When Royce said, for perhaps the dozenth time, “I love you,” it seemed the most natural thing in the world to respond, “I love you, too.”
“Will you marry me then?” he asked.
Amélie was sitting on his knee sewing a button on his shirt.
She bit off the thread. “We are married in the sight of God, Royce.”
He bounced her impatiently. “That’s not an answer. You are putting me off.”
“I’m not. I feel truly honored by your offer and—”
“Amélie,” he interrupted sternly, “we know each other too well for that—the stock phrases of a proper girl who has just been proposed to. Is it because I’m not rich, not a planter’s son?”
“Of course not.”
His gray eyes probed her face. “Damon Fowler?”
She reared up, rising from his knees. “Now what made you say a foolish thing like that? Damon Fowler! If he were the last man on earth . . .!” Her eyes blazed, her cheeks flamed. “If he were dying in front of me I wouldn’t lift a finger to help him.”
“Any woman who hates a man with such passion—”
“Please. I don’t want to talk about it. Not now, not ever!”
It was the closest they ever came to quarreling. But the small rift between them was quickly repaired with apologies, sweet words, and a tumult of lovemaking that equaled the wildness of rain and wind outside.. Afterward Amélie said she would marry him when they reached New Orleans.
Their food ran out on the fourth day, a day of weak sun and gentle breezes. Patches of blue sky could be seen in the west and the waters, no longer racing, lay for miles around like a placid sea, mirroring the branched tops of swamped trees.
“We’ll have to leave,” Royce said. “God alone knows how long the river will remain at this stage or if it might not get worse. We’re into early March now and the melting snows from the northern tributaries have yet to reach us.”
“I hate to go,” Amélie said.
“And I, too, darling.” He embraced her, kissing her cheek, the crown of her golden head. “I wish we could stay at Belle Terre always. But it’s not practical. Besides I want to marry you. Remember? I want you to be my wife.”
They left in the skiff. The current, though not visibly powerful, was still strong and it took all of Royce’s strength to steer it clear of obstacles that threatened to impede or overturn them. He kept on a southerly course and more by good luck than scientific navigation they managed to hail a steamer, the Imperial, bound for New Orleans.
Royce had a distant cousin living in New Orleans, a woman who had married into an old Creole family of aristocratic lineage, the LeBlancs. Sensitive about her lower class relations, she had become cool toward her family in Virginia and Royce’s parents had not heard from her in years. But Royce had no difficulty in locating her. Mrs. Otis LeBlanc was well known for her rebel sympathies, her intransigency, her refusal to take the oath. In a city that had been occupied by Federal troops since April of 1862 and from which families of Southern supporters had increasingly fled, leaving only a handful of their kind, Lorena LeBlanc remained a symbol. To say that she was a thorn in the side of the authorities would be an understatement. If she had been a man she would long since have been put under arrest. But because she was a woman and a prominent one at that, the Federal administrators, anxious not to stir up more controversy than necessary, let her be, contenting themselves by keeping a close eye on her activities.
Seated in the LeBlanc parlor, Royce detailed a brief sketch of their flight and the reasons for it. Upon hearing that Royce was an officer in the Confederate army, Lorena, whose reception of the pair had been chilly, became less stiff and forbidding. She rang for tea.
‘'You’ve no idea how we’ve suffered here,” she told them. “General Butler was a tyrant. He came into the city when it fell to the Yankees; innocent people were arrested, property confiscated, newspapers muzzled. Women who spoke out against the Federals were treated like prostitutes. He was so bad even the Yankees couldn’t stand him and they replaced him with Banks, a man hardly much better. I pray for the day when he, too, goes, leaving New Orleans to its own.”
She talked on, complaining about the Northern speculators, the price of food, and the closed shops and warehouses on New Levee Street. She bemoaned their own reduced circumstances, which seemed, if the lavishly set tea table was any sign, far from impoverished.
At last she condescended to bring the conversation around to her guests. “So you two are engaged.” Royce had introduced Amélie as his fiancee.
