Behind the front lines, women and slaves worked for the war effort. It was my privilege to read unpublished family papers, if I promised to maintain the family’s privacy. The courage of these individuals is breathtaking. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I wonder if we have it today.
One brief aside: Most academic research on this period focuses on politics or military operations. There is precious little about the bonds between men and women. Heterosexual relationships were not a luxury in those times, they were a necessity. Finding a suitable mate was a serious undertaking. People needed one another in a way they do not seem to today. I would love to see research conducted in this area since I think we can profit from it.
Also, there is little psychiatric research applied to this time. Aside from the jolt to everyone’s psyche, other problems became evident. Many men, permanently disabled or disfigured, committed suicide. We have no statistics on this since it was almost always covered up. In fact, this is often one of the reasons families want their papers kept private. Suicide remains a terrible stain. We also have little information about mercy killing. I bring this up in hope that it will spur someone into a new area of inquiry and also because it was discussed in my family. We also have no statistics on subsequent addictions to alcohol or morphine. We know it existed, but how wide the scope? How did the sight of a maimed and sometimes chemically incapacitated generation affect their children?
To the best of my knowledge, there is not one monument in the South to commemorate the sacrifice of our women nor is there even so much as a plaque paying tribute to the slaves for their contributions. Here in Albemarle County we have a fine monument of a Confederate soldier in front of the courthouse, a splendid statue of Thomas Jackson beside the courthouse, and another good statue of Robert E. Lee. In a lovely graveyard off Alderman Road there is a statue over the massed graves of those who died from their wounds. So many perished that we buried them in trenches. The earth still gently rises over the bodies so we know where they are even if they lack markers. At the rotunda in the university is a plaque listing the men from the school who died during the conflict. Yet nowhere in my hometown is there mention of the sacrifice of women and blacks. Some paid with their lives, all paid with their worldly goods, many paid with their health, and no one, no one was ever the same again. Until such time as we correct this oversight, let this book stand as their monument.
6 March 1985
Rita Mae Brown
Charlottesville, Virginia
I
THE
DECEPTIVE
CALM
APRIL 11, 1861
“Girl, my fingernails could grow an inch just waiting for you.” Di-Peachy leaned in the doorway to Geneva’s bedroom.
“If they grow an inch, you’ll work them off tomorrow.” Geneva yanked a shawl out of her bureau, twirled it around her shoulders, and breezed past her oldest friend and personal property, Di-Peachy. At eighteen Geneva Chatfield was the tallest girl in Albemarle County as well as the best rider. She stood six feet in her stocking feet. Towering over Di-Peachy, who at five feet six inches enjoyed some height, Geneva banged down the stairs.
“Last one to Auntie Sin-Sin’s—”
Geneva was interrupted by Lutie Chalfonte Chatfield, her mother. Lutie had the metabolism of a hummingbird and the nerves, too. “Calm yourself!”
“Yes, Mother.”
Di-Peachy tiptoed up behind Geneva. Lutie flashed like a sheet of heat lightning. “You’re going to be married tomorrow, and you’re running around here like you’re in a footrace.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“I know you haven’t the sense God gave a goose, Geneva, but”—Lutie turned to Di-Peachy—“you do! What are you doing galloping down the steps? Is there no one in this house with a sense of proper decorum?”
Portia Chalfonte Livingston, Lutie’s younger sister at forty-one, strolled out of the parlor. A huge harp gleamed behind her. “Lutie, don’t rile yourself. This will all be over tomorrow, and things will return to normal.”
“Normal, Poofy, normal! We’ve got a lunatic president in Washington, another lunatic in Montgomery, Alabama, who says he’s president, my son crows he can’t wait for a war, and my daughter is getting married. Normal? I tell you nothing will ever be the same and I feel pulled around backwards.” Lutie returned her attentions to her fidgety daughter. “In the face of all this chaos, I would appreciate it if you would play your part and act like a bride!”
“Yes, Mother. May I be excused now?”
Imperiously Lutie waved her hand, and that fast Geneva shot out the door with Di-Peachy in hot pursuit.
