Surrender at Orchard Rest

by Denney, Hope

  On the day before Fairlee’s arrival, Dr. Harlow came to see Joseph’s leg and declared the infection was starting to subside. He tsked over it several times as he cleaned the viscous custard drainage and said that it was too soon to be putting his full weight upon it. He added that he certainly couldn’t go about normal activities for at least a month. Joseph railed against the instructions as fiercely as he had battled the notion of losing his limb, and Dr. Harlow compromised with him in that he could go out in the wagon for a single visit if another member of the household transported him. The doctor left Orchard Rest in a huff, muttering about how the boy would kill himself yet with his own stupidity and brazenness.

  Thomas told Joseph he wasn’t sparing a single servant for the afternoon so that he could go courting, so Joseph asked Somerset to take him. Ordinarily she would have been curious to be so near Joseph and Fairlee during their first reunion in years, but when she agreed she wondered if it would cut into time that she could be spending with Sawyer.

  Somerset stood before the mirror in the front parlor with the flattering light filtering in through the window upon her upturned face. She turned her bonnet from side to side and fluffed and retied the bow scores of times in an effort to beautify it. It was shabby and shapeless, and she wished that her closet contained more than work dresses and a couple of ball gowns that couldn’t be worn on a visit out in the country. Fairlee was a comely dresser, or had been, so Somerset wanted to look presentable.

  “I wish we were rich again!” she grumbled as the bow fell limp in her hands for the hundredth time.

  “Somerset!” exclaimed Victoria, coming into the parlor with an armload of starched linens.

  “Don’t give me that look. We all look like we belong on the streets in a Dickens novel. I can’t believe I agreed to take him to see Fairlee when my closet is all threadbare cotton.”

  “Take comfort in the fact that Joseph will look as shabby as you, and Fairlee likely will.”

  Somerset laughed, taking pleasure in her little sister’s practical outlook.

  “Besides, I wish I were going,” continued Victoria. “It will be like having a front row seat at a play.”

  “I wish you would go with us.”

  “I was never friends with Fairlee. She won’t be expecting me.”

  “You’re grown now so she might like your company. She won’t be expecting anyone today since she just got home. Your presence will lend grace to an undignified situation.”

  “What undignified situation?” Blanche asked.

  She appeared at the door carrying her poultry ledger with Warren following her like a brown puppy, adoration on his face. Somerset thought Blanche was omniscient. She materialized at the first portent of trouble.

  “Miss Buchanan must be home,” surmised Blanche, “and knowing Joseph, she hasn’t had time to put her valise down but he insists on calling on her.”

  Somerset nodded.

  “The train arrived this morning, Mother, and I doubt she’s been at home for more than a couple hours.”

  “I can’t imagine what Evelyn will think of this household when a legion of my children appears on her front porch with no advance notice,” mused Blanche.

  “Shall we refuse to take him before tomorrow then?” asked Victoria. She sounded disappointed. She seldom left Orchard Rest, but she could tell by the stately incline of her mother’s head that she was close to forbidding them to go.

  “Oh, goodness no,” said Blanche. “I’d rather abandon all propriety with Evelyn than have Joseph lounge about on the porch for another day. He was calling down to passersby on the road yesterday. I won’t have it another day.”

  “I’m having Franklin hitch Hector to the wagon,” said Somerset. “We’re leaving just as soon as Jim finishes dressing Joseph.”

  “Good,” nodded Blanche. “Don’t go empty-handed. Victoria, take some of the preserves you put up this week so Evelyn thinks we’re less barbaric than we actually are. Somerset, don’t leave the two of them alone together no matter what—I don’t care who else is there chaperoning. Keep up with the time, Victoria. I know he’s looked forward to nothing else, but I want you all back by suppertime. It’s bad enough that Fairlee just got home, I won’t have Joseph camped out at the Loft until asked to leave.”

  “I go. I go, too!” asserted Warren, removing his finger from his mouth and stomping forward.

  “You won’t either,” said Victoria.

  Blanche smoothed his hair over his forehead.

  “No,” Blanche soothed him. “You’re too sweet to go on adventures with all the big boys and girls today. You’ll stay with me and feed the animals.”

  Victoria chucked him under the chin on her way to gather the preserves, and Blanche turned back to Somerset.

  “Keep the peace at all cost, young lady. If they start to quarrel for any reason, you are to become immediately indisposed and need to come home. Joseph has been a challenge since he returned home, but I’ve had my fill of him since this last accident. I won’t tolerate a jot more humiliation out of him. I have no idea what put the brakes on their engagement, and after two years, I’d rather hoped that little minx wouldn’t come home again. I can’t imagine a worse pairing than those two. Do whatever you need to do to keep Joseph from making a scene. “

  Blanche looked at Somerset over the ledger she rested her chin on. Her dark blue eyes were stony and hard, set in a face that could have easily been ten years younger. It was a look Somerset knew well. Most of the time Blanche looked serene, but Somerset knew the expression on her face was the real Blanche, the woman who had started life over from scratch in Baton Rouge and then twice at Orchard Rest.

