by Beth White
“He’s fine. I’m fine.” She picked up a hot pad and took the kettle off the stove. “Here. I’ll rinse.”
You chose another man. Bang. Bang. Bang.
eleven
“I STILL THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED to go to church with your family,” Levi said, giving Schuyler that concerned look that was beginning to rub his nerves raw.
On Saturday evening, the two of them sat at the same table they’d shared on Wednesday, each with a pint of ale and a plate of beef with mashed potatoes and tomato gravy.
“Pa wouldn’t want me sitting around doing nothing, feeling sorry for myself.” Schuyler shoveled beef into his mouth, though he was no more hungry now than he’d been for the last two days. Still, common sense told him he needed to eat. His breeches were starting to get loose.
“Not so much for you, as for your sister and brother. Did you see the way Camilla looked when you came downstairs with your bag this morning?”
He hadn’t, because he’d been looking at Joelle—though he hoped he’d kept her from knowing that. He picked up his tankard. “Milla’s used to me coming and going without warning.” Levi was silent for so long that Schuyler thunked the tankard on the table hard. “What is it, Riggins? I know you want to lecture me about something.”
“It’s not my place to ‘lecture’ you, brother, but I’m worried that you’ve gotten . . . unmoored by losing your father this way. You know I admire your willingness to take on this new role. I’ve done it, and I know how hard it is. You won’t be able to relax for one minute—in fact, you’ll probably not sleep soundly until this thing is over. And who knows how long it will take.”
Schuyler ate another bite. “I’m not afraid of it. Like you said, I’ve played the fool for years, so this is just one more monkey in the circus.”
“All right. I know you can do this. I just wanted to say that you can always come to me. In fact, I’ll be monitoring you as closely as I can without giving you away.”
“That’s fine. I expected that.”
“One more thing.” Levi hesitated.
“Riggins, you’re worse than my grandmother used to be.”
“From what I’ve heard, your grandmother was the original spymaster, so I’ll take that as a compliment. What’s going on between you and Joelle? Last night she came back looking like she’d eaten glass.”
Schuyler looked away. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Which I made very clear to her.”
“Oh. I have to say, I’m surprised. I’d thought you might fight for her.”
“What?” Schuyler jerked his gaze back to Levi and found his friend’s expression perplexed. “She’s betrothed. I wouldn’t betray that commitment. Besides, the charade I’m fixing to play . . . she shouldn’t be anywhere near those people. Riggins, you told me not to tell her.”
Levi looked sheepish. “I didn’t think you’d take me seriously.”
“Well, I did. Because you’re right. She blurts out things without thinking, and I can’t take the risk.” He shook his head. “I have to keep her at arm’s length until all this is over. By then . . . she’ll be a married woman.” And there was a good chance he’d be dead. Time to change the subject. “You never did clarify your and Selah’s plans. The honeymoon’s over. Are you going to stay in New Orleans, launch the new Pinkerton office? Or quit the agency and stay in Tupelo?”
“As I told you, for now I’m here on assignment. That’s all I’m at liberty to say. Selah and I discussed it and decided she’ll stay in Tupelo. I’d like to travel with you, as your attorney—which makes sense, as we’re established as partners in the hotel business.”
A heavy weight of anxiety—which he hadn’t realized had been clamped upon his chest—dropped away at the thought of Levi’s support. For the first time in days, he smiled. “Just in time to escape mosquito season. Smart man.”
Levi’s answering smile was wry. “If I remember correctly from my days in Mississippi during the war, you folks grow them the size of small birds as well.”
Schuyler laughed. “Fair enough. But at least you’ll be able to kiss your wife occasionally.”
“I’d brave any number of mosquitoes for that,” Levi said with a grin. He pulled his notebook and pencil from his pocket. “I’ve been making some notes of where we might start your campaign. Look here . . .”
Pushing away the thought of a certain pair of bowed red lips he wouldn’t mind kissing, Schuyler focused on the serious nature of what he had to do. He’d stand a much better chance of staying alive.
