A Sound Among the Trees (28 page)

As soon as he was away, I turned to Eliza and told her I am not the kind of person to entertain someone with the intent to deceive. “I am not in love with Lt. Page,” I said. “He is a kind man who deserves honesty. I don’t care which side of this war he is on. I will not let you use him. I am not like you.” As she turned to go back into the house, she told me everyone is like her. We all want what we want, and when it matters enough to us, we will do what we must to have it
.

6 March 1862
Holly Oak, Fredericksburg, Virginia

My dear Eleanor
,

I trust you are well and that you would have only good news of Cousin John and Will and Uncle if I were to hear from you. I shall make this letter short since I do not know if you will get it. Grandmother and Eliza had a terrible argument last night, and Eliza left the house. It is nearly noon and she has not returned. We had been sewing all day, and my fingers were sore, so I was in my room resting when I heard them shouting. I stepped out onto the landing. Their raised voices were coming from the parlor, but I couldn’t make out the words. I thought I heard my grandmother say something about my grandfather, that he was in danger. Or maybe she said Eliza was in danger. I could not tell. My mother was standing just outside her bedroom door, listening. I started for the stairs, and Mama quietly said, “Let them be.” Then she turned, went back inside her room, and closed the door. I went downstairs anyway
.

Tessie was standing just outside the parlor doors, which were half open. She had a tea tray in her hands, and it was obvious to me she couldn’t decide if she should bring the tray in and intrude on the argument or stand outside with it until the yelling ended
.

I stood next to her, and we both heard my grandmother say, “This isn’t a game, Eliza!” And Eliza said, “I am the only one in this house who realizes it has never been a game! From the beginning this has never been a game!” Then Grandmother said, “Where do you go at night, Eliza? Where can you possibly be going in the middle of the night alone and without a chaperon?” For a second there was silence, and then Eliza said, “To meet a lover. Will that satisfy you? I go to meet a lover.” But there wasn’t an ounce of shame in her voice. I think even Tessie could tell she was lying
.

Grandmother didn’t say anything for a moment. But when she found her voice, she didn’t yell. She said what she said as if she were holding back a hurricane. “I will not let you put this family in danger. You will not set foot out of this house at night. You will not.” And Eliza calmly said, “You think I am the one putting this family in danger? You think I am? Think again, Mother.”

Again there was silence. And then the swishing of skirts. Tessie and I just stood there to see who would emerge from the room. It was Eliza. She looked at me, and her eyes were shining with resentment. “I didn’t tell her,” I whispered. And she said, “I know you didn’t.” She grabbed her wrap off the hall tree, and she was out the front door. A swirl of chilly air spun into the house as she slammed the door
.

A second later, Grandmother called to Tessie, as if she knew she had been standing outside the door with the tray, and asked for her tea
.

I don’t know what to think, Eleanor. Sometimes I admire Eliza, sometimes she scares me senseless
.

Lt. Page has written me three times. I have written him once
.
He wants to come visit me when he comes back through Fredericksburg. He didn’t mention anything about the uniforms. The officer who comes for the uniforms now is my mother’s age and frowns all the time. Grandmother has never asked him to stay for supper
.

Lt. Page has begun signing his letters, “Yours very sincerely” and “With much affection, Nathaniel.”

Just writing those words to you makes me blush, Eleanor. I wish I was in Maine with you. I wish I was writing letters to Will from your house in Wiscasset instead of letters to Lt. Page from Holly Oak
.

I wish my mother would stop whispering to ghosts. I wish my papa had not died. I wish there was no war
.

Missing you dreadfully
,

Susannah

P.S. Eliza returned last night before we all retired to our beds. She didn’t say where she had been. She came to my room and asked me if I had any letters I wished to send to you. I told her I did. This one. But she said she will not be able to arrange any more deliveries after this one. Not for a while. I will write anyway, Eleanor, and keep the letters safe until a day comes when I can send them. I shall go mad if I cannot write you
.

15 March 1862
Holly Oak, Fredericksburg, Virginia

Dearest Eleanor
,

Lt. Page called on me today. He told me he has spoken to Grandmother about courting me and would I do him the honor of thinking of
him as my beau? My face felt as if it were on fire when he said this, and I am certain he saw my cheeks turn crimson. I think he found it endearing. My blushing made him smile. He reached for my hand and kissed it and told me I was the sweetest of angels, and then he touched my burning cheek. I did not know how to tell him he mistakes my embarrassment. I did not know how to say there is a young man from Maine who I can’t stop thinking about and that it is this young man who makes me blush. And that although I am fond of the lieutenant, Will alone has my heart. I could summon no words to tell him this. Lt. Page is a kind man. A good man. But he took my bashful silence as agreement. He said he could not wait to tell his parents about his lady. And I had no courage to tell him he was misguided
.

