His Precious Inheritance (Inspirational Historical Romance) (3 page)

“Of course, Dr. Austin.”

A slender woman garbed in a plain brown dress and carrying a thin wood box appeared in the sunlit doorway. The wren! He jerked to a halt.
She
was the columnist? He wiped the astonishment from his face as she stepped into the room and glanced his way.

Dr. Austin closed the door and turned to face them. “Mr. Thornberg, may I present Miss Gordon. Miss Gordon, Mr. Thornberg.”

“Miss Gordon.” He dipped his head in polite acknowledgment.

“Mr. Thornberg.”

You.
She didn’t speak the word, but it was clear from the cool look she gave him that she recognized him as the man she’d caught staring at her on the steamer. He clamped his jaw to keep from launching into an explanation.

“Well, this is a fortuitous meeting for all of us. Please be seated, Miss Gordon.”

He moved to hold a chair for her as Dr. Austin strode behind his desk. She gave him a curt nod to acknowledge the politeness and sat, holding the box on her lap. He moved to sit in the other chair, eyed the polished wood and wondered at the contents.

“This morning has been full of pleasant surprises for me.” Dr. Austin smiled at them and took his chair. “I hope it proves the same for both of you.”

Charles swept his gaze from Dr. Austin to the piles of letters to Miss Gordon. He would not term these surprises pleasant.
Startling
would be a more apt description.

“Miss Gordon, I have given some thought to your idea for your next article for the Chautauqua edition of the
Sunday School Journal
.”

He lifted his gaze to her plain felt hat, forced down the irritation percolating inside him then focused his attention back on Dr. Austin.

“I like the idea for your piece and will include it in the Chautauqua submission for the
Sunday School Journal
.”

“Thank you, Dr. Austin.”

Her voice sounded soft, a tiny bit husky and...relieved? He glanced her way.

“I also think the idea wonderfully suited for a monthly column in the
Assembly Herald
.”

What?
He jerked his gaze back to Dr. Austin but bit back the protest that sprang to his lips. The man had final say over the contents of the Chautauqua newsletter.

“You could feature one or two of the teachers or lecturers or entertainers here at Chautauqua each month, which will spur interest and excitement for next August. Should you agree, the stipend for the column will be the same as that you receive for your
Journal
articles. Would you care to take on the responsibility of the monthly column? I know you are a teacher and will have a large draw on your time come September.”

The wren was a teacher? He cast a sideways glance at her and glanced again. The woman’s face had transformed astonishingly, with an undeniable sweetness to her smile—a snare for the unwary.

“That will not be a problem, sir. I will be happy to write a monthly column for the Assembly Herald. To what address shall I submit it?”

“You will submit it to Mr. Thornberg. He will now be performing the editing and publication duties of the
Assembly Herald
.”

The smile faded. She opened the box, took out a piece of paper and a pencil and turned her head and looked at him.
Gray eyes.
Cool
gray eyes. Miss Gordon was no more pleased with the situation than he. Good.

“The address where you wish me to submit the column, Mr. Thornberg?”

He refrained from giving a mock shiver at the cold tone of her voice. “That would be my newspaper office. The
Jamestown Journal
on West Second Street in Jamestown, New York.”

She put the paper and pencil back in the box, met his questioning gaze with another cool look. “I’ve no need to write the direction. I’m familiar with the area and with your new
Journal
building. I live at Mrs. Smithfield’s boardinghouse on East Second Street.”

“How very convenient.”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

“Well, I must leave. There is an opening lecture I must give.” Dr. Austin tucked his watch back in his vest pocket, leaned down, then straightened and placed a large burlap bag on the piles of letters. “Take the letters with you, Mr. Thornberg. You’ll need time to read and answer them. And you’ll have to make arrangements to get the others that will continue to come in. I’ll see that they are placed in a sack for you.” He rose and made a courtly bow. “Good day, Miss Gordon. I shall look forward to reading your new monthly Chautauqua Experience column in the newsletter.”

