“What?”
“With Emil.”
“Surely you don’t expect me—”
“Let me finish. You place so much store by the body. The emotions I should have shared with you I shared with him.”
“He’s not real, you know.” Henley was very gentle.
“To me, he is.”
“I don’t understand you. I don’t think I ever did, but I love you.”
“I’m not sure I understand myself, and if I did, I’d probably be bored. What’s life without mystery?” She kissed him on the cheek.
Exhausted from the party, the hour, and this exchange, they fell into a contented sleep.
Two days later, Lutie returned to Charlottesville by train. Sin-Sin stood next to her and regaled Lutie with stories of the servants at the Vickerses’ home.
“She got on a red blouse, a green skirt, and orange earrings. Honey, that ain’t no country girl, that’s a miracle!”
Lutie laughed until her sides ached. Sin-Sin laughed along with her. Lutie hadn’t felt this good since she was a bride. Since Jimmy died. A great weight had been lifted from her. She had survived a tortuous passage. It was a long time coming, more than a decade, but she was herself again. Life was sharp and sweet, and she wanted to live forever.
AUGUST 26, 1861
“Jesus has gone to Galilee,
“And how do you know that Jesus is gone?
“I tracked him by his drops of blood,
“And every drop, he dropped in love.”
Sin-Sin sang at the top of her considerable lungs as she polished silver while Lutie arranged flowers.
“How about ‘Rassal, Jacob.’ ”
“Rassal, Jacob, rassal.
“As you did in the days of old.
“Gonna rassal all night til broad daylight.
“And ask God to bless my soul.”
Sin-Sin gulped in air. “Let’s sing one together. You takes the top line; I takes the bottom.”
“What do you want to sing?”
“ ‘Swing Low,’ we do right nicely on that one.”
The two women harmonized, and the more they sang, the harder they worked. This chorale was spoiled by the sound of dishes crashing on a brick floor. The two women tiptoed to the kitchen door and put their ears to it. Lutie put her finger to her lips, a needless gesture since Sin-Sin dangled on each word.
“You ast her, Momma! If you don’t, I do!”
“You be sitting on a block if you do. I doan want Miz Lutie knowin’ what a fool I gots for a girl.”
“How much am I worth? I gonna buy my way to freedom.”
“You ain’t worth two straws.”
Boyd, clever, tried another tack. “How much you worth, Momma?”
“Miz Lutie say I’s worth my weight in gold.”
“Lotta gold then, ’cause you sure is fat.”
“And you’re comin’ on right behind me!”
“I been astin’ about. You worth five thousand dollars ’cause you so skilled. So I gotta be worth ’bout two thousand dollars ’cause I’s learnin’.”
“You outta your head! You ain’t worth jack shit.”
“I’s buyin’ my way out. I doan wanna be no slave. I takes orders from you, and I doan wanna take no mo’ orders.”
“You takes your orders from Miz Lutie. She run this place.”
“She may run this place, but you run me and anyone else you can!”
This recognition of her power, unwitting flattery though it was, softened Ernie slightly. “We all wants to be free, chile. But we got it good here. You gettin’ awful airish. Iffin’ I was to slap your ass in Mississippi, you’d whistle a different tune.”
“I wants to be free.”
“Die then. Thass freedom!”
“You old folks is fools!”
Flaring again, Ernie slapped her across the face with an egg beater. “Zat so? How many old folks you see in prison? We got a place here. Not more than two weeks ago the President ate Ernie June’s food, food you helped prepare. You gonna throw that away, girl?”
“I sho’ din get none of that cloth!”
“You gots the five dollars. You givin’ me aches and pains, girl, you know that? Your brother doan bother me a tad, but you jes like a sweat bee, stingin’ with every step!”
“I wants to be free. I gonna hire myself out.”
“And have no face? No people? You a bigger fool than I thought!” Ernie was separating egg yolks from the whites. Boyd made her so mad she botched the job. “Now see what you made me do! You gettin’ these lunatic ideas from that Grizz over at the Fitzgeralds’. I got eyes in the back of my head.”
