Beauty for Ashes

by Dorothy Love

  Carrie finished her tea and stood. “I must go. I want to catch Mr. Pruitt before he leaves for the day.”

  Mrs. Whitcomb pressed a handful of coins into Carrie’s hand. “For the bread. Can you make two loaves again next week?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll let you know if I need extra for Race Day.”

  Carrie let herself out and hurried to the mercantile. Jasper Pruitt was standing in the back, cutting a length of fabric for a woman wearing a wide-brimmed yellow hat. While he tended to his customer, she perused the shelves. Even though it was only October, Jasper had already ordered a few extra things for the upcoming Christmas season. On a high shelf sat a shiny red top, a wooden train set, and a brightly painted clown bank whose open mouth served as the coin slot. Any of those toys would delight Joe and Caleb. Maybe enough money would arrive from Henry before Christmas to make such a gift possible.

  Jasper lumbered to the front of the store, shears in hand. After his customer had gone, the package of fabric neatly wrapped in a brown paper bundle, he turned to Carrie. “What can I help you with?”

  She set her loaf of bread on the counter. “I brought you a sample of my bread. Made fresh this morning.”

  “How come?”

  “I heard you’re planning to offer lunchboxes on Race Day. I was hoping you’d buy the bread from me.”

  “And why would I do that when the bakery’s right across the street?”

  “Mine is made in smaller batches, so the quality is better.” She slid it toward him. “Please try some.”

  He tore off a hunk and chewed. “It’s tasty, all right. But I kinda feel an obligation to the bakery.” He ate another piece, the crumbs falling into his beard. “Besides, the people in town for Race Day will be gone in a day or two. It don’t make good business sense to spend more for a temporary product.”

  “I see your point.” She paused. “The truth is, Mr. Pruitt, that I desperately need the money. My brother has found work in Chicago and we expected he’d send money by now, but it hasn’t arrived. I was hoping to earn a little money until it does. Otherwise, I’m afraid my bill here will grow even larger.”

  He frowned. “You don’t owe me a dime, Miz Daly.”

  “But that’s impossible. Mr. Rutledge was in here only a few weeks ago and—”

  “Paid cash money for the whole lot of it.”

  “Griff—Mr. Rutledge—paid my bill?”

  “Yep. It was quite a big one too.”

  “We were out of everything at the farm. Mary let the summer garden go to waste, so I had to buy more than usual. But I had no idea Mr. Rutledge paid. He didn’t say a word about it.”

  The storekeeper’s small, round eyes bore into hers. “That horse tamer’s gone sweet on you, I reckon.”

  Carrie’s face burned. What would people say if they knew Griff Rutledge was supporting her family? Mariah and Eugenie would never let her live it down. To them it would be practically as bad as living in sin. “It was kind of him. But I intend to pay him back every cent.”

  “By selling bread, one loaf at a time?” Jasper’s expression softened. “Listen, Miz Daly. I know you’ve got your pride, and it’s an admirable thing. But everybody in Hickory Ridge is barely hanging on these days. You baked bread for the church charity when you were stayin’ at the Verandah. Ain’t that right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you helped make quilts for them orphans back when Miss Lillian was alive.”

  “I was happy to do it.”

  “Sometimes it takes as much grace to accept help as it does to give it.” He returned the half-eaten loaf to the basket. “Why don’t you take this on home to Mary’s boys and stop worrying about that gamblin’ man.”

  Leaving the mercantile, Carrie glanced up the street toward Nate’s bookshop. How was he getting on? She missed Nate’s keen intelligence, quiet wit, and warm smile . . . and their lively discussions about books and politics. Why couldn’t they have gone on being friends, without the question of marriage intruding? Why hadn’t he been enough for her?

  Sabrina Gilman emerged from the post office in the company of a young man Carrie didn’t recognize. Dressed in a pink-and-white striped frock and a straw boater trimmed in pink ribbons, Sabrina looked impossibly young and happier than Carrie had seen her in a while.

