The Bride of Texas, page 5
He was broken by sorrow because Ursula didn’t know that this land on the other side of the ocean could be a Utopia for her too. No, he was being unfair. Something had happened, otherwise she would surely have come. He must have been more than just a spoonful of honey to sweeten a bitter marriage. He sat on the bank of the Susquehanna, and waves of remorse and guilt washed over him for thinking ill of her. Something must have happened. He wrote her another letter, and another. Then he stopped writing.
It was raining on the sycamores. The third time he saw Linda Toupelik, she was in a carriage with the blushing Captain Baxter Warren II at the reins. It was evening, and the house lamps along Bay Street, extinguished when Sherman’s great army rolled into Savannah, were lit again. This time there was no looting — or almost none, except for a grandfather clock here and there. Otherwise there were only polite officers, their presence now acknowledged by the local ladies with solemn nods, and soldiers back from the great picnic in Georgia, their good mood maintained by quantities of voluntarily proffered Negro moonshine, a joyful libation to the troops of the Ruler of the World. The plunking of banjos called from the windows of Madam Russell’s beautiful brothel.
“My sister,” Cyril Toupelik growled. “My sister, the gentleman’s whore. My monstrous little sister.” He turned to watch the lovely monster, her cornflower eyes reflecting the bright brass buttons on Captain Warren’s tunic. Suddenly — and it all happened so fast that again it seemed to the sergeant like a tableau vivant — a man in a green coat hobbled quickly down the three steps from the white house. The sergeant noticed the knob-end of a wooden leg sticking out of one of his trouser cuffs, but otherwise he was a tall, statuesque, downright handsome man with long hair cascading onto his broad shoulders. He stumped past them, and the sergeant saw Cyril step up to the cripple just as he pulled a pistol from his unbuttoned coat. Cyril’s fist shot up, and the gun went off as it flew through the air. The sound of shattering glass came from across the street, and one of the lanterns outside Madam Russell’s went out. The sergeant glanced at Lida Toupelik and saw her flinch; her eyes seemed to double in size. Then he looked at the captain, who had turned his head with mild interest towards the gunshot. By then Cyril was holding the cripple by the shoulders, so the captain turned back, still glowing with infatuation like a pious convert.
Lida pulled herself together and tossed her golden curls confidently as Cyril said in English to the small crowd that had formed, “He’s had a few too many and he felt like firing a couple of shots in the air, that’s all.”
The crowd looked doubtful, but they’d had a bit too much to drink as well. They started to disperse while the one-legged man stood there, pale as death. Cyril picked up the pistol, stuck it in his belt, took the man by the shoulders, and turned him towards the steps leading to the white building.
From inside the brothel came a spirited version of When Johnny comes marching home again.…
It was raining on the sycamores.
The cabriolet disappeared around some bushes. Linda Warren’s white veil fluttered in the breeze. The mist over the road was thinning out now, and the men of Mower’s division were marching under the plane trees, their filthy boots tracing regular arcs in the remaining wisps of rapidly dispersing fog as they sang:
The Union forever, hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the Traitor, Up with the Star,
As we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
Behind them came a squad of Kil’s cavalry, their banner riddled with bullet holes; then a battery of field artillery rattled by, the butt of a huge smoked ham sticking out of a caisson, the black cannon barrels glistening in the rain. Behind them came three scrawny young drummers followed by a solid file of bearded soldiers singing “The Battle Cry of Freedom”. Out of step, tin cups clanking against knapsacks, a frying-pan stuck handle down in the barrel of a rifle, came men from the mountains, men from the plains. Kapsa recalled an ancient, gloomy battalion, gloomy but polished, polished and gloomy, marching smartly in step down an alpine valley, with corseted Imperial officers on horseback. The Eighty-second Illinois began singing too, a terrible disharmony of wonderful voices, and he knew there had probably never been such an army, ever, since the days of Caesar.…
We will welcome to our numbers
The loyal, true, and brave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.…
They moved — men, guns, horses — out of step, rolling on like the mighty Mississippi, Sherman’s great army rolling north to Atlanta.
