Mail Order Bride- Winter Page 5

  She was barely able to keep her caustic tongue in check while they two were part of a group; around the Forresters’ dinner table, for example, or at some social function like a wedding or a church service. Alone, like this, with no chance of interruption, she felt almost dumbstruck.

  “It is such a surprise,” she finally managed. “My personal collection of books is quite meager, and I shall enjoy reading this one. Thank you, Gabriel. I’m surprise you didn’t save such a lavish present for my birthday. Or Christmas.”

  “Just please accept my humble gift.”

  Gabriel put a hand over hers, over the book. “It’s just a small thing,” he said gently. “Saw the book in Abigail’s shop, and thought you might like it for your own self. That’s all.”

  “It’s much appreciated. Thank you.”

  “Yep. You’re entirely welcome. And please accept my deepest apologies for any of our arguments in the past.” Gabe, already opening the door, turned back for a parting shot: “Quite a stalwart feller, ole Hereward. Sorta like me.” With a fierce waggle of his eyebrows, he lumbered out.

  Hannah sat at her desk, staring after him thoughtfully. It crossed her mind that usually she should have had the presence of mind to follow his exit with a wicked, well-aimed missile (the container of pencil shavings, perhaps; or the recently refilled ink pot) targeted right at his head. But things seemed different between them now. He had apologized and got her a very thoughtful gift. So he was forgiven.

  Chapter Five

  “HE GAVE YOU WHAT?”

  “I told you. A book. One from way back in time, about Hereward the Wake.”

  “Hereward the Who?”

  “Oh, Camellia, great stars above. I realize you’re distracted—and you have good reason to be, but—I need some advice. He’s suddenly being nice to me. And we’re not arguing anymore trying to get our points across.”

  “It seems a very nice gesture. You two didn’t get along and he’s making up for it. What a gentleman he is. It’s true that Gabe has strong opinions like yourself, but he can be quite thoughtful when he wants to be, and you should—”

  “If you tell me I ought to be grateful that for a few brief minutes the man actually acted like a decent human being, that he actually showed me a courtesy, I—I—well, I believe I’ll just march right out of here, Camellia Burton.”

  The correction came automatically. “Camellia Forrester.” With an abstracted Madonna’s smile and a gentle hand curved over the small mound of a five months’ pregnancy.

  It was a bleak, overcast afternoon in early December, with the sort of dampness in the air that precludes rain, if the temperatures are warm enough, or light snow, if not. Every tree stood weighted down with moisture, as dark and depressing as if the sun would never shine its healing rays again; more moisture beaded against the glass of window panes and lay in deceptively slippery droplets on painted verandah floorboards. Even the last of the garden mums drooped, in melancholic submission.

  Hannah had neither seen nor talked to her eldest sibling since the Thanksgiving dinner, and then only in bits and pieces, with dozens of other diners crowded around. She had decided to stop by today, despite the weather, for a few hours of girl talk and gossip. When Ben opened the door to her knock, she had found Camellia comfortably ensconced on the settee, draped with an afghan, blinking sleepily over a cup of tea and a copy of the most recent Gazette.

  “Didja come to keep Cam company?” he jovially greeted her. “She needs to see a fresh face; she’s gettin’ awful tired of my ole mug bein’ the only one here.”

  “Oh, Ben, how you do run on.” Camellia’s scolding sounded exactly like that of a southern belle. No surprise if she had suddenly slapped lightly at his arm and caroled, “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!” “Hello, Hen, I’m glad you came to visit. Everything is so dreary that my husband practically has me under lock and key, refusing to let me out, and I’m about bored senseless.”

  “And now that I know she won’t be left alone, I can head on over to the store. Elvira is out sick with a bad cold, and Jimmy needs some help. Got a big shipment due in today.” Ben gathered up his hat and heavy coat, paused to give his supine wife a tender kiss, and made his escape into the ever-challenging, ever-changing world of retail.

  Fondly shaking her head, Camellia sent her shopkeeper spouse off with a smile. “The silly man. Hen, this is such a delightful surprise, your coming by. Please, join me with a cup of tea, won’t you?” Even as she made motions to pull her burgeoning frame upright and off the cushions, Hannah demurred.

