The Pledge, Value

by Jane Peart

  The music ended, but he didn’t take her right back to the table. Instead he stood, still holding her hand so tightly that she finally wiggled her fingers to free them.

  The orchestra began playing the final piece of the evening—“Goodnight, Ladies”—and Curtis led her into the slow steps of the song, making a slow circle of the dance floor.

  As was customary these days, the evening ended with a rousing chorus of “Dixie,” which was finished with a flourish of trumpets, followed by some spontaneous renditions of the famous rebel yell inaugurated at the Yankee defeat at the battle of Manassas.

  The Spencers’ large carriage had been commandeered for their party. When they came out, they found the horses stamping their feet and blowing frosty breaths in the cold night air. They had to rouse the sleepy driver, Felix, who was bundled in front. The two girls were taken to the door of the Hartman’s house, since Flavia was staying overnight with Trudie. JoBeth and Curtis remained together in the carriage. They could hear the high-pitched laughter and low voices saying whatever frivolous and foolish things were being said besides proper good nights on the doorstep.

  Curtis made no move to give JoBeth more room on the seat on which the six of them had all been squeezed so tightly on their way from the ball. JoBeth did not move either, because she was cold and also did not want to call attention to the fact that they were sitting so close together.

  At last the twins came running back and hopped into the carriage, and they went on toward the Cadys’ house, When they reached it, Curtis helped JoBeth down. He then surprised her by leaning back into the carriage and saying, “I can walk home from here. You fellows go along.” Before she could utter a protest, Will shouted up to the driver to go, and the carriage moved forward, leaving her and Curtis standing at the gate. For a minute there was silence. JoBeth hardly knew what to say about his bold dismissal of his hosts and their carriage.

  “Did you mind?” Curtis asked in a low voice, taking JoBeth’s hand and drawing it through his arm. “I hate for this evening to end. For our time together to end.”

  “You’re to come to dinner tomorrow,” she reminded him. Uncle Madison had issued the invitation before they left for the ball.

  “Yes, I know, but he invited Will and Blakely as well, and from what he said, there’ll be a bunch of people. We won’t be by ourselves at all. Funny thing, but I’ve always enjoyed being around people until—well, to tell you the truth, all at once I find I want to be alone with you, JoBeth.”

  “It’s late, Curtis. I’d better be going in,” JoBeth demurred, thinking the conversation might be getting dangerous. She pulled her hand from his arm and placed it on the gate latch.

  Curtis put out his hand and kept the gate from opening. He lifted his head, looking up. The night sky was studded with stars. “What a beautiful night. I can’t remember seeing one so beautiful.”

  JoBeth felt she had to take charge of the situation.

  “Yes, Curtis, it is very beautiful, but it is also very late,” she chided gently.

  Curtis laughed softly. “I know. My delaying tactics are pretty obvious, aren’t they?” He didn’t seem offended and pushed open the gate. They started up the walk, but Curtis’s step was slow.

  When they reached the porch steps, Curtis took her arm, keeping her from going up. “At the risk of repeating myself, JoBeth, I wish I could make this evening last….” He paused, then almost in a whisper said, “I would like very much to kiss you.”

  Startled, JoBeth halted, staring up at Curtis. He hurried to say, “I know it’s highly improper, as you may rightly say, since we have just met. Hardly know each other. But JoBeth, don’t you get the feeling that these days, time is telescoped? Each day, each hour, each minute, counts” He paused, reached out with his other hand, turned her face toward him. “You have quite the most beautiful mouth I have seen in a very long time and—simply put, I want to kiss it.”

  She was stunned. She had not been kissed in months, and then by Wes. All other kisses before his had disappeared from memory, like figments of a dream. Now this handsome soldier’s request stirred her.

  “Since you haven’t answered, I’ll take the offensive as a good soldier should—” And Curtis bent and kissed her very slowly, sweetly. When it ended, both sighed.

  “You are very lovely, Miss Davison, and I couldn’t resist the temptation. Say you forgive me?”

