The Deserter (18 page)

“Because they only had daughters,” said Homer. “One died, and the two surviving daughters married other people, so then there were no more Clocks.” He tapped the name of Seth Morgan. “Here he is, your great-great-grandfather, Ida's
‘dear husband
'—I mean, her first
‘dear husband
.'”

Mary looked at the name and felt a pang, remembering the blank page in the Harvard album for the class of 1860, the missing face of a young man deemed unworthy of his peers.

Heartlessly Gwen said, “Seth Morgan, he's the shameful one nobody ever talked about. What happened to him afterward? There's no death date, but Ida married again, so maybe he died in the Civil War.”

“Unless she was a bigamist,” said Homer.

“Our great-great-grandmother?” Mary pretended to be shocked. She turned the page. “Let's see what these people looked like.”

Only a few of the pictures were accompanied by names. “Too bad,” said Homer. “The trouble is, everybody knew what Grand-paw and Aunt Milly looked like, so there was no need to write their names down.”

The first two were daguerreotypes. They were dark, as though the old gentleman in a neck cloth and his wrinkled old wife were peering out of a closet.

The next husband and wife had been taken after the daguerreotype era. These were
cartes de visite
, photographs on cards slipped into openings in the thick pages.

“This one says ‘Father,'” said Gwen. “So I'll bet he's Bartholomew Flint.”

“Ida's father,” said Homer, “the one killed by a falling tree. So the woman must be his wife Eudocia, Ida's mother.”

“Oh wow,” said Mary, turning the page, “who's this old sourpuss?”

Gwen turned the book sideways. “There's writing—wait a minute. It says ‘Mother Morgan.'”

Homer flipped back to the family tree. “She must be Seth's mother Augusta.”

“I disown her,” said Gwen firmly.

“So do I,” said Mary.

“I'm sorry to inform you,” said Homer, “that you can't disown an ancestor, good or bad. Without grumpy old Augusta you two wouldn't be here at all. Who's next?”

Mary turned the page, and they all said at once, “There she is.”

It was the young woman in the white-ribboned cap. “And she's written her entire name under it.” said Gwen. “‘
Ida Flint Morgan Clock.
' She's the young woman in those two little cases.”

“So which of her two husbands is with her in one of them?” said Homer. “Is it Seth?”

“Maybe it's her second husband, Alexander Clock.” Gwen turned the page to a pair of children. On the left side a small boy looked out of the cardboard frame; on the right a baby lay on a pillow, its small hands folded on its breast.

“Oh yes,” said Mary. “I remember the dead baby.”

They studied Homer's list again. “The little boy may be the son of Ida and Seth,” said Homer. “Horace Bartholomew Morgan.”

“And the baby must be little Eudocia Mary,” said Homer, “the first child of Ida and Alexander Clock. See? She lived only a few months.”

The last photograph was different from the rest.

“I remember this,” said Mary. “It's a bunch of men in uniform. Look, Homer, it's labeled. It's the Second Massachusetts”—she squinted at the date—“on May thirty-first, 1863.”

“Not the whole regiment,” said Homer. “Probably just one company. See if Seth is there.”

The faces were small, the photograph faded. Gwen ran for a magnifying glass.

It was a happy-go-lucky group, jolly comrades gone a-soldiering. Rifles were stacked at one side, but some of the men were clowning for the camera. One of them lolled in the foreground, grinning because his ears were being tickled by feathers in the hands of a couple of boys kneeling behind him, obviously a pair of twins. The only sober face was that of the captain, who was looking gravely to one side, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Homer noted the sideburns, the look of tired intelligence.

They bent over the picture, hunting for the young bearded face that lay under the cracked glass in the folding case, then shook their heads, agreeing that it wasn't there.

“May thirty-first, 1863,” said Homer. “It was after Antietam and Chancellorsville but before Gettysburg.”

They gave up on the picture in which Captain Thomas Rodman Robeson stood gazing at the horizon and First Lieutenant Seth Morgan looked cheerfully straight into the lens of the camera, his hat in his hand.

Nor did they recognize Private Otis Mathias Pike, hilariously tickled by Lemuel and Rufus Scopes as he lay grinning on the ground in the very forefront of the fighting men of Company E, Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

GLORIOUS LIBRARIES

T
he next step was libraries.

“You take the Archives department this time,” said Mary. “I'll try the Theatre Collection.”

Mary Morgan and Homer Kelly had spent their honeymoon in the Concord Library—well, part of it anyway. Libraries were their saloons. They had visited these intoxicating pothouses all over their native New England and in far-flung cities across the Atlantic.

None of these grogshops was more inebriating than the small and sequestered storehouses in the Pusey Library, where the bartender librarians served up precious vintages from days gone by.

Homer liked everything about the Archives library. He fell in love at first sight with the pretty slips one filled out to ask for things in the HUP category (Harvard University Picture collection) or HUG (texts relating to Harvard University graduates). Once you had filled out your slip and placed it reverently on the counter, Angelica Doyle picked it up and glided silently away. A moment later, lo! the thing appeared like magic on your table.

Each of the HUP photographs came in its own slipcase. Homer was moved every time he reached his hand into an envelope and pulled out the face of a young man who had served in the Civil War. Perhaps it had been hidden from view for 140 years, or at least since the invention of these charming acid-free envelopes.

