Lavender Morning

by Jude Deveraux

  “What does that mean?”

  “He had me in the barn this morning…” He looked away, and Edi thought maybe his face was red.

  “In the barn doing what?”

  “Remember the cow?”

  “I will go to my grave remembering that cow,” Edi said. “What about her?”

  “‘Her’ is the key word.”

  “Oh,” Edi said, smiling. “He had you milking.”

  “And mucking. I think that’s the proper term for using a pitchfork to remove manure.”

  She looked at him. “How did you do that with an arm in a sling and your leg like that? Can you move it?”

  “Not at all. I think the hinge rusted.”

  “We’ll have to get it off you,” Edi said. “Maybe this man has an Allen wrench.”

  “No,” David said sadly. “No Allen wrench that will fit, no anything that will fit. I was in the barn at four A.M. this morning because it seems that that’s when cows want to be milked and horses have to have their floors swabbed. I tried every tool the old man has, but nothing worked. The screws are set deep into the steel, they’re rusted, and nothing will touch them. You didn’t by chance…you know…”

  “Know what?”

  “Hold on to the little Allen wrench after you…”

  “Saved your life? No,” Edi said, “I didn’t think to hold on to it. I guess I was a bit busy with the window and the water and all that.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  From outside the room came a loud voice. “Clare! You in there?”

  David rolled his eyes. “I’d rather go back to the front lines than deal with that old man. I’m telling you that Austin is a sweetheart compared to him.”

  “I’ll get up and see what I can do to help,” Edi said.

  “I better warn you that I think he expects you to cook.”

  At that Edi’s face turned pale, and she put the cover back over her. “I don’t know how to cook.”

  “You don’t know how to cook?”

  “Don’t give me that!” she snapped. “I grew up in a house with a cook. I don’t know anything about it. Food was served to me on a plate. I can’t even make a pot of tea.”

  “Really?” David said, his smile becoming broader by the minute.

  “What is so very amusing about that, Sergeant Clare?”

  “Because I can cook.”

  “You can cook?” she said in astonishment.

  “So now who’s stereotyping? My mother is Italian. I can cook. Look, why don’t we tell him that you’re injured and have to stay in bed so I’ll do the cooking?”

  “And who will milk the cow?”

  “Let ol’ Hamish do it. He does it when we’re not here.”

  “So you’re saying that I’m just a poor, feeble woman who can’t pull her own weight. Is that it? I’m to stay in bed and do nothing?”

  “Unless you can milk a cow and clean up after horses, I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

  “As it so happens, I nearly grew up on a horse.”

  “Of course,” David said. “Rich girl. The kitchen is beneath you, but you’re a stable lad in the barn.”

  “You really are the most obnoxious man I have ever met in my life,” Edi said.

  He stood up and looked down at her as he walked to the door. “And you, Miss Edilean Harcourt, are the most beautiful, intelligent, resourceful, courageous woman I have ever met. And, by the way, I plan to marry you.” He left the room, leaving Edi with her mouth open in astonishment.

  “You’re a mess, you know that?” David said as he pried Edi’s hands open and looked at the blisters. “What got into you to do all that work?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “It felt good. I get so tired of being inside and listening to typewriters all day. I liked being outside.”

  They were in the kitchen of Hamish Trumbull’s house and there was a night-and-day difference between the way it was now and how it had looked that morning. For all his complaining that Edi had worked too hard, David had spent the day scrubbing the kitchen, inside every cabinet and every pan. He’d filled the wood box and kept the old stove going all day as he cooked. The room was warm and smelled wonderful.

  “You haven’t exactly sat around,” she said, wincing as he examined her hands.

  “No, but I had help,” he said without a smile, and the absurdity of that made them both start to laugh, then they quietened.

  “Where is he?” Edi asked, referring to Hamish.

  “I wore him out with churning butter,” David said as he got some and slathered it on her blisters.

  “Butter? You can make butter?”

  “Of course. How did you think you got it?”

  “By pumping the cow’s tail up and down,” she said.

  David laughed. “Okay, so I’m no farmer, but I know what to do once the stuff’s in the kitchen. Taste this.” He dipped a wooden spoon into a pan bubbling on the stove and held it to her lips. When she started to take it from him, he pulled back.

  “Delicious,” she said. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. What is it?”

  “Alfredo sauce to go on the pasta.”

  “The what?”

  “Spaghetti,” he said. “You Americans call all pasta spaghetti. Are you ready to eat?”

  She stood up slowly. This morning she’d raided the wardrobe in the bedroom they shared and found a pair of men’s trousers that almost fit her. They were long enough, but they were so big around the waist that she’d had to make a new hole in an old leather belt to hold the pants up. She and David had shared a laugh over both of them wearing trousers that were too big.

  Edi had spent the day outside, and David had stayed in. Both of them had soon seen that the little farm was nearly falling down. With all the young, strong men at war, most of the farms were neglected, but this one seemed worse than usual.

  That morning, Edi had met Hamish for the first time, and instead of seeing a gruff old man as David described, she saw sadness. “Don’t ask him anything,” she whispered to David. “I can’t bear to hear the answer.” So many people had horror stories about the loss of loved ones that Edi couldn’t take any more.

