“Oh, Father, I love you so.” She hugged him, then followed Captain Schuyler out the door, and Ewing turned back into the house.
John stood by the wagon, ready to swing himself up.
“Return to me, Captain. Be safe.”
“John.” He smiled. “And I will return to you.”
She stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her right hand around his neck, and kissed him, taking both their breaths away.
Releasing him, Catherine looked intently into John’s brown eyes, smiled, then turned heel and walked back up the stairs. Opening the hall door for her was Roger. He had seen it all, but would not betray his beloved Catherine.
“Where is my father?” she asked.
Roger tilted his head toward the back of the house, his voice low. “With your mother, Miss Catherine.”
She hurried down the hall and swung open the back door. She ran to her father, as he stood in the lovely graveyard, before her mother’s monument, a recumbent lamb holding the cross.
Catherine reached him, tears running down his cheeks.
“Oh, Father.” Tears now ran down hers.
“I fear I have not been a good father and—”
“You are the best father in the world.”
“Ah, you are young and clearly in love with the handsome and brave captain. But I, as your father, should see that you marry well, that you will want for nothing.”
“Father, if I don’t have love, I have nothing.”
Ewing stood silently, then reached for her hand. “Your mother might have said that. When I courted her, she was pursued by so many men, some with wealth, many far more handsome than I. I am not a strapping fellow, but she loved me. We could talk about anything, my dear. That may not sound romantic, but we grew as one, one heart. I may be a fool to allow this friendship, courtship to continue. I don’t think the captain has a sou, but if you love him and it is clear he loves you, then I think your mother would be happy.” The tears flowed again. “My child, I miss your mother so.”
“I do, too, Father, and—” Catherine paused, kissed him on his wet cheek. “I love you.”
May 12, 2015
The back road from the Charlottesville Airport meandered through a few subdivisions closer to the airport. The farther west Harry headed with the animals in the station wagon, the more the land opened up: revealing plowed fields, and those where the orchard grass and fescue tips were now breaking through the soil. Overhead, enormous cumulus clouds billowed, in contrast to a startling blue sky.
She’d dropped off her husband at the airport, as Fair would be attending a veterinarians’ conference in Denver for the rest of the week. Sometimes wives would go to the conferences; other times, not so much. She liked Denver but knew her job was to stay home; her crops would begin their life cycle. Of course, it was too early to tell how each of these crops would fare, but to date the mixture of sun and rain had been perfect.
She rounded a long, sweeping curve. The very back of The Barracks was visible to her left, and farther to her left she could make out the construction for part of Continental Estates. When she reached Hunt Country Store, she couldn’t help it. She turned left. This was a long way around to either The Barracks or Continental Estates. It was also the only way. Neither property could be accessed from the west.
Passing the two square blue Barracks signs, she drove closer to Berta Jones’s driveway, turned left, and passed individual houses, all large, arriving at last at the great wrought-iron gates of Continental Estates.
“This isn’t the way home,” Pewter noted from the backseat.
“She likes to wander,” Tucker replied, next to the gray cat.
The cat squinted, looking out the window. “Wander? With her, it’s a magical mystery tour.”
Mrs. Murphy looked on the bright side. “Hey, at least we get to see a lot.”
“I can’t imagine what these gates cost to make, with the gilded pineapples right in the center,” Harry said to them.
For a moment, they thought she was talking about food, but she wasn’t, so they lost interest.
“Where are we going?” Pewter demanded.
“Pipe down, Pewter,” Harry called to her as she slowed, passing the finished houses on the main center street.
On a whim, she turned left, heading west to see if she could recognize any of the homes whose backside she had seen from the back airport road.
Each home varied from its neighbor and each was set deep on the one- to two-acre lots. A few even had five-acre lots. Not as far along as those on Saratoga, the center road, the dividing line between east and west in the subdivision, where the outsides of the homes were finished. The work here was being done inside. Some had a red-brick exterior, others painted brick. A few even had a stone exterior, and others clapboard. All were built in a style a colonial person, if he came back, would recognize. The subdivision would be alien to them, but its architecture wouldn’t be.
Harry ran down her window. The sounds of hammering, electric saws, and drills filtered into the wagon.
“Nasty noise,” Pewter fussed.
Tucker, too, found it jarring. “It’s the saws and the drills.”
Reaching a cul-de-sac, she slowly circled it and headed back out. At the intersection to the main drag, she turned left, driving back to that cul-de-sac. She cut the motor, sat for a moment, then got out, the two cats and dog with her.
They walked across a field and out to the milestone. Standing at it, Harry carefully turned in each direction. The Barracks presented rolling hills. As she turned west, the Blue Ridge came into view. She knew all those homes with great views of the mountains would wear a higher price tag. And why not? It was stunning.
“Come on.” Harry moved slightly southeasterly from the milepost as she followed old deep wagon ruts.
Reaching the shallow ravine, she looked across it, could begin to make out the deep gulley and a deep gulley beyond that.
Tucker looked down into the shallow ravine. “Long gone.”
“You know, guys, once upon a time this was heavily traveled,” said Harry. “According to Ginger—if I remember, when he gave us The Barracks tour—this was the back way into the camp. Saved time and miles. I never asked him when it fell into disuse. Maybe he didn’t know, but Garth Road, along with old Three Chopt Road, were the main east-west corridors. ’Course Three Chopt became Route 250, so anyone along that road could do pretty good with a business. Like goods, wagon repairs, all that kind of stuff. But Garth Road more or less remained large estates. Funny how things happen.”
Pewter’s stomach growled. “I’m hungry.”
“All right, come on.” She turned, walking back to the station wagon.
Once Harry and everyone were inside she cut on the motor and the air-conditioning. It wasn’t that warm but with the car closed up, it had gotten stuffy.
They sat awhile while Harry tried to imagine the activity here during the Revolutionary War.
Driving back down the center road, she noticed Marshall Reese’s car parked in the midst of much activity at one of the finished houses. He and Paul Huber, with his landscaping trucks everywhere, had blueprints unfolded on the hood of Marshall’s Mercedes.
Harry stopped. The men called out to her and she walked over, animals in tow.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Marshall smiled.
Noticing again the Band-Aids on his fingers and a gauze pad on Marshall’s palm, Harry asked, “What happened to you?”
“Stupid. Here I have Paul but I decided to plant a quince for my wife at the corner of the yard. Little did I know what I was getting into.” He chuckled. “I’ve gotten soft.”
“Yes, but no less stubborn,” Paul teased him, then turned to Harry, repeating Marshall’s query. “What are you doing here, Harry? We all know you’re a curious person.” He squeezed her shoulder good-naturedly.