His One Woman

Home > Other > His One Woman > Page 12
His One Woman Page 12

by Paula Marshall


  This didn’t answer, either. The bravado which Sophie had assumed since dawn, and before the rout began, had quite disappeared. It had been lost at the moment when she was confronted with the stark realities of war. Left to herself, she would have stayed on the ground and refused to rise. Someone else must save her, preferably a man, and certainly not Marietta, whom she resented more bitterly than ever for her brave attempts to save them both from a terrible fate.

  She underestimated her cousin’s determination to survive. Marietta pulled Sophie to her feet, slapped her hard on the cheek and began to lift her skirts in order to rip the crinoline cage from her.

  Sophie’s screams stopped. She shrieked at her cousin, ‘You beast, you beast, you hit me,’ but she consented at last to help Marietta to untie her crinoline cage. She stepped out of it and, complaining bitterly, allowed Marietta to use her sash to tie up her skirts so that she could walk more freely.

  They set off again. Marietta gripped Sophie’s hand as firmly as she could, while Sophie howled at her, ‘I shall never forgive you for hitting me, never. No, never,’ before wrenching her hand away and sitting down again.

  ‘Oh, damn that,’ said Marietta, forgetting everything ladylike by which she had always lived. ‘Think rather how we are to get home again—and we shan’t do that by cursing each other.’

  She took Sophie’s hand again, pulled her to her feet, and began to drag her along in the direction in which she thought Centerville lay. If they could reach there they might yet survive—but it would have to be by their own efforts: the retreating troops were ignoring their plight, concerned only with trying to save themselves.

  They walked and stumbled for about a mile with Marietta taking progressively more and more of Sophie’s weight, occasionally half-carrying her. The further Marietta led them away from the road where they might be trapped, the rougher the ground grew until they came to one of the many shallow streams for which the district was famous.

  Sophie collapsed on to the bank. Exhaustion was preventing her from screaming. She whispered in a dull, defeated voice, ‘I really can’t go any further. You can’t ask me to. Someone will have to carry me across the water.’

  Marietta’s patience snapped again. Dragging Sophie along was tiring her to the point of collapse, but somehow she had, so far, managed to find a reserve of strength which she had not known she possessed. Despite her dislike for her cousin, she had no wish to save herself and return to Washington on her own, leaving Sophie behind to suffer whatever doom awaited her.

  She hauled Sophie to her feet, and shook her violently, shouting into her face, ‘If you won’t try to save your own life, at least think a little of mine. I didn’t even want to come on this stupid expedition, and if you won’t help yourself I shall leave you here to be a plaything for the Rebel soldiers when they capture you.’

  Sophie was so astonished by Marietta’s ferocity that she allowed herself to be dragged into the water. Both of them slipped and stumbled on the stones, their skirts growing progressively heavier as they worked their way across the stream. Sophie’s light shoes were useless for this sort of work and Marietta’s own strong pair fared little better: they were not intended for a forced march across open country.

  Their dreadful walk now began to take its toll on Marietta. Her strength was gradually being drained by the efforts of supporting her cousin, who was still making so little effort to help herself. Both women were bathed in sweat; their wet hair clung to their heads and faces, their clothing to their bodies; their feet were blistered and their breathing had turned into a desperate loud panting.

  Marietta dared not allow them to rest, for she was fearful that if they stopped Sophie would not be able to start again; only the knowledge that the Confederate Army was hard on their heels kept her going. Once they had left the stream behind she saw that the traffic on the road had slackened a little.

  There had been a break in the retreat, caused later, she was to find, by the road bridge, further downstream from where they had crossed, being hit by a shell, thus splitting the retreat into two. It also meant that gun and private carriages were stranded on the wrong side from Washington. At the time, seeing that the retreating crowd had thinned, Marietta steered Sophie back towards the road where walking would be easier for them.

  And then the unbelievable happened.

  Marietta heard her name being called.

  She turned in the direction of the sound to see, of all people in the world, Jack Dilhorne.

