Bitter Eden (33 page)

Peter studied them for some time, then looked up. "Do you ever think of home?"

"Often."

"Of late, I find that I do too. Perhaps it was Mas letter about Nattie's wedding," Peter mused. "Before

we came here we said when it came time to equip the brewery we'd go back and get everything we needed there."

"I know, but it isn't necessary. Everything can be gotten right here."

Peter agreed, his fingers tapping on his desk. "But Fd like to go home." He looked at Stephen's surprised face. "Not to stay," he added hastily. "Just for a visit We could still get the equipment there. Sam can manage the farm for me. The only problem is your brew-house."

"We'll close it," Stephen said quickly. "I don t produce enough to speak of, and if we're going to begin the brewery, I don't mind leaving the brewhouse idle. Ill have other things to keep me occupied."

"Then you'd like to go back for a visit?"

"Like to? I've considered going myself several times. There never seemed a time when I could leave. We were too busy."

"Then it's settled. We're going back."

Chapter 23

They arrived in Kent just before the start of the hop-picking season. All around them as they drove over once-familiar roads were the green arches of the hop vines, orchards heavy with fruit to be harvested in the months to come. In another two weeks the pickers would fill the cottages, and the night fires and music would begin.

"It's beautiful/' Callie said, hugging Jamie close to her. "See there, Jamie—that's part of your Uncle Frank's hop yard." Jamie looked around contentedly, babbling in his own language.

"He doesn't seem too impressed," Peter commented. "Sounds like his standard 'what's to eat' speech."

"It's nice that nothing has changed much," Stephen said. '1 was afraid that it might have."

"What would change?" Peter asked.

"I don't know. Things do though."

The driver turned the horses onto the farm road. Ahead of them they could see the house. It was home, just as it had always been. Meg's roses climbed over the front entrance wildly profuse with pink and red

blooms. The small gate to the herb garden stood open as it always did, because none of them could ever remember to close it.

As soon as she heard the field dogs barking at the approaching carriage, Meg flung open the front door. Her squat little figure rushing out to meet them reminded Callie of those first days when she had been alone and frightened. Meg had overwhelmed her with warmth and goodness. Callie's eyes filled as she looked at Megs happy face. 'That's your grandma. You're a lucky lad, Jamie Berean," she said softly to the child.

"Peter! Stephen!" Meg cried, rushing to hug first one and then the other, and back to the first again like a demented moth. "Oh, Callie—Rosalind!" Suddenly she stopped, her eyes wide, her hands trembling as she reached for Jamie. "Let me see my grandson."

"Here he is, Ma. All yours." Peter proudly took Jamie from CaHie, placing him in Meg's arms. "You should see how he's grown in just the last month."

"So big," she crooned, then turned to the others. "Anna has thought of nothing but feeding you. She should have the table all ready by now. Marsh will bring your luggage in. Come along now, wash up."

"I was wondering where Anna was," Stephen said.

"Anna is where she belongs. ... A woman after my heart," Peter said, leading the way into the house. "I haven't had anything to eat since early this morning, and I'm famished. Where's Frank? Will he be here?"

"He's still in the fields, but he'll be in shortly. You know Frank—doesn't like anything to change his routine. He claims it upsets his digestion. But don't worry; he's not likely to miss a meal."

Peter laughed. "That's Frank. I told you nothing could change around here, Steve."

Anna entered the hallway as Peter spoke. "Welcome back. Oh, my! For all we've not changed, look at you! There's not a one of you that is as I remembered. So grand. Rosalind, you look lovely. I can see America agrees with you. And Stephen . . . where's that young boy who left here? You're grown so handsome and strong ... I am speechless. Callie . . "

Stephen, blushing—one of the things he had never outgrown—edged toward Callie and helped Anna keep her attention focused there. But Anna was as flighty in trying to spread her affection and greetings to everyone as Meg had been; then she saw Jamie, and as Meg had, she made a beeline for him. "Ohhh!" she said, trying and failing to wrest him from Meg's possessive grip.

Jamie was content where he was as well. He was learning rapidly of the delicious wonders to be found in a grandma's house.

