Libbie

by Judy Alter

  From that first sight-seeing tour with Autie, New York was always a special place to me. There were people on the streets in such numbers—more in three blocks than one saw in the whole of Monroe. And the buildings and houses sat so close to the sidewalk.

  "Where," I asked, "are the lawns?"

  Autie only laughed and squeezed my hand as it lay on his arm. A block later he said, "See that young boy?"

  "Yes."

  "He'll steal your purse in a flash if you're not careful."

  My hand went to my bag even as I protested, "He can't be more than ten!"

  "Probably not," Autie said. "Don't worry. He won't bother you with me around."

  And then a tinge of fear, never lost, crept into my feelings for New York. Still, I was fascinated with its energy—horse-drawn carriages going in every direction, people walking in the streets, buildings taller and closer together than I'd ever seen. In New York I began to believe that the whole world was a more crowded, busier place than I'd guessed in Monroe.

  We had a wonderful time seeing the sights in New York. I would never have applied the term "sheltered" to my childhood, but of course that was the best description. And now I—the sheltered girl from a small town—was in an enormous, busy city. People surrounded me, and noises assailed my ears from every direction. Buildings were taller, and traffic faster, and everything fascinating but bewildering.

  We passed one poor old lady, seventy if she was a day, painfully making her way down the street leaning on a cane, her face screwed into a tight frown.

  "Is that what you'll look like when you're old?" Autie asked me in a teasing voice. He started to mimic her walk until I poked him and begged him not to be rude.

  "Probably I'll look just like that," I said. "And you?"

  "I'll never live to be that old," he said confidently, and I shuddered as though someone had just walked on his grave. Then I brightened, knowing he was wrong. We would grow old together.

  There was February snow on the ground that day, and Autie laughingly recalled the time he'd nearly hit me with a snowball. This city snow was old and gray with the dirt of New York, and he made no suggestion that we throw it. He did offer to race me to the next tree, but I refused on the grounds that it would look unladylike and unseemly for the wife of a general. He took great delight in telling me I was just afraid of being beaten, and I willingly agreed with him. I was so in love, I would have agreed had he told the proverbial story about the moon being made of green cheese.

  "I've no wish to beat you," I said, and he kissed me soundly.

  "That's what I want in a wife," he said.

  We ate supper in a dim and dark restaurant where Autie ordered oysters and I acted horrified, convinced I never could eat anything that slimy. Autie laughed and made a great show of tossing them down whole. I remember clearly that he drank coffee, refusing the host's suggestion of dark beer, and so I, too, contented myself with coffee, though I longed to try the recommended claret. Once free of Monroe, I intended to shed all my youthful prohibitions—and I badly wanted to taste wine. We held hands while we sipped coffee and talked about the future, our future together, complete with a rose-covered cottage and lots of little Custers.

  "Will you always go off to war?" I asked.

  "Probably," he said, "but I'll always come home. And sometimes I'll take you with me. Will you go? The accommodations are not always as fine as the Metropolitan."

  "I'll follow you anywhere," I said, and I meant it.

  "I knew it," he said. "I knew the day I found you in that cold house that you... well, that you were game."

  Game, that's what I was to be.

  It was dark when we left the restaurant, and by mutual agreement we headed to the Metropolitan. Once inside our room, I confessed, "I'm exhausted, Autie."

  "Of course you are," he said gently. "I'll just take a stroll around the lobby while you prepare for bed."

  When he came back, half an hour later, I was sitting up in the large double bed, pillows behind me, a lace wrapper covering my new satin gown. "What a picture you look!" he cried, rushing toward me to sit on the edge of the bed and stare at me. "Mrs. George Armstrong Custer," he said softly. "I cannot believe that I am such a lucky man."

  "Nor I such a lucky girl," I said, laughing. "Come along, Autie, get ready for bed."

  He disappeared into the lavatory, emerged sometime later wearing a white flannel nightshirt, and immediately turned down the lights in the room before climbing into bed.

  And then Autie made love to me with all the intensity that rumor had led me to expect from my bridegroom. It both frightened and delighted me, though at moments I felt almost like a spectator.

