Beloved Enemy Page 7

  Jonah set down his fork on his plate before giving his complete attention to his wife.

  Clara stared at the scathing letter she held in one hand while she clutched her bosom with the other. This time there was no need for subterfuge. The loathsome words written by Melinda Winstead were vile enough to bring on a true seizure. “I shall die,” Clara moaned, dropping the blue notepaper.

  Jonah caught it in time before it landed in the puddle of coffee. “Hettie,” he called over his shoulder. “Please fetch my medical bag and some smelling salts, as well.”

  The housekeeper needed no further explanation. She dashed out of the breakfast room before the doctor had finished speaking.

  Closing her eyes, Clara slumped in her chair. “We are undone, Jonah,” she moaned as he unfastened her dress and loosened her stays. “We will never be able to venture outside our doors again. How could she have done this to us?” Clara would have wept, but she had no spare breath for it.

  Jonah cut through the knot in her corset lacing with his pocketknife. “What has Carolyn done now, my dear?”

  Clara shook her head. “Not Carolyn,” she gulped. “Julia!”

  Her husband pulled apart the whalebone corset. Then he helped his wife from her chair to the low burgundy cut-velvet sofa nearby, where he laid her down, resting her head on the padded arm. Hettie returned with the doctor’s satchel and the vial of spirits of ammonia. Jonah took the latter, uncorked the bottle and waved it gently under Clara’s nose. She reacted to the mind-clearing fumes with a start.

  “You want to get Miss Clara up to bed, sir?” Hettie whispered.

  “In good time, Hettie,” Jonah replied. “She needs to rest some before she climbs the stairs.” He looked at the servant. “Please tell Julia that I require her presence at once.”

  Clara groaned at the sound of her eldest child’s name. “How can I possibly look at her?” she cried. Her body shook with her emotion. “She has all but killed me.”

  Jonah lifted her wrist and took her pulse. “I will speak to Julia. You have no need to involve yourself. Just rest easy, my dear.”

  Clara did not bother to stifle the sobs that she knew always unmanned her husband, but allowed her tears to flow freely. “She has betrayed us. Our family will be talked about in every decent parlor by this afternoon. We will never be received by our friends again, I just know it. We might have to move away.”

  Her eyes filled, even though the idea of leaving Alexandria did have some positive merit. She had longed to go ever since the war began.

  Jonah patted her hand. “No, we won’t. I am sure that this tempest, too, shall pass.”

  Clara glared at her husband. “It will not, sir,” she corrected him in a more hardy voice. Her anger at Julia gave her the strength to pull herself upright. “This atrocity will follow us like a tail follows the dog.”

  Just then their erring daughter appeared at the door, her face ashen. “Mother?” She rushed to Clara’s side and reached to take her hand.

  Clara curled her fingers into a ball and tucked her hand under a fold in her skirts. “Do not touch me, you…you Jezebel!”

  At these words, Julia looked even more stricken. “What is the matter? Papa?”

  Jonah held out the crumpled letter. “I have no idea. Read this, since I do not have my spectacles about me. Then, perhaps, you will be good enough to explain it.”

  Clara covered her ears with her hands. “Oh! I cannot bear to hear it!” she whimpered, but for once, no one, not even Hettie, gave her any attention. The loathsome contents of the letter were far too intriguing.

  Julia scanned the note quickly. “Oh!” she murmured.

  Clara narrowed her eyes, then looked away as Julia read:

  “‘Dear Mrs. Chandler, it pains me to be the bearer of bad news—’ Ha!” Julia added. “Melinda Winstead revels in disasters, as long as they are not directed at her.”

  “Go on,” ordered her father.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Clara caught sight of Carolyn peeking round the door. She was too angry at Julia to bother to reprimand her younger child over the bad manners of eavesdropping.

  Julia cleared her throat. “‘—but I feel it is my Christian duty to inform you of the most shocking behavior of your daughter, Julia.’” She paused a second time, much to the annoyance of her mother. “Papa, if Melinda is a Christian, then I am a Punjabi.”

