by Beth White
“Yes. I did.” Joelle shrugged.
“Joelle.” Grandmama’s eyes softened. “You can do better.”
Joelle straightened. “He is a good man. He cares for me, and I—I care for him.”
ThomasAnne gasped. “Do you mean—”
“Of course that’s what she means, you twit.” Grandmama sniffed. “I tried to tell you girls what would happen if you sequestered yourselves at that ramshackle plantation in the middle of nowhere. Why you wouldn’t stay here after the war ended, I will never understand. But it’s not too late. Your grandfather will refuse, and you can come have a season in Memphis this summer.”
“I told you I care—”
“Hogwash.” Grandmama rarely uttered vulgarities, and when she did, one had better listen. “You have simply given up. I wouldn’t have suspected you of such spinelessness, Joelle.”
She couldn’t admit she’d agreed to Gil’s proposal as a result of an argument with Schuyler Beaumont. “On the contrary,” she said, “I find myself having to exert quite a lot of spine to overcome this unreasonable prejudice against a man of godly character and humble means. You, Grandmama, are a snob.”
“I never claimed otherwise,” Grandmama retorted. “But that has nothing to do with my concern that you are selling yourself at a woefully cheap price. You are not cut out to be a preacher’s wife.”
“What does that mean?”
“Can you actually see yourself hostessing ladies’ missionary parties? Visiting sickbeds with tisanes? Decorating the sanctuary for Easter?”
Less than three months ago, Joelle had voiced almost those exact words to Selah. Still . . . “I imagine no one ever feels qualified to serve God when they are called. Even Isaiah said as much.”
“‘Woe is me, for I am undone,’” ThomasAnne said suddenly.
“Exactly,” Joelle said. “And Moses stammered.”
“You will be miserable,” Grandmama said with the persistence of a dog with a fine bone. “You hate crowds, you despise public speaking, and preachers live in a fishbowl.”
“But preachers’ wives are expected to care for the poor, which will make my Negro school less of a scandal.”
“Your—what?” Grandmama all but came up out of her chair.
“My Negro school. I’ve been planning and saving for it for quite some time. Schuyler is helping sponsor it.” She didn’t know why she blurted that last.
But it stopped Grandmama in her tracks. The Beaumonts were imbued with a cunning blend of educated culture, opportunism, and political savvy. Besides that, they were distant relatives via Schuyler’s maternal grandmother. Still, the old lady looked skeptical. “Why on earth would he do that?”
Joelle remembered a rather facetious conversation she and Schuyler had had regarding the education of slaves, the summer after she and Selah were dismissed from boarding school. Their expulsion had resulted from Selah’s championing of a certain liberal teacher who insisted there was no biological difference between black brains and white brains—and who had subsequently been fired for subversion. Sky had remarked that he’d once dissected an albino frog and a regular frog and couldn’t tell their brains apart, and that one could infer the same would hold true for humans.
“Headmistress would say slaves are not human in the same way that you and I are,” Joelle told him bitterly. “They can’t be educated.”
“Headmistress is full of beans,” Schuyler had said, laughing.
Thinking of that conversation, Joelle smiled. “Who knows what mysterious elements lurk in Schuyler’s brain? The important thing is that Negroes are free, and they can vote. I believe they should be educated so that they can make informed decisions.”
“Joelle, that is not your problem. You can’t vote.”
“Which is another unfortunate circumstance I hope to change.”
Grandmama eyed her grimly, and Joelle was aware of ThomasAnne twisting her hands in an agony of discomfort. How did she and her opinionated grandparent always manage to find themselves at loggerheads after more than ten minutes in the same room?
She looked for a distraction and realized Gil was standing before her grandfather, turning his hat about in his hands, Adam’s apple bobbing above his starched collar. Grandpapa reached up to shake hands, Gil dropped the hat on his own foot, and Doc picked it up, laughing.
“Congratulations,” Doc said, rising to clap Gil on the back. “I never thought she’d say yes.”