  “Agreed,” David said.

  She found the falling-down old shed that served as a henhouse and got a few eggs. After breakfast, she started on cleaning up the outside. As David said, she’d not had much to do with the kitchen when she was growing up, but she loved the barn and the henhouse and all the things that had made Edilean Manor nearly self-sufficient.

  When she went into the house for lunch, the kitchen was sparkling, and David had just pulled bread out of the oven. That he’d done all that with one arm in a sling and his unbending leg made her smile in appreciation.

  After lunch, she tackled the chicken coop. One of the fence posts around the yard had fallen over, pulling the fence down with it. If any foxes decided to enter, nothing would stop them. The wind was picking up, and Edi wanted to get the post back up before it started to rain again.

  She was digging the hole and trying to hold the post at the same time when David came running, with his odd gait, and took over. She held the post while he stamped it in. Then, together, they put stones around the edge of the fence.

  “I have to get back,” he said loudly over the wind that was getting stronger. “Don’t stay out here too long.”

  “I won’t,” she called back, but once he was inside, she got a pitchfork and started cleaning out the inside of the henhouse. From the look of it, it hadn’t been cleaned in a couple of years. It wasn’t good for the chickens or the people eating them.

  She didn’t realize her hands were blistered until she’d finished. She had a tall pile of manure outside the fence, and she’d dragged two fresh bales of straw from the barn into the chicken coop. She looked in the barn for some gloves but couldn’t find any, so she went on with the chores barehanded. By sundown, she’d made headway on the barn, both in repairing and mucking out.

  S
he didn’t realize how tired she was until she went inside and sat down. David took one look at her and took over. He opened her hands, washed them, then slathered them with butter to help with the pain of the blisters.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said when she nearly fell asleep in the chair. “You need to eat.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” David said as he set a huge plate of homemade pasta with a cream-based sauce in front of her. “I want you to eat every bite of that and drink all the milk. You need your strength.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. She was so tired that she couldn’t even keep her rigid posture of sitting upright as she ate, and she smiled as she thought of what her mother would say if she saw her daughter now.

  “Want to share the reason for that smile?” David asked as he filled a plate for himself.

  “I was just thinking about my family.”

  “Tell me about them,” he said. “Rich farmers, right?”

  “Used to be,” she said, “but the rich part is gone. We used to own an entire town, but…”

  “But what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. That seems like a lifetime ago. This is really good. Ever think of opening a restaurant?”

  “Did you ever think about visiting New York? There’s an Italian restaurant on every corner.”

  “Is he okay, do you think?” Edi whispered, nodding toward Hamish’s closed bedroom door.

  “Based on the sound of his snoring, I think he’s been sleeping all day. Or else someone’s been throwing grenades into that room.”

  “You’re awful,” Edi said, smiling. “Poor man is worn out. Don’t forget that he saved both our lives.”

  “Humph!” David said. “Do you know how he revived me?”

  “I saw him pull you out of the water and I remember hoping that you weren’t dead.”

  “He slammed his foot on my stomach.”

  “He what?”

  “Like this,” David said, and he hit the floor with his unbraced leg. “Pow! I nearly choked as I started to vomit up water and Mrs. Pettigrew’s lunch.”

  Edi tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. “And we wondered why Aggie didn’t want to come home.”

  “If I lived with him, I’d join the army—even if I were a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “Come on, he’s not that bad.”

  “You didn’t spend the day inside with him. You should have heard him complain about the way you were working on that chicken house.”

  “Coop.”

  “What?”

  “Henhouse or chicken coop, but never mind,” Edi said. “What did he say about me?”

  David shook his head in disbelief. “He said…” He lowered his voice. “He said that if he had a wife with legs like yours he wouldn’t be in the house washing the floor—at least not with a mop.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Cross my heart,” David said and made the gesture. “He wanted to go out there and help you, but I talked him out of it.”

  “And how did you do that?”

  “I showed him my fist, then looked at his scrawny old face.”

  Edi laughed hard, putting her hand over her mouth to hold the sound in. “So who’s worse? You or him?”

  “I hope I am, but he’s learned a lot in his many years.” When David saw Edi’s eyes begin to blink slowly, he took her hands in his and pulled her upright. For a moment they were standing very near each other. Instantly, the relaxed attitude was gone and they were both tense.

  “I have hot water for you,” David said, breaking the tension as he turned toward the sink. “You can wash what you can reach. Or you can strip naked and I’ll hold a towel for you.”

  Edi laughed again, the tension gone. “No, thank you. I think I’ll just wash my face and hands and leave the rest to when I have a tub. I’m too tired to care how dirty I am.”

  “I like earthy women.”

  “I think, David Clare, that you like any kind of woman.”

  “Think so, do you? Then that’s where you’re very, very wrong. Okay, you wash and I’ll check the clothesline. Take your time.”

  Edi didn’t take much time washing. She was telling the truth when she said she didn’t care how dirty she was. She gave her face, neck, and armpits a bit of a dash, then she went into their bedroom and shut the door.

