Chapter Eight ~ Seismic Changes

His head felt stew pot big. It hurt badly, but he knew the feeling. Too much drink, and its corresponding headache—though well-deserved—was colossal. So as to avoid opening his eyes, avoid seeing what happened to him, Scott took blind stock.

His head hurt, that he knew. The bitter taste of bile filled his mouth, coating his teeth, but he didn't have any recollection of vomiting. Not that he wanted to remember; his mind shied away from the act of recollecting. Recollecting: collecting again, like picking up apples after the horse kicked the cart over. He was taking stock, and that involved not remembering, he counseled himself. The words felt wise and somehow very appropriate.

His head felt like someone kicked it. Actually, his nose did, too. And his eye socket. He didn't want to think about why. His hand hurt, resting at an awkward angle under his pillow. His other arm was asleep.

Recollecting accomplished, there was no need for Scott to probe further.

He was in his bed. His left arm was asleep. He felt as though he had thrown himself in front of a runaway carriage, but that conjured up images of force and velocity, two concepts he was not in the right frame of mind to contemplate.

Thirsty. When his arm awoke, it wasn't going to feel good. But he was warm. The blankets weren't heavy, there was a down duvet on top of him.

Taking stock.

The bed smelled of sweat, and whiskey, and loss. A combination that required Scott to do some temporal addition, which he didn't really want to do, but the smells were compelling, and the not knowing was becoming intolerable. So he put one and one and one together in a sequence and came up with a tawdry scene behind the club.

A slim book slid across the slickness of the blanket when he shifted, releasing his numb left arm to come back to full restoration, and this development sent all notions of mathematics and velocity and thirst out the window, considered or not.

John's Thoreau, in all its stained and tattered glory.

Memories flowed over and around the whiskey dam he had built to stop them, pooling and eddying in his brain. He screwed his eyes shut again, yet his voices howled and moaned. "Guilty!" said one, "Heartbroken!" sang out another, and the lowest voice cried, "Run! Run!"

#-#-#-#-#

The tailor stabbed him with his needle. The pain was sharp and fleeting, much like a bee-sting.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lancer," he said, the needle and thread suspended in his fingers between them. His hair was copper shot through with grey and his accent was musical. Probably immigrated to Boston and found his entire world tilted upside down as the war simmered and boiled. The tones and inflections reminded Scott of a poorly strategized poker game deep in the armpit of Mississippi with Lieutenant Conall Doherty from the 83rd. "Please stay as still as you can."

A neat daguerreotype of a young man in uniform stood proudly on the tailor's small desk, a place of honor amongst the jumble of colored threads, measuring tapes and scissors. He stared at the picture and found he was holding his breath.

The tailor caught his eye and straightened with a crack of spine. "My son Padraic. Part of the twentieth, he was. He usually does the measuring for me, but he's out this afternoon thinking I don't know he'll sneak about her house with flowers and a song."

The breath left him in a happy whoosh. So the soldier was alive then. "Her house?"

"He has it in his mind to be marrying. And a fine young lady, if I do say so myself. Maybe it will help him to settle." He speared Scott with a stare. "As a father, I have a right to worry, but where does it get me?"

Scott shifted a little on his feet, risking another barb from the needle, as he puzzled over his own father. He couldn't imagine Murdoch Lancer worrying over anything, especially the detritus from a shipwreck over twenty years ago.

The tailor stooped, puzzling over something at the waist and marked it with chalk. A new suit for Paul's wedding, as Carter had mandated. And another pair of blue uniform pants to go along with his hobo jacket for an engagement at the university.

"There you are, Mr. Lancer. All done." The tailor looked up at him in expectation.

His reflection eyed him from the mirror, turned side-to-side, assessing. A thin figure in black wool sateen, coat collar with razor sharp points, and buttons—two each—decorating the sleeves in the current fashion. He was afraid if he angled his arms and flapped a bit that he might be mistaken for a tall crow.

