Ruth's Journey: A Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind - Softcover

Donald McCaig is the award-winning author of Canaan as well as Jacob’s Ladder, designated “the best Civil War novel ever written” by the Virginia Quarterly. It won the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction. He was chosen by the Margaret Mitchell estate to write Rhett Butler’s People, an authorized sequel to Gone with the Wind. He lives on a sheep farm in the mountains near Williamsville, Virginia, where he writes fiction, essays, and poetry, and trains and trials sheep dogs.

Ruth’s Journey

Refugees

WHEN AUGUSTIN PRESENTED the solemn, beautiful child to his wife, the angels held their breath until Solange smiled.

Such a smile! Augustin would have given his life for that smile.

“You are perfect,” Solange said. “Aren’t you.”

The child nodded gravely.

After due consideration Solange said, “We shall name you Ruth.”

Solange had never wanted a baby. She accepted her duty to bear children (as it was Augustin’s failed duty to initiate them), and with enough wet nurses and servants to cope with infant disagreeableness, Solange would rear the heirs the Forniers and Escarlettes expected.

But as a child, while her sisters happily advised, reproved, and dressed blank-eyed porcelain dolls, Solange dressed and advised only herself. She thought her sisters too willingly accepted Eve’s portion of that primordial curse.

Ruth was perfect: old enough to care for herself and appreciate her betters without asking too much of them. Malleable and willing, Ruth brightened Solange’s days. She wasn’t the precious, awful burden an Escarlette baby would be. If Ruth disappointed, there were buyers.

Solange dressed Ruth as her sisters had dressed their dolls. Although lace was scarce, Ruth’s hems were fringed with Antwerp’s finest. Ruth’s pretty silk cap was as lustrous brown as the child’s eyes.

Since Ruth spoke French, Solange supposed her family had included house servants. Solange never asked: her Ruth was born, as if in her own bed, the day Solange named her.

One quiet evening, before Solange closed the shutters against the night air, a pensive Ruth sat at the window overlooking the city. In that dim, forgiving light, she was a small black African as mysterious as that savage continent and just as assured as one of its queens.

“Ruth, chérie!”

“Oui, madame!”

Instantly so agreeable, so grateful to be Solange’s companion. Ruth admired those characteristics Solange most admired in herself. Ruth accompanied her mistress to the balls and theater, curling up somewhere until Solange was ready to go home.

Assuaging Solange’s grave loneliness, Ruth sat silently on the floor pressed against her mistress’s legs. Sometimes Solange thought the child could see through her heart to the Saint-Malo seashore she loved: the rocky beaches and impregnable seawall protecting its citizens from winter storms.

With Ruth, Solange could drop her guard. She could be afraid. She could weep. She could even indulge the weak woman’s prayer that somehow, no matter what, everything would turn out all right.

She read fashionable novels. Like the sensitive young novelists, Solange understood what had been lost in this modern 19th century was more precious than what remained, that human civilization had passed its high point, that today was no different from yesterday, that her soul was scuffed and diminished by banal people, banal conversation, and the myriad offenses of life. The daily privations of a besieged city were no less banal for being fatal.

Captain Fornier was stationed at Fort Vilier, the largest of the forts ringing the city. The insurgents often tried and as often, with terrible losses, failed to penetrate the French forts’ interlocking cannon fire. Sometimes Captain Fornier stayed at the fort, sometimes at home. The flavor of his bitterness lingered after he departed. Solange would have comforted Augustin if she could without surrendering anything important.

Nothing in Saint-Domingue was solid. Everything teetered on its last legs or was already half swallowed by the island’s dusty vines.

There’d be no French fleet fighting their way through the British squadron. No reinforcements, no more cannon or muskets or rations or powder or ball. Without a murmur the Pearl of the Antilles faded into myth. Patriotic dodderers urged uncompromising warfare while Napoleon’s soldiers deserted to the rebels or tried to survive another day.

As their dominion shrank, the French declared carnival: a spate of balls, theatrical performances, concerts, and assignations defied the rebels at the gate. Military bands serenaded General Rochambeau’s Creole mistresses, and a popular ballad celebrated his ability to drink lesser men under the table.

American ships that slipped through the blockade sold cargoes of cigars and champagne and departed with desperate military dispatches and Rochambeau’s booty. Smoke rolled in from the countryside to choke the city until dusk, when it was dispersed by the sea breeze and the hum of clouds of mosquitoes. It rained. Great crashing rains overflowed gutters and drove humans and dogs to shelter.

Solange forbade Ruth to speak Creole. “We must cling to what civilization we can, yes?” When their cook ran off and Augustin could not secure another, Ruth made fish soups and fried plantain, while Solange perched on a tall stool, reading to her.

