The scoundrel, minding his own pain and leaving behind his motherless child. What kind of man would—?
He stopped the thought cold as an image of Emma, crying and begging him not to leave her at Daughter’s College in Kentucky, shot through his mind. He’d been that man, leaving her with strangers a mere two weeks after her mother’s passing.
His head pounded again at the insight. At least Clarissa’s father had left her with family, unlike Samuel...
“And now that my grandfather’s gone,” she was saying, “and Papa never comes to Natchez, Grandmother Euphemia is all I have for family. Besides Absalom.”
“Having him for a relative is worse than having no family at all, I’m sure.” He pressed the pad of his thumb against the scar at the base of his skull, the spot that always throbbed at the most inopportune times since the battle that had changed his life. He gave it a rough massage.
“Precisely.” Missus Adams’s voice rang out beside Samuel, no more than twenty feet away.
He hastened to rise. How had he become so careless? Engrossed in his wife’s story, he hadn’t noticed the elderly woman tapping her cane on the brick walk beside him as she approached. His wartime alertness must have gotten rusty.
Clarissa stood, too, and hastened toward her grandmother as if she feared she’d never see her again. Which might not be too far from the truth, given the older woman’s dislike for her own grandson.
With a spryness that surprised Samuel, Missus Adams made for the house. “Please take me to town, Reverend.”
Clarissa lifted her narrow skirts and sailed along after her. “Where do you intend to go?”
“Back to Callaway House.”
“You can’t. Absalom won’t let you.”
“He has nothing to say about it. He can try to throw me out if he wants.”
“Grandmother, please...”
Still rooted to the spot where he’d stood from the bench, Samuel breathed a quick prayer for wisdom. Did he have the right to step in and make suggestions, offer help, give guidance? Lord, what would You have me do?
Probably act like the head of the Montgomery household, which now included Clarissa and Missus Adams. And probably take responsibility for their safety and well-being. They might not like it, but for some strange reason, God seemed to have chosen him for such a time as this.
He hastened to catch up and wedge himself between Clarissa and Missus Adams in her huge black hoopskirt. He offered his arm to each. The grandmother immediately hooked her bony hand into the crook of his elbow, but Clarissa held back. With what he hoped was a mock-severe expression, he waved his elbow at her, coaxing her. She smiled and took it, if only to keep it from jabbing her in the ribs. “Now, please tell me what Callaway House is and what it has to do with us.”
“It’s our place of exile—”
“Grandmother, it’s nothing of the sort.” Clarissa’s laugh tinkled again as they took the slight rise to the big house. Samuel steeled himself against its allure. “It’s Cousin Absalom’s town house. Before the surrender, a dozen Yankee officers occupied Camellia Pointe. Callaway House was empty, since Absalom had already gone to war, so we moved in.”
“I inherited it when we thought Absalom died,” her grandmother said, “and believed I owned it until today.”
“You still live there?” That would explain the rundown condition of Camellia Pointe, the sheets covering every piece of furniture he’d seen so far.
“We did until Joseph got a man to move our things here this afternoon. Before you came, we felt safer in town. Of course, Natchez is still occupied and overrun by Yankees.” Missus Adams’s tone said all Samuel needed to know about her opinion of those Yankees. “But at least in town we have our friends nearby if we need them.”
Samuel couldn’t hold back a grin. “More likely, you were the one to rescue them from the Yankees, Missus Adams.”
A glimmer of friendship twinkled in her eyes. “I might have done just that on occasion.”
And Samuel believed it. “But surely you don’t intend to stay there alone while we all live at Camellia Pointe.”
“I told you I intend to stay at Callaway House until I can get to Memphis, and I meant it.”
Samuel glanced around the grounds. “I’ll take you to town as soon as I find Emma. I don’t want her here alone with Absalom and his family.”
“I’ll look inside,” Clarissa said, starting for the house.
