Swan's Way (16 page)

“Come on, man!” Rodney boomed. “What are you waiting for? If we don’t move fast, we’ll miss our ride.”

“I’m not going,” Channing said quietly, his composure painfully enforced.

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you are! What’s gotten into you, Chan? This is what we’ve all been waiting for, training for, praying for.”

Channing stood and stared at his friend, with dark, pleading eyes. “We’ve come too far, Rodney. Stay. Finish classes. There’ll be plenty of time. There’ll be plenty of war to go around.”

“You damn idiot!” Rodney’s face bloomed bright red, a mixture of excitement and frustration. “We’ll whip the Yankees in a month. You think I’m going to sit up here
studying
the war tactics of Napoleon and Caesar, when I could be out there
using
them against the Yankees? Pa would skin me alive if I stayed. Besides, I don’t want to miss a lick. I can’t wait to shoot my first blue-belly!”

A grim scene formed in Channing’s mind—through a screen of smoke and fire and chaos, he saw a face clenched in a grimace of hate, a face above a gun, a gun pointed at his own heart. He knew that face well. It was the face of his friend, his classmate, his brother. It was Rodney Swan’s face.

Channing stared down at his unfinished letter to Virginia and shook his head slowly. “I can’t leave now, Rodney. I just can’t.”

“Well, by damn, sit here, then! Let the world and the glory pass you by. Not me! I’m going home. I’m going to marry Agnes and leave her carrying my son, and then I’m going to mount one of Pa’s blooded horses and ride off singing ‘Dixie’ and waving the Stars and Bars.” He gripped an imaginary flagstaff and made great sweeping motions with his invisible banner. “Hail to Virginia!” he cried. “Hail to the South! Hail to our Cause!”

Channing knew there was no way he could dissuade Rodney from his plan to leave West Point. He rose, clasped the other man’s hand in solemn farewell, and said in a grim tone, “Take care, my friend. When you get home, tell your sister that I will be there soon to make her my wife. Tell her I love her, won’t you?”

The two men parted without Channing’s having confided in his friend that he remained loyal to the Union. He couldn’t yet bring himself to confess aloud what he had known all along in his heart of hearts—that as much as he loved his home state, he loved the Union more. He would wait until after graduation. He would tell Virginia first and then confess his plans to all the others. Maybe Rodney’s leaving was premature. Maybe there would be no war after all.

“And maybe hell will freeze over!” he said, in grim response to his own hopeless thoughts.

Channing went back to his letter, but the words wouldn’t come.
How
would he tell Virginia? And what would his decision do to their lives?

Commencement ceremonies were held on a Monday, the sixth of May. Although Second Lieutenant Channing Russell McNeal had attained his goal at long last, the day was not what he had hoped for. Two hundred seventy-eight cadets had been at the Academy the previous November, eighty-six of them from the South. Sixty-five of his Southern brothers—many, like Rodney, who would have graduated with the Class of ’61—had left West Point to fight for the Confederacy. Channing missed his comrades.

Since the current in the States was highly uncertain, neither the Swans nor the McNeals traveled North to witness and help celebrate the occasion. Channing missed not having his family with him. Most of all, he missed Virginia. He carried her ring with him everywhere. He had so hoped to be able to slip it on her finger on this glorious day in May. Now he would have to wait until right before their wedding, but that was less than a month away. He had waited this long; he could wait a little longer. All he thought about now was getting back home to her. He concentrated on his love and pushed all the troubling thoughts from his mind.

Channing received a congratulatory letter from his father, urging him to hurry home as soon as possible, after the ceremonies. Mr. McNeal said that Colonel Swan was waiting for Channing’s return, so that his cavalry unit could be on its way. They hoped to see their first battle before the month was out. Channing’s father also expressed his pride in his son’s accomplishment in graduating from West Point, near the top of his class, and his eagerness for Channing to return South to distinguish himself on the field of battle against the Northern invaders.

In spite of his eagerness to see Virginia again, his father’s final statement was uppermost in Channing’s mind, as he rode under the arched entrance to Swan’s Quarter. The moment he had most looked forward to and most dreaded had come.

