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Authors: Thomas Fleming

BOOK: Dreams of Glory
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Flora found herself suspecting Mr. Chandler's innocence. She did not know what Cato had told him but if she contradicted it, she was caught. “Caesar came here now and then,” she said warily. “He was always welcome.”
“You saw no reason to wonder at these appearances? Or to reproach him?”
“I knew—and still know—nothing of the army's regulations. I thought he had leave to come. He never stayed long.”
“And the money? You have no idea where he might have gotten it?”
“None,” she lied.
“Cato hinted that Caesar had irregular habits—wild opinions. Did you know him well enough to hear about these things?”
“I knew that he hated America and Americans. Can you blame him?”
And so do I, she wanted to add, triumphantly, recklessly, in Caesar's name.
Instead of shock and anger, Flora was surprised to see sadness, regret on the Reverend Chandler's face.
“Madam, America is my country. I can't justify such an opinion.”
“Why not?” she said. “Believing as you do that slavery is wrong. There are a half-million slaves in America. Can a nation guilty of a half-million wrongs be worthy of admiration?”
She was talking like a madwoman. Did she
want
him to find out the truth about her? All she had to do was plead ignorance. Reiterate that Caesar was a field hand, that she had barely spoken ten words to him. But her uncertainty about what Cato had said on the road coalesced with a need to speak the truth or some semblance of it to this innocent earnest young man.
Her frankness drew a troubled response from the Reverend Caleb Chandler. “Those are dangerous thoughts, madam. Not entirely unwarranted, I admit I've drifted toward them more than once. But what's the alternative to fighting for America? Will our British enemies do any more for these poor people? It was their policy, their ships, that first brought the blacks among us in chains a hundred years ago.”
This uneasy rationalizing obviously clashed with Caleb Chandler's sympathy for Caesar, for his race, for the poor and friendless of this world. Flora saw that the chaplain was a divided spirit, part scholar and part something deeper and finer than creeds and formulas. She could not let Wiert Bogert and John Nelson kill him. She could not bear his death on her conscience.
He would never know what she was risking for him. No matter. Perhaps there was such a thing as expiation. Perhaps a caring God, if He existed, would accept it as a part payment for her other sins.
“I'm sure you're right, Mr. Chandler,” Flora said. “Now, as to the time of the funeral. I had planned it for the day after tomorrow. But since you're here so early, I see no reason why we can't have it tomorrow and permit you to speed back to your duties in Morristown.”
“Whatever you say, madam. I'm at your service.”
It was all so bland, so indifferent. For another moment Flora was again assailed by the wish to tell him the truth, or at least the terrible part of the truth—her need, Caesar's need, for prayers of forgiveness, for the mercy that she had once believed descended from heaven with the Blessed Virgin's smile. But she had become a stranger to the truth. Which meant that mercy must remain a stranger to her.
“Finish your wine, Mr. Chandler,” she said. “It's time for supper.”
“WHY DO SO MANY AMERICANS dislike New England men?”
“What, madam?” murmured Caleb Chandler.
“This dislike of New England men. Are you not all Americans?”
It was a question that ordinarily would have aroused Caleb to a torrent of rebuttal. But he found it hard to think about New England while he was sitting at the dinner table with Flora Kuyper. Her gown, worn low in the fashion that no doubt prevailed in that outpost of Paris, New Orleans, exposed most of her firm, full breasts. His eyes traveled from these lovely curves to her bare shoulders and perfectly proportioned neck, her naked arms. Never in his life had he seen so much female flesh, but there was not the least hint of sin or obscenity in the experience. It was all
natural;
the word beat in him again and again as he watched this woman turn her head, pick up a glass. All her movements had an innate grace, a flow that made him feel as if he were watching an accomplished actress gesture, speak, smile.
She did not smile often. An undefinable sadness lay like a veil on her oval face, which was dominated by dark green eyes and a languorous mouth. Her skin had an incredibly smooth ivory luster. Her hair was undressed, in the country style, but it had no need of the hairdresser's art. It was black as a winter night, falling to her shoulders in luxurious curls.
“New England,” Caleb said. “Ah, yes. We're much misunderstood, madam. The rest of America dislikes us because we persist in the faith of our fathers. We resist the luxuries of this world—with which the English are so eager to inundate and corrupt us.”
