Dorothy Clark (8 page)

Chapter Ten

“O
h, my. The dining room looks lovely with flowers on the tables. And the tea cakes look delicious. No wonder your new restaurant is such a success, Mrs. Sheffield.” Sadie stepped back from peeking into the dining room and eased the door she’d cracked open closed, lest one of the townspeople enjoying their tea or coffee notice her. “Callie wrote me all about it, but I didn’t picture it being so elegant. I shall have to stop in for tea the next time I come to town.”

“And deprive me of the pleasure of a visit? You’ll do nothing of the sort, my dear child.” Sophia Sheffield’s hands gripped her shoulders. She turned her to face the bustling activity of the maid loading a tray with more cookies and cakes for the present diners while the cook prepared the midday meal, then pointed across the room. “You will come barging through that back door into this kitchen begging treats, the same as you girls and Daniel have always done.”

“They never could seem to get enough cookies, Sophia. Especially the molasses ones.” Her grandmother gave her a mock frown. “The brown cookies disappeared quite regularly from the tin in my kitchen.”

Nanna had remembered what she had called molasses cookies as a child! And her eyes had been clear and alert all morning. Hope that whatever had been wrong with her grandmother was gone brought an ache to her chest.

“And from my kitchen, also, Rachel. As well as the white cookies that were Willa’s favorites.” Sophia laughed and shook her elegantly coiffed head. “My, that takes me back.”

“And me.” Her grandmother sighed. “How quickly the time passed.”

“Indeed.” Sophia led them to the far end of the large kitchen, out of the way of the cook and serving maid. “But we have our memories.”

“Yes, we do, Mrs. Sheffield.” Sadie laughed and moved to the eating table by the back door. “I remember you sitting us down in these very chairs and lecturing us about taking cookies instead of asking for them.” She shifted her gaze to her grandmother and grinned. “And I remember receiving a few similar lectures from you at home, Nanna.”

“Well, they never
worked.
”

“Of course not.” She giggled, feeling young and unburdened being in Callie’s aunt’s kitchen with Nanna again. “We children knew perfectly well that if we asked one of two things would happen—either we would be told to wait until after we had eaten,
or
we would be given one cookie each instead of the two or three we wanted. We all decided early on that the extra cookies were worth the lectures.”

“Why, Sadie Elizabeth Spencer! I raised you better than that!”

She dissolved into laughter at her grandmother’s feigned indignation.

“Evidently we adults all failed to impart that particular moral lesson, Rachel.” Sophia’s lips twitched.

“Oh, no, Mrs. Sheffield, you’re wrong.” She tamped down her laughter and looked into Sophia’s violet eyes. “We all knew that taking things was wrong. And we were careful not to do so—except for the cookies.” The laughter bubbled up her throat and burst free again. “We reasoned that since you had baked them for us, it didn’t really count as taking what was not ours.”

“A child’s logic...” Sophia laughed and walked to the cookstove, pulled the teapot forward onto the front plate. “Well, you and your friends were wrong, young lady. Now, I suggest you run over to Willa’s for a visit during which you repeat this conversation so you can both repent of your ill-conceived childhood deeds.”

How kind Sophia was. She’d been longing to go see Willa and ask her to come to Butternut Hill. Did she dare? She cast a glance toward her grandmother. If she lapsed into the past... “That’s a lovely idea, Mrs. Sheffield, but...I’ll visit Willa another time.”

“There’s no time like the present, Sadie.” Sophia lifted a tin of tea from off the shelf by the stove, turned and looked straight into her eyes. “You go on, dear. Rachel and I are going to have a nice chat over a hot cup of tea. I haven’t seen her since they moved back home, and I’ve lots of village news to tell her.”

The message in Sophia’s beautiful eyes was clear:
your grandmother will be fine here with me.
Still...

“Oh, lovely, Sophia! I’ve missed out on so much since Manning was taken ill by that seizure. Let me help with the tea.” Her grandmother waved her toward the door, turned and reached for the china teapot on Sophia’s stepback cupboard.

She opened the door onto the large, familiar back porch, uncertain of what to do. Perhaps she should stay out here and wait. In spite of Sophia’s kindness, her grandmother might need her. She seated herself on one of the two settles that faced each other on either side of the kitchen door and looked around. How often she had played here on the porch with Callie and Willa. And beneath it.

A smile curved her lips. She rose and walked to the far end of the porch, braced her hands on the railing and leaned out to look down at the board they had slipped behind to sit in the dim light and listen to the footfalls overhead while they made plans and whispered their childhood dreams to one another. Except one. She’d never confessed to Callie or Willa the love for Daniel she’d carried deep in her child’s heart.

