Beauty for Ashes (6 page)

THREE

“Could you finish these for me, Carrie?” Mary set the rolling pin aside and brushed flour from her fingers. “I haven’t felt well all morning.”

In the week since the wedding Mary had come up with a thousand excuses rather than help with chores. So far, making biscuits was her only contribution. Now apparently the poor dear wasn’t even up to rolling out dough for their midday meal.

Carrie bit back a refusal. Last Sunday’s sermon had been about serving others, being the hands and feet of Christ. How could she refuse to follow his perfect example?

“In a minute.” She shifted the heavy bucket of water she’d just drawn from the pump and headed for the stove.

“Mama, look what we found.” Caleb yanked the door open and rushed inside. “Ain’t he a beauty?”

Carrie dropped the bucket and let out a loud scream. Water poured over her shoes and soaked the hem of her skirt. “Get that snake out of my house this instant.”

“For mercy’s sake, calm down, Carrie,” Mary said. “It’s only a common garden snake. It’s harmless. I figured a farm girl like you would know that.”

“I don’t care. I want it out. Now.”

Caleb stood there, letting the lime-green snake wind through his fingers. He turned his freckled nose up at Carrie. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Henry came in with a load of wood for the cook stove, Joseph at his heels. “Mary, honey? What’s all the commotion? What’s going on here?”

“Your sister had a screaming fit because Caleb brought in a little-bitty snake.” Mary set the half-empty pan of biscuits in the oven and slammed the door. “I realize she hasn’t spent much time around little boys, but honestly, she simply must adjust. She’s making my children fearful. I won’t have it.”

Henry sighed and dumped the wood into the box. “Just give her some time. This is a big change for all of us.”

“Excuse me, Henry,” Carrie said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop talking about me as if I’m feebleminded or not even in the room.”

“Now, Carrie, don’t get your dander up.” He motioned for Caleb to take the snake outside. “I’m simply trying to make peace in the family.”

“We’re not a family.”

Henry picked up her overturned water bucket and set it on the table. “You know that isn’t so.”

“A family takes care of each other. Accommodates each other. But the only one who has been doing any accommodating around here is me.” Carrie turned away and busied herself with setting out their glasses.

Mary spun around, her calico skirt swirling, and took a stack of plates from the shelf beside the sink. She plopped them onto the table, fetched a pot of coffee from the stove, and tossed a bowl of diced potatoes into the skillet. “Don’t bother yourself about these potatoes, Carrie. I’ll accommodate you and fix them myself.”

Henry cleared his throat. “You’ll never guess who showed up at the mill yesterday.” He sat down at the table, poured himself a cup of coffee, and opened the Knoxville newspaper that had arrived at the post office on Thursday. “Wyatt Caldwell stopped by. I think he misses the mill, despite loving his ranch down in Texas.”

“Really.” Mary salted the potatoes and flipped them with her spatula. Steam wafted through the room. “Was his fancy stuck-up wife with him?”

Carrie bristled. Mary Stanhope found some reason to dislike everyone. “If you think Ada is stuck-up, then you don’t know her at all.”

Through the kitchen window, she watched bright-blue morning glories trailing along the backyard trellis Henry had made for her birthday last year. Caleb and Joseph, bareheaded and shoeless, were chasing the chickens around the yard. “Ada Caldwell is one of the kindest, most tenderhearted women I’ve ever known.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot she made you a hat for free when you finally decided to throw away your widow’s weeds. No wonder you think she’s something.” Mary slid the sizzling potatoes onto a platter and brought them to the table. “Lady Bountiful, spreading her gifts around Hickory Ridge. I imagine she got a boatload of free advertising for her hat business out of that little gesture.”

“Maybe. But that isn’t why she did it.” Carrie stared at Henry, feeling heartsick and bewildered. How had her sweet brother, the very soul of kindness, wound up with such a hateful, bitter bride?

Mary took the biscuits from the oven, piled them on a plate, and placed it on the table in front of Henry. “Sit down, Carrie.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Sit down anyway. There’s something Henry and I want to talk to you about.”

“I’ll stand.” Carrie folded her arms and leaned against the sink.

“Suit yourself. Henry? Sweetheart?”

Henry set down his paper and looked up at her, questioning.

“This might be a good time to talk to Carrie. While the boys are outside.”

“Oh. Right.” Henry buttered a biscuit and took a bite. “Well, you see, Carrie girl, Mary . . . that is, the both of us, were wondering if you would mind swapping rooms with Caleb and Joseph.”

“What? You mean move into the attic?”

“Maybe not forever, but until they get used to living here.”

“But that room is so small.”

“Exactly.” Mary stirred cream into her coffee. “It isn’t large enough for two active boys, and they need to be closer to me at night, so they won’t be scared. Whereas you—”

“I won’t do it.” Carrie plopped into her chair and faced her brother across the table. “Henry, you can’t expect me to give up my room. All my things are there. My books, my journals, the few things I have that belonged to Frank.”

The door flew open. Caleb and Joseph raced through the kitchen, laughing and shoving each other. “Go on, Joe,” Caleb yelled in a voice that shattered Carrie’s last nerve. “I dare ya.”

Joseph reached into his pocket, drew out the snake, and tossed it at Carrie. “Gotcha.”

The snake slithered across the pine floor. Carrie grabbed the boy and held him fast. “How old you are you anyway, you little heathen?”

“Five and three quarters.” He stared up at her, his pale blue eyes bright and defiant.

