He had gotten to his feet, saying, “I guess we’d better go in. It’s getting dark.”
A smile had tugged at her lips as she turned to face him and said, “That’s your problem.”
He admired courage greatly and knew suddenly that was why he was drawn to her. He did not fear death, but he knew deep within that he could not have handled blindness, that he would have ended his life if such a thing had ever come to him. Now as she stood there, her lips parted with humor at her own remark, he felt strangely protective, so much so that he put his hands on her shoulders. “Raimey, you’re a wonder!” When she did not answer but tilted her face up to listen to his words, it seemed natural enough to lower his head and kiss her.
She did not pull away, and there was such innocence in her that instead of a light caress, he drew her closer. If she had resisted in the least, he would have released her, but she did not. When she drew away, she was in some way still with him. She was smiling, but he could not read the expression that lay on her lips, on her face.
“That was nice, Dent,” she had said quietly; then they had turned and gone to the house, not mentioning the kiss again.
But now as Dulcie brushed her hair, Raimey thought of it. And not for the first time, for she had thought of it often. She was a young woman of no experience with men, having missed the usual girlhood experiences because of her blindness. When boys were around, Dulcie or someone else was there, as well. Even when she came into her teens and was taken to parties, nothing had occurred. One boy, a fat young fellow named Len Sykes, had kissed her once when she was fifteen, but it had been an awkward affair, leaving her untouched inside. Many of the books she had devoured spoke of love, but those were things in books, not life. She had tried to get Leona to tell her about such things, but Leona was embarrassed and kept herself back, saying, “It will come to you, Raimey.”
But it had not come, and even as she sat feeling the comb go through her hair, hearing Leona getting ready in the next room and the clatter of hooves on the street outside, Raimey felt again the touch of Dent Rocklin’s lips on hers—and was stirred.
Then it was time to leave, and she joined Leona in the carriage. Leona was excited and chattered all the way to the Masonic Hall, where the ball was to be held. All her talk was of the officers—how dull it would be when they left, but how proud they all were of them. Mr. Reed said little, and Raimey knew he was troubled. She didn’t know the source of his discontent and could only think it was something to do with business. Her mother reached over to push away a curl that had fallen over her brow, saying, “You girls will probably have sore feet tomorrow. All the officers will want to dance with you.”
But it wasn’t like that, at least not for Raimey. The officers came to her, of course, greeting her, and were amazed that she knew them at the first word they spoke. But they did not ask her to dance. It was not their fault, for they assumed she could not dance because of her affliction. The dance went on for an hour, and Leona, of course, danced every dance. Raimey’s mother was asked to help with the refreshments, which left Raimey alone, sitting in a chair, trying not to show how lonely she felt.
“I believe this is our dance, Miss Reed?”
“Oh, Mr. Rocklin!” She turned to face the voice with a smile, glad to meet Dent’s father again. “How nice that you’re here.”
“It’s good to see you, Raimey. Now how about that dance? But I’ll have to warn you, I’m not much of a dancer.”
Raimey rose and timidly put out her hand. “I’m no dancer at all. I never danced at a ball in my life—except with Dent at the Officers’ Ball.”
“Well, don’t expect an old man to be as light on his feet as that young fellow, but I think we’ll do all right.” He took her in his arms and carefully moved out on the floor. He was, in fact, an excellent dancer, and he enjoyed watching the girl’s features glow with pleasure as they moved across the floor. “You’re not telling the truth, I think,” he said easily. “You’ve danced more than once.”
“Oh, we had lessons when I was fifteen, but I didn’t try very hard. It didn’t seem as though I’d ever need them.” The tune was a fast one, but she followed him smoothly around the room and finally asked, “How’s the new colt? The black one?” She listened as he spoke of the colt, then of other things she’d heard about on her visit. When the dance was over, she applauded with the others, and he took her to the refreshment table. She took the glass he handed her, and the two of them stood there talking over the sound of the music.
