Chapter 16

 

Jeff paced back and forth at the bottom of the stairs. Edith, watching him, thought of a pendulum clock. Then she sank again into a fantasy.

From her chains, Lady Jessica Hawes listened to the slow drip of water from the goatskin bag upon the wall. Clever Lord Ivor, to torture her thus! But she would never yield to his foul demands, though her life pay for her stubbornness.

The deep-barred oaken doors at the top of the slimed stone steps creaked open. The smoking torches set in high brackets around the dungeon walls flickered in the rush of cool air. Was this her deliverance? The chains cut into her wrists ax she strained forward to see.

A dark hulking figure stumbled over the threshold, held up by the cruel arms of her jailers. A sharp shove and the figure fell, tumbling down the steps, helpless to save himself. He lay at the bottom, in a tangle of soiled straw. The guards laughed harshly and clanged the great doors shut.

After a moment, the figure raised his head and Jessica looked upon the features, cut and bruised but yet defiant, of Jeffrey the Dane. He said, “I don’t know where those kids are, but I’m going to have something to say when I get out of here.”

“I’m sure it’s only a joke, as you said,” Edith told him, jolted into reality.

“Well, they’re taking it too far. They should have brought Dad by now, unless he’s in on it.”

“Why would he be?”

Jeff began pacing again. “He might think it was funny.”

“Your father hasn’t struck me as a man to make silly jokes.”

“Not any more. He was once.” Jeff wondered if locking them together in a cellar was his father’s ideas of matchmaking. He realized it might very well be Louise’s idea of it. Push two people together in a situation like this and they could wind up in each other’s arms. Especially if the woman has shown herself to be scared of snakes.

“You know,” Jeff said, stopping again in front of her. “I don’t want to alarm you, or anything, but . . .”

“Yes?” How handsome he was with the light on his face! She didn’t know what he had been doing when Louise brought him to rescue her, but he had a hardworking, windblown look about him as though he’d been wrestling with the earth and sky.

Jeff struggled with his baser self. He lost. “You know, sometimes snakes creep into cool places like this to wait out the heat of the day.”

“Do they?” Her tone was calm but she drew her skirts together around her ankles.

Darn! he thought. He’d been enjoying the glimpses he’d had of those delicate underpinnings. “Yeah,” he said. “But I’m sure you’re safe there. I don’t think they can climb stairs.”

“I won’t budge.”

He went back to pacing. Edith returned to dreaming.

The big, blond god of a man inched his way over to her like a lowly worm. Every motion caused his brow to contract and his lips to set hard against the pain of his bindings. Tears flowed freely from Lady Edith’s crystalline eyes as she suffered each pain with him. At last, he could lay his head in her lap.

“I came to rescue thee, “ he said. A bitter laugh broke from his throat. “A fine hand I have made of it.”

“ ‘Twas bravely done. “

“Nay, ‘twas folly. But when I learned what had become of thee, my brain was fired. I listened not to the counsels of my cooler friends, nor heeded any call but that of my love for thee. And now, what can I? Only die with thee. “

“That is enough,” she whispered brokenly, “For I would die gladly with thee.”

“What are you crying about?” Jeff asked, one foot on a step. He leaned forward to take her hand- “It’s not so bad. They’ll be along. Or listen ... I could try to break the latch again. I’m pretty sure I felt it give a little before.”

“I’m a fool,” Edith said vehemently, pulling her hand away. “Don’t take any notice, please.”

“What do you mean, don’t take notice? If you’re upset about being down here . . .”

He sat on the step beside her and put his arm around her waist. Snugging her against his side, he said softly, “Come on, darlin’. It’ll be all right.”

“I know,” she protested, sliding away from his warmth. She couldn’t accept his comfort under false pretenses. “The thing is ... you see, I make up . . .”

“What?” he asked after a long pause. She was blushing as though she were confessing a secret fondness for blood sacrifice at the height of the full moon.

“I invent stories. Awful lies.”

“Lies? Or stories? There’s a big difference.”

“No, there isn’t. A lie is an untruth, a falsehood. And a story is the same thing—making up people who never existed and who do things no one has ever done.” She hung her head. “I’ve always done it in secret.”

“That’s not so terrible,” he said, laughing a little at her air of utter disgrace. “Whoever told you . . . ? Let me guess. Your aunt.”

Edith made a further confession, not trying at all now to disturb his comforting arm. “Ever since she died, I have been . . . sneaking novels out of the library.”