"I see you've done well, Peter," Frank said as he came in. "Or is it all show?" He laughed, touching the lapel of Peter's suit.

"There's a bit behind what's seen," Peter said.

Frank greeted the rest of then, but wasted no time in sentimentality over the baby. He walked to the head of the table and seated himself. Without looking up, he tucked his napkin in under his chin.

The others took their seats at the table.

"How has it been going with you, Frank?" Peter asked.

"I can't complain too badly. We're a bit busy at the moment. Hop pickers will be coming in before we know it. It's a rowdier bunch that turns up every year."

"I always enjoyed the hop pickers," Stephen said.

Frank shrugged and looked back to Peter. "How

were you able to leave your hops this time of year? Or have you given up hops? Living on Pa's legacy?"

"You have quite an opinion of me, don't you Frank?"

"You're looking pretty prosperous, and a man doesn't leave a farm to idle during harvest if he's got one."

Stephen laughed uncomfortably. "Things aren't quite the same in Poughkeepsie as they are here, Frank. If you want to know the truth, he works as though a demon rode his back, which isn't so bad, but he works the rest of us as hard. Ask Callie if Peter has given up on hops, and remember to duck when she answers," he said, smiling as he nudged Callie.

"Then you must be daft to leave at harvest time. You'll end up with no crop to speak of."

"We'll harvest five hundred thousand bushels this season," Peter said, anger niggling at him. "There is a piece of land adjoining ours we've taken an option on. That'll give us another hundred acres to plant. We'll be the leading hop yard in the area then. Personally I believe we are now."

Frank emptied his mug before looking at Peter. "Sounds like a fairy tale to me. It would take years to build up a farm like that."

"Not in the United States," Stephen snapped. '1 told you things were different there. Fortunes are made every day. In railroads and mining and hops and any new product a man can think up and market. Nothing moves slowly there. You keep up with the times and the competition, or you get lost in the shuffle. Peter and I gambled everything we had to keep ahead of the others, and we've done it."

"It is that good there, huh?"

"It is very good, and there's a ready market for anything we can grow."

"I never would have believed it. I always thought you'd be coming home to stay. I thought perhaps this visit . . . this is just a visit, isn't it?"

"Just a visit," Peter said. "We'll stay until mid-September. Stephen is going to buy the equipment for the brewery. We'll have just the right time for seeing each other and tending to business. Then we're going home. Our home."

"You've got the brewery underway, as well? So soon?" Frank asked, filling his mug with porter again. He sat quietly, studying the liquid. "Well, it must be a different sort of place. Changed you. Changed you a lot-Peter sat back sipping his brew contentedly as Stephen eagerly leaned forward to tell Frank about their property and the new brewery.

As the men talked, Callie asked Meg, "When will we see Natalie? I was so hoping she would be here when we arrived. I keep thinking of this as her home. I don't suppose the Foxes would thank me for that thought."

"They'll be coming for supper tonight. Albert had some business in Seven Oaks this afternoon. He thought it better if Natalie waited for him to bring her. He is so careful with her. I do think he tends to overdo it a bit. He won't let her do a thing that might tire her or upset her. But Nattie seems to thrive on the attention so I suppose it is all right after all. She is terribly happy."

"But why should he worry about her tiring? She isn't ill, is she?" Callie asked.

"Oh, dear me! Why, of course, you wouldn't know. Her letter is probably waiting for you in Poughkeep-sie.

"Know what?" Rosalind asked.

"Oh, dear—I don't know if I should tell you," Meg

sputtered. ""It's Nattie's surprise. Perhaps . . . Anna, what do you think? Should I tell them or should I let Nattie tell them?"

Anna looked at Callie for a long time,- noting the change the last year and a half had made in her. She was so little of the child Anna had known. Callie had fulfilled all the promise of beauty of her youth, but she was very much a poised woman and no longer the excitable child who could be counted on to play along with Natalie's mysterious games. "I think Callie would do better with Nattie if she knew. After all, Nattie needn't be told the letter arrived too late."

Meg smiled happily, rubbing her plump hands together. "Nattie is with child," she said breathlessly.

