The Bride Fair Read online

  “Well, Sir, one or two of them are here because they can’t take it,” Perkins said. “Them what carried the Reb flag a little too high during the late war—or them what own too much property and ain’t about to get rid of it. They couldn’t get nowhere with Colonel Hatcher, so they’d be here to ask you to pardon them, so they can swear allegiance and get all the benefits thereof. Then there’s the usual civilian complaints, Sir.”

  Max decided to sit down, after all. He was tired. He looked healthy enough these days, but he still suffered from a noticeable lack of stamina. The long train ride from Washington and then the visit to the prison grounds had taken its toll. He took another sip of the coffee, then tried to find a place to put the tin cup among the stacks of papers on the desk. “What kinds of complaints? The men in blue accosting their daughters?”

  “No, Sir—not that there ain’t plenty of accosting going on, mind you. There’s some real pretty girls in this town and don’t nothing stir up a soldier’s juices more than running into one of them and knowing she’d just as soon gut you as look at you. The boys take it right personal, Sir, if you know what I mean. And they get to feeling all honor-bound to do something about it. Ain’t nothing builds a man up like turning some little old girl’s head, especially if she thinks she hates the air you’re living on.

  “But we don’t generally hear about any of that up here. If the accosting’s mutual, it’s either ship the girl off to her relatives or let ’em get married, which is likely what some of them downstairs have come about—permission for a marriage. Getting married to an army officer is pretty popular here of late—what with the latest batch of local females coming of age. They was about too young to get all worked up about the Cause during the war. All they know is there ain’t nobody left much to marry—except one of us. Sometimes you’d think it was a regular bride fair around here and a man could just go out and take his pick.

  “But now, if the accosting ain’t mutual, sooner or later, the accoster gets hisself waylaid some dark night and he don’t come out of it looking as good as when he went in. If you get my meaning. And the boys, well, they do have their pride, Sir. They don’t want to say they got the bejesus kicked out of them by some unarmed Reb daddy or big brother. The tales I’ve heard, Sir, about low-hanging tree limbs and stumbling in the dark on the way to the sinks. It’s enough to make you think this here town is the most perilous place in the world for a man to go heeding the call of nature after the sun goes down—begging your pardon, Sir.

  “No, Sir, there ain’t many complaints about ‘accosting’ coming our way. I’d say some of them people downstairs are wanting to get paid for the goods the army commandeers and for billeting officers in the private residences. It was Colonel Hatcher’s policy not to get in a hurry about that. He wasn’t exactly what you would call accommodating to the townsfolk.”

  Max looked at him, recognizing a prelude when he heard one. “How far behind are we on paying them?”

  “Well, Sir, I’d say about as many months as the colonel was here—but that ain’t the main thing. The main thing is all these here fires, Sir. Six of them, so far. Folks pretty much hold us—that is, Colonel Hatcher—responsible for all the incendiary activity that’s been going on.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he got to saying how the townsfolk didn’t suffer enough for having the prison here during the war and whatever bad things happened to them was just what they deserved. It didn’t take long for some to take that as an invitation to run wild with a torch.”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “Not yet, Sir, but there’s been some close calls. One of the men barely got a little child out of a house when the fire spread the other night. I guess it’s mostly that what’s got folks gathering out front like they are. They’re wanting you to do something about it.”

  Max drew a quiet breath. If he had dared hoped for some quietude here, it didn’t appear likely that he was going to find it. He could feel the sergeant major waiting for him to do his job and take command of the situation. He moved a pile of papers instead and uncovered a battered red-velvet box. It contained a pair of garnet-and-pearl earrings of significant quality and value.

  “What’s this?”

  “Those, Sir? I’m thinking Colonel Hatcher meant those for his…ah…”

  “His what?”

  “Well, his woman, Sir.”

  “What woman? His wife?”

  “Whore, Sir.”

