Leigh Ann's Civil War (9 page)

"It puts me in another world," he said, "and I like this one too much."

Then he asked me, "Would you get me some of that medicine that Cannice used to make and give us for pain?"

In the afternoons Camille came. They'd hole up in the back parlor, which the shade favored in the afternoon. She played the piano for him, or read Tennyson or Longfellow. He loved Tennyson and Longfellow. She was there, as well as Teddy, the day Dr. Widmar came and examined Louis's ankle. I sat on the couch and held his hand. Camille sat on the other side and held his arm. Dr. Widmar told him it would take a year to heal, at least.

Teddy sent me from the room at that pronouncement and then he left, too, with Dr. Widmar. "He's planning to rejoin the army," Teddy told the doctor. "So am I."

"He may never be able to walk right again," the doctor told Teddy. "You'll be all right in a month or so. But not Louis. And I think he knows it. He's right smart."

***

Everything was different. I had knitted socks for both Teddy and Louis and they were home before I could send them. I gave Teddy his, but I did not know what to do with Louis's.

"Give them to him," Teddy advised. "He still has to wear socks."

"He wears
bandages!
" I flung back at him. "I heard the doctor say he'll likely never walk right again."

Teddy scowled. "If you give him the socks, you'll give him some hope."

I threw the socks on the floor. Teddy told me to pick them up. I did not. I stomped out of the room. At no other time would he have allowed this, but I suppose he knew my bones were bruised and my innards twisted by what had happened to Louis.

Yet everything was the same. Their concern for the mill was the same, and although Louis could not go along to inspect things there with Teddy as he usually did, Teddy went every day. One quiet afternoon Camille came and she was so tired that she promptly fell asleep on one of the sofas in the back parlor. Louis left her there and was practicing walking around the house on his crutches. I was in the front parlor, reading
The Confessions of a Pretty Woman
by someone named Pardoe. I'd gotten it from Viola's room. It was what I supposed a French novel was like.

I was so taken with it, I scarce heard Teddy approach. He came around to read the title and took the book from me. "Where did you get this?"

I sighed. There went some good confessions. "I found it around the house."

"Well, you're not reading it." He snapped it shut.

"So, what do you want me to read?
The Three Little Kittens?"

I don't know who was more shocked, he or I. His shock passed across his face as hurt, not anger. I'd never spoken to him like that before. My shock came across me in waves.

Just at that moment I saw Louis standing in the doorway and I thought,
Oh, no—I've hurt and shocked him, too.
I looked from one brother to the other, both nursing wounds received in a nightmare of a battle, and here I was badmouthing one of them over a book—a
book!
—while the other, who would never walk right again, looked on in disbelief. I thought,
Lord, wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sins.

"What's happened to you in my absence?" Teddy asked softly.

"I'm sorry, Teddy," I said.

He shook his head slowly. " 'Sorry' doesn't do it. Go into the library and sit yourself down in that chair and don't move until I come and get you. Go on now."

It was said kindly, which made it worse. I looked at Louis as I went out, but Louis never interfered when Teddy disciplined me.

I sat in the chair for more than an hour. The wise old grandfather clock told me it was two hours, and still Teddy didn't come. I alternately cried and hiccupped. I got a headache and my throat hurt. He'd never made me sit two hours.

I thought,
He must wonder at having to bother with me over such a trifling matter when he's seen men getting their heads blown off. He must think, "Is this what I've come home for? There are men getting killed out there on fields and I've got to tell them 'Forward, boys.' That's what I've got to do, not tell this little brat what she can and cannot read." So he's forgotten me.

It was approaching suppertime. My arms and legs were numb; my head was throbbing. I had no tears left. I was about starved, yet my throat was so scratchy, I didn't know if I could eat. But I'd stay here all night if he didn't come. I'd not leave the chair. I'd pee in my pantalets if I had to, to show him I was still decent, that I still thought him a man to be reckoned with.

My eyes were closing when he came. "Leigh Ann."

My eyes flew open.

"Are you all right? Primus needed me at the stable. We had a new colt born. Why didn't you leave after an hour?"