  “You’re all comfy, Cam. I can certainly serve myself. And, look—I brought a box of sugar cookies from the bakery!”

  “Oh, Hen, you work so hard. You shouldn’t be spending your money on frivolous things.”

  “Since when,” Hannah, already rattling around in the kitchen, demanded with asperity, “are sweets to feed the soul considered frivolous?”

  “Well...since you put it that way...”

  A soft spatter of rain began hitting the windows and pattering lightly on the roof overhead. While the fragrance of fresh rain, that clean sweet smell that washed away accumulated dust, would always lighten the senses, the sting of coolness could not. Hannah, hunkered down in her sister’s cozy parlor, felt a surge almost of voluptuousness that reveled in the mellow light of lanterns and the snapping warmth of hearth fire.

  Settling in with a sweep of plaid wool skirts, she asked Camellia how her health was faring.

  “Oh, I seem to alternate between incredible bursts of energy and draining bouts of exhaustion,” the woman laughed. As if to prove her statement, she yawned behind one palm and then luxuriously stretched. “But, I must say, Ben is spoiling me atrociously. He hardly expects me to lift a finger.”

  “Except when it comes to his meals, I’d be willing to venture.”

  “Well...meals. You know, there’s very little that comes between a man and his empty stomach.” Laughing again, she reached for her teacup. “I take care of the everyday work, but the heavier things—laundry, and changing sheets, that sort of thing—he won’t let me touch.”

  “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It seems to me, when you’re not often at your best, having to deal with so much extra would be awfully difficult.”

  “Yes, you’re right. Except that he wants to hire someone soon to help out. Can you imagine, me with a maid? Why, Turnabout would never get over the scandal. I can just hear the gossip: Who does she think she is, royalty? Just because a woman is with child doesn’t mean she should spend the day, sitting around with her feet up. All the rest of us have managed on our own!”

  Now they shared their laughter. Once upon a time, during the years that seemed an eternity ago and a world apart, their many-storied mansion had reverberated with the never-ending work of servants: upstairs and downstairs, cook, gardener, laundress, handyman, stable crew, and so on.

  All four Burton girls, Hannah reflected with satisfaction, could be quite proud of the challenges they had been forced to take on and the varied types of work they had learned to accomplish since those early halcyon days. Then, existence was simply a continual stream of ease and pleasure, with no chore more daunting than the decision of which dress to wear for dinner.

  “Have you begun to gather things together for a nursery?” asked Hannah, with a prospective aunt’s interest in details.

  “Oh, yes. I’ve been cutting and sewing, making blankets and tiny garments that seem doll-size by comparison to a human child, knitting this and that.” Sighing with happiness, she nibbled on one of the bakery cookies. Quite delicious, actually; the taste would rival that of her own.

  “And have you chosen any names?”

  “Well, we’ve had some discussions, although nothing is really settled. For a girl, especially, it’s still tentative. But we both like Mary Frances.”

  “Pretty. Is that a hand-me-down from someone either of you knew?”

  “No. From out of the blue.” Camellia chuckled. “Hen, dear, would you be s
o kind as to pour another cup of tea for me? I declare, I’ve gotten so lazy these days that I don’t know what I’ll do when I have an infant to care for.”

  Hannah, rising to acquiesce, couldn’t hold back a snort. “Maybe that’s precisely why you’re feeling lazy now, Cam. Storing up your strength. And if this little bump is a boy?”

  “Cole,” she said quietly. “Cole Reese Forrester.”

  “Oh, Cam.” Hannah felt her throat close up and sudden tears sting her eyes. “Oh, that’s lovely.”

  Another Madonna’s smile, sweet and serene. “Ben was quite pleased when I suggested it. It’s as if his brother will be part of the family again—even though his brother hasn’t gone anywhere. Strange situation, isn’t it?”

  Resuming her seat, with her own refilled cup, Hannah nodded. “This family has had a lot of strange situations to contend with, ever since Papa left us in such a mess. A year, Cam. It’s been a year. Hardly seems possible, does it?” She paused to consider the recent past, and all the myriad changes that had taken place, since then, in so many lives. “And your health is good, overall?”

