Watchfires (19 page)

"It might, if I thought you had changed your opinions for humane reasons. But you're like so many abolitionists. You don't love the slave. You hate the slaveholder. There's only death and destruction in your heart."

"We have to be ready for death and destruction."

"But it makes me shudder when people like it!"

"I don't like it. I try to face it. And when the time comes I shall be willing to do my part. In any way I can be of most service. With a rifle or bearing a stretcher or whatever they ask of me!"

"Oh, I'm sure." Her shrug deprecated his patriotism. "It's not your courage I question. You'd kill for the love of Annie, and you'd kill for the hate of her." She rose to shut off his protest. "I'm sorry. I don't want to discuss this anymore. I find it too agitating. Let us go on with our lives as we have been. I'm glad it's over with Annie. For all our sakes. Not that I think it will save her marriage. That I fear is rotted to the core. As to our own ... well, let us see."

"You will find me humble, Rosalie! You will find me ready to help you in any way you want!" He paused, disheartened by her continued impassivity. "I love you! But I shall understand if you can never forgive me!"

"Forgiving is not my problem. Or even forgetting. I am going to see Bridey now about the order. Talk doesn't really help. As I say, let's just go on."

"That's what your father told me. Only he gave me hope."

"Of what?"

"Of the return of his affection."

"Oh, but it's easy for
him,
" Rosalie retorted with something that sounded almost like a sneer. "He owns you."

"I guess he owns us all."

"He doesn't own
me
" Rosalie asserted with emphasis, and then at last she left the room.

T
HE RUSH OF EVENTS
that followed the election of Lincoln was like a clattering new train on the New York Central tracks. Dexter found himself suddenly alive and awake as he had not been in the moments of greatest ecstasy in South Vesey Street. The secession of South Carolina, the assault on Sumter, the calling up of volunteers, seemed once more to match the public excitement with his own pre-Annie internal commotion. Leaning out the window of Union Square to watch the enlisted soldiers parade past, mingling with the crowds on Broadway that applauded the return of Major Anderson, standing with his father-in-law on the dais in Washington Square while a Tiffany stand of colors was presented to the commanding officers of the Sixteenth Regiment, he felt himself at one with the whole big, shouting, hustling, flag-waving city. The God of Hosts had called forth his troops at last!

Purpose came back into life like a spring flood; direction filled up the summer void. Rosalie, already qualified as a nurse, was kept from rushing to the aid of the still nonexistent wounded only by the more urgent demand for her administrative talents in the organization of the Sanitary Commission. Dexter knew that she would have been embarrassed to admit that war had brought her cheer, but her heightened color and the warmer note in her voice as she hurried to and fro to her meetings betrayed her. Fred and Selby were at last united in patriotic fervor, and the little household in Union Square seemed to glow with a fine new harmony.

Dexter, at excited family gatherings at Number 417, noted Annie's obvious boredom with the national crisis and could not help reflecting that it made her less alluring. There was something petty, almost mean, in such a resolute separation of self from the popular enthusiasm. It made a sorry contrast to Rosalie's emulation of the great gray lady of the Crimean War.

But the most dramatic change of all was in Mr. Handy. No sooner had word come of the first shell fired at Sumter than all his doubts and hesitations had vanished. There was no longer any question about business interests or the market value of peace. In one bound he went further than Joanna or even Rosalie. He would pound his dining room table now and proclaim that the rebel states should no longer have the option of re-entering the Union at the simple price of abandoning the principle of secession. No, sir! They should be readmitted only when their slaves had been emancipated! And for no compensation! They had had their chance for that. Now they would have to fight, not only for their enchained blacks, but for their cotton, for their plantations, for their very lives!

Mr. Handy proceeded, with other prominent men of affairs, to organize the Union Defense Committee of the Citizens of New York, which met and worked, day and night, to provide uniforms and arms for the New York regiments. When Dexter told his father-in-law that he had joined a group of gentlemen who were drilling in the evening to qualify themselves for this new army, he was treated with a firmness and a severity that he had not encountered before.

