“You’ve come with a purpose.” She motioned Marietta to follow her into a sitting room no bigger than a speck and indicated the couch, which looked slightly less worn than the chair. “I was so sorry to hear about your husband. I sent a card, but…”
“I received it. Thank you.” She should have replied. She had to all the other notes of condolence, even those from near strangers, but that one she had tossed directly into the wastebasket. Sitting gingerly upon the couch, she focused her gaze upon her hostess’s dress, absent so much as a white collar. “I had not heard of your loss. It must have been recent. Your uncle?” A safe guess, as her uncle was her only living relative.
Barbara’s smile went weak. “Several years ago. But the mourning is for my husband. He fell at Gettysburg.”
“So did—” But of course she’d know that, if she knew when Lucien had died.
Barbara sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair and studied the hands she folded in her lap.
The photograph. Walker’s words. The fact that he knew where she lived. Marietta sucked in a quick breath. “He married you.”
For a moment the woman made no response. No doubt she feared that if she dared to, Marietta would go from polite to spiteful in the blink of an eye. But there was not so much as a thread of dishonesty in Barbara—with a wary glance, she nodded.
Marietta’s lungs refused to work. “When? He was at college, and then the war—he never said a word.”
Tears gleamed in the eyes Barbara turned toward the wall. Her hands twisted, fretted with the frayed ends of her shawl. “Forgive us, Mari. I asked him not to tell anyone. I knew what you thought of me and could hardly blame you for it, so we wed in secret. Before he signed up.”
He wed in secret. Her brother, her dearest friend, and he…she had forced him to lie about something this important. “Did you tell my parents? Grandparents?”
Her voice must have conveyed more amazement than censure, for Barbara met her gaze again. She shook her head. “We told no one. Walker found out after Stephen died, somehow. He and his dear Cora have been a tremendous blessing, always making sure I have enough. But no one else.”
For a long moment, Marietta could only stare. This woman was her sister, every bit as much as Hez’s and Isaac’s wives, yet she lived in squalor and had to take handouts from servants. “But why? My parents would have welcomed you with open arms if Stephen loved you enough to marry you. Surely you know that.”
Barbara smoothed the shawl’s tassel. “They were always very kind to me.”
“But I wasn’t.” It burned, seared, one more transgression on the ever-growing stack. “You didn’t tell them because I didn’t approve.”
“Your reasons were valid, Mari. And your opinion meant so much to Stephen.” How was it, when she glanced up, that her eyes held only sorrow and goodwill and not so much as a stitch of blame? “I always wanted us to be friends, but I knew we couldn’t be, so long as I was poor and your brother rich. Even though we both loved him so.”
He hadn’t been rich, not compared to families like the Hugheses. Just compared to folks like the Gregorys. But yes, the difference had been marked enough that she had pointed it out. Repeatedly.
Marietta didn’t know what to do with her hands, folded under her cape. She didn’t know what to do with this woman, who said such things so calmly. “You’re still in full mourning. It has been almost two years.”
The word beatific sprang to mind at the smile that emerged on Barbara’s lips. “Can one ever stop mourning Stephen?”
“No. Never. He was the best of men.” And Marietta had taken all his books, the things he treasured most. What had he left for his wife? “Did he not set up a living for you?”
“He sent me his pay from the army while he was alive, but I would not let him do more. I did not want—”
“Me to find out and judge you.” Which, yes, she would have done even a month ago had she discovered that Barbara had wed him in secret and now lived on Arnaud money. And she would have been utterly wrong. “But Barbara, this is ridiculous. My family will provide for you. You are one of us.”
For a moment, Barbara’s luminous eyes went wide as a doe’s, her lips parted. Then she shook her head vehemently enough to send a strand of honey-brown hair fluttering against her cheek. “I cannot accept such generosity, Mari. Family I would gladly take, but I have no right to your parents’ money. The baby died before she drew breath, and I—”
“There was a baby?” A little girl, half her brother? Her eyes slid shut. What if it were these wretched living conditions that made it turn out so terribly? Another loss, her fault. “I am so sorry. So very sorry for every mean thought, for every word I spoke against you. For everything.”
A rustle of stiff fabric, the sinking of the cushion, and Barbara’s cool, delicate fingers brushed over hers. “Loss is as much a part of life as joy, Marietta. And without it, the other would not be so sweet.”
Was it? Then why, having lost so much, did she feel so lifeless?