Libbie

by Judy Alter

  The Oldmans' house sparkled as we drove up to it, with candles in all the windows and gaslights burning in each room. The fireplace mantels in the dining room and parlor had been covered with pine branches—a fire hazard, Papa later grumbled—and the dining table boasted an array of fruitcakes and macaroons and divinity. A violinist played Christmas music in the dining room, though the crowd was so noisy that I doubt few appreciated the poor man's efforts. I recognized him, for he used to teach violin to a few unfortunate girls at the seminary.

  The minute we were into the house, with our wraps safely stowed, and my dress fluffed out from its scrunching under the robe, I found Armstrong by my side. There he stayed the entire evening, never even smiling at another girl, until I was terribly self-conscious, especially since I saw Papa frowning at us from time to time.

  When, at ten o'clock, Papa declared it was time for us to be headed home, Armstrong helped first Mama and then me into the carriage, while Papa stood solemnly by and managed a curt, "Thank you, Custer."

  When we got home, I would have headed straight for my bedroom, but Papa stopped me.

  "Daughter, that Custer boy was most attentive to you tonight," he said seriously.

  "Yes," I replied as lightly as I could, "he was. He certainly is handsome, isn't he?"

  "Takes more than that to make a man," he said. "I worry about him. I would not want you to get too involved."

  "La, Papa, I have no intention of getting involved," I said, turning toward the staircase so that he wouldn't see that I was, unfortunately, telling a white lie.

  "Your papa only wants what's best for you," Mama said, standing by Papa.

  "Surely," I said as I headed up the stairs, "Captain Custer will be recalled to the army soon, and neither of you will have to worry."

  But Armstrong was not recalled to the army. Christmas came and went, and still he was in Monroe, and still I saw him often. He had, as he later confessed, set siege, and it seemed whenever I stepped beyond our gate, I found him waiting. He appeared in church, not his natural habit, and was once caught by Conway Noble peeking through his hands at me during the prayer—according to Conway, both he and Armstrong had a good laugh about it. But Armstrong was there to walk me home from church, to escort me to a concert—he ended up taking Mama Bacon, too—to take me for a long walk in the snow.

  "Bet you can't hit that tree with a snowball," he challenged one day as we trudged along through a new snow that had fallen the night before. The tree in question was a maple, fully twenty feet from where I stood.

  "Of course I can," I laughed, and picked up a handful of snow, rounding it in my hands for a minute before taking aim. When I threw, my snowball came apart in the air before it ever hit the tree.

  "Just like a girl," he laughed. "Can't even make a good snowball."

  Another time we were walking home from church on a night that it had rained heavily. The crosswalk was muddy, and before I knew it, Armstrong swept me up into his arms and plodded through the mud, holding me carefully above it.

  "Sir Walter Raleigh?" I asked, laughing.

  "That's right," he responded. "Nothing's too good for my girl." And with that he planted a quick kiss on my nose, a gesture so spontaneous and affectionate that I could not but be touched, and set me down, unsullied by mud, on the other side of the street.

  Sometimes we sat by the fire and talked, long and deep conversations about the future, with Armstrong still talking about being a general and making a name for himself in the army.

  "You've already made a name for yourself," I said. "And you're too young to be a general."

  He almost bristled. "That's not true," he said shortly, but then his good humor returned. "And you? I still think you'll be a general's wife."

  He'd said that to me years before, and I thought nothing of it, but now I heard it as a faint proposal. A general's wife. General George Armstrong Custer's wife. It had a certain lilt to it that captivated me, and later that day, after he'd left, my mind wandered, much as it had when I imagined myself the mistress of Lane Murphy's plantation. This time I saw myself as a general's wife, following him from one exciting post to another, free forever of the bonds of Monroe. My reverie broke when Betsy called us to dinner, and I found myself again at that formal dining table, saying, "And how was your day, Papa?"

