Come Juneteenth (6 page)

"M
ISS
L
UANNE
H
OLCOMB,
I presume. I'm William. Fitzhugh Lee, your humble servant. You can call me Rooney, like my sisters do."

He took off his gray hat and gave as courtly a bow as one could while sitting astride a silver stallion.

"I'm Luli," I said. "And this is my almost-sister, Rose Smith."

"People call me Sis Goose," she said.

I saw Rooney's eyes go over her for just a second as a man's eyes go over a woman to take her measure. Then he put his hat back on his head. "And are you surviving as a goose in the courthouse full of foxes?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes. No one has devoured me yet," she flung back.

I was glad to see that Rooney knew his Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit stories. It made this big, formidable-looking man, in his major general's uniform, less frightening. The uniform was the same tired gray as Gabe's, except that his looked as if he didn't have a woman to look after it. I'd given Gabe's a good brushing off many a time. And had one of the house servants press it.

We brought our horses up to his and set out together down the road to Glen Eden. "Who would call a pretty thing like you Sis Goose?" Rooney asked.

"My father," she replied.

"Ah yes, fathers tend to do that. My elder brother is named George Washington Custis Lee. More of a title than a name. Pa always called him 'Boo.' My father nicknamed me Rooney. I've heard, from your aunt Sophie, Sis, of the exploits of your steamboat-captain father. Well, I'm sure he means you to be a survivor. I see you two ride astride and not sidesaddle."

"My brothers insisted on it, Mister Rooney," I told him.

He laughed. "You'd be run out of town on a rail where I come from in Virginia. I know all about your brothers. Met Gabriel once. I almost talked him into riding with Jeb Stuart, but he said no. As for sisters, I have four. You remind me of my sister Mary. She's always been the rebel in the family. Moving out and spending her time elsewhere while my other two sisters care for my sick mama."

He talked a terrible lot for a man. But I sensed it was because he was nervous. Nervous? I smiled to myself. Unhorsed and rendered unconscious at South Mountain. Shot in the leg at Brandy Station. "I thought you had four sisters," I said.

He grew sober. "We lost Annie to typhoid near two years ago now."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." I was. This was precisely what
Mama hadn't wanted from me. What she meant when she said, "Be kind to him."

"My sister Annie gave my parents a run for their money, too. Blinded herself in one eye with a scissor when she was just six. As for Boo, Pa came upon him in camp one time when he had no coat but a Yankee one. He was in rags. Pa had to rustle clothing up for him. Yes, sir, I'm afraid we've, none of us, been easy for our parents."

"I think you have a wonderful family, Mister Rooney. Everyone reverences your father as a great man."

He drew in his horse and we did likewise. "I'm not in any rush to get back to Glen Eden. Your Uncle Garland has a slave trader visiting this day."

And he looked at Sis Goose. Then at me. "May I be candid?"

"Yes," I said.

He took off his gloves, and I saw the bitten-off fingers on his right hand. He ran that hand through his beard. "If I were in your shoes, Miss Rose, I'd plead a headache when I got there. No one thinks more of your aunt and uncle, but I'd make any excuse not to appear for supper. The slave trader will be at the table."

"Why's he here when his market will soon be gone?" I asked. Then realized I'd raised the wrong question in front of Sis Goose. The market was already gone, but I had to soften it, wrap it in the end of the war.

Rooney Lee sighed and plucked at his beard. "He has dear friends who could never have a child. They want a
daughter and a companion. They're willing to put out money to buy one beautiful and accomplished and one they can educate in the best schools and make part of the family. The slave trader remembered Sis Goose from a past visit."

We all fell silent for a minute. Birds went from branch to branch in the trees above us, doing whatever it was they had to do to make a home. Rooney Lee picked up his reins and pressed his legs into his horse's sides. "Now let's get back," he said. And as I rode beside him I thought I heard him cuss under his breath, and say, "Ugly business."

B
UT IT WAS
all too late, the warning. When we rode up the road and dismounted our horses and watched the stable boys take them away, I saw that the slave trader was right there on the front piazza with Uncle Garland and Aunt Sophie, sipping late-afternoon drinks.

