It wasn’t fair, really, to long for his little backwoods home. While others were suffering so, he hardly had the right to creep away into the woods like a beaten dog seeking calm and security. Nobody could have any peace while the war went on.
He went into the old kitchen without bothering to knock, it was after all his home now, and when he saw Betsy helping Hetty put food on the table, things seemed almost right and normal again.
Betsy was back. Nothing was as awful as it had seemed only minutes before.
Chapter Fifteen
For once Doc was home that evening and Betsy sat quietly and listened as they told her about the terrible battle at Antietam with its heart-breaking losses, of Lavinia’s illness and death and the fact that there still was no news from Forrest since they’d learned he was a prisoner so that sometimes they despaired and believed he was also dead.
They told her of the raiders who came to Lavender last fall, crude, hard men who had threatened hangings that somehow never happened until they’d ridden away to seek better pickings in another town. While they were here, Doc had been forced to hide out for fear of his life. His name had been on the ‘hanging list’ of which the vigilantes bragged.
“They’ll be coming back,” Hetty said suddenly from her chair near the fire. Both children were tucked in their beds and asleep and Hetty had come back down for the company, though she only occasionally added a word to what was being said.
They all seemed tired and older to Betsy, worn down by sorrow and not enough food and too little rest. She couldn’t help feeling a little guilty about her life that now seemed luxurious when compared to theirs. She wondered if anyone had come down to the kitchen in time to keep the stew from burning.
Well, she was here now to share with them whatever was to come. She had a fear, though, that hadn’t been with her on the last visit, that Caleb’s future was not the only mystery. Maybe next time she went back home it would be to learn that any one of them, or perhaps all of them, were simply dim memories handed down from a long-ago past, instead of actual persons family members had known and loved.
And what would happen if Evan had not survived these terrible days, but had died as a child? That would mean Eddie and Sylvie, his daughters, couldn’t exist. Mama would never have met and married him. She would never have come to Lavender.
But then she would never have come here. Her mind whirled with confusion. So much she couldn’t comprehend.
“Just take things a day at a time,” Hetty’s voice reached her and she looked up with a smile. “The good Lord will make it all clear some day.”
Betsy nodded, though right now she had no such confidence. She looked at the others, all as dear to her now as the family she knew in the time ahead.
Doc looked as though he’d been put through a hot wash and hung out to dry. He was quieter than he used to be, seeming lost in thought. She missed the noisy arguments he and Caleb used to have.
Caleb shone with happiness, his face in repose quietly happy in spite of all the tragedy and she knew it was because she was here. She had never doubted that he felt about her as she felt about him. But tonight she was assailed by doubts.
Of them all, Hetty seemed to reflect the most repose. And no doubt she’d been through more in her life than the rest of them put together.
Doc got up suddenly and went outside. He came back about five minutes later with four red apples in his hands. “Last summer’s crop,” he said, “Stored in the root cellar.” He glanced at Hetty. “I know we have to be sparing,” he said, “but tonight is a celebration. Our Betsy’s back.”
Betsy smiled again and bit into the crisp, chilled apple, tasting its juicy sweetness. Back home she’d been baking apple pies. Something felt right about Doc’s kind of celebration.
It was good to feel wanted and part of this family just the way she did back home.
She supposed her face must look as shining with happiness as did Caleb’s.
She was only half through her apple when a loud wailing sounded from within the house. “Evan,” Hetty said, starting to get to her feet.
“I’ll see about him,” Betsy said, jumping up. She hesitated a second when she came to the threshold, then went ahead, breathing a sigh of relief when she was safely across and shivering in the cold as she looked at the white wall of the little frame house.
She found her way through the familiar rooms to the room where Lavinia had slept with her son and took the crying boy into her arms. “It’s all right, Evan. Betsy’s here.”
Little Miranda in the big bed at his side whimpered in her sleep, but quickly settled down as Evan’s cries soothed to sobs as he took comfort in Betsy’s arms.
“Oh, Lavinia,” Betsy whispered. “It’s not fair. You should have lived to raise your son.”
For Evan’s sake, she wouldn’t allow herself to cry, but the tears seemed to be melting her insides as she grieved for the sweet southern girl who had died as much a victim of this terrible war as the soldiers at Antietam.
Caleb learned the lesson in the next few days that even in the midst of tragic times, moments of intense personal happiness can occur.
Helping Betsy wash dishes in water heated on the cookstove, stomping through snow with her to go to the store for the scant supplies they could buy now, and best of all, the long cold evenings when Doc and Hetty both expressed extreme fatigue and went to bed early so they could snuggle together by the fire, exchanging kisses and embraces, and planning for a future that seemed never likely to happen.
He told her about his little over-grown farm and the cabin he’d built himself where they would live together. They debated how many children they would have and picked out names for the girls and boys.
On the first Wednesday after her return, they were playing with Evan and Miranda in the dwindling snow in the front yard, having scraped enough snow together to make a rather small snowman when Hetty came running up, shouting incomprehensively.