“Yes,” Royce spoke. “We would like to get married here in New Orleans before proceeding home.”
“In a hurry,” Lorena said, giving Amélie a searching look.
Amélie sat, spine straight, teacup in hand, guessing what lay behind that inspection. She’s wondering if we’ve slept together, whether we’ve made love, and if I’m pregnant.
“We’re not all that hasty,” Amélie said with coldly. “We could easily wait until we reach Virginia.”
Royce shot her a questioning look, which she answered with a small, forced smile. No matter that she had been goaded to such an answer by Lorena LeBlanc, she was aware that she was having second thoughts. Later when she tried to explain to Royce, she had trouble finding a plausible excuse. “I haven’t changed my mind, dear. It’s just—just that—well, it would be so much nicer if we could have your parents at our wedding.” The reason had come to her suddenly. But it seemed to satisfy Royce.
While they waited for Lorena’s husband to secure passage for them on a steamer bound for the East Coast they explored the city. After viewing the customary sights—the Cabildo, the Cathedral, and the French Market—they drove through the older residential sections. Here the proud, aloof Creoles had lived since the time of the Spanish and French, and further on in the Garden District the Americans had erected their palatial homes. Passing filigreed galleries and mellowed brick, fluted columns and gabled roofs, glimpsing deep verandas and green beveled glass, Amélie felt a pang of homesickness. Was Arbormalle still there? she wondered. Was it still standing like some of these deserted mansions, shuttered, slumbering, waiting in patient dignity for their owners to return? The dogwoods were blooming in gardens, flowering behind iron palings, on clipped lawns, leaning over hedges, opening their clustered hearts in back lots, in parks, and on the streets, clouds of pink and white blossoms, petals floating, falling, drifting like snow. Their faint scent recalled a dozen happy memories. The dogwoods would be blooming at Arbormalle, too. And there would be the first of the hyacinths, the shy violets peeping through the new green at the edge of the creek, lilac hepaticas in the woods. The breeze would be soft and the sun warm.
Spring at Arbormalle.
“Amélie—you’re so quiet. What are you thinking?” Royce asked.
“Nothing very much,” she hedged.
She had never thought she would miss her home so keenly, never thought she would look back with such sentimental yearning. She had been anxious to leave it behind, eager to go to Baltimore. But now after two years of rootless wandering she was ready to return.
Perhaps Royce could be persuaded to live at Arbormalle. Why not? A farmer, he would take to plantation life, might enjoy the challenge of a large spread.
“You are very thoughtful for having nothing very much on your mind.”
A half dozen Yankee soldiers on leave strolled by, keeping together in a tight group, gawking at the houses. The Enemy, the Occupiers, Amélie thought. Yet looking into their faces she saw they were young, mere boys, lads from God-fearing Christian homes, from farms and shops and factories. She saw bewilderment and apprehension in their eyes and she could imagine that to them New Orleans was exotic, foreign, a little fearful, hostile. And she saw something else, a forlornness that matched her own longing for home.
“I was thinking of Arbormalle,” she said at last.
Otis LeBlanc finally got them passage on the Yankee Rover. They boarded her on April 2, 186
5, not knowing that Lee was evacuating his Confederate troops from Petersburg, his last, hopeless retreat.
When Royce and Amélie reached Wilmington the news was already old. Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox.
Chapter
❖ 23 ❖
They arrived at the woodsons’ farm on a green and golden afternoon with the trees along the roadsides flaunting new leaves and the dogwood and wild cherry in triumphant bloom. Never mind the burnt fields sprouting pine seedlings, the ruined orchards, the big houses blackened by fire. The war was over. Lee had surrendered. Johnston was capitulating to Sherman at Raleigh and the Confederates in Mississippi and Alabama would shortly lay down their arms, too. The South might take a long time to swallow the bitter pill of defeat, the North a long time to simmer down over Lincoln's assassination so soon after victory, but the wholesale killing had stopped.
