Alana

Young love turns to tragedy and a woman searches for her long lost love.

My father owned a plantation near Nashville, Tennessee, in the years following the Civil War. We weren't exactly well off, but we were what I suppose would be called upper middle class these days. He had no real feuds, as that was the way of the country folk in Appalachia, but he and a business partner were on bad terms. This man had turned on him and the other partners in their business. Ten men were part of their business, and nine had held true during the invasion of the carpet baggers. This other, Kartk, or something like that, had sold his shares to a Northern man. The Northern gentleman, Hopkins, was born in the South and transplanted to the North when he was a boy because his parents were abolitionists. They were found out and fled North with the runaway slaves they'd been harboring for the few days prior to that. Hopkins had my father's sympathies, for we were abolitionists as well, and he bore the man no ill will. In truth, my father thought badly of Kartk only because of principle. He had given his word and was the only man to go back on that promise.

I was seventeen that summer, and my mother was fretting over my wildness. You see, I still very much wanted to climb trees and play marbles with my younger brother, Caleb. I wasn't a proper lady at all, and I was at a prime age for suitors. It was an unspoken assumption that I would marry one of the sons of my father's business associates, and I suppose I was lucky that Kartk sold his shares to Hopkins. You see, his son, Jeffrey, was very keen to court me. I, on the other hand, hated Jeffrey Kartk with every bone in my body. He was a stuck up, smarmy bit of slime, and I hated the very sight of him. My father refused to allow Jeffrey anywhere near me after that, thank God, saying that he did not want his only daughter having a man like Kartk for an in-law. It took every ounce of self-control I had to contain my joy when he told me that he had decided against allowing Jeffrey to court me.

I'm sure my mother thought that I was going to be an old maid, but I really didn't care all that much. Caleb had already promised to take care of me, and that was more than good enough for me. I was happy never having a suitor or getting married. That was, until I met Mr. Hopkin's family at a welcome dinner. His son, Derrick, immediately stood out to me. He was a handsome young man with deep brown eyes and wavy blonde hair. He smiled shyly at me and then looked away quickly, blushing furiously. As our parents were too busy getting to know each other to notice, I approached him. Young women were expected to wait on the gentleman to step up to her, hoping that he would take her hints that she would like to speak to him. I never had much use for such things because it was rare that a boy actually understood them. The poor boy was even more put out of place than he already had been a few moments ago. I smiled at him, saying, "Your house is lovely. I especially like the cherry tree outside." It was, after all, my place to notice such things.

He seemed to buck up a bit and said, "Yes, Mother has good taste." He paused and then asked tentatively, "Pardon me, but shouldn't I be the one approaching you?"

Inwardly, I recoiled, then sighed and told him dryly, "Yes, I suppose."

"I-I don't m-mind," he stammered. "It's only that Father told me that things are done a certain way here. It's a different culture, he said, and I have to abide by certain ways of living."

I was, I must say, unused to anyone being that blunt, even a boy. "Well, that is true. But it's also good manners to greet new people to town."

He shrugged and chuckled slightly, "That's true, Miss Duncan."

"Call me, Alana."

He smiled that shy little smile again, "Well, then, that's true, Alana."

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What followed was two years of secret meetings and thinly veiled romantic gestures between the two of us in public. Derrick kissed my hand whenever we met in public, claiming that he wanted to be old-fashioned, but as I was the only young woman he did this to, the gossips had quite a feast with it. It didn't take long before the word around town was that he was courting me. I couldn't really blame them, but my mother and father were not happy about this. You see, Derrick hadn't officially asked my father if he could do so yet. "Daddy, he's not courting me," I told my father desperately one spring day.

"Then why he is only kissing your hand, Alana. I certainly admit that I don't normally pay attention to the gossips, but this time they're right. That's far too odd for me to ignore it. At the very least, the young man is trying to win your approval so that the courting will be easier. It's not that I would deny him, Alana, but it's all very improper."

I looked at my father in shock. "Are you saying that you would let Derrick court me?"

"Of course, Alana. He's the son of my business partner and a very intelligent, level-headed young man from what I can see." I hugged him tightly, smiling brightly.

At our next meeting out in the back field of our house, I told Derrick, "Daddy said that he would let you court me. All you have to do is ask."

His eyes got wide. "That's fantastic!" That day burns in my memory even now. It was the third time that we made love, and it was the day that began the rest of my life.

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Derrick had been officially courting me for three months when Momma told me that the gossips had been talking again. Her face was pale and completely unreadable. "Alana, I want to know the truth. Is there any possible way that you could be with child?"

I looked at her, jaw dropping, blushing furiously. She had voiced my very darkest fears. "Momma, how could you even ask that?"

