Grace Light

By Tricia Segar

Brothers by adoption, Charles and James were inseparable. James never resented living in his brother’s shadow; he was kinder than if they had been blood. Life was good, and nothing could come between them, until an urgent telegram brings James south where he meets the woman of his dreams. Unaware of Charles’s secret attachment to the Virginian beauty named Emmaline, James falls in love at first sight. Charles’s unexpected arrival with a three-carat wedding ring thwarts his dearest hope and places James in the impossible position as his brother’s best man. One year after Charles and Emmaline are wed, Civil War breaks out and Charles is amongst the first to enlist.
Serving side by side in Gettysburg, James witnesses Charles’s death. Emmaline’s complete mental breakdown at the news may be more dreadful for James to bear than the loss of his brother. When he returns from the war and finds her in the same catatonic state he was forced to leave her in two years earlier, he is ready to take any measure to bring her back from a mental grave. At her father’s urging, he agrees to marry and escort her to England as her legal guardian. Distancing her from the ever-present reminders of the war spurs his gamble on the dubious arrangement. For his part, the chance to be near her is worth any risk, even the fear she will hate him for it.
After four short weeks in England, Emmaline awakens to discover that she is married to her husband’s brother. James has had to deal with his disillusionment with life, the loss of his true love, and the death of his cherished brother. Now, with her sudden reappearance into the land of the living, he faces the greatest threat to his future happiness, Emmaline’s rejection. Emmaline confronts her own demons and is determined James should know the entire truth about her decision to marry Charles, the tragedies she faced during the war, and the guilty secret that led to her complete mental breakdown.
The following twelve hours will decide both their fates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973682967

Tricia Segar

Julie Martin has worked with children for over 30 years; using story telling to draw them into a deeper understanding of the Bible. She loves to leave them at a climatic point in the stories to keep them wanting more. She lives in Michigan with her husband John where they raised 4 children.

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Copyright © 2020 Tricia Segar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

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except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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KJV: Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8297-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8298-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8296-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020900360

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/06/2021

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised.

                                                    Psalm 113:3 KJV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For all the men in my life, I dedicate this book: To my beloved husband Marty, whose idea of the great outdoors is a beautifully manicured golf course; To Isaac, my Wolverine; To Caleb, my kind-hearted caregiver; To Jonny, my Adonis; To Daniel, my strikingly handsome physician; To Josh, my lover of all things gunpowder. To Ethan, my brilliant financier and physical fitness mastermind; To my grandsons, Edmund, lover of all things that move and Judah, things that explode. To my favorite sixth grandbaby, Ambrose Clay. Your name, meaning, Eternal Man is the embodiment of my story. And finally, my newest little angel, Gabrielle. You are my heart’s desire.

To the women in my life, who have dedicated themselves to me: Suzy, your suggestion, to change my title from Manacles of Grace to Grace Light and to allow sunlight to be the golden strand that weaves the entire story together, changed everything. It also led to deep personal growth in my own heart and mind through the creative process. To my dearest sisters in blood and in Christ, Trina and Timari, my sisters in Christ, Sandie and Julie for persevering through at least a thousand word changes, my undying love, respect and appreciation. To Dorcas, my English-master extraordinaire, my deepest gratitude and love.

To my blessed daughters for whom I wrote the story, Susanna, Charity, Bethany, and Michaela. You are my life. To Sid, my beautiful daughter-in-law and model for the cover art. You are my Mona Lisa. To my grandgirls, Ali, Kaylin, Emberlyn, and Fallon. You are my crowning joy. Above all, thanks to my beautiful reader, Charity, whose encouraging words are the reason for this book. Having begun as a personal lark to create an alternative ending to a beloved 19th century romance novel, with enough information to have it make sense, gave it to my favorite second daughter to read. You need to turn this into a novel, Mom. That’s all the fuel I needed.

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To E.P. Roe: Painfully redundant as you are, you remain my literary hero. I often told my husband that the only other man he ever need fear losing my affections to has been dead one hundred and thirty-two years. My book Grace Light is loosely based on the plot of your 1883 novel, His Somber Rivals. I remain, your faithful devotee.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

The pastoral view from his well-sprung conveyance satisfied James’s beauty-loving soul. Every verdant mile soothed a little bit more of the world-weariness that had seeped into his bones. As his carriage jostled over the rutty English road, no wider than a cow path, an old stone chapel appeared in the valley ahead looking as if it dated back to the Crusaders. A glad thrill raced through him as he recognized the inspiration for his childhood hero’s early landscape paintings.Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of Art, was born here. When Baynard Randolph said, Take her to England, James didn’t have to think twice where.

