Nora (18 page)

Cal moved to the bedside and took Nora's thin, hot hand in his. He clasped it firmly, hoping to give her some of his strength. She must live. She must! He said it aloud, torment in the silver eyes that slid over her with equal parts of guilt and hunger. She was part of him. Why hadn't he realized it before, when there was still time to tell her? If she died, her last memory of him would be of his harsh voice telling her that he was too ashamed of her to introduce her to his family, that their marriage had been a mistake. Now he had to bear the brunt of his own cruelty and watch her suffer. He had failed her, in every way.

 

A
LL THAT LONG NIGHT
, he sat by the bedside, with the doctor across the bed from him. They cooled her with wet cloths, changed the linen, changed her gown, while she shivered and wept and rambled incoherently.

Melly and Helen peeked in frequently, having for-gone sleep for so long that they were accustomed to catnaps. Chester went alone to supervise the work
on the ranch the next morning, because Cal had no intention of leaving his wife.

The doctor brought him back a cup of coffee soon after daylight.

“When will we know?” he asked the older man.

“I am not God,” the doctor replied frankly.

Cal worried his hair while he stared at the slight, racked figure in the bed. “I tried to be,” he said in anguish. “She was so haughty, at first. Laughing at me and my men, teasing me, looking down her pretty nose at me because of the way I dressed, the work I did.” He grimaced. “In my arrogance, I thought to pay her back for all those condescending acts—even bringing her here, where she had to do physical labor for the first time in her pampered life.” He ran a hand over his pale face. “I never really thought it would harm her. My own mother is robust. Even when she had modern conveniences, she still preferred the old-fashioned way of doing things. She never had servants, except to help with the heavy lifting.” His broad shoulders rose and fell helplessly. “I forgot that Nora had never had to perform the slightest task at home. God forgive me, it never even occurred to me that she might put the child at risk with such ordinary chores.” He sipped coffee quietly. “She didn't tell me about the fever,” he added dully.

The doctor sat back in his chair and looked at his patient. “She is a remarkable woman,” he said, his voice very solemn. “She came to see me just a few days ago, and spent ten minutes describing to me the proper
way to iron a shirt without scorching it.” He chuckled, and Cal actually winced. “She was very proud of the accomplishment. She said nothing about doing any lifting, about any strain or discomfort. It didn't occur to me that she was keeping her fragility a secret from all the people around her.”

“I thought I knew her,” Cal said heavily. “She's a complex woman. And I haven't been the ideal husband.”

“Marriage is a matter of compromises,” the doctor advised, smiling faintly. “My wife and I have been married for thirty-six years, and we have never had a serious disagreement.”

“You are a fortunate man,” Cal said.

The doctor nodded. “My wife is something of a diplomat,” he chuckled.

“Mine has an unexpected temper,” the younger man mused, looking at her with eyes that showed their wounding. “All the while she was trying to learn to be a frontier wife, she never backed away from a fight. I had no real desire to marry,” he confessed, “but once the deed was done, she seemed to…fit into my life. I'm lonely without her now.”

The admission was full of wonder. The doctor's lips pursed and he looked away from the thoughtful, introspective look on the younger man's lean face. “You might consider telling her so, when she is recovered.”

Cal's eyes, unguarded, met the doctor's. “Will she…recover?”

“We will know soon.”

Soon. The thought sustained him through the afternoon and into the night. Time seemed to run together. He was aware of eating, of comforting voices around him while he held Nora's thin hand and worried himself sick over her condition. She tossed and turned, sweated and cried out, while the fever racked a body that had never seemed so brittle and delicate.

The doctor went out with the others to eat, leaving Cal briefly alone with Nora in the silent, cool bedroom. He had lit a fire in the fireplace to take some of the nip out of the December air, so that she wouldn't get chilled again.

She hadn't told him about the fever. He should have realized sooner that she was a woman who kept secrets, even when telling them would have been to her advantage. He should have realized it when he learned about the baby. Then he could have spared her the rigors of a life to which she was unsuited. He could have spared her…this. Perhaps then the baby might have survived.

The baby. There would be no child now, and that would hurt her most of all if—
when,
he corrected forcefully—she recovered. He thought about the grief it would bring her and he groaned. He looked at her slender body, lying so still now in the bed, and the pressure of seeing her near death for such a long time finally broke his strong spirit. He felt the heat and wetness in his eyes and, for an instant, gave in to it. He laid
his cheek gently against her soft breast, over the damp cloth of her gown, and gave way to the pain at last.

