Andersonville (10 page)

 VIII 

O
ld Ruth had declared long ago that it was impossible to achieve a permanent black on cotton with less labor, but still it was incredible labor. Lucy estimated that the goods might weigh five pounds; hence she’d assembled three pounds of sumac, wood and bark together. This sumac had been boiled half an hour, then the goods had steeped overnight. Extra removed the cotton after breakfast and hung it on a rope to drip for an hour. Lucy added eight ounces of copperas to the sumac liquor, and ordered Extra to dip the goods for another hour.

We put it back in the lime water, Miss Lucy?

Yes, Extra, for fifteen minutes again. Did you make a new dye of logwood as I bade you?

On this other fire. It been a-boiling already.

How long?

I don’t know, Miss Lucy. It just been a-boiling.

It should boil for an hour at least. Then the goods must be dipped for another three hours before I add potash.

They worked in the wash house, which was a shed with a roof but only two sides or parts of sides, and a great wide chimney arching above to accept the smoke. When gusts of spring breeze assailed the area, smoke was rejected by the chimney and came down to smart the eyes of girl and servant. Fires sizzled and spat beneath cranes in a row. Simultaneously Lucy was dyeing her silk, and that necessitated still another vat containing blue vitriol compound; the same logwood mixtures could be used for both, but would need to be diluted for the silk.

Extra was plump and slow-moving and had hips like a stall-fed animal. Her slab of wide-nostriled nose turned squarely up in the middle of her broad purplish face, and dripped with sweat; Lucy saw the sweat on Extra’s nose, and it made her feel hotter than ever.

Extra, like Ninny, was a daughter of Old Leander—one of the eight daughters whom he had fathered and whom the dead Ruth had mothered—but the other six had all been sold along with their husbands and children, if any. Extra was married to Jonas, and they had two of the plantation’s current four children: little bright Buncombe and four-year-old Gracious. Also Orphan Dick, a four-year-old boy, was tended by Extra. His parents had perished of galloping consumption during the first year of the war; but Orphan Dick was giggling and spirited and strangely the mark of consumption did not seem to be upon him; it might reveal itself later, Ira Claffey feared.

Lucy would be twenty-one during this year of 1864, Extra would be twenty-three. As children they had played contentedly together; there were few white girls of Lucy’s generation among the neighbors. Pet was closer to Lucy’s age, but they were not so harmonious in disposition. Extra and Lucy had little shops in shade under the magnolia rustle—shops well stocked with pine cones, acorns, bits of broken glass which they said were jewels, and nosegays of seasonable flowers. Lucy was the proprietor, and Extra came to buy, paying in currency of pebbles. Sometimes they could persuade adults or older children to patronize their store; then both became shopkeepers. When they tired of such play, and in hotter days, they had a playhouse amid lower limbs of an oak. The playhouse had been built for Sutherland originally in 1844, but by this time he considered himself too grown-up to enjoy it. Lucy inherited the playhouse, and sometimes she and Extra would permit Moses, two years younger, to attend them there; mostly they did not welcome him because he was a boy, he was too obstreperous, he liked to pound and dance on the warped old planks. When they were alone Lucy might set Extra to braiding flowery adornments. She would say, Now, Extra, I shall read to you from my new book of verses which Cousin Sally Sue sent for my Christmas book.

Yas, Miss Lucy.

Mind, you’re to pay close heed. Should you like to commit some verses to memory?

Do I got to, Miss Lucy?

No. But I daren’t teach you to read—it’s against the law, you see—but I’d be very glad to help you commit a verse or two.

I don’t want to, I guess, Miss Lucy, please.

Very well. I shall read to you. Mind.

...The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

Is that not beautiful, Extra?

Yas’m.

I’ll read it again:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky—

We out of daisies, Miss Lucy. Better I go fetch more?

Go pick enough to finish the collar, and I shall wear it to tea.

She would sit dreaming over her book, the tree would speak to her, her own voice would drift low to a murmur and then to silence . . . she dreamed across the book and saw Extra—a dumpy, dutiful, black-legged figure in faded yellow calico—tramping through weeds for more daisies to complete her fabrication.

Now, in adult state, slave and young mistress worked at preparing the black gowns for the young mistress. Extra toiled as seriously as she had when weaving flowers. Even her plump arms showed a dye not put there by the God who had designated her as a black. Lucy wore a pair of ancient kid gloves to protect herself, but be she ever so careful it was certain that her hands would absorb some of the color; there would be blotches; she would have to wear mitts or gloves if company came, until the color wore off.

Company came now. It was between ten and eleven in the morning, hot for middle February. The wash house reeked; this task should have been done in an earlier week tinged with frost. More chilly weather would arrive, but it was very bad luck that today the sun was wilfully unblemished by clouds. Cauldrons steamed. Lucy saw the beads drip from Extra’s wide nose, and felt more perspiration growing amid roots of her own hair. She had bound her hair in a brown net, and had her skirts caught up, pinned in two places so that she would not trip as she moved in the combined chores of overseer and fellow-dyer.

Company appeared behind her: there was the clearing of a man’s throat, an ahem and growl with which some stranger sought to announce his presence. There was no place for Lucy to flee. She felt supreme high-pitched feminine wrath that a man should creep close without warning. She faced him, her face looked boiled and baked, and she knew it; it was dreadful.

I’m sorry, Ma’am, to intrude upon you.

