Mail Order Devastation (Montana Mail Order Brides, Book 4) (13 page)

Chapter 18

Friday, February 27, 1891

Mollie had been watching the family come and go all week.  She’d found a little niche in the hedge near the back alley, wedged between the end of the brick wall that ran along the alley, and the place where the hedge—which ran alongside the driveway all the way to the back of the lot—ended.  From there, she could remain largely unobserved for hours at a time. 

As she suspected, the wealthy families in the neighborhood always used their front driveways, and only the servants came and went by the narrow dirt alleys between the residential streets.  If she timed it right, coming after the servants had arrived, and leaving before the midday meal, she could watch the Deming family
’s activities undetected for most of the morning.

The hedge and wall provided a great deal of protection from the bitter winds, and there was even a large rock in that very place that she could sit on
—which was probably the reason for the wall and hedge not meeting up completely.  She brought along a folded blanket to sit upon, to keep her dress clean and prevent her body heat from leaching out into the rock.  She dressed warmly in many layers, and though it got uncomfortably cold, she managed to endure. 

Unfortunately, because of the cold weather, the entire family didn
’t venture out often. But once she had managed to catch a glimpse of Nell.  She was entirely changed—her hair had grown out from fuzzy tufts of baby hair to thin strawberry blonde curls.  Her face was round and rosy—and oh, how very big she’d become!  Mollie’s heart ached, thinking of those precious months that she’d missed, and would never get back. She couldn’t bear the thought of another month more passing.  She had to get her child back. 

A quick glimpse was all she had gotten.  Nell was wrapped tight in layers of clothes and blankets, carried by someone Mollie didn
’t recognize.  At first she thought the brunette woman holding Nell was Mrs. Deming, but the woman’s clothing quickly gave her away—she must be some kind of upper staff, probably a nanny.  A blonde woman followed behind, head down against the wind, as they made their way from the house to the awaiting carriage.  At last came Mr. Deming, holding the elbow of a thin, pale, dark-haired woman. 
That must be Mrs. Deming,
Mollie thought. 

The carriage driver helped the women alight, closing the carriage door after Mr. Deming had climbed in, and a minute later they were rattling down the brick driveway toward the street.  Mollie wasn
’t sure how long they would be gone, and wondered if it was worth waiting to see if they’d be back within the hour.  Before she could decide, a rear door opened—smaller one that was off to the side—and Jefferson, the disdainful butler, appeared.  Mollie chastised herself for not leaving when she’d had the chance.  She’d be discovered for sure!

But instead of leaving by the alley, Jefferson walked around the home and left via the driveway.  He must have been attending to an errand or some business, and had taken advantage of the family
’s absence and used the front drive. 
But he won’t use the front door,
Mollie thought, amused at his fastidiousness for rules. 

She breathed a sigh of relief.  Then it struck her
—no one was at home!  She’d watched for enough days to know that there wasn’t a full-time maid.  She suspected a maid must come in the afternoons—the house was too large to have no maid on staff, but Mollie hadn’t seen one in any of her morning excursions, and she couldn’t risk staying into the afternoon to know who came and went during those hours.

Do I dare?
she thought, her heart racing.  But her feet had her moving before her mind even made the decision.  She pushed past the hedge and stole across the large yard, darting around a small landscaped garden area.  Skulking along the house, she tried the handle of the door Jefferson had departed from—it was unlocked! 
Does that mean he’ll be coming right back? 
She hesitated, imagining him catching her in the act.  It was a great risk, but she knew it was one she’d take, no matter what. 

She slipped inside, shutting it behind her.  The house was quiet
—so quiet that she could just barely hear the ticking of the giant grandfather clock in the foyer at the front of the house.  She wandered through the back hall, passing the scullery and kitchen, and on through to the front portion of the house.  Finding herself in the large foyer, she turned to her right, toward the room that stood opposite of the drawing room she herself had been in previously. 

She found that it was some kind of sitting room or parlor.  One wall was filled entirely with books, and there were comfortable wing back chairs sitting before a fireplace.  She passed through, going through a door at the far end into a smaller room.  That room had two walls made up entirely of windows extending from the ceiling almost to the floor.  A fire still burned in the fireplace, and to the left of the fireplace, Mollie spied a wooden rocking horse.  To the right, a large basket was filled with toys.  Along the settee, dolls of every variety sat frozen in their neatly-arranged positions.  There were hand-sewn dolls and porcelain dolls, and each had blue eyes with hair of brown or blonde or black.  But no red hair.  No green eyes.  No adorable painted-on freckles marred their perfect complexions. 

There wasn’t an Irish-looking doll among them. 

Somehow that broke Mollie
’s heart even more.  Though Nell herself didn’t look particularly Irish, it bothered Mollie to know that the Demings were erasing any hint of Nell’s Irish ancestry from her environment. 
Nell should know where she comes from
, she thought. 

She bent to run her hand over the satiny-smooth wood of the rocking horse, which had been buffed and polished to a lovely sheen. 
She sat here.  My baby sat here on this rocking horse, in this house, in this room.  She’s played with these toys and laughed and giggled, and I wasn’t here for a single moment of it.

What made it even worse was that she knew that it wasn
’t Vera Deming who sat alongside Nell and watched her play every day.  No, more likely it was the nanny.  One of the two young women who had left in the carriage with the family—perhaps both.  The idea was shocking.  How could any woman with so much time on her hands need even one full-time nanny, much less
two?
  Where Mollie had grown up, everyone took care of their own, unless circumstances made it impossible—and even then, the children were usually cared for by a relative or a very close friend. 

