She read the accompanying letter slowly, hoping that it would mention something about his next leave or perhaps even about their marriage. In the past year and a half Jack had never again made mention of his desire to marry her, and she was growing impatient for some definite information. It seemed once again that she was being forced to postpone her happiness. Each new battle brought increasingly bad news as the end of the war stretched farther and farther into the future.
The letter contained only a few short lines about what he had been doing, but somehow it warmed her heart, giving her some small peace of mind to know that he was alive and well. It was dated March 22, two weeks previously. She checked the postmark: Winchester, Virginia, March 24. It was taking mail two weeks to get back home from Winchester, less than a hundred miles away.
Mary walked through the room and Ginnie quickly hid the letter in her pocket. It wasn’t that her mother didn’t know about Jack; she did, of course, and Ginnie believed that Mary even liked him a little. But the letter and picture were private, not something she wanted to share. She couldn’t even talk to Georgia about Jack. Every time she began, Georgia shifted the conversation to Lou and the impending birth of their baby. They had been married a year ago, the month after Ginnie and Julia had visited Wes in the prison-of-war camp.
Early that afternoon, Ginnie went to the Skelly’s house to help the seamstress, Madeline, with a fitting. As soon as she arrived, Madeline pulled her into the back room and closed the door secretively. She listened for a moment, then turned to Ginnie.
“I wanted to make sure Mrs. Skelly doesn’t hear us.”
Ginnie looked perplexed as Madeline pulled a chair close and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “I overheard something Mrs. Skelly said about you.”
Ginnie felt the blood draining from her face. Mrs. Skelly didn’t like her, and liked even less the fact that her son was developing a relationship with her. Ginnie had sensed this from Mrs. Skelly’s behavior; the woman treated her like a common servant, ordering her around and refusing to address her by name. But Ginnie had never heard anything firsthand about her future mother-in-law’s true sentiments. “What was it?” she asked with trepidation.
“Well, I overheard Mrs. Skelly talking to one of the old biddies in town about you. She was telling her about how you went to Harrisburg with Julia to see Wes. Well, she said that you’ve always been a rebel sympathizer and that you were sending General Lee messages about what Jack’s company was doing.” Madeline laughed lightly. “Isn’t that the silliest thing you ever heard?”
Ginnie felt a flush of anger rise in her throat. “I can’t believe she could say that.”
“Oh, it’s true,” she said emphatically, nodding her head. Ginnie squinted at Madeline, knowing that she had a reputation for being a gossip. But in this case their shared dislike for Mrs. Skelly made it unlikely that she was lying. Madeline smiled again. “Virginia Wade, She-Rebel.” She giggled, and Ginnie couldn’t help laughing with her, realizing how absurd it all was.
Madeline went on, her tongue loosened by the laughter. “Did you hear about Jack’s father?” Ginnie shook her head. “Well, Mrs. Skelly was telling the parson that he got ill down south in the army, and then, when they were shipping him up north to a hospital, he got lost.”
“What do you mean, he got lost?”
“That’s what she told the parson. She said he disappeared and no one seems to know where he is. Personally, I think the idea of coming home to Mrs. Skelly was too much for him, and he took off somewhere to escape her.” They both broke into laughter. A noise from upstairs cut the humor short, however, and they hurried back to their work with mock seriousness. But every time Ginnie met Madeline’s eyes, they broke out in laughter again.
Later that afternoon, when they had almost completed a fitting, the front door opened, then banged shut. Ginnie went to the fitting room door to greet the newcomer. Instead of the next client, however, she saw a soldier standing in the foyer, holding his kepi in his hands and looking up the stairs. When he turned, a sudden electric shock surged through Ginnie. It was Jack. She hadn’t recognized him at first because of his new moustache.
They looked at each other for a moment, then Jack’s mouth curled up into the familiar smirk. “Surprise!” he said lightly before sweeping her off her feet. She squeezed him tightly as though to convince herself that he was not a mirage.
