Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

The Randolph Legacy (12 page)

BOOK: The Randolph Legacy

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Her Washington was being protected again, Judith realized. By a man as strong as Fayette was in his prime.

A
n array of officers in full-dress blues, their medals gleaming, took Ethan Randolph’s hand, shook it. Some offered stiff apologies. His brother stood, erect and pompous, like them. Others offered welcome, tinged with pity. He knew that look. Fayette bore that look, back in his first memory. They didn’t expect him to live, then? Ethan glanced back over Aaron’s shoulder at the crew of the
Standard
. They saluted him smartly, though he was never one of them. Mr. Thrumming scowled, but Stephenson waved, as did Fayette’s old compatriots, the sheet anchor men.

“Beloved ghost,” Judith whispered wistfully at his ear.

“Is that what I was?”

She nodded, her eyes bright. Ethan was glad for this woman, Judith Mercer, and for the strong, kind arms of the bondsman. Without them, he might have gone back to the only home he remembered, despite the scandal it would cause these strangers on the deck—the ones whose sunstruck medals hurt his eyes.

T
he shoreline was crowded with people waving small American flags. Too small to count for the new state, the new star. Mustered militiamen fired their rifles above the sails of the
Standard
. The marines of the
Standard
fired back.

“Quite the spectacle,” Winthrop Randolph said at Judith’s ear.

She ignored him pointedly, Ethan thought. Eli Mercer rushed forward. “It’s wondrous good to see thee again, Washington,” he said.

Ethan grinned, remembering how much he liked Judith’s hearty, forthright father. Eli Mercer’s hand held that of a little girl. He set her before him. This must be his sister’s eldest child, who Judith said was waiting onshore. Ethan had only caught rare glimpses of children, at a distance from docksides around the world. He was fascinated by this one, but wondered how to behave. Aaron lowered Ethan to her height. The girl’s golden curls shone beneath her high bonnet. Her simple muslin frock was caught at the waist by a yellow ribbon. It flared about her when she made a full curtsy. How beautiful she was, this miniature.

“Your ship with Grandfather’s study inside is most cleverly made, Uncle,” she said.

“That is very kind of you to say, Elizabeth.”

Her eyes brightened further. “My family calls me Betsy.”

“May I?”

“I would be pleased if you did, sir.” She made another curtsy. “Mother says I should give you these.”

He took the three small silk flowers. This child would lead him to his ageless sister, whom Judith said had never buried him.

“Mama sprinkled them with—”

“Rosewater.”

“Yes.” The girl tilted her head as he inhaled the scent, then dropped the silk roses into Judith’s waiting fingers.

“Do you dance, Betsy?” he whispered. “Do you stand on your mother’s slippers and dance?”

“Oh yes, ever since I was very little! I teach Alice that way, too. Mama promises we will do the same with the new baby. Her name is
Charlotte, and she hardly cries at all! Will your leg become better, Uncle? Will you dance with us too?”

“I now have a powerful reason to desire it so.”

Judith wove the flowers’ stems through the first buttonhole of his waistcoat. Betsy leaned in against his ear as she did. “Mama loves your lady, Uncle Ethan,” she confided. “And she doesn’t care for the other wives at all!”

A man pressed gentle taps at her shoulder. Ethan looked up. The sun shone off spectacles.

“This is my papa, Barton Gibson. He is a land surveyor and has worked his trade in every one of the United States and Commonwealths! Someday I will travel with him.”

The man squatted down beside his daughter. He was tanned and handsome and brimming with health. “A pleasure, sir. A distinct and miraculous pleasure.” Ethan saw his laughing eyes now. They were the right kind of eyes for a man so rich in dancing women, he decided.

Barton Gibson drew another man into their circle. “And may I present Dr. Jordan Foster, a skilled physician and surgeon and esteemed friend.”

Ethan felt cold suddenly. He thought of the bleedings, the purgatives, the badly set bones growing gnarled, misshapen, lame. He buried his head in the bondsman’s broad chest, scented with corn and licorice, and the salty remnants of the slave’s own shipboard terror. “No doctors,” he whispered. “Tell them. Please. No more doctors.”

“Young master,” he heard Aaron’s voice, “Dr. Jordan, he got the healing in his hands. He and your mama done got your brothers and Miss Sally and all of mine through the measles in a terrible time, back before you was born. Come,” he coaxed, “give him your hand, child.”

“Thy sister sends him,” Judith intoned like a prayer at his ear.