Poofy took her sister’s elbow in the palm of her hand and discreetly walked her down the long hallway of the Georgian mansion that was the pride of the Chatfield family since 1796 when the cornerstone was laid. Under no circumstances was Poofy about to allow Lutie to strain herself. She’d begin talking to Emil and, well, the less said about Emil, the better. His name was not to be mentioned at this wedding.
The house was jammed with guests, family, and shirttail relatives. More would come from Charlottesville itself on the wedding day. Portia Chalfonte Livingston left Bedford, New York, a month ago to assist Lutie in preparing for the wedding. Their brother, younger by nearly twenty years, T. Pritchard Chalfonte, arrived from Runymeade, Maryland, a week ago to help out. Everything was under control except for Lutie and Geneva. Poofy sighed to herself. “Lord, just let us get through tomorrow.”
“Do you think there’s going to be a war?” Lutie shook Poofy out of her musings.
“How can we avoid it now that the radical tail shakes the dog? My husband will raise up a regiment for New York State and your son will enlist for Virginia and our brother will join the South. If I were a man, I don’t know what I’d do. Living all these years in Bedford gives me a different perspective.”
“Oh, perspective? I’d like to know how anyone can have perspective on murder, pure and simple!” Another flash of sheet lightning.
Poofy decided against a long discussion with her volatile sister on the merits of tariffs and the protection of industries versus slavery as a base for agricultural wealth. Portia smiled. “It’s going to be a splendid wedding.”
“I hope so. I feel this is the last time we’ll all be together. Henley is more nervous than Geneva, I think. He says he wishes Sumner married first. You don’t have to give your son away. That would toughen him up for Geneva.”
“He’s a wonderful father, your Henley.”
“And a lackluster husband,” Lutie snapped.
Portia dismissed this. “Sometimes I don’t like my husband, but sometimes I don’t like myself. Men—” Portia sighed again, “are different.”
“Different? I’ll tell you what’s different between men and women, sister mine: There’s one set of rules for us and another for them. I suppose my poor girl will find out just like every other woman!”
“Nash Hart is a good young man, and he loves Geneva.”
“Loves her! They all love you in the beginning. Oh, Poofy”—Lutie wrung her hands—“I’ve started to tell her so many times, tell her about the way things really are between men and women, about the way your heart shatters or maybe it disintegrates like a fine powder.”
“Don’t start. Geneva will find out things in her way and in her day. What good would it do you to tell her? Would she listen? Does any young person listen to an old one?”
“I’m not old—not yet!” Lutie appeared in command again. “I must put Di-Peachy further from the front than Geneva wishes. She’ll overshadow the bride.”
“Now, Lutie.”
“Don’t waffle. We both know that girl is the most beautiful female God ever put on this earth—to torture me, I suppose!”
It was true. Di-Peachy was lustrous in her beauty. The only way a man couldn’t get a hard-on around her was if he was stone queer or dead. She had almond-shaped eyes of light hazel. What a contrast those eyes were against her coffee-colored skin and her l
ong curly hair. Her breasts stuck straight out like hard melons, and her hands were as aristocratic as a queen’s. At seventeen Di-Peachy was still far away from her full power, yet she defeated other women simply by drawing breath.
While not immune to the effect of her beauty, it brought her no pleasure. She learned to read and write even though whites thought slaves were best kept in ignorance. The only way Lutie could get Geneva, a lackluster dull student, to do her lessons was if Di-Peachy did them with her. What she learned did not make her position in life easy to bear. Her bondage, like her beauty, was a burden whose weight increased yearly. Her thoughts of freedom conflicted with her love for Geneva who up until now had been the compass of her young life.
“Geneva is a healthy, happy, young woman, and she’ll shine at her own wedding.” Poofy cooed.
“I gave birth to a plain girl, but she’s the best horseman in the whole country. What good will it do her?”
“A great deal, honey. She and Nash will continue Henley’s breeding programs. She’s going to make a good wife, and her skill with horses will serve her well. Just you wait and see.”
