Emma Barry (10 page)

It had been their special place before, but with preparations for Theo’s departure, they had yet to return there since their marriage. She released Theo’s arm and walked a few paces from the willow to look out to the river. The water nipped at the narrow beach, each soft, lapping wave an enticement to the past.

How many times had they sat here? Would they ever do so again? Was it possible to stay forever like this, here and together?

She could hear him removing his coat and unfurling on the ground behind her. “Did you like the service? Mother might be persuaded to switch to the other church … ”

A laugh bubbled up from her stomach. “If you believe
that
, Theo Ward, you know your mother less well than I.”

He laughed too, but then his tone turned serious. “I need to know why you have been so cold.” He didn’t ask — he demanded.

She set her jaw and said through her teeth, “Nothing is wrong.”

He clicked his tongue in frustration. “If a lifetime stretched before us, I wouldn’t push. I would wait for you to tell me. But I leave in the morning, so I insist. Have I done something? Hurt you in some way?”

She turned toward him. He was sprawled out under the willow tree. In shirtsleeves with the breeze making his hair flutter, he looked quite the youth. She couldn’t let him believe he’d done something wrong.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You have been nothing but honest and fair with me.” It was true.

“And yet you are angry.” He wasn’t surprised. There was something rich in his eyes that she didn’t understand. She wanted to fall into them but she knew not what awaited her.

“No, not angry.”

“Not well. Not happy. You were — at least it seemed like you were at first.”

She bit her lip and took a few steps to him. “I have become … confused.”

“About why we married?”

Margaret settled herself next to him on the grass and pulled off her gloves, inspecting the blades she brushed with her hand. Each tickled her fingertips. A dappled ray of sunlight made her wedding band gleam. “Yes. I do not understand why it was necessary for us to marry. Was it only my compromised virtue?”

“Don’t make it less than it is,” he said, taking her hand. “I was selfish, very selfish, that night. But I did it because … ” He trailed off. He unbuttoned her cuff and allowed his fingers to trail up inside her sleeve, tracing patterns on her wrist and forearm. Margaret’s lids drifted closed.

“Look at me,” he whispered. Margaret opened her eyes and locked onto his, afraid of what was coming but desperate to hear it all the same.

“I was selfish that night, and then insisted we marry, because I love you.”

Where before there had been a breeze wafting off the river and the sound of children playing in the distance, now there was only thick stillness. There were only his eyes, as blue as lapis, as intense as whirlpools, as deep as wells. He tempted her soul to irrationality.

Margaret felt breathless and dizzy. “Theo, I — ”

“No, I don’t want you to reply. I understand you’re afraid. I was reckless with your trust and your love once. But I want you to know what is at stake. I married you because I had no other choice. I spent years in a haze when we parted. I awoke at your touch. You are the meaning of my life.”

She looked out over the river. Outwardly, she was calm. Inside, she felt as if pebbles were boiling in her stomach. There were such rumblings and poppings within her that she felt as if she might burst. This was a real marriage for Theo. He loved her. Still. Forever.

“Margaret.” The word was tremulous, fraught, and hopeful.

She turned toward him again and saw the pain and fear that was in her heart writ on his face. And so there, underneath the willow tree, she kissed him with everything in her soul. She kissed him as if it was their last night together, which it very nearly might be. His fingers tangled in her hair, and he sighed into her mouth. She might expire from happiness.

Margaret clung to his arm as they returned to their house for luncheon. If was as if she couldn’t stand to let too many inches crowd in between them. She hadn’t said the word, true, but it was in her eyes and on her lips. Mother would perish of shame if she heard about that kiss. Theo felt as if he were still on fire, half an hour later. He hadn’t known mouths could express so much beyond speech. She was truly his now. He had claimed her, and she had surrendered.

They rounded a corner, Theo hardly paying attention, his mind still occupied with what had occurred underneath the willow, when he bumped quite bodily into Josiah Trinkett.

