A Reckless Love, page 21
Mrs. Clancy remembered them, of course. No one who had seen Joelle would forget her.
“It’s the Daughtry girls!” the plump matron exclaimed as they walked in. “Did you change your mind about your friend’s homemade dress?”
Seeing the thundercloud forming on Joelle’s alabaster brow, Aurora intervened before her sister could sabotage her plans. “Oh, we’re keeping all our options open. I was hoping you would have a new sample or two that Joelle could try on while we’re here in town for the afternoon. Maybe something a little less . . . busy than the one we saw last time? We’d also like to look at veils.”
Mrs. Clancy brightened. “Certainly. Come this way, Miss Joelle, Miss Aurora.”
As she followed the shopkeeper deeper into the bowels of the store, Aurora felt as if she were wading into a bowl of meringue, and she remembered Joelle’s derisive description of the overdecorated dress she’d tried on last time. She had better figure out a way to truncate this experience, or Joelle was going to jump ship entirely. “Mrs. Clancy,” she began the fishing expedition, “I remember when we were here before, you mentioned your friend Mrs. Scully. Doesn’t she do some of the alterations for your customers? I have a dress that is a little too wide across the shoulders, and I’d dearly love to see what she could do with it.”
“Alterations?” Mrs. Clancy glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t know that she—”
“I’m sure I heard that somewhere,” Aurora interrupted. “I’ve got such a short amount of time in Oxford this afternoon, I wonder if I ought to go and visit her while you and Joelle enjoy looking at wedding dresses. Could you perhaps write down the Scullys’ direction for me?”
Aurora would never know whether Mrs. Clancy considered her overbearingly rude, missing a few screws, or simply misinformed (she was pretty sure what Joelle thought). But the poor lady complied without further protest, writing out a nice introduction on a piece of bridal shop stationery. Aurora tucked it into her reticule, gave Joelle instructions to “look at every piece of fabric and lace in the store,” and sailed out onto the brick walkway.
Joelle would probably give up in about five minutes, borrow a book, and sit in a corner until Aurora returned. But she didn’t care, as long as she got to Mrs. Scully. One thing she was determined not to do was let Zane down. One assignment. That was all she had, and it was exactly tailored for her best talents.
Talking, asking questions, making friends. She could do that.
However, ten minutes into a conversation with Dorothea Scully, she wondered if she had overestimated her skills.
The Scully home sat on a narrow street lined with identical cottages, inhabited mainly by rail employees, a short walk from the train station. Ford Scully, a Confederate veteran, had been the Oxford station telegraph operator since the end of the war. Aurora knew he had served under her father in Tennessee, but that was about all she had known until today.
Unfortunately, Dorothea Scully gave her little more as they sat in the small front parlor, sipping blackberry tea from chipped china cups.
“Mrs. Dorothea, thank you so much for your kindness in receiving me this afternoon. I don’t know how I got so confused about your connection to Mrs. Clancy. I could have sworn she said you took in some sewing.” Before the woman could so much as open her mouth to deny the misapprehension, Aurora gushed on, “But now that I’m here, I wonder if there’s anything I could do to make your husband’s incarceration easier to bear. People can be so mean when our loved ones come under the scrutiny of the law.”
Dorothea’s pale, doughy face didn’t even twitch, and her sad gray eyes remained fixed on her tea. “It’s been hard,” she admitted. “In fact, I wish I did have more skill with a needle. I could use the extra income.”
Flooded with unexpected compassion, Aurora set down her cup and reached for one of her hostess’s chapped hands. “My sisters told me your husband was a good friend of my father’s, and that he came to our house the day Papa died—to warn him, you know, that authorities were on the lookout for the survivors of their old wartime unit.”
Dorothea nodded. “Your father had come to see my husband one night a week or so before that. Mr. Scully tried to keep it from me, but I insisted he tell me the identity of the mysterious visitor.” She looked up at Aurora. “I could tell your father wasn’t right in the head. I was furious with my husband for getting mixed up in those train sabotages. I don’t think Mr. Scully set the explosives—that was your father’s part in the scheme—but he did intercept and pass messages between Mr. Daughtry and their—” Catching herself, she snatched away her hand, rattling her teacup in its saucer. “I mean, I—don’t mind me, I’m sure I misunderstood the whole thing.”
