Even a marble man has his limits. Perhaps they might not think so back home, but London was not Richmond. London was too damp and chill and Robert E. Lee too old to pretend otherwise.
He cleared his throat and called to the young office clerk on the other side of the wooden railing. "Young man," he asked, "might I have some hot tea while I wait?"
The clerk's only response was to duck his head and hunch himself over his paperwork.
Lee had expected as much.
The small wall clock struck the quarter hour. Big Ben, on nearby Westminster's clock tower, echoed a muffled reply through the thick walls of the squat Foreign Office building. For several minutes the only other sound in the room was the scratching of the clerk's pen nib. It was a small office, just big enough for the bench Lee sat on, the clerk's desk, and the wooden railing separating the two. A swinging gate in the railing allowed the clerk passage into the hallway, a side door near his desk to what Lee assumed was the office of whatever official the clerk served. From the looks of the rusted hinges, the door saw little use.
The clerk set down his pen and blew on his hands to warm them. Lee allowed himself a slight smile. This cramped, drafty excuse for an office was just as cold for a Londoner as it was for a son of gentle Virginia. Lee's smile vanished as a new current of cold air blew down the back of his neck. He drew the collar of his military cloak tighter.
A military cloak, thought Lee. He shook his head.
Ambassadors do not wear military uniforms. At least, not ambassadors from America—either of them—but Longstreet had insisted Lee do so. General Lee, after all, was still well thought of in London even five years after the war. The President had hoped Ambassador Lee would be just was well regarded.
Well, that only proved Longstreet was no more infallible than Lee was, regardless what any of the new history books said about Gettysburg. Lee and his uniform had fared no better in London than his predecessors. The British had shuffled Lee from one government office to another until he had at last been led to this forgotten hallway where now they studiously avoided recognizing his existence, let alone that of his nation.
He had sat here unattended to for hours. Now it was nearly the end of the working day. He wondered if they would simply shut up the building for the night with him still sitting on this hard, cold, splintery bench.
Enough.
He took hold of his cane with his good arm and heaved himself up off the bench. He stepped over to the wooden rail and, leaning over, tapped the cane on the desk of the startled clerk.
"Young man, I do not fault you for doing what you clearly have been ordered to do. Your obedience is commendable in one so young. But as I am a guest—however an unwanted one—in your establishment, propriety, sir, common decency requires that you as host see to it that an old man with a bad heart does not die on the premises. Surely Her Majesty's government has at least the manners of a third-rate hotel. In short, sir, I am freezing to death!"
The rusty latch of the side door clacked open.
The boy's head slowly turned in its direction. Lee, however, pretended not to notice. He rapped his cane again. "I repeat myself, young man, in case my Virginian tongue falls hard upon your English ears. Might," he said slowly, pausing on each word, "I have some hot tea while I wait?"
The side door opened an inch or two at this, just enough to show Lee a glimpse of a portly red-haired gentleman. The man humphed in a deep voice and said gruffly, "Smedley, fetch some tea."
"B-but-sir! You said—!"
"Fetch some tea, Smedley. The British Empire isn't about to fall merely because you bring an old man some tea. See to it, boy!" A pause. "And see you do nothing more."
Smedley gulped and nodded. He scurried through the gate in the railing, past Lee, and down the hall out of sight.
Lee turned to speak to the man, but the door quickly shut and the door latch clacked into place. Lee returned to his bench.
Smedley returned shortly. He carried a wooden tray with a battered tea service. He placed the tray on Lee's bench without a word and fled back to his desk.
Lee shrugged and poured himself some tea. He squeezed a slice of lemon into his cup. The juicy spray carried in the room's draft, filling the cramped office with the smell of lemon.
Lemons.
Lee thought yet again of poor Jackson and as he did so Lee's arm twinged. The dull pain in his arm had started that horrible night at Chancellorsville. The pain sometimes turned his arm numb, leaving it hanging there useless. Doctors told him it was caused by a failing heart, but late at night Lee wondered. What did doctors know of the workings of Providence? Of restitution and of vengeance? Had Lee not uttered the words himself? You have lost your left arm, but I have lost my right . . .
