Robin Lee Hatcher - [Coming to America 02] (4 page)

Inga glanced up as the door slammed closed.

“He’s still not used to children,” Hattie said, sounding apologetic.

Inga shrugged, ignoring the disappointment his departure caused as she lifted Suzanne into her arms. “Pappa always hid in his study when things got too noisy for him.” She swayed and shushed and stroked the child’s back with one hand. As Suzanne began to quiet, Inga kissed the tip of her nose. “I suppose your uncle is not so different from my pappa. What do you think,
prinsessa?
Do you think he is hiding like my pappa did when my sisters and I made too much noise?”

Suzanne stuck out her bottom lip as she drew in tiny gasps of breath.

Inga looked down at Martha. “What do you think,
kattunge?”

Martha frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“Kattunge?
It means kitten.” She set Suzanne back on her chair, then retrieved the broom and swept up the spilled food.

“What’dja call me that for?” Martha persisted.

Inga smiled. “It is habit, I suppose. I had pet names for each of my sisters when they were little.” She paused and met Martha’s gaze. “Do you mind?”

Sounding a lot like her uncle, the girl answered, “Don’t reckon I do.” She actually looked pleased as she slid off her chair and helped Inga clear the breakfast dishes from the table.

“You’ve a way with children, Miss Linberg,” Hattie commented.

The words gladdened Inga more than she’d have thought they would. But her pleasure was fleeting. When she looked at Hattie Bridger, she was alarmed by the sudden pallor of the older woman’s face.

As if she’d read Inga’s thoughts, Hattie rose from her chair, saying, “I’d best lie down for a spell. I’m feelin’ a bit peaked.”

“Do you need—”

Hattie waved away her offer of help before she could make it. “I’ll be fine now that we’ve got you t’look after the young’uns. Don’t worry ’bout me none.”

But her footsteps were shuffling as she made her way out of the kitchen, and Inga continued to worry. She knew Hattie wasn’t well. That was, after all, why she had come here—because Hattie was no longer strong enough to care for herself and her family. But still…

Inga gave her head a quick shake. She was borrowing trouble. A nap and some time away from the commotion of young children would likely have Hattie feeling refreshed and strong once again. Inga would check on her later. For now, there was much to be done.

First, she washed the breakfast dishes, and when she was finished, she heated more water on the stove and filled the washtub. After the children were bathed and dressed in clean
clothes, she sat them down on a blanket near the stove so their hair would dry quickly.

At midmorning, she took a cup of hot tea to Hattie. The woman apologized profusely for her weakness. Inga insisted she remain in bed the rest of the day, and Hattie did not seem inclined to argue with her.

To keep them occupied, Inga asked the girls to sort the quilting scraps she had brought with her from home into separate piles, depending upon color. She was certain she would have to reorganize them again at another time, but the purpose was to keep the children quietly occupied so their grandmother could sleep.

Once Martha and Suzanne understood what was expected of them, Inga returned to the kitchen, filled a pail with water, and began giving the room a thorough cleaning, something she suspected it hadn’t had in many months. Time fled, and before she knew it, she heard the stomping of boots just before the back door opened and Dirk reentered the house.

Inga, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees, felt a sting of embarrassment. She could feel rings of perspiration under her arms and a stripe of moisture along her spine. Her skirt was wet from the wash water. She sat back on her heels and swept her straggling hair from her face, knowing she must look a sight.

But despite whatever work he’d been doing, despite the redness of his cheeks from the cold winter air and the wildness of his windblown hair, Dirk Bridger looked even more handsome than she’d thought him this morning.

She blushed and could only hope and pray he would mistakenly think it was caused by heat from the stove.

“Where is everybody?” he asked as he shucked off his coat.

“Your mother is lying down. The children are in their room.”

He raised an eyebrow, as if doubting the truth of her reply.

Inga dropped the scrub brush into the murky water in the bucket and rose from the floor. Nervously, she ran the palms of her hands down the front of her skirt. “I am afraid I have forgotten the time. I haven’t prepared a noon meal.”

His gaze swept over the room, but he didn’t comment on what he saw or on what she’d said.

He had the most amazing eyes. Rich and dark. Yesterday she had thought them like coffee. Today she thought them more the color of baker’s chocolate. They seemed to take in everything around him, yet revealed nothing to others. She wished she knew what lay behind them. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

Her heart began to hammer wildly. Suddenly light-headed, she found it almost impossible to draw a breath. The room seemed far too warm. What was the matter with her? Was she ill? Only illness could explain the odd way she felt.

