Romance: Luther's Property (58 page)

I couldn’t bear Father’s presence.
 
He kept crying, and the constant river of
tears, coupled with the theatrical nature of his sighs, was more than any young
lady in my situation should have to endure. It wasn’t him condemned to a life
tethered to a total stranger. He wasn’t the one whose life had been promised
away without consultation and consent. Yet it was clear he counted himself the
victim; life itself had conspired against him.

“What sin have I wrought that heaven punishes me so?” he
cried. “That my daughter should so cruelly be taken from me?”

“I wasn’t taken from you, Papa,” I said sternly. Perhaps it
was wrong of me to snap; a dutiful daughter would have been mindful of his
heartbreak. “You gave me away.”

He turned toward me, blue eyes wide and watery. “Such was
never my intention. You are my heart’s own treasure, Abigail. I swear it.”

“People don’t put their heart’s own treasure up as
collateral,” I replied, waving my arm in a gesture that took in all of our
modest kitchen and the sitting room beyond. “You could have used the property
to secure the loan. People do that all the time!”

“Damn it girl!” Father exploded. “I tried that. Robert
Benson would have none of it. He has more property than God himself, he told
me, and no interest in acquiring any more. The only surety he would accept was
the promise of your hand in marriage.”

“And he of course is the only man in all of Christendom who
could be found to stand you the money,” I snapped. Even within myself, I was
shocked at the tone of our conversation. Always I had been a dutiful and
respectful daughter, who never questioned my Father’s decisions. But this
announcement – the news that I’d been bartered away for a printing press –
broke something inside of me that I’d never known was there to break.
 
Rage guided my words as much as logic did.
Fury burned inside of me with an intensity every bit the equal of the flames
that’d consumed the print shop and stolen my future from me.

“I’m sorry,” Father whispered. He buried his face in his
hands. “I am so, so sorry.”

I should have comforted him. I should have gone to my Papa
and wrapped my arms around him and assured him that everything was going to be
fine. For my entire life, Father had done his best to provide for my every
need, standing as both Mother and Father to me. His guidance and counsel had
made me who I am; the very least I could do in repayment is offer him up a
comforting stew of lies that I would surely find happiness as Robert Benson’s
bride and that everything would work out fine in the end.

I knew this. I knew this with a certainty that came from
deep within my soul. Yet I found that doing such a thing was impossible. There
did not lie within me the capacity for a deceit so tremendous; I could not
pretend to any happy certainty when my future was anything but.

So instead I stood, watching my Father cry. His face was
buried in his hands. Tears were working their way through the spaces between
his fingers, falling one by one to spot his pants. His shoulders were shaking.
He looked so very old and so very small.

It was not an easy sight, and I could not watch for long.
Papa did not look up as I walked out of the kitchen; I do not know if he saw me
open the front door. Stepping out into the sunshine was an awful revelation;
the world could choose to dress itself in beauty even as my life was falling
apart.

I put one foot in front of the other and started walking. I
wasn’t sure where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay where I was.

I met the fire marshal on the road. “Tell me you’re not
coming to say the flames have birthed themselves again anew?” he asked, concern
shining in his brown eyes.

“Who cares if they have?” I exclaimed. “Let it all burn, as
far as I’m concerned.”

The fire marshal looked past me, scanning the horizon for
any sign of smoke.
 
Seeing none, he
returned his attention to me. “So your Father has told you of your marriage,
then.”

“How is it you know of this when I did not?” I demanded,
grasping the fire marshal’s strong arm. “Why are you privy to this sorrow of
mine?”

“Count it not a sorrow, Miss,” the fire marshal replied.
“Robert Benson’s a wealthy man. You’ll live an easy life, in a fine home.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s true!” the fire marshal protested. “I’ve seen it with
my own eyes.”

“And how is it that such a humble man keeps company with one
of the valley’s richest fellows?” I asked, with my hands on my hips. “That you
can make such assurances to me?”

“I was there often enough,” the fire marshal snapped back,
“when my sister was his bride.” It was clear from his tone that I’d wounded his
pride, either with the doubting of him or by pointing out his ordinary station
in life.

