“And are your people planters too, John Henry?” Annie asked.
“My father is, but he’s raisin’ grapes and trees now, instead of cotton.”
“Trees?” Annie asked with a raise of those finely arched brows. “And how does one raise a tree?”
“Just like raisin’ cotton, Mrs. Stephens. Plant ‘em in rows and watch ‘em grow. Looks like a forest, except that the trees are all lined up nice and neat.”
“How very fascinating,” Annie answered with growing interest. “And what made you leave the tree plantation and come to Atlanta? Surely there were plenty of folks in Valdosta who could use the services of a trained dentist like yourself.”
“Valdosta’s not all that much of a town, Mrs. Stephens. Not compared to Atlanta, anyhow. I reckon I’ve already spent enough of my life in the woods. And there were some . . . opportunities here I wanted to pursue.” Though he didn’t look at Mattie as he spoke, he could feel her eyes on him.
“Well, Valdosta’s loss is our gain, I’m sure,” Annie said politely. “Mattie, darlin’, wouldn’t it be fun to have Sarah come up for a little visit, now that you and I are livin’ so close? Maybe your cousin John Henry would be sweet enough to escort her around town.”
John Henry hadn’t even seen it coming, he’d been so busy staring at Annie’s maddening good looks. But it wasn’t too surprising. Of course Annie would try to arrange a match between her unmarried sister and a single gentleman of some means, especially when that gentleman had already made romantic overtures in the past. His mind was racing, searching for some good reason why he would not be available to escort Miss Sarah Fitzgerald on her visit to Atlanta, when Mattie spoke up:
“Oh Annie, you know what a homebody Sarah is, she never likes to go anyplace! Used to be, she wouldn’t even go into Jonesboro for Court Day, on account of all the crowds. I don’t think she’d have a bit of fun in Atlanta!”
John Henry looked at her with astonishment. Mattie was sitting there just as sweet and demure as ever, her little face showing nothing but concern for her cousin Sarah’s welfare, but there had been an unmistakable trace of something like jealousy in her voice.
“Why Mattie,” Annie said with a lift of her brows, “if I didn’t know better I’d think you didn’t want Sarah to come visit. Don’t tell me you’re tryin’ to keep your handsome cousin all to yourself!”
John Henry looked from Mattie to Annie and back again, waiting for Mattie’s answer, but before she could open her mouth to speak an ominous roll of distant thunder interrupted the conversation. Annie started and looked up sharply, forgetting all about Sarah’s visit.
“Sounds like a storm comin’ on,” she said with a shudder. “Thunder always reminds me of artillery fire. I was here, you know, in Atlanta, during the siege.”
She didn’t have to explain. They all knew about that summer of 1864 when Sherman had held Atlanta captive, raining his artillery fire down on the city. At first the citizens had tried to go on with normal life, ignoring the screaming of the minié balls that sailed in from the Yankee strongholds just past Peachtree Creek. But then the solid shot was replaced with canister and the whole sky was filled with flying death, the charges exploding in the air and sending shrapnel everywhere, and the people of Atlanta were forced to take cover underground in bombproofs dug into the hilly ravines that ran through the city. But there was no place to hide from the awful sound of those big guns going off all day and night, rocking the earthen shelters and rumbling over the ground.
The thunder rolled again, rattling the windows of Annie’s house, and she bit her lip and said nervously:
“Well now, y’all will just have to stay to supper! I can’t send you out in a storm, can I?” She made the invitation with a strained smile, but the coyness had fallen away from her and it was clear that she truly was frightened by the coming storm.
“We can’t stay,” John Henry said firmly. “It’ll be gettin’ dark soon, and the family will wonder where we are.”
A flash of lightning tore across the windows, lighting Annie’s pale face, and the rain followed after it, coming down hard. It was going to be a devil of a storm, all right, and it didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon.
Mattie slipped her arm around her cousin’s shoulder and looked up beseechingly at John Henry.
