The Titans
Page 10
“Jeremiah?”
He turned to Catherine.
“Serena asked a very pertinent question. We must plan what we’re going to do if the enemy comes.”
Remembering the laughter, Jeremiah thought, He’s already here.
Chapter VII
Warnings
i
THANKSGIVING DINNER WAS A tense, joyless affair.
Jeremiah suspected it might turn out that way the moment Catherine appeared, bringing her cut glass decanter of blackberry wine out in the open—right to the table. As she set it down she murmured an excuse about needing a “medicinal tonic” after the strain of the service and Judge Claypool’s arrival with the bad news from Milledgeville.
Maum Isabella hadn’t stinted on preparing a good meal. But Jeremiah and the two women barely touched their food. Unpleasant questions seemed to come up almost at once. Would Sherman actually reach the Louisville district? Would his troops behave as badly as they had in the capital? Jeremiah gave encouraging answers, as much to reassure himself as to reassure them.
Catherine inquired about his initiation into the war. The words he used in reply automatically carried his thoughts to a place he preferred to forget:
To a hillside in the northwest part of the state. In September twilight a year ago, he’d gone up that hillside with his bayonet fixed and his palms sweating, ducking and starting at his first exposure to the whine of Minié balls.
The Confederates had been trying to take a position held by the Yank general, Pap Thomas. After the battle, Thomas came to be called The Rock because his lines held and blew back charge after Rebel charge while, behind them, routed Rosecrans fled for Chattanooga. Jeremiah narrated an account of the engagement, but said nothing about how terrified he’d been at first.
He described the ball that had grazed his scalp and produced the streak of white hair. He told them how he’d shot his first Yank—the first one he was certain he’d killed, that is. But he didn’t mention the disturbing feelings he’d experienced watching the young man fall.
He’d shot as he was supposed to shoot—obeying orders—yet his reaction to the hit had been a kind of cold joy. He tried not to remember the joy. It didn’t fit with his concept of war honorably conducted.
He hated to admit there was an aspect of his nature, slowly strengthened as he gained proficiency with firearms, that could be termed ruthless. At times he even denied the trait’s existence. But it was there, and he guarded against giving in to it.
Once in a while he did succumb. Before escaping from the farmer with the pitchfork, he’d struck the back of the man’s neck and felt absolutely no pity. Nor had he experienced any qualms about the whipping of Price.
While Jeremiah talked, he noticed Serena picking at her cloved ham and glancing around the room in a restless way. She was certainly a creature of moods. Last night, she’d declared she was his ally. This morning he seemed to bore her. He concluded that her night visit must have been solely an act of defiance directed against her stepmother. His account of his experiences in battle didn’t interest her. This afternoon he was merely a guest to be tolerated. A boy.
It was infuriating.
Yet he couldn’t help being fascinated. The late afternoon sun haloed her red hair and profile, making her look like some beautiful image from a church window.
Catherine drank two goblets of blackberry wine during the meal. She didn’t touch the quill pen, the inkstand, or the foolscap sheet in front of her place. One line was written at the top of the sheet in a delicate, slanting hand:
Somehow she seemed unable to get down to working on the list, or even to discussing it, permitting the conversation to veer off in other directions.
“Jeremiah.” She refilled her goblet a third time. “How was the colonel’s state of mind when—when he—”
She couldn’t complete the sentence.
A black woman cleared the unfinished dish of dessert plums from his place as he answered, “Well, apart from fretting about you two, he seemed to be in good spirits the night before we fought at Jonesboro.”
A lie. He balanced it with a truth. “He was annoyed, though.”
“Why?”
“There was something special he wanted to read. The next part of a serial story in a New York weekly. Someone had given him two old copies that contained the first two chapters, or whatever you call them.”
“Installments,” Serena said.
He felt humiliated again. “Anyway, it was some sort of spooky story by a writer named Wilkie—” Memory faltered a second time.
“Wilkie Collins?” Catherine asked.
“Yes, I think that’s it. He said the two things he wanted most were to see you”—the remark was intended to include Serena, but she paid no attention—“and to finish The Woman in White.”
Catherine sighed and dabbed her napkin against the corner of her mouth. “He had a fine mind. He was a literate, Christian man. We had good times just talking, or going over the ledgers. Small things.”
“Small things were all he cared about,” Serena complained.
Voice thicker, Catherine retorted, “You mustn’t speak disrespectfully of your father.”
“I’m not being disrespectful. I’m telling the truth!” At last she faced Jeremiah, who occupied a place at one side of the long table, between the women seated at the ends. “I don’t know how many times I begged Papa to take us to Savannah so we could have dinner at the Pulaski House. Best food in the whole state, everyone says. Best in the whole South! But he wouldn’t, he was always content around here. Do you know I’ve never been out of Jefferson County except for part of a year at Christ College where Catherine taught? I wanted to see New Orleans, Savannah—even Washington. And all I ever saw were silly books and silly women in a stuffy old Lyceum!”
Catherine bristled, waggling her goblet. “You also saw a few disreputable young men who took you buggy riding after hours. Who compromised you by bringing along spiritous liquors.”
