by Jane Peart
“Don’t talk foolishly, Blythe, or think silly things.” Then he stood up abrupdy and walked away, leaving her alone in the garden.
Abashed, Blythe promised herself never to speak to Malcolm like that again.
Most of the time things went along pleasantly and smoothly between them, and life at the ranch moved tranquilly until the accident.
Jed and Malcolm were reshingling the roof of the house, shoring up places that the last winter’s heavy snows had weakened. Jed was on the top rung of a ladder and stretched his arm to pick up a shingle from a stack just beyond his reach. The movement caused the ladder to totter, and as Jed tried to right himself, the ladder toppled over backwards, throwing him to the ground and crashing down on top of him.
Blythe and Malcolm had helped him into the house, but within an hour he was rigid with pain, his face clammy with the sweat that beaded on it, biting on his lip to keep from crying out.
Malcolm rode into town for Doc Sanderson. The diagnosis was three ribs broken and a badly injured spine. Even with that, Jed might have recovered, except that pleurisy set in and Jed remained confined to his bed.
Blythe did not realize how seriously ill her father was until one bleak late-October day.
It was mid-morning when Doc Sanderson’s buggy drove up the rutted road and through the gate. Blythe busied herself in the kitchen making coffee while the doctor looked in on Jed. When he came out, he accepted the cup of steaming liquid she offered without a word.
“You got any kinfolks, Blythe?” he asked at last.
“No, sir.” She shook her head, feeling a kind of cold knot twisting in her stomach.
“You mean to say your Pa has no other family? No one at all?” Doc Sanderson fixed her with a penetrating gaze. Then he asked abrupdy, “How old are you now, Blythe? From the look of you, I’d say you were near a grown woman.”
“I’m nearly seventeen, sir.”
“Any beaux? Any young man come a’courtin’yet?”
Blythe blushed, shook her head. “No, sir. Pa said that when I was eighteen, we’d go down to San Francisco, get a nice hotel suite, and stay awhile. He plans on asking a banker he knows there to introduce me to some suitable young gendemen. Pa doesn’t want me to marry a miner or even a rancher, he says. He’s going to take me to Europe, too … maybe next summer—”
Blythe realized she was rattling on foolishly, but the expression on the doctor’s face frightened her, and she stopped, mid-sentence.
Doc Sanderson tugged his scraggly mustache, scowled, and cleared his throat. “Well, Blythe, Fm afraid your Pa ain’t goin’to get any better—not by next summer, that’s for sure. As a matter of fact, he’s gettin’worse every day. He may live awhile yet, but he can’t last much longer, and that’s the plain truth.” He sighed heavily, ran a hand through his sparse hair. “Now, you’re a sensible girl, so you’d best be makin’plans for… after. You can’t live out here by yourself so far from ever’body and ever’thing.” He looked up at the ceiling while Blythe waited, her heart thudding. “So I was wonderin’if you’d like to have me make some inquiries around town, see if there ain’t some family that would be willin’to take you in. What I’m tryin’to say is, there’s two families I’m thinkin’of could use a good, strong hand, and thataway, you’d have a place, a home, until such time—” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged helplessly.
Shocked by the way the doctor was talking, Blythe drew herself to her full height and looked him direcdy in the eye. When she spoke, her voice was firm and confident. ‘Thank you, sir, that’s mighty kind of you. But I feel sure my Pa has provided for me so that I wouldn’t have to work as a hired girl. This place would go for a fair price if I decided to sell it. But I don’t think I’m going to have to make any plans for myself. I think I’ll just talk to Pa and ask him what he wants me to do … if he isn’t better by spring.”
“He’ll be dead by spring, girl. That’s what I’ve been tryin’to tell you.” Doc Sanderson shook his head, and turned away. Stunned, Blythe heard the sound of his booted feet striking the wooden floor on his way out the door, then the sound of buggy wheels clattering down the dusty road toward town.
She had held herself stiffly during their conversation, unwilling to believe the doctor’s words. It was true that she and Pa had only each other. If he died … then she would, indeed, be all alone in the world.
