Lavender Blue: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series)

by Bartholomew, Barbara

  It was an open invitation to excuse herself. Betsy glanced at Tyler, saw no such suggestion in his expression, and chose to stay where he was. “I think I’ll have another biscuit with some of that delicious jam,” she said.

  “Hetty makes the best jam in these parts,” he told her. “And Caleb picked the wild plums to make it.”

  She suspected Caleb was pretending to be asleep so though he and the visitor wore the same confederate gray, they didn’t seem to be exactly friendly.

  Bolter poured himself a cup of coffee with the air of a man accustomed to making himself at home here. “Where’s the lovely Lavinia?” he asked, seeming to realize for the first time that his hostess was not present.

  “She’s with the baby,” Tyler answered briefly.

  “Sorry to miss her.”

  Tyler did not say that Lavinia would regret not having seen him. “Say what you have to say, Bolter,” he said as though he wanted to get the worst over.

  “You’re a kind man, Dr. Stephens,” the visitor said tactfully.

  “Never been accused of that,” the doctor responded.

  Bolter ignored that. “I’m sure that’s why you let yourself be called in again by the darkies. Just wanted to warn you that folks around here don’t cotton to you’re doing that and these days it might be safer to stick to treating your own kind”

  Betsy stared at him in shock. Darkies? His own kind? Was this man from the middle ages? “Really, Mr. Jackson!” she protested. “Surely we are all God’s creatures and equally deserving of good medical care.”

  She saw Doc wipe a grin from his face and Bolter Jackson look at her with horror. “Don’t tell me, Miss Stephens, that you’re sympathetic with those yankee abolitionists? Don’t you know this is Lavender, Texas, not Boston, Massachusetts?”

  “I’m sure not Lavender gray,” she snapped. “I guess you’d have to call me Lavender blue, the color of the Federal uniforms, the color of those fighting to save the union.”

  Dramatically he looked to the ceiling. “Lord save me from reformers who don’t have any idea what they’re talking about,” he said to the heavens.

  Normally Betsy was a fairly placid individual. She had even tried, unsuccessfully, to start a relationship with the biological father who had basically abandoned her and her mother. But this was too much! “Really, Mr. Jackson,” she started in, but Lavinia came in just then.

  She greeted their guest warmly, gave him her little son to bounce on his knee, and asked about each of his three children by name. When he mentioned that the youngest, little Herb, had endured a recent bout with measles, Betsy was stunned. She knew a Herbert Jackson back in Lavender, her Lavender. He was the pleasant old gentlemen who taught sciences at the high school. He was also married to her friend’s aunt, a woman of black heritage.

  This was dizzying. How could her Mr. Jackson and this Mr. Jackson be related?

  When Jackson once again introduced the reason for his visit, she sat quietly and listened as he warned Dr. Tyler that his sympathies with the northern invaders was putting he and his family at risk. They’ll put up with a lot from you, sir,” he said respectfully, “both because of all your good work over the years and for your son’s sake. But it does seem to some of us that you’re not being loyal to your own people.”

  Dr. Tyler’s face looked made of granite. “I can’t compromise my principles,” he said. “I believe this whole rebellion is madness and we’ll all live to rue the day it began.”

  “Oh, dear Papa Tyler,” Lavinia protested sweetly. “You don’t really mean that. We have to stand against these northerners who are coming in to take over our land and people.”

  Betsy could see Tyler wanted to argue, but saw no point in raising dissention with his daughter-in-law. He sat quietly while Lavinia led the conversation in a different direction, talking about various friends and acquaintances and eager for the latest gossip.

  Personally she was glad when the man took his leave and she could get up to clear the table and do the breakfast dishes in a pan of hot soapy water. Lavinia didn’t volunteer to assist, but murmured something about putting the baby down for his nap.

  Tyler examined his sleeping patient, frowning as he did so. Betsy asked anxiously if something was wrong.

  He shook his head. “Just a little fever. Nothing to get het up about.”