To know that
another woman was raising her Nellie, calling
he
r
“mama”, being cuddled by
her—
that was hard enough to bear.  But to know that she was being raised by the
staff
, who could quit or be replaced at any time, on a whim, was devastating. 

She looked away from the toys, tears blurring her vision.  Then she spied something sticking out from under the settee.  Reaching down to pick it up, she saw it was a tiny, soft pink sweater.  Flowers were embroidered across the front of the cardigan with silk ribbon, and the little buttons were made of mother-of-pearl.

It was Nell’s.

In the three short months that Nell had been in her arms, never once did she don a garment so luxurious.  Mollie ran her fingers over the knit.  She wasn
’t familiar with the yarn—mohair?  Cashmere?  She didn’t know much about fine fabrics, though she’d heard about them from the lady’s maid at her old job. 

Could I ever give her things this fine?
Even if Noah became the most successful shopkeeper in town, and even if he accepted Nell, would we be able to provide such wonderful toys, and excellent education for her?
She remembered Mr. Deming’s words.  They could provide her with the best of everything.  Was it fair to tear Nell from the home she’d known for two thirds of her young life?  Would Nell resent her someday, because she didn’t get the privileged life that she could have had?

Mollie clutched the sweater to her breast, tears streaming down her face. 
Is it wrong to pursue Nell, even though I have the legal right to?  Am I being selfish?
She buried her face in the sweater.  She couldn’t even bring herself to answer that question.  Living without Nell seemed an impossibility.  Just
breathing
without Nell, or laying in bed every night with empty arms, was an agony.  It was only sheer force of will that made her get up every day, paste on a happy smile, and pretend that life was wonderful.  It was only her desperate need for her daughter that kept her going.

She inhaled the scent of the sweater.  It smelled wonderful
—like baby and talcum powder, but also different.  The perfumed smell of Nell’s soap, mixed with the smell of a baby-turning-little girl.  It was familiar, yet so different at the same time.  She’d missed out on so much.  She couldn’t miss out on any more. 

My baby won
’t be raised by strangers.  What good are sweaters and dolls galore, if you don’t have your one true mother?  The woman who loves you above all else, who would give her life for you?  This woman, this Vera, doesn’t even bother to carry Nell out to the carriage! 
It was one thing for a woman to leave her child with a babysitter because she must work to feed her family, or perhaps to attend the occasional social engagements—but to leave every aspect of a child’s care to someone else? 

No!  My Nell may deserve fancy sweaters and dolls, but she deserves her real mother so much more.

Mollie wiped the tears with the back of her hand.  She might not have much more time, and she needed to see the room where her baby slept…where the majority of her toys and all her clothing would be.  She had to see it, to touch it, to hold it all in her hands.

Quietly she walked through a second door to the room, into the hallway, and back toward the rest of the house.  By instinct, she made her way to the back stairs, which would be used only by servants.  Even in an empty house, Mollie would have felt strange walking up the main staircase instead of using the
servant
s
’ stairs.

The thought amused her. 
Once a servant, always a servant, I suppose. 

She took hold of the railing and began to ascend.  Halfway up, she was startled by the sound of a voice coming from above. 

“Yes, Madam, I’ll fetch it on my way back from bringing your breakfast dishes down to the kitchen.”

Mollie froze mid-step, her heart leaping into her throat. 
Someone’s here!  Who could it be?  Did I overlook a lady’s maid?
  Then she remembered—the elderly mother! 
She must be upstairs in bed, and someone must be here with her!
She cringed, berating herself for forgetting something so obvious.

She didn
’t even dare turn around.  She just crept backwards down the stairs. When her feet hit the tiled floor of the back hall, she turned, cringing at the scraping sound her shoes made, and tip-toed hastily toward the door she’d entered from.  Mollie could hear the woman descending the servant’s stairs just as she slipped through the door and pulled it quietly shut behind her.

The snick of the door snapping into place was like a cannon in her ears.  She waited, listening at the door.  The maid
’s footsteps echoed through the service hallway that she had just left, fading away.  She had gone into the kitchen. 

Scanning along the wall beyond her, Mollie could see that the section of the house where the kitchen must be had no windows overlooking the back yard.  She sighed with relief as she scanned the yard, then crossed it carefully, avoiding the icy patches on the thin layer of snow.  Only when she was back to her little hiding spot, panting more from the shock of nearly getting caught than from her fast walk across the yard, did she realize that she held something in her hand.  She looked down.

It was Nell’s little pink sweater. 

Mollie folded the sweater with great care and stuck it in the large pocket of her coat, then turned up her collar against the wind and made her escape down the alley before Jefferson could return.

***

The house appeared empty when Noah arrived home.

Again?  What is going on?

For the fourth time in as many days, Noah arrived to the aroma of dinner cooking, but no wife to be seen.  Each day, Mollie was locked away in the bedroom, and whenever he asked why, she always gave him a different, vague answer. 

He strode straight for the bedroom door.  “Mollie?”  He tried the handle.

Locked. 

Again.

“
I’ll be right there,” came her muffled reply through the door.

He sighed with frustration. 
“Mollie, what is going on?”

“
Nothing.” 

He could hear shuffling, as if she was organizing something or putting something away.  Was she changing her clothing? 
Perhaps she’s just fixing herself up for you.  She may have gotten dirty keeping the house all day.