The Bride Fair Read online

  “Well, go get them, Perkins,” he said in aggravation.

  “Yes, Sir!”

  Perkins was gone far too short a time to have made a trip to the jail and return. The boys must have been downstairs someplace. Perkins brought them both up to the office and herded them inside. It was entirely unnecessary in Max’s opinion, but he let it go, because they didn’t seem to be living up to their boisterous reputations at the moment. Both children were obviously tired. And dirty. The smaller of the two had wet himself. Even so, he took one look at Max and toddled forward, raising both little arms in a silent entreaty to be picked up.

  “Who is this?” Max asked, painfully lifting him off the floor in spite of his soggy state.

  The little boy immediately hid his face in Max’s shoulder, and Max patted him awkwardly on the back with one aching hand.

  “He don’t talk to Yankees,” the older one said.

  “That would be—” Perkins broke off midsentence to grab the boy by the seat of his britches as he tried to make a run for it out the door.

  “Jake,” Perkins concluded when he had the runaway dangling under his arm. “I’m not sure if this one’s got a name,” he said, setting the boy on his feet again. The child stood there, clearly worried. He couldn’t get out, and he didn’t know what to do about Max holding his trusting little brother.

  “So which one of the Canfields are you?” Max asked him.

  “Phelan Josiah Canfield,” the boy said. “How old are you?”

  The boy held up five fingers, then bent down briefly to look under the desk.

  “What do they call you—Phelan, like your father?” Max asked when he straightened up again.

  “No. Mama and Maria said I had too many names. They just say ‘Joe’ when they want me. You can say ‘Joe,’ I guess—but you can’t say ‘Billy’ if you want Jake. Nobody can say ‘Billy.’”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s Uncle Billy’s name. Jake’s got all of Uncle Billy’s names, but you have to say ‘Jake’ so everybody don’t cry. Mama cries and Grandmother Canfield cries—and Maria, too. I don’t cry. I’m too big to cry. I get called ‘Joe’ and Jake gets called ‘Jake’—’cept sometimes Maria calls us ‘The Js.’”

  “Why is that, do you think?” Max said, still trying to make conversation.

  “’Cause she loves us,” he said easily, as if he’d already dealt with that question, made the proper inquiries and now had the answer. “Have you got some lots of names?”

  “I do—most of them don’t bear repeating.”

  “What is your name?” the boy asked, reaching and holding his little brother by the shoe.

  “Colonel Maxwell Prieson Woodard,” he said.

  “Maria doesn’t love you.”

  “No. She doesn’t.”

  “She wouldn’t love a Yankee—but I can ask her for a name for you anyway.”

  “I think I’ll just make do with the ones I’ve got. Right now it’s time to go.”

  “Where?”

  “To see your mother.”

  “Can I go see Maria?”

  “Maria is at your house,” Max said. He stood up with Jake still over his shoulder. The child had gone very heavy suddenly.

  “Is this one asleep?” he asked Perkins, turning so the orderly could see.

  “Yes, Sir—and then some. I reckon he’s all wore out. Sir, I left the carriage over by the Canfield house—”

  “Well, we’ll just have to make do,” Max said. The house was just down the street and around the corner—not at all too far to walk—unless one happened to be very small and as exhausted as his sleeping brother. “Can you ride a horse, Joe?”

  “Yes,” Joe said solemnly. “And a elephant.”

  “Elephants, too—very good. Get my hat, Perkins.”

  “Yes, Sir. You want to trade the hat for that boy, Sir?”

  “Yes,” Max said, handing the sleeping Jake over. “Come on, Joe,” he said. The boy immediately latched onto his most painful hand, and he had to switch him to the other one.

  “Where are we going?” Joe asked, looking up at him.

  “Your house, remember?”

  The boy shook his head. “Mama’s sick.”

  “I know…but she’s worried about where you are.”

  “I hope we get supper,” Joe said.

