Robert had flushed deeply. ‘Pa –’
Logan ignored the interruption. ‘And since I’m sure that most of our friends and neighbours would understand that, I somehow doubt that the situation will arise. Now, I’ve two suggestions to make. First that you boys should make your choice of a servant each to go with you; could be that it’d be a good idea to start to take the darkies with you when you go over to Silver Oaks – teach ’em the ropes – and since it’s beginning to look as if the running of the plantation well may have to be put on an emergency footing before too long, I suggest that you make a list of your responsibilities about the place that require supervision by Robert or myself, for discussion within the next few days.’ He turned with a faint and caustic smile to Cissy. ‘For I too, my dear, will not be takin’ up arms. It seems from enquiries I have been makin’ that there’s no place in the army for an old wolf like me. Fightin’s for the cubs, they say. Appears they think I’m better occupied here on the land, with the women an’ the children –’
‘Pa!’ Johnny stared at him. ‘You? You’d have enlisted?’
‘If they’d had the sense to let me, of course.’ The huge white head came up. His fierce, pale eyes were focused upon Robert’s face. ‘My homeland and my way of life is threatened; in the cause of honour, in the cause of truth and in the cause of justice, what else would you have had me do but try?’
There was a long, awkward moment of silence before Robert pushed his chair away from the table, nodding in courtesy to Mattie and to Cissy, addressing his father. ‘You’ll excuse me, Pa? I’ve got some of the hands out by the swamp mendin’ that fencin’ that came down in the winds. I’d best go give an eye to them.’
‘Perhaps,’ Mattie ventured a little later that evening to Johnny, ‘perhaps it’s just as well that Robert feels as he does? Your father might find it hard to run Pleasant Hill singlehanded?’ They were in their small sitting room. The short Southern winter had set in; rain drove in gusts against the shuttered windows.
‘Pa could run Georgia single-handed. Shake, what d’you think you’re playing at? You want me to take some other boy to war with me?’
‘No, Sir, Mister Johnny.’ Shake allowed himself a wide grin; they both knew the likelihood that Johnny would take anyone else away with him was slight. ‘Sorry, Mister Johnny.’ He set himself to draw the skin-tight boot from Johnny’s foot with slightly less exuberant force.
‘No, when Robert goes, Pa’ll take care of everythin’ real well, you’ll see.’
Mattie laid her embroidery upon her lap, turned her head to look at him. ‘When Robert goes? When he goes where?’
Johnny stretched his long legs and wriggled his toes before the fire. ‘When he enlists, of course.’ He turned a genuinely amused face to her. ‘You don’t take all this talk seriously, do you? Lord, Mattie, this is Robert. He’s never been any different; when I was five years old I remember he couldn’t go fishin’ without callin’ a committee meetin’ about it!’
‘And – you think this is the same?’
“Course it is! Just wait till it happens; wait till we go. Wait till the first time we take on the Yankees an’ make ’em run! He’ll be out there to join us like a bullet from a gun, I’d lay my life on it! Robert’s as much a Sherwood as any of us. It just isn’t always as obvious. That’ll do, Shake. Off you go.’
‘Yes, Mister Johnny. Goodnight, Mister Johnny. Miss Mattie.’
‘Goodnight, Shake.’
Johnny had stood up, huge in his stockinged feet, and stretched, his eyes on Mattie. She felt the sudden familiar, treacherous stirrings of warmth, in her body and in her face, under his gaze. He smiled. ‘Dove’s in the dovecote, turkey’s in the barn. Time you an’ me was in bed.’
She stood up. ‘You’ll never rival Mr Shelley, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t aim to.’ He came to her, reached to the pins in her hair, his big hands deft. ‘Don’t send for Lucy. No need.’
