Yankee Bride / Rebel Bride

by Jane Peart

  Bryce slept more and more, waking for brief intervals. Garnet left him only to bathe, rest, or eat something to keep up her strength. Always the bulky black figure at the door remained. Every once in a while, Mom Becca would give a heavy sigh and say mournfully, "Glory, glory, sweet Jesus."

  One evening Garnet was alone with Bryce, Tilda having gone for a little rest and Mom Becca persuaded to lie down. Sitting in the shadows with only the dim light of one lamp, Garnet became conscious Bryce was stirring. She went at once to him, bending near.

  He opened his eyes, tried to smile. She leaned down, took his hand, pressed it to her breast, trying to hear the hoarse, whispered words.

  "Thank you," he said.

  Garnet's heart contracted.

  "There's nothing to thank me for, Bryce," she protested. Inside she grieved, inside she confessed, I never loved you the way I should have, appreciated you. I loved another man most of our marriage.

  But Garnet knew better than to ease her own conscience by unburdening her guilty secret to a dying man. It was too late to do anything but give him comfort as he slipped away. His voice was weak, but she bent close and heard him say, "Rose was right, you know. About life—and after. I'm sure of it now—" His voice faded away.

  At first Garnet did not understand what he meant about Rose. Then she remembered Rose had believed in "a place of beauty, light, and peace" after death, and she reached for the little book and asked, "Would you like me to read something for you, honey?"

  Garnet turned her head and saw lying on the bedside table the small worn black leather New Testament and Psalms Rose had given Bryce before he went to war. She recalled the day she had seen it lying near a pile of freshly ironed shirts he was packing and questioned him about it.

  "What in the world isthis?"she had asked, for Bryce was not a reader.

  "Rose's going-away gift to me." Bryce had grinned disarmingly. "Said I should carry it in the pocket right over my heart. Maybe she thinks it will protect me from a stray Yankee bullet. I hear they can't shoot worth a hang."

  "Surely Rose doesn't think you're a true believer like she is!" Garnet winced, remembering the sarcasm in her words.

  Somehow the small volume had survived the months of battle, the weather, the rough riding Bryce had been through. They had found it in the inside pocket of his uniform jacket when they had cut it off him. A sob pressed against Garnet's throat as she thought of how she had read to Rose from her Bible the last day of her life.

  His eyes were closed. He's sinking fast, something warned her. Still holding Bryce's hand, Garnet fumbled through the pages of the book with the other and found a well-marked passage in Psalms. She wondered how often Bryce must have read this by the light of a campfire to have underlined it so many times.

  Slowly, haltingly she began to read:

  The Lord is my strength and song,

  And is become my salvation. . . .

  The Lord has chastened me sorely:

  But He has not given me over unto death.

  Open to me the gates of righteousness:

  I will go into them,

  And I will praise the Lord:

  This is the gate of the Lord,

  Into which the righteous shall enter.

  I will praise thee:

  For thou hast heard me,

  And art my salvation.

  There was a sound from Bryce. Garnet stopped reading, sank to her knees beside the bed. Bryce was trying to tell her something.

  "You've been so good to me."

  "Not half good enough," she said brokenly. "Not what you deserved."

  "You've been all I've ever wanted," he said.

  She held him in her arms until his head dropped to one side and she knew with a sudden sense of abandonment that he was gone.

  Garnet did not know how long she knelt there, feeling the weight of Bryce against her shoulder. After a while she laid his head gently on the pillow and got up.

  She moved slowly, stiffly, over to the window and looked down into the garden where the rose bushes were in full bloom, so heavy they drooped their heads and fell in a flutter of petals onto the ground. No one had bothered to pick them, for the whole household had been suspended during the last few days as "Marse Bryce" lay dying.

  Now he was gone, and so was Leighton, and her father, her brother Stewart, and Rose, gone where? The tears she had held back so long began to flow now as she thought in anguish what Bryce had said . . . "I'm sure of it now—" Garnet leaned against the window frame. She felt a bittersweet pain. Bryce had gone, left her and now he knew, and she did not.

