The two whites were able to negotiate Gabriel’s impudence in addressing Millicent Standard directly by noting that his eyes had never left the floor. Only the top of his head was visible. Small snips of thread covered his clothes and made them humble. He was a still post except that he spoke.
“Quite true, mademoiselle. Ellen is associated only with this establishment. We will direct her to fulfilling your requests. You will be best served if she remains here,” Aaron pronounced in agreement. “It is our firm policy,” he added, enjoying his own arrogant self-assurance. “She will accept the commission of your trousseau and will go immediately to your house to measure and receive your dispatches. She will work under supervision of her brother and will execute your commission efficiently. He will keep her hard at it, I assure you.”
“I do not believe this woman is your sister, tailor. I believe she is your concubine and you would not lose your comfort,” Miss Standard said sharply and viciously, and shocked both men. “I am aware of how things stand in this town. But . . . as you say, she will work under your supervision. I will have none other to touch my commissions, sir.” She turned hard eyes on Aaron Ridley after staring hotly at Gabriel’s bowed head.
“Miss Standard, you have my solemn promise,” Aaron answered.
“Good day then. Send her to this address,” the young woman said, ending the business with thrusting her card forth in her hand. Aaron Ridley snatched the card quickly, taking extraordinary care not to touch Millicent Standard’s fingers. It was an ungraceful movement. Millicent Standard turned ungracefully also and swept out of the door as if crossing a ballroom floor. The sight was ludicrous and provocative of humor.
“Indeed! No one will touch your commissions to be sure, miss!” Aaron exploded, and turned hot, sarcastic eyes on cautious Gabriel, challenging him to react. The tight rein on reaction that Gabriel had always held kept his demeanor neutral. He showed nothing to Aaron Ridley, who continued. “I pity the unlucky bastard that gets that one!” Aaron Ridley assuaged his fallen pride with a calculated wound to Gabriel. “I should think that one and your Ellen to be a good match,” he said, smirking. “Two bitches with nails between their legs, eh?” He waited to read a flinch or a question or a threat, but Gabriel gave him no satisfaction. “Send her to take the measures,” Ridley gruffed.
“Sister, you are widely sought,” Gabriel crowed upon entering the back room to have his midday meal. He cheerfully announced the doings of the day to the assembled and Ellen. “You are commissioned especially to the trousseau of Miss Millicent Standard, an elegant young lady with particular tastes. You are to go to her home to take measures.” At this Gabriel tittered in recollection of Aaron Ridley’s pique and cringed to recall his jibes at Ellen.
“Surely not!” Ellen cried out. She was delighted and behaved as though Gabriel, in bringing the news, had created the boon.
“Oh, Brother, is’t a good commission? A trousseau! A good commission!”
“Yes, very good. She’s a very haughty young woman. She is impatient for you. Go right away.”
Ellen gathered up her implements and continued to congratulate Gabriel, though she credited herself privately for accomplishing the commission.
If Millicent Standard had looked into the calmly demure face of her seamstress, she would have seen that her stinging taunts of Gabriel and Aaron Ridley were unfounded. In fact, Ellen was so prim and uncommunicative—only whispering her directions to turn here or there as she took measures—that Miss Standard might have mistaken her for a Catholic nun. She wore a sedate charcoal-colored dress that admitted no view of her flesh but her face and hands. Her hair was covered with a tied cloth of nearly the same color—only slightly lighter and capable of pulling more of daylight toward her complexion. Under this influence her skin was buttery milk chocolate and luminous.
Though frightened of Miss Standard, Ellen managed the young woman’s commissions. The future Mrs. Charles W. Beech required handkerchiefs, table linens, napkins, counterpanes, as well as bed jackets, shawls, camisoles, chemises, and a snood, all embroidered with her future monogram. She stammered at explaining to Ellen that she would also require a lacy, diaphanous garment to entice her husband. She impatiently rejected the seamstress’s suggested fabrics until Ellen brought a length of silk that Gabriel took from his stores. The beautiful sheer caused rounds and rounds of hearty laughter in the kitchen when Gabriel cut a caper with it drawn over his hand. This beautiful blue cloth would cover a body in name only. It was so transparent that it depended upon the color of skin beneath it to rise to its loveliness.
