by Denney, Hope
“What is she like when she’s having an awful time?” asked Somerset.
“You don’t want to know,” said Blanche. There were faint blue crescents under her eyes and her face looked pained. Somerset thought she must have sat up all night writhing at all the things her mother said.
They were alike, though, reflected Somerset. Blanche was an amateur at Honor’s brand of malice, but the similarities were apparent. Both wasted their goodness by yearning for their dead firstborn. They had a greedy need for the superficial coupled with an entitled, superior attitude that verged on hubris. Yet there was genuine kindness in Blanche. Somerset had witnessed it and wondered where it came from. She bet her papa instilled it through years of soul-sickening work.
“Where are we going?”
“I had your grandmother make an appointment with one of the city’s most prestigious dressmakers.” Blanche sounded distant.
“Mother, I’d like to know more about Uncle Theodore,” said Joseph from the corner of the carriage. “What was he like that he lives on in everyone’s hearts to this day?”
Blanche continued to look out her window as they passed burned ghosts of landmarks.
***
“Your figure is enviable and, with your coloring, I think any wedding dress will look lovely on you,” said Flora Montgomery. “Of course, white has been the rage since Queen Victoria chose it. Did you have anything in mind? Most ladies want something copied from Godey’s or Peterson’s.”
“I like the idea of white but I’m also partial to blue,” said Somerset.
“Both are lucky colors,” said Flora as she wrote down Somerset’s measurements.
Flora had strawberry blond hair, bold brown eyes, and a nose and chin that suggested she knew everything. Blanche assured Somerset and Ivy that, when it came to fashion, Flora knew no boundaries and set the last word in dressing. Since her husband died running a blockade on fine linens, Flora had shored up the last of his fortune and spun a well-lived life for herself by crafting gowns for Virginia’s elite. Blanche said it was a pity they couldn’t use their connections to reach Worth and have something made, but there was no shame in going to Flora when they might end up paying her more than they would Worth.
“What color did you wear?” Somerset asked Blanche.
“I was in heavy mourning,” replied Blanche as she leafed through a Peterson’s fashion magazine. “It was the only rule I ever broke, marrying while in heavy mourning, but it was an important one.”
Somerset chided herself for not remembering the circumstances and recited to herself the end of the traditional wedding verse.
Marry in black, you’ll wish yourself back.
She should have remembered. Perhaps she should heed tradition just for the sake of nuptial luck.
“I can see why you would want to wear blue,” Flora continued as she began to pull a bound collection of Godey’s from under the counter, “but I think white makes a statement about your life to come. If the Queen herself can depart from silver for white, what does it say about you if wear it?”
Myra looked at Somerset standing in the back of the shop with the afternoon sun streaming over her dark coffee-colored hair and creamy skin and smiled.
“I think the only thing that will work for this dress is white silk with point de gaze Brussels lace overlay,” she said. “I wanted something similar for a debut gown, but it didn’t happen with the shortages of dry goods.”
“I can see her in it already,” breathed Blanche.
Flora snapped her fingers, licked the end of her pencil, and began sketching on a pad by her counter.
“I have several ideas to show you,” she said. “You are going to thank me for these ideas until you take your last breaths. I’m afraid I won’t be able to negotiate much on price if you use point de gaze…”
They left the shop feeling finer than the royal monarchy.
***
“You don’t have to purchase so many nice things for me, Mrs. Forrest,” said Ivy when they were all in the carriage again.
“I do. I’d like to see myself shower one bride in finery and leave the other one out.”
“Where is Joseph?” asked Myra.
“He said he was going to a saloon to rustle up a game of cards and would meet up with us at the Marsh,” said Somerset. “I think we should eat luncheon off the Marsh today.”
“That sounds refreshing,” Blanche agreed. “No sense in Momma ordering a fine meal for us today if she has a special menu for tonight.”
“I would wait until she became venomous before I skipped meals,” advised Myra.