  But he looked worried. And she remembered reading somewhere, or perhaps being told by her historian sister, that many Civil War soldiers died from wound infections.

  The thought made her stomach tighten with fear.

  To hide her worry, she took the pan of dishwater outside and dumped in on a rose bush, then headed back inside. Instead of stepping back into the cookshack, when she crossed the threshold, she found herself staring at her little sister’s puzzled face.

  “Where have you been?” Sylvie demanded. “Mama’s been worried sick. And what’s that thing you’re carrying?”

  Numbly Betsy handed it to her. “It’s just an old dish pan,” she said. “I just finished doing dishes.”

  Frowning, Sylvie looked from Betsy to the wooden sink where she was obviously in the process of doing dishes herself.

  Too disturbed by what had happened to want to make explanations, Betsy rushed out of the kitchen, hurrying through the breezeway, through the dining and living rooms to the stairs, racing up to the privacy of her own room.

  Closing the door behind her, she threw herself down onto the neat coverlet on her bed and tried to make sense of what had happened in the previous hours.

  She found herself trembling inwardly with fear for Caleb who lay on the floor of the old cookshack in feverish sleep.

  She had little time to think because with barely a knock on the door, Mama and Papa hurried into the room. Cynthia Stephens hugged her fiercely while Evan Stephens demanded to know what had happened to her.

  “Popcorn was scattered all over the ground,” her mother murmured incoherently.

  “Nobody knew what had happen to you,” Papa added. She was reminded that the last time she’d seen him he was an infant in his mother’s arms.

  She had no thought of telling them anything but the truth. It might happen again, she hoped so, and she wanted them to understand and not be alarmed if and when she went missing.

  “I stepped across time into the old cookshack that used to be where our kitchen is now.”

  They both knew a lot about weird experiences. Mama blinked, her long lashes sweeping her eyes. She sank down on the bed. “From one room to the other. But usually you have to cross the line Evan’s grandpa made.”

  “It’s different. I have no control over it.”

  “Then you’ll never go into the kitchen again,” Evan said harshly. “I’ll tear it down myself.”

  “No, please not, Papa. I want to go back. I saw Grandpapa Tyler and your mother and even you.” She grinned. “You were a handsome baby.”

  Her stepfather’s solemn face did not brighten. “Good Lord!”

  “It was in the early ‘60s and the war was going on. It was terrible, but there was this young man . . .”

  Her parents had begun their own romance long distance with her in the 21st century and him here in 1890’s Lavender.

  “Not again,” Mama said sharply. “We have plenty of young men right here in Lavender.”

  Not Caleb. None of Lavender’s young men were in the least like Caleb. “It’s not a romantic thing,” she said hastily. “Heavens, he’s a confederate soldier and you know I’m firmly on the union side. But he’s been hurt and is desperately sick and I only want to know he’s all right.”

  Cynthia hugged her again. “My darling, I can’t bear to lose you.”

  Betsy hugged her back, than shrugged free. “Don’t even know if I can go back, but I wanted you to understand so you wouldn’t worry if I disappear again.”

  “That’s such a dangerous time, Betsy,” Evan warned. “Even right here in Lavender.”

  “I’m beginning to learn that. Mr. Jackson�
�s father came to warn Grandpa Tyler that he was at risk because of his union sympathies. “And he’s a pacifist, Papa, which doesn’t go down well with the rest of the residents of Lavender.”

  Papa nodded. “I knew that. It’s one of the reasons he and my father didn’t get along.”

  Of course. That’s where Grandpa Forrest had been. “He was a soldier for the confederacy,” she said in sudden understanding. No wonder he and his father didn’t get along. Like many of the people in those days, her family had been a divided one.

  She had a horrifying thought. “Papa, did you ever know a man named Caleb Carr?”

  Papa considered, than shook his head. “Don’t remember that name.”

  Her heart sank. Caleb had vanished from their history. All the others were remembered; this wasn’t a good omen for her hopes of his survival.

  “Hetty?” she asked a second question.

