over and done with. He steeled himself as he strode resolutely up the steps. The sooner he confronted her with the news, the sooner he would be able to sleep.

  The eastern sky was softly etched with silver gray when Ambrosia opened her eyes and turned her head to stare out the bedroom window. She propped her weight on a single elbow and punched hard at the pillow before she settled her cheek against it again. The night had been long, and morning refused to come. She closed her eyes again and waited, forcing herself to think about trivial, boring things... the draperies she would choose for the parlor, the furniture pieces she would need to finish the spare bedroom....

  “Swimp! Ro, ro, Swimp!”

  The vibrant, melodious cries of Negro venders broke the silence of the early morning. A new day had finally begun. Ambrosia rose and went to the window, breathing a sigh as she leaned forward against the sill. He had left her alone hours ago. She had watched him leave with a feeling of relief and triumph. It was what she had wanted. And yet she had seen something in his eyes that had made it all wrong.

  “Porgy! Porgie-e-e-e!”

  The familiar Gullah chants rang out across the streets. She listened for a time. And then there was another sound. The sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs, the click of the door latch. She spun about.

  She eyed him uneasily for a long moment. She was embarrassed at being found awake and about at such an early hour. It was far too obvious that she had not slept well. But if Drayton was surprised at finding her awake he gave no sign. His face told her nothing.

  He shed his tunic as he crossed to the opposite side of the room. He loosened his collar and rolled back the sleeves of his blouse to splash his face with cool water. Ambrosia perched a hip tentatively on the sill and watched him in silence. She wondered, in spite of her­ self, where he had spent the night. He dried his face and hands on a clean linen towel which he tossed back on the washstand before he turned to face her. The lovely, butterscotch rays of the sun stretched across the room and bronzed his dark, chiseled features. He was incredibly handsome even now, when fatigue and tension were etched clearly in his face.

  “I came to a decision tonight,” he said as he impatiently rolled down the sleeves of his blouse. ‘’A decision that affects you as much as me.’’

  Ambrosia’s eyes were wary. “What decision is that?”

  “I turned in a letter of resignation to General Sickles this morning. I’m going home.”

  Her jaw dropped for an instant. “Home?” she repeated in a small voice.

  He nodded. “That’s right. Home. To New York.”

  She stared at him dumbly for a long time, struggling to find her voice. ‘’You-you’re joking.’’

  He gave a tight smile. “I can assure you I’m quite serious.” He searched his tunic pocket for his last cigar.

  She took a step toward him, still certain she must have misunderstood. She had expected him to be angry, but he did not seem angry at all. He seemed indifferent. “B-but you don’t really expect me to go there!”

  He said nothing but eyed her significantly as he bit off the end of the cigar and reached for a match. Ambrosia felt a cold knot tightening in her stomach. “You actually expect me to live there?” she whispered in horror. “To raise my child a Yankee!”

  His eyes narrowed and brightened as he slowly expelled a cloud of aromatic smoke from his first draw on the cigar. “You’re forgetting that the child is already a Yankee.”

  She straightened abruptly, almost as if he’d slapped her. “I won’t go.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  She clenched her fists, her breath coming hard. “No, I won’t.”

  ‘’You are my wife, Ambrosia,’’ he said softly. He took a seat in a nearby chair and stretched his long legs out comfortably before him, his eyes never leaving hers.

  She clenched her teeth, all the more angered by his surface nonchalance. “You’d have to put me in chains and drive me with a whip every step of the way!” she ground out.

  He flicked an ash to the floor, and something in his eyes made the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end. ‘’At the moment, I can think of nothing that would give me more pleasure.’’

  Her eyes were wide and stunned; he seemed not to notice. “I have finished playing the part of doting husband, my dear. It was a role that never really suited me in the first place. From now on, you will do exactly what I tell you to do. And if you choose to be difficult...” He paused to take a long draw on his cigar. “I’ll force you. It’s that simple.” He drew one last time on the cigar before he tossed it into a brass spittoon that stood in a comer some distance away. ‘’Once the baby is born, you will be free to leave me. I won’t stop you.”

  “You expect me to leave my own child!” she gasped.

  He shrugged noncommittally. ‘’The decision will be yours at that point.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I could leave you now if I wanted to. You’d never find me.”

  “Don’t bet on it. The law is on my side now that you are my wife. If I have to, I’ll use it. And do not doubt, Ambrosia, that I have both the will and the means to use it effectively. “

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No. Just stating a fact. If you choose to test me­well...” He shrugged and a challenging smile played about his mouth. “That is your choice. But I warn you, Ambrosia. There will be no more games.”

