It was the third of July, 1862. Evening came with a balmy breeze, lifting away the heavy heat. We grilled trout over a fire in the garden and talked into the night. Looking at me, Warren turned the fish.
“This is not a game I’m playing, Annie. I swear to you. Please understand me when I say that. Coming out of an ordeal like the Seven Days helps put things in perspective. I’m not trying to win your sympathies. It’s just that when the smoke clears away from the battlefields…with all the bodies, the horses and dust, I wonder, ‘How long can my luck hold out?’ Then, despite the sounds, the moans from men and horses too, I’ve gotta shake that outta my head and pull it together, trying to create a shield for myself, a bit of armor. I can come back to a life that seems sweet, new, clean. That’s how it is, not being dead or wounded. You see Annie, all of that makes me want to tell you everything. I had planned to talk to you this weekend. That’s one reason I asked you to come here. You may not believe me, but I have a few things to say. Please hear me out.”
I listened, nodding slightly while he continued.
“First, I’m sorry that you found the ring. It must have fallen from an inner pocket where I’ve kept it over the months. It was never my intention that you’d find out that way.”
I looked at him. Staring at his face, I was again struck by his distinctly handsome features in the firelight. “What I can’t understand is why you couldn’t have told me before you left?” I asked quietly. He looked up at me as if searching for words.
“Our relationship is probably the only thing that seems real to either of us right now. And I want you to know it is real. It is clear to me that who we are and what we know as a couple is more important than anything else in my life. Annie, I love you. I swear to you.” The firelight glinted in his eyes.
He went on while I took a deep breath and looked beyond him into the now dark sky. “I swear by all that is good and right. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that than I’ve never loved Lydia and when I tell you about the circumstances of our marrying, you’ll understand. At least I hope you will.”
Leaning forward to sip his glass of tea he added, “You know that it’s time to sit down and go over our lives together. In fact, it’s way past time.”
He paused and looked at me with clear intent. Then, he continued.
“The ring was an accident. You’re right; I should never have let it happen that way.”
Warren drew a deep breath and leaned forward towards me at the edge of his chair, our knees touching, he reached out for my hands and held them. “Annie, first you need to understand something I believe you may already know. I do not wander the countryside or the towns and villages of Virginia seeking out beautiful women to seduce. In fact, even if I wanted to, I’m too busy for that. I also want you to know that I do not take our relationship lightly. I was struck by you the very first time I saw you. I felt like I had finally awakened from a dense dream. Every day since then, you’ve been on my mind. I’ve even dreamed that the war was over and that we had a farm together somewhere, and that our children were running up and down the garden rows chasing chickens for God’s sake.”
I looked up, listening intently. Still angry at Warren’s secret life, it was reassuring to hear that he had envisioned a life together after the war. And, our having children. I began to soften my approach with him warming to his way of thinking.
He went on. “I know the reality of our situation is difficult to face. Look at us. I am called away, far away, on a moment’s notice. And honestly, either of us could be dead next week.”
I looked at him curiously then added, “Yes, what can we say about our lives together? You’re in the cavalry in a war, the likes of which none of us have ever seen, much less imagined. I’m living in Marsh Station and helping at the hospital when I can, talking to plants or to delirious soldiers most of the time. And, another detail, you are married Captain.”
I looked away from the fire and up at the clear sky and beyond it at the tent of stars above us. Then I looked back squarely at Warren as he continued.
“I guess what I need to know from you is this: Do you think that it is better to know the truth and be pained by it, or is it better to know neither pain nor truth?”
I leaned in closer to look at him, our faces squared with one another and thought about his question. Then I whispered, fully wondering to myself how I would respond if he requested the absolute truth from me.
“The truth Warren, I need the truth from you.”
“Of course, you do. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Annie,” he responded. “And that is what I intended to give you as you would give me. That is what you’ll have now.”
I swallowed knowing that I’d cornered myself.
Looking up at the stars and grasping both my hands again, Warren continued. “The woman, Lydia, my uh, wife,” Warren stumbled over his words like a wagon on rough terrain, “Is in Maryland. We were married about eight months before the war began. Not out of love, but out of convenience, you might say. Lydia and I had known each other for years through our families, and when I returned home from building the business with my father, after West Point, I got a little crazy. I took her as a lover. She intended for us to be married.”
