Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

by Allan Gurganus

Lady Marsden has a pet remark, one that Cassie picked up early on. Lady uses it to explain the hardship of widowhood, the sadness of having her only child—thirteen—sent off to soldiering, the pain of running so huge a plantation alone, trying to do right by her “people” whilst living through this tacky needless war and eating so poor—okra done in every sauce invented by God or Frenchmen. She says it again, massaging the bridge of her nose. The free hand plays on, right valiant: “With great gifts go great responsibilities. ‘To whom much is given, much shall be required.’”

  The Good Book mentions this, and so did the Widow Marsden right often.

  Lady tells Castalia she’s getting an especially dreadful one. She feels that famous burning sensation in her nostrils, the first sign and one that has, she believes, been described to Cas before.

  “My dear, you cannot imagine these—you, who are health itself. I hear that Yankees are actually in our state, the verminous infestations (oh—don’t you two gape so. Your little friend here picks things up from out of the very air). Sherman seems a poison in one’s own bloodstream. I fear the onslaught of a grand mal that will outdo even my worst. Who can ever forget the one last June?—At the start of even a typical spell the world resembles perhaps a white dinner plate—clean, round, shiny with Spodey light playing all across its surface. But then, oh dear, from one edge—usually the lower left—single black mouthfuls gobble at brightness till all is bitten into, bitten away. Till I must rest here as my whole life is eaten in veritable plugs. Plugs, I tell you.—At the end, there remains but a single mouthful of perfect whiteness. Mightn’t that be spared me? Well? Might it not? Don’t just stand there mooning, you two. No! I am spared nothing. A black jaw swoops down upon even that and when this final wedge is ingested, well, you’ve attended me often enough, Castalia, you know all too well what happens next, my child. After so many years as my handpicked confidante, you should know.”

  “You faints,” Cassie cuts her eyes at the older serving woman. Zelia smirks, hacking lilacs’ stem ends with a new right surgical energy. “You faints into somebody’s arms,” Castalia adds. “And you gets so weak you can’t even hardly … talk. Now that be weak.”

  Missing the little joke, Lady rolls on, “Justement. And yet, as I always say …”

  “To who much got givened, much gone be required.”

  “You speak my mind. My very mind, child. Castalia, there are times when you open your mouth and I hear the music of the spheres. I hear exactly what I would say.”

  Today, Castalia laughs in swallowed rushes, moves with jumpy turns, the elbows angle out. Her head tilts on its smooth axis, eyes are quick to flutter closed. Cas wants to keep her senses steeplechasing over eleven hundred lilacs’ perfume. That heavy smell now seems the enemy, a kind of cage slung up around this vast white house.

  Fumes grow thicker. Cassie perks to usual sounds, acts eager to miss the new knocks and odd draggings from downstairs. Making music in this chamber’s center, Lady Marsden don’t quite see the great evacuation underway.

  6

  BY PEELING back one window’s migraine strainer, Cas looks down onto quite a parade. Other slaves are emptying best things from The Lilacs’ first floor. Last night, Castalia herself ordered the job done, “Gone be our nest egg in the next world.” She promised—if others would help unload the mansion—her and Zelia’d try keeping Lady Busybody busy. Busy with Cassie’s famous true and semi-true tales of the crossing from Africa—busy with spanky-new lies, with anything that worked.

  Old Zelia had said, “Let fire gobble every nasty stick of it.” Castalia snapped, “We ain’t been cleaning this fine mess for all these years just to see it fry for being Hers. We Hers too. And we couldn’t help it.”

  House slaves upriver have sent news: Silver is already being buried. At places like Mabry’s Shadowlawn, this could mean digging a all-day trench. Last night, Marsden slaves voted: This house’s silver will be left to Inferno’s happy-go-lucky elbow grease. Women had spent so much of their lives keeping blackness off the julep cups, salvers, fish platters for two hundred. Well, not no more! Only shy Baby Venus asked that one thing not be polished off by fire—the silver service used on rainy days to send tea towards players of Catacombs.

  Baby Venus got voted down.

