Eternal Deception

by Jane Steen

  “Is that food?” I asked, eyeing the bountiful haul.

  Teddy grinned. “Bread, chicken, cheese, new apples, and two big jars of lemonade.” He hefted the bag to demonstrate its weight and then clapped a hand to his flat stomach. “It’s making me hungry again just thinking ‘bout it.”

  “How can you possibly be hungry?” His sister appeared behind him, her tone teasing rather than tinged with her usual irritability. “I’ve never seen anyone eat as much as you do. You should be in the circus.” She saw me and Sarah and smiled, holding out something to my daughter.

  “Look, Sarah. See this pretty hat? It was mine once, and then I gave it to Lucy; but she doesn’t mind at all if I give it to you. We don’t want you to get freckles, do we?” She bent and showed Sarah the hat, a wide-brimmed straw affair trimmed with blue ribbons and small white flowers.

  Four-year-old girls don’t bear a grudge for long. Sarah reached for the hat and placed it on her head, smiling with delight. Thea crouched so she could fasten the ribbons under my daughter’s chin.

  “And I made a batch of jam turnovers especially for you.” Thea patted the saddlebag, a winning smile on her face. “Except maybe you might have to give one or two to Teddy. He eats like a panther, doesn’t he?” She turned her smile on her brother, who regarded her warily.

  “Why are you in such a good mood?” he asked.

  Thea sighed. “I guess I’m looking forward to a holiday; working as hard as I do does give me a temper at times.” She raised her eyes to me. “You look beautiful, Mrs. Lillington. Are you looking forward to seeing your old friend today?”

  “I am.”

  My mind was racing to discover why the child was acting so pleasantly. This was a side of Thea I had never seen and didn’t trust. “You look very pretty yourself.”

  She did—she wore a dress I had just made for her, a dark blue sprigged calico that was rugged enough for everyday wear but an elegant article for a young girl. It skimmed her ankles, a length perhaps more suited to a girl of fourteen or fifteen, but given the incipient womanliness of her figure, I didn’t think she looked well in shorter dresses. The bodice fitted perfectly, showing off her small waist and the curves above and below. She had brushed her hair till it shone and put it half-up in a style that enhanced the effect of her large hazel eyes with their thick fringe of lashes.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Thea bobbed a sort of mock curtsey in my direction. “You’re very kind to a simple girl from the plains.”

  This was the first real sign she had given of insincerity, and I felt my eyes narrow, but Thea smiled at me again—she had small, even white teeth like her mother’s—and put her arm around Sarah’s shoulders.

  “I’m such a tease, aren’t I, Sarah?” She picked Sarah up, pretending to protest at my daughter’s weight. “Oof, you’re such a big girl now.”

  “You will take care, won’t you?” I couldn’t help myself asking. “Don’t go too far, and don’t let Sarah get too hot or tired.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Teddy said, slinging his bag over one shoulder. “She gets to ride Blaze all the way there and back.”

  “Aren’t you lucky, Sarah?” Thea asked, her voice a soft coo as she kissed my daughter on her cheek. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Lillington,” she said over her shoulder as they turned to go. “We’ll take very good care of her.”

  “A quarter past three already.” The balcony outside the library was not long—six paces from side to side. And I knew this because I had paced across it some fifty times already, noting the same chip in the stonework each time I turned toward the south. When I stopped and looked west for a sign of the children, the sun, if not obscured by the fleeting drifts of cloud that raced across the sky, shone into my eyes, so I had to shade them with both hands and squint.

  “Nell, stop.” Tess put out a hand to restrain me as I set out to resume my pacing. “The students are laughing at you.”

  “Not anymore, they aren’t.” Judah stepped out onto the balcony and came to stand beside me. “I presume by your dress that you’re expecting your friends from Chicago to arrive directly; but aren’t you waiting on the wrong side of the building?”

  “It’s the children.” Tess said, tipping up her head to peer at Judah, the sunlight reflecting off her spectacles. “They were supposed to be back by three, and Nell’s fretting.”

