Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (7 page)

I stood up, and he looked at me.  He froze.  I
froze.  He looked at me as though he were seeing a ghost.  I wondered
who he was, looking at me that way.

“Madeline?” he asked.  It was
him
. 
The
voice I’d heard in my head.  This was the man I had longed for in my flash
of memory…the one I had been hoping to find.

To my surprise, he dropped a shovel he had been holding and
quickly shortened the distance between us.  “Madeline, darling.  Is
it really you?” he asked as he reached me.  Before I could answer, he
threw his arms around me and embraced me tightly, lifting my feet off the
ground for a moment.  I had to put my arms around his back for fear of
falling.  “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said.  I felt his
warm breath in my ear.

I held my own breath.  I didn’t know quite what to
do.  He took me completely by surprise.  But just for a moment, I
felt like I was in heaven.  He put my feet back on the ground and loosened
his embrace, still holding onto my arms, and looked at me with smoldering
eyes.  Fascinating eyes.  They looked light brown and yet sort of
green.  He stood nearly a head taller than me.  Upon seeing his face
up close, I noticed his sideburns ran into his beard, which traced the edge of
his chin, and there was a little small patch of hair directly under his lower
lip.  He took my breath away.  He looked at me with such adoration.
 I wondered again who he was.  I had hoped that Ethan was the one I
had longed for, but now that I saw this man so casually dressed, I was sure I’d
be disappointed, that he wouldn’t be the man I had been married to.

“Let me look at you,” he said.  “You haven’t changed a
bit.  You look like you’ve been out in the sun a lot.  Have you been
outside working hard?”  He held my hands and looked at them as he spoke, “Look
at your hands.  You have blisters.  You shouldn’t have to work so
hard, Madeline.”  His deep voice warmed and stirred my heart.  He
pulled my palms to his lips and kissed each one ever so gently.  My heart
stopped.  I’d never felt this way when Jefferson had touched me or kissed
me.  This was completely different.

“Please forgive my appearance,” he said, looking down at his
soiled shirt.  “I, too, have been working out in the fields.”  He
looked me over, seeming to be convincing himself that I was real.  Then he
looked into my eyes again.  I felt his eyes penetrate to my very
soul.  Such love in those eyes.  If I’d ever wondered if I had been
loved in the past, I knew it now, just by looking into his eyes.  I had
certainly not seen that look in Jefferson’s eyes.  “It’s been so long
since I’ve seen you.  I thought I’d lost you forever,” he said.  He
touched my face gently with his rough hand and leaned his head towards me like
he was going to kiss me, but I spoke up, interrupting him.

“Um…are you Ethan?” I dared to ask him, biting my lower
lip.  I was nervous about his response.  What if it wasn’t
Ethan?  What if this was someone I’d had a liaison with?  What if I
had committed adultery?

A confused look came over his face.  “What do you
mean?  Of course, I’m Ethan.  Are you ill?”  He tucked a stray
hair behind my ear.  Relief flooded through me that he was, indeed, my
husband.  The man I had longed for had been my husband.  I couldn’t
be happier!  Well, of course, I could be, if I could remember him. 

Before I could answer, he continued with questions.  “What
happened to you?  Where have you been?”

“I must apologize,” I began.  “I don’t know what happened
to me.  I don’t remember you.  I don’t remember your mother.  I
don’t even know who I am, or who I was.  I was found by a family in
Chester.  I do remember getting hit in the head and falling out of a
carriage.”  I told him the whole story of how they nursed me back to
health and took me in as one of their own; and also about how the house caught
fire and they all perished except for me, Cora and the girls.  I left out
the part about Jefferson, for now.  “So then I met your mother in the
marketplace in Chester, and she offered to bring us here, even Cora and the
girls.  Your mother said you could use the help.”

Ethan smiled.  “Thank God my mother found you,” he
said.  “I had given up hope of ever seeing you again.”  He stopped
smiling and his face grew somber.  “I’m sorry about the
Washingtons.”  He picked up my hand and squeezed it gently.  “So you
don’t remember me?  That we were married?”

