Secret Tides

by Gary E. Parker

  He smiled as she reached the top of the steps. She took a chair by him and tucked her shawl closer to her chin.

  “I reckon you heard,” he started.

  “Yes.”

  “I hoped to tell you face to face, but news like this don’t keep long.”

  “Why, Pa? And don’t tell me love.”

  He looked sharply at her, and she felt bad about her tone.

  “I don’t need to explain my doin’s with Mrs. Tessier to you,” he said. “Why we’re marryin’ is between us, like it is between any man and woman.”

  She stared out into the dark yard. Stars blinked down. She turned back to her pa, determined to talk to him, set on making amends for the harsh way she’d thought of him for a long time. “You loved my mama, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. Powerful love I had for her.”

  “She loved you.”

  He spat into the yard. “I like to think she did.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  He rubbed his beard. “Not much to say. She died young; the typhus got her.”

  “I don’t remember her.”

  “That’s a grief to me. You look just like her.”

  “Not much like you, though. I always wondered some about that.”

  He eyed her suspiciously but didn’t speak. She shivered as the night chill ate into her bones, but she didn’t plan to leave the porch until she said what she wanted to say.

  “Tell me about her.”

  He dropped the front legs of his chair to the porch floor. “She’s dead and gone. No reason to drag those memories out right now. I got a new life ahead of me. You want to talk about that, I’ll jabber all night. But what’s over is over. Best to leave it buried.”

  “Josh told me about my mama,” she said softly. “I made him.”

  York cursed and spat again. “Josh sometimes talks more than he ought.”

  “I gave him no choice.”

  “Man always got a choice to say no.”

  “Be mad at me, not him.”

  “What’d he tell you?”

  “All of it. The way you met, she already with me, Chester on the way. How she stayed a couple of years, gave you Johnny, then took off. The way you loved her; the way you took care of us children all by yourself.”

  “I didn’t do too good by you three, but it was the best I knew how,” he said.

  “You should’ve told me. It would have made me more understanding, more patient, more … ” Camellia stopped, and her eyes trickled again. “I’ve not been a good daughter,” she continued. “I’ve judged too fast, seen the worst real easy instead of looking for the best. I’m sorry for that.”

  “I tried to protect you,” he mumbled. “Didn’t want no more hurt to come your way. No reason for a child to think poorly of their mama, no matter how bad that mama might be.”

  Camellia reached over and patted him on the knee. “You are my pa. No matter about any of this.”

  He shook his head. “Your pa is a man named Wallace Swanson. Josh tell you that too?”

  A light breeze caught her hair and blew it into her face. Wallace Swanson. The name meant nothing to her. How could Wallace Swanson be her father?

  “He still alive?”

  York leaned back again and stared into the yard. “Don’t know for sure. Maybe so.”

  “He feels dead to me. Just a name, nothing else.”

  “If he’s alive, he’s up North somewhere, that’s all I can say.”

  “Wonder what he looks like.”

  “Maybe you can find out someday.”

  She brushed her hair from her eyes. “Things are changing. I’m changing.”

  “Things are always changin’. People too. It’s one thing you can hang your hat on.”

  “This is more than normal, though. You and Mrs. Tessier marrying, Josh leaving.”

  “He tell you about that too, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man keeps his mouth shut a long while, then runs off with words all of a sudden, like a stream after a heavy storm.”

  “Why’s he leaving?”

  “Not for me to say.”

  “He says he needs a fresh start somewhere. Too many memories here.”

  “I can see how he’d figure that.”

  Camellia paused and wondered again about Josh’s past, why he spoke ill of himself so often. “Why’s he so hard on himself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, how he says he’s so unworthy.”

  York shrugged. “Some things men don’t like to talk about.”

  “You two stick together, don’t you?”

  “Used to for sure. Not so much right now, though.”

  “What will happen to us, Pa?”

  He spat into the yard. “Future’s not always clear. One day one thing, the next day another. But the way I see it, me and Mrs. Tessier will marry, I’ll make The Oak prosperous again, everybody will live happy ever after.”

  “You believe that’s possible?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “What about me and Trenton?”

  “If he loves you, he ought to wed you. Nothin’ to keep him from it.”

  She thought of Josh. “How do I know if Trenton really loves me? He put me aside real fast when he found Eva Rouchard.”

  “His family forced him to that.”

  “He should have stood up to them.”

  He cocked his head at her. “You havin’ second thoughts about him?”

  “Not sure what I feel. Confusion more than anything else … fear too maybe. Scared he’ll ask me, scared he won’t.”

  “Don’t marry him, then. Don’t need to anymore with me marryin’ Mrs. Tessier. I can give you what you want. Can send you to fine schools, dress you up real pretty, make you a lady like none other in the South.”

  She smiled. “Pa, that’s your dream, not mine. I never really wanted any of those things. Sure, they’d be nice, and I’ve thought about them because I knew Trenton desired that for me. But I don’t desire them, pine for them. I’m a simple girl, easy to please when it comes to matters of a house, clothes, food, and such. I just want a man I know for sure loves me, will take care of me.”

