by Celia Hayes
How Doctor-Papa and his brothers and Uncle Carl had plotted, to smuggle the piano into the house without his mother knowing! Today he could have brought in a circus with a calliope and a brass band, too, and no one would have ever noticed—the house was that empty. Peter leaned back with a sigh, absently rubbing away the ache in the stump of his arm with his remaining hand. Here he was, home at last, but it hardly seemed worth the trouble of the journey. Two elderly servants in an empty house, a sister-in-law who set his teeth on edge, and a small boy he didn’t know at all. His eyes fell on the little cabinet where his mother had kept her small collection of curiosities and treasures: some china figurines, a delicate arrangement of wax flowers under a glass dome, a Chinese fan carved of sweet-smelling pale wood. There were family portraits and daguerreotypes among them and a miniature on ivory of her first husband, the father of Peter and his brothers, with a locket of his hair under glass. There was a portrait of Horace and Amelia in their wedding finery, and one of himself, Jamie, and Johnny. He smiled, defying the dull pain in his throat, to think of how they had put on their uniforms and tried to look so earnest and martial.
Uncle Carl would have shaken his head over that, for sure. There was his picture, framed in an especially ornate case, in Margaret’s cabinet of treasures. He sat stiff and unsmiling with his family, his mother’s younger brother, with his three children and that slim, black-haired woman he had married in the German settlements. They must have had that daguerreotype done when they came to Austin for Horace and Amelia’s wedding. That had been so very awkward, that visit. Uncle Carl’s wife barely spoke English at all and he was a stiff-necked Unionist, which hadn’t gone without comment, given how high feelings had been running in the spring of 1861.
Peter remembered with another pang that he had spoken heatedly, indeed had been unforgivably rude to his uncle. His mother had been furious and he had been rude to her as well; he cringed at the memory. Someone had draped a bit of black ribbon over Uncle Carl’s picture frame, which meant that he must have fallen on the field in spite of his Unionist principles. He had been a soldier, too—and a Ranger, one of Jack Hays’ men. Peter didn’t doubt that his uncle must have taken up service one more time, and that was just another sorrow piled upon all the rest. He racked his memory, trying to recall when his mother had written to them, and what she had said when she wrote to tell them of Uncle Carl’s death. Not much, Peter thought . . . just a brief postscript in a letter to Horace, which he shared with his brothers. So it must have been in the second year of the fighting. Peter dully wondered where. Was it in some great fight, or maybe some piddling little raid or ambush somewhere? Not that it mattered much; dead was dead. And the Vining brothers and their brigade had much more pressing matters attending them at the time. Home had seemed very remote, and its people quite unreal, by the second year of fighting in the East. Even Doctor-Papa dying of camp-fever had not seemed quite real.
That depressing recollection was interrupted by someone tapping lightly on the door. After a moment it opened and Hetty put her head around it to say, “Mr. Peter, Miz Amelia said we was to bring you something on a tray. We thought sure you’d be hungry, after coming all that way.”
“I am,” Peter answered. “But you don’t need fuss, Hetty. I’ll eat in the kitchen like always.”
From behind Hetty came Daddy Hurst’s voice. “Oh, but Miz Amelia, she says that ain’t fitting.” Hetty opened the door to let him pass, and he entered carrying a wooden tray and a folding stand. “You look tahrd, Marse Peter, an’ that ain’t no mistake. You jes’ set youself in that chair. Miz Hetty an’ I, we’ll fix you right up.” He set up the stand with a flourish, and Hetty proudly placed a folded napkin on it, with a setting of silverware.
As she bustled out, Daddy Hurst winked broadly at him and whispered, “I got me a bottle of fine sipping whiskey set aside jus’ for you. Saved it special an’ I’ll bring it later!”
“And I’ll drink a health to you for thinking of it, Daddy,” Peter answered, touched with the care they were taking of him. The old man winked broadly at Peter, hearing Hetty call from the kitchen.
“Jes’ you sit easy an’ rest,” Daddy Hurst advised. “Miss Amelia, she did say we was to make your ol’ room ready, air out the beddin’ an’ sech. I put yore things up there, as ever. Might I ast a question, Marse Peter? Why ain’t they no buttons on yore jacket, now?”