"I'll handle this," Rooney Lee whispered to me. "Go and pay your respects."

We went up the few stairs to where they were sitting. "Well, it's about time," Uncle Garland said, getting out of his chair. "Jim," and he turned to the short, fat, balding man with the face and eyes of a ferret, "this is my niece Luli and the girl I was telling you about. Her name is Sis Goose. I told you she was a beauty, didn't I?"

I curtsied, but it went unnoticed by the ferret. He had eyes only for Sis Goose, and they went over her as one would appraise a horse. I expected, at any moment, that
he would ask her to open her mouth so he could see her teeth or do some other horrid thing.

I hugged Aunt Sophie and so did Sis Goose.

"What household duties can she perform?" the slave trader asked.

At that moment Rooney Lee stepped forward. "The girl isn't feeling well, ma'am. I told her that you would excuse her from supper, knowing your capacity for understanding and sympathy."

Aunt Sophie immediately called a servant and had her take Sis Goose to her room upstairs. I was left standing there with Rooney Lee, son of the man who commanded the whole Southern army, just a little behind me.

I hadn't counted on Rooney's abilities to be both firm and gracious.

"The girl is the most beautiful piece I've ever seen," the slave trader said. "I wish you'd change your mind about selling her, ma'am. She could bring at least five thousand on the open market."

I felt faint. Apparently they'd discussed the matter beforehand, and Sis Goose and I had walked into a trap.

"It is my understanding that the young lady is family," Rooney said.

And he looked at me for confirmation. So I answered, "She is. You know how my mother feels about her, Aunt Sophie."

"But I've never had the chance to enjoy her as family. And she belongs, by rights, to me, and not your mother."

"Here," Rooney said. And he took my hand. "We're all tired. Of course she belongs to you, ma'am. If you allow me to take Luli here for a walk, I'll soothe things down."

My head was spinning. I was here five minutes, yet in that time everything was spilled out all around us. Like blood.

I went with Rooney for a walk through the English gardens.

O
NCE WE
were out of earshot he stopped walking and looked at me. "Excuse me for being nosy, but does she know she's already free?"

The question was blunt. He was no longer being polite. "No," I said.

"You haven't, as her friend, told her?"

"My brothers warned me not to. Granville says we're not part of the states. And if the rumor takes on legs and starts running, there might be a slave uprising in Texas."

"How selfish we are," he mused. "I was never so amazed as when I first came here to see that the slaves don't even know about Lincoln's proclamation."

"We don't get much intelligence from back in the states."

"No. You're like a different world out here. Of course none of us in our family really believed in the institution of slavery. My pa is fighting to win the war, but he himself believes there should be no north, no south, no east,
and no west. Just America, the Union. He sees bondage as a moral and political evil."

He paused for a minute.

"Will you tell any of the slaves here that they should be free?" I asked.

He smiled. "I'm wined and dined here. I know I represent my pa. So no, I won't let the cat out of the bag. I've no interest in being hanged. And speaking of cats, and to give the conversation a new turn, do you want to hear about my father's cat back at Arlington?"

"Of course."

"We were forced to leave Arlington House and abandon it to the Yankees. My mama was brokenhearted. We left most of the furnishings and Tom, my pa's cat. Tom and Pa got on famously. Pa misses him powerful much. And he hopes Tom lords it over those Yankees and, as host, ignores them, too."

I laughed. I was meant to laugh. He wanted to strike a lighter note. We started walking back to the house where the candlelight and music seemed so welcoming.

By the time I left Glen Eden, I was in love with Rooney Lee. Not in a southern-belle way, but in a way that recognized all the pain in him. The sorrow. I never saw him again after that week. But I did not forget the big solemn man who had lost so much besides the war.

O
N THE
third day of that visit, Uncle Garland left with Rooney Lee for a fox hunt and a stay at a nearby plantation. Aunt Sophie had declined to go. She had other fish to fry, she told her husband, and it turned out that she did.

For some reason she determined that it was time to train Sis Goose in some household arts. To make her "more valuable as a personal maid."