Virginia got up and stretched. She had put in a long morning, working on her quilt cover. Now that it was finished, she felt only disappointment, not the sense of accomplishment that she had hoped for.

“It’s not the quilt’s fault,” she sighed. “It’s lovely.” She fingered her handiwork, but her thoughts were all of Channing. Where could he be? Why hadn’t she heard from him since that last letter over a week ago—the one with the pressed forsythia enclosed? She fingered the silver locket at her throat and smiled. One of the golden-yellow flowers was now tucked inside, opposite the miniature of Channing.

Suddenly, she heard a stir of excitement outside—dogs barking, geese honking, and the raucous chatter of slave children on the front lawn. Before she could reach her window to look out, she heard someone calling her name.

“Miss Virginia! Miss Virginia!” It was old Polly, the cook. “He done come home. You best get on down here!”

A quick glance from her window told Virginia
who
had come.
“Channing!”
she cried. “It’s Channing! I can’t believe it!”

She tore out of her room and down the stairs. The front door banged behind her so hard that it nearly came off its hinges. She flew into his arms, sobbing his name.

He was dusty and sweaty, after his long ride from Washington, but Virginia didn’t care. He was home! They were together again! At last!

“Virginia, my darlin’,” he whispered against her fragrant hair. “It’s been so long.”

“Oh, Channing, I thought you’d never come! I’ve spent practically the whole last week on this veranda watching for you. I wanted to see you the minute you turned into the lane. I had it all planned. I was going to meet you by the swan pond. Then you go and sneak up on me, surprise me on the one day I decide to stay in and work on my quilt.”

He laughed and hugged her tighter. “I’ll ride back to Washington and give you another chance, if you want me to.”

She leaned back in his arms and gave him a stern look. “Oh, no, you won’t! I’m not letting you out of my sight until we’re married.”

“I think you’ll have to talk to our mothers about that, darlin’. I’m pretty sure they’ll want me cleaned up and shining for our wedding, and I don’t think they’ll approve of you sitting in on my bath.”

She turned to cover her blush and tugged his hand. “Come inside. We have the house all to ourselves. Father and the boys are out drilling, and Mother is napping. I want to hear
everything.”

Once they were in the parlor with the door almost closed, Virginia forgot about her need to hear what he had to say. When he took her into his arms this time, she was much more interested in being kissed—over and over and over again. By the time Channing finished with her, she felt flushed to her toes. She ached for him so that all sorts of lovely, wicked thoughts came to mind. She decided she wouldn’t object at all if Channing placed her on the narrow gilt-trimmed couch and tossed her skirts right over her head.

“I know that look,” he teased. “You’re thinking naughty thoughts, Virginia Swan.”

She laughed behind her hand. “It’s all right, Channing darling. They’re all about you.”

He drew her close again. “Tell me,” he whispered, letting his hand graze her tight, heaven-blue bodice.

She shivered against him. “Oh, I couldn’t! Not now.”

“Will you tell me on our wedding night?”

He pulled her closer against his hard, hot body. She almost moaned aloud. She had waited so long to feel his nearness again.

“On our wedding night it won’t matter. We’ll have a big feather bed to share.”

Without thinking, she glanced at the couch. Channing caught the look.

“Virginia! I’m surprised at you!” He kissed the blush on her cheeks, then whispered, “Besides, it would never work. That little old antique is far too fragile. We’d smash the poor thing to smithereens. We’d best wait for that feather bed on our wedding night.”

“I know,” she said in a serious tone. Then she looked up, drowning in the dark pools of his eyes. “But it’s hard, Channing. We’ve waited so long. I love you. I
need
you.”

Her words brought a lump to his throat and a bulge to his crotch. For a time, he couldn’t answer. He simply held her, kissing her face, tracing the lace on her bodice with aching fingers.

Suddenly, he pulled back, his mind screaming a warning for him to stop before it was too late. Virginia seemed to share his reasoning, as well as his need. She stepped away, out of arm’s reach.

“You must be thirsty after your long ride. I’m sure Father would offer you a drink if he were here.”

Without waiting for Channing to answer, she went to the spirits chest and poured him a bourbon, then added water from a crystal pitcher. They settled on the fragile couch, but kept a safe distance between them.

