by Nan Ryan
Finally both were so tired and sleepy that they had no choice but to allow their perfect wedding day to come to an end. Sighing softly, Mary Ellen drifted toward dreamless slumber, finding comforting solidity in the hard breast muscles her sleepy head rested upon.
When she awakened the next morning, she opened her eyes to see Clay beaming down at her. She trembled in delight. And felt a quickening excitement when he drew her against him. His hand swept over her with a new tenderness, the lean fingers softly caressing.
“Good morning, my love,” he said, and kissed her.
And the good morning became an even better one.
At noon the newlyweds checked out of the Gayoso House and went home. Home to Longwood. The family home was now just that again: the family home. As his wedding gift to Mary Ellen, Clay had moved his naval command to the long-vacant Alexander mansion on Madison. All the uniformed men who had occupied Longwood were gone. The newlyweds had the house to themselves.
And there followed an Indian summer of Tennessee pleasures—swimming in the river, swinging in the summerhouse, playing the piano and singing, card games in the study, and croquet games on the terraced lawn. They sipped iced lemonade on the shaded gallery and took rides through the woods on Clay’s big black stallion and strolled, hand in hand, down the city streets, window shopping leisurely.
They bought a watermelon and ate the juicy slices out on the back gallery. They lay on their backs out by the old sundial and studied the stars at night. They read poetry together. They took long walks along the river bluffs at sunset. They danced on the upstairs balcony at midnight.
They embraced life fully, finding magic in the simplest of joys as long as they were together.
The brief hours they spent apart were sheer agony. But the reunions were sweet indeed. Mary Ellen still had her volunteer duties at Shelby County Hospital, and Clay had his continuing military responsibilities. But both managed to spend less time than usual at their respective tasks. More than one sunny noon Clay left the Madison Street headquarters to come by the clinic, where the pair shared a picnic lunch of bread and cheese and cold roast beef on the shaded hospital grounds.
And he was unfailingly there to meet her at day’s end. Sometimes they went straight home to Longwood. Other times they dined at one of Memphis’s many restaurants, the crowded eating establishments thriving in the wartime economy as never before.
Clay and Mary Ellen refused to think past the precious golden hours in which they happily found themselves.
They lived every minute to the fullest, as carefree as two irresponsible kids. Indulging themselves at every opportunity, they behaved like happy children, doing the all things they used to do together.
The war did not exist.
Life was heaven on earth.
39
THE WEATHER STAYED WARM and balmy right on into October, but the telltale signs of autumn were beginning to appear. The leaves on the great white oaks and elms were changing color and falling to the ground. The hot sun already seemed to come from another direction; its light was not quite so brilliant, its sting not quite so harsh.
And, of course, there was the river.
The old Mississippi changed with the seasons.
On the long, hot summer days of July and August, the wide river was a bright golden hue and it hummed and rippled with myriad insects skimming its smooth surface. As the summer sun set each evening, the river turned to gleaming copper for a brief time, then to a bright blood red as the sun sank behind its western banks.
Now as autumn settled over the lush timberlands, millions of multicolored leaves drifted lazily down the long, wide waterway. Too soon, patterns of lacy ice would form along the banks as both the nights and the river turned cold and dark, proclaiming that winter had come to western Tennessee.
While neither spoke of their inevitable parting, both Mary Ellen and Clay sensed that he wouldn’t be at Longwood to celebrate their first Christmas as man and wife. Clay was surprised he’d been in Memphis as long as he had. The federally ruled river city was secured and peaceful; the smuggling was contained. There was no further need for him to remain. Any day orders could come for his departure and return to battle.
But he said nothing to Mary.
When November came to the Queen City on the Bluffs and chill winds blew from out of the north, Mary Ellen seemed to blossom like a flower in the springtime. Her dark eyes glittered with an inner light, and touches of color brightened her pale cheeks.
Clay wondered if it were his imagination, or was his bride growing lovelier and happier with every passing day.
