by Forest,Lynn
He looked up as if he had just discovered something. “I'm a terrible host, can I get any of you something to drink?” They all shook their heads. Her mother spoke up, “Most of all, we wanted to thank you so much for getting Emily home safe. We did not know that fighting was going to break out in the area.” Charles reached down and took Emily's hand. “You are very welcome, and actually it is I who should be thanking you. In the process of being assigned to take Emily home, I was reassigned to Camp Harrison. Of course, the best part was meeting Emily.”
Charles scanned his guests for a moment. “All of you are welcome to stay here as long as you want, but Emily, I would love to have you stay here for the day, and I can bring you home later.”
He could hear Emily sigh in relief. “I'm so happy to hear you say that.”
The father spoke up and laughed. “She has always been good at manipulating a situation to come out the way she wants it to.”
Emily's face turned dark pink, she shook her head, looked at her father and laughed. “Charles, I hope you still want me to stay even though you know now that you were tricked.”
Charles laughed. “And I'm very happy about it.”
The father stood and gestured to his wife. “If you don't mind us running off then, you two, we're going to go into the city and check out a new restaurant that just opened up down by the river.” He then walked up to Charles who had risen to bid them goodbye and shook his hand and then heartily slapped him on the shoulder. “It's an absolute joy to meet you, Major.”
Charles leaned forward and whispered to him. “Not to be boastful, sir, but now it's Colonel.”
The father laughed and shook his hand again, “Congratulations, Colonel.”
Emily's mother walked up and planted a kiss on his cheek and whispered in his ear, “If you take up with her, you'll need a good hairbrush.” She winked and patted him on the shoulder.
Charles and Emily watched as the carriage made its way back down the lane. They stood in silence hand in hand until the carriage was out onto the road. Emily leaned her head against Charles' arm and she spoke in a near whisper, “Let me guess. She said something to you about my needing to be spanked from time to time, didn't she?”
Charles began to chuckle, while Emily blushed and giggled and buried her face in his chest as she continued laughing. She looked up at him and sighed. “I took a chance on a very awkward and embarrassing moment if you had not been happy to see me.”
He began to lead her back up the steps to the porch swing, and they sat down. “Perhaps we're farther along the way of getting to know each other than I realized. You seem to have known that I was indeed wanting to see you quite badly.”
She winced as she looked up at him. “I'm sorry about how I acted when you brought me home. I was thinking that the first time you got me alone you were going to wallop me really good.”
He put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “I think your mother took care of business for both of us. I suppose that you're relieved that I'm not going to toss you across my knees and tan your hide again.”
She looked away for a moment, and then looked up at him. “Oh, yeah. I sure am.”
Charles tilted his head as if thinking about something, and Emily watched in amusement until he spoke. “How would you like to see just what a poor cook I am?”
She laughed with delight. “I would love it.” Charles sprung from the swing, took Emily by the hand and escorted her inside the house.
She stopped and began looking around, and her eyes were open wide and round, “I think your house is just beautiful inside.”
Charles walked up and put his hand around her waist. “Actually, I think it's very modest. My family was able to get by all right, but we were hardly ever people of means.”
Emily shook her head as she continued to look around. “What I mean is, it just feels so comfortable here.” She turned and looked at him with a wistful expression on her face. “It's almost like I can sense the personalities of your family. It just seems so friendly, so warm, and wonderful.” She turned around and put her arms around his waist. “Just like you, Charles.”
He leaned down to kiss her, and the kiss seemed to last forever. As they pressed their bodies together, neither tried to conceal the arousal that had become so immediate and mutual. Charles brushed the hair from her eyes and smiled. “Come and talk with me while I make something for us to eat. Of course, seeing me cooking might drive you away.”
She laughed and shook her head as he led her out to the kitchen, then pulled out a chair from a small dining table for her to sit upon. The kitchen was a bit more rustic than in the home of her wealthy parents. The icebox appeared to be smaller, and the wood cook stove appeared to be ancient.
Charles opened the icebox and pulled out a pan holding a dressed chicken, placed it on the edge of the stove, then went back to the icebox and pulled out a small tub of lard. While, at her insistence, he told her about how he had been injured by the explosion at Camp Harrison, he pulled a knife from an overhead cupboard and cut up the chicken, then took down a skillet from a hook over the stove.
He reached to the cupboard once more and pulled out a wooden spoon, then scooped some of the lard into the skillet. That being done, he reached to a wooden box of splintered wood in the corner of the kitchen, grabbed a handful and placed it inside the stove. One strike of a match had the kindling aflame, and he reached to another, larger wooden box and retrieved two large logs and placed them inside the stove on top of the burning tinder.
Emily began to insist that she help cook, but Charles gently placed her back on the chair as he began to peel potatoes, the chunks of which were placed in a metal pot that he had also reached for overhead. He picked up a pitcher of water and poured some into the pot, then covered it so that it could begin its slow boil.
