Infidelity: Manor (Kindle Worlds Novella)

  Table of Contents

  The Beginning of the End

  1858 – Child to Woman

  1861 – The Slaver’s Trade

  1864 – The Man of the House

  1859 – The Colonel

  1864 – Tobacco

  1864 – Money and Freedom

  1864 – Loss and Love

  1864 – Love and a Letter

  1864 – War and Loss

  1865 – Ghosts of the Past, Birth of the Future

  Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Romig Works, LLC. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Infidelity remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Romig Works, LLC, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  Manor

  By Ted Persinger

  Dedication

  This novella is dedicated to my beautiful wife,

  Thubtim Persinger,

  who is far better than I deserve,

  and to

  Aleatha Romig,

  whose caring, kindness, and support

  show her to be one of the finest people

  I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.

  Acknowledgements

  I first must thank Aleatha Romig for inviting me to write in her world. I’m so honored that a writer of her caliber would allow little ol’ me to share in her vision. If you have the pleasure of knowing her, you know that she is extremely kind and gracious, and I owe her so much.

  I also must again thank my amazing editor Lisa Aurello. It’s so wonderful to have an editor who respects your vision and works hard to help you realize it. Lisa, you’re aces with me!

  I’d also like to thank Kellie Dennis, Book Cover by Design (www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk). This is my first time working with her, but her cover was better than I could have hoped for. Thank you for giving this story a stunning cover!

  Lastly, I want to thank you, the reader, as you’re the reason we do what we do! I hope you enjoy this story!

  Also from Ted Persinger:

  Literary Fiction:

  Changes Series: The One Way, Book I

  Changes Series: The Juke, Book II

  Erotic Romance:

  Farfalla Series: Follow You Down, Book I

  Contents

  The Beginning of the End

  1858 – Child to Woman

  1861 – The Slaver’s Trade

  1864 – The Man of the House

  1859 – The Colonel

  1864 – Tobacco

  1864 – Money and Freedom

  1864 – Loss and Love

  1864 – Love and a Letter

  1864 – War and Loss

  1865 – Ghosts of the Past, Birth of the Future

  The Beginning of the End

  You’ve asked me for my story. It’s only fair, I guess, that you hear everything. There’s so much more to it, you see, than can be explained simply. So much that you don’t know. I’m old now, but I can remember being young. Younger than you are now. And I was very much alive. A young woman in her prime in a challenging time in our country. Since you’ve asked, I will tell you all I remember. I hope you’ll see a bit of my life through my eyes.

  All around me, the country rumbled. Impending destruction. An earthquake of change. I was the wife of the most successful man in Savannah, and I lived in Montague Manor, just as you do now. But the drums of war were pounding loudly. I was faced with challenges I wasn’t ready for. If I do say so myself, I think I handled most of them pretty well.

  I hope you’ll never know what it’s like to fight a war in your own country.

  Let me start where I need to as I begin the story. It was May 1861, there in Savannah, Georgia, in Montague Manor, only the second home I had ever known. It was hard for me to imagine, but I argued for the Colonel to stay.

  “You mustn’t leave,” I had protested. “I don’t know how to run the plantation.”

  “You’ll just have to grow up, young lady.” His face was grim, his eyes red and rheumy, as always. His tone dismissive, as always. “I’ve been summoned by General Lee himself. I’ve been commissioned in the Confederate army in my old rank. I can’t say no. Besides, this war won’t last long…a few months at the most. Don’t fret, little lady.”

  I hated his condescension, but that was his way. “It’s not about growing up…I don’t know the operation. You’ve never taught me any of the business.” He turned a sour expression my way, but I continued pressing. “Who is going to manage all this?”

  He didn’t say another word. He walked past me as if I didn’t exist. My pleas went unanswered. Later in the day, the carriages arrived, and his belongings were packed and loaded. He took two of his slaves with him and most of his expensive brandy. The rest of the house staff, by his command, stood on the large stone steps and waved to him as he left for Virginia. He didn’t even look up as the carriage moved down the oak-lined path. Sallie stood next to me. “Don’t you worry none, missus. I’ve been in this house most of my life. We’ll get through this. I know more than you might think.”

  I turned and smiled at her. She wiped the first of the tears that came down my face. “Thank you, Sallie. You’re better than I deserve.” We were already close, but we were about to become even closer. Though this was Georgia in the years of the slave trade, I never viewed Sallie as anything but a friend, and she proved the same love in return to me.

  She was right, of course. Sallie’s strength and skills carried the day and kept the plantation successful all the way until the end of the war. She knew the operation probably better than the Colonel himself. I was to find out much more about life through her, though it came at a troubling time for Georgia, the only state I knew.

  And the Colonel was wrong. More wrong than he could have imagined. The war didn’t end in a few months. It stretched on. The Confederate army started the war with a string of victories. The anger that had festered in the southern states, coupled with the wealth from the vast, ill-gotten gains of slave labor, made them ferocious, and the Confederacy looked like it was on a clear path to victory. Meanwhile, the poor leadership of the Union led to one bungled battle after another. Opportunities were squandered, and generals were fired. The South’s leadership was organized and handed a series of defeats to the Union. General Lee seemed unstoppable.

