Читать книгу The Soldier's Wife - Cheryl Reavis - Страница 12
ОглавлениеChapter Three
It took the Orphans’ Guild nearly three months to get back to Lexington, though to Jack it seemed hardly any time at all. He’d long ago lost the need to mark the passage of time when it had so little bearing on what he did. Not meals. Not sleep. Nothing. For four years, he had been dedicated only to going where he was told to go and doing what he was told to do—and staying alive while he did it. He’d learned early on to let the passing of the minutes and hours and days take care of themselves. They had nothing to do with him, at least until he returned to Lexington. It was only then that clocks and calendars became important again, because he needed to decide on what day and at what time he might be able to see the new Mrs.Vance face-to-face, and he had no one he wanted to ask for guidance in the matter. He already had too many unsolicited opinions regarding his situation with Elrissa.
His best guess was early afternoon. Elrissa should be at home then and Farrell Vance should not. And with that simple conclusion, he took pains to shave and to wear a freshly starched and ironed white store-clerk shirt and the best suit a sizable chunk of his army pay could buy. It was a long walk from the orphanage, where he was staying in the visitors’ quarters, to Farrell Vance’s impressive new stone residence. The walk itself was pleasant enough, given his recent history of ambulating from battlefield to battlefield over more of this country than he cared to think about. It eventually took him to a cool, shaded street lined with several newly built houses—or new to him at any rate. It rather surprised him that Vance hadn’t acquired a place near Mary Todd Lincoln’s house, and it was just Jack’s luck that his destination turned out to be the biggest house of them all.
Jack recognized the Vances’ new maid the moment she opened the front door, despite the cap covering most of her wild red hair. The freckles were still visible, however, as was the ever-present wariness in the clear blue eyes. She had learned before she could walk not to trust people, and she wasn’t about to let go of the lesson just for Jack Murphy.
“Hello, Mary,” he said easily. “I’m here to see Mrs. Vance—if she’s at home to visitors.”
“Jack, are you crazy!” Mary stepped out onto the huge porch and pulled the door to behind her, her heavily starched, pink-and-white uniform rustling in the process. Clearly, even the maids in Farrell Vance’s house dressed better than the girls at the orphanage ever would. “You can’t come to the front door like this!”
“I can’t? Why not?”
“You’re the hired help. You work for Mr. Barden.”
“I haven’t worked for Mr. Barden for four years,” Jack reminded her. “Nice house,” he added, looking around the front porch at the potted ferns and assorted flowers.
“Mr. Vance won’t like this,” Mary said.
“I’m not here to see Mr. Vance. I’m here to see Elrissa.”
“Why?”
“I want to thank her for her...kindness while I was away—in person, if you don’t mind. All you have to do is ask her if she’ll see me. You can’t be blamed for what happens after that.”
“You’d be surprised what a body can be blamed for in this house. Besides that, you are such a liar. She’s married now. You’ve got no good reason to see her and plenty reasons not to.”
“That’s a matter of opinion, Mary.”
Mary looked at him for a long moment—while Jack struggled to hold on to his impatience. He’d come a long way to stand on Elrissa’s front porch—or was it a veranda?—and he’d done it against the advice of practically every orphan he knew. Only Little Ike had opined that Elrissa needed to own up to her poor treatment of one Jack Murphy. And, in this rare instance, Jack heartily agreed. Now all he needed was to get past Mary.
“I heard she didn’t even send you a letter to tell you she was marrying somebody else,” Mary said, reminding Jack that while the mail wagon for the Army of the Potomac might not have come as often as he and the rest of the Orphans’ Guild would have liked, it did run in both directions. He didn’t need reminding that what one orphan knew, they all knew.
“And that is none of your business,” he said anyway. “I want to see her. The whole rebel army couldn’t stop me from getting what I want, Mary, so I’m not really worried about you.”
She exhaled sharply. “Jack, if you do something to make me lose this job—”
He smiled his best smile, rusty though it might be, and that was all it took.
“Oh, all right, then,” Mary said. “And stop smiling at me. Kissing the girls and making them cry—that’s all you’re good for.”
His smile broadened. “They don’t always cry, Mary. You know that.”
She shook her head at his blatant teasing. “I’ll...go ask her. You stay right here. Right here. And I mean it.” She reached behind her and opened the door. “I mean it!”
“Yes, Mary,” he said dutifully. “I’ll stay right here.”
