Promise of Yesterday Read online

  He lifted tired eyes to hers. “I’ll never forget that time. Thought that man was gonna shoot us dead. Then when he didn’t and he told us we was going south, I wished he would have.”

  Marylu sat up straighter. “Seeing you all was the hardest thing …” The silence stretched long between them. Images of that night fifteen years ago flared to life in Marylu’s head.

  The wagon had rolled into Greencastle upon the Confederates’ retreat from Gettysburg, full of black-skinned strangers with fear in their eyes and guards surrounding them. Marylu remembered watching Miss Jenny’s mama and papa taking in the pitiful sight. She also knew, before they ever started whispering, that they were forming a plan to help the blacks, just as they, for years, had helped those who came to them in the night to escape to the North.

  “You were a brave woman,” Cooper interrupted her thoughts. “When that horse reared up, I thought you was done for, but you just did what it took.”

  “Except where those hooves snapped on my knee. Still aches.”

  Cooper nodded. “Reminder of what you done. Brave woman. Still are. Got more sass than most. Guess living with Miss Jenny’s family made you feel that brave.”

  Marylu dropped her hand to the table and speared Cooper with her eyes. “Not brave. I just knew what was right. There’d been enough suffering from them Rebs looting the stores as they came through town the first time. Had all our people runnin’ farther up north.”

  “Those of us still ‘round won’t ever forget what you done.” Cooper’s eyes took on a faraway gleam. “When you came out right under that chaplain’s nose with Miss Jenny’s daddy and that other man …” He shook his head.

  She wrestled for something to distract Cooper from the subject of that night and the wagon full of slaves she’d help to free. Only God’s strength had helped her then, as it helped her now. No matter how the slaves had hailed her as their hero and dubbed her “Queenie,” she had only done what had to be done. The fact that she’d lost her heart in the process didn’t matter none. Most had forgotten Walter. He was a moon that would never rise again, and Marylu didn’t want to think on him. Didn’t do any good. Just like taking the reverence to heart of those that she had helped free didn’t leave her quite comfortable.

  Cooper slapped his leg. “I told the whole story to Chester, and he just smiled and nodded like he does—”

  Marylu’s back snapped erect. “Chester?”

  Cooper chuckled. “That’s right. The mute. He wanted to meet you real bad. Said he’d heard the story even way down in South Carolina about a black woman freeing her own.”

  She ignored that and focused on his apparent familiarity with the black man. “Mute he might be, but he can hear just fine.”

  “Heard he stomped on your floor and got your temper to flarin’ pretty hot.” He slapped his leg. “Wished I’d seen that. Not often a man gets one over on you.” Cooper loosed a chuckle. “He was right impressed with you and the story of you saving all of us, Queenie.”

  Marylu frowned. “Don’t call me that. I was as scared as you all were that night.” She cast an eye toward the coffeepot and used it as an excuse to move from the table.

  “And what about them years you worked in the railroad?”

  “Miss Jenny’s papa did that. Was my job to keep Miss Jenny safe.”

  “That’s not the way Miss Jenny tells it.”

  “She wasn’t even eight when we started. You taking her word over mine?” Marylu poured coffee into two tin cups and set one in front of Cooper. “Don’t you have a garden to tend or something?”

  Cooper eyed the window and the peek of sunlight lightening the sky more with each passing minute. “Guess so. Good time to work when the heat’s not so much.”

  As the older man sipped on his coffee, Marylu realized her only way to learn more about Chester was to pry it out of Cooper. The trick was to do it without his knowing she wanted to know. “How’d you find out that Chester muddied my floor?”

  Cooper’s smile showed few signs of teeth. “Told me. Not so much with words as with his hands and face. He’s something else.”

  “Where’d he come from?”

  The older man scratched his scantily bearded face. “Jumped him a boxcar and road in. Got himself some kin hereabouts.”

  “Kin? Up here? What’d he go down south for then?” Cooper cocked a brow at her. “Why you so interested?” Marylu puffed up. “Ain’t interested a speck. Can’t a body make some conversation? He’s new in town. Don’t that stir the curiosity of most?”