Serena glanced at her stepmother’s glass. “You’re a fine one to talk!”
Catherine scowled. “Serena—”
The warning went unfinished because the girl spoke immediately. “Well, you are!” She turned to Jeremiah. “Catherine’s always been a pillar of the county temperance society. Of course none of those nice ladies has any idea there’s always a jug of blackberry wine handy around—”
“Enough, Serena! When there’s a war, things—things change. Your father’s been gone a long time. Sometimes a person needs help to keep going.”
Serena’s laugh had a vicious sound. “And everything’s fine as long as it’s taken on the sly!”
Catherine set the goblet on the table and stared at it, sadly. Jeremiah wanted to run. Only politeness kept him there, caught in the hostility boiling between the two women.
Although Catherine’s unhappy concentration on the goblet was an admission of guilt, Serena didn’t find that satisfying enough. “I tell you, sometimes I just get sick to death of the way you look down on me! You act like Moses on the mount! One of these days—”
Flushed, she held back the rest. Catherine looked at her, half stunned, half furious. “What, Serena?”
“Nothing.”
“No, I insist. Finish the sentence. Did you mean to threaten me?”
“No, I—really, I didn’t. I apologize.” Her voice was flat, insincere.
Jeremiah grimaced. She obviously had meant the uncompleted sentence as a warning. But prudence—or a second thought that represented more deviousness than caution—had convinced her to keep it to herself.
Still, she wasn’t through baiting the older woman, though she did it indirectly, speaking to him again.
“Catherine’s always been just heartbroken that I didn’t last the year at the institute. I was supposed to study for a degree in the arts, but one of the proctors smelled spirits when I came in ten minutes late one night. A whole ten minutes! That was the end of my grand education. Not that I cared! I was glad t
o leave that stupid place.”
The colonel’s widow picked up the quill and tapped the nib against the inkstand. “I don’t believe we need subject Jeremiah to an account of your unfortunate record at Montpelier.”
He tried to ease the tension with a smile and a shrug. “I was never much for studying either. My mother couldn’t get me to do lessons when we traveled.”
With that, he finally succeeded in attracting Serena’s full attention.
“Did you travel many places?”
“All over the South. My stepfather—he’s dead now—he was an actor.”
Serena seemed genuinely interested. “Oh, you must have seen such wonderful sights!”
He made a face. “Hotel rooms. Dirty theaters. Sooty railroad cars. Depots in the middle of the night.”
“You’re not being honest. I can’t imagine anything more exciting than visiting different cities and towns. I want to travel one of these days. Travel—stay in fine hotels—”
She searched his face a moment. Did he? she seemed to ask silently. Catherine’s quill went tap against the inkstand, then, quickly, tap again.
“What about that relative of yours in New York?” Serena wanted to know. “Did you ever visit him?”
“My second cousin once removed? No, I’ve never set eyes on Louis Kent.”
“He’s a wealthy man, though—didn’t you tell us he’s a wealthy man?”
“Very wealthy.” He nodded. He’d been unable to gain her attention for so long and he wanted to keep it. The boast came easily: “’Course our side of the family—the Virginia side—has money too. My brothers and I will come into a lot of it when our father dies.”
“You will?” She folded her hands under her chin, “You’re not making that up?”
“Absolutely not.” To convince her, he related how his father, the Reverend Jephtha Kent, had inherited a California gold claim and a subsequently formed mining corporation from Jeremiah’s grandfather, a mountain man and prospector in the 1849 rush. Serena still acted dubious as he went on.
“Gideon, Matt, and I will come into equal shares when father passes away—although thanks to the war, I don’t know what’s happened to either one of them lately. Matt was always footloose—I expect he’s taking care of himself, wherever he is. But I really worry about Gid. We’re not sure if he’s dead or in prison up north. If he’s dead, I suppose his wife in Richmond inherits his share. But however it turns out, even a third of the earnings of that California company will be mighty handsome.”
Teasing, Serena said, “If there is a California company.”
Catherine exhaled, an abrupt, exasperated sound. “Serena, I don’t know what to do with you. I’ve never heard you speak more rudely to anyone—with possibly one exception.”
Jeremiah fought back another wave of anger.
“That’s all right, Mrs. Rose. I’m used to doubters. Boys in the army called me a liar every day of the week. The truth is”—he grinned in a disarming way—“I’m not bright enough to make up a story like that.”
Catherine’s eyes were warm as she responded, “Or malicious enough to try to deceive people. I believe you.”
Serena studied her mother. Perhaps Catherine’s conviction had persuaded her. She was more polite when she said, “Why, I do too! I was only having a little fun.”
“You have peculiar notions as to what constitutes fun, Serena. You have peculiar notions about a good many—”
Serena didn’t let her finish. “What are you going to do with all that money when you get it?”
Less angry now—though Catherine wasn’t—he shrugged again, and replied honestly, “Hadn’t given it much thought. It’ll be a long time before I see any of it. My father’s in fine health, and I wouldn’t wish him anything less—even if he is a damn Yankee.”