“See that you do,” she said, determined to have the last word. She backed into the house and made a point of closing the door as firmly as was possible. He waited, listening to the sparrows chirping from their nests under the eaves, looking around the wide front porch again, wondering idly if Elrissa had decorated the stone pillars with red, white and blue bunting for the anniversary of national independence. He thought she might have, even though he’d never known her to care much about the Fourth of July celebration. Her husband would, of course. It would be bad for his business, given the country’s recent victory, if he didn’t participate as noticeably as possible.
A large yellow cat wandered up from somewhere behind the spirea bushes and made several passes against his legs. He reached down and scratched its ear for a moment and wondered what was taking Mary so long. The cat walked away and there was nothing to do but inspect the porch again. There was a swing and two comfortable-looking chairs a few feet away, and he was tempted to go sit in one of them. He had always wanted a porch like this, a place where he could bide his time and drink lemonade and read the newspaper on a quiet Sunday afternoon. He had never been able to see Elrissa sitting in a rocking chair beside him when he imagined this idyllic setting, however.
The front door opened, and Mary stuck her head out. “Well, come on, then,” she said. “She says she’ll see you. I still say you’re crazy, and I’m beginning to think she is, too.”
“You may be right about that, Mary. Lead the way.”
He followed her into the dark coolness of the wide center hallway. He could immediately feel the strong draft created by the opening and closing of certain windows and transoms. It was a tribute to how well the house was built that, even on a hot summer day like this one, there was a steady breeze blowing on the inside.
The inner breeze carried the scent of lemon and beeswax Mary had likely spent hours applying to every wood surface in the place. He had no doubt that she would have learned the ins and outs of furniture polishing at the orphanage, and to such a degree that she could make her living doing it. He couldn’t smell any food cooking. It was likely that there was a big summer kitchen detached from the main house somewhere out back.
“Don’t you stay long,” Mary whispered before she let him into the room where Elrissa must be. “He’ll be home to check on her in a little while.”
“Check on her? For what?” It occurred to him even as he said it that Elrissa must already be having a child.
“None of your business. Just do as I say.”
He smiled at her again, giving her a wink. She swatted the air in exasperation, then opened the door.
“Mr. Murphy, ma’am,” she said, standing back so he could enter.
Elrissa waited on the far side of the room, and she was even more stunning than he remembered. Her pale blond hair had been twisted into ringlets and intricate rolls and braiding. Her hands were clasped at her waist as if she needed to hide their trembling. He might feel a small pang of sympathy if that was so, though trembling hands wouldn’t be in keeping with Elrissa’s headstrong personality at all. She was much more likely to cause the affliction rather than suffer it.
“Mrs. Vance,” he said with a quiet calmness he must have learned on the battlefield. His voice didn’t reflect his inner turmoil in the least, and he was glad of that.
She stood looking back at him, leaving him nowhere to go and nothing to say. He knew very little about women’s clothes, but even he could see that when it came to afternoon dresses and maids’ uniforms, Mary’s was not the only wardrobe that had been significantly enhanced.
“It’s good to see you, Jack. It’s taken you a long time to get home,” Elrissa said, smiling.
“Not that long. We were lucky. Some companies aren’t being discharged at all. The ones that came to the party late or didn’t see much fighting. It’s only fair, in my opinion.”
“Oh. Well. It seems a long time to me. I’ve been wondering if you’d even come back to Lexington at all. No one seemed to know.”
“You asked about my return?”
“Well, about the regiments,” she said. “We’re all very proud of the Kentuckians. Papa and Farrell and I traveled down to Washington in May for the Grand Review. It was...thrilling. Two days for the army to pass. I looked for you in the parades, but I didn’t see you. Were you there?”
“Yes. All the orphans were there—what’s left of us.”
She was looking at him so intently, as if she expected him to make some comment about her having witnessed the Grand Review. He had no idea what she expected him to say—that he’d looked for her among the throng of spectators? He hadn’t. The truth was that it never occurred to him that she might be there.
“Why are you here, Jack?” she asked abruptly.
He looked at her in surprise. “Why? Well, I thought we’d start with an explanation—yours. I think I deserve that much—and then we could conclude with an apology—also yours.”
“Apology? My goodness.” Clearly such a thing had never occurred to her.
“You said you’d marry me, Elrissa.”
“Yes, well, that was never really...official, now, was it?”
“It was official to me. Why did you do that? Say you’d marry me if you had no intention of doing so?”