She straightened and looked out beyond the hotel’s stable, resting her gaze on the calm, flowing waters of the Allegheny River. One day the men who worked in her grandfather’s logging camps would come into town and she would see Daniel again. “Please Almighty God, please. Don’t let...what happened...have made me afraid of Daniel too. Not Daniel...” She would never marry him. That dream was dead. But she couldn’t bear to have her friendship with Daniel ruined.

She caught her lower lip with her teeth and hurried back to the kitchen door. A muted burst of laughter from her grandmother and Sophia came through the painted wood, freezing her hand on the latch. She shouldn’t interrupt their visit because she suddenly needed comforting.

A long gash in the top left panel of the door snared her gaze. Daniel had told them it was made by an Indian trying to chop down the door with his tomahawk. How he had scared them! Deliciously so.

The desire to see Willa surged like the Allegheny’s waters during the spring flood. She shot a look at their buggy tied behind Barley’s grocers. She had to make haste. It wouldn’t take Lehman Barley long to gather the items on Gertrude’s list.

She lifted her hems and rushed down the stairs and along the path to the graveled carriageway that ran beside the hotel, hurried down it to Main Street, waited for a wagon loaded with bundles of bark to pass and dashed across the hard-packed dirt.

* * *

“And this is the side porch. Joshua and Sally like to have their midday meal out here. Matthew and I join them when he’s home.”

Sadie followed Willa out of the kitchen door onto a deep porch cooled by the shade of a large elm tree. “You have a lovely home, Willa. It’s so...peaceful.”

“At the moment, perhaps.” Willa laughed and shook her head. “I assure you, it is considerably livelier when the children and Matthew are home.”

Willa fairly oozed happiness. Sadie looked around for a way to change the subject from a husband and children. “And who is this?” She leaned down and petted the dog that bounded up the steps to greet them, smiled and scratched behind his ears when he wagged his tail.

“That’s Happy—Joshua’s dog. He got him the same day Sally got her cat, Tickles.”

A smile she’d never before seen settled on her friend’s face. A happy, secretive sort of smile full of contentment that made her stomach tighten. She’d never know the joy of having children.

She took a deep breath, walked to the railing, looked toward Main Street. “This was all an open field when I left. Now there is a bank—”

“Owned by Callie’s husband.”

“Yes.”
Stop talking about husbands!
She smiled to cover the revulsion the idea of marriage brought and slid her gaze to the right. “And the church. And this parsonage. All of them standing where we used to play puss in the corner...and touch wood...and I love my love with an A.” Her throat closed.

“What’s wrong, Sadie?”

She shook her head, gave a little shrug. “Everything is so...different.”

“You’re not talking only about the village, are you?”

Understanding shone through a shimmer of tears in Willa’s blue-green eyes. “No. It’s Nanna, and Poppa, and—” She stiffened, her defenses rising at Willa’s touch on her arm. She swallowed back the sudden rush of tears that threatened and moved away.

“Stop it, Sadie.”

Her heart squeezed at the hurt in Willa’s voice. “I’m sorry, Willa. It’s—” She stopped, looked down at her trembling hands and hid them in the folds of her long skirt. She couldn’t admit, even to Willa, that she’d been alone so long with no one to care about her troubles or comfort her that a simple act of kindness made her come undone. No wonder Cole’s actions had made her doubt her original opinion of him. She pasted a smile on her face. “I’m a little shaken by all I’ve faced since coming home. The memories...” She blinked her eyes and turned to look out at the field that was no more.

Willa stepped to her side, took her hand and tugged her toward the steps. “Come on, Sadie.”

There was no time to protest. It was either hurry along with Willa or fall down the steps. “Where are we going?”

“To the gazebo. Last one there is a stinky old skunk!”

Her arm jerked as Willa dropped her hand and broke into a run.

“That’s cheating!”

Willa glanced back and stuck out her tongue, laughed and ran on.

“Very well, Willa!” She lifted her hems and ran, the toes of her shoes flashing in and out of view as she caught up to her friend and raced on through the park next to the parsonage and up the steps of the gazebo. Willa clambered up them right behind her and they both collapsed, laughing and panting, on one of the benches.

“Oh, my, that felt good. I haven’t run like that since—” She coughed, pretended to lose her breath.

