His One Woman (16 page)

I
cannot tell you how pleased I was to read in your latest despatch—you really do rival Russell of
The Times
—of your intention to settle yourself with the charming and clever Miss Marietta, and of the successful outcome of your adventures on the battlefields of the United States. I'm delighted to learn that you resisted the lures and wiles of Miss Sophie—a proper little scorpion, that one—avoid her, Jack, avoid her. Her behaviour at the battle, and that of Marietta, was exactly what I would have expected of both of them. The South's victory was also exactly what I would have expected at this stage of a war which I am sure the North will win—although whether we over here ought to want it to is quite another matter.

Little brother, I have opened this before sending it, originally to tell you that they are making me a knight—Sir Alan, if you please—now that the male Hatton line has come to an end with Beverley's untimely death. Eleanor says that it is only fitting that the owner of Temple Hatton should have a title, and then my own joyful news was darkened by the sad tidings in your last letter.

So you have lost Marietta. I count that as a tragedy, as you must do. Her desertion of you surprises me. I had not thought that she would be so fickle, since she and her father both struck me as good and true. I can only commiserate with you and wish you better luck in the future. I live in some hope that you may yet hear from her.

I can only think that I feel the need to confide in a Journal because I have never had the time to keep one before, and I now have so much time to spare, and nothing to do in it, that my journal is almost my best friend—after Aunt Percival, of course. Besides, when I am writing
about the day's non-events I have no time to think of Jack, only about the gift he has left me—for whose birth I wait with an impatience which surprises me. It certainly surprises Aunt Percival! ‘Goodness, child,' she told me yesterday, ‘I scarcely know you.' The only reply I could have made would have been, I scarcely know myself. Which is nothing less than the truth. I think that Mrs Henty thinks that I am a little simple—or have been left simple by grief for my poor dead hero of a husband!

Today I milked a goat. I think I like being mindless.

Dear Sir Alan—what would the Patriarch have said to
that
?

Despite your last kind wish I have still heard nothing further from Marietta, and I am trying to forget her, which is difficult. I am also trying to persuade the Navy Department and Ericsson to allow me to accompany the
Monitor
on her sea trials, and form part of her crew when she goes on her maiden voyage. I think it is important that there should be a marine engineer on her who can report at first hand to her inventor on her performance in battle.

Wish me luck. Perhaps, if I have been unlucky in love, I might be lucky—or luckier—in war.

Will you be at the Norrises' Reception on Saturday evening? I am hoping to be allowed to go. It seems to me that mourning for Uncle Jacobus's death has gone on far too long. It isn't as though he was a young man. No, in answer to your letter, I have no notion where Marietta has gone to, or any address to which you may write, either to her or to Aunt Percival. I hear that all the Percivals are in mourning for some backwoods cousin who was killed at Blagg's Crossing. Really, this war is becoming too dreary for words. I shall be only too happy when it is over. I shall be sure to save a few dances for you if you are at the Norrises'.

You see in me a survivor from the first sea trials of the
Monitor
, but only just! She really ought to be called a submersible, or a submarine, she rides so low in the water. Her most amazing feature is a gun turret which revolves so that she may fire at enemy warships from any direction without changing course—
if
we ever manage to sail her safely to any place where an enemy is to be found, that is. People over here
are annoyed at the British for trying to break the blockade which Lincoln has ordered against the Southern ports. They feel that a war against slavery ought to be supported by a free people, not opposed.

I have still heard nothing, nor do I now expect to, from Marietta. I have met a pretty young woman journalist, Peggy Shipton, who believes in all the things which advanced young women in the States are taught to believe. I suppose that I really ought to try to console myself for Marietta's loss by becoming interested in her. She has already told me that if we wish to enjoy ourselves we can go to bed together, whenever I am willing to oblige her, because she believes in free love, and that marriage is an institution designed to make slaves of women. Before I met Marietta I might have taken advantage of such a splendid offer, but I am foolish enough to entertain a vague hope that we might yet meet again, a hope that grows fainter with each passing day.

The war—and Jack—seem so far away. I dreamed about him last night. It was an odd dream and I had an even odder conversation with him. We were on a ship—or what passed for a ship—it wasn't like any I had ever seen
before. He said, ‘What do you think of it?' I said, ‘I don't think about much these days—only about the birth of our son.' I'm sure that he's a boy. Why, I don't know. Jack said, ‘It could be a girl.' I said, ‘What a strange thing for you to say. You don't even know that I'm expecting your child.' He waved a hand around the strange ship, and said, ‘I don't understand
you
. This is my child.'

And then I woke up.

Forgive me if my writing is barely legible, but I spent yesterday taking part in my first sea battle. We set off from New York in the
Monitor
on March 3rd, making for Chesapeake Bay where the
Merrimac
, the South's iron-clad, had been sinking our wooden ships which had no defence against it. We didn't discover this until we arrived in the Bay, to be asked to defend those ships still afloat, to keep the
Merrimac
away from them and, if possible, sink her.

We finally engaged her on Sunday, March 9th—the crew later named it Bloody Sunday. We had barely slept for the two days before the battle—keeping the
Monitor
afloat took all our time and strength. One day I will tell you all about it. The most surprising thing was how noisy it was. I am half-deaf today. As a civilian
I was supposed to stand about and observe, but that proved impossible when I saw my friends being maimed and killed. Suffice it to say that I did what I could.

