The Steeplechase

by Carrie Fancett Pagels

  The Steeplechase

  By

  Carrie Fancett Pagels

  Hearts Overcoming Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright 2016 Carrie Fancett Pagels

  February, 2016/ Second Edition, March, 2017

  ASIN-10

  ISBN-13

  No part of this book may be copied or distributed without the author’s consent.

  Cover by Roseanna White, 2017

  Dedicated

  to

  Elizabeth Christine Barden Cornett

  My Forever Friend

  You started me on this journey.

  This one’s for you, Libbie!!!

  Characters

  Heroine Martha Jane Osborne, 27, born 1783

  Father, Professor Osborne, 54, born 1756

  Stepmother, Letitia Collier Osborne 35, born 1775

  Brother, Johnny Osborne, 6, born1804

  Brother, Christopher Osborne, 21, born 1789

  Sister, Emily Osborne, 14, born 1796

  Osborne servants, Dicey and Jessamine

  Galileo, her brother’s horse

  Graham Tarleton, 24, Christopher’s “friend”

  Phillip Lucien Paulson, 29, born 1780

  Brother, George Joseph Paulson, 33, born 1777

  Sister-in-law, Andrée Duplessis Paulson, 27

  Uncle Gabriel Lightfoot

  Miranda Lightfoot – his cousin

  Othello, his horse

  Chapter 1

  Yorktown, Virginia

  Autumn 1810

  After hoisting the last child down from his horse, Phillip Lucien Paulson swatted dirt from his buckskin riding trousers, more content than he’d been in most of his twenty-nine years. Perhaps there really was something positive in his brother’s desire to leave management of his father’s plantation to others and begin an academy for planters’ sons, instead.

  “Playing stableboy again?” The headmaster’s wife, Andrée, sidled up next to him, her scathing tone sending his good mood into flight, joining the squawking geese in the cerulean skies overhead.

  Andrée laughed as she strolled across the yard, her skirts swaying as she headed toward the new grand home Phillip’s brother, her husband, had built for her. So now not only would Andrée and George inherit the Paulson estate further up the York River, but they had another grand home to enjoy until their father died. And meanwhile, they tolerated Phillip as best they could. Hard to believe beautiful young Andrée Duplessis once claimed to fancy him and allowed Phillip to court her — until she’d learned he was the younger son.

  Laughter interrupted his thoughts. Nearby in the stable, the children began cleaning their tack, with Mr. Lacey assisting them. Phillip brushed down his horse and curried him.

  Within the half hour, all the primary lads at Yorkview Academy ran off from their equestrian lesson, save one—a tiny fellow. Johnny’s impish smile conjured up images of someone whose portrait Phillip had recently viewed, but not with the child’s same surname. He shook off the associated memory. Weren’t most wealthy Virginians all related to one another? Wasn’t young Osborn’s mother a Randolph? Who knew how many Randolph relations’ portraits hung on the walls of the Virginia plantations he’d visited throughout his life.

  Phillip brushed down the child’s mount, a docile gray mare, one of his favorites from their own family stable at Paulson’s.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?” He continued grooming the horse. What was such a young boy doing here? Had Phillip’s brother taken leave of his senses? George may enjoy playing the part of headmaster for now, but even he had enough sense to not accept a child unsuitable for boarding school.

  “Sir, do you know how to read?” A lock of chestnut hair fell across the boy’s wide brow.

  Phillip set aside the stiff boar’s bristle brush and switched to a currycomb. By the time Phillip was this lad’s age, he’d been reading Homer. Too bad his intellect hadn’t won him any favors with his older brother. “Indeed, I can, Johnny.”

  “Truly?” His dark eyes grew wide. “I prayed somebody had taught you, sir.”

  “Oh? You prayed, Johnny?” Few of the boys spoke of their faith, although his brother did instruct them in religion—or at least in George’s legalistic version of Christianity.

  “Yes, I ‘spected you might be able to read, sir.” His tiny mouth quirked to the right.

