The Roswell Legacy, page 21
Jonathan was serious. “We’ve got to talk, Morrow. The four of us. Is Andrew coming in?”
“No. He merely brought me home. Unfortunately, he has an appointment with Gladney Shelburne. It was something he couldn’t get out of.”
“Maybe it’s just as well, since it really involves the three of us—you, Ginna, and me.”
Morrow stood, smoothing David’s blond hair as he leaned against her. “Darling, run and find Nanny,” she said.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, David. But don’t go far. I’ll call you when we’ve finished talking and perhaps we can go for a walk by the lake.”
The child obeyed, picking up his toy and taking it with him.
“All right. What is it, Jonathan?”
Ginna sat in the curve of the beige sofa and listened as Jonathan began to talk. The story from his lips was gentle, loving, not at all like Cassie’s. Yet the facts were the same.
And when he had finished, Morrow said, “Poor Mother.”
“It’s a complicated, awkward situation,” Jonathan added. “But it’s in the past. Nothing can be undone. But it needn’t bring any more heartbreak than it already has.”
He looked over at Ginna. “I’ve already told Ginna that she had no business running away from me. It still doesn’t change the fact that I love her and want to marry her.”
Morrow walked over to the sofa and sat down. “And how do you feel about it, Ginna? Do you love Jonathan enough to marry him?”
“He’s my life,” she said simply.
Morrow smiled and reached out to take Ginna’s hand. “And you’re really my sister, aren’t you? You’ll have to tell me about our father. I want to know everything about him. But that can wait until later, when we’re alone.”
Ginna nodded, but it was Jonathan who spoke again. “Ginna has suffered from her mother’s abuse. And if she goes back to Washington without marrying me, Araminta will find some way of keeping us apart. That’s why I want us to be married here.”
Morrow hesitated. “Has your … our father given his blessing for this marriage?”
“Yes. We were to be married at home in three weeks. I already had my dress fitted and I was going to wear the Meadors family veil.…”
“Perhaps the solution would be to have a private ceremony here. That way, if something happens once you get home, then you would already be married. But I understand how a mother would feel wronged, especially if the daughter eloped and turned her back on the plans already made. If you didn’t go through with it again, that might cause a schism between you and your mother that could never be mended.”
“You mean, have two weddings?” Ginna inquired.
“It’s done all the time here, among our Catholic friends. A civil ceremony first, followed by a church wedding.”
Jonathan smiled. “I’ll go to see Dr. Brunson tomorrow, as soon as the church doors open.”
“He’s not in his office on Mondays, Jonathan. You’ll have to wait until Tuesday.”
“Then we’ll all go to the exposition tomorrow,” Jonathan commented. “There won’t be much time for that later on.”
“Well, I’ll leave you two to make your plans,” Morrow said. She reached out and hugged Ginna. “Welcome to our family, sweet Ginna.” Then she walked out of the room, calling to her son. “David, it’s time to take our walk.”
When she was gone, Ginna whispered, “You don’t think we’ll get into any trouble doing this, Jonathan?”
“I’m determined not to lose you, Ginna. No one need know unless it’s absolutely necessary. It will be our secret.”
CHAPTER
27
Another secret was taking shape several hundred miles away in a dormitory room at Braxton School, where Nathan Forsyte lay in the dark and listened. For almost an hour, he had waited for the sound of a gentle snore that would indicate Mr. Graves in the next room had finally gone to sleep.
Most of the dorm beds were still empty, for the school session had not yet started. But the younger boys would be arriving with their parents the next day, a full week ahead of the older students.
He and Pinky had already hidden their few belongings in the woods, just over the hill, with the railroad timetable and the map. They didn’t dare leave from the Braxton depot, for they would be sure to run into some of the school officials. Instead, they planned to walk the three miles to Holborne and buy their tickets there.
