LITMIR.BIZ

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all.” She dabbed her hankie to her eyelids for effect. “Leaving you to wither on the vine until it is too late. I declare, it is more than a body can stand!”

      Biting her lips, Julia rose and went to Clara’s side. She massaged her temples, as she had done for many years. “There, there, Mother, don’t take on so. It will make you sick again.”

      Closing her eyes, Clara allowed her shoulders to relax under Julia’s gentle ministrations. Why couldn’t Carolyn have the same light touch? What was Clara going to do once Julia was married and living down in southern Virginia?

      Through her lowered lashes, Clara saw that her husband gave her a quick professional look before he returned to the subject at hand. “You should be married, Julia. We—that is, your mother has found a solution, we think,” he ended in a mutter.

      Opening her eyes, Clara patted Julia’s hand. “A husband, Jonah. You make him sound like a prescription.” She smiled up at her daughter. “I have just received word from your cousin Payton that he has come into his daddy’s inheritance. Belmont Plantation! Isn’t that just grand news?”

      Julia blinked, looked quickly at her father, then back to her mother. “You want me to marry Payton Norwood?” She backed away until a footstool stopped her. She dropped down on it with an unladylike “thump”.

      Clara frowned. Julia could be so tiresome at times. “Of course I mean Payton. He’s a delightful boy and, more to the point, he can support you. You can’t ask for much more than that these days.”

      Julia continued to goggle at her mother like a frog out of the pond. “But why must I get married now? I am more than willing to wait for happier times. There is no rush.” She touched her locket again.

      Clara narrowed her eyes. Julia was usually tractable, not like Carolyn. Clara was not used to this daughter arguing a point. “If you wait until those politicians down in Richmond do something more than chew tobacco and whittle wood, it will be doomsday, and you will be too old to attract a decent husband. No, missy, it is high time that you were the mistress of your own house and had a few babies to tend.”

      Julia coughed. “With Payton? But he’s so…so…stupid. Nothing like Frank at all.”

      What had gotten into Julia? Clara thought. She was always so easy to manage. “Payton received the very best education at the College of William and Mary. He will be the perfect husband for you.”

      Julia drew herself up. “Mother, Payton Norwood is a fool. Always has been. He thinks of nothing except horses, card-playing and heaven only knows what other amusements. I highly doubt he has the skills to run that tobacco farm of his. If he loses his overseer, he’ll be ruined within a year. Why isn’t he in the army, like…like Frank, and all the other boys? He talks of Southern independence and how any Southerner worth his salt can lick three Yankees before supper. So why hasn’t he joined up and proven himself?”

      Clara shook her head. “Don’t be such a ninny, Julia. Payton has a large landholding and over a hundred slaves to manage. Of course, he is exempt from military duty. His work on the plantation is as good a service to the Confederacy as joining the army. Why, he could get shot or captured. Payton’s too fine a man for that sort of treatment!”

      Julia’s eyes turned even greener. “But Frank Shaffer wasn’t good enough except as cannon fodder? Is that what you mean, Mother? As I recall from our last visit to Belmont four years ago, Payton was a bully and a coward. I doubt that he has changed much since then. No, Mother, I will not marry Payton.”

      Julia’s defiance struck Clara like a lightning bolt. She clutched her bosom. “Julia! How dare you call your cousin such hurtful things! Lies! You just don’t know what’s good for you. If you spent less time with your nose in those books, and more on family matters, you would understand. Oh, Jonah, I think I’m having palpitations of the heart. I truly do. Hettie, help me to my room. Julia, now do you see what you have done to me? Oh, truly I might die and then how would you feel? So ungrateful for all I have done for you. Jonah, talk some sense to this child.”

      Clara grabbed Hettie’s arm for support. Dr. Chandler took her other arm. Over his shoulder, he said to Julia, “You know your mother can’t take this excitement. I’m surprised at you. We will invite Payton to visit here at his earliest convenience. Then you will see how he has matured. There, there, Clara. You will not die before dinner, I promise you.”

      Though she truly felt faint, Clara smiled inwardly. Once again, she had triumphed over her family. Sending for Payton was a brilliant idea. Julia could be married before she turned twenty-one and came into Grandmother Lightfoot’s legacy.

      Julia slammed into her bedroom. Carolyn looked up from the alterations of her sister’s old ball gown. “What was the buzz in the parlor this time?” she asked, threading her needle with care. “Usually I am the one on the griddle fire.”

      Julia stared out the window at the winter-shrouded garden below. Mother’s pink rosebushes stretched up their stark thorny limbs to catch the feeble rays of the midwinter sun. My soul is as dead as those roses. “Mother has got it in her head to marry me off.”

      “Oh?” Carolyn picked up her thimble. “So who is the lucky fellow?”

      Julia made a face at the windowpane. “Payton.” His name tasted like ashes in her mouth.

      Carolyn gasped. Her thimble dropped from her lap and rolled across the floorboards. “She’s not serious!”

      Julia faced her shocked little sister. She folded her arms across her bosom as if that action would protect her from her odious cousin. “She is, and dear Papa was in agreement, as he always is when she works herself into a state.”

      Carolyn looked truly stricken. “What will you do?”

      “I told her no.” Julia should have told her that she wanted to be a teacher, but she’d never stand for that any more than Payton would.

      Carolyn’s mouth dropped open. “You said ‘no’ to Mother? I can hardly believe it. You’ve never crossed her before.”

      Julia sank down on the pink satin daybed. “I know, but not this time. It’s too important a decision. When she told me her wonderful plans, I just blurted out ‘no.’ Mother is not accustomed to hearing the other side of any argument, much less conceding to it. My refusal staggered her.”

      Rolling her eyes, Carolyn shivered under her shawl. “I can imagine.”

      Julia gave her a twisted smile. “Both Papa and Hettie had to help her upstairs to bed. I expect she’s dosed up with laudanum by now. I suspect that she has already sent a letter to Payton telling him to run up here and make me his wife.”

      “Perhaps he’s changed,” Carolyn suggested, though the wrinkle of her nose indicated that she thought otherwise.

      “As much as a fish can turn into a bird.” Julia shook her head. “Payton was nasty when he was a little boy, and he was even more disagreeable when we last saw him.”

      “You can’t marry Payton! You’ll die of boredom—or worse.”

      Julia curled her hands into fists. “I know that, but Mother is set like a stone.”

      Out of nowhere, a wicked idea flashed through her mind. Without allowing a moment of consideration, Julia grabbed on to it like a rope out of quicksand.

      She narrowed her eyes. “You know, lady-bird, I am so very, very glad that you ‘found’ that invitation to the ball. I intend to have the best time of my life there.” She would see to it that Payton Norwood would never marry her.

      Carolyn’s mouth quivered. “Julia, you aren’t planning to…I mean you can’t…you wouldn’t…”

      A sly smile played across her lips. “What won’t I do?”

      Her sister’s gaze searched Julia’s face. “You wouldn’t—” her voice sank into a whisper “—ruin yourself with a man at the ball so you didn’t have to marry Payton, would

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