The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  Down the hall, in the bathroom, she filled the tub with very hot water and lowered herself gingerly into it.

  She was sore between her legs, sorer still in her heart.

  She and Gideon had consummated their marriage—and he still planned to leave.

  Slowly, like someone in a trance, Lydia washed, rose out of the water, toweled herself dry and put on her clothes. She brushed her teeth, combed and replaited her hair, pinned it into a matronly chignon at her nape.

  When she descended the kitchen stairs, Helga was at the stove, stirring a pot of oatmeal, though the aunts were not yet in evidence. They were not early risers, as a general rule.

  Once again, Helga was humming, but when she turned and saw Lydia’s face, she stopped instantly. “Oh, child,” she murmured. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “The sheets,” Lydia said, skirting Helga’s gaze, “they’ll need washing. And I don’t want the aunts to see.”

  “Never mind the sheets,” Helga said softly, leaving the spoon in the oatmeal to cross to Lydia and take her by the shoulders. “What’s he done to you, that young scoundrel? Tell me, Lydia, and I’ll give him what for.”

  Lydia smiled sadly. It wasn’t as if giving Gideon “what for” would change anything. “If only I hadn’t sent that stupid letter,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “We’d still be in Phoenix, in our own home, with our things around us and—”

  “And your heart wouldn’t be breaking?” Helga prompted, her kind eyes filling with tears. When Lydia started to protest, the other woman cut her off. “Don’t try to deny it,” she said fiercely. “I’ve got eyes in my head, and ears, too. I know why the sheets need washing, Lydia. And I know a bride with a broken heart when I see one.”

  Lydia reddened. “Helga—”

  “When I catch up to that husband of yours—”

  Lydia was about to confess that she was as much to blame as Gideon, since she’d practically seduced him, when Mittie poked her head out of the bedroom the aunts shared, smiling.

  “Goodness, what a relief to wake up,” she piped cheerfully. “I dreamed the house was falling down around our ears. The crash was horrendous.”

  Millie edged past her, tightening her wrapper around her impossibly small waist as she entered the kitchen. “How strange, sister,” she said. “I had the very same dream.”

  Just then, a giggle, partly hysteria, partly amusement, bubbled up and escaped Lydia.

  Helga, stony-faced, laughed, too.

  The aunts looked puzzled.

  “Was there a thunderstorm?” Mittie asked, turning to Millie. “Perhaps there was a thunderstorm, and we only thought we dreamed the house was falling down.”

  Helga and Lydia exchanged glances.

  “Yes,” Helga said. “Bless your hearts, there was a thunderstorm. That’s what you heard.”

  The aunts brightened, clearly relieved.

  “Breakfast is ready,” Helga said. “All of you, sit down.”

  Everyone did, including Lydia, after a brief hesitation.

  “What are you going to do today, dear?” Mittie asked her niece cheerfully.

  “I was planning to call on Lark,” Lydia answered. She hadn’t planned beyond that, so her next statement was a revelation to her, as well as the aunts and Helga. “Then I think I’ll pay a visit to the general store, see what kind of merchandise they carry.”

  The aunts looked eager. “Might we go with you?” Mittie asked. “It would be so nice to browse.”

  “We haven’t any money,” Millie reminded her sister.

  “Well,” Mittie answered sportingly, “it doesn’t cost anything to look.”

  “I suppose you’d be safe enough,” Helga allowed, spooning dollops of oatmeal into the bowls she’d already set at each place at the table. “There’s been no sign of Jacob Fitch, and the general store is right in the middle of town—lots of folks around.”

  “Don’t you want to come with us?” Mittie asked, concerned. The aunts hated for anyone to feel left out.

  “I have laundry to do,” Helga said, at last joining them at the table. And that was clearly her final word.

  Half an hour later, Lydia and the aunts knocked at the Yarbros’ front door.

  Sarah admitted them, smiling, and Lydia soon found out why her sister-in-law was in such a cheerful state of mind. Lark was not only out of bed, but sitting in the main parlor, clad in a blue silk dress instead of a nightgown and wrapper, with little Miranda in her arms and the other children crowded around her.

