Then he remembered—the brooch! Before she died, his mother had made it clear that the heart-shaped amethyst was to be given to his daughter on her wedding day. Except for this prison of a house, it was all she had as an inheritance from her grandparents. One of the pearls was missing, he remembered vaguely, but if Mother had treasured it that much, the stone itself had to be valuable.
Abe went back into the bedroom and rummaged in his wife’s drawers until he came up with a small, worn velvet box. He opened it, placed the brooch on his open palm, and watched as the sunlight from the window glittered on the table of the gemstone.
For a moment he gazed, mesmerized, as the amethyst glowed in the ray of light. It seemed almost alive, like a tiny heart beating in the palm of his hand. Then he shook off sentimentality and shoved the brooch into his vest pocket. This was his transfer out of hell. No one would miss it, at least not until he was long gone.
He would leave on the first train out in the morning. That was time enough to tell Pansy, pack his gear, and prepare for his departure.
Abe heaved a deep sigh of relief. This time tomorrow, he would be on his way.
With a ticket to freedom in his pocket.
Amethyst stared at her father. Her dinner had grown cold, and the juice from the turnip greens had seeped into the mashed potatoes and congealed into an unappetizing mess. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t eat anyway, not after the bombshell he had just dropped.
“Abraham, no!” her mother wailed, reaching into her bag for smelling salts. “You can’t just leave us here alone!”
Amethyst wanted to tell Mama to shut her mouth, but as a dutiful daughter she could only think the words, not say them. Still, her eardrums vibrated painfully with the shrieking, and her stomach twisted into a knot.
“Pansy, sweetheart,” her father was cooing with uncharacteristic tenderness, “don’t you understand? I have to go.” He paused and puffed his chest out. “It’s my—” He groped for words. “My patriotic duty.”
Amethyst tasted bile rising in her throat, and she choked it back. She loved her father, but she didn’t like him very much. She could see through him as her mother never could, and up until this moment she had never detected so much as a grain of patriotic loyalty in the man. He was trying to paint himself as a hero, but Amethyst knew better. He was doing this for himself, not for the two of them or for the sake of his country.
“You’ll be fine,” Father was saying. “Amethyst is nearly grown, and she can take care of things. Besides, Enoch and his family will be close by. I’m sure Silvie can help out, too. Isn’t that right, Ammie?”
Amethyst looked at him and took a deep breath to get control of her emotions. The truth was, he wouldn’t be missed much at all, considering the way he spent most of his time. Abe Noble considered himself a “gentleman farmer,” a country squire. Apparently that meant that his primary responsibility was to swagger around town with a brass-headed walking stick and wager every dime of his earnings on the card games in the back room of Colby’s Tavern. The growing acceptance of prohibition laws supposedly made liquor more difficult to come by, but that didn’t seem to have much effect upon Father or the rest of his cronies down at Colby’s. Amethyst often heard him come in late at night drunk and angry, and several times recently her mother had come to the breakfast table with bruises on her face and arms. Mama made excuses for him, of course, but Amethyst knew the truth.
Yes. Despite her mother’s tearful protests, it would be better for all of them if he were gone for a while. Maybe the army would instill some adult responsibility in him. She had heard that men often returned from war radically changed. Perhaps such a miracle would happen to her father, as well—even at his age.
They could only hope and pray.
Silvie sat in the rocking chair with her embroidery while Amethyst lay on the bed reading Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago Poems” aloud. Silvie liked to hear Amethyst read; her voice was so animated, so passionate—especially when she was reading poetry. Sandburg was a rough kind of poet, and as a country girl, Silvie didn’t identify with a lot of what he wrote about the city. Still, his words were powerful and stirring and, like all good poetry, left her with the feeling that anything was possible.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched the expressions on Amethyst’s face as she read. The girl seemed so much more at peace, now that her father was gone. Yesterday he had boarded the train, bound for Memphis to sign up for the war. He had been out of the house barely one day, and yet the change in Amethyst was remarkable, as if a storm cloud had lifted from her soul.
