Fire by Night Page 4

  “Look at you. Why, your hair isn’t even fixed. Inga!” she said, turning to shout at Julia’s maid. “Why are you standing around like a dolt? We are supposed to be taking afternoon tea at the Blairs’, and we are already late.”

  “If you please, ma’am …Miss Julia wouldn’t let me comb it.”

  “Julia, I want this silly business of brushing your own hair stopped immediately. Do you hear me?” She picked up the brush with an angry swipe and shoved it into Inga’s hand. The maid carefully began brushing, as if she expected Julia’s hair to fall out in clumps.

  Mrs. Hoffman’s hands returned to her hips as she stood beside the dressing table. “You’ve been moping around for nearly three months—ever since you returned from Washington. I’ve tried very hard to be patient with you because of the shock you received at that battlefield, but honestly, I am all out of patience. I’m absolutely exasperated with you. Your behavior has been downright rude— refusing dinner invitations from perfectly fine gentlemen, walking out on your social obligations. And that insulting remark you made to Mrs. Reed about not fixing the tea herself. I was positively mortified.”

  “But she doesn’t fix it herself, Mother. Neither do I …and neither do you.”

  “Well, of course we don’t. Why should we? That’s what servants are for. Will you please hurry, Inga.”

  “Yes, ma’am. … One more pin, ma’am.”

  Julia reached up to feel the knot of hair coiled at the nape of her neck and fought back tears as she remembered Reverend Greene’s condemning words: They can’t—or won’t—do a thing for themselves, whether it’s combing their own hair or fixing a cup of tea.

  “Inga has made it much too loose,” Julia said. “It will be falling down in half an hour.”

  “Well, it’s your own fault if it does,” her mother replied. “We are leaving this instant. No, put down that brush, Inga. It’s too late to fix it. Fetch Julia’s cloak. And her shoes. She doesn’t even have her shoes on yet. Where’s her bonnet?”

  The maid skittered around like a colt on ice, as if unsure what to do first. “I can fetch my own shoes,” Julia said, rising to cross the room.

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” her mother said with a sigh. “Your father thinks we should send for the doctor.”

  “I don’t need a doctor,” Julia said as she bent to put on her shoes.

  “Then why are you behaving this way?”

  “Because I’m sick of it all, Mother. My life is boring and meaningless. We make social rounds and call on people, then they call on us. It’s absurd. In the evenings we go to endless dinner parties, theater engagements, and boring lectures that put everyone to sleep. Oh yes, we do our part for charity, but you know as well as I do that most of our charity work is really about maintaining the fine Hoffman family name and being noticed and supporting the right causes. It’s not about being charitable.”

  “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “Here’s your cloak, Miss Julia.” The maid inched toward her like a child approaching a barking dog. “Shall I help you put it on?”

  “I can do it myself, thank you.”

  “You are being absurd!” her mother said with a huff. “I’m fetching the doctor, first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Julia followed her mother downstairs and outside to the waiting carriage. It was a chilly day for late October, and her mother rolled the shade on her side of the carriage closed against the wind. Julia rolled hers all the way open, gazing out at the nearly bare tree branches that arched above the avenue. Brown and gold leaves lay strewn along the cobbled street, and against her will Julia recalled the blue-clad bodies sprawled beside the road like scattered stones. She remembered the soldier being carried by his friends, his foot dangling like a dried leaf, ready for the wind to blow it free. Her life felt as worthless as the dying leaves. What was the meaning of it all? Was her only purpose to look beautiful for a time, then die?

  “That’s too much air, Julia,” her mother said. “Close it before you catch a chill.”

  Julia ignored her, letting the breeze wash over her face as the carriage picked up speed. She felt feverish with pent-up energy and restless at the prospect of sitting demurely in the Blairs’ drawing room all afternoon, sipping the tea their maids had brewed. The urge to get out of the carriage and run, to escape her “respectable” life, was suddenly so strong that she had to cross her legs to keep from doing it. Unconsciously, she began kicking the carriage seat across from her.

