North and South: The North and South Trilogy (63 page)

“So I’m told. Guess you won’t be too lonesome here, though. That LaMotte fellow will be paying court to you—”

“Not anymore. Forbes is handsome, but he acts—well—too old. He won’t be calling again,” she finished emphatically.

“Does he know?”

“Yes, I told him a few minutes ago. I thought I should, since you sent the camellias and—” Her face grew as pink as his had been a few moments earlier. “Billy, don’t look at me so hard. I just turn to water inside. I’m a ninny to be so forward and say this, but I can’t help myself—” She pressed her cheek to his for an instant, whispering, “I’ve cared for you such a very long time. I thought you’d never notice me.”

He drew back and gazed into her eyes again. This time he had no difficulty choosing his words or saying them.

“I’ll never notice anyone else. Ever.”

A half-empty glass dangling from one hand, Forbes LaMotte watched Billy and Brett dancing. The sight of their lovesick faces disgusted and infuriated him. He didn’t notice Ashton slipping up to his side. When she linked her arm with his, he started.

“Forbes, my sweet, you look mad as an old bear.”

“That’s how I feel.” He studied the crowd behind her. “Where’s Huntoon?”

“I sent him away for a while. I wanted to speak with you”

“Fine. I’m sick of watching those two.”

He turned his back on the dance floor and led her through the press. She was deliciously skillful at smiling and nodding to others in a gay, simple-minded way, all the while carrying on a whispered conversation:

“What’s wrong? I thought you were enjoying yourself.”

“I was. Then your dear sister informed me that she’d prefer it if I didn’t call on her again.”

“Did she, now? And how do you feel .about that?”

“I’m damn insulted.”

“Can’t say I blame you.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Ashton. Brett doesn’t have the only—I mean to say, she isn’t the only female in creation.”

Smiling, she gave his arm a squeeze. “I know what you meant to say, you wicked boy. You found another one tonight, didn’t you?”

He gave her a quick, salacious grin. “Certainly did. Still, a man has to think about choosing a wife, too. I figured Brett would be a fine one. I don’t take kindly to being dismissed.”

“How do you suppose I feel about being dropped flat by Mr. Hazard?”

“Same way I do, I reckon. Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“Exactly. Here’s the punch bowl. Get me a cup, if you please.”

He jumped to it. He emptied his own glass and refilled it before they strolled outside. He consumed the champagne in gulps, then stepped to the edge of the piazza and flung the glass into a clump of azaleas. Sometimes Ashton found him revolting. But he would suit her purposes, physical and otherwise.

They left the piazza and moved down the lawn. “Frankly, Forbes, I’m not surprised by what you told me. I had some inkling that Brett would speak to you this evening.”

“How so?”

“She mentioned it while we were dressing. She was chattering like a magpie. All excited about seeing Billy—”

“Christ,” he growled. “I surely can’t understand why Orry would permit a Yankee to court his sister.”

“Oh, he’s infatuated with that whole clan.”

“If Brett wants a soldier, what the hell’s wrong with a fellow from The Citadel? And how in hell can Hazard court her from some Army post a thousand miles away?”

“Forbes, don’t keep cursing. You’ll attract attention. It will serve our purpose much better if people don’t notice us together—now, or in the future.”

“Our purpose,” Forbes repeated. “What’s that?”

“Why, getting even with Billy and Brett.”

He halted, faced her, then threw his head back and laughed.

“God, you are priceless. A genuine, brass-bound bitch.”

She struck his chin with her fan. The blow was light, yet it stung him—as she intended. Although she was still smiling, her eyes were venomous.

“I take that as a compliment. But if you curse again or raise your voice, you will never get so much as one more peek at what you crave.”

“All right, all right—I’m sorry.”

“That’s better.”

They resumed their walk in the direction of the river. Festooned with lanterns,
Eutaw
had just put out to midstream for the supper cruise. Two fiddlers on board sent gay music over the black water.

“Now,” Ashton said in a cheerful tone, “let’s continue our chat. I am correct in assuming that you’d like a taste of revenge?”

