Innocent Deceptions

by Gwyneth Atlee

  Ben knew he should leave this alone, knew it wasn’t any of his business. Yet he could not help thinking how malignant were the woman’s pain and hatred – and how unnecessary.

  “Don’t you think that you’ve blamed Charlotte long enough?” he asked. When she began to protest, he silenced her with a quick shake of his head and a look that brooked no disobedience.

  “Your son was a grown man, not a child or an idiot. He made choices, mistakes even, and took no responsibility.”

  The criticism was more than the old woman could bear. She leapt to her feet. “How dare you sit in judgment of Edgar? You never knew what a good boy, what a sweet boy he could be! You never saw his handsome face, or --"

  Ben stood, then gestured toward the chair Mrs. Martin had vacated. “Please sit. I’m not trying to offend you. I’m certain Edgar had many fine qualities, and anyone can see you loved him very much. I imagine it’s a hard thing to lose a son.”

  Slowly, she sank back to her seat, as if her outburst had drained her of the energy needed to remain standing. Nodding, she answered, “Harder than anyone could ever know. Harder even than when I lost my husband. Nature never meant a mother to outlive her child.”

  Some of the bitterness had bled out of her voice, leaving only a deep wistfulness that was difficult to hear.

  “How much sadder it would be,” Ben said, “if you had to lose your grandson, too.”

  Mrs. Martin met Ben’s gaze and held it, though her eyes were overflowing. He offered her his own clean handkerchief, but she ignored both it and her own. Tears streamed unchecked along the channels of her wizened face.

  Ben sensed a fault line in the woman’s stony heart. Unsure, he said, “If what you say is true, Alexander’s all you have left. Isn’t he?”

  Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

  “He adores Charlotte, just as she loves him,” Ben said. “You’ll never win his affection unless you make peace with her. Can’t you see that, Mrs. Martin? Don’t you remember what he said after he threw the mud at you?”

  “I came to warn you about Charlotte and to tell you about painful things, private things I’ve lived with for six years now.” She rose from her seat, but this time she moved with deliberation. In voice as well as movement, she had regained a tight control, even a measure of dignity despite the dampness on her face. “I didn’t come for you to tell me in an instant how to cure it. So why don’t you tend to your affairs, Captain, and allow me to tend to mine?”

  He supposed he should expect that kind of response. He nodded to her. “Thank you for the cookies. And I’ll take what you said into consideration.”

  He hoped that she, too, would think about what he had suggested. As she left for her own home, he wondered why it was that he hadn’t minded his own business, as she’d suggested. He’d like to think he had been noble enough to speak up for Mrs. Martin’s sake, to help free her from the burden of her hatred. But he didn’t know the woman and, no matter that she’d suffered, he didn’t much care for her either.

  He tried to tell himself he’d spoken up for Alexander, so the child would have some chance of knowing, maybe even loving, the woman who might well be his grandmother. Ben realized then that he believed it was quite possible that Mrs. Martin spoke the truth, that the father Alexander had lost might instead have been his grandfather. And if that was the case, then Charlotte was not only a liar, she had also been the sort of girl to play with fire in her youth.

  And she’d been badly burned.

  He’d been raised with the notion that a decent young woman didn’t allow anyone to compromise her, that those who did were foolish or immoral. Regardless of what the preachers said on Sundays, it was expected that a young man would try to find ways to satisfy his urges. Ben’s uncle had quietly warned him to be careful and not to fool with virgins, but he’d never said a thing to make Ben feel ashamed or dirty.

  Had Charlotte merely acted on the same sort of irresistible fever of the loins that had once compelled him to seek out willing women? He remembered the passion of Charlotte’s kisses, her murmurs of response. Was she the kind of female who acted upon her appetites, who sought out men to --?

  With a chilling jolt, he recalled the way she’d pulled away from him, the terror in her eyes. Charlotte Randolph was certainly no slut. But at fifteen, even a smart girl might have been naïve. Naïve enough for an unprincipled neighbor to mislead.

