Chapter Eighteen

DECEMBER 1863

The days passed and Christmas neared. Elliott had been furloughed while still awaiting trial. Confederates were camped in winter quarters, as were the Federals, both with little action, if the newspapers were to be believed. The Confederates weren’t in a position to play nursemaid to sick prisoners if they didn’t need to.

With Emma’s doting care and Martha’s good cooking, Elliott slowly healed, though he did not come close to filling out his civilian clothes or regaining his sense of humor. He and Emma spent long hours alone, talking and doing what, I supposed, all married couples did. They developed a closeness, a oneness I’d never witnessed, though I’d never thought of them as anything less.

Father strengthened somewhat. His eyes lit each time Elliott entered a room or sat down to the dinner table. His mind gained moments of clarity, and in those moments he and Elliott finalized drawings, maps detailing acreage to be distributed among the slaves along with their freedom. It was a hopeful time. Father no longer spoke of waiting until his death to free our slaves but insisted on keeping plans secret, even from Obadiah, and on waiting for the new year, saying only that everything must be set in place for Twelfth Night —a real Epiphany for all.

We were longtime Baptists but had always celebrated Twelfth Night —a holdover from our ancestors. I could see why Father thought it a fitting time, but I just wanted it to be done. I didn’t understand the delay.

I knew we’d have trouble with neighbors’ wagging tongues once they heard —anger, shunning, possibly violence, though I prayed not.

Grayson ranted daily, adamantly opposed to freeing slaves that he could sell to save Belvidere Hall. The longer Elliott was home, the more time Grayson spent in town, drinking and —I feared —gambling, mounting debts he surely could not pay. He stumbled in late at night, half intoxicated, oblivious to the groans of those he woke.

One morning shortly after the year turned over to 1864, I found Elliott alone in Father’s library and stepped in, quietly closing the door behind me. “Elliott, is it true what Grayson says, that we’re insolvent and likely to lose Belvidere Hall?”

“Lose our home?” He huffed. “No, not unless Grayson gambles it away.” He set down the book he’d been reading. “You mustn’t worry, Minnie. We have stability Grayson knows nothing of, and there are matters he doesn’t understand.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you must trust me. Leave these things to Father and me. We’ve not let you down so far, have we, Sister?”

It was kindly said, but he treated me like a child. Did Elliott mean there was money or assets of some kind hidden away somewhere that Grayson had not been apprised of? Did he mean that Grayson simply did not understand the worth of decency, of integrity, and our promise never to sell a human being? I didn’t know and resented that Elliott did not speak plainly, that he depended on me to help him accomplish his tasks one minute —work as important as writing out freedom papers for each of our slaves —and treated me as a child the next. I turned on my heel to leave him to his book.

“One thing, Minnie.” He spoke quietly.

I stopped but didn’t turn to face him.

“If anything should happen to me, finish the work Father and Mother began. You’ll do that, won’t you?”

Without turning, without showing the conflicting emotions I held toward my elder brother, I swore, “I will. On my life, I will.”

Alone in my room I thanked God that it was only three days until the freedom papers would be issued, and I poured my heart into my diary. I believed Elliott when he said he’d been furloughed until mid-January, but I wanted everything out in the open and settled before he returned to custody. Grayson whispered that it was all a lie and that Elliott had surely run and would be tracked down before long, that I shouldn’t get used to having our big brother around.

So I slept as if on eggshells, starting each time an unknown horse or rider entered the drive. Even so, I was not prepared when, on Sunday night, two nights before the freedom party we’d planned, a detail of Confederate soldiers thundered down our lane and banged on our door. Why they came in the dead of night I didn’t know, unless it was to terrorize us. If that was their purpose, it worked famously.

This time it roused everyone, bringing to the front yard both household members and slaves from their quarters.

Tom was not among the intruding party. The captain in charge was not civil to Father or polite to Emma or me. This time one of the men clearly nodded toward Grayson, alerting me to the fact that my younger brother was the only one not surprised by their sudden appearance, and the only one still fully dressed. That cut me to the quick.

Elliott made no move to oppose them but was roughly handcuffed, pushed outside, and tied by the waist to walk behind the captain’s horse.

Emma, her wrapper tight around her and her hair a cascade knotted from sleep, stumbled down the steps to the yard. She ran to the captain’s horse and grabbed its bridle. “Captain, I beg you —allow me a moment to say goodbye to my husband.”