“And you agree with this Puritan attitude?” Flora Kuyper
said with a small smile. “Even when your favorite poet, Villon, writes so incomparably:
‘Il n'est trésor que de vivre à son aise.'”
He knew the verse:
There's no delight like living at your ease.
“One may admire the poet, but not all his sentiments, madam.”
Flora Kuyper pouted and sighed. “Does that mean you disapprove of all this?” she said, gesturing to the expensive china and silver, the succulent beef and rabbit pie they were enjoying.
Caleb felt humiliation and confusion infest him like a fever. He began trying to explain himself. “I doubt if I would complain at bread and water if they were served with your presence, your conversation to enhance it, madam. It's not rich food or beautiful things in themselves that New England condemns. You'll find as much good eating and silver plate in Boston and New Haven as you will anywhere in America. It's what men and women do to possess the pleasures and treasures of this world that alarms us. We believe that people should be ready to forgo ease rather than compromise their principles.”
“Ah, Mr. Chandler,” Flora Kuyper replied with another unnerving sigh. “What if you're a person who admires such principles but you have given your love to someone whose spirit has already been corrupted by the pursuit of wealth?”
“Then you must seek by prayer and, if need be, by fasting to sunder yourself from such a love.”
“Do you think we have the power? So often the heart becomes infested, controlled by another person, and there's little we can do about it.”
“You sound as if you're speaking from experience, madam.”
“I am.”
There was a tremolo of sadness in her throaty voice. Caleb groped for words to express his sympathy. “The Bible tells us
to judge not. I would be the last to condemn a divided heart. I, too, know—in another way—the pain it can cause.”
“I am afraid I don't understand.”
Now the sympathy flowed from her side of the table. Caleb felt his words responding to it; they seemed to be summoned from deep within his body by her puzzling combination of beauty and sadness. “One can love not only a person but a calling, a creed, a faith. I came to Yale on fire with enthusiasm for the ministry. For the faith of our fathers. In six months I had a nickname—Tom Brainless.”
“What does it mean?”
“He's a character in a poem written by one of the college's tutors, John Trumbull. A model of a country fool, madam. Yale, you see, is dominated by city-bred young men—sons of merchants and lawyers from New Haven, New London, Hartford. They regard it as their duty to mock farm boys from little towns like Lebanon, my home. As for religion, they laugh at it. They'd rather read a play or a poem than study the Bible. I tried to defend the old faith at first. But in the end—they taunted me into silence. That's why I began exploring other creeds. Now I begin to fear the ministry is wasted on me. My mind—and heart—are infested with doubt. I volunteered as a chaplain in the hope that service in a good cause would restore my faith. But what I've seen in the army has only deepened my doubts.”
Caleb wondered why reproach, disapproval, was not visible on Flora Kuyper's lovely face. He had just made a confession to her that he had concealed from everyone—even, to some extent, from himself.
“I know some of what you're feeling,” Flora Kuyper said. “I was educated by the Ursuline sisters in New Orleans. But I—I lost the sweet, simple faith they gave me.”
“What, may I ask, was the cause of your disillusionment?”
Her eyes searched Caleb's face for a moment. She seemed disappointed—or at least unencouraged—by what she found. “The story is too complicated—and we're too strange to each
other, Mr. Chandler,” she said. “If you were a priest, your lips sealed by the secrecy of the confessional, I might kneel beside you and tell you a great deal. That's the one thing I miss from my childhood faith—the sacrament of confession. How marvelous it was to escape the burden of one's sins, even childish ones. Now that we know, as adults, what sin really is, the idea becomes even more precious. Why did you Protestants abandon it?”
“Because we believe God forgives the repentant sinner directly, without the agency of men.”
Flora Kuyper shook her head. “Men and women need the words, the feeling of forgiveness, the
experience,
Mr. Chandler. Don't you feel better for having confessed—I don't believe there's a better word for it—your feelings about the ministry, even though I have no power to forgive you?”
An extraordinary surge of feeling swept Caleb. He wanted to say something extravagant, absurd.
Madam, you have more power than you realize.
A smiling Flora Kuyper pushed her chair from the table, apparently unaware of the violent emotion she was arousing. “We're growing too solemn. Let's have some music. Do you play an instrument, Mr. Chandler?”
