High Hearts (27 page)

“I’ll consider your offer, but I must discuss it with my husband first.” She tightened the reins slightly and casually touched the long whip on the flanks of the two dapple gray geldings. She missed her high stepping hackney team, now safely boarded in Kentucky. She hoped they’d be back home as soon as the North saw the light. She slid past a perplexed Reddy. “Be home in no time, gentlemen.”

Mercer sat next to Lutie, his stump stretched out before him. “Not exactly a princely sum, that fellow’s offer.”

“Not exactly a prince.” Lutie smiled.

Anthony Farr-Jones swayed this way and that. Without his arms, balance was difficult. He fought back tears. Mercer heaved himself on the other side of the phaeton to sit next to him. When they’d hit a bump, Anthony would lean into Mercer. Lutie drove as smoothly as she could, but the roads
were rutted. She decided that the New World wouldn’t truly be civilized until paved roads were built. Of course, this would leave out entire chunks of the Old World, too.

Lutie instructed Mercer to open the food hamper. Ernie June had packed fried chicken, finger dumplings, fritters, and her specialty, fried okra that was so crispy you could hear it snap across a room. Mercer fed Anthony. Lutie munched on the okra and wondered why Peter would lie to Reddy. She entertained no illusions about Peter’s word. He could as easily lie to Reddy as he could to her, but why would Reddy take the word of a slave? That corn was put down toward the end of April. Reddy Neutral Taylor had plenty of time to come forward to Henley, Lutie, or Sumner. Reddy’s life revolved around profit, but then he was a tradesman, what could she expect? You can’t make a racehorse out of a jackass.

The sound of Washington’s church bells floated across the Potomac. Geneva, along with other cavalry, pushed from Centreville up to Mason and Munson Hills across from the northern capital. Wherever the regiment rode, people came out of their farmhouses or their row houses in the town to cheer them on.

Geneva and Mars, outposts, watched the river from the hilltop.

“Let’s go on in there, you fox in a henhouse.” Geneva egged Mars.

He gazed across the water. “Too many hens in that one house. They may be disorganized, but there are a mess of them.”

“What’s going to happen to the Union general that commanded at Manassas?”

“McDowell? He’s so far out on a limb he can hear the wood cracking.”

“Why do we wear gray?” Geneva burst with questions whenever she was alone with her commanding officer.

Mars shrugged. “Some asshole became overimpressed with the Austrian army, and they wear gray. The people in Richmond want their boys to cut a fine figure.” He laughed. “What else goes on inside that head of yours?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. I’m a disappointment to my mother. I’m not such a disappointment to my father, but I don’t think he expected much.”

“You’re not a disappointment to me. You’re the fightingest creature I ever saw.”

“Thank you, sir. Thanks for taking me with you to scout.” Geneva spoke a little self-consciously.

“Fun to ride with you. You know, Banjo does right well, too. No form but he can hang on and shoot with both hands. Now if the rest of us could do that and be as accurate as he is, I expect we would become twice as deadly. I have to go to Richmond next week. Want to go with me?”

Geneva, excited, remembered Nash and became less excited. “I don’t know if I should go, sir.”

Mars darkened. “Because of Piggy?”

“It kills him when you call him that.”

“He’s so thin-skinned he’d bleed in a high wind.”

“He’s tremendously intelligent, and he—”

“He doesn’t interest me too much, but I can see he sure interests you.”

“It’s not what you think, Colonel.” She started to blush.

“If it’s not what I think, then it’s a goddamned good imitation.”

“You make me sick! I don’t know how you could think that about Nash.” Realizing she had insulted the colonel of her regiment, she said nothing more.

“Let me ask you this: Have you ever slept with a woman?”

Shocked, Geneva stuttered, “N-n-no, and don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not. I know you’re young, but you’ve got to learn sometime. I’m taking you with me to Richmond, and I personally am going to see that you become acquainted with the fair sex.” A drop of sarcasm coated his voice.

“No.”

Not understanding her refusal, he pressed on. “It’s not so bad, Jimmy. Granted, it takes practice, and women are complicated. I had to get drunk to attempt it, and I don’t remember a minute of the maneuver. You have to start somewhere, Jimmy. For Christ’s sake, no man should be a virgin on his wedding night.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“What’s the matter with you? Hasn’t your father or your brother talked to you?”

