Rexanne Becnel (2 page)

Her father removed the pipe from his mouth. “He’s taken quite a fancy to you, Abigail. He was prepared to travel with Captain Smythe’s company to California. But he’s altered his plans, strictly on account of you.”

Abby shot her father a wary look. She had been afraid of this, but she forced herself to continue combing her fingers through the dark chestnut length of her hair. “Did he actually say that? Or did you surmise it?”

“He respectfully requested my permission to call on you. What else should I surmise?”

She stared across the softly hissing embers to where her father sat, dimly outlined by the faint firelight. “And how did you answer him?”

“I granted him my permission of course—unless you have some very strenuous reason to object. But he’s a proper gentleman, Abigail. Pious. Well read. Just the sort to make you a good husband.” When she didn’t respond right away, he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Well, daughter? Have you nothing to say?”

Abby pushed her heavy hair behind her shoulders, then rubbed her cold, chapped hands together, trying vainly to get them warm. She picked her words carefully. “While I am sure the Reverend Harrison will make someone a very good husband, I just don’t think it will be me.”

Her father straightened. “And why is that?” he demanded in a belligerent tone.

“Well.” Abby thought a moment. “He is pleasant and well spoken but … but he simply does not appeal to me in that way.”

He snorted contemptuously. “I take that to mean he doesn’t make your heart pound faster every time you see him.”

She averted her eyes, hiding behind the long fringe of her sable lashes. How embarrassing to discuss such things with her father. “Well, I suppose that’s one way to describe it.”

He took a few silent puffs on his pipe. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler. “You hardly know the man.”

That was true. Yet somehow Abby was certain that made no difference. Getting to know him would not change things at all.

“You’re past the age when most girls marry,” he continued in a reasonable tone.

“I thought you wanted me to be a teacher. I thought you wanted me to help you establish a school in Oregon. If I marry, I’ll hardly have time to teach.”

He didn’t answer that, and Abby felt a little better. It wasn’t that she was opposed to marriage. Quite the opposite. But her parents had loved each other. It had been obvious to everyone who knew them. She wanted that sort of marriage too.

“I think I’ll tend to these dishes, then turn in,” she said, wanting to end this conversation. She rose to her feet and reached for the water bucket.

“Yes, you do that. But Abigail,” he added, halting her before she could leave, “I would like you to consider Reverend Harrison just the same. He’s a fine, upstanding young man. As a reverend’s wife you’d be well respected.”

“Papa.” She hesitated, then decided just to plunge in. “Mama told me once that she loved you from the first moment she laid eyes on you.”

He went rigid at her words, and she instantly regretted bringing up the subject of her mother. But whatever emotions he felt, he hid behind a stern tone. “Mrs. Bliss may have loved me from the first, but my initial impression of her was of a prissy, useless young thing.”

Abby’s mouth gaped open, so shocked was she by his disclosure. “Mama? Prissy? How could you have ever thought that of her?”

“Because I didn’t know her then,” he bit out. “Because I made a hasty judgment about her. I have thanked the Lord every day of my life since then that He thrust us together again and granted me the opportunity to know her better. To love her.”

His point was painfully clear, and anyway Abby was too dumbfounded by his revelation to speak. Her mother had revealed very little of her early life. Her father had revealed even less. To hear now that their first meeting had not been magical …

“Will you consent to see him, Abigail?”

Though it was termed as a question, Abby knew his words were more a command. She was not in the habit of ignoring his commands.

“Yes, Papa,” she answered softly. “I will see the Reverend Harrison.”

Robert Bliss’s heart filled with misgivings as he watched his daughter walk away. The trek to Oregon was not enough, he’d come to realize. No, marriage to the right sort of man was the best insurance he had. The best way to protect his Abby girl. And who better than a young and idealistic preacher?

He returned his pipe to his lips, then sighed when he sucked and the bowl was cold. Every joint in his body seemed to protest when he squatted beside the dying campfire to light a bit of kindling.