  “Don’t worry—”

  Maria’s there, Max almost said. The thought popped into his mind unbidden. He didn’t take time to examine it or the reason for it. He led the boy down the stairs to the street, letting him clump as much as he liked, which was considerable. A private scrambled to attention at the sight of them—a much better response to Max’s appearance than yesterday’s. Of course, the real test would have been if the private had been trying to amuse a town trollop at the time.

  The private had a horse ready and waiting—also an improvement.

  “Take his head,” Max said to him, because his hands hurt too badly to try to manage the horse and the boy. He placed Joe on the saddle and mounted behind him. “We’re going to go the long way, Perkins,” he said to his sergeant major. “Advise Mrs. Canfield that young Master Canfield will be there directly.”

  “Is that me?” Joe asked, trying to turn around enough to see Max’s face.

  “It is,” Max said. “Now. Which way shall we ride?”

  The shadows were long, but the afternoon was still hot and muggy. Typical for the time of year here, Max knew from his imprisonment. There was enough of a breeze to rustle the tops of the trees along Main Street, but it never seemed to reach the ground. He could hear the sparrows under the eaves of the buildings, and, except for a few soldiers here and there, everything was deserted. At Joe’s direction, Max took the horse first north and then south before he finally turned toward the Canfield house. Maria was standing on the porch, and she walked out to meet them.

  “Look at me, Maria!” Joe cried at the sight of her.

  “I see you, Joe,” she said, smiling. “What a fine rider you are.”

  “Am I fine?” he asked, turning around look at Max.

  “Very fine,” Max said. “Shall we show her how fine we look?”

  He urged the horse into a small trot down the street and back again, both of them sitting tall to show off for Maria Markham.

  At the end of the demonstration, Max handed him down to her and dismounted.

  “Perkins told you about—” he began.

  “He told me,” she interrupted. “Joe, thank Colonel Woodard for bringing you home,” she said to the boy.

  “Thank you,” Joe said dutifully, but at the last moment he abruptly wrapped his arms around Max’s knees in a brief, hard hug.

  Max reached down to pat the boy’s head. “Perhaps we can ride again sometime, Joe.”

  “His father won’t permit it,” Maria said quietly.

  “One never knows—”

  “I know,” she said. “If you have a moment, Colonel Woodard, Suzanne would like to speak with you.”

  Max looked at her, then at Joe’s upturned face.

  “Run inside now, Joe,” he said. He waited until the boy had disappeared into the house before he continued. “If Mrs. Canfield intends to ask for her husband’s release—”

  “She does not,” Maria said. “She would merely like to thank you for bringing her children home—and for allowing me to come see about her. It’s the way things are done here,” she added in a not too subtle reference to his claim to want to understand the people he was supposed to govern.

  “Very well,” he said. “Lead the way.”

  The house was two-story, one of the “shotgun” styles with a long center hall front door to back. As an invading cavalryman, he had ridden more than once right up the front steps of a house like this one, down the hall and out the back—as more of a hell-raising lark than a military necessity.

  He could smell something cooking—Joe clearly had no need to worry about getting his supper. As he followed Maria inside, a loud crash sounded
toward the rear of the house.

  “In there,” Maria said, pointing out a doorway on his left. “Suzanne, this is Colonel Woodard,” she called as she rushed away to investigate.

  He stood for a moment, then entered the room. A young, fair-haired woman lay on a daybed by the windows. She had on a faded but clean calico dress and her hair looked as if it had been freshly braided—Maria’s doing, he supposed. She appeared weak and delicate, but pleased to have company, even if it was a Yankee colonel.

  “Colonel Woodard,” she said, extending her hand. “Will you come sit by me?”

  He did so, pulling up a nearby chair so that she could see him without having to turn. She seemed a little breathless, but she didn’t look feverish. He wondered precisely what her ailment was. That particular detail regarding Suzanne Canfield, Perkins had left out.

