by Beth White
She shrugged and made her way to the piano. “All right. I suppose so.”
Having won the point, Joelle smiled. “Thank you, Sissy. Here’s where you come in. Remember?” She plunked out Selah’s part at the chorus, smiling as Selah hummed along. “That’s it. I knew you’d remember. Now let’s try that together.”
After a few minutes of starting and stopping, Selah and Joelle sang the song from start to finish, Joelle taking the first verse as a solo, Selah taking the second, and harmonizing on the chorus both times. At the end, their little audience clapped in enthusiastic approval.
Even Grandmama looked impressed. “Well done, girls. I can see that the music lessons at that liberal boarding school paid off to some degree.”
“We should have a little concert at the party!” Aurora clapped her hands. “Mr. Spencer, perhaps you’ll bring a band to play for the dancing too.”
James looked pleased. “I’d be honored, presuming everyone is free that evening. We’ve been working all winter to prepare for the spring season, and this will be our first concert. What is the proposed date of the festivities?”
“April 2 has been discussed,” Selah said. “I realize that is very short notice, but—”
“Miss Selah!”
Recognizing Horatia’s distinctive voice, raised almost to a shout, Selah froze. The housekeeper would never interrupt unless an emergency had arisen. She rose, excusing herself, and hurried toward the foyer. “What is it, Horatia?”
She found Horatia all but blocking the entrance of a small, wiry man with a pair of bushy eyebrows beetling over rimless spectacles. “This gentleman claims to be in search of a Mr. Vine, who I never heard one word of.”
“Indeed?” Assuming a polite but regal air she’d observed in her mother many times, Selah touched Horatia’s elbow, then took her place in the doorway. “Thank you, Horatia, you may go. I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir, but you seem to have arrived at the wrong address.”
The man shook his head vehemently. “I’m certain I don’t have the wrong address, though the name could be an alias. The man I’m looking for is an attorney—or claims to be such. He is a tall, strapping, youngish man, aged somewhere around thirty years, with dark hair. Claims to be from Illinois—though, again, accents can be assumed.”
The description fit Levi. “I don’t know anyone by that name,” Selah said firmly. “Good day.” She started to shut the door.
The man blocked the door with his shoulder. “I was sent here—directly here—by Mr. Carpenter at the Tupelo post office. My name is Scully. I knew your pa.”
A frisson of fear walked up Selah’s spine. The timing of this visit couldn’t have been more eerie. A man who knew her father, who also seemed to be looking for Levi under an assumed name, showing up on the day after Papa came to light at Ithaca. She glanced over her shoulder. She wished she hadn’t left the gun in the parlor.
“Miss Daughtry, I really think you should talk to me.” Scully’s voice was quieter, not so threatening. “I have some information that you will find of interest.”
“All right, but not here. Let’s go out on the porch. I don’t want to disturb my family.” She stepped outside, closing the door behind her. A bank of storm clouds had rolled in, casting a leaden pall over the early afternoon. A chilly gust whistled past the front of the house, and she shivered. How many more weird twists could this day possibly hold? She faced Scully, chin up. “Now what is the meaning of this intrusion?”
“Believe me, I didn’t want to come. But I thought I’d better warn you that your father has returned from Mexico, and—and Miss Daughtry, I owe him a lot. He did some wrong things, for sure, but all that was, in my mind, justified by the cruel way the Yanks cut us down. He could’ve taken me and some others along with him to prison, but he wouldn’t give us up, took the entire blame for ordering what we done. Anyway, he’s not in his right mind, frankly never has been the same since your ma—since he found out what happened here in ’63. You know?”
Selah took a step back. “You served under my father? So you participated in that massacre?”
“It wasn’t like that!” Scully wiped his sleeve across his brow, sweating in spite of the chill. “It was justice. If you’d seen those women and children on General Maney’s place—”
“They deserved a trial!” she cried. “Everyone deserves a trial.”
