Kiernan was still for a minute, then she turned and went after him. He was gone from the stairway, and for a moment, she thought that he had left without even saying good-bye to her.
She heard sounds coming from the office that had been his surgery, and she realized that he was gathering the last of his personal instruments. She crossed the great hall quickly and opened the door to the office.
His greatcoat was already over his shoulders. His back was to her, but she knew that he realized she had entered the room. He had cleaned his instruments, and he was repacking them in a large black leather bag. It was a fine surgeon’s bag, with his initials embossed into it with large bold script.
He picked up the instruments she had come to know yesterday: Bullet forceps, bone forceps, dissection forceps. Gnawing forceps. Bone scraper. Capital saw, chain saw, metacarpal saw, bone file. Different scissors and scalpels and tourniquets.
All went back into the bag.
Kiernan walked to the rear and collected his suture materials, the black silk thread, his curved and straight needles. She brought them to him and watched him pack them into his bag. His hands brushed hers, and he glanced at her.
She stayed before him, silent. He turned away and reached for the last of his anesthetics, the chloroform and ether, then his pain killers, the opium and morphine.
He hesitated, then turned back to his bag and produced the small syringe he had used for injecting morphine. “I’m leaving you this for T.J. I’ll write a prescription for you. Be very careful with the dosage. I’ll leave you this too: powdered sassafras, to lower his body temperature if it starts to rise. Keep his bandages clean, and treat the wounds with simple cerates. Can you manage?”
She nodded. “I’ll manage.”
He closed his case. “Well, then. That’s the last of it.” His hands moved over the leather. “It’s handsome, isn’t it? Daniel bought it for me as a Christmas gift a few years ago. I never imagined that I’d be using the amputation instruments so frequently. And I never imagined that I’d be looking at it and wondering where Daniel might be.”
“Jesse—”
He turned and faced her. “I have to go. I swore when I received permission to come that I would pull out promptly when I was ordered to do so.”
“Jesse, thank you,” she said quickly. How was it that they had been so very close last night, yet now she could barely muster words and sounds? He was leaving again, riding away. And once again, there seemed to be nothing at all that she could do about it. “Thank you for T.J.,” she said quickly, “and for Jacob. For the house.”
“But not for you?” he said softly.
She wanted so very much to run to him. He stood so tall and straight, striking and dark, with his sharp blue eyes, his slouch hat low over his forehead, his greatcoat emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders. He was leaving.
She didn’t know when she would see him again, if ever.
“Come here, Kiernan. Please. I’m leaving—what danger can I be to you?”
She walked across the room to him, and he raised her chin with his thumb and forefinger. His lips touched hers gently, tenderly, poignantly. Then his mouth rose, and he whispered softly above hers, “Take care, Kiernan. Take care.”
She stared at him, willing the tears in her eyes not to fall. He smiled with a bittersweet curve to his lip. “Still can’t wish a Yankee well, eh, Kiernan? Well, that’s all right. I understand.”
He released her, lifted his bag, and started for the door. He did not turn back.
She closed her eyes. She heard the door shut softly, heard his booted footsteps ringing as they crossed the empty hallway.
She came to life. She ran across the room, threw open the door, and raced out to the porch.
Jesse was just mounting Pegasus. The few men who waited to ride escort with him were down by the end of the sloping lawn, standing sentinel in the moonlight.
“Jesse!”
Mounted on Pegasus, he waited. Kiernan ran breathlessly across the lawn.
“Jesse—” She paused before Pegasus. Jesse waited patiently, his eyes still filled with tenderness, with weariness, with sorrow.
“Jesse, take care,” she whispered. “Please, take care of yourself.”
He smiled, his lip curling into the slow grin that she loved so very much.
He touched the brim of his hat. “Thank you, Kiernan. I’ll do that.” He started to urge Pegasus forward. She suddenly rushed forward, touching Jesse’s calf, pressing her face against his knee. “Don’t die, Jesse, please don’t die.”
He reached down and touched her hair, then stroked her cheek. “I won’t die,” he promised her. She looked up at him. “I love you, Kiernan,” he said.
She was silent, afraid to speak. He smiled again, aware that she could not reply. Then he nudged Pegasus forward and cantered across the field to join his men.
“I love you, Jesse!” she cried softly.
But it was too late—he was gone.
She had no right to love a Yankee, she told herself fiercely.
But then she remembered what T.J. had told Patricia earlier, and she realized that it wasn’t a Yankee that she loved.
She loved Jesse.
She loved a man.
And once again, that man was riding away.
4
A Separate
Peace
Twenty
December 1861
Kiernan didn’t think she’d ever seen a drearier time than the winter that followed.
Much of Harpers Ferry and the surrounding countryside had been devastated by both armies. The Union soldiers had destroyed munitions and food supplies, and the Rebs had come back and destroyed everything that could be used by the Union troops.
The exchange seemed never ending.
Things seemed to be the very bleakest in the heart of the town. The continual Union sharpshooter fire from Maryland Heights—returned by Rebs up on Loudoun Heights—had nearly stripped the streets of human habitation. Harpers Ferry had once been a thriving town with a population of six thousand. But so many people had fled the devastation that it was now a ghost town, with only a few hundred dazed but dogged souls remaining.