In the middle of the battle I had the strangest experience. I have been having odd dreams about Marietta ever since Christmas. I remember that in one I was trying to show her the
Monitor
and she kept babbling nonsense at me which I could make nothing of. This time, when the gun turret was hit and Captain Worden was badly injured, I knelt down to comfort him, and said something encouraging, I can't remember what. Instead of Worden, I saw Marietta. She was lying on a bed, her face distorted. Someone, I think that it was Aunt Percival, was holding her hand. She seemed to be in pain. For one mad moment I thought that it was she whom I was comforting, not Worden. I put out my hand to her—and then she was gone, and I was holding on to Worden's instead. He had been blinded by the shot which had hit the turret. My vision of Marietta was brief, but was intensely real while it lasted.

I write this to you in order to hold on to my sanity. I was told that strange things happen in battle, but I had not expected anything so strange as that. Suffice it that we finally drove the
Merrimac
off. We did not destroy her, but she was so badly wounded that she will not prey
on our ships again. War is even more dreadful than I had thought. When I was helping to design the
Monitor
it was simply lines on paper. I never thought that what I was doing would kill and destroy—but necessity makes savages of us all. Hold on to your peace over there—we do not value it properly until we lose it.

Aunt Percival is scolding me for writing my Journal so soon after I have given birth, but I most desperately want to record everything which happened on the day I was blessed with my beautiful baby boy, who came into the world nearly a month early. All the pain and agony, and the long dreary months of waiting, were rendered worthwhile when I first saw his dear little face and his beautiful blue eyes, so like Jack's.

I haven't told Aunt Percival. She already fears for my reason, and would fear even more if I were to tell her that at the worst moment of my agony I suddenly saw Jack holding out his hand to me. ‘Hold on,' he was saying. ‘Hold on, help is at hand.' And then he was gone. I was only able to recognise him by his beautiful blue eyes. His face was black and his forehead was bleeding. Before I had time to wonder what in the world was happening to me, I gave one last
push—and there was my baby. We are going to call him Jacobus, after my father, but he is so small I can only think of him as Cobie. Aunt Percival agrees. Jacobus is far too pompous for such a little mite. I never dreamed that I could be so happy.

I have to report that the latest news from Chesapeake Bay, detailing the battle of the iron-clads at Hampton Roads, is of the utmost importance to all the navies of the world, as Captain Cowper Coles prophesied that it would be. Wooden ships are obsolete and the task of rebuilding our navies to replace them must begin at once now that the
Monitor
and
Merrimac
have proved their use in battle. A little bird whispered to me that your brother Jack was present at the action, which he survived…

I still have sad news of my dear niece Marietta. The shock of her father's death continues to affect her. She is quite overwrought, and
hardly seems to know what to do these days, but is content to ply her needle and spend her time reading novels, by which you will judge how greatly changed she is. To add to our woes, my cousin Henty's girl has died having a baby boy. You may remember that she married another cousin of mine, Lieutenant Philip Percival, who was killed in that wretched skirmish at Blagg's Crossing. I am trying to persuade Marietta that it is our duty to adopt him, particularly since his mother's last wish was that he should be named Jacobus after the Senator. The Hentys cannot afford to bring up yet another child, having so many of their own. His christening produced the first smile on my darling's face since her father's death.

Aunt Percival bullies me unmercifully these days. She says that it is time we left our Arcadian fastness and went home. I am so happy here, looking after my darling Cobie, that I have no wish to return to Washington where I must pretend that he is not mine. In my heart I know that she is right. I have agreed to leave in early June so that I may continue to feed him myself for a little longer. My uncle Hope has written me an urgent letter saying that I am needed to agree to some changes which the war has forced
on us in the disposition of my father's estate. I worry that everyone who meets me will guess that I am now a mother. Aunt Percival tells me not to talk nonsense, but I know that having Cobie has changed me very much.

I cannot tell you how delighted I was to meet you again last night and discover that, despite your illness after your father's death, you have not only recovered completely but have acquired a rare beauty which leaves me more regretful than ever that you refused me all those years ago. I shall be at the Van Horns' ball to morrow, and I hear that you will also be present. Save me a dance, no, make that dances, my dear. We must not waste any more time.

Today Avory Grant proposed to me and I accepted him. I have finally to admit that Jack has gone for ever and that Avory is a good man and will make Cobie an excellent father. When he arrived this afternoon and begged me to agree to marry him this time, I did not immediately reply, but told him the truth about Cobie, for I could not deceive him by pretending that he is
not mine. Everyone here knows him as Jacobus Percival, Aunt Percival's ward. To my surprise he looked at me in the grave way he has these days and said, ‘My darling, I knew that he was yours that first time I visited you on your return, when he began to cry. You rushed into the other room to pick him up and the look on your face told me everything. It explained your long absence and the glory which motherhood has given you. Forget the wretch who fathered him, and betrayed you, and let me take his place in every way. He shall be Cobie Grant, a brother for my dear Susanna who already loves him.'

Well, that is true enough, and although I do not feel for Avory what I felt for Jack, this new feeling may be a better one. We are to be married soon, for, as he says, we are neither of us getting any younger and the war may take him away now that he has recovered from his wounds. He makes me feel young again and his kindness and love for my little son is all that I could wish for. May God bless our union. Last night I dreamed of Jack for the first time since Cobie's birth. How strange that I should have seen him that morning, on the day of the Battle of Hampton Roads in which, Ezra Butler told me yesterday, Jack took part. I must try to forget him: my future is with Avory.