Her new column...submitted to him. And all those letters with more to come! Charles cast a jaundiced eye at the piles, rose and picked up the bag. Miss Gordon clasped her box and stood. Well, that was one good thing. His curiosity had been answered. The box held writing supplies.

Sunlight slanted across the floor when Dr. Austin opened the door, disappeared when he closed it.

“Don’t forget these.” Miss Gordon put her box on the chair, stooped and picked up some letters that had slipped to the floor at the opposite end of the desk. “Why, these are all marked CLSC. That’s the reading program...” Her voice trailed off. She rose and looked at the piles of letters, her eyes widened. “Oh, my.” Her gaze lifted, met his. “Do you have to— I mean, are you going to—”

“Answer them in the
Herald
?” He opened the bag, grabbed a handful of the letters and shoved them into it. “Every one of them.”

“Oh, my.”

He slanted a look down at her. “You said that already.”

Her chin lifted. “It bears repeating.” She dropped the letters she held in the open bag, turned to the desk and snatched up those that had slid to the brink and were about to fall.

He studied her neat, no-nonsense appearance. She was a teacher. And a writer. Perhaps... He blew out a breath, examined the idea, decided he had no real choice. “Miss Gordon, could I interest you in a position answering correspondence at the
Journal
?”

Her left brow lifted. “Do you mean these
Assembly Herald
letters?”

“Yes.”

She tossed the ones she held into the bag and reached for more.

Obviously, she was waiting to hear his offer before she expressed any interest. It galled him to yield to the tactic, but he had no choice. “I’d be willing to pay you—” he glanced at the high tottering piles “—two cents for each letter answered.” That was too much. He should have said a penny. No. He couldn’t risk her turning him down. He couldn’t handle this amount of correspondence and run the paper, too. It was worth the money to free his time. He sweetened the deal. “And you would be permitted to use the typewriter for writing your own articles in your off time.”

She drew in an audible breath, straightened and looked at him. “A typewriter?”

Ah. He had her now. “Yes, the new Remington Standard model two.” He smiled, appealed further to the writer in her. “They say once you grow proficient at using the machine, you can type eighty or more words a minute.”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “I take it you have not reached such a proficiency—hence the offer?”

She was
laughing
at him! Brazen woman! He drew breath to rescind his offer. “Miss Gordon, I—” She dropped two overflowing handfuls of letters into the bag he held, gathered up more, dropped them on top of the others and gathered more. He watched her efficient movements, frowned and swallowed his words. “The typewriters and their desks have only just arrived. The machines are not yet uncrated.”

“I see.” More envelopes fluttered into the bag—more and more. Her plain brown hat bobbed with her curt nod. “I accept the position offered, Mr. Thornberg.” She pushed the envelopes down to make room, gathered up the remaining letters, stuffed them on top of the others, leaned across the cleared desk and checked the floor on the other side. “Two more.” She stepped around the desk, retrieved the letters from the floor and stuck them in the bag then looked up at him. “When do you wish me to start?”

Her gray eyes had blue flecks in them...

“Mr. Thornberg...”

“What? Oh!” He scowled down at the bag, drew the edges together, tossed it over his shoulder and moved toward the door. “Tomorrow morning at eight will be fine.”

She nodded, picked up her writing box and sailed out the door he opened for her.

He watched her hurrying up the path toward the hill, then turned and headed for the dock to wait for the
Griffith
,
wondering if he’d just made a mistake. Miss Gordon seemed a little too independent of spirit for his comfort.

Chapter Two

C
larice closed the door, hurried across the lamp-lit entrance hall and held herself from running up the stairs. Mr. Paul retired early, and he was grouchy enough to complain to Mrs. Smithfield if he was disturbed. The excitement she’d been suppressing ever since her morning meeting with Dr. Austin bubbled and churned with undeniable force, driving her upward. Her skirt hems whispered an accompaniment to the soft tap of her feet against the carpet runner as she rushed to the end of the upstairs hallway, opened and closed her door then leaned back against it hugging her writing box and grinning.

