From his discomifited expression, Virginia could tell that Jake Royal wished he were not the bearer of such news. He took a deep breath before he answered.
“Young Jed took a shot through the shoulder, ma’am. He was taken away in a hospital wagon, so I can’t report on his current condition, but I doubt it’s serious.”
“And Rodney?”
Royal hesitated for long moments and focused his gaze out the window at some distant point. “A head wound,” he said at length. “His father was with him when I last saw them. The Colonel believes that Rodney will recover, in time.”
In time. The words hung in the air like a pall.
Melora looked directly at Virginia. “Not a word of this to Agnes, do you understand? She is not a strong woman. There’s nothing she can do, so there is no need for her to know.”
Virginia and Jake Royal exchanged solemn looks, then both nodded.
“My husband is uninjured?”
“Fine, ma’am. The Colonel thrives.”
Still holding her mother’s shoulders, Virginia felt Melora release a pent-up sigh of relief. Then, shrugging her daughter’s protective arm away, she said archly, “Just like a man, to thrive on war! I believe it’s past time we offered you some breakfast, Captain Royal. And, Virginia, you go and dress. This minute!”
Just then, one of the ever-present kittens on the place came bounding into the room, chasing a moth. The sight of the ball of calico fur bounding and leaping eased the tension in the room. Jake reached down and caught the little cat in mid-pounce.
“Hello, there, you pretty little girl.” He snuggled the kitten under his whiskered chin and laughed when she batted his cheeks.
“How did you know that Rainbow’s a girl?” Virginia asked. The men in her family cared little or nothing for cats.
He chuckled and scratched the kitten’s ears. “I never saw a calico that wasn’t a female. Good mousers they are, too. And this one—Rainbow—is a mighty pretty thing. My Amanda would love her.”
A thought dawned on Virginia, at that moment. “Then your Amanda shall have her, Captain Royal. A gift from the Swan family.”
Rainbow stared up at him with her wide, gold-green eyes and meowed, as if she agreed with the plan.
“That’s a sweet gesture, Miss Virginia, but I don’t know when I’ll get home again to take Rainbow to Amanda.”
“She can wait here, until you find yourself headed for Tennessee. Channing told me that you and Miss Kelly plan to be married over the holidays. Perhaps you can take Rainbow then.”
A warm smile spread over his handsome face. Virginia could tell he was thinking of his love and their coming wedding.
“Did you know that Channing and I are married now?”
He stared at her. “No. When?”
“Virginia, don’t you think you had better go up and get dressed now?” Melora asked. She did not want her husband finding out that his only daughter had been wed.
However, before Melora could stop Virginia, she had told Captain Royal the whole story about the Yankee soldiers and the silver teapot and Channing’s arrival in the nick of time and their broomstick wedding.
When she finished, Jake Royal was chuckling. “Well, as we say down home in Tennessee, that sure takes the rag often the bush, Miz McNeal!”
“It was supposed to remain our secret,” Melora warned. “Please, Captain Royal, don’t tell anyone. My husband absolutely forbad them to marry, until after the war.”
Jake put the kitten down and turned to Melora. “You needn’t worry, Miz Swan. Your secret is safe with me. I’m sure glad Amanda’s daddy doesn’t feel that way. I can hardly wait to get home and marry that girl.”
Suddenly, Virginia was sorry she hadn’t heeded her mother’s instructions to go upstairs and dress. She went from feeling fine to feeling faint and ill, in the span of a moment. She felt her mother’s hand touch her arm. She couldn’t see her, because of the strange, bright spots floating in front of her eyes.
“Please excuse us, Captain Royal. It seems my daughter’s taken ill.”
“I’m so sorry. I hope it isn’t the grippe.”
“I’m sure not,” Virginia heard her mother answer. “It’s something far more natural for a woman in her state.”
Virginia’s mother helped her to a chair. “Something far more natural?” What did that mean?
“Don’t worry, dear. I’ll have Polly mix you a morning sickness potion. The first three months are always the worst. You’ll be over this soon, I vow.”
