A Promise to Love

by Serena B. Miller

  “Stop that!” he cried. “That is for paying customers only.”

  He started toward her, but some animalistic sense of survival came over her and she stood her ground—the knife held in front of her, keeping him at bay with one hand, while the other stuffed cheese into her mouth as fast as she could swallow.

  Obviously seeing how hungry she was, he softened. “If you’re that hungry—go ahead.”

  She focused her whole attention on consuming as much of the buttery cheese as she could manage. It had been a long, long time since she had been completely full. Millicent had been parsimonious when it came to her food. Now, it felt as though her ravenous body had taken over her mind and her willpower. She could not have stopped eating if she had tried.

  Finally she drew a breath. A large wedge of the wheel of cheese was gone—and if Millicent found out, she would probably try to take the cost of it out of her nonexistent pay. A pickle barrel was close by, and she lifted the lid and looked at him questioningly.

  “Why ask permission now?” He leaned an elbow on the counter. “Go ahead and eat one, but I’d appreciate it if you would put that knife down first. You’re making me nervous.”

  She laid the knife on the counter and dredged a pickle, dripping brine, out of the barrel. She had been craving one of those ever since she had first seen a customer helping himself to one.

  “Thank you,” she said between crunches.

  “I’m sorry.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Obviously, Millicent has been treating you worse than I realized. I’ll see what I can do.”

  He was not a bad man, nor an unkind one, but he was, in Ingrid’s opinion, an extremely weak man when it came to dealing with his wife.

  Ingrid felt tears form in her eyes at his small show of kindness.

  At that moment, Millicent came through the door.

  If Ingrid had thought that her mistress had been upset over the tea set, she had been mistaken. That tantrum had been mild compared to the towering rage Millicent exhibited upon finding her husband’s hand on Ingrid’s shoulder.

  Although the moment between George and Ingrid had been nothing more than one decent person comforting another, Millicent gave it the worst possible connotation.

  “So this is what you’ve been up to behind my back!” Millicent said. “Get out of my store! Get out of my house.” Her voice took on a deadly pitch. “And you stay out, you little tramp!”

  Ingrid skirted around the fuming woman as George began the placating speech she had heard before under different circumstances. “Now, calm down, sugar. Don’t you go working yourself into a state. You don’t want to bring on another sick headache.”

  Three whole weeks of her life and the only thing she had to show for it was a torn dress, some whip marks, and a belly full of cheese. There wasn’t much she could do with that, but she had no choice but to try.

  While Millicent fumed, and George talked, she marched across the street, into the house, and up the stairs to the attic where she had been living. There wasn’t much to pack, but what there was, she wanted. She stuffed everything she owned into the same battered valise that had seen her across the ocean.

  Millicent had put the money Mr. Hunter had left in a small drawer in the table. As far as she knew, it was still there, and it tempted her mightily. They owed it to her, but she could not in all good conscience take it. She was not a thief—even if they were.

  Lugging the battered valise, she walked north, out of town.

  The children would be hungry when they got home. They seemed to always be hungry, no matter how much he fed them. He had never fully realized before how much time it took Diantha to feed their brood. Now that he looked back, he realized that she had been at it pretty much day and night except for the days when it all became too much and she developed that terrible, blank stare.

  Now it was his most difficult challenge, coming up with ways to feed four children, three times a day. Agnes helped, but she was too young to take on the full load of a grown woman. She already had too much responsibility as it was. She had shouldered too much of it when her mother was alive as well.

  There were other chores that had now become his on top of all his other work. It seemed like Polly was constantly in need of another clean diaper, and he didn’t have the slightest idea how to train the little girl. All the children’s clothes were perpetually in need of laundering. There were dishes to wash, noses to be wiped, scraped knees to be tended, and repairs waiting to be made to clothing that seemed to wear out on an almost hourly basis.