She waved one hand in the air. “I was very young, Jack. To tell you the truth, I just didn’t think. You were leaving. The train was coming—I had no time to think. Later I realized my father would never have agreed. You’re not...”
“Not what?” he asked when she didn’t continue.
“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said airily, moving to the sofa—carved rosewood likely from Massachusetts, he noted, because he’d been a very able clerk in a dry goods store that could special-order coffins or fine furniture, and it had been his business to know such things—before it was his business to kill men wearing the wrong uniform.
She sat down carefully so as not to rumple the dark green silk of her dress. It was a becoming color for her, he decided. He had never seen her wear anything like it before, and he supposed that such colors must be a privilege that came with marriage.
“You’re looking very well, Elrissa,” he said after a moment, and she gave him a brief but stricken look.
“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, moving closer to get a better look at her face.
“You look very well, too, Jack,” she said instead of answering. She kept picking at a fold in her skirt. “Now, what were we talking about?”
“You decided not to marry me because I’m not good enough for you. No connections. No money to speak of.” He didn’t point out that his management had likely kept Barden’s Dry Goods from going bankrupt.
“I didn’t say that.”
“I don’t believe you needed to. Your recent behavior has been eloquent enough. It would have been a kindness to have received a letter telling me of your new plans, Elrissa—instead of hearing about them after the fact and secondhand.”
“It didn’t seem important,” she said, and she actually smiled.
“No. I don’t suppose it was. To you.”
“Oh, Jack, I haven’t broken your heart, have I?”
“My heart, no. My pride has taken quite a beating, I will admit. I suppose your father never knew about the marriage proposal. Mine, that is.”
“No,” she said, but Of course not was what he heard.
“I am sorry, Jeremiah. Truly.”
“About what exactly?”
“Well, that you...misunderstood.”
“I certainly did do that—misunderstand. I’m not sure why. I know that yes and no can mean anything other than what they’re designed to mean. Orphans find that out very early. But in this instance, my...admiration and respect for you led me to forget my early lessons. I suppose I should thank you. I won’t ever make the mistake of trusting someone so far above my station again, especially that she actually means what she says.”
“Don’t be cruel, Jack. There’s really no need—”
“I don’t think I’m the cruel one here. I’m only stating the truth. According to Father Bartholomew and the Sisters, I’m supposed to learn at least a little something from every situation, good or bad. And truly, I have.”
“He came to see me, you know,” Elrissa said, glancing at him and then away. “Your Father Bartholomew. When the engagement—Farrell’s and mine—was announced in the newspapers. He was really quite cross with me. I couldn’t imagine what you must have told him.”
“I told him if I was killed, I wanted him to give you what money I had put by. It wouldn’t have been a lot by your standards—especially now. But it was all I had in this world, and I thought you might buy yourself a little something with it—a keepsake. Or you might have wanted to give it to charity as a memorial gift. Knowing Father Bartholomew, it’s likely he would have suggested it go to the orphanage.”
“Well, luckily, you can use the money for yourself.”
“Yes. Luckily.”
“What are your plans now that the war is over, Jack?” she asked, actually looking at him directly now and not at other, more interesting aspects of the room.
“Well, coming back to work for your father isn’t very likely. Do you think Farrell has any job vacancies?”
“No, seriously,” she said, smiling slightly when she realized the grim humor in his comment. He had always been able to do that at least—make her smile.
“I thought maybe I’d...go out West,” he said, as if the notion to migrate beyond the Mississippi River weren’t something he’d just made up on the spot. Still, it seemed as good a plan as any.
“Go back into the army, you mean?”
He gave a short laugh. “No. I’ve had enough of armies.”
She started to say something, then didn’t, lapsing into a quiet sigh instead. “Don’t stare at me so, Jack,” she said after a moment.
“I don’t mean to. It’s just that I’d...forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?”
“How very pretty you are. I used to think about that—on the march or when our situation was...bad.”
“You mustn’t say things like that. My husband won’t like it.”
“Won’t he?”
“Farrell is very...protective of me. He will be home soon,” she said, glancing at the quietly ticking clock on the mantel. “You must leave before then. Now, actually.”
He made no move toward the door.
“Please,” she said. “I want you to leave now—and go out the back way. Mary will show you. You should never have come to the front door.”
“My mistake,” he said. “It won’t happen again. Goodbye, Elrissa. I hope you’ll be happy.”
“Jack,” she said, as he was about to open the door.
He looked back at her.
