Chapter 27
REGRET FILLED CALLA’S EYES until it spilled over. “Oh Josephine . . . I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Josephine looked at the cup, then back at her friend. “Whiskey?”
“I only take a little now and then.” Calla buried her face in her hands.
“No, that ain’t true. Lord, forgive me, and help me.
This time of year it’s just . . . so hard.
” Her voice broke. When she looked up, the sorrow in her eyes made Josephine’s chest ache.
“I know I ain’t doing right, and that I oughtn’t be—”
The kitchen door opened.
“What is it you’re cooking in here, Calla? It smells divine, and I—” Miss Mary stopped short, her gaze darting between them. “What’s wrong?”
Josephine rose at once and gathered both teacups.
“We were just talking, Miss Mary. I heard you call her Calla Lilly the other day, and Calla shared the touching story behind her name.” She dumped the remainder of both their cups in the wash bucket then turned back.
“And believe it or not, she just taught me how to make gingerbread. Why don’t you join us and have a piece. ”
Still not looking convinced, Miss Mary pulled up a chair beside Calla. “You sure you’re all right, Calla?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Calla’s voice went quiet. “My heart just got a little over tilted there for a minute.”
“And with good reason.” Miss Mary touched her shoulder. “You know, I remember, too,” she whispered. “Every year. I honor your wish not to speak of it, but that doesn’t mean I forget. I never will.”
Calla offered a weak smile. “Thank you, ma’am.
” She looked as though she might cry again, then pushed herself up.
“Well, you best have a piece of this cake our Josephine made. Lemon sauce or no, it’s mighty good.
” Calla gripped Josephine’s hand, gratitude clear in her eyes.
“You done good, my friend. Now let me bank the stove fire and get these weary bones to bed.”
“I’ll take care of the stove.” Miss Mary gestured. “You go on.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you both.”
Miss Mary reached for the knife. “Calla, there’s no nutmeg in this bread, is there?”
Calla turned back. “No, ma’am. No nutmeg.”
“Well, good. Because I cannot stand nutmeg.”
“How well I know. But if you die before me, ma’am, you know what I’m gonna do.”
“You better not go sprinkling nutmeg on my casket. I’ll come back and haint you good!”
Miss Mary’s wry smile bookended with Calla’s soft chuckle as she left felt like the brief lifting of a veil. Josephine didn’t know how far back these two went together, but they had a bond. That was undeniable.
What was also undeniable was that Calla was hurting. Over what, she didn’t know. Only that, sometime in the past, something painful had happened to Calla this time of year. She also knew now why Calla always chewed mint leaves.
Miss Mary cut a slice of gingerbread and took a bite, her color looking noticeably better. “Not bad . . . Josephine. Not bad at all.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Josephine wasn’t sure which meant more to her—Miss Mary’s praise or that she’d called her by her first name. “Calla’s a good teacher.”
“You couldn’t learn from a better cook.” Miss Mary cut herself another piece. “I wanted to speak with you about room and board.”
“I should be paid tomorrow, so—”
“Already?” Miss Mary nodded. “Good. Uncle Jack says he’s pleased with your work, which pleases me.” She met Josephine’s gaze. “How does a dollar and a half a week sound? Provided you keep helping Calla as you have been? She’s got more on her plate than usual.”
“That’s more than fair, ma’am, and I’ll help her however I can.” With Mr. Daniel paying her fifteen dollars a week, that left over thirteen dollars, plenty to send to Sarah and still be able to save some. “I truly appreciate you putting your good name on the line for me.”
Thinking of her conversation with Mr. Prince just now, she imagined what Miss Mary would do if made aware of her plan to disrupt the distillery’s production. She would simply have to make sure whatever she did couldn’t be traced back to her.
“And you’re welcome to the library. Same as the tenants.” Miss Mary used the fire poker to open the side of the stove. “Still no word from your husband?”
“No, ma’am. And there’s no way he knows I’m here.” Josephine covered the gingerbread with a fresh dishcloth, then placed their plates and utensils in the washbasin.
Miss Mary returned the poker to its hook. “I’ve heard a rumor. I need to know if it’s true.”
