Beloved Enemy. Mary Schaller

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СКАЧАТЬ smiled. “A terrapin walks fast enough to go visiting,” she murmured one of her annoying maxims as she disappeared into the hall.

      A heavy silence descended upon the Chandler parlor while the doctor and his wife awaited the arrival of their elder daughter. The grandfather clock, standing in the corner, ticked away each minute with solemn steadiness. Outside, a horse-drawn carriage creaked past their house. The heavy burgundy window drapes in the parlor muffled most of Alexandria’s noise in the late morning. Twiddling his thumbs, Jonah stared up at the ceiling. It was too bad that her husband’s medical practice had decreased since the start of the war. Many of his former patients said they preferred to be treated by Yankee doctors. The family should have moved to Richmond two years ago.

      The rattle of the door latch announced Julia’s arrival. Her reading glasses were perched on the end of her nose. “Papa? Mother?” She looked from one silent parent to the other. “You wanted to see me?”

      Jonah beckoned her into the room. “Come, child. Close the door, Hettie, before the drafts kill us all.”

      Clara noticed that the cook remained inside the parlor once the door was firmly shut. And who was minding their dinner, she wondered.

      The doctor cleared his throat. “Your mother and I were discussing your future, Julia,” he began.

      Clara rolled her blue eyes. At this rate, Jonah would blather on for a half hour before he got to the point. When he paused, she took command of the conversation. “The long and short of it is that we plan to arrange a marriage for you.”

      Julia sank down on the ottoman. “Marriage?” she repeated. Her green eyes turned a jade color—a clear sign that she was deeply moved.

      “Surely you have gotten over Frank by now,” her father suggested.

      Touching her silver locket, Julia moistened her lips. “Yes, I suppose I have,” she answered, “but I thought there would be plenty of time for courtship once the war was over.”

      Clara shook her head at this notion. “That event could be years from now, unless the Yankees come to their senses and give up, which I highly doubt, or else that nasty Lincoln gets himself defeated in the next election, which I sincerely pray for. In the meantime, all our boys are dying like flies in the autumn from bullets and fevers and I don’t know what all.” She dabbed her hankie to her eyelids for effect. “Leaving you to wither on the vine until it is too late. I declare, it is more than a body can stand!”

      Biting her lips, Julia rose and went to Clara’s side. She massaged her temples, as she had done for many years. “There, there, Mother, don’t take on so. It will make you sick again.”

      Closing her eyes, Clara allowed her shoulders to relax under Julia’s gentle ministrations. Why couldn’t Carolyn have the same light touch? What was Clara going to do once Julia was married and living down in southern Virginia?

      Through her lowered lashes, Clara saw that her husband gave her a quick professional look before he returned to the subject at hand. “You should be married, Julia. We—that is, your mother has found a solution, we think,” he ended in a mutter.

      Opening her eyes, Clara patted Julia’s hand. “A husband, Jonah. You make him sound like a prescription.” She smiled up at her daughter. “I have just received word from your cousin Payton that he has come into his daddy’s inheritance. Belmont Plantation! Isn’t that just grand news?”

      Julia blinked, looked quickly at her father, then back to her mother. “You want me to marry Payton Norwood?” She backed away until a footstool stopped her. She dropped down on it with an unladylike “thump”.

      Clara frowned. Julia could be so tiresome at times. “Of course I mean Payton. He’s a delightful boy and, more to the point, he can support you. You can’t ask for much more than that these days.”

      Julia continued to goggle at her mother like a frog out of the pond. “But why must I get married now? I am more than willing to wait for happier times. There is no rush.” She touched her locket again.

      Clara narrowed her eyes. Julia was usually tractable, not like Carolyn. Clara was not used to this daughter arguing a point. “If you wait until those politicians down in Richmond do something more than chew tobacco and whittle wood, it will be doomsday, and you will be too old to attract a decent husband. No, missy, it is high time that you were the mistress of your own house and had a few babies to tend.”

      Julia coughed. “With Payton? But he’s so…so…stupid. Nothing like Frank at all.”

      What had gotten into Julia? Clara thought. She was always so easy to manage. “Payton received the very best education at the College of William and Mary. He will be the perfect husband for you.”

      Julia drew herself up. “Mother, Payton Norwood is a fool. Always has been. He thinks of nothing except horses, card-playing and heaven only knows what other amusements. I highly doubt he has the skills to run that tobacco farm of his. If he loses his overseer, he’ll be ruined within a year. Why isn’t he in the army, like…like Frank, and all the other boys? He talks of Southern independence and how any Southerner worth his salt can lick three Yankees before supper. So why hasn’t he joined up and proven himself?”

      Clara shook her head. “Don’t be such a ninny, Julia. Payton has a large landholding and over a hundred slaves to manage. Of course, he is exempt from military duty. His work on the plantation is as good a service to the Confederacy as joining the army. Why, he could get shot or captured. Payton’s too fine a man for that sort of treatment!”

      Julia’s eyes turned even greener. “But Frank Shaffer wasn’t good enough except as cannon fodder? Is that what you mean, Mother? As I recall from our last visit to Belmont four years ago, Payton was a bully and a coward. I doubt that he has changed much since then. No, Mother, I will not marry Payton.”

      Julia’s defiance struck Clara like a lightning bolt. She clutched her bosom. “Julia! How dare you call your cousin such hurtful things! Lies! You just don’t know what’s good for you. If you spent less time with your nose in those books, and more on family matters, you would understand. Oh, Jonah, I think I’m having palpitations of the heart. I truly do. Hettie, help me to my room. Julia, now do you see what you have done to me? Oh, truly I might die and then how would you feel? So ungrateful for all I have done for you. Jonah, talk some sense to this child.”

      Clara grabbed Hettie’s arm for support. Dr. Chandler took her other arm. Over his shoulder, he said to Julia, “You know your mother can’t take this excitement. I’m surprised at you. We will invite Payton to visit here at his earliest convenience. Then you will see how he has matured. There, there, Clara. You will not die before dinner, I promise you.”

      Though she truly felt faint, Clara smiled inwardly. Once again, she had triumphed over her family. Sending for Payton was a brilliant idea. Julia could be married before she turned twenty-one and came into Grandmother Lightfoot’s legacy.

      Julia slammed into her bedroom. Carolyn looked up from the alterations of her sister’s old ball gown. “What was the buzz in the parlor this time?” she asked, threading her needle with care. “Usually I am the one on the griddle fire.”

      Julia stared out the window at the winter-shrouded garden below. Mother’s pink rosebushes stretched up their stark thorny limbs to catch the feeble rays of the midwinter sun. My soul is as dead as those roses. “Mother has got it in her head to marry me off.”

      “Oh?” Carolyn СКАЧАТЬ