by John Jakes
“Does she have any at all?” Brett countered, and with that fell grimly silent, eating her soup.
Dear Lord, Constance thought, did my blunder cause all this? The answer appeared to be yes. The more she considered the dark possibilities wrapped up in her brief, careless remark, the more it depressed her.
Madeline sensed the tension. She said to Brett, “Tell me about this school for black waifs, won’t you?”
“If you’d like, I’ll take you up there tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes, please.”
Brett, too, was feeling ashamed of her outburst. Anxiety was the chief cause. The Ledger-Union was reporting many lives lost along the Petersburg siege lines. The word widow was one she hated to think about in connection with herself.
But she had to be honest; there was another irritant. Madeline’s revelation in the rooming house. It had stunned Brett, but more than that, it had loosed an unexpected emotional reaction. As a presumed white woman, Madeline had earned Brett’s wholehearted respect and affection. Now—well, she couldn’t help it—she regarded Orry’s wife differently.
It was a reaction bred into her from childhood. That was an explanation, not an excuse. The reaction shamed her, and yet she seemed powerless to banish it or keep it from affecting her behavior.
Madeline was aware of the new reserve on Brett’s part ever since that pivotal moment in Washington. Whenever she felt incensed, she reminded herself that Orry’s sister was under great strain, had been living far from her native state for more than three years, had had her husband captured, imprisoned, wounded. That was an immense load for any wife to bear.
Brett’s response to the revelation was a curious and ironic contrast to her involvement with the colored orphanage, Madeline thought. Her concern for the welfare of the black children was evident from the passion and frequency with which she spoke of them. At least that was a change, and a remarkable one for a young woman bred in the frequently arrogant traditions of the Carolina low country. The war was changing everyone and everything in some fashion; a pity it couldn’t alter old attitudes about black blood.
She hoped Brett would eventually be capable of overlooking what she now clearly regarded as a taint. If not—well, it would certainly alter family relationships. It sometimes seemed to Madeline that God had put Americans to a cruel, perhaps impossible test when He permitted the Dutch to land that first shipload of slaves on the Virginia coast so long ago. The black man out of Africa had repeatedly exposed the white man’s weaknesses. It was, perhaps, fitting revenge for the moment when the leg irons clinked shut.
There had been unpleasant notes sounded at this table tonight. Three war widows. She understood the attempt at lightness but found it disturbing. Thank heaven Orry had done nothing about joining Pickett’s staff. He should be relatively safe in Richmond until the city fell. Afterward, he might be interned awhile—even mistreated—but he would survive that; he was a strong, brave man.
Trying to restart conversation, Madeline once more addressed Brett. “This friend of yours—the one who operates the orphanage—will I have a chance to meet him?”
“I think so. I expect he’ll pay at least one more visit before he goes into the army. I certainly hope he will.” Brett smiled. “You’ll like him, I know.”
And you like him very much indeed, Madeline said to herself. You seem able to accept him for what he is, but not me. Is that because you thought I was something you have always been told was better?
Sensing the onset of more bad feelings, Madeline blocked them by turning back to Constance, this time with a frivolous question about current fashions. The candles burned down, and conversation limped on, but something had gone out of Constance in the past few minutes. Her answers were forced, her efforts at banter unsuccessful. As they were finishing their lemon ices and coconut macaroons, she said abruptly, “I believe I’ll go down to town for in hour.”
Madeline asked, “Would you like company?”
“Thank you, no. I’m going to church.”
It wasn’t necessary to tell them she felt the need. Her face made it evident.
She drove the carriage herself down the twisting road in the light glare from Hazard’s. Under Wotherspoon’s guidance, the entire complex continued to operate twenty-four hours a day—and had never been so profitable.
Reaching the streets of the lower town, Constance felt the night wind rising, blowing dust. Lamps burned late in the army recruiting office. As she drove by, she noticed a sturdy Negro boy, the son of a worker at Hazard’s, standing some distance from the entrance. Between the boy and the doorway, Lute Fessenden’s cousin and some equally loutish crony whispered and joked.