“Do we have to go just yet? Can’t we wait just until Captain Stephens comes home?”
He was just about to insist on their going when Annie looked up again, and John Henry was surprised to see those taunting green eyes filled with tears.
“I know it’s childish,” Annie said, “but I am just terrified of storms. Won’t you please stay?”
There was no denying her wish with that sweet feminine way she looked at him, like he was all that stood between her and the memory of the War itself. And by her side, Mattie sat stoically sheltering her from the storm. He couldn’t fight them both, and he suddenly realized something of what that Yankee general must have felt, bowled over by the gentle force of Southern womanhood.
It was past supper by the time the storm had calmed to a late summer shower, and without the little note Annie had written to Uncle John, explaining why they were so late getting home, there would have been all hell to pay. What would people think, seeing Mattie and John Henry out together after dusk, walking in the rain? Captain Stephens still hadn’t returned from the city, so there was no buggy available to drive them home, and all Annie could do was apologize prettily for the inconvenience and give them her own dainty ruffled parasol for protection. But it wasn’t much help against the drizzle that still fell, catching on the wind and coming up under the umbrella in wet gusts.
All that rain had turned the dirt road of Forrest Avenue into a mire of red mud, and Mattie’s long skirts dragged heavily as she tried to stay out of the deepest of the puddles. John Henry wasn’t much help as her escort, busy holding that little umbrella over their heads as if it were really doing any good at keeping them dry. They were both a pitiful sight by the time they arrived at their uncle’s drive, and Mattie stopped to push her dripping hair out of her face and straighten her skirt.
“Don’t bother, Mattie,” John Henry said. “You don’t look any worse than I do.”
She glanced up at him and grimaced. “That’s not much comfort. You look just awful.”
He was as wet as she was, his sandy hair clinging against his neck, his fine pastel summer shirt spoiled and his starched collar unbuttoned and hanging loose, his trousers splattered with mud and his soft leather boots standing an inch deep in the muck.
“There’s no need to insult me, Mattie. If I hadn’t been gallant enough to agree to stay and keep your silly cousin company, neither one of us would be such a mess.”
“She’s not silly, John Henry. She’s really very brave, except for storms, and that’s only because of the siege and all. I’m sure I wouldn’t have had half her courage, facin’ up to the Yankees.”
“Well, I’ll give her that. She did show some gumption down in Macon, though I doubt it was just her famous courage that won her that honor guard.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that a woman who looks like that could get just about anything out of a man, even a Yankee.”
Mattie pushed at her wet hair again and looked up at him sharply. “Did you really think she was all that beautiful?”
There was something in her voice that warned him to answer carefully. If he lied and said that he hadn’t really paid much attention to Annie’s looks, Mattie might be insulted that he didn’t appreciate her cousin’s charms. If he told the truth and said that he had never seen a more beautiful creature in all his life, she was sure to be jealous. So he decided to err on the side of jealousy.
“Annie is pretty, in her way,” he said evenly. “I guess some men might find her type attractive.”
“And do you find her attractive?”
She was staring at him steadily, waiting for him to give whatever answer it was t
hat would satisfy her. And while she waited another gust of wind came up under the umbrella, blowing warm rain all over both of them.
John Henry took a quick breath and said smoothly: “I found her very attractive. And if I weren’t already in love with her cousin, I might just be foolish enough to fall in love with a married woman. But I am no fool, and I am in love with you, Mattie Holliday.”
He waited for her to fuss or look away or stomp her little foot in the mud for being so direct about his feelings again. But she just stood there looking up at him in the rain, and all at once he knew what she was waiting for, and he leaned down and kissed her.
It was the first time in three years that they’d kissed, since the night of Cousin George’s wedding. But this time, she had actually encouraged it, and knowing she was suddenly so willing made him hungry for more. He closed his eyes and was about to kiss her again and with more feeling, when she spoke softly:
“You are a terrible liar, John Henry Holliday! I saw how you looked at Annie. You were as infatuated as any poor country boy!”