  I honestly believed that the South would win, maintain its independence, and that soon my husband would return to restore his control to the home and the farm, heavy on the lash, and that I’d be relegated again to his occasional plaything and party favor. I was already settling into the idea. But time stretched on. And on. There were no decisive victories. It just continued. And continued.

  And then Gettysburg. June 1863.

  Robert E. Lee sought a decisive victory against the Union and moved into Pennsylvania, into the heart of Union territory. He expected to use his wartime expertise to win some victories, make the price too dear for the people of the North, who would then push for peace and accept the secession of the Confederacy.

  Instead, Lee underestimated the situation, and he suffered a withering loss, paid for with the lives of nearly 50,000 men.

  Gettysburg changed everything.

  Lee hobbled his wounded and battered forces back south, and the Confederacy never won another major battle. The resources of the North had finally come into play. The advantage of railroads, international trade, and freed slaves as soldiers turned the tide.

  And those of us a
t home felt the pain of this shifting tide; the Union operated a blockade on our shipping. The wealth we had accumulated prior to the start of the war began to dwindle. The mathematics turned against the South, and attriting resources would be decisive. If we couldn’t get our cotton and tobacco out of port, we couldn’t earn money. We switched to domestic exporting, but nobody had much money. We were fighting a war, after all. Confederate currency would, by the end of the war, be worthless.

  I once hired blockade runners in an attempt to get a shipment of cotton to our buyers in southern England. The runners were caught. Our cotton was confiscated. Our labor was lost. The blockade runners were shot. Blockade runners were never an option after that.

  Thankfully, the Colonel had large reserves of money, and as long as the Confederate money stayed viable, we could purchase what was needed. The banks and lending houses owed the Colonel, not the other way around. When the Confederacy created its own currency, my husband exchanged all his “federal” money for Confederate. “It’s a new country, and we’re in on the ground floor,” he had said. This was a mistake that would bankrupt us in the end. In the meantime, though, we were surviving. Tight, but surviving. But by the summer of 1864, I was feeling the pinch of paying out more than I was taking in. The end seemed inevitable and bleak, like black clouds on the horizon.

  But when I thought things were bad, they quickly became worse.

  News from Atlanta told of an invasion by the Union forces, led by General William Tecumseh Sherman. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, in an attempt to overwhelm the Confederacy by making it fight on multiple fronts, ordered the attack deep into the South. We were shocked. More than shocked. The war had come home to us, and almost all the men were elsewhere. As my neighbors viewed it, invading soldiers from another country were marching down our streets and eating our food. As I viewed it, our chickens were coming home to roost. I felt we deserved this defeat, though I didn’t look forward to what was to come.

  Our ill-gotten gains were nearly exhausted, and soldiers in blue coats were just hours away from us. And where was my husband? I hadn’t heard from him in months. A woman left alone with soldiers on the horizon…

  As summer slipped into September, the city of Atlanta fell. To capitalize, Sherman destroyed every factory, railroad, and business in the city. Atlanta burned, then smoldered. The enemy was two hundred miles away, and Savannah was the target of his March to the Sea.

  The first bummers, foragers who sought food for the vast Union army, began to pick on the outskirts of Savannah in late October. Cows and hogs began to disappear, so we kept them close to the home to avoid theft. Then ships pulled into our port, though they didn’t immediately move inland. We heard reports of Union soldiers outside of our fair city, and we didn’t know what to expect. I honestly expected the worst. I expected mobs of Union soldiers to arrive, take all of our food, burn the fields, rape the women, and kill the few remaining men. Would we have done anything differently had Lee won at Gettysburg?

  One morning in mid-November, I was sweeping the great stone steps in front of Montague Manor. A storm had just passed through our city, throwing branches throughout. I was wearing winter clothes as the storm had been bitterly cold. I saw a blue-coated young man on horseback, coming slowly down the oak-lined path to Montague Manor. He had a single gold stripe on his sleeve, and he looked to be about my age. He was blowing into his pink fists to warm them.

  As his horse came to a stop in front of me, he dismounted. He tied the reins to the last oak before our home. I stood regarding him. He was handsome, but in a boyish way. His cheeks were as pink as a young girl’s best dress.

  “Ma’am, I’m Corporal Everston of the Union army. I’m here on behalf of Brigadier General Bradley. How do you do?” He tipped his hat.

  I curtsied. “Hello, Corporal.”

  “Ma’am, General Bradley is in need of quartering. Most of our troops are scattered in the field, but are moving into Savannah. He requires use of your home as he’ll need space to meet with his officers.”

  “I see. And if I refuse?”

  He ignored my question. “Ma’am, the general will be here in a few hours. Please make your home ready.”

  I didn’t reply.

  With that, he untied, then mounted his horse and rode out.