“Is that some sort of a crime?”

“It’s unfair,” she said, surprised he didn’t understand. “And it might be illegal, I suppose. It was her subscription and she would never take a novel home. To her, they were the devil’s books. Do you suppose it really is against the law?” Her blue eyes, looking black with dilated pupils, went round at the idea.

She shook her head over her own wickedness. “It’s like an illness. I have tried to stop, to read only wholesome works-travel and biographies—but I always wind up taking home Dickens and Twain and Verne.”

“Three dangerous men.” He grinned at her and cuddled her closer in a teasing way, telling himself he was behaving just like a big brother. “Whose company I enjoy myself, when I’m not working on the stud records or the accounts. It’s not a crime or an illness to love to read great stories, Edith. I don’t care what your aunt told you. She was wrong.”

His face was so sincere that she was reassured. She said, “But you must admit that there is a difference between reading stories and making them up. That is a vice equal to drink.”

“Now how did you decide that?”

“When I am reading, I can put down the book and be Edith Parker again. I can do my household tasks and carry on rational conversations, when there is anybody there to talk with.”

Thinking of the squalor of her boardinghouse, Jeff hoped she had not talked much with the people he’d seen there. Drunken landlords and neighbors who looked to him like women for hire were not fit confidants for this gentle, intuitive girl.

“But when I make up stories,” Edith went on, “then it is a very different thing. My food burns, my bed isn’t made . . . and I talk to people without knowing what they said or how I answered.” Her voice dropped to a thread. “Some people in St. Louis thought I was crazy. But I was only thinking I was someone else.”

“Who?”

She shook her head and wouldn’t answer.

“Have you ever written any of these stories down? I’d like to read . . .”

“Oh, no! I mean, I could never let anyone read any of my stories. I just couldn’t. Besides, they are all gone now.”

“The fire?”

“Yes. Everything I knew about myself and all my dreams . . .”

Jeff cupped her soft cheek in his rough hand. Bringing her head up, he met her gaze. “You haven’t lost a thing,” he said, his thumb moving gently next to her quivering mouth. “You still know who you are. And you can find new dreams.”

What might have happened next haunted Edith’s thoughts. But just as she thought Jeff was about to kiss her—her eyes had even begun to close—there was a loud thump on the boards behind them.

“Hey, son. You down there?”

Jeff’s arm dropped from Edith’s shoulders. “Yes, sir. We sure as heck are!”

“Why?”

Half-laughing, Jeff shouted back, “What do you mean ‘why’? Get us out of here!”

“Yes, please, Sam, do,” Edith added.

“How in tarnation did you get the bolt across is what I want to know,” Sam said after wrenching open one of the doors. The prisoners emerged into the light, blinking and squinting.

“Those fool . . .” Jeff began, but Edith put her hand on his arm to stop him.

“I’m so glad that the girls found you, Sam. We might have been trapped down there all day.”

“Better you than me,” Sam answered with a shudder. “Always hated damp, enclosed places. The very idea gives me the jumps.”

“I don’t blame you! But I do thank you for rescuing us.”

“My pleasure, Cousin Edith. Always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress. I just never expected her to be in my root cellar with the big bohunkus I call ‘son.’ “ Sam headed off, his limp slightly more noticeable than usual.

“He must have run all the way,” Jeff said fondly, watching him go. “Thanks for stopping me telling him everything. He’d be awfully disappointed in the girls.” He turned toward her. Except for some dirt around her hem, she looked not a hair the worse for her confinement.

“I felt it was between you and them.”

“And you too. You’re in this discussion, all the way in.”

“Oh, but as a stranger . . .” Edith said, hanging back.

“Even a stranger has rights. You were locked up without a trial—that’s against the Constitution.”

“Are you a lawyer, too?” Edith asked as she followed reluctantly along.

“Heck, no. Paul is, though. He told me he’d taken an apprenticeship in the law while he was in San Francisco, though he could have bought and sold the fellow that schooled him. That’s why he’s only now getting around to coming back to Richey. And points East.”

“Miss Climson doesn’t know Mr. Tyler’s a lawyer, does she?”

“Not unless he told her last night. Dad said Paul asked to be dropped off where Miss Climson’s boarding this month. He seemed to think they might have stayed up late talking.” Jeff glanced back. Her face was so alive with speculation that he could almost read her thoughts.

