She did everything she could to help out here, but Dottie had things well in hand with the members of the household pitching in to help and didn’t really need her assistance.
The only thing she could think to do was start going door to door asking if people within needed a worker. Shy about meeting with strangers, she shrank from that ordeal, but had just about decided was the only thing to do when a middle-aged woman in a well-tailored dress, obviously gussied up for a visit, came up the stairs. She didn’t look like a patient, but Violet was prepared to direct her either way she wished.
Politely Violet stood. “Afternoon,” she said. “Dr. Cynthia and Dr. Evan are in the offices if you’re looking for them. Betsy and Dottie are in the kitchen making cinnamon rolls. And Mrs. Myers is . . .”
The woman, who was only a couple of inches taller than herself, shook her head so that the knob of hair in back bounced a little. “It’s you I’ve come looking for.”
The woman looked strangely familiar. Then something clicked into place in Violet’s brain. She knew her from her Lavender dreams. “You’re Warne’s mother,” she said excitedly, prepared to like any member of his family.
A rounded face that looked as though it had been meant to be kindly, took on a scowl.
She sat down on the heavy outside chair opposite the one where Violet had been sitting. She took in a gasp of air and waded in. “You’re Violet James,” she said it like an accusation. “The one who came here with the woman who died.”
Since there didn’t seem to be anything to say Violet kept quiet.
“You’ve got to understand about my son. Even when he was a boy in school, he took in strays, human and pets. Not only cats and dogs came trailing home after him, but kids too. Skinny, scrawny kids who didn’t have enough of anything, including attention. His sisters used to say he was a magnet for the needy and he expected us to look after them all.”
Suddenly Violet wasn’t so sure about liking Warne’s family. This woman was obviously suggesting that she was another such stray.
Mrs. Chapman gave the windy sigh of a woman who felt put upon. “I’m a sucker for my boy,” she said. “I would do anything for him.”
Still Violet waited, her body stiff with indignation.
“He’s worried about you and he’s asked me to take you in.”
“Take me in?” Violet’s voice was cool.
“Well, you know. We have an extra room now that his sisters are grown and married and there’s always food enough. You could help out around the house, that would be fair for room and board, wouldn’t it, and Warne would feel you were looked after.”
Mentally Violet counted to ten. That didn’t help much so she did it again and reminded herself that this was Warne’s mother and no doubt he loved her. That last thought enabled her to say with reasonable courtesy. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Chapman, but I’ve already accepted another position.”
The full pink mouth gaped open. Obviously the last thing Mrs. Chapman had expected from her offer of charity was a pointblank refusal. “But you can’t . . .Warne won’t. . .” She stopped for a minute to regain her composure, then demanded, “Who are you going to work for?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say,” Violet evaded. “Thank you again, Mrs. Chapman.” Then she went inside, closing the door behind her.
Betsy had always taken it for granted. It was easier to love Lavender when she knew she had a choice, though she rarely exercised the option. While everyone else was locked in, she could walk or ride to the edge and step across to the world and time into which she was born.
Even better she could escort others across. Her step-sister Eddie, her best friend as well, lived in that other world with the husband she loved, but could come back for visits.
Teens who wanted to rebel by escaping could go across and find out if they really wanted to stay or could come back, convinced that home was the best place for them.
She’d found the man she loved and met the founder of their little community because she could time walk.
And there was the problem of Violet. The English girl had been launched here by the effects of a war. Betsy knew all about how being caught up in a war could change everything. She closed her eyes, remembering those lost in the terrible battle between the states.
Violet deserved something more than to be locked in beyond hope of redemption. She’d been forced into this situation and Betsy, who had felt sure she would find a way to help her, couldn’t.
She’d taken that skill for granted and now it was gone. Dammit, she felt claustrophobic.
Betsy was an upbeat person. When others sunk into despair, she saw the bright side, the hope ahead, the silver lining. This tendency always annoyed the heck out of her sister Eddie.
“Lordy, Betsy,” Dottie interrupted her thoughts. “You’re going to rub the surface off that table if you keep polishing it.”
Betsy jerked out of her reverie, realizing that he might have over-polished the living room table a bit. She’d pitched in to help her friend spruce up the house since they were having guests for dinner tonight. She’d felt particularly obligated since her two-year-old was making double the work around the house with his active ways.
“Sorry, Dottie. I was lost in thought.”
“I guess.” Dottie’s eyes behind her glasses, examined her. They’d known each other for a good deal of their lives. She couldn’t fool her friend. Heck, she couldn’t feel anybody for very long. Mom always said she had a transparent face that gave away every thought in her brain, every feeling in her heart.
“It’s not about Caleb,” Dottie guessed. “You two aren’t having trouble getting along?”
Betsy blinked her surprise. “Caleb? Why would you think that?”
“You sent him home alone. You said you and the kids had to stay here a little longer. And I know how it is when you’ve not been married very long and you have a baby and you’re so tired you can’t think.” Dottie’s little girl, Lucie, was a few months older than Ben, but unlike Betsy’s little boy, she was a quiet, amenable child. Privately Betsy thought Dottie could have little idea what it was like to have twins like Ben and Emilee.