In a moment of anguish, Lutie squeezed her sister’s bejeweled hand. “Poofy, I don’t want the world to rudely cross my threshold. Not tomorrow! Not on my baby’s wedding day.”
Poofy sighed a great sigh and kissed her sister’s freckled hand. Lutie smiled. “I wish you’d stop that damn sighing! It sounds like respiratory martyrdom!”
The clouds nearly touched the treetops. A strange light seemed to shine through them this early evening. Geneva and Di-Peachy skipped over the green, spring lawn. A few brave crocuses popped up their heads and the forsythia threatened, but winter and spring still played tug-of-war. Easter was eleven days ago and spring seemed late. The magnificent stable, the pride of the Chatfield family, loomed in the half-light like a candle.
Normally Geneva would wander into the stable. If she wasn’t on a horse then she was around them. But tonight she skirted the stables and made for the slave quarters. These faced the stable instead of the main house, which was the custom. Each quarter was a two-story, frame dwelling with a pitched roof and a front porch. Behind each house was a garden. Since Henley Chatfield concentrated on horses rather than crops—he had hay, of course—he could streamline his business to thirty slaves and the various children produced. In the number one house resided the powerful Auntie Sin-Sin. Sin-Sin was aide-de-camp to Lutie. She didn’t so much seize power as she accreted it. Of course, Lutie never addressed her as Auntie Sin-Sin which would indicate that both women were growing old. They’d each die before they’d admit that. However, Geneva and Di-Peachy had to address Sin-Sin as Auntie, her due respect.
“Auntie Sin-Sin! Auntie Sin-Sin!” Geneva shouted as she ran.
The door to the white house opened, and Sin-Sin barked, “Couldn’t stand it no more? Well, get in here. Both of you get in here.”
Geneva thundered across the porch. Di-Peachy was more dainty about it.
“My bones’ll rust in this weather.” Sin-Sin closed the door. “Sit by the fire, missy.” She turned to Di-Peachy. “You, too.”
The house was full of pots—big red pots, little bright green ones, a black one with snakes on it, another one filled with sunflower seeds. You could barely move but for bumping into a pot. The pot of honor, a blazing cobalt blue, sat square in the middle of a well-made table.
“Don’t you come in here with the searching eye, missy.”
“Auntie, I wouldn’t do that,” Geneva protested.
“Ha! I knowed you since you was in your mama’s belly. I can still box your ears! Don’t weasel me.”
“Can’t I have my wedding present now?”
“No! You turns around and get right out of here if you’re goin’ to start that.”
“Just a peek?”
“Next thing, you’ll be wanting to speak at the groom. You pay heed to superstition. That’s old wisdom. Don’t trifle with it.”
Di-Peachy grinned.
“Tell me about your husband, Auntie,” Geneva said teasingly. They’d heard about Marcus Armentrout a million times.
“I promise to obey the man but before I finish, it was cussing, honey.” She slapped her thigh and laughed. Sin-Sin couldn’t abide taking orders from anybody, any color. Even Lutie carefully phrased her “requests.”
Geneva fixed her eyes on the cobalt blue pot. “I’ve got to find something blue.”
“That’s not it,” Sin-Sin replied. “Borrow a blue garter from your brother.”
Di-Peachy poked the fire. “We were hoping you could tell us something about the wedding night.”
Sin-Sin’s eyebrows darted up to her peacock blue turban. She always wore a scarf around her head, reserving red for Christmas and special occasions. Once Lutie gave her a white silk scarf from Paris. When Sin-Sin didn’t appear wrapped in it the next morning, Lutie’s feelings were hurt. Finally Sin-Sin told her that white was for when one died. She put the scarf in her small dresser, top drawer, and instructed Lutie to wrap her in it should the Lord call her first. Lutie agreed, secure in the knowledge that Sin-Sin was indestructible.
“Your momma kept that to herself?”
“Mother and I don’t talk very much.” Geneva said this without rancor.
“Well, your momma is a Chalfonte, honey, and they run to brilliant, and your daddy, he’s a Chatfield, and they run to practical. You take after your daddy. But Nash—he’s almost like your momma. He has a rhymin’ turn of mind.”
