by John Jakes
“If I were Cuffey,” Charles said, “I’d wait till first thing tomorrow—when we’re dog-tired from staying up all night keeping watch. Better break out those two Hawkens and anything else that can be put to lethal use.”
Andy frowned, as if considering whether he dared speak his mind. He did. “Might make more sense to pack up and leave, Mr. Cooper.”
“No,” Cooper said in a voice so firm and calm Charles was startled a second time. “This is my home. My family built Mont Royal, and I won’t see it lost without a fight.”
“My sentiments, too,” Charles said. A tired smile. “Not very intelligent but nevertheless my sentiments.”
Jane spoke. “And are the others supposed to risk their lives to save a place where you kept them like chattels?”
“Jane,” Andy began, stepping forward. She ignored him.
Cooper scowled but quickly controlled his feelings. “No one is forced to stay. Not you or any of the people.”
“But most will,” Andy said. “I will. There are some good things on Mont Royal.”
“Oh, yes,” Jane said, though the assent was canceled by her tone. Walking past Charles, she ran a finger along a row of gilt-lettered book spines, rich embossed leathers dyed green, deep maroon, royal blue. “A few. Here’s one—Mr. Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia—” She faced Cooper, defiant. “He made some wise observations about slaves and slavery. If the South had heeded them, you could have saved yourselves all of this.”
“You can lecture us later, Miss Jane,” Charles said, overly sharp because he privately agreed with her. “Right now we must call the men together.”
“And bring the women and youngsters to one safe place,” Cooper added. “Andy, will you get started?”
Nodding, Andy took Jane’s arm and guided her out of the library—too firmly for her taste. She reacted by pulling away. Charles could hear them arguing as they left the house.
Cooper cast a glance at the stand holding Orry’s old uniform, then sank into a chair. He regarded his cousin with gloomy eyes. “We’re in a bad spot, aren’t we?”
“Afraid so. The numbers are against us. Best we can do is maybe try an old Plains Indian trick I learned in Texas—” Frowning, he examined the saber he had brought in from the outdoors. One of the strands of fine brass wire that wrapped the hilt was broken.
He realized Cooper was waiting for him to finish. “Kill the leader, and sometimes the rest of the war party will turn back.”
Cooper pulled at his lower lip. “Sounds like a pretty faint hope to me.”
“It is. Do we have another?”
“Pack and run.”
“I thought you said—”
“I did. I want to save this place, and not merely for sentimental reasons. I think we’ll need it for survival once there’s a surrender. If we run, we can be sure they’ll spare nothing.”
“All right, it’s settled. We stay.”
“You needn’t.”
“What?”
“I mean it, Charles. You came here hunting a remount, not more fighting.”
“Hell, Cousin, fighting’s all I know how to do. The current unpleasantness has rendered me unfit for a civilized occupation.”
They stared at each other, neither man smiling. Charles felt anxious, impatient. The buoyancy returned, more intense than before. There was a battle coming, all right. In the distance, a salt crow screamed and a second one answered.
126
EACH TIME VIRGILIA HEARD a carriage on Thirteenth Street, she rushed to the front window and was disappointed. Why was Sam so late? Something wrong at home?
Once more she let the curtain fall. Outside, February dusk deepened over the Northern Liberties. Virgilia’s cottage in that outlying village—not the best location, but adequate—was a tidy four-room place, freshly painted after Sam bought it for her. The small lot was enhanced by two giant oaks and a bordering fence of new white pickets.
As the mistress of a congressman, Virgilia found herself constantly experimenting with roles she couldn’t have imagined herself playing even a year ago. Tonight the cottage smelled of succulent roast duckling. She had always loathed kitchen work and would never be an accomplished cook. But she was learning. Her lover liked good food and wine.
She was also dressing properly and not just occasionally. Sam liked women well-groomed everywhere but the bedroom. For this visit, she had spent forty minutes arranging her hair, perfumed herself, and put on her best burgundy bombazine over a merciless corset that minimized her waist and emphasized her breasts.