At that moment, the front door opened, and Malcolm came came in, a questioning look on his face.
“I saw the doctor leave—”
“Oh, Malcolm!” Blythe cried, her voice breaking.
“What is it? Is your father worse?” He took a few steps toward her.
“Doc Sanderson says—” At the look of compassion on Malcolm’s face, the tears that had threatened earlier spilled over. He opened his arms, and Blythe gladly sought the comfort of his embrace. She felt his hand on her hair, cradling her head against his strong chest, the roughness of his wool jacket against her cheek. “Oh, Malcolm, Fm so afraid. Doc says Pa’s dying! What will I do? I’ll be alone—”
“I’m here, Blythe. Hush, now, hush. Everything will be all right,” Malcolm murmured tenderly as she clung to him.
On the day of Jed’s funeral, Malcolm was at her side on the long walk down the hill from the little cemetery behind the church, where they had buried her father. The other mourners kept a discreet distance between themselves and the grieving young woman as Malcolm explained to Blythe that she would be staying with the Coppleys instead of going back to the ranch house.
“But why?” she asked, puzzled.
“Because, Blythe, now that your Pa’s gone, it just wouldn’t be proper for the two of us to continue to stay at the ranch together. It’ll take me a little time to make the arrangements, but then we’ll be leaving—”
“Leaving? I don’t understand.”
His voice was very gentle, very patient. “It’s this way, Blythe. Your Pa and I had several long talks before he died. You know how fond I was of him—he saved my life really—and I think… I know he thought well of me. I had planned to leave last summer, go back to Virginia, then your Pa had his accident. Well, I couldn’t leave. Not after all he’d done for me—taking me in when I was sick, broke … you understand.” Malcolm paused, lifted his chin and gazed over Blythe’s head to the horizon, where the sun was beginning its slow descent, firing the hills with gold and casting long purple shadows along the floor of the valley.
“Well, what it comes down to is this, Blythe. Your father’s main concern was you—what would happen to you if he died. It was all he worried about those last days. He wanted to be sure you would be well cared for. He wanted us … no, he meant for us to be married.”
“Married?” Blythe was incredulous. Tripping over a loose rock, she nearly stumbled and Malcolm’s hand shot out to steady her. “We—us—married? Married to each other?”
Malcolm did not meet her astonished look. “It’s what your father wanted. He told me he had great hopes for you, that you should one day go back East, where he felt you’d have certain … cultural advantages not possible in such a remote place as Lucas Valley. Oh, of course,” he hurried on, seeing her frown, “this was a fine place to bring up a young child, but he always intended something more for you, something better … when you came of age. When his health broke, he didn’t know how to bring it about until—” Malcolm paused, then his voice took on a determined tone. “After we’re married, I’ll take you back to Virginia, to my family home in Mayfield. It belongs to me now. You’ll learn to love Montclair as I do. It would please your father, Blythe, and I gave him my solemn word as a gendeman that I’d take care of you.”
Blythe could hardly believe his words. Had Malcolm told Pa he loved her, actually asked for her hand in marriage? She was too shocked to question him, and yet there was something troubling about the proposal.
“I’ll need three weeks or more to get things settled here,” he went on, not sensing her uneasiness. ‘The ranch and livestock will be put up
for sale as your father instructed. Then I’ll make our travel arrangements. We’ll book passage on a ship leaving San Francisco for New Orleans, take the train to Atlanta and on to Richmond, then home to Mayfield and Montclair. After those details are worked out, we can set a date for the wedding.
“In the meantime, you’ll stay with the Coppleys. It’s all settled. With no child of their own, they’re looking forward to your visit.” A slight smile tugged at the corners of his chiseled mouth, and he touched her arm lighdy. “You’re not to worry about anything, Blythe. I’ll take care of everything.”
Bewildered by these sudden changes, Blythe went along with Malcolm’s request. Since Mrs. Coppley was the town seamstress, Blythe knew her from years past, and she found the couple to be as warm in their welcome as Malcolm had promised.
