A Sound Among the Trees (38 page)

Providential. Now there is a word that defies definition in these days of war. The Confederates pray for God’s protection and blessing and favor. And the Yankees pray the same prayer
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Sometimes I sense within the walls of Holly Oak the bizarre state heaven must be in. Holly Oak is meant to be a refuge, as is heaven. A haven of rest and reward. A place where goodness dwells
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What does heaven do with these opposing prayers? It must drive
the angelic hosts to their knees, if they have them. It drives me to mine in this house of woes
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We have heard nothing new regarding Eliza. She is still in Castle Thunder, awaiting her trial. At my urging, Grandmother attempted to visit her, but she was turned away. I don’t think she will attempt another visit for a while. And I think she was relieved she was turned away. She is appalled by what Eliza has done
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Susannah Towsley Page

28 April 1863
Holly Oak, Fredericksburg, Virginia

Dearest Eleanor
,

Tessie delivered a healthy baby boy on the twenty-sixth day of April. A midwife was summoned, and I assisted, despite my grandmother’s protestations. I wanted to see what childbirth will be like. It was both dreadful and wonderful to behold
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The baby is light skinned with fine, fuzzy hair the color of tea. Tessie had not mentioned the man who attacked her was white, but why would she? And in the end it does not matter if an embittered Southerner forced himself upon her or a vindictive Yankee or a Negro whose life of deprivation had robbed him of decency, does it? It does not matter. Any man can be kind like Nathaniel or endearing like Will or cruel like the man who hurt Tessie. Any man of any color can be any of those things
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She named him Samuel and asked me if she might give him the last name Holly. Tessie does not have a last name. I offered to give her mine if she would take it. But she would not, though she thanked me
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My mother was drawn from her bedroom by the baby’s cries. She has scarce left his cradle. Tessie stayed abed only a day. The next morning she was up and about, seeing to the house and the garden, leaving Samuel in my mother’s care. For the first time in many months, my mother is smiling again
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No word yet from Nathaniel. We hear there is much troop movement west of us
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5 May 1863
Holly Oak, Fredericksburg, Virginia

Dearest Eleanor
,

There has been another battle on Marye’s Heights. We woke to the echoes of gunfire two mornings ago. But this battle was not like the last one. Scores of wounded Union soldiers did not come crawling back to Holly Oak this time. Not from Marye’s Heights. And not scores
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That same morning, before the sun had even begun to glisten off the Rappahannock, Tessie came to my bedside and awakened me
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“I need you to come downstairs to the cellar, Miss Susannah,” she said. Her voice was strained. “We might need a sheet from your linens. And your shears from the parlor. And thread and a needle.”

A thousand questions rushed to my tongue, but she dashed out of my room and was on the stairs as I rose from bed. I dressed quickly, grabbed a bed sheet from my cabinet, and headed downstairs to the parlor for my shears and sewing things. My heart was pounding in my chest, and the tiny child within me fluttered about
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Tessie stood by the cellar stairs just outside our back door with a jug in her hands, dusty and with web fragments clinging to it. A gray dawn rimmed the horizon
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I pointed to the jug in her hands. “What is that?”

“Spirits,” she said, and she reached for the things I carried. “Hold the rail, Miss Susannah. You don’t want to fall down them stairs. And it will be a good idea not to wake the neighbors with any yellin’.”

I swallowed hard. “What is down there, Tessie?”

“Someone who needs our help.”

Her tone didn’t frighten me; instead, it compelled me. I grasped the railing and took the stairs as quickly as I could. Two lamps had been lit, and the dank cellar was awash in sallow light. I saw a man stretched out on the floor on a bed of hay and another man leaning over him. As I neared them and my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see the uniforms—blue. And then the kneeling man turned around
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Eleanor, it was Will. The man on the floor was John, bleeding from his side. I ran to them and dropped to my knees. I touched Will’s face, gashed a bit and bloody, and then John’s, wanting to embrace them, wanting to cry over them, wanting to erase their wounds and erase time too, I suppose
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“What has happened?” I said, my eyes again on John. I felt Tessie kneeling beside me with the things we had gathered
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“There was fighting in Chancellorsville.” Will gently tore away John’s shirt, revealing a gaping hole in John’s side. “There’s smallpox in our company from a bad vaccine we were fortunate to miss out on. We’ve been camping away and helping the First Division scout out weaknesses in the rebels’ flanks. We were fired upon, and John was hit. They chased us and had us surrounded. We couldn’t get back to the company, but we managed to lose them in the woods. I knew we were close to Fredericksburg, so we waited for nightfall and then rode here.”

John moaned, and I reached for one of the lamps and pulled it closer to the wound. It looked big and dark and wicked. Eleanor, I’ve never seen anything that scared me as much. “He needs a doctor, Will!”

“No, I don’t,” John groaned. “I’ll be fine.”

