To My Darling

"I want to make a difference!"

At least that's what I told my father when he questioned my ardent pleas, my naive convictions compelling me to abandon a safe New England home for the perils of the war raging in the Southern states. More than anything, I wanted to get away: from vapid debutants, from sneering young men, from prudish Bostonian blue-bloods, from the cankered corpse of Victorianism that valued women only as wives and mothers. But I didn't have to tell him that.

"Please, Papa, take me with you this once! I'd be a great help to you!"

It was the truth. I'd been apprenticing him since I was ten. Back before the war, doctors didn't need formal training or a special license to practice medicine. My father'd been teaching me from the time I was just a little girl, after a vicious bout with scarlet fever left me too sickly to attend the convent school to which my older sister had gone. Papa always told me that though my body might be weak, my mind was strong and my heart full. Even as I pled my case, I knew it wouldn't be difficult to convince him of my need to serve my country.

After all, the Malory name had been worn with pride and honor for generations, long before it had quitted County Kildare. Since America's War for Independence, the valiant sons of Malory had pledged themselves to these United States, and now more than ever they intended to preserve their adopted country. My own dear brother Brendan was not yet nineteen when South Carolina seceded and shots were fired on Ft. Sumter, but his vigilance earned him the rank of captain in General Sherman's forces. My uncles were too old to fight, but they rallied to the Northern cause behind their factories. My father had proven himself a valuable field surgeon, a major by rank.

So long I had hoped to work along side Papa in the field, help him care for the brave Army of the Potomac. Not to imply that a woman on the homefront could not provide useful services. Mama and Margaret were instrumental to the local drives and collections. No one ever let dear sweet Meg forget her sacrifice, what with her Charles fighting in Tennessee and two young boys to raise. What an angel they thought she was, especially the soldiers she nursed back to health in the hospitals; many would cry out from the shock of laying eyes upon her beauty, afraid they were already in heaven. She took after Mama: firey red curls, emerald eyes, peachy pink skin.

I took after Papa, of course: lean, dark hair, fair skin. In seventeen years I'd learned to resist Mama's attempts to fashion me into a sweet Boston flower.

Which was all the more reason why I should be at Papa's side now. I could never make a good match as Meg had done, but then certainly honor and country were more important than marriage and romance. Every day young men in the prime of life were dying at the hands of their brothers, and I was supposed to worry about catching a gentleman's eye? No, Sir! I prayed to fill my heart with love of God and country, in hopes that even though I might always be alone, my heart would not be empty.

"Papa, PLEASE!"

He hesitated, as if part of him wanted to forbid it, to protect me from the real horrors of battle with which I had yet to be acquainted, but in the end he could not deny me. Indeed, he was proud to call me his daughter.

"Very well, Georgie, as you wish."

It was a sigh of defeat, but I knew he was at least a little pleased to have my companionship. I smiled my gratitude and gave a small curtsy as I took my leave to pack my things before his better judgement gave him time to reconsider.

Georgie! I laughed at his pet name for me. It was a fond treatise between a little girl and her loving father, but I hated for anyone else to call me by it. Naturally, everyone in my acquaintance knew it and used the diminuitive just to bait me. I was new-baptized, and though I'd outgrown my braids and scotch dresses, I felt certain to never outgrow Georgie. Not that I minded so much; I didn't want to be Georgiana either.

"Georgiana Mariah Cecilia! The Saints preserve us if yore goin' ta war! Lord bless me, I don' know what's come over yer father!"

I anticipated some trouble from Mama. She'd come to America with her family, a good Irish Catholic young woman, but Maura Malory had come even so to adopt some of the prejudices of the prim Puritanicals she denounced. "Well-bred young ladies don' go off ta fight!"

"I'm not going off to fight, Mama, I'll be doctoring with Papa. Lots of young women have volunteered to be nurses. There's nothing improper -- "

"Nothin' improper! Camp followers!"

"Mama!"

"The way ye blush, Georgiana, m'dear colleen. To imagine a sweet child like yerself 'round all those uncivilized hooligans!"

Her attitude was shocking to my childish, romantic notions of patriotism. "Mama, they're soldiers defending their country!"

But she ignored my indignation, continuing on her moral tirade. "And with only yer silly old father to watch out for ye!"

As hopeless as the situation seemed, eventually I won her over, too, particularly when I suggested she invite her beloved Meg to stay with her while I was away. But after giving her approval, she made sure to impress upon me the rules of New England propriety.

