Finally Clay paused, looked at Buford, and said flatly, “Rev. Irons came to see me yesterday.”
“Thought he might,” was Yancy’s comment. “About you and Melora, I expect.”
His quickness stopped Clay for a moment, but he nodded. “People are talking. I’ve got to do something about it.”
“You do whut’s right, Clay. And in my mind they ain’t nothin’ right about lettin’ a bunch of long-tongued busybodies run your life.”
Clay said soberly, “Not worried about myself, Buford. It’s Melora who’s getting the worst of it.”
“Wal, here she comes. Tell her about it; then you do whut you got to do.” He got up and went across the yard, disappearing behind the house.
Clay stood up and turned to Melora, who had left the cabin and was walking across the yard. “Come for breakfast, Clay?” She laughed, a tinkling sound on the morning air. “You always manage to show up here at mealtime. You’re bad as a preacher about that. Breakfast is almost ready. We’ll have to wait for the biscuits.”
Clay smiled slightly. “You’re as bossy as you were the first time I ever saw you.” His eyes crinkled with humor as he added, “You weren’t more than six or seven, and you bossed me around like you were a sergeant in the army.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “I think of those days often, Melora. More than you’d know.”
He watched her smile answer him. The morning air had roughed her cheeks and put sparkles in her eyes. She had a beautifully fashioned face, all of its features graceful yet generous and capable of robust emotion. She was a girl with a great degree of vitality and imagination, which she held under careful restraint. He saw the hint of her will—or of her pride—in the corners of her eyes and lips.
She looked at him now, her green eyes shining. “I think of them, too, Clay.”
They stood there, and finally he took a deep breath. “Melora, I need to stop coming here.” He watched for her reaction and was astonished when she showed little emotion. “I said—”
“I heard what you said.”
He stood motionless in the bright sunshine, her presence hitting him with a jolt. She saw what was happening to him, but she stood still. Within her own chest she felt a sudden heavy undertow of feeling starting to unsettle her resolution and turn her reckless. She made a sharp movement to break that moment and wheeled away. Clay stood still, and presently she turned back to face him, her face almost severe. For a moment they watched each other, completely still. Then she lifted her chin and took his arm.
“The biscuits will be ready. Come to breakfast.”
He held her back for one moment. “But what about the talk, Melora?”
“If you stop coming to see me, you’ll be saying that they’re right. I don’t like to see you run from anything, Clay.”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
There was pride in the woman’s eyes, and her lips were firm as she answered him. “Before God, we have done nothing wrong. You can run if you like, but I won’t do it!”
Admiration ran through Clay, and he said, “By heaven, Melora, you’re right! Come on, let’s eat breakfast!” She smiled at him, and the two of them entered the cabin.
CHAPTER 9
THE OFFICERS’ BALL
The war fever that struck Richmond following the fall of Fort Sumter was, in many respects, like an epidemic. It reached into every home, from the palatial mansions of the wealthy planters to the unpainted shacks of the poor whites scattered in the deep woods. The young men flocked to Richmond to enlist, their greatest fear being that the great battle would be over before they could become a part of it. The term war fever was not inaccurate, for the populace behaved as though they were infected, rushing around from rally to rally, faces flushed, shouting war slogans.
Volunteer companies sprang up like mushrooms, most of which bore names reflecting their patriotism and the terror they sought to inspire: Baker Fire-Eaters, Southern Avengers, Bartow Yankee Killers, Cherokee Lincoln Killers, and Hornet’s Nest Riflemen. A few titles even had an occupational flavor, such as the Cumberland Ploughboys or the Cow Hunters.
Almost constantly the city held ceremonies full of staging and flourish designed to thrill the hearts of the home folk. The speeches became almost as stereotyped and platitudinous as the high school valedictories of later years.
When Clay brought his family to Richmond on Friday morning, he found such a celebration going on. The main streets were so packed with wagons and buggies that he had to hitch his own rig several blocks from the center of town. “I’d better keep an eye on you two,” he said to David and Lowell as he handed Ellen down from the rig and they all made their way through the shouting throng. “You might get carried away with all the excitement and join up.”
