The Soldier's Wife

by Cheryl Reavis

  He scraped the mud off his boots, took a deep breath and stepped up to the door. It opened before he could knock on it.

  “Jeremiah!” the girls said in unison. They grabbed him by the hand and pulled him inside. Sayer was standing in front of the hearth, and he studied her closely for some sign that he should go back out again.

  “Please, Mr. Murphy,” she said, her voice quiet and controlled. “Come sit down. Everything’s ready.”

  He hesitated, watching as she placed a serving bowl just so on the table, then he glanced at Rorie to gauge her reaction to Sayer’s now knowing his last name. He would also have liked a little guidance from her regarding the situation in general, but for once in their short acquaintance, she had no helpful gestures and nothing to say.

  The table was indeed set with some of the finest china he’d ever seen. Royal Doulton, he thought, the kind he’d special ordered from New York for some of Lexington’s wealthiest families. He had even personally delivered and unpacked the china himself. They had thought it was a service Mr. Barden extended only to his most important customers, but it had actually been Jack’s idea—a way to keep them from claiming that some piece had been broken in transit, thereby acquiring extras for which they would not have to pay. He had learned early on that such ruses were an all-too-common practice among the newly rich who had had to claw their way to the top rung, and one that Mr. Barden never seemed to suspect. But, thanks to Jack, once they had signed the delivery slip, the store was protected from that kind of pilfering.

  “We didn’t think you were coming,” Amity said, smiling up at him.

  “I said you would,” Beatrice told him. “Because you’ve been plowing. People get hungry when they plow.”

  “Do they?” Amity asked him. “I’ve never plowed. Beatrice hasn’t, either, so I don’t know how she thinks she knows.”

  “Yes, they do get hungry,” Jack said. “Thirsty, too.”

  “See?” Beatrice told her with considerable satisfaction. “We want you to sit here, Jeremiah.”

  He had no choice but to sit down in the chair both of them were pulling him toward, the one they had apparently already decided should be located at the end of the table and between the two of them.

  Sayer sat down at the other end of the table with Rorie to her left. It occurred to Jack suddenly that the girls must have put him in Thomas Henry’s place. He looked at Sayer, ready to get up again.

  “It’s all right,” she said, apparently realizing his discomfort.

  He very nearly complimented the look of the table, then thought better of it as he remembered she was missing half of the china set he was seeing. It was enough that he was sitting in her husband’s chair. She didn’t need to be reminded of yet another loss.

  “We hold hands when we say grace,” Amity said, retaking his left hand firmly in hers. Beatrice took his other hand.

  “Will you say grace for us, Mr. Murphy?” Sayer asked, looking at him directly for the first time since he’d arrived.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. Prayers at mealtimes had been yet another of his many duties at the orphanage. He had never minded saying grace, and it occurred to him as he bowed his head and repeated the familiar words, how long it had been since he’d done this.

  “Amen,” he concluded, and the others joined in.

  “We have apple water to drink, Mr. Murphy,” Sayer said. “Will you have some?”

  “Yes,” he said, accepting the pitcher Beatrice passed to him. He had no idea what apple water was or how much he should pour into his glass. He didn’t want to take what little food he knew they had. There was a platter of flat baked bread, which was neither biscuit nor loaf, and some honey and a very large main dish of fried potatoes, onions and eggs. He suddenly smiled. A bowlful of his cracker pudding had also been added to the table. What he wouldn’t give if Ike and the rest of them could see it served in such a fine piece of chinaware.

  He didn’t know that he’d ever eaten with an audience before, but it seemed that he was doing so now. Four pairs of female eyes seemed to be trained on him—until he realized that they were waiting for his opinion of the food.

  “This is the best I’ve had to eat in a long time,” he said, looking at Sayer. She looked down at her plate, her dark eyelashes standing out starkly against her pale skin. He didn’t think he’d said the wrong thing, but he still felt as if he had. There was nothing to do but keep eating.

  Eventually, the novelty of his presence waned, and he was able to enjoy the food with less attention.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Murphy?” Sayer asked, finally looking up at him again.

  “Kentucky,” he said without thinking. It was no wonder Father Bartholomew always caught him when he was at the orphanage. The first order of his mind didn’t seem to run to escape plans, hiding and ruses, no matter how dire the situation. Without Ike’s and Father Bartholomew’s help, he likely would have never gotten out of Lexington. And yet, here he sat at this sad woman’s table, perpetrating the biggest ruse of all.

  I’m not Thomas Henry’s friend. Or yours, he thought, but still he kept looking into her sad eyes whenever she would let him. He had no difficulty now understanding why Thomas Henry had been so beguiled.

  Fortunately for him, she didn’t seem to think it amiss that a man from Kentucky would have had an association with her Confederate Army husband.

  “I had heard that many Kentucky men joined Southern regiments,” she said. “Have you been home yet?”

  “I have, ma’am.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want to think that we...kept you from...from your...”

  She trailed away. She had come too close to the real reason for his being here. Or what he’d led her to think was the real reason.