But the captain sneered. “Your husband lost those rights and privileges when he turned traitor, ma’am. Reckon that means you, too . . . Next time, watch who you take to your bed.” He turned and spurred his horse, forcing Elliott to stumble after him through the dark or be dragged down the road.

Emma kept her composure until she reached her room. Once the door closed behind her she released a wail, a keening so primitive it might have reverberated from generations past —a Scots-Irish keening my mother had described in such detail I knew it in a moment.

Father, still in his nightshirt, crumpled on the verandah. Obadiah lifted Father and helped me get him back in the house and up to bed, though I knew there’d be precious little sleep for him or any of us that night. Grayson had disappeared. When we finally got Father settled, I felt near collapse myself. Our world, which had felt so complete and hopeful the day before, was once again upended.

“You gonna be all right, Miss Minnie. You the strong one here, and you gonna be all right. You must take hold.” Obadiah’s reassuring words belied the fact that Elliott was gone, perhaps for good this time, and with him all our hopes. Obadiah’s and Martha’s and the hopes of every slave of Belvidere Hall had been championed by Elliott and his good effect on Father. Now what?

I couldn’t answer Obadiah. It wasn’t a question, after all.

Sleep was beyond me. I closed the door to my room and sat in the small rocker beside my window for the remainder of the night, determined to watch for the dawn.

The morning chill woke me before the black of night began to gray. I was surprised, even guilty, to realize that I’d slept at all. The house, shrouded in misery and uncertainty, lay quiet. No sound came from Emma’s room. No light shone beneath her door. I prayed she slept. It might be the only mercy she could obtain after last night, and I knew how needed and rare sleep could be to a tortured soul.

I tiptoed to Father’s room and peeked in. He slept soundly, so I stirred and built up the fire, then quietly closed his door, hoping he would sleep a long while yet. I was nearly back to my room when I heard stirrings belowstairs and realized a pale light shone from Father’s library.

I could not imagine that even Martha would be up at such an hour. Tiptoeing down the staircase, I felt heat from the library before I entered the room. The fire, which should have gone out overnight, was bright, crumpled paper setting the blaze higher and higher. “What in the world?” I spoke before I saw Grayson standing beside Father’s desk, pulling papers from an open drawer.

He started at my exclamation. “What are you doing here?”

“I ask you the same. In Father’s library at this hour? Going through his papers?” Even as I asked, I saw. The drawer he’d opened and pilfered —and it had either required taking the key Father kept in his vest pocket or forcing the drawer —contained the manumission papers I’d so painstakingly written out for Father, the ones Elliott had dictated and that he and Father had both signed and sealed. The lump in my throat hardened. “Grayson!” I could barely speak his name but stumbled toward him.

Before I reached him, he tore in half the folded map Elliott and Father had labored long over —the surveys of plots of land to be distributed to our freed slaves —and threw it into the fire.

“Grayson!” I screamed this time. “No!” I ran toward the fire, intent on pulling it from the hungry flames, but Grayson yanked me back.

“Let it go! You’ll be burned, Sister.”

“What have you done? How could you? How could you?” I cried. It was destruction of all the work Elliott had given himself to, all the dreams Mother and I and even Father had conceived. “You have no right!”

“I have every right. With Elliott gone I will become master of Belvidere Hall. I’m simply protecting what’s mine . . . what is ours. Someone must.”

“But we promised —we’ve vowed to free our people and provide them with land. Martha, Obadiah —all of them! Mother and Father always planned to. You’ve gone too far —stealing what’s not yours. You have no right!” In my helpless rage and tears, I tried to grasp his hands, make him see.

He pushed me to the floor. “We have debts to pay, debts you know nothing of, and no other way to raise funds. You don’t understand.”

“Debts from your gambling?” I clenched my fists, forcing myself to stand, and swiped the hated tears from my eyes. “You are weak, Grayson, and foolish. These people are not yours to sell —”

“They soon will be. Elliott’s gone —probably to the firing squad he’s earned —and you saw Father tonight. His mind is —I could have him declared incompetent in any court of law.”

“How dare you?” I saw my younger brother as I’d never seen him before. “You’re not even of age!”

Grayson brushed his hands down the front of his vest, as if relieving himself of something distasteful. “Someday you’ll thank me. You don’t know it now, but you will.”

