Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 Read online

  Lena knelt on the floor as she began puffing items from the trunk, lovingly fondling each item. “This was my hope chest. My mother and my grandmother helped me with it. I had fine linens and quilts and tapestries, and they never knew I would never need these things on a poor dirt farm.” There was sadness mixed with bitterness in her tone.

  Feeling the need to defend her father, Kitty spoke up quickly. “You loved him when you married him, didn’t you, Mother? He’s done his best…”

  “That’s what he’d have you to believe,” Lena scoffed, frowning. She smoothed out a piece of delicate tatted lace. “We could’ve had a rich plantation if he’d bought more slaves, and bred them, and raised them to be a powerful workforce like Aaron Collins had the good sense to do. But no, he felt it was good enough as long as he could feed his family. ‘Fine things and rich living isn’t important enough to beat a man over’ he’d say. Well, you see what it got him, don’t you? Smell the fish cooking? Fish stew every night for a week now. I imagine the food is much better over at the Collins plantation.”

  When she was like this, there was no reasoning with her, Kitty thought. It would be wasted breath to try and convince her that John Wright had done the best he could for his family, without going against the principles of life he believed in.

  “Ahhh, here it is,” Lena pulled out a faded red velvet gown, smoothing out the tiny rows of bows and lace that were crushed and wrinkled. “We can pound it smooth with the pressing stone, and it will do just fine.”

  Trying to hide her disappointment, Kitty moved forward for a closer look at the gown. Maybe it wasn’t all that bad. It was too large, though, because she was a lot smaller than her mother had been even years ago. The velvet was hopelessly flat and crushed. There was nothing to do, she decided, but admit that the dress was all wrong. “Maybe we can make something from the petticoats.” She lifted the skirt and looked at the red taffeta underslips hopefully.

  “You can’t make a ball gown out of petticoats, child,” came Lena’s shocked reaction. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”

  “I can if I want to go badly enough. Maybe I can salvage some of these ribbons, too. And there’s a piece of nice lace. Maybe I can make do…” her voice trailed off dully. It was hopeless, but she didn’t want her mother to realize that fact just yet. When she was all worked up, as she was at the moment, it was best to try and let her down gently.

  “Slippers!” Lena cried, extracting a pair of molded ankle-high shoes with pointed toes and tiny buttons up the sides. “I wore these on my wedding day but haven’t had an occasion to have them on since. Try them on and see if they fit.”

  Obediently, Kitty slipped one on her foot. It slipped and slid on her heel when she tried to walk around the room. “We can pad the toes with something,” Lena said quickly, “…and where they’re molded, I can scrub them. They’ll do nicely.”

  “Well, what’s going on in here?”

  They turned at the sound of John’s happily booming voice. Without waiting for a reply to his greeting, he was across the room in two quick steps to wrap his arms around Kitty and cry, “Kitty, baby, you did it. Jacob told me how you pulled ol’ Betsy and her calf through, and I’m real proud of you. I couldn’t have done a better job, and I doubt Doc Musgrave could have, either.”

  Before she could speak, Lena slammed the trunk lid and got to her feet. “It was disgusting! It was absolutely sickening for her to be groveling in the straw, reaching inside a cow’s… Disgusting!”

  “Well, would you have had the cow and the calf both die?” John looked at her in wonder. “Be thankful Kitty had the good sense to think otherwise. We’ll have meat on our table next year…something we won’t have this winter—you can be sure of that. I didn’t find a single turkey today.”

  “Oh, Poppa, I’m sorry,” Kitty hugged him. “I’ll go out with you tomorrow, and maybe between the two of us, we can scare them up. We’ll ask Jacob to go along, too.”

  “You’ll be working on your dress for the party,” Lena sniffed.

  John scratched at his beard. “What party? Jacob said the Collins lad was by here today. Does he have anything to do with this talk of a party?”

  She hadn’t wanted him to hear it this way, but it was too late. Lena was only too eager to tell about Nathan’s visit to invite Kitty to a party at the Collins plantation on Sunday.

