by Lane, Cheryl
I felt my heart beat faster. Edward stopped pacing and looked at me, the gun still in one hand, holding his wooden leg in the other. “I told Jeff to end your life, yours and the baby’s. I didn’t want any more babies complicating things. Ethan had Elizabeth and her baby to take care of, in addition to Lillie. Imagine my surprise when Ethan came home and told me that Elizabeth had been shot and died, but that the baby lived. Jeff himself had told me he shot you. Obviously, he shot the wrong person. That bullet was meant for you, not Elizabeth.”
The realization hit me then. It truly was my fault that she had died. That shot was meant for me. So many times I had wished her gone, and now she was gone for good and it was my fault, as if I had pulled the trigger myself. Despite my fear, I felt tears in my eyes.
Edward ignored the tears. “As Jefferson may have told you, I am the one who had arranged for Elizabeth to come here and work. Jeff found her living in a well at an abandoned farmhouse and tried to take her back to their home in City Point, but she wouldn’t hear of it. So I agreed to hire her if she kept quiet about it. It all worked out since I had sent Fanny away. At the time I thought Jeff had gotten rid of you, so I was returning the favor. I also had him promise me his plantation if anything happened to him. I have to think about my family, and by helping Ethan find a new wife with Elizabeth, I was keeping the wealth in the family. I have to make sure Ethan is taken care of. He’s my only child.”
“What about Fanny’s child? That’s your child, as well. Why’d you send her away?”
“I didn’t want any part of a child with a slave woman. I sent her down with her own people. Besides, if the baby turned out looking white, what do you think Clarissa would think? I’m the only white man Fanny had been around besides Ethan. What do you think that would have done to Clarissa if she found out? She would’ve never forgiven me. We’d have both been miserable. I never meant to hurt Clarissa. It was just a one-time thing with Fanny.”
There seemed to be a lot of one-time incidences resulting in babies around here. Must be something in the water.
“And so now, since I’m a crippled man, I had Jeff do one last task for me…get you out of the house and bring you here, unnoticed by anyone. He did that much for me, and, as I can’t depend on him to kill you properly, I’ll have to do it myself, Madeline. I’m terribly sorry it worked out this way, but I don’t trust you. You’ve lost so much that I think you’d do anything to keep your place in my family. I think you could even be lying to Ethan about the baby being his. I can’t risk losing my family. I would lose my family, Madeline, if they thought I had been a traitor during the war, and if they knew I’d fathered a child with a slave. They would lose all respect for me, especially Ethan. I couldn’t live with that, and so I have to get rid of you once and for all.”
He pointed the gun towards my temple then, and I closed my eyes, knowing I had no means of escape. I mourned that this baby would probably die, too, and I mourned that I would never get to be with Ethan to be the happy family that we wanted to be.
“Please don’t,” I begged. “I promise to keep my mouth shut. I’ll marry William. I won’t tell Ethan anything, just please don’t kill me.”
Before Edward could say or do anything, I heard my savior’s voice. “Put the gun down.” It was Ethan! I had hope for the first time all night. I looked over Edward’s shoulder and saw Ethan walk slowly behind Edward with a shotgun pointed at him. As he got closer, his eyes widened. “Father?!”
Edward continued to look at me and pulled the safety on his gun, preparing to shoot anyway. I shook with fear and trepidation. What should I do? Try to knock the gun out of his hand? What if he shot Ethan? I decided to talk instead.
“Yes, Ethan. Your father was a traitor during the war, after all. He fought for the Yankees, your enemy, and he lied to you about it. Now he wants to end my life, mine and our baby’s.”
Before I could say anything else, Edward pulled the trigger, but at the last second Ethan pushed him out of the way, so the bullet landed somewhere else in the shed, not in my head, thankfully. Edward fell over sideways, his wooden half-leg falling out from under him, but he recovered enough to yank my hair and pull me closer to him. I cried out until he pushed the gun into my lower chin. “Stay away, Ethan. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Ethan backed up a bit cautiously. “Father, how could you?! Not only have you betrayed the South, but you have betrayed your family…me. How many times have you tried to kill Madeline? Is this the reason she lost her memory? The reason she was gone for a whole year? The reason I lived through hell for a whole year? Is it?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Edward admitted, sighing. “With the aid of one lowly Jefferson Banks.”
