Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (30 page)

Ethan and Clarissa left, and the day was spent getting the new
arrivals settled.  Catherine and Ginny, as she liked to be called, took
two rooms next to each other on the same hallway as my room.  I put
Catherine across the hall from me, overlooking the river, sharing the balcony
with me.  This had been my parents’ bedchamber.  Ginny took the
bedroom beside Catherine’s, which looked out over the carriage-front side of
the manor.  I had spent the week before cleaning and preparing the rooms
for them. 

Sambo cleaned his own room and then went out immediately to check
on the corn plants with Jonas.  Catherine helped me out in the kitchen
with supper that first night, which was a heavier meal than dinner due to the
busyness of everyone on the plantation at mid-day.  It was quickly
determined that she was an excellent cook, and therefore she would take over
the cooking duties while I cleaned the manor and tended the family garden.

While cooking together that first afternoon, I took the
opportunity to talk to her about New Year’s Eve.

“Catherine, was that you that I saw at the New Year’s Eve party at
the Smith farm in Bellwood?”

She turned around quickly and looked at me.  “That
was
you! 
Oh Madeline, I’m so sorry.  I wasn’t sure if that was you or not.  We
were far away from each other and I’d had a bit of wine, so I couldn’t be
certain.  Then when I saw…”  She looked around to be sure no one else
was listening.  “When I saw that man kiss you, I thought for sure it
couldn’t be you.”

“Please don’t tell anyone about him kissing me.  I have told
Ethan, but he may get the wrong idea if he hears it from someone else.  I
didn’t care for that man at all.”  I told her about him telling me lies
when I had lost my memory and didn’t know any better, and that he had been
courting me like we were betrothed.

“Oh, well, that makes sense then.  I’m sorry you had to put
up with such a horrible man.  Oh my goodness, I could have rescued you
that night.  I’m so sorry, Madeline.  I didn’t want to get Ethan’s
hopes up if I told him I saw you and it turned out not to be you.  Besides
that, I didn’t know how to get in touch with you after that night.  I have
thought about it a lot since that night, regretting that I didn’t at least
approach you and talk to you, to see if it really was you.  But that man
took you away, and I didn’t see you again until right at midnight, just before
you left.”

She scrubbed some carrots and then looked back up at me. 
“Can you forgive me, Madeline?  I don’t want there to be hard feelings
between us or for you to find it awkward with me being here.”

“Of course, I forgive you.  It won’t come between us, I
promise.  I need you here,” I said, smiling.

“I know, but if I had said something sooner, if I had sent a
letter to Ethan about it, he could have at least checked it out a little
more.  Perhaps he could have found you sooner, and he wouldn’t have
married Elizabeth, and wouldn’t be expecting her child.  You would be with
Ethan right now.  I’m so sorry,” she said again.  She walked over and
gave me a hug, more for herself, I think, than for me.  “I feel just
awful.”

It was all true, what she was saying and was something I had
wondered about, why she hadn’t told someone she saw me, but I would just have
to forgive her and forget about it.  There was nothing we could do about
it now.  Too much time had passed and too many things had happened. 

So I hugged her back and patted her on the back.  “It’s all
right, Catherine.  It’s not your fault.  The fault is
Jefferson’s.  He knew the truth and decided not to tell me, for his own
selfish reasons.  He’s the one to blame, not you.  Now, let’s get
this meal fixed and let bygones be bygones.”

“Okay,” she laughed and wiped back tears.  She genuinely did
care about me and felt sorry, which made me feel better.  We finished
cooking the meal with a newfound camaraderie.

Later that evening, I took Jonas a cup of coffee into his study,
where he was going over paperwork and organizing files. 

“We sure have a lot more mouths to feed now, don’t we?” he said after
I sat the cup on the desk beside his oil lamp.

“Yes, and I think it’s going to be a wonderful distraction for
both of us,” I said, smiling.  He looked up at me and returned my smile.

