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Julia gave herself a shake. She must remain firm on the side of propriety for Carolyn’s sake, as well as loyal to Frank’s hallowed memory. “You’ll be caught before you’ve put both feet inside the Winsteads’ door. Think of the scandal,” she added, though she knew that her sister didn’t give a fig for any commotion she might stir up.
“Pooh!” Carolyn blew a blond wisp of a curl out of her face. “Has your eyesight grown so dim?” She pointed to the invitation. “It says it’s a masked ball. We could go in disguise. We’ll wear hoods and look divinely mysterious. No one will recognize us, and all the handsomest boys will want to dance with us. They won’t resist!” She hugged herself at the prospect.
The more Carolyn talked, the more Julia’s resolve weakened. The lively music of a Virginia reel played in her mind. Her toes tapped inside her slippers. She could almost taste those caramels. And laughter! When was the last time she had really laughed out loud? Not for two years, since she received word that Frank had died in a Virginia farmer’s field.
“You’ve read too many of Mr. Dickens’s novels, Carolyn. Your logic is chopped like turnips.”
Instead of being repentant for her flighty taste in literature, Carolyn slid off her footstool and knelt at Julia’s feet. She gave her sister a triumphant smile. “You know you want to go, too. I can see it in your eyes, Julia. Don’t you want to have at least one adventure in your life, instead of just reading about them? No one will ever know.”
Julia fired her last desperate argument for common sense. “That’s where you are wrong. We’ll have to tell Perkins,” she said, referring to the Chandlers’ serving man, who acted as the family’s butler, coachman and occasional gardener. “We cannot possibly go gallivanting around Alexandria in the dark without an escort. The streets aren’t safe, even with the provost guards out. Perkins won’t approve at all, and he’ll tell Papa, sure as you’re born.”
Carolyn twirled one of her side curls around her fore-finger. “Leave Perkins to me. I’ll promise him a bagful of macaroons, or something just as nice. And we’ll leave the ball before midnight. Please, Julia. Say you’ll go with me. There won’t be another party like this one in a year of Sundays. Don’t let those horrid Yankees steal away our gaiety. Kick up your heels—just once. I dare you.”
Carolyn’s challenge struck home. Julia was tired of living behind curtains drawn against the prying eyes of the insolent Yankee soldiers who daily sauntered past the Chandlers’ house on Prince Street. She was tired of the plain fare that nightly graced the family’s supper table because Mother refused to patronize vendors who courted the Yankee trade—and most of Alexandria’s merchants did.
Julia was sick of wearing dark clothes in perpetual mourning for distant relatives who had been killed at Fredericksburg, Winchester and Gettysburg. She touched the locket that hung from a black ribbon around her neck. Most of all, she wanted to heal the wound in her heart left by Frank’s death. The curl of his brown hair inside the silver heart was all that remained of the charming boy with poetry on his lips and a song in his heart. Frank had taught her how to polka and encouraged her dreams of becoming a teacher.
But that was back in 1861. A lifetime ago. The guilty truth was that Julia could barely recall what Frank Shaffer looked like, even though she had promised to be his sweetheart when he marched off to join the 17th Virginia Infantry. Carolyn was right. Julia had allowed the Yankees to steal the joy of living from her soul. Enough was enough!
She looked down at the sixteen-year-old’s upturned face and smiled. “All right, lady-bird, you have won me over with your Jezebel tongue. I’ll go to this ball, but only to keep you out of trouble. I have no intention to touch a Yankee, much less dance with one.”
Leaping to her feet with a flurry of petticoats, Carolyn gave her sister a loud, wet kiss on the cheek. “Pooh! You’re going for the music and the caramels; I knew they would turn your head. I can read you like a book.”
She certainly hoped not, Julia thought with an inward sigh. Carolyn would be shocked if she knew of the passionate dreams that Julia locked within her imagination.
“Begging the major’s pardon, but may I take the liberty of asking what are the major’s plans for celebrating the turning of the year?” Behind his clipped brown mustache, Lieutenant Benjamin Johnson grinned down at his somber first cousin.
Robert Montgomery, condemned to a desk job in the Office of Military Intelligence since his return from medical leave, looked up from the sheaf of field reports that he held. His irrepressible relative snapped a salute. Rob was not amused.
“You take too many liberties, Lieutenant,” Rob muttered, hoping this mild reprimand would send the youngster scurrying back to his own paper-littered desktop. Ben exercised far too much familiarity during working hours.
