The Lost Quilter

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  December came, and although Joanna searched Miss Evangeline’s letters in vain for scarce details that might benefit Mr. Lewis, she did manage to find a bit of good news when Marse Chester wrote to broach the subject of the upcoming holidays. This year he wanted Miss Evangeline and her family to come to him. The house he was building on his new acres further inland would not be as grand as the big house at Oak Grove, but there would be room enough for everyone, and with all but the finish work completed, there was no reason why they could not pass a perfectly comfortable Christmas there. What more did they need in those troubled times but four walls, a roof, plenty to eat, and those they loved? He would be delighted if the Harper and Chester families would celebrate the holidays there in a rustic fashion suiting their troubled times.

  Miss Evangeline must have replied that she had hoped for the Chester and Harper families to reunite at Harper Hall as they had the previous year, for her father’s next letter expressed his regrets that such a thing would not be possible. Elliot, the elder son, was now fifteen, and too besotted with the military to be trusted near the dozens of various militias that marched in the streets and camped outside the city. Back home he could only gape in wide-eyed admiration at the officers who came to Oak Grove, but in Charleston he would be sorely tempted to run away and join the first regiment he could persuade to take him on as a drummer boy. A letter that quickly followed admonished Miss Evangeline not to even consider passing Christmas or any other day on the Harper family’s James Island plantation. Should the Union invaders swarming over Port Royal decide to attack Charleston, James Island lay directly in their path. Even if the Harpers avoided having their lands taken over by Confederate forces setting up a defense, they would surely be forced to evacuate the moment the Union soldiers began to march. Marse Chester was certain Colonel Harper would agree with him, but even if his son-in-law did not, Marse Chester would not allow his daughter and infant grandson to risk such unimaginable danger.

  Joanna didn’t care where the Chester and Harper families finally decided to spend the holidays as long as Miss Evangeline required Joanna to accompany her and Titus drove Marse Chester to whatever location they settled upon. It was always possible that the whirl of holiday gaiety would distract the buckra long enough for Joanna, Titus, and the children to run off. It wasn’t likely, but it was possible, a gentle breath of wind on the fading embers of her hopes.

  One night two weeks before Christmas, Joanna was asleep, dreaming of Union warships anchoring in Charleston Harbor, blue-coated Union soldiers pouring onto the docks like a wave of indigo, the church bells reformed from Confederate canons and restored to their steeples and ringing out freedom. The bells pealed on as someone shook her awake. “Get up,” said George. “Whole city burning. Get up!”

  Joanna scrambled out of bed and hurried to the window. The sky was red with flame; she smelled smoke and tasted ash.

  “We on fire?” cried Sally, throwing back the covers.

  “Not yet,” said George. “Not yet.”

  Heart pounding, Joanna stood on tiptoe and peered through the leaded panes. The sky was a lurid, swirling gale of red and black, of smoke and fire. As the other slaves scrambled into their clothes, she stood transfixed, craning her neck, pressing her face against the glass, trying in vain to discover the fire’s location, its distance and direction. The window was too small, the palmetto trees too close. Did walls of flame surround them? Could they flee to the river?

  Ruthie’s wail roused her. She snatched up her daughter, seized Hannah’s hand, and hurried down the stairs and outside. Miss Evangeline was already there, standing before the carriage house and studying the smoke-filled sky with Abner. The strong wind carried the sound of the horses’ terror-filled whinnies, their stomping hooves.

  “We got to run,” George said, close by her side. “We got to get to the river or we be burnt up like dry straw.”

  Hannah’s grip on Joanna’s hand tightened. “Which way?” Joanna asked George, gesturing to the north, to the south, in every equally uncertain direction. “We run away from the fire or into it?”

  Before George could reply, Miss Evangeline spotted them. “Fetch water,” she screamed into the wind, her golden curls whipping about her face. “Soak the house. Every inch of it!”

  “Missus Harper,” George called back, incredulous. “We got to go. Joanna go fetch young Marse Thomas while Abner get the wagon ready.”

  “I will not abandon my husband’s house to the flames,” Miss Evangeline shouted over the clamor of bells and sirens. Her eyes were wild and red-rimmed. “He must have a home to return to.”