"You told me to stay until you came and got me."

He nodded appreciatively. "You're a good girl. But what made you talk to me like that before I'll never understand, Leigh Ann. You frightened me. I thought everything I'd taught you had vanished with the first disruption in our lives. You must understand, child, that in difficult times all we have to hold us together is the everyday values and truths we live by. Am I making any sense?"

"Yes, Teddy."

"It's part of what held me together facing battle. All that I'd left in place here. Knowing I'd given you enough to start you on a good life. It's important to me, Leigh Ann." He touched the side of my face. "You don't look good. Are you ailing?"

"I have a headache. And my throat is scratchy. And I'm about starved."

He grinned. "You're going to punish me good for this, aren't you? Go on, clean up for supper."

Viola got in trouble, too.

Jon had told Teddy she'd been drinking sherry. But as despicable as that was, Viola got scolded by Teddy. And lectured. On how decent women from good families did not drink indiscriminately. Or their reputations were ruined. And no man liked a woman who drank, except at a social occasion, and then only one drink, never more.

I listened outside the door. I wanted to tell Teddy how wonderful Viola had been, how she'd worried about them, how she'd dealt with Mother when I was kidnapped, something he knew nothing about. But I dared not.

And then I waited for Viola to tell him about Jon and his wanting to "take liberties" with her. But she'd made me promise not to tell. Did Teddy know how honorable that was? What would he do if he knew about Jon?

"Then there is the matter of the book I caught Leigh Ann reading. If you have to read such trash," he told her severely, "keep it hidden so Leigh Ann can't get at it."

I heard Viola crying, then heard Teddy say quietly, "Look, Louis and I are aware of how you held things together while we were away. We know what a strain it must have been. But in this family we do not react to strain by drinking. Life is not all peaches and cream, Viola. You're only fifteen, but best you learn it now, especially with this war. We think you did a wonderful job. Come now, give me a kiss."

Teddy always wanted kisses after he scolded. I gave them. Viola would not. I heard her running out of the room and quickly stepped down the hall. She flitted past me, sobbing.

It was the next day that Teddy received the letter from the Confederate secretary of war that put him really in the doldrums.

I was vaccinated against smallpox the next morning. Teddy and Louis had the nasty business done in the army, and so Teddy had Dr. Widmar come around and do it to us.

I did not want it, but Teddy was firm. Louis held me on his lap while Dr. Widmar did the honors. It hurt and I cried and Teddy called me a sissy-boots. Viola did not cry. Teddy was watching and she would not give him the satisfaction. She was still not talking to him. Carol did not cry, either. She had slipped back into her "fussing" with Teddy now that she knew he was recovering.

They vaccinated Careen, too. She and I were given peppermint candy and told to stay quiet, so we went outside under the sweet gum trees. We talked about how she'd been right about Louis being hurt in battle when she'd thrown salt on the fire that day. I saw Jon come back with the mail from town. I was reading one of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poems to Careen when Cannice came out, calling us like the house was on fire.

"Leigh Ann! You're to come right on in, chile. Your brother is having a family meeting and he wants you now!"

They were in the study, Teddy, Louis, and Viola, waiting for me. Carol was resting after her vaccination. It had rendered her sickly, Teddy said.

With no further ado, he made us sit and then read us the letter he'd received from the secretary of war, LeRoy P.Walker.

It was in a lot of fancy language, but in a nutshell it exempted him from further military service.

His voice shook as he read it.

His name had been dropped from the rolls of the Roswell Guards. He was needed to manage the Roswell Mill. Demands for woolen cloth for the military were increasing, and the mill must run night and day.

There was a lot of other talk about the governor's appreciation of the Conners brothers' performance on the field of battle, but now efforts were needed elsewhere.

Teddy finished reading and looked at us. "You all know who did this, don't you?"

We didn't answer.

"Mother did this," he said.

"What influence has she got with the Confederate secretary of war?" Louis asked.

