The Endless Forest (47 page)

—

Martha woke and was immediately aware of her surroundings. Daniel was sitting beside her, naked, which brought to mind what had been going on in this bed. Tentatively she flexed muscles to see which of them could be relied upon.

Everything was sore, but the worst was the deep burning itch that reminded her of the obvious: She was well and truly married.

She sat up. “You’ve been watching me again,” she said. “Second thoughts?”

He leaned forward and kissed her. “Not me. You?”

“Of course not. But then I got the better deal. I got you and all the rest of the Bonners, and you got—well, you know who you got.”

She was babbling, but he dealt with that by kissing her again. The weight of his arm around her shoulders was so comforting, she could almost hear the unspoken words.

I’m here. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere
.

He said, “I’m not worried about the baggage that comes along for the ride.”

“Oh, Jemima would like that, being called baggage.” She tried to hold on to her smile but it faltered.

Daniel touched his forehead to hers. He said, “She can’t hurt you anymore.”

Martha wanted to believe it was so, but she would need time before she could trust her good fortune.

They were having a conversation about what came next when there was a pounding at the downstairs door. It was at that moment Martha realized that the storm wasn’t going away. In fact, the sky flickered with lightning.

Daniel raised one brow and inclined his head to say she should stay where she was. Then he pulled on his breeks and went down the stairs three at a time to answer the door. Martha, wrapped in her night rail, came out onto the landing.

The boy who stood there was perhaps Birdie’s age. He wore an old wool tricorn that was too big for him, water rolling off it in a steady stream. He was saying, “A message from the old Mrs. Allen, sir. She said it was important.”

“Go on, then, I’m listening.”

The boy straightened.

“Mrs. Allen says, don’t you think about setting off for home in the middle of a storm. She says that Michael will stay put in Little Falls until it’s safe to travel, and so should you. Stay here, not Little Falls. At least I think that’s what she meant. Why would she tell you to stay put and go to Little Falls as well?”

“I understand what she meant,” Daniel said. “Go on.”

“There’s food and firewood enough, and you aren’t to worry about the animals because Henry will take care of all that. She wants you to stay another night so you can meet up with Michael tomorrow. And I’m to take back word what you want to do but hurry if you would, Mr. Bonner, I saw a cow struck dead in a thunderstorm last spring and I don’t care to find out what it felt like.”

Daniel glanced up at Martha. The idea of staying another night appealed, certainly more than going out into the weather. She nodded, and Daniel sent the boy on his way with his answer.

Before he could close the door, the boy was back again.

“I forgot something. Mrs. Allen says I should say about the hip bath in the workroom. Please help yourself to towels and whatever else serves.”

Martha said, “Bath?”

E
than and Callie ate breakfast together at nine in the hotel dining room. She studied the food on her plate as though it were a painting, and picked up her fork with reluctance. She had done her best with soap and water, but her scrubbed hands and face only made the traveling dress she had worn yesterday look worse.

He had hoped that she would be rested enough to talk about what was before them, but now Ethan doubted it could be done. He was wondering how best to proceed when she looked up at him.

“About the boy she named for my father,” she said. “He could be anyone, an orphan she picked up off the street.”

“True.”

“I don’t believe he’s my brother. I think it’s one of her tricks.”

“You may be right,” Ethan said.

“That’s her plan,” Callie said firmly. “If she can’t get everything, she’ll get at least half, through the boy.”

“And the good news about that,” Ethan said, “is the nature of the law.
They can file a claim on the estate, but that’s the kind of thing that can take years to make its way through the court system.”

Callie snorted softly. “And in the meantime she’ll be sitting there like a spider, just waiting. I don’t know why I agreed to this plan; she will have her way in the end and there’s nothing you can do to stop her.”

Her tone was so bitter and fraught that at first Ethan couldn’t think how to reply. She was prickly and always had been, but her temper was always countered by a sense of humor and love of the absurd. Now she seemed to be on the verge of something much darker.

Maybe, Ethan reminded himself, because she had no illusions about Jemima. Jemima knew no bounds and accepted no limits. And of course the boy might be who she said he was. Callie’s half brother. Her only blood kin in the world.

He said, “If he is your brother, he’s your last tie to your father.”

Her expression softened. He had said aloud the thing she wouldn’t allow herself to hope for.

“If he is,” she said. “If he is my half brother, I don’t want her to have the raising of him.”

Ethan studied the pattern of bluebells on his plate and tried to think of a way to tell her the truth. No court of law would take a son away from a mother to be raised by an underage sister.

She said, “If I were married, it would be easier to make the case, wouldn’t it?”

“It would make many things easier,” Ethan said. “But not everything.”

She went away into her thoughts, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere behind him. Finally she raised her gaze to his.

“When would we go to see Mr. Cady?”

“In the afternoon,” Ethan said. “If that suits you.”

In the long silence that followed he was almost sure she had decided against the whole plan.

“And what do we do in the meantime?”

“Shopping,” Ethan said. “We go shopping.”

She started to object, and then stopped herself. Callie had lost everything in the flood, and so for the past weeks she had been relying on borrowed clothes, ill fitting and much the worse for wear. He knew that as much as she disliked the idea of a trip to the shops, she was too practical to deny the need.

“All right, then,” she said. “Let’s go.”

—

They borrowed an umbrella from the innkeeper and made their way across the cobblestones to the dry goods store, trying to avoid puddles and mud and only partially succeeding.

Just before they reached it, Callie said, “I wonder where they could have gone.”

