“It doesn’t matter,” she said distantly. “He can’t see me anyway.”
“It does matter,” Ketura said firmly, “and you know it. Besides, it won’t do Mr. Tremayne one bit of good for you to sit here and pass out in that chair, which is what you’ll do if you don’t get some rest. Now is as good a time as any. I’ll come wake you if there’s any change.”
“Come get me if he wakes up,” Jolie insisted. “I don’t care if it’s ten minutes from now.”
“All right, I will,” Ketura promised.
Jolie tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible. Battle raged near, and something was wrong with Morgan, she knew it. Something new. After about half an hour, she gave up, rose, and dressed. She went downstairs and out to the kitchen, where she knew Evetta and Amon would be. The boys were there, too.
“How is he?” Amon instantly demanded.
“I—I don’t know. Something’s wrong,” Jolie said hesitantly. “I mean, of course something’s wrong, but I mean he’s not resting as well as last night, and it worries me.”
Evetta’s face was grim. “Jolie, we don’t know how bad his injury is, really. It may be that—”
“No, don’t say it!” Jolie said loudly. “I know it, Evetta. Just please don’t say it.”
Evetta nodded with understanding.
Amon shook his head. “Y’know, those guns there is closer than they was yesterday. We might end up in the middle of a big ol’ bloody mess.”
“I know, but what can we do?” Jolie said. Then her face changed. “Oh, Amon, Amon. Of course you need to get your family out of here. You all take the wagon and go now, before they get any closer.”
Amon frowned darkly. “We thought of that, but we ain’t gonna do any such thing. First place, I know you wouldn’t let us move Mr. Tremayne, and you’d stay here with him, and that can’t be. Second place, Mr. Tremayne, he’d kill us if we runned off and left his horses. And where are we gonna go, anyways? ’Crost the river? There’s a big bunch of Yankees over there, and prob’ly in Fredericksburg and everywhere else ’round here they’re crawlin’ around. Onliest reason I said anything is to ask if you want us to hole up somewheres else, like the barn or the stables, maybe.”
Jolie frowned. “I don’t know, Amon,” she said at last. “You and Evetta would be able to decide that a lot better than I could.”
Amon’s fierce visage softened. He, like everyone else, had forgotten that Jolie was only eighteen years old. “I think the Lord’s going to have to watch over us whatever comes, and we might as well be comfortable in our houses as in a barn.”
“Good,” Jolie said heartily. “Maybe they won’t get this far east,” she said hopefully. “But if they do, you’re right, Amon. I can pray for protection here as well as somewhere else.” She hurried to the door.
Evetta sternly called after her, “I’m bringin’ you up some breakfast, missy, and you’re going to eat it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she called over her shoulder.
The battle did not rage at Rapidan Run. The two armies clashed all day long in the Wilderness. Jolie reflected that she wasn’t getting used to the continuous thunder of cannon and the spiking racket of thousands of muskets, but somehow she shut it out of her mind, and so she didn’t really hear it. Besides, she was so concentrated on Morgan that she was barely aware of anything else at all.
At about noon, he suddenly started shivering uncontrollably. As lightly as a snowflake, she laid her hand on his forehead and knew that he had a fever. She started laying cool, wet cloths on his forehead, though he still shivered convulsively. His fever got so high, and the heat given off him was so intense that the cloths were too warm only seconds after she had applied them to his forehead. She worked steadily, methodically, continually wetting a cloth and wringing it out and replacing the warm one and starting again. Ketura came in, and Jolie only looked up at her and said darkly, “No.”
After about an hour he stopped shivering, but then he started talking and thrashing about. “Not going to cold-shoe him. I’ve got to set up that forge,” he said clearly, his eyes open and glaring but obviously unseeing. “Have to move that mare. She’s too restless for Traveler.” He was restlessly making odd motions in the air with both hands, and fitfully he tossed his head from side to side.
