by Kelly, Carla
“I believe that’s enough, along with what’s already at the house, to see us through the next six months,” Mirabelle said.
“Good.”
She dug around in her small drawstring bag. “And”—she pulled out a roll of paper money—“there is even a little left over.”
Quinn counted out the bills. “This is nearly ten dollars, Mirabelle. How can you possibly have this much left over?”
“Mr. Carlton agreed that, seeing as you were placing a large order, he could give you a discount on a few of the smaller items.”
He watched her a moment, stunned into silence. “You haggled with Closefisted Carlton?”
Her eyes widened. “Is he really called that?”
Quinn set the horses to a trot. “Yes. And for good reason.” No one, as far as Quinn knew, had ever talked Carlton down on a price.
“Well, I found him perfectly reasonable,” Mirabelle said. “He could see the wisdom in allowing some flexibility in pricing when his molasses and extracts were clearly on the old side—not spoiled, mind you, simply not as fresh as they might have been.”
“You told Mr. Carlton his goods were second rate?” Saints above, she might have made an enemy of their shopkeeper. He was something of a hard man.
“Of course not.” Mirabelle sat with her usual confident posture. “I simply asked him what fraction of the price he would charge if I took a few of the older items as opposed to the newer ones. I let him know how clear it was that he prided himself in the quality of his goods and would surely be removing those things from his shelves shortly, costing himself the money he’d invested in them. He saw the wisdom in getting some money for those things as opposed to none at all. And, of course, I only made the deal on items that wouldn’t lose much quality simply by being on the shelf a little longer. What we paid for, paid less for, really isn’t fundamentally different from what we might have bought at full price.”
Quinn allowed an inward smile but found it wouldn’t stop there. His lips twitched upward, first one side and then the other. Before he knew it, he was grinning. His tiny Mirabelle had out-bargained one of the shrewdest businessmen Quinn had ever known. The farther they drove, the broader he smiled.
“Am I to assume, then,” Mirabelle asked, “you don’t mind mustard powder that’s the tiniest bit stale and molasses that will need a little warming to be soft again?”
With the money she’d saved him, he wouldn’t mind molasses that required a hammer and chisel. “I’ve never known Mr. Carlton to be talked down on price. Not by anyone.”
“Well, Quinn, I think you should know I am not just ‘anyone.’”
He looked at her for a long moment as that declaration sunk in. “Do you know, Mirabelle, I’m beginning to think that’s true.”
“Are you saying you struck an even more cunning bargain with the William’s Bureau than I did with Mr. Carlton?”
“That depends,” he answered. Glancing away from the road and toward her, he could see she’d set her gaze firmly on him.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether or not you’re the tiniest bit stale.”
She smiled at him. Mirabelle was a fine-looking woman, especially with her expression light and amused.
“I saw two of the women I met on the train ride here,” she said. “I invited them over this next week for a sewing circle. You don’t have any objections, do you?”
Quinn was seized with a clear and sudden memory of his mother and her friends sitting in the parlor sewing. They’d filled the house with laughter and the smell of rose water. Da would stand in the kitchen doorway with a smitten smile on his face, his eyes never leaving Ma, never wandering to anyone else.
“. . . and I’ll still have plenty of time to get dinner on the table.” Mirabelle was finishing a sentence Quinn hadn’t heard but could guess at. She was explaining all the reasons he shouldn’t be bothered by her sewing circle engagement.
Did he object to her having some of her friends over? He didn’t. But he wouldn’t be hovering around like an adoring puppy the way his father always had. Being that lovesick had caused Da no end of pain. It was the reason he’d amassed so much debt, the reason he’d often neglected his work, the reason he was now so utterly broken by Ma’s death.
“So would you mind?” she asked again.
“I don’t mind,” he said.
But would Da mind? Quinn couldn’t rightly say. Having ladies in the house again, doing some of the same things Ma had done, might help pull Da from the dark place he’d been in the past four years. Quinn had hoped as much when he decided to send for a wife. But it might just as easily make things worse.
