River to Redemption Page 7

  The whine in his voice made Adria want to grab him and shake him. She supposed he couldn’t help it if he was the youngest child in a family with money where he got nearly anything he wanted. His father ran the town haberdashery, making silk top hats along with the slouch hats. A booming business, but Carlton wanted to have a plantation like his mother’s family, with slaves doing the work. Another reason Adria had not said yes. She couldn’t abide the thought of owning slaves. Not after loving Aunt Tilda.

  When Adria frowned and opened her mouth, Ruth held up the spoon to silence her. She turned back to Carlton. “Wait right there, Carlton. I think you have added to what I actually said. I said you could ask her to see what she said. I certainly would not answer for her. Adria makes her own decisions.”

  “She makes the wrong ones,” Carlton said.

  Adria’s frown grew fiercer. If they were simply going to talk about her as if she wasn’t there, then she wasn’t going to be there. “I’ve got cakes to frost.” Without looking at either of them, she whirled around and went in the kitchen.

  The icing was simmering on the back of the stove. Adria pulled it to the front and stirred it. That was what Aunt Tilda said made the difference. The stirring. A person wanted it to be right, she couldn’t worry about her arm getting tired. She had to keep stirring and waiting. She said there wasn’t any way to rush things up. That a good cook had to learn to wait until things were right.

  As Adria stirred the sweet concoction, she remembered asking Aunt Tilda how she could know when it was right.

  “You just know. It’s something you can feel in your arm whilst you’re stirring.”

  Adria took the pan off the stove and beat the sweet mixture. Was love like that? Something a person just knew when it was right? Or maybe she was simply waiting for a feeling that would never happen, like frosting taken off the fire too soon. You could beat it until your arm fell off and it still wouldn’t thicken up.

  This caramel batch was perfect. With a knife, she smoothed it on the cake while out on the porch Ruth tried to smooth down Carlton’s ruffled feathers. Her words drifted through the open window into the kitchen.

  “You can’t push her. You should know that by now.”

  “But I love her, Miss Ruth.”

  Now that Adria wasn’t facing off with Carlton, the longing in his voice touched something inside her. Maybe she was wrong to want more.

  “I know that. But do you love her enough to give her the time she needs?”

  “I’ve given her plenty of time.” He sounded cross again.

  Then nobody said anything. Adria almost smiled, thinking about how Ruth was surely staring at Carlton with her teacher look that could make a person squirm. Adria knew that look well.

  After a moment, Carlton started talking again. “What if we’re wasting the time we have? Something could happen. Like it did with the cholera in ’33.”

  “Indeed.”

  Adria stilled her knife and barely breathed as she listened for more. Carlton’s words would have stabbed through Ruth and brought back the loss of her husband and how the cholera epidemic had stolen so much from her. As it had Adria, but Adria hadn’t clung to her grief. She wished her parents had lived, but at the same time, they had faded in her memory. It wasn’t that way with Ruth. She claimed not a day went by that she didn’t think of Peter and wish things were different. She had never once entertained any of the suitors who came to her door. None of them could compare to her Peter.

  “There are other girls in Springfield.” Carlton’s voice got a little louder, as if he knew Adria was listening to his every word on the other side of the door.

  “So there are. Some very nice girls,” Ruth said quietly.

  For a second, Adria held her breath. She imagined Carlton not at her door but stepping up to Janie Smith’s door. She’d seen Janie eyeing Carlton at church. Janie would run to the altar with him. Outside, Carlton mumbled something she couldn’t quite hear, and then Ruth was coming back into the kitchen.

  Adria very carefully made swirls in the caramel frosting on the cake and didn’t look at Ruth.

  “That looks pretty.” Ruth brought another small cake over from the cabinet. “Do you have enough frosting to cover this little cake? I thought maybe you could take it to Louis tomorrow. He does love Matilda’s jam cake.”

  “Everybody loves Aunt Tilda’s jam cake.” Adria scraped the sides of the pan to get out every bit of frosting. “Except me. I wouldn’t care if I never saw another cake.”

