The Warriors (10 page)

“I’m awake. Come in.”

A small, fragile black woman appeared. She was barely five feet tall, with wrists no thicker than both his thumbs put together. She must have been seventy, but the eyes in the dark, lined face sparkled. She glanced at the white streak in his hair as she set a mug containing a steaming drink on the table beside the bed.

“You feeling any better, sir?”

“Much, thank you. By the way, my name’s Jeremiah, Jeremiah Kent.”

A nod. “Miz Catherine told me. I’m Maum Isabella.” She touched the mug. “I brought you this to see if you could keep something down.”

“Smells first-rate. What is it?”

“One of my toddies. Peach brandy laced with white sugar. If it sets well, I’ve got ham in the kitchen. Ham and hominy.”

Jeremiah sipped the sweet beverage and found the first taste not only bearable but delicious. He wiped his lips with his wrist and smiled at the diminutive black woman who stood with her hands folded at the waist of her patched skirt. There was nothing servile about
her
speech or demeanor, no pretense of the kind he’d seen Price indulge in. The woman obviously occupied a position of importance in the house and knew it.

“That’s damn—that’s very good, Maum—”

“Isabella, sir.”

He gestured at his nightshirt. “Who fixed me up this way?”

“Miz Catherine did. Soon after you passed out downstairs.”

Blushing, he said, “You mean she didn’t go to pieces when she learned about the colonel?”

The old woman shook her head. “Miz Catherine knew the risks when he went off to serve. She’s mighty grieved, of course. So’s everybody on the place—excepting two or three bad niggers.”

He presumed Price was included in that last group.

“Miz Catherine’s a mighty strong lady—for a Yankee woman,” Maum Isabella added, allowing herself a small, wry smile. “Also, we have a house to run. Chores to do. She allowed herself ’bout a half hour of crying, that’s all. She’ll be up to see you soon, I imagine. Serena too.”

The mention of the younger woman seemed to carry less enthusiasm than the reference to Mrs. Rose. Then, sympathetically, she said, “You must have seen some hard fighting.”

He didn’t understand the reason for her words, so he only nodded.

“What I mean—” A frail hand pointed. “You’re mighty young to be turning gray.”

“Oh, this—” He ran his fingers through the white streak. “That’s from Chickamauga. A Minié ball knocked my cap off—grazed the top of my head. The ball was almost spent, so all I got was a good thump. Guess it did something to the hair, though. A surgeon said it would grow back the right color, but it hasn’t.”

“I see.” Her curiosity satisfied, she started for the door. “Well, you want anything, just stomp on the floor and someone will come up right quick. Oh, I nearly forgot. Tomorrow morning—”

“Thanksgiving.”

“We don’t have a lot to say thanks for this year,” the little black woman declared. “The colonel’s gone. Those Yanks are coming out from Atlanta.”

“So the word’s gotten around?”

“Yes, sir. I heard about what you told Price. By now most everyone on the place knows.”

“Maum Isabella, may I ask you a question that might not be any of my business?”

“You can surely ask, Mr. Jeremiah. I’ll decide about a reply when I hear the question.”

“Where’d that buck come from? Price, I mean. Has he always been on the plantation?”

“No. The colonel bought him five years ago in a batch of half a dozen niggers Mr. Samples owned. Mr. Samples had the next farm over from this one. He went to his reward very suddenly. Had no kin to take over the property, so the colonel picked up part of the acreage and some of his people too. All good people except that Price. He came from Louisiana when he was young. He was raised by a man who treated him bad. Maybe that explains why he acts mean. But it doesn’t excuse it. I’ve always had a queer feeling about Price.”

“What sort of feeling?”

“He could have been raised in a pig lot or a palace and he’d still have come out mean.” She smiled. “The Yanks don’t have a corner on meanness, you know. Fact is, there ain’t a single group in all God’s creation dares claim their baskets are free of bad peaches.”

“Price sure strikes me as one.”

Maum Isabella didn’t disagree. “Most of the niggers on the place can’t abide him. There
are
a few who encourage him on the sly. They like to see him get away with being uppity. Miz Catherine should have sold him off long ago. Well, I got things to do. I expect the mistress will be here soon. We’ll have dinner tomorrow afternoon, late. In the morning there’s to be a memorial service in the parlor. For the colonel. Most everybody’ll be there.”