  John kept scratching at his beard, something he did when he was trying to sort things out in his mind. He pursed his lips, a sign that he was trying to find the right words to say what he finally had sorted out.

  He went into the kitchen, with Kitty scurrying behind him. “Poppa, what do you think?” she asked anxiously, “Do you approve of Nathan?”

  He sat down in his chair at the head of the table, then drew her down to sit on his knee as he’d done when she was a child. “Kitty, you know I’ve raised you to make your own decisions, and this may well be the first really important one you’ve been faced with.”

  “Nathan is a gentleman,” she reminded him. “He has a good name.”

  Nodding in agreement, he said, “I’m sure you’re right on both counts, honey, but you have to realize we’re living in troubled times. Nathan Collins and his family want slavery. I don’t. They want North Carolina to secede from the union. I don’t. They want war. I don’t. They’re willing to have that war and maybe get killed just so they can preserve the so-called right to own another human being.”

  He paused to take a deep breath and look directly into her eyes. “God never meant for a man to be bought and sold like an animal, Kitty. I’m a peaceful, God-fearing man. I’ve freed what slaves I had, and I try to mind my own business and stay out of all this talk of war. I’m mightily afraid, though, if war comes, as it surely will, none of us will be able to stay out of it.

  “What I’m trying to say is that I have all ideas that Aaron Collins won’t take kindly to his son courting my daughter, and you should realize that before you set foot in his house on his son’s arm. I’m not going to ask you not to go, but I want you to think about what you might be letting yourself in for. I’m afraid I have a lot of enemies now. But you have to make up your own mind about the way you feel.”

  Lena had been silently dipping up the fish stew into wooden bowls. As she placed them on the table, she grinned. “Praise be, John. For once, you’re staying out of the child’s life. If you’ll keep that up, maybe she’ll be lucky enough to land Nathan for a husband, and then some of the miserable years I’ve spent with you will seem almost worthwhile.”

  Years of living with her nagging had taught John that she only got worse if she thought her needling irritated him. Turning his head slightly so he wouldn’t even have to look at her, he turned his full attention upon the daughter he loved so much that it helped make up for some of his own misery in the life he’d shared with Lena.

  “Weldon Edwards is going to be at that party. You know who he is?”

  Kitty nodded, slipping from his lap to take a seat on the bench. “He’s a Radical, and he wants war.”

  “Right. He’s here to round up support for a secession meeting planned in Raleigh, and he’s also soliciting funds from wealthy slave owners like Aaron Collins to help finance the cause and get an army ready.”

  “I don’t care about that or the talk of war, Poppa, because I want to go to the party and just have a good time.”

  Lena dramatically pretended to drop her spoon. “Praise be to hear you say so, Katherine. Maybe the good Lord has heard my prayers, after all. You just go on to that party and keep your mouth shut about your father’s traitorous political views. You believe every word he says as though it were God’s own gospel. But you keep your mouth shut, and you just might snare Nathan Collins for a husband and find yourself living in that mansion of theirs, with slaves to wait on you hand and foot, and you’ll never have to worry about a thing for the rest of your life.”

  John slowly shook his head from side to side, a sad expression on his face. It became increasingly di
fficult to remember any love he might have once had for his wife. More and more, he was called upon to stretch the recesses of his mind to attempt to remember a good reason for ever having married her in the first place. Beauty? Yes, that was what had attracted him. Lena had once been beautiful. Not nearly so lovely as Kitty, but, back then, Lena had been the prettiest girl around. And sweet, too. She never nagged or complained, hanging on to his every word as she vowed that all she wanted from life was to be his wife and follow him to the end of the world, if need be.

  “Your mother makes it sound so simple,” he said finally, eyes grim above his wrinkled, sun-parched face. “Life isn’t all that easy, honey, and I hope you never get the idea that it is.”

  “Let’s don’t talk about it anymore.” Kitty felt uneasy as the tension in the room mounted. “I’ll go to the party and have a good time and won’t worry about political issues.”

