A Beauty So Rare

by Tamera Alexander

  “And you will be,” he assured, glancing at a young woman standing behind him. “But your presence today”—he shook his head—“would only increase your father’s agitation. We’ll administer a mild sedative straightaway and—”

  “A sedative?”

  He nodded. “For his anxiousness.”

  “Is that necessary? He usually calms down within a few moments.”

  Dr. Crawford gave her a look, and she remembered the details she’d disclosed during her previous visit. She glanced away and saw Armstead had moved to check on the horses. “Sometimes it does take an hour,” she admitted softly. “Or more.”

  “Miss Braddock . . .” Dr. Crawford’s voice held compassion. “It’s noble, what you’ve done . . . taking care of your father as you have. And yes,” he added quickly, “there are times when he seems almost normal, I know. But as you said yourself, those times are becoming less and less frequent.

  “As I stated during our initial meeting, it is imperative that we immerse your father in a carefully controlled environment, one that minimizes confrontation and friction. From what you’ve told me and . . . frankly, from what I just observed, I believe it would be best for you both if you allow us to proceed as I’ve recommended.”

  Eleanor looked from him to the imposing double doors, then back again, not at all inclined to agree, not really knowing what was best.

  “If we are to help your father,” he continued, “if he is capable of being helped”—his pause felt like it went on forever—“then now is the time, Miss Braddock, before his memory loss advances further. And . . . it would be best if you would give us a few days before returning. I’ll send word as soon as he’s ready to see you.”

  Everything within her fought the idea of leaving her father alone, and in such a frantic state, much less for days before she returned. But try as she might, she couldn’t think of a single argument to refute the doctor’s prescription. Her father blamed her for bringing him here and would be upset with her for who knew how long.

  Following the incident where he’d lit an oil lamp, then proceeded to set the still-lit match atop a newspaper, she’d confiscated every matchstick in the house. And he hadn’t spoken to her for a week. And that had only been over matchsticks.

  Finally she gave a small nod.

  “Very good,” Dr. Crawford said, a touch of relief in his voice. “I assure you, Miss Braddock, this is the best course.”

  Eleanor glanced back at the building. She’d thought it so stately and regal upon first view. Now it seemed sterile and lonely, almost foreboding. Not so much a place of healing as one of . . . confinement.

  “Before you go, Miss Braddock . . .” The doctor gestured to the woman behind him. “Please allow me to present you to the nurse who will be caring for your father while he’s with us.” The nurse stepped forward, and Dr. Crawford continued the introductions. “Miss Smith is newly arrived to our fair city but comes with sterling credentials.”

  The young woman’s demeanor could best be described as curious. But her eyes, blue as a robin’s egg, seemed kind and open. “It’s indeed a great honor to make your acquaintance, Miss Braddock.” Miss Smith offered a poised and proper curtsy, her crisp British accent suiting her perfectly.

  Eleanor lifted a brow, grateful for the generous greeting but more than a little surprised by it. “That’s very kind of you, Miss Smith. But the pleasure is mine.” She returned the curtsy. “Let me retrieve my father’s satchel. It’s on the seat inside the—”

  “Oh no, ma’am!” Miss Smith practically lunged for the carriage door. “I’ll happily retrieve it for you.” She did just that and climbed back down, giving the carriage an overlong awe-filled look.

  Only then did it occur to Eleanor. . . . Did the woman think she owned a carriage so fine? That she was so wealthy, so high and mighty? The thought was laughable, but Eleanor didn’t laugh. She gestured to the book in the side pocket of the satchel. “I marked where we left off reading in each of my father’s books. I read to him every night before he goes to bed. And sometimes during the afternoon. It calms him.”

  “Then I shall do the very same, Miss Braddock.” With a parting curtsy, Miss Smith turned and disappeared inside the building.

  Eleanor thought of the one book she hadn’t included in her father’s satchel. It was her book, but one they both loved and read from frequently. She would often quiz him about its contents, hoping the ritual would help sharpen his mind. She didn’t think he would miss the little volume but knew she would have if she’d left it with him.