Then his grip loosened and as she looked up at him, Ginnie found his attention focused up the stairs. Turning, she saw Mrs. Skelly frowning down over the banister. But her angry look dissolved when she realized that the soldier was Jack. He rushed up the stairs and embraced her. “Hello, Mother.”
“Jack! Oh, thank God. Did you get my message about Father?”
“Yes. And I came as soon as I could.”
“Oh, thank God.” She looked greatly relieved. Ginnie felt a brief prickle of guilt about her unkind thoughts toward the woman. “But how are you supposed to find him?” Mrs. Skelly asked.
“I haven’t a notion. I’m going to Harrisburg and I’ll try to ask some questions while I’m there.”
Ginnie asked, glancing briefly at Mrs. Skelly, “But how did you ever get to come home? Lots of soldiers must be missing. Do they send someone to look for each one of them?”
“Well,” said Jack, enjoying the moment, “come on into the parlor and I’ll tell you all about it.” He led his mother down the stairs. As they moved through the archway into the parlor, Mrs. Skelly said, “Virginia, you need to go back and help with Mrs. Brecker’s fitting.”
“No,” interjected Jack. “I want Ginnie here.”
There was a tense pause as Ginnie waited to see what the next move would be. Jack walked into the parlor, pulling her by the hand. Mrs. Skelly glowered at him for a moment, then followed.
When they were seated Jack said, “Well, it’s all in who you know. I found out that you don’t get into the parlor by knocking on the cellar door.” He saw that they were waiting for an explanation, so he lifted his arm and pointed to his corporal’s stripes. “Rank counts. I told the captain what I needed to do and I offered to stand extra duty. I just happened to know,” he said with a wry grin, “that the colonel had a prisoner and paperwork that needed an escort to Harrisburg, so I volunteered. I have to be back on the twentieth.” He gestured with both hands to indicate that he had explained his point. “So, here I am.”
“How long can you be in town?” Mrs. Skelly asked.
“I got on the train in Winchester this morning at six o’clock, got here about an hour ago, took my prisoner to the county jail so he wouldn’t run away, went over to see Ginnie,” he said, glancing at her with a smile, “but I guessed she was here.” Ginnie tried to hide her grin as Mrs. Skelly glared at her, upset at the thought that Ginnie claimed his first attention, even before his own mother.
Jack continued, “There’s a five-thirty train to Harrisburg. We’ll be there by dark, I’ll hand my man over to the provost marshal at the stockade at Camp Curtin. Tomorrow, I’ll deliver my paperwork and then I’ll be free to find where they’ve got Father. I can be back here by Tuesday, if I get lucky. And I don’t have to be back in Winchester until the following Monday. Pretty good, eh?”
“Well, you’ll be hungry, I suppose.” Mrs. Skelly led them into the kitchen and started to get him some food. Ginnie sat with him at the table. They chatted for a while as Jack regaled them with stories of army life which tumbled out one after another.
Madeline stuck her head into the kitchen. “Hello, Jack,” she said without enthusiasm. Turning to Mrs. Skelly she said, “I could really use some help.”
Mrs. Skelly fixed her eye on Ginnie. “Virginia, please go help Madeline.”
Ginnie started to rise, but Jack caught her arm. “Not so fast, young lady. I want you with me.”
Ginnie glanced at Mrs. Skelly who was looking at Jack with obvious irritation. “Really, Jack,” his mother said, “business must go on, in spite of your unexpected arrival. Madeline needs Virginia’s
help.”
“So do I,” he said with a disarming smile, making it clear that he would not budge.
The older woman sighed and, after a moment, relented. She turned to Madeline impatiently and said sharply, “You’ll just have to do your best. I’ll be in shortly.”
Jack rose and started for the door. “I’d better be getting to the station.”
Mrs. Skelly hugged him briefly. “Do your best to find your father, Jack. I’m so worried about him.” She turned to go assist Madeline. Ginnie walked him to the door, but he pulled her outside. “Come with me, so we can talk for a few minutes.”
