Jacob's Ladder Page 6

  His raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking how meeting you, dear Alexander, has altered my little world.”

  He blinked rapidly. “You are a curious child. I breach your virginity and compel you to a hasty marriage. Together we are exiled into a country where wolves may howl. And for this, you thank me.” Alexander’s eyes were softer than she’d ever seen them. Sallie knew he could say nothing that wasn’t true, honorable, and fine. His eyes changed; grew vague. “Dear Sallie, our child may be the sort of man other men look up to, perhaps a senator.”

  “I am only sure that he will be beautiful as you, my dearest.”

  And in this apple-scented admixture of ignorance and hope, the pair spent their nuptial night.

  CHRISTMAS GIFT?

  STRATFORD PLANTATION

  DECEMBER 25, 1860

  IT WAS WHITE, so glaringly white Sallie Botkin Kirkpatrick shaded her eyes to make out the welcoming silhouette of Stratford House while they swept up its drive as grandly as their old horse and positively older wagon could manage. Between the wheel ruts, the snow was tender, virginal. The weight of her baby was great in Sallie’s belly. She had hoped, by now, to feel its kick. She would be happy. She would.

  Jesse had come to drive them, and it was almost like old times. En route to Stratford, beside Jesse on the wagon seat, Uther chattered happily, explicating Mr. Madison’s and Mr. Hamilton’s disagreements and urging Jesse to read The Federalist Papers. “A young man cannot obtain too much education,” Uther opined.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Uther,” Jesse drawled. “It hasn’t done me much good so far. Look, there’s Mistress Abigail at the door.”

  “Education is undervalued in Virginia,” Alexander pronounced. “Scholars of antiquity are deemed no better than clodhoppers who sign their names with an X.”

  Uther nodded vigorously. “There are times when I, whose education is so inferior to yours, think Virginia a too-perfect democracy.”

  Jesse drew up precisely at the dismounting step and hurried around to assist his onetime master. He cradled Uther’s foot in his hands until it was safe atop the granite block.

  “Shun strong drink this day, Jesse.” Uther waggled his finger. “We expect you to return us home and we may be in our cups.”

  Jesse, who had taken the temperance pledge as a boy, grinned at Uther, who never took strong drink. “I try to watch myself, Master Uther. Don’t you get too rambunctious.”

  Opal shifted her bulk. “Boy, you gonna help me?”

  “Yes’m.” When Opal was established safely on flat ground, she gave him the parcel she’d been carrying in her lap.

  “Don’t you get no grease on this,” she said.

  The shirt she’d made for Jesse was white canvas, wrought more thoroughly than delicately, seamed with green thread.

  “Why thank you, Aunt Opal.”

  “Don’t you go dirtyin’ it.” She sniffed and set off toward the Quarters.

  Uther fumbled in his pocket for a dime. “For the baby,” he said.

  “Happy Christmas, Master.” It wasn’t Jesse’s baby, and Maggie was barely Jesse’s wife, but the gesture was kindly meant. “Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas.” Jesse followed in Aunt Opal’s wake.

  Alexander Kirkpatrick uncoiled himself from the cask which had served as his seat and inspected Stratford Hall’s colonnades as if he might take a notion to buy, provided the present owner hadn’t exaggerated its value.

  Although Stratford contained more cropland than the valley’s other big plantations, Warwick and Hidden Valley, its principal residence was smaller than theirs. Samuel Gatewood’s father, Thomas, had moved the family from the log cabin his own father had built into a one-room brick house with sleeping loft overhead. That single large room was now Abigail’s bedroom. Five years later, when Thomas Gatewood started sawing sleepers for the Virginia Central Railroad, he added the front portion: parlor, dining room, and office downstairs, two bedrooms above. From the drive the house was plainly and rigidly symmetrical. Its front door with attendant window lights was echoed by a second-story door opening onto the porch roof, a roof supported by four hand-molded cement columns, the center two topped by wooden Corinthian scrolls. Since its ground-floor windows were tall and the second-story windows short, the house seemed a toothy smile under a lowering brow. Christmas smoke lifted from chimneys at the gable ends as well as from the kitchen house out back.

