The Titans (9 page)

and foul the bedroom's blue-lit air. "Even though I'm frightened to death of what I might do." "To Fan?" "Yes. I-I don't know whether I can hold my temper. An hour ago, I made up my mind I should stay away. Not risk even one minute in her presence-was He grimaced. "That resolution didn't last long." "I'm not surprised. I know how much you worry 126Molly's Hope about your boys. Sometimes you call their names in the middle of the night-was "Molly, I haven't seen them in almost ten years!" "I understand." "I don't care if they speak to me. I don't care if they despise me-I've just got to know whether they're all right!" Suddenly the little strength remaining in him drained away. He flung himself down on one end of the bed, hands jammed against his eyes. Molly slipped one arm around his shoulder while the man vanished and the child wept: "Got to-and-Fan's the only one who can tell me-that-that's why I'm frightened. Frightened down to the pit of my soul I'm frightened that if she won't tell me, I'll-was "Do what?" Molly whispered. "Hit her. Throttle her-God Himself only knows!" He fisted a hand; struck his knee. "I hate the bitch!" With the hand that had left-a white mark on his knee, he reached across for her hand curled on his left shoulder; closed his fingers over hers: "I'm ashamed of myself." "Jephtha, no-was "I am. It isn't fitting for a man to carry on like this." "Hush! The only way you'll lick the fear is to face it." "I'm not sure I can lick it, Molly. I really don't know." They sat together for five minutes, silently, Jephtha peering at the worn carpet, his naked body cold and free of sweat all at once. Molly pressed against his right side, her arm still over his back. Jephtha held her hand at his left shoulder. His tears stopped, but not the tremors in his fingers. Conscious of how carefully she must pose the only answer that came to mind, Molly finally said: The Titans127 "Well, I agree you'll probably end up going to see her if she's here with Lamont. You'll have to face it like a battle, Jephtha. A battle you have to win." "I'm not sure I can!" "I know. But you have to try. For your own peace of mind. About the boys. And about yourself. You'll need help. Something to-to make you a little more forgiving of your wife-of Fan." Gently, she separated her fingers from his. She left him huddled on the bed while she donned her robe. "I don't suppose you'll sleep much tonight," she said. "Maybe that's good. You can prepare yourself for seeing her. I'll take the couch in your room-was He glanced up, puzzled. "I want you to stay here," she said, "and try going back to the past." "What?" "The past. To see whether anything there can give you the strength you'll need to face her. To control the rage I know you feel. I don't blame you for the rage, Jephtha. But if you let it run wild, things will be worse than ever. You wait here-was Despite her anxiety, she forced a smile. "And put on your nightshirt so you don't catch cold." When she returned in a little over two minutes, Jephtha had donned the long flannel garment. She was carrying a small book with a red pebbled cover. "Where did you get that?" he demanded. "In your room, where else? I think it's what you need. I know you haven't read it much during the past year. But you should read it tonight. I've come to know you fairly well, Jephtha. It sometimes happens when a man shares a woman's bed," she added with a little smile. "You're not the same person you were when you 128Molly's Hope first walked in here hunting a place to stay. But no one ever changes completely. I know there's as much goodness in you as there is hatred. In Fan, too-no, you listen to rne. There is! You saw it in her once. You married her." "I was wrong about her. I don't believe for one damn minute she's anything but a vicious, vindictive-was "Hush," Molly said. "You've got to stop thinking of her that way. Let this help you-was She laid the Testament in his right palm and cupped her hand to close his fingers around it. He gazed at the book, forlorn: "I don't believe what's in here any more." "Underneath everything, I think you do. Or you want to. I know the kind of man you really are." "Then you know me better than I know myself these days." "I think so." She patted the book. "I'm not the most religious person in the world. But I remember from the years I went to church as a little girl-there are a great many words in this book about the virtue of forgive- ness." his Almost inaudibly, Jephtha said, "Yes, there are. "Read them. Let them help you look for the goodness instead of the bad. In yourself and in Fan. Pray if you can. That's the only way you'll be able to go see her without hurting-well, you understand." She bent down and kissed his forehead. He raised his head. A curious curl turned his mouth up at the corners. He