“I can’t, Jack. I have to help your mother.”
He stuck his head back into the house. “Mother, I’m taking Ginnie with me. She’ll be back in a little while.” The loud clearing of a female throat indicated that his message had been received. They ran down the walk in a flurry of laughter.
Ginnie shook her head. “She’ll kill me. She doesn’t like us seeing each other, and she doesn’t like me to miss work. She’ll take it out of my hide.”
“Don’t you worry,” Jack assured her. “I’ll tend to Mother.” As they walked up the street, Jack took her hand. She felt slightly self conscious and glanced around to see if anyone was watching. But people passed by without a second glance, having become accustomed to seeing soldiers on leave escorting their young ladies around town.
He stopped before the jail house and turned to her. “You should probably head back. I don’t want you around the prisoner, giving him any ideas.”
She frowned but complied, turning to walk back up the street. After a few steps, she ran back and hugged him tightly. “I’ve missed you,” she said quietly. He smiled and then leaned over and kissed her with an intensity that both startled and dazed her. He promised to be back on Tuesday and then disappeared into the jail.
Ginnie spent the next two days waiting for him to return, rushing to the door every time she heard a sound in the street. But he did not arrive until Wednesday night. He banged on the door while Ginnie was mending in the back of the house. By the time she rushed to the door, her brother Jack had already answered the knock and was talking with Jack. Ginnie pushed by her brother knowing that he would question Jack all night if she allowed it. Little Jack’s greatest dream was to join the army, and he greeted every soldier he met with a sense of awe. Ginnie stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind her since it was clear that the boy planned to listen to their conversation.
“Did you find him?” she asked. Jack nodded, then took her hand and led her down the street away from the house. He told her the story as they walked toward the center of town.
His father, it seems, had come down with the ague, or swamp miasma disease, which is prevalent in that area of North Carolina. The regiment was camped in the middle of marshy ground filled with stagnant water and biting insects, and many of the troops had gotten sick. Finally, when some of the sick began to die, the authorities decided to evacuate them. They put a number of them on a transport early in March and shipped them up the coast toward Washington.
“But,” he explained, “when they got up into Chesapeake Bay heading for the Potomac, they were spotted and shelled. The ship caught fire, and many of the men drowned when they jumped overboard. Lots of those who made it safely to land didn’t know the difference between Virginia and Maryland. Those who got to Virginia were captured for the most part, I guess. Others swam east toward Maryland and made it to safety. But, apparently, they were stranded there for a week before anyone found out about it and went to help them. Some of the troops were placed in a hospital in St. Mary’s City, but no one reported the whole mess. That’s why we hadn’t heard anything.”
“Well,” she asked impatiently, “was your father one of those who drowned?”
Jack shook his head. “Oh, no,” he assured her. “He’s listed as one of those in the hospital. I don’t know where he is now, or when he’ll get to Washington. But apparently he’s all right. It was the best I could do,” he said, a note of frustration in his voice. “I had a hell of a time trying to get telegraph messages through, and a worse time trying to get the answers. At least we know he’s all right.”
Jack took Ginnie home and they spent the rest of the evening talking. In fact, they spent the better part of the next four days together. They were together so much that both of their mothers began to complain. Mrs. Skelly claimed that she needed Ginnie to finish certain tailoring jobs, and Mary Wade demanded that she help around the house, saying that, though it was nice to have Jack home, the work still went on.
On Saturday night, Ginnie made a picnic supper as a means of escaping family, and the two of them walked out the Baltimore Pike, each carrying a basket. They spotted the place where they had sat a year and a half ago, when they had agreed that it was serious between them. They glanced at each other with a grin, as though they both had gone there with the same thought. In a moment, they had spread the cloth on the ground just inside the tree line, and arranged the food between them as they sat facing each other.
It was a quiet April evening, cool but pleasant, and the sky was clear and blue. The breeze that had followed them up the hill stopped at the entrance to the woods, as though to respect their privacy. They ate and laughed. He told more stories, and she told him how much he seemed to have matured in the months he had been in the army.
