In the Garden of Spite

by Camilla Bruce

  “Hush,” he whispered into my hair, to soothe me while I shivered in his arms. “Perhaps he did it himself, with all those powders the doctor described. Maybe he didn’t want to be ill anymore.”

  “That’s what she said,” I whispered back. The scent of his nightshirt was a comfort; it smelled of him and clean cotton.

  “If she had wanted to kill him, she would have done so a long time ago—she wouldn’t have waited sixteen years to do so.”

  I let out my breath then; it was such a relief to hear him say it in his calm, composed voice. Of course she had not done it. Of course I believed her. Of course!

  “I worry about the children, though,” he whispered to me next. “She does have a temper, your sister, and without Mads there to take the brunt of it—”

  “I know.” Something tightened in my chest. “I do too,” I admitted.

  And that was why I agreed to go after all.

  * * *

  —

  We had a compartment to ourselves during the train ride: Bella, her girls, Nora, and I. The girls all found it such a treat to sit upon the green velvet upholstery and watch the spring landscape pass by outside the window. Jennie and Myrtle knelt together on one of the seats, the shorter girl in front of the other, and Nora took it upon herself to show little Lucy the view as well, lifting the girl up to the glass to watch the fields and the trees bursting with fall’s vivid colors. Flat—it was all so flat out there. It gave me a headache to look at it. I never thought much of it in the city, with all the tall buildings everywhere, but once I left the crowded streets of Chicago, the flatness of the land was dizzying. It was as if my eyes still searched for steep hills and snow-capped mountains, ravines, clefts, and rushing waterfalls.

  I felt like a stranger then.

  The children’s hands, sticky from the sugary treats Bella had brought, left marks on the windowpane. The scent of caramels and hard orange candy mingled with that of smoke and wood polish inside the first-class compartment.

  Bella had money now.

  “Look, there’s a cow,” Jennie told Myrtle. Her hand was looped around the little girl’s waist to keep her steady as the train moved. “Can you see that, Myrtle? Oh, there’s another one.”

  Nora hoisted Lucy higher in the air to make sure the little one did not miss out on the cows either, though she did not seem much interested. She held a grappling doll of leather in her hand and gnawed at it eagerly. Yet Nora insisted, “Can you see that, Lucy? That’s a cow. A C-O-W. You can ride one of them like a horse when you get older.”

  “No, she cannot,” I corrected my daughter. “Cows are for milk, and beef, dear.”

  “Oh!” She puckered up her lips. It sometimes astounded me how witless she could be—thoughtless, more like it. At thirteen, she still had not found the patience required to learn things properly. Her mind was like a frog, leaping around in the grass. She had a boundless energy, though, and was almost never sullen. I was very happy to have brought her along as she could brighten any room with her presence.

  “Mama says she will teach me how to ride a horse,” Jennie spoke up, “when we have moved to the country.”

  I gave my sister a quizzical look, which she did not return.

  “We have to find a good horse first,” she said to Jennie. “An old and patient one that won’t throw you off.”

  “Can Myrtle ride it too?” Jennie bent her head over her charge so her slick blond braid fell down and teased the younger girl’s forehead.

  “When she is old enough.” Bella gave them both a smile.

  “I want to ride a cow.” Nora’s laughter filled the compartment. I had aimed to gather her dark hair in a neat plait, but it was already unraveling down her back.

  “Of course you do,” I tutted at her. “You could join the circus as Nora, the cow-riding girl.”

  “Uh-huh, and then I could sell milk to the crowd at intermissions. You could go too, Jennie! We could perform together. You could have a horse!”

  “A white one.” Jennie joined in the dream. “Its name is Snowbell, or Winter Queen.”

  I looked up to see Bella smile to herself, clearly enjoying the girls’ happy chatter. Bella’s girls wore new blue dresses with neat white collars, but Nora’s secondhand one was not so very bad either, with a little bit of lace adorning the red cotton. They were all lovely girls—happy girls. I thought I had been wrong to worry.

