Strands of Bronze and Gold (9 page)

June 15, 1855

Darling Junius and Anne and Harry
,

Are you impressed to receive a letter from me on this thick, creamy paper? With the de Cressac crest on it, please note, just like the letters that used to arrive at our house. And you should see my bedroom and the pretty little desk I’m writing on. I’m hoping you will see them soon. When you come, you’ll find me blooming—and considerably better dressed
.

You cannot imagine how I miss you all! Every other moment I think of something I want to say to you, but can’t. Yes, I arrived safely. I’ll describe the trip in a later letter. I didn’t write immediately because I wanted to be able to tell you more about Wyndriven Abbey and M. Bernard (which is what my godfather asks me to call him)
.

I’m learning my way around the house/castle/walled city. I will venture out to the conservatory and back tomorrow and shall count myself lucky if I’m not lost, to be found wandering white-haired and witless many years hence. By the time of your first visit, I shall be able to give you The Tour myself. Junius and Harry, wait until you see the armory! Such long swords. Very pointy
.

The household is fascinating. There is an army of African slaves, as I worried there might be, but there are also other kinds of foreign servants. The housekeeper, Mrs. Duckworth (whom, to myself, I usually call Ducky—since M. Bernard called her that once, and it fits), is British; Achal, M. Bernard’s valet, is Indian, and his main job appears to be gliding about on the dusky fringes, handing M. Bernard canes and things; the cook is French; and Ling, the butler, is a Chinese man. He’s very old, with long, straggly whiskers that look as if he might chew upon the ends
.

As for the Negro servants—there’s so many it’s a challenge to learn all their names. Why, there are two men simply to care for the candles and lamps (David and Clovis—there! I remembered). Our coachman reminds me of that client of Papa’s, Mr. McTavish. Except that Samuel Coachman is not fat or white or Scottish. I try to help Willie the gardener sometimes. I don’t think he’s too terribly bothered by it, but this is the sort of thing he says when I’m snip ping away at shrubbery: “Miss Sophia, you gotta be more careful. You just gouged a big hole in that there bush.” You’ll agree that being more cautious is good advice for the likes of me. I wish I could be friends with all the servants, but they won’t let me, so instead, I try to be dignified. That doesn’t work either
.

My godfather is all that is generous and welcoming. He’s a fine gentleman, and quite young, really, compared to how we thought he would be. He looks piratical. Did you ever suspect how fond I am of brigands? I’m anxious for you to meet him, as I’ve never met anyone like him before. It’s hard to imagine there could be anyone else like him. He treats me with great kindness. He is a widower a few times over, poor man. He is so good to me that it’s now my Goal in Life to help him be happy
.

I tell him stories in the evenings, as I often told to you, as well as other amusing and useful things I learned from my vast reading of ladies’ periodicals. The other day I informed M. Bernard how
The Girls’ Book of Diversions
described the best methods of swooning. Do you remember when I read it aloud to you? It said, “The modes of fainting should all be as different as possible and may be very
diverting.” Anyway, I demonstrated some of the modes of fainting we all (except Junius) devised, and he laughed and laughed. No, Anne, I was not being a romp—or at least not much—and he liked it. By the way, he doesn’t approve of corsets and tight lacing any more than Papa did. He compares them to the bound feet of women in China or the neck rings worn by some Asian and African tribes. Not that we talk of corsets or undergarments often
.

He loves to tease. He’s a great one for laughing. I like him so much, I would follow him around constantly like a puppy dog if he (or I) would let me, but he spends the days either shut up in his office with his agent (Mr. Bass—a thin, nervous fellow with a prominent Adam’s apple) or riding around to supervise his holdings, so I don’t usually see him till I’m dressed for the evening. It’s all so different from what I’m used to. From the time I get up until suppertime, no one tells me what to do, so I must tell myself what to do
.

