It felt strange to sit in a beautiful landau carriage, Beth considered, as the contraption made its way through town and across the Long Branch Bridge towards Pemberley. The wood was black and shined to a luster so fine she could see her reflection in it. The leather of the seats was a soft dark brown, so comfortable that she felt she could have slept in the carriage as it rolled along the rough dirt road. She felt like a princess from one of the stories in her father’s library. Of course, Beth was far too excited to sleep, and she kept her eyes firmly fixed forward as she rolled along. Clouds were moving in from the southwest, signaling that rain was coming.
The only building to distract her attention from catching sight of the ranch house was a small stone church near the river. The building and a small rectory were surrounded by a low adobe wall. A small cemetery was behind it. Ethan had been assigned to drive Beth to Pemberley and he pointed at the structure with his buggy whip.
“That there’s the Catholic Church—Santa Maria, they calls it.”
Beth nodded. Her conscience twinged at the remembrance of Mary’s unfeeling words months ago. Her thoughts moved once again to the owner of the spread before her, marveling at the man’s forbearance. It seemed Beth and her family had done nothing but insult the Darcy family, and yet they still wished to continue their acquaintance. More than that—Gaby was a good friend and Will… Will had wanted to marry her at one time.
Beth sighed. Her feelings had been at war for the last week. One moment she was telling herself it was foolish to believe Will Darcy still desired her hand. Her cruel and ignorant words must have killed any tender feeling he might have owned for her at one time. He was only trying to be her friend for his sister’s sake, she thought. The next moment she was sure Will loved her—loved her so much that he had forgiven her.
This visit had been his idea. He seemed to want her near him, to want to change her mind. In her most romantic fantasies, Will would surprise her with a huge ball at Pemberley, and the entire town was there—her family, friends, and neighbors. Even the Burroughses and Whitehead attended. Will would claim all of her dances, and they would waltz for hours and hours, she in that exquisite blue dress. At the end of the ball, after he ordered soldiers who had magically appeared to arrest Whitehead, Will would look deeply into her eyes and ask her to marry him. And she… would wake up.
Beth, having never been in love before, found it difficult to describe her feelings for Darcy. She liked him, she admired him, and she trusted him. Her heart beat faster when she was near him. She felt strange urgings when his eyes fell upon her person. She wanted to run and hide, yet touch him, all at the same time. Was she mad, or was she in love? If he did ask her again, would she accept him?
She didn’t know. She hoped that this weekend would help with her struggles. If not, she would have to be satisfied with visiting her friend and her handsome, intriguing, infuriating brother.
The landau crossed over a crest of a hill, and the sight that lay below caused Beth to gasp. Along the road about a quarter-mile away was a large, low house. Done in the Spanish style, terra cotta tiles covered a roof supported by numerous white columns, lining a full porch, surrounding the entirety of the house. Dormer windows broke up the hip roof, white plaster surrounding the glass. Several large trees framed the building, a flower garden was in the front, and a row of cedars to the west of the house swayed in the breeze.
Beth pulled her eyes away from the house to gaze at the rest of the ranch. Barns and stables were set some distance from the main house, and a large, long building with windows was close by the barn. Beth expected it was the bunkhouse for the unmarried hands. Men worked in a corral next to the barn, and smoke rose from what Beth took to be a smithy. Smaller single houses dotted the area. Cattle were everywhere, and in the distance, she could see the sunlight dancing on the surface of a small lake.
“Oh my goodness,” Beth could not help herself from saying.
Ethan turned to her with a grin. “It’s somethin’, ain’t it? Prettiest house I’ve ever seen.”
Beth could only agree, and her admiration for the house grew as she neared it. And Will wanted me to be mistress of all this? Is he crazy?
Gaby was almost hopping in her excitement as she waited next to Will on the porch for Beth to descend from the carriage. She promptly threw herself into Beth’s arms once she was on the ground. Will’s welcome was far more restrained, but Beth did not doubt his sincerity although he seemed a bit nervous all the same. Ethan carried Beth’s carpetbag from the landau as Gaby and Will escorted their guest inside.
