“I don’t see how one lone man could have been much of a threat to us,” Virginia argued. “We could have handled him without you all lifting a finger.”
All eyes turned to Virginia. They had hardly noticed her, in the excitement of their reunion. Rodney looked his sister up and down with more than a hint of disapproval in his gaze.
“How come you’re dressed like that, girl?”
Virginia hadn’t meant to let her father and brothers catch her this way. However, they had given the ladies at Swan’s Quarter no hint of their approach. She hadn’t had time to change.
“I decided it would be a good idea to let anyone passing by think that there’s a man on the premises.”
“Those my britches?” Rodney demanded.
Virginia blushed. “No. Yours were too big for me. These belong to Hampton.”
“Here now!” Her younger brother, one of the twins, stepped forward, looking both angry and embarrassed. “I don’t let no women wear my pants.”
“It was my idea, son,” Melora Swan interjected. “Your sister is dressed this way as much for her own protection as for ours. She is young, beautiful, and unmarried. A temptation to any soldier who happens by—Union or Confederate.”
Colonel Swan frowned down at his delicate-looking wife. “You’ve had many come this way?”
She nodded, primly, recalling the terror she had felt on some of those occasions, but successfully hiding it from her husband. “More than I can count. But you needn’t worry. Most of them are quite gentlemanly, no matter which side they’re fighting for. Still, there is always a chance of deserters accosting us. I won’t have Virginia put in such danger. She will dress as a man until this war is over.”
“Well, she makes a mighty handsome fellow,” Colonel Swan said, with a wink at his only daughter.
Rodney tightened his arms around Agnes’s slender shoulders. “Just so long as you don’t go putting my wife in trousers.”
Agnes giggled, embarrassed, as all eyes turned on her enormous belly. “Don’t be silly, Rod darlin’. No man would find me attractive, the way I look now.”
Rodney leaned down and whispered for her ears alone, “I do. Mighty attractive, honey bunch.”
Agnes giggled again and blushed all over. The others tried to ignore the sexual tension between Rodney and his bride. Virginia, however, found it impossible to suppress her envy. But for her father and brothers, she would be married to Channing now, perhaps carrying his child. The thought hurt down to her very soul.
Colonel Swan had brought a larder of confiscated victuals with him. Polly’s eyes grew big as melons to see so much food, after their meager rations of the past few months. Other troops from both sides had confiscated the contents of their smokehouse and decimated their chicken yard and pig stye.
“It’s been mighty lean pickings around here, of late. But, Colonel, sir, we gone eat tonight, shore enough,” the cook crowed, with glee.
And they did. They ate for hours, as Polly brought out dish after delicious dish of steaming food. Fried chicken, plump smoked ham, crisp cracklings, sweet potatoes bubbling in buttery caramel sauce, feather-light biscuits, and real coffee. Apple pie with a flaky crust topped off the feast.
As delicious as the meal was, Virginia could only pick at her food. Something was gnawing at her mind, something she desperately needed to talk about. A dream early that morning, just before she awoke, had convinced her that the time for action had come. It was late that night before Virginia had a chance to approach her father with her urgent request. Her mother had gone to their bedroom to prepare for her husband. Virginia found the colonel alone in the library, enjoying a brandy before bedtime.
“May I come in?” she asked from the door.
“By all means, my dear. And I must say, I like you better in that lovely gown than in Hampton’s britches. You truly are a beauty, Virginia.”
“Thank you, Father, but I didn’t come to coax compliments from you. There’s something else that I want, much more.”
“Name it, Virginia. If it is within my power, it will be yours.”
She sat primly on the very edge of the chair nearest her father’s, her back ramrod straight, her eyes locked on his face.
“I need a pass.”
The colonel frowned, not taking her meaning.
“A pass to get through the Confederate lines,” she explained. He started to speak, but she held up her hand for his silence. “Please, Father, hear me out.”
He nodded, but the pleasure in his countenance had changed to something quite different, much darker.
