For several minutes, there was a tense silence as Mrs. Anderson choked down her supper, grimacing and swallowing hard after each bite. Jo almost felt sorry for the fragile woman, but the biting tone and negative attitude canceled out any pity that she might have felt after listening to Dessie and Susanna's words. She had always believed that bad things happened to bad people, and if Mrs. Anderson's past life was anything like it was now, she deserved everything that she got.
Once the plate was completely empty, Dessie broke the tension between the two women by stepping in-between them. She leaned forward and pushed Mrs. Anderson's chair back from the table. “All right, Mrs. Anderson, now that you have finished eating would you like to get ready for bed or would you like to talk for a while before you rest?”
“Would the wench be talking with us?” Mrs. Anderson cast a glance at the door, looking almost hopeful as she saw Dessie give a slight shake of her head.
The cheer disappeared when Dessie spoke. “She's here to be your nurse, Mrs. Anderson. Until she is comfortable helping you on her own, she will be staying with me.”
“And must she help me on her own? Can she not stay down in the cellar with the others of her kind? I am sure that the rats miss the Queen of the Vermin.”
“Mrs. Anderson . . . ”
“What? Have I spoken ill of your beloved's dear cousin? Perhaps you should have considered the familial ties before you allowed her to sullen my bedchamber, dear Odessa.” She let out a huffed breath and crossed her arms, shaking her head hard enough for the scarlet locks to fall from their tie. It was obvious that she was trying to get a rise out of Dessie, but it didn't seem to be working. Dessie was just as calm as ever, and spoke to Mrs. Anderson like she was talking to a petulant child.
“If you are done with your protesting, Joanna and I would quite like to get you changed into your bedclothes and get you settled in for the night. I will teach her how to tend to your fire, as well, so you don't catch a chill.”
Dessie raised an eyebrow and waited for Mrs. Anderson to protest. When she didn't, Dessie wheeled the older woman's chair to a large, ornate armoire in the corner of the room. It looked as though it had cost quite a bit of money, with a sprawling floral design that was carved along the border in exquisite detail. Jo could see every blemish and vein along the leaves and stems of the flowers, as well as the gentle lines expanding out from the inner edges of the petals. The wood itself, though, had seen better days. The design was painted in pastels, but the paint had become chipped and faded. There was dust lining every crevice, and when Dessie removed her hand from the handle, the two tone of color from where her fingers had removed some of the dirt were astoundingly different from one another.
Dessie looked over at Jo and held a thin stack of ivory-colored, cotton gowns out at a ninety-degree angle from the closet. “These are Mrs. Anderson's under layers. During nights as cold as this one, I try to put at least two beneath her frock so that she does not fall ill.”
“It is too late for that,” Mrs. Anderson muttered, slouching down in her chair in a very unladylike fashion.
Dessie ignored her and pulled down two of the layers. She also took out a thick olive-green woolen dress. She handed all three garments to Jo before turning Mrs. Anderson around and leading her over to the bed.
“Must she stay for this?”
Dessie ignored her again. She wrapped her arms around Mrs. Anderson's waist and hoisted her out of the chair, grunting softly at the weight of the woman. She put her down on the bed and grabbed the bottom of her skirts, pulling them up and over the top of her head so that she was just in her petticoats and chemise. She removed those as well, smiling apologetically when Mrs. Anderson began to shiver and lifted a hand to cover her breasts shamefully. “Jo, will you please get a blanket to keep Mrs. Anderson modest while I finish preparing her clothing? They are in the trunk at the end of the bed.”
Jo nodded, and did as she was asked. She pulled out a thick quilt and tried to cover Mrs. Anderson with it, but the woman snatched it from her and did it herself. Jo held her hands up defensively and took a step back.
Dessie looked over her shoulder as she walked over to the dresser and sighed. “Mrs. Anderson, down,” she said, her tone sharp as if Mrs. Anderson was a disobedient bitch jumping on house guests. She waited until the woman had stopped moving before turning back to the set of drawers. She pulled out a fresh pair of bloomers and a chemise before going back over to Mrs. Anderson. She lifted the bottom of the cover and slid the drawers up over Mrs. Anderson's porcelain skin before getting her the rest of the way dressed.
