“Yeah, I know she touched,” Ginny said. For once she was in agreement with Samantha. “I seen it plenty times before, but sound like she’s got worse. Right now I got my mind on a bride. You gone wear that no-good dress to your wedding? You get on out of here, like Miss Belinda said.”
Ginny pulled a black iron stew pot from the hearth, stirred the contents, and lifted the spoon to her lips. She added salt, tasted, and rotated the pot back into the fireplace. Later in the day, she delivered a message of thanks from Miss Belinda to Emily, but there must have been a hint of something not convincing in her voice or face. Emily looked at her askance, but Ginny did not elaborate, just asked if Emily needed anything else before she went on down to the quarters.
Any special event called for great anticipation in the quarters. Although Samantha was not greatly liked, Benjamin’s wedding elicited an eruption of celebration. Uncle Corinth struck up his fiddle, Tolbert his banjo, and Lucian a mouth harp, with various odds and ends of percussion. Not only was this a day of joy and much oblique jesting at Benjamin’s expense, but a gathering of kin and friends from surrounding plantations, most of them as glad for a day of rest as for a night of carousing. The women wore their finest shirtwaists and wide-brimmed bonnets, ornamented with varicolored ribbons. Samantha was stoutly glorious in a green and yellow checked dress, a makeover from Miss Emily with extra fabric taken from the skirt to round it out more than a bit. For her straw bonnet, she had broken the rules of style, adding the natural black and white polka dots of guinea feathers instead of more ladylike ribbon trim. Some fine gallantries commenced among the men in their frock coats and Sunday hats, testing whose fried chicken was crispiest, and whose bread and butter pickles wanted for a bit more sugar.
“Ain’t so spare yet in this war, we can’t have a spoonful of sugar in the pickles,” Aunt Lucie chided. “Next thing we’ll be leaving the butter in the milk and just pour the cream on the biscuits.”
“And right on after that, them Yankee soldiers gone come through here and get the cows, won’t nobody have to take the butter out the cream, nor the cream out the milk, nor the milk out the cows,” Uncle Clive said. “Won’t make no nevermind about sugaring them pickles neither. We be following after them Yankees. Say they gone take good care us.”
“Yeah, Clive, you believe all that?” An old slave spoke in the husky voice of age. “I ain’t following nobody nowhere. You believing that talk. I don’t believe nothing white folks tells. Mayhap they believe it when they tell it, but next time they tell it, they done gone to believing something else. I don’t trust nobody I don’t know real good, and the ones I do know, I don’t hardly trust neither.”
The wedding ceremony had all the dignity Judge Matthews brought to any such event. The vows were solemn, with words some of these slaves had never heard before. Deep feelings of worth and seriousness pervaded those gathered. When the service ended, Benjamin and Samantha jumped the broom Lucian laid in their path. A great shout of celebration rose from the crowd and the music fired up. Spontaneous dancing surrounded the couple and drew them into the center of festivity.
From the edge of the crowd, Emily watched, humming low to herself and patting her feet and hands. She did not realize when exactly she began clapping in time to the music. Her father had given her a kiss and gone back up to the big house. She could not pull herself away. The music and the dance surged from one tune to another without faltering. Her feet under her wide hoops moved on their own. It took some moments for Emily to become conscious of Ginny beside her, matching her steps. At Emily’s recognition, both women laughed with joy.
“Well, Miss Emily, you got rhythm, honey. Natural rhythm. Come on now and dance. Show these folks how to do it. You come with me.”
“Oh, no, Ginny, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to intrude. And I don’t know the steps.”
“Steps? Honey, you don’t need no steps. Your body know its own steps. I see you over here dancing. You know all the steps you need to know.” Ginny offered her hand.
“Really, Ginny, you know I couldn’t. I would draw attention and this is their time.”
“All right, then. You and me just dance right here. Right where you dancing anyway, seemly or not.” Ginny took her hand and slipped into an open space just beyond the trees and the undulating crowd.