Jolie held his wrists and began to wonder desperately if she might be able to force some laudanum down his throat when he abruptly calmed down. His arms dropped limply to the bed, and he lay still against the pillow. After a few moments, his eyes slowly closed. He began to murmur, but he spoke so weakly and softly that Jolie couldn’t understand anything he was saying.
Like an automaton, she began putting wet cloths on his forehead again, for he still gave off waves of heat from his entire body. She could feel it emanating from him when she bent over. Though outwardly she looked calm and controlled, inwardly she was ravaged by fear.
Is this brain fever? I’ve heard of it, and don’t people always die from it? Oh, God, no, no, no! If he dies I’ll kill myself!
No such dire thought had ever entered Jolie’s mind, and she drew herself up with alarm. “That’s not true,” she whispered to herself. “I’m so sorry, Lord. I’m so sorry….”
It was hard for her to gather her thoughts, but finally she was able to pray. Oh Lord, You know my heart, You know how much I love him and how much it frightens me to think that he might die. I don’t know if I even really mean this, Lord, but I say now to You: Your will be done. I pray for his healing, I pray that he will live, I pray that I’ll have the chance to tell him how much he means to me, how he is my whole life. But if…if…You take him…Your will be done.
She repeated these words and variations of them many times over, all afternoon into the evening. Ketura came in every half hour or so, but Jolie rarely even looked up, she was so absorbed in her prayers and attending Morgan. When Amon came in as night fell, she looked up and said with wonder, “They’ve stopped firing.”
He nodded. “Artillery stopped after only coupla hours. The onliest reason we could hear the muskets this far is ’cause there must have been ’bout a hunnerd thousand of ’em blasting all at the same time. He crossed his muscular arms and said quietly, “The Wilderness, it’s on fire.”
“Is it close?” she asked anxiously.
“No, thank the Lord Jesus for another mercy on this day,” he said fervently. “Them two armies stayed all bunched up ’bout four miles over, and that’s where the fire is. I guess it might get over this far, but I doubt it. Calm night tonight, no wind, and it’d have to jump a coupla pretty good streams, Rosh and Santo tells me.”
“Thank You, Lord,” she said simply.
She had not thought it possible, but Morgan’s fever seemed to go even higher as night fell. Every once in a while his whole body jerked, and he would say something she could hear, though his voice was thick and sluggish. Once he blurted out, “Tell Ketura I was wrong. It is haunted.” Mostly he muttered things about caring for horses. An hour later he said, “Scout from headquarters, here’s my pass.” Still later, “Meredith, Perry, we’ve got to strike the tent.”
Finally he got so quiet and still that Jolie, for a heartwrenching moment, thought that he had died. She knelt by his bedside and grabbed his hand, which still burned, to her great relief. Tiredly she laid her head down beside their clasped hands. If he lives, I’m going to tell him. I have to. I won’t while he’s feverish and not able to understand. I’ll wait until he’s better. He’ll get better…and I’ll tell him, first thing.
His fever lessened, but he sank visibly into a deep stupor. Jolie watched him hour after hour, clinging to his hand. She thought that she could actually see him wasting away. He seemed to be getting thinner, his jawbones and cheekbones on the uninjured right side of his head appeared to be more prominent. She was afraid to leave him, because she was terrified that each long breath was his last.
When the north windows grew into a light gray instead of charcoal gray, she knew it was dawn, and sh
e thought that she was so agitated that she might be getting a fever herself.
The sun rose again, and the light now streaming through the windows seemed offensively bright and cheerful. Jolie rubbed her gritty eyes and stared back at Morgan. Then she leaned forward and laid her hand on his forehead then against his chest. There was no mistake, he was definitely cooler. In fact, he felt a little clammy, so she pulled the sheet up and gently arranged his arms outside it with his hands resting on his chest. He looked more natural that way.
Ketura came and went a couple of times.
Jolie thought it had been a couple of hours since dawn when Morgan slowly opened his eyes and then licked his lips. “Here, Morgan,” she said, lifting his head and holding the glass to his lips. He took several small sips then laid back, seemingly content.
