Secret Tides

by Gary E. Parker

  “I suppose I’ll say yes,” she replied, her mind suddenly settling on an answer to her questions.

  “That’ll solve a handful of worries; yours and mine.”

  Camellia smoothed her skirt.

  “You’re a beautiful young woman,” York said. “So much like …” He stopped and looked down.

  “Like who … like my mama?”

  He toed the floor.

  “Why don’t you ever speak of her?” asked Camellia. “I’ve asked you over and over, but you won’t ever talk about Mama.”

  “She’s gone,” said York. “No reason to talk about what’s past.”

  “But you loved her like Trenton loves me.”

  “I hope he loves you as much as I did your mama.”

  Camellia folded her arms. “You look sad when you speak of her.”

  “I don’t have her anymore. Never had her for long. I ought to feel sad, don’t you reckon?”

  Camellia studied him. His shoulders seemed so heavy. It wasn’t just grief either, but a shadow that hung over him … something her pa knew but didn’t want to say. “I have her red dress,” she said. “The navy blue cape too, and some earrings and a Bible; least I guess it’s all hers.”

  “What?”

  “I found the things a few years ago, cleaning your room, under your gear. All in a box. I figured it was from Mama.”

  He frowned. “You ought not to go lookin’ in a man’s belongin’s. Not proper.”

  “Are they Mama’s things?” She had to know the answer.

  “She married me in that dress.”

  “Was she beautiful?”

  “Leave it be,” he said sternly. “Whether she was or wasn’t, don’t make a difference. Your mama’s dead. All that’s past. We got now, and that’s all. No good can come from lookin’ over your shoulder.”

  “It hurt you when she died,” whispered Camellia. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Lots of things hurt me,” said York. “But I didn’t let it whip me. Didn’t then, won’t now.”

  “Why didn’t you marry again?” she asked. “You were still young … still are, for that matter. Lots of women be proud to marry you.”

  York kicked the floor. “Your mama was enough for me. Losin’ her makes me unwillin’ to put myself in a spot to lose another.”

  Camellia took his hand. So big and strong, yet so frail and weak too. Were all men like this? So easily hurt by a woman? “I hope Trenton loves me as much as you did Mama. If he does, we can get through anything.”

  “You are a naive girl,” he said. “Sometimes even love ain’t enough.”

  “Ours will be. You just wait and see.”

  Trenton came to her two days later, a couple of hours after midday, as she took a rest under the ancient oak that fronted the manse. He wore tan riding pants and black boots with a long-collared dark green shirt. Everything he wore looked new and fresh and every bit the right clothing for a wealthy plantation gentleman. Camellia stood as he stepped her way, brushed off the back of her plain brown skirt, examined her worn yellow blouse, and wished she had better clothes. At least she wore shoes today; he hadn’t caught her barefooted.

  She studied his face as he reached her. He seemed older than she remembered, as if he’d aged at least one year for every month since his father’s death. His eyes wore the look of a man with a lot of shadows on his heart.

  “Stay seated.” He pointed her back to the ground. “I’ll join you.”

  She dropped back to the soft earth, and he took a spot beside her. The sun drifted through the tree branches.

  “Sorry I haven’t seen you sooner,” he said. “But I needed to handle a few things with Mother first. She’s here for only a few days, then back to Charleston before the fever season starts.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanations. Just wish you’d let me know when you plan to come see me. I’d like to have fixed up some for you.”

  He covered her hands with his. “No need for that. You look just fine all the time.”

  She smiled.

  Trenton stared into the tree. “Remember when we were children? We used to climb this tree.”

  She glanced up. “It’s been here a long time. Will be here a long time still, I expect. We thought it was the tallest tree in the world back then. Thought we were doing what nobody else could do.”

  “Things were simple then, weren’t they?”

  Camellia sensed a bitterness in his words, as though he’d come to some discovery he’d never known before. “Life gets harder, that’s for sure. Nobody can deny that.”

  He picked up a rock at his side and threw it sideways into the woods a few feet away. “The Oak had a hard year. Rice yield down, the land playing out some, not giving what it once did.”

  “I hear Pa talk. Know times are tougher than usual. He seems to have a handle on it, though.”

  “Your pa and I aren’t always in agreement,” said Trenton.

  “Working men sometimes have troubles between them.”

  “He forgets his place sometimes.”

  Camellia’s face bleached whiter. “His place?”

  “Don’t take offense,” Trenton added quickly, obviously realizing what he’d said. “You know what I mean. He thinks he knows more about The Oak than I do, that’s all.”

  “You saying he don’t? He’s run it for years while you’ve been off at school. He’s not so educated as you, but he knows how to run a plantation. You got to admit that.”

  Trenton threw another rock. “I suppose that’s true. But The Oak still belongs to me, right?”

  “Nobody questions that. But my pa is a quality overseer. You need to know that if you don’t already. The fact he don’t own anything don’t mean he don’t know what he’s doing.”

  Trenton touched Camellia’s chin. “I’ve been all over the country—Charleston, New York, Philadelphia, even out to California once. But you’re the prettiest girl I ever saw.”

  “You’re lying, I’m sure,” Camellia said, smiling lightly. “But I like it.”

