Breakthroughs

Inside, a flunky of higher grade than the one with whom she’d confirmed her appointment said, “Ma’am, the president will see you as soon as he finishes his meeting with the British minister.”

President Semmes stayed closeted with the British minister till nearly noon, too. Had he been with anyone else save perhaps the secretary of war, the delay would have offended her. But the British Empire and the Confederate States were the last of the Quadruple Entente still in the fight against the USA and Germany (Anne didn’t count Japan, and didn’t think she should-the Japanese were fighting more in their own interest than as allies of anyone else). It was only natural for them to take counsel together.

When the British minister left Semmes’ office and came out through the antechamber where she was sitting, she grimaced. His expression would have had to lighten to seem grim. He hurried past without looking at her. Without false modesty, she knew that any man who did that had a lot on his mind.

“The president will see you now,” the flunky said, appearing in the waiting room as if by magic.

“Thank you,” Anne said, and went into the office from which presidents of the Confederate States had led their nation from one success to another for better than half a century. Gabriel Semmes still led; where the success was to come from, however, Anne could not imagine.

Semmes seemed to have aged a decade since Anne had seen him the previous year. He was grayer and balder than he had been; his skin hung slack on his face, and dark shadows lay under his eyes. When he said, “Come in, Miss Colleton. Do come in,” his voice was an old man’s voice.

“Thank you, your Excellency,” Anne said, and then, as she sat, “Are things really so bad as that?”

“By no means.” President Semmes let out a gallows chuckle. “They are a great deal worse. The British Isles will starve-save, perhaps, that part of Ireland that has risen in revolution-and we are taking blows not even an elephant could hope to withstand for long.”

“But the truce in Tennessee is holding,” Anne said. “Why would Roosevelt let it hold if the United States weren’t also at the end of their tether?”

“So he can hammer harder at other fronts,” Semmes said. “So he can threaten us with starting up the war again there, too, if we do not lay down our arms on all fronts. If he does…” Semmes shook his head. “We could not hold the Yankees at the line of the Cumberland. I do wonder if we should be able to hold them at the line of the Tennessee.”

He shook his head again; Anne got the idea he wished he hadn’t said so much. “They’ve licked us, then,” she said. “Colored soldiers and all, they’ve licked us. We might as well not have bothered with them.”

“As it turned out, that is true,” Semmes said, “though they did buy us some extra time. Had Russia not collapsed, had France held out, our own circumstances would be very different. And then, when the Empire of Brazil stabbed England in the back…our Allies are in a bad way, Miss Colleton, even as we are.”

“We had better cut our losses, then, and get out of the fight with the best bargain we can make,” Anne said.

“For one thing, that would mean casting aside our allies once and for all,” the president answered. “For another, but for the cease-fire in Tennessee, I have seen no sign that the United States want to bargain. All they want is to rub our faces into the dirt. The men I have sent forth to treat with them leave me in no doubt as to how much they want to rub our faces in the dirt.”

“We did it to them twice,” Anne said, “and they’ve been burning for revenge since the Second Mexican War.”

“We’ve embarrassed them since, too,” Semmes said gloomily. “With Britain and France at our backs, we’ve been too strong for them to challenge, and so, up till now, we have for the most part had our own way.”

“Up till now,” Anne echoed. “Can we yield? Or do they aim to wipe us off the face of the earth? If they do, I already know how to use a rifle. Teaching the rest of the women in the CSA wouldn’t take long.”

“I admire your spirit, Miss Colleton,” the president said. “But we are not in the state we are in because of any want of spirit. We are in our present state because our allies have failed, and because our Negroes rose up against us, and most of all because the United States outweigh us by about two to one. They outweigh us and Canada combined, and they have been able to take advantage of it. I wish I had something more hopeful I could tell you.”

“We must never let this happen again,” Anne said.

“In principle, I agree with you,” Gabriel Semmes replied. “In practice…in practice, I fear, living up to that principle shall not be so easy. The Yankees will grow as a result of whatever peace they force upon us; we shall shrink correspondingly. They will not make it easy for us to gain redress for the grievances they leave us.”

“They waited fifty years and more for their revenge,” Anne said. “If we have to, we can do the same. But I hope and pray it will come sooner.”

“They also spent a lot of time and money preparing that revenge,” Semmes pointed out. “Can we do the same, under their watchful eye?” Just when Anne thought his manhood altogether quenched, he added, “Whether we can or not, I don’t know, but we shall have to try.”

“Yes,” Anne said. “I never understood what drove them to want the revenge so badly. Now I do. Nothing like losing to make you want to take back what you’ve lost and to get even with the fellow who took it from you.”

She thought of Jacob, gassed by the Yankees and murdered when the Negroes raised the red banner of revolution. She’d had some measure of revenge-not enough, but some-on the Reds. How could she avenge herself upon the United States of America?

“I do want to thank you for the support you have shown for my policies since I succeeded President Wilson,” Semmes said. “I hope that support will continue as we head toward the end of this war.”

I hope you still have some money and some influence left, was what he meant. Anne hoped the same thing. She wished she’d sold Marshlands before the Red uprising-that would have given her more capital to invest. Her investments, at the moment, were disasters, but Marshlands was a catastrophe. Not only was it bringing in no money, the taxes she paid on the land were sucking the life’s blood from her veins.

She said, “I’ll do what I can. We need to get our strength back as quickly as we’re able to.”

That wasn’t a promise that what she would do would involve supporting Gabriel Semmes, although she would not have been brokenhearted to have him take it as one. And so he did, saying, “I knew I could rely on you. And let me say that, even now, I have some hope that the Army of Northern Virginia will yet halt the Yankees’ inroads, for which they are paying a dreadful price. If we stop them, if we can drive them back, we may yet get terms more nearly acceptable to the national honor.”

“I hope we do,” Anne said, and meant it. At the same time, though, she still held to the thought she’d had before: if the war was lost, best to escape it as soon as might be. With this war behind them, the Confederate States could start thinking about the next one.

It was, Lucien Galtier thought, a grand day for a wedding. He felt not the least bit sorry to hold the ceremony in the little tin-roofed church of St.-Antonin rather than the grander structure up in Riviere-du-Loup. Father Pierre, the local priest, got on very well with Father Fitzpatrick. Bishop Pascal would have made a fine show of getting along with Dr. O’Doull’s friend, and, while making that fine show, would have done everything in his power to undercut him. Lucien had seen Bishop Pascal in action before.

He fiddled with his wing collar and cravat. Marie had gone on and on about how handsome he looked in his somber black suit. Whether he looked handsome or not, he disliked the way the collar grabbed him around the neck. He sniffed at his sleeve, hoping neither the suit nor the white shirt under it smelled too overpoweringly of mothballs. They spent most of their time in a chest in the closet, coming forth for hardly anything but funerals and weddings.

His sons stood around fiddling with their collars, too. He’d had to tie their neckties for them: it was either that or spend half an hour waiting while they botched the job and then do the tying. Neither of them had had much practice at the art. He hadn’t had much himself, and hoped the knot in his own cravat was as straight as those he’d tied for Charles and Georges.

Had Nicole been marrying some young man of the vicinity, he too would have worn a black suit of no particular age (and no particular shape), and like as not a cravat his father had tied for him. Dr. Leonard O’Doull, on the other hand, wore a cutaway, white tie, trousers pressed into creases scalpel-sharp, and a stovepipe hat. When Georges saw him in his splendor, he whistled and said, “I thought I was getting a doctor for a brother-in-law, not a Rockefeller.”

“And I thought I was getting a troublemaker for a brother-in-law, and I see I was right,” Dr. O’Doull returned.