Beyond All Measure (7 page)

He heard a rustling in the bushes beside the river and sat up. “Hello?”

Ada emerged, and he would have been hard-pressed to say which of them was more surprised. She turned her head, obviously embarrassed, and he was suddenly aware of his bare torso.

“Wade on in,” he said. “The water’s nice and cool this morning.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been spying on you.”

“That’s all right.” He couldn’t help grinning. “You’re the prettiest spy I’ve ever seen, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Ada spun away, her cheeks blazing. “I’ll wait for you in front of the church.”

“Don’t go.” He jammed his hat onto his head and splashed across the water to the bank.

“We should go back. Your aunt will be wondering where we are.”

“She knows where to find me.” He slipped his shirt on, retrieved his boots, and sat down on a fallen log to pull them on, trying to think of some way to hold on to her company a little longer. “There’s a pretty little waterfall just upstream there. I’d love for you to see it. It isn’t far.”

“I shouldn’t.” She kept her eyes trained on the river. “We shouldn’t even be here. You know how some people love to talk.”

He sighed and buttoned his shirt. “I suppose you’re right. Another time, then.”

They started back along the path. “I didn’t see you during church,” Ada said.

“I’m afraid the Almighty and I parted ways back in ’64, at Cold Harbor.” He paused and looked past her shoulder to the shimmering green mountains in the distance.

Ada nodded. “I read about it in the
Herald
.”

“It was worse than any newspaper account could ever convey. We trapped seven thousand Federals in a ravine, and ten minutes later they were all dead. The crossfire was the worst I’d ever seen. Smoke so thick you couldn’t see your hand before your face.” He shook his head. “I felt bad for the poor devils. Of course, it wasn’t just the Federals. Our side took heavy losses too.”

“I can’t imagine it.”

“It was hell on earth,” he said. “General Lee could barely stand it.”

She nodded. “Father supported the Union, of course, but even he was stunned by what happened at Cold Harbor. It was his opinion that Grant should have relented sooner and saved his soldiers’ lives.”

“Cold Harbor’s the only mistake Grant ever owned up to. Not that it made any difference.”

“Were you wounded?”

He shrugged. “Broken bones, some lacerations. Took a bullet to the shoulder.”

“But you’re all right now.”

“For the most part.” He absently rubbed his shoulder. The physical wounds were never the worst part of war. “The strange thing was that when I was first hit, it didn’t even hurt. All I felt was surprise. And then I saw my blood pumping into the dirt and I started blacking out. Sage was right next to me. He was hurt too, but he dragged me to cover.”

“It’s a miracle you survived.”

“I don’t believe in miracles. It was the luck of the draw, that’s all.” He wiped his brow. “That was the day I realized that as much as people want to believe in some divine plan, there isn’t one. Everything that happens, for good or evil, is just a matter of chance.”

“I feel that way too.” She looked into his eyes, and he saw the sympathy in her calm gray gaze. “I’m glad you survived, however it was accomplished.”

He nodded.

“Your aunt said I should ask you about your exploits during the war.”

“There’s nothing much more to tell.” He bent to pick up a smooth stone, enjoying the warm weight of it in his hand. “I never thought it was a fight we could win, even after General Lee won at Chancellorsville. But I couldn’t stand by while my friends—boys I’d known all my life—went off to fight.” He skipped the stone across the river. “I enlisted more out of loyalty to them than to the idea of dissolving the Union. I’m no statesman, but I just didn’t see how the South could survive as a separate nation. We’re mostly farmers and planters down here. We’ve never had the industries the North enjoyed.”

“You risked your life for them.”

They continued along the path. “I’m nothing if not loyal to my friends, Ada. You’ll find that out about me as time goes on.”

“Kapow! Bam! Yiyiyiyiyi!” Robbie Whiting and his friends appeared on the hill above them, playing cowboys and Indians. Robbie’s Sunday shirt had come untucked and was streaked with dirt. His hair, so carefully combed for the church service, was falling into his eyes. When he saw Ada and Wyatt standing below him, he waved, clutched his heart, and spiraled to the ground.

The old longing for a family, a son of his own, tugged at Wyatt. “That boy has more imagination than any ten men I know.”

“You’re his hero.”

“He’s young. Easily impressed.”