Rena glanced at her brothers, wondering if they might do just that. David merely grinned and shook his head, but Lowell was looking at the crowds, taking in the spectacle. He was seventeen years old, and several of his close friends, no older than he, had already signed up and were urging him to join their outfits. Lowell was a throwback to Noah Rocklin, the founder of the family. He was thickset and stubborn—and it was that which made Clay keep his eye on the boy.
Got to watch him, he thought as he led the way to the raised platform where the speakers were already winding up. He’s too much like Grandfather—and like me, I guess, he thought wryly.
Clay and his family found a good spot close to the platform and watched as a battle flag made by the ladies of Richmond was presented with great ceremony to the new company, which had the rather ferocious name of Southern Yankee Killers. The volunteers stood in ranks, their eyes fixed on the speakers, who gave them a flowery tribute. Then the color sergeant advanced with his corporals to receive the flag, rising to the occasion with an impressive response:
“Ladies, with high-beating hearts and pulses throbbing with emotion, we receive from your hands this beautiful flag, the proud emblem of our young republic. To those who will return from the field of battle bearing this flag—though it may be tattered and torn—in triumph, this incident will always prove a cheering recollection. And to him whose fate it may be to die a soldier’s death, this moment brought before his fading view will recall your kind and sympathetic words; he will bless you as his spirit takes its aerial flight.”
On and on went the speech, and others much like it. Finally, though, the oratory stopped long enough for the soldiers to receive liberal offerings of cake, cookies, punch, and coffee from the young ladies, all of whom were adorned in their best dresses. Along with the refreshments, kisses were sometimes added, and David nudged Clay with an elbow, whispering, “Makes me want to sign up, Father. Let’s both of us join the company!”
Clay grinned rashly at him, but Lowell said soberly, “Joke all you want, David, but those fellows are doing something.”
David snorted impatiently. “Yes, swilling down lemonade and eating cake and kissing girls. As soon as the train leaves to take them to camp, that’ll be over.”
Clay nodded his agreement but saw that the two of them were in the minority. He had made his own position on the war clear, but only David agreed with him. The carnival atmosphere that so effectively whipped up the spirits of the crowd did nothing but depress him. Finally he said, “Dent’s company is giving a drill exhibition on the green. Let’s go watch.”
Making their way to the large area adjacent to the courthouse, they arrived just as the Richmond Grays were beginning their drill. The square was packed, and as the Grays went through their paces, there were cheers of admiration.
“They are pretty good, aren’t they, Daddy?” Rena said, her eyes bright with excitement. “And Dent is the most handsome of all the officers.”
Ellen was standing close to Clay, wearing a bright yellow dress and a broad-brimmed white hat adorned with blue flowers. She liked the excitement, for she was a woman who could not be happy in solitude. Now she pressed against Clay as she said, “It’s so exciting! I never
saw such handsome young men!” Then she pulled away and gave Clay a critical look, whispering, “You should be proud of your son! He’s a patriot, serving his country. Why don’t you at least try to look like all this is important?”
Clay shrugged his shoulders, saying, “Sorry, Ellen. I’ll try to do better.” And he did try. All afternoon he took his family to the drills and ceremonies, even taking time to visit the officers of the Grays. Colonel James Benton greeted him effusively. “Clay, glad to see you! Isn’t this a fine group!” Benton was Melanie Rocklin’s father, Gid’s father-in-law, but the man never mentioned either his relationship to the woman Clay had once loved so foolishly or Clay’s past conflicts. Now he seemed almost majestic, albeit overweight, in his new uniform. He had no military experience at all, but he had raised the regiment at his own expense, and now his life was nothing but the military. He spent all his time making speeches, studying strategy from officers of the Regular Army, and talking about the war.