  “He must have a wife and baby to return to,” Joanna retorted. “What good this house to him if you and young marse dead?”

  Suddenly Miss Evangeline raced across the garden, nightdress trailing ghostly in the smoky air, to slap Joanna hard across the face. “Fetch the water! Your impudence will kill us all.”

  “Your stubbornness kill us first,” Joanna snapped. Miss Evangeline slapped her again, harder, then shoved her toward the laundry, toward the pump. Joanna stumbled, nearly dropping Ruthie and releasing Hannah’s hand. George caught her by the arm and kept her on her feet. He gave her a long, grim look before racing off to the pump.

  Joanna shifted Ruthie on her hip and beckoned to Hannah. “Come on.”

  They hurried after George, but before filling a single bucket, George soaked the two girls from head to toe. “Take the baby into the kitchen,” he ordered Hannah. “Kick the logs out of the way and stand in the big fireplace. You understand me?” Hannah nodded, reached for Ruthie, and darted back inside.

  For hours they kept the house and yard soaked, filling buckets, flinging water upon the whitewashed brick walls of Harper Hall, trying in vain to discover from people fleeing through the streets, buckra and coloreds alike, where the fire line was, how much of the city had burned, if the fire department or army had mastered any control over the conflagration, if the flames were heading their way. Rumors whirled about like the ashes that fell like snow and settled over the Harpers’ garden, black and gray and glowing red. Some said that the fire burned in a single north-south line across the peninsula, and where they stood on Meeting Street, they were cut off from the mainland. Or that Union spies had set fire to multiple targets throughout the city, and the fire was burning toward the center, destroying everything in its path. Or that rebellious slaves had set fire to the slave market and were passing out stolen rifles to any colored man willing to fight. There was no discerning truth from fiction, no time to make sense of the hysterical and contradictory tales shrieked or shouted from tear-streaked, sooty faces—men and women on foot, on horseback, in carriages, on wagons loaded with all their worldly possessions—

  We should run, Joanna thought, watching them. The Harper slaves were many, and Miss Evangeline was but one. In the chaos the other buckra would never guess they fled their mistress as well as the fire. But where would they run? Where? She had no idea if the people fleeing down Meeting Street were running away from the fire or toward it. Sometimes her gaze met George’s, and she knew he shared her thoughts. She knew from the set of his jaw that he thought they should flee anyway, that running was better than roasting alive all for the sake of saving Colonel Harper’s house. Suddenly, startlingly, she also understood that as much as George wanted to run, he would never run without her.

  Hours passed. Joanna’s shoulders ached from hauling water, from beating out small fires that sparked into small blazes on the piazza, on the grass. On the roof. When Miss Evangeline spotted the first flames high above them, she screamed for George and gestured wildly. George nodded and hurried inside, his eyes catching hold of Joanna’s before he disappeared through the doorway. In another moment he reappeared on the roof with a bucket of water and a soaked gunnysack, beating out the flames.

  Her eyes and nostrils stinging from acrid smoke, Joanna watched as Miss Evangeline’s glance traveled wildly from the roof to the street jammed with people and horses and wag
ons. Her attention lingered on an elegant carriage packed with trunks and valuables, a gentleman in suit and hat unexpectedly at the reins where his colored driver ought to be, a lady with a fur wrap over her shoulders by his side but looking back whence they had come, where their fine house was likely burning.

  “We should go,” Miss Evangeline said. Joanna could not hear her over the din, but she recognized the words the rosebud lips formed. Then, suddenly, the mistress ran to Abner as he flung water upon the tall front doors of the stable. Miss Evangeline gestured frantically and shouted something Joanna could not make out. Abner shook his head, gesturing helplessly toward the choked street—wagons loaded with furniture, buckra on horseback, hired-out slaves carrying the tools of their trades on their backs, their metal badges still carefully displayed on their coat fronts. The Harper household wouldn’t get far, Abner was surely telling the mistress. Too many people in flight, frightened horses—the time to escape had passed. They must it stick out and save the house or perish.

