Beyond All Measure (15 page)

Ada smiled. “Mr. Caldwell can be very persuasive.”

“What does persuasive mean?”

“Convincing.”

“Oh. How come he didn’t come to the celebration? Pa said he’s working at the mill all day. On a holiday!”

“Sometimes holidays can make grownups feel sad. This one reminds Mr. Caldwell of friends he lost in the war.”

“Yeah. Like Billy Rondo. Billy Rondo was Mr. Wyatt’s best friend in the whole world, until he grew up and met my pa. Now my pa is his best friend. But I bet he still misses Billy Rondo.”

“I’m sure he does. Miss Lillian told me about the time Mr. Caldwell and his friend Billy built a raft and went exploring on the river.”

Robbie’s eyes went wide. “By themselves?”

“I believe so.” Ada smiled. “That must have been exciting.”

Just then, she saw Wyatt striding across the park toward them. He met her eye, and the thunderous expression on his face set off warning bells in her head. “Would you excuse me, Robbie? Here he comes now.”

THIRTEEN

Wyatt stopped in front of Ada, a wrinkled copy of the
Gazette
in his hand. “I thought we had reached an understanding.”

Ada’s mouth went dry. Clearly he was angry enough to send her packing without a moment’s regret. She waited, her heart kicking.

His eyes blazed. “I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t pursue this hatmaking scheme so long as you’re looking after Aunt Lil . . . and now this!”

He pointed to the ad. As promised, Patsy Greer had added a drawing of a feathered hat to the ad copy beneath “Hats by Ada.”

Seeing her hopes spelled out in print made them seem possible and gave her courage. She crossed her arms and tucked her hands under them. “It isn’t a
scheme
, Mr. Caldwell; it’s a legitimate business venture. Believe me, I know the difference. Furthermore, we didn’t
agree
on anything. You laid down the law and left, assuming I’d bow to your wishes.”

He sighed. “I don’t wish to pull rank here, Ada, but—”

“Yes, I know. I work for you. I couldn’t cancel it this week even if I’d wanted to. You might have noticed that the roads are a mess. Libby Dawson didn’t show up for the soiled laundry, which means I had to do the washing and dry it all indoors. And I am sorry to say that your aunt had another of her spells the day before yesterday.” She pushed up her sleeve to reveal four purple bruises and a cross-hatching of long red scratches on the underside of her wrist. “She mistook me for an intruder and fought like a wildcat.”

Concern softened the hard planes of his face. “I’m sorry. Is she all right now?”

“She’s fine. Visiting with some of her friends over there by the food tables. She hasn’t been neglected, I assure you.”

The musicians began warming up. Ada felt empty, defeated. “You have me at a disadvantage, Mr. Caldwell. I need this job.”

He nodded, his lips tightening. “Then act like it.”

She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all, to convince him somehow of the utter impossibility of her situation. But creating a scene would only make them both angrier. She forced herself to speak calmly. “I will cancel the ad as soon as possible. For now, I’d like to enjoy the concert. If you have no objection.”

The muscle in his jaw jumped. “No. No objection at all.”

She turned on her heel, retraced her steps, and took her place on the blanket beside Mariah.

The musicians began with Stephen Foster tunes that soon had the audience clapping and singing along. As the music segued into “Dixie” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” former Rebel soldiers, many of them near tears, stood and removed their hats. Dressed in tattered gray uniforms, they looked older than their years, but their grief and pride were palpable.

But not everyone in the crowd felt the same. A knot of unionists standing near the gazebo began a loud chorus of jeers, drowning out the last notes of the song. Someone yelled a string of curse words. Someone else threw a punch, and the melee was on.

Despite her anger and frustration, Ada couldn’t help seeking Wyatt in the crowd. He remained where she’d left him, his worn Stetson in his hand, his sea-blue gaze locked on hers. She understood the pain that he was feeling in this moment, the worry that the divisiveness of the war might never heal. She returned his gaze, feeling something fleeting and precious pass between them. She regretted their argument. She hated knowing that he was disappointed in her.

