But there was something else there. She knew that he must have been handsome before the war and could be again given proper meals for a time. And he was kind and gentle. She’d seen the way he had interacted so well with her sisters over supper and it had touched her.
“How old are you, Robert?” she inquired, desperate to fill the night with something other than silence.
“Twenty,” he replied without looking at her.
“You look older than twenty,” Temperance stated bluntly and then bit her lip. “Sorry… I’ve always tended to speak without thinking.”
Robert just laughed lightly and turned his gaze to her. His blue eyes were so gentle and warm. “That’s alright, miss. The war took its toll on me I guess.” He coughed lightly and winced a little. “It wasn’t what I thought it would when I was sixteen and rushed to join up that’s for sure. There wasn’t always enough food--wasn’t always any food actually. We walked a lot. Miles and miles, days and days, weeks and weeks of walking. And we only got one uniform a year so you can imagine how smelly that got…”
Despite her sadness, Temperance felt herself smile and she was so grateful to Robert for that. Robert sighed and glanced out over the land, “Then there were the gunshots, the cannons, the smoke, the screams…” his voice trailed off into the night. “No, it was nothing like I thought it was gonna be.”
“Do you have a family, Robert? You should be with them if you do.” Temperance hoped he didn’t. She wanted him to stay.
“No, I don’t have any family,” he replied. “My mama died when I was twelve and my papa died in the war. I was the only child they had that lived past the age of seven.”
Temperance shivered. So much sadness and death in this world! Robert mistook her shiver for being cold and he stood quickly and grabbed his jacket from the banister before laying it over her shoulders. “You should get inside, miss. You need to rest.”
Temperance stood and looked up at him. He was quite tall, probably around six feet. “Thank you for coming, Robert. I don’t know what we would do if you weren’t here.”
Temperance felt her heart beat faster when he slid a strand of her red hair from her face. “I won’t leave you all. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” He quickly dropped his hand and took several steps back. “Go on in and get some rest now.”
Temperance nodded and pulled his jacket tighter before slipping back into the house. She felt more certain now that everything would be okay. Robert was here and he was going to take care of them…. And he wasn’t much older than her. Maybe God had sent him here for her.
With sadness and hope alike warring inside her heart, Temperance slid into bed with her sisters and closed her tired eyes.
***
Temperance, her mother, Jessica and Charlotte all stood clutching hands as Robert and another man from town worked together to lower the three caskets into the three graves that Robert had dug the night before.
The wind was blowing fiercely and it dried the tears as they slid down their red cheeks.
Temperance was quick to take the girls back to the cabin once the burial was complete, though she couldn’t get her mother to join them. The woman simply lay down across her husband’s grave and refused to move.
Robert saw the other man away and then stepped into the cabin with Temperance and the girls. Temperance took one look at him and grew concerned. He was still very pale and now dark circles were around his eyes and his lips seemed nearly colorless beneath his mustache. Sweat slicked his skin and she could hear the breaths he took as they rattled inside his chest. Not only that, but his blue eyes appeared glazed and far too bright…
Temperance went to the chair he was seated upon and laid her wrist upon his brow. He quickly jerked away from her but not before she felt the fever that was burning there.
“You’re sick!” she accused.
“It’s nothing,” he replied just before a fit of coughing overtook him. It was a bad cough and Temperance thought it sounded as if his lungs were going to be torn straight out of him.
“You need rest,” she urged.
Surprisingly enough Robert nodded. He stood and then swooned, nearly going down to the floor. Temperance caught him around the middle and helped support him as she led him to the sofa. She could feel the heat radiating off his body and through her dress. He truly was very ill.
She laid him down on the sofa just as another body wracking cough overcame him. Temperance had no idea what to do. There were no doctors way out here and even the town, which was three hours away, had no doctor. She did know that for coughs her mother had chamomile tea stocked away and cold rags should help with the fever.
Quickly, Temperance put some water on to boil and wet a few rags with cool water. She went back to Robert and he seemed irritated when she began to rub one along his overheated brow.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his breathing ragged and his voice strained.
“Trying to help your fever,” she replied. “And I have some tea brewing for your cough.”
Robert nodded and coughed again, burying his face against the sofa as he did. When he looked back at her there was a ghost of a smile pulling at his pale lips, “You’ll make someone a fine wife some day. Bossy and caring all at the same time.”
Temperance smiled despite her worry but that smile disappeared when he once again buried his face in the sofa and coughed.
For hours, Temperance nursed him, only to realize he was getting worse. His cough worsened, his breathing became more and more labored and his fever simply climbed higher and higher.
Jessica and Charlotte had gone up to their loft bedroom and her mother was locked inside her room. Temperance looked down into Robert’s fever clouded eyes. “You have to snap out of this now, Robert. We need you… You promised me you would make everything okay. I need you.”
He mumbled something in response but it was incoherent and his eyes didn’t seem to truly see her.
Temperance was terrified.