  His rare smile showed. “Of course. She was Miranda’s mama and was so good to both of us when we were small.”

  Everybody was accounted for then. Everybody, but Caleb.

  Doc didn’t seem concerned a mite that his cousin had vanished, but even in the feverish haze where he fought for his life, Caleb longed for her presence. Her delicate spring coloring, the gentleness and intelligence of her lovely face played across his dreams, sleeping or waking, even while he knew that a woman like that was beyond his hopes.

  “What happened to her? Where is she?” he demanded during one of his more lucid times when Hetty was trying to get him to drink a potion she’d made against the fever.

  “Nothing bad,” Doc soothed. “I’m fairly sure of that. And she’ll be back, don’t you worry.”

  With that reassurance he had to be content and drink his medicine, managing to thank Hetty before he slipped once more into nightmares.

  She called for his help, but he couldn’t wake up enough to come to her assistance. He struggled and failed again and again to save his angel.

  When he finally awakened, hours or days later, Lavinia tried to feed him more of that chicken broth, but had to hand over the spoon to Hetty’s surer hand. “We’ve got the fever down,” Hetty told him. “Now you’ve got to do your part and drink down this broth so you can begin to regain your strength.”

  Next morning he was still weak when they finally were able to move him to the comfort of his own bed in the lean-to. He figured he was coming up in the world to leave that pallet on the floor behind. Hetty bossed him around something awful, saying it was for his own good. Lavinia peeked in to give him good wishes with more than her usual tolerance and Doc cleaned and bandaged his wound.

  “How soon will I be well?” he asked. “When can I go back to join Forrest?”

  “It’ll be a while,” Doc avoided a direct reply. “You set yourself back considerable when you fell and reopened that wound. If you don’t take care of it now, you may lose your leg.”

  He closed his eyes, knowing that he would be no good to anybody if he allowed that to happen. He reckoned he would be already short a leg if Forrest hadn’t seen to him back there on the battlefield and sent him home to Doc’s care.

  Now for the most important matter. “Seems to me there’s some kind of mystery about this Betsy girl, Doc. Specially the fact that you don’t seem to be too worried about what’s happened to her.”

  “Can’t disagree with that,” Doc said. “She’s something of an enigma, our Betsy.”

  This evasion made him so mad he wanted to spit. “Doc,” he insisted. “I’m terrible worried about her.”

  Doc patted his shoulder. “I’d be worried too, but I’m certain she’s safe enough.”

  “But who is she? Where does she come from? You never said anything about having a cousin named Betsy.”

  “There’s a few things about my life I haven’t mentioned such as the fact that while my father was German, my mother was Scots. I reckon Betsy must come from the Scots line.”

  “She doesn’t sound like either one. Even after all these years you’ve been in Texas, you still have a little accent, Doc.”

  Doc seemed thoughtful, his lined face considering. “They say Sam Houston fought this secession thing,” he said.

  This seemed almost irrelevant to Caleb. The revered leader of Texas independence, the hero of San Jacinto, had fought to gain acceptance for his country into the United States. Naturally he wouldn’t want to admit that he’d made a mistake in doing so. Anyhow, they’d been talking about Betsy.

  That night he heard Hetty come back, hours after she’d gone home to her family, and guessed what was going on. Hetty and her kin doctored the area slaves and nobody, not even their owners, objected. But when things got hopeless, she came for Doc and that’s when folks got upset.

  A white doctor was for the whites, that was what they said. Caleb was by no means sure they were right. As far as he was concerned people were people and a man, woman or child in danger of dying deserved the best care available.

  But Doc was liable to get himself killed doing this. The vigilantes paroling this area of Texas right now weren’t reasonable men. They were capable of hanging a man without benefit of trial or jury and even Dr. Tyler Stephens wasn’t exempt from their idea of justice.

  “Don’t go, Doc,” he yelled and he heard the murmur of Hetty’s voice in the background.

  Doc stuck his head in to frown at Caleb. “None of your business, boy.”