Silvie, too, was glad he was gone. She had felt uncomfortable around Mister Abe for nearly as long as she could remember—the way his eyes followed her, the way he smiled at her and stroked his mustache with a kind of leer tugging at his mouth. She had told no one about her feelings, and she wasn’t entirely certain that anything bad would have happened if he ever did manage to get her alone, but she kept her guard up nevertheless. Now she, like Amethyst, relaxed in the assurance of his departure.
How sad it was, that her friend was more comfortable in her father’s absence than in his presence! Silvie couldn’t imagine such a situation for herself—she adored her daddy. He was a wonderful provider, a doting father, and, when her mother was alive, a devoted husband. In Silvie’s mind, Enoch Warren had to be the most wonderful man on the face of the earth. Her only question was whether any man she married would ever measure up to him.
Amethyst had stopped reading and was staring curiously at her. “Silvie, are you listening?”
“Yes. At least I was. I guess I got to woolgathering for a minute or two.”
“I want to ask a favor of you.”
Silvie smiled. “Go on.”
“Mama’s going to be out of her mind with grief, now that Father’s gone.”
“Don’t I know it.” Silvie gave a shrug. She and Amethyst had been best friends for years. Neither their racial difference nor their age difference mattered—in fact, the four-year span between them had seemed to shrink as they grew up. They were more like sisters than friends, and were completely candid with one another. “I have to admit I don’t understand it. I’d think your mother would be relieved not to have to deal with his drinking and gambling and . . . well, everything else.”
Amethyst nodded. “Yes, but you know how Mama is. She’s always turned a blind eye to his faults, as if a bad marriage to a foolhardy man is better than no marriage at all. I’d rather be an old maid all my days than put up with what she’s endured.” She let out a deep sigh.
“The favor?” Silvie prompted.
“I’d like you to stay here with us while Father’s gone. Mama’s going to be a handful to deal with, and I’m going to need all the support I can get.”
“I’ll ask Daddy, but I reckon it won’t be a problem.” Silvie raised one eyebrow. “What you really want is a live-in cook.”
“Silvie! You know I don’t think of you that way!”
“I’m just kidding.”
“You’d better be. What I want is the company and assistance of my best friend.” Amethyst grinned. “Of course, if you’d like to make your fabulous custard pie now and then, I wouldn’t object.”
Amethyst and Silvie were in the kitchen fixing dinner when they heard the knock on the front door. Mama had taken to her bed with a fit of vapors, so the meal was going to be a simple one—fried pork chops with sliced tomatoes and butterbeans.
“I’ll get it.” Amethyst laid down the knife, wiped her hands on a dishtowel, and went to the front door. On the porch, hat in hand, stood a tall, thin stranger in an army uniform, a grave expression on his face.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Abraham Noble,” he said. “I’m Captain Wolfe.”
“I’m sorry,” Amethyst responded. “She’s—ah, incapacitated right now. I’m her daughter. May I help you?”
The officer averted his eyes. “No ma’am. I mean, I must speak to Mrs. Noble on a private matter. It’s essential that I see he
r.”
“Come in.” Amethyst opened the door and ushered the man into the parlor. “I’ll just be a moment.”
She went upstairs and roused her mother, and in a few minutes the two of them, along with Silvie, sat opposite the stranger, staring at him.
Amethyst watched as Mama ran a hand through her scraggly hair and forced herself to focus. “You must understand,” she murmured, “I’m not well. My husband has just left to enlist in the army, and—” Tears overcame her, and she put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“It’s all right, Mama,” Amethyst said. “Try to pull yourself together.”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Captain Wolfe shifted in his seat. “About your husband.”
A fist closed around Amethyst’s heart, and she reached a hand toward Silvie. “What is it? Has something happened?”