“Get him sewed up, and I can get him to a Yankee doctor, I promise,” Will said, and he motioned for Tessie to bring him the other lamp
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“I don’t know how to sew up a person!” I exclaimed, my voice rising above a whisper for the first time. Tessie touched my shoulder
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“It’s no different than sewing a uniform. Besides, you must have seen plenty doctoring last December when Holly Oak became a field hospital. You’ll do fine.” Will asked for the jug Tessie had in her hands. “Get me his cup out of his pack,” he said
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Tessie reached into a pack by John’s head and handed Will a tin cup. Will pulled the cork out of the jug and poured. A tangy and burning odor filled the room. “Help him drink this.” Will handed the cup to Tessie, and I watched as she made John drink, though he coughed and sputtered
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I asked Tessie where she got the liquor, and she said there were four more jugs buried in the slaves’ quarters
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Tessie made John drink another cup, and then Will told me to thread my needle. He poured a cup of spirits over the wound, on both sides, and John groaned. The musket ball had left John’s body out his back. Tessie put her hand over his mouth
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I tried to thread the needle, but my hands shook. Will took it, threaded it, and handed it back to me
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I looked at the folds of flesh on John’s side, the angry red spill of blood, the spirits dripping down his skin. “I can’t do this!” I whispered
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Will touched my arm, the same way he’d touched it when he lay in the infirmary in Libby Prison. Gentle but insisting. “Yes, you can. I will hold the light. Tessie will hold the skin together. You can do this. We will help you.”

His eyes in that pale light were tight on mine, and I knew, as I have always known, that there wasn’t anything I would not do or attempt for Will
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I prayed to the God who has had to listen to all our selfish and desperate prayers, from both sides of this hellish war, and asked Him to help me. Tessie poured the spirits over our hands, over the needle and thread. And so I stitched your brother’s skin as if it were gray wool
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When I was done, Tessie tore the sheet into bandages and wrapped John’s torso. My hands were covered in blood. Will brought me a basin of water, and I washed them. I had been kneeling for too long. So when I stood, I faltered. Will sprang to his feet to assist me. And when he did, he saw two things that he hadn’t seen when I first entered the cellar. I was keenly aware of him noticing both. First he saw the wedding band on my finger; then he saw the little round bump at my waist
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Eleanor, what I wouldn’t give to have never seen the look on his face. I wouldn’t call it betrayal, more like utter disbelief and disappointment
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I had disappointed him
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“You married him.” He said it, he didn’t ask it
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I just nodded as red heat blasted across my cheeks
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“When?” he asked, wondering, I am sure, if I was already married when I delivered the uniforms in Richmond. When I kissed him. Did he remember I had kissed him? Did he remember it was I who delivered them? I wasn’t sure
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“Two days before Christmas,” I said. I could not look at his face
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He was quiet for a moment. “Two days after you brought me the uniforms.”

So he remembered. I nodded
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When he didn’t say anything, I forced myself to look at him. The disbelief was gone. The disappointment had doubled and was now joined by something else. Shame, maybe?

“Did Eliza put you up to this?” he said, and the pain with which he said this stung me. He did not want to believe that Eliza, whom he clearly still had affection for, would ask such a heartless thing of me
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I could not bear to see that ache on his face, Eleanor. I could not bear it. I had to relieve him. “Eliza had already been arrested when I accepted Nathaniel’s proposal,” I said
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He stood inches from me as Tessie moved about—cleaning up and pretending she was hearing nothing of this—pondering my answer
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“But you promised—,” he began
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“I broke no promise,” I said quickly. “You asked me to marry only for love, and that’s what I did.”

“So you love him?” Will asked, daring me, it seemed, to prove it
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“I broke no promise.” I found a bit of strength somewhere, Eleanor. I don’t know where it came from. But when I said these four words a second time, I looked Will in the eye and my voice did not falter
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He took a step closer to me. “You kissed me,” he said softly, brow furrowed as if he were still trying to make sense of my having pressed my lips to his while he lay in a sickbed at Libby Prison. “In the prison, you kissed me.”

“Yes,” I said
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He asked me why. And I told him because I wanted to
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Will looked at my hand and at my wedding band. He shook his head like he wished he could turn back time. Not for him, but for me. Not so he could undo something but so that I could. “What have you done, Susannah?” he finally said
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“What I had to do, same as you.” And I turned from him
,
pretending to be sure and brave, but I took the stairs as quickly as I could, knowing he wouldn’t follow me. I could hear Samuel’s morning cries as I dashed inside into the pantry and then onto the carpeted hallway and stairs, where my hurrying footfalls were graciously hushed
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My sleeping mother and grandmother did not hear me crawl back into bed in my bloodstained dress, nor did they hear my cries which I gave over, with all my heart, to the generosity of my pillow
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You are the only one who understands, Eleanor. The only one who knows
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I am glad Will brought John here, even though Tessie and I have taken a tremendous risk in hiding them. I think Tessie and I have helped John, perhaps saved his life. We will know more in the next few days as John regains his strength
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