High Hearts (38 page)

Lutie worried about Johnston’s slow pullback of troops from Williamsburg, but for some unexplained reason, she wasn’t panicked. She could not imagine Yankees walking down Broad Street next week. And if she couldn’t imagine something, she was certain it wouldn’t come to pass. “I do hope I will have the pleasure of your stupendously handsome husband’s company again.”

“He adored you, of course. You’re his kind of woman.”

“Oh? And what is his kind of woman?” Lutie preened.

“Gay, forthright, ready for anything. I would say that describes you in a nutshell.”

“Which is perhaps where I belong.” Lutie laughed at herself.

Kate laughed with her, then her tone changed slightly. “I’m sure you fathom that my husband and I are not quite suited for one another. Perhaps I expect too much of him. I think to myself, ‘
I
want more.’ ”

“I, on the other hand, have had quite enough.” Lutie also looked backward as they walked and saw Evangelista and Sin-Sin in animated discussion. “Your Evangelista’s vanity would have been more fairly distributed among five or six women.”

“Her self-infatuation is astonishing, isn’t it?” Kate’s voice registered that world-weariness tinged with pride which women reserve for luxurious troubles. “She drives me mad but what can I do without her? She is in charge of my wardrobe, she has a better sense of seating for dinners than I do, and she finds bargains.”

“Sin-Sin was impressed when Evangelism guided her through your labyrinthine closets and showed her every gown for which you’ve marked a card stating when you wore it, where you wore it, and what shoes, hat, gloves, and parasol you wore with it. Even people’s comments.”

“What are they saying?”

Lutie and Kate became silent and slowed their pace to hear the chatter. Sin-Sin was ringing like the clapper in a bell.

“ ‘Dah,’ she say she called ‘Dah.’ No good can come from a Gullah girl, I tells you, Evangelista. Thass when Greer Fitzgerald’s troubles start, when his momma give him over to that wet nurse. One day Miz Lutie havin’ a party so big it last
three weeks; so big, Evangelista, that folks comes from Russia! Naturally, Jennifer Fitzgerald come with her man and her baby and that Gullah girl. A big buzzard flies over, and she carry on. She say the turkey buzzard gonna puke on her little Greer, and it be so nasty that he take sick from it. I got no time for this ’stitious foolery and I tell her that no buzzard gonna puke on Greer Fitzgerald unless she out there tryin’ to steal its rotten meat. Pah!”

Evangelista nodded and then launched into her own tale, designed to represent her equal authority. She possessed an edge due to her French-accented English. “Miss Kate had a cook that was so violently stupid, she neglected to boil black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. I ordered her to do so immediately lest someone should die in our house in the New Year. She did it, of course, but the pot was not on the fire until sunup. We lost those hours! The pot should have been on at midnight of New Year’s Eve.”

“Thass right!” Sin-Sin agreed.

“Before four months passed, Mars’s enchanting, enchanting mother died. I informed Miss Kate of how angry I was. Surely it was the cook’s fault. She removed her, of course.” Evangelista swelled with importance.

“No sech thing as a right-thinkin’ cook. Always meddle in the ’fairs of the house.”

“I’d like to put a halter on the one Miss Kate uses now. She run to the mistress every time my back is turned!”

“Thass what Ernie June do. Evangelista, I can tell you got your hands full with the cook and high-tone folk coming to this house. Uh huh!”

“I paraphrase Napoleon. Kate Vickers is Richmond and Richmond is Kate Vickers.”

Lutie paused to admire a high spring garden overflowing with azalea, wisteria, rhododendron, and late blooming tulips. “I detect an affection between yourself and Evangelista. Sin-Sin is part of our family, of course. I have a friend, a woman I like very much, but she lives cheek by jowl with her servants and maintains poisonous detachment. I could never do it.”

“I can be detached from my husband, but never from Evangelista, even though she is horrendously spoiled and I should thrash her for it.”

“Someday we must discuss husbands, but not today. I want to collect my thoughts.” Lutie put her finger to her lips.

“Is it true, Kate, that Quartermaster General Myer’s wife called our Mississippi Varina Davis a squaw!”

“In front of God and everyone.”

The two women allowed the deliciously awful comment to simmer and continued their majestic procession down Franklin Street. Who cares if the Yankees are at the door?

