The Mirk and Midnight Hour (3 page)

Three big geese rushed at me, necks stretched, wings flapping, beaks hissing, as soon as I opened the back gate. Hardly noticing them, I snatched up a handy broom to sweep them aside, left my muddy boots on the porch, and entered the kitchen.

Laney was still feeding Cubby. “You find anything good?”

“A nice shirt that’s too small for Pa. It might would fit Michael.” I didn’t look at her as I washed up at the tin pail on the washstand. Someday I would show her the figures, but not until I had held them to myself for a while. It was my habit with things I needed to think about.

“Now,” Laney said, buttoning her blouse and handing me the baby, “you know the routine, girl.”

The routine was that I put Cubby to sleep while Laney prepared supper. After my mother died, when I was ten, and Aunt Permilla a few years later, I had tried to help Laney with the cooking, until she kindly but firmly told me to leave it to her. Cooking should be simple—you followed the receipt and were rewarded with
successful results. Evidently, though, there was a knack to it I didn’t have. Instead of baking teeth-breaking biscuits, I now concentrated on other chores—housework, sewing, and farmwork. It was labor that needed to be done, and I did it adequately. There were too few to do it now.

Laney removed her wedding ring, formed from a bone button Michael had hollowed out and polished smooth. She plunged her hands into biscuit dough in the big yellowware bowl while I dropped into the rocker and rhythmically patted the baby’s back until he laid his head against my shoulder.

Our kitchen was just as a kitchen should be shortly before suppertime, smelling of savory cooking and burning logs in the fireplace. The walls were a rich, darkened pine, with hardened sap dripping from knotholes. The ceiling was crossed with whitewashed rafters, from which hung sides of bacon, hams, and various black iron cooking utensils, the uses of which I did not know, since I never intended to use them, but probably Laney did. The floor was sanded white, the calico curtains and tablecloth were all Turkey red, and the braided rag rug in the center of the room made a bright splash. The final touch of coziness came from Goblin, who snoozed contentedly upon the rug. She was a hard, bony, narrow-faced black cat with a tail like a snake, but when she was indoors, she had the cuddly soul of a fat, fluffy feline. Outdoors was another story. Outdoors she was a panther.

The rocker creaked softly as I crooned the lullaby Aunt Permilla had sung to us children long ago. As I did so, I could almost hear Aunt Permilla’s deep, throaty voice joining in. She had been our slave, blood kin only to Laney, but I thought of her as my mother
as well. And now, as I sang to her grandchild, the love had come full circle. The tension and troubles of the day seeped from me like water.

“
Mammy went away—she tell me to stay
,

And take good care of the baby
.

She tell me to stay and sing this a-way
.

Oh, go to sleepy, li’l baby
.

We’ll stop up the cracks and sew up the seams
,

The boogerman never shall catch you
.

Oh, go to sleep and dream sweet dreams
,

The boogerman never shall catch you
.

The river run wide, the river run deep
,

Oh, bye-o, sweet li’l baby
.

That boat rock slow, she’ll rock you to sleep
,

Oh, bye-o, sweet li’l baby.
”

Obediently Cubby slumbered, soft and limp and heavy. I laid him in the cradle near the hearth.

Laney was dipping chicken parts in cornmeal and dropping them, sizzling, into the frying pan on the rack. As I watched my friend, who was laboring in bondage, for the millionth time I wondered what her thoughts were about the war. And for the millionth time I couldn’t ask, although for the past year that subject had loomed unvoiced between us. I had seen the flash of hatred in the lowered eyes of some Negroes when they dealt with white people, or the patient, ironic twist to the smiles of others. But I’d never seen a sign, however subtle, however I looked for it, that Laney resented
me. The more I worried, the more I couldn’t ask, for fear of what I might hear. For fear that nothing would be the same between us if she uttered her feelings. Or if I could tell she lied.

She and Michael knew all the ins and outs of current events. They weren’t kept ignorant, as the servants were on large plantations, secluded from the world. What would my own feelings be if our positions were reversed? If I were the slave and Laney the mistress?

Full of hope
. I would be hopeful about the war no matter how friendly I was with my master’s family. I would watch and wait and plan for freedom.

Michael burst in. He washed his hands and, as he dried them, stepped behind Laney and breathed into her neck, “You sure looking good, little wife.”

Laney glanced over her shoulder, saying, “And don’t I know it,” before swooshing under his arm to check the pie in the brick oven. She was a pretty girl, soft and curvaceous, with big, expressive eyes, a shapely mouth, and dark brown skin. She always wore a snowy white head wrap and bright gingham dresses. Michael could never get enough of her.

As Laney straightened, he kissed the back of her neck.

I felt invisible, which caused me to quickly lean over Cubby’s cradle and set it rocking frantically. I liked to think that the five of us—Pa, Michael, Laney, Cubby, and me—were a family, but at moments like this a gap widened between us. They made up their own little world. Perfect without me clinging to the edge. If the Union won, Michael, Laney, and Cubby might leave Scuppernong.

In the old days, it was Laney, Rush, and me who were the
threesome. Since my mother had been an invalid, dying slowly, dreadfully, of consumption all the years after we were born, Aunt Permilla had given suck to us all. After we grew from babyhood, we frolicked about the countryside together, wild and free, ignored by the adults and taking care of each other. The fun ended when Aunt Permilla started making Laney work in the house and my father made Rush labor in the fields after his hours at school. I was sent away to Wyndriven Female Academy. My father respected the Stones, who were the proprietors of the academy, and wanted to support their efforts.