"Mind ye keep neat and tidy, young lady. Stick close to your father, and ye'll be wise to keep yer distance should ye see any of that rebel riff-raff. Don't dare look at one, there's no telling what sort of libertines they have down South. I've heard stories that would curl your hair!"

In not a fortnight's time, and not a bit too soon for my mind, Papa and I were on our way to Virginia. I had never travelled so far and I could scarcely blink for fear of missing part of the adventure. Papa told me not to be afraid so long as I was with him.

I wasn't at all afraid.

I was anxious to see the action I'd been reading about over the past few years. Charles sent Meg letters nearly every week, and I made a point to visit her regularly for the chance of hearing one. Sometimes I'd call on her when I knew she'd be out, sneak into her bedroom and read through his letters, scattered about the room in hat boxes and drawers. My favorite correspondance - evidently hers as well, worn and refolded many times over - she kept beneath her pillow. I sought out the letters ostensibly for information, but in truth I savored them for their romantic words. I felt only proper respect for my brother-in-law, but often I pretended those letters had been sent to me by some secret lover. How much I should have liked to receive such tender declarations! I wondered if Brendan had a sweetheart. I wondered if everyone had such a person. Everyone but me.

Still, I wouldn't feel sorry for myself. I would no longer need Charles' letters to satisfy my curiousity for news of the war. This was no time for selfishness.

We arrived in Washington late that April of 1864, and it almost seemed that General Grant had been waiting for us. Actually, he was preparing for his impending Virginia campaign. Thus far, all of the attempts at forming a stronghold in Virginia had failed and the Confederate capitol of Richmond appeared impregnable, but Papa said that if anyone could lick those rebels, it was General Grant. President Lincoln had put all of his faith in General Grant's abilities, and Papa said if he was good enough for the president then he was good enough for him, so I decided he was good enough for me, too. In all the time I would spend under his command I only met him once, at a dance given for the officers before breaking camp on the Potomac. I was extremely nervous when he asked me for a dance; I had very little experience with social dancing, no less with the Federal general in chief of the Army of the Potomac. God forgive me, I'd have been more comfortable taking a bullet out of his backside than I was promenading around the ballroom on his arm. In truth, the general was a good, kind man with a brilliant mind for military strategy, and I was honored to find myself in his command.

Papa, too, felt fortunate in his commission, and I can honestly say that the army was equally fortunate to retain his services. When the war had begun four years ago, the army boasted not near a hundred trained physicians for hundreds of thousands of men, and among those, few had much experience with the sort of medical treatment required of a field surgeon.

While Papa had been away, I busied myself studying methods of limb amputation from his medical texts, though I never had the chance to witness one. I also became quite familiar with treatments for dysentery, malaria, typhoid fever, and the various other diseases that often proved more deadly to these green militia men than mortar attack. With my knowledge and training, in addition to my surprisingly strong stomach and my imperviousness to the sight of blood, I felt prepared for anything.

But nothing could have prepared me for him.

Papa and I spent nearly a year attached to General Grant's overland campaign, through his bloody defeats at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, to his nine-month offensive at Petersburg, a rail center south of Richmond. I grew frighteningly accustomed to the sight and smell of death. Every evening, once the sun and the soldiers went to bed, I'd wash up in the creek, scrubbing away the blood, sweat, and tears of countless men, and by the time my skin was pale and pink again and those vile residues were gone, so were the names and faces of the poor boys we'd sent up to God that day. Papa said it was the only way to keep sane, to block attachment to these sad souls. To forget them.

But not him. I could never forget him.

Maybe it was because I'd seen him shot. I'd never seen anyone shot before, not in all those months on what I believed to be the very edge of hell. Papa ordered me to stay in the surgical tent or whatever church or school house we might be using for a hospital. I did not dare disobey, not because I feared my father's anger, or even the prospect of getting caught in the crossfire, but because I could not bear to watch these boys shoot at each other. At all of my seventeen years, I could still call them boys, some of them very young, even compared to myself. Yet they had their duty, as I had mine.

I followed orders, staying in camp while gun and cannon fire echoed in the fields, not leaving unescorted or without my father's pistol (not that I knew how or ever wanted to fire it). But that day, I don't know what happened. I suppose I simply wasn't thinking clearly. One of the assistant surgeon's asked for more clean water and so I grabbed a bucket to fetch some, and I'd run halfway to the creek before anyone thought to call me back. I rushed forward blindly to fill the bucket, paying no mind to shots exploding all around, and as I rose from my knees to rush back to camp, I saw him on the other side of the creek bent behind some sparce shrubbery. I might have brushed him off and continued on my important business. I'd seen men before, handsome or not.