Nathan had written only one letter home and that was just a few lines. He was afraid he might let the cat out of the bag—that Pinky had been sent to the same school. If his mother ever got wind of that, there’d be trouble. But he guessed it didn’t matter much, anyway. He’d be in trouble as it was, going off to the exposition. But it wasn’t as if he’d be missing any classes. He and Pinky would be back by then.
He felt under his pillow for the note he would leave on Mr. Graves’s desk downstairs. He and Pinky had worked long and hard wording it just right, a little different from the one Pinky was going to leave with Mr. Riley. But the handwriting was the same—in Spencerian script, which Nathan had copied from his old penmanship book, and each had the signature of his respective father.
The sound he was waiting for drifted past the partially closed door: breath in, breath out, with a rattle at the end. Hearing it, the fully clothed Nathan crawled out of bed, reached underneath the cot for the food satchel, and, with the letter in his hand, stole down the hallway.
The stairs creaked badly and, midway down, Nathan stopped. Then, not hearing anyone stirring, he slowly walked the rest of the way, checking each tread as if he might have been walking on eggs or balancing himself on the rail track.
The moon seeped through the transom glass with barely enough light for him to see the outline of the desk. And there he placed the letter, anchored to the desk by the brown tortoiseshell Toby jug that Mr. Graves used to hold his pencils.
Back in the hallway, Nathan groped for the front door, slid the iron bar out of its catch, and opened it only wide enough for him to slip out. And then he began to run, straight for the woods.
In the dark, an owl hooted and a hound bayed, sending shivers along his body. But he kept running, never looking back, even when he reached the blackness of the woods.
Then he heard another sound, this time in front of him. And he wasn’t sure whether it might be from man or beast. “Pinky,” he called, trying not to sound scared. “Are you in there?”
“Yes. What took you so long?”
“It was Mr. Graves. He wouldn’t go to sleep.”
“Well, I’ve got the satchels. Here’s yours. You better put your food in it quick before some animal smells it and comes after us.”
Nathan knelt down, unfastened the larger satchel, and stuffed the food bag inside. Then the two walked out to the edge of the road and began their night journey to Holborne.
Each carried a big stick to ward off any night creature that might attack. Nathan didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t too sure how much protection the stick would be against a cougar or a bobcat. But he and Pinky were best friends. They’d already exchanged crosses in blood. A cat would have to carry both of them off, if it attacked, for the two had sworn to protect each other to the death, through thick or thin, forever and a day, so help them God.
“What’s that, Nathan?” Pinky whispered.
Nathan saw the shining eyes, like luminous phosphorus, glaring at them from the middle of the road. Then it began to move away from them, and Nathan saw what it was.
“Just a possum, Pinky. Probably has babies clinging to its back.”
“Oh.”
They started up again, a little faster this time.
While Nathan was slender, with long legs, Pinky was plumper. Nathan could hear his breathing and the legs of his knickers rubbing against each other. “I think we’d better stop to rest, Pinky,” he said.
“You tired, Nathan?”
“Yes,” Nathan lied.
“Me, too.”
A few minutes later, they started out again, digging into the sandy road with their long sticks, while the straps of their satchels dug into their shoulders.
“Uh-oh. I hear a horse. You think they might have already found out we’re gone?” Pinky said.
“I doubt it. But let’s hide, anyway, until whoever it is goes by. I wouldn’t want anybody to see us on the road this time of night by ourselves. They’d be bound to ask questions.”
Nathan and Pinky climbed over a rickety wooden fence, and they waited behind a briar bush for the horse to go by.
“Whoa, Jennie,” a man’s voice said, almost directly opposite them.
Nathan and Pinky put their heads down even more as the man dismounted and allowed his horse to wander close to the fence, while he went off to the other side of the road.
The horse whinnied and lowered its head, parting the large bush hiding the two boys.
“He smells the apples in my satchel,” Nathan whispered.
“Shoo. Go away,” Pinky croaked, taking off his cap and attempting to discourage the horse from further exploration without its owner seeing.
