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In the crash of surf, and the rustling leaves. Your echoes all still living there, And in my heart as longing, despair. The slightest thing brings you back to me, The waiting is the hardest part, That God has purpose for this love, must be. |
Miss Lindsay Annabel Wilson
Hotel Excelsior
New Orleans, Louisiana.September 3rd, 1860.
My Darling:
I can scarcely believe that it has been only three days since you stepped into the carriage that bore you away from me. Can one even measure such an unendurable length of time, when every hour apart from you seems in itself to be an age?
How I do miss you, Annabel.
I fear that my heart cannot be so strong as to be parted from you for an eternity of three long weeks. It is only the promise that after that time I will once more have you here with me, that allows me to be brave at all. Only this constant prayer enables me to breathe God’s good air, and to keep myself alive in the promise of when I will hold you again.
In this hope, then, I will use some of that far too ample time to tell you what little news there is of home.
We have had our first refugees. Just a day after you began your journey, Mother’s old friend, Mrs. Jamaica Dalton, and her three lovely daughters, arrived for a stay. It seems that the papers in Beauford and Savannah are all filled up with the talk of plans by the federals to blockade the ports of any State that does not heel to their demands. Mrs. Dalton, fearing for her precious progeny, gathered them into her carriage in the middle of the night without even waiting for their baggage, and hurried them here to The Pines.
Mother has tried to calm her, but she has not been aided by the boys who talk of nothing but riding north to meet the federal soldiers on the banks of the Potomac. Mother says that this would surely be as big a folly as their recent hunting trips to the mountains, as they must certainly return within a fortnight, unwashed, unshaven, with all their liquors gone, and spoiling more for a hot meal than a fight with federal brigands.
I think she is correct in this, but Mrs. Dalton will pay no heed to our assurances.
As for Mrs. Dalton, and her fabulous daughters from Savannah, it is at least nice to have their company and news, now that the long late Summer evenings without you seem all too bleak.
Her youngest in particular, Emily, has grown into quite a striking beauty. So much so, that even though she is just sixteen and not quite ready for society, her presence at the Anderson’s Harvest dance kept the boys from talking about the federals for almost a full half-hour! It was an accomplishment of which even Father took note.
Mother thought at first that I might be just a bit jealous, but when she hinted, I had a merry laugh. I find the burden of being the ‘prettiest girl in the county’ less to my liking than it was some years ago; and, if the glow in the eyes of the exquisite young Emily keeps the boys occupied for a few days, months, or even years, then the Daltons will be welcomed by me for as long as they care to make The Pines their home. Hopefully, at least, for something longer than the weeks it will take the gentlemen to sort out the problems with the North.
Such are the news, my dearest Annabel, but all are pale and meaningless to me in the absence of you. I cannot count the hours until your return, for even minutes we are apart are an almost unendurable pain. I must, therefore, content myself with the memory of your smile, your beautiful brown hair, and your lovely green eyes. They live in my memory as you live in my heart.
I will dream of you, of your soft perfect skin, and your sweet angelic lips.
I love you Annabel. Please, please, do hurry home as soon as ever you may, for my very life might depend on but a single day.
Miss Charlotte Ann Meriwether
The Pines Plantation,
Richmond County, Georgia.
With clenched eyes, and the precious letter pressed gently to his breast, he whispered into the warm musty silence that surrounded him: “Please, God. Please, make someone love me that way.”
The discolored and faded stationary slipped carefully back onto the tabletop, its aged pages flopping heavily at the folds while he meticulously prepared to slip it in its equally antique envelope. Though the love canonized in the letter was just as bright and new as the day it was penned, the paper on which it was conveyed was far too delicate to he handled other than meticulously. Even at his young age, just thirteen, he could feel its irreplaceable value.
“John?”
The boy jumped as if struck, and quickly reached to wipe his eyes before turning around.
“I asked your mother to let you come over and help me to lug some of your great grandmother’s things down from the attic, not to gather all my loose wool for me,” she said to him not unkindly.
“I’m sorry Grams, I…”
As he turned, she spied the documents in front of him. “Ah. I see you’ve found ‘The Letters.’”
He nodded and stepped away from the old table where it stood in a corner by the stairs. “I did, Grams. Are they really real?” He asked in wonder, even as he tried to swallow hard to clear his nose and throat silently.
“They surely are. Have you been crying, John?” She asked.
“No, Ma’am.” He answered too quickly to even seem truthful. “It’s the dust is all.”
With a carefully measured look, she said, “We’ll take a break in a little while. It’s almost time for lunch.”
He did the only thing he could. He turned away and moved a homely old lamp from on top of yet another of his grandmother’s trunks, to unobtrusively wipe the last of the moisture on his cheek, which was pointless because she had already seen.
His grandmother had been shifting things casually behind him for several moments when she began speaking suddenly without preamble.
“I suppose it’s alright for you to read them, but please, be very very careful. They’ve been in our family for a very long time. We know it’s at least since my grandmother found them when she was a little girl. My sister still believes we are somehow related to the woman who wrote them.”
She was still looking at him when he finally turned once more in her direction.
She continued, “I know you are almost fourteen, but you have to promise that you will be very careful with them, and…” She measured him with her eyes before adding, “You also have to promise that you will ask me if you read anything in them that’s … confusing. Do you promise?”
He nodded before speaking. “I can really read them?” He was shocked that his grandmother would be so generous with such precious heirlooms.
“I think that’s why your mother sent you to school, John, so that you could learn how to read.” She smiled. “Of course you may, but John, even though you kids know everything there is to know, because of the damned satellite TV, there are things in the letters that may be new to you. They certainly were to me, or at least, they were new in the way that it came out in the letters. You kids are so much smarter now, and far more worldly than we ever were.” She reached out to wipe a spot of moisture he’d missed. “Just let me know if anything feels confusing.”
“I will, Grams.”
“Good, now help me open this damned trunk. I’m sure I must have looked in this one before, but I can’t for the life of me remember what’s in it.”
“Probably more dresses.” John said, trying to sound fatalistic about the prospect, but failing worse than even he feared he might. “I can’t believe these are just sitting up here. They are the most beautiful things I’ve ever ..." he strained to move the trunk, "… seen.” He grunted again, as he tried to turn the lever on the hasp
"They are,” She answered a little flatly. He did not see the odd way she continued watching his back
"Did you read all the letters, Grams?” He asked.
“Once, John. Once, a long time ago, or most of them I think. I was about three or four years older than you are now, and about half as smart.”
His green eyes glowed in the sunlight that shown through a small high window when he turned briefly to smiled up at her, showing it also on his longish brown hair and pale skin.
She sighed a little as she worked. “I’m afraid I didn’t really understand them till some time later.”
He grunted with effort again, as he seeming paid little attention to what she was saying to his back.
He sighed. “Sorry, Grams. I can’t get this lock, either. I'll try all the keys again, but we may need the pliers on this one too…”
“Just don’t hurt yourself, John. That trunk is bigger than you are.”
He tried to turn the key harder. “I won’t….” Another soft grunt and the old lock, or more likely something inside of it, gave way.
Carefully he pulled one side open, as his grandmother pulled the other.
“There. Two… no, three more dresses.” John said as his grandmother looked over the first where it hung in the now open trunk, and began to lift it out. “And there are shoes and things in the in the drawers.” He said, kneeling close to one side at her feet.
The dress had a plum colored ribbon that ran around the neckline and the bottom part of two puffed sleeves, but other than that it was made up wholly by layers of white lace in the skirt, and a white silk bodice. Several parts of the sleeves and bodice were of a sheer handmade lace, with the skirt of the dress showing… five different layers before it reached the wide bottom. All the layers together formed the impressive bell of the skirt.
“You’ve really never even tried any of them on?” He asked his grandmother, who fortunately overlooked the tone of his thoughts as she examined the garment more fully.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen these.” She finally said, while carefully examining the lace that made up the dress and turning it in front of her. “As I remember now, my mother said that she couldn’t find the key for all of them, I think because when I was little my mother would never have allowed me to touch them. By the time they came to me, after she passed away, I was far too big. People back then, especially the young ladies of fine southern families, were typically very much smaller than young women are nowadays.”
She grinned a little at his expression, and his almost hypnotized eyes, that followed the motion of the dress with his mouth hanging open. “I still thought they were pretty, but I only knew a few girls who were as small like you.” She grinned more broadly at the sudden expression of disapproval that crossed his face as she stepped away.
John might have raised more of an objection to yet another observation about his lack of height, but he loved his grandmother too much, and he really was mesmerized by the dress. Locked away in the trunk for at least fifty years since his great grandmother’s time, it was still extremely well preserved. Even the lace was still white. That had not been the case in one of the trunks, in which they had found a hole, and evidence that something small had lived in there for a time. Grams had been upset at that, but after looking more carefully, she said the dresses that trunk had contained could be restored. They did not appear to be authentic dresses either, thankfully, as the majority of those contained in the better trunks surely were. These last three dated from the middle of the nineteenth century.
John continued to stare at the billowing cloud of femininity that floated and turned before him in mid air, taking on both the form and functions of a real cloud when it passed through the beam from the small window. His expression had as much awe as if it had been suspended there by angel’s wings, rather than his grandmother’s arm.
“Wow. What do you think?” His grandmother asked herself quite impressed by the dress, which she had never seen.
If John had even heard her, his mouth was far too dusty and dry to answer clearly. He did nod a little though, which his grandmother recognized was the answer to her question.
“I think so too.” She said, carefully straightening the skirts as she hung it on the pipe that they had wired to the rafters for the purpose that morning. By the third trunk, this section had been reserved for the better quality dresses. There were two other racks. One held dresses that would need repair and another that had only three or four dresses that were almost certainly much newer reproductions and costumes, but which had been created in the older antebellum styles.
“Oh my.” His grandmother said, as she pulled out the next dress.
This one too was also mostly white, but it had a pale blue bodice of a silky material that had been embellished with fine stitching, and which met in a large satin sash of the same color. The hem of the skirt, of a white quilted fabric, had been covered with many small embroidered flowers of the same color as the yoke and sash.
“I can’t believe how pretty these are. They must be worth a fortune. No wonder my mother never showed these to me. She must have kept them hidden away for years, until she was sure I was too old, or too big to do anything stupid. Isn’t that a hat in there too?”
His grandmother turned to find him still staring open mouthed at the dress.
“John.” She said in a near normal volume, causing him to shiver visibly, as and then to look at her.
“I’m sorry, Grams. What did you ask?”
“Please hand me the hat. What on earth is wrong with you today?”
“Nothing, Grams. I was just looking at the dresses is all. I never saw anything like these.”
“When you get home, you should watch more old movies. Oh, look at this; the ribbon on the hat matches.”
The last gown was a pale green linen, with a faded yellow or white print on the fabric, and with several large cloth flowers at the waist, and like all the dresses in this trunk, it was beautiful, richly made, and nearly perfect. Its only fault in John’s eyes was that it was not either of the first two white dresses.
“Well, I think it’s time we take a break,” she pronounced firmly. “Would you put this one on the rack for me while I’ll unpack the green one?”
She received his nod, noticing that his eyes never left the dress.
John took the white dress with the blue bodice, and carefully lifted it to be sure it was clear of the floor. As he passed toward the rack, he also passed an old freestanding mirror in the corner, which caused him to draw a breath.
It was very beautiful. Looking back he could see that his grandmother was still examining the green dress where it hung in the trunk, so he took the opportunity to shift the dress a bit more in front of him as he gazed into the mirror. It was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen, with all its delicate lace and floral embroidery, but it was also heavy, which caused him to hold his arms a little closer to his body than he otherwise might have with his grandmother standing only a few feet behind him.
“It looks like it’s about your size, if that’s what you are checking.”
He jumped again, as if someone had fired off a gun somewhere between his left and right ears. Instantly his cheeks flush crimson, a color that if he had been thinking at all, he might have realized that it went quite nicely with the dress. For several moments he feared that, his grandmother might say something more, having caught him holding the dress up to himself in the mirror. However, and for reasons that worried him even more, she did not.
His fear grew as her continued silence convinced him that she must be angry. He was sure that she must at any moment say something truly hurtful. In the end, though, what she did was almost worse. In fact, she said nothing at all. She just continued to stare at him as he slowly walked over to a small stepping stool to put the dress on the rack.
“Let’s go.” She said quietly, picking up the box of letters absently, and headed for the stairs to make them lunch.
Downstairs she placed the letters on the dining room table, and walked out to the kitchen without saying anything more to him. He sat there for several minutes to allow the throbbing of his heart in his throat and head to subside, before the attraction of the letters overcame his embarrassment. Carefully, he lifted the second, as if it were the most precious of all the ancient treasures ever found by man...
Miss Lindsay Annabel Wilson
Hotel Excelsior
New Orleans, Louisiana.September 7th, 1860.
My Angel:
Father tells me that my last letter might have been delayed, because of some difficulty they are having with the trains. He told me that if this letter should reach your hand at all, that it might do so at the same time as all my previous letters. He hinted, in his delicate way, his fear that they might never reach you at all. I know he meant it as a kindness, and only to gird me for their failure to reach you should they miscarry, but it was a great cruelty to my heart, Annabel.
I do so pray that this is not so, because I know that I would be heartbroken to go so long without word from you, and can not bear to think of you so lonely as myself.
