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  There was a small, surprised silence.

  ‘Johnny?’ Logan Sherwood asked, puzzled, half laughing. ‘Why, Will, how would we know where Johnny is? We thought you’d be tellin’ us.’

  Will turned, his open, good-natured face guilelessly confused. ‘Well, he left three days since – his furlough came through first. If he isn’t here –’ He stopped. Cleared his throat. Beneath the sun-darkness of his skin a deep flush was spreading. His suddenly wary eyes slid to Mattie and hastily away again.

  ‘Well, now.’ Logan filled the awkward moment, throwing an arm about his son’s shoulder, another about Cissy’s small waist, ushering them both towards the parlour, followed by Robert and the chattering servants. ‘Come in, son, come in. It’s grand to see you.’ At the door he propelled them forward, turned back to where Mattie stood alone, still and pale with shock and growing anger.

  ‘Wait, Mattie,’ he said very quietly. ‘Don’t jump to conclusions. There’s an explanation –’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, with bitter clarity, ‘there’s an explanation.’

  ‘Anything could have happened. His horse could have gone lame.’

  ‘Pigs might fly, Mr Sherwood. But it’s unlikely.’

  ‘Mattie – give him a chance. You don’t know – you can’t know –’

  ‘I think I know where Johnny is, Mr Sherwood. And I think you know too. For all I know the whole wretched county knows.’ She marched past him into the drawing room, trembling with anger and humiliation. Will caught her eye and ducked his head, miserably, as if it were he who had been caught in mischief. She walked straight to him, slipped her arm into his, smiling. ‘Goodness me – it looks as if Cissy isn’t the only one who needs fattening up! What are they feeding you in that army of yours?’

  * * *

  Johnny rode home into the storm two days later. By then Mattie knew at least the bare bones of the story; Johnny’s furlough had come through first, and he had left, telling his brothers that he was riding straight to Pleasant Hill. Within three days of his leaving Will too was unexpectedly on his way home, his own furlough having come through two weeks early. Johnny could have had no idea that his older brother would arrive home so soon, expecting to find him there. They all knew that had bad accident or mishap overtaken him upon the road, they would have heard by now; though still they pretended to believe that some small misfortune may have befallen – a thrown shoe, perhaps, or some muddle with officialdom. In truth, no-one at Pleasant Hill believed that Johnny Sherwood was anywhere but somewhere he had planned to be. Not even Cissy, by no means the most sensitive of souls when it came to other people’s feelings, spoke too often of the absentee in Mattie’s presence.

  In the forty-eight hours that followed Will’s arrival, Mattie obstinately refused to show her hurt. With an almost savage calm she continued her usual round, head high, manner unruffled, heart almost paralysed with pain. When news came to the house that Johnny had been sighted on the road, she went upstairs to change for all the world as if the news were welcome.

  ‘The lemon silk, I think, Lucy. It’s cooler than the blue.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Mattie.’ Lucy was subdued. Like all the household she knew what had happened; it was an indication of the depth of Mattie’s unhappiness that she had not been able to bring herself to talk about Johnny’s behaviour even to her. ‘An’ that pretty scarf with the rosebuds?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lucy turned, the gown draped across her arms, her eyes upon her mistress’ face. ‘Miss Mattie –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Miss Mattie, I doesn’t want to speak out o’ turn –’

  ‘Then don’t.’ Mattie turned her back. ‘Undo these buttons for me, please. And I think perhaps the amber earbobs, don’t you?’

  She was waiting, with the others, on the porch, apparently perfectly composed, when Johnny rode out from under the moss-draped trees. Only the faint puffiness about her eyes, the pale and shadowed texture of her skin, betrayed her. Not unexpectedly, Will was beside his brother, having ridden out to meet and to warn him. Mattie was neither surprised nor particularly offended at that; she had been at Pleasant Hill for long enough to know that no Sherwood boy would let another step into such a tricky predicament unguarded and unprepared, no matter where the fault lay. With detached calm she watched as Johnny smiled welcome to the hands who gathered about him, taking his horse, his sword, the bedroll from his saddle. She studied him; like Will he had lost weight, and his skin was darkened by sun and wind. He looked fit and handsome, his uniform, again like Will’s, a little faded, a little worn, emphasizing the height and grace of him. With an odd, dispassionate detachment, she wondered how he would face this embarrassing homecoming.

