Heaven in a Wildflower (32 page)

“I don’t remember anything except the blood,” she said. “I wish I could…” She gritted her teeth, trying to remember, the effort making her head throb worse. “I can’t…I’m sorry.”

“Did your father say anything to you, Anjele? I hate to badger you like this, because I can tell you’re still in pain, but you’ve got to try to remember. You were found slumped across your father’s body, so evidently he died in your arms. Maybe he said something, the killer’s name, anything. Try to remember.”

“I can’t,” she whispered hoarsely. “All I remember is going downstairs and seeing him on the floor, and the blood, and then nothing.”

Vinson’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. “All right. Maybe you’ll remember something later. You go back to sleep now. You need your rest.”

“No, I don’t want to sleep anymore. I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days.” She struggled to sit up, but the effort made her dizzy. Slumping helplessly against the pillows, she pleaded, “Light a lantern, please. I don’t want to lie here in the dark.”

Vinson and Major Hembree exchanged alarmed glances.

The hour was near noon. The drapes were open. Sunshine was streaming into the room.

Vinson leaned close, staring into her eyes. She did not blink.

He passed his hand rapidly back and forth. She did not react, continued to stare straight ahead.

He looked at Major Hembree again, this time shaking his head.

Anjele was blind.

Chapter Twenty-One

Consulting with other physicians in New Orleans, as well as those arriving with General Butler’s troops, Dr. Duval found they were all in agreement that there was no way of knowing whether Anjele’s blindness was only a temporary condition. The same was true concerning her inability to remember the last few terrifying seconds before she was injured.

With bandaged head, supported by Raymond on one side, Vinson on the other, Anjele managed to attend her father’s funeral. They held her up on her feet, there on the windswept hillock, as his coffin was placed inside the mausoleum with her mother’s. Trapped in a black void, she realized that never in her life had she felt so alone.

In the days following, she lost all track of time. A few people called, friends of her father to pay their condolences. They offered sympathy over what they delicately referred to as her
condition
,
avoiding direct reference to her blindness. She held her tongue, aching to scream that she didn’t want their pity.

Finally everyone drifted away, and she was grateful to be alone with her thoughts. Lying there, swallowed by the stygian abyss, Anjele resolved to adapt to her condition, for if her vision did not return, she would not allow herself to become an invalid.

One evening, when Mammy brought her supper tray, Anjele insisted on feeding herself. It was difficult, groping with the fork, and she could hear Mammy’s sighs and knew she was making a mess. “I have to try,” she repeated over and over. “I can do it if I try.”

Hearing the door open, Anjele lifted her head instinctively, wondering who it was, then felt a wave of disappointment to recognize Claudia’s voice.

“Oh, that’s disgusting. Mammy, what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you feeding her? Food all over the bed, all over her. I ought to have you whipped—”

“Don’t you touch her!” Anjele cried, sliding her tray to the side and hearing Claudia curse again as her glass of milk turned over, soaking into the bed. She felt harsh hands pushing against her.

“Don’t you dare get up, do you hear me? I can see it’s time we got a few things understood around here, such as how you’re going to do as you’re told and stay out of my way. I’ve got a plantation to run, and I don’t have time to coddle you.”

Anjele did not need eyesight to know how Claudia looked as she towered over her ranting and raving. She’d seen the expression too many times to count—eyes bulging, teeth bared, hands twisted into threatening claws slicing through the air. She waited for Claudia to catch her breath, then firmly said, “I don’t intend to get in your way. Neither do I intend to be treated like an invalid, locked in this room and spoon-fed like an infant. I’m going to learn to take care of myself, and you can’t stop me.”

“I can do anything I want, Anjele. And
you
can’t stop
me
.
First of all, you’re blind and helpless. And if that’s not enough, I’ll remind you there’s a war going on. Planters are running away in droves, but I’m staying, because I have the promise of troops to keep BelleClair operating, and I intend to do just that.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Anjele quietly asked. “Like Poppa’s will? When Mr. DuBose was here to pay his respects, he said when I felt up to it, he’d go over it with me.

