“Exactly! In fact, I should like to ask for the return of it.”
The commandant raised a brow. “Of . . . ?”
“My money.”
“All in due time.”
We waited, in silence, for at least another ten minutes before there came a rap on the commandant’s door.
I sent Deacon a puzzled glance. Lucinda and the sergeant wouldn’t have had time yet to return from Buttermilk Falls.
The commandant gestured toward the door.
Dandy opened it.
Campbell Conklin stepped into the room, snapping off a smart salute.
The commandant returned it. “I didn’t expect you so quickly.”
“When there’s a problem with the corps of cadets, I try my best to help resolve it quickly.”
“Mr. Westcott, Mr. Hollingsworth, Mr. Delagarde, and Mr. Ames have been accused of gambling at the riding hall. They say, however, that this gentleman”—he indicated Lucinda’s father—“swindled Mr. Westcott’s sister out of an inheritance.”
“Miss Hammond’s father? I find that difficult to believe. Is there any proof, sir?”
“I’m trying to obtain proof at the moment.”
“But what of the charge of gambling?”
“They’ve admitted to it.”
“All of them?”
“Indeed. In your opinion, what should happen to your classmates?”
“They should be dismissed. Without question!”
“And this man?” He indicated Lucinda’s father with a nod of his chin.
“It must be a case of mistaken identity.”
“What if the accusations turn out to be true?”
“What of it? They were still gambling, were they not?”
“So you would see four good men dismissed on account of one criminal?”
My hopes began to rise as Campbell Conklin’s face flushed.
“How would that see justice served?”
Campbell’s brow had furrowed as if he were confused by the commandant’s words. “But if rules are meant to be followed—”
“Then in some cases an injustice can be perpetuated. Enforcement is always left to the commanding officer’s discretion.”
Conklin’s eyes darted between us and the commandant, as if he didn’t know what to think anymore. “But—”
“Compliance ought never trump justice. An officer ready for command should know that.”
“Sir? I don’t think that—”
He was saved a reply by the commandant’s dismissal. And before the hour was gone, the sergeant returned with Lucinda.
He saluted.
The commandant put him at ease.
The sergeant came forward and placed a blanket-wrapped bundle on the commandant’s desk.
The commandant unwrapped it to find two engraved metal printing plates. “Where did you find these?”
“In the man’s room.”
The commandant began to inspect them.
Lucinda’s father lunged for them, but Otter stopped him.
“This is outrageous! How dare you violate my privacy! I can assure you these are mere nothings. Simple mementoes of my time spent out west.”
The commandant smiled. “There’s an easy way to tell.” He took up his ink well and dribbled ink across the top of one of them, crumpled a piece of loose leaf, and smeared the ink across the plate. Picking it up, he pressed it onto the blotter that lay atop his desk. He picked the blotter up and began to read it. Dandy, Otter, Deacon and I stepped forward.
The commandant’s brow rose. He left off reading to address Lucinda’s father. “Mr. Pennyworth, I presume?”
“I assure you, I have no idea how those got in my room.”
“Your simple mementoes? You didn’t place them there?”
“I swear that—”
Lucinda put a hand on the commandant’s desk. “He did place them there. He’s had them for years. I’ve been present when he’s had deeds printed from those. I’ve even helped him sell them.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked exactly like the deed my sister had sent me. But if that was the case . . . ?
“Sir? I have one of those deeds. My sister sent it to me.”
He glanced up at me. “I’ll have you retrieve it in a moment. And Miss Hammond? Will you testify to what you just said?”
She came close, in that moment, to meeting my eyes. But then she closed them and took in a deep breath. When she opened them she was looking at the commandant. “Yes. Consider me a witness.”
I didn’t understand what was happening. “Lucinda? What . . . ?”
She did look at me then. “I’m not the person you thought I was, Seth. I wish I were, but I’m not. And I never was.”
The commandant summoned the sergeant with a nod of his head. “Confine this man. He was selling these deeds in Nebraska Territory. Perhaps that makes it a federal offense. If not, at least we can hold him until we can remit him to the proper authorities.”
My father shrugged the sergeant’s hands from his arm. “You still have no evidence. She put those plates there without my knowledge.”
The commandant stood. “Mr. Westcott?”
“Sir.”
“You say your sister had dealings with this man.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is she?”
“Sir?”
“At this moment. Where is she?”
“Fort Laramie, sir.”
“Then we’d best see about getting a corroborating statement. Mr. Hollingsworth?”
Deacon saluted. “Yes, sir.”
“Can you draw this man?”
“Draw him? Sir?”
“With your pencil. Can you draw him?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Fine. Then I’ll have that drawing sent to Miss Westcott just as soon as you finish it.” He eyed Dandy. “About the bet . . . what exactly was it?”
“I bet that Otter would be able to ride York, sir. And that man bet that he wouldn’t.”
