by Beth White
Horatia rolled her eyes. “Mose got all kinds of useless knowledge in that bean head of his. But a hotel! What you gon’ do with the rest of the property? There’s eight thousand acres!”
“Well, now, that could all be put to good use.” Mose, who had been quietly puffing on his pipe by the fire, leaned forward. “What does your Mr. Riggins say about it?”
Selah squirmed at the term “your Mr. Riggins” but let it go. “He suggested leasing it out to farmers who will provide the hotel with meat and vegetables and other foodstuffs and supplies. The tannery, sawmill, molasses mill, brick mill, and the gristmill will all be revived. We can draw people who want to fox hunt and bird hunt, and—” She stopped, suddenly aware that everyone else in the room stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. “What?”
“Selah, you’re talking about our—your home,” ThomasAnne said. “Turning it into a public establishment.”
Selah grabbed the quilt frame, jolting it. “Listen to me. Somebody around here has to think in practical terms. We cannot afford to be sentimental. Mr. Riggins, with the backing of the railroad, is going to turn Ithaca into a hotel, no matter what we do—because if I don’t take this deal, we’re going to lose the property. I went all the way to Oxford to get a loan, but the bank turned me down. We can sit here and be all prissy and aristocratic, but that would not change a thing.” She drew herself straighter. “Also, ThomasAnne, Grandpapa is aware of our circumstances and prepared to come for us at any moment—unless we give him a good reason not to. Do you really want to go back there?”
“But Selah,” ThomasAnne said faintly, “all that aside, ladies simply do not go into business. What gentlemen will want to marry three young women who have so lowered themselves—”
“ThomasAnne! Look at us! I am twenty-six years old, an old maid. In five years’ time, has anyone offered marriage to any of us?” When ThomasAnne’s blue eyes teared up, Selah gripped her hand. “Please, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything, but facts are facts. We are already beyond the pale. Taking on legitimate employment can hardly make a difference in our prospects, and it might even help Joelle and Aurora in the long run. A little money makes any young woman more attractive.”
While ThomasAnne sniffled in distress, Horatia stared at Selah for a long moment. “You ain’t the same soft little girl you was when we left at the end of the war.” It was not a question.
Selah felt flayed naked but somehow relieved that all pretenses were down. “No, I am not. I can never go back, and I wouldn’t if I could. I want to learn what you have to teach me, Horatia—and you too, Mose. Having to scrabble for every meal, to repatch patched clothes, has made me see things I wouldn’t have seen any other way. I didn’t come just about the bees. This opportunity has landed in our lap, and I wanted to invite you to take it in with us.”
“What you mean?” Horatia’s expression remained cool.
Selah folded her hands, calm now. “I’ve thought about this a good deal. Three women cannot do this by ourselves, and I don’t know anyone more qualified to oversee the daily operation of a hotel than two people who did it for nearly thirty years.” She hesitated, then blurted, “Would you and Mose consider coming to work with us at Ithaca? We’ll need a cook and someone to manage the grounds. Of course you have every reason to turn us down, but I’d make sure you’re well paid for your work. Would you absolutely hate going back there?”
Mose sat back, pulling on the pipe. “I don’t mind at least talking about it. Ray, how ’bout you?”
“We have our own home, Mose. I won’t give it up.”
“No one says we got to.” Mose glanced at Selah. “Do they, Miss Selah?”
She straightened. “Of course not! You’ll have regular days off to spend however you wish, in addition to Sundays. In fact, it’s fine if you want to continue to live here and travel back and forth to Ithaca. My plan is to find a few other young men and women you can train, so that the staff can rotate. I’m not going to pretend we won’t all have to work very hard for quite a while to make the venture succeed. But I’m not afraid of hard work. It’s better than the alternative.”
Eyes downcast, Horatia picked up her needle and plunged it into the quilt. A long moment went by as the former slave continued to sew without a word.
Selah’s shoulders sagged under the realization that she had lost this battle of wills. She’d known forgiveness couldn’t be forced, and she was going to have to live with the consequences of what her father had done. Little though she’d personally had to do with his sins, it had taken her too long to make the effort to rectify them.