She wanted to say something about Dent but could not find the words. It was he who brought up the subject. “You and Dent have become good friends, haven’t you, Raimey? I’m glad to see it.” He hesitated, then added, “He was hit pretty hard over Deborah Steele.”
“He was very much in love with her, I think.”
“Well, she’s a beautiful young woman—but it would have been bad if they had married. They don’t agree on some important things, and they’re both very stubborn. It would have been painful for both of them.”
“I wonder how she feels about him now.”
“My mother got a letter from her this week. It seems that Deborah is very involved with a young man. A strange sort of thing! He’s from a very poor family, not really of her station. She got him to enlist; then his whole family got sick and she went to take over their care. Deborah found out her friend has a real gift for writing, and the two of them are thick. Of course, he’ll be leaving any day with his unit.”
“And Dent will be leaving to face him,” Raimey said thoughtfully, her face suddenly losing its lightness. “Dent loved her, and she’s interested in another man—and now this Northern boy and Dent may kill each other. What a terrible waste!”
“Yes, it is.” Clay dropped his eyes, then lifted them. “I know you feel the war is wrong. So do I. But it’s hard for a man to know what to do—” He was about to say more but broke off when he saw an officer coming across the crowded floor. “Here comes Dent, Raimey,” he said quietly.
Dent had seen them and came right to where they stood.
“Hello. Have you two been having a good time?”
Something in his voice caught at Raimey. “Is something wrong, Dent?”
He glanced at her, then shrugged at his father. “Can’t hide a thing from this woman! Well, not wrong—but we’ll be moving out right away. Not tomorrow, but the day after.”
“The Federals are on the move?” Clay asked.
“Yes, so the scouts say.” Dent looked serious, but there was a light of anticipation in his eyes. “Word is that McDowell has left Washington with several divisions and is moving west. It’s the real thing this time. Colonel Benton just got the word this afternoon, and he called all of us in for a staff meeting.”
“I suppose this is all highly secret?” Clay said.
Dent looked around and saw his fellow officers who had been at the meeting moving about the room, talking with animation. “Supposed to be, but we’ve been waiting too long for this.” He gave his father a calculated look, saying, “I don’t think you’ll enjoy the rest of the ball, Father. It’ll probably be pretty much a celebration of the battle to come. I know you won’t like that.”
Clay said only, “Did you know your brother enlisted in the Grays this morning?”
Dent stared at him, shock pulling his mouth open. “David?” he asked incredulously.
“No, Lowell.”
“But—he’s only seventeen years old!”
“How many of your men are seventeen, Dent? Quite a few, and some of them even younger, I’d venture.”
Dent was disturbed by the news. “He can’t enlist without your permission, sir.”
“I’ve given it.”
Dent stared at his father, but no words came from his lips. Lowell had mentioned wanting to enlist, but all the young fellows wanted that. It had never come into Dent’s head that his father would let him do it. It upset him, and he said angrily, “If you’re so set against this war, why did you le
t him do it?”
Clay shook his head. “If I’d said no, he’d have run away and enlisted in another state, Dent. His mind’s made up, and you know how stubborn he is. Nothing I could say made any difference.” He shrugged his shoulders, then said, “Good night, Miss Reed,” and left the floor.
Dent was shaken by the news. It made things different somehow, in a way that he could not quite explain. He had no fear for himself, yet the thought of his brother being killed brought a strong reaction.
The music started, and he pulled himself together. “Will you dance with me?”
Raimey said, “Yes, Dent,” and the two of them joined the other couples out on the floor. She moved easily in his embrace, and when she realized that he was still thinking of the scene with his father, she said, “Are you so worried about Lowell?”
“Yes. He’s too young.”
“Two years younger than you and David.”
He glared at her, then laughed. “You have a fiendish way of bringing a fellow down, Raimey! Yes, that’s right, but he’s—”
When Dent broke off, unable to find the word he sought, Raimey said, “He’s young, Dent. But so are you, most of you. And so are the men who are coming to meet you.”
