She went to her own room, moving quietly, and took Rogan’s letter from the desktop, where she’d left it earlier.
Suddenly she felt exhausted, body and soul. She paused beside the bed just long enough to see that Rachel was sleeping peacefully, then leaned down, patted Sweet Girl’s head.
She went into the hallway again, keeping her steps light as she crept toward the front stairway, down the steps, through the parlor, and along the corridor to the side door.
She let herself out, careful not to make any noise, and closed the door behind her.
Once outside, she drew a slow, deep breath, savoring the heavy freshness of the night air. Clouds covered the moon, but there was still enough light to see by, since the sky was popping with huge, twinkling stars.
For a long time, Caroline didn’t move, but simply stood there, in the trampled grass of her yard, breathing, waiting for her heart to calm.
Bridger Winslow had kissed her. Kissed her.
And she had not resisted.
Indeed, she’d found herself willingly open to him.
She wanted more.
It was immoral. Scandalous.
What kind of woman behaved in such a brazen way, when her husband, her child’s father, had so recently gone to his grave?
Caroline began to weep with confused emotion.
She paced, pressing one hand to her mouth in a fruitless effort to restrain the sound. Walked faster, and then faster still, as if to outrun her terrible shame, the regret that seemed about to consume her.
“Jacob,” she sobbed. “Jacob.”
She was frantic to escape, but there was nowhere to hide. Not from herself.
So she stood still, braced to weather the emotional storm.
She waited, breathed, breathed more slowly. Dried her cheeks with the hem of her apron. Degree by degree, the tempest subsided.
In the immediate aftermath, she removed her apron, clutched it in one hand and, because she had no wish to encounter Enoch or Jubie, proceeded to the kitchen house. She did not want to be comforted or consoled—or judged for a moral lapse.
Just inside the door, she took up the two empty water buckets and walked to the well.
There, she filled one vessel, then the other.
They were heavy, and the water was ice-cold as it splashed over the brims, wetting her skirts and her shoes. The metal handles scored her fingers, calloused though they were. She barely noticed her discomfort, for she was a farm wife, after all, used to carrying buckets and firewood and bushel baskets loaded with grain or potatoes or, in season, fruit from the orchards.
Time after time, Caroline made the journey to and from the well, until she had enough water for her purposes. She filled every pot and kettle she could find, built up the banked fire in the cookstove and placed them there, glad to be busy.
The work was hard, but it was also a welcome distraction, a way of restoring her normal stability and common sense.
But even physical labor is finite. Once she’d taken the largest wash tub from its peg on the back wall and set it behind the table, out of direct view from the doorway but not too near the stove, since the night was heavy with summer heat, she found herself at a loss.
Every morning and every night, Caroline filled a basin with hot water and, using strong soap and a washcloth, scrubbed herself thoroughly, but a real bath was a luxury, usually reserved for Saturday nights, part of her preparations for Sunday services at church.
In the aftermath of the battle, however, she’d had neither the time nor the privacy for a proper bath—and no real opportunity to attend church services.
Tonight, however, cleanliness was not her only objective. She wanted, quite simply, to be kind to herself. To lather her skin and hair with scented soap, to think calmly, and to soak away some of the aches plaguing her every muscle, even her bones.
But soaking away the ache in her heart was more difficult.
And so was the realization that she would have to go back to the house for soap, a towel, her nightgown and wrap, and risk meeting Enoch or Jubie in the process.
Enoch had certainly seen the illicit kiss as he reentered the room and she suspected Jubie might have, as well. She was perceptive, Jubie was, and if she hadn’t been a witness, she’d probably guessed the situation right away.
Obviously, Caroline couldn’t avoid Enoch and Jubie forever, and did not even want to. It wasn’t as if she’d been caught committing a crime. A man who was not her husband had kissed her, and she had allowed it. And...enjoyed it.
These were the facts, whether she liked them or not.
Granted, she might have responded differently if she hadn’t been caught off guard.
If she could live those moments over again, she would slap Bridger Winslow’s handsome, arrogant face and storm from the room.
Or would she?
She remembered the taste of him, the strength in his hand as he brought her mouth to his, the warmth of his lips, the hard barrier of his chest against the soft give of her breasts...
Enough. What’s done is done, she told herself.
Caroline returned to the house, feeling more composed. Her only concession to embarrassment was to use the main stairway, so she wouldn’t have to pass Bridger’s door. Otherwise, she would not feel ashamed.
In truth, she realized as she crept into her room, where Rachel slept on, and quietly gathered the things she needed, she wasn’t ashamed.
She was alive, a healthy, normal woman, strong, if lonely and beleaguered, and if she had taken some pleasure in Bridger’s kiss, so be it.
Clutching her towel and nightgown, Caroline paused beside the bed she had shared with Jacob, gazing at the beautiful child they had made there. She thought of the many intimate nights she and Jacob had spent there.
After a while, she turned in silence and left the room.
Now, Bridger’s door was shut, and no light showed beneath it.
She rested a hand against her apron pocket once more, reassuring herself that Rogan’s letter was still there, and wondered at the sudden confusion that welled up within her.