“Now, look,” he began. “If you’re getting any ideas about matching Miss Climson up too . . ,”

“Too? But I had nothing to do with Mrs. Green and Mr. Hunaker. It was ... a force of nature. Like a tidal wave or an earthquake. Just because I was there doesn’t mean I caused it.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that,” Jeff said, mock-seriously, as he tapped his boot on the ground and his fingers against his chin. “Stands to reason that anybody who’s made as many matches as you have just might not be able to help herself.”

Catching his mood, made up no doubt of the sun peeking through the silvering clouds and the fresh breeze that seemed to fan the heat away, Edith said, “You may be right. Maybe it’s not under my control anymore. My astral self might just be matchmaking without my knowing anything about it.”

She pressed her hand to her brow and swayed as though in a mystic trance. “Yes . . . yes . . . ,” she sighed. “I can see it all so clearly. The past ... the future . . . Paul Tyler . . . Miss Climson . . . yes . . . yes. . . .”

Hearing those “yesses” on her sighing breath sent Jeff’s temperature up to the top of the mercury. He could easily imagine his kisses calling forth those provocative murmurs. Nevertheless, he made a real effort to hold on to this light-hearted mood.

“Oh, wise Madam Edith, never mind those other folks, tell me my future. Will I marry the woman I adore?”

“Describe her to me and I shall consult the spirit guides.”

“Oh, I’m on fire for her. She’s three feet tall, and moonfaced. Has a cast in her right eye and a hairy wart on the end of her nose. And, oh, how could I forget, a wooden leg.”

“That’s pretty vague. Left or right leg?” Edith couldn’t keep back a gurgle of laughter.

She snapped her eyes open as he pulled her against his hard chest. “You should laugh more often,” he said, his brown eyes intense. “It suits you.”

Edith wondered later if that was the moment she fell in love with him, or afterward when she saw him being stern yet gentle with his daughters? He held them each on one knee and made it clear that he never wanted them to play such a trick again. He never raised his voice nor his hand but he let them see his disappointment.

Maribel began to sniff and cry very soon after he started to speak. Louise, made of sterner stuff, kept a stone face. When her father excused them, however, she flung her arms around his neck and whispered something against his shirtfront.

Then both little girls crossed the room to where Edith sat, feeling very much in the way. “We’re sorry, Cousin Edith,” Louise said, her eyes more than her face betraying the depth of her feelings.

“Very sorry.”

“We won’t do it again,” Louise stated. Maribel looked mournful and shook her head.

“That’s all right,” Edith said, feeling as bad as they did. “Don’t cry any more, you’re good girls. I’m not angry. I was just worried about you.”

She glanced at Jeff to see if he approved of what she said. He returned her look with a smile and a thumbs-up. Warmed, she reached out to gather Maribel into her arms. Edith kissed the child’s soft, warm cheek. Maribel shyly touched her lips to Edith’s cheek in return.

Letting the younger girl wiggle down, Edith looked up and surprised a wistful expression passing over Louise’s face. Standing up, Edith quickly bent to hug the other girl tightly. It was a bit like embracing a doll carved from a single piece of wood. Edith pressed her lips to Louise’s smooth forehead.

“It’s all right, dear,” she said as she stepped back.

Louise nodded, her eyes as startled as a deer’s. For once, it was Maribel who spoke first. “Can we go play now. Dad?”

“No,” Jeff said. “I think you should go to your room and think over everything I’ve said. You can come down for dinner and then an early night.”

“Yes, sir,” the two said, dragging their feet over the rug.

Edith couldn’t bear their woebegone faces. “That’s too hard, Jeff. Louise, Maribel . . . come with me to church tonight?”

Their faces did not exactly light up. Obviously weighing the rival merits of their room and the church, Louise visibly came to the conclusion that church had ever so slightly an edge.

“Can we, Dad?”

“You’ll come too, Jeff, of course.”

Glumly, he answered, “Of course.”

Sam was no more cheerful about the idea than the rest of the family. Finally, he gave in to majority opinion. “Do I have to put on a stiff collar?”

“You should be used to them,” Edith said. “You must have worn them as a young man.”

“I hated them then too. But I guess you can’t go to church in a flannel shirt, no matter how comfortable.”

“Certainly not!” Edith smiled and hurried up the stairs. She’d promised to give the girls their baths and wanted to use the fine soap she’d found packed in some of her undergarments. It had a sweet lily-of-the-valley fragrance that made all her things smell so fresh. She was sure the girls would revel in it.

