"Use any term you like. I gather you object to my wish to —?"
His palm touched her cheek. "I object to nothing. I love you. I'm proud of you. I believe every word of what you just said."
"Is that really true?"
"You're not the only one this war affected," he said. He hadn't described the incident outside the recruiting office and didn't do so now. It struck him as too much like bragging. But his next statement touched the core of the incident. "I'm not the same soldier boy who stood here four years ago. I didn't realize what a distance I've traveled until — well, lately."
His smile wanned. Bending in the starlight, he kissed her mouth.
"I love you, Brett. What you are and what you believe. You're right about going home. Your help will probably be needed. I'll be proud and honored to escort you and Madeline back to Mont Royal. And since I'll have to return to duty sometime soon, there isn't any reason you can't stay as long as you wish."
"There's one."
The soft words startled him. Was that scarlet in her cheek? The lowering dark made him unsure.
"Sweetheart," she said, "you've been so ardent despite the wound — well, I'm not entirely certain yet — I haven't seen the doctor — but I believe we're going to have a child."
Wonderstruck, he could find no words. New life after so much loss — there was magic in it. Something miraculous. He looked at the laurel sprig in her hand, took it from her gently and studied it while she said, "You see, if I stay at Mont Royal, there's a possibility our child could be born there."
"I don't care where it happens, just so long as it happens. I don't care!" Exuberantly, he tossed the laurel in the air and hugged her, exclaiming his joy. The whoop rose up and echoed back from clear across the river.
That same Sunday evening, April 9, George was in Petersburg, having spent the afternoon assembling and loading construction materials on two flatcars. The Petersburg & Lynchburg line that ran west from town was under repair to supply the army pursuing Lee. George had to be up before daylight and on his way toward Burkeville.
Tired, he walked in the direction of the tents assigned to visiting officers. Off in the darkness, several horns, two fifes, and a snare drum struck up "The Battle Cry of Freedom." Yells and whistling accompanied the music.
"Damned strange hour for a concert," he muttered. He jumped back suddenly as a horseman galloped by, shouting, "Surrender! Surrender!"
An officer with his galluses down and his chest bare stumbled sleepily from a nearby tent. "Surrender? My God, I didn't even know we were under attack —"
Grinning, George said, "I think someone else may have surrendered. Hear the music? Come on, let's find out."
Away he went on his stocky legs. The other officer snapped his suspenders over his naked shoulders and ran after him. They soon came upon a whole mob of men piling out of tents. George could barely make sense of their noise:
"— sometime today —"
"— old Gray Fox asked Ulysses for terms —"
"— out by Appomattox Court House someplace —"
In an hour, Petersburg was bedlam. It was true, apparently; the Army of Northern Virginia was laying down its arms to stop the shedding of more blood in a war that couldn't be won. Under the Southern stars, George snatched off his kepi, tossed it in the air, and caught it, then began to take brain-pummeling swallows of busthead from bottles shoved into his hand by officers and enlisted men he had never seen before and never would again, but who were fine friends, closest of comrades, in this delirious moment of lifting burdens and spirits.
Pistols and rifles volleyed into the dark. Large and small musical groups blared patriotic airs. It occurred to George that, once he got home, he could sleep next to Constance every night for the rest of his life, with no one to tell him otherwise. He jammed his fists on his hips and danced a jig without knowing how.
Men swirled around him, jumping, dancing, staggering, drinking, cheering. He helped himself to more stiff drinks from the bottles being passed. He threw his cap in the air again, bellowing like a schoolboy.
"— rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, shouting the battle cry of —"
Singing lustily, jigging madly, he didn't notice the sink in the dark behind him, though he had certainly whiffed it. Luckily he only sank to his knees, though that was bad enough.
He cleaned up on the bank of the calm Appomattox River. Returning to the celebration, he noticed that other revelers didn't come as close to him as they had earlier. Still, he managed to get a few more drinks and, thus fortified, could regard what had happened as a humorous cap on an already glorious night. A night men would forever recall to fellow veterans, wives, sweethearts, children, and grandchildren, in terms of where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. George could not quite picture himself being truthfuclass="underline"
"I was in Petersburg, gathering crossties and spikes to reopen a section of the military railroad."
"Were you happy when you heard the news, Grandpa?
"You can't believe how happy."
"What did you do to celebrate?"
"I started dancing and fell in a trench full of shit."
132
Peace had its own unique strains, Stanley realized late in the week. Washington streets mobbed with drunken celebrants extended a ten-minute trip to an hour — or made it impossible. Isabel said the patriotic illuminations glaring from the windows of most houses and public buildings gave her bad headaches, though why this should be so when she stayed home and saw very few of them, Stanley couldn't explain.
He was bothered by the loud reports of fireworks all night long, by the tolling bells, the endlessly parading bands, and the hoots and merrymaking of gangs of whites and blacks roaming at will, even in the best neighborhoods. Add to that Stanton's tense air and repeated expressions of fear of plots to kill Grant or the President, and it added up to a miserable week for Stanley.
Stanton wanted to see him to go over matters pertaining to his departure from the War Department to take up the new post Wade had arranged. Stanley was ready with his files at nine Friday morning, but Stanton was too busy. At eleven the secretary had to rush to the Executive Mansion for a cabinet meeting. It lasted several hours, during which time Stanley didn't leave the department. He was hungry and out of sorts when, late in the day, he was finally summoned to Stanton's office.
Even then, the stout man with the scented whiskers and round spectacles was preoccupied with his fear of murder plots.
"The Grants aren't going to Ford's, anyway. That's half the battle won."
"Ford's?" Stanley repeated, blank because of fatigue.
Stanton was irritable. "What's the matter with your memory? Ford's on Tenth Street. The theater!"
"Oh. The President is going to see Miss Keene —?"
"Tonight. He seems to regard the appearance as some sort of patriotic obligation. He has completely disregarded my warnings. Grant listened. He was only too happy for an excuse to whisk his wife out of town on a train for New Jersey."
He stumped to the window, hands locked behind his back. "It's been a queer day. In that long meeting, we spent nearly as much time discussing the President's latest dream as we did on the pressing issue of practical steps to restore the Union."
Lincoln's strange dreams were a subject frequently gossiped about in Washington. "Which one this time?" Stanley asked, since some of them were known to recur.
"The boat," Stanton replied, staring out the window. "The boat in which he sees himself drifting. He says the dream always comes on the eve of some great happening. Before Antietam he dreamed of the boat. Before Gettysburg, too. It's curious that he can describe the boat vividly but not the destination. It's merely a dark, indefinite shore. His words," Stanton added, returning to his desk.