You Belong to My Heart (35 page)

“Surely they can’t take much more of this, Captain,” said one of sweating gunners as the sun began to set on the sixth day and the river was quiet for brief, welcome interlude.

“You don’t know these stubborn Southerners,” said Clay. “We may be here for weeks. They’ll hold out until—”

The sentence was never finished.

All at once the batteries on the bluff blazed to life, and the
Cincinnati’s
starboard cannons immediately answered the assault. The ensuing battle was fierce. The river was aglow with gunfire, and the thunderous boom of cannon and shell was deafening. Thick black smoke billowed into the air, blinding the gunners and filling the lungs of the sailors at their battle stations. The eerie shouts and screams of the shrapnel wounded and dying rose from unseen men enveloped in the thick, blinding smoke.

Standing his ground firmly, Captain Knight shouted clear, precise orders, ignoring his watering eyes and burning throat. All traces of his former fear now vanished in the heat of battle, the cool-headed Annapolis-trained naval officer calmly displayed his ability to perform—and to lead—under pressure.

Captain Knight was shouting an order when a single Rebel shell pierced the gunboat’s forward ammunition magazine. The
Cincinnati’s
explosion lit up the night sky as bright as day.

“Mary,” Clay murmured as the dark waters of the Mississippi closed over his head and filled his shrapnel-lacerated lungs.

“Clay!” Mary Ellen screamed, and bolted upright in her bed. “No! No! Clay!”

Heart beating so fast and so forcefully she clutched her breast in pain, Mary Ellen trembled violently in the midnight darkness of that warm May night. Her palms clammy, her face covered with a sheen of perspiration, she was gripped with terror from the too real nightmare that had awakened her.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she struggled in vain to get up. Almost nine full months pregnant, she was clumsy and all but immobile. Her jerky, awkward movements awakened the child sleeping inside her. The baby began to kick viciously, and Mary Ellen held her swollen stomach and cried uncontrollably, unable to move to the mattress’s edge to swing her legs over.

She heard the knock on the door but was crying too hard to answer. The door opened slowly. A lamp wavered and moved, and through her tears Mary Ellen saw old Titus limping toward her.

“Child, what is it?” he asked anxiously, his eyes round with fear. “The baby? Is the baby—”

“No, no,” she sobbed. “It’s Clay. Clay’s been killed, I know he has! Titus, Clay is dead! Clay is dead!”

“No sech of a thing,” said Titus. He set the lamp on the night table and came to the bed.

“What is it?” Mattie called as she hurried into the room, tying the sash of her robe.

“Oh, Mattie,” Mary Ellen wailed, “Clay’s been killed, I know he has. I saw it all in a dream, and it was so real I know—”

“Shhhh,” said Titus, absently patting her hand where it rested atop her domelike belly. “You’re gwine hurt yo’self and that child you’re carryin’ if you’re not careful.”

“I must get up! Help me get out of bed,” Mary Ellen pleaded.

Now at the bed, Mattie elbowed Titus out of the way, leaned over, and took the sobbing Mary Ellen in her fleshy arms. Resting her cheek atop Mary Ellen’s blond head, she murmured, “Ain’t nothin’ but a bad dream, child, that’s all it was. You just lay back down and relax. Soon you’ll go back to sleep.”

“No, I can’t! Something terrible has happened,” whimpered Mary Ellen. “I saw, I tell you. I saw the whole thing. Oh, God, I saw Clay—”

“No, you didn’t,” Mattie interrupted, motioning to Titus to help her ease Mary Ellen back down on the pillows. “What you saw was a nasty ol’ nightmare. Don’t mean nothin’. Not a thing.”

Unconvinced, Mary Ellen continued to weep as the two old servants fussed over her and assured her repeatedly that everything was fine. If anything had happened to the Captain, they would have heard about it. Hadn’t that young Ensign Briggs told her just this afternoon that there hadn’t been a single one of those Yankee gunboats sunk down in Vicksburg? Not a one.

“I’ll sit here with you till you fall back to sleep,” promised Mattie.

“I was gonna do that,” the protective Titus promptly informed the cook.

“Ain’t a bit of need of us both stayin’,” Mattie told him. Then she pointed. “Go get me a washcloth. This poor child’s burning up.”

