Anything But Civil

by Anna Loan-Wilsey

  What’s wrong with me? I wondered.

  Images of Captain Henry Starrett came to mind, his mocking of Sir Arthur, his brutal attack on Mr. Jamison in the street and then on the man’s house, all in the name of a “night’s entertainment.” Men had been injured and insulted and yet all I could think of was that Santa Claus wasn’t who we thought he was. The Santa Claus of my childhood had given me the book I’ll treasure forever. With her inscription inside it, he had given me back my mother, for an instant. He was the Santa Claus who with every glimpse of him on a card or in a newspaper or in a church hall filled me with the hope of recapturing the magic, peace, and love of that Christmastime almost twenty years ago. I’d been excited about planning the Christmas festivities, but seeing a version of Santa Claus be so cruel had put a damper on my exuberance and had made me wonder if I’d ever enjoy Christmas again.

  How absurd, I thought, having felt sorry for myself when Mr. Jamison was the one who deserved my pity. Captain Starrett wasn’t Santa Claus. So why should he ruin my Christmas?

  I felt immensely better. I stood, shook the snow off the hem of my dress, straightened my hat, and headed back across the bridge toward Sir Arthur’s house to change for Mass at St. Michael’s.

  “You’re going back to the general’s house, Hattie.” Sir Arthur waved a simple gold-bordered white card in one hand and his cigar in the other. “Starrett sent word that he’s ready to talk again, now. So you’ll have to go without me.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

  I’d planned to attend the G.A.R.-sponsored home tour. I’d raced back from St. Michael’s, changed into a less formal day dress, and fetched a pencil and tablet of paper from my room before meeting Sir Arthur and Lieutenant Triggs in the foyer. I’d been especially looking forward to seeing the late Dr. Kittoe’s greenhouse.

  “Take down everything Starrett feels up to talking about,” Sir Arthur said. “You know the topics I’d like him to cover, including the Custer question. I look forward to reading the material tonight.”

  “Starrett?” Lieutenant Triggs asked, surprised.

  “Not to worry old chap, I’m not talking about the brute but his father, General Cornelius Starrett of the Army of the Cumberland, Fourth Corps. I’m interviewing him for my book. You saw him at the G.A.R. meeting, I believe.”

  “Well, I’ll be. So that was him? My brother served with the general at Missionary Ridge, though he was Major Starrett then. Had nothing but praise for the great soldier. Amazing he’s the sire of . . .” Morgan Triggs didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t have to. “I didn’t know the general was living here.”

  “Well, come along after the tour then if you’d like. Bring Mrs. Triggs too if she’s up to it. I’ve been invited for tea.” Only Sir Arthur would invite two additional guests to someone else’s tea. Sir Arthur looked at his watch.

  “Right!” he said. “It’s time to go.”

  The tour, arranged by the G.A.R. weeks ago for Sir Arthur during his visit to Galena, began and ended with U. S. Grant’s homes, with several of Galena’s other famous men in between, including the former homes of General John Rawlins on Hill Street, Dr. Edward Kittoe’s on S. High Street, the statesman Elihu Washburne’s former home on Third Street, an impressive Greek Revival house that had appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, and General William Rowley’s on Park. At each home, the Union Army veterans’ group had arranged someone to show the tour group around and answer any questions Sir Arthur might have.

  While he was still a clerk in his father’s leather-goods store in 1860, Grant and his family lived at 121 S. High Street, a modest brick house, only a block from Sir Arthur’s rented home. After his triumphal return in 1865, the people of Galena presented Grant with a beautiful Italianate brick house high on the hill overlooking Galena from the east side of the river. Although Grant had died seven years ago, the home was still owned by his children, who on this occasion allowed the caretaker to show the G.A.R. members and Sir Arthur around the house. So the tour was to begin with Grant’s more humble beginnings on one side of the river and finish in the grand home on the other side.