Fifteen minutes later Samuel met Clarissa in the courtyard as she burst out of the massive two-story brick dependency behind the house. “She’s not in here. I’ve searched the house from attic to basement too.”
Missus Adams rounded the corner from the front. “Absalom’s carriage is gone. Could she have left with them?”
Surely not. But they’d looked everywhere except the dense woods behind the gardens, and she wouldn’t have gone there. He headed toward the house, the women keeping pace with him. “Where would they have gone?”
They rounded the corner to the front. Only Samuel’s carriage stood under the oaks.
“To Callaway House, no doubt.” Missus Adams picked up her pace, heading toward Samuel’s rented phaeton. “Let’s go.”
Clarissa looked down at her dress. “In your wedding gown?”
“It survived sixty years in the cedar chest. A trip to town won’t hurt it. Get in the carriage.” She turned and glared at them both in the waning winter light. “Now!”
Ten minutes later, they turned north onto Pearl Street, the three of them crowded into the phaeton’s single seat. “You’ll have to drop me off at Callaway House before you look for Emma,” Missus Adams said. “This meager buggy of yours won’t hold all of us.”
As they pulled up to the single-story town home, a tousle-haired young man in grimy work clothes bounded down the front steps, a toolbox in his hand.
“What are you doing here?” Samuel called from the carriage.
“You don’t need to get out. Major Adams paid me before he left.”
“Major? Do you mean Absalom?”
“He told me to call him Major Adams.”
Missus Adams craned her thin neck and peered at the man. “Justin Bellows, what were you doing?”
“Changing the locks, ma’am.” He dashed through the gateway and down the street.
“Changing them?” She pointed with her cane. “But we won’t be able to get in. Reverend, stop him.”
“He’s already half a block away.”
“Try the doors anyway. All four of them.” Her voice followed him up the walk and onto the gallery.
After hastening to check the doors, Samuel returned to the carriage. “All locked. You’ll have to ride along—”
The thundering of horses’ hooves racing up Pearl Street cut off Samuel’s words. He turned that way as a runabout sped toward them, pulled by a chestnut French trotter and careening up the wrong side of the street. Who would take this sort of risk with such a beautiful horse? Or had the horse run away? With only the thin light of dusk to illumine the road, the animal could easily step in a hole and cause an accident.
As the carriage flew nearer, it rocked back and forth with the horse’s speed and then whipped around the next corner, balancing on two wheels. Samuel caught a glimpse of a bareheaded man and a woman in a cream-colored bonnet—a woman in danger.
Hearing the carriage race around the block, Samuel hastened into the middle of the street, prepared to leap at the horse and grab the reins if he could. As soon as the conveyance came back into his sight, he waved furiously. “Stop! Whoa!”
Samuel braced himself to make his move.
The driver snapped his whip near the horse’s head.
He was racing at this speed—on purpose?
A mighty wind blew Samuel’s hat from his head as the carriage flew by, much too fast for him to catch the reins. In the
driver’s seat sat Absalom’s stepson, Beau.
Looking back at Samuel, holding on to her hat with one hand and the carriage brace with the other, was Emma.
Chapter Four
Whisked away to her beloved estate in a fine brougham pulled by two black horses, a devoted husband by her side...
Such had been Clarissa’s girlhood dreams of her wedding evening.
But instead, Samuel swung his wooden-seated phaeton into Camellia Pointe’s lane after a bumpy, silent drive in the waxing moon’s cold, white light. The conveyance seemed barely able to hold together as Samuel raced along, seemingly hitting every rut and hole.
She couldn’t blame him for his intensity. Seeing Emma alone with a young man in the twilight was bad enough. But their wild ride—Clarissa would not soon forget the shock. Or Samuel’s futile attempt to catch up to the wayward couple, making their ride almost as bad as Beau’s.
Nor could she fault him for being a less-than-enthusiastic bridegroom. Their arrangement was just that—an arrangement.
