The Mirk and Midnight Hour

by Jane Nickerson

  I began to lighten my own black garments with white collars, violet ribbons, and plain jewelry so that I looked less like a gawky black crow and more like one who’d found random bits of treasure. I also rarely wore my hoop unless I was going to town. With chores to do and with Seeley’s and my frequent adventures, it got too hard to maneuver, so I limited myself to one petticoat.

  There was more work, of course, with the others here. I had expected to resent this, but somehow I didn’t.

  I was out back with Laney one day while she plucked a chicken and Cubby played in the dirt and flying feathers. My hands were deep in soapsuds, rubbing and wringing, rubbing and wringing. I held up Sunny’s chemise to see if it was clean. “Why do you suppose I don’t mind the extra chores these days?” I asked Laney. “Shouldn’t I hate every button I sew back on Seeley’s shirts and every second I spend scrubbing Sunny’s underclothes? But it doesn’t bother me. It really doesn’t.”

  Laney gave a wry smile. “Might be because you’ve grown fond of those folks.”

  I pondered as I scooped out soggy feathers from the water. “You’re right. I have. I thought I didn’t want anyone else, but like Pa told me before he left, the circle has simply expanded. Since when did you become so wise, Laney?”

  Cubby dumped dirt on his own head.

  “I reckon this child has beat the learning into me,” Laney said as she brushed him off. “Maybe it has to happen when you’re a mother, or you’d never survive.”

  I didn’t tell Laney, because I felt shy and a little silly about my feelings, but since Seeley had come to Scuppernong, I could understand, at least somewhat, how she felt about her little boy. How she wanted to teach him things and protect him. No wonder Laney’s and my relationship had changed after Cubby entered the picture—so often her mind must have been crowded with thoughts of him.

  A little over a year into it, the war raged on. We heard stories and read terrible accounts in the papers and in my father’s letters, but still the actual fighting stayed away from us. Of course, there were privations. Nearly all the lamp oil was gone, with no more to be had, and our spice jars were empty. Sometimes I opened the lids just to sniff inside. Laney had to be clever about making do with the limited food we could grow or scrounge, and our only new clothing was refurbished from out of my mother’s trunks.

  I was surprised to discover that I was becoming happy again. It happened in unexpected bursts. It would come when Seeley and I were sitting on the sagging front steps, watching the twilight fade and the lawn flush purplish and the woods turn ghostly and the bright moon rise. It might come as I worked with Laney to create a dessert from substitute ingredients to tempt Miss Elsa’s finicky appetite, or as I shook my head over something outrageous Dorian had said. Suddenly I would be smiling without a painful edge. I missed my father and remembered Rush with love, but the hole in my heart was starting to fill in.

  Dorian was truly being a kind brother to Seeley, and I congratulated myself that it was partly due to my advice. One scene stands out.

  Miss Elsa, Sunny, and I are all on the porch, watching Dorian and Seeley throw an India rubber ball back and forth out on the green sweep of grass. Seeley overthrows and the ball ends up in the woods. He waits stiff and tense for Dorian to yell, and I prepare to jump down and stand beside him, but instead Dorian meets my eyes above Seeley’s head and hollers, “Did you see the arm on that boy? Whooee, he nearly tossed it clean to Chicataw!” He plunges into the trees to find the ball and Seeley scampers after. “Listen to them laugh,” Miss Elsa says.

  With so little, Dorian could make Seeley happy.

  When he didn’t have other work to do, King had begun teaching Seeley to ride Star. He seemed to have exactly the right temperament for the task. I witnessed the first time as he led Star by the reins, trudging round and round the pasture, with Seeley, rigid and pale, in the saddle. Gradually the boy loosened up. After the twentieth (perhaps) round, King gave Seeley the reins and showed him how to handle them himself.

  Seeley grabbed King’s arm. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “No, I ain’t. I be right here alongside you. You don’t need me, though. This here mare ain’t going nowhere you don’t want her to.”

  “She’s sort of polite, isn’t she?” Seeley said. “She would think it was rude to do anything to scare me.”

