Surrender at Orchard Rest (19 page)

The door slammed again behind her, and Joseph came out. He looked rested despite having gotten no sleep. Somerset marveled at how much of a soldier he still was despite three years of civilian living.

“Your dress is ruined,” he said.

“It’s only appropriate after our night. Did you manage to dry out?”

“I did. I see the rain is letting up. Did Sawyer make it out?”

“Yes.”

“I take it the two of you are done?”

“Yes.”

“I hate that, Somerset. Can you tell me why?”

“No, but he and I were not who we thought each other were.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes.”

“You won’t be going to Richmond for the longest time now,” said Joseph. “If you can find a bright spot in this mess, that would be it. Mother is on bed rest for the next month, and she’s to avoid visitors, traveling, and all excitement for the next three months. It’s going to be rough going here, I’m afraid.”

“I’d stopped worrying about it so much. I have a dozen roads I can take,” said Somerset. “I can forge my own path out of here if need be.”

“It’s just as well with cousin Myra coming. We’ll need a proper lady of the house with Mother being ill.”

“Do you think we need to telegram and cancel?” asked Somerset in horror. “Plead illness?”

Joseph came over and settled on the step beside her.

“No, I think it’s too late at this point to cancel. We’ll think of something,” he said. “We always do.”

“Do you think Dr. Harlow will tell everyone?” worried Somerset.

“I have his confidences that he won’t. We had a long conversation when we were drying out before the fire before he went home. He’s coming back after breakfast to check on Mother. The Harlows are good people, Somerset.”

“He didn’t pry much, I noticed.”

“He didn’t. I’ll give him credit for that, but Teddie’s portrait was on the floor beside her where she fell. It doesn’t take any imagination to connect the shattered laudanum bottle to the portrait. I nicked up the painting some, though, when I shot the bottle.”

“How did you think to do that?” asked Somerset. She confessed, “I thought you meant to kill her.”

Joseph laughed bitterly.

“I could have. It was the perfect opportunity. I could have said I was aiming for the bottle and simply missed it, and no one would have asked another word about it. Instead I acted in her favor—although I can’t say it was humane towards her—and now she’s lying upstairs priming herself for another round.”

“You’re a good man, try as you do to hide it. Sawyer just spoke about how miserable of an experience it must be to be you.”

“It isn’t as awful as all that. I have the winning hand in this game.”

“Do you?”

“As disagreeable as it is to be compared to him at all times, I just remember how fortunate I am not to be him. Now his was a life not worth living.”

“Excuse me?” Somerset felt perplexed.

“He was handsome, smart, and benevolent, of course, but can you imagine being Mother’s obsession? As flawless as he was, she was forever after him to be Uncle Theodore. There was a thankless task, believe me, although my curiosity is piqued enough that I’m going to find out all about him one day. She was always nagging Teddie, molding him, grooming him to be the savior of the Marshall name, a credit to her family. It’s no wonder he married Amelia and moved as far east as he could manage. Then, there’s the fact that he’s dead and I’m still here. I might have a chip on my shoulder and a glass in my hand, but I feel this wind in my hair and smell those fields flooded with rain. His life was short and brilliant, but I thank God daily that I’m not Theodore.”

Somerset shuddered.

“Don’t you think it strange what trouble people can cause when they’re dead?”

“The person who’s causing all the trouble is upstairs vomiting into a basin, and the next time she decides to die, she might not have anyone around to save her. She’s never threatened to kill herself before. I always knew she’d get to that threat, but I was shocked that she made it there this quick and tried it.”

Somerset made a vague noise as reply, and they sat in companionable silence. Several feet of sky were blooming in the east and the drizzle stopped. A handful of stars no larger than pinheads glimmered in the slate blue darkness, and the moon winked mischievously before disappearing into a bank of gun gray clouds. Somerset knew she should drag herself upstairs and relieve Victoria, but the motivation to stand was gone.

Thomas walked around the back corner of the house. He looked harried, but it was obvious he had changed into fresh clothing because his shirt was free of blood spatter. He approached them with purpose, but the set of his mouth stated he was uncomfortable. Joseph ran the plantation for him, but he had little experience in addressing Somerset or Victoria.

“I tried to spare you from living this day,” he said. “I convinced her that you should be at the ball enjoying yourselves. I hoped you would end up staying with the Russells. I never dreamed she’d try to—well. If it hadn’t been for the excellent marksmanship or the quick thinking about the syrup of ipecac, I don’t know what we’d be doing right now. She’s sick to her stomach and has numerous cuts from the flying glass, but she’ll be fine. I sent Cleo to sit beside her so that Victoria could go to sleep, and the little one doesn’t know that anything happened.”

