by Dorothy Love
Ada fanned her face with her prayer book. “There must be some reason for her bitterness.”
“Well, she was born on the wrong side of the blanket, and she took a lot of ridicule when she was a girl because of it—even got into fights, I’ve heard. There were rumors that her daddy was a big bug around here.” Lillian lowered her voice. “A married man. It’s still a mystery. But that’s no cause to be mean to people. Then she shows up here every week, pious as a nun and smiling like she’s everybody’s friend.”
Ada watched Miss Goldston mingle with the other churchgoers. A couple of burly boys rushed past the schoolteacher, trampling the hem of her skirt. Both arms shot out and stopped the two boys in their tracks. One of them tried to slip from her grasp. She hauled him around so hard that his feet practically dangled above the ground.
Ada shook her head. The woman was strong as an ox. Still, there was no sense making up her mind about her before they’d even met.
“That’s the sheriff over there.” Lillian nodded to a lanky, craggy-faced man who had stopped to talk to the boys. “Eli lost his wife a couple of years back.” She pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her forehead. “Lawsa, it’s hot.”
“Shall we go inside?”
“Let’s wait. The preacher hasn’t showed up yet, and there’s no sense in roasting for any longer than—Jacob Hargrove, watch where you’re going.”
A couple of young men raced past, jostling them. One of them turned and called, “Sorry, Mrs. Willis.”
Lillian frowned at the boys’ good-natured teasing. “Since his mother passed, that boy’s gone a little wild. Wyatt gave him a job, thinking that might settle him some, but he didn’t last more than a few weeks.”
Ada knew just how the boy felt. She hoped he still had an adult to turn to.
Jacob detached himself from a group of boys and ambled over to a pretty blond girl in a bright blue calico dress standing apart from the others.
“That’s Sabrina Gilman, the banker’s daughter,” Lillian supplied. “Her folks go to that fancy church in town, but Sabrina comes here to see Jacob.” She made a tsk-tsk sound. “Young love. Too bad it’s doomed.”
“How so?”
“Sabrina’s daddy is one of the richest men in Hickory Ridge. It isn’t likely he’ll allow his only daughter to settle on a poor farmer. No doubt he has other suitors in mind.”
Ada felt a hot surge of anger toward the meddling banker. Why couldn’t fathers get out of the way and let love take its course?
A buckboard rattled into the yard and found its place among the other wagons. A woman in a yellow bonnet climbed down and waved to Lillian before hurrying across the yard to greet a woman dressed in mourning clothes. The widow stood apart from the others, cooling her face with a dull black fan. A single reddish-blond curl had escaped the limp lace brim of the black bonnet she wore tightly tied beneath her chin.
“Carrie Daly lost her husband at Shiloh, went into mourning, and never came out.” Lillian shook her head. “It’s a pity—she’s still a young woman. Lives with her brother, Henry Bell. He works with Wyatt down at the mill. Come on. Let me introduce you. That way you’ll know everyone when our quilting circle meets next week.”
“Quilting circle? I . . . I hadn’t really planned on—”
“Nonsense. What would you do with yourself every Wednesday afternoon while I’m down here?”
Ada had the sense of being drawn into an ever-tightening web from which there was no escape. The prospect of becoming part of Hickory Ridge society, even for a short time, made her feel exposed and vulnerable.
“We make quilts for everyone,” Lillian went on. “New brides, war orphans, the missionaries overseas. And we make all the costumes for the church’s Christmas pageant every year. The whole town turns out for that.”
She started across the yard. Ada couldn’t get over how much Lillian knew about everyone. Now she was sorrier than ever that she’d told the older woman about her broken engagement. How soon would it be before her life was an open book too?
Midway across the yard, Lillian stopped. “Well, Ada, are you coming?”
Ada gathered her skirts and followed. But before Lillian could make the introductions, the rosy-cheeked woman in the yellow bonnet clutched Ada’s arm. “I know who you are! My husband met you on Friday. I’m Mariah Whiting.”
“Ada? I’m Carrie,” said the widow. “Hannah Fields told us all about you. She said you seemed very pleasant from the tone of your letters.”
“That was kind of her. I’ll try to live up to her good opinion.”
