Fragrance of Her Name

"Ladies and Gentlemen" the porter announced. "We're carryin' a load of convalescin’ soldiers with us today and the good doctor who's tendin’ them has asked me to inquire…are any of you ladies willin’ to give him a hand in the wounded car?”

Leaving her reminiscences, Lauryn's hand rose immediately in volunteering. She smiled as she looked to her Nana, now suddenly wide awake, to see her waiving a dainty hanky at the porter.

"We'd be more than willin’ to help out, sir," Nana assured him. But as Lauryn helped her Nana to her feet she was very disappointed to see that only one other woman in their particular passenger car had volunteered. The eyes of the other contributing woman met Lauryn's and she smiled, raising her eyebrows in disapproval as she, too, looked about at the other passengers. No doubt the lingering memory of the danger of the influenza scared them. So many people had forfeited compassion for fear over the past year.

"Good thing all the fine soldiers that fought and died for our freedom weren't as uppity as most of us southerners seem to be," the woman stated quite loudly as Lauryn and her Nana followed the porter out of their car.

The train car with the convalescing men in it was stiflingly hot. So many men lying or sitting about in such cramped uncomfortable quarters. And it was hardly more than a glorified boxcar to boot. The door was open, allowing fresh air to enter the car and revealing the passing landscape. A makeshift fence of sorts had been rigged across the open door to allow for the men's safety. At a glance, Lauryn discerned that these men were not recently wounded as she had expected. These were men who had been convalescing somewhere else for a long, long time.

"Ladies! Bless you!" a man in a white doctor’s coat greeted as he approached them. "Our poor boys need waterin' and just plain carin' for and I can't keep up with it any longer on my own. I'm Doctor Nelson," he announced, offering his hand to Nana, her being the obvious matron of the group and thereby deserving the first respect.

"Virginia Kensington" Nana answered, smiling at him. "We're glad to serve these valiant men however we can."

"Lauryn Kensington," Lauryn told him as he shook her hand.

"Betty Anne Wilson," the third woman offered as he then took her hand.

"Ladies, ya'll are angels. Sent from Heaven and that's all there is about it!” The Doctor did, indeed, look tired and Lauryn felt a pang in her heart…sympathy for a good man. "If…if you could just talk to a few of them. Listen to their stories…give them a sip of water now and again. These boys have been laid up in New Orleans for near to a month and they're gettin' itchy to get on with whatever life livin' they can."

"Where are they bound, Dr. Nelson and why move them at all if they're not fully healed?" Nana asked in a hushed voice.

"Well, to be honest,” the doctor explained dropping his voice to a whisper, “These boys…they need to be home. All our boys do, of course. But home will heal the wounds these boys are carryin’ far better than any medicine I ever could administer. We call them the ‘blue boys’ down in New Orleans . Home and family…best medicine there is for what’s keepin’ these boys down. And well…the flu is still lingerin’ down there, as you ladies well know. Much worse than further up. And…these young men are weak and I don't want them dyin’ from some insipid disease when they've struggled so hard to survive this long. New Orleans is still too infectious with the weather warmin’ soon. I'm takin’ them further up where it’s still a bit cooler and the regional conditions are maybe a bit less conducive to breedin’ influenza!" he answered.

"Blue Boys," Lauryn mumbled looking around the car.

“ New Orleans in winter would be bad on a soul in despair,” Nana agreed.

The Doctor nodded. “ New Orleans in any season would be bad on the souls of some of these boys…some bein’ from so far up north and all.” Then motioning about him he urged, "Jump right in ladies. These boys are starved for feminine attention."

Lauryn watched as her Nana knelt next to a nearby soldier who was laid out on a cot. "Hey there, boy. What's your name?" she asked in her most grandmotherly voice. Tenderly, she caressed his worried looking brow with her tiny, soft hand.

Immediately the young man's eyes brightened and he said, "Tommy Vaughn.”

"Well now, Tommy…where ya'll from?" Nana asked, smiling.

"I guess we just need to follow her lead," Betty Anne said, hiking up her skirt just enough to help her walk better toward a soldier who sat in a nearby corner peering forlornly out the boxcar doors.

Since the present end of the car seemed well in hand, Lauryn cast her gaze to the other end. Her attention fell on a soldier who stood leaning on one shoulder against the back wall of the boxcar. His face was hidden in the shadows. A strange feeling flowed through Lauryn, as if she’d just had a warm, sweet glaze drizzled over her whole being. An odd nervous sensation began to kindle within her bosom. Her hands trembled as she moved toward him, zigzagging through the other men lying or sitting here and there in the boxcar. She could not take her eyes from the man even though his standing position implied he was better healed than most of the men in the car.

