Bitter Eden (13 page)

"Ha!"

"You think Anna won't give me a hot cup of coffee? Or Callie? I could go to her room right now, and she'd be downstairs and in the kitchen before the last word was out of my mouth," he said, meaning it.

She stared at him with equal seriousness. "You are filled with conceit, Peter Berean. Not all women are madly in love with you as you think."

"You've put the wrong light on things. Get up. I've no more time to waste."

She got up, but the fun had gone from the morning. He was out of sorts and vaguely angry, and she was once again in her muddle of confusion, guilt, and indecision.

After he left she sat alone at the kitchen table. Getting up so early made the day intolerably long, filled with hours of waiting and only moments of excitement. Her thoughts traveled to Albert. She was supposed to meet him after he returned home with Natalie.

Albert thought nothing of that. He would take Natalie to tea with his mother. They would wait on the girl, fawn over her, make much of her, and then Albert would bring her back to the farm. Moments later he would leave to meet Rosalind in the hop pickers' cottage. There he would make love to her as if no comment were being made by the difference in his treatment of the two women.

Why did she go? She wouldn't. This time she

wouldn't. That would tell him something she often wished she had the nerve to say to his face. And tonight she would be extra nice to Peter. That would make up for everything.

Determined and feeling sorry for herself, Rosalind straightened the kitchen and walked with unusual speed toward the scullery. In a way it cheered her up. Meg would be completely nonplussed when she learned it was Rosalind up and about cleaning this morning.

"Most likely she'll think it was Anna, and that will be that." Rosalind, broom in hand, took another fast swish around the room and quickly passed over the idea of leaving a note informing Meg that it had been she who had been up so early and industriously.

Let her think it was Anna. Let her think anything she likecL Empty-handed now and already bored, she thought of the promised meeting late this afternoon in the cottage as she walked back to the staircase. She was safest asleep, putting off the hours of the day one at a time. She was stronger if she had less time to face all the weaknesses she didn't understand or like in herself.

Albert told her it was because she was ashamed of her father. Peter often teased her of having a chip on her shoulder. Meg said she was lazy. Natalie thought her mean and grasping. Her father said she was a slut like her mother. Rosalind didn't know what she was. They were all wrong about her, but they each had a part of the whole. She was always hungry for something. Always dissatisfied with what she had. Always worried that it wouldn't be real or lasting. Always wondering why she couldn't be like everyone else. Always hating it when she wasn't treated specially.

She slept, or let everyone think she was asleep, until

noon. Meg came down early and saw the kitchen. She promptly thanked Anna.

"But I didn't do this/' Anna said, shaking her head. "It must have been Natalie."

"Nattie didn't do it." Meg laughed. "You know Nat-tie; she'd forget to put the broom away or she'd leave the pans out. Well, whoever it was, I thank them."

At noon Rosalind came out of her room to find Anna busy as always in her sewing room.

"Did you just get up, Rosalind?" Anna asked smiling. There was no malice in Anna or her question.

"Yes, I just got up," she answered, feeling defiant and cornered for no reason. "Peter doesn't like to see me working like a common servant all day."

"I'm sure he doesn't. Peter is very proud of his pretty wife."

"And why not! I try to make myself attractive. I think it's part of a wife's duty."

"Oh, so do I," Anna agreed quickly. "You're fortunate nature provided you with so much beauty to start. You're very lucky."

Rosalind was never sure what to make of Anna. It seemed impossible that she meant all she said, that she was never jealous or spiteful behind her perpetually nice remarks. Anna was no beauty. Her soft brown eyes were her best feature, but even they were so softly colored and placid in expression that they blended into the general plainness of her face and body. Anna was sl cow.

Rosalind watched her methodically put away thread and chalk. How did you reply to a cow? How did one know what a cow was thinking or meaning with her amiable sounds?

"I think Callie woke up late today. Perhaps she'd have a bite to eat with you, Rosalind. She's downstairs with Mother Berean. I liked her quite well, didn't

you? She's a pretty little thing. I think she'll be regal looking—just like a queen when she is grown up and can carry all that height and hair. Oh, that hair! Natalie brushed and arranged it for her this morning. Callie looked positively beautiful! Nattie has such a way with hair."