When a few of the town’s black men had attempted to visit the recruiter, there had been incidents of harassment. To prevent another, she slowed the carriage and prepared to speak to the substitute broker. Before she could, the black boy turned and disappeared in a dark alley. The significance of the two men loitering outside the office hadn’t been lost on him.
Disgusted, she drove on to the small Catholic chapel that had been named, in a burst of poetic piety, St. Margaret’s-in-the-Vale. The river valley, where flying soot and bits of cinder constantly blackened everything, could never live up to the literary connotations of vale, but it was a word very much liked by Lehigh Station’s small Catholic community.
Because of the heat of the evening, the front doors of St. Margaret’s stood open. Constance tied the horse to a wrought-iron post—Hazard’s had donated and installed a row of eight—and slipped in, hoping meditation and prayer might lift the formless anxiety that had settled on her during supper. Inside the entrance, she genuflected, then slipped in to the second pew on the left.
Kneeling, she noticed a heavy, middle-aged woman across the aisle. The woman was poorly dressed, a shawl around her shoulders. Her forehead rested on her clasped hands as she prayed. Constance knew her. Mrs. Waleski’s only boy had died in a Cold Harbor medical tent.
Hot wind gusting up the aisle fluttered the votive candles. The seven-foot Christ, painted and gilded, looked down from His cross with pity. Softly, Constance began praying.
Her mind was strangely divided, one part of it on her murmured plea for intercession, another on the great weight crushing her. She knew who had put the weight there. A stupid, thoughtless woman—
Here we are. Three war widows.
Ever since making that remark, she had been possessed by a premonition. For one of the three women at the table, the words would come true.
She was so sure of it, she was consumed with a fear no prayers could allay. Another fierce wind gust blew out half a dozen of the votive lights in their little glass cups red as blood.
114
CHARLES SUFFERED A RAVAGING intestinal ailment during the first ten days of July. Still weak, still belonging in bed, he got up on the eleventh morning, obtained a pass, and set off on a dangerous ride around the west of Richmond, then northeast to Fredericksburg. His only guarantees of safe passage were his revolver and shotgun.
It would be his last trip to Barclay’s Farm. He had decided that while lying with his knees drawn up against his pain-pierced gut. In bed, he’d had plenty of time to straighten out his thinking. The South would go down fighting, and he would go down with it. That was his sole duty now.
He couldn’t deny he loved Gus, but she deserved a man with better prospects. Each day the odds against avoiding a fatal bullet increased. In the short run, he would hurt her. But when she found, as she surely would, a better man—someone whose head had not been oddly twisted by his war experiences—she would thank him.
He reached the farm at the end of a rain shower. The sun was out again, occasionally hidden by the clouds that flew over fields and woods at great speed, exchanging light for shadow, shadow for light. It was half past five in the evening. The clouds, the quality of sunlight at that hour, and the sparkling clarity of the land after the rain helped restore some of the farm’s earlier beauty.
“Ma
jor Charles!” Washington, mending harness on the back stoop, jumped to his feet as Charles rode up. “Lord save us—old Sport looks about as starved as you do. Didn’t expect we’d see you for a while. Wait till I tell Miz Augusta—”
“I’ll tell her myself.” Unsmiling, Charles yanked the back door open without knocking. “Gus?” He stepped into the kitchen, oblivious to the pained look on the aging freedman’s face.
The kitchen was empty. Soup stock containing one large bone simmered on the stove. He shouted, “Gus, where the hell are you?”
She came dashing down the hall, hairbrush in hand. At the sight of him, her face glowed. She flung her arms around his neck. “Sweetheart!”
He pressed his bearded cheek to hers but broke the embrace when she started to kiss him. He flung a shabby butternut trouser leg over a low-backed chair and sat. He fumbled in his shirt for matches and a half-smoked cigar. His lack of emotion worried her.