Edith had little time to think about Jeff until she was sitting beside him in the buggy. Yet he was always at the back of her mind, even while she was bathing the girls or learning how to bake biscuits by watching Sam. Sitting beside him now, she knew that she was already far too deeply in love with him to save herself.

He looked again like her rescuer from St. Louis, wearing his fine tan suit, his low-crowned hat tipped over one eye. Leaning back, she watched his face covertly from behind her veil. His firm jaw showed a scrape where he’d shaved too closely. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, while his keen eyes stayed upon the road, never flicking in her direction. Yet, after a few moments he smiled and said, “What?”

Startled, Edith also said, “What?”

“You’re staring at me.”

“No, no, I wasn’t.”

“Sure you were. Or were you looking past my nose at the scenery?”

“I wasn’t even looking in your direction.”

“Sure?”

“Absolutely.”

His smile widened, showing his white teeth as though he’d like to take a bite of her. Realizing she was staring again, she glanced down at her white-gloved hands. But when he said, “Whoa!” and pulled back on the reins, her gaze snapped up to his face as though it was drawn there by magnetic force.

“What are you doing?”

“Stopping. . . .”

“But you can’t!”

The wagon, carrying Sam and the girls, stopped beside them. Even their horses turned their heads to see what was the matter. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” Jeff said. “I’m just waiting for Edith to tell me . . .”

“Yes, I was,” Edith said quickly. “All right?”

“Sure thing.” He motioned for his father to go on ahead.

“It’s extortion. That’s what it is.” Edith bit her lip to keep from smiling. She didn’t want to encourage him in his outrageous behavior, but at the same time, she hoped he’d continue to say reckless things.

“Now where did a nice girl like you learn an ugly word like extortion?”

“A city can be an ugly place,” she said, looking at the trees. All the leaves were shiny, as though Mother Nature had passed through the woods with beeswax. A fresh smell permeated the air. Edith breathed deeply, for she’d never known such an exciting fragrance before. It spoke of the mysteries at the heart of the green woods, far from brick walls and stone streets.

“I know.” Jeff untangled his hand from the reins  and dropped it lightly over her knee. “Have you thought . . . you don’t have to go back. You could make a good life in Richey.”

“A good life, but not a good living. There isn’t much call for a matchmaker here.”

“I found a use for one. Besides, you do all your work through the mails, remember? Just list your post office as General Delivery, Richey, Missouri, until you get settled.”

“Now you’re tempting me, Mr. Dane.” Daringly, she patted his hand, very quickly, afraid of being burned. How could she possibly stay after he married someone else?

The church doors were open, a sign of welcome. Many buggies and wagons, even a four-person surrey with a fringed canopy, were parked in the green churchyard. The horses, some with nose bags, waited patiently for their masters in the glow of the setting sun. A few stragglers were climbing the church stairs.

“Are we late?” Edith asked anxiously. “I hate walking into church late. It makes such a poor impression.”

“No, we’re not late.”

“Then where is everyone?” Now the only people in sight were Sam and the girls.

“The service hasn’t started yet,” Jeff assured her.

“Oh, we’d better hurry though.” She wondered what the difference was to him between walking in late during the service or walking in late before the service. Everyone stared either way. Perhaps it was a distinction only a man would understand.

Maribel and Louise both slipped their hands into hers when they met crossing the grass. “We want to sit next to you,” Louise whispered as they entered the church.

No one noticed them. The citizens of Richey, all that attended here, were busy talking amongst themselves, a musical whispering punctuated by laughter. As Edith followed Sam and Jeff to an empty wooden pew near the back, she saw that the church, though simple, had been decorated with care. A few pictures were hung beside the red and blue windows, showing sentimental scenes from the Bible. Nearest her was one of Christ ministering to the little children.

To keep the girls from fidgeting, Edith told them the story.

Maribel was interested enough to stop banging her shoes against the pew in front. Louise, however, didn’t seem to be attending very closely. She had poked a finger into her ribs and was scratching vigorously.

“What is it?” Edith asked, interrupting herself.

“It’s this danged dress. It itches something fierce and I can’t ever seem to make it better.”

Edith considered reproving Louise for her language in the house of God, but having suffered through itchy dresses in her own girlhood, she understood perfectly. Not that she’d ever known the word “danged.”

“You must have on a horsehair petticoat.”

“I think it’s wool.”

“In the summertime?” Edith shook her head sympathetically. “We’ll find you a nice muslin one tomorrow.”

