When the Splendor Falls (39 page)

As he watched, she pulled free the sash that held one of the heavy velvet hangings to the side, allowing the curtain to fall over half of the window. He could barely see her now as she moved to the other side, closer to where the captain stood.

For a brief moment, she stood at the window, gazing out at the rain, her slender back to the room, and believing her expression hidden from prying eyes, she allowed her true feelings to show.

Lieutenant Chatham looked away, unable to intrude upon this young woman any longer, the naked pain and anguish revealed in her dark eyes in that moment too heartbreaking for him to bear.

Then she was gone, the velvet hangings closing out the night and the two men who stood outside the window.

He glanced over at the captain, but he was already moving away. Lieutenant Chatham hurried after him. He glanced back only once at the house as they left, following a path alongside the stables. A streak of lightning flashed across the sky, and for the first time he noticed the weather vane atop the small cupola; it was a running horse, spinning wildly as the wind buffeted it.

Thirteen

There is a Reaper whose name is Death,

And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The young woman remained for a moment longer before the window, staring out at the darkness and watching the rain blowing against the windowpanes in splattering gusts. She shivered and let the green velvet hangings fall together, closing out the inhospitable night. Straightening her shoulders, she turned back to the enveloping warmth of the room behind her. Stephen had lifted the glass chimney to the oil lamp and was lighting the wick, the flame flickering momentarily, then glowing bright as it caught and began to feed greedily on the small amount of kerosene that remained in the base.

Shaking his head of snowy white hair, he sighed, muttering beneath his breath as he set the lamp on the table.

“Now you hush yer grumblin’,” Jolie told him, placing a stack of china dishes in front of one of the place settings. “Miss Leigh an’ I made up a whole batch of beeswax candles the other day. I like the sweet smell of them better anyway. Reminds me of summertime. Knew she’d find that hive an’ steal some sweet honey an’ a honeycomb from those bees. Creepin’ Fox would have been that proud, he would. An’ we still have some bayberry candles too, so we’re goin’ to do fine. Nothin’s goin’ to happen to us. I’ve this feelin’, Steban,” she confided, affectionately using the nickname only she was permitted to call him. “You heard the thunder this afternoon. Been feelin’ like my skin’s been crawlin’ all day. Somethin’ cracklin’ in the air, I can feel it.”

“Your big toe’s been botherin’ you again, that’s all, an’ I’m hopin’ the only thing cracklin’ ’round here is bread for supper, ’cause the last time I heard cracklin’ in the air, the outhouse got struck by lightnin’,” Stephen said, still unconvinced after all these years. “An’ you probably picked up some lice in the ballroom, where those soldiers were. Told you we didn’t get it scrubbed clean enough. Didn’t have enough lye. Mister Stuart, now, he wouldn’t have stabled even a mangy field mule in there, so poorly did it look after those Yankees up an’ left,” he told her, his voice beginning to tremble, his hand shaking slightly as he pulled down the frayed cuff of his green jacket as he tidied himself, as if expecting Stuart Travers’s short, bandy-legged figure to appear at the door to the reception room any second, a tall julep in one hand, a fine cigar in the other, and a score of his gentlemen friends a step behind.

Jolie patted the back of his hand comfortingly as they exchanged glances, no words necessary between them as they both remembered.

“Horses! Horses! Hubby rides fast! Hubby horse rides fastest! Just like my papa!”

“Ummm, ummm, that does smell good, doesn’t it, honey boy?” Jolie said, picking up the little boy and settling him on her hip. The tantalizing aroma from the tureen had drawn him from his hobby horse and the mock battle he’d been fighting, and winning. His dismount had not quite been up to cavalry standards, but he’d picked himself up with admirable speed, not a tear shed over his scraped knee as he’d hurried to Jolie’s side.

“Pretty Jolie. Hungry. Eat now! Mama. Mama, eat now. Mama eat too,” the little boy said, his brown eyes round with expectation as he watched Leigh dishing out the steaming yams onto each plate.

Jolie chuckled, smoothing his dark brown curls as she popped a pinch of corn bread into his mouth. “That oughta keep you quiet for a second or two. Squealing like that, you’re goin’ to wake the dead, honey boy,” she said, glancing over worriedly at the woman who had fallen into fitful slumber on the sofa.

