Chapter 54
fifty-four
Truth will ultimately prevail where pains is taken to bring it to light.
George Washington
That night, despite Bronwyn’s worries about the steep steps, Mae slept upstairs on a trundle bed Father Harlow had made, her ears tuned to Rhys in the parlor below.
She’d not shared his bed since he’d first returned home, fearful of disturbing him.
But she missed him and his warmth, the whole-bodied man he’d been.
She hardly knew what to make of him now.
Bronwyn and Father Harlow had come up the hill for supper again.
After they’d eaten, her father-in-law took out a violin, making her wonder where the one she’d given Rhys had gone.
Perhaps her father’s instrument had been lost along the way.
But that seemed a question best left unasked, at least for the moment.
So many questions.
Rhys played briefly, a few tunes from the war. She recognized “The Girl I Left Behind Me” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Rather than brighten her mood, the music left her downcast, though she worked hard to hide it as she listened, sewing more swaddling from linen Bronwyn had spun and woven.
There was no heart to his music like before. Though skillfully played, it seemed flat. Forced. And then her in-laws had hastened down the hill as the snow robed the valley in deeper white.
She turned over, wishing she was nearer the fire.
Snow light made it seem dawn, not midnight.
Was Rhys warm enough? She’d given him an extra blanket but hadn’t checked the parlor fire before bed, just gone upstairs to wash and say her prayers.
Of all they’d lost, it was the prayers that bookended their days that she most lamented.
Had he stopped praying?
The thought nettled her till she slipped into oblivion, a cold, restless sleep where five blankets weren’t sufficient and her pillow slip felt like ice.
Unwillingly, she returned to the bewilderment of the north woods in her dreams. Muddled, distressed dreams where Lucy was missing and there was no sign of Rhys.
She awoke shaken and half sick at first light.
Eyes open, she sensed another presence that brought her bolt upright.
Shaking off her dream, she startled at the silhouette of a man in a Windsor chair.
Rhys. His crutches made a skeletal shadow against the wall behind him.
Somehow he’d gotten upstairs. The bedchamber’s grate roared with light and warmth.
He was looking at the empty cradle, and she felt another start to find him freshly shaven, when he’d been bearded since his return. She brushed back her own unraveled braid, drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them, the blankets surrounding her like petticoats.
“Mae, there’s something that needs saying.”
His intensity troubled her. Terrified her. His low words held far less heat than when they’d faced off before but still shook her. She couldn’t even gather the wherewithal to ask him how he’d managed to come upstairs. What if he turned her out like he’d threatened to do at Fort Montgomery?
“Rather, I need to tell you some things.” He set his jaw, and she sensed his unwillingness to say what he must. “Much happened after I left you at the fort. It seems dishonest to keep it from you.”
She looked at the leaping fire rather than his face, bracing herself for whatever was to come. Did he sense all her unasked questions?
“We moved up the Hudson, south of Fort Edward where Jane McCrea was killed.” He paused, and she felt the horror of hearing Jane’s story all over again.
“Then the Rifle Corps joined General Gates and the main body of the American army near Saratoga. We battled the British twice there in September and October . . .” His eyes were aglitter.
“James fought like the true Patriot he was at Freeman’s Farm. ”
Was.
Her own eyes filled as the weight of his words pushed past her disbelief. Her beloved brother . . . gone. For some reason she’d rarely considered the possibility James or Jon might fall, only Rhys. She wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her nightgown as he continued quietly.
“He’s buried near where he fell. James died quickly—didn’t suffer long.”
The fury of battle was beyond him. James, as firm in his faith as he was his Patriot convictions, was at peace.
“Did he know—about Coralie?” Somehow she couldn’t bear it if he did.
“If he learned about Coralie it was through someone else, not me, though he never mentioned it. He didn’t even know you and I quarreled.”
Relief pulsed through her—and respect. Rhys was above besmirching family members, even angry as he’d been. “And Jon?”