  She greeted Lydia and the aunts with a beaming smile.

  “You look wonderful!” Lydia marveled.

  “I can’t stay up too long,” Lark answered happily, “but I’m definitely on the mend.” Studying Lydia’s face, though, Lark’s smile dimmed a little. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Lydia lied briskly.

  “We’re going to the mercantile,” Mittie announced, as pleased as a child anticipating a splendid outing.

  “But we can’t buy anything,” Millie said.

  “Of course you can,” Lark countered, smiling again, although when her eyes strayed back to Lydia, there was worry in them. “Just tell Mr. Blanchard—that’s the storekeeper—that Gideon will settle up with him later.”

  “Gideon,” Lydia pointed out carefully, troubled by the air of gentle avarice suddenly shimmering around her aunts, “works in a mine.”

  Lark’s smile intensified. “Perhaps he does,” she answered smoothly. “But he’s not poor. Did he tell you he was?”

  Lydia was taken aback. In Phoenix, Gideon had told Lydia he could provide for her and the aunts and Helga, but she’d been too troubled about her impending marriage to Jacob Fitch to pursue the subject.

  “I don’t think he’s ever said he was poor,” Mittie mused, turning to Millie. “Has he, sister?”

  Millie turned questioningly to Lydia. “Is your husband poor, dear?”

  Sarah, hearing all this, gave a little chuckle.

  A spirit of rebellion rose within Lydia; she did not own a single dress, other than Aunt Nell’s wedding gown. Everything else, except for the undergarments she’d been wearing when Gideon removed her from the mansion in Phoenix, was borrowed. She glanced at Lark, who smiled again, encouragingly, and nodded, before answering Millie’s innocent question.

  “If he’s not,” she said resolutely, “he soon will be.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “AND HOW WAS YOUR BROTHER this fine mornin’?” Mike O’Hanlon inquired lightly, the moment Gideon took up his shovel in the belly of that accursed mine.

  Overhead, timbers creaked under tons of earth. “Fine,” Gideon said, with a smile that was deliberately hard, brief and spare. “Made me breakfast, in fact.”

  Ignoring Gideon’s reply, Mike looked up. “Whole thing could come down on our heads anytime,” he observed. “One more thing the owners won’t trouble themselves with—shoring up timbers.”

  “I guess that’s a danger in any mine,” Gideon observed. “Not just this one.”

  “And why should they care what happens to us, young Yarbro?” Mike asked, again as if Gideon hadn’t spoken. “They don’t mind starvin’ our children. Don’t mind that our wives have to beg storekeepers for grace and another week to pay, just to put a bean on the table. No, sir, as long as the profits are rollin’ in, that’s all that matters to them.”

  Gideon rested on his shovel handle for a moment. Thanks to the release Lydia had given him the night before, he felt a lot easier in his skin, and his muscles, though they still ached, didn’t throb in protest every time he pitched more ore into the cart. He thought about what Rowdy had said to him at the table that morning—that if he’d guessed Gideon was spying for the owners, O’Hanlon and the others had, too.

  “It’s clear you took the time to watch my house and follow me to Rowdy’s before dawn, and that’s a lot of trouble for a man to go to, it seems to me. You’ve been trying to get under my hide since I signed on. Why don’t you jus
t spit out whatever it is you have to say so we can get on with loading ore?”

  Something flickered in O’Hanlon’s eyes, respect perhaps, but a certain contempt, too. “I’ve been working in holes like this one since I was nine years old, young Yarbro,” he said slowly. “And I know an outsider when I see one. You don’t belong here. Your clothes are too good, your house is too fine, and your family is too important in this town. Even without the way you talk, I’d know by your manner that you’re educated, used to thinkin’ for a livin’, not sweatin’ for one. If it’s true that a man carries the measure he’s taken of himself in his eyes, you’re not one of us.”

  Wilson strolled by just then, with a bandage covering most of his face. “Back to work,” he growled. “We’re not paying you men to shoot the breeze.”

  “Sod off, Wilson,” O’Hanlon answered easily, never looking away from Gideon’s face. “Well, young Yarbro, you wanted my opinion. What say you to it, now that it’s been offered?”

