Bittersweet

by Anita Mills

  The curved staircase was gone, but the wall still bore the outline of the boards that had once attached it there. Even the second-story banister and the balustrades had been removed, giving the impression that the hallway above was suspended in thin air. The staircase had been wide enough for three hoop-skirted women to share its steps on either side. The first time he’d seen Liddy, she’d been watching from that banister above, then at her father’s bidding, she’d glided gracefully, her skirts billowing, down those stairs.

  As he opened interior doors, he found the whole place was empty, utterly devoid of its former grandeur. Every piece of elegant furniture, every French-made carpet, the carved marble fireplace surrounds, all the portraits and mirrors—everything of value had been removed. The place was more than abandoned. It was gutted.

  He had to go outside to use the fire stairs to Cullen’s second-floor bedroom window. Again, the panes were gone, their lattice frames splintered. Easing his body through the hole, he walked through the empty room to Sally Jamison’s bedchamber, where a water-stained brocade chaise with one leg missing lay on its side next to one kidskin slipper.

  Liddy’s room was as bare as the rest. No furniture. No rug. No draperies. Nothing but a broken glass perfume bottle without its stopper. It looked like the one he’d sent her from Atlanta, but he couldn’t be sure. Picking it up, he sniffed the neck. It smelled like dust.

  Moving to the window, he looked out toward the stables. Cullen had loved his horses more than his wife, everybody said, and the old man hadn’t denied it. like Midnight Folly, they’d all been purebred Arabians. Under pressure from the Confederate government, the old man had sold most of them for cavalry mounts, and two weeks later, he’d had his first stroke.

  As he started to turn away, Spence thought he saw movement near the corner of the stable. He looked down again just as a barefooted Negro boy disappeared inside.

  “Halt! Stay right there!” he shouted, racing down the fire stairs. Drawing his revolver, he kicked open the stable door, and the force stirred up a cloud of moldy hay dust. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot!” he shouted, edging inside.

  Two dark, skinny arms came up from behind a pile of tack, followed by a head. “I ain’t done nuthin’—I ain’t!” The whites of the kid’s eyes were round in an almost black face. “I’s sleep here, massa!”

  Spence didn’t recognize the boy. “Where’s Jamison?” he demanded tersely. “Where’s the master?” When the kid didn’t answer, he leveled the gun. “Where is Cullen Jamison?”

  “He be gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Prob’ly hell.” The boy rolled his eyes. “He daid.” Dropping one hand, he scratched his distended belly. “He mean old man, but the devil he be burnin’ ‘im up now.”

  “What about the others? Where are the others?” Spence asked urgently.

  The kid shrugged. “They gone—ain’t nobody here ‘ceptin’ darkies like me.” Shuffling his bare feet on the dirt floor, he came close, jutting his chin out. “We be free—I don’t got to do nuthin’ white folks axe me—ole Abe Likken, he done saw to that,” he added, grinning.

  “Miz Sally—what about Miz Sally?” Spence prompted. “Where is she?”

  The boy giggled, then thumped his head, and a couple of flies took off. “Ain’t right no mo. Miz Sally, she doan know nuthin’ no mo.”

  “She’s dead?”

  He shook his head and grinned again, showing off white teeth. “Miz Sally ain’t daid—uh-uh, she ain’t. She jes doan know nuthin’, ‘cause she be real sick. Miz Liddy, she be mighty mean, fussin’ at Miz Sally like that.”

  “Where’s Miz Liddy?”

  The thin shoulders went up and down again, “Doan rightly know. She gone, too.”

  “There was a man here—Ross Donnelly—what do you know about him?”

  “He gone, jes’ like the rest of ‘em.”

  Relief washed over Spence. Ross had probably taken her somewhere safe, and someone was supposed to tell him. ‘Ί don’t suppose you know where they went, do you?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Pulling the horehound drops from his pocket, Spence unwrapped the package, then held out a piece, keeping it just out of the boy’s reach. “Look—tell me straight, and you can have this. Where’s Miz Liddy?”

  The boy hung back. “Thas fo’ me?”

  “If you tell me what you know. I’ve got to find Miz Liddy and the young master—her little boy. Can you help me?”

