David and I strolled home from Sadie’s arm in arm. A wind shushed through the needles of the pine trees and set the swamp oak leaves to whispering with the reddening sugar maple leaves.
I sniffed the air. “I do believe it’s going to rain.”
“Mmm.”
“Is thee thinking about what dear Tilly said? I know I am.”
“The poor woman. What scoundrel would impregnate a young woman and then abandon her?”
“Husband, surely thee knows a great many men have done precisely that. He might have left before she knew she was carrying a child.”
“But to promise her marriage?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid too many of my sex think with their manly parts instead of their brains.”
“This is true, alas.” The very same thing as Tilly underwent had happened to me in my teen years, minus the promise of marriage. A wild boy I’d liked had forced himself on me. I’d been fortunate my body had miscarried the fetus early on. I hadn’t had to carry a child to term whose father was a despicable and irresponsible man. “Tilly’s history must have been why she was so strict with Frannie.”
“Not strict enough, as it turned out.”
“Or too strict. Frannie might have felt pent in. Some man took advantage of that.” Dare I again raise the possibility with him about Currie being the culprit not just in enlisting Frannie for the theater—which was distasteful but legal—but perhaps being the father of her baby? No, I would wait and see what else I could learn. With any luck, I would be completely wrong.
We walked in silence for a couple of minutes, each in our thoughts.
“Rosie, have you wondered if my brother might have been too zealous in his courting of young ladies for his employment? Of Frannie, in particular?”
Aha. What did they say? Great minds think alike? “I confess the thought had crossed my mind, but I didn’t want to speak of it.”
He pulled me closer to his side. “Wife, you can tell me all your thoughts. I want to know them.”
“I am of a like mind. Currie’s rakish ways are a bit, shall we say, unseemly.”
David let out a long sigh. “He has always been a rascal, but I would hope he wouldn’t cross the line into having intimate relations with young girls.”
“I would hope the same. But some man did. I pray it does not turn out to be Reuben Baxter, either.”
“He would seem to be the most likely culprit, being of the same age and enamored of Frannie.”
“And she with him, from all reports,” I said. “This morning, when he learned I knew Frannie, he looked somewhat evasive. I couldn’t figure out why.”
“I’m sure you will, with your talent for detecting. But please promise me you won’t attempt anything risky, dear Rose. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.” His voice rasped with emotion.
“I promise, dear David. I shall keep myself safe and preferably at thy side.” With any luck, for the rest of our days together.