Shutting the door, he clambered down the stairs and out the door. The sky was a faultless expanse of blue. The buttery yellow light spilled down the street. The leaves on the trees looked as if they had been washed, so brightly did they shine.
There was something eternal about it that reminded him of childhood. Yet Theo could barely remember a day so beautiful, so hopeful, even in his boyhood. He climbed onto his borrowed horse and rode toward the seminary, urging it on with his heels whenever its pace slackened.
Too many minutes later, he sprung down and handed the reins to a confused stable boy. The walk through the gardens took another brisk minute and then he was at the ornate front door on which he pounded. A stunned maid received him.
“Good morning! Has Miss Hampton risen?”
“She has, but I don’t think she is yet receiving visitors,” the girl stammered.
“Tell her Theodore Ward is here to call. I’ll wait.”
He strode over to the window in the front parlor, attempting to project confidence. In truth he had no idea what his reception would be. Margaret had abandoned him, after all. Maybe they didn’t share the same perception of the previous night.
Two minutes later — he knew, he was watching the ticking clock on the mantle — he heard the soft fall of footsteps behind him.
A sonorous voice asked, “Mr. Ward, to what do I owe the pleasure so early this morning?”
When he turned toward her, he realized she was speaking to the rug, a becoming blush spread over her neck and cheeks. She wore a gray morning dress and held herself rigid, as its steel hue would suggest she should. However was he going to convince her?
“Margaret.” Her eyes were still downcast, but he couldn’t keep his intentions out of his voice. She looked at him finally, and he hoped she understood it all. “Ask me to walk with you in the garden.”
Her expression was blank, as if she didn’t understand. She nodded only when he offered his arm to her. She stopped to retrieve her bonnet and gloves and met him outside a moment later.
He shepherded her out into the air and onto the nearest bench. How to begin this conversation? Last night in the stable, he’d had a speech prepared until she’d launched herself at him and his plans had melted before her warmth and responsiveness.
“How do you fare this morning?” she asked, still speaking to the ground.
“I will be better once you agree to marry me.”
“What?” She jolted up and almost shouted, eyes wide with surprise. Perhaps his face hadn’t conveyed everything after all.
Abandoning the lengthy opening list of sentiments that usually accompanied proposals in the novels he’d read, he led with what he considered to be his strongest argument. “I may have gotten a child on you last night. You will marry me.”
She was crimson now, but unpersuaded. She shook her head. “No, Theo. Don’t charge in here acting like you have to save me. I asked you to. I knew what I was doing.” She set her chin and looked away from him.
On to the next tactic, then. “If not because you may be carrying my baby, then, do it because it’s the only way I can go to war and feel secure.”
“How are the two linked?”
“I will worry about you every day until my return. It could be years. Let me make you my wife. Let me extend my roof to you, my money. Let Mother take care of you.”
“Why?” she demanded, nostrils flaring and brow furrowed.
He took her hands gently and used the last weapon in his arsenal. “What did I say to you the night of the dance at McDonough House? Because it’s time. We’ve spent too many years pretending we can live without each other. Where did it get us? Exactly where we started, only unhappy. Let’s try life another way, then. And until this war is over and we can be together, let me spread my mantle before you. Marry me.”
At this, her expression softened but still she shook her head. “We may have spent time apart stupidly, but we’ve fought whenever we were together. Years ago and then again this week. Our temperaments are not well suited. That’s not a good foundation for matrimony.” She freed her hands from his and folded them in her lap, as if the matter were settled against him.
He’d expected a struggle, but this was becoming demoralizing. Was there no way to play upon her sympathies? “We’ve been under a great strain. Marry me because you abandoned me in a stable last night.”
She blushed and looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t risk my absence being noticed.”
“You didn’t think to wake me?”
“I wasn’t sure what to say.”
“Then marry me to atone for your cowardice.” She looked up and smiled at him. He felt hopeful for the first time.
He continued, eager finally to win the battle, “Marry me this afternoon and share my bed tonight.”
He might flatter himself by thinking that would make his offer more appealing, but then she blushed again and his heart thumped harder. Last night excepted, he suspected she was a total innocent. In the weeks before he left, they would educate one another, if she would ever accept him.
She paused for a long time, first contemplating his face and then the gravel at her feet. Finally she looked out, across the seminary’s grounds. She had reached a decision, he could tell. “Can we do that? Marry today?”
“I believe so,” he spoke slowly. He hadn’t worked out all the details. His plans were progressing more quickly than he was able to lay track in front of them. “My deployment seems sufficient reason to expedite the matter. And I know most of the judges and lawyers in town. We should be able to work something out.” More than the practicalities, however, he needed to clarify. “Are you saying yes?”
Turning toward him, she placed her hands in his. “Theodore Ward, I accept.”
“Truly?” His heart caught in his chest. She was his. Again and forever.
