New Orleans, Louisiana—May 1881
Lydia Bertrand glanced around her room one last time, then allowed May, her mother’s maid and now hers, to help her down the stairs. Were she capable of tears at this moment, she might have shed them.
If only Papa were here. Surely he would stop this madness. Surely he wouldn’t allow Mama to ship me off as if I were some package headed for the Western frontier.
They stepped into the courtyard. The fountain gurgled, and the leaves dripped with sparkles of raindrops from a rain shower Lydia hadn’t even noticed. Beneath her feet, the centuries-old bricks shone as if freshly painted. It seemed as if God had washed the courtyard clean in anticipation of her arrival.
She stopped short and grasped May’s hand. “Mama said Papa’s in New York.” She whispered lest Mama be nearby. “What say we turn in our tickets for passage north? I’m sure once he hears what Mama has done he will overrule her.”
May gave her a sideways look. “First off, chile, New York City’s bigger’n any place you or I’s ever been, and we don’t know where your papa done gone there. Ain’t no way to find a man lessen you know where he’s done gone.” She paused. “Second, your papa loves your mama more’n either of us can understand. They’s put together by the Lord, and they fit like hand-in-glove. Your mama, bless her heart, was a strong-willed chile. Your papa, he lets her have her way, now don’t he? You really think he gonna overrule your mama on somethin’ she’s so set on doin’?”
Unfortunately, Lydia couldn’t disagree with anything May said.
“That’s right. You know I’m tellin’ the truth.” She looked as if she wanted to say more. Instead, she turned her head and made a soft clucking sound.
“Go ahead and say it, May.”
“All right, I will.” She paused. “I wonder iffen the good Lord ain’t behind this.” At Lydia’s incredulous look, May shook her head. “The Bible said we reap what we sow. You done sowed a whole bunch of trouble dancin’ in that fountain at school, Miss Lydia.”
Again she couldn’t deny it. “So what do I do, May? This is serious.”
May seemed to consider the statement for a moment. “Chile, how big is your God? ’Cause my God is bigger’n any human plan.”
Nodding, Lydia felt the beginnings of hope stirring.
“Well then.” May placed her dark wrinkled hand over Lydia’s, then squeezed. “If it’s the Lord’s intention that your mama get her way, there’s nothin’ you can do about it less’n you intend to jump outta His will. You wantin’ to do that, Lydia Bertrand? You wanna go against the Lord Almighty?”
Lydia’s heart sank. Disobedience had always come so easily. “No,” she said softly. “Not this time.”
“I didn’t think so.” May looked past her, presumably to the coachman. “She ready to go.” Returning her gaze to Lydia, May smiled. “You the spittin’ image of your mama. Difference is, by the time she was your age, you were runnin’ around makin’ trouble and she had lost your two brothers to the yellow fever.” Her face softened as if remembering all over again. A moment later she stiffened her spine and blinked hard. “It’s time you left here and made your own way in the world. What you think about that?”
Lydia glanced back at the house, and something sharp twisted in her gut. Was that Mama who let the lace curtain fall in the window above the door, or had the breeze caught it?
“I think she’s banishing me.”
May released her hand to envelop Lydia in a hug. “She not banishin’ you—she sendin’ you forth. Now let’s us get a-goin’. Ain’t no use to tarry when the Lord’s got plans for both of us.”
“May I help you in, Mademoiselle Bertrand?”
Lydia sighed as the same coachman who had handed her out of the carriage this morning now helped her back in. Two trunks and a carpetbag later, they rolled out of the courtyard onto Rue Royale with May seated beside the driver.
This time Mama definitely was nowhere to be seen.
Lydia reached for her journal to record the moment, then thought better of it. Whatever the Lord had for her, it was better she not speculate in her current frame of mind. Nor should she dwell on the feelings she now found raging inside her.
Instead, she cast her gaze down to the travel voucher in her hand and tried to pray.
When her jumbled hopes and cares refused to form a coherent thought, Lydia settled for leaning on the assurance that the Holy Spirit had taken her mutterings to the throne. As she glanced up front to where May sat, Lydia saw the older woman bow her head.
The rest of the trip to the train station seemed to go by quickly, as did the first leg of Lydia’s journey west. By the time she and May landed on the doorstep of the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, Texas, she’d almost gotten used to the idea of being sent forcefully into the world.
Lydia slept soundly and might have missed breakfast to linger beneath the covers except for the noise from construction on the hotel’s new east wing. This time when she prayed, she found the words to ask the Lord for a way to escape her current situation. While He did not respond immediately, Lydia had no doubt He was behind the plan she began to concoct.
As she handed the cream-colored letter to the gentleman behind the front desk and bade good-bye to the Menger Hotel, Lydia felt her heart grow lighter. Mama might hold the key to Lydia’s immediate future, but eventually Papa would prevail. As soon as he heard of her troubles, he would surely come to her rescue.
All she had to do was bide her time until he arrived. She held that thought all the way across the rest of Texas and into New Mexico. By the time the train came to the end of the line and they transferred to a stage for the rest of the trip, the thought had become a prayer that she took to the throne every time they lurched over a rough patch of trail.
When not in prayer, Lydia contemplated how best to spend her time. Papa had long ago listed pertinent scripture verses in the front of her Bible, and she turned to them now. Chief among them was the one she called her life verse.
From the sixty-second chapter of Isaiah, she ran her finger over Papa’s bold backward-slanting script. “And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.”
To Lydia’s surprise, May began to giggle. When a stern look did not silence the older woman’s mirth, Lydia closed the Bible and shook her head.
“What’s so funny, May?”
“Read that verse again, Miss Lydia.” When Lydia complied, May doubled over in laughter. A moment later she gathered her wits. “I’m not laughin’ at you, I promise. It’s just that…” She pointed to the Bible. “Well, the good Lord, He do have a sense of humor.”
