by Beth White
“One would think, after all this time, she’d be reluctant to leave the familiarity of her friends and home.”
Selah’s chin went up. “This is her home. Perhaps you don’t have siblings and wouldn’t understand the closeness of sisters. Pete—my papa’s nickname for her—was like a baby doll for Jo and me. She followed us everywhere, copied everything we did. We were heartbroken when my mother gave in to Grandmama.”
“My brigade was quartered in Memphis for a while. I might have met your grandparents at some point—though the citizens of the city weren’t overly warm toward us Yanks.” He remembered being spat upon during a return to quarters along the streets of Memphis in the wake of Sturgis’s disastrous retreat.
“Grandmama wouldn’t have been warm, that’s for certain. She still loathes anyone who wore a blue uniform.”
“Perhaps I’ll meet her one day and change her mind.” When Selah shook her head, he smiled. “Your mother was a beautiful woman. I can see why she attracted company.”
“We used to have the most wonderful parties. Mama and Papa would send us girls to bed early, but we’d sit at the top of the stairs and listen to the music and laughter.” She caught his arm and tugged him toward a second doorway into the front parlor. “You have to see the piano. One of the first things I want to do is get it tuned so Joelle can play again.”
He’d been dreading this. There it was, a hand-carved rosewood Steinway grand, dusty like everything else, waiting to be cleaned and put back to use. Without even touching it, he could hear its rich tones in his head. In fact he’d dreamed about it for the last few nights, woken up with music filling his ears.
General Grierson—his teacher, mentor, and commander—would have loved that piano, would have insisted that Levi sit down and play a sonata or at least a Bach invention. But long years had passed since he felt like a musician, so long that he was afraid to try, lest he spoil the work.
He who was afraid of nothing.
“It’s a beautiful instrument,” he said more stiffly than he meant to. “I shall look forward to hearing Miss Joelle play.” He sucked in a deep breath and offered her his arm. “But we have a rather large project to finish inspecting. Should we move on to the second floor? Of course the roof and windows must be repaired right away, but I want you to show me which rooms to set aside for you and your family. We’ll need to refurbish those first.”
She slipped her fingers into the crook of his arm. “Joelle and I can share a room, but we’ll need a second one for ThomasAnne and Aurora.” They reached the landing of the stairs, where Selah shook the bottom of her skirt, sending dust flying. “Ooh, things have gotten out of hand here. There used to be a broom in a closet off Mama and Papa’s room. I’ll get it and sweep on our way back down.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll send someone to start the basic cleaning this afternoon.” He coughed as they went on up to the second floor. “You’ll have more important things to do. Show me the master bedroom first, please.” He wanted to get it over with.
“What we called the ‘master’ is the guest room downstairs. My parents’ room is this way.” She led him around the mezzanine to a room at the eastern front corner of the house. She halted just inside, blinking as though seeing ghosts. “Mama and Papa slept here until he left for the war. My mother died here.”
Selah couldn’t have said why she’d volunteered that information to Levi, except that he was looking around with an odd expression on his face—as if he were seeing ghosts too. Or maybe he was simply horrified at the decay she’d allowed to develop in her home, without the least attempt to stem or correct it.
One corner of the bedstead sagged on a broken leg. The wing chair’s upholstery had been eaten by mice, and the inlaid mahogany armoire was smothered under a thick coat of dust. Selah didn’t remember there being this much damage, but it had been a very long time since she’d been in this room.
Levi cleared his throat. “Perhaps after it’s cleaned and refurbished, this could be your room. As manager, you should have a comfortable place to retreat to at the end of the day. We’ll put Joelle and your cousin elsewhere.”
She managed not to shudder. “We’ll . . . discuss it, Mr. Riggins. Thank you for your kindness.”
“Couldn’t you call me Levi?” he asked. “Or even Riggs, as my friends do? We’ll be spending quite a bit of time together in the next few weeks, and ‘Mr. Riggins’ sounds too much like my father.”
