“Take care of things, old boy,” Aaron said cheerfully. “I’ll be back pretty soon and we’ll take up where we’re leaving it.” It would have been a sorrowful parting if Aaron had not been so naively enthused.
“God grant you good fortune, sir,” Gabriel called out. He felt a breeze of sympathy for Aaron—hoping he might fall from his horse on the way, break a leg, and be unable to join up. Aaron Ridley was not for fighting. He surely had no business in the fray. He was too much a boy, even if ones much younger had gladly gone and made good use of themselves.
Aaron rode to Scottsboro to take leave of his mother and the Ridley Plantation before joining the Confederate army. He went as well to fortify his arguments. He packed a boyhood penknife and a family Bible in his haversack. Young Ridley, an inadequate horseman at best, left Scottsboro to join up astride a great-grandson of his grandfather’s favorite stallion.
Aaron’s mother stood on the gallery at Ridley waving him off. She said he was the image of his grandfather. Jonathan Ridley pronounced her a fool as she waggled her fingers and swelled like a toad.
Jonathan had thought his nephew a right fool, too, to join up to fight with the Confederacy. He could as easily have fought with the Union. Ridley sincerely wanted to offer his nephew and heir the opportunity of a wider world away from the plantation lifestyle. It was what he had always wanted for himself—a larger stage. The day was late for the gentleman farmer. Times were changing. Hell, times had changed.
One of the swains in Violet Anne Marie Bristol’s circle, Martin Tolbert, seized on fulfilling his obligation to the Confederacy by hiring the soldiering services of another man. He reasoned the Confederacy was getting a fitter man—someone with more vitality and fighting acumen to offer in the contest. Joe Bungate, eager to get free of a Virginia prison at any cost, was the proxy who sold his service to Martin Tolbert and the army of the Confederacy.
Twenty-five
ANNIE HAD BEEN more than dutifully fond of Gabriel and Ellen’s father, Bell. He was the man she had chosen. She had worked herself toward him and away from Jonathan Ridley in a plan. She had taken the gamble that the master would not go where his blacksmith had gone when she put herself in the way of Bell. Master might have killed or sold or beaten them both, but his need of their value had mitigated his anger. Both Annie and Bell had presentiment of tragedy from the first. Neither expected they would grow old together.
From the beginning, Annie refused to pull back caring for her boy though. As well as she knew that she toyed with sorrow, she clung to the child. Hope was a feature on his face. She had put it there and she resolved to be clever and keep him. And if he were lost, then it would be her portion to swallow, for she was committed to love him. She later pledged in her heart to Ellen, too, but she was less ardent with her. She had got used to the hurly-burly exercise of love when Ellen came and could easily choose between the two.
Annie guided Gabriel—nay, she had cut him if the truth be told. Here was a man she had shaped. She had trained him to be clever and she guided him to the clever path.
The woman helping her bring Gabriel had been short with her, impatient of Annie’s writhing and bucking labor. The woman handled the baby roughly when he emerged and let him squall long minutes before bringing him to Annie. “Don’t give him the tit too quick! He’s got to learn right off that he’ll wait for his vittles like everybody else. He ain’t no king on a throne,” she growled. But Annie took him up and clutched him, and he latched to her breast and sucked and would not be loosed until his head fell back sleeping and a trickle of milk came from his mouth.
“Ah, you’ll cry,” the irritable helpmeet pronounced as she left with her bandages and slop pans.
Child Gabriel did come hungry and Annie never pushed him off. The pleasantest moment was him waking up hungry and kicking his small feet against her stomach in the excitement to get at her breast. Her milk let down at his sigh. On this night, in this dark, Annie touched her nipples in pleasurable recollection of the past and palpated them.
Though it had become thin and manly, Gabriel’s face began fully round and soft. And in satisfied repose he was a lovely, moonfaced sweet bun. Ellen’s little face at the breast was heart-shaped—a perfect idea of a girl. She was a precious bundle and she was delight for Gabriel as much as for the parents. He lifted her and dandled her and cavorted for her entertainment. All of them together—Bell, Annie, Gabriel, and Ellen—that was the highest moment of joy captured in her mind’s eye. At the top of the stair was that lovely moment, and all else fell away.
