Surrender at Orchard Rest (21 page)

Somerset puffed with pride as they drove up the tidy stone drive of Orchard Rest. She loved to see visitors’ reactions as they saw the house for the first time. It was striking with flowers and trees in full bloom and the unblemished blue sky hovering above it. Even the wisteria had a touch of order about it as it trailed along the porch. She thought of Orchard Rest as the crowning touch to her family’s achievements. It pulled on her heartstrings to recall the attention to detail that Thomas put forth on the house as a tribute to Blanche, the pinnacle of his love for her.

Myra had other ideas about Orchard Rest.

“Look, Birdy! There it is! Have you ever seen anything like it? It looks quaint and charming compared to the Marsh. We’ll be snug here this fall. Did Sherman get ahold of it?”

Somerset swung her head to look at Myra and was dumbfounded when she found no traces of malice in her face, only a childlike curiosity.

“Sherman didn’t come through these parts,” said Joseph. His tone suggested he didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or curse Myra. “Wilson’s raiders did come through, but they didn’t burn anything.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure it is just fine. I need some experiences to broaden my horizons. Beyond the society scandal I referred to earlier. I suppose we should go in so that I can familiarize myself with the layout of the house.”

Myra climbed down from her seat and marched up the front steps with Birdy.

“In all my days I never thought I’d see a family member so uninhibited,” whispered Joseph as he tossed the reins to Jim.

“Her mother’s people were Baldwins. Aren’t they known for their loose rambling tongues?” asked Somerset. “On the other hand, she may just be unbelievably spoiled.”

“I can’t see this arrangement working out well, even if I do like hearing her prattle in between the insulting remarks she makes.”

“I’ve said those exact words about you, Joseph.”

“She’s comely.”

“Very,” agreed Somerset. “She looks so much like Mother it makes me jealous.”

“Mother will be well pleased with her looks.”

Myra hopped up and down while holding her valise.

“Are you coming? I’m famished!”

***

After Myra polished off two pieces of bread and three scrambled eggs, Somerset took her through the house.

“I like the idea of being close to you girls at night, but I think I’ll stay in the guest quarters,” she decreed. “The one room is almost the size of my room at home so I won’t be cramped if Birdy stays with me. She’d rather keep near me. She doesn’t like socializing and doesn’t want to bother with getting to know your help. The view is nicer, too.”

“We just want you to be comfortable,” Somerset said.

They stopped outside Blanche’s room. Somerset knocked and waited for Blanche to admit them. Bess opened the door. Her eyes widened at the sight of Myra, and she barely had time to move aside as Myra barreled into the room.

“Aunt Blanche!” squealed Myra and embraced her in her eager hug.

“Stand back, child. Stand back. Let me look at you. What a sight for homesick eyes you are.” Blanche patted her hair back into place. “Look, Bess, its David’s daughter. I was never this young and beautiful, but how good it is to see some family features after all these years. I haven’t seen a face this familiar since—well, it’s been too long.”

Bess inclined her head in acknowledgment.

“But you’re in bed,” said Myra. “You canceled your trip. Are you well?”

“My grippe turned to pneumonia,” replied Blanche. “I’ve been in bed for a week and am mending. Don’t worry about me, dear. How are they at the Marsh?”

Myra rolled her big blue eyes.

“Pa bought up most of the stock in another bank. I think he wants to have plenty to fall back on when the tobacco empire comes to an end. Mother was named secretary of the Needlepoint Society and vice president of the Orphan’s League. I think she has to provide them a hot lunch once a month and buy them shoes. I don’t know really, but she sends her love and gratitude for taking me in. I extend my gratitude as well.”

“And how is Mother? Is she well?”

Somerset could hear it in Blanche’s voice that it was a question of duty. She didn’t want to know, but she would ask because Myra would tell her mother that Blanche asked.

Myra sighed.

