Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule (3 page)

Julia had looked forward to many more swift, invigorating rides and cozy family suppers with the lieutenant, so she was sorely disappointed when, upon his arrival one afternoon in late April, he explained that he would be taking a three-week furlough to visit his family in Ohio. “I believe war with Mexico is coming,” he told Julia later as they sat alone on the broad piazza after supper, as the sun declined toward the horizon and the moment of his departure too swiftly approached. “I want to say good-bye to my parents and my brothers and sisters before I go.”

“Of course you must,” Julia said, unable to keep a tremor of apprehension from her voice.

“Oh, don’t worry about me.” He rested his elbows on his knees and studied her expression, which he seemed able to read all too well. “I won’t get hurt. I’ll be back, as whole and sound as when I left.”

“Not with camp food rather than Annie’s delicious cooking to sustain you, you won’t,” she teased. Their cook, rightly proud of her exceptional skills in the kitchen, often declared that the lieutenant was too skinny and ought to eat more, even though he rarely failed to clean his plate of whatever delicious morsels she placed before him. “I know you won’t be injured or—or worse. I know you’ll come back safely.”

He peered at her, curious. “You sound awfully certain.”

“I am.” As she spoke, a familiar, uncannily powerful sensation swept over her, and she knew that she was right. Since childhood, whenever she experienced that particular, peculiar feeling, or woke from a strangely vivid dream, she knew that whatever she had glimpsed or felt would come to pass. Jule believed that Julia had the gift of prophecy, but while Julia would never make such a boastful claim, she and her family had learned to trust her intuition.

But her gift often eluded her at the most critical moments, rendering her utterly caught by surprise.

“I won’t always be riding off into danger,” Lieutenant Grant told her seriously, sitting back in his chair. “You know I have no real affection for military life.”

“I know,” said Julia, amused by the understatement. He loathed the routine of camp and the preponderance of petty regulations, and even merry military music fell like a noisy clanging of tin pans and blaring whistles upon his ear. Instead he hoped for a career as a mathematics professor, and in the evenings in the barracks, he reviewed his West Point courses to prepare himself. He had applied for a post as an assistant professor at the military academy, and the head of the mathematics department had promised him first consideration when a vacancy next appeared.

“It would be a good living,” he went on, and when Julia nodded, he hesitated, turned his West Point ring about his finger, then suddenly removed it and held it out to her. “Would you not wear this?”

For a moment Julia froze, staring at the golden band on his palm. “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” she exclaimed, shrinking back into her chair. Once, several weeks before, when they had been walking their horses on a sunny bank of Gravois Creek, he had idly remarked that if he ever gave his school ring to a lady, he would give it as an engagement ring.

“Why not?”

“Mamma would never approve of me accepting such a gift from a gentleman.”

He regarded her for a moment, clearly perplexed and disappointed. “All right, then,” he said, returning the ring to his own finger. Julia was too mortified to speak, so they sat in silence, Julia with her gaze fixed on her hands clasped in her lap, the lieutenant studying the poplar and locust trees at the garden’s edge.

Then he stood. “I must bid you farewell now,” he said gruffly, avoiding her gaze.

“Good-bye,” she replied softly. “Safe travels.”

“Will you think of me while I’m away?”

“Of course,” she replied, surprised that he needed to ask. “I’ll think of you and pray for your safekeeping every day, as I do for my own dear brother.”

To her astonishment, he winced. It was not until after he rode away that she realized he had hoped she would say that she thought of him as someone even more dear than a brother.

•   •   •

As she went about her chores, Jule observed Nell’s attempts to comfort her elder sister, noted Julia’s forced laughter and poorly concealed misery, and knew that something had gone very wrong up at Jefferson Barracks. Julia wasn’t wearing the lieutenant’s ring, Jule was relieved to see, but she could only guess whether that was because Julia had refused it again or Lieutenant Grant had not offered it a second time.

Jule’s relief was for her own sake, not her mistress’s. Lieutenant Grant seemed decent enough—quieter than the other officers who visited White Haven, surprisingly courteous to the colored folk—and Jule certainly preferred him to that loud, strutting dandy who had haplessly wooed Julia in St. Louis. Jule knew Julia would marry eventually, but Jule dreaded that day, for wherever the young mistress went, the maid would be obliged to follow.