  “I say,” Gideon answered evenly, “that you’re full of sheep-dip. I need this job, just like you do. I’m just as worried about coolies and the timbers supporting the shaft and all the rest. As for my clothes and my family and the look in my eyes, you’ll hear no explanations from me, and no apologies.”

  “I guess we understand each other, then,” Mike said. “I know you’re a Judas, and you know I know it. But I’ll not harry you again, after what I’ll say next. When you speak to the owners, young Yarbro, you tell them we’ve taken all we’re going to take. You tell them we’re tired of seein’ our children go hungry and our God-fearing wives ashamed.” He moved in closer then, tapped hard at Gideon’s chest with a forefinger. “You tell them, Mr. Yarbro, that we’ll bury their precious ore, and ourselves with it, before we’ll crawl before them like whipped dogs one more time.”

  Before Gideon could reply to that, the timbers groaned again, a long, ominous whine.

  “I’m gettin’ out of here!” one of the men shouted. “Before the whole damn town comes down on me!”

  Even Wilson looked troubled.

  “Everybody out,” he said, with grave reluctance. “Now.”

  ALTHOUGH LYDIA HAD FELT LIKE doing some vengeful spending when she and the aunts left Lark’s place, when presented with the actual opportunity, she was not so certain. Gideon worked hard down in that mine, and probably for a pittance, though they’d never discussed his wages.

  Mr. Blanchard, the storekeeper, greeted the three women warmly and with recognition, addressing Lydia as “Mrs. Yarbro” and immediately making it plain that her husband’s credit was good in his establishment.

  The aunts busied themselves looking at ribbon and yard goods, enjoying the outing for what it was—a new experience. In Phoenix, they had never gone out to the shops—the few things they required were delivered—and except for the dresses and hats Gideon had bought for them on the day of the great escape, she’d never seen them in anything but their black mourning dresses or nightgowns and wrappers.

  Lydia decided it was safe to give her aunts free rein—despite their earlier, faintly disturbing response to Lark’s suggestion that Gideon could well afford the things they needed, she knew they were far more interested in looking at things, and touching them, than purchasing.

  She, on the other hand, needed bloomers and camisoles and petticoats, a decent nightgown, too—Gideon had ripped away the one she’d been wearing, after all, and it was past mending. She could use a few dresses, as well.

  She made her selections carefully, and with an eye to thrift and true to her expectations, the aunts wanted only a paper of pins, a bottle of violet-scented toilet water, and a dime novel with a depiction of a gunslinger, pistols blazing, on the cover.

  As Mr. Blanchard was tallying up the price of these goods, Lydia stood at the counter, waiting patiently and wondering if Helga had gotten the stains out of the bedsheets.

  A whimper from behind the counter snagged her attention, and she creased her brow in a frown. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s just this pup,” Mr. Blanchard said. “Found him out in the alley last night, poor little critter. The wife brought him in and put him in a basket, hoping he’d rally, but there’s not much hope of that, between you and me.”

  Lydia rounded the counter without permission, and saw an impossibly small black-and-white puppy of indeterminate breed curled up in the bottom of a shallow wicker basket. She crouched, her skirts pooling around her, and laid her hand ever so gently to the dog’s thin back, felt the little creature shiver.

  “Wife has cats,” Mr. Blanchard went on, benignly regretful. “So we can’t keep him. He’ll probably die, anyhow, but we figured since his life, short as it was, must have been hard, the end ought to be made easy.”

  The dog whimpered again, a mewling sound more suited to a newborn kitten, and looked up at Lydia with imploring eyes. As a child, her aunt Nell had permitted her to take in strays, but they’d always either died or wandered away again, the way animals do.

  “What’s his name?” Lydia asked softly, aware of the aunts crowding up behind her, peering down at the poor little scrap cowering in the bottom of Mrs. Blanchard’s basket.

  “Never bothered with that,” Mr. Blanchard said, but there was something new in his voice. “Would you want to take him home, Mrs. Yarbro?” he asked. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t—he’s not long for this world, as anybody could see—”

  “I will take him home,” Lydia said, resolved, gathering the pup tenderly into her hands, holding him close against her bosom as she rose. “Thank you, Mr. Blanchard.”

