Flood lured the colt toward the barn and, at last, when the door to the stall was closed and Standing Tall was nibbling on the carrot, Allison said, "We have a visitor, Flood. Well, not really a visitor. One of the owners of Bluegrass Meadors had just ridden in—Captain Glenn Meadors."
The alarm on Flood's face spread over her broad cheekbones and turned her browned face a slight ashen color. "Oh, Lordy, I was hopin' it would be the other one—the major. What did he say when he saw the barns and cottage gone?"
"He acted as if he didn't even notice."
"I can't see him, Allison—until we go over exactly what I'm to say."
"But we've gone over it a number of times, Flood."
"That was between us. I'll forget everything once I'm in front of a total stranger."
Allison smiled and then explained the mixup again, this time for Flood's benefit. "So you see, Captain Meadors isn't a total stranger after all."
Flood refused to be comforted. She was still subject to being questioned, regardless of which brother had come home first.
Nevertheless, Flood began to calm down by the time she and Allison reached the path that ended in the herb garden behind the kitchen.
Once Flood had washed her hands, the two sat down at the old oak table to go over the carefully kept figures Allison had written down. She went over each entry with the large, heavyset woman, pointing out all of the negotiations—the money they'd made selling butter and extra milk from the cow; the bartering for seeds to plant in the vegetable garden, the debit of cloth used to make their clothes.
And when she felt that Flood was well acquainted with the transactions, she closed the book and said, "The captain will more than likely ask to see you after supper."
Again, Flood showed her trepidation. "Then I won't be able to eat a bite, I'm so nervous."
"You'll do fine, Flood. But you must remember to ask for our wages so that we can make plans to go home as quickly as possible."
That evening, when the sun had set, Allison put the finishing touches to the dining room table, placing the fine old silverware at one end. She lit the homemade tallow candles in the candelabras, patinaed by age, and watched the flames flicker over the linen cloth, reaching the small basket of flowers in the center with their pale gold glow and then colliding with the shadows at the other end of the long table.
When the dinner was ready, a slightly drunk Glenn Meadors sat down alone in the dining room while the others took their places at the oak table in the kitchen. But before they began to eat, the man called out.
"You'd better hurry and see what he wants," Flood said to Madrigal while putting down her fork.
Madrigal was soon back in the kitchen. "He said it's lonesome in the dinin' room by himself. So he wants us to join him at the table."
Everyone looked at Allison. "What should we do?" Flood asked.
Allison glanced at Rebecca, who was busy feeding some broth to Morrow. For the first time since the four had begun sharing a table, there was an awkwardness, and Allison hesitated. The old lines had been drawn again, separating black from white.
Rebecca sensed her mistress's hesitation and she quickly spoke up because of it. "I'll stay here in the kitchen with the baby. Go ahead, Miss Allison."
Madrigal did not wait for the others. She immediately grabbed her plate, walked into the dining room, and took the chair nearest to the captain.
Allison and Flood both hesitated at the door. Glenn waved them inside the dining room, too. "Come and sit down," he urged. "And I hope you know a few rounds of 'Bonnie Blue Flag.' Tonight might be the last night I can mourn the death of the Confederacy before my brother walks in and spoils it all."
There was a spirit of conviviality at the table that night. And once the meal was over, the singing began. Tears came to Allison's eyes while they sang the forbidden words, with Glenn's slightly inebriated voice leading them. Then, in chameleon fashion, Glenn's mood changed and the tears were replaced with laughter.
For Allison, sitting in the fine old Hepplewhite chair with its needlepoint cushion, it was a pilgrimage into the past with the charm of Rose Mallow and the comfort of her childhood home in Savannah. That night, in the glow of the candles, she remembered her soldier husband, Coin Forsyth. Her compassion caused her to overlook the condition of the man at the far end of the table. And she accepted the fact that, by the end of the meal, Glenn Meadors was much too drunk to discuss business.
The entire evening had gone by without a word about their hard work on the farm or the compensation due them. But perhaps his homecoming was not the appropriate time, after all.