“Oh, him.” Boyd feigned disinterest which confirmed Ernie’s accusation. Boyd was not one to dismiss her conquests since she had so few of them.
“You thinks you in love. You gonna run off to Yankee lines and get married and live happily ever after. Ha! Let me do that again. HA!”
Boyd, empurpled, sputtered, “Doan you fun at me! You know what Grizz tol’ me? That the Yankees closin’ down newspapers that takes the Southern side. Even tarred and feathered some man in Messyshussy!”
“Miss Smart Aleck, what do this mean to you?”
“It mean they is gettin’ ugly up there. They gonna free the slaves!”
“They gotta win the war first, and they doin’ a piss poor job of it! And what if they wins? What you gonna go and do? Cook for wimmins so trashy stupid they puts they napkins in they wine goblets? Ain’t no sech thing as a Northern wimmin what can set a table. Work fo’ trash, and you be trash!”
“You chicken shit, Momma. You know that little white dot on toppa the black? Thass you, Momma. You thinkin’ you somethin’ special, but you still chicken shit, and you still a slave!”
Ernie June threw an egg and hit Boyd’s head.
“Stop it, Momma, stop it!”
“I’s gonna beat those bad manners outta your skin.”
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! I’s sorry I sassed you.”
Ernie let her go. “Sit down. You listen, and you listen good! I work all my life for these people. I knows Henley’s father and mother and they father and mother when I was little. They ain’t so bad as those people go. They got their ways, but they ain’t bad. Doan you go and undo the good your Momma store up. We mean somethin’ here. We gonna run Chatfield someday. That witch Sin-Sin can’t live forever!”
Sin-Sin’s jaw dropped on her bosom. Lutie put her hand on Sin-Sin’s shoulder to reassure and restrain her.
Boyd appreciated her mother’s position, even if she didn’t appreciate taking her orders. “You do a better job than that nasty stinkin’ cow. But, Momma, things is happenin’. Grizz heard that Bumba run off and leave Nash. He heard that the Yankees treatin’ Bumba right good, and he workin’ for them as a sapper.”
“Huh?”
“Diggin’ ditches. Grizz says Bumba get paid most of what the white man get paid.”
“Grizz full of shit! Wild talk!” Still, Ernie was glad to know it. “What else you young sparks talkin’ ’bout?”
“I hear tell that Peter stole again.”
Ernie stopped toweling Boyd’s head. “You hush you’ mouth ’bout this.”
“Momma, will you give Grizz a chance? Doan belittle him.”
“I doan think he good enough fo’ you, and you knows what I thinks of the Fitzgeralds.”
“Please, Momma.”
“An’ you gotta stop comin’ in this kitchen and makin’ yo coffee with Miz Lutie’s cream ’fore she get up in the mornin’. You didn’t think your old momma knew. Rules is rules, missy.”
Hearing footsteps in their direction, Lutie and Sin-Sin tiptoed back to the dining room. They worked a bit in silence. “Sin-Sin, what are we going to do?”
“I be stirrin’ my brain ’bout it.”
“I don’t know if I have any brains left to stir.”
Sin-Sin began to hum, and Lutie picked up the tune.
“Moses smote the water, and the children they crossed
over.
“Moses smote the water, and the children they crossed over.
“Moses smote the water, and the sea gave way.”
SEPTEMBER 1, 1861
Anthony Farr-Jones’s people descended upon Chatfield to take him home. Stillwater, Alabama, a pinpoint on the map, was their pinpoint nonetheless. They were good people without much in the way of money, and Lutie, who had grown fond of the unfortunate boy, gave them a team of mules to drive back home. She told them they would be doing her a great favor to keep the ornery things because, as they could see, the men were gone, and she could only do but so much. They gratefully accepted her offer.
During their visit of three days, the war was uppermost in everyone’s conversation. Mr. Farr-Jones, an ardent secessionist, declared that the mutiny in the Seventy-ninth New York Regiment and the Second Maine Volunteers boded well for the Confederacy. The New Yorkers were shipped to an island off Key West as punishment.
