"I want to know," Balthazar whispered patiently. "Come, come, there is no one."
"17th Virginia Infantry."
Balthazar had hoped for more. "Is there something unusual about this regiment," he prompted, a little impatiently. Having judged Kennedy to be a true man and old veteran, he expected that this question would force a reply.
"You'll have to ask Major Devereux. Is there something else you'd like to know?"
"You referred to him as ‘colonel’ before."
Kennedy did not reply. He had decided to say nothing more.
Balthazar sighed. "Who is Bill?" he asked hopefully.
Kennedy searched back through his memory to find the reference in their talk. "Bill White, our chief teamster. Good man, one of the best, his 'pa' is the Devereuxs' butler. You'll meet him."
"Black?"
"More or less."
"Mulatto?"
Kennedy nodded. He looked down for a minute, then up. He hesitated. "It's none of my business," he said at last. "You can talk to Claude about it, if you want."
The volunteer engineer officer entered the car. He walked, smiling up the aisle toward them.
"No more of this!" Kennedy warned.
Balthazar nodded.
The boy colonel took his seat. "You fellows missed a great meal, Porterhouse steaks!"
Balthazar smiled, turning back to Kennedy. "The 'home fries' potatoes?"
Kennedy raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Yes?"
"You say there is onion in it?"
"Yes."
"What sort?"
"Generally wild onions."
Balthazar seemed doubtful, and then shrugged. "Well, perhaps. We will see. A touch of garlic may be delightful in this."
"We don't eat garlic," the young engineer said with a small air of superiority.
The Frenchman was shocked. He looked at Kennedy.
The Virginian winked with the eye invisible to the third man, smug in spite of the fact that he, also, could not imagine eating garlic. "And then there's red eye gravy."
"Yes?"
He explained that the salty, peppery ham of rural Virginia should be slow fried and then eaten with a sauce made in the de-glazed pan with an infusion of strong, black coffee.
A smile lit Balthazar's homely face. "This becomes more interesting, my friend," he said.
Claude Devereux met them on the station platform in Alexandria. Balthazar saw him as the cars rolled to a halt. Momentarily disoriented by the uniform, he wondered who this ramrod straight figure might be. The face of his cousin, beaming up at him brought everything back into focus.
Devereux waved and started for the door of the car.
Balthazar was surprised to see the terrible effect which a few short years had made in Devereux. The hair was nearly all grey now. Wrinkles showed around the eyes. He tried to master his shock, and had nearly banished it from his mind as he reached the end of the car to step down on Virginia's soil.
Devereux grasped him firmly by the hand until Balthazar seized him by the shoulders to pull him into a tight embrace. "I won't kiss you Claude," he said. "I sense that your countrymen would have as difficult a time with that as our English relations, but it is good to see you again." The burly Frenchman held the other man at arm's length. "Blue becomes you," he said finally. "The eagles suggest that you are a colonel, I believe."
Devereux's features froze. "I thought someone would have told you."
Balthazar shrugged expressively, a gesture full of acceptance. He smiled widely, brown eyes lighting up the big face.
Devereux relaxed. "I have found it necessary to accept their offer. I am, in fact in the office of the Secretary of War as a volunteer," he said.
"The bureau of the minister of war, you are in the bureau of the minister of war?" The audacity of the thing and the immensity of the opportunity bemused him.
Devereux nodded.
"Mon Dieu!" Balthazar looked up and down the platform, examining the building. "What a lovely little station! Come! Let us go, I would see my aunt, and your splendid town. You could speak of nothing else in France. Now, I would see it for myself." A spring wagon waited in the station yard. The cousins passed arm in arm through the crowd, with Devereux smiling and nodding in reaction to the greetings of several men.
A lovely brunette stood against one wall, a ticket in one gloved hand. Brown silk became her. She pointed the end of her parasol at Claude in recognition.
Devereux paused to speak. He removed his kepi. "Elizabeth. Going into the city today?"
