If wood chopping best suited those stewing over a hurt, shell shoveling won second place. Shadrach hoisted dripping spadefuls of shells into the wicker basket he’d already filled too many times to count that morning, and the ache grew with each basketful.
He sliced the blade of his tool into the wet sand underfoot and rested his elbow on the handle. Salt and sweat clung to his hair and plastered it to his neck. He shook his head like a dog and flicked the ends away.
One more trip to Rhyll beach and he would have enough. He’d incinerate the shells and grind them into the perfect additive to improve his clay garden beds. Thinking of beds reminded him of Finella. Again.
He dragged the overflowing basket along the shore to Old Lou and his dray. Shells spilled over the top, adding to the trail already there.
“I shouldn’t have laughed at her, I know,” he told his horse. “She needs time to get used to her surroundings and I don’t want to add to her aggravation. But sleeping on the bed? With last night’s chill? She deserved that.”
Old Lou kept her counsel.
“Gonna take her side, hey girl? Should have figured.’”
He lugged the basket to the edge of the cart and tipped its contents in. He had nothing more to offer than what Finella had already seen. And it didn’t impress her. He understood that now. Under his roof, her expectation for fineries meant disappointment would be her daily medicine. Surely George knew that about his bride-to-be.
He tapped the bottom of the basket to dislodge the last of the shells.
“No doubting it. Life would’ve been sweeter for her with George.” He plucked a tangled piece of seaweed from the wickerwork and tossed it away. “Can’t be easy when so many of her expectations have been buried with him.” He pitched the basket onto the shells and headed back to the water.
By week’s end, he figured she’d come down from her lofty aspirations. Hard work would dull that in her. Either that, or she’d balk at the foolishness of being out here, demand he reload her things and drive her back to the pier for the next steamer out.
Who knew for sure? He certainly didn’t. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Who am I fooling?” he muttered under his breath. “My farm’s no stop for a lady.” He knew it as certain as the sun rose each day over Rhyll beach, but he’d let persuasion and honor sway him. Not to mention those eyes. Tear stained and brimming with care for Molly.
A fellow could get used to those eyes.
Looking at him. Looking for him.
Shadrach shook his head at whatever tried to take root. He was no George Gleeson to have Finella look his way. He’d best remember that.
He returned for the spade. Signs of his industry littered the beach. The wide groove his basket drew in the sand would soon disappear with the afternoon tide, and there’d be no evidence he’d raided the shore of her wealth.
Would Miss Mayfield vanish from their home the same way? Last night, thanks to his pride, he’d hoped she would. This morning, the unfamiliar sight of blankets snapping in the wind between his fruit trees served as a poke to the ribs.
He’d brought her here. And for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he liked it that way.
He leaned on the dray to wipe his cold feet. The wet hem of his trousers rarely bothered him, but today, the nagging thought of getting near the fire she tended, persisted.
“Hard work and plenty of it for us, Old Lou, my girl.” He led his horse across the island tracks to home.
By the time he got there he’d almost convinced himself. Better to concentrate on the brush timber he needed to collect. The seaweed and sod covering for the pyre. He could almost see the barrows of crushed cockles he’d use to dust his fields.
With hard work and a long list of chores, he might even convince his heart to steer away from the washing that waved at him from the orchard hill. And the brown-eyed woman standing there, hands on her hips, surveying his farm.
*
Finella could see clear to the beach, but she cared little for its vista. She searched the young orchard on her right, where barely a leaf obstructed her view, all the way to the sandy slope, which wound through the tea trees to the water. On the other side, the generous market garden of red earth held the green fuzz of new crops, but not the object of her search.
Her heart slammed like a roller on a reef. How could she see so far and so clearly, and not find her?
“Molly.” She called for the girl and her throat thickened. “Where are you?” She tugged at the washing line, heavy with bedding. Had the girl slipped behind the blankets in a game of hide-and-go-seek?
“Molly, please come out if you’re hiding.”
