Spirit of the Valley

by Jane Shoup

  “If Pauline wants to, that is,” April May replied.

  If she wanted to? “I do! Oh yes. I do.”

  Cessie pressed a hand to her chest. “Oh, you just know that Lionel is tickled pink right now. Up in Heaven, looking down, tickled pink.”

  April May nodded in agreement. “And now that we’ve solved the world’s problems, you should go get some rest. You look tired enough to drop in your tracks.”

  Even though she suddenly felt wide-awake and full of excitement, Pauline stood. “I will.”

  “And practice your new name,” April May added. “If you want a new life, Pauline has to be no more. You’ll be Elizabeth Anne Greenway Carter.”

  “Maybe we should have an informal baptism,” Cessie suggested playfully.

  “You need to think about this,” April May said earnestly. “Really think. You do this and there’s no turning back.”

  Didn’t they realize how much she wanted this? How much she needed it? “I don’t want to turn back. Not ever. This is a godsend. You,” she said, looking from one sister to the other, “are a godsend.”

  “Maybe you’re one for us,” Cessie said tenderly.

  “And Lionel’s girl, at that,” April May said to her sister with a fond smile.

  Cessie welled up again.

  “Get some shut-eye,” April May urged. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”

  “Good night, then,” Pauline managed in a thick voice.

  “’Night, Pauline,” April May said. “Hey, just think. That may be the last time anyone ever says that to you.”

  Joy bubbled up inside Pauline, and it was only through great restraint that she didn’t laugh out loud.

  A half hour later, Pauline closed her eyes, hoping for sleep, but it eluded her as always. She was tired to the bone, but anxiety plagued her. Ethan was no longer present, leering, rearing his hand to strike a blow, but he was out there somewhere. He would search for them, and if he ever found them—

  She turned onto her side and curled into a ball, wondering how he could find them when they had run blindly, ending up in a town he’d never heard of, in a state he’d have no reason to consider. But what if he searched every possible avenue she could have taken? What if he went to the depot and the stationmaster remembered seeing them?

  “Stop it,” she whispered. It was bad enough that he’d made her life a living hell. Why was she continuing to torture herself? If he came after them, if he found them, she’d protect herself. She’d protect Jake and Rebecca. If he came for them, she would kill him. She inhaled and exhaled deeply and purposefully. “Safe,” she whispered. “You’re safe.”

  Her excitement over the cottage had faded, because she’d never had that sort of luck. Something would happen to stop the plan, but she had April May and Cessie on her side, and that was something. She didn’t feel as alone as she had for many years. They would help. They would offer beneficial advice, but the major decisions would be hers, and the first decision was that part of her meager funds would go toward the purchase of a gun. Not only that, but she would practice with it and she would use it if necessary. She would, so help her. Tears spilled over the bridge of her nose and dampened the pillow beneath her head. “Safe,” she mouthed. “You’re safe.”

  Chapter Six

  Pauline woke the next morning feeling sluggish and confused, almost drugged. She’d tried to wake several times, but kept falling back asleep. This time, Jake was poised on the side of her bed, waiting, his head resting on his hands. “Are you awake?” he whispered.

  She smiled and murmured a drowsy affirmative.

  He grinned. “Cessie said to let you sleep, but we said you never sleep late.”

  “But then I did, didn’t I?” she asked in a raspy voice.

  He nodded, looking like he might laugh aloud. “You sound funny.”

  “I don’t feel very funny,” she replied as she struggled to sit up. She felt so strange and weighted and exhausted. She heard a strange, soft tapping and looked at the window. “It’s raining?”

  Jake nodded. “But it wasn’t before. We fed the donkeys.”

  She touched his face and brushed back his soft hair, feeling guilty. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded again and he certainly looked all right. “We had flapjacks and the dogs like us.”

  It was bolstering, how happy he seemed. “I’ll get up now,” she said despite the fact she could have gone right back to sleep. At the sound of a piano, she glanced at the door with a puzzled expression.