“When will you go? Out West, I mean.”
“I...haven’t decided.”
She got up from the rosewood sofa and came toward him, guiding her dress around a table in the effort to get to him.
“Jack, you were right. Something is wrong—terribly wrong. It’s been so— He—Farrell—he isn’t at all obliging like Papa. Truly he isn’t. I— It’s so difficult. I don’t know that I can abide it much longer, this...penchant he has to tame me. No, I’m certain I can’t abide it. I want you to take me with you when you go.”
“What?” Jack said, despite the fact that he’d heard her clearly. She was very close now and once again he was struck by her prettiness. He was also struck by her familiar expression, one he’d seen many times when he worked in her father’s dry goods store, one that meant she wanted something unsuitable and she intended to have it—or else.
“I’ll meet you someplace. We can leave here together—whenever you say—the sooner the better.”
“No, we cannot,” he said, trying to remove her hand from his arm.
But she kept reaching for him, trying to hang on to him. “Yes! Yes! You and I—we can go where nobody knows us. We’d be happy, Jack. Truly, we would—”
“Elrissa, stop this!” he said sharply, and she suddenly put her face in her hands.
“You’re upset. Let me find Mary,” he said, because it was the only thing he could think of.
“No! I don’t need Mary! I need you to say you’ll help me!”
“I can’t help you.”
“But you have to. Who else can I turn to?” she said.
“Your father. He won’t see you unhappy.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried, but Jack was very much afraid that he did. Marriage proposals weren’t the only things Elrissa Barden refused to take seriously. She clearly thought she could ignore her marriage vows, as well.
“I’m going now,” he said firmly, still holding her at bay. “Everything will be all right—”
Someone knocked urgently on the door behind him.
“Jack!” Mary said on the other side. “Come on, come on—you have to get out of here!”
Elrissa finally let go of him and stepped away. He gave her a moment to compose herself, then opened the door.
“Goodbye,” she said, her voice cold and controlled now, as if they hadn’t just been in an inexplicable tussle by the door. He started to say something more to her, then didn’t. He turned and followed Mary down the wide hallway toward the back of the house.
“He’s coming up the walk,” Mary said over her shoulder. “Hurry!”
“I’m not afraid of him, Mary.”
“Well, I’m afraid enough for the both of us. I can’t lose this job, Jack. He’ll put something about so nobody else will hire me. Hurry!”
He let Mary lead him through a breakfast room and out a side door, checking first to make sure no one would see him when he stepped into the manicured garden.
“The gate is over there—down that path,” she said, pointing the way.
“Next time maybe I’ll listen to you,” he said, making her give a small laugh despite her worry.
“You’re well rid of that one. You know that, don’t you?” She suddenly reached up and touched his cheek. “What happened to you? Your face is the same, but you’ve got the eyes of an old man, Jack.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Go!” she said, giving him a push. “And take care of yourself. And don’t you be coming back here!”
For the second time that day she closed the door firmly and left him standing.
* * *
“Jack! What are you doing here!” Little Ike cried as Jack came through the back hedge at the orphanage.
“Delivering fish,” he said, holding up the large string of catfish he intended for the orphanage kitchen. “See? Good fishing down at the creek today. I thought the sun was too high, but the catfish didn’t. What are you doing here?” he countered because he’d always enjoyed teasing Ike when he was overly excited about something and because Ike actually had a distant cousin who was letting him stay in a converted storage room at her house—now that he was grown and useful—the same cousin who had given him such a detailed account of Elrissa’s wedding.
“You’ve been fishing?” Ike said incredulously, his voice giving a little squeak they way it always did whenever he was really excited.
“You can see I have, Ike.”
“Father Bartholomew said you didn’t stay here last night.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, where were you!” Ike cried, and Jack gave him a look to let him know he was dangerously close to crossing the line.
“You shouldn’t be here, Jack. You should be long gone—”
“Why?”
“Why? The watchmen! They’re looking for you!”
Jack was still not alarmed. “I’ve got to deliver these fish,” he said, trying to get past him so he could take his catch to the kitchen door.
“Forget the fish! They’re going to arrest you, Jack. Elrissa told her husband you were at the house. Her husband wants you arrested and charged.”
“What are you talking about? Charged for what?”
“She says...you put your hands on her. You tried to hurt her.”
“That’s crazy. Mary was there. I don’t have anything to worry about.”
