Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (10 page)

I looked through the small amount of clothing Jake had brought
up, including a couple of dresses, a skirt, a blouse, a dressing gown, a riding
habit, a winter cape, as well as a box of worn hats and bonnets.  No
stockings; I’d have to keep washing what I had.  No drawers.  Jake
came back in the room with Zeke, bringing a galvanized hip bath.  A few
minutes later, they came back with buckets of water.

“Miss Clarissa thought you might like to clean up, ma’am,” Zeke
explained.

“Oh, how nice,” I said.  “But you don’t have to work so
hard on my account.”

“It’s nothing, ma’am.”

I looked around Ethan’s old room.  It was decorated in dark
tones of burgundy and brown.  There was a high 4-poster bed of dark cherry
wood situated on the long wall with a small window above it.  A high boy
chest of drawers in the same dark wood sat in between the other two
windows.  There was a fireplace on the wall directly across from that, and
a brown-covered armchair sat in the corner near the fireplace.  An oval
hand-made rug was spread at the foot of the bed, which was where the men were
setting up my hip bath.  There were tiny metal soldiers lined up on top of
the high boy, remnants of Ethan’s childhood.  I walked over and picked up
one of them, trying to remember playing with them.  I did get a spark of a
memory, of us playing with them on the floor, with my brother, as well,
reenacting the Revolutionary War.  I always got angry when my soldiers were
“shot”. 

I placed the soldier back on the chest and glanced around the
room.  Out the small side window I could see the bachelor’s quarters, and
to the right, the river in the distance.  I leaned over the bed and opened
up the window and heard a bell clang from a distant boat.  I wondered
about what Ethan and Elizabeth were saying to each other.  I couldn’t help
but wonder how much Elizabeth really loved Ethan.  I hated to hurt that
poor girl; she’d apparently been through a lot.  

I wondered about my own little girl…Lillie Rose.  I had a
little girl; I still couldn’t believe it.  There was so much that I could
not remember, so much I had missed, and so much that I would have to
re-learn. 

A few minutes later, the hip bath was filled halfway, and Cora
came in and poured some steaming water from a copper kettle into the hip bath.

“Oh, hello, Cora.  Are you getting settled in?” I asked.

“Yes, we are.  It’s a beautiful place here.  Beautiful
family, too.  Real nice folks.  They’ve been nothing but kind to
us.  What about you, missus Madeline?  Are you happy to be here?”

I nodded.  “It will be nice to get my memory back, and
hopefully being here will help me do that.”

“And that’s a fine little baby girl.  Missus Clarissa said
it was yours and Ethan’s.  You must be so proud.”

“Yes,” I said.  “It was quite a shock.”

She patted my arm.  “You’ll be fine.  Thank you for
bringing us here,” she said, and then she headed back downstairs. 

I turned the key to lock the door, peeled off my clothes, and
soaked in the tepid bath, feeling all the tension being released into the
water.  I tried to remember all that I was told happened in this house in
the past, during the war, and in my marriage to Ethan, yet nothing new came to
mind.  My thoughts drifted to Ethan again.  He said he wanted to help
me remember my old life.  Would he really choose me over Elizabeth? 
How would Elizabeth take it?  What would happen to her?  She had no
other family, according to Clarissa.  Ethan was married to Elizabeth, but
now that I was back, would his marriage to me take precedence over hers? 
Would that make their marriage null and void?  Who was he legally married
to?  He couldn’t be married to both of us at the same time.  It
seemed to me that the first marriage would supersede the second one.  But
then again, how did he marry her while he was still married to me?

I thought about Ethan and how we first came to meet in the
garden, and how I felt about him.  I was happy to find out he was my
cherished Wellsy, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about being married to
him.  Not only that, but we’d had a child together.  A child that was
part of him…and part of me.  I had to admit I was attracted to him. 
He was so kind and generous, so loving and attentive, and so handsome.  I
wished I could remember him after he’d grown up.  I did have moments of
longing for him, because of the memory I had gotten when I first looked at my
wedding ring.  My ring!  How did Jefferson get that?  It was
obviously not his mother’s ring.  Ethan had given that to me.  Ethan
had been so sweet about dismissing the ring, just being thankful that I was
alive. 

