Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells

by Gilbert, Morris

  They spoke little, which was a relief to Jake. He was not on guard enough, and even a small remark such as he had made about preferring a certain season could be dangerous. Got to keep my mouth shut, he thought, and he did so for most of the trip.

  When they turned off on a side road, Rachel said, “There’s the house.” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Can’t you see it?”

  “Well, just blurred, is all.”

  Rachel said no more, and soon she was pulling the buggy to a halt. As she did so, Les came running out of the house.

  “Hey!” he called to Rachel with a grin. “You made it back!”

  “Yes, Les,” Rachel answered, smiling at him. “And now you can help us. Get that chair out of the back of the buggy, will you? And you’ll have to help Vince into it.”

  “Sure, Rachel.” Les lifted the chair and moved it beside the buggy; then, with a powerful grip, he swung Jake to the ground. Jake dropped into the chair with a grimace.

  Les looked at him for a moment, then said, “You look like the devil, Vince!”

  “Never mind that, Les,” Rachel said. “Just bring his things in. Oh, and take the buggy back to Simmons’s stable in the morning, will you? Or have Tad do it.”

  With that, she moved behind the chair and pushed it down the brick walkway that led to the big white house, but turned to follow a smaller walk that led around to the side. “I can’t manage those front steps,” she remarked. “We’ll go in by the back.” The ground rose slightly, and Jake saw that the back door was on ground level, or almost so. When Rachel called, “Dee! Come and open the door,” a woman stepped outside. She held the door open as Rachel lifted the chair wheels up the slight step.

  “We done got the downstayuhs bedroom ready,” Dee said. “We even moved the furniture ‘n’ all from his reg’lar room, though I doan know why we done so much.” She was a tall, heavy woman of sixty, no longer strong, but knowing everything about Lindwood. “We kin take bettah keer of ‘im there, though.”

  “That’s fine, Dee,” Rachel said and moved down a long hall that divided the house. The door at the end was open, and she turned the chair and entered.

  It was, Jake saw, a large bedroom, with heavy mahogany furniture and a large bay window opening out onto a garden. “You’re probably tired,” Rachel said, and she herself had lines of fatigue on her face. “I’ll get you ready for bed.”

  “No, you go on up to yoah momma’s room,” Dee said. “She’s done had a fall.”

  Rachel whirled to face the tall black woman, exclaiming, “Dee! What happened?”

  “You knows that ol’ porch on the little house? Miss Amy went out there three days ‘go to git somethin’, and she forgot about that rotten ol’ porch!” Her black face was heavy as she added, “Done gone and broke one laig, and twisted t’other one, so she can’t nowise git around.” Dee saw the alarm on Rachel’s face and moved to pat her affectionately on the shoulder. “Now, now, it ain’t gonna kill her, but you go on. She’s been waitin’ for you.”

  Rachel glanced at Jake, but Dee said impatiently, “I done diapered him plenty of times, so I reckon I can still shove him into a bed! Now git on to yoah momma, chile.”

  She waited until Rachel hurried out of the room, then turned to Jake, and he saw her eyes harden. “Well, you want somethin’ to eat?”

  “Just some water, Dee.”

  She stared at him, asking finally, “Thas all you wants? Jes water?”

  “I’m not hungry, but some cool water would be good.”

  “Fust time you been to bed sober since I kin remember!” She pushed the chair over to the bed and moved to help him, but he shook his head and stood on his good leg, then turned awkwardly and sat down on the bed. “I got you some fresh clothes,” she said. “You want me to change you?”

  “Just the water, Dee.”

  Jake changed into the clean nightshirt; then when Dee came back he drank thirstily from the glass she handed him. When he handed it back, he said, “I’m pretty tired. Guess I’ll get some sleep.”

  Standing back, she cocked her head and studied him through a pair of wise old eyes. “You looks like you been drug through a knothole,” she announced. “And you sounds funny, all husky like.”

  “Breathed too much smoke, Dee,” Jake said quickly.

  She didn’t move, and there was something monolithic about her. Vince had said once, If you can fool Dee, you can fool anybody, Jake. She’s as sharp as a tack! And she raised us kids, so she knows every scar on my body—least those I had before I left home.

