CHAPTER ONE #2
When they first met, Leona and Audrey had often shared tea and conversation, but of late Leona felt nothing but a wall of smothered animosity between them. They hadn’t argued, as such, though she had an idea where the strained relations came from.
“Is she well?” Leona asked.
For a moment, she didn’t think Audrey would answer, but the woman turned toward her again. “She passed a quiet night. The laudanum helps.”
Leona frowned. Audrey flicked a dismissive hand and went on her way.
The introduction of laudanum in Daphne’s life began not long after Leona moved to Cranberry Street with Gil that summer.
The spas and cures Daphne’s grandson Benedict and his wife arranged didn’t seem to help anymore.
The family hired Audrey, who administered the laudanum, a common enough panacea.
Laudanum’s presence always disturbed Leona, and she had protested to the family, but no one listened.
Audrey had become cold after this discussion.
Leona believed some of Daphne’s pain came from her daily battle with grief.
Leona often feared her own grief and the overuse of laudanum, prescribed by a respected doctor in Boston, had killed the child from her previous marriage to Jack Davenport. Poor dead Jack.
Her grandfather had brought her to Daphne. He’d thrust Leona, then a wan ghost addled by grief, laudanum, and the war, back into life by bringing her here to live. The only one of his grandchildren to return from those bloody battlefields. Daphne’s friendship was healing.
Audrey finally turned away and left Leona alone.
Leona entered the Lavender Room; indigo to the palest of mauveine surrounded her and made her smile.
Dried lavender scented the air. The familiar priceless art, vivid fabrics, and the heavy furniture glowing with fresh beeswax polish all still held the power to soothe her.
“Hello, lovey,” was Daphne’s affectionate greeting. Her maid had dressed her gray hair in a neat chignon. Pearls lay against her throat and matching earrings dangled from her lobes. She wore only mourning black without exception.
Daphne stood by the tea table pouring steaming tea into patterned cups, violets and gold trim, pastry piled high on a small silver platter. She handed Leona a cup, the rings on her fingers glittering. Leona took the cup, filled a plate, and sat in a comfortable chair near the crackling fire.
Daphne followed, unhampered by the cane in the crowded space.
A framed painting hung above the fireplace.
A much younger Daphne in a riding habit, tight at the waist but with enormous sleeves, flowing skirts of yellow cloth, and a top hat with a veil.
She held a small, pop-eyed dog tucked under one arm and a riding crop under the other.
The painter, despite the ridiculous amount of bright, distracting cloth, had caught the lively intensity in Daphne’s brown eyes.
Daphne sat in the armchair across from her. “You look tired, Leona.”
“I don’t sleep well.” Would she ever sleep a full night through again?
To steer the subject away from inevitable health questions, she said, “I’ve heard from my grandfather.
He’ll be in town next month, on his return from the Ohio tour.
” He’d stayed away for more dire reasons, but the last she’d heard from him, he was safe from those who threatened him.
“In time for Christmas? How lovely for you.”
It would be lovely. A small thrill of anticipation for his impending visit tickled through her. She could almost smell the fresh-cut evergreens.
“You must all come for dinner while he is here. I would so enjoy that.” Daphne gave her a direct look, eyebrows arched. “Have you spoken to him about your stories yet? I did promise not to speak to him about them, but you promised you would think about it.”
Leona’s shoulders tensed. “Well, I—no.”
“But your—I mean—Mr. John Barrington’s Ned and Zed adventure stories are very popular. Oh, I so wish you’d let me tell him!”
The corner of the folio dug into her thigh, so she moved it to her lap as she considered her question. She’d been afraid no one would read the stories in the beginning and didn’t want to disappoint him. Leona took the pages from the folio and stood to hand them to Daphne.
Daphne smiled as she accepted the packet. “Thank you, Mr. Barrington. What are your boys up to in this installment, I wonder?”
“The sample sketches are on top,” Leona pointed out, answering Daphne’s smile with her own. “And you know you have to read to find out.”
In her favorite of the illustrations, Little Ned, drummer boy of the Union Army, a brave and cheeky character, had climbed an apple tree and now reached for a plump apple with a grin.
His more serious companion, a formerly enslaved boy named Zedekiah, stood on the ground looking up, his eyes wide with worry, hands on his hips as if to scold.
“I’d like your opinion on something else, however. Something bigger.”
