Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [153]
Charles caught my fingers in his hand and kissed them. “The war has changed you, too, Caroline. Your faith is stronger, your compassion deeper, your love more intense than ever before. It’s as if all the qualities I saw in you and fell in love with have been refined and purified. I know the war has changed me in many ways. Perhaps some of them aren’t so good. I think we’ll both be different people when this is over.”
“I want you back, Charles. Not the soldier; the gentleman. I want the life that we had before the war.”
I wanted the Charles of two years ago, handsome in his formal evening clothes, smoothly dancing me around the ballroom floor, his warm hands holding me, his sleepy voice soothing me. I wanted our life of privilege, the courtly manners, the slow pace, the laughter on a picnic blanket on a warm afternoon. It was gone, that entire way of life was gone, like the green splendor of Hilltop.
“We’re never going to have it back, are we?” I murmured.
“Listen now. This war is almost over. And when it finally does end, even if we’ve lost some things, we’ll still have each other.”
Charles talked of being alive when it was over, of being with me afterwards. He was no longer anticipating his own death, and I was so relieved that I didn’t wait for him to kiss me; I lifted my face to kiss him.
Daddy drove with me to the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad station the next morning to see Charles off. He and his parents were already there, and so was the train, chuffing impatiently as it built up a head of steam.
“We’ll change trains at Petersburg and take the Norfolk line,” I heard Charles say. “But I believe all three of our divisions will be coming back this way very soon to join up with Lee’s army again.”
I listened as they talked of trivial things, reluctant to begin the difficult farewells. When I had a moment, I pulled Charles aside. I had one more thing to say to him that I had forgotten to tell him in private.
“When you get back to camp, when you see Josiah, will you give him a message for me? Tell him . . . tell him he’s going to be a father.”
Charles stared at me as if he hadn’t understood. “Is it your maid? Tessie?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes. They’re married. They have been for several years.” I couldn’t understand why he didn’t share my delight at the news. Josiah had marched and camped and gone hungry with him and Jonathan for the past two years. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s . . . complicated. He and Tessie belong to two separate owners, for one thing. Josiah is never going to be a father in the sense that you mean.”
There was something behind Charles’ words and in his attitude that I didn’t want to examine too closely. Then the train whistle blew and the moment passed. The time to say good-bye had finally come. Charles drew a deep breath, as if steeling himself.
“Don’t say it,” I begged. “Please don’t say good-bye.”
He pulled me into his arms, kissed me softly on the cheek. “All right,” he murmured. “I’ll see you soon.”
Charles marched north again with General Longstreet to rejoin Lee’s army, and the news he sent was all good. General Rodes took the city of Martinsburg. General Ewell took Winchester on the same day. At the end of June they crossed the Potomac into Union territory. One year ago a huge Federal army had threatened Richmond; now Washington and Philadelphia felt threatened by the invading Confederate army. Daddy’s hopes for another Rebel victory soared. Surely the North would sue for peace. It would all be over soon.
The first three days of July were the longest ones in my life as the opposing armies finally clashed in an unknown Pennsylvania town named Gettysburg. The early reports of Confederate victories raised hopes higher still. While I waited in an agony of suspense for news about