Shelter from the Storm

by Patricia Rice

  There was only one hitch in Cash’s plans, a hitch he knew nothing about. He had no reason to know that she had been contemplating leaving town, that his offer a moment ago of the funds to join Jonathan had given her a new surge of hope.

  There were drawbacks, definite drawbacks to that hope. The child she carried wasn’t Jonathan’s. She didn’t know how he would react to a pregnant fiancée appearing on his doorstep. And the journey itself was a dangerous one. How much more dangerous would it be to a woman in her condition? She didn’t relish giving birth on a train full of strangers.

  But to stay in Stone Creek . . . Laura sighed and wished she were a million miles away on some desert island. She finally brought her gaze back to Cash’s intent face, saw his probing look, and averted it with a casual wave of her hand.

  “Do I have time to think about it, Cash?”

  It wasn’t what he expected, but he acquiesced easily. “Of course, Laura. It will be a week before we have all the loose ends tied. Is a week enough?”

  A week, and they would be married, husband and wife, Cash’s long, splendid body covering Sallie’s tender curves in the act that had created his child growing inside her. The idea was too painful to contemplate.

  Laura nodded absently, heard his farewells, and watched him walk away with full knowledge that the next time she saw him, he would be someone else’s husband.

  She watched the way his shoulders strained at the tight coat, watched his easy stride, watched him mount his horse with the ease and strength of an equestrian, and all she could remember was how it felt to have him on top of her, inside her, holding her until the lightning flashed and thunder struck and there was nothing and no one else in this world but them.

  How had he forgotten so easily? Sadly, Laura pulled her shawl about her shoulders and went back into the house, letting the prison door close behind her.

  Right or wrong, Laura chose to stay and oversee the renovation of Stone Creek rather than run away and hide. With that decision, she saw no reason to notify Jonathan of her impending fall from grace. She not only feared to lose his friendship forever, but she equally feared he would drop everything and return to save her from herself. She wouldn’t have that on her conscience for anything. She had got herself into this, she would get herself out.

  Laura waited until Sallie and Cash had left for Lexington before sending for Cash’s driver and going out to the farm. She supposed she ought to learn to hook up Jonathan’s carriage and drive it, or at the very least learn to saddle his horse, but she didn’t think the fourth month of pregnancy to be the best time to learn. Besides, traveling country roads in these desperate times without weapons or male assistance would be a foolhardy mistake. She had made enough mistakes for a lifetime.

  When Laura arrived at the farm, Jettie Mae took one look at her, placed her hands on her hips, and started scolding. “You been a widow too long to ’splain away that belly, Miss Laura. When that man of your’n comin’ home?”

  It was only fitting that the first condemnation would be made by a woman who had already been there three times before. Laura gave a wary smile and glanced to Jettie Mae’s growing abdomen. “He’s just as unobtainable as your man, Jettie Mae. Now, I want to hear no more about it. Have you made arrangements for when that baby’s due?”

  The maid shook her head, scowled as if longing to say more, but under Laura’s steely gaze she relented. “I done asked that no-’count driver of Mr. Cash’s if he’ll harness up the wagon to take us back to town to live with my mama when the time is nigh. She’s been birthin’ babies since she was no more than one herself.”

  Laura looked to the solemn nine-year-old in pigtails and ribbons holding the hand of her little five-year-old brother and shook her head. “Your mama isn’t used to having a house full of young ones around. Maybe you’d better let these two stay with me. They’ll be close enough to visit back and forth but far enough to give you and your mama a rest.”

  Jettie opened her mouth to protest, thought better of it, looked down at her two children who seemed delighted at the prospect of an extended visit with “Aunt Laura,” who gave them cookies, and shrugged her shoulders. “You don’ know what you askin’, but I’d be grateful.”

  “I’ll be glad of the company. Now, let’s find paper and pen and start making lists of what needs to be done around here.”