  His eyes found hers. The noise around them died. For a moment they might have been alone in the world. She did not smile.

  He shouldered his way through the crowd, ran swiftly up the steps onto the porch. Came to her, took her hands. ‘Mattie, I’m sorry. Arrow lamed, just outside Augusta –’

  Mattie turned her gaze to where the horse, perfectly hale and stepping as always in lovely and faultless rhythm, was being led away to the stables. ‘That’s a pity.’ She presented a cool cheek to his kiss. Stepped back. Let her eyes speak clearly. Liar, they said. And as clearly she saw the defensive tightening of jaw and of mouth.

  Greetings, a little subdued, were exchanged. Logan Sherwood it was who paved the way to the confrontation that everyone knew was unavoidable. ‘You’ll want to clean up, son. You go right ahead. There’ll be time to talk later.’

  Upstairs Johnny dismissed Lucy brusquely. ‘And take that damn animal with you.’ Lucy looked to Mattie, uncertain. Mattie nodded, her eyes upon her husband. When the door closed quietly behind the girl and the reluctant dog, she continued to stand, still as a statue, hands clasped loosely in front of her, watching him. ‘Five days,’ she said, at last, quietly. ‘Where have you been for five days, Johnny?’

  He took a quick breath to reply.

  She made a small, warning gesture with her hand. ‘Don’t lie to me. Don’t do that. If there’s anything left between us at all, then I want the truth. That isn’t too much to ask, is it?’

  He stood tongue-tied. She saw, suddenly, that he looked very tired. His hair had grown; it curled about his ears and neck like a girl’s. One brown, strong hand still held his hat, crushing the brim, the knuckles showing tense and white.

  Mattie turned and walked to the window. Outside, red dust smothered everything; the buildings, the trees, the scrubby grass. It was so hot that the slightest movement brought perspiration. ‘We heard that Bram Taylor was missing, presumed killed. You, I assume, have later information?’

  ‘Yes. Bram’s dead. It was confirmed before I left camp.’

  ‘And you, in your capacity as old family friend –’ she could not believe the unsparing chill in her own voice ‘– took it upon yourself to console the grieving widow.’ There was no question in the words.

  The silence behind her was damning in itself.

  She turned. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Johnny,’ she said, her tone still intransigently conversational. ‘Never.’

  The tension that held him broke. Cursing, he flung his hat upon the bed, stepped towards her, stopped as she pulled back from him, her hands warding him off. ‘Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me.’ Again the words were spoken almost nervelessly calmly. Just a few hours before she had spent the worst and most miserable night of her life in this very bed. The memory was too fresh; her tears were spent. ‘Just tell me – tell me the truth. Grant me that dignity at least.’

  Johnny stood tense for a moment, then turned from her. She found herself studying the broad shoulders, the set of the handsome head, and wondering that the sight of him could move her so little. It was as if something within her had broken; something that, at this moment, she felt would never mend.

  ‘All right. I did go to see Lottie,’ he said.

  She waited.

  ‘For God�
��s sake, Bram might not have been much, but he was her husband!’

  Still she did not speak.

  ‘I thought – I thought that I should check that she was all right. That she didn’t need any help.’ His voice that had started a little uncertainly was stronger, as if the sound of his own reasonable words were convincing him that he was right and she wrong. ‘We’re old friends. I’ve known her all my life. What else would you expect me to do? Mattie, in God’s name, will you please say something?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve anything to say. Not anything that you’d want to hear.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like what took you five full days? Like why didn’t you tell the others you were going to see Lottie? Why tell them you were coming straight to Pleasant Hill? Why not come home first and then pay your – your duty visit? Did this – Christian urge – to comfort the bereaved afflict you quite suddenly, perhaps, between Virginia and Georgia?’ She could not believe how calmly she was speaking, how cool was her voice.