The house was cooler than Beth had expected for the middle of the summer, and she said so. With a smile, Will explained that between the high ceilings and large windows, Pemberley was designed to take advantage of any stray breeze that might come along. Beth looked up at the large wooden beams high above her head, the brown of the wood contrasting nicely against the whitewashed plaster walls. The furnishings were a mixture of large, dark, heavy Spanish and lighter Chippendale pieces. The carpets over the wooden floors were lovely, and Beth was astonished to learn that they had come all the way from India. The wealth all this represented made Beth uneasy, but Gaby soon lightened her mood.
On the way to what the Darcys called the music room, they came across a line of family portraits. Will stopped at the first one. It was a dark-haired lady with rather square features, dressed in a white gown, a small cross at her throat. The expression at first seemed severe, but Beth caught a mischievous gleam in the eye of the subject.
“Mary Grace Darcy, my grandmother and matriarch of the family,” Will named her with pride, half-turning to Beth.
“She looks so regal,” Beth judged.
Will smiled. “She should—she was a princess of the Cherokee Nation. Her birth name, loosely translated, was Running Water. Her family—and most of her village—were wiped out by Comanche raiders when she was little, and she ended up in a convent. The nuns gave her the name Mary Grace, had her baptized Catholic, and taught her English and Spanish. When she grew up, the Mother Superior didn’t know what to do with her. It was one thing to raise an orphan Indian; it was a whole other thing to bring her into the order. As it turned out, Grandmother was a pious woman, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be a nun, and when George Washington Darcy rode by one day from boarding school and fell in love with her at first sight, she was happy to marry him and go to Pemberley. Great-Grandmother Agatha wasn’t too thrilled at the news, and it didn’t get any better when Mary Grace converted Grandfather to Catholicism. Still, they learned to get along, and Grandmother told me that they became friends before Great-Grandmother Agatha passed. It was Grandmother Mary Grace who saw to the improvement to the mission.”
“Did you see it on the way here?” Gaby asked. Beth said that she had and asked Gaby if she remembered Mary Grace. “No,” Gaby said sadly. “She died before I was born. I barely even remember my mother.”
“My father, Matthew Darcy, was the eldest, along with my Uncle John and Aunts Anne and Mary,” Will continued. “Anne and Mary married and moved away. John died of the typhus when he was still in his teens. My daddy was sent to school in Austin, and that’s where he met this lady.” He pointed at another portrait, this one of a strikingly beautiful black-haired lady. She was obviously Spanish.
“Consuela Helena Diaz Pérez was from a very prominent Spanish family that emigrated from Seville many years ago. Her father fought alongside Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto for Texas’s independence.” Will laughed. “If you thought Mary Grace and Agatha didn’t get along, Momma and Grandmother were like oil and water. Daddy and Grandfather spent a lot of time getting between them, keeping the peace.” He looked at her portrait fondly. “Some of it was Momma coming from a prominent family, while Grandmother was an orphaned Indian. But mostly it was a battle as to who was going to run the family. Two strong-willed women, neither of a mind to back down. Things changed, I was told, after Grandfather died. Momma’s authority was now undisputed, so she surprised everyone when she insisted that Grandmother remain in the main house instead of a small place that had been built for her. They had their arguments—I was witness to a few—but Daddy always said that the two of them seemed to enjoy their disagreements. I suppose he was right, because when Grandmother took sick, Momma wouldn’t leave her side, and when she finally passed, Momma cried for three days straight. You never really know how people feel until something like that happens.”
“I was named for Grandmother, you see,” Gaby said. “Gabrielle Maria. And then Momma died a few years later. It was just Daddy, Will, and me after that.”