“You’re right, of course.  Thank you for bringing life back
into this house.  I don’t know how I’ve made it alone for so long.  I
was thinking of planting winter wheat in the corn fields after that’s
harvested.  That way, we will have income by spring, and more reasons to
keep William busy.”

“I’m sorry to add to your burden, dear brother.”

“Think nothing of it.  It’s my duty and my pleasure to take
care of you.  As long as you do your fair share and don’t slack around
here.”  My eyes widened and my mouth fell open, but he smirked, so I knew
he was teasing. 

“Why, you little scoundrel!”  I hit him playfully in the arm.

“Speaking of work, I was wondering if you’d help me handle our
help with the paperwork and seeing to their needs.  Didn’t you help Ethan
with that over at Wellington?”

I had told Jonas nearly everything that transpired while at
Wellington, so apparently he remembered that I had helped Ethan out in that
area.  “Of course, I’d be happy to.”

“Thanks.  I’ll show you where I keep everything, and you may
organize it as you wish in here.  I also have another question, Maddie,
one I’ve been pondering all day.  Do you think I should move out to the
bachelor’s quarters?  With Catherine being an unmarried woman and all, and
with her young daughter, I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to be living
in the same house with them.  What do you think?”

“Jonas, that’s a very noble notion, but this is your home, and I
don’t think the master of the manor should live in the bachelor’s
quarters.  You belong here in the manor.  Besides, since you moved up
to the third floor, you’re not on the same floor as Catherine or Ginny, so I
think that’s enough distance between you two to keep you chaste.”

He reddened slightly, and then laughed.  “All right. 
You’re right, of course.  Thank you.”

The rest of the week was a busy one, with all the new household
members getting used to new duties.  Catherine taught school to both Ginny
and Sambo in the mornings after breakfast for a couple of hours.  She set
up a corner of the parlor for this purpose.  When I had cleaned the rooms
upon my arrival here, I’d found scraps of paper as well as lead pencils, and
Catherine had a few books to teach from.

During these times of teaching, when Lillie Rose was not with me
in the mornings, I looked over lists for William and Jonas of things they
needed for the field work, and also a list of cooking things Catherine needed
or any other household items any of us needed.  I organized things and
thought of ways to achieve such items, how soon we needed them, and what we would
trade the next time we went to the marketplace.  Then I worked outside in
the gardens and tended the vegetables, grapes, and herbs while it was still
reasonably cool – at least, cooler than it would be the whole rest of the day
until the sun went down.  The mornings would heat up fast, and sweat would
be dripping off of me by the time Catherine called everyone in for
dinner.  I would clean up a bit before Clarissa arrived with Lillie just
after dinner.  Clarissa would visit for a bit with her sister before
heading back to Wellington with Hetty, who had become the housemaid and
Clarissa’s personal handmaid.

I would play with Lillie for a little while, sing songs to her,
and play patty-cake and peek-a-boo games.  She’d walk around holding onto
the furniture while I cleaned various rooms of the manor until it was time for
her nap.  That’s when we’d go upstairs and get on my bed together where
she’d snuggle up as close as she could to me without getting overheated. 
The heat in the room sometimes was stifling, despite the shade of the tall old
oak tree.  While she slept, I’d mend clothing or work on knitting an
afghan for Lillie for the wintertime.  Once, I had to mend my crinoline
with blue thread, as I had run out of white thread.  I was lucky to be
able to find thread at all for the afghan.  It was made of sheep’s wool
from a local farmer.  As soon as the cotton came in over at Wellington,
Clarissa promised to give me some after spinning it into thread in order to
make blankets.

Occasionally, I would take Lillie down the gently sloped hill to
be refreshed in the river for a spell.  I’d strip her down to nothing and
let her splash around for a bit, not long enough to get red from the sun, but
long enough to get cooled off.  I would wade without shoes or stockings,
crinoline off, and pinning my dress up to cool off my legs.  It was
refreshing, and I would tell Lillie stories of playing here with her father and
uncle when we were children.  Though she was probably too young to
understand what I was saying, I still liked talking about those happy times to
someone. 

