Carolyn Davidson (21 page)

“I’ll be glad to clean up the kitchen, Johanna,” Bessie offered after dessert. “Why don’t you go into the parlor and sit for a while? You’re looking a mite peaked.”

Disgruntled with the day’s events, Johanna took her up on her offer, only to hear the three males of the household laughing and teasing as they assisted in the cleanup, an unheard-of event, in Johanna’s experience. It was more than she could tolerate. Bessie was not only practically a raving beauty, she was efficient and capable of sorting out Johanna’s kitchen without once asking a question.

And on top of that, she had won today’s battle, hands down.

Battle?
The word stuck in Johanna’s mind. Why on earth did the advent of Bessie Swenson seem to have all the earmarks of a war? The woman had been pleasant and affable, offering to mend Timmy’s favorite quilt, admiring Pete’s book of letters and praising Tate to the skies as she looked over the improvements to the barn and his new mares.

She’d nodded knowingly as Tate explained his theory of improving the herd, hugged Timmy with enthusiasm after he complimented her on her pretty dress, and even coaxed Pete into allowing her to cut his hair before supper.

“How’d you let his hair get so ragged-looking, Tate?” she’d trilled, casting a sidelong glance at Johanna as she spoke. “He never looked so shaggy when…” She’d stopped, smiling apologetically at Johanna and shrugging daintily.

Johanna had been itching to get at the boy’s dark hair for months, but he’d been adamant that only his father
could lay hands on his head. Today it had taken Bessie less than a minute to have him wrapped in a towel and sitting on a chair while she clipped and combed.

The rocker had never had such a workout. Johanna, wrapped in her shawl, unwilling to lay a fire, even though the air had grown cold with the setting sun, sat in solitary splendor in the dark room, her foot pushing the chair into a steady rhythm.

“Jo? What are you doin’, sitting in the dark?” Tate stood in the doorway, and she scowled in his direction, glad of the dim light.

“Just enjoying the peace and quiet,” she said, modifying the speed of her rocker.

“Come on out and join us. We’re going to play a game of spoons.”

She shook her head. “I think I’ll go up to bed early. I’ve had a long day.”

A burst of laughter from the kitchen drew his attention, and he hesitated, then looked back at her. “Are you sure, honey? You looked tired at supper, but I hate to have you miss the fun.”

“I’m sure you’ll get along fine without me,” she said, rising and walking toward him. He stepped aside to let her pass, and she headed for the stairway.

“I’ll be up shortly, Jo. The boys need to get settled down before long, and I’m sure Bessie’ll be ready to have a good night’s sleep, too. She had a long trip.”

“Take your time, Tate.” She started up the steps, lifting her skirt, her feet feeling as though they weighed a ton apiece. Suddenly weary to the bone, she clutched the banister to ease her way, ignoring the man who watched from below.

By the time the week was past, Johanna had retreated into a mood she could not seem to escape. Feeling out of sorts and more like a scullery maid than the owner of a
prosperous farm, she found herself making more work for herself than was necessary.

Chasing Bessie out with the boys after breakfast, she scrubbed the kitchen to a fare-thee-well. Bessie’d mentioned the old open shelves in passing, telling of her own newly refurbished kitchen. Complete with fresh wallpaper and a new cabinet, outfitted to hold grocery staples in assorted nooks and crannies, it sounded like a marvel of modern design.

On Friday, Johanna washed the curtains, turning the crank on the new washing machine with a vengeance, then rinsing and starching them before hanging them outdoors to dry. She’d sprinkled them down and ironed them before supper, only to be disgruntled when Tate didn’t even notice the clean curtains and sparkling windows.

Bessie had watched her idly for a while as she turned the crank on the washing machine. “I bought the Acme combination washer in the Sears catalog for myself last month. They tell me it’s got your Fulton #1 there beat all to pieces.”

“Is that so?” Johanna’d replied, determined to avert a head-on fuss with the woman. Apparently, once Bessie got her husband buried, she’d had a field day. In fact, if her recitation of facts was to be believed, the house she lived in in Ohio was literally full to the brim with all sorts of work-saving devices. Not the least of these was a brand-new Singer treadle machine, with which she had made the new shirts she’d brought along for Timmy and Pete.