At the stove, she swirled the long wooden spoon three times around the simmering pot. Then she laid the spoon aside and reluctantly confronted him.
“Darling, you don’t look well.”
“I caught the intestinal complaint again. I don’t know which is worse, lying on a cot wishing my gut would fall out or riding over half of Virginia with General Hampton.”
“It’s been that bad—?”
“We’ve lost more men and horses than you’d believe. At least three whole troops of the South Carolina Sixth are in the deadline camp, without remounts.”
She glanced out the window. “You still have Sport.”
“Barely.” He knocked his knuckles on the table twice.
She brushed at a strand of loose blond hair. “It breaks my heart to see you so thin and white. And discouraged.”
“What else can you expect these days?” He found his nervousness increasing. Originally, he had considered staying the night—making love one last time—but he found he didn’t have the brass to do that to her. Or the strength to endure it himself. Abruptly, he decided on a quick end.
He bit into the cigar stub, scraped a match on the chair bottom, waved it toward the windows as sulfurous fumes filled the room. “The farm’s a wreck.”
“Thank the Yankees. Hardly a day goes by without Boz or Washington firing a warning shot at some deserter sneaking around.”
“You shouldn’t have stayed here. You shouldn’t be here now. How can you raise anything? How can you and the niggers survive?”
“Charles, you know I don’t like to hear that word. Especially in reference to my freedmen.”
He shrugged. “I forgot. Sorry.” He didn’t sound it.
She tugged at the tight waist of her dress. Charles’s head was bent, his eye on the match applied to the cigar. Blue smoke whirled around his beard as he blew the match out.
Frightened, Gus said: “You sound as though you don’t really want me to answer the questions you asked. You sound as though you’re trying to pick a fight.”
He plucked the cigar from his teeth. “Now listen. It was a damned long ride up here—”
“May I remind you that no one begged you to make it?” The old defenses were going up again; the tartness, the wry mouth. They hurt him. But he had known for months that pain was necessary if he were to do what was right.
He smoked and stared, saw angry bewilderment in her blue eyes. He nearly relented. Then Ab Woolner came to mind, and Sharpsburg, and a great many other events and changes—so many, it hardly seemed possible that three years could contain them all. Or that any man could withstand them. Yet he had. But he was not unscathed.
More softly: “How long are you able to stay?”
“I have to start back when it’s dark.”
“Would you like—?” The unfinished question and her slight turn toward the door leading to the sleeping rooms had an adolescent awkwardness not typical of her. Red appeared in her cheeks.
“I need to water Sport and let him rest,” he said, aching to carry her in to bed. She heard the unspoken refusal.
“I’ll give you supper when you’re finished.”
With a bob of his head, he went out.
The dapple of shadow and light from moving clouds continued into the evening. Charles consumed two bowls of the thin beef soup and four pieces of coarse, delicious brown bread baked earlier. She ladled out a small portion of soup for herself but didn’t touch it. While he ate, she said little, resting her chin on the backs of her interlocked hands, her elbows on the table on either side of the cooling soup. As she studied his face, she tried to fathom the sad mystery of what was wrong with him. Occasionally she prodded with a brief question.
He said he was sure the war was lost. He spoke of the high rate of desertion and Lee’s failure to demonstrate faith in Wade Hampton by promoting him to commander of the cavalry. He mentioned actions whose names were unfamiliar and the escalating hostility.
“When Hunter was in the valley, he burned Governor Letcher’s home in Lexington. The Military Institute, too. In Silver Spring, right outside Washington, they say Jube Early looted homes and farms in retaliation. Now he’s loose in Pennsylvania—God knows what he’s doing there. When this whole business started, it reminded me of a South Carolina tournament: fair ladies, courageous horsemen, games. It’s turned into an abattoir, with butchers and cattle on both sides. Good soup,” he finished insincerely, pushing the bowl away. Do it now. Don’t prolong it.
“What I came to say, Gus—” he cleared his throat “—with things going so badly, I don’t know when I can get here again.”