  CASSIE now studies workers filing across the lawn—greenery commencing to sprout first dandelions since Uncle Primus and his six garden helpers trotted North last month. Castalia—way up here, seeing what others choose to save—longs to shout orders. (Ain’t often you get warned that your place will burn at 3 p.m., letting you pick from amongst what’ll otherwise soon be soot.) Through the window, it’s clear to Cas—the women left downstairs might’ve lemon-oiled these items for thirty years, but they sure don’t understand what Best means. She wonders, Maybe I been made a monster snob like her, by her. Castalia has served as Lady Marsden’s body servant for ten of her seventeen slave years. And during all the days of standing behind Mistress at the oval pier glass, long evenings of brushing the famous pale brown hair two hundred strokes a thick handful, Castalia has someway picked up (like a disease) more stray facts than she’s ever needed knowing. Till today. By heart, she’s got the words that Lady speaks with such reverent boldness. Things ours: Wedgwood. Sèvres. Majolica. Aubusson. Ormolu. Why should such syllables chime so in a young head kidnapped out of Africa at age three? Why do these words—ones Cassie can’t rightly recollect ever not understanding—sound to her someway tribal? personal? African?

  “I knows just what wants saving.” Pretending to dust, Cas settles her forehead nearer gauze drawn drum-tight over the third floor’s splendid view.

  Meanwhile, Little Xerxes is lugging a busted cuckoo clock from out the back scullery. And here comes Baby Venus with one dented copper coal bucket worn over her head. She’s most stomping on the heels of two older women who tote a dead-ordinary oak hall table. Why that? Cas goes to yell a whole litany of things worth salvaging, then recollects last night’s other show of hands.

  Question: Since Freedom would be theirs today, should folks run off early or serve out last hours by playacting through usual routines? Should they tell Mrs. Whitey or keep her in the dark a little longer? Well, everybody chose to carry on. Being slaves of a self-styled lady actress—having lived for years in this imagined pageant play, the drama part appealed to them. Anyhow, their mistress stayed at such a pitch of regular hysteria, especially since Marse Marsden died and Will marched off, if she knew the end was near, she’d only make the final minutes of unfreedom harder on everybody. Herself included.

  Castalia had announced today’s schedule: “Fire gone get here round three o’clock if we to believe what we been told from upriver. And I, for one, do. I ready to try and trust all kind of things. This house gone be cooked medium to well done by teatime. After that, please call me: Young Miss New York City-bound!”

  Following last night’s vote in the quarter, everybody talked loud, they waltzed around. Baby Venus rode grown women’s shoulders. Using a broom handle and tin basin, Zelia done some right spunky percussion. Little Xerxes copied Uncle Primus’ formal butler-bowing from the waist. But then, anybody could do Primus.

  7

  LADY counted Xerxes among the all-time favorite slaves she’d ever inherited or personally purchased. And that made quite a crowd. Of all her black children, only Little Xerxes got invited to high tea on odd days between white visitors. Local gentry called him the best copycat living, boy had more lives than nine. The lad could imitate other people imitating him imitating other people. (Odd, at a glance you’d know all parties and only later wonder how.)

  Though eleven years old, Xerxes stood just one inch taller than a yard. Ain’t too many gentle ways to say it, sugar: He was semi-funny-looking. Skin and bones, the quick-moving boy had sizable ears and a studious indoor glee that reminded Lady Marsden of her dead husband, Xerxes’ likely poppa.

  Everybody (including Lady’s guests) asked the child to please mime so-and-so. A slave, he obliged. Black folk
s claimed: to see Xerxes “do” you meant courting your own death. In the quarter, the child was real good about warning friends so’s they could shut their eyes, could sit real still, braced, suddenly surrounded by hacksaw laughing, shoved a bit yet never daring to peek. Was like your looking in the mirror with your eyes closed.

  After midnight, in the safety of the quarter, performing by a single candle, Xerxes most often did Lady. With oh such fierce attention. If the jumpy boy was her novelty-clock possession, she was sure his masterpiece. (As a prod to action and a reason for rising, child, Revenge should not never be underrated.) Xerxes caught her rich surprisingly deep voice, her precise tiny hands, the way she tossed her head—now finicky, now with passion.

  One morning Xerxes overheard her say, “Gentlemen always wear neckties.” Next day and ever after, the child sported a ascot made from three of Master’s cast-off hankies. Wearing this, he turned up at the Big House for his usual cleaning of Marsdens’ shoes. Others teased Xerxes till Mistress called his little neck gear “valiant.” Then others muttered instead.

