Lost Souls Recovered

Dedication

To my parents

who encouraged me to write my story.

Epigraph

All that I am, my mother made me.

—John Quincy Adams

1 — Spring, 1887

Even with the War a little more than two decades in the past, John was a virtual slave, chained to the people who’d once legally owned his mother. At seventeen, and his youth pulling at him to go, to explore, to find a woman, he hankered to break the chain and go elsewhere—anywhere that wasn’t Richmond—but thoughts of leaving his saintly mother kept the chain in place.

His mother would die of a broken heart if he told her about what Madame Laura Billingsly had made him do a few years back. Laura had figured he wouldn’t tell a soul, surely not his mother, and certainly not Monsieur Tyrone Billingsly. Laura had been right.

He hated the suffocating mental cage Madame Billingsly caused him to live in; she had taken away his freedom to even tell a secret to his mother. As much as he wanted to mute the voices in his head telling him to kill Madame Billingsly, the voices lingered.

He stood one spring evening in the butler’s pantry and poured imported sherry into two teardrop sherry glasses as he had done so many times. He could pour exactly three ounces of sherry into each glass with his eyes closed without spilling a drop.

John was a lean, five foot, eleven inches tall. He had short, wavy, raven-black hair, russet copper-tinted eyes, a mahogany-colored face, full lips, and a slightly bent nose that sat atop a strong jaw.

Tyrone Billingsly demanded that John be turned out in fine clothes when he worked in the house or when he took Billingsly to town. So this evening he wore the usual attire—a white shirt with a stiff, standing collar; a black vest that closed almost at the throat, thereby almost covering his tie; a short, black waist jacket that exposed his shirt cuffs; black breeches; and black-laced shoes.

It was almost dinner time at the Billingslys’ mansion, also known as Billingsly.

Torrential rain had enveloped Richmond for five consecutive days. The crop fields, cleared by former slave labor, had turned into bogs.

Laura stood in front of the oversized roundel dining room window, her right hand pressed against it. She felt the window vibrate as the hail and rain pelted it. She looked at the leaden sky and wondered if the window, and all the windows in her mansion, would protect her and her expensive furnishings from the relentless barrage of water sent from above.

She saw in the reflection when Tyrone sat at the dining table; then she drew the heavy, ornate blue-velvet curtains and joined him at the other end. Just the two of them.

The Billingsly estate was large—both the house and the three hundred acres of surrounding land. The house was an eight thousand square foot, twenty-five room Greek Revival house, characterized by Dorian pillars that wrapped around it. Intricate wrought iron gates connected the pillars on the second-floor portico. The long entranceway leading to the front of Billingsly was adorned with live oak trees that were arranged symmetrically on each side. Sprawling gardens and landscaping contained twenty-four flower beds and twenty different kinds of trees. Seemingly endless walkways formed a maze. A heavily adorned pergola stood at the rear of the massive botanical garden.

Laura had been known to lose herself in the gardens after an argument with her husband.

When the last of the Billingsly children had moved out several years ago, Tyrone Billingsly had decided to reduce his kitchen staff, expecting that he and Laura could get by with one cook. Laura had protested, believing that her society friends would whisper that something was wrong with the Billingslys, that they were depleting their money. Tyrone had won that battle, but Laura knew when to keep her powder dry and when to strike with a full-frontal assault. Her husband had felt it many times before, as had Sam, John, Ann, and anyone else in her line of fire.

Sam, the Billingslys’ longtime cook, had prepared one of Laura’s favorite dishes for the evening: lobster cutlet, a pastry shell filled with a timbale of black grouse in a chestnut purée, spring lamb, and johnnycake.

The Billingslys often had a bracer before their meal. Today was no different. The sherry aperitif would be served at six-thirty as was their custom when Tyrone was in town. And maraschino cherry sorbet would be served at the end of the meal to refresh the palate.