  “You should never concern yourself with political issues,” her mother said sharply.

  John stiffened. Over and over again, he’d told himself never to drag out philosophies and ideals and display them for all to see and make light of. He would do well to keep his feelings and opinions locked safely inside. But more and more lately, with the countryside alive with all the talk of secession and war, it was becoming harder and harder to keep silent.

  “Politics affects women’s lives, too,” he said stiffly. “Why shouldn’t a woman be aware of the world about her? It’s refreshing to talk to a female who knows about something besides havin’ babies and cooking.”

  Lena’s eyes blazed. “If I had a servant to do all my work for me, maybe I’d have time to concern myself with other things. I’d sit on a porch swing and fan myself and spend my days reading poetry and approving menus and giving orders on how I want my house run. I’d have a baby every year like you’d have me do, because I’d have a wet nurse to take care of it.

  “But I don’t have the time to learn about anything else, because all I do is work my fingers to the bone around here. A poor provider you’ve been, John Wright. I’ve had to grovel for every bite rye ever put in my mouth since I married you!”

  Their eyes met and held angrily. John brushed at the tip of his nose with the back of his hand, then tucked both hands into his pockets, as though he were afraid of what might happen if he didn’t confine them.

  “And you’ve been a damned poor wife, Lena.” His voice came out hoarse and rasping. “I know you hurt a lot when Kitty was born, but all women hurt when they have babies. But you thought you were something special, and you didn’t like the pain, so ever since then, you’ve used every excuse you could find to turn me away from you. But you and I both know it’s because you’re not woman enough to try to have another baby!

  “Say it!” His voice rose. “Why don’t you tell the truth for once in your life instead of needling and nagging and lying about me?”

  Out came his right hand, and he balled it into a fist and brought it crashing down on the table, angry with himself for letting her rile him so, Each time she would start one of her attacks, he would promise himself not to let her make him lose his temper again…and each time he lost all control of his senses. He had never hit her. She had not quite driven him to that point, and he prayed she never would, but his hands trembled with the desire to strike her.

  Lena’s eyes were darting with anger as her tongue pushed against her teeth nervously, anxious to attack. Her body twitched with excitement.

  “How dare you talk to me this way in front of Katherine?” The words came out in a rush. “I wasn’t afraid to have another baby, you old fool. It was the thoughts of your touching me that made me sick. You’re lazy, John Wright…lazy and shiftless, and a nigger-lover to boot! You’re no good, and all our neighbors are calling you ‘white trash’ because of your fool Federalist notions. The truth is—you don’t want war because you’re too big a coward to fight!”

  Kitty’s eyes were on her father, frightened at the way the color was rising in his cheeks above his beard.

  Suddenly, swiftly, he reached down and snatched up the bowl of fish stew sitting in front of him, and, with one swift motion, sent it hurtling through the air to crash and splatter against the far wall of the kitchen. Jumping up, his chair falling with a dull plop onto the clay floor, he towered over Lena, his body almost convulsing in anger.

  “You get out of my sight, woman, or I’ll give you the beating you’re begging for. Don’t say another word to me, or so help me, I think I’ll kill you!”

  Face pinched, knowing she had pushed him as far as she dared, Lena swished from the kitchen and disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  John picked up his chair and slumped down into it, hand over his chest. Kitty started to get something to clean up the mess from the thrown stew, but she turned to him anxiously instead. “Are you all right? You look funny…” And then her voice broke. “Oh, Poppa, I hate it when you two fight like that!”

  “I know, I know.” He waved a hand in the air for silence, not wanting to hear any admonishment. “It scares me the way she can make me so angry. She makes me lose almost all control, and one day, she’ll bring out the worst…” He shuddered.

  Kitty went about cleaning up the mess from the wall and the floor as John sat in silence. When she finished, he stood up once again and held out his hand to her. “Let’s go out to the barn and take another look at Betsy and the new calf.”

  They walked side by side, hand in hand, across the bare ground. Next spring they would plant potatoes and beans and corn in the clearings beyond, and Kitty would be right beside her father, helping him furrow rows and little trenches where the seeds would be sown.