“You’ve got a lot to worry about! They’ve already been here once looking for you. Father Bartholomew sent me to see if I could find you—we didn’t think you’d be coming back here. Farrell Vance aims to have your head, and he’ll get it, too. You’ve got to get away!”
“I’m not running when I didn’t do anything—”
“And how are you going to prove that? If Elrissa says you did—that’s all it’ll take. You don’t have any money. You don’t have any connections. There’s nobody to vouch for what really happened.”
“I told you Mary was there.”
“Who’s going to believe her, even if you could get her to tell the truth—which I doubt would happen if they came after her. She’s going to be too scared to go against whatever Elrissa claims you did. And even if she does, Jack, Vance’s lawyers will say us orphans always stick together—”
“Well, we do.”
“Jack! Listen to me. I think if Vance gets half a chance, he’ll kill you. It’ll be like when General Sickles killed his wife’s lover. He’ll get off, just like Dan Sickles did, and you’ll be in a pine box. Ain’t that many of us left, Jack! You got to go! You got to live for the ones we had to bury down South. You got to live for all of us! You hear me!”
“Jeremiah,” a quiet voice said behind them.
“Father Bartholomew,” Jack said. “It’s not—”
“Come inside,” the priest said. “Ike, you take those fish to the kitchen. Don’t say anything about Jeremiah being here.”
“Yes, Father,” Ike said, taking the string of fish out of Jack’s hand.
Jack followed Father Bartholomew inside the building through a side door and down the quiet hallway to his office. They had to pass several classrooms along the way, and he thought idly that he could have identified where he was blindfolded because of the smell of chalk and India ink. One of the classes was singing today—“The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Another group struggled with multiplication table rotes.
“Nine-times-one-is-nine!”
“Nine-times-two-is-eight-teen!”
Father Bartholomew looked inside the office before he allowed Jack to enter.
“Close the door, Jeremiah,” he said when they were inside. He indicated that he wanted Jack to sit in the one chair—the “scamp seat,” as Jack and the rest of the boys at the orphanage had called it—the one directly in front of the desk, where it was impossible to escape Father Bartholomew’s all-seeing gaze. Father Bartholomew took his usual place on the other side. It was a scene reminiscent of many Jack had experienced in this room, times when the young Jeremiah Murphy had let his foolhardy nature get the better of him and he’d had to be taken to task for it. The desk had seemed much bigger then, and so had Father Bartholomew.
Jack waited for the priest to say something—because that was the way it had always been done. Father Bartholomew sat quietly for a moment, tapping his fingertips together, perhaps praying. Jack couldn’t tell for sure. Motes of dust floated in the shaft of sunlight that came in through the high windows. He could hear the distant sounds of orphan life going on around them, and he felt such a sudden pang of homesickness and longing that it made him catch his breath.
Father Bartholomew looked up at him. “I believe Ike is correct in his assessment of this situation,” he said.
“Father, I—”
The priest held up his hand. “You have been in difficult circumstances before, ones which must have led you to rely on the Scriptures you were taught—”
“No, Father, I didn’t rely on them,” Jack said. He expected the priest to react, but Father Bartholomew merely let him twist in the wind after his remark and waited for him to continue.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Jack said finally. “I would think about...being on the upstairs porch after the Saturday chores were done. I would think about it so hard, I could hear your voice reading the poem. It...helped.”
“A story of sin and redemption. God’s messages appear in many places. And I know for certain that when we need Him, He often chooses to speak to us in a way that we will accept and understand, and we have only to pay attention.
“I have known you since you were a small boy starving on the streets of Lexington, Jeremiah. Since then, you and I have had to address a number of sins and punishments—but I do not believe you are guilty of this accusation. I want you to stay in here out of sight until dark. I don’t believe the watchmen will be back looking for you until then. In the meantime, I have some arrangements to make. Will you do that? Stay here until I get back?”
“I’d rather talk to the police.”
“No,” Father Bartholomew said firmly. “I’m told that the watchmen looking for you are also in Farrell Vance’s employ, and they will prevent you from doing that.”
“Prevent—why?”
“Farrell Vance is a vain and arrogant man. He also has considerable authority regarding the enforcement of the law in this city. I believe he takes unnatural pleasure in perceiving insult where there is none so that he can inflict his own retribution. Your seeking out his wife without his knowledge is no small matter in his eyes. I don’t believe he will allow you to challenge the veracity of her accusations in court or anywhere else—whether he believes them or not. In his mind, you have crossed a line, and the man now wants you dead. You’ve come through a hard time, Jeremiah. You’ve lost many of your orphanage family and you’ve survived the horrors of war by the grace of God and...by your own ingenuity.” He paused, perhaps giving Jack the time to understand that he was referring to his unorthodox use for a poem about an ancient mariner.