If even one of my many letters should reach you, I trust that you will realize that I spend our favorite hours of every evening writing to you about so much that is in my heart, and what little that I can remember of my days. However, even if all these letters should go astray, I pray hourly that you remember that you are constantly with me, no less than my very own soul, and that you are no less precious to me. I pray too, that God’s good grace goes with you.
I miss you more than I fear I might be able to bear, Annabel.
I suppose that this is as fine a time as any to confess that I have told you an unintentional untruth. That is something that I could never live with, my angel, so I will confess that I have indeed counted the minutes since last I held you.
Please forgive me, Annabel. How could I not when I knew that every moment of these endless days, and longer nights, echoed with sound of the carriages and trains, horses and oarsman that bore you even further from me. By now, according to Father, you are settled in New Orleans, going no further away, and yet my pain grows. I am sorry, my sweet Annabel, but the strength to deny this longing, as Mother and Father so bravely advise, is simply not within me. I now have only that longing, and my abiding love for you, to sustain me.
Forgive me. Reading back, I can see this letter has become a far too self indulgent an instrument of expressing the love you already know I have for you.
The events that I had written of the last few days are clearer to me now, so I will recount them again, striving for greater clarity than in my previous letters, whether they be lost or no.
Two days ago, Judge Iverson arrived at our gate with another gentleman whom I did not know. Father was away in the fields, so the Judge told Mother and me that he was passing along the way back to Liberty County, and had hoped to have a friendly word with Father, and after perhaps, to take a pleasant hour at supper with our fine family. That was when he introduced the other gentleman as none other than our Junior Senator, The Honorable Robert A. Toombs.
Well!
To have both Georgia’s honorable senators in our home at the same time caused Mother quite a flush, and she set about quickly to see that an appropriate supper was prepared for our guests.
Mrs. Dalton also, was the very picture of panic for several moments before she collected herself to her advantage, and began to gather her brood that they might be presented to the distinguished gentlemen.
Well, rather than dinner together as we ladies had planned, upon my father’s return, the gentlemen spent the whole of the evening and well into the night in his study, calling for food to be laid there, and most unaccountably leaving we ladies to sup at the table alone. At first Mother was quite displeased, but as the evening turned to night, we all began to feel a certain disquiet, especially Mrs. Dalton’s younger daughters.
As you know, when Senator Iverson comes to call, my father usually spends the following days merrily ranting about the fools and follies of our fine democratic senator, and that of all the ‘gentlemen wastrels’ his levies support in such high style in the Federal Senate.
This time, Annabel, this was most unaccountably not the case. Instead, Father was silent and did not speak to anyone for the next two days unless he was first spoken to directly by one of us. Even then, he often did not respond at all quickly. Neither Mother nor I were able to engage him, save for greetings when he said good night or good morning.
His mood has set a pall amongst the ladies of the house. I do not know what news he has heard, but I must confess that I too am affected by his sullen and unusual humor. I am fearful for what awful thing might have affected him so.
Two days ago, the Dalton’s baggage finally arrived along with two hired men from Savannah. The river was crowded, and her things had to travel the entire way by road. Of course, I did not speak to the men directly, but I was near enough when our boys were helping them unload the freight.
It seems as if I might have misjudged Mrs. Jamaica Dalton. Not only is there news that the Savannah Christmas Cotillion might be cancelled this year, the first time that either Mrs. Dalton or Mother can remember such a thing, but there is also news that several other notable families have moved further from the port to stay with friends or relatives inland. In Charleston, it is said to be even more disquieting.
There is rumor, which Daddy said I should not spread further but which I must now fearfully tell you, that not only has the damnable Yankee government threatened to blockade our port, but that they have also threatened to bombard the town if there is offered any resistance.
Mother said that this was poppycock of the meanest kind, and wanted to know what exactly the people of Savannah or Charleston were guilty of resisting; but, Father merely shook his head and told us that it was a worry for the gentlemen and not a burden for we ladies to concern ourselves with.
Sweet, Annabel. Too well know I that the port of New Orleans is far from the shores of Virginia or the Carolinas. I know it better than any soul alive, and that is where the boys are saying that they will settle any federal blockade if it should come, but I am fearful for you. You must promise me, that if there is any trouble, that you will come directly home to Richmond County. I could not bear to be parted from you in such times, and would not willingly spend any day without you fearing that you may fall to danger.
I do still count the minutes of every hour without you, but each night I rest in the comfort of your remembered embrace, just as you should do in mine. Please, Annabel, do keep yourself safe, and write to me on the very instant you read of this, my eternal love for you.
Miss Charlotte Ann Meriwether
The Pines Plantation,
Richmond County, Georgia.
John could feel his heart racing. Even though some hundred and fifty years had passed, he could still feel all the woman’s fears, and the yearning of a love that hung in the very air, just as strongly as it had so many long years before. Pausing with his eyes closed, He could still hear pans in his grandmother’s kitchen, so he decided he had time to read another, even as he realized more viscerally that he was powerless not to. A small part of him wanted to save and savor each letter, but it was a fully submerged desire long before the third letter had slipped its envelope in his eager hands.
Miss Lindsay Annabel Wilson
Maison Dupuis Hotel
New Orleans, Louisiana.September 15th, 1860.
Annabel:
I have your first letter! I was so excited that mother tried to prevent me from reading it for fear I might swoon upon the very spot where I stood. Not all the angels in heaven’s host could have prevented me!
Oh, I do love you too, Darling, and your letter smelled so pretty that it fill my head every bit as much as it filled my heart.
The shops of Vieux Carre sound simply divine. I cannot wait to see you in the white dress with the azure sash and flowers. You know, you could never be more beautiful in my eyes, my darling Annabel, but I am sure that in it you are a sight to make the angels weep for joy and envy.
I would have given anything to be able to accompany you shopping through the streets of The Quarter, but just as surely, I could not be away from Mother at this time. She needs me now, almost as much as I need you. A daughter’s duty.
Your letter, is the promise that you have, perhaps, by now received a few of mine, and you are thus well reminded of my deepest love for you. Oh pray the gods that this be so, for so great a love I have for you, Sweet Annabel, that all the invidious days of men would have been pale wasted without my pinnacle of virtue and unearthly beauty who is my only love. Who is, my only you.
It is hot in Richmond County too.
There have been strangely little news, but more than a little excitement here. Mrs. Dalton, more at home now, has begun lamenting the times that leave her with three eligible daughters in a season when balls and cotillions are somewhat more in doubt than usual. Mother (As you know she can sometimes be.), thoughtlessly suggested that she herself should spare no moment to sleep, with three fully grown daughters needing husbands, and further offered that she would be happy to arrange for more than the usual invitations to The Harvest Ball in October.
Poor Mrs. Dalton took it amiss, and suggested that Mother should see to her own daughter, one Miss Charlotte Anne, with all her powers of persuasion as soon as ever she may, as her own daughter is now nearly Twenty-four years of age, five full years senior to Mrs. Dalton’s eldest, and of course, well past any decent age of betrothal.
Father was not pleased.
Mother peevishly informed the soon confused Mrs. Dalton, whose own nervous afflictions are little better than they have been I fear, that her daughter was ‘special’, and had no need of a husband until she had set her heart to one.
Father was very displeased. He suggested that such conversation might be kept for better times before leaving the room to attend some suddenly remembered and urgent business.
He has been silent again.
Naturally, the favorite subject having been duly raised, I was then beset by all of Mrs. Dalton’s progeny, but most directly by sweet little Emily, who naively questioned “what little ’ole secret” would prevent me from wanting a husband of my own. The Sweet child said that she thought I must be the prettiest girl in the county, with a constant stream of eligible gentlemen callers, but she could not understand what prevented me from choosing a wealthy one for my very own. Were they not rich enough here in Richmond County?
Poor Mother, on hearing this, had to go to bed early, with a sudden nervous affliction of her own that was the equal of any on Mrs. Dalton’s worst day.
Emily is the sweetest child, Annabel, and adorable to behold, but how could I ever explain all a woman’s little secrets to one so young. As if I would put my mother’s and father’s hearts and reputations in so grave a jeopardy!
How clearly a rumor rings with all the din of a battlefield, while whispers scream loudest of all.
I simply told her that I did, of course, have my heart set to marry some day, but that for now I was simply indifferent to all men and all of their worldly pursuits. I promised her, that one day she would understand. Had we but had that wretched photographer around from last summer, he must surely have wished to capture the look it left on poor Emily’s face, dear child.
It reminded me of one very important thing, though. I do not know how I might have survived these years had I not found you, Annabel. Remember that you sleep with guardian angels of heaven about you, held there by my constant prayers, and by my unending love.
Miss Charlotte Ann Meriwether
The Pines Plantation,
Richmond County, Georgia.
“John!” She called from, but did not come through the door. “Come along, and we’ll eat in the kitchen.”
It took several moments for him to catch his breath, which he’d been holding, and to call back. “Coming.” He called it far too softly at first, so he had to repeat it again, more loudly.
Before he did, he gently folded the letter away. In his own mind, he was still accompanied by a clatter and chatter coming from the merchants and travelers who in earlier days completely filled the port cities, like The French Quarter of New Orleans.
His grandmother had watched him casually through most of their meal. It was delicious as always, but eaten with as little attention as he paid to his grandmothers occasional subtle comments, or her gentle questions.
Her soft and polite attempts at conversation ended soon enough, and long before the meal was finished.
No sooner had she thought him finished, than she reached for his arm. “What on earth is wrong with you today? Is something bothering you?” She asked.
“Nothing Grandma. I’m just a little tired, I guess.”
“John, do you want to talk to me? Your father told me that he felt something might be bothering you too, but that you hadn’t been able to speak to him about it yet.”
John didn’t lift his eyes as he stopped picking, and pushed his plate slightly away.
She changed the subject.
“Did you read any more of the letters?”
He nodded his head.
“Did they upset you?”
“No, Grams. They’re beautiful. I’m just feeling…” He paused long enough for her to lean forward in anticipation. “… A little tired.”
She sighed.
“I can see that. Well, why don’t you go lie down on the couch while I clean up in here, and I’ll call you when I’m ready to go back upstairs.
He nodded, and rose from the table, even while his eyes did not. He did feel very tired suddenly, and although he hadn’t taken a nap in years, the thought of doing so now only seemed appealing.
He could see the stack of unread letters where they lay on the dining room table, already sadly smaller for the few he’d already read, but he was so very tired that he just headed toward the couch as his grandmother suggested.
A cool breeze came in the windows, and was relaxing and refreshing, but the sun was still strong enough to keep him warm. Stretching out on the couch, the late summer sounds drifted in from the outside in a steady soft refrain of birds, and people. He sleepily listened to all the soft and unrelated noises, each seemingly keeping time… to the rhythm of the hoofs of the old dray horse as it pulled the supply wagon on its way from the river… to the kitchens…
Charlotte was grateful that her mother had finally fallen asleep, but she herself had not rested at all well since word had come of increasing troubles to the north; though, thankfully they were all comprised as yet of hostile words. Newspapers from all states, only a few of which she had spied in her father’s study, recounted speeches by the Republican Candidate, one Abraham Lincoln, who was running on an antislavery platform. All were skillfully rebutted by the democratic candidates, Calhoun and Breckenridge, but it was soon quite clear to Charlotte that the messages carried by the honorable senators from Georgia to her father’s study were, that a Mr. A. Lincoln would likely win without regard for whom the southern states voted, and that the movement for secession was ever stronger.
Her father tried not to believe it, and her mother seemed not to know, beyond the belief that people should tend to their own troubles, and not be so unchristian as to meddle in the affairs of others.
Her mother was a kindly soul, and not much suited to the greater worldly troubles they were all being forced to endure. It added tenably to the strange goings on of her father, and to all the seemingly related waves of shortages and troubles filtering in from all directions.
Charlotte, though, had an extra burden. For all the gravity of the news she was privy to, it was more taxing on her than all others; and so, took herself to the north porch where her girl had lain out her secretary. She paused only long enough to collect her scattered sense of calm before she bent again to the only task that seemed to give her solace in these turbulent times. It made her smile to think that composing her innermost thoughts in this way also helped her to put the events of these unsettled days in their proper order; and, to remember as dire as the sometimes news seemed to be, it was likely to remain from places much further away than her Annabel was to her heart.
This time, however, she was interrupted before she was at all well begun.
“Miss Charlotte?” A soft call came from somewhere inside. “Miss Charlotte? Are you there?” It came a little more loudly with each word, deftly proving that a direct audience would hardly be avoidable.
“I’m here, Emily.” Charlotte called, as with no more warning, Emily stalked through the doors to seat herself abruptly in a most unladylike manner in one of mother’s porch chairs, her pout having grown longer than her shining blond hair.
“Good afternoon, Emily.” Charlotte greeted her cheerfully, if quietly, as she dated the sheet before her. “I thought you were with your mother picking out dresses for the dance?”
This only caused the pout to grow visibly longer
“I see,” Charlotte finished softly.
“May I sit with you a little while, Miss Charlotte?” The girl asked her lovely soft voice completely at odds with her expression.
“Of course, Emily. I do enjoy your company, you know.” Charlotte could not help but grin ever so slightly, the insensitivity whereof, lead her to turn away to organize her writing things yet again.