She was about to stand to go, when Horatia looked up. “I’m not afraid of work neither, Miss Selah. I’m afraid of slipping back into the habit of obedience without thought. Mose and me, we’re just getting over the resentment you mentioned, and being close to you all stirs it up again. That’s a hard thing to shed. You see?”
“Yes, I see.” Selah spoke through a tight throat. “Maybe it will help you to know that Joelle and Aurora and I need you. We need you so much. The older I get, the more I see your influence on me, the ways you shaped my heart and my spirit. I know you don’t owe us anything. But I want to continue to be your student in any way you can allow.”
“I just don’t know that I got anything to give right now, honey—”
“You a good woman, Miss Selah.” Mose went to stand behind Horatia, putting his hand on her bent shoulder. “And so are you, Ray. It be good for us to wrestle with bitterness. Throw it off to the pit of hell, where it belong.”
Horatia looked up at her husband. “‘Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.’”
It was a Scripture Selah had heard all her life. Now fresh meaning dawned on her. She’d never been bound by physical shackles, but guilt and anxiety had been dragging her down for quite some time. “Perhaps if we all pray for one another, those yokes will come off to stay.”
“There you go.” Mose sat down and took up his pipe.
“That’s all well and good,” ThomasAnne said, looking a bit lost, “but none of this is going to happen unless we deal with those bees. Will you help?”
Mose nodded. “Smoke,” he said around the stem of his pipe.
“We know you’re smoking.” Horatia rolled her eyes. “In fact, you’re stinkin’ up this quilt, and I wish you’d go outside.”
Mose removed the pipe long enough to point it at Selah. “Not me, the bees. Smoke makes ’em drunk and too lazy to sting.” He aimed a twinkling glance at his wife. “Too bad it don’t work on women.”
“Oh, you,” Horatia said mildly.
Selah smiled. “That sounds like a good idea, Mose, but how will you get smoke up in the cupola without setting the house on fire?”
Mose drew on the pipe and let out a long puff. “Now that’s a good question. Might have to think on that a spell.”
“Please do,” Selah said. “And in the meantime, I’ll get Joelle to continue her research. The sooner we get those bees moved, the sooner we can fix the roof.”
And the sooner they could move out of that tiny cottage back into their home. She couldn’t have said why that thought didn’t bring a thrill of joy.
“I’m not asking you to leave your shop permanently.” Levi unbuttoned his greatcoat and considered removing it. The blacksmith shop doors stood wide open, inviting in the chilly gusts of early March, but the forge beat them right back out again with a blast of heat so powerful that Nathan Vincent’s brawny black shoulders and bare chest glistened with sweat.
Slamming his hammer down on a wagon wheel rim with a crashing clang, the tall young blacksmith seared Levi with a sardonic glare. “Ain’t you?” Vincent tossed the giant hammer onto a nearby table as if it were a child’s toy. “Then what exactly do you want?”
Levi looked around the shop, noting the tools hung along one wall at precise angles, graduating by size and function. Scrap iron lay stacked in a corner, and implements in all stages of repair lay waiting on shelves on the walls. Th
e forge and its chimney, plus the anvil and worktable, took up the entire center of the room. The shop had clearly been designed by someone who had been well trained and continued to take a great deal of pride in his work.
The hotel would need a man with this level of skill and work ethic in order to succeed.
Levi picked his words carefully. “I want a smith who knows tools and understands how to use them. I want someone familiar with the property, enough to bring it back to smooth operation. I’d like to hire you through opening week at least. If you decide you don’t want to stay after that, at least I’d have time to look about for someone to replace you.”
“Can’t nobody replace me,” Vincent growled. “I’m the best in ten counties.”
Levi laughed. “I believe it. Whitmore at the emporium told me so, and Miss Selah frankly won’t have anyone else—”
“Miss Selah?” Vincent looked arrested. “What’s she got to do with this?”
Levi now saw what he should have led with. “She’s going to be the manager.”