“But all that hasn’t made you immune to the harm this man intends to do you. This is not a situation you can handle alone. You must trust in God and in the people who care about you. You must wait here.”
But Jack was unwilling to do that. He abruptly stood.
“This isn’t right, Father.”
“No, Jeremiah, it isn’t. But it’s not you or I who are the wrongdoers.”
“I don’t want to hide here, and I don’t want to run away.”
“You haven’t been home in a long time. The war has changed things here and not for the better. Farrell Vance was—is—a profiteer. You don’t understand how far this man’s influence can reach. It is absolutely necessary for you to leave Lexington. I don’t think you can stay alive otherwise. It’s either be murdered by his henchmen or be hanged for defending yourself,” the priest said, slowly getting to his feet, as well.
They stared at each other, and Father Bartholomew gave a quiet sigh. “I don’t want to lose another one of my boys, Jeremiah.”
“I’m not a boy, Father.”
“No. But you still need to trust my judgment. I will return as soon as I can. Don’t let any of the others see you. We want them to be telling the truth if they have to say they haven’t seen you and don’t know where you are.” He walked to the door and opened it, and Jack realized that the old man was trying not to limp. The past four years hadn’t been kind to him.
“There are apples in the cupboard there,” Father Bartholomew said. “Eat one if you’re hungry. Put the rest in your pockets. And move over there—into that corner. If anyone opens the door looking for me, I don’t want them to see you.”
“Father, I don’t understand why you’re doing this—”
“I told you. I don’t want to lose another one of my boys, especially if there is something I can do to prevent it. You are innocent and you belong to all of us here,” he said. “That is enough for me.”
“Are you that sure I’m not guilty of what Elrissa accuses me of?”
The old priest gave a slight smile. “Guilty men don’t risk being caught in order to bring a fine catch of catfish to an orphanage kitchen, Jeremiah. At least not in my experience. Rest now while you can. I fear you will need it.”
Jack stood for a long moment after Father Bartholomew had gone. Then, despite the fact that he was no longer one of the elderly priest’s charges, he did as he was told. He ate an apple. He filled his pockets with some of the ones left in the basket. He sat on the floor behind the door so that no one who opened it would see him. He was so tired suddenly, and there was nothing to do but wait. He kept trying to sort out what must have happened after he left Elrissa, and he couldn’t. Despite her earlier comments and his struggle to keep her at bay, Elrissa didn’t in any way seem distraught when Mary saw her—and couldn’t Mary say that?
No. Ike was right. No one would take Mary’s word, not when she would be contradicting the wife of Farrell Vance. Whether he’d been here these past four years or not, he knew enough about the power of wealth to know that. He’d seen it every day in the dry goods store.
It was nearly dark when Father Bartholomew returned. He came in carrying a large basket, and he had Ike in tow. He immediately sent Ike to keep watch along the hallway and outside the building while he apprised Jack of the escape plan.
“The money you left in my keeping,” Father Bartholomew said, giving him a leather pouch. “I wouldn’t carry all of it in that, though. Times are hard and I imagine the roads are full of desperate and misguided souls who will try to take it from you.”
The priest had brought the haversack Jack had carried for the duration of the war, and he handed it to him. Jack had left it and the rest of what remained of his army equipment in the storage room in the visitors’ quarters at the back of the orphanage until he had need of it again. He hadn’t expected to require it quite so soon.
“The knapsack will be too conspicuous,” Father Bartholomew said as he took boiled eggs from the basket and handed them to him. And there was hardtack and beef jerky among the numerous small wrapped packets. The boiled eggs must have come from the orphanage kitchen, but Jack had no idea how the priest would have come by the army rations.
“One last thing,” Father Bartholomew said. “I seem to remember you had a great fondness for these.” Incredibly, he handed Jack several sticks of peppermint candy. “You do still like them?” he asked with the barest of smiles.
“I...don’t know,” Jack said truthfully. “It’s been a long time.”
“All the more enjoyable, then,” the priest said.
Jack shook his head. He was just short of being amused that Father Bartholomew would think peppermint sticks could make him feel better. Even so, he put the candy into his pocket.
