Ella Comes Home


Ella shifted Anthony's weight to her other hip, trying to pretend that her sleeping son wasn't a heavy load, particularly when she herself felt on the edge of collapsing due to exhaustion. This trip had been a difficult one. Unlike most summer sea voyages, the weather had been atrocious; one of the sailors told her that they were riding the tail of a tropical storm, perhaps even a hurricane. Ella didn't know whether to believe him or not, but she was glad that the trip was over. The rough seas had caused even her usually robust children to fall victim to sea-sickness. Anthony had been too ill to keep anything down, and even the girls, normally the heartiest of eaters, had only picked at their food.

The children had slept on the train. Ella thought that a blessing, but it didn't relieve her of her responsibilities. She couldn't sleep; she had to stay awake to make sure that they got off at the stop for Jonesboro. Only when they stepped down on the platform to find no one waiting did she realize that she had neglected to send a telegram from the station in Savannah. It was nine o'clock at night, she was exhausted, and no one was coming to get her.

She looked around the train platform, unlit except for the dim light of the half-moon that hung low and the sky. The ticket-sellers booth stood at the far end of the wooden platform, dark and shuttered, and the open platform offered no shelter at all. Ella looked around, feeling totally, infuriatingly helpless. "Well, damn and blast!" she said, much more forcibly than a lady should speak.

"Do you need some help?"

The masculine voice had a light brogue; Irish, Ella thought. "Who is it?" she asked, looking around in alarm. The girls, confused and sleepy, now seemed upset by their mother's tone; they took hold of her skirts, and she pulled them against her with the arm she wasn't using to hold Anthony's sleeping body.

"Name's Jebidiah. Jebidiah Hatcher." Ella could make out the shape of a man as he climbed the steps to the platform. "The railroad pays me three dollars a month to stay here every evening until the 8:45 to Atlanta leaves. Sometimes there's freight to load on or off. Even more rarely, there are passengers. Usually, there's neither, so I stand here and smoke a cigar till the train goes, then I head home. Which is what I was doing, when I saw you get off. You're Wade's sister, aye? The married one, who lives in London?"

"Yes, I'm Wade's sister," she said cautiously. "I don't think I know you, though – do I?"

"I don't think we've ever been introduced proper, no," he answered. Ella had the feeling he was laughing at her, which would have maddened her if she wasn't worried about more important matters. "As I said, I'm Jebidiah Hatcher. Most folks call me Jeb. I work for your brother and your cousin Beau occasionally, doing carpentry work when they need an extra hand. They're building this fall, so just lately the work's been steady."

"Do you have a buggy?" she asked hopefully. "One I could rent, maybe? I – you see, I forgot to send a telegram to let them know I was coming. The children have been sick, and – well, I need transportation, if you have any."

Her eyes had adjusted to the moonlight some, and she could see him shake his head. "Now what use would a common man like me have for a buggy?" he asked, and she could see his white teeth as he smiled at the idea. "No, no buggy. But I do have a wagon, and it's my idea that the boss would be aggravated with me if he discovered that I'd left his sister and her three little ones out on a train platform all night, and them with no shelter but a wooden bench." He shrugged. "So I'll give you a ride to Pine Bloom if you want."

"That's a great deal of trouble," she said.

"You're right, it is. But I have to go anyway, so you might as well go with me," he said.

A little disconcerted – the polite thing would have been for him to deny that it was any trouble – Ella said, "I'm not really certain if I should travel with a stranger."

He sighed. "Suit yourself. Were I you, I'd be more worried about sitting out here alone with your three babies for the two or so hours it'll take me to get to Pine Bloom and send someone back to fetch you, but I'll not force you, if you'd rather not -"

He turned away, and somehow that he did not press her made her feel that going with him would be safe. He didn't seem like a man who would harm her or her children. She looked down at the girls; their faces were so pale and white -

"Wait," she said. "I – I'll go with you to Pine Bloom. Can we take the luggage?"

He shook his head.

"We'll have to walk a block or two to get the wagon," he said. "I'll shut your trunks in the ticket booth; they'll be okay there until your step-father can come back and get them."

He struck a match and lit a lantern that hung from a post near the small building that housed the ticket-sellers booth. The booth was a little larger than it had looked in the darkness, because it extended further back than she had been able to see. Taking a key ring from the pocket of his overalls, Jeb opened the door and put Ella's trunks and heavy case inside. After securing the building again, he took hold of the lantern and made an expansive gesture in the direction of the street. "After you, my lady,' he said, his teeth flashing whitely. In the dim light of the lantern, she could see his face for the first time.

