Ashton's Bride

by Judith O'Brien

  Do you remember, Margaret, I once told you I could survive anything, save a direct hit in the head? I still believe that is true.

  My height, by the way, is still six feet and three inches, unless the perpetual ducking of bullets has decreased my size. It is still safe to call me "Too Tall Johnson" and "Sequoia." And my favorite meal remains Aunt Hattie's chicken and dumplings, although I now survive on hardtack and cornbread. I keep on trying to throw the hardtack away, but the vermin within causes it to crawl on back, so I am obliged to eat it.

  I know not how you will react to this letter. I have been frank and honest, perhaps for the first time. But I fee! lighter in spirit than I have for years, sharing with you, even on paper, some of these events.

  Do you know what I was thinking this morning, before your letter arrived? About your parents. I don't know if you ever understood how very proud they were of you, how your father's eyes would shine at the mention of your name, how your mother would straighten her shoulders and tell the neighbors of your latest award in literature. In a hundred ways they told the world how their youngest child, their little Maggie, was their bright star. And wherever they are, dear Margaret, you still are.

  Yours always,

  Ash

  P.S. Please tell me how you are faring at "Rebel's Retreat." Has Mrs. Thaw made the place comfortable for you? Although I still have no earthly clue as to what you are doing there, it no longer bothers me. For I have given up trying to read the changeable mind of Margaret.

  How long the kettle had been whistling, Margaret didn't know or care. And she wasn't aware she'd been crying until the second time she read the letter, when a word, penned in ink over a hundred years earlier, became blurry with her freshly shed tears.

  There was a small sentence on top of the page, and she stared at it for a few moments before the impact of what it said hit her full force. It was clearly jotted down as an afterthought, for there was no room on the bottom of the page.

  "Who on earth is Brad Skinner?" it asked, in the bold, precise hand of General Ashton Johnson, C.S.A.

  At least she'd had the presence of mind to call in sick, three minutes before she was due to teach her second class. Chester Dick had been able to substitute Brad Skinner, who was only too glad to help out.

  She sat motionless for over an hour before her teeth began chattering, and she numbly wrapped an old throw rug around her shoulders. She knew it was hot out by the smell of sun-warmed grass and the vibrating hiss of crickets, but she was unable to stop shivering.

  There was a sharp knock on the door a little before noon, and Margaret, still in a daze, still wrapped in a blanket, shuffled to the door. It was Brad Skinner, with her class essays on Beowulf.

  "Hey, you look like hell!" was his greeting.

  Margaret could only nod.

  "You know," said Brad, "the freshman survey class is supposed to read Beowulf—it's on the schedule. You have to teach by the book, Margaret. Are you listening to me?"

  Again she nodded dumbly as a fresh bout of shivers overtook her.

  "You weren't faking it, eh? You're really sick." He reached over to feel her forehead, and she ducked. An uncertain look passed over his face, swiftly dissolving back into the bland mask he usually wore, but Margaret—even in her trancelike state—saw it. Anger? Defiance?

  "How are the letters coming?" His voice oozed sarcasm. "How far have you gotten?" Margaret's eyes snapped to his. "I'm on the final volume. I've read the first two and have begun indexing already."

  "Fine. Good work." He began to walk past her, striding through the front parlor. "Where are they? Chet told me to give you a hand. Why don't I just take the last volume . . ."

  "No!" she screeched, startled by the venom in her voice. "You can't have it," she said more calmly. "What I mean is, I've already started on the third volume,"

  Brad stared at her for a few moments, and he spotted the first two volumes. "Have it your way," he said softly. "But I may as well tell you Chet has finally given me permission to work on these. Since you were too sick to teach, you're clearly too sick to work on the letters." He picked up the first two books and began to walk toward the front door.

  "I'll be back later, Margaret, after I speak to Chet. We'll both come back for the rest of these. They belong with me, not you." The door slammed behind him.

  She managed to walk back to the dining room before her knees began to weaken, and she slid into a chair. The third volume, open to Ashton's last letter, lay before her. She reached for her notepad and pen, and began to write.

  Magnolia University

  Rebel's Retreat

  Dear Ash,

  Please excuse the shakiness of my writing—I must be coming down with the flu.

  I received your letter this morning, and I cannot tell you what it means to me. My first thought was that I must get to you somehow, to help you recover from your injury, but I now realize you have already been mended without my help.

  I have read of battles, seen statistics, understood the meaning of a casualty list. But your description, so vivid yet without self-pity, makes me feel as if I was there. I'm not thinking very clearly now, forgive me. I want to shield you from the nightmare of war, but how can I?

  By the way, your housekeeper, Mrs. Thaw, is a treasure. I hardly know she's here.

  Margaret stopped for a moment and looked over what she had written. It was gibberish, and she knew she should take an aspirin and lie down for a few hours, but she needed to write to Ashton. They might take the letters away from her.

