Letters of Alethea Amanda Harmon Eaton ("Ailey")

[thea_447]

The description of my ficticious character, Alethea Amanda Harmon Eaton (nickname "Aley", pronounced "Ailey") can be found in the Poke Sack under CWT Serial Persona bios in my post #1458, Nov. 21, 2004.
http://civilwartalk.com/depot/messag...tml?1101443571

With permission from Dawna, my first letter is to her character, Mattie.
*********************************************

Salisbury, N.C.


My dear Mattie,

Please forgive my tardiness in writing to you on the death of your beloved Papa. I have absolutely no excuse for such behavior other than to say I have not kept up with news of our families as I should due to the volatile nature of our times. Things are happening so quickly, Mattie dear, and you know I've always been keen to be in the thick of it. Although with my Charles gone now, God rest his soul, my circumstances are vastly different.

But knowing how our two families were such great friends and that you and I have been, in years past, as close as two young girls could possibly be, I know that they would want me to invite you to come to me and visit for as long as you wish, dear Mattie. When one has suffered a grievous loss, and I speak from experience here, friends and family are the only consolation that is left us.

Now let me say this and we need never speak of it again, my friend. I have heard the tiniest bit of scurillous talk of such a nature that I hope to heavens that it cannot possibly be true. I speak of course of what that odious Little Miss Tattle Tale, Jane Scrambidge told me. She said that your husband, I won't even utter his callous name, ran off and left you, without home, hearth, or even a month's rent.

Mattie, whatever has befallen you, dear girl, I want you to come away from that place and take refuge with me until we can figure out what's to be done. You need time to come to terms with his abandonment and when you are ready, we will find some proper means of employment for a lady of your station.

Please don't stand on false pride, Mattie. We have known each other almost from the cradle and I know you would offer the same to me in a heartbeat.

Therefore I'm enclosing a bank draft which I hope will be sufficient to remove you from that place and send you speeding here to my Papa's home where you can stay with me for as long as need be while you recover your bearings.

I hope I have not spoken out of turn, Mattie. Please forgive me if I have offended you in any way. I would not have it so for the world.

Times are changing and we women, I feel, will find a new world has opened for us, whether we wished it or no.

Here you can help me nurse my dear Gran. She's had another attack of erysipelas, this latest eruption started on her chin but has spread to her nose. I feel it has hurt her feelings more than anything else. Gran is rather prideful in her appearance I fear, and if you remember her, she is a rather formidable woman on any given day. She still has that remarkable ability to make me feel five years old with just a lift of her eyebrow!

If you do not feel that you can travel alone I can send Lucy to accompany you. No one would dare accost you with Lucy guarding the bastion of your womanhood! Ha ha!

I will be anxiously waiting to hear from you and I am truly looking forward to your visit. This is rather selfish of me, Mattie, but I have never made friends easily and you and I have always fit like matched gloves.

In the meantime I must get busy. I am hosting two "nog" parties over the next two evenings. I have 20 dozen eggs and will be putting them to good use. In addition I have sent 6 turkeys, 5 chickens, and 8 messes of greens to the Salisbury Home for Orphans. Christmas is slightly past now but I think those poor unfortunate children need fulfilling nourishment more than one day out of the year. I have also sent word that I will come to help mete it out for dinner for the children and the adults there. (This is so that I will see for myself that all of the food actually goes on the tables for those poor children.)

With sincere affection for the friendship that we've shared lo these many years and looking to the future when we will be together once more to share both our griefs and our happiness.

Till we meet again, I remain your most obedient servant and friend,
Ailey

[dawna]

My Dearest Ailey:

I have no words to express the joy and heart-felt gratitude with which I received your letter today. It is possible that God may have a plan for me after all for surely Providence has finally decided to shine down on me. I can scarcely believe that you have found me or that your letter has made it such a distance during these turbulent times.

I have so much to tell you yet I hardly know where to begin, and since my writing paper is scarce these days I will line the borders when I must. We have both suffered such terrible losses and I know how much you adored Charles; yet your letter is depictive of your generous and indomitable spirit - thinking of others long before you would ever consider your own hardships. I have always loved you for this, my dear friend, and even a war cannot diminish your ability to sparkle.

I must thank you firstly for the generous bank draft that you have enclosed with your letter, and secondly for your kind offer to spend time with you and Gran; the latter is possible but would require a carefully woven plan of deceit. How I would love to see again the only woman who has ever been able to discomfort me with just one look, or to see through our girlish plots and schemes long before we courted certain disaster! It would seem that Gran has not changed in the least way and it pleases me to hear that your beloved grandmother is as vain as ever regarding her appearance; but of course I am sorry to hear that Gran is enduring yet another attack of erysipelas.

