The boy was covered in harsh purpling bruises—hardly a spot of skin had been spared. Matt felt a wave of anger wash over him.
The widow turned away, shuddering as if fighting for control. “That couldn’t have happened to him just from the storm,” she finally said in a low voice laced with revulsion.
Matt had to stop himself from putting an arm around her. No woman should have to see something as cruel as this. “No, but it explains what he was doing in our barn.” Matt’s low words scraped his throat. “He was hiding. This isn’t a normal whipping of a boy. Somebody has beaten the living daylights out of him. Somebody bigger and stronger.” Anger steamed through Matt. He had no doubt who’d done this. He met the widow’s eyes across the bed. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t tell her who he thought was responsible. Poor Mary. I have to think what to do to help, not make matters worse. But what? If I confront Orrin, he’ll just beat the boy worse or turn on Mary.
“What are we going to do?” Verity asked, echoing his thoughts.
“Let me think.” This was a sticky circumstance. Going over to Orrin Dyke’s house and beating the thug into the mud wouldn’t help Mary or her son. But Matt had to fight himself to keep from doing just that. Dyke was lucky enough to have a son, and he treated him like this?
Matt glanced up at the rustling of the bedsheets. The widow was very gently and thoroughly checking each of the boy’s limbs for movement. The candle cast her face in shadow. And for once, she was without her armor, her widow’s weeds and tight corseting. In her muslin wrapper and slippers, she looked slender and almost frail. Very feminine.
This reaction rolled through him like the thunder in the distance. He throttled it and asked harshly, “Are any bones broken?”
“His legs, arms and shoulders move in the normal ways. But I’m sure that he has bruised or cracked ribs. Is there a doctor nearby?”
Her compassion touched him. He fought against showing this. “Not near. About eight miles from here. Do you think he is in need of a doctor?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get him to wake up. See here.” She brushed back the boy’s bangs and showed him an especially nasty bruise. She had long slender fingers and her hands showed signs of honest work.
For a moment the woman looked down, a soft expression on her face as she stroked the boy’s cheek. Matt felt her phantom touch on his own cheek. He was conscious of both the sound of steady rain against the window and of the scent of lavender wafting from the woman. He dragged his gaze from her, forcing himself to study his surroundings. This must be her daughter’s room. Pinafores hung on pegs by the door and a canopy covered the bed—it was a homey place that contrasted with the ravaged boy.
She reached across the bed and gripped his damp sleeve. “What can we do about this?” she whispered.
He shook his head and then, unable to stop himself, he laid his hand over hers.
A moan startled him. She released Matt’s sleeve, breaking their connection. “Mama.” The boy was waking.
“Alec, it’s Verity Hardy.”
The boy tried to sit up and groaned. The sound spoke of such deep pain that Matt found himself gritting his teeth.
“Don’t try to sit up yet,” she cautioned. “You’re hurt.”
Alec still struggled, trying to get up as the widow tried gently to hold him back.
Matt leaned forward. “Alec, I’m Matt Ritter, an old friend of your mother’s. Lie back down. It’s all right.” He carefully pressed boy back down.
The boy looked up wide-eyed in the candlelight. “You’re that Yankee. What happened? Why am I here?” Before Matt could answer, he saw fear flash in the boy’s eyes. “I shouldn’t be here.” Again the boy thrashed feebly under the blanket, trying to get up.
“Alec, you must lie still.” The widow held his shoulders down. “Mind me now.”
At her quiet but insistent words, the struggle went out of the boy. He went limp. “What’s happening, ma’am?”
“Thee helped us keep our barn from burning down,” Verity answered. “Thee must have been hit in the head somehow. I couldn’t wake thee. So we brought thee into the house.”
“Ma’am, I should be getting home.”
“No, I think it would be best if thee stayed the rest of the night here.”
“But, ma’am, my mother needs me. Please.”
Alec’s words struck Matt like a blow to his breastbone. Was Orrin beating Mary right now? The urge to run to her rescue made Matt’s heart gallop. He added his hand on the boy’s shoulder over one of the widow’s. “All will be well. You’ll go home in the morning.”
Panic widened the boy’s eyes. “But my father—”
The widow touched the boy’s fair wet hair. “Thee must lie back and rest. Trust us.”
