Legacies

by Janet Dailey

  Nodding, Kipp looked him over. There was no welcome in his expression, but Lije had expected none. "You have grown more like your father." Coming from Kipp, it wasn't a compliment. "I am surprised you finished all four years of college. I thought you would walk away after the first year— as your father did."

  "Perhaps I have my mother's tenacity," Lije suggested and deliberately turned to his cousin. Seventeen-year-old Alex Gordon stood off to the side, observing the exchange, his lip curling in amused scorn. He bore a surface resemblance to his father—the black hair, the high cheekbones, straight nose, and black eyes. And like Kipp, he was tall and slender. "It's good to see you again, Alex."

  "Hey, Lije." A smile made a wide curve of his mouth and dented his cheeks with attractive creases. In it, Lije saw the youth he remembered—reckless, a little on the wild side, full of charm and guile. "I was about to give up on you. I thought that riverboat had probably run aground somewhere."

  Lije shook his head. "The water was up, and the trip was smooth."

  "Just my luck," Alex sighed in mock regret. "Here I thought I was going to get your share of the feast Granny El has prepared."

  "If I know Eliza, there will be more than enough food for everyone." Lije cast a knowing glance at his stepgrandmother. "The tables usually groan under the weight of it all."

  "Naturally, this is a celebration. Speaking of which"—Eliza withdrew her hand from Lije's arm and swung toward the arched doorway—"Shadrach."

  The Negro servant appeared within seconds. "Yes, Miss Eliza?"

  "Bring some refreshments. I am certain Lije is thirsty after his ride."

  "Yes, ma'am." He bobbed his head and withdrew.

  The sound of his footsteps was almost immediately lost under the rapid tap-tapping of another pair of feet. A young woman swept into view, dressed in a gown of fawn-colored silk trimmed with Maltese lace. Ribbons caught the mass of amber brown curls and held it high on her head, Lije watched the smile break across her strong-boned face when she saw him.

  "Lije," she cried in delight. "I thought I heard your voice."

  "Susannah."

  "It is so good to have you back." She wrapped her arms around him in a warm hug. "I have missed you, Lije. We all have missed you."

  "I have missed you." Lije captured her shoulders and pushed her back from him. "Let me have a look at you." He inspected this woman who had always seemed more like a younger sister to him than an aunt. She was tall, a scant three inches under six feet. Her hazel eyes sparkled with gold flecks, reminding him of a cat. "Where is that tall, skinny girl with sticks for arms and legs who lived here when I left?" Lije shook his head in amazement at Susannah's transformation into womanhood. "You have grown into a very graceful lady while I've been away. You must have suitors lined up at your door every evening."

  "What nonsense!" Susannah laughed away his comment, finding the very idea ludicrous. "No man courts a woman who towers over him like an oak tree. And if he does, you can be certain it is my father's favor he is seeking, not mine."

  Lije disagreed, but he knew she would simply accuse him of being kind if he argued the point. Susannah had always found fault with her looks, convinced she was too tall and too thin; her hair, too curly; and her face, all strong bones and angles. In her mind, she was far from any definition of beautiful. But the combination had always been a striking one, never more so than now with maturity fleshing out and smoothing away all the rough edges.

  "You continue to underestimate yourself, Little Auntie," he teased.

  "'Call me that again and I will punch you in the mouth." She narrowed her eyes in mock warning, but the laughter dancing in them erased any threat.

  "Heavens, do you remember the time you gave Lije a black eye?" Eliza recalled, a smile forming at the memory.

  "Very well," Susannah replied. "It was the last time he called me Auntie."

  "You tried to punch me in the mouth and missed," Lije recalled.

  "Only because you tried to duck."

  "My eye was black and blue for weeks."

  "It served you right. I am too young to be your aunt."

  "But the fact remains you are."

  "Then let it remain a fact and not a title," Susannah stated with an unconscious but typical air of one issuing a royal decree.

  "As you command," Lije conceded with a mock bow as Shadrach returned with iced lemonade. Lije took two glasses from the silver tray and gave one to Susannah.

  She took a sip. "Mmmm, wonderful."