Though Royce would never admit it, not even to himself, the end came as a relief. To Amélie it was as if a load had been lifted from her heart. When she saw the Woodsons’ stone and timber farmhouse drowsing in the dappled shade under a great white oak it seemed to reflect the welcome mood of calmness after a storm, the end of the war had brought.
As Amélie and Royce drove up in a borrowed cart a mongrel ran out from behind the house, barking hysterically.
“Pepper! Pepper, old boy!” Royce cried. “Don’t you know me?”
The dog, uncertain, waggled its tail while it continued to yelp.
“The folks must be out in the field,” Royce said. “I’ll take you in, then go fetch them.”
She sat in a cold parlor with a flagged floor covered in part by a patchwork rug. The heavy furniture was ancient, musty, little used. She had the feeling that if she slapped the horsehair upholstery a cloud of dust would rise. An old musket hung over the hearth and on one wall hung a sampler and the framed silhouette of a woman. A tarnished tea urn stood on a square table covered with a yellowing, crocheted scarf. Here in this room she would be married, receive guests, play the bashful bride.
Royce had agreed to go on to Arbormalle after the wedding to decide if he might like living there. “We’ll see,” he had said, though she felt he would have preferred Virginia. But Amélie knew that if she wished it, Royce would make no objections to remaining in Anne Arundel County.
Since she had not thought it fair to go on delaying the wedding she had promised to marry Royce in a week. She didn’t mind his lack of education, his lack of money. She knew he would make a good husband, a good father, and that she would never want. It troubled her somewhat that she seemed unable to bring more enthusiasm toward the prospect of becoming Mrs. Royce Woodson, but she put this shortcoming down to a general weariness. She loved him as much as she could love any man and once they were wed and settled she believed she would be happy.
Hearing voices outside the window Amélie got to her feet. Royce entered with his father and mother behind, and, hanging back, his fourteen-year-old brother.
“This is my intended, Ma,” Royce said proudly.
Amélie put out her hand. Mrs. Woodson, blinking from the sunlight, wiped her hand on the side of her long skirt before she took Amélie’s. It was a calloused hand, the palm hardened from the plow.
“Welcome, Miss Amélie.”
“Please—just Amélie.” She smiled at her future mother-in-law. She was tall, lean, her face ravaged by wind and sun. Her manner was reserved, but not shy or diffident.
Mr. Woodson was also tall, also sunburned, with the same direct, gray eyes as his son. He shook hands heartily.
“Well, I’ll be durned, got a son and daughter in one fell swoop. Ain’t ever thought I’d see the day when . . .” He paused, blinking rapidly, his Adam’s apple working.
There was an embarrassed silence and then the youngster, Arthur said, “Ain’t I goin’ to meet the bride?”
At supper Amélie was aware of Mother Woodson watching her. Sizing me up, Amélie thought. Not entirely happy about me, I suspect. Perhaps it’s the shock. Her son coming home after all these years and announcing he would marry this stranger within a week. An aristocrat. Perhaps she guesses I might take him away again or after the first flush is over resent his humble origins. But she’s wrong. I might take him away but I would never resent him.
Royce, unaware of Amélie’s thoughts, went on chatting with his father who kept plying him with questions about the war. Every so often he would look over at Amélie and his eyes would tell her that she was beautiful, that he loved her.
“And how have thing been here with you, Pa?” Royce asked, dragging his attention away from Amélie.
“Not too bad. We’re off the road here, behind them woods, so the Yanks missed us and the foragers only came once. You seen The Cedars? Burned to the ground. Yanks did it, ran the slaves off. Don’t know what happened to the family.” He leaned back in his chair. “We been able to sell some corn, a few bales of cotton, but mostly we kept to ourselves, thanking the Lord we could grow what we needed. I’d say we ate better than most, eh, Alma?”
Alma Woodson, pouring coffee from a blackened enamel pot, said, “Thank the Lord. Now if we don’t git hit by them bummers, we’ll be all right.”
“Bummers?” Amélie asked.
