“Why, I’ll bet your mama is spinning in her grave this very minute down at Fairdale Cemetery, wondering why no one in this house loves her or me any—”
Rose began to wail and Luke brought his fist down on the oak tabletop, making the dishes clatter. “Cora! That’s enough!” His words boomed against the walls like summer thunder rolling across a valley. For several seconds, the only sound in the kitchen was that of Rose’s sniffling and the coffeepot perking on the stove.
Cora looked as surprised as if he’d fired a warning shot from a rifle. Emily stared at him with wide eyes. It was the first time she’d heard him raise his voice.
“Rose, are you finished eating?” he asked, and Emily could see he was struggling to control his anger when he spoke to her. The girl nodded and dragged her sleeve across her nose. Emily said nothing about it. “Then you go on outside and see to your sheep. We’ll bring them into the barn tonight—I want to check on the little one.”
Rose nodded and slid out of her chair. She went to the back door, and then turned to glance at Cora. But her grandmother was still watching Luke, wary as a bird watching a cat. Emily sent the girl a private smile and she slipped outside.
Luke turned to her. “Miss Emily, ma’am—”
“I have a lot of things to do upstairs, so I’ll excuse myself, if you don’t mind.”
Luke nodded at her, and she swept from the kitchen. Curiosity, one of her more regrettable traits, made her want to linger in the hall to hear what he would say to Cora, but her better nature conquered the temptation. As it turned out, she didn’t need to be close by anyway. Even as she climbed the stairs, she heard Luke’s voice, and although she couldn’t make out the words, his tone reflected his aggravation. Cora’s replies were loud enough for phrases to penetrate the floor of Emily’s bedroom.
“ . . . why we couldn’t go on as we always had . . . ”
“ . . . turn her away from me . . . ”
Emily puttered nervously at straightening her bureau drawers until she heard Cora’s heavy tread on the stairs and her bedroom door slam.
If anything had been settled, she didn’t know what it was.
~~*~*~*~~
Later that evening, Emily sat on her bed with her wonderful new fabric spread out next to her. It almost seemed too nice to cut with a scissors.
She hadn’t seen Luke or Cora since dinner time. Cora, she believed was still ensconced in her bedroom. Luke was probably outside, taking advantage of the lingering daylight. As upsetting as dinner had been, it didn’t dim her secret joy over this lovely gift he’d given her, or the kiss that had followed. He was the first man who’d ever kissed her. The memory of it, warm, soft, unexpected, lingered in her heart and memory. It had been exciting. And for the first time in her spinster’s life, she had not felt too tall. Under Luke’s touch, she’d actually felt small and delicate. It was silly, she knew, because she was neither. It had been almost as if she’d put on her bridal veil, light and gossamer.
Should she try it now? Maybe it would work. She stood and went to her trunk, where the veil laid in repose. She had just unwound it from its tissue-paper cloud and was lost in thought when she heard a timid voice call her name.
“Miss Emily?”
Emily looked and saw Rose standing in her doorway, dressed in overalls and an old shirt. A shadow of worry still clouded her small face, and Emily wished she had the right to embrace the girl, to tell her that everything would be fine. But despite Luke’s gift and the kiss, she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. The specter of Belinda still haunted this house, and Cora was her willing messenger.
Hastily, she started to put the veil away again. “Come in, Rose. I was just looking at the fabric I’m going to use to make my new dress.” She indicated the silk on her bed.
The girl came closer and pointed at the length of illusion. “What’s that?”
Emily stopped the repacking process and looked at the white headpiece. “It was my grandmother’s wedding veil. My mother wore it, too, and I’d hoped—well, I brought it along with me.”
“Can I see?”
“May I see.”
“Oh, yeah—may I?”
If talking to God and to her mother were Rose’s secrets, this veil was Emily’s. She kept it close to her heart and her dreams. But the girl had shared her own secrets. So perhaps it was only fair that Emily return the confidence. Carefully she unfurled the veil and spread it out over the rocking chair.