As the afternoon passed, Jule watched as Julia’s composure crumbled piece by piece. At bedtime, as Jule undressed her for bed, she finally let her tears fall, pressing her lips together to muffle her sobs.

“You crying over that lieutenant?” Jule asked as she helped Julia into her cotton nightgown. “He say something unkind?”

“He wasn’t there. He’s still in Ohio, visiting his parents.” Julia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I miss him more than I thought I would.”

Jule suspected Julia had been surprised to find herself missing him at all. “You dream about him since he been gone?”

“No—that is to say, not
that
sort of dream.” As a pink flush rose in Julia’s cheeks, Jule had to bite her lips together so she would not burst out laughing. What sort of dreams
had
he appeared in, if not the prophetic kind? “But—but I have a strong feeling that he won’t be harmed while he’s away.”

“Then why carry on so?” admonished Jule, brushing out her mistress’s long, thick locks. Julia winced when the tines caught on a snarl. “Shouldn’t that dream put your mind at ease? Whatever quarrel you had, you can make your peace when he comes back.”

“
If
he comes back.” Julia inhaled deeply, shakily. “If he’s already received word about the Fourth’s transfer to Louisiana, he’ll just meet them there or along the way. He wouldn’t have any reason to come back to Missouri.”

“Except to see you.”

Julia laughed bleakly. “He might want to, but he wouldn’t defy orders and break leave by traveling so far out of his way just to bid me good-bye.”

Jule brushed Julia’s hair in silence, considering. “Ain’t it more likely that Lieutenant Grant didn’t get the message, he being at his folks’ house or traveling? Ain’t it more likely that he’s on his way back to Jefferson Barracks this very moment? Sure it is, and surely he’ll come by White Haven before setting out for Natchitoches.” Finished, Jule set the brush aside. “Seems to me you got every reason to hope to see him soon.”

“You’re absolutely right, Jule.” Julia managed a wan smile. “I haven’t lost him yet, nor have I lost hope. Nor, I pray, will I ever lose you, for how could I manage without you?”

“I don’t think you need to worry about losing me,” said Jule matter-of-factly, turning down the bed and plumping the pillow. “How would I get lost?”

How could she get lost, when she had nowhere to go and no way to get there? How could she leave behind every friend, every place, everything she knew?

And Gabriel. How could she think of leaving Gabriel, when Julia’s marriage would likely tear her from him all too soon?

•   •   •

Julia faced the next morning bravely, occupying herself by playing melodic airs on the piano and weeding the garden. She passed the afternoon with a long ride on her favorite horse, Psyche, a chestnut-brown, part Arabian mare, as glossy as satin, with pretty ears and eyes that bore a faithful expression. But the day dragged by nonetheless, and the next was worse, for thunderclouds rolled in and drenched the greening land below so that it was impossible to go riding.

The weather cleared by Saturday, the sun peeping through the clouds as it rose to its zenith—but Lieutenant Grant did not appear. Restless and miserable, Julia ordered Psyche to be saddled and rode out to Jefferson Barracks, alone. The creek and all the little unnamed rivulets that fed it were swollen from the recent downpours, the road uneven and crenelated where overflow had carved channels into the mud, but Julia did not turn back. If Lieutenant Grant had returned to Jefferson Barracks, if he was on his way from there to White Haven, they would meet midway.

But although Julia slowed the mare—out of an abundance of caution as well as a desperate need to delay the inevitable—she reached the edge of the woods without encountering a single other traveler. She gazed up at the whitewashed buildings and fences atop the high hill, waiting, listening for the thunder of his bonny brown steed’s hooves on the packed earth as he raced toward her, but heard only the wind in the boughs, the rustling whisper of leaves high above. Feeling foolish and unbearably sad, she turned Psyche toward home.

That night, she dreamed of him.

The next morning at breakfast, when her sisters cajoled her to explain the reason for her distraction and lack of appetite, she admitted that a dream yet haunted her. Nell and Emma, their eyes wide with excitement, begged her to describe it, and Mamma looked on with fond curiosity, but her father snorted. “Not this nonsense again,” he grumbled. “Dreams and fairy tales. A leaking bucket of balderdash, all of it.”

“Frederick,” chided Mamma gently. Papa sighed and glowered as he stabbed a crust of bread into his egg yolk, but he did not demand they change the subject.

“Your dream, Julia,” urged Emma. “Tell us your dream.”

“If there is no objection,” Julia began pertly, with a sidelong glance at her father. “I dreamed that it was Monday, right around noon, and who should call on us at White Haven but Lieutenant Grant.”

