Chapter Twenty-Four

SEPTEMBER 1864

We buried Emma in the Shady Grove churchyard, next to her lost babies, not far from Mother. There was still time to dig lily of the valley rhizomes and cover her grave as I knew she would have wanted —like the graves of her babies, like Mother’s and her babies, but I had no heart for it. I had no heart for anything save the little girl Emma left behind.

What does it mean to adore and resent a life at the same time? To see a tiny child as the cause of joy and hope and wretched despair all in one breath?

I did not write Elliott. I did not, in truth, know where to write him. He’d not given us the location of his regiment’s winter quarters in his letter, if indeed they’d settled in. It was enough to know that he was alive and that I could be relieved of the burden, at least for a time, of telling him that the love of his life had died birthing the child they both had longed for.

Mother Sally, an older mother among the slaves who nursed her own baby of six months, served as wet nurse for Emma’s baby. The baby. I wanted to call her by name, but it didn’t seem right, didn’t seem my place to name her. And yet it wasn’t right to forever call her “the baby.” It felt so cold, so impersonal, as if she wasn’t even a member of the family.

If I could have traded her for Emma, I would have a thousand times within those first few days. But afterward, after we’d buried Emma and said our goodbyes, as I held the little girl, as she wrapped her tiny palm and fingers around my baby finger and I saw her blue eyes focus on mine, I knew I would have fought both armies to protect her, to keep her.

With Elliott gone and Emma having left no instruction for the naming of a daughter, the weeks passed, and I didn’t know what to do.

“Aren’t you just a little Ellie,” Alma cooed one November morning after breakfast as she brought the baby to my arms, fresh from her feeding with Mother Sally.

“Ellie? You think she looks like someone named Ellie?”

Alma smiled. “Oh, don’t mind me. I was just thinking this morning how Miz Emma wanted her baby named after Mr. Elliott, and how Ellie might be a fittin’ way to do that.”

“Ellie,” I repeated.

“Short for Eleanor,” Father said from the head of the table, which surprised us all, for he’d barely spoken since Emma’s death and had never held —had in fact refused to hold —the baby.

“Yes,” I said, more because I was astonished than anything. “Eleanor. Ellie —for Elliott. That’s good, isn’t it, Father?” But he didn’t answer.

“I reckon Miz Emma’d be mighty pleased.” Alma tucked the blanket around Ellie’s feet and patted her back.

I held Ellie against me and breathed another thank You to the Father for Alma. She and Martha had walked with me through each and every dark day since Emma’s passing, often gently guiding me without so much as a say-so. They were sisters I’d never had, never even imagined beyond Emma.

It didn’t occur to me that I was now mistress of Belvidere Hall, not until one December morning, very near Christmas, a holiday we’d no heart to celebrate. I’d just stepped from the nursery —the room beside mine that had once belonged to Elliott and Emma —and gently closed the door as Ellie slept. Grayson stood in the upstairs hallway, having cornered Alma against his bedchamber door. Grayson had grown two inches and gained shoulder width in the last year. He towered over tiny Alma, who even I could see was far more woman than teen now, and beautiful at that.

“Grayson!” I called brightly, as if I didn’t notice or ascertain his intentions. “Your niece is begging for Uncle Grayson. She’s got the loveliest smile today —come, see her!” I motioned to him.

Caught, he removed his arm from the door above Alma’s head. She darted away and down the stairs. He knew precisely what I was doing but allowed me to take his arm and lead him to the nursery, where, of course, Ellie was sleeping soundly.

“Nicely done, sneaky sister.” Grayson pulled his arm away.

“I’ve no desire to embarrass you, Grayson. Father’s already warned you. Stay away from Alma.”

“I do live here. I have every right to —”

“You have every right to ask me if you need something. I remind you that Father has placed me in charge of the household.”

“That won’t always be the case, dear sister. In fact, that will not be the case much longer.”

“Whatever do you mean?” I could have ignored him if I didn’t know that Grayson had grown as devious and plotting as he had grown handsome.

But he did not answer. And that worried me.

That night I wrote Elliott. I’d put it off as long as possible, but I feared I could not control Grayson and that things would come to a head before long. Elliott did not know our people were still enslaved. He did not know that his beloved Emma had died, or that he had a daughter. He did not know how far Father had deteriorated. I needed him, needed someone, so I poured it all out in writing to my dear brother.

Still, I had no idea where to send my plea, and we’d received no word from Elliott since September. I sealed my letter and tucked it with the others addressed to Elliott, inside the first book of Les Misérables that he’d given me, hoping, praying we would hear from him soon and that I might place each one in his hands.