Peter gave a snort of disgust. “When we came into Galveston, the Yankee provost marshal met us on the dock, and told us to cut all them Army buttons off. It was a condition of our parole, he said.”
“My, my, my.” Daddy Hurst clicked his tongue and shook his head in commiseration. “Seems lak they didn’ want y’all to be in no doubt as to who won out, didn’ they?”
“No, I guess they didn’t,” Peter said indifferently.
Hetty returned with another tray, this one laden with covered dishes and a tall glass of lemonade. “Don’t you worry none,” Hetty added. She set out the dishes with a flourish: a plate of ham, all neatly cut up so that he could manage it one-handed, some little boiled potatoes, a dish of greens cooked with fatback, warm cornbread wrapped in a clean napkin, and a smaller plate with a slab of chess pie on it. “I’ll take it and find some new buttons for it, don’t you fret. Miss Amelia might not take the same care your Mama did.”
“Thank you, Hetty,” Peter answered in gratitude, for his mouth was already watering at the good smells rising from the plates at his side. “I am forever more grateful. I’m hungrier than I ever recall being, all the time I was away. Don’t worry ‘bout that old jacket. I’m sure my brothers and I left enough clothes behind.”
“Bless you, sor, so they did indade,” Hetty adjusted the placement of the plates on the tray more to her liking, while she and Daddy beamed at him with expectant approval. “Oh, the pity of it, that you weren’t able to see your dear mither one last time! But still an’ all, you’re home at last, an’ that’s a blessing. I’ve been sayin’ a prayer just for ye, every day since we heard that your regiment was away to home, safe enough.”
“Let the pore chile eat, Miss Hetty,” Daddy rumbled. “’Sted a tawkin’ an tawkin’ over ‘im, like one ‘o dem mockin’-birds.”
“Heathen sauce,” Hetty snapped, without any particular heat. “Don’t worrit yourself!” And she and Daddy went away, closing the parlor door after themselves, although he could hear their voices as they wrangled cheerfully in the hallway, and then distantly in the kitchen.
So empty, the house was now. He could hear Hetty and Daddy quite well, with his nephew’s voice chiming in now and again. He ate and his appetite revived with every bite of Hetty’s excellent cooking. When he had finished the last scrap, even the crumbs in the napkin wrapped around the cornbread, he sat back with a sigh, replete with good food for almost the first time since . . . he couldn’t remember. He wondered what he should do next and told himself he ought to get up. He ought to go find his sister-in-law, ask for an accounting of what his mother had left. He ought to have some notion. What was it Horrie had said, about him being back to take care of them all? Look after them all; that was a joke. He barely felt able to take care of himself, maimed and tired, half-starved and weak as a half-drowned kitten, after the exertion of walking up the hill and around the house. Well, Major McNelley had advised that he wouldn’t be fit for much for quite some time. He had looked over his spectacles at Peter and advised, “Something outdoors in the clean air of the country. Nothing terribly strenuous, mind you. Had you trained for any such profession before the war?”
“I was reading law,” Peter replied.
Major McNelley sighed and said, “You probably won’t be allowed to continue at such for a while, having been a Rebel and all. Look to doing something vigorous, which keeps you out of doors. You’re one of the lucky ones, after all.” Major McNelley had sighed again and lifted his glasses so that he could rub the tired eyes underneath. Peter sniffed a bitter laugh as he looked at his stump. Major McNelley let his glas
ses slip back over his face and added sternly, “You’re young, lad. And you’ve lived through this murderous stupidity, which is more than can be said of many another. You’ve got the rest of your life and more of your limbs and faculties than most of the other poor lads in this place. Now sort out what you can do, and want to do, and go home and do it.” At the time, Peter had wondered if Major McNelley—fat, grizzled and by repute the fastest and most adept operating surgeon in several armies—had ever met his mother. They both possessed a ruthless talent for discouraging self-pity in others.
Someone tapped on the door. Before he could answer it Daddy Hurst put his head around the doorframe and asked, “Yo’ finished, Marse Peter? Miz Hetty, she wants dem dishes, if yo’ done wid ‘em.”