For many moments, the only sounds that crossed the porch were those from the clustered boats on the distant Savannah River, filtering through the sounds that the birds and insects make in their mirroring industry. It was shortly followed then, by the scrape of the pen as Charlotte addressed the sheet before her.
“Are you writing to Miss Wilson again?” Emily asked, her youthful curiosity not quite enabling her to lean forward to see for herself. “You write to her each and every day.” She finished, clearly wishing immediately that she had not taken that liberty, but Charlotte’s answering smile told her the error was but a small one.
“Yes, Emily. I miss her very much.” She said, before she continued to scratch at the paper, knowing that it might only be bundled into the stack at her bedside, but never the less finding comfort in the scratch of the pen on paper, and her need to express to the one someone who might understand all that she had on her heart.
“Mamma said that you had a letter from Miss Wilson. I’m so glad for you, Miss Charlotte.” Emily said, uncommitted, eyeing the sheet in front of Charlotte with an expression that spoke far more eloquently to all the questions she had not asked.
Charlotte smile to herself, before she turned to look on the child’s face. It was indeed fortunate that she was long ago used to those little looks of confusion - from time to time. She had learned to ignore most of them years before, trusting in courtesy to insulate her from the harshest of the questions that surely still ran in a few people’s minds and distant memories.
It was only God’s grace, and the memory of her father’s angry response to one uncouth man on a grey dawn two winters before, that kept all of the very few who remembered more clearly, and who might have thought to question more strongly, fully in check. Most fortunately, they were very few in number now, and all of them less than sure, with the passage of so much time, and in the face of the great beauty Charlotte had become. However, honor had been upheld, and because the exact nature of the offence remained unknown, it was infertile ground for fresh speculation. Still, it had been a terrifying time for Charlotte, and one that she did all in her power to avoid a repeat of in any future incidents by behaving in perfect piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity to all outside her closest friends and relations. That simply left no room for questions.
Still, Charlotte somehow found the will to smile warmly back at Emily, proving yet again just exactly why she was so widely thought to be amongst the loveliest young ladies along all the river’s environs. Even at her young age, Emily could appreciate Charlotte’s beautiful clear eyes, and perfect unblemished skin, which was so noticeably soft when the older woman took her hand or touched her face.
“I surely did. Miss Annabel has been my dearest friend for ever as long as I can remember, and having her away is like missing part of myself.” She beamed fully on the innocent girl as she reached back for Annabel’s envelope, before turning herself more fully to the girl. “Here, Emily. Smell.”
The girl was too shy to take her wrist as she leaned forward to hold her nose to the linen envelope hovering there before her face, but she never the less lingered far longer than she had intended, enthralled by the lovely scent.
“Lovely isn’t it?” Charlotte asked, now smiling that the forgotten pout had been completely wiped from the girl’s visage.
“Oh, my!” The girl grinned back, and spoke breathlessly. “That’s the most lovely thing I’ve ever smelled. It’s a little like some of the things the shops carry for a few days after the merchant ships come into port back home, but I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything quite so lovely.”
Charlotte briefly pressed the envelope to her own nose, with lidded eyes and a far more distant smile.
“It is. It’s a scent Annabel found down in a shop in New Orleans, although, she didn’t tell me if it was fresh off a ship. She said that she was going to make a present of it for me, but I told her it was far too lovely. I much prefer to think of her wearing it.”
“Is Miss Annabel very pretty?” Emily asked with an open honesty that had not quite faded, just as her youth had not fully given way to adulthood.
“She is.” Charlotte sighed. “She has green eyes, and the most beautiful chestnut hair. It even shines in the moonlight. I think that she may be even quite as pretty as you.” Charlotte smiled as she toyed with the letter, but did not turn back to the secretary for watching the slight rose hue that blossomed above the younger girl’s cheekbones.
“Thank you, Ma’am.” The girl said, looking down at the planks that made up the base of the porch, before the pout returned.
“Ah!” Charlotte actually laughed out loud this time, but in a very good-natured way. “I see that we’ve reached the point that you wanted to bring up.”
Emily blushed even more. “I am very sorry, Miss Charlotte, but I’m beginning to fear for my poor mother’s state of mind. She insists I wear that old dress, and said that there is not time for the seamstress to finish the new one before the dance. I mean, how could she? My sisters think it’s just the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, and are teasing me cruelly for having to wear their old hand-me-downs.”
Charlotte was surprised the girl got it all out before the tears welled in her eyes.
“Oh dear. Are you talking about the emerald dress that you showed me before?”
Emily nodded, clearly afraid to speak on the matter further, for fear of seeming peevish.
“Oh, Emily. I think that’s about the prettiest dress I ever did see. I wish I had even one dress that was half so pretty. No one will be at the dance from Savannah, except for your family, and I’m sure your sisters would never say anything mean or cruel at the ball. …Especially, when they see how beautiful it is on you.” She finished more softly.
Charlotte was glad that Emily was looking at her and nodding that she agreed that their sisterly cruelty didn’t extend quite so far.
Charlotte continued, more hopefully. “You’ve just had a trying week or two, Emily, with the rush here, and so many of your pretty things yet to arrive. It is such a pretty dress; I would be heartbroken not to see you in it at the ball.”
Emily smiled again. She clearly wanted to ask if Charlotte really meant it, but such a question would be very rude to her host. Instead, she tried to compliment Charlotte in kind. “You have more pretty dresses than anyone I’ve ever heard tell of, Miss Charlotte.”
Charlotte laughed again, thankfully, to Emily’s own close harmony, before she turned more serious.
“Well, I’ve been collecting them a bit longer than you have. Besides, it was Mrs. Wilson, Annabel’s mother, who used to enjoy making such lovely dresses for us both. The woman was just a wonder with a needle and lace.”
Emily nodded her complete agreement.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m sure that my closets and trunks still have a few dresses that are too small for me. If you like, we can look for some of them later, provided your mother doesn’t find you anything you like better, but I still think you should wear the emerald dress. It is so lovely.”
Emily was on her feet to embrace Charlotte’s neck “May we? Really!” The girl squealed into the older woman’s ear almost painfully.
“Of course, as soon as I finish this letter to Annabel, and I’ve found where that girl of mine is off to.”
“I don’t think that I can ever wait that long.” The girl said excitedly, struggling to contain herself. “Must you finish the letter first?”
“Yes. Some of the waiting gets easier as you grow older, child. Now be as patient as you can. I need to tell Annabel some things just now. I’m sure you’ll understand that too, when you’ve grown older.”
“That’s just what Mamma always says.” Emily groaned disappointedly, but never the less sat herself as quietly as she could nearby to wait, her lovely fawn eyes never leaving Charlotte from that very moment.
“Miss Charlotte?”
The scratching of the pen hardly paused.
“Why are there no pictures of you as a little girl? There are three of your brother, but none of you. Did he… go away?”
The pen did pause as Charlotte closed her eyes briefly, but she did not turn. Nor did she answer the second question.
“Photographers were rarer then, Emily. Not like these later days, when they rove the country on every freight wagon on the highways, stopping to take pictures for posterity, for the papers, or for the money they can extort…” Charlotte sighed.
Emily paused long enough, that Charlotte thought she might have given up.
“But there are three of your brother, Miss Charlotte? Didn’t your mammy and pappy want pictures of you?”
Charlotte turned, laying the pen aside. “Yes, there are, Emily.” She confided, as an adult does with a child, or with one who is nearly a child, who has strayed into subjects best left for adults to consider in private. “It’s because he is gone now. Mother keeps the few pictures that she has. He has been gone a very long time, but still it is hard on Mother sometimes, and harder still on Father, so you shouldn’t ask anyone else about him.”
She tried to smile, but she was sure that she had not done a very credible job of that, or of keeping the flood of emotions out of her voice either.
“I didn’t mean to offend, Miss Charlotte. I am so sorry. Please accept my apology. Your mother told me that he had passed into God’s care while she was abroad with your pappy, bringing you back from finishing school. I hope I’ve not upset you — or anyone, Miss Charlotte.”
“You haven’t, Emily. I know you are just curious, but you must promise to keep questions about Jonathan to yourself: and if you must, to ask only me when we are alone together, as a kindness to my mother and father.”
The smile she managed then, was more in response to the expression on Emily’s face, than any volition on her part to do so.
Emily just nodded
Charlotte turned back to the half finished letter, but it was several minutes before she was able to collect her thoughts again, and the scratching of the pen once more joined the evening chorus that praised the warmth of Indian Summer.
Children are ever underestimated by their elders.
Emily had watched Miss Charlotte from her window that morning as she had spoken to the young man who had yet again come calling. At first, she had been sure that he must be the one that Miss Charlotte was said to have denied so many times. It was not she, but her sisters who had questioned their mother on this disdain of suitors, and in no way as vigorously as her mother had questioned Charlotte’s own. Emily was still not quite sure, but believed that her own mother clearly knew nothing of the mystery.
Even then, as she’d watched the pair under the trees and through the curtain, instead of kissing the handsome young man, like Emily had fully expected, Charlotte had thrown her arm about his shoulder to shake him in a gesture she’d never before seen any lady make to any man who was not her grandfather or great grandfather.
It had confused her even more as she’d watched Miss Charlotte then swat his shoulder quite firmly, before rubbing it again with no mean affection. Yet, curious as she might be, Emily’s lovely dark eyes remained constant, as they watched the interplay of the painful frowns and joyous smiles on Charlotte’s face as they played to the scratch of her pen that carried so clearly to her through the cooling evening air…
Miss Lindsay Annabel Wilson
Maison Dupuis Hotel
New Orleans, Louisiana.September 17th, 1860.
My Darling:
Father said that he has word from your pappy that he is close to concluding his business in the Port of New Orleans. He said that you may already be on your way home. That is the only prayer left in me. I pray with all my might, and I pray it each day and every night.
Jeremiah came to see me. I confess that his visit, although made with only the very best of intentions, has worried me more than all the fretting and rumors I have yet heard. He is leaving his father’s farm in the hands of its manager, and will sojourn to Richmond to be with his aunt until the current troubles are past us once and for all.
He offered to marry me. Again. Stating that he was my oldest friend, he promised that he could not love me more, as I am already first in his heart; but, under closer examination confessed that the day that I pulled him from the river when he slipped on the rocks still preys on his mind.
I’m afraid I was too rough, when I forced him to be so honest with me, the poor boy.
He said that all indications were that Mr. A. Lincoln will be the next president of these United States, even though everyone we’ve ever known will rightly vote for Vice President Breckinridge, and that should this come to pass, he did not share my father’s hope that any trouble would be both minor and isolated.
He told me further, that he felt obligated to me, for our many years of friendship and for the many ways that my family had helped his over those years, to see to it that I would be left as a respectable widow to an old and trusted family friend, rather than to be burdened by constant suitors who can have no idea of the things we shared when we used to wander the county together, just he and I. Or indeed, of the person I was when we were the closest of companions.
Annabel, I was so sick with worry for him, that I hardly dared to breathe. He knows how fond I am of him, and how much I love you. He even promised that there would always be a place in his home for you to be there with me. Then, He offered me all that he has in this world to give, along with his name.
On seeing my face, He tried vainly to turn it to a jest, when he said that what he really wanted was to inherit The Pines through me, and to combine it with his father’s small plot and thereby form the largest plantation in all of Georgia. As if such silliness might ever pass as truth between us. He has never cared for such things, Annabel, and well he knows I know this. Had his father not passed so early in his life, I am sure Jeremiah would have been the most remarkable doctor, had he not been forced to return home to manage his family’s affairs.
As surely, he knew I saw through him, just as I always have done. The poor sweet dear does not think he will survive the trouble if it comes.
He then insisted that he go to my father, to ask for my hand from him if I would not take to reason, and it took all that my mother and I both could do to stop him! Daddy would have been grateful for his sacrifice on my behalf, but he would never have permitted such a union. He has said many times that such a thing would be immoral, unnatural, and unthinkable. He long ago forbade Mother to discuss it ever again in his presence, and I shudder to think what might have occurred had we not intercepted Jeremiah’s noble intentions.
Mother too is sick with worry for him, even as she is fearful of Father’s reaction, even as I am heartbroken for dear sweet Jeremiah. Perhaps, even half as much as I pine for my want of you.
When he left, I wept for fear. It was hours before I dare show my face to our guests.
I feel very tired this evening, but I have one more important duty to perform for our youngest guest, before I will take myself off to my bed. Please dear Annabel, come home as soon as you can.
Father said that if you could come soon, you may yet be able to take the train to Atlanta, then Augusta, provided they are not diverted.
I know that we are never to be blessed by a public union. It saddens me, for I want nothing more from this life than to spend all my happiness with you, but I can and will endure any hardship as long as you are here with me.
Pray God that you are speeding even now back to safety. Though the port cities may be at some risk from the Yankee navies, all the men agree that they could never reach half so far as our home here in Georgia. Even so, I fear that even the damned federals would find all too little of its value remains, without you in it.
Miss Charlotte Ann Meriwether
The Pines Plantation,
Richmond County, Georgia.
“There you are!”
He jumped rather badly, almost dropping the letter in his fear that he might tear it in his start.
“I thought you were still sleeping, and I was just going to check on you, but let you sleep for another hour before we got started again.” His grandmother slipped into the seat next to his at the table.
