Crescent City (49 page)

A genial fire crackled in the guest bedroom. Miriam, sitting close to it in a Queen Anne wing chair, held her blue hands out to the heat.

In spite of the gracious hospitality which these strangers were showing to her, she was stiff with embarrassment. Her traveling dress, shabby to begin with, was now stained and wrinkled from the journey;
it was beyond respectability. Once she would not have considered it nearly decent enough to give to a servant. She recalled the piles of good clothing which used to be collected for the servants in her father’s house, and later on, in her own. Her mind traveled back to those long-ago houses, where fires had burned in every room and silver had been polished, and the gold damask draperies had hung in folds.

Her mind traveled farther, too, back to the meager home of her childhood.

She summoned herself to the moment and to the hostess, who was waiting for a response.

“Such a lovely house, Mrs. Hammond! And you are so very kind to have me here.”

“It’s a real pleasure to have you. Mr. Perrin has told us how charming you are, and I see that he did not exaggerate.”

“I’m afraid I’m not very charming today. I feel rather unsightly.”

“Not at all. You’ve come a long way under dreadful conditions. I’m sure you would like a hot bath before dinner.”

“That would be wonderful.” Miriam hesitated. “You dress for dinner?”

A stupid question! In a house like this, of course one dressed for dinner.

“As a matter of fact, tonight is rather a special night, my husband’s birthday. We’re having a little group of old friends.” Mrs. Hammond sighed. “A very little group, unhappily, with so many of our men away. Now, please don’t be shy, my dear. I understand quite well that you’re not supplied with evening gowns. May I lend you one?”

“If I’m to be presentable downstairs, I shall have to say yes, I’m afraid.”

“Of course. We are just about the same size. I’ll go
send my maid Lettie with bath water and a dress. Let me see your feet. Yes, slippers, too. If they should be a little large for you, I’m sure you’ll manage and no one will notice.”

Miriam laid her head against the back of the chair. Left alone, she could have sunk right there into a long, grateful sleep. The room was warm and quiet. Light twinkled on the brass fender and on a photograph in a silver frame. It lay across the polished floor and on the great mahogany chest. The windows and the four-poster were hung in a sprightly red-and-white toile, on which a pattern of trees, leaping deer, and castle turrets repeated itself in framed medallions of twining vines. Across the foot of the bed a rosy silk quilt lay folded, promising a light, blissful warmth through the coming night.

And she thought how delightful these comforts could be, how lovely the quiet, orderly life with no intrusion of politics.

These thoughts were still soothing her spirit when the door opened and the maid came in bearing in turn bath water, lavender soap, warm towels, and a dressing gown.

“Mrs. Hammond says I’m to do your hair for you,” she said when Miriam had bathed. “One minute, I’ll bring your dress.”

The dress, evidently quite new, had a French label. Miriam stroked the bottle-green velvet skirt and the white lace bertha.

“I didn’t know anyone had dresses from France anymore, Lettie.”

Lettie’s strong arm pulled the brush through Miriam’s hair, drawing sparks.

“Why, all the ladies get their dresses from France,” she replied, as if that should be common knowledge.

“It’s not what I expected. I heard that things were so terrible in Richmond.”

“Wait till you go out into the streets. You’ll see how terrible they are. People are starving. They have to burn their furniture to keep warm. The soldiers’ wives are the poorest, they get the wages, but the money buys less every day. Doesn’t buy anything anymore.”

How odd to hear a black slave give sympathy to a poor white! Everything was upside down and inside out.

The dining room glittered. Many of the men were in uniform. The others wore proper evening attire, and the women were splendid. Grateful for the velvet dress, Miriam thought she had never seen, even at the opera at home, so many diamond parares and lavalieres. But then, probably she had forgotten. It had been so long.

She was unused to crowds of strangers, too. Half humorously, she compared herself with a farm wife on her first visit to the city, gaping and marveling at the five-story buildings, the carriages and crowded sidewalks. Yet everyone was friendly, making an effort to show southern courtesy, inquiring about her family and events in Louisiana. There were young faces and old ones around the long table, round Irish faces, two or three Jewish faces, and many that belonged to the oldest families in the city. What they all had in common was the handsome look of wealth. And this continued to astonish Miriam. Here in this high room with dozens of candles flaring, with champagne chilling in ice-filled buckets, oysters roasting on the hearth, crystal without a flaw and damask without a crease, it seemed as if the war did not exist.

