The Willows

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Authors: Mathew Sperle
Tags: Romance, Historical Romance, S
her
childhood playmates and later maid, now serving as someone else’s
servant. “But they were like family. Surely you could have sold the
field hands instead.”
    “ There are no field
servants. There are no fields. The Willows hasn’t harvests a decent
sugar crop in well over three years.”
    Gwen not contain her gasp. Daddy might
lose interest in the house, in life itself, but for him to neglect
his precious sugarcane was an omen of impending
disaster.
    “ You have to understand,”
uncle Jervis said gently, “your mother’s death hit him hard. I knew
he was letting things slide steadily, but I did not discover how
bad it was until last March, when I talked John into giving me the
legal power to help run the estate.”
    “ Why didn’t you tell me?
Warned me?”
    “ I wanted to, honey, but I
thought, if it breaks my heart so to think of he Willows going to
the creditors, what will it do to our Gwen?”
    “ Creditors?” She asked,
horrified.
    His silence told her more than she
cared to know. “Why didn’t you warn me?” She asked, turning to
Lance.
    “ Your uncle wished to tell
you himself. In person.” He raised his hands as if to deny himself
of guilt. “A letter can be so impersonal, after all, and so easily
misunderstood.”
    There was no misunderstanding this.
Financial ruin, that’s what they faced, and social demise lurked
around the corner. Easy now, to understand the whispers and
chatters last night. Everyone knew that he had the let the Willows
go to rack and ruin; and no one could miss the fact that his
daughter would soon be a social outcast.
    “ But I thought daddy brought
me home to be married…” She nonetheless protested. He had brought
her home, merely sell her off save the plantation? T there were
men, she knew-old and dreadful unpleasant-who were only too happy
to pay for a young bride. “Does this mean…” She swallowed hard,”… I
am to be spinster?”
    “ Now, now, you’re not to
worry your pretty little head over this.” Once more, uncle Jervis
looked at Lance. “You just go on about your business and trust your
menfolk. We will think of something, never fear. The land is still
good. If I could dig up the funds by new cane, and perhaps a few
servants to plant and harvest it, I can promise you, I will have
the Willows back on its feet in no time.
    “ Here, here,” Lance cheered,
raising his glass to be refilled. “That is the spirit. You know, of
course, that you can count on me to help.”
    Watching uncle Jervis fill his glass,
Gwen knew it insisted more panic. All well and good to stand here
to toasting each other, but in truth, what could they do? Lance had
not a penny either.
    It is a nightmare, she thought in a
daze. A bad dream, and any moment, she would wake to find Mrs.
Tibbs calling for her. How frightening, that she suddenly preferred
to be back in a cramped cabin with that awful woman.
    She had to escape from the stuffy room,
to be out in the fresh air where she could think
straight.
    Both men looked mildly surprised when
she announced this wish. Lance offered a token protest, but soon
both he and her uncle seemed more interested in their drinks than
in preventing her departure, Gwen muttered her goodbyes and left
the room.
    This cannot be
happening , she continued to chant in her
mind as she walked away from the house. Uncle Jervis had a tendency
to overdramatize; surely things weren’t as bad as he had complied.
Thinking back, she realized there had been no Stinting during their
stay in the city. If money were short, why book first-class passage
up river?
    “ Keeping up pretenses,” she
could almost hear Missy Mae proclaim. Just like the Allentons, her
uncle hoped to trick his creditors into believing nothing was
wrong.
    But everything was wrong. She could see
proof of this as she passed the empty fields, which by now should
be green with prospering crop. Nor did anyone stir in the quiet
servant compound as she came upon it? Proving uncle Jervis had

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