Lee shook his head to clear it of the memory. Steam curled lazily up from his tea. He drank. The tea's warmth quickly spread through his tired frame. Once the cup was drained, he pushed the tray aside and began his wait again.
Lee's last campaign: his siege of London. The siege of Baltimore had gone easier, but an army fought beside him then. Now he had only himself.
Only himself and a God who had turned His back on Lee. A God who now spoke to him only through the dead words of one who would never speak again.
Strange, Lee could never remember any of the glorious speeches of Southern politicians, but Lincoln's words? Lincoln's words, even those from discarded texts never uttered, texts now unread, unwanted—those words were chiseled upon Lee's heart.
Whether that nation—or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated—can long endure.
The North had lost Mr. Lincoln's War. But had the South truly won Mr. Davis's? Had it done so, would Lee be in London today? The prayer of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.
He turned his face away from the young clerk and wept the tears of an old man.
The clock chimed the end of day in the City. Neither Smedley nor Lee moved from their respective post. He could hear the bustle of the rest of the Foreign Office locking up for the night. No one came back to check on him. Soon the entire building was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock.
I imagine it is dark outside already, Lee thought. The sun sets early in mid-October this far north. London was farther north, even, than the tip of Maine.
Virginia, Lee forcefully corrected himself. Old habits died hard. The proper frame of reference was the northern tip of his nation. Maine had no more meaning for him now than had Nova Scotia or Newfoundland.
Yes, and keep telling yourself that, old man. Perhaps you—and the British—will one day believe it.
A new hour chimed. Smedley set down his pen and began to clear things away for the night. He trimmed the gaslights one by one. Before extinguishing the last one, he paused, then called out without looking back at Lee, "If there is anyone left in the building—and I'm not saying there is, mind you!—but if there is they might be wanting to leave before I trim all the lights. This old building's a right rabbit's warren with the lights out, all right."
Lee grunted as he pulled himself up by his cane. "Speaking to men who don't exist, are we, young Smedley? A slippery slope, indeed. You might soon fail to remember that nonexistence of the person whom, of course, you aren't addressing."
Smedley blanched. Lee smiled as he stepped toward the hallway. "In the future young Smedley," he called over his shoulder, "perhaps a better approach might be, oh, to quote into the empty air the Gospel According to St. John, chapter nine, verse four."
"S-sir—?" Smedley asked, trying to swallow the word almost as soon as he'd blurted it out.
"Slipping already are we?" Lee smiled. He turned completely around. "The verse—or at least the latter portion—reads: 'The night cometh, when no man can work.'" He nodded toward the lamps. "Applicable, wouldn't you say?" He turned, took a step, halted, then turned around again. "As applicable to you as the verse's first part is to me: 'I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day.'"
Lee's face hardened. The work of him that sent me. "I shall return again tomorrow," he added, not daring to show even a junior clerk his own doubts about the Cause. "And the next day and the next if needs must." Lee's doubts were his own; his duty belonged to his countrymen.
The side door latch clacked. The door opened a few inches, and again Lee could see the shadowy form of the red-haired man behind it. The man crooked a finger at Smedley. Smedley gulped and went as white as the foolscap paper he'd been writing on.
"Do not, I pray you sir, blame this boy for his slight misstep in speaking to me," Lee said. "Given his youth, he discharged his duty admirably."
The man only beckoned again at Smedley. Smedley quickly darted into the door, only to return a few minutes later, even more pale, if possible. He carried a large iron ring with a single rusted key. "Y-you are to follow me, sir," he said. "Mind you watch your step."
The Foreign Office after dark proved itself indeed to be a right rabbits' warren. Smedley led Lee through one twisting hallway after another. Eventually they came to a great door latched and locked. It was obvious Smedley's key fit the ancient lock, but the boy made no move to unlock it.
"We are to wait here, sir," was all he'd say.
They waited.
Eventually Big Ben struck the half-hour. "Right, then," Smedley said. He fit the key into the lock and turned. The latch proved harder, but eventually he heaved it back. The great door swung open to the night air and London's impenetrable fog. "Please to step outside, sir."
Lee did so.
