by Dorothy Love
Celia’s ears rang. She had never believed a single word Leo Channing said, but somehow he had known about this diary. Perhaps he had told the truth when he said people in Savannah knew things they would never divulge, at least to her.
“Find the diary, and you’ll find the name.” Even now the memory of his words was like a cold hand gripping her heart.
Celia perched on the stool and opened the journal. The first few pages had been ripped out, leaving a ragged edge. Some of the remaining pages were puckered, and the ink was splotched and faded as if the diary had been left in the rain—or dampened by tears.
May 23. Eleven years ago, on this date in the year 1832, I joined my fortunes to those of Magnus Lorens, and for ten of those eleven I lived in as perfect a bliss as was possible, given my terrible loss and the secret I am forced to bear. But of late laughter and affection have been replaced by silence and indifference, and he will not say the cause. He insists that my emotions are those of an overwrought woman, and that his ardent feelings have not changed. I do not believe him. Minty and Octavia sick today. Picked six quarts of strawberries.
July 21. Visitors arrived this evening. I was nearly ready to retire, as there is little to do in the country in the evenings, but just before twilight a carriage turned off the main road and came up the avenue to the house. And oh, what a joy to see my friends the Reids from Atherton Hall. Isabella brought squash, beans, and cucumbers from her garden as well as new trimmings for my summer hat, which I had requested she purchase for me on her next trip to town. I sent Octavia down to the slave street to fetch Molly, who is far and away the best cook on St. Simons, and asked her to prepare a late supper for us. Afterwards I took the ladies into the parlor, and we stayed up until midnight playing endless hands of smoot and catching up on all the news. I felt terrible for Mr. Reid, who as the lone gentleman in our party had to content himself with a quick walk around the house and a cheroot on the porch, as my husband did not appear until long after I had settled my guests into their rooms and they were fast asleep.
Footsteps on the servants’ staircase set Celia’s heart to racing. She extinguished the lamp and crouched behind the stove, scarcely daring to breathe, praying Mrs. Maguire would not find her here. Someone moved across the room, and when her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw Papa rummaging in the bread box. A few moments later he left the kitchen and padded down the hallway, his footfalls growing softer, then louder, as he moved from the carpeted hallway to the marble foyer and up the curving staircase to his bedroom.
Celia was glad he was hungry enough to want to eat at midnight, but worried that the laudanum had confused him so that he had used the servants’ staircase. And in the dark. She held her breath until she heard his door close, then waited a moment longer before relighting the lamp and returning to the diary.
July 22. Rain. Ivy is restless and refuses to stand still to be measured for a new dress. Bought ten yards of barish delaine and the same of pink calico in Savannah. All the talk in town was of Joseph Smith and his assertion that divine revelation has sanctioned the practice of polygamy. It is very convenient for him and his male followers, but what of the women? Molly made an excellent roasted turnip soup for dinner, but my husband did not appear at table to partake of it.
July 23. During Morning Prayer today I made my own private petition, praying mightily for Mr. Lorens, and was quite overcome with shekinah. Perhaps God has heard my pleading, and these present troubles will soon resolve themselves.
Shekinah. Celia puzzled over the unfamiliar word and made a note to look it up later. The diary contained only a few more entries, and she intended to finish reading before Mrs. Maguire appeared to start the fire for making breakfast.
August 3. Mr. Lorens came in today in an exceedingly jovial mood. He returned from a week in Savannah bringing gifts of a breast pin and a length of purple lace for me and new books for Ivy. She does not seem very much overjoyed with them but of course is glad of any attention from her absentee father. It is so rare these days. Sometimes I fear he suspects what I cannot say.
August 8. Isabella Reid and Tessie Wright called here this morning, Mrs. W still in mourning dress for the child lost to the fever last summer, a boy just a year old. Mrs. Reid brought an article clipped from the Southern Woman’s Magazine which asserts that it is the duty of all Southern women to support the continuation of our system of free whites and black slaves. I pretended to agree, for to disagree would be social suicide. But I have become a silent abolitionist. Slavery degrades the white man as surely as it degrades the Negro.