“I won’t stand here and argue with you—what’s done is done.” Scully’s voice was strained. “And your pa paid for what we all did. I came because if you was my own daughter, I’d want you to know. That man, Vine, or whatever he calls himself, is one of the men that rode onto this plantation the day your ma died. And your pa is dead set on killing him.”
Levi crouched at the bottom of the wisteria vine, now in full, glorious purple bloom.
With the spyglass in his pocket, the first thing he’d done was return to the ice house, light a lantern, and unlock the trap door. Leaving the rifle by the door, he’d crept down the stairs, the lantern in one hand and his pistol in the other. A quick inventory led to the disturbing but not surprising discovery that wires, powder, and shells had gone missing. Heart lurching, he’d vaulted back up the stairs, doused the lantern, and picked up the rifle.
Approaching the house from the rear, he’d found Nathan standing guard at the back porch steps. “Where’s Mose? I sent him to back you up.”
“Just went around to the office side. Boss, this place so spread out, I don’t know how we can keep anybody from gettin’ in, if they want to bad enough.”
“I know. But it’s worse than I thought. Daughtry’s taken ammo from the ice house. You stay here while I make a perimeter check. When Mose gets back, tell him to wait so we can make a plan.”
He’d gone around to the kitchen side of the house, where the wisteria climbed all the way to the roof. He remembered the day he’d clambered down from the roof to talk to Selah. The vine was old, gnarly, sturdy enough to support a climber, but now he couldn’t tell for sure if the vine had recently been disturbed—there were no crushed blossoms, broken limbs, scrapes along the central bole.
He’d been so sure Daughtry was inside the house.
Then he heard Selah’s voice, faint but clear, coming from the front porch. Outside? What was she doing—
He took off at a run. Clearing the corner of the house, he saw her in deep conversation with a small, wiry man. As Levi got closer, their voices became more distinct until he clearly heard Selah say, “You are insane! He cannot have been. I would long since have known—”
“Miss Daughtry, I’m sorry, but it’s the truth,” the little man said. “I have no reason to lie.”
“And neither have I any reason to believe you!” she replied, stamping her foot. “I insist that you leave my property this—Levi!” Her face cleared with relief as she saw him coming at a run. “What have you found? Is my father—” She broke off, glanced at her apparently unwanted visitor. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Levi caught his breath. “I’m afraid he may have climbed the wisteria and gotten in through the cupola. Sir, Miss Daughtry has told you to leave, and—”
“So you don’t remember me? I’ve told her who you are, you Yankee spawn of Satan! She doesn’t believe me, but I’ll prove it—”
Levi raised the rifle, aiming it at the man’s chest. “Say another word, Scully, and I’ll blow you back to Oxford.”
Scully’s mouth opened and closed.
“Now. You’re going to sit right here and wait while I go in and deal with your old friend—” Levi jerked his head in the direction of a cane-bottom chair on the porch—“and if you’re not here when I get back, I’ll hunt you to the farthest ends of the earth. Do you understand me?”
Scully gulped and sat down.
Levi looked at Selah, sick with remorse. He should have told her the truth a long time ago. It was bound to come out, but he’d wanted it to be in his own time, the right time. Not like this.
“He’s inside the house
?” She looked incredulous.
“What? Oh—” He glanced up at the cupola. “Yes, I—I’m almost certain—” He got control of his voice. “It looks like he’s planning to blow up the house.”
“There’s a room full of people in the parlor!”
“I know. I’ve got to get everybody out, quietly and fast. Go around back, where Mose and Nathan are waiting. I’ll send the rest out to you. Don’t explain too much, just say there’s a situation we’re trying to get control of, everybody needs to stay calm, and have them gather in the pagoda.”
She picked up her skirts and ran.
There was no time to process what had just happened, no time to figure out what he was going to do about it. All he could do was shove his lacerated emotions into the corner reserved for battle operations. Most likely he was going to kill the father of the woman he loved, on top of feeling like he was responsible for her mother’s death.