And Johanna, having learned long ago that sewing was not her finest skill, had been forced to admire the woman’s handwork with a semblance of enthusiasm. “Don’t you think every woman owes it to her husband to save money on clothing?” Bessie had asked Johanna over the supper table. “I used to sew for these boys quite regularly when I had them nearby.”

“I’m sure you did,” Johanna had muttered darkly, ignoring Tate’s look of reproof.

One noontime, Bessie regaled the boys with tales of her new bicycle, which they could certainly ride, should they come to visit. Apparently, Herb Swenson, for all his boozing, had left her well provided for, if all her tales could be believed. If Tate had waited around awhile, he’d have had a soft berth there, Johanna thought mutinously.

Not only would the boys have had their wondrous aunt Bessie to tend to their every want and wish, but Tate could have had her hovering over him every day. As it was, she’d made all sorts of fancy pies and cakes in Johanna’s kitchen, shaping cookies by the score for the boy’s enjoyment.

“Nothing wrong with a plain, ordinary apple pie,” Johanna muttered as she set a pan of dried apples to soak on Saturday afternoon. At least she had Bessie beat when it came to solid food. Desserts were her specialty, the woman had said cheerfully. She had a part-time cook and housekeeper to do the drudgery.

Johanna swallowed her ire as best she could, determined to put on a cheerful face. It was hard today, though. Her breakfast had been stuck in her craw all morning, and she’d been swallowing against a sour taste for the past hour.

It was no use. As much as she hated to admit it, she was about to lose the meal she’d eaten so grudgingly, and she scooted into the washroom as the nausea rose in waves, making her dizzy.

An empty slop pail, rinsed and ready to be filled with scraps for the pigs, was in one corner, and she fell on her knees next to it, a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. With a retching that stretched to the pit of her stomach, she lost it all—her breakfast, the final shreds of good humor she’d managed to cling to, and her appetite.

“Johanna? Are you all right?” It was Bessie, coming in from the yard, where she’d been teaching the boys how to
play croquet, having bought a game from Mr. Turner at the general store on Thursday.

“I’m fine,” Johanna lied, wiping her forehead on her sleeve. She settled back on her haunches and took a deep breath. “Something didn’t settle right, I’m afraid.”

Bessie looked at her knowingly. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

Johanna nodded crossly. “Of course I’m sure. What else would it be?”

Bessie leaned against the wall, inspecting her fingernails and looking down at Johanna with a half smile. “I’ve heard Tate say he wasn’t interested in having any more children.”

Johanna’s eyes widened as she turned to face the woman. “What does that have to do with anything…and how would you know what Tate wants?”

Bessie shrugged. “I’ve known him for years. He was married to my sister.” As if that relationship had given her privileged information, she smiled.

“I don’t think he was the happiest man on earth while he was married to Belinda,” Johanna said quietly, only too aware of her position on the floor, in front of the remains of her last meal.

“Well, Belinda wasn’t any too overjoyed, either, having to live on that godforsaken farm. I’ve always thought I’d have had better luck talking Tate into living in town. Belinda didn’t know how to handle him. And her going after him with a knife certainly left him with a bad taste in his mouth.”

“A knife?” Johanna repeated the words, unbelievingly.

“Of course, Tate’s told you about their final battle, hasn’t he? The poor man was lucky to come out of it alive. And then there was all the talk after he left about how Belinda died, falling in the river and all, with no witnesses. And Tate with his face all cut up.”

“I don’t think I want to hear this, Bessie,” Johanna said firmly. “Tate can—”

Bessie cut in. “Tate doesn’t talk about it. Besides, I never for a minute believed the things some people said. But for sure they’d had a fight, and when all’s said and done, Belinda was the one who ended up dead.”

Johanna shook her head. “Tate would never hurt any woman, Bessie. I can’t believe you’d repeat such tales.”

Bessie stepped back, allowing her to pass, and Johanna went to the sink, rinsing a cloth to wipe her face, her hands trembling within the folds of the fabric she pressed against her cheeks. The nausea was past, but a weakness unlike any she’d ever known had gripped her, and she clung to the drainboard.

“I’m sorry if I upset you, Johanna,” Bessie said from the doorway. “I thought you’d have known all about Tate’s marriage. To tell you the truth, I’d hoped he would see the light of day and quit his wandering around and come back home where he belongs before this.” She smiled with barely concealed glee as she watched Johanna’s distress. “The talk has about died out, anyway, back home.”

