Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series)

by Lane, Cheryl

  “No,” I said. “I’m going up to sit under the grape arbor. You’re welcome to join me when you’ve concluded your follies.”

  I walked up the hill and around to sit on the bench in the grape arbor. It was lush and full and felt nice under all the shade, with an abundance of leaves and the beginnings of grapes hanging down like a canopy over the edges. Ethan came walking around the tall bushes a few minutes later with wet, slicked-back hair and damp clothes. He quietly sat beside me on the bench. He sat so close that I could feel the coolness off his damp skin. He smelled of brine and masculinity. My throat tightened and my breathing became arduous, for no reason at all. It didn’t make sense. This was Ethan, Wellsy, my playmate, my constant companion. Why did I suddenly feel nervous and uncomfortable around him?

  I sensed that he was nervous, as well, for he fidgeted with his shirt and rubbed his hands together and blew on them like he was cold. I knew he couldn’t be cold.

  “Did you enjoy your little swim?” I asked, trying to compose myself.

  “Yes, it was quite refreshing,” he bragged, putting an arm behind me lazily on the bench. “You wouldn’t believe how cooled off I am now.” We were silent for a moment. Then he asked quietly, “Why didn’t you join me, Maddie?”

  “I told you, a lady doesn’t do such foolish things like take our clothes off in front of a gentleman.”

  “You think I’m a gentleman?”

  He was indeed becoming a gentleman. My eyes went involuntarily to his neck and his chest, where he had not completely fastened all of his buttons. I swallowed hard and felt my heart beat faster. “Yes,” I answered shyly.

  “Is that why you stopped calling me Wellsy?” he asked. I looked over at him, and he was serious, not teasing anymore. He had noticed that I’d called him Ethan.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Something in the air between us changed. His eyes looked at my lips, and suddenly but slowly, he placed his own lips to mine. I was shocked and kept my eyes open wide for a moment, but he had closed his eyes tightly and kissed me softly. His lips were moist and cool from being in the water. My stomach felt like something leaped inside. I liked that feeling. My heart started beating faster. He pulled back away and looked at me uncertainly. We stared at each other for a moment, wondering, observing each other. When had he become so beautiful, I wondered? I wanted to kiss again, so I touched his hand, and he squeezed mine tight. We simultaneously moved towards each other and kissed again. It was longer and sweeter. When we parted, we both smiled. I wanted to giggle, I felt so happy and bubbly inside.

  That had been the first of many kisses. I smiled, remembering that day. We had been scared, but that was the day our relationship changed. I looked over at the manor house standing proud beside tall trees, seeing the river beyond, and my gaze lingered over the purple lavender to the laundry house. I walked over to pick some to use with the laundry that needed to be done soon. The laundry house made me think about the time when Ethan visited the plantation when he was on furlough during the war. He had hid out there in the laundry house before eventually proposing to me here at the grape arbor.

  He had been released for two days after his troop had just won a battle against General Grant and his troops who were trying to take over Petersburg. He surprised me in June of 1864 when Clarissa and I were cutting up vegetables in the kitchen house. Clarissa had already moved in with me, as well as Fanny, and we had been attending wounded Union soldiers out on the lawn and up and down the riverbank. My mother had already died, and the property was being used as a temporary field hospital until the wounded could be taken to a real hospital. Clarissa and I had gone over to the kitchen house to help Fanny prepare some soup for the boys who were well enough to eat.

  “Ethan!” His mother saw him first out the kitchen window. I dropped the corn stalk I was holding and ran to the open window to see Ethan walk up the back steps of the kitchen house, over near the cornfield. Clarissa and I both ran around the corner and down the hall just as he reached the back door. He had a full beard all around his face, and his hair was longer in the back. He looked so grown up.

  After greetings and kisses, Ethan said, “Mother, why are there a thousand Union soldiers camped out on our lawn?”

