Kary, Elizabeth (57 page)

"Through
letters that never come? Through letters you refuse to write? Leigh, don't you
realize that every moment two people have together is precious, especially now,
especially in this war? Don't let your pride get in the way of what you and
Hayes feel for each other. Write him, reassure him, let him know you love
him."

Leigh
recognized the truth in Delia's words and sighed helplessly. "It's already
too late. By the time a letter reaches St. Louis, Hayes will be gone."

"Then
send the letter to the Department of the Mississippi. They will forward it to
Hayes wherever he's been assigned. Surely he is as anxious to hear from you as
you are to hear from him."

Leigh
hesitated, remembering the pain and ecstasy in the last night she had spent
with her husband. "All right, Delia. I'll write him tomorrow."

"Good,"
Delia declared as she came to her feet, a self-satisfied smile on her lips.
"Now, won't you come along to bed?"

"I'll
be there in a little while," Leigh assured her, "and thank you for
your concern."

As
Delia turned away, Leigh blinked back the unexpected tears that rose in her
eyes. Delia's friendship meant so much to her. Still she didn't know why things
seemed to touch her so easily lately. Such ready emotion was out of character.

The
voice from the bed beside her startled Leigh, and she looked down at the man
she had been nursing. "Don't cry, pretty lady," he soothed her.
"If you were mine, I'd write a letter every day."

Leigh
did write Hayes twice in the next week, then waited patiently at mail call to
hear her name. A letter did come from her mother, assuring Leigh that while
life was hard in Louisiana, she was happy. Another arrived from a nurse at the
hospital in St. Louis full of news and gossip. There were two hastily scrawled
notes from Bran and one from her father. Nothing else came, not a word from her
husband.

But
life at Vicksburg was hectic, and it gave Leigh very little time to brood. The
siege continued through June in the baking summer heat, and the sun beat down
day after day like an unblinking golden eye. Shade was at a premium on the
barren, reddish hills, and even in the depths of the hospital tents, the sun's
power could be felt.

Outside
the city the Union troops dug in, pressing their breastworks ever closer to the
Confederate lines. Union engineers tunneled like moles in the hope of
undermining the Rebels' strongest defenses, but to little real advantage. It
was said that the people of Vicksburg were tunneling into the hillsides, too.
Only the residents were tunneling for protection from the unrelenting fire.
Rumors flew that the defenders were eating pea bread, mules and rats and had
given up bathing for fear of depleting their precious supply of water. Still
General Pemberton, the defender of Vicksburg, refused to surrender, and no one
knew how long he could hold out.

While
the sun scorched the earth and the guns boomed, scouts reported that General
Joe Johnston, the Confederate Commander of the Armies of the West, was
gathering troops at Jackson to attack the Union ranks from the rear. Sherman
and his men were dispatched to guard Grant's lines from the eastern side, but
as time passed nothing
happened, and the siege continued, day after blistering day.

Union
supply lines from the Yazoo River were wide open, and one night after a
particularly large shipment of sanitary stores and foodstuffs had arrived,
Mother Bickerdyke suggested making lemonade as a treat for the patients in the
hospitals. The idea was well received, and several women gathered in one of the
cook tents to prepare icy pitchers of the drink.

Leigh
was among those volunteers, but as she worked cutting the lemons to be
squeezed, a peculiar feeling assailed her. She had always liked the pungent,
tart smell of lemons, but tonight there was something about it that went
against her, making her feel tingly and light-headed. The tent where they were
working seemed suddenly too close, the lantern light too glaring. There was a
roaring in her ears, and her mouth went sour and wet as the queasiness she had
been experiencing became debilitating nausea. Scattering fruit as she ran,
Leigh rushed for the door; once outside in the thick night air, she fell to her
knees and was violently ill.

Mother
Bickerdyke found her sitting weakly on the grass a few minutes later, pale and
shaken by what had happened. Squatting down beside Leigh, the older woman took
her pulse and felt her forehead with a practiced hand. "You ain't got a
fever," she observed, watching Leigh carefully. "Are you
breeding?"

The
younger woman's head came up sharply at the question. "No, I..."

"Have
you been dizzy, tired, weepy? Have your monthly courses stopped?" she
persisted.

"I
know the signs," Leigh snapped in exasperation. "I'm a nurse, after
all."

Mother
Bickerdyke remained silent as Leigh drew a long breath and pushed the hair back
from her face.

"I
don't see how I could be pregnant," she said finally. "Hayes was
injured back in April, and the only time we— we..."

"Was
the night before you left," the older woman finished for her. "Well,
that would make things about right by my count."

"But
it's impossible," Leigh protested, without much conviction.

"Is
it?" Mother Bickerdyke asked quietly. "Leigh, I've seen you nurse in
the worst conditions, help with operations until you were asleep on your feet,
clean up the most unappetizing messes without ever being sick. I don't think
this is one of the fluxes, though God knows there are enough of them about. But
unless you're going to have a baby, there's not a reason in the world why a
bunch of lemons would do you in when all the rest never did."

Leigh
was silent for a full minute, trying to digest the older woman's words. She did
not want to be carrying a child, not now: not when there were so many questions
in her marriage unresolved, not when Hayes was so far away. Besides, she was
needed desperately here at the hospital, and she was totally committed to
helping the wounded.

"Well,
I won't go back to St. Louis!" she finally declared, realizing full well
what pregnancy might mean. "I swear I won't! I won't get on a steamer
going north even if I am going to have a child!"

It
was the confirmation she had expected, and Mother Bickerdyke eyed Leigh thoughtfully,
gauging the extent of her sincerity. Leigh Banister was a determined young
woman at the best of times, and it seemed likely that if she wanted to stay
with the nursing corps, that is exactly what she would do. Besides, the girl
loved this work; she was skilled, diligent, and had a natural gift for healing.
It also seemed to Mother Bickerdyke that there were things at home that Leigh
was not prepared to face.