“Reverend, your daughter needs guidance,” Grandmother said as if she was the only one who’d recognized the fact.
“Agreed. But first I’m going to have a long talk with Absalom and Beau.”
If the timbre of Samuel’s low, measured voice was any indication, the talk may not turn out well for her cousin.
“If you like, Samuel, I can settle Emma in her room,” Clarissa said.
As he murmured his agreement, she formed her plan for accommodations. Emma could have the second-floor bedroom next to Clarissa’s in the original part of the home, and Grandmother could stay in her ground-floor rooms in the rear wing. Absalom and his wife could have one of the second-story rooms above Grandmother’s, and Beau the other—and what of Samuel?
Where did one house a man who was one’s husband in name only?
They pulled under the canopy of live oaks, their Spanish moss swaying lightly in the damp winter breeze and the light of the brightening moon, and stopped behind Beau’s runabout. Before Samuel could alight and assist the women from the carriage, the front door banged open. Absalom strode out, holding a burning ten-light candelabra.
“What do you mean, locking your grandmother out of the house?” Samuel swung out of the phaeton and faced Absalom head-on, his stance wide, his tone ominous.
Clarissa stepped onto the granite carriage block and caught Samuel’s blazing eyes, his set jaw, a menacing contrast of shadow and light. Was this what the Yankees had seen in him the day he’d defied them to save his platoon? If so, it was a wonder any of them had stayed around for the fight. The handsome parson could look downright intimidating when the need arose.
“Come this way,” Grandmother Euphemia whispered as she stepped down, a spark of interest in her eyes. She tightened her grip on Clarissa’s hand and pulled her into the shadow of the nearest low-hanging oak branch. “If Absalom forgets we’re here, he’ll speak more freely.”
“What? Hide in the trees and eavesdrop like children?”
Grandmother shushed her, her finger to her lips.
Apparently so. Clarissa turned her attention to the men.
“Callaway House is mine and has been for ten years.” Cousin Absalom’s voice boomed in the darkness, echoed back from the trees. “She’s a squatter and so is Clarissa. I had to protect my home.”
“From an elderly lady and a young woman?” Samuel took another step toward Absalom. “Callaway House was in no danger from them.”
Absalom backed up, holding the flames out before him. “You don’t know that. Houses burn to the ground all the time.”
“If I wanted to burn down your house, I’d have done it after you left us during the fever epidemic.” Grandmother Euphemia stalked up to the gallery, apparently done with her spying, her cheeks crimson in the candlelight. The silence of the night turned deafening until an owl hooted from the direction of the kitchen wing and a clattering sound came from the upstairs gallery. “And you know why.”
The smirk on her cousin’s face revealed that he did, indeed, know why.
But Clarissa didn’t. Her grandmother’s words of this afternoon rang through her mind.
Considering how you left your entire family for dead during the yellow fever outbreak...
What had she meant by that? And why had she never spoken of it to Clarissa?
“Regardless, you can’t stay at Callaway House. And I hear you won’t live with me, either, so perhaps you should go back to the Delta.” Absalom smiled that heinous smile that had always made Clarissa run from him when she was a child. “Or somewhere even farther.”
“That’s enough.” Samuel strode to the door and held it open. “We’ll continue the conversation inside. Alone.”
Grandmother swept past them, her skirts swishing. Absalom’s grip visibly tightened on the candelabra, and he raised it slightly as she sailed into the hall. For a fleeting moment, Clarissa feared he might strike Grandmother with her own coin silver. She rushed to step between them.
Samuel beat her to it. “Give it to me, Adams.”
“I’m the head of my own family. Why should I take orders from a preacher?”
An image came to Clarissa’s mind, one she had fabricated the first time she’d heard of the Fighting Chaplain’s exploits in battle. A man with fire in his eyes and a saber in his hand, defending his vulnerable men from the enemy’s merciless onslaught. She leaned forward and whispered, “Because he brought his sword with him to Natchez.”