“Grandmother Marshall is a fierce lady. She’s the terror of Richmond. She lives behind the canopies of her bed, but nothing happens on the street or in secret that she doesn’t know about. Her memory is better than mine, and although the poor thing has gotten physically frail, she doesn’t look much older in the face than the last time you visited. She says she can’t die until she teaches Mother to cook, which just gives Mother fits because you know Mother’s lemon meringue pies always sell out first at all the benefits. She also says she can’t die until I find a husband and learn to hold my tongue. She said if I learned to hold my tongue, the husband would soon follow as a natural course. When she’s well, we take her to morning services every two weeks. She cuts people dead and won’t speak. It bothers Mother, but Pa and I laugh. I should have been more concise and said she hasn’t changed at all!”

“How did she take to your personal predicament?”

“She called Hiram out on it. She asked if he was so addlepated that he thought a Marshall woman would want his stringy lips on her and before he could answer, she said all the Whitmans ended up confused and mentally infirm. She shook her head at him sorrowfully and asked him if his wife would be so devoted to him when she was dressing him and feeding him in five years! It was worse than it sounds, though. She stalked into his board meeting and said it so now the whole town knows the tale. I daresay it worked in my favor, though!”

Blanche smiled her tight, nervous smile and Bess chuckled a laugh that was rusty from lack of use.

“It is fortunate that she has you nearby when you understand her so well.”

“I get on well with her. I can’t say that anyone understands her well.”

Somerset let loose a peal of laughter before she could stop herself. She was enjoying Myra more with every passing second.

“Do your arrangements suit you then?” asked Blanche.

“Yes, Auntie. Somerset went to so much trouble making up two rooms for me, but I’m glad she did. I chose the guest room. It is spacious, and I like the view out the window. It gives Birdy room to sleep and I’d like to have her near in such a foreign place. She keeps me in line but she’s a comfort to me as well. She’s been my maid since birth. Listen to me, telling you things you know! I believe I’ll leave you alone now, Auntie. Your rest is important so that you’re up and on your feet again soon, and after the trip I’ve made, I think I could sleep until morning.”

Myra bounded forward with the same uninhibited, lack of reserve and gave Blanche a smacking kiss on the cheek. It was surprising to see Blanche return the gesture. Then Myra danced out of the room with her yellow waves streaming behind her and ran into Victoria, who was coming down the hall with an armload of towels, and knocked them everywhere. Myra’s loud enthusiastic apologies and louder zealous greeting could be heard all through the house. Blanche laughed to hear her.

“You’ve done well as hostess for Orchard Rest, Somerset. Myra will be a welcome change from the gloomy monotony here. I should have known you’d do everything just so and make her feel at home. Thank you, daughter.”

Somerset registered the compliment but stood looking at the bedside table. On it was the little walnut jewel box that Thomas brought back for Blanche from some ancient excursion on business. She knew it held the tiny ivory box that contained all of Theodore’s baby teeth. On the marble-topped table by the window where the blue drapes blew was his first Bible. Beyond that was the cedar armoire that Grandmother Marshall had hand-painted with festoons of blooming lilies, and she knew that inside of it slept the little linen bag full of Teddie’s baby clothes.

A curious wave of resentment flickered and took life in Somerset’s gut and for the briefest moment, she felt hate for the dead brother who had never done wrong in his life. It was a dull and hungry feeling. It threatened to obliterate her. She quenched it as quickly as it surfaced and then the backhand from guilt nearly sent her spiraling. She imagined Theodore’s confused face from beyond the grave, wondering what he had done wrong this time.

Bess caught her eye and gave an infinitesimal shake of her head.

She saw Bess’s pain for her, felt Bess wanting to come to her and crush her hard in her arms and tell her all things were past now. Bess didn’t dare in front of Blanche.

Her hurting eyes flickered to Blanche’s warm face and saw how hard she was trying to make amends. She saw how terribly her mother wanted to reach out to her and fix all the old wrongs. Her troubled gaze came to rest on the jewel box again despite herself.

“Don’t call me daughter,” she said and walked from the room.