  Bella and I had both brought our knitting and were spending the time making socks. Bella’s were in the style that were much favored back home with eight-petaled roses, knitted black on white. I could tell by the size that they were for a man.

  “Who are they for?” I nodded to her lap.

  “Oh, I don’t know yet.” But I thought that she did because her cheeks reddened and a little bit of light had come into her eyes.

  “A Norwegian, I’m sure,” I teased her. “No one else will wear socks such as those.”

  “Oh, you never know who’ll be in need of a pair.” She huffed a little and started a new row. Above her on the shelf resided a magnificent black hat with a whole flower garden gathered at the pull. It much dwarfed my plain one of straw.

  We had brought a deck of cards and books for the older girls to read, but mostly they wanted to explore, so we let them roam as they pleased on the train, though we warned them to behave. Myrtle and Lucy remained with us. The latter was soon sleeping, sprawled out on two empty seats and covered in a crocheted blanket. Myrtle sat quietly by her mother’s side, watching the landscape flow by. She had always been such a docile child, and slow to walk and speak. She did not look like us at all but was darker and had softer features. She looked nothing like her sister either. Little Lucy was fair and always alert.

  The day had been so good so far, and Bella’s mood so nice, that I finally found the courage to ask what had been on my mind for some time.

  “Do you think you will have more children?” I started, noting the ash in her hair as I did.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She briefly looked up from the knitting. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just think it’s strange that a woman your age has so many all of a sudden, when she couldn’t have a single one before.” I did not say it to be mean, only because I wondered.

  “Luck perhaps—or the Lord.” Her eyes were still kind when she looked at me. “Why is it your concern, Nellie?” She added a smile; it was all in good humor. “You have a brood of your own already; surely you don’t envy me mine?”

  “Of course not.” I laughed a little. “I was just wondering if they truly were yours. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you adopted them and passed them off as your own, I just—”

  “Just what, Nellie?” Her voice whipped in the air. Little Myrtle startled, then promptly started to cry. I strongly regretted ever asking. “The girls are mine, through and through.” There was a hard cast to Bella’s jaw as she put down the knitting and set to comforting her daughter.

  “Forgive me, Bella.” I tried to smile. “I was just curious, that’s all. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it—”

  “We can talk all day if you like.” She straightened up with Myrtle in her arms, lifting her onto her lap. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I felt hot and nervous—angry with myself too, for bringing it up. “You are very lucky, then.” I bent my head over the knitting again, but the calm from before was gone.

  Bella’s mood was all ruined, though. “Oh, I can’t wait to be away from the city for a while. They are hounding me, those people, saying all sorts of things to Jennie at school. It’s only a matter of time before her real father hears about it.” I wanted so dearly to go back to not having asked her about the children, but it was all too late, and she kept talking. Her jaws worked between the sentences, grinding her teeth together, and a deep scowl had appeared on her features. “H
ow can they even say such things about a poor widow? Denying me my money—rightfully mine by law! As if I haven’t suffered enough, living with a sick husband for all these years—and when Jennie burned herself in the Alma Street fire, barely anyone asked how she fared . . .”

  “Yes.” I felt faint. “It has been hard for you.”

  “And that Oscar.” She did not appear to have heard me but rocked little Myrtle back and forth in her lap while she spoke; the girl was still mewling, but the tears had dried up. “He can forget about ever seeing his nieces after this. I won’t have that vile man anywhere near them. How could he do such a thing? Have poor Mads dug up? And for nothing! I hope he chokes on that phony letter he brought—Mads would never have written such things. Lies and accusations, all of it!”

  I nodded, suddenly too exhausted to answer.

  “And it’s surely not my fault that the houses caught fire—the city is rife with fires. It happens every day! I am so very sick of it, Nellie—all these lies that everyone is telling.”

  “Are you truly moving away, then?” I lifted my gaze a little, shameful of the wild hope that suddenly flared in me. “Is that why we are going to Janesville? Are you looking to buy land there?”

