Chapter 6
ADELE DIDN'T come out of the bedroom for two days except to use the privy. She claimed she was sick. What she was, was feeling guilty. Brian was frustrated because Adele would not talk to him. Susannah was frustrated because neither of them would tell her what was going on. Susannah was not blind to the sensual tension she had been witnessing develop over the previous few weeks. She hated being excluded from what was going on because it made her feel like she was being treated like a child.
Christmas came and went virtually unnoticed. Susannah told Brian that, when the weather allowed, they might go to the church in Green River on Christmas morning but that their father's tradition was to wait until Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, for gift exchanging.
Brian, of course, had no memory of what, if anything, his family might have done about Christmas, assuming he even had one. He was as willing to adopt the Stoddard family tradition as he had adapted to life on the Stoddard farm.
Now, if only he could get Adele to talk to him.
The day after Christmas, Adele finally decided she could no long hide in the bedroom. She was haggard from crying and lack of sleep and her hair was tangled because she had been too upset to replait it. She insisted she did not want to talk about it and tried to be wherever Brian was not.
For his own part, Brian was making himself scarce, involving himself in some project either in the barn or in the woodshed, coming inside the house for meals and to sleep. He looked dour and angry and neglected to shave, his stubbled face adding to his look of misery. He did not mention going out to the site where he had been found again.
Susannah did her chores and tried to draw. Her attempts at conversation with either house-mate were met with dull, one-word replies, so she gave up. The tension was so thick she could slice through it. For a week she endured the sullen silence until she thought she might scream. There had always been contentment in this house. This much misery was maddening.
If only she understood what had occurred between Adele and Brian. She had her suspicions, but considering it was unlikely she would get a direct answer, Susannah would not even ask the question. No, she would have to discover it for herself.
The morning after New Year's Day, Susannah went into the barn to do her usual chores and found Brian sitting on the milking stool, her father's horn-handled pocketknife in his right hand. She quickly caught him concealing some object under a horse blanket.
Noticing that the hay troughs in front of the livestock were nearly empty, Susannah grabbed the pitchfork and began to climb the rope ladder to the haymow.
Brian looked up. "I didn't know you could climb that ladder."
Susannah was surprised. It was the longest sentence he had uttered to anyone in ten days. "Yes, I can shift my weight to my good foot pretty quickly. Sometimes in the summer I even sleep up here...."
The barn door closed while Susannah was speaking. Brian had walked out, his mind on something else. Susannah was getting used to everyone's absent-minded rudeness. She didn't like it, but what could she do but bear with it? With a shrug, Susannah forked some hay into the feed troughs and was about to climb down when she saw the quilt lying in the hay where it had been for the past week and a half. Using the pitchfork, Susannah scooped the quilt and pulled it toward her. There were traces of blood and something else on it the girl couldn't identify. Dropping to her hands and knees, Susannah crawled over to the corner of the haymow and explored the area. Susannah continued to search around the haystack when she found what she suspected she was looking for.
There in the hay was a piece of string like the kind Adele used to bind the bottom of her braid and a black button that was too large to be from any of Adele's clothes but which could have come from Brian's trousers.
It did not take more than an instant for the farm-raised girl to interpret the meaning of the evidence she found.
"Well, what do you know. I was right," she said triumphantly, her suspicions finally confirmed.
She sat on her haunches and thought about it. They had made love. A part of Susannah was overjoyed because she always wanted Adele to find a man to love. But both Brian and Adele were miserable. They were trying so hard not to have contact with each other.
Susannah reasoned it out. If the experience had been unpleasant for them both, they probably would have shaken it off more easily. But Susannah watched carefully during the week past. Adele could not walk through the main room that Brian's hungry gaze did not follow her. And Adele's eyes were on Brian whenever she thought he was not looking. Obviously, it must have been wonderful for both of them, but since they were not married it was forbidden and now they were both suffering.
Susannah wondered if they would be doing it if it was just the two of them. She chafed at being protected. She was sixteen for nearly a month now; almost old enough to be married herself. She was coming to love Brian as she would an older brother. How could she stand back and let the two people she loved most in the world continue to live with the pain of longing?
"I better do something about it or we're going to all go crazy," Susannah said aloud.
The only question was, what could she do?
WHEN WINTER weather forces people into an enclosed space with limited activity or stimulation, insanity--whether temporary or permanent--often results. Susannah was seeing the signs of cabin fever. The cold weather kept her and the two antagonists at closer quarters than was healthy. Tempers were abrupt. Adele found fault with Brian at every turn; he yelled back that she was too domineering.
Brian finally staked out the barn as his private territory while Adele took over the house. Susannah had no place to go except outside, which was no solution with the temperatures below freezing all day. She felt like she was invading one or the other's private reserves. It was bad enough the days were so short, because the nights were so long.
Adele set up her quilting frame and spent most of the evenings working on quilting a new top, a Snail Trail pattern. She set a lamp up next to the frame and bent over, her precious brass thimble clicking each time she began a group of stitches through the layers.
Brian was sitting in the rocking chair; but then he would jump up to pace like a caged lion before sitting down again.
