Love and War: The North and South Trilogy (Book Two)

by John Jakes

  He could stand no more. “Damn it, Judah, what about Madeline’s embarrassment? What about the disruption of her life?”

  Unruffled, Benjamin met the attack. “I can appreciate her feelings, certainly. But the charge has implications far beyond the personal. If it were true, it could taint the credibility of the entire government. Mr. Davis, you see, refuses to consider the enlistment of nonwhite—”

  “I know how Mr. Davis feels,” Orry said, rising. His loud voice momentarily stopped the sleepy conversations outside. “With all due respect, the President’s views aren’t the issue. An accusation is the issue. My sister made her statement for one reason. She holds a long-standing grudge against me.”

  Like a prosecutor, Benjamin said, “Why?”

  “I see no reason to go into that. It’s a family matter.”

  “And you maintain that this so-called grudge is Mrs. Huntoon’s motive for saying what she did? Her sole motive?”

  “That’s right. May I leave now?”

  “Orry, calm yourself. It’s better that you hear unhappy news from a friend. I am your friend; please believe that.” The supple hand opened outward. “Do sit down again.”

  “I’ll stand, thank you.”

  Benjamin sighed. There passed a few seconds of silence.

  “To minimize potential embarrassment for all concerned, the President requests that Mrs. Main leave Richmond as soon as practicable.”

  Orry’s hand closed on the back of the visitor’s chair. His knuckles were the color of chalk. “To keep the administration untouched by the tar brush, is that it? You don’t believe my answer—”

  “I most certainly do. But I am an official of this government, and it remains my duty to accede to the President’s wishes, not question them.”

  “So you can keep your job and enjoy your sherry and your anchovy paste while the Confederacy collapses?”

  The olive cheeks lost color. Benjamin’s voice dropped, sounding all the more deadly, somehow, because of a small, chill smile. “I shall pretend I heard no such remark from you. The President expects compliance with his request within a reasonable length of—”

  “His order, isn’t that what you mean?”

  “It is an order courteously framed as a request.”

  “I thought so. Good day.”

  “My dear Orry, you must not hold me personally responsible for—”

  Slam went the door, well before he finished.

  Around noon, Orry’s wild anger moderated. He was again able to concentrate, perform routine duties, and answer questions from his colleagues with some coherence. Seddon passed Orry’s desk on his way out to dine, but the secretary refused to meet Orry’s gaze. He knows what Davis is demanding. He probably knew before Judah told me. Instantly, Orry made up his mind to ask Pickett to make good on his offer.

  Orry was not in doubt about Madeline’s reaction. If they discussed the decision at all, he must be circumspect. Present it as something under consideration, not final. That would spare her worry. Anyway, the first priority wasn’t the transfer, but proving to Judah, to Seddon—to the President himself—that the conspiracy was real.

  He glanced at a corner desk occupied by a young civilian, Josea Pilbeam, who was handicapped with a club foot. Pilbeam, a bachelor, had undertaken several questionable assignments for the department in the past year. Orry walked over, greeted him affably, and made an appointment to speak with him that evening. Off the premises.

  For the rest of the day, although he continued to scrawl his signature on passes and scan the daily quota of self-serving reports from General Winder, his mind wrestled with the presidential fiat and what he should do about it. His first reaction, born of insulted honor, was to dig in and refuse to comply.

  On the other hand, suppose Madeline did remain in Richmond. She would be ostracized. And with Grant settling in at Petersburg to the frequent sound of rumbling guns, Richmond was no longer a safe place. Orry definitely didn’t want his wife in the city when it surrendered. He believed all signs pointed to such a capitulation relatively soon.

  So, much as he hated to admit it, he knew Madeline would be better off—safer—if she left.

  Which raised another problem. Where could she go? The most logical answer struck him as far from the best or easiest. He thought carefully on it and by late afternoon had devised a plan that seemed to offer the least risk.