By the time that Dessie was finished, Mrs. Anderson was fast asleep. Dessie grabbed her legs and got her the rest of the way onto the feather mattress. She covered her up and made sure that the pillows were fluffed before leading Jo over to the fireplace that was across from the bed.
Just like the dresser, the fireplace was carved with a swirling floral scene, although the marble was shaped with more berries and ivy leaves than flowers. It was dark-gray in color, and already had a stack of firewood burning bright-orange and blue.
Dessie pressed the tips of her fingers against the wall to the left of the fireplace, tapping and pushing against the wood until finally, a foot or so away from the fireplace, one of the boards dipped in. She pressed harder on it before pulling it out to reveal a stack of firewood nearly as tall as Dessie herself. She grabbed a few logs and tossed them in before shutting the hidden storage and turning to Jo.
“All right, dear Joanna. Now that that's done, we can sup.”
The loud growl that Jo's stomach let out was more than enough to convey her excitement.
4
Jo followed Dessie back down to the kitchen, trying to keep herself from slipping down the molded stairs as her skirt caught on one of the heels of her boots. Dessie glanced over her shoulder at her and laughed, angling her body to stop Jo from falling as she got her foot caught a second time. “I daresay that I would be right in assuming that ‘Grace’ is not your middle name?” she teased, pausing at the bottom of the steps while she waited for Jo to finish stumbling around.
Jo stuck her tongue out at her, grimacing as the loose fabric of her skirts swished against the edge of her boots again. “You would be correct. It’s Idella, actually, after my mother.”
“Joanna Idella. Pretty.” She winked. “Perhaps if your parents had given you the name ‘Grace’, you would have acquired some.”
“Oh, quiet, you. I happen to think that I have plenty of grace, thank you dearly, it is just that I have never had to climb up and down so many stairs before in my life. Mother and Father’s home was one level, and my brother’s, why, his was only two. They saw no need for a third floor. It’s quite unnecessary, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.” She bit down lightly on her tongue and made a face. Jo made one back before standing straighter, adjusting her skirts as Dessie started to lead the way back through the house to the kitchen, a journey that was more arduous than Jo remembered it being on the walk up. It took several minutes to get back to the kitchen, and by the time that they had reached the end of their journey, Jo had nearly tripped and sprained her ankles at least a half dozen times. She was sure that she looked a mess, the edge of her skirt muddy from the soles of her boots and her hair still puffed up from the fire, but she was trying to convince herself that she did not care as she walked into the kitchen, her back straight and her head held high.
Susanna, easily able to see through the façade, snorted when she saw the disheveled state that Jo was in. “Rough session with Mrs. Anderson, I see?”
Jo responded only by rolling her eyes, but Dessie smirked and nodded before going over to kiss Susanna on the cheek. “The roughest. Mrs. Anderson is absolutely furious with us for bringing Jo into her home. I imagine that there will be a few more rough days in store for us, at least until she gets sick of ridiculing her.”
“So another six months?”
“I'd say that's just about right.
”
Dessie and Susanna shared a look before bursting into laughter, their arms wrapping around each other's shoulder and pulling each other close as they shook with mirth. Jo made a face and stuck out her tongue, which only succeeded at making Susanna and Dessie laugh harder. Jo crossed her arms and rocked back onto her heels, her eyes narrowing and her jaw going stiff as she waited for her turmoil to be less of a joke to her acquaintances.
It took several minutes for the girls to calm down enough to do anything besides giggle. Susanna reached out and pulled at Jo’s arms until they were by her side. “Come on, Jo, smile a little. Things are always a little challenging at first with Mrs. Anderson.”
Jo turned up her nose and sniffed haughtily, but she let her shoulders and jaw relax into a more inviting expression. If she was going to survive in this house, it would be best for her not to let how much Mrs. Anderson’s disapproval of her was truly bothering her. Besides, she could take a bit of teasing from her cousin. She had done so as a child, and she could most definitely do it now.