Susannah sat next to Brian's bed, sketching the sleeping Little Gent, who lay curled in a circle next to the pillow.
Susannah glanced up at the pacing giant. "Brian, what is the matter with you tonight?"
"I'm so goddamned bored I could scream."
"Surely you could find something to do. Maybe you could read."
"Read? Read? You have three damned books in the entire house and I've read them all. I could probably recite them to you from memory."
Adele looked up. "Would you stop swearing at my sister?"
"God damn it, I'm not swearing. I'm losing my mind."
"Look, this pacing you're doing is very distracting. I'm having trouble concentrating on my quilting."
"That's a lie. You could sew with your eyes closed in the middle of a blizzard."
"Stop swearing. I don't like it," Adele warned.
Susannah put in, "Brian, if you think it's so easy, why don't you try it?"
"Are you kidding, Susannah?" interrupted Adele. "If this was so easy, you'd have learned to quilt."
"Oh, it's not easy, huh?" Brian observed cynically. "I'll bet I can learn to quilt as well as you can."
"Fine," snapped Adele. "Pull up a chair and get down to it."
Brian grabbed a straight chair from the table and plopped down on it on the opposite side of the frame from where Adele was sitting.
"All right, how do you begin?"
"First you thread the needle," she began, handing him the skein, scissors and a packet of needles. "Cut about 18 inches of thread at a slight angle and put it through the eye--that's the hole in the end of the needle. Then tie a knot in the other end of the thread."
Brian opened the packet of needles, only to have all of them roll out of the packet and fall on the quilt top.
/> "Would you watch out? If you lose those needles, we do without until spring."
"Sorry," he responded gruffly, awkwardly picking up the fallen needles in his large, stiffly awkward fingers and replacing all except one in the packet. He cut a piece of thread from the skein and held it up to the lantern with the needle. Grumbling and swearing under his breath and recutting the end of the thread several times he managed to get the thread through the eye and tied a knot in the other end.
"Now what?"
"Now you push the point of the needle through the layers, up and down, up and down, and pull it out to the length of the thread."
Brian watched her perform the task herself. He pointed to her hand. "What's that thing?"
"That's a thimble."
"Don't I need one of them?"
"Yes, I guess you do." Adele reached down for her sewing basket. Rummaging through it, she found a smaller brass thimble that had either been hers when she was younger or was their mother's. "I seem to only have one other, and it's too small for me to use, so it's certainly too small for you."
"What do you suggest?"
Adele continued rummaging, to her surprise, she found a piece of some kind of leather; it looked like deerskin, but she wasn't sure. Picking up the scissors, she cut a wide strip of leather and a thin strip. "Give me your right hand," she ordered.
No sooner did she have his right hand in hers then their eyes locked and it felt like a jolt of electricity shot through them. It was the first physical contact they'd had since the afternoon they'd made love. Adele, trying to ignore it and force her hands back to steadiness, folded the wide piece of leather over Brian's middle finger, covering his nail and the pad of his finger. She then used the thin strip like a binding to hold the piece on.
"That should do until I can figure something else out."
With his leather thimble thus secured, Brian began to ape Adele's rocking motion, occasionally grunting as the needle stuck the fingers of his left hand coming through the bottom of the quilt. At first his stitches were awkward and uneven, but the leather thimble kept the needle eye from sticking his top hand and he began to rapidly pick up the rhythm, fairly scooting across the straight lines he was stitching. His underside hand moved in concert until it brushed Adele's own underside hand.
She took a sharp intake of breath at the contact and tried to move her hand away, but Brian slid his fingers around hers and held her hand while he made eye contact. Adele yanked her hand from his and commented, "You're getting better."
"So are you," he responded with a grin.
"I meant your stitches. You learn fast."
"I guess if you can do man's work I can learn women's."
"Work is work," was the snappish response. "If you don't like it, you can go back to pacing the floor."
"You're just upset that I can do it as well as you."
"Can you? We'll see."
Adele bent down over the frame again. Brian rethreaded the needle and jerked his chair over for a more comfortable position. His knees made contact with hers through their clothes and they both looked up again. Adele shuddered and quickly looked at Susannah and back down at the frame. For an hour they worked, inches apart, breathing the same air, stitching in almost the same rhythm.
"Well, I'm going to bed," sang Susannah as she rose and walked into the bedroom. The cloth covering over the doorway flowed back into place.
The older couple watched until she was out of sight. Adele quickly rose from the frame and walked toward the stove, intending to get the kettle.
Brian was up right behind her. He grasped her by one arm and spun her around, pulling her against his length. Adele struggled, but Brian held her by the back of her head and pressed his mouth down to meet hers.
His kiss was hungry and possessive, nibbling at her lower lip, daring her to resist. Adele had no intention of resisting. Her need was as great as his. Her arms slid around him, rubbing up and down his back, pulling him as close to her as she was to him.
Adele's lips parted at his urging. His tongue tasted her soft sweetness as she seemed to draw it further into her mouth. He could feel his desire hardening until he was sure she could feel it through her skirts. Their breathing quickened, as if they were sharing the very air between them.
