Every Perfect Gift

by Dorothy Love

  Despite the intervening years, the memories of that day overtook him with such force that he couldn’t speak. He balled his fists and swallowed hard until his composure returned.

  “Go on, Ethan.” Sophie’s calm gaze found his. She folded her hands and waited, her green eyes bright with unshed tears.

  “That morning started out like any other. The overseer, Jonas Carpenter, came to the door to tell Mother that several of the slaves were too sick to work. One was about to deliver a child. Mother gathered her things and went down to the quarters to tend to them. Father finished reading his paper and retired to his study to work on his account books. Julian and I went fishing, but nothing was biting. After a while we got bored. He said, ‘I’ll race you home,’ and took off down the road.

  “I tried to catch him, but he was older and faster, and I lost sight of him. I’d heard him talk about a shortcut through some woods behind the slave cemetery. Mother had told me to stay away from there, but that day I decided to try it. Julian had been teasing me all morning about not being able to keep up with him, and I figured the shortcut might put me back home ahead of him.

  “Later I asked myself a million times why. Why that day of all days did I make that choice? If only I had taken the road, I wouldn’t have been delayed by the two Yankee soldiers who appeared out of nowhere. They stopped me and asked all kinds of questions that scared me half to death. Then they finally got tired of terrorizing me and told me to get on home. When I got to the yard, the slaves had left the fields and were running in every direction. Yankees were helping them load wagons with things from the house—my mother’s settee, the painting my father kept above the fireplace in his library, even the wooden rocking horse that my mother still kept in the nursery. I wondered where the overseer was, where my father was, why he wasn’t making any attempt to stop them.

  “I ran inside, calling for my parents. I looked into every room downstairs and couldn’t find them. Then I went up to their bedrooms, and—”

  Sophie’s face paled. She slowly shook her head. “No.”

  Ethan swallowed the burn of tears in his throat. “Father was lying in the hallway, facedown. Mother was in her room, partially hidden behind the curtains. Her head was turned to the wall, and I could see blood flowing from a wound in her chest. I screamed. Then Julian stepped out of the shadows, holding a knife.

  “He said, ‘I didn’t do it.’ He dropped the knife and ran. And that was the last time I saw him until this summer when he showed up at Blue Smoke.”

  “No wonder you were so shocked.” Sophie shifted in her chair. “I know it looks as if he’s guilty, but can you blame him for running away? He’d have been lynched on the spot—or given a kangaroo trial and then lynched. Even if he is innocent, he did the only thing he could have done to save his own life.”

  Ethan’s shoulders slumped. “I know that now. But why come back after all this time, when it’s too late?”

  “It’s never too late for reconciliation. For forgiveness. Julian wants you to know the truth for your sake as much as for his.” She glanced at Julian. “If he—”

  Shouting erupted in the street, stopping her words. Ethan opened the curtain and peered out onto a chaotic scene. People were running toward the opposite end of the road, voices raised in fear. Wagons rattled along the street. A whistle blew.

  “What the devil?” Ethan glanced at his brother. Julian was still in a deep sleep. He grabbed Sophie’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  At the front entrance to the infirmary, they collided with a red-faced and breathless Caleb Stanhope.

  “Sophie!” he yelled. “Come on. The Gazette is on fire.”

  Sophie lifted her skirts and sprinted down the road, dodging knots of curious onlookers. Men carrying buckets and shovels elbowed her aside and rushed toward the fire. She reached the main street ahead of Ethan and pushed through the growing crowd.

  Black smoke rolled from the roof. Flames snaked along the sides of the Gazette building and curled toward the windows. Heat waves shimmered along the boardwalk. Someone had organized a bucket brigade stretching from the Gazette to Mr. Tanner’s livery on the opposite side, bringing water from the horses’ troughs to douse the fire.

  A water wagon from the railway station rattled up the street. Ethan climbed up. He and Sheriff McCracken dipped buckets into the big water barrels and tossed them onto the flames while Caleb and Robbie shoveled dirt onto the smoldering boardwalk.