His cousin only grinned wider. “Indeed, so I was often told when we attended dear old Yale. But the question still remains. Are you planning to visit the family or stay in Washington to ring in the New Year?”
Rob shuddered inside his blue uniform frock coat. His last trip home to Rhinebeck, New York, following his release from the hospital, had been an unmitigated disaster. Mama had done nothing but stare with open pity at his smashed right hand, while sighing with melodramatic fervor and moaning over her “poor baby boy.” Meanwhile his father had used Rob’s every waking moment to harangue his recuperating son into switching from the army to politics. “There’s a new wind blowing through this great land,” Jubel Montgomery had reiterated ad nauseam. “And the Republican Party will lead the way.”
“No,” Rob snapped at Ben. “I shall remain in Washington.” Where it would be peaceful. He pretended to return to his papers.
Instead of retreating, Ben leaned closer. “As I thought. Therefore, would the major care to join a company of bright young bloods on December the thirty-first?” He patted his breast pocket with satisfaction. “In here, I hold the key to a night of music and frivolity among the prettiest flowers that grow in Alexandria. That’s Virginia, sir. Virginia, where the girls are sweet as cream—and…and as pure as wholesome milk,” he added swiftly when Rob glared at him.
Rob narrowed his brown eyes. “Need I remind you that we are, at this precise moment, on the soil of Virginia, fighting those damned Virginians? Are you suggesting that we feast with our enemies? I find that idea a highly—” he groped for the right word “—treasonable notion. We are speaking of Southerners, Lieutenant, a breed of pig-headed, uncouth Rebels. I detest them all.”
Ben’s maddening good humor only increased. “You speak the truth in general, but these particular Virginian posies are fine, true and loyal to the Union. They are the delightful daughters and sisters of many of our fellow soldiers. They come from families who had the good sense to ignore the rabble cry of states’ rights—whatever that notion may be. Now they give aid and succor to us poor, homesick fellows.” His brown eyes twinkled. “Lord knows, we do need aid and succor from these most delightful ladies.”
“Join their company then, and may they give you—” Rob paused, banished the lusty thought that rose unbidden in his love-starved brain, then continued “—some of what you desire. I intend to stay in my rooms at Ebbitt’s and read something edifying. I am no fit company for ladies.” He covered over his paralyzed hand with his good one, then turned back to decipher the hen-scratching written by a female undercover agent operating in St. Louis.
Ben had the audacity to remain in front of Rob’s desk. Leaning over the stacks of reports, he said in a low voice, “Not all women are like your recent fiancée. You would find the truth of that, Rob, if you would deign to return to civilized society once again. You were once a lion among the ladies in New Haven. Word of your former exploits among the petticoats has preceded you here, sir.” His voice sank to a whisper. “It was your arm the Rebels shot up, not your charm.”
Rob gritted his teeth. He had a good mind to plant his polished boot squarely in his cousin’s backside. He dropped his mangled hand below the level of the desktop, and thrust it into his coat pocket. Out of sight, out of mind. How dare this upstart puppy speak on the one subject that Rob never mentioned in public? Lucy Van Tassel’s scathing “I will not marry half a man” screamed in Rob’s nightmares and reverberated down the black tunnels of his memory.
He sneered at Ben. “You have no idea of women, Lieutenant. Underneath all those pretty smiles and lilting words, they are vicious, selfish creatures, vain and greedy. They are interested in a man only if he is young, handsome, wealthy—and whole.”
Ben opened his mouth to protest but another voice cut him off. Colonel James Lawrence strode out of the doorway that led to his inner office. “Nor, it seems, do you know women, Major Montgomery.”
Rob rose to his feet in the presence of his commanding officer. The colonel regarded him from under white bushy eyebrows. He blew through his large walrus mustache. “Lieutenant Johnson may be wet behind his ears, Major, but in this case, he makes a good point. You have stayed away from society for too long. It’s high time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself, and start living among your fellow human beings again.”
Hot blood rose up Rob’s neck. A vein throbbed in his temple, though he held his anger in check. “I will take the colonel’s opinion under advisement, sir.”
Lawrence tapped the side of his nose. “Indeed, you shall, and sooner than you think. On the thirty-first of December, you will accompany the lieutenant and whomever else goes with him to this…this… Where is it you are going, Johnson?”
Ben suppressed his grin. “A ball, sir. A masked ball, given at the gracious home of Mr. George Winstead.”
The colonel cocked his head. “Winstead? The railroad man?”