  The young man took her arm as they crossed the street to the bakery. Sabrina leaned into him, whispering, and Carrie’s heart seized at the memory of Frank and their early days together. Even after the passing of so many years, she remembered his shy smile, the joyous procession from his family’s house to hers on their wedding day, his tentative tenderness on their first nights as husband and wife. The plans they’d made for the future, whispering together in the dark.

  So many dreams, snuffed out in an instant at Bloody Pond.

  She loaded her supplies onto the wagon and drove home through the waning afternoon. An unfamiliar rig was parked in the yard. Joe and Caleb were nowhere to be seen. Carrie frowned. Those two were never around when she needed them.

  She unloaded her supplies and headed inside. Deborah Patterson met her on the porch. “Hello, Carrie. I was afraid I’d have to leave before I could greet you.” She held out her good arm. “Let me help you with those.”

  Carrie handed her friend a tin of tea. “Thanks.”

  They carried everything into the kitchen. Carrie noticed a tea tray and two cups on the table.

  “I made tea for Mary,” Deborah said. “She’s sleeping now, poor thing.”

  Carrie nodded. “I wish I knew what was wrong with her.”

  “Perhaps she’s heartsick.” Standing on tiptoe, Deborah put away a sack of sugar. “Sometimes a sickness of the spirit is worse than a bodily affliction. There’s more tea if you’d like some.”

  “That sounds good.” Carrie looked around. “Where are the boys?”

  “Mary gave them permission to go fishing. It isn’t natural for them to spend so much time indoors.” She poured two cups, and they sat at the table. Deborah stirred sugar into her tea and smiled. “My mother, rest her soul, always said I should have been born a boy. She tried to teach me sewing and fine needlework, but when I was Joe’s age, I spent more time swimming and chasing fireflies and climbing trees than with needle and thread.”

  Before she could stifle the impulse, Carrie glanced at her friend’s useless arm. How could Deborah have managed such rigorous activities with only one arm and a damaged leg?

  Deborah sipped her tea. “I wasn’t always this way. I had a normal childhood until my mother died. I was only nine.”

  Carrie nodded. “I was five when my parents died of yellow fever.”

  “It’s horrible, isn’t it, being deprived of a mother so young. My father couldn’t take it either. He took to the bottle after that, and drink made him mean. My older brother ran off at fourteen and left me alone to deal with Daddy.”

  Deborah shook her head. “I did everything I could not to rile him, but the least little thing would set him off. If I served his breakfast on a chipped plate, if I burned the biscuits or forgot to bring in the laundry, he beat me until he passed out.”

  Carrie thought of her own parents, who had shown her and Henry nothing but kindness. She’d been blessed, had taken the blessing for granted. Her heart broke for Deborah. How could a father show such cruelty to his own child? How could Deborah bear the memory of it? “You don’t have to tell me any more.”

  “I want to.” Deborah patted her hand. “The week before my seventeenth birthday, Daddy left early for town and told me not to forget to bring the cows in from the pasture. The day was stifling hot, so after I finished cleaning up the house I got some cool water from the spring and sat for a while on the front porch just listening to the cicadas. Andrew Porter, the boy who lived on the next farm over, came riding up the road and stopped for a drink of water. I told him it was almost my birthday. He laughed and said a girl turning seventeen ought to have a present. He took me into town to get a hair
ribbon.”

  She smiled. “Up to that time it was the only present I’d ever received. After Andy dropped me back home, I got Mama’s mirror down and pinned the ribbon in my hair one way and then another.”

  Deborah paused, a pained look in her eyes. Carrie stole a glance at the minister’s wife. Had she stopped for breath . . . or to gather the courage to remember what had happened next?

  “The next thing I knew it was dark and Daddy was back. Too late I remembered about the cows. I ran out the back door to the pasture, but he caught me by the hair and dragged me into the barn. He stripped me to my chemise and beat me until I fainted. When I came to, I was covered in my own blood and chained to the anvil he used for making horseshoes.”

  Carrie stared, horrified. “Oh, Deborah. I had no idea. You must have felt terrified, and terribly alone.”