Young Anthony, however, asked some disturbing questions. On August 27, the Yankees won Cape Hatteras in North Carolina without much of a fight. If the North controlled Cape Hatteras, the future would be bleak for blockade runners.
The old man disagreed. War’d be over before the South missed anything from those snotty Europeans anyway.
Mercer, Lutie, Sin-Sin, and Di-Peachy listened to Mr. Farr-Jones with respect, but the Chatfield household was relieved when the bellicose gentleman and wife finally left with their son.
“You think the sight of that po’ chile would tone him down,” Sin-Sin remarked.
“Some people never learn. ‘Some people have a thousand thoughts, others the same thought a thousand times.’ ”
SEPTEMBER 5, 1861
Jeremiah cried about his bowels in chapter 4. Geneva thought someone with better manners should have edited the Good Book. Awake before sunrise as always, she put the Bible under her blanket and left the tent. Camp life wore on her nerves. Fighting was better than sitting around, drilling, writing letters, and polishing her saddle.
Nash mumbled in his sleep. Last night they made love, the first time since the big battle. Lately there didn’t seem to be much desire on his part, and when there was desire, there was no privacy.
She dipped two buckets into the stream. Seeing no one about, she shed her clothing and jumped in. The cold bit into her skin with a tingle. She splashed around, ducked her head under the water, and skipped out. Shivering, she shook herself like a dog, then quickly put on her pants and shirt. She carried the buckets back up to the fire pit and started a fire.
“You’re the early bird around here, aren’t you?” Mars came up behind her.
“I like the dawn to myself. It’s the only time I have alone.”
“I know what you mean. Come on, visit with me while I shave.”
“Colonel, I want to know your beauty secret,” Geneva teased. “How do you keep your teeth so white?”
Mars smiled. “I’ll show you.” He reached into his shaving bag and brought out a tin of baking soda. “First I pick ’em clean. Then I rub this on. Tastes terrible, but scrub hard and your tobacco stains will disappear.”
“Is that why the ladies are crazy for you?”
“No, it’s my superior intelligence.”
“It’s your moustache,” Geneva offered.
“That, too. In fact, I don’t think there’s a part of me that isn’t pretty.”
“Don’t think much of yourself, do you?”
“If I don’t like myself, who will?”
“There’s a difference between like and conceit.”
“You’re, of course, a walking saint.” Mars shaved his throat between sentences.
“Sumner told me you danced with my mother at your party.”
“I did, and I flatly adore her. She’s that rare creature, a woman with sense.”
“Oh, balls. I bet you if I raised a regiment of women”—she thought a minute and then pressed on—“they’d fight like tigers.”
Mars paused. “I agree. They’d be the terror of the field until the enemy dropped mice and spiders in the middle of it. Be the end of the battle.”
“Georgia peaches maybe or Mississippi belles, but I bet Virginia girls would fight.” Geneva was annoyed.
“Now why is it that Virginia doesn’t produce belles? You know I never thought of that.” Mars toweled off.
“You are revolting mean,” Geneva hissed, still defending Virginia women.
“Just the way I am.” He shrugged. “You know, Jimmy, if I had a son like you, I’d kick his ass bad.”
“You don’t have a son, and I’m not applying for the job.”
“Let’s not start the day with speculation about my reproductive capabilities.”
SEPTEMBER 13, 1861
Friday, the thirteenth, set Ernie June and Sin-Sin into a tizz. Ernie carried on so with her superstitions that even Cazzie the cat left. Ernie shrieked about burning her fingernails and making her right eye jump. If the right eye jumps, there will be good luck; if the left eye jumps, there will be tears. Ernie’s right eye twitched like Saint Vitus’ dance.
Sin-Sin’s potions on this blistering day consisted of sassafras tea, drunk while sweet herbs burned in Geneva’s cobalt blue pot. Sin-Sin brought the pot up to the big house because she could kill two birds with one stone. Since it was Geneva’s pot, Sin-Sin could bring luck to Geneva, and since the pot was inside the main house, Sin-Sin could keep the spirits off Lutie, too.
