The Fragrance of Her Name (3 page)

"Yes, sir!" Lauryn exclaimed jumping to her feet and starting for the attic door. "Oh, wait! I've got to tidy up the trunk!" she said coming back to stand by it.

"Oh, you leave that to me, sweetheart. You leave that to me," the ghost mumbled. And even at a young age Lauryn understood a person’s…a spirit’s need for privacy, and she left the room closing the attic door behind her.

"Nana? Where are you?" she called as she dashed down the stairs of Connemara House.



"Lauralynn was my older sister, child," Lauryn's Nana told her as she sat in the rocking chair on the front porch that day, staring out at the beautiful greens of summer. "She was ten years old when I was born, and I was only eight…just your age today…when I saw her last. The war was comin’ to an end...but now...let me start before that, darlin'. Long before.” Lauryn settled herself at her grandmother’s feet, crossed her legs, folded her hands in her lap and looked up anxiously at the wise woman. As the fragrant summer breeze swept across her face, Lauryn Kensington began to learn of the dark tragedy that had veiled her family for over fifty years.

"Go on, Nana. Go on. It's hours and hours before Daddy comes home for my party. Tell me the whole story. No matter how long it is!"

Virginia Kensington drew a deep breath and began again. “My daddy, your great granddaddy was…”

“
Kiel McCrea O’Halleran!” Lauryn interrupted proudly.

Nana smiled. “That’s right, sweet pea.” Nana reached down and caressed Lauryn’s cheek lovingly. “He came to Tennessee in 1835 from Connemara, Ireland. He was 22 years old, highly educated and had enough money to buy this land and build Connemara House. He was Franklin’s finest doctor, you know, angel.”

“
I do know it, Nana,” Lauryn giggled.

“
Then I'm tellin’ things you know already.” Nana paused and brushed a stray curl from Lauryn’s cheek. “My daddy was Kiel, my Mama was Erynn Shayla Keenan and they were married in 1836 when Mama was sixteen years old. Their first baby was my oldest brother Eathan. Then came Erynn, then William, then Sean, then Lauralynn, then…then baby John. My sister Lauralynn was ten years old when Mama finally had me, and I was the last. Lauralynn was my perfect, beautiful big sister, and I thought the sun and moon and the stars in the heavens danced to her will. Oh, she was the most beautiful girl in Franklin and nobody would argue it. We all called her Laura.

“
Well, the summer that Laura was 14, Daddy went to Knoxville and hired up a couple of young men to help out around the grounds. Daddy didn’t own slaves. He only hired on folks, no matter their color, and paid them wages. Daddy was an Irishman and he’d seen how people treated the Irish, and he didn’t think it was right. He didn’t think slavery was right either.”

“
He was a wise man,” Lauryn interrupted.

“
Yes he was, angel,” Nana chuckled. “Consequently, we had a hard time hirin’ local boys to come and work. And all the other black folk…well, most were still slaves. So Daddy hired two nice boys from over in Knoxville to help him out. Daddy knew a couple of families over there that had boys they wanted workin’ for the summer. One of them boys was Brandon Masterson. We called him Brand.” Nana smiled. “I guess Brand had been givin’ his folks nothin’ but fits with his antics and pranks and they felt he needed to be developin’ his work skills. Needed hard work to settle him down a bit. So, they sent him down here with Daddy. Oh, he was a handsome one, that Brand.” Lauryn smiled and nodded and her Nana winked at her. “But, I guess you’d be knowin’ that yourself by now.” Lauryn nodded delightedly and Nana sighed as she continued.

“
It was love at first sight, Brand and Lauralynn. No one had ever seen the like of it! But they were young…Brand was only 17 and Lauralynn was just 14. Still…that summer everyone knew they were meant to be together. And then…then the war started. And Brand signed up Union. East Tennessee was more Union than Confederate, you remember hearin’.” Lauryn nodded, though she hadn’t really remembered owning the knowledge before that moment.

“
Lauralynn was heartbroken to watch him go. We all were. But Lauralynn and Brand were true lovers. At first, letters arrived a couple of times a week from Brand and Lauralynn wrote every day. Then the battle lines were more strictly drawn and Brand would usually send messages through other people or through couriers. I don’t know how he did it...but Lauralynn never had cause to wonder whether or not her
soldier was thinkin’ on her every moment.