“I could use a friend.” She sighed, looked away. Once she left school, friends outside of her family had been a rare commodity. Before the silence got too awkward, she met his eyes and smiled. “I’m trying to think what my mother would have me say.”
His gaze held hers, defenseless and open. “I hope she would agree that in order to have a friend, one must be a friend. I promise I will never deliberately hurt you. And I will do my best to protect your reputation and that of your sisters. Please, Selah, let us begin to trust one another in this small way—at least when we are alone.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I believe my mother would like you, Levi Riggins,” she said raggedly. “I’m sorry to be so weepy. I didn’t expect to be undone by standing in my parents’ room.” Swiping at her eyes, she turned her back to him.
“I take it that’s a yes,” he said in a lighter tone. “Selah, Selah, Selah,” he sang. “I have a friend named Selah.”
Selah recognized the tune of “Holy, Holy, Holy,” a new hymn she and Joelle had learned right before the war started. Levi’s irreverent substitution of the words made laughter bubble over her emotion. “Yes, but we have a lot of ground to cover before the sun goes down.” She beckoned him toward the mezzanine. “I haven’t been up to the cupola in years. You have to see the lookout. The panorama is amazing.”
She led the way up another set of narrow stairs to the attic, then on up to the very top of the house. Out of breath and laughing, they climbed out of the stairwell.
And stopped, ears assaulted by the roaring buzz of bees swarming about a gigantic beehive wedged behind the railing on the opposite side of the cupola. The hive, dripping golden honey onto the floor, stretched at least four feet from top to bottom, and was nearly that wide. Selah didn’t even try to estimate the number of bees.
She felt a scream rise, but Levi took her by the shoulders. “Shush,” he whispered urgently. “We don’t want to startle them. Back up slowly, and we’ll go downstairs.”
The hum faded as they went down, and to Selah’s relief the bees did not follow. When they reached the rotunda, she craned her neck to stare up at the dome. The beehive wasn’t visible from here, and the hum of the bees didn’t reach the ground.
“Well,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting that. Bats. Mice maybe. But bees? What are we going to do?”
“I’ll have to pay someone to kill them,” he said, shaking his head. “They’ll be a danger to the workers and everyone who lives here.”
“Wait.” Selah put a hand on his arm. “I think they can be moved. The honey is valuable, and Papa always said crops grow better where there are bees.”
“I don’t suppose you know how to do that? Move them, I mean?”
“No, but Joelle probably does, or she could find something in Papa’s library. She reads about all kinds of odd subjects.”
Levi laughed. “All right, then. I’ve other business to attend to this afternoon, but tomorrow we’ll have a conference and see what we can come up with. The Daughtry sisters to the rescue!”
Thirteen
WHITE-HOT RAGE blinded Daughtry, crouching inside a copse of overgrown trees and brush. Selah’s letter was true. The Yanks had been inside his house. He’d seen it with his own eyes, when Penelope came to the door of the cottage, greeted the tall, broad-shouldered man—the one Scully had described, blue coat and all—and walked with him into the big house. They’d been inside for nearly an hour before emerging to stand on the porch. Penny stood waving her hands in uncharacteristic agitation, and the man responded by laying a
presumptuous hand on her shoulder.
With shaking hands, he put the spyglass back to his eye, saw that a proper distance had come between the two as the Yank walked her around toward the cottage.
Where were his daughters? Were they safe? Something wasn’t right. He shook his head hard, staggered into the woods, deeper and deeper like an animal seeking its lair. He remembered. Selah said her mother had died.
That couldn’t be true, he’d just seen her.
He began to run, not away of course. Always toward the battlefield. Ever vigilant to protect what was his.
He tripped, landing hard on his knees, and fell face forward onto the ground.
Sometime later he awoke in the darkness and found himself at the edge of the small burial ground he’d created many years ago to inter his first and only son. All was quiet, leaving only the night sounds of animals in the woods, the occasional hoot of an owl or crack of dead limbs under foraging deer. A sliver of moonlight pierced the tops of the trees that ringed the little glade, illuminating the tiny headstone. He squatted and traced the letters as he’d done many times before.