  After Eliza had taken a glass, Shadrach walked over to Kipp. "Lemonade, sir?"

  "Lemonade?" Kipp eyed the pale liquid contemptuously. "Have you nothing stronger in the house?"

  "If you would prefer, I could bring you some coffee, sir," Shadrach replied, cautiously respectful.

  Lije glanced across the room. "Lemonade or coffee. That's your choice, Kipp. You didn't truly expect anything stronger from the mistress of this house, did you?" Eliza and her temperance group had agitated against the whiskey peddlers until they succeeded in getting Fort Gibson closed.

  "To be perfectly frank, the work we did was necessary, but I regret they closed the fort." Idly, Eliza shook out her ornate fan and waved it back and forth in front of her face, keeping the summer heat at bay. "I miss the dinners and dances that were held there. And I know the young girls miss the young officers. Although I have to admit, I don't miss Captain Parmelee's snippy wife one bit." The motion of the fan quickened to a rapid tempo. "I have always admired and respected Jed, but that wife of his—" The fan went faster. "When I think of that time she forbade her daughter Diane to play with you and Lije because she didn't want her child associating with Indians, it makes my blood boil all over again."

  "I think Captain Parmelee apologized afterwards, didn't he?" Susannah frowned, trying to recall.

  "He did," Eliza answered, then sighed. "Poor Jed. I have never seen any man as embarrassed and upset as he was. I suspect he had cause to regret his marriage to that despicable woman on more than one occasion. It's truly amazing that Diane remained such a sweet girl. You can credit her father's influence for that."

  Susannah glanced at Lije, curious to see his reaction to this comment about Diane. Diane's last letter had been full of talk about Lije, so much so that Susannah suspected a romance between the two. She was stunned to see Lije's expression-— the hardness in his features and the coldness in his eyes. Not until that moment did Susannah realize just how silent he had become since the subject of the Parmelees had been raised.

  "Diane wrote to me that she saw a great deal of you when you stopped to visit Payton Fletcher," Susannah said.

  "Did she?" He lifted his glass and drank down a quick swallow of lemonade. But Susannah saw the iciness of his eyes.

  "How is she?"

  "More beautiful than ever." But the smile that twisted his mouth wasn't kind.

  The answer was too abrupt. Susannah knew at once something was wrong, something had happened. And Diane was at the core of it. How? Why? Susannah started to ask, then checked the impulse, realizing that it was quite obviously something he had no wish to discuss in the company of the others. Later she would make a point to see him in private and find out exactly what had happened with Diane.

  At the parlor window Eliza waved her fan with renewed vigor. "Gracious, it has turned hot and sticky. Whatever became of that breeze we enjoyed earlier?" She peered out as if expecting to find it, then paused, stilling the fan's motion. "There's a rider coming up the lane." She leaned closer to the window. "I do believe it's Nathan. How wonderful." She was instantly all motion, bustling away from the window. "Shadrach, go fetch Reverend Cole some lemonade while I greet him."

  When she left the room, Kipp grumbled, "How many others has Eliza invited to dinner? I understood this was to be a family gathering."

  "Reverend Cole is like a member of the family, Kipp," Susannah reminded him. “He has been part of nearly every important occasion in our lives. Heavens, he even performed my parents' wedding cere
mony—as well as The Blade and Temple's."

  Lije noticed that Susannah didn't mention that Reverend Cole had also officiated at Kipp's marriage and—less than a year later—read over the grave of Kipp's young wife after she died giving birth to their son, Alex. Lije had been too young to remember much of that time himself, but he had been told that Kipp had been almost happy during his short year of marriage. After his wife's untimely death, his uncle had retreated, and his bitterness had grown deeper.

  Alex lifted his glass and smiled at Susannah over the rim, a kind of taunting mockery in his eyes. "I guess that means Reverend Cole will be coming to your farewell party, too."

  "What farewell party?" Lije shot a questioning look at Susannah. "Where are you going?"

  "Mother hasn't told you the news?"

  "What news?"

  "I'll be attending Mount Holyoke this fall. Both Mother and Father are planning to accompany me on the trip to South Hadley. We leave in August."

  "I return and you leave."

