Surrender at Orchard Rest (22 page)

The starkness of the rooms, the blankness of the bones of the house, made her shiver with imaginings as always. It caused her many more happy thoughts than if every item she and Eric ever owned was placed just so within it. Her imagination was rich and she dreamed new fantasies as she worked her way through the house. Before today she and Eric had read Theodore’s letters in matching green wingchairs before the crab orchard stone fireplace. They hung their first family portrait in the dining room above a magnificent mahogany table. She’d hit her thumb with the hammer and he’d kissed it but teased her ruthlessly for her clumsiness. They’d knelt in the small bedroom over a little maple cradle that truly resided in there and doted upon a sweet sleeping creature nestled among many blankets knit by her own hands. They’d eaten breakfast in bed every morning for weeks and made the servants whisper about them. Her daydreamed memories went on and on as she turned every corner in the house. Her imagined inexperienced girlish self swept through the place in dresses of sapphire blue and orchid pink and giggled when the flapjacks burned and waited impatiently at the window seat for the sight of a black head of hair to flash by in the evenings.

She stopped in the bedroom that just missed the morning sunlight and would be an ideal place for a baby and dragged out the tiny maple cradle. It was the last gift Eric gave her and all the more precious because it came from his two hands. It resided on a base and was hinged so that she could sit and rock a baby for hours with no more effort than breathing, just by nudging it with a foot or knee if that was all she had free. She had no idea how she was to get it home. She’d forgotten about it, just as she always forgot that of all the qualities to be admired about him, his excellent woodworking skills were almost chief. She tied a string around her finger to remind her to see if there was a leftover pallet outside that her mare might be able to drag.

The only other room that contained anything of hers was their bedroom. The bedframe that Eric had shipped from a furniture maker he’d encountered in Savannah resided in there. It wasn’t technically hers so she couldn’t take it but hated the sight of it propped against the wall unused. She wiped her fingertips across the deeply carved walnut frame and was dismayed when a thick coating of dust came away with them. The carved posts on it were magnificent. He’d known how she disliked the canopy beds that abounded at Orchard Rest. She told him countless times how they reminded her of shutting herself away in a coffin at night.

Beyond the bed was the rosewood chest Eric carved to keep their mementos in. It was where he kept the onyx brooch that fell from her dress on the night of the still-talked-about dance when he swapped seats to catch her attention. She fingered the smooth dark surface of the brooch as she sorted through the contents of the box. There was a handkerchief that still smelled of the expensive Parisian perfume she used to wear, a dried-up corsage from some faraway night in Tuscaloosa, and an almost-empty bottle of champagne from the night they were engaged. His law degree lay in the bottom of the chest with browned, curling edges and next to it sat a compass that his father had carried in the Mexican War. She balanced the rusty thing in her hand and watched the needle as if expecting it to point her to greater purpose than sifting through a box. She would keep them all, she decided. She knew of their presence and the Rutherfords did not or else the contents would not still be in the house. Her Bible rested beside his, both heirlooms with peeling leather covers and rough binding. Next was their massive family Bible with the pages to record their children’s births, parents’ deaths, and the grainy passage of time. It was given to them by none other than Joseph, a long-forgotten engagement present. Then there was a pair of crystal wine glasses given to them by Mrs. Garrett. The cut glasses were sharp enough to make her anxious about holding them, and they reflected the rainbow somewhere no matter how they were held. Her sketch pad, filled with blurry line drawings of pansies and still lives, was crumpled in one corner. Finally, there was an ancient green marble that Eric said was as old as glass-making and a striped jasper arrowhead. They had found them after docking their canoe at Riverside on separate occasions. No sooner had they stepped onto the silt soil of the riverbank than the tokens had turned up, hoping to be treasured after years of abandonment. They were both small enough to stuff in her pocket so she did and was happy to be able to feel their smooth and sharp outlines against her fingertips anytime she wanted. She would have to see if a rug or pallet could be hitched to the horse to get the entire chest home.

“Here is the jewel in the box,” said a resonant voice.

She jumped and then turned around to face the danger, the inkling phantoms that were Wilson’s Raiders causing her hair to stand on end.

Eric—no, Phillip Russell stood smiling genially in the center of the room.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t know anyone was in here, least of all you. It seems we’ve gone from Blind Man’s Bluff to hide-and-seek.”

She wrapped her arms around herself for comfort and then patted her pocket to reassure herself of its valuable contents.

“I didn’t hear you come up. You nearly scared me to death.”

“I didn’t know I needed to warn someone of my presence.” He grinned. “What place is this? It wasn’t here the last time I visited the Grove.”

“I call it the Unnamed House,” said Somerset. “Eric Rutherford built this house for us to live in before he died. I think of it as mine, but it isn’t. It went to his family after he died.”

“The Unnamed House,” repeated Phillip, turning in place and looking over the room. “It doesn’t look real.”

“He tried to base it on the plantation my mother lived in in Louisiana. It’s a tribute to me, my preferences, and the love he had for me. I’d give anything for it to be mine.”

“A sort of Taj Mahal then.”

“Far better,” she flashed.

“Touché.”

Somerset knew it wasn’t a good idea to be alone with him in an abandoned house on the Rutherfords’ property, but he was too interesting to let alone. She felt compelled to sit down on the chest and invite him to sit down on the window seat. She was rattled that she’d managed to forget about him so soon after the most exciting social event she’d taken part in as an adult. He was a new handsome stranger forgotten in the tumult of the past few days. She drank in the blue eyes and dark hair while trying to look bored. She felt it in the center of her stomach that she wanted to touch him, caress the curve of a bicep or the musculature of a hand, so she turned the arrowhead between her fingers and waited for him to say something else.

He sat down on the rosewood chest so that he was too near her.