“Sister, do not be a goose!” Gabriel said laughing. “This young woman is nervous to keep her new husband.” Ellen grew warm and perplexed, but executed a garment that would cause excitement in a papist’s cell.
Ellen’s flawless, spirited embroidery—her knots and whorls and precision—occupied her attention but did not distract her from thoughts of Delia. From beneath the folds of her dress Ellen drew out a snuff pouch and pulled on her bottom lip to form a cup under her tongue. She had picked up the habit during her sojourn at the Warren Plantation. The tobacco-topping gang adopted the practice of grinding fine tobacco, resting it under the tongue, and moving spittle around in their mouths to alleviate the monotony and exhaustion of their work. It was a habit for a gal to cultivate, for it caused no smoke and gave her a whiff of soft dreams. The effect of the snuff fostered a contemplative look. Ellen’s graceful face was often caught with a thin trickle of brown spit on her bottom lip and chin while her eyes were focused off and away. But for the snuff she would feel a knife in her chest at the thought of Delia, her dear girl. She dipped up snuff and ruminated on first sight of Delia come bawling through the legs of the gal, Katharine. That event was now so far back and removed from loving the girl. It mattered little now how she’d come or from where.
Ellen dipped and spit. Her industry masked her longings for Delia. Despite Gabriel’s wishes she’d maintained a connection. Reverend William Higgins had brought letters and had forwarded her replies to Delia. The letters from Delia were comforting, for the girl had spoken of succeeding at her lessons and of being busy, but content. Ellen had read the letters in secret, reluctant to displease Gabriel.
Ellen recollected the girl’s soft voice at their leave-taking. “Uncle loves you, ma’am. He loves his mother and his wife and his babies. But he loves me not at all. Don’t cry,” Delia said. Her own cheeks were wet.
“He is wrong about you,” Ellen had declared vehemently. “You are a good girl.”
Twenty-four
“IF THERE BE something to see I’d as soon see it as another,” Daniel Joshua declared against Gabriel’s entreaties. Some merriment was in the air along with smoke.
As a worrier, Gabriel was slow to partake in the excitement. He was happy enough to do the work on uniforms, but his feelings were dark on the enterprise of war.
“Certainly there are as many in the town who are for the southern cause as for the Union. In that case we are ducks and should be securing our safety!” Gabriel countered. He and Daniel talked out all sides of the thing.
Annie had surprised them with her decision to accompany Daniel Joshua on a ride out to see the war. Daniel was hired for his wagon and horse and had the chance to see the fighting up close. None other than Mr. Jonathan Ridley had commissioned Daniel’s wagon simply because he preferred not to spoil his town carriage on the rutted roads to the battlefield.
Ridley’s lady friend had begged prettily for the excursion. She was the one who first suggested the ride out to battle. Day after day of military parades whetted the palates of citizens, and the movement of troops southward promised gay entertainment. The sable brown curls at Bella Strong’s temples were expertly dressed and well set off by a be-ribboned, tricolor hat bought for the occasion.
Provisioned with baskets of food and drink, Daniel and Annie sat aboard the front of the wagon and Ridley and Bella Strong rigged soft seats in the bed of the conveyance. A merry cavalcad
e of citizens followed behind companies of soldiers and army sutlers.
As the four gay travelers straggled back into Georgetown, their faces were soot-blackened and somber. They were all-over weary and looked like owls. On the retreat Ridley had changed places in the wagon and sat beside Daniel at the reins. Something inside the coddled man had wanted to participate in his own deliverance. No matter that he sat on equal terms with an underling. Both men knew that, in this moment, they had their particulars in their hands and must hold and fly. They were braced against each other as Daniel guided the team over the collapsing road. They navigated ruts made by the retreating army’s wagons and the passengers were tossed like beans.
The sky blackened quickly with approaching night and profuse smoke from rifles and cannons. The women huddled in the back of the carriage, each with her head down in her skirts. Bella Strong let the contents of her stomach into her kerchief. The ribbons that had sat so jauntily on her hat in the morning were slick with grease and hung drearily.
