Leigh Ann's Civil War (6 page)

"Careen! Tell me, who is Teddy trying to help?"

I saw Careen being seized by the arm in brutal fashion, dragged to her feet, and slapped back and forth on the face by Mother. "You fiend, teaching my daughter your negro trash."

I don't think Careen even felt the slaps. It was as if she were somewhere else, in the world she had created, where she had seen Massa Teddy firing his gun and crawling to help someone. As Mother hurled her out of the room, she turned and yelled, "Louis. He been hurt. But it be aright. It be aright."

The words echoed through the house as Mother came at me like the wicked witch in all the fairy tales.

She picked up her riding crop, which she always carried with her. It was both her talisman, Teddy had said, and her weapon.

"She come through the keyhole. She come through the
keyhole
," I heard Careen screaming, "like a slip-skin hag that goes out to make trouble after dark."

Then Mother grabbed me and held me face-down across her middle and whipped me.

I fought her, but I couldn't get free. No one had ever whipped me. I could not believe the pain. I screamed and screamed, "Help, help, Teddy, Teddy!" I lost my voice. I gulped tears. Everybody came running. Even Carol, who made no move to stop Mother. Viola came into the room and fought to wrest the crop from her, until Pa lunged in and pulled it out of Mother's hands and shoved her away and down onto the couch.

"You ever lay a hand on this child again and I'll kill you," he said.

"That's what she needs," Mother said. "I've heard from her teacher what an uncontrollable brat she's become. I'll not have my daughter growing up with the reputation of an unruly child in this town."

I was sobbing so that I couldn't catch my breath. Cannice was there in an instant with a cold rag on my face. Viola clasped me to her. She was trembling.

"I want you out of this house," Pa told Mother. "You have ten minutes to get out."

"I've come for some of my things," she told him.

"Ten minutes," he repeated. He was breathing heavily.

Jon had come in. "Come on, Mr. Conners. This is no good for you. What say you take a nice soothing dip in the stream?"

Pa went with Jon to take a nice soothing dip in the stream. Cannice left the room. Carol gave me a superior look and left, too. There were only me and Viola and Mother left. All was silent for a moment, and then Viola said, "Go and get your things."

"You're telling me what to do?"

"I'm in charge of Leigh Ann while the boys are away."

Mother laughed. "Go and tell that to the cypress trees. You? You haven't got the sense God gave a raccoon." She drew herself up. "I'm taking her with me for a few days. My driver is waiting outside. Come along, Leigh Ann."

I heard Viola's intake of breath. "You don't
dare
."

"Oh, don't I? We'll just see."

"I have a paper to prove I'm in charge." Viola released me and stood straight. "Teddy and Louis drew it up and had it notarized and registered at the mayor's office. I have a copy. I can show it to you."

"Darling, Teddy and Louis are gone. Going north to fight my people. Who knows if they will come back?"

"So that's what's put you into this rage," Viola said, "that your boys have gone away to fight your people. I thought
we
were your people.
Your children
."

"Nobody understands," Mother told her in a gravelly voice. "I was never meant to be a mother. Some women are just not molded for it."

"Then why are you taking Leigh Ann?"

"Because I have a reputation to keep. Now get out of the way—I'm taking her. Just for a few days, to teach her some manners and discipline."

"To turn her against us, you mean."

"I can use this riding crop on you, you know," Mother threatened. "I used it on Louis when he was twenty."

"We all know the story," Viola said wearily. She was losing her fight and she knew it. "Mother, don't, please!"

But Mother pulled me by the arm, and when I refused to follow, she picked me up and carried me out through the hall and verandah to her waiting carriage. I kicked and yelled. "Viola, don't let her take me!"

Now on the verandah, Viola was sobbing. Cannice wrapped her arm around my sister's shoulder. Other household negroes came out and begged Mother not to take their little lamb.

"Massa Teddy ain't gonna like it," Cannice told Mother. "Massa Teddy gonna be right angry."