“He told me what was in it,” she added.

Claudia sneered, “You don’t really think that matters now, do you? Fool! I haven’t ingratiated myself with the Yankees for nothing. All I have to do is ask General Butler to officially confiscate BelleClair, and for all intents and purposes, it’s mine. I’ve already signed the loyalty oath, and believe me, I can have anything I want now.”

Anjele sank deeper into her world of darkness and despair, for she knew Claudia was right. What difference did her father’s will make now? He might as well have deeded BelleClair over to the Union.

Claudia was silent for a long time, wanting to give Anjele sufficient time to ponder her words. Remembering Mammy was still in the room, she dismissed her with a wave.

Anjele heard the door open and close, and, thinking it was Claudia who had gone, whispered brokenly, “What am I going to do, Mammy?”

She jumped at the sound of Claudia’s laughter once more.

“You aren’t going to do anything but stay out of my way as much as possible. And as soon as Dr. Duval says you’re over your injury, you’re getting out of here. I don’t want you around whining and feeling sorry for yourself. I’m much too busy, and besides, I plan to make BelleClair a delightful retreat for the soldiers. I’m going to have balls and parties and barbecues and picnics, and I don’t want you ruining everyone’s fun by groping about and staggering into things.”

Each cruel, hateful word stung like an angered wasp, but with each venomous injection, Anjele’s spine stiffened. “This is still my home,” she reminded her sister, “and you can’t run me out.”

Claudia laughed. “We’ll see about that.”

After she left, Anjele lay there for a long time, carefully planning how she was going to learn to exist in a world of darkness. First she would memorize her room, which would be easy, for she knew it so well already. Next she would go through the entire house, a room, a hallway at a time. Once she could find her way from top to bottom without difficulty, the grounds would be next. True, she’d have to rely on others, like Mammy Kesia, to help her with certain tasks, but she’d succeed, by God. She would not allow Claudia to run her out of her own home.

This time, Anjele made up her mind to fight back.

In the following weeks, she amazed all the household servants by her dogged determination. Able to find her way about the house with ease, she mastered riding skills next. Admitting to needing a guide, for a horse was a moving object and sometimes unpredictable, she enlisted little William, Kesia’s son, to go about with her.

Soon the sight became commonplace—the little black boy riding alongside the white lady. Anyone not knowing them would never have guessed she was blind, for Anjele rode with head high, shoulders straight, serene with confidence.

It was only inside, where no one could see, that she allowed herself sometimes to be frightened.

At first, Claudia had watched, waiting for Anjele to fail, and when she didn’t, decided it made no difference. Anjele couldn’t stop her from taking control of BelleClair.

Raymond, feeling more useless with each passing day, drank heavily. Most of the time, he was in a stupor, not caring what happened. Claudia had threatened to kick him out if she caught him so much as lifting a little finger to help Anjele, much less spend time with her. And he was terrified at the thought of being banished, for there was nowhere to go. His parents had both signed loyalty oaths to the Union, which he adamantly refused to do, and they were reluctant to have him visit, for fear he’d cause trouble drunk as he always was. With his game leg, he was unable to fight, unfit for any kind of work. At BelleClair, he was taken care of. And when Elton’s supply of whiskey and wine had been depleted, and Claudia had made no effort to persuade her Yankee friends to furnish him with more, he surprised even himself by devising a secret distillery to make a crude kind of rum from molasses. He then made one of the sugarhouses a secret retreat and spent most of his waking hours there.