  She stared at him for a long time, wondering if there was any chance he was bluffing. He was so dangerously calm, almost as he had been that day at Heritage when he’d held a gun on that Yankee colonel and dared him to call his bluff. She had known then that he would not hesitate to pull the trigger. And she knew now that he meant every word he said. She frowned in confusion and gnawed pensively at her lower lip, realizing just how vulnerable she had become. There was no denying his right to the child. Nor could she truly hope to escape him now, with nowhere to run, no one to whom she could turn for help. It hurt to admit it, but the truth was obvious. He held the upper hand.

  “What of Sheba?” she asked suddenly, her voice much smaller and almost childlike.

  “She’ll come along, if she wants to.”

  Ambrosia swallowed hard and turned away to face the open window, to gaze at the blazing sun rising over the familiar roofs of Charleston. She was afraid of leaving the South, afraid of being lost in a strange place filled with strange people she already despised.

  She closed her eyes and let out an anguished breath as her hand pressed instinctively to the curve of her stomach that was a new life. A bitterness welled inside her. The Yankees had taken everything from her. And now this...

  She opened her eyes and lifted her chin, blinking back the tears. This child was hers, far more her flesh and blood than his, she was certain of it. And somehow, even if she was forced to leave here, to live among Yankees, she would raise that child to be strong and courageous, and to love the South as much as she loved it. And she would never let Drayton know that she was afraid, or think for a moment that he had broken her. She would never be broken by anything he or any Yankee did to her.
Never.

  Part Three

  New York

  May 1866

  Chapter 27

  On the second day of May, Ambrosia and Drayton departed the city of Charleston. Susannah and Mary were there to see them off, as were Colonel Beam and a pair of soldiers whose names Ambrosia did not trouble herself to remember. With Sheba beside her, she stared absently at the trunk which held all her worldly possessions as it was carried onto the ship that would take them to New York. She felt hopelessly trapped and very much afraid. At times she felt as if she were caught in a tidal wave, being thrown and tossed about with nothing to latch on to.

  The cabin she shared with Drayton was clean but small and cramped for two people on less than friendly terms. Ambrosia avoided it almost entirely that first day, spending hours alone on deck, feeling the moist, salty air on her face as she watched the last remnants of familiarity slip away. The first hours seemed to pass with agonizing slowness. After that the miles of water and coastline seemed nothing more than a monotonous blur, and she endured the hours of traveling, of meals, of dressing and undressing, with little conscious thought given to where she was or how much longer it would be before they reached their destination. She was glad that Drayton left her alone for the most part, glad that Sheba said very little. She needed to be alone, needed time to sort out her feelings. She was so confused, so terribly afraid of losing control of her emotions. She willed herself to be strong, just as she had always done. But a part of her was succumbing to the loneliness, to the grief of past losses she had never come to terms with. It was becoming more and more difficult to hold herself together, but she could not afford to forget that she was a Lanford, that she was strong. She had plenty of hatred inside her to make her strong.

  In his starched white shirt and black broadcloth suit, Drayton was a polite but distant stranger, just as he had been in the weeks before their departure. He saw to her comfort but avoided conversing with her, even avoided meeting her eyes. Though they continued to share a bed, he never touched her. He never retired before midnight, long after she had gone to sleep, and he rose early and was generally gone before she woke, though he always returned to the cabin to accompany her to breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. His days were spent socializing with the sailors and other passengers. The strain of keeping up appearances began to show on his face, but Ambrosia did not notice. After only two days of confinement, she was restless, irritable, and angry. She blamed Drayton for everything, since he had made her a virtual prisoner. She hated him for that as well as for his cold indifference to her, especially since he was all charm in the company of others. He was a popular gentleman on the ship, attentive and polite to everyone but her and obviously very attractive to the ladies. Ambrosia felt curious eyes upon her whenever she was at his side, measuring her, dissecting her piece by piece, wondering how in the world her hand­ some, dashing husband had made such a terrible mistake. Day after day she would return their stares with her head held high, enduring the false smiles and the insults in their eyes with less and less patience and restraint. Her wall of defiant control was beginning to fail her and that frightened her. She was not accustomed to being afraid of what she felt inside. She could not live like this; she must somehow escape.

  The idea took firm root in her mind during the endless days she spent in the cabin. She thought of taking a small portion of his money, just enough to get a good distance away, and of returning to the South before the baby was born. She could support herself; she had already proven that. She did not dwell on the fact that her pregnancy would make things much more difficult, or what her decision would mean to the child. She only knew that she had to escape or go completely mad. She must plan her escape, though she had never been outside of South Carolina and did not really know what to expect in New York. She had heard that it was a much bigger city than Charleston, and that would make it much easier for her to get away. But she would need to be very, very careful. Once she left Drayton, he must never find her again.

