Swept into Destiny
Page 3
Ben stepped out of the shadows. This Englishman better watch out. He was a free man here and would like to see Reynolds try and whip him. More likely Reynolds would use the copperheads to do his nasty work.
“I expect this swamp to be drained out by the end of the third week. I need cotton fields, not snake-infested… well never mind that. What with Maggie and Mrs. Gatlan feeding you from the king’s table, I expect you not to give me any trouble, you hear?”
Mr. Reynolds jabbed the toe of his boot into the corpse. When Ben told Maggie that Matthew had died last night, the lass’s eyes pooled with tears, sayin’ she blamed herself for not being there to help nurse him. This Maggie girl was strange to be sure.
“Well, what are you standing around for?” Mr. Reynolds checked his gold-plated pocket watch and looked up at the sky. “You’ve got another hour of daylight. Get to work.”
Ben walked forward. Grabbing his hat from his head, he placed it firmly in his hands, curling the brim. “Sir, may I have a moment of your time?”
“Out with it.”
“If we had a team of mules at our disposal and a couple of drags, we could get the job done faster than with our brute force and shovels.”
Mr. Reynolds fingered his goatee absentmindedly. “I suppose. Well, it’ll have to be a team I don’t mind losing. What’s your name, boy?”
Ben stepped closer, turning his eyes downward at the pasty-white man with the receding hairline and thin build. “Benjamin McConnell, sir.”
“Who’s the head man of you Irish? You?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, you are now. I will personally hold you responsible for any…” He glanced at the dead man, his lips curling with disgust. “Mishaps to my mules. Now get back to work.” Reynolds mounted his horse. “I demand an honest day’s work from each one of you, and I’ll expect a truthful report each day.” He turned and galloped away, his gray brocade coat flapping in the breeze.
“There are some things more painful than truth, but I can’t think what it is.” A man who stood a head taller than Ben, slapped him on the back. “Lighten up, lad. You frettin’ won’t get our job done.”
Ben plunked his hat back on his thick wooly hair. “I say we show this peacock Englishman how Irishmen can do a job.” He handed his hatchet to a spindly looking man who had a hard time holding up his own weight, let alone pushing over an obstinate stump.
“You take this and if you see any snake slithering along the water, you yell out and fling this. Hopefully you’ll be lucky and hit him before he bites me.” Walking toward a large half-rooted tree that he had been working on most of the afternoon, he threw a chain around it and tossed a shovel to the big man who had jostled him. “Here, put that big bulk of yours to service and see what you can do to uproot this… uh…”
“Jim, Jim McWilliams.”
With Ben pulling and Jim pushing, the slurping noise of the roots giving way had all the men pushing and heaving the heavy dead tree out of the way of their irrigation ditch.
“Okay, men, let’s get moving and clear a ditch from this point to twenty yards.” Ben turned. “Come on, Big Jim, let’s clear out another stump.”
“You talking to me?”
Eyeing the man, though as thin as he, Ben could tell there were muscles behind the leanness of his bulk. “Who else?”
Ben lay down on his coat beneath the star-drenched sky. Hands behind his back, he smiled. The day had ended well. The men were pleased with their work. He could tell by the proud lift to their heads. Then there was Maggie. A good Irish name, to be sure. Was her mother Irish?
“Mr. McConnell.”
From out of the dark mist that surrounded the low swampland, two forms emerged. “Mother of my merciful Savior… are you a figment of my dreams or flesh and blood?”
Two women approached, cloaked in hoods and long, flowing capes that shrouded their forms like the mystery that surrounded their presence. To Ben, it was an answer to his prayer when Maggie’s lavish brown eyes looked questioningly into his.
“The saints be praised, so it is you.” Ben didn’t miss Maggie’s soft smile that swept her full lips, her pleasure to see him obvious. “What are you doing out so late? It must be close to midnight, near as I can tell.” This was no place for such fine ladies.
