From This Day Forward

by Victoria Thompson

  He could not have asked her anything she would have been more pleased to discuss. “She was a lady,” Lori confessed. “Her father owned a business in Philadelphia, and she grew up in a beautiful house.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise, and Lori figured that he didn’t believe her.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I have some of her things. Her family disowned her when she married my father. He was a penniless orphan who worked for her father’s business, but he was very handsome, or at least that’s what he always told me. He was handsome enough to make my mother fall in love with him, anyway. And they ran away and eloped. He tried farming in Pennsylvania, but something happened. His farm failed, I think. When I was a baby, they came here.”

  “And settled on my land,” Adam said, his lips quirked into a teasing smile.

  “Next to your land,” Lori corrected him indignantly.

  “That’s not what my father always claimed. He always cursed the McClintocks for stealing part of his land—not that he needed it, mind you,” he added at Lori’s frown. “And maybe the story isn’t even true. Maybe my father just didn’t like having somebody settle so close by.”

  “Somebody who wasn’t like him,” Lori guessed solemnly. “Somebody who wasn’t rich.”

  “My father was a proud man,” Adam conceded. “Too proud, sometimes.”

  “He always frightened me,” Lori confessed. “He seemed so mean.”

  “He could be,” Adam allowed with a troubled frown of his own. “But he was never mean to me,” he added hastily. “I was his first born son. He spoiled me rotten.”

  Adam wasn’t spoiled or rotten, not like... Suddenly, Lori understood about Eric. All that spoiling hadn’t ruined Adam, but it must have destroyed everything good in Eric.

  “I guess that’s why Sudie had to be strict with you,” Lori said. “To undo the damage.”

  “Did it work?” he asked, as if he really wanted to know.

  “I think so,” she offered, earning another grin.

  Lori couldn’t believe she was sitting here at the table with Adam Ross, in his house, chatting and teasing as if they were a courting couple. Of course, they’d gotten a little beyond the courting stage, being married and all, but considering the strange circumstances of their marriage, a little courting was probably in order. And Lori was definitely enjoying it.

  As Adam ate the rest of his meal, they talked about their lives on the river, events they remembered and how different their perspectives had been of those events. And by the time Esther served them their blueberry pie, Lori was more than happy to taste it.

  “I thought we might have cake,” Lori said as they ate the pie. “You know, from yesterday.”

  “I imagine the cake is gone by now. All our people would’ve wanted a slice.”

  Lori looked up in surprise. “Your slaves ate your wedding cake?”

  “Yes.” Adam looked puzzled. Plainly, he didn’t understand her surprise.

  But Lori did, and a hundred things her father had said through the years suddenly came back to her. About how slaves had it better in this world than poor whites. About how nobody was going to look after his children if anything happened to him and nobody was going to feed him and clothe him when he was too old to work for himself. But a slave never had to worry about his kids going hungry or what would happen to him if he got too old and crippled to work anymore. And while Lori and her family hadn’t tasted cake in years, Adam’s slaves probably had it all the time.

  “Lori,” he said, laying his hand over hers where it rested on the table. His touch sent a strange warmth surging over her, but before she could even begin to understand why, he said, “Do you begrudge them a little treat?”

  “No,” she said. It wasn’t that.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I guess I just realized that the reason my father hated slaves so much was because he was jealous of them.”

  "Jealous? Why on earth would he be jealous of them?”

  How could she explain what it had been like for them? To a man who had probably never been cold or hungry or his life? To a man who had never had to wonder what would become of his family if he could no longer work?

  “A slave never has to worry,” she tried.

  “What do you mean?”

  Lori frowned as she tried to think of a way to explain. “If a slave gets sick, somebody takes care of him, because if he dies, his owner loses money. A slave never goes hungry, even if he’s sick and can’t work, and he always has a place to live. If he dies, his master doesn’t turn his children out, and if he lives to be too old to work, his master feeds him for as long as he lives.”