The boy appeared to want to argue, but fatigue and weakness overcame him. He whispered something that Matt could not understand and then his eyes closed again.
The widow touched the boy’s forehead. Then she looked over at Matt.
When their eyes connected, he saw deep concern. Suddenly he felt his solitary bachelor state as he never had before. He looked away. “I think he’ll sleep the rest of the night.” He turned toward the door, wanting to put distance between them.
“Matthew Ritter,” she asked again, “what can we do for this child?”
Her soft voice beckoned him to remain. “I’ll think of something,” he rumbled. He left her, his mind churning as he thought of Alec. And of how much longer he’d have to wait for the telegram that would whisk this woman—so dangerous to his peace of mind—out of his life.
Matt and the widow and her family stared at the telegram sitting open on the breakfast table. A military courier stationed at the railroad and telegraph depot had brought it just as they were sitting down to breakfast.
The telegram had been short and to the point. “Mrs. Hardy stay and start school wherever possible STOP Ritter move forward with school construction STOP Signed, The Freedman’s Bureau.” Matt had wanted to say STOP himself and had tried to hide his irritation, but he didn’t think he’d done a very good job. The widow had merely read it aloud and then made no comment. Clearly she wasn’t a gloater.
Then he thought to ask about Alec. “Is our visitor staying for breakfast?” The telegram had made him forget momentarily that there were more important things to deal with. His will hardened. An honorable man couldn’t just ignore what had been done to the young boy—he had to act today.
The widow looked strained, glancing sideways at her little girl. “Our visitor left before I was able to invite him to stay for breakfast.”
Beth glanced up at her mother with obvious curiosity. “We had a guest?”
“Alec stopped by for a bit, but he had to get home.”
“Oh,” Beth said, sounding disappointed.
Matt didn’t like that Alec had left. Would he suffer for running away?
“I was wondering, Matthew, if we should drop by and visit Alec’s parents.” The widow gave him a pointed look.
“I don’t think that’s something we should do,” he replied, aware that she didn’t want her daughter to know of Alec’s situation. Orrin would lash back unless the right person spoke to him. Men like Orrin only listened to those they dared not disregard, those they feared. And there was only one man in Fiddlers Grove Orrin might fear.
“But something should be…” Her voice faltered.
“Perhaps we should talk about this later,” Matt said, nodding toward her daughter.
“Yes, we’ll discuss it later.”
Beth looked at both of them and then went back to eating her oatmeal.
Matt cleared his throat. “The surveyor will be here this morning to survey the school site before we start building, so I’ll be busy with that today. Have you had a chance to hire us a housekeeper?”
“I will attend to that today,” the widow replied, offering him a second helping of biscuits.
It was hard to stay annoyed that Mrs. Hardy was remaining. She brewed good coffee and made biscuits as light as goose down. He might as well just get over the aggravation of having someone—this woman—working with him. We’re here for the duration. He forced a smile. “Good biscuits, ma’am.”
She smiled her thanks and offered him the jar of strawberry jam.
He took it and decided not to hold the excellent jam against her, either. She couldn’t help it if she was a good cook. All in all, it could have been worse. She wasn’t much for nagging. He’d just go about building the school and signing men up for the Union League of America, and she’d start teaching school. They need meet only for meals.
He let the golden butter melt on the biscuit and blend with the sweet jam, and inhaled their combined fragrance. Army rations weren’t even food compared with what Mrs. Hardy put on a table. He hoped she was as good at hiring a housekeeper as she was at cooking.
He wondered briefly where she was supposed to start the school in Fiddlers Grove. Did the Freedman’s Bureau think the locals would rent her space? Not a chance. Well, that was her job. He had enough on his plate, starting with Alec and Mary. His conscience wouldn’t let him pass by on the other side of the road.
After breakfast, the widow sent her daughter out to feed the chickens and give the leftovers to the barn cats, who, along with the horses and the barn, had survived the night’s storm. Joseph rose from his place at the table and asked without preamble, “What was wrong with the boy?”
“He had been beaten unmercifully,” the widow replied.
Matt heard the mix of concern and indignation in her voice. His nerves tightened another notch.
“Disciplining a boy is one thing. Beating him is another.” Joseph looked concerned, his bushy white brows drawing together. “Alec is a good boy, too.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’ve never dealt with anything like this.” The widow lowered her eyes and pleated the red-and-white-checked tablecloth between her fingers.