Laughing out loud, Emily lifted her skirts and let her feet and body have their way.
CHAPTER 16
June 10 of 1861 brought the first land battle of the war at Big Bethel. Given another ten days, West Virginia would secede from Virginia to side with the Union. July arrived and with it what should have been a celebration of unity and freedom. Instead, there was celebration of secession and the new union of the Confederacy. Charles insisted on taking Emily with him into the streets of town. He cheered the secession and waved a makeshift Confederate flag. There were loyalist protesters and some of the celebration went ugly, some bawdy, some verging on evil, and in a case or two, verging on deadly, though responsibility in either direction never solidified. Emily cringed at the fighting and insults, some hurled her direction. At last, Charles, half-drunk, relented and let Benjamin take her home. The day of the Fourth passed, as did the night. Emily hid in her bedroom in tears. Two days later, Charles returned home, looking scrappy.
“Lots of injuries to see after,” he said. “Pretty wild celebration there.”
Emily did not answer.
“Are you upset?” Charles asked. She had decided to cook breakfast herself in the house kitchen. At his entrance she had dropped the spatula, picked it up with impatience, only to drop it again. Emily stood with her back to him, her hands pushing against the counter, elbows locked. He wrapped his hands around her stiffened wrists. His freckled hands affected her like the sight of dirty snow.
“Angry?”
“No,” Emily said, pulling away from him, plunging her hands into the dishpan, scrubbing at the already clean surface of a platter, a ring of soap around her wrists. “Yes. Yes, I am,” she said. She whirled to face him. “Where have you been, Charles? Not just these two days. Where have you been all these other times? How do you spend so much time away, Charles?”
Charles put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her toward him, disregarding the greasy water dripping on them both.
“People get sick, Emily. You know that. You knew that when we married.”
“Apparently there were a lot fewer sick then than there are now, Charles.”
“Or perhaps my practice has grown that much. What is the matter with you?”
“I saw Mrs. Bellingham in town and said how glad I was to see her feeling better. She had no idea what I was talking about. Said fortunately she hadn’t been sick in a year. I said I was glad to know she was doing so well and I didn’t ask why you were at her house half the night last week.”
“Maybe you just confused her name with Mrs. Melton, Emily.” He dropped his hands and stepped away. “Maybe you’re confused about a lot of things. You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“Perhaps,” Emily said, returning to the dishpan, where her hands went limp. “And perhaps I’m not confused at all. Maybe it is you who think you can confuse the truth.”
“Goddammit, Emily. I’m getting tired of this. How would you even know the truth?”
“The truth, Charles? All right, here’s the truth.” Her breath caught in her throat. “The truth is I’m afraid, Charles. I’m terrified.”
Charles came back, stood close beside her. “Afraid of what, Emily. Just what do you have to be afraid of?”
“Of war. Of life. Of death. Of bringing another child into such a world as this. I was afraid with Rosa Claire,” she said. “Of course I was. How could I not be afraid? But with this new one on the way, I don’t know. It feels like madness.”
He held her shoulders steady, her wet hands draped around his arms, soaking the blue stripes of his shirt.
“After Will—” She dropped her head, shook it twice. “Oh God, Charles, he never harmed one livi
ng soul. So young, so kind, so alive. If Will could die like that, then so could I, like my mother. And so could you, for that matter. This war terrifies me. So many people will die so horribly. So many of us, Charles.”
“Yes, people will die, Emily. I see it every day. It’s what I do. But most of us live. And I’m here.”
“Are you here, Charles?” Emily stared him in the face. “Did your being here save Will? Or prevent my father from blaming you? Here is not where you are most of the time. And now this war at our doorstep. And Belinda acting so strange, not just grief, but something I don’t understand. Maybe she blames herself. Maybe she knows my father—Oh, Charles, everything is flying apart. I don’t know how to hold on.”