  Adam smiled and shook his head. “How nice it would be if all that were true. I hope it’s true here at Elmhurst, at least, but I know for a fact things are often very different elsewhere. Of course a master takes care of his slaves, but he doesn’t necessarily take good care of them. Some begrudge the cost of feeding them and give them only enough food to keep them alive. And the slave quarters at some plantations are little more than hovels. Of course, the master wouldn’t turn out a slave’s children if he died, but he might sell them away from a parent while he was alive, so that he’d never see them again. And I’m sorry to disillusion you about the way elderly slaves are treated, but I’ve known of masters who put their own mammys out to starve when they got to old to be useful anymore.”

  “How awful!” Lori exclaimed, horrified.

  “I didn’t even tell you about the beatings and the... the other ways slaves can be abused.” Once again, his eyes clouded, as if he had seen too much of such abuse. “At any rate, if your father really was jealous of slaves, all he had to do was remember that he was a free man. He could come and go when he liked and where he liked, he could marry whom he wished—as I gather he did—and take her a thousand miles away to live. Then he could be certain that no one would ever take her or their children away from him.” Adam’s smile was sad. “I wonder if your father ever realized that he died fighting to protect the very institution of slavery that he hated so much.”

  “No, he didn’t!” Lori insisted. “That’s not what the war was about!”

  “Perhaps not at first,” Adam allowed. “At first, it was for Southern honor and State’s Rights and other high flown ideals. But when Mr. Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, it became a war about slavery and nothing else.”

  “But I thought that Proclamation was worthless!” Lori said.

  “At the moment it is, since it only actually frees slaves in the states that aren’t part of the Union anymore. But if the South loses the war, I’m afraid the Union will take us back in, by force if necessary, and then all our slaves will be free. What will become of us—and of them—then, I have no idea.”

  Esther came in to clear their plates, and as she did, Lori thought about what Adam had said. How could he run this huge plantation without his slaves? And what would become of the slaves if they were free?

  As Esther began to carry the plates away, Adam said, “Esther, would you tell Sudie I’d like to speak to her, please?”

  All other thoughts vanished from Lori’s head. “Why do you want to talk to her?” she asked uneasily when they were alone again.

  “I thought you wanted to know what your duties were,” he reminded her gently.

  She did, of course, but not if finding out required a visit with Sudie.

  Before she could say so, however, the door opened again, and Sudie came in. She wore that same pinched expression she’d been wearing ever since Lori appeared at the wedding yesterday.

  “You wanted to see me, Massa?” she said. Her hands were folded tightly at her waist, and her back was ramrod stiff. Not for the first time, Lori thought that if it wasn’t for the woman’s clothes and the bandana tied around her head, Lori might have taken her for a white woman.

  “Yes, Sudie,” Adam was saying pleasantly. “Mrs. Ross is going to require some clothes.”

  Sudie’s
gaze flicked over to Lori, as if to verify the truth of Adam’s claim before returning almost instantly to Adam— as if she couldn’t bear to look at her. Lori could feel humiliation stinging in her cheeks.

  “I’ll see to it,” Sudie said without a trace of enthusiasm.

  “And of course, Mrs. Ross will be taking over as mistress of the plantation now.”

  Although Lori could tell Sudie was trying not to reveal any emotion at all, she could not stop the way her eyes widened with shock or the way her face visibly paled.

  She seemed to be having a difficult time breathing, too, or at least she couldn’t find quite enough breath to speak for a few seconds. Finally, she managed to say, “You want me to give her my keys?”

  Lori easily recognized the anguish behind the simple words. And the humiliation. It was so similar to what she herself was feeling. Sudie had been the mistress here in all but name for over twenty years. Now the boy she’d raised was going to give her job to a worthless slip of a girl who’d never even lived in a house with a real floor before.

  “I want,” Adam said very deliberately and very kindly, “for you to teach her what she will need to know. I’m sure you realize that her background did not prepare her for running a place like Elmhurst.”

  Sudie did not reply, and she looked so stricken, Lori felt herself softening toward the woman, in spite of everything.