The tempestuous, erratic nature of May weather bedeviled Confederate and Yankee alike. One day would be cool and breezy. This would be followed by a stinker which usually gave rise to a thunderstorm of Biblical intensity. However, one or two hot days couldn’t shrink the swollen creeks and swamps. The land became a large bog. Infantrymen would sink up to their ankles, and after a punishing rain, the wagons would halt, imprisoned up to their axles in mud. Artillery men, lashing their draft horses and pulling and pushing the guns themselves, suffered the most because of the weather.

The sound of rifle fire punctuated the air. Mars and his men covered the pullback of the army along the Williamsburg Road. Since the battle of Williamsburg, his regiment had kept just out of range of Federal skirmishers.

Up ahead lay the sinister waste of the Chickahominy River sandwiched on both sides by a swamp which even in stifling August heat was two feet deep. Hooking off of that like a spur was the White Oak Swamp.

Despite the extreme changeability of the weather, Mars could not believe that McClellan, with his superior forces, was allowing himself to be sucked into the Chickahominy. The intelligence received by cavalry units operating in the north of the state said that McDowell was moving out of Fredericksburg to reinforce McClellan. McClellan didn’t want
to fight until he had a force of seven to one. How could the man not know the Confederates would attack before those reinforcements came, no matter what the ground, no matter what the weather? He must have thought that every Southern commander was as loathe to attack as himself. If Southerners had been that cautious, they would never have seceded in the first place.

Whatever the reasons for McClellan’s sloth, Mars was confident that McDowell would never make it to Richmond. Stonewall Jackson would throw up a shout and a handful of gunpowder, and McDowell would withdraw to protect Washington. Two could play the game of threatening capitals. The fact that Richmond and Washington were only an anxious 115 miles apart made this tactic easy. Mars’s personal preference would have been to place the capital of the Confederacy in the geographic heart of the new nation, far enough away from Washington that the Yankees would have to march for weeks through hostile territory, risking annihilation wherever ground favored the defenders. Spiritually Richmond was the center, but Mars cared more for defenses than spirit, and right now Richmond trembled, exposed.

Geneva and Banjo rode with Mars. He enjoyed their presence, since the sight of Yankees emboldened rather than frightened them. He often wondered if cowardice was inborn. Perhaps a man should not be punished for it. Better to take a man fearful of battle and put him behind the lines where he could be useful.

A bullet smacked into a tree.

“A little closer and I’ll get a shave.” Banjo puffed on his cigar.

“You could use one, too.” Mars glanced at Banjo’s unkempt stubble.

“Those boys couldn’t hit a squirrel in a year.”

“You’re bigger than a squirrel,” Geneva said.

“Let’s trot back about five hundred yards.” As they withdrew, Mars shook his head. “This crawl has got to be driving some of those boys crazy. How can they stay in sight of us like this and not push forward? If they don’t have a decent general, at least they’ve got discipline.”

“Like a beautiful horse with no rider.” Geneva patted Dancer’s neck.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you, Jimmy. I received a letter
from my wife two days ago, and your mother is now in Richmond. Preparing for hospital work, I take it. I saved your brother’s sash because I wanted to present it to her myself. Why don’t you take it to her?”

“I could take it to her afterwards.” Geneva was nervous about seeing her mother. She wondered if it was the red scar on her cheek that made her shy, or maybe it was something deeper and unexplored.

“I want the sash given her by hand from a member of this regiment.” Mars was determined about this. “Banjo, you can do it.”

“I’ve never been to Richmond, sir.”

“Never been to Richmond?” Mars exploded. “You’re going tonight. I’ll give you precise directions so you won’t get lost. Stay the day, and spend the night at my house. Kate will make room. Rejoin us tomorrow.”

Banjo paused momentarily. “Are you sure there won’t be a fight? I’d rather stay if there’s hope of knocking them one.”

“We’ve got a while. Clean up, and change into your dress uniform before you get to the house.”

“Company.” Geneva pointed to a fine-looking man, early sixties, riding down the road to meet them.

The major general stopped in front of Mars and saluted. “Sir, that was a damned foolish thing you did, asking your division commander to arm the servants in your regiment.”

“I didn’t think so, General. They’re men, and they want to fight.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what you think now or ever, Colonel!” The general’s gray beard quivered with anger. He set his jaw. “I also want to compliment you for your fine performance in the rear guard. It’s the most difficult position, and you are executing flawlessly.”

