Christmas at Carnton (Carnton 0.5)(22)
Remembering the mirth in her eyes, he smiled as he added more wood to the hearth. But he still couldn’t get the chimney to draw properly. Marking the chimney as an item to be investigated tomorrow, he settled for what heat it provided and crawled into bed—a clean ticking stuffed with fresh straw—and pulled the blanket up over him. How long had it been since he’d slept in so nice a bed?
For nearly two years now his bedroll and whatever patch of hopefully dry earth he could find had been where he’d laid his head. To have a cabin with a roof over his head and a fire burning in the hearth seemed an extravagance. And felt almost wrong. Especially when he thought of his fellow soldiers encamped in the bitter cold and snow.
The cabin boasted two rooms down and two up, and—all but for this room—was being used as storage. It was clean enough, but he looked forward to getting it into better shape. The front door stuck on one side and needed planing. There were spaces around the windows where the mortar had cracked and fallen away and cold air poured in. He could patch those spots easily enough. And the chimney was already on his list. He’d be here for the better part of a month, after all, much to his dismay. And he’d been taught to leave a place better than he’d found it.
The flame in the oil lamp flickered on a tiny side table and cast undulating shadows on the walls, the darkness playing hide-and-seek with the light. He wondered about the slaves who’d lived in this cabin through the years. Mrs. McGavock had said they’d been sent south. And depending on who won this war, they might or might not be back.
But he wasn’t fighting this war to keep Negroes enslaved. If he had his druthers, he’d free the lot of them. A free man worked harder and contributed more to society than a slave ever did. And he’d known enough Negroes throughout his life to know that they weren’t so different from white men. There were good men and bad, be they dark skinned or light. It was what lay within a man that really counted.
At supper tonight he’d met Colonel McGavock and found the man to be formidable. Rather a suitable match for Colonel Carrie, as he’d taken to thinking of Mrs. McGavock upon learning her first name this evening. Had a good ring to it, he thought, even if he’d never dare use the name aloud. He’d met the couple’s children too. A girl, Hattie, around eight, he thought. Then the young boy, Winder, whom he’d already seen running with Andrew.
As he leaned to turn down the lamp, an image from earlier that day returned and Jake reached for his notebook and pencil instead. He sat up, shoved the pillow behind his back, and turned to a fresh page, choosing to ignore the familiar twinge in his left shoulder. This notebook was almost full. He needed to get another one from town soon.
He closed his eyes for a moment, the image of Andrew looking up at his mother returning with clarity. The adoration in the boy’s eyes, the confusion warring with the desire—the need—to trust and believe that his mother really did know best.
The curves and planes of the boy’s face took shape on the page as Jake paused frequently, patient for the image to resurface in his memory, and to sharpen. He rubbed his eyes, then reached into his knapsack on the floor for his eyeglasses and slipped them on. Just like that, the lines cleared.
No sooner did he finish that drawing than another came to him, and he turned the page. But he found her face less clear to him. Yet her eyes, he remembered her eyes and drew them as she’d looked peering up at him, a sadness lingering beneath her expression even as she’d smiled. And her smile, he remembered that too.
He began drawing her lips, the way they curved and—
Then it hit him. What he was doing. He lifted his pencil from the page. Mrs. Warren Prescott. He stared into her eyes for a moment, then closed the notebook and blew out the lamp.
The glow from the fire bathed the room in orangey red, and as the minutes ticked silently past, that same unwanted tug of reminiscence he’d felt earlier returned.
He was twenty-eight. Had never been married, never had children. And had all but accepted, at least earlier on, that he’d likely die in this war. So somewhere along the way he’d convinced himself it was best that he didn’t have anyone waiting back home for him. Best that he no longer even had a home.
But as weeks had turned into months, and as he’d made it through battles unscathed—until recently—he’d begun to think that maybe he would live through it after all. Not that he was invincible, as Colonel Stratton had said, and as his current condition confirmed. But that perhaps, one day, he might have what his parents had had.
But there was something dangerous about embracing that kind of hope. About giving part of your heart to someone else. He’d seen evidence of that again today. In her. And in Andrew. He could only imagine how much Warren Prescott missed his family, loved and cared for them, was eager to be reunited with them.
Jake stared into the flames, sleep a far piece away, and he found himself praying for a man he’d never met, all for the sake of a woman and child he scarcely knew.
CHAPTER 8
“I-I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” Seated opposite Mrs. McGavock in the family parlor, Aletta searched her expression, unable to believe what she was hearing. She’d held off returning to Carnton over the weekend, scarcely able to wait until Monday morning came. “I thought you already had a pastry chef who—”
“Yes, I did, Mrs. Prescott. However, circumstances changed quite suddenly on Friday afternoon after your departure. And since you said you would return this morning to discuss the details of the nativity you’re to build, I decided to wait and offer you the position, rather certain you would still be interested. I hope I am correct in my assumption.”