Chapter Thirty

APRIL 1865

Grayson’s vow to go to war was short-lived. I came upon him in the parlor the next morning discussing with Elliott, in much calmer tones, his talk with Sam Newton from up the mountain. I joined them, lifting Elliott’s stump to tuck a pillow beneath, a help that gave him some relief from the night’s pain.

“Sam’s agreed to go in my place . . . for four hundred dollars. I believe he’ll take Confederate money. It doesn’t need to be gold.” Grayson sounded like a banker, making a transaction.

“I thought three hundred was the going rate.” I could not help my sarcasm. They both ignored me.

“The war will be over soon, Grayson. There’s no need for you to go or send someone in your stead.” Elliott spoke calmly but I sensed a growing weakness in him.

“There wasn’t a need until you freed our slaves. In case you didn’t know —or maybe you did and that’s why —as long as we owned twenty slaves a man’s not got to go.”

“The Confederacy assumes a farm or plantation that size will produce enough to supply the war effort, but that applies —”

“Yes, well, that was true of Belvidere Hall until you and Minnie —”

“You can’t think we freed the slaves so you would have to go to war! That’s ludicrous!” I fumed.

“Why else free them now? This minute? Especially if you both believe the war’s all but lost and that good old Abe will send each and every slave on their merry way any day now.” Was that fury in Grayson’s eyes . . . or hurt?

“Grayson, you’re not eighteen yet. You won’t be conscripted. Our slaves would have been freed long before if you hadn’t interfered.”

I was astonished at Elliott’s phrasing. Interfered was a tame word for Grayson’s theft and destruction.

“So does that mean you won’t pay Newton’s fee?”

“If you turn eighteen and are conscripted and that’s what you want, it will be up to you.”

“Why not give me the money now?”

And then there was silence in the room. We both stared at Grayson and I couldn’t help but wonder if none of this was about the war, but about the money, and Grayson’s mounting gambling debts. “Grayson.” I spoke with pity and insight.

“Is there something you need to tell us, Brother?” Elliott asked quietly, respectfully.

But Grayson did not answer. His jaw set, he knocked a vase from the table, sending it crashing to the floor and across the room, and strode from the parlor.

“Grayson,” Elliott called after him, but he was gone.

There was no freedom party as we’d once planned, but there was much rejoicing in the house and quarters that night as we handed out the manumission papers with their copies, and for days to come. Freedom lifted the darkness of Belvidere Hall for the first time since Emma had died. Grayson was gone for several days, and I’m sorry to say we all felt relief.

Father’s mind cleared somewhat with the joy of seeing the culmination of his and Mother’s lifelong plans, and with the belief that his eldest son was home to set things right.

But the confrontation with Grayson and the signing of papers had taken their toll on Elliott. He slept for three days straight.

Throughout those days some of our new freed men and women came to me, asking what now. Were they to leave? To stay? Where could they go and what must they do? Some left right away, headed for Union lines where they believed they would be safe and protected. I had no information about that.

I urged others to stay, to wait until Elliott recovered more, telling them that I knew —at least I believed —that he and Father would settle land upon them, land they’d own free and clear and could work for their own good. But most refused, determined to move as far from the South as they could, as quickly as possible, before North Carolina’s soldiers returned to the foothills. I gave them what I could in gold and goods. Elliott had warned me that soon Confederate scrip would amount to nothing. I was certain that if they’d only wait a day or two more, Elliott would rouse —at least I prayed he would —and would know of more we could do for them.

Despite all the news of the waning Confederacy, everyone feared to speculate what might happen once the war was over. They dared not trust that pattyrollers or even Home Guard wouldn’t capture and sell them south again —somewhere far worse than Belvidere Hall. I couldn’t blame them.

By the time Elliott was able to sit up again and we began drawing maps for the allocation of property, three-quarters of our freed people had gone. It cut Elliott’s heart to the quick. “If only Father’d freed them years ago. If only we’d settled this land for them then.” He saw it as the death of friendships and family and bemoaned that he hadn’t done more for them.

But Obadiah stayed, as did Martha and Alma and a few of our field hands and their families. I was so very grateful. I didn’t know what I’d have done without any one of them.

