Love and War nas-2

by Джон Джейкс

  Augusta was in the kitchen helping the farmer's wife fry eggs and slabs of ham. "Good morning, Captain Main." Her smile seemed cordial and genuine. He replied in kind.

  Soon they all sat down. Ambrose was handing Charles a warm loaf of heavy homemade bread when they heard a horseman in the dooryard. Charles overturned his chair in his haste to rise. Augusta, seated on his right, touched his wrist.

  "I suspect it's the man from Richmond. Nothing to worry about."

  Her fingers, quickly withdrawn, left him with a quivery feeling. Acting like a damn schoolboy, he thought as the farmer went to admit the visitor. Augusta stared at her plate as if it might suddenly fly away. Pink showed in her cheeks.

  The man from Richmond knew her name but didn't give his. He was slim, middle-aged, clerkish, in a brown suit and flat-crowned hat. He accepted the farmer's invitation and hauled a chair to the table, saying, "The quinine's here, then? Safe?"

  "In the attic," Augusta said. "It's safe thanks to the quick work of Captain Main and Lieutenant Pell." She described yesterday's events. The man from Richmond responded with praise and gratitude, then started on his food. He didn't say another word and ate enough for six men his size.

  Charles and the widow conversed more comfortably than they had the night before. In response to questions about Billy, he described the unhappiness of the Hazards and the Mains when they found themselves on opposite sides of the war. "Our families have been close for a long time. We're tied by marriage and West Point, and just by the way we feel about one another. If the Hazards and the Mains hope for any one thing right now, I guess it's to stay close, no matter what else comes."

  A gentle tilt of her head acknowledged the worth of the wish. "My family is split by the war, too."

  "I thought you said you had no kin."

  "None in Spotsylvania County. I have one bachelor uncle, my mother's brother, in the Union army, Brigadier Jack Duncan. He went to West Point. He graduated in 1840, as I remember."

  "George Thomas was in that class," Charles exclaimed. "I served under him in the Second Cavalry. He's a Virginian —"

  "Who stayed on the Union side."

  "That's right. Let's see, who else? Bill Sherman. A good friend of Thomas named Dick Ewell — he's a general on our side. He's just been given one of the brigades at Manassas Junction."

  "My," she said when he paused, "West Point does keep track of its own."

  "Yes indeed — and we aren't too popular because of it. Tell me about your uncle. Where is he?"

  "His last letter was posted from a fort in Kansas. But I suspect he's back in this part of the country now. He expected reassignment. In a paper I picked up in Washington, I read a piece about high-ranking army officers who are Virginians. Nine have joined the Confederacy. Eleven stayed. One is Uncle Jack."

  Ambrose shot his hand out, beating the Richmond courier to the last ham slab. After everyone finished, Ambrose brought Augusta's buggy to the front while Charles carried her travel valise to the porch. As he stowed the valise in the buggy, she finished tying a yellow veil over her hair.

  "Will you be safe going the rest of the way alone?" he asked.

  "There's a pistol in that bag you just put away. I never travel without it."

  He welcomed the chance to take her hand and help her up to the seat. "Well, Captain, again I express my gratitude. If your duties ever bring you along the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg, please call on me. Barclay's Farm is only a few miles outside town. Anyone can direct you." She remembered herself. "The invitation extends to you, of course, Lieutenant Pell."

  "Oh, certainly — I knew that's how you meant it," he said with a sly glance at his friend.

  "Good-bye, Captain Main."

  "It's a little late, but please call me Charles."

  "Then you must call me Augusta."

  He grinned. "That's pretty formal. We had nicknames at West Point. How about Gus?"

  It was one of those things quickly said because it came to mind the same way and seemed clever and inconsequential. She sat up as if touched by something hot.

  "As a matter of fact, my brother always used that name. I detested it."

  "Why? It suits you. Gus would work in her own fields, but I doubt Augusta would."

  "Sir, I admit your gen'ral rule —"

  "How's that?" Then he realized she must be quoting that damn Pope. Sweet and dangerous, her smile shone.