A lonely wind ripped through the clothes on the line, but no muffled giggles pierced the air.
From under a canopy of low trees, the sound of horse hooves snatched her attention. Not now.
Finella swallowed her panic. Mr. Jones guided his horse toward her. She stepped in front of the string of quilts and prayed under her breath.
“Please God, let Molly somehow be with her brother. Please. Please. Please.” She tucked her hands beneath her apron and clenched them into fists.
Old Lou labored with a heavy load and Mr. Jones whistled a tune. He nodded when he saw her and turned toward the barn.
“Good thing the rain’s held off.” He looked at the sky. “Better day for washing than most this month. You must’ve done some prayin—”
“Have you seen Molly?” Finella could no more stop her words from spilling than she could keep the wind from beating at her side.
Mr. Jones reined Old Lou to a stop.
“What do you mean, have I seen Molly?”
Low words, each one spoken with deliberate lag slowed the passing of time. Fear boiled in Finella’s chest and she ached to yell at him. To shake him down and everything else in the world until the missing girl rattled at their feet like a lost marble.
“Molly is meant to be wherever you are.” He ripped the brake as if he planned to dislocate it, and jumped down. “Are you telling me she’s not?” His voice remained low but the look in his eyes curdled her blood faster than any scream.
Finella pressed her knuckles to her mouth. If only she could make sense of it. “She’s been beside me all morning. I… I made sure of it. We washed there, together.” She pointed to the tubs and smoldering fire. “And she helped me with the hanging… and then we went inside for lunch.”
“I don’t care what you did. It’s what’s you didn’t do that’s my concern now.” He cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Molly. Molly.” He yelled toward the sea. Toward the house, and even up into the sky.
“Where did you see her last?”
“Inside, with me. I sliced bread and she sat at the table to eat.” Finella breathed hard. Her words would not come out as she wished them.
“Then?” Mr. Jones seized her by the shoulders. Finella knew she must tell the truth. She studied his muddy shoes.
“I needed the… out…house.”
She looked up. He looked away and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I was gone less than two minutes.” She pleaded. “I left more than enough bread and jam to keep her busy until I got back. She must have followed me, and now…”
I can’t find her.
Finella wished to finish her sentence but a lump the size of her own fist squeezed at her throat.
“Where’ve you looked?” Mr. Jones stomped through the puddles to the house. “Did you look in the beds? Under them?” He threw the door open and saw for himself the stripped sapling bed frames.
“Did you try the outhouse?” He bolted past her and Finella ran to keep up. “Perhaps she’s hiding there.”
Finella hadn’t, but his search only served to discover an unoccupied privy. A flutter of clothes on the line mocked them with nothing more than an empty yard and orchard.
“Molly.” He called again. This time louder and with a desperation to outdo even her own.
&nbs
p; “If she’s heard me yell from the bush somewhere she may try and find her way home.” He scanned the afternoon sky before stomping back through the mud to the house.
“I’ll grab a blanket and get down to the beach. You,” he pointed with a trembling finger at the door of the hut, “will stay here. Understand?”
She nodded through fresh tears. He didn’t have to yell at her. She was not unaware this was her fault.
“I’m not surprised at Molly.” He marched across the yard to his room. “The girl’s got no sense when it comes to time or weather. But I thought you would’ve been smarter than this.”
Finella picked her way behind him. Her heart plummeted to think he could be right. She was smarter than this. So how could she have let it happen?
“If she’s at the beach it won’t be the first time. Last time she slipped into a rock pool and sat there, shivering, ’til I found her.” He pushed on the door to his room.
Against the backdrop of Finella’s trunks, his pallet took up most of the floor with a large basket tipped beside it on its side. A mess of linens and cloths littered the floor and in their midst, almost hidden in a sleepy tangle, lay Molly.
11
Shadrach crouched by his sister and tapped her shoulder.
“Molly. Wake up.”