But the negroes knew they were helpless in their fussing with Mother. So they started to sing one of their spirituals, low and heart-rending.

And Pa was taking a nice soothing dip in the stream.

Before I knew it, I was shoved into the fancy black and gold carriage and the door was closed. Inside, my hands were tied with silken cords and I was pulled into the netherworld that had all started with some salt sprinkled on a fire.

The driver clicked at the sleek thoroughbred horses and we started to move.

The negroes were singing something about Paul and Silas being bound in jail as we drove away.

It seemed as if we rode and rode, on and on, forever. I was still gulping tears and my breath was coming in short spurts. My ear and my bottom hurt. I was indignant at this unspeakable treatment. Cannice had told God's truth when she had said, "Massa Teddy will be right angry when he finds out."

As soon as God permitted it, I would write to Teddy and tell him. He would do something, I was sure of it. Even from far away, he would do something.

She had told Viola that she was not meant to be a mother. Well, about this one thing she was right.

She lectured me in a steady, grating tone all the way to her place. She told me that I never had known what proper behavior was, that my brothers had spoiled me so that I was like a rotten Georgia peach. And now that they'd had their sport with me, they had left me to break into fragments in the glare of everyone's disdain.

She said she knew of a very strict girls' boarding school in New York: "All that will be taken out of you there. And you will have some true Yankee values instilled in you." The words tore at my soul. I had no tears left in me to cry.

"If your brothers live through the war, they will never find you," she said.

My head swam with the fear of it all. My mind was in some dark place, full of vines that snagged me as I tried to escape. I was frozen silent.

We rode through town. I saw people I knew out the carriage windows, people who were friends of Louis's and Teddy's, who respected and honored them. People who would help me in an instant if they realized I was in trouble. But I could do nothing. We passed the town square, where just two hours ago I had said goodbye to my brothers. Then, too soon, we went by the town hall, Hoover's Confectionery, where Louis had so often taken me for treats, a dram shop, where my brothers went to drink and meet friends, the post office, a dressmaker's, all these at the end of town, and then we were on a dusty road north trimmed with fences and trees.

Her place of residence was about a mile north of town. By the time we got there I decided that if she sent me to that boarding school in New York I would run away. I would go to Grandmother Johanna's in Philadelphia, and from there write home.

The carriage passed a three-story colonial home constructed of bricks made of red clay from a nearby stream. I recognized it as the handsome house belonging to Reverend Nathaniel Pratt, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, our church. Down a short road to the side of the house was a smaller version of it, also owned by the reverend. He rented it out.

Here the carriage drew in the drive. A very fat negro woman waited on the porch. Our driver leaped down and opened the door.

"Amber, come see what I've got," Mother yelled to the negro woman, like I was a bushel of peas.

Amber helped Mother out and stood, hands on hips, staring at me still with my hands tied.

"Well, where'd you git her? And what she for? To help me with the housework? She indentured?"

Mother gave a rich laugh. "You never cease to say the right thing, Amber. Indentured, indeed. It would do her good, a little housework. But no, she's my youngest, Leigh Ann."

"Why you bring her here? And why her hands be tied?"

"Because she's become a hopeless brat, Amber. My sons spoiled her. And I've taken her for a few days to tame her a bit. Get her down, will you?"

Amber let go a deep, throaty sound as if she didn't approve, but she did as she was told, then carried me into the house, which was smaller than ours by half, but perfectly appointed.

Mother closed and locked the front door. She started to untie my hands, then decided against it. "No, I think I'll leave you bound up until I see how you behave. And if you're thinking about running off and appealing to Reverend Pratt, think again. It'll only earn you another whipping."

"I have to pee," I told her. "How can I with my hands tied?"

"A lady does not use that word."

"It's what I tell Teddy when he makes me sit in a chair for an hour for being naughty."

"So that's how you are punished? It's no wonder you've become so unmanageable. Amber will take you to your room and help you use the chamber pot. And Amber is to be obeyed. Go along with her now, and no tricks."