  His list of responsibilities was overwhelming. It was impossible to even contemplate bringing little Bertie home because Joshua was seriously afraid the infant wouldn’t survive in this household right now. His chest ached with missing his young son, and he felt like giving up—but real men didn’t give up. Men soldiered on. Always.

  The children were half-asleep now, jostled by the rolling motion of the wagon. Ellie and Trudy had given up their fight and leaned against each other, their eyes closed. Agnes’s head lolled against her chest. Polly was curled up asleep in a nest of hay he had thrown in to cushion their trip.

  He brought his mind back to what he would feed all of them when they got home. Cornmeal mush and warmed-over soup beans were the best he could come up with. They had been having a lot of that lately.

  It almost made the rations he had eaten in the war look tasty.

  “I don’t need no hired gal.” The old woman’s face lit up when Ingrid knocked on her door with her battered valise in hand. “But you’re as welcome as rain to stay here with me awhile if you’ve a mind to.”

  Ingrid had met Hazel Smith when the older lady had come calling on Millicent. Hazel was nearing seventy and lived alone on the outskirts of the village with a dog that looked like it had more wolf in it than dog. At the moment, the wolf-dog was quietly positioning itself between her and Hazel. Its behavior was not yet threatening, but Ingrid could tell it was giving the situation careful thought.

  Millicent had told her that Hazel had moved here with her trapper husband long before White Rock had become a village. The old woman had unkempt gray hair and wore men’s britches, a belted calico shirt, and an old battered hat. She grew her own garden, shot her own meat, and ate fish that she caught and cleaned.

  Millicent, needless to say, did not approve of Hazel, her life, or her choice of apparel. The feeling appeared to be mutual.

  Hazel had dropped by the Bowerses’ home only once while Ingrid was there. She had ended up quarreling, quite heatedly, with Millicent over the war. Ingrid discovered later that the only reason Hazel had stopped by at all was to see the young immigrant girl who had answered the advertisement George had placed in a Detroit newspaper. There wasn’t a lot happening in White Rock, and for a few days the news of her arrival had apparently been the town’s primary source of gossip.

  For a short time, Millicent had enjoyed the attention Ingrid brought. It made her the first woman in White Rock to employ a “servant,” which is what she insisted on calling her. Ingrid preferred the term “hired girl,” which was what the other townsfolk called her—to Millicent’s annoyance.

  “If that woman ever gets on your nerves,” Hazel whispered as Ingrid walked her to the door after her one memorable visit, “you just come on over and stay with me till you figure out what you want to do.”

  It seemed an odd thing for the old woman to say, but Ingrid had tucked it away in her mind just in case.

  “I have no place to sleep,” Ingrid said. “Millicent tell me . . . get out.”

  “I figured that might happen,” Hazel said. “What did you do to upset her?”

  “I broke tea set.”

  “That fancy china teapot all the way from England?” Hazel whooped with laughter. “I bet that was one furious Southern belle you had on your hands.”

  “It was accident.”

  “Well, of course it was an accident. A girl like you don’t go around smashing good china on purpose. How did you get thos
e welts on your face?”

  “She whip me.”

  Hazel’s laughter stilled and her eyes narrowed. “She what?”

  “She hit me with whip.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Hazel’s mouth formed a rigid line. “That woman’s crazier’n I thought. She’s probably walking around with her corset laced too tight again. Forty-two years old and still trying to have the waistline of a girl. I’ve heard she even sleeps in it—is that true?”

  Ingrid nodded. “She have sleep corset, day corset, and party corset—very tight, that one.”

  Hazel shook her head. “Imagine sleeping in something made of bone and steel, laced so tight you can’t breathe.”

  “She say girl-childs need wear too.”

  “Are you making a joke?”

  “No. I hear her tell Mrs. Burnett to lace her dotter up tight at night.”

  “Little Lucy? For goodness sake. That sweet child is only seven years old!”

  “Millicent say it best when the bones still soft.”

  “I hope the mother refused.”

  “Mrs. Burnett say she do when girl is eleven.”