Matt wished he could save her from worrying over this. “What can anyone do? A father has control over his children, absolute jurisdiction.” The bitter words echoed Matt’s frustration over his inability to take direct action. The world was the way it was and good intentions never went far enough.
Matt had decided he wouldn’t tell the widow or Joseph what he planned to do. He didn’t want to give her hope when there probably wasn’t any. He had to admit to himself that he also didn’t want her to know he’d tried and failed. He ground his molars, irritated.
“I will pray about this,” the widow said. “All things are possible with God.”
Matt gritted his teeth tighter. Prayer didn’t help. He’d learned that while watching the life leak out of friends on the battlefield. He’d been the one who closed their eyes in death. Either God didn’t hear prayers in the midst of cannon fire or Matt didn’t rate much with God.
Knowing his opinion would shock the Quaker, he pushed up from his place. “I’ve got things to do. See about hiring that housekeeper and find a laundress. I think you’ll find a lot of former slaves who will be happy to get work.” He regretted sounding so brusque. But he couldn’t help it. He was a captain—he was used to giving orders.
“Thank thee, Matthew.”
Joseph gave him an approving look. “You show you understand how much work it takes to run a household. You must have had good parents.”
Uneasy, Matt looked at the older man, wondering where this comment had come from. “Yes, I had good parents.”
Joseph nodded and walked outside, whistling. Matt hurried out after him, not wanting any more discussion about Alec. He’d deal with the surveyor and then he’d do what he’d known he must do sooner or later. Deathbed promises were a burden he couldn’t ignore. And Alec could not be ignored.
Verity had left Beth at home with Joseph because, once again, she didn’t know what kind of reception she’d receive. And she didn’t want Beth troubled. Verity had a formidable errand this morning and could only hope that she was following God’s prompting.
The memory of the battered young boy from last night haunted Verity. She had tried to turn Alec over to God, but the image of his injured body lingered in her mind. Some images were like that.
She had seen many sights during the war that she wished she could erase from her mind. But that wasn’t possible. She wondered what images Matthew carried with him day after day, after four years of soldiering. What a burden. No wonder he was brusque at times. I will be more patient with him.
Her steps slowing with her reluctance, she walked around St. John’s Church to the house behind it. Like all the other houses in Fiddlers Grove, the parsonage looked as if it had had no upkeep for a long time. White paint was peeling and green shingles needed replacing. She said a prayer for boldness to help conquer the uncertainty she was feeling, and walked up the steps. Then she lifted her suddenly unusually heavy arm to knock on the door. It was opened by a black girl of about thirteen in a faded blue dress with tight braids in rows around her head. “Good morning,” Verity greeted her. “Is the vicar in?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The young girl eyed her as if wanting to say something, but unsure if she should.
“May I see him, please?” Verity smiled, her lips freezing in place.
The girl stepped back and let her in. “Wait here, please, ma’am.”
Verity waited just inside the front door.
Within short order, the pastor emerged from the back of the house. He looked shocked to see her in his house—just what she’d expected. In everyday clothing, he appeared shorter and slighter than he had in his white vestments. He was rail-thin, like most everyone else in town, with gray in his curly brown hair.
“Good morning,” she said, greeting him brightly with false courage. “I was wondering if I could have a few moments to discuss something with you.”
The man looked caught off guard and puzzled. “I…I don’t know what we’d have to discuss.”
She tried to speak with the boldness of the apostle Paul. “I have come with funds and the authority from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman and Abandoned Lands to open a school in Fiddlers Grove.”
He gaped at her.
“And I need thy help.” Her frozen smile made it hard to speak.
“My help? I’ve read about that infernal bureau in the paper. I’m not helping them. Bunch of interfering…” He seemed at a loss for words to describe the Freedman’s Bureau in front of a lady.
“I hope you will listen to what I have to say.” She swallowed to wet her dry throat.
“You are mistaken, ma’am. We lost the war, but that does not mean that we want Yankees telling us how to live our lives and taking our land.” He moved forward as if ready to show her the door.
“I beg thy pardon, but how is having a school in Fiddlers Grove telling thee how to live thy life?” she asked, holding her ground.
“If it doesn’t affect me, then why discuss it with me?”