He wore a single spur, he must have been riding, probably he had tied his horse out in front. Naomi was in the kitchen, Ninny was doubtless above stairs, making beds belatedly . . . Ninny was slightly deaf, or pretended to be so habitually when the bell rang. (The Claffeys used to argue as to whether Ninny’s deafness was actual or feigned; certainly it was periodic.) Pet, had Lucy but known it, was gone to the root cellar when the stranger rang, and Ira Claffey was gone to the fields. No one could have heard the bell except Veronica, and she was dedicated to a new and dreadful task: she searched wardrobes, presses, cupboards, shelves throughout the house, she hunted for any and all personal relics of the three fallen sons, and was putting them away—fabrics, china, wood and steel—in low chests in the room of Moses, the baby. Then, when they were filled and there was nothing more to put into them, the chests would be locked and shoved under Moses’s bed. That was Veronica’s plan; her husband and her daughter guessed at it, but said nothing. Ira looked for the boys’ silver cups, and found them under infant flannels in one of the carved chests. He removed the cups and put them behind Scott on his own library shelf. Maybe in time Veronica might be cured of this burial passion, and again the cups could take their proud pathetic place in view.

I did try to ring, Ma’am, but there seemed to be nobody about.

I’m sorry no one heard the bell, sir. You see—we’re dyeing—

He would think that she meant
dying
!
He bowed. He spoke with the genial scratchy voice of an adolescent, though he appeared to be older than Suthy had been—perhaps he was near to thirty. Permit me to introduce myself, Ma’am. My name is Harrell Elkins. Have I the honor of addressing Miss Lucy Claffey?

She stood with hot face and soaked gloves, she edged behind a bench so that her hiked-up skirts mightn’t be observed too readily. Mr. Elkins, sir, I’m Lucy. But, you see, we’re engaged in dyeing and— If you would be so kind as to rest in the house, I’ll have my servant escort you— I’ll send to the field for Father—

He was in shabby gray uniform, there were dark blemishes where insignia had been removed. His old hat had faded nearly to green on the crown, and he held the brim in front of his middle with big pale hands on which a pink of very fresh sunburn was showing. He was a rangy man, with rounded shoulders detracting from his natural height; and his head was small for a man of six feet or thereabouts, and his ears stuck out, roundly, quizzically. He wore silver-rimmed spectacles; these glassy wafers attempted to conceal but could not conceal the dance of dark-blue-black eyes behind them. In no degree was Mr. Elkins handsome. In every degree he was a man peculiar to himself.

Miss Lucy, permit me. Do you recall that your brother Sutherland ever mentioned a Captain Elkins?

The steam from logwood and sumac and copperas blinded Lucy. Elkins thought that she was fainting. He stepped forward with strange animal grace and put his hand beneath the girl’s elbow to steady her. He brought out a clean bandana and unfolded it. I’m sorry.

Thank you. It’s only— Oh, that was mighty sudden. She tried to laugh, she made a sound, it wasn’t laughter, it was a small cry. Of course. Captain Elkins! He called you Harry, didn’t he?

Yes, Miss Lucy, people do.

You were not with him at—at Gettysburg?

Elkins shook his head. You see, I was with them both in the early days of the Sixteenth. I knew your youngest brother but slightly, since he was a private soldier and in another company; but I was near him when he died at Crampton’s Gap. It was the same engagement in which Colonel Lamar lost his life.

She nodded limply. I—I was affianced to a distant cousin of Lieutenant-Colonel Jefferson Lamar.

Ah, yes. That would have been Rob?

Yes, Captain.

His eyes leaped with a spurt of life behind the lenses. Just Surgeon Elkins now, Miss Lucy. I hadn’t yet finished my medical studies when the war came, and I was determined on deeds of derring do. So I served as a soldier.

And you performed the deeds.

He chuckled. Mighty few, I fear.

Not according to the accounts we received from my brother, sir.

Miss Lucy, you’re more than kind and I fear your brother was more than generous to his friends. But I stopped a few pieces of scrap-iron last spring, and thus was made unfit for further service in the field. That was some two months before Sutherland—died. Naught for me to do but resume my medical studies again; thus I’ve become a surgeon—very much of a neophyte.

Then you’ll not be returning to the field?

I’d hoped for that, but our Government had other plans. For the moment I’ve been detailed to this region on what might appear to be a peculiar mission. I did welcome the assignment to this duty, for I’ve long wanted to call upon the Claffeys, if you’ll pardon my saying so. . . .

At sunset, when Ira Claffey himself escorted his guest above stairs, he led the way down a short main hall, turned sharp right into the narrower passage which ran from east to west, and stopped at the second door on the right. With his hand upon the round white doorknob, Ira said, This was Sutherland’s, and ushered Harrell Elkins inside. Elkins’s saddle bags, with the waterproof roll containing his personal belongings, had already been fetched up by Ninny and stood upon a chair. There was nothing of Sutherland’s in the room. Veronica had banished every young man’s trinket and treasure to entombment.

His things are no longer here. Ira spoke in a manner of apology. His mother’s put them all away. She has— Possibly you observed it, Harry. She has grown remote.

Elkins went to the front window and looked out at rows of trees fronting the lane. Then he moved to the smaller west window and glanced at plum-colored clouds and strips of glint between them. He turned. Thank you, Mr. Claffey, for calling me Harry. I was fond of your son. I fear I’m mighty shy, as a social individual, and have not made as many friends as some. Suth used to call me Cousin Harry.