  He had spoken of "wasted lives" that day his mind was so clear. Their life together had been wasted. She knew it was true even as she knew it was useless to regret. He had also said, "We're two of a kind." That also was true. Headstrong, reckless, spoiled—but they had both grown and they might have become more, much more together, given time. They might have one day had children together, Garnet mourned, and she put her head into her hands and sobbed out her remorse.

  But Garnet had not yet shed all her tears.

  chapter

  34

  ONLY HIS son's death and funeral would have ever induced Clay Montrose to take the despised oath of allegiance in order to come home in time to bury Bryce.

  War had taken its toll on the sturdy, youthful looking man. The twinkle was gone from his eyes, the spring from his step. The uprightness of his proud carriage was bowed now beneath the weight of the years of suffering.

  Garnet watched his approach from the parlor windows, saw him mount the veranda steps with a kind of leaden weariness. She saw him stop short at seeing the crepe-hung front door, throwing one arm up in front of him as if warding off a blow. She turned away and walked into the hall to meet him.

  A small band of neighbors and friends gathered in the other parlor to mourn the second Montrose son to fall in the service of the Confederacy. Only the year before, they had been present at her father's funeral at Cameron Hall.

  Garnet stood with her father-in-law to receive their condolences, to hear people remark in amazement at her calm and strength.

  In truth, Garnet herself was awed by the deep peace she felt. Maybe the full impact of Bryce's death and the grief would come later, but now she was in a state of transcendent thankfulness. Bryce was beyond pain and the bitterness she saw in some of the other eyes that gazed into her own. It seemed to her in these last weeks that she and Bryce had been closer than they had ever been, that she had been given a priceless gift.

  In the past two days her mind had been cleared into a startling truth that stunned her. She knew now that what she had imagined love to be did not exist. It had all been an illusion. Like her love for Malcolm. It seemed to her now some kind of sickness, a shallow hope without foundation that had bred within her jealousy and bitterness, near hatred for someone innocent—Rose! More than that, it had led her into a loveless marriage. Another sin against an innocent person—Bryce!

  Now she knew with a knowledge born of grief and loss what love really was. She had learned it in the days she had nursed Bryce, praying for forgiveness. The old Garnet would never have imagined that one day she would sit beside a man, broken in body, mind and spirit, and know the true, full meaning of love.

  For weeks after Bryce's death, Garnet could not sleep at night. She paced the floor restlessly, her mind as wide awake as if it were morning. Sometimes she slept for a few hours toward dawn on the chaise lounge in her dressing room. Somehow she could not bring herself to sleep in the bed Bryce had died in, the one they had shared through their tempestuous marriage.

  She did not know what to do. The future loomed ahead in bleak uncertainty. In a prostrate South few knew how to face the changed order.

  One of those was Clay Montrose. His whole world had disappeared, and he did not know how to put the pieces back together. Once authoritative and decisive, he was now totally frustrated. Only a remnant of blacks remained from his hundreds of slaves, too few to restore the farmla
nds to complete productivity. There were new laws that had to be observed dealing with former servants, papers to fill out, forms to be filed.

  Observing her father-in-law's changed personality, Garnet gradually came out of her own grief-stricken cocoon and tried to comfort him. "When Malcolm comes home, things will be different, Father Montrose. He'll help you sort things out, get started again—"

  Clay swore, scowled, walked over to his desk, the one that had been battered and vandalized by the Yankee invasion of Montclair, took out a letter and shook it at her.

  "Malcolm won't be coming home, Garnet. We got this letter from Illinois a few days ago. I didn't want to tell you right away because I knew you thought any day. . . . Well, he won't. He's going west. Here—you can read it for yourself." He handed her the two sheets of thin paper, bearing Malcolm's familiar handwriting.

  The first few paragraphs told them sparingly of the horrors of the place where he had been imprisoned since his capture at Gettysburg; of having to sleep on blankets in which some poor soul had just died of smallpox and how, by some miracle, he had escaped the illness.