  “Yes, I can see you’re fretting.” Judah spoke to me rather than to Tess, but then he glanced sideways at her. “And you, Miss O’Dugan, not yet in your finery?”

  “That’s why I came to find Nell,” Tess said a little sullenly. “I need help to dress. I didn’t want to get my pink dress all dirty by wearing it earlier.”

  “Well then, here’s the solution.” Judah touched my arm lightly. “Nell, you go help your friend dress, and I will take over your lookout duty. It will be good for you to have something to occupy your mind. You’ve been stalking around like a cat on a wall all day.”

  “Ah, there you are.” Judah greeted me on the stairs a half hour later as Tess and I—she now arrayed in fetching pink—descended from our room. “We have one of the miscreants safe, at least.”

  “One?” I felt as if a lump of ice had dropped down the back of my dress.

  “Miss Lombardi. With some tale of your daughter taking it into her head to run off from the party.”

  “Where is she?” I was already running down the stairs, a difficult feat in my smart clothes.

  Judah opened the door leading to the second floor, where the guest rooms were located. “With her parents. They’re none too pleased with her, I think.”

  I barely gave Pastor Lombardi time to respond to my knock before bursting into the room. The whole family was crammed into one large bedroom, as the Calderwoods had reserved the better suite for the Rutherfords. The little parlor that adjoined it barely had space for its two heavy armchairs, a bookcase, and an inconsequential table that served to hold a lamp.

  Pastor Lombardi sat in one of the armchairs, Catherine in another, and before them stood Thea, her back to me. She twisted around as I entered, and I could see her eyes were dry, if slightly red, her mouth set in a line of sullen obstinacy.

  “Why didn’t you stay with Sarah?” I asked her.

  She gave a slight stamp with her foot. “Because Teddy took the horse to go after Sarah and left me all alone, so I had to walk all the way back by myself, and now I’m the one in trouble because of it. It isn’t fair.”

  She darted a furious look at her mother, whose face was set in an expression I knew well from when she was the matron at the Poor Farm. The skeptical expression that said she was sure she was being lied to.

  “But why did she run off?” My heart pounded in fear.

  Thea’s eyes hardened, and her mouth clamped shut even tighter.

  “That’s precisely the question,” Catherine said. “It seems highly unlikely to me that such a small child would run away on a whim.” She stared hard at her daughter, but Thea didn’t move a muscle.

  “We’ll get no straight answers here.” Pastor Lombardi rose to his feet, grabbing his flat-brimmed black hat from its resting place on the bookcase. “Best to waste no more time and to go after them; it’ll be dark in two hours or so. I’ll get the servants to put the horse to the cart.”

  I turned to see Judah shaking his head. He had stayed outside the parlor but had heard everything through the open door. “Andrew took the cart to Wichita this morning. He’ll be staying overnight, I’d imagine.”

  “And my mule is at the farrier’s in Springwood; an hour to walk there . . . No, it’ll put us two hours behind, going in the wrong direction.” The pastor’s expression of calm imperturbability shifted into alarm.

  “Teddy would look after Sarah though, wouldn’t he?” Tess was also outside the door, her face creased in anxiety.

  “If he could find her.” I felt panic rising up inside me, a viscous bubble. “She’s so small, and it’s not all short grass around here. She could be in among some taller plants
, and he wouldn’t see her. She could have fallen into a swale or a gully—and there are wolves . . .” A trickle of sweat ran between my breasts, and my palms were damp.

  “We’ll need lanterns and matches. A blanket or two—tied up in a bundle so I can sling it over my shoulders. Some oats in case we see Blaze—that nag’s all too inclined to spook at shadows once it starts getting dark.” The pastor spoke to Judah, who nodded and set off in the direction of the stairs.

  It was fully twenty minutes before the men were ready, and I waited for them in a fever of impatience by the outbuildings. I had not dared to go upstairs to change my dress, fearing they would start without me. The cloakroom yielded a hooked iron stick of the type used to handle snakes, with which I could hold up my train. I also found some overshoes belonging, no doubt, to one of the students. They would have to do.