Virginia still felt dazed. Then realization came. “Do you mean I’m pregnant?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised, dear. Hadn’t you guessed? Why, Polly and I have been speculating on that possibility for weeks.”
All sorts of bright, happy thoughts danced in Virginia’s head. Still, her gaze was fuzzy, and she felt lightheaded and strange. The room suddenly seemed to be filled with people. Only they weren’t real people, but mere shadows laughing and talking all around her.
“A wedding!” she heard someone say. “Won’t it be fine?”
“The best time we’ve had at Swan’s Quarter since that young preacher from Front Royal first came to lead the Sunday singing.”
Virginia seemed to recognize the two female voices, but, then again, she didn’t.
She moaned softly, disoriented and feeling as though she were drifting through space. The room appeared to be turning upside down.
“A baby,” she sighed. “Channing’s baby.”
The next moment, everything around her went black.
“Ginna? Ginna, wake up!”
“A baby—mine and Channing’s …”
“Here, darlin’, let me help you sit up. Remember me? Neal?”
Ginna felt only half herself. Part of her was still Virginia, the woman carrying Channing McNeal’s child. She almost hated to give up that part of the past.
When her head cleared and she looked up, she spied the heavy wisteria that hung like a green and purple curtain overhead. This was the very vine she had planted the morning Channing rode off, after their marriage and their long, sweet night of love-making. Her bridal bouquet had now grown and matured, like her love for her husband.
“Ginna? You’re still a million miles away.” Neal was right She was.
“We’re back so soon?” she whispered. “But it wasn’t finished. I still don’t know what happened.”
“You know that Virginia and Channing were married, that they had a baby. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“There’s still so much I don’t know. Did Channing come home from the war? And what about Colonel Swan? How about Rodney and Jed and the others. Poor Agnes! What if she had to raise little Roslyn all alone?”
“There are other ways to find out,” Neal insisted. “You said Kirkwood mentioned an old Bible containing the family records. We’ll take a look. But I really don’t think we’d better go back to the past, Ginna, ever again. We belong here-together.”
She turned to look at him. Why had he said that? He, above all people, should understand that Virginia belonged with her husband, Channing.
“I intend to find out what happened to all the Swans, one way or another.”
“And then you’ll marry me? I mean, I’m really beginning to feel cheated. You married Channing, now marry me. Hey, I’ll even jump a broomstick, if that’s the way you want it. Anytime, anyplace, you name it!”
Ginna couldn’t help but laugh. And she couldn’t help but love Neal for the way he put up with her whims and excuses.
She leaned forward and kissed his mouth ever so softly. “How does the day after tomorrow sound for our wedding?”
Neal threw his arms around her and hugged her close. “Do you really mean it? Day after tomorrow?”
“If that’s too soon …”
He cut off her sentence with his lips, holding her gently, kissing her deeply.
Old Zee strolled in, interruptin
g their intimate moment, “You folks gonna miss dinner. They’s already in the dining room, you know. I done had mine in the kitchen.”
“Goodness! How did it get so late?” Ginna said, slightly flustered. “Come on, Neal. We’d better go.”
Hand in hand, they hurried to the dining room. Sure enough, everyone was seated. Elspeth motioned for them to come sit at her table.
“We just got started,” the old woman called. “Come on over, and we’ll send to the kitchen for two more plates.”
Ginna thought quickly, trying to come up with some excuse for their tardiness. She needn’t have bothered. Neither Elspeth nor any of the others asked where they had been. Instead, all the attention focused on Neal.
“Well, I declare!” Elspeth said. “I thought you were laid up in bed, Neal. The doctor let you up so soon?”
Suddenly remembering that he had been shot, Neal glanced down at his arm. There was no bandage, no wound, no scar. Also, no explanation. He laughed and raised his arm for all of them to see.
“Looks like you were right, Elspeth. That must have been a ghost who shot me. And I guess it was a phantom bullet, too.”