"You look like a prince," the tailor said. He took the pins from his mouth and pushed them into the fold of his apron, his grin turning into a full-fledged smile. Scott looked back at the picture on the desk. They had the same eyes, crinkled at the corners as if from too much laughing. But the father's eyes were gentle, filled with humility where the son looked like the sort of man to betray a secret, just to see what happened.

Shrugging out of his new coat, Scott gestured towards the picture. "I'm glad your son is home."

The tailor became quiet. Finally, "Yes. My boy returned. We're back together, as it was meant to be." It was uttered with profound relief.

Scott felt a small jolt as if briefly losing his balance. He didn't know if was unease, or something else. Yearning? He caught himself in the mirror and was appalled to see how washed-out and strained he looked.

When he left the tailor shop, not for the first time did his thoughts stray to California.

#-#-#-#-#

It was a bright July afternoon, as close to one thousand alumni swarmed about the Harvard Yard for the grand commencement. Far ahead, to the right, was Governor Andrew and his contingent. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes were talking, heads together nodding in earnest conversation.

The morning was fine, but warm. Scott pulled the collar of his jacket away from his throat to let in some cooling air. Jostled from behind, he swiveled around to take it all in. The visitors, a deuce mixture of dignitaries, invitees like himself and locals interested in seeing the men they admired from afar streamed towards Gore Hall, the college library.

Old Massachusetts Hall and Harvard Hall were profusely dressed in banners and bunting, neatly arranged, with a line of flags traversing the space between them. A centerpiece carried an inscription: "Non ille pro caris amicis aut patria timidus perire."

His Latin was rusty, the last time he had used the language was with John in prison as a way to keep his mind nimble. He let the stern frown of old Professor Fitzroy wash over him and the words came quickly enough: "He never was afraid to perish for dear friends or for country."

University Hall, which faced the main entrance to the college yard, was festooned with bunting, looped up here and there, by shields and flags, and bearing on its center a golden eagle, surrounded by a trophy of seven American flags. In the eagle's beak was the welcoming inscription: "Quod bonvm favstvm felixque sit vobis reique publice. Redite in patriam ad penates."

Fortunately, someone had taken the time to translate: "Whatever there is good, felicitous and happy, may that be to you and the republic. Return to your country and your household gods."

He rocked back on his heels. "Carter, did they know what was coming? Did they know how awful it would become?"

His friend sighed and appeared thoughtful for a moment. "I don't think so. They couldn't have known the risks, what it might have cost. Even at our late entry into the war, I remember thinking we would ride off, save the Union and return home as conquering heroes. I would go back to school and with my superior skills would become a surgeon emeritus at the most prestigious hospital in Boston." He winked. "Then back to everyday again."

Carter was still accepted in the Medical School—by the grace of President Hill and his father's hearty protestations—but he wouldn't be doing any surgery.

Their mood was somber by the time they reached the pavilion, for there stood the simple college arms. A crimson shield with three open books, and the word 'Veritas'. Under this were six tablets with the names of Harvard's fallen in the order of their classes.

Scott looked for and found several of his comrades among the pages. Everyday life—home again. For these men, it would never come.

The commencement started and he and Carter left Grandfather with the Willoughby's to join Paul in the ranks of the procession. More than two hundred soldiers and sailors were with them, some proudly wearing empty sleeves, or a pinned up trouser leg as they marched or hobbled along, all met with loud cheers. An array of beautiful and gaily dressed young ladies, interspersed with matrons in soberer hues, completely crowded the galleries. The procession filed down the center aisle to the platform and to the reserved seats, amid loud applause.

Carter tapped on his shoulder when they sat. "How many letters this week?"

"What makes you think I've sent any?"

Tilting his head, Carter leveled a hard stare.

"Add a bit more hair about the ears and you'd look just like the schnauzer Julie and I found begging for scraps in the park."

Carter clicked his teeth together. "Shall I bark or snap? I believe either would garner some undesirable attention in this crowd, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong."