"I do remember you," she said. "You used to come to Tara in the summers and play with Wade and Beau and Burl." She smiled faintly, remembering. "Not me, of course. I was just a girl, after all, and the last thing any of you wanted was to have girls around."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I've since changed my mind, I swear it," he answered lightly. "Mind your feet, there are steps here -" Even with his reminder, she stumbled, the competing forces of her daughters tugging at her skirts and the weight of her son in her arms combining to throw her off-balance. "Here, let me take the boy," he said. Setting the lantern on the ground, he turned to her.

His arm slid between the warm sleeping body of her son and the finely woven wool of her dress. She felt the closeness of him sharply, as if he had been very cold, which he was not, or as if his touch was prolonged, which it also was not. In short, Ella could not have said why such a brief and business-like touch left her so aware of him but it did. She could smell him, the scent of cigars and horses and freshly cut wood. She could hear the sound of his breath. This close, she could see in the lantern-light that his eyes were a deep blue – the color of the ocean on a clear day – and his hair a warm russet a few shades lighter than hers. Then he pulled away, taking the sleepy child with him.

Ella turned to the girls. "Come, Lorena, Sophie, hold on to mama's hand instead of her skirt," Ella said, her voice calm as calm as if nothing had happened. Yet something had.

What?

Jeb picked up the lantern, and Ella followed him two blocks to a small, neat cottage that he said was his. He had bought it last year, he told her, when the widowed former schoolteacher who owned it retired and went to live in Charleston with her sister. He led her around back to a small barn – hardly more than an aggrandized shed – which housed a single draft horse.

Carefully, Jeb hung the lantern from a hook set beside the door. Then he lay Anthony down on a bale of hay, where the boy immediately turned on his side and curled into a ball. Even in the low light of the single lantern, Ella could see that the building was almost obsessively neat, with all the equipment and feed stowed or stored properly. The animal whose head protruded from the single stall was a large and healthy beast, black with white markings.

"An Irish Draft Horse," Ella said in surprise.

Jeb looked up from collecting the harness he would need, quirking an eyebrow in amusement. "Is that what Daisy is?" he asked, leading her from the stall. She seemed to understand exactly what was required of her, allowing Jeb to lead her to the wagon and slide the heavy collar around her neck with no demur. "And here I was, thinking she was just a mongrel."

"Irish Draft Horses are rather mongrel. The breed's only been recognized for about twenty years, so until very recently, the standards varied considerably." she said, studying the sturdy build of the horse. "They are created, you might say, of a little of this, a little of that. Yours, I think, is mostly Shire and Percheron, with perhaps a small – very small – bit of Clydesdale. It's very rare for a horse that's even an eighth Clydesdale not to have feathering around the hocks – it breeds true, but your mare doesn't have any. So I'd say no more than a sixteenth. Perhaps none at all, but there's something about the coloring and the way she walks that makes me think there is some."

"You know horses?" he asked, as he worked. Harness jingled lightly in his hands as he moved with practiced smoothness around the tall mare, placing the saddle pad on her back and tightening it expertly.

"My husband and I run a horse breeding operation," she answered, unable to draw her gaze away from him as he harnessed the horse to the wagon. "He takes care of the breeding stock for racing; I do the same for the draft animals. Much less romantic than racing horses, but also more steadily profitable."

"I've always thought a steady profit a good thing," he said.

"Well, you'd not be in favor with my husband and his friends then," she said, aware that her voice was a little bitter. "They tease me often about 'my very American ability' to turn a profit."

He laughed. "Sounds like sour grapes to me," he commented. "You'd think a man would be proud that his wife has a good mind for business."

"You'd think a lot of things," Ella said. She remembered Justin, and the way he and his friends had always downplayed her business acumen, even though her ability to juggle finances had saved their business four years ago, when Justin's gambling debts had gotten out of control and threatened to swamp them. Not only had her husband never thanked her for that, he had joined with his friends in mocking her. Her mouth tightened with the memory; after a moment, she became aware that Jeb was looking at her oddly. "What?" she asked.

"I was just noticing how much you look like your ma," he said mildly.

"I don't look anything at all like Mama!" she exclaimed. "She has black hair, and green eyes, while I have red hair and blue eyes, like my father."

"Your coloring isn't the same, I agree," he said, turning back to hooking the trace chains to the wagon tree. "But the shape of your face, the way you hold yourself, your expression just now – all of those remind me of your ma, when she's in a temper."

Ella laughed. "Katie calls it Mama's 'Run! Hide!' look," she said.