“I don’t think you should head west,” Father Bartholomew said. “I believe Vance’s assassins will be expecting you to try for Louisville. Going south into Tennessee will be a better choice. Get to Knoxville and then head east into the mountains. It will be easier for you to get lost there and it is not a likely route since you’ve so soon come from the war. Farrell Vance is not going to think you would want to go back into that troubled land. Then, later, after he tires of looking for you, you might head farther south and by some circuitous route eventually make your way to St. Louis.”
“Father—”
“It would be better if we didn’t argue about this, Jeremiah. You haven’t the time.”
“I was only wondering,” Jack said. “You seem well versed in how to make a man disappear.”
“You aren’t my first fugitive, Jeremiah, and I sincerely doubt you’ll be my last. Now. I want to give you this, but don’t open it,” he said, handing Jack an envelope. “I’ve written down some things I want you to know, but this...wisdom, if you will, won’t be helpful to you now. You are still too raw. From the war. From your association with Elrissa Vance. I want you to wait before you read it. Wait until you are...content.”
“Content?” Jack said, thinking he hadn’t heard right.
“Contentment is one of life’s finer accomplishments, Jeremiah. You won’t understand what I’ve said unless you have it. Now. Ike is going to go with you to the edge of town. He’s hidden a horse for you in the cemetery. If you’re stopped, Ike will seem very drunk, and you will react to his inebriation accordingly.”
“Little Ike has never had a drop of liquor in his life,” Jack said.
“But he’s wearing a good dose of it on his clothing and he’s very good at mimicking its effects. I’m sorry to say it was something he saw in his own home far too often when he was a small boy. Once you’re out of the town, travel mostly at night and stay to yourself. And don’t look like you’re on the run. People are going to remember a horseman riding fast no matter what time of day it is. Now, you must hurry. I expect the watchmen to come and search the premises again tonight and I expect they will prevail upon the smaller children to tell what they know. I need to be on hand to calm them.”
Jack looked at him. Elrissa’s lie was more far-reaching than he had realized. “I’m sorry for all this, Father.”
“We must concern ourselves with what is, Jeremiah, and not become entangled in regrets, especially those over which we have no control. And we must keep a firm grasp on our hopes. My hope for you is a good, new life, one that begins this very minute.”
Father Bartholomew opened the door quietly and looked in both directions before he stepped out into the dark hallway. They moved quietly through the building toward the side door, cutting through the main dining hall as they went. Several votive candles in red holders burned on the mantelpiece, and Jack could see a long row of tin cups behind them. Thirty-seven of them; he knew how many without counting.
Thirty-seven.
“It was a great kindness to send us those, Jeremiah,” Father Bartholomew said when Jack stopped to look at them. “We keep them in a place of honor, and I believe our boys know we are remembering them.”
Did they? Jack thought. He had no idea. At the moment he had other things to worry about. If he were caught, his attempt to escape would only underline his already-presumed guilt.
He would just have to see to it that he wasn’t caught.
Ike waited by the side door, reeking of the O Be Joyful just as Father Bartholomew had said. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a sound they both mistook for cannonading for a brief moment. The wind was picking up and the trees on the grounds of the orphanage began to sway.
“A good storm will give you cover,” Father Bartholomew said. “Be watchful and Godspeed to you both.”
“Thank you, Father,” Jack said, offering the old man his hand. “This is twice now you’ve given me my life.”
“I believe it to be worth the effort,” Father Bartholomew said. “You’re a good man, Jeremiah. Sometimes in spite of yourself. Now go! Hurry!”
The rain came only moments after they’d left the grounds. Ike led the way, alert as he always was whenever the Orphans’ Guild—or one of its members—was in danger. He zigzagged through back lots and alleys Jack had never even seen before or didn’t recognize. It was taking twice the time it ordinarily would have to reach the old cemetery where the horse was supposed to be. As the thunder grew louder, Jack began to lose hope that it would still be there. Tied securely or not, horses didn’t wait well in a thunderstorm without a human in attendance, and even then it could be difficult.
“Wait,” Ike whispered when they were about to cross a street. His warning was well-timed. Two of the city’s watchmen were coming out of the narrow lane they intended to travel. They waited in the shadows until the men had passed.
“Now!” Ike whispered, and they began to run, the noise of their passing hidden in the sound of the rain and wind. “Not much farther—”
It took only minutes to reach the iron gates. Ike pulled one of them ajar. It creaked loudly, and they hurriedly took refuge behind an ornate but eroded angel-covered tombstone until they could be certain that no one had heard the sound.