  He shook his head, helplessly.

  ‘You’ve never stopped loving her, have you? Oh, I don’t blame you for that. How could I? But I’ll tell you what I do blame you for, Johnny. I blame you for marrying me. For marrying me when you didn’t love me –’

  ‘No!’ Johnny swung around and caught her, roughly, by the arm. ‘That isn’t true! Mattie – believe me –’

  She said nothing, but stood quite still in his grasp, head lifted to look him levelly in the eyes. He it was who broke away first, letting go of her, dropping onto the bed, bowing his face into his spread hands. ‘I thought I loved you.’ His voice was desperate, and so low, so muffled by his hands that she could barely hear it. ‘Mattie, I swear I thought I loved you. I did love you. I needed you. Until – until –’

  ‘Until you saw her again.’ Abruptly she turned from him, arms folded tightly across her breast, to gaze again, sightlessly through sudden tears, into the hot and dusty afternoon beyond the window.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked at last. And this time her silence was forced upon her; she could no more have spoken than grown wings and flown.

  Johnny came up behind her. Stubbornly she turned her face from him. Very gently he put an arm about her shoulders, drawing her to him with no passion, holding her quietly. ‘Mattie, I’m sorry,’ he said, reaching for her hand, bringing it to his own wet cheek. ‘I am so very sorry.’

  * * *

  They struggled through the week that was left to them before he had to return to Virginia. In the end it was a positive relief to see him go, to end the nightmare of pretence, of knowing that as he walked and talked with her his thoughts, his hopes, his heart were elsewhere. Convention ruling to the last, Mattie stood with the others to wave him off, her hand upon Jake’s soft, shaggy head. The dog followed her eagerly upstairs, falling over his own feet in his enthusiasm to stay beside her on the narrow steps. The shutters had been closed against the heat; the rooms were shadowed and very still. Empty.

  Placed in painfully careful symmetry upon the table in the sitting room lay a small book. She stood looking at it, her lip caught between her teeth. Here was a more final farewell than any words they had spoken.

  She picked up the cruelly familiar little thing, carried it to the window, opened the shutter to let in a shaft of hot afternoon light. The battered leather cover of the Shelley had a new stain upon it, a smear of mud that had also marked a few of the pages. She did not open it – she dared not – but held it tightly in both hands as the helpless tears, of which there had been so many in these past days, rose again. Jake, sitting beside her, leaning his weight against her legs, lifted his head, watching her with mute and loving eyes.

  Mattie’s shoulders dropped, her knees buckled, and like a child she knelt beside the dog, her arms about his warm, heavy shoulders, her face buried in his fur, weeping as she had not wept since the day her father had died.

  Chapter Nine

  The river swirled, red-brown, between the almost tropical lushness of its banks. The little clearing was still in the heavy air of the afternoon, the riotous growth of the woodland jungle-like about it, and the cries of birds still unfamiliar to Mattie echoed through the spreading canopy of branches. Midges buzzed about her. High above the clearing a huge bird of prey hovered, hanging all but motionless in the quiet air before gliding out of sight. Jake snapped with happy and entirely pointless enthusiasm at a bright butterfly that danced above his head, then trotted back to Mattie, worrying at the stick that she held, forgotten, in her hand. Absently she threw it, watched as the dog bounded after it, pawing it out from under a fallen log before chasing back and eagerly dropping it at her feet.

  Why in God’s name had she come here, of all places?

  Jake barked, a short, excitable yelp, and pranced about her, waiting for her to throw the stick again.

  It was over a month since Johnny had left, and in that time she had heard not a word from him. Neither had she written to him. Formal and general greetings were conveyed to everyone in his brothers’ letters, and that was all. It was, she thought, like being stranded in limbo, neither wife nor free, and unable because of the circumstances to take any action or come to any final conclusion. Like that of this agonized and divided nation, her future held little but the certainty of more trouble, more pain. With the Northern blockade tight about the ports of the South she could not, even had she decided to, go home. She had no idea what Johnny wanted; all she knew with certainty was that he did not want her. So why had she come here?

