Rebels of Babylon (41 page)

“Do not arrest them, sir,” I said. “There is a better way to punish the guilty.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Transfer them to fighting regiments. Take them from the comforts of the rear and send them into the lines. Let them do their part to save the Union.”

He grumped a bit, but clever enough he was to see the sense of it. Making soldiers do their honest duty would do more good and make less noise than lining them up for courts-martial and having them talk.

“Well, then, if you will allow me, sir, I will go and call upon Mrs. Aubrey.” I glanced out through the part in the velvet drapes. Into a darkness faintly tempered by streetlamps. “Let us call it a ‘morning visit.’ In keeping up our manners.”

The general gave me a searching look, tired, exhausted and still far from content. “I swear to God, I don’t know what to make of you, Jones. You do everything upside down and backwards. But here we are. And I’ll say it again, damn it. You were right. And … I was wrong.” He looked at me like the friendliest of enemies. “I don’t suppose you’ve reconsidered that promotion?”

“It was not a proper promotion. It was a bribe.”

“The devil you—just what the hell does that mean? Oh, forget it. I’m not going to argue with a man about what’s good for him. I’m going back to sleep. If I can escape having nightmares about that slaveship business.”

He took himself off, trailing the belt of his robe and a whiff of pomade. The major had not yet returned to furnish me with the soldiers I had requested, so I wandered about the house in search of the orderly. I discovered him sound asleep by the stove in the kitchen. He did not like being disturbed, but I had no sympathy. His berth was not a hard one for a soldier.

I had him fuel the stove and heat that coffee.

GLASS SHATTERED AS THE SOLDIERS BROKE OPEN THE door. I had not troubled Mrs. Aubrey with a tug on her bell or a rap, but ordered the sergeant to smash the lock and enter.

The soldiers, who looked a wonderfully nasty lot, rushed into the house with their lanterns and muskets, careless of any objects in their path. I had given them two instructions, and two only. First, they were to search the house for any suspicious items. I did not explain what “suspicious” might include, but simply observed that damage might not be avoidable, a suggestion they greeted warmly.

I wanted them destructive, on a rampage.

Second, I warned them sternly that they must do no harm to the servants or their possessions.

At first, the soldiers could not believe their good fortune. But their sergeant, still possessed of half his teeth, grinned and said, “Go to it, boyos. Damnation to the Rebels!”

I do not think I can describe the uproar. The crack of smashing china sang soprano, while the thump of furniture overturned sang bass. Between those two extremes of pitch, the alto and tenor of destruction followed the rhythm of boots on carpet and wood.

Do not think me converted unto barbarism. Harsh my actions were that night, but there was method in them. I wanted to penetrate Mrs. Aubrey’s composure, which experience had
shown to be nearly impregnable. The concert of breakage was all part of my plan.

I followed behind the leading soldiers, reminding them not to annoy the servants, a few of whom were already up and shrieking.

“Come on, lads,” I bossed, speaking to the pair of privates whom I had selected for my special guard. I would not have trusted them with an orphan’s stockings. “Hurry along with you, come along.”

I do not believe that I have climbed a flight of stairs so swiftly since Bull Run. I vaulted over my cane, almost out-racing the cast of the lantern carried by one of the soldiers.

I could not know which door led to Mrs. Aubrey’s bedchamber. But she assisted me. Erect and stalwart, she stepped into the hall in her retiring costume, bearing a candle in a silver holder.

When she saw me, her glare rivaled Medusa’s.

“How
dare
you?” she demanded.

“She one of the servants?” a private asked me. Twas clear he did not fancy her tone of voice.

I ignored the lad and spoke to Mrs. Aubrey.

“Stand aside, if you please, mum. We are looking into a crime.”

At that, she smiled faintly, a cat recalling herself in front of a mouse.

“Would you invade a lady’s intimate quarters?” she asked in a voice she had forced under control. “Even
you,
sir, should—”

“I am not certain you are much of a lady,” I told her. “Step back from the door, or the soldiers will remove you.”

Even as I spoke, I had a blessed flash of inspiration. I am not always utterly dull of wit.

She stood across the door-frame, defiant as Miss Fritchie of Frederick, Maryland. Although the latter served a better cause.

Mrs. Aubrey met my expectations.

“I shall
not
move,” she said. “You must have the decency … the common decency to allow me time to dress.”

I pretended to hesitate. The soldiers beside and behind me seethed at my lack of resolution. Although she did not sound much of a Southron, to them she was the sum of all New Orleans. Where they had suffered mockery enough. I think they would have beaten her to the floor, had I allowed it.

I am no skilled dissembler, but I made what show I could of weighing my course. At last, I answered. Struggling to look stern and show no smile.

“Well, then,” I told her, “you shall have five minutes. But no more. Dress yourself, mum, get yourself up proper. For you and I have matters to discuss.”

Oh, she thought she had me then, the witch. Begging your pardon.

Before she could shut herself back inside her bedchamber, a colored lass fought her way up the stairs and called, “Miz Aubrey, the Yankees is into the silver cab’nit and stuffin’ spoons an’ forks down their beehinds.”

With a look of wondrous insolence, her mistress told her, “See that each one gets his thirty pieces.”

Mrs. Aubrey slammed the door behind herself, leaving the servant girl to puzzle her meaning.