Then, that second year of the war, Brand got wounded and was sent home for a time. Mama took Laura over to Knoxville to visit him and while he was recoverin’, Daddy let them get married--In August of ’63. It wasn’t hardly more than a year later that we lost Daddy and Laura…and then dear Brand.” Her grandmother paused, reflectively.

But Lauryn couldn’t abide her stopping mid-story and begged, “Great Granddaddy and Lauralynn? And Brand? The same year?”

“
Yes. And Daddy and Laura were lost on the very same
day
, sweetheart,” came her Nana’s quiet answer. “You’ve heard so much about the Battle of Franklin….” Lauryn nodded as her grandmother continued. “How it was fought right here on these very streets! And in the fields around us! Connemara House was used to patch up the wounded or let them lie down while they died. Anyhow…Brand was off fightin’ elsewhere…but the battle that raged here…. well, the horrible part of it all, sweetheart, is that none of us really know what happened to Laura.”

Lauryn’s brow puckered into a deep frown. “What do you mean, Nana? How could y’all not know what happened to her?”

Nana wiped a single tear from her cheek daintily with her handkerchief. “November 30, 1864…everythin’ was chaos. Purely chaos. Men were bein’ hauled into the house by the wagonload it seemed. They couldn’t fit another poor soul into that big house just out of town that they were usin’ as a hospital. So…they were bringin’ them here. Mama and Daddy and me and Sean were helpin’ as much as we could. But I was so young and Sean had lost an arm in the war and was home, but still sufferin’ and weak. We did what we could…but we could hear the guns and the yellin’…the noise of the battle was so loud! And then Daddy went out to help some men bring in a soldier who had been shot just outside on our front lawn…and a stray ball hit Daddy square in the left shoulder. Mama nearly lost her mind when Daddy came staggerin’ in…but she stayed strong and tended to him calmly. The man who had been hurt was still outside…and there were balls flyin’ about and Yankees everywhere…and Laura had such a helpin’ nature…she ran out to help the man…and…and she was shot. The ball hit her low in her tummy. It was horrible! At the same moment that Sean was helpin’ Laura into the house, the Yankees surged forward a bit and tried to storm us! Our boys were fightin’ them off but it frightened Daddy and he told us all to hide. Sometimes I think, that because he was hurt, maybe his mind wasn’t just where it should have been. He hid Mama and Sean and me in the secret crawl space under the stairs…you know the one you children play in?” Lauryn nodded, knowing that the crawl space would never seem the same to her again. “And Daddy said he would take care of Laura,” Nana continued, “Mama argued with him…told him that he and Laura both needed carin’ for. But he said he knew where they’d be safe and he shut us in. I’ll never forget bein’ huddled up in that hidin’ closet, listenin’ to those wounded men cry out for help…the men that were still in Connemara House when the Yankees tried to get in.”

Lauryn wiped the tears from her cheeks and shivered herself as her grandmother trembled at the memory. “Can’t imagine why a little girl of ten would have to see such things, sweet pea,” her grandmother whispered wiping her own tears. After a moment Nana began again, “Anyway…when things finally quieted down and Sean said we could come out of the hidin’ closet…Daddy was sittin’ in the parlor starin’ out the window like he’d just come home from seein’ a patient and was restin’ his feet. He…he was dead. Another ball had hit him in the forehead. And …and we never did find Laura.”

“
But …but where was she, Nana?” Lauryn asked. What could her grandmother possibly mean? How could she not be found?

Nana’s tears ran profusely down her cheeks and she dabbed at them frantically. “We couldn’t find her, darlin’. We looked everywhere…asked everyone. But no one had seen her. No one knew where Daddy had taken her…where she had gone or wandered off to. No one. Ever.” Nana wiped daintily at her nose. “Mama never quit lookin’ for her. On her deathbed she called out for her…apologizin’ for havin’ lost her.”

“
And…and what of Brand?” Lauryn ventured.