Muttering, Titus limped into the white marble bath and came back with a washcloth and china basin of cool water. Mattie took it from him immediately and, standing beside the bed, blotted Mary Ellen’s shiny forehead and bathed her tear-streaked cheeks. She pressed the cool cloth to Mary Ellen’s throat, reached inside the open-throated nightgown, and bathed her shoulders and the tops of her swollen breasts. She hummed as she worked, and then in a low, soothing voice she began to sing an old spiritual that had been a favorite of Mary Ellen’s when she a child.

Mary Ellen finally stopped jerking. Her sobs became quieter, then died away.

Mattie smiled and said, “Now jes’ close your eyes, my sweet baby, and forget that mean ol’ nightmare.” And she repeated, “I’ll stay right here with you till you fall back to sleep.”

Not to be outdone, Titus took one of Mary Ellen’s hands in his gnarled fingers and, leaning close, said, “I’ll be stayin’, too, Miz Mary Ellen. Yes, I will. Sit right here beside the bed till you goes back to sleep.”

Seated side by side on two chairs they had laboriously pulled up close to the bed, Mattie and Titus were soon sound asleep.

But Mary Ellen wasn’t.

She didn’t close her eyes for the rest of the night.

I
READ ONLY SUNSHINE
…

The words etched on the face of the old marble sundial on Longwood’s lower terrace.

For thirty-four years the sundial had worked perfectly. Since the beautiful spring day in 1829 when John Thomas Preble had supervised as it was anchored carefully on the estate’s northern lawn, the shadow of the sundial’s brass hand had moved slowly, surely, around the flat marble face.

But on the twenty-seventh day of May, 1863, the sundial abruptly stopped.

Mary Ellen, tired from her sleepless night and shaken from the dream she feared was prophetic, stood at the broken sundial late the next afternoon. The hot May sun beat down on her uncovered head, but she felt strangely cold, as if she stood in deep, impenetrable shadow.

Her trembling fingers traced the letters deeply carved on the sundial’s marble face.
I read only sunshine…
Worriedly, Mary Ellen wondered. Had the sundial stopped because there would be no more sunshine at Longwood?

As Mary Ellen stood at the broken sundial, the damning dispatch arrived at Memphis Union Naval Headquarters. The bulletin concluded:

Lieutenant Theodore Davidson of the gunboat
Lexington
saw the explosion. A Rebel shore battery hit the
Cincinnati
in the forward ammunition magazine, and she went down with all hands onboard. No known survivors.

Mary Ellen remained dry-eyed and stoic as the nervous Johnny Briggs stood in Longwood’s spacious drawing room at sunset and gave her the bad news. When he had told her all he knew of the sunk
Cincinnati,
Mary Ellen thanked him and asked that he please let her know immediately if and when there was any further news.

Then she politely excused herself.

Waving away her protective servants, Mary Ellen slowly ascended the stairs. In the privacy of the master suite, she stood at the foot of the oversize mahogany bed she had shared with Clay, remembering the nights they had made love there. One hand on her stomach, the other gripping the bed’s tall carved footpost, she smiled wistfully, thinking that one of those wonderful nights in this big bed with Clay had started the new life inside her.

Tears filled her dark eyes.

She hadn’t told Clay she was pregnant. At the time, she’d felt sure she was doing the right thing. She hadn’t wanted him distracted and worried about her. But not telling him had been a mistake. Now it was too late. She had let her husband die without ever knowing she was carrying his child.

“Clay, my love, I’m so sorry,” she murmured sadly.

Too exhausted to stand any longer, Mary Ellen, clinging to the solid bedpost, slowly sank to the carpeted floor at the foot of the bed. She laid her weary head against the footboard, sat down flat, and wept uncontrollably.

She was still there when her friend Leah Thompson, summoned by the worried Titus, arrived. Leah hurried straight up the stairs, knocked, and went inside without waiting for a reply.

The older woman rushed across the room, sank to her knees beside the sobbing Mary Ellen, and put comforting arms around her. The two friends stayed there on the floor for a long time, talking, praying, crying together. It was Leah who finally convinced the distraught Mary Ellen that she had to get some rest.

“Won’t you let me help you get undressed and into bed?” she asked gently.

Before Mary Ellen could reply, another knock came on the bedroom door and the white-haired Dr. Cain came in, carrying his black bag and issuing orders.

“You’re going to bed immediately, Mary Ellen Knight,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Mrs. Thompson, help me get her up and I’ll check her while you get her a nightgown. Mary Ellen, I’ll give you something to help you sleep, and I mean for you to take it. You must think of your child. If you don’t take care of yourself, you…you…” His lecturing words trailed away, and in a kind, fatherly tone he said, “Child, I heard. I’m so sorry, but you mustn’t give up hope. It’s way too soon to suppose that…that…” He stopped speaking, cleared his throat needlessly, then turned away and rummaged through his black bag.

