by John Jakes
About four, he was watering Sport and Ambrose’s bay at the trough when noise and dust signaled the approach of northbound riders. Prevo’s detachment galloped by. The lieutenant waved. Charles waved back. Then the house hid the blue horsemen.
The farmer and his wife invited the cavalrymen to stay for supper. They agreed, the more readily because Augusta Barclay seconded the suggestion. Charles washed up as the sun sank and the heat went out of the day. A refreshing breeze blew through the house when they sat down to a plain but tasty meal of cured ham, potatoes, and pole beans.
He kept glancing at Augusta there beyond the chimney of the table lamp. Tonight she kept her eyes averted, like any proper girl from a proper Southern family. A delicate femininity was cultivated by such women and prized by their suitors; some females, the best example he could think of being Ashton, even playacted shamelessly to convince others of their conformity to the ideal. This yellow-haired widow didn’t conform. She was too outspoken. Too robustly built, when you came right down to it. He wondered about the size of her feet. Any girl with big feet was done for socially and romantically.
Shyly trying to strike up a conversation, the old farmer said to Ambrose, “That’s a fine-looking horse you ride.”
“Yes, sir. South Carolina saddle horses are the best in the world.”
“Don’t say that to a Virginian,” Augusta told him.
“Amen,” said Charles. “I get the feeling some people in this part of the country think Virginia invented the horse.”
“We’re mighty proud of men like Turner Ashby and Colonel Stuart,” the farmer’s wife said, passing the beans. It was her only statement during the meal.
Ambrose finished a second potato. “I do agree with Charlie, though. Virginians are pretty good at making you feel like an outsider with no more than a word or a look.”
Augusta smiled. “I know the type. But as the poet says, Lieutenant, to err is human, to forgive, divine.”
“You like Shakespeare, do you?” asked Charles.
“I do, but I was quoting Alexander Pope, the Augustan satirist. He’s my favorite.”
“Oh.” Smarting from his show of stupidity, Charles lunged for more ham with his fork. “Always did confuse those two. Not much of a reader of poetry, I’m afraid.”
“I own a copy of nearly everything Pope wrote,” she said. “He was a magnificent wit, but sad in many ways. He was only four feet six inches tall, with a deformed spine. Curved like a bow is the phrase used by his contemporaries. He knew life for what it is, but he could push away the pain by mocking it.”
“I see.” The two murmured words hung in the silence. He didn’t know Pope except by name, but now he thought he knew her better. What pain did her jibing conceal?
The fat woman served a pear tart and coffee while her husband asked Augusta when and how the quinine would be taken to Richmond. “A man should be here for it in the morning,” she replied.
“Well, your bed’s made up in the spare room,” the wife called from the kitchen. “Captain, will you and your lieutenant stop overnight with us, too? I can fix pallets on the floor of the parlor.”
Augusta turned in his direction. Her face, bisected by the lamp chimney, seemed expectant. Or did he merely imagine that?
He felt duty and personal desire pulling against each other.
Ambrose awaited guidance from his superior. None being forthcoming, he said, “I wouldn’t mind a good night’s rest. ‘Specially if you’ll permit me to try that melodeon in the parlor.”
“Yes indeed,” the farmer said, pleased.
“All right, then,” Charles said. “We’ll stay.”
Augusta’s smile was restrained. But it seemed real.
The farmer’s wife produced a stone jar of excellent apple brandy. Charles took some, and so did Augusta. They sat in facing chairs while Ambrose experimented with the old squeeze-organ. Soon he started a lively tune.
“You play well,” Augusta said. “I like that melody but don’t recognize it.”
“The name is ‘Dixie’s Land.’ It’s a minstrel piece.”
“They played it all over the North when Abe stood for election last fall,” the farmer added. “The Republicans marched to it.”
“Might be so,” Ambrose agreed, “but the Yankees are losing the song as fast as they’ll lose this war. Everybody is singing and playing it in the camps around Richmond.”
