Winchester

It felt like Matt had just made the train ride yesterday rather than over a month ago. He didn’t want to make the return trip on horseback, having to buy Annie her own horse and not knowing the bloodlines or reliability of any animal for sale in Harrisonburg or riding double on Chester for such a long way carrying that much weight. He and Adam stowed their horses in the livestock car and took their seats with Annie in first class on the cushioned pillows just like he had when he went home with Ben. He was looking forward to seeing the old man, strangely enough, and knew that seeing Annie would make him happier than anything else.

Annie had been staring out the window, hardly speaking for the last hour or more, and become more white-faced, if possible, as the train slowed coming into the station at Winchester. He held her hand, and she squeezed back.

They’d rode back to her cabin after their visit to Harrisonburg to see the doctor and found Adam there, hoeing the garden. Her pigs were penned, and Matt rode with her to Barlow’s place to see if he’d take the pigs then, rather than on the market day. Barlow had said yes but mentioned a charge for caring for the animals. Annie said she’d be checking the price for hogs while she was in Harrisonburg and expected a fair return. Together, they boarded up the cabin and the barn after she packed her mother’s satchel with her new clothes and the fabric Matt had bought her when he left with Ben.

Her eyes closed now, as the train slowed to a stop.

“I telegraphed home to have them bring the carriage to town and leave it at the stable. We’ll put Chester in front and you can take Annie to Paradise in comfort. I’ll ride Zeus home,” Adam said.

“Good thinking. I was hoping you wouldn’t have to sit in the back of a wagon the whole way home,” Matt said and smiled at this brother. He was thankful Adam had made the trip with him, as the years apart had brought them together rather than separating them.

They both turned to Annie as she stood on the platform, staring straight ahead, holding her new reticule.

“We’re almost to Paradise, Annie,” Adam said. “You’ll be able to relax there and not worry about a thing.”

She looked up sharply and opened her mouth to speak but stopped. Matt helped her down the steps from the station platform and to the stables. Chester was rigged to the carriage a few moments later, and Matt pulled himself up beside her on the seat. Adam rode ahead.

“You faced Abraham Thurman. You faced Jeremiah Thurman. And Bertram and Frederick Miles,” Matt said as he urged Chester into motion. “You cannot be more afraid of my mother and sister than of those four men.”

“It’s different, I guess, and not really rational, is it? I don’t know what I’m to say to her,” she said, took a deep breath, and looked from one side of the street to the other. “So this is Winchester. Seems bigger than Bridgewater.”

He chatted to her about town and his relationship to folks who lived there, sensing she wanted small talk to take her mind from her worries. He pointed out landmarks before coming over the rise by the outcrop of rocks to see Paradise before them. The sun was shining and it must have rained earlier before clearing off, as the leaves and grasses still glittered with moisture. Annie laid her hand on his arm.

“Oh, my!” she said and looked up at him as he pulled Chester to a halt.

It was the best perspective of his home, he thought, and covered her hand with his. “This is my favorite spot to view the house. It’s unexpected here in the woods to see it all laid out with the barns and the house and the outbuildings just sitting there on that patch of flat land. There’s the new foals in the valley down below.”

It was surely the most beautifully situated property she’d ever seen. She saw Adam ahead of them at the porch steps and a man come from the barns to take his horse. The front door opened, and Ben hobbled out on the arm of a young woman with an older woman behind them. Annie looked up at Matt. He was staring at his home, at his family with reverence, with such outward love, she was nearly embarrassed for him. He raised a hand and waved as they pulled up to the front of the house.

“They’re here,” she heard Ben say. Adam helped her down from her seat, and she hurried to Ben. The old man cried on her shoulder and hugged her tightly, telling her he’d missed her something awful. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. But the emotional meeting wasn’t to end there.

When she straightened from Ben’s embrace, the older woman, Matt’s mother it had to be, pulled her into her arms and hugged her without speaking, weeping on Annie’s shoulder, and finally stepping back in a loose embrace.