  "I know." Some of the previous excitement faded from her eyes. "I wish—"

  But Susannah had no opportunity to complete the sentence before Eliza returned with the Reverend Nathan Cole. He was a tall, spare man with a bony face and gaunt cheeks. His smile, like the man, was gentle and retiring.

  "Welcome home, Elijah," Reverend Cole spoke softly, as always addressing Lije by his full given name. "It's good to have you back among us. You have been missed."

  "Thank you, Reverend Cole. It's good to be back—although I just learned Susannah will be leaving us."

  The reverend's attention swung to Susannah, his eyes brightening.

  "Then you have been accepted at Mount Holyoke."

  "I have. We leave in August."

  "Will and I will accompany her on the trip," Eliza explained. "This will be the first time I've been back to South Hadley since I left to teach the children of a Cherokee family named Gordon. What's that been, Nathan? Twenty-five years ago?"

  "Closer to thirty, I believe."

  "I guess it has been almost that long. I was barely twenty then and convinced my destiny in life was to teach. Little did I guess what the future would hold."

  "That is as it should be." He patted Eliza's hand. "We can only hope Susannah will have as stimulating an adventure herself."

  "You're right, of course. It will be good to take Susannah and visit the places of my childhood to see all the changes time has wrought. Will wants to spend some time with Payton Fletcher while we're in the area. We'll be staying with him after Susannah has settled in at Mount Holyoke." She smiled at her daughter. "You're going to like it there."

  "Is that where you went, Granny El?" Alex asked.

  "No. The female seminary didn't open its doors until four or five years after I had left South Hadley. That would have been in the late 1830s, I believe. But my mother taught there for years after it opened. If she hadn't passed on three years ago, she could have seen her granddaughter there." Everyone knew Eliza regretted that she hadn't returned earlier to see her mother before she died. "Now her granddaughter will be walking in the very same halls she did. I find that very fitting— though I fear Susannah's reasons for choosing Mount Holyoke have nothing to do with her grandmother's past association with it. Her favorite teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary was a graduate of Mount Holyoke. I think it's in her footsteps that Susannah is following."

  "Perhaps it's both," Susannah suggested.

  "A very tactful response." Reverend Cole nodded in approval, his eyes twinkling with laughter. "A trait you obviously acquired from your father, since tact has never been a virtue your mother possessed in any great abundance."

  "That is unkind," Eliza said in mild protest

  "But true, nonetheless," he replied without criticism.

  "Perhaps." Eliza would admit to no more than that and adroitly shifted the attention away from herself. "As glad as we are to have you back with us, Lije, it would have been nice if you had yet another year of schooling to finish so that you would be close by during Susannah's first year away from home. I know it would have been a comfort to her. Hopefully, we can look forward to Alex joining her next year. I know Kipp wants him to study at Harvard. Of course, his marks will have to improve for that to happen."

  "Please, Granny El." Alex grimaced. He was obviously not keen to embark on a lecture he had heard repeated too often over the years. "Not everyone shares your love for books and learning."

  "Alexander Gordon, I will have you know an education is important. I—"

  He held up a hand to stop her. "Spare me, Granny El. I've heard it all before. There are other things in life besides an education."

  "Not if you want to make something of yourself. Look at Lije. He—"

  "I am not Lije. I will never be like him." His anger came in a flash, as black and as quick as his father's. But as quickly as it was revealed, it was concealed by an easy smile. "Sorry, Granny El, but it's true."

  "Of course, it's true. I never meant to imply you should be. However, that doesn't lessen the value of an education."

  "Maybe I don't want to go East. Maybe I want to stay here."

  Reverend Cole tipped his head toward Eliza. "I think a young lady has caught his fancy."

  Alex seemed about to deny that, then changed his mind, his smile widening. "You could say that."

  "Who is she?" Susannah asked. "Anyone I know?"

  "You have seen her."

  "Who is she? What does she look like? Don't keep us in suspense, Alex."

  "Well, let's see." He paused, mischief dancing in his eyes. "She has the biggest, most beautiful eyes you have ever seen. And hair, black and shiny as a midnight sky full of stars. She is young, a bit wild, and headstrong, but—" Off to the side Kipp snorted a laugh.