  Sophie sank to her knees and let the tears come. So many months of work and effort, gone. Any chance of paying Wyatt and Ada back, of making the Gazette into the kind of paper she could be proud of, gone. Maybe she deserved it. Maybe she’d been too sure of herself. Maybe . . .

  She wept for Ethan, for his lost innocence and for his long, lonely grief. Her tears flowed for Julian too, for his damaged life, and now for the infirmity that would always be his to bear.

  A cheer arose and she looked up. The fire was out. Part of the roof was caved in and one of the windows had shattered in the heat, but at least the building wasn’t a total loss. Ethan, his face blackened with soot and grime, sought her gaze and sent her a crooked smile—half sympathy, half triumph. For some reason, she felt better.

  Lucy rushed over from the Verandah, the ties of her blue checked apron flapping behind her. “I was in the bath when I heard the commotion. What on earth happened?”

  Sophie shook her head and waved one hand toward the burned-out building. Lucy put her arm around Sophie’s shoulder, then drew back. “Mercy, what’s that under your shirtwaist?”

  “A bandage. I got between a stray bullet and a drunken workman up at Blue Smoke.” Briefly, she filled Lucy in on the night’s events.

  Lucy shook her head. “A shooting and a fire in the same night. I’m sure I do not know what this town is coming to.”

  Caleb pushed through the crowd. “Sophie, are you all right?”

  “I suppose.” She felt faint again and completely disoriented. What day was this? When had she last eaten? She couldn’t remember.

  “The good news is that the presses aren’t damaged. We’ll be down for a while, but Ethan says the building can be salvaged and made good as new.”

  “But surely my files, my typewriting machine, our type trays, our paper and ink are all damaged or gone.” She shrugged. “I haven’t the money to replace those things, let alone pay for the building repairs.” She placed one hand on Caleb’s arm. “I couldn’t ask for a more able assistant, and I appreciate everything you’ve done. We gave it a good try, but—”

  “Wait a minute. You’re saying you’re giving up? Just because of a bit of bad luck?”

  She laughed. “A bit of bad luck? My advertisers have deserted me, thanks to Mr. Blakely. Mr. McClure has rejected most of the articles I submitted to his syndicate. I have hardly any money left in the bank. And now this. I’d say that’s more than a bit of bad luck.”

  Lucy patted her hand. “When bad things happened to me, Aunt Maisie would say God uses everything that happens for the good. He sees every sparrow that falls. That’s what got me through the bad days when my Jake died.”

  Sophie dropped her gaze, feeling suddenly ashamed. The fire was another bad blow, no two ways about it. But Lucy’s loss, and Ethan’s, were much worse than the loss of paper and ink. And Wyatt would be more disappointed if she quit than if she kept trying and failed. She could almost hear his soft drawl in her ear. “When you fall off a horse, darlin’, there’s nothing to do but dust off your britches and climb right back on.”

  “All right.” Though she felt about a hundred years old, she smiled at Caleb. “Let’s find out just how bad the damage is and make a list of what we need in order to get up and running again. We’ll find the money somehow.”

  Caleb grinned, his teeth stark white against his soot-smudged face. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right on it.”

  The crowd dispersed. The water-wagon driver vaulted onto the wagon seat and headed to the railway station. Mr. Pruitt caught Sophie’s e
ye and nodded before returning to the mercantile. Lucy patted her back as Mariah Whiting and Jeanne Pruitt hurried over.

  “My dear,” Mrs. Whiting murmured. “I am so terribly sorry. Is there anything we can do?”

  “If you need anything from the mercantile, you just say the word,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “Jasper will set you up a tab.”

  “That’s very kind.” Sophie smiled at the dress shop owner. “I’m sure I’ll have a list of necessities once I’ve had time to think.”

  “You are going to keep the Gazette going, aren’t you?” Mrs. Pruitt asked. “Me and my sisters look forward to reading the Answer Lady every week.”

  Mrs. Whiting nodded. “It’s the first thing I read each week too. I’d miss it if you stopped.”