She grabbed up her small daughter and hugged her until the little girl squealed. “We’re free, baby! We’re free forever!”
Betsy and Caleb stood frozen until she turned to them. “Word just came in,” she said. “Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves. He made a proclamation.”
They all hugged each other and cried and laughed together while the two children stared at them as though they had gone mad.
When Doc came home and they had finally settled down to a dinner of cornbread and beans in front of the big fire that provided the only warm spot in the drafty little house, they began to talk over details.
Doc had heard the news too and he was a little less sanguine than Hetty about how it would work. “Bolter said now that the ape president has made it law, let’s see him enforce it hereabouts,” he reported having heard from the gossiping old men at the store.
“Of course, you know Bolter. He’s afraid all those years he mistreated his slaves are going to come back to haunt him now. He’s all bluff and bluster, our Bolter.”
“I was in the quarters at Cottonwood Creek,” Hetty said, a big grin growing on her face. “They’re singing and rejoicing. Nobody else in Texas may accept the president’s word as law, but we do. Me and my people do.”
“But you’re not a slave, Hetty. You’re already free.”
Hetty drew in a deep breath and looked at Doc. He smiled gently and answered for her.
“Hetty was brave enough to free herself years ago.”
Hetty nodded. “Freed myself,” she said.
Caleb didn’t know what to think. His community had raised him to think that a runaway slave was stolen property, but all he had to do was imagine himself with dark skin in Hetty’s place. He wouldn’t allow anybody to own him either!
“Good for you, Hetty,” he said.
Doc broke into low laughter, but he didn’t comment further.
Doc’s work got busier than ever with an outbreak of the usual winter ailments by the beginning of February. Cold rain replaced the snow and Lavender turned muddy
and gray, provided little connection with the lovely little town Betsy knew in the future.
Caleb went with Doc on most of his calls these days and Doc didn’t protest. He joked that before long his younger friend would be a fully qualified doctor, just from the experience of going along to help out.
Both men insisted Betsy, Hetty and the kids stick close to the house these days and neither argued. Tempers were high and rage bubbling just below the surface. President Lincoln might still have to prove with his armies that slaves in the south were free, but the slaves themselves accepted the news as gospel and more of the young men fled to join the northern armies while the folk at home began to make tentative plans to either take up a bit of land or exercise a plantation-learned skill like blacksmithing in the larger world. They even talked about someday getting paid for their work.
Not that there was a whole lot of money left on the plantations to pay anybody. Even with the Mexico option, the war and the embargo were taking a toll on southern profits that was leaving everybody poor.
Chaos crept nearer the borders of Lavender and stories of crimes against women grew, perhaps embroidered by the fears of residents, but Hetty as a Negro and a woman, was particularly vulnerable and Betsy took to carrying a pistol in her bag when she had to go out.
At home they tried to pretend everything was normal and hide their worries and fears from the two children.
Betsy made cookies with molasses as sweetener and some evenings Doc made popcorn over the fire and brought up a few more of the precious apples from last summer. They played games with the kids and after they were asleep, talked into late in the night.
Betsy got Doc to tell her a bit about his growing up years in distant Europe, of the bitter battle experiences that had turned him against all wars and finally of his education at a prestigious university.
The map of Europe had been different then and the war he found so painful to remember had seen Napoleon and the French raging across Europe.
Betsy felt amazed that someone with whom she was actually conversing could remember such a distant time. Eddie should be here. Eddie with her interest in history would know the right questions to ask.
Doc told a few stories about the family he’d lost during those wars, but wouldn’t say much more. It so evidently cost him pain to talk about those days that Betsy decided to reserve her questions for another day.
Caleb came over to sit at her side, taking her hand into his. The sense of warmth and safety inside the thin-walled house was all the greater for the knowledge that outside lurked fear and grief.
Chapter Sixteen
Caleb borrowed the buggy and team from Doc, having made certain that as far as could be predicted no emergencies were planned for the afternoon. If one came up, he would borrow a horse to make the visit, he assured Caleb with a smile, “Take your girl for a ride. It’s about time you two went on an outing together.”
An outing. His heart in his throat, Caleb was planning to propose. He had a lot of gall, he supposed, to even think this beautiful and talented lady would consider marrying a half-crippled war veteran who had fought on the wrong side as far as she was concerned.
But the way she looked up at him, the way they dreamed of a future together and she let him hold her hand evenings gave him courage.
Well, nobody could shoot him for asking. So he went ahead and packed a lunch of bread and cheese, some apples and some of Hetty’s gingerbread, made as a special treat.
Betsy had agreed to go, but he was dismayed when she suggested at the last minute that they take Evan and Miranda with them. He must have shown his displeasure at the notion because Hetty laughed and informed Betsy that she and the children were visiting an old friend of hers right here in Lavender and she’d just have to go off with Caleb all by her lone self.
He’d been almost certain Betsy knew what he had in mind, but now he began to wonder. Either the idea hadn’t struck her or she wanted to avoid what he had to say by taking company along on this trip.
