by Lane, Cheryl
She was right, but I still felt awful. Because of my lies, that little baby lost her mother.
“If anything, it could be my fault, for not talking to Ethan about your baby in a more discreet place. Then Elizabeth wouldn’t have overhead and come over here.”
“No, I’m more to blame than you, honestly. You and Ethan shouldn’t have had to keep secrets.”
“I also wanted to say that, I know you and Ethan love each other and will want to be together, now that Elizabeth is no longer…an obstacle. That baby will need a proper mother, Madeline. Are you willing to take that on, along with your own new baby in a few months? I’m happy to take care of these two girls myself, but I know you and Ethan will want to become a proper family, all of you, if you’re willing to take care of Elizabeth’s baby. Mind you, I asked Elizabeth the same question before she wed Ethan…about Lillie.”
It was a legitimate question, and I was glad she’d asked Elizabeth the same thing before allowing her to care for Lillie. I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. Ethan and I did love each other, but we had not discussed any of this yet. “I would be willing, yes, if Ethan will still have me. There is still the matter of William…”
“Yes, you made a little bit of a mess, dear, but it’s all right… nothing that can’t be fixed. I understand why you did it. You were protecting Ethan.” I nodded. “I do think that Ethan needs time to grieve before any decisions are made,” she continued. “And let everyone get over the shock of Elizabeth’s death before making wedding plans.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I agree; he does need time to grieve. He’s feeling a little guilty right now, just as you and I are.”
“Do you think you will tell everyone the truth, Madeline? That this baby is Ethan’s? Don’t you think the baby deserves to be called a Wellington?”
I felt tears sting my eyes. “Yes, I do, but it’s really up to Ethan. I never wanted to hurt his reputation. That’s why I lied in the first place. That and the fact I knew that my baby needed a father before it was born, and at the time, Ethan was not available, if you know what I mean. Do you really think I should tell the truth, that I had lied before?”
“That’s up to you and Ethan, as you say, but in my opinion, it’s best to tell the truth when it comes to something like this, the family name and the baby’s inheritance.”
“That’s just it; the family name is going to be tarnished if I tell everyone that Ethan fathered another child out of wedlock.”
She smiled at me, “But dear, everyone knows you were married to him first. They’ll understand. It wouldn’t embarrass me in the least. I get another grandchild out of all this.” She smiled.
“Thank you,” I said, squeezing her hand with mine.
Before we could continue the conversation, a knock sounded on the carriage-front door once again. It was Reverend O’Loughlin and his wife. I let them in, and Clarissa joined us in the hall. Mrs. O’Loughlin handed me a basket of Sally Lunn bread and two more bottles of cow’s milk, which I thanked her for, and led them all to the dining room. Mrs. O’Loughlin asked me how I was doing. I hadn’t been to the church since I announced my betrothal to William and that I was carrying his child. I felt too embarrassed to go to church and didn’t want to hear the whispers. No matter whether I said the baby was William’s or Ethan’s, I was still an unwed mother, and it just wasn’t proper.
I told Mrs. O’Loughlin that I was doing fine.
“We’ve missed you at church, dear.”
“Yes, well, I’ve had a lot…going on.” I rubbed my belly instinctively. “I didn’t think it proper.”
“Oh, my dear, it’s never improper to go to church. You’re certainly welcome.” She squeezed my hand. “Are you still playing the piano?”
“Yes, ma’am. The Wellingtons were kind enough to bring theirs over here for me to play,” I said, smiling over at Ethan.
“How wonderful!”
Ethan handed the baby over to his mother and took Reverend O’Loughlin across to the parlor where Doc was with Elizabeth’s body. Lillie climbed up on my lap and sucked on her fingers.
“News travels fast,” Clarissa said to Mrs. O’Loughlin.
“Yes, well, Doc Parsons dropped by the house this morning and told us all about Elizabeth being shot and that he had to take the baby, and that she would need some cow’s milk or a wet nurse. What happened, Madeline?” she asked me.