Annie had shrunk into the back of the wagon when Jonathan Ridley usurped her position at Daniel’s side. She peeped intermittently at the passing action, then propped her sock and needles upon the end of her nose and worked to avoid seeing.
When the anxious, retreating cavalcade reached Georgetown, Ridley refused the offer of a hot toddy at the tailor shop and he and the lady were taken directly to the Whilton Hotel.
“Will you rest?” Annie said to open up with Daniel. Both were stunned to silence.
“It would be foolish to come down from this buckboard or leave this animal,” Daniel replied. Indeed he dared not leave the wagon and horse. He put a club at hand for pummeling somebody’s head who would try for the reins. Annie brought him a toddy to the alley behind the shop where he tied up. She stood at the side of the wagon and sighed as he sighed from the buckboard. They stood a bit longer without talking. Then Annie brought fodder for the horse. She pressed Daniel to wait as she went to the house for a biscuit with meat.
As transport of any kind was a luxury, Daniel returned to the Long Bridge to ferry some wounded and some simply weary to a higher ground. The wealthy paid well to have a ride and the indigent begged loudly. There were many horses running madly across the Long Bridge, having thrown their riders along rutted roads clogged with panicked onlookers and soldiers. The animals were trailing their bridles and some folk tried to rein them. Crying from the loose horses frightened Daniel’s usually dull nag and there was trouble to steady him.
Annie recited the tale of the day in a monotone, for she was exhausted and past lively. “They lollygagged getting there —the soldiers. We all lollygagged—we onlookers. We were playful. We saw the soldiers on the road out. They picked berries and worried the countryside. They sang songs and cavorted with saying they would be Sunday soldiers and would be right back to home. So the secesh were ready and sore. The Sunday soldiers were punished bad. We got there when it started and turned back on the run. Still some of the green soldiers got in front of us. Daniel and Master Ridley had it to whip ’em back to keep to the road.”
Gabriel brought a basin with cool water, rinsed his mother’s feet, and set them soaking. He rubbed and twisted her feet to unwind them, screwing them up and releasing them like rags. Annie wanted to push him off for his presumption, but his hands were good on her feet. She let him rub her back and lead her to bed.
“You are shivering, Nanny. Your bones are rattling,” Gabriel said.
“Aye, Brother,” she answered. “Come.” She drew back the covers and let him come to lie by and warm her. He put his head on her breasts and hugged her to give her his own warmth. He stayed cradling her until he slept. Then she woke him and sent him off to his own bed.
“Bodies floating downstream on the river. Come and see it,” Daniel urged. He put his head in the door and shouted. Annie rose to her feet in alarm. Of late, every day brought a sight to pull a soul from her chair. There was a parade or a boat or a wagon of wonders of some kind. There were constant sounds of exploding shells, discharges of firearms, loud animal cries, shouting, and general banter. The small girls seated about the floor sprang to their grandmother.
“ ’Tis not the time for clicking and clacking needles, woman. There is a fearsome sight on the river.”
“Ye, ye,” Annie cried, drew up her shawl, and followed Daniel.
The gentleman Gabriel waited upon in the shop twisted like a small boy in a stir and was impatient to fly to the riverbank and see for himself what had so many shouting out about what all. He wriggled free of the measuring tapes.
“Cut the coat.” The man tossed coins at Gabriel. “Start the work,” he said, and left Gabriel standing in the center of the floor with his tape between his fingers. Rather than watch the running panorama, Gabriel stared at his own hands and the tape. He recorded the figures of the man’s physique methodically, then put his equipment neatly into its place. Only then did he turn attention to what was going on. So much had happened and so much had been grim that he was more cautious now than ever. And he felt as if bruised—sore in some spots and fearful of bruising himself more.
Walking through to the workroom, Gabriel saw that all the others had left. He was surprised. He brushed threads from his own coat and went out into the thoroughfare to have a glimpse of the passing show.
Bodies floated like leaves downstream on the river. Word circulated that a great battle upstream had loosed these bodies to drift. Their uniforms, full up with decomposition, were gassed like balloons, and rodents clung to some of the inflated corpses. From shore the rats appeared to be seamen piloting their own skiffs.