I will keep your bank draft for now but I will not use it unless my circumstances change and I am forced to travel with haste to Salisbury. These times are dangerous and I fear for you and your Grandmother; I'm certain that you must be suffering shortages and other hardships in Salisbury too numerous to mention. I can tell you with sober earnestness Ailey that this suffering country is on the verge of an even worse calamity than you or I could ever have imagined. I sometimes overhear conversations in M. Josephine's private parlour and I have the greatest concern that something dreadful is in the works.

I can only thank you for having the good manners and grace not to mention the nature of my employment, or how it is that I have come to work in this establishment. If Miss Scambridge has managed to find out that my husband abandoned me then it is possible that her family may know more of my whereabouts than they lead you to believe. I pray that it is otherwise for I would never put you in an awkward position in your own home town if the general population is aware of my employment as a "ceiling expert."

I can tell you with confidence, dear friend, that it is easier than you might think. I have worn my ceiling out painting Michael Angelos' over and over again, while my clients use me as a vessel for their desires. Welcome thoughts drift through my mind and often I find you and I flying around the fields on our first ponies, while our parents gently chide our reckless abandon. Dreams and imagination are more powerful weapons than any cannon or gun, but with the least possible encouragement, can be summoned up at the best of times, or at the very worst.

A Union regiment under the command of Johan Steele has been stationed outside of Chattanooga for several months now and I have been communicating with a young private by the name of Seth Barnaby. We had occasion to take a walk several nights ago and I can tell you that Mr. Barnaby is the most delightful conversationalist and a rare and true gentleman. Mr. Barnaby has become a welcome friend and confidante and I know that you would like him very much. I'm not certain if my new friend and I will have the opportunity to meet again but it is my fervent wish that we do so. I think that I might somehow remind Mr. Barnaby of his youngest sister back home.

Please give me time to think about your very generous offer (I have been saving and planning for a small business venture) and I pray that I will hear from you again soon, and that your Grandmother's health will continue to improve.

With deep affection, I remain Your Friend,

Mattie

[thea_447]

Salisbury, N.C.

Dearest Mattie,
I have waited anxiously lo these months hoping that you would take pity on me and brave the dangers of travel in these times but I have had no word other than one letter from you.

Mattie, I have read and re-read your letter and I'm compelled to say that I think you put entirely too much stock in what others will think of "me" for taking you in. Fa La! It is truly not a matter of charity on my part, but to put it bluntly, since you've forced me into this position, I am quite lonely.

True, I have Gran, and she's good enough company when these attacks of her erysipelas don't turn her usually rye humor into grumpiness, but it is not the same as having someone your own age to share confidences with on cold, gloomy nights.

And I want you to tell me the truth about this. I feel strong enough in our past relationship that you will say yea or nay on the issue of North vs. South.

As you know my Charles was an assistant under President Buchanan and naturally our allegiances have always been with the South. But, you must know that no matter what your feelings are on the matter they can never effect our friendship, Mattie. We are of an age now where we are not defined by our opinions, but I would dearly love to be defined by the company I KEEP! You also seem to worry that your poor cir****tances would somehow be an embarrassment to ME! Mattie, have you ever known me to shy away from an awkward situation or give a fiddle for most people's opinions. (And frankly the opinions of persons such as Jane Scrambidge don't even rate the bottom of my grocery list!)

Why you were there with your chubby cheeks and flying curls when I took my first tumble from "Cherry Pie". We laughed and laughed and you teased me so about letting my pony rub me off on a tree! AND you kept the secret because Papa was always so overly cautious. Why it would have taken weeks of pleading if you hadn't kept mum!

What I am trying to say is that you would have a perfect right to have any secrets about anything at all, just as I would. And if we are not of the same persuasion, so be it. I will NOT give up your friendship even though war, tempest, and every imaginable hardship is surely upon us.

There is another reason I would like for you to come to me. As you know I still have my own little house in Washington. I do love Papa and Gran but I am writhing on the floor (yes, Mattie, that IS me being dramatic!) at the thought of getting away from Salisbury and you would help me with my excuse, which is this: I need to close up the house and bring my servants back to Salisbury.)

Between me and you, if I get back to D.C. I won't be coming back here right away, but the old folks would certainly rest easier if you were going with me, Mattie.

Granted, I cannot promise a meat or even potatoes at every meal. We are severely limited in Salisbury and have rations for everything. But as long as one puts something warm in the stomach, it hasn't much mattered to me anyway, and I'm sure it would be the same for you. Everyone in the country is suffering now.

Plus: (trumpet fanfare!) here's the bonus: It will be a chance for us to have another grand adventure: figuring out the best roads so as to avoid any unpleasantness, what provisions to take since we won't know what has been left of my garden, and in what state are my larders.

And can you just imagine the times we two could have in a city that literally breathes intrigue! Why everyday would be an adventure. (I know that you have had lots of adventures since I saw you last, Mattie, but I would like for you to forget those as a bad dream. Your writing of dreaming of Michelangelo's famous works broke my heart, but you are still YOU inside. It is exactly as you said: men have used your "body" as a vessel, Mattie, but never your essence, your soul!

