Once inside, she stalked into the kitchen, glared at the quartet who occupied themselves in various fashions around the room, and started gathering the trenchers from the table with a good deal more clatter that the task deserved.
Four pairs of eyes looked up at her with interest as she entered, and as they took in her disheveled state, heightened color, and obvious temper, at least two pair? of them widened with curiosity.
“Well?” Thomas finally said when Caroline, clanging utensils, seemed determined not to speak.
“Two fools are beating each other to death in the barnyard,” she threw at him over her shoulder, speaking through gritted teeth. “And I, for one, don’t care to watch!”
“What!”
After an appalled instant the four of them were on their feet rushing for the door. But what happened after that, Caroline didn’t know, because she, tired of every single man who ever walked the earth, took herself off to bed.
Where she tossed and turned and fumed, and slept not so much as a single wink the whole night through.
32
The atmosphere around the breakfast table the next morning was heavy as a thundercloud. Davey and John, apparently never having seen their father fight with one of their uncles before, were awed into unaccustomed noiselessness. They shoveled their corn mush and molasses down without so much as a peep and scooted off to school with only quick, scared glances for the adults they left behind. Robert and Thomas, after exchanging pregnant looks and attempting one or two conversational gambits that went unanswered, gave it up and concentrated on downing their food. Matt and Daniel ate with matching black frowns while Caroline slapped food into trenchers and trenchers onto the table in stony silence.
Matt sported a grotesquely swollen black eye, from, she thought, Daniel’s first punch, and one corner of his mouth was cut and presumably sore. This she discerned by the way he winced as he ate and probed at the hurt area with his tongue. Daniel’s nose was red and enlarged, and there was a massive dark bruise on the left side of his jaw. At first glance he appeared to have gotten the better of the battle. But he grimaced with every movement, and even sitting seemed to cause discomfort, so Caroline couldn’t say for sure. In any case, she didn’t feel the least sorry for either one of them. In her august opinion, it was a pity they had not beaten each other senseless!
Actually, she was quite glad to find herself so angry at the pair of them. It kept at bay the shame she would otherwise have been feeling over her disastrous attempt at lovemaking. It was Matt for whom she reserved her choicest fury, for taking an act that had been one of unselfish giving and twisting it out of all recognition, and then fighting with his brother over her, which was perfectly ridiculous. But she was angry at Daniel too, for hitting Matt and for acting as if she had betrayed him, Daniel, in some way. As if they had an understanding or something, which they most emphatically did not!
And she was angry at Robert and Thomas because they were Mathiesons, and men, and quite astute enough to have figured out the cause of their brothers’ quarrel for themselves. Those two had been shooting the three principals speculative looks ever since they had all four thumped downstairs to discover Caroline banging pots in the kitchen, but so far neither of them had had the nerve to come right out and ask the cause of so much familial ill will.
Matt finally shoved his chair back from the table, his food only half eaten. For the first time in Caroline’s memory, something had actually interfered with a Mathieson’s appetite, but whether it was bruised emotions or a sore lip she wouldn’t venture a guess. Robert and Thomas followed suit, but Daniel stayed where he was.
“You coming, Dan?” Robert paused on the way out the door to ask.
Daniel shook his head. “I’ll be along in a minute. First I have something to say to Caroline.”
This was accompanied by a challenging look at Matt, who had started around the table toward Caroline before being halted by his brother’s words. Robert and Thomas both stopped what they were doing to stare at Daniel, while Matt turned to meet Daniel’s gaze with an expression that did not fall far short of menacing.
“ ’Tis I who have something to say to Caroline. And as I require privacy in which to say it, you can take yourself off.” Matt’s tone was deceptively quiet, but his glittering eyes belied it. As far as Caroline knew, it was the first word that either brother had addressed to the other since their fight. Though she wondered what Matt might have to say to her, she told herself stoutly that she was in no mood to hear it. Both he and Daniel had behaved like buffoons the night before, and if either of them had aught to say to her, they could just wait until she felt like listening! And when the words came, they had best be an abject apology!
“The devil I will,” Daniel answered, abruptly standing up. His chair skittered back on two legs and was saved from crashing to the floor only by the fact that it smacked into the wall first.
“Oh, you will.” Matt was coldly positive.
“Not on your say-so!” Daniel sounded as if he was spoiling for a fight.
They bristled with mutual animosity while Robert and Thomas, sensing another incipient battle, moved to grasp Daniel and Matt, each by an arm. Daniel suffered Robert’s hold, merely ignoring him, but Matt shook Thomas off, though the younger brother still hovered watchfully close.
“Caroline has nothing to say to you.” Matt spoke through his teeth.
“That’s for her to say, not you. She’s not your property.”
Matt smiled then, a mere baring of his teeth. “Isn’t she, little brother?”
“Wait just a minute!” Caroline, who’d listened to this exchange with growing outrage, slapped an empty trencher down on the sideboard. All four men started, as if they had forgotten she was there, and immediately switched their attention to her. She glowered from Matt to Daniel almost impartially, although there might have been just a dollop of extra venom in the look she gave Matt, who, in her opinion, was the more deserving of it.
