Still House Pond (30 page)

Manda took off her bonnet and laid it on the bench. She plucked a grape and popped it into her mouth. “You're so lucky to be here.”

Darcy threw a red bouncing ball and Henry Jr. chased it, laughing and bringing it back to his mother. “It's not this place that blesses me. It's this boy. As soon as Henry has served his term, we're out of here.”

Manda was surprised. “But why? You have your shop and your house. It all seems perfect for you.”

“The house and the store are rented. Everything I own can be packed and moved at a moment's notice. I even kept the box the chandelier came in.”

“That might be a long time coming, though, right?”

Darcy fed Henry bites of cheese. “I trust you as my sister to keep what I'm going to tell you to yourself.”

“I will. I promise.”

Darcy looked across the water as if weighing her thoughts. Then the old Darcy smile spread across her face. Manda thought she looked like a girl again. “Henry's name will come up for a possible pardon from the governor next spring. I'm very hopeful.”

Manda almost choked on a grape. Pardoned? What would that do to her plans? Henry Thomas wouldn't want her hanging around once he came home.

“If that happens—pray it will—we'll be starting over, probably in Chicago. Henry has connections there. And it's a big city—you wouldn't believe it.” Darcy bounced the ball. Her eyes were shining as she turned to Manda. “You could go with us.” She swept the air with her hand. “If you think this is grand, you should see the parks in Chicago.”

“Chicago?” Manda felt like her brain was doing cartwheels. Just a few minutes ago she thought she'd had her life figured out. “I don't even know where that is.”

“It's in Illinois. Not so very far away. I lived there for a short time after Henry and I wed. You've forgotten.”

Manda folded bread around a piece of cheese. She felt very small for thinking of what she wanted over what would obviously make her sister happy. It was so hard not to be selfish. “Why would the governor care about Henry?”

“This is how the Lord works. I've prayed and prayed for Him to find a way for Henry to come back to me. Then out of the blue, I got asked to make several frocks for a woman who would be going abroad. This was all hush-hush. I was intrigued. Plus, the money was good. Nobody told me who she was, but I was asked to go to Frankfort to take measurements. I closed the shop for a few days, left Henry Jr. with the nanny, and hopped on the train. They paid for everything.”

Looking around to see if anyone was listening, Darcy's voice fell to a stage whisper. “That woman is the governor's wife. A friend of hers wore one of my creations at a fancy ball, and she simply had to have one like it, only different of course. I was there for several days, helping her select fabrics and fitting her in muslin mocks.”

Henry Jr. leaned against his mother's knee, rubbing his eyes and fussing. Darcy started packing up the remains of their lunch. Pigeons cooed and jockeyed for position at her feet as she shook their napkins free of crumbs.

“She is a very gracious woman, and she was interested in me. That's rare, I'll tell you. Usually women of means act like I'm invisible, like my only life is sewing. But the governor's wife is not that way. For some reason, I felt compelled to tell her everything. And the rest, as they say, I hope will be our history.”

* * *

Darcy stopped at the hall tree on their way out the door and took two umbrellas from the tin umbrella well. “Looks like we might need these,” she said as gray clouds scuttled across the sun.

Manda's mood darkened with the day. Nothing looked as bright and charming as it had this morning before Darcy sprung a pardon on her. They were passing the drugstore before she noticed.

“Let's stop and get your stationery,” Darcy said. “You can write your letter at the shop, and we'll post it on the way home. You'll feel better once that's done. And, oh—don't let me forget to buy a newspaper.”

Manda hated to buy a box of paper and matching envelopes when one of each would do. She counted her change and picked out the cheapest box available.

“I'll get this,” Darcy said. “What you don't use, I will. Besides, I owe you for the work you did this morning.”

Manda put her money back in her small drawstring purse. “Thank you. Don't forget you wanted to get a newspaper.”

As soon as they got to the shop, Darcy made tea and poured two cups. She took hers to her desk and unfolded the paper.

