Ella

by Sadie Conall

  He tossed the piece of paper across the desk in anger, thinking of the game of jeopardy he was playing. He knew his involvement in getting the girl to marry Jebediah was a low blow, but in fact he didn’t really care too much. All he wanted was to clear his debt and move on back to the East Coast with a wallet full of cash.

  He turned and reached for the unwashed glass behind him and poured himself a generous shot of malt whisky. He had paid a fortune for the bottle to celebrate his good fortune after receiving the letter informing him he was to be a beneficiary of his late brother’s estate.

  Although that good fortune turned to horror when he arrived here to discover the estate was nothing more than a small holding of less than four hundred acres. And worse than that, he had to share the pitiable ranch with his niece, a girl who was strong-minded, fiercely independent and given to fighting back.

  Milton frowned as he sipped the liquor, trying to ignore that unease in his belly as he thought on Jebediah. The man was all fired up with the thought of marrying Ella, although in truth Jebediah’s interest in the girl repulsed Milton. And he’d heard enough rumors circulating around town about the old man. Even the girls in the saloons in Chesterfield stayed well clear of him except one, and she was so scarred from burns suffered when young that she would take on the devil himself to keep herself fed and clothed.

  Well to hell with them all, Milton thought as he sipped his liquor. He would be gone from here soon enough and never have to think of Jebediah Crawley or his niece again. Let them make their marriage bed and lie on it. He didn’t really care one way or the other.

  3

  Jasper was shoveling the last of their hay when Ella stormed into the barn. And when she saw the tall, gangly black man of thirty-five, still working hard even though the ranch was falling to ruin around them, she felt her rage die away.

  She loved Jasper, had loved him since she first met him along with Violet all those years ago, but since her father’s death Ella noticed Jasper’s dark hair had become flecked with grey and deep lines now framed his mouth. She knew it was the worry of what lay ahead for him, along with the grief of losing a man he’d loved, as if Quentin had been his own brother. A man who’d taken him and Violet into his home, when there had been no need.

  He turned to look at Ella in astonishment as she came striding towards him in the bridal gown. “Lord above, Miss Ella. You do look a picture.”

  Ella lifted the skirt and petticoats high to avoid getting them soiled. “It’s a gift from Jebediah, to bribe me into marrying him. Although it must have cost a fortune for the box it arrived in said it came from Paris, although Betsy told me it came upriver from New Orleans.”

  Jasper leaned on the rake. He knew Betsy well enough for he talked to her once a month when he took the wagon into Chesterfield with Ella and Martha to get supplies. Betsy and her husband owned one of the bigger mercantile stores in town and the bridal gown had arrived there, with a note for the box to be delivered to Miss Ella Torray.

  “Well, I know nothin’ about Paris Miss Ella, but I did hear folk talkin’ on your upcoming nuptials when we was in town last, but I reckon that’s between you and Mr Crawley.”

  Ella walked across to Bear, to pet him. Purchased years ago as a plough horse, Bear had been a big brute of a horse in his younger days and it had been Violet who named him Bear in jest, yet the name had stuck. Now he was old and plain worn out and like her father and Violet, his days were coming to an end.

  “Well Jasper, I figure you and Martha have heard enough fights between me and Milton over the past few months to know my feelings on the matter. I refuse to marry that degenerate and I’m not being mean by saying it, for everyone knows what sort of man he is,” she paused to look down at the dress.

  “I’ve refused to put it on since I received it, but Martha insisted this morning that I do so, just once. Unfortunately Milton saw me in it and now thinks me agreeable to the marriage, so I let him know my thoughts on the matter and now he’s in another filthy mood,” she turned to look out through the barn doors, back towards the house.

  Everything needed work. Rotten boards on the porch needed replacing. The gutter was leaking above the kitchen and more boards near Martha’s room were rotting away. But there was never enough money to fix anything these days, let alone feed themselves or the horses. The chickens, pigs and cattle were long gone, all sold off to try and make ends meet or butchered to fill their own larder.