  “They came and wanted to use our home for prisoners and as a lookout across the river. I had to let them take over. Fanny and I got in a boat and came over here to be with Madeline. Oh, it’s just been awful. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. Have you been hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine, just worn out. I came home to get a decent night’s sleep but instead find the two of you held captive by the Yankees. Are you all right here?” He looked down the hall and out the open front door of the kitchen house and saw a Union officer who stood across the courtyard in front of the laundry house with a rifle resting against his shoulder.

  “Yes,” his mother answered. “As long as we’re cooperative and feed the wounded, they promised not to harm us. They’ve been accommodating, though Madeline and I decided to share a room together, as some of the officers started sleeping in the house downstairs at night.” She eyed me worriedly. “We’ve been pushing a dresser up against the door every night, just to be on the safe side.” We’d been worried one of the officers would try something with us at night after they’d had a little whiskey to loosen up their inhibitions.

  “Madeline?” Ethan turned his attention to me. “Are you all right?”

  I couldn’t hold back anymore in front of his mother. I slid quickly into his arms and buried my face in his gray tunic with green trim, breathing in his scent. “I’m fine now,” I said.

  “Mother, would you excuse us for a moment?”

  “Of course, dear.” She kissed his cheek again and then went back into the kitchen.

  Ethan led me out the back door he had just come in, and we sat down on the ground, leaning against the kitchen house facing the field.

  “How did you get on the plantation?” I asked. “If the Yankees knew you were here…” I shuddered to think what they’d do to him, even if we did have a safeguard. Ethan didn’t have a safeguard.

  “We were in a battle close by and were released on furlough. A bunch of us went to Edgewood because I told them there was a grist mill there and that there might be food. There were many of our soldiers there already, spying on McClellan’s Army over at Wellington Cross. I saw them all spread out across the lawn from the third floor bedroom. The lawn we used to play on, Maddie…covered with Yankees. I swear I wanted to run over there and shoot as many as I could and run the rest of them out, but of course, I couldn’t do that. I was way outnumbered. I asked some of our soldiers what was going on here at Magnolia Grove, and they said it was being used as a hospital for the Yanks. So I risked coming over here to see you. I walked under cover of trees to get here. That fellow out near the laundry house prevented me from coming up closer to the house. I stayed hidden inside the laundry house until I saw you and Mother walk over here to the kitchen. So I carefully went out the back door, through the stables and around through the trees to get over here without being seen.”

  I was amazed he was here and even more amazed at the risk he took in getting here. I was so glad he was safe and unharmed. I touched his full beard, which felt surprisingly soft. I traced it from one side around to the other, and he took my hand in his and pulled me closer, kissing me feverishly. My arms went around his neck as we continued, but I stopped when realizing that his mother was close by at the open kitchen window. I convinced Ethan that we should sneak around to the grape arbor. We did so, hiding behind bushes and tall thick trees till we reached the cover of the grapes and sat on the bench. Mourning doves came to roost in the trees above us and cooed soothingly.

  “I’m so sorry about your mother. Are you all right?”

  I hugged him when reminded that I’d recently lost my mother. “Yes, I’m handling it. It helps having your mother here. I’m glad you’ve been getting my letters.” I leaned back up to look at him. “How is Jonas? Is
he with you?”

  “No. He got shot in the Battle of Wilderness just over a month ago. He’s alive,” he added quickly, noticing my horrified face. “They took him to a home being used as a hospital in Orange, and we had to move on down this way without him. I’m sure he’s fine. It was a shot to his leg.”

  I told him about his mother allowing the Union soldiers use his home earlier in the war and that she was guaranteed a safeguard for both plantations. “I used to talk to Lizzie Rowland a lot, before the Yankees came here, and she said she’s seen Confederates over there, even Jeb Stuart even came by her house one day for coffee on his way to Richmond to talk to General Lee. Is she doing all right over there?”

  “Yes, she’s fine. She’s been tending to our soldiers there.”