  As she began to undress, she looked at the two beds. It was extraordinary what ten or so hours of hard, physical labor could do to a person. Two days ago, if she’d been told that she had to spend the night in the same room with a soldier, she would have said she’d rather sleep on a stone pallet in the rain. But now it seemed natural for David—not Sergeant Clare, but “David”—to sleep in the same room.

  On the chair at the end of the bed was a clean nightgown, and Edi knew David had put it there for her. It was probably Aggie’s, and it was so clean and Edi was so dirty that she almost didn’t put it on, but she did. She slipped it over her dirty body, pulled back the sheets and covers on the bed nearer the door, and was asleep in an instant.

  When she awoke, the room was dark and something had jolted the bed. At first she panicked. She had to get to the air raid shelter! Had to find the girls and get them there first!

  “Ssssh,” David said. “It’s only me. Go back to sleep.”

  She sat up on her elbows, trying to see in the dark. “Turn on the light.”

  “There is no light,” he said. “Remember? No electricity.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, lying back down. “Hamish.”

  “That’s right,” he said soothingly. “Just go back to sleep.”

  She did, but was awakened again when something again hit the bed and she sat up.

  “Sorry,” David said. “It’s this damned brace, and the beds are close together. As soon as I can turn around I’ll quit hitting your bed. Now go back to sleep.”

  This time she was more fully awake. “Would you get a lantern?”

  “What for?” he asked.

  “I want to see your leg.”

  There was a moment of silence before David spoke. “As enticing as that sounds, my leg is fine.”

  Edi sat up straighter. “I think that tomorrow I should do the cooking, and you should milk the cow and gather the eggs.”

  “You win,” he said, and a moment later he came back into the room, holding the lantern. He was shirtless, shoeless, and wearing only the trousers that were too big for him.

  He put the lantern down on the table between the beds and said, “Now what?”

  “Off with them,” Edi said as she got out of bed, went to the wardrobe, and took out the old shirt she’d worn that morning over her underwear. Judging by the fit of her clothes, Aggie was shorter and plumper than Edi, which made the nightgown much too short, and the top fell away whenever she moved.

  “I love that gown,” David said as he unbuckled his trousers.

  “Be quiet or I’ll tell Hamish the truth about us and you’ll have to sleep in the kitchen. On the floor.”

  “You’re threatening to punish me if I don’t take off my trousers while I’m alone in a room with the most beautiful woman in the world? The woman I plan to—”

  “Stop it,” she said, but she was smiling.

  When David struggled to get his trousers down over the heavy brace, she took the cuffs and pulled. He tried to make jokes, but she was too horrified by what she saw to smile. His leg was raw from the steel. The old padding had nearly all fallen away, and the straps of the big, cagelike thing had scraped and cut until his leg was a mass of blisters and bleeding sores.

  “I love General Austin,” David said.

  “He’ll hear about this from me, you can be sure of that,” she said, her mouth clenched into a line of anger. “Stay here and I’m going to see what I can do to clean this up.”

  “I’m all yours, baby,” he said as he leaned back on the pillows—and went to sleep immediately. When he awoke, Edi was sitting on a kitchen chair, a b
owl of hot water on the bedside table, and she was trying to wash some of the wounds and bandage them.

  “This hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked softly.

  “Not too much,” he said, but she knew he was lying. She’d thought that her hands were bad, but she couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through today with those sharp edges cutting into him.

  She went to the wardrobe, pulled out another old shirt, and began to tear it into strips. “Your blisters and those cuts have stuck to the steel, so this is going to hurt, but I’m going to wrap cloth around the metal so it doesn’t gouge you so much. Think you can stand it?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  As she started, she saw the way his jaw was working, saw the pain he was in, and she wanted to distract him.

  “So tell me about your family. Any brothers or sisters?”

  “Eight of them. I’m the second one, but…” He took a breath against the pain. “Bannerman. One year older than me. Takes care of all of us. The best there is. He…” David broke off as some of his skin came away with the steel.

  Edi thought it would be better if she talked. “My brother Bertrand is the laziest person in the world,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah? And how lazy is that?”

  “When he was three and saw all his gifts under the Christmas tree, he said, ‘Who’s going to open them for me?’”

  David gave a little snort of laughter. “I’ve heard worse.”

  “When he was six, my father bought him a bicycle and took him out to teach him to ride it.”

  “And?”

  “Bertrand did very well. My father ran along behind him, holding on, and my brother balanced perfectly. But when my father let go and the bicycle stopped, Bertrand asked why. When my father said he had to push on the pedals, my brother left it lying there in the street, and he never got on a bicycle again.”

  David was still wincing when she cleaned one of the cuts, but less so. “Not bad, but I’ve heard worse.”

  “When he was twelve, my parents took us out to a restaurant, the first one we’d ever been to, and my father ordered steaks for each of us. When my brother’s came, he looked at it and asked how he was to eat it. My father showed him how to cut the steak, then how to chew it. My brother called the waiter back and ordered a bowl of mashed potatoes.”