Swan's Way (23 page)

“But the Rebel soldier shot him,” she said, sitting up and blinking her eyes in wonder.

The news of Neal’s encounter with the Rebel soliders spread through Swan’s Quarter like wildfire. Big George couldn’t resist telling one of his relic-hunting buddies, who worked in the kitchen, about the Minie ball. He, in turn, confided in Marcellus Lynch, who whispered the secret to Pansy Pennycock, who simply could not keep anything from Sister Randolph. The two women and Lynch were on the veranda after breakfast, discussing the matter and trying to figure out how such a thing could have happened to a nice fellow like Neal. None of them noticed Elspeth’s approach. After a restless night, she had slept through the morning meal. She had just come from the kitchen, where she partook of tea and milk toast alone.

No one had yet told Elspeth about the events of the previous night. No one needed to. In tune with all otherworldly happenings in and around Swan’s Quarter, she had felt the approach of the Rebels in her bones, the same way she could always feel the approach of a thunderstorm by the sharp ache in her joints. Expecting the gray ghosts to put in an appearance, she had lingered at her window most of the night, her eagle-eyes trained on the woods. She had seen Neal run from the house. Only moments later, she had spied the dark mist that always materialized into the phantom troupe. She knew them well. Swan’s Cavalry.

Most often, when she saw these pale ghosts on their fiery-eyed steeds, their appearance brought great joy to her heart. The men of the family were home again! But last night had been different. She had felt a menacing presence the very moment she saw the first wisps of gray-black fog. She knew in that instant what was about to happen. Somehow the past was about to clash with the present. The moment the silent ghosts materialized—menacing and dangerous—she knew that someone at Swan’s Quarter was in grave peril.

“Yankee spy!”
The words had drifted up to her from the haunted woods, like a whisper on the sharp night wind.

In the blink of an eye, she had realized at whom their accusations and threats were aimed. She had tried to call out to Neal Frazier, but her old voice was too weak, and he was too far away. Moments later, she had seen the flash, then heard the shot.

“Poor boy!” she had murmured. “He’s not set on spying, just seeing Miss Virginia, after all this time.”

She had kept watch at her window for a good while, after that, until she was sure that Neal had been found and would be taken care of. Since no one called an ambulance, she guessed that his wound was not serious. She gave it more than an hour, before she sneaked downstairs to make sure he was all right. When she had peeked into the examing room, Neal was calling for Virginia, while Big George snored on, oblivious.

“Lordy me!” she had murmured, on the way back up to her room. “What’s to become of us, now that the past and the present done met?”

When she reached the veranda that morning and saw Pansy and Sister with their heads bowed close to old Lynch, hanging on his every word, she knew that they knew. She smiled with self-satisfaction.

“Well, I guess you all won’t be pooh-poohing my sightings of Confederate ghosts, from now on.”

All three at the table jerked around as if they had just been caught in the commission of a crime.

“Why, Elspeth!” Pansy said, with a flutter in her voice. “We thought you were still sleeping. You missed breakfast, dear.”

“Milk toast, your favorite,” Lynch added, with a pleased smirk.

“Had my own in the kitchen. Cook made it special.”

“With sugar?” Sister asked.

“
And
nutmeg! But never mind that. You all are just trying to change the subject.”

“We were talking about breakfast,” Pansy said.

“Not before I walked up, you weren’t. So, out with it! What are you three up to that doesn’t include me?”

Lynch opened his mouth to tell all, before the women could steal his thunder. But he got no more than two words out before Elspeth held up her hand to silence him.

“If it’s about Neal Frazier getting shot last night, you needn’t bother. I saw the whole thing. Even slipped in to make sure he was all right after Dr. Kirkwood finished patching him up. He seemed fine. Just sort of restless.”

“Then he
really
was
shot?”

“Indeed he was, Sister. The Rebel ghost was at close range. Could have done real damage. But I figure the ball must of veered off course, traveling through time as it did. Lucky, for Neal too. His right arm might have just as easy been his heart, if that bullet had been fired off in the here and now.”

Lynch hurrumphed loudly. “Seems to me the cook must have put something more than a dash of nutmeg in your milk toast, Elspeth. You’re talking out of your head.”