  Jake barked again, a different, excitable sound, and bounced noisily into the dense undergrowth. Absorbed in bitter thought, Mattie did not notice. She was taken completely by surprise when a moment later Logan Sherwood rode quietly into the clearing, his hounds at his horse’s heels, Jake gambolling and yelping about them like an overgrown puppy spoiling for fun.

  ‘Darned animal.’ Her father-in-law doffed his hat to her, swung from the saddle, looped the reins over a branch. His voice was easy, and his smile took any sting from the words. ‘Iffen the tyke was a field hand I’d have him hogtied and sold at market.’

  Jake had come to Mattie’s call, and now sat beside her, head lifted to her hand. Mattie had long since learned to take no notice of such disparaging comments about her pet; there was no-one in the house, she suspected, Logan Sherwood included, but that would defend the silly animal with his own life if necessary.

  Logan’s own two dogs settled beside Dancer, eyes attentive upon their master.

  He came to the point, as was his way, with no preamble. ‘We must talk, daughter.’

  It was all she could do not to flinch at the word.

  He looked around the little clearing; the clearing where she had believed that Johnny had planned to build a house, to build a life, to build a family.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ There was clear curiosity in his voice.

  ‘I was just wondering the same thing myself.’

  Logan Sherwood walked to the fallen log, sat down, his head lifted to her, his pale gaze direct. It was not lost upon her that he could have remained standing, towering above her, master upon his land. She held his eyes, but neither smiled nor moved.

  ‘You have to give him time, Mattie.’

  ‘Time for what?’

  ‘Time to come to his senses.’

  ‘I fear, Mr Sherwood, that that’s what he thinks he’s done.’ Her voice was austere; she yielded not an inch to the sympathy in his eyes. To have done so would have flawed the shield she had built with such painful obstinacy, and that she had determined not to do.

  ‘Mattie, my dear, the circumstances –’

  ‘The circumstances, Mr Sherwood, have absolutely nothing to do with the case – if, as I take it, you mean the circumstances of war – of Bram Taylor’s death?’

  ‘Yes. That is what I meant.’ He was studying her intently; it was impossible to fathom the thoughts behind the look.

  ‘Johnny loves Charlotte Taylor. He does not lov
e me. Oh, he thought he did – that I believe at least – but he was wrong. Which means, of course, that you were right.’ Mattie let the words challenge him for a moment, but he did not speak. ‘Those are the facts, and neither war nor death nor the destruction of Paradise can change them. The – circumstances, as you call them, may well have changed the actual course of events. For that I should be nothing but grateful, don’t you think?’ For her life she could not keep the sudden bitterness from her voice. ‘At the very least we’ve all been forced to honesty.’

  He shook his head. ‘Mattie, listen to me; you’re young, you’re proud, and you’re terribly hurt. I understand that.’

  She gritted her teeth against caustic comment; the man, she could only suppose, meant well. She just wished, with all her heart, that he would leave her alone; and knew as she thought it, wearily, that he would not.

  ‘Johnny is your husband. For better or for worse –’

  ‘To love and to cherish –’ She flashed the quote at him in quick anger, and then stopped.

  He nodded. ‘Till death do you part,’ he supplied quietly. ‘Isn’t that what you promised?’

  ‘What we both promised, Mr Sherwood. It’s your son who has betrayed his word and my trust. Your son who didn’t think our promises to each other, our life together, were worth fighting for! From the moment he saw Lottie Taylor again he was lost, and you all know it. And if Bram hadn’t been killed – don’t think it would have made a ha’p’orth of difference!’ She was truly angry now, and with a surge of relief she let the anger fly, assuaging at least some of the hurt she had hugged so closely to herself in these past weeks. ‘If war had not broken out, if Bram had not been killed, Charlotte Taylor and your precious, honourable son would still have become lovers!’

  There was a small silence. ‘You believe that?’ Logan Sherwood asked.

  ‘Yes. I do.’ In the oppressive heat she felt the sweat that sheened her face trickle uncomfortably between her breasts and down her back.