Wise enough the lass was to recognize an officer. She addressed her disquiet to me.

“All this ’mancipation don’t do
me
no good. I gots to clean this up, what y’all be doing.”

She trudged back down the stairs, shaking her head. The servant in every land is freedom’s surveyor, taking its indisputable measurement.

The soldiers grumbled. One even asked, “You going to let that old crow just get all ignorant with us, Major? While we stand waiting on her like she’s some damn queen?”

“Now, now, lads,” I told them, restraining my impulse to smile. “I do not think you will be disappointed. Look you. I will stand the guard upon her door. Leave me the lantern. You may search the other bedrooms. But come when I call you.”

They did not ask for further clarification, but took themselves into the neighboring rooms. You might have thought that loot would be their foremost goal, but the sounds that issued from the interiors told of pure destruction. The soldiers had enjoyed their fill of Southron haughtiness and meant to avenge each slight that had been paid them.

I never would have condoned such behavior, had I not hoped to unsettle Mrs. Aubrey. I trust you understand that. I am a friend to discipline, among soldiers and within families. Anyway, nothing that transpired that night was half so shameful as our doings in India.

Mrs. Aubrey did not consume her five allotted minutes, but emerged in hardly four, if my watch was honest. Glad I was that the cab man had not accepted it in pawn. Her haste only confirmed my inspiration.

Dressed she was, but not with her usual care. She had wiggled herself into a gown so thick and full it might have done for a ball.

“Now, sir,” she said, as if she were a queen, indeed, speaking to a stinking, itching commoner, “you have the liberty of my bedroom. I trust your every interest will be satisfied.”

“Thank you, mum. I’ll have my look in a moment.”

I called out to the lads. In my old sergeant’s voice, not in the gender tone befitting a major.

They come out into the hall with their pockets bulging. Two more come up the stairs when they heard me bark.

“Undress her,” I told them.

Doubtless, they would have responded with more alacrity had she been young and fair. Or perhaps they possessed their own notions of propriety. None of them moved.

Mrs. Aubrey raised a hand to slap me.

The sergeant, who had come up to have a look-see, caught her wrist.

Mrs. Aubrey’s burning eyes showed less love than a cobra’s. She spit and said a thing so foul it shocked.

That was an error. Her language broke her spell over the soldiers. Two grabbed her arms and one gave her gown a rip.

They hesitated again.

“You don’t … you mean
all
the way down, sir?” the sergeant asked.

“I will tell you when to stop.”

Wise enough she was not to resist. She stood so stoutly you might have thought her one of the Oxford Martyrs.

Staring at me with a fury that would have killed and called the killing good, she did not say another word as the soldiers ripped away her velvet and lace.

As her skirts come off, a picture frame fell to the carpet. Glass tinkled and spread. Twas only a small frame, the sort we place on a table near our beds, but large enough it was to make her scream.

She found the strength to tear free of the soldiers. Shrieking,
“No!”
She hurled herself to the floor, protecting the image.

“Get her up,” I said coldly.

She fought. Scratching and snapping at the lads with the teeth that still remained to her. It was no sensible strategy with ruffians. She only worsened their tempers.

How she screamed.
“No!”
Over and over again.

She bit a soldier and he slapped her face. Hard. Still she would not give the picture up.

“Stand away,” I ordered. “Stand off her now. Let her go.”

They were unhappy and relieved at once. As the lads took their hands away, Mrs. Aubrey cowered on her knees, weeping like a lass who has lost her sweetheart to the rival she hates most.

Against a lull in the tumult and breakage, I told her, “I know the portrait is of Mr. Champlain. Give it to me now. I will not keep it.”

She wept as bitterly as Mary Magdalene upon the day they nailed Christ to the cross. Had I known any less of her cruelty, I would have pitied her much.

“Give me the portrait now,” I repeated. “Or I will have the lads take it from you and your treasure may suffer a damage. Give it to me. You shall have it back before I leave.”

She hesitated as if asked to give up the life of her first-born. Although that was not her relation to Mr. Champlain.

I did not say another word, but let her take her time. All but one of the soldiers soon lost interest. They took themselves off in search of more advantage.

The old woman’s face—for she was reduced to nothing but an aged, broken creature—humbled itself inches from my boots. As if the weight of her tears pulled her brow to the carpet. Her hands were bleeding from the broken glass, yet she clutched the portrait as if it were alive. As if it were her only source of comfort.

“A man like you could never understand,” she said.

I ALLOWED MRS. AUBREY to dress anew and recollect her composure. Meanwhile, I studied the little oil portrait of the youthful Mr. Champlain, picking away what bits of glass I could. A shame it was that the photographic image, that wonder of our age, had not been extant in the days of his youth. The painting showed a rather dashing fellow, robust and not yet corpulent.

The artist’s brush must have been very fine. Despite the medium’s crudity, you saw a lad intelligent and reckless, with a strong, determined forehead shadowing lips that would have suited a woman of temperament. His hair was long, in the style of my parents’ day, a fashion lost but for illustrated books. It would not suit our close-hewn, modern age.

Now, you will think me addled by my newfound taste for novels, but as I studied the portrait I imagined that it captured a golden moment, a life’s premature meridian, when the young man fixed in brushstrokes must have felt that all before him would be triumph. Although his sun was tipping into decline.