“What do you do with all of this?” Jodee took some in her hand.
“We trim Miss Avinelle’s things,” Maggie said as if Jodee should have known.
“I wonder what Mr. Quimby would give you for this.” There was a camel-back trunk in a far corner and a flat-topped chest near the door. “You sit here night after night, making all this? I’ve never seen you go to the store for thread.” Jodee had never seen Maggie set foot outside the house.
“Miz Theia brings what I need from Cheyenne City. She takes care of me.”
“Well,” Jodee said with a sigh. “She don’t like me, that’s certain. If I knew how to do this I’d make a mile of it and sell it for a ticket out of this town. Do you ever think of working for somebody else?”
Maggie looked baffled.
That’s when Jodee spied the music box on the floor on the far side of the chair. With an impish smile Maggie snatched it up and handed it to Jodee.
So, Maggie had the music box. Almost loath to touch it, Jodee turned it over and saw an engraved name on the bottom. She expected it to be Widow Ashton’s name, but elegant swirls spelled something different.
“Do you read? Books, I mean,” Jodee asked. “I don’t read much. I ain’t been to school in a long time.”
Maggie’s expression was lively, but she said nothing.
“Did you live back east with Widow Ashton and Avinelle?”
Maggie nodded.
“Does this belong to Widow Ashton or Avinelle?” She ran her finger across the name. “E—lee—a—nor Holl—ee—worth,” she read aloud. “New…York.”
With a look of horror, Maggie scrambled backward. “I won’t tell!” she cried. “You can’t make me!”
“Maggie, sh—h—h.” Trying to calm the woman, Jodee put the music box down. “I’m thirsty. Are you thirsty? Would you like a taste of coffee with lots of cream and sugar?”
Maggie pushed Jodee out of the room, locked the door, and flew down the stairs. Back in the kitchen, Jodee edged close to Hanna and explained what had just happened. “Who’s Eleanor Hollingsworth?”
“Nobody around here by that name, honey. New York, you say? That’s back east. A real big town.”
“You don’t suppose the music box is stolen.”
“More like Miz Theia bought it in a second hand shop. I told you she ain’t as well fixed as she’d like everybody to believe.” She explained what a second-hand shop was.
Jodee returned to her chores, but for the remainder of the day she took note of all the beautiful handiwork all over the house. Just where did Widow Ashton and Avinelle come by their finery? She didn’t see Maggie again.
In spite of Widow Ashton’s announcement that she and Avinelle were ready to receive, no one called on them. With the coming of spring, the house seemed less chilly. Jodee went to Patsy’s each afternoon to do laundry and visit with Baby Henry who was thriving. Virgil sat in the rocker, frail and thin. Patsy looked happier.
At night, Jodee was certain she heard stealthy footsteps outside the house but never saw anything. Sometimes she heard strange noises inside the house she couldn’t account for. Maggie avoided her.
“Do you know anyone named Eleanor Hollingsworth?” she asked Bailey one afternoon.
“Some wealthy socialite back east,” he said, turning a flower bed. “Saw her name in a newspaper one time. Married a financier, I believe. A money man, lassie.” Then he smiled one of his rare smiles. “I wasn’t one for reading the society column.” He had to explain what a newspaper society column was. Were Widow Ashton and Avinelle pretenders? Jodee wondered. Was she dipping curtseys to a thief and a liar?
Early Thursday morning, preparations for the May Day celebration began. Hanna prepared extra dishes for the picnic. “You watch,” Hanna said with a smirk. “Avinelle will change her clothes three times.”
“I wish I had something special to wear to the dance,” Jodee said. “These clothes are decent enough, but they’re showing wear already. Someday I’m going to have me a real nice lady’s dress with a bustle. And a parasol. Me and my ma, we used to play-act we was ladies at a tea party. We’d be scrubbing clothes in the wash tub, blistering in the summer sun, and we’d laugh. Or me and my pa would pretend we had us a nice house with a porch. Pa would say he’d have a different rocking chair for each day of the week. And a silk top hat that he’d tip to neighbors as they passed, admiring our place.” She chuckled with a pang of heartache.
