From Sea to Shining Sea

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “Johnny’s awake now. Ye might go up and tell ’im the news. But don’t get ’im overly stirred up. And keep those voices down, if you please; th’ house is full o’ babies.” She compressed her lips, then opened them with a little smacking sound, shaking her head. “Seems this house always is.”

  They got up, laying down their pipes and brandy glasses, glancing seriously at each other. They knew the meaning of her feigned gruffness. It meant Johnny was worse. Lately she had taken to disguising her anguish this way. John Clark squeezed her hand as he went past her into the hallway. George looked into her red-rimmed eyes as he went by, and frowned. Jonathan put a hand lightly on her shoulder. Edmund murmured something inaudible to her. Bill Croghan remained seated on the edge of a chair near the hearth, and she told him: “You can go up, too. Y’re one of ’is brother soldier-boys.” He rose to follow them, and for a moment the hallway was filled with broad backs, gold braid and epaulets, tromping boots, and the reek of tobacco smoke and brandy that eddied out of the library after them. “It smells like hellfire and brimstone in here,” she called at their backs. And as they went up the stairs she went into the room, fanning her hand before her face, and opened the windows. Then, blinking, holding both hands clasped before her stomach, she went aimlessly around the room for a few seconds, and finally sat down in the chair her husband had occupied. His pipe lay in a brass bowl, still smoking, and his glass of liquor was beside it.

  Ann Rogers Clark glanced toward the empty hallway. Then she picked up the glass and the pipe. She had never smoked tobacco, and had never drunk anything but sherry. Now she put the pipe stem in her mouth and drew on it, making a face and squinting her eyes against the pungent fumes. She raised her glass as if to an imaginary roomful of listeners, and said, growling deep in imitation of a man’s voice: “By God, I won this war.” Then she blew out the mouthful of smoke and poured in a mouthful of brandy, and swallowed part of it. Her eyes began pouring tears and her mouth puckered up, and she spat the rest back into the glass. Great Lord in Heaven, she thought. No wonder they can stand wars. If they can stand that! She pitched the dregs into the fire and it flared with a pouf!

  Oh, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, she thought. My poor poet romancer, always had Cupid’s arrow stuck in your heart. What have they done to you!

  And she sat there gazing into the fire with her husband’s glass and tobacco pipe in her hands and the cold draft from the window stirring the graying hair at the edges of her dust-bonnet.

  THE MEN FILED INTO JOHNNY’S BEDROOM, PRETENDING TO be jolly but keeping their voices down. The room was bright and clean, and several great, white pillows propped Johnny in a sitting position, so he would not strangle or drown in his sleep. His face was almost as white as the pillows. His eyes were sunken deep in bluish sockets. His cheeks were hollow. In his temples the veins were visible, blue lines beneath the thin phthisic skin. His hair was cropped; it had grown an inch since the ringworm and funguses had been cured. Johnny was mostly white-haired now at twenty-six, and cadaverously thin. One servant was kept busy all the days just rinsing, boiling, and drying his bloody kerchiefs.

  His death-haunted eyes moved in their sockets as he watched them come in. The grimace on his thin lips they recognized as a smile. He said, in that just-audible murmur of a voice, “Hey, General. Hey, Colonel. Hey, Major. Hey, Cap’n. Hey, Pa.”

  “You can call me Lieutenant, Son,” said John Clark. “I was, remember.”

  They chuckled, and Johnny grimaced again, the grimace that was his smile.

  George came around beside the bed and took Johnny’s hand, which was like a bundle of twigs. George had finished his Revolutionary career as a general of State Militia, and though he had resigned his commission, he still wore the blue uniform for lack of other civilian apparel. Jonathan, a lieutenant colonel of the Continental Line, came around to the other side and took his other hand. Then they went and sat down in chairs near the bed while Johnny greeted his father and Edmund and Bill. “We’ve some items of news for you, Son,” said John Clark. “We’ve been holding it for much o’ the day, as those lasses been takin’ all your time.” Neighborhood girls had been in all morning, going away weeping. Miss Betsy Freeman had been in, and had left looking stricken.

  “I’m ’bout too tuckered t’ fight ’em off anymore,” Johnny murmured, and gave a soft mmm, mmm sound that was a chuckle. “Tell me the news, then.”

  “The treaty was signed in Paris last month,” George said. “Great Britain recognizes our independence. About time, say what?”

  “Ahhhh,” Johnny breathed. “Bravo.”