  "Autie," I whispered, "what do I do with my hands?"

  "Nothing," he panted. "Let me do it. You just lie still."

  That, somehow, did not seem right to me, and every instinct in my body fought against lying still, fought to move along with Autie. It was, however, over in minutes, and then Autie kissed me ever so tenderly, told me I was a wonderful wife, and fell sound asleep, his back pressed close against me. I lay awake for hours, wishing for Nettie or someone I could talk to and knowing none of them, not even Mama, would have had the answers I needed.

  By the fourth night we were at the hotel, I had become a full participant in our lovemaking, reaching out to touch Autie in intimate and personal spots, moving with him in a rhythm of lovemaking, finding in myself sensations I'd never believed could exist. But Autie often pulled my hands away and withdrew temporarily until I, quivering, lay still.

  During the days, our honeymoon was a delight. We went once, because we had promised Papa, to see a phrenologist. Papa truly believed that the bumps on a person's head gave clues to character, and I guess, worried as he was about my future, he was ready to take any possible advice. Professor Fowler, who had been recommended to Papa by who knows who, had little to say to me beyond that I was a beautiful bride and should have a long life of happiness with my bridegroom. But to Autie, he cautioned, "You must avoid overdoing and learn to take pleasure for its own sake. You contrive, somehow, to overdo everything."

  "Autie," I asked as we left Fowler's quarters, "what do you suppose he meant?"

  He tucked my hand under his arm and smiled at me, that charming smile that banished all my worries. "Nothing to worry about, Libbie. If I didn't overdo things, I would not be the officer I am. I'm afraid you'll have to love me as I am and not expect any great changes."

  "I do," I told him laughingly. "Oh, I do!"

  We went once to the theater to see the melodrama East Lynn, and both of us laughed at the fun and cried at the sadness. I was startled to see Autie with tears streaming down his face, but he was unembarrassed about it, and when I borrowed his handkerchief, my own being soaked, he cautioned me to save a dry corner for him. Afterward he praised the play highly. I thought it wonderful to be married to a man of such sensitivity.

  We were young and in love, and the war was far away from our thoughts. But it was brought home to us by the many people in New York who recognized Autie's uniform everywhere we went. It was the uniform he'd concocted for himself when he was made a general: a black hat with a wide brim—to protect from the sun, no doubt—a blue sailor's shirt under a black velveteen jacket, ornamented with two rows of brass buttons and gold braid spangling the sleeves from cuff to elbow. His trousers were of the same material, with twin gold stripes down the outside seams. Silver stars glittered on each shoulder and on the brim of his hat. On the battlefield he wore gold spurs on his high boots and carried on his belt a straight sword, captured from some enemy soldier, but in the city he left these off naturally. His trademark was a scarlet necktie, which he chose, he told me, because it was important to be conspicuous on the battlefield. It certainly made him conspicuous in the city.

  In restaurants, even on the street, people would stop and say, "Aren't you Custer?" and Autie would hang his head just a little and reply, "Yes, I am." Then would follow some compliment on his service: "Read
about you at Gettysburg—really showed that old Stuart, didn't you?" or "Youngest general we've got—you surely must be brave!" I wanted to echo, "Of course he is!" but, rarely introduced to these admiring citizens, I kept my peace, and Autie accepted their praise with great modesty. I always basked in it and afterward wanted to discuss it at length with Autie, analyzing his popularity.

  "I am a soldier," he would say, dismissing the subject, and I loved him for it.

  The highlight of our trip, to me, was a visit to West Point, where Autie, his dismal scholastic record apparently forgotten, was greeted as a distinguished alumnus. While he talked with some of his old professors, a group of cadets took me in tow and showed me all the sights, including Lovers' Walk, where, they assured me, General Custer had never walked with anyone else.

  "Of course not," I responded jokingly. "He never looked at another girl until he met me." A vision of Fanny Fifeld flashed across my mind, but I kept my good humor and laughed at their teasing.

  "It must be wonderful," one of the cadets remarked, "to be married to such a famous soldier."

