He positioned himself at the foot of the staircase and gestured, ever so slightly, for me to precede him.
I laid my hand on the banister and placed my cane, all set to climb. But I wanted to learn as much of the place as I could as swiftly as possible and I began with the Negro.
“You are Mr. Samson, I believe?”
“Simply ‘Samson,’ sir. The ‘Mr.’ is . . . superfluous.”
“Samson, there was a woman waiting in the hall when I come in. A small woman, see. She rushed off. To alert you, I expect. Would she be this Aunt Dee I hear of?”
His brows climbed up in a startled look. Then a smile threatened his aplomb. “No, sir. That was Bridie. If she annoys you, you must tell me immediately, sir. But I am keeping you from your room, sir.”
Perhaps he had to help out in the kitchen and wanted me off his hands. I went up as he wished, though I climbed more awkwardly than usual, for the long day’s ride had stiffened my leg. I would have liked to ask him further questions, but was unsure of the propriety. Anyway, I was anxious enough for a wash, though it would have to be quick, with a proper scrub later. I did not want to keep my host or the supper waiting.
My clothing was khaki with dust, the very color of the graytan uniforms issued us the year before the Mutiny. I looked a disgrace next to the immaculate Negro and regretted not brushing myself off and giving my coat a good shake before coming inside.
The room in which I was to sleep was not so fancy as some I have seen since, but it was a handsome step up from the pen in which I recently had spent ten nights waiting to hang. The chamber was got up proper and dark, with a great canopy bed fit for a viscount. A table lamp and two candles under storm shades gave me light.
“Captain Barclay asks that you make yourself at home, sir. The water in the pitcher is fresh.” I marked the blue and white wash-up set. Beside it lay a stack of Turkey towels. Samson touched a cord hanging from the ceiling by the bed. When he had my eye, he gave it a delicate tug and a faint tinkle answered. “The bell, sir. May I assist in any further way?”
I thanked the fellow and sent him along, then peeled down to my shirt and poured a basin of water. Oh, lovely it felt on my face. Lavender soap there was, and a brush for the clothing, and square-cut rags for the cleaning of shoes. The bed wanted someone to drop himself on it, I will tell you. But I did not indulge, not even for a minute, for reclining before the proper hour breeds sloth. A Christian man sits upright until bedtime.
I cannot tell you how fine it was to be in that room, though. Do not misunderstand me, I would not have traded the least corner of my bedroom back in Pottsville for all these Southron luxuries. But the fellow lies who claims to like no comforts.
I hurried along, for courtesy’s sake. And supper was a not unpleasant thought. Kitchen smells twined up the stairs and slithered beneath the door.
In the event, I was the first to reach the library. Half of an hour in the South does not mean what it does in colder climes. I leaned upon my cane and took my bearings. Bookcases filled one wall and half of another. A fancy liquor jug and glasses sat on a table in the middle of the room, kept company by a sugar bowl and a brimming pitcher. The day’s thirst was upon me and I nearly helped myself to a glass of the water. But gentlemen must wait for an invitation, and my Mary Myfanwy would not have me be rude.
I took me to the books instead.
The first shelves I glanced over contained works on agricultural matters and the law. Then I passed to books with Latin titles. Next come a row I took to be Greek by the queerness of the letters. Raines had described our host’s father as a learned man and I wondered if these volumes were not his, although the mansion seemed to be the son’s property. A family is complex as a contest of nations.
Then I spied the deviltry. Books in French they were. Now the tongue of the French is the easiest of heathen languages to recognize because they take perfectly good words and make a mess of them. For example, the first set of Frenchy books on which I fastened stood all in a row, bound in leather, with fancy gold imprinted on their spines. And what was the title of that line of massive volumes? Histoire de ma vie. Now it doesn’t take a fancy education to figure out that this histoire is just the way your lust-befuddled Frenchman, agitated by his vices, molests the good word “history.”
The young fellows had not yet appeared. And I fear I gave in to temptation. Look you. I have always wondered what a French book might be like. Twas only curiosity, see. And I assumed that any row of books with “history” in their title must be as moral a literary matter as a Frenchman would bother to print. So, with the house a great silence around me, I drew out a volume from the middle of the set.
