A Passionate Girl

by Thomas Fleming

  “You’ve been with the Stapletons a long time?”

  “All my life. My father was born a slave, property of the general’s great-grandfather, the congressman. He freed my daddy, and Senator Stapleton, the general’s father, decided to train me as a butler when I married the best cook in New Jersey.”

  “I didn’t know people in New Jersey owned slaves. I thought that was a Southern custom.”

  “All the rich folks hereabouts owned them. There was twelve or thirteen here at Bowood. All dead now or gone away to try other things.”

  “Didn’t you want General Stapleton to fight to free your people in the South?”

  Jackson shrugged. “Wasn’t any talk of that around here. It was all about the Union, the Union must be saved, and the senator sayin’ the Union was gone, gone forever, and the general—Mr. Jonathan he was then—tellin’ his father he was a worn-out old man and didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. Far as I was concerned, I didn’t want all them Southern niggers comin’ up here to take jobs away from my children and grandchildren.”

  Jackson led me to the kitchen, where his wife, Bertha, a tall, thin black woman, presided over a fat Irish girl my own age who was washing vegetables for a salad. I was given cold ham and well-buttered bread and a cup of tea. Bertha Jackson was as silent as her husband was talkative, but the Irish girl, Kate Sweeney, more than filled the vacuum.

  Kate was as inquisitive as a detective about where I had come from in Ireland and as disappointed as Lucifer on Easter Sunday when I told her. She and almost everyone else in the city were from Connaught, the west of Ireland, and regarded those from the east with suspicion and dislike.

  “’Tis the color of the ribbon that counts with you anyway,” Kate said, meaning I preferred Protestant orange to Catholic green.

  “I’m no politician,” I said. “I’d like to see Ireland peaceful and prosperous for all.”

  “But how is that to be when your kind side with the English and divide and ruin us?” Kate said, tearing apart lettuce as if she wished it were my flesh.

  Three more maids, Mary, Ellen, and Hannah, trooped into the kitchen for their afternoon tea, rescuing me from the argument for the moment. But we were back at it within minutes of our introduction when Kate said, “She’s fresh from Ireland with her orange garters and says she’d sooner wed the pope than cheer a Fenian.”

  “I said no such thing,” I replied.

  “What else do you mean with your peace talk?” Kate said. “We hear the Fenians are ready to rise. They’re Ireland’s only hope.”

  “Then God help Ireland,” I said, surprised that I could say something I really meant and make it part of my new identity. “Excuse me now.”

  My instruction book had made it very clear that a governess never associated with the servants or spoke to them on their level. As an educated woman, a governess was considered part of her employer’s family. It pained me to be so aloof to my own people, but I could not help feeling they brought it on themselves with their aggressive hostility.

  I went upstairs to the nursery to find Rawdon and his little brother George, in the midst of staging another battle. George squatted, fascinated, while Rawdon narrated the bloody drama. He had squads of soldiers posted on a height he had constructed from a pillow stuffed beneath the green rug. “The rebels were here on the hill, thousands of them,” Rawdon said in a low, tense voice. “Father’s division was down here in the valley. The order came to charge. Up the hill they went—” He shoved a line of blue-clad soldiers up the slope. “Then blam! The rebels gave them a volley and down the hill they came—”

  He tumbled them with a sweep of his hand. George gasped with delight.

  “But that didn’t stop Father,” Rawdon continued. “He rallied his men and led them up the hill again. Blam!” He swept another line of men down the hill. “The same thing happened. You know what they called Father?

  Little George shook his head.

  “The butcher. General Butcher.”

  I was amazed. Was it true, the boy really thought his father was a murderer?

  “What a fascinating tale, Rawdon,” I said. “Did it really happen?”

  “Fredericksburg. Marye’s Heights,” he said, avoiding my eyes.

  “The Irish Brigade made a great charge there, too. Did they call their general a butcher?”

  “I don’t know,” Rawdon said.

  “Who said they called your father such a name?”

  “It was in the newspaper. A man wrote a letter home. Do you want to see it?”