“I owe a debt to you I’ll never be able to repay. You saved my son. You saved Ben. Two men that I love dearly. I cannot say how honored I am to meet you, although Matthew has never told me your family name,” she said as she wiped her eyes with shaking fingers and looked at her son.

“Miss Annie Campbell, Mother. Annie, my mother, Mrs. Eleanor Gentry,” Matt said.

“Miss Campbell. Welcome to Paradise. We have been anxiously waiting for you. You know Ben, of course,” she said as she turned them together. “This is Matthew’s sister. Olivia Gentry.”

The young woman hugged her and whispered in her hair, “You saved him. You saved my brother, and I think from more than just his dunk in the river.”

Eleanor held her arm and looked at her. “I’d love to hear about your father and mother and your dear brother, Teddy. I lost my sisters when I was young. I still miss them,” she said and looked at her sons. “Adam. George has been wanting to talk to you about one of the mares. I see him now over at the barn. Matt. Mabel has made rhubarb strawberry pie this morning with the last of what we’d put up, knowing it was one of your favorites. It will please her if you sit in the kitchen and eat a slice or three.”

Annie found herself bundled along to the second floor, to the room that would be hers for her stay at Paradise. She couldn’t believe how pretty the room was, turning around and taking in the cheery yellow walls and dark furniture. The windows overlooked the front of the house where the fenced area was divided in quadrants that held what looked like a hundred horses or more. The yellow and blue plaid sheer curtains were blowing in the breeze through the open window where she stood and matched the coverlet on the bed.

“The room is beautiful, Mrs. Gentry. I’ve never stayed anywhere as grand.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you like it. Jenny will put away your things when they’re brought up, dear,” Eleanor said and put her arm through hers. “I have a little sitting room off my bedroom which will be perfect for us to have a seat and get to know each other. Come along.”

Eleanor sat her in a thickly cushioned chair near a small white stone fireplace. There were painted pictures of Matthew, Adam, and Olivia on the wall alongside landscapes of Paradise. Eleanor sat down opposite her. Olivia pulled a chair close to Annie, shrugged her shoes off ,and pulled her feet up under her skirts.

“Aaah, that feels so good,” Olivia said. “I’ve been on my feet all afternoon replacing those drapes in Matthew’s room.”

Eleanor leaned forward. “Now tell us, dear, about your family. I want to hear especially about your younger brother.”

Annie was overwhelmed. She was touched with their sincerity and their efforts for her comfort. Madeline never asked her about Teddy, Annie thought because the woman worried it would upset her, but the opposite had happened. She was upset that Teddy’s life and heroics were disappearing and that she was the last person, other than Matt, interested in that little boy’s life. But wasn’t this why she came to Paradise, she thought to herself, for this exact type of connection that was typical of families?

She told them about losing her mother, rearing Teddy, and how her father had gone into a depression following his wife’s death. She told them about that fateful day when the Thurmans had hung Teddy. When she was done with the retelling, Olivia was on the floor at her knees, holding her hands, tears in her eyes. Eleanor listened without interrupting, concentrating on what Annie was saying, making her feel as if her story was the most important tale she’d ever heard.

“And these men have tormented you ever since,” Eleanor said.

“They have,” she said. “Matthew rescued me in the nick of time.”

“Just lately then?” Olivia asked.

Annie nodded and told them about Gilly’s disappearance and Frederick Miles taking her to the springhouse, her and Gilly’s escape, and her run across an open field. She told them why Thurman had kidnapped them. “I killed a man once,” she said and swallowed, looking warily at Matthew’s mother. “I didn’t this time, but I would have again if it meant saving Gilly or myself.”

Olivia squeezed her hands. Eleanor Gentry was still staring at her.

“Growing up the daughter of a minister, I was taught murder was a sin, and that there was never an excuse or a good time for violence. That nothing justified it. My husband, Matthew’s father, changed my mind. While killing is obscene, it is sometimes justified, when defending your home or family or an innocent. Beauregard would never have killed anyone without good reason, and even so, it weighed heavily on him, especially as he was older, but I don’t believe he would have done any differently in any of the situations. There is evil in the world. We are called upon, as you were, to defend the weak or ourselves.”