said softly: "You do have a passion for saving things. String. Paper. People who've outlived their usefulness-was "Jephtha, I refuse to listen to that sort of talk. You know how I despise it when you pity yourself." After a moment, he sighed. "Yes, I do." His eyes grew bleak. "But I've never amounted to anything since I left the tinerancy. That's not self-pity. It's a fact." The Titans129 "Ridiculous. Writing for the paper-informing people comx's a worthwhile occupation. You've always told me the Kents considered publishing more than a means to make a profit. They felt it was a way to make a contribution." "True." But he was unconvinced. Because I've turned so far from God- No. Because He's turned so far from me. "I'm certain of one thing, Jephtha. If you give in to your worst feelings about Fan, you will be lost. You'll detest yourself-waste yourself in regrets for the rest of your life." He thought a moment, then stood up. With the Testament in one hand, he put the other on her waist: "Forgive me. Most of the time you're absolutely right." She tried to tease him: "Only most of the time?" He looked at her soberly. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Molly." "You're a good man. I care about you." "And you're a Christian woman." She made a face. "Regular churchgoers would disagree." "Sitting in a pew doesn't make you a Christian," Jephtha said. "For that matter, neither does belonging to a Christian church. You know my mother was a Shoshoni. Her understanding of the Bible was rudimentary. But the parts she understood, she understood completely. If anyone ever struggled to follow Christ's example, she did. You can deny it all you want, but you're the same sort of woman. It-it's one of the reasons I love you." "Well-was With a sudden rush of breath, she shook her head. Wiped at her eyes. "comt's very kind of you, sir, considering I'm an aging widow who's never been able to bear any man a child, or to be content living the 130Molly's Hope way respectable women are supposed to live. That's- very kind-was "Don't joke." "I'm not." He stroked her hair. "I wouldn't have said it if I'd thought it would make you unhappy." "Unhappy? Oh, no-was Her eyes shone. She buried her cheek on his shoulder. "No. You've never said it before, that's all. Not once-was "I guess you're right." "Say it again." "I love you." She kissed him, quickly. Ashamed of her tears, she tried to quell them. By some miraculous accident of intuition, she'd given him a chance to wrestle down the demons the presence of Lamont had brought back to life. If God did control any of the events in a world that seemed close to shaking itself apart, He had chosen to control one tonight. He had looked into this shabby room; guided her thinking and lent her the words she needed. She was unbelievably happy. She drew away. "You read now. You've got to find out about your boys-and you've got to do it without hurting the woman who bore them, much as you think she's wronged you. You've got to, Jephtha." He stood a little straighten "All right. I'll try." With a last dab at her eyes, she kissed his mouth a second time, retrieved her slippers and started for the door. In his room, she wept out of a curious mixture of relief and joy. She didn't sleep well that night. She was uncomfortable on the old leather couch standing amid the clutter of his books and clothing in the small room filled with the stale smell of cigars. Three times she stole up the hall and took a cautious step into her parlor. Each time, she saw a sliver of gaslight beneath the closed door of the The Titans131 bedroom. After the third visit, she managed to doze a while. Exhausted, she rose at six. She went down to meet Bertha, the free black woman who helped her prepare meals and maintain the boarding house. She and Bertha began serving at seven. Jephtha didn't come down with the others. About seven-thirty, he appeared in the hall, dressed and freshly shaved. "I'm late," he called. "Ill be skipping breakfast." "Mrs. Emerson, where's the hot coffee?" Mr. Swampscott complained above the chatter of the men at the table. His righteous eye registered his disapproval of her appearance; no Christian woman served breakfast in robe and slippers. "Bertha will have it here in a minute," Molly said, rushing to Jephtha. They walked toward the front door, out of the view of the boarders. He touched her arm. "Thank you for last night. I did read. In a different way than I've read in quite a while." "Are you going to see her?" "If she's here." "When?" "I can't be sure. First I have to find out where Lamont's staying." "Will that be today?" "I don't know. There's so much confusion in town, I'll probably be chasing up and down the avenue just trying to find one fact I can put into a story. And I am going to Canterbury Hall this evening, remember. I'll be back late." "But if you should see her today, are-are you all right?" "Yes." He seemed to smile faintly. Or did she just imagine that, hoping-his "Yes, I am," he repeated. He kissed her cheek, opened the front door and strode out. She watched until he vanished from sight. 