  “Mrs. Canfield,” he said to acknowledge her, and he placed his hat on his knees, aware that she was looking at him intently.

  He waited.

  “I never expected to invite a Yankee colonel into my home,” she said finally.

  He realized by her slightly mischievous expression that he was about to witness what must have once been Southern belle coquetry at its best. It had been made frail by her illness, and perhaps by her marriage, but it was still in evidence. And quite charming, actually, he decided—if a man didn’t get taken unawares. He wondered if Maria had been mistaken, and Suzanne Canfield was about to petition for her husband’s release, after all.

  “I don’t think I ever expected to be invited,” he said, and she smiled. He thought she must have been very beautiful—once.

  “I understand you are from Philadelphia,” she said.

  “Germantown, actually.”

  “I’ve been there—to both. With my father—before I was married. He was a scholar of Revolutionary War history. I recall there were some very interesting houses in Germantown. Perhaps, at the very time I visited, you lived in one of them.”

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  She was still looking at him in a way he could not fathom. He was willing to make idle conversation, but he was acutely aware of the things that could not be remarked upon. The late war. Her incarcerated husband.

  “You must be nostalgic for your home,” she said.

  “No, actually, I don’t believe I am. I’ve been away a long time.”

  “You joined the war early then.”

  “Very early.”

  “And you were a prisoner here.”

  It wasn’t a question, and he frowned slightly, wondering how she had come by that information.

  “Maria told me you went to see it—the prison—when you arrived. I guessed that you must have had a particular reason to go there.”

  He didn’t have a reply to that, and she didn’t seem to expect one.

  “Maria says you have told her you want to learn how to get along with people here. She doesn’t believe it. She thinks you only want to show her who has the upper hand.”

  The remark was so indicative of his true motives that he shifted slightly in his chair.

  “We’ve been friends since we were children, Maria and I,” Suzanne Canfield said.

  “Yes. So her father told me. I believe you were ‘musketeers.’”

  She smiled. “There were three of us.” The smile faded. “Then two. And soon…” She closed her eyes for a moment, then suddenly brightened again. “I could advise you how to get along with Maria, if you like.”

  “Do I need instruction?”

  “I would say so—but only if you seek a certain civility in your society with her. There is no reason why you should, of course. You are the conqueror, and she—we all—are the conquered.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You are living in the same house and must tolerate each other,” she said after a moment. “There really is a secret, you know. I’m not sure even Maria recognizes it.”

  “All right, then. Tell me. What is the secret to getting along with Miss Maria Markham?”

  “She will never rely on anything you tell her.”

  “I would expect that—given our opposing politics—”

  “It has nothing to do with your politics, Colonel. It has to do with Maria. She will not believe what you say, she will only believe what you do.”

  “I see.”

  Suzanne Canfield smiled again. “No, I doubt it. But what I’ve told you is the truth. It’s the deed, not the words, that Maria will value—no matter if the deed is good or bad.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Mrs. Canfield?”

  “Because I can. I haven’t shocked you, have I?”

  “No, you’ve piqued my curiosity.”

  “I think it’s because I’m ill that I’m making suggestions,” she said. “I see things that need saying and I say them. I can get away with it now, you see. It’s very strange—and very…satisfying in a way—not to be bound by convention anymore. Maria is very dear to me and to my sons. I want her to have whatever ease of mind she can. But I’m keeping you, Colonel,” she said, completely changing the subject. “I really only intended to say thank you.”

  “It isn’t necessary. I haven’t done anything, Mrs. Canfield.”

  “Of course you have. You are bound to do whatever you see as your duty, but you’ve still extended a kindness to me and to Maria—when you didn’t have to.”

  He wasn’t quite sure if she alluded to the curfew or to Phelan Canfield’s being in jail.

  “I wanted you to know that I’m grateful, Colonel Woodard,” she said. The mischievous smile returned. “And I wanted to get a look at you. It will be all over town that you actually paid me a visit. The members of the literary society are going to be so very envious that I have seen you first.”