Loath to run into the streets like a boy—to follow the parades—Gabriel did secretly enjoy the pomp and march of the men raised from firefighting units in New York City. They were the flavor of excitement, dressed in lobster-colored coats, white gloves, and pants so straight-legged! And their middles were cinched with leather belts of exquisite thickness and burnish —and jaunty caps!
The antics of the Fire Zouaves were like a traveling circus’s high-wire aerialists. They shinnied up light poles to delight crowds. Gabriel stood at the window of the shop and brushed at errant threads and lint on his vest. The sight of the marchers thrilled him and he was drawn away from his work. He walked out into the thoroughfare to gape. He had forgotten to remove the measuring strop from his neck, and it lay under his collar as an advertisement of his profession. Some small boys shrieked and pointed to the sky as they ran to the highest prospect along High Street. A startling globe rose into the air and commanded the attention of all.
“Nanny, come and see.” Gabriel’s voice was excited as he rushed into the kitchen—bursting through the curtain and surprising Annie and the girls. He yelled, but did not wait for her to answer or any other. He clapped his hands and ran back to the street. The loft of the thing took him and he was swept away with it.
The three young nougats had never heard so much exuberance in their father’s voice. They were startled and drew back toward their grandmother. They did not follow their father.
When Annie came out to the street, she wore the little girls upon her skirts like decoration. Their heights rose as stairs do: the one oldest, then the next girl a few inches smaller, and the third this same increment smaller. Their faces were much alike, too—a repeating pattern of round faces, molasses-drop eyes, and sunny cheeks.
Out on the avenue the girls clung shyly to their grandmother and used her shawl to cover their faces. Naomi, the eldest, peeped skyward, then giggled into her grandmother’s skirt. Each of the others took a turn.
Nanny’s patience with these little girls was amusing to Gabriel, for she had always been so firm against his clinging. Ah, she could move so quickly then. Her habit was to swat him away from her path and not be obstructed or slowed.
“Are you able to cut and sew a suit on commission for one as myself, sir?” A handsome, self-possessed colored man broke through Gabriel’s reverie. The man assessed him cannily. His voice was well modulated. Seemingly none but Gabriel heard him speak. The two stood shoulder to shoulder in the crowd lining the thoroughfare, watching the military parade.
Jacob Millrace was plum-colored. He had a particularly broad forehead that was unlined and quiescent. His eyes were small, but piercing, and his face belied the obstacles he must have overcome to reach the level of wealth suggested by his clothes. The cloth of his suit was fine. Gabriel inspected it out of the corner of his eye.
Gabriel wondered momentarily why the man was secretive. There was nothing illegal about tailoring. Yet it did behoove a free colored—as this well-dressed man must certainly be—to be cautious with all in all circumstances.
“I take commissions, sir—for tailoring, mending, and laundering. We—my mother, my wife, my sister, and I—produce knitted and embroidered articles also. A gentleman’s wardrobe can be augmented at our establishment.” Gabriel did not smile as he spoke but bowed his head.
“I would have a suit or two. Come to this house and inquire for me,” the gentleman said much more loudly than previously as
he handed over a crisp white card embossed with the name Jacob Millrace.
Gabriel looked at the snow-white business card. The address was notable if memory served. There was no information as to the profession of Mr. Millrace. The name did not include the honorific of reverend or doctor, so Gabriel guessed that Millrace was neither. What did the man do to earn his rich living?
Gabriel Coats was a quick observer and an accurate estimator. Was the fellow broad or narrow through the shoulders, taller or shorter than himself, weak and birdlike or taut and muscular in the chest and belly or barrel-shaped or beer-belly rounded, long-legged or set on stumpy legs, slumped with age or upright and vigorously youthful? The composite of these measures stamped a durable picture in Gabriel’s mind. Jacob Millrace was nearly heroic in his measures.