Wild ducks, turkey, puddings, molds, and ices were passed and repassed on their silver platters.

“My goodness,” a lady remarked, “the price of turkey is incredible. Thirty dollars! Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“Turkey!” someone said. “What about champagne? I paid one hundred fifty dollars a bottle for it last week. Heaven only knows what it will be next week.”

“I want you to know,” the host announced, “that the champagne we are drinking tonight is a gift from our friend. From André, of course. A generous friend to us all. And of yours, too,” he added, bowing to Miriam.

She hoped that the hot color which rose at once would be attributed to the fireplace and the wine.

“He is a good friend of my family’s, yes indeed.” When this seemed to arouse no curiosity, she grew bolder. “He is in Europe, he wrote to us. I wonder when he will be back.”

Mr. Hammond shrugged. “One never knows. He doesn’t tell and we don’t ask.”

She felt rebuked. Possibly there was no reason why she should feel so; nevertheless, she did. Discomfited now, she resigned herself to listening. And she tried to isolate some common thread in the animated conversations that were passing around and across the table. What she heard was a mixture of cynicism and bravado.

“What’s a planter, for instance, to do if the war should ruin him? There’s nothing else he knows how to do but be a planter. ‘Go to work,’ they say. What work? He’s never really worked in his life.”

Yes, they have forgotten how, Miriam reflected. Their ancestors worked! She remembered Aunt Emma’s description of her great-grandparents’ first humble farm on the German coast: the cabin and the sparse acres. That had been the beginning, but that was long generations past.

“They say the Virginia legislature is going to request Davis and the entire Cabinet except Trenholm to resign. You know, it’s a disgrace! The generals telegraph for reinforcements and artillery, but they get nothing from the Virginia government.”

“They get nothing because there is nothing.”

“Nonsense! I don’t believe it. That’s newspaper talk. They ought to stop attacking the Confederate government once and for all. By God, they’re giving more aid to the enemy than the northern papers are.”

“They aren’t the only ones who are giving aid to the enemy.”

Raised, disapproving eyebrows followed this sally, and from someone at the end of the table came quickly stifled, knowing laughter. It occurred to Miriam that one of these people’s own community might have been caught out. There had been talk about women in the highest circles of Richmond society who were working for the Union; perhaps one of them in this room now.

Suddenly she was very tired and wished it were time to go to bed.

On Miriam’s left a man was saying to someone, “I heard he made fifty thousand dollars a month running the blockade. He did in the beginning, anyway.”

“Well, he won’t do it much longer. That’s all over. No more French wines. No more anything from Europe. So drink up now.”

“I’m not worried. We’ll get what we want from Baltimore, that’s all.”

Who made fifty thousand dollars a month? She bad not caught the name. And was this what had been coming through the blockade? Champagne and velvet dresses—with quinine costing a hundred fifty dollars an ounce?

Now the man on Miriam’s right spoke across the table. “Money will soon be worthless.”

And someone answered, “So one might as well spend it.”

Soon everyone went from the dining room to the music room. There, on all four walls, hung the usual fashionable gilt-framed mirrors, so that one saw oneself from every angle. Miriam’s face had gone pale. The pink flush of the earlier evening had ebbed, leaving dark stains under her eyes. She looked alien among these vivacious people who were gathered at the piano singing and playing. “Annie Laurie,” “Listen to the Mockingbird,” and “Juanita,” they sang. “My Maryland” stirred them to applause and brought everyone to his feet. Miriam stood with the rest, but she was hardly there. She had drifted away into some vague space where memories merged, where father and brother merged with Eugene, with Gabriel and André and colliding armies.

“You’re very thoughtful,” said her host, leaning over her chair.

“I’m sorry. I’m not good company. I’ve been thinking.” She hesitated in this room among these people to speak of David, a soldier in the Union army. And yet was he not the reason for her being in Richmond? And did this man not know it was? “I’ve been thinking about my brother.”