JONATHAN GEORGE WASHINGTON DAUGHTRY III
Penelope had insisted on naming the infant, though he hadn’t even lived three days, and they’d known from the outset that he was flawed. Daughtry had tried to talk her out of it, because what if they had another son and the name was already gone? It had seemed to him a prediction, almost a curse. No more sons.
Sometimes he suspected that the privations of prison, days on end in the mines, had bent his mind after all. But he could see that it was the world that had got twisted, when a father could not even protect his own daughters. He’d not been here to protect his wife.
It was not his fault. He’d been serving his homeland, the great state of Mississippi, where a man was free according to the Constitution to order his own business. He and other patriots had been working to drive out usurpers who would take away that freedom. Then the enemy had taken over his own plantation, violating his beautiful Penelope, so he’d punished Union-sympathizing rapists and pillagers in Tennessee.
Now they were back to do the same to his daughter.
But not while he had breath in his body.
He half rose, moved to squat in front of the bigger headstone just a few feet away. Sweet Penny. Red-haired, fiery, filling him with pride of possession, though it was she who owned Jonathan Daughtry’s marrow and blood from the minute he saw her standing at the top of her father’s stairs, glowing like the sun at noon.
He’d built Ithaca as his act of silent worship, bought the piano because she missed her music, imported a desk from Italy because she needed a place to write her invitations, paid for endless dinners and dances that he despised because she adored making others happy. He’d tolerated the girls’ fripperies because they each, in myriad ways, reminded him of her.
He laid his hand on the frosted ground at the base of the headstone, sorrow reaching the bottom of his soul and wringing it dry. How was it possible to miss someone so much after so long a time? Where was God, that he could turn a blind eye to one who represented everything good and pure in the world, condoning this blasphemy?
He fell to his knees and sobbed.
Fourteen
“WE NEED THEIR HELP.” Selah shot a defiant look at ThomasAnne, who stood next to her on Mose and Horatia’s front stoop, a jar of fig preserves tucked into a basket over her arm.
ThomasAnne pinched her lips together. She had insisted on accompanying Selah to visit the Lawrences and even agreed that the figs were a neighborly touch. Her disapproval at the purpose of the errand, however, was abundantly clear.
Well, she was just going to have to get over her delicate sensibilities. Selah knocked on the door, loudly.
“Why would they want to help us?” ThomasAnne hissed.
“I don’t know that they will. But we’ll never know if we don’t ask. Joelle agrees the bees should be moved, not killed, and if anyone knows how to do that, it will be Mose.”
She didn’t tell her cousin about the main reason she wanted to talk to the Lawrences. The idea had come to her last night while she lay tossing and turning beside Joelle. She couldn’t sleep for that insistent grain of excitement at the thought of making something new and wonderful out of the sadness that was Ithaca.
Of course her wakefulness had nothing to do with the somewhat conspiratorial nature of her dealings with Levi Riggins. In her head, she experimented with the idea of calling him by his given name, as he’d asked her to do. Levi. It fit him—sturdy, dependable, and biblical, but somehow slightly exotic. She had to keep reminding herself that he would be here long enough to launch the hotel, and then he would move on to his next project. She’d best not get too comfortable with their friendship. Besides, she’d never had a man for a friend. The notion seemed somewhat scandalous.
Before ThomasAnne could express her next objection, Mose Lawrence opened the door. He removed the corncob pipe from between his teeth to smile at Selah. “Miss Selah! And Miss ThomasAnne! What a nice surprise!” As he absorbed the obvious tension between Selah and her cousin, his smile faded. “Is something wrong down to the big house? You need a ride to the doctor?”
“Oh, mercy, no, I’m perfectly fine now,” ThomasAnne said, overriding Selah. “Although how you knew about that—well, in any case, no one is ill, and we don’t need a ride. Here, we brought you and Horatia some preserves.” She thrust the basket at Mose.