“Everyone turn over in your hymnal to hymn ninety-nine,” Gil instructed the congregation. “We’re going to sing of repentance. And isn’t it interesting, how the number ninety-nine refers to those the Savior would leave behind whilst he goes looking for the one lost lamb? Who repented, I’m sure.”
Joelle obediently flipped pages to the correct hymn, though she wished Gil would be more careful of his syntax. Imagining herself lying down on her open hymnal and rolling over made her want to giggle.
She also wished he would let someone else lead the singing.
Ah well, Mr. Wesley had written some beautiful words, and she could enjoy singing them. “Since by thy light myself I see naked, and poor, and void of thee, thy eyes must all my thoughts survey . . .”
How uncomfortable to imagine God poking around in her rebellious mind.
Truthfully, she would have preferred to stay home from church and avoid the effort of smiling and making conversation, of pretending to be pious. But one couldn’t wallow in misery for the rest of one’s life. Well—she could, she supposed. But misery, as the saying went, loved company, and there was no one to whom she could confide her melancholy conviction that she had stepped off in the wrong direction.
Selah had tried to get her to talk, all the way home from Mobile yesterday, but Joelle refused to dump her puny troubles on her sister, who was clearly hiding her own sadness at leaving her husband at the station. So Joelle managed to turn the conversation to the oddities of life in New Orleans and the pleasure of living in the same city with her dearest friend. If Selah noticed that Joelle winced at the mention of Camilla’s younger brother, she was kind enough not to mention it.
She made herself focus on the hymnal she shared with ThomasAnne—the only person in the pew tall enough to jointly hold a book with Joelle the Giantess.
“‘Thou know’st the baseness of my mind,’” she sang, marveling at the verse’s piercing truth, “‘wayward, and impotent, and blind; thou know’st how unsubdued my will, averse from good and prone to ill; thou know’st how wide my passions rove, nor checked by fear, nor charmed by love!’” She handed the book to ThomasAnne and fumbled for her handkerchief. This was just silly. Music always made her happy.
She would go home and play the piano all afternoon. Or write a story, one of those melodramatic, romantic tales about a girl who comes upon a prince in the woods, a prince who recognizes her innate royalty and sweeps her away to life in a castle. A prince who never argued or teased, who played the lute and fed her sweetmeats, and rode her about on horseback.
Except that would be dull as dishwater, and she would end up weighing two hundred pounds, and where would she put her piano?
She must have laughed aloud as the hymn ended, for ThomasAnne gave her a very odd look.
“Are you all right, honey-pie?” her cousin asked as they sat down. “Selah told Aurora to let you be, but if you want to go home—”
“Of course not.” Joelle hastily folded her handkerchief. “I want to hear the message.” Before church, she had reminded Gil about speaking for Reverend Boykin, and he’d promised that he was still thinking about it.
Gil stood behind the lectern in his severe black suit. His string tie was black, his vest was black, his thick, straight hair was black. When he officiated over funerals, this habitual attire was entirely appropriate. But on a bright May morning with sunlight streaming through the new church building’s tall, narrow windows, lighting the women’s pale spring dres
ses and hats, he looked like a raven cawing over a field of daisies. In ten or twenty years, he would undoubtedly be a handsome man—when he had had time to grow into his nose.
She fixed her eyes on his face, waiting for him to speak. He looked at her and smiled. At least he had good teeth.
“Reverend Boykin,” she mouthed at him.
His brow furrowed. “What?” he mouthed back.
“Reverend Boykin,” she repeated soundlessly.
He scratched his head and took his gaze across his flock, most of whom were old enough to be his parents or grandparents. Joelle and her family were the only young people in the congregation. “I think,” Gil said, “a certain young lady wants me to mention something.”
She beamed at him to encourage him. Reverend Boykin.
He smiled back at her. “This is the first opportunity I’ve had to publicly announce that your pastor has recently become betrothed. Before the year is out, Miss Joelle Daughtry will become Mrs. Gilbert Reese!”
