Cascades Christmas

by Mildred Colvin

  Where was she? Probably with Anna and Tuck.

  He looked their direction. No, they sat contented and alone near the barn’s half-open east door. Tuck laughed at whatever Anna was saying, and beyond them a light rain shower glistened in the afternoon sunshine. On the chair next to Anna was Larkin’s feather-decked hat. No Larkin.

  “See, I told you she left.”

  E.V. focused on the rain dripping down the barn door’s frame. While wisdom said Larkin was too proper to walk out into the rain, he knew she wouldn’t have left unless she had a good reason. “I need to make sure she gets home safely.” He took a step, and with both hands, Miss Leonard grabbed his arm, stopping him.

  “Oh, no need for the gallantry, Mr. Renier,” she said, smiling. “While you were talking to Daddy, I watched Larkin get into the Whitworth carriage. Stop worrying.” She tugged on his coat sleeve. “Let’s dance. Daddy is watching, and I aim to do all I can to ensure you get that contract you want.”

  E.V. glanced across the barn to see her father was indeed watching them. Relieved that Larkin wasn’t walking home in the rain, he escorted Miss Leonard to the other dancers, minus David Bollen, who also seemed to have disappeared. Tomorrow when Larkin was at worship services, E.V. would find a way to speak to her privately. To encourage her to be patient. To wait.

  No one, not Abigail Leonard or Larkin’s father, would come between them.

  Chapter 3

  Who had stuffed her mouth with cotton? Why was the room so hot? Without even opening her eyes, which were too tired anyway, Larkin reached for her chest to remove whatever weight was on it and found several heavy quilts. She felt—

  “Awful,” she croaked.

  “Yes, dear,” Mama said softly, “you do look terrible. I imagine you must feel it, too.”

  Larkin opened her heavy lids to the sunlight brightening her pristine white bedroom, only to shield them from the painful light. She tried to raise her head from the many pillows behind her, but her head, neck, and shoulders ached.

  Every time she felt sick, her mother made her stay in bed for a week, not by demanding it but by “medicating” her with the honey-whiskey-herb sleep aid she’d learned from her Chinook mother, who’d learned it from her mother, who learned it from the Scottish fur trader she’d married at Fort Astoria back in 1811. One drink to cure all ills.

  And it didn’t taste any better with additional honey or spices.

  Larkin shuddered.

  Mama, sitting in one of the two Queen Anne chairs near the hearth, put down her embroidery. She lifted a crystal goblet from the circular table between the chairs and brought it to Larkin. Her crimson taffeta skirt rustled as she walked, her slanted brows rising in concern.

  “Drink this, dearest.” She offered the half-full goblet that Larkin didn’t take. She could smell the whiskey on her mother’s breath.

  “I’m fine,” Larkin rushed to say as she kicked off the excessive blankets. Then realizing her head, neck, and shoulders didn’t ache as much as they felt stiff from nonuse, she stopped kicking as abruptly as she started. Her bladder was near close to exploding. And everything in her room seemed to spin, which made her nauseous. Remembering the frigid rain she’d walked home through after leaving the wedding, she knew—knew—what happened after she’d returned home last night. She closed her eyes and gripped her bed to still the spinning and to think.

  Was it last night?

  Larkin looked to the clock on the mantel above the fireplace. She blinked until her eyes could focus. Six minutes until eleven o’clock.

  She met her mother’s gaze. “What day is it?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Thursday?” She immediately regretted yelling because it only made her head ache more. Her day had just started and was turning into one of regrets. She rolled her eyes because that seemed to be the only movement that didn’t make her regretful. “You medicated me again. For four and a half days. Mama! Why?”

  Tears glistened in Mama’s dark eyes. “To ward off sick tumtum.“

  Sickness of the body.

  Larkin never had the courage to remind her mother that the actual translation of sick tumtum was sickness of the heart.