“Good afternoon!” the old man boomed. “You’ve heard the news then?”

“Oh, no. We’ve been out for a walk.”

He glanced at his wife, whose eyes were flashing at him, and squeezed her arm.

Josiah continued, oblivious, “There’s a fierce battle raging twenty-five miles west of Washington City. The first major engagement of the war, they’re saying. I’m headed over to the telegraph office. They are reading the dispatches out to the crowd. The war may be over by nightfall, Ward.”

Theo was concerned, but he couldn’t abandon Margaret. “We’re expected at home for luncheon, but stop by the house later to share the news.”

He and Margaret completed their walk in silence. Theo could feel the almost imperceptible shift in her since their conversation with Josiah. At the house, he steered her around to the backdoor and pinned her against the wall.

“No, don’t pull away from me again.”

She pitched forward into his arms. At least she was clinging to him now. She had leaned toward him, not away. That was progress.

He whispered warm words against her hair as he rocked her. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, my darling girl.”

Against his shoulder, he could feel her shaking her head. “I’m not. But if you should fall, Theo,” she finally managed to whisper. He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he embraced her more tightly. They stood like that for several long minutes before Mother leaned out the door.

“Well, aren’t you coming in?” she demanded.

“In a minute,” he replied, gently. More than one woman in his life was in need of comfort this afternoon, he knew. “Can you stand?”

Margaret nodded. He leaned her back against the wall and put a hand on each shoulder to steady her. She wasn’t crying, true, but her eyes looked as if something had broken within her. She’d closed whatever he’d managed to open. A few more blinks, and she’d have herself entirely composed. He wished she’d teach him that trick.

“This is real, Theo, isn’t it?” she said. Her voice was even and unemotional.

“Yes.”

She swallowed. “Our marriage and the war? Neither is imaginary anymore.”

“No.”

“Let us to luncheon, then.”

She wouldn’t look at him, but her grip on his arm was firm. This was the declaration he had been waiting for. At least, he was almost sure it was. But he could not exult in the knowledge of her feelings because too many of his thoughts were with the boys on the faraway battlefield.

• • •

All afternoon Margaret feigned a confidence she did not feel. Theo loved her. He did, and he always had, she knew. He needed to feel she was confident and supportive, so she would be. She owed him that.

So she smiled and laughed and helped him go through his trunk one more time, adding several extra pairs of socks and gloves she’d managed to knit when he wasn’t looking. Always in the back of her mind was the unknown news at the front. Today it was this battle near Washington City. Unless the war was already over, tomorrow the battle would be somewhere else. And Theo would be there.

With all the uncertainty, what did he expect her to say? Was not their happiness sufficient?

At last, after dinner, Josiah Trinkett arrived. His face was always lined, but the mirth that usually haunted the corners of his eyes had been driven out by deeper shadows. His broad mouth, so quick to smile, turned down. Graying hair hung over his forehead, raked out of place by restless hands.

“Well, Ward, it seems that there’s still a war for you to fight after all,” he said as he slid into a chair and Sarah prepared coffee for him. His visage was ashen.

“The battle?” Theo asked. Margaret was certain they all knew what Josiah meant, but with a question of such import, it was worth clarifying.

“It was a first-class muddle,” the older man said with a grim nod. “The Rebels are claiming victory.”

“Losses?” Theo’s voice was steady. Margaret could scarcely breathe.

Josiah sipped and then set his cup back into the saucer with a mighty rattle. The clank of the china resounded in the room. Did he always make so much noise?

Hands back in his lap, he answered, “Heavy on both sides.”

Margaret rose from the sofa and walked to the window, all prickles and pins. She had to
move
.

Theo leaned back into his chair and said, “Early, easy victory was always a dream, Josiah, they had to know that. I’ve taken the Southern papers for years. The degree of misunderstanding and resentment is enormous. Depending on the blockade … ”

The conversation in the background continued at a hum. Inside her head there was a ringing that Margaret couldn’t shake off. She had forced her body into the accepted posture: back straight, shoulders back, feet together. Every speck of her burned in rebellion. She wanted to keen and thrash about. How could they all be so calm?

