Waterford, South Carolina
2005
The exterior walls of the Waterford Museum were paper thin. So thin, in fact, that Emmet Casey did not need an alarm clock. Every morning at 5:15 AM, his wife would rise and tend to her garden without fail. He could hear every snip of her shears, every scrape of her rusty trowel against the black soil and even catch tiny gurgles in the movement of sugar water from pitcher to feeder when their daughter noticed either crystallization or a scarcity of hummingbirds. He knew when things were going well and when she was discouraged. Although Saffron was only a Casey through marriage, she had adopted that simple, telling habit of humming when she was satisfied and mumbling when she was not. Those annual visits from the Stone Family stirred more mumbling and grumbling from Saffron than any other event.
They would always visit on the Saturday preceding Easter when the garden was in full and glorious bloom. This should have induced less anxiety from Saffron than in the transitionary seasons of the year. Emmet was not completely baffled at first to see this response from his wife. His nerves were ignited by their landlords' visit, too, but by the lack of dusting on the displays and the stocking of the shelves in the downstairs giftshop. Their listless teenage daughter was always too busy with schoolwork, washing dishes at the café down the street or, more realistically, preparing for derbies at Benny Martin's roller rink. This was one battle that they would have to fight alone.
Most of the flowers that Saffron tended to were perennials and they required both eradication and replacement at the beginning of the Spring. But there was one plant in her garden, an accident of nature, a lesser known wonder of the historical city that was at least as old as the Waterford Museum and the Casey Schoolhouse. Saffron had laughed when Alice Stone told her about it. Climbing rose bushes that lived to be fifty were considered to be record breakers. But those sturdy spirals of branches, weathered, brown and aggressively armed with thorns, had seen countless seasons as had the rustic trellis that the arms of the plant had locked into an impenetrable embrace.
Despite its prospective age, the roses that the plant bore could not be rivaled by any other rosebush in Waterford. Bountifully they grew, fat, fragrant, bursting with petals that were antiqued shade of snow white. It should have been Saffron's prized possession. Heaven knows, Alice Stone showed more concern for it that she did her own daughter. That being said, the rose bush gave her hell and was impossible to prune without those needle-sharp thorns biting through her leather gloves.
"You'll be the death of me," Saffron audibly grumbled, binding a stubborn branch with a thick bit of twine. The pungent smell of coffee, that her husband attempted to brew at this time of day, filled her nose. "If that man's mud water doesn't get to me first." She stood upright and slipped off her gardening gloves. There were a few pricks here and there. The battle had been more intense this time than the inflicted wounds, thank heavens. Before she could exhale her relief, the muscular branch broke free and swatted Saffron clean across the arm. Beads of blood appeared from wrist to elbow and Saffron made for the side screen door, cursing all the way.
"Our daughter found something that will appease the Stones!" Pale-haired Emmet sang as his wife stormed past him and towards the deep metal basin that barely passed for a kitchen sink.
The water rumbled as it traveled through the walls until finally, some umpteen seconds later, it erupted through the spout, spilling and sputtering across Saffron's reddened arm. She ignored her husband and focused on drawing in meditative breaths. Every room in the museum possessed that telltale old building smell and when those notes mingled with the earthy undertones of the fluoride-rich tap water, her emotions leveled out. It cannot be helped. When one lives in a historic district long enough, "home" smells like decay.
"I don't want Marigold rummaging through the attic anymore," she closed her eyes and let the tepid water work its wonders, "the floorboards above the bayonet display need reinforcing. Just one misstep in the wrong place and it'll be bye, bye birdie!" Her husband shuttered at the mental image and Saffron internalized the same response. "What did she find?"
Emmet wove through the kitchen to the pea-green Crosley refrigerator in the corner and pulled a thin, journal-like book that had been balanced on its partially domed roof, "Do you remember when Orville Stone told us to keep our eyes peeled for any documents pertaining to the Hardwick Family?"
Saffron tried not to think about the attic until she absolutely had to. Sorting through it was, indeed, a ceaseless project, one that the Caseys only oversaw when the displays needed refreshing. Waterfordians would orphan bits of history on their doorstep during their spring cleaning sessions or when someone passed away. This was additional to the legions of old chests and boxes filled with history that the museum, which was once the Hardwick House, had come with. "How could I forget their obsession with their distant relatives?" She sneered as Emmet approached her, book in hand. It was a beautiful artifact with leather binding and only partially yellowed pages. "They want primary sources, Em, from the American Revolution. That book looks too contemporary."
"This was written in the 1800's, so it isn't exactly a primary source, but hear me out," he stretched his arms out like an enthused salesman, nodding his blonde head so hard with each word that his round glasses traveled down ski-jump bridge of his upturned nose. "Oral Tradition! The more years you pack onto a story, the more it changes."
