131
On Palm Sunday evening, Brett and Billy walked up through the laurel above Belvedere. Hazard's was shut down, customary on the Sabbath, though some of the banked fires still fed smoke traceries out of the chimneys. The air was warm and fragrant with spring. Behind them, the tiered streets of the town, the peaceful river, the sunset over the mountains created a landscape of grays and mauves and small patches of pale, dusty orange.
That morning they had attended church, then partaken of a huge noonday meal, at which Mr. Wotherspoon had been a welcome guest. Ever since, Brett had silently rehearsed the two things she wanted to say to her husband. One was directly related to the impending end of the war, the other less so.
She knew the essence of each statement and some of the words, but she wanted a proper setting, too. So she had suggested the stroll. Now she found herself anxious and strangely unable to begin.
Billy seemed content to walk in silence, relishing the spring dusk and the feel of her hand in his. They came to the meteorite crater they had discovered the night before he returned to duty in the spring of '61, a night followed by so many changes in Brett herself and in the country that it sometimes resembled a series of tableaux on a stage, viewed from a balcony, rather than events in which she had taken part.
She noticed that weeds had at last begun to grow in the crater, covering about two-thirds of the surface of the sloping sides. But the poisoned earth at the bottom remained bare.
They strolled toward the next summit. Should she start with the second subject? No, it was better to dispose of the difficult one first. She forced herself.
'How soon do you think Madeline will be able to travel to South Carolina?'
He thought a moment. 'They say there's almost nothing left of Lee's army. Or Joe Johnston's. I can't imagine that either can hold out more than a few weeks longer. I would guess she could start home sometime in May, if not sooner.'
She took his other hand. Holding both, she faced him in the fading, dusty light.
'I'd like to go with her.'
A smile. 'I suspected you might.'
'It isn't entirely for the reason you think. I do want to see how Mont Royal fared, but I have another motive. One which —' steadily, she looked at him '— which I'm not sure you'll approve of. I want to go back and stay awhile. The nigras will be free, and they'll need help adjusting to the change.'
'You'll forgive me, but that sounds faintly like the benevolent mistress of the plantation speaking.'
His wry smile angered her unexpectedly. 'It may be, but don't you dare patronize me for it.'
Billy put his arm around her. 'Here, I didn't mean to upset you —'
She sighed. 'And I didn't mean to snap. But I've been away so long — I admit I'm homesick. And I'm not patronizing the people at Mont Royal when I say they need help. Protection. They're in danger of being transferred from one kind of slavery to another. It was your own brother, Stanley, who warned me.'
'Stanley? What do you mean?'
As accurately as she could, she repeated Stanley's remarks of a couple of years ago concerning the Republican scheme to befriend the freed Negroes, the better, to manipulate them as voters.
'Stanley said that?'
'Indeed he did. He was drunk at the time, else he wouldn't have spoken so freely. He declared that the party, or one faction anyway, had already agreed on the strategy. I believe him. That's why I want to go home and stay for a time. The slavery of ignorance is as wicked as any other kind. Perhaps it's the crudest slavery of all, because any man can see an iron cuff on his own leg, but it's hard to detect an invisible one.'
She watched for a reaction. He lowered his head slightly, the dark hair, so like his brother George's, tossing in the strengthening breeze. A few bright stars shone against the mauve now. She could only interpret his silence as disapproval.
She refused to be so easily defeated. Not after Scipio Brown and his brood of lost children had worked such changes in the way she viewed people. She snapped off a bit of laurel, twirling it in her fingers.
'Do you remember your last night at home when the war started?' A nod. 'We walked up here, and I said I was frightened. You reassured me by talking about this.' She held out the sprig. 'You told me what your mother had taught — that the laurel is like a man and woman's love for each other. It can endure anything. Well, I made a discovery while you were gone. I discovered it in the eyes and faces of those children at Mr. Brown's school. If the kind of love your mother described doesn't touch everyone — embrace everyone — if it can't be given freely and equally to everyone, it's meaningless. It doesn't exist.'
'And going home — helping the nigras in whatever way you have in mind — that's an expression of love?'
Very softly: 'To me it is.'
'Brett —' he cleared his throat — 'I met hundreds of men in the army who finally accepted emancipation because it was government policy, but they would choke on what you just said. There are a lot of them in that town right down there. They'd reach for a club or a gun to defend their right to be superior to Negroes.'
'I know. But how can love be the property of a favored few? Or freedom, either? I was raised to believe they could. Then I came here to this state, this town, an utter stranger — and I learned.'
'Changed, I would say.'
'Use any term you like. I gather you object to my wish to —?'
His palm touched her cheek. 'I object to nothing. I love you. I'm proud of you. I believe every word of what you just said.'
'Is that really true?'
'You're not the only one this war affected,' he said. He hadn't described the incident outside the recruiting office and didn't do so now. It struck him as too much like bragging. But his next statement touched the core of the incident. 'I'm not the same soldier boy who stood here four years ago. I didn't realize what a distance I've traveled until — well, lately.'
His smile wanned. Bending in the starlight, he kissed her mouth.
'I love you, Brett. What you are and what you believe. You're right about going home. Your help will probably be needed. I'll be proud and honored to escort you and Madeline back to Mont Royal. And since I'll have to return to duty sometime soon, there isn't any reason you can't stay as long as you wish.'
'There's one.'
The soft words startled him. Was that scarlet in her cheek? The lowering dark made him unsure.
'Sweetheart,' she said, 'you've been so ardent despite the wound — well, I'm not entirely certain yet — I haven't seen the doctor — but I believe we're going to have a child.'
Wonderstruck, he could find no words. New life after so much loss — there was magic in it. Something miraculous. He looked at the laurel sprig in her hand, took it from her gently and studied it while she said, 'You see, if I stay at Mont Royal, there's a possibility our child could be born there.'
'I don't care where it happens, just so long as it happens. I don't care!' Exuberantly, he tossed the laurel in the air and hugged her, exclaiming his joy. The whoop rose up and echoed back from clear across the river.
That same Sunday evening, April 9, George was in Petersburg, having spent the afternoon assembling and loading construction materials on two flatcars. The Petersburg & Lynchburg line that ran west from town was under repair to supply the army pursuing Lee. George had to be up before daylight and on his way toward Burkeville.
Tired, he walked in the direction of the tents assigned to visiting officers. Off in the darkness, several horns, two fifes, and a snare drum struck up 'The Battle Cry of Freedom.' Yells and whistling accompanied the music.
'Damned strange hour for a concert,' he muttered. He jumped back suddenly as a horseman galloped by, shouting, 'Surrender! Surrender!'
An officer with his galluses down and his chest bare stumbled sleepily from a nearby tent. 'Surrender? My
