Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia (48 page)

“Yes. I have fifteen men in there.” She turned
toward the house and then gazed sadly off into the distance. “Sixteen if you
count the one who just passed and we’ve not had time to bury.”

Another officer rode up beside the one to whom
she spoke. “Colonel, we can’t take her word for it. We need to see one of these
here patients.”

Andrea tried to ignore the sound of her heart
pounding. “Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it.” She motioned to
the one who had spoken. “Follow me. I’m afraid they’re too sick to come out.
Smallpox is a deadly disease you know.”

The two men looked at each other and began
shaking their heads. “I ain’t goin’ in there.”

“We’re wasting time,” the colonel growled. “Set
fire to the barn.”

Andrea turned toward the officer. “Sir, I know
you have your orders, but as you can see, the only horses here are those a
Union regiment dropped off a few days back. They took all our breeding stock
and left only these poor miserable creatures who have served your troops so
nobly.”

The colonel nodded his head toward his lieutenant,
who dismounted at the barn and went in. Indeed all he found were poor, jaded
and wounded animals that Hunter’s men had captured—and all possessed the U.S.
brand.

“She’s right,” he said when he reappeared.
“Might be better to leave the barn and come back in a few weeks for remounts.”

“We’ve got to burn something!”

Andrea looked sadly toward the large chicken
house. For some reason, the hens had refused to lay in it, or even go near it,
for the past few weeks. But giving the soldiers a woeful look, she pretended it
would be a great loss. “Oh, not the chicken house,” she said, wringing her
hands.

“I’m sorry, miss.” The colonel motioned for a
torch. “This is war.”

As the wreathing serpents of flame curled around
the rather large outbuilding, Andrea realized why the chickens had neglected to
lay there. A swarm of angry yellow jackets flew out, and the Yankees went
riding and cursing out of the barnyard at a much faster gait than they had
arrived. The officer in charge took one last lingering look at the house and
the beleaguered woman sobbing with her face in her hands, then turned his horse
and left with the rest.

“I could have been burned alive,” Victoria
shouted the moment Andrea entered the library. “You wait until Alex hears about
this!”

“Miss Hamilton, there is no reason to worry the
Colonel about this.”

“Don’t you think he’s going to notice the
chicken house?” Victoria smoothed her dress while watching the servants attempt
to douse the flames.

“Of course he’ll notice, but that’s all he has
to know.” Andrea began leading Justus out of the library. “They set fire to the
chicken house and the yellow jackets chased them away.”

After
thinking it over, Victoria seemed to come to the conclusion that telling Alex
she had been made to hold a horse like a common slave would not be to her
advantage. “I suppose you’re right. Why worry Alex with the details?”

* * *

Hunter and his men rode into the stable yard of
their headquarters stunned and dumbfounded. The building where they had
gathered and eaten and danced the night away on so many occasions was now a
flowing bed of coals. The stone chimney alone stood as a monument to the
barbarous destruction the Yankees had wrought. The riders drew together in the
glare on the hillside and stared at the spray of sparks and smoke that
continued to rise. Every now and then, when the wind stirred, flames would
flare, illuminating the sad faces that surrounded it.

Laura and her mother stood in the yard, sobbing.
“Oh, Colonel,” Laura said, running to Hunter. “Whatever shall we do?”

Hunter clenched his jaw, knowing the same fate
had most likely befallen his own estate. “Take the ladies to Hawk Shadow if
it’s still standing,” he said over his shoulder to his men. “It appears they’ve
turned north. I’m going to Hawthorne.”

Major Carter rode up beside him. “You want some
company, Colonel?”

Hunter pulled his horse to a stop. “No,” he
answered after thinking for a moment.  He pretended calmness, but his heart
beat frantically as he searched the horizon for signs that his beloved
Hawthorne still stood. If the hot breath of war had come upon his home and
destroyed its sacredness, he needed to see it alone.

He urged his mare forward and headed toward his
birthplace with a heavy heart. As he crested the final hill, he saw a small
column of smoke rising above the trees. But when he rode into the clearing
above the house, he had to blink to make sure his eyes did not betray him.
First he saw the towering chimneys—still intact—then the house, untouched.
Surprise, relief and pure joy washed over him in a mixture of overwhelming
emotion.