He had no idea that the added glow, the shining eyes, were due to a wonderful secret Mary Ellen was keeping. She strongly suspected that she was pregnant, but she was not going to tell her husband until she was absolutely certain.
The first week of November Mary Ellen quietly made an appointment to see Dr. Cain, the intrepid white-haired physician she worked alongside at the hospital. It was a cold, rainy Tuesday when the doctor confirmed her suspicions, and then for Mary Ellen the sun was shining everywhere.
“You are indeed pregnant, Mrs. Knight,” said the elderly physician. “You can expect your child around the first of June.”
“Oh, Dr. Cain,” Mary Ellen said happily, “thank you so much!”
The aging doctor smiled at the beaming young woman. “Don’t thank me, thank that husband of yours.” And he chuckled at his little joke.
“I’ll do that,” said Mary Ellen.
“Must have got pregnant on your wedding night,” the doctor mused aloud, counting on his fingers, and Mary Ellen felt herself blushing.
“So it would seem,” she said. She leapt up from her chair and started to leave the doctor’s small, cluttered office on the ground floor of the Shelby County Hospital, but he stopped her.
“Wait, Mary Ellen. Sit back down and let’s talk awhile.”
Nodding, smiling, Mary Ellen sat down, but she couldn’t sit still. Hands clasped and twisting in her lap, ankles together and toes tapping on the floor, she said, “Heavens, there’s so much for me to learn, isn’t there? I’ve never been around an infant in my life and I…I…What is it, Dr. Cain? Why are you frowning?”
“Was I? I didn’t realize it.” He leaned up to his desk, took off his spectacles, and said, “Mary Ellen, I’m not trying to worry you, but it’s my duty as your physician to tell you that you are likely to have a very difficult time delivering a child. Some women are built for childbirth, others are not.”
Now Mary Ellen was frowning. “You’re not saying that I can’t have—”
“No, No. Nothing like that. I’m just telling you that when your time comes, you may have to endure a great deal of suffering and—”
“Is that all?” Mary Ellen brightened again. She came to her feet and said, “I figure I can take as much pain as the next woman, Doctor. Or man, for that matter.” Her dark eyes glittered with excitement, and she added, “Don’t you worry. I promise not to behave like a spoiled, frightened child.”
“I know you won’t,” said the doctor, “but just you be sure and send somebody for me as soon as your first labor pains begin.”
“I will, Dr. Cain. I’m already looking forward to our engagement on that happy day!”
Mary Ellen was also looking forward to telling Clay that they were going to have a child.
Finally the day ended. Mary Ellen anxiously drew on her long wool winter cape, pulled the hood over her head, and stepped out expectantly into the gently falling rain.
The youthful Ensign Johnny Briggs stepped forward immediately. “Afternoon, Mrs. Knight,” he said, smiling sunnily at her. “Captain Knight is temporarily tied up, so he asked that I drive you home.” He inclined his head toward the waiting carriage.
“Why, thank you, Ensign Briggs,” Mary Ellen said. Her disappointment at not being able to immediately tell Clay her news vanished as she realized this way would be better. Much better. She could tell him when they were alone, and he wou
ld surely be as happy as she, and he’d have the opportunity—and the privacy—to show it.
Despite the dark skies and dreary rain, Mary Ellen smiled all the way to Longwood. Once there she handed her rain-spattered cape to the faithful Titus and asked the old servant where she could find her husband.
“In the study,” he said, and Mary Ellen was in such a hurry to see Clay that she didn’t notice the troubled look in Titus’s eyes.
But when she stepped through the open door and into the warm, firelit study and saw Clay’s handsome face, she knew. She felt a premonitory twinge of terror and knew that what she had been dreading for weeks had happened. The inescapable event she’d been pushing to the back of her mind had come to pass.
Clay was leaving.
Clay caught sight of Mary Ellen standing by the study door. His dark, set face softened immediately and he came to his feet. He circled the massive desk as Mary Ellen entered the room. She rushed to him. He took her in his arms. Stroking her pale hair, Clay drew her against him.