 

N
ORA HEARD A DEEP, HARSH SOUND
. Her body ached, sore, as if it had been beaten. There was a pressure on her chest, a wetness that was warm, not like the chilled wetness elsewhere. Her blue eyes opened and she looked at the ceiling. It was dark just near the fireplace where smut had stained the thin white boards.

Her eyes lowered to a dark head lying on her chest. She frowned. Cal? Why was he here? Why, this wasn't her cabin. This was the big house, and she was soaked. Then she realized, all at once, what had happened. She remembered a terrible argument, hurtful words. She remembered feeling ill and then the fever…the fever…

Her dry lips parted and she pushed at the head on her breasts. “My baby,” she managed in a strained, hoarse, unfamiliar voice.

Cal stiffened. His head came up and his pale eyes glittered wildly for a moment. “Nora?”

She pushed at his shoulders. Her memory was coming back now in full force. She remembered every single, terrible detail of their last meeting, including the things he had said to her, the accusations he had made.

The weakness left by her ordeal made her misery even worse. Her arm went across her eyes to hide them. “Oh, why am I still alive?” she whispered brokenly. “Why didn't I die!”

He was shattered when the words reached him. “Nora, please,” he said hesitantly.

“I've lost my baby, haven't I?” she whispered, and then waited, stiffly, dreading the answer, although she knew it. She knew, deep in her heart, that she was as empty as her life would be from now on.

“Yes,” Cal said reluctantly.

The tears washed past her closed eyelids in a veritable flood. The sobs were silent at first, and more painful to Cal because of their silence.

He touched her coarse hair tenderly, but she jerked her head away, as if she found his nearness actually distasteful.

With a long sigh, he unfolded his length and stood up, lost. She wouldn't even look at him. He felt a sense of loss more sweeping than anything he had ever known. His pale eyes glittered over her frail body with painful wonder. How incredible that he hadn't known until now that he was in love with her.

While he was still absorbing the shock, the door opened and the doctor came in. He saw Nora's eyes open to seek the identity of the newcomer, and his whole face brightened.

“You've come through it!” he said with delight. He had had little part in her recovery—it had been more a matter of keeping the fever at bay and keeping her quiet—but he felt satisfaction just the same. “Thank God.”

“I have lost my child,” she whispered piteously, and began to weep.

The doctor grimaced. He glanced at Cal, whose tormented face told its own story. “Go and have something to eat, my boy,” he said gently. “She needs a sedative and plenty of rest now. She will recover.”

Recover and leave him, Cal was thinking as he gave her one last longing glance, which she refused to return or even acknowledge. She would go home now for certain. He doubted if any confessions of love or promises of happier times would console her. She would blame him for it all, for the loss of her child, for the bout of fever, for so much…. And she would be right to blame him. It was his fault.

He went into the hall and pulled the door closed behind him. Helen came out to join him. She was asking something about food, if he wanted to eat. He walked past her without really hearing her. Nora was alive. She would live. He had to be content with that. He kept walking, a man in a nightmare, oblivious to the whole world.

Helen, fearing the worst, quickly opened the door and walked in.

“Has she died…?” she asked, because that was how Cal had looked; like a man who had lost everything.

But Nora was awake and aware. She looked at her aunt and managed a weak smile. “I am alive,” she whispered huskily. “Just.”

“And she will be very well in no time at all,” the doctor assured them. He held a glass of water in which a sedative had been dissolved and coaxed it past Nora's dry lips.

“Oh, thank God,” Helen whispered fervently, coming to the bedside. “When I saw Cal's face, I thought—” She bit down on the words when she saw the closed look they prompted. “I'm so glad that you have recovered. We have all watched and waited together.”

“When did
he
return?” Nora asked.

Helen knew who was being discussed. “Last evening,” she said. “He sat beside you all the long night, and all of today. He was distraught….”

“Has any reply come from the cable you sent to my parents?” Nora asked.

Helen flushed. “Oh, Nora, I am sorry,” she whispered. “I meant only to show Cal that you need not stay here if you only approached your parents. I meant well.”

“Of course you did,” Nora said wearily. “You did cable them, however, didn't you?”

Helen winced. “Yes.”

“And there was a reply?”

