If only she could.
His slurred speech verified his condition as he took a clumsy step toward her.
“Absalom Adams, you’re drunk. What’s wrong with you?”
He wagged the pistol in front of her face. “Don’t get sassy with me.”
She strode to him and held out her hand. “Give me that gun. You don’t even know how to use it when you’re sober.”
He shook his head like a petulant child.
“Give it to me or I’ll ask Samuel to get his sword.”
At the mention of the sword, Absalom’s hand began to shake. Clarissa snatched the weapon from it and grasped his elbow, hard, leading him toward the house. “Get in your room and sleep this off. You’re a disgrace.”
Grandmother slunk around the corner of the kitchen and toward them. “I’m going to get a gun of my own.”
As Clarissa passed her grandmother in the courtyard, she gave her Absalom’s pistol. “No need. You can have this one. Or give it to Samuel if you like.”
“Gladly, but where is he?”
Clarissa glanced around the courtyard and through the open door to the center hall. “I thought he was right behind me.”
But he wasn’t. Clarissa deposited her cousin on his bed and returned to the courtyard, certain Samuel would have arrived to make sure she and Grandmother were unharmed.
Instead, Grandmother stood alone, still holding Absalom’s weapon. “Harold Goss has gone home. He was as drunk as Absalom.”
Clarissa gave silent thanks for that small favor. But Grandmother had that look in her eye. “Did you encourage him to leave?”
Grandmother ran one finger down the barrel, those hazel eyes turning stormy in the falling dusk. “From now on, I’ll throw out or shoot any man who dares become intoxicated on these premises.”
At the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, Clarissa dashed into the house. Samuel hit the bottom step like thunder. She backed away. If Grandmother had a stormy expression, Samuel’s was a cyclone.
He brushed by her without slowing down or looking at her, his Bible and portmanteau in his grip.
“What’s the matter? I thought you’d—”
By now Samuel was out the front door. She followed him at a fast clip but stood aside when he stalked back in and up the stairs.
“Samuel, wait...” Clarissa lifted her skirts and climbed the steps behind him, barely able to keep up.
In the second-floor hall, she reached his door just as he exited, his pillow and a blanket in his arms. He headed for the front gallery, pitched the items over the rail, and started back toward the stairs.
Clarissa planted herself in front of the steps. When he approached and she saw him up close, she realized she’d mistaken his emotions. He wasn’t angry, as she’d thought. Deep pain clouded his eyes, softened his mouth. “Samuel, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that earlier.”
“No. No, you shouldn’t have.”
“I didn’t understand how you felt. I shouldn’t have assumed—”
“I can’t stay here anymore. It was a mistake from the beginning. The deacons have rented the manse, so I’m moving into my study at the church. The sergeant and Mister Forbes will still be here, so you and your grandmother and the children will be safe.”
This was it? He was leaving her—just as she’d fallen in love with him? Just as she’d let herself trust him?
Just as she’d begun to think maybe she wasn’t inadequate after all...
He nodded toward the stairs. She moved aside.
Samuel took the steps at a sprint. Within moments, the back door opened.
But his carriage was in the front. Clarissa dashed to her bedroom window in time to see Samuel racing toward the duck pond. He ran up the bridge and stopped at the apex, where he had nearly kissed her. He drew a small object from his coat pocket and hurled it into the middle of the pond. Small but heavy, judging from the size of the ripples.
Whatever else he’d just tossed aside, he’d also thrown away their chance for love, their chance to be a family. Last night he had to have realized how happy they could be, had admitted he cared.
Fight for me, Fighting Chaplain...
Samuel stood there until the ripples subsided then strode toward the path to the drive.
She turned from the window, unwilling to watch him go.
Chapter Fourteen
Having Clarissa in the room next to his every night had been one of Samuel’s few comforts. If only he’d realized it while he’d still lived with her.
Some evenings, she hummed a hymn or an old-fashioned little tune at bedtime. And in the mornings he’d heard her bustling about and imagined her tidying her room and readying for the day. Always cheerful, always a bright encouragement to him in his lonely room.
Always his beautiful, faithful wife.
And now he would have that small comfort no more.
He stood and gazed out the study window. Who’d have thought he’d find so many travelers camping in the churchyard last night? Here to see the Fighting Chaplain and hear him preach, they’d all said as he’d trudged from tent to tent in the rain, his coat and trousers sopping wet and his hair matted to his head.
But what could Samuel give them, since he wasn’t the man they thought he was? The words of 1 Timothy 3:5 rang in his head now as they had since his first marriage. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?
And Samuel knew not how. His marriage to Veronica proved it. His failed relationship with Emma proved it. And now Clarissa...
Samuel didn’t suspect her of impropriety with Goss. On the contrary. Samuel had merely been a fool to think she’d fall in love with him, a roughneck preacher who couldn’t even manage his own house.
Yet he’d hoped to win her heart.
At his desk, wind and rain hitting the window behind him, he drew his little valentine from between the pages of his Bible for at least the fifteenth time since he’d left Camellia Pointe. His failings notwithstanding, he’d not imagined the light he’d seen in her eyes when she’d opened it. And he’d give his grandfather’s sword if he could see it again.
