A Reluctant Belle

by Beth White

  “Ha, ha.” Aurora snapped her fingers, indicating that Joelle should come immediately. It was a habit she’d developed as a very small child, reserved for the rare times when big golden brown eyes and dimples failed to get her her way.

  Joelle sighed and sidled around the crates. Resistance was pointless. Gil followed like a puppy trailing a side of bacon.

  “What do you think of this?” Aurora had selected a bolt of silk taffeta in a rich sable brown with coppery satin and grosgrain stripes. She lifted it next to her cheek and petted its folds as if it were alive. “With frogged lace at the sleeves and in the—”she glanced at Gil, then shrugged—“bosom?”

  “I don’t know why you’re asking me,” Joelle said. “You know it would look nice on you. It’s the same color as your hair.”

  “Not on me! It’s for you!” Aurora walked over and draped the cloth over Joelle’s shoulder. “Look, Gil. Isn’t this beautiful?”

  His gaze locked on Joelle’s face. “It sure is.”

  Joelle rolled her eyes. “How much does it cost?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I told you Grandmama—”

  “Grandmama is not buying my clothes. How much?”

  “Eighty-nine cents a yard,” Aurora mumbled.

  Joelle sucked in a breath. That would absorb most of what she’d just put into her purse. On the other hand, she would be traveling to Mobile tomorrow, and she could write something while she was on the train, to earn its replacement. Too bad she couldn’t wear the new dress to the funeral, but even Charmion, the hotel seamstress, wouldn’t have time to construct a new garment overnight. “All right,” she said recklessly, “figure out how much yardage we need, and I’ll pay for it.”

  Aurora blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes. Hurry before I change my mind.”

  While Aurora scrabbled in her reticule for a notebook and pencil, Joelle remembered her second purpose for this trip to town—coaxing her fiancé to support a Negro politician. She smiled at Gil. He was already in a stupor of whatever substituted for lust in a Methodist preacher, so it shouldn’t be that difficult.

  She linked her fingers loosely at her waist. “Gil, how well do you know Reverend Boykin of the Methodist Episcopal Church?”

  “Who?”

  “The Negro Methodist pastor. The church is over in Shake Rag.”

  “I suppose I’ve seen him a time or two. I’m not sure I’d be able to pick him out of a crowd. Why?”

  That did not sound promising. “I’ll have to introduce you. He’s a very nice man.”

  “How do you—Oh. Is he one of those colored men who have been coming to you for lessons?”

  She didn’t care for his dismissive tone. “As a matter of fact, he already knew how to read. But I’ve been loaning him some of Papa’s books on history and theology. I was thinking he would make a fine person to represent our district in the state legislature in the next election.”

  If she had just announced that she thought bumblebees might make a perfect course for dinner, he couldn’t have looked more revolted. “My dear, you shouldn’t bother your head about such matters. You can’t even—”

  “If one more person reminds me that I can’t vote, I may jump in front of a train. That may technically be true, but it doesn’t mean I have no opinion on decisions affecting my government.”

  Gil gulped, apparently realizing that he had stepped wrong. “Your, er, concern is admirable. But perhaps you should look beyond your little world of local charity when championing candidates for such important offices. I’m sure Reverend Boykin is a fine man, but I hardly think he could hold his own with college-educated white businessmen.”

  She stared at him for a moment. Gil had a spot of pride with respect to education. He had worked his way through Northwestern University near Chicago, then struggled through its sister institution, Garrett Biblical Institute, before returning to Tupelo. A college diploma was rare in rural Mississippi, let alone a postgraduate degree. However, she told herself, if some enterprising soul cobbled together the mountain of books Joelle had read, along with the reams of pages of professionally edited manuscripts she had produced over the past five years, he would probably come up with at least three PhDs in as many subjects.

  Pride could only take one so far.

  “I won’t argue with you, Gil,” she said sweetly, “but it would mean a lot to me if you’d come by the schoolroom sometime to meet Reverend Boykin. I told him what a generous man you are, and I’d hate to disappoint him.”