“Reading more of the letters?”
He nodded slipping the letter onto the table, feeling somehow guilty, even though she’d given him express permission to read them. He couldn’t help but think that there was something behind her eyes as she watched him.
“You are reading these very quickly, John. They must fascinate you quite a bit.”
She did not seem disposed to move, or to look away, which John dearly wished she would. He had never felt this naked for a mere lack of clothing.
“I… I like them.”
Her expression seemed to remain unchanged mostly, save for the fact that her eyebrows definitely rose noticeably.
“Really? What is it you like about them John?”
He felt his face flush slightly, being pressed to explain something to her, that was simply too strong for any of the words that he might command. None that he knew were even half so powerful.
“I…” He began only to struggle at first for even a very few words that he might link together to get him started. “I think that she loved Annabel so very much.”
“I see you’ve realized that Miss Charlotte was in love with this other woman.”
He reacted to her words, before he could remind himself to stay still. That was the real struggle he’d found. Ever since he’d realized he was different, it had been hard trying never to say the wrong thing. Things that ‘boys just don’t say,’ as his mother and father had so many times corrected him. Still, as he became more aware of the differences between boys and girls, and of the many things that pass between adults unnoticed by much younger children, it had become even harder not to draw attention to those differences. As in now, when he’d almost jumped out of his seat with his mouth already open before his instincts clamped down, fiercely telling him not to react.
He knew all of this with a sick certainty, as soon as he saw her face.
“What, John?” She watched only a moment longer. “I thought you were going to tell me if the letters upset you. I’m sure you know what a lesbian is. If you had questions--”
He did it again. He’d thought she said she’d read the letters, but when she said that, he’d almost blurted out the contradiction. She’d read them long ago, after all, and she had clearly never realized what the story in them might mean.
“What is it, John?”
He felt himself cracking under her scrutiny, and he began tentatively. Haltingly. “It’s not… that, Grams. Not at all. I just think the letters are awesome. I can’t believe how… real they are.”
“Real?” She questioned abruptly, then paused for several moments before she spoke again. Clearly, she was worried about him. It was all out in the open now. Her tone held more of an effort to understand than anger. “Well, perhaps I was wrong, and they are a little too real for someone your age. Perhaps you should leave them until you are older.”
“No, Grams! Please! I love these letters, and they are not upsetting me at all! I was just hoping to find one from Annabel. Charlotte loves Annabel so much! I know she loved her back. I know she did. They found a way to be together. They had to. You read them. Did Annabel come back? Did something happen in the war? Did Annabel come back to Miss Charlotte? Please Grandmother, I just…”
My god! His grandmother inhaled. He looked like he’d burst into tears at any moment.
“ I need to find out if…”
“John!” Even her shock didn’t slow him down.
“… She got back safely. I know she loved her back. Please, Grams, did she make it back?”
She had to reach for him to get his attention. “Yes, John. She made it back.”
He stopped then, just looking at her, before she continued.
“Mother told me she made it back. I admit that I skipped some of the letters when I looked at them, but yes. I’m sure she made it back.”
She was still looking at him from a much shorter distance now, from where she held his shoulders.
“What is it about these letters that affects you so, John?”
“I don’t know, Grams.” His eyes lost focus as his inner struggle to understand had overcome all his conscious thoughts. He spoke slowly at first, but the pace of his speech increased quickly to the point that he was stumbling over the words just to get them out. “It’s just that Charlotte loves Annabel so much. It’s like in the movies, but it’s really real. These were real people, just like me, and if only Annabel loved her back, then it’s possible that someone might be able to love m--”
He stopped. Not because he could censor himself no longer, but rather because he simply couldn’t go on.
No wonder his mother was worried, his grandmother thought. She sighed, as she pulled him out of the chair, taking the letter from his lap, and gentling him toward the couch. “I want you to lie down, John. No more letters for now. They are very beautifully written, and yes that girl clearly loved the other one very much, but that’s not as important as your getting all agitated over them right now. You spend the next hour lying quietly, and we’ll decide then if you are up to helping any more today.”
The sun had moved far enough overhead that it no longer shone directly in the windows. He lay down on the cool cushions, and closed his eyes immediately as his grandmother covered him with a throw. He was so tired, and his head was swimming. He had to leave his head on the pillow, because he wasn’t sure if he could lift it… Why was this affecting him so…?
Fortunately, at her age Charlotte was mostly immune to the foolishness of the men folk, even when they showed an inexcusable tendency to cluster together in the corners of the room, and ignoring the ladies who’d gone to so much trouble expressly for their benefit. Then again, to give them credit, those were the polite ones. Far too many more of them had disappeared toward the stables, and to further outlying areas in the company of their fellows, leaving far too many ladies standing without partners.
It was unthinkable, and caused her an involuntary frown, and an almost silent hiss of disapproval.
Fortunately, she mused, the inexperienced Emily was seemingly unaware of any of this, as she rapidly approached Charlotte, fresh from the sparse dancing with an excited smile nurtured by her youthful enthusiasm.
“Miss Charlotte. Isn’t it all lovely?” She bubbled, swinging the skirts of a certain lovely yellow dress. It was too bright perhaps, given the season, but it was still undoubtedly the loveliest dress there, and it was cheerful. It had always been so on Annabel.
“It is.” Charlotte forced herself to smile.
The dress had been the seeming high point in young Emily’s life, at least until Charlotte had informed her that she had decided that the single carriage provided by her father was not large enough for Mrs. Dalton and her kin, and that Miss Emily was invited to travel with her, in ‘Miss Charlotte’s’ own carriage.
At first her mother and Mrs. Dalton both had argued that Emily was far too young to arrive as would the other young ladies who had been introduced to society; however, to Charlotte’s surprise, and in an unlooked for alliance, it had been her father who suggested that it might be best that the girl be allowed to go, even before her own debutante cotillion. His words were spare, but his expression seemed to declare most eloquently that time might have run out before she had many other chances. Even her mother agreed then, with barely a sigh.
Still, Charlotte was mostly worried for Annabel, who was heard to have reached Atlanta in a wire that her father had grinningly rushed back from town to have shown her almost immediately. However, even that worry was hard to maintain, as Emily had taken her hands excitedly to spin about her gleefully. It must have looked like they were dancing right there in the outer hall, Charlotte being helpless not to return the girl’s infectious grin. She had to hug her briefly to calm her before Emily excitedly turned again into the sparse crowd she thought so ‘grand.’
Charlotte’s worries over dances were somewhat more distant now than they had been at her mother’s first steadfast insistence that she attend all the social dances. At the time it seemed so odd that she would be required to satisfy all such social obligations, while at the same time, being certain that their ultimate intent would miscarry. Now, that attendance had become mostly habit, and through familiarity, had become a thing to be enjoyed. It was indeed unfortunate that it was now largely overshadowed by the way all the men hushed their conversations whenever any attractive young lady came into range of any of them.
Worse, now she must worry about the cluster of older women who’d begun huddling in an opposite corner, surrounding her mother and Mrs. Dalton. It was fitting that they would be another center of attention, but no exchange of rumor could be helpful, given their delicate and excitable conditions.
Charlotte sighed, yet again, just as she had been doing far too often these days. “Every minute brings you closer, my darling Annabel,” she whispered to the girl so far away, but only when she had found herself in a place where she was sure that none other could hear. Perhaps with a little luck the ball would end by midnight, she thought, as she picked up her skirts, and began to smile her way toward the older ladies with the intent to further shield her mother’s delicate humor…
She did not make it quite so far, even on this her third try.
The man, Richard she remembered, was in uniform. “Miss Charlotte. If your card isn’t too full, perhaps you would do me the very great pleasure...?”
She smiled politely, trying hard to hide her disappointment even as she offered up her hand.
John woke from the dream with a start, absently rubbing the back of his hand, as if expecting to find it wetter than the other. It was very quiet as he sat up and listened for his grandmother. She must be upstairs.
He thought for several moments that she might have taken the letterbox away, before he spied it on the mantel. He looked again, and wiped at the back of his hand, before moving to the letters.
Miss Lindsay Annabel Wilson
The Noble House
Atlanta, Georgia.September 25th, 1860.
My Darling:
Father and Mother both say that I must not waste time to send you more letters, because you are expected to be on your way as soon as transportation can be arranged.
I wish that thought had occurred to me yesterday, and I had not sent your letter off so late in the evening. I would not have dared to do so if I should have waited until this morning.
Poor, Dear Jeremiah. I lay for many hours last night thinking of him. His vain but gallant gesture in telling the men at the party he’d asked for my hand was sweet, but it did make me fear for him still, and it made me miss you even more, though I’d not have believed such a thing possible.
I’ve spent much of today thinking of that first spring morning when you and your mother bundled me into that beautiful yellow dress she was finishing for the widow’s daughter, and we saw the person I was becoming for the very first time. I will never forget that day, my red hair under her pretty beribboned hat. My blue eyes set against that yellow gown in your mirror. I have always thought it was so odd that it was your own saintly mother who was the first to understand about me, rest her blessed soul. How on earth she ever became so wise, I’ll never know, but I am so grateful that she passed her special gifts of love and understanding along to you. She was even wise enough to keep that dress.
Still, it is also true that neither will I forget my earlier days wandering the county, Jeremiah and I, but they are as nothing compared to the evening when I first kissed you. More than all of those happy earlier days, I see your smile, and feel your love is so much more a part of me. It was those thoughts of you that finally let me drift off into dreams.
I have decided, that I will hurry this letter to the train, to be off no later than this evening, and I will keep all my other letters here, where I will give them to you all wrapped in a pretty green ribbon, so much like the green of your beautiful eyes.
I Love you.
Miss Charlotte Ann Meriwether
The Pines Plantation,
Richmond County, Georgia.
“Are you feeling better?” Grams asked, hovering over him, as he awoke with the letter in his lap.
It took him several moments to recognize her. At first he thought it was Mrs. Meriwether, for some reason.
He had to blink his eyes, and still it was confusing, for just a moment, but he quickly realized he’d been sleeping soundly only moments before.
“Yes, Ma’am. I feel much better.” He said sitting up.
“Feel up to helping some more? I do need to get that attic cleaned out.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She made a sad face. “Okay then, but you don’t have to call me Ma’am, John. I’m going to find those garment bags I put in the garage. I’ll meet you upstairs when you are ready.” She walked off to the back of the house.
He quickly bent to the table to slip the letters into the box before heading upstairs.
If he had seen her from where he knelt in front of the trunk, he would have been instantly familiar with the fond little smile on her lips. The searching and worried look in her eyes was more foreign.
The call from her daughter last week had been a shade of the very first days of his life, a time when all new parents are prone to little bouts of near hysterical concern. The suggestion that it might be best to simply watch him more closely, the best advice a grandmother could give, had left his mother even more deeply troubled
His hand brushed a stray hair from his face, before doing it again with both hands. He settled again on his folded legs, sorting the things in the trunk.
Watching him now lead her to understand why. In the end, it was the way he moved… She’d watched him so often as a child, but she’d never made the connection till this very moment as to why his mannerisms had always seemed at once to be oddly out of place, but instantly familiar.
Had anyone been in position to see her, they would have said her face showed shock.
She stirred herself through force of will.
“I brought up a drink for the dust.” She said, finally, stepping up onto the floor.
He absently pushed his hair back again as he turned to smile up at her briefly. Very briefly, it turned out, as he then rose to look at her, his hands, she noticed, held deliberately motionless at his sides.
“Thank you, Grams.” He said, taking the bottle of water, and setting it on the nearby window sill. “It’s much better in here now than when we were moving the trunks.”
She agreed. “Anything good in that one?”
“No. Just…”
He held up a foundation garment that might have been bought through some major catalogue outlet in the fifties or sixties. It was one of two trunks that had been full of things like that. Of little interest, save for some of the older under things that seemed to be all flat pieces of cloth with lace and ribbons sewn to the margins. She intended to get rid of them as well.
She smiled as kindly as she knew how. “Thought so. Just shove them back in, but don’t lock it. Sometime this week I’ll come up and throw them in the wash, and see what we have. There may be something in there for an old lady like me!”
She deliberately cheered her speech. She didn’t really need him to finish the job of clearing the attic. Rather, she was seeking only to put him at his ease - to draw him out.
He did smile a little.
“Ready to try the last one?”
“Yeah.” He said looking at the last trunk, another large one, which had been buried in the furthest corner for longer than he’d been alive. “Don’t you want to put these in bags first?” He asked, reaching out his hand to brush the skirt of the dress hanging closest to him.
“I did, but now it turns out that the garment bags I bought are not big enough for the skirts of most of these. I’ll have to get other stuff to pack them before I send them off to the restoration people.” She sighed. “I’ll have to ask them what they want me to use.” She looked around. “Besides, I think that you were right about most of the dust. It’s much clearer now.” She finished walking over to close the window a little, now that the day had cooled toward evening. “Can you get the last one? You are better with the old keys than I am.”
“I’ll try.” He said, moving to lift the bundle of keys off the little table by the stairs. Not surprisingly, there were dozens of keys.
His grandmother had explained that people always kept old keys in those days, because it was far more likely that they would fit something else eventually. It made sense. He was already sure, though, that if the one he needed now was actually still on the ring, that it was going to be the last one he tried.