I got the feeling that Amber did not like any of this, that she was longing to say something comforting to me but her fear of Mother held her back. So I did as I was told and didn't make any trouble for her. She was firm with me, but kind.

My "room" was prepared for me, for a little girl. It was what I supposed was Yankee plain. The bedspread was of sturdy cotton with a wide blue hem. In the middle was stitched an American flag. A Betsy Ross doll was propped against the pillows. A small cherry bookcase held schoolbooks. One large one was
The Constitution of the United States
. There was a child's desk, all fit out for study. On the wall hung a pencil sketch of General George Washington kneeling and praying in the snow at Valley Forge. There was no mirror in the room.

It all frightened me. Mother had been planning this for a long time. She had been waiting for the day Teddy and Louis left to come and get me. And she had not waited beyond an hour or so after they had gone.

For my noontime meal my hands were still tied. I was seated at her dining room table and served jellied cornmeal mush and water. She ate ham glazed with brown sugar, hominy grits, creamed corn, and fresh tomatoes. She drank sherry wine and followed it with peach upside-down cake and fragrant coffee with cream, with shaved chocolate sprinkled on top.

I thought about my family. Were they going to come and get me? They wouldn't just leave me here, would they? And then it came to me.

None of us, not even Teddy or Louis, has ever known where Mother lived. None of us has bothered to find out. We thought she flitted about from place to place, staying with women friends, or worse yet, men. And of course, Reverend Pratt, being a minister, could not tell. He was sworn to secrecy.

All this thinking I was doing while my tied hands sat in my lap. Amber fed me the jellied cornmeal mush, spoonful by spoonful, like I was a baby. Quiet tears rolled down my face and Amber wiped them away. Mother sat enjoying her food, sipping her sherry, and smiling at me wickedly.

After my noonday meal she had Amber change my dress. I was brought upstairs and my hands were untied briefly while the beautiful, but now mussed, white organdy with the pink sash was taken off and thrown aside. Then the petticoats were removed and a plain blue and white checkered dress with a slim skirt was slipped over my head. It had long sleeves with white cuffs and a round white collar.

"Right down from Vermont," Mother said delightedly.

She sat me at the desk and set a Bible in front of me, then rifled through the pages until she found what she wanted.

I was to memorize Psalm 51, begging the Lord to wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sins. I was to acknowledge that my sins were forever before me.

The part about my mother having conceived me in wickedness was crossed out.

She left me there, warning me to memorize it all. All right, I would. And I did so, including the part that was crossed out. I would recite it to her that way. It was the word of the Lord, I would tell her.

Likely she would whip me again, but I did not care. I knew, as sure as if Louis and Teddy were standing in the room with me, that I must have the mettle to stand up to her. I must show her I had values, that she could not make me cower,
that my brothers had done right by me.

I went over the words again and again in my mind. The windows were open and the warm wind blew in along with the drowsy sound of afternoon birdcalls and katydids. My eyes went heavy. What was I supposed to be saying? Something about my sins, and my mother having conceived me in wickedness. Slowly, I put my arms down on the desk and my head down on them and dozed.

I did not hear the approaching footsteps on the stairs, or the door opening.

"So, that's how you study, eh? Get up, you lazy girl!"

I stumbled to my feet, dragging myself awake. Where was I? Oh, yes. The Betsy Ross doll on the bed grinned, reminding me.

"Well? Have you memorized the psalm?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She pounded the end of her riding crop on the floor. "Recite," she ordered.

So I did, clearly and precisely. All of it. Including the line about her having conceived me in wickedness. I gave special emphasis to that part.

"Stop!" she shouted, and slammed the riding crop on the floor again. "
What was that you just said?
"

"It was a line from the psalm."

"I know what it was. It was crossed out, wasn't it? Don't you know what that means? Are you stupid as well as disobedient and unruly?"

I stood straight and tall. "It is the word of the Lord," I told her.

"I'll
tell
you what the word of the Lord is. How dare you interpret it on your own!" She reached to grab me, but I backed away, just far enough to the window to see a carriage pulling up in front.