To Whisper Her Name (11 page)

Olivia jumped back, heart in her throat. She winced and gritted her teeth, praying the woman hadn’t seen her, but she knew better. The woman — older, in her fifties, perhaps — had looked up with purpose, as if wanting Olivia to know she’d been spotted.

Regardless of whether or not the woman had seen her face, Olivia knew she wouldn’t forget the woman’s skin, which was the subtle brown of heavily creamed coffee, and her dark hair — hair more like a white person’s than a Negro’s. Beautiful too. Curly and wild about her head, as if the cloak’s hood could scarcely contain it.

Not daring to move for at least a full minute, Olivia finally relaxed. She’d only been looking out the window, after all. It wasn’t as if she’d done anything wrong. Summoning courage, she peeked back around the curtain.

But the woman was gone.

I
ain’t never had a white man stay as a guest with me before.” Green closed the cabin door behind them, the pinkish hue of dawn swiftly giving way to golden yellow. “You don’t reckon we’re breakin’ any laws by you stayin’ here, do you?”

Green’s chuckle drew a smile from Ridley. “I imagine in some people’s books we are. But I don’t particularly care what those people think.” Ridley paused at the edge of the porch and stretched, still a little weary, somewhat sore, and definitely hungry. The jerky stew Bob Green had served him last night — a fair portion for one man, but slim for two — had warmed his belly but hadn’t come close to filling it. Still, Green had shared what he had, and Ridley was grateful. “We fought a war.” Ridley shrugged. “And they lost. They don’t get to make the rules anymore.”

“That’s just the kinda smart talk that gets your face all messed up. Like it is now and like it was when I first met you —”

Ridley touched the purpling bruise on his cheek.

“— and that kinda talk is somethin’ you can’t do. Not workin’ here at Belle Meade anyway. I know the war’s over, but these people … they still ain’t readin’ from the same book as you.”

They cut a path toward the main house.

Ridley looked over at him. “You know I wouldn’t say that to just anyone else. I can be discreet.” He smiled. “When I try, Uncle Bob.”

Green just looked at him. “But that’s just it. You don’t have to
say
anything. You say it without even openin’ your mouth. It’s in the way you carry yourself. The way you treat folks. The way you treat
me
, more like a white man than what I am. Everybody tells a story, Ridley, whether they want to or not. Oh, some folks is good at hidin’ it. But all you got to do is listen, just listen … and you’ll hear it.”

Letting that settle inside him, Ridley focused ahead and felt a smile coming as he watched what might have resembled a horse in another lifetime slowly plod toward them. The gelding’s sway back and drooping lower lip revealed its age, as did the balding patches in its coat. “Looks like one of your lead stallions is trying to make a run for it.”

Uncle Bob laughed. “That’s just Old Gray. He been here at Belle Meade for years. He ain’t dead, but he been workin’ on it for a while.”

“Looks like he’s working extra hard at it today.”

“Aw, come on now.” Uncle Bob walked the short distance to the fence and gave the gelding a good rub behind the ears. “Old Gray been a good friend. He still pretty strong. He just don’t move too fast no more. But he still got some good days in him.”

As they walked on, Ridley studied the side of the stable damaged by the flames. “Who do you think started that fire last night?”

Green shrugged. “Somebody jealous over General Harding havin’ the best thoroughbred farm in all of Dixie. There be plenty of them folks to go ‘round. Ain’t the first time somethin’ like this happened. Probably not the last.”

They took the steps up to the side porch, and Green knocked on a door. It opened and a tiny slip of a woman grinned big, then waved them inside.

“I was startin’ to think you wasn’t coming this mornin’, Uncle Bob. You’re later than usual. And you brought somebody with you too.” She patted Ridley’s arm. “I
love
havin’ men in my kitchen.”

“Mornin’, Susanna.” Green settled himself at a small table in the corner and motioned Ridley to do likewise. Two other women working at the stove turned and greeted them. Ridley nodded in their direction, and they both smiled back, then looked at each other and grinned.

“Susanna, this here’s Mr. Ridley Cooper. He —”

“I know who he is,” she said, glancing at the other women. “We all do. You the man who almost got hisself blamed for the fire last night.”

Ridley nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That’s me. But I didn’t do it.”

“We know.” She smiled. “That’s why I said
almost
. Don’t you worry. None of us pay Grady Matthews no nevermind.” She motioned. “You need something for that?”