The author appeared to be an aristocratic fellow, with one of those great long names they have. Jacques Casanova de Seingalt. With a deep breath, I opened the covers and fanned through the pages.
The first illustration stopped me. If history it was, twas the history of Sodom. The unchastened moral disarray of the figures distressed me beyond words. Now I am an old bayonet and have seen the human figure disrobed, forgive my bluntness. But never did I view it in such postures. The very geometries alarmed me. So much that I stared at the plate for a long time.
“Glad to meet a Yankee with a taste for literature,” a voice said at my elbow.
I swirled about in horror, slamming shut the book. Twas Captain Barclay in the doorway. Propped in his rolling chair. The book had so dismayed me that I had not heard him approach.
“I . . . French . . . wondered . . . never . . .”
“Used to be a favorite of mine,” the invalid said, smiling and wheeling himself closer. The reek of ammonia pinched the air, despite his lavish use of cologne water. “Nowadays it just unsettles me.”
“You are developing morally, sir.”
His laugh smelled of whisky. I would hear his laugh again, but it was never so genuine as that howl.
Lieutenant Raines stepped in, dusted off and with his buttons polished. His hair was wetted down.
I thrust the book back into its place on the shelf. My embarrassment served me right, I saw, for meddling with French matters.
“The major and I were just discussing literature,” Barclay said, as he spun his chair about. He glanced back toward me, winking.
TEN
RAINES POSITIONED HIMSELF BY THE LIQUOR.
“Fix you a toddy, Billy?”
“Look after the major here. A good book gives a man a thirst. Major? You take your whisky clean or dirty?”
“I have taken the Pledge, sir,” I explained. “Though I would pour myself a glass of water and be glad of it.”
My host’s features tightened. Though confined to his rolling chair, he seemed to look down at me. “Sure now. To every man his humor. Isn’t that right, Drake?”
“That’s right, Billy,” Raines said. He smiled, but wariness flickered in his eyes.
Barclay settled into a look of amusement. The way a fellow stops adjusting his hat once he finds the sit comfortable. His face gleamed. Had we faced an audience, all eyes would have been on him. Twas a sorrowful case, no question, of a man who might have been much. For he possessed the appeal that binds men to a fellow even as that fellow betrays them. He might have made a splendid politician.
But now he smelled of the body’s baseness. Despite his generous use of scent, he reeked of waste and whisky.
“To the major, after his pleasure. But pour my poison neat.” Our host eased his chair back over the Turkey carpet. His vision encompassed both of us, though his interest leaned my way. “Drake here tells me you’re looking to find out who killed my niggers. That a fact?”
My escort passed me a glass. Twas sized for spirits and would not quench a thirst.
“I am sent to look into the matter, Captain Barclay.” Relieved I was that our talk had left those French matters behind.
He smirked at Raines, then gave a brief whistle. His pitch was not true.
“The Yankees sure do love our niggers,” Barclay said.
“Isn’t that right? Love ’em till they get up real close. Then it’s a different horse race.” Raines handed him his whisky, with some care. Barclay paused to drink. “Those generals of yours looking for something nasty to spread over their newspapers up North? All about how we Southrons aren’t content to whip the poor, suffering Negro, but like to kill them and chop them into pieces now and then?”
I thought of the simple girl with the battered skull.
“No, sir. It is the opposite, see. Washington wishes to put the matter to rest. Before there is more sensation. And more hatred.”
Barclay coughed out a small, dismissive laugh. “No matter who wins this war, Major, we’ll be hating each other a hundred years from now. Born to hate each other, and that’s a fact. We’re separate peoples. Always will be. Lincoln should’ve had the sense to let us go. To let us be. Could have saved us all this . . . all this . . . Drake, you draw me another one of these, would you?” He held out his emptied glass.
I sipped my water. Unwilling to be riled. For duty must not founder on our emotions. The curious thing was that his tone of voice carried no message of attack upon my person, but remained genteel. In contrast to his words.
“Do you have suspicions, Captain Barclay?”
“Suspicions?”