“This is what I hoped for all the way here on the train,” Mirabelle said. “I wanted friends, even just one. But then I didn’t meet anyone after I arrived—except you, of course, and your father—and I started to wonder if I would make any friends at all.”
Quinn set his sights on the road, guiding the horses down the familiar path. The day Mirabelle had stepped off the train, Quinn had congratulated himself on finding a quiet wife. He’d discovered in the days since then that, once she got to talking, Mirabelle was more than capable of chattering on.
Quite without warning, he could sense Mirabelle looking at him again. How was it he could feel her gaze? It didn’t make any sense. He let his eyes drift from his horses to his wife. She was, in fact, watching him.
“Are you certain you don’t mind?” she asked.
How many times did she mean to ask? “I not only don’t mind, I don’t particularly care one way or the other.”
Until that moment, he hadn’t really understood what seeing a face “fall” looked like. Mirabelle looked away from him, as if watching the scenery, but her eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything in particular. Her smile disappeared. The amusement in her face was gone.
He was likely expected to say something, to make amends. But if he hadn’t done anything wrong, what was he supposed to apologize for?
“Will your father mind if I have two ladies visit me?” Mirabelle asked the question quietly, but with the firmness of purpose he’d seen in her every moment of their acquaintance.
Da might very well mind. He might mind a great deal. But getting Da to return to the world of the living was high on Quinn’s list of priorities. Having two of the local ladies come around was a step in that direction.
“I’ll talk to Da,” Quinn said. “But I don’t think he’ll have any objections.”
Mirabelle didn’t look convinced. And she’d lost some of the fire she’d had before.
“Is something the matter?” he asked, guiding the horses down the lane leading home.
“I’m fine.” She punctuated the declaration with a firm nod of her head.
But she clearly wasn’t. Why was it women clammed up when they were upset instead of just talking things out? Well, if she didn’t want to talk, he wasn’t going to make her. They’d accomplished their list of chores in town. They’d be busy with their chores at home soon enough. Work was always a good distraction.
By Wednesday morning, Mirabelle began to question the wisdom of inviting Jane and Caroline to visit with only two days to prepare for their arrival. In those two days, she’d been charged with getting the winter supplies organized in the root cellar and pantry, something that had taken the remainder of Monday and all of Tuesday. She had hoped to give the parlor a good cleaning, polish the furniture, perhaps find fabric to make curtains. She hadn’t had time to even wash the floor, for heaven’s sake.
“For years I’ve been dreaming of entertaining guests in my own home,” she mumbled to herself in the kitchen. “Now that my chance has come, I have dirty floors and faded drapes.”
She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the parlor, looking out over the room in which she’d be hostessing her new friends. She set her hands on her hips, thinking through her dilemma. Ought she to spend the remainder of the morning getting the parlor as close to sparkling as she could manage, or ought she to spen
d that time baking something for her guests to eat?
She didn’t have time nor the materials to replace the curtains. And she couldn’t very well have people over to visit and not offer them anything to eat.
If that weren’t a convincing enough argument, her father-in-law’s presence in the parlor rather convinced her to avoid that room as much as possible. She hoped he would leave when her visitors arrived. He was a quiet presence in the room, but a trying one. He tended to glare, watching every move she made as though searching for something to criticize. When he did speak, it was never a thank-you or a compliment or any recognition of all the work she did. He was unhappy, and he nudged her uncomfortably close to being unhappy herself, something she worked very hard not to be.
Mirabelle slipped back into the kitchen and set herself to the task of preparing something to serve her guests. She eyed the supplies in the pantry, grateful it was well-stocked. She had pearl ash, enough to make a simple, but enjoyable, tea cake. Her baking skills wouldn’t win her any accolades, but she could make a respectable cake. And she had tea to serve with it. A well-brewed cup of tea or coffee, she’d learned during her year serving meals at a train station, could make up for a multitude of shortcomings in the kitchen.
