The Sword (29 page)

They all settled on steaks, even Belinda and Brenda. As they were eating the first remove, lettuce and tomato with mayonnaise, they kept glancing out of the corner of their eyes at Chantel. Clay had warned them about Chantel’s masculine clothing, and his mother had impressed upon them how rude it would be to mention it.

Still, Chantel could see the little girls’ wide-eyed amazement, and she asked kindly, “Have you ever seen a girl wear men’s breeches?”

“Oh no, Chantel,” Belinda answered.

“Mother said we were not to say anything. It would not be polite,” Brenda said.

“But you didn’t say anything, did you? I did. You see, back in Louisiana I live in the swamp, me. I go fishing there for fish and for turtles and alligators, and a dress is no good for fishing.”

“Alligators?” Belinda and Belle repeated in unison. They did this often.

“Did you ever catch one?” Belinda asked.

“Oh, all the time. Once I got one on as tall as you. Big enough to bite my head off.”

“How did you catch him?”

“Well, ma pere did most of it,” Chantel admitted. “But I helped ma mere cook him, me. He was good eating, that fat alligator.”

Caleb and Bethany Tremayne looked vastly amused, and Bethany said, “I’ve never had alligator. I doubt anyone in Virginia would know how to cook one.”

Chantel ducked her head. “No, I don’t fish and hunt much now, me. But these breeches, I wear them since I was a little girl. It’s all I have.”

Clay watched her with some surprise. He had not been aware that Chantel had become embarrassed about her clothing until now.

“Well, skirts and blouses are easy to make,” Bethany said lightly. “Clay tells me that, along with cooking, you are an excellent seamstress, Chantel. You know, there is a dressmaker here in Richmond
that has nice working clothes for sale at a very reasonable price. If you required alterations, we could make them together, for I love to sew.”

“No, I—that would cost so much money, wouldn’t it?” Chantel asked.

“Not too much for my granddaughter,” Jacob said firmly. “Mrs. Tremayne, if you would be so kind as to tell us about this dressmaker, I will certainly see to it that Chantel gets some clothes.”

“I would like to visit her myself,” Bethany said. “I’m going to order new dresses for me and the girls, in Confederate gray with gold trim. It’s going to be all the rage now, you know. I would be happy if Chantel would accompany us.”

“That would be nice,” Chantel said awkwardly. “Thank you, Mrs. Tremayne.”

Chantel was fascinated by Clay’s family. Instinctively she had realized that Clay, in spite of his rakishness, was a quality Southern gentleman. But she had never met any of the Virginia aristocracy, the old moneyed families. She had a feeling that perhaps the Tremaynes gave her and Jacob a much better reception than others of their class would. But then she recalled how kind and uncritical Jeb and Flora Stuart had been, and they were of very good family, too, Clay had told her. She wondered that people so far above her station would be so kind to her.

Caleb turned to Jacob and said, “Clay’s told us about how you two saved his life. I’d like to hear your story, Mr. Steiner.”

Jacob smiled. “Let me tell you, sir. I became a Christian many years ago. Very hard for a Jewish man. The synagogues will not have you because you are not holding up the traditions of Judaism, and some Christians are suspicious of you. But I did the best I could to study the Bible and find out how to follow the Lord Jesus.”

“I think that’s very admirable, sir,” Caleb said. “How did you meet Miss Fortier? Chantel, I mean,” he added with a courtly bow in her direction.

“Almost the same way your son met her. I grew sick. I was all alone. I could hardly move. As a matter of fact, I was dying, and this young woman”—he turned to her and smiled beatifically—“she nursed me back to health. And she decided to stay with me. We were coming here, to Richmond, and on the way we found your son badly hurt, and it was Chantel who nursed him back to health. She makes a fine nurse.”

Chantel thoroughly enjoyed the meal and visiting with Clay’s family. She hated to see the evening coming to an end. Before leaving, she and Bethany confirmed plans to visit the dressmaker’s the very next day.

Clay and Morgan walked Chantel and Jacob out to the carriage they had hired to bring their guests to the restaurant. Jacob began questioning Morgan about the best warehouses in Richmond for foodstuffs.

Clay took the opportunity to lead Chantel a few feet away for a bit of privacy. “My family is very grateful to you.”

Chantel replied earnestly, “You have a good family, Clay. You are a lucky man, you.”

“I am, though I sure don’t deserve it.”

Chantel sighed. “I’m jealous. All I have is Grandpere.” She looked toward Jacob with love in her eyes. “He’s wonderful, but it’s good to have a big family.”

“Well, I think my family would take you in a moment. They’ve asked me a thousand questions about you, and I can tell even the Bluebells love you. They pester you with questions, but that shows they like you.”

“I like them, too.”

Clay sighed. “I’ve been a bad son, Chantel. Very bad.”

Chantel stared at him. “Why have you been a bad son, Clay? Nobody makes you do these bad things.” As Clay lifted his eyes, Chantel saw they were filled with misery.

“I don’t know. Everybody seems to know where they are going except me. I was raised in a Christian family, as you can see. They make it seem so easy to live for God and do what is right.”

“That’s what Grandpere always says, that it is easy.”