The sun was near its zenith, showing off the splendor of the countryside where quaint cottage gardens grew red roses in almost equal abundance as the bachelor buttons dotting the hillsides. He was a true proficient at wildflower identification as his sweet mother, God rest her soul, never made a two-mile buggy ride without her sheers at the ready. With the enthusiasm of a little girl, she used to hop down in an obliging field to garner a bouquet that would grace the dinner table in their Kaaterskills cabin. It surprised him to see many of his mother’s favorites growing here in England. Then when he thought the better of it, wondered if early settlers had brought seeds with them when they settled New England. It seemed a reasonable explanation. He smiled pensively at a dense patch of the star-shaped blue flowers and gave a rap at the carriage ceiling indicating for the coachman to stop. They were his mother’s favorites. He couldn’t imagine why. The flowers of his beloved Adirondacks were incomparable. Why had she not preferred the tiger lily? The sweet pea? Blue flags, now those were a find! But, then, he thought with a chuckle, her favorite anything tended to change weekly.

Nurse Pat looked up with a start. She had heard precious little laughter in their three-week voyage. She had the good grace not to intrude upon her employer’s thoughts, but the edges of her thin lips curled optimistically upward.

James met the confused driver’s face as he emerged from the door with a broad smile. He drew a pocket-knife from his trousers and cut off a half-dozen varieties in a few swift swipes of his blade. With a tip of his hat for the appreciative look in the liveryman’s eyes, he stepped back into his seat directly in front of Emmaline. He extended the bright assortment toward her with bygone adolescent fervor.

My lady, these are for you.

The lilt in his voice did not draw so much as a blink from the young woman. Ms. Pat, who had nursed her for the two years since her complete mental breakdown, smiled for her and took them from James’s hand. She opened Emmaline’s fingers, wrapping them around the impromptu offering. James pressed his lips in a grim line, the forced smile fading at the memory of the woman she had once been. He studied her, eyes narrowed contemplatively with the inside of his cheek pinned between two molars. It was perpetually inflamed, and he hissed when the carriage hit a pothole causing his teeth to lance the ulceration. The familiar taste of copper filled his mouth and he wanted to spit. He swallowed it, along with his rising frustration. The pain, however, did not deter him from obsessing over the occupant whose absent gaze never once made it to the flowers now spilling from her non-existent clasp. She loves flowers, he brooded. This was the same vibrant girl he had seen through his auntie’s window, talking to herself, and twirling her generous skirt into a spiral, now looking as though she could be a life-size china doll, for all of her lifeless porcelain perfection. He closed his eyes and conjured a picture of the once soulful woman who occupied his every waking thought. The eyes that had sparkled with mirth at his antics, gleamed at his stories, brightened at his discourses over a dozen subjects late into the summer evenings. She was intelligent. She was funny, with a dry humor that fueled his quick wit. Though she had not the opportunity to further her education as he had at New York’s finest university, she asked intuitive, searching questions that proved her longing for a greater understanding of the world around her. He was not sure he had ever met a young lady so passionate about nature, his first love. His mother might have known the name of every wildflower, but Emmaline had shocked him by spouting off the scientific names of a myriad of specimens as they walked through fields of mountain laurel in the Blue Ridge Valley. The sound of her laughter is what had charmed him most, a sound so pure, he was sure it could make the angels cheer. It was full, unrestrained jubilance, unlike the silly misses he had met in drawing rooms on the East Coast whose titters drove him as far away from society as he could get. An occasional snort would escape her. She would crimson prettily and press a dainty short glove to her mouth. But the laughter never left her eyes. Those eyes.

He opened his to see Pat remove Emmaline’s bonnet to make her patient more comfortable from the humidity that clung to their skin despite their open windows. He smiled at the loose tendrils framing her prominent cheekbones and remembered how sweetly vexed she used to become at her silken hair, which she claimed, No hairpin could tame into submission. He bent low to peer into emerald eyes, obscured by impossibly long lashes. Princess cut gemstones, he had always told himself. Cut, smoothed, and polished by the Master Craftsmen with flecks of pure gold gilding their edges. Remembering how they lit every room she entered, he searched for some trace of their former radiance. His appreciative eyes followed the outlines of her lovely features. Her slender nose sloped into soft facets, framed with adorably arched nostrils. He released a clipped laugh at the memory of the impulse he had had in the fields near Massanutten when he rubbed a dandelion on its pert little end. His gaze traced the curve of her delicate jawline, then trailed along her lily-white neck spilling into a pool at the hollow of her throat, its cobalt shadows brimming the edge of its v shape coaxing him to drown in its shallow depth.

