Hearts Awakening (14 page)

Ellie’s heart hammered so hard it punched the air out of her lungs before pounding disbelief throughout her body with each unsteady beat. Her hands tightened hard on the parcel she was carrying, but she was unable to blink back tears of humiliation that blurred her vision.

She battled the instinct to flee as far as she could from this man, locked her knees to keep them from buckling, and struggled to maintain what little dignity she had left. Once her vision cleared, she stared back at him, only to be wounded again by the profound disgust glaring back at her. And disapproval. And disappointment, as deep as the hurt she had wrapped around her own heart. And fear, she noted with some surprise.

Without saying a word, she slapped the moneybag against his chest.

He promptly stored the bag in his pocket. “Well? Have you nothing to say?”

His curt whisper sliced through the last bit of anger she refused to let take control of her emotions. “No. No, I haven’t, for the plain and simple truth of the matter is that you aren’t really prepared to listen to anything I might say. So it shall remain unsaid until you are.”

He narrowed his gaze, but Daniel tugged his attention away from her. “Pappy! Miss Ellie, look!” he cried, jumping up and down and pointing behind Ellie.

Jackson turned his head to glare down at the five-year-old. “Not now, Daniel. It’s rude to interrupt adults when they’re talking.”

Distracted by a growing commotion behind her, Ellie glanced over her shoulder, saw the crowd parting, got a glimpse of the danger Daniel had recognized, and reacted instinctively. “Get Daniel! Move!” she cried and tossed her parcel away. She picked up Ethan because he was closest to her, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him with her as she lunged out of the way.

Ellie watched in horror as Jackson heeded her warning just a second too late. He scarcely had time to push Daniel out of the way in the opposite direction before she saw disaster strike for the second time that very afternoon.

The two rambunctious boys she had seen earlier, just after Jackson had left, were racing their wheelbarrows through the crowd again. One swerved away and kept going. The other boy, however, rammed his wheelbarrow straight into Jackson. As he fell backward, the wheelbarrow tipped forward, spilling an entire load of manure on top of him as he landed on his back.

A very large, very fresh, very pungent load of manure.

Grinning, the boy snatched his wheelbarrow and charged away, just as she had seen him do earlier. One of the constables who was chasing after the pair of rascals offered little more than a wave of reassurance he would catch them, but the laughter was loud, if not raucous, from the rush of onlookers.

Wailing, Ethan burrowed deeper within the protection of her arms. She crooned to comfort him and watched Jackson move his limbs to shake off whatever manure he could. Apparently unhurt, he eventually sat up, glanced around, and frowned, as if unsure he could get up and out of the spilled manure without slipping and sliding right back down again. One of the few men who could stop laughing long enough to help reached out to offer Jackson a hand and pull him to his feet.

The crowd clapped and cheered.

Two very high, exaggerated steps later, he was finally standing free of the mess on the ground.

Now that the show was over, the crowd quickly dispersed, no doubt anxious to escape the pungent odor that was spreading through the air. Daniel appeared unhurt as he scrunched up his face and pinched his nose. “Pappy stinks!”

After tugging free, Ethan joined his brother and mimicked his actions, much to Ellie’s dismay. “You shouldn’t take pleasure in another person’s misfortune,” she cautioned, though she could not have chosen a more well-deserved rebuke for the man after the way he had misjudged her and spoken to her.

“I’m sorry, Pappy,” Daniel murmured.

Ethan nodded his apology.

Jackson sniffed the air and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, too. It’s a long ride home, and you’re both going to have to put up with this smell until we get there.”

Ellie walked around, carefully skirting the pile of manure, searching for the parcel she had tossed aside, but to no avail.

Jackson scowled and pointed a few feet ahead of him. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

She saw a bit of pink ribbon poking out from beneath the pile of manure and sighed with disappointment. “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“I wouldn’t want you to lose your pretties, considering the price you must have paid for them,” he snapped, giving the ribbon a few tugs. The parcel eventually emerged, but the brown wrapping paper was covered with manure. Before she could get to the parcel, he knelt down, slipped off the ribbon, and peeled back the wrapper.

He studied the contents, which appeared to have survived without any damage at all. When he finally looked at her, his gaze was smoldering with guilt he justly deserved. “There doesn’t seem to be enough fabric here for a gown,” he said hoarsely.

“No, but there’s enough to make a pair of overalls for two growing boys.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat that was large enough for her to see. “And the flannel?”

“The boys need new shirts, too.”

Daniel clapped his hands. “Me and Ethan are gonna get new clothes and Miss Ellie’s gonna make them. That’s ’cause Mrs. French said Miss Ellie was real nice to help her after those boys with the wheelbarrow almost knocked her down. We helped Mrs. French walk back to her shop with Miss Ellie, too. Mrs. French said Miss Ellie could pick out anything she wanted as a present, and that’s what she picked,” he said, pointing to the fabrics. “Right, Ethan?”

The three-year-old shrugged.

“He’s still mad ’cause he wanted to eat the gumdrops Mrs. French gave us for helping her, but Miss Ellie said we had to wait till after supper tonight. Miss Ellie let me keep ’em in my pocket ’cause I’m the biggest. Wanna see?” Daniel asked, pulling out a small parcel tied shut with a pink ribbon.

Jackson nodded. “That was very nice of Mrs. French to give them to you,” he said before turning his gaze back to Ellie. “It was very nice of Miss Ellie to pick out something to make new clothes for you, too,” he murmured, but Daniel was too busy showing Ethan the parcel and describing the gumdrops inside to pay any attention.

Jackson’s remorse was so sincere and so palpable, she could almost touch it, but the echo of his harsh accusations and his threat to take her straight to the lawyer’s to end their marriage still rang too loud and clear in her mind to ease her annoyance with him.