  “Terrified, yes. I knew Daddy meant to leave me there until I died. By then death would have been welcome. But I didn’t feel alone. Not for a single minute. Because I knew our Lord could see me. He knew where I was and the trouble I was in, and that was when I learned the beauty of surrender. For two days I lay there in my own blood and waste and waited for him. I was ready if he wanted me. But if not, if there was still work on earth he wanted me to do, I was ready to do that too.”

  Carrie sat transfixed by the power of Deborah’s story and the breathtaking certainty of her friend’s faith. “How did you escape?”

  “Andrew came by looking for me and noticed that my daddy was all scratched up. He figured Daddy had been after me again, so he looked for me until he found me. Eventually my bruises and cuts healed, but my broken foot never mended properly, and my arm was so damaged from being chained up . . .”

  She looked past Carrie’s shoulder to the yard beyond. “That was when I met Daniel. He and his wife, Cordelia, had a little church in the hills above Cool Hollow. I couldn’t go back home, so they took me in and took care of me. I stayed with them until Cordelia died. Later Daniel and I married. We’ve been together since.”

  Shaken to her core, Carrie only nodded. “I admire your certainty. But I don’t see how—”

  “It isn’t complicated at all, once you make up your mind to surrender your all to him. Despite my infirmities, I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.” Punctuating the end of her story with a brief nod, Deborah rose. “It’s getting late. I should be going.”

  “Thank you for visiting Mary.”

  Deborah smiled. “It was you I hoped to see. Will you be at church on Sunday?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “See how he’s pinning his ears back?” Griff grinned down at Carrie and gestured to Majestic. “That tells me he’s heard me, but he’s decided to ignore me. That won’t do. Even a small infraction must be corrected. Otherwise, he’ll get to thinking he’s the one in charge.”

  Carrie perched on the fence and listened, fascinated, as Griff explained the finer points of horse training. Part experience and part intuition, Griff’s ability to communicate with Majestic seemed nothing short of magical. She watched the way he moved to reassure the horse, tugging gently on Majestic’s bridle until the horse lowered his head and emitted a deep, fluttering breath through his nostrils.

  “That’s right,” he murmured to the horse. “There we go.” He swung into the saddle, an expression of triumph and pleasure lighting his tanned face. “Now he’s relaxed. Be right back. ”

  He nudged the horse into a smart canter and then, at the far end of the pasture, into a dead run. Leaning forward over the horse’s neck, he urged Majestic on, and the colt thundered past the gate, his dark mane flying, his hooves sending up dirt clods that peppered Carrie’s skirt. She didn’t care. Being with Griff, watching him doing the work he loved, was a pure joy.

  She owed this rare pleasure to Deborah Patterson, who had returned this morning for another visit with Mary. Despite her admiration and growing affection for Deborah, Carrie was discomfited by her friend’s knowing look. Was Deborah waiting to hear that Carrie had given up her struggles and surrendered her all to God? It wasn’t that she didn’t want the kind of peace such deep faith would afford. It was simply that, after so many losses, she lacked the courage to trust, to lay everything at his feet.

  She had hurried through serving tea before leaving to take Griff up on his standing invitation to visit the Gilmans’ and watch him train. With Race Day now only a week away, she wouldn’t have many more chances to spend time with him. Last week when he’d talked about how much he loved the Gilmans’ place, its graceful house and endless pastures set against the dramatic backdrop of the Smoky Mountains, she’d felt a flicker of hope. If only he might stay and settle down in Hickory Ridge. But what could a struggling southern Appalachian town offer a man like him? In a week’s time, maybe two, he’d be gone, and today would fade into nothing more than a bittersweet memory.

  She shaded her eyes and watched Griff make the turn at the top of the rise. He slowed to a trot and, after a couple of laps around the pasture, halted in front of her. “I think he’s ready.”

  He slipped from the saddle and offered Majestic an apple. The horse chomped it and let out a long whinny that made Griff laugh. “See? He knows he’s ready too.”

  Carrie smiled at his boyish enthusiasm. “Joe is thoroughly convinced you’ll win.”