  “You doan look like yo’self,” Dee said, then shrugged. “Nevah thought shavin’ off a patch of whiskahs could make so much difference in a man. You want anything, ring dat bell on the table.” She moved to the lamp, turned it down until it made only a dimple of yellow light in the large room, then left, moving heavily across the floor. Jake took a deep breath, somewhat unsteadily, then closed his eyes and was asleep almost instantly.

  Rachel found her mother sitting up in bed reading her Bible and moved to her at once, exclaiming, “Mama—what an awful thing!”

  Amy Franklin, at the age of thirty-nine, was still an attractive woman, but the accident had dimmed her natural vigor and drawn her down. “Fool thing to do!” she said, glaring bitterly at her legs under the blanket. “You’d think a woman would have enough sense to watch where she’s going, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’ll bet it hurt like fury,” Rachel said, drawing up a chair. She brushed a strand of dark hair from her mother’s forehead and listened as the older woman told her about the accident. But soon she said, “That’s enough of that. Now tell me about Vince.”

  Rachel gave her the details, and her mother asked at once, “Has he changed?”

  “I—don’t know, Mama,” Rachel said hesitantly. “It was a close call, you know. He could have died.” She tried to put her thoughts together, saying slowly, “He’s very quiet—not like himself at all in that way. He’s not badly hurt, or not permanently, at least, but I think the whole thing must have scared him.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—” She shook her head, saying, “He looks different. Still like Vince, but not really. There’s just something that makes you look twice to be sure it’s really him. You’ll be shocked, I think.” She went into the details—the loss of the beard, the scars on the forehead, the dark glasses. “He even sounds different, sort of husky. The doctor at the hospital was afraid it might be permanent, though he never told Vince that.”

  Amy sat there, thinking hard, then said, “We’ve got to have more help, Rachel.”

  “I can take care of the house.”

  “Not and take care of two invalids. Dee’s getting too old to do a lot, and you know what a lot of ninnies the younger ones are. No, I want you to get a woman to come and live here until things get better.”

  “Who would you like?”

  “I’ve been thinking it over, and it seems the best choice would be Melora, if she’ll come.”

  “Why, yes, that’s a good idea, Mama,” Rachel said at once. “She’s about the most efficient person I know—and nice, too. I’ll go in the morning and talk her into coming.”

  “She may be glad to come,” Amy said. “Can’t be much of a life for her living out in the middle of the woods. The Yancys are good people, but with Lonnie and Bob gone to the army, and Royal married, it must be pretty hard out there on their place. Cora is there now—the second girl, the one who married the Day boy, and Rose is sixteen. They can take care of the two young ones.” She shifted her legs, and her lips tightened at the pain. “Go early, Rachel. I think it’d be good for Melora.” She smiled slightly, adding, “Rev. Irons will have to come and visit me pretty often.”

  Rachel shook her head. “You’ve been trying to marry them off for a long time, Mama.” She hesitated, then asked, “What about Melora and Uncle Clay?”

  Amy shook her head firmly. “Clay’s married, and Ellen won’t ever give him up. Melora is
wasted as a single woman. She’s what, almost twenty-seven now? And Brother Irons isn’t getting any younger.”

  “He’s forty-one,” Rachel said, adding what they both knew. “He could have married a dozen times after his wife died—but he loves Melora.” Then she laughed, her eyes bright in the lamplight. “We’re getting to be worse gossips than Harvey Simmons! But I’ll go talk with Melora in the morning. If she agrees, she can come back with me. I hope she’ll come, though. It would be good to have her.”

  The next morning, Jake was awakened by Dee, who came in bearing a tray of eggs, grits, ham, and biscuits. As he ate, she sat down and watched him, her eyes never swerving. Her survey made Jake nervous, and he asked, “Where’s Rachel this morning?”

  “Gone to git some help wif dis house.” Then she said, “They wasn’t no need o’ dat. I speck dey’s enough lazy slaves on de place to take keer of it.” She sat there rocking slightly, then added, “But if we gotta have outside folks, I speck Miss Melora Yancy is de best could be had.”

