Time After Time (182 page)

“Tell us why you want to serve as an officer in the Union Army,” Henry O’Brien prompted.

In the two days since his fight with Margaret, Theo had written expressing an interest in joining a regiment going into the Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, undergone a physical exam, and was now interviewing for the position. It had been a heady blur, particularly since he was trying to keep things from Mother and Josiah at least until the matter was settled.

The charade would soon end, as settlement of his enlistment was in sight. At the ad hoc recruiting office, he sat with James Cook, who was to serve as the regiment’s captain, and O’Brien, the designated second lieutenant. If this conversation went well, he’d enter the army as a first lieutenant.

“I believe in the cause for which we fight.”

James nodded, his brows knit together. “
The
cause? The perfidy of the southern states? The honor and tradition of our great nation?”

“No, the bondage of the slave,” Theo responded.

“Don’t tell the recruits they’re fighting for that,” Henry said, gesturing across the room at the boys waiting to be examined by the doctor. “They’ll not believe you.”

Theo knew this to be true. Inside every paper, he found a different rationale for the conflict: pride, culture, economics, history, rebellion, and loyalty. For him, all those other reasons blurred into a background for the cause in which he placed above all others: liberty for enslaved peoples.

He said as much.

“So you’re an abolitionist?” Henry asked, tone guarded.

Theo considered how Margaret might answer this question. To be an abolitionist required action. He had never acted. He had read, talked, and stewed. After a pause he replied, “I’ve done nothing to warrant the title. But I’m in sympathy with them.” This response seemed to ease the tension creeping into the conversation.

James tapped his fingers on the desk. “You should know, Ward, that I very much disagree with the assessment of the war one sees in the papers. At West Point, I got to know many southern boys who have now departed from under the banner of the stars and stripes.” His eyes flashed in anger as he spat the words out. “The traitors won’t give up easily. This” — he waved at a box of uniforms behind him — “isn’t going to be a brief sojourn. Some happy adventure.”

“I never thought it would be,” Theo replied. He recalled studying
The Iliad
while a young man at Yale. He could hear the words of King Priam, pleading with Achilles to give him the body of his son so it could be properly buried. Before this war was over, there would be thousands of Priams — thousands of mourning parents whom nothing could comfort.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? For decades, he’d treated his political ideals as a game. Social reform had been a post-dinner conversation for him, nothing more. He hadn’t meant to. He’d taken his reading and the debates seriously. But he’d simply been unwilling or unable to
move
. The war changed the reckoning, however. If anything was going to force his hand, it was this moment. He could either commit now or give up entirely. If the latter, he might as well dig his own grave and lie down in it.

It was a pity he hadn’t found his fortitude two years ago. There had been just enough abstraction in ’59 for him to hide. The slightest sliver of a chance of avoiding conflict had been enough. So he’d chosen inaction, or less chosen it than fallen into it as the easiest way of living. No longer.

He wouldn’t blame Margaret a whit if she could never forgive him; he’d failed her repeatedly. At this moment, however, he had to find the strength within to forgive himself. Enlisting was a tangible step, a promise to himself everything was
not
going to go back to normal, and he was going to change. How to convince them?

“To me, this war is … a chance. To live differently and more fully. I believe in the rightness of our cause as much as I’ve believed in anything. Give me this opportunity, and I won’t let you down.”

James nodded. “Very well, Ward. As if we could turn you away.” They all laughed.

Henry leaned across the desk and shook Theo’s hand firmly. “Welcome aboard. We’ll have a few weeks’ furlough to fill the rolls before we begin drilling. We’ll depart for Hartford at the end of next month.”

“Good,” Theo said with a nod. “That will give a chance to wrap things up with my legal practice, with my family, with my … fiancée.” Once things were settled here, he had plans for Margaret. His campaign of change would continue until she surrendered.

“You have a wife?” James asked off-handedly, his attention mostly consumed by the papers he shuffled around on the desk.

“I will have.” Theo was impressed by the confidence in his voice and hoped it would somehow carry over into hastening the event he very much wanted.

