Words Spoken True: A Novel Read online

  Soon she would have to do something. She often thought of joining Grace Compton in Boston. She had written Grace more than one letter asking if she could, but each time Adriane tore the letters up instead of posting them. Her father was right. Grace was barely able to support herself, and Adriane would be a heavy burden on her friend’s slim resources.

  Besides, she didn’t want to go to Boston. She wanted to stay here and put out the Tribune. She wanted things to be the way they’d always been. Even as she thought it, Blake Garrett’s face pushed into her mind, and she knew that wasn’t exactly true.

  Adriane had refused Blake’s letters through the end of June and then just when she began to weaken and think about opening one of them, he stopped sending them. He surprised her by coming to the door today. Just hearing his voice had made her blood race, and it was all she could do to keep from running to the window to catch a glimpse of him as he left.

  I’ll kill Stanley Jimson before I let her marry him.

  Of course, he hadn’t meant it. Not literally. But what had made him come to her door to tell her such a thing? Could it be he truly cared for her enough to contemplate such a desperate move? Cared for her more than his own reputation? More than his newspaper? She dared not believe that.

  What her father had said about Blake courting the daughter of a newspaper owner was true. She’d read the letter her father had gotten from Willis Hastings, an editor in New York, telling of Blake’s engagement to the daughter of the owner of the New York Post. The father had fired Blake and the daughter had married someone else. Hastings concluded his letter by writing that if Wade was asking about Blake Garrett because the man was looking for a job, to send him back to New York since he didn’t have any daughters to worry about. Just a newspaper to get out. The letter left a lot of questions unanswered.

  If you want answers, you can ask Blake, a voice whispered in her head. But how could she be sure he’d tell her the truth if she did? Even worse, how could she be sure she wouldn’t believe whatever he said simply because she wanted so much to believe him? No, it was better to wait here in this small, quiet space of her own making a bit longer. To send up her prayers and wait for the Lord to show her the right thing to do.

  She had a little time yet. With the election less than a month away, her absence by Stan’s side would surely go almost unnoticed in the heat of the political races. The election and the political rallies were the news, the only news. Even in the Herald the murders had slipped to the back pages, although Blake managed a front-page mention at least once a week to be sure no one completely forgot a murderer remained on the loose.

  Meanwhile her father was furiously writing editorials in favor of Coleman Jimson and the other Know Nothing candidates. Blake Garrett was as furiously writing editorials against them, especially against Coleman Jimson. If indeed he’d ever lacked editorial courage, he’d found it now. Adriane’s father said it was more like editorial idiocy, and not just to her but in print for all of Louisville to read.

  In answer, Blake blasted the Tribune’s editor for being nothing but a mouthpiece for the Know Nothing party. He accused her father of writing only what the party approved with no ability to think on his own. So the words flew like bullets between the editors, and the sales of both papers increased. Their readers, on the other hand, began choosing sides and shooting their own volleys of words in letters to the editors.

  Now as she stared up at the blue summer sky, Adriane thought she should try to write a Colonel Storey letter calling for cool heads. But even if she was able to reach inside herself past the odd blankness of her mind and find the right words, she doubted if such a letter would do much good. It was as if the whole town was not only ready to explode, but wanted to.

  Adriane sighed and kept staring at the sky until her face began to burn and sweat trickled down between her breasts. She touched her cheek and smiled a little as she imagined Lucilla’s shock and horror if she were to catch Adriane exposing her face to the sun. Adriane would no doubt sprout freckles, but what did it matter? No one was going to see her but Beck and her father and the hands. And Stanley.

  When the rumble of the press started up, she gave the old dog a last pat and stood up to go back inside. There was news to print.

  As the days passed, the editorials of both the Tribune and the Herald became more and more heated until Beck sometimes shook his head as he set type. “I sure do hope the boss’s words don’t set the paper on fire.” His words were only partly in jest.

