Longing for Home: A Proper Romance

by Eden, Sarah M.

  Katie looked him in the eye once more, silently challenging him to expect more information from her than that. His kindnesses didn’t require her to humiliate herself.

  “Will you come sit with me a moment, Katie?” The request was made with such quiet gentleness, she found she could do nothing but nod and allow him to guide her with the lightest pressure on her arm. Twice in but a few days she’d confessed something to him and then been invited to talk about it. It was not Katie’s idea of a comfortable chat. And yet, somehow, his attentiveness only endeared him to her further.

  She wasn’t in love, not by any means. But she was fond of him, and that worried her a bit.

  He led her into the dining room. He set his lantern on the table, illuminating the room. Papers sat in neat stacks on the table, a chair pulled out sideways, as though someone had risen quickly.

  Joseph held out a chair for her, pushing it in after she sat. She’d never grow used to being treated like a lady of refinement, yet he insisted on helping her down from buggies and guiding her about with a genteel hand on her arm or back. That, if nothing else, drove home how mismatched they were and just how wise she would be to tuck her fondness firmly away.

  “I have a feeling,” he began, his tone wary, “you will either ignore me completely for this, or bash me over the head with the nearest thing you can find, but I am going to chance it. Do your feet pain you?”

  At one time the pain had been unbearable. “They only ache when the weather changes or if my feet are overly cold.”

  His brow creased, and his eyes bored into her once more. “The amputations do not appear to have been done very expertly.”

  A fine way to say her feet were a horrid sight.

  “I can see I have offended you. That was not my intention,” he said.

  He laid his hand on hers for a brief moment. They were rough and callused but warm and gentle. She suspected there was more to Joseph Archer than the unapproachable man of means she’d labeled him when they first met.

  “I was only worried that your feet hadn’t healed as they should,” he added. “You are on your feet all day, Katie. If that causes you pain—”

  “It doesn’t.” She couldn’t remain entirely angry with him when he seemed so genuinely concerned about her. “The toes weren’t removed by a proper surgeon,” she confessed, though reluctantly. “So I realize they don’t look neat and tidy.”

  “A country doctor, then?”

  She shook her head. “Servants don’t warrant the cost of a man of medicine.” She’d been working in the kitchen in Derry a matter of days before Cook realized her toes were frozen beyond saving. She hadn’t made herself useful enough yet to excuse the price of a doctor.

  “Then who undertook it?”

  “A blacksmith.” She spoke the words in little more than a mutter. Those moments had been locked away and out of reach for a reason.

  “A blacksmith?”

  “I do not ever talk about this, Joseph. So if you mean to badger me, I’ll just march myself back to my room.”

  He held up his hands in a sign of defeat. “Just give me your word that you’ll tell me if you are ever in too much pain to—”

  “My feet haven’t pained me in a long time.” But the subject still did.

  He clearly meant to say more.

  “What is it that has you up so late?” Katie indicated the stack of papers, hoping for a change of topic.

  “You, actually.”

  “I am sorry for all the noise earlier. I couldn’t see the table.”

  But he was already shaking his head. “Not that. I was going over the figures I gave you. I want to give your bakery the best chance of success I can.”

  All these papers, the late hours, were on her behalf? “You truly didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know. I wanted to.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable. His lips moved wordlessly a moment, as though rethinking what he meant to say. “I want this to work for you.”

  “Tavish said the Red Road and the Irish are all waiting to see if I fail or succeed, that failing would likely mean they’d start fighting again.” She could see the confirmation of it in his eyes. “I’d really rather not fail.”

  “I’d also really rather you didn’t.” He picked up a stack of papers, eyes focused on the sheet on top. “I think we’ve settled on the right price per loaf. That can be adjusted if need be. We have to balance your need for a profit margin with the price your customers will be able to pay but still keep demand high enough for a viable business.”

  Katie raised an eyebrow. “And people say the Irish don’t speak English.”

  His smile reappeared. “You’ll have to forgive me for that. When I get started talking business, I tend to run away with myself.”

  Katie propped her elbow on the table, leaning her head against her upturned hand. “You said you left behind the world of business because you didn’t like it. Sounds to me as though you secretly do.”

  He shook his head. “I liked business; I just didn’t love it. When I can use what I learned about business in the context of something I do love, I can’t help a little enthusiasm.”

  ’Twas the most animated she’d seen him. “Something you do love? Like farming?”

  He nodded.

  “And bread now, apparently,” she added.

  He seemed to catch her teasing. “I am growing increasingly fond of bread.”

  “Perhaps you’d be willing to translate all that you said about cost and demand and such.”

  “Gladly. A lower price will sell more loaves, and the more loaves you sell, the more money you’ll make.”

  “Ah. Now that I understand.”

  Joseph stacked his papers once more. “Finbarr and I can get your supplies as soon as you’re ready to get started. I think the O’Connors have already begun finding you customers.”

  “Biddy said as much when she dropped off the girls this afternoon.”

  “You’ll simply have to recruit the rest yourself.”

  Katie nodded. “I can do that.”

  “I believe you could do anything you set your mind to, Katie.”

