Love and War

 27

Charles waited ten minutes in case the soldiers returned, then called Augusta Barclay from her hiding place and whistled Ambrose out of the woods. 'Leave the buggy there. Those Yankees might take the same road home.'

'I gather your eloquence was persuasive, Captain,' Augusta said as she brushed wood splinters from her skirt.

'I gave them my word there was no female smuggler in the house.' He gauged the distance between the white building and the woodshed. 'It missed being an outright lie by about seven feet.'

'Clever of you.'

'That compliment just makes my day, ma'am.'

He didn't mean to be biting, but it came out that way as the tight-wound tensions of the last half hour let go. He turned and quickly bent over the water trough to splash his face. Why did he give a damn what she said or didn't say?

A touch on his shoulder. 'Captain?'

'Yes?'

'You have a right to be irked. I spoke out of turn earlier. And more than once. You acted bravely and performed a valuable service. I owe you thanks and an apology.'

'You owe me neither one, Mrs. Barclay. It's my war, too. Now I suggest you go indoors and stay there till it gets dark.' Responding with a small nod, she let her blue eyes hold his a moment. He felt a deep and unfamiliar response; unsettling —

About four, he was watering Sport and Ambrose's bay at the trough when noise and dust signaled the approach of northbound riders. Prevo's detachment galloped by. The lieutenant waved. Charles waved back. Then the house hid the blue horsemen.

The farmer and his wife invited the cavalrymen to stay for supper. They agreed, the more readily because Augusta Barclay seconded the suggestion. Charles washed up as the sun sank and the heat went out of the day. A refreshing breeze blew through the house when they sat down to a plain but tasty meal of cured ham, potatoes, and pole beans.

He kept glancing at Augusta there beyond the chimney of the table lamp. Tonight she kept her eyes averted, like any proper girl from a proper Southern family. A delicate femininity was cultivated by such women and prized by their suitors; some females, the best example he could think of being Ashton, even playacted shamelessly to convince others of their conformity to the ideal. This yellow-haired widow didn't conform. She was too outspoken. Too robustly built, when you came right down to it. He wondered about the size of her feet. Any girl with big feet was done for socially and romantically.

Shyly trying to strike up a conversation, the old farmer said to Ambrose, 'That's a fine-looking horse you ride.'

'Yes, sir. South Carolina saddle horses are the best in the world.'

'Don't say that to a Virginian,' Augusta told him.

'Amen,' said Charles. 'I get the feeling some people in this part of the country think Virginia invented the horse.'

'We're mighty proud of men like Turner Ashby and Colonel Stuart,' the farmer's wife said, passing the beans. It was her only statement during the meal.

Ambrose finished a second potato. 'I do agree with Charlie, though. Virginians are pretty good at making you feel like an outsider with no more than a word or a look.'

Augusta smiled. 'I know the type. But as the poet says, Lieutenant, to err is human, to forgive, divine.'

'You like Shakespeare, do you?' asked Charles.

'I do, but I was quoting Alexander Pope, the Augustan satirist. He's my favorite.'

'Oh.' Smarting from his show of stupidity, Charles lunged for more ham with his fork. 'Always did confuse those two. Not much of a reader of poetry, I'm afraid.'

'I own a copy of nearly everything Pope wrote,' she said. 'He was a magnificent wit, but sad in many ways. He was only four feet six inches tall, with a deformed spine. Curved like a bow is the phrase used by his contemporaries. He knew life for what it is, but he could push away the pain by mocking it.'

'I see.' The two murmured words hung in the silence. He didn't know Pope except by name, but now he thought he knew her better. What pain did her jibing conceal?

The fat woman served a pear tart and coffee while her husband asked Augusta when and how the quinine would be taken to Richmond. 'A man should be here for it in the morning,' she replied.

'Well, your bed's made up in the spare room,' the wife called from the kitchen. 'Captain, will you and your lieutenant stop overnight with us, too? I can fix pallets on the floor of the parlor.'

Augusta turned in his direction. Her face, bisected by the lamp chimney, seemed expectant. Or did he merely imagine that?

He felt duty and personal desire pulling against each other.

Ambrose awaited guidance from his superior. None being forthcoming, he said, 'I wouldn't mind a good night's rest. 'Specially if you'll permit me to try that melodeon in the parlor.'

'Yes indeed,' the farmer said, pleased.

'All right, then,' Charles said. 'We'll stay.'

Augusta's smile was restrained. But it seemed real.

The farmer's wife produced a stone jar of excellent apple brandy. Charles took some, and so did Augusta. They sat in facing chairs while Ambrose experimented with the old squeeze-or­gan. Soon he started a lively tune.

'You play well,' Augusta said. 'I like that melody but don't recognize it.'

'The name is 'Dixie's Land.' It's a minstrel piece.'

'They played it all over the North when Abe stood for election last fall,' the farmer added. 'The Republicans marched to it.'

'Might be so,' Ambrose agreed, 'but the Yankees are losing the song as fast as they'll lose this war. Everybody is singing and playing it in the camps around Richmond.'

The lively music continued. Augusta said, 'Tell me something about yourself, Captain Main.'

He chose words with extreme care, wary of being spiked again by some smiling sarcasm. He mentioned West Point, and how he had gone there at his cousin's urging and with his help; in a few sentences he covered his service in Texas, his friendship with Billy Hazard, and his doubts about slavery.

'Well, I have never believed in the institution either. When my husband died a year ago last December, I wrote manumission papers for both his slaves. They stayed with me, thank heaven. Otherwise I would have been forced to sell the farm.'

'What do you raise?'

'Oats. Tobacco. The eyebrows of the neighbors. I do some of the field work, which my husband always forbade because it wasn't feminine.'

She leaned back in the old rocker, her head resting on an embroidered pillow. How fair and soft she looked in the lamplight. One of Charles's fingers tapped, tapped his glass of apple brandy. Not feminine? Had she married a crazy man?

'Your husband was a farmer, I gather?'

'Yes. He lived on the same property all his life — and his father before him. He was a decent man. Kind to me — although he was definitely suspicious of books, poetry, music —' She inclined her head at Ambrose, who was lost in some sweet classical air Charles couldn't identify. Augusta continued. 'I accepted his proposal seven months after his first wife died. He went the same way she did. Influenza. He was twenty-three years older than I.'

'Even so, you must have loved him —'

'I liked him; I didn't love him.'

'Then how could you marry him?'

'Ah — another disciple of the romantic Sir Walter. Virginians worship him only slightly less than the Lord and George Washington.' She finished her brandy quickly. The combative glint had returned to her eyes. He had a deformed spine. He could push away the pain by mocking it.