John’s stomach gurgled and his hands felt heavy as he prepared to serve dinner to the Billingslys. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to exorcise all images of what Laura had done to him a few years ago and to slow his heart rate as much as he could. He stood ramrod straight, picked up the salver that held the Billingslys’ sherry aperitif, and walked gingerly into the dining room. He surveyed the dining table setup, hoping, praying, that he had set the table pieces to Madame Billingsly’s satisfaction. She was persnickety and the icy matron of the house. Everything was in place, and John’s heartbeat returned to its normal rhythm.

A thunderclap startled him, causing him to stop in his tracks. Horrible images of Laura resurfaced. His heartbeat quickened again, and his mouth went dry, anticipating some kind of rebuke from her, his perfect table setup notwithstanding.

A corner of the ornate Persian rug on which the dining table sat was curled up. John failed to notice it, tripped, and spilled the drink on the Ice Queen.

She shot him a three-second basilisk stare, then screamed: You stupid idiot!

As she used her white, monogrammed linen napkin in an effort to dry the amber stain from the lace on her pink satin polonaise, John said, I’m sorry, Madame Billingsly.

She raised her head from her dress, and John suffered through the same stare that could stop a charging bull in his tracks. He thought he had gotten used to Madame Billingsly’s obloquies, but this time they stung hard, penetrating the fortress he’d erected around himself to deflect her fusillade of contemptuous sniping. She had managed, though, to intensify his hatred for her.

Laura, it was an accident, Tyrone said.

Laura rose up from her chair in a huff, paused to steady herself from John’s mishap, and hurried over to look in the Louis XV gilt-framed mirror, which hung above the Louis XV-styled birch sideboard. She turned and eyed Tyrone.

John watched the amber-colored stain on her dress expand in size.

She stormed out of the dining room and ran up the garish, sweeping, walnut-paneled staircase, hurried to the master bedroom, and slammed the door.

Tyrone took in a mouthful of grouse, then suddenly dropped his fork.

The clank from the fork startled John, who was cleaning the table of the wreckage from the spilled sherry. John looked into Tyrone’s stoic gaze. I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t see the carpet was out of place.

Tyrone looked at the rug and nodded.

k

Laura stood in front of the cheval in her bedroom and removed her corset with the assistance of her servant, Emmaline, or Auntie Em, as Laura’s children referred to her. Laura was a petite woman with Victorian-pale skin and long flaxen-colored hair, which she often kept in a stylish chignon netted in black velvet. She was fastidious about her coiffure and had an on-call coiffeuse. Although she’d had a curvilinear shape that had caused men to ogle when she was younger, she’d begun to fill out after the last of her four children moved out. She allowed her expensive clothes to camouflage her amorphous shape.

Tyrone opened the stately oak bedroom door and walked in. Laura was in the walk-in closet where she had stockpiled her expensive and haute attire. Godey’s Lady’s Book, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Delineator kept her abreast of the latest fashions. Her wardrobe was replete with the finest silks, wools, and cottons. She had dresses for each occasion—day, afternoon, evening, and formal. Her clothes were needed for the bon ton who visited her. When robed in her togs, she exuded authority that exceeded her physical stature.

After making Tyrone wait for a sufficient amount of time, she walked out of the closet. His behavior was most unacceptable. I want that sprat out of here. I don’t trust him. Arms folded, she looked at Tyrone through narrow eyes, waiting for him to spill out the right answer.

My dear, it was an accident.

She tightened her folded arms, as if to wait for the right answer.

Tyrone stood his ground. For God’s sake, just let it go. That boy does fine work around here. Besides, I owe it to Ann to keep him here. And if I were to dismiss him, who’d serve you as well as that boy? He’s smart; he does what he’s told.

Her anger flared hot, she drew herself up even more stiffly and shouted a harsh retort. I don’t give a damn. She paused to let Tyrone feel her words.

He shook his head but said nothing.

She continued: Stop defending that insolent boy; I mean it.