“Alex!” Victoria ran to him as he rode up the
lane, her skirts flapping haphazardly.

“The Yankees were here!”

“I can see that.” Hunter watched Andrea’s lithe
form hurry from the barn toward the house without looking in his direction.
Even with her cane she walked gracefully, with long fluid strides that bespoke
of someone who was going somewhere and wanted to get there as quickly as
possible. He watched every motion of her slender figure and was curiously
enthralled.

“They spared the house?” He brought his
attention back to Victoria.

“They set fire to the henhouse and were chased
away by bees.”

Hunter stared at the smoking charred remains of
the small building. Nothing but a blackened ruin and some ashes remained,
though he could see that an effort had been made to save it from the flames.
“Bees?”

“Yes, bees!” Victoria led him toward the porch.
“It was perfectly dreadful, but as you can see, they spared the house.”

* * *

With  baby Angelina in her arms, Andrea walked
into the kitchen and discovered Mattie and Izzie laughing so hard tears spilled
from their eyes. “What is so amusing?”

“We was just talking about that hoss standin’ in
the library with Victoria.” Mattie wiped her eyes, still laughing.

“That were a hoot of a thing!” Izzie, who rarely
showed emotion, slapped her leg in glee.

“I do not think she admired her duty.” Andrea
laughed along with them.

“Naw, she were scairt to def,” Izzie said. “I
ain’t never heard tell of the likes! A hoss and Victoria in Ole Him’s big room!”

The sight of
the slaves’ amusement caused Andrea to giggle harder, but the servants suddenly
grew quiet, their faces serious. Still laughing, Andrea glanced over her
shoulder to find Colonel Hunter leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe with
his arms crossed. Andrea’s expression, too, instantly turned solemn.

“A horse? In my library? With Victoria?” Hunter
questioned with curiosity. “I don’t believe I’ve heard this story.”

His words were met with astonished silence as
the three women stood grim-faced in the middle of the room for a few long
moments.

“It was a dream, of course.” Andrea put the baby
up on her shoulder, and tried to pretend the topic was trivial. “I told
everyone about this crazy dream I had that Victoria had a horse in your
library.”

“Oh, I see.” Hunter nodded his head.

“Silly, isn’t it?” Andrea stepped around him and
out the door. “But you know how dreams are.”

Hunter pushed himself off the doorway. “I’m
quite afraid I do not,” he said under his breath.

Chapter
47

“Look to the future, there is no road back to yesterday.”

– Oswald Chambers

Hunter heard Andrea stomping down the stairway,
her anger evident in her noisy tread. Moments later, the door to the library
flung open like it had been hit with a battering ram. The impatient fury on her
face at his summons turned to confusion and then nervousness when she saw
Victoria, Mattie, Izzie and Gabriella standing in front of his desk.

“Ah, Miss Evans,” he said. “Come in. How nice of
you to join us.”

With slow, measured steps now, she joined the
line of women in front of him.

Hunter sat on
the edge of his desk and flung one boot casually over the other. “The reason I
called you ladies together,” he said, scratching his chin, “is, well, it’s a
funny thing. I dropped a paper under my desk.” He turned around and pulled
something from behind him. “And upon trying to retrieve it, I found this.”

The women gasped in unison at the handful of hay
he held in his hand.

“And I got to thinking about Miss Evans’ dream.”
He stood now and walked in front of them like a drill sergeant. “And I thought
to myself, how odd that hay would materialize from a mere dream.”

Hunter’s gaze drifted down the line of faces.
All were looking at the floor, except Andrea. She nibbled on her bottom lip and
had fixed her eyes upon the chandelier overhead.

“Oh, it was terrible!” Victoria ran to Hunter. “
She
made us do it!”

Everyone looked at Andrea and nodded in
agreement. Hunter watched her jaw tighten, saw the color rising in her cheeks
as she tried to maintain her self-control, and then, amazingly to him, she
dropped her head and stared at her feet.

