by Lane, Cheryl
“I’ve been staying with a family in Chester,” I said absently, still looking at the ring. Finally, I took the ring off and handed it back to Jefferson. “I’m sorry, I still don’t remember you,” I said.
“But this is your ring. It belonged to my mother. You disappeared right before we were to be married, and I gave it to you at our engagement party. You don’t remember?”
I looked at the ring in his hand, frowning. “No, but the ring does look familiar to me,” I said. I didn’t want to mention the memory it gave me; he probably wouldn’t appreciate that. “But I don’t feel comfortable enough to wear it just yet. You keep it for now.”
Yet even as I said those words, something nagged at me that I should hold onto the ring, if for no other reason than to try and bring back the memory of the other man. Even if that was the wrong thing to wish for.
He started to put the ring back in his pocket, but I stopped him. “Wait.” He slowly smiled at me. “It is familiar to me, so perhaps I should hold onto it for a while without wearing it. Maybe it will help me remember you. Would that be suitable?”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed. He handed the ring back to me.
“So, my name is Madeline?” I asked, coaxing him to give me more information about myself. “Madeline” did fit with the “M” on the handkerchief I had.
“Yes. Madeline…” He paused for a moment. “Harrison. Madeline Harrison,” he said.
Harrison didn’t fit with the “W” on the handkerchief. I wondered about his hesitation. Did he really know me, or was he a thief who had stolen this ring? Yet, if that were true, why would he be so eager to give it to me now? He couldn’t possibly think I was from a wealthy family since I had no memory of my life. Unless he knew I was from a wealthy family and planned to get money from them. I was confused. Perhaps the handkerchief had been a pre-wedding gift.
“And your name is Jefferson? What is your last name? I don’t remember you saying.”
“Banks. Jefferson Banks.”
Banks didn’t fit with the “W” on my handkerchief either. Perhaps the handkerchief wasn’t even mine. Maybe it belonged to my mother. I had thought that finding someone who knew me would give me great joy and help me discover who I really was, but this man was only confusing me even more, bringing more questions.
“Where am I from? Where’s my family?” I asked him.
“Your parents died during the War for Southern Independence. You had been staying with your brother before we married.”
“And where does my brother live?”
“Down the river in Surry.”
Surry. That did not ring a bell with me, but he did mention a river. Perhaps that was the body of water from my remembrance. I suspected that much might be true, and I had a little hope.
“Do you also live in Surry?”
“No, ma’am. I live right here in City Point. You might remember that we met after the war was over, and your brother introduced you to me, as I had joined him on my way back home to City Point,” he said. He was smiling, seemingly pleased with what he was saying, or perhaps he was just happy to see me. I still didn’t know whether I should trust him or not. Since I had no memory of him or our betrothal, I didn’t know what to think.
“Well, like I said before, I have been residing with a family in Chester. I’m just on my way back there now, as a matter of fact. You should come down and visit me real soon, Mr. Banks.”
“Please, call me Jefferson,” he said, smiling.
I wondered at his name again. Jefferson Banks. I tried to remember that name. I looked at his face and continued thinking about his name. I looked at his bright blue eyes, his long nose, and his trim beard that went all the way around his chin from ear to ear. No, I didn’t remember him. I wished that the man from my vision had found me, instead of this man. He seemed nice enough, but it was the other man I now longed to find. Even if the other man wasn’t my betrothed, he had been someone I cared about deeply, I sensed. He was someone who meant enough to me that I remembered him. Finally, a memory. I felt a sudden emptiness that had not been there before, because now I knew there was someone I cared about and who cared for me, and I wondered what had happened to him. Had he been looking for me? Was he even alive? Perhaps he had died in the same accident that caused me to lose my memory. Or he could have died in the war. Then I’d never find him. My mind was going crazy with the possibilities.
Perhaps he was in Surry, like my brother.
“Perhaps you could take me to visit my brother in Surry, Mr. Banks.” I didn’t feel I knew him well enough to address him by his first name, despite his request to do so. “Does he live on the river?”
“Oh, I don’t think that would be possible now.” He frowned, looking down at his boots. “You see, he…well, he took ill and died himself. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.”
“Oh, no.” I was deeply disturbed by this. Even though I couldn’t remember having a brother, it was still sad to think about. “So I have no family left? What about the home? Who inherited it?”
“That would be a cousin – a male cousin, you see. You would not have inherited the plantation, being a woman.”
“Plantation?” I lived on a plantation?
“Oh, yes, a huge plantation. Your cousin talked about selling some of the land, though. Tough times, these are. I also own a plantation, which was heavily damaged during the war. I’ve been working hard to get it put back together so you would have a nice home once we were married. I had lost hope once you went missing, but now that I’ve found you, we can be married. The house is almost ready.” He twirled his hat around in his hands.
“Married?” I was not ready to marry someone I didn’t remember.
“Well, yes, darlin’. I’m sure you’ll get your memory back soon enough. But if you’re not ready yet, I understand. I’ll give you a couple of months.”