“I am,” Peter replied, and Hetty bustled into the parlor. Peter thought that he ought to get up, but he still felt tired from the day’s journey in the heat, and so much food had left him sleepy. Doctor-Papa’s chair was extraordinarily comfortable. No wonder his stepfather fell asleep in it of an evening. Something nagged at him as his eyes fell again on Margaret’s cabinet. Almost idly, he asked, “Hetty, Daddy Hurst, do you recall if Uncle Carl’s family came to Mama’s funeral?”
“They did not, I must be fair to say,” Hetty answered carefully as she gathered the dishes together. “There were ever so many mourners; the church could scarce hold them all.”
“Onliest fambly was Miz Amelia and th’ boy,” Daddy Hurst added.
Hetty sniffed, disdainfully. “I don’t b’lieve young madam even wrote to Mr. Carl’s wife until after the funeral,” she said. “They were left in a poor way, too. Remember, Hurst? Their oldest boy stayed for a wee while, before he went off with Colonel Ford’s company. A fine tall lad.” Hetty neatly assembled the dishes, and Hurst folded up the tray-table. “With such a look of your brothers and yourself about him, too! Miss Margaret remarked on it, she did! Didn’t he tell us that Mr. Carl’s property was taken by the Army – Mrs. Carl and the children had to go live with her family?”
“They what?” Peter sat up, all drowsiness banished in an instant.
“Burned them out.” Daddy Hurst nodded sadly. “Miz Margaret, she was that riled up ‘bout it. Pow’ful sorrowed, too, ‘cause she couldn’t pull no strings to get that prop’ty back fo’ them, an’ then she was too sick, an’ ever’ friend she ast for he’p had too much on they plate. Miz Margaret, she regretted that mo’ than anything elst.”
“That’s the first I heard of this, Daddy! Why would they have confiscated Uncle Carl’s land?! He had that for service with the Rangers, I remember—who would do such a wrong to his family? Uncle Carl was one of Jack Hays’ men, too! Who would dare, and by whose law—some damned politicking scoundrel, I’ll be bound!”
“Lordy, Lord, I dunno.” Daddy Hurst shook his grizzled head. “There was po’ful evil bein’ talked of, Marse Peter, po’ful evil . . .of such goings’on as most white folk would’n believe.”
“It was the martial law, sor. They declared martial law, when General Hebert said that all the German towns were in resistance; such a to-do there was.” Hetty added dolefully, “We never knew what to believe at the time. The lad . . .your cousin would not say a word about it. A right cagey one he was. Miss Margaret, all she would tell me was that Mr. Carl had been murdered and the property confiscated for his sympathies. And she could find no one what would lift a finger, for all the true men of honor were away in the fighting. All that were left, sor, were weak men using the war to score off old enemies or profiteers feathering their own nests, that and bullying lickspittle politicians. That was her very words!”
“Miz Margaret had a way wit’ dem,” Daddy Hurst added. Although he didn’t specify which he meant, he continued with an oblique look at Peter as he capably folded up the stand and tray and tucked them under his arm. For the life of him, Peter couldn’t read Daddy Hurst’s expression; it seemed to be something halfway between genuine sorrow and a grim kind of satisfaction. “They say dat men wid masks, they come to de door, take away dis man, dat man, dis other. Dey hang dem all from an ol’ oak tree, fo’ disagreein’ ‘bout de Confederacy. Dey say, ‘Dis man, he a Union man. Cain’t have dat, when our boys at de fightin’ in Virginny or some sich place,’ so . . .” Daddy Hurst shrugged. “Men wid masks, dey pay a call at midnight. Most white men, dey ain’t useta guard dey tongues like dey black folk do.”
“No, I guess not,” Peter said. His voice was calm, but inside a cold unreasoning rage was building in him. Curious that when Hetty quoted his mother, about lickspittle politicians and profiteers, he should so suddenly think of Miss Amelia’s father, Mr. Stoddard of Mayfield and his plantations of rice and cotton in Brazoria. Stoddard, who had been such a fire-eater for secession, had cheered the march of grey-clad volunteers and raised a toast to the Confederacy at his daughter’s wedding. Aye, he was keen to serve the Confederacy with his mouth, and maybe some of his money, but not—as far as Peter knew—with his own body. The rage sat in him like a cold lump of lead. Politicians; politicians and cowards; Peter silently damned the whole lot of them. They had roused the whirlwind of secession, encouraged it with torrents of words, shouted down men like old General Sam Houston who counseled against it. And now, if what Hurst and Hetty had to say was true, while true men of honor paid in blood, such low men had spitefully beggared his own kin; that after murdering Uncle Carl in cold blood for being a stiff-necked and stubborn Dutchman, unwilling to take any part in the madness.