Gus lifted her head, a swift, fierce movement, like a response to a slap. Bitterly, she said, “Next week or never, the choice is yours. It always has been. I—” There she stopped, shaking her head as if saying no to herself.
“Go ahead, finish.”
Her voice strengthened. “I hope you didn’t expect a flood of tears in response to your announcement. I’m not sure I want you here in your present frame of mind. It’s hardly new or profound to say that war is terrible. And you seem to forget men don’t carry the entire burden. Do you think it’s any easier to be a woman with a son or husband in the army? Do you think it’s easier to sit and watch grown men play soldierboy by tearing up a garden—all the food you have in the world—and ruining a farm with their hooliganism? I know the war’s done hard things to you. It’s in your eyes, what you say, everything you do. You seem to be filled with rage—”
He rammed the chair back and stood, cigar in his teeth. He had lit a new one after eating, having decided he would go when the cigar was smoked. He might be leaving sooner than that.
“Don’t bother to display your truculence,” Gus seethed. “I’ve had my fill. What gives you special dispensation to beat your breast longer and harder than any of the rest of us? I love you, idiot that I am. I’m sorry for you. But I won’t be treated like some dumb animal that’s misbehaved. I won’t be kicked, Charles. If you choose to come here again, let it be as the man I fell in love with. He’s the one I want.”
Moments ticked by. He drew the cigar from his mouth. “He died.”
She returned his stare. Softly, without wrath, she said, “I think you had better go.”
“I think so too. Thanks for the food. Take care of yourself.”
He walked out, mounted Sport, and rode away beneath the lowering clouds of night.
For half an hour, Gus did nothing. She sat at the kitchen table, her hands on her stomach, while grief beat at her. Sometime during this period, Washington knocked at the back door. She didn’t answer. He went away.
Darkness crept into the kitchen. When she finally stood, it was to light a lamp. She felt much as she had the night her husband died. She couldn’t believe it had happened to her.
If she had been more realistic about Charles—less smitten—she would have recognized that something like this could happen. There had been signs, strong ones, during the past year. A couplet from “An Essay on Man” cycled endlessly through her thoughts: Atoms or systems in
to ruin hurl’d, And now a bubble burst—
“And now a world.”
The whisper died away. With mental pushes and kicks, she forced herself to move through the dark house. Dusting this. Straightening that. Motion, work—anything to numb the pain. She lit two more lamps in the kitchen, heated water on the stove, pulled all her clean dishes from the shelves and washed each piece, dried them vigorously, and put them back.
Another knock. This time, Washington didn’t wait for an answer before stepping inside. “Miz Augusta, it’s near onto midnight. Too late for you to be up.”
“This floor’s filthy. I’m going to scrub it.”
Washington’s forehead furrowed; such behavior was incomprehensible. “Major Charles didn’t look so good—”
“He’s been quite ill. Dysentery.”
“He didn’t stay long.”
“No.”
“He comin’ back soon?”
She had to lie. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”
Still frowning, Washington chewed on his lower lip. “If you’re goin’ to wash the floor this time of night, you let me help you.”
“I want to do it by myself. I don’t feel sleepy.” She remembered her manners. “But thank you.”
The door closed, shutting out his troubled face.
She filled a pail and found her brush. She couldn’t believe how badly she hurt. His leaving was the direct cause, but the deepest guilt was hers. She had let down her defenses. Opened herself to love, whose other Janus face was the possibility of loss.
Would she have changed anything? Refused to love him? It took her no time at all to answer with an emphatic no. But, God above, it did hurt now.
Despite that, she still took pride in being a self-reliant woman. She had endured this damned misbegotten war, and she would continue to endure it. She would endure the pain, too, for as long as it lasted. She knew how long that would be. Till the hour she died.
No matter. She would endure everything because there was always, even amidst the worst, some reason for wanting and needing to survive. She knew her own reason well and only wished she had been able to tell him. But it would have been a cruel and self-serving use of the truth.