1862 (14 page)

Then why don’t you tell him, Valerie thought. “Do you think he cares for you?”

Rebecca grinned. “Well, he does keep coming around.”

Valerie finished her wine. She hand-rolled a pair of cigarettes from a bowl of shredded Virginia tobacco. Cigarettes had been developed by soldiers during the Crimean War, and their usage was spreading throughout Europe and the United States. Valerie found Virginia tobacco milder and more pleasurable than the Turkish blends she had been introduced to.

Valerie lighted both women’s cigarettes from a candle. “You are becoming quite a libertine,” she said of Rebecca. “This is the third cigarette in my lifetime. I hardly think this qualifies as debauchery.”

To her own astonishment, Rebecca had lately been finding herself cramped and chafed by the restraints imposed on womanhood by a male-dominated society. While a glass of wine was acceptable for a woman, brandy and smoking were not. If found out, she would be ostracized; thus, the need to hide in Valerie’s studio. Also, men could swear like troopers, but not in front of women. If they inadvertently did, they would apologize profusely as if bad words would cause ladies to fall to pieces. And some ladies would, Rebecca thought with wry humor.

Of course, if a woman was heard swearing, she was considered a trollop. This was another reason they enjoyed the seclusion of the studio. Along with drinking and the occasional cigarette, they could swear if they wished and speak freely about topics that were normally taboo.

“Has Nathan ever touched you?” Valerie asked, interrupting her thoughts. The tobacco was relaxing Rebecca as if it were a mild narcotic.

“I’ve let him take my arm while we walked, but I don’t think that’s what you had in mind,” Rebecca answered impishly.

“In that case, I won’t even ask if you’ve made love with the nice man,” Valerie sniffed and they both laughed. “Enough,” she announced, “it’s time to be artists.”

Valerie stood up and let the robe drop from her shoulders. She stepped naked onto the low pedestal as Rebecca gathered her tools. Today Rebecca would work in charcoal.

It had been Valerie’s idea to be her model. She had seen some of Rebecca’s works that awkwardly reflected human figures. One time she had unkindly said that they were all so lifeless that it looked as if they were about to fall down. She had convinced Rebecca that the only proper way to paint or sketch people was to understand human anatomy, and that the only way to do that was to actually see it. When Rebecca had demurred, Valerie had told her that she had modeled for a number of artists in France, some of whom she hadn’t slept with.

Valerie’s logic overcame Rebecca’s reluctance, and the improvement in her efforts was surprising as she understood how the human body operated. Valerie was a voluptuous woman who seemed to enjoy displaying herself.

“I’ll stand naked in the daylight for as long as I can,” she’d proclaimed during one of their first sessions. “Right now I am the type of model a Renaissance painter would have loved. In a few years I’ll be fat and will have to pay men to paint me or make love to me.”

“You’d do that?” Rebecca had asked in surprise.

“Only for the right man,” Valerie had said and laughed. “I will not always have my figure, but I will always have standards. And money.”

It hadn’t taken long for Rebecca to realize that Valerie truly enjoyed being without clothes. In younger years, Valerie had swum naked in the warm waters of the Mediterranean off the southern coast of France and also in the Caribbean. She had also frolicked nude in the snows of Sweden, where she’d warmed herself in something called a sauna. Rebecca felt it would be interesting to swim unencumbered by clothes in warm water, but had no interest whatsoever in romping naked through the snow.

Valerie’s sexual experiences no longer shocked Rebecca, although she was astounded at how many lovers the French-woman had taken. That not all of them had been men was no longer shocking either. Nor was the fact that Rebecca now understood just how women could physically love and pleasure each other.

As Rebecca continued to sketch, she wondered how her thinner body compared with Valerie’s in Nathan’s eyes. She was much slenderer in comparison with Valerie, who truly was beginning to show a little fat. Rebecca felt that any comparison would be basically favorable, although her breasts were smaller and there was the nagging feeling that her calves were a little too muscular.

“Did you ever shave your legs?” Rebecca asked. “I remember hearing that women in Europe sometimes do that.”