  "— that every poet is a fool. But you yourself may serve to show it, that every fool is not a poet. Good-bye, Captain."

  "Wait, now," he called, but the chance for apology left as fast as the buggy. She whipped up the horse, jolted out of the door-yard, and turned south. On the porch, the farmer nudged his wife. Ambrose approached with an air of mock gloom.

  "Charlie, you put both feet in your mouth clear to the ankles that time. Had a nice spark struck with that little widow, too.

  'Course, I don't think a gal's very feminine if she hoes a potato patch or has a vinegar tongue or a name like Gus, for that mat —"

  "Shut the hell up, Ambrose. I'll never see her again, so what difference does it make? She can't take a joke, but she sure can hand 'em out. The hell with Mr. Pope. Her, too."

  He saddled Sport, touched his shako to salute the farm couple, and rode like a Tatar toward the south. Ambrose had to hold his shako and spur his bay just to keep Charles in sight.

  After about five miles, Charles cooled down and slowed down. During the next hour he silently examined details of his various conversations with Mrs. Damned Highbrow Widow Augusta Barclay, whom he continued to find devilishly attractive despite the poor note on which they had parted. She shouldn't have been so quick to pounce on an innocent gaffe. She was no more perfect than anybody else.

  He wished he could see her again, patch things up. Impossible to do that any time soon, not with a battle brewing. The actions of the Yankee lieutenant, Prevo, had restored his faith in the possibility of a gentleman's war, conducted with gentleman's rules. Maybe one huge affray would get it over with, and then he could look up the young widow, whom he could no longer think of, unfortunately, by any name except Gus.

  28

  The thirteenth of July fell on a Saturday. Constance had one more day to finish packing for the trip to Washington.

  George had gone earlier in the week, with obvious reluctance. The night before his departure he had been restless, finally jumping up and leaving for ten minutes. He returned with several sprigs of mountain laurel from the hills behind Belvedere. He slipped the laurel into a valise without explanation, but Constance needed none.

  Brett would remain in charge of the household, Wotherspoon of the ironworks, and George's local attorney, Jupiter Smith, would push the bank organization ahead. All three had been urged to telegraph at once in case of emergency, so Constance had no fear of leaving important matters to drift.

  Yet on this sunny Saturday, she was cross. There was too much to pack, and her two best party dresses, neither of which she had tried on for a month, fit too tightly. She hadn't realized it, but in her contentment, and despite the war, she had enjoyed life too much lately and put on weight. Usually blunt on other subjects, George hadn't said a word. But the despicable evidence — the small melon bulge of her stomach, the new thickness of her thighs — confronted her when she inspected herself in a mirror.

  Late in the morning, Bridgit hesitantly entered the luggage-strewn bedroom to find Constance muttering and attempting to jam folded garments into an overflowing trunk. "Mrs. Hazard? There is" — the normally outgoing girl was whispery and strangely pale — "a visitor in the kitchen asking for you."

  "For heaven's sake, Bridgit, don't bother me about some tradesman when I'm busy with —"

  "Ma'am, please. It — isn't a tradesman."

  "Who is it? You're acting as though you've seen Beelzebub himself."

  Hushed: "It is Mr. Hazard's sister."

  Save for the unexpected death of George or one of the children, no more stunning blow could have fall
en on Constance. As she rushed downstairs, strands of red hair flying, her customary calm crumbled. She was astonished, baffled, outraged. That Virgilia Hazard dared to return to Belvedere almost defied belief. How could it be — how — after all she had done to embarrass the family and create friction between the Hazards and the Mains?

  Virgilia's history was one of warped independence. Involving herself in the abolition movement — as Constance had done by operating an underground railroad stop in a shed on the grounds of Hazard Iron — Virgilia had gravitated to the movement's most extreme wing. She had appeared in public with black men who were not merely friends or associates in her work but lovers.

  On a visit to Mont Royal, she had betrayed the hospitality of the Main family by helping one of their slaves escape. She had later lived in poverty with the man, whose name was Grady, in the stews of Philadelphia; both were social outcasts because of it. She had helped her common-law husband take part in the raid on Harpers Ferry led by the infamous John Brown, who had held and expressed views as extreme and violent as her own.