Still, there were nights when she wept for her father, and others when she lay awake in sleepless apprehension of the new direction her life was taking. But, in spite of the swinging pendulum of her emotions, she began to feel the old joy in living again—that buoyant spirit that had never failed her. Running like a swift-moving stream in the deepest part of her heart surged a thrilling anticipation at the thought of her future with Malcolm Montrose.
chapter
5
YOU DON’T think it’s too soon, do you?” Blythe asked anxiously one day at breakfast, about two weeks after she had come to live in the Coppley household. “I mean, having the wedding so soon after burying Pa?”
Mrs. Coppley replied firmly. “Now just put that nonsense right out of your head, child. Folks out here don’t take no ‘count of things like proper timin’. A woman alone in these parts is in a sorry state, and Mr. Montrose is too much the gentleman to be askin’anything your Pa hadn’t settled with him aforehand. Why, lands, I’d say it’s a downright miracle, him comin’along when he did. What in the world would you do if not marry him?” she demanded, setting the coffeepot down with a bang.
“It just seems … wrong somehow … feeling happy when Pa’s been gone such a short time.”
“Your Pa loved you, Blythe. Never saw a man so set on his yöungun as he was on you. He’d want you to be happy, safe. He thought highly of Mr. Montrose. I wouldn’t wonder if he knows all about it up yonder and is rejoicin’.”
So with this comforting reassurance, Blythe put aside all lingering doubts and began making her plans for the wedding, now only three weeks away.
She pored over the mail-order books showing the latest in wedding finery, turning back more than once to a sketch of a gown that, to her mind, surpassed all the others.
“Don’t think it’s a mite … well… too fancy?” Mrs. Coppley asked, tapping her teeth with the tip of her pen.
“Oh, no, I love it!” exclaimed Blythe. “Fve never had anything so pretty—all ruffles and flounces and lace. It’s perfect!”
“Well, if you say so. After all, a girl gits married only onct, and her weddin’dress ought to be just the way she wants it.” She wrote up the order.
Blythe saw little of Malcolm during this hectic time, for he was arranging for their departure and handling the multitude of details connected with her Pa’s estate. Though the ranch had not been sold, Malcolm had hired a lawyer to see to the final closing, and he assured her that the livestock, wagon, and horses had brought a goodly sum—enough to cover all their travel expenses.
Since they would be leaving by stage for San Francisco right after the ceremony, Blythe was to pack her trunk and carry with her only one smaller carpet bag containing her new white cambric nightgown, challis dressing gown, and the cotton camisoles, pantaloons, and petticoats she had made under Mrs. Coppley’s supervision.
When she assessed her wardrobe, taking note of the few dresses she had, Mrs. Coppley set her mind at ease. “Surely you’ll have time for shoppin” in San Francisco, or maybe when you git to New Orleans. Mr. Montrose will be wantin’better for his new bride than this old seamstress can whip up. He’ll be sure to take you to some of them fine stores in those cities!” Her eyes twinkled. “After all, you’ll be on your honeymoon!”
Honeymoon. Blythe let the unfamiliar word roll on her tongue as she said it to herself over and over.
“Yes, my girl,” Mrs. Coppley nodded sagely, “you’re on the brink of a great adventure!”
As Blythe packed the trunk that would be placed on the stagecoach, then loaded aboard the ship they would be sailing to the southeast through the isthmus of Panama, then on to New Orleans, she realized that when she next unlocked it, she would be in her new home, Malcolm’s family home—Montclair.
The last things Blythe put into the trunk were some of her mother Carmella’s belongings. Before she folded them carefully and placed them on top, Blythe spread them out on the bed. As a child, she had often asked her father to show them to her, and he had obliged on two or three occasions. But, as she grew older and noticed how sad it made him, she had stopped asking.
Tonight, however, was different. She had never felt closer to her mother than at this moment as she sat stroking the Spanish shawl—black silk with red and white roses embroidered in satin.
Pa had told her the whole romantic story of their courtship and brief, unlikely marriage—a “49er” and a gypsy from Seville. He had met her when her traveling dance troupe was touring the gold towns of northern California. He loved her on first sight and followed the troupe, paying her court, much to the displeasure of the leader, who valued his talented protege as a drawing card. He had been furious to learn of their wish to marry. But when Pa offered gold for her hand, he readily agreed. Then, when Blythe was only two, her mother had succumbed to a lingering lung infection and left the grieving widower with a tiny daughter to bring up alone.