  He didn’t sound at all remorseful, and JoBeth realized she wasn’t sorry either. The kiss had been gentle, warm, and very satisfactory. It would be silly to act offended. Indeed, to be offended. Curtis was right—the days they were all living through were moving too fast, taking with them the time for leisurely courtships, old-fashioned restrictions of all kinds.

  They went slowly up the porch steps. At the front door, he put both arms around her waist, interlocking his fingers so that he held her in a tight clasp from which she could not easily escape.

  “Do you have a charm chain, JoBeth? One of those strings of buttons that girls collect?”

  “How do you know about those?” she asked, surprised. She didn’t know any man who was aware of the current fad that single girls had of collecting buttons. The legend was that the button last collected, if given by a male and placed on the chain, was from the one you would marry.

  Curtis chided her gently. “Remember, I told you I have two younger sisters. I’m on to all sorts of feminine pastimes. They each have one of those chains, and they’re always lengthening them, afraid the wrong fella will give them the last one. Girls!” Curtis chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. “They’re somethin’ else. You just never know what they’ll do next.” He paused, then asked, “So then, do you? Have a chain?”

  JoBeth used to have one, as most schoolgirls did. But after she and Wes had made their pledge, she hadn’t even thought about the silly tradition. However, not wanting to explain all that, she just nodded. “I confess I used to have a button collection.”

  Slowly Curtis released her. His hand went to the front of his tunic, grasped at the double row of shiny brass buttons, gave a hard tug, and a button came off. He held his hand out to her, then opened it to show the button resting in his palm.

  “Here, JoBeth, will you take it? Let it be the last one on your charm chain?”

  JoBeth was taken aback. She drew in her breath.

  “But—but I’m not superstitious.”

  “No? Well, I am! I believe in fate, destiny, and predestination. That nothing happens by chance. My coming home with Blakely and Will on this leave. Meeting you. It’s all in the cards.” He paused, took her hand, and pressed the button into her palm. “Please take it. I want to go back to camp believing it means something.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The December morning was cold. Under a gray sky, a chill mist drifted. At the Hillsboro train station, the families gathered to see the “boys” off again. A kind of false gaiety prevailed—everyone chatted about unimportant things, marking time until the train came. Underneath the forced optimism ran an undercurrent of apprehension. They were sending them back to their regiment, back to the war—and no one really knew what these young men were going back to, what they might be facing in the next weeks or months.

  As the group huddled together, making innocuous small talk, JoBeth shivered. Inside her small beaver muff, her hands were nervously clenched. Uneasily she met Curtis’s fixed gaze. For the first time since she met him, Curtis’s smile was not visible, and his eyes had lost their mischievous sparkle.

  The evening before, which was spent in the company of the Cadys, the Spencers, and the Hamletts, had not been a success as far as Curtis was concerned. Impatient to be alone with JoBeth, he had endured an evening with company. Dinner had been festive, with all the ladies contributing their tastiest dishes, their finest cakes and pies, as a grand sendoff to the boys, who were used to army rations. Afterward there had been games, songs, and general conversation. As the evening progressed, Uncle Madison drew the young soldiers into a military di
scussion. Sitting across the room from him, only JoBeth had been aware of Curtis’s growing frustration. Eventually the evening had come to a close. Good manners required the hosts to see their guests to the door, so at the end they had still been surrounded by other people.

  All this JoBeth read in Curtis’s eyes as he gazed at her this morning in the midst of the awkward group of family and friends.

  Finally Curtis reached the end of his patience. He came over to where she stood. “I must speak to yo,” he said in a low voice. Then, ignoring the exchanged glances of the others, he took JoBeth by the arm and walked her to the end of the platform.

  There, apart from the rest, he no longer felt obliged to present a bravado. Curtis’s expression turned grave. “I didn’t mean to be rude. But time is slipping fast, and I had to talk to you privately,” he said. “I couldn’t keep standing there pretending it didn’t matter, when it does.” His tone was intense. “I hate to leave with so much unsaid. I don’t want to go back. It’s not just going back. It’s leaving you.”