  But as money slowly ran out as the months passed and the wedding to Jebediah loomed closer, Ella couldn’t see a way out of it. In all truth, she had begun to lose hope for her future. Although this decline in their affairs hadn’t started with the arrival of Milton. It had stared before, with the decline of her father’s health. When his death came, it had been a blessing, his suffering over. But what little they’d had then had slowly been pilfered away in the months after Milton’s arrival, as he helped himself to what he saw as his own.

  She turned back to Jasper and found the former slave watching her, a look of concern on his worn, gentle face. Yet Ella knew that the arguments between her and Milton were a source of unhappiness for all of them yet like Martha, Jasper was powerless to help her.

  She nodded towards the hay. “That’s the last of it then? From tomorrow the horses will have to make do with grazing in the fields, although Lord knows there’s little enough out there after the drought last summer.”

  Jasper frowned and glanced at the two horses. “I do despair Miss Ella, but what can be done? Ain’t nothing’s been right since Mr Quinton gone and gone sick.”

  Jasper still spoke in his Creole accent after all the years he’d lived here and usually his soft pleasant voice and gentle manner brought comfort to Ella. But not today. For their situation was now dire and she knew there was a chance they would lose the ranch without Jebediah having to buy it, for as it deteriorated, so did its value. Soon it would be worth next to nothing.

  She felt the quiet of the barn and allowed it to embrace her, feeling her father all around for this was his place, where he’d worked alongside Jasper for so many years. She turned as old Bear whickered and as she moved once more to pet him, Billy reached out to nudge her from his stall. Billy was her father’s horse and had cost a small fortune to buy, but Quentin had needed a good road horse to get to Chesterfield while Bear was ploughing the fields with Jasper.

  Ella reached out to pet him, but Billy reared at her touch. He was jittery these days, but only since Milton claimed the horse as his own. Although Milton wasn’t much of a rider and Ella had scolded him more than once for mistreating Billy.

  “You alright, Miss Ella?” Jasper asked softly, seeing the unhappiness on the girl’s lovely face but as Ella turned to answer him, the front door of the house opened and Milton stepped out onto the porch.

  Ella could see that he wore his coat and wide brimmed hat. He was leaving for the day. Probably going to Chesterfield again, to spend what little remained of her father’s hard-earned cash in the saloons there.

  “Oh Jasper, don’t tell him I’m here, for pity’s sake,” she whispered and ran to the back of the barn to hide behind one of the empty stalls, the voluminous bridal skirt with its petticoats bunched within her hands, held up around her knees.

  Jasper saw Milton step off the porch and hurry towards the barn and he turned back to his task of shoveling hay. “Doan’t you worry none, Miss Ella,” he whispered, hearing the rustle of her dress as she crouched down out of sight. He didn’t look up as Milton stormed into the barn, slashing the air with his whip in frustration.

  “Make yourself useful boy and saddle up that horse,” he spat.

  Mindful of Ella hiding not ten feet away, without a word Jasper turned and reached for Billy’s blanket and saddle. Although Ella clenched her hands in anger, for Jasper didn’t have to be spoken to like that, nor do anything he didn’t want to, for he was a free man. Her father had issued his former slave his manumission papers just before he died, allowing Jasper to go and do
whatever he wanted, although out of loyalty to Ella and Martha he had stayed on at the ranch, despite the pittance in wages Ella could afford to give him.

  “Hurry up boy, I don’t have all day,” Milton yelled, as Jasper finished tightening the cinch.

  Unable to stand this abuse of a man who had been part of her family since she was five years old, Ella made a move to stand, but froze on hearing Milton’s next words.

  “Shame my brother set you free, boy. I could make good use of you down in New Orleans once that arrogant little madam is married off. Two more weeks to go, that’s all, then I’m set up for life. So if you have any ideas on heading south, you think about coming with me. I’ll make sure you do alright. But don’t you go repeating this. You keep your mouth shut about my plans.”