He glanced around the study, at the chair where she’d sat a week ago, the hearth where she’d set her pail of caustic coffee. He’d drink the whole quart and another if it would change things.
The wall clock chimed its mournful tune, then announced the eighth hour. Only three hours until the service. Until his congregation and all of Natchez would somehow sense his charade, would know he was not the man he preached a husband should be.
Worse, all those misguided people camping in the churchyard would know. Men and women who had driven from all over Mississippi and Louisiana to hear Samuel preach would now be disappointed, could not receive the help they’d come to find.
As thunder shook the church, a throbbing pain slammed into the back of his head, and he rubbed the scar there. He lay his head on the desk, on top of his sermon notes. “‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness...’”
* * *
“Reverend Montgomery!”
Samuel jerked his head up from his desk as the door flung open and crashed against the wall. “What? What’s wrong?”
The deaconate burst into the study, their panic as evident in their faces as in their voices. “This isn’t what we wanted,” Deacon Bradley said in a tone somewhere between a moan and a wail.
Samuel cleared his dry throat and rubbed his eyes. He must have dozed off in the midst of his prayer and meditation. Never did that before...at least not on a Sunday morning. He glanced at the clock. Nine forty-five. “What isn’t?”
“The crowd. Don’t you hear it?” Deacon Bradley set his palms on the desk and leaned toward Samuel. “They’re in the s
treet, the churchyard, the neighbors’ yards—all up and down Pearl Street, and State, and Commerce, and Main. People here to see the Fighting Chaplain. And we don’t like it.”
Samuel felt that scowl coming on. “But when you called me, you knew who I was. You thought my military honors would be good for Natchez.”
“We knew it would bring in more locals,” Deacon Bradley said. “Last Sunday was the highest attendance we’ve had since before the war. But now with the newspaper ad, and your tours of Camellia Pointe, people have been flocking into town since yesterday afternoon.”
Deacon Holmes’s eyes seemed to droop even more than usual. “It’s not yet ten o’clock, but they’ve filled the sanctuary, including the galleries, and they’re sitting on the floor and in the windowsills. They’re noisy and unruly, and they tracked mud all over the carpet.”
“That’s nothing. There’s horses in the churchyard. In the churchyard!” Deacon Morris lifted his foot as high as his ample belly would let him. “And when I went over there to ask them to move, I stepped in something.”
Samuel tilted his head and gazed at the sole of the deacon’s shoe, catching a pungent whiff. Sure enough, a bit of “something” remained underneath, against the heel. He handed the deacon his handkerchief.
“What are you going to do?” Deacon Bradley asked, still hovering over Samuel’s desk.
“What do you want me to do?” Samuel stood so the lanky deacon would straighten while he still could, and he looked him dead in the eye. “Chase them out? Make sure they don’t hear the Gospel this morning?”
The deacon shifted what weight he had. “Not exactly...”
“Then here’s the plan. Go to Camellia Pointe and get Sergeant John. He’ll take charge and bring order to this mess. Meanwhile, I’ll preach to the crowd that’s here now. We’ll have our eleven o’clock service as usual and forget about the mud—” he glanced at Deacon Morris’s shoe again “—and other things until afterward.”
“But you won’t have music,” Morris said. “And you can’t preach with people sitting on the floor and in the windows.”
“Would you rather send them outside to stand in the rain again, when they could have a few hours here where it’s dry? Be reasonable. In fact, go and make sure no one’s still outside. If so, bring them in and find a place for them.” When the deacon hesitated, gaping at him, Samuel pointed to the door. “Go!”
Deacon Morris hastened toward the hall, staring over his shoulder, mouth still open, as if Samuel had asked him to bring in the horses too.
“Fine, but remember what I told you last week. We don’t want any more trouble in this church,” Deacon Bradley said as he and Deacon Holmes edged toward the door. “And where is Missus Montgomery? We thought she’d come early again today.”
The words, carelessly spoken, stabbed his heart, mocked his failure, his loneliness. She wouldn’t come early on Sunday mornings anymore, bringing breakfast and coffee, helping him with his duties and cheering him with her beautiful smile and gentle laugh. The realization nearly brought him to his knees.
He muttered something about the children needing her, which was surely true. But trouble? The deacons had no idea how much trouble rumbled through his heart like thunder.
Trouble he could neither understand nor keep at bay.
* * *
Driving up Franklin Street in the blowing rain, Clarissa urged Stonewall to a faster clip and checked her timepiece. Quarter of ten. Of all mornings to have a coughing, feverish baby. Today she should have been at church earlier than before, to show Samuel she would continue to carry out her duties, despite her embarrassment. Despite her heartache.
As she turned onto Commerce Street, the sounds of horses and voices made her slow Stonewall to a more sedate pace. The streets were full on a Sunday morning, an hour and a quarter before service time?
The closer she got to Christ Church, the more chaotic the streets. And there—
She squinted at the sight of horses tethered to the churchyard trees. And men pitching tents in the pouring rain. And children dancing in puddles.