Peter said some words then, words which had probably never been uttered in his mother’s parlor. He recovered control of his own tongue with some effort after a moment, ruefully acknowledging the truth of what Daddy Hurst had said, and realized that the old man and Hetty had quietly gone, closing the parlor door behind them. Again he wondered what he should do next.
Chapter Two: The Death of Dreams
Peter Vining’s patience with his sister-in-law Amelia Stoddard Vining lasted approximately three weeks; a period of time rather longer than he had expected immediately upon his return. He ate heartily of Hetty’s good cooking at every meal, and slept deep and restfully at night in his own room. He was only a little troubled with bad dreams and the wistful conviction that he would step out of his room at any moment and encounter his mother, Doctor-Papa, or his brothers. The memory of their voices, their footsteps, echoed all the more loudly in the empty house where they had lived. For quite a few days his ambitions went no further than that, and to do nothing more strenuous than to put on some of his old suits of clothing which Hetty laid out for him. They still smelled faintly of the herbs and camphor in which they had been stored away.
He had wondered why Hetty and Daddy Hurst remained, when they obviously got on so badly with Amelia but a visit from Margaret’s lawyer and executor for her will provided a partial answer: his mother had provided them with pensions, and the right to live on her property for as long as they cared to stay. Margaret had seen to that in her usual efficient manner; the will was air-tight and her bank account and investments secured, although—thanks to the war—pitifully smaller than they would have been otherwise. No wonder Amelia was on edge—Margaret had boxed her in very neatly, leaving her with no other place to live unless she wanted to return to her father’s house.
On a morning about two weeks after he returned, Peter bundled up the tattered coat, shirt, and cavalryman’s trousers he had worn home from the Army. He intended to tell Daddy Hurst or Hetty to burn the filthy and ragged things. Amelia intercepted him at the bottom of the stairs, popping out of the doorway to the dining room like a dancing figure on an ornamental clock at the sound of his descent. Lately she had begun doing that, turning up unexpectedly no matter what room of the house he was in.
“Oh, they shall do no such thing!” she exclaimed heatedly, upon cross-examining him over what he had planned for what remained of his uniform clothes. “How could you think to do so! They are relics—sacred relics of our gallant struggle for liberty and rights! Burn them, indeed. Give them
to me, Peter!” She took the bundle from him, and to his astonishment, held the unsavory things to her as if they were something worthy of protection. “I will see to it they are mended and suitably preserved, dearest brother, in memory of our cause!”
“Fancy talk for a bunch of rags,” Peter answered, nonplussed. He went out to the kitchen, shaking his head and thinking that Amelia was being damn sentimental over something he wouldn’t have given to a tramp for charity. Daddy Hurst and Hetty were the only sensible people in the house, it seemed like.
Daddy Hurst chuckled knowingly when he said as much. “Miz Amelia cain’t never do enough for the cause,” he said, “‘Specially now.”
Hetty sniffed as if she disapproved. With a pointed look over her shoulder as she laid a place for breakfast for him she added, “You best beware, Mr. Peter—there are causes and there are causes. Once Miss Amelia sets her sights on sommat, she does not take no for an answer.”
“Most assuredly, I do not,” Amelia herself announced with enormous satisfaction, appearing in the doorway—again just like one of those mechanical dolls. Everyone started as she stepped into the kitchen, her skirts rustling indignantly. She looked at the single place at the kitchen table. Her lips trembled with crushing disappointment. “Oh, Hetty,” she added, “I thought it was understood—we take our meals properly, in the dining room!”
“I’d rather eat in the kitchen,” Peter answered mulishly. His sister-in-law only laughed, a pretty tinkling laugh as she took his good arm.
