Chapter Sixty-Seven
“Guy?” Jessica echoed. “Of course I remember him.”
“I came here myself a number of years ago, but only to your backyard. I came to enlist you to spy for the union army in case of war, but your maid said you were not home. It was wash day, I remember.”
Jessica thought back, vaguely remembering a sneering reference Stephanie Davis made about the presence of a strange man skulking out the back gate—“not one of us,” she had said, implying that the man was an abolitionist come to engage her in nefarious activities. Jessica had wondered about it for a while afterwards. For once, Stephanie’s suspicions had been on the mark.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Jessica said, feeling a flush of indignation. “My sympathies with the abolitionist cause did not include committing treason against the country I knew my son would sign up to defend.”
“Guy had warned me of such, and that is why I never returned.” The major looked around him. “I would ask to sit, but the condition of my trousers might soil your chairs. Perhaps you could conduct me to a place for a chat where I will do the least damage to your fine fabrics.”
“There are leather chairs in my husband’s study.”
“Lead the way, if you please, and how is your husband?”
“He is dead.”
The click of the major’s boot heels on the polished hall floor came to a halt. “Oh, I am sorry,” he said in a timbre of deep regret. “Guy thought the world of him.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to Ezekiel and his wife?” Jessica asked.
“They live in Massachusetts on a dairy farm. They are proud parents of twin boys.”
“And Guy?”
“A casualty at Bull Run.”
Jessica uttered a cry of sorrow. “Oh, no!” Guy had been killed in the first major battle of the Civil War.
The major took her elbow. “Shall we sit?” he suggested gently.
Jessica led him into the study and gestured to a chair in front of Thomas’s desk that had replaced Silas’s old one and took a seat behind it. The major ran his hand admiringly over the desk’s smooth pine surface. “What fine workmanship,” he said.
“It was made for my son by Robert Warwick, a friend of the family especially gifted in carpentry.”
The major had spotted James Toliver etched discreetly in flowing script on a corner of the desk. “I understood your son’s name to be Thomas.”
“It is,” Jessica said, wondering how the major was acquainted with that fact. “James is my son’s middle name. Robert had the strange propensity to write backwards. He never finished carving the name by which my son is referred.”
“Why not?”
“A union cavalry officer shot him in the head.”
Major Duncan looked slightly discomfited. “It seems an occasion for exchanging mutual condolences for our war dead.”
“Please tell me what else is the purpose for this occasion, Major.”
Andrew Duncan crossed one leg over the other and set his cavalry hat on his knee. Trail dirt clung to the sole of his boot. “As you undoubtedly know, this is not a social call. My men and I are here to put Howbutker under the guardianship of the United States Army—”
“A euphemism for military rule, I believe,” Jessica interrupted.
The major inclined his head. “If you wish, but in any event we are here to maintain order and in doing so will comply with the established rules governing military occupation. Unless challenged, we will respect all persons and private property. Pillage is prohibited. Severe punishment will be inflicted on any man under my command who abuses the restrictions of his power. You have my word on that.”
Jessica nodded. “That sounds reasonable, and you seem a man whose word is not given or taken lightly, but why do I hear a however?”
“However,” he said, “we expect cooperation from the townspeople—no taunting, spitting, or otherwise outward act of provocation toward my soldiers. They fought as hard and bravely in this war as your soldiers, and…if you’ll forgive the reminder…they won. In other words, Mrs. Toliver, there is to be no undermining of what we have been sent here to do, which is to keep peace and order and to see that the will of Congress is carried out.”
Befuddled, Jessica lifted her shoulders. “I have no intention of taunting, spitting, or otherwise provoking your soldiers, Major Duncan, so why are you telling me this?”
The major uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Not knowing of your husband’s death, I have come to ask that he join his friends”—he consulted a sheet of paper he removed from inside his jacket and read—“Henri DuMont and Jeremy Warwick. Guy told me they are men of great influence in town. I was hoping I could enlist their assistance in convincing certain…recalcitrant groups that their opposition to our presence will only end in more bloodshed.”
“You are speaking about members of the vigilante groups who call themselves citizen patrols.”
“I am.”