“A fool and his money are so easily parted, aren’t they?” He took up the money and held it out to me. “I expect that you’ll place this into the safekeeping of the Treasurer. I wouldn’t want you to be caught with money on your person. At least not before you graduate. In that case, I would have to recommend you for dismissal.”
“Yes, sir.” I would have thought that getting that money back would have resolved all my problems, but all I could think was that I wanted Lucinda back too. The old Lucinda. The one I’d known before her father had come to town.
Lucinda had shrunk against the back wall, hands clenched together, looking for all the world as if she wanted to disappear. And for the first time, as I looked at her, I didn’t feel anything at all.
53
Lucinda
I couldn’t bear to look at Seth. Or the commandant. Or my father. In the past, a bright smile and a wide-eyed look had gotten me past some terrible accusations. No one wants to believe the worst of a pretty girl. But there was no point in pretending at respectability now. I’d told the truth. I had admitted to everything. Stepping back into a shadowed corner, gripping my own arms by the elbows, I let the talk swirl around me.
How long would it take for word of our deceptions to spread through Buttermilk Falls? Mrs. Holt had to have known that something was happening when that soldier escorted me to my father’s room. The hope that she might have interpreted it as a liaison crept into my thoughts. The fact that I preferred that interpretation to the truth showed me just how far I had fallen.
Where would I go now?
With any sort of luck, my father would be jailed for a very long time. But even so, staying in Buttermilk Falls could no longer be an option. Not when the townspeople would soon learn the worst about me.
What would I do?
I would have fallen back on marriage in times past, the way I had meant to do when I’d first come here. But falling in love had changed my mind. Marriage wasn’t a scheme. It was meant to be
entered into with honesty. And love. But I’d ruined my chances with Seth. Ruined them long before I’d even met him. And now he knew it too.
I risked a look at him and flinched when it was clear he was steadfastly refusing to look at me. But he was in good company. My father was refusing to do the same.
At least when I was doing the wrong thing, I’d had my father to do it with. Now I had no one. I’d been in a similar situation when I’d come to Buttermilk Falls, or I thought I had been. But then I had been able to rely on the kindness of family. If they had shunned me when my father came to town, I could not imagine what they would think of me now.
As I stood there, it was decided that my father would be confined until it was determined who held jurisdiction over his crimes. And over my own.
When the commandant addressed me, I thought I saw sympathy in his eyes. “I’m sure, since you’re cooperating, some leniency will be shown you.”
I wasn’t, but I smiled just the same.
“A case can probably be made that he coerced you into helping him.”
Perhaps. But it wouldn’t be true. And when the time came, I would say so.
My father stood and glared at the cadets, and then he turned his wrath on me. It was a terrible sight. His rage had twisted his mouth, and it glittered in his eyes. It was a molten, liquid thing. “I hope you’re happy. I never thought I’d see the day when I was betrayed by my own daughter. How could you do this to us?”
Scenes rose, like phantoms, from my memory. Me: stumbling on a boardwalk, crying because I’d skinned my knee. Him: berating me, shaking a fist at the departing stage we’d missed because of my tumble. Me: hesitating to approach the drunken paramour he’d selected for me. Him: scolding me for caring more about my feelings than I did for him. Me: trying to do everything he’d ever asked of me. Him: always unhappy, never satisfied, because I was forever holding him back.
That was when I finally understood.
That was the moment when everything about my life finally made sense. “It was never about us.” I spoke with the authority of revelation. “It was never about me. It was always about you.” There never had been an “us.” And now, for better or worse, there never would be.
“You’ve given me up. Turned me in!”
“But I’ve done the right thing. I’ve done the right thing for the right reason. Isn’t that what any father would want his daughter to do?”
As he scowled at me, the sergeant took him by the arm.
“Wait!”
The sergeant stopped at my command. The cadets, the commandant, my father all turned to look at me. “You might be interested to know his real name. You’ll need it for the trial.”
“Don’t!” He barked the word at me.
“It’s John Barns.”
“I didn’t want—”
Seth’s eyes finally met my own. “Barns? It isn’t Pennyworth?”
“No. It never was.” Maybe someday he would understand.
All the turmoil and anger left the room with my father. After he had gone it seemed there was no reason for the cadets to stay. They saluted the commandant, he dismissed them, and then . . . there was just me. I ought to have felt a sense of relief, maybe even of victory for justice having prevailed, but all I felt was terribly alone.
The commandant was standing behind his desk, looking as if he would very much like to sit once more in his chair. Was he . . . was he waiting for me to leave as well? “Do you need me to go with my father?”
“You? No. You’re free to leave. As long as you let me know where you’ll be staying.” He said it with a lift of his brow, as if he expected that I had planned this out, that I had foreseen it all ending like this.
“I’ll need to go back to the boardinghouse.”
He nodded and sat down. “Of course.”
“I don’t know where I’ll go after that.” I could use the money my father had left behind and take a room at the West Point Hotel, but surely news would soon find its way there too. And that money didn’t really belong to me. It belonged to Seth—and to the others my father had swindled.
“Perhaps you should speak with your uncle.”