  “They’ll hang you for sure, Doc. There’s no reasoning with Bolter and his crowd.”

  “I’m the only doctor they’ve got and they better remember it,” Doc said grimly. Hetty stepped around him to come into the room, her face full of worry.

  “It’s Susie over at Cottonwood,” she said. “Her baby won’t come and I’ve done everything I know. Without Doc, she’ll die.”

  He knew who Susie was. A pretty slave girl of about fifteen or sixteen, she waited on visitors to the house. Word was that the child she was carrying was Bolter’s, though Caleb tried not to listen to such gossip. No wonder she was having trouble delivering her baby, she was hardly more than a child herself.

  He looked at Hetty, knowing she was probably more at risk than the doctor himself. Free woman or slave, her life would not be considered valuable in a local court of law.

  He choked with fear for these two people he loved, but he couldn’t beg them not to go. If he was able and had skills to offer, he’d go too. “Be careful,” was all he could say.

  Before he left, Doc brought him a loaded pistol and told him to keep it under his bed. “I’ve told Lavinia to stay in her bedroom with the baby and lock the door,” he said.

  Then they were gone and Caleb was left to count the hours in the darkness. He told himself he was glad Betsy wasn’t here to share the danger.

  Chapter Seven

  After having walked back and forth from the kitchen at least a dozen times this morning without any result except to make Dottie frown and ask what the heck she was doing, Betsy went into town for a scheduled performance.

  She didn’t feel her storytelling was up to standard today, but apparently the audience of listeners didn’t notice any difference and crowded around her to ask eager questions about the next story she would tell. They also asked about Eddie and when she would be back to supplement her sister’s efforts by reciting Lavender’s personal history that she was collecting into her prodigious memory bank.

  Betsy had to confess she had no recent news from Eddie and her husband Zan and was glad when she could finally escape to where Grandpapa Forrest was waiting in the buggy to take her home. He was always exorbitantly proud of her popularity and though she had joined their family when her mother married his son, he seemed to love her just as much as his two granddaughters by blood, Eddie and Sylvie.

  And she felt the same about him, but today would be the first time they’d been alone together since her visit back to the past where he had served as a confederate officer. Since she felt so firmly allied to the other side, she hardly knew what to say to hi
m.

  It was only a few blocks toward home, but he passed by after asking if she’d like to take a little drive in the country. She nodded, adding, “If Mama and Papa don’t need the buggy to go see patients.”

  “Hahn Patterson picked them both up in his wagon this morning. His whole passel of children have chicken pox and he wanted them checked out.” Grandpapa gave a snort. “As if chicken pox ever made a kid really sick. It’s just something everybody goes through.”

  Betsy knew better than to argue. Grandpapa was a bit set in his ways and arguing was pretty much pointless. Beside she had other things to talk to him about.

  She waited until they were out of town and passing the farm where she and Mama had lived for a while back before they’d married into the Stephens family. Those had been good days. She’d developed a permanent attachment to the farm family.

  She didn’t comment on that now. “You were an officer during the war weren’t you, Grandpapa.”

  He didn’t have to ask which war. To him there was only one. “You know I don’t like to talk about those days, Betsy, can’t hardly bear to talk about them. I’m just grateful you and your sisters will never have to go through something like that.”

  She hated to push, but felt she had no choice. “It’s hard for me to understand how you could fight for slavery, Grandpapa, when I see how close you are to Miranda and her family.”

  “They were never slaves, child. Miranda’s mother was a free woman.”

  “Does that make a difference? The others were slaves.”

  “Different times. Folks didn’t see things the way they do now. Anyhow Betsy, we never had anything to do with slave owning, not in our family. To me it was a matter of defending my homeland against intruders.”

  She couldn’t understand that. “But your country was the United States of America.”

  He frowned and flicked the reins to make the team step more lively. “Texas was my home first and my neighbors, they’d fought to make us a free country. I couldn’t sit idle and let that freedom be taken away by soldiers from the north. I had to stick with my own.”