  When the office closed, he and Josea Pilbeam left together. At a quiet table in the Spotswood bar, Orry went immediately to the point.

  “I suspect my sister Ashton—Mrs. James Huntoon—of treasonous activity. I want to hire you to watch her house on Grace Street in the evenings and follow her if she leaves. I want to know where she goes and a description of whoever she sees. You can report to me each morning. I know it’ll tax you to work all day, then stay up most of the night. But you’re young and fit”—eyes on the foam on his beer, the clerk scraped his three-inch shoe sole back and forth under the table—“and for good work, carried out in the strictest confidence, I’ll pay you from my own pocket. I’ll pay you well. Ten dollars a night.”

  Pilbeam drank some beer. “Thanks for the offer, Colonel. But I have to say no.”

  “Good Lord, why? You’ve never objected to a little spying before.”

  “Oh, it isn’t the nature of the work.”

  “What, then?”

  “I have no choice about taking my regular wages in Confederate dollars, but we both know how much those are worth—about as much as the government line saying we can still win the war. I won’t do a private job for payment in our currency.”

  Relieved, Orry said, “I’ll get U.S. dollars, somehow—provided you start the surveillance tomorrow night.”

  “Done,” Pilbeam said, shaking his hand.

  For supper, Madeline divided a small shad between them, garnishing each plate with two tiny boiled turnips. Nothing else could be bought that day, she said.

  He told her he had continued to search departmental records for any mention of an officer named Bellingham. Thus far he had come up with nothing. “It’s frustrating as hell. I’d give anything to find out who he is and get my hands on him.”

  After they finished eating, she suggested they read some poetry aloud. Orry shook his head. “We must have a talk.”

  “My, how portentous that sounds. On what subject?”

  “The need for you to leave Richmond while it’s still possible.”

  A fleeting look of hurt crossed her face. “There have been repercussions from the party.”

  Deeper into the net of lies—for her sake. “No, nothing beyond some snide jokes I’ve overheard. The two reasons you must leave are mine. First, the city’s going to fall. If not this summer, then in the autumn or next winter. It’s inevitable, and I don’t want you here when it happens. I left Mexico before our army marched into the capital, but later George described some of the atrocities. No matter how good the intentions of the commanders or how stern their warnings to their troops, matters always get out of hand for a while. Homes are looted. Men are killed. As for women—well, you understand. I don’t want you to face any of that.”

  Sitting motionless, she said, “And the second reason?”

  “The one I’ve mentioned before. I’m sick of the department. I’m considering asking for a transfer to George Pickett’s staff.”

  “Oh, Orry—no.”

  Swift retreat: “Here, not so serious. The word is considering. I’ve done nothing about it.”

  “Why risk your life for a lost cause?”

  “The cause has nothing to do with it. Pickett’s a friend, I’ve had a bellyful of desk work, and officers are desperately needed in the field. Nothing to fret over—it’s still in the speculative stage.”

  “Let’s hope it stays there. Even if it does, what you’re really doing is banishing me. Well, thank you very much, but I’m not the coward you think I am.”

  “Now wait, I never implied—”

  “You most certainly did. Wel
l, I intend to stay.”

  “I insist that you go.”

  “You’ll insist on nothing!” She rose abruptly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must darn your stockings again. There are none to be had in the stores.” She stormed out.

  Whenever he tried to restart the discussion that evening, she refused to listen. They went to bed barely speaking. But around three, she curled against his back, gently shaking him awake.

  “Darling? I feel wretched. I behaved like a harpy. Forgive me? I was mad at myself, not you. I know I’ve brought shame down on you—”

  Sleepy but suddenly lighthearted, he rolled over and touched her cheek. “Never. Not ever while I live. I love you for what you are—everything you are. I just want you safe.”

  “I feel the same about you. I hate the idea of your going off with George Pickett. The siege lines are dangerous.”

  “I told you, I’ve done no more than think about it. Other matters come first.”

  A low, short sigh. “You want me to go home to Mont Royal, then?”

