Company came now. It was between ten and eleven in the morning, hot for middle February. The wash house reeked; this task should have been done in an earlier week tinged with frost. More chilly weather would arrive, but it was very bad luck that today the sun was wilfully unblemished by clouds. Cauldrons steamed. Lucy saw the beads drip from Extra’s wide nose, and felt more perspiration growing amid roots of her own hair. She had bound her hair in a brown net, and had her skirts caught up, pinned in two places so that she would not trip as she moved in the combined chores of overseer and fellow-dyer.
Company appeared behind her: there was the clearing of a man’s throat, an ahem and growl with which some stranger sought to announce his presence. There was no place for Lucy to flee. She felt supreme high-pitched feminine wrath that a man should creep close without warning. She faced him, her face looked boiled and baked, and she knew it; it was dreadful.
I’m sorry, Ma’am, to intrude upon you.
He wore a single spur, he must have been riding, probably he had tied his horse out in front. Naomi was in the kitchen, Ninny was doubtless above stairs, making beds belatedly . . . Ninny was slightly deaf, or pretended to be so habitually when the bell rang. (The Claffeys used to argue as to whether Ninny’s deafness was actual or feigned; certainly it was periodic.) Pet, had Lucy but known it, was gone to the root cellar when the stranger rang, and Ira Claffey was gone to the fields. No one could have heard the bell except Veronica, and she was dedicated to a new and dreadful task: she searched wardrobes, presses, cupboards, shelves throughout the house, she hunted for any and all personal relics of the three fallen sons, and was putting them away—fabrics, china, wood and steel—in low chests in the room of Moses, the baby. Then, when they were filled and there was nothing more to put into them, the chests would be locked and shoved under Moses’s bed. That was Veronica’s plan; her husband and her daughter guessed at it, but said nothing. Ira looked for the boys’ silver cups, and found them under infant flannels in one of the carved chests. He removed the cups and put them behind Scott on his own library shelf. Maybe in time Veronica might be cured of this burial passion, and again the cups could take their proud pathetic place in view.
I did try to ring, Ma’am, but there seemed to be nobody about.
I’m sorry no one heard the bell, sir. You see—we’re dyeing—
He would think that she meant dying! He bowed. He spoke with the genial scratchy voice of an adolescent, though he appeared to be older than Suthy had been—perhaps he was near to thirty. Permit me to introduce myself, Ma’am. My name is Harrell Elkins. Have I the honor of addressing Miss Lucy Claffey?
She stood with hot face and soaked gloves, she edged behind a bench so that her hiked-up skirts mightn’t be observed too readily. Mr. Elkins, sir, I’m Lucy. But, you see, we’re engaged in dyeing and— If you would be so kind as to rest in the house, I’ll have my servant escort you— I’ll send to the field for Father—
He was in shabby gray uniform, there were dark blemishes where insignia had been removed. His old hat had faded nearly to green on the crown, and he held the brim in front of his middle with big pale hands on which a pink of very fresh sunburn was showing. He was a rangy man, with rounded shoulders detracting from his natural height; and his head was small for a man of six feet or thereabouts, and his ears stuck out, roundly, quizzically. He wore silver-rimmed spectacles; these glassy wafers attempted to conceal but could not conceal the dance of dark-blue-black eyes behind them. In no degree was Mr. Elkins handsome. In every degree he was a man peculiar to himself.
Miss Lucy, permit me. Do you recall that your brother Sutherland ever mentioned a Captain Elkins?
The steam from logwood and sumac and copperas blinded Lucy. Elkins thought that she was fainting. He stepped forward with strange animal grace and put his hand beneath the girl’s elbow to steady her. He brought out a clean bandana and unfolded it. I’m sorry.
Thank you. It’s only— Oh, that was mighty sudden. She tried to laugh, she made a sound, it wasn’t laughter, it was a small cry. Of course. Captain Elkins! He called you Harry, didn’t he?
Yes, Miss Lucy, people do.
You were not with him at—at Gettysburg?