A woman of stately form, a head taller than Maggie, stepped forward, graceful in movement. The embers of the campfire cast shadows and shades about her high cheekbones and glistening black hair. Maggie looked from him to the lady beside her.
“Mr. Reynolds has retired for the night, so Mother and I decided to see to your needs. Mr. Benjamin McConnell, I would like to introduce my mother, Marie Mahal Gatlan.”
“It is an honor to be meeting ya.” Ben bowed.
The stately Mrs. Gatlan smiled. “I know about you Irish. My father was of Irish descent. My mother, who was from this country, taught me many ways to prevent infections.”
Ben rocked back on his heels. “Could this be? A high and mighty Englishman married to an Irish woman?”
Mrs. Gatlan laughed softly. “Yes, and my Indian mother and my Irish father were married by Dr. Isaac Anderson who, at the time, was a circuit rider. He later began Maryville College, which my mother and I attended. White, Indian, and free Negroes, they were all welcome.”
“Saints preserve us. He sounds like a great man indeed!”
“He was.” Mrs. Gatlan sighed. “Dear Mr. Greatheart, it is hard to believe he died just six months ago, upon the entry of 1857. Maggie had just graduated from his college.”
Maggie bit down on her bottom lip thinking about the conversation she had overheard between Mr. Reynolds and her father. “Now maybe Anderson’s abolitionist ways will cease in Maryville!” She hadn’t heard what her father replied for she’d run up the stairway for fear of disclosing her horror. When had acting like a compassionate human being become wrong? “I can’t believe how—”
“And the world we knew seemed to disappear with him.” Her mother sent her a beware look.
Maggie hadn’t noticed that Big Jim and Ben’s father, as well as the other Irishmen, had moved closer to Ben and were listening intently to their conversation.
A noise in the brush and Hattie’s curly head came into view. She was winded from running and bent over to gasp in a few breaths of air. “Mrs. Gatlan… the Mr. is back from up north and asking for you?”
“Maggie, stay and hand out the food, but do not tarry long. I am sure your father will have much to tell us regarding his trip to Illinois. He went to hear Mr. Lincoln’s reply to the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Dred Scott case.”
“Oh?… Mr. Reynolds thought Father was in Virginia visiting family.”
Mrs. Gatlan put a finger to her lip. “As your father had hoped.” Her mother and Hattie hurried back along the small foot path that wandered around the hillside through the grass and brush to the back quarters of Spirit Wind Manor.
“Your father is an Englishman from Virginia? And your mother is from Tennessee?” Ben asked.
“Father’s ancestors were some of the first Englishmen that came from England to the New World. Most people find it difficult to believe, knowing my father’s nature, but he adores Mother, and they make quite a combination. Mother encouraged my father to employ you. So, you see, you must do a very good job and show Father that my mother was right about Irishmen.”
Maggie did not wait for him to reply. But instead, went to work and unloaded her basketful of bread, cookies, cornbread, milk, bacon, ham, and eggs.
It was clear she respected and admired her mother. Ben looked around at the men. What a ragged bunch they were for such high-minded women to spend their time helping.
“We will do our best to finish the job set before us.” He eyed the food. The aroma of fresh-from-the oven bread still warm to the touch tantalized him, and the bacon, crisp and warm, was just the way he liked it. Ham swimming in gravy and buckwheat cakes dripping in syrup, when had he seen such a feast spread so fine?
“Maybe we should sample a few of those buckwheat cakes and ham.” Big Jim reached forward swiping his finger on some syrup that had spilled onto the tablecloth.
Maggie laughed, a gay musical sound that echoed in the moonlit treetops. “Please, gentlemen, help yourselves. I shall return with fresh goods tomorrow evening.” She paused, looking out into the dark swampland that seemingly dropped off into nothingness from the crest of the hill. “Our good Lord willing,” she said, gazing at Spirit Wind.
