An Everlasting Amour, page 11
An indistinct noise brought Amaryllis’ head up. Thinking perhaps Ambrosia had returned, she paused and squinted against the sun’s glare. Was that someone standing in the drive and looking up at the house? The image didn’t move for several minutes. and she wondered if perhaps the Georgia sun was causing her to see things. She shaded her eyes and peered harder at the figure.
She abruptly froze, for it wasn’t Ambrosia, but a man in a tattered blue uniform, a bag and a rifle thrown over his shoulder. Her heart began to pound in her chest, for fear that the past was about to repeat itself, when she caught sight of something vaguely familiar about him…
Amaryllis put a hand to her mouth to hold back a gasp and rose to her feet. A sob escaped her mouth as she started to move toward what was surely an apparition.
Not until she was a few feet away from the man did he turn his dark head and pin her with those same blue eyes she had been yearning for, although instead of being full of mirth, they were empty and flat. He had lost weight during their time apart as well as gained a few more lines around the corners of his eyes, but he was alive and that was all that mattered.
“Elman?” she whispered. She yearned to throw herself into his arms, grateful that he was alive after all this time, but something in his expression kept her from doing so. It was almost as if her attentions would be rebuffed should she try to embrace him. But surely he would be just as relieved to see her?
His gaze swept her plain gray dress, her hair pulled back and covered with a kerchief. “You’ve changed, Amaryllis.”
Her heart sank. His voice was more raspy than she remembered, and just as devoid of emotion. It was as if she was speaking with a complete stranger, when she’d held out hope for so long that the Elman Franklin she’d known would return. Had prayed day and night for it to be so. “We all have, I’m afraid.” She clasped her hands together and glanced away. “Would you like some tea?” She knew it sounded inconsequential after so much time apart, but she wasn’t sure what else to say, except… She returned her gaze to him. “Unless you’re not planning to stay?”
This brought out a slight frown of confusion. “Where would I go? This is my home. It’s where I…belong.”
She wasn’t sure he sounded that confident of the fact, but she still held on to the faith that things would work out in time now that he had returned to her. They had to. If not, then what was the point of so many struggles if not to make things better and put the past behind them?
Amaryllis started for the house, thinking that Elman would follow, but when she reached the door and glanced behind her, he was still standing where she’d left him. “Are you coming, Elman?”
“Things are just so different,” he whispered.
She nodded. There was no point in denying it. “The war affected us all.”
This time he finally looked at her, as if her tone pierced his brain and he understood. But instead of replying, he just moved forward, as if the commands to his feet were automatic.
He followed her into the kitchens where she set a kettle on to boil. She could see him looking around as he went, no doubt hardly recognizing the stately manor that he’d left more than four years ago.
As she set her precious china teacup and saucer in front of him, he stared at it for a moment and then reached out a shaky hand and grasped the cup’s handle. She glanced away, for she didn’t want him to feel inferior in knowing that she’d witnessed his moment of weakness.
He took a long drink of the warm liquid and closed his eyes with a sigh. “It’s been so long…” he said hoarsely, as if emotion was clogging his throat. He turned that blue gaze back on her. “Has everyone left then?”
“Ambrosia remained behind. She’s not here at the moment because she went to the market.”
“On horseback?” he asked almost hopefully.
She shook her head. “On foot. We haven’t had transportation…for months.” Amaryllis didn’t wish to upset him further, so she busied herself at the sink washing the teapot as pitying tears stung her eyes.
It wasn’t until she felt the hesitant but gentle touch of his hands on her shoulders that she broke down into tears, the sensation of human love and warmth such a foreign sensation. “Mary…I’m sorry…”
She grasped the edge of the sink and stared unseeing into the water, wishing she could disappear instead of telling him what had happened in his absence, but she couldn’t keep the truth from him, no matter how much she might want to. “I’ve done terrible things…things I’m not proud of…but I couldn’t let them burn the house…I couldn’t let you come home to an empty shell…” Amaryllis knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words from coming. “It was the only way to save us from complete ruin…I had no choice but to do what they wanted…It was awful…I didn’t want to do it, but…”
Tears were streaming down her face, the guilt and grief spilling over and blurring her vision. He turned her to face him, and she expected to see disgust in his expression, but there was only a mirrored reflection of the same heartache there. “I know what it’s like to suffer regret. I shot and killed so many men…some who were not even twenty…who had an entire life ahead of them…men I’d known all my life, just because they were wearing a different color uniform…” He visibly swallowed. “Don’t apologize to me for anything. You did what you had to do to survive, the same as I did. I don’t know that we’ll ever…overcome the damage that’s been done…” He shook his head. “But we have to try, don’t we? We have to…try.”
This time, Amaryllis couldn’t stop herself from putting her arms around his neck. She could sense the changes in his body as she held him close, the protruding bones and the scent of death clinging to his jacket, but it was still the most wonderful feeling in the world, because he was here. With her.
“I’m glad you’re home, Elman,” she whispered.
After a moment, she felt a hand on her hair. “I’m not even sure how to…move on,” he confessed.