"Only one. To Corporal Atherton's mother and father. They live too far away to visit."

"Ah, that Maine boy." Carter looked stricken. "How many are left?"

He held up a single finger. He'd been putting it off for as long as he could.

Carter asked him something else, but a conversation next to him caught his ear. The two men were talking about before the war.

Always before the war. It was said again and again—before the war. The only way they as soldiers could understand things now. What did he remember from before the war? It seemed as though nothing really existed before, certainly nothing that signified. The house was full of servants and Grandfather was always at his office, scratching out whatever contracts or deals he thought needed to be made. Carter laughed all the time, pulling pranks and jokes. He remembered the burning speeches of William Lloyd Garrison at the town hall on the apathy of the people, and something about pedestals and leaping statues.

But all those things were nothing to what he felt like before the war. Back then, everything was certain. Like the rising and setting of the sun each day. Like Grandfather putting on his tweeds and reading the newspaper before breakfast. Like the cold Boston rain that came each fall, heralding the coming winter. He remembered most the groves of elms, the trimmed boxwoods and wide lawns that dipped green fingers towards the ocean. He could look across them to the harbor in the distance and almost see forever.

Antebellum was a new word coined by Miss Mary Chestnut, a diarist from South Carolina. It was a more genteel way of saying before the war. She was right, Scott mused, it was a most proper word, but for him the antebellum had quite simply ceased to exist.

His sense of being—that feeling of before—was aided by summers spent in the country after Aunt Elizabeth returned home from Europe. One late August, when the breeze moved so gently it was a caress, he laid in the wild grass beside the barn, sleepy in the thick clover, feeling his body vibrate with the buzz of the earth, the energy of the sun soaking through him. With the confidence of any young man, he knew himself then. Was sure of his path.

The memory of that summer was so real. But a seismic shift had occurred. And like most seismic shifts, it cut everything open and pulled everything apart. Each morning he awoke, and for a moment, just a moment, life was as it had been, and then with quiet horror, he would recall what had happened. He had to be busy in order not to think. Writing the wives, mothers and fathers, and fiancée's about the men they lost helped to assuage the guilt, in part.

With each letter or visit, he wondered how they would bear the loss, or ever recover. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see the way forward. Only one letter was left, marked in care of Mrs. John Baker. He found this one to be the most difficult one of all.

"You haven't answered me, Scott. When will you cease thrusting the sword through your heart with this business?"

He looked at Carter, knew his unstated concern, as readable as John's Thoreau. Then turned to listen to James Russell Lowell deliver his commencement ode.

He bristled at Carter's insinuation. Shocking because of all the emotions he attached to pain, anger was not on the list. Remorse, yes. But white fury? It came too quickly when he wasn't expecting. One day, not long after the trial, he'd been on Tremont Street and a man pushed in front of him with his packages. He tripped and almost fell. It was nothing really, but he chased after the man, wanting to let him know what he'd caused, wanting him to feel nothing but shame because that's how it was for him. The anger throbbed in his belly as if it were breathing. "What's wrong with you?" the man had asked when Scott demanded an apology.

So he had tried to resume the way things had been before. He dressed in the mornings, took Julie on outings, listened to Grandfather drone on about the vagaries of the stock market. But none of these things had substance. They were things he did but they added up to nothing.

A bleak mantle of melancholia settled over him. They were gone. It wouldn't matter how many letters he wrote or how many relatives he let cry on his shoulder. He hadn't been able to save them and he wondered when it would be that he'd forgive himself for that.

tbc

**The quote Scott was trying to remember from William Lloyd Garrison: "The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead."

***The Harvard graduating class of 1865 invited the war's returnees to their commencement. In attendance were the aforementioned Governor Andrew, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Generals Meade and Barlow, along with textile tycoons Amos Lawrence and Patrick Jackson, and Reverend John Palfrey among others. A veritable who's who in Boston/New England at the time.