She hesitated. One had come, but she hadn't opened it. She didn't want to give it to the girl now, in case it served to worsen her drooping spirits.

“Please read it,” Nora said gently, although she knew what it would contain. She knew her father very well.

She couldn't know how she looked to the two people at her bedside, pale and delicate and drained almost of life, but still brimming with spirit and inner strength despite it.

Helen wondered if Nora even realized what a change she had made, from the rather introverted would-be adventuress who had first come to Tyler Junction in August to this strong, fearless woman who no longer backed away from unpleasantness.

The doctor nodded, and Helen went to fetch the telegram.

Nora took it in unsteady hands, propped against the white linen of the pillowcases as she struggled with the yellow paper.

When she finally had it open, she knew that she had been wise not to get her hopes too high. The telegram was brutal. “We have no daughter,” it read. It was signed with her father's initials.

Nora let it fall from her fingers with a long, weary sigh, like a dead leaf from a winter limb. She was truly alone now, although it was no less than she had expected. Had her aunt not interfered, she would never have lowered her pride so much as to beg forgiveness of her father. It was he who should have asked her pardon, not the reverse.

She sighed heavily. She would live. But her life would never be the same.

C
AL
B
ARTON SAT QUIETLY
in the small country saloon a few miles from Tyler Junction. The one saloon in town had closed down. Probably the proprietor had been afraid of that ax-woman coming to call, he thought with bitter humor. Whatever the reason, most men came out here to get a drink when they wanted one. Alcohol was explicitly not allowed on the ranch, although Saturday nights brought their share of inebriated ranch hands.

After the second whiskey, he began to feel a little better. He had tried to see Nora, but she had sent word by her aunt that she refused to let him back into her room now that she was conscious again. She added that she considered their marriage at an end, that she was going home to Virginia and that she did not want to see him again as long as she lived.

He had been expecting it, but the terse message
hurt just the same. How tragic to know that his misery had come from his own actions. If he had been more patient, and less judgmental, Nora might have settled quite happily even in such a dismal place. And if he had taken her to El Paso in the first place, she might still have their child in her body.

But looking back would not help now. He knew that his marriage was over. He didn't blame Nora for not wanting to see him. He blamed himself as much as she did for the way things had turned out. He had seduced her, not the reverse.

Everything that had happened was his fault. The baby was his fault most of all. He wondered now whether it would have been a boy or a girl, and mourned it. His mother would mourn for him, when she knew. He grimaced. His mother didn't know he was married. None of his people did. And before they knew it, he would be a divorced man. Nora's parents would surely forgive her now, and she would go home to Virginia and find a man who would treat her as she deserved. He decided that playing God wasn't very profitable after all, and he was never going to do it again.

He never got rowdy when he drank. He simply dulled his senses, paid his bar bill, got up and left. Once, when he was much younger, he'd passed out, when he and King were drinking one weekend in Kansas City. King could always hold his liquor. It was he who'd carted Cal into the hotel in a fireman's lift and right up the steps to his room. King was married
now, he remembered, apparently to a woman who was his equal in temperament. He hoped his brother was happier than he was at the moment. He dreaded telling his family what a fool he'd been, but one day soon, he would have to go home.

He tottered out to his horse and managed to get into the saddle. Good thing the animal knew the way back home, he thought dimly, or he'd never make it there. He closed his eyes with the reins tight in one hand.

“Easy, there, fellow!” A sympathetic voice woke him.

He sat up, blinking his eyes. This didn't look like the ranch. He frowned. “Where am I?”

“Dalton's Stable. You're in Tyler Junction.” The old man grinned. “Tied one on, did you?”

“Looks like it.” Cal got down out of the saddle, groaning.

“You'd better go over to the hotel and get yourself a room, young fellow. You're in no condition to make that ride home now. I'll take care of your horse for you.”

“Thanks. Name's Cul…Barton,” he amended firmly, barely able to remember that he was using his middle name for his last one. He left the horse with the man and started toward the hotel, but the depot seemed closer. Much closer.

He walked inside to the window. “Beaumont,” he said flatly. “One way.”

“Why, you're just in luck,” the agent said, glancing
toward a loud hissing noise outside. “The last train is just pulling out. No luggage?”

“No luggage. No wife. No nothing,” Cal murmured unsteadily. He paid for his ticket and went out the door. The agent stared after him, shaking his head.

