'I am sorry to have inconvenienced you, sir,' Scipio said. He had to fight to keep his air of servile detachment around Jacob Colleton. You knew people came back from war wounded, even maimed. You didn't think they could come back ruined this particular way, though, condemned to maybe a full life's worth of hell.
Chlorine gas… that was stuff more appalling than anyone had imagined back before the war. If the Confederates had thought of it, they wouldn't have used it against the USA, not at first they wouldn't. They'd have used it to keep their own blacks in line. He had a sudden, horrid vision of black men and women lined up and made to breathe the stuff. A lot more efficient than just shooting them…
In that choking wreck of a whisper, Jacob Colleton said, 'I want to see Cherry. Bring her here to me. She can tell me a story, one of those Congaree yarns you niggers spin, take my mind off how wonderful the world is for me these days.' He coughed. His face, already the color of parchment, went paler yet, to the shade milk had once you'd skimmed off the cream.
'You understand, sir, that she is in the fields at present,' Scipio said. Colleton nodded impatiently. Face not showing any of what he was thinking, Sci pio said, 'I shall fetch her here directly.'
Muggy heat smote him when he went outside. He felt himself starting to sweat. It was, for once, honest sweat, sweat having nothing — well, only a little- to do with fear. The kinds of stories Cherry told Jacob Colleton had nothing to do with words. Colleton, of course, had no notion Cherry was anything but one more Negro wench to distract him and keep his mind off his pain.
What she thought about him was harder for Scipio to unravel. She gave Colleton what he wanted from her; the butler was sure of that much. He wouldn't have kept asking for her if she didn't. Understanding why she did was harder. Come the revolution, Jacob Colleton, like every other white aristocrat in the CSA, was fair game.
Maybe he told her things, when they were in there together with the doors closed. Cassius might know about that; Scipio didn't. He didn't have the nerve to ask the hunter, either. Maybe Cherry revelled in making herself feel worse now so revenge would be all the sweeter when it came. And maybe, too, revo lutionary sentiments or not, she also felt something akin to pity for Jacob Col leton. People weren't all of a piece, not whites, not blacks, not anybody. Scipio was sure of that.
He sent a little boy who wore nothing but a grin and a shirt that came halfway down to his knees out to find Cherry. That meant he'd have to give the little rascal a couple of pennies when he came back, but going out into the fields after a particular woman was beneath a butler's dignity.
While he waited for the boy to return with Cherry, he looked back at the Marshlands mansion. Halftone photographs in the newspapers showed what towns looked like after the rake of war dragged through them. He tried to imagine Marshlands as a burnt-out shell. Horror ran through him when he did. He loved and hated the place at the same time himself.
Here came Cherry, a plain cotton blouse over an equally plain cotton skirt, but a fiery red bandanna tied over her hair. Scipio gave the boy three pennies, which was plenty to send him capering off with glee. 'Why fo' you wants me?' Cherry asked.
'Ain't me.' Scipio shook his head in denial. 'Marse Jacob, he want you. Say he want you to tell a story to he.'
'He say dat?' Cherry asked. Scipio nodded. Now he was sweating from nerves. If Cherry told Jacob Colleton the wrong story, he himself was a dead man. He hoped she didn't truly care for Miss Anne's brother. If she did, she was liable to talk more than she should. That was the last thing Scipio wanted. She said, 'Well, he gwine like de story he get.'
Scipio wouldn't have doubted that. She was a fine-looking woman, with high cheekbones that said she had some Indian in her. You'd have never a dull moment between the sheets with her; of that much Scipio was sure. All the same, knowing what he knew, he would sooner have taken a cougar to bed.
Cherry walked on toward Marshlands. Scipio followed her with his eyes. Any man would have, the roll she put to her hips. She opened the door, closing it after her as she went inside. Something else occurred to Scipio, something he hadn't thought through before. Cherry was going up to that bedroom to do what Jacob Colleton wanted. Colleton probably didn't care much about whether it was what she wanted. If the uprising of which she dreamt ever came off, Scipio wouldn't have cared to be in the shoes Miss Anne's brother was — or, at the moment, most likely wasn't-wearing.