“I have waited and waited, but there has been no word from Channing all these months. I know that his troop has been involved in several major battles. I must reassure myself that he is well. My plan is to ride to Washington City. I’ve heard his company is encamped there. A Union officer, who passed this way last week, told me. I have to go to him, Father.”
“The hell, you say!” Jedediah Swan came half out of his chair and, in the process, tipped over his brandy. “I’ll have no daughter of mine riding about the countryside like a common camp follower.”
Virginia held her anger in check. How could he refuse her? Didn’t he understand about love and need and the pain of separation? Silently, she counted to ten before she allowed herself to reply.
“I have a feeling something has happened to Channing. I had a dream. I think he’s been shot.”
“A dream. You women!” Colonel Swan scoffed. “If I had a Yankee greenback for every dream your mother has ever had, I’d be as rich as Midas. Dreams mean nothing!”
“This one was different, Father. It was strange. I saw Channing in the woods outside the house, but somehow he wasn’t the Channing I know. He was dressed differently. He wasn’t in uniform, but was wearing the oddest clothes I’ve ever seen. Suddenly, he came upon a group of soldiers. I heard a shot, saw a flash, then Channing called out to me. He was in pain, Father. He needs me. I know it! I must go to him.”
“Daughter, you’re just overwrought. Do you think Channing would want you putting yourself in such danger for his sake? I don’t believe so. Not if he truly loves you.”
“Do you think Mother would stay here, only to be safe, if she knew that you needed her?”
The colonel sighed deeply. His gaze focused on the dark brandy stain shining damply on the Turkish carpet at his feet. “Your mother, God bless her, is the bravest, most stubborn woman to ever walk the face of the earth.”
“And I am her daughter,” Virginia reminded him.
“Nevertheless, I won’t permit this.” He paused and shifted his gaze to Virginia’s face, staring deeply into her beautiful, innocent eyes. “This war is not the glorious adventure your brothers had imagined it would be. It’s mean and ugly and terrible, Virginia. The things I’ve seen …” His voice trailed off, as his mind seemed to wander back to distant battlefields. “I may never sleep nights again. I can’t let you see all that, daughter. Even if you got through to Washington and found Channing and returned home without incident, you would come back a changed person.”
“I’m willing to take that chance,” she said, quietly.
Just as softly, he answered, “But, you see, I am not. No, Virginia! I will not give you a pass, and I forbid you to leave Swan’s Quarter!”
The discussion was clearly at an end. Virginia rose, went dutifully to kiss her father’s cheek, then left the library, without speaking another word. She didn’t trust her voice. If she said so much as “good night” to her father, he would surely hear the defiance in her tone. A pass signed by Colonel Jedediah Swan would have eased her journey. But she could manage without it, and she would if she had to.
Virginia went straight to her room from the library, her mission clear in her mind. She couldn’t make her move as long as her father and brothers remained at Swan’s Quarter. But the minute they left, she would be ready to go, too.
Alone in her room, she devised a knapsack f
rom a large bandanna, and stuffed it with the bare essentials. She would have to travel light, on horseback, and there was no telling how long she would be gone. Long after midnight, Virginia finally went to bed. She was trembling with fatigue, aching with anxiety. She only hoped she wouldn’t be too late. As much as she loved her father and brothers, she prayed that duty would call, and they would have to leave Swan’s Quarter shortly.
Her last waking thought was of Channing. With her eyes closed, she could see him lying somewhere far away, a bandage wrapped about his right arm.
“I’m coming, darling,” she whispered. “I won’t let you down. I love you with all my heart, Channing.”
One floor below and over a century into the future, Neal Frazier heard his beloved’s words. He moved on his bed and strained, trying to reach out to her. “Virginia, my dearest,” he moaned.
Big George, roused from sleep by Neal’s mumbled words, got up and tucked the covers around him. He stared down at Neal’s frowning face and twitching eyelids.
“You keep this up, buddy, and I’m gonna have to ask the doc to shoot you again with another sedative. You lay easy now, you hear?”