“Oh, we have no doubt you will!” Mariah spied Lillian’s hat and went stock still, one hand over her heart. “Lillian, is that a new hat?”
“Do you like it?” Lillian turned her head from side to side.
“I adore it. I know it didn’t come from Norah’s. If you wouldn’t mind, would you say where you bought it?”
“Ada made it. Or rather, she remodeled it.”
Mariah peered more closely. “Of course, I recognize it now. But truly, it looks even better than new.”
She turned to Ada. “Could you possibly make one for me? Not an exact duplicate, of course, but something similar, with some of that ribbon trim? This old spoon bonnet is ten years old and bedraggled as a wet hen. I’d love something stylish to wear for the harvest festival.”
Ada hesitated. She hadn’t counted on starting her millinery business so soon. And until she received her first pay from Lillian, she was down to her last few dollars, not enough to purchase supplies. She glanced at Lillian. The older woman hadn’t uttered a word, but Ada could feel disapproval coming off her in waves. She felt a lurch of fear in her chest. What if Lillian got angry enough to dismiss her?
“Perhaps later on,” she told the foreman’s wife. “I’ve only just arrived.”
“But the festival isn’t until October,” Mariah persisted. “There’s plenty of time.” She opened her bag and pressed a couple of bills into Ada’s hand. “I’ll pay in advance. Please say you’ll do it. We’ve had so few luxuries since the war.”
Lillian frowned. “Ada works for me, Mariah. She doesn’t have time for such distractions.” The church bells rang. “The reverend is here. Let’s go in.”
Ada looked around for Wyatt, but he was nowhere in sight. She tucked the bills into her bag and followed Lillian and the others across the dusty yard. As they reached the open doorway, Mariah looped her arm through Ada’s. “Don’t pay Lillian any mind. She just doesn’t want to share you with anybody.”
Mariah joined her husband and son in a pew near the door. Lillian made her way to the front and motioned for Ada to join her. The young pastor took his place behind the carved wooden lectern and, after the opening hymn, announced his text for the morning: the parable of the talents from the book of Luke.
Lillian nodded off during the reading, her hands clutching her hymnal, her head listing to one side. Listening to the story of the man who had given his servants ten pounds to invest in his absence, Ada wondered whether the message was somehow meant for her. She thought of the money Mariah Whiting had given her. Could she use it to seed the new start she so desperately needed? But how could she use her talent at all without Lillian’s blessing?
She glanced at the older woman. In repose, Lillian looked positively ancient, so fragile that she might at any moment meet her Maker. Ada fanned her face and tried to quell the jumpiness in her stomach. What would happen to her once Lillian passed on?
The last hymn had ended some minutes ago, the final sweet notes drifting and dissipating into the still morning. Now the only sound was the occasional birdsong and the low buzz of insects skittering across the shimmering river. Wyatt shed his shirt, shoes, and socks. Leaving them in a heap on the riverbank, he rolled the legs of his trousers and waded out to his favorite spot, a large, flat rock in the middle of the stream. He stretched out and closed his eyes, the dappled sunlight warming his face.
This was the highlight of hi
s week, when the frantic pace at the mill stopped and a man could be alone with nature to sort out his thoughts. He rubbed one hand across his face. Since last Friday, too many of his thoughts had been centered on a certain young Bostonian with soft gray eyes and a stubborn streak a mile wide. He found himself thinking of her at the oddest times, imagining her making tea for Lillian or gathering flowers in the garden. He wondered what she’d look like dressed in a riding skirt and a Stetson, cantering with him across a rolling Texas grassland.
A fish flopped in the river, and Wyatt opened one eye. A ridiculous thought, Ada Wentworth in Texas. She was a city girl, accustomed to fancy stores, theaters, libraries, and such. Ranch life was a whole other world.
He heard a rustling in the bushes beside the river and sat up. “Hello?”
Ada emerged, and he would have been hard-pressed to say which of them was more surprised. She turned her head, obviously embarrassed, and he was suddenly aware of his bare torso.
“Wade on in,” he said. “The water’s nice and cool this morning.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been spying on you.”