I told both ladies what had transpired here the day and night before. They were both astonished and saddened, and yet happy that the baby was doing well. I excused myself to go fix some coffee over in the kitchen house, leaving Lillie with the ladies. I made a carafe of coffee and took it back to the dining room, along with some fruit, nuts, Virginia ham to add to Mrs. O’Loughlin’s bread, and invited all to help themselves. Clarissa helped Lillie get something to eat, while I held the baby, and Jonas and William came in and ate. Catherine joined us soon after, looking well rested.
Ethan and Reverend O’Loughlin made funeral arrangements, and they planned to take Elizabeth’s body to the church that afternoon. Ethan said Elizabeth would be buried in the family graveyard, the same graveyard where other family descendants were buried, including Ethan’s brother, Godfrey. Doc gave Ethan and Clarissa more instructions about the baby before he left. The O’Loughlins prayed with Ethan, and then they left.
Ethan took the baby to the master study, and I followed, hoping we could talk. Just as we sat down in the chairs together, William came in, knocking lightly on the open door.
“May I come in for a moment?”
“Of course,” Ethan said. “What’s on your mind?” he asked cautiously.
William closed the door. “I just wanted to tell Madeline that she doesn’t have to marry me anymore. I know how much the two of you love each other, and I won’t stand in your way, if you want to be together. You could all be one big happy family. Ethan, you could have all three of your children together. That’s the way it should be. I realize Madeline would be a replacement mother for that baby there, but I know she could love it, because it’s yours,” he said, still looking at Ethan. “That’s the kind of person she is. I also want you to know, I only had the best of intentions. I had offered to help Madeline because she was in a bind. I hope you don’t harbor any resentment towards me.”
“No, of course not,” Ethan said soberly. “Thank you, William.”
William looked at me and smiled tentatively. I smiled back, and he left the room, closing the door on his way out.
“What do you think, Madeline?” Ethan said. “Do you think you could love this little one? The one that caused all our heartache…the one that separated us? The one I chose over you?”
“Yes, Ethan,” I said without hesitation. “I could love it. William was right. I could love it because it’s yours and because she needs a mother.” He hadn’t exactly proposed, but I really didn’t expect him to yet. He was still grieving for Elizabeth.
“Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to take care of another woman’s baby…a woman who hated you, and I daresay you felt the same.”
“I would do it for you. I told you before, Ethan…I’d do anything for you.”
He looked down at the baby. “She does need a mother,” he said thoughtfully. “But I’d have to know that you didn’t hold any resentment against her…that you would take care of her as you would your own. You once told me that a mother loved her own children more than any others. Are you capable of giving her the love and care she deserves?”
He was wondering if he could trust me to take care of Elizabeth’s baby. I understood why he was asking that. He was being protective of the baby. I admired him for it, and I knew he was thinking about the baby first and foremost, but I really wanted him to say that he loved me and was happy we could be together again. I wanted him to say that he needed me, not just to mother his children, but that he needed me in order to be happy again, the way we should have always been. But he didn’t. I would have to give him more time.
“Yes, Ethan, I would. In fact, I’ve been thinking that if she tolerates cow’s milk for a little while or you get a wet nurse, then once my own milk comes in for this baby,” I rubbed my belly, “perhaps I could feed them both. It would be almost like having twins.” I smiled tentatively.
He seemed shocked. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He rubbed his face with a free hand. “You are amazing, did you know that?” I blushed. Perhaps he did see that my intentions were good. “I want you to know that I’m happy that you and I can be together again finally,” Ethan said then, giving me hope. “What William said was true; it would be wonderful to have you and all three children living with me. But I feel guilty for that because in order to get to this point, Elizabeth had to die. So I feel like I shouldn’t be happy. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. You need time to grieve. That’s understandable.”
“Please, be patient with me?” He asked rather than demanded.
“Of course,” I said. “What will you name this baby, Ethan? Have you had time to think about it?”