"I can because I am a woman. And I am asking you to tell me the truth, Alana. Do you believe yourself to be with child?" I was near tears by now, not knowing what to say. I merely nodded my head. When I looked up, she was as pale as chalk. She slowly walked over to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "You can't be more than a few months along. At least you were courting."

"Momma..." Then I burst into tears. She looked into my eyes, a coldness that I had never seen in them filling them up.

"Do you mean to tell me that you allowed a man to have carnal knowledge of you before you were even properly courting?" Again, I could only nod. And then I realized what was wrong; she was absolutely furious with me. Her eyes welled up with tears, "I raised you better than this." And she left the room in a cold huff that I had seen her use only once. When I was very young, my mother and her eldest sister, Gertrude, had gotten into a fierce argument. They had screamed at each other for hours in our kitchen and made everyone terrified that they would start using the cutlery on each other. The argument ended with Aunt Gertrude storming out of the house, slamming the back door so hard that she broke the glass…Momma hadn’t spoken to her since. Perhaps it is only to be expected that I was terrified of what she would do, but it wasn’t her that I had to worry about in the end.

Momma and I spent the next week and a half tiptoeing around one another. My father finally asked what was going on between us at the supper table one night, and Momma burst into tears. “Ask your daughter,” she answered. “Your sweet, innocent, little trollop of a daughter!” and fled from the table.

My father’s countenance turned positively cyclonic at once. “What is your mother talking about, young lady?”

“Daddy, I-I-I…” I couldn’t finish.

His voice was trembling and his eyes bulging out of his head as he asked, “Are the gossips right, Alana?”

I was nearly sobbing at this point but managed to look him in the eye and answer, “Yes.”

Caleb gasped. He was only fourteen at the time, but even children talk, as I well remembered at the moment. Caleb and I loved one another intensely, but I was worried whether or not he would forgive me. Our father said nothing to me as he strode out the door and beckoned Caleb to accompany him to the study. As I found out later, Daddy told Caleb that no man in the state would have me after this and that he must swear upon the Bible to always take care of my child and me. Caleb did so, my father grabbed his faithful Winchester, and he walked out the door.

Daddy walked out the door and walked the mile and a half to Mr. Hopkins. He burst into the back door, charged up to Derrick’s room, and screamed, “You rapscallion! I trusted you with my pride and joy and this is how you repay me!” He shot Derrick in the heart just as Mr. Hopkins reached Derrick’s door and got my father with his shotgun.

My father and my love were buried the same day. I’d never cried so much in my whole life, never knew that one person could feel so much pain without dying. Mrs. Hopkins came up to my mother after the funeral and showed her the engagement ring that Derrick had been going to give me the next day. “I don’t want you to remember my son badly, Mrs. Duncan. He was going to do the right thing.”

My mother gaped at the ring for a second before a slow, sad smile crept across her face. “I wouldn’t dream of it. We, after all, have to think of our grandchild.”

Mr. Hopkins approached me after Derrick’s funeral and told me that if my own family would not or could not take care of me then I was welcome in his home. “You are family now, Alana. My son loved you and we will love you as well”

I had to take Mr. Hopkins up on his offer a few weeks later. Momma refused to even speak to me until Nicolas was born and she could do the math for herself. “When was little Nicolas conceived, Alana?” she asked me over tea one late Spring day. It was the first time we had spoken in months.

I couldn’t answer her at first because that was quite a subject to be discussing over tea! “The day that Daddy told me that Derrick could court me.”

She bowed her head and tears slowly coursed down her face. “Forgive me, Alana. I’ve been cruel, far crueler than God would find acceptable for a mother to be to her child. If you weren’t courting in practice, you were courting in principle, and the principle of the thing is what really counts when you come down to it.”

Mother still refused to allow me back into the house, but Caleb took over the house when he turned twenty-one and told me to come back home immediately. Our father’s share in the company had been liquidated after his death and sold to Mr. Hopkins, so we lived in relative comfort for a long while. Mother died when Nicolas was nine, shortly after Caleb was married to a young woman named Stephanie.

My little Nicolas grew into a handsome young man who was almost the spitting image of his father. He inherited Mr. Hopkin’s seat in the company and bought out the other men one by one. When he did this, his family, Caleb’s family, and I moved to St. Louis to start a new life.

I was buried here in a small ceremony presided over by my minister grandson, and now I tell this story in hopes of reaching my beloved Derrick. I’m here, Darling, ready to start the life together that we never had the chance to begin in life. I’m here, my love, and I’m waiting. Please come and find me…there are so many things that I need to tell you, so many people that you need to meet.