  As it turned out, Cash had already made extensive notes and left them for her. Seeing the strong black scrawl across the page, Laura’s stomach clenched, but she refused to fall into the megrims again. She had work to keep her mind occupied.

  But as the days went by and Laura caught the suspicious glances of other women at church or at the store, and she sat and wrote her hollow letters to Jonathan, the ache widened. She felt as isolated and alone as she had in Cairo. She had no one she could turn to for advice or sympathy, and the only explanations she had of what was happening inside her body came from an old black woman who could neither read nor write.

  While Jettie’s children played with the rag dolls Laura made for them, she searched Jonathan’s medical library for books on childbirth. What she found was either too technical to interpret or too condescending to take seriously. Imagine calling a woman’s body a “delicate vessel” and her mind “too weak” to withstand the emotional stress of carrying a child.

  One tome recommended that she take to bed and remain in a darkened room with someone to wait on her every whim to minimize the dangers of this difficult time to both body and mind. Laura suspected that passage had to have been written by a woman who had borne one too many children under hostile conditions and was intent on getting even with husbands everywhere.

  Whatever the case, Laura had no husband to pamper her, and she had to make a living of some sort if she were to eat. She had accepted the use of Jonathan’s house on the pretext of looking after it for him, but she could not in all conscience accept his money to keep her fed. She had no trouble finding sewing jobs, but there was a limit to how much sewing could be accomplished in a day. Cash’s generous allowance for overseeing the renovations allowed her to buy a few materials for baby clothes and pay for the extra groceries for Jettie’s two children, but the two jobs combined left little time to pamper herself.

  By the end of February the unpaved lanes to the farm were a mire of mud and snow, and work on the house came to a temporary halt. Laura tried to school herself to patience, but more often than not she ended up pacing from window to window of Jonathan’s house to stare at the snow and the rain.

  Her wide skirts still hid her pregnancy from the uninitiated, but one or two of the women she had helped during the fever stopped by to visit and offer seemingly general observations on the amount of milk they had consumed during their confinements or to offer beef broths they just “happened” to have left over. Laura was grateful for their discretion, but she knew her secret would be out soon enough.

  It was humiliating to an extreme to receive a deputation at the beginning of March from the church, offering their understanding of her “situation” with Jonathan ill and thousands of miles away. One woman offered her sister’s home in Louisville as a haven for Laura’s “disgrace.” Another urged obtaining funds from the Breckinridges to join Jonathan so the child could have a name.

  All of them assumed the child to be Jonathan’s, and Laura held her breath in fear of one of them offering to send word to him. None did, however, and she managed to dismiss their offers with murmurs of Sallie’s expectations and assurances that Jonathan would be home in time.

  Whatever words she used seemed to satisfy them, and though a few still crossed the street rather than speak to a fallen woman, others brought her baby linen their own children had outgrown, and still another offered a cradle she no longer needed. Staring at these items in the candlelight before going to bed, Laura finally accepted the reality of pregnancy.

  She was going to have a baby. Glancing down at the growing pear shape of her abdomen beneath the folds of her nightshirt, Laura ran her
fingers over the place where the child kicked and suffered a frisson of fear. A child without a father. She must have been mad to do this.

  She tried to imagine a tiny creature kicking and crying in that cradle on the floor, but the exercise was too strong for her mind. She had held other people’s babies, but never her own.

  Just one afternoon in a haystack with Cash had done this. It seemed improbable that just that one act could result in something so permanent as a child who would share her life for these next twenty years.

  The thought of Cash returned the image of Sallie—golden pretty Sallie who had refused to share Ward’s bed and had never borne a child. If one afternoon with Cash had given Laura a child, chances were very good that Sallie would return from her honeymoon carrying Cash’s heir. That thought was too painful to bear, and Laura turned away from it. Cash would be damned almighty proud if he knew of his accomplishments with two Kincaid women. She would have to make certain he never learned who the father of her child actually was.

