She closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek. He longed to kiss her. Kiss her and hold her and take away all her woes.
“Sorry. I’m hungry and tired. I’m whining, sorry,” she said and sniffed back a tear.
»»•««
Now and then, Anora heard gunshots and shouting, but the loud booms had ceased. The sweet, lilting sounds of a fiddle sang softly on the breeze. Hank was right, she did feel better now she’d food in her stomach. She waved goodnight to him and Isabell, backed up, closed the door, dropped the wooden arm across it, and quickly folded the shutters across the window. With that done, she lowered herself into a chair at her table and put her aching head in her hands. “Happy birthday,” she said to the empty room. Hank and Isabell filled the void of her empty life and she was grateful. And yes, she adored them both. She more than adored Hank, she loved him, loved him so much it hurt. And he must never suspect, it would ruin their relationship, ruin their friendship.
The walls closed in on her, the air saturated with heat. She’d like to leave the door open, let the night air sweep in, but she couldn’t take the chance; Ruben would get her if she let her guard down. Keeping the fact of her birthday to herself, she’d avoided turning their simple supper into a party. She didn’t want to think about her birthday, to do so reminded her of the months, the years, Ruben had stolen from her. Memories of the wagon train, of Ruben, and Aunt Carrie, brought to the fore her fears of what he’d do to her when he returned—and he would return.
Occupation, she needed occupation to diminish her anxieties and to delay going to bed. Shoving out of her chair, she decided she would alter her wardrobe. The rain-slicker had become too heavy, but she still wanted something that would disguise her shape—something she could hide behind.
Her denim dress, too tight across the shoulders and bust, her muscles having developed since taking over the ferry, with a few alterations would do very well. Using her paring knife, she ripped the threads that held the bodice of the dress to the waist. She had one needle, a guarded treasure she kept in the top drawer of her dresser pinned to a remnant from one of her papa’s white shirts. Between a yellowed and folded square of linen, she unearthed a quickly disappearing spool of white cotton thread. By candlelight, she arranged the skirt this way and that, at last ending up with more of a poncho than a smock.
The July days melted one into the other. Anora kept her head down and her mouth shut, ever vigilant, mindful Ruben could pop up at any time now. Hank and Isabell’s increased presence added to her apprehension, as opposed to giving her a sense of security. Rueben had never left her alone this long. She knew better than to think he’d forgotten about her. They had unfinished business—he’d be back with a vengeance, and Hank and Isabell must not be found at her table.
She thought it just as well Isabell and Molly spent three days a week in Melinda’s care these days—piano and voice lessons added to their curriculum. Although she missed the girls, she didn’t want them around if and when Ruben returned. But with Melinda devoting the Sabbath to prayer and Bible reading, the two girls spent a good part of their Sundays with her, while Hank tended his trees.
Late one Sunday afternoon, the girls came running down the lane, Mick barking, chasing them, announcing they wanted to have a tea party, they needed to practice. Melinda, the girls told her, put great store by the manner in which a lady conducted herself over tea.
“She’s mean as cats,” Molly said, pulling up a stool in the shade beside the shack. “She hits with a spoon. And if you spill your soup, you don’t get any food.”
“She pinches too,” Isabell said, holding out her arm for Anora to see the black and blue marks.
“Hmm.” Anora sighed, wondering if Hank approved of Melinda’s disciplinary methods, or even knew about them. At fourteen, she’d gone to a girl’s finishing school in Des Moines. That year did not evoke happy memories. She recalled being pinched if she slouched at the table or skipped down the stairs. Yes, she could remember going to bed hungry. Lucky for her, her parents could afford only a year’s tuition, and she didn’t have to return.
“It’s been a while since I’ve served tea,” Anora said. “I don’t know that I’m going to be of much help. But I’m willing to play. I think we should pretend we’re friends of Mrs. Hayes.” Lips puckered and a ramrod straight back, prim demeanor in place, Anora introduced herself. “You may address me as Miss Unella Smedly-Smithe, of the Connecticut Smedly-Smithes.”
“Oh, oh. And I shall be Penelope Rothsbottom,” said Molly, taking up the idea, matching her posture to Anora’s.
“So happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Rothsbottom,” Anora said, extending two fingers for a limp handshake. In return, Molly curtsied, just a slight dip, accompanied by a sour, pursed-lip smile. “Likewise, I’m sure,” she said.
“What’s my name? What’s my name? I want to be somebody snooty too,” Isabell insisted, stomping her foot in the dust.
“Hmm, let me think. Stop jumping around, please,” Anora said, trying not to giggle. Searching her brain for another nom-de-plume, she said aloud, testing the sound of it, “Hortense Hucklestone?”
Isabell’s happy smile disappeared…her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to be Hortense Hucklestone. Ooooh, what kind of name is Hortense?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, it’s pretend, Izzy,” said Molly, her character’s decorous manner pushed monetarily aside.
“No, no, now,” Anora said, to put a halt to any friction. “Would you rather be Unella Smedly-Smithe?” she asked, bending down more at eye level with the little girl.
“Yes, oh please, yes. Unella is a pretty name.”
“Delighted you could come today, Miss Smedly-Smithe, delighted,” said Anora, giving Isabell’s hand a gentle, ladylike shake.
“I shall be Hortense Hucklestone, of the Boston Hucklestones, we were among the first to arrive in this God-forsaken wilderness, you know. I can trace my ancestors to the Mayflower.”
Waving her hand above her head, she said, “Ladies, let us not dawdle about in this intolerable heat another moment, so disastrous to our complexions, you know. Come in, come in and be seated, our tea awaits in the front parlor.”
