River Queen (12 page)

She groaned, a wild painful sound.

Leah said quietly, “I’m sorry, Julienne, but it’s best that you remember right now, if you can. You’ve been—lost, somehow, and for a while it seemed you didn’t
want
to come back and we were all very afraid. But you’re a strong woman, Julienne. You have to face this, and with God’s help, deal with it, and go on.”

Julienne drew in a deep ragged breath, then dropped her hands and opened her eyes. Staring at the ceiling, she said, “I remember, Aunt Leah. I remember it all, unfortunately. Well, maybe not quite all. The last thing I remember is Dal—Mr. Bronte running to some man that was out in a cotton field. I tried to wait for them to come back, but I—I—that’s all I remember.”

“You fainted,” Leah told her. “It was the Landers’ overseer that was riding their fields. He rode to the house, fetched their carriage, and then he and Mr. Bronte brought you home.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” she said dully. “Oh, Aunt Leah, it was horrendous. Tyla died, and I thought that I was going to die too.”

Leah sighed deeply. “It was such a terrible tragedy, twenty-three people died. Everyone, crew and passengers, except for you and Mr. Bronte. And from what I understand, you very well may have died had it not been for him. He saved your life, Julienne, more than once that terrible night.”

“More than once? What do you mean?”

“I mean he saved you from the boiler explosion, he saved you from drowning, and if he hadn’t found shelter and a way to keep you warm, you might have died from exposure to the elements,” Leah answered gravely.

“He told you all that?” Julienne demanded in such a sharp tone that her aunt looked at her curiously.

“Very reluctantly,” she answered. “He had to explain how you two had survived, and Charles finally managed to drag the entire story out of him.”

“The—entire story?” Julienne repeated with dread. “Oh, no,” she whispered bleakly.

Leah frowned. “Julienne, I think you must be still confused. Mr. Bronte saved your life. But he appears to be a very humble man, because it was only with extreme difficulty that he explained about the wreck and having to swim and finding that deserted farmhouse, out in the middle of nowhere, in that raging storm. You were a very lucky woman, Julienne, that he was able to make a fire to warm you up. By the time you got here, you were so thoroughly chilled and your blood was so thin that you were literally half dead. If he hadn’t taken such good care of you, you probably would be dead.”

Julienne kept staring at her for so long that Leah thought she might be going into a stupor again. “Julienne? Are you all right?”

She roused, then said in a coldly bitter voice, “A fire. A deserted farmhouse. That’s what he told you.”

Leah cocked her head to the side. “What’s the matter, dear? The Lord blessed you mightily by having Mr. Bronte there to save your life. And though I would think that going through such a terrible thing would make you grateful to the Lord Jesus and also to Mr. Bronte, you sound as if you’re angry. Is it because of Tyla?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Julienne said wearily.

“I think it’s time for you to lie back down,” Leah said sternly. She stood and poured a brown liquid from a heavy crystal decanter into a small glass. “Drink this, dear. Then you should be able to rest quietly.”

Obediently Julienne drank and shuddered as the harsh warmth from the brandy spread down her throat into her stomach. Leah rearranged her pillows and Julienne lay back down. Catching Leah’s hand, she asked, “Where is Mr. Bronte now?”

“I don’t know, dear. Charles begged him to stay with us for a few days, but he flatly refused.”

“Good,” Julienne said in a stony voice. “I don’t want him here. I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“Oh, really?” Leah asked gently as she settled back into her chair and picked up her Bible. “That’s odd. Because you’ve been asking for him, Julienne. For the last five days, you’ve asked for Dallas Bronte again and again.”

Cruel winter was gone, and late April in Natchez was gorgeous. It seemed as if Nature was trying to make up for the desolation of the cold season, for the spring had been balmy and pleasant.

The barn was dark, but slanting rays of light filtered through the cracks, falling on Carley’s face. Industriously she worked a shovel into the soft ground of half manure and half dirt. In the nearest stall, their horse Reddy seemed to watch her with disapproval. When she saw a group of huge earthworms wiggling, she let out a cry of joy. “I gotcha!” With both hands she scooped up the dirt and worms over and over again, dumping all of it into her ever-present straw bag.

Caesar came into the barn and, sighting Carley, crossed his arms and said sternly, “Here you are. Your Aunt Leah sent me to find you and fetch you back to your lessons. And just look at that dress, and your pantaloons, Miss Carley! Your poor mama might faint dead away when she catches sight of you!”

“I’m digging worms, Caesar. Fishin’ worms,” she said, ignoring his chiding.

“You’ve got no call to be down at that pond by yourself. You could fall in and drown. Then where would you be?”

“I’d be dead.”

“There. That’s just what I said.”

“Silly, Darcy’s going to take me. If I fall in, he can pull me out. He can swim.”

A small look of regret creased Caesar’s face, and he spoke more gently. “Mr. Darcy, he’s poorly today. I don’t think he’s going to feel like taking you fishing.”

“But he promised,” she said, straightening to look up at Caesar. Then her face fell. “He got all liquored up last night again, didn’t he.”

Uncomfortably he replied, “Miss Carley, little girls don’t need to know things such as that. All you need to know is he’s feeling poorly.”

“He promised,” she said dully. Dropping her bag, she stalked out of the barn, her hands down at her side in stiff fists. Running upstairs to Darcy’s room, she knocked and called, “Darcy! Darcy, wake up!”

She heard his muffled voice inside, “Not now, Carley. Later.”