  Jettie went into labor during the second week of March while the wind howled around the chimneys and winter dumped one last snowstorm on the Easter flowers just opening their yellow heads. Laura had been warned to stay away, and she entertained the children during the day as the snow fell and blew and piled around her small house, but when one of Jettie’s sisters arrived to announce the birth of a little boy, Laura couldn’t stay away any longer.

  Wrapping in two shawls and Jonathan’s heavy woolen greatcoat and pulling on a pair of his boots, Laura left the children with their aunt and set out in the storm to see Ward’s son.

  She was quite mad to do it. She had abandoned crinolines for the warmth of several layers of petticoats, but they dragged in the snow and quickly froze about her legs. But when she arrived at the tiny one-room cabin where Jettie’s mother lived, Laura was welcomed with open arms.

  She unloaded the parcels of hand-sewn baby linen and bundles of Jettie’s favorite treats that she had baked while waiting, and warmed herself by the fire while Mrs. Jackson gently lifted the newborn from its nest in the room’s lone bed. Laura knew the “Mrs.” was merely an honorary title and the “Jackson” had been adopted from her former owners, but Jettie’s mother conducted herself with the dignity of a society matron. She seldom said much, but that was to everyone’s advantage, for she knew more than would be comfortable for half the county, including Laura.

  “Good as gold, this one is,” Jettie’s mother whispered as she handed the sleeping infant to her visitor. “Just like his daddy.”

  What was left unspoken flowed between them as Laura accepted the bundle and stared in wonder at the tiny miracle. A shock of dark hair lay plastered against pale skin still flushed with the day’s exertions. The infant’s face was withered into a restless scowl, and already he sucked a fist formed of perfectly sculptured miniature fingers. It was impossible to trace any sign of Jettie or Ward in this wondrous little creature, but there was no doubt that he was as white as Ward— or Cash, for all that mattered.

  It was well known that Jettie and her sisters were, at best, half white, products of an institution that allowed white masters to use their female slaves as they pleased. Laura could only wonder how Jettie’s mother had felt to be used in such a way by a man who had no intention of marrying her; she could never ask. Perhaps there had been affection in the relationship. Perhaps it had been a mutual arrangement. Whatever the facts, Mrs. Jackson had remained a slave until the day the military’s proclamation reached Stone Creek, and not a moment longer.

  “His daddy would be awful proud,” Laura murmured, gently touching the tiny fist. “We’ve got to see he’s raised like his daddy would want.”

  No representative of Jettie’s father had come to stand by her mother’s side when Jettie was born, nor had the fathers of Jettie’s other children. They had been born without acknowledgment of anything but the sins of their mothers. Laura’s admission of the family’s responsibility brought a nod of satisfaction from the older woman.

  “He needs a name,” was all she said as she watched Laura rock the child lovingly.

  Laura didn’t express surprise. The boy’s father would be the one to choose a name. She wasn’t a part of Ward’s family, but the nearest thing this child would ever see. Stephen Breckinridge would have an apoplexy before admitting the child’s paternity. Sallie would never know or care. But the child was a Breckinridge and deserved a family name.

  “His daddy’s full name was Ward Taylor Breckinridge. Don’t you think Taylor Jackson has a nice sound to it?”

  A rustle from the corner caused them to turn in the direction of the bed. Jettie stirred against her pillow and the candlelight fell on the weary lines of her face. “Taylor Breckinridge Jackson,” she announced firmly, reaching for the tiny bundle. “He’s gonna be a gentleman one day.”

  The name would undoubtedly send shock waves through the community if it were known, but what went on at the black church was not generally known by the white population, and the infant’s baptismal name would never be known to anyone else.

  For a moment Laura hesitated, wondering if there were some way she could steal this child and raise him as white, but Jettie’s beckoning hand showed her the selfishness of that thought. For the first time, Laura began to understand the preciousness of the life growing within her.