She let him undress her, let him, as he liked to do, carry her into the bedroom and lay her upon the bed. She let him veil them both in her hair, let him touch and stroke her, with hand and with mouth; more, she did for him those things that he had taught her brought him pleasure. And, painfully, they brought her pleasure too – painfully, because through it all a small, clear voice in that hatefully detached part of her soul that not even Johnny had ever touched asked: how could he? And how could I? How could he, who loved another woman, speak the words he spoke, caress her body with such ardour, penetrate her with such tender and restrained force that they both cried out in the delight of it? And how could she, who had seen him lift a hand to another face, who had seen his tears, heard his unspoken cry, how could she allow this? Worse, how could she allow it without telling him that she knew? Without confessing that she distrusted him for every single minute that he was out of her sight? That her imagination supplied him with more illicit opportunity to meet his other love – his real love – than practicality could ever possibly allow, given the distance between them? In the first twenty-four hours after that awful night – the hours of anguish in which she was determined to wreck them both in the cause of justice and her own brutal hurt – they had hardly passed a moment in each other’s company, and the opportunity simply had not presented itself. Even in her misery and rage Mattie could not bring herself to the humiliation of a public quarrel. And by the time the house had settled and the last guests had left it was Christmas Eve, rumours of troop movements were rife, serious talk of secession and war had taken over, and she had found herself forced to face the fact that at any moment Johnny might be taken from her by more than the lucent green eyes and gallant smile of another woman. To bring it into the open would have been to force a crisis; a crisis that might have driven him from her for ever, and at such a time. What then? Was that what she wanted? It was a cruel situation, made worse because she had no-one to whom could she turn, no friend in whom she could confide. Christmas was upon them; Johnny’s greetings were apparently loving, his gifts thoughtful; how could she not accept them? His lips were warm on hers; how could she not respond? It seemed more and more certain with each passing day that he would be going to war. And, faithless or not, perfidious or simply fallible, he was her husband and she wanted desperately to bear his child. So, despising herself, she did not tell him of what she had seen on the night of the party. She buried the searing memory as deeply as she could, although never deep enough, and tried to pretend that nothing had happened. She lectured herself, stretching charity to the limit. Johnny and Charlotte had been childhood sweethearts – there would always be special affection between them, and rightly so. Bram Taylor, on short acquaintance, did not strike Mattie as being a man she would wish her worst enemy tied to; of course Johnny would feel badly about what had happened. Too much wine, and too bright an eye; if even the most respectable of novels were counted to reflect life, then many a less susceptible soul had been carried away by such circumstances. The scene she had witnessed meant nothing – nothing! – in balance of the fact that it was she, Mattie, that Johnny had married, it was she, Mattie, with whom he laughed, discussed his day and to whom he turned each night. It was she, Mattie, who would some day bear his son.
Only on these nights when he lay beside her, breathing quietly, his arm flung across her breast, his dark head heavy and still upon the pillow did she lie and ask herself: how could he? How could I? And, cruellest thought of all: as we loved, did he think of her?
* * *
Within the month, state after state followed South Carolina’s lead and left the Union. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama – and, on the nineteenth day of January, Georgia, to be followed a week later by Louisiana. The four Sherwood brothers went to Milledgeville, the state’s capital, on that day to hear the proclamation; when they returned the tension between Robert and the others was palpable. Questioned by Mattie, Johnny was curt and unforthcoming; that there had been argument was obvious. Acceptance of secession was by no means entirely universal. Some there had been
in Milledgeville to unfurl the old Union flag in defiance, and to preach peace and reconciliation, but there had been few to listen.
‘Laws! Miss Mattie, I surely wish I knowed what was goin’ ter happen now.’ Lucy’s quick fingers rested for a moment upon the petticoat she was mending, her large, soft eyes lifting to Mattie’s. ‘Them Yankees – they goin’ ter come here? I’s real scared, Miss Mattie. Ol’ Mose says them Yankees’ll hang any nigger they can git their han’s on.’
‘Oh, Lucy, for goodness’ sake! Things are bad enough without such talk! No, the Yankees aren’t going to come here. And, anyway, they don’t have horns and a tail, you know.’ Mattie pulled herself up and raised rueful brows. ‘Though you’d better not say that I said so. It isn’t a fashionable view around here.’ She laid aside the book she had been reading and walked to the window. ‘Heavens, this rain! It’s as bad as home!’ She stopped, surprised at the sudden wrench of pain that the memory and the unthinking word engendered. For a moment the green fields and lush woodlands of Kent superimposed themselves upon the alien landscape of red mud and moss-hung trees beyond the window. She saw the ancient, comfortable, wood-panelled rooms of Coombe House, the low, rambling passages, the stone- flagged kitchen – she blinked, and cleared her throat a little.