  Maria appeared in the doorway. She had flour all over her skirts.

  “Joe was stacking boxes so he could climb on the flour barrel,” she said.

  “Is he hurt?” Suzanne asked in alarm.

  “No, thank heavens. Some of the flour has spilled though.”

  To Max’s alarm, Suzanne Canfield suddenly covered her face with her hands and began to weep. He immediately stood, then left the room to let Maria handle it, waiting in the hallway for her to come out. When she didn’t appear after a time, he walked out onto the porch and lit a cigar. He had nearly finished smoking it when she finally appeared.

  “I am taking the boys home with me,” she said, her tone of voice, her stance, everything about her suggesting that she expected opposition from him and was prepared to do battle if need be.

  “How is Mrs. Canfield?” he asked to divert her purpose.

  “Suzanne is quiet now—asleep. She’s asked if I will look after her boys until Phelan comes home. I have said yes. I am taking them with me.”

  Max stared into Maria Markham’s eyes. She was so determined, and so certain that he would oppose her.

  She will not believe what you say. She will only believe what you do.

  Now why is that? he thought.

  “Have we misplaced Perkins?” he asked.

  “He’s on the back porch trying to get the flour out of Joe’s hair.”

  “If you would send him to me,” he said, throwing the cigar away.

  She hesitated. She clearly didn’t like running errands any more than she liked playing stable boy. Max also noted that she looked pale—the way she had at the breakfast table this morning.

  “Are you—”

  She didn’t give him time to complete the question. She left, nearly at a run, and she didn’t come back. Perkins appeared almost immediately, carrying the still flour-covered Joe.

  “Sir!” he said as if he were presenting himself at his martial best.

  “Bring Miss Markham and the boys along—whenever she’s ready.”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  Max rode the distance to the Markham house alone, but he didn’t stop. He gave the horse his head and continued on, as long as there was a street. Then, he rode into the wooded
countryside, following any bridle path he could find. The sun was nearly gone when he returned, and whatever good had come of having his hands bound last night was no longer apparent. He was in pain, and he arrived to find the Markham house in chaos—both boys crying and the butter beans burned. He took one look at the situation and left immediately for the hotel across the street from military headquarters—where the proprietor made the mistake of informing him that there were no vacancies. Unfortunately, two of his lieutenants suffered for the man’s impertinence. Perkins had them routed from their room and relocated to who knew where before they knew what had hit them.

  By the time that had been accomplished, the pain in Max’s hands had reached monumental proportions. With Perkins’s help, he repeated last night’s cold water treatment, but the sergeant major, as handy as he might be, was no match for Maria Markham when it came to wrapping injured hands.

  Max finally fell asleep well into the morning hours, and he woke just as aggravated as when his head hit the pillow.

  He stayed in the hotel for three days. Long enough for the curfew to be lifted. Long enough for Maria Markham to think she had her father’s house back. But Max had no intention of being quartered with a bunch of rowdy soldiers, regardless of the fact that there was a time in his life when he was just like them.

  He returned to the Markham house early Saturday evening—to find the little Canfield boys returned home and a chaos of a different kind. The Ladies’ Literary Society. The house was full of chattering women—young and old. And women were still arriving, most of whom seemed to be carrying their own chairs. The parlor was full. The overflow spilled into the wide hallway. His arrival caused even more of a stir.

  He saw Maria standing at the edge of the crowd, and it was clear to him that she expected him to turn tail and take himself back to the hotel. But he wasn’t about to capitulate this time. He waded right into the midst of the society to reach her, feeling a buzz of attention all around him as he approached.

  “I think introductions are in order,” he said, just to see Maria give him her best exasperated look.

  “This way,” she said quietly, but her quietness didn’t fool him for an instant. Miss Maria Rose Markham was quite ready to box his ears.