  A sudden gust of wind sent wet fallen leaves smacking against the window, and the hearth fire whooshed with distaste. An unpleasant autumn day, giving a forecast of the winter to come. White frost had traced patterns on outdoor glassware, for the past few mornings, and applied its own unique crunch to the dying grasses.

  “It is. Dr. Havers is pleased with how I’m progressing. Goodness me, I wouldn’t dare disappoint him by gaining too much weight or allowing myself to become depressed. I’d never hear the end of it!”

  With that segue, Hannah decided to disclose to her sister the rather unusual circumstance of Gabriel’s gift.

  Camellia was equally puzzled. “It isn’t like him at all, is it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Hannah had risen to poke at the flames and add a few more small chunks of wood to burn; her face was turned carefully away from observation. “I wouldn’t doubt that he was looking to get on Abigail’s good side by making her first purchase from the Table.”

  “Abigail? But surely she—it doesn’t seem that he—I can’t imagine they—”

  “Oh, imagine it, Cam. At least, so she informed me.” Brushing shavings and dust off her hands, Hannah returned to the chair opposite her sister’s settee. “Does Ben have to make a trip to Manifest soon, to check in on his second store?”

  The extra weight in front was beginning to add twinges and aches to her slender frame. Shifting position, with a soft little grunt, to stuff a pillow behind her back for more support, Camellia nodded.

  “Yes, he’s hoping to get away soon, before bad weather hits. In fact, he’s asked Reese to go along, to get a feel for the place. Reese doesn’t seem to mind at all being a—shopkeeper...” Her eyes glimmered with mirth at the term. Once upon a time, she herself had been horrified at the idea of marrying one of the same. As if tradesmen were some sort of alien species. “Would you like to come stay with me, while he’s gone?”

  “If you don’t think I’d be in the way...”

  “Don’t be silly. I would love to have you here. In fact, I’ll invite Letty, as well. And Molly, if she wouldn’t mind leaving her husband for a night or two. We can stay up late, and pop corn and make taffy, just like in the old days in St. Louis.”

  Hannah tilted her head slightly sideways, studying her sister. “Cam, do you like being married?” she finally asked, quite seriously.

  “Oh, yes, indeed, I like it very much. As long as it’s to Ben. The idea of being married to anyone else just gives me the shivers,” she said frankly. “We began with a bit of a rough patch, as you recall—the period of adjustment that most newlyweds go through, I think. But—since then...” Camellia closed her eyes, raised her face to the light as if it were sunshine itself, and sighed.

  A swallow, and a pensive look. “Good?”

  “Better than good. I never imagined that I could love anyone so much. It just—it takes my breath away every time he walks into the room. And, since we’ve gotten past some minor problems as far as the physical side is concerned—well...sometimes, Hen,” the timbre of her voice lowered, even though there was no one else around to hear, “sometimes I even scooch across to Ben’s side of the bed, to reach for him first!”

  Color washed up to tint the cool pallor of Hannah’s clear complexion. “Oh.”

  “There, now I’ve embarrassed you. I’m so sorry, my dear. Living with a man has made me less ladylike and more—um—well...earthy.”

  “That’s all right,” mumbled Hannah. “I’ve been told I’m far too strait-laced anyway. Perhaps I ought to loosen up a bit, myself.”

  Camellia’s glance, over the rim of her tea cup, was sympathetic. “If it’s necessary, that will come in time. But don’t change too much, dear Hannah. We love you as you are.”

  “I want to get married too. I want that special person in my life. I’m tired of being all by myself.”

  “When the time is right, it’ll happen.”

  Silence reigned for a few minutes, interrupted only by an occasional swoop of wind and rain at the windows, the quiet ticking of the mantel clock, a clink of teacup against saucer, the infrequent plop of a water drop oozing from the kitchen faucet. Judging by the expression on Hannah’s susceptible face, she was working through some knotty problem of her own. Camellia left her to it.

  “Your mail order marriage seems to have been a great success,” she finally ventured.