“Yes, sir,” said Joseph.

Somerset examined his face. The lines around his mouth and eyes were more prominent than she remembered. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw him or spoke to him. She was no more at ease with Thomas than she was Blanche, although it was a different type of ill at ease, like trying to converse with someone and finding out they speak a different language. Yet his love was there. He still thought of them in his absence or he wouldn’t have sent them packing.

“I know less than I thought,” he said. His hands were jammed in his pockets like Joseph, and he pushed a piece of gravel along the bricks with the toe of a boot. “I took precautions. When we came to the anniversary of her brother’s death, I hid her journal. I’ve never understood the way she chronicles every detail of the bad and refers to it and over and over again later. Then when Theodore’s death date approached I burned the book, thinking if she couldn’t read about the specifics, her memories and her behaviors would be mellowed. I hoped I could burn the bad right out of our lives.”

Somerset swallowed and tried to assimilate the knowledge that the mild-mannered man who never had a word for anyone had gone to such trouble to try to keep the peace for them. Regardless of whether it had worked, she saw him as a hero. He was a gentle, silent hard worker, and she thought perhaps Victoria’s tender heart came from him. She could not fathom a time in his life when her mother would have been in a position to look down on him.

“What did you ever see—”

Thomas stopped her.

“I love her as deeply today as I did thirty years ago. I thought I could fix the disappointments and letdowns that began far too early in her life. I believed with enough kindness and consideration she would revert back to the smiling lighthearted girl I used to pray to waltz with in Richmond. She was so cheerful she used to put me in mind of a sunflower growing in the fields. I misjudged what her upbringing did to her, that’s all. Mrs. Marshall required so much of her that she never got over it. She gave me five children, and she still gets as excited about a wedding anniversary as a fresh bride. She can recite volumes of poetry by heart. She’s my wife.”

Thomas smiled at them. Somerset’s heart fluttered with the sentiment of the only real conversation she had ever had with the remote man. For a moment she understood him. Then he was headed toward the barn to check on a cow that was calving soon, and she was left with the sensation that she might have imagined the conversation.

“I want someone to love me the way he loves her.”

“To the point where they’ll blindly let you harm everyone around you?”

“I want to be with a man who sees my good potential.”

Joseph put his arm around her shoulders, and she fell asleep on his shoulder just as the top of the sun peeked over the horizon and the sounds of the night animals and birds quietened.

***

Blanche remained in her room without protests and submitted to Dr. Harlow’s daily visits without royal posturing or denials. She looked like a child as she rested in her oversized cherry poster bed with the blue canopies pulled back so she could gaze out her windows at everyone’s comings and goings. Dr. Harlow put her on strict bed rest with the likelihood of adding fasting and bleeding by leeches if she showed no signs of improvements. She was meek and compliant, but the most important aspect of her behavior to Somerset was that she was not apologetic.

Victoria, Cleo, Bess, and even Thomas and Joseph were willing to go into the room in shifts and watch her as they worked on mending, accounts, or whatever household duty could be managed from a chair. Somerset kept her chair in the hallway outside the bedroom door, leaving the door open so she could see inside.

“It isn’t bad being in there,” said Joseph. “She seldom ever talks. I think she’s mortified by her behavior. It will likely be smooth sailing for years now that a person outside of the family has seen her at her worst.”

Somerset’s response was to move her chair farther from the doorway. She didn’t bring up what most people in Century Grove noticed already. Joseph moved out of the house. He had gone upstairs the morning after Blanche’s attempted suicide and slept until dusk at which point he left the house with no explanation and stayed out of the house with the exception of his duty to watch Blanche, during which he would grab a new set of clothing to change into.

People noticed that he camped on the meager section of the river that just tapped into the back section of Orchard Rest. Joseph was well known for being an independent force who seldom bowed to convention, but his new living arrangement was suspect to several, including Evelyn Buchanan. She chattered to every member of Century Grove Episcopal that Blanche hadn’t been out and about lately, not since the night of Sarabeth’s ball when poor Dr. Harlow had to leave when he’d only just arrived. Wasn’t it a shame that the poor man couldn’t get one night off from tending all the ailments of the Grove? Just where was Blanche? And why was Joseph living on the river? It was difficult for the conversation to get far. People couldn’t contradict her because Mr. Buchanan was minister there. The Forrests were too large of a presence in the church, as were the Harlows. It was impossible to assemble much of a crowd before one member of the families came along eager to join the group and the conversation withered away before anyone could make conjectures.