  “Cessie is teaching Rebecca to play,” he said. “And they play fiddle and banjo, too.”

  “Oh my.”

  “And spoons and the jaw harp,” he said doubtfully. “I’ll tell them you’re up.” He started for the door. “We’re going swimming later if it stops raining.”

  “Oh, you are?”

  He turned back and nodded. “They have a pond and April May said she can teach us in nothin’ flat.”

  “Is she still calling you Ralph?”

  He giggled as he shook his head.

  “Good.” By the time she rubbed her eyes and swung her legs around, Jake had gone. It was remarkable the way the children had taken to April May and Cessie, especially Jake. Pauline rose, stretched, and she’d just finished washing up when Rebecca pushed the cracked door open a little wider. “Mama?”

  “Yes, I’m up.”

  Rebecca pushed the door open with her foot and came in carrying a highly polished teakwood tray. On it was a delicate pot of tea, a cup with a dash of milk or cream in it, a bowl of sugared mixed berries, and a slice of coffee cake.

  “Oh my. Look at that.”

  Rebecca smiled proudly. “Cessie said this would get you started, but to take all the time you wanted.”

  Pauline started to take the tray, but Rebecca resisted. “I wanted to give it to you in bed.”

  Pauline nearly laughed. “I’ve never had breakfast in bed in my whole life.”

  “I know. That’s why I want to. Please?”

  Pauline shrugged and smilingly acquiesced. She propped up pillows against the headboard and got back into bed. She was still in her robe and she hadn’t yet made the bed, but it still felt wrong.

  “Now, you hold it for a second,” Rebecca said.

  Pauline took the tray.

  “See, the sides come down,” Rebecca said as she pulled legs from the sides of the tray. “And you can set it in front of you.”

  “That’s clever,” Pauline said as she set it in front of her. “I feel like a lady of leisure.”

  “I told Cessie how you drank your tea and she made it that way.”

  “It looks delicious.”

  “I want to show you something,” Rebecca said. “Be right back.”

  As she dashed out, Pauline felt conflicted by the happiness her children were exuding. This from a good night’s sleep and a few hours with Cessie and April May Blue. She was thrilled to see it and yet it made her feel blameworthy. They were children; lightheartedness should have been a given, but that wasn’t what their lives had been filled with.

  She filled her teacup, mulling over what she’d said about becoming a lady of leisure. It was a ridiculous notion, and yet it was possible she’d been handed a second chance on a teakwood tray. It didn’t matter what the Greenway cottage looked like. If they were given a chance to start over there, near these most caring, gracious women, what more could she even wish for? Her own parents had never taken such loving care of her. For one thing, they’d been highly religious and thought to spoil a child promoted weakness. Duty was all that truly mattered. That’s what her father had believed, and, by extension, her mother. God rest her soul, her late mother had never had a single thought that wasn’t put into her head by either her own father or her husband.

  As a child, Pauline had secretly believed they weren’t her real parents. Not only were they older than her friends’ parents, but they’d also never doted on her as other parents did. And then there was the dream—a recurring snipp
et of a dream about a couple who were walking ahead of her. On a cloudy day, on a road she didn’t know, they turned toward one another and looked back at her, urging her to catch up—although no words were spoken. They were a handsome, smiling couple with dark hair. They were obviously happy and in love, and they loved her, too. She felt it in the dream and always for a time after she woke.

  The dream seemed so real, she’d often longed to reach out to take the hands they extended. If only she could connect with those hands. Because of the dream, she’d always suspected something had happened to her real parents, causing her to be adopted. Could the dream actually be memory, one precious memory of her real parents?

  She sipped the tea and savored the moment. She was relaxed in bed with a soft rain falling outside. She was safe and her children were happy for the moment. She took a bite of berries and the flavor burst in her mouth. Was it possible they’d really been directed to this place by loving guardian angels? It was such a lovely thought.