  She accepted Dr. Crawford’s assistance into the carriage, fighting the recurring sense of guilt.

  “Miss Braddock . . .”

  She looked back, surprised to find him smiling, something she couldn’t recall having seen him do before. The gesture erased years from his face. He seemed reluctant to release her hand.

  “Once again, ma’am, please allow me to thank you for your trust. I assure you that I, along with my colleagues, will do everything we can for your father. So please”—he gave her hand a gentle squeeze—“try not to worry.”

  With a doctorly, almost fatherly, nod, he relinquished his hold.

  “Thank you, Doctor. While I can’t promise I won’t worry about my father, I can tell you that I trust your judgment. And I’ll do my best to think positively about the outcome of my father’s treatment.”

  “Well spoken, Miss Braddock. Honest and straightforward too.” Dr. Crawford nodded and took a step back. “Much like your esteemed aunt, I dare say.”

  Eleanor felt a twinge of annoyance at his parting comment, but the hint of amusement in his eyes told her he’d intended it as a compliment. She managed a smile and sat back as Armstead climbed atop the carriage and gave the horses a command, but she couldn’t help reflecting on her years at the Nashville Female Academy and how that same comparison by professors had plagued her there. “Your aunt also earned exemplary marks in arithmetic, Miss Braddock, as well as French and German, as have you. Your skills in recitation aren’t quite on par with hers, but there’s time. She was, however, exceptionally gifted.”

  As Armstead maneuvered the carriage about the turnaround, Eleanor sighed and closed her eyes, pushing that memory away, and choosing instead to concentrate on gathering her scattered wits and mentally preparing for the next hurdle—her esteemed aunt.

  She hadn’t seen Adelicia Acklen—Cheatham now, she reminded herself, her aunt having remarried the previous year—since the fall of 1860. Before the war and all it had brought, and taken. Before Joseph, Aunt Adelicia’s second husband and Papa’s closest cousin, had died.

  Eleanor glanced down, hoping again that what she was wearing—her finest ensemble, albeit in her least favorite color, pink—would be nice enough. She hadn’t purchased anything but day dresses since the war. She hadn’t needed to, until now.

  Frowning at the gaudy brightness of the material, she recalled her exchange with the seamstress back home. . . .

  “A woman such as yourself, Miss Braddock, needs to wear more color. It helps”—the older woman had fluttered her hands—“enhance one’s features. And dear, if I might say . . . you could do with a little enhancing.”

  Mrs. Hodges . . . always honest. But that was all right. Eleanor was too. “While that may be, Mrs. Hodges, I’ve never been fond of pink. I much prefer sienna, or perhaps a rich brown. Those colors are far more practical. And suitable, considering so many of our friends and family are still in mourning clothes.”

  “Yes, yes . . .” Mrs. Hodges heaved a sigh, her lips pinching. “We all lost someone in the war. Or several someones,” she said softly, looking away. “I’ve sewn enough black dresses to last me a lifetime, Miss Braddock. But it’s been three years, and part of moving on with our lives, and in our hearts”—she inhaled deeply—“lies in choosing how we dress. And as I’ve always said, the plainer-looking the woman, the more color she should—”

  Eleanor held up a hand. “Sienna, please, Mrs. Hodges. Or a rich
brown.”

  Mrs. Hodges, a longtime family friend, simply stared, tight-lipped, then whispered something beneath her breath. Eleanor paid no mind at the time, but when she’d returned to the dressmaker’s days ago for the fitting of the skirt and jacket, she wished she had.

  “I didn’t have enough of the sienna or brown, Miss Braddock. So I’m only charging you half the quoted price. And see now,” Mrs. Hodges had said, once Eleanor stepped from behind the dressing curtain, “doesn’t that look pretty! And it makes you look years younger, my dear. Just as I knew it would! Surely you’ll attract some man’s attention.”

  The rumble of the carriage jostled Eleanor back to the moment, and she glanced again at her skirt and jacket. Feeling like strawberry icing splashed atop a cake, she knew she had a better chance of the carriage sprouting wings and flying the five miles back to town than she did of attracting a man’s interest.