“Your people were fine dreamers,” Hanna said. “Me and my husband, we used to dream of having a ranch with a thousand head of cattle. You reckon Corbet will ask you to dance tonight?” She slipped that question in with a sly smile.
“He said he couldn’t play favorites. I just have to accept he likes me well enough, but it don’t go no farther than that. All he thinks about is finding Burl. To tell the truth, that’s about all I think about, too.”
“I’m not a gambling person,” Hanna said, laughing, “but I’m placing my bet on who J. Corbet Harlow dances with first tonight. The whole town will be watching. There’s nothing to be done about your clothes, Jodee, but we can brush out your hair ’til it shines. You’ll be the prettiest woman there.”
Jodee’s heart skipped with anticipation. Hanna’s words gave her confidence. She spent the next hour trying to imagine Corbet walking up to her in front of everybody and asking her to dance. She couldn’t quite believe it would happen.
At nine-thirty that morning, as Bailey was bringing around the surrey for the ride into town for the parade, Avinelle descended the front stairs and called to Jodee. She wore a walking suit of pale green taffeta with a snug bodice and a skirt with a complicated bustle. Her matching hat perched on her elaborate curls. She had a ruffled lace parasol that made Jodee stare.
“I wanted to wear this blouse to the picnic,” Avinelle said, thrusting a wad of something white and delicate into Jodee’s hands. “Press it for me and have it ready when we get back from the parade. Hurry now, and take care. That came all the way from Paris. It was part of my trousseau.” Avinelle tugged on bone-colored kid gloves, fussing a long time getting the fingers just right.
Trousseau. Another word Jodee didn’t know. Avinelle looked so beautiful she couldn’t help but feel admiration. “You look wonderful.”
“Oh, Jodee, when will you remember you mustn’t make personal remarks about your employer?” Avinelle wandered into the parlor, shaking her head. Looking out the front window, she called in an unladylike caterwaul, “Mother! Bailey’s waiting. Are you ready?”
Feeling foolish for having spoken, Jodee clutched the item Avinelle had given her and wondered what it was made of. The fabric didn’t feel like her own clothes or like anything she had washed or ironed so far.
Starting down the staircase, Widow Ashton looked dignified in a dusky rose walking suit. She moved like a queen. Dipping a curtsey, Jodee hurried back to the kitchen before she said something more she shouldn’t. If she was to have the blouse pressed by the time Avinelle returned from the parade, she wouldn’t be able to go to the parade herself. That had surely been Avinelle’s purpose.
“Look at this,” Jodee muttered, thrusting the blouse toward Hanna.
Hanna’s hands were wet. She refused to touch it.
Jodee didn’t have the slightest idea how to press it. Before going into the sewing room to get the flat irons on the stove to heat, she stood a long moment frowning at the blouse. “I wanted to see the parade. Didn’t you, Hanna?”
“If I’m lucky I’ll get to see Bonnie dance around the May Pole this afternoon.” Her expression was troubled.
They heard Widow Ashton and Avinelle go out. Moments later the surrey rolled away. Jodee felt as much relief as disappointment.
“If you hurry,” Hanna said, “you might see part of the parade and be back in time to press this. Get your boots on.”
Throwing off her apron, Jodee was out the rear door in seconds, trotting around to the side street. The road was busy with wagons and buckboards and buggie
s. She waved to everyone. Not knowing who she was, people waved back, women in sunbonnets and children staring from the backs of wagons.
By the time Jodee reached the first boardwalk in town she could hear the thumping of a drum and some kind of brass horn honking. At the head of the parade came the mayor and his family in their carriage. Behind him rolled the town’s pumper fire wagon drawn by a matched team.
Along with children set free from school for the day, Jodee scampered from boardwalk to boardwalk, past Quimby’s and the photographers and the newspaper office. She saw the surrey ahead of the banker’s buggy and a hay rake carrying the May Day girls in their white dresses. That was why Avinelle and Widow Ashton left the house early. They hadn’t wanted Jodee in the parade with them.
Trying not to feel slighted, Jodee resigned herself to the fact that she would miss most of the day’s activities. She ran back to Avinelle’s house and presented herself in the kitchen, ready to tackle the ironing.