A peculiar wheezing followed by thin organ-like notes stilled the congregation. Edith could just see the back of Mrs. Armstrong’s head as she played the harmonium by the pulpit. With a concerted rustle and the thumps of feet hitting the floor, everyone stood up and began to sing the Twenty-third Psalm. Knowing the words well, Edith also sang, blending her voice with Jeff’s bold baritone and his father’s surprisingly lyrical bass as well as the piping voices of the girls.

When she sat down again, Maribel climbed onto her lap. Edith caught a gleam of admiration in Jeff’s eyes. She cast her gaze downward. A pretty situation when a smile from him made her insides feel all squeezed. She peeked to see if he was still looking at her but he was attending to Mr. Armstrong who mounted into the pulpit.

He wore his dark suit, and looked as though he were a lumberjack doing an imitation of a preacher. He spoke, however, with the true faith of a Christian ringing in every word. From his opening words, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light,” the preacher had the full attention of the assembly.

The women ceased to fan themselves with their paper fans bearing advertising mottos. The men sat up from relaxed attitudes, or leaned forward. Even the children stopped squirming, though they were the first to resume.

Mr. Armstrong went on, telling them that now was the time to consecrate themselves to Jesus, that soon there would be no more time for any repenting, for the Second Coming was surely now at hand. They had to be ready. Some people were nodding now, while a woman in the middle kept saying, “Amen!”

Edith felt the tension building in the little church. The intensity of feeling which Mr. Armstrong wrought from the people began to frighten her. It was like sitting next to a keg of black powder as the fuse dwindled, headed toward an inevitable explosion. She wanted to sink to the floor and cover her head.

Then the harmonium started again and the moment passed. When Mr. Armstrong began to speak after the hymn, he persuaded more gently, like a father encouraging a wayward son, rather than as an avenging spirit. The fans began waving again, languidly, stirring the stifling air.

Edith became aware that some heads had turned in her direction. Unable to believe anyone had a reason to look at her, she glanced over her shoulder. Vera Albans stood in the doorway, closing the door discreetly behind her. Her face flushed beneath her gaily decorated hat, she began walking as quietly and as quickly as possible up the aisle.

Sam sat at the end of their pew. He had also turned around to see the milliner creeping in late. As she approached, he signaled Jeff to scoot over. Edith had already moved the children down. She smiled a welcome when Sam snagged Miss Albans’s hand as she tiptoed toward her regular seat.

Miss Albans gasped at the sudden touch of his hand, and more heads swiveled in the Danes’ direction. Sam stood up, a tall figure in his checked suit, and let Miss Albans pass in front of him. He gave her a grin that was very nearly a duplicate of the one Jeff used when he wanted to fascinate. After they sat down. Miss Albans began to whisper to Sam, obviously offering explanations for her tardiness.

Few people seemed to be attending to Mr. Armstrong anymore. Most of the children were whispering. Some of the men were yawning, and Maribel was very nearly asleep.

Everyone woke up instantly, however, when Mr. Armstrong said, “Most of you know already that my daughter Dulcie is getting married soon. I reckon this would be a good chance for you all to meet her intended. Victory? Victor Sullivan? Come on up here. You, too, Dulcie.”

With some good-natured grumbling, and a nervous giggle from Dulcie, the happy couple stepped up onto the slightly raised platform at the end of the church. Edith leaned forward to peer at Dulcie’s fiancé. She interfered, accidentally, with Vera’s view. “I beg your pardon, Vera, I just want to see . . .”

He had a lean body, a handsome face in a pretty way, and a wide, friendly grin. His pale, pasty skin looked as though it had never been exposed to sunlight and he must put something on his hair to make it so shiny. Edith disliked him at sight. She glanced at the young lady next to her to see what she thought. No doubt that irreverent mind must have some comment.

What she saw shocked her. Vera Albans was white, literally as white as the lace collar of her dress. Some beads of sweat had appeared at the edges of her red-gold hair, and she bit her lips until Edith thought she must be tasting her own blood.

Instantly, Edith transferred Maribel to Jeff. She touched Vera’s arm. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

“Air . . . please . . . outside . . .” Her eyes were eloquent with misery. Edith could not resist the plea.

Supporting Vera’s elbow with her hand, she said, “Excuse us, Sam. Miss Albans is unwell.”

Once again the tall man stood up. Jeff at the other end of the pew stared worriedly past Mantel’s head on his shoulder. Edith waved at him as she assisted Vera out of doors. Sam remained standing, staring after the two women until his son tugged him down.