  Eventually King slipped farther and farther back until Star was trotting smartly along, far ahead. King stood watching, wiping his brow. “If that don’t beat all,” he mumbled, low, like thunder in distant hills. “Look at Master Seeley already going lickety-split.”

  Seeley heard. He looked over his shoulder and laughed. “I am, aren’t I?”

  I could have hugged King. Once Seeley had a little more practice, I would take pleasure in showing off his riding to Dorian.

  It had been more than three weeks since my cousins arrived at Scuppernong Farm, and Dorian made no mention of leaving. He and Sunny wandered about alone, which wasn’t proper, but what could I do? Sunny’s mother should have been the chaperone, but she either ignored them or watched with fond satisfaction as she lounged and dreamed or painted her bad paintings.

  Seeley was never so contented as when tromping in the woods, exploring nature. At first, when some responsibility kept me from joining him, I worried about catamounts, alligators, and other beasties with slavering jaws that were rumored to roam the wilds of Mississippi. My anxiety ceased when I saw a few bees following him. I had asked the bees to watch out for Seeley. They were winged like angels, with drawn blades in their tails. If my young cousin had their protection while in the forest, all would be well.

  At suppertime Seeley and I would come home from our explorations bubbling over about this animal we had seen or that trail we had taken. When Sunny said one evening, “Really, Vi-let, you act as if you’ve fallen madly in love with the outdoors. I’m sure it’s all very delightful, but kindly spare the rest of us the romantic details,” I cautioned Seeley that we must stop boring everyone. Because of what happened after, it was a good thing we ceased our habit of gushing over our activities.

  Sunny and I spent two days painting the sitting room. My stepsister had chosen the color—an ocher yellow that brightened the drab walls.

  On the first day, Dorian helped us move furniture into the center of the room. After that he lounged on the sofa, smoking a pipe, idly watching us paint, snoozing, and offering casual remarks. Once, when I glanced his way, he smiled blindingly and commented on the grand view he had of our figures as we stretched to reach far corners. I threatened him with the brush.

  “Don’t you get that thing near my coat!” he cried, scuttling out the door.

  On the second day of painting, Dorian sauntered off in the morning to be gone till late, claiming he had some mysterious business to do for the Confederacy. I sent a letter with him to mail to Aunt Lovina and a request for more salt if it could be had for love or money.

  “There,” I said to Sunny, “if he’s performing a task for us, he won’t have to feel guilty about not helping with this work. If it’s possible for Dorian to feel guilt. Do you think he really has business to do, or is he gone off to play somewhere?”

  Sunny shook her head and gave a trill of laughter. “No telling. Men!”

  I was carefully outlining the mantel and she was splashing the second coat on the wall nearby. She gave an exaggerated sigh. “They’re so nonsensical,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Men. Isn’t that who we were talking about?”

  “Well, yes, they are,” I readily agreed. “But what are you thinking of in particular?”

  “They want a girl to have a dainty little waist they can span with their hands, but they don’t want to know how she does it.”

  “You mean Dorian?”

  “Yes. Who else? When he puts his arm around me, he doesn’t like the hard feel of my corset. He calls it my armor.”

  “He’s already put his arm around you?”

  “Well, of co
urse.”

  “Ought you to let him? I mean, you’ve only known him—”

  “How else can I be sure I want to know him better? Wouldn’t it be awful if I said yes to a gentleman’s proposal, and then when he kissed me for the first time, it was nauseating or I found him completely unpracticed?”

  My brows drew together. “I don’t have any experience in this, but couldn’t you tell that you’d enjoy a gentleman’s touch by how much you like his personality? And the anticipation building up would be all the more exciting.”

  “You innocent baby,” Sunny said airily, and her attitude didn’t annoy me as much as it would have a few weeks earlier. Now I could tell there was affection mixed with the scorn. “It’s like this—you know how gentlemen act when they’re attracted to a girl?” She paused and flicked her eyes up and down me as I squatted there, paint-spattered and bewildered. “Or maybe you don’t. But anyway, there’s a kind of energy pinging between a couple that has nothing to do with how competent as kissers they are. For instance, when Mr. Walton embraced me, I was surprised at how nice it was. I mean, he was at least forty, and one of Uncle Frank’s friends, and had bushy muttonchop sideburns, and I was only twelve years old. But then he did give such pretty presents and call me his adorable pet, so maybe that’s part of the reason it was nice.”

