Part 29 (2/2)
”We are seeing you off,” Eugene said firmly.
Horses, carriages, soldiers, and families crowded alongside the train which was to carry the men away to Camp Louisiana in northern Virginia. Some soldiers had already taken their seats in the cars and begun to play poker, while friends handed fried chicken and cold drinks through the windows. Some were already drunk. There was much laughter, brave talk, solemn admonitions, and tearful good-byes. Babies were hoisted onto uniformed shoulders, anxious mothers held on to their restless children, and lovers parted. Over all a bra.s.s band blared triumphantly.
”I've packed ice in a bucket for you,” Rosa said. ”Be sure to remind Lorenzo that it's among your things.”
”I really don't need to take Lorenzo,” Gabriel objected. ”He has plenty to do at home for you.”
”Nonsense! What do you mean? Every officer has his body servant. Who's going to take care of your horses and cook for you and wash your clothes? Now, remember that he's got your watch, and I've given him three hundred dollars in gold to keep in case you need to buy anything, although I do believe I've thought of everything.”
Eugene sniffed. ”Three hundred dollars! You'd better watch out that your Lorenzo doesn't run off to the Yankees with it.”
”Nonsense!” Rosa said again. ”He adores Gabriel. He would never do that. Besides, why should he run off? He lives as well as Gabriel does, as well as we all do. Where could he live any better?”
The engine shrieked three times. Men began to climb into the train. Abruptly Rosa's brisk and lively courage gave way, collapsing with her pride. ”Oh, my sons, my brother, everything's falling apart! When will it all be normal again?” Her nose ran. She rummaged in her reticule for a handkerchief. ”Oh, I'm ashamed of myself! I can't help it.”
”Come,” Gabriel said gently. ”Come, Rosa. You'll manage. It will be all right. We men need your courage. Come, my dear.” Above Rosa's shaking, bowed shoulders, his eyes signaled to Miriam that he wanted to say something. He drew her aside.
”No, don't be alarmed! I only want to speak about Rosa. Will you take care of her? For all her brave talk and her worldly wit, she's not nearly as strong or sensible as you.”
Miriam could not resist asking, ”You can't still really think I am sensible?”
”I think you haven't learned yet how sensible you are.”
How like him to speak in enigmas!
”I promise you I will do my best.”
”She will need a friend.”
”You needn't worry. I am her friend.”
”Thank you.”
There seemed nothing more to say, but he did not go. Gravel and cinders burned through the soles of their shoes. Yet he kept standing, searching her face candidly and still revealing nothing of himself, as was so often his way. G.o.d knew what he was thinking, where his thoughts had been! Surely, being human, he must have imagined her with the other man, lying together in a silky bed, must have wondered about drowsy afternoons or dark blue nights. If that were so, he must be suffering still.
”I am your friend, too, Gabriel,” she said softly. ”I always have been, I always will be your dear friend.”
It was the wrong thing to say. His face tightened.
”Just please be Rosa's. I am afraid things may be very hard for her.”
The whistles, shrieking for the last time, caused a rush to board the train, and Gabriel was lost in the scramble. His little group stood among the crowd until the train was out of sight, and then, in the beginning dusk, went home.
Eugene said only, ”I wish I could have gone, too,” and after that was silent the rest of the way.
And Miriam understood that the man beside her was feeling a painful deprivation of his right to proclaim his masculinity in the great adventure of the war. She thought how strange it was that this tragedy could be at the same time exhilarating for so many. Why, even Gabriel had worn his sword with a flouris.h.!.+
All up and down the streets of the city the state flag bloomed from balconies and doorways. Candles and gas lamps burned in the windows, gilding the night. From as far off as the encampment a distant cannon, cras.h.i.+ng in some final departing salute, scattered the pigeons on the square.
On the front steps young Eugene and Angelique waited, still flouris.h.i.+ng their little flags. The boy, at sight of his parents, came rus.h.i.+ng. His eyes glistened, his voice was hoa.r.s.e, he had been cheering in the streets all afternoon.
