Kary, Elizabeth (51 page)

"You
know I can't do that," Althea replied, concern for her daughter plain in
her face.

"But
why? Though we've talked about this for months, I don't think I've ever
understood why you feel you must go."

Althea
drew a long breath. For the first time she could sense Leigh's willingness to
listen, to try to understand what was driving Althea from the city that had
been her home for twenty-five years and the man who was her husband.

"I
am leaving," Althea began, "because I can't live with your father,
because being together is destroying us both, because loving Horace is no
longer enough."

"You
do love Father, then," Leigh murmured half to herself. "I have always
wondered if you did."

"Of
course I love him!" Althea was both shocked by her daughter's words and
adamant in her declaration. "How could you doubt it? I've loved him since
the first time I laid eyes on him."

Smiling
at the memory, she set her teacup aside. "It was in a shop in New Orleans,
a very fashionable millinery shop. I was trying on a particularly lovely hat,
one with a rose-colored ostrich feather curling around the brim and wide pink
velvet ribbons. As I turned from the mirror, I found your father watching me.
'Even the brightest plumage is no match for your beauty, madam,' he said, then
turned away before I could reply or even learn his name."

Althea
laughed softly. "He must have found out who I was, though, because two
nights later, he managed an invitation to dinner at my father's house. He was
so handsome then, your father, so tall and strong. Before the evening was over,
I knew he was the only man I would ever want to marry. But my family opposed
the match. He was not from our social set; he owned no vast tracts of land. He
simply wasn't good enough for a Mattingly. So your father and I conspired to
run away."

There
was confusion in Leigh's eyes, and she drew a long, unsteady breath before she
asked the question that had haunted her half her life, knowing this might be
her only chance to get an honest answer. "You mean you didn't marry Father
because of me, because you were expecting a baby?"

Althea
seemed surprised by Leigh's assumption. "No, of course not! The fact that
I was great with child when we returned from Europe forced my family to accept
our marriage, but we would have married anyway, one way or the other."

Leigh
was silent for a long moment, dizzy with the implications of her mother's
words. Horace and Althea had married for reasons of their own, not because they
had been forced into a life together by the strictures of Victorian society.
They had married because they loved each other, not because of her.

Gladness
raged through Leigh, and deep inside her the brutal, aching tension she had
carried with her always was miraculously relieved. The difficulties in her
parents' marriage had sprung from causes other than her untimely birth: causes
based in differences between them, causes that had nothing to do with Leigh. It
was a stunning revelation. After all the years of guilt, of fear, of accepting
the responsibility for her parents' problems, she could finally stop blaming
herself.

There
was a lightness in Leigh at the realization, a lightness that she had never
known. She had made a wondrous discovery that left her alive and free to follow
her own convictions and the dictates of her heart. Though she could not share
her feelings with her mother, Leigh knew she could count on Hayes to listen and
understand.

Althea's
words broke into her careening thoughts. "Hadn't you ever heard the story
of our elopement before?"

Leigh
nodded. "Grandfather told me, but I always assumed that the reason for
your hasty marriage was me, because you were pregnant."

The
older woman shook her head solemnly. "No, Leigh, no. We married for
love."

"But
then why have you always fought? Why were you both so unhappy?"

Althea
retrieved her teacup and took a bracing sip. "Many of those hours I lay
abed during my illness were spent thinking about Horace and me. I realize now
that our problems began as soon as we came to St. Louis. My family impressed
upon your father that I was delicate and needed protecting, that they were
entrusting him with some great treasure when they agreed to acknowledge our
marriage. But my family did me no favor in convincing Horace of that. He
treated me like a porcelain doll, and you were no more than ten or eleven when
you began to do the same."

Leigh
opened her mouth to protest, but Althea continued. "You must understand,
Leigh, that I had been raised to run a plantation, to live a life built on the
strength of a woman's endeavor. I grew up with the belief that a woman found
satisfaction in doing for her man and family: that her value lay more in her
talents than in her beauty. But your father was content with only that, and for
a while I was, too. Then all at once you were tagging after your grandfather
everywhere he went, and Horace was more and more involved in his business and
politics. There were no more babies to take your place, and my life became an
empty round of musicals and needlework. It wasn't enough."

Leigh's
brows were drawn together in concentration as she listened, trying to
understand her mother's words, her mother's pain.

"Horace
and I have always argued, but in the hours I had alone while he was busy with
his politics and business, I found differences between us I had never noticed
before. The rift between North and South was the most glaring, and I let it
drive us apart."

"Oh,
Mother, I'm sorry."

Althea
gave Leigh a wan smile and covered her daughter's hand with her own. "When
you get back to St. Louis, I want you to help Horace. He isn't ready to listen
to my reasons for returning to Louisiana, but in time he will be. And when that
time comes, I want you to try to make him understand."

There
was a terrible constriction in her throat that made Leigh's promise all but
inaudible. "I will, Mother. I will."

Two
days later Leigh, Hayes, Althea, and Althea's maid Julia left the
Barbara
Dean
on the west bank of the Mississippi north of Vicksburg. With the
papers Hayes had been able to secure in St. Louis, they passed through the
lines to meet one of Althea's elderly uncles who had agreed to escort her to
the family plantation.

When
the moment of parting finally came, Althea murmured a quick good-bye to Hayes
and kissed his cheek, then went to where her daughter stood.

"Take
care of yourself, Leigh," Althea whispered as they clung together.
"And take care of your father, too."

"I
will."

"And
be good to Hayes. He loves you so."

Leigh's
voice was thick, and tears gathered on her lashes. "I love him, too."