As her sisters gasped, their father barked out a laugh. “And how, in your dream, did you know it was Monday? I understand that you could judge the hour by the position of the sun in the sky, but how did you determine the day?”

“That’s the way of dreams,” Emma said. “You just
know.
Isn’t that so, Julia?”

“It was Monday,” Julia repeated firmly. “Lieutenant Grant arrived at noon, but he was wearing civilian clothes.”

“I don’t know if I’d recognize him out of uniform,” mused Nell.

“In my dream I did.” Julia would know him anywhere, sleeping or waking. “He came in, greeted us all most cordially, and seated himself by my side. When I asked how long he would remain, he said, ‘I’m going to try to stay a week.’”

“A week,” Emma exclaimed, bouncing in her chair. “How wonderful!”

“That proves you couldn’t’ve been dreaming about Grant,” scoffed Papa. “Say what you will about his queer abolitionist notions, he has sense enough not to overstay his welcome.”

“I know it was the lieutenant,” said Julia mildly. She had seen him so vividly, heard his own true voice, inhaled deeply of his scent, slightly woodsy and spicy with a sweet whiff of horses—but of course, it had not really been him, only his dream phantom. And yet she wished she had reached out to touch his face.

“Julia, darling,” said Mamma, “you know this dream won’t come true. Lieutenant Grant is at this very moment sailing down the Mississippi to reunite with the Fourth. He’s surely already far below the mouth of the Ohio.”

Julia’s soaring spirits abruptly came back down to earth. “I know, but it was a lovely dream.”

Mamma smiled sympathetically and her sisters murmured agreement.

“I suppose it could still come true,” Papa remarked. When they all turned to look at him in surprise, he added, “Julia didn’t say what year it was in her dream. Maybe Lieutenant Grant will grace us with a visit some Monday come winter.”

“Papa,” scolded Nell, and Emma’s mouth fell open in protest, but Julia only laughed and shook her head at her incorrigible father. He could tease all he liked, because she knew it was a Monday in her dream, and Lieutenant Grant had not been dressed for winter weather.

Sunday passed, and Monday morning found Julia in the garden, staking her waterlogged bean plants in the rain-soaked soil. Jule stood nearby, shooing away the gnats and no-see-ums from her mistress’s arms and face, ready to hand over the shears and the ball of twine at her request. Suddenly Julia heard hoofbeats, and when she glanced over her shoulder she spied a man on horseback coming up the zigzag path. “Jule,” she exclaimed. “See him for me.”

Jule studied the rider intently, shading her eyes with her hand. “He’s covered in mud so I can’t be sure,” she said, “but I think that’s your lieutenant.”

Julia’s heart thumped and she scrambled to her feet, brushing the soil from her hands. “It is,” she cried, dropping her trowel and lifting her skirts as she hurried to welcome him. The dogs barked happily; Emma burst from the house and flew down the path ahead of her, halting a few paces away as the lieutenant reined in his mare.

“What happened to you?” exclaimed Emma. “Did you fall in a lake?”

As Julia drew closer, she saw that Lieutenant Grant and his horse, too, were soaking wet. “We were submerged fording the creek,” he admitted. His muddy uniform flopped about his slender frame like rags used to mop up after a deluge.

“The quiet little Gravois?” Julia said, astonished. “The one you said didn’t have enough water to turn a coffee mill?”

“It’s not so quiet now.” Though bedraggled and shivering, the lieutenant dismounted with effortless grace. “The Gravois and all the little creeks feeding it are swollen and raging. I was almost swept away, but my horse can swim well enough and I clung to her saddle.”

Julia felt a pang of fear, but it swiftly faded when she reminded herself that he was fine; he was fine and he was there. “You must come inside and dry yourself,” she said, glancing over her shoulder as Gabriel came running to take the horse’s reins. “My brother John surely has some clothes you could borrow. Frederick’s would hang on you like a tent.”

The lieutenant willingly allowed himself to be led inside, where Mamma took charge of their half-drowned visitor and shooed Julia off to attend to her own toilet. With Jule’s help, she quickly washed and changed into a prettier frock and fixed her hair. When Lieutenant Grant descended, scrubbed free of the mud and clad in her eldest brother’s old suit, Julia, her sisters, and her mother were waiting for him in the drawing room with tea and apple dumplings.