  Something flashed by the corner of her eye, but she ignored it and began writing again. She had to finish this letter. She coughed, slightly surprised—did she have a cough before?

  "What you said about my parents," she continued. "Were they really proud? Have you seen them where you are? Sometimes I wonder if I could have done something, but really ..."

  Her head was pounding, and it was becoming difficult to breathe.

  "I shouldn't say this in a letter," she wrote, her handwriting almost illegible. "I think I may have fallen in love with you. When I first saw you, the painting in Johnson Hall, I so longed to communicate with you. And then these letters . . ."

  Margaret dropped the pen and began to cough, a bone-racking cough that shook her entire body. Did she fall asleep? Someone was speaking to her, and she recognized Brad Skinner's voice, and he was speaking to someone. Chet. They were carrying her upstairs.

  "No!" she shouted. "He's trying to take Ashton away from me! Stop!"

  Nobody seemed to be listening to her, and they were hazy, shifting in and out of focus like a crazy student film. There were hands and voices and hands, sounds like a train rushing past.

  Then there was one voice, a familiar, soothing voice in a strange, soft accent. She was aware of large, sure hands on her forehead, and someone held her up when she began to cough, speaking the whole time.

  "I'm here, Mag. Hold on to me, come back. You can't leave me now . . ."

  The words flowed like a warm caress, and she felt herself relax against a heavily muscled shoulder. This isn't Brad, she thought briefly. This person's much bigger, and he smells of horses and leather. She leaned into him and sighed, and whoever he was, she heard him laugh, a wonderful, rich sound.

  Then she fell asleep, the deepest, most satisfying slumber she had ever experienced. She slept straight through the night, and only the sunlight in the window alerted her that it was once again morning.

  Cold. She was freezing, but only her face was cold. There was something heavy across her chest and shoulders.

  The sunlight. It was coming from the wrong angle— as if it were winter instead of late summer. She reached a hand from under the warm blankets and touched her index finger to her nose. It was cold.

  Her eyes began to focus, and she saw the blue-and-white pitcher and bowl, and the walls were a startling shade of pure white. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them, expecting to see the yellow wallpaper and her plastic hairbrush.

>   The walls were still white. The blue-and-white bowl had a small chip.

  And it wasn't a blanket keeping her so warm. She looked more closely. It was a jacket, a worn gray coat with yellow stars at the collar and brass buttons. The buttons were embossed with three large letters. C.S.A.

  Her mind whirled, and then it came to her— impossibly and undeniably. Confederate States of America.

  She tried to sit up but wasn't able to gather the strength. Her leg, encased in blankets, pushed against something large and warm, and she gasped.

  Peering down at the foot of the bed, she saw the figure of a man. He was in a chair, but he was slumped over the bed, his head cradled in his arms and his face turned away from Margaret. All she could see were broad shoulders under a white shirt and thick auburn hair, streaked light at the ends by the sun. She knew, without a doubt, who he was.

  "Ashton," she whispered.

  And slowly, he turned to face her.

  CHAPTER 6

  The oil painting in Johnson Hall failed to do the man justice.

  Margaret's hands clenched the gray wool jacket as he rubbed his eyes, and she saw a momentary flash of disorientation on his features as he faced her. Then he smiled, a small, hesitant smile.

  This Ashton was too thin, with prominent cheekbones that gave his face a harsher appearance than in the formal painting on the campus. His clothing was hanging loosely on his large frame, and she could see the angular collarbone jutting from behind the white cotton shirt.

  No artist, no matter how gifted, could have captured the barely restrained energy that was apparent with his every move, or the brilliant color of his eyes, brown with green and gold flecks. There was an incandescent intelligence in the eyes, and she watched with fascination as they swept over her, taking in every detail,

  From under the golden brown mustache, neatly trimmed, his mouth still held an uncertain smile. He glanced at a glass of water by her bed, and Margaret noticed how long his hair was, well past the snowy collar. The hair was reddish brown and curled slightly at the ends, defiant as his gaze.

  "Would you like some water?" The voice was the familiar, gentle tone she had heard before, with a strange accent softening the hard vowels with honeyed warmth. The "r" in "water" rolled away smoothly, like silk gliding over velvet.

  She nodded, afraid to take her own eyes from the apparition in case he should vanish. His arm reached over her, and up close she could smell his spicy masculine scent. He stopped before picking up the glass and placed his large, calloused hand over her forehead.

  "Your fever's down," he murmured. Again the "r" melted into oblivion as he spoke. Before removing his hand, he brushed her cheek with his knuckles, with more tenderness than Margaret would have thought possible from a man of his size.

  Without thinking, she grasped his hand, surprised by the strength and warmth she felt as the hand instinctively folded over hers.

  "Ashton," she said, her voice sounding strangely low to her own ears. He reached for the glass of water with his free hand and offered her a sip. Her eyes were glued to his as she drank, holding tightly on to his hand.