  “Not now,” I said. “I must say hello to your brother George.”

  I sat down in a chair and lifted the little fellow onto my knee. He was very shy. He shoved his thumb into his mouth and would not look at me. Rawdon crouched beside him and whispered, “Georgie porgie puddin’ and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. Kiss her, Georgie. She’s pretty.”

  George refused to do any such thing. For a moment he looked like he was going to cry, but I tickled his ribs until a smile appeared, then had Rawdon pull off his shoe and tickle his toes. George began to laugh. “There, you see,” I said. “We can laugh in spite of all. We need not always be thinking of battles and dying.”

  The words made me think of Michael and Annie and Dan, of the shattered face of young Hennessy in the ditch at Ridgeway. I felt myself an infernal liar. Worse, I sensed or thought I sensed that Rawdon knew it. His fierce eyes fastened on my face. For a moment I thought scorn would curl his lip, but he remained impassive and turned away to stretch out beside his soldiers. He sent another line up the slope and tumbled them down again.

  Watching him, seeing his somber young face, I was suddenly swept by the most terrible choking dread. It was as if a presence had entered the nursery and seized me by the throat. I had to struggle for breath. My heart pounded in my breast. I found myself clutching George to me as if he were in danger.

  With a terrific effort I mastered this assault of nerves and spent the rest of the afternoon with the boys. I devoted most of my time to George, letting Rawdon immerse himself in his soldiers. I sensed that he was prepared to resist me as an intruder, although I did not know why. So I decided, not unlike a coquette who has studied how to win a standoffish man, to ignore him for the time being.

  At about 5:00 P.M. a large motherly woman appeared and announced herself as George’s nurse, Mrs. Kent. She was the wife of the head coachman and looked a bit of a slattern to me. Her dress was soiled and damp, and her hair was streeling down the side of her face. But she seemed good-natured, and George ran to her without a qualm until Rawdon called, “George. She’s going to put you to bed. Do you want to go to bed so early?”

  Immediately George’s round little face puckered, and he fled back to me with a howl. Mrs. Kent lost all her apparent good nature and wagged her finger at Rawdon. “You must stop that, young man, or I’ll get your father to give you another hiding.”

  “Try it,” Rawdon said. “I’ll get you in worse trouble. I’ll tell him how much you steal from the smoke house.”

  “How dare you talk to me that way?” Mrs. Kent cried. Her agitation suggested that Rawdon had struck home. “You’ll have your hands full teaching this one manners and obedience,” Mrs. Kent said, turning to me. “Come here now, George.”

  George clung to me, his little face screwed into defiance. I ran my hand through his hair and said, “Now, George, go along with Mrs. Kent, and take this to play with in the tub.” I handed him a block. “When you’re in bed, I’ll come and tell you a story about a magical dwarf named Fer Fi, who lives within the lake near where I was born in Ireland. I’ll tell you of the tricks he plays, the music he sings. We’ll be laughing and singing while Rawdon is here playing with his old soldiers.”

  George stopped crying and said, “You promise to come?”

  “On my heart,” I said, crossing my breast.

  George departed without further protests. Rawdon looked coldly at me. “You won’t teach me obedience, except when I want
to obey,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I came here hoping to be your friend.”

  “I have no friends,” he said.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Because of my father. At school people point me out. They call after me, ‘Son of the Butcher.’ I had a friend—George Talbot. His father was killed at Chancellorsville. He doesn’t speak to me now. He hates me.”

  I found this hard to believe. How did the North win the war if such feeling prevailed against the men who fought in it? I wondered if the boy’s mind was disturbed to the point of madness and illusion. Yet little else in his manner suggested such a thing.

  “Why do you find fault with your father for all this? Others say these things.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “You’re a foreigner. Are you really from Ireland? You don’t talk like Hannah and Kate and the other girls.”

  “I have more education,” I said, “so my way of speaking is closer to the English.”

  “You’re Protestant. They’re Catholic.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Of course. Do you?”

  “No.”

  Here was precocity beyond my imagination. He really meant it.

  “Why do you say such a thing?”