“Of course you have. I had meant to tell you in the morning, but since you mention him, I can tell you now. Everything has been arranged. You will see him at the military hospital in Washington. Your pass should be ready in a day or two.”

In her fragile state this solicitude touched her almost to tears.

“How?” she asked innocently. “How have you managed to do this wonderful thing for me?”

The man was amused. “Dear lady,” he said kindly, “nothing is impossible as long as one knows the right
people. And André Perrin knows them. It’s he whom you should thank, not me.”

The most striking aspect of the streets, as Miriam went wandering through the city the next morning, was the number of wounded men. It was a city of wounded men. They limped on crutches. They walked with bloody bandages on hands, arms, and faces. Wagons bore them through the streets and stood before the door of the St. Charles Hotel, waiting until room could be found on the bare floor for yet another load.

Other wagons bore them away in coffins.

A woman stopped her, begging for a coin to buy milk.

“I know a place where they have some,” she pleaded. “There hasn’t been any in a week, and besides I didn’t have the money.”

Miriam gave her a coin. She walked on. Desperation hung overhead like fog; it had fog’s clammy feel. A woman ran past in frantic haste, pulling a dirty, wailing child. Two boys fought each other to the ground over a bag of peas, which spilled on the sidewalk while they struggled. A cat whose every bone stuck out under its skimpy, worn far stiffened and died before her eyes. She walked on.

A jeweler’s window held a display of rubies: brooches, bracelets, and necklaces on black velvet cushions. Drawn to their deep glow, she stood there for a moment, when behind her back she heard what could only be described as a squeal.

“Oh, what a dazzle! Tell me, have you ever seen such rubies? Have you?”

The girl clung to the officer’s arm, She was a handsome girl and he was a handsome man, twice her age. They looked confident. They looked like lovers. They went into the shop.

Farther on Miriam passed a display of landscape paintings, a shipment of French antiques, and a window full of imported lace. In front of a bookstore Miriam stopped. She had not bought a book in so long! They had once been a necessity for her. Here now was Blackwood’s
Edinburgh Magazine,
an old favorite. And look here!
Les Miserables,
in French. Her fingers sought the lump of coins in her dress, a lump grown smaller since the start of her journey. But still, she thought, arguing with herself, enough for a book. She went inside.

Bookstore owners were usually old men, friendly and, naturally, bespectacled. This one was no exception. Watching him wrap
Les Miserables,
she felt a familiar pleasure and a desire to make conversation.

“Tell me, I see all these wonderful shops, so many beautiful, expensive things. And then all the wounded, and so many beggars. It makes you wonder …”

The old man gave a bitter laugh.

“It is ‘why’ that you’re asking me? Why? I’ll ask you: Was it ever any different in any war?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know enough history to answer.”

“I’ll answer, then. No, it was never any different.”

“Why do they allow it? I saw a man buying rubies just now. And a shipment of French antiques just arrived. Is that what the ships are bringing in? Not food? Not medicines?”

“Oh, certainly the Congress has forbidden the importation of luxuries, but they come through all the same. There are always people to bring them and more to buy them.”

Slowly, Miriam returned to the Hammond house carrying her book. Suddenly she was ashamed of it, as those people ought to have been ashamed who were buying rubies. The little sum that the book had cost
might better have gone to some hungry child on the street. And she was tempted to return it, but thought then that the bookseller seemed to be rather in need, too.

“There’s a wonderful theatrical tonight,
The Rivals,”
Mrs. Hammond said when Miriam came in. “And after that a supper at the Lloyds’. They’ve such a delightful house! Of course, you’re invited.”

“I thank you,” Miriam told her, “but will you accept my regrets this time?”

“I do hope you’re not worried about a dress. Is that the reason? Because there’s no trouble about that,” the woman said generously. “I have a satin, a taffeta, or a brocade to lend. You choose.”

“No, no, you’re so kind. It’s just that I’m very tired, quite overcome.”

“I understand. That journey must really have worn you out.”

But it was not the journey. It was not the strong, still-young body which had been overcome—but rather the troubled spirit.