Sweetsmoke (50 page)

    Night
fell and the Confederate army made rapid, discreet preparations to leave
Maryland. Cassius met with Jacob by lamplight to collect the letter Jacob had
written to his mother that afternoon. Cassius asked why the Confederates were
leaving, and Jacob said that they were obliged to leave, that Lee had lost one-
quarter of his army in that single day of fighting. Jacob then told Cassius
what Cassius already knew, that he would stay with the 7th Virginia Cavalry. He
would not return to see his father. He would not return to take control of the
plantation.

    Cassius
walked away from Jacob Howard and his men, but once he was out of their sight,
he stopped. He took an unattended lantern, and under its light opened Jacob's
letter, which, as was his usual, was not sealed. He scanned it, but Jacob's
cautious words to his mother did not interest him. With a pencil, Cassius added
something to the bottom of the letter underneath Jacob's signed name. He then
refolded it and returned it to the envelope.

    Cassius
walked down Hagerstown Turnpike toward Sharpsburg and found the quartermaster
wagons that were preparing to return to Virginia. There was great confusion as
the army also prepared to depart, and Cassius used the confusion to his
advantage. He came upon wagons where soldiers loaded crippled and damaged men
while teamsters coupled horses into their harnesses. Cassius was directed to a
wagon that would travel near the vicinity of Edensong and Sweetsmoke. From a
short distance, he examined the faces of the men going in the wagon and was
grateful to discover that none of them would recognize him. He approached the
teamster, a corporal, and gave him both the haversack and Jacob's letter. The
corporal accepted them without comment and placed them with the other mail,
barely acknowledging Cassius in the process.

    Cassius
stepped away in the dark.

    Ellen
Howard was distracted from her calculations in the plantation's ledgers by
movement out the window of the study. She saw her husband wandering in the yard
and she watched him as he shuffled along. He walked with his head pressed
forward, as if his curious mind wished to hurry his slow, stiff legs. She saw
that he again carried, in the pocket of his coat, the September newspaper that
reported Lincoln's address, delivered at Sharpsburg a week after the battle.
Lincoln had made a proclamation in that speech, calling for the emancipation of
the slaves. Ellen was convinced that Hoke did not comprehend the contents of
the newspaper, as he now saw the world around him more simply, but he had
discovered it was quite pleasurable to carry it on his person. When he was
around the servants, he would draw forth the newspaper from his pocket and hold
it up. The house people all responded with smiles and nods. He took pleasure in
their reactions and repeated the exercise time and again until the house people
made excuses to escape. She had initially believed that they humored him, but
grew to understand that they knew precisely what was in that newspaper, despite
the fact they could not read it for themselves. Ellen wondered how they knew.
She shook her head, the gesture reflecting her inner thoughts. It seemed there
were many small mysteries concerning her people that she would never
understand. Hoke now moved out of her sight and she returned her attention to
the ledger, noting that she still held her pen in midair. The air was drying
the nib, and she set it back into its well.

    Her
patterns had altered since Hoke's illness and the majority of her time was
spent in his ground-floor study. She scanned the room, thinking again about
adding something of her own personality to the furnishings, now that Hoke no
longer haunted his former sanctuary. She missed the leisure time spent painting
in the afternoons, and considered telling Pet to bring down a few of her
finished watercolors to decorate the walls. The one change she had made was to
put away, in a drawer, his fancy wooden boxes. She had never shared his
affection for trinkets and collectibles.

    She
opened and closed her writing hand to release a cramp, then rapidly shook it
out sideways. Her fingers collided with the inkwell, and blue ink escaped to
form a puddle on Hoke's desk. She leapt to her feet, grabbing the ledgers and
stepping back to save her dress, calling loudly for her servant. She kicked
Hoke's chair out of the way with frustration, and the chair struck the side of
the desk loudly.

    Pet
came quickly, and Ellen reflected that she had been alarmed by her missus's
abrupt call and the subsequent thump. Pet saw the spill and pulled off her
apron, dropping it over the ink to sop it up before it rolled to the edge and
then to the floor. Ellen saw, as Pet mopped, that the ink soaked into the wood
and would leave a stain. She noted the blue that discolored her fingers,
something with which she had lived for months now, and imagined it to be
permanent.

    She
thought ahead to the spring, hoping that by then things would have calmed down.
After Lincoln's speech, other plantations had suffered runaways, but the patrollers
and planters had responded surely and assertively, tracking down those bold
few, bringing them back in chains and inflicting extreme—in one case fatal—punishment
as a warning to all. No one from Sweetsmoke had run, not yet. But rude
anticipation was in the air of the quarters. Something in the world had turned
on that day, or maybe it was the week before, when

    Lee
had given up his invasion of the North and come back to Virginia. Any talk of
England and France recognizing the Confederacy vanished in that instant, as if
Lincoln had wrapped the conflict in a moral imperative. But Ellen believed in
Lee, and was ashamed by her shortsighted countrymen. Lee would regroup, Lee
would reinvade the North. In due time, he would end the war, as he should have
done in September. But what a shock it had been, she reflected, to learn that
Lee was driven back at Sharpsburg, beaten for the first time. Her gaze was
again drawn to the outdoors, through the window. November. The light was harsh,
the dry leaves baked brown against the cold ground, the sun low in the sky, the
afternoons rushing to a swift close. If she was to be in the quarters when the
hands returned from clear-cutting, she would need to leave while there was
still light. After the proclamation, she had increased her presence on the
lane, to discourage any foolish notions in her people.

