When the Splendor Falls (53 page)

“Aunt Leigh is teaching me to speak French,” she confided. “
Je voudrais des haricots verts
,” she requested, giggling.

“Green beans?” Adam said, reaching into his coat pocket. “I’m sorry but all I’ve got is this,” he said, holding up a length of red velvet ribbon. “Do you suppose it will do instead?” he asked, worried. “I do believe it will look far more attractive tied around your head than a green bean.”

“Oh, Uncle Adam! For me? Truly?” Noelle asked, almost breathless.

“Yes, for you, my Christmas rose,” he said, letting it drop into her outstretched hands.

“Oh, thank you,” she squealed, her brown eyes glowing as bright as her red velvet ribbon.

“You’re spoiling her,” Leigh said good-naturedly as Adam was soundly kissed again.

“I learned early how to please the ladies. This is the surest way I know to receive kisses. And admit it, you’re only jealous because I didn’t bring a bonny blue ribbon for your hair,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “However, I do have plenty of treats in the basket, and maybe even a blue ribbon. Felt like a scoundrel, or a sutler, coming through the lines with my booty. Took my life in my hands, but I wasn’t going to give my little cache here up to anyone, even General Lee himself, since I’d already sold my pride and was down to my last gold tooth to get most of these things.”

“What’s a sutler, Uncle Adam?” Noelle demanded, eyeing the basket suspiciously. “Is it some kind of an animal?”

“Something like that,” Adam agreed. “Some remind me of rats, come to think of it. They’re the lowest creatures, the duty they perform, the dirtiest. They’re scavengers, and they travel behind an army like a pack of vultures. They stockpile what every soldier needs; boots, gloves, tobacco, even food and tents, and then they charge the poor fellows five to ten times too much for the goods, knowing they have to pay or they go without. Ought to shoot them, but they have government approval to set up their tents right at Headquarters. So sure of themselves, the rascals cheat even the generals,” Adam said in disgust.

“Can I peek inside, Uncle Adam?” Noelle asked.

“
May
I?” Leigh corrected.

“You too, then,” Adam said, winking at Leigh as he lifted the lid and held out his arm dramatically. “I bring you oranges and lemons, pickles and nuts, sugar and flour, fancy English soap and chocolates, and for more practical uses, woolens. If not the most fashionable, at least guaranteed to keep you snug on cold winter nights,” he proclaimed.

“Oh, I must tell Mama and show her my ribbon!” Noelle cried, dashing back into the study.

“How is Althea?” Adam asked, closing the lid on their treasure chest.

Leigh smiled, tucking her hand in Adam’s as they walked more sedately than their niece into the study. “Better, Adam. She is still weak, and it will take some time for her to recover completely her strength, but in the last couple of days she seems like a different person, as if she has found something to live for. She reminds me of the way she used to be, before the war.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in some time, and—excuse me,” he interrupted himself, hurrying back to the chest to withdraw several folded newspapers and a couple of books. “Promised Guy I’d bring him the latest news, such as it is,” he said with a grimace.

“We heard about the attack on Richmond,” Leigh said.

“Oh? News travels fast, I must say. Heard anything else?” he asked eyeing her closely.

Leigh hesitated, knowing she should tell Adam about Neil. He had a right to know, they were cousins, and yet it would be difficult to admit to him that she had helped him and his men. Even if they were cousins, he might not understand her having helped Yankees, especially the notorious Captain Dagger and the Bloodriders. And she wondered if he even realized that Neil Braedon and Captain Dagger were one and the same. Nor did she wish to have Adam prying too closely into what had happened during that encounter. He had a way of ferreting out information.

“A troop of rebels came through yesterday looking for—” Leigh began, pausing for a moment, then decided to tell him of his cousin.

“—for Kilpatrick and Dahlgren, the Yankees who tried to raid Richmond. They won’t catch Dahlgren,” Adam concluded, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “He was killed near Queen and King Court House. Caught him in an ambush,” he said, stopping and pulling Leigh around to face him. “They found papers on his body, Leigh. He intended to murder Jeff Davis and his cabinet, then burn Richmond,” Adam told her.

Leigh’s face paled. How many innocent civilian lives would have been lost in the panic that would have swept over Richmond with the flames? And what a severe blow to the Confederacy that act, and the cold-blooded murder of its president, would have been.