“Our son Thomas has taken over his father’s duties, and the sons of the gentlemen you mention are not without their own level of influence. In addition to Jeremy and Henri, I could have them speak with you. I am sure they will agree with your aims for peaceful coexistence.”
“I would be much obliged, Mrs. Toliver,” Andrew said, rising. “And now I’m afraid I must impose further on your goodwill.”
Here it comes, Jessica thought, wincing inwardly. The major intended to ask—demand—that he and his officers be put up in the mansion.
“I’d like my men to bivouac in the pasture behind this street, and I understand you have a room available over the carriage house. I will require that for my own use. Will you see to its preparation?”
Jessica expelled a secret sigh of relief. “If you insist, Major.”
“I’m afraid I do.”
From out in the hall came sounds of Priscilla returning with the baby from the visit to her mother’s. Vernon was crying. He’d been denied his nap. Jessica heard Priscilla call her name urgently—response to the shock of finding a group of union soldiers lounging on the front verandah.
“I am in the study, Priscilla,” Jessica called.
Priscilla rushed in, and for the blur of a few seconds, Jessica was mesmerized by her beauty. Heat and anxiety had brought a rosy flush to her cheeks and heightened the color of her blue eyes. Blond ringlets of naturally curly hair bounced about her heart-shaped face, setting off skin as flawless as the fresh petal of a Yorkist rose.
“Oh!” Priscilla said, stopping short when she saw the union officer.
“Priscilla, dear, this is—” Jessica turned to the major and found him staring at her daughter-in-law in hypnotic awe. “Uh, this is Major Duncan,” she said. “He is the commander of the U.S. Army battalion that will be occupying Howbutker. Major, this is my daughter-in-law, the second Mrs. Toliver.”
Priscilla, dandling Vernon, whiney and fretful in his mother’s arms, said, “How do you do?” in a stunned, captivated voice commensurate with the major’s wonder-struck gaze.
Major Duncan recaptured his composure. He stepped forward and extended an upturned palm. Tentatively, Priscilla placed her fingers upon it, and he brought the tips briefly to his lips. “I do well, Mrs. Toliver. My apologies for the interruption in your life.”
Jessica felt a prickle of alarm. Priscilla retrieved her hand and looked at Jessica as if seeking a lifeline from a sudden spill into deep waters. “I must get Vernon down for his nap,” she said in a flustered voice.
“You do that, my girl,” Jessica said. “I’m sure the major will excuse you.”
“With great reluctance,” Major Duncan said with a gallant bow, “but also with understanding. The little boy must have his sleep.”
When Priscilla had left the room, Jessica asked, “Are you married, Major?”
“No, madam. I am a career soldier, and my avocation has not allowed it.” He replaced his hat and Jessica saw him to the door.
“When do you plan to take occupancy of the carriage house?” she asked.
“Tomorrow morning, if possible.”
Jessica almost suggested that other lodging would be more comfortable than the one-room apartment but thought better of it. The major might agree and decide that a bedroom in the mansion would suit him better.
Jessica called Petunia to organize a cleaning crew for the carriage house then went back upstairs to sit among the items of Silas’s strewn wardrobe. She felt his presence more when she was surrounded by his possessions. How she could have used his consolation at this moment! The physical current she’d felt between Major Duncan and Priscilla disturbed her. Perhaps, on the major’s part, it was nothing more than a virile man’s natural appreciation of a beautiful woman, and on Priscilla’s, the pleasure of a handsome man’s attraction to her, a thrill no doubt missing in her relationship with her husband.
Their marriage had become a painful thing to observe. Thomas had taken his father’s words to heart, and no husband ever treated a wife with more respect or courtesy than he showed Priscilla, if woodenly, and she responded as stiffly.
Her son and daughter-in-law waltzed around each other like mannequins, playing at the role of husband and wife without warmth or spontaneity, their baby the only connection between them. During their engagement, they had talked of building a manor home for themselves on the plantation, but there had been no further discussion of it. When Jessica asked Thomas why, he replied that Priscilla preferred to live in town to be near her parents and he did not wish to leave his mother alone in the house on Houston Avenue. But for Vernon crawling and gurgling on the parlor floor after supper, entertaining them, Jessica could not have borne the ponderous evenings in their company.