A resounding gong from the church that had crept up without notice shook him to his frame. He caught his breath when another peeled so loudly, its bell tower seemed mounted on the carriage roof. They were passing almost directly below it when the last of three jarred him yet again. He frowned sternly. Sudden reverberations and soldiers from the front lines did not mix well. The three deep gongs marking three of the clock struck him like the three death knells that had brought him to this place. Stroke one, losing Emmaline’s heart when she married Charles. Stroke two, losing Charles’s on the battlefield. Stroke three, the loss of his own when Emmaline collapsed in his arms, suffering a complete mental breakdown from which he was losing all faith she would ever recover. Familiar tears pricked his eyes. They had become his constant companions in this meaningless marriage.

He glanced down at the bachelor buttons that had fallen prostrate in her limp wrist. He slipped out a wilted sprig from the tousled bouquet and stuffed it into the buttonhole of his Wescott’s lapel. How odd, he thought. I am technically no longer a bachelor. He heaved another sigh. But, forever destined to be one in reality. He had taken upon the burden, nay, the privilege of becoming a guardian to his deceased brother’s mentally lost wife. He tsked at his rambling mind and ill attempt to define his bizarre position. Guardian. Guardian husband. No, guardian bachelor/husband. Then with an inward huff he mused, I’m in England now. Why not make it the lord of the manor and grand marquis? Yes. He liked the way that sounded. And why not, Knight of the Round Table, while I’m inventing titles I do not actually possess! He rolled his eyes at the preposterousness of it all. Taking Emmaline to England was her aging father’s idea, in hopes, she might escape the vestiges of the Civil War. It had been losing Charles in the war, after all, he and her doctor falsely assumed had precipitated her breakdown. Crossing an ocean in her company was impossible in any lesser capacity than as her legal husband. And, God help him, he wanted to be. He had never imagined Emmaline as anything less than his wife from the first moment he laid eyes on her five years earlier. But not like this. Not like this.

I

FORGING A NATION’S IRON WILL

Morning light streamed unhindered through the scanty muslin curtains hanging in James’s windows. At first, he only stirred, scowling at the unwelcome rays threatening the sleep he had only achieved the previous hour. Insomnia had become the norm, tossing and turning all night, engaged unrelentingly on an unforgiving battlefield. Though living in England, his thoughts remained occupied on a sacred parcel of American soil where precious blood was spilled two years ago this very day. Since that wretched afternoon, he seemed bound to relive every excruciating detail of the battle that changed his life forever. Every grimacing face, every savage sound, played upon his mind with rote familiarity. As with many brave soldiers, his war never ended.

At present, a recurrent nightmare was racking his brain for what seemed to stretch on for hours, though measured more like minutes real time. Daybreak always comes too soon for the sleep-deprived, but never soon enough for the sleep tormented. This morning it was both. Clouds hovering near the horizon dispersed, allowing dawn’s slanting rays to graze the pond out back, multiplying their intensity on every ripple. They invaded James’s room like a drill sergeant. But rather than rouse him, they crossed the threshold of unconsciousness, blitzing his dreamscape with a blinding fiery haze. There he stood at the transient edge of his imagination, watching himself, like a morbid spectator, brandishing a saber in his left hand and a pistol in his right. Though still asleep, yet strangely lucid, his body jerked as if to shield his burning eyes. The chaotic sounds of clashing swords and gunfire harrowed his ears as he spun erratically, slashing at an enemy he could not see. Infrared spray pierced the air like a meteoric shower, while beneath him, the ground swirled with the acrid glow of a crucible. He was being sucked downward, down into volcanic quicksand! In desperation, he fought against the engulfing inferno. The harder he struggled, the deeper he sank until finally, he gasped his last breath of air before the red-hot magma would swallow him whole! Then suddenly, the specter dissolved. Birds were chirping outside his window; a dog was barking in the distance, and the clattering sounds from the kitchen all summoned his faculties into reality.

He ran his fingers through his thick chestnut hair, pressing the heels of his hands against his throbbing temples. Clenching his eyelids did little to shut out the rays lighting their undersides in filtered hues of fleshy pink. Wasn’t brilliant daylight supposed to be the essence of earth’s life-force? Why then, did it only intensify James’s sense of death and loss? It was irrational, he knew. Still, it struck his mind’s eye with an offensiveness like the grossly indifferent sunshine on that lethal afternoon. All too present was the memory of such a radiance that shone with mockery over the carnage of the battlefield wherein he had watched his childhood companion fall. Should not a day of unspeakable bloodshed have been shrouded in darkness?