“We’re fine, Caleb and me. I love him to death. Though,” she added honestly, “I’ll admit I’m not much into farm living and he can’t imagine anything else.”
Dottie nodded. “Thought so.”
“That’s not what I was thinking about.”
“Then what? It’s not like you to be moping around the house hardly hearing a word that’s being said to you. Your mama and papa are worried about you. Even Grandpapa Forrest asked what he could do to cheer you up. Are you sick, Betsy?”
“I’m perfectly well.” If everybody was worried, then it was time to explain to her family members what had happened. Or rather, not happened. She dropped her dusting cloth on the table. “I’ve got to go for a ride, Dottie. Will you look after Ben and Emilee? They’ll be waking from their naps soon.”
Dottie had a great deal to do and taking care of the twins was a full time occupation, but she didn’t hesitate. “If it’s important, Betsy.”
She nodded. “So important.”
The family buggy was in use so she dressed hastily in riding clothes and took Jasper, Papa’s gelding, and rode out of town alone.
It was a hot afternoon hardly making for pleasant riding and in her rush to get out to the border and see for sure, she had forgotten even to bring a water bottle. She was totally thirsty by the time she reached the little creek on the edge, but knowing that the water in this time was pure and untainted, she dismounted to lean down, first washing her hands, then cupping them to splash water into her mouth.
Her thirst relieved, she got up and leaving the docile gelding free so that he could get to grass and water if, as she hoped, she didn’t immediately return. Not that it should take long, she would simply walk around the creek and a few yards further on she would step into that other time when a broad and busy highway rushed past just on that other side of
the Lavender land.
The walked forward, paused, then turned and walked back in the direction from which she’d come. She tried again with no greater success. The meadow, the creek, the placidly grazing horse were all exactly normal and normal was the last things she wanted.
She must be doing something wrong. Maybe her fear of being locked in was suffocating her abilities. She tried to think how she’d done it so many times before.
When she was a little girl, she hadn’t even known it was her. She’d thought Mama was leading her into Lavender, not the other way around. She had been entirely unconscious.
Trying to think of other things, of her life on the farm with Caleb and the children, of anything but the sense that invisible walls were closing around her, shutting her family and friends within, shutting her sister out, she walked again.
And again.
And again.
Chapter Ten
In the end it was Grandpapa Forrest who was able to help her. He came looking for her, finding her sitting in her favorite chair on the front porch having sneaked back out after she was sure Warne’s mum had left. She wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but knew for certain that she couldn’t accept the unwilling offer of room, board and work. Obviously Warne had made mother agree to this and she had done so. Probably Katy Chapman was jumping up and down with joy that Violet had turned her down.
She wanted to be by herself and had struggle to act welcoming even to Betsy’s grandfather, a dignified older gentleman who obviously doted on his family.
“Everything all right with you?” he queried politely, seating himself across from her almost as though he’d come deliberately looking for her. He had more of an old south accent than the rest of the family, a charming slow drawl, and in some ways he reminded her of some of the aristocratic gentlemen she’d watched from afar at Lady Laura’s house.
She nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, knowing she had no business burdening him or anybody else with her problems. She was an interloper here in Lavender, though through no intention of her own, and would have to find her own way in life just as she had back in 1940 London. “This is a lovely town.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “Warne is an old friend of the family. He grew up with our girls and has hung around the house since he was a tot. You couldn’t find a better young man.”
Nobody had to convince her, though she perhaps had more insight into some of the activities of Warne’s youth than his elders did. He had been good at getting into trouble and keeping it from his over-protective mother and equally good at getting himself out. Just mischief and pranks really, she corrected her own thinking. Even as a child Warne had never been unkind, never a bully, but always the big boy sticking up for those who couldn’t defend themselves.
Like her. She remembered the night she cried herself to sleep in the broom closet, hurt by too many unkind words from the other servants. She’d come to in a dream where she had walked with him down the streets of this very town and had told him of the insults and abuse, showing him the marks of a blow on her arm.
He’d been the one she could talk to and who gave and received advice. That time instead of trying to supply answers, “I’d like to give them a beating,” he’d muttered in fierce anger, and then gone on to tell her one of Betsy’s funny stories so that by morning she’d awakened with a smile on her face.
“Warne’s been talking to me about you. Says you want to find work and a place of your own. Now I don’t know much about this time traveling business even though it was my father who started it.” He paused as though looking back. “Strange man in many ways, my father.”
She had little idea what he was talking about. The sweet scent of blooming flowers swept past her in the light south breeze that drifted against them. She would remember this moment always when she was back in the smelly, smoky besieged city.
“But that’s beside the point. As I said Warne is worried about you and I wanted to reassure you that you are a welcome guest in our home here for as long as you want to stay.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said politely, touched in spite of herself. “But I’ve always taken care of myself, made my own way even when I was only a child.”
