A Breath and a Delusion

What if you were a nineteen-year-old girl living with antislavery parents in a quiet hamlet in Mississippi in 1860 when war broke out between the North and the South? What if you felt duty-bound to marry a gentle Southern widower who was leaving to join Jeff Davis's staff and was trying to insure that his seven-year-old daughter, loved by you, would have a young legal guardian if he did not survive the war? What if your husband was then sent unexpectedly to England to raise support for...
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What if you were a nineteen-year-old girl living with antislavery parents in a quiet hamlet in Mississippi in 1860 when war broke out between the North and the South? What if you felt duty-bound to marry a gentle Southern widower who was leaving to join Jeff Davis's staff and was trying to insure that his seven-year-old daughter, loved by you, would have a young legal guardian if he did not survive the war? What if your husband was then sent unexpectedly to England to raise support for the Confederacy and took his daughter with him to her English grandparents, leaving you to run the plantation where he owned the land and his invalid mother owned the slaves? What if the battle for Port Gibson raged on the grounds of your home, and a Union colonel took your house for a field hospital? But what if your treacherous heart did gymnastics when you looked into the hard, battle-weary eyes of the man who was putting your family out?This is Rissilla Ellison Fairleigh, daughter of a Union soldier, nominal wife of Marcus Fairleigh, aide to Jeff Davis, as she tries to bring order to life in the chaos of war. Living at Artesia Plantation, near Port Gibson, she is powerless to do anything for the slaves except respect them and try, with her husband's spinster aunt, Francesca, to provide for their needs through years of privation and danger.What if you were a young lawyer, called to service in defense of the Union and against the institution of slavery, confronted with the need to wage war and command men who are undersupplied with food and unused to killing and trying to avoid being killed? What if you were baffled by the contradictions of the South-the beauty and the decadence, the kindness and the cruelty, the humorous and the tragic? And what if you held in contempt all who tolerated slavery, yet found yourself falling in love with a "Secesh" woman, the wife of another man?This is John Troupe Hightower, proud Yankee, who must maintain iron control of his emotions while dealing with one crisis after another on the plantation at the edge of Little Bayou Pierre--from snakebite to an escaped wounded Confederate prisoner, who turns out to be the brother-in-law of Rissilla Fairleigh. Rissilla of the brilliant blue eyes, keen intelligence, and tart tongue, who appeals to him as no other woman ever has. Supported by his uncle, Major Angus McLemore, chief surgeon of the regiment, he finds himself concerned with helping the people of Artesia to protect themselves from roving bands of thieves that follow in the wake of armies.What if you were Marcus Aurelius Fairleigh II, architect, summoned home from England upon his father's death to find himself a prisoner of his father's will and the laws of the state of Mississippi to maintain the status quo at Artesia? What if you buried most of your heart with your English wife, reserving a part for your infant daughter, but feeling duty bound to fight for your state, leaving her with someone you trust? What if your affection and respect led you to make a nominal marriage with Rissilla, nominal to avoid adding child-bearing to the burdens she must assume? And now you find yourself sailing on ships trying to run the dangerous Union blockade of Southern ports in order to bring in weapons and money for the Southern cause.What if you were Elijah, plantation blacksmith/preacher and his wife Mattie, slaves born on Artesia who have known no other life and now must make difficult decisions about the future? What if your only son had gone abroad with Marcus Fairleigh as his body servant, and you want to be where he can find you if he returns? What if, incredibly, you have affection for the Fairleighs and must deal with your mutual dependence? What if most of you were Christians struggling to reconcile faith in God with your present overwhelming circumstances? And yet, A Breath and a Delusion is comedy, not tragedy, for it struggles through sorrow to end in joy.