  While Maire-Dove Larkin Whitworth dressed with the elegance of any society grand dame, in moments like this, Mama looked more like the superstitious native Papa had tried for years to cure her of being. He’d even had her black hair lightened to almost a blond and required she stay out of the sun so her skin would stay more cream than copper, which caused most in Tumwater to forget she was a Metis, mixed-blood. Then again, a good number of Washingtonians could claim a degree of Indian blood. Even Anna boasted being Dutch-Scots so she could be included in the American crucible of races.

  “I’m not—I wasn’t sick,” Larkin clarified.

  “Your gown was soaked when you arrived. Your teeth were chattering and your nose was red.” Mama paused. “I heard you cough.”

  “But that didn’t mean you needed to medicate me.”

  “Darling, you’re feverish.”

  “Not from any sickness.” Although, she did feel a bit dizzy from the medication—not that she’d tell her mother—and her head felt utterly heavy. Larkin removed the last blanket and unbuttoned the neckline of the ridiculously ornate nightgown she always found herself in after waking up with sick tumtum, real or imaginary. “Mama, you’re smothering me again.”

  “I don’t wish …” With a broken sob, Mama sat on the edge of the bed. “I am, aren’t I? My heart can’t bear losing you, too.”

  Although she figured the pain of losing a sibling couldn’t be as deep as that of losing a child, Larkin understood why Mama behaved as she did. Though it had been almost five years since her brother died, the intensity of missing him hurt more than any physical pain she’d ever suffered. Some nights she’d wake thinking Sean had once again stolen into her room and invited her to join him in another adventure that would earn them a paddling, lecture, or usually both. Unlike her, nothing about Sean had been dull. Life without him still didn’t feel right.

  Her heart and frustration softening with compassion, she eased forward on the bed until she could rest her head on her mother’s shoulder. She wrapped her arms around Mama and prayed for patience with—and peace for—her mother … and for herself.

  Oh Lord God, I know I shouldn’t have walked home in the rain, considering Mama’s fears, but I couldn’t bear seeing Abigail cling to E.V. as if he were hers. Either take away my love for E.V. or show me why I should continue waiting for him.

  “Loving and losing someone hurts,” she whispered, “but it’ll be all right, Mama. I’ll be all right. You’re going to be all right.” Someday. She kissed Mama’s shoulder. “God has us in His hands. Naika ticky maika.“

  Mama patted Larkin’s hands. “I love you, too.”

  Larkin closed her eyes, lids still heavy from the last dose of Mama’s feeling-sick drink. While she wouldn’t mind sleeping off the aftereffects of the medication, she needed to deliver pies, or something else if the pies weren’t baked, to the Bollen parsonage. Bringing the family food every Wednesday was the least she could do for the service and ministry they provided Tumwater.

  Considering it was Thursday, not Wednesday, she doubted E.V. would be waiting to walk with her to the Bollens’.

  She glanced across the room to the mirror atop her vanity table. Her hair appeared clean yet tangled from having been washed and dried as she slept; her eyes had violet bags underneath. Overall, not the best she’d looked nor the worst. Yet if she hurried to dress and didn’t run into any human obstacles on the way, she could deliver food to the Bollens and still make it to the brewery in time to share a luncheon with Papa.

  Yes, a brisk walk would do wonders.

  Her stomach rolled. First though, she needed to empty her stomach and bladder.

  Knowing something else needed to go down the commode as well, Larkin took the cordial from her mother. “We’ve both had enough.”

  Chapter 4
/>   Still content to pine for your ladylove? I’d have thought with Mrs. Ellis’s praise, the ‘impeccable Mr. Tate’ would have earned the right to court any lady in Tumwater.” E.V. shoved the tail ends of the freshly cut pine boards into the filled wagon then smacked his gloves together to rid them of wood shavings. With a crooked grin, he patted Willum’s shoulder as Willum leaned over the side of the wagon, staring absently at the wooden planks in the bed. “Well, you know what they say.”

  “No, what do they say?” Willum grumbled.

  “If at first you don’t succeed,” E.V. said, resting his elbows on the wagon’s side, “try and try again. That’s my motto.”

  The “impeccable” Mr. Tate did little more than glare in response. Any frown was hidden by his bristly winter beard, yet despite his lumberjack appearance, Willum was still the grapevine telegraph’s favorite bachelor. Apparently, women liked his green eyes, shoulder-length hair, and ability to construct anything from outhouses to rabbit houses to tree houses to homes almost as large as the Whitworth mansion.