  Ruth smiled. “I guess we can be thankful the people here in town don’t feel the same.”

  “I know. You should put up a sign out front. Ruth’s Bakery. You could make more selling cakes and pies than you do teaching.”

  “Baking is fine, but I love teaching.”

  “I wish I knew what I loved.”

  “Or who?” Ruth gave her a look that demanded she think about the question.

  “Or who.” Adria blew out a breath as she managed to spoon out enough frosting to cover the little cake. “Tell me, Aunt Ruth. How do you know if you’ve met the right man? That you’re in love?”

  “If you have to ask, then you may not have met the right person.”

  “Did you know right away with your Peter?”

  Ruth paused in putting the cakes and pies in boxes to deliver the next day. “While I did feel an immediate attraction the first time I saw him, I don’t know whether I could say that was love right away. He was so handsome I had to keep sneaking looks at him when he showed up at church. He had moved here from Lexington to teach school. He was tall, with wonderful eyes that were an interesting gray color but at times flashed blue. But the best thing about him was his smile. He smiled at everybody and you could tell it wasn’t forced. He liked people.”

  “And especially you.” Adria raised her eyebrows at Ruth.

  A blush warmed Ruth’s cheeks as she laughed. “Yes, I think especially me. A year later we were married.” The laughter went out of her eyes. “We had so little time together. And I did so want to have a baby, but it wasn’t to be.”

  “You’re not too old to marry and have a baby now.”

  Ruth gathered up the dirty spoons and dropped them into the dishpan. “That takes a husband.”

  “You’ve had opportunities there too.”

  “Stop it, Adria.” She softened her stern words with a smile. “I’m not the one looking for romance. That’s you.”

  “Am I, Aunt Ruth? Sometimes I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe something more than romance. Like I should do something important with my life since I’m all that remains of my family.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you want to go on to school, we’ll find a way. I’ve been saving some of our baking money.”

  “But all those finishing schools teach you is how to catch a man. I don’t care about how to swish my skirts or fill out my dance card. I want to do something that matters. Fight for women’s rights. End slavery.”

  “Matilda taught you well there.”

  “Well, it’s not right that she was never free. That her children were sold away from her.”

  “What about Louis? He doesn’t seem to be angry over being a slave.”

  “Aunt Tilda always said Louis was an uncommon man, but don’t you think he would rather be free? Wouldn’t anybody rather be free?”

  Ruth reached over to touch Adria’s cheek. “My young firebrand. You’ll have the whole town against you if you keep preaching that sermon.”

  “Another thing a woman can’t be. A preacher.”

  “True enough. But you could be the mother of a preacher or perhaps raise your own revolutionary sons.”

  Adria stared down at her hands. She had caramel on her fingers. “You think I should marry Carlton, don’t you?”

  “You know I’ve never tried to make decisions for you.” Ruth dropped her hand away from Adria’s cheek. “But if you keep putting him off, you might
lose him.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s a nice boy from a good family. You’d never want for anything.”

  Except the wants she couldn’t name.

  Nine

  Ruth’s customers started picking up their cakes and pies after breakfast the next day. She would never be able to deliver all the orders. She hadn’t had a buggy since she’d sold Peter’s pony after the cholera epidemic. Everything they needed in Springfield was within walking distance, although a buggy at times would be nice.

  When Adria was ten, she had wished and wished for a horse. Or a dog. Ruth smiled, remembering how Matilda told Adria if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And then she showed up the next day with a kitten Adria had named Gulliver. He was a good cat except that, like his namesake, he did take travels from time to time, but he periodically showed up again to catch the mice in the shed out back and let Adria pet him for a while.

  Ruth missed Matilda. She had filled a void in Adria’s life that Ruth couldn’t. Ruth had tried. She just didn’t know how to be the family Adria needed when she was a little girl. Ruth could teach Adria. She could read to her. But she had trouble hugging her when the pain was leaking out of the sad places inside the child. Perhaps she had too many of her own sad places.