  Coleman Jimson’s speeches that the Tribune published verbatim helped fan the flames. Jimson was working the crowds feverishly for votes, making promises that a Herald editorial claimed Jimson wouldn’t be able to keep even if he were—God forbid—elected president of the United States.

  In spite of the Herald’s insistent opposition, Stan told Adriane he didn’t see any way his father could lose unless he dropped dead campaigning, and even then he’d probably still get the majority of the votes.

  Stanley had reluctantly stayed in Louisville to help his father with the campaign instead of making the rounds of the resorts with his mother.

  “It’s all terribly tedious,” Stan confided one afternoon when he came by to deliver a copy of his father’s speech for the next day’s Tribune. “I’ve heard all the speeches a hundred times, but Father wants me there to start the cheers if the crowd seems cold.”

  As Adriane quickly scanned the speech, she said, “I thought the crowds were enthusiastic.”

  “Oh, they are.” Stan brushed at a few specks of dust on his hat. “But Father isn’t one to leave anything to chance. He even makes sure he has a few men scattered through the crowd to handle any hecklers.”

  “Handle them?” Adriane looked up at Stanley. “How?”

  “Money. Whiskey. A swift kick or maybe a gun in their ribs. I’m sure I don’t know or care.” Stan looked bored. “The less we hear from those people, the better.”

  “What people?”

  “The Irish mostly. They’re trying to stir up trouble, and Father says, if it’s trouble they want, then it’s trouble they’ll get. And believe me, Father knows how to give people trouble.” Stanley’s lips turned up in a tight little smile as his eyes narrowed. “If you happen to see your friend at the Herald, you might do him a favor by telling him that.”

  “If you’re referring to Mr. Garrett, I don’t expect to be seeing him.” Adriane kept her voice cool.

  “I should think not, since as it is, you’ll barely allow me a few minutes of your time. When are you going to be through with this charade, Adriane? Ever since our summer gala, you’ve been acting as if you practically fear being alone with me. Even Mother is beginning to worry there might be some problem.”

  Hope, you mean, Adriane thought, but she didn’t say the words aloud. “What could be wrong?” She widened her eyes with a pretense of innocence.

  “You tell me, my dearest. There are times I can hardly sleep for worrying I might have done something that night to offend you.”

  “I told you, Lucilla was feeling ill, and I thought it best if I accompanied her home.”

  Adriane was sure Stan knew that was a lie, but she’d stuck with her story all these weeks. She wasn’t about to change it now. In fact she had told it so often and so convincingly that even Lucilla was beginning to believe Adriane had actually ridden home in her carriage.

  “Perhaps you should see a doctor,” Stan said, concern drawn in careful lines on his face. “My sister Margaret fears you may be suffering from some sort of nervous vapors. Has she written you suggesting as much?”

  “She did write me.” Adriane almost smiled at the flicker of worry in Stan’s eyes. “But just a note saying how glad she was to finally meet me and that she hoped we’d have more time to talk the next time she is in town. She only inquired politely about my health as one is wont to do. I’ll fetch the letter if you would like to read it yourself.”

  “No, no, that’s hardly necessary,” Stan said. “But everyone
is so worried about you. Mrs. Wigginham especially asked after you last week at the Library Aide Society meeting. She was extremely disappointed when I gave her your regrets.”

  “You brought me quite enough facts for a nice mention in the Tribune. I’m sure that pleased her.”

  “Yes, my dearest, but I have no desire to be a news correspondent.” Stan reached out and laid his hand on her arm.

  Adriane forced herself to not shrink away from his touch.

  “And you should be spending your time planning our wedding and not worrying about little fillers for your father’s paper. September is drawing very near.”

  “Yes, I know, Stan, and I’ve been thinking. Christmas would be such a beautiful time to have a wedding, don’t you think?” Adriane knew she should just tell him straight out she couldn’t marry him, but perhaps with a few more months her father would be able to gather the money he owed to Coleman Jimson. If not by Christmas, then perhaps she could hold out for a spring wedding.

