In His Eyes(29)
Her cheeks dimpled. “Oh, but I surely will miss having him about, even if he is an ornery one.” She laughed. “Though I dare say he may have redeemed himself with such flattery.”
The men laughed at Westley’s expense, but he did not begrudge her teasing. Indeed, it felt good to be treated normally, and not as one who required tender care. “Ah, and I shall surely miss her unbridled honesty.”
When the laughter died down, the corporal leaned forward. “Where shall you go during your furlough now that you are able to walk?”
Westley tapped a finger on the table, indecision once more nagging at him. Mrs. Preston gave him a small nod of encouragement. She’d made her thoughts on the matter abundantly clear, and Westley finally conceded she was right. “As I have come by the extra time, I shall return to my home to settle matters there.”
“Very good, sir,” Nelson said, as though Westley had answered a test question correctly. The man twitched his mustache. “And where do you hail from?”
“Mississippi.”
As expected, the doctor’s features showed surprise. Unexpectedly, the corporal’s did not.
Dismissing the oddity as the man’s ability to control his features, Westley leaned back in his chair. “As you can imagine, my father’s lands will need to be seen to. I intend to take care of any expenses he may have left upon his death, then likely sell off the lands I have no intention of keeping.”
“A difficult task, I’m sure,” the doctor said.
“But a necessary one.”
Mrs. Preston rose from the table and began taking up the dishes. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to talk for a moment, and I will be back with some pie.”
Westley watched her leave, then turned his attention back to the men. Corporal Nelson twirled the waxed end of his mustache. “I, too, have family from the south. They live in Alabama.”
“Oh?”
“A most unfortunate splitting of allegiances, as I am sure you can understand.”
Westley could. Though his parents had not begrudged his determination to stay loyal to the oaths he had taken upon graduating West Point, and he did not blame them for their desire to hold to the position of their home state, such was not usually the case for divided families. Often, such understandings did not exist between torn families that straddled allegiance lines. “This war has placed many a family against one another.”
“You are quite right, Major Remington,” the doctor said, patting his pockets as though hankering for his pipe. “I am glad to see it come to an end.”
“I thought to take a furlough to my grandfather’s home to see how they fared,” Corporal Nelson continued as though the doctor had not interjected himself into the conversation. “Perhaps we might travel south together?”
Westley considered the proposal. Did the man offer because he thought Westley incapable of traveling alone? He pushed such rancorous thoughts aside. “I would be pleased for like-minded company, Corporal.”
“Very good, sir. Would you be opposed to my making the travel arrangements?”
“Not at all.” Westley rubbed the top of his leg under the table. He knew the rail systems were in poor condition the farther south one traveled, so they would need to cover at least part of the distance by carriage. Surely, though, the man would know as much. “I will need to get to the Mississippi River, in Washington County.”
“Yes, sir.” Nelson smiled. “I will see it done.”
Wondering if he had just walked himself into some kind of preconceived plan, Westley considered the man’s too ready words. He didn’t have an opportunity to voice his thoughts, however, because Mrs. Preston arrived with thick slices of apple pie. The scent of cinnamon and spice absconded with his concerns, and he turned his attention to the food and his thoughts to his home.
Another few days, perhaps, and then he would have to face Belmont once more. What would he find there? Charred ruins? His home ransacked? The servants gone?
It mattered not. Whatever state he found Belmont in, it would not deter his course. With his parents gone and himself unwelcomed in Greenville, it would be best that he remembered good times from his childhood rather than what the place would be with his parents dead. The house and lands would be sold and his father’s affairs settled. Then he would gain his place in the army once more and start a new life out west.
Westley tried not to massage the leg that had begun to ache. He had thus mostly ignored the tingles and occasional sharp pains on this trip that had oft left him exhausted come the day’s end. He hated to admit it, but Mrs. Preston had been right in her misty-eyed farewell. It was a blessing that he was not yet required to return to the army where long days in the saddle would surely test his leg more than these days spent cramped in a carriage.
Corporal Nelson had seen him to the northern borders of Mississippi, then taken his turn into Alabama. Seemed Westley had been wrong about that, too. The man didn’t attempt to hover over him or worry about his mental condition. He merely provided companionship for the majority of the journey.
Westley took a deep breath of the humid air as the carriage drew nearer to Greenville. It had been four years since he’d visited—not since the war began. He’d exchanged letters with his parents, and had once seen his father in Washington, but he had not known that the day he’d bid his mother farewell at Belmont four years ago would be the last he ever saw of her. Regret gripped him, and though he tried to push it away, as he did other emotions, it refused to budge.