  At first he had hoped to be exchanged, but then they moved him to another prison. There he had tried to smuggle out letters, but never knew if they had been received or not. They had not. His hopes of being exchanged were dashed when the new ruling came through that only men too weakened by illness or injury again would be released.

  Garnet's eyes flew over the pages until she came to this part. 'I have become friends with a fellow prisoner. He is from Texas—no wife or family—and we have become close companions. It is his plan that has caught my imagination, given me the hope I had almost lost in these dreadful years. We are going together to California.

  "I cannot bear the thought of returning to a devastated land, a defeated South, everything I loved laid waste, destroyed. It is not impossible, I am told, that in the gold fields of California there are limitless veins of gold and other precious metals and ore running through the hills, riches to make a man wealthy, there for the taking. Any man with enough determination, strength, and courage can make his fortune in a matter of months. If this is true, I can come back to Virginia a rich man, able to restore Montclair to its original splendor, restock our stables, replant, and reap the harvest. I will not come back until I can do this. I will not come back a beaten man.

  "I trust, until that happy day, my little son Jonathan will understand. That he will be proud of his father. It was Rose's wish that, after the war, he would go to see his Meredith relatives in Massachusetts. This request should be honored. I give my permission. I will let you know where I am and where you can write me as soon as Jack and I are settled somewhere. With dearest love to you, my parents, to the others at Montclair. . . ."

  Silently Garnet handed the letter back to Mr. Montrose.

  "We Southern men were not prepared for ruin," he said morosely.

  How ironic, Garnet mused, another lingering hope shattered. For she had to admit that it had occurred to her that now that both she and Malcolm were free, there might have been a chance for them in the future. But now that had dissolved like all her other childish dreams. Even what gratitude Malcolm might feel for her in caring for his mother, his child, his home during these years, was a poor substitute for the love she had longed for—

  Instinctively Garnet straightened her shoulders as if steeling herself for yet another loss. She had lost in such quick succession so many whom she loved. This little boy was all she had left to lose.

  Within weeks the letter from John Meredith came. Having anticipated yet dreaded it, Garnet opened it reluctantly. As she did, she could hear the sound of children's laughter outside—Jonathan and little Druscilla playing tag under the trees. She dragged her eyes back to the finely-scripted letter and read:

  It was my dead sister's earnest request and deepest wish that in the event of her or her husband's death, their son should be sent to us to raise as our own child. In her letter written to both my father and me shortly after she received word that Captain Montrose was missing, presumed dead, she told us she had made her wishes clear in a letter, witnessed and signed and placed in an envelope to be opened after her passing, if such a sad event were to occur. Which, in spite of her youth, the tragedy of fate brought to pass—to all our sorrow.

  Now that the calamitous war that has divided our country these past four years is at last over, I am able to communicate with you, my dear Mrs. Montrose, and convey my intention to carry out my dead sister's wishes. Rose spoke of you so lovingly in her letters to us, and I trust you returned her sisterly regard for you and are as anxious as we are to fulfill her last wishes.

  I will soon be relieved of my duties here in Washington, and will be returning to civilian life shortly. If you could arrange to bring young Jonathan to Richmond, I can meet you there.

  His grandfather Meredith, his great-aunt Vanessa, my wife Frances and I are all looking forward to meeting our nephew whom we have not seen since he was an infant, and to welcoming him into our home and hearts.

  Yours most sincerely,

  John Meredith,

  Major, U.S.A.

  Reading it over, Garnet tried to imagine the haughty bearing of the cold New Englander, the arrogant Army officer who was Rose's brother. The handwriting was of an educated man, a Harvard man like Malcolm, she thought bitterly . . . if Malcolm had never gone north to college, he would never have met Rose Meredith, and she would never be facing the dreadful parting before her.

  Garnet folded up the letter and put it in her apron pocket, then looked out the window again.

  Every time she looked at Jonathan, she saw Malcolm. He was a handsome little boy, small and quick, perfectly coordinated.

  He had dark hair like his father's but his eyes were rich brown like Rose's. His skin was tanned to a golden brown after running barefoot in as few clothes as possible all through the spring, which had been early and hot this year.

