Widow of Gettysburg

by Jocelyn Green

“What?” Liberty’s headache sharpened, but she read further.

  Liberty Holloway … Union widow … offered home as a Confederate field hospital at Gettysburg “Offered? Sacrificed would be more like it.”

  … developing romance with Rebel soldier … “Where is this coming from?”

  … even though she is one-quarter black and the illegitimate daughter of a former slave and her overseer.

  She let the paper fall and looked at Silas. His chiseled face was taut with suspense, his green eyes piercing hers. “It says,” her voice squeaked, “that Bella is my mother. But I have no mother. And Bella has no children.”

  You’re right, Miss Liberty. I have no children.

  “Is it possible, you could be mistaken?” the doctor asked quietly. “Wouldn’t it be grand to have a mother after all?”

  “But I don’t! My mother didn’t want me, didn’t love me. And now she’s dead.”

  Your mother loves you.

  “Could it be that she loved you more than you could possibly fathom? That she would rather be assured of your comfort than of your affection toward her?”

  Hear me, child. Your mother loved you.

  “My comfort? Growing up as an orphan was anything but comfortable!”

  Silas’s face paled. His knuckles were as white as the railing he gripped. “Do you know what it means to live in fear of being enslaved?”

  “No.”

  “Then you were comfortable.” Silas raised his eyes to meet hers. “You are free.”

  “So is she.”

  He shook his head. “Trust me. It isn’t the same.”

  A horrible idea seized her, then. “Aunt Helen said my mother used me to try to gain security from my father. Did Bella try to use my father to gain her own freedom? Is that why she had me?”

  Silas pinched the bridge of his nose before rubbing his hand over his jaw. “I don’t know, Liberty. Not necessarily. It could be that your father used her. And that’s the fate she wanted to protect you from.”

  Liberty reeled as Bella’s words played back to her: What about Silas? Did he help himself to the slaves too, to satisfy his lust, free of consequences?

  It had made no sense at the time. Bella’s tears, her accusations, her conclusions. But what if … God help her … what if it was all true? Though Silas and Dr. O’Leary remained with her, the magnitude of this revelation crowded them from her mind. Her head sank into her hands as she waded through her tangled thoughts. Me. One-quarter Negro. I’m colored? The fact that her skin was golden white did not negate the term. My grandmother was a slave, she told herself, but her brain struggled to comprehend. My mother was a slave!

  She had always hated slavery, always believed Negroes should be free. But did she truly believe they were equal to whites? In value, intelligence, moral capacity? If she had, surely it would not bother her so much to now learn of her heritage. Remember your place. Her own voice rang in her ears. But I said that only as an employer to the hired help, nothing more or less than that. The logic did not satisfy her conscience. Was I also reminding her of the shade of her skin?

  Liberty’s head swam. Her father wasn’t who she thought he was, either. He wasn’t just a slave owner, as she once believed—although that had been hard enough to accept. He was a plantation overseer, and one who bedded and abused women who stood no chance against him, however hard they may have tried. Women like Bella. Women like me. This was also her heritage. Did her father’s blood war against her mother’s blood within her? Was her father’s inheritance to her the conviction that colored skin was a mark of inferiority? That she herself was inferior, too?

  Liberty lifted her head and met Silas’s gaze. His features were stony, and she could feel her own hardening to match. If the story was true, they had more in common than they had known. The sins of their fathers. But while Silas was merely witness to his father’s wickedness, Liberty was the fruit of sin itself, a mix of master and slave, power and bondage, white and black. In this, they were as far apart as east from west.

  She broke from his gaze and pushed herself up to stand. “I have to find Bella.”

  “You are not well enough.” Dr. O’Leary laid a hand on her shoulder. “Rest first, and then I’ll let you borrow my horse and wagon.”

  “Rest? After this? I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for days!”

  “I’ll not allow you to leave in this condition. Come, I’ll give you some laudanum, and you can rest. Just for a spell. Then you can go find Bella.”