  By the time Rebecca came back in holding two photographs, Pauline had finished breakfast. The first picture, which Rebecca proudly handed over, was a grainy family portrait taken outside in front of the farmhouse. As Pauline took it in hand, Rebecca leaned close. “That’s Mr. Blue,” she said, pointing to the obvious patriarch. “His name was Josiah, and that’s Mrs. Blue, and her name was Olivia. But they called him Sy and her Livie.”

  Pauline smiled, because the family was just what she would have expected. The Blue children ranged in age from nine or ten to the early twenties, and they were all attractive and vibrant looking.

  “That one is Hunter,” Rebecca continued. “He got struck by lightning and died.”

  Pauline looked at her, blinking in surprise, and Rebecca nodded.

  “He was in the field when a summer storm blew up from out of nowhere.”

  “How terrible!”

  “I know,” Rebecca replied solemnly.

  “You’ve learned a lot this morning.”

  “I know. I already learned a song on the piano. Just with one finger.”

  Pauline smiled. “That’s how it starts.”

  “This one,” she said, pointing at the second young man, who was probably sixteen in the picture, “was Sterling. He died in the war.”

  “Oh,” Pauline breathed.

  “They’re all gone, except for April May and Cessie. This one is April May,” Rebecca said, pointing her out.

  “I can see that,” Pauline said, smiling at the image of an animated young woman of twenty or so.

  “She was the second oldest. Then there was Lita, that one. She just died last year. And that one is Scarlet. She died when she was having a baby and the baby died, too. Then that one is Cessie.”

  Cessie, the youngest, was a beautiful girl with dark hair. She and Sterling were the most comely of the family.

  “Then this is her when she was older,” Rebecca said, handing over the second picture.

  The photograph of Cessie when she was a young woman made Pauline’s skin ripple with gooseflesh. In it, Cessie’s girlhood beauty had blossomed into its full promise. The hand-painted photograph showcased a young woman with soft pink cheeks and lips and deep blue, almost violet-colored eyes who was astonishingly beautiful, but that wasn’t the shocking thing. The shocking thing was that she was the mother figure in Pauline’s childhood dreams.

  “Wasn’t she pretty?” Rebecca said wistfully.

  Pauline could do nothing but nod. Her throat was too tight.

  Rebecca went around and sat on the bed facing her mother. “Cessie had a sweetheart named John, but he died when he was only eighteen.”

  “Oh, honey, I hope you didn’t intrude on—”

  “I didn’t, Mama. She wanted to tell me. She said she hadn’t talked about him in a long time, although she thinks about him every day. I saw his picture, too. She keeps it in her room on her dresser. And there’s another one, too.”

  “Another what?”

  “Picture. Of her and a man named Lionel. He was her second love.”

  Pauline thought back on comments made the night before. They suddenly took on new meaning.

  Rebecca rose and took the pictures back in hand. “We may go swimming later, if it stops raining or even if it doesn’t.”

  Pauline smiled. “I may go with you.”

  Rebecca beamed. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Can you swim?”

  Pauline shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind getting better. You think I’m too old to learn?”

  “No,” Rebecca replied enthusiastically before turning pensive. “Why didn’t we ever go swimming before?”

  Tears pricked the backs of Pauline’s eyes. “We will now. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

  Rebecca nodded and started from the room.

  “I wonder if I could see the picture of John,” Pauline said.

  Rebecca turned back with a smile and then dashed off, but when she returned, the photograph she carried was not familiar. Pauline had never seen or imagined the young man in the photograph. He was a fine-looking young man with sandy-colored hair and a cleft in his chin. She could well imagine how a young Cessie had fallen in love with him—but he was not the father figure in her dreams. Her dream father had wavy dark hair and dark eyes. He’d had squarish shoulders and a certain profile; she’d seen it when he’d turned to her. Now that she’d remembered the dream, it was impossible to shake the image.

  Chapter Seven

  The Greenway cottage, built of wood and stone, had an elaborately carved front porch, although a tangle of vines had tried to lay claim to it. Weeds in the yard were tall and saplings and undergrowth had grown wild, but there was a charm to the place that the elements could not eradicate. It seemed impossible her luck could have so changed, but Pauline wanted to believe it. “I love it.”