As Allison took a candle and made her way up the stairs to the attic bedroom, she vowed she would get Flood to speak with the man first thing in the morning.
But by morning, Captain Glenn Meadors was gone. And so was Madrigal O'Laney.
Chapter 30
Glenn Meadors had noticed more than Allison gave him credit for. And if he chose not to mention the absence of the tobacco barns and the cottage, it was his own decision, made as he first galloped down the drive; for he had more important things on his mind.
Bluegrass Meadors had never meant as much to him as it did to his brother Rad. It held no special magic for him. It was merely a place to live until he grew up and could get away, to see the real world—of cities, of boomtowns made from gold, of men living on the exciting edge, gambling with life the same way they gambled with cards.
The war had caused him to leave a little sooner than he'd planned, but his days with the army had magnified his earlier yearnings.
Glenn had no desire to spend the rest of his life on an isolated plantation in Kentucky when an exciting world was out there waiting for him.
In fact, he would not have returned to the house at all if he hadn't wanted something—the strongbox and its contents buried in the herb garden. Even retrieving it before Rad returned had been a gamble.
But he didn't feel guilty taking his mother's jewels and the family money from that box. After all, he was leaving the whole plantation to Rad—a decent-enough exchange. The only thing he hadn't planned on taking with him was the redhead, but she had been quite persuasive.
Madrigal clung to Glenn as the two galloped through the dark, past Royal Freemont's place. She, too, was searching for something different. And if her journey into the future began with a handsome Confederate officer, so much the better. Of course, she knew that the liaison made in the herb garden, as she helped him dig up the strongbox, wouldn't last forever. But, like Tom Traymore, the man was a means to an end.
Madrigal, seated behind Glenn Meadors, giggled and tightened her arms around the man's waist as the horse flew down the road. "Do you remember when we first passed by Mr. Freemont's house and you wouldn't let us stop to get water?"
Glenn kept his eyes on the road, "Yes. And I remember your sassy comment about a galvanized Yankee. I think you were trying to get back at me, too, and I had a hard time maintaining the charade."
"Mr. Freemont's been nice to us since then—because of Allison. I wonder if he'll marry her."
A startled Glenn turned his head and almost bumped into Madrigal's face. "How can he do that with her husband still living?"
"Oh, Captain Forsyth is dead. She's a widow."
"But what about Mr. Tompkins?"
"Flood? Oh, Glenn, you never even noticed, did you?" Madrigal giggled again. "I guess now that we're gone, I can tell you the truth. Flood is a woman, though she doesn't much look like one. When you first hired her, she was dressed in her dead husband's clothes."
Glenn Meadors's laugh matched Madrigal's. "Well, she certainly hoodwinked me." He was silent for a moment and then he said, "So all of Flood's talk about her family was just a ploy. Aren't any of you related?"
"No. We just banded together on the prison train."
"Then it's just as well I did leave before Rad gets home. I can see him now, when he finds out I hired a bunch of women. And Confederates, too. For him, that's almost worse tha
n having the tobacco crop burned."
A tinge of loyalty prompted Madrigal's next words. "Well, it wasn't our fault—about the barns. I told you what happened."
"You're right. The blame should be laid where it belongs—square at Rad's feet. I heard he was in the cavalry that captured Morgan. That was enough to have the whole place burned down."
The sound of a wagon coming down the road caused Glenn to grow cautious. "Hush now, Madrigal. No more conversation. We've got a long way to ride to get to the train station."
"What are goin' to do with the horse?" she whispered.
"Leave him in the stables with Rad's name on him. Let him pay the livery fee."
An hour later, the sun was up. As Allison walked into the kitchen to feed Morrow, she was unaware of the captain's disappearance with Madrigal, or of Major Rad Meadors's approach toward St. Louis, a few days' distance from Bluegrass Meadors.
But by ten o'clock that morning, Allison, Rebecca, and Flood had learned of Madrigal's defection. They stood on the porch and gazed down the drive as if somehow she might reappear.