  “If God is good, why did He kill my Uncle Paul and not my father? He made Paul go to war. He killed thousands of people. He even killed—”

  He paused and his face flushed. It was the first time I had seen him show emotion. “Who? What were you about to say?”

  “Nothing.”

  He rearranged his soldiers for another battle. “What one is this?” I asked.

  “Chancellorsville,” he said. “There is Stonewall Jackson’s men.” He pointed to one body of gray-coated soldiers. “They’re coming through the woods. The Union Army doesn’t know they’re so close. They attack! It’s a slaughter!” He swept down ranks of blue-clad soldiers. “The whole Union Army is being routed, until they reach Father’s division. One regiment breaks, the division starts to panic. The color sergeant starts running with the flag. Father picks up a gun. Blam! He shoots him dead. He catches the flag before it falls and leads them back to the battle line. A bullet hits him in the face. He ignores it. They fight like madmen and Jackson’s men are stopped. The Union Army is saved.”

  Rawdon’s eyes were bright like a patient with a fever. He was as violently excited as a soldier in the very battle.

  “How do you know so much? Did your father tell you all this?”

  “No. I have a scrapbook. But you can’t see it. No one can see it. Father would make me burn it.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a foreigner. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “But I want to understand. I’m here to become an American. If you don’t let me share such things we shall never be friends. I mean it sincerely when I say I want to be your friend.”

  He looked away from me, down at his soldiers, for a moment. “No,” he said. “You’ll show it to him.”

  “You’ve hurt my feelings,” I said, “to accuse me of having such a low idea of friendship.”

  He shook his head. I saw it was too soon and did not press him. Jackson came by and told us dinner would be served at seven. Mrs. Kent informed me that George was calling for his promised story. I told Rawdon to dress and filled George’s little head with one of the legends of Lake Fergus. I left him humming himself to sleep with suantraighe, Fer Fi’s magic slumber music.

  I had thought Mrs. Stapleton might send for me before dinner, but she seemed content to meet me at the table. What a formidable woman she must have been in her time. Her face was as imposing as her son’s, in another way. It was wide and strong-boned, with a full sensual mouth. Were it not for a graceful, very feminine nose, it might have been a man’s face. Her large eyes must once have been luminous and striking. Now they were clouded by age and grief.

  “How do you do,” she said in a rather chilly way when her son introduced me. “Jonathan tells me you have been trained in London.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did you enjoy your time there?”

  “To tell you the truth, I saw little of it,” I said. “The lady who ran the school I attended would not let us go far alone. She said it was unsuitable for young ladies to go about London.”

  “Yes, I suppose she was right,” Mrs. Stapleton said. She sighed. “How I long to ride along Pall Mall again. I sometimes think a single day of it would restore my spirits.”

  “There’s no reason in the world for you not to go and try it, Mother,” Jonathan said.

  “You may think so, Jonathan,” she said, “but I can’t allow your sons to grow up with army manners or worse. They need a woman’s influence.”

  “Precisely why I’ve hired Miss Stark,” he replied.

  “You said that when you hired Miss Hardy, but she didn’t stay long.”

  That was the end of family conversation for some time. There was no sound but the click of knives and forks on the gold-rimmed china. The food was all cold, sensible in such hot weather—largely beef, ham, salad, and bread. It was served by one of the maids under Jackson’s supervision. The drink was cold cider. I held my tongue, feeling it was hardly my part to lead the conversation. But as the silence deepened with the twilight, I began to realize that none of the Stapletons was going to speak another word. Rawdon busied himself with several helpings. Mrs. Stapleton ate moderately, while her son Jonathan barely touched his food.

  “Do you wish me to begin instructing Master Rawdon in French?” I finally asked.

  “As soon as possible,” the general said. “I also want you to select some good histories of England and France, and some essays and novels—Lamb, Dickens, and the like—for him to read. His mind is full of nothing but rubbish from newspapers.”

  “I like newspapers,” Rawdon said. “They tell you the truth.”