When she was five, Pa had taken her to Sacramento and placed her in the care of the nuns at a convent school before returning to the mines.
Her memories of St. Felicidad were vague impressions rather than distinct images—remembered scenes, sights, smells that evoked feelings. There were shadowy arches, where slanted sunshine threw patterns on the rough stucco walls; a red tile roof shining above the eucalyptus trees; brilliant splashes of color in the flowers that grew in the mosaic tiled courtyard; the play of water from the fountain merging with the sound of the organ music flowing through the chapel window; the gentle voice of a nun in her halo of starched white bending over Blythe as she corrected her needlework; the texture of coarse gray linen as the sleeve of her robe brushed Blythe’s cheek.
In less than three years, Jed struck a rich vein, bought the ranch property in Lucas Valley, and came to fetch Blythe home to live with him. It had seemed strange to leave the sheltered environment of St. Felicidad to take up ranch life. Yet, in a very short time, she was completely at home there.
Now she was making another change, starting a new life in an entirely different part of the country. If it were not for the fact that she adored Malcolm, the thought would be terrifying.
But she wouldn’t be alone. She would be with Malcolm—safe, cared for, happy—and that would make all the difference. She might be starting a new life, but with Malcolm as her husband, what did she have to fear?
The night before the wedding, Blythe found herself in a state of nerves. But Mrs. Coppieyb practical manner allowed no foolishness.
“Now, my girl, there’s plenty to do, so stop acting like a jittery butterfly and let’s get started.”
They pulled the tarred-wood tub into the center of the kitchen floor, and filled it alternately with kettles full of water heated to a boil on the stove and pails of cold well water brought in earlier. Then Mrs. Coppley leaned over the tub and scrubbed Blythe until her skin glowed pink. Then she washed her hair. Scalp tingling, and wrapped in a warm blanket, Blythe sat in front of the stove while Mrs. Coppley brushed her hair into gleaming silken streamers.
“And you must wear it up tomorrow, my girl,” she said firmly. “A married lady you’ll be then.”
“But will it fit under my new bonnet?” Blythe asked, gl
ancing anxiously at the polished straw with its blue ribbons and roses.
“It will and it must,” declared Mrs. Coppley.
Winter comes early to the Sierra foothills, and on the morning of her wedding, when Blythe woke up and looked out the window, she saw snow on the peaks of the distant hills glistening in the sunshine.
She was breathless with excitement as she got ready. Her brand-new dress was stiff, and Mrs. Coppley laced her so tighdy into the unaccustomed corset that Blythe felt she could hardly draw a breath. But the mirror assured her that the fitted basque was becoming and fashionable and showed off her newly accented curves.
Her bonnet was perfection, even though it was anchored onto her coiled hair by two wickedly sharp hat pins. Assured by Mrs. Coppley that she looked “fine and fittin’,” Blythe set out for her wedding, heart high with hope.
The small frame church was packed. Lucas Valley people welcomed any event that broke the dreary monotony of their lives, Blythe knew. Still, with such a fine turnout, she felt a pang of guilt that she and her Pa had never formally joined the church. Their attendance had been irregular, to say the least. Winters, they were snowed in for months at a time. In spring and summer, something always needed to be done on the ranch to prevent Jed’s hitching up the wagon for a trip into town that would require the better part of the day. And, to tell the truth, on some summer Sundays, the weather was so sweet and fine that they often chose to spend the time fishing and picnicking down by the creek.
“Humph!” Mrs. Coppley had snorted once when she was fitting Blythe for some sturdy dresses that would do for her style of living on the ranch. “You ought to be havin’a nice Sunday-go-to-meetin’dress. That’s what comes of not havin’a woman in the home!” she pronounced emphatically. “A Yefinin’influence’as Pastor Burke keeps exhortin’us. That’s what we womenfolk out here in the West are called to be.”