Aurora had enough sense to know when somebody had said more than they meant to. But if she pressed too hard, she would scare the woman away. She smiled as if she’d heard nothing untoward. “Men are so odd about what they think we women can understand, aren’t they? As a child, I used to sit right at my father’s feet and listen to him talk to his managers and business contractors as if I were no more than a porcelain decoration in the room. Later, I could—and often would—spout off nearly word for word to my mother what was said in that office.” She took a sip of tea and tried not to wince as she found it both cold and bitter. God, help me to handle this right, she prayed. “I imagine you heard General Alonzo Maney’s name more than once,” she said coolly.
Mrs. Scully stared. “How could you know that?”
Aurora restrained the urge to jump from her chair in victory. “The General was a well-known figure in Confederate military circles in the Tennessee theater during the war. He was my father’s commander, as your husband was under Papa’s command. I believe my father went to Mexico with him at the end of the war and stayed until President Johnson declared amnesty, though I’m a little hazy about where he went when he came back. Selah thinks he went to California to look for gold.” She tipped her head. “Perhaps your husband received correspondence to that effect? When did you and Mr. Scully marry?”
“We got married towards the end of the war. I was a nurse in a field hospital here in Oxford, and when Mr. Scully was invalided home, I treated him for extensive injuries he’d sustained while escaping enemy fire at Vicksburg. That was when he first told me of his friend Jonathan Daughtry, who had been imprisoned at Fort Douglas and subsequently escaped.” Mrs. Dorothea paused, then blurted, “You are correct that he escaped prosecution for military crimes and accompanied the general across the Mexican border. I believe Mr. Scully heard from him twice after he returned to the States and went to the gold fields.”
Aurora knew she had just uncovered important information, but she hadn’t Levi’s experience in interviewing witnesses. Where on earth should she take this conversation next? Common sense, Pete. “Poor Papa,” she sighed, looking down, but acutely aware of her hostess’s uncomfortable posture. “He missed our mama so much, and he was so angry over what those Yankees did to her. It’s no wonder his mind broke. Your husband was a good friend, trying to keep him from further imprisonment.”
“I don’t know so much about that,” Mrs. Scully hedged. “I think he was trying to protect himself as much as anything else.”
Aurora detected resentment in the woman’s tone. “Do you . . . do you feel that your husband deserves to go to prison for what he did?”
Mrs. Scully folded her arms across her bosom. “No woman wants to see her man humiliated. Like I said, it’s been hard, with Mr. Scully not here to take care of the man things about the house—and I got practically no income, now that the railroad isn’t paying his salary. But . . .” She wetted her lips and flicked a glance at Aurora. “I’d been a widow for nearly ten years when I got married to Ford Scully—I’d got used to living alone again and doing things my own way. But I loved my first husband and I liked being married. So when Mr. Scully came along and courted me, I jumped on it. Maybe a little too quick.” She sighed. “Besides, right is right, wrong is wrong. I’m not sure my feelings have anything to do with it.”
Aurora decided what she was going to do. “Mrs. Dorothea, I admire that sentiment more than I can say. So I’m going to tell you something and hope you believe me. Alonzo Maney is an evil, evil man. I’ve seen and heard evidence that he manipulated both my father and your husband—and probably a lot of other people—for his own personal gain, mainly for power and money. If you can produce some letters or other documents that would help law enforcement take him out of a position to keep hurting people, you would do a very great service to your community and your country. Will you help us?”
twenty–one
AS THE TRAIN LURCHED INTO MOTION, Aurora turned sideways in her seat and laced her fingers together in her lap. “I’ve decided on my first wish.”