The lively music continued. Augusta said, “Tell me something about yourself, Captain Main.”
He chose words with extreme care, wary of being spiked again by some smiling sarcasm. He mentioned West Point, and how he had gone there at his cousin’s urging and with his help; in a few sentences he covered his service in Texas, his friendship with Billy Hazard and his doubts about slavery.
“Well, I have never believed in the institution either. When my husband died a year ago last December, I wrote manumission papers for both his slaves. They stayed with me, thank heaven. Otherwise I would have been forced to sell the farm.”
“What do you raise?”
“Oats. Tobacco. The eyebrows of the neighbors. I do some of the field work, which my husband always forbade because it wasn’t feminine.”
She leaned back in the old rocker, her head resting on an embroidered pillow. How fair and soft she looked in the lamplight. One of Charles’s fingers tapped, tapped his glass of apple brandy. Not feminine? Had she married a crazy man?
“Your husband was a farmer, I gather?”
“Yes. He lived on the same property all his life—and his father before him. He was a decent man. Kind to me—although he was definitely suspicious of books, poetry, music—” She inclined her head at Ambrose, who was lost in some sweet classical air Charles couldn’t identify. Augusta continued. “I accepted his proposal seven months after his first wife died. He went the same way she did. Influenza. He was twenty-three years older than I.”
“Even so, you must have loved him—”
“I liked him; I didn’t love him.”
“Then how could you marry him?”
“Ah—another disciple of the romantic Sir Walter. Virginians worship him only slightly less than the Lord and George Washington.” She finished her brandy quickly. The combative glint had returned to her eyes. He had a deformed spine. He could push away the pain by mocking it.
“The answer to your question is very plain and unromantic, Captain. My father and mother were dead, and my only brother, too. A hunting accident took him when he was sixteen and I was twelve. I had no other kin in Spotsylvania Leonard County, so when Barclay came to propose, I thought it over for an hour and said yes.” She gazed in the empty glass. “I felt no one else would ever ask me.”
“Why, of course they would,” he said at once. “You’re a handsome woman.”
She looked at him. Feeling leaped like lightning between them.
The little mouth curl, the smile of defense, slipped back as she broke away from his steady gaze, standing abruptly. Her big breasts swelled the bosom of her dress, which she tugged self-consciously. “That’s gallant of you, Captain. I know I’m not, but I always wanted to be. Hope springs eternal. That, too, is Mr. Pope. Now, whatever else I am, I’m tired. I will thank you again for saving the quinine and ask you to excuse me. Good night.”
He rose. “Good night.” When she was out of sight, he said to Ambrose, “Damnedest female I ever met.”
Ambrose laid the melodeon aside and grinned. “Don’t get smitten, Charlie. Colonel wants you to tend to business.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, hoping he sounded convincing.
Charles slept well and woke at dawn, filled with an unusual eagerness to be up and doing. He left Ambrose snoring, stole outside and whistled “Dixie’s Land” softly while he fed and watered Sport and the bay. He studied the upstairs windows of the farmhouse. Which was the spare room?
A red sun rose over the gentle hills and woodlands east of the road. Birds sang, and Charles stretched, exhilarated. He hadn’t fe
lt so fit and good in months. He hoped the change would last a while. He didn’t need to speculate about the cause.
Wood smoke, pale and pungent, rose from the kitchen chimney; breakfast working. He was starved. Going in, he remembered he must unpack his personal pistol from his camp trunk. With a battle surely coming soon, he must clean and oil it. He hadn’t worn the weapon since he returned from Texas. It was an 1848 army Colt, six shots, .44 caliber, to which he had added several expensive options, including walnut grips, a detachable shoulder stock, and a cylinder engraved with a depiction of dragoons attacking Indians. With the revolver, his shotgun, and the regulation legion sword, he had everything he needed to whip Yankees—a task he was eager to undertake this morning.
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 dooryard, 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 fallen 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—