Josephine didn’t flinch but faced her full on. “I think I know what you’re going to say. Because Mr. Coburn already confronted me about it, as did Calla earlier. And the answer is no. My father didn’t beat me and I’m not pregnant.”
Miss Mary slowly nodded. “Well, well . . . Calla’s asking doesn’t surprise me. Dodge Coburn, though—then again, that man is as True North as they come.”
Josephine suspected that to be accurate. “His niece doesn’t care for me very much.”
“That’ll pass soon enough. That sweet girl’s still grieving her loss. We all are. Some days it’s hard to believe Kathleen’s gone. Sometimes life just doesn’t turn out the way you think it will, does it?”
“Most times,” Josephine said softly.
As they reached the hall, Miss Mary paused. “You have surprised me, Josephine. And I am not often surprised.”
“Thank you for that. I—”
“Don’t misunderstand my meaning. I still don’t think you’re telling me the truth. At least not the whole of it. But I’m trusting that in time you will. And until then, I’m also trusting that whatever you’re hiding won’t come back on me.”
Seeing the steel in Miss Mary’s eyes, Josephine nodded, feeling the warning.
“And for what it’s worth, Josephine . . . heartache teaches what happiness can’t. Whatever it is you’ve been through, take the lesson and leave the pain, if you’re able.”
Miss Mary bid her good night and closed her bedroom door, and Josephine was reminded again of how old a soul she was—perceptive in ways that bordered on uncanny. But what heartache shaped Miss Mary?
She couldn’t say why, but Mr. Bobo wasn’t what she’d expected Miss Mary’s husband to be like. His remark that morning about the inn’s name had struck a dissonant note. Perhaps Miss Mary’s competence—or her independence—sat ill with him, as it would have with most men Josephine had known.
Taking the oil lamp from the foyer table, she slipped into the library and traced the spines of the books, just as she’d done as a child in her father’s library.
Passing over familiar titles—Personal Memoirs of U.
S. Grant, Life of Robert E. Lee, and History of the United States—she decided to look for one completely unfamiliar to her. And found it.
Cattle: Their Breeds, Management, and Diseases by William Youatt.
She pulled the leather tome—the first in a series—from the shelf and opened it. Dr. Ezekiel Young Salmon was written in embellished script on an interior page. The copyright date read 1834 and portrayed a picture of a bull, if the prominent horns were any indication.
She thumbed through, already half inclined to return it to the shelf, when the margins, crowded with notes, caught her eye. The handwriting was clean and precise, markedly different from the ornate signature in the front.
She set the lamp on the side table and settled into the corner chair, then turned the book sideways to better read the notes.
A good stockman should be as attentive to the health and comfort of his cattle as to his own family. Their well-being is his wealth.
An intelligent observation. She read on.
It is not the quantity of food, but the quality, and the manner in which it is given, that determine the profit of feeding.
Again, insightful. A few pages later . . .
The cow is the poor man’s friend. She supplies his children with food, and his garden with manure; she is the nurse of his family, and the support of his field.
She smiled. Poetic, especially for a passage about a cow.
Then she noticed page numbers penciled beside underlined sentences. She flipped to one, then another, and realized whoever had made these notes hadn’t merely read this book. They had studied it.
On a whim, she pulled down the next volume. It, too, held copious margin notes in the same careful hand. As did the next. And the next.
Yawning, the day finally catching up with her, she began to close the book when heavily underlined sentences stopped her. She leaned closer to the lamp.
“Man was placed at the head of the animal creation to be its master,” she read the text aloud. “But not its tyrant. The treatment of the brute creation is one of the surest tests of the character of a people or an individual.”
She continued to the handwritten note in the margin—the same script, though smaller, more deliberate . . . If you have to punish something into obedience, you’ve already failed it. Fear isn’t the same as respect. And never will be.
She read both again, hearing echoes of the stewardship Anna Sewell had woven so powerfully into Black Beauty. She wondered if Miss Sewell had read this very book. If not, she would surely have approved.
But more than that, Josephine wondered who in Lynchburg, Tennessee, had read it—and left these words behind.