So what should I do?  Break up his marriage to Elizabeth so
I could take my rightful place next to my husband and be a mother to my child?
 Was it selfish of me to stay here and want my husband back?  To want
my old life back?  Or should I quietly move to my brother’s until I could
remember who I was?  I felt guilty at the thought of breaking up a
marriage that had just begun, for my own selfish reasons, until I could
remember – no matter how tempting it might be.  And yet, that’s exactly
what I found myself wanting to do.

After my bath, I put on one of my old dresses from
upstairs.  I longed to take a look up there and see if I could remember
anything but didn’t think it proper to go snooping around by myself.  I
draped the other clothes over the pulled-out drawers of the high boy
chest.  There had been nothing inside the drawers.  Before trying on
the dress, I pulled on a corset over my chemise – it was so uncomfortable, and
I had difficulty tying it myself.  I had not worn one while working out in
the fields at Oakworth – it just wasn’t practical while working in the heat –
but I wanted to be properly dressed for my first evening meal at the
plantation.  I didn’t know how formal they dressed for supper.  On
top of the corset, I pulled on my battered crinoline, and finally a burgundy
short-sleeved dress with a low neckline, trimmed in white ribbons.  I
redid my long brown hair by parting it in the middle, braiding the sides, and
pinning them in a bun at my neck.  I covered the bun up with a dark
hairnet and tied it under the bun with a burgundy ribbon. 

I looked at my dress and tried to remember the last time I wore
it.  Nothing.  I felt somewhat uncomfortable about wearing a dress that
I didn’t remember, but it made me feel better somehow, knowing it was a part of
my past.  I pinched my cheeks for color and headed downstairs.

Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, a young blonde-haired
woman that I had never seen before walked towards me from the dining
room.  She wore a soft blue dress with a plunging neckline and had neat
tight curls hanging down against the back of her neck.  One eyebrow arched
higher than the other as she looked me over.

“You must be Madeline.  So glad to meet you,” she said in a
slow Southern drawl.  She looked anything but glad to meet me.  She
held out her hand to shake mine weakly.  “I’m Elizabeth, Ethan’s wife,”
she said firmly.  Those words stung me.  She was apparently trying to
show me that her place was with Ethan. 

Jealousy overtook me.  I took her hand in a solid
shake.  “Hello,” I said, smiling, trying to keep the awkward moment
light.  “I’m Ethan’s first wife, Lillie’s mother,” I said, smiling. 
Her face paled, but she forced out a smile, letting go of my hand abruptly.
 I probably shouldn’t have said that, but I couldn’t help it.  She
seemed too smug.

Clarissa walked towards us from the dining room with Lillie Rose
in her arms.  Once again I was struck by Lillie’s beautiful amber eyes and
curly brown hair.  She reached for me, making my eyes water with
joy.  Such an adorable little creature wanted to be with me, wanted to be
held by me.  Elizabeth tried to take her, but she protested by smacking
Elizabeth’s hands with her own, and reached around towards me again.  I
took her in my arms and followed Clarissa into the dining room.

“Come along, ladies.  We’re having dinner a little late
today.  Shall we?”  She graciously led the way around the corner to
the dining table.  As the table came into view, Ethan and an older
gentleman stood up to greet us.  The older gentleman had been seated at
the head of the table and had difficulty standing up with his partial wooden
leg, which he held onto with a handle.  He looked directly at me, seemingly
startled and ended up tipping his chair backwards onto the floor with a loud
bang. 

“Please forgive me,” he said, righting the chair again. 
Clarissa introduced him to me as her husband Edward, Ethan’s father.  He
was a graying older gentleman with a beard and mustache, also graying.  As
he took my hand and kissed it, he looked at me strangely.  “Madeline,” he
said.  “Forgive me; we had all thought you were deceased.  It’s good
to see you are well.  Welcome back.”