“As to who murdered your Negroes?”
He slumped a bit. Propping himself on his elbows, as if the only bones left him were in his arms. I tried not to look. For it was a troubling business. A young and handsome man plumped on his hips in a drain pan, with his trouser legs cut off and double-seamed. He did not even have a stump of thigh.
“No damned idea,” he said. And out of all he said to me, I believed those three blunt words. His eyes strayed as he spoke and it gave him a lost, tormented look that had little to do with his injuries.
Abrupt as vengeance, he laughed. Looking at Raines, whose drink was hardly touched. “Damn me, Drake. You know what I was about to say?” He cackled again, all darkness. “I was about to say how, if I did have the least notion who killed those niggers, I’d shoot them down like I would a mad dog.” He left a space for our thoughts while he put his glass to his lips. “I guess they’d have to come up to the porch and volunteer themselves to be shot. Isn’t that right, now?”
He did not wait for an answer, but addressed me. “Major, I hope you find out who did it. Sure now. I hope you find them and hang them. Wish I could help. But I’m strained to figure it out myself. Don’t see where there’s any sense or profit in killing runaways then cutting them up into little pieces. That true, by the way? That’s what I’m told. Cut up into little bits. Butchered like hogs. The women . . .”
He shifted his weight. I thought how uncomfortable it must be for him in his pan.
“Hell, I don’t even know why they run off,” he continued. “Our niggers always had the best treatment anywhere around. You just ask old Drake here.” A lock of fair hair draped the cripple’s brow. “I don’t for the life of me know why they run off,” he repeated, in a tone that hinted reflection behind its bristle. “Some passing nigger fancy, I reckon. All stirred up by talk of freedom and other nonsense.”
“If you don’t mind, Captain Barclay,” I said, “I would like to put a few questions to your remaining Negroes. Perhaps they know something.”
“Sure now. Don’t you think I’ve asked them?”
“Of course, sir. I did not mean to offend. But look you. Sometimes a body knows more than he sees that he knows. And must be coaxed to the knowledge of his knowing.”
He looked at me with the eyes of a coiled snake. “Well, you ask anything you want. See where it gets you. They’re nothing but dumb animals.”
I noticed Samson standing in the door. The servant let the last words settle, then said, “Gentlemen, the table is prepared.” He stepped aside to let us pass with the grace of a Hindoo prince.
But Barclay did not wheel toward the archway. Not yet. He rolled over to me and smiled affably. “Perhaps, Major, we should postpone further discussion of this business until the morning? To rescue what conviviality we may?”
“As you wish, sir.”
Of a sudden, he held out his hand. “Sure now. I haven’t even welcomed you properly.” I took his hand, though I wondered at its deeds. The flesh was cold and damp, but his grip was crushing. “Drake told me he broke bread with a mutual acquaintance of ours. With Dr. Tyrone.”
“I count the man a friend, sir. And, indeed, he gave me a message for—”
“I must beg your indulgence, Major. Never thought I’d willingly see another Yankee in this house. But you are welcome, sir. As a friend of Dr. Tyrone’s. He saved . . . what life I have.” He relaxed his hand, but his stare was as firm as his grip had been. “He’s a brave man, your Dr. Tyrone.”
“He has said the same of you, Captain. He said you were the most—”
He broke away and wheeled toward the door. “Mustn’t keep Auntie Dee’s fixings waiting any longer. Isn’t that right, Samson?”
The tall Negro bowed an inch. “Indeed, sir.”
“Captain Barclay,” I called. “Before I forget the matter. Dr. Tyrone suggests you visit a Dr. Smithson. In New York. After the war.”
Barclay looked back at me with eyes I could not read. “Do thank him for me. When you see him again. But it strikes me,” he said, “that I’ve already met up with one doctor too many.” His smile was a study in manners, but no more. “Now allow me to offer you what hospitality our reduced circumstances afford. You all come on now. Hear?”
THE SILVER SHONE in the light of the candles and lamps. Twas a banquet set out for three. At the end of a long table.
The smells were of supper in Paradise.