"Nattie is a pest Maybe Callie didn't want her hair done."

"Nattie means welL She is kinder and gentler than most of us." Anna looked dreamily out the window. "Sometimes I wonder what it is like to be like Natalie. She is so appealing and helpless with her frail beauty."

"I doubt you'd like it"

"I think I might. She's so unlike me, Rosalind. All my life I'll work. I'll always be the strong, solid housewife. Someday I'll probably be called Mother Berean . . . and have a house full of grown children, and I'll still be working and worrying about Frank and the farm. I couldn't do anything else if I tried, but Natalie will never do any of that. She'll be taken care of, cosseted and cherished. She's different from you and me. Peter can look at you, and Frank at me, and know we're all right . . . capable of meeting whatever comes. But it won't be like that for Natalie. Albert will always provide for her. She won't ever meet with difficulty, because he will never let anything touch her. Don't you wonder what it would be like to have that kind of devotion poured on you? I do."

Rosalind watched Anna, aghast. Her nostrils flared, her ringlets trembled as she clenched her fists tightly at her side. "What nonsense! The only reason Natalie wont meet with difficulty is because she isn't capable of doing anything. I'm going outside for some fresh air!" She hurried down the stairs, stung and stronger in her resolve not to see Albert that afternoon.

"Let him have Natalie! Let him do without me and then see who he wants—me or his little butter lump that has to be kept at proper temperature or melt away to nothing," she muttered to herself- as she walked to the stable yard. She called to Marsh, the Bereans' factotum, in no ladylike voice to hook up the carriage and bring it round for her.

"Cant drive you today, Miz Rosalind."

"And why not!?"

"Bringm in the turnips. I've got to drive for Mr. James."

"Someone else can drive the cart. I need you to drive me to Seven Oaks. Surely you realize how annoyed Mr. Berean would be if you left me without a driver."

Marsh climbed slowly to the driver s seat. "Mr. Berean is going to be unhappy when he doesn't see me comin across the field wi' his cart. That's what I know."

Rosalind whiled away the hours in Seven Oaks until it was impossible to make the return trip in time to meet Albert. He would go to the cabin and find it empty. He would sit there, pulling out his watch and studying it every five minutes. He would walk to the small window and peer into the woods expecting the flash of her cloak among the trees. He would be angry and disappointed and humiliated.

She smiled as Marsh started for home still complaining that she had taken him from his proper duties. She paid no attention to the old man. Her head was filled with imaginary scenes of her triumph.

"Meet you? Oh! Oh, Albert . . . how could I have forgotten?" Or: "I was tired. I didn't feel up to it." "It was too cold." "Seven Oaks is such a place for meeting people. I lost track of the time."

There were so many things, and so many ways she

would tell him that he wasn't half so important to her as he thought he was.

It wasn't until she was nearly home that she had a sobering thought How could she know for a certainty that Albert had shown up? Suppose he hadn't gone to the cottage at all? What if he said nothing . . . didn't even know she hadn't been there? Suppose he never realized that she could turn her back on him whenever she wanted? It would ruin everything. Her whole long miserable day would be worth nothing.

In a twinkling her triumph of willpower crumpled. She returned to the house as uncertain and angry as she had been when she left

The first person she saw was Natalie, coming eager-eyed to the door to see who had arrived.

''Where did you go, Rosalind? Albert and I had the most lovely afternoon. His mother likes me! I think if she had her way Albert and I would be married immediately. She is so kind and thoughtful. She insisted Albert take me for a long carriage ride, and then we went to see their hounds. I saw the loveliest little puppy."

Isn't that just the nicest thing. Nice, nice, nice!" Rosalind fled up the stairs leaving Natalie standing in the hall.

Chapter 8

Natalie watched as Rosalind ran up the stairs; then she began to don her outdoor clothes. Her pale green coat fit snugly around her waist. In the hall mirror her reflection wavered in the uneven glass as she fastened the ties to her darker green bonnet. Her eyes, large and dark, stared back from the mirror, inviting her to confide to the one person who understood her— herself. As happened so often, the voices in her mind began to talk, mulling over the problems that tormented her.

