Chapter Twenty-Two
“Good news at last!” Linda sang as she burst into the kitchen on Thursday evening. She practically floated across the floor, a smile on her face.
Unfortunately, the fact that Linda’s mood was joyous did nothing to improve Ella’s own mood.
Seated on the sofa—the very one where, just the week before, Miriam King had finished the two dresses worn by Drusilla and Anna to the charity event—Ella barely looked up. Instead, she kept her attention on the blanket that she was crocheting. Though it was too warm to crochet, Ella didn’t care. It kept her mind focused on anything other than the disastrous charity auction and how horrible her stepmother had been to her.
She knew that she had to forgive Linda and her stepdaughters. The Bible told her so. But Ella found it increasingly hard to do.
That previous Saturday night, Ella had slipped back into the house and disappeared into her bedroom. She had thrown herself onto the bed and cried into her pillow. Fortunately, Linda was so ecstatic over the events of the evening that she had forgotten all about Ella and the basement. So had Drusilla and Anna, who spent the next two days gushing about Hannes and their cakes. Each time either of the girls mentioned his name, Ella cringed and turned away, her heart aching with disappointment.
On more than one occasion, Ella was forced to listen in excruciating detail about Hannes sitting with the two sisters, tasting their cakes and the contested apple crisp pie. Drusilla repeatedly claimed victory over Anna, asserting that Hannes favored her over her sister. But, not to be outdone, Anna practically swooned when she remembered how complimentary he had been about her poor man’s cake.
Both of them were convinced that Hannes was the most handsome of men, and each of them bragged that he most certainly had eyes only for her.
Ella could hardly bear listening to them.
At night, Ella had cried herself to sleep, emotionally wounded to think that Hannes could possibly shift his attention so easily. During the day, she stayed inside the house, not even caring if the garden grew weeds or the bird feeder was empty. She went about her chores, her head down and her shoulders feeling heavy. Whenever she felt depressed and disheartened, she tried to tell herself that anyone who was so shallow, so fickle with his affections, was not the right person for her.
But she still had a hard time believing it could possibly be true.
Even when she cleaned the kitchen, Ella tried to avoid thinking of him. The windowsill no longer held the crystal trinket that he had given her, having been removed by someone, probably one of her stepsisters. It had been a bittersweet moment when she had realized it was missing. But she counted it as a small blessing, for now she wouldn’t have to look at it and be reminded, yet again, of Hannes’s capricious behavior.
While she had never heard of anyone dying from a broken heart, she couldn’t help but wonder if she might be the first.
And still, she persevered.
Today, however, Drusilla and Anna were making life particularly hard for her. They had been sitting at the table, talking yet again about the past Saturday evening, when their mother had burst into the room.
“Did you hear me, Ella?”
Despite her feelings toward her stepmother, Ella remembered that she needed to show respect. God commanded it, even if her stepmother was not a kind person. She looked up at Linda with weary eyes that were puffy and red from all of the past sleepless nights that she had spent crying.
Irritated, Linda stood there, her hands on her hips, glowering at her. “You aren’t still brooding about last weekend, are you? After all, the basement did need cleaning! And you were not locked down there on purpose! Drusilla said it was an accident!”
Ella couldn’t believe her stepmother’s audacity. Ella knew Linda was more than aware that someone had sabotaged the basement by knocking over that bin of flour and throwing it all over the place. And they both knew that the door had been locked on purpose. Ella had witnessed too much cruelty and dishonesty from her stepmother over the course of the past few weeks to doubt that for a moment.
Setting down her crocheting, she forced herself to meet her stepmother’s gaze, too aware that both Drusilla and Anna were snickering about their mother’s comments. “What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, good!” Linda looked delighted that Ella had spoken at last. “Perhaps now you can finish with your sulking!”
“Sulking” wasn’t exactly how Ella would have put it. She was broken, perhaps, but not sulking. And who wouldn’t be broken after being locked in a basement and having her stepsisters claim her own pie as theirs when it had been purchased by the kindest man she’d ever known? To have sat there and pretended they had baked it while he ate it? No, she wasn’t sulking at all.
“What’s the good news?” Drusilla finally asked, which earned her a special smile from her mother.
Linda walked over to the table. “Those Clemens men sent word that they’ll be coming to town and wish to have supper here on Saturday evening.” Linda cast a smug look in Ella’s direction.
“Whatever for?” Anna asked, an eagerness about her that irritated Ella.
“Oh, Anna! Please.” Drusilla sniffed at her sister. “You know that Henry loved that pie. I’m sure he intends to court me, and that’s the reason they invited themselves over for supper!”
“Or me!” Anna puffed her chest and gave her sister a defiant look. “He thinks that I made the pie, too!”
Ella felt a lump form in her throat. It had been almost one week since the charity auction, and no one had seen hide nor hair of Hannes Clemens. She was certain that he had returned to Blue Springs and that would be the end of seeing him in Echo Creek. So she was both surprised and dismayed to hear that he would be returning. Even worse, he’d be having supper at their house. Ella would be forced to see him. If it was true that he had shifted his affections from her to Drusilla or Anna, she wasn’t certain she could sit in the same room with him!