Neither Pansy nor Sister made any comment. It was clear from the skeptical looks on their faces, however, that they fully agreed with Lynch.

“I been telling you and telling you about those Confederate ghosts in the woods.” She leaned close and leered at each of the three, in turn.
“Well, haven’t I?”

They nodded.

“And last night’s my proof.”

“See here, Elspeth, you can’t expect us to believe that some Rebel soldier fired off his gun back in the past and shot Neal Frazier in the present.” Lynch sounded outraged at the very thought.

“Oh, can’t I? What are you saying, that I’m
senile?
If you don’t believe what happened, you must take me for being not only old, but blind and deaf, as well. I
saw
the flash from that gun barrel. I
heard
that shot.”

“Here, now! Nobody’s accusing anybody of being senile,” Lynch said, by way of a blustering apology. Secretly, though, he wondered if Elspeth might not be wrestling with the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
Rebel ghosts, indeed!

“You have to admit, dear, that your account of what happened is a touch farfetched.” Pansy smiled warmly at Elspeth, not wishing to hurt her feelings.

“We can settle this right now. Come on with me!” Elspeth ordered. “We’ll just go see what Neal has to say about what happened.”

“Dr. Kirkwood won’t let us in to see him,” Sister reasoned. “Not if he’s really been shot.”

“Well, he damn-sure won’t let us see Neal, if we don’t try. You all coming or not?” Elspeth challenged.

They all rose and followed her eagerly into the hallway. There, they slowed their pace, creeping toward the examining room and ducking into doorways at the slightest sound, like thieves about to burgle the place.

If they had stayed a moment longer on the veranda, they would have witnessed the miracle of the tulip poplar. Out of the clear morning air, it materialized, just as Ginna came hurrying out of the woods near the swan pond. When Sam had driven up to the bus stop, she had been waiting to catch the very first bus on the Front Royal to Winchester run.

Her heart pounded furiously, as she hurried up the hill to Swan’s Quarter. What a night it had been! Her sleep had been interrupted by the most curious and disturbing dreams. It had seemed she heard someone calling to her out of the distant past. Could Channing McNeal be trying to contact her? Was he begging her to come back? Or had it been Neal she had heard calling her name?

As Ginna reached the tulip poplar, she saw Marcellus, Pansy, Sister, and Elspeth all hurrying through the front door, as if there were some great emergency. If the house were on fire and they were inside, she imagined that they would have moved at about the same pace and with the same degree of urgency.

“Now what?” she wondered aloud, speeding her own step to find out as soon as possible.

Dr. Kirkwood, who had spotted Ginna through his office window, was waiting for her on the veranda, when she came up the stairs.

“You shouldn’t take that hill so fast, Ginna. You’ll be fainting on me again, next thing I know.”

“I will be just fine once I see Neal. Where is he?”

Kirkwood held the door for her. “Come with me. He should be awake by now.”

“How is he?”

“Doing well. I told you, the wound wasn’t serious. There’s no need for you to worry so, Ginna.”

She stopped and stared at him. “The man I’m going to marry has been
shot
, and you’re telling me not to worry?”

Kirkwood saw her point. Besides, women
always
worried. “At least don’t let him know how upset you are. I’d like to get him through this with a minimum amount of trauma.”

Ginna nodded and forced a composure she didn’t feel.

If “minimum trauma” was what the doctor prescribed, he hadn’t bargained for a visit to his patient from Neal’s elderly friends. When Kirkwood and Ginna entered the room, Lynch, Elspeth, Pansy, and Sister were all firing questions at Neal.

“Who was it shot you?” Elspeth demanded. “I’ll bet it was Colonel Swan hisself.”

Pansy bustled about, tucking covers and fluffing pillows. “Does it pain you much, dear boy?”

Sister was offering to run to the kitchen and brew some of her special sassafrass tea for Neal. “It’ll cure whatever ails you.”

Lynch was regaling the whole group about the time he was shot, fighting in Korea. He was being duly ignored by the lot of them.

Neal was lying in bed, struggling to accept Pansy’s unwanted ministrations with grace, while he attempted to answer all of their questions. Finally, in a brief period of silence, he got a word in. “Ginna? Have any of you seen Ginna?”

“I’m here Neal,” she said from the doorway.