  Gil gave her a troubled look. “I don’t know if you know this—I don’t see how you would, since you can’t be a deacon—but the Methodist church is about to split off the colored churches into their own denomination. It might not be a good idea to cloud the issue.” He paused, as if arriving at some monumental concession. “But I’ll think about it.”

  Joelle supposed she would have to be satisfied, for the moment at least. But if Gil thought he’d placated her into giving up on her promise to Shug, he’d tangled with the wrong Southern belle. She looked around and found Aurora haggling with Mr. Whitmore, who clearly didn’t stand a chance of making a profit on the brown taffeta. Wasn’t there something she had come in here to tell her?

  Oh yes! Selah.

  “Thank you, Gil,” she said with a smile. “That’s very generous of you.” Giving Aurora’s finger-snap tactic a whirl, she headed for the front counter.

  “Quit asking me if I’m all right.” On the way back to the Tavern from the coroner’s office, Schuyler had done his best to hide his shaken feelings from Levi. The sun had fallen behind the buildings lining the street, casting welcome late-afternoon shadows. Anxious to reach the end of this miserable day, he walked faster. “I’m fine.”

  Judging by Levi’s skeptical look, he was a terrible actor. “I can’t imagine what would be going through my head if that was my father back there on that table,” Levi said. “There’s nothing good about this situation, except for the fact that you had him this long, to teach you right and wrong and to give you something to live for. You and I have more than a lot of men our age.”

  Schuyler thought about that for a silent moment. It was true. The male population of both North and South had been decimated by violence, families torn apart, churches destroyed, children left fatherless and adrift. Maddening that the sort of disruption that had killed his father kept the bitterness alive rather than bringing it to an end. It was so hard to think beyond the visceral need to find the man who had killed his father, to eliminate him.

  He looked at Levi, demonstrably a good man, one whose principles seemed to moor him in every decision he made. Yet he was young, barely five years Schuyler’s senior. “You did have a lot to live for. Why did you sign on for service? Was it patriotism? Hatred of slavery? Sheer adventurism?”

  Levi hesitated. “My family were immigrants who worked hard, grateful to be in a nation where you could make your own way. Nobody I knew considered the idea of owning another human being as something necessary or admirable. I heard Lincoln speak once, when I was young. He was funny and awkward and brilliant, and my father admired him—so I did too. Then as I got older, I had a teacher who helped me get admitted to West Point. I met a lot of Southern boys there. Debates were . . . interesting.” Levi grinned, shaking his head.

  “I can imagine.”

  “We were brothers in arms. But you know, upbringing matters. When hostilities broke out into war, we each had to make a choice as to where we stood.” Levi sighed. “I stood on the side of union in every sense of the word.”

  “I was only fourteen at the time. I just wanted to take a gun and go Yankee hunting. When my pa wouldn’t let me, I did the next available thing and volunteered to drown myself.”

  Levi laughed, then saw he wasn’t joking. “What do you mean?”

  “Early in the war, my father financed the engineering and construction of an underwater boat. Jamie nearly died in one of its test runs in Mobile Bay. They managed to raise it and move it to Char
leston, where they repaired it. Because I was familiar with it—also because I was slightly war-crazed and young enough to think I was immortal—I volunteered to crew the infernal thing.” Schuyler paused, astonished all over again that he had lived to tell this insane tale. “At the last minute, I came down with a kidney stone and couldn’t go. The fish boat torpedoed a Union gunboat, but the entire crew blew up with it.”

  “That sounds like the plot of a penny novel.”

  “It’s true, though not very heroic on my part.” Schuyler sighed. “To make up for it, I joined my brother in blockade running. But after Camilla turned Union and escaped to New Orleans, none of us had much heart for the fight anymore. When Farragut took Mobile, we knew it was over. I think my father was secretly relieved.”

  “Is that when you started college?”

  “Yes. I finally matriculated with a degree in engineering.” By this time they had reached the front porch of the tavern. Schuyler stopped, hands in the pockets of his trousers. He didn’t want to go to his room and brood, but he was tired of talking about himself. “The coroner won’t release Pa’s body until tomorrow morning. Why don’t we split up and talk to some of the witnesses the sheriff mentioned?”