He retrieved another small pan from the cupboard, pulled out a bag of flour and sprinkled it in the pan. Then he took the pieces of chicken one at a time, rolled them in the flour and carefully placed them into the skillet, and the sizzling frying sound caused both of them to smile. Since she had returned home, each time that Emily sat down to enjoy a full meal, she could not help but remember dining on crackers and dried beef and hardtack along the way home.
As they continued to talk, it was apparent to Emily that Charles really wanted to put the war and the Army out of his mind, although she understood that there was uncertainty facing him. Instead, he spoke at length about his days on the cattle farm before leaving for the two years he had spent at the University of Cincinnati before enlisting.
He told her of his plans and hopes for the farm, including his dream of buying at least one adjacent farm to expand his enterprise. He had been very pleased with how well his cousins had carried on the farm in his absence, in spite of their being so much older than he. He pressed Emily to speak more of her youth and early adulthood, for he had found during their trip that she had inside of her a natural air of sophistication, although it was obscured by her penchant for rebellion and defiance.
The way that she spoke, and even her mannerisms put him in mind of many he had attended college with, although she had never gone beyond the full complement of twelve years of education. He pressed her on the matter, and she confided that her mother and father had both attended some college, and that reading and discussion had been a part of her upbringing since she was ten years old.
She laughed when telling about how her mother would draw the adolescent Emily into conversations with other adults, when she would have much rather been down by the stream in the back of their house watching for fish and snakes. She admitted, however, that she did eventually develop a liking for some things cultured.
She enjoyed viewing art on the walls of her parents' friends, and enjoyed engaging in debates and banter with her teachers as well as her parents. She added that not all of her teachers were necessarily grateful to her parents for that part of her upbringing.
As Charles took some biscuits out of a tin an
d placed them inside a towel to sit on top of the oven and get warm, she told of her several trips to visit her aunt and uncle in Cynthiana, and how they, in turn, had traveled with her to Lexington and other places in Kentucky. In spite of the fact that some of the philosophies that had been bolstered in her by the lectures in Lexington had proved troublesome at times, she spoke with enthusiasm of having been in such a setting and among people of such learned backgrounds.
They talked and laughed and traded stories as they dined on the crispy fried chicken and boiled potatoes and biscuits. It was the first time that they had been able to share a meal free of anxiety.
Emily went silent for a moment, then reached over and took Charles by the hand. “I just want you to understand that I realize now just how outrageously immature it was for me to try to avoid having you escort me home. I shudder now when I think of what could have been.”
Charles rested his elbow on the table and rubbed his chin while he considered her words. “As a matter of fact, the information that I was given ahead of time did not fully describe how dangerous that area would be. Otherwise, either I wouldn't have been sent to escort you, or we would've waited in Cynthiana a few more days until we knew things had settled down.”
Emily looked up at him, and her eyes were once again filled with tears. “I'm so happy to spend today with you, and I really hope that we can keep seeing each other and grow even closer. But I have to know if you are concerned that I may go off on a tangent from time to time.”
He exhaled loudly and shook his head. “I understand your free spirit. In fact, if that wasn't part of you, then you wouldn't be the woman that I have found myself so yearning to be with. At the same time, I'm going to have to feel that you're going to be willing to allow me to establish some limits. Above all, I want to keep you safe. I'm not trying to stifle your thoughts and deprive you of your freedom. After all, it's 1864 now, and things are starting to change. I know that you need to be part of that, and I want you to.”
She looked at him with a warm smile and a flutter of her eyes. “We both know that there are going to be times when my impulsiveness, my zeal for new ideas… I guess what I'm trying to say, Charles, is that I know myself. I don't know if I have it in me to not rebel against society, even against you from time to time, to an extent that you find unacceptable. Then what do we do? Our last day of the trip, you said something about perhaps I would someday show you that I was serious about coming to grips with you having some authority over me. What were you referring to?”
Charles leaned closer to her until their faces were just an inch apart, then he spoke slowly, his voice at a lower tone, “What do you think I was referring to?”
At first, Emily simply gazed back at him in silence, her eyes as large as saucers. Then she began to chew on her lower lip, and as they leaned to press their lips together, she burst into a fit of giggles and fell more deeply into love.
They walked to the barn where the horse stables sheltered two other horses, in addition to the one he had ridden home. He brought the other two horses out of their stalls and they readied them for a ride. They spent the afternoon riding leisurely around the farm, walking the horses through the large open field where the immense herd of cattle grazed, as they grew and fattened to be taken by small groups into Cincinnati to be sold.
They rode to the edge of the field to a wooded area, and Charles explained that, when he was finally done with the Army, he was going to contact railroad officials to see if a siding from a nearby track could be built so that his livestock, and that of neighboring farmers and ranchers, could be loaded directly onto railroad cars. Emily sat and felt a swell of pride as she listened to the ambitions of the young man who had suddenly become the center of her life in short order. She also felt a wisp of sadness in knowing what he had endured, as his ambitions had been set aside for another cause.
The sun was just beginning to set as he guided the battered old buckboard into the lane of the McMannus farm. He had joked along the way that he knew the wagon was not nearly as comfortable, or as grand, as Emily was accustomed to riding on. But neither one of them cared, for it allowed them to sit beside each other and talk freely all the way back to her home.