  Considering how much attention Willum received from women, he should’ve been the first between Jeremiah, Frederick,

  E.V., and him to marry. Would have been if things had worked out differently.

  E.V. looked to the buildings opposite the mill. At the right end of the street was the whitewashed church. At the other end of Main Street was the Whitworth Brewery, one of the many businesses in town Larkin’s father owned, or partially owned. E.V. didn’t want to think about the companies the man owned throughout the Pacific Northwest region.

  Everything Whitworth touched turned into a financial success.

  After all the thirty-minute Wednesday morning visits they’d shared since E.V. began asking for Larkin’s hand in marriage one-hundred-and-two-weeks ago, E.V. knew that for every financial loss, Patrick Whitworth had a dozen successes. The man would have to face losses as catastrophic as Job had to be considered a failure. Unlike E.V.’s father, who had an uncanny ability to lose the family fortune and manage two banks and a railroad into bankruptcy over the course of ten years. For all their differences, his father and Mr. Whitworth shared one commonality: faith in money to solve all woes and none in God.

  As E.V. and Willum stood in silence, their breath puffed in misty clouds into the cool December air. Not quite freezing but getting there. To think almost a week ago the afternoon temperature was twenty degrees warmer.

  So much for the Farmer’s Almanac‘s prediction of a warm though wet December.

  “How much of a prediction,” E.V. said breaking the silence, “is it for the almanac to say it’ll be wet this time of year when it’s always wet this time of year?” He looked into the increasing clouds in the bright yet gray sky. “We have two hours at most before the next shower.”

  Willum sighed loudly. “I don’t see how Whitworth can reject you when you and his daughter are the most weather-obsessed people in town.” He withdrew something from his heavy yet tattered woolen coat and stared wistfully at it.

  Best E.V. could tell, it was a palm-sized carving of some type of animal. If Willum ever stopped building and repairing houses, he could make a living with his intricate wood carving skill alone.

  Content to let their conversation die, E.V. hummed “Joy to the World” as he watched the occasional jingle-bell-decked wagon or buggy roll past. He hoped to see the mail wagon. Any day now, the sterling Gorham bell he’d ordered for Larkin for Christmas would arrive. This year he planned on making it an engagement gift instead of a gift from an anonymous admirer.

  “Eric, are you ever going to stop asking to marry Larkin?”

  At that moment, E.V. realized Willum was in a more surly mood than usual, because those were the only times Willum ever called him by his given name.

  From the corner of his eye, E.V. glanced at Willum. He looked wounded. Broken. Love never seemed to treat Willum well.

  “No,” he honestly answered. “Is there something else bothering you?”

  Willum’s grip tightened around the carving. “What if Whitworth never agrees?”

  “He will.”

  “Your confidence borders on foolishness. Sometimes you need to cut your losses.” Willum turned to face E.V. “You should sell the mill and start a business where you don’t have to be at Silas Leonard’s beck and call.”

  “Can’t,” E.V. answered. “My investment partner will lose money, and I won’t go back on my word. Besides, with the mammoth amount of wood you’re regularly buying from me, I need another lumber supplier to keep up with the demand.”

  Willum shook his head in obvious disappointment—or maybe disbelief—that E.V. would choose faithfulness over the easy solution. The latter was more likely considering Willum’s past. His gaze turned from E.V. and refocused on the carving he held.

  E.V. breathed in the cool air. He loved Tumwater more than any other place he’d lived. “Willum, stop worrying on my behalf. The contract I’m offering Leonard makes us equals.”

  “He’s doing his best to ensure his daughter is part of the contract.”

  “I realize that.” Now. E.V. shuddered. In all his twenty-five years, he’d never felt as much a fool as he had during the last half of Frederick and Emma’s wedding reception. Silas Leonard never had any intention of discussing the contract that day. No, he’d merely wanted it to look like E.V. was courting his daughter.

  Willum repocketed the carving. “I need to get back to work, and you need to stop being so optimistic about life and intervene.”