132Molly's Hope She hurried back into the dining room. Bertha was pouring from the fresh pot of coffee. When breakfast was over, Molly began clearing the dishes. Her mind wasn't on the work. She kept trying to read Jephtha's mood from their brief conversation. He'd seemed tired; for good reason. But his fate no longer had the tormented, fearful look of last night And he'd walked briskly away on G Street She moved toward the kitchen, barely hearing the table talk of three boarders who had lingered over their coffee. The talk seemed nothing more than speculative variations on an incessant theme-war. Well, let the blasted secessionists march across Long Bridge! The only battle she cared about was Jephtha's- Are you all right? Yes, I am. Perhaps-she dared to let hope come brimming up within her-perhaps-he did have a chance to win his victory now. iv About nine-thirty, with the washing of the breakfast dishes completed and Bertha busy dusting the downstairs, Molly went to her rooms to put on a dress and comb her hair. The bedroom reeked of Jephtha's cigars. The red-covered Testament lay open on the bedside table. She picked up the book, scanning the two pages. Saint Matthew's Gospel, the fifth chapter- Closer scrutiny showed her Jephtha had evidently been studying the Beatitudes. The paper just beneath the seventh verse-"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy"-bore a faint horizontal indentation, more clearly discernible when she tilted the Testament. The mark had undoubtedly been left by his finger The Titans133 nail. She saw a similar underscore on the second verse following- "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Encouraged, she replaced the Testament in its original position. She turned slowly, surveying the room. She could find nothing out of order in the entire- Wait. A sudden dryness in her throat made it difficult to swallow. One drawer of her bureau was open about two inches. Cold, she crossed to it. Living alone as she had before Jephtha arrived-and with Washington City's heavy complement of thieves operating almost unopposed after nightfall-she'd felt it wise to keep a personal firearm close by. She'd bought a four-barrel pepperbox, .22 caliber, with ivory grips. It was one of the most popular models manufactured by the gunmaker Christian Sharps of Philadelphia. After a few weeks of practice in the back yard, she'd become proficient at loading, aiming and firing the little hideout gun. She kept it in the drawer- As Jephtha knew. Unsteadily, she touched the drawer's handle. He didn't want to tell me the truth. The Testament did no good. No good at ail- She pulled the drawer out- "Oh, God." Tears welled in her eyes. The pepperbox was gone. CHAPTER IV Fan's Fear FAN LAMONT WOKE to the sound of the parlor clock beyond the closed door. She counted the chimes. Ten. Pale sunlight cast the pattern of the lace curtains onto the end of the bed. The space beside her still felt warm. Edward was up early. Early. She smiled at that In her childhood someone who rose at ten would have been considered deranged. Since her second marriage in '55, she'd gradually accustomed herself to the peculiar hours kept by actors. She hoped Jeremiah was busy with his studies in the smaller bedroom on the other side of the suite Edward had rented in a burst of extravagance. She yawned. Listened to the late morning sounds of the National Hotel. Faint voices. Footsteps on the "stairs. Outside, on the avenue, traffic clattered. All at once she remembered what day it was. Tuesday. The Tuesday following Sumter's fall. She began to breathe a little faster, recalling the day's significance. She was excited by what little she knew of Edward's plan. Yet it made her apprehensive, too. Washington City was the capital of the Yankee government. Though it wouldn't be for long, Edward and his strange friend Josiah Cheever said. Even Leroy Walker, the Secretary of War for the Confederacy, had predicted a new flag would wave beside the Potomac by the first of May. Edward wanted to help bring it about. He'd turned

