Confederate Camp, Bunker Hill, Virginia, October 1862
While Ellen knew that Stephen Joyce fought under the Louisiana flag, she had no notion of where he now might be. The war had raged far and wide from the Shenandoah Valley to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Troops were dispersed, dislocated, dispatched, it seemed to wherever the whim of the generals decreed.
She had been back a month now from Louisiana. Glad to be re-united with Louisa and her work again. Nothing much had changed in her absence.
Louisa was saddened beyond words at the news of Lavelle and Patrick.
‘Oh, poor Lavelle,’ she grieved. ‘Poor, poor Lavelle – you must find him now Mother … give him your forgiveness.’
What enquiries she now made of those Confederates who fell under her care, yielded no more news of Stephen Joyce than did her similar enquiries of Lavelle.
‘Ma’am!’ one veteran of a dozen dogfights told her. ‘There’s towards half a million Irish out there fighting this war and fighting each other. From New York to New Orleans and every hitching post in between – and some of ’em straight off the emigrant ships. They never stood a day in America except to fight for her.’
Then one day her luck changed. Overhearing a newly admitted casualty tell another about ‘those Louisiana Tigers’, she immediately quizzed the youth. ‘More like devils than tigers – don’t fear nothing,’ he told her. ‘Only yellin’ like they was crazed with hooch. They was cut to shreds at Antietam.’ They’d crossed back into Virginia he said and she’d find them ‘in Bunker Hill Camp, if you go quickly. They don’t set down anywhere too long – these swamp devils.’
Twice she was stopped by Union soldiers and warned of the hazards of marauding Rebels. Then, beyond the Union lines, Southern pickets stopped her. At first they tried to turn her back as a Northern spy until she explained that her son had fought and died for the Southern cause. She was then escorted the remainder of the way to Captain Joyce’s tent. That he was both surprised and delighted to see her, Stephen Joyce made no secret of.
He looked tired, his gaunt features even more so, Ellen thought, fatigued by the grinding everyday normality of leading men to their death.
‘I thought I should never see you again,’ he said, coming warmly to greet her.
‘Nor I you,’ she answered. ‘But it seems that the circles of life … and death …’ She stopped, thinking of Patrick, ‘… inextricably bind us.’
He smiled at her, took her hand. ‘If only that were true, dear Ellen … if only it were true.’
‘It is!’ she said simply. ‘Despite all that has passed, all that I have aspired to be and not to be, the past cannot be erased. It is why I am here.’
He looked at her. ‘The passage of time has not erased my imaginings of you, Ellen, although I sense you are less truculent now!’ He laughed.
‘Stephen, be serious!’ she scolded and then ‘It was Lavelle who shot Patrick – he did not know it,’ she began, taking his arm to stay him. Then she told him the whole story – the missing book, Lavelle going South, her own journey South after Patrick’s death. She stopped, letting it all sink in with him.
When eventually Stephen spoke, he was grave in tone. ‘Then Lavelle will have guessed everything,’ he said, looking intently into her face.
‘Perhaps not … but he may well have.’
Stephen was silent, considering her answer a while. ‘Through all of this, you and Lavelle have not spoken?’ he then asked.
‘No – and I must find him, Stephen – tell him.’
He nodded. ‘If war throws up even one truth, then it will have had some merit.’
‘I pray he has not discovered it for himself,’ Ellen said, tightening the grip on his hand. ‘Or he will come searching for you, Stephen,’ she added, concerned for them both.
He looked at her. ‘If he does then no harm will come to him at my hand – and if reason prevail on his part I will direct him safely to you.’
She thanked him.
He bade her stay a little longer, ordered some refreshment for her and for a while they sat, patching together the intervening years of their lives, since last they had seen each other. Her own life she relegated to being, for the most part, of little importance.
He enquired of Mary and she told him. They sat in silence for a moment, his presence a comfort to her.
‘There’s only you and Louisa now. How strange the fates that sent her to you,’ he remarked, thinking how much had been taken from her.
‘Louisa is a gift from Heaven … and I am ever fearful that Heaven will ask her back of me.’
‘You have lost enough, Ellen,’ he said with compassion. ‘Heaven will not, could not, ask more of you.’
‘My sin was great … and far-reaching,’ she said simply, casting no blame on him, only on herself. ‘The atonement must match the wrong. Only then comes forgiveness.’
He did not answer her directly. Instead saying, ‘There is a great gathering of armies in this place. Men who know not each other, who have never spoken, and who have never heard of the far countries and places from where each other comes. Yet daily they … we … kill each other. If there had been even one hundredth of the forgiveness between North and South that you have sought in your life, then this corroding carnage of war would have been spared all who now participate in it. You must forgive yourself, Ellen. You are human, fallible, flawed like the rest of humanity. Perfection is denied us. Forgive yourself.’
It was the Stephen she knew – and loved. Full of passion for whatever cause possessed him, Ireland, freedom, love, forgiveness … her. She stood to go, tenderly kissed him on the cheek, below the dark spot. Neither said anything until he called for a sentry to see her safely to the lines.
Once, she paused, looked behind her but he had not remained to see her leave. Him fearing it might be his last sight of her; wanting to preserve the memory of her being there with him, the farewell kiss, rather than the slow lingering view of her leaving. She disappearing away from him.