Smedley immediately swung the door closed behind him. "Sorry, sir," Smedley whispered just before the door slammed shut. "I was just doing what I was told."
Lee heard the lock click and the latch slid back into place, leaving him alone in the fog.
Even in the fog, Lee knew where he was. Downing Street. Across the narrow cul-de-sac sat the numbered doors that housed the British cabinet. Had he represented any other nation on the face of the earth, he could but walk up and knock on the doors and present his credentials. But since he did not, he made no move to cross the street.
Instead he waited. Whatever games the British were playing, Lee had no choice but to wait.
The wait was not long. A sulfur match sizzled and burned, lighting a hooded lantern. The soft light through the fog revealed a waiting hansom cab that stood hidden in the fog and shadows. The door of the cab opened. Inside sat the red-headed man from Smedley's office. Lee had expected as much.
Lee crossed the street. He stepped carefully over the cobblestones slick with fog damp. The cab's driver jumped down to help Lee into the cab. Lee sat himself across from the red-haired man.
Aside from being younger than Lee had first thought, the red-haired man looked nothing out of the ordinary. Heavy wool coat lined with fur at the collar, smart trousers, leather ankle boots, silk top hat, gloves—the man dressed like any of a thousand captains of industry in the City. Lee knew better. He had spent his life in the army, where he'd learnt to look past identical uniforms to judge the abilities of the men beneath.
"I believe you've taken rooms at Moreley's?" the man said to Lee. A statement rather than a question. Before Lee could answer, the man tapped the roof of the cab with his gold-handled cane. The cab started at once. It turned around in the cul-de-sac and pulled slowly past the numbered doors.
The man watched Lee's eyes as they passed the doorways and smiled. A diffident smile at best, Lee thought. As meaningful as a smile on a dog. No. A dog's smile at least had energy. This man, his voice, his whole bearing was one of . . . he searched for the word. Languor? Torpidity? No. Perhaps only simple boredom.
Do we bore you, sir? Is the Confederacy but a tedious, disagreeable chore, best done as quickly as possible, thence forgotten? Lee closed his eyes and saw again the dead of Sharpsburg. He forced his eyes open before worse memories came. You've no idea what our Cause has cost me, or what sums I'll pay for it still.
On reaching the mouth of Downing Street, the cab turned right on Whitehall instead of left toward Trafalgar Square and Moreley's—hardly a mistake even a tourist would make in a fog. The man quickly smiled at Lee's puzzled look. "Quite correct, General," he nodded. "We've turned the wrong way. I thought a prolonged chat might be agreeable to you."
"A meeting in your office, sir—one several hours if not days earlier—would have been far more 'agreeable.' Far more convenient, too."
Still smiling, the man shook his head. "Ah, but not for me, I'm afraid. Those weren't my offices; I have none, you see."
A corner of Lee's mouth turned up. "I suppose this is the part in your little drama where I ask who you are."
"Will you?"
Lee shook his head. He'd played these games during the War. "No, sir. I see no point to it." The man underestimated Lee, but then he was used that; being underestimated had served him well in the past. "I suspect your answer would be . . . suspect at best."
The man nodded with obvious satisfaction. "Quite so. In fact, had you asked, I should have been very much disappointed in you."
The man slumped forward. He rested his ample chins on the gold handle of his cane as he seemed to think over his next words. "But in as much as you have not asked my identity, I believe that I shall answer your unasked question as fully as it is in my power to do so."
He pursed his lips. "I am not connected in any way to Her Majesty's Government, you understand. I do not represent the Crown, I hold no office, no portfolio. In short, sir, I do not exist."
"I hardly think so, sir. After spending a few days in your charming city as a man who doesn't exist, you can be sure I know the difference."
"Well played." The man smiled. "Your president was quite right, you know, in sending you. I cannot think of another of your countrymen with whom I'd even bother. Most diplomats, frankly, are hardly worth the effort. Crashing bores." The man's face brightened. "But you, sir? 'The Napoleon of our age,' the soldier who won his county's independence through sheer force of will? No, you interest me, dear General."
"My interest, sir, is in the successful discharge of my duties."