  Stanley laughed. “I do believe you are getting cold feet on me, my dearest Adriane.” He put his fingers under her chin and raised her face up until she was forced to meet his eyes. “But we are marrying in September. I won’t allow you to go back on your promise.”

  He continued to smile, but there was something almost fierce in his eyes. And looking at him, the truth slammed into her. She had promised. Not only Stanley, but her father. The Lord was not going to provide her an escape, and the darkness she so dreaded closed in around her heart.

  “Why do you want to marry me, Stanley?” she asked.

  “Love, of course, my dearest,” he said.

  “Besides that,” she said.

  “Why does there have to be a besides that?”

  “I don’t know, but there is, isn’t there?”

  “You don’t realize how beautiful you are, Adriane, or how your kind of beauty affects a man.” He let his eyes slide down the length of her dress, then reached out to finger the buttons on her bodice with much too much familiarity.

  “Really, Stan.” Adriane jerked back from him as blood rushed to her face.

  “Yes really, Adriane, my dearest.” His smile grew broader and even less appealing as he lowered his voice. “If I didn’t know your old Beck was listening from the other side of the door, I’d take you now. It would be my right.”

  “You have no rights to do any such thing until you’re my husband.”

  “A matter of a few weeks. No one would condemn me for being a bit impatient.” Stan’s gaze went from her face to her body again. “You’re going to be so soft. So good.”

  “Stanley, you’re embarrassing me.” Adriane backed up against the wall to get away from him.

  He stepped closer to her. “Surely not, my dear. You’ve grown up in a newspaper shop with very little training in the art of being a lady. You can’t make me believe you’re that innocent.” He came at her with both hands.

  Adriane slipped past him before he could touch her again. “I think you’d best leave, Stanley,” she said coldly.

  The look on his face changed as though he realized he might have gone too far. “Please don’t be angry with me, my dearest,” he begged. “You know I’d never intentionally upset you about anything, but sometimes just the sight of you makes me forget myself. You will forgive me, won’t you?”

  “Only if you promise never to behave so abominably again.”

  “Oh, I do promise,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. It must come from being in such close contact with all these common men on the streets at Father’s rallies. It’s enough to make a man fear for his own safety and thus want to gather as much of life to him as he can. And you, Adriane my dearest, are life to me.” He took her hand and kissed it, not even appearing to notice the ink stains on her fingers.

  “Do you feel the streets are actually that dangerous?” For a minute she forgot his near attack as she noted the unmistakable worry in his eyes.

  “They are.” Then his look of worry was gone as he smiled and kissed her hand again. “But you needn’t be worried about me, my dearest. If there’s trouble, I know how to take care of myself.”

  A few days later, the trouble that Stanley expected finally broke out at a political rally. When hecklers interrupted the speech of Humphrey Marshall, the Know Nothing candidate for United States Senator, his supporters began throwing rocks and gunfire broke out.

  The rally was not far from the newspaper offices, and after Adriane heard the gunfire, she paced the hall until Beck finally came in safely and reported her father safe as well.

  “It weren’t much. Just some folks letting off a little steam on both sides,” Beck said. “’Course some of the fellers did go check on that rumor going around about the guns in the churches. They somehow got the keys to that Catholic church on Thirteenth Street and searched it.”

  “Were there any guns?”

  “Nah. Most all of what’s being said is nothing but hot air. The Irish ain’t got nowhere to get that many guns or the wherewithal to get them. The most of them ain’t hardly got money to buy food.”

  “Did you see Duff?”

  “Don’t you be worrying about Duff. If I know him, he’s at home standing guard over his sisters and mother. That last girl that got murdered, that Dorrie Gilroy, you remember? Seems she was somebody they all knew real well, and while everybody else might have forgotten the river slasher with all this electioneering going on, our Duff ain’t.”

  “He and Blake Garrett should get together.”

  Beck looked at her with a sad smile. “They ain’t the onliest ones.”