“I’m so very sorry,” he whispered, handing the parcel to her.

She swallowed hard but held her gaze steady, even though her heart was still trembling. “No one has ever spoken to me the way you did. Not one. Not ever.”

He flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“And well you should be,” she countered. “Don’t ever, ever speak to me like that again.”

“I won’t. And I . . . I had no right to threaten to take you to the lawyer.”

She tilted up her chin. “No. You didn’t. And thanks to Mrs. Fielding, now that I know you were less than honest with me before we were married, you’ll be quite fortunate if I don’t consult a lawyer myself.”

He actually paled, but she felt no pity for him. “You brought this on yourself because you’ve misjudged me, perhaps from the very start.”

“I was cruel. And hurtful. And . . . and I was wrong.”

“Yes, you were,” she said, satisfied that he now understood how very much he had wounded her today and how tentative the state of their marriage was at the moment.

He looked down at his manure-stained clothes and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you’d find fault with the notion that having a pile of manure dumped on top of me was nothing more than what I deserved, would you?”

“Not at all, but I do have one other point I might take issue with.” She crinkled her nose. “I don’t think the boys or I should be punished by riding all the way home with you, since we did nothing wrong.”

“Pappy needs a bath,” Daniel interjected, apparently interested in the adult conversation again.

“A change of clothes might suffice, at least until we get home,” his father countered reluctantly. “I suppose it’s the least I can do to make amends.”

“At the very least,” Ellie retorted, quite certain he would have to do much more.

“I wonder if I might ask your cousin for a change of clothes, although he and his wife weren’t exactly overjoyed about our getting married.”

“No, they weren’t,” she replied. “Since you smell like a barnyard filled with waste, I’m afraid Cousin Mark or Olivia wouldn’t want you anywhere near their shop, and most especially, not their customers.”

“Let’s go to the Sunday house. You can change there. Please, Pappy? Please?” Daniel cried.

Jackson arched his back. “Daniel’s right. I have clothes I can change into at the Sunday house.”

“Is it far?” she asked.

“No,” he gritted.

After hearing what Mrs. Fielding had to say about Rebecca and the goings-on there before Jackson managed to silence her prattle, Ellie could not blame his reluctance to return to the Sunday house.

But as hesitant as he might be, Ellie suspected he would be even more reluctant to sit down with her tonight. For she expected him to share with her every detail of the scandal surrounding their marriage and Rebecca’s untimely death.

The Sunday house was just as small as Ellie had imagined it to be, and she followed the boys, who quickly scampered ahead of her once Jackson had unlocked the door.

Like other homes kept by folks who lived a good distance away, the single-room house was only meant to be temporary shelter for one or two nights at a time to provide accommodations when the family came to the city for Sunday services or special occasions. The very thought that Rebecca had used this house to betray her husband seemed almost sacrilegious, and Ellie distracted herself from that thought by looking around the room.

A bank of bunks sat against one wall, while a table with benches was positioned in front of the fireplace on the opposite wall. A corner cupboard held tableware and cookware, and a pair of open trunks, overflowing with women’s apparel, sat next to a single closed one.

Jackson entered the house right behind her but left the door open, which helped to ease the smell he carried inside with him. He seemed unusually tense, even agitated. Although she suspected he was anxious to get out of those awful-smelling clothes, she also sensed he found returning here, to the very place his wife had betrayed him, extremely difficult.

She walked around the room, finding the whole décor distinctly feminine. Panels of frilly curtains covered the front window. A delicate lace cloth covered the table. Colorful gowns, as pretty as a field of summer wild flowers, matching bonnets, and white, ruffled petticoats hung on pegs above the beds.

Ellie shook her head. No work gowns. No aprons. No clothes for the boys or for Jackson, as far as she could see, unless they were stored in that closed trunk. “Just Rebecca’s pretties,” she whispered, recalling the room upstairs at home where Jackson said Rebecca had also stored them.

Getting this glimpse of the woman who had been the first Mrs. Jackson Smith also gave her a bit of insight into why he had assumed Ellie had gone off to purchase similar pretties for herself.

“Mama? Mama?”

Daniel’s cries distracted her from her thoughts, and she saw him wandering around the room touching his mother’s things. Little Ethan, however, had climbed up onto one of the bunks, where he was tugging at the ribbons on one of Rebecca’s petticoats. When he finally pulled them free, he clutched some in each fist and scrambled down from the bunk. Daniel walked over to the same bunk, claimed the pillow, and hugged it to his body.

Jackson stepped around her and walked over to the bunk to stand next to Ethan. “We haven’t been here since long before Rebecca died,” he said quietly before looking down at his sons and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, boys. Your mother’s not here. She’s in heaven now. Go with Miss Ellie and wait for me outside. I should be able to find some of my clothes and change quick enough.”

Ellie reached out to take Daniel’s hand, but he turned his back to her, protecting the pillow he was clutching. “I want my mama.”

She dropped her hand. “I know you do, and I know she’d want to be with you if she were here. But she’s not here anymore. She’s with God in heaven now.”

“Then I wanna go to heaven.”

“We all want to go to heaven someday, but only God decides when we get to go there,” Jackson said firmly.

“But one day, we’ll all be together again in heaven with people we love,” she added and scrunched down low to be at eye level if Daniel turned around. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jackson and Ethan watching her, but she kept her focus on Daniel for the moment. “Was that your mama’s pillow?”

Daniel’s head bobbed up and down.

“Would you like to keep it and take it home with you?”

Daniel looked back at her over his shoulder. “Could I keep it on my bed? When she comes back, she’s gonna want it, and I can give it back to her.”

“Of course you can,” she replied and turned to Ethan. “You can take something of your mama’s home, too. Maybe those ribbons you seem to like so much.”