  Cooper slapped his leg and spit a laugh.

  She snapped a hard look at him, which made him laugh all the harder. “Ain’t you got a garden to hoe?”

  Cooper got himself vertical in a painful unfolding that took a full minute to happen. He’d been worked hard in the fields all those years before escaping north. It made him seem older than he really was. But he didn’t complain. His eyes took on a gleam as he looped a finger through his coffee mug. “I’ll let Chester know you’re wanting to know about him.”

  “You best not, Cooper White.”

  The sound of his laughter dimmed only when the door shut behind him.

  Chester Jones shook the water from his head and buried his face in the towel. The water felt good to his skin. It was a welcome contrast to the warm pond water in the South where he used to do all his bathing under the mammoth branches of an ancient oak, streaming with moss.

  He eyed himself in the mirror of the washstand. No matter how much he dabbed his face with water, he’d never be able to wash away the redness brimming his eyes. He shivered as the sounds of his dream twisted and taunted his mind. A familiar dream that by turns kept him awake or shattered a sound sleep.

  Lord, help me. Cleanse me of these scares. Clean me up.

  Clean like the days before he’d left home seeking a life apart from his mama and siblings. No use sticking around when they had all those mouths to feed. He’d made himself believe that was his only reason for leaving. Truth had come with maturity and suffering. Reality being he’d left because he was nine parts rebellious and one part wanting to scratch the itch to travel.

  He’d been a fool to leave the only security he’d known all his life, all the promise that his yesterdays and his youth had held. Staying north would have saved him the stripes on his back and the long hours in the fields, but he hadn’t listened to his mama. Hadn’t allowed himself to soften at her crestfallen expression when he’d announced his decision to leave home. In his head, he could still see the hurt in her eyes. The fear. All for him. If he had expected tears at his announcement, he should have known better, for his mama was too strong a woman to spill salt all over the place, no matter the depth of the heartache. I failed her, too, didn’t I?

  He filled his lungs and released the breath in a long, measured exhale. Was no use talking to God. No use talking at all anymore. But he’d come to this state to see his mama and sister, the only kin he knew of, the rest scattered by his father’s sudden death. His family’s noble sacrifice for the North that his father loved, fought, and died for as part of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment.

  He died a braver man than me.

  Chester straightened and tried to shake off the gloom that permeated his mind. He had to put the past behind him and figure out a better way to get people to understand him. Some understood him better than others. Like the fine woman he’d seen in the dress shop. Surely she had sass aplenty. He’d heard many stories of how she’d set free a wagon full of slaves captured in Gettysburg. Even on the run he’d heard the stories. Among blacks, stories of heroism were transferred from one wagging tongue to another, faster than any mail service.

  He had delayed heading west to Mercersburg, where his mama and sister lived, in order to meet Marylu Biloxi. Chance had brought him face-to-face with Cooper the day he’d gotten off the train. It had taken Chester a week to discover that the man knew Marylu. He even lived in a little house out back of the one Marylu lived in with her fri
end and employer, Jenny McGreary. As soon as Cooper discovered his passion for building furniture and such, the old man had taken him straight to the owner of Antrim House and got him a job. Mr. Shillito’s recent purchase of the hotel, and his plans to renovate, meant job security.

  Chester shifted his weight and squinted out the window of his little room on the first floor of Antrim House. He reviewed his meeting with Marylu. He had been surprised at her beauty. High cheekbones. Moonlit-night skin that set off the glow in her eyes, the color of a golden pancake. But her sass had brought his smile out of hiding, and once he felt the grin on his lips, it seemed he couldn’t stop smiling. His spirits had lifted and soared. A feeling he’d not felt for a long time.

  He blinked and reached for his worn shirt, buttoning it on as he crossed the room. He needed to get started on the tables and chairs Mr. Shillito had requested. He finished the last buttonhole and swung the door wide.