"Drill as much as you want, dear boy. It may be necessary for every able-bodied man in the North to be ready to fight before this trial is lifted from us. But there can be no idea of your joining up now. I'm going to need every minute you can spare from your law practice—and a good many you can't."

"But that, sir, is work an older man can do. Or one who is not physically qualified to fight."

"Don't fool yourself! You'll need every ounce of strength you have before I'm through with you! The great lack in this war is not going to be manpower. It's going to be brains and administrative ability!" Mr. Handy shook his head emphatically. "When I think of all those fine generals siding with the South, it makes me fairly ill. Lee! If we ever catch the scoundrel, we should string him up!"

Dexter was disturbed. The emotion that had filled him to the brim, as from a gushing pipe, each morning that he had awakened since the firing on Sumter, seemed to necessitate some physical outlet. Could he survive his own inner tumults at a desk?

"How will I look to my sons, sir? I, who urged everyone to vote for Lincoln and bring on the war?"

"The times are too grave for that kind of petty consideration. We can't just think of ourselves and how we're going to look in what sort of silly hat. I need you, Dexter, in the most important work of this struggle. To raise an army! You say you're willing to give up your life? I take that for granted. I'm asking you to do something harder. To put your country before your vanity!"

Dexter was astonished to find that the old man had just as much force and penetration as he had always pretended to credit him with.

"I suppose we must agree to disagree in this matter, sir," he suggested desperately.

"Not on your life! I think you owe me something, son." In the pause that followed Dexter dropped his eyes before Mr. Handy's long yellow stare. Noting his concession, the latter nodded. "Very well. Let there be no more talk of enlisting. You shall be my number-one man. And when we've got the army raised and equipped,
then,
my boy, and only then, you may go!"

The only remedy that Dexter could find for his frustration was in hard work. When he was not in his office, he was calling on businessmen, raising money and soliciting supplies. It did not take him long to observe that the spirit of patriotism and sacrifice were close to the surface of national events and that after the first explosion of enthusiasm, the old goals of profit and pleasure as usual began to reassert themselves. He sometimes discussed this with Rosalie, whom he rarely saw now except at breakfast. But when they did talk, it was with a mutual interest in what each was doing that was novel in their relationship.

"Do you suppose the Rebs find it as hard as we do to rouse their people to any action?" he asked.

"Probably. Wars are started by very few people. They must be carried on by very few."

"You mean most people don't care?"

"Well, isn't that what you've just been telling me?"

He looked at her with suspicion. "Do you imply that the few people who started this war were Northerners?"

"Well, didn't you all really want it?"

"Oh, Rosalie!"

"You know I've always felt that. Why fuss about it now?"

"Because I don't think you're honest when you imply that
you
don't believe in the war. You're as busy as a bee, and you love it!"

"But my business will be casualties! One can't love that. And, besides, I'd be just as willing to look after enemy casualties as our own."

"You mean you're neutral?"

"Oh, I don't
know,
Dexter. What does it matter? Why can't you be like Father? He has no doubts. He's not always pummeling people with suspicious questions. He likes the glory, and he likes the gore!"

Dexter thought of this interchange a week later when he stood with Mr. Handy and some dozen members of the Union Defense Committee in the White House, listening to his father-in-law expound the problems of raising regiments to the new president. It was his first glimpse of Lincoln, and he studied the chief executive with intense curiosity.

The president was leaning forward over his desk, his chin resting on his fists. His long plain face was lined with seeming exhaustion; the half-closed eyes indicated only a forced attention. From time to time he nodded. Mr. Handy now paused, as if not sure that his message was being conveyed.

"I hope you don't mind, sir, if I put what I have to say in plain English?"

"Oh, no. That's what I like."

"The fewer intermediaries between us and your administration, the better."

"Yes, Mr. Handy. We must avoid seesawing."