She didn't take the book. She remembered, word for word, what it was their landlords sought. "Put it back and lock the door behind you this time. I won't have Marigold and Giselle up there drooling over old portraits of men in ponytails and tight breeches. That's just… not normal."
"She loves history," Emmet declared, "she's a Casey! You know the Stone's daughter, right? I saw her and Orville at the farmer's market last week. The kid is four years old, and she talked my ear off about this story that her father told her about the Hardwick family on the drive over. Families have heroes. I can still remember the first time that Marigold asked to learn more about the schoolhouse. She has Annabelle, little Tristan Stone has Virginia Hardwick and this," he thumped his knuckles rhythmically against the book's cover, "is as close to a firsthand account of her life that a person can find."
With some reluctance, Saffron held out her hand. The cover flipped over with ease. The pages were cool to the touch, musty and aromatic in their advanced age. "The Ballad of Virginia Hardwick," she read aloud, "you can't give this to a four-year-old, Em. What if it turns out that Virginia was one of the Hardwicks who-"
"-what if? What if?" Emmet teased, "What if Annabelle was a hunchbacked dwarf with twenty toes and a tail? It is our right to know where we come from. Everyone in town who funds this museum and helps to keep it going feels the same way. I mean, heck! It might distract Alice from seeing what you have done to her crawling rose bush!"
"More like what her crawling rose bush has done to me." Saffron leaned over the counter, kneading her fists into her eye sockets until the soreness of fatigue became nothing more than tiny explosions of color and light behind her eyelids. "I need coffee." Without looking, she could tell that Emmet had turned to prepare her a cup. "No. Strong stuff. From Coffee n' San-tea."
"Will you at least look the book over and tell me what you think?"
She removed the pressure from her eyes and blinked, watching the book materialize on the countertop. "If it will get you off of my case. I'll be back before we open."
The café was abuzz with locals, most of whom were heading off for work. Saffron placed her order and became situated by the window. The book appeared to be a light read, if she could get past the sheer lack of legibility and the pages that had been lightly stained with time. She knew how to handle documents with care and kept her coffee on the furthest point of the windowsill when it arrived. As the natural light of morning mingled with the electric glow of a nearby floor lamp, she opened to the title page and revisited the book's grassy breath. It reminded her vaguely of opening the door to the museum where her lungs inhaled and exhaled ghosts, the passage of years, sweet decay and preservation—history.
The Ballad of Virginia Hardwick
Part One
Our world is composed of cities great and small. These tiny bursts of population are scattered on the globe's blank canvas and connected by pathways like constellations on an astronomer's star map. The birth of a city is not unlike the birth of a star and is both a gradual and an instantaneous phenomenon. This bondage begins with a settler, a neighbor and the incentive for the neighborhood to grow. Waterford, South Carolina was born this way. It sprung up from the earth around two neighbors, two quiet homes on a dirt road that was destined to mother a community. These two households, the Hardwick Family and the Wilkins Family were dependent upon one another for survival long before Waterford gained its name.
Although in time, additional alliances would form, loyalties would waiver and arguments would commence, the promise to look after one another remained intact for these two families. It took two generations of children bearing the Hardwick and Wilkins name for this trend to finally break:
Virginia Hardwick was born on Christmas Eve in the year of 1762. Her father, who was absent by way of inebriation for most of her childhood, was not present for his daughter's birth. Mrs. Wilkins arrived without delay and assumed the same role that Mrs. Hardwick had nine years prior when young James Wilkins entered the world. He would be the first child that Virginia would meet, and he watched over her with the same adoration and curiosity that an older brother might. They played, they laughed and when Virginia was old enough to speak, they spoke, joked and bickered. Most importantly, however, they grew. Everything that they believed, hoped and feared was somehow reliant on the other's constant presence.
As he changed from a young boy to a teenager, James found other influences and his interests wandered into territories that Virginia did not understand. He became combative, disillusioned and political. His endeavors in the senate and the loyalist colonial militia fueled Virginia's curiosity about the world that he had left her for. A hidden corner of his heart remained on reserve for Virginia. Visions of her hazel eyes and those soft, long strands of ebony hair that framed her sweet face flowed relentlessly through his mind. But Virginia did not know this. James was like a precious gem that she had misplaced in a wide field and could catch glimmers of on a sunny day, but every time she moved closer to that distant speck of light, it would vanish. If only she could better understand the terrain and map out the void that he was lost within, perhaps they could return to a simpler time when she was his only problem and his only solution.