“What about her sisters and Miss ThomasAnne?”
No telling where these questions came from or led to, but Levi saw no reason to lie. “You know Selah wouldn’t leave them behind.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Vincent’s expression became, if possible, even more opaque. “Is she gon’ hire the Lawrences too?”
“Who’re they?”
“Mose was the groundskeeper, and Horatia was the family cook—slaves like me, but they was near about family to the girls. They didn’t run far when they was set free, built a little house a mile down the road from the big house.” Vincent pulled a rag out of his back pocket and began to wipe his hands. “Their daughter Charmion is my wife.”
Levi whistled. “Well, I don’t know who Miss Daughtry had in mind to bring in as staff, but I would think she’ll be glad if you agree to come back to work at Ithaca. What about Charmion? Would she like a job too?”
“I bet she would. She and Miss Selah was good friends until—well, until the older girls went off to boarding school. Things changed then.”
Levi scratched his chin, thinking. “Well, we’ll need a cook, a groundsman, and several maids. There will be a livery and gardens to tend, as well as livestock to care for. In fact—” Levi paused, assessing the guarded interest on the blacksmith’s dark face. “I suspect you could help me fill most of those positions within your acquaintance. I’d appreciate your sending good candidates my way.”
Vincent slowly drew the sooty rag through his hands. “All right. I’ll come, on two conditions. First, I want my own house.”
Levi squinted at him. “Where do you live now?”
“I rent a cabin here in Gum Pond. But I want a piece of land with a title free and clear. I don’t mind building my house.”
Levi thought about it for a moment. “I imagine we can arrange that. What else?”
“Don’t tell Mose and Horatia you talked to me until after they agree to come.”
“What? Why?”
“Just don’t, not if you want us both.” With an unexpected grin, Vincent reached for the hammer once more. “Let me know what they say. I’ll have a lot of work to do if I’m gon’ move my shop.”
“That’s true.” There was something odd going on between Vincent and the Lawrences, but he needed a blacksmith. “I’ll send someone to help you cart everything over to the plantation when you’re ready. But before I go, do you happen to have any experience with honeybees?”
Fifteen
EARLY THURSDAY MORNING, nearly a week after she had agreed to turn Ithaca into a hotel, Selah sat at her father’s desk, her thoughts seesawing between the bees in the cupola and the accounts she’d been trying to balance. Workers would arrive any day now to start reshingling the roofs of the three main buildings. They would have to be paid. She hoped the Lawrences would agree to be the hotel’s cook and groundskeeper. They must be paid as well.
Shivering in the chilly office—she’d sent Wyatt to cut more wood, but he hadn’t come back yet—she stared at the list of linens and cleaning supplies that must be purchased before the hotel could take in guests. Absently she reached for her shawl, which had fallen onto the threadbare, faded carpet, and sighed. Replacing the carpet was low on the list of priorities—the roof would have to come first. She couldn’t help wondering if an infusion of Beaumont cash would pull them out of this dismal hole. Levi had made it sound as if she would have unlimited funds at her disposal. It would be nice to talk to him, but he hadn’t been back since they’d found the bees. It almost seemed he’d been avoiding her.
With a huff she pushed away from the desk and rose. Perhaps she could cure her restlessness by walking over to the old freestanding kitchen to start some cleaning.
Putting on a hat and pulling the shawl close, she called out her intentions to Joelle and went out the front door. She hesitated on the porch, struck by the sun glaring off peeling white paint on the back porch columns of the big house. She vividly remembered the day the family had moved out of the cottage. Aurora was barely two at the time of the move, but at eight and six respectively, Selah and Joelle were old enough to be both attached to their old home and deliriously excited to have their own rooms in the new one. It had been like moving into a palace, and Joelle had insisted on being called Rapunzel as she glided up the gleaming curved staircase with a blanket about her head and trailing behind her for “hair.”
Smiling at the memory, Selah felt something of the same ambivalence now, emotions bouncing from elation to melancholy and everything in between, depending on whether she was feeling nostalgic for her childhood or apprehensive about her future—or simply determined to overcome the challenge of the day.