Thomas and Lacey Donahue came out to Montemarte on Christmas Day. Kiernan had done her very best to make it, if not a joyous occasion for the twins, at the very least a pleasant one. It was a difficult day, for it was the first Christmas they would spend without their father or brother.
She couldn’t help feeling a pull of nostalgia herself, for just last Christmas she had met Jesse at the summer cottage at Cameron Hall, and just last Christmas she had been filled with dreams. Everybody had thought back then that the South would whop the North, and that it would all be over very soon.
No one had realized just how tenacious Abe Lincoln could be, and no one had imagined that John Brown’s prophecy about the land being soaked in blood would prove so true.
Christmas was a quiet day. After church, Jeremiah killed one of their last big chickens, and Janey cooked it up with cranberries and turnip greens and sweet potatoes. Lacey had brought along an apple pie, and the meal was delicious. T.J. was still with them, healing nicely, spending more and more time outdoors. Kiernan often found him looking off into the distance, as if seeking out the war with his eyes. But he wasn’t going back, he had told her. He’d given his word, and if his word didn’t mean anything, what were they fighting for?
When dinner was over, they exchanged gifts—little things that year, all made by hand, socks for T.J. and Thomas, handkerchiefs for Kiernan and Lacey, a chemise cut down from one of Kiernan’s own for Patricia, and a sheath for Jacob for his hunting knife. Then Kiernan and the twins accompanied Thomas and Lacey to their home in town. Kiernan planned to stay over in Harpers Ferry to witness certain documents for them.
But she didn’t go to their house with them right away. She asked Thomas to let her off on High Street for a minute, and he obliged her. She stood in the center of the once-busy thoroughfare and felt th
e cold and the emptiness. Dead leaves rustled on the ground as she looked down the steep incline and at the windows of the homes and shops along the street. Everything was silent.
Depression weighed down upon her, and she realized that she was probably standing on Union soil. Harpers Ferry was one of the counties that was determined to form its own state. A lot of Union soldiers had been around when the vote had been taken, but there were still plenty loyal to the old government hereabouts. There’d be a new constitution soon, and a new state soon enough, she reckoned.
She hugged her arms close to her chest and shivered.
A new order to things had arrived, she admitted to herself at last.
And there was another admission she had to make. She was going to have Jesse’s baby.
Just last year, she hadn’t thought it would be so horrible. Last year, she simply would have married Jesse.
But this year she was Anthony’s widow, and she should still have been wearing black. And Jesse was gone, fighting the war. She might never see him again. Even if he had been standing in front of her right then, she didn’t think that she could tell him she was with child. Even to tell him might be to surrender.
People around here would ostracize her cruelly. People everywhere, for that matter, might feel obliged to do so.
She didn’t really care about people in general, but she did care about Patricia and Jacob.
There was nothing to be done, she thought. She couldn’t leave the twins, although they might prefer to come home with her.
But she would have to tell her father. He would offer her no cruel words. He would never think of throwing her out into the world. And he would, she was certain, love the baby too. But he would be very disappointed in her. His fine old shoulders would sag with the weariness and weight of what she had done.
The cold of the day touched her cheeks, making them numb. She clenched her teeth and welcomed the cold inside her. She needed that numbness. She didn’t have to say anything to the twins yet. When the time came, she would.
Resolute, she walked down the street to the Donahue house.
By February, the newly formed state of West Virginia had written itself a constitution. Kiernan listened while Thomas and T.J. discussed the meaning of it all, but for Kiernan it had no meaning at all. When the Union was in residence, they held the town and the area. When the Confederates were around, it was as southern as pecan pie.
The Union was still destroying the town. A few soldiers had rowed over from Maryland Heights early in the month, and one had been killed by Rebs trying to return. The Union had retaliated, and troops under Major Tynsdale destroyed the section of town where he suspected the Rebs hid. Earlier, Tynsdale had accompanied John Brown’s wife down from Pennsylvania acting as a protector, and he had been with her to see that her husband’s remains were brought home for burial.
Tynsdale now had those who remained in the town whisper. For John Brown had prophesied the destruction of the town, and now, a little more than two years after his death, the destruction had come—implemented by Tynsdale.
At the end of February, General Banks was in possession of the town. Kiernan didn’t breathe very easily with so many soldiers so close, but no one disturbed them, which she was certain was Jesse’s doing.
One day while she was out in the laundry, she found T.J. behind her, ready to take the heavy basket she was carrying. He set it down for her, then leaned in the doorway, watching her. She stared at him and finally demanded, “All right, T.J. What is it?”
It pulled out his corncob pipe and lit it, taking his time. “Mrs. Miller, this ain’t none of my business, and it ain’t my place to say anything, but you’re working too hard.”
“We all have to work, T.J., if we want to keep eating and wearing clothes.”
“But you’re working too hard”—he hesitated a second—“if you want that young ’un you’re carrying to make it healthy and well into this world.”
She felt the color fade from her face. Instinctively, protectively, she clutched her stomach. “Is it so very obvious?” she asked worriedly.