But this one was looking back at me.

It felt like a lifetime that he held me in his eyes - deep grey eyes, I thought - but it must have only been a few moments. I don't know when I would have been able to look away, if he hadn't moved first. But he hadn't a choice; he'd been shot, in the stomach it seemed from the way he doubled over. My first instinct was to run to him, but something stopped me.

"GEORGIE!"

One of the lieutentants noticed me standing by the creek and started shouting at me, hurrying me back to the surgical tent, and all the while I kept trying to look back toward the injured soldier. Isn't someone going to help him? I felt terribly guilty, since I had obviously distracted him, endangering him to enemy fire. What were you doing out there anyway? Have you lost your mind, Georgie? I felt like I'd lost something back at the creek's edge.

The surgeons had their work cut out for them as usual, the stretchers coming back regularly with fresh traumas. I wanted to tell the stretcher-bearers about my soldier, but they were running in and out without a moment to spare, and I, too, had a job to do assisting the doctors. I flew about the tent between patients, nursing them with brandy and morphine and whatever else was handy to dull their pain. All the while I thought of my poor soldier, counting the hours until sundown when I'd be allowed to help the men bring in survivors, praying that he could hold out until then. Please, dear God, don't let him die.

It was my fault that he'd been shot, and it was my duty to see him well.

At length, the fighting ceased for the evening and the stretcher-bearers went out for their final count of the day, with me fast on their heels. Without bothering to look for the fallen soldier I waded across the creek, not caring how heavy my skirts became or how cold the water was in February. Quickly I scrambled up the bank toward the shrubs I'd remembered before, on my hands and knees, fearing, and yet at the same time hoping, to find the abandoned man.

And there he was lying where I'd first seen him, curled around his aching belly, shivering.

"My sweet angel, you came back."

I had wondered if he'd remember me from that afternoon; it made me smile to hear that he did, and he smiled back, which seemed to have an even greater affect on me than his voice.

My prayers had been answered, but my relief of finding him alive was short-lived; I coaxed him to turn onto his back so that I could examine his wound and found a relatively small amount of blood. Evidently the shot had missed the major abdominal blood vessels, probably lodged somewhere in his intestines. "Gut-shot" as the men called it. I'd seen this so many times before, always with the same outcome. NO! Please, Lord, not him!

"GEORGIE!"

Remembering my duty, to my commanding officers as well as to this man now in my care, I helped him to his feet and asked him to lean on me as we crossed the creek back to the surgical tent. He was able to walk with my help, but I would have carried him if necessary, though he was nearly twice my size.

When we'd made it into the tent the men were staring at us. I was puzzled as to what had caught their attention, when suddenly I happened to recall my companion's deep grey eyes.

And I realized why even from the other side of the creek those eyes had been so decidedly grey.

I stood silent for a moment returning their stares, wondering how such a significant detail had slipped my notice before, until the heavy arm across my shoulder began to tighten and I felt the man's body twitch at my side. "He needs me!"

I had really meant to say that only to myself - and didn't I mean: he needs my help?) - but something in their accusing faces and his stiff body compelled me to shout. He was a wounded soldier, one of many we treated every day, no different from any other.

Except his uniform happened to be grey instead of blue.

Quickly recovering from my outburst, I realized that the man beside me was still in great need of medical attention.

"Where's Dr. Malory?" I demanded, promptly answered by a familiar cough resonating from behind me.

"What's wrong, Georgie? What are you fretting about, child?"

"Papa! Please, you must help him!"

Papa came round to have a look at the man who by now could barely stand. I didn't bother offering my own diagnosis, knowing full well that my father could ably interpret the signs. Papa's face was grim and strained, weary at day's end. "A bed and some whiskey, child, perhaps a wet rag to cool his forehead."

"But Papa, he's -- !"

"Georgie!"

"Yes, Papa."

I knew better than to question his orders. I also knew better than to expect him to behave any differently. Not that he begrudged the man treatment; there was little else to be done. Even in the best hospital in the best physician's care, he stood little chance. Out in the field, surgeons tended to give up head, neck, and abdomenal wounds for dead. Instead they concentrated their efforts on injuries to the extremities, which were comparatively easier to cure, if by no other means than amputation. Among the mortaly wounded the "lucky" ones suffered severe blood loss and thus made a quick end, essentially falling asleep, but my poor soldier enjoyed no such good fortune. It might be hours, even days...

