Candle In The Darkness Part 33

He nodded, frowning. "Very unusual way to court someone, if you ask me. That's the trouble with wars, they disrupt all the old traditions." Sally flew into his arms, hugging him tightly. She hugged her mother, then me.

"Now you and Jonathan are in the same boat as Charles and me," I said, "waiting for the war to end, praying that it happens soon."

"Whoever heard of an engagement by mail?" Mr. St. John mumbled, shaking his head.

Later, when Sally and I were alone in her room, I gave her a second letter from Jonathan-to be opened in private, he had said, after Sally accepted his proposal. I sat across from her on the bed, both of us wrapped in quilts to keep warm, and watched her read his letter through twice. The topaz ring sparkled on her finger.

"Jonathan doesn't want to wait until the war ends," she told me when she finished. "He's trying to get a furlough. He wants us to be married as soon as possible."

"Is that what you want, too?"

She nodded, swiping at her tears before they dripped onto the precious letter and smudged the ink. "I used to dream of a big, fancy wedding in St. Paul's with flowers and bridesmaids and hundreds of guests," she said. "I wanted to wear a beautiful gown and sail to Europe on my wedding trip . . . but now none of that seems important anymore. I only want to be Mrs. Jonathan Fletcher for as long as we both shall live. I love him, Caroline. I love him so much."

I reached for her hand. "I know. I would have gone to a justice of the peace to marry Charles the last time he was home . . . but he wouldn't do it."

"Why not? I know how much he loves you."

"This is hard to say, Sally, but he says he doesn't want to leave me . . . a widow."

The memory of Charles' terrible words sliced through my heart: "Caroline. You must prepare yourself for the fact that I might die." "Caroline. You must prepare yourself for the fact that I might die."

I looked at Sally's stricken face and was sorry I had raised the specter of death on such a joyful day. "Your wedding to Jonathan might not be a lavish one," I said quickly, "but we can make sure it's a wonderful one. Let's plan it together, shall we? Then everything will be ready the moment Jonathan walks through the door. You won't have to waste a single moment of his furlough."

The idea excited her. "Which dress should I wear? My rose silk is the nicest one I have but it's old and quite frayed around the hem. Do you think I can open the seams and turn it so it looks new?"

"Let me see it." As she pulled the dress out of her wardrobe and spread it across the bed, I remembered how beautiful she had looked in it the night of her Christmas party, five years ago. She had stood in her soaring entrance hall, greeting her guests, the stairway behind her decked in candles and greenery. I had been awed by the St. Johns' wealth, their magnificent home, their countless servants. We had no way of knowing on that joyful night what the future held for all of us, that war would ravage that prosperity, that Sally would have to remake a five-year-old dress into her wedding gown. And we couldn't know what next Christmas would bring, either.

For the second time that afternoon, I recalled Charles' terrible words: "Listen now. I've had to prepare myself . . . and you must, too." "Listen now. I've had to prepare myself . . . and you must, too."

Quietly, tenderly, I felt the Lord's presence surrounding me, drawing me to Him, coming to dwell among us as He had that first Christmas. As the angels had sung their song of joy, no one in Bethlehem had known about the coming tragedy of the cross- or the triumph of the empty tomb. I couldn't know my future either, but I could trust the One who held it in His hand. I opened my heart and my hands to G.o.d, offering Him my dreams, trusting in His resurrection power. Thy will be done Thy will be done.

"I want you to wear my wedding dress," I told Sally.

She stared at me, openmouthed.

"I really mean it. The dress and everything else I made for my trousseau are just going to waste, moldering in a trunk at the foot of my bed. It would make me so happy to let you use my things."

"But . . . what about your own wedding?"

"Charles wants to wait until the war ends. By then we'll have boatloads of new dresses to choose from. Please, Sally, let me give it to you for a wedding present-all of it-the dress, the chemise, the petticoats and crinolines. They'll look so beautiful on you."

"I . . . I don't know what to say."

"Say yes yes. Then we can plan your reception, too. Do you suppose they have 'starvation club' receptions during wartime?"

Sally laughed and cried at the same time. "You are so dear to me, Caroline. I'll never be able to thank you. And to think I hated you the first time we met. I was so jealous of you and Jonathan."

"That was his plan that night," I said, smiling. "To storm the castle and win your heart. See how well it worked?"

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In the new year, 1864, Sally and I poured our energy into planning her wedding. "You'll have the best reception 'no money' can buy," I joked. All we needed was the groom, and Jonathan wrote to say that he'd threatened to desert if his commanding officer didn't grant him a furlough soon.