Elkins shook his head. You see, I was with them both in the early days of the Sixteenth. I knew your youngest brother but slightly, since he was a private soldier and in another company; but I was near him when he died at Crampton’s Gap. It was the same engagement in which Colonel Lamar lost his life.
She nodded limply. I—I was affianced to a distant cousin of Lieutenant-Colonel Jefferson Lamar.
Ah, yes. That would have been Rob?
Yes, Captain.
His eyes leaped with a spurt of life behind the lenses. Just Surgeon Elkins now, Miss Lucy. I hadn’t yet finished my medical studies when the war came, and I was determined on deeds of derring do. So I served as a soldier.
And you performed the deeds.
He chuckled. Mighty few, I fear.
Not according to the accounts we received from my brother, sir.
Miss Lucy, you’re more than kind and I fear your brother was more than generous to his friends. But I stopped a few pieces of scrap-iron last spring, and thus was made unfit for further service in the field. That was some two months before Sutherland—died. Naught for me to do but resume my medical studies again; thus I’ve become a surgeon—very much of a neophyte.
Then you’ll not be returning to the field?
I’d hoped for that, but our Government had other plans. For the moment I’ve been detailed to this region on what might appear to be a peculiar mission. I did welcome the assignment to this duty, for I’ve long wanted to call upon the Claffeys, if you’ll pardon my saying so. . . .
At sunset, when Ira Claffey himself escorted his guest above stairs, he led the way down a short main hall, turned sharp right into the narrower passage which ran from east to west, and stopped at the second door on the right. With his hand upon the round white doorknob, Ira said, This was Sutherland’s, and ushered Harrell Elkins inside. Elkins’s saddle bags, with the waterproof roll containing his personal belongings, had already been fetched up by Ninny and stood upon a chair. There was nothing of Sutherland’s in the room. Veronica had banished every young man’s trinket and treasure to entombment.
His things are no longer here. Ira spoke in a manner of apology. His mother’s put them all away. She has— Possibly you observed it, Harry. She has grown remote.
Elkins went to the front window and looked out at rows of trees fronting the lane. Then he moved to the smaller west window and glanced at plum-colored clouds and strips of glint between them. He turned. Thank you, Mr. Claffey, for calling me Harry. I was fond of your son. I fear I’m mighty shy, as a social individual, and have not made as many friends as some. Suth used to call me Cousin Harry.
We shall be glad to continue the designation, Coz.
I appreciate your welcome more than I can say.
Please to join me in the library at your convenience, Cousin Harry, and we’ll taste a glass of wine.
Ira went down to the little library and found Lucy there before him. She was wearing her wornout black dress, but Ira squinted to observe that some one had been very busy with needle and thread, drawing the spread seams together so that the gown would serve. She wore also a pair of ancient black lace gloves: the dye had left its stain.
It would seem, said Ira, that you’ve taken especial pains with your hair.
She stared at him indignantly, as occurred seldom. Father!
I apologize, my dear. This is no occasion for levity. Nevertheless I’m glad he’s come. Ira bent to unlock a cupboard, and drew out the glass decanters which he had not touched since the New Year.
Poppy, may I join you gentlemen?
What might your mother say?
Nothing. She merely bowed when I introduced Mr. Elkins to her. She bowed and said
, Pray sit down, sir. Then she was out of the room in another minute, gone to Moses’s room.
We’ll be honored to have you. Now that I think of it, I wasn’t awarded my morning kiss today.
You may have it belatedly. Lucy offered her face. When her father kissed her, she clutched his arms spasmodically, and whined.
Now, now.
Poppy, I think he knew my Rob! When he spoke of Crampton’s Gap, he mentioned also Lieutenant-Colonel Lamar and how he died. I said that he was kin to the man I was to marry, and he said, That would be Rob. So he must have known him.
Ira thought about it for a moment. Likely that was at the University. Cousin Harry tells me that he served as assistant to the medical chemist there whilst pursuing his early medical studies.
You call him Cousin Harry? cried Lucy with disbelief.
