From This Day Forward

by Victoria Thompson

  Although this was the family dining room, it was still much finer than anything Lori was used to. The table and chairs were the same dark wood as the furniture in the formal dining room, but these were smaller and less ornate. Lori wasn’t exactly sure where she should sit, so she chose to walk around the room, examining everything. The sideboard was covered with a lace runner, and on it sat several large silver serving dishes. They were empty now and sparkling clean, shining as if someone had just polished them. She remembered what Bessie had said about the Ross silver and wondered why this wasn’t buried with the rest. She reached out and touched one of the dishes with the tip of her finger, curious to know what real silver felt like. It was cool and smooth and Lori was delighted until she realized she’d left a fingerprint on the polished surface. Glancing frantically around to make sure no one had seen, she quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of her dress. After that, she tucked her hands into her pockets so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch anything else.

  She was staring at a painting on the wall and marveling at the beautiful scene in which men in red coats rode magnificent horses across an impossibly green landscape when the door opened and a pretty, young serving girl came in.

  Lori recognized her instantly as one of the girls who had served the wedding meal yesterday. She had no idea of the proper conduct of a plantation mistress, but she didn’t want to be rude, so she said, “Good morning.”

  “ ’Mornin’, Missy,” the girl said shyly, ducking her head. She carried a tray that held a small teapot and a cup and saucer and some other implements.

  She carried the tray to the table and set it down, then looked at Lori expectantly.

  “I... I wasn’t sure where to sit,” Lori confessed.

  The girl’s eyes widened slightly in obvious surprise, but she had the grace not to express that surprise in any other way. Then she glanced around. “I expect here be all right,” she said, and began to lay the place for Lori at the seat to the right of the head of the table.

  “You ready for me to pour your tea?” the girl asked when she had finished.

  Lori’s stomach growled again, and embarrassed, she laid a hand over it. “Yes, that would be fine.”

  She hurried over and took her seat at the table as the girl poured the steaming liquid into the delicate china cup.

  How was Lori going to get used to all this luxury? Imagine using such fine china on just an ordinary morning. And being waited on hand and foot, as if she were a princess or something.

  “We don’t got much sugar, but there’s honey and milk,” the girl said, setting a bowl and a small pitcher nearby. “I be back in a minute with your breakfast.”

  Sugar? Lori hadn’t known there was any left in Texas at all. And she was so busy marveling over the honey that the girl was gone before Lori remembered to ask her name. Feeling almost guilty, she dipped her spoon into the thick amber honey and scooped some up. Not much. She didn’t want to be greedy, but her mouth was watering as she dunked the coated spoon into the tea and stirred it around while the honey slowly dissolved.

  By then her stomach was cramping with hunger, and she finally lifted the cup to her lips, savoring the soothing aroma as she took her first sip. This moment, she realized vaguely, was the first true happiness she had known since...

  But she wouldn’t think of that, not now. She didn’t want to ruin this, so she ruthlessly pushed the ugly thoughts away and enjoyed her first cup of tea in recent memory.

  She had finished it when the girl brought in her food. Eliza had fixed her some scrambled eggs and biscuits for which she’d supplied both butter and jelly and several deliciously golden strips of bacon. Lori ate as much as she could, and she found out the serving girl’s name was Esther and that Massa Adam should be back from the fields just any time now and did Missy want him fetched?

  Missy most definitely did not want him fetched. She wanted to sit here in this elegant room and pretend that her fairy tale had come true for a few more minutes at least.

  When she’d finished her breakfast and drunk all the tea in the pot, she realized she didn’t have a single thing to do for the rest of the day. What did a plantation mistress do? Surely, she had duties to keep herself occupied even if she did have slaves to do most of the actual work. Did she sew? Did she clean? Or cook? Surely not. Surely the slaves did all those things. And most certainly she did not work in the fields the way Lori and Bessie had to keep food on the table.

  Lori looked at her calloused hands resting on the table beside the fine china dishes and quickly closed them into fists and hid them away in her lap. Glancing around self-consciously, she almost laughed out loud when she realized she was completely alone and acting like an idiot.

  Deciding she couldn’t sit here in the dining room with her dirty dishes any longer, she got up. Her first impulse was to pick up the dishes and carry them out to the kitchen, but then she remembered the dinner yesterday and how the sering girls had taken the dirty dishes away. She didn’t want the slaves to be laughing at her behind her back for not knowing how a proper lady should behave, so she left the dishes where they were and went back out into the hall.

  At first she couldn’t think where to go. Her first impulse was to return to her room, but she wasn’t going to hide. Then she remembered that Adam had told her the back parlor was where the family used to sit. She was his family now, as difficult as it was to believe. Fingering the new ring on her finger to remind herself, she headed toward the parlor.

  The halls were still quiet, although Lori couldn’t imagine why, if all the slaves who had witnessed the wedding yesterday worked here. But if they did, they must be busy elsewhere today. As she moved through the carpeted hallways, she couldn’t help thinking how easy it would be to forget a war was raging over most of the rest of the country. Here, in this lovely house where everything was beautiful and clean and designed for comfort, it was hard to believe evil could exist anywhere.