Lauryn stopped just behind him. He hadn't seemed to notice her approach. For long moments she could not bring herself to speak to him. He was facing the shadows, almost intentionally, and she could not see his features. So, she stood behind this ‘blue boy’, studying his unusual height, the broadness of his shoulders, the dark shade of his hair, hanging well below his collar, indicating he had not seen a barber in some time. For all her usual ability to rattle on endlessly in sometimes meaningless conversation, she could not decide how to speak or what to say to approach him. Though her heart hammered madly, she found she was mute. A very odd sensation, indeed, for Miss Lauryn Kensington. She simply stood at his back, trying to find the courage and words to speak to this recovering soldier. But even without having seen his face, even without having spoken to him, something in her soul was drawn to him. She remained still, waiting for the moment when courage would overtake her fear and she could speak. She startled rather violently when he unexpectedly spoke first.

"I knew you'd come to me," he muttered. She heard him even though he spoke quietly. "All this time, I knew somehow you'd find me."

This stranger’s voice was tranquilizing. Deep, somewhat rasping, and yet, for all his convalescing appearance, the voice was strong, but tainted with despair. The surprise of hearing him speak such words struck Lauryn dumber still. His next utterance nearly caused her heart to stop!

"Give me your hand, Laura," he said. Lauryn closed her eyes and shook her head in unbelief at what she had heard. Had he actually spoken her name? No! Not her name—but a name almost as familiar.  Lauryn’s astonished thoughts were interrupted as he repeated, "Your hand. Please!  I need you now.”

Ever so tentatively, for she knew not what else to do, Lauryn reached up placing her small left hand at his left shoulder. The soldier reached up with his left hand and took hers, bringing it to his side in a tight grip. His touch! The touch of this faceless stranger was undeniably and instantly invigorating! And when he pulled her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it tenderly, Lauryn could not avoid bumping against his back, her knees nearly buckling beneath her. The soldier clasped her hand tightly between both of his and then turned to look at her. "Your hand is oddly warm today," he muttered, and Lauryn saw, for the first time, the face of the soldier to which she had been so irrevocably drawn.

At that moment, Lauryn knew she had never met this man before. A brief second before she had wondered if, perhaps, this was an old school chum she simply had failed to recognize. Now, she knew that was not true. She would have remembered such a face. The man who stood before her boasted a jaw line any man would envy. It was squared, powerful, and blessed with an ever-so-slight cleft chin. His nose was not large and not small but just the right size for his face…but his eyes! His eyes! One eye was heavily bandaged, the other had a lighter gauze covering it, and Lauryn's heart nearly bled for the disappointment of not being able to see his eyes. The eyes of a man were the first attribute she usually noticed—the first thing she found to be attractive or not—the way she hoped to read a man’s integrity. Further, she realized this man could not see her. Even had she known him, how would he have known to use a name so close, so familiar to her own?

"I…I haven't forsaken you, Laura," he whispered, a frown puckering his brow and causing his mouth to curve downward. "I…I haven't been able to get home. I…I…you are oddly warm. Your hand…I can feel it so…so definitely. As if you were…and yet the fragrance lingers, faint as it may be."

Lauryn had to speak to him. He had obviously confused her with someone else. "Sir I…" she began.

The stranger gasped, released her hand and demanded angrily, "Who are you? What kind of trick is this?"

"Sir…I assure you…I'm only here to help. My name is Lauryn Kensington. I'm bound for my home in Franklin and I only…" she stammered.

"Kensington? Franklin ?" he mumbled seeming confused. Then much to her dismay, he began tugging at the lighter patch that protected one eye.

"Sir, please! I meant you no harm! I only wanted…" Lauryn began, tears unexpectedly filling her eyes and threatening to spill.

"What's the matter over there?" Doctor Nelson called from the other end of the car.

"Lauryn? Honey? Are you alright?" Nana inquired. Lauryn glanced over her shoulder to see Nana  making her way toward her.

"I'm afraid I've upset him somehow! I…I didn't mean to," Lauryn explained.

"Captain! You leave the patch on that eye! You have another three weeks, at least, before it's supposed to come off. Brant! Do you hear me?" Doctor Nelson shouted.