She broke from his mouth, pressing her cheek against his chest. She could hear the strong pounding of his heart; so strong it sounded like it was threatening to burst right through. Brian rested his chin on the top of her head. His right hand reached up to stroke her cheek, the smooth leather of the thimble adding additional sensation. Brian moved his hand from Adele's face, stroking down her neck and across her collarbone and drifting down to cup her breast through her clothing. Adele felt her nipple hardening beneath his touch and wondered if he could feel it, too. She was wishing she could feel his hand directly on her pulsating skin as he began to work at the buttons at the back of her bodice, grazing the skin at her back as he uncovered it.
"Is everything all right in there?" said Susannah, appearing in the doorway from the bedroom.
The jolt of the interruption caused Adele to push at Brian's chest with both hands as her face flushed bright red. Brian let her go and stared at her disappointed as she moved away.
"Yes," he said thickly through his teeth, "everything is fine, Susannah."
"I'll be in in a minute," Adele added.
Susannah turned back into the bedroom. Neither Adele nor Brian saw the calculating smile on her face. It would not take much.
The next day, Brian built and installed a door for the bedroom.
THE DAY AFTER was Twelfth Night.
Susannah woke up early to bake. Brian went out to cut some pine boughs to scent the house. Adele cleaned up the house and dragged down the box of decorations that had been carefully preserved since their mother was alive. The little crystal bells and angels had survived the trip from Baltimore to Wyoming. Adele even found the quarto of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in the box she hadn't remembered they still had. She smiled, thinking Brian would have something else to read now. She wrapped the book in a scrap of calico and tied it with a piece of string.
By sundown the house was rich with the smells of pine and fresh bread and cookies. The crystal ornaments were hung from the boughs or placed on the table and a crackling fire burned brightly. A young rooster was sacrificed as an alternative to the rabbit and venison that were their usual fare. Stuffed with bread, onions and dried apples, it had made a succulent meal, leaving everyone satisfied.
After dinner, the three pulled chairs around the fireplace to exchange gifts.
Adele gave Susannah a pencil box for her art supplies that she had bought for her sister in town the previous summer and hidden. For Brian she gave him the book and another parcel.
He opened up the parcel to find two brand-new shirts. One was unbleached muslin; the other was made of Turkey red unprinted cotton.
"Weren't you saving that red for a new quilt top?" Susannah inquired.
Adele shrugged. "I can get more fabric in the spring." To Brian she added, "I thought you might like shirts that were made just for you."
Brian pulled off the motley blue shirt he was wearing and slipped the red one over his head. It fit perfectly across his shoulders with room to move and was long enough in the sleeves and length. He didn't tuck it in, but knew once tucked in, it would stay down. "It's perfect, Adele, thank you." He reached over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
Now it was Brian's turn to give. He handed Adele a parcel wrapped in an old newspaper. She opened it up to reveal a delicately carved box with leather hinges.
"Did you carve this? It's exquisite."
"Open it."
Adele did so. Inside the box were a dozen wooden hairpins, each one small and delicate. With a gasp of delight, she reached for her braid and wrapped it into a chignon at the nape of her neck, anchoring it with her new gift. "I feel like an adult again."
"I never doubted it for a minute. Now, for Susannah's present
we have to go to the barn."
"The barn?" the women responded in unison.
Brian had already risen and pulled on the shearling jacket. The women grabbed their shawls and followed him out to the barn.
Lighting a lantern inside the barn, Brian went into a stall and led out the saddled Esmeralda. The mare was wearing the sidesaddle, but it had been altered. Near the top of the saddle two holes about a foot apart had been drilled by hand. Through the holes began a rope ladder with wooden rungs that rolled down to about a foot off the ground. The location of the horn and stirrup had not been affected.
"Try it, Susannah. If it works, I will teach you to ride starting tomorrow."
With a squeal of delight, Susannah stepped onto the first rung and, with the same comparative ease with which she got into the haymow she climbed the ladder until she could put her sound left foot in the stirrup and hook her deformed right foot over the horn. Brian showed her a string with a ring end that she could use to pull up the ladder so it wouldn't bang against Esmeralda's legs when riding. The contraption could also be removed for when Adele used the saddle.
"Oh, Sissy, I'll be able to ride like regular people now." She reached out for Brian, who helped her to dismount by putting his arms around her waist and lowering her to the ground. She threw her arms around him. "Oh, Brian, it's the best present I ever had!"
Brian looked over Susannah's head at Adele. He felt his face flushing as Susannah hugged him. His feelings for her were warm, but definitely brotherly.
"I'm glad I could make your life a little easier."
"Isn't he just the best, Sissy?" Susannah released Brian and faced her sister.
"Yes, Susannah, the very best." Adele's eyes met Brian's.
"Oh, gosh, the coffee," Susannah cried out. "See you back inside the house," she called behind her as she left the barn.
Brian quickly unsaddled Esmeralda as Susannah went back to the house. Adele hung back, watching the smooth, strong movements of his large body.
Tears forming in her eyes, she said, "You've made my sister very happy tonight. I would never have thought of what you tried."
Remember My Love Page 7
