by Liz Harris
‘Oh, I do see you as a good friend, Oonagh,’ Ellen said quickly. ‘You’ve been helping me all evening, haven’t you? That’s friendship.’
Oonagh, released her hand, sat back and smiled at her. ‘You needn’t say so, Ellen. I can see that you don’t think of me as that sort of friend, and I’m not offended by it. We haven’t known each other for long. We’ll talk about something else while we wait for Niall.’
‘You must think me real ungrateful,’ Ellen said apologetically. ‘And to show you that I do think of you as a friend, I’m going to improve on that “well”. I’ll add that Conn’s an easy going man and not given to complaining. There, is that better?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Oonagh said with a laugh.
‘He seems satisfied with the way I’m keeping house,’ Ellen went on, ‘and he can see that I’m doing my best with Bridget. So yes, I think he’s content with the way things are.’
‘I’m very happy to hear it. But it’s only what I expected.’
‘I didn’t tell him about my face before I came, you know,’ Ellen added after a moment’s pause. ‘If he’d refused to wed me when he saw me, I wouldn’t have blamed him.’
‘Oh, no; that wouldn’t be Conn’s way. If he’s said he’ll do a thing, he’ll do it, even though he might secretly hate it.’
A wave of anguish shot through Ellen. She took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I’m sure he did what he thought was the right thing to do when he went ahead and wed me, and that it wasn’t what his heart would have chosen for him to do,’ she said quietly. ‘I could see that. But I realised that even though we were man and wife in name, there was no need for him to treat me as anything other than a housekeeper. In fact, I expected that. But I was wrong.’ She stopped abruptly and smoothed down her skirt.
‘As no more than a housekeeper? I think not!’ Oonagh’s laugh was shrill. ‘The whole of Liberty knows that Connor wants a son. Alice tried hard enough to give him one, and I’m sure he’ll be trying equally hard to have one with you. That’s why he took a wife, not just someone to keep house.’
Ellen felt herself colour. ‘As you say, the agreement was for a wife, not a housekeeper.’
‘It must be difficult to follow in Alice’s footsteps,’ Oonagh volunteered after a short pause. ‘They were very close, you know. We thought that he’d never be able to feel the same way about another woman.’
Ellen coloured more deeply. ‘And I’m sure he never will. I understand that. I lost my husband, Robert, and I know what I still feel for him. I don’t expect anything more than kindness from Connor. And respect, too, I hope.’
Oonagh’s lips curved into a smile. ‘I do declare, Ellen. You’re going quite red. You’re saying all the right things – in fact, I’m beginning to wonder if you should be teaching Sunday School, not me – but the colour of your face is telling me something different. I think I’ll ask you again how you and Connor are getting on.’
Ellen burst out laughing. She stretched out her legs and surveyed the tips of her black boots. ‘All right, then. We’re getting on very well, I think.’ She glanced across at Oonagh. ‘See,’ she said lightly, ‘I immediately said “very well”, and not just “well”. Are you satisfied now?’
‘No, not yet. We’ve only just started,’ Oonagh said, laughter dancing in her violet eyes. She drew her chair closer to Ellen. ‘When you say very well, just how well do you mean?’
Ellen giggled. ‘While I’ve no desire to take your place at Sunday School – coping with Bridget is more than enough for me – I’m going to hold back on the details all the same. No, Oonagh, you’ll have to be satisfied with what I’ve already said.’
Oonagh grasped her hand again. ‘I’m so glad that there are details you can’t even tell a friend. Connor’s a good man and he deserves to be happy. And I like you, too, Ellen. It makes me real pleased to see that two people I like have drawn close to each other.’
‘Which is particularly fortunate when they’re married,’ Ellen said in amusement.
‘Yes, it is. Having to endure a man’s attentions nightly in the way that some wives have to do, would be most unpleasant if one didn’t feel very close to that man.’