‘It must be real strange, Miss Mattie, to come way cross the ocean – an’ be set among strangers?’ Lucy’s voice was soft with sympathy.
‘Yes. It is.’ Mattie kept her back resolutely turned. Not for the first time the irony struck her; if she had to name the one person in this house that she counted as a friend, that person would be Lucy. In the past days and weeks the girl had served her devotedly; more, had supported and encouraged her in a way that no-one else had. Sometimes Mattie wondered how much Lucy knew, how much she divined, of the strains in the relationship between her mistress and the young Mister Johnny. Mattie had been in Georgia for long enough now to believe, as Aunt Bess had maintained over and again in Savannah, that there was little of any note that a personal slave did not know or perceive of his or her owner’s affairs.
Before the fire Jake stretched and yawned, lifting his great golden head to lay it upon the fallen book.
‘Why, you big ol’ devil, look what you doin’ to Miss Mattie’s book!’ A touch over-indignant in her effort to lighten the moment, Lucy jumped up, scolding, to rescue the little volume. ‘Git off there, you slobberin’ houn’! You done creased it up!’
She brought the book to Mattie, wiping the page with her sleeve. ‘Don’ know what that great ol’ nuisance is doin’ bein’ allowed in here!’ she grumbled, smiling.
‘Yes, you do. You know very well.’ Mattie took the book, smoothing the pages. ‘Why, look, Lucy – here’s your name!’ She pointed to the word. ‘You see? L.U.C.Y. Lucy.’ She held the book for the girl to see.
Lucy leaned forward, her face suddenly intent. Her dark finger with its pale pink nail rested for a moment on the book, tracing the letters. ‘That say Lucy? That say my name?’
‘Yes.’
‘An’ this? What it say ’bout me?’ She ran her finger along the line that followed the word.
Mattie laughed. ‘“Lucy for her part had not a care in the world”,’ she read, ‘“but that the birds should sing, and the sun shine. She was young, and it was summer. Tomorrow’s troubles could wait their turn.”’
‘It done says that?’
‘That’s what it says.’
Lucy’s serene smile lit her face. ‘Sounds good ’nuff to me.’ She turned again to the book. ‘Miss Mattie? Where it say “sun”?’
‘Here – see? S.U.N. Sun.’
‘Ess? Why you says ess? An’ why me?’ The girl’s mystified interest was edged with the slightest degree of frustration.
‘Because that’s what the letter’s called. Ess. And I didn’t say “You”, I said “U”.’ Mattie stopped, shaking her head. ‘Oh dear. Perhaps I’d better start again.’
A long time later, Lucy broke into their absorbed and self-appointed task to straighten and ask abruptly, ‘This ain’t like teachin’ me to read, is it, Miss Mattie? Mister Logan – he sends me to the barn for sure, iffen he knows you’s teachin’ me to read. Laws! When Poge came out an’ just asked to learn the mass’er done wore him out in that barn an’ then sent him out to the fiel’s – never let that man back in the house ag’in. I would’n’ wan’ that, Miss Mattie! Sure wouldn’t!’
Mattie stiffened, her finger still upon a word. ‘I suppose – I suppose, yes, these are the first steps to learning to read.’ She turned her head to look into intelligent eyes that had become huge with fright. ‘But, Lucy, there’s no question of your being sent to the barn, nor to the fields for that matter.’ Floggings were not frequent events on Pleasant Hill; when accounted necessary, a whipping would be administered in the big barn and sometimes, for the purposes of discipline, in front of the assembled hands. The shackles upon the barn door were a grim and permanent testament to the building’s use on these occasions; the mere threat of being ‘sent to the barn’ was usually enough to curtail any misbehaviour. ‘Mister Sherwood gave you to me. I should never allow such a thing to happen. However, if it worries you, then of course I shouldn’t dream of continuing.’ She snapped the book shut.
Lucy made a small protesting movement with her hand, then stilled.
Mattie eyed her coolly, knowing her own irritation to be not only unjust and unkind, but levelled at the wrong person. That Logan Sherwood’s relentless hand should show itself here, in her own small domain, was certainly intolerable; it was hardly poor Lucy’s fault. ‘Well?’