"Something you find difficult to do speaking to a man without a name, I imagine." The man leaned back. "I cannot give you my surname, of course. Nor my Christian name—too singular by half. And, 'Michael,' a more common form for my poor name, strikes me too much of Milton's fallen orator. 'Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell.'" He smiled. "No, while the snake may have the best lines, I do not think, given what we must talk about this evening, that using that particular name would prove the best course."
He thought for a moment. "Ah. Perhaps a more agreeable compromise might be 'Croft.'" He smiled. "Yes. What a pleasant solution. Yes, you may call me Croft." Somehow he actually found the energy to chuckle. "'A small portable filing cabinet' is just the name for me."
Lee gave a sour smile. "My mission nears completion, then. I hoped, sir, for a cabinet meeting—and it appears that I have one now."
"Oh, I assure you this is much better. My younger brother is somewhat rashly prone to say I am the Government." Croft shrugged. "Rather, I have become a shortcut, a convenience in difficult situations."
And our Confederacy is one such, thought Lee. His arm began to ache again. He rubbed it absent-mindedly. "Let us begin down that shortcut then, shall we? Tell me, Mister . . . Croft. Why is it your government no longer recognizes our Confederacy?"
Croft smiled blandly. "Whatever do you mean? The British government has recognized you. Lord Palmerston did so shortly after your brilliant victory in Pennsylvania. Made a lovely little speech about it, too, about how England had its Runnymede, but the South had their General Meade."
"Your government has since done everything in its power to disavow that recognition!"
Croft fingered the black velvet curtains as he stared out the window. "Hmmm. The fog seems to be lifting somewhat. Strange how fog lifts and falls for no discernible cause." He turned to Lee. "And what reason have you been given for this supposed . . . intransigence by Her Majesty's government?"
"Officially? None." The British government wasn't even talking to the Confederacy enough to admit it wasn't talking. Nor enough to deny it.
"That then implies you've an 'unofficial' reply, would it not?"
As if this charade tonight wasn't. "What was passed on to us through a neutral third party—unofficially, of course—"
"Of course."
"—was the recent rapid turnovers of your government."
Croft nodded slowly. "Much truth in that, I'd dare say. Palmerston, Russell, Derby, Disraeli, and now Gladstone. We've gone through five governments in as many years. Five since your Gettysburg. Things have been rather muddled of late." He sighed. "I've found it most . . . tedious."
Lee snorted. "Too 'muddled' to even spend the few minutes it would to take to accept my ambassadorial credentials? Unlikely, sir. Unlikely."
Croft only smiled. "You've not met Disraeli, then. The sobriquet 'Dizzy' is no mere onomatopoeia."
"I tire of your games, sir. One would think that in staging this elaborate rendezvous, you would at last be intent on providing answers. Well, sir! Provide them!"
A moment passed as Croft looked Lee up and down, measuring him against some secret scale. "Very well," he said at last. "You wish to know why the British government is so reluctant to continue to treat with yours." He shook his head. "Hardly any cognoscitive effort is required, my dear General. One need merely speak that one singularly ugly little word."
Lee knew full well which word Croft meant. That hateful, shameful word Lee could no longer bring himself to speak.
Croft spoke it for him, all but hissing it:
"Slavery."
For the first time, the lethargic Croft showed fire, a fire in his eyes Lee was all too familiar with: He had seen it in the eyes of the Northern abolitionists before the war.
Nothing would extinguish that blaze. Nor did Lee, down in the recesses of his soul, truly wish to try. Duty, however, impelled him to. How many times would he be called on to defend the indefensible?
"May I remind you, sir," Lee said, choosing his every word carefully, "that the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, particularly one on the other side of a vast ocean, are of no concern to Britain, either to her government or to her subjects."
Yes, Lee thought. Self-determination's a principle I can defend—just as long as I do not think through that principle's ultimate personal ramifications. "And," he continued "may I also remind you that your government recognized the Confederacy despite our peculiar institution. If it was not a concern then, it should not be a concern now. Nothing has changed."