  Jonah blew through his clipped, steel-gray mustache. “Please, Julia, no more remarks. Finish Miss Winstead’s letter.”

  Julia cast a glance at Clara, but her mother refused to acknowledge her. Clara’s pride had been rubbed raw, and she was in no mood to heal the injury so soon.

  “‘Last evening, your daughter had the unmitigated boldness to attend the ball given by my parents—a ball to which your family was specifically not invited. While there, Julia imbibed too many glasses of champagne. So affected by this unaccustomed amount of libations, she then made free of her person with a number of our male guests, who naturally took such behavior at face value, and treated her as nothing more than a common woman of the town.’” Julia gasped with horror.

  Clara shuddered. She took the smelling salts from her husband’s slack hand and waved it again under her nose. Neither Jonah nor Hettie noticed Clara’s distress. They were transfixed by the letter. Clara commenced to fan herself, but no one looked her way.

  “Is there more?” Jonah asked in a strangled tone.

  “More slander, you mean, Papa?” Julia retorted.

  “I will be the judge of that,” he replied. “Continue the letter.”

  Julia rattled the paper as if she could shake away its filth. “‘I am sorry to report that we were forced to evict your daughter from the premises. All our guests were much amazed by her most scandalous behavior, since it is well known that she comes from a good family, despite our present breach. Forgive me for the pain that this letter will cause you, but I felt compelled to inform you at once of what transpired last evening, since I am sure Julia will say nothing. I trust that you will attend to this heinous matter forthwith. Melinda Winstead.’ What a piece of trash!” Julia sank to the floor amidst her billowing skirts.

  “Ooh!” wailed Clara, this time in earnest.

  Jonah signaled Hettie. “I do believe that Mrs. Chandler will feel much better if she were taken up to her room. Go on, Clara, my dear. I will deal with this.”

  Clara was tempted to resist because she was anxious to hear what Julia had to say for herself. On the other hand, she really did feel quite faint. If Julia even admitted to half of Melinda’s accusations, Clara knew that she would be sick to her stomach.

  Hettie slipped her arm around her shoulders. “Come along now, Miss Clara,” she crooned, practically pulling her off the sofa. “You know what the old folks say,” she continued, helping her cross the room. “A mole don’t see what his neighbor might be doing,” she intoned, loud enough for every listening ear to hear. “And I do believe we have a passel of moles in this story.”

  Julia’s shoulders sagged under the weight of Melinda’s venomous lies. She slowly reread each word. The ink on the paper practically dripped with poison. She barely noticed her mother’s departure, nor her father’s ominous silence. Her vision blurred with tears that she refused to shed. How could Melinda be so cruel, so hateful? True, Julia had drunk too much champagne and had offered herself to Major Montgomery, but he had recognized her virtue and saved her from embarrassment—and worse. Neither Julia nor Carolyn had done anything to spoil the party, much less the scandalous behavior that Melinda accused her of. Then she realized that Carolyn’s name did not appear in the letter, even though her sister had been much more prominent on the dance floor.

  What had she done to deserve such particular spite from Melinda?

  Dr. Chandler cleared his throat, breaking into Julia’s thoughts. Looking up at her father, she was stunned to see the anger in his usually gentle eyes.

  “Well?” he asked in a very quiet tone. Ice practically fell from
the single word.

  Julia shook her head slowly. “Lies, Papa,” she whispered, barely able to keep her anger at Melinda in check. “Hateful, horrible lies.”

  Her father tugged on his mustache. “Did you attend the Winsteads’ ball last night?”

  She bit her lower lip before replying, “Yes.” She made the quick decision to leave Carolyn out of the situation, if possible, and she prayed that Perkins would say nothing. Carolyn got into enough trouble as it was.

  Dr. Chandler’s white eyebrows rose with his surprise. “Alone?”

  Julia swallowed. “Perkins escorted me there and back. I only stayed for an hour or two.”