“We’ll figure it out. Together.”
Chapter 3
When Ambrosia returned home a short time later, she had no problem expressing her delight upon seeing him. “Elman!” she laughed gaily and embraced him.
Elman’s lips tilted upward in a slight smile, the first one Amaryllis had seen. It was brittle as if he hadn’t had much to rejoice about, but she hoped it would soon become more frequent and easy. “It’s good to see you, Ambrosia. I’m indebted to you for staying behind to help my wife.”
She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t go putting yourself in the same group with some of those other planters. You never treated me as anything but family. And now—” She held up a basket of various vegetables. “I’m going to make you something extra special for suppertime. We need to get some meat back on those bones.” She headed for the kitchens. “Now get cleaned up, and I’ll have a nice stew ready in no time.”
As she left, Amaryllis turned to Elman. “There still a tin tub in your chamber. I’ll gather some water and put it on to boil.”
She started to walk away, but Elman stopped her with a light hand on her arm. “I don’t expect you to wait on me hand and foot now that I’ve returned. I’m more than capable of helping out.”
Amaryllis nodded, but didn’t speak as she led the way outside. There was a pump outside the kitchens with several buckets in the garden shed nearby. Elman raised the arm of the metal handle, and Amaryllis set down a bucket to catch the water as it began to gush out of the spigot. It didn’t take long for them all to be filled, but when she would have lifted two, used to the weight after years of managing without any assistance, she was surprised when Elman reached out and gently took one from her grasp.
“How about you get that one started and I’ll bring the rest of these inside?”
“Very well.” Amaryllis returned to the kitchens where she set the bucket on the wood stove to start warming.
Ambrosia was humming a jaunty tune as she cut up some carrots on the counter. “It’s nice to have your man around again, isn’t it?” she noted.
“Of course.” Amaryllis didn’t mean to hesitate, truly she didn’t, and it had been the briefest of pauses, but the wizened woman caught it, nonetheless.
She paused in her task and said firmly. “He’s not like the other men who passed through this house. He’s your husband. Things will get better now that he’s back.”
Amaryllis swallowed heavily. “I know.”
“Don’t lose heart just yet.”
They fell silent as Elman walked in with two more buckets. He glanced between the two women, as if realizing he’d just interrupted something, although he didn’t comment on it. “I can just bathe in the lean-to so we don’t have to drag everything upstairs.” His voice turned slightly distant. “It wouldn’t be any worse than the few times I was able to dip my head in a pond when we were on the march.”
“Perhaps not,” Amaryllis stated. “But you’re home now, so we should return to some semblance of order.” She didn’t even want to think of the other horrors he must have had to endure as he camped on the road, never knowing if he would make it to see the next night.
He paused for a moment, and then nodded his head. “I’ll see what I can find to wear.”
Amaryllis watched him walk away. No doubt his old clothes would be baggy on him now that he’d lost so much weight. Not only that, but they were the fashionable attire of a man with a prosperous income, whereas now…
She turned her attention back to the boiling water in the buckets and forced her mind to shut out the past, because there was no point in going back to something that would never return. All she could do now was pray that Elman didn’t suffer the same fate.
Elman returned downstairs to help her carry up the water and empty the buckets into the tub. He looked at the steam for a moment with an almost wistful expression, but it was quickly wiped clear as he turned to his wife. “Thank you.”
He started to unbutton his jacket and she quickly turned away. While he was her husband and she had every right to gaze upon him, she wasn’t quite prepared to return to her marital duties just yet. The past had effectively dampened any desire she might have retained and twisted it into something dark and unwanted.
“Just ring if you need anything.” She gestured to the bell pull by the bed as she headed for the door.
Only when she had a hand on the doorknob did she hear a splash behind her. She didn’t want to turn around, but the sound compelled her to glance back. She barely withheld a shocked gasp as her husband’s bare backside was revealed. His ribs were clearly visible with dark bruising and faded pink stripes across his back. She hadn’t even asked him if he’d been incarcerated, or if he was just released from his infantry. In truth, she didn’t want to know so long as he was back, and he surely didn’t want to speak of it. But now it was evident that he had suffered greatly. The only question that begged to be answered was—would the inner scars he carried be able to heal, or was the Elman Franklin she’d known and loved lost to time forever?
Amaryllis was sitting in a chair in the parlor reading a novel when Elman walked into the room. He’d chosen to don a pair of black trousers and knee boots with a simple white cambric shirt. With his black hair still damp from his bath, he nearly looked like the man she had known years ago, if it wasn’t for the haunted expression that he held behind those blue eyes that was likely mirrored in her own gaze.
She slowly closed her book and set it aside. “Feel better?” she asked, for a lack of anything else to say. It was strange that after such a long time apart, they really had nothing to say to one another. At least, nothing that begged repeating.
“It’s nice to be clean,” he returned. He strode to the chair across from her and sat down almost stiffly, as if he wasn’t used to such comforts. After a few moments, the awkward tension that had been between them during their early days of courtship was in the air, although for different reasons. Back then, their budding romance was new and exciting, whereas now…
“How are your parents?” he asked.