Well then, it was settled. Joelle could consider herself engaged.
five
SCHUYLER AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING without a hangover—a state which might normally have been a relief, but which at present only indicated the sorry state of his social life. When a man let a woman influence him to the extent that getting roaring drunk lost its appeal, it was time to flee the area.
Thus his sanity was certainly in question when he found himself, at the unholy hour of nine a.m., fully dressed and bearing a posy of daffodils, at the front door of McGowan House on Adams Street.
“Good morning, Alistair,” he said to the butler who answered the door. “Is Miss Winnie up and about yet?”
“Now, Master Sky, you know Mistress get up with the chickens. She in her parlor writing letters.” Alistair smiled, eyeing the flowers. “You take those right on up, you know how she like a present. How about I bring up a tray of coffee and snickerdoodles?”
“You speak my language, sir.” Schuyler headed up the stairs to the old lady’s lair. He’d meant the flowers for Joelle, but a peace offering for the dragon wouldn’t go amiss. He stopped halfway up and called over his shoulder, “Is anybody else with her?”
Alistair paused in the dining room doorway, dark eyes gleaming. “I think I saw Miss Joelle in the breakfast room. Did you hear what happened last night?”
He’d seen the whole thing. Watched it coming on like a freight train off the rails. He knew he’d upset Joelle by dragging her away from the billiards game. Generally he had more tact, but something about the idea of her flirting with Jefcoat had sent him into a spiral of insanity. Which had played right into the hands of the preacher. Apparently Reese had arranged that whole romantic opera scene with the manager, Volker.
He hoped that Joelle hadn’t committed herself past redemption. And he hoped that she would forgive him.
“I heard there was an opera in town,” he said, playing dumb.
“An opera and—but ain’t my place to talk out of turn. Best let her tell you.” The butler disappeared.
Schuyler continued lightly up the stairs. At the open doorway of Miss Winnie’s sitting room, he halted to straighten his vest.
“Come in here, boy, don’t stand there blocking the light.” The old lady’s crackly soprano made him laugh as he entered the room.
“Please forgive, ma’am. I just wanted to make sure I’m presentable.” Bowing beside the desk at which Winifred McGowan sat like a black-clad myna, one gnarled claw grasping an old-fashioned quill, he proffered the flowers. “These are for you.”
“Well, aren’t you the smooth young commodore?” Miss Winnie laid aside her pen and took the flowers. “What are you doing up and about so early?”
“If I hope to be as wealthy as Mr. Vanderbilt one day, I must be early to work.” Schuyler took a casual scan of the room. “I see the opera crowd have yet to rise.”
“We were all up late last night.” Miss Winnie gestured toward a chair. “Sit down and tell me why you failed to keep my granddaughter from betrothing herself to that young Ichabod Crane.”
“I’m afraid I might have accidentally precipitated it.” Schuyler wandered over to a bookcase stuffed with an assortment of souvenirs from the McGowans’ Asian and European travels and picked up a Chinese wood block puzzle. When the old lady was quiet for a long moment, he looked over his shoulder.
“I had thought . . .” After a moment, she waved a hand. “Never mind. I see I was mistaken. Tell me about the Negro school.”
Senility, he had heard, sometimes approached without warning, tak
ing even the sharpest of elderly minds. “Perhaps you’re thinking of someone else. Railroads and hotels are my milieu.”
“Yes, of course, but Joelle said you’ve helped her fund a school for freedmen. I must say I’m surprised, for I’d thought your background not particularly suited to educational pursuits.” She scowled. “And I wish you’d discouraged this nonsense. She’s had her head in the clouds for far too long.”
“Oh that. She asked if I had any ideas for her project, and the only thing I could think of was giving her some cash. I’d forgotten all about it.” He set down the wooden puzzle and picked up the Japanese kokeshi doll beside it.
“How altruistic of you,” the old lady said. “And convenient.”
He turned, ready to argue, but Alistair stood in the doorway, a very odd expression on his generally bland dark face.
The butler held a silver tray bearing a small, plain white envelope. “Miss Winnie, there’s a telegram . . .”
