Ashton's Bride

by Judith O'Brien

  Peeking through the curtains, she saw a woman about her own age carrying a stack of papers with a white bag balanced on top. Without hesitation, she threw the door open.

  "Hi," said the young woman, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head. "I'm Emily Ryan, school librarian and fellow northerner. I've come to ease your culture shock."

  Margaret laughed and let her in. "I hope those papers are crib sheets on how to decipher southern accents. Please, come in—and by the way, I'm Margaret Garnett."

  "I know that." Emily dumped her papers onto a chair in the hallway. "That's why I've come bearing drinkable coffee." She opened the paper bag, which contained two paper cups with plastic covers, and handed Margaret one.

  "Let's see." Emily wrinkled her nose, which was sprinkled with freckles. "If I know my Columbia students correctly, you take your coffee light with no sugar."

  "How did you know?"

  "I went there, too—for Library Science." She glanced into the parlor. "You're so lucky to have this place—we're all in love with it."

  "I can sure see why." Margaret led the way into the kitchen, and they both settled into sturdy, ladder-back chairs. "There's a wonderful feeling to the cottage, isn't there?"

  Emily nodded, sipping the coffee. "How do you feel?" she asked after a slight pause. "I mean, this is such a big change from Manhattan."

  "Weird," she admitted. "It's been so long since I've been out of New York that I feel like an alien here. How long did it take you to get used to Magnolia?"

  Emily laughed and put down her cup. "I wasn't in Manhattan as long as you were, and before that I was at my parents' farm in Iowa, so Magnolia seemed more normal than New York. Still, this is a unique place, to say the least. And you, Miss Margaret Garnett, are just about the biggest thing to hit the mountain since Gone With the Wind."

  "Huh?"

  "And so articulate." Emily grinned at Margaret's startled response. Reaching into the paper bag, she handed Margaret a paper napkin to wipe up the coffee she had just spilled.

  "You see," explained Emily, "you're the first female professor they've ever hired here. The school was a men's college until twenty years ago, but they've been hemming and hawing about female faculty members. To tell you the truth, some of the male alumni could barely stand the thought of women students, so the idea of a woman professor made them positively nauseous."

  "So why am I here?"

  "They couldn't resist you, my dear. They had set impossibly high standards for female applicants. The dean claimed it was so that the first woman professor at Magnolia would be a scholarly example to us all. When your application came in, they couldn't come up with any more excuses. They never dreamed you'd accept."

  "In other words, I'm not really wanted here." Margaret looked out of the window, the same view that earlier offered such hope now seemed to taunt her with its serenity.

  "Not true. Every female within five hundred miles is delighted. I sure am. It was lonely being the only woman who is neither student nor faculty wife." Emily leaned forward, cocking a perceptive eye at Margaret. "How do you feel about being here? It's not exactly Ivy League."

  "I'm not sure." She shrugged. "Yesterday I was completely ticked off about the whole situation. Today I'm disappointed that some people up here may not want me. To tell you the truth, I don't know how I feel. I'm just in a sort of unreal limbo."

  Emily nodded. "I know what you mean. Magnolia is a strange but wonderful place. Once you get used to it, I think you'll enjoy it. Especially living here in Rebel's Retreat."

  Margaret welcomed the opportunity to change the topic. "Isn't it terrific? I saw a painting of General Johnson last night. .."

  "Great-looking guy, wasn't he? Too bad he doesn't come with the cottage."

  "I'm not so sure he doesn't," Margaret said softly.

  "Excuse me?" Emily shot her a curious look, but Margaret just shrugged.

  "Do you know anything about him?" Margaret continued. "I mean, are there any books about him, memoirs, that sort of thing."

  "Funny you should mention it." She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear and leaned back in the chair. "The university was just willed a whole stack of his letters. There's some mystery surrounding them—the donor requested anonymity, and everyone assumed that letters from Ashton Johnson would have surfaced years ago. I have them under lock and key in the library vault, if you'd be interested in looking at them. There's some talk of publishing them, but who knows."

  "I'd love to see them." Margaret tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  Emily glanced at her watch. "Yikes! It's after ten. I have a dozen students waiting to learn how to stack and file." She stood up and walked to the front door. "Oh, those papers are your bible—past teachers' plans for the courses you'll be teaching."

  "Thanks. And the coffee was a godsend."

  Margaret waved as Emily crossed the lawn with long, athletic strides, looking like an adolescent tomboy rather than a university librarian. It wasn't until Emily left that Margaret realized with startled certainty why she felt so comfortable with Emily.

  The librarian was at least an inch taller than Margaret.

  She spent the morning wandering about the campus, exploring the cool stone buildings and peeking in empty classrooms. The rooms could have been plucked straight from the last century, whether they were small, cramped offices smelling of leather and decades of crumpled paper, or the vast lecture halls, wrapped in chalkboards so old they were pale with the ghosts of forgotten lessons, chalked long ago onto the blackboards by gowned professors.