“Out!” Dr. Kirkwood commanded. “All of you! What are you doing in here pestering my patient?”

“I saw it all, but
they
didn’t believe me.” Elspeth stood firm, even though the others were headed for the door.

“You, too, Elspeth—
out!”

She brushed past the doctor and Ginna, with her head held high. “Well, just in case you need a witness,” she said, “that’s
me
. I’ll be in my room till the sheriff comes.”

Once Elspeth closed the door, Dr. Kirkwood let out a huge sigh of relief, then muttered something under his breath about busybodies and nuisances, and old people in general.

Ginna wasn’t listening. She hurried to Neal and bent down to kiss him, lingering over his lips for a long time.

“Hey, that was worth getting shot for,” he said, smiling up into her troubled eyes. “It’s okay, honey. The doc says I’m going to be fine. Look, I can even raise my arm.”

“Don’t!” Kirkwood said. “You’ll start the bleeding again.”

“Hey, Doc, could Ginna and I have a few minutes alone?”

Kirkwood hesitated, but finally decided that Ginna was probably the best medicine for his patient, at the moment.

“Don’t excite him,” Kirkwood said, just before he left them.

Neal chuckled at that. “I guess I’d better not tell him that you got me excited, the minute you walked into the room.”

Ginna smoothed her hand over his forehead. “Neal, are you sure you’re all right?”

“I am, now that you’re here.”

“Don’t make jokes. I really want to know, Neal. How are you?”

“I’m not joking. The minute you walked through that door, the last twinges of pain just vanished. My arm feels like it did this time yesterday—before the incident last night.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Some of it.” He frowned. “Other parts are kind of fuzzy in my brain. I’m still not sure who shot me. The doc won’t talk about it. Has he told you anything?”

Ginna wondered if she should tell Neal all she knew. After all, Dr. Kirkwood had warned her not to upset him. She decided against telling him everything.

“I don’t know a lot of details either. Dr. Kirkwood said that you rushed out after that phone call, but you didn’t come back in. It started raining, and they went out to look for you. I think there was probably a hunter in the woods and he must have fired off a stray round. You just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time.”

Several seconds of silence stretched between them, before Neal said, “So, you don’t buy the line about my being shot by a Confederate soldier?”

Ginna avoided his gaze. “I don’t know what to believe,” she admitted. “But I do know this.” Again she leaned down and kissed him. “If anything had happened to you, I wouldn’t have wanted to live any longer. I love you, Neal. I want to get married just as soon as we can.”

Neal let out a whoop. “You sure know how to get a guy well in a hurry!”

He reached up and gathered Ginna close with his good arm. She was practically lying next to him on the bed. Slowly, gently, with ever so much tenderness, he kissed her, tangling his hand in her hair to hold her near.

Finally, she drew slightly away. Her heart was thundering; she had to catch her breath.

“Not too much excitement,” she whispered, smiling into his eyes. “Doctor’s orders.”

“To hell with doctor’s orders. Come here to me, Virginia.”

In a love daze, she didn’t realize he hadn’t called her by her own name. She was only aware of his nearness when he drew her close again, kissing her face all over—eyelids, cheeks, nose, chin. Finally, he captured her lips once more. Ginna was trembling against him—wanting him, needing him, loving him as she had never known she could love him before. All the loneliness and hurt of her childhood vanished, when Neal held her this way. The rest of the world ceased to exist. Only the two of them were here, loving each other, as if nothing else mattered.

“Where do you want to live after we’re married, Ginna?”

The question came out of the blue, but gave her a warm feeling. She thought about it, before she answered. “Anywhere that you are.”

“That’s my girl! You know all the right answers.” Neal chuckled and brushed her forehead with his lips. “Do you like Washington or Alexandria, or would you rather stay in Winchester?”

“I think Alexandria is lovely. I’ve been there only a couple of times, but it seems such a cozy place—away from the bustle of Washington.”

“Then Alexandria it will be! I’ve been planning to sell my house. We’ll find a place together that’s all ours. No ghosts from the past.”

His mention of ghosts drew a cloud over Ginna’s happiness. “Neal, will you do me one favor, before we’re married?”

“
Anything
, darling—before or after we’re married. Just name it.”