  “Sunny, only twelve? He was disgusting! He was—”

  “Oh, posh! I assure you he was exceedingly rich and admired and I was mature for my age. The point is that, on the other hand, when a certain fellow, forever nameless, caught me out behind the garden shed, his mouth was slimy and strangling, even though he was young and handsome. I think of him now as the Anteater, for obvious reasons. So that just goes to show you never can tell about the physical thrills with a gentleman until you experience them.”

  I pondered over the reasons Sunny might think of the man as the Anteater, and was disconcerted. “So how does Dorian kiss?”

  Sunny’s eyes shone. “Delicious. I melt into him and can’t think of another thing except my darling.”

  This was all very interesting, but also disturbing. “Hadn’t you better be careful, Sunny? He’s such a flirt.”

  “I want someone experienced. I hate the thought of a boy all clumsy and awkward and young slobbering over me.” She shuddered.

  “Well, you’d better not fall too hard. I can’t see him settling down soon.”

  She glanced at me from beneath lowered lids. “Shows what you know.”

  “Be careful, Sunny. Dorian seems so easygoing, but I have a feeling he can be heartless.”

  My stepsister stood back to survey the patch of wall she had just finished. “I like a man with an edge. He needs it in order to be dangerously attractive. Dorian is—well, he’s the most exciting person I’ve ever met. And until now he hadn’t come across the right girl. He told me so himself.” She continued to stare at the wall for another moment with a look of self-satisfaction, then shook herself and blithely touched the tip of my nose with her paintbrush. “Don’t you worry about me, li’l Miss Vi-let. Just because you’re an ice maiden doesn’t mean everyone has to be.”

  I rubbed the paint off my nose and worried.

  The next day, late in the afternoon, I was hugging a squirming Cubby while Laney fixed supper.

  “He won’t hardly let me hold him anymore,” I was saying. “Always wanting to—” I broke off when men’s voices sounded from outside, and then a great banging at the front door shook the whole house.

  “Where’s Seeley?” I said sharply. “Is he with Michael and King?”

  Laney drew in her breath. “I don’t know. They’re out digging a ditch past the far pasture.”

  I handed her the baby and entered the front hall just in time to see Dorian disappear up the staircase. Miss Elsa and Sunny clutched at each other in the sitting room doorway, wide-eyed.

  A crash sounded, and shards of glass from one of the amber sidelights came flying in, smashed by a bayonet.

  I hurriedly opened the front door a crack. It was torn from my hands and pushed wide by the ragtag group on the porch. There were five of them, their gaunt, bewhiskered faces blackened from the smoke of pine knot campfires, their hats pulled low, and their clothing, partial remnants of both armies’ uniforms, filthy and shabby. They smelled. Three of them brandished rifles, one clutched a cruel-looking butcher’s knife, and one had a sword strapped to his belt. Although he was just as ragged as the others, there was a set to the jaw of the sword-carrying man and a masterful cast to his eyes that showed he was the leader.

  In a flash I remembered the horrific stories I had heard about bushwhacker outlaws. Randomly I hoped they would shoot rather than stab us.

  “We’ve come for your valuables, miss,” the leader said. “Give ’em here and we won’t hurt no one.”

  “We don’t have any valuables.” I was amazed that my voice didn’t shake. “We’re poor farmers.”

  “O’ course. And you don’t got no stock and no money hid away no place. Where’s your menfolk?”

  “Not at home.” Please, please hide well, Dorian, and don’t return, King and Michael. And my Seeley—where was he?

  They shoved past me. The knife holder pried open the hall chest with the point of his blade and broke the lid.

  “I would have given you the key,” I said.

  “Takes too long,” said the leader over his shoulder, his sword clanking on the steps as he and two of his companions surged up the stairs.

  Sunny, Miss Elsa, Laney, and I cowered in the hall, flinching and staring at one another, while the sounds of smashing and clattering and tearing seemed to go on forever. Not my harp. Not our books.

