The Soldier's Wife

Jack recognized the Vances’ new maid the moment she opened the front door, despite the cap covering most of her wild red hair. The freckles were still visible, however, as was the ever-present wariness in the clear blue eyes. She had learned before she could walk not to trust people, and she wasn’t about to let go of the lesson just for Jack Murphy.

“Hello, Mary,” he said easily. “I’m here to see Mrs. Vance—if she’s at home to visitors.”

“Jack, are you crazy!” Mary stepped out onto the huge porch and pulled the door to behind her, her heavily starched, pink-and-white uniform rustling in the process. Clearly, even the maids in Farrell Vance’s house dressed better than the girls at the orphanage ever would. “You can’t come to the front door like this!”

“I can’t? Why not?”

“You’re the hired help. You work for Mr. Barden.”

“I haven’t worked for Mr. Barden for four years,” Jack reminded her. “Nice house,” he added, looking around the front porch at the potted ferns and assorted flowers.

“Mr. Vance won’t like this,” Mary said.

“I’m not here to see Mr. Vance. I’m here to see Elrissa.”

“Why?”

“I want to thank her for her...kindness while I was away—in person, if you don’t mind. All you have to do is ask her if she’ll see me. You can’t be blamed for what happens after that.”

“You’d be surprised what a body can be blamed for in this house. Besides that, you are such a liar. She’s married now. You’ve got no good reason to see her and plenty reasons not to.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, Mary.”

Mary looked at him for a long moment—while Jack struggled to hold on to his impatience. He’d come a long way to stand on Elrissa’s front porch—or was it a veranda?—and he’d done it against the advice of practically every orphan he knew. Only Little Ike had opined that Elrissa needed to own up to her poor treatment of one Jack Murphy. And, in this rare instance, Jack heartily agreed. Now all he needed was to get past Mary.

“I heard she didn’t even send you a letter to tell you she was marrying somebody else,” Mary said, reminding Jack that while the mail wagon for the Army of the Potomac might not have come as often as he and the rest of the Orphans’ Guild would have liked, it did run in both directions. He didn’t need reminding that what one orphan knew, they all knew.

“And that is none of your business,” he said anyway. “I want to see her. The whole rebel army couldn’t stop me from getting what I want, Mary, so I’m not really worried about you.”

She exhaled sharply. “Jack, if you do something to make me lose this job—”

He smiled his best smile, rusty though it might be, and that was all it took.

“Oh, all right, then,” Mary said. “And stop smiling at me. Kissing the girls and making them cry—that’s all you’re good for.”

His smile broadened. “They don’t always cry, Mary. You know that.”

She shook her head at his blatant teasing. “I’ll...go ask her. You stay right here. Right here. And I mean it.” She reached behind her and opened the door. “I mean it!”

“Yes, Mary,” he said dutifully. “I’ll stay right here.”

“See that you do,” she said, determined to have the last word. She backed into the house and made a point of closing the door as firmly as was possible. He waited, listening to the sparrows chirping from their nests under the eaves, looking around the wide front porch again, wondering idly if Elrissa had decorated the stone pillars with red, white and blue bunting for the anniversary of national independence. He thought she might have, even though he’d never known her to care much about the Fourth of July celebration. Her husband would, of course. It would be bad for his business, given the country’s recent victory, if he didn’t participate as noticeably as possible.

A large yellow cat wandered up from somewhere behind the spirea bushes and made several passes against his legs. He reached down and scratched its ear for a moment and wondered what was taking Mary so long. The cat walked away and there was nothing to do but inspect the porch again. There was a swing and two comfortable-looking chairs a few feet away, and he was tempted to go sit in one of them. He had always wanted a porch like this, a place where he could bide his time and drink lemonade and read the newspaper on a quiet Sunday afternoon. He had never been able to see Elrissa sitting in a rocking chair beside him when he imagined this idyllic setting, however.

The front door opened, and Mary stuck her head out. “Well, come on, then,” she said. “She says she’ll see you. I still say you’re crazy, and I’m beginning to think she is, too.”

“You may be right about that, Mary. Lead the way.”

He followed her into the dark coolness of the wide center hallway. He could immediately feel the strong draft created by the opening and closing of certain windows and transoms. It was a tribute to how well the house was built that, even on a hot summer day like this one, there was a steady breeze blowing on the inside.

The inner breeze carried the scent of lemon and beeswax Mary had likely spent hours applying to every wood surface in the place. He had no doubt that she would have learned the ins and outs of furniture polishing at the orphanage, and to such a degree that she could make her living doing it. He couldn’t smell any food cooking. It was likely that there was a big summer kitchen detached from the main house somewhere out back.

“Don’t you stay long,” Mary whispered before she let him into the room where Elrissa must be. “He’ll be home to check on her in a little while.”

“Check on her? For what?” It occurred to him even as he said it that Elrissa must already be having a child.

“None of your business. Just do as I say.”

He smiled at her again, giving her a wink. She swatted the air in exasperation, then opened the door.

“Mr. Murphy, ma’am,” she said, standing back so he could enter.

Elrissa waited on the far side of the room, and she was even more stunning than he remembered. Her pale blond hair had been twisted into ringlets and intricate rolls and braiding. Her hands were clasped at her waist as if she needed to hide their trembling. He might feel a small pang of sympathy if that was so, though trembling hands wouldn’t be in keeping with Elrissa’s headstrong personality at all. She was much more likely to cause the affliction rather than suffer it.

“Mrs. Vance,” he said with a quiet calmness he must have learned on the battlefield. His voice didn’t reflect his inner turmoil in the least, and he was glad of that.

She stood looking back at him, leaving him nowhere to go and nothing to say. He knew very little about women’s clothes, but even he could see that when it came to afternoon dresses and maids’ uniforms, Mary’s was not the only wardrobe that had been significantly enhanced.

“It’s good to see you, Jack. It’s taken you a long time to get home,” Elrissa said, smiling.

“Not that long. We were lucky. Some companies aren’t being discharged at all. The ones that came to the party late or didn’t see much fighting. It’s only fair, in my opinion.”

“Oh. Well. It seems a long time to me. I’ve been wondering if you’d even come back to Lexington at all. No one seemed to know.”

“You asked about my return?”

“Well, about the regiments,” she said. “We’re all very proud of the Kentuckians. Papa and Farrell and I traveled down to Washington in May for the Grand Review. It was...thrilling. Two days for the army to pass. I looked for you in the parades, but I didn’t see you. Were you there?”

“Yes. All the orphans were there—what’s left of us.”

She was looking at him so intently, as if she expected him to make some comment about her having witnessed the Grand Review. He had no idea what she expected him to say—that he’d looked for her among the throng of spectators? He hadn’t. The truth was that it never occurred to him that she might be there.

“Why are you here, Jack?” she asked abruptly.

He looked at her in surprise. “Why? Well, I thought we’d start with an explanation—yours. I think I deserve that much—and then we could conclude with an apology—also yours.”

“Apology? My goodness.” Clearly such a thing had never occurred to her.

“You said you’d marry me, Elrissa.”

“Yes, well, that was never really...official, now, was it?”

“It was official to me. Why did you do that? Say you’d marry me if you had no intention of doing so?”

She waved one hand in the air. “I was very young, Jack. To tell you the truth, I just didn’t think. You were leaving. The train was coming—I had no time to think. Later I realized my father would never have agreed. You’re not...”

“Not what?” he asked when she didn’t continue.