Then, at last, she went down, thinking of the lovely bath that awaited her in the kitchen house.
Once there, she latched the door, picked up the lantern she’d lit earlier, and set it on the seat of a chair she’d pulled up alongside the wash tub. She carried the steaming kettles across the floor, one by one, and poured their contents into the bath.
She pulled the curtains at each of the three windows, and double-checked the latch, just in case.
It was firmly in place; she would not be interrupted.
Slowly, Caroline removed her apron, taking the letter from the pocket, putting it down beside the lantern. She unbuttoned her dress and let it fall into a pool of calico at her feet, tested the temperature of the water with the dunking of a big toe and found it hot, but not scalding.
After making sure the towel, soap and washcloth were at hand, along with her comb and brush, Caroline took off her pantaloons and then her camisole, and stepped into the tub.
Despite the sultry heat of a Pennsylvania night in mid-July, the sensation of sinking into hot, clean water was exquisite. One day, she thought dreamily, when this war was over, she would buy a real bathtub, the stationary kind, perhaps of porcelain, or one cast in brass or copper, with a high, sloping back and long enough to permit her to stretch out her legs.
In the meantime, the wash tub would do just fine.
Caroline relaxed in the hot water, feeling tense muscles begin to ease.
She reached for Rogan’s letter, opened the envelope, unfolded the pages inside.
A ten-dollar note fell out and floated for a moment before Caroline snatched it up and set it aside.
Rogan’s message, so anticipated, turned out to be all business. He apologized once more for any risk and inconvenience she might suff
er in caring for his friend—and in the further imposition of the dog. He explained that he had promised one of his dying men he would recover the animal from unfortunate circumstances and see that it was looked after. He asked for a response, at her convenience, and promised to make full restitution for any expenses she might incur on behalf of his friends, canine and human. He hoped Geneva, Enoch, Jubie and Rachel would be pleased with the small remembrances he’d sent, and that she would enjoy the songbook as much as he and the other men had enjoyed listening to her play.
He’d signed the missive as he might have signed a military order, not with the customary “Yours Truly” or “Your Obedient Servant,” followed by his given name, but more formally. “Rogan McBride, Captain, United States Army.”
Caroline was at once relieved and faintly disappointed.
What had she been expecting? A declaration of love?
No. That would have been wholly improper, even shocking, given their brief acquaintance. A simple “Sincerely, Rogan” would have been nice, though.
She sighed, refolded the letter and placed it next to the lantern, on top of the sodden ten-dollar bill. Then, because she was truly tired and her bathwater was turning cold, she reached for the soap and washcloth and scoured every part of herself. She took down her hair and washed it, rinsing away the lather as thoroughly as she could.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would repeat the rinsing process, using water from one of the rain barrels.
Alternatively, she reflected wryly, she could dive headfirst into the deepest part of the creek. If she’d thought of this before Bridger’s kiss, instead of after, she might have drowned, but she would still be the very respectable Mrs. Jacob Hammond, she of untarnished virtue.
22
Hammond Farm
August 3, 1863
Bridger
As July lumbered toward August, Bridger had plenty of time to regret giving in to impulse and kissing Caroline the way he had. Since then, she had entered his room only to collect Rachel and the dog, both of whom were regular visitors, leaving every other task to Enoch or Jubie.
He wanted to apologize for that kiss, although he wasn’t entirely sorry, but Caroline made sure they were never alone. No doubt, she knew he wouldn’t broach the topic in the presence of a child; if she hadn’t realized that, she wouldn’t have crossed the threshold.
Maybe, he often thought, that was just as well.
He was still the enemy, as far as she was concerned, a part of the army that had killed her husband. Even if she could forgive his allegiance to the wrong side of the conflict—and her response to his kiss indicated that at some point, she might—he was a temporary fixture. Soon, he would be gone, with no excuse to return, except as a member of the Confederate forces, should General Lee decide to make another foray into Union territory.
From what he’d been able to gather, mostly from Enoch, who made regular trips into Gettysburg town and often managed to scrounge up a newspaper—shared with Bridger but only after he and Caroline had read and discussed every word—the Confederacy had taken a beating at Gettysburg. Not that this was unknown to Bridger, but he appreciated any additional detail.
The opinion was widespread that George Meade, head of the Union army, had blundered gravely by not pursuing the Confederates immediately after winning the battle.
Such hesitancy was common among Union generals, in Bridger’s experience; they seemed to prefer conducting elaborate reviews, complete with flags and marching bands and admiring spectators, to the admittedly messy business of fighting.
General McClellan, since relieved of his command, was an outstanding example. Though a gifted strategist, a soldier’s soldier, much beloved by his troops as well as the Northern public, the man had carried on as if there wasn’t a war to be fought. Evidently, he spent so much time on plans and preparations that he rarely got around to engaging the enemy.
Not so his General Lee. In contrast to his gentlemanly manner and soft-spoken erudition, he was audacious, bold and quick to move. More often than not, he succeeded.
