Traces of Mercy (20 page)

Mother Helena looked at Elijah. “For a man who claims to need answers, Captain, you seem to be very well-informed. I’m afraid you wasted your time with this visit. I’m sorry.”

He understood he was being dismissed. “I’ll let you get back to your … lessons.”

“I know it seems chaotic, but trust me, it will be effective. These children will be able to turn out a bed like a soldier. You should be able to appreciate that.”

He nodded. “Well, thank you for your time.” Elijah started to turn to leave, but then as the noise in the room diminished with the efforts of the children, he thought of one more question.

“Her name?” he asked. “I don’t know how she came to be called Mercy.”

“She was wearing an Our Lady of Mercy medallion when she came to us,” the nun said. “I thought it only fitting to call her Mercy.”

Elijah’s mind filled with the image of a ragged Confederate sergeant holding a knife while his brother, Jed, lay dead not ten feet behind him. He remembered that exact moment when he slipped his own mercy medallion over the sergeant’s knife.

My mother gave me this.
She said it would keep me safe.

“Captain?” Mother Helena’s voice brought his thoughts back to the present. “Do you need someone to show you out?”

Elijah hesitated just for a second, then gave her a sad smile. “No, thank you. I know exactly where I have to go.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
T
HREE

I am missing Rand. Though he’s only been gone a short time, the business trip with his father seems as if it’s gone on forever, and there are still a few weeks left to go. On the good side, Ilene has left me blissfully alone these past few days.

I spent today watching the snow fall. So beautiful as it hits the lake and disappears. The ground is covered, and I watched as Isaac tried to make a snowman in the yard. He didn’t know I was there—it was just a boy having some fun in the snow until Ezra came and caught him at it. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I saw the look of fear on Isaac’s face when Ezra knocked the snowman over and lifted his hand as if to hit the boy. I didn’t even think about how Ezra makes me feel sometimes, I just flew to the door and called for Isaac. Ezra turned with his hand still poised to strike Isaac and saw me. He dropped his hand and tried to wipe the scowl from his face. But it was there. I saw it plain as day. I asked Isaac to go and check on Lucky—and then maybe get some more wood for the fire. I could tell by the look on his face that he was happy to be scampering away from Ezra. I need to remember to tell Rand about Ezra. I get the feeling this isn’t the first time he’s raised his hand to that boy.

The cottage is so quiet at night when I’m in here all alone and writing down my thoughts. Will I still write in you, dear journal, when I am a married woman? Or will I be so willing to share all my rambling thoughts with my husband that I won’t need you anymore? Only time will tell, I suppose. But tonight, my secret is that I am happy. So blissfully happy that some days I can go for hours before I remember that I still can’t remember my own real name.

Mercy opened the door to find a man on her porch. His brown leather jacket was dotted with snow, and his hat perched so low on his head that it shadowed his face.

“May I help you?”

He swept the hat from his head, and though she had only seen him in his army uniform, she instantly recognized him by those piercing eyes of his.

“Sorry for the intrusion, ma’am,” he said.

“Captain Hale?” She couldn’t mask the surprise in her voice.

“Yes. I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time?” he asked in a tone that made her wonder what he’d say if she refused. But there was no reason for her to refuse. He was a vetted friend of the Hendersons, an officer in the army—and she had the protection of Ezra and Isaac should she feel the need. She felt a ripple of unease at the thought of inviting in the man who’d made the remark about possibly knowing her. She stepped out of his way.

“Please, come in.”

He stepped through the door and glanced around the room. “You have a very nice home,” he said. Letty appeared and took his hat and jacket, and he thanked her.

“My pleasure, suh,” she said. Turning to Mercy, she asked, “Tea, Miss Mercy?”

Mercy looked at her guest. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything stronger in the house.”

“Tea would be appreciated,” he said.

“And, Letty, would you please ask Isaac to see to Captain Hale’s horse?”

“I don’t plan a lengthy visit, ma’am,” he said.

“Still, the horse deserves a respite from the cold just like you—don’t you agree?”

He acquiesced. “Yes. Thank you.”

Letty hurried from the room.

“I hope you haven’t misunderstood homesteads.” Mercy looked puzzled. “The cottage belongs to the Prescott family, but they don’t live here. It’s only me right now. Rand isn’t even here visiting at the moment. He’s out of town with his father.”

“I didn’t come to see any of the Prescotts,” he said. “I came to speak with you.”

Mercy considered it, then smiled and gestured to chairs in front of a fireplace. “Please. Have a seat.”

His large frame almost seemed to overwhelm the parlor chair. He was taller than Rand—broader in the shoulders and chest. His dark hair was thick and trimmed so it just touched the collar of his white shirt. Mercy had to admit he was just as handsome as Rand—but in a different way. He was more rugged—his features not so refined and chiseled as her intended. He looked every inch as a composed officer in the military must look, she decided. Even without his uniform. It occurred to her that she was staring at him—and he was staring back.

She smiled self-consciously. “I don’t mean to be rude, Captain Hale, but I can’t imagine what you would need to speak to me about.”

Mercy watched him hesitate for a moment; his carefully arranged composure looked as if it might fail him. Letty reappeared with tea and gave them each a cup. The china was nearly dwarfed in his hand, and Mercy could see his discomfort in handling it. He took a sip of the warm liquid and then put it down on a table beside the chair.