“You and Jeff were in this together?” I could see Ethan putting it all together in his head. “Of course. You two talked all night when I brought him home with me after the war. Were you comparing stories? I thought you turned him in as a traitor. Did you betray him, as well?”
“No. I had to do something to keep him quiet. I got him out after a couple of days. The guys I had arrest him didn’t hurt him; I paid them well.”
“No wonder he had Madeline’s wedding ring…the family wedding ring, father. Does family mean anything to you? I can’t believe that you would risk a family member in order to clear your name, to save your own neck. Madeline was my wife, so she was family. She was a Wellington and always will be.” He looked at me briefly. I swallowed hard, the gun still pressed to my lower jaw.
“She’s not family to me,” Edward said. “Besides, I was thinking about you. How would it look for you if everyone found out your father fought for the Union instead of the Johnny Rebs? And I wasn’t going to prison, either. I wanted to protect you and your mother. Those Northerners allowed us to keep the plantation, allowed us to be unharmed during and after the war, and allowed us to be able to hire another sharecropper and still have social balls. How do you think I was able to pay for your honeymoon in Williamsburg and all the things you bought for your chambers on the third floor? They bought our cotton and kept our plantation running, all because I fought for their side of the war. I even found a new wife for you, Jeff’s half-sister.”
“What?”
I interjected, “Yes, Ethan. It seems that Elizabeth and Jefferson were related. Your father arranged for her to come work for him after he had Fanny sent away because Fanny was to have his baby.”
Ethan tried to absorb all the news. “Father, you disgust me! I don’t care what anyone else thinks of you. I am deeply ashamed of you. I can’t believe you schemed the whole time, trying to get rid of Madeline and sending another woman my way, while lying to me about everything. That’s why you told me to stop looking for Madeline, isn’t it? You told me you had it on good word that she was dead. You’re nothing but a traitor and a scallywag!”
“I did it all for you, Ethan. I didn’t want you to have to struggle for anything. I wanted you to be happy.”
“Because of you, I wasn’t happy. Because of you, taking Madeline away from me, I was miserable. Even after marrying Elizabeth, I was not happy. Couldn’t you see that? Madeline means everything to me. She’s my family, and family is more important than plantations or wealth, father. I’d rather be poor and happy with the one I love than make deals with the Yankees by betraying my family. I want nothing more to do with you.”
I heard footsteps then, and saw Jonas and William walk into the shed, guns in their hands.
“Let go of her now!” Ethan shouted.
Edward looked at his son. “I’m sorry, Ethan.” He turned back around and looked at me, and I felt the gun move away from my jaw. I heard two shots at the same time…one close, the other farther away. The sounds were deafening. I screamed and heard Ethan shout, “No!” I felt something warm and wet splatter on my face. Edward fell against me, knocking me in the head with his own. Everything went black again.
Chapter 37
Reunited
I felt something rough and wet touch my face
when I opened my eyes again. Ethan was using the cloth that had been around my mouth to clean my face. Had I been shot? I didn’t feel pain, except for where Jefferson had struck me in the head earlier and where I had fallen on the baby.
“Madeline?! Maddie, are you all right?” he asked anxiously.
“I think so. What happened?” I asked groggily.
Without answering, he took me in his arms and squeezed me tight. “I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured softly in my ear. He kissed my ear and kept hugging me. He then moved his hand to touch my belly where the baby grew. “Is the baby well?”
“As far as I know,” I said. I looked around the room and saw Edward lying on the ground on his belly. “What happened to your father?”
“He shot himself,” Ethan said, “and I shot him, as well.”
I looked over at Edward again. He had blood on the back of his sack coat. Jonas and William were standing nearby, anxiously looking at me.