  “They’s ain’t here—they’s ain’t. They be gone long time now. They’s jes’ darkies like me here.”

  “How many?” he asked quickly, hoping he could find one who’d tell him more than the kid.

  “Some,” the boy responded evasively, reaching for the candy. “Ain’t no cotton no mo—cain’t do nuthin’. Folk’s be hongry, and they ain’t nuthin’ t’ eat.”

  “How many freed slaves are here?”

  “Doan know—cain’t count,” He appeared to consider the matter for a moment, then shook his head. “Mos’ jes’ run off, but they’s nowheres t’ go.”

  “What about Auntie Fan?”

  “Miz Liddy, she be makin’ Fan go. Fan, she say that girl jes’ be evil.”

  He couldn’t remember the name of the old mammy’s husband. “Auntie Fan’s man—where is he?”

  “Daid. Buck be dyin’ same time he be diggin’ Mis-tuh Cullen’s hole.”

  He’d probably gotten all he could from the kid, but he tried one more time. “When did they go? Miz Liddy—Miz Sally—Auntie Fan—when did they leave?”

  “They be gone long time ago. Befo’ th’ trees be comin’ out.”

  “And they took Miz Sally with them?”

  “No suh—Miz Sally, she be—”

  “Sick,” Spence finished for him. “All right—if Miz Liddy didn’t take Miz Sally, but she did take Auntie Fan—then where is Miz Sally now?”

  The kid twisted from side to side, swinging his arms, then looked up. “Got mo’ candy?”

  “Yes.” Fishing out another piece of horehound, Spence held it out. “You little dickens—you know where Miz Sally is, don’t you?” Keeping a tight grip on the candy, he said, “You don’t get it until you tell me,”

  “Miz Sally, she be in town.” In a flash of black, skinny arm, he grabbed the horehound and ran.

  There wasn’t any sense going after the kid, Spence decided. He’d gotten about all he could there. The only town of any size around here was Macon.

  As he climbed the few steps to the gray porch, Spence hoped he had the right house. When he’d asked around for an Eliza Stephenson, he’d been directed to the “Widder Stephenson,” but nobody seemed to be able to connect her to the Jamisons. And judging by the modest clapboard structure, things didn’t look promising.

  At the door, Spence smoothed his hair before he rapped on the door. Unless the widow proved to be Sally’s cousin, he’d reached dead end. Pasting a smile on his face, he waited.

  It seemed like an eternity before anyone answered, but the door finally opened, and a young Negro boy peered out. Looking Spence over, he said, “Yassuh?”

  “Is Mrs. Stephenson in?”

  “Whut yuh be wantin’ with her?”

  “I’m a relative of sorts.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Willie—who is it?”

  “Doan know.” He opened the door wider. “Says he be kin t’ yuhs, Miz Liza.”

  “Well, let him in,” an elderly woman ordered impatiently. Coming to the door herself, she murmured apologetically, “Don’t mind Willie—he’s still learning. Now go on with you,” she told the boy. “We’ll practice this later.” Her dark bird’s eyes took in Spence’s face, trying to place it. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, Mr….?”

  “Hardin—Spencer Hardin, ma’am. We haven’t met, but I’m Lydia’s husband. I believe you’re related to Sally Jamison, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but…” Her eyes widened, betraying dis
may. “Oh, dear…you’re the doctor, aren’t you?” Before he could answer that question, she answered his. “Yes, my mother and Sally’s were cousins, sir. But Lydia—”

  “Is she here?”

  “Certainly not”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I have no idea—none at all.” Seeing the disappointment in his face, she stepped back. “Perhaps you’d best come in and sit down, Dr. Hardin.” Turning away; she admitted, “I just hate this, truly I do. How that wretched girl—well, it’s just beyond me—it just is.”

  “Nothing’s happened to her—she’s not ill, or anything like that, is she?”

  Instead of answering him, she walked through a doorway into a shabby genteel parlor, then gestured to a pair of chairs. “Do sit down, sir, and I’ll have Willie bring you some coffee. It’s certainly not the best, by any means, but I’m fortunate to have any at all. With a little sugar and some cream, it’s almost passable. Willie!”