Ben nodded. “I do believe the gentleman is active in that particular business venture, sir.”
The colonel returned his attention to the fuming Rob. “Very good, then. Major, you will attend this ball with the lieutenant. Do you understand me, sir?”
Rob clenched his good hand at his side. “Is the colonel giving me a direct order, sir?”
Lawrence flashed a brief half smile. “I am indeed, Major. You will dress in your best; you will act like a gentleman to all and you will remain at this ball for no less than three hours. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Rob said between tight lips.
“Good! Lieutenant Johnson, I will want a full report of the major’s behavior on January first.” The colonel turned back toward his office.
Ben snapped another salute. “Yes, sir!”
“And enjoy yourselves, gentlemen,” the colonel added over his shoulder. “That is an order.” He shut the door behind him. One of the civilian clerks snickered behind his ledger book.
Rob shot a filthy look at his cousin. “I presume you are satisfied now that you have made me look the fool, Lieutenant?”
Ben refused to shake his good spirits even in the face of Rob’s anger. “Perfectly, Major.” In a lower tone, he added. “Cheer up, Rob. It’s only a dance, not a battlefield.”
Rob returned to his seat and shuffled his papers into a jumble. “I may be ordered to go to this ball, Lieutenant, but I’ll be damned if I’ll dance.”
Ben touched two fingers to his forehead. “See you in hell, Rob Montgomery,” he replied, giving him the soldiers’ traditional salute.
Chapter Two
Clara Lightfoot Chandler couldn’t concentrate on her embroidery hoop, not when she had such an important matter on her mind. Yet she knew she had to reveal the subject carefully, or else her husband might not agree with her wonderful plan.
She sighed audibly, then stole a quick glance at the distinguished man seated across the parlor. Dr. Jonah Chandler continued to read his Alexandria Gazette without so much as lifting a brow in her direction. Clara drummed her bitten nails against the rosewood arm of her cushioned chair. She sighed again, this time a little louder. Jonah turned a page and continued his reading. Unable to bear her husband’s obvious refusal to give her his attention, Clara pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve and sniffed into it.
Without looking up from the newspaper, Jonah asked, “Did you want your laudanum bottle, my dear?”
Clara slammed her hoop into her sewing basket that sat on the crowded marble-topped table beside her chair. Her assorted knickknacks rattled. “No, indeed, Dr. Chandler, but I do require your immediate and undivided attention, if you please,” she snapped.
He lowered the Gazette, then neatly folded it before he said, “Very well, my dear, what crisis do we face now? Is there another drunken soldier on our doorstep, or is it merely burned bread in the kitchen?”
Clara clenched her teeth. The man could be so exasperating. Her temple throbbed; another headache would plague her all afternoon. “This is a serious problem. What are we going to do about Julia?”
At this, the doctor did raise his bushy brows. “Whatever in the world has Julia done? It’s Carolyn that usually puts you into such a pet.”
Clara allowed this remark to slide over her just as she had done for the past twenty-three years of her marriage. “Julia’s birthday will come round next month,” she began.
The doctor smiled. “Is that a fact? And how does she want to celebrate the event? We could afford a small party, I suppose. Nothing lavish, mind you.”
Now both her temples pounded against Clara’s skull. Was it any wonder that she was forced to rely on the solace of opium to keep her mind clear? She glared at Jonah. “Don’t talk to me of such frippery, Dr. Chandler. I am not at all interested in Julia’s birthday, but her wedding. She is almost twenty-one and still a spinster.”
Jonah folded his hands over his stomach and twiddled his thumbs. “I believe she is still mourning for young Shaffer.”
Clara pinched the bridge of her nose in an effort to cut off the rising pain behind her eyes. “That is exactly my point. Frank has been cold in the ground for two years. She’s wept over that boy for long enough. Thanks to this horrible war, Julia has been unable to go out into society to meet any eligible men especially now that the streets of Alexandria are simply crawling with hordes of Yankees. She should have been wed a year ago, at least. I was barely seventeen when I married you.”
A sad smile crossed the doctor’s face. “That young, were you? I had quite forgotten,” he murmured softly.
Clara pursed her lips. “There are a number of things you have forgotten over the years, Jonah, but leave that be.” She withdrew a folded piece of writing paper from her skirt pocket. “Thankfully, I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I have found the solution. Cousin Payton can marry Julia.” She held out his letter to her husband.