  “Stop that,” her mother said, putting her hand on Julia’s knee. “You’ll ruin your shoes. And you know better than to cross your legs like a man, much less kick your foot that way.”

  “I wish I were a man.”

  “Julia! Don’t say such a thing in public.” Mrs. Hoffman kept her voice just above a whisper.

  “We’re not in public, we’re inside a carriage,” Julia said loudly.

  “Who’s going to hear me, the coachman?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” her mother replied, still whispering. “Our servants talk to other people’s servants, you know. That’s how gossip spreads.”

  “Of course it’s the servants,” Julia said acidly. “Respectable people like us never gossip.”

  “Shh! It’s bad enough that Inga and the other maids think you’ve lost your mind, would you like our coachman to confirm their opinion?”

  Julia stuck her head through the open window and shouted, “I don’t care!” as loudly as she could. When she drew her head inside again, her mother slapped her.

  “There! If you’re going to act like a spoiled child I shall have to treat you like one.”

  Julia stared at her mother for a long, shocked moment, then slumped against her and wept. “That’s what he said, Mother. He said I was spoiled …and …and self-absorbed.”

  “Who did?”

  “But he’s right. I am. And I don’t know what to do about it. I want my life to matter. I don’t want to grow old and die with nothing to show for it.”

  “Listen to me.” Julia’s mother took her by the shoulders and made her sit up so they could face each other. “What you need to do is get married and—”

  “No, that won’t help!” She wanted to wail like a child.

  “Oh yes, it will. It’s time for you to grow up, Julia. Your father’s right; we have spoiled you for much too long. You say you want your life to matter? Good. That’s what marriage is for. What you need is a husband to care for and children to raise and a household to run. There is no greater purpose in life for a woman.”

  Before the Battle of Bull Run, Julia would have agreed. She had directed all of her energy into looking pretty enough to attract Nathaniel Greene, believing that her life would be complete once she married him. But the conversation she’d overheard had revealed to her how shallow her life was—and it made her long for something more. “I need a devout wife,” Nathaniel had said, “one who is devoted to meeting the needs of others, whose lifelong passion, like mine, is to spread the Gospel.”

  “Now, I know for a fact that Mrs. Blair’s son Haywood is quite interested in you,” Mrs. Hoffman continued. “So are young Ralph Woolsey and David Jennison and Arthur Hoyt. But you’ve given all of them the brush-off.”

  “I went to the church social with David Jennison last August, and he bored me to tears,” Julia said. But she knew that the only reason she’d gone with him was because of Nathaniel. He had just returned from Washington, and she’d wanted to make him jealous. But why had she wanted to make him jealous if she hated him so much? She’d never felt so confused in her life.

  “You haven’t given David Jennison or anyone else a chance. I’m not blind, Julia. I know you’ve been sweet on Reverend Greene for some time. I don’t know what happened between the two of you down in Washington, but—”

  “The war happened,” she mumbled. And he broke my heart.

  “Indeed …Well, I’m glad that your infatuation with him is finished. I didn’t want to say anything for fear yo
u would dig in your heels, but he really isn’t up to our social standards. His family are a bunch of preachers—nobodies, really—and he barely makes enough money to keep you in ball gowns. Then there are all those radical ideas of his. He filled your head and your poor cousin Caroline’s head with his nonsense. It simply won’t do for a Hoffman to marry a fanatic.”

  For the first time in months, Julia thought of her cousin Caroline in Richmond. Her letters had stopped arriving after the war began, but before then, every line Caroline had written reverberated with love for Charles St. John. Julia was certain that if she had turned off the gaslights Caroline’s letters would have glowed in the dark. Julia had once felt that same breathless, shimmering joy whenever she was around Nathaniel. Now she wondered if she would ever feel anything like it again.

  “Your sister, Rosalie, did so well for herself with her husband,” Mother continued. “You could do just as well if you’d make an effort.”