  Jake almost asked who Melora Yancy was, then realized abruptly that he probably should know—or rather, that Vince would know. He said no more, and after breakfast, Dee insisted on cleaning him up and changing his bandages. She went at it as if he were a large doll, flopping him about and scrubbing at raw flesh without mercy. Jake hadn’t realized how gentle Rachel was, but determined either to have her change the dressings or do it himself in the future.

  After the ordeal, he said, “Dee, bring me the family pictures.”

  She looked at him with surprise, but he said, “My eyes are too sensitive to read, but I can look at pictures.” He had made a guess that there would be some and was pleased when she returned with quite a collection. “Here dey is,” Dee announced. “I got to go to work.” She left him, and for the next hour and a half, he studied the tintypes. There were a lot of them, and he enjoyed guessing at the identity of some of the people whose names were not written under the pictures.

  One group picture intrigued him—a large family portrait, obviously taken at some sort of a reunion. For a long time he studied the faces, trying to fit them with what Vince had told him. Vince’s own family was the easiest, for he knew the two boys beside Rachel had to be Grant and Les and that the man and woman with them had to be her parents. He knew that the man in the uniform of a Union officer had to be either Gideon or Mason Rocklin, probably Gideon, since he looked too young to be the brother of Thomas. Clay Rocklin he was fairly certain of, for he bore a striking resemblance to his father. The others he could speculate on, but realized that in every case he’d have to listen until he heard a name given.

  He heard a man’s voice in the hall and looked up as the door opened and a Confederate officer came into the room. He was not much older than forty, a wiry man of medium height, with neat features and agreeable brown eyes.

  “Hello, Vince,” the officer said. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, very well,” Jake said, his mind racing but coming up with nothing. “Sit down,” he invited.

  The Major took a seat, saying, “Your mother is feeling better. That was a nasty break she got.” He shook his head, adding, “The doctor still thinks it might give her permanent problems.”

  “You mean—she might be lame?”

  “Well, that’s what Dr. Maxwell said, but you know him, always looking on the dark side. I’m believing God will give her a perfect leg.”

  Suddenly it came to Jake, something that Vince had said:

  “The preacher is named Jeremiah Irons. Nice enough fellow, I suppose. Falling down in love with a girl named Melora, poor white girl. Funny thing is, my uncle Clay, he’s in love with her, too! A good-looking woman, dead gone on my uncle. But she won’t get him. He’s got a wife—or kind of a wife, I guess. So they’re all three miserable!”

  Jake said carefully, “Can’t talk too much, Reverend. Took in too much smoke.”

  “Rachel told me about it,” Irons said, nodding. “From what she said, you’re fortunate to be alive.” He gave Jake an odd look, adding, “She said you went back into the burning building to pull a man out.”

  Jake felt a danger here and waved his good hand in a gesture of denial. “I’d like to be a hero, Reverend, but the truth is he had some money he’d won from me, and I wanted to get it back. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Irons shrugged, then began asking about how long he expected to be in the wheelchair, but in the middle of Jake’s answer, the door opened and Rachel came in with a lovely dark-haired young woman. “I’ve brought Melora to help for a while, Vince,” she said.

  “Hello, Melora,” Jake said slowly. “I’ll try to cause you all the trouble I can. I’m a rotten patient.”

  “You’re rotten when you’re not a patient,” Rachel said sharply, then flushed and laughed uncomfortably. “Sorry, Brother Irons. I usually try to be good when there’s a minister close by.”

  “So do most other people, Rachel.” Irons smiled at her sharp humor, then said, “I’ll be moving along. Just wanted to pray with your mother and see how Vince was doing.”

  Jake said quickly, “You’ll notice he didn’t pray for me. Rev. Irons knows a hopeless case when he sees one!”

  Irons shook his head, saying, “I didn’t want to make you angry, like I did the last time I tried to pray for you.”