  He smiled briefly back. Then his face darkened, and he took away his hand. “I want to make you happy.”

  “You will,” she said, her breath short as she waited on him to say what he’d come to say. “We’ll make each other happy.”

  Trenton turned away. She put a hand on his back, felt him trembling. Fear rose in her throat. She knew something terrible had happened. She thought of Stella and wondered if she’d told Trenton the truth about his father’s death; if he knew now and wouldn’t marry her because of it. “What’s wrong?” she asked, not wanting to hear but knowing she must.

  He faced her again, pain in his eyes. “I can’t do it,” he said softly.

  “Can’t do what?”

  He shook his head.

  “Tell me,” she said. “What is it you can’t do?”

  “I can’t … can’t please them.”

  “Can’t please who?” She feared she knew the answer before she asked.

  “Mother, Miranda, Martha, and Calvin. They say I can’t marry you, and tell me The Oak needs help … the kind of help only some rich girl can bring.”

  “But you said you wouldn’t let anyone interfere with us!” argued Camellia, her anger rising at his words. “You said my birth—my low place in the world—don’t matter to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me!” he offered. “But it matters to Mother, to The Oak, to everything my father owned, all he stood for.”

  “You said yourself he was a scoundrel.”

  Trenton wiped his eyes. “He was, but I’m the elder son. I get the place when Mother passes, at least the responsibility for it. How’s it going to look if I can’t keep what my father left me? If I let the bankers take it because I can’t pay off a loan or two?”

  Made bolder by fear, Camellia put her hands on his hips. “Look at me!”

  Trenton obeyed.

  “What difference should it make what others think?” she asked. “What it looks like? Sell t
he place, sell it today, take the money and live wherever you want. Buy a smaller plantation, a place not so grand. It don’t matter to me so long as we’re together.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re such a romantic. Too bad the world doesn’t run that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know why not. If I did, I’d fix it.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’m trapped in my world as much as you’re trapped in yours, and I don’t know what to do next. I’m confused, that’s what I’m saying—confused and angry and … afraid.”

  Camellia dropped her head on his chest. For the first time, it all started to sink in. She and Trenton wouldn’t marry. With his mother’s aid, he’d find someone else, someone who could bring a large dowry to the marriage, some status and connection. In spite of all she and Trenton had said to each other about their station not making any difference, everything had now come together to show them it did. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe this was best, she thought, trying to make herself feel better. Maybe the Lord wanted it this way. After all, she’d killed Trenton’s father. How could she marry him?

  Her heart breaking, she stepped back from Trenton. He studied his boots, his shoulders slumped. She touched his chin and tried to lift his face, but he pulled away. She sensed some words yet unsaid and then realized … “You’ve already found somebody else,” she whispered suddenly. “Somebody more suitable.”

  He didn’t respond, so she knew she’d hit the truth. “A rich girl in Charleston, is that it?”

  “Mother,” he explained it, his head still down, “knew this family from Columbia. I’d met the girl a couple of times, years ago. I’d never paid her any attention. But she’s grown up now.”

  “So this time you did pay attention.”

  “I had no choice. Can I let The Oak fail, let down all the people who depend on me? Can I ignore all of them, do what I want, and forget what’s best for everybody else?”

  “Is it best for you if you marry somebody your mama forces on you?”

  “I don’t know.” He sighed. “I don’t know what’s best for me—or for you, either. I mean, who knows if you’d be happy in a place like Charleston, dealing with all that comes with the city. You don’t like society’s ways, don’t want to deal with it, aren’t ready for it.”

  Camellia lowered her eyes and thought of the hours she’d spent with Ruby over the last few months, the way she’d started to read, the world opening up to her as a result. Had all that been for naught, nothing more than the fanciful dream of a poor girl wanting to become a princess? She nodded; yes, surely, that’s what it had been. How prideful of her to think she could become good enough for Trenton.

  “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I’m not ready. I could be someday, but I’m not now.”

  Trenton smiled and touched her hair. “I know you could. But is that really you? All the worrying about this and that; little things that don’t matter to anybody.”

  “You’re telling me I don’t fit in your world?”

  “I’m not sure I do either,” he said wryly. “But I have to try. You don’t. Marrying me might be the worst thing for you … the worst thing possible.”

  “I should never have let you go back to Charleston after your father passed away.” A small sob escaped her throat.

  “And I should never have gone. I wish I hadn’t, but since I did I don’t know what to do now, don’t know …”

  “This is it, then.”

  “I don’t know!” he moaned. “But no matter what, I’ll always love you. Even if I marry somebody else, I’ll still love you. We could … well, you know … men do it all the time. Marry one woman but love another. We could—”

  “I’m not a trollop!” she exclaimed, shocked that he would even suggest such a thing. “I won’t share you with somebody else! How dare you think that of me!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, shoulders slumped in obvious shame. “But it’s such a terrible situation. Mother pressing me on one side, you on the other.”

  “I’m not pressing you,” said Camellia, hurt at the notion she was forcing him to do something he didn’t want. “You make your choice, do what you think best for the most people.”