***

Somerset decided the next day that she should go to the Unnamed House and take what belongings she had in it out. The plantation was running well enough to allow her a break away from it. Joseph, happy to be well, worked from dawn until after dusk doing everything from caring for the stock to mending fences. He stopped long enough to eat a cold meal at midday, and despite the limp, he moved as ably as a housecat. Victoria offered to sit with Blanche in Somerset’s stead and promised Myra that she would tutor her in laundry before the end of the day. Even Warren’s introduction to Myra went well. Myra asked if Victoria was a widow and was perplexed when Somerset said no. She then pressed and asked if Victoria had a husband she didn’t know about, and Somerset told her that there was no husband, that Victoria had been in an accident. Myra’s reaction of stun, pity, and abject horror was appropriate, and as Somerset passed the parlor, she saw Myra lying on the settee with Warren cuddled beside her reading a storybook and licking a horehound stick of candy. Myra couldn’t pass up candy and knew there wouldn’t be any in Century Grove and came with bags full. Somerset reflected that Warren only ate candy at Christmas and made a note in her ledger that he was to get a piece, her next trip to a grocer in Tuscaloosa.

“I’m going out now,” Somerset said to Victoria, Bess, and Cleo as she grabbed her ramshackle parasol from the stand to shield herself from the midday sun.

“Be careful,” said Victoria. “I don’t need help so don’t spend your alone time worrying about me. I have Bess and Cleo to run to if I have any questions.”

Cleo sniffed but looked pleased, but Bess looked heavenward as if asking the good Lord for strength.

“Oh, stop it, you!” said Victoria. “I’ll be in the wash house for most of the day trying to teach Myra. Birdy said it was beneath her to learn and fussed, but Myra says she’s going to learn to contribute while she’s here. Then she asked if she had to get her hands wet, which concerns me, but I think she’s brighter than she lets on.”

“Is Birdy settling in?”

Cleo made an impatient mouth and polished the silver harder.

“I respect her and that’s the extent of it,” she said.

“A little high and mighty, is she?” teased Somerset.

“She commandeered Cleo’s kitchen after breakfast,” giggled Victoria. “Cleo can’t stand anyone in her kitchen to the point that she gets ill with me when I pickle the cucumbers, and we know she doesn’t want to do it because she hates the smell. You can imagine how she felt about an outsider in there with her this morning.”

“She made herself at home, all right,” said Bess. “She was darning the mistress’s dresses this morning. The nerve!”

Cleo snorted.

“She say Miss Myra has a delicate chest and she has to eat just so and be sure to take her medicines. She said they didn’t travel with medicine because it’s costly and she was makin’ Miss Myra and Miss Blanche cherry soothing syrup before I even got the breakfast dishes clear. She already set up her herbs for dryin’ in my kitchen like I can’t take care of my own mistress. And hadn’t Bess been makin’ our medicines for year now, too? I call it somethin’ besides high and mighty. That’s just plain presumptuous.”

“I think Birdy just wants to be recognized as helpful and knowledgeable,” said Somerset. “She wants to make an impression on us as exemplary at everything she does. She’s trying to do that by taking care of Mother because she knew Mother in the old Virginia days.”

“That’s good enough thinkin’,” said Bess, “but she might want to demonstrate outside Cleo’s kitchen.”

Cleo’s haughty back was the final word on the subject as she swept out the hallway. Victoria squeezed Somerset’s arm in parting as she went out the door.

***

Somerset stopped at the cemetery on the way to the house. She wanted to place a vibrant sunflower on Eric’s grave that she cut only that morning and then thought too rustic for Myra’s vanity. She placed it in the urn and spread the primroses from the Rutherfords around it. Then she knelt and placed a little conversation heart with the saying “I love you” on the base of his marker and noticed a pocketknife she would recognize anywhere.

Sawyer’s best knife with the mother-of-pearl handle and the tiny inlaid sapphire that was his birthstone glistened in the sun. It rested on the base of the monument, laid there carefully as a tribute, an offering, an apology. She had seen it in Sawyer’s hands countless times. He had almost as many knives as he owned horses, but this one was his favorite. She had used it time and again to cut a limb of rocky roses or free a toothsome vine of blackberries on an impromptu picnic with him. She wanted to pick it up and feel the smooth, hard inlay under her fingertips but she didn’t dare. The knife had been put there as a token for Eric.