  Melora and Rachel exchanged smiles, and Irons added ruefully, “I thought I’d been cussed out by experts, but you made me realize there’s a level in profanity far above any I’d ever suspected. But—I sneaked around and prayed for you before I came in. Not much you can do about that, is there?”

  “I guess not,” Jake murmured.

  “Go help Melora carry her things in,” Rachel commanded. “I like to see a preacher do a little work once in a while.” When they were gone, she turned to Jake, asking, “Did Dee feed you and change your bandages?”

  “Yes, and she won’t do it again—change my bandages, I mean,” Jake said adamantly. “She’s got a touch like a blacksmith!”

  Rachel laughed out loud, which Jake thought was a delightful sound, then said, “I guess she can feed you and I’ll be the nurse. Are you going to let your whiskers grow back?”

  “No, they’re pretty itchy. But if you’ll fix the water and strop the razor, I think I can manage it.”

  “With your left hand? You can’t even throw a rock with your left hand,” she said scornfully. She left, coming back with hot water, and as she lathered his face and picked up the razor, she talked about the farm, especially about the horses. He sat very still as she shaved him, her presence stirring him in a way that was becoming more and more familiar—which made it all that much more dangerous.

  When she was finished, she carefully removed the bits of dry lather with a moist towel, saying, “I know you don’t like horses much. I’ve bored you talking about them.”

  Jake loved horses, so he was glad that she’d given him a tip on how he was supposed to react. “Well, you know me and horses.”

  “I still think you’re as much of the problem as the horses, though,” she pronounced calmly. “Horses know somehow when a person is afraid of them. If you’d just get over your fear, I think you’d be a good rider.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Why, you’re strong and you’ve got good balance,” she said.

  Disturbed by her gaze, Jake decided to steer the conversation away from himself. He glanced at the door, saying, “The preacher, he’s still mooning over Melora, I see.” He saw that the remark displeased Rachel and added quickly, “What he ought to do is drag her off by the hair and make her love him. That’d bring her around.”

  Rachel’s eyes darkened with frustration and anger at his callousness. “You’re a fool, Vince,” she said in a low voice.

  “No, just a realist,” Jake said, pushing his advantage. “She can’t have Clay, so she needs to forget him and take somebody else. The preacher’s a nice fellow and he wants her. I don’t see what her problem is.”

 
Rachel looked at him with thinly veiled disgust. She noted that the plaster on the cut on his forehead had not been changed and in one motion reached out, gripped it, and ripped it off with a sharp yank.

  “Ow!” Jake yelled, clapping his hand to the spot. “You’re worse than Dee, Rachel! Next time give a man a little warning, will you?”

  Rachel gave him a withering glance. “Vince, you’re probably the most unfeeling man I ever met, except, of course, when it comes to your own hide. You’ve been around enough to know Melora’s a woman who’s never done a wrong thing in her life. And then there’s the good man Uncle Clay has become—and all you can say is they ought to just forget what they feel!”

  “Well? What do you say?”

  She moved away from him toward the door, pausing only long enough to say, “When you love someone, you don’t toss that person away—but you’ll never understand that.” Then she was gone, and Jake lay there rubbing his smooth cheek, a thoughtful look on his face.

  Irons carried Melora’s shabby suitcase to her room; then the two of them went outside. “I’m glad you’re here, Melora,” he said, unhitching his horse. “Amy needs you.”

  “I’m glad to be here, Jeremiah,” Melora said, then smiled at him. “Now I can come and hear you preach to the troops in Richmond. I’d like that.”

  Irons brightened at once. “I’m preaching this Sunday to the whole brigade,” he said. “Would you let me come and get you?”

  “If I can get away—and if you really want to.”

  He stood there, at a loss for words, the way he usually was in her presence. She was for Irons the most desirable woman on earth, and he had not taken a wife because he longed to have her. Now he said slowly, “It’s a bad time, Melora, but I’m just a simple preacher.” He struggled a moment, then shrugged. “I can’t think of any way to say it that I haven’t already tried. I love you, Melora.”

  She dropped her eyes for a moment, and when she lifted them, he saw they were filled with tears. “Why—Melora!” he said, taking her hands. “I didn’t mean to make you cry!”