The man nodded. “He took the train to Memphis yesterday morning?”
“Yes.”
“There was an accident, a derailment. I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but I’m afraid your husband is dead.”
Mama let out a wail, and Silvie gripped Amethyst’s hand so tightly that her knuckles cracked.
Amethyst gaped at him. “Dead?”
“Yes, miss,” the officer affirmed, finally giving up on Mama and addressing Amethyst directly for the first time. “A loose rail on a trestle. It gave way as the train passed over the Tallahatchie River. We have his name on the manifest, but—” He looked up with a sorrowful gaze and shrugged. “His body must have washed downriver. They’re still searching, but so far it—ah, he—hasn’t been recovered.”
The officer paused for a minute and shifted uncomfortably while Mama wept at the top of her lungs. At last he asked, “How old was your father, miss?”
Amethyst thought for a minute. “Fifty-two.”
The officer shook his head. “It’s a terrible tragedy. I’m afraid the army wouldn’t have accepted him anyway. He should have known that.”
Amethyst tried to take in the devastating nature of the news, but all she could feel was relief. The same relief, multiplied tenfold, that she had felt the morning before as she had watched the train pull out of the station. He was gone. Not just for a few months or a year, but forever. Her father was dead.
The relief vanished, however, when she looked at Mama. A temporary separation had been hard enough on her. What would this do to her? In that instant, Amethyst felt the weight of the world settle on her shoulders, and any remnant of peace dissipated.
While Mama keened on, Silvie gripped Amethyst’s fingers and gave her a knowing look.
“We’ll make it,” she whispered. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”
22
The Final Straw
December 1917
Amethyst sat at the big roll-top desk in the log cabin room and shuffled the papers in front of her. She could sit here forever and not be able to decipher the mess her father had called “his books.” The only two items she had found that made any kind of sense to her were the original deed to the property, signed by Col. Robert Warren and Silas Noble, and Grandpa Silas’s will, which left the majority of the tillable land to Enoch Warren.
It had been six months since Father’s death. What little money they possessed had run out, and Mama had yet to lift a finger to help in any way. Mostly she just kept to her bed during the daylight hours and wandered the house at night, a ghostly figure in the darkness.
According to a dog-eared cashbook she found in the bottom drawer of the desk, Grandpa Silas’s will allowed for a small percentage of the crop profits to come to Father. But evidently the summer’s profits had already been advanced to him in May. Maybe he took the money with him. Maybe he hid it somewhere. Whatever he had done with the money, Amethyst couldn’t find it, and as the immensity of the situation became clear to her, panic rose up in her chest so that she couldn’t breathe.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, tears splattering the pages on the desktop. At last she came to herself, blotted the smeared ink, and took a deep breath. The numbers in the cashbook swam in front of her eyes, and in her mind she could see her father waving jauntily as the train pulled out of the station.
Fear and anxiety slowly melted away, replaced by an emotion Amethyst was all too familiar with: rage. Once again, her father had abandoned them. Once again, he had put his needs ahead of everyone else’s. But this time it wasn’t just a temporary setback caused by his drinking and gambling and carousing. This time it was permanent. Abraham Noble had pulled the ultimate disappearing act, leaving his wife and daughter alone and penniless. If he hadn’t already been dead, she might have killed him herself.
“How could you?” she screamed, pounding her fists on the desk. “What kind of man does this to his family?” Fresh tears came—hot, violent tears of anger and scorn—and Amethyst put her head down and sobbed.
A gentle touch roused her—Silvie’s hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right, hon?”
Amethyst looked up. “What do you think?”
“I think you got too heavy a load for a gal your age.”
“I’m almost eighteen, Silvie. I should be able to handle this without falling apart. I should!”
“What you should be doing is attending college over at that Columbus Female Institute, getting an education, like you always planned. What you should be doing is going to dances, meeting some nice beau—not sitting around here taking care of everybody else.”
