Amethyst (43 page)

“No. Rest well—you’ve earned it.”

She sniffed and blinked several times. “I won’t hear his bell ever again.” As she left the room, he heard her sniff again.

The next day he boarded the train and headed west.
Home, I’m going home. I can’t wait to tell everyone this story
.

“Thank you, Lord, for the I gifts I am bringing.”
I never had time to write to Opal
. He took in a deep breath.
But now I can prepare a place for her, God willing
.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

August 14, 1887

Dear Miss O’Shaunasy,

I know you didn’t give me permission to write to you, but you left so suddenly that I was not the only one caught by surprise. I asked for your address from Mrs. Hegland, and while she was hesitant to share it with me, I persevered until she acquiesced. I’m certain she will be writing to you soon also, for she says she misses you greatly, as does Carly.

I am not attempting to make you feel guilty but just informing you as to our feelings here in Medora.

I am moved into my house at last. The roof is all finished, and just today I nailed the last shingle on the porch roof. I am hoping to find my windows tomorrow at the station when the train arrives from Dickinson.

Jacob received a summons from a friend back east, and he’ll be leaving tomorrow on the train. That, too, was a bit of a surprise. It seems there are surprises all over the place. Now that the haying is completed, Joel and the girls are taking the wagons out to pick up bones—a rather gruesome task but another example of some good coming from such tragedy. Fertilizer companies are paying by the pound for bones to grind into fertilizer. Then I am certain they will try to sell the fertilizer back to the farmers and ranchers. There is some degree of irony there, don’t you think?

There is plenty of grass for the cattle this year, as there are so few cattle grazing. No one else has left lately, so perhaps the ranchers who remain will eventually regain their livelihood. Rand predicts that cattle ranching will never again reach the epic proportions it did before the winter of ’87. We shall see. I purchased another lot of fifty head, so I now own nearly a hundred.

I would be very happy if you would take up correspondence with a lonely man out here on the prairie.

Yours truly,

Jeremiah McHenry

Amethyst read the letter again. He wrote to her. He actually took pen in hand and sent her a letter.

“Amethyst, dear…” Mrs. Grant paused in the doorway. “I have arranged a fitting for you. Mrs. Beaumont has made room in her busy schedule to sew a couple of new gowns for you.” Mrs. Grant paused again. “Was your letter good news?”

Amethyst nodded. “From Mr. McHenry. He asked me to correspond with him. To quote him, he said he’s ‘a lonely man out here on the prairie.”’

“Jeremiah McHenry said that?”

Amethyst nodded. “He did. In the beginning he accused me of leaving abruptly.” She set the dainty chintz rocking chair in her room to rocking. She had never seen such opulence until she walked in with Mrs. Grant and was shown to this room as though she were a beloved guest, not one of the serving women. But as Mrs. Grant reminded her whenever necessary, she was now a business partner, not a servant.

To think she, Amethyst Colleen O’Shaunasy, was the one being waited on. It made her most uncomfortable.

“Which means you didn’t get his permission.”

Amethyst’s eyes widened. “What?”

Mrs. Grant crossed the room and sat on the padded settee that matched the rocking chair. “My dear, you have to understand both the military and the masculine mind. A man like that is used to giving orders and having people in his command ask his permission before doing something.”

“I wasn’t in his command.”

“No, but he was certainly taking you for granted. You made sure he had plenty to eat and drink and provided conversation when he so desired. True?”

“True.” Amethyst felt her hair slipping. And Joseph hadn’t been the one to cause it this time. He would grow up without her to watch. And Carly. Ach, how she missed them. “He mentioned Carly, saying that they all missed me.”

“What a devious man.” Mrs. Grant shook her head, wagging one finger. She huffed a sigh and laid her hands back in her lap. “Now we must continue our plans for our business. The room for you to experiment with the receipt Mrs. Sampson sent us, along with her samples, is nearly ready. We need to order whatever other supplies you need”—she looked from under her eyebrows—“or if you even dream of needing something, you must put it on the list. While you are doing that, I will see to the legalities of organizing our enterprise. However, Mr. Arthur, my solicitor, will be arriving in about half an hour, and I would like for you to meet him.”