What was troubling Maggie? What sorrowful memories haunt the floors of such a beautiful place? Ben crushed his hat brim beneath his thick fingers. His conscience pricked him for the way he treated her earlier. His stomach growled from hunger. But something more important than food needed his attention. “If my dad had returned from a trip up north,” he whispered. “I would not be tarryin’ with the likes of us, but rushin’ to his side to learn about the odd sights and sounds he’d seen.”
Her face was pinched with emotion and there was a strange fretfulness in her eyes. “You are right. I need to head home.” She covered her head and turned to leave.
“Allow me to accompany ya back.”
“There is no need. I can find my way home, perhaps better than you.”
“Indeed, you will probably have to point the way back to me.” It was with misgivings that he grabbed hold of her arm, wondering her reaction.
Her womanly scent engulfed his senses. Lavender, roses, and flour… she wasn’t a stranger in the kitchen. Ah, a woman after his own heart.
“So you like to bake?” He peeked beneath the hood of her cloak, searching for the sparkling-eyed lass with the kissable lips. The melody of her laughter complemented the night wind.
“I do and I like to make desserts the best of all. In fact, I wouldn’t mind starting off every meal with dessert.”
“That would explain it.”
“Explain what?” Maggie lifted her hood and Ben was quick to drink in her beauty.
“Explain… why I find you so sweetly delectable.”
“Oh, you are a rogue. Mother said to beware of your fancy Gaelic flattery, or else I’d surely learn to regret…”
“Regret?” Ben stopped. Did this lass with the pert dimples on each side of her beautiful pink lips have the capability of bewitching an ignorant lad? All manner of answers swirled through his thoughts and not one of them a pleasing retort.
“Regret I ever met you,” Maggie whispered.
The soft sound of the wind running its fingers through the grass and its whispering notes as it played with the fringe on her cape, wrapped his hungry body with the sonnets of warmth and hospitality, melodies of love and mercy more beautifully recited than any Christmas choir could have sung.
The trainings of his departed Scottish-Irish mother who loved reading poetry and who taught her son the gentlemanly arts of chivalry stood Ben in good stead now. He took Maggie’s hand gently in his and kissed it. Her slight tremor pleasing, he looked up into her liquid eyes, not missing the slight sigh that followed.
“I shall never regret meeting you. You embody what I felt on my first look of America, that spirit of liberty I felt blowing like the wind, so free and true. I was like the apostle Thomas of the Bible, I was. Until I saw it with my very own eyes I didn’t believe America would be any better than Ireland. And I remembered 2 Corinthians 3:17, ‘Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’ Now I know I have found my destiny. I will have my land.”
“Oh my.” Maggie sighed softly and removed her hand, her vibrant eyes searching his. “I will pray God protects you from the trials that lie ahead for you. It is not easy starting over and… and some southerners are talking about seceding from the Union, and then there is Father. He can be a vengeful taskmaster.
Chapter 4
M aggie’s eyelids fluttered open, blinking in the morning sunlight pouring through her window. Something had awakened her. There it was again, that thump, thump, thumping noise. Only that wasn’t what had awakened her. Then what? She folded back her downy coverlet and lowered her bare feet. The morning light streamed an oblong path on the shiny wood floor. No one awakened this early but the servants. Her bare feet pitter patted along with the thump, thump, thumping.
Where had she placed her wrapper? Her boots rested beneath her discarded dress of last night’s escapade, which now lay draped across her St. Anne upholstered chair. She grimaced. Nothing saintly about what she’d done, recalling Ben’s touch and the goose bumps that traveled up her arm when his firm fingers wrapped around her hand. Fiddle-faddle. She hadn’t time for men.
Would life ever get back to some normality so she could resume her work at the Glenn? Mother was always supportive of Maggie’s ambitions. With her desire to educate the slaves, was she putting Mother’s reputation at risk among the high-society of the South’s elite? She tiptoed to the french doors and stepped onto her balcony, hugging the shadows of the stately brick walls.
