Widow of Gettysburg (48 page)

The letters blurred together on the page until Silas rubbed the moisture out of his eyes. Silas remembered going to bed early that night, and waking up, still groggy, with Psyche in his arms. As she left, she had said “Thank you.” All this time, he had imagined she was thanking him for granting her request.
She was thanking me for leaving her alone!

“I’m sorry you did not learn the truth sooner, son. But thank God she found you here at Gettysburg. God works in mysterious ways, does He not?”

Silas nodded mutely, unable to find his voice. Shock at his mother’s ruse sliced through him. Her own guilt was punishment enough, Silas felt sure of that. He could not leave her in those shackles he knew so well, not when she was offering him the olive branch. He would write to her. And soon.

For now, he relished in the absolution contained on a single sheet of foolscap. “I’m not like my father,” he whispered as relief washed over him.

“I would argue that you are.” Smiling, Dr. Schmucker pointed to the heavens outside the broken window, and a fresh breeze rustled the letter in his hand.

Closing his eyes, Silas breathed a silent prayer. “I’m trying to be,” he said at length.

Dr. Schmucker tented his fingers together and nodded. “That’s what matters. Now tell me. Why did you come?”

“I never did like unfinished business.” He leaned forward to measure his former professor’s reaction. “I am considering, perhaps—that is to say, would you allow me to resume my studies here?”

Dr. Schmucker beamed. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see you back at the seminary. Classes were supposed to resume today, but the last patient only left the seminary building eight days ago. We need a bit more time to prepare the building for students again, but yes, there is room for one more! Several of our students have enlisted, you see, so our numbers are already down.”

Silas stood, straightened his jacket over his trousers. “It would have to be next fall for me. I’m afraid I can’t be ready to enroll this fall just yet.”

“More unfinished business?”

“You could say that, yes.”

“Well, if there is anything Dr. Krauth or I can do for you, you just say the word, won’t you?”

Silas shook the reverend’s hand as he stood. “As a matter of fact, I believe there is.”

With applesauce simmering on Bella Jamison’s stove, she opened her windows and breathed in deeply. When cooler weather had finally swept away the persistent stink of battle’s aftermath, she realized she had not taken a deep breath in months. Now autumn ushered in the smell of fermenting apples instead of flesh, and decaying fallen leaves instead bodies.

A year ago, she had taught Liberty how to make applesauce at Holloway Farm. Now, she could not get Liberty to come home for anything. That girl was stuck, in more ways than one. Life goes on after loss, Bella had tried to tell her. But Liberty was wrapped up in loss, still wearing her mourning clothes, and walking the graveyard at Camp Letterman every night with the other nurses to weep over those who had been buried that day.

Major bumped into Bella’s leg as he sprawled out on the kitchen floor and watched the door.
That poor beast is always waiting for someone to come back for him.
Sighing, Bella dashed some cinnamon in the pot of applesauce, stirred, and tasted it.
Just about perfect.
A knock sounded on the door as she was adding kindling to the stove.

“Come on in!” She was expecting Aunt Hester.

When she turned around, however, it was Silas Ford standing in her kitchen in a camel-colored suit almost the same shade as his hair, rolling the brim of his bowler in his hands. Lines of anxiety framed his eyes.

“Hello, ma’am,” he said, and she noticed for the first time that he was standing without a crutch. He smiled and without being asked, hiked his right pant leg up to show a well-formed prosthetic leg wearing a shoe. He dropped the trouser leg.

Major ambled over to Silas for attention, and the color drained from the man’s face as he bent to greet the dog. “Is Liberty—gone?”

Bella nodded. “But not that kind of gone. She’s nursing at Camp Letterman, the general hospital outside of town. Haven’t been able to get her to come home for anything. Not that there’s much of a home for her to come back to …” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Please have a seat, Mr. Ford.” Regaining his composure, he pulled a chair out for her at the kitchen table before lowering himself into his own.

“Please call me Silas. I heard your husband was injured at Fort Wagner. I pray he is well?”

“He is, thank you.”

“And how are you? After, um, everything here? Things settling back down to normal?”

Bella chuckled as she folded the copy of
The Christian Recorder
lying on the table between them. In nearly every issue now, letters decried the unequal pay for black soldiers. There was still no resolution. She was still scraping by. “There’s nothing normal about it. But I expect you’re here about Liberty.”

“Actually, Mrs. Jamison, first of all, I’m here about you.”

Bella fingered the edge of the newspaper. And waited.

“You have every reason to dislike me. I know what I represent to you. My father did to other women what Roswell King Jr. did to you.”

Her blood simmered. “I know he did.” She clenched her teeth.

“Please forgive me.”

An admission of guilt? “Forgive you for what? If you hurt Liberty, so help me—”

“I didn’t. I’m asking you to forgive me for the sins of my father.”

Bella snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Then forgive me for not being able to stop him, or for not trying hard enough. Forgive me for being white, for being Southern, for being raised on a slave-holding plantation, for being a Rebel scout. Forgive me for not being who you wanted for your daughter. Forgive me for whatever it is you hold against me.”

Bella’s cheeks grew warm. She did hold his father’s sins against him. She had placed him in the same category as her worst nightmare, out of
fear. Wasn’t that what other people had done to her time and again? They had judged her for the group they placed her in, not for who she was as an individual.

