Linda Goodnight – The Memory House (страница 9)

She softened a bit when Valery’s hands shook, reminding her of the dark stranger—Eli—whose hands had also trembled. Had he been on a binge last night, too? “The guests in the Blueberry Room checked out right after breakfast—which is already over, by the way.”

Valery groaned and pushed up from the bedside. “I’ll get showered and be right up.”

Julia had started toward the door when Valery said, “Julia.”

“What?”

“I only had a couple of drinks.”

Right. “I’ll be in the Blueberry Room.”

7

Peach Orchard Farm

1864

Charlotte closed her Bible and looked out at a morning sky as blue as the robin’s-egg walls of her bedroom.

The ugly incident with Edgar and the subsequent kindness of Captain Gadsden troubled her greatly. She could get neither off her mind.

From this upper-story room she could see the trembling limbs of the orchard with a few rosy peaches still clinging to the branches. Portlands had planted those trees so very long ago, long before she’d come to Tennessee. Long before bloodied strangers invaded the quiet country life.

Directly below the window a tattered score of soldiers milled about the grounds in the gauzy morning, some limping, some bandaged. Four stood guard with rifles to their shoulders. Others lay on the porch where they’d camped since their arrival four days ago. Campfires burned in spots around the summer-green lawn.

An invasion. One that had relegated the Portland family to the second story while the floor below became a hospital for the wounded and quarters for the officers. Inconvenient, and yet the farm had not been completely stripped of supplies; nor had they been driven from their home. And not one resident of Peach Orchard had been molested, a blessed circumstance she credited to Captain Gadsden. He’d kept his promise. He was, she was quite convinced, a good man, perhaps even a godly man, and his soldiers listened to him with respect. Not that they were in any condition to do much else.

She saw him now straight and lean, striding in his long steps, across the lawn, his red trouser stripe a bright flash. Barely daylight, and yet he was up and about and would spend hours in the makeshift hospital ward encouraging his men. She knew because she and the other women of the farm, both white and black, had been pressed into service for the sick. Theirs was a horrifying, heartbreaking task, but how could they do less for men whose mortal souls hung in the balance?

The smell of blood and ether clung to her hands and clothes. During that first long day and night, she’d witnessed grisly, obscene damage that no human form should endure. A merciful God must surely close his eyes in anguish against the barbaric will of man to maim and butcher one another.

Her father, the gentle vicar with too many daughters and too little money, would scarce believe the savagery to which he’d sent his eldest daughter.

Yet, late into the night and against her husband’s wishes, Charlotte made coffee for the surgeon and the sleepless wounded and carried water to groaning souls. During the day, she ripped rags and the few remaining sheets into bandages and wrote letters to wives, mothers and sweethearts in faraway places she’d only seen on Benjamin’s schoolroom maps.

The worst of the ugliness was over for now. Thank the Almighty.

From somewhere inside the house, a hoarse scream shattered the morning and gave the lie to her thoughts. Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut. Such suffering as she’d never witnessed, not even in the slums of London, as the surgeon went about the ghastly chore of removing limbs that showed signs of infection. Twice already, a body had been carted to the family cemetery, northern boys laid to rest in foreign soil next to her premature babies. She’d watched Will Gadsden mourn each soldier and later sit at Edgar’s desk and write a letter to the family. An honorable man, indeed.

A tap sounded on Charlotte’s bedroom door. She turned from her desk with a smile, expecting her only son, the joy of her days. But her eldest sister-in-law charged inside, distraught.

“I can’t stand this anymore, Charlotte. We’re prisoners in our own home. Prisoners and slaves to that bunch of Yankees.”

“Captain Gadsden made it very clear that we are not prisoners of war. We are free to leave.” She was pleased, if surprised, that most of the slaves hadn’t taken the captain at his word but only two, Edgar’s most recent purchases, had disappeared.

“Where would we go? This is our home, not theirs, and I am sick of them infesting every fiber of our lives. Yankees everywhere, groaning and crying. Leaving a mess. Devouring every bite to eat. They’re like a plague of locusts.”