  Adam folded his long-fingered hands on the table and leaned forward earnestly. “Sudie, I’m sure you realize that my wife will be expected to possess certain skills. She’ll have to entertain my friends and manage the house and the servants and take care of the sick.”

  Now Lori could feel the blood draining from her own face. How on earth could Adam expect her to do all those things? She would have no idea even where to begin.

  But no one was looking at Lori. Sudie was staring at Adam in complete incredulity, and Adam was staring back with perfect complacency.

  “And you realize, of course,” he went on, as if he hadn’t noticed that Sudie looked as if she might faint, “that if my wife can’t perform the duties expected of her, then it will be an embarrassment to me—and to everyone at Elmhurst. I am depending on you, Sudie, to protect us all from such an embarrassment. I know you will not fail me.”

  Lori could hardly stand to look at Sudie’s face. Her dark eyes were dry, and her lips were tightly closed, but inside, Lori knew she was screaming with pain. Adam had given her the most loathsome task she could imagine, and then he had made it a matter of personal honor that she accept it. Not only accept it, but do it well. To train the girl she despised to usurp her, in order to please the master she loved.

  After what seemed an eternity, Sudie drew an uneven breath, and Lori realized the slave woman was trembling, although she was holding herself so stiffly that it was hardly noticeable. “I won’t fail you, Massa Adam,” she promised softly.

  Only then was Lori aware that she’d been holding her own breath, and she let it out in a relieved sigh. Then she realized that she had nothing at all to be relieved about. Because this meant that she would have to learn everything there was to know about running Elmhurst. And she would have to learn it from a slave who hated her.

  Apparently, Adam was convinced that he had left Lori in good hands when he returned to the fields after the noon meal. For her part, Lori would have gladly followed him around for the rest of the day. Working in the fields would have been a much more familiar activity to her than keeping a house like Elmhurst.

  When Adam had left her standing on the back porch, she turned to find Sudie waiting in the doorway behind her.

  “This wasn’t my idea,” Lori felt obliged to explain.

  If Sudie heard her, she gave no sign of it. “I reckon we best start in the kitchen.” She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a large ring with many keys dangling from it. She held it out to Lori.

  Lori shook her head and clasped her hands tightly together, refusing the keys and all they implied.

  But Sudie rattled them impatiently. “You’s Massa Adam’s wife now. You’s the one should carry these.”

  She was right, Lori knew, although she would have rather picked up a poisonous snake than those keys. As she took them from Sudie’s hand, they clanked. Lori thought they sounded like chains.

  Sudie stepped back to allow Lori to enter the house and walk before her. Feeling more awkward than she ever had in her life, Lori led the way to the family dining room and outside to the kitchen.

  “ ’Afternoon, Miz Lori,” Eliza said when Lori entered the kitchen. “You ain’t lookin’ for something to eat again so soon, is you?” Eliza teased, but her friendly grin vanished when she saw Sudie entering behind her new mistress.

  Quickly, Eliza went back to her task. At the sink Esther and another girl were scrubbing the dishes from dinner, and when Sudie glanced at them, they dropped their gazes guiltily and got very busy, too.

  “Every week, you meet with Eliza and plan out what meals you want served,” Sudie said, making Eliza look up in surprise. “Eliza, she like to make fancy stuff, but Massa Adam, he like his food plain for every day. If they’s a party or something, though, he wants to be real fancy.”

  Lori nodded, wondering how in the world she was going to plan meals. She’d been living on cornbread and beans for so long, she’d almost forgotten what a real meal was supposed to be, and she’d never in her life seen meals like they had at Elmhurst.

  But Sudie was talking again, pointing things out to her, things she needed to know. Barrels of flour and cornmeal, bunches of spices hanging upside down from the ceiling to dry. And Lori had to listen. And try to remember.