Ellen changed her position in her chair. ‘Maybe it would be more accurate to say that we’re closer than we were, rather than very close. But I really think Connor is starting to feel a little more for me than just gratitude for the meals I make him,’ she added with a smile.
Oonagh squeezed her hand and released it. ‘Well I hope that his feelings for you get stronger and stronger.’
‘Me, too,’ Ellen said fervently.
‘So you really like him, then?’ Oonagh arched her eyebrow at Ellen.
‘I wouldn’t let myself think like that. Look at me, Oonagh.’ She gestured to herself with her hands. ‘And look at him. A man as attractive as Connor could have had anyone. I’ve no right to expect more from him than I already have, and I don’t.’ She paused. ‘But I’ll admit, I do like him in the way that a wife should like a husband, and I hope that I can give him the son he wants. More than one, maybe.’
‘So Bridget hasn’t put you off the idea of more children? You must be made of strong stuff.’
‘She couldn’t. I’d love a child of my own! It’s not just Connor who wants one. Robert and I wanted a child, but it didn’t happen in the short time we were married, and I didn’t think I’d ever have another chance. I figured, who’d want to lie nightly with someone who had a face like mine? But now I have got a chance, and I’m real grateful to Connor for it.’
‘But he has done well, too, Ellen. You’re a good wife to him. Anyone can see that, and the things that Bridget has let drop has make that clear. No one in these parts could have made him a better wife, and I’m sure he knows that.’
Ellen hesitated. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but as we’re talking in the way that we are … we’re not just talking politely to each other, as strangers do, but really talking … You’re beautiful, Oonagh … You would be an equal in looks with Connor. You and Connor belong together, and he must know that … will have known that. I’ve always thought … what I mean is, I’m thinking you turned Connor down because life as a homesteader’s wife was not a life you wanted; not even if Connor was that homesteader.’
Oonagh tensed. She sat back in her seat. ‘Did Connor tell you this?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘No. This is not something he’s spoken to me about, and I’ve never asked him. It’s not for me to do so. But I’ve heard him say how happy you are living in town. And then when he told me how you used to go to the farm and help so much after Alice’s death, I wondered if, apart from being kind in the way that you are, you were seeing how you would like to live that life, and you found that you wouldn’t like it.’
Oonagh’s shoulders relaxed a little. She hesitated, then sighed aloud. ‘All right then. I wouldn’t have told you, but since, as you say, we’re talking like this … You’re right in what you thought. I realised that I would not like to live on a farm. It showed me that Connor and I could never be happy living together.’ She threw a mischievous smile at Ellen. ‘I’m not saying that the nightly attentions, as I described them, wouldn’t have been fun – I’m sure they would have been – but there would have been a lot of time to fill in between them. Too much for me.’
Ellen nodded. ‘But it’s not just Connor who wanted you for his wife. Bridget wanted it, too. It’s why she’s been so difficult with me. She loves you, and having lost her mother, her choice would have been for you and Connor to have wed. I’ve been a real disappointment to her, both because I’m not you, and because I look as I do.’
‘Bridget will come to accept you; you’ll see.’
‘I’m sure you’re right. She’s already easier than she was. She’s not as openly rude, for a start. But that’s not a lot of progress in more than two months.’
‘If ever I can help with her, you must tell me. Apart from trimming her dresses, I mean,’ she added. ‘Although I’m always happ
y to do that.’
‘I’ll remember that. Thank you.’ She looked around her. ‘I can understand you preferring your life in the town to being out on the land. Here you have a very comfortable home with your parents, and you have people all around you. You’ve made a good life for yourself, and you’re highly respected. I can see you not wanting to change this.’
Oonagh sat up sharply. ‘Then you are seeing things incorrectly. I wouldn’t want to change my present life for the life of a homesteader, that’s true. Not even for someone like Connor. It would be escaping one sort of jail for another. But that’s not saying that I wouldn’t exchange my life for a different life, I would, if it was a life that gave me some freedom.’