  “Indeed. I certainly think so, at any rate. And I believe Ben would agree.”

  “And, going by appearances, so have both Molly’s and Letitia’s.”

  “Well, it’s early days yet, of course, for any of us. But they give every indication of being happy in this place, with their new husbands. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I suppose. Perhaps I ought to try taking that route, myself.”

  “Oh.” Surprised, Camellia leaned forward. “But I assumed you were getting along quite well on your own, enjoying your independence, and having—no, never mind. I see that isn’t exactly true.” She frowned, displeased by the fact that she had so unintentionally misconstrued her sister’s frame of mind these past few months.

  “I am. I have. But I do feel—lonely, sometimes. I would like to be half of a couple, as you all are. I would like not to be a separate person, a—a hanger-on. I would like not to be so—alone...”

  She thought about Gabe’s words: “Playing it safe. That will get you nowhere in life. Take a chance.”

  Maybe that’s what she needed to do.

  “Hen.” Great sorrow encompassed Camellia’s generous heart. “Hearing this just tears me to pieces, that you could be contending with so much and keep it locked up inside. And you really think that looking over advertisements in the newspaper will be a step forward for you?”

  “It worked for every one of you, didn’t it? What do I have to lose?”

  “Well—your family, for one thing. What if you find someone this way, and he wants you to move a thousand miles from here, and we’d risk never seeing you again?”

  Sipping from her tea cup as if to absorb renewed vigor for the fray, Hannah shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t let that happen. I’m here, Cam, and here I stay.” She gave a ghost of a smile.

  Camellia sighed. “Far be it from me to dissuade you, since you have all these examples. But I do hope you will think about this for a while, and consider your options carefully. Will you do that?”

  “Of course.” The smile widened. “Don’t I always obey the advice of my elder sister?”

  “No, you do not. All right, then. You know that I will always support you in any decision you make. Now, for a change of subject. Have you stopped over at Molly’s house recently, to see the addition Paul is putting on?”

  “No, not for a while. To tell you the truth, Molly scares me a little. She is determined to re-order poor Paul’s entire existence to her own liking, and he, deluded soul, seems perfectly willing to go alon
g with anything she wants.”

  “To each their own, I suppose. As long as they’re both happy, that’s probably all that matters, don’t you think? Meanwhile, her grand piano is still under wraps in our barn—and likely will be till next spring, when the music room is finished. I couldn’t imagine why she wanted to drag that huge thing all the way south, but she had her heart set on it.”

  “And what about Ben’s plans to make over the barn into a stable, so you two can keep your own horse and rig?”

  With a sigh, Camellia spread her hands wide in a dramatic gesture. “I’m afraid he’ll just have to be patient. However, he may get tired of waiting, and move things around out there to his satisfaction. Because I do know he would definitely like to have things in place before the baby arrives.”

  “Well, as for Molly, she is doing one nice thing, anyway. Here, want another cookie, Cam? More tea? Molly has decided to volunteer at the church, playing for the Sunday services. Rev. Beecham is delighted.”

  Another shift of position, a rearrangement of pillows. Two, this time. “So am I. We owe that man such a debt. The least any of us can do is help out when they need it.”

  “Well, I did my part,” insisted Hannah, with a grin. “I bought a pie at the bakery and took it to Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Camellia giggled. “You really must learn to cook, Hen. Or are you too busy being a hard-headed business woman these days to spend time in the kitchen?”

  “If that’s your subtle way of asking whether I like my work, I can tell you I do. You never know what will happen, once you start searching out news for the paper—whom you will talk to, what information you will be given, the sort of facts that might be divulged. It’s fascinating, and I’m so proud of myself that I was brave enough to barge into—I mean...that Mr. Crane offered me the job.” Another grin, more mischievous.

  Family mystery solved. Everyone had wondered how Hannah’s opportunity had come about. More and more, it was seeming that this work, this responsibility, was exactly the sort of thing she needed. Even if she was running a side enterprise of digging in the dirt. Which, to put it with a large dose of whimsy, might very well correlate with what she was doing now at the Gazette office.