Blanche made them stop at a café where they dined on chicken salad and lemonade.
***
After lunch, they set off on a walking tour of Richmond. Everywhere that Blanche stepped held a resurrected memory. She pointed out the brick outlines of burned hotels where she danced as a girl, street corners where she just evaded the advances of men who should have known better, and the smoke-stained remains of churches where her family worshiped just to be seen and admired.
“I wish I’d never returned and seen it this way,” murmured Blanche as they followed after her in the muck.
“That was the American Hotel,” pointed Myra.
“It’s gone,” said Somerset.
“We held a starvation ball there in sixty-four,” said Myra. “Grandmother was right. We were one of the few families for whom money was no issue, but when the supplies became scarce and the lines were cut—well, we went for days at a time without eating. Grandmother rented out the entire American Hotel and all of Richmond’s elite put on their finest garments, which at the time were pitiful rags. We were merry over cups of water and too tired after an hour to dance. I’ll never forget the irony of sitting outside on the stoop under the starlight in my faded daffodil silk dress with my hands shaking and my collarbones sticking out with my belly rumbling. My escort’s belly was rumbling, too. We tried to laugh like it was funny but it wasn’t funny. I was cold and dizzy, and every time I tried to look up and view the moon and stars they would waver. I was sick. I fell asleep on the hotel stoop, and Birdy was too weak to pick me up. She had to drag me by the heels into the hotel and smack my cheeks until I woke up. A slave boy, Lonnie, gave me sips of his vegetable broth. He starved to death in sixty-five.”
“A goose walked on my grave just now,” said Ivy.
“It happened.” Myra’s voice was low.
“How did you keep from losing all your money?” asked Somerset. She couldn’t imagine frivolous Myra surviving starvation, but the question remained of how the Marshalls kept all their money when everyone else lost it.
“We put it in gold and invested in the North,” said Myra. “No one knows and if they guess, they can’t prove it. Everyone thinks we really did have that much more money than them. We were rich and the war made us richer. Inside we know we aren’t respectable anymore. I think it sharpens Grandmother’s hatefulness.”
“We didn’t come close to being hungry after the chickens came,” said Somerset. “There was a point between Eric’s death and Victoria’s accident where I would have welcomed starving to death, but the fact remains that we always had meat for the table even when we could barely scrape together a garden. In hot weather we had the fruit trees at least.”
“There was a time when my stomach was bloated with hunger and my breasts were flat as a washboard,” said Myra. “We couldn’t get anything through the black market because our servants had their throats cut like hogs for things like salt pork and cornmeal. We might as well have been tossing greenbacks in the gutters.”
Blanche insisted on visiting the ruins of Gallego Mills, having seen pictures of it. The gutted ruins with exposed waterwheels within made Somerset’s hair stand on end.
“It burned plenty of times. I wonder why this time feels so different,” sniffed Blanche.
With sorrow written on her already serious face and gold waves escaping her chignon, she looked like an angel sprung of
f a fresh canvas.
“I always despised it here,” said Blanche as she ran her hands over the wood. “The social games of chess made me mad and I was so relieved to find myself on a riverboat in the middle of nowhere with my Theodore. Yet I never expected to see Richmond ruined. It’s like a ruined pretty girl. You want to remember what was but all you can see is what is. And it all happened within two years of my last visit. I don’t know what to think. It’s like the Judgment happened but I was overlooked.”
She stood with her hands in their black lace mitts, balled up at her bony sides, tears oozing from her Marshall blue eyes.
“This was my home. I never cared a lick for it, but it was my home and now it’s nothing. I apologize. I don’t know what’s hit me so hard, but all these poor bricks and all this scorched mortar—I just—I just—do any of you have a handkerchief? I can’t believe how a trip home affects me. I was as spoiled as a girl could be. I can’t believe I’m crying here over buildings that can be rebuilt, but it was so beautiful here.”