  Happily, Sallie took her husband’s arm. “Since I was a little girl, every year we’ve come to Stratford on Christmas Day. That’s Preacher Todd’s horse tied to that maple, and look, Daddy, there’s Elmo Hevener’s buggy.”

  “Mr. Hevener can do considerable harm to a joint of beef or a smoked ham,” Uther remarked with satisfaction.

  In a white gown trimmed with gold brocade, the mistress of Stratford Plantation waved from the doorway. “Welcome, Uther, Sallie, Mr. Kirkpatrick. Make haste! It’s so much nicer indoors.”

  As they proceeded down the hall, Pompey, Gatewood’s houseman, collected their winter wraps and mumbled something which—had anyone bent low enough to hear—was his inquiry “Christmas gift?”

  It was Abigail’s Cousin Molly’s custom to visit Stratford Plantation over Christmas. Molly Semple’s home was Richmond, and most unmarried respectable women would have preferred the high social season in Virginia’s capital—the gala balls, witty charades, dinner parties which tried the strength of their hosts’ cellars and their cooks’ prowess, the amateur theatricals—all the town fun which filled the days when there was no work on the outlying plantations. But every December, without fail, Cousin Molly made the uncomfortable rail journey to Millboro, where Abigail’s servants would convey her (and many many trunks and portmanteaus) into the tall snow-covered mountains. When Cousin Molly’s friend Governor Wise asked her why on earth, she replied, “Christmas—I mean the real Christmas—comes so much nearer in the mountains.” Cousin Molly’s most treasured gift was gossip of kinfolk and the Tidewater gentry Abigail Gatewood grew up with, but Molly also brought pattern books with the newest fashions (seen no later than the previous spring at the Court of St. James’s), as well as new-fangled manners and speech. Last year Cousin Molly introduced the “German tree,” which the Tidewater plantations had taken up so eagerly. This year she proposed the custom of distributing small money to those servants alert enough to cry “Christmas gift?” before the gentry wished them the felicitations of the season. “It’s a game,” Cousin Molly explained. “And the servants enjoy it.”

  “An idea worthy of Mr. Dickens,” Abigail agreed and asked Jack the Driver to instruct the servants. Jack did as bid but couldn’t explain the game, exactly, nor just how they might sing out with the proper admixture of enthusiasm and respect. Most of the servants discarded the idea as soon as it was mooted, except for Pompey, who had learned to take his mistress’s whims seriously.

  Unaware of all this, a smiling Uther Botkin replied to Pompey’s unconvincing murmur, “Yes, Pompey, and a Happy Christmas to you too.”

  “Yes sir, Master Uther.” His arms full of coats and cloaks, Pompey backed into Master Gatewood’s study.

  With its corniced ceiling, high windows, and blue-gray walls, Stratford’s parlor was pleasant in the summertime, but wine-dark winter drapes, dancing fire, evergreen garlands across the mantelpiece, and a German tree glowing with candles transformed the room into a convivial winter snug.

  His face flushed with kindness, Samuel gripped his old friend’s arm. “We are honored, good sir, honored. You will recall General Washington’s enthusiasm for this season. In our rustic fashion, we emulate his noble example. Can I find you some punch? Will you take a cup of eggnog?”

  Sallie was so happy. How good it was to forget her troubles! The tears that leapt to her eyes were tears of pleasure.

  Gatewood’s spectacles quivered on the bridge of his nose. “I particularly commend the eggnog. A tidewater recipe which originated with the Carter family. Mr. Kirkpatrick, delighted you
could join us today, though doubtless you will be accustomed to more sophistication than you will find here. Mr. Botkin assures me your learning is profound. Did you not graduate at Yale College? I had some college myself, but abandoned my studies upon my father’s demise. Now I study my plantation.”

  “No doubt an improving study.” Kirkpatrick bowed.

  Gatewood, the agricultural improver, cocked his head. Had this stiff young man made a pun? “The eggnog, friends! The eggnog!”

  Ornaments glistened: blown glass balls of silver and gold and blue, strands of plump popcorn, and colored paper silhouettes.

  Sallie exclaimed, “Dear Samuel, the tree is beautiful! I have read descriptions of German trees in the Richmond Whig, but hadn’t ever expected to see one in our valley. Lovely!”