"I can't believe she'd do such a thing," Rebecca said. "Goin' off with that Captain Meadors. Mark my words, she'll be awful sorry one of these days."
"Well, I'm awful sorry now," Flood said. "But not about Madrigal. You realize the captain left without payin' us? What are we goin' to do, Allison?"
"We'll wait for his brother to come home. And in the meantime, we'll continue working."
Rebecca and Flood went to the tobacco fields, while a sober Allison walked inside the house to work on the quilt that Royal Freemont had paid in advance for her to make. With Morrow playing beside her, Allison began to sew. But an uneasiness caused her to become clumsy with the needle. She pricked her finger and, as the blood appeared, she quickly dropped the material and put her finger to her mouth.
Morrow looked up from her play. "Hurt," she said, and walked over to her mother to pat her on the arm.
"It's all right," she assured Morrow, drawing her close and hugging her. But it was not all right; for the pain had found a place to lodge beyond the small wound in her finger. With the captain's disappearance, Allison had begun to worry anew, to wonder what would happen to them all and especially to the sweet baby standing at her knee. Allison's situation was no better than it had been at Rose Mallow, when all her money was gone and she'd felt so alone. But now, because of the child, she bit her lip and forced a smile. "Go back to your dolly," she said, "and let Mommy work on the quilt."
Out in the field, as Flood and Rebecca inspected the tender young tobacco for the insects that could cut down a plant overnight, the black woman was worried, too.
Rebecca knew that if it had not been for Miss Allison planning and scrimping and thinking up ways to get a little extra money, they would not have survived the winter. And it had made her mad, seeing the desperate, drawn look on the beautiful, kind face of her mistress when she realized that they were in peril again, just like those awful days at Rose Mallow. Allison Forsyth deserved better than that.
Making up her mind, Rebecca walked to the part of the field where Flood was working. "I've got a plan, Flood," she said. "And I hope you'll go along with it."
Flood took her stick, knocked off an insect from a tobacco leaf and stomped it into the ground. "What is it, Rebecca?"
"Major Meadors will be comin' home soon, more than likely. And when he gets here, he's got to be set right about you. Can't have him thinkin' you're a man, or that Miss Allision is your wife."
The conspiracy between the two began that night. Rebecca set two places at the kitchen table and one in the dining room with the good silverware. A fire burned in the marble fireplace, its glow matching the candles blazing in the silver candelabra.
"What's this, Rebecca?" Allison asked as she came downstairs after putting Morrow to bed.
Rebecca gazed out the window as she spoke. "I set your place in the dinin' room like I used to at Rose Mallow."
"That's ridiculous. I'll eat in the kitchen as usual."
Allison leaned over to blow out the candles, but Rebecca stopped her. "Miss Allison, wait a minute. I wasn't goin' to tell you, but Flood and I had a conversation when we were out in the field today."
"Well, I suppose you're going to tell me what it was about?"
"Flood doesn't want to hurt your feelin's any more than I do, Miss Allison, but the truth of the matter is that she just isn't comfortable eatin' with you."
"But we've eaten every meal together since we got here. What has happened so suddenly to make her change her mind? I think I'll just go and find out."
"No, Miss Allison. I wouldn't do that if I was you. It would only embarrass her, havin' to talk about it. You just sit down where you belong and I'll bring your plate in a minute."
Rebecca took over as she had that day so long ago, when they had returned from the memorial service at the church. And Allison, feeling hurt and ostracized, sat down at the table in the dining room.
"Well, Rebecca, how did she take it?" Flood asked when the other woman appeared in the kitchen.
"She's powerful hurt, Flood. But it's for her own good. We can't have her eatin' in the kitchen like a hired hand when the major walks in."
"I wish we could tell her…"
"No. That'd spoil everything, if she knew what we were doin'."
"I reckon you're right. But I sure don’t want her to think hard of me after all she's done these past months."