  And then she remembered that evil incarnate had grown up right within these walls.

  With a shudder, she quickened her steps, as if she could outrun her fears. When she reached the back parlor, she hurried inside and resisted an urge to slam the doors shut behind her.

  Once in the room, she was able to get hold of herself. Laying a hand over her pounding heart, she forced herself to take deep breaths and remember that he wasn’t here, would never be here, not anymore. Adam would protect her now. He was her husband and he would protect her.

  After a few moments, when she was calm again, she made herself look around the room, recalling the things she had noticed about it before. How comfortable it was. How welcoming. A place where a family would gather in the evening around the fireplace. The wife would sit and knit while the husband smoked his pipe and the children played at their feet.

  At the thought of children, Lori’s hand moved from her heart to her stomach. She still felt nothing there. Her body had only changed slightly, and surely no one else could tell yet, at least not through her clothes. And not even Sudie, who had seen her without any clothes at all. But soon everyone would know. And they would count on their fingers and they would understand why Adam Ross had married Lori McClintock, a girl no one had ever seen him speak to in public before. Or they would think they understood. Because no one could ever understand, not really, not if Adam’s unselfish gesture was to work.

  Adam. What a fool she’d been to dream about him. If she hadn’t, if she’d accepted the fact that he would never love her, then none of this would ever have happened. Eric would never have tricked her, and she never would’ve gotten pregnant and... and she never would have married Adam.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  With a sigh, she forced herself to move, to look, to think of something, anything, else. She stopped before the bookshelves and let her gaze drift over the colorful spines. Some of the books had gold letters on them. Lori recognized the letters, although she didn’t know all the words. Some of them were long, and she had barely learned to
read in the few years she had attended school. Her mother had insisted she go, but after her death, Papa had needed Lori at home. Since then she hadn’t read much. The McClintocks owned no books.

  Glancing around to make sure no one was watching her, she lifted her hand and let her fingers drift along the leather spines. They felt soft and rich, and she let her fingers stop at one, a red one with gold letters, and after glancing around self-consciously again, she pulled it from the shelf.

  It was thick and heavy in her hand, and she opened it at random, letting the gilt-edged pages fall where they would. The pages were covered with words. Lori had never seen so many words all in one place. What could anyone have to say that they would need so many words?

  A noise startled her, and she realized someone was coming up onto the back porch just outside the windows. Guiltily, she slapped the book shut and hastily stuffed it back into its place on the shelf. The footsteps moved across the porch and to the back door which opened into the hall just outside the parlor door. She knew those footsteps, even though she’d heard them only a few times in her life. They were unmistakable. The step and the step-clunk, his cane hitting the boards of the porch.

  Her heart began to hammer in her chest as she realized in a moment she would see him framed in the doorway. And he would see her, too. Lori cringed at the thought of how he would react. He must despise her now. But maybe he wouldn’t see her. Maybe he would walk on by.

  She could see him now. He’d stopped just inside the house, set his cane aside, and pulled off his broad-brimmed hat. After hanging the hat on a hall tree, he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. His face was flushed, although the day wasn’t particularly warm, and she knew he must have been standing out in the sun for a long time.

  She watched the way he moved, so confident, so sure of himself when his legs were still and he didn’t have to worry about his limp. She watched as he ran his long-fingered hand through his hair, hair that looked almost golden today because he hadn’t tamed it with oil. It clung damply to his neck and forehead. A butternut coat hung from his broad shoulders, and his shirt was collarless and open at the throat. She’d never seen him dressed so casually, and if he looked elegant in his dress suit, he looked blatantly masculine in his planter’s garb.

  Lori’s heart had slowed and now seemed to be laboring in her chest, and her breath came with difficulty even though she wasn’t wearing the hated corset. Why didn’t he move? Why didn’t he go before he saw her?

  She didn’t think she had made a sound, but she must have because suddenly he glanced into the room and saw her there. Her heart seemed to stop dead in her chest as she waited for his reaction. But he didn’t look angry. For an instant, she even thought he was going to smile, but he didn’t, although his expression definitely changed. His eyes seemed bluer somehow, and his face was different, although she could not have said how.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Lori managed an uncertain smile even if he couldn’t. “Is it still morning? I thought I’d slept the day away.”

  He did smile then. It looked more like relief than happiness, though. And he came into the room, walking slowly so he wouldn’t limp. “I told Sudie to let you sleep. You... you weren’t well last night.”

  Self-consciously, Lori clasped her hands over her stomach and willed herself not to blush with mortification at the memory. “I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what... Well, that’s not true. I’ve been sick like that ever since... Well, ever since,” she concluded awkwardly, blushing furiously now.

  Adam’s smile disappeared into a worried frown. “Maybe I should send for the doctor. That can’t be normal.”

  “Oh, it is,” she assured him, mortified all over again. Why had she ever mentioned this subject? “Bessie told me. It... it’s part of it. It’ll pass in a month or two.”

  “Still, we don’t want to take any chances. I could have the doctor come and—”

  “Come all this way for nothing?” Lori was appalled at such extravagance. “Don’t waste your money on me. I’m fine, truly I am.”