She licked her lips and a soft moan escaped them. He tried again with a harder poke.
“Wake up. Do you hear me?”
Molly opened her eyes. “Brother?”
He caught the roar before it took hold. He wanted to yell. Demand a reason for her stolen nap when she knew she was not allowed in his skillion.
Instead, a wash of relief swayed over him, as close as the gentle swing of Miss Mayfield’s hem against his leg. He knelt on the ground.
Jet-black hair covered Molly’s face and he tucked a strand behind her ear to see her better. Her scar carried the added creases of sleep where her cheek had crushed her ragdoll.
“Molly.” He measured his words to slow his racing heart. “Did you hear Miss Mayfield calling for you? You promised to always stay where she could see you.”
He didn’t know whether to tug at her unraveled plait or wrap her in a fierce embrace. With Miss Mayfield at his heel, he figured he’d do neither.
“Here.” Molly blinked and offered him a cloth. “Finella wanted something pretty for the table. And …I remembered Mum’s old sewing basket. And this one. With the strawberry stitches…” She smiled and looked up from him to Miss Mayfield.
“Then, I saw your bed, Shad. And, I wanted to sleep somewhere. Because my bed’s in the sun.”
He cared little for her reasons. How much more mischief would she toy with before real harm found her? Shadrach caught her chin in his hand. “You disobeyed, Molly. You ignored more than one instruction.”
Her blue eyes settled on him. He searched them for a sign, any sign to tell him she really understood but her attention fell to the tablecloth and he let her go.
With one finger she traced a curling green vine until it reached an embroidered cluster of rose-colored fruit. His mum’s tea cloth. Molly must have remembered he’d crammed it here in a basket of useless items their mother had collected over the years.
He rubbed her cheek with his knuckles, and stood. Miss Mayfield stepped back but the skillion offered little room between them, and the wall at her back soon stopped her from moving further away.
She kept her face tilted to the floor. Hard work at the washtub had loosened her hair and it curled around her neck. Her cheeks held the rosy slap of wind, and she chewed the edge of her chapped lip while her hands rummaged in her apron pockets. She pulled out a handkerchief and held it there.
Determined to secure her attention, even if he could not hold Molly’s, Shadrach kept his silence until those brown eyes inched their way up from her hands and met with his.
The mark of wide-eyed panic from earlier had disappeared. Instead, her long lashes held tears. His heart cracked a little but he couldn’t let it sway him. She owed him an apology.
“Do you now see why I insist she be in your sight at all times? Today, it was a silly tablecloth. What if she decides to bring you a feather for your hair? Will you turn your back while she climbs a tree for a nest, or wades into Saltwater Creek?”
Miss Mayfield’s mouth snapped open to make an O but he cut off her attempt to speak.
“What if she decides to please you with wildflowers? Are you going to let her wander through snake-filled gullies?” He knew he sounded unreasonable, but he had to make her understand.
Miss Mayfield squared her shoulders.
“Mr. Jones.” She angled her chin and her hands disappeared behind her back like a schoolgirl about to recite the Lord’s Prayer. “In the one day I have cared for your sister she’s worked beside me at every turn. True, she slipped away. To the safety of your room.”
This was no apology.
“In your care I believe she almost fell in the well, and by your own admission, ended up in a puddle on the beach. And let’s not forget our first meeting on the sand dunes where we enjoyed several minutes together before your arrival.”
Each word hit him like the arrow of an expert marksman.
“Where were you then, when Molly wandered the beach alone and distressed with a splintered finger?”
The woman had a point. She had a few points and wasted no time making them.
Unlike Molly, her shoulders did not slump when he reprimanded her. And even when she returned accusation for accusation, her left eyebrow stayed perched above her eye, defiant and hooked.
He mirrored the lift of her chin with his own. “The matter remains the same. We can be nothing less than vigilant. I don’t expect anything more from you than I expect from myself.”