Meanwhile, with the help of Major Hembree and approval of General Butler, Claudia was able to keep the cane and cotton fields efficiently moving right along, heading for a most successful yield at season’s end. She was able to find several competent overseers willing to work for reasonable wages once assured that troops would be around to deal with any slave uprisings. Once everything was under control in that area, she turned her attention to making BelleClair a Union retreat. Officers were invited to stay in luxury indoors, while soldiers camped out on the lawn beneath the great, spreading oaks. No longer did she have to worry about the plantation being ransacked or raided. Woe to any forager who dared disturb the peace.

Anjele hated the Yankees, and when they were about, she refused to leave her room. Mammy would describe the lavish dinner parties, and she knew her father was probably turning over in his grave.

Sleep did not come easily, for she was haunted by memories of that fateful night. She knew there was something important just out of her grasp that desperately had to be recalled. Yet she could force her memory to go no further than kneeling beside her father, sickened and terrified by the blood, the knife sticking out of his chest. It had finally come back to her that, yes, he had said something to her, but it was like feathers in the wind, floating higher, higher, always out of reach, only to swoop and dance and tease as she desperately tried to discover what it was that tortured so.

Eventually she had also been able to dwell on the terrifying glimpse of the poker, slicing through the air. She had seen a man—but who? Always, as his face started to emerge from the wispy clouds of oblivion, the image slipped away, lost in the shadows of her tormented mind.

Anjele found the lack of war news frustrating, for she clung to the hope that Rebel forces would retake New Orleans, but she didn’t know what was going on anywhere. Raymond was forbidden to come to her room, and she did not encounter him anywhere in the house. Claudia wouldn’t allow her to take her meals downstairs, and she didn’t want to, anyway, what with Mammy telling her how the Yankees came and went at leisure. The only information she got was from Dr. Duval, which wasn’t often. As time passed, it became obvious there was no need for him to examine her several times a week. The wound to her head healed. He told her over and over how lucky she was. A bit more force, and she would have died. He could give her no words of encouragement that her vision would return. All she could cling to, he regretted having to say, was hope. He only came about every ten days or so.

He had told her about all the fighting going on in Virginia, as Federal forces tried to capture the Confederate capitol at Richmond. And though the final assault went badly for the South, General Robert E. Lee’s forces had been able to hold the Union Army of the Potomac at bay. Anjele was saddened to hear of so many casualties after what was being called the Seven Days’ Campaign—over twenty thousand Confederates reported dead.

She was further stricken to learn Jamie Rabine was among them and knew Miss Melora would be devastated with grief. However, she was surprised by Dr. Duval’s reaction when she remarked she’d like to go into town to pay her respects to her former music teacher.

“No, it’s not safe for a young lady. Especially in your…condition,” he gingerly added.

Anjele did not argue but quietly made her own plans. Two days later, when Mammy Kesia dutifully reported Claudia had left to go into town to spend the day with Elisabeth Hembree, Anjele ordered her carriage made ready. “You’ll go with me,” she told Mammy, “and be my eyes. We’ll call on Miss Melora and then we’ll go for a walk, and you can tell me what you see. I want to know what it’s really like in New Orleans now.”

Mammy was leery, confiding she’d heard terrible tales.

“Nonsense.” Anjele breezily tossed aside her protests. “The Yankees are in control, aren’t they? Surely, they won’t allow rioting and such. What could happen? We’ll be fine.”

Mammy described the streets of New Orleans as very crowded, mostly with soldiers, and Anjele could hear the noise. “I do hope Miss Melora’s house wasn’t stolen like so many others,” she remarked.

The carriage slowed, stopped, and Mammy told her, “We’ll soon know, ‘cause here we is. But maybe we better wait awhile,” she added, “some soldiers are comin’ down the sidewalk, and they’re starin’ right at you.”

“So? We aren’t doing anything wrong. Help me down, William,” she called to the boy, unaware he was already standing in front of her till she felt his hand touching hers.

Warily, Mammy followed, opening a parasol to shade Anjele from the sun.

The soldiers reached them. William held back, but Anjele thought he merely underestimated her bravado in darkness. Stepping forward, she bumped right into one of the men.