The Bride Fair. Cheryl Reavis
his place at the head of the table.
“I would prefer the side, Mr. Markham, if you don’t mind. I tend to linger to read and work after I eat, and I like room to spread out. I have no wish to usurp your place.”
“As you wish, Sir,” Markham said. “Maria Rose!”
She came eventually, carrying a tray heavily laden with serving bowls. They were as mismatched as the rest of the dinnerware, and apparently she was foregoing the use of the sideboard and putting everything directly on the table, because there was no one but her to serve.
Max picked up a crisply starched but much-darned napkin and tried not to smile. He understood the not-so-subtle message she was sending him perfectly, as he was meant to do. The Markhams—like the rest of the people here—had suffered for their cause and, vanquished or not, they were proud of it.
He noted, too, that the resolute Miss Markham didn’t wear her severe mourning attire at home—or at least, not precisely. She did have on a kind of black skirt, but she’d put a white blouse with it and then covered over the entire ensemble with a coarse linen pinafore of a faded violet color. It made her look young and vulnerable in a way that was not entirely unbecoming.
“Have you seen my orderly, Miss Markham?” he asked as she set a large compote of a thin, brownish liquid and a bowl of rice in front of her father.
“He is sitting on the back steps—eating.”
“I believe I mentioned that he was to assist you with the meals.”
“And I believe I mentioned that his assistance was not required,” she countered, still unloading bowls.
Her father looked from one of them to the other. “Maria—”
“I must bring the coffee, Father,” she said, disappearing through the doorway. She came back almost immediately with the coffeepot and proceeded to pour.
That done, she left the room again, and Max expected her not to return. She did, however, with a bread basket full of hot biscuits, which she placed near his elbow. Then, she sat in the only seat available—across from him.
“May I take the liberty of saying grace?” he asked just to see the expression on her face.
“Indeed, Colonel,” her father answered quickly, Max thought to head any remarks his daughter might feel compelled to make.
Max made his prayer of thanks concise and eloquent, one that would have done his clergyman great-uncle proud—if he did say so himself. Rather than bowing his head, Max kept his eyes on Maria the entire time. She looked up at him before the prayer ended—as he knew she would.
He left it to her to begin passing the bowls, and he managed to serve himself in spite of the pain in his hands.
“Tell me, Colonel Woodard,” Mr. Markham said. “Have you learned yet to appreciate our fine Southern cuisine?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t often had the occasion to try it,” he answered, still watching Maria. His experience with “Southern cuisine” had been the daily ration at the prison—moldy cornbread that was mostly ground-up cobs, and a cup of watery rice soup. On very special occasions, he had fought off other men for the privilege of eating hog entrails that had been dumped over the wall to the men in the stockade in the same way one might feed a pack of animals. And he had been grateful for the opportunity. His ration, pitiful as it was, had been the only thing he had to barter. He’d prolonged his hunger more than one time in order to purchase his desperate notion of what constituted a luxury—once a single, bloodstained page from David Copperfield.
He still had it.
But he would have to agree that Maria Markham had set an excellent table, regardless of the hodgepodge of china and utensils. She was a fine cook, but she made little attempt to eat what she had taken onto her plate. She kept halfheartedly pushing her food around with her fork and finally drank a small sip of water from her glass.
Max let Mr. Markham carry the conversation—the weather, street repairs, the impeachment woes of President Andrew Johnson. The most likely topic of conversation—the fire and the subsequent curfew—went conspicuously unremarked upon. After a time he realized that the old man was indeed not well. The effort it took for him to speak left him winded, and clearly worried his daughter. At one point he lost his breath altogether.
“Father—” Maria said in alarm.
“I am…quite…all right, Maria Rose. Don’t…fuss over me,” he insisted, and he continued with the meal if not the conversation.
Maria Markham had said when Max first arrived that she obeyed her father’s wishes. And so she did—but it was all she could do to manage it. They ate for a time in silence.
“May I ask you a question, Miss Markham?” Max said, because he thought she was about to get up and leave.
She looked up at him, her expression startled, as if she had forgotten he was there and, now reminded, had no idea what uncouth subject he might broach, regardless of her father’s presence. She also looked very pale.
“I was wondering if you are acquainted with the Howes,” he said anyway. “Major John Howe and his wife.”
“I…know them by sight,” she answered.
“I thought Mrs. Howe was a Salisburian.”
“She is—but we did not move in the same circles growing up. And especially not now,” she added.
He chose to ignore the remark. “Do the Howes live nearby?”
“The…the Howes—” She abruptly stopped. “You must excuse me, Father. I have things I must see to—”
She got up from her chair and hurriedly left the table, disappearing through the doorway into the kitchen.
Max looked at her father, but the old man clearly felt no need to explain her behavior—possibly because he couldn’t. Perkins suddenly appeared in the dining-room doorway, looking as if he didn’t quite know how he’d gotten there.
“Did you speak to Miss Markham just now?” Max asked him, because he thought it the only explanation for the man’s perplexed look.
“Yes, Sir. Very briefly. I believe the colonel needs coffee?”
The colonel didn’t, but Perkins picked up the coffeepot and poured as much as he could into the already full cup anyway.
“Anything else, Sir?” he asked.
“Stay handy,” Max said. “When Mr. Markham is done, you can clear the table. Then you can bring me my leather case. I have reading I need to do.”
Mr. Markham cleared his throat. “My daughter is sometimes very…high-strung. The war was hard on the women here.”
“The war was hard on the women everywhere,” Max said, thinking of the unmarked burial trenches and the women who perhaps still waited to hear what had become of their men.
He took a small breath and tried to let go of the animosity that threatened to overwhelm him. The war was over.
Over.
He had managed to get past the bitterness he harbored after John Howe made his solo escape from the prison. If he could put that behind him, surely he could let go of the rancor he felt for the people in this town who had, perhaps unknowingly, tolerated the mistreatment of Union prisoners.
When the old man had taken his leave and Perkins had gone to fetch the leather case, Max kept watching the door that led to the kitchen.
But there was no sign of Maria Markham.
Chapter Four
Maria heard her father slowly climb the stairs and shuffle out onto the second-story porch. He would stay there, reading, until it became too sunny for his comfort. She had a little time before he