"Perhaps that lack of change is the problem," Croft shot back. "General Lee, I've read your view on the 'servile question' as your political parties refer to it in senatorial debates—"
"The South, sir, has no political parties," Lee spoke with pride. The evils Republicanism and Whiggerydom had brought were one taint, at least, from which the South had freed itself.
"My apologies." Croft smiled wider. A crocodile smile. "The factions, then, of your government's undivided whole." He fingered the curtain for a moment. "You favor a gradual emancipation—but an emancipation nonetheless. Rather more in line with your President Longstreet's views than that of the Yancy-Rhett faction controlling your senate." He let go the curtain. "Of course, not even the Charleston Mercury dares term you a 'black Republican.' Not yet."
Lee knew they had started calling Longstreet that. Lee had spent his trip across the Atlantic wondering, was he being sent by Longstreet to shield Lee from the coming storm? Or by Rhett to get rid of a troublesome marble man. No matter. By now, anyway, the Louisiana crisis should have all blown over. Southern politics seemed to be the art of overreacting. "My personal views don't matter. My government's views do."
"We differ on that, too, but let it pass for now. What 'government views' would you have Whitehall know?"
"That the matter is our business, not yours."
Croft's smile was gone. "You repeat yourself," he said, his voice rising.
"Only because you won't listen the first time." Lee's voice also rose. "I cannot state the Confederacy's position strongly enough."
"The truth of an opinion doesn't depend on how strongly it is stated."
"I suggest, sir, that you then apply that maxim to yourself, because you, sir, are shouting." And so was Lee. He took a deep, calming breath.
The carriage pulled to a stop along the banks of the Thames.
Croft grunted. "Tempers run hot. Perhaps some cool night air? I've something of interest to show you at any rate, General."
Lee had of course heard of the great Victoria Embankment project. To actually see it, even dimly through a thinning fog, was something else again.
Croft insisted they step out of the cab. He led Lee to a good vantage point on Westminster Bridge.
What game is Croft playing now? Lee imagined he'd soon find out. He was beginning to understand how McClellan must have felt.
Croft pointed out the seawall (a mile and a half long, Croft said, but Lee could see only a small length of it in the light fog) that held back the Thames five hundred feet from its natural riverbank. The exposed riverbed had then been gouged out and a strong foundation laid. Scaffolding and the beginnings of masonry walls sketched out the substructure's eventual shape. Lee could even see the track bed where the underground railroad would run.
Underground railroad, frowned Lee. Was there ever any escaping the stain of slavery?
Croft was waiting for Lee to say something. Very well. Honey words over something as innocent as this cost little. "Most impressive," Lee nodded. "I understand that when this is finished, a great boulevard will be built over this excavation. Shortly after my arrival I saw your city's other great project, Queen Victoria Street. I must say, though, that carving a street through a city is far less impressive than carving one from a mighty river."
Lee expected Croft to nod or speak or do something, but Croft still just stood there waiting.
"There is some purpose," Lee asked, "in your showing this to me?"
"Some small purpose, yes." Croft nodded. Lee did not like that smile Croft wore. "Tell me, do you know the primary purpose of this whole project? Not the street. Not the underground railroad. But the real reason for the Embankment?"
Lee shook his head.
"Sewage, General Lee. Simple, plain foul sewage. The Embankment is nothing more than a great covered sewer designed to carry waste ten miles east to Barking. As things stand now, it's all just dumped into the Thames here at this very spot. Right in Westminster. Right in the heart of Empire."
Croft removed his hat and brushed it with the cuff of his coat. "One could argue that . . . excreta . . . is a very private affair indeed, one of no consequence to the larger community. If—"
Did the man think Lee stupid? Did he think Lee a McClellan? Lee held up his hand. "No need to belabor it. I grasp your analogy." He paused. "But do you?"
"Eh?"
"Have you fully followed your own analogy—and this sewer—to its termination?" Lee gestured in the direction he assumed Barking to be. "The sewage will still eventually be dumped into the Thames. If not here, then at Barking. You've merely delayed its disposal . . ." His voice faltered and trailed off. Croft had led Lee by the nose as easily as Lee ever had led McClellan.
"Yes, General. Sooner or later, it must be disposed of. Your Confederacy is merely delaying that."