Martha and Obadiah married two days later in our parlor, with Elliott, Father, and me looking on. Elliott was proud to serve as Obadiah’s best man, and Alma stood as her sister’s maid of honor. Every freed man and woman came, as well as Shadrach, who’d received a pass from Mrs. Chatsworth for the day. Only Grayson was absent, but he wasn’t missed.

It wasn’t a legal wedding. Even among freed Negroes the law did not recognize marriage. But God did and we did, and we were ever so glad for this union that should have taken place years before.

“Nobody ever gonna take you from me now, Martha Tate —not you nor our children.”

“Tate?” asked Father.

“Tate was my daddy’s name, and we take it for our last name.”

Elliott nodded. “A good name, after a godly man.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Elliott.”

“Elliott. No more massas or misters here, Obadiah.”

“One Master of us all,” Martha whispered.

“Amen,” we said in chorus.

Obadiah and Martha had waited longer than any couple we knew to say their vows and tie their knot. They hadn’t wanted to wait to plan a celebration, but it took so little to hire a fiddler and a mouth organ player. I hadn’t played the piano in a long while, hadn’t had the heart, but I did my best for the two I loved so dearly.

Alma and I, both fairly green when it came to baking, had created a wedding cake to remember from what we could scrounge. It tasted fine, I suppose, but it drooped something like a snowdrop in January. The punch was mild, at least to begin with.

“A toast to the bride and groom,” Father spoke up, raising his glass.

“Hear! Hear!” we all echoed . . . as Grayson stumbled through the front door and into the party.

I nodded for Edwin Earl, the fiddler from the other side of No Creek, to continue and left my piano, hoping to nudge Grayson toward the kitchen. I looped my arm in his. “Come, Grayson, I saved the most delicious plate of ham and potatoes for you. We even opened the last jar of peaches. You must be star —”

But he wrenched away from me. “Get your hands off me, Minnie. I know what you’re doing, and I won’t have it.” The timbre of his voice rose with each word.

“Please, Grayson, calm down. I’m only trying to save your dignity and mine. This is Obadiah and Martha’s wedding day.”

“Well, excuse me. I beg your pardon for intruding on the great Obadiah’s wedding day —the darky slave who’s ascended to the ranks of son —second born at the very least.” He mocked a bow and nearly fell over.

“You’re drunk. You’re drunk and you’re rude, Grayson,” I whispered. “I won’t have you ruining —”

“You won’t have me ruining what? Your day? Another day you and Elliott live vicariously through our slaves? Look at yourself, Minnie. You’re inching past your prime. You don’t even have a beau. Elliott’s crowding thirty. He’s crippled and his wife is dead —dead!”

“Grayson, please, lower your voice!” I hissed with all the frustration I possessed.

“Lower my voice?” he nearly shouted. “Because Father has killed the fatted calf when the prodigal returned with his brother slave? Tell me, what did Father and Elliott give them as a wedding gift? Prime tobacco land? Water rights for the best of Belvidere Hall’s pastureland? Don’t you think it odd that’s he’s never given you anything? Or me, his true son that’s been here all along, not so much as an acre of land?”

“Grayson, we’re his children. We have no lack. There’s so much land to divide among —”

“Among slaves?”

“Among free men and women who’ve served us all our lives, who’ve worked alongside us to help others become free while they were not. You know that we will be provided for, that Father will be generous with us.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, Sister, he will.” Grayson leaned forward, his finger and whiskey breath in my face. “I told you once that if I’m heir —when I’m heir —I will see to it that we don’t lose everything, and I mean to keep that vow.”

The kitchen door opened and there stood Elliott, leaning precariously on crutches. “Grayson. You go too far.” The steel in Elliott’s voice sent shivers up my spine and seemed to sober Grayson, at least a little.

But then he straightened, took the punch glass I’d brought him, and downed the drink in one long gulp. He slammed the glass to the table so hard that I jumped. “And what, dear crippled widower brother, are you going to do about it?”

“Grayson!” His name escaped my mouth in a horrified whisper and plea, but he didn’t answer, simply pushed roughly past Elliott, nearly knocking him to the floor as he stormed through the hallway and up the stairs.

I rushed to Elliott and caught him just enough to steady him. “You shouldn’t be up. It’s too soon.”

His breath came in gasps and I could feel his heart slamming against his thin chest.

“Help me to a chair. I’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.”

But it was a lie, so many lies, and I recorded each one in my diary that night, in a prayer, a plea to the Lord.