  As I waited, I scanned the horizon, but no small dots appeared that could be Teddy or his horse. I didn’t think I would be able to see Sarah from any distance; whatever had possessed me to allow so small and fragile a being out in that vast wilderness?

  29

  Wolf

  “A needle in a haystack.” Pastor Lombardi flexed his back, squinting toward the sun, which hung serenely above the horizon in a sky devoid of cloud. The seminary was out of sight. By my reckoning, we must have walked two or three miles, and still no sign of Sarah or Teddy.

  “I’m slowing you down. I’m so sorry,” I panted for the dozenth time, wiping sweat and dust off my forehead with the back of my hand. Despite my attempts to keep my dress clear of the grass, the lower portions of my skirt were constantly caught at by dried stalks, the burrs ripping off to attach themselves lovingly to the velvet panels. The ground beneath our feet was uneven—there were no proper paths in this direction, only the faint trails left by animals or Indians long ago—and I had turned my ankle in my overshoes more times than I could count.

  “In truth, we would have been quicker by ourselves.” Judah smiled as he helped me tug my skirt free of the embrace of a multi-stemmed plant. “But I can understand that you’d find staying at home unbearable.”

  “Since we’ve stopped,” said the pastor, “perhaps you could call again, Nell?”

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and called “Sarah!” as loud as I could several times. Then we listened for about two minutes, and when no answer was forthcoming, Pastor Lombardi shouted his son’s name and Sarah’s in his stentorian voice. This had been our practice since we set off; the answer was invariably the faint sighing of the prairie wind, gentle today but never flagging.

  “I see something.” Judah whipped round toward the south, shading his eyes with his hand. “Call again,” he said over his shoulder to the pastor.

  Pastor Lombardi complied, and the moving dot came closer. My heart leapt into my throat.

  “It’s the horse.” Judah evidently had keener eyes than the rest of us. “No rider though.” He dug into the cloth bag he was carrying for the small sack of oats.

  And indeed, within five minutes the gelding Blaze ambled up to us with an expression of curiosity in its large brown eyes. It snuffled at Judah’s coat as he ran his hands down its forelegs to check for injury. The horse was saddled and bridled and looked perfectly at ease with the world. It chewed its oats thoughtfully and flicked its soft-looking ears back and forth to catch the small noises of the prairie.

  “If he spooked at something, it was some time ago.” Judah checked the girth of the saddle and adjusted the stirrups as he spoke. “Let’s hope he didn’t throw one of the children off.”

  I felt sick. It must have shown in my face, as Pastor Lombardi put a firm hand on my shoulder.

  “It’s unlikely,” he said with a swift glance at Judah. “He’s a good enough horse for not rearing or bucking. Just a tendency to bolt when he’s no rider on his back.” He looked over the saddle and its equipment. “The saddlebags are missing—and look,” he said, showing me a piece of rope that dangled from the bridle, “Teddy probably tied him instead of hobbling him—which would have been more sensible,” he muttered under his breath. “No matter—we now have a horse, which is a great advantage.”

  Judah grasped the pommel and swung easily up into the saddle, settling down against the high back as if it were a comfortable chair. He spent a few moments putting the gelding through its paces, evidently checking for the uneven gait that would suggest an injury.

  “All well.” He looked down at me, smiling. The sun, now sinking fast to the horizon, haloed his hair with gold. “I’ll begin by circling around the area from which the nag came. We’ll have some kind of light for another hour, by my reckoning—time enough to travel quite a way if this animal’s as fresh as it seems. Light the lanterns as soon as dusk falls,” he added, looking at the pastor. “I’ll take care not to lose you, as long as you keep heading directly west.”

  And with that he was gone, the gelding’s hooves raising small clouds of dust as Judah urged it into a trot.

  He circled around twice before we lit the lanterns. When he left us for the third time, the western horizon was a brilliant red shading into whiteness before it met the deepening blue of the sky, with the brightest stars beginning to emerge.