  A woman stood in the hallway, her back to him, but Chester’s heart slammed against his chest as Marylu Biloxi threw a questioning glance over her shoulder. When their eyes met, she turned and put a hand to her chest. “What you doing here?”

  three

  Marylu dropped her hand. “You ‘bout made my heart stop.”

  Chester took note of her bright blue dress and crisp white apron, not to mention the curves filling out the clothing in all the right places. He wondered if her statement meant his presence stirred something in her or if he’d spooked her. He donned an imaginary hat and gave her a deep bow.

  “Mr. Shillito didn’t tell me you were the one he’d hired.”

  Chester pressed his lips together and let the sparkle shine in his eyes, then punctuated the moment with a quick shrug.

  “You best be knowing how to work real hard.”

  His mind drifted to the many scars across his back, not that he’d been afraid of work or ever caught shirking the rows in the fields down south. No, the lashes had been a matter of pleasing a very unpleasable master. He must have let the melancholy slip into his expression, because Marylu’s eyes grew softer.

  “I’m right sure you know all there is to know about hard work.”

  To this he bobbed his head. He knew about running, too. Running hard and long and trying to outpace howling dogs on four legs. He knew the racing heart and the prickle of cold sweat and the twist of dread that clinched the gut tighter as each howl got closer and the voices of his pursuers louder.

  She put a hand on his arm, and he gave himself a mental shake.

  “Make a list of what you need to make room five right again. Drunk man smashed it up pretty bad, and Mr. Shillito wants it put right.”

  Chester stood straight as a stick, stuck out his chest, and saluted.

  She frowned and mocked anger. “Don’t you be forgettin’ it either, or I’ll have your hide.”

  He watched her go, aware of her in a way that was sure to bring him trouble. How could he think for a minute to pin his hopes of settling down on a woman whose soul showed more bravery and courage than he could ever hope to muster?

  The man was haunted, to be sure. Marylu knew the interpretation of the expression on Chester’s face. She’d seen it a thousand times as she’d helped Miss Jenny’s father feed the slaves that came to them on those dark nights, long ago. Pain and suffering. Fear so deep it cut her to witness it.

  Something else tweaked at her mind. The sight of the faint red around his eyes. She knew what that meant, too. Had seen it too many times in Cooper after he’d spent a long, sleepless night, rocked by his nightmares of the days he’d spent down south.

  She pushed the broom she held into the corners of room three and chased a spider away in the process. After Marylu finished cleaning the first four rooms and entered room five, she was amazed to find most of the repairs already taken care of.

  Chester hunched over a broken chair, his thick fingers assessing the smoothness of the new chair leg he was sanding. He placed the chair on the floor and braced his hands on corners diagonal from each other and rocked the piece to see if it wobbled. Marylu grinned when she saw that it remained stable and level. Face lit with satisfaction, Chester got to his feet and smoothed down his spiking hair.

  “You need a shearing,” she observed.

  His eyes glowed, and he ran a hand over his hair and stirred it into a wild fan around his head.

  Marylu shook her head at his antics, reached out, and pressed it back down. The springy feel of his hair startled her somehow and stirred her to a heightened awareness of the intimacy of the gesture. She snatched her hand away and swallowed over the sudden ache in her throat. “You get on over to the McGrearys’ tonight, and I’ll sharpen my shears and fix you up.”

  His eyes rounded, and took on the look of an excited puppy. He rubbed a hand over his midsection.

  “I’m guessing I can find something to feed you as well.” With all his hand-waving, even if born of necessity, he must work up an appetite. But how did he eat without a tongue? She wondered, too, if he got tired of trying to communicate everything with his hands and gestures. To have to be quick to act out everything he wanted to say, not to mention patient enough to wait for the person he talked with to interpret what he meant. It must make him feel very isolated. “Cooper says he knows you, that you got kin ‘round here.”

  His nod came slow, and the sadness returned to pull his face into a frown.

  She wondered why he hadn’t moved on to see his family already. “You not here to raise trouble, are you?”

  He shook his head.

  “See that you don’t. We don’t like rabble-rousers. We got ourselves a church. You do church, don’t you?”