  Griff wiped his brow with his sleeve. “We’ve got a chance. Yesterday I had Gilman help me measure Majestic’s stride. Best I can calculate, it’s nearly twenty-three feet.”

  “I assume that’s good.”

  “It’s exceptional.” He opened the gate and they headed for the barn, the big colt plodding confidently between them. “Average on a Thoroughbred is twenty feet. I’ve heard the horse coming from Kentucky has stride of almost twenty-two.” He reached up to rub Majestic’s face. “My boy here should be able to take him. As long as he stays focused. I’m taking him to town every day next week so he can get used to the sound of the train whistle.” He smiled. “We can’t have him knocking down any more pretty ladies.”

  Carrie smiled back at him. “I’m glad you were there that day.”

  “So am I.” He dropped the reins and took both her shoulders, turning her gently to face him.

  Her heart sped up. Her mouth went dry as sand. Clearly he was going to kiss her. And heaven help her, she wanted it. Even though the memory of it, after he was gone, would break her heart clean in two. “Griff—”

  He drew her close, slid one arm behind her back, and brought his lips to hers. She was lost, unable to control her reaction to him. Longing moved through her, warm and slow as molten lead. The attraction she’d felt for him on their first meeting sparked within her. She parted her lips for his kiss, and the very air around her seemed to shimmer with promise. Feeling suddenly vulnerable and unsettled, she pulled away. “I should go.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. But he held her a moment longer before helping her into her rig. “Meet me in town for dinner tomorrow. The cook at the inn makes a mean venison stew.”

  “I can’t. There’s no one to stay with Mary and the boys. Come to dinner at the farm. Six o’clock.”

  A rueful smile lit his face. “Mary Stanhope won’t like that one bit. You know she won’t.”

  “The farm was my home long before it was hers. I’m there because she begged me to take care of her. And besides, after your generosity in lending me money for the food bill, she’s hardly in a position to criticize my choices.”

  “I’ve told you it was a gift, Carrie, not a loan. But in any case, I accept.” He leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. “I can’t wait until six. How about five?”

  “Five is even better.”

  He nodded. “Majestic needs tending. I’ll see you then.”

  Griff watched her rig disappear at the end of the Gilmans’ lane, the memory of her kiss foremost in his mind. Picking up the reins, he led Majestic to the barn, removed the horse’s tack, and picked up the currycomb. Majestic snuffled and nodded as if he approv
ed, causing Griff to laugh out loud. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so content. Holding Carrie, her soft lips clinging to his, had kindled feelings he’d supposed were gone forever—hope, peace, maybe even the promise of happiness. And to think he had met her by pure chance. If he hadn’t been in town to settle things with Rosaleen, if Majestic hadn’t spooked at the precise moment Carrie emerged from the dress shop . . .

  He finished with the currycomb and gave Majestic a bucket of oats sweetened with molasses. Of course he believed in God. He’d never have made it through the war otherwise. But he’d never really believed in miracles . . . until now. Who could have predicted that his life and Carrie’s could so quickly become entwined?

  He mucked out the stall, filled Majestic’s water trough, then mounted his rented horse for the ride back to town. The cooling breeze and the crackle of falling leaves reminded him that the ship’s agent in San Francisco awaited his reply. Soon he’d have to decide whether to book passage for Australia.

  The lure of the unknown was still a powerful force inside him. And yet the prospect of endless freedom at the bottom of the world somehow seemed far less attractive.

  “Did the Yankees shoot at your boat?”

  Carrie poured more coffee and smiled at the look on Caleb’s face. The boy leaned both elbows on the table and gazed up at Griff, his expression one of pure awe. Supper was over, and for the last hour Griff had regaled them with stories of his days captaining a blockade runner out of Charleston harbor, delivering cotton to Nassau and Havana and bringing back medicines, ammunition, and clothing for the Confederates.

  “We got shot at a time or two, but the Nightingale was specially built for the job I had to do,” Griff said. “She sat low in the water, and she was painted gray to blend in with the color of the sea and the fog. On a moonless night I could sail right past the Union ships and they never even saw me.”