Among the Fair Magnolias

by Tamera Alexander

  “We pray that it is so, Emily.”

  She hesitated before speaking her other thoughts. “I heard about the lynching yesterday in Oglethorpe County. What if the Klan comes back here tonight?”

  She felt her father’s body stiffen, and he moved one hand to cradle her head against his shoulder. “Shh, Emily. They won’t come tonight.”

  “How do you know?” She sounded almost accusatory.

  Her father let out a long sigh. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I am just praying they don’t come back. I pray they overlook Leroy’s decision to join the Georgia legislature. He is foolish to be so outspoken.”

  “He is speaking out for the honor of his slain brother,” Emily retorted.

  Father stared at her sadly. “Yes, I know. And what good will that do? Does he want his parents to witness his hanging too? We are powerless against the Klan.”

  Emily let go of her father and walked into the library, where she pretended to peruse a book. Father was wrong! She had read in the papers of several states that had dared to stand up to the horrible Ku Klux Klan. Martial law had worked in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas.

  But not here in Georgia.

  In Georgia, the Democrats were taking back political power, moving backward toward white supremacy—through terror. Father had always disapproved of her strong Republican leanings, but she could not, would not, change. She had known, had known, since she was a girl of six, that slavery was wrong. From her earliest memories Emily lived with two juxtaposing beliefs: life on the plantation was heaven on earth, and slavery was one of the worst evils ever known to man. She had not known what to do about this evil at that age, but gradually she had learned.

  And now the slaves were freedmen. Now she stood before them in their little one-room schoolhouse and taught children and adults together to read and write. She closed her eyes and saw the deep pride and wide smile on Leroy’s face the first day he’d written his name.

  Leroy! Emily slammed the book shut and shook her ringlets. Get Leroy out of your mind, she reprimanded herself. But if anything happened to him, to Sam and Tammy . . .

  “Dinner’s ready!” It was her mother’s feeble voice. Once a stunning beauty, now Mother looked haggard, her auburn hair dull, her cheeks sunken. All sparkle had long since left her eyes, buried with Teddy and Luke.

  Emily entered the dining room, smoothing her dark-blue dress that had gotten dusty as she had walked outside to the fields. She glanced at the long cherrywood table that could easily seat ten. Tonight it was set for five. That meant a visitor was expected.

  Father and Mother came into the room, and Mother gave a quick glance around, inspecting the table setting. At least she still cared that her table was well set, with the fine china, crystal glasses, and silver inherited from Emily’s grandmother.

  Gladys, a former slave and now the kitchen maid, bustled by with a dish as Emily and her younger sister, Anna, took their places at the table.

  “Lieutenant McGinnis is dining with us tonight,” Mother said, and her gray eyes met Emily’s. Solemn eyes communicating something important. Emily knew what she was supposed to read in those eyes.

  Moments later, Thomas McGinnis entered the room. He wore civilian clothes and he was smooth-shaven, his blond hair combed back from his face, his blue eyes soft and, Emily thought, sad.

  “My thanks, Mrs. Derracott, for this kind invitation.” He bowed his head slightly and then said, “So good to see you, Anna. And Emily. You are as lovely as ever.”

  “How kind of you, Lieutenant McGinnis.” Emily’s eyes twinkled mischief briefly. For heaven’s sake—why the formality? “If you give me another compliment, I’ll arm wrestle you and win.”

  Lieutenant McGinnis laughed. “I have no doubt of that.”

  She gave him a peck on the cheek and noted her mother’s approval. “It’s good to see you again, Thomas.”

  They all sat.

  Childhood friends, Emily and Thomas had played together, ridden horses together, even gotten into a fistfight once. She loved him like a brother, like the brothers she had lost. But only like a brother. And Mother, she knew, wanted it to be more.

  “When did you get back to Wilkes County?” Emily asked once grace had been said.

  “Only a few days ago.”

  “And for the work in Atlanta, any news?”