  “Pompey is convinced its candles will set the house afire, and the water bucket doesn’t reassure him. Whenever my back is turned, he slips in with that candle snuffer, and whup”—Samuel pinched his fingers—“another flame is gone.”

  A full score of neighbors and kin thronged the parlor: the Botkin-Kirkpatricks mingled with elderly Gatewood cousins come out from Warm Springs for the day. Preacher Todd, who disapproved Sallie’s hasty marriage, found more congenial souls to talk to: Grandmother Gatewood particularly. Andrew Seig’s kindly wife found something to say to wan Sister Kate. Uther gravitated naturally to the hearth: contented. Cedar wood in the fireplace, evergreen boughs, cigar smoke and heated spiced wine, ladies’ perfumes: these scented the room.

  When Andrew Seig and Elmo Hevener discussed the thrilling news of South Carolina’s secession, Samuel Gatewood took the horse breeder’s arm. “Andrew, Andrew. It is Christmas—the one day of the year we are positively forbidden to discuss weighty matters. In my home, sir, please indulge me.”

  When the Byrd carriage clattered up, the Gatewoods and Pompey hurried to meet them. With a grand flourish, Pompey opened the door, murmuring “Christmas gift?”

  “Meemaw,” young Pauline shrieked, and young Thomas’s voice broke from excitement. “Oh Happy, Happy Christmas. I’m so happy I could burst!”

  “May God bless you, you silly boy!”

  Catesby Byrd bowed deeply. “All the felicities of the season, ma’am.”

  Byrd was a knobby man, more bones than flesh, and how her daughter Leona could lie beside him, Abigail Gatewood couldn’t imagine. Might as well lie down with a sack of barrel staves!

  “Leona, my dear. How fetching you are.”

  In her flounced yellow gown, with her lily-pale complexion and vermilion lips, Leona Byrd strongly resembled one of her daughter’s dolls. Leona’s smile was so hopeful and so timid it invariably took Abigail’s breath away. Abigail thanked God her daughter had married Catesby. Leona needed a strong man to take care of her.

  His father-in-law took that worthy’s hand, beaming. “Good to see you. Isn’t it all . . . ?” Samuel admired the mountains, the snow-covered pastures, the neat negro cabins with their chimney smokes, the barns, his grandchildren, his wife. “Well, isn’t it?”

  “Yes sir. It is. It certainly is!”

  Yes, everything had been going well with Catesby. Always plenty of law work in the county seat. “We’re more disputatious than you good country folk!” No, Catesby’s selection for the bench was just rumor. Several other men had as good a chance, nay better, when Judge Ayres retired.

  “Oh, I’m sure you should get it,” his wife, Leona, cried, “if the courthouse loafers would hush up for one minute!”

  A grinning Pompey ushered them into the hall, and when pretty Leona Byrd passed, he muttered, “Christmas gift?”

  “But Pompey, the children’s gifts will be under the tree, I’m sure.”

  And so it proved. Firecrackers banged in the Quarters while the Byrd children received their gifts and Pompey kept a wary eye on the candles. Little Pauline got a huzzit—the thinnest cunningest sewing kit—as well as two dolls, one handmade in the Quarters, the other pink glossy porcelain whose tiny gown had been in vogue last summer in Richmond. Accompanied by many solemn warnings, Thomas was given his first hunting rifle.

  Samuel Gatewood filled his son-in-law’s cup and took another himself. Wordlessly the two men toasted this gathering, so precious and so fragile. They did not speak of the terrible storm gathering beyond the peaceful boundaries of Stratford Plantation.

  When servants came to receive their annual issue of clothing, poor Pompey was torn between duties. He was wanted in the front hall, but daren’t abandon a tree that looked mightily like a lit bonfire.

  “I’ll keep an eye on it, Pompey,” Catesby volunteered. “Give me that snuffer before you impale yourself.” Byrd dug in his pocket for a two-bit piece, said: “Happy Christmas, Pompey.” And Pompey left, not knowing whether this was “Christmas gift?” or not, whether the new magical charm was efficacious.

