Fairer than Morning (5 page)

Ann's father walked to the door and held it open for her. She walked out, holding her skirts away from the doorframe.

Across the yard, the girls were in heated conference as Mabel gestured with cup in hand. Susan, a head taller, gave half-audible instructions to her little sister about the water pump and a dirt pile.

“Girls! Go in the house this minute,” Ann called. “You aren't to come back out until we return. There's sweeping to do, and, Susan, mind the fire, if you please.”

With slumped shoulders, the girls obeyed. Ann smiled at their crestfallen expressions. She was glad they were still so interested in play. Susan was about the same age as Ann had been when their mother died. Ann had not been so carefree.

She didn't usually need help into the wagon, but her father had to boost her by the elbow because of her voluminous skirt. When she was settled, he took the driver's position and picked up the reins, clucking to Bayberry. The wagon lurched and rolled out of the yard, startling some of the chickens in the coop into squawks and flurries. It was gray and gloomy. The trees of the woods stood like paupers with their bare arms outstretched for alms.

Her father turned his face toward her. “I will have to go to Pittsburgh again next week.”

The familiar frisson of dread ran through her. “Why?”

“Mrs. O'Hara wants me to make a new saddle for her and personally check its fit while I am there.”

“I can't imagine the money that family has, to be able to pay you for such journeys.”

“Well, for the heir to Pittsburgh's greatest fortune, such things are not as significant.”

“But I would be alone here! What if something happens to you while you're gone?”

He sighed. “We cannot fight this battle again. I must go. The money for the O'Hara saddles runs our farm for a year. We must trust God to protect all of us when we are apart.”

She did try to trust in Providence, and she did find some solace in the psalms during the nights her father was gone. But God had not protected the life of her mother, and Ann was still afraid.

With her father, however, she must take a less painful line of reasoning. “Why do the O'Haras choose you? Why can't they hire the man who does the leather?”

“I don't know. Perhaps because when I lived in Pittsburgh, he supplied the leather and I did the work.”

“But why does it matter so much? There must be saddlers in Pittsburgh who could do it.”

“I don't know. Sentiment, I suppose. Mrs. O'Hara didn't commission me when I first moved out here. Not until after her husband died.”

“Please,” Ann said. “Let me come with you this time.”

Her father raised his eyebrows. “And what will we do with the girls?”

“Bring them along.”

“That will be arduous,” her father said. “You think we can bring such young girls by stage and by steamboat for days?”

“I will assume responsibility. I can entertain them.”

“And who will care for the farm?”

Ann thought quickly. “James Murdoch. He has enough brothers—his father could spare him. We could pay him from your profit; he would be glad of the money. And really, he would only have to look after the animals. There won't be much more to do until the thaw.”

Her father fell silent and stared ahead at Bayberry's haunches. When he glanced sidelong at Ann, his eyebrows resumed their natural position. “Very well then. Perhaps just this once. On one condition.”

“What is that?”

“You must do your best to enjoy yourself and to be sociable to any appropriate young men we meet. I will undertake the expense of this trip in part out of hope that you will be more amenable to the social pursuits of a large city.”

“I will try.” That was the best she could do. The city would not offer a better man than Eli.

But then the thought of the journey brought a rush of exhilaration, and she put her hand through the crook of her father's arm. “Thank you, Father.”

He smiled.

She could hardly believe it. Soon she would see the city and its fine buildings, scores of shops, steamboats crowding the rivers—all the things her father had described to her. Her spirits lifted as the wagon jostled along the road. A journey to Pittsburgh was enough to take her mind off lost love.

Enough, that is, until Eli walked into the Murdochs' barn, where couples were already whirling and skipping through the steps of a country dance. Ann perched quietly on one of the chairs that circled the edge of the barn, her burgundy skirt pooling in stiff folds where it touched the floor. She had already danced once with James Murdoch to satisfy her father, but then politely declined a second dance. She held a warm glass of cider and watched the others.

Eli and Phoebe lingered in the open double door, glowing with fun and good health in the cool afternoon light. Eli put a gentle hand on Phoebe's shoulder, and Ann fought to keep her expression unruffled. That should have been
her
shoulder.

He caught Ann's eye and they exchanged a long look. Was he glad to see her? Phoebe must have noticed their mutual glances, for though she didn't acknowledge Ann's presence, she tugged at Eli's arm like a coy little girl. He grinned at her in reply and they stepped out into the cleared space where others were dancing. Phoebe was the center of attention, for her dancing was so lively it made a girl want to get up and dance just for the sheer joy of it. Her black hair flew and her mouth opened in laughter as she nimbly cut the steps across the floor at Eli's side. God had made Phoebe to dance.

He apparently had not made Ann to dance; at least, she had never taken the obvious pleasure in it that Phoebe did. Ann always felt as if she moved like a courtier of the last century compared to some of her carefree friends. Perhaps if she danced with Eli her feet would be lighter.

The fiddler launched into a frenzy of bowing—this dance would be ending shortly and a new one would begin. David Crawford approached from the refreshment table and held out his hand. “Will you dance with me?” He smiled his crooked smile, brown hair flopping in his eyes. “The floor is not the same without your grace, Ann.”

I would rather dance with joy than grace
. Ann set her cider down and rose to her feet to take his hand. “Thank you, David.”