  But she had to admit . . . though she was still irritated over Mrs. Hodges’s intrusion, the discounted price had helped to compensate, given her precarious finances.

  But what bothered her even more, at the moment, was that she was worrying over such a thing as clothing. How frivolous so many of the niceties had seemed in the years following the war.

  And yet . . .

  She needed her aunt’s assistance and, therefore, her approval—which, if past experience still held true, wouldn’t be easily garnered. How a person dressed mattered greatly to her aunt, so it mattered greatly to her too. Today.

  Her jitters getting the best of her, Eleanor shifted on the seat as Armstead urged the horses to a faster clip down the drive. Her thoughts turned to the business proposal she’d devised that would surely win Aunt Adelicia over. The plan had nothing to do with the war, or death and dying. It would enable her and her father to live independently again, once he was well.

  Thinking about the agreement she’d made with the building owner, she hoped her strong convictions hadn’t prompted her to make a costly misstep she would regret.

  Eleanor leaned her head back on the cushioned velvet seat. So much had happened since she’d last seen her aunt. She felt like a different person on the inside. Yet outwardly . . .

  She was still much the same. Plain and tall. No, taller.

  And she expected Aunt Adelicia was still stunning, still incredibly wealthy, and still the ever-gracious hostess of Belmont, the most exquisite estate in Tennessee—perhaps even in America, if a newspaper article Eleanor had recently read held true.

  But one term the journalist had used to describe her aunt—American royalty—felt like too much.

  She scoffed. She was grateful for her aunt’s kind generosity, but royalty? Hardly. But what if her aunt had become like one of those spoiled, puffed-up European dukes and duchesses she’d read about in Harper’s Weekly? The ones who considered themselves to be so much above and better than the rest of the common . . . ordinary people.

  Eleanor shook her head. Heaven forbid. . . .

  As the carriage bounced along the long, narrow drive, Eleanor stared at the empty bench opposite her and could almost hear guilt’s silent scolding. How long had it been since she’d left her father for any length of time, much less in the manner she just had? A part of her still couldn’t believe she’d done it.

  Almost without thinking, she slipped a hand into her skirt pocket and pulled out the handkerchief, the one she’d carried all these years. The material was silky soft between her thumb and forefinger, its familiarity—and history—an inexplicable comfort.

  She traced a finger over the embroidered flowers now faded with time and from repeated washings. Despite her best attempts at the outset to remove the bloodstain, a ghost of it remained. She’d tried to find her. The soldier’s Mary girl.

  For two years after the war, she had searched. But her efforts had been like trying to drain the ocean one thimble at a time. Everywhere she looked another wave rose in an endless sea of widows and fatherless children awash in grief. Why she’d ever thought she would find the woman, she couldn’t imagine.

  No, that wasn’t true. She knew from where her hope had issued.

  At one time, she’d thought it had been God’s design for her to find the woman, to tell her that her husband hadn’t died alone, that he’d loved her to the end. Then to tell her what he’d said, and maybe learn what he’d meant. But what a silly, romantic notion that had proven to be.

  There was wisdom in knowing when to let go of a dream, and even more, in knowing when it had let go of you.

  It was strange, maybe even wrong in a way—Eleanor wasn’t sure—but she still carried within her a seed of the love that had poured from the soldier’s lips before he died. It lived inside her, its heart still beating. Faintly at times. More steadily at others.

  But it wasn’t a comforting thing. Quite the contrary. It made her grateful she’d never had opportunity to give her heart to a man. She was one of the fortunate ones, she’d concluded. She’d been spared the grief of loving and losing. After speaking to widow after widow, hearing their all-too-familiar and heart-wrenching stories, she’d decided that, contrary to Tennyson’s requiem—a favorite of her father’s to quote—it was truly better to have never loved at all.

  As the carriage neared the main road, she leaned closer to the window for a breath of fresh air and spotted the sign at the entrance. Tennessee Asylum for the Insane. She flinched. The letters were carved so grandly into a slab of native limestone, the rock edifice upon which it rested, so proud looking. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Neither was the fact that the wisest, wittiest, kindest, and most practical man she’d ever known was now at home within the asylum’s walls.