“Thank you, General.”

He put his mustard colored gloves on the pommel of his saddle. “Another thing. If I do not survive this war, you’ll more than likely be made a brigadier and asked to take command of a portion of my forces.”

“I’m happy where I am, General.”

“I don’t care where you’re happy; I care where you’ll be most effective. Who doesn’t want to command light cavalry, sir?”

“I think, General, you’ll live forever.” Mars smiled but there was no warmth in it.

“Sometimes I’m afraid I won’t, and sometimes I’m afraid I will.” A flash of humor illuminated the general’s harsh but handsome features. “I’ll relieve you of my presence in the sweet bye and bye, and I’ll relieve you of it now.” He saluted. Then he spoke again. “And I do wish you’d stop riding around with your tunic and shirt open like that. We are an Anglo-Saxon army, sir, not an Italian one!” He saluted again and rode off.

“Who’s that old fart?” Geneva spat.

“My father.”

Geneva blushed. “Colonel, I’m sorry.”

Seeing her discomfort, Mars bellowed with laughter. “I don’t like him either.”

King David told his men to kill his enemies, the Jebusites, even the lame and the blind. Lutie thought he was horrid to be so cruel. Her Bible lesson nibbled on her mind throughout the morning.

Lutie, Sin-Sin, and Di-Peachy, together with Hazel Whitmore, Miranda Lawrence, Rise Rives, and Jennifer Fitzgerald, stocked and kept inventory of medical supplies. Kate Vickers worked harder than anyone would have thought possible. It was assumed that being so beautiful, she would be useless. Lutie knew better, but slowly the other ladies granted her their heartfelt respect instead of the usual polite pieties. Kate enjoyed Di-Peachy’s presence, but shrank from Big Muler. She told Lutie that he made her skin crawl.

That morning Baron Schecter, impeccably attired as always, called upon Kate. While being pleasant to him, she
told him she must continue working. He helped her wind bandages which set Jennifer Fitzgerald into a minor tizzy. She found Baron Schecter terribly attractive and told him he reminded her of her gorgeous Greer, fallen hero of Manassas. The baron flirted with her which made her work harder, and Lutie thought if the baron could have known the late and now sainted Greer Fitzgerald, he would shoot Jennifer on the spot.

Kate’s liveried butler interrupted their work. “Miz Vickers, a lieutenant here to call upon Miz Chatfield.”

“Show him in.”

Banjo Cracker stepped into the foyer. Stiffly bowing, he cleared his throat. “Mrs. Vickers, I have something for Mrs. Chatfield. Is she here?”

Lutie came over, and the butler ushered them into the small, fragrant conservatory.

“Mrs. Chatfield, Colonel Vickers wanted to present this to you himself, but he can’t leave right now.” Banjo carefully handed her a small package.

Lutie unwrapped it. There, neatly folded with a note, was Sumner’s red officer’s sash. She held it up. Deep brown bloodstains were splashed over much of it. She put her head in her hands and started to cry.

Awkwardly sitting, Banjo wanted to console her. He felt ridiculous. “Ma’am, your boy was a pistol! He’d walk down the line and people felt better for lookin’ at him. He stayed with his guns, and he had but three and they had six. What a man!”

Tears falling on her soft, yellow dress, she replied, “He was, wasn’t he?”

“Did he tell you about the time we stole the grain?”

“No. My son stole grain?”

Banjo told her stories about Sumner and his escapades. Before long, Lutie’s laughter bounced off the glass walls of the conservatory. Hearing Banjo talk of her son in such an unaffected and pungent style brought Sumner back to life for her.

After a few questions, she discovered that Banjo had never seen Richmond. “Well, you are going to see it today, if you will allow me to be your guide.”

“Oh, I don’t know, ma’am. I have never been in the
presence of such a fine-looking woman. I’m afraid I’ll make a fool of myself. You’re so far above me.” He meant it, too.

Rejuvenated by his assessment of her person and his obvious love for Sumner, Lutie smiled. “Nonsense! We know one another through Jimmy’s letters, and I shan’t be frightened for a single moment on our crowded streets, filled with riffraff, if I have such a warrior by my side.”

Kate came in with Baron Schecter. “Lutie, you look radiant.”

“The lieutenant has been entertaining me with news of both my sons!” Lutie clapped her hands together.