The Widow of Rose Hill (The Women of Rose Hill Book 2)

by Michelle Shocklee

  When the door closed behind her, Levi glanced at Moses. The man’s lips twitched, though he seemed to fight off a full-fledged grin.

  “Women are strange creatures, Moses.”

  The other man nodded gravely. “Yessuh.” He took a sip of his drink and smiled. “But this shore is good coffee.”

  Levi couldn’t agree more.

  “Tell me, Señor Lopez, what is your business?”

  Cousin Eunice eyed the man sitting across the table from her. She had monopolized the conversation throughout the meal, regaling them with stories from Shelby County and her colorful life as the wife of Judge Porter, a man who, according to Eunice, could do no wrong. Now it seemed she was determined to interrogate their guest.

  With a quick glance at Natalie, Alexander said, “I prefer to be involved in various enterprises rather than settling for only one to take all my time.”

  Eunice squinted. “That sounds like an excuse to flit from one fancy to another. The judge always said you could ascertain a man’s dependability by how long he’d been at his occupation. Whether farmer or store owner or however one chooses to make his living, steadfastness is a sure sign you can trust the man.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed her pronouncement. Natalie cleared her throat, hoping to bring the meal to an end. “I’m sure Señor Lopez is a fine man of integrity, Cousin. He and I have done business for over a year now, and I’ve always been able to depend upon him.”

  She glanced at Alexander, whose warm smile said he appreciated her confidence.

  “And what business is that?” Eunice’s heavy brows arched.

  “Señor Lopez has leased Rose Hill pastures for his cattle.”

  “Cattle, you say. Well, that is a fine business, indeed. The judge knew many cattlemen. I suspect with the war over and the ports opening soon, you should turn a nice profit.” Eunice gave Natalie a pointed look. “A successful man would be a fine catch for a widow left to run a plantation all alone.”

  Natalie refused to acknowledge the blatant hint. She addressed Alexander. “My brother-in-law is raising horses in Oregon, but in Adella’s last letter, she said the desperate need for beef in the northwest has convinced him to try his hand at cattle. Perhaps you have some advice I can pass along to Seth.”

  Before he could reply, Eunice tsk tsk’d. “Such a disgrace, Adella Rose running off with that overseer. And taking a Negro baby with her. Why, whatever was she thinking?”

  The clock on the mantel ticked in the awkward silence.

  “I am sure your relative will do well,” Alexander finally said, as though Eunice had never spoken. “Grass and water are all cattle need.” He stood, much to Natalie’s relief. She certainly did not wish her cousin to continue her remarks regarding the Negro baby Adella was raising. No one, to Natalie’s knowledge, knew the truth about Mara’s parentage, but one could never be certain.

  “Ladies, I wish to thank you for the delicious meal.” He came around to assist first Natalie with her chair and then Eunice.

  The plump woman seemed pleased by the gentlemanly gesture. “I hope you will stop by again, Señor. I should like to get to know Natalie’s suitor.”

  Natalie’s eyes widened. “Cousin Eunice, you are mistaken. Señor Lopez is a friend, that’s all.”

  Alexander reached for Natalie’s hand and dropped a kiss on the back of it. “I confess I hope to change that.” He let go of her hand and turned to Eunice. “My sincere wish is to court your cousin. It would be my honor to get acquainted with you when I visit.”

  Eunice’s stubby lashes fluttered under the handsome man’s attention. “Of course, Señor, of course.” She faced Natalie. “My dear, as your mother’s closest relative, I give you permission to accept this man’s request to court. I will act as chaperone, of course. A woman widowed after only two years of marriage is more vulnerable to temptation than a maiden, I should think.”

  Heat flooded Natalie’s body. Whether it was brought on by fury or mortification, she knew not. Turning to Alexander, she didn’t meet his gaze, too embarrassed over Eunice’s insinuation. “Thank you for stopping by to check on us. I need to see to Samuel now. Good day, Señor.”

  She fled the dining room knowing she’d been incredibly rude and wishing she could find the nearest hole and crawl inside.

