Counterfeit Courtship (13 page)

“Ellie!”

The high-pitched voice came from behind her, and Ellie jerked her hand from Graham's arm. She turned toward the sound and saw her old friend Lydia Sutton running up the street, her faded skirts twirling with each step.

“Lydia, what on earth...?”

Reaching Ellie, the woman clasped her reddened, work-roughened hands together, tears in her eyes. “Little Annie is sick with croup. Could you spare us some cherry pectoral? I can't get Doctor Pritchert because we already owe him so much money after Myron's war injury. His leg, you know.”

“Of course.” She took Lydia's hand and started home at a good clip. “This is Colonel Talbot. He went to West Point before you moved to town and then, of course, the war. Graham, this is Lydia Sutton. When we were girls, she and her family lived on the edge of the Pearl Street neighborhood.”

Lydia heaved a huge sigh. “That was before things got bad in Natchez. We lost our house, and now Myron and I live along the river with our baby, Annie. And I'm acquainted with your stepmother, Colonel. Please give her my greetings.”

“I'll do it as soon as I see her.”

“How old is Annie now?” Ellie asked.

“Eight months.”

“Oh, dear. That's the same age as Colonel Talbot's orphaned niece who is living with them.”

“I heard she was here, and that she's your namesake, Ellie.”

As they rounded the corner to Ellie's home, she realized she had given neither Lydia nor Annie much thought since they stopped attending church. From the haggard look on Lydia's face, she could use a friend.

Graham opened the door for them. Once inside, Ellie sent them to the parlor, with Sugar right behind them, while she retrieved her elixir.

Upon finding it, she hastened to the parlor. She handed the bottle to Lydia and then opened her reticule. “Take this gold dollar in case the elixir doesn't work and you need to get Doctor Pritchert.”

“Ellie, I can't take your money. I had to swallow my pride and nearly choked on it just to beg medicine from you.” The tears welled up in her eyes again. “And I wouldn't have asked for that if I hadn't needed it for my baby.”

She pressed the money into Lydia's hand. “You'll take this for your baby too. I feel partly at fault for your predicament. I should have called on you when you stopped coming to church. I wasn't a good friend to you, and I hope you'll accept both the money and my apology.”

Lydia's tears spilled over, and she pressed a kiss against Ellie's cheek.

“I'll help Roman hitch Lucy and Buttercup to the carriage so she doesn't have to walk home.” With Lydia's face turned to the medicine bottle, Graham smiled and winked at Ellie.

The gesture made her heart flip and her mind turn back to their kiss. Her face warming, she pressed her hand to her chest. Well. He certainly must have approved of her giving away the dollar. “Good idea. Lydia lives a mile out, and she needs to get this medicine to the baby.”

“Thank you. Mother is home with her, so I should get back. Myron heard of a man who's hiring, and he's at his house now to try for the job. On Sunday. I never thought it would come to this.”

“Things are hard all over Natchez—for everybody.” Then she thought of Leonard. Things were hard for...almost everybody.

“I never thought I'd have to beg. We weren't wealthy, not like your family or Colonel Talbot's, but we had a nice small home and decent clothes. Until tonight, I haven't been ashamed of our situation because I know it's not Myron's fault. I certainly never expected this.” Lydia wiped her eyes on a tattered handkerchief. “Myron even asked for work with the Freedmen's Bureau.”

Ellie sucked in her breath. Every Southerner hated that newly formed Yankee agency, established to rebuild the South after the war. Myron must have felt desperate if he'd taken such measures. “But he didn't get work with the Bureau?”

“No, not even after he spent an hour waiting for the Bureau agent in the parlor of that seedy old Mason's Boardinghouse. I declare, as soon as he got home, I made him change clothes out on the back gallery so I could boil the lice out of them.” Lydia shuddered as if those lice were crawling on her skirt. “That Leonard Fitzwald got the job instead of Myron. I think he's selfish to take it when my husband needs the work so badly. Mister Fitzwald has enough money to keep him in tall cotton for the rest of his life.”

That much was true. And Leonard never was known for generosity.