A smile twitched his mouth. “You’re such a little thing to be so independent. How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty three. I am quite grown up.”
“So you are. Well, what kind of work can you do?”
“I can cook, clean, manage a household,” she exaggerated her experience slightly. After all she had managed for Lady Laura when only the four of them were left. “I’m a hard worker.”
“We’ve full up on household help and frankly there’s not much market for that kind of worker since most folks do their own these days. Oh, there’s young mothers needing help with their children and a few old folks who want company and a hand now and then. But I think you’d do better going to work for me.”
“For you, sir?” she asked, startled.
“I have to confess I don’t do much more than keep a hand in these days as I spend most of my time seeing to the welfare of Lavender, but I still own the store. Buddy Markam took over managing it last fall and I reckon he could use another clerk. You can read and write and do figures, can’t you?”
A store clerk. “Oh, yes sir,” she was glad to be able to say, “Warne taught me while he was learning.”
“He did! Well, I’ll be damned.” He grinned like a misbehaving boy. “Sorry, Miss Violet. My tongue slipped a bit. Now if you’ll forgive me you can go right to Stephens Mercantile downtown whenever you’re ready and tell Buddy that I sent you and he’s to give you a job.”
Violet was not ordinarily a demonstrative person, but she was so overwhelmed by relief that she flung her arms around the old man, murmuring, “Thank you. Oh, thank you.”
Almost immediately embarrassed at her own daring, she drew back, but was reassured by the way he was looking at her, almost as though she were one of his granddaughters. “I’ll go right now.”
She darted from the porch, down the steps and toward the street.
“No rush, girl,” he called after her. “Don’t break your leg getting there.”
It wasn’t until she went in through the door that she remembered that this was the location where she, Lady Laura and Margaret had landed after the shell hit the house. But even that thought didn’t make her tremble as did the sight of the shoppers inside the Mercantile.
In their dainty summer frocks with their smoothly groomed upswept hair, they made her suddenly conscious of the unbecoming black dress she wore and of the way her hair must look, long and untidy after her run from Crockett Street.
They all stared for a moment before turning away politely. Since she and Margaret were the only strangers in Lavender she supposed they knew who she was.
“I’m looking for Mr. Markam,” she was surprised at how poised her voice sounded when she was feeling so shattered.
One of them, a beautiful young black woman, nodded and strolled toward the back. “Buddy,” she said. “Someone’s here to see you.”
The other two women pretended to go on shopping, though an embarrassed Violet knew they were aware of her every movement. But the woman who had summoned Buddy Markam came back toward her, smiling in a friendly fashion. “You must be Warne and Betsy’s friend,” she said.
Violet nodded shyly. “Violet James,” she said.
“We were all in school together. I’m Susan Connelly.”
A round little man dressed in a suit and tie came from the back of the store. “Who’s looking for me?” he asked Susan.
“Buddy, this is Violet James,” Susan introduced her.
He scowled. “Yeah?”
It was not a fortuitous meeting. She should have dressed up for this natty little man. He obviously was one to judge on appearances and she was looking anything but her best.
She limped forward, her leg smarting from her unaccustomed jog down town. She couldn’t help but be aware of th
e onlookers. This would be so much easier if it was just her and him. “I’m looking for work,” she blurted out.
His answer was immediate. “Afraid we’re not looking to hire right now.”
She stiffened her spine and met his gaze. He wasn’t all that much taller than she was, a short round man. “Mr. Forrest Stephens sent me,” she said. “He said you would give me a job.”
His chubby face flamed red. “That so?” he asked.
“Now Buddy, you know Miss James is a house guest of the Stephens family and a friend of Warne’s,” Susan contributed.
“Anybody can say that,” he retorted stubbornly.
So far she’d met some really nice people in Lavender. Obviously Buddy wasn’t one of them.”
Humiliated, Violet turned to walk toward the door.
“You don’t look to be up to this kind of work,” his voice called after her. “Not with a hurt leg.”
She didn’t turn to look around, but she heard Susan’s Connelly’s firm voice, “Apparently Uncle Forrest thinks so,” she suggested.
Her hand was on the fancy door handle ready to push her way out when he called her back. “Wait a minute, Miss,” he said. “If it’s what Forrest wants we’ll work something out.”
She was tempted to stomp on outside, but she reminded herself that choices were few and far between. She turned to face him.
Having finished his six week interval of night duty, Warne was back on days again, but he still hadn’t fallen into his usual routine of sleep.
Maybe it was because he wasn’t sleeping in his own bed, but in the too soft feather bed at Miss Hallie’s rooming house. Hallie Grimsby, a widow who cooked good meals and provided clean rooms for those who needed such, offered some of the best accommodations in town and even though Mama had declared a feud against her for taking in Warne, the gentle-voiced elderly woman stood her ground.
He was still thinking about buying the cottage, but had decided to give it more thought before taking such a radical step. Mama could get accustomed gradually this way and maybe a certain young woman might have an opinion about the house he should purchase.
Lavender Dreaming: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 5) Page 6