 

C
AL WOKE UP IN
B
EAUMONT
with a splitting head. He got a ride out to the rig where Pike was just unfastening the last screw in a part that had unexpectedly given way.

“Damn, this had to happen now,” Pike muttered. “We've got no spare, and the supplier doesn't have the part in stock. He says it'll be January before we can get one!”

“January?”

Pike threw up his hands. “There's no help for it.”

“Send to St. Louis, or New York, or Pittsburgh.”

“No help there. You may not have noticed, but there are several people setting up rigs around here,” Pike reminded him, and indicated the flat, sparse landscape dotted with tall derricks outside little Beaumont.

“I noticed, all right. Maybe we're all crazy,” Cal said heavily. “It looks like the only thing we're going to find is water.”

“Maybe that geologist was right after all,” Pike replied. He had small eyes, beady eyes, and they fixed on the other man. “What if we bring her in?”

“We'll be rich,” Cal said.

“We could split up the stock,” the man ventured.
“You know, to help defray the cost so we could get some more money to work with. Sell shares.”

“We're not that desperate yet,” Cal reminded him. Pike didn't know anything about Cal's background, much less that he was rich. He'd been careful not to talk about himself. Pike was a good drill rigger, but he had a shifty look that Cal liked less the more he was around the man. He would have replaced him, but he'd been too involved with Nora.

Nora. He groaned inwardly. He hadn't even said goodbye or tried to talk to her before he jumped on the train. She'd probably think he'd deserted her, which was not the truth. He'd only been hurting and drinking, and he'd done an impulsive thing. But did it really matter? She was probably on her way home even now, and wanting nothing else to do with the man who'd ruined her life. He would never forget the way she'd flinched away from him when he'd touched her hair. Her expression would haunt him forever.

She'd been so fragile, suffering from a recurring illness, and he hadn't even known about it. She'd told him nothing. He turned away from Pike, hardly hearing the other man as he talked. Perhaps if Nora had been completely honest with him from the start, and he with her, things would have been very different. And if he hadn't tried to play judge and jury, he might not be alone now.

“Where are you going?” Pike asked.

Cal hesitated. He thought about it for only an instant before he knew. His head lifted. “I'm going home,”
he said suddenly. “Send to Corsicana for that part we need,” he added on a sudden inspiration. He gave Pike the name of the man he'd worked for after he left the army, a man who'd made a pile in oil. He ran several rigs, and if there was a spare part available anywhere, he'd know about it. Furthermore, he'd send it right on, out of loyalty to Cal.

 

N
ORA STAYED IN BED
for several days, just long enough to get her strength back. Then she sat in the parlor with her aunt and cousin and forced herself to face the facts squarely. She had no parents to take care of her. Her husband had apparently written her off, vanishing without a word or a trace. She had no money and no means of earning any. But at least she was through this latest bout of fever, and despite her sadness at losing the baby, she was getting stronger by the day.

“I must find work,” Nora told the other two women.

Melly, who was still struggling with her own personal problem of confronting her parents with an increasingly impatient Jacob, leaned forward. “There's a teaching position available at the school,” she began.

“Melly, I cannot become a teacher,” Nora said dully. “The thought of being around children makes me sad, just now.”

“Forgive me,” Melly said quickly. “I didn't think.”

Nora waved her apology away. “In time, I might consider it. For the moment, I have no idea what I shall do.”

“You know that you are welcome to stay with us,” Helen said.

But Nora shook her head. “Not as a guest,” she said firmly. “If I stay here, it must be as a working woman.” It was hard to get the words out, a terrible blow to her pride. “If you will bear with me, while I learn the rudiments of housework—” her lower lip trembled, but she sat straighter and looked her aunt right in the eye “—I think I shall cope quite well.”

Helen's eyes crinkled with sorrow. “Oh, Nora,” she said miserably.

“It is not so terrible!” Nora assured her. “In fact, I can iron, you know,” she said with a smile. “I learned while I… Before I was ill,” she corrected. “I am quite proficient with an iron. And if you will teach me how to get the pans the proper temperature, I think I may master cooking one day.”

“Certainly I shall,” Helen said eagerly. “You will be an excellent pupil. But, Nora, it is such a drastic change for you, for a woman of your station and breeding. Oh, how can Cynthia allow your father to be so rigid!”

Because her father knew a truth that Helen didn't, Nora thought grimly. He knew that Nora had been pregnant and unmarried before Cal came to her rescue. She fought Cal out of her mind. If she thought about him, she would go mad.