Mary Ellen experienced a sinking sensation, a heavy feeling of loss, and she wanted to shout at him not to speak, not to tell her what she knew he meant to tell her. He couldn’t leave her, she wouldn’t let him. She was going to have his child, and she needed him. Their child needed him.
Mary Ellen said nothing, just inhaled deeply of the clean, male scent that was uniquely his.
His lips moving against her temple, Clay said, “My love, I’m leaving Memphis.”
Her arms tightening around him, she clung to him as though she would never let him go. “Where?”
“Mississippi. I’ve been ordered aboard the ironclad Cairo, on the Yazoo River down in Mississippi.”
“When?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Clay raised his hands, cupped her cheeks, and turned her face up to his. “Tonight.”
Hanging on to her composure by a brittle slender thread, Mary Ellen said bravely, “I’ll help you pack.”
“It’s done,” he said. “Everything’s ready.”
“Oh. Well, then—”
“Before I go,” he interrupted, “make love to me one last time, sweetheart.”
Mary Ellen tried to smile, failed. “It will be my pleasure, Captain Knight.”
Hand in hand the married lovers climbed the stairs to the master suite. In the suite’s mirrored bedroom, a fire blazed brightly in the marble fireplace. No other lights burned. The heavy damask curtains were drawn against the winter rains peppering the glass windowpanes. The spacious room was warm and cheerful and cozy.
The world with all its problems was shut outside, could not intrude.
Her news of the baby kept locked safely in her heart so that her departing husband would not worry, Mary Ellen climbed naked atop their big featherbed. Her loving eyes fastened on the dark man coming to her, Mary Ellen not only opened her arms and legs to him, she opened her heart and soul as well.
Their firelit images reflected in the gold-trimmed mirrors lining the walls, Clay came eagerly into Mary Ellen and murmured, “This heart of mine never changed and will never change. You have a hold on me that neither time nor separation can ever remove. Always remember that, Mary. The only one I have ever loved is you.”
When they left the suite the rain had turned to a cold, light mist, but the sky remained low and leaden.
At the base of the stairs, Clay said, “I don’t want you coming down to the levee with me, Mary.”
She smiled at him. “Afraid I might cry and embarrass you?”
“No,” he said, and grinned boyishly. “Afraid I might.”
“Let me walk you to your horse.”
He nodded, draped her hooded cape around her shoulders, then drew on his heavy woolen navy greatcoat. Titus stepped into the foyer as they were starting to leave. Clay shook hands with him and, laying a gentle arm over the stooped servant’s thin shoulders, said, “Titus, I want to ask a very big favor of you.”
“You jes’ name it, Cap’n.”
“Look after Mary for me.”
“I sho’ will,” Titus promised, bobbing his white head. “And you look after yo’self, you hear.”
“I’ll do that. Good-bye, old friend.”
Clay took Mary Ellen’s arm and ushered her out the fan-lighted door, telling her as they crossed the chilly, rainswept veranda that he was moving a couple of his men back into Longwood to guard her.
“Johnny Briggs you know,” he said. “And you’ve seen Ensign Dave Graybill many times around Longwood, a big, shy, light-haired man with a mouth full of teeth.” Nodding, Mary Ellen listened as Clay told her, “They’re good men, both. You need anything, you let Ensign Briggs know. I’ll be sending you my navy pay, but if you run short, I’ve an account at Memphis National on Front Street. Draw as much as you need.” They reached the front gate, went through. “Is there anything I’ve forgotten?”
“No,” she assured him. “You’ve thought of everything.”
They walked up to his waiting saddled stallion. The big black whickered and shook his head, sensing that they were off on a journey.
“Just a minute,” Clay said to the stallion, then asked Mary Ellen, “Is there anything you need to tell me?”
Yes! she wanted to scream. Yes, I need to tell you that I’m going to have your baby!
“No, nothing. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, please.”
