An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [29]
Daddy stayed in the army for two years after they married. When he was sent to other posts Mama lived in Richmond with her family. That's when he wrote her all those love letters. Then in 1851 I was born; Daddy left the army and bought the place in Surrattsville from Johnny's daddy.
He made it into a lovely little farm. He was a success. The only failure was in Mama's eyes because it was just a farm. She had wanted a country seat.
And then, too, Daddy would not buy slaves. He and Mama argued constantly over it. She said a woman bred to gentility and culture had slaves. Daddy hired her one housemaid. All the other hired help was for the fields. Then came the panic of 1857. I don't know what a panic really is. It seems I've been in a panic all my life. But when it has to do with the failure of trust companies, shipping lines, and cotton crops, everybody loses money. Mama's parents, who have both died since, were wiped out. They lost near everything, or I think Mama would have taken me and gone home. We muddled on for four more years. That's a long time to muddle. When the war broke out, Daddy said he was duty bound to re-enlist.
"The Confederate Army will honor your commission," Mama told him.
"Most likely," Daddy answered, "but I prefer to get my old commission back in the army of the United States."
This was the argument over slaves, with a new twist. Mama could not abide it. All our neighbors were going off to fight for the Confederacy. Daddy left for war a sad man, thinking he'd failed my mother. She let him think it.
I have never forgiven her for that alone.
She let the hired help go, let the fields go fallow. She and I lived on what we could grow in the kitchen garden. That's when she took up the occupation of the needle. Aunt Susie, who had married a wealthy planter, introduced her to some rich ladies in Richmond. Mama sewed for them. I think when Daddy was killed and Johnny's uncle foreclosed on the farm, she was glad to come to Washington.
I had no right to miss her now. But I did. I missed her so bad I wanted to die. You don't have to love somebody to miss them. You get used to having them around, like a cat or a bird. I finished my tea and went to bed. I had to be up early in the morning so I could move in with the Surratts.
During the night I heard it. A sound outside my windows like a great cry, as if a wild beast had been loosed in the night. I roused myself and sat up.
The first thing I saw was that flower on the night-stand, blooming for all it was worth. I made my way to the window. In the distance there were torchlights. Then I heard a drum and the sound of many pairs of feet marching, double time.
Next came shouts. A man dashed by on horseback. A door opened in a house across the street. Another cry. "Shot, shot, I tell you!"
So far no one had been shot in the revelry that reigned on Washington's streets. Now, finally someone had been. Likely some drunk. I went back to bed.
Then, just as I was dozing off again, I heard it distinctly. Two short staccato raps on the wooden sidewalk, repeated three times. The danger signal of the Union League, a secret loyalist society. Annie had told me about it.
I heard doors slamming. Again I went to the window. People were throwing on clothes as they poured out into the streets. They were huddling in bunches, lighting torches.
Something had happened. What? Were the Confederates coming to attack though the war was over? Well, there was nothing I could do but wait until morning and then go over, as soon as I could, to the Surratts'. I lay awake for a while staring at the flower that fairly glowed in the room, listening to the commotion in the street, grateful for the safety the Surratt house would offer. Then the noise outside died down. I fell asleep. When I woke up it was to another noise.
A pounding on a door, insistent, angry. I heard yelling.
"Let us in! Police!"
I sat bolt upright. Was it my door? I got up and knelt on the floor to look out