Grandmother so wished to have Lt. Page to stay for supper though we had nothing to serve but ham and potato soup and cornbread. Our few remaining chickens we cannot eat or we will have no eggs or chicks to replace them. Most of the preserves are gone, and there will be no fresh fruit or vegetables to eat until after the summer months produce a harvest. There are jars of beets in the cellar. And molasses. There are only so many things one can put molasses on
.

But Lt. Page did not stay. He told us there is much activity in the area and we are to be very careful. It seems the Yorktown Peninsula is soon to be attacked. He also gave us more fabric than usual and told us it may be several weeks before anyone from the quartermaster’s office would be calling on us. The roads in and around Fredericksburg are not safe
.

When he left he kissed my hand again, and this time his lips lingered
.

Susannah

11 April 1862
Holly Oak, Fredericksburg, Virginia

My dear Eleanor
,

I do not feel a year older; I feel a hundred years older. Once there was a time when I dreamed I would be married at eighteen and sewing infant smocks and living in a lovely house in Maine and Will would be coming home at night smelling sweet of wood and sap and we’d spend our summers at the seaside looking for shells and playing with our little ones. That dream seems so far away
.

Eleanor, I can barely express to you what has happened since last I wrote. Lt. Page has asked me to marry him. He wrote to me from Richmond, wished me a happy birthday, told me he fears the war shall keep us parted, and he asked if I might agree to marry him at Christmastime and join him there in Richmond. I received his letter two days ago. He must have told Grandmother of his intentions, because she knew when the letter came by courier that it was from Lt. Page. When she informed me that the courier was waiting for me so that I could send back a letter of response, she told me I was a very lucky girl to have won the affections of a Virginian gentleman
.

“He comes from a very prominent family,” Grandmother said. We were alone in the parlor. I was sitting at the table where we sew
.

“I cannot accept!” I said to her, and her face clouded with disappointment so fast that I quickly added that I hardly knew Lt. Page and that I could not leave my mother in her present state and that I did not wish to marry anyone during the uncertainty of the war
.

“It would be very unwise of you to decline this proposal,” she said. “What do you think will happen if the war continues and the
food and money runs out? Have you thought about that? Have you wondered how I can be expected to provide for this family when that happens? You’re not a child anymore, Susannah. I cannot be expected to care for all of you as if you were.”

She delivered this effortlessly, but her eyes misted with tears she did not shed. I saw fear in her eyes, something I hadn’t seen before. Ever. Fear for us, I think—the women at Holly Oak. I have not missed my papa as much as I missed him at that moment. I knew he would not want me to do what Grandmother wanted me to do. He would not. Even if it meant we would be hungry
.

“I cannot accept,” I whispered
.

Grandmother walked over to her writing desk, drew out a page of stationery, ink, and her pen, and handed them to me. “You will kindly thank Lt. Page for his proposal, and you will tell him that you are hopeful of seeing him in person to discuss your future together. I will not allow you to make so important a decision without thinking on it. And we cannot expect the courier to wait until you come to your senses.”

I felt very alone as I wrote those words, Eleanor. But I wrote them and the courier left. My grandmother went up to her room without saying another word to me. Not knowing what else to do, I went to my mother’s room, but she lay asleep on her bed in the middle of the afternoon. I turned and sought Eliza, who I found in the library rifling though the drawers of my grandfather’s desk. I didn’t even care what it was she was looking for. I showed her the letter from Lt. Page
.

“I don’t love him,” I said, needing someone to hear those words
.

“Will that be your answer to him?” she asked. She did not seem surprised that Lt. Page had proposed. I told her about the note Grandmother had me write. She seemed to consider this, and then she told me perhaps that was wise, that much could happen
between now and the next time I see Lt. Page. “I won’t change my mind,” I said. “I am fond of him, but I am not in love with him.” And Eliza just shrugged and then asked me if I had seen Grandfather’s keys to the gun cabinet. I told her I hadn’t, and I did not ask her why she needed Grandfather’s guns. I went to my room, alone and so tempted to steal a horse and ride to some faraway place untouched by war
.

Eliza now makes no attempt to hide her excursions at night. She does not announce them and leaves the house after we have all gone to bed, but she doesn’t hide the evidences of her comings and goings since the argument she had with Grandmother. I do not think she does it to be brazen. She merely sees there is no purpose in pretending she has this secret when she does not
.