  “Yassum, Miz Liza?”

  “Coffee for Dr. Hardin, if you please. And do bring the cream pot and sugar bowl, too.” As the boy left, she turned her pale eyes to Spence before she sighed. “If Sally were herself at all, I’d certainly let her be the one to tell you, but she’s in a dreadful fix, Dr. Hardin,”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, ma’am.”

  “Well, she never was the strong sort, of course, and cousin or not, she has to be the flightiest woman I ever met—even as a girl, she had more looks than brains, you know,”

  “Yes, I know,” he murmured dryly, wondering how long she meant to meander on. “And I expect the war made her worse.”

  “It wasn’t just the war, Dr. Hardin. With Cullen passing on, and the girl misbehaving like that, it’d be a wonder if she had kept her sanity, I suppose.”

  “She’s had a nervous collapse?”

  “She certainly has—mad as Ophelia, I’m afraid. Not that Lydia cared for that, though. She’s got no thought for anyone but herself.” She caught herself and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Dr. Hardin, but

  I’ve never been one to mince words, and I don’t mean to start now.”

  “Mrs. Stephenson—”

  “Sally doesn’t even know where she is or how she came to be here, I’m afraid. I’m not even certain she knows who I am, “either.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You weren’t here, so I don’t fault you, but Lydia is quite another matter,” the woman declared, her lips thinning in disapproval. “She knew exactly what she was doing, sir.”

  “Mrs. Stephenson, Lydia is my wife,” he reminded her. “All I want to do is find her and my son. I’m worried something is wrong.”

  “Wrong? I’ll say it is. The hussy just brought Sally here—for a visit she said—and while I was cutting lemon cake to go with the coffee, she just took herself off. We all thought she’d be right back, and Sally waited up all night like a dog for its master, but they’d just gone on without her.”

  “That can’t be.”

  “Well, it is. And it has been a struggle keeping body and soul together. I couldn’t afford food for myself before, and now I’ve got to feed Sally. If I didn’t have Willie, I don’t know what I’d do. I give him a quarter a week, and it’s a strain on the pocketbook to do that.”

  “There’s got to be some mistake.”

  “Mistake? I hardly think so. Lydia knew what she was about, sir. They didn’t want to be bothered with Sally, and to tell the truth, I’m surprised they took the little boy.”

  “What in hell are you talking about?” he demanded. “Can’t you just answer me?”

  “Really, sir, but there is no need for vulgarity, is there?” she responded stiffly.

  The woman was driving him mad with a piecemeal tale. Running his hand through his hair distractedly, he tried to placate her. “Look, I’m sorry. But surely you can understand my concern. I’ve had no word from her in months, and now I’ve come home to find her gone. I’m just asking you what happened, Mrs. Stephenson, and that’s all I want to know.”

  “There’s no need for temper, is there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I suppose you have a right to be angry,” she decided. “Willie, have you gotten yourself lost? Dr. Hardin wishes his coffee!” As the child appeared, carrying a large tray, she smiled thinly. “Just set it on this table and run along, will you? That’s a good boy.” Pausing long enough for him to leave the room, she filled two cups from the pot, added two hard chunks of raw sugar and a dollop of thick cream to each, then pushed one cup toward Spence. “There was a time when I had more to offer than this, but I don’t guess anything will ever be the same anymore. I just wish she would have left something for the care of her mother, but she didn’t. All that money and not one cent to spare for Sally.”

  He was ready to strangle her, but he reached for the cup instead. Taking a polite sip, he found the stuff too bitter to drink, even worse than that concoction of Laura Taylor’s.

  “It’s not very good, is it?” she asked, sighing.

  “No, it’s all right,” he lied. “You were about to tell me what you knew of Liddy,” he added, pointedly reminding her.

  “What is there to tell? She’s just gone.”

  “Where?” he managed through gritted teeth.

  “They certainly didn’t tell me where they were going.”

  “Who is they, Mrs. Stephenson?”

  “Why, she and that man. One of the Donnellys, I believe—yes, I’m sure it was.”

