Swan's Way (7 page)

“You see,” Ginna said. “I told you I’d seen you before. Neal, that’s
you
in that old glass negative.”

Neal wasn’t looking at the man’s image. His gaze was focused on the lovely woman, instead. How could Ginna not see it? If the man looked liked him, the woman was a mirror image of Ginna. The tilt of the nose, the light hair and eyes, the soft fullness of her lips.

“Who could they be?” Neal asked quietly, gripping Ginna’s hand.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But whoever they were, they must have been in love. She’s not looking directly into the camera. See how her eyes are focused downward? And that slight smile. It’s clear she adores him.”

“I wonder what became of them.”

Drawing closer to Neal, Ginna whispered, “I guess, we’ll never know.”

Ginna was wrong about that. Before the words were well out of her mouth, a brilliant flash illuminated the greenhouse. The wisteria and all the other plants vanished, along with everything else that was of this time and place.

“Neal!” Ginna cried, clinging to him, blinded by the light.

For a long time, he refused to answer her. She could feel him close, so close that the heat of his body suffused hers. Yet she felt all alone, lost in the brilliance of the light.

“Neal, can you hear me?
Answer me!
You’re scaring me. What’s wrong? What’s happening to us?”

At long last, she heard his voice. It sounded different somehow and seemed to come from far away.

“I’m here, Virginia,” he answered, his voice softened by a deep southern drawl. “It’s Channing, darling. Don’t be afraid.”

When she felt his lips on hers, the fear vanished. She remembered now—everything. Each moment they had shared, each joyous laugh, each sweet caress, each bitter tear, each sad farewell.

“You’ve come home,” she whispered against his lips. “Oh, Channing, you’ve come home at last, my dearest.”

The flash disappeared almost instantly. However, it left Ginna feeling stunned, her vision blurred. Out of the dense silence she heard a man’s voice. “Thank you very much for coming. I will have your portrait ready by tomorrow afternoon.”

“It was our pleasure, Mr. Brady.” Ginna recognized this as Neal’s voice, but then again it didn’t quite sound like him. Suddenly, he had a Southern drawl as thick and smooth as buttered grits.

“I look forward to seeing the two of you become Mr. and Mrs. Channing McNeal.” Brady smiled, and removed his blue-tinted spectacles. “June the first, you say. I’ll write that date in my appointment book this minute.”

Ginna shook her head, trying to clear it.
Mrs. and Mrs. Channing McNeal? June the first?
What could the man be talking about?

She was still mulling over these questions, when the taller and more handsome of the two men took her arm. “Are you ready to go, Virginia?”

She started to correct him, but thought better of it. All this was so strange. What could have happened? She recalled standing in the greenhouse at Swan’s Quarter with Neal Frazier. She had meant to show him old Zee’s ghosts and point out the resemblance between Neal and the uniformed stranger from the past.

Her vision and her mind clearing, again she glanced up at the man beside her. This time she did a double take. “Channing McNeal,” the photographer had called him. Well, that must be his name because he certainly wasn’t Neal Frazier any longer. This man—this
stranger—
was not quite as tall as Neal, yet they were remarkably alike in build and feature, although Channing’s dark hair was a bit longer than Neal’s. She noticed, too, that the expression of pain she always saw in Neal’s eyes was replaced by a warm gleam in Channing’s.

She glanced around the room, trying to get her bearings. A gasp escaped her when she caught a glimpse of herself—Ginna Jones—in one of the large reflectors set up to catch the light and brighten the studio. She found herself staring at the very image of the woman in the greenhouse wall. She wore an old-fashioned, silvery-blue gown over a bell-shaped hoop. The dress was trimmed at the neck and sleeves in white lace, accented with pink velvet ribbons. Her dark gold hair was dressed in an antiquated style that was really quite becoming, but like nothing Ginna would ever have dreamed of wearing.

I’m not myself any longer
, she thought.
But who am I?
The gentleman named Channing had called her Virginia. Virginia
what?
she wondered.

What sort of place was this? Her gaze encompassed the studio, as she searched for some clue. There was a metal stand that reminded her of the racks used in hospitals to hang IV bottles. But she knew it had a very different purpose. Vaguely, she remembered that the arms at the top had held her head firmly stationary, while she posed for a portrait. A little scrap of distant memory told her that Channing had sat in the velvet-covered chair in front of her. And there on the marble-topped table sat an antique ormolu clock, its hands frozen on the twelve and the ten, 11:50. The magic hour. The time when Zee’s ghosts appeared in the greenhouse wall.