  After seven days of quiet sailing with only a hint of a coastline visible from the deck, the voyage ended in a scene of unimaginable confusion in New York’s busy harbor. Ambrosia’s eyes were dazed as she glanced about at the frenzy that surrounded her. The idea of escape was momentarily pushed to the back of her mind. The place was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Every inch of space was packed with people or ships or barrels or bales or carts. Sailors and longshoremen shouted loudly at one another as they worked in an effort to be heard above the mad cacophony of animals and people.

  Somehow Drayton managed to hire a wagon into which a strange-looking man with a thick foreign accent loaded their possessions. Drayton helped her to a seat, then aided Sheba as she climbed into the back of the wagon. The funny little man squeezed himself into the seat beside Drayton and Ambrosia and sang out a long string of unintelligible orders to his horse. The wagon was promptly submersed in a tangle of traffic the likes of which Ambrosia had never seen before. Her eyes darted everywhere as the driver somehow managed to inch his conveyance through a snarl of public busses, private broughams, wagons, buggies, carts, equestrians, and pedestrians. So many buildings towered overhead that Ambrosia instinctively huddled lower in her seat. The streets were crammed with huge, imposing structures of granite, marble, and brownstone, and rows of horrible cramped tenements with waste-strewn walks. Dirty-faced children scattered to avoid the traffic. How easy it would be in a place such as this! she thought suddenly. Her eyes began to survey the passing buildings with a purpose now, trying to imagine what she would do when she finally escaped.

  Drayton was in a world of his own as he contemplated the city he had left almost seven years before. So many things had changed in his absence. Once-fashionable homes had been sold and left to the poor and the aged. Poverty and its accompanying filth and disease had crept like a cancer northward. Everywhere he looked his eyes met a strange blend of things old and new, of the same crowded streets he remembered shadowed by taller, newer buildings, or cluttered with garbage and decrepit structures badly in need of repair.

  The wagon took them across the island to the west side, where they boarded a train at the Hudson River Station. The train proceeded northward, up the western side of the island into open land, woods and farm country with sudden clusters of shanties and taverns and an occasional small farm or wealthy gentleman ‘s country estate. The high land overlooking the Hudson boasted several lovely residences, but many of these had been converted into inns or pubs.

  The train’s last stop was a small village, a haphazard collection of shops, houses, and taverns that seemed to have been generated spontaneously by the train’s turn­ about. Drayton was acquainted with several people in the village, including the man who ran the livery. He was able to quickly secure a horse and wagon, and they were soon traveling along an unpaved, narrow lane which the stableman had called Bloomingdale Road. Trees were thick all along the road, forming a green canopy that filtered out most of the sun’s brightness. All was quiet. The air was much crisper and cleaner here than in the city, almost like the air at Heritage. Ambrosia drew a deep breath and sighed as her eyes scanned a meadow with walls of fieldstone and old rail fencing. For a moment it reminded her of home. And yet she knew each mile they traveled took her that much farther from home and made escape that much less likely. She would have to get into the city somehow. Once she was there, Drayton would have no hope of ever finding her.

  Drayton said nothing as he turned the wagon off the road onto an even smaller lane which wound about and upward until a huge, two-and-a-half-story red brick house came into view. Six imposing white columns spanned the front of the house, and several great elm trees seemed to embrace it from the side and back. There was a graceful line to the soft grass and trimmed shrubs, and even in the small curl of smoke that rose from one of the chimneys. Ambrosia tossed a questioning glance at Drayton as he pulled the wagon to a halt and shifted the reins to a single hand, securing them about t
he seat. She stared at the house again, hearing the quiet rustle of the wind through the trees, the rush of a nearby creek. This was his home. This was the life he had left behind to go to war years before. And in all that time, this place had remained untouched and beautiful, as Heritage had once been. She hated the sight of it.

  Without a word Drayton jumped down and turned to assist his wife. There was a tenseness to his manner when he touched her, and he quickly turned away to help Sheba from the back of the wagon. He came to take Ambrosia’s arm, to lead her to the door. He knocked. He waited barely a moment before he knocked again, more impatiently this time. He raised his fist a third time. The door flew open and a short, round-faced maid with a lacy white cap perched crookedly atop a mass of brown corkscrew curls gazed at them breathlessly. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, her eyes wide with the shock of recognition. “My heavens! It’s you! You’ve come home!”

  Drayton grinned at her as he gave a polite nod. “Good afternoon, Bessie. Is Aunt Lily at home?”

  “Home? Of course she’s home!”

  Bessie stepped forward, and in a flurry of emotion stretched her arms to take hold of both his shoulders. She gave him a thorough perusal. “You really have come home!” she exclaimed again. “Miss Lily will be so happy she’ll-” Her smile faded as her gaze slid toward the young woman in black who stood beside Drayton in serious silence. Behind her stood a large black woman with warmer eyes but a similar unsmiling face. Self-consciously Bess released her motherly hold on Drayton and straightened her cap. She cleared her throat. “You brought along guests, sir?” she inquired in a tone of perfect respect.