  “His—”

  Max abruptly closed the box and tossed it on the desktop. He was no prude, but it was one thing for an officer to have his entertainments—and something else again to have his staff so privy to them. And Colonel Hatcher’s departure must have been even more precipitous than he’d thought.

  “Sir, I reckon they might be a problem, too,” the sergeant major said after a moment.

  “For whom?” Max asked pointedly, and he had to wait for the sergeant major to make up his mind about how much he wanted to tell his new commanding officer.

  “For you, I reckon, Sir. This here whor—I mean, woman—I seen her downstairs just now, and I reckon she’ll be wanting them.”

  “Then give them to her.”

  “Well, they ain’t exactly hers, Sir, even if the colonel did promise them to her. Colonel Hatcher, he called them contraband, because of who they really belong to—but I’m thinking it’s too late in the day for them to be that.”

  Max stared at the man, trying to follow his convoluted tale.

  “‘Who they really belong to,’” Max repeated. “Yes, Sir. Miss Maria Rose Markham. Colonel Hatcher billeted hisself in her daddy’s house. Them earbobs belong to her and they went missing. See, the colonel had a bit of interest in the lady, but she wouldn’t have it—she had two brothers and a fiancé killed at Gettysburg—her brothers gave her them earbobs before they went off to war—one of them weren’t but fifteen. But even if she hadn’t lost her brothers and her beau like that, she just weren’t the kind to be impressed with the—”

  Perkins abruptly stopped, and clearly had no intention of continuing.

  “Speak freely, man,” Max said, but Perkins still had to think about it. It was not a sergeant’s prerogative to assess a colonel’s character, even when asked.

  “Well, Sir,” he said finally, “Colonel Hatcher, he was fond of telling people that his family came from these parts—he said he had this here relative what was a big Indian fighter and military advisor a hundred years ago. Only these people here keep records of everything, and somebody found a mention of a Hatcher in the court accounts—how he was put in stocks all the time for drunken and lewd behavior—insulting decent women and the like. Didn’t take word long to get around.”

  “No, I don’t expect it did.”

  “People were kind of laughing behind their hands about it, and that got Colonel Hatcher all the more determined about Miss Markham. Some thinks the earbobs was a kind of punishment for her. That it might have amused the colonel to take something what was dear to her and give it to a whore. Or maybe he thought he could make her trade for them. Sir,” the sergeant major added as an afterthought.

  Max sat there. He had enough trouble with the apparently ongoing arson in this town. He had no inclination whatsoever to deal with the epic drama his sergeant major had just revealed.

  “Dare I hope arrangements have been made regarding my quarters?” he asked after a moment.

  “Ah—yes, Sir. The major was thinking to put you in the same house as was Colonel Hatcher. It could get kind of crowded over there, though, Sir, if Miss Markham happened to move a bunch of kinfolk in now that Colonel Hatcher is gone. It might be you’d be wanting a hotel, Sir,” he added hopefully. “Mansion House or Howerton’s right across the street—”

  Max looked at the sergeant major. So. Miss Markham—apparently the woman who had met him at the station—had a champion in this sergeant major, one who wanted the new colonel to know that his behavior regarding her would be duly noted.

  But
Perkins could rest easy. Max had no designs on Miss Markham’s virtue. He did, however, wish to continue to inconvenience her. He wasn’t all that different from the men under his command. He had just been on the receiving end of a Rebel woman’s disdain, and, like his men, he took it personally.

  “No,” Max said. “The Markham house will suit me. If there are additions to the household and I find it too noisy, I have the authority to thin them out. My belongings will be sent here from the station. Have them moved to the house—and make sure the Markham pantry is full and there is somebody to cook and to orderly. And find me a decent mount so I can see about this latest fire. Then, I want you to take some men and close this town down. Every store, every saloon, every bar and grog shop. And the whorehouses, too, while you’re at it. All church services and public and private gatherings are canceled until further notice. The citizens are to be off the streets and in their homes. Start with that bunch downstairs.”

  “Yes, Sir! Anything else, Sir!”

  “I want all these papers sorted, by date and by urgency—and then I want a burial detail.”