  “Intervene in what?”

  “In that.” He motioned to the paved sidewalk on the other side of the street.

  At the intersection of Main and the street leading to the Whitworth Mansion, stood Larkin, wearing a mustard-colored cape and clutching a basket with both hands. Miss Leonard, clad in a reddish-pink cape, stood near the rear of the small buckboard she often drove around town. To say the two were having a conversation would be an overstatement because only Miss Leonard was talking, and whatever she was saying made Larkin’s normally straight posture slump.

  Without another word to Willum, E.V. took off running.

  “The perfect Larkin Whitworth is pickled. I never thought I’d see the day.” Abigail covered her mouth as if to hide her laughter, but Larkin still heard it, felt it, smelled every greasy bit of it. Smelled it?

  Larkin breathed deep and grimaced. Since the linen-covered basket she carried only contained fruit from Mama’s conservatory, the rancid odor had to be emanating from the white wicker picnic basket on the back of the Leonard buckboard.

  “Abigail, stop. I’m not—”

  Hearing footsteps crossing the bricked street, Larkin looked to her left and her vision momentarily blurred. How was it possible she felt worse after eating a soft-boiled egg and a bowl of bouillon? Now that she’d stopped walking, she felt so sleepy. She blinked until her eyesight cleared, although the movement—odd but true—sounded as loud as hammers against wood.

  E.V. ran toward them, wearing denims and a woolen vest over a flannel shirt. How could he not be cold? Just looking at him made her shiver.

  “I think the almanac got this December wrong,” she mused aloud. “It doesn’t feel warm at all.”

  Abigail leaned toward Larkin until their noses almost touched. “I know what a drunkard looks like and how one talks,” she whispered, and her eyes seemed sad. But the familiar spiteful glee took its place so quickly Larkin knew she had imagined any sadness. The corners of Abigail’s mouth indented into a smug grin. “E.V.’s finally going to see you aren’t the good Christian girl you’ve convinced everyone you are. I win. You lose.”

  Larkin blinked at the surprising and eerily cheerful admission. She’d never felt they were enemies, even though Abigail had never been receptive to her overtures of friendship.

  “When did we begin a competi—?”

  “Mornin’, ladies,” E.V. said as he stopped at the back of the buckboard, approximately equal distance between them, Larkin noted. His war
m breath showed in the chilly air, the tip of his nose a little red.

  Thrilled to end the confusing conversation with Abigail, Larkin tilted her head, which wasn’t any less heavy since she woke up an hour ago, and studied him. Something was different. His short yellow hair was still sun-bleached to almost white at the tips because he never wore a hat. His eyes were still a lovely shade—medium brown with golden rays in the iris and possibly some orange. Rather similar in color to the vile honey-whiskey cordial she had dumped out despite Mama’s protest.

  He wasn’t as stunningly attractive as Mr. Tate, but Larkin liked E.V.’s square-jawed, dimpled-chinned, less-than-shining handsomeness. Still, what was different about him?

  “Your face is bristly,” she muttered.

  E.V. nodded. “I didn’t shave this morning.”

  “Why not?” she blurted.

  “I hate shaving so I only do it on Sundays, Wednesdays, and special occasions like my friends’ weddings. My skin is sensitive.”

  He looked at her oddly. “Are you all right?”

  Larkin smiled and nodded and hoped that was enough of an answer—only she nodded too much. The pounding in her head increased, causing the food Cook had claimed would lessen the aftereffects of the cordial to roll in her stomach.

  This was the worst Mama had ever medicated her. She needed to leave before she lost her breakfast, yet propelled by curiosity, she asked, “Then why do you shave at all?”

  “Larkin Whitworth!” Abigail sniped in her irritatingly shrill voice. “I can’t believe you asked Mr. Renier something so personal.” She stepped closer to E.V. and touched his sleeve. “Mr. Renier, let me apologize for my dear friend. I hate to say this, but she’s been imbibing.”

  “I haven’t,” and “She has?” came out in unison.

  E.V. stepped around Abigail to face Larkin. “You don’t look well.”