While we waited, I continued to host evening get-togethers at my house and afternoon gatherings of our ladies' sewing circle. Our latest project was to st.i.tch a new Confederate uniform jacket for Jonathan, cut from an old blanket and dyed "b.u.t.ternut gray" with homemade dyes. But before we had time to finish it, Sally drove up Church Hill to my house one afternoon with bad news.

"I came to tell you that there won't be any more meetings or parties," she said. "It happened again. Mrs. Fremont came home yesterday to find two of her maidservants missing. So was the emerald necklace that has been in her husband's family for eighty years."

"Oh no." I groaned as I sank into Daddy's chair. This wasn't the first time one of my guests had returned home to find that her servants had run away, taking some of the family valuables with them. "Two of them ran away?" I asked. "And it happened during sewing circle?"

Sally nodded. "That makes four times that somebody's slaves have run off while we were at your house. I'm sorry, but the ladies don't want to come to the meetings anymore. They think . . ."

"What? What do they think? That I'm involved?"

Sally shrugged. "It is an awfully big coincidence."

The thought had occurred to me that my servants might be involved in helping all these slaves run away, that they were using the map I had drawn for Eli. I would have to find out, but for now I had to allay the women's suspicions. "How could I be helping these slaves if I was here at the meeting the entire time? Did you ask them that, Sally? And don't you think it would have happened no matter where we'd met?"

"Please don't be angry with me. I never said it was your fault. I'm only saying that it's what the others think-and it's why they don't want to come here anymore. If we're meeting regularly, you see, the slaves know when to plan their escape."

"Well then," I said, trying to act unconcerned. "If the ladies don't want to come anymore it will be their loss, not mine."

I put on my cloak and gloves later that afternoon and went out to the carriage house to talk to Eli. He had the back door open so he could shovel out the manure, and the stable was freezing cold inside. I hugged myself and rubbed my arms to keep warm while I waited for him to set the shovel aside and close the door.

"If you need to talk, we can go in the kitchen where it's warm," he said.

I shook my head, trying to find a way to begin. "Eli . . . do you know anything about Mrs. Fremont's two servants running away yesterday?"

"Ivy and Lila," he said, smiling faintly. "They's mother and daughter, did you know that? Missus Fremont planning to send Lila away to North Carolina to be a nanny to her son's new baby. Lila only thirteen years old. She ain't never been away from Mama Ivy before. Don't neither one of them want to be torn apart."

His words shook me. I found it easy to see my own servants as individuals who loved and dreamed dreams, just like me. But I had looked past Mrs. Fremont's servants-and everyone else's servants- as if they weren't even there. Now I was learning that their stories were much the same. Tessie had been only fourteen when my father took her from her parents at Hilltop to be my nanny.

"I understand," I said quietly. "What about the other people who have run away?"

"Well now, let's see . . ." he said, settling down on the wooden stool. "There was the two that run off on the same day-Lizzy, the Clarks' chambermaid, and Darby, who worked for the Dunkirks. Those two young people wanting to get married real bad, but their owners wouldn't let them." I thought of Tessie and Josiah. "Mr. Clark had his eye on Lizzy . . . if you know what I mean." Eli looked away, embarra.s.sed.

"Go on," I said after a moment.

"The Smiths' servant, Arthur, hear the ma.s.sa needing some money and planning on selling him. No telling what a new ma.s.sa gonna be like." Eli sighed. "I didn't think you'd mind me helping all them people, seeing as they in the same bad way we was a few months ago when your daddy gonna sell us. But I ain't never telling any of them to steal. I'm real sorry they all done that, Missy Caroline. Stealing ain't right."

Eli paused, and I heard the mare whinny softly as she stamped in her clean stall. "I sure hope you ain't mad at me, Missy."

"Not at all," I a.s.sured him. "I'm glad you helped them. I would have done the same thing."

"You ain't gonna get in trouble for what I done, are you?"

"I don't think so. It's just gossip. But everyone's afraid to go out and leave their servants alone at home. I'll have to think of another way to gather information."

"Something else you should know," Eli said as he stood and retrieved his shovel. "Two of the St. Johns' servants planning to run away next. Their ma.s.sa talking about sending them out to dig trenches and build fortifications around Richmond soon as spring comes. Them army folks work the Negroes half to death. And there ain't hardly no food to feed the soldiers, let alone feeding slaves. It's a death sentence, Missy. Those two boys want their freedom, too."

"All right," I said. "Do whatever you have to do to help them, Eli. But please, ask them not to steal from Charles' family."

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On a cold, clear night in March of 1864, Jonathan waltzed into my parlor. "Good evening, Cousin," he said, grinning. "Can you spare a tired soldier a bed for one night?"

I ran to hug him. "Jonathan! How did you get here?"

"Let's see, by train . . . wagon . . . horseback . . . on foot. Every means but by boat, I believe. I have a one-week furlough and I already used up a whole day of it getting here."

