by Lynn Austin
“Or maybe you’re the one who’ll be proven a fool, Harrison. The Negroes know they’re working for themselves now. I watched their children leave for school this morning, hoping for a better future. And three of their wives are in the kitchen right now, cooking for us.”
“Tell them to stay out of my room.”
“Oh, believe me, I already did. Your mother and I are very grateful for their help, and the last thing we need is for you to start throwing things at them and running them off again.”
She watched him take another bite of egg-soaked biscuit, holding it in his pale, skeletal fingers. Unhappiness clung to him like a uniform. “You’d better bring me my gun,” he said, not looking up at her. “I’ll need it to protect you and my mother.”
“These are your former slaves, Harrison. They aren’t dangerous. You treated them well before the war, didn’t you? They aren’t holding any grudges.”
“Are you really that naïve? They think they own everything now. I want my gun.”
All her life, Josephine had done whatever the men in her life had told her to do, following the rules like a good girl, including God’s rules. But everyone in authority over her had disappointed her—especially God—and she was tired of doing what they said. “No, Harrison. If you want your gun, you’ll have to get up and fetch it yourself.” She had never spoken this way in her life. But if she’d learned anything in the months since the war ended, it was that she had a voice and an opinion, and that it felt good to say and do as she pleased.
“Where’s my mother?”
Jo hesitated, knowing the truth would likely upset him. But he was bound to find out sooner or later, and he was perpetually upset. “She went to Richmond.”
“Alone?”
“She has a carriage driver now.”
“What is she doing in Richmond? I thought the city burned down.”
“Not entirely. She didn’t want to tell you ahead of time for fear it would upset you, but since everything seems to upset you these days, you may as well know the truth. She’s talking to your banker about a loan. She needs money to start planting and to buy mules and other farm animals.”
Harrison lowered his head and closed his eyes. She felt sorry for him as she watched him struggle with his emotions. For a man like Harrison, accustomed to being in charge of his life, it must be devastating to lose control and be forced to lie helplessly while others made the decisions. She waited for Harrison’s angry response, expecting him to toss the tray of food onto the floor or to throw it at her. But he continued to sit with his head lowered, his eyes closed, his shoulders slumped.
“I’m sorry, Harrison,” she said quietly. And she was. “Dr. Hunter says he’ll help you learn to walk on crutches. With a little practice every day, you’ll eventually get stronger. There’s no reason to remain bedridden. You could have gone to Richmond with your mother if you had made up your mind to get up.” She paused again, waiting for his reaction, waiting for the explosion of temper that was sure to come. He remained quiet for so long, never moving, that she finally said, “Harrison? Are you all right?”
He looked up at her, his face serene, his dark eyes shining. She tried to read what she saw in his eyes but couldn’t. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I need to change.”
She stared at him, shocked. Had she finally gotten through to him? How was that possible when neither his mother nor his fiancée had been able to do so? “I-I’m glad to hear that,” she said. She managed a smile.
“I believe I’ll start changing by shaving off this beard.” He ran his bony hand over his face. His hair and beard had become long and unkempt, adding to his frightening appearance. “The weather is getting warm, and I’ll be hot and itchy if I don’t shave.”
“Do you want me to find someone to help you?” She was still stunned by the sudden change in him.
“No! There’s no need!” He answered quickly, harshly, then sighed and softened his voice again. “I’m sorry. But you’re right. I shouldn’t remain dependent on everyone. If you’ll bring me my razor and shaving soap, I can manage myself. Everything I need is in my rucksack. Just bring the whole thing to me. I believe Mother put it upstairs in my room.”
“Won’t you need a mirror and a basin of water, too?”
He nodded and turned to gaze out the window. He must have found it frustrating to watch his plantation becoming overgrown these past few months. Now, with the workers back, he would soon have a view of cotton plants growing and blossoming.
Josephine hurried upstairs and found a straight razor and leather strop in the tattered pack he had carried throughout the war. There was no soap, so she took a cake of it from beside the washbasin in her room along with her own hand mirror, and carried them down to him. “Would you like me to hold the mirror for you?” she asked after one of the servants brought the basin of water she had asked for.