To her immense satisfaction, Virgilia had also been cast as her lover’s unofficial adviser. He discussed congressional business with her and had even started to ask her advice on certain matters. On the parlor desk lay a stack of closely written sheets he had left with her last time—the draft of a speech he was to deliver to a Republican caucus a few days after the inaugural. Sam wanted to use the occasion to put distance between himself and the Chief Executive. He had asked for her opinion of what he had written.
He got no such help from his wife, nor did he want any. He would stay married to the woman, though, as he confided to Virgilia, he considered her a sexless nonentity. He suspected his wife knew about the liaison with Virgilia, but he was confident she would never make trouble. His strategy for assuring this was a simple one. He frequently hinted that her situation was precarious and that he might leave her at any moment, although neither was true.
By half past seven the duckling was overdone, and Virgilia was upset. Pacing, she whirled toward the door at the sound of a horse. She flung the door open.
“Sam? Oh, I was so worried—”
It puzzled her that he didn’t immediately climb down from the covered seat of the buggy. “I had to rush Emily to the train. Her father’s ill in Muncie. She took the children. She’ll be away at least a week.” Light from the doorway illuminated his smile. “I can stay the night if I’m invited.”
“Darling, that’s wonderful. Of course you are.”
“Then I’ll put the horse up. He’s been fed. It will take me a few minutes.”
While he drove around to the small outbuilding behind the cottage, she warmed the duckling, the yams and snap beans. He came tramping across the backyard, knocking dust from the sleeves of his black frock coat.
“The traffic near the depot was unbelievable. It’s the same downtown. I think half the country’s here for the inauguration. At Willard’s this noon, my waiter said they’re putting cots and mattresses in the hall for the overflow.” He bussed her cheek. “If you offer tent space in the yard, you might get rich.”
Laughing, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. He liked her tongue in his mouth and elsewhere. At the end of the long embrace, she asked, “Shall we eat now or later? I’m afraid the duckling is nearly black—”
“Let’s have some anyway. Then we’ll have the entire evening to do whatever we please.”
She gave him a warm, slightly bawdy smile before he went down to the cellar for one of the several dozen bottles of wine with which he kept the place furnished. He was expert with a waiter’s corkscrew; while she prepared the serving platters, he opened and decanted the wine.
Seated, they toasted each other. As Virgilia admired him over the rim of her goblet, she reflected that in many ways she was more fortunate than a wife. The illicit nature of their relationship lent all their times together a spice surely absent from most marriages. She had experienced the same kind of wicked and defiant excitement living with a black man.
The wine was a heavy-bodied Bordeaux; superb and not cheap. After he savored a sip, he said, “Damn big fuss over the inaugural ball—have you heard?”
She shook her head. “What’s wrong? It sounds grand—just ten dollars for supper and dancing at the Patent Office, the Star said.”
“But a number of our darker brethren expressed a desire to attend. Some of the congressional wives, mine included, were nearly prostrated by the news. Emily raved f
or an hour about the possibility of being asked to waltz by Fred Douglass or some other baboon. The ball committee had to rush out a statement of reassurance. The phrasing was polite, but the message was clear. No ticket sales to niggers.”
“I find that disgraceful.”
“Don’t confuse liberty with equality, Virgilia. The former’s all right. It’s a tool for gathering votes. The latter will never be tolerated. At least not in our lifetime.”
They talked on more pleasant subjects for a few minutes. The wine relaxed Virgilia and induced a playful mood not typical of her. “May I ask about the seat for the inaugural ceremony?”
“I have it for you. Reserved section near the platform for dignitaries in front of the east portico.”
“Oh, that’s grand, Sam. Thank you.”
“But that’s not all. I also managed to get you into the Senate gallery at noon, when that clod Johnson will be sworn in. Lincoln will be seated on the floor of the chamber, and his wife in a special section near your seat. You’ll get to see the whole lot close up. When everyone moves outside for the swearing-in and the President’s address, Emily and I will have places on the platform.”