He did not raise his head, and so he heard the gentle, sad voice first. “Ethan,” it called. “I would not hurt you for the world, son.”

He lifted his head. He saw eyes, dark like his own, set deep in a kind face. The man was dressed in plain, well-made clothes. His rich brown hair was graying at the sides—a soft, shining silver. He had a neatly trimmed beard, reminding Ethan of a Dutch merchant painted in one of Fayette’s books. Jordan Foster took Ethan’s arm in a gentle hold. The touch penetrated his sleeve with a soothing warmth.

“We will be guests at Dr. Foster’s house for a few days,” Judith told him, “so thee might rest before we bring thee home.”

“
Je regrette
—” He blinked. “Pardon,” he amended. “That is most generous of you.”

“Not at all.” Dr. Foster’s warmth penetrated deeper.

Soft cries exploded from the edge of the crowd. “She’s here!” and “She came!” The woman in the emerald satin spenser trimmed with Russian sable approached. Her silk gown sported a jabot at the bosom, her headdress was gold. All stood aside but Betsy Gibson, who curtsied low, then escorted the splendid woman to her uncle.

She smiled at Judith, and offered her gloved hand to Ethan. He took it and without thinking, he kissed her middle knuckle. Her exotic-smelling fingers curled around his.

“Why, Mr. Randolph, for what purpose is French etiquette taught aboard a British man-of-war?”

“For the express purpose of pleasing you,
madame.
”

He liked the way the beautiful woman’s chin dimpled before she finally released his hand with a slight squeeze. “I think I should require all senators and members of the Congress to ship out on a tour of duty at once.

“But as for you, sir,” she tapped his shoulder lightly, “this lady and her father have gone to considerable effort on your behalf. It would not be wise to cross them or me now. And I require a complete recovery before you call on me.”

“You have been very kind, Mrs. President.” Winthrop Randolph spoke up behind them.

“Ah no,” Dolley Madison said, casting a dismissing glance in his direction before returning her eyes to Ethan. “It’s your brother who has proved to be the hope left to us from the Pandora’s box of this warring era, Mr. Randolph. I charge you to help him to thrive again on his native soil. With his health restored and his gracious manners intact, I don’t believe anything will be beyond his reach.”

The first night in Dr. Foster’s house, Ethan Randolph dreamed
vividly, of two children whose portraits, painted on rough board, hung with a fair-haired woman’s over the room’s writing desk.

The children approached the handsome sleigh bed, then pulled him to his feet. They showed him a game played with a stick and a hoop. The woman smiled at their antics, playing a soft tune on the three-stringed instrument in her lap. The air was scented with pine. Ethan gave up trying to make the children understand that he was lame because he realized, just before the dream ended, that he was not. He awoke feeling so refreshed and whole, the pain in his leg surprised him.

Eli Mercer, dressed in his traveling clothes, sat by the bed.

“I did wake thee, Friend Ethan?”

“No. You are as still as Judith.”

Eli smiled. “Or she is as still as her father?”

“Of course, that way around.” Ethan rubbed the side of his face that had been buried in the soft pillow. “I am no lark.”

“True. A night owl, thee. Who kindly tended to my Judith in her distress while this lark slept. I have not forgotten. I’ve come to ask that of thee while I am gone for our Meeting in Philadelphia.”

“Ask? I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I know my Judith is a grown woman who has, on her missions, stood unafraid before admirals and prime ministers and generals and jailers. And with the Randolphs, she will help thee find thy place. But when thee becomes a father thyself the understanding will come fully, yet thy generous heart sees it even now, I feel it.”

“‘Sees’?” Ethan prompted.

“That Judith will be my little girl as long as I draw the breath of life.”

“Ah, yes.”

“You are kindred spirits in your marred childhoods, Ethan.”

“Judith’s childhood was marred? How?”

“In time, I will tell thee all. For now I ask—not Ethan Randolph, who neither of us knows—but Henry Washington, whom we cherish, to look after Judith in my absence.”

This man was more than respectful of him, Ethan realized. Eli Mercer was seeing through his broken body, seeing a whole man. Trusting that man with his daughter’s care. He would never forget it. “You have my assurance,” he said, careful not to swear.

“I shall travel north with a contented heart.” He placed his hands on his knees, pushing himself up onto his sturdy legs with an ease Ethan envied. “Well, Judith will walk me to my horse. Your worthy doctor waits patiently to—”

“Eli? I will see you again.”

“If God grants me that pleasure. I will summon Friend Jordan Foster. He will speed thee on thy way to health, son, I feel it.”