“I know, Raimey.” Dent seemed subdued, and they moved around the floor without speaking for a time. Then he said, “Blast his eyes! Why did he have to do it? Now I’ll be worrying about him all the time, afraid he’ll get himself shot!”
“That’s exactly the way your father feels about you, Dent!” Raimey said gently. “Can’t you see that?”
Dent stared at her, unable to answer. “No, he doesn’t care about me.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Raimey chided him. “If you don’t sense his affection, you’re a very dull man. Dent, don’t you see that the things you hate about your father, they’re not in him—they’re in you.”
Her statement hit Dent hard. “You can’t know that, Raimey,” he said. “You don’t know what he’s done to all of us, his family. He’s ruined our lives!”
“Dent, being blind is pretty bad, but it has one advantage. A blind person, in some ways, is outside of things—standing off and watching, not really a part of what’s happening. So he or she can be pretty objective. I’ve learned to get to know people better than most. What do you think about your grandmother?”
“Why, she’s the best there is!”
“And does she think your father is a fool? Does she hate him?”
“Well, he’s her son, Raimey.”
“You know that’s no answer. What about the slaves—do they hate him? No, they all respect your father. What about Rev. Irons? He’s a fine man. Does he hate Clay Rocklin?” She paused, and sensing he could not answer, she grew gentle. “Is it possible that you’ve built up this bitterness for him and just can’t let it go?”
She said no more, but her words had burned into him. When the dance was over, he took her back to her seat. “I’ll be back soon. I have to talk to Major Radcliff.”
He left, and the dance went on, but the officers had seen Raimey dancing and came boldly to claim her. She didn’t know that several times Dent was on his way to her but stepped back when other officers came to dance with her. She sensed that she had hurt him and wished she had not spoken so bluntly.
Then, late in the evening, he came to her. Just as the music ended for one of the waltzes, he was at her side. “My dance, isn’t it?” When she turned to him with a smile, he said, “I know a balcony around at the rear. Care to see it?”
“We always end up on balconies, don’t we?” she said with a smile, and soon they were outside. “This is nice,” she said. “The smoke gets very bad inside.” Then she turned to him, her face luminous in the moonlight. “I spoke too harshly to you, Dent. I’m sorry.”
He stood there studying her features. “Well, it came as quite a shock, Lowell enlisting. I wasn’t ready for it.”
“Do you think your brother David will enlist?”
“Not right away. David’s a heavy thinker. It’ll take him a year to sort the thing out. But my cousin Grant, he’s in the cavalry. We grew up together. Hate to see anything happen to old Grant!” He fell silent, then said, “Up until now, it was all sort of a game, like chess. But now that it’s come, I see it’s not like chess at all. You can lose a pawn at chess and it’s no matter. But if something happens to Lowell or Grant, it’s final.”
Raimey nodded. “Yes.” Then she lifted her hand to his chest, wanting to touch him. “Oh, Dent, be careful!” she whispered. “Be very careful!”
He took her hand, moved by her concern, and lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “I will, Raimey.”
They stood in the moonlight for a long time, saying little. He was troubled as he never had been before, and Raimey was moved by the emotions she sensed in him. Finally a cloud covered the moon, and he said heavily, “Almost time to go. We’d better get back.” Impulsively he reached out and touched her face. “Remember when you touched my face—so you could remember? Well, it’s my turn.”
Raimey stood still as his hand moved over her cheek. It was a hard, rough hand, but it felt strong on her face. Finally he withdrew it and said with regret, “Time to go.”
They left the balcony, and shortly afterward the ball broke up. In the coach on the way home, Raimey’s mother said, “You’ll miss the young men, won’t you, girls?”
“Oh yes!” Leona said—but Raimey kept her silence, still feeling the roughness of Dent’s palm on her cheek.
“Sir, a recruit to see you. Says he wants to sign up.”
Taylor Dewitt looked up from the map he was bending over. “Tell him to see the recruiting officer in Richmond. I don’t have time for him now.”