Ridley touched the bruise on his cheek. “No, ma’am, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Mr. Cooper’ll be workin’ with me for a while,” Green continued. “And this woman here is Susanna Carter.” Green inhaled deeply, eyeing the scrambled eggs with sausage and biscuits she was serving up. “Best cook in the whole of Dixie and wife to Big Ike. So you best watch your step around her, or Big Ike’ll make sure you do.”

Susanna playfully shushed him.

“And helpin’ her over there is Chloe Harris and Betsy Lee. They got husbands who work here too.”

Susanna set a full plate before each of them, and Ridley could only stare, unable to remember the last time he’d eaten so well.

“Everythin’ all right, sir?” she asked.

“Everything’s fine, ma’am.” He glanced up. “More than fine. It looks delicious. Thank you.”

“Not as good as my stew last night.” Green huffed. “But it’ll do.”

Ridley grinned and scooped a forkful of eggs, then saw Green watching him and set his fork back on his plate.

“For this fine eatin’, Lawd, we thank you. And for these women who get up long before the sun …”

Bob Green didn’t bow his head, didn’t even close his eyes, yet he spoke the words with such respect, nobody listening could have doubted his sincerity or who he was addressing — and that Green believed with everything in him God was listening. Susanna and the other two women had paused from their work.

“… cookin’ and carin’ for this family like they do, and for me too, I thank you, sir.”

Without ceremony, Green took a bite of a warm biscuit and looked like he was about to pray all over again. Ridley took a quick bite before it was too late and continued eating for five minutes straight. He only stopped for sips of coffee, before using the last of his second biscuit to sop up every last bit of butter and goodness on his plate.

Susanna motioned. “You want more? There’s plenty.”

He eyed the eggs in the pan. “No, ma’am. I’m good. Thank you.”

She just laughed, grabbed his plate, and piled it high again.

“You know anything new?” Green asked her.

“I do,” Susanna answered, stirring a pan on the stove. “But it ain’t good.”

Green paused, looking at each of the women. “Anybody we know?”

Betsy nodded. “You ‘member Bud and Luvenia and their two boys? Over at the Foley place?”

Green nodded, frowning.

Susanna pulled the pan off the burner. “Them boys started goin’ to school. A freedmen school, for us folks.” She looked at Ridley, who nodded. “Bud and Luvenia’s boys got beat up day afore yesterday. White men come into the classroom, dragged everybody out. They took a stick to some of the kids, but they ‘bout beat the teacher to death. He was a Negro come down from New York City. Just to open the school, the paper said. He’s supposed to live, but they won’t be openin’ the school again. Not that they could find anybody to teach even if they did.”

A hush fell over the kitchen. Ridley set his fork on his plate, keenly aware of the tension in the air and the color of his own skin and of all the battles yet to be fought despite a war having been won.

A moment passed and Green drained his coffee cup. Susanna filled it again. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said softly. “So …” Green looked up, the tone of his voice clearly marking a shift in the conversation. “How’re things here in the house? How’s the missus?”

When Susanna didn’t answer, Ridley looked up, sipping his coffee, and caught the tail end of a look she’d tossed Green.

Green paused, then looked pointedly over at him and back to the women. “It’s all right.” He nodded. “He’s with us.”

Only then did Ridley realize what Susanna had been asking. And he felt more than a little honored by the acceptance.

“She ain’t feelin’ too good this mornin’.” Susanna was petite but she wiped down the tabletop with a vengeance. “She got the weariness again. Took breakfast in her room.” She exhaled. “She ain’t hardly ate a bite. She just too good is what it is. She done give and give all these years. Now she ‘bout give out.”

The other women nodded, as did Bob Green. Ridley couldn’t help but think of Olivia Aberdeen and knew she would be concerned about her friend.

“The widow who come yesterday.” Green sipped his coffee. “What’s she like?”

Ridley’s interest ticked up a notch, though he tried not to show it.

“She seem nice enough.” Chloe joined them at the table, buttered biscuit in hand. “I went to turn down her bed last night, but she was already in there. Thought I heard her cryin’.”

Susanna sighed. “Can’t blame her after all she been through.”

“All she been through?” Betsy turned from where she was kneading
a lump of dough. “Here she been, livin’ high and mighty. And all the time knowin’ that her man was a —”

“How you know she knew?” Susanna frowned. “You don’t know that for sure. ‘Sides, if Missus Harding took her in — which she did — then that widow must have some good in her. I ain’t sayin’ that maybe she ain’t done somethin’ she shouldn’t. I
am
sayin’ it ain’t right how a woman gotta pay for her man’s wrongs. And we all know that’s the way of it.”

