His One Woman
Page 22
‘She was right. For good or ill you are, were and shall be the one woman for me. The one woman of whom my father spoke, and whom he found to transform his life, as I hope that you will transform mine. I parted amicably with Peggy and I later heard that she had married an older man, the editor of one of the magazines for which she wrote. I sent a letter to her wishing her well—as she had wished me when we parted. “Find that woman, Jack,” she wrote back to me, “and marry her.” As with Avory, you must not be jealous of her since it was that advice which brought me back to you when my duty led me to Washington. Otherwise, I might not have come looking for you.’
‘Thank God you did,’ said Marietta, kissing first Jack and then Cobie because Cobie looked unhappy at being left out of the caressing stakes.
‘Tell me, if it does not still distress you too much, when was he born?’
‘No, it does not distress me to speak of it, and even if it did, you should know the details of your son’s birth. He was nearly a month early, for which I was grateful because he was already so large,’ Marietta told him, smiling reminiscently.
‘He came into the world on March 9th, the same day as the Battle of Hampton Roads—of which I did not learn until many months later. He was most inconsiderate because he spoiled everyone’s midday meal with the speed of his arrival. One minute I was putting greens on to boil, and in the next he was on the way. He has made up for that since by being the most agreeable and happy child a mother could be blest with. He rarely cries.’
‘Putting greens on to boil!’ Jack exclaimed at this revelation of a Marietta whose duties, when he had known her, had been so far removed from the mundane tasks of the kitchen.
Marietta laughed a little. ‘Oh, I had to do my share of the work. The Hentys were quite poor and I refused to be pampered. Besides, I liked being mindless then.’
Jack was struck by another thought. ‘You say that he was born on the day of the great naval battle—around midday. How very strange. Do you remember that when we first met I spoke to you of the warship which was to become the Monitor? We joked about it, did we not—remember the exploding muffins? I was on board the Monitor on the day of the battle, as an observer for Ericsson and the Navy Department. I was busy wondering whether I should ever see land, let alone New York, ever again when the oddest thing happened.’
How was he to tell her of having seen her in the middle of the battle without sounding remarkably eccentric? He stopped to consider his words, but before he could speak again, Marietta said slowly, equally struck, ‘How strange, I had an odd experience just before Cobie was born. Tell me of yours.’
Her tone was so insistent that Jack forgot all caution and continued, ‘Our captain was struck to the deck and blinded. I went to help him, for I tried to do my bit in the battle. When I bent down, saying to him, “Hold on, help is at hand,” he disappeared, and I suddenly thought that I saw you, lying down in bed, with Aunt Percival nearby. You were in pain, but before I could say, or see, anything more, you disappeared and I was back with Worden.
‘I never told anyone of this—other than my brother, Alan, when I wrote to him a little later. You may think me mad, but I would swear on oath that that is what I saw in the middle of the noise of battle.’
Marietta’s face had turned white with shock.
‘Oh, Jack, you have explained something which happened to me at the moment Cobie was born, something which I have never been able to understand, and I have tried to forget. I never even told Aunt Percival of it, and I usually tell her everything.
‘I was in the last agonies of birth when you suddenly appeared before me, stretching out your hand. You were hardly recognisable. Your face was black and your forehead was bleeding. You were speaking. You said, and I still remember quite clearly what it was, “Hold on, help is at hand”—and then you disappeared.’
It was Jack’s turn to look thunderstruck.
‘My face was black and my forehead was bleeding that day,’ he finally came out with. ‘What you saw of me was true only on that one day because I had taken part in the battle, replacing one of the dead sailors—which explains the black of the powder on my face. My forehead was gashed and bleeding because a shell from the Merrimac scored a direct hit on the Monitor’s gun turret and a fragment of its metal struck my forehead. Fortunately it was only a fragment, or I should not be here, talking to you. How strange that you should have seen me so plainly as to be able to describe me so accurately.’