  Jack, who had left the field when it became apparent that the Union Army had lost the battle, had been caught up in the mêlée, but had fortunately managed to cross the bridge just before it was hit. He had stopped for a moment in order to allow both his horse and driver to rest when he had seen two women walking in the cornfield adjacent to the road.

  To his horror he recognised Marietta and Sophie. He stood up and waved and shouted to them, calling Marietta’s name in desperation. How, in God’s name, and by what means, had they come to be here, caught in the general rout—and alone?

  The feeling of relief which swept over him when he finally caught Marietta’s attention was almost overwhelming in its strength. Sophie he barely recognised, so bedraggled and filthy was her appearance.

  Jack’s face was white with shock. It was bad enough to find himself caught up in the retreat, being fired at by the enemy, but to discover that Marietta was lost in it, too, almost overwhelmed him.

  ‘What in the world are you doing here, Marietta?’ he exclaimed when the two women reached the buggy. ‘And Sophie, also,’ he added the last almost as an afterthought as he jumped from the buggy to help the two exhausted women into it.

  ‘Too long a story to tell you now,’ panted Marietta, helping him to lift Sophie into the vehicle, using her last reserves of strength to do so. Sophie could not speak at all. The sight of Jack had set her crying, from relief this time, for here at last was the saviour for whom she had been waiting: a man to see her safely home—and save her from Marietta.

  All three of them were light-headed from relief and exhaustion after the terrible events of the long day. Marietta clung to Jack’s hand when he helped her into the carriage: seeing him was manna in the desert for her. She now had someone who would help her to reach home safely—God willing.

  She explained briefly that Hamilton Hope had brought them to see the battle and how they had come to be lost and abandoned in the thick of the rout.

  ‘You are not hurt, Marietta?’ he said when she had finished, again adding as an afterthought, ‘And Sophie, too.’

  Sophie who was beginning to recover a little, was enraged that he had taken so little notice of her—he seemed to have eyes only for Marietta. She said in an angry voice, ‘Oh, do let us get away. This is no time for billing and cooing. We are not safe; the enemy is almost upon us.’

  Jack ignored her until he saw Marietta comfortably seated before ordering the boy to drive on. His evident concern for her cousin started Sophie sobbing again. He turned to her, saying, ‘Are you hurt, Sophie? I wouldn’t like to stop the carriage, but if its motion troubles you—’

  She interrupted him, muttering, ‘Only my face. It’s only my face which hurts me. She hit me. Marietta hit me—here,’ and put her hand on to her cheek.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ exclaimed Marietta. ‘I only did so to make you take off your crinoline cage so that you would be able to walk more easily. If I hadn’t, we should both have been captured by the rebels by now, and what do you think would have happened to us then?’

  Sophie ignored this, putting out her hand to show it to Jack. ‘And she hurt my wrist when she pulled me along—look, she bruised it.’

  It was true that her hand and wrist were scarlet, but that was because of the strength which Marietta had needed to use to drag her to safety since she had refused to help herself.

  Jack, who had seen Marietta pulling her along when he had first caught sight of them, said to her as gently as he could, ‘I’m sure that Marietta wa
s doing all she could to get you safely home.’

  Sophie’s sniffles grew louder and she began to shiver dramatically. ‘And I’m so cold and wet because she dragged me through the stream as well.’

  Nothing would silence her. Jack took off his coat and put it around her shoulders in order to quieten her as much as to warm her. He ordered the boy to take off his jacket and give it to Marietta so that she could be protected as well. He was quite aware that only Marietta’s courage and determination had brought the two women to a place where they could be rescued, and that she had succeeded in doing so without Sophie’s co-operation.

  More and more he was coming to admire her as well as love her: it was difficult to tell where one feeling ended and the other began. How could the Hopes have been so foolish as to take her to watch a battle—and then lose her? She was sitting quietly now, still composed, her face white except for the mauve smudges of exhaustion about her eyes and mouth.