In former times, Hunter would have expected her
to explode with harsh language, and, more likely than that, with physical
violence. Instead, Andrea appeared determined to restrain herself. Hunter
pondered the change in her, his lip curling up with surprised amusement.

Everyone began talking at once, trying to
explain how the event had unfolded. Hunter pictured Andrea barking out orders,
going about the business of defending his home with great calmness and
authority. He could not help but smile. Her ingenuity was as limitless as her
patriotism.

Victoria began whimpering like a child, as
Hunter presumed she had done that day. “I could have been burned alive! It was
the most cruel and malicious thing I have evah endured!”

“Victoria, you were probably in the safest place
you could be. Miss Evans would never allow her horse to come to any harm.”

“Oh, no, Alex! She threatened me!” Victoria
grabbed his arm and sobbed into his chest. “She told me if I made a sound,
she’d see that I perished with this house! She said my Virginia soul wouldn’t
save me from burning into a pile of black ashes! Oh, it was so frightening!”

Hunter looked at Andrea, who stared at the
sniveling Victoria as if she now wished she had followed through with her
threat. He could not help but agree. “Truly, Miss Hamilton, if your conduct was
as intolerable then as I’m witnessing at present, I only wonder that you
escaped cremation. And I believe you should be grateful to Miss Evans for the
clemency granted you.”

Victoria’s head jerked up as though she had
received a slap. “You will take her side?”

“I take no sides. I state the facts.” Hunter
looked down at the hay he still held in his hand. “And now that the mystery has
been solved, you are all dismissed.”

Victoria turned with a toss of her head and
everyone else made moves to follow.

“Ah, except you, Miss Evans. I’d like to have a
word.”

Victoria looked at Andrea with a smirk on her
face, apparently thinking Hunter’s remarks were only an effort to obscure the
punishment that was about to be unleashed on the girl for her cruelty.

When the door closed, Hunter stared at Andrea as
she shifted her weight under his gaze. “You wished to ask me something, sir?”

“I guess I’m wondering … that is, I’m a bit
surprised that you would choose to defend my home, rather than leave with …
your comrades.”

Andrea cocked her head, appearing genuinely
surprised by the question. “I defended Hawthorne, its future and its legacy. It
never occurred to me that those men with torches in their hands were my
comrades.”

“But they were Union troops, were they not?”

Andrea chewed on the side of her cheek. “I
suppose they were wearing blue.” She seemed to contemplate the question again,
and then spoke with quiet dignity. “I believe my conviction for right and wrong
takes precedence over those for North and South.”

She crossed her arms, apparently satisfied at
having come up with a better answer. “I believe we’re both in agreement that
the torch is not a legitimate implement of war. And I don’t believe setting
fire to Hawthorne is a fate on which the Union cause depends.”

Hunter shook his head. She was indeed a law unto
herself. Made up the rules as she went and lived by them.

“On the contrary,” she continued, trying to
defend herself. “To allow Hawthorne to burn would only incite more wrath among
the citizens of Virginia, thereby creating more suffering and privation for the
Federal troops.”

“I see. So, by defending this estate, you were
actually doing the Union a favor?”

“Yes, of course. You must admit, you would be
unrelenting in your revenge had Hawthorne been destroyed.”

Hunter shook his head and stared intently at the
woman before him. Hiding in this slender, feminine form was someone with the
wit and the will, the charm and the courage to take on anything in her path—one
man or an entire army—it mattered not to her. She knew when to stand up and
fight, and she knew when to use cunning and persistence to accomplish her goal.

“But certainly it occurred to you that these
were allies.”

“My sole concern was to prevent the firing of
Hawthorne. I …  really had no other thought.”

“So you decided it better to have your hopes
turned to ashes than this home?” Hunter was amazed that she would risk the one
thing she valued most—her freedom.

Andrea looked up at him sharply, the color
mounting in her cheeks. “One can hardly be compared to the other. My high
regard for Hawthorne suggested an alliance.”

“And a sacrifice?”

Andrea said nothing more, and he assumed she did
not intend to. She considered herself his enemy, yet had not hesitated to
defend the home he loved. Her will alone had once again proved stronger than
any shield of armor.