Candle in the Darkness

by Lynn Austin

  I love you,

  Charles

  “We been through a lot of hard times in this war,” Esther said with a sigh, “but I do believe this summer we seen the hardest times yet. Good thing you never did eat much, Missy, cause we sure ain’t having very much to eat these days.”

  We were all gathered in the kitchen for our supper one hot night in July. In order to conserve fuel, it was the only meal Esther cooked each day. Richmond was very close to starvation because of the siege. The food that did make it through on the remaining rail line had to be shared with the troops guarding the city. At our house we had fresh produce, thanks to Eli and Gilbert, but no meat except for the fish I brought home from my visits to Mr. Ferguson. I still brought him a few tidbits of news each week, mostly things I’d learned from the steady stream of wounded men arriving at the hospital. Sometimes I managed to glean a little more information at the countless funerals I attended.

  “I’m gonna ask you something, Missy,” Esther continued, fanning herself in the summer heat. “I sure hope you ain’t gonna get upset with me.”

  “Of course not, Esther.” I bent to pick up baby Isaac, who was clamoring to crawl up onto my lap. “You may ask me anything.”

  “Well . . . they selling meat in the market, but I ain’t sure you want me to buy it. I think I can probably cook it up real nice and feed all of us a good meal for once . . . but I ain’t sure if I should tell you what it is first or just serve it up. I decide I better ask you.”

  “What is it?” I asked quietly.

  “It’s rat meat.” Esther must have seen by my expression that the idea revolted me. “They selling it in the butcher shop,” she quickly added, “all cleaned and dressed like any other kind of meat. I talk to some folks that try it and they say it ain’t no different than squirrel. Said you’d never tell the difference if you didn’t know.”

  I looked around the table at the others. “What about all of you?” I asked. “Could the rest of you eat it?” Only Gilbert and Eli were willing to try. “Buy it and cook it for them—and for whoever else is willing,” I told her. “Maybe someday I’ll be hungry enough to eat rat meat, but I’m not that desperate yet.”

  In August we celebrated Isaac’s first birthday. I had written the date in the family Bible so we would all remember. “He’s a free man, not a slave,” I told the others, “so it’s important that he always knows when his birthday is and how old he is.”

  Esther baked a tiny pancake for him and drizzled it with sorghum. Tessie gave him a tallow candle to blow out, the only kind we had. I wished that I could buy dozens of presents to repay him for the joy he had brought all of us during the past year, but Isaac was content with the tiny wooden animals Gilbert had carved for him.

  The city of Atlanta fell to the Yankees’ General Sherman in September. They burned it to the ground. Since everyone in Richmond was already half-starved and worried about our own fate, the news was a severe blow, reminding us of what might soon happen to us. A large part of the South already lay in ruins, and Sherman had vowed to continue to battle across the state of Georgia, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

  On the day we learned that Atlanta had fallen, my uncle William and cousin Thomas drove their wagon up to our backyard gate.

  “Won’t you both come in?” I invited. “I can find you something to eat and fix you some mint tea.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t stay,” Uncle William said. “I’ll let your stable boy water my horses, but then I have to head home. I want to get back before dark.”

  “Are you staying, Thomas?” I asked. He had jumped down from the wagon, carrying a small satchel.

  “I’m joining the army, Caroline,” he said proudly.

  “You can’t be! You’re only . . . how old? Sixteen?” But then I recalled how the Confederate Government, desperate for soldiers, had extended the draft to include boys aged fourteen to eighteen for the junior reserve and men aged forty-five to sixty for the senior reserve. They would be trained and kept in reserve for rearguard duty.

  “I’m finally old enough to fight, just like Jonathan,” he said.

  I still thought of Thomas as the six-year-old child he’d been the first time I’d visited Hilltop, even though he was several inches taller than me. But at sixteen, he was still a long way from manhood. How could any government ask its children to fight? How could they ask this family, who had already given so much to this war, for yet another one of its sons? It didn’t seem fair.

  “Isn’t it true that if a plantation has more than twenty slaves, the owner can get an exemption from the draft?” I asked Uncle William. “Couldn’t you sign over the deed to Thomas so he wouldn’t have to go?”

  My uncle slowly shook his head. “Caroline, there aren’t that many slaves left at Hilltop.”

  “Besides, I want to fight,” Thomas added.

  “You don’t mean that,” I said. “Please, come to the hospital with me and talk to some of the wounded men. Let them tell you what—”

  “That’s enough,” my uncle said quietly. “The boy has no choice. If I were one year younger, they would have drafted me, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  “May he spend the night with you, Caroline? He has to report to the armory in the morning. If you could have your driver bring him there tomorrow, I’d be obliged.”

  Eli had tended to the horses while we’d talked. Too soon, Uncle William was ready to make the return trip to Hilltop. I suppose it was a blessing that Thomas had no idea what he was getting into. He embraced his father with dry eyes, thinking only of the excitement that lay ahead. But my uncle’s back was bowed like a very old man’s as he drove away.