  “And listen,” said John Clark. “All that Northwest land that George took: it was ceded to us, not Canada. D’ye know what that means, Johnny? It means George here all by himself doubled the lands of our new country.”

  “God Above,” breathed Johnny.

  “Not all by myself,” George said. “I had help from the Supreme Director of All Things, as you yourself remind me so often. And a company o’ the best rascals that ever chawed bacon.”

  “More news,” Edmund said. “George, tell ’im of the survey, and about the Indians.”

  “Well, it’s this, old Johnny. Bill and I went down to William and Mary College, and got us certified. I’ve got appointed Indian agent for the territory. And also to survey all the bounty lands Virginia’s giving her soldiers. And Bill Croghan here’s my assistant.”

  “Ah! Good!” Johnny’s eyes gleamed with tears. “The most … most fitten wage for soldiers … land in their own country …” He cleared some mucus from his throat, and it almost but not quite stirred up a coughing fit. He worked his mouth for a while and spat into a kerchief, then said, “Lucy’s not goin’ to like ye, George … takin’ her … Bill away … just as she’s marryin’ age.”

  They all laughed. Bill Croghan whooped, blushing. He was not calling Lucy “Little Brother” anymore, because at eighteen she had nearly completed her metamorphosis to butterfly, and though not a beauty, she was a handsome and compelling young woman, of striking coloration and full, strong figure. Only now and then did the tomboy still slip through. Johnny went on:

  “Going t’ marry ’er, aren’t … aren’t ye, Bill? … Be hon … hon’able … Every girl … some man’s daughter … eh, Pa? And likely someone’s … sister.…” John Clark and Edmund looked at each other, then at Johnny. Bill Croghan was leaning forward, head cocked, to hear all this plainly. Suddenly, amid the levity, there was something intensely earnest here; though Bill did not know the allusions, he sensed that Johnny was not joshing him.

  But then just as suddenly Johnny was, or seemed to be, laughing, a wheezing, wet, horrid sound, dangerously wracking his sorry lungs. And when he had recovered from this awful gasping fit, he said, “No … Wouldn’ do … that to … Bill. No … promises at th’ … at the deathbed … I’d never … ’Cause I know …”

  They watched him and wondered at this. Johnny’s face had taken on a deathly rictus of a smile, and he was now sitting with his head back, trying to take deep, slow breaths. It was perhaps five minutes before he was composed, and at last he said, “What more … more news?”

  “Something we read in the paper that might int’rest ye quite some,” George said. “It’s about the Jersey. They burnt ’er down and sunk ’er deep.”

  Johnny was still for a long time, his head tilted, gazing out the window at the red leaves that were being stripped from the high trees by the cold wind, but he was not seeing the leaves. Before his eyes was a red blur in a misty rectangle of light and that red blur became the candle-lantern that had always hung over the table in the gunroom. After a while he said, between gasps:

  “She can lay on th’ bottom … a thousand years … ’fore th’ sea … can wash th’ unholy … stink off of ’er.”

  DOWNSTAIRS IN THE LIBRARY, ANN ROGERS CLARK STILL SAT in her husband’s chair, the cold pipe and empty glass in her hands, the powerful, rancid tastes of brandy and tobacco still in her mouth but forgotten, and gazed around
the room. In her memory’s eye she saw a scene of just ten days ago. There on the table in the center of the room, the Rev. Archibald Dick of St. Margaret’s Parish had baptized Jonathan’s first child, Eleanor Eltinge Clark. The little dark-haired thing had crumpled up her chin as if to cry at the touch of the water, but had not made a sound. Ann Rogers Clark could remember that so vividly. And the others, where they had been around the room, while a cold, wet wind gusted against the windows: The mother, Sarah Hite Clark, sitting beside Jonathan. George there, a tenderness melting his eagle eyes. John and Edmund standing beside him. Lucy and Elizabeth standing there, dark curls and red curls, both absorbed in the novelty of being aunts at such a special event. And Owen Gwathmey and Annie standing here, those two already old hands at this baptism thing. Annie had had no babies in ’79, ’80, or ’81 but then Owen had come home from the war shortly after the Battle of Yorktown, and the very next year she had borne Diana, and now she was gravid with still another. They had just celebrated their tenth anniversary and already she was carrying her fifth. Fruitful as Ann Rogers Clark’s own life had been, she had had only four by her tenth year—and John Clark had never left her alone to go to war, either.

