“I would, but my nemesis is there.” She pointed to a tall and broad-shouldered boy, with a face out of a Viking picture book. Blond hair peeked out from under his cap. “That’s him. Viktor.”
“Why is he your nemesis?”
She shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious?”
I stifled a laugh. “Not to me, no. Isn’t he older than you by a few years?”
“Yes, and he never lets me forget. Around here, I’m the best skater. The fastest skater. Except for Viktor.”
“Well, he is a young man,” I said. “He’s bound to be faster.”
“Don’t say it,” Cymbeline said, sounding disgusted. “I’m as strong and fast as any boy. Except for Viktor.”
I’d observed Viktor stealing glances her way several times that morning. I suspected he didn’t think of her as his nemesis.
“Is that the only reason you don’t like him?” I asked.
“I have other ones. But I don’t know how to describe them. There’s something about him that makes me want to punch him.”
I almost spit out a mouthful of cider. “He seems perfectly nice.”
“Nice? Who cares about nice? That’s all anyone can ever talk about in my family. Being kind and nice and of service to others. All of which makes me feel quite mean.”
“Nice and kind are good qualities, aren’t they?”
She didn’t answer, other than to kick her boot into a drift of snow.
“He’s a good worker. That you can admire, can’t you?” I’d seen the young man tossing bales of hay as if they were matchsticks. “Being a good one yourself, that is.”
“I haven’t noticed.”
We sipped our cider, quiet for a moment. I glanced over at the firepit. Viktor was watching us with an expression on his face that I recognized immediately. Jealousy. I might need to hang a sign around her neck with the number sixteen written on it. Translation: too young for all of you.
“Don’t look, but he’s been glancing over here. I think he might be jealous that you’re talking to me.”
She growled like a disgruntled puppy. “I don’t think so. He sees me as a kid.”
I doubted that, but I’d keep it to myself for now.
“I had to sneak out of the house this morning,” Cymbeline said, abruptly changing the subject. “Before Papa saw what I was wearing. He’s very old-fashioned.”
“I’ve never seen a girl wear overalls before,” I said.
She squinted at me as if I’d said something so outlandish that she thought she’d heard me wrong. “Dresses get in the way of real work. Men have liked to have us wear them as a way to keep us down. And corsets? How ridiculous that we be squeezed into something made of bones, which are supposed to be on the inside of your body, not outside. They were made to make sure we couldn’t breathe, lest we think too much.”
I smiled to myself.
She continued her diatribe. “Did you know women in Colorado have the right to vote? We have since 1893. The second state in the Union to do so. After Wyoming. Are you against women voting?”
“Absolutely not. There were a lot of women overseas, helping the war effort. Nurses. Ambulance drivers. They were very brave. It seems to me women can do pretty much whatever a man can do.”
She gave me a nod of approval. “I couldn’t agree more. If I’d been old enough, I would have gone to the front lines in a second. I’d like to drive an ambulance.” Her eyes flashed with ambition as she flattened her empty hand and pushed it through the air in a mimic of an ambulance. “I would have driven right into the fighting to rescue injured soldiers.”
“Let’s hope we never have another war, so you won’t have to.”
She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But if I have to marry some man and keep house instead of doing something exciting, I’d rather die young.”
“Don’t say such things. No one should ever have to die young.”
She flushed. “I’m sorry. That probably sounds awful of me. Did you lose a lot of friends in the war?”
“Yes, sadly.” I’d leave it at that. Let her keep her romantic ideals of war. Her brothers had come home. She hadn’t had to suffer the grief so many families experienced.
“Did you know Walter well?” she asked.
“Pretty well.”
“Was he a heel?”
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugged as she pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I didn’t like him.”
“Did you meet him?” I asked, surprised.
“No, but I read some of his letters. The few that he wrote.”
“And?”
“I’m Josephine’s sister. I understand things about her that others don’t.” She straightened her legs and pushed the toes of both her boots into the snow. “He wasn’t right for her. Fiona and I both thought so. And now we find out he didn’t even read the books she sent.”
I nodded. “Read by me and some of the other fellas,” I said. “Not a wasted effort.”
“Fine, but that’s not the point. How could Josephine marry a man who doesn’t love reading? She’s a librarian. That’s heresy.”
“Heresy? A strong word.”
“I like that word. A lot. It has the proper seriousness. Anyway, he hardly ever wrote to her.” She shifted to face me. “Jo wouldn’t admit to it, but his lack of attention hurt her. She made excuses for him. The front lines and all that. But I knew something wasn’t right. It’s because she doesn’t see herself properly.”
“How so?” This girl was like finding a textbook on Josephine.
“First, she doesn’t think she’s pretty. Second, she thinks men find her boring because all she does is read and take care of people. She actually told me one time that she didn’t expect to ever have a man fall in love with her.”
“Ridiculous,” I said, under my breath.
