Daughters of the Summer Storm by Frances Statham (good fiction books to read TXT) 📕

The old woman had trouble going to sleep the evening before. She hoped that she had not made a mistake in advising Marigold to try to make the best of things. Monsieur Crane was not her choice as a husband for the girl, but he was her husband. Still, Feena hated to see her beautiful charge so unhappy over the marriage.

Shaun Banagher should not be at Cedar Hill. As long as he stayed Marigold would be nervous and upset. It would be much better for everyone, Feena decided, when Monsieur Shaun finished with the rails and went back to Charleston. Then perhaps her petite could settle down and think more of the baby.

Down over the long hill, past the row of cedars, Sesame took the carriage with his three passengers inside—Crane, Marigold and Feena. The horses splashed through the water of the small creek and pulled onto the road again. They headed toward the river, and Marigold realized that Crane had decided to take her to one of the doctors far away, rather than use the man who was close at hand. She would not have to go over the river to get to Dr. Kellie.

On either side of the road, the two women could see the subtle change of seasons—the hardwood trees with their red and yellow crown of leaves proclaiming the fall of the year, against the faithful greenery of the loblolly pines deeper in the woods.

The mist from the river was still rising, partially obscuring the ferry tied to the bank on the other side, and even blotting from view the nearby wooden planks with their metal rings waiting for the wooden raft to be attached as soon as it arrived.

Sesame stopped the carriage, and with the reins in his hand, he stepped to the sentinel post with the bell at the top to alert the ferryman on the other side as to his desire to cross the river. The sound clanged through the mist, and Marigold strained her eyes for some sign of movement across the stretch of water.

Marigold's attention switched to her husband, and she watched him go through the pockets of his dark coat, his embroidered vest, and then search the floor and the seat of the carriage. Evidently not finding what he was looking for, the man enlisted Sesame's aid.

"I have lost an important paper, Sesame," he said. "Will you please go back along the road and search for it, while I stay with the horses?"

Sesame obeyed, and with Marigold and Feena still in the carriage, Crane stood by the horses. The man seemed nervous, and Feena, watching him closely, caught a slight glitter in the sunlight as the man quickly reached toward one of the horses and then just as quickly jerked back.

In an instant the horse bolted, and Feena, seeing the carriage headed straight for the water, jumped from the vehicle, grabbing at the reins dragging on the ground between the two horses. Marigold screamed when she saw Feena knocked down and entangled in the reins. It all happened so quickly—the horses on their berserk run toward the river, Feena's entanglement, Sesame approaching, and finally regaining control over the frightened animals as they slowed down.

Feena was hurt badly, Marigold could tell as Sesame backed the horses away. She ran to the woman who still lay on the ground. Crying, she knelt over the old woman and tried to understand Feena's incoherent words. But it was impossible. The woman's last strength had been expended. Feena's dark eyes stared straight up at the sky, and her body suddenly convulsed and then was still.

Screaming and hysterical, Marigold was finally pulled away from the woman by her husband. "No," she cried, fighting him.

"It is too late, Marigold," he said. "You can do nothing for her."

"Feena," she screamed again, and the name rose over the mist and came back to Marigold in an echo from the silent river. Her old nurse—the one she loved—her true friend. She had died trying to save Marigold from a watery grave. She had never thought of Feena's dying. To her the old woman was invincible. But there she was, lying at the river's edge with the sound of her name echoing down the river. The woman was mortal, after all.

Marigold could not be consoled. It was her fault that Feena was dead. If the servant had not come to Cedar Hill with her, she would still be alive.

What had made the horses act up so suddenly? And what had Feena tried to whisper to her as she knelt beside her? Marigold would never know, for the old woman's voice had been silenced.

In the quietness of the afternoon, Marigold sat on the porch. The black shawl draped around her shoulders was a symbol of her grief, and her dull, topaz eyes stared unseeing at the trees that were now bereft of leaves.

There was a coldness in the air—a whisper of winter to come. And the clump of gray granite rocks in the side yard held the only warmth from the late afternoon sun.

The flowers in the garden were gone. Marigold had used the last of them to place on Feena's grave the week before. Only the fall-blooming camellias on the sheltered side of the house were in bud.

Taking up her flower basket and shears, Marigold walked down the steps. As she cut the pale pink buds, she heard the rumbling of the wagons. The cooking wagon, with its water barrels lashed to the sides, lumbered by and on down the hill, followed by other wagons with the tents inside. The hill near the mine was bare of tents and men. The rail system was completed at last. And now Crane could step up production of the gold ore.

Down the meadow, beyond the old apple tree, Marigold walked with her basket of flowers in her hand and her shawl around her head. Down to the quiet peaceful spot that she had chosen for Feena's grave. Marigold knelt and placed