“Honestly, no, I don’t.  I wish I did.”  I smiled at
him.  “But I did remember your voice.”  I told him about the memory
I’d had nine months previous when I heard him say my name, not mentioning the
ring.  “I’m so glad to finally put a face to that voice I heard in my
head,” I said, blushing slightly.

He smiled brightly.  “How wonderful that you remembered my
voice!  We were married right up there on the hill in that gazebo,” he
pointed behind me.  I looked around, trying to remember.  So the
gazebo had been filled with happy memories, too.  I was glad.  “It
had been nearly destroyed during the war when it was hit with a cannon, but I
built it back before the wedding.  Where’s your wedding ring?” he asked,
looking at my empty hands.

“I…wedding ring?”  What should I tell him about the
ring?  That a man who supposedly was named Jefferson Banks had it, who
claimed we had been betrothed to be married before I had the accident? 
Who told me that the ring had belonged to his mother?  The ring that I had
to give back?  I wondered if the ring Jefferson had really was the same
ring Ethan was referring to.

“Yes,” he answered my earlier question.  “You always wore
it when you went to the marketplace.  It has been missing as long as you have.”

“What did it look like?” I asked.  If I knew that, then I
would know whether Jefferson really had my ring or not.  He began to
describe it, and it was exactly like the ring I had in my possession for a
short while, the ring I’d had the memory from.  Somehow I knew it would be
the same ring. 

“I’m so sorry.  I wasn’t wearing it when I was
found.”  That much was true.  I wanted to tell him about Jefferson
but held back for the time being.  I didn’t know how Ethan would react,
knowing that I’d let the ring literally slip through my fingers.

He smiled again.  “No matter.  At least you’re
here.  I’m overcome with joy!  Let’s sit down.  You must be
fatigued from your long journey.”  He waited for me to sit down on the
bench, and then he sat beside me, very close.  “Let me tell you all about
us.  I’m Ethan Wellington.  You were Madeline Chambers before you
married me.  We grew up together.  Our families were very
close.  You lived in a plantation up the river called Magnolia Grove.” 
I watched his eyes looking at my own as he talked.  I loved hearing him
talk…that voice I had longed for, for so long.  “Your father died in the
War of Northern Aggression, after getting shot and then coming down with
dysentery.  I also fought in the war and was lucky not to be injured
physically, other than cuts and bruises.  Your mother died of pneumonia
during the war, and your brother, Jonas, now lives in that plantation, even
though the Yankees made it a hospital after your mother’s death and destroyed
nearly all the furniture.  Jonas lives there alone – his betrothed Lucy
was apparently murdered by the Yankees.” 

I was saddened that my parents had died, even though I didn’t
remember them.  But he’d said my brother lived nearby.  “My brother
is still alive?” I asked, my eyes widening.  Had Jefferson lied to me
again?

“Yes.  Do you remember him?”

I shook my head “no”.  I was furious at Jefferson’s lies,
not only about my brother being dead, but that we’d lived in Surry, when it was
here that I’d lived.  I was, of course, relieved that my brother was still
alive.  A thought began to stir inside of me, but I kept it at bay while
Ethan continued talking.

“Our house also came under siege here.  With Father and me
gone out to war, Mother was left alone with the slaves.  A lot of them
escaped when a Union ship came down the river and docked over at City
Point.  They came back later for their wives.  Only a handful stayed
till Emancipation, and then only two men and one woman stayed.  The Union
soldiers came in and took over the manor, and Mother provided food, bandages,
and other supplies for the injured men until ships arrived to take the wounded
to nearby hospitals.  That was during the first part of the war. 
Before they left, they burned a lot of furniture and stole loads of silver,
china, anything they could carry out of the house with them.  Am I talking
too much?”

“No, not at all.  I’m fascinated actually.  Please
continue,” I said, smiling.  He returned the smile, showing a hint of a
dimple on his chin between his whiskers. 