  Virgilia hated all things Southern, and never was that better demonstrated than when Orry made his dangerous trip to Lehigh Station to repay part of the ship-construction loan. Virgilia had summoned the mob to Belvedere, and only George and a gun had held them off. That very night, George had ordered his sister away forever. Now, incredibly, she was back. She deserved —

  Stop, Constance thought, standing still in front of the closed kitchen door. Control. Compassion. Try. She smoothed two stray wisps of hair into place, steadied her breathing, prayed silently, then crossed herself and opened the door.

  The kitchen, where the daily bread was baking and a pink loin of pork lay half trimmed on the block, was empty except for the visitor. Through a back window Constance glimpsed William shooting at a target bale with his bow and arrows.

  The bread fragrance, the loin and cleaver, the hanging utensils and polished pots, all the homely furniture of family sustenance seemed desecrated by the creature standing near the door with a carpetbag so dirty its pattern could not be seen. Virgilia's dress was nearly as filthy. The shawl around her shoulders had holes in it. How dare you, Constance thought, momentarily out of control again.

  Virgilia Hazard, thirty-seven, had a squarish face lightly marred by a few pox scars left from childhood. Buxom in the past, she was thin now, almost emaciated. Her skin had a yellow pallor, and her eyes were dumb lumps in the center of dark, sunken sockets. She smelled of sweat and other abominable things. Constance was glad Brett was down in Lehigh Station with cook, shopping. She might have torn Virgilia to pieces. Constance felt like it.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "May I wait for George? I must see him."

  How small her voice sounded. It had lost the perpetual arrogance Constance remembered with such distaste. She began to see the hurt in Virgilia's eyes. Joy ignited like a flame inside her, burning till shame and her own better nature put it out.

  "Your brother has gone to Washington to work for the government."

  "Oh." She squeezed her eyes shut a moment.

  "How is it possible that you're here, Virgilia?"

  Virgilia tilted her head forward to acknowledge the accusation in the question and the anger Constance couldn't keep out of her voice. "May I sit down on that stool? I really am not feeling well."

  "Yes, all right, go ahead," Constance said after hesitating. Without thinking, she moved to the great wood block and put her hand on the cleaver. Virgilia sank to the stool with the slowness of a person much older. With a shock, Constance saw what she was touching and pulled her hand back. Outside, William whooped and ran to the target to pull three arrows from the bull's-eye.

  Constance pointed at the carpetbag. "Is that the one you took in April? The one you filled with my best silver pieces? You disgraced this family in nearly every conceivable way and then you found one more. You stole."

  Virgilia folded her hands in her lap. How much weight had she lost? Forty pounds? Fifty? "I had to live," she said.

  "That may be a reason. It isn't a justification. Where have you been since you left?"

  "Places I'd be ashamed to tell you about."

  "Yet you presume to come back here —"

  Glinting tears appeared in Virgilia's eyes. Impossible, Constance thought. She never cried for anyone but her black lover.

  "I'm sick," Virgilia whispered. "I'm hot and so dizzy I can barely stand. Coming up the hill from the depot I thought I'd faint." She swallowed, then gave the ultimate explanation. "I have no place else to go."

  "Won't your fine abolitionist friends take you in?"

  The disfiguring sneer came unconsciously, and in its wake, more shame. You must stop. This time the warning served. There was no humanity in venting such feelings and nothing to be gained. Virgilia was a beaten creature.

  Answering at last, she said, "No. Not any longer."

  "What do you want here?"

  "A place to stay. Time to rest. Recover. I was going to beg George —"

  "I told you, he's taken an army commission in Washington."

  "Then I'll beg you, if that's what you want, Constance."

  "Be quiet!" Constance spun and covered her eyes. She was stern but composed when she again faced Virgilia after a minute. "You can stay only a short time."

  "All right."

  "A few months at most."

  "All right. Thank you."

  "And George mustn't know. Did William see you arrive?"