Molly served brandied peaches for dessert tonight. Mr. Lorens was much pleased.
August 11. Men demand their wives’ fidelity as their due but feel free to indulge their own passions without restraint.
August 12. Ivy was sick all night. The news spread quickly through the slave street. This morning Scipio, Quash, and Liddy appeared on the front porch, expressions grave, and inquiring after the health of the little miss. Liddy and Scipio are especially concerned that our lands remain in our family’s hands. Scipio fears if I have no heirs, this place will be sold and them along with it, and he and Liddy do not wish to be separated. He was much relieved when I told him Ivy has improved. I saw no reason to tell him that my husband has wrested my lands from my control, sold off parcels without my consent, and I am powerless to stop him.
August 14. My suspicions are confirmed. I am betrayed beneath my own roof, and by someone I knew and trusted. Tessie Wright called here this morning only too eager to share the news. Septima is about to give birth and has quit the island. This is a small blessing, for had she remained, I would have had to remove her myself. I cannot bear Tessie’s righteous hypocrisy. She knows very well who fathered every mulatto child on this island but pretends that those beneath her own roof are the product of some conjurer’s spell. As for the mulattoes themselves, they are quite proud of their mixed parentage, seeing it as an advantage to their own prospects. Oh, what a hateful thing slavery is.
August 15. What a liar my husband has become. He has cleaved my heart in two, and yet he acts as if he is the very soul of virtue, worthy of my respect. What a reprobate! How is it possible that I still love him?
August 17. When I think of my husband as I first knew him, a handsome young Swede newly arrived aboard a Danish brig from Copenhagen by way of Havana, so full of fun and charm, so attentive to my thoughts and feelings and eager to assuage my unrelenting grief, I can scarcely credit that he is the same man who has taken no note of his marriage vows and looks upon me now with such indifference.
September 3. Septima has returned to St. Simons without her misbegotten child. My husband is heedless of my humiliation and anger, my outrage that he should consider her my equal. I refuse to pretend that his slave wife does not exist. I cannot bear another moment in this house. Ivy and I leave immediately for Savannah. I know not what will happen after that.
September 9. Arrived three nights ago at the house of my late sister’s husband in Savannah, only to discover that Mr. Lorens had somehow discovered my plan and followed me here. He seeks some compromise by which I will return to St. Simons to resume my duties as plantation mistress and allow him to keep his harlot. Even if I could countenance such an outrage, I cannot allow my daughter to be exposed to such an arrangement. I sent my husband away. I do not wish to see his face ever again.
September 12. This morning as I sat on the sunny little balcony off my bedroom, contemplating the garden and my own future, I spotted a carriage carrying my husband and his concubine, heading down Bull Street. I will admit to her singular beauty. Her hair is long and straight, her skin is somewhere between olive and cream, her eyes a mossy green. It is clear she has won his heart, but Savannah is my city. My home. I will not cede it to the likes of her. One of us must go.
One of us must go.
Outside, a milk wagon clattered down the darkened street. Celia set the diary aside as a memory of that September morning surfaced. Celia and Ivy were
in the garden pretending to be ballerinas. Celia remembered the feel of the warm sun on her bare head, the scent of jessamine and roses, the whisper of her skirts in the late summer grass as she turned. Then the sound of applause. She looked up to see Aunt Eugenia on the balcony, her auburn hair in a messy plait over her shoulder, her writing box lying on her chair.
Aunt Eugenia gathered the hem of her dressing gown and climbed onto the balcony’s narrow wooden rail.
“Mama!” Ivy yelled. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, sugar, your mama’s as nimble as a cat.” Aunt Eugenia smiled down at the two girls. “Do you know that from up here you can see nearly all of Madison Square? I never realized that before.”
“Mama, please get down before you fall and break your neck.” Ivy crossed the garden and stood directly below the balcony, staring up at her mother. “Please. You’re scaring me.”
“Life’s a scary proposition. Best learn to deal with it.”