“You do like him, don’t you, Auntie Sin-Sin?”
“Like him? Why I think he’s the best young man in this entire county!” Geneva’s relief was so visible that Di-Peachy laughed. Sin-Sin growled at Di-Peachy. “Soon enough, you’ll be moonin’ about some buck, too.”
“Never!” Di-Peachy was emphatic.
Sin-Sin polished the pot with the snakes on it.
“I mean it, Auntie.” Di-Peachy’s eyes crackled like the fire.
“Girl, every man sees you wants you—Mr. Nash and Mr. Henley being excepted naturally. Sooner or later you gonna fall!”
“I will never, ever fall in love, and if I do, may God strike me dead.” This was said with such force that both Geneva and Sin-Sin stared at Di-Peachy. Di-Peachy warmed to her subject. “I’ll never be the slave of a slave!”
“Watch your mouth,” Sin-Sin warned. “Losing most the light. You two best burn the wind gettin’ back to the big house.”
“But tell me about the wedding night!”
“Thass the best part!” Sin-Sin laughed.
“Does it hurt?” Geneva tried not to sound as anxious as she was.
“Sometimes it do, sometimes it don’t. But the first time is, well, hard on the nerves.”
“My monthly shows up when it shows up. Half the time, I don’t get it at all. What if I can’t have children? Oh, there has to be another way to do all this.” Geneva nearly wailed.
“That’ll even out when you gets older. See that big green pot over there? That’s the baby pot. When you wants a baby, you come on in here and we rub the pot.”
“What if you don’t want a baby?” Di-Peachy inquired.
“What’s got into you, Miz Peaches? I never heard such talk.”
Di-Peachy shut up. Sin-Sin’s raptures over her pots and their magical impregnating qualities were a tried and true topic. If she launched into it, they’d never get out of there. “Geneva, let’s go before it gets black as pitch.”
A silver softness enshrouded the back meadows. The two girls walked side by side. Di-Peachy felt displaced by Nash. She’d run the new frame house Nash’s people built on the seven hundred acres Henley gave the couple. As it adjoined Henley’s own land, the breeding operation would go on as before. She’d watched Auntie Sin-Sin and Lutie, so Di-Peachy knew she could run an estate. She’d have to or Geneva would wind up in the poorhouse. Geneva didn’t know jack shit about running a house, and she didn’t care. All Geneva cared about was horses and Nash, though Di-Peachy wasn’
t sure in what order. Nash was smart enough, but he was a dreamy sort. Some of his poems had been published in the literary journal at the University of Virginia, where he attended with distinction. Di-Peachy hated that he could attend school, but she could not. She was smarter than these white people, and it drove her deeper and deeper into a frozen rage, frozen because she dared not express it. Why did Geneva have to fall in love and spoil everything? At least when it was the two of them, life was tolerable. Now she’d have to take orders from Nash and worse, watch Geneva take them, too.
A pack of black and tan hounds tore across the deep meadow, baying in metallic, thin voices. The moisture in the air seemed suspended like tiny pearls.
“My God, where’d they come from? Nobody hunts with black and tans around here. Not for years.” Geneva gasped and stopped talking. Twenty-some riders blasted hard on the hounds. The horses glided over the pasture, muscles straining. Geneva didn’t recognize any of the riders. A straggler on a magnificent seventeen-hand gray rode up to her.
“Ladies.” He swept an old-fashioned cap off his head.
He was a big man, and his shirt, open almost to the waist, revealed a torso that could have been carved by Michelangelo. His boots were also old-fashioned. They could have covered his knee, but were rolled over once. He looked like a cavalier. Possessed of an enigmatic radiance, he spoke to Geneva. “Each person you kill is a soul you must bear like an unseen weight.” He clapped his hat back on his head, wheeled the huge horse away from them, and sped off as silently and swiftly as he came.
Geneva felt a chill. He was swallowed in the noctilucent mists.
Di-Peachy pulled on Geneva. “Let’s get out of here.”
High Hearts Page 2