  “Should I give them the money Mr. Dancey left?” Miss Elsa asked in a low voice.

  “Not yet,” I whispered back. “It’s all we’ve got. Is it well hidden?”

  “Yes. It’s in—”

  “Don’t tell me where.”

  Then came the pounding of feet as the three who had gone upstairs descended, pushing Dorian in front, with the barrel of one of their guns poking in his back. Dorian flashed a quick, painful grin our way. “Ladies, don’t you worry. Ouch! Watch the waistcoat, boys.” They pushed him harder and he stumbled, so they grabbed his arms and dragged him out onto the porch and down the steps, banging his shins all the way.

  I couldn’t think of anything except that I mustn’t leave Dorian alone. Perhaps if I stayed at his side, they wouldn’t hurt him. I scurried over and stuck as close as I could until one of the bushwhackers took me by my arms and moved me bodily out of the way.

  They led my cousin to the great magnolia tree. One of them procured a rope from his scraggy mule, formed a noose on one end, and threw it up around a thick, high limb. They placed the noose around Dorian’s neck and pulled him up until he gasped for breath, then lowered him.

  “Where’s your gold?” the leader demanded.

  “Don’t—don’t have any,” Dorian panted. “You already got my ring and cravat pin.”

  They pulled him up again, all the while scrutinizing us four women. Sunny was sobbing into my shoulder.

  Miss Elsa gave a little cry. “Stop. I’ll get the money.” She scuttled back into the house. The bushwhackers lowered Dorian and waited for her return. At one point one of them said something to my cousin, and Dorian slapped him on the back and laughed. It was brave of Dorian, to act as if they were comrades when they might hang him any second, but somehow terrible to watch. Miss Elsa came scurrying out the door, holding forth her purse in trembling hands. She shoved it at the leader and he counted the contents.

  “This is all dang Confederate bills. Where’s your gold?” he demanded.

  Miss Elsa shook her head. “We don’t have any.”

  “Ha!” the man cried, and once again they heaved Dorian up.

  Something had to be done. They would kill Dorian, or we would lose every last penny we had—or both. I strode deliberately up to the tree, looked at my cousin struggling for breath on the end of the rope,
and said calmly, “Dorian, supper’s ready.” I turned to the bushwhackers. “Would y’all care for some ham and biscuits and pie? We’d be much obliged if you’d join us. The food’s getting cold while y’all are playing around out here.”

  Their mouths fell open, and one of them gave a snort of amusement. Then, to my surprise, they lowered Dorian and removed the noose.

  Laney hurried into the house and returned outside with steaming plates. None of the ladies could eat, but Dorian sat with his tormentors, shoveling food into his mouth, joining in their loud, bragging talk, and occasionally laughing. He amazed me.

  The thieves left soon after. They didn’t have the cows or Star, thank goodness, but they took away Gus-the-mule; Dorian’s nervous Grindill, who stamped, plunged, and tried to knock into the horsenapper with his great, bony head; a bag of squawking chickens; and just one goose dangling by a rope from a belt. I had heard the geese hissing and honking, so perhaps they’d made too much trouble to be worth catching, or maybe even bushwhackers didn’t want to take everything we had.

  “They’ll be sorry they stole Grindill,” Dorian said, glaring after them with a hard set to his mouth. “They’ll soon find no bummer can ride him.”

  “They didn’t get all the money,” Miss Elsa said. “I stuffed the gold pieces into my stockings; they’re weighing me down. But I had to give them all the paper bills in order to be believable.”

  We congratulated her on her quick, clever, out-of-character thinking.

  “Why, you’re acting like a real grown-up mother,” Sunny said.

  Miss Elsa gave a tremulous smile, fluttered her hands, and then dashed away from us, probably anxious for her medicine.

  As we went into the house, Dorian put his arm about my waist in what I hoped Sunny realized was a cousinly manner. “Good thinking on your part, coz. How could you guess half-starved men would take home-cooked food over a hanging?”

  “I couldn’t,” I whispered, and tears suddenly blurred my sight and I began to shiver.

  Dorian squeezed my waist while Sunny watched with narrowed eyes.