The giddiness brought words she herself didn’t expect. “Perhaps when I see you and your wife, I’ll wave.”
He had been fondling her hand on the table. He let go, surprising her with his severity.
“I don’t appreciate that kind of remark.”
“Sam, I was only teasing—”
“I’m not.”
Frightened and sobered, she hastily said, “I’m sorry, darling.” The apology didn’t come easy for her, but it was mandatory if she meant to keep him, which she did. “I know that in public we can’t acknowledge that we’re acquainted. I would never do the slightest thing to jeopardize your name or career. They’ve become as important to me as they are to you.” She squeezed his hand. “You do believe me?”
An alarming silence. When he decided she had been punished sufficiently, he let his face soften. “Yes.”
Virgilia was anxious to redirect the conversation. “I don’t care a snap for hearing the Gorilla deliver a speech, but I am anxious to see him at close range. Does he look as bad as they say?”
“The man looks embalmed. He’s thirty pounds underweight, and I’ve heard he suffers from almost constant chills. People are whispering that he’s mortally ill. Unfortunately, his ailments have done nothing to reduce his mulish dedication to pushing his own opinions and programs. If the rumors of impending death were true, we’d be lucky.” He sliced into the crackly duck and tasted a morsel. “Very good, this.”
“I know it isn’t, but it’s kind of you to lie.”
That got him smiling again. “I do it well, don’t I? I practice every time I write or speak to constituents. Did you read the draft?” She nodded. “What do you think?”
Virgilia laid down her fork. “You told me you thought Lincoln’s inaugural address would be conciliatory toward the South—”
“So far as I can find out, that’s the tone, yes.”
“ I’m afraid the draft sounds much the same.”
“Really? Too mild?”
“Not only that, too indefinite in terms of what you stand for.” Here was one area in which she felt totally confident. So she pressed:
“The text wanders away from its purpose. The President has one approach to reconstruction, you and your friends quite another. You must do more than just establish the difference and identify your wing of the party. You must promote yourself more clearly and forcefully as a member of an elite group that should and will dominate reconstruction and rebuff the President’s plan as the maundering of a moral coward. The public must know your name, Sam. They must identify it with absolute commitment to a hard peace. No forgiveness for traitors. You mustn’t merely march in the right parade—you must show yourself leading it.”
“I thought my draft did that.”
“You want me to be honest, don’t you? It’s much too generalized and polite. For instance, it contains nothing remotely resembling Sherman’s remark that he would make Georgia howl. The public needs to perceive you as the man who will make the whole South howl for years to pay for its crimes. It’s that kind of simple, vivid concept you must put into the speech, then repeat at every opportunity. If you do, when people think of congressmen, yours will be the first name to come to mind.”
He chuckled. “That’s an ambitious goal.”
“It’s what you want, isn’t it?’ He sobered. “Of course it is. But you won’t get it unless you go after it. What if you fall short? All right, yours will be the second name people think of. But if you try for anything less than first, you’ll be nothing.”
Low laughter again. He took her right hand in his left, began stroking her palm with his thumb. “You are a remarkable woman. I’m lucky to have you for a friend.”
“For as long as you want, darling. Shall we look at the draft?”
His thumb pressed and stroked, pressed and stroked. “Not just yet.”
“More food, then?”
“No.”
“The dinner will be cold if—”
“It may be, but we shan’t.” He nearly overturned the table in his haste to stand and embrace her from behind her chair. She remained seated, pressed against the stiff bulge.
She reached around and squeezed the great strong thickness of it, moaning a little. His hand came over and down to grope her breasts. They stumbled toward the bedroom, pulling frantically at each other’s clothing. Hair undone, Virgilia sprawled on the bed’s edge and let him work at untying the side laces on her corset with one hand while he teased her lace-covered nipples with the other. Her breasts came free and sagged. He knelt at the bedside, kissing them. Then he kissed other places while she clasped her arms around his head.