Minutes later, she felt Theo’s hand on her back. The pressure was searing, and only the dumb weight of her tongue kept her from shrieking.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Despite her inner turmoil, her voice emerged. “Aye, I am watching the moon rise.” Shaky, but ’twould do. There was a long silence and finally Margaret added, “It will be full tomorrow.”

Theo nodded and asked, “Will you play for us?”

“I fear that my hands are not steady enough tonight.” She smiled at him as best she could, knowing it was sad and half-done.

“Will you retire with me, then?”

“Yes.”

Theo bade his mother and Josiah goodnight. The older people winked good-naturedly as Theo led Margaret up to their room.

There was no need for words. He let down her hair and brushed it out. They undressed one another slowly, moving with deliberateness until at last they were unclothed and draped across the bed.

Theo seemed be moving in slow motion. There was no urgency to the way he kissed every part of her body, held her against his length, and finally entered her almost surreptitiously. It was rhythmic, inevitable, and overpowering. He prolonged the moment, abandoning any touch or stroke that appeared to be too productive. After a lifetime, it seemed, they found shuddering release together.

He cradled her face in his hands. “I love you, Margaret. I love you. I will return to you.”

She could not respond, so she nestled against his chest and pressed her lips to the base of his throat, feeling his heartbeat in her mouth.

It had been three long months since Theo’s departure. Margaret could remember their final walk together to the station clearly. Flags adorned every post and hung from many windows. A band and a choir farewelled the men of Company H of Connecticut’s Fifth Regiment as they had boarded their special train to Hartford. Theo had shaken hands in a warm, manly way with Josiah and Reverend Patterson, kissed Mrs. Ruskin on the cheek, and wrestled Sarah in a long, warm embrace. Finally, he had turned to her.

Margaret had been willing herself not to cry since rising. She had found herself babbling, attempting to fill the space with words in place of tears. “Remember to wear two pairs of socks at night, and if you get sick … ”

He had stopped her mouth with his. Right there in the station. In front of his mother and Reverend Patterson and all his men. He had kissed her like he meant it. He had broken off for a moment to murmur, “Thank you” before pressing her to him once more.

When at last he let off, she had whispered, dazed, “For what?”

“For the night in the stable,” he said in a low voice in her ear. “And every night since. Particularly those to come. Now, tell me you love me.”

She had crimsoned and shaken her head, settling instead for kissing him again, trying to put all her affection and sadness into her lips.

Finally, the train’s whistle had sounded and Theo had broken from her. He sighed, perhaps with disappointment, before saying, “I love you, my girl. Don’t forget it.”

The words echoed even now in the parlor, where Margaret sat ripping seams of old clothing that was to be turned into bandages by the Ladies’ Aid Society. Why couldn’t she have lied? She might never see him again. Why couldn’t she say,
Yes, Theo, I love you?
Why were those words so hard?

She had said it before, when they had been engaged prior, but as it was as if they had been preserved in amber. Those words belonged to another time. Her feelings now were so much more durable and concrete than they had been. Surely Theo knew it. This was a more mature caring. It wasn’t ephemeral or changeable. They needed no flowers and roses and poetry. Love was a weak foundation upon which to build a life. What they had was better. Couldn’t he see that?

Sarah and Mrs. Ruskin burst through the front door. Their market baskets thumped into the walls, their skirts stirred up the air, and their conversation buzzed.

Sarah said, leaning into the parlor with a sly smile, “As you might expect, there were letters from Theodore at the post office.” She extended an envelope to Margaret, who excused herself to the garden to read in solitude.

The trees had lost most of their foliage. Just a few golden leaves remained, scarcely enough to produce a dry, rustling symphony about her head. Margaret stared at the letter, running her finger over the address where his hand had brushed. He wrote steadily, and each missive was prized.