  The thought of Edgar Martin looking past Charlotte’s warmth and wit, of him seeing her only as a thing to be used filled Ben with fury. The impulse seized him to find the bastard’s grave so he could spit on it.

  What in God’s name was coming over him? Charlotte’s past had no bearing on the question of her present loyalties. He was losing his perspective, along with his damned sense.

  If she was as guilty as he suspected, he had better prove it quickly. Before he had to count his heart among the losses.

  Close his eyes; his work is done!

  What to him is friend or foeman?

  Rise of moon, or set of sun,

  Hand of man, or kiss of woman?

  -- from “Dirge for a Soldier,”

  by George H. Boker

  CHAPTER TEN

  Saturday, June 21, 1862

  As the afternoon wore on, Charlotte’s fears rose like floodwaters. Sooner or later, she knew that she would have to go downstairs. She would have to look into the Yankee officers’ faces and decide for herself whether or not Mrs. Martin had told them last night.

  She had no doubt of her ability to detect their knowledge, for she was well acquainted with the change in her own brother’s and her father’s regard. Overnight, she had gone from cherished sister and daughter, a specimen of Southern femininity to be prized and guarded, to something lesser, something forever tainted by what they believed she had done. Her brother had been furious, her father and her mother crushed with disappointment, but oddly enough, not one of them had asked her the circumstances of her fall. And Charlotte had been too humiliated to bring it up to them. She hadn’t even told them of her pregnancy until Mama Ruth had noticed her changing shape and asked her directly.

  Charlotte could still hear Mama Ruth saying, “You ain’t the first gal in all creation in this fix, but you sure ain’t gonna make it go away by pretendin’ nothin’s happenin’.”

  The slave had tried to reassure her, and failing that, she’d spoken to Charlotte’s parents. Within hours, to Charlotte’s everlasting horror, her brother had attempted to force Edgar Martin to marry her. She had been both humiliated and relieved beyond measure when he had refused, then soon after disappeared.

  The thought of that horrible time, of how many times she had wept to the point of vomiting, covered Charlotte’s body in a sheen of perspiration. It was horrible enough to be cut off from her family after learning that she would never again see her father, but the thought of facing the Yankees, of knowing that they knew something so deeply personal about her, made the day even more unbearable. Shivering, she hugged herself, then groaned in misery.

  Would Jonathan Snyder decry her as a whore and break off their engagement? Would Delaney do the same when he returned and heard the news? Would Ben Chandler believe her kiss had been an empty favor, something a ruined woman would bestow on anyone? Somehow the last thought was most painful, though she could not comprehend why that was so.

  “You sick, Charlotte?” Alexander asked.

  He had just come upstairs to exchange his lead soldiers for an older set, which had not been repainted in Confederate colors. Charlotte wondered briefly if one of the Union officers had made a comment to him, but she decided that could not have happened. For one thing, Alexander didn’t look upset; for another, she couldn’t imagine the general, Ben Chandler, or even Jonathan Snyder criticizing the child’s toys, especially since the death of the rebel Alexander thought of as his father.

  The thought made Charlotte’s stomach clench. What if they said something to Alexander, made some reference to Colonel Franklin Randolph
being his grandfather? Could any of them be so cruel? She could feel the blood draining from her head, and she locked her knees to keep from falling.

  “Charlotte?” Alexander prompted, putting down a soldier. He looked at her intently, and worry lanced his voice.

  Finally remembering his question, she shook her head. “I’m not sick, only sad.”

  He went to her and wrapped his arms around her middle. She ignored the crinkling of the skirt of her black dress as he crushed it against her; she could not forget that he, too, was in mourning.

  Leaning his head against her, he said, “I told Papa I’d take care of you. I will, too. You’ll see.”

  Charlotte knelt to hug the child on his level. “I know you will, Alexander, just as I’ll always take care of you. I promise.”

  Tears welling, she smiled after him as he began to trot downstairs. It was so hard sometimes to realize that something that had taken root in fear and shame and hatred could have blossomed into the greatest love she’d ever known, a love so powerful that sometimes, as now, it was almost painful in its intensity. For that reason alone, she knew that if God himself offered her the opportunity to undo her error, she would refuse without the slightest hesitation.