    The
business of running a plantation was beginning to suit her. Over the previous
months, she had paid strict attention to the choices made by the other planters
in their dealings, and had grown to appreciate their thought processes,
adapting the ideas she found wise. Only occasionally did she view their
decisions as inexplicable. Recently she had heard that Orville Sands, master of
Philadelphia Plantation, had agreed to sell two female slaves to Gabriel Logue.
These were the very two she had forced Hoke to sell to Sands years before, and
she detested the idea of the daughters of Emoline Justice going free. She had
tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Orville from making the sale. Now there was
nothing to be done about it. But it had struck her as odd for business reasons
as well; Orville was a rational man who valued his slaves, and as far as she
understood, Philadelphia was not facing unusual financial difficulties. She
also wondered what the Angel Gabriel planned to do with two females. He had
impressed her as a man who preferred to be unencumbered by possessions, in
order to facilitate his trade.

    Ellen
had also emulated Hoke's aura of command, particularly in the early days of her
tenure, acting decisively to show Mr. Nettle her resolve and establish her
power. She had purposely made an unpopular decision and returned Gus to the
position of driver. Gus had seemed appropriately chastised after his demotion.
In the past, Mr. Nettle had been lax with Gus. It now fell to her to control
them both.

    She
sighed without realizing it, falling more deeply into reflection. Joseph,
Savilla and Abram's son, had returned to work and now labored with the others
to clear-cut the new parcel, the one to be planted in the spring. Joseph moved
gingerly on his hobbled leg, but, in a bit of good luck, his work had suffered
little. An image of his walk came into her mind, and it reflected Hoke, head
forward, legs struggling to keep pace. The harvest had gone well, better than
anticipated after the hornworm blight, and barring any unforeseen catastrophe,
Sweetsmoke would roll along for the first half of the following year. She'd had
a second tobacco barn built out of sight on the property, and a significant
portion of the harvest cured therein so that it could not be requisitioned by
Jeff Davis's government. She thought of Joseph functioning as the lead
carpenter on that shed, and was reminded of an incident years before, when
Shedd had run, and how quickly he had come to nearly full strength after his
punishment.

    She
glanced out the open door, to the greeting room where Sarah swept down the
stairs in her blue dress, her servant trailing behind. How well Sarah wore that
dress. How thoroughly Sarah had taken charge of the household. She had stepped
in to fill the void Ellen had left when Ellen took over Hoke's business. Sarah
now managed the servants like the general of an army. It was as if she had
stored up a fount of strength while lingering in her bed all those months. Anne
simpered with discontent, chafing under her control, while Genevieve was beside
herself with indignation. Ellen could not imagine why, as neither Genevieve nor
Anne had shown the slightest interest in maintaining the big house. Perhaps it
is my fault, thought Ellen. I encouraged Sarah, after all. But what a welcome
surprise on that morning, when Sarah had risen, like Lazarus, from her bed, to
join the household at the table, fully dressed with her hair carefully pinned.
No one had spoken a word about it at the time, as if her presence were the most
natural thing in the world. But afterward, out of Sarah's earshot, it was all
anyone could speak of for a full week. And how Quashee had blossomed! As Sarah
shouldered the household burdens, Quashee emerged as the predominant servant.
Pet had tried, God knows, to manage the household when Ellen was in charge, but
she was too clumsy, too easily distracted. Despite the graceful way Quashee
instructed her, poor Pet now dwelled in a perpetual sulk, at loose ends.

    Ellen
ran her fingers along the side of the desk and happened upon a gouge. She bent
to examine it with a scowl, realizing it was fresh and she had been the cause,
at the moment she had thrust aside the chair. She closed her eyes in melancholy
irritation. Hoke would no longer care about the degradation of his desk, but
she remembered how he had loved it, how proudly he set his hands flat against
it to feel the smooth wood, and she mourned the man who no longer existed.

    Ellen
became aware of a sudden bustle of activity and saw Sarah rush to the front
door. Out the window, she saw the carriage returning from town, Beauregard
arriving with the post.

    She rose
from her chair, her heart tinging high in her chest as it always did when there
might be news. She feared that she would discover he had been dead for days or
weeks while she had blithely continued her petty existence. She joined her
family as they poured from the house and closed in from around the yard,
Genevieve and Nanny Catherine, Mrs. Nettle and Anne, Pet and Mam Rosie, Quashee
following Sarah, and even young Charles and the other children, all hungry for
news. Hoke was not there, but he would come eventually, in his good time.
Beauregard stayed on the buck-board's bench, holding Sam's reins, waiting for
his missus to join them; he had been well trained by John-Corey. Sarah nodded
to him as Ellen arrived, and he spoke:

    Letter
come from Master Jacob, Missus, said Beauregard.

    "Let
me have it, then," said Ellen.

    She
opened the envelope and removed the folded letter. Her entire family watched,
and with so many expectant eyes upon her, she found herself moving more slowly
than usual. She read his handwriting,
Dear Mother,
handwriting that was
altered by a slight tremor. She imagined him less arrogant since he had gone to
fight.
It saddens me greatly to hear of my father's unfortunate accident.
He was not coming home. Cassius had reached him, and he was not coming home.
Her eyes flew down the page where she found excuses in a tone that rang hollow.
At the bottom of the page, beneath his signature, in a rushed hand, she read
the words
Cassius was killed at Sharpsburg.

    She
looked up at everyone, saw their anxious eyes.

    "He
will not be coming home. Jacob will remain with his cavalry and fight on for
his country, as is the right and proper thing."

    A
general sigh filled the air, a deflation of expectations, and already they
began to move away, knowing the letter would reach their hands sometime later
in the day, when they would have their own opportunity to savor Jacob's every
word.

    Ellen
noted Sarah's reaction, and thought that, in her erect carriage, she expressed
relief. It meant for Sarah that she would continue in her current position
without the interference of a husband.