“That is none of your affair,” Lee said.
Though he had no intention of revealing it to Rhoodie, the question still bothered him. As far as he could tell, Melvin Bean had disappeared from Richmond, nor had discreet questions at the railway depots revealed anyone who had seen a person of his description boarding a southbound train, whether in uniform or other men’s clothing. Lee had also had the military records examined: sure enough, a Melvin Bean had been mustered out along with the rest of the 47th North Carolina in 1864, but there the trail ended. It was a puzzle, but one that was not relevant here and now.
He went on, “In any event, no matter how I obtained the volume, it speaks for itself.”
“So it does,” Rhoodie said, rallying. He was neither weakling nor fool, and not a man to be cast down long. “It tells you how the United States would have crushed your country and your dreams to dust without us. You’ve not been any too bloody grateful for our help, either.”
“I freely acknowledge it,” Lee said. “As for gratitude, I should feel more were I surer your aid was disinterested, intended to further our ends rather than your own.”
“Some of us died in the taking of Washington,” Rhoodie growled.
“I know, but for what cause?” Lee reached out to lay a hand on the Picture History of the Civil War.” As you can imagine, I have read this work repeatedly, and with the closest attention. Yes, our struggle for freedom would have failed without you; in so much you told the truth. But in other regards—you spoke of Lincoln’s tyranny over us, of ceaseless strife between black and white, of other evils whereof your book here makes no mention. What it does mention is a continuing search for justice and equality between the races, one incomplete even in that distant future day, but nonetheless of vital import to both North and South. This seems to me to be in accord with a continuation of the trends that have grown here in my own century, and dead against your account of what lies ahead.”
“Nonsense.” A wave of Rhoodie’s hand brushed aside Lee’s words. “Or would you care for one of your daughters to marry a kaffir and submit to his loving embrace?”
Lee did not particularly care for the idea of his daughters marrying at all. He answered, “No, to be frank, I should not care for that. But it is neither here nor there. The discrepancy between your words and the tone of this history makes me wonder whether you and American Will” Break are in accord with the spirit of the future, as you claim, or whether you are in fact as misplaced and out of step with your own time as John Brown was with his.”
Andries Rhoodie had gone white before. Now he turned red. One big fist clenched. His guttural accent came thicker than Lee had ever heard it as he ground out, “Since you aim on taking the’ Confederacy to the devil, General Lee, we will show you what we are. That I vow.”
“Do not think to threaten me, sir.”
“I do not threaten,” Rhoodie said, “I promise,”
* XVI *
“You jus’ leave it all to me, Marse Robert,” John Dabney said. “I promise I take care of everythin’ for you, make your inauguration day special,”
Robert E. Lee liked that kind of talk, whether from a junior officer during the war or, as now, from a caterer. Smiling, he said, “I place myself entirely in your hands, John.”
The rotund Negro beamed. “Make me a raft o’ mint juleps for drinks. The Prince of Wales, he like my mint juleps, you know that, sir?”
“So I’ve heard, yes.” Now Lee kept a damper on his smile: Dabney told that story at any excuse, or none. But it was true; when the prince visited Richmond in 1860, he’d praised the colored man’s juleps to the skies. The renown that won Dabney helped him gain so many cooking and bartending jobs that he ‘d been able to buy himself and his wife their freedom. Before the end of the war, he’d started his own restaurant and catering service. Since then, no one who was anyone in Richmond would think of holding a large entertainment without his supervision.
Dabney’s eyes got a faraway look as he added some detail to the feast that would follow Lee’s installation as President. The Negro could neither read nor write; he had to carry in his head all the preparations for each of the banquets he had in progress. Nobody had ever known him to slip up on that account.
Lee went into the bedroom of his Powhatan House suite. There Julia and his daughters were helping Mary Custis Lee into her gown. “You look lovely, my dear,” he said. “That shade of creamy yellow is particularly becoming to you.”
“I wish I’d had the seamstress make a jacket to go with the dress,” his wife answered. “It’s a raw day out there.”
“Early March is apt to be,” Lee admitted, “Still, the sun is shining. If I’d chosen to be sworn in on Washington’s birthday, as President Davis did, rather than waiting until March 4, we should have displayed ourselves in Capitol Square in the midst of a snowstorm: hardly an edifying spectacle for the people.”
“Why did you decide to wait?” his daughter Mary asked. “With the family’s connection to Washington, I’d expected you to follow Davis’s lead.”
“I had two reasons. One was fear of the weather, which proved justified. The other was that the Constitution prescribes March 4 as the first day of a new President’s term, and I desire to observe scrupulously its every provision.” Lee reflected on his own hypocrisy. While following all the meaningless minutiae for his inauguration, he aimed to sidle around the much more Prominent Constitutional prohibitions against interfering with slavery.
He intensely disliked feeling like a hypocrite, which was both alien and repugnant to his nature. But a show of observance on small matters would help mask his deviation in great ones, and he was resolved to deviate. The success of a man like John Dabney pointed up the injustice of slavery as no abolitionist tract could. Aside from the caterer’s undoubted ability, that was one reason Lee had engaged him: if legislators saw a successful black man in action, they might be more inclined to allow other Negroes to seek the same road.
Mildred Lee fastened a last stay. “We’re ready, Father,” she said.
“Excellent. Then let us proceed.”
“I want a lap robe, lest I catch my death,” Mary Custis Lee declared.
“Fetch your mother a lap robe, and quickly,” Lee said, with a pointed glance at his watch. “The ceremony is to commence at half past eleven o’clock.”
Mildred draped the robe over her mother’s knees. “Is that fast enough to suit you?” she asked. “Or if I’d taken longer, would you have left without us, the way you used to march off to church by yourself sometimes when we were slow?”
Lee, whose natural sense of punctuality had been reinforced by more than thirty-five years of military discipline, said,” As well you didn’t expose me to the temptation.” Mildred stuck out her tongue at him. He made an effort at looking severe, but found he was smiling in spite of himself.
Julia started to push Mary Custis Lee’s chair, but Lee waved her away: this was a duty he would undertake himself. Rather than going out to the lobby of the Powhatan House, he headed for the hotel’s rear doorway, which opened right across from Capitol Square. His daughters walked proudly behind him, their wide skirts rustling as they glided down the hall.
Chill air smote. Lee’s breath puffed from him, as if he had suddenly taken up pipe smoking. His wife pulled the lap robe higher. “There; you see? I should have frozen,” she said.