Faith

by Lyn Cote

  She ignored the edge to his voice. “It has been hard for me to face that I’ve returned home without Shiloh.”

  He patted her hand awkwardly.

  “Thee can say it.” She sent him a lopsided smile. “The undertaking was too large for two women in the midst of the war.”

  “I believe I did mention that,” he said more gently.

  “My father just reminded me that some tasks are too big for us. I must leave Shiloh in God’s hands.”

  Dev felt miserable and couldn’t hide it. He picked up his spoon. “Even if it means you’ll never see her again.” His harsh words struck her, and he regretted them.

  “I will see her again regardless,” Faith murmured.

  He wanted to say he was sorry, but instead he dipped his spoon in the creamy soup. “Please, I want you to write my mother today.”

  Faith nodded, conceding. “I will. And I need to write to Honoree and Armstrong and let them know we arrived safely. Does Armstrong have family?”

  “Yes. I’m sure my mother will tell his family the news.” Feeding himself took as much effort as he could muster. He tasted the salty, buttery soup and nearly sighed aloud. After months of camp food, this was ambrosia.

  “Thee is recovering, but it will take a long time before thee feels like thyself again.” Faith rested her hand on his arm.

  He tried not to react to her touch. Impossible. Still feverish and weak, Dev wondered at her false hope. But he said nothing as he sipped the creamy soup. Delicious just like the food at home. He let himself gaze at Faith. She was so beautiful, even with the scar that marred her cheek. “I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you better.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.

  He expected her to bow her head and turn away as she had done every time before. Instead she pressed her hand over his, keeping it in place.

  “Thee must not blame thyself. How could we know that woman would attack me with a knife?” She glanced downward and then at him again. “I will grow accustomed, and it won’t bother me. I never thought myself vain, but this has made me more … conscious of myself.” She drew in breath and lifted her chin.

  Then she did something else he didn’t expect. She turned her face into his palm and kissed it.

  The breath caught in his throat and emotion rushed through him, sensations he didn’t want to experience. I’m dying. I’m going to leave her. He knew he should say words to put her away from him, but he found he could not speak them. He could only sit, letting himself feel what he truly felt. He had no energy to deceive himself. Or her.

  Finally she withdrew her face, breaking their contact. “Now eat thy soup. I will get my portable writing desk.”

  He forced himself to eat, spoonful by spoonful, though the effort cost him. He watched her move about this log-cabin room. What a contrast. Her sister lived in a mansion, and her parents lived in a frontier cabin.

  For the first time he really looked around the comfortably furnished space, which combined the dining and sitting rooms. He took in the tall bookcase filled with leather volumes of different shades. If only he could walk to the books, pull each one out, and feel and smell the leather and the smooth pages.

  Faith sat down beside him again. “Shall we begin?”

  Dev nodded, dry-mouthed, and began to dictate the letter. He could not stop gazing at her. He had long ago adjusted to being a bachelor, but now he had a lovely and wonderful woman as his wife. And he was going to die without ever holding her in his arms. The bitter thought soured within.

  Faith looked to Devlin, who had finished dictating the letter. His eyelids were drooping. “I will send this off today,” she said. “Our neighbor is going to Cincinnati, and he will leave it at the post office there. That will get it on its way to Baltimore more quickly.”

  He barely nodded.

  She rose and carried the portable desk to the nearby sofa. Then she lifted the lunch tray from Devlin’s lap and took it to the table. When she returned to him, he’d already fallen asleep.

  The door opened and her mother entered, letting in cool wind. Honor immediately looked to Dev. “He’s asleep again?”

  “Yes.”

  “It must take the body an amazing amount of effort to heal.” Honor walked over to Faith. “Now, how is thee healing?”

  Faith rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “I cannot tell thee how horrible being in a war was. All of it. I feel like I’ve awakened from a bad dream. And I still feel guilty about leaving Honoree behind in the nightmare.” And Shiloh.