  Later that day, Sallie and I stood on the doorstep as twenty-odd men arrived on horseback with a single carriage following behind their contingent, pulled by a two-horse team. The horses had mud to their knees. The wagon was filthy with it.

  The men dismounted and saluted the man inside the carriage, who was climbing out.

  I didn’t know what to expect, but I hadn’t expected him.

  He moved slowly. He seemed weary. He climbed down from the carriage and spoke quietly to a couple of his officers. They immediately mounted their horses and departed. He took off his gloves and then turned to face us.

  He was tall and slender, almost reedy. Even from this distance, I could see his piercing blue eyes just below the brim of his hat. His jawline was square and strong. As he walked, his boots clicked on the stones. The brass buttons on his blue coat shone gold in the sunlight. His pace was unhurried, like a man who knew we would wait. He stepped up the stairs and tipped his hat.

  “Hello. You must be Mrs. Montague.”

  “Yes.” I did my best to appear confident. When his eyes hit mine, I blushed and looked down demurely. He had a presence, and I felt it. He had power, like a tall horse. An energizing presence. His voice was so deep that it rumbled my bones.

  “I’m sorry for this inconvenience, ma’am. It can’t be helped.” He paused, looking between us. “General Sherman has taken the port and will be in Savannah tomorrow morning.”

  “This is my assistant, Sallie.” I turned him toward her.

  “Assistant?” He smiled and tipped his hat.

  “Yes.”

  “Odd. I haven’t seen too many slaves here in Georgia called assistants.”

  I spoke very directly. “Sallie isn’t a slave. She’s family.”

  He turned back to face me again. His eyes smiled at me, though his mouth did not. And then they looked through me. I again demurred and looked away. His gaze was blue fire, which would burn me if I looked too long. Though we were outside, I could smell his skin, which smelled like the outdoors in a pleasant way.

  “Interesting. Well, I’d say you’re probably a rare exception here in the South.”

  “She is,” Sallie said.

  “For many reasons,” I added. Sallie and I smiled to each other.

  He again looked at me, and this time he flashed a smile back. White teeth, accentuated by his tanned skin. He looked at me with the look of someone who is waiting for a further explanation, but I would not give him one. He was, after all, invading my home. Invading my city, flawed as it was.

  “Well, General Bradley…” I gave an exaggerated curtsy. “Let me show you to your room.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I’m road weary and ready for some rest.”

  “Then follow me.”

  I led him into the house. He looked around with admiration on his countenance. He looked up the long flight of steps that rolled down to the entryway. We had the fireplaces burning heavy logs to combat the cold from the outside. I showed him the living areas, where the dining room was, and then took him up those stairs. Wilhelm, I’m sure, would have never imagined this contingency.

  “Ma’am, thank you for your kind accommodations,” he said as I showed him his room.

  “Yes, well, I had to displace a sick worker to house you. Unfortunate, but I guess it can’t be helped.” Though, of course, I wasn’t sincere about that.

  “Worker? You mean slave?”

  “Worker. My workers are family. I can’t house them all here, but I keep several of my closest associates and a few of my workers in the manor. When they fall ill, they live in the house until they recover. Please respect that.”

  “Of course…of course,” he said, shaking his head as i
f he didn’t understand the words I said. He then added, “I apologize for my terseness, but I must lie down and rest for a while. What time should I expect dinner.”

  “We expect to serve dinner at six o’clock, sir.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be down in a couple of hours then.”

  He turned into the room, closed the door, and I didn’t see him again until the evening meal.

  1858 – Child to Woman

  I remember my mother hugging me tightly that morning. August 7th, 1858.

  “But, Momma, I’m scared…” I had bawled, hot tears burning my eyes.

  “Shhh, baby…I know…I know,” she had said as she rocked me. My face was buried in her hair, and my tears stained the shoulder of her dress. “You’ll learn…you’ll learn, baby girl.”

  “I can’t love him, Momma,” I had protested. “I can’t…won’t he know that?”

  “Oh baby…” She took my face in her hands. “A woman has to learn to lie with her eyes, even if she can never lie to her heart.”

  The carriage ride that morning was the longest of my life. I remember every groove and bounce. The carriage groaned and squealed, warning me of what was to come. I could feel it calling out to me, like a soul from the other world. But I had no choice. I was sold. Paid for. Being delivered like a parcel as required.

  The family line of my maiden Bertsching hailed from Zumikon, Switzerland. My great-great-grandfather Wilhelm had sailed with General Oglethorpe on the Anne in 1733 and had helped build Savannah and the new territory of Georgia. He had been one of the early craftsmen and helped build homes for the newly minted plantation owners who used Oglethorpe’s own cotton seeds to build their farms. His skill at woodworking could be seen throughout the plantation homes of the wealthy families of Savannah. Everywhere we went, my pappy would say, “Do you see the crown molding in this home? Great-grandpa Wilhelm carved that from a single piece of black walnut.” He would beam with a pride he didn’t earn. Or perhaps he was flushed from the alcohol. I could never tell.