The man whistled through his teeth and the horse reluctantly moved away from the fence. While the boys watched, the man remounted and the horse trotted away.
“Let’s eat the apples now,” Pinky suggested. “I’m already a little hungry.”
So Nathan brought out the apples and they sat there behind the fence eating them. Finally tossing the cores over their shoulders, they crawled out from under the fence and started another mile toward their destination of Holborne.
When they arrived, red and green lanterns were hanging on the side of the depot. And a tarpaulin mail bag was suspended like a side of meat on a hook beside the tracks, waiting to be snatched by the next train that passed.
Inside the gray wood depot, Nathan could hear the telegraph keys working their magic, sending messages up and down the line for anyone who could read their code.
“I’m sleepy,” Pinky said.
“But we can’t go to sleep until we’re on the train. We might miss it. And we’ve come too far to do that.”
So Pinky and Nathan kept each other awake. When one saw the other nodding, he reached out and pinched him. At the puffing sound of a steam engine and the strident whistle, they both sat up, alert. They watched as the train passed by. If they had blinked twice, they would have missed seeing a man in the mail car reach out and snag the mail pouch from its hook.
“Did you see that?” Pinky said.
“Yes. Just like a polar bear swiping a fish with his paw.”
From their vantage point beyond the porch, they saw the old man through the window. He was getting ready for the morning shift to relieve him. And that’s when Nathan and Pinky made their move.
“Good morning,” Nathan said politely, standing at the wire-screened window.
“Good morning, young fellow. What can I do for you so early in the day?”
“We need two children’s tickets to Chicago on the seven-forty,” Nathan said.
“You two wouldn’t be runnin’ away, would you?” he asked suspiciously.
“Oh, no, sir.” Pinky spoke up. “We want to get tickets for tomorrow, not today. Our papas have decided to let us go, too. And they said we could come ahead today and buy our own.”
The man smiled. “You going to the fair?”
“Yes, sir. We sold our mules to get enough money.” The two plunked the correct amount down at the window and waited for the man to write the tickets. “Day coach,” Pinky added.
“One man was in here last week,” the station agent commented. “Sold his burial insurance policy to get there. Said the exposition wouldn’t wait. But if the Lord was good to him, He would.”
When the tickets were filled out, the two boys left the depot and walked around to the side where the baggage wagon stood. They climbed up on it and stared down the tracks.
“What are we going to do now, Pinky?” a distressed Nathan asked. “We can’t wait until tomorrow. They might start looking for us before then.”
“It’s all right. We’ll just wait until the night stationmaster goes home. And when the day one comes on duty, we’ll walk in and exchange our tickets for today’s train.”
• • •
An hour later, with the tickets exchanged, Nathan and Pinky climbed aboard and left Holborne behind.
“I’m hungry again,” Pinky said.
“Just drink some water,” Nathan suggested. “We don’t have that much food left. And we have to make it last for the next three days.”
Pinky leaned over and took from his satchel a Mason jar filled with water. “This is my tadpole jar,” he said. “But I washed it real clean before I left.”
At Braxton School, Hansel Graves was awakened by a loud knock at the front door. He hurriedly got up and glanced out his window. There stood a man with his son, two hours before anyone was to arrive.
Disgruntled, he put his academic gown on over his nightshirt and rushed downstairs. But Annie had already let them in.
“I’m sorry to be so early,” the man apologized. “But it was either now or not at all. I’m Rupert Bragg and this is my son, Treadway.”
“Quite all right, Mr. Bragg. Hello, young Treadway. I’m Mr. Graves. We’ll be seeing quite a lot of each other this term.”
Treadway turned and hid his face in his father’s morning coat. “I want to go home,” he wailed.
Rupert pulled at his muttonchop whiskers in embarrassment.
“Have to make a man of him. You understand, Graves? This is the first time he’s been away from his mama.”