Lutie ignored this orgy of fluster, just as she ignored the fact that she could be more irrational than either Sin-Sin or Ernie June. Emil was proof of that. She was girding herself to meet Jennifer Fitzgerald on September 20, Ember Day and a fast day at that. The Very Reverend Manlius decreed that it was Lutie’s Christian duty to pacify Jennifer, who in her distress thought Lutie could talk to the dead. Under no circumstances was she to bring messages from the dead, even if it would ease Jennifer’s mind. However, he didn’t think that a chat about the afterlife was out of order, and Lutie might assure Jennifer, in a manner of her choosing, that Greer was with God. Jennifer’s suffering, while sad, did not make Lutie like her any more than when Greer was alive. Lutie dreaded the day.
Mercer sat under a tree with Di-Peachy. He neglected to tell her that Big Muler cornered him, threatening him if he trifled with Di-Peachy.
When Mercer replied that he would do no such thing, that he intended to marry her, Big Muler laughed. He said that no white man was going to marry a black girl. Plus, Mercer would have to survive the war. Big Muler wasn’t menacing, but Mercer felt certain that if he were not a guest at Chatfield, the huge man would have carried him to Mechum’s River and dumped him in it with chains wrapped around his neck.
Mercer told Di-Peachy that he was rejoining Stuart. His commander had written that he’d give Mercer a chance, and if the leg hampered him on horseback, they’d find something else for him to do. Mercer worked with Braxton and Timothy for the last four weeks, and although his wooden attachment still hurt the stump, he was getting used to it. He could grip with his thigh and his knee.
When he told Di-Peachy he would be leaving next week, she cried.
“Will you do me the honor of marrying me? Please consider it. Don’t reject me out of hand. I love you with all my heart.” She did not reply. Faltering, he murmured, “Did I mistake your kind attentions to me? I thought you bore me some affection.”
“You did not mistake me, Mercer.”
“Then marry me!”
“You’re grateful because I nursed you.”
“I’m grateful because Almighty God put you on earth and then allowed me to find you. I want to go through the rest of my life with you and only you.” He kissed her.
Di-Peachy put her hand on his chest, holding him at bay. “I’m a Negro woman, and I am a slave.”
“I’m a white man who wants to be your slave.”
“Don’t ever say you want to be someone’s slave, Mercer. Not even mine.” Di-Peachy smiled sadly. “You want to marry me n
ow, but in the cold light of reason, you will change your mind. I would become an albatross around your neck.”
“No, I won’t change my mind, and I’ll buy your freedom!”
“Who will be our friends?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we? We’ll know who our friends really are. That’s more than most people know, isn’t it?” Breathlessly, Mercer held her hand. “Please say you’ll marry me.”
“After the war is over and if you still want me then, yes, I will.”
Mercer kissed her passionately and stood up. He hobbled in the direction of the stable. Di-Peachy scrambled to her feet.
“Where are you going?”
“To rejoin my regiment. I’ve got to win this war!”
SEPTEMBER 14, 1861
“I want to get Italian marble.” Sumner was discussing his plans for Lutie’s fountains. His drawings were spread on the ground during a brief rest period.
“Why can’t you get marble from Vermont? I had a friend oncet worked up there in Barre.” Banjo nipped off the end of his cigar.
“At this point, Vermont might as well be Italy.” The wind picked up and Sumner put a stone on the corner of his drawings.
“Everyone will go back to trading again once things are back to normal.” Nash leaned over the plans.
“I thought the war would be over by now,” Sumner mused. “Summer is over, and we’re still here. At least I escaped Camp Misery for a few days.” Sumner drilled with his artillery crew on their twenty-three-pounders, called Napoleons, until they could fire three rounds per minute. He was, however, going batty with inactivity, as was everyone. When Colonel Vickers ordered Geneva’s company to cook up two days’ rations because they were going scouting, Sumner had begged to go along. Mars agreed.
After the rest break, the scouting party rode toward the Leesburg-Alexandria turnpike, the sun behind them, warming their backs. While heat alternated with thunderstorms, proving it was still summer in Virginia, an imperceptible tang assailed the nostrils, warning that fall edged ever closer.
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