She turned around to see Emmaline holding her black pelisse with both arms outstretched, mutely asking if she would like to try it on. Laura liked wearing her haute attire, even if for a moment.

Although Laura didn’t care if Emmaline heard her use disparaging language when referring to a Negro, Emmaline managed to escape such degrading remarks. Even after the War, Laura still considered Emmaline her property, for which she deserved some protection.

Although the irony was not lost on Tyrone, he didn’t say anything; he had learned to live with it.

Laura loathed that Tyrone had always been so paternalistic with his slaves and the ones who were his present workers. She thought he was too nice for his own good, failing to understand the immutable law of nature that separated the gentry from the untouchables, the mudsills.

John’s shift finally ended, giving him a reprieve from Laura’s painful disdain. He changed into his tattered togs, placing his work attire in a wardrobe reserved for the house servants. He stepped out the back door and quickly felt the driving rain on his face. He returned to the house and retrieved a mackintosh from the servants’ closet and donned it.

He cut through the Billingslys’ soggy, wooded botanical garden in the back of the estate, jumped a small wooden fence, and with anger fueling him, he sprinted a quarter of a mile to get home.

2 — Spring, 1887

Ann hung damp clothes on a rope line in the open room of the slave cabin she shared with John; it was a cabin along with others in the area that was built by slave labor a few years before the Billingsly’s slaves would have a place to live. When her body cooperated, doing the laundry was her job, as well as sweeping the floor, cooking, and washing the dishes. Her hovel was small, but it was hers, and she did what she could to keep it tidy.

She was a stout forty-nine-year-old with grape-colored skin and dark brown, recessed eyes. Tufts of unruly black hair dangled from her blue-and-white checkered madras tignon.

When not working at the Billingsly estate, John’s job had grown into hunting for food and doing whatever Ann needed him to do when her body failed her.

As she wrapped John’s trousers around the rope line, she winced at the stabbing pain in her back. She toddled to the wall and put her right hand on it to steady her balance. The pain began to subside after she took in three deep breaths. She knew the routine: Stop and breathe deeply. It often worked, as it did this time.

The front door flung open, and she turned slowly. John stood in the doorway, huffing, his clothes rain-soaked, his ego bruised. Ann had seen this expression before, an expression she knew could bring trouble to her son.

Something wrong? she asked. She pointed to one of the mismatched kitchen table chairs for John to sit.

John was too angry to sit. He wiped the rivulets of water that dripped from his hair onto his forehead.

You listen to what your mama say. Now sit, Ann insisted.

His mother was all he had in the world, so he dared not argue with her. He removed the mackintosh.

Ann wrapped a quilt around him. After John’s measured descent to the chair, Ann said, Now, tell me what’s on your mind, son.

He was restless, moving his legs up and down in rapid fashion, and he made fists subconsciously. I’m not working for Madame Billingsly again.

He told her about the accident with the sherry just ninety minutes earlier.

Ann was quiet as John droned on about Laura. Her mind wandered off to the time and effort she’d expended to convince Master Billingsly to hire John to work in his house. She had worked hard to convince her former owner that John was ready to graduate from the field to the house. In one entreaty, Ann had said, My boy’s ready; he’ll do you proud, Massa, as Ann continued to call him, even after slavery was abolished over two decades ago.

She had been an exceptional nurse to the Billingsly children before she’d developed debilitating arthritis in her back, which later forced her to stop working for the Billingslys as a house servant. Tyrone gratefully remembered that Ann had once stayed by his youngest son’s side for thirty-six hours, never leaving him—except for a few comfort breaks--until his fever broke. Despite Laura’s protest, Tyrone, in appreciation for Ann’s exemplary servitude, allowed Ann to remain in the cabin following the War, and he allowed her to feed from his trough of crops after she was no longer able to work.

Billingsly had worried that John was too young at fourteen and a half to do housework, but he’d give him a try. John turned out to be a quick study and was soon able to master the chores of a house servant, or garçon, as Laura frequently called him in a dismissive manner.