When his bloodshot eyes finally came into focus, it was the calendar on the opposite wall that drew his attention. It was nothing more than a torn section from the farmer’s yearly almanac, tacked over a hole in the plaster by his penny-pinching landlord. A large red x on the first of the month was that beady-eyed Welshman’s less-than-subtle reminder for the day his rent was due. In contrast, the third, beautifully inscribed by James’s own hand read, Charles, gone with God. But there was no need for any visual reminder. The date, July 3, 1863, was branded upon his heart as if by thunderbolt.

James glanced over at the mantle clock and sighed heavily. Its spindly hands pointed like accusing fingers, preying on his morosity. 6:00 a.m. Charles and I had finished our morning rations and were inspecting our equipment by this time. We were standing next to his cannon when he handed me ‘The Glass’ with his typical ribbing insult. His jaded mind rested a moment on the thought of his brother’s incessant playful banter. A sad smile deepened the premature creases around his temples, then vanished with a single tear rolling down the side of his face. I wish he had kept it. He reached for a smooth piece of aqua-colored sea glass set on his bed stand and turned it over again and again in his hand as he had done ten thousand times before. Pressing it against his mouth, he whispered, It should have been me, brother. It should have been me. Then, placing it back down with a kind of reverence, he rolled over and closed his eyes. Try as he might to shut out bitter memory, the nightmarish battle continued in graphic replay, beginning with the sudden cessation of both Confederate and Union cannon fire. He was as powerless to resist being sucked back into that mental vortex as he was resisting quicksand.

James and Charles, brothers by adoption and fellow soldiers of the New York 1st Dragoons, stood side by side at The Angle on Cemetery Hill before Pickett’s advancing troops. Leister Farm’s stone wall, set atop a long and steady incline overlooking its vast acreage, afforded an ideal vantage for Ulysses S. Grant’s National Army. Closer than any blood brothers, this inseparable pair, drawn together by the magnetic power of opposites, had the honor of serving on coveted ground; ground Longstreet would hazard fifteen thousand men to possess. Both sides of the fray understood this would be the clash of Titans. For the Federalist, victory meant freedom from the tyranny of slavery and a unified nation under God, who created all men equal. Logistical implications were paramount. Union army munitions filled B&O railcars just beyond the Pratt boy’s position. Losing them would spell disaster.

The air was thick with sweltering humidity. Heavy woolen jackets of the Northern uniform had served well through winter months but were stifling in Pennsylvania’s early summer heat. Charles, an expert gunner, armed the deadly Ordnance rifle. Robert E. Lee’s artillery offensive relentlessly bombarded their Union forces with a deafening barrage that had begun at 1 p.m., day three at Gettysburg.

General Meade, Union Army of the Potomac, commanded the pivotal battle. His stratagem to halt his cannons randomly so as to appear Lee’s batteries had silenced the Federalist arsenal worked with staggering success. Confederate Rebel columns poured into the open field and within close range of the awaiting cannonade. A sea of men, the color and steeliness of platinum ore, pounded in ominous unison toward the ridge, a three-quarter-mile wide war machine assembled on the brink of history as a steam hammer forging a nation’s iron will.

The Union command reverberated down the line: FIRE! James fixed his eyes on his warrior brother whose iron-clad nerve steadied him while he fired, loaded, and reloaded the Union powerhouse his infantry had dubbed ‘The Angel of Death.’ With its three-inch-wide, state-of-the-art, iron-fabricated barrel, Charles’s cannon could strike with precision at a mile’s distance. For a split second, Charles looked up at James with his characteristic glinting smile, a relic of their tenacious brother bond, the elder to the younger, in calming reassurance, as in every tribulation throughout their epic childhood. A thousand words were broadcast through that momentary glance. Charles took the cord in hand and stepped away from his cannon. With a firm pull at the pin, he launched the twelve-pound explosive toward its doomed target. The echo of its report drew James’s focus to the battlefield. He squinted hard between the blinding sun, mortar flashes, and thick smoke. Twenty-thirty-plus men at a time were mowed down with every successive blast. James watched in astonishment as each line blown apart by their intense firewall was immediately replaced with peripheral flanks converging directly toward their position. The impervious enemy drove forward with the collective power of a hundred locomotives, carrying with them enough destructive force to wipe out every mother’s son. The comprehensive slaughter sickened even the seasoned soldier, most of whom, not manning cannons, knelt behind the makeshift rampart in gaping mouthed observation. Was there no end to these infernal columns?

The brothers had seen combat, but nothing could fully prepare a man for this earth