  Silas Ford was upset. Liberty upset him again. Myrtle saw it from where she stood behind a hickory tree. She knew it was right to hide there, within earshot, when Dr. O’Leary ordered everyone away. She had heard almost everything.

  Then, right after the doctor led Liberty upstairs to her room, she saw Silas sniff and rub his eyes as he left the porch. That’s what men did when they were sad. Myrtle thought she could hear her own heart breaking into pieces for him. She knew what it was like to be sad, to cry quietly when no one else was watching.

  Myrtle Henderson was watching. It was Liberty’s fault, she knew it. She cast a spell on him. Then she slapped him. And now we learn she isn’t such a high and mighty mistress after all. She isn’t even all white, like me. Yet Liberty had talked down to Myrtle, had embarrassed her and ordered her around like she was a mistress to be reckoned with.

  She wasn’t. She was black. Like her papa always said, one drop of mud will taint the whole pail of milk. The article said Bella was a mulatto woman—that meant half black. And Liberty was her daughter, so that made Liberty colored, too. Might as well be black as pitch. And black folks did not order white folks around the way Liberty bossed Myrtle. They certainly did not marry white folks. That was against the law.

  Was that what her mama had tried to do? Myrtle wasn’t close enough to the porch to hear every word of the conversation, but from what she gathered, Liberty came from a line of slaves who used their masters to lighten their babies’ skin colors. How did they do that? Maybe they cast spells.

  Like Liberty had done to Silas. Slowly, comprehension spread through Myrtle until her whole being was awakened to the danger. Myrtle Henderson had been put in charge of Silas Ford’s care once. She would not abandon him in his hour of need now. She had to break the spell, herself. But how?

  So far, making Liberty’s coffee with unboiled, contaminated water had not entirely solved her problem. Though perhaps a little sick, Liberty was still alive, and still hurting Silas Ford. Poisoning her was not working fast enough. She had to find another way.

  Myrtle plunged her hand into her apron pocket and fondled the headless Dolly. That was it. That was the answer. I have to break Liberty.

  She knew exactly how.

  Myrtle had not intended to eavesdrop the other day when she was collecting soiled linens at the barn. The doctors were amputating on a patient whose stump had turned gangrenous. Dr. Stephens shouted at Dr. O’Leary to take away the chloroform, that too much would kill, and she could not help hearing. She had stood by while they discussed the matter, Dr. Stephens showing Dr. O’Leary how to use his small metal device instead of the towel folded into a cone that Dr. O’Leary’s manual said to use. She watched and she learned.

  Now Dr. O’Leary was upstairs putting Liberty to sleep. Myrtle smiled when she spied his leather bag still on the porch. Perfect. It was time for Liberty to go to sleep, and never wake up. They would blame it on the laudanum, like they blamed Silas’s sickness on the opium. Too much medicine can kill. Someone might even call it tragic, but Myrtle knew the truth. She was doing Silas a favor. He would thank her for saving him. He might even kiss her.

  Myrtle slinked up to the bag, fished out a tin canister of chloroform and the small towel, and stuffed them in her apron pockets. Dr. O’Leary emerged from the house, walked off with his kit without so much as a how-do-you-do, and Myrtle climbed the stairs.

  She poked her head in the room and found Liberty sitting up on her bed, doing needlework. Her heart sank.

/>   “I heard you were supposed to take a nap,” she said.

  Liberty looked up. “From whom?”

  Myrtle blinked. “The doctor, on his way out.” It was not a very big lie.

  “Yes, well, it will take a few minutes before the laudanum takes effect. I can’t just lie here, or I’ll go crazy. Stitching calms me down. The only problem is, my hands are shaking so my stitches aren’t all perfect.” She reached into the basket for her scissors. “Can’t find my ripper …”

  Myrtle nodded, bit her lip.

  “Myrtle, would you mind reading to me? To help take my mind off …” her voice trailed away. “Here, sit on the edge of the bed.” There was no other chair on the room.

  Liberty handed her a book. Les Miserables. “I’ve marked the page where I left off reading, a lifetime ago, it seems.”