She stood up and took a step back. Sawyer’s admission erased all of her worries and doubts and left behind the tranquility of her memories, a serendipitous sensation that such a man had ever loved her. It strengthened her and prepared her for the next segment of her life: finding employment. In a world without Eric or Sawyer, she was free to give back to as many people as she could. As the sunlight had leaked through her curtains upon her awaking, she felt a sense of purpose settle upon her. She gave the monument a caress as she left it.

“Somerset Forrest! Hello!” Ivy hailed her from the gate.

“I was just on my way out, but it is so good to see you, honey!”

Ivy’s arm curled around her waist, giving her a hug as gentle but substantial as the coating of sugar on Cleo’s beignets.

“How is everything at home, dearest?”

“As well as can be. Joseph and I picked up Myra from the station, and she’s getting settled in. Her tongue never stops wagging but in a house as silent as ours, I can’t fault her for talking nonstop. Mother is enjoying her. I wish you would come up and stay all night with me. You would like Myra very much.”

“I meant, how is your mother?” Ivy said.

“She is well. Dr. Harlow says her illness is minor and she’ll soon be up and about. Why are you frowning at me?”

“Joseph might have let something slip to me about the night of the ball,” admitted Ivy. “I do wish you felt you could be more honest with me than you are, Somerset. You’re my best friend, and it stings that you try to bear so many burdens alone. I’m not as delicate as you think, and I hope I’m not stepping over boundaries of decency by mentioning this to you. Why don’t you tell me these things, honey?”

“I don’t know,” said Somerset. “You’re the grandest kind of friend I could hope for, Ivy. I just don’t, well—I just don’t—”

“I know. You just don’t want to make the situation seem any more real by uttering the words,” finished Ivy. “We used to tell each other everything, though, Somerset. That is, we talked about everything until Eric passed away. I won’t distress you anymore by harping on it, but I am sorry from my soul that Blanche did what she did. I remember what she was like before Theodore died. I can only imagine now. If there is ever anything you want to tell me, I won’t be bothered a bit by it. I’ll switch subjects. Where are you off to?”

“I’m on my way to what would have been our home. I recalled that I left a few personal items in there, and I want to get them out. I think, in light of everything, it’s best if I don’t spend much time there. It isn’t my house. It belongs to the Rutherfords.”

“Is that Sawyer’s knife?”

Ivy squinted at the gleaming case.

“He must have come to say good-bye.”

“Has he said good-bye to you yet?”

“We said everything we needed to say at the ball.”

“I don’t think any good can come of him going all the way out there. He says the closest neighbor will be seventy miles away. Can you imagine, Somerset?”

“It’s a barren, barbaric kind of place in my imagination. I can’t commend him for going.”

“He’s a hero, a chivalrous and adventurous hero.”

“That’s what Joseph thinks, too, but he’d never say otherwise about a member of the Brotherhood. He and Sawyer are the last of the quartet so they are banded together for life. So he’s been coming to see you, I take it?”

Ivy’s eyes shone.

“He got permission to take me riding, Somerset! I can’t believe that he gave me a second thought after the ball. He has so many tales to tell, and his experiences are bigger than anything I can imagine. To think, he was a soldier, and all I can do is talk about the mundane things I do.”

“Don’t be modest. You have as much to interest him as any other girl in the county. Besides, he likes spirit.”

“I’m not spirited, not like you or Fairlee, but it is thrilling to be noticed! No matter what I do or say, Joseph makes it sound intriguing. He’s the most gifted conversationalist I’ve ever met. The two of you are similar so I should have realized how easy to get on with he’d be.

“I think we should have a proper night together, Somerset. I could come up and stay with you some night next week. I’d love to get to know Myra. With your trip to Richmond on hold, do you think you’ll be able to help me organize my Harvest Tea this fall? The turnout is always better when you take an interest.”