  "Shooting Star," Susannah murmured in sudden understanding. "Alex Gordon, you are describing your new horse."

  He laughed and dodged the slap of her hand. "Wait until you, see my filly, Lije." There was pride in his voice. "She is lightning fast. I hope to have her ready to race by fall. She'll clean up at the tracks. She's going to be the fastest thing in the Nation—maybe the whole territory. I rode her today. After dinner I'll show her to you."

  "I'd like to have a look at her."

  "Horse racing," Eliza said in reproval. "That is not a very sound occupation, Alex."

  "But a fun one, Granny El."

  "You are hopeless." But there was affection in her tone.

  Unlike Eliza, Lije recognized the attraction the sport would hold for Alex. Horse racing required speed, daring, and luck. The inherent thrill and danger of it would appeal to the reckless side of his cousin's nature. The higher the stakes, the better.

  "You don't really want me to be any other way, now do you, Granny El?" Alex replied with confidence and charm.

  "I wouldn't go that far," she began, then paused, catching muffled sounds in the grand foyer. "Is that Will's voice? I didn't hear the carriage arrive." Removing her hand from Reverend Cole's arm, she turned toward the archway.

  From the hall came the rapid patter of running feet. An instant later Lije's eight-year-old sister, Sorrel, burst into the parlor. Again, Eliza experienced that momentary shock when she saw the fiery red color of the girl's hair. In her mind flashed the portrait of the first William Alexander Gordon that had hung above the mantel at Gordon Glen back in Georgia. His hair had been that color, too.

  "We're here, Granny El. Alex!" Sorrel cried in delight and darted straight to her cousin. "I didn't know you were here, too."

  "Surely you didn't think I would miss the chance to see my beautiful little Sorrel," he chided and playfully tugged at one of her corkscrew curls.

  "If I had known you were here, I would have ordered Pompey to go faster. It's a long way from the riverboat landing to Oak Hill in the carriage. I asked Lije to ride with me, but he wouldn't." She threw Lije a pouty look, her eyes dark with hurt and resentment. "And I asked nicely, too."

  "That was mean of your bro
ther." His own glance at Lije was filled with amusement.

  "You would have ridden with me if I asked, wouldn't you?"

  "I would never turn down an invitation to spend time with such a beautiful young lady as yourself."

  "I knew that." She beamed.

  "Is that a new dress you're wearing?" he asked.

  "Yes. Do you like it?" She twirled around and the scalloped hem of the tartan tiers lifted to reveal the lace edges of her petticoats.

  "I certainly do. Why, in that dress, you are the prettiest girl in the Nation," Alex told her as Lije's mother walked in, her lavishly flounced gown of sapphire blue rustling softly about her.

  "I wish you wouldn't fill her head with compliments, Alex. She is already too conceited for her age." But the look Temple gave her daughter was warm with a parent's love.

  At forty-six Temple Stuart possessed a wonderfully mature beauty. Perhaps her waist was not as waspishly small as it had been in her youth, but she was still slender and her skin still smooth except for the attractive smile lines that drew attention to the incredible darkness of her bright eyes.

  Her husband, The Blade Stuart, stood beside her, his expression guarded as he eyed Kipp across the room. There was a hardness about him now that gave a cynical twist to a smile that had formerly been gently mocking. A subtle frosting of silver laced the blackness of his hair, hardly noticeable at all unless the light was right—as it was now.

  Lije's grandfather Will Gordon joined him in the doorway. He was still tall, although the weight of sixty-odd years had begun to round his wide shoulders. The red in his hair had been replaced by gray, but it suited him.

  After a slight pause, Temple walked over to greet her brother. "You are looking well, Kipp."

  Kipp barely acknowledged her words, his gaze never leaving The Blade for an instant. Lije was stunned by the malevolence in his uncle's eyes. After four years away, he had forgotten how virulent Kipp's hatred for The Blade was. It came from him in waves until the room was heavy with it. Lije caught himself wanting to move to his father's side, to protect him from Kipp as he had done from the time he was old enough to recognize the hostility Kipp bore him.