“I didn’t want to kill him, but I had no other way to stop him other than my knife,” Annie said quietly. “He would have killed Gilly after he was . . . done with her, and she was beaten badly.”

“Why are people so vicious?” Olivia asked.

“Evil is vicious, and sometimes even good men are violent,” her mother said. “Well, enough of this dark talk. Let’s make some plans for while you are here. May I call you Annie? The staff will address you as miss, of course.”

Annie shook her head. “No one needs to call me anything special. I don’t need a title.”

“The staff is accustomed to calling the family members ‘miss’ or ‘mister.’ It would be confusing for everyone if it was different for you. Olivia. Would you go downstairs and ask Mabel to have some cakes and lemonade brought up? I’m parched.”

Olivia opened the door and a dog ran in, going straight for Eleanor Gentry, and lay at her feet. She reached down and petted him. “Who let Red in, I wonder?”

“One of your sons,” Olivia said with a laugh and closed the door.

“I’m not a family member,” she said. “There’s no need to do anything special.”

Eleanor looked at her. “When Matthew was home before he was concerned that you might be with child. His child.”

“I am not. I saw a doctor after I was held in the springhouse. He said I was not. Although . . .” Eleanor was looking at her kindly even as she felt her face color from the neck up. Annie wondered if conversations like this would have happened between her and her mother if her mother had lived. The intimacy, the relationship as women, exclusive of men. Although at that moment she wished she were hundreds of miles away or at least back in her cabin.

“Although?” Eleanor said and raised her brows.

She swallowed. “It is possible I am. Again. I am so foolish,” she whispered.

“Has Matthew offered for you?”

“No. Of course not. He has a family here and dreams and plans. I could never be part of it.”

“He has made you part of it, Annie. And he is a gentleman.”

Annie shook her head, feeling as if she was somehow being managed and maneuvered, although there was nothing in Eleanor’s words that was untrue. “You want him to consider me? There is no reason to though. I’ve never tried to trap him or get him to say something he didn’t mean.”

Eleanor reached for her hands, holding them both in hers and staring at them as she rubbed her thumb over Annie’s knuckles. She looked up then.

“Do you love him?”

Annie licked her lips. “I’ve tried not to. I’ve tried to let him be who he intends to be after all his years of fighting in the war and wandering afterwards. After all his guilt and shame about a disagreement with his father.”

“Do you love him, Annie?”

She nodded, and her lip trembled. “Of course I do. He’s a hero in every sense of the word. He saved me, he saved Ben and cared for him. Of course I love him. I would have never lain with him if I didn’t.”

Eleanor sat back in her seat as the door opened and Olivia entered with a tray of cakes and pitcher of lemonade. “I told Mabel that I would carry it up, that she need not make the trip up the steps. Her knees are bothering her as the weather begins to change. I hope I didn’t miss anything interesting.”

Annie accepted a glass of lemonade and stared at Matthew’s mother.

“I wouldn’t say that, Olivia. It’s not my story to tell, although there is one person who is owed the truth. Now, tell me about this party we are to have in honor of Matthew’s homecoming. I know you’ve been working on it, Olivia.”

* * *

“Do you want a cordial or wine? I’m pouring myself a whiskey,” Adam said to Matt as they stood together in the main room before dinner that evening.

“Maybe we won’t be having dinner if Mother dismisses us like she did yesterday. Maybe you’ll be sent to the barns and I’ll be sent to the kitchens again,” Matt said and looked at his brother.

Adam laughed. “And we went, tails between our legs, did we not? Wine?”

“Yes. A small glass. Annie was up in Mother’s sitting room for two hours. What could they have been talking about?”

“You don’t know? You haven’t talked to Annie? Although you can certainly surmise how that conversation went, don’t you think, Matt?”

“Mother wouldn’t bring that up with Annie.” He looked at his brother, horrified. “If she talks to Annie about that, then every time Mother looks at me, I’m going to think that she knows what I do in private. I’ll never be able to look at my mother again.”

“You already told her you thought Annie might be with child. She knows what that means. How much worse could it be?”