  "I wouldn't really know," I told him. "I've only been married five days." I stared at him for a moment, my laughter gone, for he was a young lad, much younger than Autie, and I wondered if he would go off to battle soon and how he would fare. Behind that lurked the thought I'd refused to face: Autie would go off to battle soon, too. Life had been so hectic that I'd been able to imagine that possibility lay far into the future. Somehow the young man's question brought reality home to me. I clung to Autie's promise to take me with him whenever he could.

  "Here, here," boomed a deep voice, "I must kiss the bride."

  I turned quickly to see a man surprisingly short for such a voice. Bald, with wire-framed glasses and a slight stoop as he walked, he was probably in his sixties and was obviously, from the way the cadets parted to make way for him, a professor. But instead of a military uniform, he wore a commodious black cape. The big cape draped on his small frame created the effect of a gnome.

  "Martin Grenwich," he said, his voice no softer, even though he was now closer to me. "I teach mathematics at the academy, and I remember Custer well. One of my, ah, more unusual students." He laughed heartily at his own joke and then went on breathlessly. "Caught himself quite a pretty bride, didn't he? Tell me your name, my dear."

  "I'm Elizabeth Bacon of Monroe, Michigan," I said.

  "No, you're not!" he cackled. "You're Elizabeth Custer now."

  "Yes, of course." I laughed. "But I'm still not used to it."

  "May you have many long years to get used to it," he said, raising his hat as though in a salute. And then, before I could protest, he reached up—he was actually shorter than I—to plant a kiss on my cheek. "Good fortune to the prettiest bride I've seen in decades.... You may need it with that rascal you've married." He added the latter as a joke, but I sensed an underlying tone of seriousness.

  Autie walked up just then. "Professor Grenwich," he said cordially, "how nice to see you."

  "Good to see you, Custer," Grenwich said, almost in a mutter. "Fine bride you've got here." And he was gone before Autie could say any more.

  On the train back to New York Autie was upset with me. "You let that Grenwich kiss you!" he accused.

  "I didn't really let him," I said with a smile. "He just kissed me, suddenly, without any announcement."

  "I don't like anyone being familiar with you." Autie was unbending in his disapproval.

  "Pshaw!" I said. "He's a harmless old man and endearing, like a puppy."

  "You don't know who's harmless and who isn't," Autie said intently. "You must hold yourself above such behavior. Remember, you set a standard of womanhood for my troops."

  That sounded like an awesome responsibility to me, and I thought it an unfair burden placed on me by my husband. Besides, I was miffed at Autie's suspicions of my behavior. We rode the rest of the way in silence.

  From New York we went to Washington, where I was all prepared for a round of parties and theater trips. But we had no more than settled in our hotel room, even more elegant than the Metropolitan, when a telegram was delivered to Autie. He had received several telegrams while we were in New York, each urging him back to battle, but he had said no harm would come from prolonging his honeymoon. This one was different, for he read it with a darkening face.

  "I will not be accused of featherbedding," he said, his voice rising in agitation. "I must return to my troops at once."

  The war was about to begin for me.

  I hastened to pack, folding Autie's clothes neatly first and then attacking my own. All the while, Autie lounged on the bed, watching me, his face showing a sort of wry amusement.

  "Autie, help me with these hoops," I said, struggling with the ungainly things.

  "Never again," he vowed without moving from the bed. "They defeated me once. Besides, why are you packing your things?"

  "I'm going with you, of course."

  He rose from the bed and came toward me, still smiling at me as though I were a wayward child. "Of course you're not. It's far too dangerous."

  "I will not be left behind." I stamped my foot in a spoiled manner.

  Autie imitated me, stamping his foot. "You will," he said, and then laughed at me. After a moment, though, he turned serious and put his arms around me. "Right now I have rooms in a plantation house—three rooms—and you'd be fairly comfortable. But you'd be alone a great deal, and I have no idea when I'll have to move on. It just wouldn't be fair to you, dear girl."

  "Fair is not the issue," I stormed determinedly. "I'll decide what's fair to me. Hardship won't bother me one bit."