“We've all suffered from this war. I don't understand why God saw fit to allow us to keep our home this long, but I'm grateful for it. I don't take it for granted as I used to.” She looked around the room, its familiar furnishings and pretty décor. “And there's no guarantee that we'll be able to keep it.”

“I used to think that because we were Christians, the war wouldn't touch us. Then when we lost our house, I got angry and blamed God.” Lydia turned toward the window as if ashamed to face Ellie with her truth. “I even refused to go to church. Myron wanted to go, but I wouldn't, so he stayed home too. Now I wish I could go back, but I'm afraid people won't want us.”

Ellie clasped Lydia's hand. “I'm confident they will want you. But I think you fear God's rejection, not people's.”

“That too,” she said in a squeaky voice.

“The father was glad to see the prodigal son when he came home.”

Lydia's tears started raining down her face. It was as if Ellie could see the woman's despair leaking from her eyes. “Do you think He would be glad to see me too?”

“I do.”

She squeezed Ellie's hand. “Then we'll come. I've wanted to for so long.”

A half hour later, having driven Lydia home and seen her safely in the house, Graham and Ellie headed for home. “I was proud of you tonight,” he said.

“Proud of me?”

“You told me that you had enough money in the sideboard safe to pay your workers this week, plus a dollar for food. And I saw you give away that dollar tonight.”

She felt her face flaming. “Thank you, but it wasn't that much.”

“But it was. The widow gave her mite, and you gave your gold dollar. It was all you had.”

“I have more than Lydia does. And we'll get by just fine. I still have some canned beef and some rice, and Roman has been picking green beans and digging some new potatoes. He fishes and catches crawfish for us too. We won't go hungry.”

He smiled at her in the moonlight as they pulled into her drive. “Come over and I'll cook you some camp rations if you do.”

She smiled back. “I will.” Then she sat forward. “You made a little joke!”

“Some people think I'm gloomy all the time. I wanted to show them that I'm not.”

“You're making progress.” While she appreciated his lightness, she still fought the emotion that blocked her throat. “Lydia wants to come back to church when the baby gets better.”

“Your gift opened that door.” He helped Ellie out, his touch tender and his voice low, and he let his hands linger on her waist, drawing an extra beat from her heart—

The sound of sobbing, followed by Betsy's crying, tore through the open gallery windows. “That's not Miss Noreen. Who is it?” Ellie said.

Graham didn't answer. He bolted through the yard and into the house. When Ellie got there, she started for the parlor, where the crying seemed to come from.

She heard Graham's voice before she saw him. “Aunt Ophelia, what's wrong?”

Ellie entered the parlor, her heart heavy for the poor dear. For all her eccentricity, the older woman loved her only brother. Seeing him in this condition must have torn her heart out.

But Mister Talbot wasn't in the room.

Betsy sat crying on her blanket while Miss Noreen tried to comfort Miss Ophelia on the couch. Graham sat on his aunt's other side, so Ellie picked up the baby and paced the floor with her as she'd seen Miss Noreen do.

“What is it? What happened?” Although he'd been fierce as a warrior earlier this evening, Graham now held his elderly relative's hand and spoke as softly as a mother with her newborn.

“They can't do this.” She laid her head on Graham's shoulder. “My late husband, Willis, was an Adams—the most prestigious family in Natchez. They even named this county after the Adamses. They can't take it away from me.”

“What are they taking?” Graham asked. “Who's taking it?”

Miss Ophelia let out a heart-rending wail.

“It's Cedar Hills,” Miss Noreen said in her quiet, soothing voice. “She was getting ready for evening services when she got word that it's been confiscated for back taxes. They're also taking her town house.”

On a Sunday? Even the Yankees wouldn't be that cruel—or would they? “Who brought you the notice? Was it one of those Freedmen's Bureau men?”

“I could bear it easier from a stranger.”

“Who was it?” Graham asked.

Miss Ophelia sat up straight and wiped her eyes. “It was one of our own. Leonard Fitzwald.”

Graham looked as disgusted as Ellie felt. “I'd hardly call that weasel one of our own. What did he do—join the Freedmen's Bureau so he could serve confiscation notices? And still wearing a Confederate uniform?”

