The Railroad War (4 page)

“Hello, Ash Kemble,” she said with a wide smile, extending her hand for him, “and how is my children’s favorite uncle?”

“Hello, Fanny. I’m doing passably well. And you?” He took her hand and squeezed it with genuine warmth.

“Profoundly chagrined,” Fanny said, “if the truth can be told, to learn of the accident my darling girl has suffered.” On
the “chagrined,” Fanny’s eyes began a slide away from Ashbel that ended upon Ashbel’s brother, who was now dawdling as near
the edge of the little group as he could manage.

“Ahh…” she said after a deeply dramatic—and deeply satisfying—pause to take Pierce in with her ravaging eyes. “So there you
are.” She laughed a chill laugh. “The seller of souls.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper now, a whisper that could be heard
easily by anyone on the hotel veranda who cared to listen. Which is to say all who were there. No one at West Point on this
lovely June afternoon was unaware of the imminent collision between these two one-time lovers. And not a few had contrived
to be on hand for the spectacle of their first encounter.

“The seller,” she repeated, a little louder, “of souls. The
ven-doi
of men’s and women’s and children’s”—she looked toward her audience, her face a mask of horror and revulsion—“bo-o-o-dies.”
It came out a long, agonized gasp. “How splendid you are, Pierce Kemble!”

“Don’t you think we might avoid parading our differences before this crowd,” Pierce said with a jaunty, cavalier tone that
was far from his true attitude. Fanny frightened him when she was like this, but it would never do for him, a man, to betray
his fear. “These people have no interest in our disagreements,” he continued. “Nor do I have any interest in reigniting the
hostility that you find so easy to bring to combustion.”

“I was not speaking of the mere trivial differences between a man and a woman,” Fanny announced. “I was speaking of the brands,
the moral stigmata, the chains of guilt and shame that you have placed upon your own corrupted soul.”

“Really, Fanny,” he went on lightly, still trying to avoid being drawn into her dramatic web. “Could you, for once, come down
from your marble horse. Your self-righteousness does not become you, my dear. Can’t you instead think of the children and
of the import of the moment? Can’t you remember that we’re here for the sake of a joyful time? For the commencement exercises,
for God’s sake, of our son?”

He had a point, she knew, and besides, she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. On the other hand, she refused even to appear
to be persuaded by anything Pierce Kemble said to her. And besides, she had one more point to make, in case the audience on
the veranda happened to have missed the true force of her words.

So Fanny started her next speech slowly, gently, as though she had banked the fire in her soul. “I’ve been reading in the
newspapers, Pierce,” she said, “that you have come into considerable money during the past week or so. Is that true?”

“Very true,” he said with a pleased smile. He was proud of his recent good fortune.

“I read that it was in the neighborhood of three hundred fifty thousand dollars that you have obtained.”

“That’s right.”

“Would you like to tell the people here how you obtained it? Or, shall I say, can you hold your head up and without shame
admit where your three hundred and fifty thousands came from?”

“That’s easy enough, Fanny,” he said, still lightly. “It came from the sale of some property that I no longer had a use for.”

She closed her eyes for the space of a few breaths. Then, opening them, she glanced first at Pierce, then at the audience
on the veranda which had been growing during the exchange. Then she spoke: “That money, that soiled wealth, came from the
sale of human beings at one of the largest slave auctions ever held in the state of Georgia. That’s where it came from.”

He shrugged. “Property,” he said.

“More than four hundred men, women, children, and even infants auctioned at the Ten Broeck Racecourse. I can’t think of an
act more shameful and more evil, Pierce Kemble.”

Then she, having made her most important point, slipped a glance at Ashbel, who was standing in the background, studiously
avoiding involvement in Fanny and Pierce’s current conflict. Taking his cue, Ash moved up.

The audience on the veranda, he noted in passing, seemed more sympathetic to his brother than to Fanny. The gentlemen of the
military tended to be conservative, and many of them, of course, were from the South. As for Ash himself, the question of
slavery was a matter of relative indifference. He owned no slaves, since slaves were in no way useful or practical to him.
And he believed that in time slavery would die out, for slaves would cease to be either useful or practical to the planters
of the South. But on the other hand, he thought of himself as a realist. Some men would always dominate and control other
men. This would happen no matter what name was given to the practice. It was true on his ships. It was true in an army. It
was true in the fields.