She glanced at the clock. If she worked without a break, she could manage to get the cake in the oven with enough time to make Quinn and Tiernan their lunch. Baking the batter in cups rather than a full-sized cake pan would save her time as well. She could straighten the parlor while the cakes cooled. The timing would be close, but she might manage it.
Mirabelle had a great many moments during the next quarter of an hour in which she could almost imagine herself back in the bustling kitchen of the railway restaurant. Speed was essential when trying to serve meals during the short duration of a train stop. She was calling upon those hard-learned skills again.
She had the cakes divided up and in the oven with barely enough time to spare. She pulled down two deep plates from the cupboards and set two thick slices of bread in each. A slightly thickened gravy was hot and ready in a matter of minutes. She put the pot off the heat.
With the efficiency that came of experience, she sliced two apples, setting each in a small bowl, lightly sprinkling the fruit with cinnamon. Mirabelle poured gravy over each of the double-slices of bread and placed the plates on a large serving platter with two pairs of forks and butter knives. The apple bowls went on the platter next, then two cups set upside down, stacked inside one another. She pumped water from the sink into a pitcher and placed it at the center of the tray.
Mirabelle lifted the tray, not nearly as heavy as many platters she’d carried around the restaurant, and made her way with hardly a wobble to the dining room. She had the men’s places set and their meal set out just as Quinn arrived.
He gave her a single nod of acknowledgment, which she returned. That constituted a drawn-out conversation with him. Only on the rarest occasions did he actually speak. The longest they’d spoken was in his barn the previous week and during the ride back from town two days earlier. This was part of her motivation for inviting Jane and Caroline over for a visit; she needed someone to talk to.
She stepped to the back of the sofa and addressed Tiernan, still sitting near the fireplace. “Lunch is on the table.”
She made her way back to the kitchen without waiting for a reply of any kind. Tiernan, while not nearly as taciturn as his son, wasn’t likely to respond to her. He only spoke when he had complaints.
The cakes were nearly done. Mirabelle set herself to tidying up the kitchen while she waited. She would move on to the parlor in just a moment. Everything she’d pulled out and dirtied making the men’s lunch was cleaned and put away just in time to pull the small tea cakes out of the oven. She set them on the windowsill to cool and took her brand new broom and a few dust rags into the parlor.
With the desperation that can only be understood by a woman about to entertain other women in her unkempt home, Mirabelle set to the task of making the room as presentable as she could. Windows were wiped, surfaces dusted, the floor swept. Though she couldn’t replace the curtains, she did straighten them, making them as even on either side of the window as she could.
The bits of ash that managed to sprinkle themselves along the hearth were swept and dumped into the ash can. The portrait above the mantel hung the tiniest bit crooked. Mirabelle pulled over a footstool and carefully adjusted the portrait frame until it hung straight once more.
She’d been intrigued by the woman in the portrait from her first day in Quinn’s home. The woman was lovely, strikingly so. She had the daintiest of noses and a perfect rosebud mouth. Her brown hair held the same hint of red that Quinn’s did. But it was her eyes that first told Mirabelle that this beauty was her late mother-in-law. Those piercing gray eyes were the same shape and had the same quality as Quinn’s, though his eyes were blue.
This was the previous mistress of the house Mirabelle now ran. Could they have been more different? The late Mrs. Quinn was lovely and obviously graceful. The dress she wore had inspired instant envy in Mirabelle. Even more than a decade out of date, that dress was finer than anything Mirabelle had ever worn, precisely the sort of dress she had often daydreamed about wearing to a ball or dance or fine social. The fabric looked luxurious. The lace ruffling at the collar and front of the gown was stunning. She would never have been able to afford even a small bit of that lace. Perhaps her late mother-in-law’s fine apparel meant she herself would be permitted a reasonable clothing budget. She had but the one dress, and it had seen far better days. How she would love to own something pretty and new.