I paused on the threshold. For the truth was I had never sat at a place set out so grand. Now I have my proper manners, and know which hand should hold the knife and which the fork, but there is something daunting to one who has been poor when great wealth is spread before him. I feared I would do some foolish thing and lessen the regard of my companions. I felt . . . as though my place was back with Barnaby, in the kitchen. With my own kind. This was America, despite the war’s disagreements, and such differences should not have mattered. But it is hard not to feel small in this life, and I do not mean the smallness of the body.
My host saw me looking at the silver, but did not understand my gaze. For he had been born to judge and would not comprehend the fear of judgement.
I would have liked a simpler supper, see.
“Samson insisted,” my host said, gesturing toward a gleaming tureen. “Had to show you gentlemen proper Shady Grove hospitality. Isn’t that right, Samson?”
The old fellow nodded serenely. “Indeed, sir.”
Barclay grinned and wheeled himself to the head of the table. “Fact is, Samson’s proud of that silver. Likes to show it off. Picked it out himself in New Orleans. Made sure it was all delivered in time for the wedding.” He turned to Raines, still smiling. But, then, a skull is said to smile. “Samson wanted to put it all on display one last time before we bury it. Which we’re like to have to do, unless old Beauregard finds his manhood and makes a fight of it. That perfumed dandy aiming to fight, Drake? He worth a damn with old Johnston gone?”
“I’m not in the general’s confidence,” Raines said, with a too-obvious glance in my direction.
“Oh, hell, Drake. The Yankees already got it figured out that Borey’s no fighter. Though he’s like to talk them to death, given the chance. Major Jones, you come on over here and sit on my right. You’re the evening’s guest of honor. In Dr. Tyrone’s stead, say.”
I stepped along a sideboard glittering with platters and their hoods. The polished metal showed me queer reflections. The way a tired mind will twist a fact. At my seat, I propped my cane on the next chair, ready to give both my bad leg and the good one a rest, for the day had been long and hard.
As I made to sit down I saw her. And kept to my feet in wonder.
Above an unlit hearth a portrait hung. The ceiling
was high and it needed to be, for the painting was big as life and full in length. Twas of a woman, brown-haired, with pale skin. The artist put no roses on her cheeks, but gentler petals, orchids shaded pink. Slender she was, in her blue silk dress, and formidable in her beauty. Her eyes peered down in a challenge. Alert and thoughtful she looked. And properly demanding. The sort of woman who will fill the life of the man she chooses. If he has the courage to let her.
“My wife,” Barclay said. I did not turn to look at him, for her aspect canceled manners. I wish the word “ravishing” were not a common adjective for beauties, for there is no word truer to describe her. “The former Emily Stone. Of Boston, Major. A true Yankee. Who condescended to marry Mr. William Barclay, late of Natchez, and now in retirement at Shady Grove. Isn’t that right, Drake?”
“Billy . . .”
I thought I understood his sorrow then. Twas greater than the loss of legs and other parts. I forced myself to look away from her, to sit me down and behave properly toward my host.
“My condolences, sir,” I told him. “The loss must have come as a shock.”
A succession of emotions shaped and reshaped his face. So swiftly that I could not fix one mood. Then he laughed out loud. Looking at Raines.
“Drake? What the hell and damnation you been telling him?” He snapped his head to me, eyes bright. But not merry. “Old Drake’s been putting things delicately, I expect. Drake always likes to put things delicately. He’s your true Southron gentleman.” Barclay grunted. “What did he tell you, Major? Or what did he ‘imply’? See, our Drake here likes to ‘imply.’ He finds plain telling a tad vulgar. I take it he ‘implied’ that Emily was dead?”
I was confused and could not recall my escort’s words with certainty. “No longer with us” had been his phrase, if memory served me right. But the suggestion had been mortality. That had been clear.
“Samson? Pour me out some whisky. And fresh up Old Drake’s glass there.” My host straightened himself and took a fortifying breath. “Well, she’s not dead. Take more than me and Mississippi to kill Emily. Isn’t that right, Drake?” He tried to force himself back to jocularity. With a carved smile. “She left me. Went back to Boston. Didn’t like the South, after all. And didn’t much like me, either.”
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