“Very well,” she said, almost too quickly, but just thankful to latch on to a subject that seemed to be neutral ground for them both. “My mother and I correspond quite frequently.” She abruptly glanced down at her hands, remembering the days when she would receive those precious ties to her family, the seals broken and any privacy she might have had ripped apart for fear that post sent from a northern woman in Boston to a southerner might contain sensitive information.
After another pause, he said, “What are you reading?”
She picked up the novel she’d put aside and smiled. “It’s Persuasion by Jane Austen.”
He answered with a grin of his own. “Still one of your favorites, I see.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You remember that?”
His gaze turned intense, burning into her. “I remember everything about you, Amaryllis,” he said softly. “You’re the only thing that kept me sane in those trenches.”
This came as a surprise to her. “Then why did you never write me?”
Elman’s throat worked as he swallowed. “I wrote to you every day.”
She lifted a hand and put it to her lips. “But I…never received any of them.” She frowned. “The soldiers must have—”
But he was already shaking his head. “I never sent them.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “But why? You must have known I was anxious to hear any word—”
He looked down at the floor. “I couldn’t let you read what happened on those battlefields, the massacres that I witnessed as we faced off against one other. Man against man, and in some instances, brother against brother. The deafening sounds of the cannons as they ripped apart limbs and shattered skulls. The discharge of a rifle as it pierced a heart and the blood that covered the ground to the point you didn’t know if the grass was green anymore—”
He broke off and shoved a hand through his hair. When he looked back at her, his eyes were bright blue, almost crazed. Oh, the horrors he had seen. Her heart broke for him. After a time, he blinked and his expression cleared. “You were never far from my thoughts, Amaryllis. If there is one thing that is true from all of this, it was my love for you.”
Amaryllis didn’t miss his use of was—as in past tense. “And now?” she whispered. “Do you still love me, Elman?”
He stared at her for an indeterminate length of time. “I want to,” he finally said. “I pray to God that we can find our way back to each other. I believe that we deserve a second chance to find happiness after so long apart, maybe even start a family—”
At the mention of resuming their conjugal relations, she rubbed her hands down her dress. “I can’t even think of children right now.” She rose, too restless to sit still any longer, the secrets that she harbored overshadowing any hope at a future with Elman. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take a walk before dinner.”
With that, she rushed out of the room.
Amaryllis picked at her food, even though the scents of the meal Ambrosia had prepared tantalized her growling stomach. But any time she brought a spoonful to her lips, the memory of her miscarriage and the premature stillborn birth she’d suffered turned the stew to ash in her mouth.
Of course, she’d tried to prevent such tragedies when she’d chosen that path to survival, but while a part of her had been relieved that she’d lost a constant reminder of a faceless soldier who had passed through Peach Hill, she couldn’t help but think that she might never be able to carry a baby full term. She knew a son or daughter would likely help to salvage her crumbling union with Elman, but she just couldn’t stand the thought of being touched by male hands again. At least, not yet, not until she had come to terms with the awful things she’d done. She might not have survived a gruesome battlefield, but she had broken her marriage vows and that had weighed heavily on her heart for some time.
In the end, as Elman and Ambrosia carried most of the conversation, Amaryllis pushed her plate away and rose to her feet. “I’m rather tired. I think I’ll turn in early.”
“Goodnight, then,” Ambrosia nodded, used to Amaryllis’s various moods, but when she turned to go, she could feel Elman’s gaze burning into her back.
Upstairs, Amaryllis took down her hair and brushed it, then undressed to her chemise. But instead of slipping into bed, she went to the window and pulled back the drapes to stare outside. So many nights she’d stared up at the moon, wondering if Elman was doing the same, and if he was thinking of her as much as she’d thought of him. Tonight, she realized that she had, indeed, been on his mind, even if she hadn’t known it. While it didn’t erase all of the pain of the past, it did lessen it to a degree.
She was about to go to bed when a movement out of the corner of her eye made her heart jump into her throat. Elman was standing in the open doorway into the hall. She must have been so involved in her musings that she hadn’t even heard him enter.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said quietly. “I only meant to check and see how you were, as you left the table rather abruptly.”
Her trembling hand fluttered to her hair. “I’m fine, thank you. No need to worry.”
She hoped he might have taken the hint to leave, but when he merely shut the door and walked toward her, she tensed. He instantly paused. “Something’s wrong, Amaryllis. Won’t you tell me? We can’t…move on if you don’t…talk to me.”
“I…can’t,” she whispered, miserable, grievous tears threatening to fall. “Please, just go, Elman.”
“I’m not here to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I just want to…hold you. It’s been so…long since you were in my arms.”
He sounded so distraught that, no matter what Amaryllis had endured, she couldn’t deny him this small request. She crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his midsection. She put her cheek on his chest over his strong, beating heart and closed her eyes. Knowing that he wasn’t going to demand more of her than what she was capable of giving made it easier to enjoy this moment.