“I thought he’d shot you,” Ethan said, looking at me worriedly. “When I heard his gun go off, I reacted by shooting him in the back. The impact of the bullet made him fall forward on top of you. I thought you were both dead.” He caressed my cheek. “You screamed, I saw blood on your face, and you closed your eyes and fell backwards. I moved Father and saw that he had blood on his own face, and had a bullet wound in his temple. I knew then that he had shot himself. He must have knocked you out when he fell on you. I’m just so happy you’re alive.” He kissed my forehead. “You remember who I am, right? You were hit on the head again.”
I blinked my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t been shot. “Yes, twice actually. Jefferson knocked me out with a gun, too. And yes, I remember you. I’m so sorry about your father, Ethan.”
“I am, too. You were right; I should have listened to you…about the Union jacket and the papers, but I didn’t think my own father would lie to me. I never dreamed he would have been a traitor. Most of all, I never dreamed he would have tried to kill you, Madeline. I’m so sorry for all that he has put you through, all that he’s put us both through.”
“It’s not your fault, Ethan.” I touched his face and smiled. “It’s my own fault…my curiosity got the better of me. If I hadn’t been snooping around in his study that day, none of this would have happened.”
“No, no. It’s not your fault, love. The truth would have come out eventually. I’m just sorry we lost so much time together, and so much has happened, keeping us apart. The whole ordeal with Elizabeth and with Jeff. We’ve been through too much pain. It’s time we were happy again.”
I looked around and noticed that Jonas and William had removed Edward’s body from the room. I didn’t know when they did that; I hadn’t been paying attention. Ethan and I were alone.
“I thought I had lost you again, Maddie,” he said again. “William rode up to Wellington and told me you had not returned from the kitchen house, and I immediately rode over to Magnolia. The three of us set out looking for you. William and Jonas remembered that they’d found out how someone had been to this toolshed over by the grist mill recently, and so we came here straightaway.”
“How long was I gone? Jefferson knocked me out, so I was not aware of how I got here.”
“It’s a quarter to midnight now,” he said. So it had been about 4 hours since I had been in the kitchen house washing dishes.
I told him how Jefferson had tried to have relations with me, and Ethan’s face grew red with anger. “Your father rescued me from Jefferson and sent him on his way,” I reassured him.
Ethan hugged me once again. His warmth filled me, body and soul. I shivered, not realizing I had gotten cold. The baby usually kept me warmer than usual, but with all that had transpired and with me being in a cold shed in late December, I suddenly realized I was freezing. Ethan took his overcoat off and draped it around my shoulders.
“Maddie, I know this is not very romantic, but I don’t want to waste another minute. I don’t want to live without you anymore. I love you more than anything in this world. Will you marry me…again?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, Ethan, I will!” I smiled, my heart filled with joy. I wrapped my arms firmly around his neck, and he kissed me soundly on the lips. “I love you, too,” I murmured between kisses. Tears of joy escaped my eyes and trickled down to our kissing mouths, leaving a salty taste in my mouth.
“We didn’t have a long betrothal the first time, and I don’t want a long one this time, either.”
“Me either,” I said.
“I promise to do better at taking care of you and protecting you this time,” he said, caressing my face gently.
“How can you say that, when you just saved my life? Allow me to properly thank you,” I said, kissing him again, knocking him backwards onto the dirty floor, falling softly on top of him. We laughed and then kissed again. “I shall spend the rest of my days thanking you,” I said, looking deep into his eyes.
“And I shall spend the rest of my days loving you,” he said, placing a tendril of my hair back behind my ear.
I reluctantly got off of him so we could get back to a warm house. He got to his feet and then unexpectedly picked me up, causing me to giggle. He carried me outside and sat me gently on Blackfoot’s back, then jumped up behind me, keeping me warm and protected as we rode back to Magnolia Grove.
Upon our arrival to Magnolia Grove, Ethan carried me upstairs to my bedroom and laid me gently on the bed. He poured me a glass of water and handed it to me.
“I’ll go and get some cloths to clean you up a bit. Stay here and rest, my love.” He smiled and kissed my hand before going out the door.