"Natalie?" Rosalind asked in disbelief. Not only was it difficult to imagine Natalie the mother of anything so touchingly human as Jamie, but it was disgusting and annoying to think of her as the mother of Albert's child. "She's not really going to have a child."

"At the beginning of the year. Don't you think that is nice? A new Foxe and a new year. We are all hoping it will arrive on the very day." Meg beamed. "Now all we have to do is get Anna started, and all my girls, but you, Callie, shall have given me a grandchild."

Anna shifted uncomfortably in her chair and changed the subject hastily. "I've been sewing clothes for the baby. If you'd like I'll show them to you, Callie."

"I'd love to see them. Perhaps I could make something while I am here. I'd like Nattie to have something that I had made too."

"Oh, she'd like that," Anna said. "Perhaps we should wait until she comes. She'd like to show you the little things herself. Many of them she designed."

There was no hurry now that Meg had left the uncomfortable subject of Anna's barrenness. No one felt

it more sorely than Anna herself. She had always believed that God compensated each of his creatures with something the others had not. Rosalind and Nat-talie and Callie had beauty. Anna believed her lot would be children, and yet first Rosalind and now Natalie had a child, and she had nothing. It was not that she begrudged them their good fortune, but it did seem unfair that the balance should swing so heavily against her. She excused herself from the table and helped the serving girls clear. Frank had gotten her a new set of china she trusted only to her own careful hands in the washwater.

Callie was in the herb garden with Rosalind when the Foxes arrived. The dogs began to bark and then Callie heard Natalie's soft voice and bell-like laughter again. She and Rosalind moved together toward the garden gate.

Natalie looked more delicate and ethereal than ever. She was dressed in filmy white. Along the hem of her dress were embroidered the most delicate lilies of the valley. Her abdomen swelled just enough to show she was with child, while her hair, worn loose and flowing around her pale hollow-eyed face, made her look no more than a child herself. She reached up and removed the wide-brimmed hat that had shielded her from the sun. She stared at Callie as she walked to the garden.

"You've changed, Callie. You don't look the same at all. Have you changed inside as well?" she asked in a soft quizzical voice.

"Oh, Nattie!" Callie embraced her. "Not a bit. I am just the same. It is so good to see you again, and you look lovely."

"But you've become beautiful," Natalie said.

"Don't be silly. Come sit with me and tell me all

about the baby and your plans. Shall it be a boy or a girl?"

"Didn't you read all that in my letter?"

"I want to hear you say it, so I can hear your voice and see you smile as you talk. It is so much better to be with someone than to have to learn things from a letter. Tell me everything—again."

Albert followed his wife, more slowly, and his eyes rested on Rosalind, not Callie. If anything he found her more alluring now than ever. She had an air of calm and self-confidence he didn't remember in her. He hadn't expected to miss her when she left In fact her departure had been a relief to him. But once she was gone, he had missed her dreadfully, far beyond what he could ever have imagined. She crept into his thoughts and dreams at the worst times, unspeakable times, crowding Natalie out of his mind and heart when she had the most rigjit to him.

"Hello, Rosalind," he said, placing his hand on the open gate so near hers that their fingers touched. She glanced at their hands, but did not move her own. Once she would have been content, even eager for so small a display of affection as the brush of his hand. It was amusing and enlightening that the action had been Albert's and not hers. Perhaps he didn't know that the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes, his very posture, was telling her that now he was the beggar at the gate, while it was she who would determine if her affections would ever be opened to him again.

"How have you been, Albert? I hear you are to be a father. It seems to agree with you; you are looking well."

"Yes," he said and looked away from her for a moment. "Rosalind . . ."

"Are you happy, Albert?"

"I want to talk to you. There is so much I must say to you/'

"Oh, do! Tell me!" she said brightly.

"Not like this. It's been so long—and yet, here you are teasing as you always did. It doesn't seem you've been gone from me for a minute now that you're here again where I can see you and touch you."

"What a nice compliment. It does every lady good to know she's been missed."

"Don't be like that, please."

. "Don't be a boor. Shall we go in? I am sure Peter will be anxious to see you. You two always used to have so much to talk about."