Here is my daily schedule I have just now planned:

Ducky says perhaps M. Bernard will give a ball in my honor. How many times, Anne, did we imagine such a thing, and now it may come true. And I am
to have a French maid. Probably she’s to help me learn French. Are you snickering? True, it was not my best subject.…

Anne, what happened in the last installment of “The Bride of Lord Blackwood” from the
Ladies’ Repository
? I never did get to finish it. Remember how they kept referring to the heroine as “the laughing fair”?

M. Bernard has given me so many lovely things, and I feel selfish to have so much now, and you so little, but I can’t ask him for gifts to send you just yet, although I want to badly. I’m guessing it would sound rude to say, “Give me some presents so I can pass them on to my family.” I will send things just as soon as it wouldn’t seem awkward
.

Have you found employment yet, Anne?

Please, please, all of you, write me—in care of M. Bernard de Cressac, Wyndriven Abbey, Chicataw, Mississippi. After all, you do want to receive correspondence from me, don’t you? Interesting letters where I tell you details about the Mysterious Locked Folly or the Locked Chapel Gate or the Locked East Wing. I shan’t write them if you don’t also write to me
.

Yr. affectionate sister
 
(and Laughing Fair),
Sophie
                     

July 10, 1855

Dear Family
,

I was so happy to receive your letters a few days ago, but I’m a little sad to hear how things are changing at home. Somehow I want everything to remain exactly the same forever. It breaks a bit of my heart that you must let Bridget go and sell
the house. Anne, I’m proud of you that you’ve found a position. I wish it were something better, though. How annoying that women are so limited in their occupations. You write bravely, but from reading between the lines, the children you’re teaching must be little beasts. I won’t consider you a whiner if you complain about them in your letters. Go ahead—tell Sophie all the ghastly details. And, Junius, you know I have always been proud of you for going into the office every day doing a job you hate because you are Responsible. Responsible people are valuable. Not, of course, Harry, that you are NOT valuable. Do remember, though, that Papa let you sit out of school these months because you’re supposed to be preparing yourself for exams next year
.

You mustn’t fear that my time here will turn my head. Yes, I have a horse and a maid and jewels and heaps of lovely dresses and so on and so forth, but I’m still myself
.

I do worry over the debt I’m incurring. There’s no way I can ever repay my godfather. The tapestry I intend to stitch and the slippers I’ve beaded for him are of as much worth as the pictures I used to scribble for Papa when I was little. But how can I refuse Monsieur’s presents? Can I turn away a coquettish cap of bronze-green velvet topped by a pheasant feather? (You would love it, Anne.) How can I say, when M. Bernard clasps a velvet ribbon with an agate cameo centered on it around my neck, that I would really rather not have it? I cannot. It would be rude, and Monsieur delights in my looking nice, and besides, I really love the gifts. Do you understand my predicament? I know. You’re wishing you had such a problem
.

At least I do some useful things other than frolic about. I am becoming Well Educated. M. Bernard is widely read and sophisticated about so many different subjects, and he is teaching me all the time. Not in a pompous, annoying way, but in an interesting, enlightening way. I have had to practice subtlety since I don’t want him to know exactly how naïve and ignorant I am. I left normal school so
early, and I’ll admit now to whoever-it-was that used to lecture me—yes, Junius, it was you—that I read too many romances and too little else. Therefore, I keep still when M. Bernard speaks of unfamiliar subjects, and then I look them up later. Most of the books in the library are behind locked doors because of their value and rarity (although some of them must be quite naughty—those Monsieur says he locks up so the servants won’t be shocked or “titillated”), but the volumes of the Encyclopedia are out on a table. M. Bernard occasionally assigns me reading. Currently it’s
La Comédie Humaine
by Honoré de Balzac. Fascinating and disturbing. M. Bernard says, “Balzac writes of real life,” but I argue, “Real life isn’t always squalid, which M. Balzac seems to think it is.” I enjoy arguing with my godfather. Don’t worry, I’m still polite. I know you thought Balzac inappropriate for young ladies, Anne, but my godfather says it will widen my understanding of the world, and I trust his judgment
.