  Sophie smiled. “I hope to keep the paper going, Mrs. Pruitt, but with the loss of my advertising revenue—”

  “That’s another thing—and please call me Jeanne. I’ve been meaning to stop by and tell you that I, for one, have had just about enough of Horace Blakely telling me and everyone else in this town what we can and cannot do. Christmas is coming, and I’ve got a lot of pretty things in the shop that ladies need to know about. If you get that paper of yours going again, I aim to take out an advertisement notice, and Mr. Horace High-and-Mighty Blakely can like it or lump it.”

  Lucy and Mariah Whiting burst into laughter. Mrs. Whiting patted Jeanne’s arm. “I’ve known you for twenty years, and I believe that’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard from you.”

  “Well, that Blakely fellow gets my dander up.” Jeanne brushed cinders off her sleeves. “The very idea that he thinks he can tell me what to do just because of that fancy hotel of his makes me madder than a wet hen.”

  “Come on, little hen,” Mrs. Whiting said. “I need you to finish pinning up my hem.”

  Lucy took Sophie’s arm. “And you, my friend, need a nice warm bath and a good, long nap.”

  “I am tired,” Sophie said. “But someone should check on Mr. Worth. He’s alone in the infirmary.”

  She looked around for Ethan, but he had gone.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Mr. Heyward, you busy?”

  Ethan looked up from his ledger to find Joel Tipton standing in the office doorway, lunch-bucket in hand. “Joel. Come on in.”

  Joel crossed the room and handed Ethan a smudged paper. “I worked out that estimate you wanted.”

  Ethan scanned the list. Lumber, nails, paint, glass—it added up, not to mention the labor costs. But the estimate could have been ten times the sum, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. “Thanks. When can you start?”

  “Next Monday ought to be good.” He indicated the half dozen workmen hurrying about on the terrace. “Once we get those stones replaced, there won’t be as much to do around here for a while. Aside from keeping everything in good shape, of course.”

  Ethan nodded. In the three days since Julian’s injury and the fire at the Gazette, his small crew had replaced the shattered glass in his office door and repaired the damaged lock. Now they were replacing the bloodstained stones on the terrace, matching them stone by stone. All visible traces of the shooting soon would be erased, but the events had left an indelible mark on Ethan’s soul.

  Joel shifted his weight and glanced out the window. “Heard some talk this morning down at the depot. Fellow said he heard Sheriff McCracken arrested Lutrell Crocker last night.”

  Ethan’s gut twisted. “I hadn’t heard. But I hope it’s true. Lutrell has a lot to answer for.”

  “Yes, sir, I reckon so.” Joel stroked his beard. “How is that fellow that got shot? I heard he was in a bad way.”

  “He lost a lot of blood, but the doctor thinks he’ll make it.” Ethan swallowed the unexpected knot in his throat and again thanked God for sparing his brother. “He won’t ever walk without a cane, though.”

  “I just don’t understand such meanness. Lutrell is lucky he won’t be sent up for murder.” Joel indicated the list. “You want me to go on and order those materials? I’ve got to go to the mill this afternoon anyway.”

  “I’d appreciate it. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” Joel went to the door, then turned back to Ethan, his hand on the cut-glass doorknob. “Me and the boys were talking last night, and, well . . . the truth is, we think you’re too good-hearted for a place like Blue Smoke. And we liked the way you treated us when we worked on the infirmary. Me and Chester and them, we’d quit Blue Smoke and work for you, if you ever wanted us to.”

  Ethan smiled. “Thank you, Joel. That’s good to know. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Joel left. Ethan stood, shrugging into his jacket. He picked up the season-end report he’d just finished and headed for Blakely’s office. Horace had been in a foul mood since the shooting. Ethan wasn’t looking forward to this meeting.

  He headed down the hall, nodding to the Blakelys’ daughters, who were returning from the riding stables, their cheeks and noses pink from the brisk wind. He passed the library, where the serving girls were pouring tea for five or six of Mrs. Blakely’s friends seated in the overstuffed chairs oriented to catch the loveliest views. A fire hissed and crackled in the grate.

  At the door to Horace’s office, he squared his shoulders and knocked.

  “Enter.”