Then Mrs. Maguire, her ample figure bathed in sharp-angled sunlight, appeared in the open doorway. Celia was too far away to hear the conversation, but not too far away to see her aunt’s shoulders stiffen before she followed the housekeeper inside.
Minutes later, Mrs. Maguire had summoned Celia and Ivy from the garden and given them sandwiches and cake in the kitchen.
Now Celia tried to recall what had happened next. Perhaps she had been sent to her room for a nap. Or perhaps she had blocked out a memory too painful to retain. The next thing she remembered was the sound of voices—Aunt Eugenia’s and that of another woman. Had her aunt summoned Septima in order to deliver an ultimatum as the diary suggested? Had the laundress arrived with Uncle Magnus in hopes of effecting the compromise he wanted?
She remembered only the sounds of voices raised in anger and the sounds of running feet along the gallery.
A thud. A piercing scream. And then silence.
Shekinah. From the Hebrew word meaning “to dwell.” The manifestation of the presence of God. Divine presence.
Celia returned the dictionary to the shelf and stared out the window. Rain had fallen all night and now a wet, gray mantle blanketed the city. Even if Sutton’s boat from Charleston arrived on time, the Ten Broeck track was now too wet to exercise the horses. Zeus and Poseidon would have to wait for fairer weather.
Though she was glad of any opportunity to spend time with Sutton, perhaps it was just as well the weather had not cooperated. Today she was too unsettled to enjoy anything. Her thoughts turned again to her Aunt Eugenia’s death and its aftermath.
What did she know for certain about that day? Only that Aunt Eugenia had fallen from her bedroom balcony and died. But what had caused the fall in the first place? Had Aunt Eugenia, crazed with jealous grief, and burdened by the weight of her unnamed dark secret, climbed onto the railing and deliberately jumped to her death, or had she meant only to frighten her husband with the threat of suicide?
Had she been pushed off the railing? And if so, who had done it? The laundress? Or Uncle Magnus, wishing to be free of his wife? Some people in Savannah certainly thought Magnus had killed Eugenia. The fact that he had left town so abruptly, disappearing without a trace, gave added credence to this view.
And then two weeks later, Septima had been found dead. Celia shivered at the memory of the remnants of the noose she’d seen in the boarded-up carriage house. Clearly, the woman had not succumbed to some sudden malady as Papa and Mrs. Maguire claimed.
Celia stoked the fire in the study, orange sparks popping and flying up. She couldn’t imagine Uncle Magnus killing his own wife. And Septima had just as strong a reason for murder. With Aunt Eugenia out of the picture, Uncle Magnus would have been free to install the laundress as mistress of the plantation and name her child as his heir.
Celia felt a rush of rage at that thought. The Butler land belonged to her family, not to a black-hearted foreigner who had come to Savannah with little more than the clothes on his back and charmed his way into a young woman’s tender affections, only to betray her in the most egregious manner—at a time when Aunt Eugenia was in the throes of some private grief.
“Miss Celia?” Mrs. Maguire stepped into the room. “Your father is awake and wishes a word with you.”
“Thank you. I’ll go right up.”
She climbed the stairs and went first to change out of her dressing gown and tidy her hair. In the hallway she nearly collided with Ivy, who had emerged from Papa’s room carrying a towel-draped tray that gave off scents of sausage, warm bread, and cinnamon.
“Celia,” Ivy said. “There you are. Uncle David just finished his breakfast and wants you.”
“Yes, so Mrs. Maguire said.” Celia indicated the silver tray. “She would have taken care of that.”
“Oh, I know, but I wanted to speak to Uncle David anyway, and I thought I’d save Mrs. Maguire another trip up the stairs.” Ivy grinned. “She’s not as young as she used to be, you know.”
Ivy headed down the stairs. Celia went along the gallery to Papa’s room and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” He was propped on his pillows, hands folded over the pale-blue counterpane. The curtains were open to the watery light and the rain dribbling down the glass. A fire crackled in the grate.
“Good morning, Papa.” She bent to kiss his forehead. “You sent for me?”
“Yes, darling.” He motioned with one hand. “Pull up that chair.”
