Arabella - Durwood White - Bog

Arabella sits on a bench, her head propped on bended knee, wistfully watching the colors of fall drifting by her bedroom window. Oh, if only the man of her dreams would come before winter, she muses. The lava-red leaves remind her of colder days when she would be alone. The nights are noticeable cooler, the temperature inconveniently chilly. The falling leaves outside her window blankets the lawn in a carpet of red and gold, following a warmer than usual summer. Autumn is the languid season in the South. Oh, how she misses the spring, the buds of yellow jonquils peeping out of the moist earth. She grips both chains of the swing, and hauls her maturing body in a swinging loop of exhilarating excitement. She feels that she can fly! The world awaits Arabella. She is ready-is the world? But unknown to Arabella, her world is destined for change, and those who will not adapt are trapped in the jaws of secession. The very next morning Arabella drives her carriage into Charleston to get some supplies. She sees a man get off the train from Fredericksburg, Virginia. Immediately the image of this man is indelible in her mind. The next morning she rises early and rouses Hattie, the daughter of her mother's maid, to assist her in squeezing into that corset. She had to look her best. Finally she is dressed in a hoop dress, and rushes off to find that handsome man. As she drives into Charlotte she sees him walk into Perkin's Tavern near the Charleston Harbor. She parks her carriage, hops up on the boardwalk and peeps through the window. She can't go inside but she plans to bump into him when he exits. She waits her turn, bumps into him and is knocked off the walk into a mud puddle. The man is appallingly embarrassed, and take's her hand. He slips, and falls in atop Arabella. She has one more chance. Arabella is the only girl in Charleston who can cry real tears. Tears cascade down her muddy checks, and the man adamantly insists that he take her home. Hattie cooks a southern dinner and they sit on the back porch drinking ice tea. He is not talkative, but Arabella discovers his name, Robert Bruce Taylor, intelligence officer for Robert E. Lee. More damning than his name, he has a wife and child. The next morning Arabella gets on the train to Washington City capital to see her uncle about the plantation. The housekeepers of the house inform Arabella that her uncle has been arrested by Union soldiers. There is a man in the parlor that comes twice a year; her uncle is his lawyer. Arabella walks into the parlor and faces Nathan Bedford Forrest. He offers to take her home, and during the trip persuades Arabella to become a spy for his cavalry. Arabella is upstairs in her room preparing to meet Nathan Forrest, when Bruce's wife storms up the steps. Her tall frame stands in the door, a voodoo woman who has beguiled Bruce into marriage. She charges toward Arabella, and brutally claps her, accusing her of having an affair with her husband. On the second swing, Arabella takes her down by the hair of her head. She stands on rubbery legs vowing to haunt her from the grave. When Charleston is bombed, the wife is killed. Arabella is caught in the tempest of Secession and meets Bruce on the battlefield. Arabella is daily tormented by the ghost of Bruce's deceased wife. At the end of the war, Bruce and Arabella are eating inside a pub. The ghost appears audibly a finally time, telling Bruce their young son needs a mother.