  I followed Sir Arthur and Lieutenant Triggs out the door as Sir Arthur questioned the lieutenant about his brother’s experience with General Starrett. The two men carried on a lively conversation as they waited, while I unobtrusively took notes. The only exception was when Sir Arthur asked Lieutenant Triggs if he knew anything about Captain Starrett, the general’s son.

  And I thought Sir Arthur didn’t want anything more to do with the man?

  Lieutenant Triggs spit on the ground.

  “That’s what I think too,” Sir Arthur said, laughing at his friend’s reaction as two Rockaway carriages arrived with Lieutenant Colonel Holbrook, his hair as tousled as last night, as if he hadn’t combed it in days, and two other men I remembered seeing at the G.A.R. meeting but was never introduced to. Lieutenant Triggs smiled and waved to me as they pulled away. I tentatively waved back, before heading down the Washington Street stairs.

  The lieutenant’s reaction puzzled me. Why would Morgan Triggs spit at the mentioning of Captain Starrett’s name? I didn’t think Triggs even knew the man.

  After crossing the river at the Green Street Bridge and traversing the park, I approached the scene of last night’s pandemonium, the home of Enoch Jamison, the so-called “copperhead,” on my way to General Starrett’s home. Hoping to go unnoticed, I stood behind a delivery cart, piled high with crates labeled: Martin Dairy, stopped in the road across the street. Except for the trampled, muddy lawn and two rhododendron bushes that looked as if someone had bedded down for the night in them, the home showed little evidence that anything had occurred to disturb its peace last night. The walls and windows, last night streaked with egg and rotten vegetables and other filth, had already been cleaned. The broken window was boarded up and the glass cleared away. As the milkman returned carrying two empty milk bottles, Enoch Jamison’s door opened. But instead of Mr. Jamison, the man who stepped out was young, only a few years older than me, bespectacled, short, and pudgy. I wouldn’t have given him a second glance except that the man wore a black suit that had gone out of fashion ten years ago. It was so faded it appeared perpetually covered in dust. And on his head was a dented foot-tall black stovepipe hat. In an unladylike manner, I stood staring, even after the milk cart pulled away and the man walked down the street in the opposite direction. I hadn’t seen a stovepipe hat like that in years.

  “Come in,” someone said. “Ah, here she is,” the general said when I opened the door. “Sir Arthur said you’d be on time.”

  The old general was seated in a rocking chair near the fire. He indicated a chair across from him. “Ready?” he said enthusiastically, smiling and rubbing his hands together. He lit his pipe as I retrieved my notebook from my bag, flipped to the last entry, and sat poised to take down his every word.

  “As I was saying when my son interrupted us yesterday, reveille was at 0500 hours. Grant was already up and complaining of a headache. The general had received a message from Lee the night before requesting a meeting at 1000 hours the next day, but at 1150 that morning we were only about four miles west of Walker’s Church. . . .”

  It was as if he were recounting the events of the day before. Every detail, every thought, every emotion from that day almost thirty years ago had been stamped on his memory like a photograph. Twice I had to scramble to catch up with the dictation, having been mesmerized by the general’s story.

  “. . . Lee, with his man Marshall, and Babcock had arrived first and were waiting for the general in the home of Wilmer McLean. Funny one that McLean. Claimed that the war began in his front yard and ended in his front parlor!” The general burst into a fit of laughter that turned into coughing. He waved me away when I rose to help. “Doggone it! I hate getting old. Now where was I?”

  He stared up at the ceiling for a moment. I followed his gaze to the wallpaper border of brown deer leaping through
a swirl of olive and blue–colored leaves, flowers, and birds. A cobweb stretched across the corner above the general’s head.