"Brant?" Lauryn breathed looking back to the soldier in time to see him succeed in tearing the bandage from his eye.

 Lauryn gasped as she saw his eye. Though he shaded it with his hand against light from the open car door and there was deep bruising caused from an injury, his eye was fascinating! Fascinating in its depth of blue and fascinating in it's familiarity—the Captain’s very eye color!

"Brant?' she whispered in disbelief.

The color of his eye was the only resemblance the man bore to the Captain, but it was frighteningly familiar to her. And his name…Brant? It was nearly the Captain's very name!  And yet, he was completely different from the Captain. Far more handsome! Larger, brooding, angry.

Before Lauryn could fathom anything else, the soldier reached out. Taking her chin firmly in one hand,  he growled, "Who are you?" he growled. The demand was neither gentle nor congenial.

"Brant! Unhand that girl this minute!" Doctor Nelson snapped as he quickly walked toward them, tripping over one poor, convalescing soul.

"I…I told you. My name is Lauryn Kensington. I'm only on my way home…I…I didn't mean to upset you, sir. Truly." Lauryn’s eyes filled with tears.

Bending toward her, the soldier closed his eye. Placing his face close to her neck, he inhaled deeply. "That fragrance. Why did I sense it before? It’s gone now."

"I…I'm sorry if I offend you, sir. I truly only wanted…" But she was interrupted as the man suddenly pulled her protectively against his body wrapping her in his arms as Doctor Nelson and Lauryn’s Nana reached them.

"Now, boy…you let that girl go. She didn't come in here to be assaulted by some delirious man," Doctor Nelson coaxed quietly but firmly.

"It'll be fine, Doctor," Nana said calmly. "I believe I know this young man."

Lauryn felt the man's possessive hold loosen at her grandmother's words. "Who are you?" he asked. "Everything is cloudy still…and I don't recognize your voice."

"I'm Virginia, Brant," Nana explained. "Virginia Anne O’Halleran Kensington. I’m Laura’s sister and young Lauryn’s grandmother. We met in Vermont once when you were just a boy. Do you remember?"

Lauryn looked up into the searching, clouded eye of the man who held her. Her heart beat erratically as she felt a sudden, instant and overwhelming attraction to the man. She wanted to embrace him, sooth him. For Pete’s sake…she wanted to kiss him! What had come over her? She couldn’t begin to understand. He seemed so lost, so helpless and desperate. And, at the same time, the most powerful man she’d ever met.

Looking down into Lauryn’s face, the soldier spoke to her Nana. "Lauralynn's niece?" he asked.

"Her grand-niece. Yes, Brant," Nana soothed softly.

"The one who sees the Captain?" he asked.

"What? Nana…who is he? I…" Lauryn began.

The soldier looked searchingly at her again, but Lauryn could not tell for certain whether he could, in fact, see her.

 He took her chin firmly in one hand, his thumb traveling caressively and rather intimately over her soft lips as he whispered, "Who am I? I'm Brant Masterson. Brandon Masterson’s grand-nephew.”

The next moment surely was an hallucination. A dream purely! Surely it was. There was no way on earth that what Lauryn sensed happening could, indeed, be happening! For she felt the moist tenderness of the soldier’s lips caress her own in the softest, rather saddest of kisses. Yet even for the tenderness of it…even for the sorrowful, regretful mood of it…still it thrilled her beyond anything she had as yet experienced in her entire life! The sensation of his lips meeting with hers, however brief, was almost unendurably perfect.

Then he pressed his unshaven cheek to her own soft one and whispered quietly into her ear, "The only person alive who understands exactly what you’re looking for.”

This revelation, coupled with the mighty reaction sent through Lauryn’s body by his fleeting kiss, was too much for her senses, and she felt the soldier’s arms tighten around her protectively as consciousness was lost to her.

Lauryn seemed to be swimming in a black dream. A dream of sound void of light and vision. She could discern voices…the Doctor's as he spoke to her grandmother and then ordered the soldier to set Lauryn down softly. She heard Nana’s as she soothed the two worried men, Betty’s as she approached inquiring about what had happened. And, she could hear his voice, Brant’s, as he argued with the doctor about replacing his bandages.

The biting stench of the smelling salts caused Lauryn to cough. She opened her eyes to find that her head rested on Betty Ann's lap. Nana leaned over her with concern showing in her face. Dr. Nelson labored to replace Brant Masterson’s eye bandages as he sat in an attitude of defeat, leaning back against the boxcar’s inner wall.

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