The Titans135 down a six-week engagement with a troupe going to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to perform Macbeth. She knew it was a sacrifice. He'd been offered the title role-a part he'd never played before. She continued to lie motionless, savoring the faint warmth he'd left in the bed. Through the two doors separating her from Jeremiah's room, she thought she heard her son utter an exclamation of disgust. She wished Gideon could have been here to attend the theater tonight. He was old enough. But he'd rented a horse on Sunday and set off for Richmond, hoping to join a military unit that would be mobilized the moment Virginia seceded. She thought of Matthew. He wouldn't know for weeks, or perhaps months, about his stepfather's high- principled action. Two years earlier, Fan and Edward had given up their efforts to prod Matthew into further schooling. In his quiet way, he refused to accept the discipline of academic work. Grudgingly, they'd permitted him to take a mess boy's berth on one of the cotton packets traveling out of Charleston. Before coming up to Washington, they'd received a letter from him. He was in New Orleans. But Gideon would undoubtedly be back from Richmond soon. At least she could tell him of Edward's courageous stand. Of all her sons, Gideon would have the. greatest appreciation for Edward's bravery. Among the three, he believed most strongly what she had taught them about Jephtha: that his fanaticism was responsible for the dissolution of the family. She slipped her hands behind her head as she lay thinking about her children. Jephtha had given each of them a- markedly independent nature. The Fletcher blood, he used to call it. Passed down from his grandmother, who had been a Virginian of rebellious and ultimately unstable temperament The trait was just beginning to show in Jeremiah. In 136FaA's Fear Gideon it manifested itself in various ways. His fondness for loud singing. His sudden outbursts of temper. The way he fumed and swore whenever Edward held forth on the abuse, slander and political manipulation the South had suffered for nearly four decades. And Matthew-there, too, she saw a rebellious streak, though it took a different form. Matthew had been hard to raise because he was her second; mothers of Fan's acquaintance always said second children presented special problems. They tended to be introspective-sometimes to the point of being wholly uncommunicative-perhaps because the eldest child, at least at first, got the major share of the parents" attention. Matthew fit the pattern. He'd repeatedly refused to do the lessons Fan had assigned to him when he traveled with the family. And his sources of enjoyment were contradictory. Only two things seemed to interest him-ungentlemanly games, and a hobby whose origin Fan was at a loss to explain. He liked to draw. He sketched anything that caught his interest, from a gas fixture jutting out of a brick wall backstage to a variety hall dancer with her foot on a chair as she adjusted her tights. Fan had no idea when he'd begun drawing. She'd only seen his first crude efforts when he was eleven. She had to admit he'd improved remarkably since then. In fact, his most recent letter had contained two folded charcoal studies she thought were quite good for a boy who wouldn't be seventeen for another month. One showed nigras handling bales on a pier. The figures of the black men had a flowing, sinuous quality that vividly suggested the strength and agility required to handle the bales-which he'd drawn with sharp angles, for contrast. He'd labeled that picture "New Orleans Cotton." The other one, smaller, was a portrait of the skipper of his packet, a stern, middle-aged Charleston sailor with full chin whiskers, fierce eyes and a The Titans137 braided cap. The picture was called "'Captain McGill, 1861." Fan's father considered Matthew's oasthne ungodly. She had a more practical concern. She'd have been worried about his masculinity if it hadn't been for his other passion. Often when she and Edward were still in bed the morning after a performance, Matthew had sneaked out of their hotel and found a group of boys- sometimes white, sometimes black-in the poor section of the town, and spent hours with them in a vacant field, playing a game with a wooden bat, a ball and opposing teams which tried to score "runs." Several times Matthew had tried to explain the game, which he said was getting more and more popular. But the explanation never made sense to Fan. He came home from his outings sweating and happy, so Fan had a hard time disciplining him for his day-long disappearances. His willingness to take part in hard physical activity comfirst the games, then the work on the packet- offset her fear that he might be developing in the wrong way. Still, of the three, Mathew was the one whose future concerned her the most. She did thank God that the independence displayed by all the boys had become her responsibility alone to control as best she could. Her efforts weren't perfect, but at least she was spared Jephtha's damaging influence. She thanked God too that she'd chosen a second husband who directed the boys" political thinking properly. They had developed absolute loyalty to the South, which had been too long at the mercy of the damned Northerners-those men who would free the nigras and set them up as the equals of whites. At which time, Edward insisted, the nigras would unleash their long-buried rage against their former masters. Kill them in their homes. Rape their women. 