  “Goodness! Well, you’re just as well out of there. Come on in and we’ll find you a place to sleep.”

  Hazel’s indignation about the way she had been treated made Ingrid feel enormously better. She hadn’t been certain if getting beaten by an employer was considered normal in America. Now she knew that not only was it not normal, it was considered crazy.

  Even though Hazel’s house was small, Ingrid immediately felt at home. Instead of every corner being stuffed with furniture, there was a barrenness that appealed to her Swedish love of cleanliness and order.

  Except it wasn’t really all that clean. Hazel, after all, was not young. She no longer had the clearest eyes or the sharpest nose. Perhaps in return for a bed, Hazel would allow Ingrid to give the place a good scrubbing.

  “You can sleep in the loft,” Hazel said. “There’s a bed and a bit of furniture up there. Go on up and get yourself settled.”

  Ingrid mounted the narrow stairs and was pleased with what she saw. The roof was steep, and the loft felt roomier because of it. A small, glassed-in window was at one end, allowing a ray of late afternoon sunshine to dance upon the wooden floor. There had been no window in the Bowerses’ attic.

  Pegs were set into the logs for hanging clothes. There was a single rope bed with a plain dressing table and oil lamp beside it. A footstool was pulled up to a small rocking chair.

  It was more than enough, especially since she was grateful to have a roof over her head at all. She scooted her one piece of luggage beneath the bed and went back downstairs.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I pay with work. I clean now? Sweep floor?”

  “You’ll be paying me back by giving me some company in the evenings,” Hazel said. She patted the dog’s head, which came up to her waist. The wolf-dog could easily have made a meal of Hazel with a few bites, but it not only tolerated Hazel’s loving hand on its head, it also closed its eyes with pleasure when the old woman stroked it.

  “She-Wolf here isn’t much of a conversationalist at night, but she can scare the daylights out of anyone that might try to take advantage of me.”

  The dog gave Ingrid a straight, meaningful look, as though making certain Ingrid knew she was there on a probationary status only.

  “She bite?” Ingrid was uneasy about the glare she was getting from the wolf-dog. “She look like she bite!”

  “Not unless I tell her to.”

  Ingrid tried to ignore the giant wolf-dog. She rubbed her hands together and looked around. “Give me job.”

  “Let’s get you settled first. That bed up there ain’t been slept in for a while,” Hazel said. “Might be a good idea to shake the mice out of it and tear some fresh corn shucks to put in. I got some I been saving since last fall. Hadn’t seen the need till now.”

  “I help!” She was pleased to have something productive to do.

  “Good then.” Hazel dragged a large bag of dried corn husks from beneath her own bed, which was placed in the only other room on the first floor. “It’s gonna be good having company around here again. Old She-Wolf here is tired of listening to me telling my stories over and over, aren’t you, She-Wolf?”

  The wolf-dog had settled down on the floor next to Hazel’s rocker with her muzzle on her paws. Now she looked up at Ingrid and whined softly as though in agreement that she would be happy to be relieved of the burden of listening to Hazel’s stories.

  Had the dog not been so large and intimidating, Ingrid would have been tempted to laugh at her self-pitying expression. She chose not to risk it. She-Wolf might not have a sense of humor.

  “Go up and throw down that mattress,” Hazel said. “Then take it outside and empty it. We’ll see if there’s any damage.”

  Ingrid did exactly as Hazel asked. Unfortunately, the mattress had been used as a cozy place to raise a family of mice. She took the mattress outside and shook the contents into the field beside the cabin.

  Then she went back inside and repaired the small hole the mice had made, and Hazel built a fire against the cool spring night. It was companionable sitting in the solid little cabin, a small fire burning in the grate as they tore husks and stuffed them into the mattress.

  “Why’d she stop whipping you?” Hazel asked.

  “I take whip away.”

  “You did?” Hazel’s eyes were admiring. “Did she put up a fight?”

  “She try. Mr. Hunter stop her.”

  “Joshua?”

  “Millicent call him ‘wife killer.’”