  “What will Helga say?” Mittie asked, at once fretful and fascinated.

  “Never mind what Helga will say,” Lydia replied, nuzzling the pup.

  Millie, evidencing rare practicality, had already fetched a baby’s bottle from one of the sundry shelves, set it firmly on the counter. “He’ll need milk,” she said. “Papa once saved a whole litter of blue-tick hounds with milk—remember, sister?”

  “Indeed I do,” Mittie answered. “They were born too soon, and their mother had died, and dear Papa brought them into the cooking-house and made the servants feed them cow’s milk and they all came around in time. Grew up to be the best hunters in the county.”

  Lydia stroked the tiny dog, loving the warmth of it, the softness of its fur, the look of beleaguered hope in its eyes. The “servants” Mittie referred to had been slaves, and old Judge Fairmont had probably loved them—in the same way he’d loved those hounds.

  If this puppy perished—and there was every chance he would—Lydia knew she would be heartbroken. But, like her ancestor, she had to try to save him. Turning her back now would be simply impossible, whatever the cost to her.

  “I could have a gallon of milk sent over, no charge, of course,” Mr. Blanchard offered, watching Lydia with kindness in his eyes. “We get it fresh from Mr. Sayer’s cow.”

  “That would be fine, Mr. Blanchard,” Lydia said. Now that her arms were full of puppy, she took a second look at the other purchases.

  “I’ll send the other things around, too,”Mr. Blanchard said.

  “We can manage the pins and the toilet water,” Mittie insisted staunchly.

  Lydia smiled, thanked the storekeeper again, and left the store.

  The aunts hurried along the sidewalk on either side of her, reminding Lydia of quail chicks trotting behind a hen.

  “Such a snippet,” Millie commented, a little breathless because Lydia was setting a fast pace. “Whatever shall we call him?”

  “I think you’ve just solved that problem,” Lydia said, at once enormously cheered and wary of the sorrow that might lie ahead, compounding the inevitable loss of Gideon. “Snippet is the perfect name, it seems to me.”

  Soon, they were home again.

  The aunts rushed to find a blanket and a basket to make Snippet a bed.

  Helga, pinning the freshly washed sheets from Lydia and Gideon’s bed to the clothesline, shook her head. “L
and sakes,” she said. “What do we need with a dog?”

  But her eyes softened as she came closer and reached out to touch the quivering puppy.

  “The point,” Lydia said gently, “is that he needs us.”

  Helga looked worried. “See how he shivers, Lydia? He’s not well.”

  Lydia lifted the little bundle slightly, kissed the top of Snippet’s head. “He needs a little tending, that’s all.”

  “And you need something to tend,” Helga said wisely.

  Barely half an hour later, a boy arrived, driving a buckboard, and dropped off Lydia’s purchases and the promised gallon of milk.

  When Gideon arrived home from the mine, looking grim and most reluctant to face her, he found his wife sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, holding Snippet and giving him milk from a baby’s bottle, a drop at a time.

  THE SIGHT OF LYDIA WITH the puppy did something to Gideon, made him forget Mike O’Hanlon and the trouble at the mine. Even made him forget the sheets he’d seen, drying on the clothesline, and the damning fact that he’d used Lydia, the night before, in a way he might regret for the rest of his life.

  Lydia did not immediately look up, though of course she knew he was there, but Helga caught his eye straight off, and there was a warning brewing in her plain face, threatening as storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

  “What do we have here?” Gideon asked, crouching next to Lydia to get a closer look at the dog.

  Their gazes connected. Lydia smiled, albeit sadly.

  “This is Snippet,” she said.

  Although he was grinning by then, something about the way she held that pup left Gideon feeling stricken, nostalgic for a life he’d never had to begin with, probably never would have. “Suits him,” Gideon allowed.

  The aunts, who had evidently been opening parcels at the table, judging by the debris of brown wrapping paper and string, fell silent.

  Did they expect him to banish the pup? Or was it that they’d heard all the racket he and Lydia had made in the night?