“That way,” Ike said after a moment, and Jack followed him as best he could in the dark, stumbling several times over footstones along the way.
“I don’t see the horse,” Jack said.
“Over there—”
Jack still didn’t see it—and then he realized that Ike meant inside a nearby mausoleum, one he immediately recognized.
Ike laughed and slapped him on the back. “I knew you’d be thinking that horse was long gone. Ain’t, though, is it?”
“I’ll tell you after we actually find it,” Jack said, making Ike laugh harder.
But the horse was where Ike had left it. Dry and out of sight inside an ostentatious marble structure dedicated to the erstwhile Horne-Windham family. Jack remembered playing in the mausoleum when he was a boy. It was a good place to hide—except that Father Bartholomew always found him.
“Don’t reckon the Horne-Windhams ever expected a horse to be in here,” Ike said as he lit a candle stub he had in his pocket. He let some hot wax drip onto a narrow ledge and planted the candle firmly into it. The rain was barely audible inside the thick marble structure and the candle flickered in the draft from the entrance.
“They’re not the only ones,” Jack said, wiping the rain from his face and attempting to calm the horse because it had become unsettled by their sudden appearance.
Despite the animal, there was still enough room to get around. He looked at the many bronze plaques placed one above the other on the opposite marble wall and appearing to reach well above his head. “It’s a good thing there were so many of them.”
“Biggest marble box in the place. Here,” Ike said, bringing a small bundle out from under his coat.
“What is—?” Jack began, but then he recognized the weight and the feel of it.
“Things must be bad if Father Bartholomew is giving me a sidearm.” He turned the bundle over in his hands.
“He ain’t,” Ike said. “I am. It’s loaded so don’t go throwing it around and shoot the horse or something. Now all we got to do is get you out of here.”
Ike moved to the entranceway, alert and watchful as Jack led the horse forward.
“Ike,” Jack said. “I...don’t know how to thank you. I can’t ever repay you—”
“There ain’t but one way, Jack,” Ike said without looking at him. “Die in your own bed when you’re ninety—and don’t you ever come back here.”
“Ike, if—”
“Shh!” Ike said sharply. “Watchmen—I think it’s the same two.”
The horse, alarmed by the sudden tension in both men, began to toss its head and shift about.
“Easy,” Jack whispered, hanging on to the bridle. “Whoa! Easy!”
“Out the candle. I’m going to draw them away,” Ike said, slipping outside before Jack could stop him. Incredibly, as his footsteps faded into the darkness, Ike began to sing, a rousing song about a little chicken that wouldn’t lay an egg, the one he used to sing on the march to make the Orphans’ Guild perk up and laugh.
“O, I had a little chicky and he wouldn’t lay an egg...”
Jack waited, listening hard, but the storm was nearly overhead and the walls too thick for him to hear whatever it was Ike had heard. All he could do was stay put and try to keep the horse from bolting. His hands were beginning to shake, but he didn’t let go of the bridle. He leaned his head close to the animal’s nose and breathed evenly, quietly, until he could loosen his grip. Then he reached into his pocket and gave it a piece of the peppermint candy.
“All right,” he said to the horse after what seemed a long time. “In for a penny, in for whatever’s in that leather pouch.”
He moved to the doorway and stood for a moment, then led the horse outside. It was still raining, but the worst of the storm had passed. He couldn’t see or hear any activity in the cemetery.
He made sure his haversack was secure, then he mounted the horse and let it find its own way among the tombstones until he reached the road leading out of town. He knew better than to take it. He cut through more back lots and alleyways instead, hoping the watchmen would be more interested in staying dry than in obeying Farrell Vance. Eventually he found a part of the town he could still recognize even in a downpour. He cut across a field, careful to stay between the rows of corn and not leave an irate farmer in his wake. Heading into the mountains was a better plan than Father Bartholomew had realized. Jack had impulsively told Elrissa that he was heading out West, and it seemed likely that she would have told her husband.
In a very short time and through any number of plowed and planted fields, Jack had ridden beyond the Lexington town limits, but he stayed off the main road until he was certain he was beyond any watchmen assigned to monitor the comings and goings of nighttime travelers. It was still raining, and he stopped for a moment and listened to get his bearings. Then he crossed into yet another field and ultimately came out onto the road again. He headed for London, and he didn’t look back.