Otis Pike, class of 1860, was the first to emerge from the dark. Homer stared at the amiable young face. Pike's suit was jaunty and his mustache and sideburns were neatly trimmed. He was clearly a younger version of the man in the top hat.

Only three years after this picture was taken, he had been killed in the Battle of Gettysburg.

Homer thrust back his chair and returned to the desk to ask a question. “Is there any record of the battlefield experiences of the men whose names are on the tablets in Memorial Hall?”

“Of course there is.” Angelica whisked around the counter and plucked a pair of books from a shelf. “
Harvard Memorial Biographies
. They're in here, all of them.”

The two volumes were a gold mine. Homer found the entry for Otis Pike at once among the memoirs for the class of 1860. The writer of this one must have cudgeled his brain and chosen his words with tactful care—

OTIS MATHIAS PIKE

Pvt. 2d Massachusetts Vols. (Infantry) July 12, 1862.
Killed at Gettysburg, Penn., 3 July, 1863.

Otis Pike's life is an inspiring study in the overcoming of obstacles. It is an example of the triumphant achievements that can sometimes arise from unpromising beginnings.

Private Pike was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, September 2, 1839. Orphaned when a small boy, he was taken into the household of a bachelor uncle. Entering Harvard as a freshman in 1856, he soon became one of the most popular members of his class.

Though several times admonished for inattention to his studies, and once in danger of suspension in consequence of a practical joke at the expense of the college steward, he was permitted to continue his undergraduate career. Thereafter, his less-than-perfect record as a scholar was offset by his brilliant participation in the dramatic society known as the Hasty Pudding Club. Pike's unique contribution was the authorship of witty farces and songs, many of which are still remembered.

On the death of his uncle, Pike found himself without family, but as the heir to his uncle's estate he was able to graduate in 1860 with his class. His enlistment in the army was somewhat clouded by circumstance, but his friends in that celebrated regiment, the Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, were pleased to accept him into their distinguished ranks as a private.

In the Army of the Potomac, Pike once again wrested glory from doubtful beginnings. Although three times chastised for leaving the ranks, he was in the very forefront among his gallant classmates as the regiment surged over the breastworks on the morning of July 3, 1863, in an attack on Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. Next day, his body was found farthest forward in the field, in company with that of his heroic classmate, Lt. Col. Charles Redington Mudge, his regimental commander.

Another classmate, Capt. Thomas Bayley Fox, was mortally wounded in the same attack, as was the commander of Private Pike's company, Capt. Thomas Rodman Robeson, class of 1861.

Their memorials will be found in these pages.

Well, good for Otis Pike. But what about Seth Morgan?

Homer looked for Seth's name in the table of contents, but it was not there. Well, of course it wasn't there. These were the histories of men who had given their lives for the Union cause. In the elegiac biographies written by their friends and comrades, every dead soldier had been
gallant, stalwart, chivalrous, heroic
.

Seth Morgan had served in the same regiment, but Mary had found only a blank page for him in the album for the class of 1860. Had there been something shamefully wrong with his army career? In contrast to the gallant sacrifice of Private Otis Pike?

PART XIV

THE MARBLE HEART

NO WIFELY CLAIM

W
hen Ida woke from her nap, she heaved herself out of bed and poured water from the pitcher into the bowl on the washstand. Then she scrubbed her face with soapy fingers and unpinned her hair.

Her baby was awake too, thumping and bumping inside her. Ida smiled, because surely no girl would kick like that. Seth would be pleased to have a boy. And surely he'd be glad to see her, and if he were not—but Ida could not bear to think what she would do if he were not.

It occurred to her as she brushed her hair how odd it was that Seth's new lady friend would permit his wife to see him. Perhaps in all her alluring splendor as an actress on the stage, “the cynosure of all eyes,” Lily had no fear of competition from a plain little fustian wife. And perhaps—Ida winced—perhaps Seth would be mortified by the public display of his wife's condition, angry at her for interfering in his thrilling new life.

Miserably Ida remembered a day of pouring rain last spring when Seth had been spending his furlough catching up on chores left undone by the women and children. Ida had popped open her mother's umbrella, splashed out to the barn and found Seth and Eben forking up the manure pack, breaking through the dry crust to shovel the foul-smelling mess into a tipcart. Oh, yes, perhaps she'd been a fool to follow him. Perhaps he would be justified in telling her to go away and let him alone.

But when she heard Lily's key in the door, her heart bounded up again, and she ran to pull the door open. Eagerly she said, “I'll get my shawl.”

“Oh, my dear,” said Lily, “just let me catch my breath.” She scurried past Ida, pulling off her bonnet. To Ida's surprise a yellow braid came with it. Lily saw her astonishment and laughed. “A diadem plait, it's all the rage. Just wait till you see what a fair charmer I'm going to make of you, with those raven tresses and that pretty face.”

“Please, Lily, oh, please may we go now?”

“Ida dear, there's no point in going to the theater now. I've just heard the news. He's gone out of town. They say he needs a change of air.”

“A change of air?”

The scream of the rolling mill had begun again. “Oh, you know, dear, away from the stench and noise of the city. Just listen to that.” Lily bustled to the window and slammed it down.