Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (4 page)

We walked back to the carriage, and I gave Lionel the food I’d
saved.  As we prepared to head back to Chester, Mr. Banks took my hand and
kissed it once more.  “Do I have your permission to call on you in
Chester?” he asked me.

“Yes, that would be fine, Mr. Banks,” I said, smiling.  I
told him the way to get there.

“Mr. Banks, how nice to meet you,” Jane Washington said, as Mr.
Banks picked up her hand and kissed it in greeting.  He had come to see me
the next week’s end, just like he’d asked.  I introduced him to Mr.
Washington, and they shook hands.  We walked around the farm for a time,
and I introduced him to the farm animals we had been raising.  Later we
sat around the big round kitchen table with ladder-back chairs and ate fresh
vegetables from the garden made into a stew along with some blue crabs that Mr.
Banks had brought with him. 

“Did you catch these crabs, Mr. Banks?” Mr. Washington
asked. 

“Oh, no, sir.  A neighbor of mine has the means to catch
those things.  No, I’m too busy down at the railroad and also fixing up my
manor.”  He talked more about some of the same things he’d already told
me, about what he does for a living and how he’d been fixing up his plantation
home.  He was charming, had us all entertained, and then went on back home
to City Point after supper. 

A fortnight later, Mrs. Jane accompanied Lionel and me to City
Point and met Mr. Banks, following him to Western Manor.  Mr. Banks showed
Mrs. Jane around the manor, and also showed us the kitchen house, which was
sparse but he’d apparently been working on it since the last time I’d been
there. 

After the tour, I went to the river-front porch and sat on a
wooden bench and looked over the water, trying to remember…something,
anything.  I’d been mulling it all over in my head since first meeting Mr.
Banks.  I tried to see him as a future husband, and yet I could not get
the other man out of my memory.  I re-lived that memory again and again in
my head.  I wanted so much to see his face. 

I heard some children nearby and looked down the river where the
voices and laughter came from.  There was a blonde-haired little girl and
two dark-headed boys splashing about at the water’s edge a short distance
away.  Something about seeing them sparked a memory.  I remember playing
in a body of water with two other boys as a child, except one of them was
blonde and the other dark-haired.  The dark-haired boy had a frog, which
he threw on me.  I screamed, just as the little girl in the river also
screamed, and it jolted me back to the present.  I’d had another memory…as
a child.  I had indeed lived close to a river or lake.  I wondered
who the two boys had been.  One was perhaps my brother, since Mr. Banks
told me I had one.  Was the blonde-haired boy Mr. Banks?  And yet he
told me he only met me just after the war.  Could the man from my vision
have been one the boys?

“Darlin’,” Mr. Banks disturbed my thoughts.  “Are you all
right?  I thought I heard screaming.  He stood beside me on the
porch, catching me unawares. 

“It was the children over there,” I told him, pointing to
them. 

“Do you want to have children, Madeline?  We could start
that right away, if you do.”

I was flabbergasted.  I swallowed air or saliva or
something and started choking.  He pounded my back forcefully but not to
the point of pain.  I had no intention of starting a family with this
man.  I still had not gotten used to the idea of marrying him yet, let
alone being intimate with him.  I finally caught my breath again. 
“Thank you,” I whispered hoarsely.  “Uh, someday, Mr. Banks.  I can’t
think about that until my memory comes back.”

“Very well,” he said.  He squatted down directly in front
of the bench and picked up one of my hands in his.  “Madeline, would you
please do me the honor of calling me Jefferson?  If we are betrothed, you
are allowed to call me by my given name, especially in private
conversation.  Would you do that for me?”  He kissed my hand softly.

“All right,” I relented.  “If it means that much to you,” I
continued.  I supposed I could get used to calling him Jefferson.  He
looked at me so sweetly, and he had been a complete gentleman up to this
point. 

“It does,” he said.  “It’s a nice start.  Perhaps it
will help you remember me better.”  He stood, still holding my hand, and
looked at the children again.  He looked back at me and winked.  I
could tell what he had on his mind.  I would call him Jefferson, but I
would not be sharing his bed anytime soon.