“Quite all right. I understand, Mr. Bragg. Annie,” he called to the motherly-looking woman still lingering in the hall. “Can you take young Treadway here with you to the kitchen? I already smell the sweet buns ready to come out of the oven.”
From the door, Annie smiled and held out her arms. “Come, Master Treadway. It’s into the kitchen for a nice glass of milk and a sweet bun with honey.”
He went with her immediately, to Rupert Bragg’s relief. “Annie looks a lot like our Nelle at home.”
“That’s why we have her here, Mr. Bragg. To mother the boys a bit when they get a little homesick.”
Within a few minutes, Rupert Bragg left and Mr. Graves hurried back upstairs to get dressed before anyone else arrived. He barely had enough time to wash and eat his breakfast. The arrival of the new boys was always a pain. Hectic, too, with all of the parents vying for private interviews to tell each dorm master what made the boys ill or scared or to give suggestions for their diets.
The day progressed, with no time for Hansel to relax. But as the last carriage drove away and the last boy had been settled in, he finally sat down at his desk to arrange the papers that had accumulated all day. As he began to sort them in alphabetical order, he came across the note from Nathan’s father.
With a frown, he stood and walked back to the small tea pantry, where Annie was busy, getting ready for the boys’ afternoon snack.
“Annie, did you see Dr. Forsyte when he came for Nathan today?”
“No, Mr. Graves.”
“That’s strange. Neither did I. But I found a note on my desk saying he’s taken him away for a few days, but assuring us he would have him back by the beginning of school.”
“Well, it’s not so strange, Mr. Graves. He could have come at a dozen or more times today and I wouldn’t have seen him. What with Treadway throwing up, and the two Roberts boys getting into a fight …”
“Well, I suppose no harm’s done. But tonight, after the boys are asleep, I’ll report it to the headmaster. We can’t be too careful, you know, where these boys are concerned.”
Hansel Graves had been a member of the Braxton staff for three years. He’d come at the same time the old school had been completely renovated. That night, with the proctor keeping tabs on the boys, Hansel set out for the headmaster’s house.
On the grounds plot, it was located to the left, with the various dorm cottages clustered around it in a spokelike fashion. The living plan for the students was unique. In a reproduction of a real home, the boys were grouped according to various ages and grades, with each dorm cottage a separate working unit: kitchen, dining room, housemother, and a dorm master, who was also one of the teachers.
For a moment, Hansel was content to stand on the steps of his own dorm cottage and gaze toward the lighted clock tower of the new administration building, shining like a beacon in the darkness. Situated in the center of the complex, the building was flanked by two ells containing the classrooms and chapel.
Far to the right were the playgrounds and ballfields. Beyond those were the vegetable gardens, stables, and dairy barn. And still farther away, completely covered by the darkness, was Braxton Woods.
With a feeling of pride, Hansel breathed in the healthy air and continued his journey down the walkway.
By the time he arrived with the note in his hand, another teacher, Hammond Riley, was already in the parlor with the headmaster.
“Come in, Graves,” the headmaster greeted him. “We’ve got a small problem here. Quincy Tallifero Boswell has vanished, leaving behind this note from his father. But Riley never saw the man, only the note left on his desk.”
“I have a note, too, Dr. Pemberton. And a missing boy, Nathan Forsyte.”
“Those two boys are good friends, are they not?” Pemberton asked.
“Inseparable,” Riley responded.
With a sinking feeling, Hansel laid his note beside Riley’s. The paper was identical. The Spencerian script was identical. And the signatures of the two names were of the same configuration.
Pemberton held up his pince-nez and gazed at the letters. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid we’ve got a problem.”
“The boys have run away,” Hansel said.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. A very clever maneuver. If you two hadn’t come at the same time, we might not have suspected until next week.”
Riley leaned over and looked at the notes again. “But evidently they plan to get back to school before the term begins. What do you think we should do, Dr. Pemberton?”