Ann had wept with delight when she’d first seen John dressed in something other than the rags he wore when working in the field and even in church.

John’s future was now staring Ann in the face again. John, my precious son, listen to me. It’s a good job for a boy like you to work in that house. Could benefit you later someday, Ann said while rubbing his cheeks with both hands.

John’s anger was still strong. Mama, you washed their clothes … nursed their children. You took care of them from head to toe. Same for that house. You even prayed and took care of Madame Billingsly when she was real sick. It’s too painful to even think about.

Ann reached across the table and held John’s right hand. In a notch above a whisper, she said, I remember when the mistress came down with the sweats. Yeah, we prayed. Massa said the prayers saved her life.

John hated that Ann referred to Billingsly as Massa and his wife as Mistress. As he grew older, he fumed silently every time he heard his mother utter those godforsaken words. She was still tied to the past, he wasn’t. She was born a slave, had been married, and had twin daughters before John’s birth. John was born five years after slavery had been abolished. John’s whole life lay ahead of him, one not fettered to the evils of slavery. I like Monsieur Billingsly; he’s done right by me, John said. He knew of my interest in wanting to read and write, and from time to time he or his pastor would help me with that. He said I was a fast learner.

Ann saw to it that John attended school in a nearby barn during the Reconstruction era where money from the government paid for the salaries of the teachers and meager school supplies. You are a smart boy. You learned things from that school in the ’70s. And you learned things from the pastor.

The mistress done good things for my boy, too. You learned French words from her, she said, recalling the times he’d talked to her in French. She was also pleased that her son spoke English well. Son, you talk like you got years of school; you learned that from the mistress; you once told me she often corrected your English.

John nodded to acknowledge there were some nice things about her, but not many. She just rubbed his emotions raw. The rape under the elm tree surfaced, and he flinched and said reflexively, Madame Billingsly’s not fit to be in this world.

Ann’s eyes widened slightly, and John decided to dial back his angry thoughts about Madame Billingsly. She nodded her head slightly to acknowledge that she understood her son’s complaint. John was no longer her little boy. He was in the first flush of manhood, becoming more independent, like a bird testing his wings to fly the coop. Many boys his age in the neighborhood had already flown the coop; it was just a matter of time.

Son, you becoming a man. Some day you be on your own. You handsome and smart.

Ann paused.

What’s wrong, Mama?

She worried about his future in a world of ever-lurking danger for colored folk. She hoped that his future would run opposite of the heart-wrenching hardships she had experienced as a slave. I want my boy to always do the right thing. I teach you that…"

Ann paused again and looked at John. I wish your sisters could see my boy.

Ann and her husband, Moses, had had twin daughters—Mollie and Sara. Ann had loved being a mother and doted on her children and, for that matter, all of the children in a neighborhood full of slave children. If a child’s trousers or socks needed to be darned, Ann found a way to do it. If a hungry child needed something in his belly, she found a way to allay the child’s hunger. She could never be faulted for an overabundance of care for her family and others in her slave community.

She, Moses, and her girls were going to be okay, she had allowed herself to think, even though Walter Windsor could easily sever her family. It didn’t matter that Windsor had allowed Ann and Moses to marry. They were chattel, and Virginia didn’t recognize chattel marriages. Echoing the words of the white preacher who officiated at their marriage ceremony, they vowed to stay together ’til death or distance do us part. Ann and Moses knew what distance meant and worked tirelessly for Windsor to show him that they were faithful servants, that there would never be a need to break up their family.

Their tireless work meant nothing to a man who was desperate for hard currency. As the War drew nigh, with the air laden with talk about dividing the country and South Carolina, the first state on the brink of secession, Windsor sold Moses to a Kentucky plantation owner, causing Ann to become distraught following the separation from her husband. She wondered whether the end of her time on earth was near. But she knew that she had to plod on; she was left to raise her twin daughters without the steady hand of their father, the same steady hand that had plowed Windsor’s fields for years.