They had taken the last train out of Oxford, switching to the connector at Holly Springs, which was scheduled to arrive in Tupelo by eight. His afternoon had been full of tedious reports, expense accounting, and trying to convince Judge Hill to admit Mrs. Scully’s testimony against her husband. The judge might or might not cooperate.
Resigned, Zane looked at Aurora. “Have you? What is it?” He had a feeling he was going to regret this rash agreement having to do with wishes. He had managed to head off her previous attempts to bring it up by probing the surprising depth of Joelle’s knowledge about Mississippi politics, but with no warning Joelle had fallen asleep, leaving Zane to fend for himself.
“I want you to tell me about your family.” Aurora stuck out her chin.
He frowned. “You didn’t say talking would be involved.”
“You didn’t ask.” Squirming, she settled her shoulder against the back of the seat. “Joelle told me you grew up in Indiana and worked in a gunpowder mill.”
“Yes. I was born in Delaware, though. My father was of French Huguenot descent, employed by the Duponts. My mother, I believe, was a descendent of the Delaware chief Hopocan. She died during the move to Indiana when I was about three. I don’t remember her.” If he thought that depressing bit of information would stop her questions, he had misjudged her.
She simply touched his hand in sympathy. “I’m sorry. Sager doesn’t sound like a French name, though.”
“It was originally St. Gérard, but it got anglicized over the years.”
“We’re very English and Scottish,” Aurora said, eyes twinkling. “Grandpapa turned up his nose at Frenchmen. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Just a sister, Jacqueline. She’s a little more than two years older than me.” She was going to ask, so he might as well give her the whole story. “After Ma died, our pa turned into a sorry drunk. Which is why I had to leave school and go to work in the mill. After a few years, Jacqueline started thinking it might help Pa to go west and start over. She’d heard about the Overland Express and wrote letters in Pa’s name, applying to run a station.”
“Your sister did that? How very . . . enterprising of her! She sounds like Selah.”
“Or you.” He couldn’t help a grin. “Jack would like you.”
“Jack?”
“She dressed as a boy for over a year, while she ran the station when our pa got drunk and passed out.” He paused and shrugged. “That happened a lot. And I was gone most of the time, either riding my route or catting around over at Fort Kearney. I didn’t take my oath of morality very seriously.”
That didn’t seem to bother her. “You’re not like that anymore.”
“No, I’m not, but—” He swallowed, met her gaze. “I clearly can’t be trusted alone with you.”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “That wasn’t entirely your fault. What happened to your father and Jack when the war started?”
“By then she had married a deputy marshal named Micah Fitzgerald. They’re still out west. Pa’s dead.”
“Hmm. Then you really are all alone.”
“Yep.”
“And you like it that way.” Her tone was bland, and she looked away from him, at her sleeping sister.
“No. I don’t like it.”
Her eyes flashed back to his. “Then—”
“But that’s the way it’s got to be.” He loaded the words, aimed them, and let them go. “Until Sam Jones is behind bars or dead, whichever comes first.”
Aurora lay awake beside Joelle, wishing she could undo that wish.
Not that she didn’t want to know about Zane’s family. But perhaps if she’d waited a little longer, he might have told her on his own. Maybe he wouldn’t have said in so many words that he had no intention of giving her space in his life. Instead, she had grown impatient again, forcing him to define boundaries.
She tried to think and pray through what God had already taught her about faith—and how she could apply it here and now. She seemed to remember reading that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Usually she could live as if God had her best interests at heart, even when there was no physical representation of it. Sadly, she now realized, that might be because her life had been singularly blessed to this point.
It was hard to believe in what she couldn’t see, when her heart stung with rejection.
Feeling that rejection, for the remainder of the trip home she’d withdrawn, and Zane had let her. He closed his eye—sleeping or pretending to sleep, she couldn’t tell—leaving her bracketed in silence between him and Joelle. How anyone could sleep with the train bumping and jarring one’s head against the seat was a mystery to Aurora, and her relief at pulling into the Tupelo station had her nearly sprinting for the exit. The three of them arrived at the Dogwood just in time to eat a late supper with Grandmama and the saloon girls. Rosie had cooked the meal—a rich, thick stew of chicken, Chinese-style dumplings, and rutabagas, the giant yellow turnip that grew in abundance at Daughtry House.