Their journey to the Oregon Territory would be a test of his endurance, but he was resolved not to fail. He would cross the burning sands barefoot if necessary, anything to save Abigail from his father-in-law, Willard Hogan. Twenty-one years and the man had not changed at all. Still arrogant. Still greedy. Still determined to control the lives of his family. Well, he’d not controlled Margaret. Robert had seen to that. And he would not control his granddaughter either.

Robert sat back with his relit pipe and puffed until the tobacco was well caught. Willard Hogan had opposed the marriage of his only child to a pious schoolteacher. A
poor
schoolteacher. In truth Robert had thought Margaret Hogan just a bit of pretty fluff, without a thought in her head beyond expensive clothes, late-night dances, and endless socializing. Willard Hogan had seen his beautiful daughter as a prize to be awarded to the man who could most help Willard further his business interests. But Margaret had possessed a pure soul and a sharp mind. Once Robert had realized that, there’d been nothing for him to do but marry her.

But Hogan had tried to stop them. He’d taken Margaret to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, shown her a glamorous time, and hoped thereby to discourage her affections for Robert. Ah, but the man had never appreciated what a jewel he’d had in Margaret, Robert smiled to remember. Margaret had come back to Chicago, more sure than ever that she wished to marry her poor-schoolteacher beau. That was when Willard Hogan had made his mistake. In a rage he’d threatened to disinherit Margaret. He’d been so sure that would make her back down. But he’d underestimated her, as always.

Robert and Margaret had wed in secret. When she’d written her father a week later, hoping to make amends, her letter had been returned unopened. Sweet Margaret had been heartbroken by her father’s cruel insistence on always having his own way.

Robert pulled the pipestem from between his clenched teeth. The gall of the man to write now and ask that his grandchild be allowed to live with them in Chicago! The problem was, Hogan would never give up that easily. He’d have come to Missouri soon enough. No doubt he’d send his hired men to track them down once he found them gone. But Robert would go to his grave fighting to keep Abigail safe from the selfishness of Willard Hogan, and Reverend Harrison seemed the answer to his prayers. As wife to a preacher, Abigail could not be influenced by the wealth her grandfather flung around so confidently. It would be impossible for Hogan to lure her to Chicago. For even if the man did find her, by then Reverend Harrison would have set up his church in Oregon. The most Willard Hogan would be able to do, should he ever locate Abigail, was to make a donation to the church.

Robert snorted in derision. How appropriately fitting that would be. Hogan could donate the money and Reverend and Mrs. Harrison could build a magnificent house of worship. But no amount of money would buy Willard Hogan a place in heaven. Nor would it entice Abigail to Chicago.

He would make certain of that.

T
HE PATTERN HAD BEEN
set. Abby recognized it within a week and resigned herself to it—at least for the next four or five months.

The most tedious factor of the traveling was the constant packing and unpacking of the wagon. Cross a river—unpack everything and let it dry. Stop for the night-unpack food, clothes, bedding, and cooking utensils. And with every unpacking there followed, naturally, a repacking. When she finally had a stationary home once more, she knew she’d never again complain of any household task. One day living out of a wagon was filled with more work than an entire week at home had been.

Worse, the very nature of traveling presented a completely new set of problems. The western territories were alternately dusty or muddy. Everything was always dirty. Thank goodness she’d listened to what her new friend, Sarah, had said. Only wear dark clothes. They didn’t look as filthy as they actually became. The fact was, nothing stayed white for long, no matter how hard you scrubbed. Besides, she’d been told water would not always be available for washing clothes as they continued farther on their journey west.

Then there was the ordinary daily routine. Up before dawn. The men prepared the animals. The women packed up and got breakfast on. Moving west all day. At first she and her father either walked or rode together in the wagon. But that soon grew monotonous. Though she loved her father dearly, he tended to be rather humorless—and even more so lately. So she’d taken to walking alongside the train, away from the rutted road, talking with Sarah and the other women.

She and Sarah helped several young mothers mind their younger children. Sarah looked forward to the day she would have her own brood; Abby just missed teaching. Already she’d accumulated a faithful little band of followers, who clamored daily for another of her whimsical tales about Tillie and Snitch. She made them up by day as they walked, and tried to write them down in the evenings after dinner. It nurtured her secret hope that someday she might actually publish her stories in books for children.