“Look at him there!” he heard Shake say.
Reverend Mulroney was having trouble with his filly. Behind him the engineers were striking the wedding tent; the filly was prancing skittishly and the chaplain was struggling to control her. Shake chuckled and ran over to settle the filly, and the chaplain scrambled up into the saddle.
The rain kept pouring down on the sycamores.
“What struck you so funny?” the sergeant asked Shake later that evening, around the campfire. “The bride was beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, that!” Shake chortled again. “You can’t have done much church-going, right, sarge?” He turned to rummage in his haversack. “Fact is, what he read the Holy Church won’t allow to be read on any Sunday after Pentecost, or any other time, for that matter.” He took out a well-thumbed Bible, and flipped through the pages. “Listen,” he said. “Here it is: the Book of Ezekiel the Prophet, chapter sixteen, verses thirteen to sixteen. He took a little piece of verse thirteen because he knows damn well you heathens never opened a Bible in your lives.”
The flames flickered across Shake’s moon-face, dancing in his blue eyes like cherubs in swaddling clothes.
“ ‘Thou wast exceeding beautiful,’ ” he intoned in the mock singsong of a preacher, then noted in a conversational tone, “Mulroney read that, all right. But the part that comes right after that he kept to himself. ‘But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.’ ”
“Stop, you’re corrupting us!” Stejskal chimed in.
“No, wait! Here’s the main thing he left out.” Back to the mocking singsong: “ ‘And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon; the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.’ ”
He looked around at his comrades. They were silent. Shake stuck the meerschaum in his mouth and sent a little cloud of blue smoke towards the stars.
Stejskal said, “What I can’t figure is how come you know the Bible by heart, you pagan.”
“Me? A pagan?” Shake replied. “Were you knocked in the head by a cannonball, or what?”
Outside, the moonlight fell on the sycamores.
(illustration credit 1.1)
The
Writer’s
First
Intermezzo
NO GENERAL took part in as many battles as Ambrose; had regulations not required him to be at the command post, he would have spent every minute in the thick of it, with his troops. In Cincinnati, he once told me that he never felt right about it. “Soldiers are dying, and I’m watching this from a distance through a glass. I feel like a dodger. I’ll never get used to it, Lorraine, though it’s logical, of course. But I reckon it’s just as logical to bolt as soon as the Reaper takes the field. No one wants to die.”
“It’s not logical,” I said, “it’s only psychological. It is logical, though, to protect your generals, because it costs a great deal of money to teach them their trade.”
Ambrose sighed. “That all depends.”
“On what?” I asked, annoyed because I knew what he meant. He had never wanted to be commander-in-chief but, naturally, he obeyed Lincoln. An order from him was like one of the Ten Commandments. Lincoln was fond of Ambrose. He also thought he was smarter than Ambrose. And he was — except for one thing. Ambrose knew himself better than anyone else did, including Lincoln.
Dear Ambrose. He was simply the most honourable, the most truthful, the most loyal, and the bravest soldier in the Union army.
He also cut quite a figure.
I count myself among the many who have wronged him in his lifetime, although in my case there was an extenuating circumstance: I was young at the time, and correspondingly foolish. Perhaps more so than average.
A time would come when Ambrose would take embarrassment in his stride. But back then —
2
It was ghastly. Rather than strength of nerves, it must have been some kind of physical spasm that kept me on my feet after I turned and fled up the aisle from the altar, with those appalled faces gaping at me on either side. Nothing like this had ever happened in Liberty for as long as anyone could remember, and most of the congregation, perhaps all of it, had never even thought it possible. That spasm held me together as I ran outside into the searing sunshine and climbed into the carriage, where I even managed to wait for my maids of honour, Maggie and Sarah, who came rushing out of the church behind me. Only after they plopped down on the seats across from me did I instruct Sam to drive us home. And it was not until I got back to my own room that it all sank in, and I became so hysterical that I thought I could simply run back and put everything right again. But for the first time in my life, my legs wouldn’t obey me. And besides, there was that letter from the publisher in Boston on my writing desk.