Rose approached with a reverence and respect that touched Emily’s heart. “Oh, it looks like something a princess would wear!” She extended a hand and Emily’s breath stopped, but the girl added, “I washed my hands before I came up. Can I—may I just feel the edge?”
Emily forced herself to relax. Rose had had such a horrible experience at dinner, she couldn’t bring herself to deny the request. “Of course. But it’s very old, so you’ll want to be careful.”
Rose nodded and touched the lace edging with a single, gentle fingertip.
“There’s a gown that goes with it. I’ll show it to you someday.”
“I’d like that! Is it as pretty as this?”
“I think it is. But it was made for a small woman, probably one about your mother’s size.”
Rose made no reply to that, but her gaze drifted to the teal silk on the bed. “That’s pretty too.”
“Yes, your father picked that out himself. Didn’t he make a good choice?”
“Uh-huh,” the girl answered, but she was fingering the brown paper it had been wrapped in. “Are you going to keep this?”
“That wrapping? Why, would you like to have it?”
“It would be good to draw on.”
There were probably six or seven feet of paper there, and yes, it would be good for that. “Yes, I believe you’re right. You may have it if you’d like.” Emily pulled the paper away from the material and rolled it up to hand to Rose. “There you are.”
“Thank you,” she intoned, plainly delighted. A person might have thought that Rose had been given a gold necklace or a year’s worth of strawberry drops instead of a length of plain brown wrapping. She clutched Emily around the waist and hugged her for the length of a heartbeat.
Then she scampered out of the room, leaving Emily surprised and damp-eyed.
~~*~*~*~~
Heavy rain pounded down on the roof late that night as Luke lay in his bed staring at the dark ceiling. The confrontation with Cora at the table had carried him another step closer to telling her to move out. Just one thing she’d said had stopped him, and it was the same device she used whenever she didn’t get her own way.
She’d invoked Belinda’s name.
A cascade of blame and remorse had washed over him, and even now he felt Belinda’s accusing finger jabbing at his shoulder from beyond time and loss: he’d kissed another woman today in the barn. He’d even brought her a present that he really couldn’t afford. No matter how much he’d wanted to hold Emily in his arms, and regardless of how long Belinda had been gone, guilt got in the way of his desires.
The last night he’d talked to his late wife had been like this one, cold and wet, with a hard east wind that lashed the rain against the house in sheets. Well, they hadn’t really talked. They’d argued. Again. Cora had come for dinner, during which time she’d reviewed what she saw as Luke’s many failings.
The jabs had been subtle—the new stove he’d bought wasn’t the best one, was it?
What a pity he hadn’t been able to get enough money together to get a neat little surrey for Belinda to drive to town.
Ray Ellison had taken his wife to San Francisco for a second honeymoon. Wasn’t it too bad that Luke hadn’t been able to give Belinda a honeymoon at all?
She’d tried to rearrange the parlor furniture to suit herself and had criticized Belinda for doting upon Rose.
Afterward, Luke’s simmering resentment had boiled over onto his wife. Why could she never take his side during one of Cora’s tirades? Or give him her permiss
ion to defend himself against the fault-finding nag? Out of respect for his wife, he’d held his tongue, but a man had his limits. . . If she didn’t feel up to that task, couldn’t she at least ask her meddling mother to keep her opinions to herself, goddamn it?
It had been nothing more than a rehash of other arguments, older hurts, and discontentments. He’d loved her so much, but no matter how hard he’d tried to please her, Cora always gave her reasons to be unhappy with him.
Finally, one night, that night, he’d decided he couldn’t take it anymore. If he’d known what lay ahead, if he’d kept his temper under control, life might be different now. He and Belinda, the only woman he thought he could ever love, might be lying in the bed and in the room where Emily now slept. They’d be listening to the rain hit the house and he might still think of himself as the luckiest man on earth.
He rolled over and swallowed hard, hoping for sleep and trying to forget the image of Belinda in her coffin before the undertaker nailed down the lid.