  She released the child with tears in her eyes. “You let me know if there’s anything you need, you hear? When the weather turns nice, we’ll go back out to the farm and fix up rooms just for you and the little ones. You can choose just how you want them decorated.”

  Jettie grinned and gave Laura a conspiratorial glance, but her attention soon wandered to the infant grunting and rooting at her breast. Laura turned away from the intimacy to face Mrs. Jackson.

  “You shouldn’t get that girl’s hopes up,” the older woman whispered disapprovingly.

  “I’m not,” she replied defiantly. “That child belongs at the farm, and he can’t live there without Jettie, and Jettie can’t live there without her children. So that means they all have a home at Stone Creek for as long as they like.”

  “That Mr. Cash gonna have something to say about that,” the old woman warned as Laura donned her cloak. “You might get around Miss Sallie, but that Wickliffe boy ain’t gonna stand no nonsense from nobody. He’s a wild one. It would break his mammy’s heart to know where he been and what he’s done.”

  Laura didn’t want to hear a list of Cash’s indiscretions. She wasn’t the only woman he had lain with since returning, although the others were considerably less innocent than herself. And she knew he gambled. He had made his money by gambling; he had as much as admitted that.

  But that was none of her concern. The child in Jettie’s arms was, although she could not bring herself to say why. She felt she owed it to Ward’s memory, and to the memory of what once had been. That was enough for her.

  “I know how to handle Cash if it comes to that.” Laura heard the defiance in her voice and tried to mute it. “Don’t you worry. Jettie and her family have a home for as long as I’m alive to say anything about it. And when I get through with Cash Wickliffe, he’ll say the same thing. And I think it’s about time those children got some education. I’ve been teaching them their ABC’s, and they’re just as bright as can be. Something’s got to be done about teaching them.”

  Lucretia Jackson managed to look alarmed and pleased at the same time. “You don’ know what you talkin’ about, chile. They ain’t nobody gonna teach the likes of them. They may be as white as you to look at, but ever’body gon’ know who they mother is.”

  Laura smiled as she mulled over this impulsive decision. If she took the time to think about these things, she always discarded her ideas as impossible. But once they were out of her mouth, she wouldn’t go back on her word. And she knew just the man to help her.

  “I can’t do anything but teach them myself for right now, but just you wait. One way or another, they’re going to school. They’ve got
to know how to read and write to make their way in this world. Do you think Ward would want his son to grow up ignorant?”

  Lucretia snorted rudely. “Do you think anybody else ever cared? You blind and fanciful, chile, but if you can do it, I won’t stand in your way none. My baby’s been sellin’ herself to get along. I don’ want her babies to do the same.”

  It seemed all women could do to get along in this world was sell themselves in one form or another, but Laura didn’t say this aloud. Let Jettie’s mother think her an innocent, as she probably thought all white women. She needn’t know that Laura hadn’t even had the sense to sell herself for money as Sallie and Jettie had. She had sold herself for pleasure, and somehow that seemed even worse.

  Striking out into the cold wind, Laura huddled inside Jonathan’s greatcoat and found her way back more by instinct than anything else. Eyes almost closed against the sting of flying snow, she pushed through knee-high drifts along the fence and down the trash-strewn alleys until she reached the back gate to Jonathan’s home. This route was simpler and less open to observation than the main roads. She let herself in the gate and crossed the dark yard to the kitchen, grateful for the yellow play of light indicating someone had left the lantern on, and hopefully, the fire lit.

  It took a moment to register the stranger sprawled insolently in her best chair before the leaping flames, swigging from the last bottle of Jonathan’s bourbon. Shock numbed Laura from recognition as she glanced to Jettie’s frightened sister huddling in the corner, then back to the bearded man in the rags and remnants of Union blue. At the sight of Laura, Jettie’s sister grabbed her meager shawl and ran to escape through the open door behind her. The man merely turned his head and offered a lewd smile.