“No,” he said as they walked to the parlor. “But I've been to singing school every year of my life since the age of four. I went to Boston one summer and studied under the great Billings.”
“I don't know him,” Flora said.
“You should. He's our first American musician. The next time I visit—if you will permit me such a pleasure, madam—I'll bring my copy of the New England Psalm Singer. It's not all psalms, let me assure you.”
“Sing one of Billings's songs for me. I'm sure I can pick it up on the harpsichord.”
“No, it would be too awkward. I prefer them done rightly or not at all. Let's enjoy your favorites, which I am sure will please me infinitely.”
“You flatter me. Here's one I set to music myself, from an
old
chanson
by Charles d'Orléans, a contemporary of Villon. Do you know him?”
Caleb shook his head. She began to play a delicate, haunting melody, to which she added a soft, subtle contralto. The French words rhymed beautifully. Caleb was only able to translate them into prose.
I think nothing of those kisses
Given by convention
As a matter of politeness.
Far too many people share them.
 
Do you know the ones I value?
Secret ones, bestowed in pleasure.
All the rest are nothing
But a way of greeting strangers.
I think nothing of those kisses.
Standing behind her at the harpsichord, Caleb breathed Flora Kuyper's perfume. Her dark, gleaming hair, her graceful neck, were only inches from his fingers. A kind of delirium consumed his mind. He did not know how long he stood there listening to her sing other songs. In the end he begged her to play “Secret Kisses” again. He joined her, hoping his vigorous baritone would compensate for his deplorable pronunciation.
“Now I must hear one of your New England songs,” Flora said. “With such a voice, you don't need an accompanist.”
“I'll sing you my favorite, ‘Chester,'” Caleb said. “It's far superior to ‘Yankee Doodle' in my opinion.”
She sounded the key of G for him and Caleb began. He always felt confident, at ease, when he sang. William Billings himself had praised his voice.
Let tyrants shake their iron rod
And Slav'ry clank her galling chains.
We fear them not, we trust in God.
New England's God forever reigns.
On he sang, through the rolling, sonorous notes, the unflinching words, with their vivid testament of New England's fierce spirit of resistance, to the thunderous climax.
When God inspired us for the fight
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forced,
Their ships were shattered in our sight
Or swiftly driven from our coast.
 
What grateful offering shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud hallelujahs let us sing
And praise His name on every chord.
Flora Kuyper sat at the harpsichord, gazing up at him, her eyes wide with amazement. Or was it dismay? Caleb could not tell.
“When it's sung by a full choir, it's very grand,” he said.
“It's enough to hear you sing it, Mr. Chandler,” Flora Kuyper said. “For the first time I begin to understand this war.”
He was not sure what she meant. But the compliment pleased him.
“Is seven o'clock too early for the funeral service tomorrow?”
“I'm at your disposal, madam.”
“Let us set it for that hour so you may get safely back to Morristown in time for your dinner. I'll tell Cato. He wants to invite some of Caesar's friends from nearby farms. Now let me show you to your room.”
She led him up the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor and into a bedroom with a banked fire glowing in the grate. The wallpaper was a soft rose, full of classical shepherds and
shepherdesses. The furniture was in the heavy Dutch style of the early part of the century.
“Here's your candle,” she said, thrusting it at him without warning. His hand missed the lip of the pewter holder and it went clattering to the floor. “Forgive me,” she said. “This was Mr. Kuyper's room. I never come in here without doing something clumsy.”
He lit the candle on the coals and inserted it in the holder again. “No damage done,” he said.
“Sleep well, Mr. Chandler.”
Caleb found himself incapable of fulfilling this polite wish. He lay in the big tester bed for at least an hour thinking about Flora Kuyper—her grace, her composure—and that puzzling sadness lurking beneath the surface of her manner. He had never met a woman like her—a woman who had read François Villon, who spoke and sang flawless French, and wore fashionable clothes with such ease. He compared her to Deborah Hawley, the Lebanon girl he had been halfheartedly courting. Deborah of the lush figure and blooming country cheeks was moderately attractive at a distance. But she walked with a loping gait and her laugh was like the bellow of a calf. She thought novels and plays and most poetry, except the psalms, were sinful. Her dresses were all inherited from her mother and her aunts, and the vanity of lace on her friend Polly's cuff or the price her friend Susan paid for a muff could dominate her conversation for an entire afternoon.

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