  Adriane changed the subject quickly. “Do you think there’s going to be more trouble, Beck? With the election, I mean.”

  “I’d be surprised if there wasn’t. The boys just lacked a little making a mob out there tonight, and if they’d come up on any guns, who knows what might have happened.” Beck shook his head again. “The way I see it, about the only good thing that’s going to come out of this election is that we’re sure to sell a pile of papers.”

  17

  The last hot days of July whipped by in a blur of speeches and newspaper print. A parade was planned for the first Saturday in August as a final show of strength for the Know Nothing candidates before the election on Monday. When her father demanded and Stanley pleaded that she carry a transparency in the parade, she surprised both them and herself by agreeing.

  Stanley was pathetically jubilant when she told him she’d march in the parade with his sisters Pauline and Hazel, who had come back to Louisville expressly to take part.

  “I’m so happy, my dearest Adriane, and Father will be too,” he said, squeezing Adriane’s hand. “Can I assume then, that you will be your wonderful old self again and ready to take your rightful place by my side at all the social functions? Mother and Pauline are planning a grand dinner party to celebrate Father’s victory, you know.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Adriane said noncommittally, deciding to take one step at a time.

  First she’d quit hiding and go back out into the world where she could see firsthand what was happening. Then maybe the strange stupor that had seized her mind and stolen the words from her pen would be broken. It had been days since she’d been able to write much more than a stilted report of the weather in her journal. Her prayers seemed every bit as stilted. She didn’t know what to pray or even what to hope for, but that was no reason to shut herself in a dark closet of despair. She needed to gather the light while she could. And wait for the answers that Beck kept assuring her would come.

  The day of the parade she dressed carefully and fixed her hair with even more care while trying not to think about the probability of seeing Blake Garrett somewhere along the parade route. It did little good to think of Blake. After the last few weeks of editorial attacks and counterattacks between the Tribune and the Herald, the prospect of even a casual friendship with Blake had gone from unlikely to surely impossible.

  She shoved thoughts of B
lake Garrett from her mind and went downstairs to meet Stanley. A storm had lashed through the city just an hour earlier, and the newsboys were bringing in reports of downed trees and roofs off barns on the outskirts of the city. For a while it looked as if the parade might be canceled, but then the setting sun began turning the retreating storm clouds a deep rosy hue as if supplying elaborate decorations for the event.

  Not only had the streets been washed and swept clean of refuse by the rain, the storm had freshened the air with an invigorating hint of coolness after the heat of the day. The Know Nothings could not have ordered a more perfect evening for a parade, and the streets were clogged with carriages and people on foot converging on the courthouse where the parade was to begin.

  After Coleman Jimson and a couple of the other candidates made impromptu speeches from the courthouse steps, the girls unrolled their transparencies as the band struck up a lively tune. A charge of excitement seemed to be leaping from person to person and bringing shouts and laughter to everyone’s lips, even Adriane’s, as the parade began.

  People along the route cheered as they passed, although Adriane wondered how anybody could be left to cheer as the parade stretched out behind her farther than she could see. Adriane was marching near the front of the winding column between Pauline and Stan who had stuck close to her side all evening. As family of one of the candidates, they had an honored spot in the parade directly behind the actual candidates themselves. The band followed them, and in between the cheers, the pounding drumbeat seemed to echo Adriane’s own heart that kept jumping up into her throat every time she spotted a man with dark curly hair in the crowd along the street. Her banner sagged a bit each time the man turned out not to be Blake Garrett.

  When they passed by the Tribune’s offices, Adriane shouted a greeting and waved at Beck, who watched from the doorway. Not too much farther down the street, she spotted Duff and couldn’t keep from worrying that he shouldn’t be there. He did look so Irish. Even as she watched, a couple of men laughed and shoved the boy roughly out of their way. Adriane’s steps lagged, but then Duff saw her and tipped his cap before he grinned and melted back into the crowd. Stanley put his hand on her elbow and urged her forward.