Carried Forward By Hope (7 page)

Janie looked at her now with confusion. “Do? What
can
I do? Clifford is my husband.”

“Has he hurt you?” Carrie asked sharply, hoping the unexpected question would illicit an honest response.

“Physically?” Janie replied. “Not really. He has grabbed my arms a few times, but he has never hit me. I can’t believe he would ever do that,” she protested.

“Yes, you can,” Carrie responded flatly, “or you wouldn’t be afraid of him.”

Janie closed her eyes for a long moment. “Yes, I’m afraid he will, but it’s more than that…” She paused for a long moment. “I’m disappearing,” she finally murmured. “I can’t seem to remember who I am or what I want or what I dreamed of during the long years of the war.” Tears spilled over to run down her cheeks. “Everything is getting swallowed by his anger and bitterness.”

Carrie prayed for wisdom and the right words. “You don’t have to go back with him,” she said gently. “You can stay here in Richmond and come out to the plantation. We’ll figure things out together.”

Janie stared at her blankly. “Leave him? Divorce him?”

“It’s done,” Carrie replied. “Times have changed. It used to be you could only get divorced because of adultery, but Thomas Jefferson began to change things. Now you can get a divorce for incompatibility.”

Janie was staring at her, her eyes now dry. “Divorce? It can be done, but how women are viewed hasn’t changed. Do you know what the life of a divorcee is like? People would scorn me.”

Carrie searched for what to say. “This from my liberal friend who defied so many societal conventions to work at Chimborazo Hospital?” she asked lightly. “You suddenly care what people think?”

Janie’s eyes flashed with quick anger. “This is different,” she insisted. “I married Clifford for life.”

“Yes,” Carrie said, with a growing anger of her own that she fought to control. “You married a man who promised to love, honor, and cherish you — not frighten you with threats, anger, and abuse.” She took a deep breath to control her anger. “I heard the things he said to you last night, Janie. I heard him call you stupid. I heard the rage in his voice.”

The tears that filled Janie’s eyes now were ones of shame. She lowered her head as sobs shook her shoulders.

The anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Carrie wrapped her friend in another warm hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, “but it’s not your fault,” she said firmly. “Clifford is a very angry man and he’s allowing his bitterness to spill over on you. You don’t have to let him.”

“Would you leave Robert?” Janie asked sharply. “Would you divorce him and fail at marriage?”

“Yes.” Carrie had already thought it through. “If Robert returned from war abusive and destructive, I would divorce him. It would break my heart, but I can’t expect anyone else to have respect for me if I don’t have it for myself first,” she said gently.

Janie stared at her for long moments before she shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t leave him.” Her voice broke as she shook her head helplessly. “I’m sorry, Carrie, but I just can’t.”

“It’s alright,” Carrie whispered back. “You’re making a choice. I’m praying you’ll find the strength to live with it.” Her voice grew stronger. “But you have to make me one promise, Janie.”

Janie peered at her through tear-filled eyes but remained silent.

“You have to promise me that if it gets too hard, you’ll come back here. That you’ll let me help you.” She grasped her hands tightly. “And you have to promise to stay in communication. I’ll write every week. You have to let me know what’s going on.”

Janie hesitated for a long moment and then nodded. “I promise.” She stepped back. “We have to go home,” she said. “It’s getting very late. I have some things to finish up before we leave tomorrow. I’m sure Clifford is getting quite anxious.”

Carrie opened her lips to say more but realized she had said all she could. She raised her hand and signaled to Spencer.

Matthew leaned back against the train seat and closed his eyes for a long minute. When he opened them, Aunt Abby was gazing at him with tender compassion.

“Long few days,” she commented.

Matthew nodded, rubbing his stiff neck to try to release the tension. “Long few days,” he agreed. Then he smiled. “I’m glad you’re coming to Washington, DC with me.”

Aunt Abby smiled back. “Me too. I hate the circumstances, but I’m so glad to have this time with you, and I wouldn’t want to experience this with anyone but you. I know that you know what I’m feeling right now. I’m old enough to be your mother, but I simply think of you as my friend.”

Matthew reached across the seat and took her hand. “We are friends,” he said simply. “But you are also my rock. There were so many times during the last five years that I wasn’t sure I could keep going. You were always there to encourage me and make me believe it was possible to keep pressing on.”

“We did that for each other,” Aunt Abby assured him. Her clear, gray eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Oh, Matthew…it’s really true that President Lincoln is dead. We are really going to his funeral.”

Matthew frowned. “It’s true.”

Both of them sat quietly, watching as trees flashed by. The train was crowded but eerily quiet. Every person on the train was headed north for one reason — to attend Lincoln’s funeral. Each person sat with their own grief and uncertainty about what the future held.

Matthew had expected the trains coming from northern cities to be congested, but he was surprised the train leaving Richmond was so crowded. It didn’t take him long to realize the train was full of northerners who had come south when Richmond fell two weeks earlier. They were all returning to say a final goodbye to the man who had held the Union together against all odds.

Matthew’s chest tightened as the reality of Lincoln’s death hit him once more. His eyes blurred as he tried to imagine the future without Lincoln’s steady presence and political savviness.

“What do you know about President Johnson?” Aunt Abby asked. “I’m afraid I know so little, other than that he was inaugurated as vice president just six weeks ago on March fourth.”