“Kitty was your sister?” I exclaimed. “And you tell me to go
to her murderer’s home with joy in my heart?” I shook my head so violently that
some of the pins holding it up fell free; my heavy auburn hair spilled over my
shoulders in wild disarray. “What have I ever done to you that you hate me so?”

“There is nothing in my heart for you save simple Christian
charity,” the fire marshal protested. “And Kitty is my sister, the same as she
has ever been.” He looked around to be sure we were alone on the early morning
street. “And I tell you this: Robert Benson never killed Kitty. She run off on
her own.”

“And why would she do that?”

“Her story was what yours is about to be,” the fire marshal
replied. “Our family owed Mr. Benson quite a bit of money. When the debt
couldn’t be paid, she was sent to be his wife.” He shrugged. “She went to a
life one hundred times easier than the one she left behind, but that wasn’t
enough for Kitty. “

“Maybe she didn’t appreciate being sold into wedlock to
settle someone else’s debts,” I said, aghast at learning I wasn’t the first
bride Robert Benson had contracted for. “What’s wrong with this man that he
can’t get a wife by ordinary means?”

“You’ve seen him,” the fire marshal replied with a shrug.
“Mr. Benson’s smart and shrewd, but he doesn’t possess a single grace of the
sort ladies value.”

“So he buys them instead, without ever once bothering to even
introduce himself.” I shook my head. “I don’t have to consent to this
marriage.”

“He’ll ruin your father,” the fire marshal warned. “He did
his level best to destroy my family’s meager fortunes when Kitty run off.” Some
of the steel went out of the man and his shoulders sagged. “It was only after
my brother and I both agreed to labor for him two days each week that he agreed
that the debt would be settled and the court case pending against us dropped.”

“How long did you have to do that for?” I asked, wondering
at the size of the debt the family had amassed. A printing press ran dear
enough, but they must have been much more obliged than Father was.

“The way I figure, I’ll be at it for the rest of my life.”
The fire marshal shook his head. “That’s why you might as well resign yourself
to making the best of things.
 
Richard
Benson’s not a man who lets things go. He’ll make sure he gets his due, one way
or another.”

I left the fire marshal standing in the road. As I walked
away, my mind was filled with thoughts of destiny. The words of Cassius echoed
in my ears. “Men at some time are masters of their fate.” Was I bound to
quietly go to Robert Benson and be his bride, or was there another avenue open
to me?

The fire marshal had seemed quite certain that his sister
had run off. Surely he would not agree to serving a lifetime of servitude if he
believed Robert Benson to be a murderer. The comments he’d made about his
sister’s character had the ring of honesty about him; Kitty had rebelled
against a marriage and fled, leaving him to pick up the pieces.

It was a choice I could see myself making. What cost would
my Father bear for my flight? There was no way to answer that question.
 
Perhaps Benson would change his mind about
the desirability of the family home; perhaps Father would be forced to join the
fire marshal’s ranks in the man’s cadre of unpaid help. Neither option sounded
all that good, but both were infinitely preferable to spending life married to
a man I didn’t even know, much less love.

But where would I go? It’s one thing to say you’re going to
flee, and quite another to have a destination in mind. I’d heard rumors of jobs
in the North; perhaps I could go to New York or Boston and secure a position
there. The idea appealed for a minute, but then I remembered Robert Benson
regularly did business in both cities; with my luck, I’d make my escape only to
encounter my would-be husband upon the sidewalk.

The South was in shambles. I couldn’t foresee how I’d be
able to make a life for myself in any of the former Confederate states; if
there was one thing that was not in short supply down there at that time, it
was young women in dire situations. Adding to their number wouldn’t help me.

I could swim passably well, but crossing the ocean to Europe
was surely beyond my capacity. That left the West. Plenty of people had found
gold in California; there were rumors about great wealth to be found along the
northern shores. Father hadn’t been interested in the prospect, but I could go
alone.

It was a ridiculous proposition, but it certainly had more
appeal than marrying Richard Benson did. If it all turned out to be a disaster
– and making a cross country journey with no prospects, connections, or money
certainly had the potential to go very badly – at least it would be a disaster
I had chosen for myself.
 