"Papa, may I take him to my tent so I may look after him myself."

"Georgie!"

"Please, Papa. It's my fault, you see, that he got hurt."

I could tell he disapproved of my request, but I could not understand his apprehension toward a man with a foot near in the grave. I dared not entertain the idea that Papa might hate a man for the side upon which his loyalties laid. "Papa, what if it were Brendan?!"

Somehow I had begun to imagine my own brother facing a similar fate in the hands of his enemies, and I could only hope that someone would have the heart enough to care for him in his final hour and bring him some small last comfort.

The prospect of losing his only son in such a hideous fashion transformed his countenance. Papa looked once more at the soldier and nodded, perhaps observing some small image of my brother in the stranger. Bowing slightly, more in preparation to move away than in gratitude, I left the tent to find my own quarters, slightly removed from the makeshift hospital. Carefully I loosened his grip around me to ease him down to my cot. I busied myself, unfastening his boots and wool coat and the buttons of his top clothes until he lay before me in only his breeches. After covering him with my blankets to keep out the chill of the February night, I rummaged through my leather sachel for a bottle of morphine to pore into his wound, which was the best I could manage without a syringe.

And then, without warning, he spoke.

"Anythin' a body could drink 'round here, blue eyes?"

His voice was rough and dry, but the sound warmed me, trickling to my bones like sweet-water so that for a moment I was the one shivering. When had he the time to notice my eyes? Unable to find my own voice, I instead set about finding Papa's fifth of Jameson in my trunk at the foot of the bed. I thought to pour him a tinful, but with my second thought I resolved to hand over the whole bottle. The fever was already setting in and he couldn't sit on his own, so I had to hold him in my arms while he had his drink.

"Much obliged," he thanked me as he took a swallow. "Mmm, some good whiskey. You couldn't imagine the poison they've been passin' 'round t'our boys."

He was right, of course; I'd never tasted alcohol, except medicinally.

"It's right Christian of you, miss, to share this with a fella. Good daughter of the Church, are you?"

"I'm Catholic, sir."

He smiled unexpectedly. "So you have a voice at that, angel. Catholic, you say? Well, it's fine, I won't hold it agin' you."

It occurred to me to be insulted at this afront to my faith, but he started to cough and I forgot the offense. "Sir, are you alright, sir?"

He took another swig from the bottle and began to relax again, followed by several more drinks for good measure, until he grew quite heavy with it.

Sleep came fast to him then, and it was welcome relief, I'm sure, from the pain in his belly.

I didn't plan on shutting my eyes that night. I wanted to be awake in case he might need something. Besides, there was no place for me to sleep, with him in my bed. And I wasn't tired. So I sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed, watching him in the delicate flicker cast by the oil lamp: the soft fall of wheat-colored hair across his brow, the thin part of his lips, the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

I could remember Mama's advice to me the day we left home all those months before. "...you'll be wise to keep your distance should you see any of that rebel riff-raff. Don't dare look at one..."

Only a few steps away, I dared. I couldn't help myself; he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. The night wore on and the oil began to run out, but even in the semi-darkness his skin glowed with the traces of life remaining to him. I wished I knew his name so I could offer a proper prayer for him, but for now he was simply my fallen, grey-eyed rebel. It was all I knew of him, the color of his eyes, but it was enough for my naive sensibilities. Dear Lord, could I love this man? I don't even know him!

I might have met him at any number of occasions in another time, another place. A time without hatred, a place without war. How I should have liked to make his acquaintence at a society ball back home. Me, Georgie, who hated such things!

I could picture that first moment: I would come walking down a grand staircase into the ballroom in a soft blue silk gown with flowers in my hair, and I'd spot him watching from across the room in a crowd of people, dressed to the nines, his hair slicked back and a glass of port in his white gloved hand. His lips would curl and his eyes would shine with the devil's own mischief, and my own would lower coyly as I waited on the stair. Ignoring his friends and every other girl in the room, he'd make his way toward me through the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea. It would be ages before he'd reach me, but I wouldn't look up until he was not a breath away and his hand took mine gently, and his lips brushed my gloved fingers, burning the skin beneath. And he would tell me that mortal eyes had never seen such beauty as stood before him this enchanted night, and I would blush crimson. "May I have the first dance, angel?" "With pleasure, sir." "And the second? And every hereafter, 'til death..?"

Nonsense! Grow up, Georgie! I'd never wear such a ball gown, not so long as silks were milled in the South. And me, the greatest mortal beauty? He'd never have even noticed me in all that crowd. Would he?