Chloe gave a soft
mmm-hmm
. And even Betsy nodded.

But Ridley waited, wanting someone to say more about Mrs. Aberdeen. About her late husband. What he was or — more rightly — had been.

“Jedediah told my Richard,” Chloe continued, “‘bout pickin’ her up in town yesterday. People starin’ real ugly like.” Her voice lowered. “There was this one white woman, he said, looked straight at her” — she made a face — “and
spit!
Right there in front of everybody.”

Ridley felt as though they had to be talking about someone else. It couldn’t be Olivia Aberdeen. But she had arrived yesterday, and Jedediah had brought her. So it had to be her.

“Sure hope she don’t get too much in your way, Susanna,” Betsy said over her shoulder. “Helpin’ with runnin’ the house and all.”

“Oh, the widow ain’t helpin’ Susanna with the house.” Chloe rose from the table. “Not no more. That other woman, she gonna be doin’ that.”

Green looked up. “What other woman?”

Ridley frowned. So Olivia Aberdeen
wasn’t
going to be the Hardings’ head housekeeper after all.

Susanna laid aside the dish she’d been drying. “The daughter of the general’s first cousin. Miss Lizzie Hoover. She ain’t never married. Her parents both gone now, so the general took her in.”

“She gonna be livin’ here for good then,” Green said, more a statement than a question.

Susanna nodded. “I think she work out fine. She done asked me last night to help her learn what to do. I told her I’d teach her right. Show her how Missus Harding likes things done.”

“So what’s that widow gonna do?” Green asked.

Ridley looked back at Susanna.

“Don’t rightly know.” She gathered their empty plates. “But Missus Harding is right partial to her, I could tell right off. So
all
of us is gonna
be kind,” she said, looking pointedly at the other women. “We gonna make her feel welcome.”

Chloe and Betsy both nodded. Betsy more reluctantly.

Ridley drained his coffee cup, eager to leave so he could ask Bob Green privately what they were referring to.

“Jedediah told my Richard somethin’ else too …”

When Chloe didn’t continue, Ridley looked up to find her looking directly at him. “What’s that?”

Chloe’s smile bordered on suspicious. “Jedediah say you walked her the rest of the way here, after the carriage wheel broke. And that you toted her trunk all that way.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, ma’am. That’s right.”

The women glanced at each other as if knowing something he didn’t.

“He also say that when he got back to that carriage,” Chloe went on, a teasing quality sparkling in her dark eyes, “that door still be locked tight as a sugar chest. Which got us to wonderin’ …” She glanced at Susanna and Betsy. “How’d that woman get herself outta there? Her wearin’ that big ol’ dress and all.”

Considering the curious expressions of the women before him, Ridley found himself tempted to smile. But what he’d just learned about Olivia Aberdeen wouldn’t let him. Not knowing her well at all — or her situation — he still hurt for her. Recalling her exhausting sense of propriety, he felt honor bound not to divulge how she’d gotten out of that carriage.

On the other hand, these women had welcomed him into their kitchen and their community, just as Bob Green had, and their inquisitive stares were all but burning a hole through him. Even Green wore a mischievous grin.

A picture flashed into Ridley’s mind, and he recalled rounding the corner to see Mrs. Aberdeen straddling that window. He didn’t think he’d ever get the image of that shapely leg out of his mind, much less how he’d felt his way around the woman’s bustle.

Finding his smile again, he met their gazes. “I know you’re not going to believe this,” he whispered — and would’ve sworn the women leaned forward, Green along with them. “But you know how those fancy hoop skirts of theirs can sometimes take on a mind of their own?”

They all nodded.

“And you know how small the windows in those carriages are?” He raised his brows and the sudden twinkle in their eyes told him their imaginations were rushing to fill in the blanks. “Well, what I find interesting … is how the doors on those carriages, if you look at ‘em
just
right, will sometimes
pop
right open for no good reason. Then slam shut again” — he snapped his fingers — “just like that!”

Stunned silence layered the room until Ridley grinned and winked. Then laughter broke out.

“Oh, that’s
good
,” Chloe said, pointing at him.

Susanna’s high-pitched laughter carried over the others, and she swatted his arm. “You gonna fit in here just fine, Mr. Cooper!”

Bob Green smiled in approval, pushing back from the table. Even Betsy, shaking her head from across the room, grinned at him.

“Thank you, ladies, for breakfast,” Ridley said, following Green out the door.

“Oh, Mr. Cooper?”

He turned to see Betsy standing inside the doorway.