  “That would be ideal, but I think it’s impractical as well as too risky. South of here you’d encounter the whole Union Army, stretched from City Point clear to the Shenandoah Valley. The roads and rail lines are constant targets. You might slip through, but I believe I have a safer alternative. It may not sound so at first, but I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve concluded that it’s feasible. I want you to go the other way. To Lehigh Station.”

  The effect was the same as if he had said Constantinople or Zanzibar. “Orry, our home is South Carolina.”

  “Now wait. Brett’s at Belvedere. She’d be happy to have your company, and I don’t believe you’d be there very long. Not even a year, if I read the signs correctly.”

  “I’d have to cross enemy lines—”

  “The country north of Richmond is a no-man’s-land. When Grant chased Lee to Petersburg, he took most of his army with him. Our reports show no significant troop concentrations around Fredericksburg, for example. An occasional cavalry or infantry regiment passes through, but that seems to be the extent of it. Furthermore, getting into Washington won’t be hard. You simply say you’re a Union sympathizer, and they’ll think you’re a woman of ill repute who decided—”

  “What kind of woman?” She sat up, managing to convey mock wrath in the midst of a giggle.

  “Now, now—you can stand it. The most you’ll suffer are some insults and a brief detention. An hour or two. That bosom of which I’m so fond may be thumped to see if it pings.”

  “Pings? What are you talking about? You’ve lost your mind.”

  “No. Women who are, ah, less amply endowed than you resort to metal breast forms.”

  “Since when have you become a student of metal breast forms?”

  “Since those who can’t fill them started smuggling medicines and paper money in the, ah, empty spaces. No ping—no search.”

  He felt like an actor, playing a light role solely because the play demanded it. But he refused to have her know anything about the President’s edict, refused to have the woman he loved shamed for something over which she had no control. Tar brush or no, she was worthier, finer, more valuable than a thousand Ashtons—or Davises.

  “Best of all,” he continued, “unless Augusta Barclay’s abandoned her farm, you needn’t make the trip to Washington alone. I’ll get one of Augusta’s freedmen to go with you as far as the Union lines. She promised a favor if we ever needed one, remember.”

  “When are you going to see her?”

  “This weekend.”

  “A Confederate colonel can’t go riding blithely to Fredericksburg. What if you should encounter one of those Yankee units?”

  “Believe me, I don’t intend to let anyone know I’m a colonel. Stop worrying.”

  “Easy for you to say—”

  He knew an old, conventional, but extremely pleasant way to stop such conversations and allay anxieties. He began to kiss her. Then they made love and fell asleep.

  He replaced his uniform with his black broadcloth suit. He donned a wide-brimmed dark hat bought secondhand and tacked Madeline’s Bible in one pocket. In another he placed a pass he had written for himself; that is, for the Reverend O. O. Manchester.

  He set off on a hired nag at least twenty years old. Badly swollen hock joints indicated a case of bog or bone spavin; Orry hoped the animal could make it the forty-odd miles to Fredericksburg.

  He had read reports of the devastation that had struck the town, but reality proved far worse. He saw burned wagons and a decomposing body in ruined fields on the outskirts. He glimpsed a small band of men at a smoky fire back in some woods. Deserters, probably. Fredericksburg itself had an abandoned air; half the houses were empty, and many business establishments boarded up. Some homes and commercial buildings had been blown down by artillery fire. Foundations remained, but the rest lay strewn along the cratered streets, together with shot-away tree limbs, pieces of glass and fragments of furniture.

  With his Bible in plain view under his arm, Orry asked an elderly man for directions to Barclay’s Farm. He reached it an hour later, appalled by what he found. Charles had described the place in some detail, and its most prominent features, the barn and the two red maples, were gone, the former razed, the latter cut down. Only stumps remained in the dooryard.

  Boz and Washington recognized and hailed him as he climbed down from his quaking mount. The black men were attempting to plow a trampled field. Washington guided the plow; Boz pulled it in place of a horse. That spoke of how completely the farm had been stripped.