  “Oh, yes, I remember,” he said. “We arrived in Appomattox Court House around 1300 hours. Grant had us wait outside on the front lawn while he went in to meet Lee. I whittled two sticks to straws I was so anxious waiting until he summoned us. Hats in hand, we entered quietly and arranged ourselves on either side of the large parlor room. I’ll never forget what a contrast those two made. Grant, short, in his rough traveling suit, without a sword, and with barely any insignia, was sitting in the middle of the room, at a small oval table. Lee, a tall, commanding man, was wearing a new uniform and bejeweled long sword and sat beside a marble-topped table in the corner facing him. The silence was heavy, as if we entered a dying patient’s sick chamber. But then Grant said, ‘I met you once before, General Lee, while we were serving in—’ ”

  A knock on the door interrupted the general mid-sentence.

  “Oh, what is it now?” the general said peevishly. Adella Reynard opened the door.

  “Oh, Papa, must you smoke that thing?” she said, waving her hand about to dispel the smoke from the air.

  “What do you want, Adella? I’m about to dictate my story to Sir Arthur’s secretary,” the general said.

  “I know that, Papa,” Adella said, kissing her grandfather’s almost bald head. “I wanted to give her something.” She handed me an envelope with gold foil trim. “Give this to Sir Arthur, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said.

  “What is it?” General Starrett asked.

  “It’s an invitation for tomorrow night.”

  “Oh,” General Starrett said, raising his pipe to his lips.

  “Now don’t let him talk too long, Miss Davish. He tires easily,” Adella said as she plucked a book from the shelf, A Woman’s Trip to Alaska, and then made for the door. She waved her hand in the air again. “And do put that pipe away, Papa.” As the door closed behind the young woman the general shook his head, then smiled.

  “Means well, that one,” he said. He lifted his pipe slightly away from his lips.

  “Do you really not mind the smoke, dear girl?” he asked.

  “Actually, the smell of a pipe is sweet and pleasant. My father smoked a pipe.” I knew better than to completely contradict Sir Arthur and mention my abhorrence for cigars.

  “Sir Arthur’s right. You are a treasure,” the general said, and then took a long puff. “Now where was I?”

  CHAPTER 7

  “I have to have the rest no later than Tuesday.” As I stepped into the hall from the library, I heard the insipid man’s voice insist. “No later than Tuesday!”

  “I’m not a child, Mott. I heard you the first time.” I recognized the second man’s voice. It was Captain Henry Starrett. The two men were speaking in hushed tones, but I could hear them arguing. They were in the back parlor, a few steps down the hall.

  The general had been in a talkative mood and spent the remainder of the morning and some of the afternoon dictating his life story. He had his midday meal brought to him on a tray. He only stopped when Sir Arthur and Lieutenant Triggs arrived and Adella came to escort him to tea, admonishing me for keeping him from his afternoon nap. It was then that I’d realized that I was famished, not having been offered lunch when the general had his. I hoped Mrs. Cassidy might have something I could eat.

  “If I may be so bold to say so, you act like one sometimes, Mr. Starrett,” the man called Mott said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Captain Starrett said. “How dare you speak to me like that!” Was this conversation too going to come to blows?

  “But I ask, what man comes all this way and then puts everything we’ve worked for in jeopardy?” Mott asked. “Maybe you fail to see the significance of what I’ve told you. Maybe you don’t care.”

  “Of course I care,” Captain Starrett growled. “But I may have . . . miscalculated.”

  “Miscalculated?” Mott said. “You’re not telling me you’ve wasted my time, everyone’s time, are you, Captain Starrett?”

  “No.”

  “Do I need to remind you that—”

  “Enough!” Henry Starrett shouted, then lowered his voice once again. “You’ll have it by Tuesday. All of it.”

  “Good. But let me remind you, just in case, that if I don’t, I won’t be held responsible for the consequences,” the man named Mott said condescendingly. “They won’t wait forever, Captain.” I wished I could see who Henry Starrett was talking to, but I didn’t dare move a muscle or they might know I was in the hall, eavesdropping. “By the way, may I ask how you intend to hold up your end of the bargain?”

  “None of your business.”

  “It is my business; everything’s my business. Who do you think will have to answer for your . . . miscalculation?”

  “You’re scum, Mott. If I thought I could do this without you, I’d . . .”