  Papa inevitably heard gossip about Captain Custer and me, and one particular incident disturbed him almost beyond words. Armstrong and I had been at a party at the home of Maggie Goodman, one of my school friends. The evening being warm—I think it was March—Armstrong asked me to step out on the veranda. We stood for a moment, looking at the quiet town, and I heard him begin to hum under his breath, a tune I vaguely recognized. Before I knew it, he had caught me in his arms and was waltzing me around the porch, keeping time to his own humming. I had longed always to dance, but Papa forbade it as un-Christian, and now I felt suddenly free, whirling about that veranda, my head almost light from the sheer joy of it. But Papa heard, from Maggie's parents, I suspect, and let me know in stern tones that he expected me never to dance again. I wept at the thought.

  Other gossip about Judge Bacon's daughter and Captain Custer flew about Monroe. Once when we arrived separately at a party, rumor spread that we had quarreled. Some rumors had us engaged, with me ready to elope if necessary.

  But there was other talk, too, because for all his attentiveness to me, Armstrong still favored several other girls with his company. "Mama saw him driving a buckboard with two girls she did not recognize," Nettie reported.

  "It's nothing to me," I said quickly, "but perhaps they were his nieces. I believe the Reeds have several children."

  "I don't think so," Nettie replied. "From what Mama said, these were girls our age."

  "Well," I said practically, "it's certainly none of my affair."

  Though I tried not to show it, I was a little less complacent when Papa reported one day that Custer had been seen in the company of Fanny Fifeld, she who had always overdressed and overacted at the seminary. "Saw them walking downtown," he said without inflection in his voice. "You know the girl, don't you?"

  "Yes," I replied, and said no more.

  But later I confided this latest development to Nettie, ending with a complaint that Captain Custer was not showing very good taste in women.

  "He likes you, doesn't he?" she asked, grinning.

  "Well, yes, but I mean... Fanny Fifeld? What can he possibly see in her?"

  "Oh," Nettie said, "Fanny was always lively and fun. She just... well, she just isn't the same as you are, Libbie."

  "Thank you," I muttered.

  Just before he was recalled to duty in April, Custer received Papa's reluctant permission to take me on a buggy ride into the countryside. It was a bright, sunny day, though still cool, with spring barely hinted at and few buds yet on the trees. He'd rented the horse, and a fine buggy with black leather seats and a storm curtain with isinglass lights, though we'd rolled the curtain back because the day was sunny. He explained without embarrassment that he'd rented this outfit because his brother-in-law, David Reed, being a farmer, had no suitable buggy.

  "Why must it be a suitable buggy?" I asked. "We could have walked."

  "No," he said enigmatically, "not today."

  He seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go and moved the horse along smartly, heading north out of town on the road that went past the cemetery where Mother lay buried and on up a hillside. I didn't ask where we were going, and he concentrated his attention on the horses, though every once in a while he turned to look at me, each time with a wide smile.

  We passed through a grove of pine trees, coming out on the edge of a bluff that looked over the lake. Custer pulled the buggy to the edge of the road, tied the reins, and put the whip back in its socket.

  Below us a tangle of marshes reached almost to the edge of the water—it was land where Papa and others sometimes hunted duck and geese. Beyond it the lake was a bright blue, with sunlight sparkling on it and an occ
asional whitecap ruffling its surface. If I turned my head to the right, I could see the shoreline of the city, the steamers docked at the wharves, and men who looked like small ants bustling about.

  "Would you ever leave Monroe?" he asked.

  "What an odd question." I drew back in my corner of the buggy to look at him. "I doubt that I shall ever have cause to leave."

  "What if you were married and your husband's profession took him away?"

  "I would follow him," I said confidently, but then added, "Marriage is a long way off for me." That vision of myself as a peripatetic general's wife flashed through my mind, but I quelled it instantly... or tried to.

  "I hope not," he muttered, reaching to take one of my hands in both of his. "Libbie, you must know that I want you to be Mrs. Custer. I've been in love with you since Thanksgiving, since before that, probably since the day I saw you swinging on the gate, so brave in spite of your loss. Say you'll let me approach your father."