"Says a lot for the lasses' brains, too," he commented. "Daisy here is ready now. Let me set the lad in the wagon bed – yes, and the girls, too – and we can make some rough padding so they won't get bruised back there."

"How?" she asked curiously.

"Daisy won't mind giving a bit of hay to the cause, will you, Daisy?" he asked the big mare, patting her on the withers. The mare turned her head towards him, nuzzling his hand as though looking for a treat. He laughed. "When we get back, I promise, darlin,'" he told her. "An extra carrot and a full feed bag for you, aye?"

He stroked her muzzle gently, and Ella watched his capable hands; it surprised her that such a strongly built man should be so gentle. "In the meantime, though, we can use the hay – no, darlin', I promise you'll be getting it back! - and fill these old feed bags. It'll stay together that way, and give more padding for the babies."

"Yes, that makes sense," Ella said. She accepted the neatly folded stack of feed bags he handed her, and watched as he forked the bale of hay apart.

They filled half-a-dozen bags before Jeb said, "That will do, I reckon."

The girls lay in the wagon bed beside their brother, all three of them sound asleep. Jeb lifted them each in turn while Ella slipped the hay-filled bags beneath them. "I've a horse blanket in the barn to cover them," he said, turning in that direction. "Not exactly silk sheets, but it will keep them warm."

"Yes, and I'm very grateful," she said, smiling at him as he helped her up onto the wagon seat. "I would have been in an awful situation if you hadn't come along."

He shrugged as he climbed on the seat beside her. "It's not a big thing," he said. "Like I said, the railroad pays me to be there, and Wade would have my hide if I left his sister and her young'uns stranded."

"I suppose he would," she said. "Wade is very much a family man. He always was very protective of me and Mama, not to mention the twins. I don't need much help from him nowadays, but I'm sure he would be just the same."

Ella had wondered what she would talk to him about as they traveled, but she need not have worried. No sooner had the last lights of the small town faded from sight behind them, than she was overtaken by a profound sleepiness. It was all she could do to grip the seat to stop herself from falling off as the unsprung wagon lurched from one hole to the next. "I should have put you in the back with the babies," she heard him say in a gruff voice. Then she felt his arm come around her, and she leaned against him. He felt so strong and safe, and she fell instantly into the deepest sleep she'd had since she left London, nine days earlier. Even the jolting of the wagon on the abominable roads didn't awaken her; only when it stopped, and she felt the stillness did she open her eyes, suddenly alarmed.

"It's all right," she heard his voice beside her and found comfort in it. "I only stopped because Pine Bloom is just around the next bend, and I thought you'd like to be sitting up by yourself and a proper distance away before we turned in the gate. I know it was sleeping and not spooning that had you so close, but if one of the servants were to see you, it might start talk that would get back to your husband and cause trouble."

Ella sat up and yawned. She would blame her sleepiness for the next words that came out of her mouth. "Since my husband keeps a woman in a little house on Demeter street, I don't think he has any right to talk, do you?"

During the slight pause that ensued, Ella had time to wake up and realize what a terribly personal thing she had let slip – and to a total stranger! Before she could be too mortified, however, his lovely deep drawl came out of the darkness. "A man who is greedy and foolish enough to behave like that might do anything," he said. "Still, best to avoid trouble if we can." He clucked to Daisy and set the wagon in motion again.

They drove up the short road that lead to the house. Lined with tall oaks, it was a lovely sight during the day, but now, it was only dark and chilly. Ella shivered. "Cold?" he asked. "Well, we'll be there soon."

They emerged from the trees and stopped in front of the house. A lantern burned on the porch; Ella knew that Pork would turn it off the very last thing he did before retiring to bed. So she wasn't surprised when the door opened and a familiar figure appeared.

"Who's there?" Scarlett asked.

"Mama?" Ella called.

"Ella? Ella, what on earth -"

But she had no time to finish. Ella scrambled down from the wagon in a way which would have seriously disturbed the good teachers at Miss Lizenby's School of Deportment, and ran to her mother. Flinging her arms around her, she burst into tears.


Well, Ella is home. Under the circumstances, I can't blame her for wanting her mother. She's been under a lot of stress, one way or another.

The Irish Draft Horse is a recognized breed that came about pretty much as I described. I tried to put a picture of one up beside this story; it cropped off a little of the head, but you get the idea that the horse is big-boned and powerful. A work horse.

Next chapter, things start to get really interesting, and we begin to see how the kids' fighting will impact the grown-ups decisions. They can hardly take anything sensitive to the sheriff, can they?

I love to get reviews, so if you have any comments, please send them to me. Until next time...