  Julia nearly groaned aloud. She didn’t want a life—or a husband— like her sister’s. The last time she had visited Rosalie, the emptiness of her life had frightened Julia so badly she had canceled her theater date that evening with Ralph Woolsey because he reminded her of her sister’s bland, unemotional husband. Rosalie was Louis’ possession, swallowed up in his shadow and resolved to do his bidding. Like an actress on stage, she played the part of wife and mother fastidiously—and joylessly. Rosalie was not a happy woman.

  “Do you love Louis?” Julia had asked her sister.

  “Of course I love him,” Rosalie had snapped at her. Not a very convincing performance. Nor did her life seem to have any more meaning now than it had before marriage.

  “Yes, a husband and children will give your life a purpose,” Mother said now, plodding forward as energetically as the carriage horses. “That’s why women get married. And speaking of Louis, I understand that his cousin Martin is interested in courting you.”

  “Rosalie’s husband is a conceited bore. So is his cousin Martin.”

  “I simply won’t tolerate this behavior for another day, Julia. Our servants have better manners than you do. Now you listen to me. This is no time to be particular about who you marry. The war is changing everything. Half of the eligible men are taking commissions and enlisting, and the other half are eager to settle down as soon as they possibly can. You’re going to dillydally too long and lose out. Do you want to end up an old maid like your aunt Eunice? She was too picky, you know, and the boat sailed without her.”

  The thought of spending her life alone disturbed Julia, but so did the idea of spending it in a loveless marriage with a man who bored her to tears. She’d been terrified at Bull Run when she’d come face-to-face with death, but she had also felt truly alive for the first time in her life. She wanted that kind of passion in her life and in her would-be suitors. She wanted adventure, excitement, fireworks in her relationships. Nathaniel had the kind of passion she longed for—if not for her, at least for his causes and in his sermons. That’s why she had fallen in love with him. And it was why no other man could compare with him.

  “If you don’t snap out of this pretty soon,” Mother continued, “we will simply have to arrange a suitable marriage for you. … Julia! Are you even listening to me?”

  “Yes, Mother,” she said dully. “I heard every word you said.”

  They were the last ones to arrive at the Blairs’ for tea. As they entered the parlor, the conversation stopped so abruptly that Julia was certain the women had been discussing her. Strangely, she found she didn’t care. All her life she had flattered and flirted, craving the admiration of her social circle. Now, after seeing herself and her peers through Nathaniel’s eyes, their opinion no longer mattered to her. She felt so detached from the other women as she listened to them talking that she may as well have been standing outside, looking in through the window.

  “Harriet was wearing one of those new Garibaldi blouses.”

  “Yes, I saw those in Godey’s Lady’s Book.”

  “I hear they are all the rage.”

  “I’m having my seamstress make one.”

  Julia used to prattle on and on about such silly things, too. Now she simply sipped her tea, feeling numb. Eventually the conversation shifted from fashion to courtship. Everyone, it seemed, was racing to pair off with an eligible gentleman. The girls her age discussed the scramble as if it were another California Gold Rush—hurry up and stake your claim or you’ll lose out.

  “Wouldn’t you just die if you were left with the second helpings?” Olivia Blair asked her.

  “No, Olivia,” Julia replied coolly. “If I loved a man, I wouldn’t care if he was rich or poor, handsome or ugly. I wouldn’t even care if …if he was a penniless immigrant.”

  The room fell silent for a long, awkward moment.

  When the discussion resumed, Olivia and the others carefully ignored Julia—which suited her just fine. She barely uttered another word all afternoon until one of the women said, “Have you heard about the Fitzhughs’ son? He went to London to study medicine last year and returned with a wife. It seems he’s fallen for a woman who was a Nightingale.”

  “Excuse me,” Julia said, remembering what Nathaniel had said. “Do you know anything about the Nightingales?”

  “I read an article about them in the Illustrated News,” Mrs. Blair replied. “They’re nurses, named after Florence Nightingale. She went to the Crimea during the war and organized the hospitals over there. They were dreadful places, it seems, filled with injured, dying soldiers. After she and her little band of nurses cleaned them up and began caring for the men, fewer of them died. She has become quite famous and is widely admired for her work.”