Ellen stared at her in amazement. ‘Jail? What do you mean? Surely the life you have here gives you freedom?’
‘Look at my life, Ellen.’ She put her hand against her chest. ‘All week, I’m the upright school teacher. On Sundays, I’m the upright Sunday School teacher. I’m the woman townsfolk turn to when they want someone to organise something, someone to lead a committee, put on a sewing bee. Don’t you think I get real tired of all that? Well, I do. At times, I’m so close to standing up, walking out of the door and leaving all this … this goodness … behind me. At night I fall asleep and I dream of being able to be me.’ She paused, and sank back against the chair.’ You don’t understand what I’m saying, do you?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘No, not really,’ she said slowly.
‘That’s because you’re living the life you want to live. I chose to remain an unmarried woman in a frontier town, rather than take up a life I would not like, but the price I paid for my choice has turned out to be my freedom. Of course, I didn’t realise that at the time.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘Then consider my life. I started working for my teaching licence while still a pupil myself, so I went straight from obeying the rules for students to obeying the rules for teachers. I must obey these rules or the trustees of the school will remove me from my position. And I live with my parents, which a teacher should do wherever possible. My parents are good, hard-working people, who’d need reviving salts if either of them so much as glimpsed a man near my room. So you see, every day I play the part of being Miss Quinn, a woman without passion, and I pretend that that is all there is to me. I’m in a jail as much as I would be if I were living on a homestead.’
‘What life would you prefer to have, if not your present life nor the life on a farm?’
Oonagh held her hands up, palms facing up. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said, smiling at Ellen. ‘There probably is no such life. I’ll wake up tomorrow and ask myself what I was talking about.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Ignore me. Let’s talk about something else, something that we’ll both understand. We’ll return to the social niceties, and you may thank me again for helping you this evening.’
Ellen leaned across, touched her gently on the arm, then withdrew her hand. ‘Thank you for helping me this evening, Oonagh.’
‘No need to thank me – it was a pleasure. We’re friends, after all,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘There. As you see, we play our different parts very well.’
‘I am grateful. I’m not playing a part.’
‘Of course you are. You’re playing the part of a woman who has no spirit. You feel that your voice has no right to be heard because of what happened to your face.’
Ellen stared at her in surprise. She opened her mouth to ask what Oonagh meant, but Oonagh gestured for silence, raised her head and listened.
‘I think Niall’s coming now,’ she said, and she turned to Ellen. ‘Before he gets here, let me tell you how much I’ve enjoyed talking to you. When we first met, I thought we would be friends, and I’m glad to be proved right. I hope this is the first of many such evenings.’
‘I hope so, too, Oonagh,’ Ellen said quietly. ‘I’ve not spoken to a woman of my age like this for so long. Not since before … Well, not for a long time. I, too, have enjoyed the evening.’
Oonagh lifted her head slightly again. ‘Yes, that’s definitely Niall. Ma’s talking to him. She’ll keep him for a minute or two. Quickly, tell me how you’re getting on with him. He’s very different from Conn, isn’t he?’
‘Not to look at. There’s a definite likeness physically. Like Conn, he’s a good-looking man, though Connor’s handsome in a rugged sort of way and Niall is smooth. But in his manner, he’s different. Whereas Connor’s a homesteader, at home on the land, Niall is the sort of man you see in a town, often in a saloon, sharply dressed, amused by everything, never taking anything too seriously, always ready to play a hand of cards, a favourite with a certain kind of woman.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I sense that he’s an opportunist, rather than someone who plans ahead what he’s doing. There were men like him in Omaha, too.’
‘But you get on with him, don’t you?’
‘I think so. I don’t see much of him as he spends most of his time in town. In fact, Connor thinks he’ll be moving into Liberty real soon. He’ll prefer that to being on the farm. It can’t be easy for him, seeing Conn in the house that could have been his, too. He doesn’t appear to be jealous – the only things he seems to like about the farm are the cows – but I’m sure there must be some resentment deep down. And he likes Bridget, of course. He seems genuinely fond of her, and she of him.’