The beauty beamed at him. "Claude, you have been so cruel!"
He cocked his grey head to one side. "Pardon?" he asked.
"You know," she said. "We have not had you for weeks! I have been to see your mother, and Hope, but you are just so, 'occupied', and now you are a colonel. La! You have no idea how jealous some people are! So sudden!" she said and then turned her light upon Balthazar.
Devereux looked relieved at the diversion of her conversation to someone else. "Elizabeth,” he said. “May I present my cousin, John Balthazar. John, Mrs. Frederick Braithwaite." She extended her hand.
Balthazar scooped it up, raising the russet kid glove to a precise inch from his lips. "Enchante', Madame," he breathed.
Her eyelids fluttered. "My, goodness, Claude. One of your French relations?"
"Yes,” he said. “John has come over to seek a market for the family's wines."
"What sort of wine is that Mister Balthazar?" she asked.
"Bordeaux, or more precisely, Cahors, a land to the east of Bordeaux. We have lived there a long time." He still held her hand.
She looked confused.
"I apologize for my accent. I did not learn English here." He released her hand.
"Whatever for!" she laughed, "a French gentleman who sounds like the British ambassador. You just keep right on talking that way, Mister Balthazar! You'll do well here, exceedingly well"
"What do you think?" Devereux asked when they were seated in the carriage.
Balthazar looked back into the station.
Elizabeth Braithwaite watched them from the same spot, beside the ticket window.
Balthazar held her eyes across the distance. "A bit of a tart, a light woman of good family, but very pretty. Is she of this place?"
Devereux grimaced. "Only moderately good family, her husband is with the military railroad, and a damned nuisance he is!"
"Ah, the lady of a brother officer!" The Frenchman smiled more broadly, bowing in her direction.
She dimpled prettily, fluttering an ivory fan the while.
The carriage began to roll across the cobblestone yard of the station, turning out into Columbus street through a clattering confusion of military traffic.
"Why, ‘a nuisance?’" Balthazar inquired, craning his neck to inspect the passing multitudes.
"He's a railroad engineer in civilian life."
His cousin still looked blank.
"He wants our financial support for his post-war schemes, wants to become wealthy in the boom to come after they finish us off."
Balthazar said nothing, thinking it over.
"And we'll give it to him. He probably will become rich, and we might as well make money right along with him! I just wish he would shut up about it for now!”
"And with regard to the lady?"
"Elizabeth?"
"Yes. You haven't been..?"
"No! No! Nothing like that!"
"Good."
"Why would you think that?"
Balthazar threw back his head and roared.
People on the brick sidewalk turned to look.
"Come now! Your exploits in Europe were the talk of the family! The officers of my regiment thought you one of the greatest swordsmen in France."
"I am reformed. Hope and I are reconciled."
Balthazar slapped his cousin on one blue knee. From long observation of mankind, Balthazar knew that a rake was likely to remain a rake. He had seen his cousin’s need for t
he love and devotion of women. "Splendid! These houses are not, in fact, Georgian, are they?”
"No, they are all a bit different."
The carriage rumbled along Washington Street, passing the Grecian facade of the Lyceum, and then turning left into Duke Street. They rolled downhill, toward the river.
On the far side Balthazar saw green hills. "That is Maryland," he commented, proud of his grasp of local geography.
"Uh-huh." Devereux seemed lost in thought. "Jean-Marie, I want to get you out of here and across the lines as soon as possible, before you become a remembered part of the local scenery."
"Good! Excellent again! How will you do this?"
"We run a secret line of communication across the Potomac farther down. I can send you across at night, perhaps this Tuesday."
Balthazar calculated. It was difficult to keep track of the days during a long trip. "That is four days from now", he finally announced.
Chapter 6
Family
The music of women's laughter rose from the front sitting room like a golden cloud, drifting up the stairwell to Balthazar's bedroom.
