by Denney, Hope
“I think we should send for the doctor.”
“Please no. Just sit here a moment until this awful feeling passes and then I’ll go back to sleep.”
Victoria scooted farther onto the bed and set the candle on the window sill.
Somerset pulled her damp nightgown away from her wet body and pushed herself up against the pillows.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she whispered into the darkness. “I’m not feeling well, and I dreamed a horrendous nightmare, the kind you don’t forget about in the morning.”
“What was it about?”
“I dreamed the entire Union army surrounded me and there was nowhere to go. I could see their pale, leering faces. I could feel their intentions. Every man we lost in battle, every misdeed we survived here—they were all committed by some of the faces in that hideous gang of men. The way they pushed and multiplied and went on forever was heinous. I was drowning in an ocean of harm but no one would help me. There were these massive crows and they—it was terrifying.”
Victoria hung her head.
“I won’t forget your dream, either,” she shuddered.
Her young, heart-shaped face looked vulnerable in the shadows. Somerset felt the stirrings of regret in her stomach at having confessed such an awful thing to a wounded person. Where Victoria was concerned, Somerset wanted to be compassionate and hold things back in order to protect her. She was still only a girl, a hurt girl, and didn’t need to be concerned with Somerset’s problems.
“Go,” she said. “Go back to bed. I don’t feel as if I might fly to pieces anymore. Thank you for waking me. You’re the best sister, Victoria.”
“If you feel worse later don’t hesitate to come get me.”
“If I think I need the doctor, I’ll come get you. Thank you again. Good night.”
“I love you, Somerset. Good night.”
Victoria padded across the room in bare feet, blew out her candle, and cracked the door.
Somerset rolled over on her side and lay staring out the window. The silvery light suggested that it was around two in the morning. She felt the chill of sweat running down her back and trembled. There would be no more sleep tonight, maybe not for several nights.
Her stomach hurt. Her mouth was dry. Her mind repeated the cacophony of conversations that comprised all the broken events in her life. She tiptoed over to the worn cedar rocker that had been hers since Blanche first rocked her in it and sat down with her knees drawn up to her chin.
Eric was gone, but beyond herself and his parents, everyone’s lives were intact. Sawyer was going to break things off with her if his gradual withdrawal from her life over the past weeks was any indication. She guessed there was something to becoming like the company one kept; he was growing more like Joseph, hard to entertain and harder to hold. If Sawyer didn’t want her, then Victoria’s life was devoid of improvement as well. She was well on her way to Richmond. She didn’t want to be handed over to an old dog, twenty years her senior, to command his household and keep his bed warm. The idea made her want the only person who ever made her feel safe.
She rose from her chair and pulled on her dressing gown and slippers before any concrete idea settled itself in her mind. She skimmed the staircase on quick little feet and closed the front door behind her before anyone could have half a chance to awaken.
The moon was surrounded by transparent, puffy clouds that might have been tissue paper. Its light gleamed down on her bare head, making her hair look black. She stood on the top step of Orchard Rest only long enough to make sure the porch swing and lawn chairs were empty. Thomas kept a variable schedule and there was never any telling when and where he would turn up. Assured that she was alone in the world, she broke into a run down the drive.
She stumbled in the dirt country lane over loose rocks and skinned her knees and elbows, but the drive within her to unburden herself to the person she loved most urged her on to an unlikely nighttime destination.
She unlocked the gate and let herself in, catching the hem of her gown on the latch and tearing it. It never failed to amaze her how peaceful a graveyard could be. The only eerie aspect was how the newer white stones shone under the light of the moon as if holding trapped life inside. She avoided stepping on graves and eased up to Eric’s as though she might catch him lounging at the base of the monument.
“I haven’t been able to talk to you in a long time,” she said, “but I need to talk to you now. Everything in my life is wrong. It’s as though I unerringly made the wrong decision every time I was presented with a new choice to make. I wish you were here to advise me.
“I used to be afraid that you were angry at me for moving on, but then I realized that you were a good man and never asked me to sacrifice happiness. I love Sawyer. I tried not to, but I don’t think I can learn to be happy without him. He doesn’t want to be with me anymore, Eric, and I don’t know why. These aren’t good times to get married, but he always asked—no, he begged—for me to just try to love him. I think there is more to it than that. I know he feels guilty about taking your place, and he knows that Mother and Papa expect a well-made marriage for me. I don’t think he wants to put up with them, constantly trying to live up to some lore that died the day General Lee surrendered. It exhausts me to pretend the past can be regained, and I can’t blame him for not wanting to be part of their exclusive world.
“I wish I had you here to help me through this, but if you were here, we’d be asleep on the same pillow and poor Sawyer wouldn’t be an option. I haven’t felt your presence in years, Eric, although I used to be enough of a romantic to believe great love transcends even death. Sometimes I wonder if you are dead. I can imagine you all over the world, anywhere but the grave.”
Somerset stopped and cast her eyes up at the sky, drawing on what she needed to say.
She took a breath and plunged on.
“I never stopped loving you. I just need to try to love people other than you. I can’t be consumed by a person who isn’t with me, but sometimes I get the feeling we have unfinished business.”