  I pulled my hand back, but he looked so hurt that I reached again for his and began tracing the back of his hand with my finger. "I... I can't. Papa would never consent." I could, I knew, have left it at that, hiding behind Papa's authority, but that was not true. "I'm very fond of you, sir, and very flattered by your attentions—but I'm not ready to marry you or anyone else. If I loved you, and if Papa's consent could be obtained, then, yes, I would marry you—and leave Monroe," I added with a smile.

  "Well," he said lightly, "at least there's no one else, and I still have a chance. I do, don't I?"

  "Yes, of course." I smiled, though I wasn't at all sure that was true.

  "Good. May I write you?"

  "Of course."

  "And will you give me your picture to carry into battle with me?"

  "Of course."

  "Let's walk to the edge of the bluff," he said abruptly, jumping out of the buggy and coming around to my side. Instead of holding a dignified hand out to help me, he held up both his arms and grasped me around the waist, setting me gently down directly in front of him. Then, before I could protest, he took my face in his hands and kissed me full on the mouth.

  It was my first kiss, beyond childish pecks on the cheek, though I did not let him know that—at least, I hoped afterward that he had not been able to tell. Nettie told me that men who were sophisticated about women could tell these things, and I suspected that Armstrong was very sophisticated about women. But then, what did Nettie know? She'd never been kissed either.

  "I'm sorry if I've offended," he said, stepping back, but I could see by the smile on his face that he was neither sorry nor afraid he'd offended.

  "I think we best return to town," I said, trying hard to be a proper young lady and act, well, not offended, but concerned. Actually I had been hoping for some time that he would kiss me, and I'd rather liked it.

  * * *

  I never thought Papa had any sixth sense, but that day I suspected him of it. Not two hours after Armstrong deposited me at home, again with a promise to write and a plea that I think about his request, Papa called me into the library where he sat, staring at the coals of a small fire in the grate.

  "You've been out with Captain Custer again?" he asked.

  "Yes, Papa. You know he took me for a ride in the country. You gave your permission."

  "Yes, I know," he said. "I gave permission because I knew that he was leaving, going off again to fight for the Union. As you know, I very much respect that man's efforts for his country." Papa had met Armstrong at Humphrey House, where the men of town gathered to talk, and he'd been impressed with his military skill and his devotion to his duty. Papa was very patriotic and admired that quality in others.

  "Yes, Papa." I sat gingerly on the edge of the straight chair that sat before his desk and waited. The library was an intimidating room, lined with shelves of leather-bound books, many of them Papa's law books, but some the classics that I had read in school. An Oriental rug rich with deep blues and reds covered the floor, and Papa sat in the only comfortable chair in the room, a brocade-covered armchair flanked by a marble-topped walnut occasional table. It was not a room to which I was often invited, and I was always a little uncomfortable there.

  "But I have given much thought to Captain Custer's continued attention to you. Your mother and I have discussed it again and again, and we are in agreement that you must not be seen with him again and not write him when he leaves."

  I was astonished. I knew Papa was uncomfortable about the possibility of my becoming involved with a military man, but I never expected an edict so strong. I managed to keep my voice level as I asked, "Why, Papa?"

  Papa's expression grew even more serious. "There are several things, daughter, that concern me. By now, this terrible war is two years old, and we've seen several young men come home severely crippled. Look at the Beckman boy, who lost a leg... or worse yet, the Crampton boy, who was killed in battle. I would spare you such grief."

  "But, Papa, if I loved a man, I would love him with one less leg, and I would devote my life to him," I said with passion. "And if I loved him and he was killed, I would want to have had some time with him."

  "And do you love Armstrong Custer?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure," I said, to my own surprise. It was as though someone else inside me had said the words, for it was less than half a day since I had assured the man in question that I did not love him.

  "You are young," Papa said, "and you have yet to learn of love. Meantime, there are other, ah, matters that concern me. Young Custer drinks." He said the last flatly, without elaborating on the evils of whiskey. He knew that my upbringing had left me well versed in those evils.