Beth said nothing, overwhelmed by the stories she had heard. Deep inside, her anger at George Whitehead for his snide asides disparaging the Darcys’ heritage was renewed, as well as self-loathing at her own prejudices, which allowed her to accept his cruel statements. Not only were Will and Gaby not embarrassed at their mixed background—one-half Spanish-Mexican and one-quarter Indian—they were proud of it. Beth was ashamed. Hadn’t she been slightly guilty of the same fault she had accused Southerners of—that is, considering a human somehow less a person based on their heritage? She had never enslaved anyone, that was true, but the similarity hit just too close to home for comfort.
Will seemed to sense her discomfort and suggested that Gaby show her to her room to freshen up for dinner. Beth gratefully agreed, and the two girls went up to a second-floor guest bedroom, Beth feeling Will’s eyes follow her as she climbed the stairs.
The storm that had been threatening all afternoon finally broke during dinner, but the rain did nothing to dampen the spirits of those inside Pemberley’s dining room. Will performed his duties as host without flaw, as far as Beth was concerned, and during the times that the conversation began to drag, Richard Fitzwilliam, who had joined the family and Mrs. Annesley at table, could be counted on to inject his own sardonic observations, delighting those assembled.
Beth had never enjoyed a dinner so much. The slow-cooked barbecued beef was delicious, served with roasted corn, beans, and a couple of items Beth had never eaten before—sweet potatoes, and a soft, flat bread called tortillas. Will explained that tortillas were a favorite of his mother’s, and Mrs. Reynolds, the cook, learned to make them to please her.
Beth could tell that Darcy was pleased with her, or, at least, with what she was wearing. Beth, her mother, and her sisters had worked for hours on the pretty yellow dress. She liked it almost as much as the blue gown she wore at the B&R. At first, Beth was alarmed at the bare shoulders, but when she came down the stairs and heard Darcy’s quiet gasp, she had to admit to being very pleased with herself.
The party retired to the music room after dinner, and Mrs. Reynolds visited with them at Will’s request before Gaby started her concert. The black woman accepted with a smile the praise heaped upon her for the dinner. “Thank you kindly,” she said. “It’s always a pleasure to cook for guests, although we don’t get to do it much—not like when Mrs. Darcy was alive, bless her soul.”
“You’ve been with the Darcys for a long time, I take it,” said Beth.
“Oh, yes, ever since Mr. Matthew came to get me over twenty years ago.”
Beth blinked at the woman’s choice of words and even more so as Gaby demanded happily, “Tell Beth the story! Tell her the story! It’s so romantic!”
“Now, let’s not bore the young lady with old tales like that,” Mrs. Reynolds demurred, but Will smiled and stood up.
“We’ve had lots of riders on Pemberley. Men of all colors and creeds. We’ve only asked one thing of them: Give us a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. Treat us fair, and we’ll treat you fair. When I was young, we had a freedman by the name of Isaiah Reynolds working for us. He was as good a man with a cow pony as we’ve ever had, Daddy told me, and he earned the respect of the other hands. Well, most of ’em. Anyhow, one day he came up to Daddy and said, ‘I’m gonna have to quit you, Mr. Darcy.’ Daddy asked Isaiah if he was unhappy, and he said, ‘No, sir, you’ve treated me fair. But, I want to find a woman an’ get married, an’ there ain’t nobody ’round here for me.’
“Daddy asked him, ‘If you leave, where are you going to go?’ Isaiah didn’t really know. He thought about New Orleans, because of all the freedmen there, or maybe he’d go west and meet up with a Mexican girl, or an Indian. He was scared of going east, not sure if the locals would believe that he wasn’t an escaped slave.
“So, Daddy asked Isaiah to wait a month before he made a firm decision. A few weeks later, Daddy came back from a trip east with a young former slave girl in the wagon.”
“Was that you?” Beth asked a smiling Mrs. Reynolds.