By dawn, it became clear that nothing she did was going to help. He had long since stopped coughing, his body had run out of the energy to do so, and he was no longer awake. His fever raged, his breathing rattled and he lay as still as death.
“Tempy, what’s wrong with Robert? Is he sleepy?” Charlotte asked quietly as she tugged on her hair and Jessica cut them both off a slice of cinnamon bread leftover from the day before.
“Yes,” Temperance whispered, her voice hoarse from sadness and fatigue. She hadn’t slept a wink and had merely kept a vigil beside the sofa. “Yes, he’s sleepy. You girls eat and then go feed the animals.”
It wasn’t long before Temperance found herself alone with Robert once again and she lay her head upon Robert’s chest. His shallow, rattling breaths were frightening but she was so afraid that they soon lulled her to sleep.
She yawned as she woke. Se had no way of knowing how long she’d been asleep. She was about to raise her head and resume her caretaking when she realized that the room was silent and that there were no rattling breaths coming from beneath her ear.
Tears filled Temperance’s eyes as she very slowly raised her head and looked down at the lifeless face of the man who was supposed to have taken care of them all--the man she had let herself believe God had sent just for her.
What was she going to do?
Temperance laid a gentle kiss to his cheek which was now cool beneath her touch.
The cabin door opened and Temperance looked up to see Charlotte step in and the next occurrence caused Temperance’s blood to freeze in her veins. Charlotte, laid a hand over her pale cheek, took a deep, wheezing breath and coughed.
Chapter Three
Nine days. It had been nine days since Temperance had waken up upon a dead man’s chest. Nine days since Charlotte had fallen ill. In those nine days Temperance had lost everything.
Charlotte. Jessica. Her mother.
They were gone now.
Dead.
Nine days. Barely over a week.<
br />
She wondered, as she finished tossing the last shovelful of dirt over her mother’s grave, why she had not fallen ill just as everyone else had. Why had God spared her and taken away everything in the world that mattered to her?
Tears had long since stopped falling. There had been too much loss--too much pain--her body and her mind were now numb to it all. Her arms ached from all the digging she had done. Temperance was certain the four graves she had dug were not as deep as they should have been but they were the best she’d been able to manage.
The tiny crosses she had managed to craft and the fresh mounds of dirt were all that told the world that Thomas Hall, Gregory Hall, Joseph Hall, Herriot Hall, Jessica Hall, Charlotte Hall and Robert Thompson had ever existed at all.
Somehow, Temperance managed to drag her exhausted body back to the cabin. Night would be falling soon. She had never spent an entire night alone before and the thought terrified her.
Going into her mother’s room, Temperance curled her body up in the spot her mother had been laying in not long before. She clung to her pillow, which still smelled like the soap that her mother had always used in her hair and she simply became lost in a trance.
Time ticked on. Hours passed. Still Temperance lay there. She felt nothing. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. Her body and her mind had endured too much and quite simply shut down.
Alone.
That was the only word that continued to echo inside her mind. She was completely alone.
She knew she would have to make the journey into town. She would have to tell people about her family and try to find somewhere she could stay that wasn’t here. This home way out here was not safe for a girl alone.
But for now she simply lay there.
Darkness encased the room, then sunlight, then darkness again.
It wasn’t until a rumble of thunder shook the cabin walls on the second morning that Temperance was rocked from her trance.
She sat up quickly and drew a gasping breath as pain radiated through her stiff body.
With confusion she glanced around, not understanding where she was or how long she had been there. Hunger pangs crippled her and her mouth was painfully dry.
Temperance rose from the bed and nearly fell when her numb legs and feet refused to hold up her body. Using the bed as a crutch, Temperance shook them out and waited for the feeling to return. When it did it came roaring back with that painful pins and needles sensation that had her whimpering.
She shuffled her way out of her mother’s room and curled her nose when she realized she had soiled the bed--and herself. That had to be dealt with right away.
After washing in the rain that was pouring off the eaves of the house and drinking her fill of the cool water, Temperance slipped into her only other clean dress and then stripped her mother’s bed and tossed the soiled sheets onto the back porch.
Next, she went to the cupboards and found a jar of canned apples. Without wasting time warming them up, Temperance quickly devoured as much as she could of the fruit--though that only ended up being a quarter of the jar. She’d been too long without food and her shrunken stomach couldn’t hold any more than that.
She worried about the animals… she hadn’t fed or watered them since Charlotte had taken ill. They were probably dead or dying--just like everything else around her.
Temperance slipped on Robert’s coat, put his cap on her head and rushed out through the storm toward the barn. Her bare feet slipped and slid in the worsening mud. She grabbed a bucket that had been outside and was full of rain water and entered the barn, happy to see that while the mule and cow were looking quite hungry and haggard, they were still alive. Jessica had always been guilty of overfeeding the animals but just now that seemed to have been their salvation.
Temperance poured a bit of the water into each of their troughs and gave them some fresh hay and feed. Cleaning their stalls would have to wait - her arms simply couldn’t manage the task today.