What did it all mean? It wasn’t this disorderly even when the Yankees came.
Then a flash of understanding hit her. They were here to see the Fighting Chaplain.
No, no, no...
Samuel was going to hate this.
She breathed a quick prayer for him and then stopped. No, he wouldn’t hate this new development. Rather, he would see it as an opportunity, as he had the invasion of tourists at Camellia Pointe. And he was going to need help.
Catching sight of Deacon Morris, she waved him over and brought Stonewall to a stop in the middle of the street. “I have to get inside to help Reverend Montgomery.”
“Go on. I’ll find a place to park.” Rushing to the shay, he held out his hand. “Watch where you step.”
She let him help her from the carriage, then snatched her basket and coffee pail and waved her thanks as she took to the sidewalk at a run. The wind whipped her bonnet, mercifully tied tightly under her chin, and the rain soaked her pink-and-white-sprigged muslin skirts before she made it to the back door.
Dripping water on the wood floors, she dashed down the hall to the study. The door opened as she approached, and Samuel stepped out.
“Clarissa...” His eyes spoke something tender, something soft, for an instant. Then a cloud passed over them and hovered like a wall between her and Samuel.
She hesitated as her words rushed back to her and squeezed the breath from her lungs. Do you mean you love me? How had she been so stupid?
The silence turned painful and she considered her next words carefully. It was better to think before speaking or acting, and she would never again blurt out the first thing that came to mind. Never again make any move without careful thought. “All those people outside—they’re here to see the Fighting Chaplain, aren’t they?”
He raised his familiar, strong hand and rubbed the back of his head.
The hand that had held hers on the bridge, in the study when he’d introduced her to Willie, in the church parlor when he’d suggested marriage. The hand she would likely never hold again.
“They’re here to see a legend. A giant of a man. A hero.” His tone turned bitter. He pushed past her, plowed down the hallway toward the sanctuary. “They think that man is me.”
What could he mean? “Of course, you’re that man...”
Clarissa took off at a near-run, following him, calling to him to wait. He pushed on toward the pulpit, toward the crowd. At the sanctuary door, he stopped, turned to her, his dark curls falling boyishly over his forehead. The agony in his beautiful brown eyes wrung the same emotion from her heart.
“Please don’t try to console me.” He looked away, as if he couldn’t allow her to see the anguish seeping out of his soul and into those eyes. “I can bear anything but that from you.”
“Samuel.” Clarissa clasped his wrist, her own eyes filling now. “Why do you not think you’re a hero? You’re the Fighting Chaplain. Everyone admires you.”
His bark of a laugh held more sarcasm than she’d have thought possible. “Everyone except the ones who matter most.”
“Give yourself time. Emma will come around.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Even if she did, the Fighting Chaplain myth is just that—a myth.”
What did he mean? “You didn’t fight a platoon of Yankees?”
“I did, but it wasn’t what everybody thinks.”
“What was it, then?”
He tried to tug his arm away, but Clarissa held firm. “Tell me. What happened in that fight?”
Perhaps he sensed she wasn’t going to let him go until he told her, or perhaps he finally recognized the need to speak of it. He drew a deep breath and gazed heavenward for a moment. “The fight itself happened the way the newspapers described it. But it wasn’t gallantry and glor
y. I didn’t fight for the sake of the Confederacy.”
“Then why?”
“Because they were about to slaughter my men who were out of ammo—helpless. They wouldn’t have had a chance.” His sigh seemed to emerge from his bones. “My men were like my own sons. I ate with them, slept beside them, prayed with them, for them. They were my life those four years.” He paused, his brown eyes taking on a rough edge. “I gave up everything in order to answer the call of God to shepherd them, be a father to them.”
“You gave up—” a flash of understanding made Clarissa take a step back as she gasped “—Emma.”
The weariness in his eyes told her she was right.
“And since I gave up everything for them, they were all the more precious to me.”
Of course.
“Federal troops had exploded a mine that blew a gap in our defenses. Our men were forced back into a valley beneath a cliff. I ran to help the injured but as I crept through the underbrush, our men gradually stopped firing until they all were out of ammo. I watched enemy soldiers gun down five defenseless soldiers whom they could have taken prisoner instead.” Samuel rubbed the back of his head, hard. “By no means could I let them slaughter any more of the men I’d come to love like family. So, under cover of the brush, I crept up behind the Yankees, one by one, and—”
He paused, the agony of remembrance in his eyes. “It was their men or mine. I had to make a fast decision, and I don’t regret it. I knew those men, and many of them had resisted the Lord, refusing His mercy and forgiveness.”
His expression was so pained, it kindled more love for him than she’d known she had. “You had no choice—”
“You don’t know everything yet.” He looked at her straight-on. “Willie was in the valley.”
Willie.
No wonder the boy all but worshiped Samuel.
“See? I’m not a Confederate hero at all. I’m just a man who used the sword skills his grandfather taught him, trying to save men and a boy, not a nation. Not a cause.” He took another step toward the sanctuary. “I’m an imposter, a play-actor in more ways than you know.”
An Inconvenient Marriage Page 21