When the Splendor Falls (38 page)

He followed his captain’s gaze, watching curiously as the rebel troops began feverishly assembling a pontoon bridge across the river, the long column coming to a temporary halt as they waited to cross, determined to put the river between themselves and the federal troops before nightfall.

The black notebook came out, and the captain quickly made his entry.

Resting on his haunches for a moment, as if he had all of the time in the world, and not a single care to worry him, the lieutenant thought almost resentfully as he muffled a sneeze, the captain remained where he was. Then suddenly he moved, signaling the lieutenant to follow.

They began to climb a hill, no more than a gentle knoll, meandering their way to the top, stopping now and again to listen. But no sound grew closer or louder, following their footsteps. In the distance, the sound of the rebel army could still be heard, but becoming fainter now.

Unquestioning, Lieutenant Chatham continued to follow where his captain led. He nearly cannoned into his captain again, when the man halted abruptly. Staying just within the last grouping of trees, he stood staring at a house and outbuildings in the distance. Even in the fading twilight, with a downpour of silvery rain falling between, Lieutenant Chatham could see that the building had once been a fine, graceful home of mellowed brick. And despite its rather decrepit appearance—several of the green shutters were missing from the row of windows that flanked the covered veranda in front, and the garden was overgrown with weeds that infringed upon the lane—it still bore evidence of a more gracious era as it sat proudly atop the knoll. The house was like a beautiful woman grown old, or a rose faded with time; nothing could steal the inner beauty from the woman, or the sweet perfume from the withered petals. Beauty like that could not fade, he thought sadly, even if sometimes it lingered on only in memory.

The lieutenant leaned against a peeling, whitewashed post that still stood upright. What was left of the split-railed fence bordering an open stretch of pasture had fallen into disrepair, and he found himself wondering about the family that used to live in this house. Once, it had been a gentleman’s estate. It appeared abandoned now, as if the family had gone, or, perhaps, was no more, its sons gone off to war, its daughters married or widowed and far from the fighting. One of the wings looked as if it had been blown away by an errant shell, and several of the outbuildings had burned to the ground. But one long, low building, recognizable as the stables, remained. As he stood staring, lost in his thoughts, a light suddenly appeared from one of the windows of the main house, its warm glow spreading beyond the casement and out into the descending darkness.

John Chatham swallowed a tightness forming in his throat as the light seemed to reach out to him, touching a tenderness deep within him. The house wasn’t abandoned, someone still lived there after all, he thought almost joyfully. He blinked, for the captain had disappeared. Panic rising, his heart pounding, the lieutenant glanced around, sighing in relief when he saw a shadowy figure and recognized it as the captain’s. But his momentary relief vanished when he realized the captain was moving steadily closer to the house, as if drawn by the light too.

Taking a deep breath, the lieutenant followed, part of him wishing to curl up in the underbrush and hide, and another part of him wanting to have a glance inside that house. Of course, it could be occupied by rebs, the frightening thought came, and looking around nervously as he crossed the open meadow, he prayed a sharpshooter’s rifle wasn’t trained on his hurrying form. Cold rain hit him full in the face and cooled some of his fears as he neared where the captain stood waiting, having safely traversed the same field only moments before.

The lieutenant’s nostrils twitched slightly as the pungent odor of wood smoke from cedar logs drifted down with the rain and floated around him as he skulked around the house. With night coming on, they must have just lit the fire, he thought wistfully, not having seen smoke rising from any of the chimneys when approaching the house. He bit his lip, forcing himself not to cry out when his trouser leg caught and held on a thorn that cut deep into his flesh. Freeing himself, he stared in amazement at the rosebush he had gotten tangled up in. Forgotten from summer. A pity the lady of the house hadn’t pruned it this year, and he wondered if it would survive the cold winter months. He remembered how his mother had always seen to her roses herself, not allowing the gardener to touch them. They were her special pride and brought her such joy when she picked a fragrant bouquet from her garden.