“Jon is well, though he took a bayonet wound to the shoulder in the second battle. After that, he left to winter with his family and recover. He never mentioned Coralie again once she’d left the fort.”
Jon would heal, she hoped, and one day rebuild all he and his family had lost.
“There’s more.” He leaned forward in his chair, hands fisted between his knees. “When Burgoyne surrendered, hundreds of British soldiers and their followers gave up their weapons and walked past Continental troops. I was overseeing the British arms when I saw your sister.”
What? She tried to imagine it, surprise trumping her shame. She’d thought Coralie was long gone. Where to, she didn’t know. She’d never expected her to be near a battlefield.
“I saw her walk by,” Rhys continued matter-of-factly. “She even looked my way.”
And none too kindly, Mae was sure. “Where did she go?”
“She was among the prisoners taken to Boston. There was talk, per surrender terms, about putting both troops and Loyalists on ships to England.”
England, a place Coralie had never been, though she remained loyal to the mother country. “She said nothing when she walked past you?”
“Nay.” He paused again, and she steeled herself for something else—something worse.
“As I stood on the field where they were laying down their weapons, a shot rang out from the trees on the hill behind me.” He put a hand on his thigh, so near the wound she winced.
“I was struck by musket fire and fell. The shooter was Eben Gibbs.”
She drew in her breath so sharply it became a cry.
“He meant to kill me, he said. Muskets make miserable arms, or he might have done so. As soon as he misfired, he ran but was soon rounded up by the New York militia. After his court-martial, he hung.”
Stung, she looked to the cradle as if it could anchor her. Her thoughts were dashing in every direction, trying to come to terms with James’s death, Coralie’s capture, and Gibbs’s execution. And how Rhys had suffered the consequences.
The tears she thought checked began to fall again. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” He looked to the cradle again absently. “I’m sorry in ways I can’t fully grasp or express.”
Sorrow washed through her, along with a burning ire and suffocating regret.
She wanted to run out the back door again and escape her unruly emotions.
As it was, she could only get up and grab her smallclothes and go downstairs to make breakfast. But that made her feel she was abandoning him when he needed her.
Only he might not need her but push her away if she tried to comfort him or seek comfort.
In the kitchen, her hands fairly shook as she ground the coffee beans she’d roasted the day before, her mind grappling with all he’d told her.
She’d never see James again, her beloved brother who had served so faithfully without complaint.
Who had loved to tease and never bore a grudge.
Who had introduced her to the man she loved best.
Once again she felt she held part of the blame for Eben Gibbs’s final, dishonorable act, no doubt nurtured through Coralie and her loathing of Rhys and the American cause. Though it hadn’t killed him, Rhys would carry the effects of it to his grave. As would she.
Woodenly, she went through the routine of frying bacon and toasting bread and brewing coffee, her hands busy but her head elsewhere. The tap of crutches brought her round. Though everything in her wanted to, she resisted the urge to hurry into the hall and help Rhys down the stairs.
When he finally came into the kitchen he took a seat at the head of the table.
His bowed head and closed eyes brought another knot to her throat.
She served him wordlessly, her own appetite gone.
Would she ever be able to get past their confrontation at the fort?
Did she misconstrue his intensity, his dark looks of late, for something else entirely?
Might it have been the burden of keeping secret all that he’d just told her?
She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and return to the way they’d been at first, when even the roughness of a fort in the middle of the wilderness hadn’t mattered with him beside her. But there was no going back. Only forward.
When he thanked her for breakfast it rent her already broken heart. As he ate, she stood by a window, staring out at the snowy landscape the wind had sculpted with deep drifts and pockets, the glare making her squint.
Only the pop of the fire sounded. And then she heard the scrape of his chair as he got up from the table. She hoped he might hobble toward her, perhaps put his arms around her as he used to do. The ache in her chest and throat grew unbearable as she held back her tears.
When she looked again he wasn’t there.