“What should I do now?” Manda asked.

“Hmm?” Darcy looked up from the paper. “Enjoy your tea; then I'll get you started hemming another skirt. I just want to read the front section before I get busy.”

Manda wandered around the room lost in thought, being careful not to spill. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if she did go to Chicago with Darcy and her husband. If she liked this small city so much, she might love a big one. Anyway, it would be almost a year before Henry got out of prison, if at all. And she could tell she was going to like working for her sister.

She finished her tea and went to get Darcy's cup. She could wash them in the sink in the back room.

Darcy was still bent over the newspaper.“Do you know what train Lilly was taking?” she said without looking up.

“Sure, it was Republic's Old Number Twelve. Why?”

Darcy thrust the paper at her. She could see the big, black headline streaming across the top of the first page:
Train Wreck at Four Corners Kills 6. Many Injured.

Manda felt her stomach drop. “This doesn't mean Lilly Gray.”

Darcy turned to the last page of the front section and folded it for Manda. Near the bottom of a column, Old Number Twelve leaped out at her. Her mind raced. This was Friday. The wreck happened late Wednesday. It had to be Lilly's train.

“I have to go home,” Manda said.

With key in hand, Darcy was already at the door. “Let's go back to the drugstore. They'll have a train schedule.”

Manda forgot about her own predicament as fear for Lilly consumed her.“You should pray. God listens to you.”

Darcy turned the sign in the window. “I already am. You do the same.”

30

Copper was numb in mind and body as the train rolled on toward Jackson. She didn't know how the sheriff managed to get the conductor to make an exception for them, and she didn't care. She supposed everyone who had anything to do with the dreadful accident was making exceptions and bending rules. Her only focus was on getting home and finding Lilly, and to do that with half a mind left, she had to keep herself in check.

John had caught on and had stopped trying to talk to her. She knew he was in his own torment of fear for Lilly, but she couldn't help him. She couldn't help anybody. Keeping her face turned to the window, she watched a brewing storm as miles passed by. A mantle of self-reproach as heavy as the leaden clouds settled on her shoulders. She toyed with guilt as if her how-could-I? litany might change the past. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had blithely turned her back on her family, her precious children, and gone off to minister to the Mortons. How could she have been so cavalier?

The
click-click-click
of the wheels on the track lulled her as heavy raindrops spattered against the window. John leaned across her, watching as lightning flashed a warning in the strangely green sky and the tops of trees twisted in a fierce wind.

With a fearsome screech the train stopped short. The force flung Copper forward. Bracing himself, John shot one arm in front of her, barely managing to keep her from slamming into another seat.

“Something's up,” he said.

“Is that the train?” she asked, straining to be heard above the howling sound.

“No. It's the wind.” He leaned over her. “Look out the window.”

Just across a field they could see a twirling black mass of debris. As delicately as flowers plucked from a garden, the suction from the wind tweaked a post-and-rail fence from the ground and then deposited each piece, as neat as you please, along the fence line. Suddenly a barn burst apart, sending boards and roofing skyward. As if compelled, they stared as the mammoth twister dipped and lifted in an obscene dance of destruction.

“Wow,” John kept saying. “Wow.”

As abruptly as it had formed, the storm cloud dissipated into many impotent arms. Through the window, they watched men from the train sprinting across the field toward a white wood-sided house with half a roof.

John rose and started up the aisle.

Copper felt under the seat for her doctor's bag. “Wait for me. I'm coming with you.”

The woman of the house and her three small children were unhurt. Her husband, she told them, had gone to check on an elderly neighbor whom they knew would be frightened by the coming storm.

“I wish you'd check on my cow,” the lady said. “I'm scared to look.”

Everyone from the train looked at the pile of splintered black boards and twisted tin roofing that had been the barn.

“Stay here,” John said, and Copper did. The last thing she wanted to see was the family's cow at the bottom of that heap. Instead she waited on the porch with the farmwife and the three children.