It seemed a
fine distinction, and it was, but it was a distinction that mattered to me.

Resolved to head to California, I steered my steps into
town. There were questions I needed answered, including finding out exactly how
far I could go West given the meager handful of dollars I’d managed to save up
over the years. Surely I couldn’t afford a train ticket all the way to
California, but I’d go as far as I could. After that, I wasn’t sure what was
going to happen. Probably a very long walk lay in my future.

The train station was packed. It felt like everyone and
their best friend were there, waiting to go on a journey, eagerly anticipating
the arrival of the next train, or buying tickets for very complicated
itineraries from a haggard looking clerk. Simply listening to the steps
involved in taking a train from the Shenandoah Valley to Atlanta and then from
there to Texarkana was enough to make my head spin – and I knew my own journey
was going to be much longer.

Feeling slightly intimidated, I stepped out of the train
station. When the crowds were thinner, I told myself, I’d return and get my
questions answered. There was no sense slowing down all of the people so evidently
in a hurry with my inquiries; I had a week before I was to wed Robert Benson
while everyone else had places to be today.

Located nearly next door to the train station was the
newspaper offices. Father had hoped to grow his print shop to the size that the
paper would steer at least some business his way; the editors were locally
famous for penning volumes of religious poems and very moralistic short
stories. Of course, those hopes had all gone up in flames, a fact I could read
about in the broadsheet pinned to the office’s front wall.

The tale was short and to the point. Flames had been spotted
coming from Father’s shop shortly before midnight. I learned that it had been
our elderly neighbor who’d roused the fire brigade, sending her one-armed grandson
running through the night for help.
 
Apparently there was some speculation as to the cause of the fire; in a
surprising quote, the fire marshal said he felt it was a clear case of
spontaneous combustion. “Printers use many volatile solvents, inks and chemicals
in the course of their trade,” he said, adding that it was not unusual for the
same to burst into flame unexpectedly.

This was certainly news to me. Not the use of volatile
solvents, inks and chemicals part; I’d been around print shops for nearly the
entirety of my life. But we’d never had a fire – not a spark, not the tiniest
bit of flame – until now.

Perhaps that was due to the fact that Father was always
extremely careful and methodical in the shop. Over the years, we’d been to
other printers, and I’d seen what happens when a man with a slovenly nature
takes charge: oily rags gather like dust bunnies beneath the presses, their oil
streaked surfaces attracting every bit of grime and hair the shop contained;
offcuts from flyers and letter heads covering the floor like autumn leaves –
the sort of chaos where hungry flames would find plenty to feast upon. Father
counted cleanliness to be a virtue. In his shop, the floors were swept clean
every night, inks were kept closely sealed, and if you needed a rag, greasy or
otherwise, you wouldn’t find it beneath the printing press.

The lanterns Father used to light the shop were doused every
night, leaving the place quite dark. This habit he persisted in even in the
perilous period after the war ended; during this time of peace, wandering
thieves would take advantage of every shadowy corner to steal whatever wasn’t
nailed down. Father never minded. “Most of them want food, not books,” he’d
say, “and a man who will steal something for the joy of reading it is likely
enough a man I’d want to count as a friend.”

Remembering those words made my heart swell with pride – at
least until I remembered how angry I was with Father. “Spontaneous combustion
indeed,” I muttered, stepping to the left to read the next page of the
broadsheet. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

I was soon to encounter another thing I’d never heard. Set
in close type, six columns wide and the length of the entire page, the next
sheet of the broadsheet was filled with advertisements. At the very top, a
thirty-point headline screamed “Situations Wanted!”

“What’s this?” I mused aloud. Even though Father brought the
paper home often enough, I’d never seen this type of page before. I leaned
closer to take a better look, and another lady, who’d stepped up to read the
paper beside me, looked over to see what had captured my curiosity. She snorted
in a most unladylike fashion and said “What you’ve got there, Missy, is
messages from frontiersmen who are seeking mail-order brides.”