  “It will take some work,” April May commented as she attempted to open the front door. It took some shoulder action because the wood floor had buckled. “But we can do it, and it will be worth it. Believe me.”

  “I do. I feel it, too.” Pauline looked toward the top of a towering oak. Glorious green leaves waved as a breeze blew, a pair of squirrels engaged in a mad game of tag, and birdsong filled the air. The place seemed positively enchanted.

  “We should go into town soon,” April May said as she stepped inside. “See T. Emmett Rice about the deed. He’s a lawyer, but a good man despite it. Fact is, he was one of the few who befriended Lionel.”

  “Oh?”

  “There were a few good men. They played cards and drank too much. Lionel enjoyed those get-togethers.”

  Pauline followed April May, stepping inside an almost empty parlor that smelled of mildew. Dust hung thick in the air, some partially illuminated from rays of light that filtered through grimy windows.

  “Part of the floor’s got to be torn up,” April May commented. “Moisture’s ruined it. I’ll tell you what else, there used to be a lot of furniture that’s not here anymore. Which aggravates the life out of me.”

  Pauline was oblivious to the flaws. This was her new start, and a far better one than she’d dared imagine. It didn’t matter if every stick of furniture had been stolen; it was a house with a roof and four walls. They’d fill it with furniture in time. April May went one way while Pauline turned down a hall and walked into a small bedroom with a bed and a chest of drawers.

  “There’s a little stone winery out back with a cellar underneath, and there’s a bathhouse, too,” April May said from the other room.

  “What’s a bathhouse?”

  “It’s made of cedar and tile and it’s got a big ol’ tub and a separate place where a shower of water comes down on you, because you’re supposed to clean yourself before you go into the bath, if that don’t beat all. Lionel swore that long, hot baths were good for you. It’s got a pump hooked up to a wood-burning thingymajobber, and so the bathwater is hot going in. The shower, too. Lionel liked his conveniences. That’s what he always said—
good wine, good books, good friends, and modern conveniences are what makes life worth living.”

  Pauline smiled, knowing that she would have liked the man. She walked farther down the hall and turned in to what must have been Lionel’s room. It had a wide bed and more furniture than the parlor. There was even a book on the bedside table. She rubbed her arms as she experienced a shiver. The bed was beautiful, with a tall, hand-carved walnut headboard. It was a wonder no one had carted it off.

  She walked over and picked up the book, Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy. I know a thing or two about desperate remedies, she thought as she set the book back down.

  “Tell you what,” April May said loudly. “When a place has sat empty as long as this one has, there’s sure to be a surprise or two. Nests of rats, hornets, snakes, spiders. We’ll need to be mighty careful.”

  There were two other rooms down the hall, another small bedroom and a study with a bookshelf full of musty-smelling books. They were in disarray, as if they had been rifled through. April May walked in behind her and clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Yep, and there was a fancy desk in here and a nice chair to go with it. Damned thieving people. Wish I knew who snatched it.”

  “But it’s so much more and better than I could have dreamed of,” Pauline said, turning to the older woman. “I’m so glad Papa left it for me.”

  April May grinned. “He always knew you’d come back sometime.”

  April May walked on as Pauline made her way to a bay window flanked by heavy, plum-colored drapes. She peered out on the badly overgrown backyard, covered walkways, and outbuildings. It had been a lovely place and it would be again if she had her way. “Promise,” she whispered to Lionel.

  She had thought the name Elizabeth Anne Greenway Carter dozens of times since she’d heard it, but, as of this second, she was going to be Elizabeth Anne Greenway Carter. It was the chance, the gift of a lifetime. “Lizzie,” she mouthed. She would dream up a whole new life story. She would keep the best of her former life, of Pauline’s life—Rebecca and Jake—and recreate everything else. This would be a loving home and they would be happy here. Happy and safe. She didn’t want or need anything else.