Noses in the air the girls followed Anora into the rickety shack, taking extra care of their skirts, and took up their places on the benches along the walls that faced the cold fire pit.
Anora took down from the small shelf by the door her finest china—consisting of two tin cups and a small, chipped, tin bowl—and set them down on a cedar shake beside her on the bench. She ceremoniously poured tea—actually water out of the canvas water bag hanging on the wall, which had a tendency to sweat and drip—into each cup, making a production of passing the cups to her guests.
“Do you care for lemon or honey? The honey is from my own bees, you know. A hobby of mine,” Miss Hucklestone said, batting her eyelashes.
“How very brave of you, Miss Hucklestone. I should be quite afraid of being stung,” said Miss Rothsbottom.
“Not at all, my dear,” said Miss Hucklestone. “I am very careful to instruct the maid not to excite the bees while gathering the honey. No, no, one must be very careful. So tiresome to have to wait until the bumps are healed. It took the silly chit a frightfully long time to get the hang of the operation. But with my prayers and guidance, she’s able to manage the task now. One must be patient. Work, prayers, and practice, I find, brings about results. I do so love honey. I find beekeeping a very worthwhile hobby.”
Molly broke out of character a moment to giggle, but quickly returned to the part.
“This is a lovely pattern on your china,” said Miss Smedly/-Smithe, puffing herself, holding the cup up before her nose to inspect the object in question.
“I was noticing that too,” said Miss Rothsbottom.
“My great uncle’s mother’s, brother’s, sister’s, niece’s grandmother, brought this lovely tea service all the way from the Orient. She was only four months old at the time,” said Miss Hucklestone wistfully, looking up through her eyebrows at her guests, waiting to see if they could hold their characters.
“Quite young to have such refined tastes,” said Miss Rothsbottom, lips twitching. “But then, blood will tell.” Pressing her cup to her lips, Molly stifled her giggle.
Miss Smedly-Smithe added, with a marvelously sober and pensive expression on her pixie face, “I s’pose a baby of four months might like to crunch her teeffs on the handles,” she observed conversationally, inspecting said handle of her cup.
A spray of water gushed from Molly’s lips, and she burst into paroxysms of laughter, which set Isabell off, and soon Anora joined in.
“We’ll need more practice,” said Anora, wiping the dribble from her chin. “I guess we’re hopeless.”
»»•««
Hank came down the hill around the barn. Mick raced up the hill to give him escort. He ordered the dog to hush, and stopped to listen for a moment, thinking the girls might be in the barn, milking the goats. The sun sat low over the Coast Range, and hearing nothing but the chickens, he moved on. He’d come down to see Molly across the river. She needed get going if she wanted to catch her ride home.
With no rain since the end of June, he’d been busy today trying to get water to his trees. Before he got to the cabin, he heard Isabell squealing and giggling, so he prodded his horse on over to the shack beside Roscoe and Pete’s crib.
“Miss Rothsbottom, one does not squirt tea from one’s nostrils,” he heard Anora say.
“If you must squirt your tea, try it between your teeffs,” said Isabell, squealing, water dribbling down the front of her dress.
“What the devil’s going on in here?” asked Hank, entering the shack uninvited, finding Anora and the girls doubled over, cast away in whoops of laughter, the fronts of their dresses soaked in water.
Anora clapped her hand over her mouth.
Isabell, next to acknowledge his presence, jumped up into his arms and started talking very fast, very happy, very excited and damp.
“We’re pretending, Papa. My name is Unella, isn’t that a pretty name? Unella Smedly-Smithe,” she said, her lips pursed in her best ladylike facade, which would’ve had a better effect if she hadn’t been astraddle her papa’s hip, her dress up around her thighs, rumpled and grimy from a day at play.
“Molly is Penelope Rothsbottom, and Anora is Hortense Hucklestone. We’re having a tea party.”
“Hmm, tea, you say?” he said doubtfully, picking up his daughter’s cup, sniffing suspiciously its contents.
Anora grinned at him and tipped her head. “Yes, sir, tea, sir.”
“The sun’s going down, Molly. We have to get you over to Takenah.”
“Oh, my goodness. We lost track of the time,” said Anora, hustling Molly down the hill to the ferry.
Reaching the other side, Molly barely waited for the ferry to crunch into shore before leaping off and tearing off up the track toward town.
“I thought I’d try frying chicken tonight,” Hank said, cranking up the tongue. “With your guidance, of course.”
He took the rudder from her. He did that a lot these days. At first, Anora had protested, because she didn’t want word to get back to Paxton. But Hank assured her if Paxton tried to take the ferry from her, he’d have to do it over his dead body.
»»•««
However, one point Anora insisted upon—he and Isabel and Molly would cross the river for free. Hank agreed, if she’d allow him to share food and supplies with her in exchange. Anora suspected she had the better deal. But she didn’t argue, having Hank and Isabell, and yes, Molly dropping in on her, being with her, sharing their lives with her helped to heal the scars, the wounds in her soul. On a daily basis, at least once a day, she cautioned herself, she could only have Hank as a friend. But her lectures went in one ear and out the other.
The long nights alone had become the hardest to bear, the quiet, every little noise sparked her imagination, inspiring her to think up scenarios of terror and torture at Ruben’s hands. “I’ll slice some of those peaches you gave me,” she said. “I’ll show you how to make a cobbler.”
“Sold,” Hank said, and Isabell clapped her hands. “I want to ask you something,” Hank said, looking off in the distance, his lips pressed together.
Isabell giggled and put her hand over her mouth. Suspicious, Anora asked, “What?”
Hank shook his head. “No, I’ll wait until we’re at the table,” he said, scowling at his daughter, who instantly looked away, turning her head to scan the water upstream.