  Bundles of clothing were stacked on a long table in the front hall, and as the servants filed past, Jack the Driver addressed them, “Master and Missus be givin’ you new clothes. Finest blouses, finest pants, best-quality linsey-woolsey. All year Grandmother Gatewood spun and loomed so you’d not traipse into the New Year naked. And whenever Mistress Abigail be havin’ time, she knittin’ your socks. Wool socks from Stratford Plantation, big ones for the mens, medium ones for the womens, and little ones for the children. You know that Mistress Abigail, she cast off a strong stitch, and these socks they last until next year if you treat ’em right, wash ’em every Sunday, don’t put ’em on when you can go barefoot. Shoes made by a German shoemaker in Lexington, big ones for the mens, mediums for the womens and the children what’s old enough. Master Samuel say we had a good year at the plantation, the railroad bought every sleeper we sawed and his calves fetch a good price. So inside your sock you like to find a silver coin, yours to keep. And Master and Mistress wishin’ all their colored family Happy Christmas.”

  The two-bit piece Abigail Gatewood had inserted into each pair of thick woolen socks was half a day’s wages for a free white, and some of Gatewoods’ neighbors would have disapproved. Miss Dinwiddie had been heard to complain that Gatewood “spoiled his niggers,” and it was partly for this reason that the money was discreetly delivered. Discretion came naturally to the servants, and they did not inspect their bonus until they were well clear of the house.

  Mistress Abigail smiled. “Odona, how is your ague? All the damp we’ve had! I trust you are using the comfrey poultices I gave you?”

  “Oh yes, Mistress.”

  “And Rufus, your hand is still swollen.”

  “Rufus be a little more careful jerkin’ them logs downhill, he don’t get run over by them,” Jack the Driver said.

  Rufus grinned. “Had me a driver’s job where I wouldn’t do no work, I’d heal quicker.”

  “Come to the kitchen house tomorrow and I’ll have another look.”

  “He don’t be so full of himself, Mistress, he don’t get hurt,” Jack muttered.

  “I’m sure that’s true, Jack. But we can’t help that, can we?”

  Some of the younger women unrolled their new clothing before they were out the back door.

  Mistress Abigail gave Jesse the largest socks she had. “Happy Christmas to you both,” she said gaily.

  The parade snaked past the table to the rustle of new cloth and Abigail’s inquiries. “When we broach the keg, don’t you act up as you did last year,” she admonished ancient Uncle Agamemnon, who sixty years ago had been a Bakongo sorcerer before he was sold into slavery.

  Duncan reined in his mare, Gypsy, at a bend where he could see all Stratford at his feet.

  He hated refusing his roommate Spaulding’s Christmas invitation: two weeks in the Piedmont—horse races, hunting, gala balls, people who didn’t know Duncan Gatewood from Adam—but Duncan could not deny his father’s stiff, courteous summons. “Your dear mother would be so pleased . . . You will be interested to see the wonderful wheat crop we have put up. That servant marriage in which you had some interest seems satisfac
tory. I pray you and I might resume more congenial relations. . . .”

  Thank God South Carolina had seceded! Thank God Duncan had something to think about besides his own misery!

  As a boy, Duncan had been good-natured and natural—nothing had prepared him for desire, he never imagined that anything could set him and his father at loggerheads. He had tried to be an obedient son, but Midge, she . . . Duncan’s hands trembled, and Gypsy stirred restlessly. Gypsy knew she was home.

  Smoke lifted from Stratford’s chimneys. A wagon rumbled across the plank bridge over the millrace. How small everything seemed. How could this mountain plantation have been his entire world?

  Samuel, the thoughtful master, had provided Maggie with a husband and father for her baby. Duncan’s old schoolmate, Jesse. Duncan himself could not have chosen better. But awake, late at night in the Institute barracks, listening to Spaulding’s snores and the soft pad of a sentry’s footfalls in the hall, Duncan tried not to think of Maggie with Jesse. Duncan tried not to think how Jesse would be learning Maggie’s ways. Oh, she had her ways!

  To make this day bearable, Duncan vowed to shun her. He vowed to shun her baby. Some cadets joked about slipping down to the Quarters for a taste, but no cadet ever joked about the babies.