“If you think so.” Amethyst felt that a whirlwind had snatched her up from Medora and deposited her in Chicago, into a house she’d not known enough to dream of and into a life she still needed getting used to. So many things Mrs. Grant, the whirlwind who was at it again, took for granted.

Riding in a wagon with iron-rimmed wheels plodding across the prairie did not compare to driving to the house in a phaeton with a fringe along the roof. But the wind blowing free and clean across the badlands had no parallel with the heavy air of city streets that stank of decay and too many people.

What would her father say if he could see her now? The thought made her shudder. On those rare occasions when she did think of him, she prayed he treated his new wife better than he had her mother and her.

Here it was only August twentieth, and she’d already had tours of the house, the neighborhood, the city. She’d worshiped in a church that made her eyes pop out, and shopped—or rather Mrs. Grant shopped while she gawked—in stores that carried things she’d never heard of. She brought herself back to the room when Mrs. Grant laid a hand on her shoulder.

She removed a pair of hair combs from her pocket. “I brought you these because I know you lost one of the others. For the dinner I’m arranging for some people who will be interested in our line of products, we’ll have my maid, Alyce, do your hair. She will be delighted to work with such glorious tresses.”

“Glorious tresses?” Amethyst put a hand to her slightly off-sided knot.

“Yes, of course.” She patted Amethyst’s shoulder. “You will look lovely. And you have added only enough weight so that most women are going to think your tiny waist is the result of a tight corset.”

Terror struck. “I don’t have to wear a corset, do I? I cannot bear to be hemmed in.”

“While it is the mode, I will not force you into the strictures of society.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Don’t tell anyone, but that is why I run away so often. We will have to make many trips to Fargo to work with our partner there.” Mrs. Grant rose and immediately became the lady of refinement and grace. “I hear the door. Let us go down and see what Mr. Arthur can make of this.”

Throughout the meeting Amethyst sat back and watched her friend at work. She alternately ordered and acquiesced, explained and listened. Selling her cottage cheese to the townspeople of Medora was far more simple and yet the same. One had something to sell that others wanted, and one received money for doing the best she could with what she had. Mrs. Alvia Sampson in Fargo saw that her patients healed faster after she applied her lotions and salves. Mrs. Grant knew that women in the city would want the same lotions and salves to help them be more beautiful.

She’d heard stories of women using white face powder and the powder making them sick, even to dying. Was it so deathly important to be in the latest fashion?

“That will be all, then—for today. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“You are indeed welcome. I shall get these papers back for your signature as soon as possible.”

“Tomorrow?” Mrs. Grant’s right eyebrow arched.

He sighed and nodded. “Tomorrow. Late.”

Mrs. Grant held out her hand to shake his. “I knew I could count on you.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Miss O’Shaunasy. Welcome to Chicago and the world of Mrs. Grant.” He picked up his papers, bowed slightly, and left the room to be escorted out by the housekeeper.

“So what do you think?” Mrs. Grant asked.

“I think I have no idea what all went on, but selling cottage cheese was far easier.”

“True. You took your wares right to the buyer. Here we will be sending our product to stores that will sell our product to their shoppers. We need to go shopping ourselves and watch other women shop. See what they choose and perhaps even ask them why.”

“We?”

“I think so.”

Fittings were far different than sewing, trying on, and sewing again. Amethyst stood still as ordered, turned when instructed, and gratefully stepped out of the half-made garment when the woman said she was finished. The watered silk felt delicious on her skin. The brocade was too heavy for now but would be warm enough in the winter.

Would Chicago have blizzards like Medora? Not according to one of the help she’d asked the question.

At night she thought of the new cabin built out at the U bend in the river and of Jeremiah McHenry. She remembered Carly sitting on her lap and Joseph giggling when her hair tumbled down. She could hear Pearl playing the piano, and she’d not seen birds in the city other than chipping sparrows and pigeons. There were no meadowlarks on the morning wind nor eagles and hawks in full wing, black against the sun or sky so blue it looked to go on forever.

The sky wasn’t prairie blue in Chicago even on a sunny day.

But no matter how busy she kept herself during the day and how resolutely she refused to allow herself to think of him, at night she saw a certain one-eyed rancher. Heard him.

He refused to be banished from her heart.