He opened his eyes wide and stood back, bewildered. “Then why did you let me kiss you?”
“I was just wonderin’ . . .” she said, half smiling.
“Wonderin’ what?”
She bent down to gather up her muddy skirts, and smiled again. “Just wonderin’, that’s all . . .”
Then she turned away and trudged up into the house, leaving John Henry standing holding that useless umbrella, and wondering some himself.
Annie really had been frightened by the storm and was sorry for the inconvenience of delaying their return home—or so she said in her prettily written thank you note. And to prove her thanks, she had included a little gift of two tickets to the upcoming production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at DeGive’s Opera House for Mattie and her cousin. Of course, they would make a foursome for the evening as it would be inappropriate for a single young woman to go out at night with a single young man, even if the couple in question were first cousins and dear friends as well. But the Stephens would be pleased to act as chaperones and would come calling for them in their new carriage. It was only a shame that her sister Sarah was still in Jonesboro, Annie wrote. Sarah just loved all that Shakespearean melodrama.
But it wasn’t Sarah Fitzgerald that John Henry was thinking of as he stopped by the Southern Shirt Manufactory on Alabama Street to buy a new collar and cuffs for his best dress shirt. He was hoping to impress Mattie, and all dressed up in dark trousers and Robert’s borrowed frock coat, with that crisp new collar tied around with his blue silk scarf, he thought himself quite the dandy.
Mattie’s costume, however, overshadowed any fine outfit that John Henry could put together. Annie had dressed her for the evening in a bustle-backed gown of black silk trimmed with jet passementerie, tiny glass beads that sparkled around the low neckline of the tightly fitted bodice. Below the short puffed sleeves of the dress, her arms were covered to the elbow with long gloves of white suede trimmed with rows of tiny buttons. Her thick auburn hair was curled all over in finger-puffs, with small bunches of artificial flowers strewn in the glossy tendrils.
She came down the curving stairs of their Uncle John’s house looking like every fantasy that John Henry had ever had about her, and his hands almost trembled against her skin as he draped a black lace shawl around her, the musty scent of perfume permeating the air between them. Annie Stephens had an eye for fashion, and she had turned pretty Mattie Holliday into a beautiful woman. Not that Annie was to be outdone, of course. She and Captain Stephens arrived in full dress themselves—he trim and handsome in a dark tail coat and trousers, she stunning in a deep ruby-red dress that set off her black Irish looks to perfection. Annie certainly wouldn’t have to worry about losing her place as the center of attention at the Opera House.
But it was Mattie who held John Henry’s eyes. There was a glow about her that went past the expensive silk and the elegant hairstyle, and in the dusky light of their private box hanging just above the stage, she let John Henry take her hand in his and whisper words against her perfumed neck. So it took all the control he could muster to keep his attention on the play, even though it was one of his favorites, committed to memory in those drafty schoolhouse days back in Valdosta. There was something poignant about young Prince Hamlet’s struggle to make reason out of his father’s death and his mother’s hasty marriage to the king’s brother. The story had haunted John Henry as he was growing up, and watching the stage now, forcing himself to listen to the measured lines of Shakespeare’s verse, he found himself suddenly caught up in the story again:
“O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer—
O most wicked speed! To post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor can it come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”
And as Hamlet agonized over his mother’s disloyalty, John Henry remembered his own painful adolescence. His father had been a widower barely three months before welcoming a new wife into his bed while his son was still grieving in the room next door. And John Henry had watched it all in silence, acting the part of a good son while his heart was breaking. When the curtain came down on the fifth act, the stage gory with blood-red paint and dead royalty, he was still leaning over the edge of the theater box, his hands clenching the rail, and Mattie laid one of her little gloved hands over his.
“Are you all right, honey?” she whispered.
“I’m fine, Mattie. It’s just . . . I’ve never seen ‘Hamlet’ acted out before, only learned it in school.”