The Coatses stood high on Prospect Street overlooking the activities below at the riverside. Figures scurried about the bank launching hooks and nets to snag and haul them in. The gassy bodies resisted capture and some floated past despite all effort and made for the Eastern Branch and the bay toward the open sea. These escaped floating bodies bobbed alongside downed branches and animal carcasses and other flotsam. Altogether the river looked like a pernicious stew pot.
“Cover the children’s eyes. T’ain’t a good thing for babes to see,” Annie said when she came back from dumbness. The small girls were summarily turned into their mother’s skirts and held there. A preacher stood on the bank below the prospect and called for repentance, citing evidence of things gone awry—the floating bodies, rats on the march, and highly painted jezebels.
At sight of all this, Washingtonians had been changed. No longer a picnic lark, war became war.
With ever more combatants billeted in the District, skillful navigation of the streets was required, for the thoroughfares were taken up with drilling men and frivolous, excited onlookers. Fortification and provisioning were undertaken around the clock, forcing citizens to become hoarders. Coming and going was a constant. Scavenging opportunities increased and there was someone to want most everything discarded by another. The stream of wagons, buckboards, and goat carts entering and leaving was likely carrying most any kind of contraband. And what was tossed aside by one was plugging a drip hole or cushioning a pallet in an alley for another.
Few dogs remained barking in Georgetown. The dusk was quieter without this small cog of sound. Folks had killed their own pets to have the meat of them before some other purloined the animal. Pet pigs and Sunday horses were likewise going this way.
Washington, the improbable seat of the federal government, was chock-full of southern sympathizers and bold agents working for the Confederacy. The town could not possibly be certain of itself. Every argument was heard expressed. No restraint was shown.
War intoxicated most of the men. Aaron Ridley was not immune. “By God, I’ll do what has to be done! No matter what my uncle says, this one Ridley will do what has to be done!” Aaron exclaimed as he packed his belongings to leave Georgetown. Working in the tailor shop as his uncle’s functionary and spy had lost its appeal for Aaron Ridley in the climate of war. The glamour of the fighting enticed him. Here was courage, dash, an
d exhilaration.
Aaron, born in Richmond, the capital of the new Confederacy, coerced himself to defend his mother’s honor and fight for the South. Clementine Stern Ridley’s blood whispered to him insistently as horses, men, armaments, uniforms, and breathless women came ashore in the District on the tide of the war. Aaron had watched the excitement build and could no longer stand life on the sidelines.
Aaron Ridley’s mother saw the conflict as an opportunity to reclaim the South she had lost when she had married and been swallowed up by the Ridley family. The Sterns were Virginians, not ambiguous Marylanders like the Ridleys. And her Aaron had a duty to his Virginia relations to defend the South! Clementine was firmly snagged in the romantic fervor of the Confederate war effort and she had written many breathless letters to her son. She cajoled him toward the war. She was thrilled at the handsome, heroic son defending her way of life. The picture came alive in anticipation.
Miss Violet Anne Marie Bristol also influenced Aaron. In her fast, elite circle the young swains were of the opinion that the war would be over quickly and would offer opportunities for conspicuous valor. Violet constructed a fanciful mental scene that she shared with her impressionable beau. Aaron Ridley, she imagined, would look handsome in his uniform as she fluttered a lace handkerchief embroidered cleverly with violets at his receding figure.
Aaron bade Gabriel, Mary, Annie, and Ellen farewell with warmth and ceremony. The irony of it struck Gabriel over and over like a small hammer. It was Aaron who had talked his uncle into taking Gabriel’s cash for the freedom. Jonathan Ridley had been lazy about it, but Aaron had prompted him. Aaron had worked to free the Coats family. Now it was he going off to defend the cause of slavery? Now it was he wringing the hand of his former slave as if both were joined in sentiment about the conflict? More surprising to Gabriel was Aaron Ridley’s leave-taking of the shop. Aaron thrust out his hand and colored up around the collar as he grasped Gabriel’s hand to pump and say that he would miss them all. He looked around at the bolts of cloth and the forms and needles and sighed wistfully.
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