She stormed inside and kicked the door shut. When she heard the flurry of hoofs at the side of the house, she didn't leave the stove or raise her hand. The grits were burned. Ruined.
As the sounds grew faint, she ran to the side window, the tears born of failure coming again. She strained and squinted, but she could see nothing but dust where the Fredericksburg road vanished into the greening countryside.
Halfway to the capital, a pass in his pocket, Charles rested Sport beside a sunlit creek. While the gray drank, he reread Orry's letter. What business did he have answering such a summons? No more than he had prolonging his involvement with Gus. War changed a lot of things.
He sat on a half-buried rock beside the purling stream and read the letter a third time. Old memories, emotions, began to undercut his rigid sense of duty. Hadn't the Mains and the Hazards — well, most of them — vowed that the bonds of friendship and affection would survive the hammerings of this war? This wasn't simply one more Yank Orry was writing about. This was his best friend. And the husband of his own Cousin Brett.
That was one bond. Another, forged at the Academy, couldn't be broken or dismissed easily either. Many an officer leading troops against an old classmate had learned the truth of that.
He put the letter in his pocket, ashamed of his first impulses to ignore it. He didn't like himself much any more, for that and a lot of other reasons. He smoked another cigar, then galloped on toward Richmond.
98
Afterward, Judith realized she should have been prepared for catastrophe. All the warning signs were there.
Cooper seldom slept more than two hours a night. Often he never came home at all, spreading a blanket on the floor of his office. He was dragging Lucius down, too. The exhausted young man finally got up nerve to appeal to Judith privately — could she not do something, anything, to slow her husband's demented pace?
Lucius hinted that some of the tasks Cooper assigned him were make-work. Judith didn't question that, since it was already clear to her that her husband's fatigued mind was confusing motion with purpose.
She promised Lucius she would try to remedy the situation. She spoke to Cooper in what she considered a gentle and tactful way, but only provoked an outburst that kept him away from Tradd Street for two whole days.
Since his temper erupted without pattern or logic, there was no way to anticipate and avoid circumstances that might trigger it. She could do little more than keep the house calm and quiet whenever he was there. Marie-Louise was forbidden to play or practice her singing, a ban that brought on arguments with her daughter. She issued no social invitations and refused the few they received.
In this way she preserved an uneasy tranquillity until mid-April, when it was announced that General Beauregard would leave to command the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. What was really being thrust on him was responsibility for the Richmond defense lines. A farewell reception at the Mills House was quickly arranged. Cooper announced this fact and said they would go. On the day of the reception, Judith tried to persuade him to change his mind — he had rested less than an hour the night before — but he seized his tall gray hat and matching gloves and his best walking stick, and she knew she was defeated.
They left through the Tradd Street gate. Judith took her husband's arm. His expression bemused, he was listening to the tolling bells of St. Michael's.
At Meeting, they turned north toward the hotel. The mild air, mellow gaslights, and blue shadows of evening created the illusion of a city at peace. She could tell Cooper wasn't at peace. He hadn't spoken since leaving the house. His downturned mouth and vacant eyes, familiar sights, still had the power to inflict great hurt.
They reached the Broad Street intersection and paused beside two soldiers near the steps of St. Michael's. About half a block away, on the other side of Meeting, a group of eighteen or twenty prisoners approached. The Yanks had probably been captured out on Morris Island. Three boys in gray, none older than eighteen, guarded the older men, who were laughing and talking as if they enjoyed their captivity.
Gaslight flashed on the bayonets of the young guards and cast bright glints into Cooper's eyes. His head ached from the loud ringing of the bells in the steeple above. He watched the Yanks come shambling and skylarking across Meeting toward the corner where he stood with his wife. A blue-coated sergeant, heavy-bellied, noticed Judith, smiled, and said something to the prisoner next to him.
Cooper flung her hand off his arm and ran into the street. She called his name, but he was already pulling the sergeant out of line. The youthful guard at the head of the column and the two at the rear looked stunned. Cooper shook the astonished prisoner.
"I saw you watching my wife. Keep your eyes and your filthy remarks to yourself."
Voices overlapped. Judith's: 'I’ m sure the man didn't —"
The guard in charge: "Sir, you must not interfere —"
The Irishman next to the sergeant: "Listen here, he never said a —"
"I know otherwise." Cooper was shrill. He jabbed the sergeant with his stick. "I saw it."
"Mister, you're out of your skull." The sergeant backed up hastily, bumping men behind. "Will someone help me get this crazy reb away from —"
"I saw your expression. You said something filthy about her." Cooper had to speak loudly because of the noise of the other prisoners protesting, the bells pealing.
"Please, sir, stop," pleaded the guard without effect.
"I know you did, and by God, I'll have an apology."
The sergeant had had enough. "You'll get nothing but the back of my hand, you fucking traitor, you —"
The descending stick shimmered in the gaslight. Judith cried out as Cooper struck the sergeant on top of the head, then on the right temple. The sergeant raised his arms to block the blows. "Get him off me!" Cooper dragged one of the Yank's hands down and hit him twice more. The sergeant dropped to one knee, groggily shaking his head.
The Irish prisoner tried to intervene. Cooper's hat fell off as he rammed the cane ferrule into the man's throat, then struck the sergeant again. The blow broke his stick. "Oh, my God, Cooper, stop." Pulling at him, Judith saw spittle on his lips. He threw her off.
He reversed the piece of cane still in his hand. He smashed the sergeant's head with the silver knob. Blood showed in the prisoner's hair. Judith again attempted to take hold of Cooper's arm. He rammed it backward, snorting like an animal. His elbow bruised her breast. She heard obscenities he had never uttered in all the years she'd known him.
A couple of prisoners joined the terrified guards in attempting to block Cooper's renewed attack. Somehow he fought past them, locked both hands on the piece of stick, and raised it over his head. The sergeant, kneeling in the street, pressed a hand to his right eye. Blood flowed down his forehead and ran out between his fingers.
"You killed my son," Cooper screamed, landing one more blow. Finally, enough hands in blue sleeves caught hold of him and were able to restrain him, break his grip, tear the stick loose. The sergeant started to weep with shock. The prisoners and the guard in charge surrounded Cooper, dragging him back. He was pulling, kicking, biting, lunging side to side.
"Let me go — he killed my boy — my son's dead — he killed him."
The mass of men bore Cooper to the sidewalk as the eight steeple bells started tolling the hour. The sound reverberated in Cooper's head as the Yanks loomed over him. One kicked him.
"Please, let me through. He isn't himself —"
They paid no attention to Judith. She watched another prisoner step on Cooper's outstretched hand. She beat and pushed at blue worsted, her desperation rising.