Charles picked up a towel, wiped her hands and arms with it, ignoring his sleeves, stained with gravy and dishwater. He waited while Emily caught her breath, then led her to the porch.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly. Brushing her brown work skirt aside, he settled in the swing beside her and pushed back. The chains creaked as he let go. “You wear too many petticoats, Mrs. Slate,” he said, but Emily did not smile.
“The baby will be fine, Emily, and so will we,” he said. “We will prevail. Our life will not change. The war will be done soon. It cannot last. The Union doesn’t have the will and commitment of the South. They haven’t the economic motivation to pursue this very far. We will see a return of prosperity and freedom to conduct our commerce as we see fit. Life will go on as is.”
“But, Charles, it must not go on as it is,” Emily said. She half turned in shock. “That is the point. This culture is not fit. Everything is so wrong. The country is coming apart. And you are never here. We have no right—”
“No right?”
“We have no right to enslave—” she said.
“The Bible disagrees with you, my dear.” He pushed the swing back with his feet, let it go again. “Even your father, in the end, for all his exalted ideals and rhetoric, has not freed his slaves. He prefers to keep his Judgeship and his high position.” The chains of the swing creaked. He took her hand. “And, besides, he won’t buck the law, at least not far, and freeing slaves is illegal. He won’t go further than teaching them to read and write. Which is also illegal. Or reading that Helper book. That’s crime enough for him.”
“My father despises slavery. And the breakup of our nation is—”
“Breakup of what nation, Emily? We are citizens of a new nation, or have you yet to realize that? And as for you, Emily, how many slaves do you own?” Charles said.
“I am ashamed to say.” She withdrew her hand.
“But they work your land, and cook your food, and tend your crops, wash your clothes, and feed your chickens. And how much else?” He stared across the fields. His jaw was set. “Well, be that as it may, Emily, we now have a country that will maintain our ideals and our way of life. We will see the preservation of the South, of the land, and good things to come.”
“In a land soaked with blood?”
“For God’s sake, Emily, will you stop? What do you want? Poverty? Poverty for this new baby, for us? Or do you really just want what you have, disguised in high-minded rhetoric, like your father?”
The swing jerked erratically when Emily stood. There was a long silence.
“There is poverty, Charles, and there is poverty.” She brushed his shoulder as she left him there. He did not look up.
* * *
The day passed. The sun set and night came. Ginny tucked Rosa Claire in bed. Emily did not know when, or if, Charles came to bed, when or if he rose. At daybreak, she stretched her hand into the empty place beside her.
At her dressing table, Emily paused with the hairbrush in her hand, laid it on the lace dresser cloth, and stared into her reflection. I am plain, she thought, but I am not unattractive. She picked up the brush again, gave her hair a few more strokes. With her comb, she straightened the center part, then pulled the weight of the hair behind her into a twist, pinned it, and pulled a fine net around the knot. As she stood, she let the embroidered batiste gown fall to the floor and examined her body. The rounding belly that had never fully flattened since her pregnancy, the breasts that had remained more full since nursing, the curve of her back into the width of her hips. She had no comparison for herself, no knowledge of how other women looked, no concept of how she was supposed to look. But in her reflection, critical as she might be, she saw nothing unattractive.
Emily picked up the nightdress and slipped on her clothes for the day just as a soft knock came at the door and Ginny peaked in.
“Wanting this day to get started, are you, Miss Emily?”
“Or wanting it already over, Ginny.” She came and let herself be held in Ginny’s arms, felt the reassuring caress of these familiar fingers between her shoulder blades.
“What’s got hold of you now, honey?” When no answer came, Ginny leaned back, her fingers under Emily’s chin. “You want to say it or not?”
“No, I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to make it real.” Emily half turned, stared out the window, where the pasture was coming into full daylight. “I don’t know if I am amiss or my husband is amiss. Well, there it is, Ginny.”
Ginny dropped her hands, picked up the edge of her apron, and studied it. “Well, Miss Emily, I’m not going to say that he is amiss. I don’t have no proof of that. But I am going to say this. It ain’t you who is amiss. And that’s all I’m going to say.”
Emily brought her head upright and nodded.
