Love and War

devilishly attractive despite the poor note on which they had parted. She shouldn't have been so quick to pounce on an innocent gaffe. She was no more perfect than anybody else.

He wished he could see her again, patch things up. Impossible to do that any time soon, not with a battle brewing. The actions of the Yankee lieutenant, Prevo, had restored his faith in the possibility of a gentleman's war, conducted with gentleman's rules. Maybe one huge affray would get it over with, and then he could look up the young widow, whom he could no longer think of, unfortunately, by any name except Gus.

28

The thirteenth of July fell on a Saturday. Constance had one more day to finish packing for the trip to Washington.

George had gone earlier in the week, with obvious reluctance. The night before his departure he had been restless, finally jumping up and leaving for ten minutes. He returned with several sprigs of mountain laurel from the hills behind Belvedere. He slipped the laurel into a valise without explanation, but Constance needed none.

Brett would remain in charge of the household, Wotherspoon of the ironworks, and George's local attorney, Jupiter Smith, would push the bank organization ahead. All three had been urged to telegraph at once in case of emergency, so Constance had no fear of leaving important matters to drift.

Yet on this sunny Saturday, she was cross. There was too much to pack, and her two best party dresses, neither of which she had tried on for a month, fit too tightly. She hadn't realized it, but in her contentment, and despite the war, she had enjoyed life too much lately and put on weight. Usually blunt on other subjects, George hadn't said a word. But the despicable evidence — the small melon bulge of her stomach, the new thickness of her thighs — confronted her when she inspected herself in a mirror.

Late in the morning, Bridgit hesitantly entered the luggage-strewn bedroom to find Constance muttering and attempting to jam folded garments into an overflowing trunk. 'Mrs. Hazard? There is' — the normally outgoing girl was whispery and strangely pale — 'a visitor in the kitchen asking for you.'

'For heaven's sake, Bridgit, don't bother me about some tradesman when I'm busy with —'

'Ma'am, please. It — isn't a tradesman.'

'Who is it? You're acting as though you've seen Beelzebub himself.'

Hushed: 'It is Mr. Hazard's sister.'

Save for the unexpected death of George or one of the children, no more stunning blow could have fallen on Constance. As she rushed downstairs, strands of red hair flying, her customary calm crumbled. She was astonished, baffled, outraged. That Virgilia Hazard dared to return to Belvedere almost defied belief. How could it be — how — after all she had done to embarrass the family and create friction between the Hazards and the Mains?

Virgilia's history was one of warped independence. Involving herself in the abolition movement — as Constance had done by operating an underground railroad stop in a shed on the grounds of Hazard Iron — Virgilia had gravitated to the movement's most extreme wing. She had appeared in public with black men who were not merely friends or associates in her work but lovers.

On a visit to Mont Royal, she had betrayed the hospitality of the Main family by helping one of their slaves escape. She had later lived in poverty with the man, whose name was Grady, in the stews of Philadelphia; both were social outcasts because of it. She had helped her common-law husband take part in the raid on Harpers Ferry led by the infamous John Brown, who had held and expressed views as extreme and violent as her own.

Virgilia hated all things Southern, and never was that better demonstrated than when Orry made his dangerous trip to Lehigh Station to repay part of the ship-construction loan. Virgilia had summoned the mob to Belvedere, and only George and a gun had held them off. That very night, George had ordered his sister away forever. Now, incredibly, she was back. She deserved —

Stop, Constance thought, standing still in front of the closed kitchen door. Control. Compassion. Try. She smoothed two stray wisps of hair into place, steadied her breathing, prayed silently, then crossed herself and opened the door.

The kitchen, where the daily bread was baking and a pink loin of pork lay half trimmed on the block, was empty except for the visitor. Through a back window Constance glimpsed William shooting at a target bale with his bow and arrows.

The bread fragrance, the loin and cleaver, the hanging utensils and polished pots, all the homely furniture of family sustenance seemed desecrated by the creature standing near the door with a carpetbag so dirty its pattern could not be seen. Virgilia's dress was nearly as filthy. The shawl around her shoulders had holes in it. How dare you, Constance thought, momentarily out of control again.

Virgilia Hazard, thirty-seven, had a squarish face lightly marred by a few pox scars left from childhood. Buxom in the past, she was thin now, almost emaciated. Her skin had a yellow pallor, and her eyes were dumb lumps in the center of dark, sunken sockets. She smelled of sweat and other abominable things. Constance was glad Brett was down in Lehigh Station with cook, shopping. She might have torn Virgilia to pieces. Constance felt like it.

'What are you doing here?'

'May I wait for George? I must see him.'

How small her voice sounded. It had lost the perpetual arrogance Constance remembered with such distaste. She began to see the hurt in Virgilia's eyes. Joy ignited like a flame inside her, burning till shame and her own better nature put it out.

'Your brother has gone to Washington to work for the government.'

'Oh.' She squeezed her eyes shut a moment.

'How is it possible that you're here, Virgilia?'

Virgilia tilted her head forward to acknowledge the accusation in the question and the anger Constance couldn't keep out of her voice. 'May I sit down on that stool? I really am not feeling well.'

'Yes, all right, go ahead,' Constance said after hesitating. Without thinking, she moved to the great wood block and put her hand on the cleaver. Virgilia sank to the stool with the slowness of a person much older. With a shock, Constance saw what she was touching and pulled her hand back. Outside, William whooped and ran to the target to pull three arrows from the bull's-eye.

Constance pointed at the carpetbag. 'Is that the one you took in April? The one you filled with my best silver pieces? You disgraced this family in nearly every conceivable way and then you found one more. You stole.'

Virgilia folded her hands in her lap. How much weight had she lost? Forty pounds? Fifty? 'I had to live,' she said.

'That may be a reason. It isn't a justification. Where have you been since you left?'

'Places I'd be ashamed to tell you about.'

'Yet you presume to come back here —'

Glinting tears appeared in Virgilia's eyes. Impossible, Constance thought. She never cried for anyone but her black lover.

'I'm sick,' Virgilia whispered. 'I'm hot and so dizzy I can barely stand. Coming up the hill from the depot I thought I'd faint.' She swallowed, then gave the ultimate explanation. 'I have no place else to go.'

'Won't your fine abolitionist friends take you in?'

The disfiguring sneer came unconsciously, and in its wake, more shame. You must stop. This time the warning served. There was no humanity in venting such feelings and nothing to be gained. Virgilia was a beaten creature.

Answering at last, she said, 'No. Not any longer.'

'What do you want here?'

'A place to stay. Time to rest. Recover. I was going to beg George —'

'I told you, he's taken an army commission in Washington.'

'Then I'll beg you, if that's what you want, Constance.'