“Don’t just stand there, bring it to me,” Winnie said impatiently. “Where are the cookies?”
“It’s for Master Sky.” Alistair swung his gaze to Schuyler. “I’m sorry, sir. The morning paper just came too, so I didn’t know until—” He swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”
Something leaden dropped in Schuyler’s stomach. “A telegram for me? Here?” Very few people knew of this trip to Memphis, and those who did would assume he’d be receiving mail at the hotel.
“Yes, sir.” Alistair proffered the tray in the manner of one extending a deadly snake. “A messenger from the Peabody brought it.”
Schuyler took the envelope with a nod of thanks for Alistair. “With your permission, ma’am?” he said to his hostess.
“Of course.”
There was nothing to be afraid of, not until he’d read it. Still, his fingers trembled as he tried to open the envelope.
Joelle burst into the room. “Schuyler, wait, don’t open that!” She reached him and snatched the telegram from his hands.
“What are you doing?” He grabbed and missed.
Stuffing the paper into the front of her dress, she backed toward the door. “Come with me. I have to talk to you right now.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
She looked a little crazy, curly red hair escaping from her sleeping braid, a day dress buttoned rather haphazardly over what looked suspiciously like her night rail. Her face was flushed, blue eyes swollen and watery. “Please. Let’s go down to the parlor. Grandmama will excuse us, I’m sure.”
To his astonishment, the old lady nodded. “I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. Alistair, I’ll want my cookies and coffee, if you please.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Alistair bowed and exited, a bizarre mixture of relief and sorrow etched in the lines of his face.
Schuyler followed Joelle down the stairs to the ground-floor parlor. Had she ended the engagement? Her grandmother hadn’t indicated such. But why would she be so upset with him reading his own telegram? How would she know what was in it?
She pointed to her grandfather’s chair. “Sit down.”
He did so, noting that the whole room smelled of Dr. McGowan’s tobacco, which also smelled like his own father’s cigars. Schuyler had never seen Pa without a cigar either in his mouth or his hand. “Joelle, what is going—”
“I’ll tell you.” She dropped onto the hassock at his knees and looked up at him with eyes like rain-washed lapis lazuli. “You shouldn’t read this in the paper or in a telegram. I know Camilla meant well, but—” She took his numb, icy hands, which had been clutching the arms of the chair. Hers were warm, comforting. “Schuyler, something terrible has happened. You know your father was in Tuscaloosa this week, campaigning?”
He nodded, jerkily. “I was supposed to meet him there, but I had the chance to connect with General Forrest, so we decided—Pa agreed it would be a good idea. Is he hurt?” Ezekiel Beaumont was an indestructible force, like one of the trains he loved so much.
Joelle’s fingers tightened painfully around his. “Schuyler, this is so hard, but your father is d-dead. Someone shot him while he was making a speech from his hotel balcony.”
Trying to make sense of the words, he looked at her lips, noted their trembling tenderness. She had been his friend for his whole life, and yet how he loathed her in that moment. “That’s a lie. I know I’ve hurt you and teased you, Jo, but that is beyond the bounds of cruelty.”
“I wish I could make it not so.” Her eyes, naked in sorrow, held his.
“Give me the telegram.”
Slowly she reached into her dress and handed it over, crumpled and still warm from her skin. His hands shook so hard he couldn’t get it open, so Joelle took it again, opened the envelope, and handed him the thin sheet of paper containing two sentences from his sister Camilla.
SCHUYLER SO SORRY TO TELL YOU PAPA HAS BEEN ASSASSINATED. COME HOME.
“How did you know? How did Alistair know?” Schuyler looked as if he’d run into a wall, and Joelle couldn’t blame him.
“It was in the morning paper.” Schuyler’s father was a figure of statewide importance in Alabama, a leading candidate for governor.
“Wait. Alistair reads?”
He was grasping at nonsensical details.
She took the telegram from his unresisting hold, laid it on the side table, and took his hands again. “Grandpapa taught him,” she said gently, “which is why it’s so absurd for Grandmama to block my school. Never mind that. What do you want to do?”