“He had previous dealings with my father. We aren’t on very good terms at the moment.”
“Moments have a way of becoming hours, and sometimes perspective is all it takes to change someone’s mind about something.”
“He was quite fixed in his opinion of me when I last spoke to him.”
“I’ve never known a mathematician who wasn’t enamored of proofs. If you present your evidence, he might just come to a different conclusion about everything.”
“Perhaps.” I nodded, though I didn’t have much hope.
“Think about it. You have nothing to lose.”
“Nothing to lose.” He ought to have said nothing more to lose. I paused on the top step, my skirts swaying with indecision as I looked down the street toward the academy building. It was impossible for my uncle to think less of me than he already did. What if . . . what if I could convince him to welcome me back?
It could never be as it was before. I could never hope to earn back Phoebe’s esteem. I could never again model for Milly all that was proper and right for a lady. Perhaps I could help my aunt in the kitchen, even if she wouldn’t treat me as her long-lost niece. If I could bear to swallow my pride, what was left of father’s money might just make up for the rest of what he’d taken from Seth’s sister.
At the bottom of the steps, I turned toward the academy.
It didn’t take me long to find my uncle. I could hear his voice from the hallway and followed it to his classroom. As I opened the door, his students turned to look at me. Perhaps sensing the change of mood, he glanced up from his notes at me. Then he lowered his head to look more directly, over his spectacles.
I didn’t even try to smile. I couldn’t. “If I might have a word?”
“I am instructing at the moment.”
“The commandant suggested that I come.”
The cadets were following our conversation as if it were a game of bandy.
He glanced at them and then at me. After placing his notes on his desk, he joined me, closing the door behind him with a click that echoed down the hallway. “Please do me the favor of making it brief.”
Brief? How could I briefly sum up all the mistakes I had made in my life? All of the mistakes that had brought me here? A bubble of laughter rose in my chest, but it was choked by a sob once it reached my throat.
He crossed his arms as he looked down his nose at me. “I’ve no time for histrionics.”
“My father was arrested today.”
“Good.”
“On the proof of my evidence.”
“Your evidence?”
“The evidence he had in his room at the boardinghouse . . . as well as the evidence I’ve been collecting all my life as I’ve worked beside him to swindle innocent people.”
He blinked. “You helped him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you come to Buttermilk Falls to swindle us?”
“No. I came because I thought he was dead. I wanted to make a new life for myself.”
“Then why?”
“Why . . . ? Why . . . what?” What else was there to say?
“What made you decide—I assume you’ve decided—to testify against him?”
“I have.”
“Why?”
“How could I not?”
He blinked. “You implicated yourself in his crimes. You didn’t have to do that. At least, I presume that you didn’t. I’m sure he’s done more than enough in his life to implicate himself.”
“Back in Nebraska, he swindled Seth Westcott’s sister out of their money.” The whole story tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. About Seth not being given leave. About his sister being stranded in Fort Laramie. His plan to be assigned to the cavalry and the way he and his friends had been caught trying to trick my father into giving them his money. “Don’t you see?
My father ruined all of their lives. And more than Seth’s money, he stole his good reputation. If I had said nothing, he would have been free to do it to someone else.”
“But now your reputation will be ruined.”
“Don’t you understand? Any good reputation I owned was false. What happens to me doesn’t matter. Now Seth and his sister can have their inheritance.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “I am sorry to hear you believe that.” He glanced at the door to the classroom. “Wait here for a moment. I have something I want to give you.”
As he opened the door I stood to the side, back pressed to the wall, so that the cadets wouldn’t see me. I spent several agonizing minutes wringing my hands, trying to believe that everything might work out one day.
At last he appeared. As he closed the door once more behind him, he offered me a folded sheet of paper. “I’d like you to go to Buttermilk Falls and give this to your aunt.” He extended it once more. “Go on. Take it. You can read it if you’d like.”
I took it with trembling fingers and opened it.
This is my niece, Lucinda Barns. Please welcome her home.
I held it to my heart as I wept tears of gratitude and joy.
54
Seth
Deacon just couldn’t seem to stop talking. He wasn’t even trying to draw. He hadn’t picked up a pencil since he’d done that sketch of Lucinda’s father earlier in the day. I was tempted to leave our room so I could hear myself think. “And that was John Barns! Can you account for it?”
“For what?”
“The sheer coincidence. Here we were trying to get you to give John Barns a run for his money—” Deacon laughed—“and that’s exactly what we did!”
I didn’t find the coincidence so very funny. I found it rather frightening. I’d tried my best to be John Barns. To be worse than John Barns. It was his record for amassing demerits I’d been trying to break. Thank the Lord I hadn’t succeeded. What kind of man might I have become?
“You don’t think that’s funny?”
“I think it’s . . . it’s wrong!”
“What’s wrong?”
“A man like that, dragging a daughter around the West, getting her to do things no decent father would ever think of doing.” With a father like that . . . with a father like that, she hadn’t turned out half bad.
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