“Mama, I’m a journalist— Well, I’m not really a journalist for a real newspaper. But I’m now a columnist for the monthly
Chautauqua Assembly Herald
newsletter!” She spread her arms and whirled into the room, the writing box dangling from one hand.

“Clarice, how wonderful! I know how much you—” The words choked off on a sob.

She stopped twirling, dropped her box on the bed and grasped her mother’s hands, gave a little tug to pull them away from her face. “What is it, Mama? What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Is it the pain in your back?”

“N-no. It’s only—I can’t remember the l-last time I saw you h-happy.”

“Oh, Mama, don’t cry. I finally have you here with me and that makes me happy. And now I have an exciting new job.”

“As a c-columnist?”

“Yes!”

Her mother tugged her hands free and wiped her cheeks and eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were going to apply for a new position when you left this morning.”

“I didn’t. That is what is so amazing. It all happened quite by accident.”

“Oh?”

She knew that tone. “It wasn’t
God
, Mama. It was just...circumstances.” She kissed her mother’s moist cheek, whirled to the mirror over the dressing table and removed her hat. “Still, I have had the most astonishing day. It all started when I went to see Dr. Austin about an interview and—” She peered into the mirror, dropped her hat on the table and turned. “What is that in your lap?”

“It’s a chemise.” Her mother’s chin lifted a tad. “I’m mending the torn lace on it for Mrs. Duncan.”

“Mama, no! You don’t have to work anymore.” She rushed to the bed and reached for the undergarment. Her mother grabbed hold of her hands.

“I know you want to take care of me, Clarice. But I also know Mrs. Smithfield has raised your room and board since I’ve come.”

“How did you— Mrs. Duncan!” She went as stiff as a board. “How did
she
find out? She had no right to snoop into my business, the old—old
busybody
! I didn’t want you to know. It’s my—” The squeeze of her mother’s hands stopped her.

“I
asked
Mrs. Duncan to find out for me, Clarice. I may not be very wise in city ways, but I know people won’t let you live for free. And I don’t want to be a—”

“Don’t you say that word, Mama!” Tears stung her eyes. “I
want
to take care of you. It gives me pleasure. It’s what I’ve been working toward ever since I left the farm and you had to do all of the cooking and cleaning and hoeing and raking and the scrubbing of those huge piles of oily work clothes for Father and Don and Jim and Carl by yourself, until—” Her voice broke. She drew a long shaky breath.

“You have to stop thinking about that, Clarice. It’s over.”

“You can’t
walk
, Mama. It will never be over.” The bitterness soured her voice.

“Yes, Clarice, one day it will. I don’t know if it will be here on earth or in Heaven, but one day I will walk again. Meantime, I need something to do with my days and I’ve always enjoyed sewing and mending—as long as it isn’t oil-stained work clothes. And I’m quite a hand at it, if I do say so as shouldn’t. And I’d
like
to think I’m earning my way a little.” Her mother slanted a look up at her and wrinkled her nose. “Surely, you can understand that, Miss Independent.”

The name pulled a smile from her, just as her mother knew it would. “I suppose so. But you don’t
need
to earn your way, Mama. I can take care of you. That’s what I was about to tell you.” The excitement crept back, colored her voice.

“And I want to hear.” Her mother released her hand and patted the bed.

She pushed her box out of the way and perched on the edge. “Dr. Austin—he’s one of the leaders of the Chautauqua Assembly—has asked me to write a monthly column for the
Assembly Herald
. And I will be paid the same as for the annual Chautauqua Experience article I write for the
Sunday School Journal
.
I’m a professional columnist, Mama!” She jumped to her feet, too excited to remain sitting. “And it all happened because I had to— Because I decided to change the way I write my
Sunday School Journal
article.”

