Sumter fell, he knew what was fine and worthy in his homeland. He loved that part, rejecting the rest. But then he had changed, gradually became willing to fight for and accept all of it. Including what was represented by the whitewashed huts three-quarters of a mile from Mont Royal's great house. The attitude was wrong before, and it was wrong now. It was one of the first things he would set right.
He examined his feelings about the war itself. He knew the storm had passed him because he once more felt as he had in the fateful spring of '61. The war was misbegotten because it couldn't be won. The war was an abomination because it pitted American against American. How shameful to grasp now that he had, for a while, become one with those who had pushed the nation into the war. One with the James Huntoons and Virgilia Hazards. One with those who could not or would not find a means to prevent the holocaust.
All right, the war was evil. What then?
He thought it through. He would no longer lend himself to wars except the one of which Judith had spoken, the inevitable one against the political barbarians, whose names he knew well. Wade. Davis. Butler. Stevens. The South would need men to stand against their onslaught. It would be a fierce battle, full of unexpected dangers. Burke, as always, had words to frame the challenge:
Because our ancestors never lost a war on this continent, he thought with a meditative smile empty of humor. Our ancestors were never a conquered people, as we shall be.
He rested a while, and imagination assumed control. He saw himself passing in and out of a dark valley, quite long, which ran from Sumter through Liverpool and Nassau to Richmond and the fateful corner where the Union prisoners passed. In that valley lurked error and the madness of dogmatism. His experience there and the miraculous shock of the street attack that had driven him sane again — there was no other term for it — gave him some grasp of what Catholics must mean by suffering in purgatory.
He had returned from his own purgatory, but the nation was not so blessed. Even if the shooting stopped this instant, America, all of it, would be torn as never before. He knew the dimensions of the hatreds the war had loosed. Within his own heart and mind, one red-handed hater had lived and reigned three years.
So he must rest and prepare. When the formal fighting ended, he would be called to the fiercest fight of all.
Cooper's meditation was interrupted by the firing of distant siege cannon. It shook the house and rattled windowpanes. He got out of bed, poured tepid water from a pitcher to a basin, chose a twig from several in a small glass, scrubbed his teeth with the only dental compound available any more: powdered charcoal.
He rinsed his mouth, winced at the emaciated man in the shaving glass, and wiped gritty black particles from the corners of his lips. His mouth tasted clean enough. A simple pleasure; a welcome one.
He changed nightshirts, put on an old gown, tied it around his shrunken waist, and hunted up slippers. He went downstairs.
Marie-Louise was speechless when she saw him. Then she cried and threw herself into his arms. Judith held Cooper's hand when Mallory arrived and Cooper spoke to him.
'Stephen, I'll be in your debt the rest of my life. Your visit today saved me. From many things, but most of all from my own bad side. You have my highest admiration — you always will. But I can't work for you. I can't build war machinery any longer. Something's changed. I've changed. I want the war to end. I want the dying to stop. Henceforth, I plan to spend my time speaking and writing on behalf of an honorable negotiated peace coupled with emancipation for every Negro still enslaved in the South.'
Mallory's open mouth showed a confusion of reactions: disbelief, mockery, anger. At last he muttered, 'Oh?' His voice strengthened. 'And where do you propose to conduct this new, high-minded crusade?'
'From Mont Royal. My family and I are going home.'
101
While the oil in the lamp burned away, Orry and Charles laid plans.
'I can write the order to get him out of Libby —'
'When you say write, you mean forge,' Charles interrupted, the cigar stub temporarily out of his mouth. He had taken off his boots and propped his smelly stockinged feet on the edge of the table Orry used for a desk.
'All right, forge. I suppose you're technically right, since the release is illegal.'
'What else do we need?'
'A gray coat and trousers to replace his uniform. A horse —'
'I'll arrange for the horse.'
Orry nodded. 'Finally, he'll need a pass. I can also take care of that. How he gets across the Rapidan is up to him. More whiskey?'
Charles drained his glass and pushed the empty toward his cousin, who was struck by the way time and war had altered their relationship. They were no longer man and boy, mentor and pupil, but adults, and equals. When Orry had poured the refill, and one for himself, he said, 'I plan to accompany you to the prison. I won't let you undertake the risk by yourself.'
Charles thumped his feet on the floor. 'Oh, yes, you will, Cousin. You outrank me, but I'm going alone, and that's that.'
'I can't allow —'
'The hell you can't,' Charles broke in, flinty. 'I'm afraid you forget one pretty important detail. Through no fault of your own, it's too damn easy for guards to remember and describe you later. I don't want the authorities hunting me up a week after they've caught you. This has to be a solo performance.'
The notion of saying this had come to him on the ride to Richmond. He could think of no better way to spare Orry any dangers beyond the real ones he would incur by forging the documents. But Charles did his best to hide motives under a cold smile when he glanced at Orry's pinned-up sleeve.
'On this point, Cousin, I insist on having my way.' Charles twisted in his chair. 'What do you say, Madeline?'
From the sideboard, where she had been standing and listening, she said, 'I think you're right.'
'Blast,' Orry said. 'Another conspiracy.'
Charles puffed his cigar again. 'Another? What's the first' one?'
'Just a figure of speech,' Orry said, noting Madeline's anxious glance. 'We're always hearing of imaginary plots against the government.' He had already decided to say nothing of Powell's group or Ashton's involvement. Charles despised Ashton, and rekindling his anger might divert him from the task ahead. For that task he needed every bit of intelligence, nerve, and concentration he possessed.
Only one detail remained to be settled. Charles named it.
'When?'
Orry said, 'I can get the necessary forms and do the, ah, pen and ink work in the morning.'
'Then I'll bring him out tomorrow night.'
Charles tied Sport to one of the iron posts on Twenty-first, around the corner from Libby's main entrance. A fishy stench blew from the canal, driven by a stiff wind. He could see a picket standing guard down there. He knew there were others all around the building.
Charles stroked the gray. Without taking the cigar stub from his teeth, he said, 'Rest while you can. You'll have a double load to carry pretty soon.'
That was his hope, anyway. It was by no means certain, and various parts of him told him so, including his stomach. It had ached for the past hour.
He strode up the sloped walk to Cary, sweat breaking out in his beard. His old army Colt bumped his thigh, most of the holster hidden by the India-rubber poncho borrowed from Jim Pickles. The rubber blanket, which had a practical checkerboard painted on the inside, was hot as hell. But it was a focus, one detail for guards to remember about him, so they would forget everything else. That part, too, was still theoretical, his stomach reminded him.
