I crossed my legs underneath me on the bed. “That’s wise. You don’t know how many people I’ve seen starving. The people of Vicksburg, Confederate soldiers—so awful. I thank God for any food that’s put in front of me.”
Calista reached out and ran a finger along the scar on my arm. I could see the questions on her mind. I took hold of her fingers.
“Go ahead,” I told her. “You can ask.”
“Jeannette,” she said slowly. “Where did you go when that man took you away? Can you talk about it?”
I sighed and looked out the window. The flames of our candles were reflected in the dark glass. I nodded. I sipped the wine again.
“Talk? That was the first thing. He hit me.” I paused as the sting of that first blow came back to me. It was shocking how the pain could be so alive. I bowed my head. “He said I couldn’t talk, could never talk where he was taking me. He was scared they wouldn’t take a slave who sounded like she might be able to read. I had to pretend to be dumb. I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Oh, Jeannette.” Tears formed in Calista’s eyes. I reached out and grasped her hand.
“He took me to Mississippi,” I went on. “A plantation owned by a family called Holloway.”
“I should have stopped Mama,” Calista said.
“How? We were girls. What could you have done?”
She touched my arm again and ran her fingers along the long scar, still visible, from Missus Everett’s whipping. “And this?”
I extended my arm on my lap so she could see it better.
“From a drunk woman,” I said. “She was like Madame, angry that the girl I lived with was having her husband’s baby. I was trying to get her out of the room, and she dragged me out into the yard and tried to whip me. But the worst of it was the girl, my friend, died.” I began to weep again. “Her baby too. She was the only thing keeping me going every day. We were cold sometimes and hungry sometimes and tired all the time. But we were together. And she talked to me a lot about God.” I stopped.
Calista crawled over and wrapped her arms around me. “Go on,” she said. “I’m here.”
I sighed and leaned against my sister. “When she died, all I wanted to do was run away. But an older woman helped me like Dorinda did. Made nice clothes for me because we figured if I could look right and get away and pretend to be white, no one would catch us.”
“Us?”
“Yes, I left with another slave. I dressed as a white man, and he pretended to be my slave. We traveled all the way to Richmond. Abolitionists helped us after that. Sent me to a school in New York.”
I looked around the room. I didn’t want to think about Lower Knoll and Mr. Colchester yet. “I’ll tell you the rest another time,” I said. “It’s just . . .”
“It’s all right; you don’t have to. I understand.”
“Can I stay in here, with you?” I was afraid to wake up in the morning alone. Everything so far had felt too much like a dream. Would I be back in the field hospital when I awoke again? That thought seemed more real than Calista’s arms around me.
She kissed me on my temple. “Of course. As long as you like.”
Together we blew out the candles and settled under the covers. I fell asleep with my sister holding my hand.
Chapter 20
I spent the next day, at Calista’s insistence, in bed. She worried I might get sick if I didn’t rest fully after my long journey home. But I think she enjoyed looking after me, babying me. It was nice, though, to not have to get up for a day. I listened to the sounds of the house and tried to understand its rhythms, how it ran. The heavy shoes of the soldiers rapped on the floorboards downstairs as they came and went. But there was little upstairs activity—no one changing bedding or filling pitchers. I figured it was because there wasn’t anyone but Calista and Madame in these rooms. The girl Annie brought me what I needed. I found myself, to my surprise, trying to hear Madame’s voice. But I didn’t ask about her. I wasn’t ready to see her or even think about her properly just yet. Before I did, I needed to find that feeling I’d had back in Lower Knoll, of understanding her anger and despair. I would need that if I was going to approach Madame with my hands open, without a grudge.
On the third day of my being home, I was ready to get dressed and to move about the plantation. Calista and I walked down the drive after breakfast. She wanted to show me where the soap was being made, and as we walked, she told me more about the plantation. I still wondered about the condition of the place and how she had managed to preserve it.
“How long have the soldiers been here?” I asked.
“A little over a year. Oh, Jeannette, when I saw them coming, I thought we were done for. I knew New Orleans had been given up. And there was no one to protect us. All our soldiers got sent to Virginia and Tennessee and Mississippi, where they thought they could get the best of the Yankees. Mama was frantic. But when the Union soldiers got here”—she turned and pointed back to the house—“one of them, a captain, came up on the gallery and said the Union Army wanted to requisition Catalpa Valley and its functions for their use.”
I shook my head. “It just seems like a miracle.”
“I felt the same way. I didn’t want to believe it. But it’s been like the captain said. The cotton goes to mills in Massachusetts. The cane goes to New Orleans. We send food and supplies to the lines. ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing,’ the captain said.
“A couple weeks after that he noticed Dorinda and some of the other women making soap. He said soap was needed and took most of them away from the housework and set to making it in larger quantities. We started selling that too.”
We had reached the large yard near the slave quarters. Women were pouring the soap mixture into bar forms laid out across the grass.
“Yes!” I put a hand on her arm. “I got one in Vicksburg. When I saw it and the flowers stamped into it, I knew you might be all right, that Catalpa Valley was still here. But President Lincoln’s proclamation didn’t include all of Louisiana.” I looked at the women. “Are they working of their own accord? At Vicksburg the soldiers made slaves help build the canals.”
“No, they didn’t do that here. The captain even said right away, ‘There’s just one caveat, Miss Bébinn. This place can’t keep slaves.’ I agreed, and I told him so. How someone dear had been taken from me and I hated slavery. I had never been in a position to do anything about it before because Mama ran everything.”
“And she still did, right? What did she say to the captain?”
We turned and walked back toward the house. “Mama threw a fit,” Calista said. “Was going on and on about how they had no right. I told her we had no choice. I guess you could say I overruled her. I asked the captain to help me organize our people. We drew up an agreement. I brought everyone here from the quarters, and we told them they were free, but if they agreed to stay, we would pay them. Not all of them stayed, but the ones that did work hard. We’re doing okay. We manage to pay them regularly.”
I looked at her with some doubt. “Madame allowed this?”