Less than a year after the War started, Windsor sold Ann to Tyrone Billingsly. She was content to work for Billingsly, who did not beat her, unlike Windsor and his henchmen.

Ann and her young daughters lived in one of the clusters of slave cabins that Billingsly had built for his slaves near Billingsly, the name of Tyrone and Laura Billingsly’s estate. It was officially known as Billingsly Manor, but most people called it Billingsly. If there was ever such thing as a benevolent slave owner, Tyrone Billingsly came close to meeting the definition. But even Billingsly had adhered to the philosophical underpinnings of slavery.

The spiritual life of slaves, like many things in their world, was a contested space. White Christian slave owners vacillated between their hope that religion would make their slaves docile and obedient and their fear that the central tenet of their religion—equality before God—would encourage slaves to rise up against their oppressors. Tyrone Billingsly tried to find the religious center of gravity for his slaves. He allowed his slaves to worship, hoping that they’d be appreciative of his generosity and strive to be efficient workers. He was careful, though, to retain a white preacher to lead the worship to make sure that the slaves understood the correct version of the Bible.

Things went from bad to worse for Ann after her eight-year-old twin daughters died of cholera a couple of years after the War ended, causing her to suffer from deep malaise. When not working at Billingsly, tending to laundry and cleaning duties, she was pretty much immured in her cabin.

In the midst of her malaise, she fell victim to a gang of marauding white men who raped her. She had no strength to fight her scrofulous assailants, allowing herself to fill her head with the thought that she would soon be in a heaven with Moses and her twin daughters, a place where no one could harm her anymore. She survived the attack and later blamed herself, just like she blamed herself when Windsor was drunk and beat her just because he could. When she told Tyrone Billingsly about the rape, he vowed to catch the men who did it, but it was never his priority.

Ann’s soul, which had been rended immediately after her two daughters died, began to repair itself with new life inside of her. John Moses, her new son, gave her a renewed life and a reason to live and allowed her to escape a hell of death and savagery that had ravaged her body, mind, and soul for so long. She didn’t know how or if it would come to pass, but she’d often pray, as she held him snuggly in her arms as an infant or held his hand as he got older, that another world awaited him, a world of freedom, independence, and respect. She’d tell him time and again that he was a special boy that God had put inside of her, so he could grow to right the sinking ship of so many Negroes. That was her dream, but all she really wanted was for him to have a better life than she had.

Even as a little boy, John knew that he didn’t like Richmond because he had seen —as far as his young mind could comprehend—how it had broken his mother. He felt the urge to run away, but he didn’t know where he’d run because all he knew was a neighborhood of Negroes who lived in slave cabins.

To settle the mind of her eight-year-old son, she’d take him to an oasis of freedom to let him free his mind of worriment about the long tribulations of his mother. She was nearly fifty, and John, who was just eight, told Ann that he was the man of the house as a way of letting her know she’d be all right with him around. Too much for a young boy, so Ann figured he could free his mind from the strictures and daily hardship of being a Negro in 1878 by having him spend time at Blue Pond.

Ann carried the bamboo fishing pole and bait jar, and he’d carry the red pail to put bluegill, crappie, and other panfish in. She had not only taught him how to fish, she’d also shepherd him through the trees, bends, and turns to get to and from the pond. As he got older, he’d mastered the route and no longer needed to clutch onto his mother’s coattails.

With the freedom to go to the pond by himself as he got a bit older, John did so on a torrid August afternoon that baked everything in its path. He’d find himself going to the pond frequently as it was a form of succor for John, a place to go for the son of a former slave to think about his future. There just had to be a bigger life somewhere else that awaited him. He knew he and his mother depended on each other as they knew no other family in the world. He knew he’d have to leave Richmond soon to live a bigger life, he just didn’t know when that time would come. He didn’t even know where he’d find a bigger life—just that whatever else lay beyond Richmond had to be better.