Ivy’s flinty eyes were compassionate as she took out her handkerchief and passed it to her mother-in-law. Somerset fished Eric’s arrowhead from her pocket and stroked it, willing herself to hold together.
“I have something I want to show all of you,” said Myra. “Let’s get in the carriage and ride, Auntie. People will see you and this isn’t the entrance you planned.”
Myra signaled for the carriage to stop outside a row of empty stores on Main Street. It was an unremarkable cold stretch of scenery, and Somerset wished they could get back to the Marsh to ready themselves for the relentless shell of artillery that would accompany the pheasant.
“Daddy and I were out here on the night of the Evacuation Fire,” said Myra. Her Marshall eyes were as listless as two marbles.
“Not on the night of the Evacuation Fire,” said Somerset.
“We were. We were so hungry that we risked safety on the compound to come out and steal some sides of bacon. You thought the bread riots were reason to flee, Auntie? They were a cotillion in the White House of the Confederacy compared to what happened on this street that Sunday night. There were looters of every class imaginable, from Confederate officers to my very own minister. Have you ever heard the sound of hundreds of outraged, starving people? I have. It sounds like the hiss of flames as they swallow sheets of plywood whole and the cacophony of a gun barrel smashing a glass window. It’s profanity and murder on the street in front of a pair of naïve fifteen-year-old eyes. There are respectable people walking the streets around us who killed that night for a side of meat. There was no law that night. We were so hungry. Daddy knocked a man out over a piece of hog jowl, and then a man held a knife to Daddy’s throat and we gave it up again.”
Somerset gulped. It was inconceivable to connect the frivolous, well-coiffed girl who bought candy by the pound with the plain-talking, sober-faced woman in front of her.
“Do you see that gutter there by Ivy’s shoes? Our soldiers got into the liquor stores and they poured it in the gutters to keep it out of General Wietzel’s hands. The scent of the air would have intoxicated a teetotaler. The fumes would have set my hair on fire if I had lit a match. I was so hungry that I was seeing stars. They couldn’t really be seen for all the smoke in the air, and it was mostly Marshall tobacco in the warehouses that burnt up. I saw all the liquor careening like flood waters down the gutters, and all these people were emptying kegs in the streets, drinking like the world was ending. I took off my silk pump and I hunkered down on the sidewalk and scooped it up. I drank and drank and drank. I was so hungry. It was the most solid meal I had in days. Our wagon got stolen and burned, I presume. I hobbled home to the Marsh with one shoe while leaning on my Daddy’s bleeding shoulders, holding a slipper filled with rotgut whiskey. I was sick for days, and my stomach was too sick from it to be hungry. What a blessing it was to not be hungry.”
Tears slid down Myra’s cheeks as she continued pointing at the trench beside the sidewalk, and sobs burst forth that sounded as if they had been caged for three years. Myra and Blanche were in each other’s arms, crying in public on each other’s faces, looking like an original sculpture beside a reproduction, their breasts heaving with every breath.
Somerset tapped Ivy on the shoulder.
“We have no understanding of this. Let them be and we’ll wait in the carriage. They don’t want or need our sympathy.”
***
The pheasant sat on a silver platter surrounded by currants and grapes. Red wine, port and sherry glasses abounded on the sideboards as if they were as common as river water. Roasted apples filled the air with the fragrance of nutmeg and cinnamon while mashed parsnips rich with cracked fresh pepper beckoned from the opposite side of the table. A pot of greens glistened with hunks of ham hocks and side meat. A charger filled with glazed carrots arrived on the table, set down by white-gloved hands, and then a tower of biscuits so yellow that they wouldn’t need extra butter.
“I love currants with fowl,” proclaimed Myra as she took a double serving. There were no traces on her face of the tears she shed in the street hours earlier.
“This table looks like something out of an alley in the heart of town,” remarked Honor as she sat down at the head of the table. “I want to know why my money is being thrown about in such reckless fashion. If you pay for the best, you should get the best.”