After seeing the children by the river and having the memory of
myself as a child, I began to have dreams of the same children.  Sometimes
we’d be in the water splashing about and swimming on hot summer days. 
Other times, we’d just wade and fish.  Sometimes I’d wake up
laughing.  I was envious of the happiness I’d had as a child.  I
wanted it back.  More dreams came soon after, including one where I was
climbing a huge tree, following the two boys as they climbed higher and
higher.  The boys’ faces started getting clearer in my dreams, though I
would soon forget them after I woke up.  The blonde boy taunted and teased
me as I tried climbing to reach them in that tree.  The other boy looked
amused but slightly concerned as I continued climbing higher.  I watched
his expression turn to horror as I lost my footing and fell out of the tree. 
I hit the ground hard on my hind side.  The boys quickly jumped down out
of the tree, the blonde boy started crying, and the concerned one yelled
“Maddie!” and then picked me up and carried me away.  I could still
remember his amber eyes when I woke up.

I also thought about the boy calling me “Maddie”.  That
would be a nickname for Madeline. 

I had other dreams of the three of us, including playing
hide-and-seek in some sort of dark tunnel.  In another dream, it was
snowing hard, and only two of us – me and the blonde boy – played in the snow,
building a snow fort.  In yet another dream, we were with the amber-eyed
boy and sledded down a long steep hill towards the river. 
         When I woke up, I could remember
bits and pieces, so I started writing down what my dreams were about, what the
surroundings looked like, and described what the boys looked like so I could
remember.  I could especially remember those amber eyes of the dark-haired
boy, and began to wonder, again, who the boys were.

Jefferson came by the farm early one morning and took me to
Surry.  I’d been asking him to take me to my childhood home, hoping I
would see the same things I’d seen in my dreams, that I would recognize
something.  When we got to a two-story brick house with the roof falling off
the top of it, I didn’t recognize anything.  We walked around the outside,
looking into windows.  In the dining room, there were cupboards with
missing and lop-sided hanging doors, broken dishes scattered on the floor, no
chairs, and a broken table in the middle.  In the parlor at the back of
the house, a huge tree had fallen onto the second story directly above
it.  The windows were either cracked or shattered.  It was in
terrible condition. 

The James River was a distance away and down a hill, but it didn’t
quite look the same as what I’d seen in my dreams.  I was
disappointed.  I had hoped I would find some evidence that I’d lived here
before, some memory, but got none.  Jefferson chatted on and on about how
the manor needed to be fixed up, would take a lot of money to do so, and that
that cousin would be coming to try his hand at repairing it soon enough.

“Would I know this cousin?” I asked Jefferson.

“I’ve not heard you mention him before,” he said warily. 
“It was something I heard from someone in town.

“Who?”

“I don’t recall,” he said.  He began to fidget with his hat
and looked down at it.  A soft rain began to fall.  “Perhaps I should
take you back to the Washingtons.”  I agreed.  “I’m sorry you didn’t
remember your home.”

“So am I.”

The weather turned cold, and soon it was Christmas. 
Jefferson started pressuring me into marriage.  I still was not ready
yet.  I didn’t love him.  I kept thinking about the man’s voice I’d
heard in my brief memory, and so I still had hope that that man would find
me.  I just kept telling Jefferson that I wanted my memory back
first.  He bought me a beautiful deep blue dress that was as soft as
velvet for a Christmas gift.  I scolded him, saying it looked too
expensive during these hard times, and where would I wear such a thing
anyway?  He assured me he’d find a reason for me to wear it, if only on my
wedding day. 

He did take me to a dance on New Year’s Eve at a farm house up
in Bellwood.  A prominent family there still had enough money to gather
friends together and have a little music and food, nothing fancy at all, mostly
just to socialize and ring in the year of 1867.  I wore the dress
Jefferson gave me, and we danced quite a bit. 