“We get to go to the picnic, don’t we?” Jodee asked, setting up the cloth-covered board. She laid out the first sleeve to press and tried to smooth it flat. The blouse was so wrinkled it looked as if it had been stuffed in a trunk for years.
“We have to serve, so don’t plan on having too much fun today. Then you won’t be disappointed.” Hanna winked. “Tonight at the dance is when you’ll outshine Avinelle.”
“I can’t hope to do that,” Jodee said softly. “One dance with Corbet is all I hope for, to remember after I’m gone.”
“Oh, honey, you won’t never leave Burdeen. I seen how you pine for Corbet. You want to marry him.”
“I don’t know what being married is like. And…” Jodee licked her fingertip and tapped the first flat iron to make sure it wasn’t too hot, just as Hanna had taught her to do. Wrapping a rag around the handle to protect her hand from the hot metal, she deftly touched the tip of the heavy iron and moved it quickly along the seam. She watched in horror as the fabric vanished beneath the tip.
Snatching the iron away, Jodee smelled a peculiar odor and gave a cry. “Oh, Hanna!”
Three inches of the seam was gone, burned away in an instant.
Grabbing up the blouse, Hanna held up the sleeve to look at the damage. “We can mend this. She’ll never know.”
Jodee’s heart felt as if it were leaping around in her chest like a snared rabbit. She felt wild with anguish. “I’ve ruined it.”
“It’s all right. Fetch the needle and thread. She should’ve known this shouldn’t be ironed. I should’ve known.”
Jodee felt panic. It was all she could do to keep from running out the back door. She didn’t want to face Avinelle and confess she’d ruined her expensive Paris trousseau blouse. She owed so much for the things she’d damaged already she had lost count. She’d never get out of debt.
The front door closed loudly as if Maggie were warning that the widows had returned.
Hanna whispered, “Don’t say a word.”
Widow Ashton and Avinelle entered the kitchen as if expecting something was amiss. Jodee shrank back, feeling sick.
“The hampers are packed, Miz Ashton,” Hanna said loudly. “Bailey can load the surrey while you change into your picnic clothes. We’re still trying to get the stain out of this blouse.”
“Stain?” Avinelle exclaimed with exaggeration.
Widow Ashton looked where Hanna was pointing. She regarded Avinelle as if shocked. Snatching it from Hanna, the widow shook the blouse in her daughter’s face. Looking as if she remembered she was not alone, she faltered. “You cannot wear this, Avinelle. You will have to select something else. Now we will be late.” Dropping the blouse on the ironing board, she sailed out of the kitchen.
Avinelle stared at Hanna. Finally she said, “It didn’t have a stain when I gave it to you,” She remembered something. “And don’t think you weren’t seen in town, Jodee, when I told you to stay here.”
Did they think they owned her? Jodee wondered.
Hanna picked up the blouse in a way that hid the damaged sleeve.
Avinelle snatched the blouse from her hand so forcefully it tore. She glared at Hanna with blazing eyes. Jodee realized the smell of scorched fabric was still in the air, too. When Avinelle held up the blouse, the damaged underarm seam became visible.
“My best blouse! Mother, look at what Jodee did.”
Jodee realized Avinelle purposely waited until the last minute to ask her to press the blouse. And she chose the blouse because it could so easily be damaged.
“We’ll wash—”
“Stay out of this, Hanna, if you know what’s good for you.” Avinelle advanced on Jodee. “Don’t you think you’ll get away with this. Mother will dock your pay. I have half a mind not to give you a letter of recommendation. You’re a worthless, dumb, ignorant little harlot, and I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you.”
“What has happened now?” Widow Ashton said returning to the kitchen as if greatly wearied of all the trouble.
“It’s not enough we take her in and give her our best, she has to ruin every single thing she touches. This can’t be fixed.”
“A patch,” Hanna offered, her face flushed with anger.