  A few minutes later, while she sat with Samuel at a small table in his room, she heard the sound of a horse galloping away from the house. She could only hope her cousin hadn’t humiliated her further after she’d escaped their presence, but she wouldn’t put it past the meddlesome woman. She had yet to find an opportunity to sit Eunice down and discuss the future, but suffice it to say, Natalie was considering taking drastic measures to rid herself of her relative. She just didn’t know exactly what those measures would entail.

  “Mama, what’s this letter?”

  Natalie looked down to where Samuel’s pudgy finger pointed to the letter K in his primer.

  “That is the letter K. If you were a prince, you would grow up to be a king. King starts with the letter K.” She made the sound a K makes.

  Samuel watched her mouth. “Like cat.”

  “Yes, they make a similar sound, but cat begins with the letter C. Do you remember how to spell it?”

  With slow, careful strokes, Samuel set out to write the word they’d practiced on his slate. She smiled, full of motherly pride. Her son was growing up so fast. These were bittersweet days for her. While she wanted him to keep his childish innocence and his need for her intact, she couldn’t help but marvel at the growth that had taken place in the last few months, not only in his stature but in his independence. Colonel Maish’s words reminding her that her son would be a man before she was ready pushed forward. Once again, she wondered if he spoke from a father’s perspective.

  A movement at the open door drew her attention.

  Carolina stood in the hallway with her lips pressed together and an odd look on her face. Natalie could only guess what mischief the young woman had found. “Yes, Carolina?”

  She took hesitant steps into the room. “Miz Natalie, I’s wonderin’…” She bit her bottom lip.

  “About?”

  “I’s wonderin’…” Her eyes darted to Samuel, who continued to work on forming the letter A, his small tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. When Carolina met Natalie’s gaze again, she brought her shoulders back. “I’s wonderin’ if you would teach me to read.”

  Natalie stared at the servant. The request was certainly not what she’d expected. In all her days, it had never entered her mind to teach a Negro to read. She had a suspicion her sister-in-law had defied the rules and taught Jeptha—a Rose Hill slave until he ran away—but Natalie hadn’t seen the need to tempt fate with such an act. Slaves had no reason to learn their letters anyway. It wasn’t as though they needed that knowledge to pick cotton.

  Shame pierced her conscience.

  Wasn’t that the mentality that kept people in bondage? A mentality she herself had subscribed to until recently? An entire war had been fought, thousands of lives lost, because of that sort of thinking. She considered Moses, in possession of a Bible all these years with no way to read the precious words. She glanced at her son, who was busy drawing the childish image of a cat’s face next to his correctly spelled word. Why shouldn’t Carolina and Moses and the others have the same opportunity as her son to learn their letters? In their newfound freedom, who knew what prospects might come their way if only they could read and write?

  “I would be proud to teach you to read, Carolina,” she finally said, her voice full of emotion.

  Carolina’s eyes rounded. “You would?”

  “Yes, I would.” Natalie smiled. “We can begin this afternoon if you like.”

  A smile wider than Natalie had ever seen before filled Carolina’s face. “I would, Miz Natalie. I shore enough would.”

  After the servant departed, Natalie stared out the window, half listening to Samuel’s chatter about kings and princes. A warm tear t
railed down her cheek, and she wiped it away. Six years ago, she’d come to Rose Hill a spoiled, self-centered young woman who never gave a second thought to the slaves or to anyone else. Adella tried to talk to her about it on more than one occasion, but Natalie wouldn’t listen. It had taken war and hardship and pain to pry her eyes open so she could see herself for the first time. Oh, how she prayed God approved of the woman she was becoming, one hard-fought struggle at a time.

  “Mama, do you like my cat?”

  She smiled at her son. “Very much.” She snagged him into a ticklish embrace and planted a kiss on his soft cheek as he snuggled against her. “Your mama is going to be a teacher, Samuel,” she whispered into his hair, contentment rising up from somewhere deep, practically filling her to overflowing. “What do you think about that?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Laughter and happy voices drifted to where Levi and Moses worked on the final repairs to the barn roof. Although Moses hadn’t at first been keen on being up so high, more than once, Levi found the man staring off into the distance. The view was amazing.