  I also told him about the Union soldier who was here earlier in the war, who tried to have his way with me, and I’d poked him in the eye with a fireplace poker. I showed him the scar on my wrist. He placed a lingering kiss there on top of it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before? You made no mention of it in your letters,” he said.

  “I didn’t want you to worry. You had enough to worry about. I didn’t want to bring up negative things in our letters, except for my mother, of course. I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”

  He hugged me tight, caressing my back and kissing my head. “Yes, I have, but you’re not supposed to be affected by this war. It’s only supposed to be us men.” He raised my head up to look at him. “You’ve got to leave from here, Maddie. You and Mother have to get away from these Yankees. Will you go to Edgewood with me? Please, I won’t be able to go back out and fight until I know you’re safe.”

  “Well, I…I suppose we could.” I hated the thought of leaving those Yankees in my home, and yet I did not relish being there with them either. “You say it’s just been Confederates over there?”

  “Yes. They’re using it as a lookout before sending more troops over here to help. One of them said he even saw President Lincoln over there at Wellington. But no Yankees have been at Edgewood so far.”

  “All right. I suppose we’d have to wait till nightfall and sneak out the window. Perhaps there is a long rope we could use from storage. I could hide it up in under my dress. We have to bring Fanny, too, and Jake and Zeke. They followed us over here, too.”

  “That’s fine.” I started to leave, but he stopped me.

  “Ethan, I can’t stay away too long, they’ll become suspicious. They may torture your mother to find out where I’ve gone.”

  “Just one more thing before I let you go.” He pulled a small drawstring bag from an inside pocket of his coat. Opening it up, he took out a ring and held it in his palm. Then he got off the bench and knelt down on one knee in front of me. “This is one of the reasons I came here today. Madeline, I love you more than anything. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife? I promise to make you happy, once this war is over, to protect you, and to love you always.”

  “Yes!” I said without hesitation. “Oh yes, Ethan! I will marry you!”

  I threw my arms around his neck while he was still kneeling, and we kissed passionately, absorbed in each other. “I want to marry you…right now,” he said between kisses. “This very minute.” He began caressing my torso. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said breathlessly. We continued kissing, and Ethan’s thumb brushed against the side of my breast, causing me to gasp. He stopped and looked at me. “You’ve become a woman in my absence.” His eyes burned into mine.

  I touched his beard again and said, “And you’ve become a man.” Before we could kiss any further, a gunshot broke our momentary tranquility. The birds stopped cooing and flew off in a flurry.

  “Ethan, I have to go,” I said, standing up.

  “Wait.” He put the ring on my finger, kissed my fingers near the ring, and then stood up and helped me to stand. I looked at the ring and smiled.

  “It’s beautiful, Ethan.”

  He explained to me its history, being passed down through his father’s family. I felt honored to be given such a ring. “But Ethan, I can’t wear this right now. They’ll notice it. Let me have that little bag, and I’ll put it in my dress pocket for now.”

  He helped me put the ring back in the little bag, and I hid it in my pocket. Then he kissed me one more time.

  “Come back to the kitchen with me, Ethan. I’ll give you some decent soup.”

  “That sounds delicious. I’m so weary of hardtack and beans.”

  We snuck back over to the field side of the kitchen house, and I went in first to make sure Clarissa was still there and safe, leaving Ethan out behind the kitchen. She was, and Fanny had already prepared some soup. Clarissa poured a bowl for Ethan, and I let her take it to him so she could chat with him some more. He told her the plan for escape.

  Later that night, Clarissa and I snuck out through the windows and then went over to the kitchen house to get Fanny, Jake and Zeke and snuck out to Edgewood on foot. We found Ethan and Jefferson – that was my first look at him – a short distance from the dovecote under the trees and we all made it to Edgewood safely. I was able to rest in Ethan’s arms that night in the room we shared with his mother on the third floor of Edgewood. I didn’t get a wink of sleep because I didn’t want to miss a moment of his time with me, and he didn’t get that rest he came home for. Neither one of us complained.