“No!”

“Calm down. You have to grow up sometime. A man has a responsibility to his future wife to be knowledgeable, and it’s hardly a chore learning! You also have a responsibility to your wife never to let her find out about your, shall we say, experiments and never, ever to let her find out about dalliances.”

Devastated, Geneva practically whimpered. “Have you, have you ever had dalliances?”

“A few.”

“Even after you were married?”

“Jimmy, boy, you don’t look well. Would you like a drink of something stronger than water?”

“You betrayed your wife?”

“She betrayed me first!” Mars flashed. That was one wound he didn’t want uncovered.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“And what the hell do you know about it? You haven’t even won your spurs!”

“At least I’m not a faithless son of a bitch!”

Stung, Mars pushed her to the ground.

She jumped up, swinging wildly. Mars grunted and backed, away from her. He caught her under the elbow and spun her around. She slid onto the grass. He put his foot on her chest, pinning her down. She grabbed his leg but he had most of his weight on her chest.

“You’re gonna wish you were somebody else,” he snarled.

“At least I won’t be you.”

“You make me so mad I can’t see straight.” He let her up. The fight was over. “You’re the only person on God’s green earth that gets me mad besides my wife.” Mars calmed down. He wished he hadn’t said that.

“I hate you, Mars!” She rubbed her aching chest.

“Colonel to you, shit ass.”

“Colonel.” She folded her arms.

“I’m lucky you didn’t bite me. Probably give me rabies.” He started to laugh. The tension evaporated.

Geneva laughed, too. Finally he threw an arm around her. “I’m sorry. You get under my skin. You’re like a little chigger.”

“I’m not saying what you’re like.!”

Mars cleared his throat. “I would appreciate it if you did not discuss anything I may have said in anger about my wife.”

“I won’t. Colonel,” she continued, “let me ask you something. You know Nash Hart was recently married. He says he loves her until death do him part.”

“Everyone says that in the beginning.”

“Do you think he would cheat on her?”

“If the circumstances are right, any man will wander. Hell, Jimmy, what’s the big deal?”

Geneva’s face drained. “I guess I want people to keep their promises.”

Mars smiled ruefully. “It doesn’t seem to work out that way. Love is harder than war. You’ll find that out in your own good time.”

“I hope not. I hope someone can love me for me.”

“I hope so, too. It’s too late for me.”

Glittering in his finest dress uniform, Henley admired himself one more time in the full-length mirror. A knock on the door brought a quick reply. “Come in.”

The door opened and there stood Sumner, equally resplendent in the dress uniform of a captain of artillery. His red collar and facings pulsated with gold trimmings. “Father.”

Astonished, Henley hesitated a moment and then rushed to embrace his son. “Let me look at you.” He walked around Sumner. “Last time I saw you, you were wearing cavalry yellow and a private at that. What are you doing here? It’s good to see you!” Henley embraced him again.

At his father’s beckoning, Sumner sat in the wooden library chair. “I came down with. Colonel Vickers.”

“He’s here?”

“Yes, he came to wrangle with the Commissary Department and to attend his wife’s social extravaganza. He preferred to stay in the camp, but Stuart insisted he attend.”

Henley’s heart skipped a beat. “How did you come to know him?”

“I met him at Stone Bridge on Warrenton Road.”

Sumner answered his father’s questions and related events, the events he himself had seen at Manassas. Sumner requested an assignment with Vickers’s horse artillery. He’d relayed the news that Nash was bearing up although he didn’t like war. Henley showed Geneva’s letters to Sumner, who affected great interest. He would not break his word to his sister.

They discussed Lutie, the murder of Alafin, and Lutie’s nursing work. The story of Jennifer Fitzgerald made them both queasy.

Henley recognized that his son had endured a test and passed it, a test that he himself had not endured. He was proud of Sumner and envious. For the first time, Sumner spoke to him as a man, an equal. However gruesome the war might be, it gave Sumner the opportunity to carve out a place for himself, independent of Chatfield and his father.

These new feelings prompted Henley to ask Sumner’s opinion about the corn crop and Reddy Neutral Taylor.

“Pay him for the seed and the labor, then take the crop ourselves. I think we can only tarnish our name by a partnership with him, even such a tenuous one.”