‘The only explanation which I can think of,’ said Marietta carefully, ‘is that at a moment of great crisis for the pair of us, the bond between us was still so strong that, somehow, for a brief moment in time, we were able to reach out to one another, quite without trying.’
‘That is a possible explanation,’ returned Jack, ‘but it goes quite against all the rules by which we run our lives.’
‘True,’ said Marietta, ‘and it is something which we ought not to dwell on too much, except to remember what Shakespeare once said, in Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy!”’
They were silent again, contemplating the mysteries of life: the chance by which they had met at all, and the providence which had brought them together again, and given Cobie back to his father.
It was Jack who spoke first. ‘Some day I will tell you everything I have done both at Hampton Roads and later in the Naval War in the South—but not today. Today is a day of celebration and I simply want to sit here in peace and tranquillity, enjoying the son whom I never knew that I possessed.
‘Oh, Marietta, you do realise that it is only by the merest chance that I have found you both…’
He put his arm around her again, and hugged her and his son together, the tears not far away. Presently he handed her Cobie, who had begun to protest a little at being held so tightly.
‘You do understand, and it is only fair to tell you so immediately, that if you marry me you will have to leave Washington. I have bought a big empty mansion on Long Island which will be perfect for you and the children. Our life will not be easy at first, even when the war is over. Before then, I have my duties to Ericsson and the Navy Department. After that I shall take over the running of Butler and Rutherfurd’s, something which I am busy arranging with Ezra in the intervals of reporting on the Naval War to the Cabinet. You will be marrying a busy man, I fear.’
‘I would not have it otherwise,’ responded Marietta, ‘and I shall not be unhappy at the prospect of leaving Washington because it will mean leaving behind Sophie and the unhappiness which she has caused us. Remember what Ruth said in the Bible: “Whither though goest I will go.” I am used to living with a hard-working man and trying to make his life easy. What I did for my father I shall try to do for you, my darling, but never at the cost of neglecting our children—those we already have, as well as those we hope to have.’
‘Spoken like my true love,’ said Jack. ‘You remind me of my mother. Even though you do not look in the least like her, you are also of the same true metal—gold all the way through.’
‘So, Cobie, darling,’ Marietta said to the child on her knee, ‘we shall all go to New York with Uncle Jack, as you must learn to call him, for I fear that for your sake, rather than mine, we shall have to continue to deceive the world about your origin, so you may not call him father.’
Jack nodded a sad agreement. ‘All the same, I shall treat him and Susanna as I would treat my own for their sake and for the sake of the man who cared enough for you to give my son a name. Never forget that although Sophie robbed us of two years together she gave you Avory and Susanna, and made of me the man that my father always hoped I would be. Besides, the war cannot last for ever. The South is already beaten but does not know it.’
For a moment they were both sad at what the war was doing to the country which was now to be Jack’s home as well as Marietta’s. The moment passed, though, when the veranda door opened and Susanna ran towards them.
‘Mama,
Aunt Percival says, is Uncle Jack staying for lunch, for if so, she will lay another place for him.’
‘He is staying for more than lunch, I hope,’ said Marietta, smiling, handing Jack his son again, and bending to kiss the little girl.
‘Oh, good!’ exclaimed Susanna, taking hold of Jack’s free hand. ‘He will not be taking Cobie away with him,’ she added shrewdly.
‘He will take us all away with him, quite soon,’ said Marietta. ‘On a train to New York and then on a steamer to our new home.’
‘I have never been on a steamer,’ said Susanna in her old-fashioned way as they all walked into the house. ‘It will be quite a new life for us, will it not?’
Jack smiled lovingly at Marietta over the top of Cobie’s head, and she smiled back.
‘A new life, indeed,’ he said, ‘and a happy one, I hope.’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-2960-0
HIS ONE WOMAN
Copyright © 2000 by Paula Marshall
First North American Publication 2006
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