Words Spoken True: A Novel

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “What engagement?” Adriane asked sweetly.

  Adriane could feel Stan’s eyes on her, but she refused to look up at him. After a long moment, Stan rapped on the front of the carriage and shouted at Jack to pull to the side of the street. When the driver jumped down to open the door for them, Stan informed him shortly that they merely needed a rest from the bumps of the road and when they were ready to proceed on to their destination, he would signal him.

  With a puzzled expression, the man closed the door, and the carriage tilted a bit as he climbed back up on the driver’s seat. All the noises of the street faded away as inside the carriage the silence grew and became almost overwhelming.

  Just when Adriane thought Stan was going to simply rap on the carriage front and have his driver continue on to the benefit, he spread his handkerchief on the floor of the carriage, slipped off the seat onto one knee, and took Adriane’s hand. “My dearest Adriane, will you do me the honor of agreeing to be my wife?”

  Adriane looked at him and laughed. She couldn’t help herself as she pulled him back up on the seat. “Oh, Stanley, I am sorry. I don’t know what sort of madness came over me, making you do such a thing. Can you forgive me?”

  Stan did not smile. “I am waiting for my answer.”

  Adriane’s own smile disappeared. “And I will give you an answer if we can come to an agreement on certain matters pertaining to the event.”

  “This is not a business deal, Adriane.”

  “Of course not.” Adriane allowed the first hint of a blush to come into her cheeks. Now that she had things under control, she could afford to show a bit of weakness. “It’s just that I would not want to marry until September. The summer is so hot for weddings, don’t you think? And I would need time for proper planning and to have my dresses made. You do understand, don’t you, Stan?”

  “September seems a good month. I think my mother will approve.”

  Adriane turned her eyes back down to her hands to hide the smile wanting to play around her mouth at the thought of Meta Jimson approving of anything to do with this whole affair as long as Adriane was the bride. Adriane swallowed her smile and quickly struck her second and even more important bargain. “Also, I must be able to continue writing.”

  “Really, Adriane, I don’t—”

  Adriane interrupted him before he could word a refusal. “I know you will be able to provide wonderfully for us, Stanley.” She peeked up at him from under her long dark lashes. She knew how to use her charms if necessary. “But I do so enjoy my writing. Perhaps I could continue my Sally Sees All column for the paper or find some other creative outlet.”

  “I suppose a bit of poetry writing would not be improper. At least until the babies begin arriving.” He took her hand again and put it to his lips. That unsettling look was back in his eyes.

  The panic fluttered inside her. She couldn’t think about babies yet or how they came to be. She would have to get used to the idea of marriage to Stan first. “There may not be babies right away.”

  His eyes slid away from her face down to her bosom encased in the plain dress. “There are always babies,” he said softly. “You’ll enjoy that.”

  She knew he was not meaning the babies, and though her cheeks flamed, she managed to keep her voice calm and level. “Stanley Jimson, I’m surprised at you.”

  “People often are, my dearest Adriane,” he said with a laugh that wasn’t altogether pleasant.

  Adriane was relieved when he gave the signal for the carriage to begin moving again. He began talking about the party in their honor that night, and she managed to smile and nod at the appropriate moments. He took her hand in his, and Adriane could think of no good reason to pull it away.

  As they proceeded on toward Mrs. Wigginham’s house, the air in the carriage seemed to be running out, and Adriane began to feel faint. She kept watching Stan as his words bounced off her ears and wondering how in the world she would be able to live the rest of her life with him. The rest of her life.

  Perhaps she would be glad for the babies to come and bring her the chance of escape through death. Henrietta had once told her that Adriane’s own mother had embraced death the night Adriane was born. That she had wanted to die because she knew Wade Darcy deeply regretted the day he had married her. It was a lie. Not that her mother had died giving her birth, but that her father had regretted their love. By this time Henrietta’s every thought had been darkened by the bitterness of grief. She had lost three babies, and Wade no longer went to her bed. Adriane had only been ten, but she had known. As Henrietta sometimes told her before shoving her in the dark closet under the stairs, Adriane always knew too much.

  But now Adriane did not know enough. What did she really know about this man sitting beside her? What did she know of marriage? Worst of all, she knew no other choice. For a few seconds she couldn’t breathe. As she fought to keep from gasping for breath, she fingered the carriage door handle and considered throwing it open. She needed more air.

  She forced herself to breathe in and out slowly. It would not do to fall apart in front of Stan. With effort, she pushed the fluttering panic back into a dark corner in her mind and took control of her emotions. She might be swept away in a flood toward the altar, but she could at least try to swim a little to see if she might make headway against the force of the current.

  First she would talk to her father that afternoon before any official announcements were made. Maybe there remained a chance she wouldn’t have to be swept away to the altar at all. Her father had always been one to see reason. Adriane would just have to come up with some very good reasons not to marry Stanley Jimson, or at least not marry him so soon.

  Adriane made herself smile over at Stan and really listen to what he was saying about the house his father was planning to build for them. When he paused to take a breath, she said, “But doesn’t it take a long time to build a house? Perhaps September will be too soon for the wedding. We could wait until next spring.”