“No, thank you, Josephine. Leave me alone, please.” It was the first time she ever remembered him asking nicely or saying please. He even gave her a faint smile. If only these changes would last and Harrison would truly begin moving forward again.
She smiled in return and did what he asked, closing the door as she left his room. She had just gone outside to sit on the front porch when Mr. Chandler arrived on horseback.
“Good morning, Miss Weatherly.” He swept off his hat before dismounting, greeting her with a grin. “How are you this beautiful day?” She was growing used to his Yankee accent and no longer had trouble understanding him. But like all Yankees, he spoke much too fast, running all his words together. Josephine still thought of him as a Yankee and her enemy, but that opinion needed to change. He had been extremely helpful to Mrs. Blake, and there was no reason to be unpleasant to him.
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Chandler. And you?”
“Just fine.” He tied his horse to the hitching post and halted at the bottom porch step. “Are the new arrangements going well so far?”
“Yes. I can’t tell you how grateful Mrs. Blake and I are for all your help. We had breakfast cooked for us this morning for the first time. We’ve been coping rather poorly up until now, I’m afraid, since neither of us has any experience in a kitchen.”
“I’m very glad I could help. The Blakes are the first family in this area to take advantage of the bureau’s services, and it has been very gratifying for me, too. I hope your enthusiasm catches on.” He continued to grin like a schoolboy who had just been given a peppermint stick.
“I hope it does, too. My plantation could use more help. I wish my brother Daniel would listen to what you have to say and—”
Josephine stopped. As she looked at Mr. Chandler’s boyish grin, she suddenly realized how false Harrison’s smile had been, how abrupt his change of heart. People rarely changed that quickly. Dread washed over her like icy water.
“Miss Weatherly? Is something wrong?”
“I . . . excuse me.” Josephine ran into the house and into Harrison’s bedroom, her heart leaping wildly, her feet stumbling in her torn shoes. The first thing she saw when she opened the door was a swath of crimson splashed across the bed sheets, as if a child had spilled a container of paint. But it wasn’t paint, it was blood. Harrison’s blood. It gushed down his arm and spilled onto the bed from a deep gash in his wrist. He was transferring the razor to his left hand, about to cut his other wrist when she cried out, “No! Stop! Harrison, stop!”
Josephine leaped on top of his bed, grabbing the hand that held the razor in both of hers, wrestling with him as she tried to take it from him. His hands and forearms were slippery with warm blood, and it quickly soaked her hands, too.
“Leave me alone! Go away!” he yelled, the angry, bitter Harrison she knew only too well. She continued to grapple with him, desperate to take the razor away, to make the bleeding stop. He was surprisingly strong. She felt a sharp pain as the blade accidentally sliced into her hand. Harrison was going to win. He would get his wish. He was going to die.
“Help! Somebody he
lp me!” she screamed, hoping one of the servants would hear her. They had been told to stay out of Harrison’s room, but surely they would come to her aid, wouldn’t they? “Help me! Please!”
At last, she heard running footsteps, then Mr. Chandler’s voice. “Miss Weatherly? What . . . ?”
“Help me take the razor away from him! Hurry!”
Mr. Chandler ran to her side and grabbed Harrison’s arm, opening his fingers and prying the razor from his hand. Josephine heard it hit the wall beside the bed and clatter to the floor as Mr. Chandler flung it aside. He was stronger than Harrison, stronger than she was, and she could finally let go and step back as he pinned down Harrison’s flailing arms.
“Get out of here!” Harrison bellowed, cursing at Chandler. “Leave me alone! Let go of me!” He struggled in vain. The Yankee was too strong for him. But blood continued to gush from Harrison’s wrist, and the sight made Josephine sick with fear. She didn’t know how to stop it. He was going to bleed to death.