  The scene of the baptism faded and she found herself staring into the middle of the room, and there stood son Billy, and Owen Gwathmey. They had ridden up to Meadows to get some documents and she had not heard them return. Billy was looking at the pipe in her one hand and the empty brandy glass in the other, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide. He was thirteen now, tall, with thick, gristly wrists and big feet and hands, and that untameable forelock of flaming red hair. Owen looked equally perplexed. Quickly, Mrs. Clark set down the glass and pipe. She opened her mouth, then decided it would be worse to try to explain it than not.

  “Where they all?” Billy asked. He had been hanging around his brothers all day every day, watching and listening, so full of hero worship he was almost dumb. And now that he was back from the Gwathmey place it was of course his first question. She got up and began picking up pipes and glasses, as if she had just been tidying the room. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Up with Johnny,” she said. “Don’t go up just now, please. If they haven’t wore ’im out by now, I’m sure you would with your starin’ and questions. They should be down directly. Owen, what on earth’s got you?” She realized suddenly that he was looking distressed.

  He turned his palms up and looked down at them. Then he looked up at her. “I’ve just heard some sorry news. Your … your brother-in-law Parson Robertson’s passed on.”

  “Oh! Oh, dear Heaven, please not! We’ll have to go to Rachel.”

  Owen had heard the story of it from a neighbor of the Robertsons. The old parson, schoolmaster of George and Jonathan, Edmund, Johnny, and Dickie, and of such prominent Virginia patriots as Hancock Lee and John Edmundson and James Madison, had been brought news of the Treaty of Paris. After the messenger had gone, he had said to Rachel, “Ah! Now! All the principles I’ve taught my pupils have finally seen fruition. I can rest now at ease.” He had gone to bed early, saying he was fully weary. And after an hour of silence in the house, Rachel had gone up to look in on him. He was neatly in bed, hands crossed outside the covers. And he had gone to sleep for good.

  Ann Rogers Clark envisioned every bit of it. She saw her sister’s face and how it must have looked when she had found her husband dead.

  “Things all come at once,” she said, starting out of the room, the door indistinct in a blur of tears.

  Bootsteps were coming down the stairs. The men were talking low as they came. They stopped halfway down when they saw her standing there, her eyes full.

  “John?” she said.

  “He’s stayed in,” George said. “Johnny wanted to talk private to ’im. What’s wrong, Ma? What in Heaven’s name …”

  She told him in a low voice, saw the sadness pass through his face, and started to push past him up the stairs. He held her hand and stopped her. “Don’t go in and tell ’em just now, please, Ma. It’d fall too heavy on Johnny.”

  “Aye. Where’s Jonathan, then?”

  “Stopped in the nursery to see Sarah and the baby. Tell him. He was ’is favorite.”

  Jonathan was bent like a huge question mark over the cradle by the wall, looking down at his daughter. He was as proud of her as he was of his gold medal of honor, but she was much more mysterious. Children of various ages were everywhere in the room, all of them Annie’s. Sarah and Annie were sitting in rocking chairs; Lucy, Elizabeth, and Fanny sat near them. Needlepoint and sewing lay in their laps or at their feet. Elizabeth hopped up. “Oh! Mama and George, to see the baby!” She was mad about Jonathan’s baby daughter. She danced across the room to give her mother a spontaneous hug for happiness, then recoiled. “Mama! Y’ve been smoking? And drinking!” The others turned in astonishment.

  “Hush! No, I haven’t. Jonathan. Son, come, there’s something I’ve got to say …”

  JOHNNY HAD JUST TOLD HIS FATHER, IN HIS MURMURING voice, between painful breaths, about his vow concerning Betsy Freeman, about the death of young Mike Freeman on the Jersey. John Clark sat slowly shaking his head. Johnny said:

  “It’s good … about you and … Ma. How you … How ye be. Would … wouldn’t it be a … sorry life … married to a … lass ye didn’t like!” Then he began coughing, and coughed for a long, hard time. When he could go on, he said:

  “But honor’s honor … as you say.… And I told Betsy … today … that I’ll marry ’er … soon as I … can get up.”

  He shut his sunken eyes then, and smiled a twisted, drawn-down smile, a bitter-looking smile, and took two more long breaths. Then his smile softened.

  And he still had that sad poet’s smile when John Clark put the pennies on his eyes.