Valerie shifted slightly, but still retained the pose. “I did it once, but never again. I thought it would make myself more attractive as a model. My legs were a mass of little cuts and the skin was raw. Then, when everything grew back, I itched horribly. However, I will shave my underarms if I am wearing a revealing dress. I do think a black pelt of fur under a woman’s arms can be very unappealing. I think you should wear dresses that expose your bosom. That’d get Mr. Hunter’s attention.”

Rebecca laughed. “If I had bosoms I’d display them.”

“You’re hardly that tiny,” Valerie said. She stepped off the pedestal to see what Rebecca had wrought. “Excellent. Now it’s my turn.”

Rebecca hung her robe over the back of a chair and stepped onto the pedestal, where she took a deep breath. She was still unused to nudity, although she found it liberating and exhilarating. As usual, Valerie did not put her robe back on. When they were done, there would be one more glass of wine before returning to the reality of the outside world. Rebecca made a decision. When Valerie was done sketching her she wouldn’t wear her robe either. “I think Mr. Hunter would approve if he saw you today.” Rebecca flushed. “I wonder. Perhaps my scar would frighten him away.”

“Hardly. You make it larger than it is. It scarcely covers even part of your neck and none of your bosom. How did you get it?”

“An oil lamp spilled and burned me when I was a child. After that, I always felt that people were staring at it and me. Do you really think it is inconsequential? I always felt that it was one reason my late husband wanted so little to do with me.”

“Your unlamented late husband was an idiot as well as a criminal. Your scar is barely visible.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but the comment pleased Rebecca. “Do you want Nathan to touch you, Rebecca? Do you want him to make love to you? Do you want this relationship to go further?”

Rebecca found it difficult to hold her pose. “I don’t know. No: of course I know. Yes: I do want it to go further.”

“Then tell him. If not in words: tell him in actions. He is a widower and you are a widow. Better you are both young. Do you think you will ever take him to bed with you?”

“Ever is an interesting word, dear Valerie.”

“Then do you want him to be pleased with you as a lover? Do you wish to be pleased as well?”

It was a question she would not have even considered answering a few months ago, but now everything was so very different. Now she could imagine Nathan Hunter’s strong arms around her and she knew that their lovemaking would be different from what it had been with poor confused Tom. When she permitted herself to think of it. she felt stirrings of pleasure that had been totally lacking with Tom.

“Yes,” she answered quietly.

Valerie smiled knowingly as she continued to work Rebecca’s lithe body onto the sketch pad. Rebecca’s answer might have been demure, but her body had betrayed her. Her firm and younger breasts showed definite signs of arousal. Valerie smiled inwardly. It was time to prepare young Rebecca for Nathan Hunter.

   Rebecca took Nathan’s hand and led him through the myriad and jumbled stones of the graveyard just across the Potomac in Alexandria. Some of the stones were quite old, dating back to the last century, but a number of them were new: very new, and belonged to the dead of the new war.

They stopped before one of the newer ones, It simply said, “Thomas Devon, b, March 7, 1824, d, August 15, 1861.” Nathan realized with a jolt that Rebecca’s husband had taken awhile to die after Bull Run.

“His wound was hideous,” she said. “He’d been shot in the stomach and there was nothing to do for him but to use narcotics to keep the pain at bay.”

Every soldier knew that to be gut shot was to be killed, whether it happened immediately or agonizing days later. The bullet invariably ripped the intestines, which spilled filth into the body. Death was inevitable and often longed for.

“I found him in the hospital and brought him home.” She had been horrified by the scenes of horror and filth. Even though she had no love for him, she could not let a dog die like that. “For a while we thought he would be one of the few lucky ones who survive such a wound, but it was not to be. His agonies were terrible. Sometimes he cursed me and tried to blame me for his torment.

“Morphine was in short supply,” she continued. “Several times I had to buy opium from disreputable people in the slums south of Pennsylvania Avenue. They saw me so often they probably thought I was addicted to it and not buying it for medical purposes.”