“You pull a stupid stunt like that again and you won’t see six.” She shook him, hard. “Do you understand me?”

“You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my ma. You’re just a dried-up, mean ol’ widder woman, and—”

Carrie slapped him, hard. A red handprint rose on his cheek, and he buried his face in his mother’s skirts, his shoulder heaving. She stared, horrified and dismayed at her loss of control. How could one small boy cause so much trouble? “I’m sorry, Joe. I didn’t mean it.”

Mary shoved away from the table and scooped up her son, her eyes blazing. “If you ever hit my boy again, Carrie Daly, so help me, I’ll—”

“Now, Mary.” Henry got to his feet. “Let’s all settle down here.”

“
You
can settle down, Henry Bell. I will not have anyone hitting my children.”

“I apologize,” Carrie said. “It was wrong of me to strike him. I lost my temper.”

“You should know better.” Mary sent Carrie a murderous glance and handed Joe her handkerchief.

“Joe should have known better than to toss a snake at her,” Henry said. “And he shouldn’t have talked to Carrie like that. Boys should be brought up to respect their elders. Especially womenfolk.”

“He’s just a little boy.”

“That’s no excuse. Where did he get a notion like that anyway?”

Mary blushed to the roots of her hair, but she stood her ground. “Whose side are you on anyway, Henry?”

“There’s no call to be taking sides, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart. Not if you’re going to let that sourpuss sister of yours force my children to sleep in a dark attic where they’re scared out of their wits and then beat them for playing a harmless joke.” She began to cry. “I thought you loved me. I thought we’d be happy, but now I feel like this was all a big mistake.”

She set Joe on his feet and led him from the room. Caleb balled his fist and socked Carrie squarely in the stomach. “That’s fer hittin’ my little brother and makin’ Ma cry.”

“Go upstairs, Caleb,” Henry said. “And do not come out until I tell you to.”

“I ain’t going up to that old attic. No, sir. You can beat me till I’m dead and I won’t go.”

“Then you can muck out the barn. Stay there until I come for you.”

“You mean shovel horse apples?”

“Somebody’s got to.”

“Why me?” The boy folded his arms across his chest.

“Because you live here now, and everyone has to pitch in.”

“Carrie Daly don’t shovel horse—”

“Carrie takes care of the house. Shoveling manure is a man’s job. Go on now.”

“But I ain’t had my—”

“You can eat after you finish.”

Caleb stomped off.

“I’m sorry he hit you, sister,” Henry said. “Are you all right?”

He looked so defeated that Carrie’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have let Joe make me so angry.”

“Joe had it coming. Mary says both the boys have been hard to handle all their lives. I thought it would make a difference, having a man around and living out here instead of that cramped rented room in town, but I don’t know. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew.”

Mary came into the kitchen, her eyes red from crying. “Joe’s asleep. Poor child. He’s tuckered out from all this fussing and fighting. It can’t be good for him.”

“It isn’t good for anybody.” Carrie poured herself a cup of coffee. “I’ve had quite enough of it myself. I’m going up to my room.”

“Oh, I put Joe in there,” Mary said. “He’s getting so big I couldn’t carry him all the way up to the attic. He loves that room already. I promised it to him. I hope you won’t upset him again over it.”

“You had no right to make such a promise.”

“Carrie?” Henry looked at her with such a mixture of hope and resignation that she averted her eyes. Maybe she owed him this chance at happiness after all that he had done for her.

“Fine. Take it. Take everything.”

Griff flicked the reins and urged the old nag along the dirt road. This morning’s visit to the banker’s elegant house just outside town had put him in mind of his Charleston days and whetted his appetite for training Majestic. Once Gilman coaxed the horse from his stall, Majestic had seemed to remember Griff, and Griff had come prepared. He’d handed the horse a carrot and rubbed the big colt’s neck while Majestic chomped and swallowed his treat.

Then Griff climbed the fence and entered the pasture, letting the horse get used to his presence and his scent. Majestic, nervous at the unknown, shied away when Griff approached too closely. It would take several more visits before he could actually begin the training. Only when he had gained Majestic’s trust would he attempt to saddle him. Too soon and the horse might go barn sour, making training all the more difficult.

Griff breathed in the damp air and thought of home. In the old days, at this time of year, Sethe, the family’s cook, and Leah, his mother’s favorite servant, would pack up their plantation house on the river. The entire household would then begin the eleven-mile trip to the Rutledges’ cottage on Pawley’s Island, there to pass the summer until the danger of malarial fever was over.

He still remembered those boyhood treks to the island, traveling by rowboat and by land. His mother complained of the heat and the discomfort of the journey, but to him summers on the island were a magnificent adventure. His first sight of the rolling waves, the brilliant blue sea stretching to the horizon, always exhilarated him. Even now he could almost taste the salt on his lips and the musky tang of oysters roasted on a fire-lit beach.

As he grew older, he accompanied his father to Charleston on business trips, learning the intricacies of planting, harvesting, and selling the rice they grew in vast fields along the Pee Dee River and the values his father insisted upon instilling in him—pride, duty, the unbreakable code of Southern honor. His father had never wavered from that code, despite the war that had transformed the city, and all of South Carolina, into a ghost world.

When he chafed at the unwanted lessons, preferring his horses and stables over everything else, his mother encouraged him to be patient. “God trains us with patience and gentleness, just the way you train these colts,” she said one day after a particularly loud argument. “Try to understand your father, Griffin, and honor him as our Lord commands. He may not always show it, but he loves you, perhaps more intensely than any of the rest of us.”