Somerset recalled her nightmare, the way the troops stretched forever in every direction as far as the eye could see. She wrapped her arms around herself against the damp dewy air. A bat swooped low in pursuit of a mosquito, making her heart race as she recalled the way the crows screamed at her over and over during the nightmare.
How do you know he was killed? There was no body.
“I looked for you. I looked everywhere for you, Eric. I left no stone unturned when you went missing. Somehow I am still searching for you, and it’s wearing me out. I’m so frazzled that I’m forgetting how to live. No matter what happens after this night, I am going to remember how to live. I have to go home. I shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Somerset hurried out and locked the gate with clumsy hands.
It always troubled her that a body wasn’t recovered. She thought of her darling exposed to the elements and the wildlife. She thought of the enemies the Brotherhood made as they tracked down and killed countless Union officials. Eric had not caused his enemy to feel any love for him. Union soldiers might have taken Eric’s body and done macabre acts to it. He might have died in a Union prison after torture and starvation. He might be in a home anywhere, senseless and unable to say who he was. She thought of the West, where countless men had disappeared into the plains to start new lives after injuries, amnesia, and other maladies robbed them of their identities.
“You always do this to yourself,” she said as she ran along the main road. “You doubt everything until you can’t recognize the truth.”
There was only one thing left to do. She had to unburden herself to someone close to the situation. Sawyer might not want her anymore and Theodore might be unreachable, but Joseph was going to have to talk about it again. He gave her one terse account of Eric’s last day when they saw each other again for the first time after his death, and after that he refused to speak of the day.
“I blame myself for not sav
ing him, and I’ll be hung if I let you berate me for not being good enough. We weren’t outnumbered by much. The five of them to the four of us shouldn’t have caused so much trouble, and if we had been any count, we would have noticed them all when we were scouting the area. I already live in a house where people think I’m not enough, if you haven’t noticed!” he had hollered and slammed his glass so hard on the table that there was a permanent circular dent in the wood.
She never spoke of it to him again, but she would tonight. His anger and regret were nothing compared to her lingering pain and the hollowness of her days.
She let herself back into the house and navigated the hallway that ran through the men’s quarters. She glided past Thomas’s room on hushed feet, tiptoed down the hall past the office that he never used anymore, passed the room that had belonged to Theodore before he married Amelia, and stopped outside Joseph’s door. She exhaled and gathered her determination, then raised her hand to knock at the door. She stopped. Voices argued beyond the door.
“I’m sorry but I can’t,” said a female voice behind the door. “It was nice while it lasted, but now it’s done.”
The mattress creaked as someone rose.
“I think you’re being hasty. I think you’ll regret this,” said a low, urgent voice.
The mattress squeaked louder as someone heavier rose.
Somerset took a step away from the door. She’d always known deep down that their relationship wasn’t conventional, but with that knowledge confirmed under the roof where they all lived, Somerset’s cheeks blazed hot. Although she could not see them, she didn’t know where to look. It was as if she caught them in their state with no walls or doors between them.
“I regret coming back. I regret starting this up again.”
Fairlee sounded tired and sad.
“I think you should get back in bed and let me change your mind. There are plenty of hours left before the sun rises.”
“You’re ignoring the issue at hand. It’s why we never fix anything. It’s why we’re not married now. I’m leaving and it will be much longer than two years this time before I return. Don’t come to me, either. There aren’t enough places in Tuscaloosa for me to get away from you.”
She heard Joseph cross the room and say something in a tone so low she couldn’t make it out, but she knew from the inflection of his voice that it was obscene.
A resounding pop met her ears, and she knew Fairlee had slapped Joseph’s face. Then she heard the high-pitched stream of liquid as it cracked ice in a glass.
“You claim to worship me, but you idolize what is in that glass,” said Fairlee. “You said you would do anything to make things better. In your letters you begged me to come home and give this another try. You’ve been on your best behavior but you’ve had a drink in your hand the whole time I’ve been here.”
“If you spent time in Elmira, you’d need a drink in your hand, too.”
“Oh, everyone knows the Marshalls like their drink! Elmira doesn’t make you drink,” sneered Fairlee.
She threw the door open to trod out of the room.
Somerset got a brief view of Joseph tugging his trousers on while simultaneously reaching for Fairlee’s shoulder as she passed his nightstand. Fairlee’s face didn’t change when she found Somerset in the hall. She didn’t even bother to fasten her open basque.
“What happened to you, Somerset? Are you hurt?” she asked as she took in the sight of her torn robe and scratched arms and legs. She reached out and pulled a twig from Somerset’s hair.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” apologized Somerset. “I didn’t know you were here. I couldn’t hear my own thoughts in this house and went outside to think. I wound up falling, it was so dark out there. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on you.”
“I can’t hear my thoughts, either. No, I’m not angry, Somerset. I’ll still write.”
Fairlee’s kiss on her cheek was brief and she didn’t look Somerset in the face.
“I can change!” called Joseph as he buttoned his trousers and stepped out of the room after her.