Mr. Handy resumed his eloquent flow. What he had to say about the necessity of raising further regiments and the obligation of Congress to pay, no matter what revenues might be lacking, was cogently, even dramatically put. There was something rather splendid in the sight of this large, vigorous old man devoting his energies to his nation's cause. And yet Dexter could not quite dispel the suspicion that there was something faintly out of key, something almost stagy in the presentation. Mr. Handy and the other gentlemen from New York might have represented justice and the necessity of force. The president somehow represented the cost. Cost in what? Well, perhaps, simply the cost in blood.

"He's a well-meaning man," Mr. Handy said afterwards in the bar of Willard's Hotel. "And I think, on the whole, an honest one. But it's a tragedy that he doesn't know more of military affairs. And that General Scott is so ancient. We have a president who tells yarns and a chief of staff who's older than the capital he defends!" He raised his glass to the others. "Well, God help us, gentlemen! We'll have to do the job ourselves!"

Back in New York the following night, at another family party at Number 417, Dexter was able to measure the full extent of his reinstatement in the clan by the fact that he was allowed to sit by Annie.

"I am sorry for what Charley told me before dinner," he said to her.

"That I've seceded at last? Yes, I've walked out on him. Rebellion seems to be in the air. You can't have been much surprised."

"I hate to think what'll happen to Charley."

"Oh, he'll probably drink himself into a cocked hat. But he'd do that if I stayed."

"And what will you do now? Will you live here with your father and Joanna?"

"You've always been determined that I must bore myself to death, Dexter! Even during our ... how shall I call it ... our interlude? You always insisted that I should be as dull as possible when I was not in South Vesey Street. The great lover was to be my sole diversion! Like an odalisque in a harem, I had to wait patiently for my brief moment of bliss."

"Please, Annie!" he cautioned her, glancing over at her father.

"Oh, silly, do you think I don't know how to moderate my voice in this house? The only reason Daddy has any idea of what we're talking about is that nervous look you just gave him. He could hardly miss that."

"Well, then, where will you live? All alone, in Union Square?"

"I'm going to Paris with my daughter. I'm going to rent the flat over Lizzie Osborne's in the Rue du Bac. I shall try it for a season, anyway. And don't tell me that nobody there will receive a 'separated' wife. Lizzie writes that I may even be presented at the Tuileries!"

Dexter, looking into those animated eyes, had a vision of Napoleon III, with lascivious lips and a shiny goatee, leaning over to kiss Annie's little hand. He coughed to dispel the vision.

"I don't see how you can leave at a time like this."

"What can I do about the war? Can I fight? I've never been able to do anything with my hands, so pity the poor soldier who has to wear my bandage." She laughed her old high laugh, but now he did not join her. "Oh, you're all so serious! Frankly, it bores me. You're so holy and grave. At least the Southern cavaliers have a dash to them. But I don't care to be hanged as a Confederate sympathizer, so I'd better clear out."

"I wonder if you'll ever come back."

"If you lose your war, maybe. Then you might all be fun again. But if you win it, you'll be impossible! And you will win it, I suppose. Dull, pompous people always do. No, I'm not coming back!"

"Has your trip been arranged?" he asked, with a more formal politeness. "Can I help you with tickets and passports?"

"Oh, Daddy's arranged the whole thing at the bank," she replied easily, and he realized that he was still under the Handy surveillance. Normally, such a chore would have been sent to his office. No, he was not quite trusted yet.

This was even more deeply emphasized when he discovered, a mouth later, that Jules Bleeker had been sent to Paris to write for the Richmond
Inquirer.
The Handys all knew, but nobody had spoken of it. They had given Annie up, but they were hanging on to him.

I
T WAS EARLY
on a July morning, outside Willard's Hotel, and Joanna Handy was supervising the loading of the picnic hamper into the double-seated open carriage with two horses that Dexter had engaged for the day to drive his father-in-law out from the capital to Centreville to watch McDowell trounce the rebels. He and Rosalie stood on the curb and watched.

"You won't change your mind and come with us?" he asked.

"I've got to be at the Sanitary Commission, thank you very much. Some of us have to work to win this war."