He requested it. Daughter, remember that he and Suthy were struck by the same shell-burst at Chancellorsville. Though Suthy’s was a minor wound.
Harrell Elkins appeared in the doorway, in obvious embarrassment because they were talking about him.
A small wood fire burned on the hearth; coolness possessed the later hours of the day. There had been no matches in that household for many months except homemade ones, and often the homemade matches would not strike. Lucy took a sliver of pine from an old glass vase standing handy, and brought fire from the hearth to wan leaning candles on the table. The light glared on Elkins’s spectacles and made him appear as a monster with great orange eyes.
My daughter hoped that she might be allowed to join us, Coz.
I’m pleased. Harry Elkins’s rough high voice was unsteady; but he spoke as if he meant what he said. You had a feeling that he might never speak other than a sincere belief, profound or trivial. He said, I trust that Mrs. Claffey is not indisposed, and then stood in shock at having said the wrong thing.
I believe she’ll join us at dinner. Lucy, in honor of Cousin Harry’s arrival, will you indulge along with us?
Thank you, yes, Poppy.
Ira reached behind the calfbound row of Sir Walter Scott and brought out three small silver cups. Lucy exclaimed; she was positive that her mother must have buried the cups in one of those dreadful chests, and Lucy was surprised but delighted to see that her father had recovered them.
These were the boys’. Lucy, do you take Moses’s cup. I’ll drink from Badger’s. You, sir, Cousin Harry, may observe that the cup which I’ve handed to you bears the name of Sutherland.
Elkins peered closely at the little silver thing, the child’s cup nearly concealed in his broad smooth steady hand. He saw the name, or did not see it: firelight and candlelight were tricky, and not much light of sunset remained to reflect into the room. A streak of water appeared on his slightly hollow cheek. Lucy turned her glance away, but she was glad that he had cried.
Ira Claffey poured dark sherry for all three, though Lucy’s was but a token. I give you, he said, and then could not say the names. They drank, and when Cousin Harry Elkins put down his cup he said shrilly, scratchily but in reverence, God bless them all. Wherever they may be.
Lucy repeated it to herself when she was in her bed at ten. Wherever they may be, and she was pleased with Cousin Harry for saying those words and for thinking the thought. He was awkward, strained, almost self-consciously rustic as to habit; yet there was a benefit in being near him. In this single day of acquaintance she considered him as a kind of evangelical relative.
Between mellow yellowed sheets and under a woven blanket some two rods distant from the girl, Harrell Elkins stretched watching toward the ceiling, the ceiling which he could not even see without spectacles. He considered the six pairs of spectacles which he had toted to the army; and he had broken four pairs the first year, and how they cost, and where might one secure good magnifying spectacles now? This was the last pair of the six—here, on the stand beside Suth’s bed—and it was remarkable that they had survived the burst at Chancellorsville; they needed only a bow repaired. A watchmaker did that while Harry was in the hospital—or rather, hospitals, since he had been in three.
He lay now savoring the sweetness of Ira Claffey and Lucy. He lay pitying the mother, and wishing that something might be done for her. Short of a general resurrection of the war’s dead, he did not know of any act or treatment which might effect a change. He feared that Veronica Claffey must march without deviation toward the solemn retreat which awaited her: a retreat wherein people sat unspeaking in their rigid chairs, and did not listen to what others said, and took their meals alone, and when they smiled—rarely—it was as if to say, I know a secret but I shan’t tell. It was terrible when they smiled. Harrell Elkins had seen them.
He felt drawn to Lucy and her father not alone because they were Suth Claffey’s flesh and blood, but because they embraced him with a tenderness. All his life Harry had dreamt of warm companionship; he had not found it at college: only in the army, where the general scale of values resolved in his favor. Through young years he had walked in the discomfort of weakness, he had suffered varieties of scorn because he had a strange voice, because he was bookish, because he wore spectacles in a civilization where most young folks never wore them, because he could not see well enough to catch a swift ball or shoot a quail.