Enough of your woolgathering, Mirabelle. You have guests arriving soon.
She gathered up her cleaning supplies and returned to the kitchen. The men hadn’t yet brought their plates back from the dining room. She crossed to the windowsill. If her cakes had cooled enough, she would sprinkle them with a bit of sugar.
But the cakes were gone.
She looked around, although unsure where she expected them to be. They weren’t on the countertop or the work table. Perhaps the cakes fell out. Mirabelle stretched up onto her toes, peering out the open window. But she was too short to see.
They wouldn’t have fallen out. The sill was deep, and the cakes had been farther inside the window than out. Where in heaven’s name? The cakes were nowhere to be seen. She would have to check outside after all. She’d have nothing to offer her guests if the cakes were lying out there in the dirt.
Her first time as a hostess. What if it was a disaster? A lump started in her throat, but she pushed it down again. There was no reason to believe the cakes were ruined. She simply had to find them and finish her preparations.
She could ponder the puzzle while she washed the men’s lunch dishes. She moved into the dining room. Not even one step inside, she froze.
“My cakes.” The words came out as a gasp.
Tiernan sat there, his lunch plate untouched, with one of her small cakes in his hand and the crumbly remains of at least one other on the table in front of him. Another cake sat awaiting its fate. How many had he eaten?
“My cakes.” There was more force behind the words that time, more accusation. “You ate my cakes.”
“Didn’t know they were yours.” Tiernan took another bite, finishing off the cake he held.
Mirabelle looked at Quinn, but he seemed as unconcerned as his father.
“Those were for the ladies who are coming today for my sewing circle. I made them special.” A horrible thought hit her without warning. “Did you eat them all?”
Tiernan picked up the uneaten cake. Mirabelle moved to his side in two large strides and snatched it from his hand.
“These were mine.”
“I am not a child,” he said. “I don’t have to ask permission in my own home to eat a cake.”
How could she argue with that? And, yet, he ought to have asked. And, yet again, she hadn’t warned them the cakes were special. This was Tiernan’s
home, his and Quinn’s. But it was hers as well. At least it was supposed to be.
“They were special for my guests.” The protest sounded weak even to her ears.
She looked to Quinn for some support. He kept as quiet as ever, not offering any excuses or apologies. Would neither of them show the slightest remorse?
“What am I to serve them?” She looked from one man to the other.
Tiernan nudged his untouched plate in her direction. “Give ’em this lot.” He scrunched his nose up. “Best of luck to you getting them to eat it.”
First, he ate all her tea cakes, then he insulted the meal she’d made for him? Quinn had finished his lunch, so it couldn’t be as terrible as Tiernan made it out to be. Again, her husband made no effort to defend her.
Mirabelle let her frustration firm her resolve. She hadn’t crumbled under indifference before; she certainly wouldn’t do so now. “If you two are finished, I’ll just clear the table.”
Without looking at either of them more than was necessary, she set their dishes on the platter she’d left in the dining room for just that purpose. She’d learned well how to disappear while clearing tables. A good waitress was unobtrusive.
But I’m not supposed to be merely an employee anymore.
The men stood from the table and made their way from the room, not bidding her farewell or thanking her for the meal.
“I do my work and you do yours,” Quinn had said. But surely he intended her to be more than a worker. Surely.
“It will get better,” she whispered to herself when the room was empty. “It will. It has to.”
In the meantime, she had a more immediate difficulty to solve. What was she going to serve Jane and Caroline?
She lifted the tray in her hand and carried it into the kitchen.
I can’t offer them buttered bread. That would be too humiliating.
She could tell by looking that Tiernan hadn’t even tasted the lunch she’d made. None of his utensils were the slightest bit dirtied. The gravy had a thin skin from sitting undisturbed as it cooled.