“A couple of months?” He was moving way too fast for me. I felt like I’d just been passed by a locomotive heading west. “Well, I…” I was at a loss for words. Should I let this man follow me to the Washingtons’ farm? Or should I follow him to his home here in City Point? I didn’t know what was proper, and I still wasn’t sure I could trust him. I knew that I had better get back to Chester to inform Ms. Jane about all that Mr. Banks had told me. She would be worried sick about me if I didn’t return. I certainly didn’t want Lionel driving all that way by himself, either. Who knew what kind of hoodlums or Yankees could come along and just start beating the tar out of him? Yankees? Yes, I suddenly remembered that was what we used to call the Union soldiers. That was another memory.
“Let me make this easy for you, darlin’.” I sure wished he’d stop calling me “darlin’”. “I’ll go back to my home here, and you run on along to that family you’ve been staying with. Then we’ll meet up here again at next week’s end, and you can think about what you want to do. Bring that Negro boy with you so you’ll be safe. Is that suitable to you?”
A week to think about it. Well, I guessed that was better than making a decision today. “All right, I’ll come back here in a week.” At least that way, I wouldn’t feel strange about him coming down to Chester with me, not knowing him and all. ‘Course he could follow me, but I hoped he didn’t. I wasn’t ready to be hitched up to him just yet.
I put the Celtic ring in my dress pocket, and we parted ways, Mr. Banks kissing my hand again. “I’m so glad I found you. Good day, Madeline,” he said.
“Good day, Mr. Banks.” I got back in the carriage with Lionel, and we headed back to Chester. Confused thoughts were ruminating inside my head the whole trip back, and I didn’t say much to Lionel. I kept pulling the ring out and looking at it, hoping for another memory, but got none.
Chapter 2
Courtship
“But I can’t remember him at all, Ms. Jane. Is that normal? Shouldn’t I remember the man I was supposed to marry?”
After Lionel and I got back to the Washington Farm, I had a long talk with Ms. Jane abou
t Jefferson Banks and about us being betrothed.
“Not necessarily, dear,” she said. “You haven’t remembered a thing for three months now. It will obviously take some time.”
“But I did get a memory, once he gave me this ring.” I pulled out the ring to show to her.
“Isn’t that a beauty!” she said, looking at it closely. “That looks antique.”
“Mr. Banks said it was his mother’s.”
“I’d say that’s worth a lot of gold. Gold and silver, as it were,” she laughed at her own humor. She looked at my sullen face. “Now don’t you worry about a thing, Madeline, is it?” I nodded. She placed the ring back into my hand. “I’m sure you will start to remember, the more time you spend with him. What was the memory you said you got with this ring?”
“Oh, yes! I remembered standing on a hill overlooking a body of water in the distance, perhaps a river. Mr. Banks said my brother lived down the river in Surry. How far away is Surry? We didn’t take any sketches of me that far, did we?”
“No, we didn’t. Surry is at least 50 miles away or more. About the same distance as Williamsburg from here, but on the other side of the James River.”
“James River,” I said, feeling a hint of remembrance at that name. “That does sound slightly familiar. Williamsburg also sounds familiar. Perhaps those are the areas I grew up in. Yet how did I get so far away?” I tried to remember Surry, yet Williamsburg sounded more familiar than Surry did.
I had gotten side-tracked. “Anyway, when I first held this ring, I was by the river, as I said, and I heard a man’s voice call my name softly, “Madeline”. Oh, Ms. Jane, his voice was deep and yet as sweet as honey. He was someone I cared about very much. I can feel it. But he was not Mr. Banks.”
“Oh, my! That is certainly strange. I am, of course, glad for you to have gotten a memory – especially such a nice one – but he’s obviously not the one you were to be married to, is he?”
“No, and that worries me. Why was I not able to marry this other man? The one I now long to find? Should I start looking for him? I wished I’d seen his face. I could’ve had an artist sketch a photo of him and post it so I could find him.” A thought suddenly occurred to me about sketches of my own face being posted. “Ms. Jane! What if this Jefferson Banks found one of the sketches of me and came to find me to try and take advantage of me somehow? Maybe he knows my real family, and maybe my family isn’t dead at all. Maybe he’s trying to get my family’s fortune, that plantation he said I lived in!”
“You’re letting your imagination run wild, child. Think about it a minute. This man has possession of a ring that gave you a memory of your past. How do you think he would’ve gotten that ring if he didn’t know you before?”
“That’s a good point. And yet, he’s not the one I remembered from the past, but it was another man instead. It’s all so confusing. What should I do? Mr. Banks still wants to marry me. He even said he had a plantation himself in City Point that he’s been repairing from after the war.”
“I don’t want to tell you what to do, child, but as I said before, perhaps if you spend more time with this Mr. Banks, you will start to remember things. Perhaps it will all make sense in the end.”
“Could we perhaps visit Surry sometime? At least put up my sketch?”
“You know I’d love to help you, but I’m not sure Mr. Washington could make the trip that far and back. Perhaps if we ask him nicely, we can all take a trip before the weather gets cold. Did you stop to think, though, that if Mr. Banks said your brother was deceased, there may not be anyone left who knew you?”