"But
remember, Leigh, sometimes loving a man is not enough. A husband and wife must
learn to trust and respect each other. A woman's place is beside her husband,
beside him to help carry his burdens, beside him so she can share her own. That
is a hard lesson to learn: one neither your father nor I ever mastered. Depend
on Hayes and love him, but be aware that there are times when he will need your
compassion and understanding, too."

"I'll
try, Mother."

"Oh,
Leigh, you are so dear to me!" Althea whispered, giving her daughter one
last hug.

Then
resolutely the older woman turned away from her daughter, away from the
comfortable existence she had known in St. Louis. Althea was searching for
something in the fading echoes of a life she had once led, and Leigh hoped
desperately that she would find what she was seeking. Her mother did not want
to return to days gone by, but instead needed to pick up the misplaced threads
of her past so she could create a place for herself in the future.

Whether
Horace Pennington was a part of that future, Leigh did not know. But for both
their sakes—for Althea who was discovering her strength, and for Horace, who,
Leigh suspected, would soon discover his weaknesses— she hoped there was a time
when they would be reunited.

***

April 16, 1863

Once
they arrived back aboard the
Barbara Dean,
Hayes took Leigh directly to
their cabin. It was not difficult to see how the parting from her mother had
upset her, and he spent the rest of the day comforting his wife. He offered her
consolation; dried her tears; listened to her reminiscences of happier days;
made slow, exquisite love to her; then held her as she slept, curled trustingly
against him.

It
was long after sunset when Leigh awoke, feeling refreshed and renewed. As she
washed and dressed, her thoughts were soft and diffused, filled with
appreciation for the gentle, sensitive man who was her husband. His sympathy
and understanding had helped her through one of the most difficult days of her
life, and the tenderness she felt for Hayes was tempered with love and
gratitude.

When
she came out on deck, she realized for the first time that they were headed
downstream toward Vicksburg instead of upstream toward home. Her mind was alive
with questions about their destination as she searched the river-boat for
Hayes, finding him at last at the front of the promenade deck staring out into
the deepening twilight. There was a tension in his stance that Leigh did not
understand, and the air of introspection that surrounded him was deep and
forbidding. Still, Leigh approached him, needing answers to her questions,
needing to express her thanks for what he had done this afternoon, needing the
reassuring essence that was her husband.

"Hayes,"
she said softly and saw a slight tremor of surprise run through his body, as if
his thoughts had been deep and far away. "Hayes, darling, are you all
right?"

He
gave her an evasive smile. "Yes, of course."

Somehow
it did not seem the time to express the things that she was feeling, and Leigh
asked a question instead of approaching him on other matters. "Where are
we going?"

"We're
headed for Vicksburg. I received word less than an hour ago that the ironclads
are going to attempt to run past the shore batteries tonight, to take supplies
down below the city in order to open another avenue of attack on the town. I
want to see if they make it."

Leigh
knew that Vicksburg was the key Confederate position on the Mississippi and
that the city must be overpowered before the Union could hope to reclaim
control of the vital waterway. The city of five thousand on the eastern bank of
the river commanded one of the sharp, narrow, hairpin turns that were common to
the Mississippi's course, and with the two-hundred-foot-high bluffs studded
with field pieces and manned by Pemberton's crack Confederate troops, it was in
a nearly impregnable position. That was evidenced by the fact that neither
Farragut, Ellet and their gunboats, nor Grant with his nearly twenty-four
thousand troops, had been able to rout the defenders since May of the previous
year. They had tried a river blockade and shelling; direct attacks from the
east and south; circumventing the city through rivers, bayous, and canals. They
even tried diverting the Mississippi itself to cut Vicksburg off from the
river, but without success. None of the Union plans had worked, and General
Grant was getting desperate.

"Do
you think they'll succeed in running past the city?" she asked, peering
out into the watery blackness that lay before them.

"Porter
is a fine commander, and they've chosen to run the batteries in the dark of the
moon." Hayes's tone was speculative.

"Will
the Confederates be expecting them?" Leigh wondered aloud.

"I
don't know. Surely the Rebels are prepared for the fleet to try something like
this, but I think Porter may take them by surprise."

They
were approaching an area just above Vicksburg, screened from the city by the
heavily forested banks of the DeSoto Peninsula, where a flotilla was gathering.
There were ironclads and transport steamers riding the current of the swirling
black water, barges and mortar boats lying in wait. As they drew closer, Leigh
could see that the deck of each boat was piled high with bales of cotton, wet
hay, or sacks of grain to serve as protection from the incoming fire they
expected once the flotilla got underway. Lashed to the starboard side of each
transport were more barges filled with supplies that would sustain the army in
the ensuing weeks of the campaign. Except for a single lantern on the stern of
each ship, all was in darkness, and as the
Barbara Dean
jockeyed for a
position along the eastern bank where boats not making the run were gathered,
the muted churning of her paddle wheel seemed loud in the night.

The
waiting seemed interminable even to Leigh on the deck of the steamboat, and she
wondered at the thoughts of the hundreds of men who were about to risk their
lives running the batteries of the heavily fortified Western city. At ten
o'clock the signal to proceed was given, and Admiral Porter's flagship, the
Benton,
began to pull out, followed at two-hundred-yard intervals by the other
ships. A strange, tentative silence hung over the river as the dark, hulking
shapes of the boats fell in line, and Leigh found herself trembling in
anticipation. Beside her Hayes waited, as tense and enervated as she. But his
eyes seemed to linger on the town rising high above the river rather than on the
boats skulking past the terraces of batteries.