With that, he sat up and then back in his chair, loosening his touch as he did so. He went on, “I blindly followed, thinking it was the right thing to do…not because my heart told me to, but it seemed expected, what our families wanted. I confused upholding the wishes of my family with my own desires. Probably feeling guilty for my lust and to save face, I did something I never should have done. I married her.
Several weeks into the marriage, I knew I didn’t really love her. Not the way that I should. We went though the motions and the families were pleased, but personally, I was miserable. But I never told her how I felt. I’m sure she knew.”
Warren paused looking up at the shadowed trees in front of us, lit in places by the glow of the fire. He sipped his tea while I curled up and sat back in the wide settee, listening intently. Crossing his legs, and settling deeper into his chair he continued. “Then the war came.”
“You see, Maryland was a border state. Though originally my family was from Pennsylvania, and I despised slavery, I had a decision to make. Joining the army was really an effort to flee my home situation, my marriage. I joined the cavalry under JEB as it turned out, also a Pointer. I rationalized the war politically by calling it a war for states’ rights.”
Then, quite unexpectedly, Warren set his tea aside, leaned over towards me, kneeled in the grass and he reached up to my face. He let his finger trace my nose then held my face in his hands.
“I should have told you all this weeks ago. I’m sorry. I guess I was hoping I’d have more time before being called down here.” He went on. “Fishing today I had time to think. It made me come clear with my thoughts and my choices. No more secrets. I’ve been struggling with this, with myself, my choices for quite a while. You see, I’ve got to make real changes, and I can do that now, while I’m still in the cavalry.”
Warren stood up and approached me with an outstretched arm, gently pulling me to my feet. He held me from behind and tenderly stroked the top of my head with his chin.
“It’s alright, Annie. It’s okay. You’ll see.”
We walked back to the fire, where he prepared me a plate of sizzling fresh fish and corn, and we sat and ate in silence, except for the crickets chirping in the cool grass.
After the meal, I sat back in my garden chair and looked up at the canopy of stars.
“What about those beautiful stars?” I asked him.
“Magnificent,” he said. “Annie, how long do you think it takes for the light of a star to reach our eyes?” he asked.
“I never thought about that,” I answered. “I have no idea, really.”
Thinking, he paused. “I think we look back into time whenever we gaze at those little beauties. That’s how long it takes, maybe many years. We are probably just dust motes too, expanding, contracting,
but with souls. Like them, we can light up ourselves, but in a different way. You see, we are lucky enough to have feelings, emotions and passions.”
While he spoke I saw him as a man with many passions and thoughts he was trying to put out of his mind from the grizzly place from which he had just come. A week of cruel battles that left an insane number of dead on the battlefield. This time Warren managed to take a few days away with me, just to recoup himself and find some solace from the grimness and brutality of war. It was his way of backing away without leaving his post, which he told me he was tempted to do. And, while he wasn’t proud of that, we came to realize something very important about each other. Our individual sanity, so precious, existed where we cultivated it, purposely choosing sanity every day instead of its alternative. However, sometimes sanity felt very fragile and with the givens we faced on a daily basis it could disappear in a flash. The balance could tip in our lives to reflect the chaos of the times. Those were heavy, sad and tragic times for individuals, families and for the nation and it was up to each one of us, day by day to pull from our inner strength and get through this war and out the other side, to better times.
Holding hands, we checked the fire and went into the house and up the stairs. On the top step, he picked me up with one hand around my waist and the other at the quiet bend of my knees. Lowering me to the bed, I unbuttoned his shirt and then his pants, and watching me, he climbed next to me on the bed. Carefully, button by button he undressed me in a lover’s expectant ritual. And I, him.
The evening wove into night and the deep night into the thickness of predawn. We watched the changing light as lovers without the layers of rank or title; we put the pressures of war aside, and moved beyond politics. We moved into one another’s being as gentle, passionate people following the light of one another, in love. On waking we found one another’s skin and one another’s touch all over again.
After dawn, I woke to find Warren entering the room dressed only in an undershirt and shorts carrying a tray of hot tea. Fresh strawberries and cream, and warm rolls with honey and melting butter, awaited me.
“Hungry, love?” Warren asked.
“Yes, let’s take care of the hunger, then more love,” I smiled.