”Why didn't you let us go along?” he demanded. Like his father he was torn by disappointment at having to miss the war.
”There wasn't enough room in the phaeton,” Miriam apologized. ”But I promise we'll take you the next time there's a send-off.”
The child could barely stand still. ”Was it awfully exciting?”
She smiled at her son, her lovely, tender boy, and consoled herself again: He is only twelve, thank G.o.d.
”Yes, yes,” she said. ”It was very exciting. Very.”
21.
A year of war had made all the difference. Miriam walked home with f.a.n.n.y from the market. She had just paid an outrageous price for a tough and greasy mullet, popularly known as ”Biloxi bacon.” Along the riverfront a three-masted schooner was being loaded with baled cotton; with covered lights it would run the blockade to Havana, then on to London or Paris.
Paris. Squares like Jackson Square. Had he not said it resembled the Place des Vosges? Andre walking there-he had a rapid walk, almost a run-she could hear the sound of his hastening steps on the pavement. There would be great stone official buildings, parks, cafes, young women with sweet mouths, perfume, pearls .... A chill went through her and she stopped, closing her eyes.
”Are you all right?” asked f.a.n.n.y.
She had been in Paris, she had forgotten f.a.n.n.y, over whose vigilant face there now pa.s.sed an expression in part concern, in greater part inquisitiveness. How much did f.a.n.n.y know or guess? One could never tell about servants, so fearful, so sly, trained as they were never to reveal, but always to calculate, lest they offend.
Miriam blinked herself back to the moment, to the street and the morning.
”Yes, yes, I'm all right. A little tired.”
He had not written; of course, he feared to subject her to Eugene's wrath; or perhaps he had written, but the mail was not getting through.
The s.h.i.+ps were not getting through anymore. The blockade was choking the city; it was a rope around the city's neck.
In the next block they were taking a church bell down from the steeple to be cast into cannon. Indeed, the war had made a difference! Strange to realize how one got caught up on the very crest of the wave of war when one had hoped to let it wash past. At the synagogue the women were giving a ball to raise money for poor families whose men were in the fight. The women were knitting socks and gloves for the soldiers; bags of gray wool stood in every parlor. One sent blankets to the army. One gave up drinking coffee and eating meat so that the army might have them. Strange, painful and strange, to be doing all these things, to be doing them with such a full heart, and at the same time to be hoping that the other side where David stood among the men in blue, would triumph!
Rosa de Rivera was crossing Jackson Square.
”I had a letter today from Gabriel. Shall I read it? Or perhaps you'd rather not?” she added, giving to the perfectly normal existence of the letter a significance which apparently she thought it must have for Miriam.
Why, she is enjoying this ”situation”! Miriam thought instantly. Unrequited love for a married woman. Delicious, sad, and slightly scandalous.
”Of course I'd rather,” she said calmly. ”Sit down and read it. You go on home without me, f.a.n.n.y.”
”'I have been in victories and defeats,'” Rosa read. ”'At Mana.s.sas Junction, where we won, and at Fort Donelson, where we lost. They were equal in horror. For my first battle, I was enthusiastic. It seemed to be a sweeping thing, and, in spite of the evil that is war, a chance to show what individual courage, multiplied by thousands, can do. Perhaps, decisively, to bring the war to an end? At any rate, I went into it with no fear, to my great astonishment, and with a feeling of power. All of that ended very quickly.
”'In the morning the truth hit me between the eyes. It was a summer morning; do not those two words convey enough meaning? Summer morning, and against the greenery the red earth of the breastworks made another wound to add to the sum of the human wounded, of whom there were so many. That fresh, blooming earth, and what we had done to it! All the young men and what we had done to each other! We had captured the Federal depot, but because there weren't enough wagons and we couldn't carry much away, we had set fire to it. It had been burning all night. Of this tremendous bonfire only a heap was left, a small hill of smoking ruins, with sparks like little red evil eyes popping out of h.e.l.l.
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