“Yes. I want to name her after her mother and my mother…Elizabeth Rose.”
“That’s nice,” I said. If this baby shared her mother’s name, no one would ever forget who her mother was…including me. Perhaps we could think of a nickname…Liz or Lizzie. Then we’d have Lizzie and Lillie, and they would have the same middle name. That made me realize just how closely related Elizabeth’s baby was with mine. It seemed strange, but it made me smile.
Ethan and Clarissa took the two girls back to Wellington Cross shortly thereafter. I offered to keep Lillie for a few days, but Clarissa insisted that they could handle them both, that I needed to rest for my own baby’s sake, as it had been a stressful couple of days.
Catherine and I prepared dinner, after which we both took naps.
While we napped, Doc and Reverend O’Loughlin came and took Elizabeth over to the church to await the funeral. When I awoke, the sheriff came to question all of us about the incident. Jonas and William explained about their search at Edgewood and about finding the toolshed over by the grist mill that had been occupied recently. They described where to find it, and then the sheriff left.
That evening, after supper, I talked to Catherine about everything. She assured me that Ethan would propose once he’d grieved and a proper time had elapsed. She encouraged me that he still loved me and would come around soon, just to give him time.
I volunteered to clean up after supper, but as I was about to take dishes over to the kitchen house, William came in the dining room.
“I hope you didn’t mind me saying what I did in front of Ethan, before talking with you. I know you didn’t really want to marry me anyway.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I have to let him grieve now. Thank you for everything…you’ve been most kind. You’re going to make a fine husband someday.”
He helped me carry everything over to the kitchen house and then left me alone, washing dishes. As I was drying my hands and about to go back to the manor house, I heard a noise outside, followed by a light knock on the outside back door. I looked out the window and saw a man; it was too dark to tell who.
“Madeline, it’s me, Jefferson,” I heard a voice say. Jefferson? What in the world would he be doing here? Did he really think I would open the door for him, when he had lied to me and tried to shoot me? I didn’t trust him one bit.
I walked around to the hallway by the staircase towards the back door, but before I could turn the knob, there was a loud bang and the door swung open hard, almost striking me. I was shocked to see Jefferson holding a gun, which he swiftly hit me over the head with. Everything went black, and I felt myself falling. I grasped for something to hold onto on my way down but felt nothing but air.
Chapter 36
Abduction
When I awoke, I was sitting in semi-darkness up against a wall on the cold dirt floor. My hands were tied in front of me, and I felt a cloth tied tightly around my mouth. The air smelled damp and musty, but I could also smell a fire burning. There was a lit oil lamp on an old rain barrel beside me, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could see more of my surroundings. I was not in the kitchen house. Instead of seeing tables and cooking bowls, there was an old plow propped up against one wall, and an old butter churn sat in a corner. Tools lay out across one wall, sharp ones. I must be in an old storage shed, most likely the one Jonas and William had found near the grist mill that had been recently inhabited. So it was Jefferson who’d been squatting here.
I remembered seeing Jefferson’s face after he forced the door open, raising a gun hard against my head. My head was still pounding from the blow. I touched my temple and felt something wet and sticky, probably blood. I surveyed the rest of my body, including my unborn baby, making sure everything was still in proper order.
I wondered why Jefferson had brought me here, why he had kidnapped me. Looking out a window, I could see flames flickering. Jefferson could be out there with the fire. I slowly tried to stand up. I felt a little dizzy but was able to walk across the room to see better out the window. Outside, I could see a man sitting by a fire, smoking a pipe and holding a liquor flask. Jefferson. He was silhouetted against the big empty corn field.
I wondered if I could escape. Since he had been imbibing liquor, I thought I might have been able to outrun him. The door was on the same side as the firelight, so I couldn’t open it without him seeing me. I looked around the room for another means of escape. There was only this window and another one on the opposite wall, close to where I had been sitting. It was small, but I thought I could probably manage to fit through it. I walked across the room and tried to raise the window. It squeaked unmercifully, and I heard Jefferson open the door loudly. I quickly sat back down on the ground, trying to play innocent, but he had already seen me.