  Jasper said not a word and in the silence that followed Ella heard leather and stirrups being pulled and stretched followed by the soft neigh of her father’s horse as Milton pulled hard on Billy’s mouth, then the sound of hooves on the hard-packed earth and then once again, silence. She stepped out from behind the stall and saw Jasper standing very still, looking out towards the barn doors.

  But there was something in the slump of his shoulders and his hands curled into fists by his sides that made her wary of him, although Ella had never seen Jasper angry, not once in all these years. He didn’t move as she came up behind him, not until she put a hand on his shoulder, then he turned to face her.

  “You take no mind of him, Jasper. That vile way of talking is just the way he is. He talks like that all the time to me and Martha, for he believes no-one in the world is as important as him. So don’t you go thinking on heading south with him, for that man will take you to hell and back before he’s done.”

  But there was a hard look in Jasper’s eyes, which Ella had never seen before. “But where’s I meant to go Miss Ella? When this place is all sold off, where’s I meant to go? With you livin’ across the way with Jebediah and Martha off somewhere’s else, where’s I meant to go. Who’s goin’ to take in an old man like me? I ain’t hardly good for nothin’ these days.”

  “Don’t you go speaking like that Jasper,” Ella scolded. “You’re still young enough to work with horses and till the land, so don’t you go worrying about what lies ahead. Besides, if I leave, you and Martha are coming with me. I won’t let you down Jasper, I swear it. And somehow we’ll get by.”

  She moved to undo Bear’s rope while Jasper turned to watch her, incredulous. “Miss Ella, surely you ain’t taking old Bear out for a run dressed like that?”

  She paused for a moment, aware she still wore the wedding gown, but not knowing until that moment that she was indeed taking Bear for a run. All she knew was that she suddenly wanted to ruin the dress, along with all of Milton and Jeremiah’s plans for the wedding. She felt rebellious, although Ella had never been rebellious in her life. She turned to Jasper and when she spoke, her voice was low and dull with anger.

  “I do believe I am,” she said, leading Bear out of his stall.

  Jasper shook his head at such recklessness even as he turned to reach for Bear’s blanket and saddle and as Ella waited for him to saddle the horse, a thought struck her.

  “Jasper, you keep those manumissions papers safe, don’t you?”

  “I sure do Miss Ella. After Mr Quentin done told me how valuable they were just before he passed away, I put them in a box under my bed.”

  Ella nodded. “Then you make sure you mind them well, Jasper.”

  She turned to mount the horse but Jasper stepped forward to give her a lift up, using his hands, allowing her to lift the dress so that it sat bunched around her knees, then she kicked Bear out of the barn.

  Jasper’s face was grim as he watched her leave then he turned and strode to the door at the rear of the building and opened it. It led into a small room. His cot lay up against the far wall and there was a wood burning stove opposite to keep him warm on winter nights. He had a few clothes, a couple of muslin shirts and woolen pants and a pair of leather boots and a wide brimmed hat he wore against the hot summer sun, but not much else.

  He went to the wooden box under his bed and pulled it out. There was a simple brooch inside, made with pins, although Jasper had no memory of Violet ever wearing it. Although as far as he knew it was the only possession she ever owned. He touched it briefly, thinking of the big, kind hearted woman he had loved liked a mother before putting the gem aside and reaching for the envelope that lay beneath it. He glanced inside and saw the precious papers lying within.

  His manumission papers. Signed by Quentin just weeks before he died, papers that made Jasper a free man and no longer a slave. He put the envelope back and slid the box under his bed and sat there for a long moment, thinking of what might lie ahead.

  He wouldn’t think twice about leaving with Ella. Although he would have been happy to stay on this ranch for the rest of his days, buried up near Violet in the top field behind the house when his time came. But if Ella said it was time to go, he only had to pick up this box and his few clothes and he would be ready to leave.