Jolie set down the glass and leaned over close to him. “Morgan, dear, it’s Jolie. Can you hear me?”
“Sure,” he whispered weakly. “Hi, Jolie.”
“Hi,” she said awkwardly. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
She stood up, leaned over, and cradled his face between her hands. She looked straight into his eyes, though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Morgan, I love you. I love you so very much, with everything that is in me. I loved you when I first met you, when I was nine years old. I loved you with a child’s love for years, until I knew that I loved you as a woman loves the man of her dreams. That’s what you are to me, Morgan. You always have been. The best man I could ever dream of.”
His eyes widened as she talked. When she finished, she let go, sat down in her easy chair, and took a deep breath. I did it, Lord, and no matter what he says to me, I’m glad I did.
Morgan turned his head as if he were watching her. “Jolie, are you sure?” he asked in a deep voice, much stronger than before.
“I’m sure. I’ve been sure for a long time.”
“But I’m blind,” he said darkly. “How could you love a blind man?”
“I don’t love some blind man. I love you.”
Her simplicity delighted him, and he managed a small smile. “I love you, too, Jolie.”
“You do?” she said, astonished. “But how do you know? When did you know?”
“I’m not too sure about how I know,” he admitted. “But I knew it for sure and certain when I woke up and you were there. I was so happy. I was so thankful that I loved you and you were with me that I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”
She dropped to her knees by his bedside and pressed her lips to his hand. “No, you didn’t die, and you didn’t go to heaven. You just came home. Home to me.”
That day they heard no artillery, and if there were muskets firing, there weren’t enough of them for the sound to travel to Rapidan Run. Morgan slept off and on all day and slept soundly and quietly for twelve hours that night. Two mighty armies only four miles away marched south.
The next day the armies clashed again at Spotsylvania. For two weeks, combat would rage all around Spotsylvania Court House.
Morgan was able to sit up enough to sip some beef broth boiled fortified with red wine.
Evetta had brought up a bowl and spoon, and Jolie started to feed Morgan.
A quick spasm of pain crossed his face, and he said, “Please, no, please don’t feed me. Put it in a mug.” He managed quite well.
For the next two days, fighting raged in a salient that came to be called the Bloody Angle. The men in blue and the men in gray locked in vicious hand-to-hand combat for twenty hours.
Morgan was able to sit up longer and gained strength to talk more. He asked Jolie to read Great Expectations to him. On the fourth night he was there, he didn’t need any laudanum to help him sleep. The next day he asked Amon to help him get out of bed, and he sat in Jolie’s chair for nearly an hour. He continued to improve daily.
On May 21st, Ulysses S. Grant, after battering futilely against the entrenched and fortified Army of Northern Virginia, disengaged from Spotsylvania and continued his advance south, toward Richmond. Lee parried him again at Cold Harbor. On June 3rd, the Union lost seven thousand men in one assault, a hopeless and needless engagement that Grant later heartily regretted. By June 15th, he had seen that the approaches to Richmond were too well defended, and so he shifted his army south toward Petersburg.
On that day, Morgan and Jolie sat outside on the front porch steps, holding hands.
“Morgan,” she said decisively, “we have to get married.”
He turned to her. Even though he still could see nothing at all, he always responded by turning to the speaker. “What?” he stammered. “Get married?”
“I am speaking English, you know,” Jolie said very slowly and deliberately. “Yes. We have to get married. As soon as possible.”
“But—but why do we have to get married?” Morgan said, bewildered.
“Don’t make it sound like I’m telling you that you have to dig a ditch or something,” Jolie said impatiently. “Don’t you want to marry me?”
“Well, well, yes, sure. You just kind of took me by surprise. Uh—okay. But what’s the hurry?”
Jolie rolled her eyes heavenward. “You know. I told you that I loved you, and you told me that you loved me. So that means that we want to be together forever and ever. And that means that we’re engaged to be married. But I’m living with you, in your house, and that used to be all right, but now it’s not. So we need to get married fast.”