  "Ugh!" she pulled back as soon as she tasted the water. It had a flavor of dirt and metallic grit, as if someone had sifted sand into the glass. She ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth and gasped. Something was wrong.

  "I've lost a tooth!" she exclaimed, but it didn't sound like her regular voice. The words that spilled from her mouth were spoken in a lower register. But that didn't bother her as much as a missing tooth. She could feel a gaping hole in her mouth, one of her bottom molars was gone. It didn't hurt, but it was alarming nonetheless.

  "Which tooth?" he asked, and suddenly Margaret smiled at this bizarre scene, discussing her dental health with a ghost.

  "In the back—a molar." Her words were garbled, as she was exploring the site with her tongue as she spoke.

  "Margaret, you had that tooth pulled when you were sixteen. Don't you remember?" His searing eyes seemed to envelop her, and she frowned and shook her head. "I took you to the dentist in Richmond, and you were quite a handful. He gave you nitrous oxide, and you were telling everyone on the streets that you were a cloud. Remember? I was accused of getting you intoxicated ..."

  "No. I really don't remember. Have I ever been to Richmond?" His hand tightened over hers, and he looked away.

  "Ashton, how did you get here?" Her voice was soft.

  "I received a telegram from Mrs. Thaw that you were ill. General Lee gave me a seven-day pass." His thumb stroked her wrist as he spoke, but he seemed unaware of it. "Lee is more terrified of the wrath of Mrs. Thaw than most anything." Again his mouth quirked into a small grin. "Including 'those people.'"

  "Who are 'those people'?"

  "The Yankees." Ashton leaned back in his chair and pulled his hand away from hers, folding his arms across his chest. His presence seemed to fill the room, as if his very being consumed space. He took a deep breath, his eyes burning through her with molten intensity.

  "Margaret," he said at last. "I believe you're ill."

  "Ashton. I believe you're dead," she replied as gently as possible, her hands once again clutching the phantom jacket in her lap.

  Whatever reaction she had anticipated, it wasn't explosive laughter. His head tilted back, his shoulders shook with mirth, and he laughed—a deep, rich, glorious sound.

  "Ah, Mag," he said at last, wiping a tear from under an eye. "I never know what to expect from you . . ."

  "No, Ashton. I'm afraid it's true. You're a ghost. I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but it's 1993, and you've been dead for well over a hundred years . . ."

  Suddenly, with startling force, he jumped to his feet. The chair skidded on the wooden floor, and he stood to his full height, enormous and powerful. With a distracted hand, he pushed the thick hair out of his face and walked to a window. As he walked, she noticed a slight limp, the firm sound of his boots on the floor.

  "I thought you had changed," he said softly, but there was an unmistakable edge of menace to his voice. "But you haven't. You still delight in your childish games. You were simply teasing me with those last two letters, weren't you? Watching how many hoops I'd jump through for you."

  "No! No, please," but she couldn't seem to catch her breath, and there was a pressure on her chest such as she had never felt, as if a vise were tightening around her, preventing her from taking in air. She tried to sit up, and the effort made her dizzy, the jacket slid to the floor—brass buttons clattering against the wood.

  Ashton turned on his heels with lightning speed, the anger on his face dissolving to alarm. He was back at the bed in two long strides, his large hands pulling her roughly by her upper arms. She felt her hands flay helplessly against his shirt, as if that would somehow help her take in air.

  The only sounds she could hear were the painful pounding of her own heart and a dry, wheezing sound. Part of her mind was whirling in startled curiosity. Had she somehow developed asthma? Ashton was speaking to her, and she tried to listen, but she was still fighting to breathe.

  "Margaret, listen to me. Relax and breathe—hold on to me. I'm here. I'm not angry at you anymore. Listen!"

  He sounded very far away, as if he were speaking from the end of a long, hollow tunnel. She felt her hands go limp, and she tried to touch him again. Her arms dropped heavily into her lap. His words seemed to have more urgency now, and she heard her thumping heart slow down, slower and slower and . . .

  "NO!" She was frightened by the voice, a harsh, loud command. Margaret was aware that her head lolled back, and she tried to straighten up, but she simply didn't have the strength.

  "Margaret! You will not leave me! God damn it. .."

  Suddenly, as if she were watching a movie, she had an aerial view of the room. There was Ashton, looking large and impossibly handsome, holding the most beautiful woman Margaret had ever seen. The woman's hair was long and dark and scattered all over a lace pillow, but she was very still and pale. In Ashton's arm
s she appeared tiny. But even her unnatural pallor and blue-tinged lips could not betray features of almost eerie perfection. Her eyebrows arched delicately over half-closed eyes, and her nose was small and fine, but more aristocratic than cute. Even the shape of her face was a flawless oval, tiny ears revealed under the lush raven mane.