This was their eighth day out of St. Joe. Abby had noted it in her diary as they’d waited for the morning call to break camp. She’d also noted that they’d passed two graves the day before, and that there was a brand-new grave in a pretty spot near the river. But she didn’t dwell on the graves. Better to look forward than back. That was her new philosophy. Besides, it was a beautiful, cloudless morning with a breathtaking sunrise. She watched enthralled as a flock of large birds—she didn’t know what kind—rose in a graceful gray cloud from a grove of willows on the bank of the Little Blue River.

Tillie would be thrilled by such a sight, Abby thought as she made her way through the budding spring grasses. Tillie would simply enjoy the beauty of the magnificent birds in flight, wishing it were also possible for little mice to fly. Snitch, on the other hand, would worry about what had startled them into flight in the first place. Indians. A wild dog. Or worse, a hunting cat.

Maybe she should give Tillie a bird friend who could take the little mouse soaring above the land. Oh, wouldn’t the dour Snitch be beside himself?

Abby laughed out loud at the thought and snatched at a tall, dry seed stalk, a remnant of last year’s waist-high prairie grasses.

“What’s so funny?”

Abby glanced over at Sarah. “Oh, nothing, really. I was just … just daydreaming.”

“Anyone I know?”

Abby rolled her eyes. “No, Sarah. Nobody you know.”

It was Sarah’s turn to laugh. “My, aren’t you the testy one? What’s the matter, didn’t poor Reverend Harrison come calling again last night?”

Abby let out a great sigh. She swatted the wiry seed stalk against her brown calico skirt in an agitated rhythm. “Unfortunately he did. The thing is,” she hurried to add. “He’s a very nice man.”

“Yes. And handsome too. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

Abby shot her new friend an exasperated glance. They’d been over this subject before. But Sarah was too newly wed—and too much in love with her shy husband, Victor—to really understand Abby’s position. When she spoke of Victor, Sarah’s freckled cheeks glowed with color, and her brown eyes grew dreamy.

“Are you telling me, Sarah Lewis, that you married Mr. Lewis because of his looks and nothing else?”

“Of course not. It’s just that … well, the good reverend is so clearly smitten with you. If you would just give him a chance.”

Abby gazed off to the left, at the wagons that rolled along so ponderously. Reverend Harrison now shared a wagon with an older couple and their teenage son. If not for Abby’s vehement protests, the Reverend Dexter Harrison would have been assigned to
their
wagon. If she hadn’t prevailed upon her father’s well-developed sense of propriety, she would have been thrown together with the man every day of the entire journey. But a single woman and a single man, even with her father as chaperon, would raise some eyebrows. Her father, thank the Lord, had been unable to counter that argument.

As it was, however, the reverend found more than enough excuses to visit their campsite. Like last night. She’d already cooked him enough meals to feel like his wife.

All the duties but none of the pleasures. Then her cheeks burned scarlet at such an unseemly thought.

“You’re blushing,” Sarah pointed out with a giggle. “Care to tell me why?”

“No.”

“Oh, c’mon, Abby. I won’t tell a soul. Cross my heart.”

“Are you keeping secrets from your husband so soon, then?” she replied tardy.

“Honoring a confidence could hardly be construed as keeping a secret from my husband,” Sarah retorted, undeterred in the least by Abby’s reticence. They walked a few moments without speaking, with only the sounds of the wagons and distant voices to mar the prairie silence. Then Sarah spoke again. “Is it the man or the fact of marriage that scares you? The
act
of marriage,” she added more slyly.

Abby’s flaming cheeks gave her away, and as Sarah’s pealing laughter rang out, Abby knew it was pointless to pretend. She gave a frustrated sigh.

“The thing is, though I’m not the least bit interested in Reverend Harrison as a husband, I am … well … I am rather curious about things. Marriage things,” she finished lamely.

“Do you fancy some other fellow?”

“No. No one in particular,” Abby confessed. “But I do wonder about … about what it’s like.” She chanced a quick sidelong glance at her friend and was relieved by the becoming blush that Sarah now wore. Encouraged, she went on. “Do you … you know … like it? Being married, that is.”