Homeland (31 page)

Your letter,
hurrah
! I did not take mine to mail, having absolutely nothing to trade for postage, but have made an arrangement with Mrs. V, the postmaster’s wife, to give her a day’s help next month with Spring Cleaning and laundry, in trade for my next 5 letters. Isn’t that clever of me?

I am glad you liked the gifts I would send you, could I do so—and
I especially liked Peggie staggering through the snow to display the pamphlets to Elinor, which I hadn’t thought of. I trust she caught a severe cold
and
sprained her ankle?

Amelia Sedley has often been in my mind, as I’ve thought about your Mother—and, if you will forgive me for saying so, your poor Papa, too. But the heroine of
Vanity Fair
suffers from what all the heroines of any novel I’ve read have suffered: Amelia is not intelligent, nor spirited. She stays home and looks after her poor parents because there is nothing else that she
can
do and remain a “decent woman.” Mr. Thackeray pities her, but never asks, “Why is the world like this?” Or more to the point,
“Does
the world
have
to be like this? Can we change it, and how?” What if Amelia did
not
bow her meek head and have everyone love her for her sweetness? What if Becky Sharp had dearly loved her son? Would Becky have been considered a heroine, if she were ambitious, and clever, and
kind?
Thackeray does not seem even to consider the possibility. “She could be a good woman, for five thousand a year …” Could not we all?

And Amelia Sedley had not
your
spirit, and
your
intelligence, and
your
education, my dear Cora. You will do your duty, and when it is done—whether Emory ever returns or not—you will find a way to honorably take care of your beautiful daughter and yourself.

I am sorry to hear Nollie is sick—or was sick a month ago. (When I was writing letters to you that I had no hope of sending, I fell into the habit of thinking that you received my letters the very day after I wrote them, and forgot the weeks of travel intervening.) Little Tommy, who is now almost three years old!, also has been ill, on and off, most of the winter.

Oh, my friend, do not
ever
repine, that you made the choice that you did. Emory may return, and he may not, but your Mother has only those friends on the island, who would cut the connection with
your family if it were proved that you let yourself be seduced: and this is something that
can not be proved
. Your daughter has many months—or, God forbid, years!—to live on the island, with your reputation as her only shield.

We all do wrong, my friend. Some of us do terrible wrongs. Yet, we are only doing what we can, with the information that we have, in the circumstances where we are. This is another of those things that I have yet to see truly elucidated in any novel (much less the Bible): that so many times, we
do not know
what the right course may be. I suppose this is why God is said to forgive
everything
, if asked with a truly humble heart.

Bless you, my brave girl. May the snows melt soon.

[not sent]

Dear Cora,

Thank you for your letter. Yes, we are indeed still here: sometimes Emory and his militia, sometimes militia and bush-whackers both, tho’ on such occasions there is generally more fighting over accusations of cowardice (but not a one of them ventured down to Nashville to assist the Confederates during the seige). It is as if there are two wars going on: one between the armies of the Union and those of the Confederacy, and one between the local Unionists, who
hate the local Seceshes, not only for their politics, but because of the terrible things they have done to the families of the Unionists over the past four years, and vice-versa. And I fear that whatever Gen’ls Lee, Grant, and Sherman agree amongst themselves, the fighting here will still go on, until the land is …

Is what? It is
already
a desolation, where men dare not work their fields for fear of being shot from the trees, and women and children sleep in the woods for fear of armed bands knocking on their doors in the night. It is only your letters, my dear Cora, that tell me the entire world is not what I see around me: hunger, treachery, callousness, and the eerie beauty of a world stripped of everything human.

Yet, Julia clings to this house, and clings to me. She begs me with tears not to leave her—or gets into arguments with me, that leave me too exhausted to think or feel anything. Sometimes I think I hate her, almost as much as I hate Lyle. And how
could
I leave her, with a crippled husband, a starving two-year-old, and a fading infant, among men who might scatter like startled rats at any moment, leaving her to fend not only for herself, but for them all? And, where would I go? Those who flee, sleep in goods-boxes and makeshift tents around the railway stations in Kentucky and Nashville, hoping for the charity of the Union troops as they march through.

A bad fall on my way up to the cave to feed the hens. Ice has made the rocks slippery, and it’s hard to keep from leaving tracks that others could follow. Not just to steal the hens, but because the men know I forage alone. Lyle has said that he would kill me, if I went with another man.

Does he really think that the idea of
any
man—himself or another—is anything but nauseating to me?

Last night Unionist guerillas attacked the house—more, I think, because they thought we had some food here than out of political
convictions. I spent an enlivening three-quarters of an hour loading rifles in the pitch dark, for the night was moonless. Julia, of course, had hysterics, but in the end we were the victors. Not only did they
not
succeed in burning Bayberry, but a lucky shot got one of their horses.
Meat
for two days!

Dearest Susanna,

You have forgotten one other thing that the Greeks did before Troy: they gossipped like schoolgirls! Homer, of course, calls it
exhorting
and
advising
. And you are quite right. I comb through
The Iliad
in vain for one Greek doing a simple kindness for another. You who are now living in an armed camp—is this the case with your militiamen? Did the Greeks before Troy spend much of their time drunk? Did they hold cockroach races?