  “Burial detail, Sir?”

  “That’s what I said. And find me some small pine blocks—like so,” he said, showing him the size with his hands. “Make sure they’re finished—no bark—scraps from a lumber mill if there is one—but you can put that at the bottom of the list for now.”

  “Yes, Sir!” Perkins gave a smart salute and left a happy man, in spite of Max’s choice of residence and his mishmash of orders. Occupation duty was tedious at best, and enacting what amounted to martial law was clearly more to the soldier’s liking.

  Max sat at the desk, then reached for the red-velvet box again, turning it over in his hands before he opened it. After a moment he abruptly closed the box and put it into his uniform pocket.

  Chapter Two

  Maria Markham stopped abruptly in the wide center hallway, listening again for the sound of an approaching wagon. The front door was shut, but the downstairs windows were still open to let in the evening breeze until the mosquitoes began to swarm. She stood there, her sense of dread completely taking her attention away from the task of closing up the house for the night and lighting more lamps than they could afford to light.

  She had been waiting for the new colonel all afternoon, and she still had no idea what she would do when he finally arrived. She knew what she would like to do, of course. She would like to bar the door and turn him away. She would like to send him and his kind back to whatever hellish place they had come from.

  Pennsylvania.

  Colonel Woodard came from Pennsylvania. He had served in Rush’s Lancers, a supposedly elite cavalry regiment made up of rich young men from Philadelphia society. His having been a Lancer was likely the reason he was in such an elevated position now—or so her father said. Her father made a point of keeping up with what he considered the pertinent details regarding the occupation army, and he was the one responsible for the new colonel’s being billeted in the house in the first place—and for the two others before him.

  “It is for the money, Maria Rose,” he’d explained patiently when she had protested having yet another “guest,” as if she didn’t already know what dire financial straits they were in. The only problem with that logic was that the Yankees never paid for anything—least of all their housing. They “appropriated” whatever they wanted all over town and handed out vouchers the quartermaster never got around to honoring. The town was forever sending some kind of delegation to military headquarters to broach the subject of monies owed, but far as she knew, her father had received no rent payment the entire time, Hatcher, the previous commander had been living here. She had no expectations that this new one would be any different.

  Colonel Woodard.

  The man she was having to light the lamps for, because she thought he would come into the house unannounced, barred door or not, and she did not want to encounter him in the dark.

  She had been afraid of him today in the buggy. He had been civil enough, but his civility didn’t hide what she believed to be his true nature. She realized immediately that he didn’t suffer fools gladly, but, for whatever reason, he chose to keep a tight rein on his emotions. Even so, she could feel how volatile they were, how close to the surface, and he had a kind of dangerous intensity about him she found more than a little disconcerting. She had no idea what people must have thought, seeing them riding out to the prison like that. It wasn’t proper, and the colonel knew it. He made it very clear that the delicate sensibilities of the people in this town meant nothing to him.

  She was certain she heard a wagon now, and she stepped quickly into the parlor so that she could peep out the front window. If it was Colonel Woodard, she would take herself to another part of the house. The last thing she wanted the Yankee to think was that she’d been dancing in attendance by the front door on his account.

  It was nearly dark, but she could see the wagon clearly enough—one of the farmers making a delayed start home, probably because of the fire. Every able-bodied man had been pressed into service. She couldn’t see any flames now, or even a glow in the sky, but she could still smell the smoke. The wagon rattled on by, leaving nothing in its wake but the sounds of a warm summer night.

  She took a quiet breath and let the resentment she’d been keeping at bay wash over her. She had tried so hard to talk her father out of letting another one of them into the house. It was bad enough having to encounter occupation soldiers all over town. They were always underfoot on the streets and in the shops. Some actually came to church and participated in the services—much to the delight of the young girls, who were more than willing to overlook a Yankee officer’s part in the late war for the possibility, however remote, of matrimony.