Lieutenant Chatham moved very quietly to stand beside his captain, who had come to a halt beside one of the windows along the far side of the house. He glanced at the captain for a moment, as if to ask permission, but the captain’s attention was centered on the scene revealed to him on the other side of the windowpanes. As he stood concealed just within the shadows, the captain’s hawkish profile was outlined against the pale light filtering through the window, his hard face looking as if it had been cast in bronze, and giving it the appearance of a stranger’s. The lieutenant shivered with uneasiness, puzzled anew by this man who led them in and out of danger so easily.

But the lieutenant couldn’t resist the temptation to look inside, and moved closer, almost holding his breath as he angled his head so he could take a quick peek. John Chatham felt his throat muscles constricting painfully, and he was glad now it was raining. The salty warmth of his own tears was quickly washed away, leaving no trace of the sudden rush of emotion he hadn’t been able to control as he’d stared at the family gathered together within the sanctity of their home.

He felt ashamed of himself for spying on them; but he couldn’t seem to look away and he continued to stare through the window, his gaze hungrily memorizing every detail of the room, and its occupants.

He’d thought at first the room was a parlor, but on closer inspection he could see that it was too small. It was more of a gentleman’s reception room or a study. And the lieutenant was certain that the dark wood of the paneled walls was far too masculine in appearance to suit the refined tastes of the lady of this house. Her parlor would be papered in a delicate floral print. And the Oriental carpet was too large for the room, as if it really didn’t belong, but it made the room seem snug and cozy against the cold. A couple of comfortable looking high-backed chairs were positioned near the fireplace, where a cheerful blaze was adding its warmth to the chamber. Strange, the lieutenant found himself noticing, that the chairs didn’t match; one was more delicate of style and upholstered in a rose damask, while the other was a deeper-winged chair of dark green velvet, and another chair across the room, a gilt-framed chair with a delicate silk tapestry cushion, looked as if it should have been in a ballroom. It was as if the furnishings of this room had been collected together from different rooms of the house. And the pale blue striped cushions of the sofa looked well worn, threadbare, even. The lieutenant frowned. Odd, there were hardly any paintings on the walls, or vases or china bric-a-brac one might have expected to see in a home such as this. Looking more closely, however, the lieutenant could see the faint outlines on the walls where paintings must have hung once. They would have been family portraits, or hunting prints, he guessed, trying to envision the study as it once had been furnished.

His gaze settled on the man who was sitting in the green velvet chair before the fireplace. The lieutenant couldn’t see his face, because of the angle and high back of the chair, but he could see the man’s gray trouser leg and the highly polished black leather of one of his riding boots, and the yellow cuff on the gray sleeve of his jacket. He was a cavalry officer in the Confederate army.

On the rug in front of the brass fender, a dark-haired little girl sat cross-legged, her small fingers moving steadily as she worked her embroidery. Every so often, she reached out and pressed down gently on one of the wide rockers of a cradle set close to the warmth of the fire. A boy, who couldn’t have been older than three or four years of age, his hair dark and curly above his laughing face, was riding a wooden rocking horse back and forth in the corner, his short arm waving an imaginary sword in the air. Lying on the sofa, a floral-patterned quilt arranged across her legs, a frail-looking woman was propped up against several pillows. She was exceptionally lovely, in an ethereal way, and he suspected that she’d recently suffered an illness, or a great loss. There was a haunted look on her face that still showed the signs of suffering in the dark circles beneath her eyes and the tightness of her lips, as if she struggled to keep from crying. Her thin hands trembled as she smoothed a blond strand of her long unbound hair away from her face. She pressed her fingertips against her temple, perhaps easing some pain as she closed her eyes.

The door opened as the fascinated lieutenant continued to watch, admitting a black man dressed in green livery, apparently a butler or majordomo, his steps slow as he moved across the room to say something to the man in the wingback chair before the fireplace. Shaking his head, as if displeased with the answer he had received, he turned, glancing over at the disinterested woman on the sofa for a moment before he left the room, shaking his head again.