She tried to make herself feel better by moving her focus to the grumbling in her belly. She needed to eat something soon, before her stomach decided to ingest itself. There was a bit of the potatoes and gravy left, but seeing what they looked like when mixed with Mrs. Anderson’s powder made them rather unappetizing to Jo’s eyes. Dessie seemed to think the same thing, as she didn’t say anything else. Instead, she took a large head of cabbage out of the food chest and set it in front of Jo before handing her a long, partially-rusted knife. “Here, Jo, you can cut this up. It'll provide an earthy texture to the potatoes.”
Jo nodded and took the knife from Dessie's hands. She slowly began to slice the vegetable, making a face when the inner leaves let out a scent like death. “Dessie, I think something is wrong with this cabbage. It smells like nothing I've ever smelled before.” She pushed the leaves away from her.
Dessie pushed them back. “I assure you, that rotten aroma is precisely what it's meant to smell like. In fact, that smell is a good thing. Besides, it's one of Susanna’s and Mrs. Anderson’s favorite foods, so you best get used to it. Finish cutting, please.”
Jo made another face, but did as she was asked. She shredded the cabbage to the best of her ability, but it had been more than just a few years since she had last done any work to fresh, firm vegetables. When Jo's mother, Diana, was alive, on the other hand, she and Jo visited the home of one of Diana's dearest friends, a young woman by the name of Caroline, nearly every Sunday to stock up on produce from Caroline's garden. They always bought the staples (lettuce, potatoes, apples, and carrots), and on special occasions, they purchased whatever seasonal goodies Caroline had: pumpkins for their Thanksgiving feast, blackberries in the late summer for Jo's birthday, parsnips and onions for Christmas, as well as whatever she had left over from her own festivities.
After Diana passed away, Jo (who had only been fourteen) tried to continue going to Caroline's, but it was only a mere three months after Diana had passed that Caroline did the same. She had been expecting her third child and had gone into early labor late one chilly winter night, only for her and her child to be gone by the morning.
There had been other produce for sale around the town, but Jo couldn't help but feel as though she was betraying the closeness Caroline and Diana had by consuming anyone else's goods. Her father, Jack, started his downward spiral into the world of the drink just a few weeks after Diana had passed, and Matthew . . . well, it was safe to say that he was more interested in learning about the under dressings of the young ladies in his social circle than he was about where to buy high-quality food.
Jo was shaken from her musings by a sharp pain along the side of her finger. She looked down at her hand in worry, the stinging sensation growing worse as some of the cabbage juice seeped in to the cut that ran diagonally across her left ring finger from her cuticle down to the top of her knuckle. Blood was bubbling out of the cut and running over her finger onto the cabbage, dying the uppermost leaves a hideous pink-brown color.
When Jo let out a squeak, Dessie looked over before hurriedly yanking the knife and the cabbage away from her. Susanna rushed over with a towel and wrapped the cut, squeezing Jo's finger as tightly as she could. “Holy gee, Jo, I recall you being clumsy when we were girls, but I've never seen you act so careless with a knife.”
“Shush, you. If you and Dessie had not been bickering about—oh, whatever it was—then I daresay that my skin would still be intact.” Jo pulled her hand out of Susanna's grasp and cradled it to her chest. She squeezed her finger less maliciously than Susanna had and kept it elevated, something she had learned to do as a girl. “At least the cabbage is finished. Granted, we need to throw out those top leaves, but . . . ” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. “What exactly is it that we are making?”
Jo directed her question at Dessie, since she seemed to be giving all the preparation orders, but it was Susanna who answered. “Chicken and cabbage stew. It'll warm our bellies tonight, and we can serve the leftovers to Mrs. Anderson tomorrow for her dinner. I heard 'tis supposed to be a frigid evening, and I daresay our sheets and blankets may not be thick enough to keep us warm.”