Elspeth gave him a knowing smile and leaned close to whisper, “Time cures a lot, don’t it? The greenhouse got powerful magic in it, sure enough.”
Ginna stared, amazed, at Neal’s uninjured arm. “How could this happen?”
Again, Elspeth spoke in a whisper. “I know where you two been. And you needed to go one last time. Did you see my great-gran, Polly?”
Ginna nodded. “She saved Channing’s life.”
“Well, I reckon her potions must of helped Neal heal up too. She was a wise woman, that Polly.”
Sister and Marcellus Lynch were across the table, deep in some private conversation, ignoring the others. Only Pansy seemed left out by everyone. Ginna smiled at her, trying to draw her into their group.
“What’s wrong, Miss Pansy? You’re so quiet today.”
Pansy glanced toward Elspeth, as if asking her permission to speak. Elspeth answered for her.
“She needs to talk to you private, after we finish dinner, Ginna. Isn’t that right, Pansy?”
She nodded, but still looked ill at ease. “If you say so, Elspeth.”
“About what?” Ginna asked.
Elspeth was quick to cut her off. “It’ll keep for now.”
Dr. Kirkwood burst into the dining room just then, looking like a thunderstorm about to rain on all of them. He glanced about, then came directly toward Neal and Ginna.
“What are you doing out of bed?” he demanded.
In answer, Neal raised his arm to show the doctor. “All healed,” he said with a smile.
“And the Mini ball? Did you take that from my office?”
“Haven’t seen it,” Neal answered.
“Well, it’s gone. Somebody took it. What am I supposed to tell the police?”
Elspeth spoke up. “Seems to me, Dr. Kirkwood, that if Neal’s all well and the bullet’s gone, then the whole thing must have been them ghosts fooling around, like I said all along. You reckon the police are going to take kindly to you calling them out here to report on some Confederate phantoms?” She paused and laughed. “Why, they be locking you up in some padded cell!”
“I really should report this incident,” Kirkwood mused aloud, his face one massive frown of puzzlement.
“No need now, doc,” Neal said. “I’m fine. Seems almost like I dreamed the whole thing.”
Kirkwood let out a sigh and shook his head, muttering under his breath.
“Doctor, Neal and I would like to have a look at that old Bible you mentioned to me. The one with the Swan records in it,” Ginna requested.
“I’m not sure where it is. Somewhere in the store room, I suspect”
“This really is important” Ginna urged. “Could you find it for us? Please?”
“All right. I’ll go upstairs and see if I can locate it. Maybe that will take my mind off all this ghost mess.”
Ginna smiled and squeezed Neal’s hand under the table.
“But I must talk to you first” Pansy begged. “Before you look at the Bible.”
“All right Pansy. As soon as we finish.”
“Oh, thank you, Ginna. I have the courage now, but I might lose it if I have to wait.”
Ginna eyed Pansy suspiciously. What now? she wondered.
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. As soon as the plates were cleared, even before dessert was served, Pansy rose and motioned for Ginna to come with her.
“I want to go, too,” Neal said.
Pansy hesitated, but seeing a slight nod from Elspeth, she motioned for Neal to join them.
The three had the parlor all to themselves. Pansy closed the door and locked it, something Ginna had never seen her do before.
“I don’t want that busybody, Lynch, bursting in and interrupting us,” Pansy explained. “Sit down, both of you. I have a tale to tell.”
Ginna and Neal sat close, both of them on edge, not knowing what to expect
“I have something of yours, Ginna.” Pansy fished into her pocket and brought out something small and shiny. She handed it to the younger woman.
Ginna gasped. “My locket! Where did you get it, Pansy? It’s been lost for years.”
The old woman looked down, embarrassed to face the locket’s owner. “I stole it” she confessed.
“Pansy, no! I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true. The very first time you came here to visit your foster mother, you were wearing it. I knew at the moment who you were.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me begin at the beginning, dear. I’ll try to explain, although I know you’ll never be able to forgive me.” She paused and sniffed, then blew her nose daintily into her lace hanky.