“You’re godda—that is—yes. I would.” He shivered. She was a scary creature.

“Splendid. I want to be certain. We shall be secret allies. I’ll probably marry James one of these days, but a wife and an ally are two different things. And in my alliance with you, there’s an extra dash of spice—”

Using her closed fan, she lightly caressed the back of his hand. “Or there can be if you behave yourself.”

Another shudder ran down his back. “I understand. But you’re not drunk, are you?”

She wrenched away. “What the devil do you mean by that?”

“You’re talking about doing something to hurt your own sister.”

“That’s right.” Her smile returned. “I hate her.”

He turned pale. “Jesus.” He couldn’t help the utterance. “All right—I had to get it straight.”

He felt he should run away from her. Then he thought of what had transpired in the stable. He again offered his arm. “Mind telling me how we’re going to”—he swallowed—“to do what we’re talking about?”

“I can’t because I don’t know yet. We’ll have to shape our plan to the circumstances, but we’ll know the right moment when it comes along. We mustn’t rush into anything. We must smile and wait, and then one day when Billy Hazard and my sister least expect it, we’ll repay them.”

Despite his misgivings, Forbes smiled. It was a slightly bleary smile, which she nevertheless found charming.

“Indeed we will,” he said. He pointed up the lawn to the glitter of the great house. “May I have a dance to seal that bargain?”

“You may, Mr. LaMotte. Lead on.”

O
N THE FIRST OF
June, 1852, Billy stepped onto the North Dock at West Point. A hot gray haze lay on the river and the mountains. He strained for a glimpse of the Academy, but it was hidden by the steep bluff rising behind the dock. How had his brother felt on the day he arrived? As nervous as this? As excited?

Billy was determined to do well during the next four years. He wanted to go into the engineers, and that meant earning top marks. With application and a touch of luck, he knew he could get them. He had already started to prepare. He had been boning hard throughout the trip and before. What filled most of the space in his big carpetbag were books—secondhand copies of
Bourdon’s Algebra, Legendre’s Geometry and Trigonometry, Descriptive Geometry
—all adapted and expanded from original sources by Professor Davies of the Military Academy.

“Sir, don’t stand there and gape. You are the only newcomer on the steamer? Very well, sir. Put your valise in that cart, sir.”

The voice and the brogue belonged to a wrinkled and rather ferocious-looking little man in a soiled Army uniform. He swaggered away with one hand on the hilt of his cutlass. The man was far from the ideal picture of a soldier, yet he impressed Billy and gave him a sense of the tradition of this place. Billy felt proud to be standing where his brother had stood ten years ago. The Academy had acquired a bad reputation during Jackson’s time, but George said that was fading, and West Point was taking its place among the world’s leading military schools: Woolwich and Sandhurst in Britain, St. Cyr and L’Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Old Thayer had used the French polytechnic school as his model when reshaping the West Point curriculum.

“Sir, I shall not ask you again to step lively. I am Sergeant Owens, provost of the post, and I remind you that you are now on a military reservation. Comport yourself accordingly!”

“Yes, sir,” Billy said, and hurried after him.

Captain Elkanah Bent sat picking at his lower lip with the nail of his index finger. Sweat dripped from his chin onto the open file before him. Although every window in the old-fashioned brick house was wide open, the obese officer was roasting.

The house was one of two that stood at the west edge of President’s Park. In another eight months a new man would be moving into the residence at the center of the wooded park. The Democrats had nominated Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, on the forty-ninth ballot. When Pierce had been appointed a general in the Mexican War, he had promptly been dismissed as one more politician who craved military rank. But he had proved to be a surprisingly able commander, and many professional officers favored his election.

The Whigs, on the other hand, had chosen the Commanding General himself. Old Fuss and Feathers had wanted the nomination in 1848 but had been forced to wait another four years. This time he had gotten it on the fifty-third ballot, after President Fillmore had been denied the nomination by his own party—if it was possible to call the Whigs a viable party any longer. That was the obstacle facing General Scott. He was about to charge into the political lists on a dying horse.