Morgan listened to this undeniable progression of logic with amazement. Then he threw back his head and laughed. It felt good, and he thought that he couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed out loud. “Hm, I’m beginning to see that you’re going to be way ahead of me on some things.”
“A lot of things, probably.”
“A lot of things. So I guess you don’t want to take a little time and think about it?”
“No, I don’t have to because I’ve been dreaming about it since I was thirteen years old. And you can’t use that excuse either. You’ve always been a man to go ahead and get done whatever you’ve decided to do.”
“Like digging ditches,” he said, “and now getting married. Okay. But I’m also a man that wants to do things right.” He reached around to get his bearings, half stood, then groped until he could figure out how to kneel in front of Jolie on the step below her. He took her hand in his and said, “Jolie DeForge, I, too, love you with my whole heart. Even though I’m in darkness, when I’m with you I feel as if I’m standing in radiant light. Would you do me the very great honor of consenting to be my wife?”
And now Jolie was speechless.
Morgan leaned forward, and Jolie clasped him to her eagerly to kiss him for the first time. All the desire and longing coursed through her, and Morgan responded with his own long-denied passion. The kiss lasted for a long, long time.
They were married on July 1, 1864, at Rapidan Run. The Reverend Melzi Chancellor, whose family owned the big house that had given its name to Chancellorsville, consented to come to the house to perform the ceremony. Their only witnesses were Amon and his family, and Jolie and Morgan couldn’t have been happier.
“My family’s going to kill me,” he had said, “but they’re just going to have to come to understand, as I did, that it was an emergency.”
They were blissfully happy. It seemed that they were on an island, with their closest friends and their horses. War and sorrow and fear seemed far away.
In the middle of the month, they were in the stables early in the morning. Jolie was happily mucking out Rowena’s stall, and Morgan sat on a stool. He faced her, and Jolie thought that if she hadn’t known he was blind, she could swear he was watching her. He had lost that stark glare he’d had when he first came home. It had slowly gone away, along with the terrible swelling and bruising on the left side of his face. Now, a month and a half later, the only remnant was a slight swelling just on Morgan’s left temple, behind the hairline.
As if he were reading her mind, he asked
abruptly, “What do I look like?”
She smiled as she looked up, and she noted with interest that Morgan’s frown lightened and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. Maybe he is watching me, she thought with amusement. Somehow, in some way we don’t understand. It’s a miracle that he’s here, and that I’m his wife. I’ll believe in any gift You give me, Lord.
“When I was nine years old, I remember the first day you came to DeForge House. That night I told Mr. DeForge that you were pretty.”
“Pretty? No man wants to be pretty!” Morgan exploded.
“That’s what he told me, but he was nicer and quieter about it,” Jolie said severely. “But you are, in a way, you know. What I mean is that your face is fine, your features are clean-cut and clear, not heavy and thick like so many other men. You’re not feminine, Morgan, but you are pretty.”
“I’m not—oh, forget it,” Morgan grumbled. “All I meant was did I still have bruising around my eye and cheekbone.”
“No, you don’t. Now get off that stool and get over here and help me curry Rowena,” she said bossily.
He got up, felt his way over to the stall, found a curry brush hanging on a peg, and started on Rowena’s right side while Jolie did her left. “I’ve wished a thousand times that I had seen you sometime during that year and a half I was away. I’ve still got stuck in my mind a little girl, looking up at me wide eyed and worried. And that Christmas day, when you were sitting in that raggedy old armchair, hugging your knees, looking out at the snow…You looked like a little girl then, too, peeping through a window out onto a fairytale land. I know you’re no little girl, Jolie. I know you’re a grown woman, and I know you must be beautiful,” he said wistfully.
“Four hundred ninety-five days,” she said. “I didn’t see you for four hundred ninety-five days. Anyway, you can picture me in your mind, Morgan. And it will probably be better than I actually am.”
“I doubt that,” he said.
“Hand me the mane comb, would you? I’m going to really give her a going-over today,” Jolie said. “And you’re going to help me.”
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