  THEY BURIED JOHNNY ON NOVEMBER 2, A CLEAR, COLD day, in the oak grove, dry, brown leaves rustling on the oaks about. Militiamen fired minute guns as his brothers carried his coffin. There were many young misses at the graveside with the family, all with tears in their eyes, but all looking curiously at one another. The Rogers family were there. And Aunt Rachel, still black-garbed from her own recent loss, had come. She held her arm around Ann Rogers Clark as the Reverend Archibald Dick concluded:

  “… accept our prayers on behalf of the soul of thy servant departed, and grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  AS CHRISTMAS DREW NEAR, GEORGE OFTEN WOULD SIT IN the library with his sisters around him before bedtime and talk to them about things he didn’t talk to his brothers about in their regular councils. Lucy and Elizabeth had made the mistake of telling him that they had been reading novels, a popular pastime of the day. George, who usually had had several brandies by this hour, would snort.

  “Don’t! Novels will make ye silly! Life’s not like novels! Rowr!” And they would laugh at him and call him an old curmudgeon.

  But one night he had drunk more than usual and his eyes were sad, and he had more to say. He gave his usual tirade against novels, but then he went on.

  “If my life had been like a novel, it would’ve ended in the spring o’ ’79. Those happiest of my days. That’s th’ way novels end. I’ve seen a few of ’em, looked at ’em till I flang ’em down in disgust. A novel would’ve ended me right there: Victory, without one soldier’s death on my conscience. All the Indians quiet. Spring a-comin’, and me sailin’ ’round to the Missipp, to see my good friend the Spanish Governor, and my beauteous sweetheart. Larks and bluebirds singing all about. Sunlight on th’ river. Frenchmen serenading at their oars, me looking forward to an easy capture o’ Detroit. Aye, that’s how a novel would’ve ended me. But”—He scowled and shook a big forefinger. “Lives don’t stop at a nice place like novels do. Lives go muckin’ right along till all th’ glory’s gone. There’s always another battle. Friends and brothers and cousins die, and get killed useless-like. Government never sends what ye need. All your allies go in debt and g
et bitter. Your friend the Spaniard dies, and your poor orphaned sweetheart’s sent back to Spain while you’re far away chasin’ Shawnees.”

  He paused, his mouth drawn down almost into a pout, his red-veined eyes scowling into the fire. He was quiet for a long time as the girls waited for him to finish what he was saying. Finally, Elizabeth the romantic said:

  “George? What of your sweetheart?”

  “Sweetheart? Oh! Well, maybe that novel would end with him and his sweetheart sittin’ on a porch—a big, high porch with white pillars, looking over a river—watching the sun go down over the water.”

  Lucy was looking at George curiously, shrewdly, sucking the inside of her cheek, but Fanny was laughing.

  “No, George! You’re the one that’s silly! Your sweetheart, big silly general! The one you said they sent to Spain!”

  “Silly, am I?” He drew back, looking comically indignant. He wished he hadn’t mentioned Teresa, and wondered if he’d spoken her name. “Silly, am I? Well, that proves what I said, for I’ve been tellin’ ye a novel!”

  LIEUTENANT RICHARD CLARK WAS A DAY’S RIDE OUT OF Louisville on the Old Buffalo Trace going toward Vincennes in a cold drizzle, and he was beginning to wish he had waited a day or two for an escort. George had always told him never to travel between the forts without a squad of men at least, because there were people aplenty, red and white, who would prize a scalp that had come off a Clark’s head.

  Evening was coming on now and this strange, rolling, dipping, tranquil landscape grew eerie in the misty gloom. Dark shapes seemed to shift just off the eye-corners, and Dickie stopped his horse every few hundred feet to try to sort out something he kept thinking he detected in the margins of his hearing. But when he would stop, it would stop, and he had begun to believe that what he was hearing, if really anything, was the echoes of his own progress.

  The Trace, trampled out for hundreds of years by migrating buffalo herds, was an easy road to follow and to ride. It was almost a highway—a wide, grassy, scrubby swath through the hardwood forest. Dickie had traveled it twice with George before the war’s end, and several times since with detachments of militiamen. And now this was his first time alone, and he wished he had been more careful. A road like this was always watched, and he felt—he could not shake off the feeling—that whoever the watchers were along here right now, they were watching him. But the watchers, if there really were any, were invisible. He could not tell whether they were following him, or in ambush somewhere ahead of him, or in the gloomy thickets to right or left of the Trace.