Among the circle of his acquaintance, Jacob Millrace was viewed as two men. With the community of free colored, he was a proud, wealthy businessman. Jacob Millrace was adequately educated. He could read well and figure and was fond of a spirited exchange on the news of the day. He did not have so much education that he felt comfortable to discuss literature and the arts. Nevertheless he attended the courtly forms of entertainment—parlor concerts at the homes of free people of stature and the gamut of lesser diversions. Essie Millrace, Jacob’s daughter, was versed in literature and the arts and held her own quite well with an educated crowd. She served as her father’s hostess.
The other half of the shell was Millrace’s lucrative profession. Jacob Millrace accumulated his wealth from a curious, unlikely source. He owned a line of highly prized English springer spaniels bred from an elite pair belonging to his late master, Joseph Pendleton of St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Jacob Millrace was the undisputed owner of these hounds following the untimely death of the entire Pendleton family and the slaves they owned—Joseph, his wife and three young sons, as well as forty-five field and house workers. All of these had succumbed to a fever in ’48. Colored and white had fallen left and right, with Essie’s mother and two brothers among them. Jacob and his daughter were the only survivors excepting the pair of hounds, Hercules and Circe.
Jacob had stood to lose his freedom to a relative of Mr. Pendleton, but no relative with claim had turned up. Some said they existed, but were fearful of the pestilence.
After Jacob buried all of the dead, he and Essie walked off the Pendleton Main. The two surviving hounds walked behind them. The four kept together and carried on. The survivors laid claim to a hunting cabin on the farthest reaches of the Pendleton tract and settled and improved upon the structure. Jacob groomed and fed the spaniels and looked after Essie. When the bitch had pups, Jacob and Essie coddled them and trained them.
The word circulated that Pendleton’s prized spaniel bitch with liver-colored splotches and his dog that matched her point for point had a litter of pups. Word was they were beautifully marked and showed real hunting promise. When the dogs matured, Jacob Millrace built a respectable, lucrative business in taking out the dogs for gentlemanly hunting of upland birds. Millrace himself became trusted as a guide and as a hand to tote and load weapons.
Jacob adopted a humble demeanor in his work with the gentleman hunters. He allowed his dogs to be the true hunting experts and behaved as though he were at their beck and call. The pups, utterly devoted to Jacob and attentive to his every mood and movement, nevertheless pretended to consider him beneath their notice when customers were about. Dogs and man worked together to create the fiction.
Jacob maintained cleverly and with suitable awe that the animals were privy to an ancient knowledge of birds and were likely of some royal stock. Thus he claimed to be the honored custodian of royal dogs. Whether or not this was true, people around understood the dogs had been bought in England some months before the fever had struck. In cockeyed local logic, people felt that the fever survivors—both human and canine—were given a special dispensation from illness. Hunters crave a talisman for luck, and upon this, Jacob Millrace built his business.
Millrace’s hunting guide and dog commerce was so successful that he and Essie could afford to live in Georgetown in the off-season, these times being the hottest summer months and the dead of winter. Jacob Millrace bought a house in town and arranged that his daughter be schooled at the home of the Dunston sisters, who taught the children of free people in Georgetown.
By comparison with the Coats family’s rooms above the tailoring shop, Jacob Millrace’s home was palatial. He employed the services of a general man about and a cook / housekeeper. Both of these were free colored persons. They deferred to Mr. Millrace, though they did not kowtow, and seemed a happy household.
Gabriel’s preliminary estimates of Mr. Millrace’s measures had been largely correct. The gentleman desired two suits of clothing of dark and modest cloth, and he requested that all of the appointments be au courant.
The parlor into which Gabriel was shown had a woman’s furnishings. There was the feeling that here lived someone who felt it necessary to add warmth to the domicile. Gabriel thought of Ellen and of his mother as he looked at the lovely pattern work of the antimacassars on the chairs in the parlor. Did Mr. Millrace and his wife entertain a wide circle?
As Gabriel took his leave, he suggested to Mr. Millrace that if there were a need for laundry service, he would gladly send his wife to fetch it and return it.