High officers sent officers on desperate missions in order to comfort their widows.

In Saint-Louis Square, General Rochambeau burned three Negroes alive. In an ironical moment he crucified others on the beach at Monticristi Bay.

Every morning, Solange and Ruth strolled the oceanfront. One morning, the quay was packed with chained Negroes. “Madame, we are loyal French colonial troops,” one black man shouted. Why tell her?

Ruth wanted to speak, so Solange hurried her along.

Two frigates sailed out into a beautiful day on the bay, and at low tide, three mornings later, the wide white beach was littered with drowned Negroes. The flat, metallic smell of death set Solange to gasping. When Solange complained to Captain Fornier, his weary, tolerant smile was a stranger’s. “What else would you have us do with them, madame?”

For the first time, Solange was afraid of her husband.

The morning everything changed, Solange awoke to Ruth humming and the piquant odor of coffee.

Solange pushed the shutters open on a dejected straggle of soldiers below. What day was it? Would Augustin come home today? Would the rebels mount their final attack?

Ruth said, “What does Madame wish?”

What indeed? How could she be so discontented without intending anything?

Solange touched the gold rim of her cobalt blue cup. These walls, the walls of her home, were brute unplastered stone. Shutters of some native wood were unpainted. Ruth’s eyes, like the delicate cup, were rich, complex, and beautiful. Solange said, “I have done nothing.”

Ruth might have said, “What ought you have done?” but she didn’t.

“Like a silly amateur sailor I have drifted into very deep water.”

Ruth might have corrected this self-appraisal but didn’t.

“We are in grave danger.”

Ruth smiled. The morning sun haloed her head. Ruth said, “Madame will attend General Rochambeau’s ball?”

Solange Fornier was Charles Escarlette’s daughter, redoubtable and shrewd. Why was she reading sentimental novels?

Ruth said, “The general’s ball will be held on a ship.”

“Does he mean to drown his guests?”

Ruth’s face went blank. Had she known one of those doomed prisoners? Solange sipped her coffee. At her impatient gesture, Ruth added sugar.

A cobalt blue teacup on a rude plank table. Sugar. Coffee. La Sucarie du Jardin. The Pearl of the Antilles. The air was clear and cool. Had the insurgents burned everything flammable? Solange could smell the faintest hint of the island’s beguiling florescence. How beautiful it all might have been!

“Yes,” Solange said. “What will I wear?”

“Perhaps the green voile?”

Solange put her finger to her chin. “Ruth, will you accompany me?”

She curtsied. “As you wish.”

Solange frowned. “But what do you wish?”

“I wish whatever Madame wishes.”

“Then tonight, you shall be my shield.”

“Madame?”

“Yes, chérie. The green voile would be best.”

When Augustin came home that afternoon, she surprised him with a kiss. He unbuckled his sword belt and sat heavily on the bed stretching his legs so Ruth could pull his boots off. “Poor dear Augustin . . .”

His puzzled frown.

“You aren’t cut out to be a soldier. I should have known . . .”

“I am a soldier, an officer . . .”

“Yes, Augustin, I know. Your frock coat. It is in our sea trunk?”

He shrugged. “I suppose. I haven’t seen it in months.”

“Make it presentable.”

“Are we going somewhere? The theater? Some ball or another? You know I detest these amusements.”

She touched his lips. “We are leaving Saint-Domingue, dear husband.”

“I am a captain,” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes, my captain. Your honor is safe with me.”

Perhaps Augustin should have asked what and when and why, but he was exhausted and this was too complicated. He pulled off his uniform jacket. In socks and pantaloons he flopped back, grunted, and began snoring.

He has aged, Solange thought—surprised by her husband’s lined, weary countenance. She fled this too tender mood with self-reproach: why have I abdicated my responsibility? Why should a Fornier determine the future of an Escarlette? “Rest, my brave captain. Soon, our troubles will be over.”

No, Solange didn’t know what she would do She had no words for the bright life flooding through her, that something that set her eyes and feet and fingertips tingling. She was certain of only one thing: they must escape the small island. They had nothing here, neither plantation nor rank, nor the false assurance that today would be the same as yesterday. If they stayed they would be killed.

Solange would know what to do after she’d done it.

