Keeping Secrets (5 page)

Peg thought a moment. If she had a relative who had become a bushwhacker, wouldn’t she try to change him? If it were Mike? Or Danny? She’d tell only half-truths without thinking about it twice if she thought she could rescue them. Miss Hennessey hadn’t exactly lied. All that she’d done was try to save her cousin. “I understand,” Peg said.

Miss Hennessey hugged Peg again, this time gently. “Thank you,” she whispered. As they drew apart she added, “I’m not asking you to keep things from your mother, Peg. I’m just asking you not to upset her.”

Until Miss Hennessey had brought up the idea, Peg hadn’t even thought of upsetting Ma. Once Ma heard
the story, though—especially if Peg included picking up a rock and going back to defend Miss Hennessey against a man with a gun—she was bound to become upset.

“I would like to tell her in my own way,” Miss Hennessey said.

Peg quickly nodded agreement. Miss Hennessey’s version wasn’t likely to include the episode with the rock.

Quietly they walked home. Peg scurried upstairs, leaving Ma and Miss Hennessey to talk over hot cups of tea. Twice she tiptoed to the head of the stairs and tried to listen to their conversation. There was a low murmur of voices, neither of them upset or angry, and a sniffle or two from Miss Hennessey, so Peg began to relax.

During the next two days Miss Hennessey was even more attentive to Peg. From one of her carpetbags she produced a copy of Charles Dickens’s
A Tale of Two Cities
and read aloud with such expression that Ma—every bit as entranced as Peg—lost track of the time and forgot to remind Peg to go to bed.

Soon, both Ma and Miss Hennessey received letters. Ma tore hers open eagerly and joyfully read aloud that Frances had arrived at the Cummingses’ home safely and that Petey had enjoyed his treats and begged her to take him next time she came to St. Joe. But Miss Hennessey clutched her letter and edged out of the kitchen, hurrying to her room to read it in private.

It was almost an hour later when she came downstairs. The kitchen was steamy with a soup bone and vegetables on the boil, and Peg brushed back the tendrils of damp hair that curled around her face.

Smiling shyly, Miss Hennessey said, “Noreen, dear,
it’s time for me to take lodgings elsewhere. It would be unfair to continue to take advantage of your kind hospitality.”

Although Miss Hennessey’s shoulders hunched under the gray shawl she’d wrapped tightly around them, Peg saw a spark in her eyes and heard what seemed to be suppressed excitement in her voice. Peg gulped down the lump of disappointment that rose in her throat. She liked Miss Hennessey to be there and hated to see her leave.

Ma’s eyes widened in surprise. “Where will you go, Violet?”

“I’ll remain in St. Joseph for a short time,” she said. “Eventually I’ll attempt to travel to my home, but until I have completely recuperated from my dreadful experience in Lawrence, I’ll take accommodations at a Mrs. Naomi Kling’s boardinghouse.”

Ma put down the stirring spoon she was holding. “I know Mrs. Kling. She’s a respectable widow, and I have nothing but good to say about her boardinghouse. I’ve even heard that, in spite of shortages, she sets the best table in St. Joseph. But her lodgings are expensive.”

Smiling at Ma, Miss Hennessey said, “I’ve imposed upon your kind hospitality long enough, Noreen. You, John, and Peg have been a second family to me. I can’t thank you enough for your many kindnesses.”

“We’ve been glad to help,” Ma answered.

“You did help me—even more than you know. I realize now, after these days of peaceful shelter in your home, that my early fears were irrational. I’m no longer afraid.”

“Good.” Ma smiled broadly and wiped her hands on her apron. “Just remember that at any time in the future,
if you need our help, you have only to ask and it will be given.”

“Thank you,” Miss Hennessey said demurely. A hand crept out from under her shawl, and she gave Peg an envelope. “Peg, dear, I understand there is a stable on Penn Street. Will you please be so kind as to deliver this to the stable owner for me? My letter gives the necessary instructions. A driver will be sent to take me to Mrs. Kling’s.”

“So soon?” Ma asked.

“I’ve imposed enough,” Miss Hennessey said. She hugged Ma and Peg, murmuring, “Hurry, now,” to Peg and dashed back upstairs.