“He may look a little bit like a weasel, but his mother was from an old Natchez family, and Leonard was devoted to her. And his father helped us all establish our fortunes—” Miss Ophelia burst into tears again. “But mine is all gone now.”

Betsy jabbered and flailed her arms, and Ellie realized she had been so engrossed in Miss Ophelia's problem that she hadn't noticed the baby had stopped crying. At least that was something to be thankful for. “What did Leonard tell you?”

“The federal government has taken all my land and my town home because I didn't pay the taxes. But how were we to pay taxes when we had no crops?”

That was the dilemma for every planter in the Natchez area—for all of Mississippi.

“How soon must you leave your home?” Graham asked softly.

She bent over and crossed her arms over her stomach as if she was in pain. “I have a week, but I wish I never had to go back. I wish I could remember it as it was before the war, back when we were happy.”

“Graham...” Miss Noreen whispered the name, and when she had his attention, she gestured around the room, her brows lifted in question.

Of a sudden, Ellie understood Miss Noreen was asking Graham's permission to let her move here. Taking her in was the right thing to do—that was what you did for family—but another mouth to feed was the last thing Graham needed.

He nodded but held up one finger as if wanting to wait with that. “Do you have a plan?”

Miss Ophelia lifted her head. “I had one once. I'd planned to have lots of children to take care of me in my old age. But that didn't work out.”

It didn't work out.
Just as, according to Graham, none of Ellie's plans ever quite worked out. She pulled Betsy closer, hoping the child's body heat would drive away the sudden chill in her middle. But it didn't.

“Then you'll move in with us,” Graham said, patting her ample arm. “We have plenty of room, and it might be good for Father too.”

Miss Ophelia let out a halting sigh. “Graham, do you mean it? I wouldn't be too much trouble?” she said in a little-girl voice. “Leaving my home is the worst tragedy I can imagine. But I don't know where else I could go. And to live here with you, my family, in a gracious home like mine—it's more than I could have asked.”

“You could help me take care of Betsy,” Miss Noreen said.

Her eyes lit like the sunset over the Mississippi. “I could—yes, I could help.” She reached out her plump hands. “Ellie, dear, do let me hold her now.”

Ellie carried the baby to her, and the older woman snuggled her to her chest. “May I stay tonight, Noreen?”

“Of course. We'll send for your personal things tomorrow, and Graham and I will make a room comfortable for you tonight.”

“And my horse, Handsome Boy, and my runabout. Bless you, Noreen. I always did say you were my favorite of all the in-laws.” She looked around the parlor, floor to ceiling and wall to wall. “I've had tea here a hundred times since you married James, but I never dreamed this would be my home.”

“I'll be glad for your company.” Miss Noreen's tone said she meant it.

“I'm thankful you were able to keep this house. It's so elegant and beautiful, and I would have hated to see it leave your family.” Miss Ophelia dabbed at her cheeks as if leftover tears still lingered there. “Ellie, I never did figure out how you managed to get Magnolia Grove planted. You were wise to find a way to keep planting.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” The fear of experiencing this moment for herself—losing her home as Miss Ophelia was—had driven her. But of course Miss Ophelia wouldn't dream of that. Then again, Miss Ophelia knew little beyond entertaining and Natchez society life. That blessed woman never had to. How would she get by if not for family? The fact that she and her husband were of the finest families in Adams County certainly hadn't spared her. All the money and prestige they once had, all their social and business connections, all their earthly assets, could not prevent Miss Ophelia from falling into poverty, relying on her relatives for food and shelter.

And if this calamity could happen to Miss Ophelia, it could happen to Ellie.

The knowledge stuck in her throat and lodged there as if she'd swallowed a bone.

The difference was that Ellie had no relatives to run to. In fact, she had her uncle who depended on her to provide for him now.

Suddenly, her previous chill gave way to a cold sweat that started at her hairline and moved down to her neck, her spine, until she couldn't tell if she was too hot or too cold. Just as it had when Leonard came to gloat about the loan. To coerce her into marriage.