She lifted the box that held her notes on the interviews she had conducted all day and carried it over to the desk in the turret area. “You see, I needed to interview Dr. Austin, and so I had to explain how I wanted to change the article. But he had a meeting to attend, and I waited outside to interview him...” She lifted the lid of the long box window seat, pulled out a sheet and blanket, spread them over the pad and tucked the edges beneath. “When he called me in, he introduced me to the new owner of the
Jamestown Journal
—that’s a biweekly newspaper here in town.” She tossed a pillow down at one end of her makeshift bed and walked out of the turret to the wardrobe. “Mr. Thornberg is going to edit and print the
Assembly Herald
from now on, and so I am to submit my articles to him.”

“Here in town? Or must you still take the steamer to Fair Point?”

“Here in town.” She gave a tug at the double doors, winced. “I
hate
opening this wardrobe. That squeak gives me shivers.” She took her nightclothes off a hook on the inside of the door and stepped back into the small alcove formed between the wardrobe and the wall. “And there were all of these letters from CLSC members piled on the desk.
Hundreds
of them, which Mr. Thornberg now has to answer.” A smile tugged at her. She stuck her head out beyond the wardrobe and grinned at her mother. “He looked so nonplussed I’m certain he didn’t know about them. Anyway, he asked me if I would accept a position at his newspaper answering the correspondence for two cents a letter...”

“Two cents! And there are
hundreds
of letters?”

Her mother’s eyes widened.

“Maybe a thousand or more.”

“Mercy me...”

She laughed at her mother’s awed whisper. “I said yes, of course.” How fortuitous it all was! Only this morning she had been so worried about how she was to pay the increased room and board. Now she would have money enough and to spare. She would be able to get a doctor to care for her mother.

Tears welled. So did the temptation to pray—to beg God to make her mother well. She blinked the tears away, looped her modest bustle and cotton petticoat over a hook along with her skirt and bodice, not allowing herself to even
think
that her mother might walk again. She had learned the futility of prayer as a child begging to be freed from her father’s tyranny. Eleven years—

“How will you have time to answer all of those letters when you begin teaching?”

She shoved away the bitter memories. “I’m going to resign my position. I will earn more answering those letters every month than I would earn as a teacher. And more yet by writing my monthly column. And doing so will further my career.”

Oh, how wonderful that sounded! She snatched up her wrapper, put it on and crossed to the dressing table to pull the pins from her hair. Soft, dull clinks accompanied their drop into a small pewter dish. “And he has a typewriter I will use!”

“A ‘typewriter’?” Her mother’s questioning gaze fastened on hers in the mirror. “What is a typewriter?”

“It’s a machine that prints letters on a piece of paper when you depress a round button. I saw a picture of one once in an advertisement. Mr. Thornberg says that when a person becomes proficient in its use, they can write—type—up to eighty words a minute.” She stared into the distance trying to imagine it, then ran her hands through her hair and set the long silky tresses rippling free. “And that is another bles—benefit. I am to be at the newspaper tomorrow morning at eight to begin my work.” She ran her brush through her hair, looked at her mother and smiled. “The
Journal
building is close by, and unless Mr. Thornberg objects, I will be able to come home and see you at dinnertime. And I will be here with you for supper and every evening.”

She slipped a length of ribbon between her neck and her hair, tied it and stepped over to the bed. “Lean forward and I will rub your back, Mama.” She pulled the pillows out of her way, handed them to her mother, then massaged the muscles along her spine, frowning at the bony protrusions. Her mother was much too thin from all that hard work. Her face tightened. She thrust aside the infuriating memories. Her mother would never have to do such heavy lifting again. If only she could walk. But at least she was no longer in constant pain.

“That feels good, Clarice. It takes away the ache. Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Mama.” She lifted her hands and massaged her mother’s bony shoulders and thin neck, wished it were her father beneath her hands. She would pummel him until he ached and be glad for doing it. She took a breath, reached for the pillows and punched them instead. “I’m sorry I had to leave you alone so soon after bringing you here, Mama. How was your day with Mrs. Duncan? Did she help with your personal needs all right? Did she bring you your meals?”