  Honor tucked her close and kissed Faith’s scarred cheek as if unaware of its ugliness. “I was never in a war, but the little I saw when we visited thee gave some taste of what thee faced daily. And now thee comes home married, and to a man who has been deeply wounded.” Honor released Faith and went to sit on the sofa, took out her knitting, and began working on something that looked like a baby sweater in white yarn.

  “We only married to meet propriety.” Faith looked to Devlin. “We had never talked of love or marriage.”

  “But that didn’t mean thee didn’t love him.”

  Faith could never hide much from her mother. Her heart sped up. “I do love him.”

  “And he loves thee?”

  “I know he has feelings for me. But we’re so different, Mother.” She recounted briefly the colonel’s refusal to free Armstrong, breaking his long-standing promise.

  “A house divided against itself?” Honor asked wisely, her fingers moving in and out of the yarn with the wooden knitting needles.

  “Yes.” Faith was grateful for her mother’s quick comprehension. She inhaled fully. “He can’t make up his mind. He’s at war with himself just like the Union and the Confederacy.”

  Honor looked to Dev. “He must come to his own resolution. Though he’s put off coming to a decision, I think it’s because he doesn’t believe he’s going to live.”

  “Yes. But I think he is going to. He is a strong man, and Dr. Bryant is a gifted surgeon.”

  “And thee is an excellent nurse,” Honor commented. “Then he will be forced to face the truth and work out his salvation.”

  Faith knew what her mother meant with those words. Her husband would have to look the truth in the eye and figure out how to accept God’s will.

  At that moment, Ella opened the door, returning from helping the neighbor. “How is the colonel?” Ella was already wearing a loose dress to accommodate her pregnancy. She came over to see Honor’s progress in knitting a garment for her coming baby.

  Faith smiled, thinking of the little one to come by spring—something good, something hopeful in this war-scarred and weary world.

  After Ella and Honor left to visit a neighborhood mother with a newborn, Faith reread the letter her husband had dictated. And then realized that he’d left out so much, no doubt because as far as his injuries were concerned, he was still not out of the woods—particularly in his own estimation. But more needed to be added. She must tell his mother everything, not leave her in ignorance. So she added a postscript of her own.

  Thy son married me, Faith Cathwell, the daughter of the house where he is staying.

  How could she explain that? Several possibilities came to mind, but she decided none would sound right on paper. She did her best, regardless:

  I was a nurse with the Union Army. My mother, Honor Cathwell, invites thee to come and stay with us. If thee comes to Cincinnati, ask to be taken to the Brightman-Ramsay house. My sister Blessing Ramsay lives there with her husband, and she will bring you to us in Sharpesburg. Please come.

  She reread the letter, dwelling momentarily on the news that Devlin’s cousin Jack had died. Dev had not given her or his mother any but the bare facts, though surely he was still affected by the experience.

  Faith dusted the sheet of stationery with sand and then folded and addressed it, sealing it with wax. She donned her shawl and hurried down the road to Thad Hastings’s house. He was leaving soon for Cincinnati.

  Faith hoped
Devlin’s mother would come here to visit. She didn’t believe her husband was going to die, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. The thought sliced her composure and exposed her fear.

  That night, Faith rose to go to the low fire to prepare her husband a cup of willow-bark tea laced with whiskey to help him sleep.

  In her robe and slippers, Ella came out of her bedroom and shooed Faith away from the kettle that hung on a hook over the fire. “I’ll brew the tea. You go sit with your man.”

  Still exhausted from the trip and from worry, Faith nodded and returned to the bedroom to prop her husband up in bed so he could drink the tea.

  Soon Ella entered, carrying a cup.

  Devlin let her hold the cup while he drank it down. Before the tea was drained, his eyelids had begun drooping. He finished the tea, and she helped him lie back down. She read suffering in his expression. And it cut to her heart.