“But the Texas Brigade is famous!” He heard the admiration in her voice. “Even the Boston papers carried stories about their bravery at Gettysburg and Chickamauga. General Lee himself took note of it.”

“He appreciated us, all right, but it went both ways. Any one of us would have charged hell itself for that old man.” He swallowed the hard knot in his throat. He hadn’t been at Appomattox on that quiet April morning when the end came, but he’d since read General Order Number 9, the general’s simple, affectionate, heartfelt farewell to his army. Six years later, the memory of it still had the power to move him. He cleared his throat. “When Lee died last year, it was like losing my own father.”

They climbed the embankment, Ada in the lead. As they reached the top, her foot slipped. She stopped suddenly, and he trampled her dress, leaving behind a large muddy bootprint.

“Oh!” She lifted her hem to assess the damage. “Forgive me. I should have been paying better attention.” Feeling like an utter fool, he bent to brush away the dirt, but Ada stopped him.

“It’s too wet. Brushing will only make it worse.”

She pushed a strand of hair back under her hat, but it came loose again and she left it. “I shouldn’t have distracted you with so many questions about the war. I didn’t intend to bring up such painful memories.”

”It’s all right. It’s in the past now.”

They arrived back at the church just in time to see a middle-aged man in a blue suit mount up and ride away.

“I’m sure he’s smarting from Lillian’s tongue-lashing,” Ada told him. “She cornered him after church this morning, incensed that he’s behind on his promise to fix her porch.”

Wyatt sighed. “I should do it myself, but things at the mill have been so busy I haven’t had time. Only last week we got a contract to supply lumber for a new hotel in Philadelphia.” He paused. Usually he didn’t tell anyone about his business. There were some in Hickory Ridge who didn’t like the fact that many of his best customers came from up North. He admitted it—he wanted to impress her.

“That’s wonderful!” she said. “Congratulations.”

Ada waved to Lillian and the Whitings. Wyatt followed her along the winding path and into the churchyard, admiring the gentle sway of her skirt and the pert angle of her hat.

“Wyatt Caldwell! A word . . .”

He groaned inwardly, Bea Goldston was hurrying toward them, her face alight, but her smile faded when she spotted Ada. She scanned Ada’s muddy skirt, messy hair, and flushed face. “Well, well, if it isn’t our little visitor from Massachusetts. Miss . . . Wentworth, isn’t it?” She narrowed her eyes. “And looking all pinkfaced too! I’m afraid our Southern heat must not agree with you. Or is there some other reason you’re looking so flustered?”

The color in Ada’s cheeks deepened, and Wyatt felt his own face heat up. “Now look here, Bea. There’s no call for you to—”

“There you are, Miss Wentworth!” Sage and Mariah Whiting appeared at her side. “Thanks for fetching Wyatt for me,” Sage said. “Did you find him tending the graves out back like I said?”

Before Ada could reply, Wyatt sent her a pointed look and said smoothly, “She had to look a little farther than that, but she did find me. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing wrong. Just a question about that shipment going out tomorrow.”

Mariah laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “Can it wait? Robbie and I are ready to go.”

“Me too,” Lillian said. “This heat is about to take the starch right out of me.”

“Well, then, ladies . . .” Wyatt offered an arm to Lillian and Ada. They brushed past Bea Goldston—who was looking a bit pink and flustered herself—and headed for the buggy.

SIX

Ada sorted through her supplies: scissors, thimbles, tailor’s chalk, a tape measure so old the numbers had all but worn away. In the bottom of the wooden chest, nestled in folds of soft muslin, lay her mother’s silk flower, some spools of thread, a few pieces of matted felt, and several bits of creased and faded ribbon. Taking in her meager assets, she felt tears pooling in her eyes.

Even with the money from Mariah Whiting, there wasn’t nearly enough to begin the millinery business she’d planned. And where were her customers to come from anyway?

She’d been crazy to come here. Crazy and naive. Most of the women in Hickory Ridge were farm women who needed sturdy poke bonnets instead of frilly confections of feathers and lace. If Wyatt’s prediction was true and hard times were on the way, nobody would have money for such frivolous purchases. She was trapped, without enough money to go or to stay. After setting aside a few dollars for her future, the money Wyatt was paying her for looking after Lillian was barely enough to keep her in soap, stockings, and hairpins. And even though Lillian might overlook Ada’s making a hat for Mariah, she would surely object to anything that diverted attention from her own needs.