  Some of the classrooms were furnished with ancient-looking desks and chairs, others were arranged in straight lines, with medieval planks stretched across the room to serve as the students' desks. She looked closely at one of the planks, thick and smooth to the touch. On a corner of the board was an ornate carving with the date. The initials had been scratched by a student in the year 1873.

  Only after flipping through the stack of papers Emily had left did Margaret realize that she, too, was expected to wear an academic gown while teaching. And according to the pamphlet on the history of Magnolia, professors expected their top students to wear the black robes in classes. That bit of information was something of a relief to Margaret. She had seen an absurdly young-looking pack of kids wearing flowing academic gowns, and had been racked with the fear that they were her fellow professors. They were simply upperclassmen, swooping down on the campus a few days early.

  More students were arriving, some looked frightened, casting anxious glances at their parents. Others drove alone, unloading their luggage and stereo equipment into the airy dorm rooms. Most were in groups, laughing, whooping hellos to classmates they hadn't seen since the spring.

  And like the students she had seen earlier, they were remarkably well-dressed. Some of the young men wore ties and button-down shirts; the women wore dresses, skirts, and slacks that were so well-tailored they looked positively uncomfortable. Some of these rich kids, she thought grimly, would soon be her students. She would face them each day, sharing with them her hard-earned knowledge.

  They didn't have the pinched, earnest look of Columbia students. They may have catalog-perfect clothes and spiffy cars, but these were not scholars. This was going to be like teaching at a resort.

  "Ah, Margaret." Her elbow was caught, and she turned to see Chet Dick smiling at her. "I was hoping to see you. Sorry I missed you last night."

  Margaret stopped and looked down at the man, slender and clearly harassed. "I'm afraid I left early— more exhausted than I realized."

  "Sort of jet lag without the glamour of transatlantic flight, eh? Not to worry. You didn't miss much, except for Professor Taylor's attempt at replicating the rebel yell."

  "You're kidding! I missed that? Remind me never to leave a party early. How did it sound?"

  "Who knows. He said he couldn't do it with false teeth and a full stomach, so it was more like a wheeze than a yell. Anyway, I'm gathering the English
department for an informal meeting. Care to join us?"

  "Sure. When is it?"

  "Now. This is a spur-of-the-moment meeting, just to go over some of the developments of the summer, including your own arrival."

  "Oh, that reminds me, Brad Skinner said my position was only on a trial basis .. ."

  Chet turned to her, the casual, friendly expression on his face replaced by a look of unwelcome surprise

  "He what? Brad said that?"

  "Well, eh, yes, he did. Is something wrong?"

  "Damn. Excuse me, Margaret." He shook his head and continued walking, motioning for Margaret to follow.

  "I'm afraid Brad Skinner is a little on the conservative side in respect to Magnolia. You see, he's one of the hard-liners who believes the campus would be better off without women. He's threatened by you, Margaret. You have the education he lacks, the impeccable scholastic record that he can only envy. Brad was always a solid student, but football and fraternities were more his style."

  Margaret stopped walking, and Chet turned to face her. "Is what Brad said true? Is there only one tenured position?"

  "I'm afraid so, Margaret."

  They continued walking together in silence, Chet waving greetings to passing students. But by his subdued tone, his attention was focused on Margaret.

  "Chet," Margaret said at last, "I feel as if you weren't completely honest with me. I believe you meant well, but to tell you the truth, I'm pretty disappointed."

  His face fell, and she could tell she had struck his guilt chord. "Margaret, what can I say? How can I make this up to you."

  They were just entering the main office building on the quadrangle, and Margaret was aware of other voices drifting down the hall. She had to make this good.

  "Well," she began softly, "Emily Ryan, the librarian, mentioned the newly aquired letters of General Johnson and that there was some talk of publishing them in book form."

  Chet nodded uncertainly.

  "Could I index them? I have a lot of experience, and my history dissertation was on Sherman's march, which would be the perfect tie-in with General Johnson, and . . ."

  "Enough! You win!" Chet said with a relieved laugh. "To tell you the truth"—he flushed as he said the word truth—"this is not actually my jurisdiction. It would be a joint project with the history department. But I can't think of anyone more qualified. You've already been published. This might add some academic weight to the project." He extended his hand. "I think I can safely say it's a deal."

  She accepted his hand, and together they entered his cluttered office for the meeting.

  Throughout the entire session, Brad Skinner stared at her with unblinking, hostile eyes.

  Chapter 4

  The letters were bound in three volumes, pasted into old photo albums covered in cracked leather. Margaret placed them on the dining room table, ignoring the fanciful notion that the letters were finally home. The writer of the letters had chosen the table carefully, with its unusual legs and beautifully smooth top. Now the letters had come full circle, back to Rebel's Retreat.