“Ah, Mr. Coats,” Millrace said with a chuckle. “You have guessed it. My Essie does struggle with the laundrywoman. And she is never satisfied.”
“My wife will come tomorrow, sir. She subscribes to the syndicates. Your wife, sir, will be pleased,” Gabriel trilled, happy to pronounce the possession of so many flowers and eager to impress Jacob Millrace.
“Ah, ah, no, Mr. Coats,” Millrace said, and Gabriel felt a jolt of embarrassment. He had jumped too soon! “Mr. Coats, it is my daughter. My Essie is my daughter, sir. Please do send your missus to us.” Jacob ended with a warm handshake and Gabriel left with a smile.
As he walked back to the shop, Gabriel felt excitement race back and forth in his veins. The sight of Mr. Millrace’s wealth, its display, he a colored man like Gabriel, a self-made, free man! Gabriel was truly jealous for the first time.
Gabriel’s warm hearth at the back of the tailor shop was unchanged when he returned from Jacob Millrace’s house. All was as it would normally be. Annie, Ellen, and Mary were hard at their tasks. But the picture felt stingy and small and, for a moment, Gabriel was not quite happy. The wide room with a large table put to many a daily task and chairs aplenty around the periphery and food stores and work tools consigned to this, that, or the other place was not quite a parlor—a fit place for a family. Gabriel yearned for something more like the parlor that Jacob Millrace had. Was this next rung so far above him?
Unaware of her husband’s tormented thoughts, Mary prepared a strong cup of coffee. She put his vexed air down to weariness and trusted the hot drink to restore his mood. Work generally made Gabriel pleased and he enjoyed beginning a new commission. After he sipped a bit of his coffee, Mary asked, “What of Mr. Millrace’s house, Husband? Is it grand?” Annie and Ellen perked their ears as well. They all were curious about Jacob Millrace’s house.
Gabriel answered in a tired voice. “His daughter keeps his household. She is young and needs laundry help. Call on her to inquire and you might see his parlor for yourself.”
Twenty-six
A NAUSEATING MIASMA composed of the stench of rotted bodies and the accompanying odors of embalming fluids cloaked the air. What little food Mary ate came back as soon as she left the shop to fulfill her laundry circuit. She regurgitated in the trench running next to the path from the back door to the alley at Olive Street. When she relieved herself of the burden of these vittles, she worried that not enough was left for the coming babe.
Mary had hurried to get out of sight of Gabriel—not wanting him to see her retching. He’d begun to look disappointed when she showed fatigue and discomfort. Ellen came upon Mary’s heels and wiped her face.<
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“Shall I fetch your husband, girl?” she asked, though she knew that Mary would say no.
Recovering her equilibrium, Mary answered, “Leave him be, Sister.”
Mary had taken on the laundry commission for the Millrace household as pressed to by Gabriel. The Millraces entertained among the town’s prominent Negroes and there were fine table linens, as well as monogrammed sheets. Gabriel ordered vinegar and lemon and rainwater and special note of every piece. In fact, Gabriel made Mary nervous over the Millrace commission. He checked and cluck-clucked in a way that peeved and tired her.
The town’s laundrywomen were an important cog in the engine for helping the waves of wounded soldiers. Sanitary Commission officers scoured the city and impressed colored women into washing service. The Ladies of Olives put themselves forth as professional laundresses and its members were given contracts for hospital sheets. Even the bawdy houses had surrendered bed linens for bandages. A premium was put on crisp antisepsis and the Sanitary Commission favored the Coats women.
Recovering herself, Mary turned from Ellen and followed the path she was accustomed to take on her rounds. A wave of folk lately off a nearby farm surged toward her at the corner of High Street and Olive. A great wide woman burdened down with belongings tied in bundles and situated atop her head herded a group of children with a rough-cut walking stick. The woman gathered the children by slashing out at their legs if they strayed from her skirts. One of the group, a mud-covered toddling child, grasped Mary’s skirt as she passed by and sought to be borne along with her. When Mary moved her leg to walk, this child swung along, riding her.
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