  “For every inch of truth in a newspaper, there’s a yard of lies,” Jonathan Stapleton snapped. Turning back to me, he added, “I’ve hired a young engineer from the city to tutor him three hours a day in mathematics and natural science. In the four years I was away, his mother and grandmother left him at the mercy of the public school. I fear his mind may be too rotten to rescue, but we must make the attempt.”

  This was a shocking thing to say about an eleven-year-old boy—especially to his face. I thought Jonathan Stapleton’s mother would rebuke him. Instead, she sharply informed Rawdon that he was using his dessert fork for his main course. She ordered Jackson to take it away from him and replace it with a fresh one. “I hope you’ll concentrate on making this young man a gentleman,” she said. “He persists in resisting me. Don’t despair. His father and his uncles were the same way when they were his age.”

  For a moment her face softened. “Those were my happiest years, when the boys were growing up,” she said. “Did I tell you I dreamt of Paul last night, Jonathan?”

  He was staring blankly past us into some shadows in the corner of the room. His mind was far away from us.

  “Jonathan.”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “I dreamt of Paul last night,” she said. “He was about Rawdie’s age. At first I was shocked. He held out his hands to me, and they seemed covered with blood. His mouth, his chin, was the same way. Then I realized he’d been out picking raspberries. He smiled and showed me his basket. It was full of berries. He loved to scare me with that kind of joke.”

  “I wish you’d let me go to the cemetery with Grandmother,” Rawdon said. “I’d like to say a prayer for Uncle Charles and Uncle Paul.”

  “Say it tonight, right here. You can pray anywhere,” his father replied.

  “Why does Grandmother go every day?”

  “She worries about the flowers on their graves.”

  “Do people in heaven know what we do for them?”

  A nerve began twitching in Jonathan Stapleton’s bullet-scarred cheek. “Do yo
u believe Uncle Charles and Uncle Paul are in heaven?” Rawdon asked.

  Jonathan Stapleton flung the contents of his cider glass in Rawdon’s face. “How dare you even ask such a question?” he roared. Whirling to me, he said, “Get him out of here.”

  “Jonathan,” Mrs. Stapleton cried. “You’re impossible. How can you ever hope to teach your son manners? I’ll no longer eat at the same table with you.” She flung down her napkin and stalked from the room.

  I sat paralyzed. I saw triumph glittering in Rawdon’s eyes. He made no move to wipe the cider from his face or shirt.

  Jonathan glared after his mother, then whirled back to me. “Did you hear what I said? Get him out of here.”

  “Come, Rawdon,” I said, rushing around to his side of the table. I hurriedly wiped at the cider and pulled him toward the door. He stood up, shook his arm free of my hand, and said, “I don’t think you believe they’re in heaven, Father.”

  I remembered what Rawdon had said to me earlier about not believing in God. This conversation with his father had been malice from start to finish. I gazed at Jonathan Stapleton’s pale, twitching face and saw myself there, as in a mirror, tormented by death’s irrevocable power and shorn of consolation. Where a moment before I had been full of outrage and detestation, I felt a rush of sympathy.

  Alone in a New Country

  That sympathy, the memory of it, was what enabled me to play a part in the war between Rawdon and his father. I suspect that the previous governess had swung from one extreme to the other. She had begun by condemning Rawdon for his seeming hatred of his father and ended by condemning Jonathan Stapleton for the intemperate words and acts that virtually justified Rawdon’s attitude. My advantage, if it can be called that, was my sympathy, which became a small flickering light that led me into the darkness of the father’s inner life.

  At first I welcomed the challenge as an escape from my own troubled past. I saw myself as beginning a new American life here, within this family with its deep roots in America’s past. I learned all I could about them and about the city in which they lived. I made the butler, Jackson, and young Rawdon my teachers. It was an excellent way to draw Rawdon’s attention from the troubled present. He took me on long walks to show me the houses of their numerous relatives along the boulevard, which was called Hamilton Parkway. He showed me maps of the family railroad, which spanned the state. He took me down to the cotton mills on the river, built before the war under the direction of Jonathan Stapleton’s late father, Senator George Stapleton.