It was the room in her dream. Slowly, Jane walked in. Madeline slipped in after her and shut the doors soundlessly.
"Ideas have never frightened me, Jane. They are the chief salvation of this planet. Read as much of what's here as you want."
Leathery incense swirled from shelves without so much as an inch of empty space. Jane felt herself to be in a cathedral. She continued to stand silently, like a petitioner. Then she tilted her head back and raised her gaze to the books, all the books, while a radiance broke over her face.
45
"George, you mustn't rave so. You'll bring on a fit."
"But — but —"
"Have a cigar. Let me pour you a whiskey. Every night it's the same. You come home so upset. The children have noticed."
"Only a statue could stay calm in that place." He ripped his uniform collar open and stamped to the window, where snow-flakes touched the glass and melted. "Do you know how I passed the afternoon? Watching this nitwit from Maine demonstrate his water-walker: two small canoes fitted onto his shoes. Just the thing for the infantry! Cross the rivers of Virginia in Biblical style!"
Constance held a hand over her mouth. George shook a finger. "Don't you dare laugh. What makes it worse is that I've interviewed four inventors of water-walkers in the last month. What kind of patriotic service is that, listening to men who ought to be committed?"
He pushed at his hair and gazed at the December snowfall without seeing it. Darkness lay on the city, and discouragement; an uneasy possibility of the war lasting a long time. The one shaft of light was McClellan, busy organizing and training for a spring campaign.
"Surely some intelligent inventors show up occasionally," Constance began.
"Of course. Mr. Sharps — whose breechloading rifles Ripley refuses to order, even though Colonel Berdan's special regiment was willing to pay the slight extra cost. The Sharps is newfangled, Ripley says. An army ordnance board tested the gun and praised it a mere eleven years ago, but it's newfangled." He kicked the leg of a stool so hard that it dented the toe of his boot and made him curse.
"Can nothing be done to overrule Ripley? Can't Cameron step in?"
"He's beset by his own problems. I don't think he'll last the month. But certainly something can be done. It was done in October. Not by us, however. Lincoln ordered twenty-five thousand breechloaders."
"He bypassed the department?"
"Do you blame him?" George sank to the sofa, his uniform and disposition in disarray. "I'll give you another example. There's a young fellow from Connecticut named Christopher Spencer. Been a machinist at Colt's in Hartford, among other things. He's patented an ingenious rapid-fire rifle you load by inserting a tube of seven cartridges into the stock. Do you know Ripley's objection to it?" She shook her head. "Our boys would fire too fast and waste ammunition."
"George, I can hardly believe that."
His hand shot up, witness fashion. "God's truth! We dare not equip the infantry with guns that might shorten the war. Ripley's had to give on the breechloaders — we're ordering a quantity for the cavalry — but he's adamant about the repeaters. So the President continues to do our work. This afternoon Bill Stoddard told me ten thousand Spencers are being ordered from the Executive Mansion. Hiram Berdan's sharpshooters will have some to try by Christmas."
George stormed up again, trailing smoke from a new cigar. "Do you have any notion of the damage Ripley's doing? Of how many young men may die because he abhors the thought of wasting ammunition? I can't take it much longer, Constance — thinking of the deaths we're causing while I pretend to be interested in some village idiot's water-walker —"
He lost volume toward the end. He stood smoking with his head bowed in front of the window framing the slow downdrift of the snow. She had often witnessed her husband's explosions of temper, but they were seldom mingled with this kind of despair. She slipped her arms around him from behind, pressed her breast to the back of his dark blue coat.
"I don't blame you for feeling miserable." She clasped her hands and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "I have a piece of news. Two, actually. Father's in the Territory of New Mexico, trying to stay out of the way of the Union and Confederate armies maneuvering there. He feels confident he'll reach California by the end of the winter."
"Good." The reply was listless. "What else?"
"We've been invited to a levee for your old friend the general of the armies."
"Little Mac? He probably won't even speak to me now that he's top man." McClellan had been promoted November first; Scott was finished.
"George, George —" She turned him and looked into his eyes. "This isn't the man I know. My husband. You're so bitter."
"Coming here was a catastrophe. I'm wasting my time — doing no good at all. I should resign and go home with you and the children."
"Yes, I'm sure Ripley makes you feel that way." Soothingly, she caressed his face; the day had produced a rough stubble below the waxed points of his mustache. "Do you remember Corpus Christi, when we met? You said you wished the steamer for Mexico would leave without you —"
"That's right. I wanted to stay and court you. I wanted it more than anything."
"But you boarded with the others and sailed away."
"I had some sense of purpose then. A hope of accomplishing something. Now I'm just a party to bungling that may cost thousands of lives."
"Perhaps if Cameron's forced to resign, things will improve." "In Washington? It's a morass of chicanery, stupidity, witless paper shuffling — but self-preservation has been raised to a high art. A few faces may change, nothing more." "Give it a little longer. I think it's your duty. War is never easy on anyone. I learned that lying awake every night fearing for your safety in Mexico." She kissed him, the barest tender touch of mouth and mouth.
Some of his strain dissipated, leaving a face that was almost a boy's despite the markings of the years.
"What would I do without you, Constance? I'd never survive." "Yes, you would. You're strong. But I'm glad you need me." He clasped her close. "More than ever. All right, I'll stay a while longer. But you must promise to hire a good lawyer if I break down and murder Ripley."
On Monday, December 16, Britain was in mourning for the Queen's husband.
News of Albert's death the preceding Saturday had not yet crossed the Atlantic, but certain pieces of diplomatic correspondence, authored at Windsor Castle shortly before the prince consort's passing, had. Though not overly belligerent in tone, Albert continued to press for release of the Confederate commissioners.
Stanley knew it was going to happen, and soon, although not for any of the high-flown, moralistic reasons that would be handed out as sops to the press and the public. The government had to capitulate for two reasons: Great Britain was a major supplier of niter for American gunpowder, but she was currently withholding all shipments. Further, a second war couldn't be risked, especially when the latest diplomatic mail said the British were hastily armoring some of their fighting ships. The smoothbore guns placed to defend American harbors would be useless against an armored fleet.
December became a nexus of hidden but genuine desperations for the government. They threatened Stanley's little manufacturing empire, which had increased his net worth fifty percent in less than six months. Mounting panic drove him to extreme measures. Late at night, he jimmied drawers of certain desks and removed confidential memoranda long enough to read them and copy key phrases. He had frequent meetings with a man from Wade's staff in parks or unsavory saloons below the canal; at the meetings he turned over large amounts of information, without actually knowing whether his actions would help his cause. He was gambling that they would. He was laying all his bets on a single probability, said by some to be certainty: Cameron's fall.