Robert looked at her, trying to decide if he felt up to arguing with her about it. No, he decided. He didn’t. The persistent pounding in his head and the fact that he obviously couldn’t manage something as simple as drinking from a tin cup on his own led him to conclude that, for the moment at least, he was some distance away from “well.”
He watched as she returned the cup to the table and sat down again. He still couldn’t decide who she was. Not Eleanor was the only thing he knew for certain—besides the fact that she was not a Southerner. Her diction was far too precise and sharp edged for her to have grown up below the Mason-Dixon Line. It was too painful to attempt any kind of conversation, so he kept looking at her. She seemed so sad.
Why are you sad, I wonder?
Since the war the whole world seemed to be full of women with sad eyes. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; he thought she was far too pretty to be unmarried.
“My name is Robert Markham,” he said after a moment because it seemed the next most socially appropriate thing to do.
“Yes,” she said, watching him closely, apparently looking for some indication that she’d let him have too much to drink. “So I’m told. And you’re sometimes called Robbie, I believe.”
Robert frowned slightly. Incredibly, he thought she might be teasing him ever so slightly, and he found it...pleasant.
“Well, not...lately. How is it you know...who I am when I don’t know you...at all?”
“I went through your pockets,” she said matter-of-factly. “I found the Confederate military card inside your Bible. But three ladies who live here in the town actually identified you—Mrs. Kinnard, Mrs. Russell. And Mrs. Justice, of course. She’s the one who calls you Robbie.”
Robert drew a long breath in a feeble attempt to distance himself from the pain, but it only made his head hurt worse. Mrs. Kinnard. He certainly remembered that Mrs. Kinnard had identified him, and it was good that she had been correct in her identification. Mrs. Kinnard, as he recalled, was never wrong about anything. He nearly smiled at the thought that he might have had to assume whatever name she’d given him because no one had the audacity to contradict her. She would undoubtedly be the angry whisperer outside the door. It was no wonder this young woman had felt such a pressing need to stay out of sight.
He looked around the room, certain now of where he was at least, without having to be told.
Home.
In his own bed. It was so strange, and yet somehow not strange at all. It was the noise in the household that was so alien to him. Men’s voices—accented voices and the heavy tread of their boots. Barked military orders and the quick, disciplined responses to them. What he didn’t hear was his brother Samuel’s constant racket; or his sister, Maria, playing “Aura Lee” on the pianoforte in the parlor; or his father and his friends laughing together in the dining room over brandy and cigars.
And he didn’t hear his mother singing the second verse of her favorite hymn, “How Firm a Foundation,” as she went about her daily chores. Always the second verse.
Fear not, I am with thee,
O be not dismayed;
For I am Thy God,
And will still give the aid...
He had never had her kind of faith, and for a long time he had lost all hope that the words of that particular hymn might be true.
I’ll comfort thee, help thee,
And cause thee to stand...
And what about now? Did he believe them now?
He had thought he was prepared for the shame of returning, but he wasn’t prepared at all for the overwhelming sense of loss. That was far beyond what he had expected, the direct result, he supposed, of having been so certain that he would never see his home again. And yet here he was, despite his vagueness as to precisely how he’d gotten here, and that was the most he could say for the situation.
Mrs. Russell suddenly came to mind—and her son, James Darson Russell. He tried to remember...something. Jimmy had died in the war; he was sure of that, and yet the memory seemed all wrong somehow. He frowned with the effort it took to try to sort out what was real and what was not.
Jimmy had been several years younger than he, but he had had the self-assurance not often seen in a boy his age. Most likely it had come from having had to become the head of the household after his father’s death. His mother and his sister had needed him, and he’d accepted that responsibility like the man he was years from being.
Robert smiled slightly as another memory came into his mind. Jimmy had been confident and self-possessed—until he’d gotten anywhere near Maria. Then he couldn’t seem to walk and talk at the same time. He’d turned into an awkward, inelegant boy who couldn’t put two words together without sounding like a dunce. It was strange what a certain kind of woman could do to a man when he ardently believed her to be unattainable. He himself had suffered the same affliction when he’d been courting Eleanor and perhaps still would, had not a war intervened. But absence hadn’t made her heart grow fonder; it had made it grow more discerning. So much so that shortly before the disaster at Gettysburg, she had written him a letter—her final letter to him—telling him plainly that she had decided that their reckless personalities, hers as much as his, would make for nothing but misery if they wed. He had been stunned at first, and then resigned—because he couldn’t deny that their relationship was as volatile as she said it was. He’d lost the letter along with all the rest of his belongings somewhere on the Gettysburg battlefield, where it must have lain, who knew how long, soaked in blood and rain, and unreadable.
“He was killed at...” he said abruptly, aloud without meaning to.
“Who?” the woman sitting on the footstool asked. He had forgotten she was there. She was looking at him intently.
“Mrs. Russell’s son. James Darson—Jimmy,” he said with some effort, not remembering if she knew who Mrs. Russell was or not. “She was one of my mother’s friends. Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Justice. And Mrs. Kinnard,” he added as an afterthought. He deliberately called up the women’s names because he’d lost his place in the conversation—if there had actually been a conversation—and he didn’t want her to think he was any more addled than he was.
“Jimmy Russell had red hair—the good luck kind—a carrot top. I used to chase him down and rub his head before every card game and every horse race. He was always threatening to have his head shaved—just to break me of my gambling habit. Once, though, he hunted me down—because he heard I was going to play poker with Phelan and Billy Canfield’s Up North cousins—do you know the Canfield brothers?”
“No—except by reputation,” she added. He thought there was a slight change in her tone of voice, enough to signify something he didn’t understand.
He looked at her for a moment. Yes. Her eyes were sad.
“Harvard men, these cousins were,” he continued without really knowing why he should want to tell her—or anybody—about any of these things. Perhaps it was because he was starved for the company of another human being. Or perhaps it was the fact that she seemed to be listening that made his rambling recollections seem—necessary. “You could say they were arrogant.”
“I can imagine,” she said.
“Almost as arrogant as I was,” he said. “It was important—a matter of honor—to win, you see.”
“And did you?”
“I had to. Jimmy said he’d shave my head if I...didn’t. Billy and Phelan would have helped him do it, too. I can’t believe he’s gone...so many of them...” His voice trailed away. He had to force himself to continue. “Jimmy’s life was full of burdens, but he was always laughing...” He trailed away again, overwhelmed now by the rush of memories of the boy who had