“You be careful, Hetty,” Betsy cautioned. “You never know who you’re going to meet these days.”
“I’m always careful and we’re only going about five minutes away. You and Caleb are running more risk driving out in the country.”
“I always take my rifle,” Caleb assured her grimly.
Winter was beginning to fade and the first hint of spring was in the air as they plodded away from the little town and out into open country. Caleb supposed Lavender wasn’t all that much of a town, but still he was always glad to move away from it and the problems it contained these days. Ever since he’d earned enough to buy the acreage out on the far edge of the county, that place had been home to him.
But now he would live wherever Betsy chose if she’d only agree to marry him. If she wanted to be a town girl, and most women did, he’d find a way to earn a living there and be content with it.
The place in the country and Betsy too were more than any man could ask to have. But he would give it a chance. He would show her how beautiful and quiet it was, how independent they could be from other humans and their problems. He’d ask her to marry him out there.
The day felt damp and dewy, newly formed as they drove out of town, sitting close together as they looked forward to the hours ahead. Betsy felt as though they were enclosed in a safe little world together, the kind she preferred where neither war, or as the Bible said, rumors of war could reach them.
She’d been feeling particularly homesick this past week, wondering what Mama and Papa were making of her long absence. She thought about Grandpapa Forrest sitting alone in his big chair in the living room and of Sylvie coming home from school with no big sister around to listen to her accounts of the day.
She’d heard Eddie speak of feeling like this as though she were divided between two worlds, missing the loved ones left behind whether she was in the Lavender where she grew up or in that modern world where she lived with her husband.
Today she would push such thoughts aside and live only in the moment where she rode with the man she loved through a beautiful day with the season thinking about turning to spring.
It was long drive as the little farm where Caleb had chosen to live was distant from town and they talked on and off, avoiding any stressful subject, but increasing their acquaintance with each other. She told him of the pink and gray house where she lived with her family at the same location where the little white house now set.
He told her of his memories of a stern father and loving mother and the times when he’d been a little boy on a frontier farm out in the wild west of Texas without dwelling on his losses and sorrow.
It was a day for only good thoughts and rejoicing in the pleasure of being together.
She was a little shocked when he pulled the team to a halt and said proudly, “Here we are. This is my place.”
It didn’t look like a farm at all, though she could see where fields had once been cleared for planting, though they were now filling up with grass and weeds and seedlings of the huge oaks and occasional pines that grew so thickly that she felt enclosed in deep forest.
It was Goldilocks and Three Bears territory, she thought almost fearfully, and it was, as he’d promised, beautiful but frightening too. Out here you would have no idea of neighbors clustering together, or even another farm house to be seen at a distance.
It was the loneliest place she’d ever been.
The oaks and many other trees she couldn’t identify were bare-boned still, just beginning to peek into the greenery of spring, but there were enough evergreens to provide a thicket even in winter. When he helped her down from the buggy, lingering to hold her in strong arms, she found herself stumbling through high winter grasses and tangled vines as he led the way to the tiny log cabin he’d built himself.
He showed her proudly through the one-room cabin which smelled of dust and mice, its floor hard-packed dirt and what furnishings it contained made by hand. It featured a large fireplace on one wall, flanked by w
ooden chairs with hand-sewn cushions. “Hetty made the covers for the cushions,” he said, “and the curtains.”
Sure enough, the one window was curtained, and he’d built in a cupboard and a tiny table where his few dishes set. She pushed aside the fluffy blue curtains that matched the cushions and peered outside to a view of trees and a tiny trickle of a creek.
He waited for her comments and she tried to think what to say. “It reminds me of Thoreau’s writings,” she finally managed. You know, getting in touch with nature and all that.”
He looked pleased. “My favorite writer,” he said. “Doc got me acquainted with his work.”
“Want to eat inside or out?” he asked.
She looked around doubtfully at the dust-covered surfaces. “It’s too lovely a day to stay inside.”
He smiled in agreement and went back to the buggy for their packet of food. He spread a blanket on the grass and Betsy took off her coat since the day was warm enough, and they sat together to eat sandwiches and pickles, followed with homemade gingerbread and apples. Their beverage was the cold, clean-tasting water from Caleb’s own creek.
His mood was catching and before long she was beginning to feel royally entertained. He was presenting her with the best from his little place and that couldn’t be beat.
“When the war’s over and Forrest comes back, I reckon to maybe move back out here. I’ve got a little money saved, enough to buy a horse and a plow. I’ll have some fruit trees and grow a little garden and after I get started I’ll buy a cow. That’s for milk, you know, growing children need milk.”
Children? She frowned. Oh, children.
She’d been awfully slow to catch on. Somehow the reality of a time for them before the war ended had barely touched her imagination. So much uncertainty lay around them.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden circlet that glinted in the dim late winter sunlight. This was my mama’s. They gave it to me after she was killed, said I might want it someday when I found the right girl.”
Lavender Blue: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series) Page 11