  Hazel’s hands stilled. “To his face?”

  “Ja.”

  “She would do that!” Hazel grabbed a large handful of corn shucks and started ripping them with renewed vigor. “I been trying to squash that rumor for weeks now. Joshua has enough on his hands without dealing with that kind of foolishness. I wish the Bowerses would move back to where they belong.”

  “Millicent much like that.”

  “I know. I’ve heard her singing the praises of Richmond ever since the two of them got here. She doesn’t seem to realize how it sounds to those of us here in the North, especially them that’s got menfolk in the ground because of that war. The biggest mistake of my life was selling my husband’s store to George. I miss visiting with the customers.”

  “Why you do?”

  “I was going through a sickish spell. Thought it was the end. Couldn’t take care of the place like I wanted. I got better, but by then it was too late.”

  “Why they want store?” Ingrid reached into the sack for another handful of corn shucks. They were so dry they felt like thin paper.

  “There was no money down South after the war. Michigan is where the money is, now that it’s the lumber capital of the world. George is not dumb. He knew a store in a place growing as fast as White Rock is, and especially a town near the lumber camps, would be a gold mine. It was a good business decision for him, and I didn’t have anyone else standing in line to buy it from me. Now that wife of his is spreading gossip about Josh, one of the finest men I know. I could just wring Millicent’s neck.”

  “Did he?”

  “Who, Joshua? Kill his wife? Of course not. Never saw a man so besotted with a woman, and with that passel of little girls of his. He can’t even keep his daughters under control, let alone hurt that pretty wife.”

  “She pretty? This wife?”

  “I don’t think I ever saw a woman more perfect in form or face. Had an air of mystery about her too, that seemed to fascinate all the boys that hung around before she married Josh. She never told anyone what she was thinking, not even other women. Josh worshiped her from the moment he laid eyes on her, and from what I could see, he never got over it.”

  “But Millicent say . . .”

  “Millicent is enjoying herself at Josh’s expense. That big mouth of hers is one of the reasons they’ve called for an inquest. Between you and me, sometimes I suspect the
real reason George moved north was because there was no one left in Virginia who could tolerate Millicent.”

  “When is this . . . this . . . inquest? I get word right?”

  “Yep. That’s right. Where did you learn English, anyway? You sure don’t sound like you just got off the boat.”

  Ingrid felt very pleased at the compliment. She had worked hard learning the language of what was going to be her adopted country.

  “We have English neighbor. She marry Swedish man. We children, me and brother, go next door and visit her every day. She very lonely. She play games, bake cookies, teach us English just for fun. Very kind.” Ingrid sighed, missing their friend. “When we decide to go to America, she work very hard so we be ready.”

  “Well, that answers another question I had,” Hazel said.

  “What is that?”

  “How a Swedish girl wound up having a British accent.”

  “That is bad?”

  “No. Not at all. Just a little confusing,” Hazel said. “Are you talking about the brother I heard was supposed to meet you in Detroit?”

  “Ja.” Ingrid marveled at the way news traveled in a small town. “Hans is my twin brother. He go to America, get work on farm in Ohio and send money for Ingrid’s trip. He say he make more money in lumber camp in Saginaw, Michigan. He say come in spring to Mrs. Baker’s boardinghouse in Detroit. He say wait for him. I do. He never come and never come. No letter. No Hans. I run out of money and take job in White Rock. Think if I come close to where Hans work, I find him.”

  “You poor child.” Hazel shot her a pitying look. “Did he write you regular-like before then?”

  Ingrid nodded.

  “And then the letters stopped?”

  “Ja.”

  “We’ll pray that you find your brother.” Hazel laid a comforting hand on her arm. “But don’t get your hopes up. Lumber camps can swallow a man whole.”

  “You think Hans is not alive?”

  “He could be the governor of Michigan for all I know.” Hazel shrugged. “I’m just sayin’ it might be wise to have a plan that don’t involve pinning all your hopes on finding your brother.”