“I’ve been afraid of just something like this happening. This time they failed, but what of the next time? Both sides are becoming desperate to win this war, and, Leigh, I don’t think it’s going to be the Confederacy,” Adam admitted, and it wasn’t just his pessimistic belief as he remembered a recent editorial in the Richmond
Examiner
. “Leigh, listen to me, please,” Adam said, his hand tightening around her arm, which he could already feel tensing with resistance to what he had to say, and his voice became almost pleading. “We’ve spoken of this before. Travers Hill sits in the heart of the war, right in the center of a path of destruction the Union is going to march down. Look what you’ve lost already. And you saw what happened to Royal Bay? Ashes! Ashes, Leigh, that is all that is left. My God, Leigh, just over a month ago our own army took all of the food you had left at Travers Hill to feed the troops, leaving you to starve. What happens when another army, the enemy this time, comes marching down the Shenandoah? What they can’t take, in food for themselves and fodder for their horses, what livestock they don’t need, they will destroy. They will burn everything, Leigh, the barns, the mills, the fields, because they can’t let us retake the Valley. The Shenandoah means food for our troops, for our people. It means survival. It is what will keep the Confederacy going. They won’t let us. But I think what frightens me even more is afterwards, after the war is over. If we lose, we will be the defeated. The Yankees will be
our
masters. Life for us will not be easy. Do you understand, Leigh?”

“I’m not leaving Travers Hill, Adam,” Leigh told him, meeting his earnest gaze with a determined one of her own. “Besides,” Leigh said bitterly, “where would we go? This is our home, and I intend to stay here. I’m not going to become a refugee on the road, with no place to call our own. At least here we have a roof over our heads, and we, like our army, can forage something from the land. When summer comes, the woods will be thick with blackberries, and the streams with trout, and—”

“Damn you, Leigh. I’ve never known such a hardheaded, stubborn—”

“Talking about my little sister, Adam?” an amused voice asked from just within the study.

“Guy!” Adam said, holding out his hand, then remembering his friend was blind, he let it drop until Guy held up his, then he took it firmly. “Yes, and maybe you can talk some sense into her, Guy,” Adam said, and suddenly coming to a decision, he added, “and I think it about time you know exactly what your situation is here at Travers Hill.”

“Adam!” Leigh said, glancing at him warningly.

“I suspect I already do,” Guy said. “I have come to place great value on my hearing, which has become rather acute of late, and I could not but help overhear your rather heated argument.”

“Then you heard what I told him,” she said, placing her hand on Guy’s arm as they stood together against Adam.

Adam shook his head, believing they would stand against him with their damned Travers pride riding high.

“Yes, I did, and, unfortunately, I have to agree with you.”

“Unfortunately?” Leigh repeated, giving him a puzzled look, and thinking not for the first time that Guy had changed. It wasn’t the black patch across his eye that made him seem different which, as he himself had jested, actually made him look rather daring and piratical, it was his seriousness, a thoughtfulness and deliberateness of manner that he’d never possessed before.

“Yes, Leigh, because I happen to agree with Adam.”

“Guy!” Leigh said, her tone accusing, her glance between the two suspicious, as if they conspired against her.

“We can’t go on living here much longer, Leigh,” he said, grasping her hand and holding it in his. “God, you’re nothing more than skin and bones. I could break your wrist in two so easily. Althea is ill. You’ve three young children to care for. Stephen and Jolie are working themselves to the bone and can only do so much to help you. And you’ve got a blind man and his two hounds to help you if you need protection. And, as Adam says, what happens to us
after
the war?”

“I can protect us now, and later. I have before.”

“Leigh Travers standing alone against the combined forces of Grant and Lee,” Guy mocked, unable to see the hot tears in his sister’s eyes, but Adam could and he regretted having to fight her, but he was determined to make her face the truth.

“Listen, I’ve got a pass to get you all to Richmond. There, you will board my ship,
The Blithe Spirit
, from there you’ll sail to Nassau, in the Bahamas, and from there you’ll take a British ship to England. You’ll be safe there.”