She lifted her chin slightly as she peered at me through narrowed eyes. “I agree. But you see, that’s what it was with Walter. He paid attention to her, and she took that as love. It’s sad because he preyed on that vulnerability. Which is why a girl should never let her guard down. Always distrust people until you know more.” She bent her legs and leaned over her knees. “Jo’s the only one who remembers our mother. That’s why she’s the way she is. She witnessed our mother’s madness. She had to see things no child should.”
“Like what?”
“She saw her standing over Fiona’s crib with a knife in her hand.”
I swallowed back an exclamation. How horrid. She’d not shared that story in her letters.
“She doesn’t talk about it much,” Cymbeline said. “But occasionally, when it’s just the three of us older girls, she talks about our mother. And other things, like how hard it was after she died. Papa was devastated, and she had to take care of him and us. Fiona was a tiny baby then, and I was a toddler, plus the twins. We had Jasper and Lizzie, of course, but it was still hard for Jo. It wasn’t until Mama came that she was allowed to be a child again. As Mama says, though, the damage had already been done. Jo was already like an old woman. Too worried. Too willing to accept scraps. Too devoted to a life of service.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No, unless it’s at a personal cost, which, in her case, it is. She doesn’t think she’s worth anything unless she’s taking care of others. That’s why she liked that rotten Walter in the first place. He needed her, and she sensed it.”
“That’s insightful of you,” I said.
She raised both eyebrows. “The others don’t think I’m as smart as them because I don’t care much for school. It’s just so stuffy inside, and there are so many things to do and learn that have nothing to do with academics. However, I know things about people, especially my family. I know things about you, too.”
“You do?”
“You look at Josephine all soft in the eyes. Like this.” She widened her eyes and made them appear glassy and blank. “Lovesick eyes.”
“And if that were true? What w
ould you think? Would you approve, since I like books?”
“Liking books is to your favor, yes. However, I’m not sure about the rest of you. I like that you think women can do what men can do. Still, I’m the wait-and-see type. My sister Fiona loves everyone without any discernment whatsoever. It’s maddening. The others are almost as bad.” She pointed to her eyes. “I’m watching you. Don’t forget that.”
I laughed. “When I was a kid, I was like you. When a new boy or girl came to the orphanage, I observed for weeks before making a judgment one way or the other.”
“Is that why you came to us? To find a family?”
“That’s appealing, yes. But I came for Josephine. To see if she was as remarkable as I thought. She is, but you know that.”
“I do. I’m not sure you’ll have any luck with her. She might not like you.”
“Why?” My stomach clenched. Cymbeline’s insightfulness unnerved me.
“Because you don’t need her. You’re strong all on your own. She won’t have to take care of you. I’m not sure she’d know what to do with a man like that.”
I nodded and turned toward the crowd surrounding the firepit. “Maybe I’m exactly what she needs then. I could take care of her.”
“I’d like that for her.” She reached her arms overhead and stretched. “For my other sisters, too. Just not for me. I won’t be tied down by a man and made to obey. I’ll have my own work and money and adventures.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll make the kind of life you want.”
She grinned as she rose to her feet. “You can count on that. But Phillip, in all seriousness, you’ve got to figure out how to skate, or you’ll never fit in around here. Jo cannot marry a man who can’t take her for a twirl around the pond. That’s just not done.”
“I’ll do my best, but I’m an old man.”
“Nah, you need more practice, that’s all. I can help you.” She motioned for me to get up. “Come on, old man. Let’s get Flynn and head home.”
Home. What a lovely word. If only Cymbeline knew how much she would miss home when she left. As determined as she was, this girl loved her family. It wouldn’t be as easy as she thought to leave them.
Josephine
For most of the morning, I paced around the house, going over every detail I could remember of my two weeks with Walter, examining them as Phillip had suggested. Sadly, I couldn’t find the holes in his stories. Like it was only yesterday, I could recall with perfect clarity the sincerity in his eyes and the sound of his laughter.
I went upstairs and opened the box of letters for the first time. I’d stored them under my bed next to the much smaller cluster of those Walter had sent to me. I pulled them both out and sat on the floor between my bed and Cymbeline’s. We shared a room with three single beds as we always had, all lined up in a row according to age.
I read through several of Walter’s first. There was nothing of note in them, other than flowery speech about his love for me. They were short, no more than a few paragraphs, with no details of what his days had been like. At the time, I’d excused the lack of length and detail on the war. Strategic battle secrets shouldn’t be passed through letters. Now, however, it was obvious. He hadn’t cared for me as I had him. Did we truly only see what we wanted?
I burned with shame. Having such an error in judgment over something so important was not like me. Or was it? Did I have a completely false impression of myself?
Did Phillip really think he was in love with me? Was he as deluded as I had been about love? Were his fantasies about me and my life here only wishes, born from loneliness? They had to be. Yet at the same time, his passionate statements thrilled me.
Which led to further shame. What kind of woman was I? Declaring my eternal love to a cunning ghost one day and thinking of a man I’d just met the next.
Was my thrill only an illusion? I’d convinced myself before of a relationship that hadn’t existed. Would this prove more of the same?