  To that end, some of them had raised simpering to a high art. It had gotten to the point that she could hardly bear to witness it, and she could expect a bevy of eager young females at the front door as soon as word got around that the new—and possibly unmarried—colonel was billeting with the Markhams. If—when—they discovered that he was supposedly from a well-to-do family, too, she would be absolutely inundated with visitors, whether she wanted them or not.

  Maria gave a quiet sigh. Perhaps she shouldn’t blame the girls—or their mothers, who must surely sanction their behavior. Who else was there to marry? The war had decimated the Confederacy’s young men. So many of them were dead or invalid, and it was a bitter thing for those who had survived more or less intact to have to live now in a conquered South. Some of them made no pretense at even trying. They took themselves off to California or to Mexico or to South America, leaving the uncertain resurrection of their homeland to whoever remained.

  She resented their departure as much as she resented the new colonel’s presence in the house. Having Colonel Woodard here was a classic example of adding insult to injury, and she simply didn’t understand why her father couldn’t see that. Both his sons—her beloved brothers—had died at Gettysburg. Quiet, scholarly Rob, who had treated her as an intellectual equal simply because she was so eager to learn about matters beyond the kitchen and household. And mischievous, lighthearted Samuel, who could always make her laugh.

  She missed them both terribly, and her only comfort was that they had been spared seeing what life here had become. Everything had changed. It wasn’t simply the deprivations, the lack of food and money. It was the lack of joy and living day after day in relentless, all-prevailing sorrow.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the gilt-framed mirror on the far wall. The mirror had been cracked three years ago by one of General Stoneman’s raiders in an effort to get it out of the house before one of his superiors saw him trying to steal it. She moved to the side so that she could see herself better and immediately wished she hadn’t. She was so tired, and she looked it.

  What has happened to me?

  Her brothers would not have recognized her. She hardly recognized herself anymore. She had never been a beauty, but she had been
a cheerful and optimistic person.

  Once.

  People had enjoyed her company. She had never lacked for invitations to balls and parties. Billy Canfield had wanted to marry her. He had spoken to her father, and they had received the blessings of both sets of parents. It seemed so long ago now, but she had that one small consolation to hang on to, at least. She had once been asked—and only she would ever know that his asking had meant nothing.

  But her life was about to change for the worse, whether the new colonel billeted himself here or not. She had no hope of escaping her fate and very little time remaining before she was found out. If only she were devious enough and fetching enough to join the younger girls in their relentless, giggling quests for a husband. A husband would solve everything—even if it were one of them—if she could act quickly enough and if she could put aside the dishonor of such a venture and somehow dredge up the self-confidence to attempt it. She still smarted at the memory of Colonel Woodard’s scrutiny at the train station. His assessment of her had been subtle—not at all like the leering she’d come to expect from Colonel Hatcher and his kind. But it had been no less upsetting. She had seen the new colonel study her face, her breasts—and then totally dismiss her.

  Like Billy.

  Someone rapped sharply on the front door, making her jump. She peered out the window again. A carriage had stopped out front, but she didn’t recognize it. Apparently the colonel had chosen a conveyance in keeping with his position this time—or perhaps there had been no lone women in buggies handy.

  The rapping came again, much louder this time.

  “Maria Rose!” her father called from his upstairs sitting room. “Will you answer the door or must I!”

  “I’m getting it, Father,” she called back, recognizing the threat for what it was. He was looking for an excuse to come downstairs and drink whiskey with a bunch of soldiers—even if they were in the wrong army—instead of coddling his bad heart as the doctor had ordered. She loved her father dearly, but he had to be the most exasperating man in all of Christendom. When his health improved even a little, he never concluded that the doctor’s regimen was working. Instead, he promptly decided that it wasn’t needed any longer. She ran herself ragged trying to keep him from overdoing, failing and then feeling guilty for his numerous setbacks. It had been the same when her mother was living. Somehow his illness was entirely their responsibility. If he felt any personal obligation to follow his doctor’s advice regarding his own health, she certainly couldn’t tell.