  “Please, Curtis, don’t—,” JoBeth protested, but he didn’t let her finish.

  “No, JoBeth. You may not want to hear this, but I want to say it—have to say it. So please listen.” He rubbed his hands together as if from the cold. “I attended church with the Spencers this morning. But the sermon was so long and tiresome, I got bored and started thumbing through the Bible. I came upon some pretty interesting stuff.” He halted, then asked with mock severity, “Are you familiar with Scripture, Miss Davison?”

  Surprised by his question, she replied, “Not as much as I should be.”

  “Well, neither am I ordinarily, I’m ashamed to admit. But this morning I had a revelation of sorts—I think you might call it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Simply this. It was in Deuteronomy. I chanced upon something I heartily recommend—I scribbled down chapter and verse so I wouldn’t forget it. Deuteronomy 24:5—this is what’s written down right there in the Good Book, as a law to the Israelites—’When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, but he shall be free at home for one year and bring happiness to his wife.’” Curtis’s voice took on excitement as he quoted the passage. Looking directly at JoBeth, he said, “Now, that is a law I believe we should adopt in the Confederacy.” A faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “And therefore I fully intend to bring this to the attention of my commanding officer. What do you say to that, Miss Davison? A good idea?”

  “I suppose so…” JoBeth smiled tentatively, as if waiting for the joke she expected would follow. Yet Curtis seemed totally serious. “Should we not press for the enactment of such a law?” he demanded. JoBeth looked at him in bewildered amusement, “I don’t think I understand, Curtis.”

  “Miss Davison, would you consider marrying me? And let me spend one full year bringing you happiness?”

  Suddenly JoBeth realized this wasn’t one of Curtis’s pranks or comical attempts to make her laugh. He meant it. He was proposing.

  “Curtis, I—”

  “Don’t look so shocked, please. I’ve been very proper about it. I’ve spoken to your uncle who, I understand, is your guardian, and asked for your hand in marriage. And also received permission from your mother to address you. It took a good deal of maneuvering to do that last evening. I had to follow your mother into the kitchen, and I was forced to waylay your uncle early this morning. I was waiting at the gate when he went out for his walk. They were a bit taken aback, I admit, but they said it was up to you, so—” He rushed on. “I realize we haven’t known each other long. Just met, in fact. But we’ve spent nearly three entire days together. I know I could make you happy! You’d love my hometown, my family—and they would love you. They’re much like your family. We have so much in common, JoBeth. The same background, the same values, the same—”

  “Stop, Curtis! I can’t. Please, don’t say any more. Let us part as friends. It’s been a wonderful three days, but that’s all it can be.”

  “Why? I don’t understand.”

  In the distance, the thin sound of a train whistle pierced the winter air, startling both of them. A frown brought Cur-tis’s eyebrows together over eyes full of dismay.

  “JoBeth, there isn’t any time. I love you. I know I can make you love me.”

  In his face, disappointment and possibility mingled. JoBeth had the feeling that Curtis Channing had been refused very little in his life. And nothing that he really wanted. She shook her head.

  “No, Curtis, I’m sorry. There is someone else—I’m pledged to someone else.”

  He looked shocked, then angry.

  “But you never said—you never gave any hint that—neither did your aunt and uncle nor your mother!”

  “They don’t know. It’s a secret.”

  His frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry—truly I am,” she said, and she meant it. She had not meant to mislead or hurt him.

  The train rounded the bend and was clanking down the track, a spiral of smoke billowing out of its stack. With a hissing of steam, a screech of brakes, it pulled to a grinding stop. The small group at the other end of the platform started calling, beckoning, gesturing to them.

  “I can’t believe there’s no chance,” Curtis said forlornly.