She would never let him go. She would help him, comfort him, guide him—be a wife in every way but legally.
He flung her on her back, still with her petticoats around her ankles. She was yelling for him, arms extended. His sex felt huge as a Parrott rifle when he thrust it inside her. He was a potent, potent man, and not just physically. With him—through him—she would take revenge for poor Grady and the millions like him. She would exorcise her deepest hate. She would make the South howl.
In the lassitude afterward, a curious new thought occurred to her. The war had worked a change in much more than her appearance and the way she regarded herself. Her loathing for the South was as deep as ever, punishment of Southerners her abiding cause.
Yet there, too, she had changed. She now coveted the means as well as the end; the raw power to prosecute her cause or any other. Because of a chain of events, seemingly disconnected but which were not—they had a pattern, an inevitability she could clearly follow—the power was within her grasp. It was as near as the body of her lover slumbering beside her.
If this change in her prospects was the result of war, then war wasn’t hell, as someone said Sherman had remarked, but one of God’s greatest miracles. For perhaps the first time in her adult life, Virgilia fell asleep content.
127
NEXT MORNING, AS CLOCK hands at Mont Royal reached the final minute before six, a fiery light described a high arc out in the darkness, then descended, trailing sparks. “They’ve come,” Philemon Meek exclaimed.
Thoughtlessly, he lifted the low-trimmed lamp from the dining table and rushed to one of the tall windows. Charles pushed his chair back. The scabbarded Solingen sword lay on the tablecloth. “Get away from there with that light!”
Frightened and excited, the overseer either didn’t hear or ignored the warning. He lifted the swagged drapery for a better view. “They’ve torched the kitchen building. I can see them moving toward—” A gun blast broke the window, scattered glass, and hurled Meek backward over some chairs. The shattered lamp spilled oil that ignited instantly. Charles jumped up, swearing.
Shouts and taunts drifted from the darkness. Charles ran to the overseer, a pointless effort.
The entire front of Meek’s shirt bore oozing red spots left by the shotgun charge that had killed him.
Charles tore down a large section of drape and flung it over the oil fire eating the gleaming wood floor. Then he stamped on the drape, quenching the flames. A shot; the unseen bullet buried in the wall opposite the broken window.
The scorched drapes exuded a foul smell. Crouching down, he saw capering figures silhouetted by the fire consuming the kitchen building. Andy rushed in, then Cooper with one of the old Hawkens in hand. The other, Meek’s, still lay on the table. Charles pointed to it.
“That’s yours now, Andy. Take it upstairs, find a good vantage point, and start shooting. But make sure it’s a place you can get out of quickly if they torch the house.”
“Yes, Major,” Andy said, snatching the old rifle and two of the small flannel bags Judith had sewn for powder and ball. Charles wasted no time pondering how remarkable it was to be arming a slave on a Carolina rice plantation. He had other things on his mind, chief among them survival.
“One more thing, Andy. You know what Cuffey looks like. Watch for him. He’s the one we want taken out of action.”
“’Deed I do know him. They say he’s all gone to fat and got himself a mule. Should make him easy to spot. I hope I’m the one who gets him.”
He left. Charles crept to the window. A second fire was burning. The office.
“We’d better post ourselves in the hall,” he said to Cooper. “You watch the door on the river side; I’ll take the one by the drive.” From these locations they would also be able to cover the locked doors of the parlor, where they had put all the women and children about five o’clock.
His face showing fear and strain, Cooper followed his younger cousin into the broad foyer that crossed the ground floor from front to back. “We had no warning, Charles. What happened to all those bucks you sent out as pickets?”
“Who the hell knows? They either got killed, ran off, or joined Cuffey’s army.” As any competent commander would have in a similar situation, he had spent most of the night outdoors, roaming from man to man, encouraging alertness in the pickets, jacking up their spirits. He had come inside the house half an hour ago to rest and collect himself, and this was the result. No warning.