T.J. shook his head. “No, not when you’re wearing your big, er”—T.J. flushed himself—“your petticoats and all. It’s just that I know you, and I see you sick, and I see you very tired. I see you just stare out the window, with eyes as sad and weary and bleak as the winter itself. You helped me, just like that Yankee doc helped me, and I’d like to help you in return.”
“No one can help me, T.J. I’m not sick at all anymore. I feel very well. But thank you.” She was silent, biting her lower lip. “Do you think I have some time left before I have to tell the children?”
T.J. nodded. “Just don’t come out with those big baskets no more, Mrs. Miller. You call me.”
“I will, T.J. Thank you.”
“You know,” he began. “I’m sure the Yank would be more than willing—”
“I don’t want to hear it, T.J.,” Kiernan said stubbornly.
“He’d marry you.”
“I still have the children, T.J. They’d never live among the people who killed their father and brother!”
“I think you’re mistaken, Mrs. Miller. I think they have a better perspective on this war than you think.”
“That may very well be,” Kiernan told him. “Let’s just see how things go, shall we? I need some time.”
But she wasn’t to have much time. The next week she went into town with the children to see what supplies they could purchase. It wasn’t easy, for she received her income from the rifle works in Confederate currency, and when the Yankees were in residence, no one wanted to accept it. Still, she was able to do some shopping. One good thing about the Yanks being around was that the strict blockade that went on all winter had been lifted, and northern goods were in abundance.
But as she was leaving a shop, she was stunned when a flying missile struck her in the chest. Patricia, at her side, screamed, and for a wild moment of panic, Kiernan thought she had been hit by a bullet, for a red stain was spreading out on her breast.
She realized that it was a tomato.
“Yankee lover! Whore!” came a call from a window.
She spun around, but it was too late. The tomato hurler hated Yankees, but he didn’t feel like getting caught by one.
“Kiernan!” Patricia cried in dismay. “Why—”
“Let’s get out of here,” Jacob said very angrily. “Kiernan, get between us. If they throw anything else, they’ll have to hit me first!”
“If he hits me again, I’ll throw it back at him!” Kiernan declared. She was furious, but she was shaking, too, and very close to tears.
“Let’s go!” Jacob insisted.
She allowed him to lead her along. At the Donahues’ house, Lacey tried to clean up Kiernan’s dress and assure herself that Kiernan wasn’t hurt. Thomas watched in silence from the fireplace. A while later, he walked to the doorway to pick up his rifle, and Kiernan realized with alarm that he was about to go after the man who had offended her.
She flew up and over to him. “Thomas, no!”
“Kiernan, that man had no right to dishonor a lady!”
“Thomas, please don’t go after him.” If he were to die because of her—for her honor, or lack of it—she didn’t think that she could bear it. “Thomas, you can’t go after anyone. I—I have been seeing a Yankee, or I was seeing one. Please, Thomas, put down the gun.”
Lacey gasped. “Do you mean Captain Cameron? Kiernan!” she began.
“That’s enough, Lacey!” Thomas said quickly—the children were in the house. His eyes were on Kiernan. “The man still had no right!”
“Please, please, Thomas. Put the gun down. I have to take the children home before the sharpshooters get started. Please promise me that you’ll put the gun down.”
He sighed at long last and set his rifle down. “All right, Kiernan.”
She smiled at him and called to Patricia and Jacob.
They were both silent as she drove the carriage
back to Montemarte. When they arrived, Jeremiah was there to take the carriage from her, and she hurried into the house.
Dusk was just falling. She sat in a rocker in Andrew’s office—or Jesse’s surgery, all scrubbed down now, the cots and bandages gone, no trace of blood remaining. She sat and stared out at the coming darkness.
She felt someone enter the room. Somehow, she knew it was Jacob.
“You’re going to have a baby, right?” he demanded.
She nodded, still rocking, still staring.
“It isn’t my brother’s baby, is it?”
She turned to look at him at last. “Oh, Jacob. I’m so very sorry.”
Jacob stood stiffly by the door. His brown eyes seemed to be touched by so much pain, and so much wisdom. He was too young to have that kind of wisdom.
“What are you going to do?” he asked her.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Are you going to—to leave Patricia and me?”
“No, Jacob, I’d never leave you, I promise you that. Unless, of course …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you wanted me to.”
He was silent again. “No. No, I don’t want you to leave us. I reckon I don’t want to go into town too often, but I don’t want you to leave us.” He sighed, and his shoulders fell as if he carried the weight of the world upon them. “We’ll get by, Kiernan. I know we will.”
“Thank you.”
He hesitated a minute. “You know, you could marry that Yank.” No matter how well Jacob had come to know Jesse, he still seemed to find it necessary to keep his distance.
Kiernan shrugged. “I don’t even know where he is, Jacob. I swore to him once that I’d never marry him.”
“But you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Jacob, I—”
“You are. I saw the way he looked at you when he was here. And I saw the way that you looked at him.” Jacob frowned suddenly. “He never—I mean, he didn’t—he didn’t make you do anything, did he?”
She shook her head, trying not to smile. Jacob could be so very fierce. What a fine man he was going to be one day!