  “No.” Finally she stopped her angry rantings. “That is to see Sigrid, I told you.”

  “Yes, but—I didn’t think you ever took to her.” I had been surprised, to say the least, when she had announced her plan to see her old companion from the ship to America. Bella had nothing but complaints about the woman after arriving in Chicago.

  “Oh, but it’s different now.” Bella sighed and lifted Myrtle down to sit beside her again. She fumbled in her purse for another treat for the girl. “It was a very long time since that ship, and we have both changed for sure.”

  I did not quite believe it and thought she must have some other reason to go there, but I was not about to upset things again, and so I did not ask her.

  I remembered there was a time, not so long ago, when I would scold my little sister as if it were nothing, yell at her even—but I found that those days were gone. I no longer dared to raise my voice.

  Mads’s sudden death had seen to that.

  * * *

  —

  Sigrid’s farm was midsized but thriving, lying like an island in the midst of sprawling fields. The house was charming with two stories and a large cellar for storage. Hens littered the farmyard, and several horses traipsed behind a fence. Inside the red barn, there were both cows and pigs.

  Sigrid herself had changed much. Gone was the slender girl from before; her hips had filled out and her bosom too, and her face showed the lines of someone who had worked much outdoors. Her hair, what could be seen of it under the headscarf, had become as white as chalk.

  She was a lively woman, though, and brought us outside to look at every piece of equipment and every little space for storage, clearly proud of her home—of what her husband, Stefan, had accomplished. He was a Swede, which was an oddity. Norwegian girls usually married their own.

  “I was so surprised to hear from you,” Sigrid said to Bella as she showed us the vegetable patch, mostly empty now so late in the year. Nora, Jennie, and Sigrid’s daughter, Louisa, were inside, practicing their poor skills on Sigrid’s piano and looking after the younger children. “I never thought I would see you again, truth be told.” Sigrid beamed. “I barely recall that journey; it was so very long ago. But I remember you were sick in Hull, and that you did not want to dance on the deck.” She laughed good-naturedly.

  “How many children did you have?” Bella deftly changed the subject. She still wore that very large hat; satin roses and velvet bows bobbed before me on the narrow path.

  “Five that lived and two that we lost. The older boys have moved away now, so there’s only Louisa and the twins left. What about you? Did you bring your whole brood?”

  “Oh yes.” Bella laughed again, though it sounded a little strained. “I only have the girls.”

  “And you, Mrs. Larson?” Sigrid’s gaze turned on me as I came hobbling up behind them. Even if the sun was out, there was a chill in the air that did me no favors but settled in my back like a bite of sharp teeth. “Two besides Nora, but they are both grown and have moved away too.”

  “It’s so hard to lose them to adulthood.” Sigrid’s face fell into sympathetic folds. “But they cannot stay at home forever. You are lucky like that.” She looked at Bella. “Yours will not leave you for years to come.”

  “Never, if I have a say in it.” Bella’s voice was light, but I did not like the sound of it. She had picked up a stick from the ground and was poking the dirt. “I was thinking of buying a farm myself,” she said. “City life does not much suit me since I became a widow, and I’d much like to leave Chicago. I was hoping to have a look at how you run things here.”

  “Of course—how exciting! Do you miss the farm life back home?” Sigrid’s features lit up with excitement. “Stefan can show you all there is to know. Where did you think to settle? What do you want to grow?” The questions came pouring out of her. Had I not been so in pain, I might have appreciated it more, how eager she was to help my sister.

  “I do miss it more often now.” Bella started walking again and Sigrid fell in beside her. “I miss open fields and a clear view of the sky. In Chicago, there is smoke everywhere—and dust.” She closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the sun as if to demonstrate how much better things were in the country. “I miss having animals the most,” she continued. “I always had a good hand with cows, and I was thinking of pigs too.”