“Let’s end this discussion now, shall we?” Ashbel said brightly, leading Fanny away by the hand. “Ariel, Miranda, come. We
must see about rooms. Pierce, Lam, would you be so kind as to see about the baggage?” And remembering Miranda’s burn, he turned
to her. “How is your wound, my dear?”

“I can scarcely feel it any longer, Uncle.”

“Lovely,” he said. He was glad to see that Pierce had taken the hint and was making himself scarce.

“She must rest now,” Fanny said, her interest in her daughter’s welfare rekindled. “I must tend to her.”

“I’m fine. Really I am,” Miranda said. “I’ll just clean up and change. You needn’t bother yourself over me, Mother.”

“No, no, no. I won’t hear of anything like that.” She lifted her hands for all to see. They were somewhat large and were her
one unattractive feature. “These are healers’ hands. I have the healing touch.”

“Actually,” Ashbel said, “the girl may be onto the right cure for what ails her, though she hasn’t actually articulated it.”

“What do you mean?” Fanny said. Her hands were still raised, opened and with palms out. She liked the effect she made with
them. “This girl needs rest and quiet and a mother’s care. There’s dinner and a ball tonight, and endless ceremonies tomorrow.”

Ashbel continued, “If I may be permitted to disagree with a woman so beautiful and forceful as the great Fanny Shaw, I’d like
to suggest an activity for Miranda and the other children rather different from what you have in mind.”

“I can’t imagine what,” Fanny said, though she was willing to listen to his proposal. She was not immune to his flattery.

“There are about four hours before nightfall and dinner. During that time, I’d like to see the three cadets and the two young
ladies off doing something pleasant together—if young men and young ladies still find pleasant things to do with one another
in these benighted times. There must anyhow be cool, dark paths to walk along in the primitive forests that surround this
place. Or shady clearings to sit and converse in.” He laughed. “I wouldn’t find it hard to be persuaded to sit with a lovely
young lady on some soft and grassy knoll.” He turned to Miranda. “Well?” he asked her.

“I’d love that,” she said, beaming.

“You see?” Ashbel said.

“But your
burn?”
Fanny said to her daughter.

“I can scarcely feel it.”

“But will the boys be free for the rest of the afternoon?” Fanny said, unwilling to give in completely. “They must have to
prepare for tomorrow.”

“I’m sure they will find a way to be free, Fanny. They are resourceful young men.” Then to Ariel: “You’d like that, wouldn’t
you, dear?”

“I’d like to spend time with the cadets very much,” she said.

“It’s a good thing to be free, isn’t it?” he said with an exaggeratedly straight face and laughing eyes. “You must be delighted,
now that you are here at West Point, that you haven’t been spoken for already.”

“But she is engaged to Ben Edge,” Fanny said.

“Mother,” Ariel said, “I… um… I’ve…” As she stammered, she shot a glance back over her shoulder to make sure that Sam and Noah
were still out of earshot.

“Ariel has chosen,” Ashbel broke in, taking her off the hook, “to keep that knowledge a secret during her stay at the Academy.”

“Oh, she has, has she?” Fanny said, laughing. She threw her head back and laughed some more. “Well, I won’t be the one to
tell on her—on you,” she said with a sharp but amused look at her older daughter. “Does Lamar know of this… prevarication?”

“Yes, Mother. I took him aside and talked to him earlier.”

“Well, then,” Fanny said, rubbing her hands together in a washing motion, “off with both of you. Clean yourselves up and change
into something appropriate for a walk in the woods.”

“Oh, thank you, Mother,” the girls said as one. And both of them rushed up and kissed her on the cheek.

“You’ll tell the boys?” Fanny said to Ashbel.

“I’ll pass them the word about their good luck,” he said. “I only wish I could go with them.”

“So do I,” Fanny said with a grin.

“Well then,
Miss
Frances Shaw, let us not let the children exhaust the available pleasure. You and I will also go for a stroll in the woods.”

“Oh, no, Ash,” she said with a laugh and a shake of her head, “I couldn’t possibly. I have much too much to do to get ready.”