“To repent for leaving you sleeping in a stall, I will become your bride. However, there is one thing you must know. I don’t love you.”
He felt his chest constrict. Didn’t she love him?
She continued, “I lost the capacity for romantic love two years ago. I realized it’s a dream for young girls. I am more practical now. I am harder. I am not the woman you knew. Does that bother you? Can you truly tell me you love me?”
He’d imagined this moment for several days. As he’d worked things out with the army, as he’d hidden his activities from Josiah and Mother, he’d known the next step was securing Margaret. And yet he never once considered she might say, well, that. Perhaps he should withdraw his offer?
No! There was only one way to move in life. The past week had been a thick blur of emotion and confusion. Theo hadn’t yet worked out what it all meant. But if she would agree, there would be plenty of time for fixing labels later on.
He recalled her question and said, “All I know is that I will go through my days with you and no other.”
“As long as we are in accord, then, I will marry you.”
Theo jumped to his feet and pulled her up to him. He saw several faces at the window and, in order to leave them with no doubt of what was transpiring, he dropped his face to Margaret’s and kissed her. Briefly. Chastely. In perfect keeping with decorum.
It took restraint, but he was able to master himself knowing there would be more kisses to come. So he released her, keeping hold only of her elbow to escort her back to the seminary. “I’ll be back for you at three this afternoon. Is that sufficient time to pack up a lifetime at this place?”
She squeezed his hand. “I hope so.”
“Until this afternoon then, my lady.”
Chapter V
On the twenty-sixth of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, Margaret Ruth Hampton married Theodore Eugene Ward.
Margaret recorded the event in
the grandest possible terms in her family Bible. It was one of the few relics of her long-dead parents that she possessed and one of very few personal items that filled the two trunks she had taken from the seminary the day before. She smiled down at the entry, amused that it omitted that her marriage had been prompted by a few moments of madness in a stable and her desire not to end her days at the Middletown Female Seminary. Those facts did not need to live on for posterity. The official record was downright spotless compared to reality.
She set down her pen down and turned to ponder Theo, who was stretched out on the bed in their room at McDonough House, still asleep. They had decided to spend their honeymoon away from his mother. Margaret wasn’t sure the poor woman would ever recover from the shock of yesterday. For that matter, she herself might not either.
She played idly with the simple gold band he had placed on her finger. It was strange and unfamiliar. Her husband sighed, and one hand began moving over the bed, searching for her. Husband. The word baffled.
“Am I never to wake and find you beside me?” he asked, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“Not if you slumber until after seven.”
“Come back here, and I’ll show you just how roused I am.” He grinned at her impishly and her heart squeezed.
Ignoring it, Margaret shook her head with a laugh. “Indeed I will not. You promised Josiah you would be at work for the rest of the week to help him address your caseload in anticipation of your departure. There is nothing new to discover in bed.” That wasn’t quite true. The previous evening had been far more satisfying than that in the stable. Perhaps a bed made all the difference.
As if he knew her thoughts, Theo raised a brow at her and scoffed. “How wrong you are, madam. I leave for Hartford in less than a month, a time insufficient to exhaust the possibilities.”
Contemplating his departure was too difficult, so she seized upon this statement. “After all your compunction about me, I think you are the party who came into our marriage with compromised virtue.”
Theo swung his legs off the edge of the bed and took her hand. “I have not had lovers, if that’s what you mean. At Yale, I — ” She silenced him with a wave of her head. She did not truly want to know. “I was not so innocent as you, Margaret, but neither was I a degenerate. I have never cared for a woman as I do for you.”
She took her hand away and turned back to the desk. In a crisp, light voice she said, “We do not need to say these things to each other, Theo. We know what we are and what we are not.”
He nodded and rose, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head as he walked to the basin to wash. Acutely aware of a sudden ache in her chest, she wished she believed her own words.
“What will you do while I am at the office?” he asked.
“I have a hundred letters to write. I find that I do not know how to explain the last two weeks to my friends. And I thought I might call upon your mother.”
Theo turned and grinned at her. “Alone? Brave girl. Shall I meet you there for luncheon?”
“As you wish.”
“How will you and Mother fare during my absence?”
“I don’t know where you ever acquired the idea that your mother and I don’t get along. Our interactions have always been most civil.”
“Perhaps from each of you telling me you disliked the other.”
“How dreadful of you to break our confidences in this manner,” Margaret said, laughing.
“I’m a shocking man.” He was mixing his shaving cream in a cup with a brush now. She had not known men required so many shiny and specific instruments for their toilet. Theo was wonderfully meticulous. She particularly enjoyed watching the long, smooth slide of his muscles under the skin of his back. Perhaps she should have returned to bed.
She sighed and responded to his question. “Your mother disliked me because she thought I sought to take her son from her and then because she thought I broke his heart. Now the war takes you from us both, and your heart has mended. With the war as a common enemy, she and I will find a way. I don’t know how to have a mother; she doesn’t know how to have a daughter. We’ll muddle through together.”