  His eyes went round and dull for a fleeting minute but lightened into a gentle glow, accompanied by an enthusiastic nod. He spread his arms wide as if to take in the whole room then pointed to the chair he had been working on. His puppy eyes locked on hers, and he raised his brows.

  “You did a fine job, Chester.” She folded her arms and grunted. “But if you ever dare to walk across any floor of mine with your muddy boots again, I’ll pluck you bald one hair at a time.”

  Chester gave a look of mock horror and covered his head with his hands.

  Marylu bit down hard, but a single laugh squeezed through. Chester’s laughter joined hers, until both of them were gasping for breath.

  That bit of merrymaking sustained Marylu through the long morning. Chester, too, seemed lighter of spirit when she left to go to McGreary’s Dress Shop in the afternoon. Announcing herself as she opened the back door of Miss Jenny’s shop, Marylu hadn’t moved three full paces through the back door when Miss Jenny stuck her head out of the nearby storage area.

  Jenny’s huge grin mirrored the look she had given Marylu the previous day when making her hot grease comment. “I don’t guess I have to ask what has you so cheery looking. I heard Levitt Burns’s wife whispering something about the ‘mute,’ as she called him.”

  “That’s full nonsense.”

  “The ‘mute’ part or that Mrs. Burns was whispering?”

  Marylu sent her a look.

  Her friend’s smile spread from ear to ear. “Mrs. Burns will be in later today to drop off some mending and order some new dresses. I’ll let her know you said she was full of nonsense.”

  “Wouldn’t do you good to open your mouth at all. She wouldn’t let you drop one word before she trampled you ‘neath a mouthful of her own.”

  Miss Jenny juggled two bolts of cloth. “So you didn’t see him?”

  “I saw him.”

  “It’s good to see you so happy.”

  “Ain’t no happier than usual.”

  Miss Jenny giggled in response, clearly unconvinced, and passed the bolts of cloth to Marylu. “These need to go out on the table, and then the hem needs to be put in Miss Rosaleigh’s wedding dress.”

  Glad for a change in topic, Marylu plucked the bolts from her employer’s arms. “You finished her bonnet?”

  “It came together nicely this
morning. Good thing, too, because I’ve got to start on Mrs. Carl’s order.”

  “You’re working awful hard.”

  Jenny paused in pinning a pattern to smooth blue cotton. “It helps fill the hours. If not for you and Cooper, I don’t know what I’d do for company.” She smoothed the wrinkles in the paper and continued pinning.

  “You could give Aaron a chance. That Sally is a little too flighty for him. Pay him some attention, and he’ll be sure to notice.”

  Scissors appeared in Miss Jenny’s hand. She gave a practice snip-snip then set to work cutting around the edges of the pattern. Marylu waited for a response, surprised when none came, not even a blatant denial of the suggestion.

  They worked at their respective tasks for more than an hour, interrupted when Mrs. Burns entered the store, cheeks flushed and hair slipping down from the combs, forming ringlets around her face.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Burns.” Marylu watched Miss Jenny welcome the woman. They conferred on materials for a good ten minutes before Jenny faced her. “Could you lay out some patterns for Mrs. Burns, Marylu? I’ve got to get this dress basted.”

  Marylu did as instructed, laying out the patterns on the long display case, as Mrs. Burns expressed interest.

  “It’s good to see you so well, Marylu,” Mrs. Burns commented. “Thank ya, ma’am.”

  The woman drew in a great breath, and Marylu braced herself for the verbal flood headed her way, wishing she was Moses and could part the waters before the flood drowned her.

  “I was just telling Jenny the other day how lucky she was to have such a faithful and devoted servant in you. I know how much comfort you and Cooper bring to her. It’s a shame she can’t find a suitable companion. Of course, I did hear that Aaron down at the mill was looking her way, until Sally Worth wore that azure dress last Sunday and sashayed around him until he finally asked her to the church picnic. Though I’m sure you wouldn’t have known about that since you have your own church. You should be having a new member, too. Mr. Shillito hired that mute man who came into town. You seen him?”