  Her father sat down hard on the sofa in front of her, as if the shock of her admission had sapped his strength. “How could you have done such a thing, Julia? It’s not like you at all. How could you have made such a display of yourself?”

  Julia held out the letter to him. “I only drank a little champagne, Papa, and I did not make a spectacle of myself, I swear it to you.”

  “Do not mince matters with me, young lady. You went to the Winsteads’ without an invitation.”

  Julia took a deep breath. “I did have an invitation, Papa,” she replied in a low voice. “I will not reveal who gave it to me for that will only cause further distress to another party, but I did have an invitation.”

  Her father narrowed his eyes. Julia couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him so angry. She trembled.

  “You did not have our permission to go,” he enunciated.

  She gave him a level look. “And would you have granted me permission, if I had asked you?”

  “Of course not. The Winsteads have not spoken to us since Sumter—not until now.” He eyed the letter as if it were a clod of horse dung in the middle of his Oriental carpet.

  Julia nodded with grim satisfaction. “Exactly why I didn’t ask you.”

  Her father stared over her head for a moment before he said. “You have practically killed your mother. She truly does have a weak heart, you know. I am appalled by your shocking behavior.”

  “Papa, I did nothing to disgrace our family. I was not drunk, nor did I make a fool of myself, nor did I act like…like a hussy, as Melinda claims.” Julia’s ears turned red. Did Major Montgomery consider her a hussy, especially after his midnight visit?

  Her father waved away her protests. “That is not the point, Julia. You went to a party to which you were not invited, and without our permission. You were out on the streets after dark without a pass from the provost marshal. What if you had been stopped by one of the guards? Or worse? You know our city is not safe for respectable folk. You attended without a chaperone, among people who have known our family since before you were born. People will gossip. How could you do this to your mother? She will not be able to go out in public for fear of the scandal you have caused.”

  Julia was tempted to tell her father that most of the people at the ball were not the ones who kept company with her mother, but she decided that nothing she could say would make any difference. “I’m sorry for the distress I have caused, Papa. Truly I am.”

  With her apology, the doctor softened a fraction, though he continued to pull at his mustache. Julia glanced at the door to see if Carolyn still lurked behind it but, for once, her sister had the good sense to silently disappear. Julia would deal with Carolyn later. In the meantime, she wondered what she could possibly do to amend the situation.

  Dr. Chandler cleared his throat again, a sign that he was about to say something important. Straightening her shoulders, Julia watched him with an unwavering eye.

  “It pains me to the quick, child, but you must be punished for such an infraction of manners. No, I do not believe that you acted with a loud or lewd behavior at the Winsteads’. It appears to me that Melinda is in a boiling fury because you invaded her home, and she is striking back in the only way that she knows how. I cannot say that I blame her anger, I only hope that her stories have not circulated any further than this house.”

  Julia sighed with relief, thankful that her father had faith in her.

  “But,” he continued in a harsher tone, “the fact of the matter is still your blatant disobedience to your parents’ wishes and your serious lack of good manners. How can we possibly convince Payton to marry you if he thinks you are reckless, disobedient and wanton?”

  Julia’s heart leaped with joy. In her anger at Melinda’s lies, she had forgotten her real reason for attending the party. The Yankee major had been too kind to smear her reputation, but this former friend had no such reservations. Melinda’s letter and the gossip it would generate had ruined Julia most admirably.

  She hoped Payton thought she was all those things and worse. Julia said nothing aloud. There was no point in angering her father any further by reiterating her refusal to marry her cousin.

  “Since it is clear that we cannot trust you, I fear we must keep you under lock and key, for your own good, and for our peace of mind.”

  Julia stared at him, her mouth open in horror.

  “If we were Catholics, I would send you to a convent without delay, in the hope that the nuns could discipline you,” he continued without a sign of emotion. “Since we are not, the best I can do is to send you to your room where you will stay until…” He wavered for only a moment. “Until I say otherwise.”