“She’s been welcome here, Ma,” Peg said in bewilderment. “She said we were like family. So why does she want to stay with a stranger?”

“It’s her decision, not ours, love,” Ma answered.

But Peg was puzzled. Into her mind popped the face of Miss Hennessey’s cousin. But he was leaving … for a place far away, Miss Hennessey had said. Surely her decision to leave the Murphy home had nothing to do with him.

5
 

P
EG RAN DOWN
the hill and over a few blocks to Penn Street, which was one of the busiest streets in St. Joseph. In spite of the war and the occasional abandoned and boarded-up stores, the street was crowded with horse-drawn buggies and wagons and carts pulled by oxen. There were horseback riders aplenty, winding their way past men dressed in buckskin and women carrying market baskets. The air was filled with the pungent smell of horse droppings and sweat-stained leather. Peg wrinkled her nose and wove through the conglomeration, dodging and ducking, until she reached the stables and handed Miss Hennessey’s letter to the man in charge.

“Tell the lady I’ll be by for her at four o’clock,” he said.

Peg’s mission accomplished, she stopped as she
reached the hotel, remembering again her visit here with the Swensons and Danny. Oh, how she missed her brother Danny!

Because they’d been close in age, Peg had always had a special love for Danny. It had been terribly hard when she’d gone to live with Ma, and Danny had chosen to stay with Alfrid Swenson.

“Alfrid’s gentle and kind, like Da was,” Danny had attempted to explain. “He’s my father now, Peg, and I love him. I need him, and he needs me, too. I can’t leave him. Do you understand?”

Peg tried to understand, but there were many times when she missed Danny so much she could hardly bear the loneliness. Although Danny periodically came to town with Alfrid Swenson and Ennie, the woman Alfrid had married after Olga died, his time with Ma and Peg was always brief. Remembering how she’d clung to Danny in this hotel, yet how she’d insisted he not be allowed to eat more than his share of the cookies that were served, tears rushed to Peg’s eyes.

Soon after the onset of the war the hotel had been turned into Union Army headquarters. Here were the offices of Colonel John Williams, commander of the St. Joseph Military District; and General John Bassett, the provost marshal, whose job it was to find and arrest spies and Rebs. Uncomfortably, Peg thought about Miss Hennessey’s cousin James. In a way, like it or not, Peg had helped him to escape. Luckily the provost marshal would never find out about it. Peg would hate to be sent to prison.

Eager to take another look at the elegant lobby with its beautiful red Brussels carpets and carved, winding staircase, Peg clattered across the wooden sidewalk and held out a hand to grasp the handle of the heavy door.

“Stop!” a voice ordered.

Peg froze, her hand dropping to her side. She looked up at the Union soldier who had appeared out of nowhere to block the door.

“You have no business here, little girl,” he said. “Get along home.”

“I just wanted to see the lobby of the hotel,” Peg told him. “It used to be beautiful.”

“I don’t know what it used to look like,” the soldier answered, “but it sure ain’t beautiful anymore.”

Peg didn’t answer. Tears blurring her vision, she turned and fled.

When the buggy arrived Peg was caught in a whirl of profuse thanks and hugs. Miss Hennessey leaned forward to give one last wave, then was gone.

“She didn’t say she’d see us again,” Peg complained. “She didn’t ask us to come to Mrs. Kling’s boardinghouse to visit her.” A hurt tear slid down her nose, and she angrily brushed it away.

Ma put an arm around Peg’s shoulders and steered her to the parlor sofa. As they sat close together Ma said, “Miss Hennessey needed us for only a short time, love. She doesn’t need us now.”

“It’s not a matter of needing us. I thought she was my—our friend.”

“Only a few friendships last forever. You’ll find, as you grow older, that most friendships come and go.”

Peg squirmed away from her mother’s arm. “There you go again, Ma, talking as if I’m a child.”

“You’ll have to admit that you don’t know all there is to know at the age of eleven.” Ma gave Peg a teasing smile, and, in spite of her irritation, Peg couldn’t keep from smiling back.