It was only the third.
“Wow.” His grandmother said softly looking at the dress hanging in front. To him, he could see that this one was different. It was very nice, but it looked more like something you’d see in an old western movie, than in Gone With The Wind. He could see the topmost was a deep rich plum color, the second was very bright royal blue, and the third that he could see was pink.
“Afternoon Dresses.” His grandmother said.
“What, Grams?” He asked, looking more at the pile of smaller things that were tucked under the skirts, but waiting to move the dresses till his grandmother was ready.
“Afternoon Dresses, John.” She said, touching the embellishments on the front of the first dress. “Ladies wore them, usually in the afternoon when they were not being formal, which today means they were being formal. My mother told me that the styles go back through the years, and up until the first world war, but they were always around.” She finished with another soft ‘wow’ under her breath as she pulled at the contents.
He asked absently, “How come you never opened them before now?”
With a little shake of her head, she reached for the second royal blue dress, that had a high black lace collar and vivid royal blue silk bunched on the front.
“Well,” turning the dress in mid air, “I guess there are two reasons. The first was that I was lucky to have my mother with us for a very long time. She even got to hold you as a baby.” She smiled and patted him on the shoulder briefly, before hanging the dress, and pulling the skirts out to make sure they were free.
“I suppose too, that the second and more important reason was, that when my mother passed away, it was just too sad for me for a long time.”
He swallowed to be confronted by more thoughts of mortality.
“I did try to get into a couple of them a few years ago, but when I tried, I wasn’t anywhere near as good as you at getting the locks to open. I was afraid to damage the trunks. Until the conservation people told me that they could send me some universal keys, I thought I’d have to pay to have them moved into the open for a locksmith to open them. Turns out, according to conservation people, even they usually have to pry a few open themselves.”
She smiled at her memories while reaching for the last dress in pink, which looked to John to be more like a skirt with a short jacket. This one was not as bright as the others, but it seemed to be even more… well tailored, and filled with fine detail.
“A half dress.” She said to no one, and then smiled as he looked from it to her. “A more formal dress, such as something to receive company, or have an afternoon tea.” She said simply.
“How do you know about this stuff, Grams?” He asked, sitting very still.
“Mother. She had picture books, and we used to look at them from the time when I was a little girl.” She shook her head. “According to them, they had ‘town dresses,’ and ‘traveling dresses’ and ‘riding dresses…’ Goodness. I didn’t know about these either… The old Bat.” She finished with a kindly grin to prove she still loved her mother just as much as ever she did.
Spinning the dress slowly to inspect them, still she could not help watching John’s features as his eyes followed every move of the dress like he was mesmerized.
“So! What do you think?” She asked him suddenly.
“It’s really pretty.”
She almost felt bad for lulling him, given his reaction, as he looked quickly at her for signs of disapproval. It made her feel guilty that she had not considered carefully enough, that given the nature of his parents concern, this particular task might not have been the kindest one to offer as an excuse to spend the time alone together. Then again, even in this she was unsure.
“I think they are beautiful too. It’s amazing how very feminine women used to be.” She said, kneeling down beside him to look trough the collection of dried up old shoes, and mangled lace parasols, and tired bonnets that filled the foot of this last trunk. She realized, that these were things that she had seen before, some years ago, and so her attention was mostly on John as he pulled them out.
“Did you know your mother called me last week?”
His hand froze half way to the bonnet, only to sink back to his thigh. “I know, Grams,” he answered so softly that she might not have heard it at all if they had not been sitting so closely.
“She’s worried.” She said simply.
It took several long moments, but finally his head nodded just a little in acknowledgement.
“Your mother and father were hoping that you might find it a little easier to talk to me.” His only reaction was to lower his head and eyes even further to look at hands in his lap. “You know you can tell me anything. Don’t you, John.”
Although the light was fading now, his eyes still glistened like little diamonds when he looked up quickly to see if she was watching.
It took all her years of experience to know whether to laugh or cry. She settled for a little smile.
“I know, John, I know. My own mother used to tell me that very same thing every time I had something that I neither wanted to tell anyone, nor had the first clue how to put into words.” She patted him. “It’s a thing you learn in parent school.”
He smiled for almost a full half second, before his fear and shame reasserted itself. “Did… Did she tell you, she…”
“She did.” She answered as she rubbed his shoulders. “That’s Okay, isn’t it? I’m your grandmother after all. I love you as much as anyone ever could.” She squeezed. “She told me that she was more shocked at how good you were with makeup, than anything else. She said you looked so nice, that at first, she thought it was one of the girls from school picking up something for your sister…”
A sob shook his shoulders, even though it made almost no sound. It was several moments before he then managed to ask in a breathy almost groan. “Is… Is she still mad?”
“No, John. She was just worried, because she didn’t understand. She didn’t know what to say to you, and for some silly reason, she thought I’d be a little wiser I suppose.”
He still was not looking at her. “Are you mad?”
She couldn’t help a very small laugh. “Heavens, no.” She waved her hand slightly “John, a lot of boys your age get curious about such things. I think most of them are bound to try what you did at some time or other.” She was searching for anything to say to draw his eyes back to hers. “In fact, right about now I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to tell you about your uncle Mortimer or someone like that, who became a waitress in Hollywood named Sally… or, something like that; but, I’m afraid you don’t have an uncle Mortimer, or any uncle who’d have been even half as pretty as your mother said you turned out to be.”
She had thought for sure she’d get a little rise out of him, but in the end she had to lean down to look from the side to see that his eyes were now tightly squeezed together. A second later a tear fell on his hands.
She pulled him to her shoulder, wrapping her arm about him before pressing her face to the crown of his head.
“Don’t cry, John. It’s not the end of the world. I know you feel embarrassed, but we’re not mad, and I’m just a little confused that this has upset you so much. Is it just because you feel so embarrassed?”
She was sure that there was a little nod somewhere behind another small sob, but he was still hardly reacting at all.
“Is that all that’s upset you so much?” She asked again.
It was a long while, but there was definitely a shake of his head this time.
“Well did you try to talk to your Mom or Dad, to get them to explain things to you?” She asked gently, rocking him now.
“I…” he paused to clear his nose and throat. “I tried…”
She had to listen carefully to hear his muffled voice where he did not try to lift his head.
“She just made me get undressed, and…” He was again trying to clear his throat softly. “…And, she got upset when she saw my under things. I tried to get her to let me do it in my room, but she was mad.” He finally lifted his head enough to press the palm of his hand over his eyes, and to wipe his face a little.
When he began to speak once more, his voice was unnaturally calm.
“She said that she’d listen, but she didn’t. She said that it was just a phase boys go through until they learn better. I asked her if there were boys who…didn’t. She lost it, and she made me just swear not to do it anymore.”
His grandmother wanted to suck air in through her teeth, but somehow refrained. “She made you undress in front of her?” She was angry now.
He nodded.
It made her mad enough that she had trouble thinking for several moments. No wonder he felt so embarrassed.
Suddenly something clicked, and she realized how far he had really gone. “John, has she caught you before?”
“I don’t really… know” He wasn’t looking at her yet, but at least he was trying to respond.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Always.” He said simply.
It took her several breaths to be able not only to respond, but to collect her thoughts to find the words she needed.
“Well, first of all, I’m sorry she made you undress in front of her like that. I’m sure she was upset, but embarrassing you in that way might not have been the best way to get her point across. Just remember that she’s only human. Moms make mistakes too, you know. I’ve made some lulus”
He nodded.
She considered carefully before asking “Can you tell me exactly what you mean by always?”
He nodded. “Since we lived in the old house.” He told her. “With the clothes in the attic there, before we moved.”
That had been at least five years.
“And the makeup, and the hair… and the lingerie?” She asked before she realized she probably didn’t really need those details.
“A couple of years. The summer before last.”
She wanted to use some gentle expletive, but looking at him she was forced to deny herself even that.
She groaned softly then, changing the subject for a moment. “I can’t sit like this, John. Come on and help your Grams up”
He did, getting a quick hug in return. The act of rising bought her a little time, not that it helped much. She had already been convinced that the behavior that had caused so much concern was motivated by something far deeper than curiosity.
Handing him his water, she admitted, “I don’t know a lot about what you are feeling, John. You’re the only one who does, so I’m afraid that you’ll have to help me out, but I promise that I will listen as carefully as I can… and I won’t be mad at you.” She finished taking him by the shoulder, and lifting his chin with her other hand, finally forcing him to meet her eyes. “We can figure this out together. At least I already understand that some boys don’t…change. Okay?”
At least he nodded slightly.
“Okay, then. I won’t torture you about it, but you need to talk to me soon, or I can’t help at all.”
He nodded again.
She turned to the dresses and began to look over them again while he took a few last sips of his drink, before putting the bottle aside once more. Pulling the plum dress out from the bunch a little, she told him, “I think this one may actually be my favorite in here. What do you think?” She smiled as best she could.
He didn’t smile but swiveling his head a little, he pointed to the blue and white silk antebellum gown. “I like Annabel’s dress.” He said simply.
“Annabel’s dress?” She asked shocked, not having made the connection.
He wiped his eyes again. “It’s the one in the letter. The one she brought back from New Orleans.”
“Really?” His grandmother was surprised, and somewhere subconsciously pleased to have some document attached to the dresses after all, but mostly surprised at the connection he’d made so easily.
“I think…” He shrugged at her. “It is,” he finished simply, but with complete certainty.
“Well, I’ll be.” She said, pulling that dress out a little instead. “I’ll have to look at those letters again. The conservation people might want to see them too, since they spent most of the time talking about provenances.”
“You aren’t going to give them away! Are you?” He asked, suddenly fearful and quite agitated, causing her to look at him.
“No, John. I promised I would always keep them in the family, but this is a good opportunity to make sure that they are properly restored and cared for too, and all it will cost us is the loan of them to the museum for a few years. No, John, I’d never give them up. My mother would take the subway all the way back here from mom-purgatory to strangle me.”
“Please don’t give them the letters.” He said, still fearsomely adamant.
“I won’t, John. I may let them see them, but they will have to make copies of them if need be. Please, don’t get yourself any more upset.”
She was thoughtful now.
“How many letters did you read?”
“All but the last one, I think.”
“Annabel’s letters,” she said to him shaking her head a little. “Listen. Move this stuff over to the other table, and I’ll be right back. Will you be okay?” She asked, placing her hand on his shoulder, and shaking it gently.
He nodded, and watched her go down the stairs, before turning to pick up the smaller items. It was the work of a minute before he began to examine and run his hands over the dresses yet again.
“Well I’ll be damned.” It was right there in one of the first letters. She laid it on the old Formica table in her kitchen, also from her mother. She realized too, that the letters were much more powerfully written than she remembered. Girls are supposed to be so much more romantic when they are in their teens, but perhaps it’s easier to see the things that are really important with the benefit of a little experience. She laid the letter carefully back in the top of the box, and moved to go back up the stairs.
Climbing stairs was something that did not improve with age.
“One more trip up these stairs, and I’ll be giving up cross country motorcycle trips.” She announced at the top, slightly out of breath. “How did you do?”
“Fine.” he said, with a smile so fleeting that she thought she’d imagined it for a start, but the last items were now carefully stacked on two card tables, and the dresses were all hanging.
“I think we are done then! I’m going to have to call and ask about packing these up, but since it’s been such a long day, we might as well stop here…” She said this with some conviction, but the little girl in her still held her there running her hands over each dress, one after the other, and dreaming. She could see in the mirror that once she moved on to the rack with the later dresses, that John’s hand had reached out slowly to do much the same thing behind her.
She turned back, to watch his hand fall once more to his side as he watched her too carefully, like an animal that has not yet learned to fully trust a human.
That caused her insides to seize a little, but this time, it was because she'd made up her mind.
Walking over she picked up the dress that he’d been touching and walked back toward the mirror.
“Come here for a moment?” She asked, purposely not looking at him, and of course, he came slowly, with a little delay before he moved at all.
“You know. It occurs to me that it was very mean of my mother never to let me try one of these on. I’m sure it would have done no harm. It’s sad that I’ll never have the chance now, but I’d dearly love to see them…worn.”
He was beside her now, so she reached with her hand and eased him over to stand right in front of her.
“Hold still.” She whispered as she held the dress up in between him and the mirror. She needn’t have worried, because by the time she had reached around him with both hands to press it up against him, he’d gone quite still; rigid in fact.
“Gram--”
“Shhhh.” She was as much hugging him to her as holding up the dress now, so she could feel him tremble. “It’s okay, John.” She assured, as she smoothed the yoke over his breast, as she looked at him in the mirror. “After all, it may be old, but it’s just clothes after all.” She tried to smile reassuringly. “You were right though, it is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen too.”
She leaned down to press her cheek to the side of his head, and lifted his hand so that he was holding the dress up in front of himself, just as he’d tried to do earlier.
“Hang on for a moment.” She said, moving to pick up the hat that had come in the same trunk, before moving behind him to place it on his head. She used both hands in tilting it back a little to more clearly show his face.
At first she thought he’d either object, or become embarrassed again, but she could see that he was also drawn by the dress, now gently rubbing his free hand over the skirt where it lay across his hip.
“Okay, John. I don’t want to upset you, but it occurs to me that I might never have another chance to see any of these dresses worn in this lifetime. I was wondering if you’d like to do a little favor for me?”