  I remember lying there in the floor of an upstairs bedroom – so Clarissa could have the bed – that the war had changed Ethan. Not just his appearance, with the longer hair and full beard, but also in his manner. He was more mature, more guarded, and more pensive. Perhaps I had changed in the same way. The war had changed us all. But it had not changed our love for each other. If anything, it had grown more.

  Needless to say, the grape arbor was a special place for me. It was perhaps tortuous to recreate something that would forever remind me of Ethan and all the special times we’d shared, but yet what better reason to recreate it, to remember happier times and have a place to share these memories with Lillie. I wanted her to know how much we loved each other and how much we loved her, so I would tell her how we professed our love for each other here and how he had proposed to me here. I would tell her that even though we didn’t live in the same house anymore, didn’t mean we didn’t care about each other very deeply. I would remind her of that every day.

  Chapter 23

  The Big Storm

  July was long and hot and led into an even hotter August, which brought occasional thunderstorms. One late afternoon, the sky darkened terribly while Lillie and I were sitting on the garden bench watching the birds flitter about, and the wind picked up so that my hair bonnet blew off and my dress blew sideways. I hurriedly picked Lillie up, trying to hold my dress down, and raced to the river-front door just as the rain hit. The rain started out light but kept getting harder, and the wind got stronger and stronger, bending the long branches on the trees till they creaked. It wasn’t just going to be a brief shower.

  Jonas and William came running into the house soon after Lillie and I did, dripping wet, and Ethan arrived moments after that. We all gathered in the dining room to eat supper, where thankfully Catherine had already brought cucumber soup over from the kitchen before the rain started. We had been working closely together in planning meals according to what vegetables were ripe in the garden, and cucumbers were at their peak. Jonas had also fished that morning, so we had some flounder to eat, as well. I asked Ethan to stay since it was raining so hard, and he agreed. I lit candles and oil lamps, for the dark clouds made the house dim. We had to close up all the windows and doors in the house. It got stuffy quick, but the rain was too hard to have any open without ruining the wooden floors and furniture.

  Ethan, Jonas, and William had lively conversations that were more interesting than any I had heard in quite some time. They reminisced about amusing times of the war. It seemed to me that Ethan had brought life to the dining room tabl
e, but perhaps I was the only one who thought so. He didn’t sit next to me at the table but rather across from me, and we exchanged smiles through the meal. Lillie seemed thrilled at having both of us at the table together again, and she kept going from my lap to Ethan’s on the other side of the table, and ate off of both our plates alternately. It was rather amusing. Her walking was getting better every day, as was her language. I worked with her some, and Catherine said she would be glad to help get her started in making sentences, guiding me to tell her what everything was and let her repeat it. She was getting quite good at it.

  Jonas complained once that his leg was hurting, that old wound from the war that bothered him when it rained. I met his eyes while he talked about it, as I knew he was thinking about Lucy. I tried to change the subject by asking Jonas to tell a funny story about us three growing up, to try to take his mind off of Lucy so he wouldn’t be sad.

  The dark clouds lasted through the evening, and the rain didn’t let up, nor did the wind. We were getting a pretty good squall, for sure. Ethan wanted to make a run for the carriage with Lillie wrapped up in a blanket, but I wouldn’t let him. It had rained so much and so hard already, I knew the roads had to be muddy. I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting the carriage stuck in a muddy ditch and having to spend the night in the carriage or else get drenched walking to one of the nearby plantations.

  And so it was decided that they would spend the night. Ethan said he didn’t want his mother or Elizabeth to worry about him, but I convinced him that his and Lillie’s safety and health were more important than whether or not his family worried about him all night. After all, they knew where he was going and where Lillie was. He finally relented. He stated he would sleep over in the bachelor’s quarters if and when the rained died down enough to walk over there with William and Sambo. He did go out in the rain long enough to put Blackfoot in the stables. When he came back inside, I made him remove his wet overcoat, frock coat, boots, and socks so he wouldn’t get chilled.