He brought the wagon to a stop in front of the house, then hopped down and walked around to the side of the wagon and helped Emily to the ground. They engaged in a long, deep kiss, so much that they did not at first see that her parents were coming up the lane as well.
Keeping her arms around his waist, Emily looked up to him with nearly closed eyes. “Please tell me that you can come here next Sunday. The hired hands will all be gone and it will be quiet and peaceful here. In the afternoon there would just be you and I,” she gestured with mock irritation at her approaching parents, “and them.”
“Of course, I'm already looking forward to it.” The other wagon pulled up ahead of his, and her parents were quickly dismounted and walking toward them with beaming smiles.
Emily spoke before they could even greet each other. “I've invited Charles to come over next Sunday afternoon. I'm sure that you won't mind having him around.”
Her mother laughed. “Then it's going to be up to you, darling, to be a good hostess. Your father and I are going to be visiting the Andersons in Columbus, and we won't be catching the train back to Cincinnati until Tuesday morning.”
The four of them stood and chatted for a while, until her mother elbowed her husband only semi-discreetly to signal him to say goodbye to Charles and go inside with her. They were once again standing outside with their arms around each other, enjoying another long kiss.
Charles sighed and ran his fingers through her long brown hair. “It's going to seem like a long time until next Sunday.”
She placed her head against his chest and squeezed him tightly. “I'll dream about you every night until I see you again.” He leaned down and they shared one more long kiss, then he reluctantly walked to the wagon and hopped up onto the seat. He picked up the reins, hesitated before shaking them, looking over at Emily with a smile that told her everything she needed to know.
He spent a restless and lonely evening alone in the farmhouse. He considered going across the road to visit with his cousins and share some card games and whiskey. But he knew that really he was doing nothing more than trying to divert his thoughts from Emily.
The first two days of the week he tried to keep himself occupied, busying himself with feeding the cattle and cleaning the three large cattle barns. On Wednesday morning, his cousins brought in several new breeding bulls Charles had agreed to buy from a neighbor, and when he helped his cousins prepare to brand them, as one of them held the iron in the ashes to get it hot enough, he looked at Charles with curiosity. “Okay, Charlie, what's so funny?” Charles simply laughed and sighed. “Never mind. You would never believe it anyway.”
It was on Thursday morning that while fixing some ruts in the lane he saw a man on horseback approaching. As the man rode slowly up the lane, Charles felt a sense of disappointment when he saw that it was a Union Army dispatch rider.
He walked up to greet the Corporal, who gave him a sharp salute although Charles was not in uniform. “Colonel Morrow, telegram from General Rolf, Sir. Have a good day.”
Charles was reluctant to open the envelope at first, so he stood rigid as a tree as he watched the Corporal ride back down and out of the lane. He suddenly felt weary far beyond his youth, and he walked slowly back to his house and sat down on the porch swing and reluctantly opened the envelope.
Chapter Seven
It was just after noon on Sunday that Charles mounted his horse and began to ride toward the McMannus farm. He was anxious to see Emily, not only because he was simply anxious to be with her again, but also to see how she would react to the news he had received from his commander. It would be a good ride, the skies fair and with just enough cloud cover to keep the sun from being blinding. There was a very mild and pleasant breeze, making the air comfortable. The ride would take less than an hour,
and he could not put the miles behind him quickly enough.
He felt his heart begin to beat faster when the McMannus farm came into sight. The fields looked green and beautiful, and he caught a hint of sunlight gleaming from the stream behind the house that Emily had told him about. By the time he was halfway down the lane, his beautiful Emily was standing on the front porch waving to him.
He brought his horse to a gallop, and when he reached the front of the house and she walked out to meet him, he quickly dismounted, tied his horse to the hitching post and ran to pick her up in a tight hug, and then kissed her as he swung her around. She looked like a vision of beauty to him, wearing a light blue cotton dress with white polka dots, and a low-cut bodice that could not have been styled that way for any purpose than to captivate a man's attention. But she would have had his attention had she been wearing a dress made of burlap, for that matter.
They put their arms around each other and walked into the house, the first time that Charles had been inside the stately home. As expected, the furnishings were elegant and tasteful, nothing appearing to be out of place, and he remarked to Emily that it was certainly not the home of a single man.
She put her arms around his waist and looked up at him with a smile of contentment. “Had anything to eat?”
“Before I left. And you?”
“I'm fine, too. Let's go out to sit on the back porch.” Arm in arm, they walked through the house onto the back porch, a rather large covered structure with wicker furniture covered with flowered cushions. Emily gestured toward the sofa, and seemed to guide Charles to sit in the middle, with her on his right. She then leaned her head against his shoulder and gestured out toward the scene in front of them.
The bank of the stream was only about fifty feet away from the house, and he saw where the lane continued on past the house and onto the bridge that Emily had told him about. About thirty feet on the other side of the stream the fields of crops began, and Charles was impressed by the expanse before him.