  The praise both warmed and embarrassed her. “I’ll say good night, then, Joseph.”

  He followed her to the dining room doorway with the lantern in his hand. “So you don’t run into the table again,” he explained.

  He is a kind man, more so than I’d ever have guessed. She’d been abrupt with him before. At the door to her room, she turned back to look at him.

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you when you asked about my feet. It wasn’t an unreasonable question considering how shocking they look.”

  He kept near the table, his lantern only dimly lighting the room. “Is that why you are so careful to keep them hidden, so people won’t ask questions?”

  She nodded. ’Twas the reason exactly.

  “Then I won’t ask about them again.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. His earlier questions had already filled her mind with blacksmiths and crude cutting instruments and pain she never could seem to forget entirely.

  “And, Katie?” He still didn’t come nearer, though he watched her closely. “I hope you know that I won’t tell anyone what you’ve told me in confidence.”

  “I know you that well by now, Joseph. You’re trustworthy, I’m certain of it.”

  “Trustworthy is exactly what I am attempting to be,” he muttered. He shifted about a moment before taking a step back. “I should let you get some sleep.”

  “Yes. Good night, Joseph.”

  He nodded as though not entirely aware he did so. Then, quick as a heartbeat, Joseph Archer was all business again. “And a good night to you as well, Katie.”

  He moved with determined stride to the table and retrieved the lantern. ’Twas the last she saw of him before quietly closing her door.

  She leaned against it and told herself to breathe. Memories of fire and cold and pain had dealt her a blow. Joseph’s kindness was both a balm and a prick o
f added uncertainty. She’d once thought him an indifferent employer, the kind of wealthy man who cared little for those beneath him.

  But in the moments he’d talked with her, listened to her with such compassion and gentleness, she’d begun to see him in a different light entirely. Joseph Archer was a good soul and a loving man, and Katie could no longer deny she liked him very much indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Katie fully expected to have to go around begging people to buy her bread. She’d opted to start small, not offering cakes or tarts or anything fancy until she had a good number of regular customers. But before she could go up and down the road asking who might be interested, her Irish neighbors came to her. Many asked to be added to her delivery route before even inquiring after her prices.

  Her orders filled two large baskets with fresh baked loaves, far more than she’d have ever imagined. Biddy drove her out to make the deliveries in a cart lent them by her father-in-law. The O’Connors’ eldest daughter had happily agreed to look after Biddy’s children and the Archer girls.

  “Nearly every house on the Irish Road ordered from me, it seems.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Biddy said. “You’re a groundbreaker for your neighbors. They’ve no desire to see you call it quits on account of having no customers.”

  Again and again Katie had been told how much depended on the success of this idea of hers. She couldn’t at all be comfortable with it.

  “I’m worried these families are spending money they do not have on something they do not need.”

  Biddy shook her head with sharp emphasis. “If the Red Road can drive you out, Katie Macauley, you who have shown more fire and determination than any one of them has encountered here, they’ll not hesitate to up their efforts at driving us all away. Your fortitude is something we most certainly need.”

  “I’ve never been a hero, Biddy.”

  She received no sympathy, no reprieve. Biddy skewered her with a look. “Seems to me it’s time to rise up, then.”

  Biddy, she’d discovered, knew how to read and write and had made a list of her stops. She made each delivery and received her eight cents in return and, without fail, a word of gratitude and encouragement. ’Twas an odd thing to be thanked by someone who was buying goods from her. She owed them her gratitude, not the other way around.

  “If I take on any more orders, I’ll have to add a second baking day.” Katie pulled out her second basket of bread as they continued their deliveries.

  “We’ll have you baking every minute of every day if we can possibly manage it. Part of your success will be not needing to work for Joseph any longer.”

  To her surprise, Katie felt a twinge of regret at the thought. “Joseph Archer is a good man,” she said. “The best I think I’ve ever worked for.”

  “Oh, aye. That’s true as heaven. He’s been a grand friend to my Ian. If not for this infernal feud, they’d be as close as bark on a tree.”

  “The feud keeps them apart? But I thought Joseph stayed out of it.”

  “He does.” Biddy pulled up at the next house. “Being the closest of friends with an Irishman would hardly be a neutral position, now would it?”

  Katie didn’t climb down right away. “He lets his insistence on staying out of the fight come between him and a friend?”

  “Don’t judge him too quick or harsh. Joseph’s in an impossible situation.”

  She didn’t understand. He’d chosen his position.

  “Go deliver your loaf, Katie. We can talk as we drive on.”

  Again she hadn’t a chance at the door to even begin her own thank-you before receiving a sincere one herself. She was yet shaking her head at the oddness of it when she slid back onto the seat beside Biddy.

  “You’ll forgive me the history I’m about to tell you, Katie, but you won’t understand unless you know how all this began. I promise to keep it brief, though I cannot guarantee to tell it well.”

  “A tale told truthfully is always told well.”

  Biddy smiled at that and drove on. “While my husband’s family and I were all working in a factory in New York, word came to the owner that a friend of his was looking for able-bodied people willing to work in exchange for land. This friend had purchased thousands of acres, an entire valley far off in the West, but the land was useless without canals.”