“Me either.” Willa shoved back the hair that had jostled free onto her forehead. “I never could beat you in a race, Sadie. None of us could. Not even when we cheated. But losers get to go first. So...” Willa rose and stood in the center of the gazebo floor, her shoulders squared, her hands held straight down at her sides as they’d been taught to do when reciting in school. “I love my love with an A because he is
amiable.
I hate him with an A because he is...er...
antagonistic.
His name is
Allen,
he comes from
Africa
and I gave him an
antelope.
Your turn.”

She laughed and stepped to the center of the floor while Willa sat down. “I love my love with a B because he is
beneficent.
I hate him with a B because he is
boastful.
His name is
Benjamin,
he comes from
Buffalo.
And I gave him a
buggy.
No pauses, I win.” She wrinkled her nose at Willa and sat down.

“Well, I shall win this time!” Willa jumped up and stood facing her. “I love my love with a C because he is
caring.
I hate my love with a C because he is
cautious.
His name is...”

Cole.
The image of Cole standing in the stable looking at her flashed into her head. How ridiculous! She ignored the skip in her pulse and returned her attention to Willa.

“...a
cracker.
No pauses! You can’t beat me this time.”

“I can if I’m able to name two gifts.”

“No fair taking time to think!”

She hopped to her feet, feeling ten years old again. “I love my love with a D—”
Daniel
“—b-because he is
daring.
I hate my love with a D because he is
daunting.
His name is—is...”

“Daniel, Sadie. His name is Daniel. It always has been.” Willa’s eyes warmed with compassion. She rose and came to stand facing her. “We’re no longer children, Sadie—you can say it aloud.”

Not now. The truth of what was closed in. Bitterness washed the sweetness of Daniel’s name from her tongue. Love was something that could never be for her. She raised her chin. “As you say, Willa. We’re no longer children. And we’re too old to play this childish game.”

She took a breath, glanced back toward the Sheffield House and the block of stores standing shoulder to shoulder above the raised wood walk on the other side of the hotel’s gravel carriageway. “I have to be getting back. Mr. Barley will have gathered up the items on Gertrude’s list by now—and Nanna may need me. But before I go, I’d like to ask you a favor.”

“Of course, if I am able to help, Sadie.”

“Will you come out to Butternut Hill and go to—” she had no reason to offer for going to Cole’s mill! “—Poppa’s sawmill with me? I want to go there, and I haven’t the courage to go alone.”

“Oh, Sadie, of course I will. I’ll try to come tomorrow or the next day.”

“Good.” She smiled and squeezed the hand Willa had placed on her arm. “Thank you. I shall look forward to your coming. Now I must get back to Nanna. Good afternoon, Willa.”

She hurried from the gazebo and walked out to Main Street, feeling Willa’s puzzled gaze on her all the way. Perhaps she should have told her she wanted to go to Cole’s mill and why? No. There would be time enough for that when they got there and she had Poppa’s business ledgers in her hands.

Chapter Eleven

S
adie ducked her head and hurried across Main Street, then paused in the shade of the hotel and skimmed her gaze over the line of stores that formed Pinewood’s village center. Rizzo’s barber shop, Evans’s millinery, Hall’s shoemaker and seamstress shop, Barley’s grocers, Robert’s apothecary, Cargrave’s mercantile and Brody’s meat market.

Every name, every window and doorway of the stores brought a memory leaping forward. A piece of her favorite candy slipped into Nanna’s shopping basket, a length of hair ribbon tucked into the package with a new dress, the taste of stomach bitters, choosing valentines...

The storefronts turned into a watery blur. These were good, kindhearted people who had known her all of her life. She was safe with them. But the shame...

She started for the hotel’s back door, then stopped. She had to stop hiding. She could not let what had happened rob her of a normal life any longer. She blinked her vision clear, set her jaw and climbed the steps to the wood walkway that stretched along the front of the stores.

“Sadie! Sadie Spencer, is that you? I heard you were back.”

Ah, Mrs. Braynard had been about her work. But it was just as well. She forced a smile and turned toward the woman exiting Lillian Evans’s millinery shop with a parcel in her hands. “Mrs. Colmes, how nice to see you again. How are Mr. Colmes and Judith and Susan?”
Please, let that distract her from asking about me.

“They’re fine, Sadie. Judith is married and soon to make me a grandmother. And Susan is teaching. She took over at the Oak Street School when Willa married. But Willa probably wrote you of that.” The pride in the older woman’s eyes gave way to sympathy. “It’s so good to see you home, Sadie. How is your grandfather faring?”

“Poppa is—” her throat squeezed “—it’s difficult for him to...manage things.”

“I’m so sorry, dear. I know it’s hard to watch someone you love suffer the ravages of ill health.”

