by Jane Peart
As they rounded the last bend, Montclair came into view. In the gray veil of rain that almost obscured it, the great house still had an austere beauty, the slanted roof outlined majestically against the dark, clouded sky. The welcoming arms, steps that had been added when Sara came here a bride, seemed less welcoming today, Garnet thought, and she noticed that all the windows were shuttered. It gave her a strange feeling of foreboding.
chapter
23
OH, GARNET, how wonderful to see you!" Rose exclaimed, greeting Garnet at the door. "Mama has been so anxious to learn when you would be arriving that I could hardly get her to take a rest. Come into the parlor first and warm yourself. You must be chilled to the bone from your long ride."
Rose seemed thinner than Garnet remembered, but her eyes were luminous, her face radiant as if from some inner joy.
Garnet handed her rain-dampened cape to Bessie who came scurrying to fetch it, then she followed Rose into the parlor, kicked off her wet slippers, and sank down on the rug in front of the fireplace, holding out her hands to its warmth. To cover her sudden awkwardness in finding Rose in such distressed circumstances, she began to chatter mindlessly. Garnet felt guilty she had stayed away so long, leaving all the responsibilities they should have shared, to Rose.
"Have you heard from Malcolm lately?" she blurted and was surprised to see Rose blush.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, just today." A smile lighted Rose's face. "He's with General Lee in western Virginia. He wasn't able to get leave for Christmas. Jonathan was terribly disappointed, of course."
Garnet turned away, unable to look at Rose. Didn't Rose know that General Lee's men were suffering severely in the bitter mountain cold, where supplies were not able to reach them due to heavy snows? She bit her lip. Maybe, isolated here at Montclair, Rose had not heard all the news.
Garnet was saved from the necessity of making more conversation by the sound of a child's voice, and a minute later, Jonathan, accompanied by Linny, came to the doorway. At once he broke away and ran into the room, plunging himself into Rose's arms. From that haven he peeked at Garnet mischievously.
"Say hello to your Aunt Garnet, Jonathan," Rose instructed softly, cuddling her small son.
"'Lo, Auntie 'Net," Jonathan lisped.
How like Malcolm he was! Garnet thought. The same dark, silky curls, the same high coloring.
"'Scuse me, Miss Rose," Linny interrupted, "but Miss Sara's awake and axin' who's downstairs. I done tole her it wuz Miss Garnet, an' she wants her to come upstairs."
"We better go right up, Garnet. Mama's been waiting to hear all the Richmond gossip!" Rose gathered up her skirts and took Jonathan's hand.
Garnet stood, too, and started out of the room. At the stairway, Jonathan held out his other chubby little hand to her, and, as she took it, Garnet felt a curious sense of belonging.
"Did you know Dove is expecting?" Rose asked as they made their way up the stairs.
"No!" Garnet exclaimed, inwardly wincing.
Rose had a child—now Dove and Leighton would have one. She knew Bryce would love to have a son. She had seen him playing with Jonathan, carrying him on his shoulders, tossing him into the air.
Garnet resisted the thought. She couldn't imagine herself a mother!
When they reached the top of the stairs and turned toward Sara's suite, Garnet whispered to Rose, "However is she managing without Lizzie? And where in the world do you think Lizzie disappeared to? Gone over to the Yankees, most probably! Lots of Richmond families have had their slaves slip across the line to the North." She shrugged. "They say even Mrs. Jefferson Davis has had trouble keeping help."
"Well, your Bessie is helping out, and Carrie, too," Rose's replied, staring straight ahead.
For some reason Garnet felt she should ask no further questions. She knew Sara was difficult and that Rose probably had had her hands full trying to keep her pacified.
Garnet spent the next hour regaling Sara with tidbits of gossip, humorous recitals of social events, and descriptive personality profiles of some of the people now in the upper echelon of government and society in Richmond who gathered at Cousin Nell's. She deliberately skipped the dreary details that Richmond society could not avoid seeing, as grim witness to the real cost of war. But the truth lay behind her bright words.
Sara, who before her accident had once been a social butterfly herself, leaned forward, listening to each word, her lethargy temporarily suspended.
"And what is Mrs. Davis like?" she asked eagerly.
"Very handsome," Garnet replied."Tall, graceful, strong features, yet there is a softness about her. I think it's her eyes, which are dark and rather almond-shaped. You would have loved her gown for the Inaugural Ball, Mama! It was white with a deep lace bertha, and she wore a jade brooch—leaf-shaped, with a large pearl in the center. She has dark hair and usually wears a flower tucked into her chignon. That night it was a white rose."
Mrs. Montrose insisted Garnet have dinner on a tray upstairs with her while Rose went to the nursery to eat with Jonathan. Garnet was grateful when at last Sara finally lay back on her pillows, looking wan and exhausted from all the vicarious excitement and said reluctantly, "Perhaps you best wait 'til tomorrow to tell me more."
Rose came in with Carrie to administer Sara's nightly dose of laudanum, then both of them left while Carrie settled Mrs. Montrose for the night.