  He stared deeply into her eyes. “I love you. That I know.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said. “Unless you plan to marry me. If you loved me enough, you’d tell your mother where she could go, and you’d do what you always said you wanted to do.”

  “She’ll disown me if I do,” he added bluntly.

  “What?”

  Trenton picked up a rock and threw it toward the woods. “Mother said she’d cast me away,” he admitted. “I can’t let her do that.”

  “So you’re letting me go to keep your place.”

  “It’s not like that and you know it,” he argued. “It’s far more complicated.”

  “Sounds simple to me.” She leaned on the oak tree.

  “You want me to give away everything?” he asked.

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  He threw another rock. “This is the biggest choice I’ve ever had to make,” he said. “Mother says I have to decide now. The girl in Columbia has other suitors eager to take her hand in marriage.”

  “So she has you caged in.”

  “Looks that way.” He spat out the words.

  Camellia saw anger in his eyes. There was one thing she knew for sure about Trenton: He didn’t like it when he felt trapped, forced to do what he didn’t want. Although that trait scared her sometimes, maybe it was good this time, a shove for him to push away his mama’s control.

  Trenton waved his hand over the landscape. “I’ll be giving all this up. Marrying you will change my life, your life, all our lives. If Mother disowns me, I’ll come to you without a dollar to my name.”

  Camellia’s heart soared. He sounded unsure again, as if he hadn’t made a decision. “That makes no difference!” she encouraged him. “We can do without money, can show them how wrong they are.”

  “Mother might be trying to bluff me,” said Trenton. “Might not disown me at all when it comes down to it.”

  “I don’t care either way,” Camellia insisted. “Just so we’re together. But you ought to know this. If you bow to your mother here, she’ll control you as long as she’s alive.”

  “I can’t let her do that,” he said firmly. “Nobody can press me into doing something I don’t want. Got that much of my father in me, I guess.”

  Camellia decided she’d said enough. Time to let him decide his own heart.

  Trenton turned back to her. She saw a steely glare in his eyes, a fire that showed up every now and again. He put his hands on her shoulders, his face fierce. “You’re right. If I marry Mother’s choice, I’ll never be a free man.” Camellia held her breath as Trenton continued. “You and I will marry in May, next spring. That’ll give me time to settle in here at The Oak, get to know the place, see what I can do to make it prosperous again.”

  Camellia tensed under his hands. A fear suddenly hit her. She knew how headstrong Trenton could be. What if he’d decided to marry her only to show his mother that she couldn’t control him? Young men often acted out of pride and rebellion against a parent. Was this what he was doing now? Was that what she’d always been to him—a way to show his mother and father that he had a mind of his own? That he could and would stand up to them?

  Trenton spoke again, his tone hurried now that he’d made a decision. “Mother will just have to live with it,” he said. “Whether she likes it or not. She can’t disown me; who’ll run this place if she does? Calvin’s not ready, and she certainly won’t do it. She needs me, and she’ll realize that soon enough.”

  When he threw his arms around Camellia, she relaxed and tried to let go of her fears. So what if he wanted to stand up to his mother? What real man wouldn’t? He loved her … even if he hadn’t remembered to ask her if she’d marry him.
But so what? As long as he married her, what difference did it make that he hadn’t proposed in a traditional way? So what if he hadn’t asked her pa for her hand in matrimony? So what if he hadn’t fallen to a knee, kissed her hand, and placed a ring on her finger as a token of his love? So what if he’d just assumed she’d marry him once he made his decision? He’d made the hardest choice a man in his situation could make, and she felt blessed that he’d made it in her favor. No reason to quarrel with him over the small details, no reason at all. Yet, as much as she tried to feel otherwise, her heart still fell a little, and Stella’s hard words about Trenton rattled about in her head as he held her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Later that day, as the sun began to drop, Hampton York closed a ledger book and leaned backward in the brown leather chair once occupied by Mr. Marshall Tessier. As he sat behind a walnut desk with brass drawer pulls, dust particles danced in the air. York rubbed his eyes and sighed contentedly. The guilt he’d felt over killing Tarelton had largely passed, and he felt like his old self again. Unless he missed his guess, young Trenton would soon ask his daughter for her hand, and all his worries would end. He rolled that notion around in his head, realizing that after they married he could come to this library anytime he liked.

  He stared around the fancy furnishings. Although he did most of his work either out in the fields or in a small building not far from the largest of the barns, he came in here near the end of every week to write down a few crude notes about happenings on The Oak. Finely cut wood floors lay under his boots, and handsewn rugs of mostly gold colors lay over the wood. Shelves of books—he’d counted close to five hundred volumes—ran all the way to the top of the twelve-foot ceilings on two walls. A panther head hung on the wall behind the desk, a moose head on the opposite side. Yes sir, he deserved a place like this. When Camellia married Master Trenton, they’d probably live in Charleston most of the time, and he might just set up his office here.

  Pleased with his dream, York took a key from a ring in his pocket, unlocked the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk, and slid it open. A stack of money lay in the drawer. After listening for a moment to make sure nobody was coming, he pulled two hundred dollars from the money stack, stuffed it into his pocket, and closed and locked the drawer. Standing, he patted the money in his pocket and headed to the door.