  Adam didn’t look convinced. “If you’re not better soon, I will. My mother...” His beautiful blue eyes clouded for a moment, and Lori suddenly remembered his mother had died shortly after Eric was born. Could she have died in childbirth? No wonder he looked so concerned.

  “I’m not going to die,” she said before she could stop herself and was sorry she had the moment his eyebrows went up in surprise.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said, a strange undertone in his voice, reminding her of her threat of suicide.

  “I mean, you don’t need to worry about me,” she said, chagrined. Dear heaven, wasn’t there a subject she could discuss without humiliating herself? “And for sure, you don’t need to send for any doctor.”

  He didn’t reply. He just kept looking at her with those troubled eyes of his. Desperately, she cast about for something new to say. Something safe. “You were out in the fields,” she remarked inanely.

  “Yes,” he said, and she thought he might have been as relieved as she over the change of subject. “I don’t have an overseer anymore. He joined the army two years ago, and I haven’t been able to find anybody else with all the other men gone off to fight, too. So I do the job myself.” He walked over to one of the wingbacked chairs and lowered himself into it. She realized he was tired, and then she saw the way he stretched his left leg out in front of him, using his hands to position it just so, and she wondered if it bothered him. “Some planters use slaves as overseers, but I’ve found that’s hard for the slave. He loses the respect of his fellows, and then he can’t ever go back to being just one of them again.” Lori had never thought of such things. She realized she’d never thought of slavery much at all, except in the most general terms.

  Adam looked up again, and she saw his gaze sweep over her from head to toe. Acutely aware of how shabby she must look to him, she lifted her hand to her throat as if she could cover the worn dress. “I didn’t want to wear my good dress again. The one I wore yesterday, I mean.”

  He blinked. “What?” he asked in apparent confusion.

  “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this dress... Well, it’s not what your wife...” She caught herself just in time. She didn’t want to remind him that she was his wife, not when she knew he couldn’t be very happy about it. “It’s not what I should be wearing, but I don’t really have anything else.”

  He frowned again. “Then we’ll have to do something about that. Can’t have the mistress of Elmhurst looking like...” He caught himself before he could insult her, but Lori knew what he was thinking. Can’t have the mistress of Elmhurst looking like poor white trash. She saw the color crawling up his neck, but he managed a smile. “Why don’t you sit down, Lori?” He indicated the matching wingbacked chair, the one she had imagined the wife would sit in. Well, like it or not, she was the wife, wasn’t she?

  Feeling incredibly out of place, she went over and sat down. She wasn’t exactly close to him. The width of the fireplace separated them, but still the setting felt intimate, probably because they were alone in this room meant for a family. Lori clasped her hands together in her lap to keep from fidgeting.

  After a long moment of awkward silence, Adam said, “Did you sleep well last night?”

  “Yes,” she replied. Another awkward silence fell as they both remembered they should have been sleeping together last night. Lori dropped her gaze in embarrassment and noticed that Adam was rubbing his thigh with his left hand. The gesture seemed automatic, as if he wasn’t even aware of it.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked finally.

  She looked up to find him watching her. His eyes were so clear and blue, a person could get lost in them. “Yes, Eliza fixed me some breakfast a little while ago.”

  He nodded, and somehow she understood that he didn’t really care if she had eaten or not. He was just trying to get her to talk to him. The knowled
ge came as a relief because with it came the certainty that at least he didn’t despise her quite as much as she had feared. And if he wanted her to talk to him, she had something she needed to say. She drew a fortifying breath.

  “Mr. Ross,” she began. “I—”

  “I think you can call me Adam now, Lori, don’t you?” he asked with a small smile.

  Instantly, Lori felt the color blossoming in her cheeks, but she refused to acknowledge her embarrassment. “Adam,” she said deliberately, calling him by his name for the first time. “I don’t know what to do.”

  For some reason he looked surprised. And oddly hopeful. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean, I don’t know what to do with myself,” she repeated impatiently. “At home, when I got up in the morning, I cooked breakfast and cleaned the house and did the laundry and baked the bread and mended and worked in the garden and... But here, your slaves do all those things. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Oh.” He looked surprised. And disappointed. The hand that had been rubbing his leg came up and rubbed his chin. “Well, now, let’s see. It’s been a long time since Elmhurst has had a mistress, but I remember my mother being very busy, so I imagine there’s a lot of work to be done. Sudie has run the house since my mother died, so she’s the one who would know.” He smiled with satisfaction and dropped his hand back to his leg again. “Yes, Sudie would know. She’ll teach you everything, and I imagine it will be a relief to her not to have that responsibility anymore.”

  Lori wasn’t quite so sure. In fact, she was fairly certain Sudie wouldn't be relieved and that she would actually be unhappy to have somebody like Lori McClintock moving in and taking over her house. Just what she needed.

  “And Sudie will see about making you some new clothes, too.”

  Sudie, Sudie, Sudie, Lori thought grimly as she absently watched Adam’s left hand working his left thigh again. How could she tell him that Sudie intimidated her? Or that Sudie hated her and would never do anything to make her life here easier?