  “I’m sorry, Curtis. Perhaps if we had met some other time—”

  Blakely was shouting to Curtis, motioning with wild, flaying arms. Hillsboro was what was called a “whistle stop.” Even in wartime it had a schedule to keep.

  Curtis grabbed JoBeth’s hands, held them tightly.

  “Isn’t there anything I can say to change your mind? Can’t you give me some reason to hope?”

  “No, that would be wrong—it wouldn’t be true.” JoBeth’s voice broke. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  He pressed her hands so hard, they felt crushed.

  “I respect loyalty, JoBeth. If you are promised to someone else …” His mouth tightened. “Another soldier? I can accept that.”

  Something inside JoBeth shrank from telling him. If he knew who the soldier was and what he was fighting for—would Curtis be so noble, so understanding?

  “I’m sorry, “she said weakly, knowing it was inadequate.

  The shouts grew frantic. “Curtis, come on! You’re going to miss the train. Hurry up!”

  “I will never forget you—nor these three days—for the rest of my life.” Curtis’s voice was hoarse, ragged, above the warning shrill of the train’s whistle.

  Impulsively JoBeth raised herself on tiptoe to kiss him lightly on the cheek. But before she could, his arms went around her, drawing her tight against him so that her feet were lifted off the ground. He kissed her with passion and desperation. When he set her back down, she was breathless, deeply stirred by his kiss. “Good-bye, darling JoBeth,” Curtis said huskily, then he took one or two steps, backing away from her. “Good-bye.” He started down the platform, then turned, took one last, lingering look at her before he began to run toward the train. The locomotive was sending up great clouds of steam and the whistle shrieked again.

  JoBeth watched him swing up into the car even as the train started moving down the track. He leaned out, waving his arm. She raised hers feebly and waved back.

  As the train disappeared around the bend, she shuddered. A rising wind tore at her bonnet strings, tugged at her skirts. Still she stared down the empty tracks, standing away from the rest of the people at the other end—standing apart, standing alone.

  JoBeth got back into the carriage. On the way home, Aunt Josie leaned over and patted her knee. “What a lovely young man, honey. And so taken with you. I don’t know when I’ve seen such an example of love at first sight. Why, I could tell the minute he laid eyes on you the other evening at Harvel’s—he never looked at anyone else. It was clear as a bell to see.”

  “As fine a young man as the Confederacy could ever have to defend us,” was Uncle Madison’s comment. “Good stock, good bre
eding. You can’t miss it.”

  “And beautiful manners!” chimed in Aunt Josie. “He was so easy and gracious, you can tell he was brought up well.”

  JoBeth did not know how to reply. She knew her family assumed that her downcast mood was because of Curtis Channing’s leaving and were treating her with considerate deference. She was sorry—not so much that he was gone but that she had hurt him. She hadn’t meant to, but it couldn’t be helped. Should she let their assumption go on? How could they possibly think she had so quickly forgotten Wes? They seemed to. People often saw what they wanted to see. They had been upset about Wes, so no wonder they hoped she would be attracted to the charming Curtis. In their minds, who could be more acceptable as a suitor for their niece than a well-born, well-mannered, handsome Confederate cavalry officer?

  Arriving back at the house, JoBeth immediately went upstairs to her room, shut the door. She needed to be alone with her guilty conscience. Ever since Wes left, she seemed to be living a lie, hiding her correspondence, never speaking his name. Mostly to please her aunt and uncle, she had outwardly participated in Hillsboro’s social life. All the time, she had been hiding her secret. Now her family happily believed she was interested in Curtis Channing.

  She knelt down on the carpet in front of the fireplace and poked the sputtering fire to life. The look in Curtis’s eyes haunted her. If she had misled him, there was no way to undo the damage, to avoid the consequences.

  She regretted that she might have inadvertently led Curtis to imagine romantic possibilities for them. Worse still was her remorse that in enjoying his delightful company, basking in his flattering attention, she had betrayed Wes. How could she have—even for a few days—forgotten what he had given up, what he was going through? She put her face in her hands and wept bitterly.