He woke in a state of mild confusion, uncertain of his situation.
The pale, dying light of an autumn afternoon glowed behind the lace curtains.
He began to feel confined by the tight envelope of bedclothes around his legs. Shaking a leg, he managed to extricate one foot from the clutching sheets. He contemplated his toes, wiggling them happily.
Masculine footsteps climbed the carpeted stairs. They paused before his door.
"Jean-Marie. Are you awake?"
"Yes, Claude. Are you waiting for me?"
"Whenever you are ready, the family would like to meet you."
"I'll be right down."
The footsteps descended.
A momentary hush greeted his cousin's return to the salon.
As he rose, searching for his trousers, Balthazar heard the music begin again. Stretching beside the bed, he realized how tired he still was. Looking at his watch, he understood that he had slept eight hours, nearly all the day. His legs and lower back were stiff. He stretched against the cramped muscles. For one hesitant moment, he wondered what his American cousins might wear for dinner. Claude's polished image rose before his eyes to decide the question. He searched in his trunk and grunted in satisfaction at the state of his clothes.
"Clotilde, will you have another cup of the Oolong?" The baritone voice reached his ears as an almost unintelligible murmur as he descended from the second floor. The chestnut of the banister slid voluptuously beneath his fingers. He focused on the long runner beneath his feet. The excellence of the piece caught his eye.
Khotan, he thought. I wonder how many snobs in London could believe that. Turning the corner, he came upon them all. They were arranged across the sitting room as though for a family portrait.
Claude stood by the black marble fireplace in evening dress, one arm draped across the mantle. A beautiful blonde sat by his side. Balthazar recognized his cousin's wife from the miniature painting which Devereux had carried in France.
Charles and Clotilde were seated on a high backed settle. The red silk of its upholstery made a frame for them. Balthazar was struck by the lady's physical familiarity. She was so much like his aunts that he felt vaguely guilty at his inability to remember her particular face. He bowed to the enthroned couple. "My dear aunt! I have so looked forward to this meeting! Uncle!" He bowed again.
Clotilde beamed up at him, immensely pleased to see a member of her own family beneath her roof.
Charles rose and gripped his hand. "So good to see you, major. I hope you will be able to spend some time with us before my son sends you away."
To Charles' right a Catholic priest sat. His white hair and ruddy complexion contrasted starkly with the starched purity of his collar and the utter blackness of his cassock.
He stood. "Willem Kruger," he said while offering his hand.
Balthazar's big fist slowly enfolded the smaller man's hand, taking possession of it. "A pleasure, Father."
A butler stood beside a mahogany tea cart, his grey hair and composed features almost a part of the room's decor. "Good evening, sir," he intoned in a deep voice.
A footman brought Balthazar a cup and saucer.
Balthazar searched the room for the widow.
A woman's knees could be seen beyond the footman's left arm. He glanced at the face of the servant. It was the same man who had carried his bags upstairs from the street.
Joe White somehow sensed that he was in the way and with the good sense that God gave him realized what was wanted. He stepped back far enough to let the visitor see Victoria Devereux. She was looking at an embroidery ring in her lap. The crown of her coppery head was what he saw at first, that and the black dress. Her hands held the wooden ring. A finger traced the pattern of colored thread, counting stitches. She raised her head.
Balthazar D'Orgueil knew he was a romantic. He actually thought it one of his better qualities. He had known and admired many women in the days before his marriage. "Loved" would have been too strong a word.
He was not prepared for this woman. His world changed when he saw her. He told himself that he must not walk across the room to her.
She looked at him in a friendly, welcoming way into which there gradually crept something different. Her eyes shifted slightly from him and she looked a little puzzled. She focused on him again, and smiled.
He began to feel foolish. There was nothing especially striking about her. She was pretty in a healthy, buxom way, but she did not look like his ideal of an American lady. He glanced at Claude's wife.