  She should have cried with Adria, but instead Ruth locked away her own grief to keep it from overwhelming her. It was an ongoing grief. Not only the loss of Peter but the chance to be a mother. A natural mother and not merely one arranged out of need and accepted because it was her Christian duty. A duty she had fulfilled. She’d taken care of Adria and not regretted her acceptance of the child into her life. But Adria had never been her baby.

  Just yesterday Adria had pointed out that Ruth wasn’t too old for babies, but at thirty-two she felt too old. Yet, when she looked at it squarely, she realized Adria was right. She was not past childbearing years. Perhaps what she was past was opening her heart up to love. And to loss.

  Best not to stumble into love and have it stolen away from her again. She was content with her single life as a schoolteacher. She had no necessity to consider a marriage for convenience. She and Adria managed without having a man in their lives, but now Adria was of age to consider marriage herself.

  Poor Carlton. Ruth liked the boy, but he had no idea how to properly court an independent girl like Adria. He thought every woman was merely waiting for a man to rescue her from spinsterhood. Plus there was the problem of his family’s slaves. If Springfield had an abolitionist group, Adria would be right in the middle of it. Sometimes Ruth worried that Adria would attempt to start such a group.

  Ruth sighed as she packed her delivery basket with a pie and a loaf of bread for Leoda Gregory, who claimed she had no way to come pick up her order. Ruth put in another pie for the new pastor. He had preached his first sermon last Sunday, and a pie would be a nice way to welcome him to the community. Perhaps he would become a customer. Not that such was her intent. Generosity was its own reward, a lesson she tried to get across to her students. One should not always be looking for a return when a gift was given.

  It could be she should have let Adria take the pie to Reverend Robertson. Ruth wouldn’t want him or anyone in Springfield getting the wrong idea about her gift. After all, he looked to be about Ruth’s age and a widower. Tongues did have a way of wagging in Springfield. Over the years, she had been matched up with various eligible men by the town gossips.

  Ruth sighed. She tried not to let being the subject of gossip concern her when she knew she had done nothing to incite the talk, but a schoolteacher needed to be above reproach. So yes, she should have asked Adria to take the pie to Reverend Robertson as she went to work that morning. But she had the little cake to take to Louis.

  Another worry. Ruth did hope giving Louis the cake wouldn’t cause problems for the slave. Of course, they took him sweets all the time, and his owner, George Sanderson at the hotel, never seemed bothered by that. He even allowed Louis to come help Ruth when the porch on the front of the house started sagging last spring. Ruth paid Mr. Sanderson a fair wage for Louis’s work. That infuriated Adria. She thought they should pay Louis, but Louis told her that was just how things were.

  “Now don’t get all riled up, missy.” Louis still called Adria that the same as he had when he’d brought her to Ruth’s doorstep twelve years ago. “Massa George, he don’t treat us bad long as we tend to our work.”

  Adria just couldn’t accept that. She hated slavery. Ruth didn’t like it either. For one thing, the teacher in her wanted to give every child the gift of reading. And some of the slave children wanted to learn. She could see the hunger in their eyes when, at times, they dared a peek in the school windows, but she wasn’t allowed to teach black children. That was simply how things were. Adria couldn’t change that nor could the northern abolitionists.

  Yet another concern. Adria read those seditious abolitionist newspapers. She even copied bits from some of them and added her own words to send to the Lexington newspapers. She signed a fake name, but she could still be found out. Abolitionist thinking was not welcome in Springfield. Ruth could lose her students if the townspeople thought she was campaigning for the end of slavery. Not that she was, but she would be held responsible for Adria developing such inflammatory ideas.

  Ruth shoved her worries aside as she went up Mrs. Gregory’s rock walkway. Already the day was growing warm and she wished she’d left off one of her petticoats. The things a woman had to wear to be considered decent. At least she’d put on a small hat instead of a bonnet. Bonnets not only suffocated her, they made her feel as though she were wearing blinders. But she couldn’t go out bareheaded. That wasn’t done.

  She hoped Adria had remembered to pin up her hair and wear her hat. She was up and gone very early this morning before Ruth was dressed. The girl was often careless with her hair and let her dark curls hang unhindered on her shoulders and down her back. Ruth touched her own neat coil of blonde hair on the back of her head. Peter had loved her fine blonde hair and often said he hoped their children would have hair like hers instead of his flaming red.