———

It was pure Gallic genius to transform the poor old barnacle-­encrusted, blockaded Herminie from a cannon-puffing, shot-­hurling French flagship into an Arabian seraglio, with red and blue and green and gold scrims fluttering from yards and braces, potted palms stationed on the gun deck, and lamps and candles positioned to imperfectly illuminate nooks as lovers’ havens. A military band tooted gallantly, and officers in plumed silver helmets toasted ­Creole mistresses while Negroes in red and blue turbans slipped among them recharging glasses. In a palm grove on the quarterdeck, Major General Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, Vicomte de Rochambeau, greeted his guests. General Rochambeau was explaining the American Revolution (where he’d been his father’s aide-de-camp) to an American merchant captain. “Captain Caldwell, do you really believe that General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown, ending the war and ensuring American independence? You do? Ah, Mrs. Fornier. You have neglected us of late. When was the last time we had the pleasure . . . the theater was it? That miscast Molière?”

The patch on the general’s powdered cheek may have covered a chancre, and when he pressed his lips to her hand, Solange repressed an urge to wipe it. “My dear general. In your company I had begun to fear for my virtue.”

Rochambeau chuckled. “Dear Mrs. Fornier, how you flatter me. Allow me to introduce Captain Caldwell. Captain Caldwell is Bostonian. The captain may be the only incorruptible man in Cap-Français. Certainly his is the only neutral ship.”

The general’s smile, like the man himself, was fleshy. “I don’t ask how many of my bravest officers have offered Captain Caldwell bribes—‘just a small cabin, monsieur’ . . . ‘a place in the sail locker’ . . . ‘deck passage’ . . . Captain, no names, please. I need my illusions intact.”

The American shrugged. “Money’s no good if you aren’t alive to spend it.”

Rochambeau had taken Captain Caldwell to Monticristi Bay, where skeletal remains testified as only they could. Rochambeau beamed. “How true. How very true.” He patted Ruth on the head. “Charming child . . . charming . . .”

As Solange withdrew, the general resumed his history lesson. “Lord Cornwallis was so chagrined at his defeat he wouldn’t attend the surrender ceremony, so, at the appropriate moment Cornwallis’s aide offered his sword to my father, the Comte de Rochambeau. The British surrendered to us French . . .”

The American guffawed. “That makes your father our first president. Anybody tell George Washington ’bout that?”

Solange whispered, “Discover. Learn everything you can,” and Ruth vanished like smoke.

The island’s passionate, primitive girls had rather disappointed Napoleon’s officers. Sad experience had proven that every alluring Creole girl had a brother in jail or a sister with a sick baby or an aged parent who couldn’t pay his rent. These dark-skinned succubi brought as many complications as satisfactions into their beds.

Solange’s usual escort, Major Brissot, was drunk, sprawled against the mainmast and barely able to raise his polished cuirassier’s helmet. She flirted dutifully with admirers, but what these gallants took for vivacity (some thought desire) was impatience. She knew what she wanted but not how.

Blackmail? On Saint-Domingue, who wasn’t corrupt? Who cared how many Negroes Colonel X had tortured and killed? General Y’s betrayal of French plans to the insurgents? Pish! Major D’s sale of French cannon to the enemy marked a new low, but, given the opportunity, what practical man wouldn’t have done the same?

In the end, Solange’s suitors sought easier conquests, and, beside her untouched champagne glass, she perched on the capstan waiting for Ruth and the child’s espionage. The moon marched across the sky, the military band grew discordant and put their instruments down. Laughter, glassware clinking, a curse, a shriek, more laughter. The American captain had gone off with a Creole girl. General Rochambeau had disappeared into the admiral’s cabin.

Chewing a heel of bread, Ruth perched on the capstan beside her mistress. She belched, covered her mouth, and apologized.

“Well?”

Whenever the wind changed and blew the British blockaders off station, Captain Caldwell would sail with many heavy chests (thought to contain treasure) consigned by General Rochambeau and an official pouch with military reports and favored officers’ requests for transfer carried by the general’s personal courier, Major Alexandre Brissot, Rochambeau’s sister’s son.

Alexandre had been shipped to the colony for conduct which, while not absolutely unknown was best practiced in a small—a very small—circle of peers. Alexandre had been indiscreet. Here, on the small island where murder, torture, and rape were commonplace, he’d been indiscreet again.

“He is a pede.” Ruth finished her bread and licked her fingers.

“Of course he is. Major Brissot is the only French officer who always treats ladies courteously.”

“Alexandre disgrace General Rochambeau.”

Solange blinked. “How could anything disgrace . . .”

“Alexandre and that boy, Joli. He loves him. Give him so many gifts other officers laughin’. When Alexandre uncle find out, he want kill Joli, so Joli run off. Joli ain’t come back neither. Best not.”

“Joli . . .”

“Alexandre warn Joli to run. General want hang Alexandre but can’t ’count he sister son.”

———

Many of the general’s guests had attained that plateau where they stayed erect by leaning against something and conversing with simple repetitions they needn’t recall in the morning. Servants had appropriated the wine...