After the meal, Zane went up to the attic to confer with Deputy Mosley, leaving Aurora and Joelle to recount to Grandmama their adventures in dress design and interviewing reluctant witnesses.
Grandmama sipped her after-dinner Lapsang souchong tea (brought with her from Memphis) and asked incisive questions, which Aurora had to answer carefully in order to avoid incriminating herself.
“Did you promise this woman her husband would not go to jail?” Grandmama wanted to know.
Aurora picked at her nails. “I told her the judge would go easier on a man who repented of his sins.”
“You don’t know whether he has repented or not. Even if he does, you don’t know how the judge will rule. And what does his wife’s testimony have to do with Scully’s repentance?” Grandmama scowled. “Truly, your papa’s choice of companion always left much to be desired.” She cast a disparaging look about her. “A saloon, for heaven’s sake.”
Finding nothing useful to add to that observation, Aurora changed the subject. “Joelle, what do you think of Charmion’s reimagining of the painting? Isn’t it lovely?”
All five women looked up at the framed canvas now rehung over the piano. Playing off the name of the saloon-cum-boardinghouse, Charmion had painted a graceful dogwood branch with delicate green leaves and lacy pink-and-white blossoms on a background of pale blue-washed sky.
“It’s so pretty it makes me want to cry,” Joelle said. “I asked if she’d do another for me, and she said she’d see what she could do.”
Bedelia sniffed at the idea of crying over trees. “I kind of miss our bubble lady. Saucy look in her eye, that one.”
Joelle rolled her own big blue eyes. “I doubt that’s what the men appreciated about her.” She stood up, yawning. “Trying on veils wears me out. I’m going to bed. Coming, Pete?”
Aurora wasn’t tired, but she had no desire to make herself the sole target of Grandmama’s disapproving remarks. “I suppose.” She trailed in Joelle’s wake up the stairs, rather randomly responding to her sister’s remarks as they prepared for bed—until Joelle said with some asperity, “Pete, he is fighting so hard not to give in. Give him some room, and he’ll land himself.”
“He? What are you talking about?” Pausing in the act of braiding her hair into a long plait over her shoulder, Aurora stared at Joelle, who sat cross-legged on the bed, writing in her journal. “You weren’t asleep on the train, were you?”
Jo sighed. “Of course not. Who could sleep with all that noise and head-jarring? I thought he might talk to you if I bowed out of the conversation.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak of him as if he were a large-mouth bass. I don’t want to land him. I just want to understand why he’s so touchy.”
“He’s afraid. They’re all afraid. Afraid they won’t be good enough. Afraid they’ll be rejected. A million other ‘afraids.’”
“That’s—that’s unchristian.” Aurora twitched back the covers and climbed into bed.
“Isn’t it?” Joelle set her notebook on the side table and clasped her arms around her knees. “But we’re all afraid of something.”
“What are you afraid of? You went into a burning house to rescue your friend!”
Joelle winced. “Not one of my brighter decisions. The roof nearly fell on us all. Good thing Schuyler came in and carried Charmion out. Anyway.” She waved a hand. “I’ll tell you what terrifies me. The idea of testifying in a courtroom in front of a judge and a bunch of lawyers and the entire town. I’m like Moses—talking makes my brain freeze. I asked if I couldn’t just write down my testimony, but . . .” She shrugged. “Levi said no.”
“Well, if you’re Moses, then I’ll be your Aaron. I’ll be there and hold your arms up.”
Joelle smiled. “That’s so funny. That’s exactly what Selah said.”
“Then I’ll be Miriam. Or something. Never mind, we’ll both be in the courtroom praying. And so will Levi and Schuyler. You are brilliant, Jo. There’s nothing to worry about.”
After rewarding Aurora with a brief, affectionate hug, Joelle had blown out the lamp and instantly gone to sleep.