  “I saw wounded soldiers at Bull Run,” Julia said. “One of them had both of his legs blown off.”

  Silence dropped again, like a stage curtain.

  “Julia, dear,” her mother said in a tight voice, “kindly change the subject.”

  “No, Mother, don’t you see? If I knew how to be a Nightingale, I could have helped those soldiers.”

  The very scandal of Julia’s suggestion made the topic irresistible to the older women. “Why on earth would you want to do that, dear?”

  “Don’t you think that sort of work is beneath someone from your station in life?”

  “Do you want to end up like that poor Dorothea Dix?”

  “Who’s she?” Julia asked.

  “Miss Dix had her name in all the papers for a while, clamoring for improved health care for paupers, prison inmates, the mentally ill—those types of people. Disgusting work!”

  “Yes, but she had nothing to lose,” another woman added. “Her family were nobodies. She didn’t have the opportunities Julia has to marry quality.”

  “Isn’t Dorothea Dix the one who’s involved with the Sanitary Commission?” someone asked. “I thought I read somewhere that she’s training nurses for the war now.”

  “One and the same. But you’ll notice that the men still aren’t lining up to marry her. She’ll die an old maid.”

  “Maybe it was Miss Dix’s choice not to marry,” Julia said stubbornly. “Maybe she’d rather do something important with her life.”

  “No woman ever chooses not to marry,” Mrs. Blair said. The other ladies murmured in agreement. “Besides, you can have a husband and still do respectable charity work.”

  “Charity work isn’t enough,” Julia replied. “I would still like to become a nurse.”

  If the matrons were shocked, the girls Julia’s own age seemed gleeful. In the race for an eligible husband, one of their prettiest, wealthiest rivals was eliminating herself from the competition with such outrageous ideas.

  The ladies soon tired of that topic and went on to discuss other things. To Julia, it seemed as though the afternoon would never end. She longed to excuse herself and go home, but she knew that as soon as she did the whispering would resume.

  “…Have you noticed how oddly Julia Hoffman has been acting since she returned from Wa
shington?”

  “Her poor mother doesn’t know what to do with her. … ”

  Julia wanted to weep at the prospect of facing a lifetime of these afternoon teas. Her mother and Rosalie were content with this life; why wasn’t she? Was it only because of Nathaniel’s words? Julia closed her eyes to shut out the gossiping women and wished with all her heart that she had never eavesdropped on his conversation.

  For most of the ride home, Julia’s mother remained stiff and silent on the seat beside her. But as their carriage labored up the last hill, she finally spoke. “If you were trying to embarrass me today, Julia, you did a splendid job of it. I’m sending for Dr. Lowe first thing tomorrow.”

  Julia didn’t reply. Maybe there really was something wrong with her.

  “And I plan to tell the doctor— Oh dear,” her mother said suddenly. “That’s your father’s carriage. Why on earth is he home so early? Driver, let us off in front, please.” Mrs. Hoffman opened the carriage door almost before the wheels stopped rolling and stepped down without waiting for the coachman to help her. Julia hurried to the front door behind her.

  “Philip…?” her mother called from the foyer. “Philip, are you home?”

  Julia’s father emerged from the library. “There you are, at last,” he said. “I was about to send for you.”

  “Send for me? Why? What’s wrong? Why are you home so early?”

  Ordinarily, nothing ever ruffled Judge Hoffman’s calm dignity. But for the first time in Julia’s life, she saw that something had. His jacket and waistcoat lay carelessly tossed aside, and his hair was mussed as if he’d been running his hands through it. The drink he carried shook in his hand. “Come in and sit down, Martha,” he said, taking his wife’s arm.

  “I don’t want to sit down. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

  He led her to a chair in the library in spite of her protests, and Julia followed, both women still wearing their cloaks.

  “My brother received a wire from Washington a few hours ago,” the judge began.

  Mother drew a quick breath. “Oh no! Not Robert.”