With a sigh, Jonah reached across the wine-red oriental carpet for it. He wiped his spectacles with his pocket handkerchief before reading Payton Norwood’s brief message informing them that he had assumed complete charge of Belmont-on-the-James, the family tobacco plantation, following probate of his late father’s will.
Clara leaned against the tufted chair back. Dear Payton was a definite cut above that feckless Shaffer boy. A second cousin on her mother’s side of the family, he had the blood of Virginia’s first families running through his veins. Suspecting that he was now able to support a wife, Clara had written to him the minute Payton was out of formal mourning.
“He and Julia are nearly the same age and they have known each other since they were children. Payton will be a perfect match for her,” she concluded with a satisfied smile.
Jonah put down the letter and looked across at his wife. “What does Julia think of this idea?”
Clara took a deep breath, then assumed her brightest expression. “She doesn’t know it yet, of course. How could I have possibly asked her if she wanted to marry Payton until I had sounded out the boy’s ability to provide for her?”
A small frown line deepened between Jonah’s tired gray eyes. “It seems to me that we should give Julia’s feelings some consideration. After all, she’s the one who would have to live with him for the rest of her life.”
Clara smiled with fondness. “She couldn’t possibly feel anything but sheer joy. Dear Payton is a fine, handsome man, his home is a jewel and his lineage is impeccable. Julia will be treated like a queen by Richmond’s society.” Clara already envisioned long visits to Belmont and all the delightful parties she could enjoy in the Confederacy’s capital. “Julia won’t be a virtual prisoner in her home there as she is here,” she added with an arch look at her husband.
Jonah rang the silver handbell that sat on his reading table. “Let us see what Julia has to say.”
Hettie Perkins, the family’s cook and now housekeeper since the war had forced the Chandlers to economize, slipped through the parlor door. “Yes, sir?” she asked.
As if she doesn’t already know what we want, Clara thought. She was sure Hettie had her ear pressed against the keyhole ever since she opened her mouth. Aloud, Clara asked, “Where is Julia?”
Hettie folded her long fingers over her apron. “I expect she’s in her room, reading a book. That’s what she does most days about this time.”
Clara made a face. Julia read entirely too much when she should be plying her needle or practicing her music. What good did such serious tomes like Nott’s Indigenous Races of the Earth or the plays of Shakespeare do for her but weaken her eyesight? She should have turned her quick mind to more practical studies like the Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion, written by Mr. William Parks. That bible of cookery had served hundreds of Virginia brides for over a century. Clara swore by her own dog-eared copy. Why couldn’t Julia read that, instead of filling her head with obtuse rubbish?
It was all that Shaffer boy’s fault. He had encouraged Julia’s book mania.
Leaning forward in his chair, Jonah told Hettie, “Please ask Julia to come down here—now.”
“And don’t dilly-dally along the way, Hettie,” Clara added. She felt that Hettie acted far too independent for her position. It was up to Clara to always remind Hettie who she was, even if Jonah had given freedom to all their servants last January. What a foolish thing that Lincoln had done when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation! It was like letting snakes out of Pandora’s box. Now there was no chance of putting things back into their proper order.
Hettie smiled. “A terrapin walks fast enough to go visiting,” she murmured one of her annoying maxims as she disappeared into the hall.
A heavy silence descended upon the Chandler parlor while the doctor and his wife awaited the arrival of their elder daughter. The grandfather clock, standing in the corner, ticked away each minute with solemn steadiness. Outside, a horse-drawn carriage creaked past their house. The heavy burgundy window drapes in the parlor muffled most of Alexandria’s noise in the late morning. Twiddling his thumbs, Jonah stared up at the ceiling. It was too bad that her husband’s medical practice had decreased since the start of the war. Many of his former patients said they preferred to be treated by Yankee doctors. The family should have moved to Richmond two years ago.
The rattle of the door latch announced Julia’s arrival. Her reading glasses were perched on the end of her nose. “Papa? Mother?” She looked from one silent parent to the other. “You wanted to see me?”
Jonah beckoned her into the room. “Come, child. Close the door, Hettie, before the drafts kill us all.”
Clara noticed that the cook remained inside the parlor once the door was firmly shut. And who was minding their dinner, she wondered.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Your mother and I were discussing your future, Julia,” he began.
Clara rolled her blue eyes. At this rate, Jonah would blather on for a half hour before he got to the point. When he paused, she took command of the conversation. “The long and short of it is that we plan to arrange a marriage for you.”
Julia sank down on the ottoman. “Marriage?” she repeated. Her green eyes turned a jade color—a clear sign that she was deeply moved.