  Phillip straightened, catching a whiff of leather, horsehair, and his own sweat. He’d made a habit of not disclosing that he was only a volunteer at the school, not an employee. Neither did he nor George divulge that Phillip—their equestrian instructor and occasional stable helper—was brother to the headmaster. That secret was one for the boys to figure out. “You’d be correct in your intuitions, because I’m not really a stableboy—but don’t tell anyone. All right?”

  Would simple workmen one day have the privilege of an education now only afforded to the wealthy? Rumors of public education systems were growing and were a welcome concept in this new, great, and independent country. Those in the western territories and the Ohio Valley espoused such sentiments. “Surely my brother and the teachers are instructing you in your letters, are they not?”

  The boy poked his index finger at the corner of his mouth. “They do. No one reads to me, though.”

  A child of such tender age needed a parent to tell him stories, tuck his covers all around him, and put him to bed in his own home with his family nearby. “Come. Sit. I’ll tell you a story.” He pointed to a bale of hay.

  “But it’s not bedtime.”

  “Ah. As I suspected. You’re missing your mother.” He offered what he hoped was a gentle smile. Given Phillip’s sharp features, such a feat was accomplished only with much difficulty.

  “No. My sister—she reads to me every night.” Johnny nodded for emphasis, eyes wide.

  The mare stomped her foot impatiently, and Phillip whispered to her and resumed his currying. “You’ve been blessed with a good sister, then.”

  “The best.” The child’s lower lip quivered. “And she’s got to be terrible lonesome without me there.”

  Phillip glanced over the animal’s back. “I imagine so.”

  “And she always took my sheets off for me and changed them in the night.” Johnny hung his head.

  Phillip stiffened and patted the mare on the back. The boys at Academy were expected to be fully dry through the night and to not soil their bedclothes. “Are you having a problem here?”

  “Jace Tyler helps me, but he says if I don’t stop soon, I’ll probably get a caning.”

  Not if Phillip had anything to say about it. He’d confront his brother and have the child returned home as soon as possible. He’d heard from Andrée that the mother insisted Johnny attend boarding school despite her husband being on staff at the College of William and Mary. And the mother and sister were off to England, the older brother at college. “Is there no one at your home, besides your father, who could care for you?”

  The lad blinked at him several times. “I just told you, my sister. She’s old—like you.”

  He laughed. When he was Johnny’s age, he’d considered almost thirty to be old, too.

  “She’s twenty plus this many.” He held up seven stubby fingers.

  “Ah, well she’s not quite as old as the codger I am.” He winked at the boy and then mussed his hair. Within months I’ll be thirty and yet unmarried, although not from the want of trying. Phillip cringed recalling Andrée’s cutting words when she’d made it clear that George, not he, was her true pursuit.
/>
  One of the academy stable hands approached them. “Sorry I’m late, sir.”

  “No problem. All is well.”

  Johnny sucked in a big breath and whispered, “But, sir, we can’t have a story if that man stays here.”

  What did Phillip have to rush home to? His stable was full of premium horses whose ranks continue to swell and were well-tended by his hands. His dogs, too, were fit as a fiddle. And his father spent more time in Washington City and visiting his plantation-owning friends than he did trying to manage Paulson Farms. This child needed him. “I’ll stay and read to you later.”

  “Would you like to see my quilt and my soffy?”

  “Your soffy?”

  “Yes, he’s a soffy bear.”

  “Ah. I imagine he’s stuffed with sawdust and not a live bear, is he?” Phillip’s lips twitched as he stifled a grin.

  “No, sir. Headmaster wouldn’t allow that!”

  No, indeed, Headmaster would not. Why then, had he allowed a child so young to remain at school?