“The Yankees came back towards the end of the war in 1864, when
they were trying to gain control of Petersburg and Richmond.  Mother had
no choice but to let them use the house as a headquarters for the Union troops,
and they held prisoners in the cellar.  Abraham Lincoln even visited
here.  A cannon was placed on the top of the hill at a nearby plantation,
where they bombed Petersburg across the river.  They used the gazebo as a
lookout for vessels on the water during the war, but it was damaged, like I said
before.  When the troops took over, Mother and the woman ex-slave left and
came to your plantation up the river.”  His face was melancholy as he was
talking about all the tragedies that had happened.

“Where was I during the war?” I asked.

“We weren’t married yet, so you were at your plantation with
your mother at the beginning of the war.  There was a terrible raid of the
house while you were there.  You told me they cut your wrist when you
tried to protest.”  He turned my hand up to show me the scar on my left
wrist. 

“So that’s where that came from,” I said, mostly to
myself.  I could see that happening in my mind…chaos, noisy men, crashing
things around the house, one grabbing my arm, slicing my wrist, pain.  I
didn’t know whether that was a vision of my past or just my own imaginings.

Ethan went on, “They broke up a lot of furniture and used the
wood for fire in nearby camps.  The troops left and your mother caught
pneumonia, perhaps from one of the soldiers.  The Yankees came back again
later and took over both plantations.  This plantation was used for the
troops to have camp, and your plantation became a field hospital.  When
your mother died of pneumonia, my mother came to your plantation with Fanny,
and you all helped our local doctor with the wounded.  You also supplied
water, bread, soup, and cloths for the soldiers when they were there. 
Finally, I came to visit you and Mother and convinced you to go over to the
Edgewood House at the grist mill, where you stayed till the war ended, feeding
soldiers from both sides of the war.

I could tell the war had an awful impact on him and his family,
even on me and my own family, but I couldn’t remember my own experiences. 
Feeling pity for him, I picked up one of his hands with both of mine and gently
squeezed it.  He looked at my hand touching his, and his mood quickly
changed.  He smiled at me.  “You and I were married just after the
war ended, in 1865.  We were happy for a year, until one day you went to
City Point with Fanny to sell some cotton blankets you had made and never came
back.”  I let go of his hand, wondering if he felt resentment towards
me.  He looked disappointed that I had let go of his hand.

“Who’s Fanny?” I asked.  No one had said there had been
anybody with me at the time of my accident.

“She was a freed slave, the only female house slave who didn’t
turn on mother after the war.  She’s the one who came to your plantation
with Mother when the soldiers took over our plantation.  She came back
here with Mother after the war, and then after we were married, she accompanied
you when you went to the marketplace.  She disappeared the same day that
you did.”

“Oh, dear,” I said, not remembering that at all.  “I had no
idea.  That’s truly upsetting.”  I wondered what had happened to
her.  Bless her soul; I hoped she was all right.

I swallowed hard.  I didn’t remember any of the things
Ethan had told me.  How terrible it all must have been.  I looked
bewilderedly at Ethan, at the man who claimed to be my husband.  Had I
loved this man?  Yet I felt I already knew the answer to that, ever since
I’d had that memory of his voice.  Now that I’d found him, I was certain
that we had been happy together, and I found myself wanting to be with him and
thankful that things worked out the way they did to bring me back to him. 
I perceived him to be a gentle man.  He seemed to genuinely care about me,
and there was such adoration in his eyes for me.

“I’m sorry that I caused you so much pain, Mr. Wellington. 
I—”

“Please,” he interrupted.  “Call me Ethan.”

I felt funny doing so, when I still didn’t remember him, but I
consented to his wishes, knowing it might help me with my memory, since I had
apparently known him since we were children.  “All right…Ethan.  I
can’t say what happened to me.  All I know is that I was found near the
Washingtons’ farm, and they took me in.  I had no memory, so I didn’t know
where else to go.  Please forgive me for not returning to you.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.  It is just amazing that
Mother found you and was able to bring you back home.  It must be terrible
for you not to remember anything.”  I nodded.  “I’m glad you’re here
now.  Maybe I can help you regain your memory.”  He smiled at me with
that devastating smile of his.  It warmed my heart.