“Surely you have gotten over Frank by now,” her father suggested.
Touching her silver locket, Julia moistened her lips. “Yes, I suppose I have,” she answered, “but I thought there would be plenty of time for courtship once the war was over.”
Clara shook her head at this notion. “That event could be years from now, unless the Yankees come to their senses and give up, which I highly doubt, or else that nasty Lincoln gets himself defeated in the next election, which I sincerely pray for. In the meantime, all our boys are dying like flies in the autumn from bullets and fevers and I don’t know what all.” She dabbed her hankie to her eyelids for effect. “Leaving you to wither on the vine until it is too late. I declare, it is more than a body can stand!”
Biting her lips, Julia rose and went to Clara’s side. She massaged her temples, as she had done for many years. “There, there, Mother, don’t take on so. It will make you sick again.”
Closing her eyes, Clara allowed her shoulders to relax under Julia’s gentle ministrations. Why couldn’t Carolyn have the same light touch? What was Clara going to do once Julia was married and living down in southern Virginia?
Through her lowered lashes, Clara saw that her husband gave her a quick professional look before he returned to the subject at hand. “You should be married, Julia. We—that is, your mother has found a solution, we think,” he ended in a mutter.
Opening her eyes, Clara patted Julia’s hand. “A husband, Jonah. You make him sound like a prescription.” She smiled up at her daughter. “I have just received word from your cousin Payton that he has come into his daddy’s inheritance. Belmont Plantation! Isn’t that just grand news?”
Julia blinked, looked quickly at her father, then back to her mother. “You want me to marry Payton Norwood?” She backed away until a footstool stopped her. She dropped down on it with an unladylike “thump”.
Clara frowned. Julia could be so tiresome at times. “Of course I mean Payton. He’s a delightful boy and, more to the point, he can support you. You can’t ask for much more than that these days.”
Julia continued to goggle at her mother like a frog out of the pond. “But why must I get married now? I am more than willing to wait for happier times. There is no rush.” She touched her locket again.
Clara narrowed her eyes. Julia was usually tractable, not like Carolyn. Clara was not used to this daughter arguing a point. “If you wait until those politicians down in Richmond do something more than chew tobacco and whittle wood, it will be doomsday, and you will be too old to attract a decent husband. No, missy, it is high time that you were the mistress of your own house and had a few babies to tend.”
Julia coughed. “With Payton? But he’s so…so…stupid. Nothing like Frank at all.”
What had gotten into Julia? Clara thought. She was always so easy to manage. “Payton received the very best education at the College of William and Mary. He will be the perfect husband for you.”
Julia drew herself up. “Mother, Payton Norwood is a fool. Always has been. He thinks of nothing except horses, card-playing and heaven only knows what other amusements. I highly doubt he has the skills to run that tobacco farm of his. If he loses his overseer, he’ll be ruined within a year. Why isn’t he in the army, like…like Frank, and all the other boys? He talks of Southern independence and how any Southerner worth his salt can lick three Yankees before supper. So why hasn’t he joined up and proven himself?”
Clara shook her head. “Don’t be such a ninny, Julia. Payton has a large landholding and over a hundred slaves to manage. Of course, he is exempt from military duty. His work on the plantation is as good a service to the Confederacy as joining the army. Why, he could get shot or captured. Payton’s too fine a man for that sort of treatment!”
Julia’s eyes turned even greener. “But Frank Shaffer wasn’t good enough except as cannon fodder? Is that what you mean, Mother? As I recall from our last visit to Belmont four years ago, Payton was a bully and a coward. I doubt that he has changed much since then. No, Mother, I will not marry Payton.”
Julia’s defiance struck Clara like a lightning bolt. She clutched her bosom. “Julia! How dare you call your cousin such hurtful things! Lies! You just don’t know what’s good for you. If you spent less time with your nose in those books, and more on family matters, you would understand. Oh, Jonah, I think I’m having palpitations of the heart. I truly do. Hettie, help me to my room. Julia, now do you see what you have done to me? Oh, truly I might die and then how would you feel? So ungrateful for all I have done for you. Jonah, talk some sense to this child.”
Clara grabbed Hettie’s arm for support. Dr. Chandler took her other arm. Over his shoulder, he said to Julia, “You know your mother can’t take this excitement. I’m surprised at you. We will invite Payton to visit here at his earliest convenience. Then you will see how he has matured. There, there, Clara. You will not die before dinner, I promise you.”