Henry, unaware of the anxiety that served as a foundation for this, merely smiled. “Well, will she object if we keep you out a bit to celebrate?”

Theo laughed at the private joke of Margaret’s ignorance of his plans. “No, not all.”

What was a half hour’s delay?

Chapter III

Margaret lay in bed, searching for sleep but failing to find it. She was still seething from her fight with Theo two days prior. She had forgotten how exasperating he could be. At the dance at McDonough House, he had bewitched her with his blue eyes. Like drinking from the Lethe, it had been. But now she
saw
. Theo Ward would never stand on his own two feet. It was hopeless to pretend otherwise.

She rolled over, pressing her head into her pillow. After a long, quiet moment in which she thought rest might finally come, Margaret was startled awake by a noise at the window. It sounded like hail. There was a pause and then it started again. Clink. Clink. Clink. She heard a voice half whisper, half call her name. She leapt from bed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and ran to ascertain the source. It was Theo.

Her fingers bit into the windowsill, strong and angry. At least that was what she told herself as she shushed him and signaled that she would be coming down. Out of all of the emotions roiling in her stomach at the sight of him, rage was easiest to name and address. Being mad at Theo was the simplest thing in the world. She’d done it for years.

After an eternity locating her slippers, she ran toward the stairwell. Had the man gone mad? What could there possibly be left to say to each another?

Margaret met him at the back door and pulled him in the direction of the stable. Most of the teachers were gone for the summer, but she didn’t want Mrs. Jenkins or one of the maids to look out a window and see the headmistress conversing with a man in the garden. This was all monstrously improper. It didn’t need to become scandalous too.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded when they had retreated to a clean, empty stall at the back of the stable.

“I had to see you.” He was grinning stupidly and listing to the left.

She breathed deeply, and alcohol burned her nose. “Have you been drinking?” she asked, brows up and hands on hips.

His smile widened. “Only a little brandy.”

That explained his bizarre behavior. Margaret released some of her frustration with a sigh. “Go home and rest. You can call for tea tomorrow, and we can talk then.”

He shook his head and paced about the stall. “No,
now
. I have to tell you
now
.” He bounded toward her and seized her hands. “I did it! I enlisted.”

This pronouncement was followed by the pounding of a drum. It took a moment for Margaret to realize the sound was her heartbeat, suddenly magnified so it consumed her body. She swallowed with what little moisture was left in her mouth before whispering, “You what?”

He squeezed her hands. “I did what you always said I should. I stood up to Mother, I acted on principle, and I changed my life.”

At this, she found her voice again. “Theo! This is not what I had in mind. I cannot be responsible for this. What if you are injured or killed? I cannot have this on my conscience.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes wide and confused. “You didn’t put the idea in my idea. There’s a war on. I wanted to go from the first. You merely … emboldened me.”

“Be sure you embolden me right out of the story when you tell your mother. Have you?”

He grinned again, this time sheepishly. “Not yet. After we celebrated, I came straight here. To you.”

The air between them was thick and charged. Margaret suddenly became aware that she was standing with a man in only her slippers and a thin, white, cotton nightdress. She dropped his hands and wrapped her shawl more tightly about herself as if it could protect her.

“Congratulations, then, Mr. Ward. I wish you the greatest success.” She intended the words sincerely, but something sharp crept in that she didn’t quite understand. Perhaps bitterness he hadn’t taken a stand on something more personal two years prior.

“We’re back to Mr. Ward, then, are we?” He sounded exasperated.

“I don’t want to fight,” she said, shaking her head. “I want to return to my bed. And you need to go home. Your mother is doubtless worried, and she deserves to hear this heavy news from you and not from some gossip.”

“Hurry along to bed now?” He stepped toward her, very close now. Margaret began backing toward the door.

“For both of us, yes.” His eyes had softened. She had been mistaken. He wasn’t angry. He looked hungry.