Bits and pieces of two scenarios were coming back to her, fitting together like a child’s jigsaw puzzle. She had, indeed, come to this place—Mathew Brady’s New York studio—a short time earlier to have her portrait made with Channing McNeal. That was not all she had done today, however. She had also been at work at the Rebel Yell Cafe this morning, and at a flea market, and on a bus. She had been excited, eager to show Neal his plate glass twin in the greenhouse. For years, she had been fascinated by the silvery images of the two nameless people, since the first time Zee showed her his secret, his “ghosts.” But nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Not in the greenhouse. Not
anywhere!

“It’s time we were on our way now, darling,” Channing said.

When he went into the adjacent dressing room to retrieve their cloaks, Ginna sidled over to the window and looked out. If this place was truly Mathew Brady’s New York City studio and her hoop skirt wasn’t some trick of her imagination and they had just posed for an ambrotype portrait, as she surmised, she should be able to see the street—Broadway—below as it had appeared over a century ago. Curiosity more than anything else drew her to the window. Heights had always made her lightheaded. But she had never been to New York before and, even if this was some sort of weird dream, she was eager to glimpse a world long vanished.

What Ginna saw instead all but took her breath away. She found herself looking down on the interior of the greenhouse. Empty now and silent. There was the wisteria vine in all its green-and-purple glory. The ferns and orchids looked the same. She could even make out her own footprints in the soft earth along with those of Neal and Zee.

She was still staring in amazement, when Channing took her arm and drew her gently to his side. “You had better not look down, darling. You know how heights make you dizzy.”

“I might be dizzy, but it’s not from the height. Take a look out the window. Tell me what you see,” she demanded.

He chuckled as he placed her cape around her shoulders. “Is this some sort of parlor game, Virginia? I Spy,’ perhaps? What am I supposed to see? There’s a ragged boy hawking newspapers on the corner of Broadway and Tenth, a slightly tipsy gentleman in a top hat coming out of Thompson’s Saloon, a fancy cabriolet passing by. Have I guessed yet what you want me to see?”

Stunned speechless, Ginna took another look. Channing was right; she saw all that he had mentioned and more. But how could that be? Only a moment before …

“Come along now, Virginia. We have to see a man about a ring. Remember?”

Ginna nodded silently and took Channing’s arm. They walked down the stairs to the gallery below and soon they were out on busy, bustling Broadway. Somewhere in the back of Ginna’s mind, the thought registered that the first elevator would not be installed in New York City for several years. She wondered vaguely if the elevator had even been invented yet. Most of all, she wondered how she could have descended four flights of stairs without pausing to catch her breath. The old, weak-hearted Ginna Jones would have had to stop several times on the way down. Perhaps being in this new person’s body had more advantages than she had realized.

Outside in the bright March sun, Ginna shaded her eyes to look up at the five-story building they had just exited. She saw Mathew Brady at the window of his studio. He waved and Channing returned his salute.

Channing had been talking all the while since they left the studio about the kind of ring she should have, her visit with her parents to West Point, and plans for after his upcoming graduation and their wedding. Ginna made no comment, afraid she might say the wrong thing. She listened closely to his every word, piecing together her life as Channing McNeal’s betrothed.

“What’s the matter, Virginia? You seem so distracted and nervous suddenly.”

“I don’t know.” She had to say something and this seemed the least likely to give her away. “All this is so new and strange to me.”

He laughed and squeezed her hand. “Don’t tell me you’re worrying about what your grandmother said.”

Once again, Ginna had no idea what he was talking about. In fact, she had no idea who her grandmother was, or even that she had one.

“What do you mean, Channing?” she ventured.

“About photographers stealing your soul. That’s just the older generation’s mistrust of modern miracles. I’ve heard red Indians had the same reaction when they were first introduced to mirrors.”

Ginna had a few minutes to think, while her companion talked on. She was tempted to confront him with the truth-tell him that he wasn’t who he thought he was or maybe that she wasn’t who he thought she was. At any rate, none of this was making any sense to her, and she needed to ask a lot of questions and get some answers.
Right now!
But then she thought better of taking that tack. Hadn’t people been put into insane asylums in the nineteenth century for acting queer and asking odd questions? Worse yet,
women
who acted strange could be branded witches! No, she decided, that was in a different century. Still, she thought she had better play along and see what she could find out about Channing McNeal and this Virginia-person he was mistaking her for.

Without explanation, Channing turned north and began walking up Broadway.

“Where are we going?”