  Katie had often heard since her arrival that canals and irrigation were the only reason farming was even possible in Hope Springs.

  “My father-in-law grew up in the countryside of Ireland, a man of the land. He never was happy in the city.”

  Katie’s heart cracked a bit at that. Biddy might just as easily have been speaking of Katie’s own father. She’d seen him die by bits in the weeks after they lost their home and land. The few letters she had received from her mother painted a picture of Father’s life in Belfast. It was nothing but hard work and living day to day. She heard no joy in Mother’s description. For that reason as much as any Katie worked and saved so fiercely every penny she earned. Someday she would give him back his land.

  “So the entire family left New York,” Biddy continued. “I was married to Ian by that time, though only just, and we came as well. Most of Ian’s siblings came along. Between all of us, we dug enough canals to earn for ourselves two hundred acres, hardly enough to support us all. The other families that came on the promise of land received about the same.”

  Farms too small for those depending on them. ’Twas the Irish countryside all over again, the very situation that left them vulnerable to starvation when a single crop failed.

  “The man eventually grew anxious to move on and wished to sell his land but refused to part with it in pieces. He wouldn’t divide it and sell the parcels to the O’Connors or the Kesters, who lived here at the time, or any of the others here in the valley. He meant to hold out for the entire sum at once.”

  “But who could possibly afford to buy thousands of acres?”

  Biddy gave her a significant look. “Who indeed but a wealthy young businessman from the East looking to start a new life?”

  “Joseph.”

  Biddy nodded. “He bought the entire valley and enormous swaths of grazing land beyond. Then he began selling it in family-sized parcels to those looking to farm. He sold larger parcels to those looking to ranch.”

  “So everyone bought their land from him?”

  “He was offering a livelihood to people poor as the earth itself. Not a soul among them had enough money on hand to buy two hundred acres outright. They’re buying their land from him on time. He holds the notes to nearly every farm in Hope Springs.”

  Biddy pulled the cart to a stop yet again. Katie had another delivery, though she dearly wanted to sit and hear the rest of the tale.

  Upon returning she didn’t need to breathe a single word. Biddy continued on without prodding.

  “There’s been Irish hatred in this country ever since the first of us arrived desperate and starving on its shores. We came as a matter of survival and discovered far too many in America would rather we had died along with the millions back home who’d done just that.” ’Twasn’t bitterness in Biddy’s voice but an aching sadness. “Many jumped at the opportunity to have land in a valley with irrigation and natural sources of water in a place as dry as Wyoming. But so very many of those who came brought their hatred of the Irish with them, and they infected the others. They’d point down our side of the road and tell their newly arrived neighbors that, if not for ‘those filthy Irishmen,’ the town might have been home to ‘good, deserving Americans.’”

  Katie had heard those arguments all over Baltimore. Never mind that the Irish fought in America’s Civil War. Never mind that Irish labor built the railroads. They were considered a scourge that needed to be driven out. They were despised simply because they looked a bit different, played music that sounded a bit different, and spoke in a way that landed a bit odd on American ears.

  “Joseph holds the note on nearly every farm in thi
s valley,” Biddy continued. “He once confided in Ian that staying out of the feud was every bit as much a wish for peace as it was a matter of being ethical. He owns homes and land on both sides of the argument. To take one side over the other would be crossing a line for him.”

  Katie had never thought of it that way. Of course, she’d had no idea of his true position. “He’s a landowner.” The word sat sour in her mouth. She knew all too well the monster a landowner could be.

  “A heavy word, that, for anyone who has lived in Ireland.”

  Katie nodded.

  “I suspect he hates being put in such a position,” Biddy said. “But his ownership of the area is a bit of leverage no one hereabout can overlook.”

  “He holds it over their heads.”

  “No, quite the opposite in fact. He has been known, during difficult years, to accept late payments or partial payments or barters, none of which he is required to do. He has helped people survive here who wouldn’t have otherwise. Dragging him into the feud, everyone understands, might very well forfeit any claim they might have on his mercy.”

  “That sounds so . . .” How did she even explain what struck her so wrong in that? “It seems terribly heartless.”

  Biddy shook her head. “In our darkest days, there was no one—no one—but him who could stop the fighting. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t ever taken sides but that he held power over both sides equally.” Regret filled Biddy’s voice. Katie listened with hardly a breath breaking her concentration. “I’ve seen him broken by it, Katie. He’s sat by our fireside, head in his hands, telling my Ian, ‘I didn’t come here to be the ruthless businessman. I didn’t come here to lord it over my neighbors. This was supposed to be a peaceful place.’”

  Katie knew she’d seen a glimmer of that the first day she knew him. In the moment he’d realized she was Irish, a frustrated tiredness had washed over him. He knew she would cut further away at the peace he’d not managed to find.

  “Don’t judge him too harshly, Katie. He keeps himself apart from his neighbors because we give him no choice. He knows if he left, the town would kill each other. And he knows if he ever took sides, there would be no one left to stop the fighting.”