Daphne set the packet aside. “And what else do you have for me, I wonder?”
Leona took a deep breath. The moment had come. “There’s a woman who published a book in ‘65, a memoir of her time with the Second Michigan as a soldier during the war.”
Surprise lit her face. “How thrilling. I should love to read such a book. Did you bring me a copy?”
“I’ll bring it next time. But I’m thinking of doing the same, of writing my memoir.”
“Not surprising, my dear.”
“I’ve begun it.”
“Excellent! Have you also written to this authoress?”
Leona shook her head. “I’d love to, but she published anonymously.”
“You must write to the publisher, then. And you must let your grandfather publish yours or find you the absolute right publisher. At the very least, he would want to know his granddaughter has literary ambitions.” Her opinions, always delivered in a comfortable, motherly tone, were a balm for an old, deep wound.
“I’m not ready to even think about who will publish it.” Leona rearranged her pastries with nervous fingers. “It’s only an exercise right now.”
“You’ve shared this memoir with your husband?”
“Well. No. He knows about the essays and the reviews. I haven’t told him about my being a soldier—I don’t think he—would like it very much.
” An understatement if she’d ever uttered one.
When she disappeared, the family gave out she’d volunteered to nurse the soldiers, like Aunt Louisa.
The story had survived into her marriage.
“So, you would publish anonymously, too, then?”
“I’m not worried about the broader public’s reaction.
This woman’s memoir is selling very well.
But Gil and society here on the Heights.
...” Gil was an ambitious social climber, fueled by her pedigree married to his charm and ambition.
She feared most of all a fall from grace for them both.
“They might read it as a novelty, but they would condemn me behind my back. Call me a liar, insane, or worse.” A killer.
A monstrous woman. It hurt to imagine the expression on Gil’s face, for him to see her as other than he thought she was. The mother of his future children.
But neither could she bear not to write it. To not bear witness.
“Well, you must do as you think is best for you, my dear. I don’t know Mr. Gladney very well. I cannot imagine what his reaction would be. I’m honored you trust me to read your story. Do you have a title yet?”
“ Lady Soldier of the Union Army .” Leona handed her the remainder of the pages in the folio.
“I think the title is bold and truthful. Oran fears too much truth will turn readers away. He also wants me to write under the John Barrington pseudonym. As told to, or some such rot. I prefer Anonymous to the pen name, but Oran believes Mr. Barrington would give the story gravitas, since he was a—fictional—captain in the war.”
“I like it. I understand both points of view. Would you read it to me?”
Leona had only hoped to hand the pages over to Daphne. Agonized by the thought of giving voice to her memories, she shook her head, and said between stiff lips, “I can’t.”
“I understand the work is not ready for an editorial eye, not like Ned and Zed.”
“Well, I hoped you might read the beginning part on your own and then give me your opinion.”
Daphne regarded her for a moment. “You don’t want to read it to me?”
“It’s hard to speak of it.” Her throat dry, she swallowed a gulp of tea. “That’s why I write it.”
“You have no one to talk to. No wonder you—well.”
Tears sprang to Leona’s eyes, and the cup clattered into the saucer. “No, you don’t see. It lives in me. When I write about it, my heart pounds, my breath is gone, my body quakes. Even at unexpected times, it will take over, and I feel it all again.”
Daphne’s features softened, her own eyes brightening with tears. “A soldier’s heart, that’s what they call it, my dear. When the battles won’t stop.”
“The writing helps. I feel better, after. It’s a purge, though not a cure.”
“My Freddy wrote about it, in his letters home. About a boy he knew who suffered from it.”
The reminder of Daphne’s sons made Leona shrink inside. “Men say women are too weak to think, never mind fight, too soft, too empty-headed. It’s not true, not for most of us. But I’m wrong, selfish. I don’t want you to read it anymore. You don’t want to know what it was like for your boys.”
Daphne unfolded her reading glasses and cleared her throat. “I will read the first few pages aloud. If we come to a part which neither one of us can bear, we shall stop. Agreed?” She held out her hand.
The tart and sweet memory of sun-ripened cherries flooded Leona’s mouth. They’d devoured them by the handful on their starveling way through the orchards of Pennsylvania on the road to Gettysburg. From the place Daphne’s sons hadn’t returned.
Leona glanced down at the memoir’s pages, her heart skipping in anticipation. Sometimes, she feared, neither had she.