“Miss Weatherly, please . . .” Chandler said, breathing hard. “I need you to unbuckle my belt and pull it off.” It was an outrageous request. When she didn’t move, he said, “Please, we need to use it for a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Otherwise he could bleed to death.” Both men were covered in blood. So were Jo’s hands and the front of her dress. “Hurry!” he pleaded.
She forced herself to move, crouching next to Mr. Chandler who was kneeling on the bed. The buckle was hard to undo with shaking fingers and sticky hands, but she finally managed to release it and pull it free from the belt loops. All the while, Harrison groaned and growled like a crazed animal, cursing and struggling.
“Wrap it around his arm and buckle it, Miss Weatherly. . . . Good. Pull it tightly. . . . Tighter!”
At last, the bleeding seemed to slow. “Good . . . good,” Mr. Chandler soothed. “Now, see if you can find me something to use for a rope. Is there a necktie or another belt handy?” Jo found Harrison’s bathrobe and removed the sash. Chandler instructed her to tie Harrison’s uninjured arm to the bedpost while he kept both arms pinned down. Harrison was no longer thrashing and seemed to be weakening from loss of blood, but he still moaned and cursed. His blood had gushed everywhere, soaking the sheets. Josephine’s dress and the bed linens were probably ruined.
“If you can find something to tie his other arm, Miss Weatherly, I can ride back to Fairmont and fetch the doctor.”
“Yes . . . of course.” Josephine stumbled from the room and grabbed the first thing she spotted—the cord to the living room draperies. Two servants, Beulah and Mable, stood in the hallway, their eyes wide with fright at the sight of her.
“Is everything all right, Missy Josephine?” Mable asked. “You needing help?”
“I-I’m fine. This isn’t my blood.” She hurried back into the bedroom and watched in a daze as Mr. Chandler fastened Harrison’s other arm to the bedpost. When he was sure the bonds were secure, he rested his hands on Josephine’s shoulders for a moment as if to steady her.
“You’d better stay right here and watch him. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Make sure the tourniquet stays tight.” She heard the front door close, then the sound of a horse galloping away. She sank down on the edge of the bed, her knees too weak to support her any longer. Harrison pulled against the restraints for a moment as if testing them, then lay still. He resembled a corpse. This was how he would look lying in his coffin, she thought. Exactly like this.
Now that she was sitting down, Josephine became aware of the throbbing pain from her cut finger. It was still bleeding. She put her finger in her mouth, tasting blood, then took it out again and wrapped it tightly in a fold of her skirt. As her shock gradually began to fade, anger took its place.
“Why would you do such a stupid thing?” she asked him.
“Why do you think?” He glared at her for a long moment before looking away. “I would have done it a long time ago, but I didn’t want my mother to be the one to find me.”
“You ignorant . . . selfish . . . self-centered man!”
“You have no idea what it’s like to lose everything.”
“Oh yes, I do! In case you haven’t noticed, your mother and I and everyone else in Virginia have suffered losses, too. We’ve had to learn how to adjust to a new life, and so can you.”
“I have nothing to live for.”
“You could have plenty to live for—your plantation, your home, a fiancée who loved you. It’s your own fault for driving Emma away.”
“I had nothing to offer her.”
“You know what? I am sick to death of listening to you. When are you going to stop seeing everything through your own selfish eyes and start thinking about someone else for a change? The Yankees didn’t have to kill you the way they killed my brother. You’re letting your own selfish self-pity do the job.”
“Don’t you understand? I don’t want to live this way!”
“Do you think any of us do? Don’t you think we wish our lives were the way they used to be? We all have to get on with it, though, every last one of us.”
“But you aren’t crippled! You don’t know what it’s like to feel like you’re no longer . . . whole.”
But perhaps she did. Something was missing in Josephine’s life, something invisible, and she didn’t know what it was. There were holes in her soul like the spaces on the floors at White Oak where the rugs used to be, like the spots left behind on the wallpaper when the Yankees stole her family’s paintings. Something inside of her had been stolen away, and she didn’t feel whole, either. Harrison often complained of feeling pain in his missing leg, and Josephine’s heart felt that phantom pain, too. If only she knew how to make the aching stop.