“Good Lord! Maggie, Sarah! I have to explain to him!”
“How?” asked Maggie curtly, and stared at me without an ounce of sympathy.
A good question.
“I’ll go get him,” said Sarah, sweet soul that she was.
“Save yourself the trouble,” said Maggie, but Sarah was already out the door. Maggie turned to me. “You really are a prize idiot, you know!”
There was no point in arguing. She was right.
So I burst into tears.
“Stop bawling,” said Maggie, “it’s not your style.”
She was right again. But nothing like this had ever happened in Liberty. It was an extraordinary circumstance.
I bawled. Mama came into my room, sat down on the bed beside me, and stroked my hair.
“You’ve really done it now, girl,” she said. “Papa went to the cellar and then upstairs. He’s locked himself in his study.”
That meant Papa had taken a gallon of whisky from the cellar. If we were lucky, he’d drink himself speechless. If not, he’d have all too much to say. This was his easy solution to everything, from a toothache to family problems to metaphysical questions, if and when any occurred to him. When my little brother ran away from home and we got a letter from Santiago, where he’d dropped anchor with the whalers, Papa made the trip to the cellar and back up to his study and that settled the matter, as far as he was concerned.
“Go ahead, get those tears out,” said Mama. There was no reproach in her voice. Perhaps she was feeling sorry for herself. She could have done what I’d just done, twenty years ago, except in those days Papa hadn’t yet taken to retreating into his private alcoholic haze. Or if he had, Mama didn’t know about it.
She stroked my hair a little longer and then left.
“If I did something that cuckoo, my folks would tear me apart,” Maggie said. “Be thankful for the parents you’ve got, you dimwit.”
By then I wasn’t sobbing so hard. I knew I deserved this. Then Sarah rushed in, all out of breath, and said that Ambrose was gone by the time she got to the church. The moment he’d come to his senses, they said, he was out of there like a shot. So good old Sarah rushed over to the Burnsides’, but Bob wouldn’t even let her in. The lieutenant had just stopped by for his valise, and then left for the station.
I looked at the clock on the dressing table. It was almost three. The train to Connersville would leave at a quarter past. Ambrose would have to wait an hour in Connersville for his connection.
I could catch him there.
I had no idea what I would say.
3
The truth is, it wasn’t fair. I wasn’t ready to marry Ambrose. But that’s how life is: not exactly fair.
Ambrose had gone off to West Point before he turned eighteen. He was a thin lad, a tailor, and his shop, which wasn’t even on Main Street, wasn’t what you’d call elegant. Business was only fair, and his hairline was already receding. Not that any of this bothered me at the time. I was twelve and considered a tomboy. Girls didn’t interest me, boys did, because they would take me fishing and let me play soldiers and Indians. But when one of those Huck Finns suggested I play an abducted beauty that the American cavalry would rescue from the clutches of the Shoshones, I got mad and said I was no beauty and just let anyone try to abduct me. I said they should ask Becky Thatcher. She was the beautiful one, and she read her older sister Jocelyn’s romance novels. So they did, and of course Becky said yes and dressed up in her Sunday best for it. I was Chief Flat Feet of the Shoshones, and I abducted Becky in order to slay her. I was well brought up, I knew the only reason beauties were abducted was to be slain.
Or, if the abductors were Indians, to be tortured to death at the stake.
What actually happened to abducted beauties was something I didn’t learn until my mother noticed that it was time to tell me the facts of life. Still, I remained a tomboy until I was almost seventeen and started reading articles by Margaret Fuller. Instead of flirting with young men, which I was now inclining towards, I decided to fight for the rights of women. I also decided never to marry, so that nothing would distract me from the struggle. This decision wasn’t just because of Margaret Fuller; Mama’s position in the family had something to do with it too. Papa was — well, inaccessible to reason. His cellar was too well stocked for any rational conversation.