  As I wandered behind them, I wondered again just what it was we were doing here. Surely Bella could inspect farms much closer to the city than this—and she did not even like our hostess. I could tell by how her voice turned a little too sweet, while her eyes remained cold. How her lips twitched as if she fought to hide scorn.

  “It’s hard to do it as a widow, though,” she said to Sigrid. “I was thinking I might have to marry again.”

  I all but stopped in my tracks in surprise. Why had she not shared these plans? Suddenly it did make sense, why we were out there. She wanted to find a man who did not know about her recent troubles. Someone who had not been tainted by suspicion. She really ought to have told me, though, as I would have been able to tell her that words travel faster than a bee hive to a meadow, and rumors of her plight might have reached Norwegians even here. I also found, as I passed by the empty vegetable beds, that the thought of her remarrying was worrying to me.

  I should have seen it coming, though. Of course she would want to remarry. She had money now, that was true, and it would last her a good long while, but she would still want a man’s help and companionship.

  I remembered Mr. Lee, and wondered if she knew him still.

  “If you invest in land, you won’t have any trouble finding suitors,” Sigrid said. “There’s many gold diggers about, though, so you have to be careful.”

  “Oh, I’m no fool,” said my sister. “I won’t take in just anyone.”

  “You aim to build a whole new life for yourself.” Sigrid laughed with delight.

  “Yes.” Bella chuckled too. “I think perhaps I do.”

  * * *

  —

  Dinner that night was lively. Sigrid’s husband turned out to be an amusing fellow who took great care to make sure his wife was comfortable at all times, passing her salt and gravy before she even asked. Her twin boys were fifteen and regaled us with stories about rabbit hunting. Louisa, Jennie, and Nora had formed a triad in the way that girls that age often do, and were constantly whispering or sending each other meaningful looks, giggling a little even, though it was hardly polite. Myrtle was already in bed next to her baby sister, exhausted from the travel. Sigrid and I soon fell into reminiscences about the old country, while Bella and Stefan discussed the properties of barley and corn. She seemed to be ser
ious about that farm, and a bit of hope that she would truly leave fluttered in my chest once more, quickly extinguished by a bout of guilt.

  I told myself sternly that of course I did not want my sister to move away, and yet—somehow—I did.

  “Would it be possible to borrow the buggy tomorrow? Sometime before noon?” she suddenly asked our hosts. “I have an acquaintance in the area that I would like to look in on.”

  “Who would that be?” Sigrid asked, voicing my own surprise.

  “Oh, just a man who lodged with us some years ago. I thought I should see him, since I am here.” She did not even blush but calmly dipped her spoon back in the pudding we had for dessert.

  I looked at Bella with something like admiration. She truly was cunning sometimes, dragging us all out here just so she could meet this man.

  “Who is it?” Sigrid asked; her spoonful of pudding hovered in the air.

  “Peter Gunness,” Bella replied. “A Norwegian in his fifties.” She still did not blush or otherwise reveal any shame.

  “Yes, I know who he is. Recently a widower.” Sigrid’s eyebrows rose in a telling manner, but she did not get a rise out of Bella.

  “That is just why I want to see him,” she replied. “I would like to give him my condolences.”

  “That is very nice of you. Of course you can have the buggy.” Sigrid slipped the spoon between her lips. “Mr. Gunness will appreciate the kindness, I’m sure.”

  The next day, I stayed behind with the children while Bella went on her errand. Sigrid and I spent a lazy day in her kitchen with our knitting, while Lucy and Myrtle played on a blanket by our feet. The older girls were there as well, entertaining themselves with cutting silhouettes out of cardboard. They let Myrtle sit with them to watch, and Nora even made a silhouette especially for her, meant to look like a rabbit, but it seemed to me more like a bear. I did not tell her that, of course. Their happy chatter filled the air and soothed my sensitive nerves.

  Whenever I thought of Bella’s visit to the widower, I felt uneasy, though. I worried that the visit would not go as she hoped—and then I worried even more that it would. A rash new marriage was perhaps not the wisest of moves, seeing how poor her last marriage was.