The carriage clattered across Westminster Bridge and turned north along the bank of the Thames opposite Westminster. Croft sat quiet, the fire in his eyes extinguished as if snuffed out by the chill air off the Thames.
Lee sat quiet, too, but his fires began to burn all the brighter. Even if doubts about the Cause were never really very far away, regardless of what Croft said or did, Lee's duty would always remain standing. Unbreachable. Unflankable.
Or would it? He had stood unbreachable, unflankable the very day those doubts had started: that day so long ago when General Scott offered him command of the Union Army. Lee, his duty clear, had turned Scott down and gone off to fight for Virginia. He wondered. Had Lincoln, his commander-in-chief, asked in person would Lee have still refused?
Yes, Lee admitted to himself. Virginia had called. She had beckoned to him, and he had followed her, rendered deaf, dumb, and blind by her call. He could not hear what Lincoln had so desperately tried to say to him, to Virginia, and to the rest of the South. Not until afterward, when he had read Lincoln's words in the cool, calm air of peace did he realize too late that Lincoln had truly sought to prevent the war. And the South had—Lee had!—made war rather than let their nation survive.
And the war came.
The carriage recrossed the Thames on Waterloo Bridge and headed down Fleet Street toward the Strand and Trafalgar Square. He could hear men and boys hawking newspapers, but couldn't understand their thick, impenetrable accent. He supposed it was the equivalent of the American cry of "Extra, extra!"
Croft pulled the cab's thick velvet curtains closed. "I thought it interesting your using that particular verse of scripture tonight with young Smedley."
Lee found himself almost amused at Croft's oblique approach. First sewers, now scriptures. Croft was not so much trying to flank Lee as to pin down the flanks before swinging hard against the center. That is what I wanted to do at Gettysburg before Longstreet showed me the better way. I would have lost my war, just as Croft will lose his tonight.
"I take it," Croft said, "that you are familiar with that particular chapter in St. John?"
"The healing of the blind man."
"The healing of the man blind from birth."
Not oblique at all, but as clumsy as Joe Hooker. "Please spare me the lecture about how the Confederacy was born blind—"
"'I must work the works of him that sent me,'" Croft recited, "'while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.'" He looked at Lee. "Your Carpenter spoke those words to bring light. You, General, speak them to bring darkness."
Lee spoke not for several heartbeats. Then in a low, measured voice he said, "Never speak to me like that again, sir. Never."
"Isn't it true?"
"The devil can quote scriptures for his own purposes, Mr. Croft. The Northern abolitionists did."
"'Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.'" Croft smiled at Lee's surprise. "Yes, General," Croft said, as if reading his mind. "I'm quite familiar with Mr. Lincoln's farewell address. Not too many people are, though, are they? Not surprising, considering he never delivered it. Of course, given your part in the affair, you know all about that."
Long and slow, like a teakettle, Lee's breath hissed out. "My . . . part, as you put it, Croft, was that of trying to prevent what happened."
"You failed."
What could Lee do but nod? After Gettysburg, after Baltimore, his army had marched into Washington. Mobs from Baltimore had reached it first. Before Lee could stop them, the mob dragged a bruised and bloody Lincoln out of the White House. Screaming that Lincoln would never preach to them ever again of Emancipation or of Union, they—
"Tell me, General," Croft asked. "When you saw what was happening, did you rein back your horse? Or did you spur it on so that you could join in?"
A curse escaped Lee's lips. Tears streamed down his cheeks; he tried covering his face with his trembling hands. "It wasn't like that, I tell you—"
"What was he to you?" Croft mocked. "Not any of your concern, surely—their governance of their own president."
Lee raised his face. "He was my president, too."
Croft didn't even need to smile. Too late, Lee tried to choke back the words already uttered.
"That he was," Croft said. "That he was."
The cab came to a sudden halt. "Trouble up ahead, guv'nor," the cabby called out.
Croft seated his top hat firmly on his head and opened the door. "Shall we get out?"
They had stopped just short of Trafalgar Square. The fog had nearly lifted. Lee could see Nelson's column flickering in torchlight. A mob had gathered at the entrance of Moreley's, the one that faced the square. They carried torches and placards. And something else, something horribly else.