“None of us are whole, Harrison. But if you would stop trying to die, maybe you could start living. You keep pushing everyone away, acting mean and hateful, hoping no one will care if you live or die. Hoping we’ll say good riddance. Well, it won’t work. I’m not going to give you the privilege of dying. I’ve had to figure out how to hang on to hope after losing my father and my brother and our way of life, so you’d better figure it out, too. You were brave enough to go into battle and fight—why can’t you be brave enough to live with the results of your stupid war?”
“I was willing to die for the South.”
“Then it’s time you mustered the same courage to live for the South. If you don’t like Yankees coming down here and taking over and telling you what to do, then fight back by living, not by taking your own life.”
“I have no reason to live,” he said, pulling weakly against the restraints. “Slaves and Yankees are running my plantation . . . my mother has you to console her . . .”
“I’m only here temporarily. I hope to go home after you make up your mind to get out of bed.”
“Go home now, then . . . and leave me alone.” He closed his eyes.
“I would love nothing better than to leave you alone. And believe me, I will just as soon as Dr. Hunter arrives.”
She folded her shaking hands in her lap and gazed out the window instead of at him, waiting in silence for help to come.
14
Josephine didn’t know how much time passed before she finally heard Mr. Chandler galloping back with the doctor. She stood, smoothing her bloodied skirt, and looked down at the pitiful man in the bed.
“Harrison, listen to me.” She waited until he looked up at her. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t ever want your mother to know what you tried to do today. We’re going to clean everything up before she comes home, and if she does see the blood or the gash on your arm, I want you to tell her you cut yourself by accident.”
“What difference does it make if she knows the truth?”
Josephine stepped closer to him, glaring at him. “Don’t you understand? If she finds out that you tried to kill yourself, she’ll know you don’t love her enough to rebuild this place and take care of her. Maybe you don’t mind hurting her, but I refuse to stand back and allow you to do it.” She h
eard the front door open and close, footsteps in the hallway. Then Dr. Hunter and Mr. Chandler strode into the room.
“Harrison, you fool!” the doctor said. “After everything we did to save your life, this is how you repay us? What were you thinking?” He lifted Harrison’s arm, still tied to the bedpost, and examined the wrist. “Someone did a good job with this tourniquet. It saved his life.”
“It was Mr. Chandler’s idea,” Josephine said. Harrison would hate the irony of being saved by a Yankee.
“We had to learn how to use tourniquets during the war,” Chandler said. “This wasn’t the first time I had to make one, I’m sorry to say.”
The doctor’s shoe crunched against something—Josephine’s mirror, lying on the floor. He bent to pick it up and handed it to her. The glass resembled a spider’s web, casting dozens of reflections instead of one. In every image, Josephine saw herself covered with blood. The sight made her dizzy. She closed her eyes to stop the room from whirling and groped for something to hold on to, to steady herself.
“Mr. Chandler, please take Josephine outside for some air,” she heard the doctor say. She was only dimly aware of Mr. Chandler’s arm around her waist as he helped her from the room, leading her outside to sit on the front step.
“Are you all right?” he asked after she was seated. “No, of course you’re not. You’re shaking!” He took off his jacket, stiff now with dried blood, and draped it around her shoulders, then sat down beside her. She laid the mirror in her lap and unwrapped her throbbing finger to look at the cut. “You’re injured. How did that happen?”
Josephine shrugged. “I don’t know. In the struggle, I guess.” He pulled out his handkerchief and wound it tightly around her finger, squeezing her hand for a moment before letting go. Why was he being so kind? “I’m sorry for the way Mr. Blake acted,” she told him, “and for the terrible names he called you.”
“I’m used to it. You, Mrs. Blake, and Dr. Hunter are just about the only people in Fairmont who are civil to me. I don’t blame the former slaves for not trusting a white man, and I’m trying to figure out how I can win their trust. I think the new school has been slowly winning them over. But sometimes I doubt if I’ll ever get men like Mr. Blake to trust me.”