  “Trenton might not be that man, then,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes widened. “You’ve always encouraged me and Trenton. You feel different now?”

  “Maybe I don’t need to encourage it anymore.”

  “Now that you’re marrying his mother.”

  “Right.”

  “You wanted me to marry him for his money, didn’t you?”

  He stood and moved to the porch rail, then sat on it and stared at Camellia. “I won’t deny that’s part true. But I figured you loved him too. That way everybody came out to the good. You married the man you loved, improved your lot in life—mine too in the bargain. Make both of us happy. Any sin in that?”

  She had no answer to that question. “You think he loves me?”

  “I think he wants to love you but isn’t sure how.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He sighed loudly. “Men like Trenton Tessier worry more about what they want than they do what the other person wants. They don’t realize it, but they’re born to privilege, born to rule and bark orders. They do it with the darkies, with their hired help, with their wives. In his eyes, he’s above right and wrong because he’s above the laws that govern other folks. He does what he desires and expects everybody else to accept it.”

  “You sound angry at him.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  Camellia sensed something deeper behind the words but didn’t know how to get at it. “How’s he taking your proposal to his mother?”

  “Not good, I can tell you that.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “You might say that. He says I’m not good enough for her.”

  “She didn’t think me good enough for him.”

  “Yes, I think there’s a fancy word for that.”

&nb
sp; “Irony.”

  Another question came to Camellia. “I hear you have some money.”

  “People sure do talk a lot.”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “Some.”

  “Enough to keep The Oak from the bankers?”

  “At least for another year.”

  “Mrs. Tessier marrying you for the money?”

  He smiled. “She’s marryin’ me ’cause I’m handsome and charmin’, don’t you think?”

  “Where’d you get your money?”

  “Everybody wants to know that. I’m a gambler, remember?”

  “That’s a heap of gambling.”

  “I’m good at it.”

  Camellia moved to the rail by her pa. “What do I do if Trenton proposes to me?”

  He gazed into her face in the moonlight. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  York spat off the rail. “Maybe you won’t face the choice.”

  “You don’t think he’ll ask?”

  “That ain’t it. He may be dead.”

  She froze in place. “I don’t understand.”

  York sighed again. “I ought not tell you this, but you’ll find out soon enough anyway. Master Trenton has challenged me. Claims I stole money from The Oak. Also says I offended the family name by proposin’ to his mother.”

  “You can’t fight him!”

  “It ain’t my choice. He’s offered the challenge.”

  “You can refuse it! You have to refuse it!”

  “You know what happens if a man refuses a challenge. He’s a laughing-stock. He’d post me all over—Beaufort, Charleston. I’d have to leave the state.”

  Camellia nodded. She knew what happened if a man turned down a challenge. The challenger put up posters all over the place, signs and letters that told what a coward the man was, how he’d refused an affair of honor.

  “What are his conditions?” she asked, hoping to find a loophole.

  “I give him every dollar I got, take back my proposal to his mother, and leave The Oak.”

  Camellia frowned. No way her pa would accept those conditions. “You can’t duel,” she argued. “It’s illegal.”

  York chuckled. “It’s illegal on the books, but men do it all the time. The law don’t do a thing.”

  “But you might kill him!”

  “And he might kill me.”

  She stood and paced the porch. “But you can’t! He can’t!”

  “It ain’t my doin’. He challenged me. I got to face it or leave.”

  “Then let’s leave! Josh is doing it; we can too!”

  “And go where?”

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. We’ll go with Josh, wherever he goes,” she insisted.

  “He wants shed of me,” her pa stated honestly. “Don’t think he’d like my taggin’ along.”

  Camellia’s mind swirled, but she saw no way to fix this, no way to keep her pa from dueling Trenton. Yet she refused to give up. Somehow, someway, she’d keep this from happening.

  “Mrs. Tessier know about this?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not, and you shouldn’t go tellin’ her.”

  “She won’t marry you if you kill her son.”

  “Maybe not, but I got a feelin’ about her. She’s a surprisin’ woman. But one thing is for sure: She won’t marry me if I run or if Trenton kills me.”

  “You can’t kill him,” she repeated. “You just can’t.”

  “Go tell him to take back his challenge, then. That’s the only way to make sure nobody dies.”

  “I can do that,” she agreed. “He’ll listen to me. He has to.”

  When she left her pa, Camellia headed straight for the manse, her head set on getting Trenton to back off the challenge. Ruby led her to him in the study, and he stood quickly as she entered the room. He indicated a seat for her, but she refused to take it and remained standing instead, a heavy desk between them.

  “You cannot challenge my pa!”

  He waved her off. “I’ll not talk with you of this. It’s not a woman’s place to interfere in such matters.”

  “You have to.”

  “No, I don’t. Your pa shouldn’t have told you.”

  “You think you can kill my pa, and I’ll still marry you?”