"I've
never much held with the notion that a woman has to sit on a satin pillow the
whole time she's expecting," the older woman finally conceded. "But
if I agreed not to tell the doctors about your child, you'd have to promise to
take proper care of yourself while you're here. They'll send you home as soon
as you round out a little, anyway, but that should take us into fall. And who
knows where any of us will be by then?"

"Oh,
thank you, Mother Bickerdyke, for letting me stay," Leigh said in relief.
"You must know what nursing means to me."

"I
know what your nursing means to those men, and I
don't want you shortchanging
them. You take care of yourself, and I'll keep your secret. But if I hear that
you're not eating or sleeping or doing your job, you're going to be on a
riverboat so fast it'll make your head spin," the older woman murmured gruffly.
"Now, you go on to bed and sleep late tomorrow, until six at least. You
hear me, Leigh?"

"Yes,
ma'am."

"And,
Leigh, congratulations on the baby."

***

July 5, 1863

The
sweltering heat of midafternoon beat down on the dusty street as Leigh made her
way through what had obviously been a fashionable section of Vicksburg. The
remnants of grand houses stood on both sides of the road, curtained behind
wrought-iron fences and hemmed by strips of ruined lawn. Here, as well as
everywhere else in the town, the incessant shelling of the last forty-seven
days was evident. Where the shells had scored direct hits, buildings lay
collapsed in rubble, while some still stood sturdy and unscathed. A few homes
had been set ablaze by incoming fire, while walls on others had been sheared
away to expose the vulnerable core of domestic life in the ruined city.
Everywhere Leigh had gone, she had seen crumbling architecture, bare trees,
scarred earth, and gaping artillery craters.

She
had entered Vicksburg early that morning to pass out the stores General Grant
had ordered dispensed to the inhabitants. Though she had heard horrendous tales
of life in the beleaguered city, nothing had prepared her for the hollow-eyed
women and children who crowded around the wagons. Pale and gaunt from days on
end without sleep or proper food, they cringed with shame at being forced to
accept help from those who had defeated them. For all their days in the
trenches, the soldiers were in even worse condition, and when Leigh saw the
weary, haggard men, she marveled at their ability to hold off such an awesome
foe.

During
the surrender ceremony the day before, Leigh and some of the other nurses had
taken field glasses to the high ground behind Union Lines. From there they had
watched the long lines of Union soldiers draw up outside the fortifications
while General Pemberton and his men marched out of Vicksburg and stacked their
arms. That there had been no cheering from the victorious Northern troops was a
measure of the respect they felt for the city's defenders.

Vicksburg
represented a peculiar interlude in the war, when the ordeal all had endured
bound together friend and enemy alike. Instead of imprisonment, the nearly
thirty thousand man captured with the city had been offered parole. Though
Leigh knew Grant had agreed to those terms for practical reasons, she was glad
that mercy had triumphed, even if it was in the name of expediency.

As
she walked through the ruined town, Leigh tried to come to terms with the
confrontation she was about to initiate. Her motives in seeking out her
husband's former mistress were confusing and complex, but somehow Leigh knew
she must meet the woman who had nearly cost Hayes his life. Her husband had
risked everything for Monica Bennett and her child. Until Leigh's doubts had
been laid to rest, until she understood the reasons for Hayes's loyalties,
there would always be a dark specter threatening her marriage.

It
had not been difficult to find someone who knew the Bennetts, and the
directions to their home had been clear and concise. But when Leigh reached the
lot where the house should be, there was nothing left but six tall,
smoke-scarred Corinthian columns.

For
a few minutes Leigh stood at the fence staring at the remains of what must once
have been a beautiful Greek Revival mansion. Slowly she opened the gate and
moved up the path, strangely compelled to examine the destruction more closely.
The trees nearest the blaze had been singed by the heat, and the grass was
tamped down by the feet of those who had come to watch the fire. She made a
slow, silent circuit of the ruins, seeing the remnants of years of living lying
collapsed and charred in the basement. All around was the acrid, powdery smell
of ash, blackened wood, and death.

"Hey,
girl," a Negress called from the lot next door. "What you prowling
around there for?"

Leigh
turned and walked to where she waited. "I was looking for the woman who
lived in this house. I was looking for Monica Bennett."

The
black woman narrowed her eyes and studied Leigh. "You found her, I reckon,"
she finally said.

"Found
her? What do you mean?"

"She's
still there somewhere, somewhere in the ashes."

It
took Leigh a moment to comprehend the other woman's meaning, and a shiver of
revulsion moved along her spine. "She died in the fire? Is that what
you're saying?"

The
Negress nodded. "When the house collapsed, you could hear her
scream."

Leigh
shivered again, as she imagined that tormented cry echoing above the creak of
crumbling timbers. "Are you sure she's dead?" Leigh went on after a
moment. "And what about her son?"

The
woman knew she had a captivated listener, and slid her hands into her apron
pockets before she went on. "Yes, ma'am, I'm sure. When the house caught
fire from the rockets, Miss Monica took the boy into the yard. She left him
there with her old mammy and went back inside to get her jewels and things. But
the fire moved too fast, I guess. The place went up like tinder with no water
to fight the fire."

"And
Monica Bennett was trapped inside the house."

"Yes'um."
The black woman nodded in confirmation.

Leigh
stood stunned by what she had discovered. For whatever Monica Bennett had done
to Hayes and to her, it did not warrant such an end.

"What
happened to the boy, Mrs. Bennett's son?" she asked. "Where did he
go?"

"I
don't rightly know. He might be with friends now or in the orphan asylum. Old
Mammy might have taken him somewheres herself, though I don't rightly know
where that might be."