Joelle suffered through the delighted “Ahs” that sighed through the sanctuary, endured the looks of curiosity and Mrs. Whitmore loudly whispering, “It’s about time!” But when Gil placidly launched into his sermon on God’s merciful redemption of those who least deserved it, without the slightest recognition of her one request, red waves of outrage blocked her hearing. She sat quivering with the restraint it took not to launch herself at the altar.
He said he would think about it. What would it hurt to say one kind word about a fellow minister, to aid him in pursuit of an office that would help untold numbers of worthy, formerly mistreated individuals gain a voice in their government? He knew it would make her happy and proud—when she had done her best to spare his feelings, to the point of giving up her own independence and marrying an oblivious, selfish . . .
Man. Well, what did she expect? She’d met very few men who attained anything like the hero status of the fairy-tale princes of her imagination. As far as she was concerned, even her own father had been the epitome of self-centeredness, no matter how Selah tried to explain away his crimes.
Well, Levi might perhaps have several redeeming qualities, but he was clearly an anomaly.
All right. So Gil was a man, the one she was doomed to spend her life with—no better, no worse than any of the rest of them. She’d best set about helping him become someone she could live with.
She stewed and fumed throughout the rest of the sermon, hearing little that she could absorb into her Christian walk. But by the time it was over, she knew what she was going to do.
After the last “amen,” the women swarmed her. All she wanted to do was crawl under the porch. Instead, she found her smile and answered randomly.
“Thank you. Yes, I was surprised when it happened. I don’t know. Maybe this summer? I suppose we’ll live in the parsonage. I haven’t seen it yet. Wait a minute. What do you mean, the bishop could move us?” She stared blankly at Mrs. Whitmore, who had asked what she would do if Gil were moved away from Tupelo.
“Well, sugar, you realize Methodist preachers are subject to the whim of the appointment cabinet. I just wondered how you would manage that hotel”—a word spat out with the same disgust as if the woman had said brothel—“when you’re living in another town, or even another state.” Mrs. Whitmore clasped her gloved fingers together at her thick waist, a sympathetic smile on her inversely proportionate thin lips. The eyes were snake dead.
“I—of course I knew that. We haven’t had time to discuss management of the hotel—”
“Mrs. Whitmore, my wife will have nothing to do with managing a hotel,” Gil said from behind her. “You can rest assured, she will be quite busy with the duties of church and home.”
Joelle looked up at him, speechless. Of course, she was speechless most of the time, but in this case a series of realizations crashed down upon her. This was why she’d deflected Gil’s marriage proposals for an entire year (besides the fact that she found him about as amusing as a stack of bookkeeping ledgers). She would literally have no right to determine where she lived, when she moved, or how she would spend her time. The man who stood behind her would not only protect her—he would own her. In the deepest, most secret pages of her journal, she had admitted to herself the relief she’d felt at her father’s death. In a few short weeks she would voluntarily place her hands into manacles chaining her to another man.
A kinder man who seemed to genuinely admire her, but nonetheless a man who held the legal authority (and apparently no aversion) to yank her willy-nilly into another state.
It was at that moment that all common sense, patience, and feminine guile deserted her. She turned, smiled up at her intended, and said, “Gil, dear, I believe you forgot to mention one of my chief duties, which I shall certainly carry with me into marriage, and that is charitable missionary work.” She turned to Mrs. Whitmore, which involved bending her head to focus on the pasty face. Should she stoop and chuck the woman under her chin? Too much, perhaps. “Reverend Reese and I have been discussing for some time our concern over our recently freed neighbors’ well-being. After all, the Bible instructs us to ‘Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.’ So many of them are unable to find employment—and when they do, they are often cheated because of the inability to read and reconcile labor and merchandise contracts. I’ve tried to remedy that as best I can by educating my own employees. However, I feel that there is much that can be done at the local, state, and federal levels to give freedmen a chance to improve their lot in life.”
“Joelle.” Gil was tapping on her shoulder.