“It’s just the idea that all three of us will know about the two of us,” Matt said.

“What did the doctor say in Harrisonburg? I assumed that was part of the reason you wanted her to see the doctor.”

Matt sat down and sipped his wine. “She isn’t, well, she wasn’t in a family way when the doctor examined her.”

Adam barked a laugh. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”

“I did. We did. It’s not like I forced her.”

“If you think you’re getting out of this without marrying this girl, you’re mistaken.”

The door to the main room opened and Matt stood. Annie, his mother, and Olivia were just outside the door.

“Why don’t we go ahead in for dinner?” Eleanor said.

Adam followed his mother and sister into the dining room and seated them. Matt put his hand on Annie’s elbow and seated her at his mother’s right. She was wearing one of her new skirts and her hair was pulled up on top of her head and curled.

“You look pretty, Annie, not that you ever don’t,” Matt said.

“Thank you,” she said as she was seated and looked up at him, her dark lashes fluttering.

“Won’t you say grace, Adam?” Eleanor asked.

“I thought perhaps Matt would like to say grace tonight,” his brother said, smiled, and lifted his wineglass.

“Bow your heads,” Matt barked, eliciting a raised brow from his mother. “Dear Lord. We are thankful for the food on our table and for those who prepared it. We are thankful for the roof over our heads. I am thankful . . . to be here. To be back home. I’m thankful Ben found me. I am thankful for my family and their hard work to keep Paradise intact during the war. I am thankful that Annie Campbell found me and Ben that day at the river.” He lifted his head to look at her. She looked back, staring steadily. “I am thankful for her every day. Amen.”

The next few weeks were a blur for Annie. The family went to church together, and she went with them and heard an extraordinary story from Olivia about Eleanor Gentry and the previous pastor and his wife who attempted to convince her that her marriage to Mr. Gentry was not real in the eyes of the church. She met other young women at church and went to town several times with Olivia, who was fast becoming a best friend. She was reading a book that the young women would be discussing at their next get-together, and found that she was interested in the articles in the newspaper that Olivia read to her while she sewed.

Eleanor and Olivia included her in the plans for a grand party to celebrate Matt’s homecoming and to introduce her as Matt and Ben’s rescuer, although she could hardly believe such a fuss was being made. She wrote out invitations, cut a pattern for a dress with the fabric she’d brought with her, and was learning to knit from Mabel. Sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, she wished it wouldn’t end, that she wasn’t going back to her cabin in the woods. She imagined how dreary it would be and how lonesome she’d be when she arrived back in Bridgewater to stay.

She found that increasingly she was happy. It was an unusual feeling for her and one that made her feel guilty because Teddy and her parents weren’t there to be happy. Shouldn’t she be sad? She was starting to believe, though, that she could be happy without disrespecting their memories, that they wouldn’t have wanted her to be sad in any case, especially Teddy, who was joy embodied. Smiling and laughter were beginning to feel natural to her.

She also found herself unable to take her eyes off Matt Gentry. He teased her, walked with her, laughed with her, and looked at her in such a way that her heart fluttered and her ears grew hot and turned red. She loved him and even more so now, seeing him home with his family. What was she resisting?

Matt was gathering his courage. Dinner was just done and all that had been talked about was the party being held for him tomorrow. It would also be the end of the month that Annie’d been here, and she’d be soon asking to go back to Bridgewater. He wasn’t going to let that happen. The women had all gone to the ballroom to look at the decorations one final time. He and Ben and Adam were sipping a cordial at the dinner table.

“When you going to ask that girl to marry you?” Ben demanded out of the blue.

“None of your business, old man.”

“Have you told her you love her? Have you said any sweet words at all?” Adam asked. “The rest of us are getting tired of your cow eyes mooning over her.”

Ben laughed. “Ain’t that the truth! Mabel asked me today if the two of you were just going to stare at each other the rest of your natural lives and skip the living and the loving altogether.”

Matt stood up and stalked from the room. “I’m done talking to the two of you.”

“Good!” Ben said. “Go talk to that girl instead.”

“Say something nice,” Adam called after him.