  “It doesn’t sound like much work is getting done down there,” he said, lifting the canteen of lukewarm water to his lips. With the barn roof being far more difficult to access than those of the house and quarter cabins, they’d limited the number of trips up and down the steep ladder by bringing all their supplies, water, and even their lunch in the first few trips.

  Moses grinned. “I’s thinkin’ the same thing, suh. Thought at first it just the chillens, but I fairly certain I heard my Harriet and Carolina, too. Don’t know what they’s doin’, but it shore sound joyful.”

  Joyful. Yes, it did sound joyful. Levi suspected the former slaves hadn’t had much opportunity to experience that feeling. What joy was there in bondage? In being owned by another human being?

  He recalled the day Pa had handed him the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, hailed as the greatest book of the ages. Levi had been eighteen years old, full of himself and his dreams and eager to start his military career at West Point. Slavery was an evil institution, to be sure, but he couldn’t see that it had anything to do with him. His future was in the frontier, where slavery wasn’t permitted. Pa was insistent, however, that Levi read it, and the book very nearly changed the course of his life.

  Glancing over to Moses where he carefully fit a new shingle into place, Levi wondered what that man would think of the sensational book. Levi suspected every slave could relate to the trials and tribulations the book’s characters experienced. Even President Lincoln, it was said, credited Harriet Beecher Stowe’s work as being a catalyst for the war. With the horrors of slavery exposed, the people in the north became incensed. Levi himself had considered abandoning his plans to attend West Point and instead join the abolitionist movement and help slaves attain freedom through the Underground Railroad. Pa declared Levi could do more good for bondsmen as a statesman or lawyer, careers that many military men chose after serving. He’d heeded Pa’s advice to continue with his plans, but the fire in his belly to help slaves gain their freedom had never waned.

  Levi hammered several more shingles into place and surveyed their work. “I believe that should do it, Moses. You’ll know when the next rainstorm comes if you have a few gaps here and there, but I feel certain we’ve patched it well.”

  “Yessuh, I think you’s right. I ’spect I’ll go down yonder and take a look to see if daylight comes through, just to be sure.”

  They carefully made their way to the ground. While Moses entered the cavernous building, the laughter coming from the side of the main house had Levi curious. Not wishing to disturb whomever he found enjoying themselves, he quietly made his way to the end of the porch and peered around the corner.

  Just down from the house in the shade of a giant tree, Natalie sat on the grass with Harriet, Carolina, and Lottie, whom Levi recalled was Eunice’s maid. The three servants’ backs were to him, but he could clearly see Natalie. Samuel and Isaac lay on their stomachs nearby, their knees bent and bare feet waving in the air, obscuring from Levi’s view whatever it was they were looking at.

  Natalie held up a child’s slate. “This is the letter B,” she said, making sure each woman noted the large, handwritten letter. “Remember, it is the second letter in the alphabet. A, B, C, D, and so on. Book begins with the letter B. Boy. Baby. Bird. B. Buh. Now, try to find the letter B in your book.”

  Levi watched, stunned, as the women each took a book from her lap and began searching the printed words for the letter. Every so often, someone would look up to study the slate, then bend her head back to the book.

  “Here it is,” Carolina shouted a few moments later. The others cheered and laughed. She handed the book to Natalie, pointing to the letter.

  Natalie smiled and nodded, speaking in tones too low for Levi to make out the words.

  “Well, I’ll be.” Moses’ incredulous voice sounded from behind Levi.

  He turned to find a matching expression on the man’s face. “I take it you didn’t know Mrs. Ellis was giving reading lessons.”

  “I shore didn’t. No, suh, I shore didn’t.”

  They watched a while longer. After Natalie showed them the letter C, the women searched for it. When Harriet was the first to shout that she’d found it, moisture shone in Moses’ eyes.

  “Praise the Lawd! Praise the Good Lawd,” he said, unashamedly wiping the wetness away. “I done asked the Lawd to send us some he’p with our letters, and here He done sent Miz Natalie.”

  They retreated behind the house.