“Sick. Hush, honey boy. Honey boy, hush,” he said understandingly, his mouth full of crumbling corn bread.

“That’s right, she’s been real sick,” Jolie said. “An’ you’ve been real good, like when I hush a puppy,” she said, laughing, then becoming serious as she looked again at the sleeping woman. “Got to get somethin’ hot inside her, somethin’ that’ll stick to her ribs an’ put meat on those skinny bones of hers. Don’t know how much longer she’s goin’ to last if we don’t,” Jolie said, ladling up a plate full of the stewed meat, the gravy thick and looking like it would stick like glue once inside a person’s stomach. She handed the dish to Leigh, who’d been cutting the corn bread into thick squares. Walking over to the sofa to sit on a low stool next to the sleeping woman, Leigh touched her lightly on the arm.

“Althea?” she said softly.

Althea Louise Braedon opened her eyes, trying to sit up. “Nathan?” she said, glancing around frantically, a look of hope briefly brightening the dullness in her brown eyes.

“No, no we haven’t had any word, Althea,” Leigh told her almost apologetically, still hating herself for having had to break the news to Althea just before Thanksgiving that Nathan had been reported missing in action.

“Nothing?” Althea said, shaking her head in despair. “I don’t understand. If only I were still in Richmond. I could find out something there. Has Aunt Maribel written? Surely she has heard something. Uncle Jay has so many important contacts in the army. They must have heard about Nathan’s whereabouts by now.”

“Don’t you remember, Althea, Aunt Maribel and Uncle Jay are in Europe? They left Richmond right after they brought you here. That’s why you came back to Travers Hill. With them leaving, there was no one for you to stay with in Richmond. You were deathly ill, remember? Aunt Maribel knew we could care for you here,” Leigh explained, as if talking to a child.

“I remember now. We had to leave. I was so sick,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment as if reliving the pain. “You haven’t heard anything from anyone else, then? Adam? Adam would know. Surely he has heard something?” she asked hopefully, opening her eyes. “Royal Bay? They must have heard something there. I should be over there, not here. No one would know to contact me here. I must go to Royal Bay.”

“There is no news, Althea,” Leigh told her sister for the thousandth time, but Althea never tired of asking, refusing to give up hope that Nathan was still alive.

Staring at her, Leigh thought her sister looked like a ghost with her shadowed eyes and pale hair flowing about her shoulders like a shroud. She could still remember her horror when Althea had arrived from Richmond. She had looked as if she were indeed dead, her skin a strange waxy color as she lay on a stretcher in the back of a wagon. Maribel Lu had accompanied her, along with J. Kirkfield. As an important member of the Confederate government in Richmond, now the capital of the Confederate States of America, he’d managed to find space for his niece and her family in the back of one of the supply wagons heading to the front. Maribel Lu and J. Kirkfield had stayed only long enough to catch the same wagon, now filled with wounded, on its return journey to Richmond. Leigh would never forget the comical incongruity of Aunt Maribel Lu sitting in the back of the wagon, wrapped in a voluminous gray cloak trimmed with yellow braid, her bonnet a stunning tribute to the Confederacy with the Stars and Bars emblazoned on the brim and the crown, and stuck with three small red, white, and blue feathers, and one large gray ostrich plume that waved defiantly as they disappeared from sight, her parasol decorated like a battle flag.
General
Maribel Lu, the soldiers had quipped, would see them safely back to Richmond, because no Yankee was fool enough to get in her way. Leigh hadn’t seen them since that day when she’d stood on the lane by the river and waved to them. Immediately upon their arrival back to Richmond, they’d left for Europe aboard a blockade runner. J. Kirkfield, with his banking and business acumen, had been sent by the Confederate government to solicit loans and valuable materiel for the war effort from various sympathetic European sources, as well as try to influence European policy toward the Confederate cause.