With the exception of Joseph’s decamp from the house, life at Orchard Rest continued much as it always had. Thomas tried to limit his travel for the next two weeks to be assured that Blanche was doing better before he set off to New Orleans. He spent much of his spare time in her blue brocaded room reading her favorite books aloud to her or having a light meal with her. No pleasant, easy laughter drifted from the room, but passersby could see Blanche’s hesitant smile sometimes as she sat up in bed in her dressing gown and accepted her husband’s numerous overtures to spoil her.

The only other change to take place on the plantation was Thomas’s new rule that all the keys to the liquor cabinets be on his person. He did not wish Franklin to be confronted with Blanche’s wrath when she was able to get out of bed and so he personally scouted the parlors, the libraries, the dining hall, and all the guest rooms until he had accounted for every key to every cabinet on the plantation. He kept them on a large brass ring that he kept hooked on his belt loop at all times and even marked the bottles as a compliment to Blanche’s sheer will and tenacity. Blanche was served wine with her meals and had a nightcap at bedtime to try to keep her from becoming sickened from lack of drink. Somerset knew too well from her foray with hospital nursing what would happen to Blanche if they made her go dry at once.

Somerset and Victoria didn’t mind the new arrangement. Alcohol was costly, and as Somerset found out when it fell to her to manage the household accounts in Blanche’s absence, far too much cash was flowing out of Orchard Rest to satisfy everyone’s thirsts. It stupefied Somerset and then enraged her to find out that Warren’s shoes, Victoria’s new underthings, and her own desire for a nursing text or volume of Hamlet had been considered luxuries to be carefully budgeted for, but a shipment of scotch from New York passed muster every month. She would have liked to sell the scotch by the bottle to neighboring families in order to purchase the needs of her family members, but it would open them up to scrutiny so Somerset shrugged as Joseph carted multiple bottles from the cellar to the river and made a note in the margins of her ledger that next month Victoria was to have a new corset and three new shifts and Warren was to get two new shirts.

The day arrived when it was time to pick Myra up from the Tuscaloosa depot. It elated Somerset to have a distraction. The extra duties of preparing Orchard Rest for a guest burned up enough extra time that Cleo had to take extra shifts monitoring Blanche. Somerset busied her days with planning dinner menus, airing bedding, and washing curtains. She and Bess even climbed ladders to wash the expansive windows of the house until she could see herself in them. She even got down on her hands and knees and helped Bess and Franklin polish the wooden floors until they shone in the changing sunlight that foretells the dying of summer.

She found herself with Joseph rapping on Blanche’s bedroom door for the first time since the night of the ball to let Blanche know that they would be gone for most of the day retrieving Myra from the train station.

Blanche looked clear eyed but sweaty and shaky as she sat up among the many pillows that littered her bed. Her hair was in a braid that Bess had coiled around and around her head and pinned in place to keep it out of her eyes. Somerset thought she looked as if she wore a tall, gleaming coronet and sniffed at the sight of her. Blanche looked eager to see her as she leaned forward across the mountains of counterpane toward her.

“We are going to the Tuscaloosa depot to pick up Cousin Myra,” said Somerset, without a greeting or asking how she felt. “Victoria, Bess, and Cleo will take turns looking after you, and I don’t expect that you’ll require anything extra before we arrive home.”

The steel in her voice surprised her. She was as inanimate as ordering a servant to remove her breakfast tray.

“I didn’t realize she’d be here this soon,” said Blanche. “Whose room did you give her?”

“I made up two. I would prefer her in one of the wings away from the main house since I never can tell what will go on here, but I also prepared Helen’s room, realizing that she would probably like to be near family.”

“Good, good,” praised Blanche. “I trust you aired all the bedding? You waxed all the floors?”

“I did all of those things. You’d find that I was most thorough and efficient if you weren’t on bed rest. I scrubbed and whitewashed the verandah and washed the windows.”

Blanche smiled.

“I know you did everything that Orchard Rest required of you.”

“I was more concerned with your current illness. Do you wish Myra to come to your room? Or shall I say you’re too ill to receive guests?”

“I do want to see her. I haven’t seen her since before the war. She’ll be a grown woman by now. She was the funniest little girl. She reminded me of you. She always said just what she thought and asked the most direct questions. She could make a room full of people smile with no effort at all. She might just be what we all need around here.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Somerset. “If your own children don’t satisfy you, I have doubts that someone else’s would please you. She is a Marshall, of course, but she wasn’t raised by your standards. She’ll probably be just like someone off the street.”

Somerset left the bedroom as smoothly and quickly as though she had wheels instead of feet under her vast skirts, with Joseph telling Blanche a quick good-bye before he darted into the hallway behind her.

Most of the drive to the Tuscaloosa depot was silent. The chores that required ticking off each day with Blanche in bed requiring twenty-four-hour surveillance from another member of the household seemed to multiply. How things could be any busier than when Joseph was sick was a mystery to them both, but Somerset thought Joseph was vital enough to the success of the farm that perhaps she should redouble her efforts to attend her mother and let Joseph get back to tending the fields and mending fences.