God only knows how long I sat ridgedly on the trunk, blinking back the edges of exhaustion and clutching a meager shawl to my shoulders, but at length I must have slept. I meant only to rest a moment, laying my head on the cot, but somewhere between moonlight and sunrise I dozed off. Maybe dawn's rays called back me from my dreams. Maybe something else was responsible.

"Mornin', angel."

I don't know how he managed to sit up on his own, with all the pain he must have suffered, but there he was, looking down at me. Slowly I gathered myself to examine him, placing a hand on his forehead. "How are you this morning, sir?"

His brow was hot and damp, burning with fever, and I could only imagine his agony, but he smiled like a school boy might when he knew he'd not be going to school that day. "Damn fine consid'rin' I've a hole in my belly. S'cuse my mouth, miss."

I had absolutely nothing against his mouth.

"May I have a look, sir?" My hands shook nervously as I reached for the blankets. I'd seen plenty of half-naked men these past months, but suddenly I felt shy and uncomfortable. Calm yourself, Georgie, don't be such a ninny!

Beneath the covers I found him neatly bandaged and couldn't remember doing it myself. I looked at him in wonderment.

"Doc came in early this mornin', took the bullet out and cleaned me up a bit."

Thanks, Papa. I wasn't sure why he did it, but somehow I thought it had something to do with me, and I was grateful. "Can I do anything for you, sir?"

"Some coffee would be nice, and I wouldn't mind if you stopped callin' me sir. Daniel's the name, Daniel Barret."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Barret."

"Daniel."

Mama wouldn't like it, me using the familiar with this perfect stranger, and a rebel no less. But Mama wasn't there. "Daniel."

"Will you return the favor and tell me your own sweet name, or should I keep callin' you angel?"

I considered my response for a moment, biting my lower lip as I decided what to say. "Most everyone calls me Georgie."

He frowned, shaking his head in protest. "Nah, back home there was this boy Georgie, three hundred pounds if he was one. Dumb as a brick, too. That ain't a proper name for you, angel. What does your mama call you?"

I started to tell him, but changed my mind, biting my lip again as if to prevent it from telling on me.

"You think I can't guess?"

I gave in sourly. "Alright, it's Georgiana, but no one calls me that."

"It suits you. It's soft and sweet." He tested it, the sound full and rich like from violin strings. "Georgiana. You don't mind, do you?"

You can call me anything you want. "No, Mr. Barret."

"Daniel," he corrected.

"Daniel."

I ran to the kitchens to fetch the coffee, some of the real stuff that the officers drank, not wanting to be away from my...Daniel for a moment. He might need me, I reasoned. What a liar I was.

As I watched him slowly drain the warm black liquid from the tin, my head swam with all that I wondered about him. There were so many questions I could have asked: "Where are you from?", "How long have you been fighting?", "How can you believe that it's right for one man to own another?", "What have you got against the North?" But I didn't ask him any of that.

"Have you got a sweetheart?"

Even as the words danced before me, taunting me like children making sport of gullibility, I could not wish them unsaid. As much as the thought of his heart belonging to another pained me, I wanted to know if someone waited for him back home, where ever that might be.

I willed my cheeks pale and white, though a wicked mirth spread through him until I imagined it would reach out and grab me. "Why should you be askin' somethin' like that, blue eyes? Wond'rin' 'bout the competition, maybe?"

I did blush then, staring down at my hands clasped tightly on my lap. "I'm sorry, Mr...Daniel, it's none of my business. I just thought...well, I wondered...does everyone have one?"

I could feel his curious eyes on me without looking at him, and I was sure my skin was as red as could be by now.

"Do you have a sweetheart, Georgiana?"

No, I was wrong. "Not me!" I declared, a bit too quick and a bunch too dejected. Finally I rallied my courage enough to look at him. "I...shouldn't everyone have someone?"

Daniel stared at me in puzzlement, his lips slightly parted as he thought over a response. He began to speak, but almost immediately thought the better of it, setting down the forgotten tin of coffee to run two shakey hands over his face and hair. The simple action had me mesmerized and I would have completely forgotten our conversation, had he not begun again directly.

"You're right, Georgiana, everyone should have someone."

I think I should have liked that he shared my opinions, but his answer did not please me. It was how he said it: "Everyone SHOULD have someone."

It wasn't the bugle call that spirited me out of the tent in such a hurry, though that excuse was as good as any. I couldn't let him see me cry, I wouldn't shame myself in such a disgustingly childish way.