John had the large pond to himself; it was high noon and torrid for other bathers. He took off his moccasins and waded in the water, mindlessly scraping the bottom of the pond with his feet and using his hands to move spidery white lilies out of his way. Dark shadows moving around in the water captured his attention.

He sat down in the shoal area, using both hands to anchor himself against the bottom as the water settled just beneath his chin. He plunged his head in the water to get a closer look at the tadpoles, opened his eyes, and was now immersed in their world, one he didn’t understand. A tadpole swam to John, close enough to tickle his nose. John reached out to grab the tadpole, but it swam off where he saw it hide under a rock. John came up for air, balancing himself with both hands, and thinking about the world in which the tadpoles lived.

He submerged his head several times, just long enough to satisfy himself that the tadpoles believed he was a friendly face, someone to look after them. Unable to winnow out the error of his logic in his young mind, he decided that the tadpoles needed to be free, so he removed as many rocks around him as he could and then tossed them ashore. With his guiding hand, the tadpoles would have a life of freedom that he envied. Although not yet ten years old, he already knew that his destiny was predetermined by the color of his skin. It didn’t matter that he was one-half Negro and one-half white—he looked like a Negro and that would be enough for the white populace to deny him the true freedom his people sought, his mother often told him. But that never stopped Ann from praying that her son could contribute to a different outcome.

During his many subsequent visits to Blue Pond, he retrieved rocks from the pond and placed them under the limbs of a sycamore tree. One day, he decided to use his cache of rocks by throwing them across the pond. He was throwing away the yoke of tyranny for the tadpoles and perhaps for himself someday. Each rock he threw landed in the water, never quite reaching the far shore.

After weeks of trying, his efforts paid off. He had perfected his pitch and was able to send the rocks sailing to land about 100 feet on the other side of the pond. The tadpoles would thank him someday. His voice pitched high with excitement, he boasted to his mother about his conquest, proud of what he’d done.

He continued to go to his oasis and throw rocks across Blue Pond. Not only could he throw rocks across it, but he also honed his skills to be able to hit a silver maple tree ten feet from the edge of the pond. The multiple nicks in the tree bark bore testament to his accuracy.

On one windy day, one of John’s rocks went astray and struck a little Negro girl in the head. He had been at the pond for a few hours, frolicking with tadpoles and tossing rocks, and was not aware of the girl’s presence until he heard her piercing screams. They rang like his mother’s wailing screams, reminding John of his mother. John knew what had happened. He ran over to the girl. She was about a foot shorter than John, and he saw right away that she was bleeding on the right side of her head.

Didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident, he said, looking at her, not sure what to do.

The little girl continued to wail, knocking his hand away as he tried to console her. Although he wasn’t sure, John believed that he had seen the girl, who had two long, familiar-looking pigtails, in church, along with her mother. His brain quickly confirmed that she was indeed the little girl who attended church with her mother, and that she always wore the same dress.

I know you, John said in an effort to calm her. I’ve seen you in church with your mother. I’m John. What’s your name?

She said nothing as she looked up to John’s eyes that were welling with tears.

John’s anxiety level increased when the blood failed to abate after a few minutes, dripping from the little girl’s chocolate-colored right hand onto her threadbare yellow cotton dress at a steady rate. Each drip of blood rang loud in his head, searing his mind, which was riddled with terror. He panicked and ran the mile to get home, hoping that as each stride put a distance between him and his victim, he’d forget about it and so would she.

The girl told her mother about the incident, and the mother stopped by Ann’s cabin a few hours later to apprise her of the incident. Ann thanked her and gave her some corn pone and told her she would see her in church. Ann knew how she would have to handle it.

John, come here, Ann said while he was outside talking to a neighbor from the adjacent slave cabin. Suppose that was a white girl you’d hit. We’d be in a heap of trouble.

John looked down at the dirt lot outside their cabin.

Look at me, son, she said, raising his chin with her right hand.

But Mama, it was an accident. I didn’t see her.

She stroked his head as she held it tight against her chest.