  He found Gus in the kitchen, listlessly churning butter. Her plain dress, its color gone in repeated launderings, fit her tightly at the waist; she was plumper than he remembered. Haggard, too, especially around her blue eyes.

  “More than half the townspeople ran away when the Yankees came,” she said after she got over the surprise of his arrival. “A good many who stayed took in enemy wounded. I did. I had one captain here, a polite fellow from Maine who was covered with bandages but acted very lively. He refused to let me help change the dressings. I had Boz watch him. He wasn’t hurt. The bandages were borrowed from someone else. I have no idea how he got them, but he must have put them on and run away to avoid fighting. I turned him out and replaced him with a pair of real patients. New York boys. Irish—sweet and gentle and never in battle before. One left after eight days. The other died in my bed.” She resumed the slow, tired churning.

  “I don’t know why we hang on here,” she said, sighing. “Stubbornness, I guess. And if I left, Charles wouldn’t know where to find me. Have you—have you seen him?” That catch in her voice said much about her emotions.

  “Once, before the spring campaign heated up.” Seated at the sun-drenched table with a cup of tasteless imitation coffee, he described Billy’s escape from Libby.

  “Remarkable,” she said when he finished. “But Charles would do that. The old Charles.” The odd statement puzzled Orry. “I imagine he hasn’t had time to ride up this way. Have you had any further word from him since the escape?”

  “None. But I’m sure he’s fine. I watch the casualty rolls carefully. I haven’t seen his name.” There was no reason to add that many of the dead and lost were never identified.

  His encouragement lightened her mood a little. “I can’t tell you how startled I was to see you on the back porch—Reverend Manchester. You do fit the role.”

  “Ah, but the reverend is protected against worldly emergencies—and Yankees.” He showed her the knife concealed in his boot. “I also have a used but serviceable navy Colt in my saddlebag. Let me tell you why I’m here, Augusta. I need your help—that is, I need the help of one of your men, to escort Madeline to Washington.”

  Weary astonishment: “Washington? Have you forgotten which side we’re on?”

  “No, but I must get her out of Richmond, and with Grant entrenching all around Petersburg, it will be much easier and safer to send her to my friend George’s
home in Pennsylvania, where my sister is—the one married to Billy Hazard—than back to South Carolina.”

  He explained more of his plan. She readily agreed to help, even insisting that Boz accompany him back to Richmond to assist Madeline with her packing. After Orry ate some stale bread and homemade cheese—the invaders had graciously allowed Gus to keep one milk cow—he and the freedman prepared to leave. “You ride first while I walk,” Orry said to Boz. “That nag can’t carry two of us.”

  It was hot. He fanned himself with his hat, then shook Gus’s hand. “I’ll bring Madeline back as soon as I can prepare the documents she’ll need for safe conduct. It may take as long as two weeks.”

  It took less than one because of continuing pressure from the highest level. Although the department was inundated with work—the news from Georgia was bad; Sherman had advanced to a position near Marietta and at any hour might assault Joe Johnston’s Kennesaw Mountain entrenchments—Benjamin wanted Orry to set everything else aside and concentrate on his wife’s departure. Seddon told Orry he personally sanctioned it.

  The Mains and Boz set out for Barclay’s Farm at the end of June, while the war news continued to worsen. Davis, a burned-out man, informed the papers that he had sent Retreating Joe Johnston all the reinforcements that could be spared. Now, whatever happened at the doorstep of Atlanta was the general’s responsibility, the general’s fault. At the same time, Davis tried to persuade journalists and the public that because Grant had neither crushed Lee nor captured Richmond, the Virginia situation was improving.

  No one believed him.

  The Reverend Manchester once again traveled to Fredericksburg with Scripture, knife, and .36 caliber navy Colt. He and his companions rode in an old buggy whose cost Orry didn’t care to think about. For replacing a broken axle, the wheelwright had charged five times the prewar price.