“It’s quite different as a play, isn’t it?”
He nodded, “It’s very sad.”
“Why sad?” Captain Stephens asked as he stood and straightened his uniform jacket. “They all got what they deserved in the end, didn’t they?”
“But Hamlet shouldn’t have been killed,” John Henry said, “he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Just plotted murder and committed it!”
“But it was revenge!” John Henry objected. “Don’t you believe, Sir, that revenge is more honorable than murder?”
“I believe that you are both taking a little play far too seriously,” Annie chided. “I for one had a wonderful evening! Did you ever see such a glittering crowd? I am sure I saw the Governor himself sitting in the box across the way.”
Captain Stephens laughed at her indulgently, “So that’s who you were flirtin’ with, my dear. I wondered why your attention kept strayin’ from the stage!”
“Don’t be silly, darlin’,” Annie drawled, slipping her arm through his, “you know you have my everlastin’ devotion!” Then she smiled over her shoulder at Mattie, “The Captain still thinks I’m just an empty-headed country girl, out to collect an armful of beaux!”
But as she spoke, she threw one last look across the theater and received an appreciative nod from a gentleman in the Governor’s box. Then, guilelessly, she pulled a lace handkerchief from her bag and fanned herself with it for a moment before slipping it down into the low-cut bodice of her ruby-red dress.
The Governor, of course, was watching.
There was a chill in the air that autumn evening, a quick wind gusting through the gaslit streets of Atlanta. Outside DeGive’s Opera House, Mattie and Annie stood chatting together, waiting for Captain Stephens to bring the buggy around while John Henry stood close by, keeping a clear space at the curb and ready to lift the ladies into the buggy as soon as the Captain pulled up. He was looking forward to the long ride home, sitting in the back of the buggy with Mattie huddled close at his side for warmth, his arm around her to protect her from the wind. And if he were lucky, he might even find a chance to kiss her again in the dark shadows of the trees that overhung the road along the way.
Although the hour was late, Atlanta was crowded with theater goers and revelers enjoying the season, and across the street from the Opera House a noisy
group of Yankee soldiers was gathered, passing around a bottle and laughing too loud. They had some fancy-dressed girls with them, sharing the bottle, and every few minutes one of the girls would squeal as though she’d just been pinched, and the soldiers would laugh a little louder. There was a pleasant sort of ribaldry to it and John Henry watched them for a moment, enjoying the show. Then one of the girls stepped toward the edge of the curb and looked across the street. She was a pretty little thing, not more than eighteen-years old or so, with a mane of black hair blowing around her, and as she gazed at the crowd in front of the Opera House, John Henry felt a sudden hot flush of memory sweep across his skin. It was the girl from that bawdy house down on Decatur Street, and she was staring right at him.
His first impulse was to turn and run, disappearing into the theater crowd, but his legs were frozen under him like a sleeper’s in a bad dream. Then the girl raised one soft white arm and called out across the street: “Hey, Johnny! Where’ you been?”
It was just a voice in the crowd, but to John Henry it sounded like all the wailings of hell. And when he didn’t answer her, she called out again: “Johnny! Don’t you remember me?”
And worse, the girl had pulled away from the noisy group and was walking right toward him. Then one of those Yankee soldiers reached out and grabbed her, giving her a quick slap on the backside, and she turned to her friends and laughed—and for the first time in his life, John Henry was grateful that the Yankees had come to Georgia.
He breathed a sigh of relief and turned back toward the ladies still waiting by the theater door, where Mattie’s attentions were blessedly occupied in greeting some acquaintance or other. How close he’d come to having his sins uncovered and his romance ended before it had even begun! But then he noticed Annie’s cat-green eyes watching him, her knowing look saying that she’d lived in Macon and Atlanta both during the War, and she understood all about those Yankee soldiers and the kind of lewd company that they kept. And she knew that it was no coincidence the girl had been calling his name.
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