My thoughts never strayed too far from Ethan, much as I tried to
guide them elsewhere.  He began coming to pick Lillie up in the
afternoons, claiming Clarissa and Hetty both needed to stay at the plantation
and couldn’t come up and down the road twice a day.  Therefore, I saw him
every day, just like when Lillie was sick.  I was reluctant at first,
knowing it would be painful to be so close to him so often, and yet found that
I also looked forward to it.  He’d come after Lillie and I had our garden
tea parties, sitting on a blanket under the big oak tree.  Sometimes he
would venture upon us while I read stories to her or told her those stories
about us when we were kids.  The first time he overhead us doing that, I
was telling her the story of when I fell out of the tree.  I told how her
daddy carried me to the house and never left my side until I was able to play
with him and Lillie’s uncle again.  After I finished telling the story, I
was surprised to see Ethan standing close by, wiping his eyes. 

One afternoon when he came to pick Lillie up, he found us up in
the unbearably hot attic, a small part of the third floor that Jonas was not
using that was used for storage, the same area where I had hidden things under
the floorboards during the war.  I had found an old trunk of my mother’s
things, including a white lacy shawl she had crocheted with a small delicate
needle, along with her wedding ring, which was silver with a red ruby, her
birthstone.  I put the ring on my own finger, first on the left, where a
married woman would wear hers – where I had indeed worn the ring that Ethan
gave me – but then changed it to my right hand.  That was when Ethan
crawled into the low-ceiling room and found us.  At that moment, Lillie
Rose chose to walk her first steps without holding onto anything, and she
walked right up to her surprised daddy.  Both our jaws dropped, and tears
filled our eyes as we witnessed our baby girl taking her first steps. 

Ethan took hold of her and twirled her around the room, and we
both cheered and laughed.  “Lillie!  You took your first steps! 
You’re walking now!” Ethan exclaimed happily.  “Is this her first time?”
he asked me.

“Yes, I’m witnessing her first steps the same as you.  Isn’t
it wonderful?”  I was so glad we were both there to see it happen.

“Yes, it is.”  He put her back on the floor on her feet and
we both clapped our hands.  This excited her, and she giggled and tried to
clap her hands, as well.  She was simply adorable.

“She’s thriving so much since she’s been under your care, Maddie-I
mean, Madeline.  It truly is amazing.”

“Thank you for saying so, Ethan.  That means a lot to
me.  And thank you for letting me help take care of her.  That means
even more to me.”

“What’s that ring you’re wearing?” he asked, looking at my
mother’s ring on my right hand.

“It’s my mother’s wedding ring.  I found it in this trunk,
along with this lacy shawl,” I said, picking it up to show it to him. 
“I’d forgotten that I put them in here after she passed, before the Yankees
came back here.”

“Oh, that’s nice.  I…I really wish you could wear the
Wellington wedding ring.”  I looked deep into his eyes, understanding the
meaning behind his words.  “I mean, well, anyway…” his voice faltered off,
and he looked away from me and ran his hand through his hair.  I had given
him a hard time about not talking about intimate things, and I supposed he was
being considerate at the awkward moment, not wanting to upset me with his
words.  I appreciated that he was trying to be a gentleman by not being
too intimate with me, now that we were no longer married.

“I know what you mean,” I said, touching his hand and squeezing it
for a moment.  “I do, too,” I whispered.

He looked back down at me, still sitting on the floor, and
squatted down on my level to plant a soft kiss on the top of my head.  I
closed my eyes and breathed his essence in deeply.  He smelled like pine
trees, brine, and sweat, and to me, it smelled wonderful.  He stood back
up and looked at Lillie again.

 “I hope we find that ring again someday,” I said softly.

“Me, too.”

“Could we talk some more downstairs?  The heat is sweltering
up here, and I’m feeling a little faint.”

“Of course, let’s get you and Lillie out of here.”

Ethan carried Lillie downstairs to the main floor, and I followed
behind them with the shawl in my hands.  Ethan decided he and Lillie
should be going anyway, and so I walked them out to the carriage.