to white-paneled box pew doors. No one lay suffering on the carpet. No one sat propped in a pew, gasping for air...
“Help me—”
“Stop the music!” Samuel shouted over the choir and waved his arms to get their attention. “Someone here is ill, or injured or—”
“Who? Someone with you?” In the sudden silence, a dark-haired woman turned from leading the musicians and rushed toward him, her deep green skirts rustling. Perhaps she could help him discover the person in need.
Although stunning with her ivory skin and delicate features, she looked but a mere five or so years older than his Emma—twenty years of age at most.
He turned from her and crossed to the pulpit, then glanced upward. “It was someone inside. I heard it from out on the lawn. Perhaps we should search the balconies.”
Her light, fast footfalls followed close behind. “Wait a moment—let’s think this through. What did you hear? Was it a man or a woman?”
The compassion in her voice would have moved him under different circumstances. He turned to look into gold-flecked green eyes, sparkling in the light of the overhead gasolier. Those soft, gentle eyes could easily have diverted him from his task—if they belonged to a more mature lady. If he would ever again allow a woman to distract him. And if some poor soul didn’t need his help. “A woman is in trouble, and we don’t have time to stand around and chat about it. Did you not hear the cries for help? She screamed in agony and—”
The twitters from the sopranos and altos interrupted his words, along with his train of thought.
Had he imagined the sounds? Surely not, but he’d heard of men suffering such maladies after experiencing the terrors of war.
“Father, please...”
His daughter’s whisper jarred him back to the present. He turned to Emma, who held his hat and muddy Bible. To his shame, he’d forgotten she was there. Her reddened cheeks cut through him, slicing yet another piece from his heart. Seemed he spent more time embarrassing his fourteen-year-old than he did in any other occupation these days. His daughter stood at a distance, more than arm’s length, as she had since he’d fetched her from her Kentucky boarding school two weeks ago.
Until she turned, head bowed, and dashed back toward the vestibule.
Where was she going? Why would she bolt this way in the midst of an emergency?
“Now will you slow down and think?” The woman in green hesitated only a moment and then followed Samuel’s daughter down the aisle. Reaching her, she rested her hand on Emma’s shoulder and spoke into her ear. Emma immediately broke into a bright smile.
How had the lady won his daughter’s affections so quickly when Samuel could hardly coax a word from her?
“That was no scream.”
The words broke into his haggard mind like a swarm of cicadas, interrupting his thoughts. He spun toward the sound. That was it—the voice he’d heard earlier. Shrill, piercing, yet with an unmistakable plantation accent—this was the woman in trouble. Samuel searched the choir for eyes pinched with pain, lips drawn in agony.
Instead he saw a feisty-looking antique of a lady, her hazel eyes snapping and her wrinkled lips pursed. “What you heard was my solo, sir.”
Solo? The screeching he’d heard had been—singing? “I beg your pardon, ma’am...”
His face must have been as red as Emma’s. To insult a woman of her age—it was unthinkable. To do so to a parishioner—intolerable. And in front of other church members—unforgivable.
How had this happened? He’d shepherded hundreds of men during the war, prayed with the sick, comforted the dying. He’d cared for them with the love of a father. But now, in the first moments of his first day at Christ Church, he was failing.
Just as he was failing Emma.
As he scrambled to think of a suitable apology, a man in a stylish suit and ruffled white shirt stepped into the sanctuary. “Chaplain Montgomery.”
“Colonel Talbot.” He hastened toward his former commander and clasped his hand. If only Samuel had not committed such a blunder, he could have enjoyed reuniting with this friend he’d not seen since Lee’s surrender. Instead he leaned in close to whisper. “I fear I’ve inadvertently insulted a lady in the choir.”
“You? I doubt you’d know how.”
“Trust me, I did. I know I heard a woman cry for help, but she said she was singing.” Samuel chanced a glance at the lady, who stood dignified as a dowager among the sopranos who attempted to hide their smiles behind their hands or sheet music.
The colonel looked in the direction Samuel indicated and then back again. “The lady in black?”
He nodded. “The one who looks like she wants to cane me.”
Colonel Talbot covered his mouth with his hand and rubbed his chin, but not before Samuel caught a glimpse of a grin on his face. Even if he hadn’t, the man’s laughing eyes would have given him away.
“This is not funny, Colonel.”
He cleared his throat. “You’re right, of course. She used to be a brilliant soprano, but her singing days passed when she left middle age, and no one has the nerve to tell her.”
“But I distinctly heard her call for help.” Shriek for help would have been more accurate, but Samuel held his tongue.
The colonel slowly lowered his hand as if unsure he wouldn’t yet give way to an outburst of laughter. “It’s a new hymn called ‘Help Me Be More Like Jesus.’ Since she penned it, we could hardly give the solo to anyone else.”
“Hardly.” So Samuel had insulted not only the dowager’s voice but her composition, as well. This was worse than he’d first thought. “Who is she?”
“Missus Reverend Hezekiah Adams. The founding minister’s widow.”
No. The woman who’d called him to pastor here. Samuel let out a low groan. Missus Adams was, indeed, a dowager—of the church. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his brow. “I’ve gotten myself into a bind. Only you know how much Emma and I need to stay in Natchez—and why.”
As they strode toward the choir—and the dowager, the lady in green silently dismissed the singers from the back of the sanctuary, and they trickled out. Emma wiped her little finger under her eyes, no doubt trying to whisk away her tears.
Tears that Samuel had inadvertently caused.
No matter what it would take, he had to keep this pastorate, for Emma’s sake. That meant he must win over Missus Adams before she could ship him and Emma back upriver to Vicksburg. Otherwise he could never bring long-overdue happiness to their lives. Happiness they had never yet experienced as a family.
God had led him here, to Natchez, to Christ Church. To a place of new hope, new beginnings. Of this Samuel was sure. Now he had only to convince the dowager.
And by God’s grace, he intended to do just that.
*