  “May I help you?” The burly man who addressed me from behind the butcher’s block in Mr. Ferguson’s fish stall was a stranger. He looked straight at me, eye-to-eye, something Mr. Ferguson had never done. I couldn’t reply. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “You’re not the man who usually waits on me.”

  “Yeah, well, he was called away unexpectedly. He has entrusted all of his business matters to me while he’s away.” His gaze remained locked with mine, as if he was trying to read my thoughts. “The shad is especially good today,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I trust him? Was he another Union agent working with Ferguson, or was this a trap? The man had phrased his explanation very oddly—“He has entrusted all of his business matters to me.” It didn’t sound like something an ordinary fish vendor would say. I carried information about possible weak spots in the Confederate defenses, but I couldn’t take the risk of giving it to a stranger. What should I say to him that wouldn’t arouse suspicion?

  I decided to simply purchase the fish and leave. Then I remembered that I’d already wrapped up the note I was delivering inside the only currency I had. I forced myself to stay calm. If I let my panic show he would surely notice.

  “How much is the shad today?” I asked.

  “For a lovely lady like yourself? It’s a bargain at four dollars.”

  “Oh. That’s much more than I have,” I said. “Good day.” I walked back to the carriage on shaking legs and told Eli what had happened.

  “Just have to wait and see,” he said. “That’s all we can do.”

  Three days later, all of Richmond had heard the news—the authorities had arrested another Yankee spy, a man by the name of Floyd Ferguson who sold fish from a stall in the farmers’ market.

  “That’s him, ain’t it?” Tessie asked, reading the paper.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Thank God I didn’t trust the man taking his place. I think it must have been a trap.”

  According to the papers, Ferguson would set out on the James River in his fishing boat once a week and deliver his espionage reports to a Yankee boat sent from Fortress Monroe. Authorities suspected that several of his customers passed secret information to him as they purchased fish, since they’d discovered incriminating notes wrapped inside the money in Ferguson’s apr
on pocket. So far, the police had not arrested anyone else.

  My days of spying were over. In a way I felt enormous relief, especially since the information I’d been gathering concerned the army Charles fought with, the trenches he guarded. Yet I also felt that I had let God down.

  I shared my frustration with Eli as he harvested the last of the summer vegetables from our garden. “All my hard work, all my lies and deceptions have been for nothing,” I said. “They still haven’t bought a Yankee victory or helped free the slaves. Why did God ask me to risk so much if it was all for nothing?”

  “You don’t know that it was all for nothing,” Eli said, brushing dirt from the carrots he’d just pulled. “You only seeing the outside of things. Nobody except God can see what He’s doing underneath. The seeds I planted last spring been growing into carrots whether we seen it or not. God gonna have His way, Missy, even when it look like His plans isn’t amounting to nothing.”

  His answer confused me. “Then what difference does it make if I obey Him or not—whether I risk everything to spy for Him or stay at home—if He’s going to do it all anyway?”

  Eli pulled another clump of carrots, then slowly stood to face me. “We ain’t gonna eat the tops of these carrots, are we?”

  “No . . . but what does that—”

  “Can’t you see, Missy Caroline?” he said gently. “Spying ain’t the job God gave you to do in this here war. He don’t need people to do stuff like that for Him. What He need is for you and me to show folks what He’s like . . . to love others for Him. That’s the real work you done . . . underneath it all.”

  “How? How could betraying my country possibly show God’s love?”

  “I tell you one way,” he said, crumbling the dirt off the vegetables as he talked. “My son Josiah hate white folks. He think they all alike. He turn away from Massa Jesus because he think Jesus is the white folks’ God. But Josiah seen that you different—not because you spying, but because you spying for us, so that we could be free.”

  I remembered the tender look I’d seen on Josiah’s face as he’d held his son, the tears on his cheeks as he’d thanked me.

  “I been trying to tell Josiah about God’s love all his life,” Eli continued, “and he ain’t listening. But he seen your love, Missy Caroline, he seen how you risk everything you have for us . . . and so he finally seen God’s love—in you.”

  My tale is nearly told now. There’s only one more episode to describe, and that’s the afternoon when I knew that the end had finally come for me. Charles’ father arrived at my door, his face the sickly gray color of dirty water. He looked much too unwell to be out of bed, let alone out of the house.

  “Are you all right? Did something happen. . . ?” He ignored my questions, pushing past me to enter my father’s library. What worried me more than his obvious illness was the anger in his eyes—no, I saw hatred when he looked at me.

  “I need to see one of your father’s books,” he said. He began perusing the shelves without waiting for my permission. I could hear his labored breathing all the way across the room, as if his lungs were a pair of worn-out bellows that could barely pump air. I was afraid he would find the hollowed-out volume, even though it now held only two or three gold pieces.

  “Please, let me help you,” I said. “Are you looking for a particular book?”