  Abner raised his hands to defend himself when Miss Evangeline began beating him about the head and shoulders, but he was not injured; without her whip, the mistress’s blows were merely a shameful nuisance, a distraction when he could not afford to be distracted. He ducked away, took up his bucket, and sprinted for the pump. Joanna knew he cared more about saving the horses than any punishment that might descend later, if they survived the night.

  From time to time Mattie appeared at the back door, plump face creased in worry, shawl around her shoulders as if she awaited the order to flee, young Master Thomas in her arms. Suddenly a man on horseback pulled hard on the reins just outside the gate and came to a clattering stop. “Cousin Evangeline,” he called out. “Why on earth are you still here?”

  With a glad cry, Miss Evangeline forgot Abner and raced to open the gate. Joanna recognized the fair-haired man despite his soot-streaked face—Gideon, Aunt Lucretia’s youngest son, the only one who had not yet joined a Confederate regiment. He rode into the yard and swiftly dismounted, but his boots had scarcely touched the cobblestones before Miss Evangeline flung herself into his arms. “We sent Sam for you,” Gideon said, looking her over to reassure himself she was unharmed. “Mother’s evacuated to the Battery. Sam was supposed to escort you and the baby there hours ago.”

  Miss Evangeline shook her head. “I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of him all night.”

  Gideon scowled. “Likely he’s taking advantage of our distress to run off. Father never did trust him.” He glanced back down Meeting Street. “There’s no time to load the wagon. Run inside, tell your nurse to bring the baby, and fetch whatever valuables you can carry on horseback. We have to leave at once.”

  “But the house,” said Miss Evangeline. “The furniture, our china—”

  “Your servants can stay behind and save what they can.”

  Miss Evangeline hesitated only a moment before nodding and hurrying inside. Joanna’s heart leapt. Their chance perhaps was only moments away. Once Miss Evangeline and Mattie departed, those left behind would be free to run. She continued working, stomping out fallen cinders, splashing water on the piazza, working as if she had no thought but saving her master’s home. The time to run might have come at last.

  Over Abner’s protests, Gideon flung open the stable doors and pushed the groom ahead of him inside. Gideon soon reappeared holding the reins of two horses, saddled and bridled, just as Miss Evangeline emerged from the house carrying an overstuffed satchel. Mattie followed on her heels, young Master Thomas in her arms, but she balked when she realized she would have to ride on horseback. She didn’t know how, she protested. She had never ridden but in a wagon or carriage.

  Miss Evangeline threw Gideon a desperate, beseeching look. “The wagon?”

  He shook his head. “There’s no time.”

  Gnawing on her lip, Miss Evangeline turned back to Mattie and seemed about to order her into the saddle when her gaze fell upon Joanna. “Joanna. Has Titus taught you to ride horseback?”

  Joanna’s heart thumped. “My husband a groom, missus. That don’t make me one.”

  “Mind your tongue,” Gideon barked. “Can you ride or can’t you?”

  Joanna couldn’t speak. She shook her head.

  “She can too ride,” Mattie shrilled. “Abner shown her. I seen her in the workyard helping him.”

  “Even if you ride only a little, you’ll be safer with us than here,” said Miss Evangeline. “Mattie, give Master Thomas to Joanna.”

  Before Joanna knew it, Mattie had fit her with a makeshift sling and had bound the sleeping boy firmly to her chest. “My girls,” Joanna gasped as Gideon all but threw her onto the back of the horse. “Please, missus. Let me take Ruthie and Hannah too.”

  Miss Evangeline snapped out a laugh as Gideon lifted her onto the back of her horse; she was too distracted to notice that Joanna had used the forbidden name. “Absolutely not. You’ll have your arms full with your young master.” She hooked the handle of the satchel over the pommel of her saddle, took a deep, shaky breath, and nodded to her cousin. “All right. I’m ready.”

  Miss Evangeline called out some last-minute instructions to Abner as Gideon led the way through the open gate onto the street, his grasp firm on the reins of Joanna’s horse. “Sally,” Joanna shouted, but the cook was nowhere to be seen. “George!” In the eerie semidarkness she did not see him, but she thought she saw a shadow move on the roof. “My girls! Watch over my girls!”