Stepping closer, Bessie spoke in a lower voice, as though confiding in Johanna. “You know, I was amazed that he found it necessary to marry a woman to get the piece of property he wanted.” Her laugh was crisp and glittering, like a glass shattering against a stone. “I’d have been glad to buy him a hundred acres to play with. It’s too bad he didn’t hang around a few more months, till Mr. Swenson passed out of the picture. I’d have been happy to raise the boys for him.”

Johanna gaped at the crass words spoken by the genteel woman before her. “Why didn’t you have children of your own, Bessie?” she asked quietly. “You truly love Pete and Timmy.”

Bessie’s jaw tightened, her laughter a thing of the past, and she tilted her chin, whispering. “If I couldn’t have Tate Montgomery’s children, I didn’t want any at all. Belinda snagged him first, right out from under my nose, and I
watched her make his life a misery.” She sniffed, dismissing her sister as of little account. “She never knew how to handle him. I’d have had him working at the bank or running the hotel in no time, if I’d married him.”

“Tate’s a farmer, through and through.” With all her heart, Johanna believed those words, and yet there was a niggling doubt as she considered Bessie’s words.

Tate Montgomery looked like a true gentleman in his suit. With his shoes polished and his hair trimmed and his nails squared off, he was the picture of elegance, and no woman in her right mind would turn her back on him once she’d had a chance to have him as her own. Maybe Bessie could have coaxed him into working in town. He certainly wouldn’t have the worry of crops failing and hail punishing a field of wheat or calves freezing in a late spring sleet storm if he was working in a suit and tie.

“Aunt Bessie! Come on out! What’re you doin’ in there, anyway?” Pete called from the porch. “I hit Timmy’s ball clear over by the garden, and he says I cheated.”

Bessie’s eyes were dark with speculation as she looked at Johanna. “Have you ever heard such a fuss? You’d think I was their favorite person in the whole world, wouldn’t you now?”.

Johanna nodded, a sense of defeat catching her broadside. “Yes, Bessie, I guess you could say that.”

Night had settled, bringing a spring rain that splattered through the window onto the bedroom floor. Johanna roused from her sleep as the wind blew across the room, twisting the white curtains and spraying the bed with a fine mist.

Rolling from the mattress, she pushed the curtains to one side and lowered the window, reluctant to lose the fresh breeze, but aware that a west wind always blew hardest in this bedroom. The boy’s room would be dry, the window only cracked for a breath of air, and facing east as it was.

She looked out over the yard, barely able to catch a glimpse of the trees through the slanting rain, and her heart was filled with a strange sadness. The hopes for happiness she’d harbored over the past months had been scattered by Bessie’s words. That the woman could be so cunning and yet have Tate so completely enthralled by her sweetness and the boys wrapped so securely around her little finger was a conundrum she was not able to solve.

And to say such things about Tate—insinuating that he’d had something to do with his wife’s death. Why, anyone who knew the man, would know…

Johanna closed her eyes. If she could trust Tate in this, why couldn’t she trust him to do what was right when it came to her farm, when it came to buying a new bull? And then, amid all of the turmoil in her mind, she found a small kernel of truth. She did trust him. With her farm, with her very life, with her love.

Yet she remained at the window, her thoughts turning to the niggling notion Bessie had nudged into the forefront of her mind this morning. This puzzle had been much easier to reason out, once she had it pointed out to her so clearly. Bessie’s words had set her thinking, and within minutes she’d been able to sort out the solution. Her monthly flow had not come around since December. Why she hadn’t paid it any more mind than that, she’d never know. Perhaps the newness of marriage, once Tate had taken her to his bed, maybe the fun of Christmas and then the issue of the bull. At any rate, she’d successfully ignored the signs that were there to be seen, if only she paid attention. And now it could no longer be ignored.

“Johanna?” His voice muffled, Tate called her name, and she turned back to the bed, assured of the darkness hiding the tears she shed.

“Yes, Tate. I just had to close the window. It was raining in.” Her feet were damp from the wet floor, and she sat on
the edge of the bed, wiping them on the rug. “It’s a good rain, a real soaker.”