  “Do you like the table, Jeremiah?” Amity asked, tugging at his shirtsleeve. “We set it just for you. It’s got my mama’s tablecloth—”

  “My mama’s, too,” Beatrice interrupted.

  “—and Sayer’s mama’s dishes and glasses,” Amity continued, undaunted. “Do you like the plates?”

  “I do,” he said, realizing that he now had the opportunity to steer the conversation elsewhere. Unfortunately it was to another painful place. “I like the tablecloth and the dishes,” he blundered on. “I believe those are Royal Doulton, are they not?”

  Sayer looked at him in surprise. “How is it you know chinaware, Mr. Murphy?”

  “I used to clerk in a dry goods store. Before the war.”

  “Reckon he learned to plow there, too?” Rorie put in, making them both smile.

  “Ah, no. That I learned elsewhere.”

  “When you used to be an orphan,” Amity said firmly. He had forgotten that he’d mentioned that phase of his life to her.

  “I still am an orphan, Amity,” he said.

  “Everybody’s an orphan,” she said with a sigh.

  “Not everybody, silly,” Beatrice said.

  “Everybody here,” Amity said with the quiet confidence of someone who knew when she was right.

  “That’s a fact, young-un,” Rorie said. “Everybody here.”

  “Jeremiah, do you care if there is a child at the table?” Beatrice asked, looking at Amity and apparently meaning to exclude herself from that particular age group.

  “Only if they start throwing things,” he said.

  “Do you mind if we—the child—is heard and not just seen?”

  “Not as long as she—the child—doesn’t interrupt her elders,” he said, hoping he wasn’t running afoul of any domestic rules. “Unless the house is on fire, of course. I would take it as a great kindness if you were to let me know in plenty of time to get out,” he added, making her giggle. He thought it best not to mention how long it had taken him to learn his table manners when he was at the orphanage.

  He took a s
ip of the apple water. It tasted like...apples. “This is truly a very fine meal,” he said when Sayer looked in his direction. “I thank you for inviting me.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Murphy. May I ask you...what...the orphanage was like? When I was a child, after my parents died, I was very afraid of the idea of being sent to one,” she added quickly, as if he might think she had overstepped social decorum and was prying into something he would prefer to keep private.

  Jack looked at her for a moment before he answered, wondering who had used that fear to terrorize her. He had no doubt that someone had. “It was...strict. There were rules to follow—the days were very organized. Which was what most of us needed—order and discipline.”

  “Army orders weren’t nothing new to you, then,” Rorie said around a mouthful of bread.

  “No. Just the guns,” Jack said.

  “Were you happy there, Mr. Murphy?” Sayer asked.

  “He weren’t happy in the army,” Rorie said. “I can tell you that.”

  “That’s the truth,” he said agreeably. “It was lonesome at the orphanage for a while. All orphans are lonesome at first.”

  “That’s why you made ‘babies in a cradle’ out of handkerchiefs for the little girls,” Amity put in.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What did you give the boys?” she inquired with obvious interest.

  “A string ball—or the beginning of one. String was easy to come by and making the ball bigger gave them something to do so they wouldn’t dwell on their new situation.”

  Amity had no more questions, possibly due to the kick Beatrice gave her under the table, and he thought the topic of orphan life exhausted until he glanced at Sayer. She was clearly waiting for him to continue.

  “It was better there later,” he said. “After you got to know everyone and you learned what was expected of you. There are a lot of things to get used to. You even had to get used to having three meals a day and most definitely had to get used to helping to cook it and clean up afterward.”

  “You had to cook?” Beatrice asked incredulously.

  “Miss Beatrice, have you not sampled my very fine cracker pudding?” he teased, and she grinned.

  “The hardest part about orphan life was having people taking an interest in your welfare whether you wanted them to or not. No more roaming around doing as you pleased.

  “I think we must have been like a...different kind of family—but it was still a family. We took care of each other and we took care of the institution. Everybody had chores. Everybody learned how to survive in the world—literally and, it was hoped, spiritually. I’m grateful for the time I spent there. I believe I’m a better man for it.” He smiled slightly. “At least some of the time.”

  “Perhaps I worried for nothing,” Sayer said quietly.

  “I believe it would depend on the orphanage, Mrs. Garth. There are likely some better than Sa—than where I was, and I’m certain there are some much worse.”

  Sayer didn’t say anything more and he thought he had done little to reassure her about orphan life. She sat either nibbling at her food or pushing it around on her plate. He glanced at Rorie, who seemed to need to say something at this point, but for some reason known only to her, she didn’t say it. Rorie Conley not saying whatever she had in mind to say was not what he would call heartening.

  But the meal continued pleasantly enough, despite all the adults trying not to say anything that might lead them to acknowledge the deep emotional pain that was like another living being in the small confines of the cabin. He didn’t want to think about the girls being told that their brother had been killed. He had seen enough sorrowful children in his life. It seemed to him that Rorie must indeed be correct in thinking that Sayer Garth needed to postpone the inevitable until she could bear their grief as well as her own.