Ah, well. However it came out, the country would have a President with military experience. Perhaps that kind of man would understand that the government’s chief mission was to prepare for war against the traitors gaining control in the South.

Bent had been at the War Department slightly less than four weeks. He already hated the capital, as he had known he would when he accepted the transfer. Washington was a permanently unfinished city, Southern in style and viewpoint, and plagued by flies and open sewers and many other undesirable features. He loathed all the free Negroes who flaunted themselves in public, as if they were the equals of white men. He loathed the civilian bureaucrats—pismires who ran to and fro in a futile attempt to prove they had some purpose.

Despite all the drawbacks of the town, transfer to Washington was a good step and one long overdue. Staff duty was important professional experience. For the past thirty-four months Bent had been stuck in a line post at Carlisle Barracks. This new assignment might be a turning point in a career in which advancement had been far too slow, even for peacetime. He knew whom to blame for that.

The adjutant general’s office handled all personnel records for the Army. Soon after arriving, Bent had reviewed the list of next year’s confirmed appointments to the Military Academy. On the list he discovered the name of Charles Main of South Carolina. Some investigation disclosed that this Charles Main was the nephew of a certain former officer of Bent’s acquaintance.

Then, just today, an official pouch had brought the revised final list of June entrants, already in camp, as well as a list of the Seps, who wouldn’t arrive until the start of the fall term. A name leaped out from the June roster. William Hazard II, Lehigh Station, Pennsylvania.

It could only be someone from the same family.

Bent could barely contain his delight. He had lost track of Orry Main and George Hazard. The pressures of his own career had contributed to that. Also, both had left the Army and placed themselves beyond his reach, so to speak.

But he had never abandoned a desire to revenge himself on Main and Hazard. Thanks to them and the doubts they had planted about him, he hadn’t advanced as far or as fast as he should have. For that and other reasons, he had an abiding hatred of both men. Now, through members of their families, he just might have another chance at them.

A small, fuzzy caterpillar appeared at the far edge of Bent’s desk and worked its way toward the file he had just closed. Out of habit, Bent began to think of his old adversaries by their Academy nicknames. Had Stick and Stump forgotten the promise he made to them? If they had, so much the better. Secrecy and surprise were valuable for all campaigns, military or personal.

“Captain Bent?” The voice of the adjutant general sounded from the inner office. “Please come in here a moment.”

“Right away, sir.”

Elkanah Bent heaved himself out of his chair. He took a step, halted, reached to the center of his desk, and pressed his thumb down on the caterpillar. When the creature was dead and brushed away, Bent lumbered to answer the summons.

If they break up, in God’s name

let the Union go … I love the

Union as I love my wife. But if my

wife should ask and insist upon a

separation, she should have it,

though it broke my heart.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,

On Burr’s rumored secession conspiracy
1801

G
EORGE HAZARD CLAIMED TO
have no special feeling for West Point. Yet he had talked about the place often and at length with his younger brother, so by the time Billy arrived at the Military Academy he knew a good deal about it.

George had warned him about “Thayer’s men and Thayer’s system.” The heart of the system was the belief that personal accomplishment could be measured in absolute terms and expressed by a numerical ranking. The system, and the men who implemented it, still ruled West Point.

But there had been changes in the six years since George’s graduation. The most visible ones were architectural. The old North and South Barracks had been razed, and a new cadet barracks with 176 rooms had been built at the staggering cost of $186,000. Corniced with red sandstone, the building reminded Billy of pictures of English castles. Its large hall above the central sally port provided the cadet debating society with a permanent home, and in the basement an Army pensioner had opened a refreshment shop that sold cookies, candy, and pickles. A central hot-water system heated the barracks. There were none of those grates of which George spoke so fondly. No grates meant no cooking after hours. A disappointment; Billy had been looking forward to his first hash.

East of the barracks and directly south of the Chapel, a new stone mess hall was under construction. The Observatory and Library were still there, however. The classroom building, too.