  “Plenty of work on the railroads. Not much for a former farmer and soldier.” His light-blue eyes rested on Emily. “Besides, Father needs me back at the plantation if we hope to make any profit this year. The cotton’s almost ready for harvest, and the slaves won’t work normal hours now.”

  “They’re not slaves anymore, Thomas,” Emily said.

  “No, of course not,” he conceded. She watched a muscle in his jaw harden. “They’re high-and-mighty equals who refuse labor. Leave the black man alone and he does not know how to work. Without the means to discipline him, he becomes lazy.”

  “Oh, Thomas. Please don’t tell me you’re spouting the party line of the other crazy Democrats,” Emily remonstrated.

  “Thomas is right, Emily,” her father said. “Our Negroes may have stayed on, but it’s not the same as before.”

  Before the war.

  “They won’t work correctly,” Father added.

  “By ‘correctly’ you mean twelve-hour days for men, women, and children?” Emily replied.

  “Well, yes.”

  “But Father, you wouldn’t want to work out in the fields for that amount of time, would you? You wouldn’t want me to, I’m sure!”

  Father stared at Emily with a familiar twitch of annoyance. “I don’t know how it has happened that I have raised a daughter as insubordinate as the slaves! Perhaps you are the one who has taught them these crazy ideas. They are not, nor will they ever be, our equals.”

  Emily felt the heat rising to her cheeks as the familiar conversation resurfaced. She preferred not to argue in front of Thomas.

  “Your father is right, Emily. Blacks are ignorant; they are unable to learn. They are lazy and foolish. It’s their race.” Thomas said this quietly, steadily, but with a firm conviction.

  “It’s our race that has caused it,” Emily blurted. “We have kept them ignorant, and I tell you, Thomas, Father, you’re wrong! They are not lazy. They can learn, and they do learn. Every day they are learning! Quickly. With pride.”

  “Why you ever had the foolish idea to help at that schoolhouse with those uppity Northern women, I’ll never understand,” Father said, wiping a white starched napkin across his mouth.

  How dare he humiliate me in front of Thomas, Emily fumed. Father was the one who was ignorant. “I beg your pardon, Father, but Miss Lillian and the other Northern women are many things, but certainly not uppity!” And all men are equal.

  “That’s enough, Emily,” her mother broke in. “Gladys, we’re ready for the next course.”

  Later Emily stood outside on the wraparound porch, leaning against one of the six fluted white columns and staring out at the magnolia trees that lined the drive to the plantation house. One of the prettiest homes in the whole state of Georgia, her father had often bragged. Now she wondered how much longer he could keep the house. And she could not watch the trees without seeing poor Washington’s body swaying from that other tree down by the little church.

  Thomas came out on the porch and stood beside her. “You were certainly contentious at dinner tonight.”

  She turned and looked up at him, her handsome friend. He was only a year older than she, but at twenty-one his face held the marks of war. He had a fatigue about him that perhaps nothing could erase. Thomas, too, had lost two brothers in the war. He had been standing right next to Joseph when a bullet brought his brother down.

  “I’ve always been contentious, haven’t I, Thomas?”

  He gave that tired smile and shrugged.

  “I haven’t changed, you know. I’ve always held these beliefs.”

  “Yes, but now you are too outspoken, Emily. You know what
my soldier buddies say when we’re together?”

  “I have no idea.” She turned her nose up and looked away.

  “They say I’ve got myself a scalawag bride.”

  “How dare they!”

  “I agree it’s quite rude, but your Republican ideas are not a secret.”

  She didn’t dare to correct his misunderstanding. She supposed she was a scalawag of sorts, if by that it meant she had opposed slavery and supported the Northern war effort. But it wasn’t the discussion of her politics she was protesting—she was furious to be considered his bride.

  Thomas reached for her hand. “My dear scalawag bride.”

  She pulled it away. “Aren’t you being a bit presumptuous?”

  “Yes, I suppose I am. But sometime soon, I’ll make it formal. I promise you that, Emily.”

  She looked at him sadly. “Dear Thomas . . . you don’t want a scalawag bride. I hope we will always be friends. I hope I will always respect you. But I know I can’t change your beliefs, and no one will ever change mine. I won’t make you miserable.”