That admission represented a change in his attitude that had taken place gradually over the past couple of years. He could still recall a vivid, ugly scene in a hotel room in Washington when Fan and his father had screamed at one another. Lamont had tried to intercede, and Gideon had wound up caning Jephtha unmercifully. Jeremiah had been terrified, understanding none of it.
Later, after Lamont’s funeral, Fan had spoken to him and said Gideon and Jephtha were reconciled now—and that it had been Lamont, not Jephtha, who’d been responsible for the violent quarrel. She’d refused to explain further, and he’d never been able to learn more of the details. But her statements were an additional bit of proof of something suspicious about Lamont’s death.
He sat up a little straighter, conscious of Serena watching him closely. He had her now! Even if she still wasn’t wholly convinced about the California gold, she was at least treating him as if he were something more than a worthless boy.
Surrendering to an ugly impulse, he decided he’d fix her for all her previous slights. He shifted the position of his chair so he faced Catherine. “I think we’ve talked enough about money. Maybe we should get to work on your list.”
The older woman smiled, but in a tired way. “I suppose you’re right. I’ve been avoiding it. I hate to think of why we must make a list at all.”
The wine had definitely affected her speech. Slowed and slurred it. Lent it a despairing note. She inked the quill. Thought a moment.
“We must put some salt away. What little we have left.”
She made a notation, then pondered again.
“Two barrels of flour.”
She marked it down.
“I have two bolts of kersey in the sewing room. I wouldn’t want to lose those.”
“Heavens, no!” Serena exclaimed.
What a wretched excuse for a Thanksgiving dinner this had turned out to be! Of course, he admitted to himself a moment later, he hadn’t exactly eased the situation by giving in to his impulse and turning his back on Serena. But he felt too embarrassed to shift the chair again.
While he watched Catherine Rose working on her list, he missed seeing the speculative look in Serena’s blue eyes. She was no longer interested in her stepmother.
She was watching him.
ii
Late that night, unable to sleep, he lay with his hands clasped beneath his head, pondering the peculiar and venomous conversation between the Rose women.
All he could settle on as possible causes for their barely controlled animosity were two things. The first was Catherine’s evident need for strong drink, coupled with the fact that she concealed the need from her neighbors and the members of the temperance society. The second was Serena’s undisciplined behavior, which had apparently gotten her expelled from the young women’s institute. Still, both reasons seemed too trivial to generate the kind of hostility that had crisscrossed the dining table.
He recalled certain other words of Catherine’s. Serena had “peculiar notions.” Could that possibly be a polite term for crazy? The girl’s nature plainly included a violent, reckless streak. The blood he’d washed from the cuff of his nightshirt said as much.
Yet the underlying reason for the animosity between the two continued to elude him. Not that he much cared to probe for it.
Trouble was, the longer he stayed at Rosewood, the more likely he was to uncover it. The women were revealing more and more of themselves as each day passed. Perhaps the stress of living with the threat of Sherman’s army made such a situation inevitable. He didn’t like being in the middle of it. But he was.
Well, at least he’d scored a point or two against Catherine’s bitchy stepdaughter. He was no longer quite so much of a child in her eyes.
His feelings about her were complex and upsetting. There was something damned dangerous about her. Yet the memory of her blue eyes and red hair kept him awake and aroused for almost an hour.
iii
During the next two days, Catherine put Jeremiah in charge of the heavier work called for by the Thanksgiving Day list. He was helped by a husky, companionable nigra named Leon—the one Serena had called on when she tried to whip a confession out of Price.
Next they loaded the plantation wagon with bales of cotton, the two bolts of kersey, and two more of denim cloth carried from the sewing room. Leon hitched mules to the wagon and showed Jeremiah a straggling track that led off into pine woods a quarter mile behind the little cemetery.
In a clearing far back in the woods they erected a lean-to of limbs and brush to protect the cache of cotton and cloth, to which they presently added two small barrels of molasses and a large chiming clock Henry Rose had presented to Catherine as a wedding present. Catherine had confessed she felt a mite ridiculous hiding an item of sentimental value such as the clock. But she had no basis for making decisions about what the Yanks might want other than reports received once or twice a day from the citizens of Louisville. They sent their nigras around the neighborhood to say that Sherman’s army was indeed coming, and the general’s order giving permission for his soldiers to forage liberally was being interpreted as permission to steal anything the invaders pleased.
Leon and Jeremiah tried to operate circumspectly on their trips into the pines. The big, innocent-eyed slave reported that Price seemed in extremely high spirits. When Jeremiah questioned him about any references Price might have made to a stolen Enfield, Leon allowed as how Price hadn’t said anything directly about the musket. But he had been bragging that he’d be “fixed mighty good” if the enemy showed up at the gate by the highway. Jeremiah wished there were at least one weapon in the house besides kitchen implements and his knife.
He and Leon kept an eye out for Price whenever they drove the loaded wagon back into the trees. They never once saw the buck watching. But since the other nigras had observed the wagon’s comings and goings, Jeremiah was sure Price was well aware of their activity.