  It was a much different scene from the farm of Aaron Coffins, with his maybe four hundred acres, abundant with plantings of corn, tobacco, and cotton. Aaron Collins had the slaves necessary to work such vast holdings, and the threat of slavery being abolished caused him, and others like him, much apprehension and worry.

  John paused to stare out at the clearing, now raw and stubbled with broken, dying, cornstalks. “I believe those Scuppernong vines are going to have a good harvest next year, Kitty. You know what that means? I might just have a money-making crop besides the money I’ll get from the beehives.” He sighed. “If war doesn’t come…” His voice trailed off, evidence of his depression and concern over the clouds that were gathering in the South.

  Kitty didn’t want to talk about war. She chose instead to pursue the subject of the grapes. “I hope they do better than those vines you planted a few years ago. We hardly got enough from them to have fruit for cobblers.”

  “Well, I went to Raleigh about this variety, because I’d read in one of those agricultural newspapers about how the Scuppernong will grow in this soil, ‘cause it’s sandy. I talked to one of those agricultural men, and he told me all about setting them out…what to do for them and all. And it looks as though I just might have something.”

  “I hope so.” She squeezed his hand as he continued to gaze thoughtfully across the empty fields.

  “Tobacco’s going to be king one day,” he said. “No matter what them agricultural fellows say about abandoning it for a less demanding crop. Sure, it exhausts the soil. And I’ve read about how a planter should move his crop around each year from one acre to another, but how can you do that when you don’t have that much land to start with? Maybe some farmers will have to give it up, but it’s still going to be king. Remember that, because all of this will be yours one day. You learn what you can, and you turn this land into tobacco land. There’s still plenty of ground where you see all that timber over yonder. I’m not as poor as your mother thinks. As long as a man’s got land, he’s never poor.”

  He paused, as though lost in thought, then took a deep breath and went on. “Sure, I had to sell off some land now and then, and I hated having to do it, but I’ve hung on. I’d rather have my land than all the gold on earth, because you know it’s going to be there tomorrow. With money, you nev
er know.

  “Don’t ever sell this land, Kitty, girl,” he said, almost fiercely. “I’d rather see you starve to death, I think, than sell the Wright land.”

  “I won’t, Poppa,” she said firmly, “but if war comes…”

  “If war comes, we’ll lose everything.” He ground out the words. “Men who want war are fools. I say free the slaves and let all men live free. Let those with large plantations hire their labor or dig the soil themselves. War will destroy us. Civil war can be glorious news to none but demons or mindless fools…or maddened men. And I, for one, will never take up arms to defend slavery!”

  They walked on slowly toward the barn, each in private thought. Kitty pushed thoughts of war from her mind, and she thought instead of the magnificent Collins mansion, with its avenue of tall cedars leading the way from the main road around a circular drive. There was wisteria in the spring, glorious lavender blossoms splashing down over the verandas, bright and cheery against the white-washed brick of the two-story columnar house. And the lawn was green and rolling. It was beautiful. She’d been there several times, riding in the wagon beside her father as he delivered honey from his beehives to the Collins family.

  Turning her head slightly, she looked back at the dilapidated little house that was her home. Three rooms and the added-on kitchen. But she was grateful for whatever was given to her. She’d never coveted the riches and wealth of others. Sure, there had been times in the past, when she attended the one-room schoolhouse in the settlement, when classmates had snubbed her and the other poor children. But she had held her head up proudly, remembering her father’s declaration that “a man’s true wealth is valued by the purity of his soul”, and she liked to think her soul was pure, therefore making her extremely wealthy.

  “I had a dream once,” her father was saying, a faraway look in his eyes. “I guess you could even call it an illusion, maybe, but either way, I was going to take this land that’s been in the Wright family for two generations…and I was going to make it into one of the finest plantations in all of North Carolina. But to do that, I had to have slaves, and I didn’t believe in it then, just as I don’t believe in slavery now. So most of the land stands in uncleared timber.”