  A sinking feeling started somewhere around the center of her chest, threatening to pull her under. She sat up straighter, reminding herself of what she’d told Dr. Crawford about determining to think positively about the outcome of her father’s treatment.

  Hoping for any sign at all, she looked out the window and searched the branches, hoping to see the cardinal again.

  But the leafless branches were empty.

  Marcus met the man’s timid stare with challenge, sensing he was hiding something. No doubt, at the instruction of the employee’s superior, the illustrious mayor of Nashville, Augustus E. Adler—a man Marcus was loath to depend upon, much less give answer to someday.

  Mr. Barrett, the mayor’s nervous little assistant, leaned forward, his hands tightly knotted atop the secretary’s desk—a Napoleon-style replica, and a poor one at that. “If you’ll allow me to explain, H-Herr . . . Geoffrey.”

  Barrett stumbled over the title, his Southern way of speech stretching the word into two oddly paired syllables instead of one, and Marcus’s already-tried patience further thinned. Whenever certain people—like Mr. Barrett—heard the “European” in his voice, as they called it, it seemed to bring out their “Southern German.”

  “Mr. Geoffrey will suffice, Mr. Barrett,” Marcus said, his tone managing a hint of cordial. “Please continue.”

  “Oh . . . thank you, Mr. Geoffrey. That is most generous of you, sir.”

  The pounding at the back of Marcus’s head ratcheted up another notch at the man’s gushing smile.

  “May I say, Mr. Geoffrey”—again, that smile—“your English is superb. I wonder, sir, how you manage to speak our language with such a—”

  “Mr. Barrett . . .” Marcus leaned forward in his chair and, at the same time, heard the inaudible echo of a warning he’d received often in his childhood—“The English language isn’t spoken with the same guttural force of our language, Your Excellency. Your manner could be . . . misconstrued, if you do. Now, again, please. And this time, with a measure of gentility.” Marcus breathed in, then out. “All I require from you, Mr. Barrett, is that you tell me whether or not Mayor Adler has reached a decision on this project. Last week he gave his word—to me and the other three contractors—that he would decide by today.”

  For a few seconds, Barrett’s mouth moved but no words came.
“I . . . I can explain, sir.” His face flushed. “It was the mayor’s intent to award the contract for the project today. But, unfortunately . . .” Barrett took a breath, as though desperately needing one. “Mayor Adler is still reviewing the various designs, including”—he winced—“a fifth bid that was submitted to his office at the last moment.”

  “A fifth bid?” Marcus frowned, and even from four feet away, he heard Barrett swallow. “Submitted by whom?”

  “A . . . local company, sir.”

  Marcus leveled his gaze, the throb in his head kicking to a steady thrum. If this man only knew to whom he was speaking. “And does this local company possess a name, Mr. Barrett?”

  “It does, I’m sure.” Barrett looked anywhere but across the desk. “But I’m not privy to that information, sir. I give you my word, Mr. Geoffrey.”

  The silence lengthened, and Marcus let it.

  He hadn’t trusted Mayor Adler since he’d caught the man in a barefaced lie on their first meeting. He’d called him on it and had been paying the price ever since. Adler had made it clear he “didn’t much care for Europeans.” Which Marcus found humorous, given the origin of most of America’s citizens.

  Marcus glanced at the side door leading to the mayor’s office, wondering if Adler truly was out of town. He was tempted to barge in and prove the statement false—or true—but taking such action would bring him no closer to building the finest opera house that Nashville, or possibly all of America, had ever seen. Nor would it bring him closer to making a name for himself—a name that didn’t rest on a family dynasty, or his father’s or uncle’s accomplishments, but rather on his own hard work and ingenuity. He could never have achieved that in Europe. But with time and circumstance working against him as they were, it was appearing less and less likely he would achieve success in Nashville either.

  A knock on the door drew their attention, and a woman entered.

  “Mr. Barrett, I have tea for you,” she said, a coyness in her tone. The diminutive brunette shot Marcus a look that lingered. Then she glanced at Barrett and quickly added, “For both of you.”