Stubbornly she opened the door, and there Darcy lay, fully dressed in the middle of the bed. Carley could smell the sour reek of alcohol in the air. She shook his shoulder, very gently. “Please, Darcy, please get up. You promised to take me fishin’.”

Darcy groaned and rolled over to turn his back to her. “No, Carley, I can’t today. Tomorrow.”

“You always say that,” she said angrily.

“Carley, just go away. I’ll take you fishing some other time,” he mumbled. “I promise.”

She repeated bitterly, “You promise. You always promise, but you never do.”

But he didn’t hear her, so she left, slamming the door behind her, and ran back to the barn. She decided to re-bury the earthworms. Maybe in a couple of days Darcy would take her fishing, and she would dig them back up.

DARCY STAYED PASSED OUT for most of the day. At about two o’clock he suddenly sat up and grabbed his head with both hands. He had a blinding headache. For a long time he sat there trying to pull his mind together, then slowly and carefully he rose, walked over to the pitcher and bowl on his washstand. Picking it up, he drank deeply straight from the pitcher, and the tepid water soothed his burning throat. Searching his face in the shaving mirror on the chest, he groaned. His eyes were so bloodshot they seemed more red than blue, his thick shiny auburn hair was standing up all over his head and looked greasy, and his complexion looked sickly yellow.

Pouring the rest of the water into the bowl, he splashed water into his face until he finally began waking up. As he dried his face with a clean towel, he smelled the fresh cottony smell of the towel and realized that he stank of stale liquor and sour sweat. Mentally he cursed their lack of servants, for he would have given anything to have a hot bath. Instead he picked up an amber bottle, pulled the cork, and made a disgusted face. “Bay Rum, how could I have ever put that sickening stuff on myself?” He slammed it back down and picked up a small deep green bottle, uncorked it, and sniffed it. Relieved, he emptied a few drops into the water left in the washbowl. Royal Lyme, imported from England, had a lighter, bracing scent. Stripping, he scrubbed himself all over with the freshened water, and immediately he felt better. Rubbing his scratchy jaw with regret, he thought,
Draw the line at shaving with cold water. I just have to convince Father to get me a body servant, that’s all there is to it.

He dressed quickly in a clean linen shirt and comfortable black breeches. Though he felt better, his head still throbbed, and he had a familiar subtly nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sure aftereffect of drinking too much.

It was too warm to wear a coat, so he grabbed some papers out of the coat he’d been wearing the previous night and went downstairs. No one was in the parlor, so he went out the back door and down the bricked path to the freestanding kitchen. Inside, their cook and maidservant Libby looked up at him. “Well, hello there, Mr. Ashby. You look awful, just purely awful.”

“Just say whatever you’re thinking, Libby. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings,” he said sarcastically.

“I won’t,” she said sassily. “Sit down, I’ll get you some coffee. And it’s a pancake day, if I’m not mistaken.”

“It’s a pancake day,” Darcy said. “Please.” He always begged Libby to make him pancakes when he had a hangover. He had no idea why, but they seemed to make him feel better.

He took his seat on a stool at the waist-high oak worktable. It was old and scarred, and for at least the thousandth time he smiled a little at the crudely etched letters in the corner: a crooked angular “D” and the first downstroke of an “A.” Their butler back then, a dignified old slave named Eli, had caught him carving them when he was eight years old, and had stopped him. Darcy had never finished the “A.”

Libby set down a thick old mug in front of him and poured hot, fresh coffee from a blue-speckled tin coffeepot into it. He looked up at her and managed a ragged grin, and she made a face at him.

Libby was thirty-five years old, but she looked younger. She and Caesar made an odd couple. Caesar was average size, average height, and his looks were unremarkable except for the dark gleam of his ebony skin and his somber manner. Libby was short and curvaceous, and she had warm golden skin and delicate features. She was lively and bright-eyed, a complete contrast to her husband in every way. When he had reached his teen years, he had realized that Libby had a lot of white blood, and he wondered about it, for she had been born a slave at Ashby Plantation. But in a thousand years he couldn’t imagine his father, or his grandfather, committing such a sin. Both of them were men of deep Christian faith and high moral scruples.

Dryly Darcy reflected that it seemed he didn’t take after any of the men in his family.

With quick efficiency Libby made Darcy a stack of pancakes and set them down, along with a dish of melted butter and a small tin pitcher of Vermont maple syrup. “You’re about as spoilt a boy as I ever saw in my life,” Libby said as she served him. “I swear I don’t know why I baby you like I do. But I guess all women do,” she added slyly.

“Guess so,” he agreed. “I’m glad, too.”

“Brat,” she muttered as she went back to the fireplace, to continue turning an enormous roast on a spit.

“Sass,” he retorted. It was an old ritual between them.

He ate hungrily and polished off two more cups of coffee. When he was finished he felt much better, as he knew he would. He stood and stretched. “Where is everyone, Libby?”

“Miss Julienne’s making her calls, your mother is resting, and Miss Leah was in the library, and the Good Lord Himself only knows where Miss Carley is,” Libby answered. “Caesar found her just after breakfast, but he lost her again.”

“What about Father? He didn’t go out to the plantation again, did he?” Darcy asked.

Libby shook her head. “He’s been in his study all day.”

Darcy headed to the door. “Thanks, Libby. Your pancakes have mystical healing properties.”

“I should sell ’em,” she grumbled. “Libby’s Mystical Hangover Remedy.”

Ignoring her parting shot, Darcy finished off the coffee, left the kitchen, and went to his father’s study. The door was closed, and Darcy knocked. “Father?”