“And no one has seen much of him since then,” Matthew responded ruefully, glad for the question because it set him free from his own thoughts. “I’m afraid his inauguration was something of a debacle.”

“Oh?”

“He was already hungover from a party the night before, and then a few shots of whiskey that day had him quite drunk when he got up to give his speech. I understand he rambled on for quite a while, not making any sense for periods of it, before he finally sat down to let Lincoln speak.”

“Oh dear…” Aunt Abby murmured.

“He’s been pretty much hiding out at a friend’s house from sheer embarrassment since then,” Matthew continued. “He showed up in the Senate a time or two, but other than that, no one has seen him. I heard from a colleague at the station this morning that he had his first meeting with Lincoln since the inauguration on the morning of April fourteenth.”

Aunt Abby grimaced. “And that night President Lincoln was assassinated.” She took a deep breath. “Well, it’s certainly not a grand beginning, but there must have been good reason for Lincoln to put him on the ticket last fall.”

“Yes, there must have been a reason,” another man said.

Only then did Matthew realize their conversation had drawn an audience. Several men and women in the seats surrounding them had turned to listen, their eyes full of avid curiosity about the man who was suddenly the president of a country that had just ended a four-year civil war.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Matthew replied, glad he had recently finished an article on Johnson for the
Philadelphia Tribune
, and also thankful for what he learned from Sam in Richmond. “President Johnson grew up in poverty in North Carolina. His father died when he was just three years old. When he was ten, his mother apprenticed him out to a tailor until he was twenty-one. When he was fifteen, he ran away.”

“Rough beginning,” Aunt Abby murmured. “And now to be president…”

“Yes. He went back after a few years and tried to buy out the rest of his apprenticeship, but he and the tailor couldn’t reach an agreement, so he headed west to Tennessee and started a new life.”

“I heard he was quite successful as a tailor,” one of the listeners offered.

“And that he made even more money by investing in real estate,” another added.

Matthew braced himself as the train took a sharp curve and then nodded. “All true.”

“I also heard he was a slave owner,” another added angrily.

“And there is also rumor that the three children from his first slave are very light-skinned. People believe he is their father.”

Matthew nodded again, knowing that most of the people who had come down to Richmond were abolitionists who were eager to help the slaves start to rebuild their lives again. “That’s true too,” he agreed. Then he launched back into his explanation. “Johnson fought for the right to own slaves his entire political career.”

“Why did President Lincoln select him as his running mate?” Aunt Abby asked, suddenly aware her own personal affairs in the last several months had kept her oblivious of Lincoln’s choice — a fact she now deeply regretted.

“President Johnson was a staunch Union man,” Matthew informed her. “He fought hard for Tennessee to stay with the Union. When they chose to secede with the Confederacy, Johnson was the only senator from the South who actually kept his seat throughout the war.” He stared out at the darkening sky, and then continued. “Lincoln made him military governor of Tennessee when the army claimed the western and middle parts of the state. The Confederates were less than thrilled.”

“I imagine,” Aunt Abby murmured. “I understand his home and his business were in eastern Tennessee. What happened?”

“The Confederates confiscated all his land, took away his slaves, and turned his home into a military hospital,” Matthew said ruefully.

“Johnson also fought for slavery,” one of the listeners protested.

“That’s true,” Matthew agreed, “but he also created the Homestead Bill that became law in 1862.”

“President Johnson was the man who created the legislation that made homesteaders able to claim a hundred sixty acres of land on public lands?” one of the men listening asked with surprise. “That has sure helped a lot of people.”

“Yes. He tried to pass it in 1860, but Southern congressman rejected it because they were afraid most of the land would be claimed by Northerners who would then ban slavery in that state.”

“Tipping the balance of power,” Aunt Abby observed.

“Exactly,” Matthew said. “After a long hard fight, Congress actually passed it, but then President Buchanan vetoed it.”

“Why?” Aunt Abby asked in surprise.

“Buchanan was not willing to go against his Southern backers,” Matthew said simply. “It would have been sure political death for him to alienate all the Southern leaders, and he was also trying to hold the country together.”

“But it passed in 1862?” The question came from an immaculately dressed woman with sharp, intelligent eyes.

“Yes. It had already passed easily through the Northern part of Congress. Without pro-slavery involvement, it quickly became law.”

“If Johnson was so pro-slavery,” another man asked in confusion, “why did he introduce something that alienated so many of his colleagues?”

Matthew shrugged. “Our new president is a very complex man. I have no doubt he loves this country, but…”

Aunt Abby leaned forward. “
But what
, Matthew? It’s better for everyone to know the truth about the man now leading our country.”

“He has no sympathy for the Negro population,” Matthew said heavily. “He finally came around to the belief that slavery had to end because it was hurting the United States, but he has never pretended for a moment that he thinks slaves can ever be equal citizens with white people.”

“But why would Lincoln put someone like him in power?” Aunt Abby’s head was spinning as she considered the ramifications of Matthew’s last statement.

“Lincoln was impressed with how Johnson administrated Tennessee. He also believed that having Johnson, a Southern War Democrat, on the ticket sent the right message about the folly of secession and the continuing capacity for union within the country.” Matthew paused. “Lincoln believed Johnson was a good man.”

“And he never thought Johnson would end up running the country he fought so hard to keep together,” Aunt Abby said ruefully.

Matthew nodded. “That’s true.” His face said everything that his words did not.