“I wouldn’t wear a patched—”
“All right,” Jodee snapped. “You could have told me that there fabric would melt. I don’t know how I’m supposed to press something you don’t care enough about to pack away clean and folded. If I owned something that nice, I’d take care of it. No, you got to keep me from having any kind of fun today, like seeing my first parade, and there you both are, heading it like you own the town. Now I got to buy you a new Paris trousseau blouse because you can’t wear something patched. Well, all right, I will, but I ain’t no harlot. And don’t you go saying nothing against my pa. He paid his debt to the world. He’s dead. You want me to clear out, I will.”
Slamming the back door, Jodee stood on the porch glaring down at her meager belongings. She waited to see if they were going to call her back. Hearing nothing, she went out into the back yard and wondered what it would feel like to slap Avinelle’s face hard enough to leave a mark.
• • •
As Corbet made his usual circuit of town, he wanted to feel optimistic, but his heart was heavy. It seemed like half the county had come to town this day. The weather was fine. Traffic was heavy, the stores were crowded, and a throng of folks were setting up for the picnic in the open field outside town.
All he could think about was the letter he just received. At his own request, T. T. McQue’s horse, saddle, and the gun he had been carrying when he was killed during the holdup at Ship Creek Crossing had been sold at a private auction in Cheyenne City. In his shirt pocket Corbet had the proceeds, a bank draft for two hundred thirty-seven dollars and forty-one cents.
Jodee was as good as gone.
Folks tipped their hats to him as he passed. He was gratified to see it, but he had decided to recommend Ed Brucker as sheriff. This was his last day on the job.
Seeing Avinelle’s surrey at the jailhouse, Corbet turned abruptly into an alley, surprising two youths trying to light a stogie. Chasing them off with a scowl, he thought about the telegraph message that arrived from Wisconsin days ago. Old man Harlow was dead. That in itself was enough to fill Corbet with complex emotions. He had sometimes hated the man for working orphaned boys so hard, but the gruff dairy farmer had turned those boys into men. He’d been the closest Corbet had to a father. Now it was too late to make amends for leaving as he had done. Inexplicably, Corbet had been named in the will. Old man Harlow left him the farm.
As Corbet turned back to the street and saw the surrey moving on toward the picnic grounds, he watched for Jodee. He hadn’t told her he had bought his little spread by the creek, but now he needed to see the farm where he’d spent his lonely youth. He wanted to tell her there’d be a delay in starting the cabin he wanted to build. He wanted to visit little Jenny’s grave, too. He wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing settling in Burdeen.
The smell of wood smoke and roasting beef in barbeque pits filled the spring air with a pleasant tang. He wandered into the picnic area, a scrubby field dotted with spread quilts, food-laden hampers, and noisy people. Children ran wild around him. He knew them all by name. There was Hobie with his mother and siblings. The only notable family missing was the Botellers.
There had been talk of turning the area into a city park. In another five years, Burdeen would be a real town with a railroad, a stone courthouse, and a bank. The stage line would be history. Avinelle and her mother would have to move on. That made their relentless pursuit of him all the more puzzling. Did Avinelle expect him to follow her to New York like a well-trained parlor dog?
Corbet saw a large tent set up with a long red pennant snapping from the center pole. Thinking it the community refreshment stand, he barged in expecting to find Artie Abernathy inside serving sarsaparilla and lemonade. At the sight of Avinelle decked out like a princess, his heart shriveled.
“Corbet!” she exclaimed, gliding toward him. “I’ve been hoping you’d join us. Isn’t this lovely? Rented, of course. Bailey set it up early this morning. No wind. No smoke.” She gave him a sly smile. “Privacy.”
Hanna and Jodee stood at the ready behind a long table draped with a white cloth. The table was heaped with enough food for the entire town. Hanna wore her usual patient smirk, an expression that told the world just what she thought of such pretensions. It was Jodee’s surly expression that captured Corbet’s concern. He had seen her look like that before. Something was wrong.
He started for her, but Avinelle seized his arm. “Corbet, I have something I must discuss with you. It’s urgent.” She gave his arm a meaningful squeeze. “Hanna? Jodee? See if there’s something more you need to carry in from the surrey. Bailey may want to let the horse graze.” She smiled up at Corbet as if to say she had the afternoon well in hand.
Her Outlaw Heart Page 19