‘I – don’ know, Miss Mattie.’
‘Please yourself, Lucy. Just let me know when you’ve decided.’
‘Yes, Miss Mattie.’
Mattie lifted the book with a sudden quick smile. ‘It would of course be an entirely private arrangement. Just between you and me. No-one need know.’
Again that lovely smile lit the creamy-dark features. ‘Yes, Miss Mattie. Jus’ us two? That’d be diff’rent for sure, wouldn’t it?’
* * *
The troop at Silver Oaks had become the pride of the countryside; there was hardly a plantation in the area that did not have its representative in ‘The Colonel’s Boys’. That most of them had known each other from birth, wrestled each other, swum in the same rivers, climbed the same trees, ridden the same horses, courted the same girls, made for a camaraderie, a true esprit de corps, that many a more professional outfit might have envied. There was, however, another side to this coin; they were a reckless bunch, and their blood was high – it was only to be expected that old rivalries, and in some cases old antagonisms, would also be perpetuated. So on the day that Bram Taylor rode up to Silver Oaks on as spirited a piece of horseflesh as any in the troop could boast, his rifle at his saddle, his boy Zach at his heels, his wide-brimmed hat on his saddle horn and his fair hair a defiant pennant in the cool winter breeze, the odds were on for a fight.
It was not long in coming.
By the middle of February the young nation of the Confederate States of America had been born and was growing and thriving. She had her own Constitution and her own unanimously elected president in Jefferson Davis – a man born, in space and in time, uncannily close to that other President, whose seat was Washington and whose person was the most unequivocally detested in the South. By an ironic quirk of fortune, the two presidents had been born barely a year apart, and within one hundred miles of each other in the state of Kentucky. It was one of those unlucky border states between North and South whose divided loyalties had and would cause heartache and bloodshed for its people. Spirits in the South were high. It was only a matter of time before Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and probably others joined the fight to protect old freedoms. Europe would back the Cotton States, and would not see her ports blockaded for long, for reasons that the pragmatic recognized to be as much to do with trade as with sympathy. And if it did come to conflict – what could the industrialized, money-grubbing, im
migrant-ridden North produce to match the gallant, dedicated young of the South? Such loyalty and honour could not be bought, such sense of fierce pride instilled overnight into a nation of accountants and factory hands. If an attack should come, it would come from the North; the South did nothing but defend her own soil. A soil sacred, or so the legend ran, to every Southerner who drew breath.
Bram Taylor, who had married – in circumstances of which no man in the troop could fail to be aware – the only child of an old Georgian family, actually hailed from Arkansas, a state that had not yet declared her allegiance to the star of the Confederacy. Johnny Sherwood, backed by his brothers, was ready and willing to make all that could be made from that, and did. If everyone knew, or at least suspected, that the actual causes of the enmity between them ran deeper than that, it was of no consequence; the result in the end was bound to be the same.
* * *
Mattie was throwing sticks into the river for Jake when she heard the drum of hooves on the dirt track that could only signal the return of the three young men from Silver Oaks. She called the dog, stepped back laughing as he shook himself dry, and turned to go back to the house. It was a day in early March that showed every sign of spring, though the ground was still sodden from torrential rain the day before. She picked her way onto the track, waved as her husband and his brothers came into sight. Jake bounded amongst them, barking. Shake, riding behind the three brothers with the other two servants, slipped from his saddle and collared the big dog, dragging him away from the skittering horses.
‘Good day, young Miz’ Sherwood.’ With ceremony Russ swept the stylish, wide-brimmed, plumed hat that was part of the troop’s new uniform from his head and bowed courteously in the saddle, grinning. ‘Y’all got room for three hungry soldier boys at your table today, Ma’am?’
Mattie regarded him with tranquil eyes, joining the game, emphasizing her clipped English accent. ‘By all means, Captain, providing you-all take your muddy boots off first. The last troop I had in simply ruined the Aubusson. To say nothing of – Johnny!’ She stopped, startled into normality. ‘Johnny – what have you done?’ Turning to her husband she had seen his face, which had until now been shaded by the brim of his hat. A large, picturesque bruise, purple and green, swelled upon his cheekbone, half closing his right eye.
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