“You have changed—for the worse!” spat Fairlee. “You are a bitter, unfeeling man!”
She swept down the stairs with remarkable dignity for an unmarried woman caught in her lover’s bed.
Joseph put one hand over his eyes as if he could will the situation out of his head forever.
“Yes?” he asked when he opened his eyes and Somerset was still standing there.
“I think it’s time that we talked some more.”
Joseph put a bare arm around her shoulders and drew her into his room.
“Come inside, Somerset. I can’t win her back tonight anyway.”
***
Chapter 5
Joseph gave Somerset his robe for warmth and put her in the chair by the window. He poured her a bracing drink, lit the second lamp, and searched to no avail for his shirt. He grabbed a rag from his bureau and mopped at all her oozing scratches. Then he found some salve for them without having to wake Tuck or Jim for it. He was so distracted that he became more mobile, and Somerset knew he would be miserable in the morning for all of the free movements he was making. Somerset wouldn’t believe anything unusual happened except for the rumpled unmade bed across the room. Each time she saw the sheets hanging from the foot of the bed, she took a swig of her drink and tried to keep her eyes trained on the window.
“What happened to you?” asked Joseph.
“I went to the cemetery tonight. I went on foot instead of taking a horse and I fell in the road a few times. I was in a hurry and wasn’t paying attention. I’m dirtier than I am hurt.”
Joseph refreshed his drink and dragged a chair over to hers.
“They were saying you were ill last night.”
“I’m not ill. I just let them think I am.”
“I’ve done that before. I’ll be doing that in the morning.”
“I didn’t know Fairlee was in here. I promise I wasn’t spying on you. I needed to talk to you about some difficult subjects—I still do—and she just happened to be in here.”
“Now I’m guessing you want to talk about me.”
“No. Yes. I need to talk about me, too, but I can’t pretend I didn’t just walk in on the scandal of Century Grove.”
Joseph’s smile was rueful.
“You’ve been through plenty, but you don’t know a scandal when you see it. Fairlee and I? All of that is old news. You found out tonight so it’s sensational to you. That is all.”
“How long have the two of you been doing this?”
“Always. Since before the war. I told you she was a feisty woman with opinions about everything. She just thinks differently about some matters than you do.”
“You were being crass to her, Joseph.”
“She was provoking me. She wants me to change. I don’t want to change, and I’m not going to, either. The argument that she and I had? It isn’t so different from any other we’ve had over the years. After I came home, the arguing became worse. She wants to improve everything, even matters that I hold are just fine. She wants me to talk about all the killing I did, the killing everyone else did. She wants me to blather about my miserable experience in Elmira. She wants me to stop drinking. It really is as simple as I don’t want to and so I won’t. So she went off in a pet. It seems dramatic to you, but I’m accustomed to that behavior from her. In a few months she’ll be writing again and in a few more months, she’ll be back in my bed.”
“You sound as though you’ve made up your mind that she’s only worth one thing,” observed Somerset.
“No, no,” protested Joseph. “I love her. I’m being blunt, though, by stating that we have a pattern. Falling into each other’s arms and then needing distance is a part of that pattern. I respect Fairlee and she respects me. Oh, don’t give me that look. It’s true. I wish you had married Eric before he died so you would understand. Mother has tried to make us all believe that love is acquiring a surname better than your o
wn and that’s wrong. “
“No wonder you have no interest in Ivy.”
“She is beautiful, of course, in her own way, but in the end, I don’t want to be with someone who has no thought beyond being loved by me. She’s delicate and vulnerable. Ivy will always be genteel, decorous. I want to be with someone fully alive and in the moment—even if I have to suffer for it a little or, in my case, quite a bit.”
“You could get Fairlee in trouble. Then what?”
Joseph grinned.
“It wouldn’t be the worst scenario, sister. She would probably marry me if she wound up in trouble.”
Somerset digested the idea while she finished her drink.
“Enough about me.” Joseph gingerly rubbed his affected leg. “You said we needed to talk about a difficult subject. What sent you out into the cemetery at the witching hour?”
“I had a nightmare.”
“Did you? I seldom go visiting cemeteries at night after a nightmare. Why don’t you elaborate on this business?”
“I’ve tried to find new love, Joseph, but something is wrong there. The man I’ve fallen for is pulling away from me. He’s distant, aloof, and withdrawn. So I’ve been thinking about the first time I lost someone I care about.”
“Eric.”
“Yes, Eric. I went to see Eric. The pain I’ve lived with since losing him shattered me and I reassembled myself to move on. I think about the happy bright girl who was and can hardly reconcile her with this cautious, guarded woman who exists now. The point is that I’m full of doubts. It’s enough to make me wonder if I’m sabotaging my happiness because I have so many questions about and hold onto the past. I know you don’t do things you don’t want to do, but I need your help, Joseph. I need us to talk about Eric without you getting angry.”
Joseph stood and turned to the window with a set face. Somerset saw dread in it but also compassion.
“I’ll make a deal with you since you’ve been open-minded and accepting tonight about my intimate life, which you, no doubt, find appalling.”
“Yes?”