“Please let me at least explain what I propose. Does thee have an office where we might discuss this in private?” I will not be afraid.
Maybe her calm persuaded him or the Lord had prepared her way, but he nodded and showed her to a den off the parlor. He left the door open and waved her to a chair. He took a seat behind a fine old desk. “Please be brief. I am studying for my next sermon.”
Verity nodded, drew in air and said, “I did not realize that there was no free school here. I was a schoolteacher for two years before I married. It grieves me to see children growing up without education.”
He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “I, too, wish there could be a free school in town, but there wasn’t one before the war and there won’t be one now that everyone is in such difficult financial straits.”
She pressed her quivering lips together, knowing that her next words would shock him. “I have come to set up a school to teach black children and adults. But I think that it would be wrong to set up a school for only black children when the white children have no school. Doesn’t thee agree?”
He stared at her. “Are you saying that you could set up two schools?”
“No. Why not one school for children of both races?” She forced out the words she knew would provoke a reaction.
“You are out of your mind. This town would never accept a school that mixed black and white children.”
Praying, she looked at his bookshelves for a few moments and then turned back to him. “I don’t understand. Is the offer of free education something to be refused?”
“The kind of free education you are talking about is not even to be considered. If you build such a school, they will burn it down.” He stared hard at her, underlining his point with a scowl.
Her face suddenly flamed with outrage. They were poor and defeated, but still rigidly committed to the past. She tried to use reason. “There is great want here. Wouldn’t men welcome the work of building a school and the cash it would bring?”
“You’re a Yankee. You don’t understand Virginia. White men farm, but Negroes do the laboring. They are the carpenters, plasterers, coopers and bricklayers.”
“Well, that will change. It must, because no longer can Negroes be told what to do. They will choose what they wish to work at. Just as thee did. The old South is gone. It died at Appomattox Courthouse. Slavery has ended. And nothing will ever be the same here again.” The truth rolled through her, smoothing her nerves.
He stared at her, aghast.
Now that she’d said what she’d come to say, she felt calm and in control. “It may be of no comfort to thee, but the North has changed, too. No people can go through the four years that we’ve been through, suffered through, and be the same on the other side. Doesn’t thee see that?
“A school would be good for the whole town,” she continued. “Why not let progress come? Why not let me rent thy church to use as a school until the new school is built? And the Freedman’s Bureau may pay thy church rent, money that I’m sure thy church could use. Why not leave bitterness behind and be a part of a brighter future?”
After the surveyor had finished, Matt made himself head to the Ransford plantation to have the meeting he’d dreaded since he’d arrived. With imaginary crickets hopping in his stomach, he knocked on the imposing double door and waited for the butler to answer. When the door opened, he managed to say, “Good morning, Elijah.” Looking into the familiar face yanked Matt back to his childhood.
“Did you wish to see the master of the house, sir?”
Even in his distraction, Matt noted the change from “the master” to “the master of the house.” Matt appreciated Elijah’s assertion of his freedom. He wondered again about Samuel. Did Elijah know where Samuel was? This wondering about Samuel chafed at Matt, but he couldn’t speak of Samuel here and now. “Elijah, I need to speak to…Dace on a matter of importance—”
“Elijah, is that Matt Ritter?” Dace’s gruff voice came from the nearby room.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Bring him on back, please.”
Elijah bowed and showed Matt into the small study that Matt recognized as the room Dace’s father had used for business. Memories flooded Matt’s mind—coming in here and snitching toffees from the candy jar that still sat on the desk, the scent of his uncle’s pipe tobacco.
After Elijah left them, Dace said, “I was wondering when you would come.”
Matt sat down in the chair across the desk from his cousin, his only living blood relative, and looked him in the eye. Dace showed the telltale signs of war. He was gaunt, with deep grooves down either side of his face, and tired eyes.
“What brings you here?” Dace said over the rim of a coffee cup, sounding neither pleased nor displeased.
“Three matters, one from the past and two from the present. Which do you want to hear first?” Matt kept his tone neutral, too.
“Let’s deal with the past first. I still like to do things in order.”
This took Matt back to childhood also, to the many times he, Dace and Samuel had been planning on doing something daring like swim across the river at flood stage. It had always been Dace who planned out each test of their courage. “On her deathbed, my mother asked me to come back here and try to reconcile with you after the war.”