You have mentioned setting aside money for a "small business venture". What might that be, if I can be so bold as to enquire? I have often thought that I, as a widow, am just fading into an old daguerrotype and one day people will notice that I am no longer a living breathing woman, but just a molding old piece of paper. I have been reading about women who want to VOTE! And with my flights of fancy, I have thought of doing MANY things that only men do. Personally, I have been in receptions in Washington where I (though very conceitably, I admit) knew that I was smarter than the men I was talking with.
Maybe it is that men feel they need to talk on a child's level to a woman, I don't know, but it's quite irksome. And they were always astonished when I casually broached even the safest of Washington topics and voiced an opinion rather than asking for theirs!

I think it's about time that I find myself a "position" or think seriously of my own business adventure. You might be just the one to inspire me!

Please give this some serious thought and allow me to send Lucy for you and naturally I will send my man-servant too. Honestly, you will be doing ME a great favor and I think that in the horrible times to come, we should be in the midst of history! That was one of our best subjects in school, Mattie, and now we are sadly going to live it!

I will eagerly await your reply and I'm hoping fervently that you will give me the nod to send my servants for you. I cannot stand the thought of you being in that hell-hole one more day!

We were always a great team, Mattie!

Till we meet again, I remain your true friend,
Ailey

[dawna]

Dearest Ailey:

I can't help but think I am undeserving of your friendship, when it has taken me so long to respond to your last letter. I have read each page enough times now that the words are barely discernable - a testament to the consideration that I am giving to your kind and generous invitation. There would be no greater gift bestowed upon me than to feel a semblance of my former self again, and please understand that my heart has always been with you in Salisbury.

I changed from girl to woman in this past year and yet I have no recollection of the precise hour that this transformation took place. I thought perhaps it was after Perryville but I think now it was even before that horrific event. Falling ill and languishing on my own for weeks on end left me somewhat hardened by the time I had decided to leave Danville. I think the scope of Samuel's abandonment of me left me unprepared not only in matters of the heart, but as well to the harsh reality of betrayal in other ways, that are less visible to the gentle observer. Looking at pain without the protective lenses of my Father's eyes was something new and unfamiliar to me, yet forced my hand in more ways than you can imagine.

I no longer dress in front of my mirror as I fear the truth in the reflection that comes back to me. My eyes speak of sadness and rare are those moments when I can give in to less jaded thoughts and view the world as I used to. I fear that you will be shocked to see me Ailey and this only adds to my concerns of discomforting you in any fashion.

This world does not deserve you, dear friend. Throughout this long and suffering war, you have remained true to your ideals and steadfast in your devotion to charities, and loyal to your place of birth. I had no doubts where your sympathies would lay, and if the truth be spoken, it is only recently that I have dared to express my feelings on paper, in the form of a letter to Mr. Barnaby. And even so I chose to admonish the steps taken by the few who started this war and who now sit back in an impossible silence.

I know you long for exciting endeavours Ailey (when haven't you!) and that you are perfectly convinced the two of us would have the greatest adventures in Washington. Intrigue of a political nature would be far more interesting and safer than the life I have lived since we last spent time together. To be certain we are not defined by our opinions, and yet the men who frequent Madame Josephine's establishment would have you believe otherwise. As an employee I am forbidden to discuss my loyalties with anyone, and this has become a source of frustration at times on those rare (and deceitful) occasions when a client expresses interest in my thoughts on this treacherous war.

Madame Josephine has spoken of a woman (Susan Anthony) who is causing a commotion in the North with her convictions that women should have the vote. It is provocative to think of such things and how this would affect our lives, but it amuses me also to think what platform our politicans might use in order to sway the female vote. We stand on the threshold of fruition dear friend, and it would ease my despair and please me to know that I had at least a story of consequence to leave to my grandchildren, if I should ever be blessed in such a way.

I've longed to open my own bookstore since I left Danville, and that is the business venture that I spoke of in my last letter. You often said that I would much rather be devouring a book than the most delectable of meals, and this is true and more than likely will never change. To spend my days in the company of books and feel their leather bindings at my fingertips, would make me happier than you can imagine. The desire to dress myself in the richness of an author's words would be the least shocking to you, but my chagrin is that this is not quite what you had planned for me.

Erik has just informed me that an unexpected visitor awaits for me in M. Joshepine's parlour, so I must close this letter in haste. But at the very least I need to distance myself from this wretched town if only for a holiday, and if all goes well, my hope is to see you within a fortnight.

I remain your most devoted Friend,

Mattie

"There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away, nor any courses like a page of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take without oppress of toil - how frugal is the chariot that bears the human soul."
~Emily Dickinson~