Sara Mitchell - Legacy of Secrets

May, 1890

Two weeks later, after classes on a lazy Thursday afternoon, Neala and Abigail decided to spend their free Saturday hiking down to the Shenandoah River. A picnic on the riverbank would be their reward for the muscle-stretching trek down the steep cliff. To be sure, a well-marked path had been carved out by some Chilton ancestor over a century earlier; more recently Liam had hammered out handholds on some of the steeper sections. The hike posed little danger as long as the hikers exercised due diligence.

“We’re all of us adult women,” Miss Isabella lectured new students. “Therefore I ‘restrict the restrictions’ here at the Academy, because I expect each of you to exhibit common sense in all your choices. Since fresh air and healthy exercise offer an excellent venue with which to strengthen our individual godly temples, it is my hope that all of you feel free to explore the five hundred acres surrounding the Academy. Carefully. Good sense is a gift from our Lord. Expend it wisely, my dears, and try to limit your nonsense to games of croquet, badminton and the like.”

“I enjoy Miss Isabella’s sense of humor,” Abby said around a mouthful of oatmeal cookie. “Did you hear her earlier today, pleading with Mr. Pepperell to stop talking to the tomatoes because she’s afraid we’ll end up with such a bumper crop the house might slide off the cliff from the weight?”

Neala looked up from the list of supplies she was writing down in her tablet. “’Tis very wry, is it not?” she agreed. “I remember when I first arrived I never knew when she was serious, or merely teasing. Um…shall we take lemonade in our canteens, or sassafras tea?”

“Better stick with tea. I don’t believe we have many lemons in the springhouse right now.”

Neala dutifully added tea to their list, and they spent several congenial moments discussing other particulars. Then Abby took a deep breath and began fiddling with the eyelet edging of her shirtwaist. “Neala?” she asked, her voice softer. “Are you…I mean, do you still…” She grimaced, her gaze touching on Neala’s, then shifting to some place that bespoke of a pain more vast than the universe. “I had another dream last night,” she finished in a rush. “It wasn’t a nightmare—I don’t have those as much anymore. But I was with my family, and it was so real…” Her hand reached out blindly and Neala grabbed it, wrapping reassuring fingers around it. “I didn’t want to wake up, Neala. I didn’t want to wake up, because then I would have to accept all over again that they’re gone, and I’m not. I’m still here, scarred and disfigured and…and alone. I mean, alone because I know I’ll never marry.”

“Oh, Abby…” Neala swallowed hard, her own throat tightening against tears. “I understand. Sometimes I still think I need to tell Grandfather, or Mum…” Her voice trailed away. “But I do understand, completely,” she finished. “Your heart sort of jerks when all of a sudden you remember they’re gone. And it hurts so bad it’s hard to breathe.”

“At least your brother is still alive, even if you never see him again. Oh—I’m sorry, Neala. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Truly I didn’t.”

“I know.” Neala squeezed her hand once more and released it. They both sat back in the grass and smiled at each other. “Sometimes I dream that Adrian returns to Charlottesville, buys back our home, then finds me…” She stopped with a deprecatory grimace.

“Perhaps someday he will.”

“Not likely.” Neala chewed her lip for a moment, then waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll always love Adrian, but I know I need to stop weaving fanciful tales that will never happen. Miss Isabella reminds me at least twice a week that I need to learn to accept how people are, instead of trying to nicely bully them into what I think they ought to be. I know she’s right, but it’s difficult.”

She lifted her face toward the sky, soaking up the sunshine. “God planted a yearning in me for everybody in the world to get along, I suppose. But I must have a really hard head underneath all these wretched curls, because I keep trying despite the futility of it. My brother used to get so annoyed with me…”

Abby reached across to tug one of the infernal curling strands that was forever escaping the pins. “I love your hair. I wish mine had all that bounce and shine.”

“Well, I’ve always admired yours because it’s straight.”

“What about Jocelyn’s? Have you ever seen such a beautiful shade of red? She’s very private, have you noticed? Even when I compliment her hair, she just gives me this sad smile. I wish she’d share her story.”

“I’m sure she will, one day. Perhaps she’s been able to follow Miss Isabella’s advice better than the rest of us. ‘Talking about the past can’t redo it. We waste the present, and bore the listener…’”

“‘…Because we all have a different past, and must walk a different path to overcome it,’” Abby continued, quoting one of their headmistress’s most oft-repeated homilies.

They both laughed. Miss Isabella had a quote for everything—and never hesitated to trot an appropriate one out for a listener.

Neala pulled an annoying curl away from her face and wound it around her finger. “Well, I’ll probably never accept that my brother’s dead, but I have accepted that he…that he abandoned me.” There. She’d finally stated the words aloud. “That’s why I was allowed to come here. Miss Isabella decided I was enough of an orphan.” She shrugged. “In all but the strictest sense, I am. I’ve heard nothing from my brother in over a year now.”

“We both should remember that all of us here are only orphaned in bloodlines,” Abby reminded her gently. “We have a home now, remember. And sisters?”

With a determined wave of her hand, Neala banished the hovering wisps of grief. “Absolutely. And now that I’ve come to know him, I might claim Liam as an uncle despite him being an Irishman instead of a Scot.” They laughed again, and scrambled to their feet. “Come on, let’s go inspect the kitchen and make sure our choice of picnic supplies is available.”

“Don’t forget to post our names on the list so everyone knows where we are. We may never have found your hunter, but when Nan and Alice climbed down to the river last week, they happened onto a pair of day-trippers, and I heard yesterday that someone else spotted either a hiker or a hunter—or was it some kind of animal?—on the edge of the grounds.”

They commenced strolling across the grass as they talked. “The view over the river, toward the mountains, is breathtaking. With the Colonial Highway just at the bottom of the hill, I can easily imagine how a weary traveler would decide to break his journey, wander about. Sometimes I think I can almost hear God’s voice in the river water, or the wind in the trees before a rain.”

Abby only shrugged. Unlike Neala, her friend’s faith in a loving God remained cautious, at times indifferent. Neala might not understand completely, but her imagination was vivid enough to realize that anyone’s faith might be damaged beyond repair, when God allowed your entire family to burn to death.

Saturday morning dawned clear but chilly. A spring storm had swept through the previous night, followed by a refreshing northwest wind that plunged temperatures back toward February instead of May. Due to the chill, Abby and Neala decided to wear their cloaks, despite the awareness that it would hinder their progress down the cliff.

“But I’d rather watch my step a little more carefully than fall ill with ague,” Neala cheerfully stated as she slung the cloak over her shoulders. “Besides, I’ve had this cloak since I was a child, and it’s short enough not to trip me up.”