“Specifically,” she plowed on, ignoring him, “we must encourage our brothers of color to participate in government so that decisions which affect them will take them into the next century, fully prepared to flourish—”
“Miss Daughtry—”
“—and with that end in mind, Gil and I would like to encourage each of you ladies to exert your influence with your husbands, who will be voting in the upcoming elections. The pastor of our sister church on the other side of town is planning to run for the Mississippi state legislature, and we both think he would make a fine representative for our district. Don’t you—”
“Joelle!” Gil fairly roared.
“—agree with me?” she finished in a rush, then stood there with her back to her betrothed, shaking with victory and righteous indignation. She had said it, and no one could unsay it. She looked around at the scandalized faces of the women around her. Most of them had known her since she was a baby. They knew she was the quiet one, the odd one, the one prone to migraines. Some people thought she had a stammer because she so rarely opened her mouth in public. Then she looked past the inner circle of neighbors and found her sisters and ThomasAnne, regarding her with utter astonishment. It was as if a parakeet had turned into a phoenix, burst into flames, and proceeded to burn down its cage, the room, and the entire building.
After fifteen seconds of silence, which seemed to Joelle to last a year, she dragged in a breath. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. “Who knows—maybe we’ll eventually get the right to vote ourselves.”
twelve
MONDAY MORNING SCHUYLER AND LEVI met downstairs for a breakfast of fried eggs, slabs of bacon, and crusty bread, all washed down by the Tavern’s ubiquitous bitter coffee. They’d gone to church together yesterday, met a few people, asked some questions, and then spent the afternoon resting and planning a strategy for the coming week.
Turned out it was a good thing they did. Just as Schuyler was pushing away his plate, full as the proverbial tick, a snow-haired gentleman, sporting a matching venerable mustache, rolled through the front door.
“Morning, Judge Teague!” called out a couple of diners. They wandered over to shake hands, slap the judge’s back, and linger for a few moments’ conversation. But most of the patrons turned their backs and pretended not to notice his entrance.
Interesting. Schuyler took himself to the bar, according t
o previous plan, and pretended to nurse a pint of ale. Levi waited until the judge was alone, then approached him.
Schuyler had spent three years of college watching his fraternity mates imbibe copious amounts of alcohol, then try to carry on a conversation. By graduation, he had become quite adept at mimicking the sloshy diction and convoluted syntax of the chronic drunkard while maintaining a sober head, a talent which had come in handy on more than one occasion.
Remembering Levi’s favorite Pinkerton quote, that the human mind could not maintain a secret, he propped his elbows on the bar. “Pssst.” He beckoned the bartender over. “Who’s the gent with the mustache?”
The bartender’s lip curled. “That’s the Honorable S. Marmaduke Teague, circuit court judge for Tuscaloosa County.”
Schuyler looked over his shoulder at Levi hobnobbing with the judge. “Huh. Seems to be getting along well with my Yankee friend.”
“Not surprised. Teague was federally appointed under Reconstruction laws. Liberal.” The disdain coating that last word told Schuyler all he needed to know about the barkeep’s opinion.
Schuyler attempted to look both wise and soused. “The Yank is my lawyer. He’s a liberal too.”
“This county’s crawling with scalawags and carpetbaggers.” The barkeep leaned in, the classic gossip. “You heard about that dustup last week? Right outside my door.”
His father’s murder a “dustup”? Schuyler wanted to leap over the bar and throttle the man. He grinned instead. “I heard it was one of those scalawags you mentioned, got himself put six feet under by a stray bullet.”
Barkeep nodded. “A politician from Mobile. Mayor Samuel’s idea was to get federal troops down here to control the Klan. But he just wound up stirring up more trouble.” He made a disgusted noise and called Ezekiel Beaumont an ugly name related to his relationship with Negroes.
Schuyler decided he’d better turn the conversation a bit, or he would not be responsible for the state of the barkeep’s nose. He hiccuped. “Yessir, my sentiments ezzackly. Can’t understand why rich white men wanna waste time with uppity coloreds like that preacher and the militiaman that was up on the balcony with him. Whoever did the shootin’ didn’t aim too good!”