Chapter 28 #2
“My brothers went to war together. James died first, at Fort Donelson. Alisdair was next, a year later. By the third year of the war, I was the only one left of my family. Caroline was home, at Gleneagle, trying to keep everything together.”
He speared one hand through his hair, glanced down at her. “My brothers went to war to keep everything just as it was. None of us knew, at the time, that life would never be the same again.”
He folded his arms, leaning against the other car, his gaze fixed, again, on the distance. She knew, however, he wasn’t looking at the interior of the Inverness Station but at the past.
“I received two letters from Caroline when I was in Washington. She tried to tell me how things were at Gleneagle. I told myself she was used to being sheltered and viewed any deprivation as a hardship. I knew she was grieving for James, and I thought she was craving attention.”
He moved restlessly, finally meeting her eyes.
“She was like that. She lived life fully. She laughed often and cried often. There wasn’t any middle ground for Caroline.”
He looked away again. “I didn’t know she was starving.”
She bit her bottom lip.
“I didn’t want to return to Gleneagle. I didn’t want to go home, and I did so grudgingly, months after I should have.
When I did, it was to find Caroline dead.
Gleneagle was gone. The house had been razed, put to the cannon, and the fields set on fire.
The Army of the Potomac had leveled my home because it was owned by a family who’d fought for the South. ”
He unfolded his arms, standing with feet braced apart, his hands at his back. “After that, I didn’t much care what happened to me,” he said. “The Balloon Corps was disbanded, I was assigned to a regiment. When the war was over, I eventually went home to Virginia. That’s when Edmund found me.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“There’s nothing in Virginia but memories, Veronica. Memories of my culpability, my pride, my guilt.”
“Why didn’t you come back when she wrote you?”
“My airships,” he said, his smile self-deprecating.
“At first, I was enthusiastic about the idea of being able to use them in war, to show the generals how intelligence could be gathered behind enemy lines without endangering anyone. Then I got caught up in the politics of it. There was talk the Corps was going to be disbanded. I spent weeks arguing with people, writing letters to the generals I’d worked with, trying to convince anyone, attempting to get funds for the Corps. In the end, it didn’t matter.”
Silence stretched between them, but when he would have escorted her back into the car, Veronica shook her head, placed her palm against his jacket, right over his heart.
“How do you know you could have saved her if you’d returned to Gleneagle?”
“What do you mean, how do I know?”
“Every day, for months, I replayed the night my parents died. If I’d insisted on going with my father to save my mother, I might have saved both of them.
If I’d awakened, checked the lamps, made sure the stove wasn’t overheated, then perhaps the fire would never have happened.
I don’t know, Montgomery. Perhaps we’re only supposed to deal with what we know, what’s already happened, not pretend it might have been different. ”
“Life isn’t a choice.”
She smiled. “Yes, it is. What would you choose, Montgomery? To see only bleakness and despair? Why shouldn’t we choose a little joy, a little happiness?”
“That’s not life, Veronica.”
“Oh, Montgomery, it is life, just not the one we’ve known for the last few years.”
He looked startled by her words.
“I wouldn’t take away what’s happened to you, Montgomery.
I know that sounds cruel, but it’s made you the man you are, the kind man you are.
You treat others with dignity and respect.
You planned financially for me so I would never be in the same position as Caroline.
I understand that, now. Yet, at the same time, what’s happened to you has made you stand apart from life, to be uninvolved.
Your life will happen whether or not you participate in it, Montgomery, I know that only too well. ”
She dropped her hand. “Is Caroline a vengeful ghost?”
He smiled. “She’s not really a ghost at all.”
She nodded, expecting him to say that. “Then she doesn’t condemn you for what you did.”
“It wasn’t what I did I regret, Veronica, but what I didn’t do.”
“I didn’t check the lamps. I didn’t ensure the wicks were trimmed.”
He frowned at her.
“Caroline could have told you. She could have come out, and said, come home, Montgomery. We’re starving. We need help.”
“She wasn’t reared to be as direct as you,” he said.
“So you were supposed to guess what she meant? You were supposed to infer all her thoughts and wishes? I have a Gift, Montgomery, but even I could not have done that.”
“You ridicule my past, Veronica.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t. I can understand regretting your actions, Montgomery. But how can you regret something that never happened? Besides,” she added, “Caroline wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
“And how do you know?” he asked, the beginning of a smile curving his lips.
“Because you feel her. Because her thoughts are with you. Because you loved her, and she loved you.”
“That’s enough? Love?”
She nodded. “Of course, Montgomery. Of course it is.”
He would have said something, but a passenger abruptly appeared at the base of the steps. Montgomery moved aside, grabbed her elbow, and whispered in her ear. “Come back home.”
“I’ve an errand to perform,” she said, and told him about Elspeth’s grandmother.
“That damnable mirror.”
“Had it not been for the mirror,” she said, “we wouldn’t have met.”
He smiled, the expression deepening his dimples.
“We would have met, Veronica. Something tells me that. Fate would have made certain of it.”
She couldn’t be certain he said what she heard next, because it was such an odd remark for Montgomery to make.
“Or maybe my ghosts sent you to me.”