  “I once had a massa who taught me a few letters years ago,” Moses said as they walked back to the barn toward the workshop. “He a preacher man and give’d me his Bible when he passed on. I cain’t read but a word here and there, so it don’t make no sense. I’s askin’ the Lawd just this mornin’ iffen He want me to share the Good News in that book, He gonna have to send me some he’p.” He grinned. “Guess He shore ’nough did.”

  Levi watched the man put the tools away. While he knew it was none of his business, he couldn’t keep the question that had bothered him since coming to Rose Hill from slipping past his lips.

  “I don’t understand why you and Harriet and Carolina stay here with Mrs. Ellis.” He planted both hands on the workbench. “You are free to go, to leave the place where you were enslaved. Are you so loyal to your former owner that you can’t envision living anywhere else?”

  Moses hung a hammer on two nails in the wall. He heaved a sigh and looked at Levi. “I don’t ’spect you to understand, Colonel, suh. You ain’t never been a slave. But best I can explain it, even though I’s a slave here at Rose Hill before freedom come, it still my home. Miz Natalie, she just a little chile when her pappy buys me. It not her fault I’s a slave.”

  “But she could have freed you after her husband and father-in-law died.”

  “Shore she coulda, but then what? What’s a free Negro gonna do here in Texas? Ain’t no white person gonna hire ’em. Can’t buy land to farm. Weren’t no Union Army to he’p us. Them patterollers just as soon kill a free Negro as they would a slave. Don’t make no never mind to them.”

  These were realities Levi had not considered. The problems the free men and women faced today were the same problems they’d have faced before the war started. Perhaps more so, given the facts Moses had just laid out. Simply having freedom handed to them did not mean all their problems would go away.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand.” Levi glanced toward the grassy area, but he could no longer hear the happy voices. It was nearly the supper hour, so they’d probably stopped the lessons for today.

  “Don’t misunderstand me, Colonel,” Moses said, a solemn expression on his face. “I’s thankful for freedom. Wouldn’t never want to belong to nobody again. My Isaac can grow to be a man and do anythin’ he want to make a livin’. Some o’ them Negroes you brung in to work them fields is fearful the gov’ment gonna change their mind and make us slaves again. That boy with the br
ands on his face …” Moses shook his head. “He trouble. He say he gonna get hisseff a gun and kill any white man who try to make him a slave again.”

  Levi didn’t like the sound of that. “Maybe I should speak to them. Assure them the government will never allow slavery again.” Moses shrugged. “I ’spect it can’t hurt. But you got to understand, we was slaves ’cuz the gov’ment said so. Now we not slaves ’cuz the gov’ment said so. What’s to stop them from changing it back again?”

  He could see their point. “Too many men died fighting to end slavery. Our country will never go back to the way things were.”

  “That’s good to hear, Colonel, suh.”

  Levi followed the big man from the barn, realizing he didn’t know as much about slavery and freedom as he thought he did.

  Natalie carried a stack of dirty dishes from the table to the washtub. Behind her, Colonel Maish arm-wrestled Samuel while Isaac and Moses had their own arm-wrestling match at the opposite end of the table. Their laughter, grunts, and groans filled the kitchen.

  “Miz Natalie, Lottie here will do them dishes,” Carolina said, carrying a serving dish that now held only traces of the delicious beef stew Harriet had made for supper, along with cornbread and greens from the garden. Colonel Maish, she’d noticed, had enjoyed three helpings of stew, much to Harriet’s satisfaction.

  Lottie offered a smile. “I happy to do ’em, Miz Natalie. Since we come to Rose Hill, I been grateful not to have to cook meals for Miz Eunice. I don’t mind cleanin’ up.”

  Cousin Eunice had again refused to join them in the kitchen for the evening meal, especially when she learned the colonel would be their guest once more. No one seemed too upset over her absence.

  “Thank you, Lottie.” Natalie glanced at the young woman’s protruding belly. “We don’t want you on your feet unnecessarily, though.” She lowered her voice so only the two other women could hear over the ruckus coming from the table. “I remember how my feet would swell in the evenings when I carried Samuel. When is the baby due?”