“I did tell him that, sir,” Sergeant Huger insisted. He was a tall man with thick auburn hair and gray eyes. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, he would be an officer at some point. He had learned to read men pretty well, and he suggested, “Captain, I’d see this fellow if I were you. He looks pretty seasoned to me.”
Taylor threw down his pen and made a helpless gesture toward Dent, who had been examining the map. “Well, bring him in, Sergeant.”
“It’s pretty late to enlist any new men, Captain,” Dent commented.
“Lieutenant, I’ve learned to trust my sergeant. I don’t know what the blazes I’m doing—but Sergeant Huger does. I feel like a child around him!”
“You’ll learn. We all will,” Dent said. Then he turned to face the two men who entered Captain Dewitt’s tent, and shock caused his eyes to spring open.
“This is Clay Rocklin, Captain Dewitt,” Sergeant Huger announced, then left the tent.
“Hello, Taylor. Good morning, Dent,” Clay said. He saw that both men were staring at him in amazement. “Don’t blame you for looking so shocked. I feel that way myself.”
“What’s this all about, Clay?” Taylor asked at once. He liked Clay, but he could not believe what Huger had said.
But Clay responded at once, “I want to enlist, Dewitt.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders, adding, “I know everything you’re going to say. You’ll say I’m too old, that I’ve been against the war from the start, that I’ve got a bad record. Well, it’s all true enough, but I’m asking you to give me a chance.”
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t want to do it, Clay. Blast your eyes! It’s not right, somehow.”
Dent asked suddenly, “Does this have anything to do with Lowell?”
Clay turned to him. “Yes, it does. I’ve disappointed Lowell. He thinks I’ve let him down. I tried to get him to stay out of the army, but he’s joined up to spite me—at least that’s part of it.”
“Well, Clay, that’s bad, but how do you think enlisting will help that situation?” Taylor asked bluntly.
“Right now, I have no idea,” Clay admitted. “I guess I got the idea that if I was in his unit, I might be able to look out for him a little. Probably that’s crazy. I don’t know, really, but the other part is—I’ve got to show
him that I care about him. The only way I can think of to do that is to enlist. So I’ll begin the worst way in the world, Dewitt. I’ll presume on our friendship. A favor. Take me into your company. Put me close to Lowell.”
Taylor Dewitt stared at the man in front of him. “I thought I knew you pretty well, Clay, but I don’t understand this at all.”
Clay smiled without humor. “Makes two of us, Dewitt. Will you do it?”
Taylor turned to face Dent. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”
Dent realized that Captain Dewitt was leaving the decision up to him. If he said no, he knew that Taylor would turn down his father’s request. And that was exactly what he wanted to do! The thought of his father serving under him seemed ridiculous. He knew it would spread throughout the regiment, and even higher, for many officers knew of his father’s shameful record in the Mexican War.
And, too, he did not want to believe that his father was honest in what he was saying. If Clay Rocklin were doing this—giving up everything for a cause he didn’t believe in out of love for his son—that would mean that he, Denton Rocklin, would have to admit that he was totally wrong in his bitter judgment of his father.
The silence ran on, and Clay understood what was happening. He had no idea what Dent’s decision would be, but he did not beg.
Finally Dent’s lips tightened. He said in a sparse tone, “Captain, you know the potential for trouble in this thing, how the men will talk. But I’m willing to let him try.”
“All right, then, get him sworn in. Put him in Waco’s Platoon with your brother.” He turned to Clay, saying, “Another old friend of yours is the lieutenant. Bushrod Aimes. Now that’s the last favor you get from me, Private Rocklin—and don’t even ask one from Lieutenant Aimes!”
“Of course not, Captain Dewitt,” Clay said, realizing that the close relationship with Taylor was over, at least for a time, for there was a great gap between officers and enlisted men. “Thank you, sir.”
He turned and followed Dent out of the tent. “This way to the commissary,” Dent said in a clipped tone.
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 51