Free New Mercies by Sandra Dallas Page B

Northern soldiers had ripped out the pages of books for toilet paper, then strewn the books across the floor. He declared the room looked worse than a buzzard’s nest. Pickett’s grandfather renamed his mansion to remind his descendants of the infamy of his unwanted Yankee guests.
    Mr. Satterfield told me the story as we drove up to the sprawling neoclassical home in his Ford automobile (which he called a “Fode”). When he turned off the motor, there was the sound of a fountain splashing. The fountain was behind the house, he explained, and we would see it when we walked in the gardens after dinner. Pickett’s grandfather had installed it a hundred years before, and when Pickett and her husband restored the fountain,they had searched in vain for water pipes. Then an old retainer told them that slaves had carried buckets of water up a ladder hidden in the shrubbery and poured it down a chute into a trough that led to the fountain. Natchez seemed to be about stories, and I hoped that some of the ones I heard tonight would be about Amalia. When I accepted Pickett’s invitation, I had expected nothing more than a pleasant diversion from the ominous duty of settling my aunt’s estate. But for some reason, probably curiosity, although perhaps something more, I had gotten caught up in Amalia’s death—and in her life—and I hoped to find out more about her over the course of the evening. I was beginning to feel a kinship with her.
    A Negro butler opened the door before Mr. Satterfield could lift the heavy knocker, and he ushered us into a large central hallway. “Lookit here,” Mr. Satterfield said, tapping the head of his walking stick on the top of a table that was inlaid with a marble mosaic of birds and flowers. “Shipped here from France and boated up the Mississippi. Now see that?” He tapped one of the birds. “The eyes are gone. Every last bird had its eye scratched out by the Yankees. They must have used their knives. Yes, I’ll be good and damned if they didn’t.”
    He sent me an accusing glance, as if I were responsible for blinding the birds. “Well, ’twasn’t your fault.” He thought a moment. “Miss Amalia never minded the Yankees so much, maybe because your daddy turned into one.” He asked the butler, “York, where’s Miss Pickett?”
    “They in the East Room, sir. You the last.” Since we were right on time, I wondered about Pickett’s remark concerning the South’s lack of punctuality. It was likely that the others hadgathered ahead of time to discuss me. Well, why shouldn’t they? After all, I intended to discuss Amalia.
    York led us across the marble floor, past a library where shelves were filled with old volumes, so either the books had been replaced after the Civil War or not all of them had fallen victim to Yankee sanitary habits. He took us into a princely room filled with rosewood furniture, ornate and old and very sharp, with cushions like boards. It might have been the most uncomfortable-looking room in the world. Modern chintz draperies kept it from feeling like a museum, but they added an incongruous touch of informality.
    “Well, Sam darling, how’s things?” As Pickett greeted her uncle, the conversation in the room came to a stop. He kissed her cheek and said things were okay. She turned to me, and warmly welcomed me to the Buzzard’s Nest, making me glad I’d come. “Were you cooped up with Mr. Sam all afternoon, or did you see anything of our town?”
    “I walked about a little this afternoon. There is an enormous white mansion not far from the—”
    “Yes, that would be Stanton Hall,” she said, interrupting me, probably in an attempt to forestall a story from Mr. Satterfield about the house.
    Taking my hand, she led me across the room as two men rose from one of the sofas adorned with filigreed wood. Two women sat in hard-backed little chairs with caned seats. They all stared at me so hard that Pickett laughed. “You must excuse us. We are all of us