  "How do you know?" he asked, his grin returning. "You've never suffered any."

  Stung, I walked away from him. What he said was true. I'd been petted and spoiled and protected all my life, and so far marriage—all ten days of it—was no different. "Autie, if I don't prove to you now that I can put up with hardship to be with you, we'll never have any kind of a marriage. You'll be off and gone, here and there, and I'll grow old alone in Monroe, or Washington, or wherever you hide me." I bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling and tried to blink back a tear.

  "Tears are not a fair way to argue, dear girl," he said. And then he picked me up and whirled me around the room, my feet never touching the floor. "You shall go with me, everywhere you possibly can," he said happily, plunking me down on the bed.

  I had won a battle, small though it may have seemed.

  We went to Stevensburg, a small town in northeast Virginia. And I went from the luxury of elegant hotels to three rooms upstairs in a plantation house, with displaced southerners living grumpily downstairs and never speaking to us. The house had once been grand—you could tell from little things, the drapes, now tattered, that still hung in the great reception room downstairs, or the elaborate porcelain bowl and pitcher in our bedroom. I could envision the house full of grand furniture—walnut poster beds and great oak chiffoniers and delicate desks with inlaid tops and fragile curved legs—but whatever had happened to that furniture, I didn't know. Surely not chopped for firewood as some stories told! At any rate, now our rooms were sparsely furnished—an iron bedstead, a plain wooden chest of drawers, and two straight chairs did not make for cozy bedtime visiting; and the dining table with four chairs was terribly impractical since there was no kitchen, and we would take all our meals with Autie's troops.

  Autie deposited me, gave me a quick kiss, and said, "I'll return as soon as I can."

  I watched him race down that once-gracious, curving staircase, taking the stairs two at a time, and nearly leaping off the front veranda to grab the reins of a horse held by a young boy—I judged him to be about fourteen. Without another word or look in my direction, Autie galloped away, and the young boy disappeared back to wherever he had come from. I was left utterly alone.

  For a while I busied myself straightening out our clothes, hanging them as best I could, on hooks in a wardrobe. But soon the utter emptiness and qu
iet began to weigh on me, and my thoughts dwelt on the fact that I'd now been married twelve days and was alone, a thousand or more miles from home, with no idea of when my husband might return—if ever. What, I wondered, would I do if he never returned, if he was—God forbid—killed in battle that very day? Such morbid and self-pitying thoughts soon gave way to tears, and I threw myself on that hard bed with its scratchy coverlet.

  "Miz Custer?" A gentle knock on the door was followed by a soft voice. "All right I come in?"

  Eliza stood in the doorway. I knew exactly who she was, for Autie had described her several times. A runaway slave, she had been in camp just after he'd been made a general, and when he knew he needed a cook, he'd asked her, "Would you like to come live with me?" She'd replied, "I reckon I would." And she'd taken care of him ever since—cooked his meals, sometimes under fire, cleaned his clothes, kept his quarters neat and clean.

  "I clearly married you for love," Autie told me once, "for I don't need a wife. I have Eliza."

  "Ginnel go off and leave you?" she asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, "Men's that way. Can't trust them, and that ginnel, he's the worst of the lot. Don't you worry none, though. You and I going to be fine, just fine." She bustled into the room and began to rearrange the clothes I'd worked so hard to straighten, clucking as she found a patch of dirt on the general's pants or sighing in appreciation over some garment of mine.

  "I can take care of our clothes," I said hesitantly. "Thank you, but..."

  "I been doing it and I'll just keep on," she said. She talked on while she shook and pressed with her hands and folded, all the while telling me how grateful she was to the general. "Course I don't let him know that," she said firmly. "Got to keep him knowing he's lucky to have me take care of him." She laughed heartily.

  By the time the clothes were arranged to Eliza's satisfaction, I was through with self-pity but very tired. "You rest now," she said, "and I'll fetch you some supper in a bit. I sure am glad to have a woman to talk to.... I miss my mammy something fierce." And with that she was gone.