“I don’t care if you quarrel. I don’t care if you fight. I don’t care if you pound each other into matching bloody pulps, but you will not do it in my kitchen! Get out!” Her voice rose as she spoke, and by the time she finished she was shouting at them. When they continued to stand there gaping at her with as much surprise as though the wall had spoken, she snatched up her broom and waved it at them threateningly.
“Caroline …” Daniel began heavily. Matt shot him a murderous look, and opened his mouth to reply.
“Out! Out!” Caroline forestalled him, coming around the table with the broom. Thomas and Robert, eyes widening, beat a hasty retreat out the door. When Daniel, who was nearer to the line of fire than Matt, ignored her in favor of bristling at Matt, she brought the broom down across his shoulders with a whack! Daniel yelped, jumping sideways, which coincidentally brought him nearer the door.
“Hey!”
“Out!”
“But …!”
“Out!”
She swung at him again, just missing as he ducked, though the breeze caused by the motion ruffled his hair. Arms raised, spluttering protests, Daniel hastily backed away, stumbling over the threshold in his haste to get out the door. Caroline turned her attention to Matt, who stood his ground, eyeing her narrowly, while Daniel was routed.
“Get out of this house!” She hefted the broom.
“It’s my confounded house and …”
Whack!
“Oww!”
Matt grabbed at the broom and missed as Caroline jerked it back. She knew that if he got hold of it, he could easily wrest it from her, and the contest would be ended in a moment. The idea of matching her strength with his was laughable. But she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her back down, not when she was still so furious at him that she would gladly have carved him up for fish bait. Instead, raising the broom as a bludgeon, she raced at him with a cry that for sheer volume Jacob could not have bettered.
“I said, get out!”
As she ran toward him, scree
ching, she pounded the broom down on table and walls and chairs, in fact on nearly everything in her path, giving a wonderful imitation of a woman driven berserk by a man’s idiocy. Matt fell back before her, hands lifted to ward her off, the surprise on his face almost comical, had she been in a mood to laugh, which she was not. She managed to plant one more lusty clout on the side of his arm that drove him, yelping, out the door. That done, she slammed the door and secured the latch before he could recoup himself enough to charge back inside.
Folding her arms over her chest, she glared at the door, satisfied. She stepped a couple of paces to the left, and with a martial air stood regarding her vanquished foes through the window.
Thomas and Robert flanked Daniel a little distance away. Daniel was saying something, and they were frowning as they listened. Raleigh frisked about their heels, delighted at this new game. Matt was closer, rubbing his arm where she had hit him and scowling at the closed door. For a moment she thought that he would forget his dignity enough to pound on it, demanding to be let in, and she almost relished the idea of daring him to break it down, because unlock it she would not! But he apparently thought the better of engaging her in battle before an audience of his brothers, with a day’s work waiting to be done. After a moment in which the issue hung in the balance, he turned and strode away without a word to anyone. The other three, with Thomas and Robert exchanging looks and Daniel moving grudgingly, slowly followed.
With a grim smile Caroline left the window to get on with her own day. Though a small, woefully undisciplined part of her mind wondered what it was Matt had wanted to say to her—some tender sentiment, perhaps, or an apology for his sheer wrongheaded boorishness?—the rest of her was still too angry to care. The more she thought about the way he had behaved, both in his utterly uncalled-for anger over a gesture that had required considerable courage on her part, and his bristling-dog attitude toward Daniel, the madder she became. Fuming, she made a meal of the men’s leavings—she was getting very tired of dining on leftovers!—poured Millicent her usual saucer of milk, and tidied the kitchen. She was just hanging the broom on its peg when she happened to glance again at the window.
A face was pressed to the glass, nose flattened so that the features appeared grotesque. The apparition was there for only an instant before it disappeared, more quickly even than Caroline could scream. But the skin had been the color of clay, smeared with stripes of yellow and red, and the hair had been black and lank. The savage! His appearance drove both Matt and her anger from her mind. With a shudder, Caroline backed away, thankful that she had latched the rear door, which was usually left open. But the front …
Whirling, she snatched the musket that stood in a corner of the kitchen by day while she was home alone and hurried toward the front room. The thing was kept loaded and primed. Matt had shown her how to put it to her shoulder, ease back the hammer, and pull the trigger to make it fire. But even in the direst emergency she had envisioned using it only to summon the men home, and she was not sure that she could shoot it at another human being, not even a savage. Although perhaps she could, if her back was to the wall.
A man was in the front room. With the corner of her eye Caroline caught a glimpse of him lurking in a shadow, and, gasping, spun to face him fully. To her chagrin, before she could even think to shoot fright caused the musket to drop with a clatter from her suddenly nerveless fingers. As the man leaped nimbly out of range of the probable blast, she screamed loudly enough to wake the dead.
“By Gideon, Caroline, ’tis only me!” It was Daniel. Her shriek made him jump again, his eyes flying to her face from where they had been fixed on the fallen musket, which fortunately had not discharged. Heart pounding, Caroline lowered her hands from her mouth and glared at him, as much because he had given her such a fright as because she was still angry with him, though she most certainly was.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded wrathfully, still collecting her wits, as he had well nigh scared her out of them. “But never mind that for the present! A savage was peeping in the kitchen window!”