Clay spoke with Taylor Dewitt, captain of the Grays and one of his oldest friends. “You look great in your uniform, Captain Dewitt,” Clay said with a grin, then added a barbed comment. “Now if you drop dead of excitement over being an officer, we won’t have to do a thing to you except put a lily in your hand.”
Taylor flushed, then laughed loudly. “You could always puncture any kind of pride I had, Clay!” Taylor was a tall, erect man of thirty-eight, aristocratic to the bone. “You son of a gun!” he said, thumping Clay’s shoulder, “I wish you were in this thing with me. I don’t know any more about soldiering than I know about Chinese painting. None of us do.”
As he spoke, the pair of them were joined by Bushrod Aimes, another old crony of Clay’s. He wore the insignia of a second lieutenant and looked sheepishly at Clay, saying, “Taylor’s right about that, Clay. We none of us know a thing. Talk about shoving off to sea in a sieve!”
“You’ll do fine, both of you,” Clay said, nodding and looking fondly on the pair. The three of them shared some very fine memories of their youth, when all had been golden and there had been nothing but fun on the horizon. Clay spoke what the three of them were feeling. “Maybe I never said so, but you two have always been pretty special to me. We’ve had some good times.”
Dewitt gave him a rash grin, saying, “That sounds like an epitaph, Clay. Don’t be so confounded sentimental!” Then his thin face grew sober, and he looked at the milling figures of the company surrounding them. “Well, all kidding aside, I’ve thought of those days myself. They were fine, weren’t they?” A shadow crossed his face, making him look tired and older. “They go pretty quick, the good days. Now we’re walking into a rough time. Not all these boys will be here when the shooting’s over.”
Bushrod Aimes shook his head, for he was a careless fellow who had always refused to think of unpleasant things. “My gosh, Dewitt, you’re worse than Rocklin here! We’re going to do fine!”
Dent chose that moment to step up to the trio. “Like to speak to you, sir, when you’ve finished,” he said to Clay.
“Why, now’s fine, Dent,” Clay said. He nodded at his two old friends, saying, “I’ll be careful to pray for you fellas.” Then he followed Dent, who was making his way through the crowd.
Bushrod stared at the two, then shook his head. “Pray for us! Boy, that sure don’t sound like the Clay Rocklin we grew up with, does it, Captain Dewitt?”
“No, but I think it’s the real thing.” Taylor’s face was thoughtful as his eyes followed Clay. “Guess he’ll need all the religion he can get, Bushrod. Right now, it takes a lot less courage to be a soldier and take a chance on a bullet than it does to stay out of the army. Clay’s taking a lot of abuse over his stand—and it’ll get worse, I reckon.”
Clay shouldered his way through the crowd, following Dent off the green. There had been a tense look on Dent’s youthful face, and when he reached a relatively uncrowded spot near the firehouse, there was an edge of temper in his voice as he spoke. “I’ve been talking to Mother. She’s very upset.”
“About what, Dent?”
“About the miserably small allowance you dole out to her. You’ve got to give her more money!”
Clay clamped his lips firmly together, choking back the hot retort that leaped to them. He drew a steadying sigh. “I’ve talked to her about that, son. She can’t seem to understand that things are very tight right now—and likely to get worse.”
“Things aren’t that bad,” Dent said, a stubborn air in the jut of his chin. “Isn’t it bad enough that she had to survive all the years you weren’t around? Do you have to punish her now that you’ve got control of all the money?”
Clay wanted to remind Dent that Ellen had lived very well during the years he was gone and, in fact, that the bills she had run up then were a large factor in the financial ruin he had found when he had come back. But Dent was in no mood to hear the truth. Besides, Clay felt the old streak of guilt over his past, so he merely said, “Dent, if you’d like to go over the books with me, I’d be happy to have you find some extra money. But I’m telling you now, there isn’t any. As a matter of fact, I may as well tell you—the way this war is shaping up, we’re going to have to cut back even more. The first thing to go will be the personal expenses of all of us. That means the room your mother keeps rented here in Richmond will have to go, I’m afraid.”