He took it with a wink at Selah. “Thank you kindly, Miss ThomasAnne. Horatia will be pleased. She’s in here working on a quilt . . .” He looked over his shoulder, as though considering the next proper social move. White ladies did not enter Negro cabins unless it was for some charitable purpose.
Selah took the bull by the proverbial horns. “I’d love to see what Horatia is working on, Mose, but you’re actually the one I wanted to speak to. Do you suppose we could come in for a minute?”
He blinked but moved back politely. “Of course. Horatia! We got company!”
Selah and ThomasAnne stepped past Mose into a small sitting room with a quilt frame taking up most of the space in its center. Horatia jumped up from one of the four ladderback chairs set around the quilt. She was dressed in a simple brown cotton dress with a red knitted shawl pinned about her shoulders, her hair covered by a brown calico scarf. “Hello, Miss Selah, Miss ThomasAnne. How—how nice of you to come by.” Horatia looked, Selah thought, more horrified than delighted, but recovered quickly. “Mose, go get two good cups out the kitchen, if you please, and refill the kettle so we can make more tea. Ladies, would you like to sit down?”
The room was toasty warm from the heat of the fireplace, so Selah unbuttoned her cloak and slipped it off. “I wanted to see the quilt. I still have the one you made for my doll when I was a little girl.” Hanging her cloak over the back of one of the chairs, she leaned over to examine the intricate stitches of the quilt’s wedding ring pattern. She didn’t recognize any of the fabrics and wondered where they’d come from. “Is this Charmion’s wedding gift?”
Horatia glanced at ThomasAnne, who had pulled one of the chairs away from the quilt and primly seated herself. ThomasAnne shrugged, as if to say, Don’t look at me, I can’t do anything with her.
Horatia shook her head. “It belongs to a friend at church. She got real sick, and I told her I’d finish it up for her daughter.”
“Oh.” Selah watched Horatia bustle about with the kettle and cups when Mose came back from the kitchen. She wished she could ease the former slave’s discomfort. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come after all. But that was so silly. Horatia used to boss her around, and kiss her cuts and bruises, and give her a ferocious frown when she disobeyed. Why on earth should things turn so awkward, now that Horatia was a free woman? “How is Charmion? I miss her.”
“She fine, I reckon.” Horatia didn’t turn around.
“What do you mean, ‘you reckon’? Where did she go? Has she left the state?”
“Se
lah, don’t be nosy,” ThomasAnne said.
“But—”
“Charmion married that boy against our wishes,” Mose interrupted, “and we ain’t seen her since, except maybe passing on the road.”
“What?” Selah felt as if she’d been slapped. “But—why? She’s your daughter!”
There was a brief silence. A log fell in the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney.
Mose exchanged glances with Horatia, then sighed. “I believe you came to see me about something, Miss Selah. What is it I can help you with?”
Selah felt shaky, as if something important had shifted in the world around her. She sat down in an empty chair. “Bees. We have bees in the cupola.”
“The cupola?” Horatia handed Selah a cup of herb tea. “What you doing up there?”
“We were doing an inspection of sorts—a hotel agent named Mr. Riggins and myself. I’m thinking of—that is, we’re definitely going to go into a partnership with—with a mutual acquaintance, to make the house livable again and convert it into a hotel suitable for rail customers who need to stay overnight in a more gracious and upscale environment than they can get at the Gum Pond Hotel.” She had practiced that line all the way home from church this morning, thinking it would make a grand advertisement slogan.
Horatia turned wide eyes on ThomasAnne. “Miss ThomasAnne, did you approve this chicken chase?”
ThomasAnne snorted. “I most certainly did not. But it is not my house, and I no longer have the place of authority over the young misses that I once had.”
“And I call that a blessed shame.” Horatia glared at Selah. “And you’ve let bees set up a hive in the cupola too?”
“I didn’t let them!” Selah said. “Mose, there’s honey dripping everywhere, and we’ve got to get rid of them, or no one will be safe walking through the house. I told Mr. Riggins you’d know how to do it.”