  "I don't think so. I was careful, and he was busy with his archery —"

  "I'm leaving to join George tomorrow and taking the children. They mustn't see you. So you'll stay in one of the servants' rooms until we go. That way, I'll be the only person required to lie."

  Virgilia shuddered; it was cuttingly said. Try as she would, Constance couldn't dam everything inside. She added, "If George were to discover you're here, I know he'd order you out again."

  "Yes, I suppose so."

  "Brett is staying here, too. While Billy's in the army."

  "I remember. I'm glad Billy's fighting. I'm glad George is doing his part, too. The South must be utterly —"

  Constance snatched the cleaver and slammed the flat of it on the block. "Virgilia, if you utter so much as one word of that ideological garbage you've heaped on us for years, I will turn you out myself, instantly. Others may have a moral right to speak against slavery and slaveowners, but you don't. You aren't fit to sit in judgment of a single human soul."

  "I'm sorry. I spoke without thinking. I'm sorry. I won't —"

  "That's right, you won't. I'll have trouble enough persuading Brett to let you stay at Belvedere while I'm gone and she's in charge. If she weren't a decent person, I'd have no chance of doing it. But you mustn't question my terms —"

  "No."

  She struck the block with her palm. "You must accept every one."

  "Yes."

  "— or you'll go out the same way you came. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes. Yes." Virgilia bowed her head, and the word blurred as she repeated it. "Yes."

  Constance covered her eyes again, still confused, still wrathful. Virgilia's shoulders started to shake. She cried, almost without sound at first, then more loudly. It was a kind of whimpering; animal. Constance, too, felt dizzy as she hurried to the back door and made certain it was shut tightly so her son wouldn't hear.

  29

  "I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the day of judgment —"

  Other voices suddenly rose to compete with that of the Reverend Mr. Saxton, rector of the Episcopal parish. Standing beside Madeline in the finest, and hottest, suit he owned, Orry looked swiftly toward the open windows.

  Madeline wore a simple but elegant summer dress of white lawn. The slaves had been given a free day and invited to listen to the ceremony from the piazza. About forty bucks and wenches had gathered in the sunshine. The house men and women, being, and expecting to be treated as, members of a higher c
aste, were permitted in the parlor, though only one person was seated there now: Clarissa.

  "— that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony —"

  The quarrel outside grew noisier. Two men, with others commenting. Someone yelled.

  "— ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured —"

  The rector faltered, lost his place in the prayer book, coughed twice, exhaling a whiff of the sherry taken beforehand in company with the nervous bride and groom. Before bringing Madeline to the parlor, Orry had jokingly said that Francis LaMotte might show up to object to their marrying so soon after Justin's funeral.

  "Be ye well assured —" the Reverend Mr. Saxton resumed as the volume of the shouting increased. A man started to curse. Orry recognized the voice. His face dark red, he bent toward the rector.

  "Excuse me for a moment."

  His mother gave him a bright smile as he strode past and out into the hot sunshine. A semicircle of blacks faced the combatants in the drive. Orry heard Andy.

  "Leave him be, Cuffey. He did nothing to —"

  "Hands off me, nigger. He pushed me."

  "Was you that pushed me," a weaker voice replied, a slave named Percival.

  Unnoticed behind the spectators, Orry shouted: "Stop it."

  A pigtailed girl screamed and jumped. The crowd shifted back, and he saw Cuffey, ragged and sullen, standing astraddle Percival's legs. The frail slave had fallen or been pushed to a sitting position against the wheel of a cart. In the cart, beneath a tarpaulin, were eight pairs of candlesticks and two sets of hearth irons, all brass; Orry was Sending them to a Columbia foundry in answer to the Confederacy's appeal for metal.

  Andy stood a yard behind Cuffey. He wore clean clothes, as did all the others. It was a special day at Mont Royal. Orry strode straight to Cuffey.

  "This is my wedding day, and I don't take kindly to an interruption. What happened here?"

  "It's this nigger's fault," Percival declared, indicating Cuffey. Andy gave him a hand up. "He came struttin' in after the preacher had already started and the rest of us was listenin'. He got here late, but he wanted to see better so he pushed and shoved me."