The sound of a man and a woman’s voices came from the hall just outside Oonagh’s door, and she stood up. ‘I’ll go and rescue Niall from my mother while you check that you haven’t left anything behind,’ she said, and she hurried out of the room.
Ellen heard the pleasure in her voice as she greeted Niall, and she smiled to herself. Oonagh might not be living with her parents for much longer, she thought. She might be about to start enjoying the freedom she yearned for. She picked up her basket and went out to join them.
As she walked out of Oonagh’s house alongside Niall, she felt the weight of eyes upon her back. She turned around and saw that Oonagh was staring after her. Oonagh’s face immediately broke into a smile, and she gave a little wave. Ellen waved back, then she turned and let Niall help her into the wagon.
Chapter Nineteen
Ellen walked into the living room and looked around. ‘Connor’s obviously not yet back. It must have been Aaron who lit the lamps for us. I don’t like the thought of Connor being out all night, especially as the hunters might still be in the area.’
‘He won’t be back tonight. They’ll have bedded down somewhere.’ Niall took off his hat, hung it on a hook at the side of the door and went to the small table by the window. ‘I’m sure Connor won’t mind me taking his seat,’ he said, sitting down.
‘I wouldn’t have said that was his seat.’
‘I would. It’s where he sits at night. Whenever I come back late in the evening, it’s just you and him, sittin’ together, pretty as a picture.’ He grinned at her.
She gave an awkward laugh. ‘If you came back more often, you’d know it was not always, but sometimes. If he doesn’t have anything that needs doing in one of the barns, he sometimes sits with me.’
‘I envy him,’ he said. He leaned back and stretched his legs out under the table. ‘It must be real nice to sit here at night and talk about what you’ve been doin’ in the day. Real nice. My brother’s sure got it all.’
‘But you could have the same for yourself,’ she ventured, hovering at the side of the table. ‘When you move into town, you’ll likely find a woman there that you’d enjoy talking to.’
‘You may well be right.’ He locked his hands behind the back of his head and stared up at her. Amusement flickered across his lips. ‘I guess I’ve had other things on my mind and not done enough talking with the women I’ve met so far. But I’m thinking that it’s time I changed my ways. While I try to think of someone in town I’d like to talk to, I’ll have a coffee, if you’re offerin’.’
She hesitated. ‘It’s getting late. Connor might
still be back tonight so I’ll read in bed for a while. There’s no need for you to wait up, too. Connor will try not to disturb you – if he gets back tonight, that is.’
He unlocked his hands and sat up. ‘There may not be any need for me to wait up with you, ma’am, but it’ll be my pleasure to do so anyway. We can sit in here together. Then, by the time you’re as sure as I am that he’ll not be back, we’ll know each other a mite better. After all, we’re brother and sister now, yet I know you so little that I feel I must say ma’am to you, not Ellen.’
She felt a moment’s annoyance at being forced into a conversation with Niall when she’d spent the whole evening in conversation with those at the bee and she was ready for some time alone, but she couldn’t see any way around it. ‘I’ll get you a drink,’ she said.
She went into the kitchen and returned soon after with a mug of coffee which she put down on the table in front of him. She took a step back.
‘Only one mug, I see,’ he said, glancing pointedly at his drink. ‘Since we’re gonna be waiting together, why don’t you take off your hat and have a drink with me?’ Picking up his mug, he glanced up at her. ‘I already seen what you look like, you know.’
‘I had a dish of custard and some cake at the bee,’ she said. She undid the ribbons, removed her hat and hung it on a wall hook. ‘But I’ll get a coffee, as you wish it. Would you like a piece of pie?’
‘Not for me, thanks. But it’s real kind of you to offer. And then you must come and sit opposite me, just like you sit with my brother.’
She turned and went across to the kitchen.