The camp was frantic with activity that morning, and I'd never been more grateful for the mess of people every which way. No one had time to notice my tear-stained cheeks or red eyes, and I could always blame them on the smells of quinine and morphine and gore. It wasn't long before the crowd of soldiers and medics swallowed me up. I was one of hundreds.

In all my seventeen years, I'd never felt so terribly alone.

His words haunted me. The night before, I'd given his prognosis, and he'd now given mine. "Everyone SHOULD have someone." But some never will. Never.

Around sundown they brought in a young boy who'd gotten a minnie ball in his left leg, shredding the skin and shattering the bone. It had to come off, what was left of it, that is. He was screaming something awful, as much in fear as in pain. I hovered over him, a damp rag in one hand and an uncapped bottle of chloroform in the other. I held the bottle a little too close to my face and the doctor must have gotten nervous.

"GEORGIE!"

I was beginning to hate that name.

Somehow I managed to press the cloth to the tormented soldier's nose and mouth, and soon his struggles abated as sleep took the place of anguish. I removed the cloth so he wouldn't sleep forever and the doctor decided that I needed some air. And he relieved me of my chloroform.

What's wrong with me? Some unfortunate boy was about to lose his leg and I was worried about being alone. I wished I still had the chloroform.

"He couldn't have meant it. It couldn't be true." They were my own foolish words, my own uncertain voice speaking them, but I tried to believe them all the same. Suddenly I was lonely for Daniel, and I couldn't help but wonder if he were lonely for someone, too.

He was still laying awake in my bed when I returned to my tent that evening, nursing Papa's bottle of whiskey. I didn't bother with the formalities of asking after his health and such.

"I don't believe you, Daniel. You must be wrong."

He rested the fifth on the ground, swallowing and giving me a queer stare. "How's that, Georgiana?"

"What did you mean this morning, that everyone should have someone?"

He seemed surprised, and a bit unnerved by my agitation. "I...well, you see...angel, a pretty young thing like you s'got no call to worry 'bout somethin' like that."

I stared back at him, astounded. "You think I'm pretty?" I dared, almost in a whisper.

He didn't hesitate to answer, a grin creeping across his lovely mouth as he spoke. "Hell, Georgiana, ain't no one ever told you that b'fore? Lord, I always knew those Yankee fellas were a bunch of good-for-nothin' sons a' -- " he stopped abruptly " s'cuse, honey, my mouth again."

I was in love with that mouth. But he hadn't answered my question. "You must have people who you care about, who care about you. A family, a friend, a girl; somebody to love."

He still smiled, but it was sadder, softer. "No family, angel. Ain't had a word from 'em since I can't remember when. My friends...well, they left me for dead; don't blame 'em none, I will be dead soon enough."

I wished I could tell him otherwise. "A girl?" I asked hopefully.

He thought a moment, hiding those grey orbs behind heavy lids and raking his fingers through his honeyed wheat locks. He sighed brokenly, and the grin crept back again. "I suppose there's one, might miss me a tin's worth."

I'd half expected my heart to break at the sad news, but I was curiously happy. I couldn't imagine who this young lady might be or consider the possibility that our paths would ever cross, but I felt a strange kinship to this nameless beauty. She must have been a beauty for Daniel to love her. She must ache for him now. Soon he'd be gone from this world, and his girl would never know...

"I could write to her, Daniel, tell her...anything you'd want her to know."

"Nah, s'alright, Georgiana, she'll forget me soon enough, a no-account like me. She's better off, I'm sure."

"Daniel!" I cried out in protest, falling to his side, clutching his shaking hands in mine. "Everyone deserves to know that they are loved." Don't they? "It would mean so much to her, I know that it would. I know how blessed I would feel to receive such a letter, to know that someone, somewhere, for some short time loved me. You said it yourself: everyone should have someone."

It's not so hard to tell when you've won someone over. I'd learned long ago to read it in the eyes. Some people were good at hiding behind a cloudy expression, but not Daniel. It could have been the whiskey, or maybe the fever that compromised his poker face. Or maybe his nature was more open than most. Whatever the reason, he answered me twice, with his eyes and with his lips. I couldn't decide which I liked more.

He squeezed my hands and reached out to lightly brush my cheeks, wiping away tears I hadn't realized I'd cried. "You're right, angel. She deserves that much. I don't think she realizes how much she deserves. But I think that you can help me tell her."

A moment before I'd been beside myself with grief for this poor young man and his tragic love, but his sweet confession had me brimming with excitement.