  “Don’t bother your pretty little head over such things, Adriane. We are to live with Mother and Father until the house is finished.”

  “They have agreed to that?” Adriane wasn’t able to keep a hint of disbelief from her voice.

  “Of course. Father is very pleased with the whole arrangement. He likes you very much.” Again Stan looked at her in a way that made Adriane want to shrink away from him before he went on. “He was the one who suggested perhaps it would be best if I consulted your father first.”

  Adriane frowned a bit. “Your father scarcely knows me.”

  “But he thinks you are lovely. As you are, my dearest.” Stan caressed her hand with his thumb. “He and your father have become very close as they’ve worked together building up the American Party here in Louisville.”

  “Father has been attending a lot of their meetings, but he doesn’t say or even write much about what goes on there.”

  “Of course not. The party leaders feel it is better if we form our policies in secret.”

  “But why?” Adriane asked.

  The American Party had been gaining strength in Louisville, and her father was sure their candidates would sweep the city elections next month. The party, dubbed the Know Nothings by a New York editor because of the way members claimed to “know nothing” when asked about the party’s aims, did have a few stated objectives. The members took an oath to vote for no candidate who was not a native-born American and they favored a twenty-one-year wait for immigrants to become citizens.

  Coleman Jimson, who hoped to be the Know Nothing candidate for state senator in the August elections, had been courting the Tribune’s support for months. So now Adriane waited for Stan’s answer with considerable interest and hoped he wouldn’t simply laugh at her question about politics as he sometimes did.

  For the moment, he seemed to forget she was a woman who could not possibly understand nor be interested in anything political as he explained. “No battle was ever won by the general riding over to the oppo
sing general and spreading out his battle plan in front of him. And this is a battle. Those of us who are true, native Americans have to fight against the influence of the immigrants who haven’t had time to learn the ways of our great country. We have to make sure the country is preserved for those who founded it, for those who have fought in her wars.”

  His words echoed a bit in her mind as she remembered one of her father’s recent editorials stating almost the exact same sentiments. It bothered her that she didn’t know who was parroting whom.

  She said, “The Irish and Germans just want a place to live and work.”

  “But at what cost to the true American? We cannot allow the city to be controlled by men who would answer to their pope before they would answer to their president.” He glared over at her, the flush back in his cheeks.

  “Do you think the pope tells them how to vote?” Adriane asked.

  Instead of answering her question, he laughed as he said, “You do have a way of turning a conversation, Adriane, my sweet. A moment ago you have me down on my knees in a carriage, of all places, proposing, and the next you’re plying me with questions on political matters you can’t possibly understand. Sometimes I think you only do these things to tease me.”

  Adriane bit back the other questions she had. She wanted to know more, but she had to be circumspect in gathering political information to use in her Colonel Storey letters. No one knew she was Colonel Storey. Certainly not Stan or her father. Sometimes she thought Beck suspected, but he’d never said anything. A woman wasn’t supposed to bother her pretty head in regard to anything political. Not only was it unseemly, it was rumored that the strain of thinking on such matters caused madness in females.

  At least Colonel Storey could survive her marriage to Stan. She could still send his letters to the Tribune, and there would no doubt be more gatherings, more chances to overhear bits and pieces she could form into letters from the opinionated colonel.

  She managed to smile over at Stan, but her smile faded when he began to look her over as if she were a new pacer he hoped to acquire for his carriage. “You look lovely as always, my sweet, but I do hope you will get some new gowns with a few ruffles and of a more comely color, say a soft pink or yellow. And perhaps you should keep your gloves on today.”

  Adriane held her tongue with effort as her determination to talk to her father before the evening grew stronger. Perhaps there was yet a way out of this dilemma. But as Stan kept talking, her heart grew heavy, and she felt the floodwaters sweeping her off her feet again.

  4

  Blake Garrett hurried along the street, trying to avoid anyone’s eye who might want to talk. He was usually more than willing to stop and pass the time of day with people on the streets since it was one of the best ways he’d found to gather information, especially from those who disagreed with the editorials and stories in the Herald. That is, as long as they weren’t waving a gun or knife about.

  Blake tried to avoid those kinds of encounters and hadn’t done too badly since coming to Louisville six months ago. In fact there had been so few run-ins with angry readers that Chesnut told him he must not be getting enough fire in his editorials.

  But today he kept his eyes on the street in front of him. He was already late for Mrs. Wigginham’s Library Aide Society meeting. When he’d first promised Mrs. Wigginham the Herald’s support of her worthy cause, he’d thought she would be satisfied to send him a letter telling of the proceedings, which he could then publish in a prominent place in the next issue of the Herald. But no, she’d insisted he must personally attend the meeting if he wanted to remain in her good graces.

  Dear Mrs. Wigginham. She might smile and bat her eyes as if she were still a young belle of eighteen instead of well into her sixties, but Blake recognized power when he saw it, whether it was in the social arena or the political one. Someone not in Mrs. Wigginham’s good graces would not find himself invited to important social gatherings. Someone not in her good graces wouldn’t have much chance of becoming a respected editor in the town. So Blake was rushing along to her house even though he’d much rather be digging for news out on the streets.