“Yes, indeed. I was a slave on a farm near Shreveport and the master was fixin’ to sell me ’cause he had too many slaves as it was. Mr. Darcy knew him and wrote, askin’ if there were any young female slaves for sale. When Mr. Darcy came by the house, the master looked at him funny.” She snorted. “I believe he thought Mr. Darcy was buying me for his own use. I was scared, too, but Mr. Darcy talked to me. He said, ‘Margaret,’— that’s my name, Margaret—‘Margaret, I need some help. I’ve got a good, hard-working freedman working for me, but he wants to leave me because he wants to go looking for a wife. He’s a free man and a good man, and I think he’d make a fine husband. I’d be willing to buy you off of your master if you would be willing to meet Isaiah and consider marrying him.’ I said, ‘Whoa, Mr. Darcy—you want me to marry a man I haven’t met?’
“He said, ‘No, I want you to meet him and give him a chance to convince you to marry him. If you marry a free man, you’ll be free.’ I told him, ‘Yes sir, I know that. But what if I meet him, an’ I don’t want to marry him?’ He told me I’d be free anyway—he’d give me my freedom, and there would be a job for me, payin’ money, at Pemberley.
“I tell you, Miss Bennet, I just broke down and cried right there. That good man was gonna buy me an’ set me free, an’ all I had to do was to ride back to Pemberley with him. I only asked if Isaiah was a good Christian man, an’ he said he was, an’ that was good enough for me. Mr. Darcy brought me, I said goodbye to my momma, an’ got in the wagon with him. A few days later, we got to Pemberley, an’ I met Mrs. Darcy, an’ a better lady I’ve never met. I could cook, so she had me set up in the kitchen.
“Mr. Darcy was ready to give me my papers that would make me a free woman, but I said, ‘I haven’t met Mr. Reynolds, yet. A deal’s a deal.’ So, Mr. Darcy calls for Mr. Reynolds, and he come in, not knowing what was going on.” Mrs. Reynolds laughed. “He was so surprised to see me, and he was even more surprised when Mr. Darcy told him what he had done. He then left us two alone in the library to talk things over.
“And we talked. Isaiah was indeed a fine, good-looking man and as kind as he was good. We came to an agreement in short order, and Mr. and Mrs. Darcy couldn’t have been happier when we told them.
“The only problem was that the Baptist minister in town— that was before Mr. Tilney got here—wouldn’t marry no former slaves in the church. We was willing to have it someplace else, but that weren’t good enough for Mrs. Darcy. No, ma’am! She heard about that, an’ she took us right down to the mission church, askin’ the priest to marry us. He agreed, as long as we would join the church.
“So I became Mrs. Reynolds and Catholic on the same day, an’ that was the best day of my life.”
Beth was enchanted. “What a wonderful story!”
Mrs. Reynolds smiled. “Isaiah was a good man, and we were happy the five years we were married.” Her smile disappeared. “Then, he left on a cattle drive before the war, and he never came home. He was killed by rustlers tryin’ to steal the herd.” She turned her head to look out the window. “He’s buried out there, somewhere, under a shady tree, the other riders told me. That’s good—Isaiah always liked the shade, you see.” She sighed. “Five years, but I’ve no regrets. I know he’s waitin’ for me upstairs, along with the angels.”
She wiped a tear from her face with her apron, while Beth and Gaby used their handkerchiefs. “Well, if’n you would excuse me, I’ve got to clean up in the kitchen. Good night, all.”
Darcy watched her go. “They never had children, but you’d hardly know it from her. She helped raise me, and she was like a mother to Gaby after Momma passed. Daddy always said buying Mrs. Reynolds’s freedom was the best purchase he had ever made.” He coughed, and to Beth it suspiciously sounded like he was covering up a sob.
“Gaby, I think you said you’d play for us?” Fitz broke in.
Gaby collected herself and moved to the piano.
An hour and a half later, Gaby announced a desire to retire, and she and Mrs. Annesley made their excuses. For her part, Beth was restless. She should be tired, she knew, but the revelations of the past few hours would not allow her to rest. The gentlemen showed no inclination to go to bed, so Darcy, Fitz, and Beth walked out to the veranda and, as the storm had abated, watched the now gentle rainfall. Beth sipped a sherry as the men shared brandy and cigars.