  “We’ll be the picture of decorum,” avowed Somerset.

  Blanche smiled and the twinkle reappeared in her eyes.

  “Of course you will. I’m letting you go because you handle him so well. When you come home, we’ll talk about a trip we’re going on. You’ll be happy to hear about it, dearest.”

  Victoria returned with three jars of preserves in her hands, a basket of peaches over one arm, and a jar of Betsy’s arthritis liniment balanced in the crook of one elbow. Evidently she was of the same opinion as her mother that they were barbarians for inviting themselves to the homecoming. Blanche led Warren to the hall where she began to sort through the contents of the walnut highboy.

  Joseph limped into the room looking like himself. His natural tan had returned and was enhanced by a crisp white shirt that was pilfered from Thomas’s wardrobe. He leaned on his walking stick and caught his breath.

  “What are we waiting for?” he asked. “I do hate to keep a lady waiting.”

  “Are you certain you want to go today?” asked Somerset.

  “You know I am.”

  “The train just arrived. Don’t you think she might appreciate some time alone with her family?”

  “They run over to Tuscaloosa to see her all the time. Besides, we’re getting married. We are family. I haven’t forgotten my manners.”

  His tone was lighthearted, but the set of his jaw said he’d ride Hector bareback if no one was willing to drive him. Victoria raised her eyebrows at Somerset as they filed out of the parlor and down the steps into the bright afternoon.

  Orchard Rest was quiet for a midweek afternoon. Thomas worked from before dawn to well after dusk each day when he wasn’t traveling, but Joseph was the true driving force behind improvements on the farm. Until Joseph was well enough to work, the plantation would stay at a lull. Thomas and his hired workers would tend the cotton and cattle while Blanche remained in charge of the poultry. Somerset, Victoria, and Bess would keep gathering and preserving fruit from the orchard and mind the family vegetable garden. It was an efficient, though small operation, and everyone had more than enough to keep them busy.

  Orchard Rest rose up behind Somerset as she drove away, she thought, like a swan about to take flight. It was a sprawling variation of the double quarter houses that Blanche had adored in Louisiana. The origina
l house was a true double quarter house with a wrap-around verandah, but as the family kept expanding, Thomas had been forced to add to the house. Two smaller wings had been added, one on each side of the house, and they always reminded Somerset of the white wings of the swans that Mrs. Garrett used to keep on her pond. She loved the narrow side gabled roofs and the never-ending porches where she had kissed no man, save Sawyer Russell, who was still alive. The porches, the enclosures, and the columns sheltered her while freeing her to do whatever she wished. With the exception of the house Eric had been building her, she loved no other place so well.

  She saw Joseph looking about him at all of Orchard Rest, hunger in his hazel eyes as they pulled away, and she felt his love for the place, too. She could read his thoughts. The grass was too tall, and the peach trees were out at the limbs. The roof of the oldest house needed new shingles and the fence to keep the deer out of the garden would need a coat of whitewash before winter. She turned her head when they passed the barn. He was still working on a new barn. She’d been forced to set fire to the original one during Wilson’s raid to save them, and years later he was still repairing the damage she’d caused. He felt a deep peace when working on Orchard Rest, a peace that wouldn’t have been provided by finishing law school. Now that it was certain he would get to keep his leg, he looked at the plantation with satisfaction on his face. He would move slower than before, but he would be useful again. His career was once in destruction, but he was redeeming himself as a creator now. She saw him look at the plow he’d meant to repair before the accident.

  Through his thick brown hair, she saw the outline of the scar where the rifle butt had connected with his head. The scar was wide, pink, and short. It was a daily reminder of the first time he almost died, while trying to help Eric. Once without thinking, she’d reached out and rubbed her index finger over it. Joseph had slapped her hand, not spoken to her for two weeks, and they’d never brought it up again.

  Victoria spoke, breaking Somerset’s reverie.

  “Why is Mother sorting through every piece of furniture we have?”

  “I didn’t know she was,” replied Somerset.

  “She’s gone through every chest, armoire, and cabinet in the house,” continued Victoria. “I even saw her checking behind every book in the library last night.”

  Joseph remained silent.

  Somerset mulled, engaged with the general strangeness of Victoria’s claim. She started in her seat, accidentally whipping Hector with the lines.

  “She hasn’t found her diary!” exclaimed Somerset. “She was looking for it last week before Joseph’s party.”

  “She keeps it in her room.”

  “It disappeared last week, and if she hasn’t found it yet, she must be half wild on the inside. You know how organized she is.”

  “How would it get out of her bedroom, Somerset? No one goes in her bedroom.”

  “She misplaced it or someone took it,” considered Somerset. She turned to Joseph. “Did you take it?”

  He rolled his eyes and made a sound of irritation.

  “Why the devil would I take an old woman’s memoirs?” he asked.

  “Because you like to rile her,” said Somerset.

  “Somerset,” chided Victoria.

  “He does. He loves to see her get worked up, and he’s been bored now for weeks. Did you take it?”

  “Seeing as how she hasn’t breathed a word of it to me, I’d have replaced it by now, don’t you think?”

  “No, not necessarily.”