Hope Devereux was a great beauty, dazzling in her perfection. The radiance of her filled the space by Claude's side. She had leaned forward to speak to Clotilde. The line of her neck deserved a sonnet.
Victoria Devereux's round face was a little too full, her nose a little too short.
"Madame, I have not the words," was all he could find to say.
She smiled a little, her head bobbed once in acknowledgment. "Thank you, major. Patrick often spoke of the visit he had with you and Claude." She frowned just a little, trying to remember. "Three years ago it is now, I suppose."
He bowed, too overcome by emotion to speak again. Crossing the room, he took refuge in conversation with his cousin's wife. Hope was so lovely. There was a flawlessness in her physical being that demanded attention. Balthazar discovered that the beauty was also a wit. Her command of anecdote concerning the court of Louis Napoleon surprised him.
Claude looked on with pleasure, occasionally offering a comment, quite relaxed and at ease, beaming to see them together.
Balthazar remembered his manners and did his duty in circulating among all those present. The butler followed him around the room, insisting that his cup should be full. There was something interesting about the man. Balthazar could not quite put his finger on what it might be. The footman followed the butler, assisting with the tea service. The Frenchman noticed that Claude and his father had stopped drinking tea. They held small glasses of some brown liquid. "I will have that," he told the butler. The old Negro gestured to the younger servant. A cut glass decanter appeared from which an inch of liquor was poured into a tumbler.
"What is your name?" Balthazar asked the butler.
The pale eyes looked right at him for the first time. "George White. This is my son, Joseph."
Balthazar inspected the footman.
The mulatto grinned at him.
"And what is this that I am about to drink?"
"That, sir, is the finest sour mash Kentucky whiskey, twenty years old," White replied, a small smile at the corners of his mouth.
Looking at him, Balthazar knew there was no meanness in it.
Claude came to him, his own glass in hand, “You don't have to drink that," he said. "It is very much an acquired taste."
The guest took a sip, holding it under his tongue for a moment. He swallowed. "That is not whisky," he
announced.
They all looked disappointed.
"But, it is very, very good. One can get this in the field?" he asked Devereux. Laughter shook their end of the room, causing the others to listen. "Sometimes nothing else. You will do well, very well indeed!"
After a time, Balthazar found it possible to place himself in the chair beside Victoria. He asked about her needlework. She showed him what she was doing. The faces of George Washington and Jefferson Davis looked up at him from her lap. He glanced about the room, realizing how privileged he was to be included. He asked of her sons, asked of his godson.
She looked relieved.
That disturbed him, afraid that his attentions were unwelcome. "He would be so glad to meet you! Charlotte was always so good about sending him little things!" She glanced at him shyly. "I know you were always in some place like Africa, or Russia...” She put a hand over her mouth. "Oh! My! We haven't said one thing about your loss. How can you forgive us?"
The memory of his beloved wife flooded back into him. He fought against tears.
Seeing his distress, Victoria put her hand on his sleeve. "Dinner will not be for a few minutes. We are waiting for friends. "Our house is in the next street. Come meet my sons. They will be so pleased!"
Clotilde Devereux saw them to the door, telling them to return quickly, and reminding that Colonel Jourdain would be among the guests.
George White held the door, closing it behind them.
Walking back from her house in the cool of the night, she took his arm. Seeking an explanation for this blessing, he thought it could have been the evident pleasure which he and the boys had taken in each other.
It was moderately dark. The gas lighting flickering high atop the metal posts cast small pools of light outside which the darkness waited. The glass enclosures did not look very clean.
He had held out an elbow without thinking.
The pressure of her hand made him a little light headed.
He reminded himself that this lady's husband had died violently in July.
It did not work. The evening was crisp and clear. The air smelled of leaf mold and horse.
A blue uniformed Union Army lieutenant walked down the street toward them. As he passed, he tipped his cap to Victoria. "Evenin' Ma'am," he murmured.
Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services Page 5