With a deep breath he entered the house.
Twenty-Nine
EMOTIONS TUMBLING, Selah reached the back of the house. She saw Mose and Nathan, both armed, waiting on the back porch.
“Miss Selah!” Mose met her halfway. “Where’s Mr. Levi?”
“He’s sending everyone out of the house, and we’re to make them go out to the pagoda. I’m not sure—” She halted to catch her breath. She wasn’t sure of anything. Was Levi her defender or her enemy? Had her father really put explosives in the house, threatening to demolish the very thing for which he had sacrificed his life and his freedom? Or was Levi manipulating everyone for his own purposes? Had that man Scully told her the truth? Why would she trust the word of someone she’d never set eyes on until today, above that of the man she loved, a man who had saved her life?
A flash of memory surfaced, of Levi holding her hand and telling her how brave she was. And of another time he’d reminded her that courage came with acting in spite of fear. But she also knew that, sometimes, one must hold fast through fear in order to protect someone else, as she had when waiting under the porch with Joelle. Living to fight another day.
The trouble was, none of them could fathom what stirred her father’s troubled mind. Levi was acting according to what he knew. She had been avoiding what she intuitively understood. Both boxing at shadows.
What was true? God’s Word was true. God, the author of life, source of love. God, who in Jesus had himself walked through every pain and difficulty she or Levi had ever experienced, and who had held her through her own losses.
And the blessings. She had so much to be thankful for. She would not give up fighting for her sisters, for her home, for this wide-open opportunity to help others.
“I’ll be right back,” she told Mose and deliberately walked up the porch steps, passing Nathan to open the back door.
The occupants of the house were coming through the breezeway as she entered. They talked in fearful whispers, Aurora supporting Grandmama, Joelle on James Spencer’s arm. Gladys, Charmion, and Horatia followed.
“Miss Selah, where you going?” Horatia grabbed her arm. “Mr. Levi said—”
“I won’t be long.” Selah smiled as she gently pulled her arm away. “Keep everyone quiet.”
The house was still now, eerily so. She walked under the stairs into the rotunda and looked up, turning a full circle to take in the now-sparkling chandelier, the polished staircase, the dome at the very top of the house. She didn’t see Levi—he must have already gone up the stairs. Making a conscious decision to leave the gun where she’d left it in the parlor, she started to climb.
Afraid to call out, reluctant to disturb whatever evil held her father in its grip, she took one step, then another, until she was at the second-floor landing. Quickly she scanned each empty room.
Well then. Keep going. In the attic, she paused, heartbeat thumping in her throat. Listened.
She thought she heard someone in the cupola above, the regular intake of breath after hard breath, but whether it was Levi or her father she didn’t know. She took the last flight of stairs.
Emerging, she saw Levi crouched at the easternmost window, one hand on the low sill, the other holding a spyglass. His rifle was on the floor at his feet, a pistol stuck in the back waistband of his trousers. There was no one else in the room.
He turned to look at her, his expression puzzled. “I was sure he would come back here.”
She walked over to stand beside him, looked over the roof of the kitchen to the edge of the woods. “Did you look in that shooting house?”
“Yes. Empty.”
“The ice house?”
“He’d jimmied the lock and took some powder and wire and shells, then locked it back up.” They were both silent, then Levi said, “I was going to look at your baby brother’s grave, but I remembered I’d found this spyglass up here.” He handed it to her.
Her throat closed. “You didn’t tell me.”
“No.” He hesitated. “There are a lot of things I should have told you, but I couldn’t because—” He rose to tower over her. “Well, it doesn’t matter, except now it’s more important you have the facts so you can help me figure this out.”
“What facts? How did you know about my brother?”
“Mose told me. Selah, are you cold?”
His eyes were bleak with regret—for what?—and she was suddenly aware that she was indeed shivering, though the cupola was, if anything, stuffy.
“No. Explain what that man said.” Wrapping her arms about herself, she looked up at him, braced for whatever he was about to say.
