The scorn — the comparison — humiliated him. But it did nothing to relieve his fears. He fretted and tossed in bed, getting little more than three hours of solid sleep.
Next morning, he jumped in his chair when Cameron shot into his office with a file of footwear and clothing contracts he had just approved. The haggard secretary disposed of business in a few sentences, then asked, "Haven't seen Mr. Stanton anywhere about town, have you, my boy?"
Stanley's heart hammered. Did it show? "No, Simon. It isn't likely that I would. He and I don't move in the same circles at all."
"Oh?" Cameron gave his pupil an odd stare. "Well, I can't seem to locate him, and he won't answer messages. Curious. The fellow who wrote the very words that got me in the soup won't say a damn thing in defense of them. Or me. I've shown myself to be on the side of Wade's bunch, but they don't want me. Stanton acts as if he's on the President's side, but last week I heard him call Abe the Original Gorilla. Understand Little Mac got quite a chuckle out of that. I'm still trying to find out how the report reached the Star —" His eye fixed on Stanley again. He knows. He knows.
Cameron shook his head. There was something sad about him now. He seemed less competent, less sure. A mere mortal, and a tired one. A bitter smile appeared. "I'd call it all mighty queer business if I didn't know its real name. Politics. By the bye — did you and Isabel receive an invitation to the President's levee for McClellan?"
"Y-yes, sir, I believe Isabel mentioned that we did."
"Hmm. I failed to get mine. Fault of the postal service, don't you suppose?" Looking as if he had alum in his mouth, he darted another look at his subordinate. "Must excuse me, Stanley. Got a lot to do before I surrender my portfolio. They'll be asking for it any day now."
He went out with a sprightly step. Stanley pressed his palms to the desk and shut his eyes, dizzy. Had he pulled it off? Had Isabel pulled it off?
46
I am, George thought, too damned much of a cynic.
Not so, argued a second side of him. You have just become, in short order, a Washingtonian.
The hack's back wheels bumped into a splattery mudhole, lurched out again. A few more blocks and he'd be back at Willard's, where a small dinner was being given to honor the visitor from Braintree.
A light snow fell. The town George sometimes referred to as Canaille on the Canal looked pretty as an engraving. Shining Christmas lights temporarily obscured the vapid minds behind the eyes of the bureaucrats; the deep, piney smell of greens temporarily masked the stink of fear, damp, and cavelike cold pervading everything this December. Despite the splendor of the martial reviews General McClellan had staged here and in Virginia throughout the autumn, and despite the general's frequent predictions of forthcoming victory, George wondered whether any substance supported the show. He hated his own faithless attitude, but he wondered.
He had just come from the arsenal, where Billy was encamped with his battalion — happy enough, though displaying a certain shortness of temper. George knew that to be a common symptom of winter quarters. Yesterday Constance had returned from another short trip to Lehigh Station; Brown had gone up with her and planned to stay a few more days to settle in some more children. Brett had sent Christmas packages with Constance. Delivering Billy's was the excuse that had taken him to the arsenal.
The brothers had discussed the visitor from Braintree. Billy had heard about the private party but hadn't been invited. In an effort to make him feel better about that, George said, "Hell, I'll probably be the most junior shoulder strap in attendance. I was warned that half of Little Mac's staff would be there, though not the general himself."
"Have you ever met the guest of honor?" Billy hadn't.
"Once, after a graduation. Can't claim I know him."
At the hotel, George rushed to the suite, kissed his wife, hugged his children, brushed his hair and mustache, then dashed downstairs again, late for the reception preceding the dinner for Superintendent Emeritus Sylvanus Thayer. Seventy-six and long retired, Thayer had come down from Massachusetts to attend the levee for McClellan.
A formidable quantity of brain and brass filled the parlor: sixty or seventy officers, most of them colonels or brigadiers. The West Point bond minimized boundaries between ranks. Protected from the curious by closed doors, the old grads enjoyed generous portions of port or fine bourbon poured by black men in hotel livery. George was thankful Brown had quit his job as porter and accepted a salary arrangement the Hazards had proposed so he could devote full time to the children.
A large crowd surrounded the slender and exceptionally fit-looking Thayer, so George fell into conversation with another major and a colonel, both of whom he remembered from Mexico. Half the regular officers in the army had served there.
Two brigadiers joined the group — men George knew from the class ahead of his. Baldy Smith and Fitz-John Porter both had divisions. Smith seemed irked by the surroundings, the refreshments, the lighting — he had that kind of disposition — but George still liked him better than Porter. Even in his Academy days, Porter had struck George as showy and prone to boasting — like the general to whose staff he now belonged.
Bourbon relaxed the men; they were soon reminiscing as equals. Thayer walked to the group, warmly greeting each officer. He had a phenomenal memory; it was a vast permanent file of the names and careers of every graduate, even those like George and the brigadiers who had gone through the place long after his tenure.
"Hazard — yes, certainly," Thayer said. "Where are you now?" George told him. "Pity. You had an excellent record at the Academy. You belong in the field."
Not wanting to offend the guest, George responded with care. "I never felt I had a talent for soldiering, sir." What he meant was a taste for it.
Baldy Smith snorted. "What we're doing in Virginny isn't soldiering; it's cattle droving."
To the abattoir? George thought; he still had nightmares about Bull Run. He smiled and shrugged. "I went where I was asked to go."
"You don't sound happy about it." Directness was Thayer's style.
"I don't believe I should comment on that, sir."
"That kind of answer qualifies you to be a general," said another brigadier, a jovial Pennsylvanian named Winfield Hancock whom George was glad to have join the group. Presently they all sat down at a great horseshoe table for a huge meal centered around capon and prime steer beef. The whiskey and port flowed, and various dinner wines; by the time Thayer was introduced, George was ready to slide under the table. He couldn't hold back a belch. On his right, Fitz-John Porter cleared his throat and silently disapproved.
Thayer's voice was thin, but he spoke with passion. He stated a fact already known to those in the room: West Point was once again under attack. This time, however, the attack carried special danger because of the effort to fix blame on the Academy for the resignation of all the officers who had gone south. Thayer pleaded for each man to make a personal pledge to defend the school if, as he feared, Congress attempted to destroy it by removing its appropriation.
"I am cheered," he said, "to see so many of you serving the nation that educated you and gave you a proud profession. I know you have the stamina to stay the course. I was dismayed by many newspaper articles I read before the great battle in July, articles that said the struggle would be quickly concluded. Knowing our brother officers from the states in rebellion — their intelligence, their courage, their records, which remain as fine as yours except in one fatal respect — I would counter every one of those assertions with one of my own."