The sheriff, his face red from the heat, waded into the fracas and separated the men. Some retreated to the far side of the park; others gathered their families and started for home. The concert continued with classical pieces that reminded Ada of home, her father, and that last painful evening in his crimson and gilt study, listening to Edward dispassionately dismantling her future. Coupled with her impasse with Wyatt, the memory was too much. To her complete horror, she began to sob, her shoulders heaving.

“Ada?” Mariah leaned toward her until their foreheads were touching. “Are you all right?”

“You must excuse me, I—”

“Come with me.” Mariah led her through the crowd and along the footpath to a secluded spot beneath the trees. “Now, what’s the matter?”

Ada pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve and blotted her face. “That song, the Mozart piece, was m-my fiancé’s favorite. I thought I was past caring for him, but—”

“The song brings back all those old feelings.”

Ada nodded. “I have no one to blame but myself.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I am hopelessly naive and a terrible judge of character. Why couldn’t I see his true nature? Surely there were clues, if only I hadn’t been too stupid to see them.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Mariah said. “Love is often blind. But isn’t it better to know the truth than to harbor false hope?”

“I suppose. But I can’t help wondering whether things would have been different if my father had stayed out of it. He convinced Edward to break our engagement. He
paid
Edward a lot of money to trample on my dreams.”

“Oh, Ada. Are you certain of this?”

She nodded. “I overheard Father talking to Aunt Kate about it.”

“I’m sure that was a hard thing to accept.”

Ada dabbed her eyes, picturing that last evening with Edward in the parlor of her father’s house—the falling snow, the fire snapping and crackling in the grate. Edward standing before the mantel, resplendent in his ship captain’s uniform, his beard turning to burnished gold in the firelight, his deep voice resonant as he shattered her dreams.

“Ada?” Mariah placed a gentle hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

Ada took a deep breath and nodded. “The night Edward called off our wedding, he promised me—he swore a solemn oath—that one day he would explain everything. For a while I held on to that. I thought that if I only understood the
why
of it, I could accept it. But of course he broke that promise too. I wrote to him twice after my father died, but I haven’t heard a word.”

“Did you ask your father about it?”

“I wanted to. But at first I was too angry. And then he died suddenly.”

“That’s too bad. Was it his heart?”

“That would have been a mercy.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “A gaslight exploded in the theater. There was a flash fire. Father and my aunt were in our box in the balcony and couldn’t get out before the whole building collapsed.” She braided her fingers together. “Ten others were lost as well.”

Mariah took her hand. “I had no idea!”

“I was supposed to go too, but I was angry with Father and Aunt Kate. She disapproved of everything I did and took his side in every argument. That night I refused to leave the house. We fought about it. And then I never saw them again.”

“You poor thing. I am sorry.”

“And now I’ll never know why he convinced Edward to abandon me. I can’t forgive either of them.”

Mariah’s brown eyes filled. “You believe your father’s interference ruined your life. But suppose he saw in your Edward the things you couldn’t see—things that would have brought you even greater pain had you married.”

Ada shrugged and smoothed the pleats in her skirt.

“What if, in sending your fiancé away, your father carved out a new and better path for you? One that will lead to greater happiness than you might have had with Edward? Isn’t that possible?”

“I don’t know. I never thought of it that way.”

“Think of our heavenly Father,” Mariah urged. “Sometimes we don’t understand his ways, and yet if we are faithful in following the path he sets for us, we find more joy than we ever could have imagined.”

Ada sighed. She wasn’t sure she believed that, but Mariah’s quiet smile soothed her heart. She envied Mariah the pure certainty of her faith.

She wadded her handkerchief into a tight sodden ball. “I want to believe that life won’t always be so difficult and lonely, but every day is the same. Watching out for Lillian and keeping the house tidy is exhausting. Scrimping and saving for my future is a struggle. It’s hard to see how anything will change.”