  “Oh.” Somewhat relieved, he sat back. “I expect if I asked around, she’s somewhere here in town, then.”

  A thin eyebrow shot up. “I hardly think so, sir,” she said stiffly. “Macon is not that sort of place. We don’t welcome jezebels here,”

  “It’s not what you think, ma’am. I knew he was here—I sent him to Jamison’s Landing myself.”

  For a long moment, she regarded him as though he were an utter fool. “Then you set the fox in the henhouse, Dr. Hardin. And you needn’t take my word for that, because there are-plenty of others who can tell you what went on out there.” Taking in his thunderstruck expression, she nodded. ‘There’s no pleasant way to say this, but she’s run off with him.”

  “What? I don’t believe you!”

  “Shouting won’t alter the truth, I’m afraid.” Feeling genuinely sorry for him, she looked away. “I didn’t want to believe it either, but die morning after she left Sally here, I walked downtown, which wasn’t an easy thing to do on these old legs, believe me. You cannot imagine my shock when I discovered Lydia and young Donnelly been living together as husband and wife for a good month before they left. Leaving like that wasn’t any spur-of-the-moment thing, sir—they’d planned the whole thing.”

  “No,” he said hoarsely.

  She nodded. “After Cullen died in January, Lydia put everything up for sale with absolutely no regard to the fact that it was Sally’s, not hers. When she couldn’t find anyone with enough hard money to buy the Landing itself, she sold things piecemeal, according to the banker. She made a tidy sum for herself—close to twenty thousand dollars in these hard times—and that wasn’t the whole of it. The conniving little thief found where Cullen had buried his strongbox, and she brought four thousand dollars in gold to the bank two days after his death. When Mr. Davidson said she had to put the money in her mother’s name, she caused quite a scene, insisting Sally was too incompetent to be trusted with it.”

  “My God.”

  “He refused to let her take it back, or it’d be gone, too. As it is, Sally sits here starving with me, because she can’t touch that four thousand dollars until it goes through probate, and as far as I know, there hasn’t even been an executor appointed. She’s not going to live long enough to see a penny of it, and then it will go to Lydia anyway.”

  “Liddy wouldn’t—she couldn’t leave her mother destitute.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to believe me, sir�
��you can ask the banker or Cullen’s lawyer or anyone else, for that matter. With no regard for decency or the law, she cleaned out everything that should have gone to Sally. Then she and Mr. Dormelly packed up what they wanted and left town. I worry about that little boy, sir—anybody as indifferent as Lydia was to the woman who bore her cannot be much of a mother herself.”

  He was too numb to respond. It couldn’t be, he told himself. Liddy didn’t even really like Ross. “Handsome enough, but exceedingly shallow,” she’d pronounced him once.

  “When they were driving out of town, she had her head on his shoulder, and he had his arm around her, according to those who saw her. The way they were acting, Mrs. Henderson said she thought the man was Lydia’s husband. Now if that isn’t a jezebel, I don’t know what is.”

  He had to get out of there before he exploded. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t even breathe. Pushing the coffee cup out of the way, he stumbled to his feet and bolted for the front door. In the front yard, he leaned against a huge oak tree and closed his eyes, waiting for the rage to pass. The woman had to be lying about Liddy. But that didn’t make any sense either.

  “Don’t you want to see Sally?” the old woman asked from the porch.

  Straightening up, he managed to answer, “Later—not today.”

  Once out of Macon, Spence rode hell-for-leather to nowhere in particular, with no regard for anything until his exhausted horse slowed to a walk, then finally stopped, too winded to go any farther. Dropping from the saddle, Spence lay facedown in the steamy grass, cursing Liddy, Ross, and the whole damned world.

  The witch had left him. While he’d been away in the hell called war, she’d betrayed him with a man he’d counted a friend, and then she’d left before he could even get home, stealing his son. Jezebel wasn’t a strong enough word for what she was.

  He didn’t care who had seduced whom. They’d both betrayed him. And they’d pay for it, he promised himself. No matter how long it took, no matter how hard they tried to hide, he’d track them down, and he’d kill them. And by God, they were going to look down the barrel of his gun and beg his forgiveness before he sent them both to hell.