  “Yes. This one.”

  He pulled A Tale of Two Cities from the shelf. Something about that book alarmed me but I didn’t know why. Then Mr. St. John took a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It was the map I’d drawn on a page torn from that book. I watched, paralyzed, as Mr. St. John opened the book to the beginning, to the place where the title page should be. When the map fitted perfectly into place he groaned, swaying as though he was about to collapse. I tried to help him sit down but he waved me away as if my touch would poison him.

  “I knew you were involved . . . I knew it!” he said, wheezing. “They recaptured one of our escaped slaves. He had this map . . . and these false documents. . . .” I recognized the freedom papers he showed me as forgeries of the ones my father had drawn up for Isaac. The name had been changed to Jeremiah St. John.

  “We got Jeremiah to confess that one of the servants from the ladies’ sewing circle forged these, but he refuses to say who. Every time someone was robbed, though, the victim was here, visiting you. Now you’re going to tell me which one of your slaves can read and write.”

  “Please . . . Mr. St. John . . .”

  “If you don’t tell me, then I swear I’ll beat a confession out of every last one of them.”

  I went cold at his words. “You will not lay a hand on any of my slaves. I drew that map.”

  He stared at me, his eyes filled with loathing, not surprise. Perspiration dampened his hair and rolled down his flushed face.

  “I drew the map for my servants when I found out that Daddy planned to sell some of them.” I said. “I don’t have much gold left, but I’ll pay you and all the others for the slaves they lost and for the property their servants stole. It was wrong of them to steal, but I’m not sorry that any of them escaped.”

  He glared at me. “So you finally admit that you’re a Union sympathizer?”

  “I believe that slavery is morally wrong.”

  He set the book and the papers on Daddy’s desk. “None of us ever imagined that you were deliberately deceiving us all this time, Caroline—least of all Charles. We should have guessed when you spent so much time visiting your Yankee prisoner, but we all wanted to believe that you were telling the truth, that your visits were purely humanitarian. You played us for fools. I should have listened to Major Turner. He was convinced that you were involved in that prison break. And he says you also had an improper relationship with your Yankee friend.”

  “That’s a lie! I did no such thing!” I had listened to Mr. St. John’s accusations in stunned shock, but I couldn’t let the last one pass for truth.

  He held up his hand to silence me. “I’m not finished. The fish vendor, Ferguson, has been suspected of spying for some time. He was watched. The police told me that you were a regular customer— which is odd since you have six slaves to do all your shopping for you. The authorities asked me if I thought you might be involved, and like a fool I defended you. Now I’m not so sure. They found incriminating notes wrapped inside the money Ferguson collected. All I need to do is compare that handwriting with your writing on this map or with some of the letters you’ve sent my son. What am I going to discover then, Caroline?”

  I couldn’t speak. I was afraid I was going to be sick.

  “When I think of all the important people you’ve entertained in your home,” he continued, “all the crucial information you might have overheard . . . That’s why you continued to have social gatherings here, isn’t it? Even after your father left. You deliberately deceived us! You used my son . . . my daughter . . .” He gripped his left shoulder suddenly, wincing in pain.

  “Please, you need to sit down, Mr. St. John. Let me get you something—”

  “No!” he shouted. “You’ve done enough harm as it is. And the biggest tragedy of all is that my son loves you. He loves you! I can’t imagine what this news will do to him. What were you thinking, Caroline? How could you lie to Charles like this, pretending that you loved him when—”

  “I wasn’t pretending. I do love Charles.”

  “How can you possibly say you love him when you’ve been helping his enemies?” Mr. St. John tried to take a step, then gripped the edge of the desk to keep from falling. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, wheezing. “Charles must be told the truth. But if he learns it now, while lying in a filthy trench, I fear he’ll be so devastated that he won’t want to live. I won’t let you kill my son.”

  His hands trembled as he refolded the map and phony documents and put them back in his coat pocket. He picked up my father’s book. He stared at me, but it was as if he was looking through me. His face had been flushed with rage a moment ago
, but now it was as colorless as a corpse.

  “I don’t know what to do about you,” he said, shaking his head. “If you’re guilty of half the things I think you are, then I want you arrested . . . no, I want you to hang! But if the truth about you comes out now . . . it will destroy my son. . . .”

  There was nothing more I could say.

  Mr. St. John managed to stagger to the door without me. I watched his servant help him into his carriage and drive away.

  Two days passed, then three. Now four. I have no idea what will happen to me. All I can do is wait, wondering when my arrest will come. In the meantime, I’ve been unable to sleep. I decided to write this account, explaining my reasons for doing what I’ve done. I pray that when you read it you will understand how I became entangled in all of this. And that you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

  I offer no defense except these words from the book of Proverbs: “ ‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? . . . and shall not he render to every man according to his works?’ ”

  Caroline Ruth Fletcher

  September 1864

  PART TWO

  “You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.”

  Psalm 18:28–29 NIV