CHAPTER NINE
Several days later Emily carried her basted dress to the sewing machine in the parlor to stitch the bodice to the skirt. After dinner tonight, she would help Rose with her own new dress. Now, though, she took advantage of the quiet and solitude to work on the teal.
She’d used a pattern that she’d brought with her from Chicago but had never tried. The outfit was making up beautifully, even nicer than she’d expected. She’d willed her hands to remain steady while she cut out the pattern pieces—one slip of the scissor blades, one sleeve cut from the wrong side of the silk, and an expensive length of fabric might have been ruined. But so far, everything had gone well. She had only to attach the skirt and the sleeves, and the garment would be ready for hemming. With no full-length mirror to look into during fittings, Emily had used her best judgement as to fit and drape.
That she was permitted to use Belinda’s treadle Singer seemed like nothing short of a miracle. She had expected to get an argument from Cora. Strangely enough, it had been Luke who seemed a bit reluctant. After the kiss in the barn and his gift of the teal silk, he had become distant with her. He wouldn’t meet her gaze and at times, seemed to be avoiding her outright. Of course, she shouldn’t be surprised by that. She had probably been a clumsy kisser—after all, what experience did she have? Or perhaps he’d thought her forward for kissing him back. She wasn’t even sure he still intended to take her to the basket social, but she forged ahead anyway, trying to pretend as if nothing had changed, that she hadn’t noticed the rejection. She ought to be accustomed to rejection by now. How odd that it still hurt after all these years, that she still felt inadequate.
She smoothed a basted seam with her hand. Ashamed though she was to admit it to herself, Emily looked forward to getting out of mourning. She was utterly tired of wearing the same dark clothes day after day. The dye had helped the one ruined dress, but in some lights it still looked streaked. There were so many shades of black—some had blue undertones in them, some had red, and others brown. The dye didn’t match the original color of the dress, and she’d had limited success in covering the orange streaks. She sighed. Queen Victoria, that champion of morality, still wore mourning for her beloved Prince Albert, and he’d been dead for twenty-three years. That might be easier if one was a queen with royal wealth, could wear a different gown every day, and never the same one twice. But that was a petty thought—she was certain that Victoria would trade her fortune to have her prince consort alive and well again.
But maybe Luke had been right—maybe it wasn’t necessary to wear mourning clothes like a flag to advertise one’s grief. In fact, if she thought about it, she might even consider it to be showy and ostentatious, instead of a private matter of the heart and soul.
With her dress draped over her arm, she borrowed the chair from the escritoire next to the sewing machine cabinet and sat down at the Singer. The desk’s drop leaf was open, as if someone had been sitting there earlier, and she noticed a half-finished letter on the desk. Next to it laid a red stub of dull pencil, its eraser rubbed down to the nickel tip. She knew she shouldn’t even try to identify the handwriting. It was personal correspondence that was none of her business. But as she guided the waist seam under the presser foot, her gaze kept straying to the lined writing tablet and the fuzzy gray words. Keeping her face pointed toward the machine, she lifted her chin and cast her eyes to the side, as if spying on the letter in such a manner would somehow be all right.
Dear Cousin Eunice . . .
Emily turned her head just a little more—it made the muscles in her eyes ache to pull them so far to the right.
How ar things going for yu in Casper?
She leaned sideways just a bit.
We ar all fine here mostly. Ecept Luke has gon and married a mail orderd bride . . .
So, this was Cora’s letter. Her bad spelling made the lines difficult to decipher.
I dont no why he did it, we were getting along well enouff. You would think he would be true to poor Belinda’s memory, after what he did to her. She would be a-live today if not for him. She would still be here if he had not. . .
A cold hand closed around Emily’s heart, and her throat dried. After what he did, she thought, her feet pumping the treadle furiously. What could he have done? But the letter stopped there, unfinished.
When she looked down at her dress again, she discovered that she’d run the stitching off the seam line and into the gathered skirt.