“I know.” Mariah’s voice was gentle. “But I’m confident that in God’s time you will find a man worthy of your affections.” She smiled. “I saw you talking with Wyatt Caldwell earlier.”

“He’s angry with me because of my advertisement in the
Gazette
. He insists that I cancel it and forbids me to pursue my millinery business as long as I am employed as Lillian’s companion.” Ada sniffed. “It isn’t fair.”

Mariah shook her head in sympathy. “He can certainly seem intractable sometimes, but you can look all over Tennessee and never find a man with a kinder heart. When my daughter drowned, Sage got roaring drunk and stayed that way for a week. It was the only time he ever touched spirits. He was inconsolable. I was scared that I’d lost him too.”

“I didn’t realize you’d lost a child. That must have been unbearable.”

Mariah nodded, her brown eyes luminous with unshed tears. “Wyatt stayed by our side day and night until Sage came to his senses. Somehow a funeral was arranged and all our bills were paid. When Sage went back to the mill, Wyatt never said a word about any of it. To this day, he still hasn’t.”

Mariah smiled and took Ada’s arm. “It’s nearly noon. We should help the others set the food out. Are you all right now?”

“I’m fine. And mortified. I don’t usually give in to my tears.”

“Founders Day is always emotional around here.” Mariah linked her arm through Ada’s and they returned to the park. “Give Wyatt some time. He’s a fair-minded man. He’ll come around.”

Wyatt leaned against the wheel of the buckboard and watched Ada and Mariah emerge from the trees. He was sure Ada had told her friend about their dustup this morning. Women were like that— able to tell each other the most embarrassing or troubling things and be fairly certain of a sympathetic response. He could tell from the set of Ada’s shoulders that she was unhappy, and he wished he’d been more diplomatic in his dealings with her. But being around her evoked old resentments, and sometimes they took over.

Of course it wasn’t her fault that she happened to be from the same town as Reginald Cabot. Until she arrived, he hadn’t let himself think about that double-dealing cheat—the sorriest excuse for a man that Wyatt had ever met. The one who had cost the Caldwells a hundred acres of prime ranchland and, for a while, their sterling reputation among their fellow ranchers.

He couldn’t forget the day Cabot arrived at the Caldwell place with a proposal to channel water from the river to the ranches in the area. The man came prepared with a bunch of fancy charts and tables showing how much water could be diverted, how many more head of cattle each acre would support, how much profit each rancher could expect once the system was in place. He approached Wyatt’s father first. As the owner of the largest ranch in the region, Jake Caldwell was the key to convincing his neighbors to support the plan.

Dad was no fool. He’d been around long enough to know that in drought years the river turned to sludge and, channels or no, a certain percentage of cattle would die. That was a fact any Texas rancher had to accept. But Cabot had a ready answer. He promised to build a reservoir to collect water during rainy spells and release it during dry ones. All that was needed was a financial investment to make it all a reality.

Finally, his objections overcome, Dad wrote a check and convinced three of his neighbors to invest as well.

But the channel was never dug, the reservoir never built. And Wyatt’s father was labeled a fast-talking swindler, even though he lost more money than any of them.

Wyatt was furious, not only for the loss of the land, but for the sullying of the Caldwell name. He wanted to hire a detective to find the elusive Yankee con man and bring him back south for a healthy dose of Texas justice. But his father wanted to let it go. He was getting older; he wanted to live out his life in peace. He sold off some land to repay his neighbors every penny.

That wasn’t enough for Wyatt. Still determined to bring Cabot to justice, he traveled to Boston and hired an expensive Massachusetts lawyer to recover Jake’s investment. But he soon learned that one set of laws existed for the rich and powerful and another for everybody else. Cabot’s family name and connections kept him from having to pay for his crime. The injustice of it all still rankled.