  After a time Sophie fell into a dazed sleep, worn out by the long day and its horrors. Jack took Marietta’s hand into his own, and when she, too, slept, it was on his shoulder, his arm now around hers, until they reached the outskirts of Washington where he gently roused her, leaving Sophie to sleep until they reached the Hamilton Hopes’ doorway.

  When, carried along by the rout, they arrived back in Washington, the Hopes had been almost beside themselves. Hamilton Hope had tried to turn back when they had reached Centerville, only to be prevented by the military. Belatedly they had now recognised that the presence of civilians on the battlefield had been a mistake, and were busily engaged in moving them on without consideration for wealth, position or senatorial rank.

  To Hamilton’s plea that his daughter and niece were lost, he was told that even more dead and wounded had been left behind on the battlefield and in the general rout, and that to try to find two females in the general disorder would be a hopeless task.

  ‘Doubtless someone will rescue them, if they are seen,’ said the harassed staff officer whom Sophie’s distracted father had approached, waving his rank as a State Senator and his brother Jacobus’s as a senior member of Lincoln’s government. Neither brought him any assistance. Instead, he was told, roughly, to be on his way at once; he was merely holding up the Army’s intention to regroup before the rebels marched on Washington—for such was the immediate fear.

  They had reached home shortly before nine o’clock at night to find the town buzzing with rumours of the hideous defeat which the arrival of the demoralised remnants of the Union Army and the civilian refugees merely confirmed. The notion that the Unionists had simply to show themselves to defeat the damned rebels lay in ruins. No one now doubted that the enemy was formidable, and that the war would be long and hard.

  So complete had the South’s victory been, so utter the rout, that if, in those last days of July, the Southern Armies had advanced on the panic-stricken capital the possibility of victory was theirs. They were never to be so near to it again.

  Hamilton and Serena Hope sat, numb with despair in their drawing-room, denied the possibility of return to search for Sophie and Marietta—fearful that they were dead or dying.

  ‘Or worse,’ said Hamilton, who was beginning to think the unthinkable—that he might never see his daughter again.

  ‘What shall I say to Jacobus if his daughter is lost?’ he said. ‘Who could have thought that such a disaster would be possible? They should all be shot, all of them, generals and private soldiers alike. Shameful, their behaviour was shameful. It is only God’s mercy that they have not taken the capital itself.’

  He had forgotten the euphoric mood of the morning when they had set out so gaily to see the battle.

  The journey back to Washington was long and hard, not only for Jack and his companions but for all the struggling crowds who walked and rode towards salvation. Somewhere among them Russell sat on his horse, mentally composing his dismal tale of rout and panic for his Times despatch. It was an account which was to enrage the entire North since it told of incompetence, cowardice and failure. The greater the truth the more it hurt. The infant Republic writhed beneath the scorn of Europe. The sheer ferocity with which the North later fought the war owed a great deal to the derision which it had earned at Bull Run or First Manassas, as the battle was also known.

  During the long drive home, Jack wondered how long the North would hold out after such an unforeseen and stunning defeat. He remembered, though, that Alan had told him that the war would be a long one and that the North’s victory would not be easily achieved, but that they would certainly win in the end.

  His main consideration was to see the cousins safely home. Later, when they reached harbour, as it were, at one in the morning, beneath a splendid moon, and he handed them over to the Hopes, they could not say or do enough to thank him for rescuing them.

  ‘No,’ he said to Hamilton Hope, drinking the brandy and eating the food which the Hopes had forced on him, ‘I didn’t rescue them. Marietta had done that long before I arrived on the scene. They were clear of the enemy then, thanks to the bridge being blown up behind them. One way or another, Marietta would have made sure they reached home again: her courage was exemplary.’

  He said nothing of Sophie for there was nothing to say. He had watched the two women being taken up to bed to be bathed and cosseted, but not before, unseen, while they waited for the Hopes’ butler to answer the door, he had kissed Marietta on the cheek in return for her gallantry, and had whispered to her that he hoped that it would be the first of many more yet to come.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘A ball! The Van Horns are going to give a ball tonight, only two days after the battle—what can they be thinking of?’