138Fan's Fear Torch their farms and plantations. Destroy their entire way of life. Edward stood against that ever happening. From birth, Fan, too, had stood against it, influenced by her father, Captain Virgil Tunworth. Though she suspected there was considerable risk in what Edward had decided to do, she was immensely proud of him. Of course her father hadn't been enthusiastic about her marrying an actor. It was still a disreputable profession. Only Fan's insistence-and Edward's fierce partisanship for the South-had overcome Tunworth's objections. The courtship had been swift and intense. She and her father had gone to Charleston to visit family relatives. One evening they'd attended the Charleston Theater to see the highly acclaimed tragedy Francesco da Rimini, written by Boker, an Englishman who regularly turned out successes for the Sadler's Wells Theater of London. Afterward, Fan and her father had. enjoyed a late- evening supper arranged on the stage by a group of culturally minded Charleston ladies. Fan had met Edward at the supper. Though he'd only played a supporting role in the play, she'd been taken with his good looks. She was almost speechless when she was presented to him in the unfamiliar but oddly delightful backstage atmosphere of painted scenery and other theatrical paraphernalia. A mutual liking developed at once. Two weeks after their introduction, Edward proposed. Fan had been relieved to discover the actor wouldn't have the slightest objection to bringing up another man's sons as his own. When she described the boys' father, he grew angry. No more of that damned nonsense! He'd raise the lads as proper Southerners. If she'd had any lingering doubt about Edward, it disappeared when he said that On balance the marriage had been a happy one, al The Titans139 though it had required a severe adjustment on Fan's part. The glamour of the post-performance supper and the headiness of the courtship soon vanished. For months, Fan was ill at ease in the strange world in which actors and actresses lived. Edward's colleagues seemed all of a piece. They were colorful, gregarious people. But they were also vain, boastful, and often afflicted with an incredible sense of self-importance she felt must hide deep feelings of unworthiness. They were generous and amusing; profane and amoral. Reality for them was gaslight, not sunlight. They bubbled with excitement while an audience gathered, and after the fire curtain dropped, argued endlessly to justify the smallest mistake in the performance. They stayed in cheap hotels, strutting through every lobby as if it were a palace foyer. They expressed horror at the idea of ever abandoning their profession, but they complained endlessly about traveling from city to city in lamp-lit passenger cars with soot-blackened cushions and unpleasant human smells fouling the air. How many tunes had she been roused at two or three in the morning when a train reached the end of its trackage and all the passengers had to stumble out of one car and onto another, equally filthy and poorly illuminated, because the first railroad's gauge was not the same as that of the next? Frequently the change required a coach ride, the gaps between some lines varying from two miles to twenty. Yet she was content. Edward treated the boys well. If they felt no love for him, at least they were respectful. And Gideon actually expressed admiration for Edward's raffish, occupation. Like most actors, Fan discovered, her husband was subject to extreme swings of emotion. Periods of exuberance alternated with other periods of melancholy. Fortunately Edward's shifts in mood came less, frequently than was the case with many of his associates. 140Fan's Fear He was, of course, continually concerned about his appearance. He could be impulsive. And he was fond of the grand gesture, the breathtaking effect. He insisted they not be punctual at parties to which the visiting troupe was invited, varying their arrival from thirty minutes to an hour after the specified time as the whim struck him. But the late entrance was mandatory. On their first anniversary, he'd presented her with an immense floral basket-but not in privacy. Just after buying the basket, which he couldn't afford, he'd been struck by a thought-and instantly arranged for the gift to be delivered to their table in a crowded hotel dining room. Even his appearance in Washington, while not precisely impulsive, fit the pattern of turning the disorder of everyday living into something structured and spectacular; into theater. Fan learned to accept and cope with these quirks of the actor's