“I’d love to,” said Somerset with a shake of her head, “but I doubt I’ll be here then. I’ve been thinking, Ivy, and I’m not at home here anymore. With Sawyer leaving, I’m rearranging some of my priorities. I feel restless. I’m returning to pursuing nursing. I’m writing letters to several hospitals inquiring about employment there. It will fill the hours while Mother recovers, and I feel happier having a purpose.”

“Somerset, no!”

“I can’t go on at Orchard Rest. I need to think of Victoria and Warren, too. I think it’s best if I go on, learn, and grow. They need me to be independent and stable for the sake of their futures. I don’t know if she or I will ever marry, and it matters less and less to me these days. The most meaningful part of my life after Eric died was working as a nurse in Atlanta while searching for him. No one cared whose daughter I am. All that mattered was easing the suffering of others. It eased my own heartache to do good for others, to put the injured at ease and hold the hands of the lonely. For a shining few months I became more than I ever hoped to be. I’m starting to think serving others is the only worthwhile cause in the world. Did you know there is a professional nursing program in England now? If I can find a course of study here, I mean to take it.”

“But so much is changing. You’ve always been there for me. I can’t bear to lose you, too!”

“I don’t want to be without you, either. You’ve been the most dependable person in my life. I sat up last night searching my soul, though, and it demands a clean slate.”

“They’ll never let you go.”

“Mother is not going to deter me from living a worthy life,” said Somerset, and she raised her head high. “Papa is more reasonable than I give him credit for. I think I’ll have his blessing. I’m not asking for permission from either of them, though. A man my age would already be successful at whatever career or vocation he chose, and I’m going to forge my own path in life. It’s early yet—I may not hear anything for some months. It’s time enough to plan and prepare.”

Ivy’s mouth wavered like a pond hit by a drop of water.

“I’m trying not to cry because I know it upsets you. I always knew you were too special to be happy here!”

“You are wrong! I longed to stay in the Grove. If Eric lived, all would be well. If things had worked out differently with Sawyer, I’d be happy. Life turned out with fewer options than I planned, and if I don’t seize my opportunities now, someone else will craft my life for me. Surely you understand. I’d never turn my back or abandon the people I care about, but I must do something other than play my part in formal society.”

“I understand. This is what I get for wanting to know what you’re going through. You shield me for a reason, I suppose. Let me hug you, dearest. I’ll send a message about what night I can come up and stay. I’ll let you get on with your business. In the meantime I’m going to pray that you find peace without having to go across the country.”

Somerset gave her a faint smile, one last embrace, and then mounted her horse to set off for Eric’s house.

The house was more beautiful than she’d ever seen it, including in her imagination. As she tied her horse to an outlying cedar, she pondered whether the explorers who first set foot on this soil had felt amazed by the beauty before them.

The house radiated nothing short of perfection in the weak sunlight. The trees around it were turning a touch early for autumn, and it made the architectural virtues of the house sing. Every eave, each window, every column, and her beloved cupola looked a masterpiece. The Rutherfords had fallen behind on keeping the property mown and banks of asters bloomed all around the house. She thought it looked like a sketch from one of Warren’s books about knights and kings.

She trailed up the front steps, loving every inch of the house with each languid step. The house had seen a lot of love although it was not lived in. It had shared in the virginal love she shared with Eric as she sat on the dawn of adulthood and then witnessed the hesitant reblooming of love that she had with Sawyer. It had witnessed two heartfelt proposals, and still it sat empty. The house shared so much of her life that she imagined it as a person, maybe a shy hopeful maiden waiting to share her love with a family.

Somerset pulled out the key that no one realized she still had and let herself in. It had been too long since her last visit. It needed airing out. Gossamer cobwebbing collected in the corners in airy tufts, and the air was stale. She popped open a window in the entryway, appreciatively sniffing the odor of pines and fresh earth that wafted through the opening, and went upstairs to sort through the items she had stowed in the bedroom and never brought home.