“It doesn’t matter which one of you he courts, just that he court one of you!” Linda sounded irritated. “After all, he said that the pie was so good, he’d consider marrying the woman who baked it.”
Ella caught her breath. Surely Linda didn’t believe that he had spoken such words in anything other than jest!
But evidently, Linda had taken his words at face value. “And, if that is the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the older Clemens is coming to make an offer on the store. We can be rid of it at last, pay off our debt, and still live comfortably if that Clemens boy marries one of you.”
At Linda’s announcement, Ella felt as if her heart had fallen to the depths of her stomach. She cried out in disbelief. “Sell the store?”
With an exasperated sigh, Linda dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head. “Dear Ella,” she said, although Ella suspected that the “dear” was thrown in only as window dressing, “you can’t imagine that I would want to keep working like this, day in and day out, at that store. For what? A continued loss in profits?” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Nee, child, I’ve decided that selling the store is the only thing that makes sense. And if the Clemens boy marries one of my girls—why!—not only would my financial woes be resolved, my future would be set, too. We’ll be able to stay here.” She held out her hands, palms up, as she gestured around the kitchen. But then, just as suddenly, she paused. “At least, some of us.”
Ella turned away, blinking her eyes rapidly in the hope of preventing her tears from falling. She didn’t need to ask what Linda meant. The meaning was clear: if the Clemens family purchased the store and Henry married either Drusilla or Anna, both properties would become his.
Even more distressing, however, was that Linda had clearly indicated Ella would no longer be welcome in the family home.
Her family’s home, not Linda’s.
But Ella knew that was not the way it worked. When her father had died, everything had passed to Linda. If only he had expressed his wishes to the bishop, or even in a letter, things might have been better. But his death had been unexpected. Who knew that he would die so young and so suddenly?
Ella tried her best to avoid crying. She knew it was terrible to feel sorry for oneself, but she couldn’t help it. When had everything gone so wrong?
“Girls, we must have a wunderbarr gut supper for the Clemens men.”
Drusilla looked horrified. “Surely you don’t expect us to cook, Maem.”
Scoffing, Linda shook her head. “Don’t be daft, child. Of course not! We want to tempt these men, not terrify them!”
A moment of silence fell over the room as all three pairs of eyes simultaneously turned and stared at Ella.
Stunned, Ella couldn’t even respond. They didn’t need to say what they were all thinking. Ella could read their minds. Did they truly expect her to cook a supper for Hannes and his father? A meal that was intended to entice him to marry one of Linda’s daughters? And after Linda had just all but informed Ella that she would be forced out of the house?
For once, Ella knew that she needed to speak up, to stand up for her rights. After so many years of abuse and mistreatment, God would definitely understand if she refused to obey this final unspoken request. Surely he would not fault her for denying this one thing.
Just as she was about to rebel at last and put voice to the endless stream of slights and abuse that they continually threw at her, she heard that all-too-familiar voice whispering in the dark recesses of her mind.
Be kind and good, no matter what happens, for God has a plan for you.
Ella shut her eyes and inhaled, wishing that, for just once, she could ignore those words from her mother. Surely her mother would allow her to stand up for herself . . . just once?
But the words seemed to repeat themselves, over and over again.
Be kind.
And good.
God has a plan . . .
Inwardly, Ella groaned. She wanted to press her hands to her ears and shake her head, forcing those words to disappear forever. She was tired of living by that promise. She was tired of always being kind and doing good. She was growing tired of waiting for the big reveal of what God’s plan for her actually was!
Ever since her mother had died, that’s exactly what she had done: lived by those words. And what had it gotten her? Nothing but misery that begot more misery. Maybe, just maybe, her mother had been wrong. Maybe this was God’s plan for her.
Still, Ella knew that a promise was a promise. Breaking her promise would be tantamount to lying, and that was a grave sin indeed. Besides, even if she wanted to deny Linda and her daughters this one request, how could she possibly ignore her mother’s final wish? Her mother, one of two people who had truly loved her from the moment she was born. No, Ella knew that she could never live with herself if she broke her promise to her mother.
“I’d . . . be happy to cook the meal,” Ella forced herself to say, even though she spoke in a strained voice. She knew that she was doing this for her mother, not because she wanted to do it. After all these years abiding by that promise, Ella knew she couldn’t break her word now.
When they realized what Ella had offered to do, Drusilla and Anna cheered, and even Linda gave her a surprised smile that was filled with genuine regard.
“That’s very kind of you, Ella,” Linda managed to say, and Ella suspected that her stepmother meant it. Without Ella’s help, the supper would be a disaster. They all knew it and, for once, seemed grateful for her offer.
For the rest of the evening, Ella was forced to listen to Drusilla and Anna argue about which one of them would marry Hannes while Linda sat at the table, poring over some paperwork and scribbling her thoughts on a pad of paper. When she could take it no more, Ella quietly removed herself from the kitchen and headed upstairs to the safety and security of her bedroom, wondering how much longer she might actually be able to find solace there before she was forced to find a new place to live.