“So you roam around crypts when you aren’t doing the work of a kitchen maid?” he asked.

Somerset looked down at her plain calico work dress with several lard smears on the front and cursed herself for not checking the mirror before she went out.

“This isn’t a crypt. I came to rescue a few precious keepsakes, and now I don’t know how I’m going to get them all home. If I look like a kitchen maid, it’s because I work as a kitchen maid most of the time. We aren’t all fortunate enough to be wealthy and well-dressed all the time.”

“I think you look charming in that dress. I wasn’t trying to make you angry with me. I’m just getting to know you better. I have a habit of being forceful although I’m learning to rein it in. You’re disarmingly complex, and the more I see you, the more questions I’ll have about you. It’s a compliment. I find most people to be transparent and dull-witted, but just when I think I know what you’re going to say next, you surprise me.

“I should have known the house was yours from the moment I laid eyes on it. It’s just as surprising and lovely as you are.”

It was always on the tip of her tongue to ask him who he was. The answer couldn’t be as simple as Sawyer’s elder brother. That would be too simple. Her insides turned upside down around him. His compliments were outrageous but delivered in much the matter as discussing whether it would rain or when a meal would be served. He had the uncanny ability to stay two steps ahead of her in conversation. The two characteristics together somehow made her feel beautiful but foolish. She wanted to slap his mouth, but she also wanted to kiss it. She walked away from the trunk that he made his seat and settled on the window seat across the room from him where she felt safer in spirit.

His gaze followed her across the room.

“What is that dark painted silhouette there on the wall that you’re sitting by?” Phillip asked, pointing to her left.

Somerset looked over her shoulder at it, already knowing what he referenced.

“Eric had that painted before he died. It’s a silhouette of him holding me. It’s the most romantic gesture anyone has ever made for me.”

She heard the softness in her voice as she looked at the crisp gray image. They stood in profile. The man’s hands were on the woman’s waist. Her arms went up and around his neck. She was looking up at him so that her back arched back gently while his face angled down.

I’ve never seen anything like it,” remarked Phillip. “I’d much prefer a full color portrait of the two of you although your outline is beautiful. It is sentimental. No wonder you never married after him.”

“No, it’s no wonder at all.”

“Your face changes when I talk about him.”

“My heart changes when you talk about him.”

“I’d like to hear more about him.”

“I think you can deduce everything you need to know about him from this house and the painting behind me.”

“I see how he appealed to your romantic side, but those things don’t tell me much about the man, the person who got up and earned a living. Come, help me know my cousin better.”

“He was a lawyer on a family mission to get a Rutherford in Congress. They do love their politics, their government, and their organizational involvement, but I’m sure you’ve noticed all that being part of the family.

“He was calm and relaxed to be accomplished. Nothing ruffled him. He possessed a surety, a self-confidence that was unusual. Joseph says he was logical and it makes sense to me—whether it was a legal issue or a matter of the heart, he had an uncanny ability to sort the ramifications of a problem and settle it. I call it intellect but no matter.

“We used to go riding for whole afternoons and evenings. We’d stop on the river and catch fish and build a fire to cook them on. One time we were caught in the rain just as we got the fish into the frying pan and we were soaked to the skin and lost our supper, too. We didn’t care, though. We dried out before the fire and raced home. He never let me win in a race. If I won, I had to do it fair and square. I respected that about him. He appreciated me as a woman but he didn’t make silly allowances for it. He wanted a wife to be a partner.”

Somerset realized how much she was saying and how Phillip’s eyes were locked on her and she stopped talking.

“Go on. I was enjoying what you have to say.”

“He had hobbies galore,” remembered Somerset. “He carved the chest you’re sitting on. His could carve nearly anything with not much more than a pocketknife. I remember the archway he carved for his sister, Caroline, to get married under. It was ripe with pomegranates and honeycomb and all these beautiful natural things carved into the wood. They were all fertility and prosperity symbols, although most people didn’t notice. They were too in awe of the craftsmanship.

“With his steady hands and eyes he was good at everything, like my brother Theodore. It follows that he was an excellent shot. He could hit anything from any distance. He was a sniper during the war with Joseph, Sawyer, and Theodore. They were in the same troop, and they called their little quartet “The Brotherhood.” I was comforted that they were out there protecting each other. They became the four most important people in my life. So long as they had each other nothing could happen to them. I used to sit on the stone posts flanking the gates of Orchard Rest and wait for their homecoming. Eric didn’t return, though.”

“His is a life worth hearing about. You make me sorry I didn’t know him better.”

“Well, I knew him better than anyone, and I’m left wanting to know more about him.”

“You mentioned loving nursing. I assume you nursed during the war?”

“I ran away to Georgia to look for Eric’s body. I stayed with a relative. Mother demanded I come home, but by the time she had located me, I was on every nursing committee in town. She received dozens of letter extolling my virtues and usefulness and let me stay in Atlanta a while longer.” Somerset laughed. “I was being selfish at heart. I thought I had a greater chance of finding Eric if I worked seven days a week, but ultimately I enjoyed my work. It taught me compassion, which I desperately needed, and revealed to me a whole world of people with all their flaws and strengths and sufferings.”

Phillip raised an eyebrow in surprise. He scooted off his makeshift seat and approached her.

“See? No one would think in eons that those kinds of thoughts were going on inside your head.”

“You mean that no one would think to look beyond the color of my eyes or the smile on my lips?”

He rested a hand on the lower curve of her jaw. Somerset smelled pine and light cologne with a hint of cloves. She took a step away and circled behind him for the bedroom door while praying that she was successful at hiding the excitement on her face. She’d have to come again for her belongings but it was no matter compared to the titillation of being trapped alone with him. She wanted to move closer to him, an excellent indication to get away from him, to her thinking.