He stared at her blankly. She’d never seen Schuyler cry, didn’t expect him to do so now. But there should have been some emotion. Some anger. Something. Schuyler loved his father, admired him above any other man on earth.
She remembered how she’d felt after her own father fell from the cupola at Daughtry House. She hadn’t seen it happen. In fact, she hadn’t even known for sure that her father was still alive. But Selah had been the one to hold her as she discovered the truth about their father’s insanity and villainy. And there had been a sort of cathartic grief that had gripped her during the days before and after the funeral, when the three sisters drew together for mutual solace.
There was no one here from Schuyler’s family to stand with him in the face of this horrific blow. His mother had died when he was born. His older brother, Jamie, was holding down the shipping business in Mobile. Camilla was in New Orleans with her family.
Joelle didn’t know what to do. If Gil were here, he’d pray or quote Scripture. Preachers were used to comforting the grieved. And when she married Gil, she’d be expected to do so as well. What a terrifying thought, comforting strangers.
But Schuyler wasn’t a stranger. She’d known him practically her whole life, and their grandmothers were cousins. Which made her all he had at the moment.
“Schuyler, I think we should pray.”
His lips tightened. “I have no desire—”
“I know you don’t, but the very time you feel least like it is when you need it the most.” That was what Selah said when they found out their mother had been brutalized and killed by Yankee marauders. And she had been right. The only way they got through that year had been laying their bruised souls at the feet of Jesus.
To her astonishment, Schuyler suddenly bent double over their joined hands, uttering a groan that sounded like rending cloth. “I can’t, Jo,” he choked. “You do it.” She felt a splash of warmth against her hands.
She laid her cheek against the top of his head, wishing with all her heart she could take the sorrow from him. “Oh, God,” she breathed. “Oh, God, I don’t know what to say. Please help us.” She lay there feeling him shudder, absorbing his tears.
Some time later he relaxed and turned his head. “I don’t mean to be such a baby.” His voice was low, gravelly. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“How could you think—”
“I don’t really. I’m just so . . .” He sat up, dragging a sleeve across his face. “You asked me what I want to do. I don’
t know. I’m empty.” He looked at her. “But I can’t just sit here. Do I go for his body? Will somebody send him home?”
“I don’t know.” She felt helpless. “I wish Levi was here. He’d know what to do.”
“So would Jamie. I’ve always been the youngest in the family. Somebody else makes the big decisions.” He picked up the telegram and read it again. “Assassinated. Camilla wants me to come home. Where’s the newspaper? I need all the details.”
Joelle could almost feel her heart pumping pain through her body, and Schuyler’s must be beyond comprehension. But at least he seemed rational. She got up to retrieve the newspaper from the breakfast room, where she’d been eating eggs and toast when Alistair handed it to her. She gave it to Schuyler, folded back with the pertinent article on the front page center. The headline was in one-inch type: “Candidate for Alabama Governor Shot By Unknown Assailant.”
Schuyler’s hands were steady now as he read. His thumb brushed across the photograph of his father accompanying the article. At last he looked up at Joelle. “Why? It doesn’t make any sense. Pa is about as moderate as they come. Everybody likes him.”
“Someone didn’t.” Joelle spoke the obvious. “Who hates him this much, Sky? Is there something your father espoused politically that made him a target of a person so mad?”
He shook his head, stubborn as usual. “Only a crazy person would do this, that’s certain, and who can predict what they’ll do?”
She had to be very careful here. Females weren’t supposed to pay attention to politics, at least publicly. Everyone knew women influenced the voting practices of their men, but few were so bold or so unladylike as to express opinions on national- or even state-level topics. “What about railroad subsidies? It makes sense that Mr. Zeke would be in favor of them, considering your family’s business interests. But there are a lot of folks radically opposed to government intervention in the transportation industry.”
Schuyler would normally have given her one of his patented raised-eyebrow smirks, but understandably his sense of humor had abandoned him. “My father is not an opportunist. He is rather an advocate of Lockean free trade economics.”