“Everything worked out fine, Clarice. Mrs. Duncan and I chatted like old friends. I enjoyed her company. I—”

She glanced at her mother’s tightly pressed lips, tucked the pillows in place and finished the sentence for her. “You never had visitors on the farm. Father scared them all away, except for Miss Hartmore.”

“Yes. God bless Miss Hartmore for her courage in rescuing you.”

It was a prayer. She said it, too, every time she thought of her old teacher. The difference was her mother believed God heard and answered prayer—for her it was an expression of gratitude.

“And you, Mama.”

“And me.” Her mother shivered and smoothed the wrinkles from the quilt covering her legs. “What sort of man is Mr. Thornberg?”

The question caught her off guard. “I don’t know, Mama. I only spoke with him for a few minutes.” She thought about his handsome, strong-featured face. There was nothing soft about Mr. Thornberg, but he seemed eminently fair...even generous. Of course, he hadn’t any choice. “He’s strong, with decisive ways.”

Her mother grabbed her arm. “Don’t anger him, Clarice. If he does not want you to come home for dinner, I will be fine with Mrs. Duncan.”

Her chest tightened. “You don’t have to be afraid for me, Mama. Mr. Thornberg is a bit autocratic—as men are. But he’s no despot. And I’m certainly in no physical danger.” An image of Mr. Thornberg towering over her as she stuffed letters into the bag he held flashed into her head. He was a big man—like her father. Odd that she hadn’t been frightened. Likely she’d been too focused on his job offer. She hid her shiver and smiled reassurance. “He’s a businessman with socially acceptable manners. He would never hit a woman. It would ruin his reputation.”

Her mother nodded and rested back against the fluffed pillows, but the remnant of past fear shadowed her blue eyes. “Just be careful, and do as Mr. Thornberg says, Clarice. I can’t protect you anymore.”

She turned her mind from all the times her mother had stepped in and taken a blow meant for her from her father’s hand, swallowed hard and pushed words out of her constricted throat. “There’s no need, Mama. You and I are here together, and I will take care of us both. No man will ever hurt either of us again. I promise you. Not ever.”

* * *

Charles tightened the screw in the wobbly table leg, tossed the screwdriver down and rose to shove the end of the table against the wall. “Ugh!” He ducked, rubbed the top of his head and shot a look upward. The three-lamp chandelier overhead was swinging. There were six of the traps for the tall and unwary hanging evenly spaced in two rows that ran the length of the room. One chandelier for each of the desks for the six reporters he hoped to need someday. So far he had one reporter—two counting himself—and a correspondence secretary acquired quite by accident. Well, accidental necessity. The deal he had made to edit and print the
Assembly Herald
newsletter
was not quite as good as he had expected it to be, thanks to those letters. But he would still profit by it.

He tugged the chain to lift the weights and lower the light closer to the work surface, then glanced across the width of the room to the new black walnut typewriter desk sitting at a right angle to the outside wall. Miss Gordon would be out of the way there at the back of the editorial room. And the desk was handy to the shelves on the back wall that held reference books and supplies, and also to this table he had brought in to give her a place to sort those letters. She was going to need it.

He lifted the overstuffed burlap bag from where it leaned against the inside wall to the tabletop. Letters spilled out of the mouth of the bag onto the waxed wood when he let go. Curiosity reared. He picked up an envelope, broke the seal and scanned the contents.

Dear Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle teacher,

I have been doing my studying and reading and have come across these words I don’t understand or know how to properly say. There is no library near me where I can look them up in a dictionary. Would you help me, please? The words are
phenomena
and
pantheists
.

Also, please, how do you say these names correctly? Leucippus and Democritus.

Thank you for helping me.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle member Martha Hewitt, Burgessville, Iowa

He laid the letter on the table, lifted his hand and rubbed the muscles at the back of his neck. How would Miss Gordon ever manage to answer all of these letters in a column? It would take an entire page or more. He shook his head, strode to the door that opened into the composing room and continued on to the long, deep table that held the uncrated typewriters.