Absalom’s mouth slackened for a moment then he reached out, holding the candelabra an inch closer to Samuel.
Apparently her cousin was still a coward.
Samuel took the candlestick. “We have much to discuss, including your stepson’s conduct with my fourteen-year-old daughter this evening. Please collect him and meet me in the dining room.”
Grandmother had been right about one thing—they’d be safe at Camellia Pointe as long as the Fighting Chaplain was there.
Clarissa glanced around the hall and into the parlor. “Where do you think Emma is?”
“You’ll find her where you find Absalom’s stepson,” Grandmother said, heading down the hall toward the sitting room. “Mark my words, that boy’s going to cause us more trouble than Absalom will.”
If so, this contest would be harder than any of them had thought. “Maybe he won’t. He might simply be a bored young man of privilege and won’t do any real damage—just make a lot of noise...”
She hesitated, remembering the sound on the upper gallery. Too loud to be a squirrel or other rodent, it had to be Emma and Beau.
“I know where they are.” Clarissa took another candelabra and matches from the piano that sat in the curve of the staircase. She lit the candles and started up the stairs.
She took the steps as fast and silently as she could. However, a part of her would rather have slowed down and put off the confrontation that might take place when she found Emma.
She wouldn’t put it past Beau to lure the girl away to take advantage of her. Lord, help me to “be ye angry, and sin not.”
If she was right about Beau and took out her anger on him, she could turn Emma against her. Clarissa was a mother now, and this may be the first test of her love for her new daughter.
And she did love Emma, although they had met only today. But how could Clarissa manage to discipline her, teach her, when they were too close in age to be mother and daughter?
Perhaps she should act less like a mother and more like a young aunt.
She had to admit the role of aunt would come more naturally. Love the girl, guide her, be her friend—that, Clarissa could do.
She crossed the second-floor center hall, the floorboards making their familiar popping sound under her weight as she passed her room to the right. A muffled soprano giggle sounded from outside.
She grabbed the knob
, flung open the door and stepped out to find Emma and Beau sitting mere inches apart on the floor. On Great-grandmother Anne’s quilt from Clarissa’s room.
Eating apples and cheese by candlelight.
In her relief, Clarissa couldn’t help letting out a peal of laughter. “Wherever did you find food in this house? No one has lived here since Lee’s surrender.”
“None of your business.” Beau scrambled up, dropping a pocketknife on the pine floor, sounding just like the noise Clarissa had heard in this spot before they’d come inside. Apparently she’d been right—they didn’t have squirrels living on the gallery.
The knife slid across the boards and stopped at Clarissa’s feet.
She bent and retrieved it. “I don’t blame you for finding yourself a snack. With all the excitement, we hadn’t been thinking of food. But it’s a nice evening for a picnic on the gallery.”
Beau snatched the knife from her hand and stomped inside, his childish temper evident with every loud footfall.
Emma stood, also, and took a shaky step back. “We didn’t do anything wrong...”
Other than racing through town at dusk and risking their lives and Emma’s reputation... “Let’s take the rest of the cheese and apples downstairs. Now that I’ve seen them, I’m getting hungry, and I’m sure everyone else is too.”
“You aren’t mad?”
“No, but Grandmother will be furious if she sees her mother’s quilt outside. She had it and the silver stashed in a secret compartment under Absalom’s stairs since the Battle of Antietam. Until this afternoon.”
Emma lifted a corner of the quilt and gave it a halfhearted shake. “Your friend—the blond-haired lady from the wedding—left some food in the kitchen.”
Clarissa checked the back side of the quilt. A few live oak leaves stuck to it, and she plucked them off and tossed them into the breeze. “Don’t tell Grandmother you had it out here. It’ll be our secret.”
“A secret...” Her gaze turned dreamy, the way Grandmother said Clarissa always looked whenever she took a bite of her favorite bread pudding. “I won’t tell.”
An Inconvenient Marriage Page 7