He could barely remember his mother. There was a faint recollection of a fleshy, frilled lap and the scent of cologne (it might have been a Sunday when she held him. He knew that she read from a book of Bible stories, and must have simplified them as she read). Also in memory he heard her saying to the cook, Do you let Master Harrell make thimble cookies if he wishes. Then no other memory except black nodding plumes, and his own shrieks because he did not understand death, he did not understand, he feared for his mother; who were all these people, and why did they hold their voices low and musty? His father was bitten by a rattlesnake while hunting, when Harrell Elkins was seven, and died two days later. Harry was reared, until ready for the academy, in the home of a second cousin whose ward he became. The cousin was a physician and surgeon, a cruel man, but brilliant and scientifically experimental by turns. Doctor Epps disliked Harry, whose funds he squandered to the possible enrichment of brokers in cotton and foodstuffs in distant Savannah. He devised strange punishments when the boy was driven to rebellion, when he did wicked things out of resentment at loneliness and immurement.
Once Harry dragged a load of loose cones and pine needles against the ell of the house, and tried to set the place on fire. Nothing burned except a wooden sill, since the structure was of brick. Servants caught the boy red-handed and gave him over to Doctor Epps. The doctor said that he must go to jail and be fettered, and live on bread and water. The jail was a barren windowless entry off the doctor’s private sitting room; slats were nailed across the door, and Harry was incarcerated there, fettered with knotted hemp, and with a chamber pot and the traditional pallet of straw for furnishings. Bread and water were given him by the doctor, morning and evening. When Doctor Epps was at home, and not calling on patients or performing operations, he had his meals brought to him on a tray within sight and sound and smell of the child beyond the lattice. Doctor Epps was fond of boiled foods, and they smelt particularly pungent: Harry Elkins recalled the rich odors of ham and cabbage, pork and turnips, beef and onions. His cousin kept him in jail for five days, and then word got abroad through gossip among the slaves. The rector came to call, with fire in his old eyes, and Harry was released, counseled, prayed over, fed.
These were things which he might not tell the Claffeys now. He might tell them in time, if friendship grew as he petitioned that it would; he had told Suth a few of the incidents. It would have offended Harrell Elkins to know it, it would have wounded him immeasurably had he known that Sutherland Claffey’s initial interest in him and attention to him were engendered first by a sense of the ridiculous and then by pity. Suth had written to his family: I dislike being a tale bearer, but then you must remember that young Mose
s and I are new at this task of soldiering, and shall wish to parade the story in completeness before your eyes. It is probable that I shall write to you more frequently than Moses, the idle scut. Of course his company is removed from mine by three companies, and we are separated by the rigid distinctions of rank and cast (sic!) but little birds tell tales now and then. I hear that he and another prankster of his ilk borrowed two of their officers’ mounts, and went for a fine gallop yesterday. Tricks like that will land the youngster in durance vile, you may be certain; but I doubt they will get him shot by a firing squad! In my own company we have the most absurd coterie of individuals. Not that there are not splendid chaps as well, and those who will stand out gallantly when we face the enemy. Not in all the myths of the ancients have such phantasmagoria been assembled! In all my days at Oglethorpe I never saw the beat, in classroom or on campus. One lieutenant in particular— Ah, what a figure for legendry! It is said that he achieved his appointment because his late father was a classmate of the Hon. Gen. Howell Cobb at the U. some thirty years ago. The Yankees should see him: they would take off and flee, not a doubt of it. He is somewhere near my own age, but half bald already; he wears the ears of an ape; his voice squeaks like a warped windlass; and surmounting all this manly beauty he employs a great pair of specs—to make it easier for him to spy the foe, no doubt. His name is Elkins, and already to myself I call him Elky—you recall?—after the colt in the Rollo tale. Only yesterday I ordered him to engage his platoon in drill according to the time-honored Poinsett tactics. He had no sword to give him a manner of command; it seems that, lean of purse, he is still bargaining for sidearms. Upon my word, he appeared on the drill-ground with a grass sickle in his hand. The men were close to splitting. Elkins was immensely serious about the whole thing. . . .
Andersonville Page 10