Her tiny white teeth ground and her black eyes snapped.
“You all are looking the worse for wear. That is what happens when you pop out for luncheon and go gallivanting all over town without a real meal or civilized nap in the meantime. Blanche, I’ve never approved the use of cosmetics, but if you don’t perk up I’m going to send Trix out for something to make your face more cheerful.”
Blanche put her napkin in her lap.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I am. I hated to see the city looking ransacked.”
“I sent you the papers as they printed, didn’t I? Why be shocked? You lost three cousins when the powder kegs exploded. You ought to have known this place wasn’t going to look hospitable.”
“I think she means that there is a difference between knowing and seeing,” said Somerset.
“Don’t sass me, young lady. You haven’t married your rich miner yet, and if you do, you still won’t take a tone with me under this sacred roof.”
“I wasn’t being impertinent,” said Somerset. “I meant it can—”
“I know what you meant and I’ll have none of it. Where is Thomas Junior?”
Somerset and Ivy looked all around the table with dismay. Somerset wondered if the stress of the hateful household had driven Joseph to break his deal with Ivy so early in the marriage. She hated to think how tempting several drinks would be after sitting in a saloon all day playing cards and dreading to return to the house in the afternoon. She wondered when Blanche would need more to drink than her wine with dinner. She suspected that as soon as Blanche made the trip home, she would begin pilfering liquor from the servants’ rooms.
“He’s making some social calls,” said Ivy. Her voice was smooth and confident, although there was worry in her eyes.
“What did you think of Flora?” asked Honor.
“She was talented,” said Somerset. “She made half a dozen sketches and I liked them all, but I’m to go back tomorrow and finalize one.”
“I thought she would be a good match for your perkiness. She gets a feel for a person and can guess what their tastes are going to be. It’s a shame her husband caused scandal before he widowed her, but if he hadn’t widowed her, she’d be under his thumb while he ran around on her. She’s aging well, but if I made that kind of money on a frock, I’d be in good spirits all the time as well. What color are you marrying in?”
“White,” exalted Somerset. “Pure white silk with Brussels lace. I feel like a bride already. Phillip dresses well all the time. I told Flora that I wanted to impress him.”
Honor couldn’t find anything lacking in Somerset’s remark, giving ev
eryone a moment to enjoy the food.
“You’ll have your work cut out for you as mistress of Turning Tide. Your intended has been by himself for decades. He’ll be used to having things his own way and won’t like feminine touches to his windows and tables. You might want to start small with your room and then sneak up on him by starting in one the parlors.”
“He won’t care,” Somerset said from behind her napkin. “He’s too busy to notice even if he did care. I’m going to be as busy working as Phillip. I doubt I’ll want to alter his home.”
“Busy working?” Honor frowned.
Somerset searched for a euphemism for her future work.
“Charity work,” she said with haste. “I want to help Charleston’s poor. Phillip has been enthusiastic about my dreams of aiding those who have less than us. He wants to help me.”
The creases on Honor’s forehead relaxed and she nodded before refilling her sherry glass.
Joseph entered the dining room.
“I’m sorry to be late. One game of cards led to another and before I knew it, I was making friends. I met a veteran of the Chickamauga tonight, only ten years older than me. He took a minié ball through the shoulder at the battle so we compared scars. Most of the time we weren’t even playing cards, we were swapping battle stories.”
Ivy’ shoulders relaxed and she took a bite of pheasant. Joseph threw her his apologetic smile and took the seat next to her.
“Young man, I do not tolerate lateness,” Grandmother Marshall said. “Be it ten seconds or thirty minutes, I can’t abide it. You may not dine at this table tonight.”
“Grandmother, please reconsider,” begged Myra. “He’s new here. He doesn’t know all the rules.”
“He’s been visiting the Marsh since he was in diapers. He is not new here, as you put it. Since he’s so fond of being out of this house, he can dine outside of it as well tonight.”
Joseph pushed his chair back up to the table.
