Love and War

'Yes, I assumed that. Will it be soon? Whenever you go, I'll miss you. So will many others.'

'That is what I wanted to speak to you about. I've changed my mind. I'd like to stay at Mont Royal a while longer.'

'Oh, Jane — that would make me so happy. You're a bright young woman. I hope to start for Richmond before the end of the month. After I go, you could be of great assistance to Mr. Meek.'

'The people I want to help are my own. They must be ready when jubilo comes.'

Madeline's smile vanished. 'You believe the South will lose?'

'Yes.'

Madeline glanced toward the door to the kitchen; there were only the two of them in the dining room. 'I confess I have the same dire feeling, though I don't dare admit it because it would destroy Meek's authority. And God knows how my husband would operate this place without —'

She broke off, dark eyes seeking Jane's. 'I've said too much. I must trust you not to repeat any of it.' 'I won't.'

'What could you do to help the people get ready, as you call it?'

It was too soon to speak of teaching; a first concession must be won. 'I'm not sure, but I know a place to look for the answer. Your library. I'd like your permission to take books and read them.'

Madeline ticked a tiny spoon against the gold rim of her teacup. 'You realize that's against the law?' 'I do.'

'What do you hope to find in books?' 'Ideas — ways to help the people on this plantation.' 'Jane, if I gave you permission, and if your reading or your actions caused any harm to this property and, more important, to anyone who lives here, white or black, I wouldn't deal with you through Mr. Meek. I'd do it with my own two hands. I'll have no unrest or violence stirred up.'

'I wouldn't do that.' Jane held back the last of the thought. But someone else might.

Madeline looked at her steadily. 'I take that as another promise.'

'You can. And the first one still stands. I won't encourage any of the people to run away, either. But I will try to find ideas to help them when they're free to go or stay, as they choose.'

'You' re a forthright young woman,' Madeline said; it was far from a condemnation. She stood. 'Come along.'

Jane followed her to the foyer patterned with sunshine through the fanlight. Madeline reached for the handles of the library doors. 'I could be flogged and run out of the state for this.' But she seemed to take pride in opening the doors in a theatrical way and standing aside.

It was the room in her dream. Slowly, Jane walked in. Madeline slipped in after her and shut the doors soundlessly.

'Ideas have never frightened me, Jane. They are the chief salvation of this planet. Read as much of what's here as you want.'

Leathery incense swirled from shelves without so much as an inch of empty space. Jane felt herself to be in a cathedral. She continued to stand silently, like a petitioner. Then she tilted her head back and raised her gaze to the books, all the books, while a radiance broke over her face.

45

'George, you mustn't rave so. You'll bring on a fit.'

'But — but —'

'Have a cigar. Let me pour you a whiskey. Every night it's the same. You come home so upset. The children have noticed.'

'Only a statue could stay calm in that place.' He ripped his uniform collar open and stamped to the window, where snow-flakes touched the glass and melted. 'Do you know how I passed the afternoon? Watching this nitwit from Maine demonstrate his water-walker: two small canoes fitted onto his shoes. Just the thing for the infantry! Cross the rivers of Virginia in Biblical style!'

Constance held a hand over her mouth. George shook a finger. 'Don't you dare laugh. What makes it worse is that I've interviewed four inventors of water-walkers in the last month. What kind of patriotic service is that, listening to men who ought to be committed?'

He pushed at his hair and gazed at the December snowfall without seeing it. Darkness lay on the city, and discouragement; an uneasy possibility of the war lasting a long time. The one shaft of light was McClellan, busy organizing and training for a spring campaign.

'Surely some intelligent inventors show up occasionally,' Constance began.

'Of course. Mr. Sharps — whose breechloading rifles Ripley refuses to order, even though Colonel Berdan's special regiment was willing to pay the slight extra cost. The Sharps is newfangled, Ripley says. An army ordnance board tested the gun and praised it a mere eleven years ago, but it's newfangled.' He kicked the leg of a stool so hard that it dented the toe of his boot and made him curse.

'Can nothing be done to overrule Ripley? Can't Cameron step in?'

'He's beset by his own problems. I don't think he'll last the month. But certainly something can be done. It was done in October. Not by us, however. Lincoln ordered twenty-five thousand breechloaders.'

'He bypassed the department?'

'Do you blame him?' George sank to the sofa, his uniform and disposition in disarray. 'I'll give you another example. There's a young fellow from Connecticut named Christopher Spencer. Been a machinist at Colt's in Hartford, among other things. He's patented an ingenious rapid-fire rifle you load by inserting a tube of seven cartridges into the stock. Do you know Ripley's objection to it?' She shook her head. 'Our boys would fire too fast and waste ammunition.'

'George, I can hardly believe that.'

His hand shot up, witness fashion. 'God's truth! We dare not equip the infantry with guns that might shorten the war. Ripley's had to give on the breechloaders — we're ordering a quantity for the cavalry — but he's adamant about the repeaters. So the President continues to do our work. This afternoon Bill Stoddard told me ten thousand Spencers are being ordered from the Executive Mansion. Hiram Berdan's sharpshooters will have some to try by Christmas.'

George stormed up again, trailing smoke from a new cigar. 'Do you have any notion of the damage Ripley's doing? Of how many young men may die because he abhors the thought of wasting ammunition? I can't take it much longer, Constance — thinking of the deaths we're causing while I pretend to be interested in some village idiot's water-walker —'

He lost volume toward the end. He stood smoking with his head bowed in front of the window framing the slow downdrift of the snow. She had often witnessed her husband's explosions of temper, but they were seldom mingled with this kind of despair. She slipped her arms around him from behind, pressed her breast to the back of his dark blue coat.

'I don't blame you for feeling miserable.' She clasped her hands and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. 'I have a piece of news. Two, actually. Father's in the Territory of New Mexico, trying to stay out of the way of the Union and Confederate armies maneuvering there. He feels confident he'll reach California by the end of the winter.'

'Good.' The reply was listless. 'What else?'

'We've been invited to a levee for your old friend the general of the armies.'

'Little Mac? He probably won't even speak to me now that he's top man.' McClellan had been promoted November first; Scott was finished.

'George, George —' She turned him and looked into his eyes. 'This isn't the man I know. My husband. You're so bitter.'

'Coming here was a catastrophe. I'm wasting my time — doing no good at all. I should resign and go home with you and the children.'