Is she okay, Mama?

Think so.

Ann wouldn’t whip him for his errant behavior. She never did, as she was imbued with incredible compassion. She knew what it was like to be whipped. The cicatricial marks on her back bore testament to the many lashes she’d received as a slave on Walter Windsor’s plantation.

John looked down and made S shapes with his right foot in the dirt. He looked up at Ann and said, I hate this place.

3 — Spring, 1887

Regardless of his anger, John reported to work the next day after his contretemps with the sherry.

He heard Tyrone’s slow footfall coming in his direction as he mopped the Italianate white marble floor in the foyer.

Billingsly cleared his throat. John cocked his head and looked up at the patriarch of Billingsly.

John stood up and faced him.

Billingsly put his right hand on John’s left shoulder and looked in John’s eyes, which were set under long, thick black lashes. John had mostly seen Billingsly’s eyes soft, but they sometimes turned opaque when he had a fight with his wife or when he was involved in a business dispute. Billingsly rubbed the stud in his left shirt cuff with his right thumb.

John had seen that foreboding gesture before.

As much as Laura protested about John’s behavior, she knew Tyrone was right about one thing: John was a hard worker; he did what he was told. Rather than fire him, she’d exact her revenge in another manner. Laura had demanded that John work in the field for a few months, but Tyrone negotiated a shorter sentence. I’m going to need you to help Edmund take care of the tobacco field; it’ll be just for a couple of weeks.

Despite Laura’s flammable temper, John had come to recognize his mother’s wisdom regarding the advantages of working inside Billingsly as long as he could compartmentalize his hatred from Madame Billingsly. Working there was a desideratum—it made him smarter, which he’d figured as a teenager on the edge of manhood would someday be a serviceable quality. He hated doing back-breaking tobacco work. It was pure drudgery from beginning to end—he’d envied the mules he’d used to work the land because of the respite they got during the day when he’d have to put tobacco leaves in the barn for curing and grading. He thought about asking why he’d been relegated back to doing that kind of work but decided against it. He knew the answer.

In the end, John’s sentence working in the field went from a couple of weeks to one month. He figured that Madame Billingsly had somehow stuck it to him again. But he was relieved his sentence ended on time as Monsieur Billingsly had promised, and he returned to Billingsly.

Billingsly, of Scots-Irish ancestry, was rangy and had a high, slanted forehead and craggy face. He had deep-set gray eyes with a hint of blue, like the sea in a northern latitude, and they could be soft or hard as the situation demanded. He wore clothes from the finest tailors in London. Where he could be jaunty, beguiling, and patient, Laura was regularly shrewish, spiteful, and bumptious.

Wealth had always surrounded Tyrone Billingsly. His father was a wealthy businessman and his mother a wealthy heiress. Billingsly’s father had paid for Tyrone’s Oxford University education, but he hadn’t asked his father for much money after college, although his father lavished him with it and assorted valuables from time to time.

His fortune derived largely from the foundry business. Though his loyalty to the South was a given, he’d often take the train to Northern states to meet with businessmen who were interested in doing business with him—but that was before South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. At that time, money was money, and he did not discriminate against business outside of the South—he’d need lots of it to maintain the lifestyle of his wife.

Before Billingsly’s climb to the top in the business world stopped, Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works had been one of Billingsly’s biggest customers, supplying it with iron ore and metal materials used to make iron. Tredegar had been the South’s largest major antebellum rolling mill, at one time fabricating cannons and gun carriages for the United States government.

Once the War started, Tredegar became a vital ingredient to the South’s winning the War; it was the industrial heart of the Confederacy. With sky-high demand for iron to build ships to protect Richmond from Union forces, Billingsly worked feverishly to supply Tredegar with his materials, and his finances swelled in return. And like his father, he’d see to it that his wife and children benefited from the spoils of his wealth. When Tyrone’s children were young, he’d taken them and his wife to Paris and other European cities about once every two years. His wealth allowed him to build Billingsly,