  She carried the cup back into the main room and set it atop the tray resting on the table. Ella was sitting by the fire, staring into the flames. “Is anything wrong, Ella?” she murmured.

  “I don’t understand. I mean, I know the colonel and you liked each other, and I know you couldn’t travel with the colonel unless you was his wife, but you two don’t act married-like.” Ella looked to Faith in the low light from the fire and the candle on the mantel.

  Faith sank into the rocking chair across from Ella. Here in the dark with Ella—who wasn’t family and who had been in the war too—Faith found she could open up, speak her confusion. “We didn’t plan to marry. We never talked of love …”

  “But anyone who saw you two together knew that you cared for each other. It was plain as day.”

  “Just because two people care for one another doesn’t mean that they will marry.”

  “Why not?”

  Faith thought a moment. How to explain this to Ella, who saw life so much more simply? “What if thee hadn’t agreed with Landon that the Union must be preserved? Or what if he’d enlisted in the Confederate militia and you thought the Union must be preserved?”

  Ella very obviously considered this, rocking and staring into the fire. “I see. But you and the colonel both agree about being against slavery and for the Union.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean? I don’t want to be nosy, and I won’t repeat anything you tell me, but I want to understand.”

  “I wish it were easy to explain.” Faith burned with sudden irritation. “The colonel is caught in between. He owned a slave but was antislavery.”

  “You mean Armstrong?”

  “Yes. The colonel must settle the conflict in his own mind before the conflict between us can be resolved. He must take action.”

  “Like you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you can’t love him like a wife till he does?”

  “No, I could love him.” I do love him. “That’s not it.” Faith sighed. “It’s tangled. He can’t really love with a whole heart till his heart knows what it wants.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either, completely. I just feel the truth of it.”

  “I kind of see what you mean. Landon was really sure about not seceding. But he believed black people needed us to boss them. Now I don’t know. I see the men who work glass here. They’re black and they don’t need to be told what to do. And Honoree was as good a nurse as you. Will Landon and I quarrel if after the war I think black people should be free and he still doesn’t?”

  “I don’t know if thee will quarrel. But thee will both be different. People don’t go through a war and come out just the same.”

  “But you’re the same.”

  “On the outside I am, and my thoughts on slavery are the same, but I’ve had to give up seeking Honoree’s sister. That has changed.”

  Ella nodded. “Why can’t life be easier?”

  “Because men sin, disobey God.”

  “I just wish I could see Landon and hug him.”

  Knowing what this felt like, Faith stared into the fire before rising. “We need our sleep.” She offered Ella her hand.

  Ella rose and lifted the candle while Faith banked the fire low again. Ella accompanied her to her bedroom and then, after Faith kissed her good night on the cheek, she departed for her own room.

  Faith slipped into bed beside Devlin, wondering when he would make up his mind and settle matters within himself and with her. Open his eyes and let him see, Lord.

  DECEMBER 7, 1863

  December had come, and Dev had a hard time believing he was still alive. Alone in the house for once, he sat with his feet propped up on a stool by the fire, looking at the newspaper Samuel Cathwell had handed him on his way out the door earlier. The headline read, “Union Victory at Missionary Ridge.” He had not gotten farther than the name General William Sherman before his mind took him back to the days before he was wounded. His men had been in this battle, he was sure. Who had taken his place?

  Thinking of the war carried his thoughts to his wife, Faith. He still had some trouble believing they were married. As he grew stronger, being near her but not reaching for her as his wife had become more and more of a struggle. Did she want to be married to him in every sense, not just in name?

  His mind brought up her challenge to him about serving two masters. The whole question felt moot now. Armstrong was a freeman. Slavery would only survive if the North lost the war. The South was hanging on, but not for long. His uncle’s family in Maryland was losing its wealth and had already lost its sons.

  Dev had not yet regained his health. He ran a low fever every afternoon and evening. Everything around him had changed, but whenever he and Faith were alone, he still felt her leveling that challenge at him. What did it matter, really? He’d made the wrong choice when he hadn’t freed Armstrong, but—

  The sound of a carriage outside distracted him.