She did not tell the menfolk her plans. I suspect she knew that Rooney Lee would not approve. So as soon as they were gone she called the two of us before her.

"Luli, for the next two days find yourself something to do. I see you have brought your embroidery, and you may take advantage of your uncle's library if you wish. I am going to be busy with Sis Goose."

And without missing a beat she turned to Sis Goose, who was standing beside me. "You come upstairs with me. This day you are going to learn how to dress a lady's hair. Then you will go to the kitchen and find out just
how I want my eggnog done. And if you do well, tomorrow you'll learn how I want my clothes in the clothes press, how to care for them, and how to make candied violets."

I heard Sis Goose gasp. "Ma'am, nobody told me this."

"Well, I'm telling you now."

"At home I don't, that is, I never had to do more than take Mr. Holcomb's morning coffee into the study. And I considered that a privilege."

Good for you,
I thought.
You sound just right. Sure of yourself, yet no sass.

Myself, I asked, "To what end is all this learning of household chores?"

"Household arts," Aunt Sophie corrected.

She'd already started for the stairway, Sis Goose in tow. "Must I tell you, like I had to tell your brother? Didn't you hear Mr. Dodd ask me what Sis Goose was trained up for? A good ladies' maid, a practiced household girl, is highly prized."

Mr. Dodd, the slave trader, had thankfully left that same night. I could not keep silent. "You mean you aim to sell her," I said.

"The truth is, she is trained up for nothing," Aunt Sophie went on. "And if, God forbid, something happened to me or my husband, Sis Goose would be sold as part of the estate. If there is a recession, we might have to sell her.
And with this war nobody knows what will happen. What is she good for? Tell me."

"The war is almost over, Aunt Sophie," I said, "and so is everything that goes with it."

"You hush your mouth now, girl. Don't you know enough to hush your mouth?"

"She's my sister. I don't aim to hush up about that. She's beautiful and sweet and my parents love her. She's my friend."

I was starting to anger her. "If you aren't as danged irritating as that Gabriel brother of yours. She's listed, in my farm book, as one of the slaves, loaned out to your parents," she went on. "And since she can't do any household tasks, she'd be sold off and her new owner would put her in the fields. And even if the slaves are freed with the end of the war, she'd be left wandering loose, with nothing to do. You and your mother and brother are living in a fairy tale, Luli. I'm doing this not to demean her but to protect her."

"My parents wouldn't let her wander loose." I don't know where I got the gumption, but I said it.

She did not get angry. She just gave out a big sigh because both of us hit that brick wall again.

I felt bad discussing Sis Goose as if she weren't there, like she was a commodity and not a person. I just blinked through tears that were gathering in my eyes. And watched them go up the stairs.

"I'm coming, too," I called up.

"Suit yourself," Aunt Sophie said. "But if you distract her, I'll ask you to leave."

T
HERE WAS
nothing for me to do but sit there while Sis Goose obediently draped a white cloth around Aunt Sophie's shoulders and took up a brush to have a go at her hair.

From time to time Aunt Sophie would direct. "Harder. Not that hard. I don't need to be scalped. There, now you've got it right."

"Let me try," I said, getting up.

Aunt Sophie sighed but allowed me to have a go at her half-brown, half-gray hair. I pretended to be enjoying it and smiled at Sis Goose as if it were all a game.

If she must do it, then so would I, I decided. That way Sis Goose wouldn't feel demeaned.

The hair was then braided and the braids curled up on top of her head. Then two wisps of hair must be curled down on the side of each ear. Sis Goose learned to use a curling iron that morning, burning herself twice. At home neither of us went through this with our hair. She wore hers straight down her back or in a single braid. I had natural curls and had all I could do to control them.

Finally the operation was over. While it had been going on, Safron, who was Aunt Sophie's personal maid, had been making the bed and fussing about the room. As she was about to pick up the chamber pot to take it downstairs and empty it, Aunt Sophie got inspired.

"Leave that, Safron. Sis Goose will tend to it."

Immediately a bell went off in my head and I felt for a minute as if Gabriel were standing there beside us. But it was my father's voice that I heard.

If she treats Sis Goose like a no-account, you have my permission to take your horses and leave.