“You want your breakfast now?” Ginny nodded and turned for the door.
CHAPTER 17
At the end of a week in which little was said between Charles and Emily, she left with Rosa Claire to spend a few days with her father. She settled into her old room with an ambivalence that vacillated between familiar comfort and a sense of displacement. The rosewood bed with its carved half canopy felt massive to her, the rose damask drapes at the window oppressive.
On the second night of her visit, with Rosa Claire tucked in, Emily sat after dinner by the fire with her father. If she had been some other woman, her hands would have been busy with a needle. But even now her stitches, like those of the motherless young girl she had been, remained clumsy and uneven, despite Ginny’s coaching. Instead, Emily sat with a book from her father’s study, open facedown, across her lap. The title had intrigued her, bold words about slavery as the economic and moral crisis of the South, but the text had proved very dense and somewhat inaccessible. She would take it home and attempt to focus more.
Emily stared at her father, his sloped shoulders outlined by the light from the flames. His silence at supper had been uncharacteristic. A deft conversationalist, her father generally prompted lively talk at the evening meal. Tonight, there had been only the two of them, in an uneasy quiet. Emily guessed that the reality of war had settled over him. Now alone, the two of them by the fire, Judge Matthews began to talk.
“This war will change us all,” he said. He rose from his chair, grasped the iron poker, stooping to nudge at the embers. “For the good, I pray, change who we are. Though for all the high rhetoric on both sides, Emily, the whole affair in the end is likely to be nothing but a living hell of blood and power and gain.”
“What are you implying, Papa?” Emily asked.
“I am not implying, Emily. I am trying to be plain.” Reaching into the woodbox, he threw another log on the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney.
“Then I must ask you to be more so.”
“There are so many things, Emily, that we imagine benefit us: intellect, position, wealth. At this stage in life, I have begun to wonder if we ever truly recognize those things for which we have real need, apart from survival. Things that can’t be quantified and possessed.” Small flames flickered as the log began to catch.
“I believe you, Papa.”
More sparks rose as he probed at the ashes. After a moment he straightened and continued, “We live our lives on second-best replacements, substitu
tes. We miss the sunlight looking for gold. I only see this in hindsight, mind you. I hadn’t such thoughts when I was as young as you.”
Emily nodded, pulled at her ear, unsure how to respond.
“I’m rambling.” Judge Matthews took his pipe from the mantel and tapped it against the bottom of his boot. “But you know, Emily, I had such grand ambitions. When I was young, I wanted to have honor, prestige, and recognition.”
“You have.”
“By some standards,” Judge Matthews said.
“Certainly by mine.” Emily smiled at him. “What was it you wanted that you failed at, Papa?”
He sighed, cradled the bowl of the empty pipe in his palm. His backlit white hair and beard took on a golden tinge.
“I wanted to be good,” he said. “I was the seventh child of nine, six of us who lived.”
“Yes, I know. You have told us those stories.” She brushed at some nonexistent lint on her skirt.
“My father farmed his land with a vengeance.” He continued as if he had not heard. “In Virginia. Not so long ago, but it seems another age. Mississippi was not even a state. We had land and slaves, a fair number of them. My father was not good to them, though he was not cruel. Indifferent is what he was. He used them like he used the mule and the plow. You take good care of plows and mules. And my father took care of his Negroes, fed them, brought the doctor in when one was sick, kept the mothers home to nurse their babies for several months. But who those people were? That was not in his realm of thinking, Emily. Any more than who the mule might be.”
“But you are better than that, Papa. You are a good man.”
“What good is being better? Because I know and care for our people? Even that phrase, the use of the possessive, is offensive. These people are not ours to possess. Or because I entered into a conspiracy with your tutor to teach them to read and write in spite of it being illegal? Because of my thwarted attempt at manumission, also illegal? The very concept that setting a man free should be illegal, should be a crime, is an abomination. More than that, that any man could be denied his innate freedom. And yet I succumbed.” The judge stamped at some embers fallen on the hearth.
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