“
Brand came walkin’ down the street one day soon after the war had ended…he was sick, weakened and …and I think he knew. I remember when Mama told him…he dropped to his knees and cried like I had never seen any man cry. I’d seen men cry when they were gettin’ their legs sawed off and they didn’t sound as anguished and in such agony as our dear Brand was. I think he died of a broken heart. He was dead within the week. The doctor’s said things had been damaged inside his body…and that his makin’ the trip back to Connemara had been too much for him. But…but I think his heart broke right in two.” Nana paused for a moment, wiping her tears again with her now sodden handkerchief. “He loved her so, you see…we buried him in the family cemetery, leavin’ a space for Lauralynn just next to him,” she sniffled.

Lauryn brushed the tears from her own cheeks. “He…he’s still lookin’ for her, Nana,” she offered.

“
I figured as much,” her grandmother whispered. “His last words livin’ were,
‘I won’t rest until I rest with Lauralynn’
.”

Then through her tears of heartache Lauryn asked, “Why me, Nana? Why did
I
see him? Was I the first?”

Lauryn’s grandmother reached down and gathered her small granddaughter into her lap, hugging her tightly and smoothing her hair. “Why you? I don’t know. I think…I just don’t know. And were you the first to see him? No. I saw him, too. Once. A long time ago.”

Lauryn smiled up at her grandmother. “You did?”

“
Yes, sugar. He and I met out by the gazebo when I was sixteen.
‘Are you lookin’ for my sister, Mr. Brand?’
I asked him. He nodded and smiled at me and he was gone.”

“
He…he talked to me, Nana,” Lauryn whispered. “You…you believe me, don’t you?”

Again her grandmother’s tears were profuse as she nodded. “Oh, I do believe you, Lauryn. And I know you’ll figure it all out one day. All this time none of us have been able to….but you will. I know it!”



Lauryn opened her eyes and looked out the train window, wiping at her tears with her sleeve. The story her Nana had told her that day had been the stuff of nightmares. Lauryn, like everyone else, had always felt that Lauralynn’s father, in trying to protect his daughter, had hidden her away and had died himself before being able to tell anyone where. Lauralynn’s family had searched and searched for he; but she could not be found. Never could she be found. And Brand had died so tragically. Mere weeks later, Yankee soldiers arrived, forcing Great Grandmother O’Halleran and her children to leave Connemara House, claiming their safety was threatened since the area had been ravaged by the battle.

And so, the remaining members of the O’Halleran family were loaded into a wagon and taken away, nevertheless, to find that their destination was the home of Brand's family in Knoxville. Lauryn’s great grandmother O’Halleran slipped into a deep melancholy and severe illness for many weeks. But Brand's mother cared for her, nursing her back to health. Still, Nana said that her mother had never been the same.

Brand's parents made the trip back to Franklin with the O’Halleran family when they returned to Connemara that following spring. They were awe struck when they saw that, although Connemara House itself was in a horrible state of disrepair, the wisteria bloomed vibrant and renewed. Still, for the rest of her life Erynn O’Halleran was certain that her daughter, Lauralynn Masterson, had died somewhere hidden away and waiting for help that never came. And it haunted her until her own death a year or two after her great granddaughter Lauryn was born.

It had been an incredible amount of information and emotion for an eight-year-old girl to take in. But somehow, that day on the porch with her grandmother, Lauryn did understand it. All of it. Most of all, she had an uncanny understanding of the pain and devastation that Captain Brand must be haunted with. For her young heart had a unique capacity to love with such intensity that she did, indeed, understand his pain! And with it came her own pain. From that day forward Lauryn Kensington had her own stabbing heartache. She felt a loss of her own, of sorts. For it was hard for her to live her life in constant merriment without her heart aching for her precious Captain and his lost lady.

Lauryn thought then of the nearly ten years she’d spent searching for her beautiful, lost, great aunt. As a child she’d obsessed about the mystery so much initially that she’d nearly caused her own mother great illness with worry for her daughter. Everyday she’d search the springhouse, the smokehouse, the gardens, the root cellar and Connemara House. When she could find no clues there, she would search the ground for depressions or mounds that might be an unmarked grave. It was the very day she turned twelve and her mother had fainted upon finding Lauryn digging an enormous hole near the family cemetery in search of, as Lauryn had put it,
“The bones of the Captain’s lost heart,”
that Lauryn decided she must be more discrete in her search. Her mother had worried herself into a state of illness, and Lauryn knew that she must be considerate of her mother’s health and well-being.