  The meal was ending, and the children were clearly fading rapidly. And Sayer—he didn’t know what was happening with Sayer. She was obviously struggling now to concentrate on the conversation around her and on her duties as hostess, and whether she was about to be overcome by some last remnant of her head injury or by her profound sorrow—or both, he couldn’t say.

  He did the only thing he knew to do. He stood up. “I’ll go now and put the animals up for the night.”

  “Does that include you, Jeremiah?” Rorie asked with a grin.

  “I expect it does. Thank you again for the fine meal, Mrs. Garth. Mrs. Conley.”

  Rorie raised both her eyebrows at the “Mrs. Conley,” the way most women would have if he’d called them by their given name rather than the other way around.

  “I reckon you’ll be sleeping somewhere close by tonight. Out yonder on the porch maybe,” Rorie said, looking at him hard.

  He hadn’t considered sleeping at all, but he thought to say so would only underline the possibility of Halbert Garth’s return. He had no doubt that there was a chance Garth—or the men he’d hired—might come back, particularly if they were the ones who had stolen the other box of china, and he intended to be ready.

  Rorie was still looking at him. Her gaze pointedly shifted to the well-set table, then back to him. He knew perfectly well what she was trying to tell him, but it was clear from her expression that she thought he’d turned simple-headed again and had completely missed the detail she was willing him to grasp.

  “Yes,” he said finally, but his focus was on Sayer. She was very pale.

  “Mrs. Garth, are you—?” He was about to ask if she was all right, but another hard look from Rorie made him think better of it.

  He said good-night to both sleepy girls instead and stepped outside, instantly alert for any sound that might indicate that someone was about. But he only heard the usual night sounds—crickets and a whip-poor-will’s song that couldn’t help but remind him of the night Thomas Henry had died. Incredibly, being here with Sayer and his sisters was making him feel as if he’d actually known the man. It was...unsettling.

  After a moment, he walked out to remove the hobbles from the mule and the horse and put them in their stalls. Nothing seemed amiss outside the barn, but on the inside he nearly fell over something blocking his way. An empty wooden box turned on its side with a pile of sawdust scattered on the ground around it.

  Chapter Five

  When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid...

  But Sayer was afraid. She lay in the dark with her eyes open, the news of Thomas Henry’s death weighing her down until she thought she might suffocate under it. She was exhausted from trying to be quiet and not disturb the others. She could hear the girls’ steady breathing and Rorie’s fitful little snores. They were all sound asleep, and she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  She sat up and quietly put her feet on the floor, resisting the urge to get up and run. She had to get out. She needed air and solitude, regardless of the hour, but she forced herself to find her dress and brogans and put them on. She was well aware that if Rorie and the girls awoke, it was better to look sleepless, rather than mad with grief.

  She didn’t go to the front door, because Jeremiah might be on the porch and might take exception to her leaving the cabin at this hour. She went to the other door instead, despite the struggle it would take to open it. It led to the open-sided lean-to out back, a roof supported by cedar posts that offered shade and some shelter from the elements for work best done outdoors. The bar had always been hard to shift. It was yet another chore Thomas Henry would have seen to when he got home.

  She had to work a long time before the bar finally gave, and she stood perfectly still for a moment to make sure she hadn’t wakened anyone. Then she cracked the door open and slipped outside.

  The air was fresh and cool; a strong breeze blew down from the higher ridges. She had no idea what time it might be. She thought that it must be close to dawn because she wasn’t i
n pitch-black darkness. She could just make out the shapes of things around her.

  But it didn’t matter to her what the hour might be. She walked a few yards away from the cabin and looked up at the night sky. There was no moon; she could see a few stars. And how quiet it was around her, save a distant rumble of thunder from time to time.

  “Where are you?” she whispered, looking up at the sky again, not knowing if she meant Thomas Henry or God Himself. The truth was that she felt abandoned by them both. “Where are you? Where are you!”

  She began to walk, to stumble aimlessly around the property that Halbert Garth wanted so desperately. What else would he do to take it? Kill her? And the girls? She didn’t know enough about property law. She had no idea whether Thomas Henry’s will would protect them from his uncle or not. All she knew for certain was that there was no comfort here. None. There was no place she could go to feel closer to him. It was true that Thomas Henry had lived here, but they had never lived here together. She had no memories of a life with him. It would be as if he—they—as a married couple—had never existed. She had far more memories of Jeremiah Murphy in this place than she did of Thomas Henry.

  She wandered too close to the barn, and Jeremiah’s mount gave a soft rumble and began to blow and stamp. She went inside, feeling her way along until she reached the horse.

  “It’s too early to feed you,” she whispered, gently stroking its soft nose. It leaned forward to breathe in her scent. “Rorie says you were a soldier, too.”

  She was tired suddenly. Too tired to walk around. Too tired to commiserate with a horse. She went back outside, ultimately heading toward the big shade tree where she had sat many long hours diligently pushing a threaded needle through green bean pods and sweet apple slices so they could be hung up along the eaves in the loft space to dry. There was a half-log bench to sit down on, but she sat in the girls’ rope swing instead, swinging back and forth, slowly at first, and then higher and higher the way she had as a child, feeling the wind on her face. And some part of her stood aside, watching.