  Sometimes when he came running in for a drink of water, out of breath, laughing with his small, white teeth showing, his head back, his dark curls damp and tousled, Garnet could not resist snatching him up for a quick hug.

  Garnet fought back the rush of anger, the resentment that flooded her, the renewal of heartbreak that cut like broken glass inside her. Biting her lip, she turned abruptly away from the window, the sight and sound of the laughing children.

  It wouldn't hurt to wait a while before telling Jonathan, Garnet decided. A few days' delay—what would it matter? They would have him the rest of his life. Why shouldn't she hold on a little longer to what should have been hers?

  Two weeks later Garnet, with Jonathan, waited tensely in the lobby of the Richmond Hotel where she had arranged to meet John Meredith. When a tall, dark-haired man approached them, Garnet's first thought was, Thank goodness he's not wearing a Yankee uniform! That would have scared Jonathan right away and started them off on the wrong foot.

  John Meredith was an impressive-looking man, well-dressed, serious of expression. The only resemblance he bore to Rose was his eyes—deep brown, heavily lashed for a man. And as they rested on Jonathan, they softened noticeably.

  Garnet felt Jonathan's little hand tighten in her own as the man approached them. She leaned down and whispered, "This is your Uncle John, honey, your mama's brother."

  John Meredith halted in front of them, then bent down so that his face was on the level of the child's, his eyes looking directly into the boy's.

  "Hello, Jonathan." John Meredith's voice was deep, but gentle. He held out one large hand and offered it to him. Jonathan waited a full minute then hesitantly put his small, chubby hand out and let John Meredith cover it with his as he began to speak very gently to Jonathan.

  "Jonathan, your mother was my little sister and I loved her very much and I love you, too. Not just because you're part of her, but because you're you. We're going to get to know each other. I'm going to take you to all the places your mama knew when she was growing up. We'll go fishing and when
it snows and the river freezes, I'll teach you to ice-skate. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  Jonathan nodded, his eyes beginning to shine.

  "There are two other people who loved your mama very much too. Her father, your grandfather Meredith, and your mama's Aunt Vanessa. They've been waiting so long to meet you. Wouldn't you like to go with me to see them? They live where your mama lived when she was a little girl."

  Again Jonathan nodded eagerly.

  John Meredith continued to talk to Jonathan in a low, gentle voice. The little boy seemed fascinated that this big, grown-up man was giving him all this attention. He had not been around many men in his short lifetime. His memory of his own father was dim, fading more and more with every day that passed. The men who had been in and out of Montclair during the war, had played with him, teased him and tossed him into the air, tousled his head, and called him a "good little soldier." But they, too, had come and gone quickly and left no more than a fleeting impression. Now all Jonathan's focus was concentrated on this tall, gentle-voiced man, his eyes riveted on John Meredith's face, nodding every once in a while as his uncle continued to talk. There seemed to be a total acceptance of this person who only minutes before had been a stranger.

  Then, without a word to her or a look back, Jonathan went with John Meredith a little apart from Garnet, to sit together on the bench across from her.

  Jonathan seemed completely absorbed in all John Meredith was telling him.

  Garnet watched in resentful surprise. How quickly John Meredith had gained the child's confidence. Her immediate reaction was a kind of stunned realization that the man and boy had become friends within a few minutes. The saying "blood is thicker than water" flashed through Garnet's mind, and she thought perhaps there was some truth to that. Maybe there was an invisible bond that flowed as soon as it was activated by such a meeting.

  As she watched from a distance, another emotion took the place of that first sting of hurt. It was joy not unmixed with sorrow. She had seen the man reach out to the child with tenderness and love and the special affection given to those who are particularly dear by kinship. Garnet felt a surge of gratitude for Jonathan's sake, that he was to have a new family who cared deeply for him, who could give him all the things neither the Montroses nor she could give him now—a comfortable home, material security, a good education. All the things Jonathan would need to grow up into a fine, outstanding, educated man and take his rightful place in life. In a defeated, impoverished South, orphaned and with an inheritance now ravished beyond restoration, Jonathan could have none of this if he remained in Virginia.