  The child had finally quit entering slaves’ Toss You Head Like Her contests—giving the adults a chance. Unlike me, Xerxes rarely exaggerated. This dryness made his imitations start off scarier and soon get funnier. Castalia spent the most time alone with Mistress. Cas had all kinds of secret noticings and she tried passing these along to the boy wizard.

  Begged to do Mistress, Xerxes would sometimes sulk, refusing. (All comics, child, want to be took partway serious—I should know.) Cassie bribed the child—offering her own meal rations. “Please first do Mistress play the piano slow, then Mistress reading verse while eye-deep in too bubbly of a bubble bath. You know the one. Then to wind up with Mistress Gets June’s Big Old Headache. In that order, boy.” And thin Cas, stomach growling—having sacrificed tonight’s fried okra—would rock back like royalty, arms crossed, her face already practicing its ready grin, so eager to be satisfied.

  When slaves pleaded for Xerxes’ choicest, they didn’t call, “Do her.” They begged, “Do it. Do it now.” Cassie felt sad that Lady’d never get to see Xerxes’ version of Her Ownership. “The Mrs. might could learn so much from it.”

  Some nights, the boy’s act was good enough so, next morning, slaves stared extra hard at their mistress. (Smiling, she checked her hairdo’s linchpin chopsticks, she stood whispering, “What?”)

  Uncle Primus—usually right hard and strict—gave the little actor time off from slave garden duty. A artist, Xerxes never took no shortcuts, boy stayed busier than anybody. So much to know and notice!

  In one outbuilding used for harness tack, a large mirror was kept locked. It won’t chipped or broken. Seemed like some political prisoner: harmless except for its views.

  Lady had banished the thing. “It fattens. Considerably. Here I had it shipped from France via Boston, I expected a soupçon’s loyalty. But what does it see fit to do? Add seven pounds. Per arm. I simply won’t have it.”—Passing the hut, you’d hear Lady’s nearly lifelike voice asking Lady’s mirror, “What? What?” in forty different mothy ways.—Darling, if you watched Little Xerxes long enough he could almost teach you how to love her.

  DURING private wee-hours sessions, long after Winch and his underlings were off drinking in far cabins, why did black folks keep going over Lady’s fussbudget extremes? Would they ever reclaim a smidgen of their lifetimes’ time spent humoring Judge More’s only child?

  Xerxes could copy whatever he saw or imagined (which means: Anything). But the child never considered any slave—hisself least of all—half so much fun to do as Lady. His hit parade included: Lady gives away jewels and oranges. In Xerxes’ strange imitation, these gift items were always someway stitched to Lady’s silk wrapper. In saying, “Here—just for you,” she had to tear shreds off of her clothes. Soon she tried screening bad rips with one hand while passing on more treats. Dipping far into her capital, she was soon left jaybird naked.

  Tonight—his last unfree one—Xerxes stayed mighty wound up. He fairly chugged. For once, our imp of talent overdid. Hey, nobody’s perfect. Laughing just encouraged the famous migraine trick.

  Standing, Xerxes mashed the bridge of his nose. Others spoke a chorus, “Uh-oh, look like she getting one her blinders, sure. Poor canary bird. Reckon it a bad one?” Xerxes, eyes closed, nodded Yes, give off a single peep of pain.

  Folks drew into a circle, like preparing to catch this Lady bound to fall. But when Xerxes’ staggering begun—nose and forehead bunched, free arm trailing in a comic goldfish-graceful way—wouldn’t nobody save him. Xerxes give each person a chance. Each sidestepped helping. He just reeled on to the next, next. Finally, run out of help, he collapsed, but only by getting down real slow onto the stone floor, careful not to muss clothes or the imaginary eighteen-inch-high hairdo he kept touching, organized air.

  Safely fallen, the big-eared Lady pitched a real conniption fit, coming around just long enough to fret with pearls and say, “What? I is shocked!” Finally it did die, but with many comic froggy kick-spasms. You had to of been there, probably. Everybody laughed. Slaves practically had to.

  Honey, after such fun, couldn’t nobody sleep. Felt like the night before Christmas/Sunday mornings off/plus Marse Marsden’s deathday—all combined and spiced. Winded from celebrating in this windowless dormitory, lit by one candle, folks finally grew silent. They settled on corn-husk mattresses, turned away from each other, and commenced by degree to mumbling quiet prayers. Slaves’ beliefs smoothed African memories with handpicked Christian leftovers. Mud-and-blood tones bled through pastel Episcopalian hymns. Slaves had made up the necessary religion. Who else would do it for them?