The pattern was set. From that evening on, Allison took her place in the dining room apart from the other two. And as Flood and Rebecca took care of the outdoor chores, so Allison took care of the ones inside, except for the milking of the cow, which she refused to give up. But in the separation, an almost imperceptible change came over Allison. She was again the mistress of a fine plantation, with demeanor and manners to prove it. And Rebecca was glad to see the return of that slight aloofness, that regal setting of the head that indicated her aristocratic background.
For a week, the weather was unusually nice, with the sun shining down on the healthy green tobacco plants and highlighting the freshly whitewashed fence that Flood and Rebecca labored to finish in record time.
"It's always important to make a good impression," Rebecca said as she and Flood began painting the final stretch of fence closest to the house.
"But I've got a feelin' the major won’t think much of the pretty fence once he sees what's happened beyond it."
"I'm countin' on the tobacco plants to soften him up a bit. The field sure does look pretty right now."
In less than twenty-four hours, the warm spring weather had turned to blackberry winter, with a sudden chilling rain coming down in torrents, sending rivulets through the fields and threatening to wash away the young vegetable garden.
Late on the second afternoon of the rainstorm, a worried Allison stood at the dining room window and peered out. A strong wind bent the tree branches and the dark clouds swirled low over the meadows. A sudden flash of lightning, answered by an immediate roll of thunder, caused her to back away from the window and seek comfort before the hearth.
As the darkness crept into the room, Allison removed the firescreen and held a candle to the flame so that she might light the candelabra on the table. As if the light were a signal, Rebecca brought Allison's dinner to the dining room.
"Doesn't look like the storm's goin' to let up anytime soon," Rebecca said.
"But I don't think the fields can take much more water," Allison replied.
"Big Caesar said the creek's overdue to flood its banks. When it happened four years ago, it ruined all the crops around here. That, and the hail."
"Then we'll just pray this isn't the year for it to happen again."
"I hung up a rabbit's foot on the back door, too. Just in case we need a little extra luck."
While Allison began to eat her soup and bread, a mud-spattered Rad Meadors urged his horse past Royal Freemont's place. A flash of lightning caused Bourbon Red to shy. Seeing the
limb split from the tree directly in front of him, Rad was tempted to turn around and seek shelter at Royal's. But he had come too far to stop now. He wouldn't be satisfied until he reached the house he hadn't seen in over two years.
Yet the house and meadows had always been with him—an image in his mind—even in the darkest moments of the war. And each time he passed by a house that had been put to the torch, he became angry at the senseless loss and tragedy that caused men to destroy what they loved.
Even now he wasn't certain what he would find once he reached the long drive. Perhaps Bluegrass Meadors had been destroyed, too, despite Glenn's brief letter assuring him that it was still standing and being looked after.
He continued down the road that began to look like one of the small streams that he had splashed across often enough, traveling from one line of battle to another. But this night there were no scouts lurking behind trees to watch his progress or to take aim at the enemy uniform.
Overhead, the heavy limbs of the trees dripped with rain and the mist diminished visibility as Rad strained to see some sign of life beyond the fence. Then a tiny light flickered in the distance and the tired horse, without further urging, broke into a trot.
Despite the poncho, Rad Meadors was soaked through and through. And his bones ached with the cold. But he kept going toward the light—and home.
Chapter 31
As a gust of wind blew down the chimney and threatened the fire in the fireplace, Allison, still seated at the dining room table, wrapped the soft lavender shawl around her. She was dressed in gray and lavender, suitable colors for a widow. But the effect, with her amethyst eyes even more startling by candlelight, was one of delicate, haunting beauty, a chiaroscuro of light and darkness touching only part of the face and begging for further revelation.
Rad Meadors stood in the hallway and quietly observed the woman. Because of the storm, she evidently had not heard him enter through the front door. At first, he felt like an interloper spying on the woman. But that was ridiculous. This was his house and the woman was the one who didn't belong. Yet there she was, quietly sitting at his table and acting as if it were her rightful place.
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