“Nothing wrong with my ears, Marge.” Mrs. Berman peered down at the stairs, as if inspecting for blood. “Mrs. Dolin was telling us something of the history. We decided to visit the inn because we read one of the brochures that claimed it was haunted.”
“Yes, ma’am. It surely is.”
“Sheriff MacKade’s brother owns the inn,” Cassie explained. “He can tell you quite a bit about it.”
“You can’t do better than to hear it from Mrs. Dolin,” Devin corrected. “She lives with the ghosts every day. Tell them about the two corporals, Cassie.”
Though she told the story several times each week, Cassie had to struggle not to feel self-conscious in front of Devin. She folded her hands over her apron.
“Two young soldiers,” she began, “became separated from their regiments during the Battle of Antietam. Each wandered into the woods beyond the inn. Some say they were looking for their way back to the battle, others say they were just trying to go home. Still, legend holds that they met there, fought there, each of
them young, frightened, lost. They would have heard the battle still raging in the fields, over the hills, but this was one on one, strangers and enemies because one wore blue, and the other gray.”
“Poor boys,” Mrs. Berman murmured.
“They wounded each other, badly, and crawled off in different directions. One, the Confederate, made his way here, to this house. It’s said he thought he was coming home, because all he wanted, in the end, was his home and his family. One of the servants found him, and brought him into the house. The mistress here was a Southern woman. Her name was Abigail, Abigail O’Brian Barlow. She had married a wealthy Yankee. A man she didn’t love, but was bound to by her vows.”
Devin’s brow lifted. It was a new twist, a new detail, to the legend he had known since childhood.
“She saw the boy, a reminder of her own home and her own youth. Her heart went out to him for that, and simply because he was hurt. She ordered him to be taken upstairs, where his wounds would be tended. She spoke to him, reassured him, held his hand in hers as the servant carried him up these stairs. She knew that she could never go home again, but she wanted to be sure the boy could. The war had shown her cruelty, useless struggle and the terrible pain of loss, as her marriage had. If she could do this one thing, she thought, help this one boy, she could bear it.”
Mrs. Cox took out tissues, handed one to her sister and blew her own nose hard.
“But her husband came to the stairs,” Cassie continued. “She didn’t hate him then. She didn’t love him, but she’d been taught to respect and obey the man she had married, and the father of her children. He had a gun, and she saw what he meant to do in his eyes. She shouted for him to stop, begged him. The boy’s hand was in hers, and his eyes were on her face, and if she had had the courage, she would have thrown her body over his to protect him. To save not only him, but everything she’d already lost.”
Now it was Cassie who looked down at the stairs, sighed over them. “But she didn’t have the courage. Her husband fired the gun and killed him, even as she held the boy’s hand. He died here, the young soldier. And so did she, in her heart. She never spoke to her husband again, but she learned how to hate. And she grieved from that day until she died, two years later. And often, very often, you can smell the roses she loved in the house, and hear her weeping.”
“Oh, what a sad, sad story.” Mrs. Cox wiped at her eyes. “Irma, have you ever heard such a sad story?”
Mrs. Berman sniffed. “She’d have done better to have taken the gun and shot the louse.”
“Yes.” Cassie smiled a little. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons she still weeps.” She shook off the mood of the story and led the ladies the rest of the way down the steps. “If you’d like to make yourselves at home in the parlor, I’ll bring in the tea I promised you.”
“That would be lovely,” Mrs. Cox told her, still sniffling. “Such a beautiful house. Such lovely furniture.”
“All of the furnishings come from Past Times, Mrs. MacKade’s shop on Main Street in town. If you have time, you might want to go in and browse. She has beautiful things, and offers a ten-percent discount to any guest of the inn.”
“Ten percent,” Mrs. Berman murmured, and eyed a graceful hall rack.
“Devin, would you like to have some tea?”
It took an effort to move. He wondered if she knew that Connor got his flair for telling a story from his mother.
“I’ll take a rain check on that. I have something in the car for upstairs. For your place.”
“Oh.”
“Ladies, nice to have met you. Enjoy your stay at the MacKade Inn, and in the town.”
“What a handsome man,” Mrs. Cox said, with a little pat of her hand to her heart. “My goodness. Irma, have you ever seen a more handsome young man?”
But Mrs. Berman was busy sizing up the drop-leaf table in the parlor.
By the time Cassie had settled the ladies in with their tea, her curiosity was killing her. She had chores to see to, and she scolded herself for letting them lag as she hurried around to the outside stairs.
Halfway up, she saw Devin hooking up a porch swing. “Oh.” It made a lovely picture, she thought, a man standing in the sunlight, his shirtsleeves rolled up, tools at his feet, muscles working as he lifted one end of the heavy wooden seat to its chain.
“This seemed like the spot for it.”