The warm breezes played with the folds of her long lace nightgown this the twenty-ninth day of June. Below, on the clothes line, hung three large parlor rugs and one of their servants was thumping an India rug with a wire-handled paddle. Father sat on the veranda, just below her window.
“Well, Chief Justice Taney’s ruling on that Dred Scott Decision has me baffled. Abraham Lincoln gave a fine speech on the topic, and I wished not to find myself siding with that Republican abolitionist; however, I must… as I realize the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling.”
Maggie could see her mother was as baffled as she with what her father had said.
“I wish you had not gone to hear Mr. Lincoln speak. Politics always upsets you and the doctor has warned you about apoplexy.”
“Nonsense, Marie.” Father slapped his napkin on the table and rose. “I’m glad I took the journey to Illinois. That Lincoln fellow in Springfield brought up a good point regarding the Court’s decision. If ‘all men are created equal’ and have ‘certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ are these rights just for white people of Great Britain and America and not colored people? Why should the Supreme Court stop there? What Lincoln said was the Supreme Court could then decide to exclude other undesirables, for instance, French or Germans or your precious Irish from suing the US Court for their freedom. The Court could rule against the people with an iron fist.”
“Oh dear.” Mother rose, her arms outstretched toward Father. “Please be careful, dear husband, do not upset yourself so.”
Her father, deep in thought, continued to pace back and forth. “I remember what my father said about Thomas Jefferson’s fears, something about if the judiciary has the sole power of constitutional interpretation then the Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
Her mother grabbed his arm, and Father cupped her face in his large palm, gently kissing her on the cheek.
“You see, my love, our forefathers prayed and carefully wrote the Constitution to protect United States citizens from would-be tyrants who would attempt to dictate to a nation what they will think and what they will do.”
“What can we do? We didn’t elect the Supreme Court judges, so now what?”
“Listening to Lincoln, I couldn’t help think what my father would say of that young man’s speech.” Father reached for her mother’s hand. “My family came to America because of the kings and lords of Great Britain who liked to dictate laws and impose their beliefs on their subjects with an iron fist. As long as those Supreme Court judges do not rewrite the Constitution, I believe these United States can survive even our judicial judges.”
“Now sit and finish reading your paper.” Her mother pulled her father toward his chair. “Our forefathers knew civilization is prone to breed tyra
nts. Just look at what the whites did to my mother’s people, the Cherokee. But surely not even the Supreme Court would ever think of rewriting the Constitution.”
“Never! Americans wouldn’t stand for that. After all, it would mean that the Supreme Court would be tampering with constitutional rights.”
“I fear a lot of our southern neighbors in Tennessee might have spoken out against Dred Scott being freed and again about secession, if not for this ruling.”
Father sat back down, taking a sip of his coffee as he contemplated his next words. “Pray, Marie. Pray that God intervenes for these United States. I am certain our southern neighbors are happy with the Supreme Court decision, but is it right? Is it just?
“We must uphold the God we trust, the God that heard the cries of the American patriots and freed them from the grasp of a tyrant.” Father pointed heavenwards. “It is to Him, our King, we answer to Him alone in the life hereafter.” He patted her mother’s hand. “I believe my father would have liked this Lincoln fellow. I do not agree with the Republican Party or the abolitionists, but I cannot help admire Lincoln.”
“I am glad to hear you speak this way. But I don’t know how you will manage to keep order in Maryville with these secessionists traveling through eastern Tennessee. Our neighboring slave owners are certain to vote to secede from the Union. Being mayor during this trying time will be difficult. The Quakers of Friendsville and the Society of Friends of Maryville sway toward supporting the abolitionist activity.”
“Mr. Reynolds has provided me a measure of reassurance. That it is all just idle gossip. The Society is not affiliated with any abolitionist activity. Still, I want you to keep clear of that ladies group.”