“But perhaps this man in my memory is there. I’d really love to find him. Surely someone I grew up with would recognize me.”
At the next week’s end, I headed back to City Point with Lionel, ready to begin my journey back to remembrance. My hopes were high. There was, after all, a river in City Point, as well. Every thought of a river brought me closer to the mystery man in my memory. I had to remind myself that I was betrothed to Mr. Banks and that I should try to remember him instead.
Mr. Banks greeted me with a lingering kiss on my hand and a polite bow, and then told Lionel to wait while he took me to his plantation for the day. I protested to this. I barely knew the man. I was not about to go off to his plantation with him alone without a proper chaperone. He relented, and asked Lionel to drive his carriage for us, guiding him along the way.
He told me about the history of City Point and how it was located where two rivers met – the Appomattox and the James. He talked about the things that happened during the war, of the Union ships that came down and placed a blockade across the James River, and of the slaves who ran off to join the militia or jumped in the river to climb aboard the Union’s ships. He told me about Union soldiers that came down and invaded homes while they waited for orders to try and burn down Richmond and Petersburg nearby.
“My family’s plantation is just down this drive,” Mr. Banks told Lionel. “It’s on the Appomattox River,” he told me. “During the war, the Union General Sheridan camped here for a time. I was off in the war, of course. My mother died, my step-father was killed in the war, and my sister ran off. Our slaves apparently escaped to a Union ship right before Emancipation. Do you remember the war, Madeline?” I shook my head. “That’s just as well. It was a horrible time.”
“Here we are,” he said, pointing at a three-story white frame Georgian house with a smaller structure off to the side, which he later explained was the kitchen house. He took me all around the grounds, to the back of the manor, overlooking the river. The river was down a sloping hill from the manor. I tried to remember if I’d been here before, if that same river was the one in my memory, but nothing looked familiar. Nothing at all. I felt disappointed.
“It’s very beautiful,” I told him.
“It’s called ‘Western Manor’. My step-father inherited it when I was a young lad, when he brought me and my mother here. Let’s go inside, shall we?” He led the way to the river-front door, unlocked it with a large key from his pocket, and we went inside a very long hallway. There was a spiral staircase to our left, with dark wood railing and green paneling lining the circular stairs. In fact, this same green hue was used in the woodwork along the ceiling, wainscoting, and window sashes, as well as around the fireplace of the dining room. He pointed out a cannonball that was lodged in the dining room ceiling from the war.
Nothing was familiar. “Have I ever been here before, Mr. Banks?”
“Yes, you have been here before, while it was still being repaired. I do very good business with the railroad and so have been able to do all the repairing and painting. It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”
I had been here before? It did not seem familiar. I thought about him being in the railroad business and wondered what he did. “What do you do for the railroad?” I asked, as he led me into the parlor. This room had a nice view of the river and the trees on the other side, just beginning to change into warm autumn hues.
“I make sure the local plantation owners and farmers get their goods on the trains to be sold, mostly up North.”
“You deal with the Yankees?” Somehow, that didn’t seem right to me.
“You do what you have to, to survive, Madeline. Now that the war is over, we have to make friends with them again.” He looked distractedly out the window.
“Do you grow anything on your plantation?”
“No, ma’am. No slaves and not enough laborers. I couldn’t afford to pay them anyway. I’m lucky to be able to keep this house at all. I had to sell off part of the land when I came back from the war. Come and look at this,” he said, pointing at one of the windows. He showed me where Union officers scratched their names in the glass while they were here during the war.
“So, Union soldiers were here in this house during the war? Did they take good care of the house?”
He swallowed audibly. “Well, there used to be more dependencies, which are gone now. Probably used for firewood.�
� His demeanor changed and he grew quiet for a moment, his eyes peeled to the floor. “And my ma was killed here during the war, apparently by one of them.”
I picked up one of his hands and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.” For the first time, I felt pity for this man. Perhaps he could understand what I had gone through, as he had lost something precious to him, the same way I lost my memories. “It’s perhaps good you weren’t here to see that.”
“If I had been here, I would’ve killed them all,” he said darkly.
I let go of his hand again and walked out of the room to see more of the house. He briefly showed me the bedrooms upstairs – briefly because I had no intentions of lingering up there for very long unchaperoned. I was still uncomfortable being alone in the manor with practically a stranger, but I was determined enough to do so to try and get my memory back. We went back down the staircase and out the carriage-front door to find Lionel sitting on the dusty ground resting his back against the carriage wheel. He quickly stood when he saw us approaching.
“I would show you the kitchen house,” Mr. Banks stated, “but it’s not in very good condition. I’ve been using the dining room fireplace to cook with mostly. I suppose now I have a reason to get the kitchen house back in order so you can use it.” He smiled and raised one eyebrow an inch higher than the other.
I frowned slightly at that comment but forced myself to smile. Even though he seemed a little forward, after all, he did know me and had wanted to marry me. I’d just have to get used to the idea.
“It’s a very nice home, Mr. Banks. Thank you for bringing me here to show it to me.”
“You’re quite welcome. And please, Madeline,” he picked up my hand and kissed it softly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Call me Jefferson.”