The woman's eyes sparkled with tears. “I'll sure miss my Bossy. She was a good milker.”

Copper murmured words of condolence as they watched the men heave rubbish to the side. Then the mood turned. They heard laughter and saw men slapping each other on the back. John turned toward the porch and motioned them over.

They hurried to what minutes ago had been the barn. Copper couldn't believe her eyes. The Guernsey stood in front of a feed box, chewing her cud, as placid as the day is long.

“Praise the good Lord. He saved her.” The lady smiled through her tears. “We can fix the barn and the roof, but I couldn't replace my Bossy.”

As if in acknowledgment, a rainbow arched across the sky. Copper could have fallen to her knees. The Lord was good. He was in control. Whatever they faced, He would see them through.

The men worked until the woman's husband came home, bringing the elderly neighbor with him.

“Love thy neighbour as thyself,”
the man's deed reminded her. Though she was just as frightened and just as heartsick, she was no longer in the depths of despair.

After they walked back to the train, John saw her to her seat, then went back out to help clear the fallen tree that had brought the train to a screaming halt. It was late and dusk was falling. It felt like they would never get home. She rested her head on the seat back. All she could do was wait. Wait and pray.

They sat on the tracks for hours and didn't make it to Jackson until way after midnight. The station was deserted when they arrived. Nobody knew they were coming, so nobody waited with a ride. The livery wouldn't be open this late. They'd either have to walk the few miles home or wait until morning.

“Let's walk,” she said. “I can't stand another minute of sitting.”

They went past the telegraph agent's office, which was located inside the train station. The door was open, and they could see the dispatcher's fingers tapping out Morse code on a set of brass keys. He squinted in the smoke from a cigarette. A half-empty mug of what looked like coffee was within easy reach. While typing with one hand, he put up the other as if to say, “Wait.”

Finished with the message, he pushed a green eyeshade off his face. His hair stuck up behind it like a bad cowlick. A faint red line creased his forehead. “Say, ain't you the folks that went to the train wreck?” he asked, stubbing out his smoke in an overflowing ashtray.

“Yes,” John said. “We're on our way home to Troublesome Creek.”

Still sitting, he walked his chair to the doorway. “Ain't anybody coming to carry you home?”

“No, we didn't know we were coming tonight ourselves.”

“Ain't you the ones had a girl on that train? What happened there?”

Copper tugged on John's sleeve. She didn't think she could bear to hear the story spoken to a stranger. “Let's go. We've a long walk yet.”

“You can take my horse. He's the only one in the lot out back. The saddle's on the fence.”

“That's mighty kind of you,” John said.

“Glad to be of help. Leave me directions, and I'll borrow the stationmaster's nag and come fetch mine after my shift ends.”

John fished a silver dollar from his pocket.

The man threw his hands up. “No, I ain't doing this for pay. Your daughter's the talk of the town. Everybody's real concerned.”

Despite her weariness, Copper was touched by the dispatcher's words. “Thank you,” she said as John went to get the horse. “It's good to know people care.”

He coughed dryly and lit another smoke. The chair creaked when he leaned back. “Some people say us that telegraph news over the wire're no better'n dogs sniffing after spoiled meat. But what I've learned is that folks care about other folks—that's why they read the news. And they always want to hear the rest of the story.”

“I never thought about it that way, but it's true. You can tell people our daughter wasn't on the train after all. We're going home to find her.”

“Tell you what,” he said as a message jiggling across the wire caught his attention, “I won't send anything out until I know the end.”

* * *

A coal-oil lamp in the kitchen window welcomed them home. Copper was thankful the children were asleep.

Remy hobbled into the room. She was fully clothed as if she had been waiting for them. “Ary news?”

Copper pulled a chair out from the table and sat down wearily. “We don't know where she is. I hoped against hope that she'd be here when we got home.”

“I'm sorry, Purty. I was praying you'd bring her with you. I can't figure what could have happened.”