When my father prospered enough, he bought Michael. Michael courted Laney and the wedge was formed. They had been married on our porch by a black preacher, with the bride all in white beneath a veil sewn from a net curtain and with me playing my harp. Then Rush went off to war, Laney became a mother, and the wedge widened. But at least my friend—sister—was still here on the farm.

She might not be if the Union won.

For a moment I stared at the flames snapping on the hearth, at the curls of blue-gold licking and the lines of orange writhing among the coals, devouring. Fire was like so many things—a burst of something beautiful and then all was gone.

I stood abruptly and left the kitchen as Laney turned to twine her arms around her husband’s neck.

Up in my sloping-ceilinged bedroom in the eaves, I pulled everything out of my pocket. The wooden figures lay in my lap, each detail adding to their whimsy. With one finger I traced the carved woman’s intricate curls. The creator of these had an interesting mind; Yankee or not, I would like to meet him.

Now I slipped one letter from the packet and unfolded it. The handwriting was round and childish.

August 10, 1861

My dear darling Thomas
,

I have just received your letter of the tenth of July and do not blame you for thinking you were forsaken after you had written two letters and received none from me. Let me clear myself. I have been dreadfully ill! You cannot imagine how I have suffered! Why, I have had three doctors (enough to kill any common person)! I lived on lemons and ice, and they shingled my hair, which is such a shame when it was so long and so becoming braided and tucked up. You must remember me as I appeared in the picture you carry
.

You would not believe how warlike we have become here! The military look is all the fashion with the ladies. I have a new black velvet Zouave jacket with the prettiest gold trimming. And the men in uniform on the streets are as thick as the flies in the dining room of my old school. You remember me telling you how uncomfortable it made me to eat with so many of them buzzing around?

In the newspaper was a photograph of army tents spread out in a field. They looked so pretty! I intend to write a composition about it. “Dotted like daisies on sunny grass.” Then something about their inhabitants awaiting fate. The contrast, you know
.

I met a young Englishman at a reception the other night. He was polite, smooth, and innocent-seeming. Too innocent-seeming. (I am convinced he is a spy!) So you see, we do get some excitement even around here, far from the front lines!

We had a sewing circle the other day, made shirts, and also rolled bandages. Delia Edmonds was there. I know you always admired her, and we’ve been friends forever, but she is one of those friends I don’t actually like. Or don’t gentlemen know about such things? She acts so high and mighty about coming from one of the first families of Bethel—most annoying
.

How is sweet Star? Is she keeping you company since I cannot? I hope when you ride her, you remember our adventures together. Kiss her long, bony head for me—how I miss you both!

I hope this letter finds you well. Teach those Seceshes a thing or two!

Much love
,

Addie
       

The Yankee girl’s life seemed to have been made more entertaining by the war.

I considered the rest of the letters lying on the bed and fought temptation. It simply wasn’t honorable to read another’s mail. Examining one was excusable—after all, I had to discover the name of the owner of these possessions—but two … Unless …

No, no more, Violet
.

I replaced the letter and looped the string back around the packet. After I wrapped the figures in a scarf, I tried to think where to place these objects for safekeeping. It was silly to imagine I had to hide them from Laney, but we lived so close that sometimes secrets from each other were amusing; certainly Laney kept things from me as well. I grinned when I remembered my old hidey-hole beneath a loose floorboard in the corner of my room. When I was little, that was where I had kept items that were no one else’s business.

I pried up the board with my buttonhook. I hadn’t looked there
in years. In the cavity still lay a cigar box full of my little-girl treasures, as well as a very old book with a mottled cover. Mostly it told how to care for beehives and collect honey, but also there was one important section about talking to bees. I picked it up and blew the dust from it before I tucked the Yankee’s things away beside it.

As I lay in bed a few minutes later, I thought of the Northern girl who had written the letter. Such a spritely note with so many exclamation marks. Obviously Addie was a stimulating young lady. No wonder she had interesting Thomas-the-soldier-and-wood-carver for a beau.

I hoped he still lived.

Late that day a rising wind keened a high, wild note in the piney woods outside and rattled the uncurtained windows of the dining room. The panes reflected the lamp I’d lit already due to scowling clouds.

“We’re the only folks I know who’ve
gained
a horse because of the Yankees,” my father said over supper. “She can be yours. She’ll be a good mount for you when Michael doesn’t need her for labor. What will you name her?”

“Star. Her name is Star.” Just because my father proclaimed she was mine didn’t make it so. Possibly I could forget she actually belonged to a Union soldier, but I doubted it.

“Someone in town told of a mother harnessing her young’uns to a plow, having no horse or mule,” my father said, looking grave and shaking his head. “What have we come to, a year into the conflict, with so few menfolk around to do the work? Just last week a bushwhacker gang attacked Joe Jepson’s farm, out past Holly Springs.
Shot his fifteen-year-old son and like to wiped the place clean of everything they could steal.”

My father was always looking grave and shaking his head these days.

“The government should send troops after them,” I said.

“They have too many other problems to deal with. A war, for instance. Deserter outlaws are not the most pressing issue. We need to get that old rifle in the barn repaired, and I aim to leave my pistol with Michael when I go.”

“Why can’t you leave it with me?”

“Because, Violet, you happen to be a young lady, and young ladies rely on men to protect them.”