  "No, Papa, he does not. He has taken an oath never to touch whiskey." Armstrong had told me this, recalling the very evening Papa had in mind and saying that the experience had so horrified him, he swore he would never again drink.

  "I saw him once... in front of this house." Papa got up from his chair and moved to stir the coals in the grate. Bending over, he turned to look at me, his expression still solemn.

  "I know," I said. "I heard the noise, too. But that was the night he took the oath... and the last time he's touched liquor. I believe him that it is an oath he will keep forever."

  He snorted. "Well enough, if true. But there's another thing. I hear... and I've seen with my own eyes... that Custer has been courting other young ladies as well as you. The world has no tolerance for a womanizer."

  Womanizer! I wasn't exactly sure what the term meant, but I thought it harsh to apply to Armstrong. "He enjoys the company of many people," I said. "He had no reason to limit his attentions to me. Indeed, I discouraged him from doing so."

  "Well, he should have chosen someone else better than Fanny Fifeld," Papa said, in a completely uncharacteristic-tone that made him sound as gossipy as Nettie at her best.

  I smothered a smile. "Papa, it's not for us to choose his friends."

  "No, but the friends he chooses for himself betray his taste. The plain truth, Elizabeth, is that he is not of your social class."

  My mind flashed back to our Thanksgiving meeting, where he'd made it plain that he was aware of the distance between Methodists and Presbyterians. "Because he's Methodist?" I asked.

  "No. Because his father is a ferrier, and his brother-in-law a farmer. It's not a world you could be comfortable in, daughter, after the advantages you've had."

  And that effectively ended the discussion. I was all too aware that no matter what I said, Papa would forbid me any further contact with Armstrong. Without another word I rose and left the room. Papa, who never could tolerate bad manners, must have been sorely tempted to call me back, but he said nothing.

  Upstairs, safely in my own room, I sobbed into my pillow, hoping Mama wouldn't hear and come hover over me. When I recovered, I went to my desk, took out paper and pen, and wrote Armstrong a long letter in which I explained Papa's admiration for him as a soldier and loyal patriot but his misgivings about our continued friendship, and asked that he
not, after all, write to me.

  As you requested, I am enclosing a most recent ambrotype of myself. I beg you to show it to no one, as my father would not have wished me to give it to you. With it, I hope you will remember me and all the happy times we shared in Monroe. I shall be waiting to hear from others about your great triumphs on the battlefield and shall always think of you with great fondness.

  Sincerely,

  Elizabeth Bacon

  Nettie delivered the letter to Armstrong the next time he was at Humphrey House—his farewell visit, since he had received orders—and she reported that the look on his face when he read it nearly tore her heart out. But, then, Nettie was given to dramatics.

  "He uttered an oath," she said sadly.

  "I know that he has learned profanity on the battlefield," I said righteously. "I would hope that he can cure himself of the habit."

  Nettie merely smiled at me, as though I were an infant. If she was given to dramatics, she was also given to scheming. Unbeknownst to me, Nettie and Armstrong concocted an arrangement whereby he would write to her, though the letters were patently meant for me. And Nettie would pen back my replies. It would be an awkward way to conduct a love affair by mail, but Armstrong was proud of his ingenuity in thinking of the scheme.

  I, meantime, not knowing of this plan, was devastated that he was going off to war where he might very well be killed, sent home in a box like the Crampton boy, and I was forbidden to see or write him. And I could see no way of changing things, of altering Papa's firm decision.

  * * *

  Late spring of 1863 was a momentous time in the history of the Civil War. Heavy fighting during the month of June led to the Battle of Gettysburg, a three-day battle of immense proportions that signaled the eventual triumph of the Union forces. Those days were also momentous for Armstrong, as his letters to Nettie revealed.

  One afternoon at Humphrey House, she handed me a letter. "Here, you'll want to read this. It's meant for you," she said, smiling mischievously.

  I looked first at the signature and saw the scrawled word "Armstrong." Then I read feverishly, especially the last, where he wrote, "Please give Libbie my very best and tell her that I think of her every day and especially before going into battle. I shall wait anxiously for word of her, from you."