Far off, Channing McNeal heard a snatch of Big George’s words—spoken to him by a Rebel guard, he assumed. The phrase “shoot you again” came through, loud and clear. Channing forced himself to lie very still. He concentrated all his thoughts on Virginia—visualizing her lovely face, recalling the sweet softness of her lips, telling her silently, over and over again, how much he loved her and missed her and needed her.
Channing McNeal’s words reached Ginna Jones, who was drowsing on the sofa at the old parsonage and dreaming of him. She knew that he was wounded and that she must go to him. But, even in sleep, she realized she dared not make her move until Virginia Swan’s father and brothers rode back to the war.
“Channing,” she murmured in her dreamlike state, “I’m coming. Don’t worry, Neal, I love you and I always will. I’ll find you. We’ll be married. Everything will be all right. You’ll see. This war can’t last forever.”
Ginna woke up, just as she spoke the final sentence aloud. She knew immediately where she was—the parsonage. But it wasn’t the parsonage any longer. Was it? And she knew who she was—Virginia Swan. But she wasn’t Virginia any longer. Was she? Well, one thing at least was clear in her mind: She loved Neal Frazier as never before!
“But the Rebel soldier shot him,” she said, sitting up and blinking her eyes in wonder.
Chapter Twelve
The news of Neal’s encounter with the Rebel soliders spread through Swan’s Quarter like wildfire. Big George couldn’t resist telling one of his relic-hunting buddies, who worked in the kitchen, about the Minie ball. He, in turn, confided in Marcellus Lynch, who whispered the secret to Pansy Pennycock, who simply could not keep anything from Sister Randolph. The two women and Lynch were on the veranda after breakfast, discussing the matter and trying to figure out how such a thing could have happened to a nice fellow like Neal. None of them noticed Elspeth’s approach. After a restless night, she had slept through the morning meal. She had just come from the kitchen, where she partook of tea and milk toast alone.
No one had yet told Elspeth about the events of the previous night. No one needed to. In tune with all otherworldly happenings in and around Swan’s Quarter, she had felt the approach of the Rebels in her bones, the same way she could always feel the approach of a thunderstorm by the sharp ache in her joints. Expecting the gray ghosts to put in an appearance, she had lingered at her window most of the night, her eagle-eyes trained on the woods. She had seen Neal run from the house. Only moments later, she had spied the dark mist that always materialized into the phantom troupe. She knew them well. Swan’s Cavalry.
Most often, when she saw these pale ghosts on their fiery-eyed steeds, their appearance brought great joy to her heart. The men of the family were home again! But last night had been different. She had felt a menacing presence the very moment she saw the first wisps of gray-black fog. She knew in that instant what was about to happen. Somehow the past was about to clash with the present. The moment the silent ghosts materialized—menacing and dangerous—she knew that someone at Swan’s Quarter was in grave peril.
“Yankee spy!” The words had drifted up to her from the haunted woods, like a whisper on the sharp night wind.
In the blink of an eye, she had realized at whom their accusations and threats were aimed. She had tried to call out to Neal Frazier, but her old voice was too weak, and he was too far away. Moments later, she had seen the flash, then heard the shot.
“Poor boy!” she had murmured. “He’s not set on spying, just seeing Miss Virginia, after all this time.”
She had kept watch at her window for a good while, after that, until she was sure that Neal had been found and would be taken care of. Since no one called an ambulance, she guessed that his wound was not serious. She gave it more than an hour, before she sneaked downstairs to make sure he was all right. When she had peeked into the examing room, Neal was calling for Virginia, while Big George snored on, oblivious.
“Lordy me!” she had murmured, on the way back up to her room. “What’s to become of us, now that the past and the present done met?”
When she reached the veranda that morning and saw Pansy and Sister with their heads bowed close to old Lynch, hanging on his every word, she knew that they knew. She smiled with self-satisfaction.
“Well, I guess you all won’t be pooh-poohing my sightings of Confederate ghosts, from now on.”
