The announcement in the Richmond Enquirer read:
The Conners brothers of the Roswell Guards distinguished themselves in Manassas, 21 July 1861. Ordered up to support General Bernard Bee, the Roswell Guards found Bee's Brigade routed and took the lead. In four hours of desperate fighting, Captain Louis Conners was in front of the line, encouraging the troops, when he was shot and his ankle shattered. Lieutenant Theodore Conners took his place, leading the Guards in the bullet-laden air, shouting, "Forward, boys" until the Guard completed a gallant charge, which contributed to the victory of the day. Lieutenant Theodore Conners then rescued his brother from the field.
Pa was not himself. He greeted the boys as if they had been away to the horseraces in Savannah.
"You fell off a horse, eh?" Pa scolded Louis. "Told you that bareback riding would cripple you someday."
Everything was the same, yet everything was different. My brothers were heroes and people came to call and made a fuss over them, but a somberness was in the visits. At least seven other Roswell men had been badly wounded. And four others were killed.
Louis made his way up and down those stairs once a day. He always came to the table for meals. Sometimes in the mornings he set himself up on the verandah in the shade. I stayed with him there. I kept him supplied with fresh cups of coffee and he told me of things he and Teddy had done as little boys. He confided in me that he was in pain. I asked him why he didn't take the laudanum that Dr. Widmar had given him.
"It puts me in another world," he said, "and I like this one too much."
Then he asked me, "Would you get me some of that medicine that Cannice used to make and give us for pain?"
In the afternoons Camille came. They'd hole up in the back parlor, which the shade favored in the afternoon. She played the piano for him, or read Tennyson or Longfellow. He loved Tennyson and Longfellow. She was there, as well as Teddy, the day Dr. Widmar came and examined Louis's ankle. I sat on the couch and held his hand. Camille sat on the other side and held his arm. Dr. Widmar told him it would take a year to heal, at least.
Teddy sent me from the room at that pronouncement and then he left, too, with Dr. Widmar. "He's planning to rejoin the army," Teddy told the doctor. "So am I."
"He may never be able to walk right again," the doctor told Teddy. "You'll be all right in a month or so. But not Louis. And I think he knows it. He's right smart."
***
Everything was different. I had knitted socks for both Teddy and Louis and they were home before I could send them. I gave Teddy his, but I did not know what to do with Louis's.
"Give them to him," Teddy advised. "He still has to wear socks."
"He wears bandages!" I flung back at him. "I heard the doctor say he'll likely never walk right again."
Teddy scowled. "If you give him the socks, you'll give him some hope."
I threw the socks on the floor. Teddy told me to pick them up. I did not. I stomped out of the room. At no other time would he have allowed this, but I suppose he knew my bones were bruised and my innards twisted by what had happened to Louis.
Yet everything was the same. Their concern for the mill was the same, and although Louis could not go along to inspect things there with Teddy as he usually did, Teddy went every day. One quiet afternoon Camille came and she was so tired that she promptly fell asleep on one of the sofas in the back parlor. Louis left her there and was practicing walking around the house on his crutches. I was in the front parlor, reading The Confessions of a Pretty Woman by someone named Pardoe. I'd gotten it from Viola's room. It was what I supposed a French novel was like.
I was so taken with it, I scarce heard Teddy approach. He came around to read the title and took the book from me. "Where did you get this?"
I sighed. There went some good confessions. "I found it around the house."
"Well, you're not reading it." He snapped it shut.
"So, what do you want me to read? The Three Little Kittens?"
I don't know who was more shocked, he or I. His shock passed across his face as hurt, not anger. I'd never spoken to him like that before. My shock came across me in waves.
Just at that moment I saw Louis standing in the doorway and I thought, Oh, no—I've hurt and shocked him, too. I looked from one brother to the other, both nursing wounds received in a nightmare of a battle, and here I was badmouthing one of them over a book—a book!—while the other, who would never walk right again, looked on in disbelief. I thought, Lord, wash me thoroughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sins.
"What's happened to you in my absence?" Teddy asked softly.
"I'm sorry, Teddy," I said.
He shook his head slowly. " 'Sorry' doesn't do it. Go into the library and sit yourself down in that chair and don't move until I come and get you. Go on now."
It was said kindly, which made it worse. I looked at Louis as I went out, but Louis never interfered when Teddy disciplined me.
I sat in the chair for more than an hour. The wise old grandfather clock told me it was two hours, and still Teddy didn't come. I alternately cried and hiccupped. I got a headache and my throat hurt. He'd never made me sit two hours.
I thought, He must wonder at having to bother with me over such a trifling matter when he's seen men getting their heads blown off. He must think, "Is this what I've come home for? There are men getting killed out there on fields and I've got to tell them 'Forward, boys.' That's what I've got to do, not tell this little brat what she can and cannot read." So he's forgotten me.
It was approaching suppertime. My arms and legs were numb; my head was throbbing. I had no tears left. I was about starved, yet my throat was so scratchy, I didn't know if I could eat. But I'd stay here all night if he didn't come. I'd not leave the chair. I'd pee in my pantalets if I had to, to show him I was still decent, that I still thought him a man to be reckoned with.
My eyes were closing when he came. "Leigh Ann."
My eyes flew open.
"Are you all right? Primus needed me at the stable. We had a new colt born. Why didn't you leave after an hour?"
"You told me to stay until you came and got me."
He nodded appreciatively. "You're a good girl. But what made you talk to me like that before I'll never understand, Leigh Ann. You frightened me. I thought everything I'd taught you had vanished with the first disruption in our lives. You must understand, child, that in difficult times all we have to hold us together is the everyday values and truths we live by. Am I making any sense?"
"Yes, Teddy."
"It's part of what held me together facing battle. All that I'd left in place here. Knowing I'd given you enough to start you on a good life. It's important to me, Leigh Ann." He touched the side of my face. "You don't look good. Are you ailing?"
"I have a headache. And my throat is scratchy. And I'm about starved."
He grinned. "You're going to punish me good for this, aren't you? Go on, clean up for supper."
Viola got in trouble, too.
Jon had told Teddy she'd been drinking sherry. But as despicable as that was, Viola got scolded by Teddy. And lectured. On how decent women from good families did not drink indiscriminately. Or their reputations were ruined. And no man liked a woman who drank, except at a social occasion, and then only one drink, never more.
I listened outside the door. I wanted to tell Teddy how wonderful Viola had been, how she'd worried about them, how she'd dealt with Mother when I was kidnapped, something he knew nothing about. But I dared not.
And then I waited for Viola to tell him about Jon and his wanting to "take liberties" with her. But she'd made me promise not to tell. Did Teddy know how honorable that was? What would he do if he knew about Jon?
"Then there is the matter of the book I caught Leigh Ann reading. If you have to read such trash," he told her severely, "keep it hidden so Leigh Ann can't get at it."
I heard Viola crying, then heard Teddy say quietly, "Look, Louis and I are aware of how you held things together while we were away. We know what a strain it must have been. But in this family we do not react to strain by drinking. Life is not all peaches and cream, Viola. You're only fifteen, but best you learn it now, especially with this war. We think you did a wonderful job. Come now, give me a kiss."
Teddy always wanted kisses after he scolded. I gave them. Viola would not. I heard her running out of the room and quickly stepped down the hall. She flitted past me, sobbing.
It was the next day that Teddy received the letter from the Confederate secretary of war that put him really in the doldrums.