  “You could never make me miserable, Emily.”

  She almost lost resolve when he looked at her like that, with love in his eyes. But she did not love him as a woman ought to love someone who would become her husband. Marrying a man with such differing basic beliefs would spell disaster. She could not do it.

  Besides, she loved someone else. But the prospect of becoming his wife was not improbable. It was completely impossible.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON SOME AFTERNOONS AFTER SCHOOL, EMILY SAT IN A PEW IN the little church on Father’s property that the freedmen and women had built with their own hands, and had rebuilt after that dreadful night last April when it had burned to the ground, along with three of the freedmen’s cabins. She sat and prayed. Often Miss Lillian, the other schoolteacher, joined her.

  “You look deep in thought today, Emily.”

  “Yes, Miss Lillian. I suppose you’d say my heart is heavy. If people within the same family cannot even agree on the Negroes’ position in society, how do we ever expect the issue of emancipation to be settled?”

  “I don’t believe it will be settled, at least no time soon,” Miss Lillian replied. “Shortly after the war’s end, I read something in the Enquirer—‘Slavery is dead; the Negro is not; there is the misfortune.’ Discussion about the meaning of free labor led to a nearly impossible conundrum between planters and former slaves. The past has to be unlearned by both parties, Emily.” She gave a deep sigh. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Between the planters’ need for a disciplined labor force and the freedmen’s quest for autonomy, conflict is inevitable. Change is difficult and comes oh so slowly.”

  Emily brushed her ringlets over her shoulder. “Whites and blacks will never trust each other, will they?” She didn’t wait for Miss Lillian to answer. “It’s just as Father and Thomas say—the whites are sure that blacks aren’t industrious enough to work hard. But we know differently, Miss Lillian. Look at all they’ve accomplished in just three short years since the war. They’ve got their own churches and schools, the freedmen have the vote, they can even hold political office. They are becoming an important community. They are learning well how to exercise their rights.”

  Miss Lillian furrowed her brow and gave a slight shrug. “Emily, I believe the biggest problem in the South is that most of the white public still cannot conceive of the fact that blacks have any rights at all.”

  Emily nodded. “Change is difficult and comes oh so slowly.” Miss Lillian was right. How in the world did anyone expect the South to suddenly adopt a whole new set of values, to amicably agree to the end of slavery, the enterprise upon which the South’s economy had been based for almost two hundred years?

  “I don’t want to tear my family apart, Miss Lillian. You know that. I love my parents, and they have suffered so greatly. I cannot bear to have them suffer more. But they want me to marry a man who is good and true and a Democrat to the core. I cannot do that.” She stood quickly, hands on her hips. “And it’s so much deeper than my family! I cannot abide the hypocrisy of my nation! Look at the way the United States fought for its freedom from England. And then we went right back to living in the same way, with a worse forced-class structure on the slaves.”

  She walked to the window and stared out at the thick oak tree, the one that had held the swaying body of Washington Eager. She could not look at Miss Lillian when at last she whispered, “And I think that in my heart of hearts, I’m afraid. Afraid for myself. Afraid that my concern for our freedmen and women will hurt people I love. But I don’t want to change. What should I do?”

  She glanced at her friend, this lovely woman in her early forties with her reddish-brown hair swept back in a chignon. Miss Lillian was poised and gracious, and her bright-green eyes seemed to carry a sort of holy wisdom in them. There was nothing “uppity” about her.

  “The Lord is not surprised by these circumstances, Emily.” Those green eyes met Emily’s and did not waver. “Throughout all of time, families have been divided over the issue of human rights. Ask God for guidance. He will surely give it to you.” Miss Lillian’s face was peaceful, radiant. “And I believe you, my dear child, are attuned to his voice.” She winked. “In spite of that fiery exterior.” Miss Lillian stood up also. “And now I’ll be getting home.”

  Emily watched Miss Lillian leave the schoolhouse. She was one of many Northern women from the Missionary Aid Society who had come to the South to help educate the newly freed slaves. Emily remembered their first conversation two years before. “Wasn’t it hard to leave your family?” Emily had asked. “Why did you come?”