Recalling her father’s failed financial schemes, Ada felt something close to panic. She didn’t want to repeat his mistakes. Fresh anger at him for leaving her without money or a husband built inside her chest.

Her gaze fell on a small woolen skating cap in robin’s egg blue nestled in the bottom of the box. She lifted it and held it to her face.
Oh, Mother, I don’t know what to do
.

Her throat tightened at the memory of the cold winter’s day when her mother had made the cap. The pond behind the house had frozen solid. Icicles adorned the eaves of the porch overlooking the snowy lawn. In the bare branches of the trees, a few jays fluttered and scolded.

“Mother? Must I finish this book? I am bored senseless.”

Twelve-year-old Ada set down her book and stared longingly at the glittering pond and the gaggle of noisy children sledding down Patriot’s Hill.

Elizabeth sat up in her bed, her thin face rosy in the glow of the fire that danced in the grate. “What has your father assigned you this week?”

Ada wrinkled her nose. “Emerson’s
Essays
—so stuffy. If Father insists that I read, why can’t I at least read something interesting? Dickens, for instance, or that autobiography of Frederick Douglass that Father has been reading.” Her eyes shone with mischief. “Or Mrs. Wetherell’s novel! Pansy Ashmore brought a copy to school, and she and Elise Summers and I read it while we were supposed to be resting. We got all the way to the chapter where Ellen is about to get married before Miss Trimble found us out.”

Elizabeth smiled. “
The Wide, Wide World
is an entertaining story, but it was not meant for children.”

“I’m not a child. I’m almost thirteen.”

“Come here, darling.”

Ada crawled onto the bed with her mother, who drew her close and smoothed her hair. “My sweet daughter. When I’m no longer here to tell you so, promise you will remember how much I love you.”

Ada snuggled closer. “I promise.” She had long since given up the pretense that her mother would get well. For almost two years, she had watched as Elizabeth grew weaker, finally abandoning her beloved sitting room with its view of the river in favor of her upstairs bedroom.

Elizabeth planted a kiss on Ada’s head. “If you’ll help me with Mrs. Peabody’s hat, I’ll finish knitting your cap, and tomorrow you may go skating on the pond. But you mustn’t tell your father.”

“I won’t!” Delighted to be sharing a secret with her mother, Ada hurried to the wooden cabinet where the white felt hat had been left to dry. Elizabeth opened her wooden chest and extracted a stiff brush, a needle and thread, and three delicate ostrich feathers. She showed Ada how to brush the felt to raise the nap, how to bind the feathers together with a bit of ribbon and attach them to the brim of the hat with stitches so fine they almost disappeared.

“It’s beautiful, Mama. May I try it on? Just for a moment?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Just for a moment.”

Ada donned the hat and preened before the mirror. “Mrs. Peabody will adore it!”

“Let’s hope so. She’s promised to pay handsomely for it.” Worry tinged her mother’s voice. “I’m setting aside my hat money for you, Ada. One day it may be your only inheritance.”

Ada’s heart sped up. Was that what her parents’ arguments were about?

“Now,” Elizabeth said briskly, “put Mrs. Peabody’s hat in that hatbox in the clothes press. Then bring my knitting needles, and I’ll finish your skating hat.”

The next day Ada invited Pansy for lunch and they spent the afternoon skating on the frozen pond. Ada held out her arms and twirled on the ice. She and Pansy joined hands and glided back and forth, laughing and gossiping about school and boys and the new Latin teacher, recently arrived from New York. When darkness fell, they removed their skates and trudged up the snowy hill. Leaving their heavy cloaks and damp stockings drying on the porch, they went inside for hot chocolate and tiny sandwiches the cook had left for them.

After Pansy had gone home, Ada climbed the curving staircase to her mother’s room. Elizabeth sat in her chair by the window, the lamps still unlit, an unopened book on her lap.

“There you are, darling.” Elizabeth coughed into her handkerchief until she was nearly breathless, but finally she managed a wan smile. “Did you have fun?”

“It was the best day, Mama. Thank you.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I watched you all afternoon. I’m proud of you, Ada.”

“Well, I’m glad of that, even if I don’t know why. I’m not musical like Elise. I’m not tall and beautiful like Pansy.”

“You don’t look like Pansy, it’s true, but you are beautiful in your own way.”