“Now!” Viginia said. ‘Tell me everything, darlin’.”

Channing quickly filled her in on all that had happened since Rodney’s departure from West Point—the leave-taking of so many others, the quiet commencement ceremonies with so few graduates and even fewer guests, his long trip home.

“I wish I could have been there,” she said, when he paused to take a sip of his drink. “Oh, Channing, I so wanted to see you graduate and receive your commission.”

Only then did she notice that he wasn’t in uniform. The clothes he was wearing must be the ones he had worn when he left for the Academy over four years ago, she reasoned. The trousers were too short, the shirt and coat too tight.

“Channing, why are you in civilian clothes? You
are
a lieutenant now, aren’t you?”

“Second
,” he emphasized. “A second lieutenant, darling. There’s a difference.”

A slow, knowing smile warmed her face. Of course! Channing would hardly wear the uniform of the United States Army, if he had come home to join her father’s Confederate cavalry. And if that were the case, she could stop fretting. She would certainly worry, once he rode off to fight, but at least she wouldn’t have to concern herself with a more immediate battle within her own family. She reached over and took his hand, then smiled into his eyes. She was about to tell him how relieved she was that he had changed his mind. He spoke first, however.

“Virginia, I have to talk to you, while we have some privacy. I had meant to give you your ring the moment I arrived, but I think you had better hear me out, first.”

She nodded, all traces of her smile vanished. A thundering ache in her heart warned her that this was not going to be what she had hoped to hear.

“I think you know my feelings about this war, darlin’. I am against it with all my heart and soul. As much as I love you—that’s how much I hate the thought of our country splitting apart. Because I feel this way, I have an obligation to do everything in my power to keep that from happening.”

Virginia found her voice, as uncertain as it was. “Then you won’t be riding with my father and brothers.” It was not a question. She already knew the answer.

Channing looked away, out through the front windows, toward the swan pond. “I can’t. This country, this very state, is the home of Washington, Madison, Jefferson.”

“And the home of Robert E. Lee.” She was sorry she had said that when she saw the wounded expression in Channing’s eyes.

“Every man must answer to his own conscience. I would never know another minute free from guilt if I took up arms against my own country. Can you understand, Virginia?”

She nodded, blinking back tears. “May I have my ring now?”

“You still love me, after what I’ve just said?”

“With all my heart.” She held her left hand toward him. “My ring?”

Channing took her hand and showered it with kisses. Then he reached into his coat pocket and drew out a soft velvet bag. In the rays of the afternoon sun, the opal burned with lustrous fire and the diamonds shot sparks about the room. Slowly, lovingly, Channing placed it on her finger.

“It’s even more beautiful than I remembered.”

Channing drew her into his arms. “So are you, my dearest So are you.”

When he kissed her this time, it was with a new depth of feeling. There was a bonding in their kiss. It seemed to make them one, from this moment on. Virginia realized she was weeping silent tears. Channing’s eyes, too, were brimming. This was what life was all about—finding the one person who could complete the picture, and loving that person forevermore.

“Damn secession and hate and war!” Channing said, in a low growl. Then his voice softened, as he looked at his fiancée and said, “It will be all right darlin’. You’ll see. This war won’t last three months. By Christmas, it will be only an unhappy memory. Maybe this is God’s way of making us appreciate what we have. Who knows? But whatever happens, I’ll always love you. Don’t ever forget that.”

“How could I, Channing? How could I, when I love you so desperately?”

For a long time, they clung to each other in silence, both pondering troubled thoughts about the future.

Finally, Virginia spoke hesitantly. “Channing? How will you tell the others?
When
will you tell them?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s going to be hard, no matter how or when they hear the news.”

“Wait till after the wedding, after our first night together.”

When Virginia looked at Channing, she knew that wasn’t his plan. A new fear crept into her heart. Channing McNeal, who had always been a part of her life and almost part of the Swan family, was now the
enemy
. A damnyankee! A blue-belly! And, worse than that, a turncoat Virginian. Her brothers, who had always been his best friends, would now feel nothing for him but contempt and scorn. Her father might even forbid their marriage.