  “I figured it was best to obey God rather than man,” Miss Lillian had replied, “and my Lord has given me the orders to be his servant to these needy people.”

  Emily hadn’t forgotten the woman’s words. She had called herself a servant, here to serve those who had been slaves. It was ironic and perplexing. And right. Absolutely the right way to think.

  Emily figured that the South was one of the most confused places on earth. She agreed with Miss Lillian, that her place before God was to serve the freedmen and women. For three years she’d watched her father’s former slaves work tirelessly to build a school and a church, to educate themselves and learn how to defend their rights. They had come so far. But it all felt very fragile. And dangerous.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE FOLLOWING DAY SHE ASKED LEROY TO WAIT FOR HER after the others had left. She needed to warn him again. At least that was the excuse she used to convince herself that she needed to see him. Alone.

  “Yes, Miss Emily? Is there something I can do for you?” Leroy stood at the door of the one-room schoolhouse, proud and reserved, his eyes turned down. Her face flushed, just seeing him there. He was tall and broad-shouldered, like his father, but thicker, stronger. His profile was like a statue sculpted by one of the artists she had studied in school. A fine, chiseled ebony face, with a wide forehead and a straight nose and deep-brown eyes, intense and beautiful. He had loose, soft black curls that fell past his ears.

  Standing in the doorway with him for anyone to see made her nervous. Yet she knew that was safer than being hidden from view. Much safer. Still, her voice caught when she tried to speak. “I . . . I wanted to . . .” She cleared her throat. “I need to talk to you about the delegation going to Atlanta. I’m afraid for all of you.”

  Leroy narrowed his eyes. “What exactly is you afraid of, Miss Emily?”

  Not Miss Emily! Just Emily! Call me Emily! We’re equals.

  How much could she, should she, say? “Leroy, you know what happened to Mr. Ashburn. The Klan murdered him in his own house, that white man who had done so much for the cause of the Negro.”

  “The whole country knows what happened to Mr. Ashburn, Miss Emily. That was only the beginning of the Klan’s business in Georgia. We seen worse since then.”

  “Yes, of course we have.” Again the image
of Washington’s swaying body filled her mind. “Yes, I know, but I fear the danger for you is greater now that you have been appointed as a Georgia delegate. Father is afraid the Klan may seek you out. So am I. Please, can’t you simply remain a preacher? Must you mix politics in?”

  Leroy had walked outside and was leaning on the railing of the schoolhouse porch. “Cain’t help it, Miss Emily. I aim to learn as much as I can about the law and run for office, just as Washington was planning to do. Being a delegate is the next step.” He took a deep breath and turned his gaze to the cotton fields. “We’se in a critical time, Miss Emily. We Negroes. We have ta move forward while we got the vote, while the ex-Confederates is still banned from voting. Ain’t no Negro goin’ ta ignore politics before his Lawd. They goes together, Miss Emily, preaching the Word of God and helping my people keep their rights and move up in the world.”

  “But look what they did to Washington! Surely you can’t help from the grave. Please consider that.”

  When Leroy looked at her, his eyes were hard. Usually they held a tender look, but today she saw determination and great sadness. She wished she could brush the sadness away.

  “The way of the white man is to intimidate through fear. If’n he can keep us afraid, don’t matter none about any laws being passed. No Negro will dare to vote if he thinks the Klan will pay a visit.” He turned, now facing Emily. “But I’m not afraid. I’ll hold office. We can’t give in ta fear and terrorizing. Our freedom is a very fragile thing, Miss Emily.”

  She nodded, biting her lip to keep back her tears. “I need to get home. Mother will be worried.” She longed to reach out and touch his hand. Just one touch to communicate that she cared.

  Oh yes, she cared. Much more than that.

  She loved him.

  Every night she twisted in bed, trying to figure out a future with Leroy. And every night she knew the dream was more than impossible. If nothing else, it was against the law for a white woman to marry a black man. So why did she love him so?