The sentence implied a question about his presence. Jeremiah nodded, his dark eyes shining in the candle glow. The toddy had warmed and relaxed him. The scent of roses and dahlias drifting in from the bluish dark was like a balm after the stenches of war: pus, dirt, offal, powder, blood—

“So will I. The colonel was a good man. He saved my life.”

At last Maum Isabella looked as if she approved of him.

“I’m happy to hear you’ll be able to pay your respects,” she said as she opened the door. She marched out as Jeremiah reached for the toddy.

He was incredibly content. He savored not only the drink but the comforting feeling of being halfway well again. Well, clean, and in a safe haven.

A
temporarily
safe haven, he reminded himself. Out there in the Georgia dark, Sherman’s soldiers were marching relentlessly. Rosewood might lie directly in their path.

He finished the toddy. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t frightened by the possibility of Sherman’s approach. But the idea brought a touch of pleasure as well. After too long a time, he might again be called to do something worthwhile in this war.

Catherine Rose looked in about twenty minutes later.

She was dressed more formally than when he’d first met her. She’d changed from her faded gingham to a full-skirted black gown with rustling underlayers that bulked the skirt into the fashionable hooped shape.

Her bodice looked different than before. Her breasts were pushed up higher, more pointed and prominent. He assumed she was wearing one of those steel-boned corsets. The kind he’d seen in his mother’s empty room in Lexington one time, and stolen in to touch with a feeling of experimentation and acute embarrassment.

Even though Jeremiah was eighteen, his knowledge of the intimate details of a woman’s life were limited. In the army he’d often bragged about visiting a lady of easy virtue when he was only fifteen. It was the typical young soldier’s lie. He was totally innocent—and ashamed of it. Now the sight of Mrs. Rose’s figure generated a lewd excitement all the more thrilling because it was shameful.

Clad in black as she was, the widow’s only concession to her duties as mistress of a household was a lace-edged apron of white lawn. Even the heavy crocheted net holding the large chignon at the back of her head was black. She’d dressed her hair since he’d last seen her.

“Corporal Kent.” She greeted him with a small, strained smile.

“Evening, ma’am.”

“Maum Isabella reports you’re feeling somewhat better.” She stood at the foot of the bed, composed but pale.

“Thank you, I am. Please call me Jeremiah.”

“Of course. I’m truly sorry you had to suffer so much to bring that letter to Rosewood.”

“Why, that’s all forgotten, ma’am,” he fibbed. “You’re the one who—” Caught in an awkward trap, he didn’t want to finish.

The mole beside her mouth lifted as she tried to smile with greater warmth. Her eyes were puffy. Otherwise she was in perfect control. He admired her courage.

She finished the sentence for him. “Who has suffered? I’ll admit I did let down for a little while. But the truth is, even before you arrived, I was beginning to think something had happened to Henry. He usually forced himself to write a letter every three or four weeks. A few lines. But I hadn’t received one in two and a half months.”

She drew a cane chair to the bed and sat down. He smelled the fruit wine again, strongly.

“Besides, there’s no time for excessive indulgence in grief. With all those stories of Yanks loose around Milledgeville, we must get busy. I need to make a list of what we should hide—food, furnishings, valuables—in case Sherman does come this way.”

“I want to help any way I can,” he said, suddenly self-conscious about being alone with a woman in this flower-scented bedroom. It hardly mattered that the woman was at least twice his age. “I’ll be out of bed before you know it.”

“Very kind of you, Jeremiah. I appreciate your willingness. I’ll feel free to call on you. Some of the bucks on the place may not stay.”

“Not stay? Why?”

“Judge Claypool’s boy, Floyd—he came over yesterday—he told me a great many nigras are running away from their masters to travel with Sherman’s army.”

An awkward pause. Jeremiah felt compelled to say something more about her husband. He struggled—not at ease with sentiments appropriate to such a moment.

“Whatever happens, you must let me help. I wouldn’t be drawing a breath if it wasn’t for the colonel. I’m truly sorry he—”

A red-knuckled hand lifted. “Not necessary, Jeremiah. Your feelings for him are evident. And your loyalty. You got here.”

Her eyes focused on the gallery, and the dark. “Henry was an excellent husband. I liked him from the first time he came to tea at Christ College. That’s where I was teaching when we met. I was an instructor in the classics. I’m originally from Connecticut.”