  She could do no more. The three horses set off down Meeting Street, but Joanna was insensible to the press of the crowd, the strange distant explosions, the crash of wood and showers of sparks as roofs caved in, the howling wind, the acrid stench of burning. Her precious, precious girls, cowering in the kitchen fireplace. They were waiting for her, depending upon her to save them, but she was riding away.

  It seemed ages until they reached the Battery, where Aunt Lucretia and thousands had already gathered in some measure of safety to watch in horror as their city burned, bracing themselves against the fierce wind that whipped the waves into whitecaps as the tide rose. Flame cast a lurid red glare against the clouds of smoke rising to a clear blue velvet sky. Women shrieked as a church steeple collapsed, but Joanna only stared at the flickering light. Somewhere within the smoke and heat were her girls, the beloved children she would have given her life to protect, and yet here she stood with their future master curled peacefully against her bosom. Were they crying for her, Hannah and Ruthie? Were their charred bodies even now mingling with the ash of the kitchen fireplace?

  Wordlessly, soundlessly, Joanna watched the city burn, shaking from fear and rage and exhaustion. Her girls. Tears streamed down her face, but they could not obscure the nightmare scene before her. How could she have left them? She should have leapt from the back of the horse and fled to the kitchen, flung her arms around them, protected them or perished with them. What was the worst Miss Evangeline could have done to punish her disobedience? Beaten her? Sold her off to the Georgia traders? She could have endured a beating more easily than this agonizing waiting, wondering, and bearing witness, and the separation of distance was nothing to the final parting death would bring.

  “The Yankees will see this as God’s vengeance,” said Gideon, scowling. Aunt Lucretia shook her head and pressed a perfumed handkerchief to her nose, but Miss Evangeline nodded absently.

  Vengeance? Perhaps not, but the chaos and disruption had been a stroke of grace, an opportunity that Aunt Lucretia’s Sam had seized and Joanna had let slip from her grasp. Please, Lord Jesus, watch over my girls and protect them, she prayed. Let the stone fireplace stand cool and strong. Let the flames part around the kitchen like Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea. Protect my girls, preserve them, and the next time You open a path before me, I won’t miss it. I won’t misunderstand Your signs a second time.

  If her girls lived and they were granted a second time.

  Keep breathing, she imagined Titus murmuring in her ear, his breath tickli
ng her hair. But the air was thick with smoke and despair, and she could not breathe for choking.

  The sun rose; the fire burned on.

  Eventually Gideon received word that although some parts of the city were still engulfed in flame, the fires on Meeting Street had been extinguished and it would be safe to return to see what remained of Harper Hall. Aunt Lucretia urged Miss Evangeline to stay with her while Gideon went on ahead alone to investigate, but Miss Evangeline insisted upon accompanying him. They left Aunt Lucretia at her house, which had escaped the fire unscathed, and continued on into the charred ruins of the city.

  Joanna shut her ears to the rumors that darted and flew through the smoky air like a flock of disoriented barn swallows. She feared the worst, and the sights along the route back warned her to prepare herself for the most devastating, cruelest shock she had ever endured. But there could be no preparing herself for the worst, if her prayers had not been answered, if her girls were dead.

  The horses picked their way down streets littered with shattered glass and smoldering trunks and furniture, abandoned by their owners as they had fled. Gideon led them past smoldering ruins, a forest of blackened chimneys planted in dusky gray ash. Market Street was gone; only a single stone archway remained of the alley where Joanna had once met Mr. Lewis. Institute Hall, where the Ordinance of Secession had been signed, had burned to the ground, as had the Catholic cathedral, the theater, the Congressional church, and more businesses and dwellings than Joanna could count. In the sling a hungry young Master Thomas squalled for his nurse, but Miss Evangeline did not seem to hear, and Joanna had nothing to offer him. The mistress’s pale face betrayed no emotion as her gaze skimmed the ruins, pausing to linger on clusters of survivors who sat on stone steps leading nowhere, huddled under borrowed blankets, sipping numbly at tin cups of coffee. Joanna knew Miss Evangeline wondered if she too had been reduced to such a state.