  Alexander was worth anything, anything at all, even swallowing her terror to face the Yankees and find out if Mrs. Martin had ruined everything for her.

  As she left the nursery, she saw a dark-skinned young Negro scrubbing a stain on the wall beside the staircase. Lemonade, Charlotte realized, from the glass she’d hurled at Tillie last night. Though Charlotte had later swept up the glass to keep Alexander from treading on it, she’d been too upset to bother washing up the stickiness.

  She looked more closely at the profile of the tall black girl. Charlotte had been told that fugitive slaves from Mississippi had been hired to do the cleaning, but she realized in an instant that this was Ida April, a slave belonging to her father’s friends, the Rayburns.

  “Tell me that you didn’t run away,” Charlotte whispered, shocked at her discovery.

  The young woman turned her head toward Charlotte and quickly put a finger to her lips. She followed with a gesture toward the nursery. Once the two of them had gone inside and closed the door, Ida April whispered, “’Course I didn’t run off. I gots a good place with the Rayburns. They’s takin’ good care of my mama, too, even though she can’t work much since she got scalded. I be a fool to leave a place like that.”

  Charlotte nodded, recalling that Mrs. Rayburn had mentioned some horrible accident involving a spilled tub of boiling laundry. According to what she’d heard, the slave had been too disfigured to either work or sell, but the Rayburns were decent Christian slaveholders who would never turn her out. Not unless the foolish Northerners someday forced the issue.

  “Don’t be tellin’ anybody you know me, Miss Randolph,” Ida April said. “Your brother, Massa Michael, ‘ranged for me to come here, case you needs any help. I can carry notes back to the Rayburns, too, if you needs me to do it. Them Yankee devils thinks I’m holin’ up with some free blacks in town at night, so they don’t mind where I go.”

  “Good. I’ll need to send something to Michael. I’ll have it ready in a little while.”

  Ida April paused for several moments before saying, “I’m real sorry ‘bout your daddy. Everybody ‘round here know what a fine gentleman he was.”

  Charlotte could not answer, for her throat was choked with grief. This morning she’d received word that the dressmaker refused to set foot in this “nest of Yankees” to properly outfit her and Alexander in mourning.

  Unwilling to reprise her earlier round of weeping, she forced her mind to focus on this change in Michael’s plans. She was grateful to have an ally, but Ida April’s loyalty served to remind her of Mama Ruth’s lack. Or had the failure in some way been Charlotte’s or her family’s? Was it possible?

  Charlotte thought about her confusing, maddening conversations with Tillie in the past few days, about the way long-held beliefs seemed less rigid than they had a week before.

  After a slight hesitation, she looked directly into Ida April’s deep brown eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “Thank you for risking this.”

  A few minutes later, Charlotte left the room. Halfway down the stairs, she called to Ida April loudly enough for anyone listening to hear her. “You. Girl. Mind that you don’t scrub the varnish off that wainscoting. And I know to a kerchief every item I’ve left in that room. Don’t think that I won’t check each one when I return.”

  When Ida April flashed her a smile, Charlotte winked in return, feeling unreasonably ebullient. Her optimism lasted only until she spotted Jonathan Snyder standing at the bottom of the ground floor staircase.

  At first, Charlotte was certain he was waiting to hurl accusations at her, and her heartbeat raced in dread. But in a moment, she realized that the man was scrutinizing the nude goddesses that flanked the stairs – or, more specifically, their breasts. She rolled her eyes. What a Philistine.

  “Charlotte!” he exclaimed after noticing her approach. “When I heard the news, I was so worried for you.”

  Surely, he must be referring to the news about her father. That would explain the concern so clearly written in his hazel eyes. She dared to hope that Mrs. Martin hadn’t told after all. Either that or word had not yet reached Jonathan.

  As she descended the last steps, he reached for her and would have taken her into his arms had she not shaken her head.