“Put it off, Fanny. Come with me.”

“I can’t. I really mustn’t,” she said, and mounted the steps of the hotel porch. At the top of the steps, she turned back
to him. “You know, Ash, I think I married the wrong Kemble.”

“I knew that twenty years go, Miss Frances Shaw.”

Ashbel Kemble’s scheme for the afternoon outing was the splendid success that he wished it to be, which is not to say that
all went smoothly for the cadets and the Kemble sisters. Even so, the rough moments did not detract from the pleasures of
the occasion. If anything, they added to the excitement and gave it seasoning. By the time the outing was over, Miranda and
Ariel knew they’d spent a perfectly glorious time with their brother and his two friends. And for reasons that they did not
immediately recognize, both girls would remember this afternoon for the rest of their lives.

It was Sam Hawken and Noah Ballard, of course, who most occupied the two girls. For they were both vivid, fascinating, and
handsome—and wonderfully unlike the other young men Ariel and Miranda had yet encountered.

There were vast worlds of difference between the two cadets and the witty and amusing yet so wilting boys the girls were condemned
to dance with in Philadelphia at the cotillions sanctioned by Miss Lancaster’s Atheneum, which was the boarding school the
sisters attended in that city. The boys of Philadelphia were full of charm and airy words, but not one of them had ever felt
the slightest temptation to taste a meaty thought.

Miranda liked to laugh, but she liked to think, too.

She was pleased that Noah and Sam were not strangers to charm, but she was just as pleased that they were also smart. Their
minds had strength and intensity and were without the gloom or moroseness usually associated with high seriousness. While
Miranda never once heard silly, airy words from them, still, everyone in the little party laughed a lot and talked a lot.
Noah and Lam, especially, had opinions upon every subject imaginable. Since the rites they would go through on the morrow
would never happen to them again, a measure of conceit and cockiness, and even pompousness, could be easily forgiven.

Sam, more private and reserved than the other two, kept his thoughts shrouded. He wasn’t diffident or shy, however, only watchful.
Yet for all his silent, enigmatic dignity, he was equally full of himself for the same understandable reasons. Tomorrow they
would become men.

Miranda was much intrigued by this quiet mystery of Sam’s. The less forthcoming he was, the more she wanted to find out all
about him.

But it wasn’t just as separate individuals that the three cadets fascinated the sisters; it was also together, as a team.
Powerful bonds of comradeship joined Sam, Noah, and Lamar. And Miranda, who was perceptive about such things, was deeply impressed
that the three boys were so sensitive to each other, so alert to each other’s moods and changes of internal weather.

Yet, oh, how good-looking they were in their uniforms! Black shoes, white duck trousers, short gray jackets with high stiff
collar and three rows of brass buttons down the front! The buttons looked like brass cherries, Miranda thought, a resemblance
she didn’t fail to make light of when the chance presented itself.

After the party set out from the hotel, the boys escorted the sisters on a tour of the Academy gounds and buildings. And these,
despite their sad gray stone and gloomy crenellation, seemed graceful and faerielike in the dazzling midafternoon light. Then
the boys led the sisters on a slow stroll up the two-and-a-half-mile path to the Crows Nest, which was a scenic picnic spot
favored by the cadets.

When they arrived, the place delighted the girls. It had a view like nowhere in Georgia, and Lam suggested that they rest
there until it was time to return to prepare for supper. When no one objected, the little party arranged itself, chatting
and laughing all the while, about a soft and shady but sun-dappled spot.

Though Ariel and Miranda were both flushed after the exertion of their climb, the effort only enhanced the glow of their pleasure
and high spirits. Miranda was having such a glorious time that it was only in the act of stretching herself out on the carpet
of grass that she grew conscious of her recent wound. She hadn’t once thought of the burn or of her pain since she had left
the hotel.

But she was quickly able to put the pain out of her mind again, because now, for the first time, she had a chance to really
observe the cadet who had most caught her fancy.

Sam Hawken was taller than the other two, but he was no giant. Hawken, Miranda guessed, was close to an even six feet, for
he was just over half a head taller than Lam, who she knew was five feet seven. Noah, like her brother, was also of medium
height, a couple of inches taller than Lam.