“They’re mere men, Josie, far from home, scared and suffering. There’s little we can do but endure.”

Josie tossed her head. As fiery red as Charlotte was blonde, the twenty-two-year-old wore her cascade of curls in a tight bun, but ringlets slipped out around her face. She was a comely young woman, though her ways were not always gracious. The Portland girls had grown up motherless with only their father and brother as examples, something Charlotte tried to remember when anger flared.

“I suppose you’re going down there again today to play nursemaid like a slave girl.” Josie paced the room. “Well, I tell you, I am not. No matter what that captain says, I refuse to help another Yankee. I don’t know why Edgar stands for this treatment or allows his wife to commiserate with the enemy!”

Charlotte folded her hands against her skirt, refusing to be baited by Josie’s sour mood. She was trying to survive, trying to keep her family together and her home intact in the absence of her husband. Lord above, how could she not show compassion to those damaged souls below?

Edgar, in a helpless fury over the invasion, had departed for the mill on the second day of occupation and had not returned. His anger was directed at her, not unusual but difficult because she had no control over the situation. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of his abandonment but consoled the other women with assurances that Edgar was protecting the gristmill that housed their corn and grain supply. She did not know, however, if that was true. She prayed it was. They could ill afford to lose much more.

“I don’t like this, either, but these injured men are God’s children, too.”

“Let them die, I say. They’re not ours.”

“They’re all ours, Josie,” she said softly. “What if it was your Tom?”

Josie sucked in a gasp, green eyes filled with worry. “We’ve heard nothing in so long. Do you suppose—”

Charlotte touched her shoulder in compassion. “Think the best, and pray that if your Tom should be wounded, someone would show him kindness.”

“I know what you’re saying, but I can’t. And how you can gives question to your loyalty. These horrible, smelly men have taken over our home, raided our smokehouse, and still you shower them with compassion—you wash their fevered faces and wrap their bloody wounds. I don’t understand you.”

Of that, Charlotte was quite aware and full of remorse that she had not become what the Portlands needed. Not Edgar. Not Josie. Only sweet and simple Patience seemed to genuinely care for her. Yet, she would not give up trying. They were her family now.

“Did you not sleep well?” she asked, hoping to mollify her stormy sister-in-law. Josie had suffered insomnia from childhood, a malady that worsened after her fiancé marched away with the Confederacy two years ago.

“I wonder if I’ll ever sleep again. I miss him until I think my heart will burst. I want him to come home.”

“Soon, this war will be over and Tom will return. Then, we’ll have a grand wedding and invite everyone in Honey Ridge.”

“Oh, Charlotte, I dream of that day—” Josie clasped a fist to her chest “—when I glide down the staircase in Mama’s wedding gown and Tom is waiting in the parlor to marry me.”

“We’ll get your mother’s gown from the attic this very evening and check the fitting.” After the work. After the patients were tended, the bandages changed, the bloody floors scrubbed and food put on the table.

“Really? Could we?”

“Of course we can.” Though Charlotte was bone weary and would rather collapse on her bed, they needed distractions during these long, trying months of war. No matter how petulant Josie could be. “Tonight, I’ll ask Lizzy to prepare a tea for you. You’ll sleep like a baby and dream of your wedding day.”

Josie made a face. “Her potions taste horrid.”

Lizzy was Charlotte’s friend more than her maid, though Charlotte had been chastised by Edgar for saying as much. Slaves, he insisted, were property, not friends. Yet, he did not prevent her from tending their sick or teaching the slave children to read scripture. He was a strange man, her husband, and she despaired of ever fully knowing him.

“We’ll add a spoon of honey.” She moved to the window and glanced out. Soldiers raided the orchard, though peach season had waned and few fruit remained. She prayed they didn’t discover the storage in the cellar or the silver and heirlooms Hob and Lizzy had buried below the carriage house. “Have you seen Benjamin this morning?”