“A savage!” Daniel looked astounded. “You must be mistaken!”
“I am not,” Caroline said, “mistaken! Pray go and see for yourself!”
Daniel started toward the kitchen. Caroline picked up the musket and hurried after him.
“There’s no one here,” Daniel said, standing in the center of the kitchen floor and peering at the window and all around.
“He was outside looking in,” she said through gritted teeth, thrusting the musket into his hand and shoving him toward the door. With a grimace that told her without words that he thought she had windmills in her head, Daniel crossed to the door, unlatched it, and stepped outside. Millicent, meowing, twined herself about his ankles.
“Move, cat. If there was a savage here, he’s gone now.” Daniel spoke with more unconcern than Caroline felt the matter warranted, and stepped back inside the door.
“There was a savage,” Caroline insisted. Daniel lifted a hand pacifically.
“I’m sure there was. But he’s gone, and Matt was right when he said they’re generally harmless—and I have something of a very particular nature to say to you.”
Her attention thus diverted, Caroline pushed the savage to the back of her mind and frowned at Daniel.
“I, on the other hand, have nothing to say to you.” She turned her back on him and marched into the front room, determined to keep moving forever if that was what it took to escape the inquisition she feared was coming.
“Caroline, stop!” Lengthening his stride, Daniel caught up with her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her about. Angrily she slapped at his hand. He released her but planted himself squarely in front of her with the air of one determined to block her escape.
“I told you …!”
“Confound it, woman, I’m trying to make you an offer!” That exasperated roar sounded so like Matt that Caroline was momentarily shocked into silence.
“An offer?” she repeated when she could speak again, not sure that she had heard correctly. After last night, she had not expected this.
“You heard me.” Daniel lowered his voice, but his expression was no less grim. “I want you to marry me.”
He reached out, caught her hands, and held them. Caroline was too surprised to resist.
“Daniel …”
“Don’t say no,” he said rapidly. “I know—I’d have to be a blind fool not to—that there’s something between you and my brother. ’Twas obvious last night. Before you get too deeply involved with him I want to offer you a choice. You’d do well to wed me, Caroline. I will treat you with all respect and …”
“Daniel.” She tried to stop him, but he rushed on, regardless.
“You need not think that we must needs live here, once we are wed. I have a respectable sum put by, and we could buy our own place. ’Twas always understood that each of us would, when we wed.”
“Daniel!”
This time she got through. He broke off to look at her inquiringly. Caroline shook her head at him.
“You do me too much honor,” she said softly, looking up into his grave face, which bore definite signs of his recent war with Matt. Caroline felt a welling of affection for him, her first friend among the disreputable tribe, and it quite overcame her aggravation at him. “But I cannot be your wife, although I am very fond of you. We should not suit.”
“You love him.” The words grated, accused.
Caroline lifted her chin. “Whether I do or not is my own concern. I will not talk of this more.”
Daniel stared down at her, his expression bleak. “I would still wed you. He will not, you know.”
“You don’t love me, Daniel. And, though I care for you as a—oh, as a brother—I do not love you. Not as I would need to, to be your wife.” She finally succeeded in freeing her hands. Unobtrusively she flexed the fingers, which felt bruised from the strength of his grip.
“As you do Matt.” Bitterness tinged the stat
ement.
“That,” Caroline said with a frosty glint rising to her eye, “is between him and me.”
“I told him, this morning, that I meant to ask you to wed me.”
“And what did he say?” The question was commendably steady, though Daniel had taken her by surprise.
“He told me to go ahead. Not what I would have said, were I he and had I wished to wed you myself.”
“I told you, what is between Matt and me is between Matt and me. But you may believe me when I tell you that it has no bearing on my decision. Even if Matt did not exist anywhere in this world, my answer to you would still be the same.”
Her words were perhaps sharper than she had intended, but the idea of Matt’s giving Daniel permission to propose cut deep. He might at least have rushed to get his own offer in ahead of his brother’s—but he had not. Though Matt had admitting to having a care for her—such a tepid term, it nigh turned her stomach!—he had said nothing of marriage, and it was by no means a sure thing that he ever would.
“You are firm in your refusal, then. Very well, I will not press you.” Scowling, Daniel turned abruptly away. But instead of leaving, as Caroline expected, he moved toward the stairs, which he took two at a time.
“Where are you going?” she called after him, nonplussed.
“To pack a bag. Feeling as I do about you—and Matt—’twill be best if I move into town for the nonce. I can stay with James. Mary won’t mind having me, I think.”
“But …” Caroline’s voice trailed off as Daniel disappeared from view. Moments later he was back, carrying a valise with hastily shoved-in garments sticking out at all angles. He picked up the conversation where they had left off as he came down the stairs.
“ ’Tis best, I tell you. Otherwise, Matt and I will be forever coming to blows. Because I—love you, Caroline, despite what you say. And I’ll not find it easy to watch you making a fool of yourself over my brother.”
This Side of Heaven Page 24