"Come on, Louis. By now you should know she has influence with everybody when it pleases her. She doesn't give a tinker's damn about the mill. She's getting back at me for something." He looked at Viola. "What happened while I was away? What is it you're not telling me?"

Viola did not answer.

Teddy's jaw was set, like it got when he took me bow-and-arrow hunting and he was intent on getting his prey. "Damn it, so I scolded you yesterday. Does that mean you won't help me when I need it?"

Louis was standing next to Teddy. "Come here, Leigh Ann," he requested.

Me. So the whole thing fell on me. I went to him.

"Why don't you tell us what happened, sweetie?" He used his best Louis voice on me. Unfair. So unfair. I looked back at Viola.

"Oh, go ahead," she said tearfully, "tell them. They can play you anytime." And she ran out of the room.

I started after her, but Louis grabbed my arm, nearly toppling off his crutches, and held me back.

And so in a hesitant voice I told them about Mother's visit.

Question after question they shot at me, dragging the story out.

How she whipped me, how she kidnapped me, where she lived, how she tied my hands and threatened to send me north, the whole sordid story. How the mayor and my family came to get me and how angry she was that she had to give me up to Teddy.

"Now I know why she's done this to me," Teddy said. "And now I'm going to pay her a visit."

Louis offered to go with Teddy.

"It's my fight," Teddy said.

"We fought together at Manassas," Louis reminded him.

And so they went off together.

When they returned, they told us nothing of what transpired in the visit. But the angels must have marked it down in their golden books that day. Not in the "win" column. And not as a loss. But in the "debts being settled" column, which for my brothers is a win when going against my mother, anytime.

***

In the end, though, there was nothing for it. Teddy had to go into the mill. He went nights, which he said was more in tune with his moods. He liked walking the eerie lamp-lit aisles. "I suppose," he told us at breakfast, "I have to accept the sound of clacking looms for gunshots and the flying lint and cotton dust for bullets and the acrid smell of oil for gunsmoke."

He always came to breakfast, to make his presence known for the day. We waited for him if he was late, because in the early morning he oversaw the "cloth and pant" goods to Marietta by wagon. From there they went by train to Atlanta.

"At least," he told us, "at night I don't have to see the children working."

He never liked the idea of children working in the mill.

All day he slept. Carol, of course, was furious with his choice to work at night. "It's pushing us further apart," she told him.

"Only if you let it," he returned.

Supper was earlier now, because he got up at five in the afternoon, and after bathing, shaving, and spending time with Carol, he was ready for the family. First, though, he saw Primus and Jon out on the back porch. Then the rest of us at the table. Who had questions? What had happened this day? Was there any trouble? Good news?

We all looked at Louis, who was hiding a smile.

"Come on, brother," Teddy urged, "what is it?"

"A group of men came 'round today," Louis told him. "Mayor Hanley is leaving for the Confederate army. They want me to be mayor."

Teddy raised his eyebrows. "Group of men? Mayor?"

Louis blushed. "All the town fathers."

"Well." Teddy stood up, glass of sherry in hand. "Let's have a toast to my brother, Mayor Louis Conners."

We got to our feet. Teddy went around to Louis's place and poured more sherry into his glass. He filled Pa's, then Carol's, then went to the other side of the table and stood over my sister. "A glass for Viola," he said. "Fetch one, Leigh Ann."

Viola stood, white-faced and stunned.

I fetched the glass.

Teddy filled it halfway, then took his place at the head of the table. His face went solemn. "These are difficult times. But Louis has shown us the way to survive and overcome, in spirit and in deeds. I propose a toast to Louis. May God always be with him."

"Hear, hear!" We shouted. I held up my glass of lemonade.

***

And so Louis became mayor of Roswell. He read every newspaper he could get his hands on and told us there was no more fierce fighting since Manassas, except far out in Missouri. And that Lincoln said the Confederate States "were in a state of insurrection against the United States."

"I hope Lincoln gets lots of headaches," I said at breakfast on the day Louis was sworn in as mayor.

Louis told us that some brigadier general named Grant had assumed command in southeastern Missouri. "I hope he falls off his horse and breaks his neck," I said.