She hadn’t heard from Horatia and Mose since Sunday—another unbalanced equation to worry about. If they decided not to accept her job offer, she would have to rethink much of her renovation strategy. Many of her plans depended on their experienced assistance.
Well, Papa had always called her hardheaded, and not for nothing. All she could do was forge ahead, one foot at a time, taking control of what she could, letting go of what she couldn’t.
She’d stepped off the porch and started across the backyard when the rattle of a wagon coming from the other side of the big house stopped her. She lifted her hand to shade her eyes. When the horse and wagon got close enough, she made out two tall male figures, one in a flat-crowned military hat and long dark coat, the driver more eclectically dressed in top hat and shooting jacket with plaid breeches and tall boots. Levi Riggins had apparently made time to visit at last, but what was he doing with—
“Dr. Kidd!” She took off across the yard, waving to attract the doctor’s attention and shooing an indignant peacock out of the way as she went. “Over here!”
The doctor pulled up on the reins, his lean face creasing in his rare smile. “I was in the neighborhood delivering a baby and thought I’d stop by to check on Miss McGowan. Passed Riggins on the road and took him up with me.”
Selah noted the horse tied behind the wagon, as well as Levi’s relieved expression and the haste with which he vacated his seat. She suppressed a smile. The good doctor was famous for his somewhat erratic driving skills. “ThomasAnne seems to have recovered quite nicely, thank you,” she said. “I believe that episode on Sunday was as much an upset of the nerves as anything.” Clutching her shawl together, she nodded to Levi. “I had been wondering if you’d decided to abandon us to the bees.”
Levi glanced up at the cupola. “They’re still there?”
“Mose Lawrence said he could move them, but I haven’t seen him since Sunday.”
The doctor began to unhitch the wagon. “Riggins says you ladies and the Beaumonts have worked out a business plan for bringing Ithaca back. It sounds like things are well in train.” He looked over his shoulder as he turned the horse loose to graze. “I’ve been thinking about your request for taking on your science-y boy. Presumably you’ve got the means to house him here and don’t ne
ed me any longer, but I wanted to at least meet him. Maybe he’d enjoy meeting with me a couple times a week for a discussion of whatever interests him.”
“Oh, how kind of you!” Selah put up a hand to hold on to her hat, which had nearly been ripped from her head by a sudden gust of wind. “Why don’t you both come over to the kitchen, where I was headed, and I’ll introduce you. Wyatt will be so excited.”
As Selah and the two men crunched across the frozen grass, chatting about the doctor’s newest patient, she could hear the regular chunk chunk of Wyatt’s ax from the back of the little building that had served as the plantation kitchen since before the mansion’s construction. Four thick columns supported its broad, deep front porch and steep gabled roof. The kitchen had always been one of Selah’s favorite places as a child, warm with tempting aromas, the occasional sugared treat, and Horatia’s rather acerbic love.
She noted the sad state of the kitchen garden. Horatia would want to dig up the weedy plot and plant some herbs and a few vegetables. They would have to go into town soon to buy seed, then put Wyatt to work with a hoe. He would more than earn his keep with such simple chores.
Rounding the back corner of the kitchen, the three of them encountered Wyatt working on a pile of wood. No one could call him a lazy youngster.
In the act of tossing a stick onto the little wheelbarrow kept for that purpose, Wyatt looked around and grinned. “Hello, Miss Selah. Mr. Riggins, it’s good to see you again.” He sent a curious glance at the doctor.
“Why don’t you call it a day, Wyatt?” Selah said. “I brought a friend to meet you. This is Dr. Kidd, our local physician.”
Wyatt’s brown eyes lit. “A real doctor! How d’you do, sir! Honored to make your acquaintance.” He swung the ax down into a chunk of wood, then brushed off his gloved hands and offered one to Kidd.
Kidd returned the greeting, then glanced at the pile of wood. “I like to see a man who’s not afraid of hard work. Miss Daughtry says you aspire to the medical profession.”