  “Papa, please—”

  He shook his head at her interruption. “You may come downstairs for meals and for exercise in the garden, but the rest of the day, you will stay in your room. There you may contemplate the injury that you have done to your mother’s health, to your future and to our family’s good name.”

  Julia gasped at his harshness. “Papa, you have always been a fair man, ready to listen to both sides of the story whenever Carolyn was in trouble. Is this fair—to treat me in this way without any mitigating points in my favor?”

  He passed his hand over his eyes as if the sight of her was too painful for him. “What else can I do, Julia? Your impetuous action has left me with very little choice. Your mother is right. You should have been married a year ago. The duties of a wife and mother curb wild impulses.”

  Julia rose to her feet. “Papa, all I did was attend a party for a few hours. I wore a mask and behaved myself. Is that such a crime? I did not steal their silverware, nor did I cause a ruckus. I did not slander the Winsteads, though Melinda has no qualms about slandering me. I was not disrespectful to a single soul.

  “Papa, I am loyal to the Confederacy. I long for Virginia to be free from the grip of the Yankees, but more than anything else I long for peace. I am sick of being walled up inside this house, when I know that others my age are going to balls and picnics and teas and to…to the theater! Papa, do you realize that I have never seen a play? How long will it be before I can live a normal life again? Will I never have the same pleasures that Mother had when she was young? I think not. I will be too old by the time this war ends.”

  Dr. Chandler’s anger left his eyes, though not from the set of his shoulders. “War asks us all to make sacrifices, Julia. For the loss of your youthful times, I am sorry. For the death of your young beau, I grieve. But no matter how weary we become of the privations that we must bear, we must continue to endure for the love of Virginia and those principles of independence that we hold so dear. For me, it has meant the decline of my medical practice, as well as the loss of many good friends. Your mother has lost the social life that she dotes on, and her health has suffered for it. The sons of many of our friends have already given their life’s blood for the sake of the Confederacy. Frank died in the first flush of his manhood. Is it too much to ask you to give up dancing and the theater?”

  His words hurt Julia far more than a shout. The reminder of Frank especially wounded her. She clutched the silver locket. How easily she had forgotten the boy who had told her that he loved her. More hot tears welled up in her eyes, and she allowed them to fall freely. “I am so sorry, Papa,” she whispered.

  He nodd
ed. “I know you are, my dear, but the fact of your disobedience remains. You must be punished, not only for your own sake, but also as an example to Carolyn, lest she take it in her head to run wild in the streets.”

  A small flame of resentment flared up in Julia’s breast. Why should she alone suffer the blame when it was Carolyn’s idea to go in the first place? Because if she hadn’t gone, Carolyn would have perhaps gotten herself into worse difficulties. Julia remained silent.

  With a sigh, her father touched her elbow. “Come, this unpleasantness will pass. Once you are married to Payton and safe at Belmont, this episode will be nothing but a shadow.”

  She would never marry Payton.

  Only after she returned to her room did Julia remember her promise to meet Major Montgomery at three o’clock that afternoon. Somehow, she had to send him a message with her regrets, so that he would not think her fickle. Julia did not pause to consider why the Yankee’s good opinion meant so much to her.

  Chapter Eight

  A merry tune, expertly whistled, wafted through Colonel Lawrence’s half-open office door. Surprised by the levity and the early hour on New Year’s morning, he rose from his desk and cast an inquisitive glance into his outer room where his officers toiled to decipher the latest Confederate code and relay the gathered information to the proper Federal command. The colonel lifted his bushy brows with surprise when he saw that the music came from his usually dour major. What was even more surprising was the unaccustomed smile on Montgomery’s face.

  Lawrence strode out to the antechamber on the pretext of searching for an agent’s field report. He paused by the major’s desk. “I presume that you enjoyed yourself last night, Montgomery,” he muttered, as he flipped through some unimportant documents that lay near at hand.

  The major cocked his head. “Tolerable, sir, most tolerable.” He did not bother to stifle his smile.

  Lawrence shot him a sidelong glance. “So I see. What a change! To what do we poor mortals owe the pleasure of your good humor?”