I set his letters aside and opened the box with mine. Neatly stacked, they’d been put into chronological order. By Phillip, I suspected, not Walter. Damn him. How could he have lied to me this way? Tears leaked from my eyes. I put the lid back on and slouched over the box and silently sobbed. A creak in the floorboards drew my attention. I looked up, drying my eyes with the backs of my hands. Fiona stood just inside the room.
“What’re you doing, Jo?” The way she asked the question, gently with a tinge of sadness, I knew she knew exactly. She came to sit across from me on the floor.
“Stirring up ghosts, I guess.”
She held out her hands. “No good will come from this. Give them to me.”
I gave her the box. “Mama told you?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” She shoved the box under the bed, then put the Walter letters back into the stack. She set those aside, as if she wanted them for later.
“I feel foolish and embarrassed,” I said.
She leaned close to brush away strands of hair that had stuck to my cheeks. “You’ve been sad for too long. It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Dancing.”
“Dancing?” I giggled and shifted so that my back was against the bed. Fiona joined me and rested her head on my shoulder.
“I was wondering about something,” Fiona said. “Did it ever occur to you that you couldn’t love Mama Quinn because you’d loved our real mother first?”
“No. It was clear to me that Quinn was what we all needed.”
She nodded and made a humming sound. “Hmm…”
We were silent for a moment. My sister wasn’t exactly subtle.
“Our real mother was disturbed,” Fiona said. “But you loved her anyway.”
“True.”
“Perhaps the way to look at this is that Walter was disturbed. You loved him anyway. We can’t always control who we love. Sometimes those people don’t deserve our affection, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Loving someone, no matter how it ends, isn’t something you should ever feel sorry or ashamed about. You didn’t know.”
“I’ve wasted too much time on him.”
“Then don’t waste another minute,” Fiona said.
“Is it really that simple? I just will away all the memories and regrets?”
“It’s not that simple,” Fiona said. “But all that might be easier when a new chance at happiness shows up at your door.”
“Fiona, how did you get so smart?”
“I’m not really. I just know a good person when I see one.”
After my talk with Fiona, I decided to go outside for fresh air. If she was right and I should forgive myself for mistakes, perhaps a walk through the powdery snow would help me sort out exactly how to do so. We’d been blessed with another sunny cold day. Icicles hung from the roof of the house like long, pointed teeth. Several winter sparrows twittered from bare aspen branches.
I wore tall boots and had hiked up my skirt to keep it from brushing along the snow, allowing me to walk briskly. My restless and tormented thoughts eased the farther I walked. I took in the smell of the firs as I passed over the meadow and into the forest. The more steps, the better I felt. Perhaps my wise little sister was correct. I’d made a mistake, but not one that I couldn’t forgive myself for. Mama always said there were no mistakes we couldn’t learn from. What a large mistake I’d made. Would my growth equal the mistake?
I turned back and traipsed out of the forest and back over the meadow. A movement caught my eye as I approached the house. For a moment, I thought it was a deer behind a group of aspens. As I drew nearer, I realized the object was Theo. Wearing nothing but his long underwear, he sat under an aspen with his knees pulled up to his chest. He stared with blank eyes into nothing. My heart pounded hard and fast. My mother had been alone in the snow when he’d found her. Seeing him here was eerily similar. Wearing so little, he would be nearly frozen. How long had he been there?
“Theo?” I called out to him as I ran toward him as quickly a
s I could.
He didn’t respond. I fell to my knees in front of him. “Theo, what are you doing out here?”
This time, his eyelids flickered. He raised his gaze to me, then blinked. “Jo?”
“Yes, it’s me. What’s happened? Why are you here?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure how I got here.”
I rose to my feet. There was no time to waste. I needed to get him inside as soon as possible. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house.” I took off my coat and put it over his shoulders.
Surprisingly docile, he allowed me to take his hand and assist him in standing. He was heavy, but I managed to get him upright. I gasped when I saw his feet, which had been buried beneath the snow until now. He wore wool socks, wet from the snow. Depending on how long he’d been out here, he could have frostbite. I was beside myself by now, shaking from cold and fear.
I took hold of his arm and pushed him forward. “Go, quickly.”
We began the trudge through the snow to the house. “Do your feet hurt?” I asked.
“No. Numb, that’s all.”
Walking out here had seemed quick. The trip back seemed to take forever. I wanted to lift him in my arms and run, but that was impossible.
I shouted for help when we reached earshot of the house. Seconds later, Jasper and Papa came running. “My God, what’s happened?” Papa asked when they got to us. The terror in his voice brought tears to my eyes.
“I found him in the snow,” I said. “Just sitting there.”
“Theo?” Papa shook him slightly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Take one side of him and I’ll take the other,” Papa said to Jasper. “Theo, lift your feet. Get them out of the snow.”
Theo, like me, had started to cry. “I’m sorry, Papa.” He repeated the same statement three times as the men lifted him up and out of the snow and carried him into the house.
Once inside, they set him on the bench by the door. Papa knelt and stripped Theo of his socks. “Rub one and I’ll do the other,” he said to Jasper.
The Spinster (Emerson Pass Historicals Book 2) Page 10
