Читать книгу The Bartered Bride - Cheryl Reavis - Страница 8

North Carolina

December 1861

Someone else was in the church. He stood listening for a moment, certain now that the faint sound had come from the back of the sanctuary.

“Wer ist da?” he called out, not wanting to frighten any of the old women who might have come to polish the candlesticks or put out the hymnals for the Sunday service.

No one answered.

“Who…is it?” he managed in English.

Again there was no reply.

He began to stack the oak logs he’d cut in the wood box near the potbellied stove. He could still hear the girls playing on the front steps by the open door; neither of them had followed him inside. There was much talk among the men these days about the possibility of army deserters or escapees from the new Confederate prison in town, but neither would have been of concern to him—if he had come to the church alone. He didn’t care about the politics of this country. He didn’t care who won the newly declared war or who escaped from the prisons. He didn’t care about anything except the fact that he had Ann’s daughters with him and he had given his solemn promise to always keep them out of harm’s way.

He took a moment to look around the sanctuary. He saw no one, heard nothing, and he decided that he must have been mistaken. But then the sound came again, a faint whimper he might not have heard if he hadn’t already been listening so intently. He turned and walked quietly toward the back of the church, and he saw her almost immediately. She was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs that led to the schoolroom on the second floor.

“Bitte—” he began, but she jumped violently, startling him as well. He moved around so that he could see her better in the dim light, recognizing her now in spite of the fact that she turned sharply away from him. She wiped furtively at her eyes, bringing her feet up under her as if she intended to make herself as small as possible.

He stepped closer.

“Eli,” she said, making a great effort to look at him. She attempted a smile, but her mouth trembled and her voice was hardly more than a whisper. She turned away again, telling him something in rapid English he didn’t begin to understand.

He stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Her hair was coming down and one button at the neck of her bodice hung by a thread. If she had not been Ann’s sister and if his promise hadn’t included her as well, he would have left her sitting there.

“Caroline? You are…ill?” he said. He had neither the proficiency nor the inclination to ask anything more. Perhaps she’d had another argument with her brother Avery— in which case her current state was to be expected. He knew Avery Holt to be a bully, and he knew from Ann that Caroline did her best to provoke him. He wanted to just go, but for Ann’s sake, he stretched out his hand. Surprisingly, Caroline took it, her fingers cold and clinging in his.

“Was haben Sie?” he asked, making her look at him.

“…the children,” was all that he understood of her reply.

“Ja—yes,” he said, looking over his shoulder toward the open door. “Mary Louise is…here. Und Lise. Both— here—”

“Eli,” she said in alarm, trying to push him in the direction he’d come. “Mary Louise and Lise—please—bitte!”

He hesitated, but he understood that her distress was such that she didn’t want her nieces to see her.

“Bitte!” she said again, her eyes following his glance at the dangling button. She snatched it from its thread and shoved it into her pocket.

He stood up and walked quickly away, glancing back at her when he reached the end of the aisle. She was no longer sitting on the bottom step.

He stepped outside, firmly closing the church door behind him.