Next Temperance fed the pigs and the chickens, happy to see they had all survived as well. Perhaps it was only the people in the world that were dying…
With all the death that had been occurring around her, Temperance couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the entire world was gone… perhaps she truly was all alone.
She stripped off the soaked hat and coat once she was back in the house and then she curled up upon the sofa. The thunder and rain were the only sounds that filled the oppressive silence that pressed in on her from all directions.
It was no use attempting to get to town in this weather. It was a three hour trip in good weather and in this rain and mud it would take much longer--she was better off waiting here until the weather broke.
Temperance knew that she shouldn’t but that didn’t stop her from grabbing up Robert’s canvas sack from the corner of the room and pulling it to the sofa. It wasn’t right to go through someone’s things but since Temperance had fancied she’d marry the man one day--and since he was now dead and buried in her yard--she did not think he would object to her snooping.
She pulled out a stiff wool blanket, a clean white tunic shirt, a canteen, a pouch of gunpowder, ammunition for a gun, a pocketknife and some dried meat. Rummaging further still Temperance found a leather bound book.
She pulled it out and realized it was a journal. She knew she shouldn’t read it… but she couldn’t help herself. She needed something to do to pass the time and maybe there would be stories of her father and brothers written inside.
Temperance opened the journal and lost herself inside the pages. She started at the beginning and read through the eyes of an awestruck young man seeking adventure. He spoke of new friends and she smiled faintly when she recognized the names of her family. Through the course of the journal however his voice changed.
He spoke of terrible tragedies, gruesome truths of war and things that caused Temperance’s stomach to churn. He lost that awestruck tone and quickly seemed saddened and annoyed with it all.
Toward the end of the journal he spoke of the death of her father and brothers. He spoke of the promise he had made to tend to their family and the journey he now had to take. He had seemed upset to have to do so.
Then she arrived at the last entry. It was dated for the night that he had dug those graves--the night he and Temperance had sat together upon the porch. Temperance saw her name--he’d written it so carefully; each letter was drawn out with painstaking attention to detail and Temperance felt her heart ache.
He spoke of how beautiful she was. How her red hair shone like copper and her green eyes sparkled like emeralds--which he’d only seen one time on the ears of a rich man’s wife. He spoke of how he hated that he’d had to bring her such sad news but that he had been impressed by her strength and courage. He spoke of how he hoped that one day he could properly court her just as soon as she grew old enough. He had no longer seemed upset about coming to take care of her family--instead he’d gone so far as to say his ending up here had been a gift from God and one of the few he’d ever received in his life.
Temperance closed the journal and looked at the clock… it was nearing nightfall once again. She hadn’t realized she’d spent so long reading. The storm outside had stopped and the rain was no longer falling. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked.
All alone. Temperance was all alone.
Chapter Four
“Tempy, we’re hungry!” Jessica exclaimed.
“Well I’m baking the cake just as quickly as I can,” Temperance assured the impatient girl. She glanced at the table and saw Charlotte poised with a spoon above the bowl of butter cream icing Temperance had spent a half of an hour making. “Don’t you dare, Char,” she warned.
The girl gave a guilty grin, dropped the spoon and ran out of the cabin with a laugh.
“Do you think mama will like the cake we baked her?” Jessica inquired, tapping her toes impatiently as she stared at the cook stove.
“Well it is her birthday,” Temperance replied with a grin. She tweaked
the girl’s nose, “Everyone must have a cake on their birthday. Now why don’t you go on out and help mama hang her laundry? She shouldn’t have to work so hard today.”
Temperance woke from her dreams of the past and glanced around the empty cabin. A quick check of the clock told her it was seven in the morning. Sunlight was shining in through the window and Temperance moved her face into the glow--allowing it to warm her.
She’d been alone here for a week. She should have gone to town by now but she simply couldn’t bring herself to leave…. This was home and all her memories were here. She could remember reading to Jessica and Charlotte late at night in their loft bed. She could remember singing songs with mama in front of the fire. She could remember mama teaching her how to knit and sew as they talked about life long after the younger girls had gone to bed.
Tears slipped down Temperance’s cheeks. She wanted her family back.
Temperance rose from the couch and swiped the backs of her hands across her cheeks to dry them. Her dream of cakes had made her hungry and so she decided to bake one--everyone must have a cake on their birthday.
Today Temperance turned sixteen. Normally her birthday would have meant a new dress hand sewn by mama, cards made by Jessica and Charlotte and a cake with her name written across it. Her family would have sung to her and pampered her all day… But not this year.
She went into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards gathering all she needed for a cake. She was just tying on her apron when she heard a noise outside… it had sounded like hoof beats.
A visitor?
Temperance rushed to the window and glanced outside. There was a man. He hopped off the horse and held the reins loosely in his hands. “Hello the house!” he called out.
Temperance glanced at the door and realized she hadn’t locked it. The man would probably let himself in if she didn’t do it for him. It wasn’t unusual for someone passing through to end up here--her mama had always been quick to help strangers. She would say that at some point in our lives we all need help and we need to aide one another.
Against Her Will Page 2