I turned away in disgust and despair. Twenty-five sets of manumission papers and twenty-five copies, signed and sealed and ready to be awarded to those who’d served our family faithfully —most from years before I was born —and who’d worked with us to help others to freedom all while they were still enslaved. The party was set for the next day, and though it was intended to be a surprise celebration, no doubt word had traveled through the quarters and barn and all of Belvidere Hall. I’d seen it in Martha’s smiles as we’d baked Twelfth Night cakes together, in the knowing light in Obadiah’s eyes, in the tenderness between them as they surely planned their marriage. How could we face them now? How could I?

But there is still time —not to redraw the maps, for I’ve taken no part in that and don’t know Father’s and Elliott’s plans —but to pen the manumission papers and have Father sign them. It will take two days at least, perhaps the nights. Copies are important —

“If you’re considering writing up new papers, forget it. Father made Elliott his power of attorney last month. If Father signs even one, I will take him to court and have him declared incompetent. Not a judge within a hundred miles would question my testimony against the competency of a Southern slaveholder who suddenly decides to free his slaves in the midst of this war, especially one who already knew he needed help making his legal decisions.

“Our men are dying to preserve our way of life. Father could not endure the trial —you know it —and that would be on your head. Go back to your needlepoint, Minnie, and leave Belvidere Hall to me.” And then he marched from the library, leaving me aghast and alone, my family’s dream and the dreams of twenty-five souls in smoke and ashes.

With Elliott gone and Grayson striding over our acreage as if he already owned all of Belvidere Hall and its lands, we walked as if in a bad dream —family and slaves alike. If the slaves ever knew they’d been within two days of freedom that was cruelly snatched away, they didn’t say . . . though I could tell from the crease in Martha’s forehead and the light gone from Obadiah’s eyes that they knew so much more than I’d shared.

I did not expect it to be Emma who saw beyond Grayson’s bullying and took the reins of clear thinking. I’d waited until the day we were to celebrate before going to her room, where she’d sequestered herself since Elliott’s arrest. Despite her grieving, I told her all that had happened, all that Grayson had done. She pulled her dressing gown tighter, gritted her teeth, and steeled her spine. “He will not get away with this and he will not be heir of Belvidere Hall.”

I wanted to believe her, but with Elliott gone . . .

“I’ll help you. We’ll prepare the papers, omitting the dates, and we’ll find a way to get Father Belvidere to sign them without Grayson knowing. We’ll get the papers to Elliott as well. I don’t know how yet, but we will. They’ll only be legal now if Elliott signs them too.”

“Even if we could do that —and we don’t know where he’s gone, where they’ve taken him —who can we get to witness his signature in a Confederate prison? It’s true what Grayson said —who in the Confederacy would sign papers to free slaves now? And what if he takes Father to court? Father couldn’t bear it.” Sickness bubbled inside me and despair weighed my heart from the horror of it all, and from the loss of both my brothers in a single night.

“Stop it, Minnie. You’ve got to be stronger than this, stronger than Grayson.”

“I don’t know how. I’m tired, Emma —tired of being the strong one.”

She sat beside me on the bed and pulled me into her arms. “I’ve let you carry this burden too long, ever since Mother Belvidere died. Well, no more. You’re not alone now. We’ll fight this together. We know the wishes of your parents, their lifetime pledge. We can’t let Grayson change that now. And we cannot count on the South losing this war.”

She was right. We dared not depend on President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation for slaves in the states of rebellion, not when it meant the lives of Martha and Obadiah and Alma and all those I loved. Yet I couldn’t depend on this high-handed moment of Emma’s, much as I loved her for it. I didn’t want to say it to her now, but with Elliott gone, if he was executed for treason or killed in battle, she would lose her standing as mistress of Belvidere Hall and would become completely dependent on Grayson’s generosity for so much as a humble home —a home not likely to be Belvidere Hall.

I was thinking this when Emma clapped a hand over her mouth, turned nearly green, and dropped to the floor, pulling the chamber pot from beneath the bed. She gagged and vomited into the pot before I could even drop beside her. She reached out her hand, motioning toward the washstand, keeping her head over the bowl. “A towel —please!”

It was in her hand and I was on the floor beside her before I had time to think. “Emma, you’re ill! I should never have told you all this. I’m so sorry —”

She heaved again and all I could do was hold the towel for her and gently rub her back. “Water? Do you want some water?”

She shook her head. “Not now.” Finally, she sat back on her heels and breathed, then breathed deeply again, wiped her mouth, and slowly smiled.

“What is it? What can possibly be funny?” I could not imagine.

“You must say nothing until we know for certain, until all danger of loss is past . . . but I don’t believe that Grayson will ever become heir of Belvidere Hall.”