“You’re awful quiet, Miss Beth,” Fitz observed. “You’re sure you’re not tired?”
“No, not at all,” she said. Seeing the men stare at her expectantly, she continued, “You look like you think I should say something.”
“Sorry, Beth,” said Will. “It just seems there’s a lot on your mind. We don’t mean to pry. Sorry.”
“Although, if you need any help, you’ve come to the right place,” added Fitz.
“Why? Why would you want to help me?”
Fitz laughed. “Will here is always helping his friends. It’s a weakness o’ his.” Darcy simply glared at his foreman, who wasn’t cowed in the least.
Beth sighed. “I’m trying to understand… Oh! It seems everything I know is wrong.”
“What do you mean?” asked Darcy.
Beth put down her glass and turned to him. “You’ve told me you’ve never owned any slaves. Yet, you fought for the Confederacy. I don’t understand. Why did you fight for a cause you didn’t believe in?”
Will shared a look with Fitz before speaking. “Beth, the war was about other things besides slavery.” Will sat down next to Beth and collected his thoughts.
“The South’s economy has always been based on agriculture. There weren’t many factories down here before the war. We shipped out raw materials, be it cotton or tobacco or beef, to other places. The North, on the other hand, was becoming more industrial every day. They used our crops to make goods to sell overseas.
“The problem was, England and France wanted our crops, too. They wanted to trade directly with us, and sell us stuff, too, at prices less than what the factories up north charged.
“The big northern industrialists couldn’t have that. They screamed for protection, and the Congress passed high tariffs on overseas goods. We couldn’t sell our goods to anyone but those Yankee industrialists. We also paid top dollar for the goods they sold back to us. So, you see, the Yankees were taxing us to save their businesses. It was a tax on Northerners, too, but Southerners were the ones getting mad about it.
“This had gone on for a long time before the Congress started thinking about lowering those tariffs. For twenty years it got a little better, but right before the war, the industrialists got together with the Abolitionists in the Republican Party, and they said they were going to raise tariffs again. In other words, they would take money from the South and give it to the North. It was in the Republican Party platform in 1860, and the South had had enough.
“You see, every time we made a deal with those Yankees, be it bringing new states into the Union or respecting property rights, it always seemed the Yankees would eventually renege on the agreement. It got so that we thought we just couldn’t trust them.
“We thought we had a lever to protect our rights. A lot of people figured that the Tenth Amendment gave the states the right to veto, or nullify, unfair federal laws. It was called States Rights. When the Republicans promised to raise tariffs again, the southern states said they had the right to declare their independence from the Union, since the Union didn’t respect their rights.”
“But what about slaves?”
Darcy grimaced. “It was part of it. Look, no matter what you think about slavery, it was legal. Most Southern folks never owned a slave, though I have to admit most supported it. We knew slavery wouldn’t last forever. The papers were saying how expensive they were getting, and some rabble-rousers wanted to begin the re-importation of slaves. But that would’ve never gotten through Congress. To be honest, we expected slavery to die a slow death. People’s hearts were changing.
“But the Abolitionists wanted it declared illegal—now—and without compensation to the slave owners. That would bankrupt thousands of farms. John Brown and his terrorist followers were willing to murder innocent people to free the slaves. With Mr. Lincoln’s election, the fire eaters in the South screamed that the Abolitionists who had backed Brown and their northern industrialist friends were in control of the country and that we had no voice in how things would go.”
“Slavery was still evil, Will,” Beth said.
“My momma agreed with you. You know, most folks around here were against secession.”
Beth was amazed.
Will went on. “We thought that the rabble-rousers were wrong, and that something could still be worked out with the Congress. After all, it was the government that put down Brown. But we were the minority, and Texas voted to throw in with the Confederacy. The Darcys’ loyalty always was to Texas. Your family loved Ohio when y’all lived there, right? Same thing here.