“Yes.” She looked away from the compassion in Myra Colmes’s eyes lest her next question be about Nanna and she start sobbing. “You’ve bought a new hat.”

“I did. I saw it in the window as I was passing and simply had to have it. I’ll be wearing it Sunday.” Anticipation warmed the older woman’s voice. “Will I see you in church?”

She shook her head, curved her lips into a smile. “No. Sunday is Gertrude’s free day, and I stay at home with Poppa and Nanna.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I should have thought of that. Well, I hope I will see you again before you return to your teaching position in Rochester.”

A gentle probe. She took a breath and let out the news. “I’m not going back to the seminary, Mrs. Colmes. I’m staying with Nanna and Poppa.”

“Oh, Sadie, how wonderful! Rachel must be thrilled. She’s missed you terribly. And Manning has too, of course. Well, I must be off. Mr. Colmes is waiting for me at the hotel.” The lines around the woman’s eyes and mouth deepened as she smiled and lifted her wrapped parcel. “Sophia’s new restaurant is a true blessing. Frank used to be so cranky when I shopped, but now he goes and gets coffee and a bite to eat when he’s through with his business. He loves their plum cake. Goodbye, dear. And welcome home.” Myra Colmes touched her arm, then hurried off toward the Sheffield House.

She had survived. She was a bit trembly but unscathed. The knowledge of Payne’s attack on her had been there between them, had manifested itself in Myra’s sympathetic touch—but it had remained unspoken. No questions had been asked—except the oblique one about her future plans.

The tension drained from her. She smoothed the front of her gown and hurried down the walkway to Cargrave’s. The bell over the mercantile’s door jingled its familiar, friendly sound. She paused and took a breath. Everyone in the store would be watching to see who entered. She stepped into the interior, dark and cool after the bright, hot sunshine, and breathed in the blended aromas of leather, coffee and molasses that had always greeted her.

“Why, Miss Sadie! Welcome home. It’s good to see you again.”

The proprietor didn’t say,
after so long,
but she heard it in his voice. “Thank you, Mr. Cargrave.” She looked down to avoid meeting the gaze of the man standing by the scale and cash box at the end of the long counter laden with various tins and boxes.

“Sadie! Welcome home, dear.”

She turned toward a woman hurrying her way from the dry-goods shelves with another woman following behind her and smiled. “Mrs. Wright!” She rushed into Willa’s mother’s open arms and fought back tears as she was enfolded in a warm hug. “Or, I should say, Mrs.
Dibble.
Willa wrote me of your marriage. I’m so happy for you.” She stepped back and squeezed Helen Dibble’s hands, shocked at the softness of them. They had always been so rough and dry from doing laundry for loggers.

“Thank you, dear. My, how pretty you are!”

“She is indeed. Welcome home, Miss Spencer.”

She glanced at the other woman. Tall, slender, dark hair... “Miss Brown! How are you?”

“I’m fine, Sadie. And it’s Mrs. Grant now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Grant. I didn’t know.”

“Nor could you. A lot has happened since you—”

The bell jingled. Ina Grant looked toward the door and went silent. Helen Dibble’s hands tightened on hers, pulled her close. She glanced over her shoulder.

Cole.

That odd warmth spread through her at the sight of him, then everything rushed back. Her chest tightened. Everyone would be thinking of what had happened to her. She looked at the women, read the dismay and sympathy in Willa’s mother’s eyes, the curiosity in Ina Grant’s, smiled and tugged her hands free. “It was so good seeing you both again, but I must hurry. Nanna is waiting for me at Mrs. Sheffield’s.” She snatched a spool of needlepoint wool from a nearby table and walked over to the counter before Ina could ask any of the questions that hovered behind her twitching lips.

“How may I help you, Miss Sadie?”

There was kindness and understanding in Allan Cargrave’s eyes. She took a breath and spoke clearly for the benefit of the proprietor, Ina and anyone else who was interested. “I’m not returning to Rochester. I am staying home to care for Nanna and Poppa, so if you would open an account for me, please. And I’d like you to order Mr. James Fennimore Cooper’s new book titled
The Pathfinder.
Please charge the book and this needlepoint wool on my new account, not on Poppa’s.”

Approval flashed into Allan Cargrave’s eyes. He nodded and dipped his pen. “As you wish, Miss Spencer.” The nib scratched softly across the paper as he wrote her name in his account book and added the items she’d purchased.

There was a respect inherent in the new name he called her. She was no longer the young girl who had fled Pinewood. She lifted her gaze over his bowed head to her reflection in the glass-fronted cabinet behind the counter, suddenly seeing herself with his eyes. She
wasn’t
that young girl anymore.