As she settled against her mother’s arm, Peg
thought about Miss Hennessey, who at first had been nervous and frail and frightened of her own shadow. During the week, as Miss Hennessey’s health improved, she had seemed at times, in quick unguarded moments, to be as self-assured as Ma or Miss Thomas, which was totally at odds with her usual quiet, timid nature. Peg remembered that instant on the stairs in which Miss Hennessey had appeared to be a vibrant, handsome woman, and she thought of the resonant beauty of her voice as she read aloud
A Tale of Two Cities.
Surely, Peg wondered, she hadn’t imagined all that. Or had she?

Well, it scarcely mattered now. Miss Hennessey had left, and Peg had lost a friend. “I’ll bring down the towels and the sheets from her bed,” Peg said and climbed to her feet.

“You’re a good, dear girl,” Ma told her.

Peg didn’t feel like a good, dear girl. She felt like kicking the table leg, or raising a ruckus, or chasing Marcus all the way home, the way she had when he’d called her a skinny ninny.

It wasn’t until she’d scooped up an armful of linens that a glint of metal caught her eye and she noticed one of Miss Hennessey’s shawls that had fallen behind the chair in the corner. A small, circular, silver pin was still attached.

Peg folded and smoothed the shawl, laid it on top of the linens, and took it downstairs to give to Ma.

“It’s getting late, so I’ll send it to her tomorrow,” Ma said, then paused and smiled at Peg. “Better yet, when you come home from school, could you take it to her?”

“Oh, yes!” Peg answered quickly. She’d love an excuse to see Miss Hennessey again. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon Miss Hennessey would have realized that
Mrs. Kling’s boardinghouse wasn’t as comfortable and homey as the Murphys’ house, and she’d come back and stay with them until she was ready to travel home.

As Peg went about her studies and evening chores she could think of little else than seeing Miss Hennessey again. The next day she wiggled and fidgeted so much in class that Miss Thomas said, “Peg Kelly, I declare! You’ve been squirming as though there’s a bug down your back. Now settle down and pay attention.”

Marcus, who sat behind Peg, leaned forward and whispered, “There
is
a bug down your back. It’s a black beetle with six wiggly legs and sharp pointed teeth. And if it can find any meat on your bones, it will bite!”

He gave her neck a sharp pinch, and Peg shuddered. It did feel like a bug! But she clamped her teeth together and ignored him. It was hard to ignore the odor coming from Marcus, however. Every time his mother wondered if she’d seen a nit in his hair she doused his head in kerosene oil; and, even though it was only the beginning of October, she’d already hung a small bag of garlic around his neck to ward off the fall catarrh and had sewn him into his long underwear for the winter.

He pulled his treasured obsidian arrowhead from his pocket and dangled it next to her. It was tempting to try to snatch it, knowing that such a long, finely tapered obsidian arrowhead was rare in these parts, but Peg didn’t move.

Marcus, who didn’t like being ignored, kicked the back of Peg’s bench. She refused to respond, gleefully knowing this would bother him more than anything else she could do. Marcus was such a … a child!

After school Peg ran all the way home. She brushed and brushed her hair, unable to tame her wild red
curls, so she tied a sunbonnet over her hair, picked up the shawl and silver pin, and set out to visit Miss Hennessey.

Hugging the shawl close to protect it as she hurried through the crowds, Peg followed Ma’s instructions and rang the bell of Mrs. Kling’s boardinghouse.

“I’m Peg Kelly, and I’ve come to see Miss Violet Hennessey, please,” she told the round, rosy woman who opened the door.

The woman tucked a loose strand of gray-streaked hair into the bun that rested like a fat biscuit on top of her head. “Peg Kelly? Kelly? And who might your people be?” she asked.

“My mother is Noreen Kel—Murphy,” Peg answered. “She’s married to John Murphy, the blacksmith.”

Smiling broadly, the woman said, “Of course, of course. I’m Mrs. Kling, child. Come inside, please.”

As soon as the door had shut behind her, Peg glanced around the large, ornate parlor. The windows were decorated with lace curtains, dark velvet swags dipping across the tops. There were crocheted, white doilies of every size on all the tables and on the backs and arms of the overstuffed chairs. Paintings of landscapes and of flowers covered the walls, and oil lamps with hand-painted flowers on their glass chimneys were placed throughout the room.