  Of course the old lady was also an indefatigable matchmaker. She’d no doubt have some friend’s sweet-mannered daughter lined up to make cow eyes at him today. Blake sighed at the thought. When he’d tried to tell Mrs. Wigginham as diplomatically as possible that he was much too busy with the Herald right now to give the proper attention to the fairer sex, she had delicately touched her lace handkerchief to her lips to hide a smile while claiming that men always gave their attention to the ladies. It was their nature. She was simply trying to help him meet and attend to the proper young ladies.

  When Blake edged past a pile of crates in front of Simpson’s Candle Works, water splattered down on his head from the eaves still dripping from an early morning shower. He ran his hands through his black hair to shake out the dampness. He’d left his hat somewhere again. Probably in one of the taverns down in Shippingport, but there was no time to go back for it now. He had to make his appearance at the meeting not only to appease Mrs. Wigginham but also because he was sure Wade Darcy of the Tribune would be there. The Library Aide Society might not be sensational news, but it was becoming a matter of honor to Blake that Wade Darcy not beat him to any story.

  Blake smiled a little to himself. Darcy would have seen a copy of the Herald by now and would know Blake had scooped another headline story. Blake had picked up a copy of the Tribune down in Shippingport that morning. There was no mention of the murders in it at all. Instead its columns had been filled with political news, readable and important enough, but not the kind of thing a man had to read first thing in the morning even if it made him late to work.

  Wade Darcy had had things his way for a long time in Louisville. Too long. The Tribune still had the highest circulation of the dailies in the city, but it wouldn’t be long before the Herald caught up. Blake was beginning to think he might pass the Tribune in another month, at least three months ahead of the schedule he’d originally set for himself when John Chesnut, the owner of the Herald, had hired him on as editor. Chesnut rubbed his hands together with glee and laughed out loud every time Blake reported the rising sales numbers to him.

  Chesnut, an editor of the old school, didn’t always agree with what Blake printed, but he gave him a free hand.

  “As long as you keep nipping at Wade Darcy’s heels, you can print stories of frog fights, for all I care,” he’d told Blake even while shaking his head at the first murder story. “But son, are you sure folks are going to want to read this? I mean, it’s not as if the poor girl was exactly a lady, and she was Irish besides. You know how most of the folks in this town feel about the immigrants.”

  “They’ll want to read it,” Blake had assured the old man.

  And they had. While plenty of people thought the stories more than a little scandalous, they read them. There were those who accused Blake of reporting the details of the murders for the sole purpose of increasing the Herald’s circulation, a position Wade Darcy was glad to expound on. Just a couple months back the man had written an editorial attacking Blake for his “insensitivity and impropriety.”

  Worse, Darcy had hammered home to his readers the fact that Blake was a Northerner. Not something that would endear Blake to many of Louisville’s finest citizens who liked to think of themselves as Southerners. Blake blew out his breath and recalled Darcy’s words.

  While New York City might have no standards of decency ruling its editors, Mr. Garrett might do well to remember that he presently abides in the South where gentility and consideration of our fair ladies’ high sensibilities are much more to be considered than how many newspapers this type of sensationalism might sell.

  Blake had always been able to remember most anything he read word for word. A blessing for a newspaperman, his father used to say. Or a curse when a man wanted to forget. Not that Darcy’s words bothered Blake all that much. Readers would be disappointed i
f the editors didn’t sling a little mud at one another in their editorials.

  Plus it was hard to be convinced of Darcy’s sincerity when a rehash of that first murder story in the Herald had been on the Tribune’s front page in the very same issue as the editorial.

  Blake frowned now, thinking about that first murder. At the time, he’d thought it was a freak happening. The girl had been pretty and young, and though no one would come out and say it in so many words, she’d probably been making money the only way she could to help her family eat. Nobody had been too worried about it. A girl like that had to expect a bad end, and certainly nobody had thought it would happen again.

  But it had. Twice now, with the poor woman found last night. Even the police were beginning to pay some attention to the murders. That morning, he’d stumbled across Sergeant Wentworth actually asking questions down in the latest victim’s neighborhood. Blake thought with satisfaction that at least part of this newfound interest in keeping the law even in the Irish communities was due to his reporting of the crimes.

  Blake didn’t care what people thought. He hadn’t written the stories only for the shock of the headlines. A woman getting murdered, whether she was considered a lady or not, was something that should concern the authorities, and three women murdered should be enough to set the whole town on its ear.

  He had known this last woman. Kathleen O’Dell worked at the Lucky Leaf Tavern where Blake often stopped for a meal when he was down along the riverfront nosing about for stories. While the poor girl hadn’t exactly been a beauty, she’d been pleasant enough and always quick with a wink and a laugh in an attempt to stir Blake’s interest.

  “Aye, twill be the lucky girl that ever catches your eye, Blake Garrett,” she said the last time he’d seen her. “Or perhaps it is you already have a proper miss somewhere a-waiting for you. But there’s plenty who need a girl not quite so proper as well.” She raised her dark eyebrows and brushed her body close to him in invitation. “I could show you a good time.”