“So that’s why you came back?”
“Yes.” And with the foolish hope of coming home. But of course, Dace had never been forced to leave town, so he would not understand the feeling of not belonging anywhere or of having lost a home. Matt made sure none of this showed on his face. He would give Dace no chance to see that the events of their shared childhood still had the power to wound him.
“How do we reconcile? Shake hands? Remain on speaking terms?” Dace asked with a trace of mockery.
Matt’s neck warmed under his collar. “I don’t think real reconciliation can ever take place. There was hardly a chance before the war. Now there is even less hope.”
“So why did you come?”
Matt’s taut spine kept him sitting stiffly. “To fulfill my promise and to be a part of making the South change, even though it doesn’t want to. That is the present matter I came to discuss.”
“How will you make the South change? By force?”
“Force has already been used. My side won. Congress is moving forward, granting citizenship to former slaves and giving them the right to vote as citizens.”
Dace just stared at him, tight-lipped.
“I’m hoping that it won’t come to the point where I must ask for Union troops to put down opposition here. But I’m here to form a Union League of America chapter and to get a school built for former slaves and—”
The sounds of the front door slamming and rapid footsteps alerted the men, and then Dace’s wife rushed into the den. “Dace, you won’t believe—” She broke off at the sight of Matt.
Matt rose, as did Dace. Of course, he remembered Lirit as a pretty girl, spoiled by her doting father on a nearby plantation. Though around the same age as the Quaker, Lirit looked older, somehow faded and thin and threadbare. “Hello, Lirit.”
She drew nearer her husband as if Matt were unclean or dangerous. “Dacian, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you weren’t alone.”
Matt ignored her obvious rejection. Lirit had never been one of his favorites, unlike Mary, whom he’d adored as a child. The thought of Mary started a fire in his gut. Alec. Where was he now and what had he suffered for running away and hiding?
“Matt and I were just discussing why he’s come back to Fiddlers Grove,” Dace said.
Lirit glanced at her husband. “You know that he’s building a school for the children of former slaves?”
Dace nodded.
“Where did you hear that?” Matt demanded. He’d only told this to Mary, and he doubted Lirit and Mary were on speaking terms.
Lirit looked at him. “I was just at the parsonage. Your Mrs. Hardy had been there trying to talk the vicar into renting our church building as a school. She actually suggested that white children attend with black children.”
Matt frowned. White children? “The school is to be only for black children and former slaves.”
“The Quaker said that she didn’t like to see the white children going without an education.” Lirit’s scathing tone made her opinion of this clear.
Matt began to leave the room. “I should go—”
“Wait,” Dace said, stopping him. “You said you had come on three matters. We’ve only discussed two.”
Matt sent a doubtful look toward Lirit.
Taking the hint, Dace touched his wife’s shoulder. “May I have a private moment with Matt?”
“Certainly.” Lirit walked out, haughtily pulling off her gloves. She snapped the pocket door shut behind her.
Matt and Dace stared at each other for a few heavy moments. “Last night our barn was hit by lightning. When we went to put out the fire, we found Alec Dyke unconscious and hiding in our barn. He’d been beaten mercilessly, and had bruises and cuts all over him. Were you aware that Orrin is probably abusing the boy?”
Dace looked worried and rubbed his chin. “I don’t know what I can do about it.”
“I know I can’t do anything about it, but you might say something.”
“It could just make matters worse.”
“I hope you’ll think this over, Dace. If anyone can stop Dyke, it would be you.”
He turned to leave.
“Matt,” Dace said, stopping him. “Where is the Quaker from, do you know?”
Matt thought this an odd question, but replied, “Pennsylvania.”
Dace folded his hands in front of his mouth and stared out the window opposite him. “I don’t like the idea of Yankees coming here and telling us how to live our lives. But it’s like we are already in the coffin and they’re tossing dirt on our heads and we don’t even object.”
Matt looked directly into Dace’s eyes. “Change is inevitable.” He didn’t think he needed to say that even in the aftermath of the disastrous war, Ransford Manor was still the largest plantation for miles. And if Dace Ransford were in favor of something, people paused before they opposed it.
“Well, I’ve taken care of my obligation to my mother. The next time we meet, I’ll just be the Yankee working for the Freedman’s Bureau.” Matt left without looking back, something he should have done fourteen years ago.