  8

  FOLKS chanted a favorite ditty only when alone together:

  I got one mind for Master to see.

  The other one I know is me.

  Recipe: take one part strong tribe lore—shades of red and black. Stir in dainty candy colors from the Big House’s paintings of the Jesus Man. Mix to taste.

  The Lilacs’ Slaves’ Hero and Liberator would look a bit like that well-known stripped bachelor painted on a tree (one of the pictures Castalia, now fidgeting with her ostrich-feather duster, waited to see hauled from out the northwest parlor).

  Slaves’ expected Saint would also favor the missing Master Willie—innocent but guilty—a boy who’d trooped off towards Virginia, battling so inherited slaves might stay here and his years longer. Seemed odd that his freckled face had someway got into the home-brewed picture of today’s Freeing Agent. But there it was. (Will’s first toddler steps had been aimed toward the bathhouse on mornings when dark women all scrubbed. At age three, he loitered around outside—stripped bare, escaped from his white nurse, trying and act real casual while—behind cupped hands—his boy’s part stood at honorary attention. Black men shook their heads, “Take after his poppa. Already know what he like.” Mrs. Marsden later tantrumed to prevent her son’s sleeping alongside young friends in the quarter on non-school nights. Oh, but he begged.—All this got remembered.)

  Black folks at The Lilacs didn’t think of Northern forces as separate soldiers. No, a single useful giant seemed likelier. In 18 and 60, the predicted Savior’s swart limbs had lengthened. His beard blackened. The farm’s workers had just seen their first engraving of Marse Lincoln.

  They’d learned about Him from Mabry’s valet. But everybody’d misheard the name as “Abraham, Linking.” The Lilacs’ ex-African blacksmith repeated his own version. Had to do with busting chains, with being soldered in the elsewhere place where you belonged. Slaves all knew how a olden-days Abraham had been the sourdough starter culture for a great line. Seemed this new Abe would found another tougher tribe. He’d link the from-around-here freed folks with some Balm of Gilead strengthening to the North. Your chains’d return to being African bauble jewelry. The Lost Tribe, found, would be spared, heated, coupled, annealed—Today.

  Child, it all stayed vague as that, and—for these folks—as powerful.

 
CLEANING, using ostrich plumes abducted from Africa for decoration and duty, Castalia now awaits His striding in. He’ll come cleansing a lighted path. He’ll be bare, dusky, tall as any plains-dwelling African but bound in a semi-Tuscarora semi-Jesus loincloth. He’ll smile safe and sweet behind a boy’s untested face. He’ll arrive on long stilt Abe legs, high-stepping over lily ponds eaten free of goldfishes and swans. He’ll come to set this house in order—and how? with one accusing finger’s Lordly touch, to set the house afire.

  Off towards waiting carts down there (“Castalia, I believe I am speaking to you. I have been. You daily grow more absentminded, more like me, my dear. I do feel a Weariness setting in, I need distracting. Might I hear about your coming out—from Africa, mia cara Scheherazade?”), down there and out into daylight marches a George III library ladder, six pitted convex mirrors from Revolution days, a stained-glass fire screen that only slaves seem to find beautiful. There goes a hand-blown punch-bowl gondola.

  Off to the safety of the woods marches a family oil portrait—Little Xerxes’ barefoot strut beneath the white male ancestor. This puritan’s stiff white collar is padlocked in a halo of gold frame. The face seems none too pleased about them stubby black legs saving it. Xerxes, spying Cassie in this high window, peeks around the painting’s gilded edge. He makes his own features go fish-mouthed/sniffy as the picture. The child’s free arm crooks, bracketing his real face—one now shaped like the fake face he makes seem more real than his born own. Next, shrugging, moving off, in one instant he’s forgot it all.

  “I hears you. I on my way. So you wants your Cassie’s Africa, hunh?—Zelia, sug, them flowers looks fine enough for now. You may to be adjourn.” And the fifteen-year-old winks at the eighty-year-old, who nods, purses her mouth, tiptoes out, apron corners lifted between fingertips, making a joke of her own exaggerated courtesy, maybe Zelia’s last.