  No, she wouldn’t think about that. Those babies would never be. Instead she had a fiery dark-headed sister/daughter who had no idea how beautiful she was. Standing next to her at times, Ruth felt like a wilting flower. A head shorter than Adria and pale and blonde next to Adria’s dark hair and rosy skin. Ruth supposed she had faded from when she was the belle of the town before she met Peter. Now she was a woman moving past her prime who should no longer be concerned about how she looked.

  Neat was all that mattered, and she managed that with her blue skirt and crisp white blouse. Her schoolmarm outfit, but it serviced well for her deliveries too. Certainly nothing with which Mrs. Gregory could find fault. Leoda Gregory had a sharp eye and a way of noticing everything. She said that was all an old woman like her could do. Watch what was happening in the town. What she saw often found its way to other ears.

  As she knocked on Mrs. Gregory’s door, Ruth caught sight of her reflection in the narrow windows in the door. Her eyes didn’t look so faded. She had plenty of spark yet to keep her students in line.

  “My dear Ruth.” Mrs. Gregory opened the door and reached to grasp Ruth’s arm and pull her inside. “You must come have a cup of tea with me. And perhaps a piece of that cinnamon bread. You did bring me a loaf of it along with the chess pie, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t I always.” Ruth smiled at the old woman, whose shoulders were rounded as though her years had gotten too much to carry. “But I’ve already had my breakfast.”

  The woman twisted her head to peer up at Ruth. “As have I, but is that any reason not to enjoy a bit more?” Mrs. Gregory laughed and led the way to her parlor where she already had a tea tray ready.

  Ruth would have preferred to go on about her chores. Her desk at home called to her. With Adria at the store and the baking done for the week, Ruth looked forward to some quiet time to work on her poetry. But a person couldn’t say no
to Mrs. Gregory. Before he passed on, Mr. Gregory was one of the justices of the peace appointed by the governor to handle the business of the county. The cholera hadn’t stolen him. He died several years prior to the epidemic, so Mrs. Gregory had been a widow longer than Ruth. Sometimes she appeared to enjoy the role.

  “We had been married these many years. I was quite used to Mr. Gregory,” she had told Ruth on one of her first visits. “But there are times when the morning is more pleasant when one is by one’s self. Don’t you agree?”

  At the time Ruth did not know Mrs. Gregory well and she had stuttered out some sort of answer.

  That had amused Mrs. Gregory greatly. “I seem to have you tongue-tied, my dear, but you do surely know how men can be such a problem, with always wanting something. Food or drink or a clean shirt. If a woman has servants to do all the work, that’s one thing, but then the woman has to see to the servants to be sure everyone is doing as they should and they never are. Trust me on that. They never are. But if you have only yourself to please, then the task gets decidedly easier.”

  “But you do have a maid, don’t you?” Ruth looked around the old woman’s spotless house. She knew that was not easy even if one did live alone or nearly so.

  “Oh yes. Sally is a treasure. There’s no way I could scrub the floors or get to the dust in all these hidden places.” Mrs. Gregory waved her hand toward a table full of bric-a-brac. “You are young, so such is not a problem for you, and you have that dear little Adria to help you.”

  That had been when Ruth first began baking her desserts, when dear little Adria would rather read than dust. She still would, the same as Ruth. So books were all that decorated their tables.

  Now Ruth poured the tea for them both. As she handed Mrs. Gregory a cup, she attempted to divert her from sharing the latest gossip by asking, “Have you heard from your children?”

  “No, no. Sometimes I think they’ve completely forgotten their old mother.” Mrs. Gregory sipped her tea and then sighed. “I raised three boys to adulthood, and trust me, that wasn’t easy. Boys can be a handful. Not like your dear Adria. Then what do they do but take off for the frontier, as though nothing in Springfield was good enough for them. And after we sent them to the best schools. I don’t know how many times I told Mr. Gregory that was our mistake. Those teachers led them astray. I’m sure of it.”