“We’ve all got long noses. It’s the Donelson curse. Mine’s longest of all. All of us but aunt Rachel. Somehow it passed her by,” sighed Emily, threading a needle.
“Ain’t flat like mine, anyhow,” ’Relia echoed the sigh. “If the good Lord was to give me my dearest wish it would be to have a nice long nose like you got, Miss Emily.”
“Ain’t nobody satisfy,” stated Becky, the other maid. “White folks all wantin’ hair be curly. Colored folks all putting grease on they hair, make it straight. You reckon we be white when we git to Heaven, Miss Emily?”
“Law, we be angels with big white wings,” declared ’Relia. “Lord don’t want no black angels around, he got to make us white. I wants me a pyure white robe, white as Mis’ Rachel’s tablecloth. I goin’ put on my robe and sing praises to the Throne, day and night.”
“Are you going to sing tonight, Becky—all of you? It wouldn’t be Christmas if you people didn’t build a big fire out there behind the smokehouse and all gather round and sing.”
“Look a little like snow,” said Becky, peering out the window. Becky hated the cold. She burned more wood in her cabin than any other servant on the place, Emily had heard her aunt complain. From the window now she could see the wagon coming down the lane loaded with firewood, George walking beside the team, cracking his whip and shouting. Great fires would roar in every fireplace in the house, over the holidays. Rachel Jackson was nervous about fire. Someday the General was going to burn the Hermitage to the ground, she was always prophesying.[1]
A carriageload of cousins and aunts arrived shortly after the family had finished dinner, and there was a confusion of greetings, band boxes and parcels to be carried in, shawls, bonnets and cloaks laid off to be hung up by maids, cold hands and feet to be warmed by the fires, the scurry of excited children. Then all the food had to be warmed up and brought in again and the guests fed.
Emily hurried about, setting out plates, getting down glasses for the General, who insisted that everyone must have a tot of hot spiced rum to ward off a chill. She had little chance to slip to the front of the house to watch the drive from the windows, but while the company were eating, with Rachel hovering around and the General being the affable host, she did steal away to stand behind the long curtains, searching the approaching avenue anxiously.
Dusk was beginning to gather under the great trees. The smoke from the many chimneys eddied and settled to the ground. A few thin snowflakes drifted by on the wind, then drops of rain spattered the windowpanes. Bad weather for a young man riding alone. So many things could happen on a long journey. A horse stumbling at a ford, footpads on the road lying in wait for a solitary traveler, even the danger from Indians was not ended.
She was growing more tense with anxiety by the minute but she must not betray her unease, must keep her demeanor calm and be most surprised of all when Jack came riding in, or her uncle would never forgive her for hiding her letter. She had let the curtains fall when Andrew, Junior, came up behind her.