They talked about everything, about how to stay together while he was away, about what would happen if he got wounded. “Ma wouldn’t even go to Washington to see my father,” he said moodily. “What do you think of that?”
She pondered a moment. “I think she was afraid,” Ginnie said gently. “That’s a long way, and it’s a big scary city for a woman alone.”
“If she loved him, she’d go. He’s afraid, too, and alone – and sick.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want to be down there alone.”
It was a moment before she caught his thinking. “You mean, if you were hurt and in a hospital somewhere, you’d want me to come.”
He looked at her intently, then nodded. “Would you be willing to?”
“Of course,” she said quickly, with more enthusiasm than she felt. Where? How long? What would she do while she was there? She didn’t even want to think about him being wounded.
He was thinking, too. Without looking at her he said, “You went to see Wes when he was in that prison camp.”
A cold flush washed over her. She had hoped they weren’t going to get into another confrontation about Wes. Controlling her voice, she said as calmly as possible, “I went because Julia wanted me to go. She couldn’t go alone.” Another silence. “If I had to come see you, I’d probably ask Julia to come with me.”
“It’s not the same thing,” he said, shaking his head.
She frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
“He’s the enemy. And you went to see him.”
Ginnie closed her eyes and sighed deeply. “Please. I can’t think of him as the enemy. Anyway, that’s history. That’s over. You and I are going to be married some day.”
He thought about her statement for a minute. Then he looked at her directly and asked, “Do you mean that?”
She held his gaze for a moment before she answered. “Yes, of course,” she said. “You’re the only man in my life. I want to live with you and raise a family.”
He started to pack up the picnic things, arranging them carefully in the baskets. When the baskets were filled and closed, he had put everything away except the blanket upon which they were sitting. He stood, carried the baskets into the woods where they were out of sight, returned to the blanket on which she was still sitting, picked up a corner of it and waited for her to move. She stood slowly, watching him intently. He folded the blanket over his arm, smiled at her, took her hand and led her into the woods where the undergrowth, speckled sunlight and shadows masked them from the view of passers-by.
“Where are we going?” she asked, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Where we
can talk alone,” he said evenly, as though it were nothing. He found a grassy spot on the south side of Culp’s Hill, surrounded by scrub growth. Snapping the blanket open, he laid it smoothly on the grass and then lay on it, looking at her encouragingly.
Everything she knew warned her against this moment, yet deeper voices called to her, creating an emotional static that drowned out the voices of caution. He patted the blanket by his side and she sat down next to him.
He rolled onto his back alongside her, putting his hands under his head. Looking up through the trees, he said, in a voice so soft she had to strain to hear it, “When I was in Winchester, I went out on picket duty one evening before dark. There were six of us, and we were waiting for a reb company to come along. I was lying on my back like this, looking up through the trees, while we waited. As I was lying there, a breeze came up and it brushed across my face, and it felt...it felt like you were there beside me, and your hair was down and it was touching my face.”
He was silent for a while, then went on as though there were no difference between this place and the woods in Virginia. “I knew there would be a moment like this some day. That’s why I could hardly wait to get home. I wanted to see you so bad.” Turning to look at her, he paused for a moment, then whispered, “I’ve never seen you with your hair down.”
She gazed at him without blinking, surprised that she felt no embarrassment. After a moment, she reached up, unpinned her braids and began to unravel them. Combing her hair with her fingers, she pulled it down over her shoulders so that it framed her face.
He looked at her, breathless. “You are so beautiful,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “You should wear your hair like that all the time.”
“I’m too old for that,” she said, giggling.
“Yes, you are,” he agreed. “Anyone who saw you that way couldn’t help wanting you.”
She had never before heard words like these. She was drawn farther into a vortex of pure emotions, elemental passions which she had never known existed and against which she had no defense. He reached up and drew her down to him. As her dark hair brushed across his face, he began to weep.
The Calm and the Strife Page 20