  It was impossible for Margaret to concentrate on the next day's lesson plans. All she would be doing was explaining the freshman English semester, which offered little room for variation on the set curriculum. Gone were the glorious dreams of teaching an enthralled class, of adjusting the reading list to the students' own interests. This was the first semester survey course, and it had been set in stone decades ago. She outlined a brief speech on the importance of Beowulf, glancing at the patiently waiting letters as she jotted down the major points she wished to make.

  In a worn canvas tote bag emblazoned with the Channel 13 logo, a premium she had received six years ago by making a ten-dollar donation to New York's public television station, were five books with biographical information on General Ashton Johnson. Margaret resisted the temptation to page through the books. Instead, she would read the letters through without knowing anything about the man. It was a system one of her professors at Columbia suggested, so she might be able to see information clearly without being swayed by preconceived notions. Later, after one or two read-throughs, she would research his life and military career, then return to the original letters. Sometimes previously overlooked clues popped out, vital data that had been there all along but had been passed over by researchers who hadn't expected to discover anything new.

  The one notebook she had opened contained the barest facts of the general's life—birthdate, where he was raised—nothing to sway her in her studies. She already knew his date of death—the summer of 1864. Yet she would try to forget even that information, preferring instead to read each letter as it was written during wartime, the receiver never knowing whether it would be the last. That was another one of her research tricks—whenever possible, she would attempt to replicate the sense of uncertainty the original readers must have felt.

  But no matter how strident her methods, a few dates filtered unwillingly into her mind. The general would die during the summer of 1864, struck in the head by one of General William T. Sherman's sharpshooters. And, according to the thumbnail sketch provided by Emily's staff, Meg or Mag, his fiancee or girlfriend, would die of lung disease in the fall of 1863.

  With the calm deliberation of a surgeon, she washed her hands, making sure they were fully dry before handling the letters. She filled a chipped kettle with water for tea and placed it on a gas burner. It was almost dusk, and she switched on the dining room light. Although there was plenty of afternoon light now, gently illuminating the room, she didn't want to be disturbed later.

  Her hands were trembling as she slid the first volume into her lap. She had handled old documents before, hundreds of rare papers written centuries ago, yet this was different. There was an unsettling sense of anticipation, an excitement she had never before experienced.

  Swallowing hard, she ran her hand over the table, in case there was an invisible damp spot on the glossy wood. These letters had survived over one hundred and thirty years; she did not want to be responsible for placing them in a puddle of diet cola.

  Opening the book, she was enveloped in a musty sweet scent, the unmistakable fragrance of decaying paper and fading ink. On the first page was a small scrap of embossed paper and a brief note written in a strong, childlike hand. The date in the corner was November 10th, 1840.

  This is a specimen of my writing with my new gold pen, which was a present from my mother as a token of respect and friendship to her son. I do highly esteem this present, and intend to be studious, correct in my language, clean in my habits, and respectful in my manner in the future.

  Ashton Johnson

  She stared at the paper for a few moments, slightly taken aback by the note. There were fold marks on the paper, as if the scrap had been preserved in a small place, such as a tiny jewelry box, or slipped into a locket. These were supposed to be historical letters covering the general's exploits in the Confederacy, not the childish scratchings of a little boy. Flipping open the notebook with information on General Johnson, she discovered the date of his birth. The note had been written on his tenth birthday.

  A sudden vision came to her mind of a small boy proudly handing his mother his work, and her delighted response. It must have been very precious to her, a tangible reminder of the child he had been.

  The next letter was written in the same hand, but the penmanship was bolder, more confident.

  St. Louis, May 25, 1847

  Dear Mag,

  Please excuse the brevity of this letter, but I have just learned of my acceptance to the military academy at West Point. As I am expected to arrive there before June 10th, I will not be coming home to The Oaks first. Therefore I must bid a hasty good-bye to my St. Louis cousins and forgo many pleasures they had planned for their Virginia relation. One pleasure I did not forgo, my little Mag, was buying you the doll I promised. She has black hair like yours, although her face is not nearly as fair. You must give her a name and tell me how I am to address her, for ladies deem
it a high insult for a gentleman to address them by the wrong appellation.

  Tell your brother Tom that the entrance examination for the military academy was simple, amounting to little more than proof of an ability to read and do basic mathematics. The examiner was startled at my ability to read French, and I am thankful that he did not realize how poorly the Virginia accent serves that grand language. The physical exam was even less arduous, consisting of little more than proof of all four limbs. I confess I was tempted to attach an artificial limb, just to see how valuable Jive sound limbs would be to the military academy for bearing arms.

  I will miss you, dear Mag, for it will be two years before I am granted a "furlough" of two months to go home. I have asked your doll, name unknown, what she thinks of a military man, and from the shine in her painted eyes, she must approve. I only hope her owner will approve as well.