By not giving chase when the Army of Northern Virginia was at its weakest, Meade had provided Lee with what he needed most—time. Even now, Lee had surely regrouped his hungry, ragtag forces, men so loyal they would’ve followed him through the gates of hell; he would have conferred with Davis and with his accomplished generals, studying maps, planning the next attack.
The North, much to Mr. Lincoln’s consternation, seemed to have no one in command who understood the way Lee’s mind worked. With the possible exception of this man, Grant, who had wreaked such havoc at Fort Donnellson and Vicksburg... Bridger suspected that only Grant might be capable of matching General Lee’s dogged persistence, whatever the adversity, or his almost uncanny ability to inspire his troops to keep fighting, long after every resource had been depleted.
Bridger, like General Lee whom he so admired, had been ambivalent about the South’s reckless determination to break away from the Union and go its own way. He’d understood, even shared to some extent, the South’s reaction to the Federal government’s growing tendency to bully individual states into submission, but he hadn’t seen secession as the solution, let alone all-out war.
There were times when military action was unavoidable—history proved that—but he still believed the battles ripping the nation and its people apart would have been better fought on the floors of the Senate and the House of Representatives, not in fields and valleys, cities and towns.
Still—and again, like Lee—Bridger had known, for all his misgivings, that he could not stand idly by while the home he loved, flaws included, was invaded. He’d decided, early on, that he couldn’t straddle the line; he had to throw in with one side or the other, and there could be no pulling of punches, no inner debates, no “what ifs” or “if onlys.”
Since then, he’d fought as ferociously as any soldier in either army. He’d been ruthless in battle, killing other men when he had to and, he feared, more than a few boys, as well. His one consolation was this—he had never raised sword or pistol to any civilian, man, woman or child, never ordered a crop trampled or a house burned.
Sometimes, it was enough to know this. Mostly, it wasn’t.
He sighed, that hot morning in early August, and went to the window of the little bedroom in Caroline Hammond’s house and looked down.
Caroline was there, hoisting laundered sheets from a basket, raising her arms high to peg them to the clothesline, where the sheets flapped like ship’s sails.
She wore a simple calico dress, not widow’s weeds, and reaching up displayed the lines of her small well-shaped breasts admirably.
Watching her, Bridger smiled, despite his dark reflections.
It was strange to think that no matter how many women he might dally with in the months and years to come, should he be fortunate enough to survive, he imagined there would be nothing to compare with the single tender kiss he and Caroline had shared.
Rachel came into view, running full-out, arms wheeling in sheer delight with the brilliant sunlight and green grass and the joy of being alive, accompanied, as always, by the little dog.
Bridger smiled at the picture they made, even as he felt a sting of sadness at the rarity of such scenes in his own life. In peacetime, it seemed to him, children had been much more visible. They had always been fragile, prone to sickness and accident and early death, but many thrived. In war, they turned into shadows, curious and watchful still, but silent. Always hovering at the edges. Always poised to flee.
Others disappeared entirely, kept out of sight by fearful mothers.
Bridger did not take the sight of a beloved child playing with her dog for granted. Rachel, and Sweet Girl, too, provided a welcome distraction from watching the woman he could never have.
It was a cruel irony, he thought wryly, that despite all the women who had welcomed his attentions, even gone
to scandalous lengths to engage with him, the two he had wanted most—Marietta, his half brother’s wife, and Caroline—were forbidden. He had genuinely loved Marietta, had expected to love her all his life—until he met Caroline.
Marietta, in stark contrast to Caroline, had at least returned his doomed affections, and the scandal of their one intimate encounter had, for all practical intents and purposes, destroyed his family.
It had happened the summer just before war broke out in earnest, when Bridger had returned to Fairhaven from a sojourn in Britain, where he’d been sent to study economics, cultivate business associations with mill owners and, in his father’s words, “acquire the social polish of a true gentleman.”
Instead, he had acquired a penchant for shopgirls and actresses, good English ale and unbridled hedonism. Basically, he had disgraced the Winslow name, on both sides of the Atlantic, and his father, once apprised of his younger son’s behavior—the son he’d never liked, never valued—had promptly cut off his income and commanded him to come home.
Bridger, summoned to the office of the Winslows’ London solicitor, had been presented with polite British disapproval and second-class passage on a ship bound for Charleston. His normal allowance, which was considerable, he was informed, would no longer be forthcoming.
Secretly relieved, because he’d never wanted to be anywhere but at Fairhaven in the first place, Bridger accepted the ticket and boarded the ship a day later.
He and his older half brother, Tristan, had crossed paths, somewhere on the high seas. Tristan had, not surprisingly, been dispatched to succeed where Bridger had failed.
In fact, nothing about that situation had surprised him. Bridger had been sent to England under a cloud of disapproval, well aware that, in his father’s eyes, he couldn’t equal his older brother, not in any sense. Three months after his arrival at Fairhaven, Bridger had undertaken to comfort Marietta, lonely and bitterly unhappy in her marriage, and wound up taking her to his bed that one time. Even this indiscretion might not have sparked calamity if Bridger hadn’t fathered a child on the first and only night he and Marietta had made love. The baby, a son, was born nine months later, and nearly four months before Tristan’s triumphant return.
The Yankee Widow Page 27