  Ethan went in. His boss was still wearing his silk dressing gown, a cheroot clenched in his teeth. His breakfast tray, barely touched, sat on the edge of his massive polished walnut desk. Horace set aside his magazine and motioned Ethan into a chair.

  “The boys got those bloody stones taken out yet?”

  “They’re working on it now. They’ll finish soon.”

  “Let’s hope so. Mrs. Culpepper is arriving this afternoon with a few friends. She wants to host a chestnut roast and some fool costume party for Thanksgiving.”

  Ethan winced at the mention of the resort’s most difficult guest. Elvira Culpepper had arrived in late June and stayed all summer, hosting groups of her friends who arrived almost weekly by train from Baltimore or Richmond or New York. The woman seemed to possess unlimited money and an enormous capacity for demanding the most outlandish things. Ethan had been relieved when the season ended and she packed up and went home. Now she was back, acting as if Blue Smoke was her own private residence.

  “Isn’t it a bit chilly to be hosting an outdoor affair?”

  Horace shrugged and picked up his coffee cup. “It’s her money and her posterior that will be affected. Not mine.” He downed his coffee and held out his hand. “That the final report?”

  Ethan handed him the papers and watched a couple of squirrels chasing along the lawn while Horace, wire spectacles perched on the end of his florid nose, perused every jot and tittle.

  “How come the gift shop revenue is down so much?”

  “Miss Swint has closed her photography hut on the ridge until we reopen in the spring.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with the sale of doodads and such?”

  “When we opened the hut, you told me to account for her sales in the gift shop report. If you consider the figures apart from her sales, you’ll see the income remained constant over the season.” Ethan leaned over Horace’s shoulder and tapped the paper. “Our handmade items sold very well, especially the quilt tops and the wooden toys. We ought to consider paying our craftsmen a bit more next season.”

  “Pay them more? Why should I?”

  “When you’re standing in the shade, you ought to remember the one who planted the tree. The way I see it, the folks whose labor is responsible for our success ought to share in it.”

  Horace snorted. “That’s why you’ll never be a millionaire, Ethan. You’re too softhearted.”

  A pang of regret moved through Ethan. If only he’d been more softhearted toward Julian, his brother might not be lying in the infirmary, his leg permanently damaged. Suppose Julian really was innocent? How could Ethan possibly make amends?

  Horace took off his spectacles and set aside the report. “
I understand Eli McCracken’s got Crocker locked up.”

  “I heard that too. Maybe Lutrell can shed some light on the fire at the Gazette office.”

  Horace looked up. “You think he’s responsible?”

  “Eli told me he thinks the fire was set, but of course he can’t prove anything.”

  “Why would Crocker do a thing like that?”

  Ethan shrugged. “A man is capable of almost anything when he’s in his cups. And Lutrell seems to stay that way most of the time.”

  Horace took up his cheroot and puffed to get it going again, sending a cloud of smoke drifting toward the ceiling. “Well, I’m sorry that stranger got shot. But the truth is, Crocker did us a favor.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Can you imagine the sensationalistic stories that girl would have written about the goings-on up here? Preaching about how it isn’t a fit environment for the workers and so on? Exhorting me to do something about the unbridled violence at Blue Smoke?” Horace took another long draw on his cheroot. “She’s a pretty little thing, but so full of high-mindedness.”

  Ethan nodded. Sophie’s belief in the power of words, her passionate sense of fairness, were among the many qualities he’d come to love about her.

  Horace shook his head. “She hasn’t any idea how the real world works. I’m sure Miss Caldwell was upset, watching her building going up in flames, and I do sympathize, but it’s a lucky break for us, Ethan. Maybe now she’ll head on back to Texas and stop meddling in my affairs.”

  Anger spurted through Ethan’s veins, heating his blood. “Then you’ll be disappointed to learn that the damage to her presses is minimal. As soon as the building can be repaired, she’ll be back in business.”

  “Well, with her advertising clients cut off, she won’t last long. Besides, she’ll need a work crew. Where’s she going to get boys willing to cross me for the sake of one measly little repair job?”