She turned her back toward Dirk. “I will make your dinner now.”

“No hurry. I’ll just look in on Ma. See how she’s feelin’.”

She heard him walking across the kitchen, felt the sudden emptiness of the room the moment he was gone. Her pulse slowed, her breathing became easier, the light-headedness vanished.

Being the sensible sort—just as her pappa expected her to be—Inga could not deny the truth. It wasn’t illness she’d been feeling, but an emotional and physical reaction to this man’s presence. She knew, of course, that the reaction was absurd. She had always thought her sisters silly when they would giggle and whisper about some boy. That such a thing should happen to her now, at her age, was disconcerting, to say the least.

“Well, it simply must stop,” she whispered with conviction as she set about making dinner, foolishly believing she could control the way Dirk Bridger made her feel.

D
irk hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about bringing a stranger into the Bridger home, but after a couple of days, he was forced to admit that Inga Linberg had made a difference. A difference for the better.

The house was cleaner and the meals were tasty. His ma looked more rested than she had in months. He’d actually heard her humming. Even his nieces looked tidy, their curly red hair captured in braids. Come to think of it, little Suzanne seemed less inclined to throw one of her temper tantrums, and Martha smiled more often than before. Funny, he hadn’t really thought about the girls’ behavior until he’d seen the changes in them.

On Saturday evening, after a supper of fried pork and potato griddle cakes—what Inga called
raggmunkar eller rårakor
—Dirk sat down at the kitchen table with his logbook and financial records. He thought sometimes that he hated this task even more than milking cows in the wee hours of the morning, perhaps because it was obvious to him when he saw how little money they had that he was failing everyone. His brother had managed to make a profit when he was living. Dirk was lucky to break even from year to year.

He didn’t know how long he’d been going over the figures and making entries before he became aware of soft voices coming from the living room. He twisted on his chair and looked through the open doorway at the cozy scene.

His mother was in her favorite overstuffed chair, the one closest to the fireplace. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was awake because she was smiling. Inga sat in the rocking chair John had made for Margaret when she was expecting Martha. A partially completed quilt lay in her lap, and she was taking small stitches in the fabric as she talked to Martha, who was kneeling beside the chair, watching intently. Suzanne lay on the rug near Inga’s feet. Unlike her grandmother, she had drifted off to sleep.

“It’s sorta like a painting, isn’t it?” Martha said.

“
Ja.
A little.”

“And you just make it up as you go?”

Inga nodded. “As I go.
Ja.”

Martha pointed at the quilt. “What’s that?”

“It is England. That is where my friend Beth is from.”

“Do you s’pose you could make a quilt for me?”

“Martha,” Hattie scolded without opening her eyes.

“It is all right, Mrs. Bridger,” Inga responded. “I would very much like to make quilts for the children.” She set her sewing in her lap and touched Martha’s cheek with her left hand. “But I will need to know you better before I can do so. I must know the story I need to tell before I begin. That will take some time.”

Curious, Dirk got up and went into the living room.

“Uncle Dirk,” Martha said when she saw him, “come look. Miss Inga tells stories with her quilts. See? This one shows the steamship she came to America on. And this one is the train her friend rode to get to Montana. The quilt’s for her friend’s new baby.”

Dirk wasn’t much of a judge of such things, but even he could see that Inga’s quilting skills were unique. She had used different colors of cloth—carefully cut and layered atop each
other—and fancy embroidery to make her pictures. There was a feeling of real movement in each quilt block.

In the first block was a large green and brown island, shaped like England. It was surrounded by a sea of blue fabric, tiny whitecaps embroidered to make the ocean. There was even a small steamship, departing a western port. Inga had captured the detail so perfectly that it was easy to imagine the ship was actually at sea. The second block showed a train rolling across tiny gray tracks, steam belching from the engine’s smokestack, tiny faces at the windows of the passenger car.

“Isn’t it pretty?” Martha asked.

“Sure is,” Dirk replied softly.

Inga glanced up with a hesitant smile, a tint of pink in her ivory cheeks. For an instant, he caught a glimpse of…

“Are you finished with your figurin’, son?”

Whatever he’d seen in her expression disappeared. Inga dropped her gaze and resumed sewing. With a shake of his head, Dirk turned toward his mother. “Yeah. I’m finished.”

