arrived with a new youngster every second or third week. The facility was by now hopelessly overcrowded. But Brown kept bringing more amber or blue-coal or cafe-au-lait children, and she fell in love with every single one.
Brown himself displayed a growing impatience to join a military unit before the South surrendered. 'A commission in a Negro cavalry regiment. It's all I want. I must get it. I'm trying.'
'I hope you do get it, Scipio. You're a splendid horseman. How can they not take you?'
Brett had been away from South Carolina three years. It no longer gave her pause to consider that when Brown joined the army, he would have the same status as any white man. She found the fact unremarkable — perfectly natural — because she now saw Brown solely as a man with a singular combination of traits, most of them likable. She knew he was a Negro, but color no longer played a part in how she felt about him.
Constance was a frequently amused and surprised observer of all this. 'I declare, Brett, you're ever so much happier the day before Scipio arrives than you are the day he leaves.'
'Am I?' A smile, a lifted shoulder. 'I suppose. I like him.' Constance nodded; both women understood it was the only explanation required. But in letters to George, Constance wrote of a marked sea change in the making.
Then came a stunning surprise. A plea by telegraph from Madeline Main. She was in Washington.
'Orry didn't want her trying to reach South Carolina,' Constance said after reading the message again to be sure of the contents. 'With the help of a black man from Fredericksburg, she reached Fort Du Pont, one of the fortifications along the East Branch, and crossed the lines. She was detained a day for questioning, then released. She wants permission to come here.'
At once, Brett said, 'I think someone should go to Washington to help her make the journey. I'm willing.' 'I won't have you do it alone. We'll both go.' So, while the siege seemed to stall at Petersburg and Sherman seemed to stall before Atlanta, the two women made the long, dirty train trip to the capital, gazing anxiously out the window of the rattling car now and then. Half the passengers did the same thing. There were still wild tales of old Jube Early's men running amok on the lower border.
But they saw no sign of rebs between Lehigh Station and Washington. In a small, dark room on the island, Madeline greeted them from the middle of a pile of ripped clothing she was sorting. With her dark hair bunned and her hot bombazine dress rustling, she looked quite matronly. But still a beauty, Brett saw before they hugged.
'How good to see you,' Constance said after she and Madeline embraced. 'I'm glad Orry sent you this way instead of down South where there's so much danger.'
'We'll take good care of you,' Brett promised. 'You do look worn out.' 'I'm much better now that you two are here.' 'Was it an ordeal?' Brett asked.
'Yes, but I'll spare you the details. There you see a few.' She pointed to the torn dresses and undergarments. 'It took a destructive search to convince one Union officer that I wasn't a smuggler or a spy. I'll have everything repacked in ten minutes. I can't wait to leave. We have big palmetto bugs in South Carolina, but the ones infesting this place make ours look like dwarfs.'
Constance laughed, genuinely glad Orry had entrusted his wife to the care of Northerners. It meant that the ties of friendship between the families, though stretched and tenuous, were still intact. Sometimes, she knew, George feared the war would sunder those ties.
All at once Constance noticed a change in Madeline's expression. She was pensive, even pained. She sat down on the bed, hands in her lap, and looked from Brett to Constance. 'Before we go, I want to explain why I had to leave Richmond. Other people learned what Orry's known since I ran away from Resolute. I —'
Silence for a moment. She seemed to struggle with some burden, then fling it off, sitting straighter. 'I have Negro blood. My mother was a New Orleans quadroon.'
Brett's admiration gave way to a rush of dizziness. She held still, not daring to move for fear she would shame Madeline, who continued to speak as calmly as if she were reciting a primer lesson. 'You know what that means in the Confederacy. One drop of black blood and you're a black person.' She paused. 'Will that be true in Lehigh Station?'
Constance answered first. 'Absolutely not. No one will know. You needn't have told us.'
'Oh, no, I felt obligated.'
Light-headed, Brett wasn't sure how she felt. Scipio Brown was forgotten as she struggled with the idea that this woman who shared her brother's bed and love — and the family name — was a Negro. Of course she didn't look it, but the truth was exactly as Madeline had stated it. Looks didn't measure blackness; only ancestry. Confusing emotions, childhood-deep, engulfed her.
'Are you positive it makes no difference?' Madeline asked.
'None,' Brett said, wishing it were so.
'If I'd stayed on the river road, they'd have caught me sure,' Andy said. 'They popped out of the palmettos — two of 'em on mules — but I know some of the back paths and they didn't. That's how I got away.'
'Well, sit down, rest yourself,' Philemon Meek said, giving up his own chair. 'I'm thankful you're all right.'
The heavy air of a July twilight filled the plantation office. Meek paced, swinging his spectacles from his bent index finger.
How old he's grown, Cooper thought from the shadowed corner where he stood, arms folded.
After Andy came dashing up the lane, sweat and fright on his face, Meek insisted the three of them confer here rather than in the great house. In the office, the overseer explained, they wouldn't be overheard, thus would not alarm Cooper's wife and daughter or the house servants. It was the house people Meek worried about most. He didn't want them to run off.
Cooper went along with Meek, but he had fewer illusions than the overseer. The house people knew the guerrilla band was encamped nearby, its ranks growing weekly. The only person unaware of the danger was Clarissa.
'If I'd known an ordinary errand would be so dangerous, I wouldn't have sent you, Andy,' Meek said. 'I'm sorry. Hope you believe that.'
'Yes, sir. I do.' Cooper marveled. The apology and the response demonstrated the immense change the war had wrought on the plantation.
Meek stopped swinging his spectacles. 'Now I want to be clear about this. You saw white men this time.'
'That's right. Two in regular army gray, three in butternut. Those butternut coats didn't look like much. Still, you could tell they belonged to soldiers — either the ones wearing them or the ones they stole 'em from.'
The overseer pronounced the verdict they all knew: 'If white deserters are joining the nigras, then we've twice the reason to fear.' He swung toward the possessor of final authority. 'I have little doubt they'll attack us, Mr. Main. This is the largest plantation still operating in the district. I think we should arm some of the slaves — assuming we can find anything to arm them with. The attack may not come for a while, but we've got to be ready when it does.'
'Is that the only way?' Cooper snapped. 'Fighting?'
The overseer was momentarily stunned to silence. Andy didn't know what to make of the questioning response. After a few seconds, Meek said, 'If you can suggest another, I'll be glad to hear it.'
Stillness, filled with insect sounds. Up toward the house, a woman chanted the melody of a hymn. From a great distance they heard the raucous cry of a salt crow, answered by another. Andy peered out the window anxiously.
Cooper recognized defeat, sighed. 'All right. I'll go to Charleston to see whether I can find some secondhand guns.' Brusquely and with urgency, Meek said, 'Soon, please?'
In Richmond next day, Orry packed the last of the few personal things with which he and Madeline had furnished the rooms on Marshall Street. The items went into a crate he nailed shut with a hammer wielded easily in his powerful right hand. Pounding the precious rusty nails one by one, he wondered if he would ever see the box after he consigned it to a local warehouse. He felt despondent about his negative answer, but comforted when he recalled that it was not an isolated reaction. Throughout the South, expectations sank daily.
He squeezed uniforms and gear into a small dilapidated trunk for which he had paid a barbarous price. He tagged the trunk with appropriate information and set it on the landing. Late in the afternoon, a white-haired Negro