The stage jolted to a stop, and Lydia braced herself. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, now, He say right there that you gonna be called by a new name. You see it?”
The coach lurched into motion once more. “Yes, I see it, but I repeat: what’s so funny?”
“It’s just that in all the years you were claimin’ this verse as your own, did you ever think God would be doin’ exactly what He says there?”
Lydia set the Bible aside and massaged her temples. The dull ache that had begun in New Mexico threatened to bloom into a full-fledged headache now that they’d left the state behind.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Honestly, May, I have no idea what you mean.”
May touched Lydia’s sleeve. “You gettin’ a new name now, aren’t you, chile? Maybe you need t’stop blamin’ your mama and start thankin’ your Lord for makin’ good on His promise.”
When the reality of the statement hit her, Lydia could only groan.
“You know He goin’ with us, now don’t you?” May grasped a handful of Lydia’s traveling frock and blinked hard. “I been prayin’ for protection for you since you been borned, Miss Lydia, same as my mama did with your mama. The good Lord, He listen then, and He’s kept you safe in spite of yourself, now hasn’t He?”
When Lydia nodded, May continued.
“So when your mama told me what she had a mind t’do, I says to myself, is this of the Lord or is this somethin’ else? Well, I set to prayin’ and askin’ for Him to stop the foolishness of this if it wasn’t where He wanted you to be.” She leaned forward. “Next thing you know, she gets word from that woman at the school that you’d done a dance in the fountain. Well, that’s when I knowed for sure this was somethin’ that had to happen.”
Lydia leaned against the seat until the broken spring caused her to shift positions. She looked out at the passing landscape, so different from her New Orleans home, as she contemplated May’s words. They made no sense.
“You can’t mean that my mother planned this before I got myself sent home from school, May. That just isn’t possible.”
May sat back. “Oh, it’s more than possible. She been pondering on this plan for more’n a year. She say she was worried about your future. Your papa, he knowed about it, too, and he thought it was a bad idea, but only because he wanted you close by. I know he was much aggrieved by what might happen to you after he and the missus was gone.”
Lydia let May’s words sink in. “If that’s true, then why did he let me be sent off to Georgia to Miss Potter’s?”
“He thought you were being sent off to learn how to teach the young’uns. The reverend, he figured that’d be a good trade for you, what with your talent takin’ care of the little ones in the church nursery. When he found out your mama had lied to get you into that fancy boarding school instead of sending you to the teachers’ college, well, he ’bout hit the roof.”
So Papa wasn’t behind sending her off to Miss Potter’s school. That much she could believe. “Why didn’t he come get me when he found out?”
She shrugged. “Well, he never said so to me, but I figure your mama convinced him it would all work out just fine. She’s got a way of doin’ that with your papa.”
“Yes, she does.” Lydia studied her hands for a moment, then lifted her gaze to meet May’s stare. “Do you think Papa will come after me this time?”
May seemed to be considering the question. “I don’t rightly know,” she finally said. “But if I was you, I wouldn’t count on him comin’ right off. He gonna be in New York for two weeks—that’s what your mama said. We been gone a week now, so that means he ain’t even home yet. Far as he knows, you’re still up in Georgia gettin’ refined.”
“But once he comes home, do you think he’ll fetch me back then?”
May looked away. “I just don’t know, Miss Lydia.”
“Well, I do, May, and I’m just going to have to bide my time until he does.”
She gave Lydia a look. “What have you done?”
Lydia shrugged. “I wrote my father a letter and mailed it back at the Menger. I’m sure as soon as he reads it he’ll be on his way to fetch me back.”
“Miss Lydia, when will you learn?” She shook her head. “Your papa, he don’t disagree with this. He gave you a chance, and you didn’t take it. If he comes at all, it’ll be to see that you go through with it.”
The words struck fear in her heart. Then on second consideration she dismissed them. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can’t?” The older woman gave a tired sigh. “Think, chile. What does your papa want more than anything for your future?”
Trail dust swirled into the tiny coach. “That I be taken care of,” she said before giving in to a fit of coughing.
May nodded. “And how has he tried to do that?”
Lydia blinked the dust from her eyes and swiped at them with the backs of her sleeves. “By raising me in a Christian home and seeing that I developed a relationship with the Lord.”
“Uh-huh. And what else?”
She pondered a moment. “Well, by sending me to school and, oh…” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve done this to myself, haven’t I?”
May patted her hand again but said nothing.
Lydia lifted tear-filled eyes toward her former nursemaid. “What am I going to do now?”
“Only thing I know is if the Lord wants you home in New Orleans, He gonna stop all this foolishness, not you.”
The coach rolled past a sign announcing their destination. Any moment the coach would stop, and her new life would begin.
“Yes, but what do I do in the meantime?”
“You do what the Lord tells you, Miss Lydia. That’s always the right thing.”
They lurched forward as the coach halted before a primitive wooden building with a hand-lettered sign above the first floor. In a series of movements that felt like walking through water, Lydia left the coach and stood on a dust-covered walkway made of rough boards and marked by the occasional hole or missing board. To the right was an old woman staring at her from the doorway, her demeanor less than friendly. To the left a trio of roughs eyed her curiously before the coachman shooed them into the saloon.
She glanced down at the instructions Mama had given May, then up at the hand-lettered sign. So this was to be her new home, at least for now. According to Mama, her rent was paid for exactly two weeks. After that she was on her own.
As the driver hefted the first of her trunks onto the boardwalk, a panic like she’d never known before gripped Lydia. After she prayed, she covered the rising fear the way she always had—by squaring her shoulders and walking straight into it. Or, in this case, walking straight into the path of a cowboy who wore a black hat and a crooked grin.