Clay looked at her. “What about you, Chantel? Are you a Christian?”

“Well, no. I’m not like Grandpere or your family,” she said with some difficulty. “The good God doesn’t talk to me. I don’t understand Him.”

“Not as easy as they make it out to be, is it?” Clay said wryly. “In any case, it’s been a good visit. Maybe you and Jacob could go back to the valley with my parents. He’s told me how much you like the Shenandoah Valley. You know, Chantel, the war is going to be here, in Virginia, especially around Richmond since it’s the capital. You and Jacob would do better to be out of it.”

“No, I don’t think Grandpere is going to leave,” she said thoughtfully. “He hasn’t told me anything, me. But I know him. The good God is telling him something, and I think it will be here for us.”

Clay frowned. “Well, at least the city should be safe. For a time, anyway.”

Jacob and Morgan joined them at that moment. After thanking them again, Jacob climbed into the carriage.

“Good-bye, Chantel, Jacob,” Morgan said.

Clay added, “I expect I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Good-bye, Clay, Morgan,” Chantel said. She joined Jacob in the carriage then turned to see the Tremaynes all had come out. They were calling their farewells and waving, all of them smiling. She smiled back at them and waved. “They are good people, Grandpere.”

“Yes. Very fine. Even Clay, for all his faults.”

“I wish he were different.”

“I think he wishes that, too,” Jacob said, “and we’ll pray that he will find Jesus.”

W
ith a sigh of relief, Clay sat down at the base of a huge chestnut tree. The patrol had been out for four days now, riding hard and far, and although the men were mostly drained of energy, General Jeb Stuart never slowed down. Clay closed his eyes wearily and leaned back against the tree.

The man’s unbelievable. Never tires, rides into enemy fire like a fiend, comes back laughing, then comes back to camp to have music and dancing.

They had eaten a good meal, for somehow Major Dabney Ball, the chaplain of the regiment, had rounded up some chickens. Clay had gotten his share and finished up one last fat chicken leg as the sun slid ponderously down behind the rim of a ridge to the west. He heard a nightjar whining, and over to his left a nightingale began its sweet song.

He opened his eyes in slits and watched for a time as the dark purpling into the night went on, and slowly the dying light fell across the grove of trees where they had camped. Each tree in the woods stood out singly and purely against the sky and then turned green-gold by some magic mixture of the disappearing sun and the
drifting clouds far overhead. July had brought blistering heat, but with evening came a blessed coolness. Clay simply let the weariness drain from his body as the night came on.

The campfires were burning, and as usual, the music had started up. A slight smile creased Clay’s broad lips as he thought of the strange incongruity of Stuart, the fierce fighting general and Stuart the music lover.

Stuart must have music! He had practically kidnapped Sam Sweeney, a tall, good-looking fellow in his early thirties who was a magician, of sorts, on a banjo. He was the younger brother of Joe Sweeney, who was probably the most famous of the traveling minstrels and was said by some to be the inventor of the banjo. He had once played for Queen Victoria. But Joe had died, and now it was his younger brother, Sam Sweeney, who carried on the tradition in Brigadier General Jeb Stuart’s camp.

Clay had noticed that as soon as music of any kind would start, Stuart’s feet would begin to tap and shuffle, and it was not unusual to see him dancing around to the music when they played rousing fast songs. “He sure does love music,” Clay murmured. He opened his eyes more fully and watched the men who had gathered, Sweeney on the banjo, Mulatto Bob on the bones, two fiddlers, and the Negro singers and dancers. They were singing “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still,” a plaintive sad song, but then they played the “Corn Top’s Ripe,” and finally one that seemed to have been written especially for General Jeb Stuart: “Jine the Cavalry.”

A movement caught his eye, and Clay looked up to see Major Dabney Ball leaving the campfire. The chaplain came over, plopped himself down beside Clay, and exhaled his breath. “That’s good music, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, it is, Major. Of course, General Stuart would get rid of them if they weren’t good musicians, and go ‘volunteer’ some more,” he told the parson.

Dabney Ball was a tall, lanky man with long arms and legs. Even his feet were long, and his face, also. He was unlike any chaplain Clay
had ever seen or heard of. Ball was called the “foraging parson,” for he was a self-appointed commissary officer. No chicken was safe in a territory covered by Preacher Ball. No, nor pigs or even yearling calves. He not only foraged meat, but occasionally he would set up bakeries for the unit. He was one of Stuart’s myriad kinfolk, a thirty-nine-year-old minister who had left a Washington pastorate after eighteen years in the pulpit and now served as the most colorful chaplain in the Confederate Army.

Clay said, “I heard you had a little trouble with a Yankee, Chaplain, as you were helping these chickens contribute to the Glorious Cause.”

“Oh, that didn’t amount to a thing. I met a Yankee plunderer on the highway. He had got a bunch of chickens, hams, and ducks that were obviously Southern property. So I shot him and took his feet out of the stirrups and dropped him on the ground. And then his horse volunteered for the Confederacy.”

“You think that was the Christian thing to do?” Clay asked, his dark eyes alight. The men often teased the chaplain about his warlike attitude.