She could see his blush rising, and she actually was glad that she had lain her hands on his shoulders, because he seemed none too steady on his feet. “It looks like it would be a perfect fit,” she persuaded gently.
He didn’t respond.
“I don’t want to upset you, and if you don’t want to, then that’s okay too, but…” She could see he was now looking at the reflection of her eyes in the mirror. “I would dearly love to see it. Don’t worry. No one would know you did it for me, except for you and me.”
“Grams…” He sounded very breathy, “I promised mom…” Weak as it was, his voice was still not as weak as the argument.
“I know that, but this is for me. It’s more like when your mom made you help her sewing, isn’t it? I know you want to wear the dress, John. I don’t mind that, but I really would love to see it just this once.” She took a deep breath herself then. “Besides, I think it would look very pretty on you. Don’t you?”
He looked at her for several moments then, not moving before his eyes fell once more the dress which she adjusted go a position closer to his neck, as she watched his hand gently caress the lace of the skirt between his thumb and forefinger.
“Please?” She finished softly.
He closed his eyes before he nodded his head.
She smiled and hugged him close.
“I won’t embarrass you, you can change here behind the dresses, or you can bring it down to the bedroom." She watched him for a moment. "Which is better?” She asked.
“Here.” He somehow managed.
“Okay, go take off your jeans, and I’ll be right back.”
Downstairs, she pulled out two heavy half-slips, from the bottom of a drawer where they had lain since her daughter had been a teenager, and even paused on impulse to pick up some powder and a tray with a few items of cosmetics, before hurrying upstairs.
John had not only removed his jeans, but everything else as well. He was busy hooking and tying some of the vintage ladies underwear on himself. Surprised at first, she realized that he had bypassed the more modern garments, for those from the period of the dress. He obviously realized that his shoulders would show above the bodice. Now he stood in what might have been fine pajama pants, and a chemise that wrapped his torso. She moved to close the window, as she simply said “here” as she handed the first slip to him.
He looked at it for a moment, and she was about to explain, when she realized he had turned his back, and was dropping it over his head before turning it to its proper position. His hand and body came out from behind the rack for the second time without any prompting at all, and likewise showing her that he’d chosen a garment without straps on his shoulders. He took what looked to be a hooped skirt off the top of the trunk nearest him.
“Do you need help?” She asked, already staring.
“No.” Came very softly from behind the rack of copied or costume dresses. “I can do it.”
She could see he was shivering, as he stepped from behind the screening garments and picked up a petticoat she had not even seen. Shaking it out, he dropped it over himself on his own, and quickly tied it off tightly at his waist. Then he held his hands up as he waited for her to free the dress and lift it over his head. She gently lowered it, as he carefully worked his hands into the delicate sleeves.
It fit as if it had been purpose made for him alone.
Instinctively she reached for the back, but he surprised her by stepping away toward the mirror. Once there, she continued to watch in open mouthed amazement as he turned gently from side to side, checking the fit of the dress on his hips, and even rising up on the balls of his feet to look at all sides as he adjusted the dress over the hooped skirt, expertly with gentle tugs on either side.
His eyes never left the mirror at all, as he reached behind himself to begin closing the buttons along his spine. He concentrated on this, except for once when his blank expression even drifted toward a smile, as he reached up the middle of his back. “Now where has that girl gotten to.” He said softly, before finally lifting one of his arms over his shoulder to reach the middle set of loops from both top and bottom. He quickly finished with both his hands behind his neck.
“No matter.” He continued to whisper. “Mother taught me that I always had to do my own buttons privately.”
She was fascinated by the surety as fingers worked, but more that his features seemed to not only relax from their worried frown, but to even take on a more pleasant, and distinctly absent expression. So too, he amazed her, because as he worked, he also began to slow his movements to take his time.
He looked toward the floor and began humming as softly as he smiled. Not that he had trouble, because his fingers were confoundingly sure of every movement they made, as if he were well and completely practiced. It was the grace with which he completed the task.
She was not even sure if he could see her in the mirror, as he finally stood, with his hands tugging on the back of his neck, looking at the skirt, before once more rising to his toes to look at and adjust the height of the skirt, and finally, the sleeves.
Then, in an even more astonishing display, he raised the sleeve and shoulder to his nose, and closing his eyes breathed deeply of some half forgotten memory, and a happy smile on his face as he said in an odd voice, “Mmmm! I have always loved that smell.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she heard as well as saw the slow grace that now held her in thrall. She could hear the vowels lengthen, and his speech slow, along with the change in timbre that made the voice not quite his own. Had she not been watching him, she might not have known who had spoken.
She was even more shocked to realize after several more moments of adjusting that he was smiling at her in the mirror.
“You know, you always looked so very much like her in the pictures Momma has on her bedroom wall.” He said softly. His voice was…
He smiled, at her expression.
“Mostly around the eyes.” He finished, and stepped away from the mirror to pick up the sash that went with the dress.
She watched in fascination as he stepped back to the mirror, running it slowly through his fingers over and over to fluff out its shape, as he smiled down at the thing.
“Who… who?” His grandmother murmured, fascinated that his eyes never looked up, even as she could not force hers away from him.
“Why, Elmira Wilson, Grandmother. Annabel’s mother.” He said, as if he were sure such explanations should be completely unnecessary. “Elmira Charity Wilson.” He whispered to himself, as he began arranging the sash to find the length he wanted. He smiled again, and only looked briefly at her, before stepping to the mirror, and beginning to carefully wrap the sash about his waist. “It was such a sad year that year. It’s sad that it happens so often in just that way. First Jeremiah’s pappy succumbed to the fever just as spring finally came, and before that March was over, so many of the older folk had passed on. Doctor Jackson never could tell us what it was… but we were relieved it wasn’t the cholera.”
He had turned his back to her, carefully measuring the length of each end of the smoothed sash, in preparation of tying a bow at his hip, all while he continued talking, and giving no obvious thought to the sure movements in his hands at all, as he warmly watched his reflection.
“That’s why it was so sad to lose her. Mother Wilson was still a young woman, and she didn’t even show signs of the fever until almost a month after we thought it had passed. By the time we were even sure she had fallen ill with the same fever, she was gone less than three days later. It was so sudden for poor Annabel.”
His grandmother could hardly move for the burning in her muscles and chest, each sonorous intonation, like that in some old movie, held her there in both fear and amazement.
“It’s good that you take after her. She was such a lovely woman, and as dear to me in many ways as Mother was.”
His eyes were partially lidded as they watched his hands making the sure and certain movements to tie some kind of bow at his hip.
“John?” She somehow managed softly, but ‘he’ didn’t even look up.
“John? Well he moved to Cincinnati… but … no he wasn’t yet born.” John…‘She,’ frowned in the mirror slightly as if trying to order something that made too little sense.
“My, but this was always such a lovely dress.” He turned this way and that, to examine the sash. “I will never forget how Annabel looked in it, running up the path to our door, before the carriage had even stopped.” He chuckled softly as he smiled. “It was Sunday, and the last day of that September, and all of Mother’s friends were there for tea. We didn’t even know she was coming till a few moments before, when we heard her pappy had stopped to change out of their dusty traveling clothes.
That was the happiest day of my life. Dear Annabel. She never, and I do mean never, looked more beautiful than she did that day. I always told her, that if we were to live for a thousand years, that one smile would have been enough to sustain me.”
He was turning again. and looking at the sash from all sides for one last time, which now had a large ornate bow, perfectly formed, that he was sliding to a position at the base of his spine. Then, he once more he lifted the lace of the sleeve to breathe deeply of some scent.
“My but that is still lovely, even after all these years.” He smiled at a far distant memory.
“Right after the war, when we made the decision to move north. We had lost everything, you see, and we had little more than what we could carry, but Annabel always kept that perfume that I loved so well. It became a… guilty little pleasure, a touch of luxury that always brought smiles. It remained a small remembrance of the time before those awful days that stripped our whole world away from us.”
He reached for a another ribbon of the same color, which she had likewise not seen, and which he also ran through his fingers many times while talking to her, before he reached for the hat.
“I could never have imagined, on that day of home coming, the price we would all pay…” ‘She’ shook her head sadly, and frowned, as she easily threaded the ribbon, and tied a smaller but congruent version of the exact same bow on the back of the hat, only pausing absently to lay the ribbons over the rear of the brim just so, before quickly brushing ‘her’ hair back, and lifting it to her head to check the placement briefly. “I’m afraid I’ve been too busy to give my hair its proper attention. If my girl were not so interested in that tom down at the dock, I’d have her brush it two hundred times tonight.” She finished softly.
Reaching for a brush, which also brought a smile, ‘she’ quickly brushed back her hair, but letting it fall back where it would.
“Mother followed poor Mrs. Wilson in the winter of sixty-two. Doctor Jackson had neither medicines nor supplies by then, and the pneumonia took her just two weeks before Christmas. We were sad, but we were all so proud of Daddy.”
‘She’ laid the hat aside carefully on the table, strangely tilting her head, as if listening to the distant sound, or remembering.
John easily walked to the trunk the elegant gown had come from, and dipping gracefully, pulled out one of the papier-má¢ché drawers; and then, looking toward the ceiling beams, he reached far into the hole it had created.
“Everyone expected Daddy, being so much older than Mother, to fade more quickly, but he was such a strong man, so much stronger than all of us realized…” He shifted something in his hand before pulling out another drawer. “…uugh!.. so much stronger than any of us. It wasn’t till the last year of the war that Daddy died.” He said, retrieving what was clearly another piece of jewelry, before slowly moving back to the mirror and light.
He slipped a ring on his finger.
“As it was we were already hungry and scared. Most of the workers ran away about that time, but many who had been with our family for generations stayed, because Pappy had always been so good to them. But still, the war had not gone well, and in that spring of Sixty four, there was little food left anywhere. General Lee was gallantly holding the Virginias against the new Northern General, Grant. But… We all knew he was coming, even though so far, all the fights were far north.
Daddy still said the damned Yankees would never make it as far as Richmond county, and even if they did, there would be precious little left after we had bundled away everything we had for our gallant boys fighting for our Virginia.
When the end finally came…”
His voice lost just a little of the aristocratic melody just then, as it grew more husky in its bitterness.
“We could not have expected…” He sighed, and looked back at her. “It wasn’t even the Damned Yankees. The Federals weren’t even half so near our south.”
‘She’ turned more fully to explain with anger flashing in ‘her’ eyes.
“The men who eventually came were a band of filthy brigands wearing our own glorious grey, but who were no better than mangy curs. There was not a single gentleman among them. Even their so called officer.” She shook her head. “They came to The Pines, to ‘requisition’ supplies, but showed far more interest in our furnishings.”
He was looking at and rubbing the ring.
“Father died right there on the walk while the handful of our boys we had left tried to fight the fire they’d kindled in Mother's front hall in retribution for his trying to protect our home. We lost the house and Daddy that same afternoon.”
He took a necklace out of his other hand, and began to fasten this about his neck.
“I sent papers to the magistrate that very day, freeing our workers, because we could no longer care for them. Several wanted to stay on, but I had to tell them it was no longer safe, and I begged them to take their families farther south into hiding.” She gave a heavy sigh. “I had to promise that we would take them back, if ever we could start up again after the trouble had passed, before the last of them would leave. After that, there was no one left.”
The last item was a choker, matching the white lace of the gown, with no other embellishment than a tiny blue bow at the throat.
“Of course… Annabel and I found rooms right in Augusta, with one of Mother’s friends… until the end, but… well I Thank God, Daddy had sent his oldest friend, Annabel’s pappy to New Orleans before the war. He was so smart. He knew what was coming, as so many of the older gentlemen did. If it were not for the money they had sent to the banks in France and England, and Mexico, I shudder to think of what might have happened to Annabel and me in the years that followed. Surely had we not been able to keep up our appearances, I would have been killed, and poor Annabel, well… worse. Had we not had the funds to keep ourselves off the roads where we might have fallen prey like so many others.” She shook her head sadly. “Even though the criminals in the Mexican bank took too much of our money, there was still enough in the others that Daddy made sure we were taken care of for the rest of our lives…”
He turned to show her the necklace at his throat.
“This was Momma’s. Daddy gave it to her on their wedding day, and it came down to me after… the war. Of course I gave it to Annabel.” ‘Her’ smile, as she looked at ‘her’ grandmother, told of more than a single lifetime’s sadness, but it was a smile never the less.
His grandmother wasn’t trying to move. She couldn't.
“Anyway, later, when we moved to the city of Erie, Pennsylvania, we had more than enough to take care of ourselves. That, and the little money we got from Jeremiah. We hated the north, but we simply could not stand to stay and watch our homes, and all else that we knew, rent asunder.”
He paused to hold the necklace for several moments, before he smiled again.
“That was another day of that awful war that I can never forget. It was late August, but cool that year, like it is now, even though it had been so hot in July. We had two letters on the same day. The first was forwarded by Jeremiah’s solicitor, from the Commonwealth of Virginia, that Colonel David Jeremiah Godwin, late commander and member of the Ninth Virginia Volunteers had been captured at Gettysburg, and had died in the Yankee hospital before he could be exchanged. It came to us, with a letter that dear sweet Jeremiah had addressed to my father, confessing that he and I had been secretly married before he’d gone off to Virginia…”
“What was his name?” His grandmother gasped.