"How's your arm? Are you all right? Is Charles with you? How did you manage to get a furlough? Charles says they only grant them for hards.h.i.+p cases, and even then-"

"Whoa! One question at a time. I got a furlough by lying, of course. I told them that my-"

"Never mind, I don't think I want to know."

"You don't," he agreed, laughing. "See? That's what happens during wartime-all our fine moral principles go flying out the window and we start lying, cheating, stealing . . . whatever it takes."

I winced when I thought of all my lies and deceptions. "Is Charles with you?" I asked again.

"Sorry. He wasn't willing to risk being shot as a deserter, even to see his sister get married. I went to see Sally before I came here and she says we're getting married tomorrow. I can hardly believe it! So what are the chances of me getting a hot bath before my wedding day? I could really use one. And can your servants do anything about this sorry excuse for a uniform?"

I took a good look at Jonathan for the first time and saw a walking scarecrow. I wanted to weep. He wore a tattered slouch hat, and his coat looked shabbier than the one Eli had been too ashamed to wear in the house. His pants were not even Confederate uniform pants but were blue, like the ones Robert had worn.

"I took them off a dead Yankee," Jonathan said when he saw me eyeing them. "Borrowed his socks and boots, too. Figured he had no more need of them. A lot of our men are barefoot, Caroline. It's pitiful."

"I'm quite certain that Sally would marry you just the way you are, but don't worry, we'll get you cleaned up as good as new. Did Sally tell you? We sewed you a new uniform jacket so you'd look handsome on your wedding day. We have the entire wedding planned. Wait until you see what desperation and ingenuity can accomplish."

Jonathan pulled me into his arms again. "Sally told me everything you've done for us and how you're letting her wear your wedding gown and all. I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank you, Caroline."

"Be happy, Jonathan. That's all the thanks I want . . . just marry Sally and be happy."

I sent Jonathan up to my father's room to start cleaning up, while I ran out to the servants' quarters to tell Gilbert to prepare a bath and Esther to stoke up the fire early tomorrow morning to start baking. We had carefully h.o.a.rded flour and sugar for this occasion. But when I burst into the darkened kitchen, the only person I saw was Josiah, sitting in front of the fire with his six-month-old son asleep in his arms. He held Isaac's freedom papers in his hand. For the first time that I could ever recall, the brawny servant didn't look fierce and menacing-he was singing softly to his child.

I started to back out, not wanting to disturb them, but Josiah lifted his head. He looked up at me, and I saw tears glistening on his cheeks.

"Missy Caroline . . ." he said. "Thank you for what you done for my son."

"You're welcome," I whispered.

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Jonathan and Sally's wedding day turned out to be a beautiful one. Her servants had gone all over Richmond the night before, as we'd planned, spreading the news that her wedding would be the next day at eleven o'clock at St. Paul's Church. Eli rose before dawn and used a borrowed horse and the special travel permit Mr. St. John had arranged to ride out to Hilltop to fetch Jonathan's parents and his younger brother, Thomas. They arrived just in time to clean the spring mud from their shoes and carriage wheels and race down to the church.

Guests filled the front third of St. Paul's pews; spring suns.h.i.+ne lit up its rainbow-hued windows. I cried as I watched Sally walk down the long aisle on her father's arm, wearing my wedding gown. She looked radiant in it. She carried a bouquet of fake flowers pilfered from all our old bonnets. I turned to glimpse Jonathan's face and saw him fighting tears as he watched Sally walk down the aisle to become his wife. He looked das.h.i.+ng and handsome in his new uniform jacket, even if we had made it too big, not realizing how much weight he had lost.

I thought of Charles a thousand times that day. Our wedding here in St. Paul's, planned to take place nearly three years ago, would have been much the same as this one. Three long years. I tried to picture Charles and myself in their places, tried to recite the vows in my heart along with them, promising to love Charles and cleave to him as long as we both shall live. But I knew that I was praying, My will be done, My will be done, instead of instead of Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

When Dr. Minnegerode p.r.o.nounced Sally and Jonathan man and wife, I glanced across the aisle at Charles' parents. Against my will, I remembered Charles' words: "You must prepare yourself . . .I'll need you to be strong, for my parents' sake . . ." "You must prepare yourself . . .I'll need you to be strong, for my parents' sake . . ."

There had been so few joyous moments since this terrible war began that I determined not to spoil this day with morbid thoughts. I pushed them from my mind and joined my aunt Anne and uncle William for the short carriage ride back to the St. Johns' house for the reception.