Croft, however, casually ignored the growing mob and started to point out the four new statues at the base of Nelson's column. "Oh, do look," he said pleasantly, "Landseer's finally gotten his lions in place, although they do appear to be backwards."
Lee glared at him. "Are they yours?"
"The lions?"
"The mob. Is this just part of your game tonight like Smedley and the carriage ride?"
"Oh, that mob's real, all right—"
"You knew about it in advance, though didn't you?"
Croft only smiled. "Wonderful thing, the transatlantic cable. At times it can seem to bestow prescience, even omniscience. Once the news hit the papers tonight, it was obvious what would happen." He nodded at a new commotion in the crowd. "I say, isn't that effigy meant to be you?" Torches began to set the gray-coated figure ablaze. "It appears you've finally been recognized in London after all." He nodded to the driver who jumped down and opened the door. "Perhaps we'd better drive on. They may decide to burn a more realistic effigy."
"What is this all about?" Lee asked as he climbed back into the carriage.
Croft settled back in his seat. "I doubt it'd be safe to take you around the back of Moreley's—or any other hotel for that matter, my dear General. And my club is out of the question as well—Diogenes may well claim to be hanging out his lantern for an honest man, but I doubt very seriously my club is really in the mood tonight to receive one. Especially one in a Confederate uniform. No, we'd best skip Clubland and Pall Mall altogether. We must jump my rails tonight." Croft rapped the roof of the cab. "Northumberland and around," he called. To Lee he said, "We'll give Bobby Peel a chance to tidy things up. In the meantime I have a friend who lives nearby. We'll just pop in to see him while we wait."
The cab turned around. Lee pulled open the curtains. Torchlight threw shadows across his face. The shadows danced and deepened as the carriage slowly crept away from the mob.
"What is this all about?" Lee repeated.
Croft reached out and gently pulled the curtains closed again. "The night cometh, General," he said in a faraway voice, "when no man can work."
Croft pulled a carefully folded telegram from his waistcoat and handed it to Lee.
Rhett and Yancy had finally gotten their way; the Confederacy had passed the amendment to outlaw unilateral emancipation by a state.
Croft then handed Lee another telegram. "It would appear Louisiana has found more profit in trade with Britain and the North than in slavery. They've passed an emancipation act in defiance. The Confederacy simply can't allow that, can it? 'All one thing or another,' as you said. Your own governor of Virginia is calling for troops to put down the Louisiana secession. The Confederacy must and shall be preserved. So much for state rights and sovereignty."
Lee let the telegrams fall to the floor. And with it, his Cause, his home, his world. A just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations. In the end, the South had achieved neither.
Croft bent down and picked the papers up. "The Foreign Office knew this was only hours from happening. It was just a matter of keeping you out of touch with both Richmond and Fleet Street until it did." He slipped it back in his pocket. "You saw the mood of Britain back there. The British government will recognize the new Pelican Flag Republic by morning. I'm sure the North won't be far behind us. The Confederacy is over, General. If it does nothing, it slowly disintegrates one state at time. If it fights, it faces not just Louisiana but Britain and the North as well."
"Overwhelming odds never stopped a Southerner from doing his duty before." A hollow boast and Croft had to know that.
"And what 'duty' is that?" sneered Croft. "The last time you claimed your duty lay in protecting your state from an outside government. You betrayed your oath as an officer, betrayed everything else you held dear all for Virginia. Now Virginia does exactly to Louisiana what you claimed the North tried to do to Virginia."
Duty. "I told you my personal views don't matter. I represent my government, not myself."
"If you would but speak for yourself, your nation would follow. Virginia would follow her marble man anywhere. Resign your post, condemn your government's actions."
Lee shook his head. He knew his duty.
Croft snorted. "There sits Duty like a stone wall."
"You do not know the South."
"No. But I know men."
"You'll never convince them. You'll never convince me."
"I've no need to. Your sense of duty will see to it for me."
Lee turned away. "I'll not justify myself to you."