“Then kiss me,” he said, and swept her into his arms.
Mary Ellen kissed him with all the love in her heart, then stood back while he mounted the excited black stallion. When Clay was seated in the saddle, she stepped close again, raised a loving hand, and laid it on her husband’s blue-trousered thigh.
Captain Clay Knight looked down at the woman he had loved since he was a child, and his heart squeezed with the pain of leaving her again.
“Always remember, Mary,” he said softly, “you belong to my heart. I love you, my darling, and I’ll come back to you.”
Tears filling her eyes, Mary Ellen smiled up at him bravely and replied, “Stay safe, my dear. Promise me you’ll stay alive.”
“I promise,” he said, leaned down from his horse to kiss her good-bye, then righted himself and was gone.
40
MARY ELLEN STOOD IN the misting rain and watched as her husband rode away. When Clay reached the end of the pebbled drive and turned the big black onto River Road, she told herself she’d go back inside.
But she didn’t.
She stayed as she was until horse and rider became a tiny speck in the distance and then finally disappeared.
Still she didn’t go inside.
The warm cape’s hood sheltering her blond head, she simply moved to a better vantage point on the bluffs. Wishing to high heaven she’d had enough gumption to bring her powerful field glasses with her, Mary Ellen jumped, startled, when old Titus, wearing his well-worn winter coat, called out to her.
Frowning, Mary Ellen turned to see the stooped old man, who now walked with a cane, coming toward her, his progress slow and tortured. But he was smiling when he lifted up the field glasses for her to see.
Mary Ellen laughed and ran to meet him. “Titus, you read my mind! Thank you so much.”
He turned over the field glasses, but of course he then began to scold her. Shaking a bony, gnarled finger in her face, the old servant said, “Only reason I bring you them glasses is so you’d take a good look, then come on inside where you belong.”
“I will, I promise,” she said, and patted his shoulder.
Titus didn’t leave. Already starting to exercise the authority vested in him by the departing Clay, he said, “The Cap’n tol’ me to look after you, and I mean to do it, missy. You not back in that house in the next few minutes, I’ll see about cutting me a long willow switch. Sting yo’ legs right good, is what I’ll do. Yes, I will. Uh-huh.”
Mary Ellen didn’t laugh, although the vision of poor old crippled Titus out in the rain, cutting a long willow switch, was more than a little com
ical. Even more comical was the idea of him “stinging her legs right good” with that switch. The gentle old man had never laid a hand on anybody in his entire life.
Mary Ellen said, “I’ll be a good girl, I promise. Just let me stay until I can get a glimpse of Clay when he reaches the levee.”
Acting exasperated, Titus nodded his white head and informed her, “That boy be a-boardin’ the Andrew Jackson for the trip downriver. The Yankees commandeered that old sidewheeler to transport their troops.”
“Why, Titus Preble!” Mary Ellen was honestly surprised. “Clay didn’t mention which vessel he’d be taking down to Mississippi. You’re a wealth of knowledge.”
“I know lots o’ things,” he said, pulling his coat’s collar higher around his cold ears. “Always have.” He turned and limped away, leaning on his cane, muttering to himself, “Not that anybody ebber listens to me, no, suh, don’t pay no attention when I talk, but they sho’ ought to, and besides…”
Smiling fondly after the dear old man, Mary Ellen turned back to the river, lifted the field glasses, and, looking northward, anxiously searched the crowded levee below.
She swept over the long rows of other craft moored at the landing: trading scows, timber rafts, barges, fishing boats, steam-driven tugs, and other steamers.
At last she found and focused on the Andrew Jackson.
Unwavering, her chilled hands held the powerful field glasses to her eyes and she stared almost unblinkingly until she caught sight of Clay. Her hands shook involuntarily then, and the heavy glasses bobbled and blurred her vision.
“Thunderation!” she said aloud, annoyed with herself.
She quickly regained control and leveled the glasses on the tall, dark officer leading a spirited black stallion up the steamer’s long gangplank.