“Why, you should know. It’s your own last name, Grandmother. David Jeremiah Godwin.” He picked up the puff of powder, and placing a cloth over his shoulders, he quickly powered his face lightly, before picking up the lipstick, which he looked at and said ‘humph’ softly before leaning to the mirror to apply that too. First licking then rubbing his lips together, he reached up with his pinkie to smooth the corners of his mouth before wiping it on the cloth.
Finishing that, he picked up the mascara, and smiling at that as well, he began to speak again as he applied that to his lashes.
“Of course, we already knew that his commanding officer, the most gallant General Armistead, had fallen at Gettysburg, so we had feared the worst for all the boys who had risen to follow him into battle…” ‘She’ leaned closer to the mirror. “and as for the letter…” Charlotte shrugged. “Daddy knew it wasn’t true. Of course.”
She stood back now, watching but not watching herself in the mirror.
“Never, in all my days, had I ever kept any secret from him. Never-the-less, he took us down to the courthouse right there on that very day, and registered the letter into the record. Daddy sad it was in honor of Jeremiah’s dying wish.” ‘She’gave forth a long slow sigh. “Dear Sweet Jeremiah. Even after he died, he kept his promise to repay his debt to our family, and me for saving him when he hit his head on the rock in the river, even though I always told him that he owed Jonathan that debt, not Charlotte… ”
He was smelling the sleeve again, with his eyes closed. “She was so Lovely, Grandmother. Even now, she is all I can see in my mirror. There has never been a day that I have not felt her absence. I do miss her so… though I know that she is so close. Here, Grandmother, can you smell it too? Annabel’s perfume?”
When he turned, his grandmother was sure her heart had stopped.
“Grandmother? Are you well?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you should lie down before supper?” He held up his sleeve to her. “Here, can you smell it?”
“Ja-John?” She asked.
“He’s in Cincinnati. He married a northern girl…Mary. Sweet enough, but…” He frowned, and held out sleeve and shoulder of his gown a little father. “Surely you can smell it?”
“I can’t, it just smells old” His grandmother fairly whispered.
“Surely you can.” He began to get very upset. “Why, it’s as clear as the living day! This is the perfume Annabel brought back…”
He was more frantic with every shake of his grandmother’s head, as she leaned away having no desire to smell the musty material. Practically in tears.
“Please, Grandmother! Try- -”
Her own Panic overcame her at last, she spoke loudly. “JOHN!”
“Grams? Can’t you…”
“Stop it, John!”
She grabbed him, unable to take her eyes away from his as they stared a growing confusion back at her face, nor could she look away from the beauty that shown so poorly in the light of the naked bulb, and so brightly in the light now rapidly fading from his face.
“OH, John! I’m so sorry!” She pulled him to her with shaking hands, unable to think of anything else to do.
He slumped into her arms.
“Easy.” She said soothingly. “Just take a little.”
The last of the water tasted flat, but it helped.
For her part, she had wanted to call for help, as he lay senseless in her arms. It was only his gown that caused her to hesitate at all.
“What happened, Grams?”
“You fainted, John.” She fed him a little more of the bottled water. “Do you think you can stand. I want to get you downstairs so you can lie down while I make you some tea.”
“I had the strangest dream.” He said, sounding feeble and confused.
She was praying inside when she said, “Here,” and offered her arm. He was so light, and such a little thing, she thought thankfully, that even at her age, she could easily help him.
She put her arm around his waist, and began walking him to the stairs, when they came face to face with the mirror, and he stopped cold.
“Grams.” He whispered “The dress? I should--” .
“Come on, John. Don’t worry about that now.” She continued to ease him toward the stairs on unsteady feet.
“My head hurts.” He said, as he paused for a moment at the top.
“Mine too, John. Careful now.” She responded sympathetically, though thankful that he was now supporting his own weight. She only had to hold the elbow of the arm with which he reached for the front of the dress to lift it delicately before taking the banister in his further hand.
Downstairs, she watched him steer himself into the living room, and sweep the skirts to seat himself with an eerie daintiness on the edge of the couch before leaning sidewise on the arm. The vision of him in the better light threatened to take her breath away. He was indeed… lovely. She gave herself a mental shake.
“Will you be Okay while I go and get you some tea?” She asked.
“I’m Okay, Grams. I just feel very tired again,” he said, with only an echo of the soft voice from moments before, but not looking at all okay.
She watched him for several moments longer, wondering if he even knew she was there, but at least he seemed to sit steadily. Leaning as he was on the arm of the couch. She was sure he was in no danger of fainting again. Only then did she move to make the tea she felt they both so badly needed.
His grandmother returned with a plain tray containing a pot of steeping tea along with a couple of plain mugs, and the box of letters under her arm.
Setting the tea on the table, she slipped the box to the corner nearest her grandson, before seating herself in a comfortably high and overstuffed armchair that sat beside the couch.
“I wasn’t sure if I should even let you have these again, but I’ve decided that I should read them again myself.” She gave him an odd and worried smile. “I’m afraid that the first time I read them, my sister and I, we spent most of our time giggling over the forbidden love between two women. We had to look up the word ‘lesbian,’ when my mother told us what it meant.”
She shifted herself, only to see his tired eyes opened to stare at her in amazement.
“What is it?” She asked, half rising.
“You don’t understand?” He asked simply.
“Understand what?”
“Charlotte.... was like…me.”
“What?” His grandmother’s voice might have sounded like an expostulation of shock, but it came out so softly, it had no such power.
“She was like me.” His eyes were on the box of letters now. “She was Jonathan when she was younger, and they thought she was a boy, but when she grew older and began to change into a woman, they must have realized she was always Charlotte on the inside.” He closed his eyes tiredly, and numbly, and whispered: “She was like me.”
His grandmother couldn’t move again. She didn’t remember the letters that well at all, but she did remember them enough to realize that what she was saying might possibly fit the story behind the letters, at least as well as the story that she and her sister, in their innocence, had assumed must be the case.
Knowing the pot had not had enough time to steep, she reached a shaking hand to pull the letters out of the box, and handed the last one to John.
It lay in his hand, on the lap of the dress, for several long moments, as his grandmother opened and began reading the second letter for the first time in many years.
Finally he slipped his own letter out of its envelope, noticing that it was written in an obviously different hand.
Miss Charlotte Ann Meriwether
The Pines Plantation,
Richmond County, Georgia.September 14th, 1860
My Dearest Miss Charlotte:
I have not one, but three of your beautiful letters today. I cannot tell you how joyous it was to find that they were sent from our old hotel for me. Nor can I tell you of all the wonderful things we have seen and heard on the journey here to New Orleans. Most will simply have to await my return to describe them in full.
First, no matter how much you miss me, and no matter how much you love me so, I love and miss you even more. If only you could be here, then my days would be perfect.
Also, you must change the address that you are sending the letters to. We have had to relocate here to the Mason Dupuis Hotel from the Excelsior, which was slightly damaged in the storm.
The storm! I can tell you without worry, now that it is over, that our arrival here on the tenth was heralded by no less than a hurricane that arrived here in New Orleans on the very next day! The locals were sure that the storm was far less fierce than it seemed to me, but if you think of the hardest rains in the summer back home in Georgia, being pushed sideways with the force of the wind, and driving them like pebbles, you will still scarcely imagine. Never in my life did I expect to see such a thing, and never do I hope to see it again.
In Atlanta, we saw men shouting in the streets. Father would not allow us off of the train, and made us sit there for a good part of the night, before we finally continued on to New Orleans. I do not know what it was all about, as Father drew the shades and the curtains both, but I can tell you that even here, the kind people of this fine old city speak of little else amongst themselves than the troubles with the Federal North.
After we were settled and rested, Father has been returning from his business early every day, and taking me out to enjoy the sights and shopping of the port and Quarter. He is being frighteningly overgenerous to me. I have so many lovely new things to show you. We dine at the finest restaurants every evening, but mercifully I can scarcely eat at all for watching the sights of the Quarter, else I’d never fit again into any of my dresses at all. This is aided by the fact that I do not much like the spicy nature of much of the food, some of which burns the mouth though it is hours cooled from cooking. Of what is more familiar, though, there is fare that is both fine and tasty.
I’ve told Father that we simply must be more frugal than we have been, but he only told me that seeing his only daughter in such beautiful new dresses, and such a happy state, was worth far more than any money would surely be in the days to come!
I must hurry this letter to the post, which we are told is far from certain due both to the troubles in the country, and the ravages of the storm. Still, the staff say that there is an opportunity to put some letters on a packet, that will be able to meet a train to Atlanta as early as tomorrow evening.
I promise, that once I give this letter to the boy, I will immediately begin another to tell you of the wonder that is New Orleans. It is not at all like our own Savannah.
I will also tell you of how my thoughts of you are ever in my heart, by night and by day, as is my deep and abiding love.
All my Love, Charlotte, Forever and a day,
Miss Lindsay Annabel Wilson
Maison Dupuis Hotel
New Orleans, Louisiana.
His sigh was one of contentment as he lay the letter on the skirt of the dress. He always knew it was so, but clearly, Annabel did love Charlotte every bit as much as she loved her. It was the fulfillment of a prayer.
“Is that the last one?” His grandmother looked up from the letter she was reading.
He nodded. “It’s the only letter from Annabel when she was in New Orleans. There was a hurricane.”
His grandmother nodded her remembrance of reading that.
“It’s sad that so many of their other letters were lost.” He said simply, leaning back on the couch a little more comfortably.
His grandmother took his letter and folded it into the box, before slipping one of her own back into its own place, and balancing the box on the arm of her chair before reaching for the tea.
“When you consider all that they must have been going through, particularly in those years after the war, and from so long ago, it’s a miracle that any of them survived at all.”
He nodded while she poured.
She handed him a cup, and still he said nothing, as he carefully held it over the side of the couch, rather than hold it over his dress. It was an unconscious act, of course, which virtually assured she would take note of it.
Filling her own mug, she leaned back much more comfortably in the well stuffed chair, to watch him sip appreciatively.
He looked back to her as soon as she spoke. “So in this letter about Jeremiah, her brother Jonathan was actually a much younger Charlotte?”
He watched her for only a moment before he nodded, and that was all he did, but still it robbed her of any clarity of thought or speech. She couldn’t yet begin to assimilate his statement that Charlotte had been just like him.
She had too many questions to ask, but clearly, he really believed that as he grew, he would be not a man, but a woman.
She set her mug back on the table, and carelessly allowed herself to almost flop back into the chair, upsetting the nearly empty letterbox, which fell to land on the floor upside down with a louder than expected crack.
“Damn.” She whispered, as John slid forward, and dipped to pick it up, only to have them both notice that once the bottom of the box was lifted, it revealed that under a cardboard partition, there were two dark plates of glass, one that had broken neatly in two, both separated by yet another unknown letter.
The older woman felt genuine shock, because not only had she not known of the additional content, but she was certain that neither had her mother.
John lifted them, and even though he longed to see them for himself, had to be contented with a quick glance, before he placed them carefully in his grandmother's waiting hand.
“I think it was already broken.” He said. “There was a ribbon holding them together, with the letter in between.” He retrieved the box, and placed it more safely on the table, and smoothing the skirts of the gown, he sat himself again on the edge of the couch with the new letter in his hand, but clearly waiting for his grandmother’s examination.
“They are pictures?” He asked.
“Yes.” She answered softly, holding the first up to the last of the afternoon light that streamed into a south facing window.
It was reddish, and framed by black, but the subject was clearly visible on the photographic plate. It held a picture of two young women. One slightly taller with lighter hair, who stared confidently into the long extinct lens of the camera. Her arm was around the slightly smaller and darker haired woman, who though clearly very carefully posed, was smiling from behind a bouquet of flowers held at her waist in both hands.
Her breath drew in sharply and stayed frozen there. Neither of the women seemed at all unfamiliar. Neither the look in the taller woman’s eyes, nor the vision of the smaller. She had seen echoes of these same features in relatives and family for her entire life. Yet, as if that had not been reminded enough, the nearly perfect vision of the smaller woman was even now seated on the couch beside her.
Wordlessly, she handed the plate to him.
The second was of a young man, not much older than his teens, or early twenties. This one had the familiar family name of ‘Jonathan Godwin 1879’ scratched into the darker border along the margin. Here too were the features that she had seen her entire life, if never quite in this combination. She could see that the young man most resembled her own father, in pictures from when he was very young; but, he also shared features similar to herself, and even her daughter - John’s mother.
Her hands were shaking, as she passed the pieces of the last plate to John, where he sat staring at the women in the first. She wordlessly traded it in his lap for the letter that was temporarily forgotten there.
The writing was only a little different from that in the letter she had been reading before the mishap, and clearly it was Charlotte's hand.
Mr. Jonathan Godwin
Lakeland Pennsylvania
December 3rd, 1883Dearest Jonathan:
Your mother and I were so sorry you could not visit on Thanksgiving. She wants you to know that we will hope even more than before to see you at Christmas, if you and Mary would be so kind as to come.
Please forgive my being too insistent, but your mother is not at all well, and it is too long since we have seen you. She does not want either of us to worry, but we can find no comfort in the advice her doctors give, and we must look to our family now for any that can be had.