“That’s all right.” He couldn’t help grinning. “You’re the prettiest spy I’ve ever seen, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Ada spun away, her cheeks blazing. “I’ll wait for you in front of the church.”
“Don’t go.” He jammed his hat onto his head and splashed across the water to the bank.
“We should go back. Your aunt will be wondering where we are.”
“She knows where to find me.” He slipped his shirt on, retrieved his boots, and sat down on a fallen log to pull them on, trying to think of some way to hold on to her company a little longer. “There’s a pretty little waterfall just upstream there. I’d love for you to see it. It isn’t far.”
“I shouldn’t.” She kept her eyes trained on the river. “We shouldn’t even be here. You know how some people love to talk.”
He sighed and buttoned his shirt. “I suppose you’re right. Another time, then.”
They started back along the path. “I didn’t see you during church,” Ada said.
“I’m afraid the Almighty and I parted ways back in ’64, at Cold Harbor.” He paused and looked past her shoulder to the shimmering green mountains in the distance.
Ada nodded. “I read about it in the Herald.”
“It was worse than any newspaper account could ever convey. We trapped seven thousand Federals in a ravine, and ten minutes later they were all dead. The crossfire was the worst I’d ever seen. Smoke so thick you couldn’t see your hand before your face.” He shook his head. “I felt bad for the poor devils. Of course, it wasn’t just the Federals. Our side took heavy losses too.”
“I can’t imagine it.”
“It was hell on earth,” he said. “General Lee could barely stand it.”
She nodded. “Father supported the Union, of course, but even he was stunned by what happened at Cold Harbor. It was his opinion that Grant should have relented sooner and saved his soldiers’ lives.”
“Cold Harbor’s the only mistake Grant ever owned up to. Not that it made any difference.”
“Were you wounded?”
He shrugged. “Broken bones, some lacerations. Took a bullet to the shoulder.”
“But you’re all right now.”
“For the most part.” He absently rubbed his shoulder. The physical wounds were never the worst part of war. “The strange thing was that when I was first hit, it didn’t even hurt. All I felt was surprise. And then I saw my blood pumping into the dirt and I started blacking out. Sage was right next to me. He was hurt too, but he dragged me to cover.”
“It’s a miracle you survived.”
“I don’t believe in miracles. It was the luck of the draw, that’s all.” He wiped his brow. “That was the day I realized that as much as people want to believe in some divine plan, there isn’t one. Everything that happens, for good or evil, is just a matter of chance.”
“I feel that way too.” She looked into his eyes, and he saw the sympathy in her calm gray gaze. “I’m glad you survived, however it was accomplished.”
He nodded.
“Your aunt said I should ask you about your exploits during the war.”
“There’s nothing much more to tell.” He bent to pick up a smooth stone, enjoying the warm weight of it in his hand. “I never thought it was a fight we could win, even after General Lee won at Chancellorsville. But I couldn’t stand by while my friends—boys I’d known all my life—went off to fight.” He skipped the stone across the river. “I enlisted more out of loyalty to them than to the idea of dissolving the Union. I’m no statesman, but I just didn’t see how the South could survive as a separate nation. We’re mostly farmers and planters down here. We’ve never had the industries the North enjoyed.”
“You risked your life for them.”
They continued along the path. “I’m nothing if not loyal to my friends, Ada. You’ll find that out about me as time goes on.”
“Kapow! Bam! Yiyiyiyiyi!” Robbie Whiting and his friends appeared on the hill above them, playing cowboys and Indians. Robbie’s Sunday shirt had come untucked and was streaked with dirt. His hair, so carefully combed for the church service, was falling into his eyes. When he saw Ada and Wyatt standing below him, he waved, clutched his heart, and spiraled to the ground.
The old longing for a family, a son of his own, tugged at Wyatt. “That boy has more imagination than any ten men I know.”
“You’re his hero.”
“He’s young. Easily impressed.”
“But the Texas Brigade is famous!” He heard the admiration in her voice. “Even the Boston papers carried stories about their bravery at Gettysburg and Chickamauga. General Lee himself took note of it.”