Dr. Cain gave Mary Ellen a mild sedative, and by the time he and Leah Thompson left the suite, Mary Ellen was sound asleep.

The doctor touched Leah’s arm, stopped her when they were out in the upstairs corridor. “Mrs. Thompson,” he said, speaking in a low, soft voice, “I am worried about Mary Ellen. She’s not as strong as she should be, and now this terrible blow will make matters worse.”

“What are you saying, Dr. Cain? Is Mary Ellen’s unborn child in danger?”

Brow deeply furrowed, he nodded his white head. “Mary Ellen’s in danger as well, I’m afraid. She’s going to have a difficult time delivering the child, and she’s already weak to start with. If she isn’t careful…” He shrugged, shook his head, and exhaled.

“Dear Lord,” murmured Leah, shocked. “I never considered—”

“Emotions affect health as much as anything,” the doctor cut in. “This news about the Captain couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

Leah nodded sadly, then asked, “What can I do, Doctor?”

“Help Mary Ellen’s servants see to it she eats properly and gets plenty of rest. I want her to have as much strength as possible when the time comes.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Leah said worriedly. “And promise you’ll send for me when she goes into labor.”

“I was counting on you,” said Dr. Cain.

The long days of torture dragged by with no definitive word on Clay. It was rumored that some of the men on the ill-fated gunboat had survived the explosion and were now being held prisoner by the Confederates. But it was not a certainty, and no names of survivors had been supplied.

Mary Ellen went about in a daze of despair, and no one was more concerned than the soft-hearted Titus.

“Now, Miz Mary Ellen, they exchange prisoners every week,” he said time and again. “If them Rebs is holdin’ the Cap’n, they may might jes’ trade him for one of their own any day. I ’spect that’s what’ll happen…yes, I do.”

Leah Thompson also tried to cheer up the grieving Mary Ellen. She was at Longwood almost constantly, pleading with Mary Ellen to eat the nutritious meals Mattie prepared and to take long, restful afternoon naps. But try as she might, Mary Ellen could hardly force herself to eat, and she found it almost impossible to sleep at night, much less in the daytime.

Distraught, Mary Ellen grew drawn and pale, her dark eyes hollow and clouded with grief. Her strength was slowly ebbing away at a time when she most needed it.

The sweltering summer weather didn’t help.

The sticky heat of June descended like a swarm of locusts on the Bluff City. The days were long, sunny, and almost unbearably hot. The nights were still, muggy, and too warm. For a troubled young woman who was nine full months pregnant, the sultry heat was sheer hell.

On the fifth of June—several days past her due date—a letter arrived for Mary. Ensign Briggs delivered the letter to Longwood at sunset. The ensign stood in the foyer as Mary Ellen slowly descended the stairs. She looked so weak and pale, he was reluctant to give her the letter he had tucked inside his uniform pocket. The envelope was stained with drops of blood, and Ensign Briggs had recognized Captain Clay Knight’s distinctive handwriting.

“Mrs. Knight,” Briggs said, greeting her.

“Ensign Briggs,” she acknowledged, her dark eyes questioning. “Have you come to…to…”

Halfway down the stairs, Mary Ellen stopped speaking as a wrenching pain slammed through her body, taking her breath away.

“Mrs. Knight!” shouted Ensign Briggs, and raced up the stairs.

He swept Mary Ellen into his arms and carried her up the stairs, shouting over his shoulder for her servants. As soon as Titus and Mattie were with her, Ensign Briggs told them he’d go for the doctor. He left the room and raced back down the stairs. The letter still in his uniform pocket, the frightened ensign sprinted down the front walk and out the gate, then ran all the way to the Shelby County Hospital.

Dr. Cain was at Longwood within a half hour. Leah Thompson wasn’t far behind.

The two of them were still there eighteen hours later. The doctor’s fears had become a reality. A badly weakened Mary Ellen endured hour after hour of debilitating pain as her long labor continued through the still, sticky hours of the hot June night. The suffering Mary Ellen murmured Clay’s name over and over as she and her baby slipped closer and closer toward death.

Titus and Mattie hovered just outside the suite, crying and telling each other that Mary Ellen and the baby would be all right. Everything was going to be all right.