Hattie looked at him, and he knew she understood how worried he was. He wished she didn’t know. She shouldn’t have to worry about money, on top of everything else.

“Well…” She pushed herself up from her chair. “I think it’s about time I took these tired old bones off to bed.” She stepped toward him, laying her hand against his chest. “Don’t fret, son,” she said softly. “It’ll work out. God’ll provide. You’ll see.”

He caught his mother’s hand and squeezed it gently, thinking how like parchment her skin felt, how fragile the bones of her fingers. At one time, Hattie Bridger had been a plump woman, but no longer. Now she seemed to be wasting away right before his eyes. If only there was more he could do for her.

She turned from him. “Carry Suzanne up to her bed, will you, son?”

His throat felt tight as he answered, “Sure, Ma.”

“Good night, Inga.”

“Good night, Mrs. Bridger.”

Dirk watched his mother walk to her first floor bedroom and knew real despair. She might look better than she had before Inga Linberg had come to help, but she still wasn’t well, still wasn’t strong. Dirk wanted to think the doctor’s prognosis was wrong, but he knew he was only trying to fool himself. His ma was dying. Dying by inches and trying hard not to let any of them see the pain she was feeling.

“Mr. Bridger?”

He turned, surprised to find Inga standing close behind him.

As their gazes met, mutual understanding passed between them. He saw sympathy in her pale blue eyes, felt it almost like a balm. For just that moment, it seemed the ever-present sense of heaviness lifted from his shoulders.

“I will see if she needs anything,” Inga told him.

He nodded, the tightness in his throat returning.

Inga moved passed him. He noted that she, too, was slight of build. But unlike his mother’s, Inga Linberg’s willowy figure disguised a surprising strength.

Anger sparked suddenly to life. It wasn’t fair! His ma was only fifty-seven. She shouldn’t look so old. She shouldn’t be dying. She should have a long life stretching before her. If she hadn’t had to work so hard, trying to hold everything together for her family…

He turned around and crossed to the sleeping child on the floor. Frustration made his voice gruffer than he’d intended as he said, “Time for bed, Martha.” He bent down and lifted Suzanne into his arms. “Now!”

“You needn’t fuss over me, Inga,” Hattie protested weakly as she sank onto the stool in front of the dresser.

“I want to help, Mrs. Bridger.” She pulled back the covers on the bed and fluffed the pillows.

The older woman let out a long sigh. “You have been a godsend, young woman. But what will happen after I’m—” She stopped abruptly.

Inga turned to meet Hattie’s gaze in the dressing table mirror. “Mrs. Bridger,” she whispered, “you must not worry. Your son will see to everything.”

“I can’t seem t’help it. We all know I’m dyin’. There’s no point in tryin’ to deny it. But what’s gonna happen to Dirk and the girls when I’m gone? Dear God, what’s gonna happen to them?” She covered her face with her hands. She made no sound, but her shoulders shook as she began to cry.

Inga crossed the room and sat on the stool beside Hattie, taking her into her arms as she would have done one of the children. “You must not worry,” she crooned. “It will be all right. You must not worry.”

It was several minutes before Hattie stilled. Finally, she sat up straight and dried her tears, staring all the while at her reflection. “My son is so unhappy,” she said, the sound of a mother’s broken heart in her words. “He had such big dreams, and they’ve all been stripped from him, one by one.”

“He does not blame you.”

“No.” Hattie shook her head. “He doesn’t blame me. But all the same, it’s killed somethin’ inside him, bein’ stuck here on this farm. He’s dyin’ just as sure as I am. If he’d turn to God for help, he might find release. Only he refuses.”

Inga felt her own heart breaking as she listened. She longed to comfort this woman. She longed to comfort this woman’s son. She hadn’t known, when she volunteered to come here, that this family needed so much more than a housekeeper, and she wondered how she could help them in the way they needed most.

Hattie’s eyes looked watery. “He was always the dreamer, my Dirk. Always the one wantin’ to do other things, go other places. When my husband was alive, Dirk was always tellin’ him how much more there was to see in the world than just our farm in Ohio. If his father hadn’t taken ill, he’d have been halfway around the world by the time he was eighteen.” She drew a ragged breath. “I admit I was hopin’ he’d get married and settle down, have himself a family of his own. He was keepin’ company with a young widow a few years back, and I thought…Well, I thought if he’d just fall in love, maybe it would stop his yearnin’ for wanderin’. Maybe he did love her. Maybe she wouldn’t have him. I don’t know. All I know is, the bitterness is eatin’ at him, and he’s hurtin’ because of it.”

