The Preacher's Bride. Laurie Kingery

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      He smiled at her, and she felt the jolt of it all the way through her heart.

      “I’m only surprised you haven’t made one of those matches, Miss Faith,” he said. “I’d have thought those bachelors would have snatched you up when the group first started,” he said.

      This bantering tone was new from him. She shrugged and looked away to hide her confusion. “So far it hasn’t happened... I haven’t felt ‘led’ to any of the gentlemen who’ve answered our advertisements so far, either.”

      “Maybe for a reason.”

      The sentence hung in the air, heavy with meaning. Oh, dear, what did he mean by that? What was she to say?

      Just then a loud, urgent rapping at the front door startled both of them. Faith dropped her fork. Gil jumped up from the table, nearly oversetting his chair.

      “Who can that be?” he wondered aloud. Faith followed him as he headed down the hall toward the sound.

      * * *

      Billy Henderson stood on the doorstep, his face tearstained, his eyes swollen. “Pastor Gil, you gotta come quick! My ma got a letter just now, and she’s terrible upset. She won’t tell me what it’s about or let me see it. She just sits on the sofa and sobs.”

      “I’ll come,” he said quickly, remembering that Billy Henderson’s father had been sent to prison after assaulting Caroline Wallace at her schoolhouse. He’d been in on the conspiracy to kidnap Jack Collier’s twins which had taken place at the same time. His imprisonment had left his wife and son alone in Simpson Creek, fearful of the time Henderson would be released, for he’d also been a brutal husband and father. Daisy Henderson and her son had been planning to move away from Simpson Creek in hope that her husband wouldn’t be able to find them, but they hadn’t left yet.

      He turned back to Faith. “Will you and Papa be all right?” he asked. He hated to have to leave on the very first day his father was home, and still in such frail condition, but one of the congregation needed him now, too.

      “We’ll be fine, Gil. Go ahead,” she said. “Dr. Walker’s right across the street if I need help.”

      “Bless you, Faith,” he said, as he dashed down the steps after Billy Joe. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

      He found Mrs. Henderson just as Billy Joe had described her, weeping on a horsehair sofa and clutching a damp handkerchief. A crumpled sheet of paper lay in her lap.

      “Ma, I brung the rev’rend,” Billy Joe said, speaking loudly over his mother’s sobs.

      She looked up and blinked at Gil as if she’d never seen him before.

      “I’m Pastor Gil, Reverend Chadwick’s son,” he reminded her gently. He wasn’t sure if he’d seen her at church since the day of the assault and kidnapping in March. Folks said she kept mostly to herself these days, shamed by her husband’s despicable actions.

      “Oh. Yes, of c-course,” she said. “S-somehow I was expecting to see your father...forgot about what happened to him...”

      He brought a chair close to the sofa and lowered himself into it. “That’s all right,” he said. “Your son said you were upset by the arrival of a letter. He’s pretty worried about you, so he came and got me. Is there some way I can help?”

      “I just couldn’t tell him!” she wailed. “Here, read it!” She yanked the letter off her lap and extended it to him with a shaking hand.

      Gil unfolded the rumpled paper, aware of Billy Joe watching him, his eyes troubled, his gaze darting between Gil and his mother. Gil bent his head and read the letter to himself:

      * * *

      Dear Mrs. Henderson,

      I regret to inform you that your husband, William J. Henderson, was killed in an altercation between himself and another prisoner yesterday. He died instantly after being stabbed in the chest. We are shipping his body home to you for burial, and it should arrive at the same time as this letter.

      Yours truly,

      Emerson Fogle, Prison Administrator

      * * *

      Gil looked up at Daisy Henderson, who had covered her eyes with her sodden handkerchief. Muffled sobs still escaped from her shaking body.

      Compassion welled up within Gil. The man had beaten her for years, and abused his son for as long as he had lived, yet she still sorrowed for her husband, Gil thought. She had been William Henderson’s faithful wife, despite the way he had treated her.

      “Mrs. Henderson,” he said gently, “is it your wish that I tell your son what the letter says?”

      She nodded, raising red-rimmed, tear-drenched eyes to him and then her son.

      Billy Joe had drifted to a position in between Gil and his mother.

      Gil took a deep breath. “Billy Joe, I need you to be brave,” he said. “Your father is dead. He was killed in a fight between himself and another prisoner,” he said.

      Billy Joe had already been pale with worry, but now the color drained from his face. Gil rose and put a bracing hand on the boy’s shoulder. He was only about twelve, Gil knew, but at this moment he looked much younger.

      “I’m very sorry, Billy Joe,” Gil said. “You’ll need to be strong, for your mother will need you to be the man of the house now.”

      Billy broke away from Gil then, his face growing red as the tears flooded his cheeks. “I’m not sorry!” he cried. “My pa was mean to me an’ Ma every day a’ his life. We was gonna hafta leave town, and now we don’t need to! We can stay here, Ma!” He knelt by the couch and buried his face in his mother’s skirts, crying just as she had been.

      Daisy Henderson stroked her son’s rumpled hair as she raised her tearstained face to Gil. “That’s why I’m cryin’, too, Reverend,” she admitted. “I’m feelin’ guilty ’cause I should be grievin’, but what I mostly feel is relief.”

      “No one could blame you for feeling that way, Mrs. Henderson,” he said. “In time, perhaps, you will be able to remember your husband’s better qualities, the good times...” He wondered if the brutality the dead man had exhibited had erased all that from her memory. Surely there had been a time when Henderson had cherished his wife?

      She shrugged. “Maybe someday,” she said. “But right now his body’s at the undertaker’s, waitin’ to be buried. Might you have some time to say some words over him tomorrow? I’ll have to borrow some widow’s weeds, too, I expect, just to be proper.”

      There was a defiant glint in her eyes that hinted she secretly wanted to put on her Sunday best and celebrate her unexpected freedom.

      “I’ll be happy to say some words at the graveside,” he assured her. “And again, I expect folks will understand if you choose not to wear mourning very long. It’s only natural that you’re experiencing a lot of conflicting feelings, Mrs. Henderson, under the circumstances.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