Ethan tried to lose himself in Eli Mercer’s words after he closed the
door. The physician approached with a curt greeting. He lifted the covers, then Ethan’s nightshirt from his leg. He frowned.

“Miss Mercer said you would not lean on her as much as you should have, aboard ship,” he said. “Do you think that’s the cause?”

“Cause, sir?”

“Of the inflammation. The pain you will not complain about?”

The doctor probed his leg lightly with his hands. Ethan suddenly realized he didn’t know this place, or this man. Where were his instruments? All surgeons had instruments. Cold, iron instruments. Where was Judith? “
Où est ma femme, s’il vous plaît?”
he blurted.

The doctor looked up, startled. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand the French language.”

“Was I speaking in French?”

“Yes.”

“Where …” he began, then forgot to translate the rest as he felt the woman’s hand on his shoulder—felt only. There was no one in the room with them. “Please, Dr. Foster. Who are the people, the painted people here on your wall?” Ethan asked, to distract himself from this new fear of the unseen woman and her pine-scented air.

“My wife and children.”

“This is your bed, then? Your own room?”

“It’s yours whenever you come.” Jordan Foster’s fingers lifted Ethan’s eyelids.

“Where are your wife and the children?”

“I buried them in the Ohio Territory.”

Ethan thought of the scented air. “Among the pine.”

“How did you … ? The painting. You saw the pine trees in the painting.” He answered his own question. “Yes, I buried them there.”

The doctor thumped Ethan’s back, the gnarled vines of scars without comment.

“Did your wife play a stringed box, Dr. Foster?” Ethan asked quietly. “Placed in her lap? Did the music sound like laughter?”

The probing hands finally stilled. “A dulcimer. How in Heaven’s name did you know that?”

“She played it for me. Well, for us, your children and me, in a dream. Last night. She must have been a generous lady to do that, to play her music for a stranger.”

The doctor rested his head in his hand.

Manners
, Ethan reminded himself. “I am sorry for your loss. I should have said that first. I am not so good at the proper order of things.”

Jordan Foster raised his head. That twitch beside his mouth—was it
a smile? “Perhaps she knew that you would not always be a stranger,” he whispered. “You are still afraid of me, aren’t you? Afraid I will hurt you?”

“Perhaps my fear is that you will not hurt me. The hurt necessary, yes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Necessary hurt? Is that not how to say it? The hurt to help me walk? You have hope for this?” he asked quietly.

The doctor rubbed at the frown line between his eyes. “The leg bones were set improperly, so long ago.” His tone turned clipped, rational, impatient, like Fayette’s sometimes became. “The bones grew together. The fracture at the ankle was ignored, so the right foot turned inward. Muscle tone—well, there’s some muscle tone, more than I would have thought. You have not stood in so many years.”

“I have crawled, all over our cabin. Fayette said I crawled faster than sand crabs on the beach at—”

“Listen to me! Anything short of doing terrible violence that would most likely not work—”

“But I am young, and will be stronger soon,” Ethan pressed. “Perhaps, then, the chance of success will be better?”

“No chance, no hope!” The doctor turned away suddenly. “I’m very sorry.”

A charged silence dwelt between them.

“Dr. Foster.” Ethan finally broke it. “Please do not allow your concern to exceed mine. Even if there is no hope, even if the Randolphs do not accept me as I am, Eli and Judith will help me.”

“Help you?”

“To discover a place, here on land. To achieve usefulness. I am not too old to find a trade, and through it fashion a life, do you think, sir?”

The doctor smiled. “I did not find my life’s station until I was older than you are now.”

“How old am I?”

“You will turn three and twenty at harvest time this year. On the thirtieth day of September.”

“Will I? How is it you can tell me this? Did we know each other in the time I cannot remember?”

“No. You’ll not find me in your dreams, your memory traces. I was away at my training in Scotland when your mother was good enough to write to me with the news of your birth. I was far from home. And lonely. It was a bright moment, her news. One remembers such moments.”

Ethan couldn’t imagine the sad-eyed man looking any more lonely.
Manners
. He smiled. “Well. I am happy to have occasioned this moment, however inadvertently. The earlier Randolphs you knew only?”

“Yes.”

Why? Ethan wanted to know. But could not manage to question this man whose eyes were becoming sadder still. Manners, again. “So, then. You are not a stranger to me now. That is my very great fortune.”

The doctor smiled. A rare thing; he did not do it often, Ethan surmised. “I would consider it a privilege if you allow me to help you find your purpose as well,” he offered.