“So, when the call went out to defend our new country against the foe, we thought we were living in 1776 or 1835 again. Victory for the cause. Freedom.” Will looked out into the rain. “Well, you see how that turned out. And Congress did raise the tariffs, and they remain high today. And all the factories are still in the North. The whole damn thing was a waste.” He tossed the remains of his cigar into the rain.
But the slaves are free, thought Beth, but she kept that observation to herself. She was digesting the view of the war from the Southern standpoint. Some northern newspapers had tried to make John Brown a hero, but Mr. Bennet called him a criminal who deserved what he got. She recalled something about the issue of tariffs from those times, but it had been submerged under the calls for preserving the Union and freeing the slaves. She could never understand why the Rebels fought with such ferocity at Shiloh and Gettysburg and Cold Mountain. It made no sense to die to keep men enslaved. But to fight for what you believed was your freedom—that she could understand.
Was the whole war one big mistake? Did Samuel and six hundred thousand others die because of greedy and stupid men on both sides?
“The winners write the history, Miss Beth,” said Fitz as he blew a cloud of blue smoke. “I learned that at school.”
Beth didn’t respond, because Will suddenly stood up, peering into the rain. “Rider coming,” he said evenly. Fitz’s response was anything but calm. Jumping to his feet, he half-ran into the house, startling Beth by returning a moment later with a rifle in his hands. Staring out, he relaxed.
“It’s Peter, Will,” he said, lowering the weapon. Beth took a breath while Darcy moved forward as the rider jumped off his horse and came up the stairs.
Darcy looked at the man. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s trouble in town…” Peter looked first at Beth, then questioningly at Darcy.
“Go on,” his employer commanded.
Water pooled about Peter’s feet. “Something bad’s happened at the new settlement.” He glanced at Beth again. “Real bad.”
“How bad?” Darcy demanded.
“That Washington family…” his voice trailed off as he shook his head in silent communication.
“Oh, no,” Darcy breathed as terror gripped Beth’s heart. “All of them?”
A pause and Peter nodded.
“No!” Beth gasped, hands over her mouth.
Sheriff Lucas stood in the downpour, rain dripping off his hat, as the half-dozen men stared at the tableau before them. The scene was lit by the glow of the tall, burning object planted in the yard of the homestead, the flames implausible in the rain.
“Must be tar on it,” whispered Jones as the men remained frozen in horror. The dancing light and shadows made the figure hanging from the tree look almost alive. But that was not what held Lucas’s attention, nor the thing lighting the place. It was the two bundles at the foot of the tree, one smaller than the other.
A cart arrived and a furious Reverend Tilney leapt from it. “Don’t just stand there—cut him down! Cut that poor man down!” He seized the sheriff. “Come on, man! We can’t leave him up there! And the rest of you!” He pointed at the burning cross. “Put that… that damnable thing out! It’s an abomination!”
“With what?” Jones said stupidly.
“I don’t know!” Tilney cried. “With your hands, if necessary!”
Sheriff Lucas roused himself to think. “Look around, boys. There must be a shovel or an ax about.” He walked over to the tree with the preacher. A flash of his knife and the tree was empty of its burden. Lucas stared at the bodies huddled close to the roots, his blade held loosely in his hand. Tilney, kneeling down by the victims, ignored the rain falling in his face to look back up at the lawman.
“The boy,” Lucas said. “They killed the little boy, too?” It wasn’t really a question.
Tilney bent his head. “Go see if you can find some blankets in the house, Sheriff. They deserve at least that.”
Lucas nodded and walked towards the front door of the little house, glad to be doing something. The loss of light and the hissing sound behind him as he opened the door told Lucas that the others had felled the thing outside. He welcomed the darkness as he began to search the place for whatever little comfort he could offer the Washingtons now.
Now that it was too late for anything else.