  When they were finished in the kitchen, Sudie directed her out into the yard and took her on a tour of each of several storage buildings. The keys to those buildings were on the ring, and while Sudie showed her what each key was for, Lori knew she’d never be able to keep them straight. One of the buildings was a spring house where perishables were kept cool, even on the hottest summer days. Fresh milk and butter, luxuries Lori hadn’t known since they’d had to slaughter their cow for meat almost two years ago.

  The smokehouse held huge hams and sides of beef, enough food to feed the entire Confederate Army, Lori thought, although she knew that probably wasn’t true. In any case, the Confederate Army was a long way from here.

  “Ain’t like the old days,” Sudie informed her. “This place be so full, can’t hardly get anything else in. Now...” She shook her head in disgust. “The gov’ment done took almost half a what we slaughtered last fall. Give us nothin’ but a handful of worthless script for it, too. What good that stuff gonna do? Won’t nobody take it for money no more.”

  Lori knew exactly what she meant. It was like the Confederate money the state gave her and Bessie as a pension. The thought was generous, but if the paper money was worthless, how much help could it be to them?

  There were other sheds and outbuildings, and Lori toured them all, unlocking and locking the doors with the keys Sudie pointed to. There was the henhouse and the hog pen. There was the barn and the stable. And, of course, there were the slave quarters, but Sudie didn’t take her there.

  “You feelin’ all right?” Sudie asked sharply when they had finished in the last of the outbuildings.

  “Yes, of course,” Lori said, remembering her shameful display last night. “I’m fine. I just... last night... I...”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be out in the sun,” Sudie said, although her tone didn’t sound the least bit concerned. “Lady in your condition needs to take care of herself.”

  Lori felt the color rising in her face. “What do you mean?” she asked, her mind reeling. It couldn’t be! She couldn’t know, not yet! No one knew but Adam and Bessie. Surely... But Adam had said Sudie was like a mother to him. Would he have told her why he was marrying Lori?

  “You know what I mean,” Sudie said coldly. “You’re breeding.”

  Lori shook her head in silent denial, although what she was
really denying was the truth of Adam’s betrayal. “Adam didn’t...?”

  “If you mean did he tell me, he didn’t need to,” Sudie informed her smugly. “Why else he marry somebody like you unless he have to?”

  But he hadn’t had to. He’d wanted to. But Lori couldn’t say that to Sudie. “I think maybe I will go inside,” she said instead and started walking toward the house.

  But Sudie was right behind her.

  “Maybe you think you’s gonna have an easy life here,” Sudie said so softly that nobody but Lori could have overheard. “Maybe you think you got slaves now to wait on you hand and foot.”

  Furious now, Lori stopped and turned on her, and Sudie almost collided with her.

  “I don’t think any such thing, and I don’t mind working. I’ve been working all my life!”

  But that wasn’t really what Sudie was angry about. “You know the kind of man you got?” she demanded furiously. “You know how good and kind he is? How he took care of his brother and the rest of us here? An’ you done tricked him into marryin’ a girl who got no right to lick his boots!”

  “I didn’t trick him!” Lori cried.

  “How else a man like him gonna end up with a girl like you? Even the best man in the world gonna take what’s offered, and you offered it, didn’t you?”

  “No!”

  “ ’Course you did, and Massa Adam, he lonely, and he ain’t no match for a girl what’s set on trapping herself a rich husband. An’ he wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout anything except what’s under your skirt, not what might happen and not how he might end up puttin’ a baby in your belly—”

  “No, it wasn’t like that!” Tears were streaming down Lori’s face, but Sudie went on mercilessly.

  “Another man would’ve paid you off, but not Adam Ross. Oh, no, Adam Ross too honorable, and you knowed that, didn’t you? That’s what you was countin’ on, so’s he’d marry you and make it all right, but I’m thinkin’ you’re worse than a sneaky little tramp, ’cause how does he even know it’s his baby?”

  “It’s not!” Lori exclaimed before she could stop herself. Instantly, she clamped both hands over her mouth, but it was too late. The words were out, and Sudie had heard them. Her eyes got wide and spots of color bloomed in her pale cheeks.