“Good. Well, I guess we carry on then.” She helped Molly stand. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re going to see if our washing’s dry and remake the beds.”
She tucked Molly’s arm in the crook of her own. Together they picked their way across the well-used courtyard. Miss Mayfield lifted her skirt and wiped her shoes on the long wet grass. At the coaching of her new friend, Molly did the same.
As if it were not enough to contend with Miss Mayfield’s fancy ways, now he’d have to deal with Molly’s attempts to match them.
He followed them out and shut the door on the mess in his room. It was not as easy to bar the protest of his heart.
How would he ever find it in him to court a woman so clearly charmed by the very things he loathed?
And why, knowing the strife this would cause him, had George ever thought he was the man to do so?
*
Finella breathed deeply. This was no lavender perfumed bedroom of Aunt Sarah’s making. But bedding kissed by a few minutes of sun brought welcome freshness to the small farmhouse. Every stitch of clothing that could be spared had found its way to the tubs, and even though her arms ached to unpin her hair, Finella knew it was worth the day’s labor.
Glad for her bed, she climbed under the newly laid covers. Aunt Sarah would have much to say about unironed sheets on beds. Finella ignored this. Each crease, proof of diligent scrubbing, outweighed Aunt Sarah’s strictest demands. Today’s sheets couldn’t appeal to Finella more if they’d arrived wrapped in tulle ribbons from the Royal Laundry.
The weight of her body gave into the mattress and she stretched into a sigh. How quickly her perfect schedule of preacher’s wife chores had tipped upside down. There would be no tea making for a husband who poured over sermon notes. No dusting of his library shelves. No lectures to attend on his arm with lively discussion afterwards.
She rubbed her cheek against the pillowcase and closed her eyes. The day flashed before her, like pictures from a book. Fluttering blankets filled her mind. Steam, from the washtubs. Molly’s pink tongue poking. And then, sparkling blue eyes.
Was it Molly or Mr. Jones who stared at her while she fought her way to sleep? Wide as a grave and deep as a pit, blue eyes condemned as they traipsed the farm i
n a frenzy.
She pulled the covers closer. She didn’t want to think about what they’d been spared. Enough misery had visited her in one lifetime. She pushed aside the memory of Mr. Jones’ stern words, but nothing budged the vision of the man himself. Arms crossed, farm gate style, angry and afraid.
“Miss Mayfield?” A soft bump on the door prodded her sleepy thoughts. “Do you have a minute?”
Finella untangled the grip of dreams and wrapped her shawl round her shoulders. She didn’t fancy opening the door in her nightdress, but with the lamps out and the fire dying, she cracked it open. She poked her head past the door and hid most of her body behind its planks.
Mr. Jones held a swinging tin lantern.
“I didn’t think you’d be in bed already. It’s earlier than when I knocked last night.”
“It’s been a long day, Mr. Jones.” And I wish to sleep and put images of you and your blue eyes out of my mind.
He juggled something against one arm and held the lantern higher.
“I untied the washing line.” He dropped the coil of rope at her feet. “I’ve used it a few times to keep Molly in one place when I…” he paused, “couldn’t take her with me.”
He kicked a loose end from where it dragged in the red mud. It flicked across the threshold and landed with a thump against Finella’s foot.
A muddy splatter stained her hem and dribbled onto her naked toes, like the raw chill that kicked at her stomach.
She dragged her foot into the shadows. No sooner had she expelled dirt from his home, he swept it back in. And with the washing line no less. Had the man gone mad?
“You expect me to tie her up?” Finella whispered. “Like an animal?”
“No. Not like an animal.” His shoulders rose and slumped with a deep breath. “It’s for her own good. For when you need to visit… another part of the farm.”
He looked at the rope as if it needed further explanation. Finella didn’t need another lecture. She knew what a rope did.
“If you tie it to the leg of the bed she’ll lay there ’til you get back. There’s plenty of length for her to get up and walk around but not enough for her to escape. She might even nap.”
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