Cheryl Reavis - Harrigan's Bride

“Miss Abiah, look who’s here,” Gertie said one afternoon, and Abiah opened her eyes to see another enemy soldier, who after a moment turned into a very awkward Thomas, standing at the foot of the bed. She stared at him, not at all sure if he really was here or not. There had always been a sadness in Thomas Harrigan; it was one of the things that had drawn her to him from the very first time Guire brought him home. But at this particular moment, he looked so lost.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, and he looked at Gertie instead of answering.

“Tell me,” Abiah said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“That is my question, I believe, Abby,” he said, and she smiled.

“Oh, well, then. If that’s the case, the answer is ‘nothing’—if you don’t count the fever…and being out of my head most of the time.”

“So how is your head at the moment?”

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “Sometimes I think Gertie is Mother. Sometimes I think Guire’s here—or you. You are here, aren’t you, Thomas? I’m not talking to the bedpost, am I?”

“Most definitely I am here,” he said.

“Say ‘heart,’ then. So I’ll know.”

“Heart?” he asked, clearly puzzled.

She immediately gave a soft laugh. “Yes, it’s you. H-a-t —‘heart.’”

He smiled in return. “You are so very bad for my masculine certitude, Abiah. You are the only female I know who always makes fun of me.”

“I have to. You’d be insufferable if I didn’t.”

Gertie laughed in the background.

“I see you agree with her, Gertie,” Thomas said.

“I can’t help it, Captain,” Gertie said.

“Well,” he said, still forcing himself to be cheerful. This was a Thomas Abiah had never met before. “The doctor tells me you’re doing better.”

“Does he? He doesn’t tell me anything.”

“He says you mustn’t get overly confident. You must continue to play the invalid even if you feel like dancing.”

“Dancing? I’m having trouble knowing the day of the week.”

He smiled again, but this smile quickly faded. He stood there with his hands behind his back, tall and handsome, once her brother’s greatest friend and then his sworn enemy—and hers.

“I need to ask you something, Abiah,” he said.

She waited while he looked around the room as if it were of great interest to him, and then just to her left—everywhere but at her.

“I was wondering if you would consider something,” he said, now looking at the floor. He abruptly pulled around that same ladder-back chair and sat down. Then he cleared his throat and noisily slid the chair closer to the side of the bed. He brought the fresh smell of the cold outdoors with him. Damp wool and wood smoke. Soap and tobacco. Horse and leather. She longed to be closer to him still.

“If you intend to catch me…while I’m still lucid, I think you’ll want to hurry this along, Thomas,” she said.

“All right. Abiah, I was wondering if you would marry me.”

He finally looked at her, met her eyes briefly and glanced away.

“Too late,” she said, in spite of her astonishment. Even at her most mentally confused, even if she’d been in a room full of fever-spawned Thomases, she would not have expected that question.

“I beg your pardon?” he said.

She smiled slightly, because once again his Boston accent had determined that he leave out an R. As a Southerner, she had a bit of a problem with that letter of the alphabet herself—only she didn’t leave it quite so blatantly out of the middle of words or add it onto the end where it didn’t belong. The years he had lived in Maryland with his grandfather hadn’t erased his accent at all. Knowing even so little of the relationship between the two men as she did, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Judge Winthrop hadn’t made an effort to weed out that particular reminder of his daughter’s failed marriage, just as Abiah wouldn’t have been surprised if that was a reason Thomas might have tenaciously retained it.

Guire had told her once that Thomas looked very much like his father—who being the only son of a wealthy shipowner, had enough inherited money and enough favors owed him to open at least some of the doors kept firmly closed to those with an Irish surname. But there the similarity ended. Unlike his father, Thomas Harrigan clearly didn’t abandon a woman who needed him.

“I said ‘too late,’ Thomas.”

“You mean your lucid moment is going?”

“No, I mean someone else…has already asked for…my hand in marriage.”

He looked startled. “May I ask who?”

“John William Miller,” she said.

“Johnny Miller wants to marry you?”

“Well, you needn’t make it sound so…incredible, Thomas. I believe he has been of a mind to since I was fourteen.”

“This is the same Johnny Miller who was at your mother’s house practically every time I came to visit.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose he’s in the other army?”

“Yes.”

“He’s an officer, no doubt?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re making plans to marry him?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I didn’t give him an answer.”

“Why not?”

She looked into his eyes. “You know why not,” she said.

He flushed slightly.

So, she thought. She had told him precisely where her heart lay. She was very much afraid that that particular memory was real.

“You don’t have to do anything else for me, Thomas,” she said. “I know you have saved me by bringing me here, and I shall try my very best to get well. But you don’t have to save my reputation, too.”

“You’ve got it the wrong way around, Abby. I was asking so you could save mine.”

“I would think stealing me out of my mother’s house and bringing me here would only enhance yours.”

“Alas, no. The story has reached General Sumner’s attention, and he doesn’t approve of such audacious conduct in his officers. At all.”

“I’m afraid I don’t much care whether Yankee generals approve or not, Thomas.”

He leaned forward so that he could look into her eyes. “The truth is a marriage to you would help my military career, Abby.”

“I don’t see how. I support the Confederacy in every way I can.”

“If I can forgive you for that, then I’m sure General Sumner will. Will you marry me, Abby? For my sake. I know you have a kind heart.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said, taking her hand. His fingers were still cold from his ride here and he slid them in between hers.

“No,” she said again. “I will not.”

“I need you to let me me explain, at least. Let me try to tell you the way things are.”

“Then tell me.”

He took a deep breath. “The Union army didn’t have a chance at Fredericksburg because there were serious tactical errors made. The general who made them—Burnside—knows he is in danger of being relieved of his command. He is an incredibly arrogant man. He’s going to try to save face now, and he’s going to sacrifice his Grand Divisions to do it. I will do my duty when the time comes, but I need…” He stopped, holding her hand in both of his for a moment. “Guire was my friend. You are all that is left of his family. I need to know that you’ll be taken care of. Do you understand? I need to be sure. As my wife—or my widow—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, trying not to cry. “Guire would never have expected you to do this.”

“I want to do it, Abby. I haven’t much time for persuasion. I can’t make pretty speeches to convince you. I can only tell you the truth.”

“Look at me, Thomas. What good am I to you like this? I’m an invalid. I may stay an invalid.” She couldn’t bring herself to speak the real truth—that she might not survive this illness, just as her mother hadn’t survived.