They moved to a place at the side of the floor to wait their turn as the fiddler struck up something slower. A quadrille. Ann loved this dance. It had been around the Continent for a number of years, or so her Welsh schoolmaster had said when he taught the young people the quadrille. He had taught them after school a few years ago. Not all the children were permitted to dance by their parents, and he would not have dared teach it during school hours. Nonetheless, most of the Rushville youth had learned it. It was a stern parent who would forbid even the pleasure of dancing, out here where there was little else by way of entertainment.

Ann counted eight couples in the barn. She and David stood on the opposite side of the room from Eli and Phoebe, but to her dismay, several of the couples left the floor at the sound of the quadrille. Only four couples remained, which meant that she and David would have to dance in the same figure as Eli and Phoebe. Worse, they were standing on the diagonal from them, and thus they would dance with them immediately. It was too late to stand down without creating a scene. Eli supported Phoebe's arm, but his attention to his partner was too rapt to be natural. He also must have realized that he and Ann were about to cross paths in the figures of the quadrille.

When Ann and Phoebe stepped forward and interlaced their arms, circling each other as required by the first pattern, Phoebe's eyes were like a dark wall, her arm stiff, an artificial smile plastered on her lips. Ann was immensely relieved when they finished that odd stalking circle. But what followed was even more trying: she had to place her hand on Eli's shoulder as he rested his hand against her side where her dress fitted her closest. They circled each other. After a few seconds, she braved a glance up at his face.

“You look beautiful.” He spoke quietly, under his breath. Shocked, she dropped her eyes and released her grip. Fortunately, it was the appropriate moment in the dance to go back to her place by David. She wasn't sure she could maintain her composure, so she stared fixedly at the other pair of couples who were now dancing together in the center. They parted to reveal Eli on the other side. He was still watching her. Heat pulsed up the back of her neck and burned in her cheeks.

The dance ended. Pleading over-warmth, she asked David to walk with her in the cool air outside. But when she went alone to retrieve her cape from a pile on a trestle table, Eli stood next to it, his fair head still, his gaze intent as he watched her approach.

“You're leaving?” he asked, again barely audible.

“Not just yet. Soon.”

“I wish we could sit awhile and talk.”

“But you're here with Phoebe.”

“That doesn't preclude talking.”

“Oh, you mean sit together with you and Phoebe and talk?” She heard faint derision in her own voice.

He winced. “No. Some other time, I hope?”

“I'm leaving for Pittsburgh next week. I'll be away for some time.”

The wrinkle she loved appeared at the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

“My father has a very important saddling commission. Now, if you'll excuse me
 
.
 
.
 
.”

She took some satisfaction in leaving him standing there as she plucked her cape from the table. She swept off to walk with David, whose expression called to mind the proverbial cat with the canary.

During their walk, she remained quiet and let David chatter on about horses. Perhaps there was something to the new dress after all. But, if she left for Pittsburgh now, Eli might very well be betrothed to Phoebe by the time she returned. The thought dampened her pleasure, but what else could she do? He had not waited for her. His words tonight might be only a whim on his part. She would not give up this journey with her father for a mere wisp of a chance.

Five

P
ITTSBURGH
24th February 1826

T
HE DUST OF CRUSHED BONE CLUNG TO HIS CLOTHES
long after he left the hill. No doubt that was why Master Good had sent Will here every week for over two years. The master wished to remind him of how much worse things could yet be.

This hill rose half a mile northwest of the city, where the smoke from the river foundries still drifted on windy days. Will climbed a rickety wooden stairway cut into the hillside, clutching the frayed edges of his coat. The buttons had given up their tenuous hold months ago. He could hardly choose which was worse: freezing his hands in the air, or shoving them in his pockets and leaving his coat to flap open and freeze his chest. For now, he chose to hold the coat closed with numb hands.

He reached the door of the poorhouse. With an effort, he curled one hand into a fist and pounded it against the dark brown wood.

“Oakum!” he yelled. The oakum he had brought, tarred rope from the docks, provided labor for those in the poorhouse, who had to untwist it by hand.

The door opened and an old woman peeked out, her face like a wizened apple in its ruffled bonnet, her back hunched. “You the oakum boy?”

“Yes, ma'am. I cannot bring the handcart up the hill. The able-bodied men will have to help.” He did not remember this woman from his previous trips to the poorhouse, but that was not unusual. The residents moved in and out, sometimes on their own feet, other times in the county hearse. Will was not permitted to walk the grounds without first speaking to whichever old crone happened to be answering the door.

“You'll have to go 'round the side and tell them,” the woman said and shut the door in his face.

He trudged around the end of the ugly square building, counting his steps. At least he could find some kind of warmth in the work shed, though the wooden-slatted sides of the building looked thin and temporary. He stepped up to the dark doorway and pushed open the door—really more like a gate, with its primitive hinges and flimsy boards.

“Shut the door!” a hoarse voice called out.

“Shut it, ye dolt!”

“It's freezin' already in here!”

Will slammed the gate, standing still while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The smell of rot was overpowering. The forms of a dozen men and boys took shape. They bent over the long stone troughs, their shoulders tight. Some had paused with their iron bars raised to ogle the stranger.

“Don't stop, ye laggards!” The man with the hoarse voice was the overseer of the poorhouse, portly Mr. Fogarty.

The men began to beat their bars against the trough again. The white bones in the trough bounced, cracked, and powdered under the onslaught. Even from his place by the gate, Will could see the shreds of rotten horseflesh and dogflesh that still clung to some of the bones, causing the terrible stench. A coal fire guttered in a makeshift hearth between the two troughs, its rancid smoke thickening the soupy air.