  Myrtle opened it and began reading. “You thought me ugly, didn’t you?” She stopped. The words seemed to come straight from her heart, but they were there, printed on the page. “What’s this about?”

  Liberty’s needle dove in and out of a piece of fabric as she explained. “A girl named Éponine—that’s who just spoke—loves a man named Marius, but Marius loves a woman named Cosette.” Myrtle listened closely as Liberty explained. “It’s quite heartbreaking, really. And at this point in the story, there is a battle, and Marius was in danger, so Éponine blocked the bullet with her own body. I love this character.”

  “Why?”

  Liberty yawned. “Éponine had a rough life, but she is softened by love. You wonder, as you read, whether that love will end in jealousy that destroys, or sacrifice that heals. Go on, please.”

  Myrtle read on, not quite understanding everything, but fully comprehending one thing. Éponine was a hero. Though she was not loved, she had sacrificed for the man she loved.

  She turned the page and continued. “‘Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.—I shall feel it.’ She dropped her head again on Marius’ knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Éponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the somber profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world:—‘And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you.’ She tried to smile once more and expired.”

  Tears filled Myrtle’s eyes as she finished the chapter. Liberty’s hands stilled, and her eyelids fluttered as she lay down. Myrtle took the needle, cloth, and scissors from her lap and placed them back in the sewing basket. Soon, she thought as she wiped her runny nose, soon Liberty will sleep forever.

  But first—Myrtle turned one more page in the book and read: “Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the icy perspiration stood in beads.”

  He kissed her.

  Would Silas kiss Myrtle if he knew she had killed Liberty? The whisper of her conscience told her no. But Liberty deceived him! Liberty is colored, and Silas is a Southern white man. They couldn’t be together, it wasn’t allowed! Removing Liberty from Silas’s life would be helping him, even if he didn’t realize it.

  But would he kiss her for it?

  Don’t keep her away, I want to see her! Silas’s voice sounded in her ears. But that was before he knew the truth about who she was.

  Myrtle would help Silas. This was the help he needed now.

  A faint snore wheezed through Liberty’s nose. Myrtle’s heart beat faster. She licked her lips as she uncorked the chloroform tin and rolled the towel into a cone shape. But how much chloroform did they put on? She hadn’t seen. Myrtle tipped the tin and let the clear liquid flow out in a braided trickle, soaking the towel with two or three ounces. She hoped it was enough. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she corked the tin.

  Footsteps thumped on the staircase, and Myrtle jolted. Could she chloroform Liberty and flee the room before anyone entered?

  She couldn’t. She needed more time.

  “Myrtle?” A whispered call, from Dr. O’Leary. “Are you up here?”

  Her large hands fumbling, Myrtle tucked the chloroform and towel in Liberty’s sewing basket and shoved it under the bed with her foot.

  The door squeaked open. “There you are. I’m looking for my chloroform. Have you seen it?”

  Myrtle’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Her head twitched.

  Dr. O’Leary rubbed the back of his neck and muttered something to himself. “Well, come now. Let her rest.”

  Myrtle hesitated.

  But Dr. O’Leary was frowning at her. She didn’t like it when people frowned at her. “Come, Myrtle. Now.”

  She scuttled after him out the door, and he closed it on her opportunity.

  Nerves buzzing like the flies near her patients, Liberty rapped her knuckles on the door at 319 South Washington Street, and tried to imagine what she would say when Bella opened the door. Soggy heat wrapped around her like a used towel, until sweat soaked her already soiled dress. She knocked again, and looked down at her Sunday best, now her everyday worst. Rumpled, stained, limp. She looked like a wilted tulip trampled in the mud, and felt like it too.

  Still no answer. Liberty opened one of the shutters and peered in through the window. There was a book lying on the kitchen table. She could just read the title on the cover. Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation.

  She went back to the door and pounded harder.

  “Bella? Please let me in, if you’re in there!”