How romantic! I thought. A fallen hero on his death bed, straining to send his final words of ardent devotion to his sweetheart far away. It was something out of one of those dime novels I read back home in the pantry when Mama wasn't around so she wouldn't find out. "Foolishness, plain and simple," she would say "Puerile fantasy!" When Papa told me what puerile meant, I was thoroughly insulted. Those stories - childish? I found them painfully beautiful and bittersweet. This is what true love is.

Not wasting a minute of the precious time left to Daniel, his body and mind slowly succumbing to the unspeakable torment of the surgical fever, I quickly retrieved the writing materials kept in my trunk. The ink jar was full; I suddenly realized that I'd never written any of those letters I'd intended to write when I'd left home all those months before. But this communication was far more important than any I could have sent to my mother or sister in Boston.

I settled myself at the foot of the bed my legs crossed under me, carefully tucked beneath my skirts, balancing a volume of The Last of the Mohicans that Papa had given me as a child on my lap to write upon. I bent to dip the pen into the ink jar when I realized a small problem.

I'd never written a love letter before.

"How should I begin?"

Daniel smiled to himself as he pondered that query. I think he even started to laugh, but it ended up a grimacing cough. I watched the sweat bead on his forehead, wondering if I'd do better to let him rest. But I forgot that thought directly when he spoke again. "Best you write: 'My Darling.'"

I began, in my most elegant hand. "My Darling...what about her name?"

"I reckon she knows it well enough, angel," he replied dryly, dragging his hand across his damp brow.

I left it at that, biting my lip so as not to interrogate him further. After all, it was his letter, his lover, and who was I to instruct him in the proper ettiquette of romance?

Besides, without another woman's name at the top, I could pretend that this letter was for me. I could pretend...

And maybe, if just for one hour, I wouldn't be alone in the world.

The sun peaked over the horizon, just enough so that I could see what I wrote, and him, my Daniel, his eyes dull and tired.

I hoped he could stay awake just a bit longer.

"Whenever you're ready, Daniel," I prompted gently.

He nodded, swallowing tightly, and I think he spoke to God as much as to me. "I'm ready, angel."

Daniel couldn't sit up, but he could lean back on his elbows. It was amazing that his thoughts were so clear, so hot with fever was he. His voice was rough and strained, but if he didn't make love to my untutored heart in that last breath of day, I wouldn't have known the difference.

My heart raced; my hand, too, to hold pace with his testimony.

"It's hard to say where to begin, my love, when we've already come to the end. I suppose it's easy enough to say farewell now as later. Never have I been so regretful to say it, never have I felt it more deeply, but then, who has touched me as deeply as you have, dear one?

I never asked our dear Lord for a thing, and got just that, no quarrels, no complaints. But somewhere along the way I must have done something deserving, because I leave this earth twice blessed: with honor, and with love. I confess, I never sought to earn either, but in this dread hour I embrace them both. And I thank you, beloved, for my salvation.

How much I'd like to ask for more time! If I had my way, I'd have more than a few borrowed moments to give you my heart. If I had my life back, it would be yours, too, to hold you in my arms until the sun burned black. But I can't wail for what never should have been mine. And though you might feel alone for a time, do not despair; a heart so good and pure was meant to love and be loved; our Lord, who brought such an angel as you to me, could not mean you to be lonely.

You are young, and you have much to learn about the ways of the heart, but there is nothing to fear. In time, you will understand. I didn't understand until now, but it was worth the wait, to find it at last in those soft, blue eyes. I see your beautiful face and I am at peace, and if I can't hold you in my arms, I shall hold you in my eyes, and your goodness shall lift me toward heaven.

I'm nigh there even now. Will you cry for me, sweet one, when I've gone from this world? But do not mourn; let me grant you this happiness you've so long desired. Know that, for whatever it may be worth, a no-account rebel once loved you, and look heavenward. A good word from my Yankee angel and I'm sure that St. Peter will welcome even a rascal such as me.

With all my heart,
Daniel"

I'm not sure when the tears began to flow, or when I began to understand for whom he intended this tender declaration, but by the time he'd finished, I shook with sobbing.

"Hush, Georgiana, don' fret so, my angel. You'll drown us both."

"That was - " beautiful. I could barely breathe for weeping.

"Come, Georgiana, none of this now. I'm so tired. Come let's say goo'bye."

He was flat on his back now, his skin hot as blazes, his eyes dark and glassy.

"How do we do that?" I asked tremulously.

"Come here, angel. Come kiss me goo'bye, my sweet Georgiana."