Last week Eliza Johnson wrote to me, saying that her husband’s recommendation would certainly procure me a post in the Patent Department or the War Office in Washington, as a clerk, at fifty dollars a month. I thanked her, and refused, for not only would the money not stretch to the hire of a woman to care for Mother, but know I can not leave Mother to Peggie’s care. Not even to Papa would I say this. She is in pain most of the time now, and when the cleaning is done, the cows fed and their straw raked out, and the stove-ashes put by for next autumn’s soap, I spend my days sewing or reading beside her bed while Mercy plays on the floor. The house is dark, the stillness such that on those few occasions when I do go into Southeast Harbor, or see anyone but Peggie and, occasionally,
Papa, I feel startled and confused, like a prisoner suddenly thrust into light. Sometimes I think I would forget how to speak, but for the lively conversation of the Bennet Sisters, and the Dashwood Girls, and d’Artagnan and his friends. You are quite right, you know, about
Uncle Tom’s Cabin:
much as I still revere the book for what it has done for the slaves, I can not imagine anyone actually conversing in that fashion.

And thank you, more than I can say, for your kind words concerning the wrong I did. Each night I pray that you are right: that God does forgive, as we are taught.

It is base of me to repine that I lack simple things—like camphor, and tea, and washing-soda—when you lack meat and bread!!! Forgive me my referring to such. I am tired much of the time these days, and it renders me cross and thoughtless.

The island is still deep under snow, the harbors frozen. When he came in February, Papa crossed from the mainland on a sled. The newspapers are full of Sherman’s “exploits” in marching through South Carolina: cities burned, farms wantonly laid waste. In this harsh weather I think about the men out on the islands, still hiding from the draft, and wonder, how they are kept supplied now. Recruiters still comb the island, to no avail. The men who are hiding in the cave on Little Deer Isle have a system of spies among the children, so that they can work their farms and spend time with their families. I am a loyal daughter of the Union: I should not smile.

P.S. Did you indeed write imaginary letters to me, when there was no way of sending them? I certainly did to you!

Dear Cora,

Such a luxury, knowing I can write this letter and Mrs. V will see that it’s mailed! But, I now know that the only reason Hercules never helped with Spring Cleaning was because he chose to go to Hell and fight dreadful Cerberus instead—anything but a day like I spent yesterday! Mrs. V’s boarding-house in town has been shuttered up (without spruce-boughs, but the effect is much the same) all winter, and she has apparently been too occupied cooking and darning socks for the Army sutlers and government officers to even keep the stoves clean, or to mop up tobacco spit in the parlors. The weather is fine at last, and everything was turned out of doors: furniture, carpets, dishes, clothing, curtains. We scrubbed the walls and floors, the chimney-breasts and hearths, white-washed the ceilings, black-leaded the stoves, beat the carpets and in between all that boiled pillow-slips, sheets, and towels in the laundry-tubs. I told Julia none of this. Not only is Mrs. V a Yankee-loving traitor, but it’s for postage to send letters to you, not money to contribute to the militia! I felt excruciatingly guilty, coming home long after dark empty-handed, to her gentle sympathy. Mrs. V paid me a little, too, with which I bought powder and shot. Squirrels and woodchucks are awake again. I hid the ammunition in the old wash-house, with the gun.

I look around at all the things we need—and at poor Julia, doing what Spring Cleaning she can here—and I feel so selfish and terrible, for having earned money and squandered it for postage.

But, there was a letter from you!

Yes, some of the militiamen do show kindness toward one another, even tenderness. It’s surprising, because the next minute
the same man will be cursing fit to raise the hair on your head, or gouging and kicking someone who called him a name (“slighted his honor,” I think is how Homer would put it). They’ll guard each other’s things, or share blankets if it’s very cold, even with a man they don’t like. I keep away from them. Some are only boys, younger than I am, fifteen or sixteen: children, when the War began, with the brute, cold eyes of killers. I wonder sometimes what will become of them?

Not a night goes by, that I do not think of you, sitting in that hushed room at your Mother’s side.

P.S. They say in the South, that it takes two Confederate soldiers to keep one draftee in camp. I can’t imagine it’s much different in the North.

Dear Mrs. Poole, Maria Kydd send to tell me to tell you she heard to-day Will is dead in Virginia

Dear Susanna,

Sad news today, and my heart is heavy. Saturday I got the news that my friend Will Kydd is dead.

Your letter is a comfort. I have written to Will’s mother, asking if I can be of help, though I know not what help I can be.

The work of the dairy has redoubled—Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Black have both calved, and we have now four goat-kids, as well, to the unending enchantment of Mercy and Nollie. Both children are of an age to find Paradise in the barn—and their own doom, unless watched constantly.

It begins to appear that spring has indeed come, though the nights are still cold and the roads little more than crevices of mire between the hills. Mother’s friends from the church will still sometimes call, for which I am profoundly glad, though I can tell by the way they look at me that they have heard—something. And of course, each and every one has something to say on the subject of laudanum. When I went in to take Mother her supper, she was
asleep, and I will not wake her; Mercy and I shared corn-and-milk, and with luck I will—

Peggie came in with a newspaper that someone had brought across from the mainland this morning. General Lee has surrendered in Virginia to Grant.

Early morning—even before I usually go out to milk. I have slept little, thinking of what it means, that the War is done. Thinking—for the first time in years letting myself think—about Emory, and when he will be home. When he left—and I can still see him stepping out the door and walking away down Blossom Street—he did not even know that I was with child, and now Miss Mercy can sing about mocking-birds and di’mon’ rings, and “help” me with the milking. For four years now, I have carefully plucked out every small shoot of hope, lest it grow bitter thorns or poison fruit. Yet now I hope, wildly and unreasonably, like a child. Oh Susie, I have missed him so!