  “Well, I don’t have her chronicles of having been a rich beauty. Did you take it and read it for amusement?” asked Joseph.

  “I don’t think it’s funny in the slightest,” returned Somerset.

  “Warren runs in and out of her room all day long, following her,” said Victoria. “I’ll ask him if he took it.”

  Joseph cleared his throat.

  “I don’t care what happened to it. It’s that time of year again where she obsesses over it. I just want to let the past go.”

  They lapsed into silence again.

  They passed the drive that led to the Garretts’ place and then the cemetery. It was a hot sticky day, and the katydids’ continual whirring made Somerset’s ears ring even when they were at a lull. She paid close attention to Joseph. He smiled in anticipation, but she could tell by the squint of his eyes that he was in physical pain. She hoped that Fairlee would be kind after what Joseph was putting himself through to get to her.

  A figure on horseback approached them, and Somerset pulled on the reins to slow Hector. It was Sawyer, she knew, from the size of the horse and the dappled gray coloring. Her heart thudded in her chest.

  He approached them, the corners of his mouth twitching because he guessed where they were going.

  “Hello, ladies. Good afternoon, Joseph.”

  “Where are you headed in the middle of the day?” asked Joseph.

  “I’m headed to Orchard Rest. Mr. Forrest and I were going to look at a draft horse over at Old Man McKennasaw’s farm this afternoon.”

  Somerset clenched her fists and groaned inside. Just as she had worried, she was going to miss an opportunity to talk alone with Sawyer because she was kind enough to take Joseph courting. She looked up at him, shielding her eyes with her hand. She would have given anything to be back at Orchard Rest and it showed as she stared at him. She thought he looked down on her as if he could read her mind.

  “Draft horse?” said Joseph. “What do you need with another draft horse?”

  Sawyer and Joseph launched into an animated discussion of how many horses Sawyer thought he needed versus how many Joseph thought he could get by with. Victoria laughed in all the right places at their jokes, but Somerset held the reins taut in both hands and concentrated on not glancing too often at Sawyer.

  “I maintain you’re too picky,” finished Joseph. “I would have bought the last animal and been done with it. I’m glad the war didn’t turn me into a connoisseur of horse flesh.”

  “Ladies, this is the only way in which he’s ever failed me as a friend. He’s ignorant of horses,” said Sawyer in an aside.

  “We’ll argue about it later. I have somewhere I have to be,” retorted Joseph.

  “Ah, yes. Well, Mother and I saw Miss Buchanan step off the train this morning. She looked well. I’ll leave you to your mission. Good seeing you all. I’ll call on you later in the week, Somerset.”

  “I’ll be seeing you,” said Somerset.

  Somerset whipped the lines across Hector’s back.

  “He must be a nice beau,” Victoria said when she was sure Sawyer was out of earshot.

  “He isn’t moving things along like I thought he would,” said Joseph.

  “We don’t all get engaged after a couple of months like you,” said Somerset.

  Joseph was not deterred.

  “Have I ever told you about the first time I saw Fairlee?”

  “No,” said Victoria at the same time Somerset declared she knew the story by heart.

  “Oh, Somerset, sit through the story one last time. Victoria hasn’t heard it. I was out riding with Eric Rutherford. The two of you weren’t courting yet, Somerset, although it would just be a matter of time. We had been racing all afternoon, and we were hot, tired, and starving. It was almost time to go home when Eric remembered he had something in his saddlebags—a quilt pattern or something else frilly—that his mother wanted dropped off at Buchanan Loft. He didn’t want to go up there so he was determined that I go, too.

  “I didn’t want to go either. I can’t think of a man in Century Grove who can abide Mrs. Buchanan, and I made excuses to get home. So Eric just turned it into a competition. He said he bet he’d win in a race against me to the Loft. Well, he’d beat me all day. Somerset, I never did win a single race against Eric. Just the same, I couldn’t stand the idea of forfeiting a race to him, and before I could speak, he offered five dollars if I won so I took him up on his bet. We set off down Marauder’s Lane at break
neck speed. He stayed a good five yards ahead of me the whole time—I’ll never know how he could ride like that.

  “We barreled up the hill to the Buchanan place. The house was in sight, and we passed all the outbuildings. We were a sight, too, all covered in scum from the pond, dirt from the fields, and sweating for all we were worth. Suddenly, when we passed the stables, a horse came flying out past us. It was flying so fast that it tore all the sod off the lawn in two solid lines all the way up to the house. We were both ill because whoever was going to win had seen us coming from the stables and was cheating by joining in at the last minute. The horse beat us both by several yards.

  “I was getting ready to say just what I thought of it all when the rider dismounted and I saw she was wearing skirts. This girl started laughing and asked if she had won anything. I told her no because I thought that I was on the winning end of things after all. She pulled off her bonnet and long, curling blond hair fell down around her shoulders. The sight of her was the only time I’ve ever been struck dumb. I invited myself to supper that night and she gave me every bit as good as she got when I recovered my power of speech. I like a feisty girl like Fairlee. Feistiness just makes the good times fun and the bad times entertaining.”