“I told you I’d find an occasion for you to wear this dress,” he
said while we were dancing an English country dance.

“Yes, and you were true to your word.  This is quite
enjoyable,” I said.  It was enjoyable.  I felt like I could actually
have a little amusement for a change.  I’d been so busy worrying about who
I was, about finding someone I knew, and about whether or not to marry
Jefferson, that I had not been very happy.

That’s when I saw an attractive blonde lady who was staring at
me.  After the dance ended, I turned and saw that she was still watching
me while trying to be pleasant to her dance partner.  She looked familiar,
but I couldn’t remember who she was.  Jefferson followed my eyes, and when
he saw the other lady looking at me, he quickly offered to get some libations. 
I reluctantly agreed, and he led me in the opposite direction.  He
wouldn’t let me anywhere near the blonde lady for the rest of the night, right
up until midnight.

When the longcase clock struck midnight in the foyer of the old
house, Jefferson asked my permission to give me a traditional New Year’s Eve
kiss.  I agreed, thinking he’d simply give me a quick peck on the
cheek.  I was wrong.  He kissed me straight on the lips, and pulled
me close to his body.  I opened my eyes, wishing to stop him, and he
reluctantly opened his own eyes and ended the kiss.  He grinned at me, but
I felt like slapping him.  I looked around, embarrassed at his public
display of affection, hoping no one saw, and was relieved to see that other
couples were doing similar acts of affection around us.  Nevertheless, I
ordered him to take me home at once.  On the way out the door, I saw the
blonde lady again, who watched me curiously, but I was too upset to try and
talk to her.

I had another dream soon after New Year’s of me and the two boys. 
The weather was warm instead of cold, and the blonde boy and I got into a small
rowboat and paddled down the river till we reached a big dock on a large piece
of flat land that stretched up a hill into the trees.  The dark-haired boy
was on the dock waiting for us.  The blonde boy tied up our rowboat, and
we climbed up onto the dock.  We ran around a small pond filled with
geese, who responded to our intrusion by honking noisily.  We played
hide-and-seek among the trees and gardens of the huge piece of land.  It
was really a marvelous place to hide and play, with big bushes, tall trees, and
beautiful flowers among formal walkways.  I caught up with the dark-headed
boy with the amber eyes just before waking up.  The last thing I
remembered was grabbing his arm and yelling in a child-like voice, “I got you,
Wellsy!  You’re it!”

I immediately wrote down the dream and underlined the name,
Wellsy.  Who was Wellsy?  What kind of name was that?  A
nickname perhaps?  I wondered about where the land was and about getting
in the rowboat.  It seemed that I had lived with the blonde boy – perhaps
he was my brother or a cousin – and we went down the river to where the
dark-haired boy lived.  We were all very close friends.  And we’d
been terribly happy.  Where were they now, my dear friends?  Were
they looking for me at all?  Were they even alive? 

Spring came early, and Jefferson began to get restless of
waiting for me to make a decision.  He proclaimed that a June wedding
would be just the thing.  He offered to buy me a new dress or that I could
wear the blue one he’d already gotten me, if I preferred it.  I still
could not think about being romantically involved with Jefferson when my heart
tugged me in another direction.  In the direction of a man whose face I
could not remember but whose voice would forever haunt my memory.  I had
to find out what happened to him before I could marry Jefferson.

I had many conversations with Mrs. Washington about Jefferson
and also about the man I hoped to find.  I also told her about the dreams
I’d had of my childhood and my two friends.  She was very supportive and
wise, telling me that I shouldn’t marry Jefferson if it didn’t feel right in my
heart, that they loved having me with them and I was welcome to stay there as
long as I wanted to.

Jefferson had told me stories about us before I lost my memory,
none of which gave me any visions or real memories, nothing that seemed
familiar.  One warm day in May, while we sat in new chairs on his
river-front porch looking over the river, he once again asked me for a
date.  “June’s coming up on us real quick, darlin’.  When are you
going to do me a favor and marry me?  I need a woman here to help me run
this plantation.”