“Yes, he told me.”

“I came down to Georgia to accept a position at the female institute at Montpelier when I was twenty-two. Henry had recently—had lost his first wife—” Her voice trailed off. “His aunt was also on the faculty at the institute. She introduced us. She was an Episcopalian, but Henry was a Congregationalist as I am. I never regretted my decision to marry him. Or to bring up his child.”

Another pause. Then she asked how Henry Rose had died.

He described the circumstances in a guarded way, emphasizing the colonel’s heroism and omitting the more gruesome details. He made no mention of the blood, the filth, the brutality of the field hospital—nor of Rose’s despair about the course of the war. Catherine nodded from time to time. Once he thought he saw tears in her eyes.

She asked about her husband’s body. Again he resorted to partial honesty. He cited the confusion that always followed a battle and took the blame for not keeping track of Rose’s remains. He avoided any reference to the heap onto which those canvas-covered bodies were dumped one after another. He tried to finish with something positive.

“He was thinking of you right to the end, ma’am. Never a word about himself. Just about you. How you’d need assistance—”

A small sigh. “It appears we will. It pains me to say it, but over the last few months I’ve noticed a change in the attitude of a few of the nigras. They still do their duties, but they’ve become”—she searched for the proper term—“impudent.”

He saw no reason to skirt the issue any longer. “Is Price one of them?”

“The worst, I’m afraid.”

“Well, then, I should tell you what I really think happened to my musket.”

Before he could begin, the door opened. A girl walked in.

Her dress was as black as her stepmother’s. But her bright, red hair framing pale cheeks shone a fire, so that like she hardly seemed in mourning.

The girl was taller than Catherine, with pale blue eyes and a splendid figure. There was an astonishing perfection about her features. Together with her delicately white skin, it gave her an almost angelic air. But the liveliness of her eyes flawed the effect.

She came quickly to the bedside, her skirts gathered up in her hands. The older woman turned. “I thought perhaps you’d forgotten us, Serena.”

“No, not at all,” the girl answered, ignoring the hint of criticism in Catherine’s remark.

Serena Rose studied Jeremiah. She was a lovely creature, but plainly not the older woman’s child.

“I do hope you’re comfortable, Mr. Kent,” she remarked with a smile that struck him as sweetly polite rather than sincere.

“Fine, thank you.”

He knew the girl was two years older than he was: twenty. The difference seemed an abyss. And even before he’d spoken his three-word answer, she glided to a wall mirror to study her hair. Somehow that angered him.

“You could be a bit more cordial to our guest, my dear.” Serena spun around, her smile still ingenuous. “Was I being otherwise, Catherine? I’m so sorry.”

She was hard to read: reserved, every move studied. While Catherine’s politeness masked feelings she felt it might be unseemly to reveal, Serena’s behavior apparently concealed a lack of any feeling whatever. Or, if she did have feelings, she kept them deeply hidden. He began to suspect she’d come up to the bedroom solely because it was an obligation.

“I apologize if I was rude to you, Mr. Kent,” she said. “The news about Papa, and all this talk about the Yankees—it’s quite upsetting.”

“I can certainly understand—”

“But now we have a trustworthy man to help us,” Catherine said.

“That’s reassuring,” Serena replied, though a flicker of her eyes suggested she doubted
man
was an appropriate term for Jeremiah. He was both repelled by the girl’s cool manner and attracted by her physical beauty—of which she was quite conscious. She stood so that he had a clear view of her figure—her bosom—in profile. In a perfunctory way, she asked, “Where do you come from, Mr. Kent?”

“I was serving with the Sixty-third Virginia until I was reassigned as your father’s orderly on the division staff.”

“Virginia,” Serena repeated. “That’s a mighty long way from Georgia.”

He decided he might as well get some of the details out of the way. He told them a little about his family. First his mother, still in the endangered Shenandoah. Then his brother Gideon, captured in the firefight that slew Jeb Stuart at Yellow Tavern.

No, he replied in response to a question from Catherine, there was absolutely no word of Gideon’s whereabouts, and he was worried. Men were known to be dying by the hundreds in the Northern prisons, now that Grant had put a stop to the exchange of prisoners in order to further deplete the South’s manpower.