The Family Greene (20 page)

We both laughed about that and his eyes found mine, warmly.

"Well, anyway, I've laid the groundwork in the House for your mother to get approval for her claim. The roll call vote should be taken this week. She has friends who will favor her."

"I thank you for what you did for her before you left, sir."

He nodded.

"What will you do now?"

"Now? I will loaf about. I will do nothing."

"You can't do that," I said.

"Oh? And why can't I? Where does a young snip of a girl get the right to tell me what I am to do with the rest of my life?"

He looked at me hard, with those hazel eyes, as if to say,
Even if she is my daughter.

I blushed and looked down. "Because you are a hero of the Revolution to everyone, sir. And all look up to you."

The muscles in his jaw set. His face sobered. "You are right," he said. "I have a name to live up to, even if I am not that person people think I am."

He stood up, rubbing his beard, walked to the window that overlooked the lawn, and thought for a moment. "How is your brother George?" he asked of a sudden.

"I just had a letter from him." I told him of the news, of what was going on in France, the mobs in the streets and everything.

"Yes, yes," he murmured. "I've read of it. You know, Cornelia, we've exported cotton in this country—tobacco, rice, lumber, so much. But do you know what our first significant export is?"

"No, sir."

"Revolution," he said.

"I never thought of it that way, sir."

"You should. Everybody should. Still. Your mother should bring George home soon." He walked back and forth, ruminating. He sighed heavily.

"We're going to have war again, soon. In the old northwest. The Indians are being badly mishandled out there right now. First by General Harman and now by St. Clair. The army they have is small and unfit. A new army is going to be thrown together."

He did not have to say any more to me. I understood.

He just smiled.

But I felt a stab, as if someone had bayoneted me inside.

I forced a smile back. He was still a soldier, after all.

"It's what I would need to bring me back to life again," he said. "And I have to get away from here. I can't stay within a hundred—no, a
thousand
—miles of your mother if she marries that idiot. Or I'll die a slow and agonizing death, as if I were tied to the ground and being devoured by hundreds of thousands of man-eating ants. Of course, I'll have to get a commission, if President Washington would be so kind as to give it to me."

I knew I should not say what I was about to say.

But I also knew two things. One, that he
would
die if he stayed.

And, two, that I loved him too much to see it happen. Be he my father or not.

No, chances were that I would never know if he was my father. But that did not matter anymore.

In my heart, somewhere in some small corner, he would always be my father. And if there was the slightest chance of it, I would not leave him here to die.

"Sir," I said, "mayhap Mama could put in a good word with President Washington for you. He and Mrs. Washington like her considerable much. And they can't say enough good things about Pa."

He looked grave. "Let's wait and see if your mother gets the money she's petitioned Congress for, first," he said.

Then he brightened. "Tell you what," he said. "You give me an hour. That's all I need to shave and clean up. Browse among my books here. Romp outside with the dogs. Talk with Lila in the kitchen. When I look human again, I'll ride with you home."

"I can't let Phineas Miller see you, or know I've been here, sir."

"We'll part a short distance from the house," he promised. "As a gentleman of honor, I cannot let you ride home alone."

M
AMA RECEIVED
her compensation from Congress for all the money of Pa's that he had given out to sustain his troops during the war.

President Washington himself signed the bill.

Mama came home that spring, bubbling with joy. All her money worries were over. Congress had given her the first installment of forty-seven thousand dollars.

Alexander Hamilton himself signed the check.

Mama was a different woman. She spoke about bringing Nat and George and Martha home. She talked about a party.

"How sweet is justice," she said. "I feel as saucy as you please."

She did have a party, and she invited General Wayne. He came, garbed spotlessly, mingling among the guests, behaving as if he never knew there was a legal agreement that bespoke marriage between Mama and Phineas Miller in the county courthouse in Savannah.

Only I saw the pained look on his face when he was standing to the side on one occasion, observing Mama and Phineas dancing.

He left the party early, claiming one of his mares had been starting to give birth when he left. He bowed to Mama and kissed her hand upon leaving.

***

"M
AMA, PLEASE,
" I begged her, "you must do this, please."

"There is nothing I
must
do, Cornelia. And I do not appreciate you speaking to me like that."

"I am sorry, Mama. But you yourself said that you and we children would have been objects of charity if General Wayne had not kept his seat in Congress long enough to do you such essential services. That it was to his exertions that you owe your independence. Did you not, Mama? Did you not say that?"

"And what if I did, Cornelia? Are you saying I am now beholden to him? You know I do not like to be beholden to any man."

"Mama, I never said you were beholden. General Wayne is the last person in the world who would want you to be."

"So, then, let the matter lie fallow."

"Mama, you can't! He needs a good word put in with the president for him! That's all he needs. And you can do it. You know how President Washington likes you."

"What, bother President Washington with a request so soon again? My dear Cornelia, you should learn now to save your requests to a man for important matters. And make them few and far between, lest the man tire of you."

"Mama, this is important! General Wayne has nothing now! His plantation is failing. He's been put out of Congress. And..."

"And what?" she asked.

Oh, how I longed to tell her that I knew of her agreement with Phineas Miller. That Wayne knew of it and that it was killing him. But I could not. For I had promised the general that I would never let on to Mama that we knew of her plans to wed Miller.

My hands, my tongue, and my heart were tied.

I sighed and turned away, tears coming to my eyes.

But Mama discerned my distress. "What is it, Cornelia? Why are you so concerned about General Wayne?" Her voice had softened.

I bit my bottom lip before answering. I said what I could say. "I observed his face at the party you had, Mama. When you were dancing with Mr. Miller."

"And?"

"He still loves you, Mama."