“Virginia’s been plagued by them,” Mr. Woodson said. “And from what I hear tell, most of the South. During the war they’d roam the countryside for supplies, foraging for the Army they said. They was a lawless bunch, stragglers and armed skulkers, but the military let ’em do what they wanted, ’long as they brought in a few sacks of corn, chickens, hogs, whatever. Then pretty soon they just went off on their own, quit pretending they was fighting for the South. Deserters, they was joined by Yanks who’d run off from their regiments, too. They was a holy terror, stealin’ and burnin’ and killin’ and—well, I won’t mention, since there’s women present.”
“But surely even they must know we are at peace now,” Amélie said.
“Seems like they would.”
The conversation went on to other things, finally touching on the wedding.
“I’d like Justice Parker to marry us,” Royce said.
“A justice—not Reverend Graham?” his mother asked.
“Well, I guess that’d be all right, but you see, Ma, Amélie is a Catholic.”
There was a shocked silence. Mr. Woodson took out a hickory pipe and tapped it on the side of his saucer. Alma busied herself with dishing up the desert—cornstarch pudding laced with blackberry jam—her mouth set in a grim line.
Amélie could guess that this latest revelation was another mark against her. A Catholic in addition to everything else.
“Not a strict one,” Royce added. Amélie smiled encouragingly, feeling tender toward Royce who loved her and wanted his parents to do so, too. “I thought it would be better all around. And Justice Parker gives such a nice service.”
“Yes, that he does,” said Mr. Woodson, putting his seal on it.
Two days before the wedding, Amélie drove into the village, a distance of some ten miles, to inquire about the mail. While in New Orleans she had written her parents telling them about her prospective marriage to Royce and giving them the address of the post office at Kent’s Corner. She was anxious to hear from them for she had also asked for money. It was embarrassing to be dependent on the Woodsons who, though generous, had little cash themselves.
Amélie realized Royce would object to her going alone, but he was busy lending a much needed hand with the spring hoeing and she hated to take him away. Arming herself with Mr. Woodson’s old revolver, she felt she would be safe enough. The buggy was creaky and springless and the horse more accustomed to the plow than the shafts of a conveyance, but they reached the village without mishap.
Upon learning that there was no mail for her, Amélie began the return trip. They were trotting at a good clip along the road, past ramshackle, weather-beaten fences clotted with honeysuckle vines and overgrown with berry bushes when up ahead a man stepped out from behind a pine tre
e.
He was wearing a greasy slouch hat, an old Union tunic, its tarnished brass buttons haphazardly buttoned, and splotched Confederate trousers, ragged at the knees. He cocked a pistol at her and she came to a halt.
A half dozen men, climbing and jumping over the fence, surrounded the buggy. They, too, were dressed in the castoffs of both armies and in finery they had stolen. Dirty, unkempt, unshaven, Amélie surmised they must be the bummers about whom Mr. Woodson had spoken.
She whipped out her own revolver, but before she could aim it, she was disarmed by the man nearest her.
“One of them feisty ladies, eh?” the man in the Union tunic sneered, his whisky-tainted breath spattering saliva.
Amélie fixed him with a cold stare. “Please—if you will step aside?”
He grinned, showing rotting teeth. “Let’s see what you got in the buggy, lady.”
“Go ahead and look,” she said imperiously, sitting very tall, clutching the reins with cold, gloved hands.
“Git out!” he ordered.
“I certainly will not.”
He reached in, wrenching her hands free from the reins, and dragged her out of the buggy.
The motley gang gathered around, laughing in a cruel, lewd manner.
“Look at them petticoats!”
“Bet she has nicer drawers.”
“Nice titties, too.”
Amélie slapped a grimy hand away.
“Ralph!” the man with the Union tunic barked, “git in there and see what you can find.”
“Sure thing, Cap’n.”
Ralph, wearing a mud splattered, satin embroidered waistcoat over a soiled gray undershirt, climbed in. Unsheathing a knife he began ripping up the seats.
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