Well, that was Jacob Colleton's lookout, not Scipio's. The butler had enough to worry about, keeping Marshlands going with servants constantly leaving for better-paying jobs, and with the threat of revolt from the field hands growing worse every day.
And, he remembered, with insolence from the servants he did have. Deal ing with Griselda came within the normal purview of his duties. That it was normal made it all the more attractive to him now. Straightening up until he looked as stiff and stern as the Confederate sergeant on the recruiting poster pasted to every other telegraph pole, he marched back to the mansion.
Griselda, predictably, screamed abuse at him when he told her she had to go. 'That will be enough of that,' he said, using his educated voice: he was speaking as Anne Colleton's agent now, not as himself. 'If you comport yourself with dignity, I will prevail upon the mistress to write you a letter that will enable you to find a good situation elsewhere. Otherwise-'
But that was not so effective as it would have been a year earlier. 'Fuck yo' letter, an' fuck you, too,' Griselda shouted. 'Don' need no letter, not these days I don't. Take myself to Columbia, git me work at one o' the factories they got there. Don' have to lissen to no nigger talkin' like white folks what needs to go take a shit, neither.' She stormed out of Marshlands, slamming the door behind her.
Scipio stared out the window as she flounced down the path that led to the road. She hadn't even bothered going to her room and getting her belong ings. Maybe she'd be back for them later, or maybe she'd have somebody send them on to her when she found a place in town. Wherever the truth lay there, she never would have behaved that way before the war made it possible for her to find a job without worrying about her passbook or a letter of recommendation or anything past a strong back and a pair of hands.
'The war,' he muttered. It had dislocated everything, including, God only knew, his own life.
Anne Colleton came out of her office and looked down at him from the second floor. 'What was that all about?' she asked. 'Or don't I want to know?'
'One of the house staff has seen fit to resign her position, ma'am,' Scipio answered tonelessly.
Miss Anne raised an eyebrow. 'I didn't know an artillery accompaniment was required with resignations these days,' she remarked, but didn't seem inclined to take it any further, for which Scipio was duly grateful.
The mistress of Marshlands was turning away from the railing when an other door opened upstairs. Cherry walked by Anne Colleton, nodding to her almost, although not quite, as an equal. Miss Anne looked at her, looked back to the door from which she had emerged, and went back into her office, shak ing her head as she went.
Cherry paused by Scipio. 'I hear one of the house niggers up an' leave?' she asked. When the butler nodded, she said, 'How about you give de job she was doin' to me? I kin do it better dan she could, I bet you.'
Scipio licked his lips. She might well have been right, but — 'I gwine ask Cassius, see what he say.' Using that dialect inside the mansion, even speaking quietly as he was now, made him nervous. Cassius would probably be glad to have an extra set of eyes and ears inside Marshlands, but if for some reason he wanted his followers to stay as inconspicuous as possible, Scipio didn't want to cross him. Scipio didn't want to cross Cassius for any reason. The hunter was altogether too good with a gun or a knife or any other piece of lethality that came into his hands.
Cherry tossed her head. 'Cain't ask Cassius. He ain't here.'
'What do you mean, he isn't here?' Scipio asked, returning to the form of English that seemed more natural-or at least safer-to him inside Marshlands. 'Has he gone hunting in the swamps for a few days?'
'He gone, but not in de swamp,' Cherry agreed. She too dropped her voice, to a throaty whisper. 'Who know what kind o' good things he bring back wid he when he come home?'
What the devil was that supposed to mean? Scipio couldn't come right out and ask: too many ears around in a place like Marshlands, and not all of them — none of the white and too few of the black-to be trusted. He focused on what lay right before him. 'Very well, Cherry,' he said starchily. 'We shall try you indoors for a time, and see how you shape in your new position. Have you anything more suitable for wear inside Marshlands?'
'Sho' do.' Her eyes flashed deviltry. 'Jus' axe Marse Jacob.' She slipped outside, laughing, while Scipio was still in the middle of a coughing fit.