“He appreciated us, all right, but it went both ways. Any one of us would have charged hell itself for that old man.” He swallowed the hard knot in his throat. He hadn’t been at Appomattox on that quiet April morning when the end came, but he’d since read General Order Number 9, the general’s simple, affectionate, heartfelt farewell to his army. Six years later, the memory of it still had the power to move him. He cleared his throat. “When Lee died last year, it was like losing my own father.”
They climbed the embankment, Ada in the lead. As they reached the top, her foot slipped. She stopped suddenly, and he trampled her dress, leaving behind a large muddy bootprint.
“Oh!” She lifted her hem to assess the damage. “Forgive me. I should have been paying better attention.” Feeling like an utter fool, he bent to brush away the dirt, but Ada stopped him.
“It’s too wet. Brushing will only make it worse.”
She pushed a strand of hair back under her hat, but it came loose again and she left it. “I shouldn’t have distracted you with so many questions about the war. I didn’t intend to bring up such painful memories.”
”It’s all right. It’s in the past now.”
They arrived back at the church just in time to see a middle-aged man in a blue suit mount up and ride away.
“I’m sure he’s smarting from Lillian’s tongue-lashing,” Ada told him. “She cornered him after church this morning, incensed that he’s behind on his promise to fix her porch.”
Wyatt sighed. “I should do it myself, but things at the mill have been so busy I haven’t had time. Only last week we got a contract to supply lumber for a new hotel in Philadelphia.” He paused. Usually he didn’t tell anyone about his business. There were some in Hickory Ridge who didn’t like the fact that many of his best customers came from up North. He admitted it—he wanted to impress her.
“That’s wonderful!” she said. “Congratulations.”
Ada waved to Lillian and the Whitings. Wyatt followed her along the winding path and into the churchyard, admiring the gentle sway of her skirt and the pert angle of her hat.
“Wyatt Caldwell! A word . . .”
He groaned inwardly, Bea Goldston was hurryin
g toward them, her face alight, but her smile faded when she spotted Ada. She scanned Ada’s muddy skirt, messy hair, and flushed face. “Well, well, if it isn’t our little visitor from Massachusetts. Miss . . . Wentworth, isn’t it?” She narrowed her eyes. “And looking all pinkfaced too! I’m afraid our Southern heat must not agree with you. Or is there some other reason you’re looking so flustered?”
The color in Ada’s cheeks deepened, and Wyatt felt his own face heat up. “Now look here, Bea. There’s no call for you to—”
“There you are, Miss Wentworth!” Sage and Mariah Whiting appeared at her side. “Thanks for fetching Wyatt for me,” Sage said. “Did you find him tending the graves out back like I said?”
Before Ada could reply, Wyatt sent her a pointed look and said smoothly, “She had to look a little farther than that, but she did find me. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing wrong. Just a question about that shipment going out tomorrow.”
Mariah laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “Can it wait? Robbie and I are ready to go.”
“Me too,” Lillian said. “This heat is about to take the starch right out of me.”
“Well, then, ladies . . .” Wyatt offered an arm to Lillian and Ada. They brushed past Bea Goldston—who was looking a bit pink and flustered herself—and headed for the buggy.
SIX
Ada sorted through her supplies: scissors, thimbles, tailor’s chalk, a tape measure so old the numbers had all but worn away. In the bottom of the wooden chest, nestled in folds of soft muslin, lay her mother’s silk flower, some spools of thread, a few pieces of matted felt, and several bits of creased and faded ribbon. Taking in her meager assets, she felt tears pooling in her eyes.
Even with the money from Mariah Whiting, there wasn’t nearly enough to begin the millinery business she’d planned. And where were her customers to come from anyway?
She’d been crazy to come here. Crazy and naive. Most of the women in Hickory Ridge were farm women who needed sturdy poke bonnets instead of frilly confections of feathers and lace. If Wyatt’s prediction was true and hard times were on the way, nobody would have money for such frivolous purchases. She was trapped, without enough money to go or to stay. After setting aside a few dollars for her future, the money Wyatt was paying her for looking after Lillian was barely enough to keep her in soap, stockings, and hairpins. And even though Lillian might overlook Ada’s making a hat for Mariah, she would surely object to anything that diverted attention from her own needs.