I obeyed, tears still streaming down my cheeks. I bent to brush my lips against his brow, but in one Herculean effort, obstinant and roguish to the last, Daniel reached up to clasp my neck so that our lips might meet.

And in the longest instant and the shortest lifetime, he was gone.

That's when Papa came in. He found me resting my head on Daniel's shoulder, balling my eyes out. I was ashamed for him to see me that way; I hadn't cried in front of Papa since I was five years old when our dog Ajax ran away.

"He's gone, Papa," I managed tearfully.

Papa didn't have an answer for that, nor any other bit of comfort. He hardly looked at me before he'd left the tent again, returning shortly after with two stretcher-bearers. "You can take him away, men."

"NO!"

None of them appeared the least moved by my plea. So I refused to be moved by them. Let them try to take my Daniel.

"Come on, enough of this!" one of the men shouted. "Get up, Georgie!"

That was it. That was as much as I could take. And I did get up, once and for all. "My name is GEORGIANA!"

One might have thought I'd shot that man, to see him jump when I screamed. They all jumped, even my father. No one could speak, and I didn't wait around for them to try. I walked right past them, without one look for my father, and kept right on walking until I'd reached the edge of camp, and then I couldn't go any farther.

The creek. Where I'd first seen him. I couldn't go past the creek and risk capture. I couldn't go back to camp, and risk having to look at my empty bed. I could sleep there by the creek, with his letter and his memory to keep me warm.

That was the last time anyone dared to call me Georgie.

It wasn't long after that night that I left Virginia. Papa applied for my discharge from service the next morning, afraid my abilities had been compromised. He was wrong in that assumption, but I was grateful to return home. I would leave it all behind, all the bloodshed and agony of war, the war I'd been so anxious to experience a year before. All except a handful of memories, of precious moments, of the young man I'd seen staring at me across a creek.

I could still hold his letter in my hand. I would forever hold his words in my heart.

A lot happened in the months that followed. General Lee of the Confederate Army surrendered to General Grant early that April of 1865, and by June the war was over.

I turned eighteen that spring. Not an event of national significance, I'll admit, but a very important one for me, nonetheless.

My general rabble of family and friends agreed that I had changed considerably in a year's time. Most blamed it on the war; Papa said my months of service had lent me perspective, a deeper understanding of humanity. For my part, I'll allow that the experience made me a whole lot less naive and ridiculous. In truth, I'd never realized until afterward exactly how silly I had been, never more so than at seventeen. How amazing that a year could make such a difference!

I confess, I can't say that my alteration was solely dependent upon a look across a creek and a letter from a dying soldier. But neither will I admit that Daniel didn't change me at least a little. Weeks later, when I'd given up tears and melodrama, I could fully appreciate his gift to me. He was right; I was too young, and there were many things left for me to learn about love. I'd imagine that there are some things about which we never stop learning. But I still read his letter, and the dime novels my mother censures, and I continue to dream of...someone.

Tonight I will play the debutante. That's right, silly little Georgie is finally ready to be the lovely Miss Georgiana Mariah Cecilia for which her mother always prayed. Even I can say that I'm pretty now, passing the hall mirror to steal one last glimpse of my blue silk gown and floral trimmed hair. Our home is more beautiful than I've ever seen it, the crystals of the chandelier sparkling like stars in the heavens, and the banisters of the grand staircase adorned with richly colored garlands and bows. It puts me in mind of Shakespeare and fairy stories from my childhood, and I smile in sheer delight of it all. I don't even mind so much that I'll have to speak to a lot of people and dance with many of the young men.

But as I descend to the ballroom, I'm wishing for the evening to be over so that everyone will leave.

Then I catch sight of one pair of eyes wandering up from the assembly, his hair black as jet, his eyes green and lively. Is he smiling at me? Dear God in heaven, what should I do? As long as he's staring into my eyes I don't know where to look, so I look down and try not to trip over my own feet. Before I can think to look up again, the stranger's standing in front of me. He takes my hand! I blush; he grins.

"Would you honor me with the first waltz, Miss Georgiana?"

I have to think about it, of course. A year ago, I'd have given him an emphatic "no!"; I might not have even made it down the stairs in the first place. But a year can make quite a difference.

"I want to make a difference!" That's what I'd said to Papa more than a year before. I had wanted to help change the world, but, instead, the world seemed to have changed me. Or maybe I had just gotten older. Somehow, there was a difference.

I smile, with my lips, my eyes, my heart. "I'd love to dance with you, sir."

What a difference, indeed.