  When Trenton glared at her, the memory of Marshall Tessier, his father, suddenly came back to her … the way his eyes had changed when she fought his advances.

  “I haven’t yet asked you to marry me,” he said coolly. “But if you love me, you’ll marry me no matter what happens between your pa and me.”

  Camellia staggered back, her spirit crushed. For the first time she saw in Trenton a trace of what both Josh and her pa had described—his arrogance, his sense of privilege above other people. For several seconds she stood stunned, trying to figure what had happened. Had he just shown this side of himself to her for the first time, or had it been there all along and she’d refused to face it? Tears threatened, but she angrily wiped them away. “What’s happening to us?”

  Trenton’s face softened again. He circled the desk and opened his arms. He seemed like his old self, but she refused to go to him. So he dropped his arms but stepped close. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “Please forgive me. As you can imagine, I’m under a lot of strain. This proposal from your father stunned me. I cannot let it stand.”

  “But you’ll be killed!”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Then my pa will be killed!” She stepped back a pace. “How do you think this makes me feel? One of the two men most important to me will almost surely die!”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he argued. “He can accept the conditions, and I’ll retract the challenge.”

  She backed up another step. “You have no idea what you’re doing. My pa will not retract anything. He’s a soldier at heart, always has been. A man as tough as any alive. You ought to know that. He’s cunning and brave, prideful too—in his own way as prideful as you. One of you will die in this unless you retract.”

  “I cannot do it. It would ruin my life.”

  “Better a ruined life than none at all.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Then you refuse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your mother know?”

  “No, and you will not tell her.”

  “If you kill him, I … I don’t know that I can marry you. He’s a hard man, but he has done his best for me, Chester, and Johnny.”

  “We’ll face that when the time comes,” he answered stoically.

  She shook her head, surprised at the words she’d just spoken. “I fear that Josh may be right about you,” she said, again stronger than she knew she could be.

  Trenton smiled, but not playfully. “Mr. Cain’s opinion of me is not high?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “It’s not your place to understand me,” he said, moving close enough for her to feel his breath on her cheek. “It’s your place to stand by me, to support my decisions. That’s what a good woman does for her husband; she stands with him. No questions, no quarrels.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her close. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, eager to rest in his strength, eager for somebody to hold her against all the forces pushing at her insides. She felt like she did when an ocean wave crashed over her head and she gave herself to it. The water just carried her away, carried her away, and all she had to do was relax and enjoy the power of the water, the might of its pull. Trenton’s lips touched her forehead, and she raised her eyes to meet his. She saw a grin on his face, but this time the grin seemed all crooked—not a grin of joy at her love, but a grin of triumph at his power. He believed he could have her, she realized, have her whenever he wanted. He believed in his control over her, in his privilege, believed that all he had to do was ask and she’d come running. Could she give in to that, allow him that much authority over her? Only the Lord should have that much dominance over ano
ther person; only the Lord should receive that much obedience.

  Camellia pulled away from him and ran from the room. Until she understood what she felt, she couldn’t stay with Trenton, couldn’t let him kiss her and put her under his dominance again.

  On the stairs she almost stumbled but kept going. She’d done all she could for Trenton and her pa. No matter what happened now, it was beyond her control. The duel would surely happen. After that, who knew what to expect?

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  As Josh expected, neither York nor Master Trenton backed away from the prospect of a duel. Within the next seventy-two hours, Trenton had written a second letter, this one inviting York to name a weapon and a place and time for the settling of their dispute. York chose 7 A.M. on Saturday morning, five days hence, April 13. A spot on the beach about two miles from The Oak would serve as the staging ground. Pistols, York decided, a Colt .51 for each man. The traditional ten paces apart. Each man would bring one second, and each man would fire one shot per round. If both men were still standing after the second round, the seconds would step in and allow either man to back away from the contest, honor intact. The doctor from Beaufort would stand as aid to the wounded if necessary.

  Although he carried the letters to and from York and Master Calvin, Josh tried hard to keep from getting caught up in the emotion of the matter. He’d seen enough death and didn’t choose to experience any more. To the best of his ability he kept his focus on preparing to leave The Oak. He told Beth and Butler of his plans. Beth cried and told him she wanted to stay. He held her close and sought to soothe her by telling her he’d move them to a spot where she could go to school; that seemed to settle her some.

  The days before the duel passed quickly. Josh talked to York almost every morning, trying to get him to offer Master Trenton a compromise, maybe give him the money at least, but York refused. He’d won the money, he kept repeating. No reason for him to give Trenton Tessier something that belonged to him.

  Work on the plantation continued as if nothing had changed. The field hands moved to the rice fields every morning, slaved in the hot sun that had already started to bake down, then came home about dark each night. It seemed odd to Josh, the way things kept on moving, the way normal routines still happened in spite of the possibility of death hanging just around the corner. Of course nobody but he, York, Camellia, Johnny, and the Tessier brothers knew about the upcoming duel. But still it struck him as odd that life could just ease along while so much change stood so close on the horizon.