“All right.” His voice was low, tense. “I was in Mississippi during the war. I rode with General Grierson as part of his raid through the center of the state down to Baton Rouge, and later served under Smith during the Tupelo and Meridian campaigns.”
Of course she’d known he was Union, that he’d fought against her father, her uncles, her cousins from Memphis and from Georgia. She knew he’d been right here in Mississippi, and that Sherman had all but burned Meridian to the ground, practicing for Atlanta.
But Levi was kind, he was tender with children, and he was one of the few men with whom ThomasAnne was comfortable enough to carry on a coherent conversation. Aurora respected and obeyed him, Joelle had been heard to call him intelligent.
Selah liked him too. She more than liked him. She was falling in love with him.
She’d let him into her house, her mind and heart. She’d let him hold her and kiss her.
“I knew all that,” she said, teeth chattering. “What else?”
He held the spyglass tight in both hands, twisting it round and round. “In the spring of ’63, we caught a group of galvanized soldiers crossing over to Federal lines—they’d been Union prisoners of war, recruited out of Andersonville Prison into Confederate service, and they claimed they wanted to reenlist with us. Nobody really trusted them, and sure enough, one day five of them took off on a raid before daylight. My unit was sent to round them up.”
“Those were the men that raped my mother and our slaves. They tore up Ithaca.” Selah could barely breathe. “That’s why they were in butternut.”
“Yes. God help me, I got here too late.” The grief in his eyes echoed her own.
“I can’t—I can’t—” She turned her back, unable to face him.
He took her by the shoulders, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Selah—”
“Don’t touch me.” She was shivering harder now, great wracking shudders.
“I’m so sorry, Selah.” He suddenly wrapped his arms about her and pulled her back against his tall, warm body.
And to her unending shame, she let him. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, and she bit her lips together to keep from sobbing aloud. This was how it felt to be comforted by someone strong. It would be too easy to get used to it. Her mother had depended utterly on her father’s strength, had pined away without him.
Selah was not going to make that mistake.
She regained control, forced herself to relax, pulled i
n a raking breath. “It’s all right,” she said. “We survived, my sisters and I. We didn’t have it as bad as most people, in fact. Now here we are, back home, with a way to make something good out of the rubble. I refuse to wallow in the past.” She pushed against his arms.
“Wait, don’t—” He let her go. “Selah, I know you believe in forgiveness.”
Turning, she looked up at him without reply. In the silence a guard slid between them. “We’re not going to talk about the war ever again, do you understand me? It’s too painful, and it stirs up things that ought not be stirred up.”
His lips tightened, those fine beautiful lips that held his smile, before he shook his head and let her go. “All right. Have it your way. For now. We have to find—”
He fell as a gunshot blasted.
Fiery pain seared Levi’s shoulder, and for a crazy moment he thought he was back at Brice’s Crossroads. He blinked up at Selah. She wouldn’t be here if—
He sat up, head swimming. “Where did that come from?” He’d been facing her, away from the eastern window. “Are you all right?” There was blood on her hands, her dress—“Get down!”
Instead she shoved him backward, leaned over him. Pressed down hard on his shoulder. He groaned with the pain.
“I’m fine,” she said, teeth clenched. “It came from the kitchen roof straight across. No one there now, though.”
“I’m going after him—”
“Here. Put your hand here.” She moved his hand to stanch the wound. “I’m going to tie this up, then you’ll stay on your back and keep pressure on while I go for Horatia.” She used her teeth to rip off the bottom ruffle of her petticoat with an economy of motion he would have admired if he hadn’t been struggling to remain conscious.
“Selah—”
“Shut up, you Yankee idiot! Save your breath.”
He fainted.
Sometime later, he awoke with his shoulder still ablaze, lying on his back on the floor, blinking up at the dome of the cupola. Something cold and hard pressed against his temple.
“I could’ve shot you like the dog you are, but I wanted to see your eyes when I send you to hell.”