“You are tired, Mrs. Bridger. You should be in bed.”

“He hates this place, Inga. My, how he hates it. But he’s a man of honor, my Dirk, and he’ll never shirk his duty. He’ll stay here till those girls are grown and married, and by then…” Her voice trailed off into silence.

“Wait here,” Inga said softly as she rose from the stool. “I will get a stone from the hearth and then help you to bed. You will feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

“A good night’s sleep,” the older woman repeated, as if not understanding the meaning.

Silently, Inga prayed for wisdom and words of comfort as she went after the warming stone.

Over the years, she had often accompanied her pappa when he’d gone to pray for the sick and the dying, and she had helped her mamma prepare food to take to distraught families. It wasn’t as if she were unacquainted with such situations. Only tonight, the suffering had become personal to her.

By the time she returned to Hattie’s bedroom, the woman had already gotten into her bed. Inga placed the heated stone
near her feet, then pulled the blankets up and tucked them around her shoulders.

“God bless you,” Hattie said, her voice weak.

“And you, Mrs. Bridger.”

Hattie’s eyelids drifted closed, and within moments, she slept.

Inga sighed, then extinguished the lamp before turning to leave the room. She stopped with a gasp of surprise when she spied Dirk observing her from the doorway, his face obscured in shadows.

When her heart slowed its riotous beating, she said, “She is asleep.”

“You’ve been mighty good to her.”

“I have done what I can.”

“No, you’ve done more than that.”

She wasn’t certain what he meant, but she hadn’t an opportunity to ask before he turned and walked away.

Dirk leaned his forearms on the top rail of the stall and stared at the cow inside. The Jersey was dry now, awaiting the birth of a calf in about six weeks.

He would have liked to let all the cows go dry in the fall and not start milking again until after calving in the spring, the way it used to be done when everything depended upon pasturage and dairymen didn’t feed their cows silage and grain throughout the winter months. But his brother had intended this to be a modern dairy farm with all the most recent inventions, and John had gone to great lengths and expense to make it so. Trouble was, he’d invested all his money in the barn and cows and had put nothing into the house or other livestock. There’d been no money left in reserve at the time of his death.
Because of it, his children would go hungry if Dirk didn’t sell milk the whole year round.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the back of his hands.

What was he going to do when his ma died? How was he going to run this place and take care of John’s daughters?

Maybe he should sell the farm. Except he couldn’t do that. This land and house were the only legacy Martha and Suzanne had of their father and mother. If Dirk sold it, he would be betraying the trust his brother had had in him.

The Jersey mooed, and Dirk opened his eyes to look at her. Flower, the girls called the fawn-colored milk cow. The day Dirk had first arrived at the Bridger farm in the winter of ’ninety-six, Flower had gone into labor. There had been a raging blizzard that night with temperatures dropping far below zero, and the birth had been a difficult one. He’d spent the night in the barn, trying to save both cow and calf. That had been his introduction to life on a dairy farm.

And there’d been similar scenes in the twenty-two months he’d lived here. More than he cared to remember. He would probably repeat them countless times before Martha and Suzanne were grown.

He shoved off from the fence, striding toward the barn door. As he stepped outside, he stopped and looked up at the sky. Not a star could be seen because of the clouds hovering low in the sky. There was a nip in the air that told him it would probably snow tonight.

Snow. And he still hadn’t repaired that broken runner on the sleigh. He’d have to get to it first thing tomorrow. It wouldn’t do for them to be without transportation. Not with his mother ailing.

He started toward the house, mentally ticking off a list of more things he needed to do before the next day was done. Then he glanced up, and his footsteps slowed.

In the glow of the lamplight, he saw Inga’s silhouette against the curtains of her upstairs bedroom. She was special, this Swedish minister’s daughter. Her sweet spirit had brought something to their home that had been absent too long.

He looked away quickly. Just what he didn’t need. To think of Inga as anything other than what she was—the hired help.

Bending into the wind, he headed toward the house.

Inga knelt beside her bed—hands clasped, eyes closed, head bowed—and whispered her evening prayers. First she prayed for Hattie Bridger, for an easing of the woman’s pain. Next she prayed for Martha and Suzanne, asking God for wisdom and patience that she might be able to give them the love and guidance they needed. Then she lifted Dirk Bridger’s name before the Almighty.