“You were curt back there,” commented Joseph.

“I thought I was polite.”

“You stung her with every word.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I can’t live off the land like you so I have to live in the house with her. You survive your way, and I’ll survive mine.”

Somerset bit her lip. She admired and liked Joseph, cherishing most of his failings to a fault, so filled with adoration for him was she. Yet she spent most of their precious time together sparring with him. She never intended to, but Joseph had an efficient way of getting down to business whenever there was an issue, and he had a knack for calling everyone out on their weaknesses. Even though she was in a pet, he was looking at her out of his hazel eyes as if he could see that she didn’t want any verbal jousting and he was reconsidering saying anything else.

“Mother is a tyrant and I said plenty the night she tried to die,” he acknowledged. “I think life is going to go one way or another soon, meaning she’s going to turn for the better or the worse soon. The fit she threw that night can’t be sustained. No one has the energy to drift in the balance when it consumes so much energy. I think she’ll snap out of it and be the heroine that Papa remembers or I think she’ll realize just how much she craves death and succeed at it. We won’t always be living in the midst of such tension.”

“I wasn’t trying to argue with you,” said Somerset. “I don’t know what gets into me. I forget we’re fighting on the same side sometimes.”

“We aren’t just brother and sister, you and I. I like to think we’re friends like Sawyer. I’ve been rethinking something.”

“What?”

“Do you think I owe Victoria an apology for what I said?”

“It wasn’t really what you said. It’s hard to demand an apology for truth. It’s how you said it. I’m inclined to let it blow over by pretending it never happened.”

“I wasn’t trying to offend her. I was only expounding on what a prison we all share.”

“She knows, I think.”

“I’ll apologize if you think I should.”

“I’d let it rest, Joseph.”

“Gladly.”

“I noticed you paid plenty of attention to Ivy Garrett at the ball.”

“I did, didn’t I? She’s a nice girl. It was a curious change of pace for me.”

“For that reason, I wish you wouldn’t pay her any mind. She’s a dear. She takes everyone seriously because she’s so genuine. I don’t want her to be anyone’s change of pace.”

“I can be genuine.”

“She’s even sweeter than Victoria. If you aren’t interested, do ignore her.”

“I wasn’t mindlessly flirting. I just happened to notice her for the first time that night. All I ever saw of her was the sweetness. She has a mind I’d like to get better acquainted with—she seemed to know you well. It entertained me to hear her call you out like that about your beau.”

“You do like your women brash.”

“With the exception of Caroline, yes. That woman is like a factory. She’s always manufacturing some plan, some sale, some fundraising event extraordinaire. She asked me about the farm, and I actually demurred because I knew she would tell me I was breaking the horses the wrong way or that she knew some better way of storing cotton. It never ends with her. After listening to Caroline for a couple of hours, a dance with Ivy seemed some utopian retreat.”

“She is cleverer than you’ve ever noticed. She’s covered for me scores of times when I’ve needed to slip in or out of the house. She handles Mother like a doll, and Mother would never think to question her when she stands there with those huge eyes looking as innocent as you please.”

Joseph cackled in delight.

“I’ll ask her next time I see her. She must have ten years’ worth of stories about you.”

“She does, and they’re all true. I remember we shared a governess for our lessons for about eight months when we were fourteen. The poor lady became a maid afterward.”

“I’ll ask her for a walk then after the business with getting Myra settled subsides.”

They were at the depot now. Somerset’s stomach contracted with the busyness of it. She was fascinated with the train station. It made her realize how small the Grove and even Tuscaloosa were in comparison to the rest of the world. The world was a massive unknown place to her. She had traveled to Charleston to see Teddie’s children and to Richmond numerous times to see Grandmother Marshall, as unpleasant an experience as she could imagine. She loved Baton Rouge, though. It was the only place that she could imagine Blanche as a real person with hopes and dreams and good intentions. Blanche had been so oddly happy in Louisiana that she shone with the nostalgia of her privileged youth. She knew all the streets and lanes and back roads. She led the family down cobblestoned paths in pursuits of foods that struck Somerset as foreign after years of eating them, and her laughter seemed from the belly instead of a restrained titter. Other than those trips, Somerset was only familiar with Atlanta. She saw every square inch of Atlanta on foot with Sawyer at her side as they scrutinized every patient, every corpse, and every stray limb in the whole city. She’d visited the landmarks there but had seldom bothered to look up and view them. Most of the time her gaze was directed down, and she would have been blinded to signage and painted glass, along with anything else pleasant, had she bothered looking up.