  Morning dew cloaked Martha Jane Osborne’s burgundy walking gown and cream pelisse in an ethereal mist as the Virginia sun rose over Williamsburg. Conflicted over the events of the past week, she almost didn’t notice the young man lingering on the corner at Duke of Gloucester street. Being the daughter of Williamsburg’s two biggest pariahs had its advantages—such as the freedom to note which gentlemen had the audacity to stare outright at her as she passed them. And although she should keep her eyes demurely cast down, she met Thaddeus’s salacious gaze with a scowl. “Mr. Nelson?”

  “You oughtn’t be walking by yourself.” The lout offered an arm covered in a jacket so tightly tailored that he scarce could move the appendage away from his body. Although the dandy may have thought the garment well displayed his physique, it only called attention to how impractical Thad was—had always been. Although the same might also be said of her.

  Hadn’t she, in fact, the evening before, instead of making a practical plan to solve her problems, instead prayed for God to send her an angel? She sighed.

  Ignoring the proffered arm, Martha lifted her chin. “I’m capable of walking four blocks by myself and back, thank you very much. And why aren’t you working at your father’s warehouse?”

  “Mind your own business,” Thaddeus mumbled as he swiveled away from her, muttering something no doubt derogatory about women as he went.

  She stifled a giggle. Although Thad was annoying, he was harmless—unlike some of the other dandies in Tidewater Virginia.

  Ahead of her, servant girls walked toward the market area at the heart of the street. A bright red bandana covered the head of a girl not much older than Martha’s sister, Emily. The Osborne’s kitchen maid, a freewoman, would normally be the one completing Martha’s errand. But with Letitia returned to England, and Father at the college teaching classes this morning, Martha was free to do as she wished. Such had been the case every time Letitia crossed the ocean to her homeland. At seven and twenty, Martha had been in charge of the household for over four of the last ten years. She sighed. If only her stepmother understood how their neighbors looked down their noses at them because of those many long trips to England—a country they were only too happy to be free from.

  She sighed. Perhaps things would change. Hadn’t she begged God to bring her help? She needed her little brother brought home again, and not cloistered off in a school. Martha required a place of her own, for when Letitia returned. Allowing the woman’s cutting words to continue to abrade her spirit would be like leaving a handful of chestnut burrs under Galileo’s saddle and continuing to ride him.

  A slight breeze swirled leaves around her pumps as Martha stopped to tug at the strings of her leather pouch. She peered inside and recounted her coins before continuing on.

  “Mornin’, Miss.” The street sweeper dipped his head as she passed.

  Martha pressed her lips together. She didn’t wish to be unkind, but a social exchange between the two of them truly was untoward—as her refined stepmother reminded her at every opportunity. Was that how her fellow Virginians saw her Anglican father and her British mother—two people with whom a social exchange would be perceived as inappropriate? Didn’t residents’ frozen countenances and pursed lips announce as much? She’d not be so cold as they were.

  “Good day, Mr...” Hadn’t someone called him by an Old Testament name? “Hezekiah.”

  Warm brown eyes, surrounded by a mass of wrinkles, met hers and widened. Grizzled hair peaked from beneath his gray knit work cap. “Bless you, Miss. Mornin’ to you, also.”

  Her cheeks warmed as she offered the man a fledgling smile before she continued up the street to the bakers. There, she’d done it! She’d defied the very conventions which held her family in a perpetual state of limbo. Her father’s family members were not British aristocrats like her step-grandparents, nor were they simply college town Americans. Surely God knew what her place was. How she yearned for a country home where she could ride Galileo to her heart’s content and not worry about what any neighbors might say. Instead, she had to sneak out like a thief to relish her one joy in life—besides spending time reading to her brother, who was now sent off to boarding school. She closed her eyes tightly, willing back any recalcitrant tears, and walked on toward the market.

  Smoke spiraled up from the many establishments that crowded the long thoroughfare. Sweet yeasty scents drew her closer to her destination. Her stomach rumbled at the reminder that she’d partaken of nothing that morning other than a tepid cup of tea. Martha pulled her full skirt as she opened the door to the place where all her baked goods would be obtained for at least the following month while Stepmother was gone.