"'Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell. And no place for pardon left.' No," Croft said with a slow shake of his head, "there's only one person to whom you need to justify your actions. Only one who can restore your sight."
The carriage pulled to a stop on Downing Street at the very spot where it had all begun. Smedley met them at the forgotten door to the Foreign Office. He led Croft and Lee back through the maze of halls to the cramped office, past the bench, through the gate in the wooden railing, and on through the side door.
In the flickering light from a tiny fireplace sat a huddled form under a rough cloak. The man looked up at their approach. His gaunt, craggy face stared up at them, the face of Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln spoke no greeting.
How could he? The mob had cut out his tongue.
Lee shrank back, but there was no place to run from Lincoln's eyes. Which way I flie is Hell. Lee's heart pounded as if it would burst; a sharp, sudden pain pierced his right arm.
Croft turned to Lee, his face twisted with hate and disgust. "You want scripture? I'll give you scripture: 'If thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; if the very jaws of hell gape open the mouth wide after thee, he hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?'"
Lincoln shook his head and held up his hand to Croft. Leave us, he seemed to say.
Milton's serpent must have had that same curled snarl to his lips after offering the fruit in the Garden. Croft stepped back into the shadows, supremely confident he had brought down the Eden dream of Southern Arcadia, a paradise lost.
Lincoln looked back to Lee with eyes ancient in holy pain. Those very words of Lincoln's chiseled upon Lee's heart now flew up unbidden from Lincoln's still, unmoving lips. The mystic chords of memory will yet swell.
"I tried to save you," pleaded Lee.
We are not enemies, but friends.
"I did everything I could."
We must not be enemies.
Lee's knees buckled. He grabbed a chair for support. "What would you have of me?" he cried.
You have no oath, Lincoln's eyes answered. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.
I had the same oath, Lee screamed to himself, and I betrayed it. And for what? The Cause? Tell this man about the telegrams. Tell this man about Louisiana and how tonight you must now betray your precious Cause itself.
Lee turned from Lincoln only to see Croft's smug face, his lidded eyes hurling silent accusations. Was Lee's duty truly nothing more than vain pride?
Which way I flie is Hell, Milton's serpent smirked, and no place for pardon left but by submission and that word Disdain forbids me.
Lincoln rose from his chair. His thin, frail body unfolded as he stood, towering over Lee. With the halting shuffle of the aged and infirm, Lincoln stepped slowly across the room to Lee. He placed those massive hands on Lee's shoulders.
We are not enemies but friends. Let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds—to all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves.
"I cannot." That word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame. "You're asking me to turn against my own people, against Virginia." He hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? "I cannot."
Lincoln turned from Lee. He stepped toward the window, as if to say as he had before the war—In your hands, my fellow countrymen and not in mine, is the issue.
Lee took one halting step toward him. "You trusted in my sense of duty once and I failed you! I'll only fail you again." Pain raced upward along his arm. He shrunk back. "Do not ask this of me!" Art thou greater?
Duty. Lee tried to cling to his only lifeline, but this time it held him not afloat, but pulled him down, ever farther down. Duty—duty to what? To whom? The works of him that sent me? What kind of works were betrayal and dishonor and slavery? What kind of master demanded such works?
What kind of servant obeyed?
What kind of man was born so blind he could not see it?
"Help me," Lee whispered.
Lincoln slowly turned, his eyes brimming. With firmness in the right. As God gives us to see the right. He reached his long arms wide and embraced his former enemy.
Lee shook in pain. His chest burned, his heart raced fearfully. He could hardly breathe. And yet, for the first time in years he felt at peace. He suddenly realized it was in this room Lincoln had written the words that could heal his nation. It was in this room Lee could write the words that could heal his nation.
Our nation.
Croft stepped up with pen and paper. Lee at last saw him for what he truly was: not a serpent holding forth the fruit of knowledge, but a friend cradling a precious gift, offering Lee not a bargain for his soul, but a sacrifice to save Virginia—and himself.
Lee looked at the squalid, shabby room of exile, looked into Lincoln's pain-filled eyes of true Lost Causes, looked at the price he, too, would have to pay.
"I will pay that sum," Lee said.
He reached for the pen.