Henley observed his son as he spoke. The lesson for the day was Proverbs, chapter 4. Henley, like Lutie, knew his Bible. Chapter 4 exhorts the reader to get wisdom, to embrace understanding. “Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I led thee in right paths. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest,
thou shalt not stumble.” Could it be that Sumner had absorbed Henley’s lessons over the years? For a fleeting moment, Henley thought he may have been too hard on the boy.

He stared into Sumner’s eyes, clear, light eyes like Lutie’s. “That’s excellent advice, Sumner. I’m quite proud of you, son. Truly proud.”

As they rode in an open coach to Kate Vickers’s party, Sumner confided that when the war was over, he wanted to build gardens and fountains for Lutie. Using the fountains in St. Petersburg, Russia, for inspiration. He made drawings appropriate to Chatfield’s topography and Virginian materials. Henley said he’d be happy to examine the plans, but Sumner had better keep cost uppermost in his mind.

Every window and door of the Vickerses’ house was flung open to invite visitors. Expensive coaches and teams lined the broad boulevard. Music, conversation, and laughter floated out onto the street, beckoning people to enter.

Henley passed through the huge front door and gave his hat to the butler, as did Sumner. Standing a few feet from the door, greeting her guests, was Kate Vickers. Mars, in dress uniform, stood beside her. Sumner sucked in his breath.

“Colonel Chatfield, I am so glad you’re here. Whom have you brought to me?”

Henley bowed and kissed her hand. “Mrs. Vickers, allow me to present to you Captain Sumner Chalfonte Chatfield, who fought of late at Manassas.”

“Colonel, I can see the source of your son’s manner and manly bearing.” Her smile was blinding. “You have not met my husband. Colonel Chatfield, Colonel Mars Vickers.”

“I’ve heard so much about you, Colonel Chatfield, and I’ve looked forward to meeting you at last. You are a great favorite of my wife.”

“The honor is entirely mine, Colonel Vickers. Your exploits on the field of battle are known to the entire Confederacy.” Henley smiled, then moved into the crowd.

“Father, why didn’t you tell me she was so beautiful?” Sumner spoke rapidly.

“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Henley replied.

“Mother!” Forgetting for a moment everyone, even Kate Vickers, Sumner spied Lutie.

President Davis, hot in conversation with cabinet members
also in attendance, also paused for a moment. A sad smile crossed his face as he thought perhaps of the mothers who would never see their sons again.

Henley, surprised to see his wife, held out his hand to her. “Lutie, what are you doing here?”

“Dr. Windsor told me Sumner was accompanying Colonel Vickers to Richmond to battle with your department, and I decided to surprise both of you.” To Sumner she said, “There’s someone else who wants to see you.”

Kate took Sumner’s arm. “Come with me, Captain.” She led him to the kitchen. The door swung open, and Sumner beheld twenty servants in various states of preparation and panic. Coolly going about her business, a festive red turban for special occasions on her head, was Sin-Sin.

“Auntie Sin-Sin!” Sumner ran over and hugged her.

Sin-Sin held on to him, tears in her eyes. “My young mastah, my baby boy! God done answered my prayers. He brought you safe to Sin-Sin.”

Kate rejoined her guests, and Sin-Sin introduced her hero to the other servants. She also complained bitterly that Lutie had entrusted the keys to Ernie June, but it was either that or Ernie June would accompany Lutie, and Sin-Sin wasn’t going to let that fat tick get her butt in Richmond. No, sir, no way, no how. Ernie June cooked up a mess of her specialties for this event, and it took three men to load the hampers on the train. Sin-Sin said she thought they could feed the army.

“Auntie, I’ve told the boys in my company about you. After the war is over, I’m going to bring them all home just to meet you and Momma. What a party we’ll have! And will you make a pot for each one?”

“Course.” She put her smooth, warm palm to his cheek. “Now you go on out there and make those ladies fight over you. You gots more important things to do than chew the fat with an old slave woman.”

Sumner hugged her again. “You’re worth the lot of them.” He kissed her on the cheek.

Feigning embarrassment, she shooed him away. “Go on, now, you get out here, you tomcat.” Laughing, Sumner returned to the party.

“I tell you, sir, we cannot rely on foreign purchase. We must produce ourselves. We can lean upon nobody.” General Josiah Gorgas and Judah P. Benjamin were arguing.