She looked down at the magazine. "I never did more than flirt with him, Cornelia. Women always have the right to flirt, if it is kept a harmless pastime. Men expect it from us. If we do it properly, it gives us power, and Lord knows we have little of that. But we must learn to do it properly. It's about time you learned how, don't you think?"

I just stared at her. I did not answer.
Is that what she calls what she'd been doing with Phineas Miller the day I
caught her in the schoolroom with him, so long ago now? And what she'd done with all the others? Even General Wayne? Is that what she dismisses it all as now? Flirting?

"I do not wish to do this thing, Cornelia. If I ask the president this favor, he will grant it. And then Wayne will go far away."

Something fell inside me, smashed into bits on the floor of my soul.
She still loves him, too! And she wants him around! Though she might wed Miller, she cannot bear to let Wayne go! She would rather keep him on a line, like a fish, and watch him struggle and suffer! What kind of love is that?

"Mama," I begged, weakly now. "Please, if President Washington will grant your favor, please ask it. In Pa's name. Please."

Then I left the room.

***

G
ENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE
put in for a commission with the president of the United States. He did not know that I had asked Mama to write to George Washington. I did not tell him. If Mama ever did, I do not know.

I only know that he not only received his commission from the president, but was named commander in chief of the army.

He was to go west with the army, to the frontier, to the region of the Great Lakes.

Congress gave him much power and many advantages. They told him that they knew he would conduct a well-administered, well-planned, and well-executed campaign.

They knew he would finally bring peace to the frontier.

He came to see us before he left.

Nat and Martha were home by then, for it was now well into 1792. Mama had not yet married Phineas Miller. I was older now and in possession of a knowledge that weighed on me like a suit of armor.

I knew things inside my soul that often made tears appear for no reason at all, things no daughter should be conscious of, things my sister Martha had yet no inkling of.

We had a special dinner in honor of General Wayne's departure.

Phineas Miller was not present at the table. The fault was mine.

At the cost of my well-being, my good standing with Mama, I had gone to him in the stable the day before and spoken to him.

In the king's English I told him plain that General Wayne was coming to sup the next day to say goodbye. That he was going away for years.

Mayhap for good. That we might never see him again.

There were tears in my voice when I told him this, and I did not try to dispense with them.

"He and my mama have been friends since the old days," I said, "since the war. Since Mama was first married to Pa. Since Valley Forge. It was because of his exertions in Congress that she had her petition answered. Or she, and we children, would be beggars now. She has—how shall I say it?—feelings of delicacy for him. Do you understand, Mr. Miller?"

He said yes, he quite understood.

I said, "Good, then you will also understand why I would be beholden to you if tomorrow evening you told Mama that you almost forgot, but of a sudden you remembered that you had a previous engagement and could not make the dinner appointment. Could you do that? Not for me, Mr. Miller. There is no reason on God's good earth why you should do anything for me. But for my mama. Would you do it for my mama? So she could have one last evening with General Wayne. Remember, they may never see each other again. He is going off to the frontier, to try to tame the wild Indians. Wild Indians aren't easy to tame, you know."

He said yes, he would do it.

I forgave him for everything then. I don't know what I would have done if he'd said no. Likely picked up a shovel and knocked him over the head and rendered him unconscious so he wouldn't be able to come to the supper, anyway.

***

T
HE DINNER WAS OVER
. Outside it was twilight. Somehow I had managed to get Martha and Nat and Louisa away from the table so Mama and General Wayne could linger alone over their coffee.

The March air was soft and warm and in the west the sky still held the red and orange streaks of a leftover sunset. And leftover dreams.

"I think," I proposed to my sisters and brother, "that we ought to go upstairs and leave them to themselves to say goodbye."

I had summoned the strength of the eldest. Martha, having been under the thumbs of the nuns for so long, had become submissive and was no longer threatening.

I, on the other hand, had learned what I must, being so exposed to life here, living under nobody's thumb, not even Mama's. I had learned to be obstinate, persistent, stubborn, self-reliant, and cagey.

The others complied. We went upstairs to our separate rooms.

About nine, according to the grandfather clock in the downstairs hall, we were summonded by Emily.

General Wayne wanted to bid us goodbye.

I went downstairs and watched as the others dutifully said goodbye. They hugged him while I stood aside. They tendered their best wishes, promised to be good, wished him well. Mama was nowhere to be seen. They went up to bed. I hung back in the corner, in the shadows in the front hall.

He started to walk to the front door, and with his back to me, gestured with his arm that I should follow.

I went with him, out onto the front veranda.

We stood there a moment. Priam was bringing around his horse.

"Well, then," Wayne said to me.

"Yes, sir."

"I want to thank you."

"For what, sir?"

In the near dark, broken only by torches in huge iron sconces in the ground, he took my hand. "For whatever you did to get Miller out of the way tonight. And for getting your mother to petition the president for me."

"Sir, I didn't—"

"Shhh. I am the one who taught you to lie, remember. I know lies when I hear them. I know your mother wouldn't have done such on her own, that she wanted me around. I know you wanted me around, too, Cornelia. Real love is courage. Thank you."

I wanted to flee. I was going to cry.

He put a hand on my shoulder. Then he touched the side of my face. "I don't know when we'll see each other again, Cornelia, but I want you to know some things."

I took a deep breath.
Is he going to tell me now that he is my father?

No
, I decided.
Because he's said that real love is courage, that's why.

"You may marry before we see each other again. Be careful in that direction. Remember what I told you of the rights women lose when they wed. That doesn't mean you should not wed. There is no more beautiful thing than a good marriage. Just make sure you pick the right one."

"Yes, sir."

"Write to me, if you wish, and tell me about him. Letters do find their way, you know."

"Yes, sir."

His hand had reached my hair now. He was fondling a strand of it, tucking it behind my ear. "And always guard your honor, Cornelia. I tell you this like a father. The man you choose must respect you."