“Margaret, I … ” he whispered. One of his hands tangled in her hair while the other ensnared her waist and drew her up to him. He contemplated her face and apparently tried to check himself. He smelled faintly of brandy, but mostly of salt and of warm summer air and of Theo. And soon he would be gone, perhaps forever. He was going to war. She might never have this chance again. She leaned in and pressed her mouth full on his.

There was an instant of still surprise for both of them. Sensations ran through Margaret’s body too quickly to be named. But as her muscles relaxed, she knew relief was paramount among them. His lips felt as they always had: warm, soft, but strong. She had missed him.

She felt herself sigh and begin to pull away when Theo responded to her advance. For a moment, lips and teeth crushed in heated confusion, an inelegant tangle as if they had both forgotten the mechanics. But two years was a long time to wait. Their mouths searched impatiently for satisfaction. It was as if they were trying to cram years’ worth of kisses into the space of a few moments.

Finally Theo broke from her and smoothed her braid with his hand. “Margaret, we should stop — ”

No, not yet. There was no need for words and rationality and limits. Not yet. Not when there were so few moments left before his departure. She kissed him again, brushing the corner of his mouth with her tongue until he opened to her assault. She must have been persuasive because, before long, he struggled out of his coat and wrestled the shawl from her shoulders. He spread their discarded clothing over a small pile of hay in the corner of the stall and nudged her down onto the makeshift bed. Without a word, he drew her to him and pressed her to his length.

His hands were working up and down her sides, caressing and exploring her body as he never had before. Margaret allowed herself the same freedom, sliding her fingers over his shirtsleeves, feeling the muscles and sinews beneath. She had yearned for his arms for years. She had been blind with wanting, without even the words for her desires. She worked the buttons of his waistcoat open. It was an arduous process between kisses, but when she had achieved her end, she was able to repeat her journeying over his stomach with only a thin layer of linen between flesh and flesh.

Straw jabbed into her back like a thousand needles, contrasted against the hard, warm expanse that pressed her down. The air was warm and sweet from the smell of hay and the nearby garden. This was crazy. It was madness. An animalistic desire to touch more of him gripped Margaret. Everything happening was too much, and yet not enough.

She began to unfasten his shirt, her fingers demonstrating greater confidence now. Finally she pulled it free from his trousers and rolled it back on his shoulders to expose his chest. He was so beautiful. She had never seen a man naked from the waist up this close, and she felt suddenly embarrassed. She pressed her face against his hard muscle to hide her shame.

As if on its own, her mouth began to work across the hard plane dusted with brown hair until she reached a pink nipple. She ran her mouth across it, and Theo shivered beside her. Feeling powerful, she did it again, and he groaned and rolled her onto her back. He pulled her nightdress up and knelt between her legs while he fumbled with the tapes on her drawers. They locked eyes.

Theo shook his head and rocked back onto his heels. “Oh, no, Margaret. What have I done? I didn’t mean to … I can’t compromise you. I am so sorry.”

That word “compromise” floated between them for a long moment. Compromise: each party making mutual concession in exchange for a shared goal. The surrender of her virtue to the only man who had ever touched her heart. An incandescent, stupid moment to warm the rest of her life after he had gone to war. That seemed right.

She raised herself onto her elbows, and tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she said, “Yes, you can. I’m asking you to.”

He shook his head. “I can’t slake my lust and leave you soiled. You don’t want this.”

“Theo, I’ve kept my virtue intact for thirty-seven years. Much good it has done me. I give it to you.”

“I … ” He trailed off. One of his hands was still running over her drawers. He was twisting the silk between thumb and forefinger anxiously. Margaret sensed she had won. If he had absolutely decided against debauching her, he would stop touching her.

She stretched back and looked up at him enticingly, she hoped. “Theo, please.”

• • •

Her words echoed across the stable and imprinted themselves onto the parchment of his life. It was Margaret. It had always been Margaret. Reclined now against the hay, in the moonlight, her lips swollen from his kisses, she was the mistress of his soul. He was powerless to deny her.