When Virginia was fourteen, James left Waterford and did not return for six long months. She traded her books, her questions and what scraps of news she could sweep from her father's table when he was too drunk to see straight—and prayed. Until the flesh on her knees grew raw from kneeling, she would pray for his safety amidst the brutal conflict that she had read about. She was too busy pleading, begging that he would be shielded from blade and ammunition alike, that Virginia did not realize the treasure that had grown within her heart. She did not know how deeply she loved him until the day that he returned, and she saw the same emotion reflected in his eyes.
On the outside of the Hardwick House, there stood a burly white trellis that was home to a climbing rose bush. In the springtime, it brought forth the most spectacular ivory blooms. The higher the buds were on the trellis, the better their chances were of receiving optimum sunlight and growing into marvels. Virginia was returning from church one morning when she caught sight of a perfect rose, just out of plucking range. If she stood on the tips of her toes and used the longest pair of scissors in her kitchen, the lovely flower would grace the center of her family's table. She filled a vase with water, found the scissors and a stepping stool just in case. The tips of the scissors barely grazed the bottom of the stem when a long shadow covered Virginia's field of sight and a pair of rough hands snapped the branch in two right where she had intended.
"Mind your fingers, Ginger," a low whisper traveled on his breath, caressing and warming her face like a ray of sunlight, "roses have thorns."
Virginia turned, "I may be shorter than you, James Wilkins. But that doesn't make me any less intelligent." Her words were mocking, but her voice was just as tender and sweet as his had been. With a laugh, she held him tightly and before she could understand their origin, their depth, tears rolled from her eyes and onto the red wool of his coat. The rose toppled to the ground like an afterthought. He cradled the young girl's head where it rested, just below his heart. "You were here every day, James. Every day for my entire life and then you left me without warning. You must tell me before you leave again. And how long you will be away for. You owe me that much."
Her searched and searched but could not find an apology that would match his grief for how immediately he had left her and how brief this meeting would be. He held onto Virginia until she stopped crying, gave his warning as she had requested and vanished the next morning for the remainder of her fourteenth year on earth.
The next time that James visited Waterford was on a snowy Christmas morning the day after Virginia turned fifteen. The Hardwicks were returning from their devotionals and saw him waiting in the street with snowflakes peppering his dark curls. The smile that he wore when Virginia raced across the whiteness and into his arms acted as a prophecy for Mr. and Mrs. Hardwick. Their daughter would be the wife of a soldier and above all, the two families, after decades of merely residing alongside one another would join together as one. That was the happiest day of Virginia's life, listening intently to their future being decided as they warmed themselves by the fire.
He left two days later. This time, he wrote to Virginia, postponing the arrangements again and again, until those wishes scattered on the breeze. Disillusionment befell her, and it worsened as her father's love for the drink turned violent. Virginia was sent away from Waterford to live with her uncle in Pembroke. The restraints that her overbearing mother had placed on Virginia loosened. In the months that followed, she tested her uncle's indifference. She exchanged books with neighbors, gossiped with the townsfolk every chance she got and continued to expand her knowledge of the world around her. But she did not let go of those childish dreams, that the young man who was so eager to break away from the increasingly treasonous town of Waterford would come home to her.
James sought her out once more. Her uncle directed him to where she spent most of her days, in the back row of the church where she split her time between reading about the war and praying for a peaceful resolve. He could see her from the outside, kneeling at the altar. Her hair was covered, but several rogue pieces had fallen out to frame the elegant curvature of her cheek. She did not know that he was there, not until he approached her and touched the petals of a single white rose to her clasped hands.
"It is always when I think that you have forgotten me that you appear again," said Virginia. "Why must be so cruel to me?"
"Wars and weddings do not blend well," he saw the top of a folded newsletter sticking out of the pages of her bible, "you are smart. You know this."
At last, she opened her hands to the flower. "How long?"
"A day."
Virginia shook her head. "That is not what I meant. How long, James Wilkins, until you give me all of your days?"
He straightened out his back, pulled Virginia to her feet and took her in his arms. There, at the altar, he made this solemn vow. "Every chance I can find, when it is safe to do so, I will come to you with a white rose in my hands. One day, dear Virginia, one day soon, I will arrive with a red rose and you will know, without so much as a single word that it will mark the beginning of our life together."
A/N: So, I advertised this in the short story collection that I posted last week and was going to make it live once my other short story, Marigold and the Historian was completed. That hardly seemed fair. Wilkins needs some love, too! As it stands right now, they will both be "short stories" and roughly the length of "Only Through Victory". I realize that I have a lot of different projects going at once, but they do kind of all bleed into one big narrative and none of them, I repeat none of them are "abandoned" by any stretch of the imagination. It's just my ADHD at work, I guess. Lol. I don't mind having them going simultaneously if you don't. Happy reading! X