Amethyst grimaced. “Well, that dream is dead. And you can bet I won’t be looking for some man to sweep me off my feet anytime soon.”
Silvie drew up a chair and sat down beside her. “I know. Mister Abe pretty much ruined all that for you, didn’t he?”
A deep sigh shuddered up from Amethyst’s soul. Silvie was right, and it was just one more reason for her to be furious at her father. For three years she had been planning and waiting for the day she could enroll at the Columbus Female Institute. The school, founded before the Civil War, was practically a legend throughout the South. A college for young ladies, which provided its students with an excellent education and the opportunity to become professional career women—teachers, social workers, nurses. Some of its graduates had even gone on to become doctors.
But not Amethyst Noble. In her room upstairs, an acceptance letter lay gathering cobwebs in the bureau drawer. If Father hadn’t gone off and been killed, she might be there today. Now she had missed her chance—her one opportunity to leave Cambridge behind and make something of her life.
“I have no choice,” she answered after a while. “Mama can’t do for herself, and there’s no one else to take charge.”
“So it all comes down to you.”
“I’m afraid so, Silvie. It’s not so bad, really. I can do this. What bothers me most, I think, is that I have no alternatives.” She shook her head and pointed to the papers on the desk. “And apparently no money, either.”
Silvie peered over her shoulder. “Your daddy’s books?”
“If you can call them that. He didn’t keep very good records. The best I can figure, he took an advance on last summer’s profits, and the money has simply disappeared.”
“You’ve got nothing?” Silvie’s eyes widened.
Amethyst let out a ragged breath. “Not a dime. And taxes on the house are due in January.”
“Maybe you oughta talk to the bank.”
“Apparently Father didn’t believe in banks. Kept everything in cash, here in the house. But you know how he was, Silvie. Every dollar that made its way into his pocket in the morning ended up in the cash register at Colby’s Tavern before nightfall.”
“I hate to mention this, Am, but—”
“But what? If you’ve got an idea, girl, let’s hear it!”
“The—the brooch,” Silvie answered hesitantly. “Your grandmama’s amethyst. I remember when we were little, your mama used to show it to us sometimes, telling us how you would be wearing it on the day you got married, and—”<
br />
“I could never sell that!”
“Course not. But maybe you could use it as—” She groped for the word. “As collateral. For a loan, you know.”
Amethyst thought about that for a minute. “Maybe you’re right. Silvie, you’re a genius—an absolute genius!”
The two of them went to the downstairs bedroom—the room Mama had steadfastly refused to enter since the day her father boarded the train and began the journey that ended his life. Amethyst looked around. Nothing had been touched in over six months. The wardrobe door stood open a crack, and she could see the sleeve of her father’s dressing gown sticking out. The book he had been reading lay facedown on the table next to the bed, covered with dust.
“Do you know where she kept it?” Silvie asked, prodding Amethyst into action.
“In the bureau.” Amethyst went to the dresser and began rifling through the top drawer. “It was in a little box—gray velvet, if I remember correctly. Oh! Here it is.”
She retrieved the box and opened it. Nothing.
“It’s empty,” Silvie said.
“I can see that.” Amethyst felt her last hope crumble, and her shoulders began to shake.
“Don’t fall apart now, girl. Keep looking. Maybe it came out of the box and is loose down in the drawer.” Silvie pushed past Amethyst and continued the search.
“It’s got to be here!” Amethyst dumped out the second drawer, then the third, kneeling on the floor to sort through the contents. “It can’t be gone!”
“Where else could your mama have put it? Think, Amethyst!”
“Nowhere. She always kept it right there, in the top drawer. She was very particular about it, I recall. Wouldn’t let me take it to my room for fear it would get lost, and—”
Suddenly Amethyst sat back on the rug, and her heart sank like a lead weight.
“Well, we’ll just have to go up and ask your mama,” Silvie was saying. “Surely she knows where it is.”
The Amethyst Heart Page 18