I may have been a case of arrested development, rather than the great intellect that poor Margaret Fuller was. Be that as it may, my life till then had not prepared me for the figure I saw one sunny morning in front of Mr. Jenkins’s saloon on Main Street.
His head was the first thing I noticed — I had never seen anything like it. It was beautifully framed by a dense chestnut moustache that seemed to spread from below his nose, then swoop down across both cheeks and up past his ears, and meet over his forehead. No one in Liberty had ever seen a moustache like it. Nor, for that matter, had they ever seen such chestnut-brown eyes under eyebrows so dense. The eyebrows emphasized his high forehead. It never entered my head that this signalled the beginning of baldness.
The young man, or rather his exquisite head, bowled me over completely.
Only then did I note how well the uniform of a United States Army lieutenant suited him, and how thrilling the low-hung pistol looked in its holster at his waist.
And only then did I — no, I didn’t actually notice Mr. Jenkins standing beside the young man, I only heard him call, “Lorraine! Come here!”
I recall hearing someone behind me sigh deeply, and I suppose I responded. In any case, I found myself standing in front of the young man. Those chestnut-brown eyes were looking down at me and Mr. Jenkins was saying, “Now, do you know this young lady, lieutenant?”
“I can’t say as I’ve had the pleasure,” said the young man, shaking his head. “I’d surely never have forgotten such a lovely young lady.” He sounded smitten already.
“The butterfly emerges from its chrysalis,” said Mr. Jenkins. “This is the Hendersons’ Lorraine.”
“Ah,” went the handsome lieutenant. Someone behind me sighed again. The lieutenant bowed from the waist and kissed my hand.
And that was all it took.
There and then — for a time — I lost interest in women’s rights.
4
That was all it took. I was caught in the eye of a hurricane; he spun me like a top, and I couldn’t find my feet. That very same evening there was a ball at the Campbells’. He came for me in a hired carriage and I, who was essentially against men, who avoided balls and therefore had never learned to dance properly, I floated across the dance floor with him all evening like a feathery cloud. The next day brought an excursion on horseback to Green Springs, where he declared his love for me in a romantic valley, a love that was fresh but all the more profound. The following day … well, to make a long story short, we went through the whole gamut of romantic courtship in a single week — including love letters, though we spent only a few hours each night apart.
He had only two weeks’ leave.
A champagne picnic — it was summertime — and under the August moon he recited a carefully memorized poem. I didn’t like the poem, but I loved his moustache. An awful lot. An outing on horseback to Gloucester Valley, croquet in the garden of the Methodist manse, and Sunday afternoon he came over to ask for my hand and we were engaged. The wedding was set for the following week, after which we were to go straight to join his garrison at the Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. More champagne, my father tearful, his appetite for whisky stronger than usual after champagne, my mother dry-eyed. But that didn’t strike me as odd.
Then on Monday the letter from the publisher in Boston arrived.
The thing is, I had written a novel. Secretly. Inspired by literature — Margaret — and by life — Papa, his cellar, and the increasing frequency of decreasingly adequate jugs. When I was writing the novel, I began, for the first time in my life, to dream. Not about romantic or even just ordinary lovers, the way Sarah and almost everyone else, perhaps even Maggie, did. As young as I was, I was overcome by the spell of pen and ink, the ecstasy of giving birth on paper. The advantage is that you can create your children any way you please. You can make them clever but naughty, beautiful, foolish, generous, ugly or plain, and no matter what they become, you love them all. I dreamed, as my characters appeared and grew under my fingertips, that this magic would make me an independent woman, freed from the necessity of choosing between some drunken but well-heeled bridegroom and a quiet but defeating life of poverty as an old maid.