I know that it would be futile to relive the past, John, just as I know that I can never fully understand how difficult your life has been because of me. It held much pain for all of us, but please, do not hesitate for that reason. If you can see it in your heart to forgive the failings that lay wholly within me, there is nothing that would give your mother and I more peace at this time in our lives than to see you again. However, I would also beg of you, that if you cannot find it within yourself to forgive me, to look to your better nature, and find it in your heart to come and see your mother before the winter grows too deep. She has only ever loved you without limit or condition, and we should never wish her more sadness because of the disappointment you feel in me.
John, I cannot apologize enough for the difficulties we have forced upon you. Thanks to your grandfather, you were always very well provided for, but still, it was too cruel for you to face the questions that were forced upon you regarding your mother and your ‘Auntie Charlotte.’ It was too cruel that you were far too young at the time. Though only God can know how truly sorry I am, I cannot refrain from telling you that I am, yet again.
I have been blessed to have grown old in your mother’s company, and to have had a son in whom I am infinitely proud. However, I can only feel that the one act that will complete my happiness, is an answer to my prayer that as you have grown older, you will realize that our great sin was simply that we loved each other more than any other person, or any earthly thing.
I too was young once, and I assure you that even I did not understand the strangeness that I always felt growing up inside of me until many more years of maturation had passed than you now have. However, It was only that very strangeness that has hurt you so, as I struggled never to do the same in either word or deed . Please know that I never asked for this, John. I prayed so many years for God to take it away, promising any sacrifice he might ask of me, including my very life, which I offered up to him freely on three separate occasions, only to be denied.
In the end, I can only believe that the person I was to become, was the person whom God himself wanted me to be. Though I still do not know why, I beg you to believe that, and to know that save for your mother alone, there is no one who loves you, or who is more proud of the man that you have become, than me.
I am sending the letters, as your mother asked me to. You are old enough now. Although, they are very few in number, when compared to the numbers we sent, and compared to the love we have shared. She asks that you will keep them safe in the hope that if it is not to be today, that one day, you will understand the depth of our love for each other, a love that left us powerless to live our lives in any other way, but together. Then, perhaps, you might at least remember happier days, together with our family, when we had only our love between us. I have also included the photograph from the day you started school, for Mary’s keepsake, who you know we both love dearly as well.
Remember, no father, save perhaps God himself, can have loved a son more.
We will pray to see you soon on Christmas, or any day, as soon as ever you may.
All my love,
Charlotte Meriwether-Godwin
He was just sitting there, watching her, the plates forgotten while still in his hand. As lovely and young as he was, his face showed lifetimes worth of fatigue and sadness, along with a few virtues of love and hope as well. He watched her expectantly, but he did not reach for the last letter.
“It’s Charlotte and Annabel.” He finally said simply and quietly.
“I know.”
“Are you mad at me?” He asked again.
She shook her head. “How could I be?” She asked him, before laying the letter aside, and lifting herself over to the couch to put her arms around him once more.
He only sighed, this time, as he melted into her embrace. They sat there as the rays of the dying sun, as in all other things its former brilliance spent and fading from the window… to await renewal in the coming days.
Lifting his head, she could see in the last of the light, that his eyes were moist, as he looked at her with innocent pleading.
“Will you help me talk to my mother?” He asked.
She had to swallow several times, before she could speak the single word, “Yes.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
The woman wanted to cry and laugh at the same time - again. In the end, she whispered, “We’ll think of something.”
She pulled him close again, her head resting itself on top of his, as an evening breeze blew itself quietly into the room. In its wake, she could have sworn she could smell the most beautiful floral bouquet.
“Maybe, we’ll just tell her what she wanted to know all along.”
Thank you for reading Echoes'. I hope it was as fun to read as it was to write.
My very special thanks to Geoff, for his invaluable time and advice, as
well as Kimmie, who's sharp eyes are the bane of typos everywhere.
By
Sarah Lynn Morgan
the lower left. Comments are always welcome, and appreciated!
Comments
Sarah Lynn,
ALISON
'that was a beautiful,romantic,piece of historical love and affection.I just loved it,thank you.
ALISON
I'm so glad that you wrote this
Breathtaking, I loved the letters and the flow of the story was just superb. This made my heart ache this morning in a good way at times.
Thank you.
Bailey Summers
Eat my Words
Just a few days ago I wrote a comment to Randallynn concerning her newest Bishop story that stories that was about TG characters instead of the TG were my favorites. This masterpiece of yours is unabashedly about TG. It wasn't about any specific part but all of it together. The love, loneliness, the joys, the intolerable pressures of being different, all of it.
From the first line, my eyes stung with tears. The poem in the beginning is just beautiful as is the story that followed. The journey of discovery with that first letter to the very last revelation has a rare power that still has me crying as I write this.
If there are any flaws I certainly can't find them! As always I'm in awe of your skill and talent.
Hugs!
Grover
This is most beatiful Easter egg,
that you could have give me. This story touched me to heart. Thank you so much. I´d like to give you some light whipping to keep you being fresh and beatiful and your stories too.
So Veselé Velikonoce for you and again: Thank you so much.
Robin
So romantic
What a beautiful weave of love, history, mystery and compassion ... and sadness, bittersweet longing.
It is all too obvious that Charlotte came back to help her great, great, great, great Granddaughter. That scene sent goosepimples through me.
The story ends with hope and no prizes if one were to guess that our present day John may wind up calling herself Charlotte.
It is just too romantic for words.
I have always adored Sarah Lynn's stories. This one in a way seemed just that bit more refined in the storytelling, save the few obvious misspellings, and I found myself totally immersed in it, especially for the letters.
Thank you ever so much, hon.
Kim
Oh and also I really strongly recommend
... that this be added to any future editions of Big Closet stories as the 'long' one. Consider this to be my vote if you may.
Kim
Seconded.
I'm really glad I gave this the time to be read on its own. I fell behind on reading stories during the weekend, and left this for last today.
Wow.
An absolutely masterful piece of writing. The story as it played out appeared as clear as day in my mind, and the story is very powerful.
Any future compilation of stories from Big Closet would be poorer for this story's exclusion.
Echoes
Wonder what will happen to John.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
utterly wonderful
a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing it.
Dorothycolleen
Beautiful & brilliant!
This story is wonderfully sensitive & charming. Reading it has brightened not only my day, but cleared this patch of fog obscuring a few of the finer blessings in my own life.
The Rev. Anam Chara+
Anam Chara
Wondrous
Intoxicating. Breathtaking.
___________________
"That's the most beautiful thing I've read in ages!"
Beautiful & Lovely Story
Hello Sarah Lynn,
I started reading this story and became totally enchanted by it. Please continue to write and add your lovely stories here!
Huggers!
GeenaGurl in MA
GeenaGurl in MA
Hauntingly Beautiful
Thank you so much for this lusciously romantic love story.
SUPERB!!!
Ole
We are each exactly as God made us. God does not make mistakes!
Gender rights are the new civil rights!
Essence Of Tara
Move over Margaret Mitchell. This beautiful story captures exactly the mores, speech and writing patterns of the era, as well as being a real bodice-ripper of a romance.
This, coupled with John's psychic link with Charlotte makes this a five-sigh, five-hankie (they didn't have tissues then) story in the best BC vein.
But then, what else would you expect from Sarah Lynn?
Standing ovation. Encore!
Joanne
Y'all just take my breath away.
I have to say that although I thoroughly enjoyed writing this story,
when it came time to actually post it, I feared that it might have
indulged my syrupy romantic side a little too freely. I'd simply hoped,
therefore, that the few who were in the mood to find it, would find that
it had struck a small chord .
Now, I can only extend my grateful thanks for some of the nicest
feedback I've ever seen. All I can add is, that I very much hope that
my writing skills can improve a little with every story, because when it
comes to leaving nice comments, you guys are already there.
Thank you, everyone. It was my very great pleasure.
Sarah Lynn Morgan
Echoes
I have found TG stories not to my liking but stories that have
a TG person, or a person with gender problems interesting. It
is a group of people that are being ignored by those that print
the books. Persons like John have a story to tell and it can be
interesting. And you do an excellent job of bringing their
struggle to life in a way that makes you want to stop and listen,
or in this case read.
The story they have to tell is best said by grover, in an earlier
comment,
"The love, loneliness, the joys, the intolerable pressures of
being different, all of it."
Thank you for an excellent story.
Absolutely ...
... beautiful! Thank you.
BE a lady!
And again
And again you fail to disappoint.
Welcome back! it's been way too long since i saw a story by you. The quality is once again top-notch though!
The last line did make me wonder though.. What is it that mom wanted to know? I'm guessing they wanted to know what was going on with their kid? That they can tell safely, without hurting 'john' (should we call her Charlotte too?)
Thank you so much for returning to write for us once again!
Love,
Amber Talamasca
Woah!
Thank you for a fantastic story. It took me a couple of days to find the time to read it, but it is so worth it. I found your character's voices to be pitch on and you have a really nice touch with carrying the period tones.
Now I have to go check out your back catalogue!
Thanks again.
Very Nice
It's good to see a new story from you Sarah. It was a real pleasure to read.
Multiple Meanings
I love this story. I love everything about it. It's so dreamy and subtle. You've got a light and gentle touch that's perfect for this story.
I think the title is about as perfect as you can get. There were so many types of echoes, so many echoes of the past and the present. Some were more obvious, like the letters and the family resemblances. Others weren't as obvious, or maybe I'm just seeing things differently.
I loved the apparent spirit possession but I have to wonder if it was more an echo of Charlotte's spirit. I wonder if her energy wasn't permeating her dress, enough that it spilled out into John when he wore it. Ghosts seem more like incomplete souls, echoes of complete, living spirits. And how timely the possession that it triggered John's resolve to be who "she" was really meant to be.
Thanks for a truly wonderful story. I clicked the kudos button days ago, long before I was halfway through the story. It's taken me far too long to finish this gem.
- Terry
The most beautiful floral bouquet...
Thank you,
That was like receiving a love letter, a bouquet, and a call from home - all wrapped up in one pretty ribbon.
Michelle
A fan of yours..
sent me to find your 'Echoes' and I'm glad I did. A very lovely take on a historical relationship, a young man and his Granny. Lucky boy. x
Echoes...
It now resonates in many lives a third time. Thank you Sarah Lynn!
Hugs sandwiching a kiss, JessieC
Jessica E. Connors
Jessica Connors
What a beautiful story
You are such a gifted writer, you take my breath away.
I am grateful to have had a chance to read such a touching story.
Thank you for sharing it with us.
What can one say?
I don't have a whole lot I can say except it was a beautiful story. Things most could never believe nor understand are told as "stories".
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Romantic letters from the past
It's a good writer who can entice readers into themes they normally avoid, and keep them engaged. Until today, I haven't enjoyed historical romances, or the use of letters to express first-person perspectives. In this story, however, I found myself connecting with John, looking forward to the next letter to find out more about the two lovers. Interesting and well-written, this story captured my imagination.
Well I am well and truly old I guess...
After reading this, well rereading this actually, I have come to realize I had stopped reading your enchanting tales for a bit because there were no more to read. Now I have come back and am reading them as if new. A bit here or there jumps out and slaps me across the cheek as if to say, "Hey! Old FOOL, you know this! The joy! The pain! The indescribable beauty of the word flow!!" Still as I sink ever deeper into each repeated reading I find I cannot stop until I have read it in it's entirety again. Each tale is like a warm soft security blanket to wrap my tattered soul in. My wifemate may indeed be right in that God himself would not bother listening to the prayers of one such as I, but I yet have faith that whether he listens or not, he hears. I say he because that is how the patriarchal society that wrote the bible referred to God, but as a spirit I do not believe God to have a gender. Once again, ad nauseum I suppose, you have wrung tears from this sad old lechers eyes. Your magic is immense, and you heal bit's of even my battered old soul with your stories. thank you so much for sharing this magic with even me. I pray you will find no offense in me for my hubris in thinking of you as a dear friend, who gifted me with comfort and joy at this time of year when the lonely and forgotten need it most. Thank you and may God bless you with all the happiness your heart can hold. God bless. T.
I am a Proud mostly Native American woman. I am bi-polar. I am married, and mother to three boys. I hope we can be friends.
Oh my oh my ..
I freely admit to being rather overwrought at the moment, but this story has moved me to tears and we'll beyond.
A wonderful (ghost?) story, full of love, acceptance and, well to be perfectly honest, a bunch of mixed up emotions that I really don't understand myself. Gosh, you have moved me and brought laughter and tears at a time I only expected tears.
I am genuinely grateful for this ray of( slightly frightening) sunlight.
Lucy xxx
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
Breathtaking
I normally don't go for period pieces set so far back in time such as this, usually because the authors can't help but insert modern sensibilities into the story... like not accounting for just how hard it was back then even to get the most basic information of what was going on in the world even a few hundred miles away. I especially don't go much for supernatural fiction, let alone supernatural, period, TG, fiction.
However, your beautifully written prose pulled me in and captivated me before I even knew what was going on. Brava! Beautiful and lovely and spot on with respect to keeping the story setting believable and yet still managing a happy ending!
I adore your work! There aren't enough praising adjectives to adequately describe them! I guess just, 'MORE!' will have to do.