“Thank you, Mr. Cargrave.” She clutched the spool of wool and headed for the door, acutely aware of everyone watching her, especially Cole.

He opened the door and stepped back, then dipped his head in a polite bow, his black beard grazing his red shirt.

The ugliness of the past resurrected, and her newfound confidence faltered. She returned his polite nod, swept her long skirts aside and stepped out into the narrow entrance, wishing the Allegheny were in flood and the waters were lapping at the raised wood walkway so she could throw all the bad memories into it and watch them float away. Her lips curved into a tight little satisfied smile. She was getting better. Even if she
was
trembling like a leaf in a windstorm. At least she hadn’t thought about running away to hide.

* * *

Of all the misfortune...
Cole closed the door instead of running after Sadie to apologize. For what? Coming to the post office? He hadn’t known she was in the store until he stepped inside.
The silence.
No one had moved or spoken or— They were still frozen. Still watching.

He dragged his gaze from the window, put on a polite smile and turned. “Good morning, ladies.” He dipped his head the women’s direction and strode calmly to the glass-fronted nest of pigeonhole mailboxes. There was murmuring and a stirring of movement behind him as the shoppers went about their business. Good.
That
was over. Except for the talk that would start to circulate.

He looked full at the stout, gray-haired postmaster, who was leaning on the shelf at the narrow, waist-high opening in the center of the glass box wall, unabashedly taking in the proceedings.
Poor Sadie. Poor him!
What would seeing them together do to his acceptance by the villagers? His fingers twitched with the desire to snatch the wire-rimmed glasses off the end of Zarius Hubble’s nose. If he said one word about—

“That letter you’ve been waiting for’s come.”

The postmaster leaned sideways and pulled a folded paper from one of the small cubicles, tapping it against the palm of his hand. “I believe it’s the first letter we’ve ever got from New Hampshire. Been waitin’ for you to come in. I know you been anxious about getting it.”

“A bit.” He ignored the curiosity in the older man’s eyes and looked pointedly at the letter. “Is there money due?”

“Noooo...”

“Then I’ll wish you a good day, Mr. Hubble. I’ve got to get back to the mill.” He held out his hand.

“You can’t blame a man for trying.” The postmaster grinned and handed him the letter. “Give Manning my regards.”

“I’ll do that. Ladies...” He turned and bowed toward the women standing by the dry-goods shelves, then strode to the door. The bell jangled his departure.

He trotted down the steps to the road and strode diagonally across to pick up his wagon at Dibble’s Livery. It should be unloaded by now. He’d read the letter on his way back to the mill.

* * *

The clapboard machine would fit the space.

Cole shot another glance toward the place where the machine would sit, then turned the armchair he was working on onto its back, picked up the handsaw and placed the blade on the mark he’d made on the front leg.

He would move the benches and stools the men used now to the far end of the deck....

He drew the saw back to start the cut, then leaned his shoulder into the action, his thoughts switching between his two projects as quickly as his arm pumped up and down.

...and he’d build a new slide to roll in the bolt logs. That would avoid a jam with the other unloading wagons.

The end of the chair leg fell off, and he moved to the other front leg and cut it to length. He picked up the short, wide board he’d sanded and waxed, nailed one edge to the bottom of the shortened legs, then attached the iron brackets David Dibble had made to hold it solidly in place.

Now for the back legs...

He turned the chair over, cut off both legs, smoothed the cuts with his fine rasp, then rubbed them with wax, careful not to touch the leather covering the padded seat. The chair was ready. All he had to do was measure for the hangers and have David Dibble make them tomorrow.

A grin tugged his mouth awry. If this worked Manning would— No. It looked good so far, but he wouldn’t start celebrating yet. He picked up the chair and carried it back to his private quarters, went back for the axle and wheels, then tossed an old blanket over them all to keep out the sawdust that permeated every nook and cranny of his small living space.

The fresh air lured him back out onto the open deck. He leaned against one of the roof support posts and gazed out at the pond, listening to the water whispering and chuckling along beneath his feet. Perhaps if he could reduce the amount of money Manning would have to borrow, he could convince him to invest in the clapboard machine. The logging operations had been going well. And the sawmill had been making a profit. Small, but— No, there wasn’t enough money to use for anything other than Manning’s family’s expenses and the men’s salaries, though he hadn’t yet figured the shingle sales this month. And they should have increased since he’d been using his shingle machine to make them. That might be enough to convince Manning. Yes, that might do it. He’d take the ledgers to his mill tomorrow morning and make the entries.