  Levi nodded. “I was about to suggest that.”

  It occurred to Schuyler that he could barely distinguish Levi’s features in the long evening shadows, and his friend had had a long, wearing day. “Go ahead and eat, if you want. I’m not hungry. I’ll see you in the morning at breakfast.”

  Levi whacked him on the shoulder. “Fine, but don’t starve yourself. The next few days are going to be taxing.”

  Schuyler didn’t doubt that. He almost welcomed the distraction of traveling back to Mobile and blending into the chaos of family. He had only twelve or so more hours to get through before daylight.

  A major conflict ensued over who was going to take the new carriage back to Tupelo to pick up Selah at the station. In the end, they all went, crowding in like pioneers in a Conestoga wagon. Wyatt handled the horses, allowing the three sisters and ThomasAnne to jabber all the way home, Selah’s trunk thrown on top, rattling with every bump in the dark road.

  When they got inside the manager’s cottage, recently renovated to accommodate the whole family, Joelle pushed Selah into the corner rocker in the little kitchen, then settled on the hassock at her sister’s feet. ThomasAnne puttered about collecting tea things, while Aurora fetched cookies from the larder.

  Kissing Selah on the cheek, Wyatt said, “Welcome home and good night,” then retired to his room to study for a Latin test. “Doc’s a bear about this stuff,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing.

  “He’s doing well, isn’t he?” Selah touched her cheek.

  Earlier in the year, Selah had more or less rescued the teenager after a train wreck—the same one in which she’d met Levi. Fostering him had been a good thing for all concerned. Wyatt worked hard, played hard, and studied hard. He had every intention of becoming a physician like his hero, Dr. Kidd, thereby contributing to the financial well-being of the family. He might be a Priester in name, but he considered himself a Daughtry of the heart.

  “He’s a good boy,” ThomasAnne agreed, “if we could just convince him to make up his bed.”

  “I’ve missed him.” Selah squeezed Joelle’s fingers. “I’ve missed you all.”

  “You look tired,” Joelle said. “We’ll let you go to bed, and we can talk in the morning.”

  “I’m not sleepy, though it has been a long day.” Selah stretched her neck to one side and then the other. “The leg from Meridian to Tupelo is the longest, especially without Levi.”

  Joelle stared at her sister, considering a range of awkward, nosy questions she wanted to ask.

  What is it like to live with a man?

  Are you ever coming back to Daughtry House to live?

  Do you still feel like a Daughtry?

  Are you sorry you lost your independence?

  Are you less lonely?

  “Did they tell you Gil asked me to marry him?” she blurted.

  Selah laughed. “Again? How many times does that make?”

  “The last, I presume,” Joelle said glumly. “I said yes.”

  Selah’s dark eyes opened wide. “Oh, Joelle. You didn’t.”

  “She’s blaming it on Schuyler.” Aurora plunked a plate of cookies on the table. “They were arguing over a billiards game, and Gil caught her in a weak moment.”

  Selah started to giggle. “That’s the—the funniest—” She burst into full-scale laughter.

  Joelle had to grin. “It is not funny!”

  But they were all laughing, bent double with pent-up nostalgia and relief in being together in one room, with mutual recognition that life moved on and changed, and they could never go back to days of dolls and lemonade and swimming in the pool across the road.

  Finally Selah dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “Seriously though. You’re not going through with it, are you?” She took a cup of tea from ThomasAnne, sipped it, and closed her eyes in pleasure. “Just tell him you made a mistake.”

  “Selah, I could never jilt him. Besides, think of the good I can do as the preacher’s wife. I could have a lot of influence.” Saying it out loud was a way of reassuring herself she’d not actually done something monumentally stupid. “I promised.”

  “A promise is important,” ThomasAnne said, passing around the plate of cookies. She sat down at the table with her tea.

  “Of course it is.” Selah’s brown eyes were troubled. “All that sounds noble, Jo, but this is a decision that will affect the rest of your life. Just think carefully before you commit yourself.”

  “I already did.” Joelle’s head ached from thinking. “Which reminds me, I promised Schuyler I’d go to Mobile for his father’s funeral.”