She settled herself on the small needlepoint chair, noting with dismay how pale and fragile he looked. Perhaps he’d spent part of last night prowling in the kitchen again. “Did you sleep well, Papa?”
“I’m afraid not. Here lately it seems the laudanum isn’t working very well.” He frowned. “Might as well be drinking sarsaparilla for all the good it’s doing.”
“You should ask Dr. Dearing whether there’s something else you could try.”
“Tincture of opium is the remedy of last resort. If it won’t help me, nothing can.” Papa rolled onto his side to lift a water glass from the side table and drank deeply.
When he finished, she took the glass from him, set it on the table, and fluffed his pillows. “What did you want to see me about, Papa?”
“I’ve been thinking about your mother and about dear Eugenia. One good marriage, one bad one. Even women of means are at the mercy of the men they marry. I don’t wish that to happen to you, my dear. I couldn’t bear it.”
She gaped at him. “Sutton loves me, Papa. I would trust him with my life. Besides, he has money of his own. He isn’t anything like Uncle—”
“I want you to have this.” Papa opened the drawer in the side table and withdrew a large envelope.
She opened it. “Ten thousand dollars?”
“Don’t put it in the bank. Put it away in some secret place. If trouble comes and things shouldn’t work out the way you hoped—”
“Thank you, Papa, but you mustn’t worry. It isn’t good for you. Sutton and I will look out for each other, no matter what.”
He nodded. “He’s a good man. A noble man. I’ve no cause to doubt his intentions or his affection for you. But circumstances can change us, darling.” He waved one hand. “Should Georgia secede, should war come—”
“It won’t.”
“If war comes, both of you will be sorely tested. Such a crisis can strain even the strongest of marital ties.” He took another sip of water. “Don’t invest that money in government bonds. If the South loses the war, the bonds won’t be worth anything. You’d be penniless, and I cannot bear the thought of my only child living in dire poverty. Ten thousand isn’t a fortune, but it’s enough for you to start over if necessary.” His eyes held hers. “Promise me you will set this money aside and tend it carefully.”
“All right, I promise, but you’re worrying needlessly. Sutton and I are going to have the most beautiful wedding Savannah has ever seen, and when we get back from England, we’ll settle down right here. The politics will get sorted out, and we will go on just as be
fore. You’ll see.”
Celia’s rosy prediction seemed to set his mind at ease. He smiled then, and the light came back into his eyes. “Speaking of weddings, how are the preparations coming?”
“Mrs. Maguire and Mrs. Hemphill are planning the most elaborate wedding cake you ever saw,” Celia said, relieved at the change of subject. “My gown is almost finished, and oh, Papa, it’s delicious.” She went on to describe the billowing satin skirt, the pagoda sleeves, the delicate lace. “And Mrs. Foyle shortened Mama’s veil for me. I picked it up just last week.”
“What a vision your mother was in that veil.” He sat up straighter in the bed. “Try it on for me. Let me see how it looks on you.”
“Now?”
“Certainly. Why not?” He glanced out the window. “The rain is letting up and I must leave soon to get to Commerce Row. I’ve a meeting this afternoon with a new cotton factor who wants to do some business before the season ends. And Burke Mackay is sending over a young man to replace Mr. Shaw.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it, Papa? Perhaps you should stay home today and try to sleep.”
“I’ll feel better taking charge of business than lying here worrying about a future I can’t control.”
“All right. I’ll be right back.”
She tucked the envelope under her arm and returned to her room for the veil, but the unexpected gift and Papa’s reasons for giving it had cast a pall over her happiness. She didn’t want to believe that anything could change the way she and Sutton felt about each other. Or that war—if it came—could so radically alter her world.
She shook the veil from its muslin nest and draped it over her head, arranging the delicate lace across her shoulders, and returned to Papa’s room.
A tender smile erased the years from his face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was Francesca standing there. She would be so proud of you, darling.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Thank you, Papa. I hope so.”
“The one regret of my life is that she was taken from us before you had a chance to know her well. To appreciate her many virtues.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose I haven’t taught you very much about being a woman.”