On more than one occasion she had been offered the opium in return for sex. These had included traditional sex as well as other varieties. She later told Valerie she’d been rendered nearly speechless when one drug seller asked if she’d like to suck his cock in payment for the opium.

“It must have been extremely difficult for you,” Nathan said in what he realized was an understatement. “Death was a mercy for both of us. Did you know I was one of the fools who went to watch the battle?”

When the Union army under McDowell had finally marched south from Washington, its departure was hardly a secret. It had also been no secret that the Confederates were only a few miles away at Manassas Junction, or the creek called Bull Run.

Along with thousands of others, Rebecca and the D’Estaings had taken a carriage out to watch the pageant. They’d camped on a crowded hilltop and picnicked while the battle commenced before them.

“It was all so exciting,” she said. “There was the boom of cannon and the rattle of muskets. We couldn’t see the entire battlefield, of course, but we did see a portion of it where there was actually some fighting. We cheered when Union soldiers advanced. It was then that I realized that the men who were falling and lying on the ground weren’t acting in a pageant. They were dead and dying. Thank God we were too far away to hear their screams.”

She took his arm and guided him away from the grave site. “After a while, we saw Union soldiers running away and past us. We thought they were cowards and yelled at them to return to the battle. Then the trickle of humanity became a flood and we realized that the North had lost the battle. We left the field in a panic along with a score of senators and representatives. The rebels were coming, we thought, and we didn’t want to be captured. As we headed north, we found several wounded by the side of the road. We put them in the carriage and tried to make them comfortable. It was then that I really saw the horror of war. Their wounds were terrible. One poor boy’d had his arm torn off. He died before we reached a hospital.

“Some horsemen rode by and Valerie said they were rebels. They were wild-looking and shaggy, and when they looked into the carriage and saw the wounded, I thought they would kill us. The leader, though, just nodded at us and rode off. It wasn’t until later that I found out that Tom had been mortally wounded and carried off the field in a carriage like mine.”

“It was such an innocent beginning to terrible times,” he said.

She looked at his strong calm face. ’:No more so than when your wife died and you were helpless to do anything about it.”

“True. For the longest time I blamed the army doctors for being so incompetent as to be unable to cure a simple fever. Now I know they weren’t incompetent, just ignorant. They actually bled her and purged her in an attempt to cure her. I was a soldier and understood that a man needs blood to live and food for nourishment. It made no sense to deprive a sick person of either, much less both. I thought it was criminal, but I don’t feel that way anymore.” He laughed harshly. “Just think. Victoria, queen of England, couldn’t find doctors to cure her husband. How on earth could I think anyone would save my dear Amy?”

It was a bright but cold day and they were able to walk down the street in comfort. They would return to their carriage at their leisure. Both would have preferred horseback, but it was still a little chilly for that.

“At first I thought Tom had died because of me,” she said. “I thought he’d enlisted to show me he was a warrior and impress me. Then I found his diary in which he said he did it because he thought it would be a great adventure and possibly save him if his criminal activities were discovered, and what I thought didn’t matter at all.”

She did not tell him of the graft and kickbacks he’d written about, or about the woman he’d kept as a mistress. Those secrets would keep, perhaps forever. However, he did understand that their marriage had been a loveless one and that she’d cared for Tom until his death out of a sense of duty, not affection.

“I’m honored that you’ve told me all this,” Nathan said.

“I have my reasons, Mr. Hunter,” she said with a nervous smile. She was about to take a large step. “I find myself growing fond of you and I believe you are equally fond of me.”

“I am,” he said softly and she exhaled with relief.

“Unless everyone in Washington is mistaken,” she continued, “the army will again march south in a couple of days, and you’ll be with it, won’t you?”

“Yes.” McClellan had kept his word. Written permission to accompany the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac had come through.

“Very simply, Nathan Hunter, I do not wish you harmed.”

Her hand was in the crook of his arm and he put his other hand over it. “Let me assure you. Rebecca Devon, that I have no wish for that either. I will be with McClellan’s headquarters and not at the front. The days of generals actually leading their armies are gone. Caesar might have done it but neither McClellan, nor Lee for that matter, will consider it.”