“To Mr. Charles Lewis Tiffany’s jewelry establishment. It’s only five blocks up, at Fifteenth Street. This is such a fine day, I thought we might walk.” He looked at his companion questioningly. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

“I’d love to,” Ginna said, flashing her handsome escort a bright smile. In truth, her worries about her current situation were being pushed aside by her curiosity and her interest in old New York. Horses dashed this way and that, with riders or hitched to all manner of conveyances, from honey wagons to fine traps. Street performers drew crowds to watch as they cut silhouettes, did card tricks, capered about in wild dances, or played musical instruments. Channing and Ginna stopped to listen to an old Italian man play his hurdy gurdy. A bright-eyed monkey dressed in a feathered hat and a scarlet coat held a tin cup, begging for coins.

“Oh, Channing, may I?” Ginna pleaded.

He laughed and gave her several large pennies, which she dropped into the monkey’s cup. In gratitude, he danced a little jig on his master’s shoulder.

Ginna was feeling better every minute. She all but forgot that, by rights, she should be at Swan’s Quarter, visiting with Pansy, Elspeth, and Sister. This new old world around her was both mysterious and fascinating. She glanced up at Channing. He was most fascinating of all. Virginia, she mused, was a very lucky lady. It was obvious that her fiancé adored her. Ginna herself was not immune to the warmth of his nearness.

“Look there, just ahead,” he said, after they had walked some distance. “That’s Union Square. You’ll want to see the new equestrian statue of President Washington sculpted by Henry Kirke Brown. I believe it’s quite a good likeness, an imposing piece of statuary. It was dedicated only a few years ago, on July the Fourth 1856, but already it’s become quite an attraction for visitors.”

They had to wait while a detachment of U.S. Marines marched past. Considerable excitement was aroused among the bystanders on the street, seeing so many uniformed troops in one place. Ginna heard one man nearby say to his companion, “General Winfield Scott’s getting ready, all right.”

A glance up at Channing told Ginna that he had heard too. “Ready for
what?”
she asked. “What are those men talking about?”

Channing’s hesitation made it clear that he didn’t want to give her a reply. It didn’t matter. She got her answer from the source of the question. The man with the bullhorn voice bellowed, “They’re off to reinforce Fort Sumter, down by Charleston. When war breaks out, we’ll need that outpost, deep in rebel territory.”

“War?”
Ginna gasped, clutching Channing’s arm tighter.

“Don’t pay any attention to that, dearest. The man has no idea what he’s talking about. I have it on good authority that those Marines are up from Washington and will be garrisoned at Bedloe’s Island. The military is always on the move, shifting troops from one post to another. It means nothing, Virginia.”

Ginna was not quite convinced.

Once the Marines had passed, Channing said, “Let’s go see that statue now.”

Braving the horse-drawn traffic, they crossed to the center of the intersection at Broadway and Fourth Avenue to get a closer look. The huge bronze of Washington towered above them on its stone base, surrounded by an iron spear fence and four elegant lampposts.

“It’s magnificent!” Ginna said, duly impressed. She had seen pictures of this very statue in history books. She knew that in the twentieth century the monument would be moved from the busy intersection to nearby Union Square Park.

“This is supposed to be the very spot where the general was received by the citizens of New York after the British evacuated the city on November 25, 1783.”

Ginna glanced up at Channing, her lovely eyes glittering. “I’m impressed! So many dates and details. You certainly know your history.”

“Thanks to West Point,” he answered. “It’s my favorite subject, military history in particular.”

A question popped into her head—one that seemed innocent enough. “What made a Southerner like you decide on West Point?”

His dark eyebrows drew down in a frown. “Virginia, what a question! You of all people know that. Why, haven’t you and your brother and my father been after me all my life to go to the Academy? That’s all I heard from the time I was old enough to pick up a toy saber. Father had me enrolled by the time I was ten, the same time Colonel Swan enrolled Rodney. And
you
, why, you always said you could hardly wait to be an officer’s wife—
this
officer’s wife.”

Swan!
Channing’s mention of that name made some more of the pieces of this exasperating puzzle fall into place. The “Colonel Swan” Channing mentioned must be Virginia’s father, and Rodney her older brother. She had heard Elspeth telling the family history on more than one occasion. “Dear Miss Virginia, the prettiest belle in the Frederick County.” Ginna tried very hard to recall what else she had heard from Elspeth and the others. She knew that Virginia had supposedly hit a Yankee over the head with the old silver teapot, scarring it forevermore. She had always assumed, though, that the tea-time tales of the Swan family were mere fabrications used by the three women to while away lonely hours.

“We had better move along now, darling. I promised your mother and father that we would meet them back at the hotel by two. They’ll never trust me alone with you again if we’re late.”

Melora and Jedediah
. The names of Virginia’s parents suddenly surfaced in Ginna’s memory. He had been a colonel in the Civil War. His wife had donated their plantation as an old soldiers’ home when the rest of the family died off and Melora herself was quite elderly and all alone.
The rest of the family gone?
What could have happened to Virginia—to Channing?