  “Good day.” Myrtle James cocked her head to the side, much like a Myna bird, her dark eyes as cold as her tone.

  Martha met and held the shopkeeper’s gaze until finally the woman straightened both her head and her white cotton cap, atop an equally snowy mass of pinned curls. “It is a good morning, indeed, and I am grateful you are open.”

  The woman blinked. Normally, Martha kept her exchanges with the woman at a minimum, having become accustomed to the dour woman’s habit of eyeing her as though she were a redcoat soldier from the Revolution invading and about to run off with her baked goods. This morning, however, during her devotions, Martha had been convicted to express appreciation where it was due. She should have thanked Hezekiah for his street sweeping. She would—next time she saw him.

  Mrs. James pressed her hands on the counter. “Am I not open every day but the Lord’s day?”

  “Indeed.” This was not going well, but God could do with it what He willed. Martha fished her folded bakery list from her bag. “Mrs. James, I have an order to place for Saturday next.”

  Myrtle shoved a broad hand toward Martha, and grabbed the paper. The woman raised it close to her face and scanned the images and numbers. The baker’s wife couldn’t read, so Martha had drawn pictures of what she wanted and the number next to it.

  The plump elderly woman moved to her right, where the cases ended and there was an open bit of counter covered with spindles and completed orders. She laid the paper on the counter, picked up a short pencil, and bent over the list. “These are all the exact number, per usual, not dozens, is that right? I thought Dr. Osborne had taken over the dean’s position while he’s out with his wife’s illness.”

  Martha puffed out a breath. “Yes, ma’am, just the usual. Father doesn’t entertain as Dean Satterfield does.” She really didn’t appreciate the subtle reminder, in the woman’s grating tone, that her father, although a university professor, didn’t have a wide social circle. Even thirty years later, Americans were still stinging over the revolution and held little regard for a former Anglican priest.

  What if, with the dean gone, more students and professors came, fearing to upset the man if he should return to find his event, in absentia, so poorly attended? How the currency within her purse could be stretched to cover father’s latest
attempt at attracting a suitor for her was beyond her understanding. But perhaps the dean hadn’t expected Father to entertain. So was Father trying, for her stepmother’s sake, to find Martha an intellectual man who didn’t mind a wife who enjoyed reading, discussing philosophy, and periodically riding and jumping her horse over the magnificent hedges along the York River? She nibbled her lower lip. Of course, Father didn’t know about the latter activity—unless her brother had told him.

  “Chris came by and told me your mother was gone.”

  Chris? This woman referred to her brother Christopher as Chris? A muscle near her eye jumped. “Yes, my stepmother left with my younger sister to see her parents.”

  She simply could not refer to a woman only a decade older than herself as Mother, nor had Letitia requested that she or Christopher do so.

  The door to the shop opened, the fresh air stirring the scents of flour, vanilla, and cinnamon and making Martha ravenous for one of the iced cinnamon buns displayed on the top counter.

  Mrs. James eyed whoever walked in but then quickly returned her gaze to Martha. “And the boy? Johnny? What about him?”

  Unbidden tears welled up in Martha’s eyes and she blinked them back. Her youngest brother, her “pet”, had been dispatched to boarding school in the farthest reaches of Yorktown. She couldn’t make her mouth work to respond.

  The baker slid the list back across the counter. “This is close to what Chris told me—and he’s already paid, so don’t you worry.”

  Martha sniffed. “My brother left a purchase list?” When she looked up, she could have sworn she saw genuine concern and compassion on the woman’s face before Myrtle averted her gaze.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Mrs. James called to the newcomer.

  Slipping the paper back into her bag, Martha swiveled, keeping her eyes downcast. She mustn’t think about Johnny being gone. She’d find a way to bring her little brother back home if it meant riding Galileo all the way to Yorktown and back by herself. Or convincing someone to take her by sloop, or schooner, down the river – but such a trip required money she didn’t possess.