Until last summer, Althea had lived in Richmond with Aunt Maribel Lu and Uncle Jay, moving in with them when the city had become overcrowded as the war progressed; as politicians, men in uniform, government workers, and profiteers, and the multitude of hangers-on, seeking power in a struggling, divisive government, had poured into the city. But most of the crowding came of the continuous flow of refugees straggling along the roads, wagons piled high with what was left of their worldly possessions, as the runaway slaves and the homeless families flooded into the city to escape the battles raging across the countryside as the Union soldiers fought deeper into the heart of the Confederacy.

Althea’s own home, the one she had shared with Nathan in a happier time, had been taken over by the government for officers’ housing. As so many others had before her, Althea volunteered to work at one of the many hospitals, reading correspondence from home to convalescent soldiers, writing letters to loved ones for those who were illiterate, or too weak from their wounds to lift a pen. She’d even written to strangers, informing them of the death of a husband, a father, a brother, or a son. For two years she had worked untiringly, until she had caught typhoid and nearly died as the disease swept through a city already stricken with famine and death.

“Althea, you must eat something.”

“I can’t, Leigh. I couldn’t keep it down. I wish you didn’t have to wear black. It’s a hateful color,” Althea whispered, turning her face away from the somber reminder of what life seemed to hold for most of them, her strength leaving her as she fell back against the pillows.

“Yes, you can eat this, and you will,” Leigh said, ignoring her, her voice sounding harsh even in her own ears, but she would not stand idly by while her sister slipped away from her. “Have you forgotten? You have a son and a daughter to care for. Who do you think will be here to care for them, if you aren’t? I love them, but I’m not their mother. Have you forgotten I have another child to care for?” Leigh told her with brutal frankness, hoping to anger her into some kind of response. “And,” Leigh added, steeling herself to speak the words she had trouble believing, “how do you think Nathan would feel to return here and find that you have died because you didn’t have the courage to keep on living, to care for his children, to wait for him to come home?”

“
Miss Leigh!
” Jolie said, shocked by such talk. Opening her mouth, she found she could say nothing, and she closed it tightly. When Leigh had glanced over at her warningly, Jolie had thought of Beatrice Amelia, for there had been the look of her mama in her eye in that instant, and she kept her silence.

“Leigh,” Althea said, her eyes full of hurt bewilderment. “How could you say such horrible things to me?” she demanded, a blotch of angry red color appearing on each sunken cheek. “How dare you speak so disrespectfully to me?”

“I dare, because I don’t want you to die, Althea. I’ve seen too many people I love leave me, and I couldn’t do anything to help them. But I can help you. And if you don’t eat this, then I’m going to pour it down your throat, and if you die, then it will be because you choked to death on this leathery ol’ possum,” she warned, her eyes blazing with anger and frustration. “Oh, Althea, I don’t think I could go on if you leave me too,” she admitted, her momentary rage dying. Shamefaced, she looked at her sister. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just so tired. And not only is the roof leaking, but I think we’ve got rats in the attic,” she said trying to shrug off her worries with a halfhearted laugh.

Althea stared at her younger sister, truly seeing her for perhaps the first time in several years.

Leigh had grown up.

“No, I am the one who is sorry,” Althea said, taking Leigh’s thin hand in hers, and feeling the chafed and callused skin from the work she did every day without ever complaining. Leigh ran Travers Hill, now, just the way their mother always had, but Althea knew Leigh wouldn’t be able to keep going on forever. She had to get well and start helping her, she told herself. After all, as Leigh had said, what would Nathan think when he returned to find she had given up, had not done her duty by his family, by his son? Althea glanced over at her son, her eyes full of love as she noticed again the dark brown hair he’d inherited from his father. Nathan had been so proud of him. They’d named him for both of their fathers, Steward, after his, and Russell, after hers. And Noble Braedon had lived long enough to attend the baptism of his grandson. He’d died in peace, before Virginia had seceded from the Union, before war had been declared, and before…

“Yes, that does smell delicious,” Althea said, her voice holding some of the old pride and determination in it as she struggled to sit up. Pushing her limp hair away from her face, she grimaced. “Tomorrow I will wash it. I don’t want Nathan seeing me looking like death,” she said, trying to smile. “You’ve heard nothing?” she questioned again, watching Leigh’s face carefully for some sign that she was hiding something from her.

“No, nothing,” Leigh said truthfully.