Hardly a minute passed before the door opened again, this time to admit two women. One was a tall, thin black woman. The lieutenant’s eyes widened slightly, for he’d never seen a mulattress before. This woman’s skin was coppery in tint and with her strange eyes and high cheekbones she made him think of some of the paintings of wild Indians he had seen in books published by artists who had traveled across the Great Plains. But rather than wearing fringed buckskin, she was wearing a neat woolen gown, a crisp white apron tied about her narrow waist, and rather than carrying a feathered spear, she was holding a tray loaded down with crockery, which she began to set out on the scarred top of a sofa table in the center of the room, her hands moving efficiently as she set the table for supper.

The woman who had accompanied the mulattress was slender, almost to the point of being too thin, the thick chestnut hair netted in a chignon at her nape seeming far too heavy for the slender column of her neck. Although dressed in the somber black of mourning, her beauty seemed enhanced rather than diminished, for there was a purity of bone structure revealed in the contours of her cheeks and the line of her jaw that bright colors and fancy trimmings would have detracted from. But what drew his eye the most was the graceful way she walked, the few petticoats she wore allowing her to move freely, naturally, her feet hardly seeming to touch the ground as she went to the cradle and lifted into her arms the small bundle wrapped in a soft woolen blanket. As he watched, the young woman pressed a loving kiss against the baby’s pink-cheeked face, then rested her own pale cheek against the fine dark hair that covered the little head, her finger caught by the tiny fist that reached out to claim her as she cuddled it against her breast.

The young woman smiled down at the baby as she carefully placed it back in the cradle, and although he couldn’t hear her soft laughter, he knew it would be warm and loving. Silently, he sighed, wishing he knew this family, but, most especially, this beautiful young woman. Something stirred deep down inside of him, and he wondered if he’d live to sire a son or daughter, or have a wife like this woman bending down to kiss his brow as she did the soldier in gray, his hand reaching out to clasp hers for a brief moment of sharing. There was something about this woman that drew him the same way the fire flickering in the hearth did, and he suddenly felt an almost painful sadness engulfing him and he wanted to turn away.

Lieutenant Chatham glanced over at the captain, thinking he’d heard him say something, but he must have been mistaken, for the captain hadn’t moved a muscle and stood as if turned to stone.

Of course, he couldn’t blame the captain if he had damned Lee, for that was what it had sounded like he had said. They wouldn’t be standing in the cold rain outside of someone else’s home like strangers if the South hadn’t seceded from the Union. In another, far saner time, they would have been shot as trespassers, the lieutenant thought glumly, glancing around just in case someone else had been of a similar opinion about their status. Or in another time, they might have been invited in, offered hospitality by this family.

Glancing back, Lieutenant Chatham saw the young woman kneel down when the girl, who must have been about ten years of age, proudly held up her embroidery. The young woman examined it carefully, then said something to her, which must have been words of high praise, because the little girl’s solemn expression suddenly turned to one of pleasure as she smiled shyly. Pulling on one of the girl’s dark curls playfully, the young woman stood, stretching her shoulders slightly, as if they ached, then she was hurrying across the room to scoop up the little boy who’d ridden too hard and been thrown from his wooden mount, his cries of pain and hurt pride sounding loud even in the lieutenant’s ears. But the young woman had a deft touch with the youngster, and soon she had his tears dried and his sturdy little legs back in the stirrups as he proudly sat his hobby horse again like the finest, bravest officer of the cavalry. And he even managed to wheedle a kiss from his lady—proving even at this young age the lad possessed officer caliber.

The young woman made her way to the sofa, where the other woman had dozed off, even the sound of the boy’s bawling not having awakened her, and pulling the quilt up closer over her shoulders, she pressed the back of her hand against the woman’s brow. The lieutenant frowned, hoping the convalescent woman wasn’t feverish.

He caught his breath as the young woman in black walked toward the window, and he steeled himself not to move, to remain in the dark where he knew she wouldn’t be able to see him even should she have glanced out into the darkness. She was so close. He could even see the color of her eyes. And they were beautiful eyes. The color a dark blue that seemed to reflect the warmth of the firelit room inside.