  “Remember that telegram you gave me at the station? Levi decided to go to Mobile too, and said I should come down with you. The burial will be on Friday, so we’ll have to travel tomorrow.” Selah turned to Aurora and ThomasAnne, sitting together at the table. “Pete, ThomasAnne, I hate to abandon y’all so quickly, but I feel like I should be with Camilla and her family. We all know how hard this is.”

  Just six weeks ago, they’d buried their own father, a cathartic end to a traumatic series of events, most of them engendered by Jonathan Daughtry’s descent into madness. It had indeed been a difficult spring, and Joelle was glad it was over. “Schuyler suggested putting off the opening of the hotel,” she said. “That might not be a bad idea.”

  Aurora stuck out her dimpled chin. “But we’ve had reservations coming in. Horatia’s been ordering food and other supplies. Mose has the grounds and general operations under control. Charmion and Nathan are a big help. We can take it on, can’t we, ThomasAnne?”

  ThomasAnne clutched her tea cup, large gray eyes wide. “Oh dear, I don’t know. I’ve just had an awful feeling something bad is going to happen.”

  Aurora made a rude noise. “You always have a feeling something bad is going to happen. It will be fine.”

  “We’ll get back as quickly as we can,” Joelle said as a compromise between the Eternal Pessimist and the Princess of Rainbows, as Schuyler liked to call ThomasAnne and Aurora. “But I do have a suggestion. Perhaps we could join hands and pray before we go to bed. Then we’d all feel better about this situation.”

  With Selah holding one hand and ThomasAnne’s fragile grasp in the other, Joelle felt her clenched stomach relax. She bowed her head and let out a breath. “Dear God, we thank you for your presence amongst us . . .”

  nine

  BEAUMONT HOUSE, MOBILE, ALABAMA, had been Schuyler’s home since the day he was born. But walking up the front steps with Levi, he felt as if he were entering some strange, crowded museum—a place that he’d visited before, but which moldered, old and faintly crumbly with disuse. His grandmother, fondly known as Lady, had been dead for two years, and now with Pa gone . . .

  But that was nonsense, since Jamie and hi
s family still lived here. Schuyler spotted a wooden train set under the white swing at the far end of the front porch. His heart pricked a little at the thought of his three-year-old nephew, Pierce. He hadn’t seen the little fellow since Christmas, when the family had been together here. It was the last time he’d seen his father as well.

  “What a grand old house!” Levi stopped to admire the wide front door with its brass lion’s head knocker, flanked by a row of long windows open to the spring breeze. “Reminds me just a bit of Daughtry House.”

  “Greek Revival was popular before the war.” Schuyler opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Anybody home?”

  Light footsteps from the breezeway brought his sister-in-law, Bronwyn, into the foyer. Her face lit. “Sky! Oh, you’re here! Jamie will be so glad!” She flung herself at him.

  “Of course I’m here. I’ve brought Pa’s body home.” He hugged Bron fiercely, then set her back, searching her gentle face. Grief still shadowed her fine hazel eyes. “I’m so sorry, I know how much you loved him.”

  She blinked and sniffed. “It’s going to be so strange without him hollering for Pierce the minute he walks in the door. And stuffing him full of peppermint. And keeping him out from under my feet!” She shook her head. “Pierce is like a lost puppy without his Papa-Z. He keeps asking when he’s coming home and won’t believe us when we tell him—” Her voice broke as she shook her head.

  Helpless, Schuyler watched Bron dab at her eyes. Finally he put a hand on her shoulder and turned to Levi, waiting quietly by the door. “Bronwyn, I want you to meet my good friend, Levi Riggins. He’s Selah’s—”

  “Levi! Oh, I feel as if I already know you! Camilla has mentioned you in her letters.” Bron stuffed her handkerchief into her sleeve and offered a hand to Levi. “Welcome to Mobile. I’m sorry it’s under such sad circumstances, but . . .” She looked around, as if she’d just remembered where she was. “Please forgive the disarray. We’ve had so many visitors since that awful . . . But y’all come on in, sit down, and I’ll find us something to eat.”