“The Bahamas!” Leigh said incredulously. “England! And how do we live there? I’ve a trunk full of hundred-dollar notes, the only problem is that they’re stamped ‘Confederate States of America,’ which won’t buy us more than daydreams even here in Virginia. Dreams, Adam, is all this idea of yours is.”

Adam’s face flushed uncomfortably, even though he had expected her argument, but he would not be ridiculed out of his decision. “No, not dreams, Leigh. I’m a blockade runner. This is my business. I can get you there safely. Once you’re there,
The Blithe Spirit
will bring you enough to live on. You’ll sell her in the Bahamas. She’s a good coastal schooner. She’ll bring you enough.”

“No, I won’t even consider it,” Leigh said, turning away.

“I’ll let it rest for now, Leigh, but this is not settled. You may turn your back, pretending not to listen, but in the end you will, because you love this family of yours too much to risk their lives because of your pride.”

“Adam, that was uncalled for,” Guy rebuked him.

Adam sighed. “I’m sorry, Leigh. I didn’t mean that. But I did mean everything else. And if I cannot make you see reason, then I will take Lucinda with me when I leave.” Adam’s voice came harshly.

Leigh stopped in the middle of the study, her back rigid. Then she turned around and faced him, her blue eyes blazing.

“Oh,” she said in too quiet a voice. “And who will care for her, Adam?”

“I’ll get a woman, a nanny, to care for her.”

“And will she love her like I do? Can you buy that kind of caring?”

“Leigh,” Guy warned, knowing his sister was treading on dangerous ground now.

“No, but then that would be your decision, wouldn’t it, Leigh?” Adam countered, his gray eyes glinting with anger and frustration, knowing she was right.

“I gave Blythe my promise that I would always care for her daughter. You would have me break that promise?”

“And I promised Blythe that I would never let anything happen to my daughter, to
her
daughter. Or have you forgotten that I am her father? I have the right to make the decisions concerning her safety, as, indeed,” he added, hesitating for a moment before he spoke, then braving her anger as he said, “I have the right, as Nathan’s only brother, to assume the responsibility for his wife, and his son and daughter. I am their legal guardian.”

Adam steeled himself to face Leigh, and had he slapped her in the face he could not have shocked her more. “I’m sorry, Leigh, but you had better consider that too.”

“Don’t I have anything to say in this?” Althea’s voice came softly from the sofa, where she and Noelle, and a napping Steward, had been sitting in horrified silence listening to the argument.

“Of course you do, Althea, but I know what Nathan would have wished, and I intend to honor my promise to him,” Adam said.

“I have handled everything so far to everyone’s satisfaction, and I believe I can go on doing so, if some people would not interfere,” Leigh responded.

“Interfere! Good Lord, I have the ri—”

“So do I!”

“I do not think this arguing will settle anything, especially since you are both right and you are both wrong, and since you both mean well and have done so much for us, I cannot be angry with you, and neither of you should be angry with the other. This will achieve nothing. I do not think I need remind you of the truth of the Gospel, ‘If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.’ Now, I insist you both come in here and sit down, and later, after Adam has rested, and we’ve all had a chance to say our piece, then, and only then will we be able to consider our situation and what we will do about it,” Althea said in so reasonable a voice that both Leigh and Adam glanced at each other slightly shamefaced.

Although he could not see them, Guy could imagine the surprise on both Adam’s and Leigh’s faces as they received a scolding from Althea, whom they’d both been bossing around for far too long. “Well spoken, Althea,” Guy said with a deep chuckle. “At least you quoted Mark and not Lincoln. Help me back to my chair, will you, Leigh? I’m befuddled.”

“I apologize. I had no right to speak the way I did. I shall always be grateful to you, Leigh, for your care of Lucinda. I know you love her as if she were your own daughter, and I can never repay the debt I owe you for the sacrifices you make every day for her,” Adam said, holding out his hand to her as she returned from helping Guy into his chair.

“You owe me, us, nothing, Adam. I love Lucinda because I loved Blythe, and because I love you,” Leigh said, taking his hand in hers, their earlier, angry words forgiven, but not forgotten, because nothing was settled yet, and they both knew that.

“Damn you, Leigh,” Adam said again, only this time it wasn’t in anger and frustration, but affectionate exasperation as he went and knelt beside the cradle where his daughter slept so peacefully.