“At least you two have your body heat to keep each other warm,” Jo reminded the other girls, shivering slightly at the thought of being left alone. She had always slept by herself, but in the dead of winter, Diane used to make Jo's bed by the fire. There wasn’t a fireplace in her new bed chamber, either, and she didn’t think that Mrs. Anderson would take too kindly to Jo sprawling out on her floor. She supposed that she could light the fireplace in the parlour, but with all the dust and cobwebs that Jo was sure lined the room, it didn’t seem like a very safe idea, even if Dessie and Susanna had been keeping the room mostly clean.
Susanna reached forward and scraped the cabbage into an aged pot before tossing the remaining chicken and potatoes in as well. She put the pot on the counter before going back over to the cabinet where the cabbage had been and pulling out a ceramic container. She poured whatever was inside into the pot before shoving the porcelain back into the cabinet.
Jo strained her neck to see how the stew was turning out. “What was that?” she asked, moving around the counter to watch Susanna put the pot on one of the burners. She grabbed some of the firewood from next to the stove and handed it to her cousin before looking back into the pot again.
Susanna looked at the pot, too, a small smile on her face. “It’s chicken stock, Mama’s recipe. Remember how she used to boil the bones with all those seasonings? Mrs. Anderson doesn’t have much in terms of herbs and spices, but I was able to snatch up some of herbs that she grew in her garden before she had Dessie and me stop watering it. It was when her eyesight was better, when it was possible for her see from her window whether we were doing as she asked or not. Dessie and I tried to convince her to keep it, but it just upset her, not being able to paint her beloved flowers.” She stirred the stew before reaching over to the counter to grab the container of salt, which she knocked over onto the floor.
Dessie walked over and picked up the container, shaking her head at Susanna as she gave it back to her. “Careful, my love, or we will be forced to scrub the floor clean. You don't want a repeat of the flour incident, do you?”
Susanna snorted. “No, I can't say that I do.”
Jo looked at her cousin and her cousin's beloved in confusion. “'The flour incident'?”
Dessie smirked. “It would seem that clumsiness runs in your family, as your cousin here,” she shoved Susanna playfully, “trips over her own feet quite frequently. I was in the library, dusting out the cobwebs and going through some of my old favorites, and I found a passage that was particularly interesting. I thought that Susanna would like it, so I called her into the library. She, for whatever reason, brought the flour with her, and in her excitement over the poem she managed to drop the lid to the container and toss the flour all over the floor, the books, and us . . . and then, to make matters worse,
she was flailing around so much that she knocked over the flowers I had put in the room that morning, so rather than just having powder all over the room, we had a sticky, gooey mess on our hands.”
Jo chuckled. It seemed that clumsiness did run in her family.
Maybe that’s why Mrs. Anderson hated her so much.
5
By the time three days had gone by, Dessie had decided that Jo had been trained enough to take care of Mrs. Anderson by herself. She taught her how to force-feed Mrs. Anderson her morning pill in her breakfast, how to get her into her stays without getting kicked in the face, and how to get her to her water closet with the least amount of struggle.
“Are you sure I'm ready to do this?” Jo asked that Friday morning as Dessie piled breakfast dishes and tea onto her tray, nearly dropping everything as her arms shook both from the weight of the food and her nerves. She had thought, back before she had gathered up the courage to leave her brother and to move to St. Louis, that this could be her big adventure. Ever since her mother had told her the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Jo had dreamed of having an adventure of her own, but now? She was more afraid than anything. Even thinking back to that lovely afternoon with her mother was scarcely enough to calm her nerves.
Diana had a dark-red book open on her lap, and was twirling a silk bookmark around her index finger. “Jo, come here for a minute,” she said, patting the cushion next to her on the bench that Jack had built beneath the window in the living room.
Jo picked up her skirts and shuffled over to her mother, immediately snuggling into Diana’s side and reveling in the heavy weight of her mother’s arm around her shoulders.
Diana kissed the top of Jo’s head and pulled her closer before ruffling her hair. “I have a story to tell you, little rabbit. It’s from a book that my father got me when I was a girl. Would you like to take a listen?”
For Whom the Roses Grow Page 3