Oh dear. I’m sorry about that splotch. I’m training myself not to drip perspiration on the paper as I write (I am most careful to keep my arm from resting on it), but sometimes the drops fall before I can catch them. Sorry for being disgusting
.

Now, would you like to hear about the good works I’m doing? I bravely told my godfather our family’s problems with the institution of slavery. He was patient with me. He explained how generally slavery would not be a worthy thing, but how at various times in world history it’s been necessary and it’s necessary now, because of the economy and in order to care for the people who have already been brought over. He also pointed out that the slaves are not often cruelly treated. He says, “If a man has an expensive horse, would he beat it and injure it so it would be of no use to him?” He made sense at the time, but then, when Monsieur is speaking, he could say two plus two equals ten and I would believe him, although later I have questions. For instance, how can he possibly consider a person in the same category as an animal? (Although we do love horses.) I’m getting used to it, but
still, each thing an African does for me makes me uncomfortable. As if I should constantly apologize
.

Last week my godfather let me visit, along with Ling, the field workers at the plantation who are ill, so I could see how well his people are cared for. Ling administered Oriental herbs, and I administered soup and sympathy, but they wouldn’t say anything except, “Thank you, Miss,” without ever really looking at me. The Negroes’ cabins are small and suffocatingly hot and dark and, when they’re stewing chitlins (spelling?), foul-smelling. However, they’re in good repair and clean. (Chitlins, if you don’t know, are pig intestines.)

Monsieur also took me to the gospel meeting out there last Sunday night. He allows the slaves to hold meetings, but he himself is not a churchgoer. He went because he was the guest preacher. The regular minister is Willie the gardener. I heard Willie preach once during a Wednesday-night meeting out in the abbey’s pecan grove. In everyday life he is a gentle, quiet little man, but when he’s behind the pulpit, he becomes a Roaring Lion! (Not to be confused with a Ravening Wolf, such as mentioned in the Bible.) He bangs the pulpit, which is a log, and shouts and keeps everyone on the edge of their plank seats and has this mantle of authority I would never have imagined he could have. When I heard Monsieur’s text on the Sunday I went, I stopped wondering why he wished to preach. He spoke about obedience to masters and contentment with your place in life. Most fervent and convincing
.

The music moved me more than any I’ve ever before heard in church. Lots of swaying and clapping, with the sun setting brilliantly in the background. I swayed and clapped too, much to M. Bernard’s amusement. One song is still in my head. It went: “Oh, scoff, you scoffers, scoff! Them sinners who are scoffing can’t hear sweet Jordan roll.” When I first heard it, I looked at my godfather pointedly. He’s definitely a scoffer
.

Please write again soon. I adore my M. Bernard, but I adored all of you for
the first seventeen years of my life. I am very happy here, but would be happier if you were with me. That is the one thing that makes me less than content
.

Yr. loving sister
,
Sophie
             

August 3, 1855

Dearest Sister
,

I hope this letter finds you—

I take pen in hand to—

Please don’t show this to my brothers, Anne. If you were here, we would escape to some secret place—far out in the gardens or into one of dozens of rooms where we wouldn’t be overheard—and I would tell you Things
.

I dropped my pen and crumpled up the paper. How could I admit even to Anne the ridiculous feelings that stirred in my heart these days? I wandered over to the window. There was M. Bernard, striding vigorously across the lawn. My chest constricted in a way that was both pleasant and painful. I so loved his walk.

He looked up and saw me. He waved and I fluttered my fingers back. I watched until he disappeared into the stables.

It was nearly time to dress for supper. What should I wear? Last night he told me he liked me in white (“so pure and innocent”). Something white, then …

I couldn’t possibly be in love with him. Or could I? I pressed
around my feelings as one might press around a tender spot to see how sore it was. When I used to make lists of the qualifications necessary for my True Love, I would never have put “Godfather,” “Oldish,” or “Married three (I think) times” on the notepaper I decorated with cherubs and hearts.