Garnet herself felt fatigued. The dismal train trip, the jolting carriage ride over the rutted country roads to Montclair combined with the long draining visit with Sara left her weary.
She stifled a yawn, asked Rose's pardon, and said she thought she would go to bed early. Rose said she understood. Telling Garnet she still had to read to Jonathan and ready him for bed, they said goodnight.
On her way up the lovely winding stairway to her room on the second floor, Garnet passed all the portraits of former brides of Montclair. The three current ones—herself, Rose, and Dove—were not yet among them. Rose's portrait was completed, but not framed and hung. Although arrangements had been made for Garnet's portrait to be painted, she had never had the patience to sit, and kept breaking her appointments with the Richmond artist commissioned to do the work. Dove, the newest bride, had not even made plans for her sitting. The war, thought Garnet sadly, had changed everything!
Even Montclair had not escaped change. Garnet was glad she would be leaving within the next day or two. Montclair was no longer the way she remembered it—the once-beautiful house now seemed empty, lonely, full of shadows.
She would be relieved to get back to Richmond where things were lively, happy, and bright in spite of everything! In Richmond, there was no time to brood or worry or feel afraid, for there were always handsome officers to cheer up, flirt with, talk to. Yes, thank goodness, she would soon be leaving!
As Garnet prepared for bed she felt a strange restlessness, despite her physical weariness. She drew the curtains against the night and the eerie shadows cast by huge trees bowing in a macabre dance from the winter wind outside her bedroom window.
She called for Bessie to put fresh logs on the fire in her fireplace, yet still felt chilled. Downstairs, the house was quiet, but filled with unsettling noises. Garnet could not help thinking how isolated Montclair seemed after the frenetic activity of Richmond.
"This place is like a tomb!" she said aloud. "How can Rose stand it?" And she huddled, shivering, under the feather quilt.
But Garnet could not go to sleep right away and lay there, listening to the wind moaning at the windows and whistling down the chimney. When she finally drifted off, her sleep was shallow and filled with troubling dreams.
With Garnet's retiring early, Rose made her way quickly to her own bedroom where she longed for a few moments alone to savor the momentous thing that had happened that very day.
Going to the little applewood desk, she pulled out an envelope and withdrew its contents. A letter from Malcolm! By its condition, it must have made many detours, met many delays before
reaching her for whom it was intended.
That morning, half-dreading what she would find, she had opened it with shaking hands and heart-catching breath. But when her eyes raced over the first few lines, a sob of joy caught in her throat. Her hands, holding the pages, shook so that she finally spread them on the counterpane to read.
My beloved Rose,
As I write these words very late at night, all is still, except for the even breathing of my fellow officer asleep on his cot. No campfires are burning except for the one in front of the guard tent, ever vigilant, we hope. I can see out into the darkness through the flap of my tent as the wind blows, and again I am struck by the strangeness of being here so far from all I love and hold dear.
I have orders with my company to join General Lee's forces in western Virginia. It may be a long time before I am able to get home to Montclair. So there may not be any time soon that I can say what is in my heart to say to you except on these pages. It may seem inadequate, but I must try.
At Manassas I saw men die and saw the wounded piled into carts and taken to hospitals and I ask myself, For what? In the thick of battle, with ear-splitting shriek of bullets bursting all around you, the noise, the smell of smoke and blood, the cries of men injured and suffering, the scream of terrified horses, life is reduced to the absolute fundamentals.
I read somewhere that the three great essentials of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. Once all three were mine, before all clarity was blurred by rhetoric and our country was torn apart.
That you and I—who had the rare privilege of knowing a union so complete, an intimacy so precious, a harmony so special—could be separated by divided loyalties, false pride, and outside pressures, seems to me, now, a tragic loss. And one for which I take my rightful share of blame.
I realize that it is too late to remedy except to beg your forgiveness.
So many memories sweep over me tonight that I am weakened by longing—the satiny feel of your skin, the scent of meadow clover in your hair, the sweet fragrance of your kiss, the joy, ecstasy, and peace I've known in your arms.
I think of Jonathan, our son, and I remember the warm weight of his head on my shoulders as I carried him, his chubby little arms around my neck, his high sweet voice calling to me, "Look, Papa! Look at me!" when he tried to turn somersaults on the grass that day last spring.
On the eve of leaving for where I am not sure, for what I do not know, my lack of appreciation for those moments assails me. Do any of us ever appreciate the ordinariness of uneventful days until the storm comes?
This question burdens me now, Rose. And I want to say what I may not have a chance to say later.
I could not do what you asked me to do, even though I hate slavery as fiercely, perhaps, as any Stowe, Greely, Thoreau, Emerson, or Sumner. Not two men in a hundred own slaves in the South, and most feel as I do. Slavery must go, and none will hail its going more than I.
We stand together on this issue, Rose, closer than I was willing to admit when we parted in anger.
I have always had great contempt for so-called deathbed conversions or last-minute confessions, but I must now place myself with those who see clearly with hindsight.
You may be surprised to learn that of late, I have taken to reading from the small New Testament you gave me before we married and which, for some reason, I packed to bring with me to camp. I quote from it now, dearest heart, because it says what is my deepest desire for us:
"But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife. And they twain shall be one flesh:so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mark 10:6-9).