  “Please don’t, Jonathan. Not here,” she warned him quietly. Her gaze flicked toward the parlor, where she suspected Ben Chandler might be working. Though she could not see his desk from where she stood, he might well be within earshot.

  Appearing to understand, Jonathan nodded. “How are you faring, Miss Randolph?”

  She looked down, discomfited by the intensity of his regard. “I hardly know,” she answered. “I keep expecting someone to bring another message, to tell me they were wrong. Or Papa to walk in, laughing at – laughing at --”

  She could not finish, for the image was too clear in her mind. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. I’d like to make some tea.”

  “I’ll ask Tillie to do it,” he volunteered.

  The thought repelled her. “No thank you. I’d prefer to take care of it myself.”

  She heard General Branard before she saw him.

  “Lieutenant Snyder, I’ll need you to check on --” The man appeared in the arched doorway that led into the library, which he’d appropriated for an office. “Miss Randolph, it’s good to see you.”

  He strode forward and hugged her. The genuine warmth of his embrace put her in mind of Papa, and before she could stop herself, she felt hot tears overflowing.

  Jonathan was instantly solicitous, offering a handkerchief and tutting, “There, there,” until she felt like snapping at him to stop hovering about her.

  “I’m so sorry about your and the boy’s loss,” the general said, releasing her. “War’s a terrible, wasteful thing, and I’m sure your father’s gone on to a land that knows no battles.”

  She nodded and forced a weak smile. General Branard was a kind man, even if he did fight on the wrong side of this conflict. And she could see in his blue eyes that he still believed her to be an innocent. Thank God.

  Charlotte dared to hope that Mrs. Martin had said nothing. Perhaps sick glee at the news of Papa’s death had taken the woman’s mind off gossip.

  General Branard reassured her that he would see to it that as long as Memphis remained occupied, she and Alexander would be taken care of. Unable to face any discussion of her future, Charlotte thanked him before excusing herself.

  She retreated to the kitchen and thanked God when she found that Tillie was nowhere in sight. Charlotte had nearly finished preparing her tea when the woman came in through the back door. She was carrying a half-bushel basket of string beans.

  Bold as ever, Tillie stared into Charlotte’s face. Charlotte’s spirits sank. She would have preferred to ignore
last night’s incident, but clearly, the mulatto cook was not about to let the matter drop.

  Before Charlotte could think of what to say, Tillie put the basket down on the old kitchen table.

  “That’s some temper you got,” she remarked. “But your aim’s a hair off.”

  “Fortunately.”

  One corner of Tillie’s mouth curved upward. “I figured you’d like it better if you could hit what you aim at.”

  “Oh, no,” Charlotte protested. “I feel terrible enough about my – my display. I would feel far worse had I struck you.”

  Tillie shrugged. “Might be I deserved it.”

  Charlotte felt her brows rise. Could this be an apology – from Tillie?

  “I ain’t never found the time to go through one of them finishin’ schools or the like,” Tillie continued, her smile as sardonic as her words.

  Charlotte’s laughter took her by surprise. How was it she could find anything amusing? Or perhaps she laughed out of relief that the confrontation with Tillie she had dreaded had not come about.

  As Charlotte stirred sugar into her tea, the spoon clinked brightly against the thin-walled china cup. “Well, I have and look how much good it’s done me.”

  “Oh, you got charm enough for any ten young ladies.” Tillie’s smile flickered out. “‘Specially when it comes to the menfolks ‘round here.”

  Charlotte stiffened, sensing hidden meaning in the woman’s words. Had she guessed that Charlotte toyed with the affections of all the younger officers? Did her words constitute a warning? She looked into Tillie’s blue eyes, but nothing in the woman’s expression either warned or reassured.

  “What are you suggesting?” Charlotte kept her voice carefully neutral, as if she were merely feeling curious instead of threatened.

  The longer Tillie waited to answer, the louder grew the silence in the room. She does know, or at least she guesses, Charlotte realized.

  When Tillie spoke at last, it was to change the subject. “I gotta go find me one of them contrabands to snap these beans and clean ‘em up.”