“I come of fine old Virginia stock. Never was there a blemish on my family name—not until I put one there. You see, back before the second world war, when I was young and pretty and foolish, I fell in love. He was such a handsome boy—so sweet and adoring. He, too, came of old Virginia folks. Had times been different he would have wooed me, courted me, then finally asked my papa for my hand in marriage. We would have had a long, lovely life together, I’m sure. But that was not to be. To make a long story short, the night before he left to go fight in the Pacific, I allowed the unthinkable.”
Ginna might have smiled, had Pansy not been so miserable. The “unthinkable” was obviously the act of love, something women gave hardly a second thought to, nowadays. But back when Pansy had been young, a girl’s virginity was something to be closely guarded until after she wed.
Pansy was crying now, silently. “After we—you know—he gave me that silver heart locket. He said it had been in his family for a long time and that his grandmother had passed it on to him to give it to his wife.”
“But I don’t understand, Pansy. If the locket was yours, how did I get it?”
“I’m coming to that, dear.”
Transfixed by Pansy’s story, Ginna was hardly aware when Neal reached over and took her hand.
“My poor, dear Billy, the only man I ever loved, was sent to Pearl Harbor. He never knew when our daughter was bom. I did my best to raise her alone, but it was never easy. I suppose Billy Jean was my cross to bear for the sin I had committed with her father.”
“It wasn’t a sin,” Ginna said, gently. “It was love, Pansy.”
“Well, maybe now it would be considered so, but not back then. At any rate, I gave Billy Jean your silver locket on her sixteenth birthday. Two days later, she ran away from home. I never saw her again. I tried to find her, but young people were roaming all over, back then, living in communes, practicing free love. I didn’t understand any of it. I just wanted my baby back. She called me a few months after she left. She said she was fine and that I shouldn’t worry. She said she was in love. I begged her to come home, but she said she couldn’t leave her man.
I never even found out his name. She did sound happy. That gave me some peace of mind. But a few months later, she called again. She was crying, hysterical. She said she was all alone, that her fellow had left her. I remember her words exactly, ‘Mom, I’ve had a baby and something’s wrong with her. I’m real scared. I can’t take care of her.’”
Pansy broke down, at this point. She had to stop for several minutes to regain her composure. Virginia went to her, trying to soothe her tears.
“It’s all right, Pansy. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh, but it was! I should have married Billy before … I should have been a better mother to my daughter.”
“What happened to your granddaughter, Pansy? Did you ever find her?”
Pansy raised her eyes to Ginna’s. Tears flowed down the old woman’s cheeks. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Ginna, I found her.”
Pansy reached out and touched the silver locket that Ginna had fastened around her neck.
“The last thing Billy Jean told me was that she had named her baby Ginna, because that was the name on the locket. When you came here and I saw that silver heart—the same one Billy gave me so long ago—and you told us the story of how you were found on the hospital steps, I knew that you were Billy Jean’s daughter, my own granddaughter, Ginna.”
Neal rose and came to put his arms around Ginna. She stood in stunned silence for a moment, before she wrapped her arms around her grandmother.
“What happened to my mother?” she whispered.
“I never found out. Like so many other young people in that lost generation, she simply vanished. I had no one, until you came into my life, Ginna. And, oh, I have grown to love you so!”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?”
“I was ashamed. Not because of what Billy and I did, but because I stole the locket from you. When you first came here, I didn’t make the connection. I only knew that the locket belonged to me and that it was all I had left of Billy and Billie Jean. I wanted it back. Then when I realized who you really were and that you should have the locket, that it was rightfully yours, I was too embarrassed to admit that I’d taken it. Can you forgive me—for everything?”
Virginia’s emotions were churning inside her. She wanted to weep for her grandfather and her mother. At the same time, she wanted to cry out with joy at finally finding out who she was and where she came from—at finally having a family. She had loved Pansy long before today. Now that love was multiplied a thousandfold.
Swan's Way Page 29