Dear Rose, as you read what I have copied down, let us take our marriage vows again, for this is what I truly feel I want us to be "from this day forward."
I have no way of knowing when I shall see you again, beloved, or clasp you to my heart, or what we two must pass through before we can begin a life together once more with our little son. I ask you to pray God it will not be too long and that this cruel conflict that has so divided our nation and caused so much sorrow on both sides will not leave a heritage of bitterness to our children for years to come.
And now, I will close, hoping that when you read all I have written, you will find it in your heart to give me a full pardon for the grief I have caused you. Good night, my darling, and farewell, sweet Rose.
Always your loving husband,
Malcolm Montrose
Rose reread the precious words for the dozenth time since its arrival, weeping with joy that all her prayers had been answered.
God is faithful, she thought. He had promised her the desires of her heart and now He was giving them to her. "My cup runneth over!" she whispered to herself, sending up loving little prayers of gratitude.
When Malcolm came home, things would be so different for them. The faint hope she had clung to for so long now soared within her. She thought Malcolm had stopped loving her. But he hadn't, after all! Joy surged within and she almost laughed aloud.
Buoyed by these new sensations, Rose's feet fairly skimmed the floor as she left the bedroom to go in search of Jonathan. Since Malcolm's departure, the child had declared himself too old for the crib in the nursery and had moved down with Rose. It comforted her to look over at him at night and see his dark, curly head snuggled into the pillows so close to her.
She found Jonathan looking at a picture book with Linny. Readying him for bed, she tucked him into the trundle bed beside her own and sang to him all his favorite songs until he fell asleep.
Tonight, when Tilda, Linny, and Carrie came to her room for their reading lesson and Bible study, Rose knew she would be sharing with them her new joy and assurance. As they gathered in the lamplight with their Bibles and bowed for prayer, there was always so much to pray for. Tonight, Rose knew, there would be new hope in the forthcoming answers!
The three girls came one at a time to rap softly on her bedroom door. When they were all seated on the floor beside her bed, open Bibles in their laps, Rose took an added precaution and tilted a side chair under the doorknob to secure it.
Lately on the rare occasions when Garnet was at Montclair, she had sought Rose's company unexpectedly. Tapping at her door one night, Garnet had asked, "Can I come in? I can't sleep. I hate it here now with everyone gone!" And, flouncing onto the end of Rose's bed, she had given a small shiver. "It's so spooky and still! I used to love it here, but that's when there were people and parties and fun!"
Not that any interruption was likley tonight. Sara was already sleeping when Rose left her earlier in the evening, Garnet had pleaded weariness right after supper and gone to bed. and Dove was with relatives.
Still, Rose could not chance discovery.
"I think we'll start with a psalm tonight," Rose announced, setting the oil lamp on the little bed stepladder and settling herself on the floor alongside the three servants.
"Turn to 118:24," she directed them. "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!'"
Rose usually allowed each girl to read verses in turn and, even though she was pleased at the progress they had made since she first began teaching them, it was sometimes slow going. Regrettably, she had noticed there was rivalry among them, each one competing with the other two to excel. She tried to balance this competition by equally praising the individual efforts.
As one or the other struggled with line after line, following with her index finger and sounding out the words, Rose sometimes found her own mind wandering. Where is Malcolm tonight? She must write him right away. If he was with Lee in western Virginia, she knew they were experiencing terrible hardships. O Lord, keep him safe, she prayed. She could not wait to tell him how much his letter had meant to her, how much she loved him, too.
After the psalm had been laboriously read, Rose turned to one of her very favo
rite passages, strongly inclined to it tonight. In her soft, clear voice, she began to read:
"'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silent, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.'"
As she read, Jonathan stirred and made a small moaning sound from his bed. Automatically, Rose paused, turned, and started to raise herself to look across her own wide bed to his trundle on the far side. At the same time, his nurse Linny also scrambled to her feet to check on her charge. In the resultant movement, the oil lamp that had been rather precariously balanced on the top step of the bed ladder tipped, toppling its glass chimney and spilling oil on the bedspread along with a ripple of fire.
There was instant pandemonium as all four women jumped up and lunged for the lamp. Before anyone could reach it, the fire caught the lacy loops of the crocheted bedspread.
"Linny! Get Jonathan!" Rose ordered frantically. "Get him out of here! Tilda, help me! Carrie, run for help!"
The flames climbed like some wild living thing, grabbing, tearing, devouring bedcurtains and canopy, until the entire bed was a monstrous inferno. Her heart was pumping, her head bursting. Choking and gasping, Rose pulled at the blankets, flapping them vainly as the intensity of the heat made her feel as if her bones were melting. The hot breath of the fire rushed at her, leaping furiously. She could hear the sound of crackling wood as the flames spiraled up the bedposts, and the curls of smoke sent her into a paroxysm of coughing. As she backed blindly away, the red-bright darts of fire spouted sparks onto her skirt. Before she realized it, her whole voluminous ruffled hem was ablaze.