Ethan shook his head, perplexed. “This woman Mrs. Gibson has a fine friend in you, sir,” he said.

“‘This woman’? Ethan, Sally is your sister. And what is this fretting about the Randolphs? They are your family.”

“Perhaps.”

“Not perhaps. You are Ethan Randolph.”

“Dr. Foster, I am not blind. The brothers elder—no, that is not correct—the elder brothers, they are against me, even Judith concedes that. I do not make a good case for myself, do I? No memory, barely sounding American. And I look nothing like them, do I?”

Dr. Foster took Ethan’s arm in that same curious warm hold as when they met. “You favor your mother,” he said.

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“Will that help her, do you think?”

“Help?”

“Anne Randolph buried herself when she buried me, Judith says. I’m afraid of this lady, Dr. Foster,” he admitted, reluctantly. “More even than Winthrop, who is dangerous in his anger. What if Anne Randolph prefers to keep us both buried? Without being deemed worthy of my mother’s love, how can I hope to win Judith?”

The doctor smiled slowly. “You love Miss Mercer?”

“Is it not obvious?”

“I … Well, I noted a certain devotion …”

Ethan laughed. “I love her so much that I, who have annoyed you all with my constant questions, am struck dumb by the power of it!” His grin faded. “Did you love the dulcimer woman that way, sir?”

“No. But her heart expanded to accommodate my limitations.”

“I have heard the music of that heart. I’m grateful.”

“I—I’d best fetch your lady, before you confound what little sense I have left.”

It was something Fayette might have said, in response to one of his visions. But this shy, sad-eyed man was not Fayette. Why had he trusted those eyes? Because he had not hurt him with dreaded instruments or purges? Because his wife and children had gifted him with a beautiful dream? Was that enough for so much trust?

As Dr. Foster approached the bedroom door, it burst open. Betsy Gibson entered, her skirts flying, followed by Aaron holding a covered tray.

“I have poached the eggs for you myself this morning, Uncle Ethan,” the little girl proclaimed, “as Mama instructed. I’m to watch you eat every scrap, you must not hide any remains under your linen!”

The child’s spirit lifted his own. “If I am to have your company,
petit chou
, I will gladly eat the linen as well.”

Betsy stopped, leaned her elbows on the high, goosedown mattress of the bed, and regarded him curiously. “What do you call me, Uncle?”

“
Petit
is, in English, ‘small,’” Ethan thought aloud. Perhaps he would think in English again, if he thought aloud. “Small
chou. Chou
—‘vegetable.’”

“I am a small vegetable? What vegetable? Corn, squash, beans?”

“No, no. An elegant vegetable, a beautiful vegetable, the finest vegetable in all of France. Cabbage!”

Betsy Gibson giggled, then clapped her hands under her chin. “Me, cabbage? What a notion!” she said.

He touched the child’s hair. Soft. Not as strong as Judith’s. Was all children’s hair like Betsy Gibson’s? Were all children as dazzling? Beyond the child, Ethan watched Judith in conference with the doctor in the doorway. Her cheeks were still tear-stained from her farewell to her father, but she, too, looked as bright as the morning beyond the windows.

S
atisfied with his appetite, Betsy dusted the errant crumbs from his sheets, took Aaron’s hand, and skipped down the hallway.

Ethan fretted, now that he was alone with Judith. “What will Dr. Foster tell these Randolph people? That this broken-down sailor claiming to be their son and brother asks questions like a relentless magpie? That he has visions of the dead?”

“Friend Jordan Foster is no one’s spy, Ethan. Trust him,” she insisted, placing her fingers over his heart.

Ethan tried to frown like Fayette. He loved her closeness, her touch. “This doctor, he lied about my leg,” he said.

“Lied? What do you mean?”

“He says he can’t help me to walk. He’s the only one who can, I think. But he is afraid.”

“Why?”

“He thinks he’ll hurt me. He is the only doctor who has not hurt me, Judith. I am most bewildered by this man.”

Judith spoke in the quiet tone to which he had learned to pay careful heed. “Even Mrs. Madison knows him by reputation, and approved of thy sister’s choice. He was schooled in Scotland as a physician and a surgeon and teacher of medicine. After he lost his family, he served the wounded in the late war. His skills saved many lives and limbs, Mrs. Madison says.”

“Why has he taken us in like this?”

“He tutored your brothers and sister many years ago.”

BOOK: The Randolph Legacy

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