I slept while he was gone. He returned, tapping softly on the door before opening it. I opened my eyes as he walked in the room. He was holding cloths in his hands.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said, smiling. “I found a wet nurse.”
I sat up in bed and pulled the pillow up behind me. Ethan stepped aside and opened the door wider, and in stepped Fanny.
“Fanny!” I exclaimed. She strode quickly over to my bedside, and we embraced. “Oh, Fanny! I’m so glad to see you.”
She was gaunt, so very thin, like she hadn’t had much to eat, but she did have full breasts, engorged with milk. Ethan handed her the cloths, and she dipped them in water and washed my face and arms for me while we talked. Jefferson had indeed taken her to the Dismal Swamp where a great many ex-slaves had set up camp and lived out in the rough. She barely made it through the cold winter until her baby was born. The baby was a boy, now six months old. She didn’t want him to be subjected to those living conditions any longer, so she hitched a ride with a kind young black man who’d fought in the war for the South. He had stumbled upon the swamp camp looking for a lost sister, and agreed to take Fanny and the baby in his wagon up the river to Magnolia Grove. She didn’t think Edward would take her in again, so she came to my old home instead. She had arrived just last night, right after I had been kidnapped.
We spent the rest of the night talking, Fanny and I, while Ethan lay beside me on the bed, listening to us some and snoozing off and on. The sun was almost up when we heard the cries of little Lizzie, and Fanny left to go feed her. Ethan had gone over to Wellington to get her when he first brought me to my bed, so that Fanny could visit with me and also feed Lizzie when needed. I was so tired but so very happy. I had Ethan back, we had our wet nurse and my friend back, and very soon Ethan and I could be married again.
After Elizabeth’s funeral, Christmas came, and we spent the whole day at Wellington Cross. Jonas, Catherine, Ginny, William, and I joined Clarissa and Ethan, both widowed, Lillie, baby Lizzie, and even Fanny brought her baby, Josiah. He was beautiful with light skin and big chocolate brown eyes. I wondered what would transpire between Fanny and Clarissa and whether Clarissa had suspected who Josiah’s father was.
It was wonderful to be back at Wellington with Ethan and Lillie, and I felt like I’d truly come home again. Clarissa, who was not doing so well with the new
s of her husband’s past deeds or his death, said the day had been joyful and just what she had needed. I even saw her holding Josiah once, smiling and playing with him. Perhaps she did realize her husband’s indiscretion and was willing to accept it.
A small pine tree had been cut down and brought inside. Clarissa attached lit candles to it, and it glowed beautifully. Ethan presented me with sheet music for the piano by Stephen Foster, which was very modern and very different than what I usually played. I planned to treat him to a private recital as soon as I learned to play some of it. I gave him a new pipe, which I had asked William to get for me in exchange for a lamb’s wool blanket I had made. Ethan was touched that I’d done that for him.
“Thank you, Maddie. This is very handsome. I shall use it after dinner. You didn’t have to get me anything. You agreeing to marry me again and our baby that you’re carrying is gift enough for me.” He kissed me tenderly.
At one point during the day, Jake approached me and asked to speak to me and Ethan privately. He apologized for his involvement with Edward and Jefferson. “I was basically just a go-between. Edward threatened me if I didn’t comply. Please, I meant no harm to come to you, Miss Madeline.”
“I understand,” I said. “I accept your apology.”
Ethan also shook his hand and eased his conscious, though he later told me he would have to keep an eye on him for a while to make sure he was being honest.
Ethan and I planned for a wedding on Valentine’s Day, which was on a Friday. I would have married him on Christmas Day, but he said for appearances’ sake with the recent death of Elizabeth, we should wait a little longer. We also talked about waiting until the date of our first marriage, June 10, but of course, that wouldn’t do either, for we had to be married before our baby was born. We decided that we could celebrate two anniversaries a year from now on, which sounded wonderful to me.
“Will you set the record straight by telling everyone that I am this baby’s father?” Ethan asked me one cold afternoon in January. We were sitting by the fireplace in the river-front parlor at Wellington Cross, watching it snow outside. The river could be seen from the manor now, since the leaves on most of the trees were gone.