  An older woman Liberty recognized as the Fosters’ washerwoman came up to her then. “Bella’s gone, baby. Left four days ago with some gentleman from Philadelphia.”

  The reporter from Philadelphia? “I need to get in, I need to see that book.”

  “Why?” Her tone was not sharp. Why indeed?

  “I think there may be some information in it about my—my—Bella.” Her head still ached.

  “Your Bella?” She smiled. “And who are you?”

  “Liberty Holloway. Bella is my—” Hired help. Mother? Somehow, she could not bring herself to complete the sentence.

  “I know who Bella is, child. And I know who you are too.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded, dark eyes twinkling. “You are special to Bella. And somehow I know, that if she were home, she would fling open that door to you and welcome you in to her table for a cup of tea, like she always does for me.”

  Remembering her manners, Liberty extended a hand. “I don’t believe we’ve properly met.”

  The woman grasped it with her gnarled hand. “You can call me Aunt Hester. Everyone does. Now. Let me see if I can help you out, baby.”

  She walked around to the back of the house and felt around a window until her fingers pulled a key from a deep notch in a sill. Liberty stood back while Aunt Hester jiggled the key in the back door and swung it wide for Liberty.

  “I’ll come by and check on you in a little bit to see how you’re getting along. But for now I best get back to my laundry while the sun still shines.”

  And Liberty stood in Bella’s house for the first time in her life, alone. It was tidy, but not clean at the moment. Dust swirled in the sunbeams and layered the furniture, confirming that Bella had not been here in days.

  Fatigue settled on Liberty. She sagged into a chair at the small kitchen table and opened Fanny Kemble’s Journal, ashamed that she had never wondered much about Bella’s life prior to Gettysburg.

  As she began reading the book, she was transported to a time and place completely foreign to her. Deeper and deeper she sunk into the text. Then she saw it—the first mention of Bella, marked by the presence of Harrison’s card.

  Daphne and Bella, twin sisters. Mulatto, about twelve years old, although neither of them know their birthday. The only living children of Judy. Five siblings in the grave. Bella asked me to teach her to read. It is illegal for her to read, and just as illegal for me to teach her. But I b
elieve I shall do it. They also begged for flannel, the red and cream pinstripe being an especial favorite.

  Liberty stopped. The flannel patch of her baby quilt, now part of Silas’s crutch, grew bright in her mind. She pressed a hand to her forehead and flipped through a few more pages.

  Judy told me a miserable story of her former experiences on the plantation under Mr. K—’s overseership. It seems that Bella and Daphne were born of Mr. K—, who forced her, flogged her severely for having resisted him, and then sent her off, as a further punishment, to Five Pound—a horrible swamp in a remote corner of the estate, to which the slaves are sometimes banished for such offences as are not sufficiently atoned for by the lash.

  Liberty put down the book. Was this Judy her own grandmother? She could not fathom such an experience, and slowly, Bella’s resistance to Silas fell into place.

  Later in the journal, Liberty read that not only was Judy forced and flogged by Roswell King Jr., but that after she bore his children, his wife came to the hospital, flogged her again, and sent her back to Five Pound. Could such horrific accounts be believed?

  As if in anticipation of Liberty’s reaction, Fanny Kemble had written: I make no comment on these terrible stories, and tell them to you as nearly as possible in the perfectly plain unvarnished manner in which they are told to me. I do not wish to add to, or perhaps I ought to say take away from, the effect of such narrations by amplifying the simple horror and misery of their bare details.

  This was the life Bella had escaped. Chills swept over Liberty’s skin.

  But when she read the beginning of the next chapter, she thought she was going to be sick.

  Found Bella, Judy’s girl, near death on the floor of the hospital today. She had taken a knife with which she sought to defend her mother against Mr. K— last week, and he had used it to gash her neck instead, then flogged her to within an inch of life. I have sent for Mr. Holmes, the Darien town physician immediately. Keep in mind, the girl is twelve years old. I fear that by next year, Mr. K— will drag her into his bed as well.

  He had gashed Bella’s neck? But Liberty had never seen a scar.