Ethan was spared the necessity of a reply by Mr. Turner, who came to the door to welcome them, with his wife standing just beyond. The Turners were always very happy to see Ethan and they greeted Callie too, as though she were dressed like a lady of means rather than a farmwife in difficulties.

With a minimum of fuss Mr. and Mrs. Turner took Ethan’s list—he saw Callie glance at it suspiciously as he handed it over—and began to gather things together. Mrs. Turner paused now and then to cast an experienced eye over Callie to gauge her size, and in a very short time the counter was piled high with chemises, stays, vests, petticoats, two pairs of fashionable drawers that made Callie’s eyebrows peak; six pairs of cotton stockings, six of wool and one of silk, garters, a substantial shawl, a hooded mantle, a pair of light slippers for indoors, a pair of fancy leather boots such as a lady wore on the street, another pair of solid work boots, neckerchiefs, and gloves.

The gowns were the most difficult, as Ethan knew would be the case.

She said, “I have no use for finery like this when I’m in the orchard or cider house.”

From the corner of his eye he saw the vaguest hint of surprise pass over Mrs. Turner’s face.

“Mrs. Turner, we’ll need three very simple workday gowns, of solid construction. What do you have that will fit Miss Wilde?”

There wasn’t much of a choice in ready-made gowns, but they seemed to suit Callie’s sense of what was appropriate. Sturdy osnaburg in muted colors, without ornamentation, cut unfashionably full in arm and shoulder. Made for a woman who ran a household and kept her own garden.

“And that one.” Ethan stepped forward to touch one of the gowns that had been set aside. A simple printed summer-weight cotton, pale yellow with a scattering of small flowers and trailing greenery. There was a simple ruffled collar and a green plaid ribbon to go with it, and a matching straw hat with a scoop brim lined in pale yellow.

“I don’t need it,” Callie said. “Three gowns are enough.”

“Nevertheless,” Ethan said calmly.

Callie’s expression darkened, and then she seemed to tire of the conversation. She walked away to examine buckets on the other end of the crowded store.

“If you would please have these things delivered to Miss Wilde’s room at the White Horse right away,” Ethan said. “We have another list.”

They bought split-oak baskets, barrels and spigots, buckets, shovels, rakes of three different sizes, pitchforks, a sturdy shovel, two tin washtubs, a gross of gallon jugs, rope and wire, nails, saws, axes, a turnscrew, mallets and hammers, a ladder, and a great variety of other tools and supplies that had been lost in the flood. Halfway through this process Callie seemed to come awake, and some color came into her cheeks.

Ethan said, “I think a Franklin stove would be a good addition to the cider house.”

She turned to look at him, and there was not a hint of anger or cynicism in her face. “Ethan. You will bankrupt yourself.”

“Hardly. Mr. Turner, will you make sure that the stove comes on the wagon with the rest of the supplies?”

Her mouth pursed, as if she had to resist the urge to argue with him.

Ethan said, “You could go back to the inn, if you like. I have a few more matters to settle, but I will join you for lunch.”

It was still raining, but Callie took her new umbrella and after studying the mechanism for a moment, opened it and went out into the street to make her way back to the White Horse. With a certain girlish pleasure she stepped hard in every puddle she passed.

Herlinde Metzler, employed in the kitchen of Mrs. Louise Kummer’s boardinghouse until that substantial lady was felled by apoplexy, was busy in the scullery at the White Horse when she was called to the front desk. She had joined the staff just two weeks earlier, but the innkeeper and his wife seemed to be satisfied with her work, and thus far she got along well enough with the other servants. A better place than the one she had had with Mrs. Kummer. More than she had dared hope for.

Now the mistress directed her to take hot water and fresh towels to
the young lady who had checked in yesterday afternoon. “And whatever else she requires,” said Mrs. Mulroney. “Spare no effort.”

Which was what an innkeeper said when a guest was known to make free with his purse.

A half hour later she knocked lightly at Miss Wilde’s door and was surprised almost beyond speech by the appearance of the young woman who answered. Slightly built and no more than plain, Miss Wilde was wearing a bodice and skirt that should have long ago been cut up for rags. The hem had been dragged through the mud, and brushing had not taken away the stains; there was a hole in her stocking the size of an egg, and the seam where bodice met skirt was gaping. More telling still, her hands were red and rough with work, and her skin sun-darkened.

Herlinde saw all this in a few seconds, and then bowed her head not to give away her thoughts, which were very simple: What was a countrywoman of no means doing in this room in the finest inn in Johnstown?

Instead she said, “Your bathwater, Miss Wilde.”

The young woman stepped aside.

Herlinde went about her work. She stoked the fire and poured hot water into the basin, folded towels and set them out. All the time her gaze kept drifting back to the slight figure standing at the window.

She was about to withdraw when someone scratched at the door. A glance at Miss Wilde made it clear that she had no intention of answering, and so Herlinde went.

Young Matthew Turner held out a package, rain spattered, and danced from foot to foot until she took it from him. Then he dashed away.

“From the dry goods store. Shall I unpack it?”

Strictly speaking this was not something she should offer to do; she was not a lady’s maid or secretary. She was a maid of all work, and nothing more. But it had been such a long time since she had had the pleasure of opening up a parcel, and she was curious about this odd young woman who dressed so poorly and seemed so out of place.

Miss Wilde nodded without turning around. “Please.”

It wasn’t until that point that Herlinde noticed the bed, and the piles of new clothes, some folded, some laid out, that covered its entire surface.

In spite of herself, Herlinde was interested. Most of the things she could see were plain, but all were of very high quality. There was no lace,
nor any embroidery or fancy pleats but still, a small fortune spent in carefully made, good quality gowns and the other things a lady needed to consider herself properly attired.