What followed was as unpleasant as anything Clay had endured since his return. His son had a fiery temper, and for the next five minutes, Clay had to endure the worst of it. While Dent stood there, pale with anger and resentment, speaking bitterly about what a pitiful excuse for a husband and a father he had been, Clay could only stand and hold his tongue.
More than once he’d had to fight down the impulse to strike out or to turn and walk away from his son’s invectives, which burned as they fell on him. There had been a time when he would not have been able to endure such things, for his pride had been every bit as high as his son’s. Now as he stood there enduring Dent’s torrent, he took some small comfort in the fact that he was able to hang on to his temper—he knew it was not in him to endure such a thing, and that, as much as anything that had happened, convinced him that his life had been touched by God.
Angrily Dent clamped his lips together. There was a wild look in his eyes, as well as exhaustion. He was like a man who’d run himself out and was now at the end of his resources. Since the day his father had come home to take over Gracefield, a bitter streak of resentment had galled Dent. Now, here in the bright sunlight, he had let all that lay within him spill out. Yet it had not brought relief. It would have been better if his father had struck out at him; nothing would have pleased him better than a rousing battle with blows and shouts. But his father did no more than stand there quietly, looking at him with pain in his eyes, making no defense.
Finally, drained and bitter, Dent said, “I’ll never ask you for anything again!” then turned and stalked away. He didn’t look back, but if he had, he would have seen the anguish on Clay Rocklin’s face that he had so longed to put there. He had not really expected that his father would do anything for his mother. In fact, down deep he was ashamed of his tirade, for he had already spoken to his grandmother, who had told him the same thing he had just heard from his father. Even so, something in him had driven him to seek the confrontation—some demon that seemed to eat away at him.
Now he moved away, stiff with anger and bitterness, and went into a saloon and ordered a bottle. For the rest of the afternoon he sat there, ignoring those who came to clap him on the shoulder and acclaim him as a patriot. The darkness that was in him seemed to deepen, and as he slumped in his chair, sullen in the midst of the laughing crowd, he wondered why he could not forget his father and get on with his life.
Colonel Benton had rented the ballroom of the Capitol Hotel for the Officers’ Ball, and when Dent arrived, the floor was already filled with couples spinning around the room. The amber light from the glass chandeliers picked up the brilliant colors of the women�
��s dresses, and the brass buttons on the gray uniforms of the officers winked merrily as the music beat out a steady tune.
Bushrod Aimes had found Dent drinking alone and had practically hauled him bodily to the affair. “What’s wrong with you, Dent?” Aimes had demanded. “No sense paying for your own liquor. It’ll be free at the ball. I hear Colonel Benton bought out the bar for tonight. Come on, let’s go let the ladies make a fuss over us!”
Dent had decided not to go to the ball, for he was still filled with anger, having spent hours brooding over the scene with his father. But the liquor he had consumed had dulled the edge of his anger, so he allowed himself to be bullied by Aimes. When the pair arrived, he suddenly became the center of attention for several lovely young ladies. Some of them he knew well, and for the next hour he was able to thrust the memory of the quarrel with his father from his mind.
One newcomer was a beautiful girl named Leona Reed. Mrs. Mary Boykin Chesnut, the leader of society in Richmond, had led the young woman up, saying, “Lieutenant, you must meet one of our distinguished guests. You’ve heard of her father, Samuel Reed, I’m sure. Miss Reed, I present to you Lieutenant Denton Rocklin, one of our fine officers from the Richmond Grays.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Chesnut,” Dent said instantly. “May I have this dance, Miss Reed?”
“Of course, Lieutenant.”
She stepped into his embrace, and as they spun around the floor, he was captivated by her beauty. She was not tall, but her bright orchid dress set off a trim figure. Her blond hair was done up in a coronet around her shapely head, and the sweep of her cheeks was intensely feminine. A pair of large blue eyes and beautifully formed lips made her an attractive girl. But as taken as he was with her beauty, he was aware almost at once that she was a fiery patriot, for she spoke of “the Cause” in a fervent tone.
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 46