“Well, well. Trying to escape, are we?” he said. “I’m terribly sorry, Madeline, but I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” He walked across the room towards me and slammed the window shut beside me. “It’s been a long time, Madeline. How’ve you been?”
I couldn’t speak since he had tied the cloth around my mouth. He started laughing, a sinister laugh. “Oh yeah, I forgot. You can’t talk. That’s just as well. Women talk too much. Always getting themselves into trouble because of it. That wife of Edward’s, she talks too much. She told your secret, Madeline, that you’re carrying Ethan’s baby. She told Edward, and Edward told me. Now, isn’t that sweet? You found each other after all this time, after you lost your memory, and you had a rumble in the hay with him and got yourself confined, didn’t you?”
He knew far more than I would have thought. Had he been spying on me? Why would Edward talk to him about me and Ethan? I had thought Edward turned Jefferson in as a traitor after the war.
“Yep, I know more than you thought, huh?” He took a drink from his flask and wiped his mouth. “That’s who we’re waitin’ for…Edward. He told me to bring you here until he came.” He pulled out a pocket watch and then squatted down beside me. His breath reeked. “We have probably an hour or two to wait. I figured once you woke up, we could have a little talk. At least, I could talk, and you could listen,” he said, laughing again.
Why would he say he was waiting for Edward? What did Edward have to do with anything? I was confused.
He stood up and walked over to pick up a shovel, which for a moment I thought he was going to kill me with, but he turned it around and leaned against the handle of it like a chair. “You are one lucky woman, did you know that? You should be dead. I have tried to kill you countless times, and you lived through it every time. The last time I thought I’d killed you for sure, but it turned out to be my sister instead.” His eyes hardened with hatred, and he took another drink.
His sister? Was he referring to Elizabeth? She did mention that she’d had a brother who turned Yankee. Could it have been Jefferson?
“Yes, Elizabeth was my sister – half-sister, to be exact. Remember me te
lling you that my sister ran off? She and I had the same mother, Anne. I was born in East Tennessee, but my real father, John Banks, died when I was just a young boy while helping to build the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. My mother remarried Joseph Tyler, who had inherited his family’s plantation in City Point, that being Western Manor. I did lie; you had not been there before. I had to make up a lot of things to try and get you to fall for me. You believed me because you didn’t know any better, since you’d lost your memory. I could’ve told you that you were the Queen of England, and you would’ve believed me. Aw, don’t look at me that way. I’m sorry darlin’. I had a lot of practice lying during the war. You see, with this Tennessee-Virginia accent, I was able to fool a lot of Rebels that I was on their side.
“Anyway, my mother gave birth to Elizabeth while living at Western Manor, where we grew up together. When I got to be a teenager, before the war started, I took a trip back to East Tennessee to find my father’s people. I stayed with a cousin till the war started, then I joined up on the Union side – that’s the side my cousin signed up with. I didn’t care too much for slavery myself, so I joined them.
“During the war, I met your Ethan, and I told him I was from City Point, which was where I grew up, after all, and I played both sides of the war for a while. I even corresponded with General Grant once. I gave permission for General Sheridan’s troop to use Western Manor if they needed, on the stipulation that my mother and sister were not to be harmed. They did not comply, I found out later. I should have gotten a safeguard for them. Do you remember seeing me when Ethan and I came and got you, his mother, and those Negros and took you over to Edgewood?” I nodded. “That’s where we are now, on the property of Edgewood. That was the first time I took the path between the two plantations.
“After the war, Ethan invited me to his family home for a little celebrating before I went home. As you know, Ethan’s father turned me in as a spy. You see, I knew he had been on the Union side during the war. Yes, he was a traitor. I’d seen him once with General Grant. So I threatened to turn him in. Instead, he turned me in, but said if I didn’t talk, he’d get me out in a few days. He kept his word.