  Ezra Butler, who had not experienced the realities of war as Jack had, shrugged his shoulders. ‘Van Horn’s words to me were, “The damned secessionists shan’t stop me from ordering my life as I may, defeat or not.” Since I agree with him I intend to go. Nothing is gained by putting on mourning: a brave face is much better.’

  ‘I suppose there’s something in that,’ agreed Jack thoughtfully. ‘I have had an invitation so I’ll accompany you.’

  He wondered if Marietta had sufficiently recovered from her ordeal to attend.

  Ezra smiled. He knew why Jack was so eager to visit the Van Horns. ‘It’s Marietta Hope you want to see again, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘You should know that she’s with the Hamilton Hopes at present—after all, you took her there the other night.’

  ‘I don’t particularly wish to visit the Hamilton Hopes,’ said Jack, who had no desire to see Sophie, who had been so hateful to Marietta who had saved her. He was unaware that Marietta had already returned home, unwilling to be in Sophie’s company after her conduct during the retreat. She was fearful that she might lose her temper and say something unforgivable.

  She had hugged the memory of the drive home from Manassas to her heart. She and Jack had barely spoken. They had both been tired and exhausted, but speech had not been needed. She had fallen asleep because she trusted him and was happy in his presence, whatever the external danger.

  The following morning he had sent a messenger round to the Hopes’ residence with a note in which he trusted that she was feeling recovered after her ordeal and in which he praised her bravery. It was after that that she had made her decision to leave the Hopes, even if it meant living alone until Aunt Percival or her father returned. Fortunately, Aunt Percival, her midwifery duties over, had arrived back in Washington on the afternoon of the battle, although the Senator was still absent.

  Ignorant of all this, Jack found himself at the Van Horns’ place where, despite everything, those in Washington who had spent Sunday watching and fleeing from the battle, now spent Tuesday evening enlivening others’ dull lives with their tales of it. He looked eagerly around for Marietta, but he could not see her.

  Bored, and about to leave, fearing that he might yet have to risk a visit to the Hamilton Hopes, he looked in the conservatory where he could h
ear voices and a woman’s low laughter. It was Sophie. She was surrounded by her cavaliers and was entertaining them with her adventures in the rout.

  To hear her talk it was she who had saved Marietta, and looking at her as she sat there, enchanting in forget-me-not blue, it was difficult to reconcile her appearance with that of the bedraggled, complaining doll whom Marietta and he had hauled into the buggy. He could have borne her lying and deceitful account except that someone asked after Marietta, and Sophie said, with a laugh, ‘Oh, she is here, but what a pother and to-do she made in the rout.’

  She pulled a comically deprecating face, and altogether made it sound as though Marietta had been the one who had needed to be shouted at and coaxed and cajoled to behave properly.

  Disgusted, Jack walked into the conservatory. She saw him come in and her face closed. She had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, raising her little bouquet to her lips, ‘the very man. I was just telling my friends of our adventures after the battle and of your gallantry.’

  It was unwise, if not to say ungentlemanly, but Jack could not prevent himself. ‘And were you telling your friends, Sophie, of how you shrieked and screamed and needed to be half-carried home by Marietta—and of your lack of gratitude for her saving you?’

  Her pretty face suddenly grew ugly. ‘One has to suppose,’ she said, unable to resist a savage thrust at him, ‘that an ugly bean-pole has to be of some use for something—Marietta would have made a useful drill sergeant, don’t you think?’ and her eyes glared at him.

  Jack had immediately regretted his own outburst, but to hear her malign and belittle the woman who had saved her had been too much for him to endure without reproaching Sophie for her blatant untruths.

  Sophie, too, was beginning to regret the spite which had filled her voice and had caused some of her hearers to have second thoughts about her which were not quite so flattering as their first. She added, with a toss of her pretty head, ‘I suppose that you wish to report to her. She and Aunt Percival are doing their devoirs with all the old Senators from Capitol Hill. Such a bore.’ Her light laughter followed him out of the conservatory.

 

‹ Prev