The Memory House. Linda Goodnight

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      “What’s past is prologue…”

      —William Shakespeare

      Peach Orchard Farm

      Summer, 1864

      The sound of advancing hoofbeats should have shaken the ground. Yet, they moved quietly, reverently it seemed, a cavalcade of Union soldiers bearing their wounded.

      Charlotte Reed Portland’s first inkling that her Tennessee home was about to be invaded intruded as she taught a delicate embroidery stitch to her two sisters-in-law. Seated in the parlor, butter-yellow sunlight streaming in through the windows on a hot and windless day, Charlotte heard the excited voice of a servant, heard the hurried footfalls a moment before her nine-year-old son burst through the French doors, cowlick standing on end.

      “Mama, the Yankees are coming!”

      At Benjamin’s breathless announcement, Charlotte stiffened, her fingers tight on the embroidery hoop.

      She had known they would come, an army of men at war with her adopted state, in need of horses and food to fortify the Union. What they didn’t understand, or perhaps didn’t care, was that the Confederacy had need of the same supplies. Even now, the small, out-of-the-way town of Honey Ridge was strained beneath the burden.

      So, of course, the Federals would come here, to Peach Orchard Farm, home to three generations of Portlands, including her husband, Edgar, and their son. Though hardly a plantation, they were self-sufficient in corn and wheat, fruit and livestock, and a handful of slaves.

      Please, Almighty God, do not allow them to take everything.

      Her two younger sisters-in-law regarded her above their needlework with wide, hazel eyes, mouths dropped. Their milk-bathed complexions had gone chalky. As mistress of the house and an ancient twenty-seven, the responsibility for their well-being and that of the house and servants rested upon Charlotte’s shoulders.

      “Miz Charlotte, you want I should go to the mill for Mr. Portland?” This from Pierce, the yardman, the whites of his eyes startling in his dark, sweat-gleamed face. A good man, a trustworthy and loyal servant.

      Afraid the quiver in her throat would burst free and betray her angst, Charlotte nodded, breathing in for composure.

      “Please do, Pierce,” she managed, her British accent stronger when she was nervous, an accent her husband had once found charming. “I’ll go out to greet them.”

      With deliberate poise, she put aside the embroidery hoop and rose, smoothing damp palms over her green day gown. Fear vibrated in her stomach.

      Edgar would not be pleased at an interruption, whether from her or the hated Yankees, but they’d heard the gunfire in the near distance early this morning. A battle, or perhaps only a skirmish; it did not matter which. Men would die. She’d prayed the war would not touch her household.

      But now it had.

      Charlotte could hide most feelings beneath a false serenity, a gift she’d found essential here in the American South, where differences were suspect, human beings were sold and traded and her husband ruled with a cold look.

      “Josie. Patience,” she said to the younger women. “Lock yourselves in your rooms. Take Benjamin with you. Neither come outside nor look out the windows. Do not show yourselves in any way.”

      With rigid posture and a sweep of full skirts, she moved out onto the long, pillared veranda, gripped the whitewashed railing and waited. Normally, she loved the scene from the porch, the double row of magnolias along the curving driveway, the expanse of peach orchard to the north. Yet, today her knees trembled and she saw only the advancing army—a straight military line of blue and gold and rows of men astride their mounts. The Union flag, stars and stripes aloft on the front steed, rippled slightly.

      She’d heard the horror stories. The armies of the north came to pillage and destroy, but God help her, with her last breath she would defend her family and this home. From the moment Edgar had brought her here, a nervous bride СКАЧАТЬ