“It’s about the war,” he finally said.

She smiled politely. “I don’t know how much you know about me, Captain, but I feel I must be frank and tell you I know nothing about the war other than what others have told me.”

“I’ll be frank as well and tell you I know your story.”

She tried not to look as confused as she felt. “Excuse me?”

“If you’ll indulge me, I’ll explain,” he said. She felt a surge of unease. What could she possibly have to worry about from this man—this stranger she had met on only a handful of occasions? He’d assured her he’d been mistaken about knowing her—so it couldn’t be about that. Or could it? Despite the misgivings about his visit that were surfacing faster than she could squelch them, she looked him in the eye.

“Go on, please,” she said.

He drew in a deep breath. She could see that he was trying to form his words carefully, and she felt a new wash of nerves. What could he possibly have to say that was so difficult? She had a moment of regret that she’d ever opened the door at all.

Even though he’d rehearsed his words and his story several times over the course of the last couple of days, now that he was sitting in the presence of the woman, Elijah’s carefully constructed monologue failed him. She
was
beautiful—poised, self-possessed. She was dressed in a wool skirt and a silk blouse, and her hair hung in loose ringlets around her face. He nearly abandoned his plan … until he looked into her dark-brown eyes and thought about all that was at stake if he didn’t say something.

“If you’ll permit, I will start with a little of my background,” he finally said. “Some context for the rest of the story.”

She nodded patiently. If she had any inkling of what he was going to say, then Elijah was impressed at how well she was hiding it. By all appearances, the woman truly didn’t know what was coming.

“I’m from Pennsylvania,” he said, “and I answered the call for men to join the Union cause in the summer of ’62. I firmly believed secession would ruin the country—weaken us irrevocably—and wasn’t in the best interest of either the Northern or Southern states.”

“And of course, there was the issue of slavery,” she offered.

He nodded. “Yes. Ethically wrong. Morally wrong. But not the original reason I joined up.” He looked into the fire, away from her face. “My father passed away in ’55 when I was sixteen years old—leaving my mother with me and my younger brother. When the first drums of war sounded, she begged me not to go. I resisted as long as I could, but ultimately, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t fight for the country to stay intact. Though she was proud of me, my mother was very unhappy when I was given my commission in the cavalry. Her only consolation was that my brother would stay home and look after her.

“Then—in the summer of 1863, Philadelphia began the practice of conscription for young men. The war had gone on longer than anyone had thought—and there was no end in sight. My brother, Jedidiah, went into the infantry.”

“Your poor mother,” Mercy said quietly. “She must have been sick with worry.”

He nodded. “Just like thousands of mothers during the campaign—waiting and worrying and wondering when they’d get the news their son had perished on some bloody battlefield.” He stopped, reached for his cup, let the tea slide down his throat and moisten the dryness of his mouth. It wasn’t every day he went to make threats and accusations against a beautiful woman. It was, in fact, a first for him.

“When I heard that Jed had been called to serve, I procured a transfer to serve in a cavalry regiment that accompanied the infantry company he was in. I spent the last two years of the war under the command of General Sheridan.”

“So you could protect your brother?”

“I had promised my mother I would,” he said. “I swore to her I wouldn’t let anything happen to him on my watch. She even gave me a piece of jewelry that she said would keep me safe. I asked her why she hadn’t given it to Jedidiah, but she told me he didn’t need it. As long as
I
was safe, she knew I would protect him. ‘He has you and God, Elijah,’ she told me. ‘And I know neither of you will let me down.’”

The day had grown progressively darker as he spoke—the light draining from the room as the firelight glowed orange.

“I broke my promise to my mother and wasn’t able to protect my brother, and that’s something I live with every single day. I had the horror of watching my younger brother get shot on a field in Tennessee during what was to be one of the last battles of the war. I was able to get to him and take him to a private spot near a stream to say our good-byes—and to pray with him as he was dying.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mercy said. “But I’m sure you treasure that time you had alone with him.”

“I
thought
we were alone—but it turned out we weren’t,” he said. “A Confederate sergeant appeared out of nowhere—had followed us to the bank of that river. His objective, as with any soldier, was single-minded in purpose. He was there to kill his enemy. He was there to kill me.”

Her eyes widened, but she remained silent.

“Even though the sergeant was behind me, I knew he was there. He could have shot me in the name of the war we were both fighting. We don’t call killing a man in a war murder. We call it victory.”

“But as you are clearly alive—he didn’t claim his victory,” she observed.

“No. In a moment of humanity that I will never forget, he allowed me to be with my brother in the last seconds of his life.”

He heard the clock ticking in the room, the crackle of the fire; the smell of stew filled his nose, but his stomach recoiled at the thought of food. He wasn’t sure how to say the next few words out loud, but then she unwittingly helped him out.

“That’s a touching story, Captain,” Mercy said. “But I still don’t understand why you wanted me to hear it.”

“That day, I gave the Confederate sergeant the silver medallion that my mother had given me to keep me safe. It had done what she promised—but I had failed to do the same for my brother. It was called a mercy medallion,” he said. “And
you
were the Confederate sergeant that I gave it to.”