I looked over and saw Ethan, who locked eyes with mine.  He
looked devastatingly handsome, having cleaned up, his hair slicked back, and
wearing a black frock coat over a clean white shirt.  He walked towards
us, briefly acknowledging his mother and Elizabeth, and kissed Lillie on the
head before taking my hand and gently bringing it to his lips.  He bent
over and said in a low voice, “You look wonderful.  Please…sit here by
me.”  He pulled out a chair to the left of where he had been sitting at
the other end of the table, while taking Lillie out of my arms.  He walked
around the table to place her in the high chair next to Elizabeth, but Lillie
began to cry, reaching across the table towards me again.  It warmed my
heart.

“Why don’t I switch places with her?  Ethan, would you help
me?” his mother asked.  She had been next to me, and Ethan helped move the
high chair beside me and the other chair on the other side of the table between
Elizabeth and Edward.  Lillie Rose was delighted.

Elizabeth was on the other side of Ethan, which was right across
from me.  She glared at me with contempt through a forced smile.  I
couldn’t help but smile.  I felt like I was in school again, competing
with another girl for a boy’s attention.  It made me feel a little uneasy,
and yet at the same time excited.  It was wickedly delightful to be
competing for a handsome man’s attention.  Elizabeth shot daggers my way
all throughout the evening.  I tried not to look at her any more than
necessary. 

We were seated at a table dressed with a beige crocheted overlay
surrounded by 5 unmatched chairs and the high chair.  A brick fireplace
was on one wall of the room, behind me.  There were three windows in the
room, two facing the trees, gazebo, and river beyond, and another facing the
kitchen house.  They were dressed with long drapes of pale blue and were
pulled back dramatically on each side.  A warm breeze drifted through the
open windows, outside of which were big oak trees providing a shady respite
from the heat.  The wallpaper in the room was creamy yellow with a swirly
blue pattern.  In the center of the dining table was a glass Mason jar
full of some fresh red roses and yellow lilies, making me think of my little
girl’s name and how fitting it was that they grew the same flowers here.

“Didn’t this table used to be bigger?” I asked, remembering that
it was very long and had more chairs, enough to hold almost a dozen chairs.

“Why, you’re absolutely right, Madeline.  It did used to be
bigger.  The Yankees that came here during the war used part of the table
and a lot of the chairs for firewood during the winter.  I’m surprised you
remember that.”

I looked at Ethan, and we smiled at each other because I had
remembered something.

Cora and the girls brought in the meal through another door near
the study.  I smiled at Cora, who winked at me.  She was enjoying her
new home and responsibilities.  Day turned into evening as we enjoyed
cucumber soup, Virginia ham, peas, green beans, as well as some flounder and
fresh cornbread.  The sun outside dipped behind the trees and river, and
Cora came back in to light the eight candles of a simple but tasteful black
chandelier that hung over the table, adding a nice glow to the room. 

I had another memory after Cora and the girls left the
room.  “Did they bring the food in here through some sort of underground
passage?”

Ethan put his arm on the back of my chair and said, “Yes. 
There is a tunnel underground leading from the kitchen house to the cellar
below here, and they come upstairs through that door.”  He pointed to a
door between the dining room and study. 

“I vaguely remember being in that tunnel, for some reason,” I
said, looking at Ethan.

“Yes, we used to play in there as children,” he said, smirking
at his mother.

“Ah, yes.  I remember that, too,” Clarissa said.  “I
can still hear the screams as you played hide and seek down there.” 

I smiled, and suddenly realized that the tunnel was the place
where I’d had a dream of playing in as a child.  I could remember being in
the cool darkness, hearing whispers and feet shuffling on the dirt floor, and
someone touching my arm, causing me to scream.  “I do remember that,” I
said, still looking at Ethan.

I helped Lillie eat during the meal by breaking apart small
bites of the tender fish, and held her glass for her while she drank some milk. 
She made happy content sounds while she ate, jabbering between bites.

Supper was soon finished, and Ethan and his father planned to
move over to the study to have some brandy and smoke pipes.  Clarissa
wanted us ladies to join her in the sitting room.  Ethan stood up quickly
and held my chair for me while I stood.  He bowed politely to me, took my
hand in his and kissed it softly once again.  I reluctantly left him, took
Lillie in my arms, and followed Clarissa and Elizabeth down the hall.