The St. Johns' vast drawing room had been opened for the first time in over a year, and every inch of it gleamed-even if there were no fires in the fireplaces and the chandeliers weren't lit. The buffet lunch of carefully h.o.a.rded foods had been stretched to the limit by Esther and the St. Johns' cook and was beautifully arrayed on polished silver platters. Daddy's wine, watered down with juice and cider, filled the punch bowl, and we raised crystal gla.s.ses to toast the new bride and groom. The only musicians we could find were the members of the Home Guard band, comprised of old men and young boys who were ineligible to fight, but we waltzed to military marches that afternoon, pretending it was Richmond's finest orchestra.

Sally and I had been unable to arrange a hotel room ahead of time. There hadn't been an empty room anywhere in town for the past three years, so Ruby, Tessie, and I prepared Mother's bedroom as a bridal suite. Sally and Jonathan retired there that evening- and didn't come out again until Jonathan's furlough was nearly over, five days later. I envied their happiness.

"Take care of her for me, Caroline," Jonathan begged when it was finally time for him to leave.

"I will. You be careful now, okay? And please, don't forget to tell Charles that I love him."

Josiah was returning to the front with Jonathan, and he could barely tear himself away from Tessie and his son. "I was afraid you and Josiah were going to run away," I told Tessie later. "I wouldn't blame you if you had."

She reached out to stroke my hair and caress my cheek. "I couldn't leave you, honey," she said. "Don't you know that you my child, too?"

Chapter Twenty-three.

Spring 1864.

"I understand that the roads are drying out," Mrs. St. John said with a sigh. "I suppose that means the fighting will begin again."

Sally and her mother and a mere handful of other ladies had gathered in my parlor, along with all our maidservants and Negro seamstresses, for an afternoon of sewing. We weren't sewing for the soldiers this time but for ourselves, helping each other rest.i.tch last year's faded and frayed summer clothing into something we could wear now that warmer weather had arrived in Richmond. Even if bolts of new cloth could somehow make it through the blockade and onto store shelves, none of us could afford to buy any. But Sally had the latest copy of G.o.dey's Lady's Book, G.o.dey's Lady's Book, and we were doing our best to remake our clothes in the newest styles. and we were doing our best to remake our clothes in the newest styles.

"Well, even if it does mean more fighting," one of the other ladies said, "I'm so glad another winter is finally over and done with."

"I was just thinking this morning that it's been three years since our first victory at Fort Sumter," Sally said. "Remember that night in 1861 when all of Richmond celebrated? We went together, Caroline-you and Charles, Jonathan, and me."

"Yes, I remember," I said. "In one of the speeches that night, didn't someone predict that the war would be over in sixty days or maybe even thirty days? How in the world has it stretched to three years?"

"I remember the first time we thought the Yankees were going to invade Richmond on that wars.h.i.+p, the p.a.w.nee, p.a.w.nee," Mrs. St. John said, her scissors busily snipping a seam. "How foolish we were, worrying like that when there hadn't been any danger at all." She smiled at the memory.

That had been the first of many nights that I had prayed for Charles' safety. He had been in real danger many times since then, fighting in some of the bloodiest battles of the war-Mana.s.sas, Malvern Hill, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg. I had decided to trust G.o.d that first night, and so far, He had kept Charles safe.

"My husband was adding it all up the other day," Mrs. St. John said. "The Yankees have set out to make Richmond their prize six times, under six different commanding generals-McDowell, McClellan, Hooker, Burnside . . . I can't even remember all the others he named, but there were six of them. And they all failed."

"I guess that makes General Grant the seventh," Sally said, threading another needle. "I've heard he has a reputation for stubbornness, but I'm sure our men will drive him back just like they chased away all the others."

Everyone agreed with Sally except me. I silently hoped that Grant would succeed where the others had failed so that my life with Charles could finally begin. I longed for this war to end before more blood had to be shed and before the war completely ravaged the South. The longer the conflict dragged on, the greater the odds that Charles would be wounded, taken prisoner, or killed in action, like so many tens of thousands of other men. I just wanted it to end-I wanted the slaves to be freed and this terrible, b.l.o.o.d.y war to end.

"My husband said the Yankees will be coming at us from more than one direction this time," Mrs. St. John said. "Grant will go after Lee's army near Fredericksburg, and General Butler is going to come up the opposite sh.o.r.e of the James to try to cut us off from our southern rail lines. Some other general whose name I forget is going to move up the Shenandoah Valley to try to cut Lee off from his supply base at Lynchburg."

"Jonathan says to let them come, we'll be ready for them," Sally said. "He says our men are digging in, building a line of defense more than sixty miles long, from northeast of Richmond to south of Petersburg. When Grant attacks our fortifications he'll lose so many men that the North will finally get sick of this war."

"My husband says this is an election year up north," another woman added. "He says that Mr. Lincoln isn't very popular, so if we can just hold the Yankees off until November, maybe the new president will make peace."