All three at the table jerked around as if they had just been caught in the commission of a crime.
“Why, Elspeth!” Pansy said, with a flutter in her voice. “We thought you were still sleeping. You missed breakfast, dear.”
“Milk toast, your favorite,” Lynch added, with a pleased smirk.
“Had my own in the kitchen. Cook made it special.”
“With sugar?” Sister asked.
“And nutmeg! But never mind that. You all are just trying to change the subject.”
“We were talking about breakfast,” Pansy said.
“Not before I walked up, you weren’t. So, out with it! What are you three up to that doesn’t include me?”
Lynch opened his mouth to tell all, before the women could steal his thunder. But he got no more than two words out before Elspeth held up her hand to silence him.
“If it’s about Neal Frazier getting shot last night, you needn’t bother. I saw the whole thing. Even slipped in to make sure he was all right after Dr. Kirkwood finished patching him up. He seemed fine. Just sort of restless.”
“Then he really was shot?”
“Indeed he was, Sister. The Rebel ghost was at close range. Could have done real damage. But I figure the ball must of veered off course, traveling through time as it did. Lucky, for Neal too. His right arm might have just as easy been his heart, if that bullet had been fired off in the here and now.”
Lynch hurrumphed loudly. “Seems to me the cook must have put something more than a dash of nutmeg in your milk toast, Elspeth. You’re talking out of your head.”
Neither Pansy nor Sister made any comment. It was clear from the skeptical looks on their faces, however, that they fully agreed with Lynch.
“I been telling you and telling you about those Confederate ghosts in the woods.” She leaned close and leered at each of the three, in turn. “Well, haven’t I?”
They nodded.
“And last night’s my proof.”
“See here, Elspeth, you can’t expect us to believe that some Rebel soldier fired off his gun back in the past and shot Neal Frazier in the present.” Lynch sounded outraged at the very thought.
“Oh, can’t I? What are you saying, that I’m senile? If you don’t believe what happened, you must take me for being not only old, but blind and deaf, as well. I saw the flash from that gun barrel. I heard that shot.”
“Here, now! Nobody’s acc
using anybody of being senile,” Lynch said, by way of a blustering apology. Secretly, though, he wondered if Elspeth might not be wrestling with the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Rebel ghosts, indeed!
“You have to admit, dear, that your account of what happened is a touch farfetched.” Pansy smiled warmly at Elspeth, not wishing to hurt her feelings.
“We can settle this right now. Come on with me!” Elspeth ordered. “We’ll just go see what Neal has to say about what happened.”
“Dr. Kirkwood won’t let us in to see him,” Sister reasoned. “Not if he’s really been shot.”
“Well, he damn-sure won’t let us see Neal, if we don’t try. You all coming or not?” Elspeth challenged.
They all rose and followed her eagerly into the hallway. There, they slowed their pace, creeping toward the examining room and ducking into doorways at the slightest sound, like thieves about to burgle the place.
If they had stayed a moment longer on the veranda, they would have witnessed the miracle of the tulip poplar. Out of the clear morning air, it materialized, just as Ginna came hurrying out of the woods near the swan pond. When Sam had driven up to the bus stop, she had been waiting to catch the very first bus on the Front Royal to Winchester run.
Her heart pounded furiously, as she hurried up the hill to Swan’s Quarter. What a night it had been! Her sleep had been interrupted by the most curious and disturbing dreams. It had seemed she heard someone calling to her out of the distant past. Could Channing McNeal be trying to contact her? Was he begging her to come back? Or had it been Neal she had heard calling her name?
As Ginna reached the tulip poplar, she saw Marcellus, Pansy, Sister, and Elspeth all hurrying through the front door, as if there were some great emergency. If the house were on fire and they were inside, she imagined that they would have moved at about the same pace and with the same degree of urgency.
“Now what?” she wondered aloud, speeding her own step to find out as soon as possible.
Dr. Kirkwood, who had spotted Ginna through his office window, was waiting for her on the veranda, when she came up the stairs.
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