personality. In only one area did she feel herself incapable of adjusting to Edward's needs. It was the same area in which she'd had problems during her marriage to Jephtha. But Edward was generally kind and tolerant about it. She never admitted she'd married him for another reason besides love of his looks, his manners and his political opinions. After the humiliating period in which Jephtha had lingered in Lexington, then fled because- of his involvement with the Underground Railroad, life in the little town had become intolerable for her. All her friends sympathized with her. But sympathy wasn't enough. The corner of the Shenandoah in which she'd grown up had become too full of bad memories. Once in a while she was able to confess to herself that she was in part responsible for those memories. Her tongue had sometimes been too vicious. Anger had sometimes driven her beyond reason-as, for example, during the visit of the objectionable Mrs. Amanda Kent. The Titans141 Afterward, Fan had accused Jephtha of signing away the boys' birthright by permitting Mrs. Kent-or Mrs. de la Gura as she'd called herself then-to administer the California gold holdings that had been owned by Jephtha's dead father. Tension in the household had made it easy to give in to such excesses. Edward had rescued her from the failure Lexington had come to represent. He offered escape from the despair that followed her filing for divorce. Despite the peculiarities of his profession, she had never regretted saying yes to his proposal- A murmuring voice caught her attention. It came from the small dressing chamber adjoining the bedroom. She heard the scrape of his razor as he spoke. She made out the words. Julius Caesar again. Edward had toured in the play during the second year of their marriage. Played Brutus to the Marc Antony of Junius Brutus Booth, Junior, one of the three sons of the transplanted English tragedian Junius Booth, Senior. Of late, Edward seldom quoted any other play. She listened to him: was "comthen, countrymen, what need we any spur, but our own cause, to prick us to redress? What other bond than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, and will not palter-?"'" She smiled. He was, for the moment, Brutus again. Slowly, she sat up in bed. The coverlet fell away from the bodice of her nightdress. She stretched; luxuriated in another long yawn- Her fair hair was a loose tangle around her shoulders. Her lips were full, her eyes gray-green and slightly slanted. She was a slender woman, thirty-five, with a body kept supple by gallops along bridle paths in the towns they visited. From her earliest years, one of her greatest pleasures had been riding one of the half-dozen blooded horses her father kept on the farm near Lexington. 142Fan's Fear Edward's razor rattled, laid aside on the marble stand. She heard a splashing of water. He was humming now. He had a passable singing voice, though it was not nearly so good as Gideon's baritone. She recognized the melody. "Old Folks at Home," the sentimental ballad by Mr. Foster, who knew next to nothing about the South. Born in Pennsylvania, for a time he had been a bookkeeper in Cincinnati. But his Negro minstrel songs extolling plantation life- songs licensed during the fifties for exclusive performance by E. P. Christy's troupe-were relished by Southerners. She recalled a recent newspaper item saying Foster had fallen on hard times and was living in a rooming house on New York's Bowery- The humming stopped. In a moment, Edward appeared, wearing his robe of dark green velvet. He'd applied fresh blacking to his temples, she noticed. Edward Lamont was eleven years Fan's senior. Tall and solid, he moved with the strength and swagger of a man half his age. His eyes might have been too close together for perfect handsomeness. But he was still physically imposing, with curly dark brown hair showing no trace of gray. He blacked his mustache as well. "Good morning, Edward," she said, getting out of bed. "Good morning, my dear!" His smile was broad, his face animated by excitement He crossed to her. Slipped his arms around her waist. Kissed her throat even though he knew she wasn't fond of physical expressions of passion. Dismayed, she felt the hardness of him thrusting at her lower body. Any important occasion-signing for a new part; an opening night-stimulated him. His mourn explored the contours of her neck. "Sleep weUs?" "Splendidly. But by rights, I should have had nightmares." "In heaven's name why?" She pulled away. "Worrying about tonight." "Nonsense!" "But you haven't told me exactly what you're going to do." "Because I want to surprise you afterward!" She made a face. "I suooose that's the actor in you. Wringing your audience with suspense. But I'm your wife, not a stranger sitting in a box!" He laughed and kissed the