“I may return very soon.”
“Do you think it will be so?”
He shrugged. “The papers argue a long war is impossible. That the Union’s resources are so superior to those of the states in rebellion we will crush them and return to normalcy before winter.” His tone was measured but dry, as if he were reciting from the newspaper by rote.
“I’ve read so, but I take it you doubt this view.”
“That’s not how the civil wars in Europe have played out.” He washed his face and patted himself dry with a towel. “Walk out with me,” he said, his voice thick with meaning. Margaret nodded, dazed. Having a husband was very confusing.
• • •
Theo had to remind himself to slow down on the stairs several times so as not to rush his wife. Marriage would require many adjustments.
As they crossed the lobby, the clerk at the desk smiled and nodded at them. “Good morning, Mr. Ward, Mrs. Ward.”
His gripped Margaret’s arm tighter. She was his. He wasn’t sure what all that damn fool business about not believing in love was, but as Margaret slept in his arms last night, he had decided he wanted to put an end to that charade. Life with her would never be restful, but he’d had enough rest in his life. She was meant for him and he for her.
As much as she might want to deny it, she came alive when he touched her. She might bury her feelings, but her body whispered a different tale. While he was looking forward to his departure in some ways, months of nights without Margaret was a cold, dark possibility. Having finally started to live his life, he wanted to quaff deeply everything he had merely sipped before. But living away from her — however long it was necessary to do so — was an unfortunate condition of having a war motivate one to change.
Several blocks later, he exerted a warm pressure on her arm and she turned and looked up at him, puzzled. They had reached his office. Theo lifted her gloved hand to his mouth and kissed each of her knuckles before turning her hand over and pressing his mouth to her palm. He inhaled. Lavender and lemon verbena. That ever-present Margaret combination of floral and citrus, sweet and tart.
He would spend the morning counting the hours until they were together again. Finally, he released her hand and looked deeply into her gold-brown eyes. “I hope you have a pleasant morning, Mrs. Ward.”
She appeared amused and, he hoped, perhaps as overwhelmed by him as he was by her. “You also, Mr. Ward,” she replied.
“Until luncheon.” He released her hand with regret and opened the door.
Inside his clerks, Marcus and Anson, were already hard at work — or at least they’d managed to turn from the spectacle he had been making of himself over Margaret and back to their copying in time to avoid his eyes. He crossed to his desk, set down his valise, and tried to put his wife from his head. The more quickly he could wrap up his business, the more time he could spend with her before he departed.
Josiah came into the main office from his own private enclave and leaned against the door. The old man watched Margaret’s retreating figure through the glass. “She’s beautiful as the dawn, Ward. Why did it take you years to marry her?”
“Sheer obstinacy on my part.”
Josiah leaned against the wall. “And now you’re leaving for the war in a month.”
“Yes.”
“Leaving that pretty girl to go off and play games,” Josiah clarified.
Theo slammed a fist into his desk and snapped, “If you think the preservation of our union is a game — ”
“Calm yourself.” Josiah raised a hand in supplication. “I’m merely trying to say you have poor timing.”
Theo pursed his lips and turned back to the papers
he’d been sorting. “The two matters resolved themselves concurrently. Believe me, I regret I must leave so soon. I don’t wish to leave Margaret at all. I would not do so if the stakes were not as high as they are.”
The old man stepped to the glass and looked out again. “For your sake, I hope you’re right.” Josiah had been his mother’s brother’s partner for many years. When his uncle had retired, Theo had taken his place in the firm. He often found his partner to be tedious, antediluvian, and complacent. But in this at least he was correct.
“So do I. Now, let’s start with the Bentley land dispute.”
Chapter VI
The large buildings of Main Street blurred into the houses behind them. Gardens became smears of green, flowers points of color. Crowds on the sidewalks transformed into obstacles to be dodged. Each of Margaret’s steps took her closer to the dwelling where Theo intended to install her as mistress before departing for war. Had it really only been a single day since she had agreed to marry him? Was it less than a day since they had married?
It had seemed a simple matter as they had sat in the garden at the seminary. She might not love Theo, but she cared for him. Were her feelings sufficient for a lifetime partnership? Wouldn’t it be better to have security if she had conceived? On this basis had she accepted him?
You do make decisions in a most capricious way.
She glanced about, confused and dislocated. She had missed the turn.
Backtracking, she considered what awaited her. Though he had mentioned his mother during his proposal, Margaret hadn’t thought of the woman. Now it was all she could think about.
Mrs. Ward, the true Mrs. Ward, was a plump, short woman of about sixty years. Most of the residents of Middletown would not call her unpleasant. Most of the residents of Middletown had not married her son.
As she approached Theo’s house, a chilling thought froze Margaret’s progress. Theo could die.
Time After Time Page 148