  “You’d what?” Mott said. “Have it by Tuesday, Captain, and you won’t have to deal with me again.”

  “You’ll have it, damn it! Now get out of my house.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, I spoke with Jamison.”

  “Well? What did the snake have to say?”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Starrett but I quote, he said, ‘Go to Hell.’ ” The captain growled. “Good day to you, sir,” Mott said.

  Before I could hide myself, Mott was in the hallway. To my astonishment, it was the man I’d seen coming out of Enoch Jamison’s house, this morning. What could this man have possibly said to Enoch Jamison that interested Henry Starrett? And why? With my curiosity piqued, all thought of retreat was gone.

  As he approached me, Mr. Mott lowered his face so as to see above his spectacles but down his nose. His neck was in an awkward position as he tried to look me up and down. It was comical, for as I was taller than he was, he ended up looking at my chin. He carried a small leather Gladstone traveling bag. What was inside? I wondered.

  “Charming,” he said, grinning without showing his teeth. He tipped his old-fashioned hat to me and left by the front door without another word.

  Did anyone else see him? He obviously wasn’t concerned that I had or that I’d overheard the conversation. Did anyone else hear Mr. Mott and Captain Starrett arguing? What was it that the captain had to give to Mott by Tuesday? Why was it so important? Before Captain Starrett caught me eavesdropping in the hall, I strode toward the kitchen. But I was too late. I walked right into him as he stormed out of the back parlor door.

  “Pardon me,” I said, backing away as quickly as possible. His face was flush and his mouth was twisted into a scowl. He was obviously furious. And as before, it was all the more disturbing due to his resemblance to Santa Claus.

  Would I ever be able to think of jolly Saint Nick the same again?

  “You?” Captain Starrett grunted, and swung his arm toward me. I closed my eyes and braced for the impact of the blow. Instead Captain Starrett knocked into a side table, sending an Oriental flower vase smashing to the floor. The mosaic of colored pieces of porcelain crunched under his footsteps as he pushed past me down the hall. I didn’t give him a chance to turn back and ran to the kitchen.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Reynard,” Sir Arthur said, taking that lady’s hand. “Come now, Triggs, we must be going.”

  “Again, my wife sends her regrets,” Lieutenant Triggs said. The sound of small feet pounded on the floorboards above us. The lieutenant pointed to the ceiling. “She’ll especially regret not meeting your lovely children.” Then he saluted the general and warmly shook his hand. “It was an honor to meet you, sir. A real honor.”

  “Good to meet you too, old boy,” the general said. “Send my regards to your brother.”

  They were all in the foyer as I left the kitchen after tea. Mrs. Cassidy had been kind enough to offer me a cup of coffee and several each of her toffee bars and pumpkin bread, which had done wonders to calm my nerves. The front door opened and a man ente
red.

  “Darling,” Mrs. Reynard said, greeting her husband at the door.

  “Adella, my sweet,” the man said, kissing his wife on the cheek. He handed her a parcel. “That book you wanted came in.” Except for the odd way he spoke, slightly out of the side of his mouth, and the red and white variegated amaryllis on his lapel, Frederick Reynard was unremarkable in every way, average build, average height, sandy hair and mustache, brown and gray single-breasted sack suit. I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a crowd. Yet his countenance and manners were charming, as it was evident that he adored his wife. His eyes followed her every movement, even as he handed his coat, hat, and gloves to the butler, a tall, thin black man. Frederick hung on her every word and seemed unabashed at showing her affection in front of complete strangers.

  “Oh, Frederick,” Adella said, ripping the paper from the book, Girl’s Winter in India. “Thank you, darling. Oh, forgive me. Frederick, this is Lieutenant Triggs and Sir Arthur Windom-Greene. Sir Arthur is writing a book about Papa. Lieutenant Triggs is a guest of Sir Arthur.” Frederick looked up questioningly at my approach. “And this is his secretary, Miss Davish.”