  I was slowing down. The overshoes were horribly uncomfortable, but when I tried taking them off, I seemed to struggle even more with the uneven ground under the thin soles of my best shoes. I appeared to have developed a skill for finding every hidden hole and stone under the lush dry growth of summer and had fallen to my knees more than once, leaving large patches of dust on the front of my skirts. I cursed myself for not stopping to put on something more practical.

  The approach of nightfall made the squeezing sensation in my chest increase. Once it was night, we’d never find them, and the chill of evening was already beginning to settle over us. Did they still have the blanket Teddy had brought with them for their picnic? Would Teddy have the sense to ensure Sarah was warm? If he had found her, a voice inside me said, and a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air raised gooseflesh on my arms. Sarah could be huddled in a hollow, chilled to the bone, that very moment.

  My heart sank as I saw Judah ride back to us again, alone on the gelding. He had not found her, then, and surely he could not continue to search in the darkness. I braced myself to hear that we needed to return to the seminary, that the situation was hopeless, but to my surprise, Judah began shouting, “I’ve found them!” as soon as he was within earshot.

  “Where? Why aren’t they with you?” I grasped the bridle, straining to see Judah’s face in the dim light.

  “Sarah won’t come. She says,” Judah swallowed and licked his lips briefly, “that she never wants to see you again.”

  “What that child needs,” said Judah as he tied the bundle of blankets to the saddle, “is a good spanking with a wooden spoon. She bit young Lombardi, you know, on the arm. You’ll be lacking in your moral duty if you don’t punish her severely.”

  “Perhaps we should wait to see why Sarah has acted thus before you advocate punishment?” asked the pastor mildly.

  We had decided to walk the distance—not much more than a quarter mile, Judah estimated, only we had been walking in quite the wrong direction—to rest the horse. It would be carrying at least Sarah on the way back to the seminary. It could not carry all three of us in any case.

  Judah assured me that Teddy had a tight hold on Sarah, but that didn’t stop me from grinding my teeth in impatience as we set off. Before I had become a mother, I had never understood the meaning of the word “longing.” Now I knew it well, that visceral urge to have Sarah by my side again, to hold and not let go.

  “The child’s motives are irrelevant,” Judah said. He led the horse with one hand, a lantern in the other, and the rocking pool of golden light illuminated a rank growth of tangled grass, browned by the sun. “Children must learn to behave, that is all. A child who is not corrected will grow into an adult without a sense of moral responsibility.”

  I liste
ned with only half an ear, straining to see into the darkness in front of us. I wished we hadn’t lit the lanterns. The night was clear and starlit, and we probably could have seen farther ahead without them.

  My attention was so drawn to what was ahead of us that I forgot to pick my way carefully across the uneven ground. I stumbled twice in quick succession, once tearing the hem of my dress so it dragged along the ground and had a tendency to get under my feet. I was holding the hook that supported my train with both hands now; it felt dreadfully heavy. Why had I been such a fool?

  After what seemed a lifetime, I thought I heard Sarah’s voice ahead of us. I quickened my pace—and caught my overshoes in the hem of my dress.

  The sudden entanglement sent me flying forward so I landed with a thump that completely winded me. I slid along in the dirt, feeling a sharp stinging sensation in my nose, forehead and wrists, helpless to stop my forward momentum, conscious of popping and tearing sensations in the bodice of my dress as the ornamental bows caught and ripped.

  “Are you all right?” It was the pastor’s voice. Large hands grasped my shoulders. I sat up, wheezing and spitting dirt and grit as I fought for breath.

  “Momma? Teddy, let me go. I think Momma fell over.” Sarah’s voice, high and piercing, carried easily in the still night air. In just a moment, I felt her small hands on my neck and clutched her fiercely to me, still unable to speak.

  Sarah pushed back a little and studied me in the lamplight. “Your face looks terrible, Momma. You’re bleeding.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to talk to her ever again?” Teddy’s voice sounded behind her, almost indignant.