“It doesn't matter. I would not go back to my parents now.” She felt a new maturity, a new confidence. Her ordeal had tempered her, like steel in fire. “It
won't hurt me to learn how to do things. I must start tomorrow.”

“Are you well enough?” Helen asked gently.

“I must be. Now, as to where I shall stay.” She hesitated. “The foreman's cabin…?”

Helen and Melly exchanged miserable glances.

“What is it?” Nora asked. “Please. Don't try to protect me. I have learned that I'm strong when I must be. What is it?”

“Cal Barton has resigned,” Helen said dully. “He sent a cable to Chester. It arrived this morning, from Beaumont.”

“Beaumont? Is that where he is?” Nora asked with helpless interest.

“That's where he was when he sent it,” Helen said. “He said that he would not be there past today. We don't know where he is going. He wouldn't say.”

“Obviously he has left me,” Nora said without inflection. “Well, it is just as well that I didn't have to send him packing myself.”

“He never left you when you were so ill,” Melly said in a subdued tone. “It was his baby, too, Nora.”

“Melly!” Helen chided.

Nora bit down hard on her lower lip. She looked away while she fought down the pain. She could not bear to think about it, about any of it. “I know you mean well, Melly,” she managed tightly, “but please, no more.”

“Forgive me,” Melly said guiltily.

Nora shrugged. She twisted her skirt in her hands. “I
must lie down for a little bit. Tomorrow morning I will begin my duties.” She held up her hand at her aunt's protest, looking at the older woman with tired eyes. “I don't want to embarrass you by looking for work in the town. You must appease me. I cannot stay here and eat your food and not work for my keep. It is unthinkable. Despite my father's claim, I am still a Marlowe. I will not accept charity, however well-meant.”

Helen got up and hugged her warmly. “You are still our niece, and it would not be charity,” she reminded her. “But I will do as you ask.”

Nora nodded. Impulsively she hugged Melly, too, who still looked guilty. “Someday I will be able to talk about it without becoming upset,” she explained a little shakily.

She left the room, and Melly sat back down with her mother. “She is suffering. But I fear that Mr. Barton is, also.”

“Chester will be lost without him,” Helen said sadly. “What a terrible turn of events. So much sorrow.”

“Didn't you often tell me that a sorrow is always rewarded by a joy?” Melly teased.

Helen smiled. “So I did.”

Melly studied the print of her skirt quietly while her mother watched her.

“You know,” she told the girl, “I have noticed that Mr. Langhorn is joining civic clubs lately. And he and Bruce were at services this Sunday.”

Melly flushed. She wondered if her mother had noticed the brief minute she and Jacob had spent together
while she explained what had been going on at the ranch.

Helen picked up her embroidery with a quick glance at her daughter. “I had thought we might invite him, and his son, to Sunday dinner next week. Your father agrees with me that he is not the roué we first thought him. In fact, your father is feeling very kindly toward Mr. Langhorn since he has offered him one of his fine breeding bulls at a very good price.”

Melly was astonished and couldn't hide it. Her face lit up, and her brown eyes.

Helen laid the embroidery down. “Honestly, you are my child. Did you think I would not see the sparks when you and Mr. Langhorn were together? A blind woman could see that he adores you. And, I think, the reverse is also true. Why didn't you tell me?”

Melly ran to her mother and knelt at her side, hugging her with broken, incoherent words of explanation and joy.

“Jacob was afraid that you would not allow him to court me at all, that you and Father would be against such a match because of his reputation. But he is not a bad man, and his wife was a terrible woman.”

“Yes, I know. Chester heard it from a relative of hers, not long ago,” she said gently. “Your Mr. Langhorn is welcome here, Melly. Not for all the world would I put you in the position that Nora was placed in, having to run away in secret to marry. It has taught me a sad lesson.”

“I, too, am sad about Nora. Her life has not been a happy one this past year.”

Helen smoothed back her daughter's dark hair with a loving hand. “Nor has yours. But I see happier times ahead for us all, my dear. And Christmas is coming fast.”

Melly grimaced. “It will not be a happy Christmas for our poor Nora. Or for Mr. Barton.” She frowned. “I wonder where he has gone.”

 

C
AL
B
ARTON HAD GONE TO
E
L
P
ASO
. More specifically, he had gone to Latigo.