She didn't blame Albert for his affair. It was Rosalind she condemned. Natalie knew her for the temptress she was. Hadn't she bewitched Peter? Hadn't she wormed her way into the bosom of Natalie's family to cause dissension and heartache?

Before Rosalind had come to live with them, Natalie had always confided in Peter. In many ways she had been closer to him than to her mother or father. She had always looked up to him, looked to him for understanding. It had, always been so until Rosalind had beckoned and bewitched him. Then it was as if

Peter had forgotten Natalie existed. There were no more quiet talks or shared moments of joy or sorrow.

Natalie loathed Rosalind, but Peter now came in for his share of the blame. She had loved him, put her trust in him, and he had betrayed her. He had left her alone with no one to confide in or to lean upon for strength. For that, Natalie had no doubt, Peter would have to pay, just as all the weak and evil people of the world would one day have to atone for their wrongdoings. She wasn't sure how this would come about, but there was in her a burning certainty that it would. Too much had happened for it to be otherwise.

Mrs. Foxe had told her of the shameless way Rosalind had thrown herself at Albert before Peter had fallen prey to her wiles. More than once Natalie had been tempted tp tell her brother what a cuckolded fool he was, but she was never certain that was a fitting punishment for him, so she waited and held her tongue. She would tell him only when the time was right—when he would feel the same despair and abandonment that she had known when Peter had married Rosalind, He hadn't needed to do that to her. It was cruel. He knew how much she needed him. But she would pay him in kind—when the time was right.

She smiled tightly, her bleak eyes becoming intelligent again as she forced her habitual optimism on herself. The world was supposed to be a glorious place— an Eden as God intended. It made her feel tight inside and frightened when it was not. Sometimes it was as difficult to trust God as it was to trust Peter. It didn't seem right or fair for a God to entice her with tales of Eden and then deny her their reality. Nor did it seem right that a God would bestow free will on the very creatures who would willfully destroy that Eden. But as always she laid blame where it was most easily tolerable. The world divided between evil and good.

Natalie remained heartbreakingly loyal to her wishes for a beautiful world and adamantly committed to crushing the evil interlopers whenever she could. There was beauty, she insisted to herself; it required only the faith and discipline to see it.

She looked out at the cloudy, lightless day. Her fists were clenched as she stared hard at the overcast sky. Then she relaxed, successful. She was in a world encapsulated by a silver sky, a heavy, heavenly sky.

Pleased with herself, she went to the stables. There were two new litters of pups. She had been waiting impatiently for Will, the stable hand, to tell her she could take the pups from their mothers. She greeted him cheerfully.

Will smiled broadly, shaking his head. "Just cant wait, can you, miss? Well, they're all yours now. Prettiest bunch of pups we ever had."

Natalie slid into the stall Will had set aside for the dogs, careful not to let any of the puppies out.

She sat on the straw, covering her lap with squirming pups. One, the runt, slithered off her skirt, squealing and struggling to right itself. Natalie laughed and was immediately enamored of the miserable little dog. She pushed the other puppies away and gathered the shivering frightened runt into the cradle of her arms. "Oh, ugly, ugly little pup. You must be my own. You are mine!" She held the pup up, touching her nose to the puppy's cold, wet snout. The dog sneezed, shook his head, and began licking her. His tail wagged f ranti-ically, making his small rotund body wriggle in her hands. She hugged him to her. "You are like me inside out. You're ugly on the outside and nice on the in. Perhaps you were sent to me—to remind me." She returned him to his mother, then rose to leave. At the stall gate she turned back. "Good-bye, Ugly. Remember you are mine."

For a moment Natalie stood outside the stables undecided. Perhaps the puppy really had been sent to her for a purpose. For days she'd been feeling one of her hopeless sad moods coming on. She tried to fight it, though it was difficult for she felt so totally alone. She hated those awful times when everything seemed so hopeless; people who were supposed to love her became heartless; nothing was beautiful and good. Natalie became so lost in the labyrinthine complexities of her warped reasoning, she often succeeded in hurting herself as much as others did. Even now she felt a growing anger, a temptation to walk to the hop pickers' cottage—to one particular cottage—and torment herself with the sight of the small room, the char-blackened hearth, the bed that always showed signs of having been used. The sight was painful, but it would also bring cleansing rage.