  He set the newspaper on his lap, hoping someone outdoors would see to the visitor. He couldn’t rise to answer.

  Blessing Ramsay, Faith’s eldest sister, came in without knocking. “Brother-in-law, someone is here to see thee.” She stepped aside.

  And his mother entered. “Son.”

  He gasped and could not speak. The paper slid to the floor. He tried to rise but could lift himself only inches, his hip shouting with pain.

  His mother hurried to him and bent to wrap her arms around his neck. “My son.”

  He felt her tears against his cheek. “Mother.” I didn’t think I’d live to see you again.

  “Honor Penworthy!” Dorothea exclaimed when later introduced to Faith’s mother, disbelief in her tone.

  From his place near the fire, Dev watched Faith’s mother move forward, a question in her expression.

  “Thee looks familiar, but … ,” Honor began.

  “I was Dorothea Carroll of Carroll Plantation. I was a debutante in Baltimore in 1814 with your cousin. I can’t remember her name, but she married Alec Martin. And she …”

  “She left him,” Honor said, gazing at Dorothea. “Now I remember thy family.” She offered Dorothea her hand, her expression inscrutable. “Welcome to my home.”

  Dev looked to Faith, who had entered with her mother. “Did you know my mother was coming?”

  “No, but I did invite her to come. With railroads and steamboats, travel is not as difficult as it once was,” Faith said blandly.

  She was fencing with him. She had added to the letter he’d dictated nearly a month ago without a word to him. He hid his irritation. What right did he have to complain?

  By evening all the introductions had been exhausted. Dev’s mother, now sitting across from him in a rocking chair by the fire, had unpacked her valises in the room she’d share with Ella. Faith was clearing the supper table, and Honor had gone out.

  Dev had watched Faith leave with the tray. His mother had risen to shut the door behind her. Alone at last—what he’d feared.

  “Where is Armstrong?” Dorothea asked, g
ently rocking her chair back and forth.

  “He enlisted.” Then Dev stared into the flames in the hearth.

  “I was afraid he might do that when his birthday arrived and you freed him.”

  The words nearly stuck in his throat, but he forced them out. “I refused to give him the manumission papers.”

  His mother stopped her chair. “You what?”

  “I knew he planned to enlist, so …”

  “So he did anyway.” She shook her head at him. “I blame my brother for this. If he hadn’t given Armstrong to you, you would never have been in that situation in the first place. It was underhanded of him since he knew why I’d left our home.”

  She gripped the carved wooden arms of her chair. “And that explains why I remembered Faith’s mother. She had the nerve to stand up to her family about slaveholding, on her own. She lost everything, but she took a stand. I merely found a man who agreed with me, married him, and left home and the problem behind me. Or tried to.”

  Dev processed this brand-new information. “Uncle Kane gave Armstrong to me to get back at you?”

  “To snare you.” Her lips twisted with disapproval. “If Bellamy died in a war, he wanted you to take over the plantation. He never trusted Jack. He was too much like Bellamy’s namesake, our father—wild and willful.”

  His mother’s sharp and unblushing assessment of his grandfather’s character startled Dev. She never said things like this.

  “Why didn’t you free Armstrong years ago?” Dorothea pressed him, leaning forward.

  Dev’s rationale seemed insufficient even to himself, so he said nothing.

  “Well, you need to sort that out.” She sat back. “This war is the end of slavery. You had best plan what your future will be.”

  What she said was true. But why did he need to sort matters out? Everything was changing around him. Did what he believed or thought matter anymore? The familiar discomfort at talk about the future tightened Dev’s nerves, made him jumpy.

  Faith reentered. “It’s beginning to rain.” She shook out her shawl before hanging it on one of the many pegs on the wall.

  “I notice my son is just sitting around,” Dorothea said. “I think tomorrow we’d best get him up walking.”