  Jasper frowned as he thought of Ella. She might talk all fancy and tell him not to worry, but how did she escape a wedding to a powerful man like Jebediah Crawley?

  4

  Ella pushed Bear into a gentle canter, riding over land she had worked on alongside her father and Jasper since she was a young girl.

  But those days were over. Had in fact been over since the day Quentin was diagnosed with an illness he had no hope of beating. And they were over when he went behind her back and bequeathed half the ranch to his brother, a no-hoper he’d been estranged from for decades.

  All those years they had talked about the ranch being her own one day, had been nothing but a lie. Yet Ella had only discovered what her father had done when the lawyer in Chesterfield told her just days after Quentin’s death.

  It had been a devastating blow, dealt by her father’s own hand. And the final nail in the coffin of all her hopes and dreams of staying on the ranch, of getting married here and raising a family of her own, died on meeting Milton and understanding he wanted the ranch sold as soon as possible.

  Now Ella’s focus was on what to do and where to go and make haste about it while she still had some money, before Milton cheated her out of everything. And whatever she decided, Martha and Jasper must go with her, for Ella couldn’t leave them behind. Although she must find work somewhere, for the money she gained from her share of the sale wouldn’t last forever.

  She thought of New Orleans but then dismissed it, remembering Milton telling Jasper he had plans to head that way. Ella had no desire to see him once she left here. And besides, Jasper wouldn’t be safe in the south.

  Perhaps north, then. Or to one of the big cities on the eastern seaboard. Or west. She had heard enough stories to tempt her to go west, but to do that would take a lot of money. She remembered someone in Chesterfield once saying that to make such a journey, a man needed $1,000 to set himself up with animals and a good wagon.

  She reined the horse into a walk to rest him and gazed out over the land she had loved with a passion. Although it had never brought in a lot of money, for it was flat and salty like the rest of the county and when the rains came the land turned to sticky mud. But still, she would have stayed and worked her fingers to the bone to make it profitable.

  She wiped the tears from her face, staining the lace and satin gloves a little, not even realizing until then that she was crying. Which surprised her for she wasn’t an emotional sort of woman. She was more practical, a realist, able to see things as they were. And it was time now to make some decisions which she should have done weeks ago, even months ago, but she hadn’t had the courage then. Now she did, because she was filled with rage at the unfairness of it all. Had she been born male, her father wouldn’t have hesitated to leave his entire estate to her.

  Ella thought of her upcoming nuptials to Jebediah Crawley. It loomed like some dark cloud above her, filling her with dread. A
lthough if she agreed to the marriage, money would never again be a problem and she could give Martha and Jasper a home.

  If Jebediah allowed it. Indeed, he might agree to it now, but demand they leave some time in the future because that was the sort of man he was. Or use them as a bargaining tool in the years ahead, to get what he wanted from her.

  And then Ella thought of Jebediah’s men. A crude, brutal bunch, men who weren’t born around here but came from out of state, men who wouldn’t treat an older woman or a black man with kindness.

  She thought suddenly of the tin of money which Quentin had always put aside to pay for emergency repairs to the ranch and housekeeping. It was Martha who bid her hide it away and although it held less than fifty dollars, it was a small fortune to Ella. And as Martha had said, “better for you to have it girl, then have Milton spend it on cards, drink and women.”

  Ella had hidden the tin and its precious contents in her room but when Milton came home late one night swearing and belligerent with drink, tearing the house apart looking for money, Ella spent the better part of the following morning sewing the money into the hem of her best jacket.

  She often wished she had stood up to him when he first arrived. And she wished she’d challenged his right to be a beneficiary of her father’s estate. But when she’d asked a lawyer in Chesterfield if he would take the case on, his reply had been devastating.

  “There’s little chance of you winning, Ella. Your father willed his brother a share in the ranch when he was of sound mind. Which makes the document unbreakable. And I would be careful what you start, for your uncle could override your share in the ranch because as your father’s closest male relative, Milton could by law challenge your right as a woman to have ownership of the property.”