“For heaven’s sake,” she muttered and removed her feet from the treadle. If she needed more proof that nosiness was a social sin, she had it here, in twelve inches of meandering thread that she’d have to tear out.
Carefully she pulled on the tight, close stitches with a hatpin. If she was too rough, she’d create runs in the silk so she had to concentrate. But Cora’s cryptic words remained with her as she corrected her sewing error. She realized that she had never been told how Belinda died, and it had never been mentioned in any of Luke’s letters to Alyssa. People died all the time—illness, accidents, childbirth. It had not occurred to her nor her sister to wonder about the cause of Luke Becker’s widowerhood. Of course, it would be too rude to ask. Cora’s letter to Cousin Eunice implied that he was somehow responsible for her death.
And that reminded her of how little she really knew about Luke. He had not been very forthcoming about his life, and she’d assumed his past was too painful to discuss. But what if it was too ghastly? For darker reasons?
Emily realized that she had nothing to base this on except a cranky old woman’s badly-spelled, unfinished note, and she supposed that it was little better than gossip. But a cloud of doubt remained. She could ask Rose, but Emily knew she had no right to make a young girl answer questions that she was afraid to ask herself.
She tugged out the last bad stitch and positioned her dress under the presser foot again. The letter sat on the writing desk, a glaring indictment written in dull pencil. She kept her eyes on her own business this time—the sewing machine needle rising and falling with each push of the treadle.
But it wasn’t easy.
~~*~*~*~~
Cora pulled a rag-covered corn broom over the upstairs hall floor, dragging dust from the corners and woodwork. Maybe she didn’t have Mrs. Becker’s fine and fancy ways, but no one could accuse her of being a bad housekeeper. No sirree. She could cook and clean and wash circles around that high-flown etiquette teacher, and when people were hungry or dirty, a hot meal and line-fresh clothes were a lot more important than remembering which fork to use.
Listen to the racket down there—that treadle machine was getting a workout, with her sewing away on her new dress. And what had Luke been thinking of, spending all that money on a piece of yardage like that, when calico would have done just as well? A body would think that Emily was the Queen of Araby, to need such a swanky get-up.
Well, maybe that dummy letter to Cousin Eunice would open Emily’s eyes about her mail-ordered husband. Emily would probably think i
t was none of her business to read someone else’s mail. But Cora knew human nature, too. She had left the tablet in a good place, and it wouldn’t be very hard to read what she’d written there. It might take a while, but eventually Emily Becker would realize that she’d made a big mistake and pack herself back to Chicago. They would be done with her.
She continued her trip through the hall and into the rooms, dusting as she went. She was secretly disappointed to find Emily’s bedroom as neat as a pin. Cora stretched her dust mop to the top of the door jambs—no one dusted the tops of door jambs—but her mop came away clean. She frowned.
Pushing open the door to Luke’s room, she looked first for Belinda’s vanity set and their wedding photograph. There they were, standing in their proper places, although the silver-backed hand mirror and brush were showing signs of tarnish. Cora would have to remedy that. At least Luke seemed to have given up stowing the keepsakes in a bottom bureau drawer. She’d fished them out often enough to prove that two could play the game and she had won.
It was a spare-looking room, but what could a person expect from a man? It was neat enough, so she supposed she ought to be glad for that. He made his own bed and hung his clothes on the back of the corner chair. If he was sneaking around at night to be with his bride, she couldn’t tell.
In her own bedroom, she dusted her way in, stopping once to turn the cloth. Then she stretched a chapped hand toward Belinda’s porcelain doll that sat on top of the bureau and tweaked a flounce on its dress. Luke had wanted to give the doll to Rose, but Cora had known it would just get dirty. This was a nice doll, not one made of rags or old socks that a child could drag around by its neck. Belinda’s father had brought it home to her for her tenth birthday, which, in Cora’s opinion, was the least he could do after he’d dragged them out here, away from family and friends.
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