Lord, have mercy.
She ought to know better.

“The truth is—” Silas swallowed. “I need to be forgiven. If I could find the women my father abused, I would fall at their feet and beg them outright for it. They deserved protection, just as you did, just as your mother did. Just as Liberty did.” His voice broke, and he pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment before continuing. “I’ve asked God for forgiveness, and He says in His word that He’s given it to me. But I would really like to hear it from you, too. I can’t live under the weight of this anymore.”

The barricade Bella had erected around her heart began to crumble. If this man was in earnest, and she believed he was, how could she in good conscience deny his request?

“I forgive you, Silas.” She grasped his white hand in her light brown one and squeezed until his eyes showed her he believed it “Now. Speak the rest of your mind in peace. You want to court her. Don’t you?” She rose from the table and returned to the stove.

He frowned. “You know I can’t do that.”

“And why not, young man?” Her spoon stilled in the pot.

“Why, because she’s colored, and I’m white.” Lines etched his forehead, but Bella could feel her own headache coming on.

“Do you love her or not?”

“That’s not fair, Mrs. Jamison. It’s beside the point.”

“That is the entire point. People have married for far less than that.” Her spoon was clenched in her left hand, both fists propped on her hips. She could smack this man at her table if she let her irritation get the best of her.

“I don’t understa—”

“You have got some nerve waltzing in here, asking me for forgiveness and then shunning my daughter on account of her being mine. Where in God’s great earth does that make any lick of sense?”

“It’s not my choice!”

“The devil it isn’t.” Burning with anger, Bella turned her back to him and lowered her voice as she stirred. “You know where the door is. Get out of my home.”

She heard him push away from the table, walk to the door, and stop. “If it wasn’t for the law, I’d be here asking for your permission—and blessing.”

Bella spun around. “What law?”

“The law that says white and blacks can’t marry, of course. Nothing else could keep me from her.”

Bella closed her eyes for a moment. “You mean to tell me you came here to ask my forgiveness even though you thought you couldn’t pursue Liberty?”

His blank expression was answer enough.

“Sit down. Sit down.” She left her spoon at the stovetop and guided him back to the table. “There is no such law.”

The words did not seem to register. “What did you say?”

“There is no such law in Pennsylvania. Not anymore. Not in a long while. I know all the Southern states make interracial marriage illegal, and plenty of Northern ones too. But you’re not in those states. You’re here.”

“No such law,” he whispered. “Then …” Silas stood, nearly knocked his chair over backwards and Major scrambled out of his way.

“You know if you ever harm a hair on her head, I’ll come after you, don’t you?”

“Does that mean I have your blessing to court her?”

Bella chuckled. “It means you have my blessing to try. I don’t know what she’ll say, but she can speak for herself. You got a plan to bring her back to the land of the living?”

His eyes twinkled as he grinned.

“Well, are you going to tell me?” she prodded.

“I plan to make her dreams come true. But I sure could use your help.”

With her hands covering her eyes as per Bella’s instructions, Liberty Holloway nearly fell asleep on the ride from Camp Letterman to wherever Bella was taking her in the leather-lined carriage. The steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves and the smoke-scented wind teased her senses just enough to keep her upright. Only when her hands stopped working did she realize how exhausted she was. Her strength seemed to dwindle along with the patients at Camp Letterman.

Two days ago, Camp Letterman only had sixty patients. Today, the last one left for his home in Cincinnati. The five hundred tents would soon be filled with thousands of visitors for the dedication ceremony of the National Soldiers’ Cemetery.

“Open your eyes.”

Liberty obeyed, and squinted for a moment against the brightness of the lowering sun as her eyes adjusted. The first thing she saw was her old sign for Liberty Inn, but cleaned, touched up, and polished. The oak gleamed in the sun, reminding her of … she shook her head and bit her lip.
This is exactly why I didn’t want to come here!

As the carriage turned into the lane, Liberty leaned out over the edge in disbelief. Little green blades were poking up through the dirt, where before it had been a vast sea of endless dirt. She turned to Bella. “You seeded the yard?”

Bella only laughed and clucked her tongue to the horses. They slowed in front of the porch, and Liberty climbed down while Bella tied the reins to the hitching post. Bright yellow and orange chrysanthemums consumed the porch, while pumpkins lined the steps and perimeter of the floor.

The porch no longer sagged, or cracked, or splintered. The floor and railings were made of all new wood, painted white. But these railings were not the straight slats of her former porch. They were curved
and tooled like miniature bedposts.
Beautiful!
On one side of the porch, two rockers sat with cushions in their seats, while on the other side, a porch swing swayed in the breeze.

“What did you do?”

“There’s more.”

Liberty’s pulse quickened as she stepped through the front door and almost stumbled into Major, who was wagging his entire rear end in greeting. In truth, the dog was the only thing familiar about this place.
Where am I?
she wondered as she wrapped her arms around her clumsy Newfoundland’s neck. She was surrounded by new floorboards, freshly painted walls, new varnished crown molding. Even the banister and railing of the staircase were new, carved in the same beautiful pattern as the porch railings had been.